What could be more important than figuring out your mission in business and life and having the financial abundance, freedom and courage to pursue that? It’s the act of identifying your dreams, your vision, your goals, your objectives and then the relentless pursuit of them. That’s what I mean by “Bigger Things”.
“The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we hit it” - Michelangelo
Many times I feel like and know that my aim is too low and that I’m not living up to my full potential. Because deep down in my heart I know I could be doing Bigger Things.
Welcome to doing Bigger Things!
Bigger Things is a newsletter to help you achieve bigger things in your business & career, bigger things in money & wealth, bigger things in life and self. That means you having a Bigger Mission, Bigger Vision, Bigger Impact, Bigger Generosity, Bigger Relationships, Bigger Adventures, Bigger Wealth and ultimately a Bigger Meaning, Freedom & Life.
Bigger things are also deeply personal for each of us. Your bigger things are different than mine. Your mission, vision, goals, talents are unique and different than mine. Here I hope we can encourage each other, to pursue our bigger things. And note that it’s not “BIG” things, it’s “BIGGER” things. That means, that wherever you are at, you can take a step to improve, even if just a little and that represents “BIGGER” things for you. “BIG” things is an external view, what does the world think of me and my accomplishments. “BIGGER” things is all about you and your accomplishments and what they mean to you.
I write about the lessons I learn each week as I serve as coach and consultant to some of the world’s most successful executives and entrepreneurs. This isn’t a “tips & tricks” type blog. Most of what will share is from a first principles, foundational perspective. Things that take time and discipline to implement but also produce outsized results.
Bigger Things is written by entrepreneur, investor and business growth expert Brad Pickering.
About Brad Pickering
My mission is to help others achieve purpose & success in business, abundance & fairness in money, adventure & love in life and freedom & mastery of self.
Business & Entreprenuership:
I am currently a Partner in a risk and insurance consulting firm where we support some of the largest and most successful real estate owners & developers and family office capital managers. Our business has 50 employees with offices in Toronto, Detroit, Texas and Scottsdale.
In 2009 I founded and ran a management consulting firm that supported business owners and executives with business strategy and to achieve profitable growth. I worked with world changers doing inspiring things that were challenging and exciting. That business took me all over the world with clients in the USA, Mexico, Chile, United Kingdom, Europe, and even New Caledonia (check on a map where that is!!). It wasn’t all sunshine and roses; in 2012 I lost 5 of my 6 clients and did a LOT of soul searching. I persevered, (re)built, grew and in 2022 sold the business.
From 1999 to 2009 I worked in the automotive industry for Ford Motor Company and a Ford JV company in Mexico, where I lived and worked for 4 years. We cherish our memories from Mexico, our boys were born there and it allowed me to become fluent in Spanish.
I’m a Professional Engineer and hold an MBA with concentration in Business Strategy & Finance.
Money:
I started investing my own money at 16 years old and have alway loved it. I have learned plenty with 30+ years in the school of hard knocks and today I manage my holding company with an investment strategy of “short fiat and long scarce, hard, uncorrelated assets”. Most people don’t really understand what that means but NEED TO! I’ll be writing quite a bit on this.
My investment strategy is “short fiat and long scarce, hard, uncorrelated assets”.
I co-manage a real estate holding company with my wife Candace. Our real estate strategy is owning awesome assets, in awesome locations for awesome people.
I invest in Bitcoin, Bitcoin related stocks and stock options. I believe in the world changing power of Bitcoin and my Bitcoin adventure took me and my family to El Salvador, where they made Bitcoin legal tender in 2021. Bitcoin is hope for the world as it solves our “store of value” problem and gives personal property rights to all 8B people on earth. Oh, and it’s the best performing asset of the past 1, 5 and 10 years… 😁
Life:
I believe that family is everything. I have a 20+ year marriage to the love of my life and partner in all adventures, Candace.
I believe that the family that adventures together, grows together. I’m the proud dad of twin teenage boys and we love to ski and wakesurf together and push them to do their Bigger Things. I was head coach of their travel hockey team and somehow juggled work commitments, flights and hockey practices… I look back and wonder how it all worked out.
I love competing in endurance events and have run the Boston marathon twice and completed many marathon and ultra-marathon events.
It all sounds so “perfect” when I can cherry pick peak my resume moments and only tell you those about me… because it certainly didn’t start out that way…. it was and still is, a battle…
I used to walk in to Grade 11 English every day and my teacher would say “Bradley my boy”… then with a look of disappointment on his face, he would shake his head and say “ - wasted greatness”.
He did this every day.
He wasn’t wrong.
I wasted a lot of my high school life and would love a do over… I was part of a Provincial Championship swim team and I quit the following season because I slept in one morning and didn’t want to have to face my very difficult coach, so it was easier to just quit. I won my Senior Basketball Team’s Most Dedicated player award, missed the award ceremony and didn’t even tryout for the team the following year. I consistently and impressively underperformed my academic potential, to say the least.
Though those years had glimmers of my Bigger Things. When I was 16 years old, my two best friends and I rode our bicycles 1,600 kms across our province from Windsor to Quebec, totally unassisted, unsupervised and fully self-supported.
Two summers later my best friend and I did a follow-up trip, cycling 3,000 kms from Vancouver over the Continental Divide through Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons and eventually on to the Grand Canyon.
I was hot and cold, my life had glimmers of “Bigger Things” combined with “wasted greatness”.
I turned my academics around in the nick of time and got accepted to the University of Waterloo (Canada’s MIT) for Engineering. When it came time to apply for first summer engineering jobs, I was now competing against my classmates who had all won math awards, major scholarships, were club presidents. My resume consisted of me winning my Little League “Mr. Nice Guy” Award - no joke. (I’m actually still a pretty nice guy. 🤣)
I struggled to get a job and realized that while yes, I was part of a great Engineering program, I lacked my Bigger Things and knew I had the potential to do much more. My father-in-law introduced me to Personal Devleopment coaching cassette tape series by Dan Sullivan, Strategic Coach. Slowly I became more open, more coachable, and more aware of the Bigger Things that I was called to.
I came to realize that we all have unique talents, gifts and abilities and that we are all on this earth with a unique purpose and calling, a “Personal Legend” as the Alchemist (Paola Coehlo) would call it, and our job is to discover that and live that out. That is your Bigger Things: your Bigger Mission, Impact, Business, Wealth, Health, and Relationships.
What Bigger Things subscribers can expect:
Many years ago I did some writing, blogging and videos on business but there are two major changes I intend to make now versus then. If I’m honest, back then I was writing a message I thought the market was looking for instead of being authentic and writing about what I truly feel, believe and am interested in. As well, I was only writing about business but what I have found in my 15+ years of business coaching and consulting is that all things are connected.
All things are connected and all things are one.
If someone has major issues in their life, health, family - they typically aren’t very effective in business. Or if someone achieving big things in business and financially but their marriage is falling apart and their kids are suffering, what’s the point? Or if someone is struggling financially, it is very difficult for them to pursue their true business calling or be a thriving spouse or parent. And for those reasons I will be writing about business, money, life and self and will share with you the messages I authentically want to share. All things are one.
And through all of those experiences, what is true wealth. It is freedom to work on the projects you love, freedom to have the impacts you want to, freedom for relationships with your family and friends. Freedom to live out your true calling. Freedom to work on your health.
I guess I found that success in one area at the expense of the others is never worth it. Yes we go through seasons in life where our focus needs to be more on business building or our family or our health, however, we ultimately always need to be working on all areas.
Writing Bigger Things is the next step in my journey.
I’m writing this for all of you but it represents my Bigger Things. For me to try something new, take risk, work really hard, be fully engaging and chase my dreams. I hope you enjoy and find these stories and writings valuable.
Every week, you'll receive regular, FREE posts.
So... let your Bigger Things journey begin.
To Your Bigger Things!
Brad