Are you the design or the designer?
Hello friends…another installment to the “Lifeonaire” section of the blog…Today’s episode: Are you the design or the designer? What the heck does this mean? It means are you running your life or is it running you? Do you proactively participate in creating your own life or do you live reactively to events? See, there is something which took me most of my life to learn. We can’t control many of the events in life but we can control what those events mean to us. In Jack Canfield’s book “The Success Principles” he explains it this way. He writes about a traffic jam on a California highway. Cars were lined up for miles and the waiting time was estimated to be in the hours. A news reporter walks up to one car and interviews the driver and the driver starts complaining about the predicament, how he was going to be late, how it was just his luck, blah blah blah. The reporter then goes up to another driver but this time the driver calmly explains how he was glad he left early, brought extra coffee and had some audio tapes he was listening to and really wasn’t too concerned about the delay. Two different people experiencing the same thing, yet one is pissed off and the other isn’t. If the true determinant of each person’s day was the event, both would have the same reaction to it. The true determinant was what each of them allowed the traffic to mean to them. This is no different as it pertains to how we create our “dream” life. If you are going to take charge of your life and do everything possible to make it exactly how you want, you’re going to face some traffic. I try to approach challenges the same way I tackle mountains when I’m climbing. Are you going to retreat or are you going to “ruck up” and make the summit? Creating our life is not a walk in the park, but as my friend David A. says, if you don’t design your life, someone else will….maybe not directly, but if you allow other people, other forces, events and the weather to kill your confidence and momentum, you have already given up. Make the decision today that you will CHOOSE what events mean to you and to NEVER allow people or events to destroy your dreams or deter you from living life on your terms. So, I ask you again, are you the design or the designer? How you answer this says much in the way of how successful you will be in creating your dream life…..
Mike – The Tattooed Investor
January 14th, 2010 at 11:36 am
Mike,
First of all, congrats on figuring things out and 2ndly congrats on the successes that have happened because of that (I just read your post on fh.)
Now, I happened across your blog and I have to say, I’ve been dealing with the same things that you’ve talked about for a while and have dealt with until you “got it.”
And actually, after an email back and forth with Steph the other night I am pretty confident that I got it too. But, the scary part for me is that me getting it, will actually require me to change what I had already begun to develop before……i.e. my real estate interests have evolved and everything I put into place before doesn’t seem important anymore and now I need to start over…..
I don’t know if that makes any sense….but I wanted to let you know that I did enjoy reading your blog here.
Keep it going!
Carey
January 18th, 2010 at 8:50 pm
Hi Carey!!!
I hear what you’re saying….for me, I used to chase every niche investment strategy until I’d hit a wall….quit….and go to the next thing….distractions were my “friend” because they allowed me to not push through problems and find solutions…then something “clicked”….instead of trying to be an investor for the sake of being an investor, I decided to work on the inner me….to see what exactly I wanted, why I wanted it and what the “end game” really was for me….turns out, the life I want could not have been created by many of the styles of investing I was trying to do….once I knew with vivid clarity what I wanted my life to be, I found the investment style which could provide it…one that was simple, consistent and just conformed to my personality….I don’t believe all the time spent with those other investment strategies was a waste, I just know exactly what styles I don’t want to do…lol…kind of like the inventor who fails many times…if you ask him he’ll say he just found a bunch of ways something won’t work, he just needs one way that it will work….so, don’t be discouraged or upset that you may have to change things that you’ve done to date….instead, search them out with an opportunistic “eye”….you’ll be able to find seeds of awesomeness that you can use to create the business that really works for the life you want….
Mike
January 18th, 2010 at 9:26 pm
Yep, you’re right. No reason to be upset about the past “seeds” we’ll say lol but they helped me grow and figure out what I want my life to look like.
I don’t know if you checked it out or not, but I thanked you in a post of mine on my blog. Since reading your post on fh.com and your blog posts that day I’ve made some HUGE changes in my life.
So thanks again and when you get a moment….check it out if you haven’t already. The blog title is called: F R E E D O M
Carey
March 9th, 2010 at 3:58 am
I want to thank the blogger very much not only for this post but also for his all previous efforts. I found thetattooedinvestor.com to be very interesting. I will be coming back to thetattooedinvestor.com for more information.
April 26th, 2010 at 7:19 pm
What a great reminder that we do have power (given from God)and we do need to act with that power.
Thanks,
Al
June 2nd, 2010 at 5:21 pm
Yahoo News…
This is really good news today….
June 2nd, 2010 at 5:42 pm
Hi Carey!!!
I hear what you’re saying….for me, I used to chase every niche investment strategy until I’d hit a wall….quit….and go to the next thing….distractions were my “friend” because they allowed me to not push through problems and find solutions…then something “clicked”….instead of trying to be an investor for the sake of being an investor, I decided to work on the inner me….to see what exactly I wanted, why I wanted it and what the “end game” really was for me….turns out, the life I want could not have been created by many of the styles of investing I was trying to do….once I knew with vivid clarity what I wanted my life to be, I found the investment style which could provide it…one that was simple, consistent and just conformed to my personality….I don’t believe all the time spent with those other investment strategies was a waste, I just know exactly what styles I don’t want to do…lol…kind of like the inventor who fails many times…if you ask him he’ll say he just found a bunch of ways something won’t work, he just needs one way that it will work….so, don’t be discouraged or upset that you may have to change things that you’ve done to date….instead, search them out with an opportunistic “eye”….you’ll be able to find seeds of awesomeness that you can use to create the business that really works for the life you want….
Mike
June 3rd, 2010 at 1:53 am
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Your point is valueble for me. Thanks!…