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The Life Lovers Guide to the Galaxy
Citation preview
THE LIFE LOVERS
GUIDE TO THE GALAXY
A Life on Your Terms
ELIZABETH SEDA
Im going to tell you the secret to life.
Right now.
I will give away the ULTIMATE secret to the Universe, Life, and Everything on the first page of this guide.
Ready? Ok here we go.
What you get out of anything you do is based on how much you give.
Thats it.
Its damn simple. Why do I need to tell you how to use this guide?
Do I really need to tell you to read it and then take action? Are you that far removed from the world that you dont know that you are supposed to read this guide for it to be of any purpose to you in life?
Must I tell you that for it to be of any purpose, you have to take this information and put it to use?
It doesnt matter much what you use it for, as long as youre making a conscious choice.
I want you to use and abuse the heck out of this guide until it pleads for you to put it down and have a rest.
And even then I dont want you to put it down. This sucker is strong. It can take a lot of use.
Do one Dirty Challenge every week.
Pick one Dirty Challenge and commit to it for life.
Follow all of the actions items.
Purposely choose to follow none of the action items.
Commit to doing the very opposite of what I tell you because you whole-heartedly disagree with my advice.
Email me and tell me you hate me.
Email me and tell me you love me.
Do something for the love of the Goddess.
Print it out and burn it or print it out and plaster it to your wall.
Email it to a friend. Fax it to a family member. Snail mail it to a stranger. Put it inside of a bottle and throw it in the ocean.
You may even use it as toilet paper, although I dont recom-mend that because its bad karma.
My point is that I want you to have a response. Have a con-scious opinion and act on that opinion.
Can you do that? Have an opinion about it and act on that opinion. If you do that, then youll be galaxies ahead of 95% of the population.
And that, my friend, is worth everything to me.
i
HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE
Chapter 1
I wasn't born into a unique family of individual thinkers
and innovators.
There were defining experiences in my life that led me to
realize that there had to be another way. Some of these
moments are funny. Some of them are sad. Some are
empowering.
The common thread between all of them is that they all
taught me that I could decide the course of my life. They
taught me that I didn't need anyone telling me how to
live or what to live for.
If you are looking for some powerful true tales that will
get you up and motivated to live life on your own terms,
this story is for you.
9 DIRTY SECRETS
Circumstances mean little.
I was born in the Bronx, NY in the mid-80s.
For all intents and purposes I was a lost cause. I went to public
school 1 (PS1) and I lived in a project called 'The Smith.'
I used to have to walk to the laundry mat by myself because we
didn't have any money to pay for a dryer and people would let
me use the dryers for free because I was a kid.
I ate Macaroni and Cheese and Spam for months straight.
I nearly died when a brick went through the window of my
bedroom and almost landed on my head while I was in my crib.
3
DIRTY SECRET #1
I was born a poor kid in the Bronx, NY with no
hope for the future.
I should be pregnant, in a gang, in jail, on welfare, or dead
by now.
But I'm not.
My mother decided to take life by the balls and get us the
hell out of there.
One day, when walking to school with my brother, there was
a shoot out between a criminal and the NYPD.
We were tackled by a complete stranger. A homeless man no-
less. At first I started fighting until I heard the bullets flying
by my ear.
One nearly grazed my younger brother's face.
I told my mom about it when I got back from school. Two
weeks later we were on a plane to Florida with absolutely
nothing to our names other than $1000 and the will to
survive.
Survive we did.
Circumstances do not define your life.
You do not make lemonade when life hands you
lemons. You chuck the lemons the F back and grab some
watermelon or whatever fruit you're interested in.
That's what we did.
I learned much later that this was my mothers way of living a life
on her own terms.
Instead of accepting the environment we'd been brought
into, we changed it. My mother has 10 brothers and
sisters and they all still live in the same
environment. Theyre having kids and subjecting them to
the same neighborhoods, crime, and poor education that
they had.
I'm one of the only members of my family to graduate from
high school.
I have more than 30 second cousins.
This is because my mother said NO. She said NO to the
circumstances we were living in and she fought for a better
way.
4
That's why I'm not pregnant, in a gang, in jail, on welfare, or
dead.
Because she took control of our lives.
She chose a better way.
Dirty Challenge #1
Id like you to identify one way youre letting your
environment determine the course of your life.
Sometimes its explicit. For example, youre poor, or
uneducated, or you have terrible parents, and you attribute
your inability to succeed on these external forces.
However, sometimes its implicit in your behavior.
This happens when a limiting belief becomes so ingrained
into your subconscious that you hold yourself back without
even knowing it.
For example, can you think of the last time you didnt try
something because you knew it to be impossible for you?
Maybe you dont have enough money, or the economy isnt
right, or you have responsibilities, or you live in a place non-
conducive to whatever it is you want to do.
You may give up there, without even trying, without even
considering the possibility that maybe, just maybe, youre
using your environment as an out.
Take stock of your life and ask yourself some hard questions:
What limiting beliefs do you hold about your environment
that prevent you from living your best, most fulfilled life?
Have you been blaming external influences on your failure to
live up to the person you thought youd be?
Are you excusing other peoples actions because of their
environment?
Do you take comfort in the thought that youll never be able
to do what you want, and theres nothing you can do about
it?
Do you truly believe that youre the only one in your
environment? Do you think that no one has ever been in your
situation and has gone on to live a fulfilled life?
5
Be honest. If possible, have someone close to you check your
answers. Someone brave enough to stand up to you when
you start deflecting or becoming defensive. Someone who
cares enough about you to give you grief.
If you dont have someone like that in your life, then call me.
I may not know you, but I sure do know how to give people
grief.
You wont be disappointed.
6
I started high school with the right intentions.
I was accepted into a 'medical magnet' program which meant
that when I graduated, I would be an assistant nurse or some-
thing like that.
I got good grades and everything seemed to be right on track un-
til I hit sophomore year.
I may or may not have gotten caught up with the wrong crowd,
but regardless, I started skipping school and showing up only for
the tests.
7
DIRTY SECRET #2
I got into an elite private university without a
high-school diploma or standardized testing.
Although I got an A every single time, I was kicked out of the
program due to absences.
They kicked me out with a 3.68 GPA over a technicality.
That was my first warning bell. The warning bell that
started a lifelong quest of purposeful and logical rebellion no
matter the cause.
It didn't make sense to me.
Why should I waste my time there when I absorbed informa-
tion more quickly than my classmates? Why was I being pun-
ished for being great?
I understand now that not all students are as passionate
about learning as I was and I was setting a bad example.
No one explained this to me. They said 'just because' or
'those are the rules.' They called me willful. They sent me
on my way.
There was nothing I could do about it. I was sent to my
zoned school which was in the ghetto.
The good news was that I was born in the Bronx, NY so I
know how to handle myself.
The bad news is that I was born in the Bronx, NY so I know
what happens when you have the reputation for backing
down and being weak.
Long story short, I got beat up nearly every week for
one thing or another.
Someone's boyfriend looked at me. I rolled my eyes at some-
thing someone said. I wore a certain color on the wrong day
of the week.
I never backed down, but I was getting tired of getting my
ass kicked.
These kids didn't give a crap about their education so suspen-
sion and expulsion meant nothing to them; and I was sent
there because I had a tendency to get A's too easily.
I decided that it wasn't worth spending the rest of my life as a
punching bag.
8
I decided right there and then that there was an-
other way.
I didn't have to go through high school like everyone else 'just
because.' If I wasn't getting something out of it then I wasn't
doing it. Period.
From that day on I decided that there was always another
way. It doesnt matter what the situation, or who you are.
Theres always another way.
I finished high school on my terms.
I got my GED and I went directly to Community College at
the age of 16.
My life. My terms.
Dirty Challenge #2
When was the last time you considered the alternative?
Dont say that you dont have an alternative, because you do.
You always have a choice.
Im not asking you to tell me how hard that choice is, Im ask-
ing you to tell me when was the last time you sucked it up
and actually thought about the choice you were making.
Im talking about the choice you make to not consider the al-
ternatives.
The choice you make to be defeated.
The choice to stay down when you fall down.
When was the last time you actively explored other possibili-
ties?
How many times have you rejected your lot in life instead of
accepting it?
Do you put your head down and take it, or do you stand up
and fight?
Why is there only one right path?
Why is the path you were taught to take the best path for
you?
Why, why, why.
9
Yea I went to college.
AFTER I went to community college and got an associates in
Humanities and Piano.
AFTER I got my bartending license and bartended for a year.
I applied to the University of Miami College of Engineering on
a whim one day while I was at work (at the time I worked in a
kennel taking care of rescued greyhounds).
I had never taken an SAT.
10
DIRTY SECRET #3
I graduated from college with a GPA of 1.99 and
still got a job at a Fortune 500 company
during a recession.
I didn't even have a high school diploma.
Most people wouldn't have even bothered.
But Im not most people.
I already knew that there was something about this life we
live in that wasn't as impenetrable as people said it was.
I got a $25,000 scholarship into the College of Engineering
and chose a duel degree of Mechanical and Biomedical
Engineering.
At the time I thought it was a gift.
A sign of some sort that I better straighten out my
unconventional ways if I want to succeed.
This was my second chance for redemption!
I went to college with the mindset of getting the best grades
EVER so that I could go to NASA and work on epic space
suits or something.
That lasted about a year until I realized that college wasn't
about getting grades at all!
It wasn't even about learning the material.
I decided that college was about learning how to
think and how to lead and initiate change.
That's what I did.
I did just enough school work to get by and the rest of the
time I threw myself into extracurricular activities and talking
teachers into doing things like having pizza Fridays or getting
the President to let us run some major event on campus that
would shut classes down for days.
I pushed it to the limit because I knew college was the only
opportunity I had to do stuff like this without any real
consequences.
I honed my skills for bootstrapping, improvising,
bullshitting, and leading.
When graduation day came, I was somewhat of a campus
legend (notoriously). I was also one out of 5 of the people in
my entire graduating class with a job; and not just any job.
11
I was offered a top notch Process Engineering job at huge
company.
Let me repeat that again.
I am a puerto rican girl who was born poor, in the
bronx, got kicked out of high school, got her GED,
never took a standardized test, blew off college
classes, barely scraped by with my grades and I
STILL got offered the best job any graduate could
possibly want.
Did I mention it was right in the middle of the recession?
Never think that anything in life is prescribed. It isn't.
Every rule is negotiable. Nothing is set
in stone.
You shape the world that you live in.
You are the creator of your own reality. What you see and
what you believe is what exists for you. If you dont see
obstacles and if you dont believe in barriers, then there
wont be any.
Dirty Challenge #3
Next time you encounter a barrier, no matter how small, I
challenge you to not accept that barrier and look for another
way.
I challenge you to see detours instead of barriers.
I challenge you to exchange permanent defeat for temporary
failure.
Next time someone says it cant be done, make it happen.
Im not just talking about finding other ways. Im talking
about actually believing that the impossible is possible and
that somehow, someway, you will succeed.
Believe that there are no alternatives to seek because success
is already yours.
Do what you can with what you have, then do a little more
with what youll earn.
12
I struggled a lot with this topic. I didn't know if it was too much
information or what.
In the end I decided to put it in, and the response from readers
has been incredible. My honestly has set me apart from my
peers and has offered support and encouragement to anyone
who things that success comes to those who arent damaged.
Its ok to be a little damaged. As long as you refuse to be broken.
At 15 years old I became bulimic.
I wanted to be thin.
I wanted to be pretty.
13
DIRTY SECRET #4
I almost died from an eating disorder I
suffered from for 5 years.
I wanted to be popular.
I didnt care what the cost was. I didnt care how much it
hurt, how tired and sick I got, whether or not I had heart
failure or whether or not I lived past 30.
I wanted to be wanted, and I thought that external validation
would bring me inner peace and confidence.
I swore that once I was thin I would stop.
It turns out that you can't just quit being bulimic.
I was so preoccupied with living up to some set of standards
arbitrarily created by a mass of nameless, faceless people that
I thought it was worth killing myself slowly to attain these
standards.
I have been symptom free since the age of 20(1).
That's when I began to realize the more I disappeared on the
outside, the less human I was on the inside.
Imagine how much you have to hate yourself to convince
your mind that starving was a good way to lose weight.
The more I starved, the more I hated, until I hated my eating
disorder so much I wanted to die.
It was an addiction.
When I realized that I was addicted, I was able to separate
my sense of self from my eating disorder.
No longer would it control me. I would control it.
I took control of my life and started setting my own terms.
I began to understand my motivations and why they were so
different from everyone else's.
I started to not care that I was unconventional, had hips, and
was so extraverted that I scared people. I didnt need to
contain myself.
Although I will never not be bulimic, I know that I will
always be symptom free because I decided to wake up and
understand myself and my life.
With that understanding I've been able to build a life around
my own terms rather than rely on someone else's terms.
14
Dirty Challenge #4
Where do you get your self esteem from? Is it from external
validation, or is it from inner confidence.
Putting your sense of worth on external sources is dangerous.
You have no control over many of these sources, and as they
change, your sense of self-worth decreases.
Do you rely on your own judgements for self-worth?
15
When your job has stressed you out so much that you end up los-
ing an organ from it, that's when you know that there is some-
thing seriously wrong with the world in which we live in.
The stress that came from the job wasn't about the workload or
the difficulty (although both were very high).
The stress came from oppression and the pressure to conform
and I just couldn't.
16
DIRTY SECRET #5
I lost an organ because my company wanted me to go against my DNA
and conform to their way of thinking.
They would warn me that I wouldn't make it if I didn't con-
form to company expectations; but it didn't matter.
I tried so hard. I tried playing the politics game. I tried suck-
ing up and making pretty pictures for management.
I just didn't have it in me.
In the end I was so stressed out from all of the negative politi-
cal feedback I was getting that I was having stomach pains
every day to the point where I couldn't even sleep.
I decided to just give up. I hated it and I was glad to let it go.
So then I did what any normal person does. I put in two
weeks and immediately scheduled all of the doctors appoint-
ments I could before losing my insurance.
One of these doctors appointments led to a shock-
ing discovery: a huge cyst on my ovary that might be
cancerous.
They said because of my age at the time (23) it was stress in-
duced.
I was floored.
The pains in my stomach were from stress like I thought. I
did not think, however, that I was developing a cancerous
cyst.
It was so bad that before surgery my doctor told me
that she might not be able to save any of my repro-
ductive system.
She couldn't know for sure what they were dealing with until
she went in there and poked around, but if it was indeed can-
cer I would have to have a hysterectomy.
If it wasn't cancer then she would try to remove just the cyst.
If the cyst had already caused too much damage to my or-
gan, she'd have to take out the entire ovary and fallopian
tube.
I went under the knife without knowing how it would turn
out. When I woke up, my first thought was 'can I make ba-
bies still?!'
It wasn't cancer, but they did have to remove half of my re-
productive system. That's when I asked myself whether or
17
not I would have taken that job if I knew the price would be
one of my organs.
Chances are, I would have said no.
I will never ever let anyone put me under that kind of stress
ever again. I am not going to try to live according to some-
one else's terms when it puts my health in danger. It's not
worth it.
That's how bad it can get if you are a free spirit and not true
to yourself.
I promised myself from that day forward that I would life my
life my way. Living my life someone else's way nearly ruined
me.
Dirty Challenge #5
Do you have a job that puts you under an inordinate amount
of stress? What about a family member, or a friend?
Dont think for a second that there is no connection between
the mind and the body. I know first hand how close that con-
nection really is.
When your mind continues to put the body under so much
stress, and you ignore the warning signs (such as anxiety, in-
somnia, irritability, fatigue, etc) it takes matters into its own
hands.
You will pay the price for disowning the needs of your body.
It may not be in the form of an ovarian cyst. It may not even
be identifiable.
It may just come in the shortening of your life, or the pres-
ence of a disease later in life.
Nothing that youre doing right now is worth sacrificing your
health.
Ask yourself if you would be willing to give a part of a major
organ for what youre doing right now.
Ask yourself if youd be willing to give a few years of your
life. Bargain with yourself and sound how ridiculous it is.
Which organ? How many years, give or take?
Would you entertain such a discussion with an employer or
with a person?
18
If you've read the previous points, you will know that I do not
come from a family of prestige.
I come from a very humble background. Most of my family
can't fathom leaving NYC, let alone the country.
Nevertheless I was determined to travel the world.
19
DIRTY SECRET #6
I went to Europe when I was 18 without any money, without any exposure to travel,
without any idea of what I was doing.
I had just finished my freshman year of college and all of my
friends were going on trips and leaving the country and I
thought, "If only I had the means to do that.
Well I won't go into details, just in case, BUT I managed to
do a little bit of hocus pocus with my student loans (again, I
will not divulge the details just in case it was not 100% legit)
and all of a sudden I had an extra $2000.
That wasn't enough to do what I wanted to do, but it was
enough to buy a plane ticket and make some hostel reserva-
tions. I knew that if I bought the ticket, there would be no go-
ing back.
So what did I do?
I bought the damn ticket!
Once it became a reality, I did some more hocus pocus with
my student loans and managed to travel in Europe for two
weeks on my own.
No borrowing money from my parents.
All me.
Dirty Challenge #6
Who says you have to have a lot of money to go to Europe?
Who says you can't go to europe by yourself when you are 18
years old and broke and know nothing about the world yet?
Im not saying to get yourself in debt. Thats the last thing
Im advocating.
What Im saying is that you should never be afraid to do
something just because you dont know.
Be spontaneous. Figure it out on the way.
Dont try to know everything. Planning is great and every-
thing, but theres nothing more fun than winging it.
When was the last time you did something spontaneous with
no real plan?
Do it and let me know how it goes. Whats the worst that can
happen?
Anything short of financial destruction or death is a victory.
Because everything else because just a great story to tell.
20
Ever since I can remember I've been extremely resentful of any-
one telling me to do anything.
The minute something is demanded of me I will instinctively try
to avoid doing it. There's something about it that's always made
me extremely anxious.
That's probably why I've had so many jobs. I've never held a job
for more than a year.
Whether it was working at Quiznos when I was 15 or working at
Fortune 500 company when I was 23, I could never last more
than a year.
21
DIRTY SECRET #7
I was born with an intense adverse reaction whenever I am told to do
something.
It's because I have an intense desire to be able to do what I
want to do, when I want to do it.
I resent anything that restrains me from that.
I can't tell you how many times I've quit jobs because it inter-
fered with something important to me.
I just didn't show up ever again.
I stopped showing up to high school when I started getting
nothing out of it and it turned into just a mindless obligation.
All of these irresponsible acts stem from the fact that I abso-
lutely hate being told what to do and when to do it without a
really good reason that I believe in.
I dont follow laws that I reason to be ridiculous.
I dont obey rules that have no meaning.
Even when it is a task that I enjoy, I'm still resistant to do it
when someone mandates it.
I think this is the primary characteristic that drove me to
where I am.
I would never have stood a chance in the corporate world.
I'm a terrible employee. I don't do anything unless I believe
in it fully.
I've tried to change that but it's fundamental to who I am.
I've learned to accept it and appreciate it.
Dirty Challenge #7
Is there something about you thats been getting you into
trouble your whole life?
Have you been trying, and failing, to resist it and change your-
self so that you can adapt into the adult world?
When theres something fundamental to our nature, that liter-
ally defines who we are as an individual, theres no point in
fighting it (unless you truly dont want to be that way).
What you resist will persist. The best way to handle it is to
stop resisting it and adapt. Either the problem will go away,
or youll live a more stress-free life now that youre not chal-
lenging yourself.
22
It's one thing to know that you don't like to be bossed around by
the manager of a children's shoe store.
It's quite another thing to not want to be bossed around by the
company you've committed yourself to for life. I thought that I
would get over it.
When I was in college and I got the job, I thought 'Well I guess
I'll just have to wise up and stop being so impulsive.'
I found out that you don't just quit your DNA.
I thought it would be different with a 'real job' because of the
implications.
23
DIRTY SECRET #8
I've never held a job for more than a year. Not
even a 'real' job.
It didn't take long for me to realize that when I say I don't
like anyone bossing me around, that includes the person that
is determining my raises, promotions, and future within the
company.
I don't give shit who you are. If you are asking me to believe
in something I don't buy into, I just won't listen to you.
At first I thought that I was a crazy, self-sabotaging psycho-
path who wanted to live a life of fear and uncertainty until I
died of a nervous breakdown.
I wasn't any of those things. I was a free spirited, uncontrolla-
ble force of nature that demanded a life on her own terms.
I was so anxious and afraid that I was going to fail at life until
I found out that you can't fail at a life you don't believe in.
Failing at life means failing at what you have de-
fined to be the purpose of your life, not what others
have defined to be the purpose of everyone else's
life.
This was huge for me. This meant that instead of failing at
life, I was an impostor in someone else's life!
It took me two corporate jobs to figure this out.
It wasn't that Fortune 500 company was just too big and op-
pressive. The last company I worked for was small and gave
me a ton of freedom but the same thing happened.
I couldn't live the life of an impostor, so I quit for good.
I promised myself I would never let anyone lure me back into
the false sense of security that working for someone else gives
you. I'm not cut out for it and I never will be.
Now that I've come to terms with that, I am no longer anx-
ious or worried or afraid of failing. I feel liberated and happy
and free and finally in my element. I'm living my life on my
terms and I can't fail at that.
Dirty Challenge #8
If youre anxious and worried all of the time, ask yourself if
youre living your own life, or if youre trying to live someone
elses life.
24
A lot of people who've heard of Ayn Rand either really love her
or really really hate her.
I really love her.
25
DIRTY SECRET #9
Ive entered the $10,000 Atlas Shrugged essay contest once. I've read Atlas Shrugged twice. I've listened to it on
audio once. I use her it as inspiration for my
writing.
I love her so much because she is directly responsible for
teaching me that my life is about me and I should
never apologize for it.
She answered questions for me that I never knew that I had.
She interpreted emotions that I could feel but not name.
Before reading Atlas Shrugged, I always felt cold and insensi-
tive while also being super emotional and empathetic. I
couldn't reconcile these two distinguished parts of myself.
After reading Atlas Shrugged I found out that the cold and
insensitive part of me was the part that was screaming for me
to be able to live a life of my own.
A life where I didn't have to love a father that never loved me
back.
A life where everything that I did and earned was mine and I
could be proud of it.
The emotional and empathetic part was my love for the indi-
vidual.
I hated to see anyone suffer or lose because I always feel the
burning rage of injustice when bad stuff happens to good
people; when things are taken away from good people for no
reason.
I respected that persons individual rights and I wanted them
to be able to express those rights without fearing repercus-
sions.
I highly recommend that you read Atlas Shrugged.
I promise that it will help you solidify your belief that you
have the right to your own life and you're worth it.
No matter what anyone tells you.
Dirty Challenge #9
Consume (read/listen) Atlas Shrugged.
Consume it once to get the idea.
Consume it again to understand it.
Consume it a third time because you love it.
26
I told you that it wasn't going to be your ordinary ebook. I have some tricks of the trade when it comes to business, but that's not
what A Life on Your Terms is really all about.
It's about waking up and smelling the tacos.
It's about choosing who you want to be.
It's about waking up and making volitional choices on how to act and what to believe.
It's about understanding what you believe and holding those beliefs without guilt or apologies.
It's about understanding the value of your life and how important it is that you spend the finite time that you have on this planet do-
ing what you love.
It's about realizing that if you spend your time here doing what makes you smile, it will result in making everyone around you smile.
People who are happy like to give.
It's about walking a path down a road of your choosing with a conscious understanding of what every footstep means to you and
your life.
xxvii
Final Words
Chapter 2
The 7 Laws For Living a Life on Your Terms are the
seven lifestyle commitments I believe need to be made in
order to fully live a life on your terms.
I believe that if you leave out even one of them, your
chances for happiness and fulfillment plummet.
As you read, I encourage you to identify the laws you
need the most work in, and start there. Notice how the
quality of your life increases.
It is a lifelong journey, but its an attainable one and I
hope youll be brave enough to make the leap.
7 LAWS
You are alive for an average of 674,968 hours.
If you dont mind, Id like to do some math here. Lets say that
youre thirty years old.
That means that youve already lived 262,974 hours.
By the end of this section youll have 411,993 hours left
until youre dead.
On average, you will spend a third of your life sleeping. If you
are thirty now, you will only have 274,662 hours left to be awake
and alive and living.
I assume that youll also be pooping and showering and things
of that nature, so for the sake of argument, lets just round this
number down to an even 250,000 hours of good life.
From now until the end of your existence, you have 250,000
waking hours. I know this doesnt sound like we have a shortage
2
THE FIRST LAW
Do Work You Love
in time, but just think that youve already spent more
hours on this earth than you have left to really live.
You will spend most of this time working or doing something
related to work. Whether its doing work, talking about work,
traveling for work, thinking about work, commuting for work,
buying clothes for work, buying supplies for work, planning
for work, etc.
If you had to spend the majority of the rest of your waking
hours doing one thing, would it be something you absolutely
hate to do?
Question withdrawn. Dont answer that.
Why in the world would you not make the effort to spend the
majority of the rest of your life doing something you love?
By the way, you are now at least 30 seconds more dead than
you were before you got here. Times-a-tickin.
Why is so it important?
Its a Matter of Life or Death
When you graduate college, or high school, or graduate
school, looking for a job is not just one of your choices, its
mandatory.
Not finding a job after college is a social and physical death
sentence. How will you eat? How will you pay back those
student loans. What will everyone think?
Creating a job for yourself isnt even given any thought
because its literally unthinkable. That is because the risk is
believed to be too great.
Working for a large company means security, safety, and a
lifelong guarantee of health benefits for yourself and your
family.
Working for a large company used to mean that, yes.
I think that, to our parents, that may have been a reality.
Today, for us, its naive and dangerous to think that
finding a job in a corporation will keep us safe.
That means that everyone who sacrificed their dreams and
passions to secure a job in a corporation in hopes of locking
down lifetime security are just living on borrowed time.
3
Theyre skating on thin ice covered by two feet of beautiful
white snow. They cant tell that just under their feet is a
platform made up of just one quarter of an inch of ice and,
underneath that, miles of freezing water. That platform can
crack at any moment. They probably will never see it
coming.
You will never see it coming.
And when you find yourself treading water and freezing to
death you wont be able to figure out what to do next because
your entire life was tied up in a cause that abandoned you.
The life you built doesnt exist anymore and you have to start
from square one.
This is why doing work that you love is so
important.
Because even if you decide to take the chance and walk on
thin ice, when it breaks you will know what to do because
youve identified what drove you to walk on that ice in the
first place. It wasnt security. It wasnt safety. It was passion.
You knew it wasnt secure and it wasnt safe. so you tied
yourself to a rock on the surface just in case your investment
fell through. If it does, you can use that rope to get back to
the surface and use another medium to fulfill your passion.
It is possible to find a job that you can deal with for the
majority of your life and not suffer any major trauma. Its
also possible to find a job that you love and you stick with for
your whole life because all of your passion is wrapped up in
your daily work.
The point is to do it by choice. Im not saying that in order
to do work you love you have to work for yourself. Im saying
that you have to be fully aware that no matter where you
work, youre not safe. So you might as well find something
that you love early rather than later. This way your path is
always clear, and when the ice breaks, you wont drown.
Winners and Losers in the Game of
Life
Remember that horrible feeling of waking up to a screaming
alarm telling you to get your butt out of bed so that you can
4
get to work or school on time? Do you remember that
amazing feeling of realizing that it was Saturday? You told
that alarm where it could put its whining and went straight
back to bed.
On average, you experience more of the first feeling than the
second feeling. Which is why the second feeling is so
incredibly awesome.
What if you could have the second feeling more than the first
feeling? Then the first feeling wouldnt be so bad because it
would be so rare.
Its possible you know. I do it every day.
Every day I wake up with more energy than I ever did when
I had to do work that I didnt love. Im happier, my
relationships are healthier, Im healthier, my overall quality
of life is better.
I have less to complain about. I have more love for life than I
ever thought possible.
Its important because living is more than just being
alive.
The people who succeed at being more than just alive are
the people whove found a deeply rooted passion or love for
something. No, not someone. Something. The someone plays
a different role.
They are the people who have found something that drives
them so hard that they can and will endure months or even
years of uncertainty, loneliness, and financial scares.
They never give up. They may slow down, but they
never stop. These are the people who are really alive. They
arent coasting through life or waiting to be called for a job
interview. They are actively creating their own future.
Maybe they are working as a file organizer for the assistant
of the President of a company that they are in love with and
want to be a part of. Maybe they do that for years and slowly
move up to fill roles they are passionate about.
Maybe they are working as unknown writers and artists and
mathematicians in their bedrooms, putting their name out as
much as possible and creating a community of other writers
5
and artists and mathematicians in order to create a
movement.
Maybe they are bloggers trying to start a revolution in the
world.
It doesnt matter who they are and what they do. You know
them when you hear them talk about their work.
If youre not one of them, you know them because inside
you envy them for that extra energy and life in their eyes
that you dont have.
If youre not one of them, you know them because they
make the world a more colorful place full of human
beings that have come alive in ways that just being conscious
could ever be mistaken for.
If youre not one of them, you know them because they
inspire you, or they inspire people that you know.
If youre not one of them, you may wonder why its such a
big deal and how work can be anything more than a way to
put food on the table.
Its a big deal, because the difference between
someone who is doing work that they love, and
someone who is doing work they hate, is the
difference between someone who is in a coma, and
someone who is walking along the Great Wall of
China.
If you are one of them, you know why doing work that you
love is so important. You know, because if it was taken away
from you, youd only be half alive.
Whether you are one of them or not, you know them
because they are the ones winning at life.
Thats why its so important. Because its the
difference between coming in second or third, or
winning at life.
If its so great, then why isnt everyone
doing it?
Conditioning
6
Weve been separating work and play since we were children.
The stuff that you had to do, the stuff that you never
wanted to do was work, and the stuff that you wanted to do
was playing or free time.
This is why subjects such as Art, Theater, and Music arent
considered real majors. No one goes to college to major in 15th
Century French Poetry because of all of the wonderful job opportunities.
They did it because they loved it.
Posturing
Everyone around us pretended like they loved their job.
We get lectures in 2nd grade from parents about what they
do at their job and how awesome it is.
When was the last time you heard of a parent walking into a
grade school class and looking all of the wide-eyed children
in the face and saying Work will suck your soul dry and
leave you cynical, clinically depressed, and forever in denial
about your condition. But dont let that get you down! It
must be done so get to it!
Confusion
The intersection of the above two points led people to
believe that if you are having fun, you arent working.
Boss sees you laughing? You must be watching distasteful
comics.
You walk around smiling? Youre getting it on with a co-
worker in the conference room.
You come to work early? Youve got your eye on a promotion
and a raise.
You do more than required? Youre sucking up.
None of these behaviors are attributed to work, but they are
what I do every day.
Why is it that work, by definition, has to be unpleasant?
When I tell people that I love what I do, they cant seem to
fathom that I spend all of my time doing something that I
like. They wait anxiously for me to tell them about some part
of the job that sucks; sometimes by pushing and prodding
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and asking leading questions to get me to fess-up and tell the
truth about all of the horrible things that I must have to do.
Only when I confirm that there are periods of
unpleasantness do they calm down. They sigh in relief and
think everyone has to suffer for work. What they refuse to
think (what they blank out) is that they dont want it to
be possible. They dont want to find out that its possible to
do work that you love, because then it means that theyve
wasted their whole life.
This worries me.
Im worried about my fellow humans.
Im worried that they think that work is something that they
have to do and not something that they want to do.
Im worried that when they find something they only kind of
dislike they think theyve hit the jackpot.
Im worried that most people will spend the majority of their
entire life doing something they hate.
This worries me because the longer it goes on, the harder its
going to be for me to convince people that work is not
something you do out of necessity, its something you do
because you need to do productive work as a human
to have self esteem.
You do it because you want to live, and idleness is
the opposite of life.
You do it because producing makes you proud to be
you.
You continue to get better at it because it gives you a
sense of efficacy and self-worth.
You try harder every day because it makes you
happy to leave behind a legacy worth working for.
You push through the hard days because you know that, in
the end, you will have created something to be admired.
Admired by you and by others.
Prestige
8
Gaining prestige is exactly like doing something out of
character to gain popularity in high school. Its dangerous to
your health both physically and mentally its artificial, it
doesnt last, and its detrimental to your self-esteem.
When you seek to gain prestige, you are looking to gain
admiration from society, which has inflated the importance
of specific titles or types of work.
Im not saying that these professions arent important. Im
asking why you think that becoming a doctor is more
important than becoming a dog trainer?
Most people would automatically say that the doctor is more
important without even thinking about what kind of doctor
they are, or asking if they are even a good doctor.
My point is that doing something just because you want
others to look up to you, and not because you like it, is a
surefire way to end up an insecure and unhappy human
being.
Dont become a doctor if you hate medicine.
Dont become a lawyer if you hate to read.
Dont become an engineer if you hate math.
Dont become a novelist if youre not interested in telling
stories.
If your goal is to become prestigious, then you need to live
your own personal legend. You dont need to fight for a
title, award, or recognition from people youve never met,
whose lives are insignificant to you and who dont really care
about you anyway.
Money
Dont get me wrong. I do not think that money is the root of
all evil.
I think that money is the root of all good when its earned
honestly by doing good work that you love which just ends up
contributing to the overall well being of the universe. I think
that people who do great work should be so rich that they
could never spend all of their money no matter how hard
they tried.
9
On the other hand, people who will do anything for money
are on a path to self-destruction.
Money does not bring happiness. Financial security doesnt
bring happiness either. That doesnt stop people from using it
as the ultimate solution to life and all of its problems.Tweet
This
The importance given to money is so great that even loved
ones will encourage you to do something you dont really like
so that you can have a financially secure future. This is
supposed to translate into safe but it doesnt. It translates
into late onset reality check.
How to Find it
Ok so thats all great but how do you find this elusive work
you love?
How to find work you love
The first thing I tell people when they ask this question is to
look at the verb in the sentence how to find work you love.
In case youre rusty on your grammar, the verb is find and
its a verb for a reason.
It requires action.
You literally have to go out and find it. You have to actively
look for it like you would look for a lost dog.
Start by asking yourself these questions:
What comes easily to you? What are things that you do
that you dont have to force yourself to do? Dont limit
yourself to things that you think make sense for work.
If you like getting shitfaced drunk, then write it. Im
not making any promises about the business
opportunities in shitfaced drunkenness, but Im not
writing it off either.
What are you good at? What have people told you that
youre good at? What comes effortlessly to you?
What do you read about? Whether it be books,
magazines, the internet, sidewalk chalk? What topics
do you find fascinating? Are there times when you cant
flick past the History Channel? Does Shark Week on
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the Discovery Channel make you go all warm and
fuzzy inside? Write it all down.
What pisses you off ? What topic could I bring up that
would get your panties in a ruffle? Is it abortion? Is it
government, taxes, beached whales, peeing in
swimming pools, people talking on the phone in
libraries?
What is a major problem in todays world that, if
solved, would make you happier than the Cookie
Monster at the arrival of Girls Scouts at his door?
Maybe its homelessness, hunger, lack of drinking
water, or the fact that there arent enough people in the
USA that know how to parallel park.
Look around your house. Tell me the one thing that
you would consider murdering me for if I took it away
from you. Is it your MacBook? Maybe its your 1980s
overalls or your collection of exercise pole dancing
videos.
After you are done fleshing out the answers to these questions
(and dont forget not to hold back!) sift through your answers
and see if you find any potential business ideas or already
existing jobs.
Try combining them. For example, say that you really love
the Apple brand, youre pissed that they dont have a 17
MacBook Air, and youre a bad ass programmer. Sounds like
a job opportunity there. Thats obvious of course but you get
the point.
You might not find anything. You may have to just start
trying things.
For example, if you really love fashion, but you know youre
not cut out to be a model, then try designing clothes, even if
you think you have no skill at it at all. Maybe all it takes is a
few months of drawing lessons on YouTube to bring out your
inner designer. You may not know that you love it until you
really try it.
Answer the questions I listed out a second time. Once you
start to broaden your knowledge of what is possible in the
world and what you know, the answers above will change.
They wont remain the same. This is an iterative process.
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It goes something like this:
1. Answer questions.
2. Pick something and pursue it will all of your heart and
soul.
3. Test the waters. How do you feel about it? Lukewarm?
Drop it or, if its making money already somehow,
keep doing it on the side.
4. Look at your answers to the questions. Has anything
changed?
5. If not, pick something else and repeat 1-3.
6. Once you find something you love, see if its a viable
business. It could be something you can start yourself,
or perhaps its a job that already exists.
7. If its not, think about what you can modify/change/
remove so that you can monetize it. If its impossible
to monetize, and youve really given it your all, start
the process over again.
See a summary of the process on the next page.
Notice that in the diagram I imply that there is nothing that
cant become a viable business as long as you put in the work.
I imply this because I believe Im speaking to reasonable and
rational people.
It is obvious that no one is going to pay you to get shitfaced
drunk. No matter how you spin it, its probably not going to
work. What might work, however, is becoming a club
promoter/DJ/bartender or whatever job that allows you to
be drunk a lot.
Please note that I think this is a terrible idea and Im not
condoning it. Im only trying to make an extreme point. If
your passion is to get wasted every day, you have problems
and I suggest that you seek professional help.
You may not even find anything on your second try.
It doesnt matter. Keep looking. Its there. It exists.
I promise you, that unless you are a corpse there is
something that you are passionate about.
Dont give up. Dont settle. Dont stop.
For the time being, try to keep the ideas of prestige and
money out of the equation.
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Just dont think about the potential to monetize. If you really
love it that much, youll find a way. Even if that means
adding something to the business to make it monetizable.
If you find something that excites you at first and you find
that it has great market potential, but after a while you begin
to lose interest, then you need to drop that thing like a hot
potato!
Dont go into the light!
Drop it and start over. Or keep doing it but also keep looking
for your passion. Dont settle just because it looks like it will
make money.
How to Find Out if Your Passion Can Be Monetized
Unless you can find a job that youre passionate about,
monetization is the deal breaker when it comes to pursing
one of your ideas.
Im going to refer you to some of my favorite resources on
this subject. Ill write about this topic in future books, but I
dont want you to wait that long. I want you to act now.
13
After sifting through all of the knowledge that Ive gathered
over the years, Ive picked these resources as the best to
follow if you want actionable, reliable, and practical results.
The $100 Startup
This book was only recently published this book, but its one
of the most important business books Ive ever read.
The $100 Startup,by Chris Guillebeau,takes you from
knowing nothing about business, to making a living on your
own, regardless of your skills, how much money you have, or
how old you are.
He makes business something that anyone can do if they
really wanted to. He takes away all thoughts of venture
capitalists, ties, huge investments, and MBAs and instead
focuses on teaching you how you can use what you have
today to create a life for yourself.
The book doesnt leave room for excuses. Although Chris
isnt all about giving tough love, youll be hard pressed to find
a reason why your situation is different. He interviewed
thousands of everyday people just like you and me. All of
them are making a living doing what they love.
If you want something that will show you the way to making
a living off of your passion, step by step, then you need to
buy, borrow, or beg for this book right now.
Escape From Cubicle Nation
Pamela Slims book, Escape From Cubical Nation, has had
the most influence over me and my career.
Its a bit more dense than Chriss book, but its also chock full
of information, resources, and exercises for your business and
your personal life.
Chriss book is perfect for someone whos pretty much
decided that they are ready to take the next step.
Pams book is perfect for someone whos on the fence.
She spends a lot of time talking you through the psychology
of why you feel miserable at your job, why you dont want to
leave, and how to make the move from being an employee to
being self-employed.
14
Her section on entrepreneurship is very real and down to
earth. Possibly a little more conservative than Chris, but not
in a bad way. The $100 Startup talks mostly about businesses
that you can start for very cheap (hence the $100 part), while
Pam covers the spectrum.
I cant recommend this book enough. Its the book that gave
me the courage to quit my first job, and its taken me through
years ofentrepreneurialbattles.
The Four Hour Workweek
This book has gotten a lot ofcriticismover the years, and I
understand why, but this is why I love this book:
Tim doesnt see barriers. He doesnt find them
important. He makes things absolutely simple and his
confidence is contagious.
The book is structured so that you are learning how to
build a business by using passive income techniques &
automation while also learning to get out of your
comfort zone and live a little.
There are a lot of great ideas in this book that arent
developed that thoroughly in Chris or Pams books.
For example he talks a lot more about negotiating flex-
time with your boss, outsourcing your work overseas,
and Lifestyle design.
Tims book is perfect for the person who wants to learn about
lifestyle design and a completely different way of living.This
is the book that got passive income and online business on
my radar.
A word of caution about this book. The point is to get
you to think about how you can run a business and manage
your life differently. There are some exaggerations so you
have to be careful to pick out the real useful stuff and not pay
attention to the four hour work week promise.
Crush It
If you need something to get you motivated to get up and get
moving, look no further.
I listened to Crush It and decided that I no longer needed to
listen to anymore motivational speeches. Gary Vaynerchuk is
enough.
15
This book is about working your face off for your dream. Its
about hustle and determination and energy.
Its also about how to do business in the world we live in
today. Gary covers a lot of social media topics and novel
ways to spread your message.
This book is perfect for anyone who needs a kick in the ass.
Gary doesnt want to hear your excuses about how your
passion is different. He was born in Belarus and is the
product of the real American Dream. Dont even think about
complaining because you just dont know if you can live
without your soy lattes.
Making It to the End
Living a life on your own terms is not possible if you do not
take control of the one thing that you will be spending the
most of your time on.
You have a choice to either work really hard and do what you
love, or take it easy and float through life like a fat man in a
raft on the lazy river.
You are not a victim of circumstance and you are not a
helpless bystander in your life. You have no master and you
are not at the mercy of your instincts like a common dog.
You are a person.You are a human being with potential and
intellect and the wonderful ability to use your mind to make
choices.
You have the right to live the kind of life that will leave you
proud and peaceful in your deathbed.
Now its up to you to make the decision.
16
I want to talk about one theory of happiness, my theory of
happiness, and I think it will change your life.
I want to make a fundamental shift to your psyche that will have
a permanent and lasting impact on how you view
happiness.
And Im not talking about touchy-feely abstract principles.
Im talking about concrete definitions and actions that
you can use to actively create a happier life,
guaranteed.
Before you read this section, take a second to consider these
questions:
1. Are you happy?
2. Do you consider happiness to be the normal state of life?
17
THE SECOND LAW
Happiness is Your Expectation
3. How do you think people achieve happiness?
At the end of the section, Id like you to answer these
questions again and let me know if your perspective changed
in any way.
Isnt Happiness Relative?
Im not saying that the definitionof an individuals
happiness isnt subjective. It is. Thats why Im not going to
go into whats the definition of happiness because I believe
that the answer to that question is subjective.
Its exactly like asking someone what it feels like to
be tickled.
All anyone knows is that it makes you laugh and you freak
out. Other than that, people use all kinds of metaphorical
expressions to explain it.
The important point is that we know what tickling is and
how to go about achieve it.
By the end of this post, you should know what happiness is
and how to go about achieving it. Exactly how you achieve it,
and what happiness feels like is entirely up to you.
Expect a Happy Life
Before you can even begin to achieve any state of happiness,
you have to expect happiness. You cant go around all doom
and gloom expecting for the happy fairy to sprinkle happy
dust on your head.
It doesnt work that way for two reasons. One the happy
fairy is a fictional character I just made up right now, and
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two happiness comes from inside of you and no amount of
happy dust is going to change how you feel on the inside.
Just like most expectations, if you believe that you are
destined to have a life of suffering, supposed to have a life of
suffering, or that happiness isnt possible, then you are right.
Believe that you can and should be happy. Expect that you
will be happy.
Expect happiness like you expect the sun to rise in the
morning and to set at night.
Do you ever think about what you would do if the sun
decided not to go down today? No? Then why do you keep
thinking about suffering?
A less dramatic metaphor is driving to the store to get milk.
Do you get into your car and immediately worry that youre
going to get into a car crash and suffer horrible injuries, or
do you get into the car, turn on the radio, and go get some
damn milk?
You go get the damn milk, right?
Because sitting in the car shaking and sweating
from fear of death before you have even left the
driveway is fucking insane.
We all know that a car accident can happen. We know that it
happens every day. We probably know at least one person
whos been in one.
But you drive so often, that it doesnt occur to you until it
happens (or almost happens).
So you just get into the car subconsciously aware that
accidents happen every day but you arent dwelling on it
because youre too busy driving to get the damn milk.
Thats how you need to treat suffering like an unexpected
car accident that may happen one day but you cant be
bothered to worry about it because youre too busy pursuing
happiness.
Just changing your mindset about suffering will take you a
long way.
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What is Happiness?
Happiness is not a combination of satisfaction and having
more positive emotions than negative emotions. Those are
symptoms of happiness.
Just like that horrible suffocating feeling you get when being
ticked is not the actual tickle itself, its a symptom of it.
There are all kinds of symptoms of happiness, but there is
only one answer to what is happiness.
Happiness is the ultimate goal of a persons life.
Just like making someone freak out is the goal of tickling.
That is really it. Happiness is the ultimate goal of your life.
Where happiness comes from, how happiness feels,
how happy you are, and how you actively achieve
your happiness are all up for grabs. All of those topics are
non-absolute. Not surprisingly, those are all the topics being
studied and explored.
Before you jump to the comments section with your
exclamations of outrage, read the rest of the post.
Achieving Your Own Personal HappinessEveryone is using the symptoms, sources, and achievement of
happiness as the answer to what is happiness.
Just like there are many different ways to tickle someone
(stomach, knees, feet), there are many different ways to
achieve your happiness.
Just like there are many different symptoms of tickling
(laughing, crying, limb spasms), there are many symptoms of
happiness.
Just like there are many different sources a tickler can come
from (people, objects, etc?), there are many sources of
happiness.
However, unlike tickling, there is one way to determine how
you should go about achieving your own personal happiness.
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How you decide to achieve your happiness is
completely dependent upon what you value in your
life.
By value I mean something, anything, that you have to do
something to get or hold onto.
If you value the love of a family, you will achieve your own
happiness by working to raise a happy family.
If you value charity, then you will achieve your own
happiness by working for charitable causes.
If you value having a purpose, then you will achieve your
happiness by doingproductive work that will fulfill your
purpose.
If you value having satisfaction in your work, they you
willachieveyour happiness by doing work you love.
If you value education, then you willachievehappiness by
continuing to educate yourself.
You may value all of these things. I know that I do.
I measure my success in life, my happiness, by seeing how I
am doing in terms of achieving my values. If my family is
happy, and Im giving to causes that I care about, and Im
producing work that makes me proud, Im going to be happy.
Some of you are going to say Well if a murderer likes
murdering, then does that make it ok for him to murder?
No its not.
Because you cant have a truly happy life without
benevolence and justice towards others.
What he thinks is happiness is actually only a brief moment
of respite from the state of chronic misery he lives in.
There are those of you who are going to say Some people
just choose to be happy and then they are just happy?
It doesnt work that way.
Because you cant have a truly happy life without
rationality.
21
Some of you might thing that youll be happy if you just win
the lottery. Then you can sit on the beach sipping Pina
Coladas all day. Thats also not true.
Because you cant be truly happy without
independence, productivity, and pride.
There really isnt any right or wrong way to achieve your
happiness. The only rules are that you do it as a human
being and you do it with your long term happiness in
mind.
What I mean by doing it as a human being is doing it by
your own effort.
You have to act with your long term happiness in mind,
because if you dont you are basically saying you dont plan
on living very long. Since happiness is your lifes GOAL, you
have to think about it as the most long term goal youve ever
had.
That means that just because having promiscuous sex makes
you happy right now, it doesnt mean that its going to align
with your long-term values and goal of happiness.
This is precisely why most people are miserable.
This is Why You Are Unhappy
The primary reason for your misery is that you hold certain
values, but you act a different way.
In other words, you have no integrity.
Here are some common everyday examples of situations
people put themselves in that make them unhappy:
You value satisfaction in work, but you work in a job
that is not satisfying.
You value self-esteem, but you dont treat yourself with
respect.
You value productivity, but you are forced to be idle.
You value love, but you are in a relationship that brings
you pain
You value artistic inspiration but you go to school for
Engineering because it makes you more money.
You value pride, but you take the wealth of others
anyway.
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Similarly, sometimes you hold two values, but one is higher
than the other and you are forced to choose the lower value
because its more socially acceptable:
You value the opinion and support of your parents, but
you really want to be a poet and they want you to be a
lawyer. You become a lawyer.
You value wealth more than you value charity, but you
choose charity so you dont look greedy.
You value your marriage but you value honesty more.
You arent in love with your wife anymore, but you
choose to stay and lie to yourself.
Do you see the problem?
You are constantly in a fight with yourself ! How can you
expect to be happy when you are, literally, your own worst
enemy?
A lot of the time you dont even know that you value
something, so you cant do anything about it.
Im here to remedy that.
How To Identify Your Personal Values and
Live a Happy Life
Its not going to be easy for you to discover your true values.
Youve spent so much time caring about the things you think
you should care about and not enough time discovering what
really moves you inside.
Have no fear! I have come up with a way for you to discover
your values.
Luckily for us, we are guided to a successful state in life by a
simple pleasure/pain mechanism. That which causes long
term pain is the wrong path, and that which causes long term
pleasure is the right path.
This is true for both physical, and emotional success.
If something is causing you to suffer for a substantial amount
of time, its working against your life goal of happiness and
you need to stop interacting with it as soon as possible.
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If something is causing you to feel pleasure for a long period
of time, it is working towards your life goal of happiness and
you need to do more of that.
This is the compass we are going to use to find our values.
Note: This is not a license to just follow your emotions wherever they
take you regardless of consequences. Unlike the physical pleasure/pain
mechanism, your emotional pleasure/pain mechanism is not automatic.
Your emotions are a measuring tool that needs calibration. You calibrate
it with your mind. If your emotions are saying shoot the guy who just
slept with my girlfriend your mind needs to step in andre-calibrateyour
emotions to long term success and not short term satisfaction.
Stop Doing List
The first thing we need to do is cleanse ourselves of the
things in our life not contributing to our life goal of
happiness.
This is where Jim Collins idea of a Stop Doing List comes
in. We need to use our compass to make a list of all things we
need to stop doing.
Again, this is harder than it sounds.
How do you know if something is just sort of unpleasant, or
if its really detrimental to my lifelong goal of happiness?
Does it have to be an actual action or can it be an emotion?
Anything that has been a chronic source of anxiety,
guilt, or suffering needs to be on your Stop Doing
List.
Here are some questions to help you with your list:
What have you been doing for a long time that makes
you feel guilty?
What do you do because you feel like you have to and
not because you want to?
Is there anything that you do that completely zaps your
energy?
Identify any chronic negative feelings that you have,
and try to pinpoint when you have them (i.e. feeling
self-conscious or worried)
Identify the things in your life that make you anxious.
Name the people in your life that make you anxious,
guilty, or sad.
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What do you dread doing?
Start with the things that you can stop right now. Eliminate
them from your life all together.
For example, if makes you angry to always clean up after
someone, whether it be your roommate, strangers, friends,
spouse, or kids, just stop doing it. Make the decision,
announce it, and stop doing it.
Sometimes you cant just immediately stop doing something
so you need to make a Stop Doing Plan.
For example, if you want to stop working at your current job,
you probably need a stop plan.
This also goes with feelings that you want to stop having. For
example, if you are always self-conscious in a swim suit, you
need a plan that will help you stop feeling that way.
The plan includes
1. What you want to stop doing,
2. Why you want to stop doing it (so that you know how
to stop)
3. How you intend to stop
It doesnt matter what the answer to #2 is. If the reason is
because I fucking hate doing it then thats great.
But sometimes its more complicated than that. Sometimes
its not the feeling you want to stop, its the cause of the
feeling. Other times, its not the cause of the feeling you want
to stop, its the feeling itself.
For example, if you feel guilty when you are in a certain
situation or around a certain person, you have to decide
whether or not you have something to feel guilty
about first before you make a plan to eliminate that feeling.
Remember that our emotions are great tools, but they need
calibration from time-to-time.
If you feel that you do deserve the guilt, you need to do
something (or stop doing something) to eliminate the feeling.
If you feel that you dont deserve the guilt, you need to
remove the person, belief, or situation thats causing your
guilt from your life.
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On the other hand, if you know for a fact that you just hate
your job with a fiery passion unmatched by anything thats
ever existed in the universe, you probably want to stop the
job, not the fiery passionate hate you feel for the job.
Keep Doing List
After youve determined what you want to stop doing, use the
same process to decide what you want to keep doing. Identify
all of the things in your life that contribute to your lifelong
goal of happiness.
Here are some questions to help you with this exercise.
What do you do that gets you excited?
Who makes you feel like the energizer bunny?
What do you do that makes you feel like the energizer
bunny?
What do you do that makes you proud?
When do you have the most confidence?
What things in your life leave you feeling peaceful?
When do you feel the most giving?
When do you feel like you are glowing with so much
joy you might burst?
All of these questions are basic symptoms of happiness. So
when youre feeling one of these things, keep doing it!
These are your values.
I repeat, anything on your Keep Doing List can be stripped
down to core values.
For example, writing this blog gives me energy. It makes me
want to give all that Ive got and Im incredibly proud of it. I
also know from experience that idleness makes me feel like
crap.
From knowing that, I know that I like doing productive work
that helps people in any way because it makes me feel like
Im really contributing to the world.
Going further, I know that I value productivity that makes a
difference and self-worth.
I need to keep doing things that make me feel truly
productive (not busy), and things that make me feel useful.
Here is a second example I feel at peace and full of love
and joy when Im spending time with my family.
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I know that I value family bonds and I will keep doing things
that make those bonds as strong as possible.
Start Doing List
The last step is to write your Start Doing List part of which
comes from your Stop Doing Plan.
In your Stop Doing Plan, you outlined how you were going
to stop doing things that dont contribute to your life goal of
happiness. All of these actions go on your start doing list.
Its important to clean up whats going on in your life right
now first before you begin adding things to your Start
Doing list. Get good at identifying what your values are,
achieving them, and then feeling the pure happiness that
comes with it.
If youve done that, you can start totally new things that you
believe align with your values and, therefore, will make you
happy.
Its not guaranteed, which is why we always stop and evaluate
how things are going along the way.
Here are some questions to help you with your Start Doing
List:
Name some things on your keep-doing list. Is there any
way you can expand on those things?
Is there anything you used to do that you stopped
doing because of responsibilities?
Do you have a bucket list? If not, make one.
Do something youre not sure you even really want to
do but youve always been fascinated by it (learn to
play a sport, learn to knit, etc.
Try things you dont think youll like, but you dont
necessarily know why (i.e. be a vegetarian for two
months, stop washing your hair, etc)
Volunteer (maybe you dont know it yet, but you really
value the lives of animals)
All of the possibilities are impossible to capture, but I hope
that you get the point.
If youre really into processes like I am, you can also make a
plan for your Start Doing List points. It might go something
like this.
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1. Identify what you want to start doing.
2. Decide approximately how long you are going to do
this thing before you decide that it doesnt add to your
overall happiness or, in the case that the item comes
from your Stop Doing Plan, its not working.
3. Choose a new item from your Start Doing List or
come at the current item from a different direction.
See a summary of the process on the right.
This is, of course, a lifelong process. You can never be
finished achieving your values, because they all take upkeep.
All values need to be maintained.
Just because youve finally found a job that is satisfying,
doesnt mean it will stay that way. You will always need to
challenge yourself.
Then there are those really dark days when you completely
fall off of the bandwagon.
Youve forgotten what your values are. You dont remember
why you were doing this in the first place. You lapse into
unhappiness again.
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Dont worry about it.
It took me five years to develop my theory of happiness and
how to achieve it. It took all of that time to really be happy
and true to myself.
And I still mess up. Im still unhappy sometimes. When that
happens I just stop and dig around to try to find where the
conflict is.
Its always a conflict of personal values or interests. You need
to find the conflict and eliminate it. Thats what the Stop
Doing, Start Doing, and Keep Doing lists are for.
So when you find that youre lost again just go back to the
list.
Youll find your way back here, and when you do Ill be
waiting.
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Where do you spend the most time looking for self-respect,
within yourself, or outside of yourself ?
Dont lie! Really think about it. Really think about the last time
you were by yourself and you did something, or you thought
something that made you look yourself in the mirror and say,
Youre awesome.
Its so rare that we look inside of ourselves for self-confidence.
Were always looking every where else.
We want people to tell us that were good, we want them to
validate our feelings and ourexistence.
When they dont, our self esteem suffers, when they do, we feel
like Gods. Its a temporary highequivalentto that of a meth-
head feeling invincibleuntil the high wears off and you have
to go out looking for your next fix or boost of self-esteem.
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THE THIRD LAW
Respect Yourself
It sounds something like this:
If only I could get a promotion
If only I were more attractive then
If only I could get a biggerapartmentthen
If only I had 2340456 MILLION subscribers to my
blog, then
Does that sound familiar? I know that it does. I know that, at
some point, youve felt this way.
Well lets put an end to that shit shall we?
To letanyoneoranythingelse have an effect on how
you feel about your self is a god damn crime against
humanity.
And by humanity I mean yourself.
Because thats what Im talking about.
It doesnt matter what anyone else thinks about you except
for you. You have to live with yourself every single day. You
have to love yourself.
You have to take responsibility for yourself.
And that means that you have to find value inside of yourself,
because depending on things that are outside of your control
is not only stupid, its dangerous.
Its dangerous to your mental health. If it gets bad enough,
its dangerous to your physical health.
I cant have my readers dropping like flies because they
decided they would put their entire self-worth into someone
elses hands. Its bad for business.
So were going to fix this, right here, right now.
To do this, I have to start at the beginning.
You ready?
Groovy. Lets do it.
What is self-esteem?
The answer to the question what is self-esteem is completely
different from the answer to the question what does self
esteem look like?.
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Self-esteem is made up of your self-confidence and
your self-respect.
Self-confidence, meaning that youre confident in your ability
to think, learn, decide, and respond to change.
Self-respect, meaning that you think success, achievement,
fulfillment, and happiness are what you naturally deserve.
The judgment you make on yourself, which manifests itself
as your self-esteem, has everything to do with what you value,
what your goals will be, who youll sleep with, and who your
friends are.
Self-esteem isnt a juvenile concept people came up with to
help kids and teenagers make it through public school and
puberty.
Its critical to having a happy and successful life.
What do I mean by a successful life?
Well, for example, the more resilient you are (the more self-
esteem you have), the more you fight through adversity, the
more creative the work you produce, the better relationships
you have, the more respectful you are, the more self-respect
you have, the more joy you experience in the simple fact of
just being alive, and the more successful you are in life.
In my opinion, your self esteem is the most important asset
you have, and it should be treated that way. It should be
strengthened and nurtured constantly.
If youve struggled with self-esteem and self-confidence like I
have, youre going to want to hear this.
You are an intelligent and competent human being.
You are worthy of a happy life. You deserve good
things. You have the ability to succeed. And if you
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dont believe in every single one of those
statements, I beg you to stay with me to the end.
In short, self-esteem is the reflection of how we feel
about our competence and worth as a person.
IMPORTANT: Having self-esteem doesnt mean just feeling great about
yourself at the moment. Those feelings are temporary. You may continue
to feel great about yourself until something bad happens.How you
handle adversity tells you much more about your self-esteem than how
you feel on a day-to-day basis in average situations.The more solid your
self-esteem is, the better you are at coping with adversity; the faster you
recover; and the more energy you have when you start over. Setbacks dont
stop people with high self-esteem.
Do you have high self-esteem? Are you sure?
Before you walk away brushing dirt off of your shoulders,
lets make sure that your self-esteem is grounded in reality and
its not invested in any false values. Lets also make sure that
youre not in denial or delusional.
You may not know that you have low self-esteem. I know it
sounds weird, but Ive found MANY people who werent
aware that they had low self-esteem.
Questions to ask yourself:
Do you have a history of being in destructive
relationships? Men/Women with high self-esteem
do not want to be with Women/Men that have low
self-esteem (dependence, jealousy, etc.)
Do confident people threaten you? Confident
people make less confident people feel as if the
confident person is personally insulting them.
Do you treat others well? People with low self-
esteem sometimes try to make themselves feel better by
putting others down.
Do you expect others to treat you well? If you
have high self-esteem, you expect to be treated with
respect and you wont tolerate anything less.
Do you seek demanding goals, or do you prefer
the comfort of the known? -People with low self-
esteem are weaker, less resilient, unable to cope, and
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unable to handle lifes problems, and they remain
convinced of the fact that they just cant ha