Life is short (How to spend it wisely)

Life is short, terrifyingly short.

Humans live, on average, 80 years.
This translates to roughly 4,000 weeks or 29,000 days.

Most of us sleep, unless you’re not human.
(If that's the case, I have more questions…)

Assuming we sleep 8 hours a night, we are left with, if we’re lucky,
53 years of conscious life time.

This isn’t meant to depress you.
It’s to underscore the importance of living and experiencing a reality of your own creation.

The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity:

When we don’t clarify what we want, we are told what we want and automatically believe it.

For the longest time, I thought success was all about fancy cars, big houses, high-paying jobs, and lavish lifestyles…

Eventually, I realised this was just an industrial age dream, sold to me by society.

I knew pursuing this goal (that wasn’t truly mine) was making me miserable.

So I searched and searched for alternatives.
There had to be a way to escape this trap set for me.

I became so desperate, anxious, and depressed that dropping $10k on a course seemed like pocket money to me.

So I did it…

What I found changed my life forever.
(You would hope so, my wallet never recovered…)

Mediation. But not just any mediation…

I was about to fake my own death, and I had no idea.

It was a day like any other:

I woke up at 5am, worked out until 7am, and started laying flooring at 7:30am. By the end of the day, I was absolutely exhausted with an aching back to boot.

Finally, I arrived home, opened my laptop, and started my coursework.

That day's task was an exercise called “Your Spiritual Rebirth.”

I didn’t think much of it and went straight into the meditation.

I lay on the floor, breathed deeply, and relaxed myself entirely.
This relaxation period was very long; I felt as though my body had sunk into and through the floor.

I was then walked through this scenario...

It was a day identical to the one I had: driving home from work, I approached an intersection and glimpsed a driver hurtling toward me with no chance of slowing down.

I was dead in an instant.
Life as I knew it vanished.

But that wasn’t the shocking part... What followed blew my mind.

I attended every part of my passing: family conversations, friends' reactions, and even comments from people I hadn’t seen in years.

I was bombarded with questions like:

• What would people say about the life you lived?

• What would people say about your impact on the world?

• What would people say about your impact on them?

I attended my own funeral, listened to every speech, and even read my obituary.

I reflected on my whole life:

• The untapped potential.

• The blessings.

• The regrets.

I was in tears, an absolute wreck.

I remember desperately trying to describe what I had witnessed to my mum; nothing seemed sufficient. I had lost the ability to craft words.

For days, I had chills.
During this experience, I was very fragile.

Finally, everything dawned on me - the true state of how I was showing up in the world.

Hitting The Reset Button. (My Key Takeaways)

After the mediation, I was given a gift.
Ironically, it was the most precious of all, that of my own life.

I was asked to write down my ideal life, to build on a clean slate the person I truely want to become. I left nothing out, writing every single thing with massive enthusiasm.

Most importantly, the mediation outlined what I truely value and the areas riddled with regret.

From this point, I was better able to set goals and take actions based on experiences rather than a far away hypothetical result that will supposedly eventually make me happy. (Money)

1. Be Where Your Feet Are.

People will spend the whole weekend with someone but never really be there with them.

How?

They were never truely present.

The greatest gift we have to give is our attention and our time.
The most precious moments in life are much less about the “doing” and more about the “being.”

The top 5 regrets of people:

1. I wish I had the courage to live true to myself not what others expected of me.

2. I wish I hadn’t focused on work as much.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

As you can see, they all have one thing in common: Being.

We all desire most of all to be who we want to be.
To live life as our authentic self, to create a life of our own design.

2. A life well lived, is a life of purpose.

Before living a life with purpose we must first create a clear vision of our ideals, only then do we gain the perspective and awareness to find our purpose.

To live a life with purpose, we need 4 things:

1. Own your experience, take complete responsibility for your life.

2. An ideal reality, A direction, A vision… Something to strive for.

3. Steps to get closer towards that reality (goals)

4. Courageous action, consistency, resilience, self development.
   (In other words, becoming the kind of person who would achieve that success.)

Food for thought…

How can you ever expect to live your dreams if you cannot steer your days?

Ask yourself…
Do I own my days or do my days own me?

Despite what people think, purpose is not some magical far off phenomenon. Its not very hard at all to obtain, it’s right under our noses.

All of it starts with asking yourself what you want. Then living it.

If you aren’t fulfilled with your experience of life, its not set in stone.
Make some big changes, you are capable of anything, why settle for less.

Personal Progress 1st June - 8th June 🤯

I WAS DOING RECOVERY ALL WRONG!

I was talking to a group of friends at the gym that I very much respect.
We started talking about recovery and the science behind it.

Turns out, I have been killing my recovery by doing ice bath and sauna after workouts.

It’s scientifically proven that ice-baths do blunt the inflammatory process which weakens the signal telling your body to repair and grow stronger.

However, it does have some positive use-case for those focused on performance over hypertrophy!

Link to a article here!

Favourite quotes of mine this week:

Current Reads:

Skin in the Game - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Informative - Dense Reading - Eye Opening

Taleb argues that fairness and success depend on real risk and accountability. He believes that decision-makers should have something to lose or gain from their choices to stay truly committed. Without sharing in the consequences, they might make clouded judgement which ends up hurting others.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I can give you the tools, information, and resources to change, but at the end of the day, you are the only person who can change your life.

Reading this will do absolutely nothing unless you take ACTION.

Your dream life is around the corner. The only person stopping you is you.

My mission is to help people live with purpose towards their ideal future.
I hope this helps you do just that.

Share, Like and Comment to help others make the most of our short lives.

Until next week,
Leigh.