Living the Significant Life (18 page)
Read Living the Significant Life Online
Authors: Peter L. Hirsch,Robert Shemin
If you need help identifying your goals, think about the next two questions.
1.
What things do I value most in my life?
Think about this question for as long and as hard as necessary to feel clear and secure with your answers. They should determine where you want to go, who you want to be, what you want to do, and what you want to have.
2.
What have I always wanted to do but have been afraid to try?
This one provides valuable clues to parts of you that you may have buried away or filed under
N
for “no possibility.” It puts you in touch with essentials: your values and your life purpose. Children are often asked a wonderfully simple question that gets to the heart of this: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Sometimes that’s a good question to ask ourselves!
Another great way to access these dreams and goals is to start the sentence “Someday, when I have the time, I’m going to . . .” and then fairly quickly, without giving it a lot of thought, complete the sentence in as many ways as you can. Then, on a fresh sheet of paper, do the same exercise, only starting out with “Someday, when I have the money, I’m going to . . .” You might be surprised—and pleased—at what comes out on the page.
Remember: people don’t plan to fail; people fail to plan. Goals are planned actions you can take that in a very short time can change your life for the better and forever.
Your goals are the productive offspring of the marriage of your life purpose and your values. They are inspiration itself expressed on a local, individual, human scale. In short, goals—making them up, pursuing them, learning from the process, and bringing them into existence—give meaning to life. So this is especially important: don’t sell out. To get a million dollars and give up your dignity is a bad deal!
To illustrate the concept of
meaning in life
, here’s a favorite passage of ours from
Spoon River Anthology
by Edgar Lee Masters. In the book, Masters has all the people of a town speaking to the reader from their graves. Here’s what one of the townspeople, George Gray, had to say:
I have studied many times
The marble which was chiseled for me—
A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.
In truth it pictured not my destination
But my life.
For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;
Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;
Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.
Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.
And now I know that we must lift the sail
And catch the winds of destiny
Wherever they drive the boat.
To put meaning in one’s life may end in madness,
But life without meaning is the torture
Of restlessness and vague desire—
It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.
You must not be afraid to unfurl your sails!
Set down your goals on paper. Read them. Take consistent focused action to accomplish them. When you do, you will catch the winds of destiny and live the rewards of joy and adventure that come to everyone sailing the stunning seas of life. Enjoy the ride!
“I don’t understand. I talked to him on Sunday, and he seemed fine.”
David Morgan sat on the bed in his dorm room, talking with his father on the phone.
“He was fine,” his father, Patrick, said. “The doctor said it was a brain aneurysm that burst. He didn’t even know he had it. He was dead by the time he hit the floor, so at least he didn’t have to suffer a long illness. We can be grateful for that.”
“OK. I just—you’ll let me know when you get a flight scheduled for me? I can leave anytime, so just tell me when,” David said.
“Sure, either your mother or I will call you back in a bit.”
David sat on the bed for a long time after ending the call. Grandpa was dead. It was so hard to believe.
David and his grandfather, Dan Morgan, had been close from the beginning. David was the first grandchild; Dan had doted on him from the day he was born, and the boy had adored his grandfather just as much. Dan had taught him to fish, patiently helping him bait the hook and showing him how to remove the fish without getting finned. He’d attended David’s baseball and basketball games, cheering louder than anyone else in the stands. When David became a teenager, Dan sometimes took him for weekend trips, and David had reveled in the individual attention now that his younger sister and brother were demanding more of his parents’ time. When Patrick had driven David to college, Dan had come along for the five-hundred-mile trip—just the three guys. Now Dan was gone.
David remembered the last conversation he’d had with his grandfather. After the usual rundown of what each of them had done recently, Dan had said, “So your dad says you declared a business major. I’m glad you made a decision.”
“Yeah, well, I pretty much had to do something. If I didn’t declare a major this semester, I wouldn’t be on track to graduate on time, so I had to pick something.”
“Are you not happy with your decision?”
“I don’t know. It’s fine, I guess.”
“What are you thinking you’ll do after graduation? Go to grad school and get an MBA? Maybe go to law school? Do you have a field in mind?”
“No, I haven’t really thought about it. I’ve got time.”
“Yes, but not as much as you think. It’s easy to let time slip by. You’re going to need to get a grip on this pretty soon.”
David hated these conversations. He’d had a few of them before when his parents had pressed him about declaring a major, and again with his academic adviser. He didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. He made good grades. He had a B average without trying all that hard, and he even worked twenty hours a week. He was doing fine, and he’d figure out the future when it got here.
Dan had dropped the subject when he noticed that David was getting a little testy, but not before making one final comment: “All I’m saying is that if you don’t take time to think about what you want out of life, it’s awfully easy to wake up one day and find that you’ve just drifted along and you’re someplace you don’t want to be. That’s what happens when you don’t set goals.”
David replayed the conversation in his head while flying home the next day. It made him feel uncomfortable, so he picked up the magazine from his lap and went back to reading it.
The next two days went by quickly. Family members arrived, there were long hours of greeting friends and acquaintances at the funeral home, and finally the funeral service took place on Friday. David felt at loose ends when all the activity died down, so he was happy to accept when Patrick asked him to help go through some of Dan’s belongings on Saturday. He wasn’t scheduled to fly back to school until the next day, and he had the feeling his dad would like the company as he sorted through so many memories.
They decided to tackle Dan’s home office first. It was David’s favorite room in the house. As a child, he’d often looked in amazement at the important-looking books that lined the walls. Once he asked his grandfather if he’d read all of them. “Yep, every one. Some of them twice,” Dan had replied. It felt strange to be in that room without him.
“There sure were a lot of people at the funeral home,” David said. “I didn’t realize Grandpa knew so many people.”
“Well, he lived here for more than forty years,” Patrick responded. “He moved here right after law school and set up his practice. I guess he had thousands of clients over the years, and of course he knew most of the other attorneys in town, so a lot of them came to pay their respects. Then there were people from church, people he’d worked with at Habitat for Humanity and other places where he volunteered, people from his Kiwanis and Rotary Clubs. You’re right, he knew a lot of people.”
“That guy who did the eulogy was interesting. I liked the way he talked about all of Grandpa’s accomplishments without making him sound like some kind of saint. I didn’t realize Grandpa had done so much, or maybe I’d just forgotten a lot of things.”
“He never slowed down, that’s for sure.”
David paused for a moment. “I guess he had a good life.”
“I think so, and he seemed to think so. He always had a goal, and when he accomplished one, he’d move on to the next one. He said it kept him young,” Patrick said. “Hey, why don’t you go through the desk while I look through this file cabinet?”
David fell silent as he began sorting through the desk. It contained the usual items: pens, notepads, an address book, office supplies, and a financial ledger. When he got to the bottom drawer on the right, he pulled out a black leather-bound notebook that looked somewhat like the ledger he’d come across earlier.
“What do you want me to do with this, Dad?” he asked.
“What is it? More financial records?”
“I guess so,” David said as he flipped it open. “No, actually it’s something else.”
The volume turned out to be a notebook filled with page after page of his grandfather’s familiar handwriting. He turned to the first page. At the top, Dan had written “My Goals” with the date April 6, 1949, underneath. A list followed, numbered one through fifteen.
Next to the number one, Dan had written, “Graduate in the top 1 percent of my class.”
Number two read “Go to Notre Dame Law School and graduate with honors.”
The list went on.
“Read one book every week in addition to my school assignments.”
“Learn to play the saxophone.”
“Visit every continent.”
David flipped through the book quickly. “Look at this, Dad.”
“Oh, it’s his book of goals. We need to keep this. It’s a treasure.”
“You know about this?”
“Sure, I used to see him writing in it sometimes when I was growing up. I’d forgotten about it though.”
“The first page is dated 1949. How old was he then?”
“Let me think. He graduated from law school in 1958, so he must have finished college in 1955. I guess that would have put him in high school in 1949. A sophomore, maybe?”
“This is pretty amazing. He knew what he wanted to do way back then.”
David moved to the large wingback chair in the corner and began to read the book more carefully. There was a new entry in 1951, coinciding with Dan’s graduation from high school, and another two years later. The entries continued at intervals of three to five years, the last one dated the previous summer.
No items were crossed off any of the lists, but David noticed that there was a small, neat checkmark next to nearly all of them. That’s how he had noted his accomplishments, David thought. Once an item received its checkmark, it was dropped from the next list while goals not yet attained were carried over.
David was fascinated. Each goal was stated in concrete terms. Many had self-imposed deadlines. “Read the complete works of Shakespeare by Dec. 31, 1964.” “Complete five church mission trips before turning fifty.” “Go skydiving on sixtieth birthday.” Check, check, check.
Number twelve on the list dated 1972 was “Take an oil painting class.” David looked up at the framed painting that hung over the desk. “I painted that myself,” he remembered hearing his grandfather say with pride.
As he read through the list, David found himself remembering the eulogy he’d heard the day before. He’d been impressed with all that his grandfather had accomplished and all the people he’d touched. Now it was beginning to make sense. Offhand, David could match almost a dozen items on the various goals lists with accomplishments that had been mentioned during the eulogy. None of it had happened by accident. His grandfather had designed his own life by deciding what he wanted and making it happen.
“Is it okay if I keep this?” he asked.
“Sure,” Patrick answered. “Let me make a photocopy of it, and then it’s yours. I think he’d really like you to have it.”
Back at school, David was immediately consumed with work. He had an accounting test to make up, and he was behind on his reading for nearly every class, so he threw himself into catching up. But he kept his grandfather’s notebook on his desk, and every now and then, when he needed a break, he’d pick it up and thumb through it. “Take David to his first major league game.” Check. “Take Gail to Italy for our thirty-fifth anniversary.” Check. “Become president of the state bar association.” Check.
One night around midnight, three weeks after his grandfather’s death, David was about to turn out the light and get into bed when he had a thought. He rummaged through the small dormitory desk until he found a spiral-bound notebook from a class he’d taken last semester. Most of it was full, but there were several blank pages at the back. At the top of one page, he wrote “My Goals,” followed by the date. This would be okay until he could get to the store and buy a proper journal.
It’s a little sad to think that David had to lose someone so important to him before he learned the magic of setting concrete goals and working toward them. It would have been fun to see him share his first goals list with the man who inspired it and to see Dan’s pride as he watched his grandson begin to check things off the list. But we like to think that in our somewhat childlike image of heaven, Dan had a big smile on his face when he saw David pull that spiral notebook out of the drawer and begin to write.
What about you? Have you started to bring your own goals into focus? We hope so, because we’re ready to take the next step in living a significant life.
PRINCIPLE #7
Adjust Your Attitude
Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure.
—Norman Vincent Peale
Attitude is the switch that turns on everything else. When you master your attitude, you master your life.
If you’re a good salesperson, you know that before a customer buys anything from you, he or she must first buy your attitude. The quality and effectiveness of all your communications, both personal and professional, is a matter of attitude. The attitude you have while you’re with other people is the greatest influence on their thoughts and feelings. Your attitude means much more to people than what you say to them.
Have you ever heard it said that “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care?” That’s attitude—and that’s power.
Have a conversation with somebody you know well. Choose a friend so as not to offend. While you’re speaking to this person, keep telling yourself you don’t care about him or her. Just keep saying in your head, “I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care,” and watch what happens. I’m certain you can imagine the outcome.
One of our goals is to have every person we speak with successfully cultivate an attitude of passion. We’re convinced that an attitude of passion inspires peak performance. In fact, Peter’s first book is all about cultivating passion, and his recorded voice-mail message even ends with the words “Have a great day—and live with passion.”
Mastering Your Attitude
In the context of mastering your attitude, the word
mastering
means to rule and have authority over your attitude. We are convinced that the most powerful key to happiness and fulfillment is directing and managing your attitude. Every high-achieving leader is more than adept at this skill—and please understand that it
is
a skill and therefore it can be learned like any other skill. In fact, we could probably separate people into two broad categories: those who are masters of their attitude and those who are servants of their attitude.
How do you become a master of your attitude? How do you stay upbeat, especially during those tough times when the chips are down?
The answer is surprisingly simple. (Isn’t that a joy!) Supersuccessful, fulfilled people continually run their own highlight films in the movie theaters of their minds.
You’ve seen short clips of spectacular athletic plays on the sports section of the evening news. That’s what we mean. Successful, fulfilled people are always watching themselves make a diving catch, a spinning basket, or a world-breaking effort that results in a big, big win. They just change the game to fit their own circumstances.
When the going gets tough, the tough watch movies of themselves in positive, productive action. Another way of saying this is that successful people believe their own press.
We know, we know—we were taught not to do that. It’s self-centered and ego-stroking, right? Not necessarily. Remember that your own success is the greatest gift you have to give to those whose lives you touch. You know the expression “When you laugh, the whole world laughs with you, but when you cry, you cry alone.” Here’s another way of seeing that: “When you succeed, the whole world succeeds with you, but when you simply try, you try alone!”
Your happiness is a gift. Cultivating a happiness habitude in yourself is in fact the very opposite of being egocentric. To be self-centered is to wallow in self-pity and mediocrity, to shrink from stepping up to the plate to swing the full home-run successes of which you’re capable.
So go ahead—get your high-performance movies ready to play in your mind’s screening room!
These highlight films of you in action can come from your own actual experience, or you can make them up. If you don’t have some stock footage stored away in which you’re doing the fantastic in a similar situation, use your imagination to make up a new one. Both are real in terms of how your mind perceives them.
This highlight film of yours will produce an immediate, positive result: a positive attitude. Seeing yourself at your best is the best way to shift your attitude into high (performance) gear.
You know that part of our vision is to instill passion in people. We intend and expect
to persuade every one of you reading these words to demand more from life, to never again settle for less than the very best your life has to offer. After all, we reason, if we are made in God’s image and likeness—and we absolutely believe we are—then how could we possibly accept mediocrity?
We can’t. You shouldn’t. And you won’t!
If we approached writing this book with an attitude of “Don’t worry, be happy,” you’d probably respond to it with “Thanks a lot, but . . .” From reading this book so far, you know we feel much more passionately than that. You are—we all are—designed for happiness. So expect happiness! You deserve it. It’s coming right at you, right now. That’s the attitude we’re writing with, and that’s how we know this book is destined to encourage and inspire millions of people.
What’s more, that’s the attitude that we ask you to
read
these pages with.
Three Questions of Attitude
One of the most powerful ways of maintaining a positive attitude is to ask yourself powerful questions. These are the kinds of questions that will determine your focus and direct your actions. There are three questions we’ve found that are exceptionally powerful in generating and maintaining a positive, passionate attitude. Here they are:
Powerful Question #1: What’s great about this?
No matter what the conditions around you, you can
always
find an answer to this question. It may be difficult at first. But really, all you need is practice.
TIPS FROM PETER
Once I had to be in San Francisco for a 7 a.m. breakfast presentation to two hundred representatives of Primerica Financial Services. The meeting was two and a half hours away from where I was staying at the time. So up and off I went, arriving at the same time the sun came up—and there were twelve people in the room.
Not two hundred. Twelve.
Okay, I said to myself, what’s great about this? And my inner self began to grumble, “Well, up at four in the morning—pitch black, cold, damp—I drive two and a half hours. I expect two hundred people, and there are only twelve! Grumble, grumble . . . Hey! There is nothing great about this!”
But I knew from experience what this really meant. It meant that I had to ask the question again in a way that would get my attention. So I screamed it—inside my head, of course.
And then I realized that what was so great was the opportunity I had to inspire a dozen people to break through to new levels of passion, happiness, and success—which I would have slept through if I wasn’t there.
I had my answer, but then an interesting thing happened—and it happens ninety-nine times out of a hundred when we ask ourselves this question. The “What’s great about this?” answers kept coming.
Having only twelve people enabled me to be much more intimate with each person in the group. I could give each person individual attention, and we could all take more time on the points of my presentation, which would involve everyone more and make us more powerful as a group, because the quality of our relationships would raise the level of the work we were doing together two or three times what it would have been if the group were larger. We would be able to go deeper and higher, and the people would be able to interact more with me and among themselves, which always supercharges a group and results in bonding the individuals together as a team. I knew that when that happened, they would go back to their friends and families inspired and charged up, and that would cause a daisy-chain effect that would spread the word in a geometric way and eventually touch hundreds, even thousands of people, when all I did was meet with twelve. Wow!
You get the idea. The “What’s great about this?” question almost always results in an attitude of gratitude as a fringe benefit. It simply comes free with the asking of the question. It’s not even about having the “right” answer.
Powerful Question #2: What can I learn from this?
When we stop learning, our minds turn to mush. This is because the mind is the strongest muscle of all, and the old physical fitness slogan is true for mental muscle tone, too: use it or lose it! When Peter discovered that litigation law wasn’t the key to happiness for him, and depression hit, he refused growth of any kind. He wouldn’t pick up a book; he wouldn’t engage in any meaningful conversation; he wouldn’t even consider seeing what the Bible had to say to him. He simply stopped learning, and decay began to set in. Soon his thinking slowed, and everything else followed.
This can’t be a halfway, maybe sort of thing. Learning must
never
stop. You can afford to skip a meal, but don’t skip reading a book, because the information you don’t get
can
hurt you!
A commitment at the level of complete devotion to lifelong learning is something we’ve discovered every high achiever shares. Asking this question often makes modeling the powerful success principle effortless and automatic.
Powerful Question #3: What has to change to make it happen?
There is always an
it
—the envisioned result—and a
change
that’s required to bring
it
into being. It’s another common characteristic of high achievers and people who lead happy, fulfilled lives. They’re not only flexible; they have a love affair going with change. They have a
passion
for change—not just external change, but internal change. They understand that changing things within you comes before changing things around you, so they ride the waves of change like an expert surfer or like a dolphin.
People who are passionate about their living and working
love
change—and well they should, for it is the one and only absolute in this relative world of ours. Things will change; you can count on it.
“What has to change to make it happen?” is one constant question in the background for all people of passion. It keeps them open, upbeat, curious, innovative, and very productive.
One final point before we move on: all of the happy people we’ve studied believe that the best is yet to come.
The Servant Attitude
To inspire your success, you must develop an attitude about who you are that serves you: an attitude that strengthens your purpose, sets the stage for the full expression of your values, fuels your beliefs, and supports you in conquering your fears and accomplishing your goals and aspirations. For many people, the attitude that serves them best includes serving others.
TIPS FROM PETER
I was flying one day from Sacramento to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The flight took off at 9 a.m. from California, and by 9:20 the man in the seat next to me was on his second Bloody Mary! It looked like it was going to be an interesting trip.
When the plane touched down in Florida, my seatmate was, to say the least, sloshed. I was in Good Samaritan mode, so I helped navigate him off the plane down to baggage claim, where we soon discovered that his bags were not to be found. I escorted this fellow over to lost baggage, where he promptly went ballistic, heaping loud, slurred verbal abuse on the airline attendant.
She was a saint. Calm and composed, she listened intently, nodding her head and apologizing to this angry, obnoxious, drunk passenger.
When my seatmate walked away to gain strength for another assault, I said to the attendant, “How do you deal with people like this all the time?”
She replied, “He’s right. We shouldn’t have lost his bags. And besides, see the sign?” she pointed above our heads. “It says Lost Bags. People don’t come to me to thank us for their luggage arriving safely!”
The man returned and started in on her again. She calmly reached out her hand, put it on his arm, and said gently, yet with amazing strength, “Sir, currently there are two people in the world who care about your lost bags—and one of them is rapidly losing interest.” She was incredible.
She finally located his bags, informed him they were on a flight that would arrive in an hour, took all his information down, and promised that his luggage would be delivered the moment it arrived. She would see to it personally.
I got my new friend into a cab, went back into the airport, and took a moment to tell that woman what a contribution she had made to me, what a statement she made about the power of attitude, and what a living example she was of servant leadership. I’ve never forgotten it or her.
You see, it’s not the circumstances of our lives that determine our success; it’s how we react and respond to those circumstances. And the
how
of that is our attitude. Author Stanley Judd said it perfectly: “You may be dead broke and that’s a reality, but in spirit you may be brimming over with optimism, joy, and energy. The reality of life may result from many outside factors, none of which you can control. Your attitudes, however, reflect the ways in which you evaluate what is happening.”
What kind of attitude do you need to cultivate to generate happiness and fulfillment? There are all kinds of powerful attitudes. An attitude of gratitude is one. An upbeat attitude is another.
There’s a wonderful story about three bricklayers at a new building site. A visitor walks over to the first bricklayer and asks, “What are you doing?” The first worker looks up from his bricks and says, “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m laying bricks, you idiot!”
The man walks over to the second worker and asks again, “What are you doing?” The bricklayer looks over at him, slightly annoyed, and replies, “Can’t you see, I’m building a wall?”
Finally, he approaches the third bricklayer and asks for the third time, “What are you doing?” The third bricklayer sits back, looks up at him, and says, “I’m building a hospital for sick kids so they can come here for help and get cured.”
That’s the kind of attitude you’re looking for.
