Are you living your richest life?
Are you even clear about what that would look like?
When it comes to living your richest life, what is your biggest opportunity and obstacle?
Our obstacles and opportunities can be starting points to unveil the answers for our next moves. Having an outside perspective to ask questions we may not know to ask, to find the answers within, can unlock our richest life.
To help give people an outside perspective, I created a process I love. It is a place for depth and shared moments, often described as “magical.” It is called the Cash Cabin.
I invite a few people each year to my favorite place on the planet, my lodge. This creates a one-on-one immersive breakthrough experience.
The objectives? To help them define and create a life they love. To find money to fund their bucket list sooner rather than later. Most importantly, to create their richest life.
Reflect on Your Life Goals
So, let me ask you the question again:
What is your richest life?
What’s your win?
Have you designed a game worth playing?
Are you enjoying the process along the way?
Are you in a career or business worth dedicating your life to?
And what would it take to win along the way and enjoy today?
These aren’t ordinary questions. They are the ones society doesn’t ask. For example:
- What is your first memory of money? Was it positive or negative?
- What does money mean to you and say about you?
- If you felt fully abundant, what would you accomplish?
- What things would you start doing more of and what things would you do less of?
- If you weren’t in comparison or feeling any jealousy, if you had more money than you could spend, what would you do with your time? What value would you create? What impact could you make?
Society is great at convincing us what we should want—more. How we should get it—grind and hustle—without enough consideration for what we truly want and how we can enjoy life along the way.
Identify and Protect Your Win
I’ve had years where my win was guiding me every step of the way, and others where busyness crowded out my best life.
It happens ever so slyly. A simple “yes” here or there becomes a “no” to things that you would have loved to do, that you intended to do. Then constraint, guilt, and shame take over.
It’s easy to say yes upfront, but then what happens? What is the cost of our choices when not clear about our win? Someone else’s agenda starts to crowd in.
Know your value. Know your win before you begin. Your win determines your quality of life. When your quality of life is at the forefront of your choices, you can create the life you love, the one you don’t want to retire from.
But when we aren’t clear about our value, or what we want, it is easy to say yes.
- Yes, I’ll be there.
- Yes, I can do that.
- Sure, why not?
Why not? Because it may crowd out other important things in life.
More work doesn’t mean more happiness or more money. Getting more done of the wrong stuff is especially frustrating. You put in the effort but don’t get the reward.
Set Your Rules for Success
Create the rules you want to live by, the ones that protect and promote your win. Determine your win, clearly. Design your game. Know your rules. Live by those rules. And ask for what you want.
Be bold with your rules. Be clear and stick to your rules.
It can be as simple as how you structure your day or how you get paid.
Recently, I stopped saying yes to webinars or virtual events without a $1,500 fee or $2,500 if they want 100 books to come along with it. This rule values my time. If someone wants to book me to speak, it is $25,000. No budget, no problem, but I’m out.
In the past, I might have spoken for exposure or for free, but it prevents me from living my win. Only doing a certain number of speaking gigs preserves time to write, record, and even rehearse to improve my skills.
Increase Your Value
If you are uncertain of your worth or don’t know how to get where you want, invest in yourself to increase your value.
Make more money by making the rules that honor your value and worth. Create more confidence by creating the time for what you do best. Grow your value regularly.
Your value and worth happen when your inner knowing matches your skills and mindset. Your best work. Your hobbies. Your family. Your health. Your highest profits. These are the considerations for your richest life.
So, what rules protect your win? Do you have parameters so you don’t overextend?
I love T. Boone Pickens’ management by objectives philosophy. Create 3-5 objectives per quarter, professionally and personally. This can give you the perfect reason to say no to things that could be a distraction.
If someone asks you to do something that isn’t part of your 5 objectives, you can let them know you are focused on those and those alone. But you’ll let them know if that changes. Keep it in your court, not theirs.
People often leak energy by saying something they don’t mean, inviting meetings and distractions into their lives. It can be hard to say no, but eventually harder to be exhausted and in regret for not doing the things that matter most to you.
One of the greatest enemies to your winning game is distractions disguised as opportunities.
Maximize Your Time and Energy
Are you tired? Doing too much, but not getting as far as you would like? If you were to look over your calendar, does it represent your richest life?
Do a little calendar audit and look for five things you want to do less of—eliminate or delegate. Then you create the space to do more of what you want to do and dive into your win.
Your calendar tells a story of your life. Look it over to see what no longer represents you or the life you want. Cut it out. Remove it. Replace it.
Find time and invest it more wisely in what you really want to do. What five things is it time to minimize or eliminate?
The five and five. Do less of five things so you can do more of the five things that only you can do, that you want to do.
Mine are record, rehearse, write, perform, and connect.
What are yours?
From five objectives to five and five and one more five. The last five is the five people that make you feel most alive.
Those that challenge you most positively, encourage your best, and inspire your life. Who are those people who help you brainstorm, provide connections, and give you energy? Add more time in your calendar for them. Add regular rhythms with them.
Are there any people that are negative and bring you down? How can you spend less time with them and therefore invest more time with those that help you grow? Easier said than done sometimes, but a very elegant, helpful idea.
Be intentional with each type of relationship. These people can often be busy, so if you create recurring space in your calendar, you can regularly have time with them. A hike. A call. A trip.
Again, find time for them regularly with rhythms and have it live in time and space, in your calendar.
Invest in Yourself
Another story your calendar may tell is how you invest in yourself. Do you have your best habits live in your calendar as well? Are there habits that will protect your energy and help you to be more productive and create a better life along the way?
Do you create space in your calendar for these critical elements of your life? Health. Ideation. Date Night. Family Meetings. R&R.
I do my best by starting my day by taking my supplements, sauna, cold plunge, stretching, and meditation. These items help me to stay focused, feel great, and create the best conditions for healthy living.
What are your key ingredients? Once you have set your day for success, how do you remain in flow?
My formula for flow was something my late mentor, Ron Zeller, taught me. I use the following formula to support five objectives: doing now, doing later, never doing, and parking lot.
“Doing now” means I have items with beginning and end times in the calendar. No more task lists that seem never-ending. No one else’s agenda to take over mine. If I am doing something in the next two weeks, I add it to the calendar so I can get it done. It lives in time and space.
“Doing later” means it will happen after two weeks but before the quarter is over. I revisit that at least once a week to add it to my calendar at the appropriate time.
“Never doing” are those things that no longer belong. They aren’t part of my objectives or, with new information, no longer required. I want to remove them from my mind and therefore my life to free up space. It isn’t to say they aren’t great ideas, just not the right ones for you and your richest life.
The “parking lot.” An instrumental area where you have permission to dream, brainstorm, and “take the lid off” to come up with as many ideas as possible. The parking lot is focused on the “what and why” more than the “how and when.”
To build the parking lot, it is best to suspend any thoughts of money, ability, or time that it would take to implement. Money, time, and ability are only limiting factors when you try to do too much on your own. The parking lot means it doesn’t have to be done, doesn’t have to be done now, and you can always change your mind.
Enhance Efficiency and Quality of Life
To fund your vision, to enhance your quality of life, there are 4 I’s to efficiency. These 4 I’s are about plugging leaks, keeping more of what you make without cutting back, and finding money that is rightfully yours.
- IRS. Stop tipping the government.
- Interest. Use the 3R methodology to shave off years on paying for loans and improve cash flow along the way. Restructure, renegotiate, and reallocate.
- Investments. Remove non-performing fees and protect your downside through risk mitigation.
- Insurance. Remove duplicate coverages and properly design to transfer catastrophic risk.
When you boost your bottom line, you may choose to improve your quality of life, invest in yourself, or build cash-flowing assets. It is a personal choice. It depends on what will create your richest life.
This isn’t about reductionist thinking or budgeting your life away. No one shrinks their way to wealth. It is about the other ways you can live within your means.
You can be more efficient within your means with the 4 I’s. And most importantly, with vision, consistently seek to expand your means. How can you create more impact, reach more people, or more deeply add value to those you already serve? Again, expand your means.
Finally, it is about understanding your relationship to money. Where are you expecting money to do things it was never intended to fix?
“Hey money, make me happy, make me whole, and make me feel valued.”
Oops, money can only help you rent those things, not solve them.
Has past pain or loss stunted your growth or created any belief that is holding you back?
People are often afraid to admit they don’t have everything figured out financially. Or they don’t have the process to face and heal their relationship with money.
Yet, I love creating the space to have conversations that may not otherwise ever occur. And to see the speed at which those results come forth once addressed.
Sometimes it is addressing your first negative experience with money. Other times it is a difficult circumstance where the wrong lessons are learned.
We all make mistakes. Making mistakes doesn’t have to define us. I lead the way by sharing my mistakes, lessons, and the modalities that helped me to heal my relationship with money, to overcome scarcity.
Healing our relationship with money will allow for more peace of mind, clarity, and confidence in our finances.
Finally, one of the keys to exponential results is to tap into my relationship capital. The who, not the how.
By the end of Cash Cabin, I make all the connections required for real results. There is something to be said about getting out of our normal routines and environment. To be in nature for “magical” moments. Hearing the river, taking a walk, or feeding the fish. By being away from the busyness and the ordinary, creates conditions for extraordinary results.
Your Richest Life Awaits
Are you ready to define and live your richest life? Join me at Cash Cabin for an immersive breakthrough experience. Apply now to start your journey towards a life you love.
Dream big, live fully, and create your richest life.
