The perfect day.

I have talked about the perfect day. I have yet to blog about it until now. There is depth to this I'd like to unpack for you, in hopes you choose to have nothing but perfect days from here on out. Wow, that's a bold statement. It is soooo not realistic to expect perfect days. Life doesn't work that way, John.

Doesn't it?

I guess it depends on what you think makes a perfect day. It also depends on how we have chosen to spend our days in our lifetime, short as it is. It also depends on whether or not you choose to take control of your time rather than allow some status quos or norms do it for you.

Let's set the stage. Here are the top five things people say as they near death.

1.?I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. (This was the most common regret of all.)

2.?I wish I didn’t work so hard.

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.

If that's where our heads are at in our final days, we are wise to take note and adjust our days accordingly now, hopefully LONG BEFORE our final days. But how do we do that when it is so common that our days look like this? This image is basically status quo of workers in America today. So much to check off the list that it is impossible to accomplish it all. And yet, this is still considered "Normal."

I did this.

I spent most of my career running my days on a checklist of activity to do. It was decades of the same theme. Do the thing. Finish the thing. Move on to the next thing. It felt so good in the morning to lay out the dragons to slay for the day. By mid morning I was always failing. By the end of day I was depressed and full of anxiety over what I failed to accomplish. My friend Steve Blexrud calls this the "Syllabus" life. I seriously don't recommend living life this way. Millions of us have, and it doesn't work out so hot. It's kind of a vicious cycle. The norm of filling the day, or having it filled for you, keeps us in a perennial state of busy. When in fact I think the idea is to be in a perennial state of fulfilled, happy, impactful, prosperous and joyful. To schedule a meeting about the next three meetings doesn't fit in the matrix. Somehow we think that works. But in world where we can't do our real work until after work, say nine to midnight, a pause and reflect is in order. Note that I include prosperous in there. Yes, we are here to prosper. Jack Canfield said something not long ago that really stuck with me. "Work is required. Suffering is not." We are not meant to suffer simply to prosper.

If the future, on- the-deathbed-you traveled back in time and set your calendar for you, you can bet it wouldn't look like it looks now. When I was about five years old my oldest brother Mike was getting a bit bossy. I remember getting sick of it, tossing a few pieces of an ErectorSet against the wall and screaming at him "You're not the boss of me!!"

Your calender is not the boss of you.

Not too long ago I paused and pondered how I bring value into this world. This is a habit we teach people to develop in our Fractional coursework as a means to get mentally connected to their highest state of value. If you guessed an overstacked calender of to-dos isn't the answer, you are correct. We are led to believe it is, but it's not. I began to sketch out what I thought a perfect day is. Finding out where I bring value wasn't hard. I'm an entrepreneur. I bring value to the Voyageur U community, and the emerging Fractional industry at large. I'm a fractional marketing guy. I bring value to clients who struggle with that. The nuggets I was looking for was in how I bring that value. Here were my answers.

I bring the most value to the world when...

When I am calm.

When I am reflective.

When I have time to think.

When I can connect deeply with others.

When I am adventurous and curious.

When I listen.

When I am humble.

When I am in balance.

When I feel healthy.

When I feel loved.

When I am grateful.

When I have empathy.

When I am helping and giving.

I think traditionally many of these simply had no room for care and feeding in our days. Nice to haves, but not billable hours. No time, no time. Once again, the world has changed. What was normal for our days in the last era of the American work culture, the pre-pandemic, Friedman-esque shareholder value era no longer applies. We have come to realize we are better than that. We are more that that. I can only speak for Fractional pros on this point, as one myself. But I suspect the lesson reaches much farther than that.

The final part of my perfect day contemplation manifested in the little sunshine you see here:

Today I basically treat my days as an eco-system rather than a list to conquer. I never look at a thing undone on my sunshine and dread having to get to it. Quite the opposite. When I see I haven't helped someone yet I get excited to do it. When I see I haven't walked the dog I have that to look forward to. When I see I haven't solved one big thorny issue for a client I dig in. When I see I haven't led the Fractional world yet, I get on that horse. And on and on, touching each ray of the sun, filling up my soul with each passing activity. No more dreading the checklist.

I think this is one of the many reasons people are "Going Fractional" in such great volumes. To regain control of their life and their day. Give the exercise a try yourself. Make it your own. Step away from the normal calender and draw a sunshine and make your own rays.

Mine is just for me. But I hope it helps you. I know this...deathbed John would be proud.

Go fractional,

John

#fractional #freedom #opportunity #fulfillment #voyageuru

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