Change is inevitable. Everything is constantly changing all the time. So, the real question is, is your life changing for the better or worse?

Getting busy living means ‘my life just keeps getting better. Or, ‘get busy dying,’ which means, ‘well, I guess I’ve done all I can; I’m past my prime, so it’s time to start packing it in’. For some people, ‘getting busy dying’ spells ‘retirement’; as studies have shown, once folks retire, their life expectancy reduces significantly.

We need to love and embrace our ‘maturity’ and stop apologizing for getting older but instead say, ‘hey, wait a minute, this is all good, man. I am much wiser, more in control of my life, and more at peace with myself. I can finally start living my truth instead of trying to impress others or be something I’m not!’ And what’s that worth?!!!

 

Constantly Coming Up With Ideas – ‘Hey, I Wanna Do This’ or ‘I Need To Achieve That’ or ‘I’m After That.’ It’s What Keeps You Young, Moving Forward, and in the Game, Right?

Yes! Awesome insight! I think we should do our following interview on what I call ‘The Magic of Moonshots.’

It talks about the classic quest from the point when John F. Kennedy said, ‘We will put a man on the moon in this decade.’ When he said it, it was impossible; all the engineers said, ‘The president is nuts! We don’t have the skill, people, or technology.’ But once Kennedy made that declaration, he created it in the ethereal plane of possibilities, and then we lived into it, and it happened anyways, even though it was ‘impossible!’

And that’s where the term ‘Moonshot’ came from: ‘shoot for the moon!’ And let’s face it, even if you don’t quite reach it, the view from halfway to the moon is much better than wallowing in the mud!

 

What Would You Tell a Person Who Has Just Retired and Doesn’t Know What To Do for the Rest of His Life To Help Him Realize That He Still Has a Lot of Living To Do?

 

You do almost the same thing as you would with an unmotivated teenager sitting around bored and directionless. You start by having them dream about their future and do so with the idea of having no limitations. When we are young, believing in the ‘impossible’ is easier because you really don’t KNOW what’s possible.

So you start by asking questions like, ‘What would you do if you could do anything, if you were a trillionaire, or if you had unlimited resources?’

Resources are more than money — they’re time, knowledge, and the people you know; everything you know or have that can help you get what you want.

You then ask them, ‘what do you love?’ ‘What’s on your bucket list?’ And you tell them not to worry about the details, or worry about monetizing it, or about the scalability, or any of that.

You have them just start with the dream, no matter how unreasonable it may seem, and then have them reverse engineer it.

Have them ask how I can get from here to there. What would need to happen? And some will also start asking questions like ‘how can I do that for a living?’ ‘How can I monetize it?’ ‘How can I at least make it self-sustaining?

There’s a brilliant book called Good to Great by Jim Collins. It talks about The Hedgehog concept wherein you find the perfect combination of:

 

• What you love
• What you have a natural aptitude for
• What you could monetize

 

In his book, he has you imagine being a small animal living in a meadow. You would soon realize that everybody wants to be the fox because it’s smart, climbs, burrows, is fast, and is strategic. And something you wouldn’t want to be is a hedgehog because it is slow, it can hardly move or climb, and it is not very bright.

If the fox pounces on the hedgehog, the hedgehog can only do one thing; what is it? Roll up in a sharp, needle-covered little ball. That’s all it can do.

So it doesn’t do a lot of things, but the one thing it does, it does better than anything on earth, and guess what? The fox can’t eat it! No matter how hard it tries, the fox, with all its resources, can’t beat a hedgehog because being the best in the world at one thing is better than being pretty good at many things.

And as you are looking for your ‘one thing,’ remember it doesn’t have to be the best in the world; it just needs to be the one thing for which you have the most incredible natural aptitude and passion!  Once you find THAT, ‘making money’ becomes much easier!

But ironically, when you are doing something you love and do well, making money isn’t as important because you now already have what you want most: happiness and fulfilment. Having a Purpose in Life Helps You Live a Better and Longer Life.