How to Live an Actual Life

So I’m not necessarily into the whole Father of the Year thing, or best dad ever, and all the all the other things like that that exist in the world. This is not to say that one day I will not be in fact, I’m fully confident that I will continue evolving, and as I continue to level up in my dad joke, ability hierarchy, capabilities, I bet that I will soon be walking around with Father of the Year merch or a mug or a bumper sticker or shirts, whatever. Maybe all of it. Maybe I’ll get totally decked out, suited up in all Father of the Year, or best dad ever type stuff. But I wanted to talk about because I thought about that. I’m always thinking. I don’t know about you. Are you always thinking, or our brains always always working, which, of course, they are, but I’m always coming up with just stuff pops into my mind and it pops in I think, well, maybe that’s something I want to think about and write about or do a podcast about. So here we are, and obviously we are right at the beginning of 2025 and in that area where I’ll probably write 2024 a good dozen times before I figure out that it’s actually 2025 so good on me for being able to articulate that the year is, in fact, 2025 but just struck me, Father, the best dad, Best Mom, is that something that you are into. What would it take for you to get there? Do you think that it’s true? Is it fun? What is kind of the deal there and then? Are you a New Year’s resolution, kind of a person? Are you into that? Is it fun? Are you a goal setting, kind of a person? I’m guessing you probably are because you’re you’re you’re you’re here listening to to to me, talk about that kind of stuff. And I’m very much into that kind of stuff. And then I wanted to sort of marry it with another idea that popped into my head and found its way into my email that I wanted to build and elaborate on that of what I wrote down was, why not live an actual life? Why not? Why not do that? Why lead a BS type life? And most people, most men, most women, lead lives of quiet desperation. The majority of humanity’s problems stem for our from our inability to sit quietly in a room by ourselves. So we are terrified of being alone in our own heads, which is why we pacify ourselves with social media, just everything that we pacify ourselves with. And I’m not totally bagging on fun, frivolous things. I’m not totally bagging on fantasy football and online gambling and just sports in general, or Wordle or crosswords or whatever it is we used to burn or kill time. I think that all of that is fine if all of that is what you truly want. But the idea of living an actual life, to me, comes down to doing it on my terms, doing it on my terms as much as I possibly can, and doing what it is that I want, not only doing it well on my terms, it’s doing what I want on my terms. It’s being able to to think about wanting to be able to think about what I want my life to look like, and then actually take action on it and be working towards bringing that desired future into my current reality living an actual life. What is it that I want? What is it that I want? What are you talking about? Well, I I get it. You are struggling to do everything that you already need to be doing. We are all full of obligation and responsibility. We are all managing extreme pressure and stress and anxiety, and we’ve all got giant bills to pay, and things are way more expensive than they were, and you’ve got soccer games to go to, and whatever, I absolutely get it. Life is overwhelming. It is smashing us. It is crushing us By every metric we are. Are getting smashed so more important than ever to ask ourselves, what is why not live an actual life? Why not live a life closer to my terms? And here’s the thing I know, we can’t just go and snap our fingers and all of a sudden, oh, I’m doing exactly what I want, whenever I want. I’m not saying that I’m not I’m not a total moron. I’m a partial moron. There’s no question about that. Partial is that is a on a continuum, same as you. So I’m not saying we all of a sudden quit our job and grow our hair out and grow a beard and go through some kind of midlife crisis. What I am saying is, let’s spend a little bit of time thinking about what it is that you want your life to look like, and then moving incrementally closer to what that might be. So it could be one hour a week, and that could turn into an hour a day, and it could go from there. So I’m asserting, and I’m advocating, that that is possible for you. It’s possible for me. You don’t need to be dad of the year, or whatever it could just be. This is time that I have allocated, because I’ve made the decision that this is what I want to be doing, and then I actually do it. Is that possible? I think that it is. So why not try and live an actual life on your terms? I knowing full well that you are operating under all the different pressures that I just talked about, knowing full well that that you are living under systems and assumptions of the way that you were raised, your family’s expectations on you, the career that you have, the social network that you’re involved with, your church, synagogue, mosque, whatever it might be. You’ve got all the people that you’ve known for such a long time, and they’ve known you to be the kind of person that you are, which I’m sure is a really high quality person. My only point is that whenever we start changing and start doing things that are different, it’s not easy to do that just because we are following familiar patterns and habits. We do things a lot the same way, so all of a sudden you start doing something different, and it’s going to freak everybody out. That’s fine, but we’ve got one crack at this. As you know, I’m fond of saying so I assert that the life that you want, whatever that might be, is a lot closer than you think that it is. And I’m super fond of saying that the only way to live how you want is to know how you want to live. So I’m not going to go through that whole deal again, because I’ve talked about that ad nauseam. I will invite you to pick up a copy of the purpose book. It is free. You can go to money, alignment academy.com, go to Courses, and you can get a free digital copy of the purpose book. Purpose book course, it’s not an actual course. Whatever you go there, you find digital copy of it and get your hands on it. Or you can shoot an email to me, and I’m happy to send it to you, and that is your guide to an examined and aligned life. So it’ll walk you through the process of trying to figure out all this stuff that I’m just been talking about. So assert that that is available to you. But for today, I want to talk about I want to talk about time, because, boy, oh boy. Now that I’ve got three kids, eight, five and a 19 month old, give or take, I wonder, What in the world did I do with all my time eight and a half years ago? What was I doing? Because I sure seems that I don’t have very much of it today, but I had a whole lot more of it back then. So having kids or taking on a new obligation or responsibility, just having lots of stuff that you need to be doing will give you a really strong sense of just how finite time is. And that’s one of those things that’s so obvious, so obviously it’s intellectually obvious, but theory meets practice, totally different deal we all know. Got 24 hours in a day, 365, days in a year. Life expectancy of somebody in the United States of America is probably around 80 or 82 years old. So

you get that, but do we really get it? You understand it, but do you really get it? You know it, but do you really get it? How do you get that to sink, to hit home? And oftentimes it does take some kind of an event, health condition, somebody that you know, that has some sort of an event, or you witness a terrible tragedy or accident, and that quickens us, that hastens us it, it catalyzes us to realize, holy cow, my eyes, the scales have fallen away from my eyes. I totally get it now. I. Got to act with a greater sense of urgency. I need to have a deeper appreciation for the amount of time that I have. More importantly, it’s how that I’m spending my time, how I’m allocating my time. Napoleon Hill, the author of Think and Grow Rich and lots of other wonderful books, he says, Tell me how you spend your time, and I’ll tell you where you’ll be in 10 years. And I think that that’s a true words never spoken. So tell me how you spend your time, and I’ll tell you where you’ll be in 10 years. So before I go any further, I am not advocating for some kind of an Infinity War where you’re working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and you’re locked in all the time. It’s not it at all, not it at all. What am I advocating for is that you are operating with intentionality, and that you’re making good, logical, conscious decisions about these things. If you decide to take the day off and lay on the couch, great, do that. The whole thing is this, if it’s just your your resting heart rate, and it’s just what you do is roll out of bed on a Saturday and go flip on the TV and just lay there all day, that’s just kind of what you do. That’s different program. So not saying that’s not hustle porn. I’m not telling you to go as hard as you can for as long as you can. At all, not at all. What I am saying is, let’s make some conscious decisions about how you want to be spending your time, and make sure that how you’re spending your time is in service of what it is that you truly want. That’s the whole idea of alignment. Is this what I want? That’s how I’m spending my time, energy, attention, money. I talk a lot about our most valuable resources of those four things, time, attention, energy and money. And I think my, my whole thing at this point, I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, is a happy life is is found when you make decisions on how you allocate those four things, and you allocate them in ways that are aligned to what is of greatest value to you, what it is that you want, what is most important to you. If you can do that, then if you can do that, and if you can get it right 80% of the time, mess around with it, screw up on it, blow off 20% of it, I think that you’ll be in good shape. I think that’s true of the way we eat. Think it’s true of the way we move our body and exercise. I think it’s true of the way that that we who and what we allow into our heads, so what we give our attention to, and also how we spend our money. So keep that in mind here. 80% I’m going to circle back on that. It’s the whole Pareto distribution, 8020 which I’m confident that you’re familiar with, but if you are a person, as I think that we all are, says, Oh my gosh, it’s not enough hours in the day. Where did the day go? This really got away from me today. Totally get it. So think that the only way that we’re really going to know if we’re allocating our time appropriately is if we actually audit our time or look at our time, and it’s something called a time audit, and it’s a pretty straightforward process that just says, Okay, I’m going to get a piece of paper out or spreadsheet, and I’m going to go through and really track how I spend my time in 30 minute 20 in 20 minute increments throughout the course of the day. So I’m going to have a plan for how I’m going to spend my time, but then I’m also going to actually map out and write down midway through the day and at the end of the day, how we actually spent our time, and that will be direct evidence what you think you’re doing and what you’re actually doing. I think are two different things. And while I said it’s a straightforward and simple exercise, that doesn’t make it a non terrifying exercise, because I really think that it is because I think that you’re going to find some horrible stuff. I think that you’re going to find, like the rest of us, that we waste a ton of time, we waste a ton of time. And I love the notion. I love being a self manager. I’m an entrepreneur. I’ve really never had a boss, and so I’ve always been a self manager. That doesn’t mean that it’s been inherent, although I think that I am inherently a very, very driven person, where everybody is not necessarily, but self management, that simply means that I don’t need anybody to tell me where to go, what to do, what to be thinking about, I want to be in charge of that, but it’s it’s a skill, it’s a trait. It’s a muscle that you could strengthen like all others, and if you don’t use it, then it atrophies like all others. So it’s a very, very worthwhile exercise. It is a pure example of self knowledge and of self management, actually knowing how it is that we are spending our time. So I think it’s such a valuable exercise. And again, it could be certainly a frightening one. There’s a reality that most people’s minds wander. Half the time. So think about that one, and I remember the first time I heard that, I thought, well, there’s no way that my mind wanders half the time. And if you’re a successful person, you probably have a very, very, very busy and active mind. Got lots of ideas that you want to pursue, and they’re just bouncing around. We call it this monkey brain. And when you actually take stock of it, you’re like, oh, yeah, turns out my mind is wandering a lot. So if you’re a person who said or has said recently, there’s just not enough hours in the day, I think I assert, again, submit, there are plenty of hours in the day. If you can just get focused, or more focused, better focused, you will be able to get a lot more done in the same amount of time because you’re doing more focused, deep work, as Cal Newport likes to talk about. And I also think it’s really critical that we know what is of the highest and best use of our time. Do you know what the highest and best use of your time is? I think a lot of it is simply what is most important to me. What are the areas that are most important? What are the things that are most important? And how can I spend more time doing those things and getting rid of other things? What are of the highest priority to me based on the life that I actually want? So if you want to be greatest debt ever doubt of the year, what’s that going to take? I want to spend more time on that in just a minute. But circling back briefly on the predator distribution, the idea of that, that 20% of our activities are going to get 80% of the results, 20% of the sales people in our organization are going to sell 80% of the product, 20% of the people who pay income tax pay 80% of it. It just is true all across the board. A small percentage of artists make the vast majority of the money. Small percentage of artists make vast majority of the art. It’s just been true across history. You can look at it in business across every arena or avenue of life. Small number of people create and do most of the heavy lifting, the creation. It’s interesting. The product distribution also talks a lot about a concept which is so fundamental and so important to being an efficient person. And if you’re at all curious or intrigued by this idea of living an actual life and living the life that you actually want, I think that this is a critical thing. The idea is this, that there are a trivial many versus a vital few. So these are the different activities that you engage in, trivial many, Vital Few, the vital few, those are those highest priorities. Those are the activities, the 20% that’s going to get you what you want. The trivial many is this is BS that we engage in because it feels good. It’s dopamine. It’s zoning out, it’s scrolling through social media, it’s whatever. There are an infinite number of ways to burn time and attention and money and energy, but only a few that are really going to get you what you want. So I think it’s imperative that we have a pretty good understanding of what the vital few activities, thoughts, things are that are going to get you what you want? So I break it down. I like to think about because this is abstract, right? This is abstract. It’s

like, if somebody says, Well, what should we do for dinner tonight? It’s like, oh my gosh. It’s just such a massive universe. Well, Queen nail, narrow that down a little bit. Let’s just go someplace close. Okay, that’s a way to narrow it down. Or, you know what sounds great, I could really go for sushi time. Okay, that certainly narrows it out. I’d like to sit outside. I’d like to have a view. I’d like, uh, someplace quiet, right? So all these different parameters you can place, and that’s going to help us to zero it or to narrow it down. So for life, I just said, what do you what? What makes a real life? What’s a meaningful life? What is a great life? Look like an actual life? What is that going to look like? Well, I think that it’s helpful if we break it down into these six areas that I talk about. First is family. So what’s important to you from a family perspective, from your community, from a career and financial standpoint, for a well being perspective, from a personal development standpoint, and then finally, from a peace of mind standpoint. So what are the vital few activities knowing that you sat down and you wrote down what you want in each one of those areas, let’s say I want, I do want to be dad of the year. I want to be the best dad ever. Okay, well, if that’s important to me, then what do I need to be doing in order to make that happen? I want to be able to spend time with each one of my kids, one on one. I want to be able to do fun activities with all of them together. Or want to be able to whatever, whatever those things are, those are your vital few. And then for each of the six areas, you think about what are number one, what do I want in this area? And then what are those vital few activities that are going to get me closer to that? Now I don’t know that you’re going to be able to be able to make it all happen, I don’t know that you’re going to be able to make all of that work. That’s not, that’s not, that’s not the point. He’s not making it all work. It’s just I now I know I’ve done the work of figuring out what I want, what it’s going to take to get there, and now I can figure out how to try and execute on it. And maybe I try like I was talking about the beginning a little bit at a time. How do I squeeze a little bit? Then you figure that out. You create habits around these things. It just becomes what you do becomes part of the fabric of your life and who you are and what you do as a family. So you create your list of activities. Then you try to find the time for it. You look for stuff to cut out. You start paying close attention to how it is you’re currently spending your time. You figure out how to be more focused with the time that you have. You figure out how to get rid of or stop doing the trivial. Many like, okay, look at that. I spent three hours today on freaking Netflix, or I spent four hours on freaking Instagram. Okay, maybe only spend three hours on Instagram instead of four. You get the idea. And I don’t know the answer to these questions, I want you to be able to answer these questions. So you’re looking to eliminate, looking to add the good, get rid of the bad, break bad habits. How to create beneficial ones? I think in a lot of ways, this is the ultimate form expression of personal leadership, which is really self management. So again, how do you do this? Think it’s figuring out what a perfect day looks like. And you say, Okay, maybe it’s not all going to work like that. What does a perfect week look like? What does a perfect month look like? What does great quarter look like? And then we’re really onto something. And just a brief reminder again, that Thomas so famously that said that there’s no solutions. There’s only trade offs. So it’s never a right answer to these questions, and it’s never done. We are always going to be revisiting because life’s going to change. I mean, everybody says that being a dad, it goes, being a parent goes really fast. And I think that that’s not true, because it certainly is. But before you know it, your kid’s going to be out of house, and then it’s going to be you, you and your spouse, or whoever it is. And obviously you’re going to be going to fewer baseball games, probably, or fewer soccer games. So everything’s going to change again, and your preferences will change. Maybe you retire. What are you going to do then? So it’s always, you’re going to be refining and always, always, always changing. So it’s never done. It always, it’s always wise to be paying close attention to how we’re allocating our most valuable resources of time, energy, attention and money. And then finally, want to close with this. I was listening to a podcast recently, and the person said, take action, surrender outcome. And I’m sure that I’ve heard something along those lines before, but I think that that was pretty profound, particularly when we’re talking about trying to do something that is new and trying to do something that is important but really hard time. How do I manage my time and my thinking and everything else? How do I make it all work and get it all done? All you can do is throw it out there, one foot in front of the other, but then surrender the outcome. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know if it’s going to work. Nobody does. I don’t even know if the freaking lights or the internet’s going to work tomorrow. I don’t have any idea. It’s a lot going on in the world, as you of course, know, but all we can do is take action. We surrender the outcome, knowing that I don’t have control over it all I have control over is the actions that I take and how I feel respond. Think about circumstances in my life, and I keep swimming. Keep swimming, as always, do your part, doing your best. I.

george grombacher 16:00
So if I want my iPhone, and my Tesla and my Bitcoin to work, we need to get the metal out of the ground.

Pierre Leveille 16:07
Absolutely. Without it, we cannot do it.

george grombacher 16:13
Why? Why is there a Why has production been going down.

Pierre Leveille 16:21
Because the large mines that are producing most of the copper in the world, the grades are going down slowly they’re going there, they’re arriving near the end of life. So and of life of mines in general means less production. And in the past, at least 15 years, the exploration expenditure for copper were pretty low, because the price of copper was low. And when the price is low, companies are tending to not invest more so much in exploration, which is what we see today. It’s it’s, it’s not the way to look at it. Because nobody 15 years ago was able to predict that there would be a so massive shortage, or it’s so massive demand coming. But in the past five years, or let’s say since the since 10 years, we have seen that more and more coming. And then the by the time you react start exploring and there’s more money than then ever that is putting in put it in expression at the moment for copper at least. And what we see is that the it takes time, it could take up to 2025 years between the time you find a deposit that it gets in production. So but but the year the time is counted. So it’s it’s very important to so you will see company reopening old mines, what it will push also, which is not bad, it will force to two, it will force to find a it will force to find ways of recalibrating customer, you know the metals, that will be more and more important.

george grombacher 18:07
So finding, okay, so for lack of a better term recycling metals that are just sitting around somewhere extremely important. Yeah. And then going and going back to historic minds that maybe for lack of technology, or just lack of will or reasons, but maybe now because there’s such a demand, there’s an appetite to go back to those.

Pierre Leveille 18:33
Yes, but there will be a lot of failures into that for many reasons. But the ones that will be in that will resume mining it’s just going to be a short term temporary solution. No it’s it’s not going to be you need to find deposit that will that will operate 50 years you know at least it’s 25 to 50 years at least and an old mind that you do in production in general it’s less than 10 years.

george grombacher 19:03
Got it. Oh there we go. Up here. People are ready for your difference making tip What do you have for them

Pierre Leveille 19:14
You mean an investment or

george grombacher 19:17
whatever you’re into, you’ve got so much life experience with raising a family and doing business all over the world and having your kids go to school in Africa so a tip on copper or whatever you’re into.

Pierre Leveille 19:34
But there’s two things I like to see and I was telling my children many times and I always said you know don’t focus on what will bring you specifically money don’t think of Getting Rich. Think of doing what you what you like, what you feel your your your your your, you know you have been born to do so use your most you skills, do what you like, do what you wet well, and good things will happen to you. And I can see them grow in their life. And I can tell you that this is what happens. And sometimes you have setback like I had recently. But if we do things properly, if we do things that we like, and we liked that project, we were very passionate about that project, not only me, all my team, and if we do things properly, if we do things correctly, good things will happen. And we will probably get the project back had to go forward or we will find another big project that will be the launch of a new era. So that’s my most important tip in life. Do what you like, do it with your best scale and do it well and good things will happen.

george grombacher 20:49
Pierre Leveille 21:03
Thank you. I was happy to be with you to today.

george grombacher 21:06
Damn, tell us the websites and where where people can connect and find you.

Pierre Leveille 21:13
The it’s Deep South resources.com. So pretty simple.

george grombacher 21:18
Perfect. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did show up here your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciate good ideas, go to deep south resources, calm and learn all about what they’re working on and track their progress.

Pierre Leveille 21:32
Thanks. Thanks, have a nice day.

george grombacher 21:36
And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.