Your New Year’s Manifesto

Unknown Speaker 0:01
manifesto is a written declaration statement declaring the motives or intentions of the person issuing the manifesto making the declaration. And we are right now, more rather, so hopefully come in on the tail end of this experience going through COVID, where we started questioning everything. We said, You know what? Why is it? Or why is it that we’re educating our kids the way that we’re educating our kids? Why are we working the way that we that we’re working? Why are we going into offices or whatever it might be? Why are we policing our communities, the way that we police, our communities, people are questioning, higher education and its value. We’re questioning money, we’re questioning control, we’re questioning media and information and the truth, and everything else, my goodness. So

Unknown Speaker 0:57
why not? Why wouldn’t you? And I question everything.

Unknown Speaker 1:03
And this is not me saying you need to change your life. This is me saying, let’s take a look and see if there’s anything that is necessary or change that is needed. Or why not? Why not do it? I’m very fond of saying that the only way to live how you want is to know how you want to live. And that seems so obvious. Don’t we all know how we want to live that we all know what we want. Now, I don’t think that we do. I think that even though it sounds like an obvious thing, I think that very, very few of us have an idea, a very clear idea of what we want our lives to look like. And if we have that idea of what we want our life to look like, there are very few of us who are able to actually make that our lives, to bring that into our reality to bring it into fruition.

Unknown Speaker 2:01
And I think all of us have the ability to do that, or at least to get closer to it.

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I’m not an idealist, a pretty practical guy. And I know that we get one crack at this deal, we get one labral lap around the track of life. So why not? Why not do the work trying to figure out? What do I want my life to look like? Once I figure that out? Why not try and get closer to actually live in that way.

Unknown Speaker 2:30
So I think that’s the work. And that’s, that’s what I want to talk about with you today. And I want to encourage you, I urge you to put together your New Year’s manifesto, say, This is what I want this is this is what I’m going to focus on. This is what I’m going to stop focusing on.

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Every one of us, each and every one of us lives under certain assumptions. You’ve got assumptions that are that that are put upon you are you living under for your professional work.

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It could be something as simple as this is the these are the clothes that we wear, this is the car that we drive this is

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whatever it is, this is where we go to lunch every day, from little things to big things from the way that you invest your money. It could be a family that has always invested in real estate. And that’s what you think is the best way or that’s what your family thinks is the best way to build wealth. You could be entrepreneurial, our family owns businesses, you could all be vegans, our family, we do not eat animals. We don’t eat dairy or whatever it is that vegans do. I’m halfway kidding. You get the idea. In every aspect of life, this is where we vacation. This is where people like us do things like this, that’s probably a really good way to sum it up. Thank you Seth Godin, people like us do things like this. Now, if that’s serving you, and if you love that, well, there’s no reason to question. There’s no reason to change things. But I bet I just bad at there’s something you’re sick of

Unknown Speaker 4:10
drives you nuts. That thing is people just sick and tired of it. So if you have a hard time, sitting down and thinking about what it is that I want, start by thinking about, what is it that I don’t want? What are the things that aren’t legitimately sick and tired of mad as hell, and I just can’t take it anymore. And let’s put a plan together for at least doing a little bit less of that. Can’t get rid of it completely. I get it. I’m all about incremental change, and slowly but surely getting better at things. So that’s the stuff that I want to help you think about today and the stuff that I’m constantly thinking about myself. A lot of the stuff that I talk about it’s because

Unknown Speaker 5:00
It’s things that I’m thinking about, and things that I’m working on things that have helped my life to be better, and therefore wanted to share them in hopes that it can help your life be better as well. That’s kind of the whole idea. That’s the whole idea, get better live how you want. So

Unknown Speaker 5:21
there is a definitive cost of waiting with everything in life.

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The longer we wait to do things, the harder they become to accomplish, there’s a time value of money. So the longer we put off pursuing our financial goals, the more that we have to save and put towards those goals in order to achieve them. We all know, it’s harder to lose weight to get in shape. As we get older, it’s harder to learn new things harder, it’s way easier to learn how to play violin at four than it is 54. So the longer we wait to do things, the harder it gets, and sometimes the window closes on us. And when we’re younger, we think that we have all the time in the world. And we certainly do have more time, as we get a little bit older, that just becomes less true. Hole best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago, the next best time is today. So it’s all available to you, you are able to live the life you want. But we need to be intentional about it. Finally, the kind of last thought on that is like think about how we have 50 Saturdays a year. And I grew up in the Midwest, and in the Midwest, you get six months of winter, for goodness sakes. And so when summer does eventually come around, it’s got to come at some point. And you get a nice day, if you get a nice Saturday, if you get a perfect Saturday with blue sky and nice weather, oh my gosh, you take advantage of that. You try to squeeze as much into that day as you possibly can. And the same is true

Unknown Speaker 6:58
of just life in general. And that gets kind of an interesting, fun way to think about it is

Unknown Speaker 7:04
how are you spending those those those Saturdays but let’s broaden that out and try to make every day that perfect Saturday, as close as we can to it. I’m not an idiot, I appreciate that we have obligations and bills to be paid and all that, get it. But let’s try to get as close to it as we possibly can, with a sense of urgency, appreciating and being very thoughtful and intentional about who it is, what we’re giving our time, attention, money to how we’re spending our time, all that stuff. That’s really what this is all about. So

Unknown Speaker 7:39
I want to break it down

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into six areas. Because again, if I just said, Hey, what do you want, you probably have a hard time articulating and thinking about that. So I like to think about this the same framework that I use for goal setting. That’s essentially kind of what we’re doing. We’re more at this point, visualizing what it is that you want and things that you don’t want. But like think about what I want from a family standpoint, from a community standpoint, from a career and financial standpoint, from a well being standpoint, from a personal development standpoint, and then from a peace of mind standpoint. So what is it that you want in those areas, and feel free to expand on that or to contract on that to focus on one thing at a time, whatever it might be. So those are the six areas. So the whole process is think about what it is that is true for you, in each one of those areas. So whenever Elon Musk decides that he’s going to disrupt an industry or create a new category, or whatever it is that he decides to do next, he operates on first principles. And the first principle is effectively what is true. So trying to strip away assumptions, trying to strip away comparison and just get down to what is true about this thing. So when he

Unknown Speaker 9:07
when he decided to make an electric car, he knew that he needed batteries. When he decided to start a rocket company, he knew he needed rockets. And instead of just going based on conventional knowledge and the way that people have always done things and the way we build batteries or rockets, he broken all the way down and said What are these things made up? What are the necessary components, what is essential to make it a battery or rocket or anything else? And then we’ll sort of rebuild it. And we’ll reimagine and create the scenario that is

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true free from assumptions free from baggage free from flawed or traditional thinking, that limits us. And that’s where those assumptions really come in. So, in each one of these areas for each aspect of your life, I really want you to think about what do I

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I really believe to be true about this. So,

Unknown Speaker 10:06
you know, for family, it’s a function of, I do anything for my family family is the most important thing in the world to me, I would bend over backwards and do everything that I can to help other members of my family. From a financial standpoint, first principles might be, you know, I need to, I need to spend less money than I make. I need to

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keep a budget, these are absolutely true things. So spending less than I make, I need to delay gratification, in terms of

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in terms of community, and just for each one of these things, think about, okay, how can I put pen to paper and really think about what do I believe to be true about these things about the most important things in my life? That’s the first thing. And then the next stage, the next layer of it is really think about what the assumptions the current assumptions that are living in are, what are the things that are, and again, these don’t necessarily need to be incorrect or wrong, but they certainly could be. There’s probably a lot of things that you feel like you’re obligated to do, that you wish that you couldn’t, or you wish were different. And those are the things that are really want you to explore and interrogate reality.

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And once you’ve done that, break those down, you think about, okay, this is what I think is true, this is what I know is true. Here’s the stuff that I’m dealing with the assumptions that I’m living under.

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They may not be possible, but if it were, what would I like this part of my life to look like?

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What would that be? What is a perfect scenario look like? And don’t overthink it, just write down what it is that you really want that part of your life to look like.

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And then it’s a matter of how do I actually get closer to that. So whenever you make a change, you’re going to run into resistance, it’s going to happen, you’re going to you’re going to encounter internal resistance. So the head trash, you have limiting beliefs that you have concerns, fears, all this stuff, patterning, you know, you’ve arrived at this point in your life, doing things in a certain way, and behaving in a certain way, a very consistent way, really, probably over and over again, and getting the results that you’ve gotten. And again, if those are serving us, then that’s great. But there are opportunities for optimizing Well, that’s what you need to really explore and look at. So then you’re going to encounter resistance from outside of you. You’re going to encounter resistance from family members, from friends, from co workers, from your community, whatever it might be, it’s going to come so be prepared for it.

Unknown Speaker 12:59
And whenever you have family members or loved ones that get on your case about making changes, no matter what those changes might be, I mean, you might be trying to quit smoking. And you’ll have family members or friends give you a hard time about that. How ridiculous is that? Like I’m trying to quit smoking, for goodness sakes. And you’re giving me a hard time about you’re trying to get me to smoke. Thanks a lot. So there’s a pretty rough example. But very true. I mean, that’s something I encountered, I smoked for 10 years of my life.

Unknown Speaker 13:31
And I know that it was very, very hard to quit smoking, physiologically speaking and from a behavioral standpoint, but also from some some some friends and my social circle. So whatever it is, you’re going to change, you’re going to ruffle feathers, friends care about you.

Unknown Speaker 13:48
Sometimes people are just respond in a certain way, because that’s what they’re used to doing. But just expect that. So try to anticipate where the resistance is going to come from recognize when it comes up. And just remind yourself, hey, I have made a decision. This is what I want my life to look like, this is the direction I’m moving in. These are the things that I want for myself. And now is the time to do it.

Unknown Speaker 14:15
And then it’s okay. This is what I want. This is the change I want to make. What do I need to be doing in order to actually do that? Is there new learning that I need?

Unknown Speaker 14:29
You know, maybe you want to make a career change. So you need just new information. You need new knowledge you need some kind of a degree or a skill, whatever it may be, what is required for you to start doing the thing that you want to do. You want to lose weight, you need to learn about nutrition, you need to learn about exercise.

Unknown Speaker 14:50
You want to learn or learn how to whatever you want to learn a new language, how are you going to be able to do that? It’s all possible. It’s all at your fingertips whenever you want for the most

Unknown Speaker 15:00
Part is available to you.

Unknown Speaker 15:02
You need to put a plan together. And then once you’ve done that, then it’s the whole manifesto thing.

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Make your intentions known,

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especially to your loved ones, people that are closest to you, the more we can involve them and incorporate them. It’s all for the better. Otherwise, people are going to be awfully surprised and you start making massive changes.

Unknown Speaker 15:28
But

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it’s part of the challenge that

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interrogating reality, it does require that we we let others in on what it is that we’re working on. Because all too often we change and we forget to tell the other people and

Unknown Speaker 15:46
I don’t want you to just throw the baby out with the bathwater, and to change your entire life wholesale.

Unknown Speaker 15:53
But some of you probably will, some of you will make little changes, the truth is going to be somewhere in the middle.

Unknown Speaker 16:00
And also really encourage you to

Unknown Speaker 16:04
to be embracing that incremental change. It’s the time of year, obviously, when we’re making new year’s resolutions and all that stuff. And, you know, 80% of New Year’s resolutions get abandoned by February, which is pretty short amount of time. So the idea is that I want you to really, to create a very, very compelling vision for your future, something that pulls you towards it, versus you trying to push away from something else, I want you to be pulled towards that brighter vision, that brighter version for your future. So when we’re thinking about what you want,

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really create that compelling vision. So

Unknown Speaker 16:47
again, the only way to live how you want is to know how you want to live.

Unknown Speaker 16:52
My goal here is to help you get better and live the life that you want. Embrace incremental change, brace tension, and remember, you weren’t 100% worthy of life that you want. You’re totally capable of pursuing that life. Just gotta get to work. Happy New Year.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai