(TSE #019) - Most Millionaires agree this is the True Meaning of Success

I recently read a post from Sahil Bloom about a weekend away he’d spent with a group of multimillionaire entrepreneurs. The article listed the “10 key learnings” he took from the weekend mastermind.

For those of you interested, the 10 learnings were:

1. Freedom is the real objective. Being able to do what you want, when you want, and with whom you want is what everyone prizes above all else, but few have it.

2. Success isn’t loud. Listening, observing, and thinking is a superpower.

3. Insecurity is a natural human condition. Opening up about those insecurities, rather than trying to mask them with bravado, is the key to managing their influence on our lives.

4. Always know the game you’re playing and whether you want the prize for winning that game.

5. If you create value with no expectation of return, you will experience the greatest returns.

6. Owned distribution is a cheat code. It’s a massive business advantage to own your distribution via a personal platform and audience.

7. Environment is EVERYTHING. It’s hard to explain, but thinking big is contagious.

8. No one knows what they want to be when they grow up. Just focus on pointing your compass in the right direction, embracing curiosity, getting around great people, and good things will happen.

9. Entrepreneurial loneliness is a real problem. You don’t have to do it alone – build systems to share the load.

10. Sometimes you need to see the problem differently to solve it. Different perspectives lead to breakthroughs.

Which Lessons Resonate with Me?

For me, based on my journey so far, the lessons that resonate are:

#1 – Freedom is the real objective.

#5 – Create value with no expectation of return, to experience the greatest returns.

#6 – Owned distribution is a cheat code – own your distribution.

I’d like to explore lesson #1 a little further, as it is the one that has always been my biggest driver.

#1 – Freedom is the real objective

The main reason I left the corporate world in my late 20s was because I felt I had absolutely no control over how I spent my days at work, as well as the fact that the culture did not align with how I wanted to spend my life. What I was being asked to do did not align with my inner values.

I tried to push back but was met with silence or indifference. I realised I could not change the environment I was in, so I had to change my environment. It was 2004 and the ideas in “Start with Why”, by Simon Sinek, were still 5 years away from being published.

I didn’t know it at the time, but the success I was striving for was not personal riches but rather “autonomy” – by this, I mean having the ability to be self-directed and make decisions based on my internal moral compass without influence or coercion from external forces.

Now, success means being able to do what you want, when you want, with whom you want, in a manner that aligns with your own moral compass, and which creates value and has a positive impact on those around you and the broader world.

I, like many others, was trapped in the lie we have been sold and told since primary school that success meant good grades at school, going to university/college, getting a well-paid corporate job, and buying materialistic possessions to signify our personal status to the rest of society.

The reality is so much different – success is autonomy. But importantly, it is autonomy as it suits us individually.

There’s a good reason Simon Sinek’s book, “Start with Why” is a #1 seller and the concept has caught on worldwide – it’s because the ideas are foundational to being able to live an autonomous life.

Your ‘why’ is your core purpose or “North Star”. It provides the compass you need to navigate life’s trials, tribulations, and successes. Your ‘why’ provides the fuel, the motivation, the momentum that drives your thoughts and actions.

My “why” enabled me to crawl out of my darkest hole. My ‘why’ gave me the motivation and energy but I still needed to harness and control that energy.

I had to completely reboot my life. I realised I needed to redesign my life to redesign my decision-making operating system.

But how?

Through exploration, I came across classic philosophy as the catalyst to instigate change. In its ancient meaning, philosophy was about providing a ‘design for living’—a set of rules to live one’s life by. The ancient Roman Stoic philosopher, Seneca, supported the importance of life design by saying, “Life without a design is erratic.”

Taking the initiative and choosing to redesign my lifestyle was how I took control of my life rather than letting it be buffeted by the winds of fate and undirected character.

What life design do you use to make high-quality decisions and amplify your personal impact on the world? The framework I built for myself through years of trial and error, struggles, and successes, I call the “7 Circles of Highly Impactful People”.

For clarity, the ‘7 Circles’ is not a book I read but rather a framework I built that has worked wonders for me.

Please feel free to reach out if you want to know more about the ‘7 Circles’.

One Little Nugget (TL;DR)

The reality is that our lives are not finite. They can end at any moment and will end eventually. It’s simply a fact.

The ancient phrase Memento Mori translates to mean “remember you will die”. It is an effective tool to remind yourself that life is fleeting and it helps provide perspective on our daily lives; that we can take nothing for granted and to celebrate every day and moment we have.

I will often say to myself when one of my kids is pushing my buttons or I’m annoyed by something another person has done, “Momento Mori – will it really matter in 50 or 80 years?”

This simple question helps to create a mind shift and alter my perspective to one that is more accepting and less judgemental.

Memento Mori also reminds us to live a life of quality, not one burdened by the expectations of others.

As the ancient philosopher and statesman, Seneca is quoted as saying “Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day. … The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.”

If time is finite and fleeting, then we owe it to ourselves, our loved ones, and the broader world around us to live a life of meaning aligned with our core values, and in service to others. Once you’ve achieved a certain level of financial comfort, everything becomes about a quest for personal meaning and freedom.

Freedom to choose how we spend the finite and fleeting time we have on this earth.

See you next week, and I would be honoured if you chose to share my newsletter with others you feel may benefit from its insights.

Anyone can?sign up to my free weekly newsletter herehttps://lnkd.in/gxYPNVzr.