Yesterday morning I was scouring my hard drive for a random file. You know, the one you can never find. The file I found instead stopped me in my tracks. While reading Tim Ferriss' 4-Hour Work Week last Spring, I kept my responses to the in-book exercises in one Word document.
I'm now one year in to the next chapter of my career - the first proved to be a wild ride. With my sights firmly set on nothing short of greatness , it would behoove me to give props where necessary.
A few notes from last Spring's exercises:
What would you do if there were no way you could fail? If you were 10 times smarter than the rest of the world?
Play, breathe, laugh, love, eat, think, cook, learn, plant, be
If you had a heart attack and had to work two hours per day and further per week, what would you do?
Helping others find success, coaching
If you had a gun to your head and had to stop doing several time-consuming activities, what would you remove?
Being on the computer, administrative work, scheduling, emails, reviewing technical work
I defined my nightmare with the following questions:
Will I support my family?
Will I have time to spend with my family?
Will I be my own boss?
Will I continue to grow?
Will I become stagnant?
I was then asked how I could control these nightmares:
Be present
Be unique
Be of service to others
Be efficient
Now, I was urged to place probable outcomes of my nightmares with a series of questions:
Have less intelligent people done this before?
Yes
What is the likelihood my life results in a moderately good outcome?
Highly
What is the likelihood I could make a "great" income?
8/10 (subjective as to what is great)
What is the likelihood I could make a "serviceable" income?
10/10
If I were fired today (or chose to leave), how could I get things back under financial control?
It would be simple for me to apply my strengths elsewhere.
What are you putting off out of fear?
Sales position
Exploring starting my own business
My nightmares didn't seem to have much weight. In bold and caps, I wrote:
***RESOLVE TO DO ONE THING EVERY DAY THAT YOU FEAR***
What is costing you – financially, emotionally, and physically to postpone action?
Short-term money constraints
Questioning balance in life
Happiness with career
The safety of the hear and now
Constant dread
And finally, the icing on the cake:
What are you waiting for?
I’m not sure. It’s time for action.
This proved a terrific reminder of how powerful it is to get our thoughts down on paper. Once you put words to something you want or fear, you add perspective to the positives and negatives surrounding the decision. We avoid action out of fear. We are able to dispel fears by providing perspective surrounding such fears.
I still haven't found the file I was originally in search of, but that's alright.
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