“When your journey in life reaches its final destination, and you look into the rearview mirror of your life with total objectivity, how many “holistically amazing”, not just “good” or “great”, years will you have experienced? – James Roncevich
The phrase, “life is short”, is often uttered, but seldom is life, lived as though it is preciously short. Why? I’ve observed many reasons from many people on why it’s much more difficult to actually live out the, “life is short” concept, than to only utter this theoretical concept. Let’s delve into a few observations.
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Happy – This is a nice, broad category that seems to be a positive, catch-all. Who would disagree with people wanting to be “happy”? Unfortunately, “happy” is actually tough to define. There are many factors to consider; especially when we need to define what “happy” looks like day-to-day, within the framework of our entire lives. If “happy” is good now, but it doesn’t get us to where we want to go long-term, were we really “happy” (back when we thought we were)? Second; “happy” is in general, aligned with “good” or “great”, but not “amazing”. If “happy” is good enough for you, go for it!
Dreams – Imagine (in light of this being the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong stepping foot on the moon) having big dreams for your life that change many other people’s lives. Very cool! Do you think Neil enjoyed the 10’s of thousands of hours he invested, on the chance that he’d become an astronaut and be the first to step on the moon? Was he “happy” during the many years of hard work and time investment to achieve something he hoped would happen? If he wasn’t selected to be on any missions, but still put the years of investment into the possibility, would he still have been “happy”?
Guarantees – The only guarantee “Time” will provide us, is, it won’t stop. I don’t believe “failure” is the enemy of our investment of time; rather, the enemy is under-succeeding. Why? Count the many, many initial successes you’ve enjoyed that made you happy for a while only to not make you ecstatic over a window of 6+ years during your life’s journey.
Two simple examples are getting married and starting a new job. There’s a lot of “happy” in both situations at first. Sadly, most end in divorce or resignation. So; how many “good”, “great” and “amazing” years did you actually have, as a result of these two jugular decisions? How many people change partners, jobs, etc., in the hope of finding “amazing”? The average person will live 75 to 95 years. How many, at the end of their lifetime journey, will objectively believe they achieved 10+ years of “amazing”? 20+ Years? Just calculate how many non-amazing years you’ll experience. Life can be flat out tough!
So; you realize you want to be amazingly happy, fulfill audacious dreams and are provided no guarantees… how fun is this challenge!?!
Thus; we’ll need:
- Strong Visions of Future Selves to see us achieving our dreams successfully
- Stellar, Comprehensive Decision Making Quality (DMQ); particularly, DMQ-Inner-Circle and DMQ-Courage (discussed in other blogs)
- Unshakable perseverance, grit and resilience to implement our visions through Execution-Excellence
Many will tell you, “be realistic”. Tell them, “the hell with only seeing someone else’s “reality… I choose to dream and create a new reality!” – paraphrased from “Get MAD! 7 Keys to Being an Admired, Kick-Ass Leader”, page 71.
Who changes the world? I believe it’s almost exclusively the Top-7%. They are the only ones with the Talent Portfolios and social consciences needed to actually implement significant positive social impact.
If you believe you’re one of these executives, we’d love to explore possible opportunities.
Get Making A Difference! ~ JR
