We Are Called to Bigger Things...
And achieving them does not require more DISCIPLINE, it requires more VISION!
I often beat myself up for not having enough discipline. I didn’t go for that run. I ate the wrong things. I had drank too much wine… again… and then again again! I can be hard on myself about not being disciplined enough in my life and approach. We all do this, we beat ourselves up that we don’t have enough discipline.
But that’s not actually the issue, in reality the reason we make decisions outside of alignment with what we really want is because we lack vision for our lives, we lack vision for our Bigger Things.
My best friend Dave did a 41 km training run last weekend and the last 10km was in the pouring rain. No one in their right mind is just going to get up early and randomly decide to run 41 kms. In the rain. It must be part of a bigger vision and goal and objective. And that vision needs to be very clear, in front of you, inspiring you, driving you.
Dave has a very big vision, he has the very ambitious goal of running a sub 2:50 marathon 🤯🤯. So having the discipline to get out there, grind through 41 kms is mostly about having a massive vision for his running. A strong, burning goal inside that is helping him through the pain, suffering, cold, and rain.
It is the vision and commitment to your vision that dictates the routines and disciplines. If the vision for running is to walk a 5 km race, well then it mostly doesn’t matter what you eat, drink and how you train. If your vision is to run 42.2 kms in 2 hours and 50 minutes, well that is going to dictate what you eat and drink, how you sleep, and what your training regime looks like.
So the next time you think, “I just wish I had more discipline”, stop and shift to your vision for what are you being called to do.
Here are 6 ways that I help increase my vision:
Run My Own Race - We are all called to our own Bigger Things. My Bigger Things are different than yours and vice versa. We all have a unique, distinct calling on our lives and it is critical to figure out what that is and then pursue that. As Paulo Coelho puts it in his book, The Alchemist, “To realize one’s destiny is a person’s only real obligation and you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it”.
Vision Takes Time - That means that I take time away from my busy life and spend time contemplating, meditating on my Bigger Things. At least once a year, I spend at least a day thinking about the vision for my life. And the best ways for me is to be away, to be in nature and with enough time. I schedule this day in my calendar and I focus on the following questions…
Photo by: Steven Kamenar
Answer the 10 Year & 3 Year Questions - I answer the question “what does my life need to look like in 10 years and 3 years for me to be super excited about it?”. I take sheets of blank paper and just fill them with my vision and goals for Bigger Things. When I do this, I don’t worry about all of the obstacles, roadblocks (lots of time for that later) and I like to be “aggressively realistic” about the vision. I dream big.
Draw a Picture - Gaining clarity on the vision for your life is an organic and messy process. Making a vision board can be a very useful exercise, using pictures to help clarify your Bigger Things. I used to use bristol board and cut pictures out of magazines, but now leverage technology and do it on Canva.com. My vision board has images representing 12 month goals, 3 year goals and 10 year goals for me and my family.
Photo By: INSTAGRAM/@TAKEURVITAMINEM
Believe It - I’ve had many things in life that I thought were going to happen and then didn’t. Races that I felt super trained for and then turned out to be disasters. Investments that I felt were sure things and then losing a lot of money. Business ideas that I thought would be winners and turned out to be losers. And on… and on. So while it may be scary to dream again, have vision again, chase Bigger Things again, at some point we have to BELIEVE IT! To believe that these things are possible for us. If you think you can’t, you’re right. Start believing.
Weekly Vision Time & Planner - It is critical that I translate my 10 year and 3 year vision for my life into what I do next week, next Tuesday, etc. So every Friday I sit down and review my vision and then complete a weekly planner for the next week. For example, my current vision is to compete in an Xterra off-road triathlon in June and so I complete my training plan to swim, bike, run, weight train for the next week. I also have a vision to have a strong, life-long marriage so I ensure date night is scheduled in at least 2x a month as well.
The Servant Mindset Worksheet
In follow-up to Bigger Things in Self: Don’t Take Anything Personally here is that worksheet that I created for myself, The Servant Mindset.
I typically have 10 blank copies of The Servant Mindset worksheet in my work bag. Ahead of all difficult meetings/calls, I spend 3 minutes to complete and get myself into the right mindset for a great meeting.
Your Savings & Wages Are Being Eroded
It breaks my heart to see how our savings and wages are being eroded. Lives and families are being destroyed before our eyes. It comes up in virtually every conversation these days, how expensive things are, the price of meat, the price of homes, the fact that our kids generation will never be able to buy houses.
The price of desirable and scarce things like quality food, shelter (rent/mortgage), energy, health care and eduction is going up at a rate that is far, far higher than our savings or wages are going up.
Why this is happening seems abstract, complex and opaque. People are just trying to get by and don’t have the time or energy or interest to understand it. Thankfully Lyn Alden put together a 30 minute masterpiece on how the financial system works. I highly recommend watching the entire thing, the first 15 minutes lays the ground work of the history and functioning of the current financial system and second half gets into why and how your savings and wages are being eroded. If you get tempted to turn it off in the early part, jump to the 15 minute mark. Though I recommend watching the entire thing.
Lyn is absolutely brilliant, is a former Engineer (I ❤️ those engineers!) and now full-time investor.
Jack Dorsey Dedicates Entire Quarterly Shareholder Letter to Bitcoin
Jack Dorsey founded Twitter in 2006 and also founded Square (now called Block) in 2009…. you know, the payment terminals that small cafes, shops, taxi drivers all use.
Remember when Twitter first launched as a platform for writing short messages of up to 280 characters. I remember thinking to myself, “wow, that sounds so dumb, what's the value of that!?”. I guess I missed that one 🤦♂️. I’ve since learned it’s important to pay attention to what Jack Dorsey is doing as Jack sees things before the rest of us. It turns out that Jack knows quite a bit about where technology and payments are headed and he has a passion for the economic empowerment of others.
So when Jack just dedicated the entire Block quarterly shareholder letter that released this week to Bitcoin, this is worth paying attention to. He started it with the question he keeps getting….
“Why the hell are you all spending so much time on bitcoin?”
“But why spend time on bitcoin at all? We believe the world needs an open protocol for money, one that’s not owned or controlled by any single entity. We believe bitcoin is the best and only candidate to be that protocol, and to ultimately become the native currency of the internet.”
Block is building out Bitcoin functionality via their product CashApp. Jack building CashApp for Bitcoin is like the early days of people building applications for the internet. Block has also expanded into development of US-based Bitcoin mining hardware, software and standalone mining chips. Jack and his team are developing a product to try to help solve the global remittance problem that I’ve seen first hand from my time living in Mexico and travelling to El Salvador and Africa.
“The internet will have a native currency; it’s just a matter of time. Artificial Intelligence systems and agents will have to transact, and the most efficient way to do so will be a common protocol for money movement. Creative endeavors will rely heavily on micropayments, something that’s been discussed since the dawn of the internet, and finally being realized at scale with things like “zaps” (transferring small amounts of bitcoin via lightning) on the NOSTR protocol. Commerce will be less constrained by national borders, flowing freely around the world without gatekeepers or rent seekers.
This won’t happen overnight. The existing and emerging financial systems will operate in parallel for some time. There’s an opportunity to build cohesive and regulatory-compliant connections between these two worlds. This
is where we’ve always flourished: at the intersection of regulations and innovative technology that can bring more people into the economy.We also believe in investing in the overall asset of the ecosystem, and holding bitcoin in our treasury. Going forward, each month we will be investing 10% of our gross profit from bitcoin products into bitcoin purchases. We were one of the first public companies to put bitcoin on our balance sheet: we invested $220 million into bitcoin, and that investment has grown by approximately 160% to $573 million as of the end of the first quarter.”
Years ago as I started to understand what Lyn was explaining and what Jack was seeing and building. I realized that for the sake of myself and my family, I needed to protect my savings, wages and earnings. I did so by investing in real estate and Bitcoin. Yah I know… I have a tendency to go on and on about Bitcoin, to the point where many people ask me the same question of, “Why the hell are you all spending so much time on bitcoin?”. It is because I’m so concerned about people experiencing life becoming more expensive every day and the continual erosion of their savings and earnings. Honestly it doesn’t matter to me at all what you think about Bitcoin, so long as you understand the issue that our money and banking are broken. If you’d rather protect yourself by owning the “Magnificent Seven Stocks” (Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta, Tesla), or gold, or a Picasso, or some other collectible or scarce thing, go for it. Not my thing but hey, run your own race 😁. It is just critical that you somehow protect yourself and your family from the broken money. For our family, we do so by owning real estate and Bitcoin.
To Your Bigger Things! And Happy Mother’s Day! 💕👊
Brad
Another great post! I haven’t done formal vision time in a while. Thanks for the reminder!
So many interesting things here!!
Really like the servant leadership prep sheet!!