Do you sabotage your own success? In this episode, Jimmy shares three ideas to help you achieve success and live a life more productively.
Episode Keys
- The most dangerous two-word phrase in the English language!
- How to live a more positively, productive life each day.
- When you should focus your energies on achieving your goals.
- Who you should minimize in your life to expand your positivity.
- How to redefine your life by creating a new story with you as the star!
Podcast Transcript
Hey, this is Jimmy Williams, your host with the most here at Live A Life By Design, your Monday morning moments of motivation and coming to you live today, just trying to share that good positive, powerful, productive news to help you have the best week possible. You know, we have only one goal here on Live Life by Design, and that goal is for you to be the biggest, best and boldest person that you wish to be. I wanna share today with you something that I think has really been an issue with a lot of our generation. You know, I’m a very young 57 year old and, and that, hey, that is young, right? If it’s in your mindset, and I do wanna let you know today, I am going to live as a goal to the age of 124. Now, before you start laughing and think I’ve been drinking some kind of you know, mimosa or something this morning that I haven’t been, by the way, been very healthy breakfast, oatmeal’s always good for you, have worked through a process of thinking about all of the goals that I have in my life that I wish to leave as a legacy for my family and friends and those who wish to read about me in the next century.
You know, we’re in 2022 here and I’m only 57, so I’m trying to get to the year 20 100 if I, or excuse me, 2100 if I can get there. That’s that’s quite a feat. And so my point is, I think with medical advancement and I think with everything I’m trying to do to stay healthy, I play pickle ball three to four nights a week, work out the other three or four days of the week, and, and eat well reasonably well. So you know, how many of us here have a problem? This sweet tooth, right? So I wanna talk about a few things today that have a basis in your mindset as to philosophy of life. Now, before you turn it off and say, Oh my gosh, I don’t wanna hear this abstract story, I’ve got some real tangible strategies that we’re gonna talk about in here that are going to serve you very well if you only, and there’s the hint, if only you have the right mindset.
So during my lifetime, I’ve changed my philosophy about many things taxes, for example, economics, people, philanthropy, et cetera. This podcast is based on a personal development and maintenance of a good philosophy of life. Now, what is your philosophy of life? Do you even have a philosophy? Well, I’ve got news for you. You have a philosophy of life. It may not be the one you desire, but it is the one you’re currently living. Unless you frame it in the mindset that you wish to have. This episode, we will share with you the best methods that we maintain a positive and powerful mindset that conquers life challenges. The first step to me is changing your philosophy of life by implementing a positive outcome mindset. It is so easy for us to believe the worst in people in activities in our government, et cetera, and allow this poison to permeate our entire way of life and thinking.
I have a friend who always faces a challenge with a white flag in hand. They’re ready to give up before they even understand what the challenge fully is. She has never felt she could win the game of life when she has surrendered before the battle even begins. I spoke with her and she starts her response to my comments and questions with one of the most powerful phrases in the English language. If only this short two word phrase has stymied many otherwise capable individuals to a life of defeat and mediocrity, all of us have a story our lives tell others. Your mind has a story that it tells you, but you can control the plot and the ultimate ending, the manner in which you speak to yourself bears fruit in your life. For example, in her most recent book, Choose Your Story, Change Your Life.
Bestselling author Kendra Hall, provides excellent guidance on how to silence your inner critic i e that’s your mind and rewrite your life from the inside out. This book is an easy read, but packed with practical information that will help the readers set themselves up on a path to greater success. We have all heard from our parents at one time or another that money doesn’t grow on trees. This is actually a true statement. However, the concept of value is a belief system created to maintain our economic system in the United States. If someone hands you a $100 bill, you understand and acknowledge it has value, you can use that same bill to buy dinner or your favorite para socks, and the merchant will accept the bill as payment based on the value they perceive it possesses. If your belief system in our economy is true, well, why don’t you have more of the value you believe in?
This is where the quote, if only phrase begins, and the excuses start flowing. If only my employer paid me more for salary, if only the government did not take so much of my paycheck in taxes, if only new cars didn’t cost so much, if only I had the same chances afforded some of my wealthier friends. If only, if only, if only. The second step to this positively powerful mindset philosophy is to think about life in 24 hour blocks of time you have only today to live. So do your best to live it as you wish.
In his award-winning book, and one of my favorite authors, by the way, a better way to live, author Ag Mandino gives us 17 rules to a better life. In rule number seven, he clearly prescribes the positive mindset tool that helps us achieve greatness each day. His prescription is that we live each day as a special gift from God. And while life may not always be fair, you must never allow the pains, hurdles, and handicaps of the moment to poison your attitude and plans for yourself and your future. You can never win when you wear the cloak of self pity and the sour sound of whining will certainly frighten away any opportunity for success, never again. There is a better way. That is a powerful philosophy to maintain. Now lastly, stop comparing your life to others front stage. I’m often remembering the many interviews some of the wealthiest people on the planet gave in my lifetime and their reference to immediate wealth over a 20 year period of work, Sweat and sacrificed.
There was nothing immediate about it, but on the front stage during the interview, it appears that they’ve always been uber successful, that they’ve always had a great degree of confidence, but that wasn’t always. So all we see is the private jet, the yacht, and the harbor and the mansion surrounded by exotic trees and swimming pools. No one noticed them when they were struggling to fund their startup companies. You can and will achieve greatness as you define it. If you will simply believe in yourself, change your life story to a more positive outcome and compare your success to your life of yesterday. Are you a better person, wealthier person than you were yesterday? That to me is the proper yardstick for your success. Don’t compare your life to others front stage. Another thing about this philosophy approach is that is something you can initiate today, this morning.
You can have the mindset that I’m going to live today to its fullest. You can take out your planner, your phone, whatever you do to record your goals for the day, your activities that you wish to do, not what you only have to do, or as I like, say, get to do. But it’s important that that mindset you have is one that rewards you and motivates you to pick up your feet and keep moving forward even when the terrain is, it is most difficult. You know, I’m the type of person that I do not give others free rent in my mind by focusing on their success and not working on my own.
You have to live the life for you. We can’t emulate others and expect our life to reach its fulfilled purpose. You were put on the planet for a specific reason. You must find that reason, and I’m often reminded of Mark Twain’s quote where he said, There’s two most important days in your life. First one is the day that you were born. That makes great sense. But the second most important day is the day that you understand and learn why. That one is the tougher of the two. It is my life to be lived in my way. You can claim the same for yourself. Stop thinking about all the things that could go wrong and start focusing on all those things that will go right in life. This week You challenge is to do a checkup from the neck up. As Zig Ziglar would say, Listen to yourself and control your mindset to think of all the positive factors in your life.
You will have a better day each day when you live as if today is your last. Go ahead. Live a life by your design. Thank you for joining me this week and soon we’ll have Lori Few back with us as she’s been taking just a little sabbatical of her own. Hopefully she’s enjoying life to the fullest as I know she probably is. Thank you for joining us. Look us up on Facebook at our Live a Life By Design page. We want to hear from you. It is critical to us that we are making a difference and as we make a difference, we want to understand and hear from you as to what we can do to be even more impactful. This is Jimmy Williams with Live a Life By Design. I hope and trust you have the most wonderful of day to day and the most positive week ever. Go ahead. Live your life by design.
