Everyday millions of individuals commute to jobs they don’t like to engage in activities and tasks that ultimately fulfill someone else’s goals. They push aside their dreams and instead settle for predetermined security and a biweekly paycheck. Bogged down by irrational fears around finances, many of us settle for these positions instead of pursuing our passions
But, what if money wasn’t an issue?
What would your ideal life look like if you had access to consistent cash flow to fund your dreams and desires?
Each of us is faced with making daily decisions. What you eat in the morning determines your physical and mental physique, where you decide to live can play an enormous role in what you have access to, and the friends and colleagues you invite into your life have the ability to either empower or bring you down.
Every choice matters.
What differentiates successful people from the masses is that every course of action they decide to pursue begins with the end in mind. Because they understand that time is the most valuable asset they know that each decision they make in the present day should only serve to help them reach their future goals. It ultimately becomes their subconscious making these choices.
It is time for us to put an end to selling our time to business and corporations that do not feed our destiny.
It is time to take our power back and live congruent lives by starting to cultivate behaviors that begin with the end in mind.
That doesn’t mean that you should quit your job today or tomorrow. Obviously, there are practical steps to consider before making major life changes. Or maybe you’re one of the lucky few who would stay at their position if money wasn’t an issue.
But – that’s beyond the scope of this article.
Now, going against the grain isn’t something new. People have been pursuing their dreams worldwide since the beginning of time.
Let’s take Chris Pratt as an example. Now worth an estimated 40 million… originally from Virginia, Minnesota, when he was 19 years old he took an unprecedented leap of faith and decided to book a one-way ticket to Maui, Hawaii. He didn’t know exactly how he was going to reach his dreams of being “famous and earning a shit ton of money”, but he knew the answers weren’t in his small town.
Due to his lack of finances, he and a couple of other friends had no choice but to live in a flea and mice-infested van while discovering what impact they would make on the world. During that year, Chris took a job waiting tables at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company in Maui to help cover the cost of food and gas for their van. While waiting tables, he was noticed by actress Rae Dawn Chong who offered to bring him to LA to pursue an acting career.
Can you believe it?!
He had a choice to make, stay in Hawaii waiting tables or go to Hollywood with no family or friends to take a chance at pursuing an unpredictable acting career.
Fortunately for us, he chose acting and has now been in blockbuster films such as ‘Jurassic World’ and Guardians of the Galaxy. Chris’s decision to sacrifice a few years of comfort in exchange for discovering his true passions is a testament to his ability to see what his future would look like if he chose to begin with the end in mind. While a lot of people would’ve been content on finding a simple job where they would be slowly working towards retirement, Chris knew he had so much more to offer.
Now he gets to live out his dreams while pocketing an unbelievable amount of wealth.
In addition to Chris Pratt, another example of someone who was willing to sacrifice in order to buy their time is Chris Gardner. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, just think about the movie starring Will Smith called “The Pursuit of Happyness”. The entire movie is based on Chris Gardner’s life story. In 1981, Chris was 27 years old working as a research lab assistant at UCSF Veteran’s hospital which paid him only $8,000 a year. Hardly enough to support himself, he had to make that paycheck stretch to pay for his son and mother of his child.
One day Chris was walking past Dean Witter Reynolds, an American stock brokerage firm, and noticed a man in a luxury car and thought to himself, “Man, I would love to live a life like that.” That thought planted the seed to his journey with beginning with the end in mind. Chris had a goal and that goal was to be able to provide for his family while becoming financially free.
After that moment, he soon discovered that Dean Witter Reynolds had a demanding stock brokerage trainee program that he could apply to. The responsibilities included making 200 calls a day and putting in countless hours.
Without pay.
Most single fathers in Chris’s position probably would have just passed up the opportunity and settled to struggle paycheck to paycheck. But, Chris was not like most single fathers. To pursue this newfound interest in stocks, Chris quit his job as a research lab assistant, stopped selling medical devices (which was his only additional source of income), and put all of his efforts to become the best trainee in his program. After the internship program was completed he was the only intern offered a full-time position at Dean Witter Reynolds and eventually went on to open his own brokerage firm Gardner; Rich & Co. Chris Gardner is now worth an estimated 60 million.
Can you believe that?!
The list could go on.
What do these two people have in common?
They decided to pursue their passions and as a result of their immense sacrifices were able to buy their time and now live lives that they never could have imagined.
What are your passions?
What’s stopping you from pursuing them?
Do you have a plan to get to your “End in Mind?”
The quickest money isn’t always the right money. Let’s release all paycheck to paycheck mentality, begin with the end in mind, and become the architects of our lives.
To assist you on your journey here’s what Brock believes that the stages of freedom are:
Earned income → Passive Income → Living your ideal life
In future articles, we will talk about how we start our lives in the earned income stage and should progress to passive income by producing an asset (i.e. anything that brings in recurring revenue that doesn’t need full-time attention).
This passive income gives the opportunity to live an ideal life and at that point, a job can be chosen based on true fulfillment as opposed to financial need.
Brock Laramee
We’d love to know…
What did you find most valuable?
What do you want more of?
What do you want less of?
Sources:
Brock’s Blog 