12
Nov 2018
Getting More Education
Offshoring Responsibility
The traditional narrative most people have for their life goes something like this. Go to school. Get good grades. Graduate high school. Get into a good college. Read a lot of textbooks. Graduate with honors (hopefully). Get a great job. Move up the ladder. But what happens when there’s nowhere else to go? Or when your narrative derivates from the supposed ideal? Interesting ponderings for sure. But while you’re pondering, somebody else is winning. Because they’ve built a self-sustaining business by offshoring the responsibilities to people like you.
Their narrative went something like this. Had a dream. Made it happen. Found the right people to keep the wheels moving and the profit coming in. Have time and money to enjoy the fruit of their labor with the people they care about. Isn’t the real dream to wake up in the morning every day with a sense of purpose and a vision for life beyond the daily grind? And that thread runs through the fabric of our history as a nation, in which entrepreneurial folk had a dream and a higher vision for their lives.
Offshoring responsibility may create jobs. But it also creates slaves. Slaves to time. Slaves to money. Slaves to someone else’s dream. You might reject the notion, but ask yourself this: “Do I have the freedom to do what I want, when I want to without having to answer to a boss? Or this: If your boss approved a vacation today, do you have the money to take a week (or a month) and go to those exotic places you’ve always wanted to go? Or even to Disneyland with the family? If you answered no to either of these, you are a slave to time and money. And by default, to a dream that doesn’t belong to you.
But what if you could do the same thing, that is, build a sustainable business system around people. Only instead of enslaving people in meaningless, at-will employment, you’re helping people realize and develop their dreams and better futures, with no glass ceilings in sight.
New Narrative
If you’re ready to step out of the rat race and take control of your life, you’ve got to create a new narrative for yourself. One in which you believe in yourself, knowing that you are capable beyond belief–regardless of how many textbooks you have or haven’t read, or what your grades may have been. In this new narrative, you are building a life you love, one where the possibilities are limitless and you hold the reins. And with every move you make you are growing as a person, developing your vision and changing lives for the better. It’s a far cry from the dog-eat-dog world of simply trying to stay ahead. And it’s a wonderful life.
So what’s holding you back? Have you been hiding behind a narrative that said you were only as good as your grades, your paycheck or your job title? Or have you been living with lingering lies from the past that you aren’t enough? Tune into your inner dialogue for a few minutes, and listen to the tape playing in your head. What have others told you about you? What have you believed, and continued to tell yourself? Part of rewriting your story and your narrative of life is rooting out the old, negative ways of thinking and replacing them with the truth. And the truth is that you are capable, education or not.
John D Rockefeller dropped out of high school a few months before graduating to take college business courses, found a company and become the first billionaire in recorded history. Walt Disney dropped out of high school to join the army but was rejected because he was only 16. He became an Ambulance Driver for the Red Cross, and eventually founded his multimillion Walt Disney Company. Sir Richard Branson left school at the age of 16 because of his poor performance from dyslexia. He launched right into his entrepreneurial dreams, publishing a magazine and eventually founding Virgin Records, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Atlantic and a space tourism company–and became a completely self-made billionaire.
There are so many more just like them who didn’t depend on a piece of paper to tell them, or the world, they could achieve something great. They just knew they could. Then they proved it to the world. They weren’t the exceptions to the rule. They were simply convinced that they could do it and courageous enough to follow their dreams.
What new ways do I have to be thinking? REQUIRED
Think about your own life and mindset. What negativity can you release right now, and how will you shift your thinking on this day one of your future and success?