The Leap of Your Life
Page 9
In the year that I take off I’m very consciously goal-less. I completely strip myself of the entire idea of becoming. I make both physical and emotional decisions in line with that. For instance, in the last sabbatical, my wife and I had a very clear intention that we didn’t want to plan a single day at all. We wanted to only make decisions that were completely intuitive and natural that came from within.1
Karan is a trailblazer; his novels have been optioned for movies, and he’s one of India’s bestselling authors of all time. Clearly, his unconventional approach is paying off. For most in the corporate world (or even entrepreneurs), this setup would seem like an utter pipe dream. Logistics aside, unplugging from the world means facing our fears head on: fears of missing out, falling behind, or tuning out from society. Who are we when we’re not participating in the marathon of modern culture?
Yet, there is something special to it. We all long for this ability to disconnect from the revolving treadmill that becomes our lives at some point. Karan’s sabbatical lifestyle is an example of the power of releasing the noise, an essential component you’ll need before, during, and after your leap.
Because deep down, you already know what to do.
You Already Know What to Do
“Uh, I don’t know … this is why I hired you,” he told me, visibly frustrated. I held the silence for a moment, and the tension was palpable.
“You already know what to do. You know your purpose, you’ve simply been unwilling to cut the noise and tap into it. You are letting fear own you. You are letting your head win.”
This continued for two-and-a-half hours, until finally, after deep conversations and practices designed to reveal layers, he let it out. He already knew what he had to do yet was afraid.
He was afraid of expressing it, first to himself and then to me. Here was an entrepreneur with a big family. He had built a business in an industry his family hated, and they were coming clean for the first time on what they really wanted to do. But he knew this for a long time, and it was eating at him. Even though he claimed he needed clarity, he already knew what to do.
And so do you.
You Don’t Discover Anything . . . You Allow It
There isn’t a week that goes by when I’m not asked a variation of how-I-find-my- purpose-or-passion style questions. I get these questions from people who hire me and from people I’ve never met on social media, and the answer is always the same:
You’re asking the wrong question. Your purpose, and your leap isn’t something you go out and get, it’s something you allow. It’s already within you, within all of us. You’ve simply blocked the signal, because there’s way too much noise in your life getting in the way.
Part of this can be strategic, of course. If our purpose and leap are something we have to go out and find, we can put off doing the work. The entire idea of finding something outside of ourselves comes with a degree of friction. It leaves us off the hook from living boldly.
Ask my fiancée what a pleasure I am to deal with when I can’t find my car keys or wallet, and it’s the same exact energy as the pressure of finding one’s purpose: stressed, anxious, and scattered. In this state, creation is impossible.
And yet, the way I define purpose has nothing to do with friction and effort. It’s what you can’t do. And if not doing it eats away at you, then there’s an alignment that comes with this type of energy.
The same goes for the leap you must take. It’s in there, even if you claim you have no idea what to do.
Less Is More
The leap of your life is never about adding more things on an overloaded foundation. It isn’t about spending years trying to figure out an answer. It’s not about searching for clarity on an endless loop that never bears the fruit you’re looking for. It’s not about trying to figure yourself out for the next decade.
It’s about releasing the noise. When I say this, I mean removing the obstacles you’ve put in the way, which are now keeping you stuck. They keep you frustrated and playing small, and in some instances, they are a brilliant strategy to not have to show up with courage.
The truth is you’re already good enough. You are already worthy. You are capable.
It’s time to make this a mechanism of the past, through a system I’ve used on thousands of people to reduce the obstacles in the way and allow for clarity to arrive. Armed with this clarity, your leap will never be the same.
Without it, you may as well never get started.
The Closet Principle
When I moved from New York to Arizona, I realized how mind-blowing walk-in closets are. Back East, closet space came at a premium, and you could forget about walking in anywhere, unless you had hit the big time. When I first came out West, I didn’t know what to do with all that space.
As time went on, I had filled the closet with new clothes, outfits, luggage, and more. There was so much space, I chose to double its use as a meditation room. One day, I walked in and realized there was nowhere to go anymore; all the space had been taken up.
Interesting, I thought. I started to look around, and noticed I’d accumulated tons of stuff. New shirts, outfits, random clothing or stuff people had sent me. And that’s when I realized: I’m only using 20% of things in here, and I’m wearing those 80% of the time.
Our lives parallel our closets: we have a certain amount of space, time, and energy available to us. We fill it up, and then realize most of the stuff we’ve filled our lives with we don’t need. I started to call this The Closet Principle (creative, right?), and I now use this example with my clients all the time.
The Closet Principle, of course, is the prominent 80/20 rule in action. The 80/20 rule is as universal as gravity, and comes up time and time again:
You wear 20% of your clothing 80% of the time.
You eat 20% of the same foods 80% of the time.
You hang out with 20% of people 80% of the time.
The list goes on and on, and while primarily introduced as an economic principle by an Italian economist named Vilfredo Pareto,2 we can use this to streamline our lives and focus on what really matters, including:
The 20% of people who make you the happiest.
The 20% of your time that brings you fulfillment.
The 20% of powerful conversations that create connection.
Otherwise, we cannot only get lost in the chaos of overload, we can dangerously start putting our attention on what doesn’t matter. In the case of the closet, even though I wear 20% of the same shirts, shoes, socks, and pants 80% of the time, I still have to make that decision every single day.
And those decisions add up day after day, leaving you and me with less clarity for the rest of our lives, and leading to more anxiety, procrastination, and a lack of results. It’s no wonder we feel disconnected with ourselves.
Releasing the noise is about creating bandwidth for your life not only to focus on what really matters but also deleting what doesn’t. It’s about tuning into your signal, leveling up your environment, and ensuring your leap is a huge success.
Leap Tip: 80/20 Everything
The 80/20 rule can and will transform your life. Whether it’s the 20% of customers that bring in 80% of the revenue, 20% of a city’s streets with 80% of the traffic, it’s everywhere.
Identify what you can delete from your life, to create space, clarity, and peace. Choose at least 20 things you can discard right now and don’t look back.
Step 1: Take Inventory
The first step toward releasing the noise is knowing what the noise is. Taking inventory, then, becomes a powerful practice to identify what’s taking up space in your life, and making an honest assessment about its place. From there, it’s time to choose to keep it in your life or discard it.
This is best done by asking a question, and the one I use is simply: Does this pull me closer to my leap’s vision, or push me farther away? (Don’t worry if you don’t have this ready yet, we’ll cover it during the next two chapters.) The key here is to ensu
re radical honesty.
Much like our closets, we all have the article of clothing we don’t wear but brings us nostalgia. And yet, this is precisely what we want to avoid; in the process of your leap, you must forget about who you’ve been and instead focus on who you’re becoming. This is no time to sugarcoat why your high school buddy turned deadbeat should be someone you text every single day even though you haven’t seen each other in two decades.
So, what precisely are you taking inventory of?
Beliefs. We’re going to spend an entire section on this later, but there are beliefs you can consciously identify right now that are holding you back and will continue to do so.
People. The fact is, there’s someone taking space in your life today that shouldn’t be there. I know it and you know it. This isn’t a selfish deal, because you’re not serving them (or yourself) by holding on.
Environments. We’ll examine this in a moment, but our environments are the easiest leverage points to achieve change. Leverage in this context simply means the low hanging fruit that produces the largest result with the least amount of effort.
Noise. Last, it’s time to take inventory of the noise of your life. When I say noise, it’s your smartphone, the media you consume, all of the communication, stimuli, and more.
These are the core categories you’re going to take inventory of now to identify if they are moving you closer or farther away from your vision. For this step, there’s no sense in judging or getting mixed up in emotional reasons that you need something. Using the preceding categories and having the courage to evaluate with honesty is more than enough.
Now that we’ve taken inventory, it’s time to create some much-needed space.
Step 2: Delete, Delete, Delete
In Japan, crowded cities and an overloaded population means space is scarce and comes at a premium. After generations of limited personal space, a rush hour that lasts all day, and extremely rigid rules on common activities such as collecting trash, it has become commonplace to maximize every square inch.
Literally.
Often, even those who are well off don’t have the luxury of having space for say an overnight guest. Known to be respectful and courteous, the Japanese culture is extremely efficient.
The truth is: they have no other option. In 2014, a concept from the tight spaces of Japanese culture came to the United States and took it by storm. Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up3 stormed the country and has now sold over five million copies.
The premise is simple: let go of anything you don’t love. Particularly, if it doesn’t bring you joy, it’s time to move on.
This is exactly what we’re looking to do now that we’ve taken inventory – it’s time to create space in your life by deleting what doesn’t serve you anymore. Often, this act alone provides immense clarity, calm, and peace. Some examples include:
Donating the 80% of clothing you don’t use
Decluttering your office and work space
Getting rid of digital noise and apps
Unfriending negative people on social media
Organizing the messy garage full of clutter
Deleting old text message threads
Letting go of social commitments
Deleting all notifications on your phone
Beyond the physical benefits, the deletion of stuff that we’ve accumulated allows for something new to come in. And that new thing is what will support your leap in ways you could have never imagined. Kondo expands on the power of discarding:
The place we live should be for the person we are becoming now – not for the person we have been in the past.4
Deleting won’t be easy. You’ve become used to certain beliefs, people, environments, and noise that feel great to you. Even if you understand they’re not serving you, it can be difficult to let go. But let go you must, and allow the space for something much greater and empowering to take its place.
Step 3: Examine Your Environment
BJ Fogg, PhD, has been studying human behavioral change at Stanford University for two decades and running the Persuasive Tech Lab. After his decades of research on what truly creates change, he came to the following conclusion: “There’s just one way to radically change your behavior: radically change your environment.”5 Earlier, I mentioned the power of leverage, or identifying the simplest changes that breed the biggest results. Environment, if used wisely, becomes the easiest path to transformation, but it can also be an anchor holding us back to the past.
Here’s why. Our minds are designed for extreme efficiency. Part of this mechanism is using environmental cues to execute behaviors. When you walk into your bathroom in the morning, you’re hard wired to pick up the toothbrush the same way you did yesterday, start brushing your teeth, and put it back. All without thinking.
Although that’s a benefit you and I take for granted, there’s one drawback: because we’re wired for efficiency and recognizing patterns to dictate behavior, environmental cues can easily hold us back as much as they can push as forward.
One of the most controversial blog posts I’ve done to date has been Why (Real) Entrepreneurs Don’t Work From Home.6 I argued that attempting to do creative and focused work in the same environment where we, say, play with our kids, watch television, or connect with a partner isn’t conducive to maximizing our output. As predicted, those who work from home ridiculed me, sending me their accolades on why working from home was key to their success.
Duke University psychologist and Professor of Neuroscience Wendy Wood studies effective behavioral change. She says: “Many of our repeated behaviors are cued by everyday environments, even though people think they’re making choices all the time.”7 In other words, environment matters much more than we’re led to believe. And if we do experience success, who’s to say it wasn’t in spite of our environment? We often believe that if we push through and want something bad enough, we’ll overcome our environment.
The problem with this is motivation ebbs and flows based on our emotional states. Although we may be able to push through at times, friction adds up and never becomes a sustainable framework for enduring success, especially when we’re exhausted after a long day and our willpower is running on empty.
To make your leap a rousing success, it’s time to shift your environment. Make no mistake, an unexamined environment that doesn’t support your leap may be the domino that holds you back. Don’t take this lightly, and remember everything is fair game, including:
Is your physical environment supporting your leap? Examine all your living environments from the top down, where you live physically—that is, your state, city and town—and then your micro- environments of your home, apartment, bedrooms, and so on.
Is your work environment supporting your leap? Whether you’re working for yourself as an entrepreneur, head to an office every day, or are still a student, examine your work environments. Are they conducive to your discipline, focus, and creative growth?
Is your play and relax environment supporting your leap? Think of the places you have fun, let go, and use to relax. The places where you recharge and take life less seriously. Are they serving you long term, or are they leaving you worse off?
Is your health and wellness environment supporting your leap? Examine where you train yourself physically—a home gym, a membership, hiking, and so on. Do these create powerful results and consistency for you?
Is your study and learning environment supporting your leap? Look at all the places you learn—whether that’s how and where you watch content, seminars, do reading, and more. Are they putting you in the best place to not only create insights, but also create results?
Is your spiritual environment supporting your leap? Finally, look at the places where you connect with yourself spiritually. This could be a traditional religious practice, or a set of spiritual tools and rituals you use.
If the answer is no, it’s time to shift. Your shift may be leaving your at-home office to find creativi
ty in a co-working space. It could be moving to a new place. It may look like shifting your home environment to be more conducive with your goals. By doing so, you’ll release the energetic toll of willpower and experience less decision fatigue. You’ll have an abundance of mental and emotional energy to use on the important things, including your leap.
Step 4: Tune into the Signal
You’ve done the hard work that most aren’t willing to do by releasing the noise. Remember, the noise is tempting. It’s sexy, it’s loud, and it can be a whole lotta fun. It’s instant gratification, and we’re being conditioned and hardwired to be engulfed in it every single day.
But now you’ve gone through the process of releasing the noise—a courageous endeavor most say they want, but don’t follow through on. Now it’s time to start tuning into the signal, your unique signal. When I say signal, I simply mean the inner wisdom we all have.
Within this place, you’ll find the answers to life’s deepest questions. You’ll encounter the vision that brings you to your knees. Tuning into your signal is a practice and must be treated as such. The theme of treating it as a practice allows you to have a long-term mindset. Furthermore, practicing is focused, intentional work with the end result of improving a specific skill.
We’ll expand on that later, but first let’s identify some of the easiest and most accessible practices you can start using today to tune into your signal:
Nature. One of the fastest paths to access your signal, spending time in nature can bring you the answers to your most pressing questions and provide invaluable insights.