How to live before you die
ARE YOU AMONG THE LIVING OR THE DEAD?
Imagine waking up tomorrow, grabbing a cup of coffee and the newspaper and finding your obituary. That’s precisely what happened to Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel in 1888. Ludvig Noble, Alfred’s brother, had passed away but the newspaper mistakenly thought it was Alfred and printed his obituary instead. So Alfred was drinking his coffee and reading the paper and finding out he had passed away.
Alfred manufactured machinery, dynamite and things like that. Alfred was the inventor of dynamite. In his premature obituary, it named Alfred as the merchant of death. It held him responsible for mass destruction and blamed him for the demise of hundreds of thousands of men. Talk about a bad day first you find out you are dead. Then you find out people are blaming you for the deaths of thousands. It was not a good morning for Alfred. But then the thought occurred to Alfred that if he had died that day, this is what people would say about him. Well, you know what happened next, don’t you?
From that day on Alfred Nobel vowed there would be change. He would rewrite his obituary. He decided to leave the bulk of his enormous fortune to establishing the now famous Nobel Prize, an award given for areas of greatness benefitting humanity.
The question you might be asking is, “how can you change your future.”
This is not a bucket list type goal; it is taking stock of where you are now. To change the future, you have to be clear about where you are in the current sense. To begin to change that obituary and change that outcome, we have to know where we in the present “upright state.” A good friend of mine always teaches that it shows up in one or two places:
1. Our checkbooks: Study your checkbooks, credit card statements, or whatever financial resources you use throughout the day. Look at what you’re spending, when you’re spending it, how you’re spending it and why you’re spending it and write it all down. Make a chart and be honest, nobody is going to see it but you.
2. Our calendars: This is not the “what I got done today” list. Look at your calendar for the week, month, and year ahead. When you have blocked time for something, set that time aside and keep that time sacred and protected. It has to be important to you. You have to do it intentionally without consideration of any other circumstance around you simply because it’s essential.
Ready for a little homework or “self-work “
Take these two things, the checkbook, and the calendar, and look at them, study them. How would your obituary read based on those two things? What would it say about you? What would it look like? How would it be reflective of the person you are, the person, and the legacy you want to build?
Making the new start
As a success coach, it is my passion to watch a client make that step from where they have been living on that hamster wheel of life and step out and reflect and review and look at their life. It is from that place that growth happens.
If you want to change the ending
Take the 5–15 minutes to get started on this exercise. Nothing changes until you are in action, and the first action is to know where you are starting from. Otherwise, you will be where you have always been doing what you’ve always done.
Write your obituary
Write down that obituary, that story you want to be told about you then go back and look at your calendar and your checkbook and ask yourself how these two things are in alignment.
- Do you want to be known for being philanthropic but you’re spending money at Starbucks every time you turn around?
- Do you want to be known as someone who invested in your personal growth but you don’t have a gym membership, coaching program, or attend training or seminars, or buy books that reflect that?
- Do you want your kids to remember all the fun you had together yet you are spending more money on golf or fantasy football than tickets to the museum, the zoo and other things that involve your kids?
You just found the Growth Gap
Life doesn’t happen because you wish it. It happens because you take action towards it.
How do we cross that gap? That’s 80 percent of what I do as a coach. Let’s look at where we are at, where we want to be and create some strategic steps. Let’s hold ourselves responsible for turning that into a reality.
Once you see what you need to do, do it. It doesn’t need to be significant steps. Little things and big things are recorded in our brains equally as long as they are wins. Take 1–3 items that you could make a change in today.
