Category: Life Lessons

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The founder of Strategic Coach, and one of my favourite podcasters, Dan Sullivan plans to live to 156 years old. It will allow him to see 3 different centuries (19,20,21).

What will it take for him to live that long? He’ll need to eat well. He’ll need to stay physically and mentally fit. He’ll need medicine to come up with some new techniques to extend life…. but more than all of this, he will need a powerful motivation to remain alive.

What gives a powerful motivation to remain alive? In an interview with Peter Diamandis, Dan and Pete shared the perspective that if you have friends, money and purpose: you’ll have a pretty damn good reason to keep on living.

Here’s the original podcast episode: Living to 156 Years old

If you love podcasts, you’ll like my post The world’s best individual podcast episodes

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I was doing some mindless twitter surfing just after lunch today, and I stumbled upon a gold mine. I love the thread that followed this tweet:

and here’s some of the answers that really resonated with me…

If you don’t prioritise your life, someone else will.

When your child wants to have a talk, drop what you’re doing and listen to them.

Only take advice from someone you’re willing to switch places with.

Pay attention to what they do, not what they say.

Don’t complain about what you permit.

The best thing you can do is the right thing. The next best thing you can do is the wrong thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is nothing

Run

Don’t ask why the addiction, instead… ask why the pain.

and… Be humble enough to do what you can until you have the strength to do what you want.

What’s the best advice you have ever received?

If you are interested in my answers, I have a couple of posts that are big lists of lessons that I have learnt from others: 17 Daily Personal Habits for a Fulfilling Life and The Complete Guide to Personal Habits: 158 Positive Reflections on Life

What is your answer? I’d love to hear it in the comments below 😉

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Overcoming challenges and obstacles is what makes life meaningful. I hope your dreams and visions are big enough to be difficult.

“Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better”

Jim Rohn

This video is about superman. When superman was first developed as a comic book character, he was so strong and powerful that he overcame all obstacles easily. It was only when the authors made him weaker that the stories became interesting.

In our own lives, it is not the easy path that makes for a meaningful life – it is the hard path, and having to become a better, stronger, more resilient, more resourceful person that makes for a meaningful life.

If you liked this post on stories, you will also like What is a Story and 7 Steps to the Perfect story.

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David Brooks has career success, but in this TED talk he shares how he found himself empty. 5 years ago, his wife left, his kids had moved out… and he discovered he had nothing to do outside of work. He had mid-week friends, but he had no weekend friends.

Success in career is not success in life.

Individual happiness is transient and empty.

David’s 2 antidotes:

  • Commit to People. Achieving individual freedom is nice, but the our life needs committed connection to others… to not be free.
  • Chase Joy not Happiness. Joy comes when our ego dissolves in the pursuit of something bigger.

“Suffering breaks some people, and breaks some people open”

This post-divorce loneliness crisis led David to explore a deeper way of connecting to others. He began to lose his individual freedom in order to commit to other people.

Our society is in the midst of a social crisis: we’re trapped in a valley of isolation and fragmentation. How do we find our way out?

“Joy is not the expansion of self, it is the dissolution of self.”

Check out David’s full TED talk below:

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MIT Endicott House

I was in Boston to teach on the Entrepreneurs’ Organisation EMP (Entrepreneurial Masters Program) this week. MIT Endicott House is one of the most beautiful locations for leadership retreats and programs. I brought my drone to capture the scenery around the main buildings. You’ll see the drone shots right at the beginning of the video below.

Why Do We Need to Clarify our Purpose?

Dandapani in Barcelona, 2016

Dandapani was one of the speakers at the Entrepreneurs’ Organisation Masters Program event this week at MIT Endicott House, outside of Boston. Dandapani spent 10 years as a Hindu monk, meditating with his guru on the purpose of his life.

Dandapani spoke about the importance of consciously deciding what is important and what is not important in your life. Why?

Because life is finite.

More from Dandapani

Dandapani on Instagram (he takes great photos) https://www.instagram.com/dandapanillc

“How to Concentrate”, Dandapani at TEDx

3 Steps to Improve Your Concentration

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A short story from the mountains about how removing drag can be more effective than increasing power. Many times we could improve our life by cleaning up the things we do that actively damage ourselves: eating poorly, drinking too much, complaining, remaining angry, holding grudges, positioning myself as a victim.

What do you think? What’s your biggest “drag”?

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Game of Thrones is back for its final season this week. This video comes from the beautiful city walls of Ávila, about 100kms to the west of Madrid in Spain.

I used to think that it was enough to be good at your job, and to be nice to people… and money, success and power would come. How wrong I was. The Game of Thrones makes it clear: if you have something of value, someone stronger will take it from you. You must be strong or be protected.

Are you Strong or are you Protected?

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“All my daughter really wants from me is a few minutes of my undivided attention… the richer people get the more money they spend trying to “

Dorothée Loorbach

I am bad with money

It has taken me many years to admit this to myself. It was only by admitting it that I have been able to take the steps to put my family on a path to financial freedom.

I have a long standing belief that if I am a good person and do good work, the “money thing” will sort itself out. This has proven to be a poor approach to a well balanced life.

I still have had a lot to learn about my relationship to money. Many of the lessons shared in this video resonate with my own (poor) relationship to money. I am so optimistic that the future will be better that I don’t hold myself to the discipline of saving and investing my money. It has taken several business failures and a clear objective reflection on my poor money decisions to start to accumulate money over the last few years.

10 lessons about money from Dorothée Loorbach

Dorothée was “successful” in her job and made a lot of money… and then she spent it all… until she was broke, unable even to bake her little daughter a birthday cake. She had to face her own flawed beliefs about money and how they were damaging her ability to live a life that matters.

The 10 Lessons on Money from the Video

  • 4:49 #1 Money is important
  • 5:55 #2 Money equals time
  • 7:00 #3 Money equals value
  • 8:03 #4 What people say doesn’t matter
  • 9:49 #5 What people say matters
  • 10:58 #6 It’s really simple
  • 11:33 #7 It’s not that easy
  • 13:05 #8 Being broke sucks
  • 14:35 #9 Stay Broke
  • 15:54 #10 Money is not important

What are you beliefs about money? Are they having a positive impact on your approach to life?

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This video comes from the foothills of the Wicklow mountains, near my parent’s house in Dublin.  I was teaching at the UCD Smurfit Business School and then spent the weekend down in Wexford at the opera festival.  My parent’s have been big supporters of this festival over the last 20 years and it was important to me to see it with them.

What Lesson Have You Learnt?

I ask a question: What is the most important lesson you have learnt in life?  I’d love to hear from you.  What would you say is the most important lesson you have learnt about living life well?

If you liked this post, you will also like Life is Difficult, How to Handle it or 65 Lessons Learned at Tony Robbins’ Event.