Great Escape Podcast episode 24 - What do you want life to feel like?

- [Stuart] This is the Great Escape Podcast. My name's Stuart Morris and this is episode number 24. A little escape.
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- [Stuart] One of the things about the Great Escape Podcast is that it's about people who've made a transition, whether it's from a bad relationship to no relationship, a bad relationship to a better relationship either with the same person or with a different person, or from a bad job to a good job, from a bad job to their own career defining what they want to do each day. Whatever the change has been, whatever the escape from some intolerable situation into a life that is more intentional, more thought through and deliberate, it doesn't really matter what that is but one of the key things, certainly for me on my journey, has been to find a life that is dominated by contentment and joy and fun rather than a life that's dominated by the nine-to-five and the commute. And this was really interesting today. Somebody commented on a Facebook post that they thought I was a really hardworking person and my immediate response was to burst out laughing because whilst, yeah, if you ask my wife, I do spend a lot of time working pretty hard. Actually, from my perspective, I spend most of my time having fun so am I working or am I having fun? Are the two incompatible? And actually, the answer isn't that they are incompatible. They are entirely compatible but generally, only if we think about it. Only if we work hard in order to work out what it is we want. And for me, one of the biggest transformations came when I suddenly realized that I needed to stop thinking about what it was I wanted and start thinking about what is the life that I want to be leading in five years' time or 10 years' time. Now, that is not the same as writing a business plan with a five-year time horizon because in five years' time, the economy could've crashed again or somebody could've invented some insane new technology which will make Facebook obsolete, or the internet will be a completely different flavor of thing. So it's not about looking at the detail of what life will be like in five or 10 years' time, but what do I want my life to be full of? And the answer is very simply I don't want money to be the limiting factor in my decision making. I want my time to be largely my own and reasonably flexible so that if I wake up and it's a beautiful day and I decide I want to go for a walk or spend some time with my wife or perhaps by then, I might have grandchildren, spend some time with my grandchildren or go for a fly that actually that's possible rather than the day being full of meetings or full of phone calls or whatever it is. Now, none of those things require a particular route to get there. None of them are saying I want to be earning X amount of money through a particular income source. So it's much more high level strategic, if you like, thinking about what do I want my life to feel like rather than what do I want it to look like in detail. And having made that leap, actually, everything that I do today is either moving me towards that goal or not, which actually helps me to decide whether the activities that I'm gonna be doing today should happen or not. If somebody asks for a meeting in my diary next week, it's not "Can I fit the meeting in?" It's "Is it moving me towards my goal?"
"Is it a good thing to do?"
"Is it the right thing to do?" Because sometimes, you do something not because it's moving you towards your goal but it may be helping somebody else towards their goal in which case, it's a good thing to do. And sometimes, actually doing the right thing in terms of sort of the greater good overcomes the need to be goal-oriented. And that's why I say that I don't feel like I'm working hard, that I feel like I'm having fun because what I'm doing on a day-to-day basis is generally moving me towards a goal that I've chosen with decision-making parameters that I've set. It's a stretching goal. I know roughly what the sum of money I need to have invested is in order for money not to be the limiting factor in my decision-making processes. It's not that I want to buy a 20-million pound yacht and have it moored in the harbor at Monaco. I'm not talking about that sort of insane wealth which seams to destroy people on the way to getting it. I'm just talking about not having to worry about the bills and not having to worry about whether there's enough money to allow me to do what I want to do next. So perhaps that's the thing to think about. Don't think of what it is you want to be doing, but what is it that your life will feel like in five or 10 years' time and start there and then work backwards because that will help you work out what it is you need to be doing. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Great Escape Podcast. You can find other episodes at all the usual places on iTunes, Stitcher, or on Spotify or at the website, greatescapepodcast.com/episodes and if you'd like to contact me to talk about any element of this episode or others I've covered, please go to https://greatescapepodcast.com/contact and you can find all the ways of getting hold of me there. And if you are stuck in a situation and you can't find the way out, please go there, send me a message, and let's see how we can work together to get you unstuck and moving forward with your life again. Please do share this podcast with your friends and family, other people you think might appreciate it, and comment on episodes or send me a message. I'd love to keep the conversation going.
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