Part 2 - How To Make Your Legacy Last 1,000 Years

Welcome to this edition of the Million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell.

I mean, things don't stay alive if you don't put life into it. I mean, it's like, yeah, your career or it's like you have to.

Well, I think you're onto something there because the idea of creating something that we can leave behind that will have meaning to people after we're gone, they'll enjoy one thing is the pictures, but also the stories and books. They're books that come alive. People will read books that have been around for 50, 60 years and all of a sudden it has a transforming experience and they're talking to everybody about the concepts they got out of the book. So books have that type thing. I don't know about videos, you know, I don't know. But books seem to stand the test of time. And now, of course, with the ebooks, what do you find that people respond to the most? What are you thinking about you're going to leave to your kids? And individual pictures. You have to curate this stuff. It seems like you have to put it together to where it's a package. They'll enjoy it, they'll have a concept for it to stick other than you're looking at it. I see it. Interesting. Next, they say in a museum, these priceless works of art all over the world and museums, the average time spent in front of a painting, a masterpiece, three seconds.

So, yeah, but it's like, I mean, in everything I think is like moments that stick that you remember. And I used to have this thing like I was just talking to a wedding planner a few days ago, two days ago, and she arranged more than. It's like this year's 2,300 weddings. And some of them is new clear now they start in the US also. So. So a midweek, there was an art I was reading. We were sitting and they published Vogue or somebody published an article about it and they say something about a midweek wedding is £7,000. I said, that's interesting. Especially midweek wedding. How much is a Saturday? He says, that's 20. And I think actually American weddings are more expensive or bigger budgets with wedding planners and everything than UK weddings. But anyways. But people like to arrange these big events that now we're going to have fly the whole family to some island and we're going to have a big wedding. And they spent Months deciding what kind of flowers and blah blah blah. And what I joke is that you might not even remember that wedding. Or maybe what you remember from the wedding is the Tagus driver from the airport to the hotel that you learn something or special something. But the rest is like no. So you can't really plan or buy those moments. And similarly you could say, you can't say Van Gogh is amazing because if you look at Van Gogh for three seconds and you just like, you think wow, this is it. That's crazy. It's so expensive. Or how did he put all the paint on? You clearly didn't get it and you're not supposed to. Or it could also be that you listen to a Bob Dylan song, you see it when gog painting and it just, it blows your socks off. That's a moment. And it doesn't even have to be Bob Dylan. Or it could be your 3 year old grandkid that have made a drawing or system a Simpsons, they're just like wow, that's the wisest thing I ever heard from anybody. And he's only three years. So that's. So you could say in terms of what to preserve from. It's like, it's almost like I mean anything what I preserved should be there should be easily available. You could say fundamentally if I did this thing, I said I'm going to take a SanDisk solid state 4 terabyte. The high resolution pictures and high resolution JPEG that can be used for gallery prints and magazine prints and everything else is 130,000 pixels at one terabyte. So it's not. And you could say if you have a fairly fast computer, you can scroll through this in a few hours and see what you got. And then you could hand it over to somebody who wants to deal with. Or there's some nice pictures that you like or your own mother or family or something that has meaning to you. I can't really curate what is going to make something important to them. It's like you said, I have a drawing in the house here that me and my daughter bought together when she was seven years old. My oldest daughter. And it's just a drawing of. It's very dark and it's like a library setting or something in Denmark. And we just saw it. I was like wow, that's a, that's a great one. Let's buy it. So that's kind of our. So I kind of know she would like that if she even remember that she liked it. Maybe sister.

Yeah.

Who doesn't? It doesn't matter. So you can't really. But you just have to make it easy and not. It can involve a lot of work. That's my take on it. And then I have this thing that I look at. I mean, you have Shakespeare and stuff is still around and a lot of stuff is just lost. We say, why is it that so many things and so much technology is based on that? It doesn't matter what happened five minutes ago. You say, Instagram doesn't care. Facebook doesn't care. The newspaper, New York Times doesn't care what happened five days ago. It's all what's happening today.

Right?

And that's not correct. You could say culture is valuable and you basically should make sure that whatever you did is also available in 50 or 500 years. Or think thousand years. Okay? How can you preserve something for thousand years? And you say that's where video and film is short because the resolution of the medium is very low or has been very low and basically still is seen from the future. And the medium changes all the time. So you have to transfer one medium to the next one to the next one. So who's going to spend the money on transferring family video snaps into the next medium? It's going to be like $10,000 to preserve it for 100 years. And who's going to look at it? So that's what you would say. Pictures are easy, text is easy, as long as you don't just leave it to Microsoft or somebody else to preserve it or some cloud. But you either make a piece of paper print that you can put in somewhere so it's preserved, or you could say, even better, put it into a form a library, where it's going to be available for anybody worldwide who wants to look at it 24 7. And it doesn't take up any space, it doesn't cost anymore. And that would be the ideal. And nobody can shuffle it around or change it.

And it would be on your own site, basically.

Yeah. Then you could say part of its laws, like, yeah, I have my own site, but who's going to maintain pay for the domain name and web hosting?

Right?

But then at least there is like on the solid state, there is the whole website in a format that you can actually read it. You could reformat it or something else so it's there. And I mean, and then you just have to face, I mean, if it's lost, if you live an empire to your kids, $10 billion worth, I mean, right? Either they make it to a $200 billion empire yeah. Or this norded all urban drugs and poison blows and it's gone in a year and they owe 2 billion. So you can't. That's like at some point it's not your responsibility, but at least you made these things. And you could say at least I know that people find it valuable so it's going to be value in the future. And you can also see that the things that people find valuable is not what I wrote about the Leica M9 or the Leica Q3 43. That's just for a period of five, 10 years that is relevant or even the peak in interest is two, three months. Then it's gone. What is interesting is the philosophical part of what I'm writing, the general things. That is what is really worth preserving. You can say to the degree that all stuff is written in a way so it's not connected only to that specific camera model and how many megapixel it had, but it has something to do with photographing in general, then it's valuable also to preserve. You know. Yeah.

For those. Those of you who are sick and tired of fooling around and are dead serious about wanting to move up fast, I've got something especially for you. I've combined the best insights from over 40 years in business and making $70 million in income and compressed them into a free webinar. That's right. It's a free resource. If you want to find out exactly what the concepts are that I use in coaching million dollar earners, Register now@widelawnwinning.com you'll discover the five part framework used by so many to reach their financial, personal and professional goals. You can find that link in this episode's show Notes. Yeah, there's always choices and it's interesting to read the letters from artists in the past and they were dealing with the same like the things we're talking about here, the issues and making decisions and sorting out how you're going to come up with a solution. Artists have had to deal with this forever and so we can't all do a Sistine Chapel and so that. So it's going to be. And have a Vatican that will display our work or have a Pieta. It's off to the right as you go into the basilica there. And we can't all have masterpiece like the David and Florence. So the challenges are you do the best you can. But you, it. It helps you if you're at least aware of the preservation idea. Like what am I working on? I heard this just yesterday. It's like, what am I working on that's going to last? That's going to have some longevity to it. If what am I spending a lot of time on that's not going to last. For example, we had this set up for a month ago, this podcast. And then came Hurricane Helen or one of them and. And two of them and blew you out of care water. So you had to get on the road and go to Singapore or someplace to stay. And so we're always adjusting. But the idea is if you have. But anyway, that that hurricane came and went and eventually things that's going to be in the rearview mirror. Whereas I'm sure there's some permanent damage from it. But it's not going to be permanent. It's going to last five years or something. We were in. You have these even in Colorado. They have. I never heard of this before. I've heard of hundred year floods, but then they had a couple of hundred year floods outside of Denver. Then all of a sudden they had a 500 year flood.

Yeah.

But somehow Denver still survived. And then we heard about that for a week and then you didn't hear about it anymore. And so like, are we going to get. I think the challenge for all of us is just think about. This is kind of an extension of a earlier podcast we did on creativity. What are you thinking about and what are you spending your time on that has the potential of making an impact and lasting rather than just being the excitement of the moment. And we just discover that on the run, you are on the run all the time around the world. What have you learned about traveling because you travel with valuable stuff? I don't know. Are you still traveling with the monitors? And I know you. How many cameras are you taking with you now? And how do you. I mean, you can't carry all of them in a bag slung over your shoulder.

I mean. Yeah. So what I do is I kind of simplify. So you say one thing. I came from a viewpoint that you have to travel in style. So it has hand luggage that you actually would carry in hand. No wheels were allowed. And I would have Louis Vuitton trunks or like suitcases. Not the trunk like the big ones, but suitcases which are great in the way that they last forever and you should think somebody will steal it, but they don't and they never touch them. But when you arrive, you just open. It's like your own space. You travel with a drawer. You don't have this suitcase and it's like an egg all over the Floor and stuff explodes and you have to sit on it to close. It's very organized. So I actually went away from that. You can say now, the last trip I did here, when I went to UK to photograph for a few days, I had to dress warm or in layers. I didn't know exactly what the weather would be. And now here I go Singapore. So now, for example, I go Singapore. I just have one. A suitcase with wheel, lightweight suitcase where I can put in shirts and stuff. It's all warm weather in that direction. And then I have a smaller trolley that the great thing about it is you can open from outside. You can just unzip it. And there's the laptop. So you can take the laptop in and out. And inside that one I have. I can put in two compartments, but I have usually one compartment in the bottom for cameras. So that's basically the same at the same size as a Billingham bag. So that fits like two, three, four cameras and four lenses. So that is there. And I can. I can double it if I really want to have a lot with me, which is not very often. And then I have a.

Are you rolling that on the plane?

That goes on the plane. No cameras or computers goes in taken at all. So you said. The newer thing is that I started believing wheels and then you. Because, I mean, in European airports, a lot of airports around the world, they have trolleys inside the airport. And. And it's easy. But you could say anytime you land in the US airport, they don't have any toilets and you have to walk right, 10 minutes with all your lockers. And that's not fun anymore.

And they don't have sky caps anymore.

They have nothing. It's just like just Starbucks and airplanes. That's all I have left. So. And then I have on top of the trolley that I carry on, I have a bag that is two compartments, has one compartment where there's like another camera section and then it has another compartment with just everything like headphones, vitamin scars, passport, and all that stuff. And that's basically what I travel with. And you can say when, for example, I go to. On this trip here, probably I'm gonna bring. Yeah, there's cameras that I'm using. I'm doing something which I have to like a Deluxe 8. I have to like a Q343. Those are the two I'm writing about. I'm still doing something about the, like SL3, so I'll probably bring that also because it's handy for some things. And then I have to Pick one or two M cameras and then lenses to go with it. And then probably for this travel, I also bring a tripod and the video cameras. I can do some video and a wireless microphone as I can do some video if I feel like it. So that kind of fits into all this. But I mean, even just this morning, I was thinking, like, it could be tempting just bring an M camera with a 50 millimeter and that's it, you know, and one spare battery, because that can be done. It's not. I mean, we all notice that. We, and I think we all do to some degree, that you go travel and you feel like your life is going to end. So you have to pack everything and make sure you have enough socks and have enough of this and that you cannot arrive to New York or two hours away without everything.

Right?

Which is ridiculous because, I mean, if you forgot to pack underwear, socks, you can buy it. It's easy to get. The tricky thing is like a Tata for like an M9 camera. It's not that easy to find, especially if you don't go to Bali or something, then you're really in trouble. So what else is like, I mean, fundamentally, you just take a toothbrush and a credit card and then go anywhere, and then you're fine. But still we try to pack. And I always pack more books than I can read and stuff and things I put on the hard drive that I'm going to work on this, and then I never. I don't have time to do it, you know, so I'm still trying to just cut that down and I'm not there yet. I still bring stuff that is wishful, a sign of wishful thinking that you know, and notesbooks and everything on the planes.

Are you reading or watching videos?

I'm reading and sleeping. I'm basically mainly, I try to sleep and then if anything, I read. I kind of always turn off the screen. Sometimes I will watch a movie if it fits into the timing preset. The rule is like, a travel day is a travel day. So you get up in the morning, then you go to the airport, you sleep on the airplane, you land, and then you go to bed. And you need all the sleep, all of it. It's not like just because it's a daytime flight, you can just not sleep because you're going to be worn out. So. And I don't feel like there's moments on an airplane where you think clearly or something. But generally this thing is like, it's not the place to think big thoughts or work on Stop. I mean there's no space for screens. I mean it's just like.

No, I found that ideas can come to you when you just let your brain go blank there on a plane, ideas can pop up. The subconscious can serve up ideas of a suppressed. They can kind of work their way to the surface.

Yeah, I have that. I mean, but then they have to come to you. I don't think you can. I'm going to go on a plane and now I'm going to be really smart. That's not how it worked. But it does work that you like for whatever reason it is that it's change of environment or you spent two weeks in Caribbean or you did something and now you get on the plane. Or maybe just the fact that now you get to sit and stare out in the air and not have to do anything but just wait for the plane to fly through the air. That opens up for some possibilities. I believe more in that. I don't think it's like the pressure or anything, but maybe it's just this moment of being disconnected and not being in your normal environment that allows to look at new things or get new ideas. I tried that. I mean, I tried and I have people who consistently say like, no, I'm always postulating in the airplane and so on.

I don't think I've ever heard that phrase postulating on the airplane.

No, but it's kind of like you postulate that I'm going to be big in the housing market or I'm going to do, I'm going to build a company or whatever, I'm going to write a book and this is what's going to be in it. So that's what I mean. Like you get this idea and you think, wow. And somehow you have a moment of clarity or something. And I think it does happen, but I don't think you can plan it right. And yeah, so this.

Well, that's the thing with creativity period. I mean. Yeah. And so talk about what have you learned about stringing trips together when you're in a location? A lot of people, they have lots of locations. They'll get two weeks, three weeks. And what have you learned about what's a good length of time to stay in an area? I know you do the three day workshops, but. And you string them together. You go to Singapore, you, you've got to, you can't go over, make go back and forth just for Singapore. You got to put some back to backs together. What's the most that you found? What's ideal in terms of plan, because people would apply. This could be useful. Like they want to do a vacation with some variety different than, than they've done in the past. So what do you recommend?

I don't have like, I mean, I feel if I go to. No, I go to Singapore, but let's say I go to Tokyo, which is like the most exciting and different place you can go. So that should be enough to look at. But I finally arrive in Tokyo and then next three days I do a workshop. And then on the day after the workshop, I'm basically ready to leave. I don't have an urge to see more, experience more, unless I put myself into a mode where now I'm going to do it and just stay there. But I kind of never, I never did that. And I mean I never travel as a tourist. I never have places I need to see this tower or this garden or that monument. It's just absolutely no interest what the way I travel is. Like I walk around, I drink coffee and preferably have nothing to do. And that's. Then I make photographs or I sit down and write or something like that. And I mean, of course it changes. I mean there's always been like in, in the past there would be. I would always go to the Apple store and the Louis Vuitton store or something like that in almost any city or like a store. And I don't do that anymore. Just like, no, I can't. It's just. I can buy it online if I need it.

Yeah.

But then you could say then for example, here we went in, maybe it was May or something. I did a workshop in Kyoto. So we flew all the way to Kyoto. We flew to Tokyo first and took the bullet train to Kyoto. And you could say maybe one, one and a half day in Tokyo you can experience a lot. There's. And then you take the train with this experience also. You shouldn't underestimate those things. And then I had to go back to Tokyo and do some, some photographs, some portraits. And we had just decided, let's just go zigzag back. And I told the magazine, hey, those people don't have to come to Tokyo. Tell us where they are and we'll go visit them. And then we basically just looked at the maps and let's go. So this city is like one and a half hour away. And we found there was actually a tea. But to just take an Uber or taxi than it was to take the train and fly, to organize. It's just whatever and everything is nice and order In Japan. And then we went weird places because that's where people lived and I photographed them there and then we would find places. So for example, one of the unexpected, exciting place we found was that. Well, so we had Leila figured out we had some high height points or she had some high points on her account. So let's find the highlands that stay for feeds some days. So they find this nice hotel somewhere on the coast between Tokyo and Ryoto and they have all these water things that they do have in Japan. And then I book it and then we find out it's the wrong hotel I booked. The one I booked is like two hours from there. So we end up in Fuji Motorway hotel, which is a Hyatt hotel that is like two or three years old and it has all the bathing things and stuff, but they also have a wave tag outside since the 70s. So. And then she managed to get us upgraded to like almost like a royal suite. So we had like this big terrace to the racetrack. So you get up in the morning and 8:30 they just start racing in Porsche and everything else and they make a lot of noise. And the whole hotel was themed with race cars. It actually has two floors of race campus here. Race cars for the last hundred years. And the small chocolate for the COVID was shaped like race cars and stuff like that. So that was like an unexpected experience where it's like, you can't buy this, you can't plan it and then suddenly it's fun. So definitely we'll do it again for no reason. We'll just travel around in Japan and see where we end up. And I think any travel is good if you can change it. So that means if you go to Europe, you rent a car because then when you get tired of Berlin, you just look at the map and say, let's go to Austria or let's go to Paris or something like that. It takes five hours to drive there. And similar in Japan you like, you book the hotel and then if you get tired of the city after a day, sometimes you do, you find out this is. This sounded great, but it wasn't great. You just hit the road and find the next city and then usually you have to get home if to take care of the cats or something else in two weeks. So that's kind of like the limit. And even that you could change if. Or you could go home earlier, you could stay longer. So yeah. So that's interesting. You say what is the driving factor of that is like. It is like as long as it's inspiration and it feels fun and it gives you something that you can, you can use in whatever you are creating in life. Then you do it. But for example, I mean, I don't have a need to go to Rome and see the Spanish Steps and take a selfie of myself. There's like, I couldn't care less. I mean, I've seen them several times, walk by them, but I couldn't care less about the Spanish Steps or some ruin out in nowhere that everybody else have to go look at. So that's the freedom I have. There's just. Everything is. Just evaluate it from what does it give to me? Like what is basically inspiration. It's the same. I read books, I read magazines, I watch movies. Everything I do is based on how does it inspire me? Can I use this? Does it give me energy? That's basically what it does.

I'd like to thank you for listening to part two of this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind podcast. Timing is everything. You may feel that now is the time to get moving forward so you can do something even greater with your life. Now, if that sounds like you, I've got a free training video to show you how that transformation can take place. Getting introduced to how the cycle of success works has been a major transforming event for so many current millions of dollar earners. And that's exactly what this video is all about. And yes, it's completely free. Join us at the video@widelawnwinning.com and thanks for being part of our community.