I’m packing it in.
Yup, this is my final post…for the year.
And I want it not to be about productivity or the speaking business—I want it to be about living.
This time of year the drill is to get out paper and pen and map out our future. Lose weight, save money, travel abroad, less ice cream – it’s all up for grabs.
And then there’s living.
Living is what happens between goals, making deals, and doing the laundry. Or, in the immortal words of John Lennon (Beautiful Boy), “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” Beautiful Boy, John Lennon Click To TweetWhere are the gaps?
In my presentations, I often ask folks to rate themselves on four aspects of their life or work – depending on the nature of the talk. The purpose is to help audience members self identify their area of growth (I admit it’s self-serving – nobody scores themselves a ‘5’ out of ‘5’)
For you, I have 4 questions (it only takes 2 minutes):
Thinking about this year, on a scale from 1 to 5 (where ‘5’ is consistently effective), rate your effectiveness in:
- planning (made plans, followed them and revised them as needed)?
- people (new relationships, nurtured old relationships, faced the ‘tigers’ in your life)?
- performance (habits to perform at your best each day)?
- personal (spiritual, diet, nature, exercise, sleep, reading)?
When I do this exercise I see the gaps. They’re not Grand Canyon-size gaps, but they’re there – calling out for me to step up and do better. What about you?
Next, decide which of these four areas you most need, and want, to improve in the coming months. Another way of asking this is: which one would make the most difference to all of them? Put a big star beside that one.
Now that we have focus, let’s move to choices.
Live as if you were living a second time
Once we know our “gap” and where to put our attention we need to get honest. Honest about choices.
Life is all about choices – we make “good” choices that move us forward. Like honesty. And we made crappy choices that set us back. Like tearing a strip off your co-worker for not returning your stapler. Or sending that 800-word email treatise lambasting your team about tardiness at meetings.
We can’t get those choices back.
But there is a way to stop them happening in the first place. Celebrated Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl often asked his patients to make their decisions as if they were living their life a second time.
“Live as if you were living already for the second time” he would instruct, “and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!”
When I look back at my day, all the lame decisions, half-truths, and wasted time become blatantly obvious. It’s like watching a movie and cringing every time the protagonist screws up.
Frankl is suggesting you don’t wait to screw it up – assume you will – but then live as if you were living a second time and had the choice to do it right.
It’s like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, leaping ahead to his better self and doing what he knows is right. It would make for a very short movie, but a lot less pain for everyone else.
That brings me to letting go.
Don’t aim at success
As a parent of small children, you learn pretty quickly that saying “be happy!” falls on deaf ears – nothing changes, except you feel even more incompetent.
In a similar way (without the puffy face and full diaper), putting all your attention on what you want might not get you an iota closer to what you need.
In fact, the greatest life-hack I’ve discovered is that sometimes you have to let go to grow.
“In life, sometimes you have to let go to grow.” Click To TweetBut, wait!
Before you head back to Facebook, shaking your head, mumbling about new-age mumbo-jumbo, hear me out.
Any modicum of “success” I’ve enjoyed happened because I attracted it – not because of sheer effort.
There was no way I could have fought to join Adventure Network and built the world’s only business in Antarctica. My partners came to me.
There was no way I could have worked hard to attract my wife, Kirsten and the most incredible 25 years of living, loving and learning I could have ever hoped for.
Just as it’s not possible to ram your offer down some unsuspecting prospect’s throat or strong-arm your way into a dream job.
“Don’t aim at success—” says Frankl, “the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it.”
Don’t aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it.” - Frankl Click To TweetSure, you have to get your ass out of bed, have a dream, make goals and do the work – that’s a given. But to have a fulfilling life you can be proud of, you need to let go.
“For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.” – Frankl
Which leads me to happiness.
Happiness must happen
Seven years ago I’d had enough of scrambling to build a business. My girls were still in high school and I was falling back into work-overwhelm and priority-neglect. So I let my downtown office go and moved into a second-floor, 220 square foot office with a skylight, but no windows.
The reduced cost of no staff and less rent meant my top end didn’t have to cover as much bottom end and I could be home more.
About that time, I started a summer ritual of individual adventures with my daughters (kayaking for Claire, hiking for Kate) and annual family adventures (Nicaragua, Ecuador, Kauai, Florida, California). I also found time to finally write a book (Give Me a Break) and to start a blog.
I didn’t abandon my business – I just shifted priorities to what I wanted and I knew was right. And then a strange thing happened. Almost mysteriously, my business grew.
“Happiness must happen,” Frankl once wrote, “and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it.”
Within two years I’d shifted a big part of my work to helping speakers grow their business; my income was beyond where it was pre-downsizing, and I had more freedom.
“Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it.” - Frankl Click To TweetOne kick at the can
When I sat down to write this, I didn’t intend to write a 1,400 word post and I certainly didn’t set out to scribe a lecture. But, if you’ve made it this far, I have one parting wish for you…
My hope is you make great choices (as if you’re living a second time), enjoy all the success you deserve (without aiming at it), and allow happiness by listening to your conscience.
We get one kick at the can—it’s completely up to us how we take it.
Talk soon,
Hugh
“I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run—in the long run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.” – Frankl
And you say you’re not a writer… Pretty damn good stuff if you ask me.
Thanks Paul! Sometimes I think I’m a hack, other times a beginner – just can’t pick between the two 🙂
Thanks Hugh – fantastic words that are a nice kickstart to a new year. I think resolutions are a little overrated BUT it’s never a bad time to reset, rethink and restart with better strategies! Frankl’s words and suggestions are excellent. Makes you think – and that’s always a good thing. Thanks again.
Mike I hear you! I’ve had so many resolutions that must have been written in disappearing ink it’s embarrassing. Frankl’s question “how would you live today if you were living it for the second time” cuts through all the “maybe’s” to a level of responsibility I want to live. Here’s to a year we create!
Good remarks, Hugh.
What struck me is that I also started making time for outdoor activities (kayaking & camping) along with more leisure and family time. This new time realignment began two years and my consultancy’s revenue has grown during that time frame. Couldn’t have planned it any better. I am happier, less stressed and more successful in business.
Steve Coscia, CSP
Great piece Hugh! Thanks for all the awesome info you’ve given us this year, love it! Happy new year!
Thanks Donna! All the best to you for the New Year!
Mr. Hugh Culver,
this is Claire from Detroit, Michigan
I am constantly impressed by your wisdom.
I am an ambitious business minded , I have started the business of speaking but I am still struggling to get bookings.
I have an outstanding story of surviving so many perils in my life that I am almost done with my biography ” Beyond Perils”. I was born and raised in east Africa and now I am a very proud detroiter,
I have your videos , i listen to them day and night and they have become my Bible, and I am impressed by how you combine business with the whole body ,mind and soul well being. I am your follower and I plan to enroll in one of your classes soon.
Thank you so much, you are one of the few people who share tangible skills and experiences and you are the ONLY one who combine well being of the Body , mind and soul with business.
Thank you, i want to increase my knowledge in developing seminars, key note speeches, presentations , using SLAP ( story, lessons, Application and Participation), that was so helpful to me.
I also enjoyed learning how speaking industry of today is very different from speaking industry in the past. Today we can benefit from Speaking by creating more products that will serve as stream of passive income. Thank you Mr. Hugh Culver. Now i want to learn how to DELIVER speeches and how to create more products
thank you so much i have learned a lot of things from you and look forward staying in touch with you.
Thank you Claire. Those are very kind words and I’m so happy to have been a small help in your journey. Building a business of speaking is hard work and the rewards can be amazing and life changing. If your heart is telling you this is right, you have to listen.
Thanks as always, Hugh, you made me smile and reflect! Enjoy the final days of this year and start planning for the big dreams in 2017 and beyond.
Thanks Gunnar!
Love has no guarantee that it will last for ever no matter how you stay committed to it, i was so in love with the man i called my own and he was also in love with me too but it started crumbling down after we got married. He was acting like i didn’t matter to him any more, i couldn’t believe this was happening to us, i remember that i never offended him non did we fight. I was so sad that i couldn’t smile, knowing that your marriage is going down really does tires you apart. He later filled for a divorce asking me to go our separate ways. I was so need of help that i kept on praying for him to change his mind but he never did, we were no longer living together after some time. I was so in need of help to restore my marriage that i was so desperate for help and so lucky for me i came across a woman who was helping people restore broken relationships, i contacted her believing that i would be helped, i explained my problem to her and she assured me that she would hep me, i did all she asked of me and after she finished working on my problem 6 days later my husband called me to forgive him for hurting me and he is ready to get back to me to become my husband again, and now we are happy together and am even pregnant now. I want to thank this wonderful woman who helped me restore my marriage , God bless her. If you need her help contact her via annperry229@gmail.com.