How to Design Your Life | Meaningful Revolution Podcast

Hey, everyone, I am Sean Butner, and today I'm going to start with a quick quote from Steve Jobs. Okay, so here we go. The thing is, that thing I would say is when you grow up, you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world, try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life and have fun, save a little money. But that's a very limited life. Life can be so much broader once you discover one simple fact. And that is, everything around you that you call life was one time made by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it. You can influence it. You can build your own things that only other people can use. And the minute that you understand that, you can poke life, if you push in something, pop out on the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it, you can influence it. That maybe the most important thing is to shake off the erroneous notion that life is there and you're just going to live in it versus embracing it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it. And I think that's important because however you learn that, once you learn it, you'll want to change life and make it better. Because life's kind of messed up in a lot of ways. And once you learn that, you'll never be the same again. Wow. I often think of this particular idea, Right. There's a clip online where you can check this out, I think, on YouTube. And I remember watching this years ago and just being dumbfounded by the idea of everything around you, to the car that you're driving or the headphones you're listening to this or the device you're watching this on computer, Whatever it is was made by people somewhere. It was designed by people somewhere. It comes from a long line of human interaction, through supply chains, through so many different things. And it was designed and out in your life, and that's amazing. And you can be part of chain, maybe not with your computer or car, but, you know, you can create something meaningful, purposeful, in service to others that other people respond to and use. And I think that's one of the main reasons I created the Meaningful Revolution podcast. I believe we need more people that have adopted this mindset that I can influence the world, I can lead the world, I can make, create a vision and make actions happen that make it realized in the world. Right. Because so many of us get crushed by how things are. And talking from experience, when I was in high school, Everyone. My parents were like, you're going to college. My dad didn't graduate high school. He was a tradesman and was successful in that. My mom was an unskilled worker. He hated school, ended up loving reading, but. So my parents weren't into education when they were going through it themselves. But they drilled into me and my brother, you have to go to college. And it was very important to them that they would. That we, me and my brother, would have a better life than they did and have more opportunities than they did. And that's a beautiful thing. I love that idea of thinking of your legacy or thinking of people you care about and wanting the best for them and wanting more for them. And I hope as you listen to these episodes of this podcast, you feel that for me, I want you to do better in the world. I want you to live a happy, healthy life, whatever that is. I want you to be able to handle the things life throws at you that are unexpected or unwanted or uncontrollable, because we all have that part of human experience in common. And it's how we cope with these things. It's how we show up for our purpose, our vision, however, our passions, however you want to call it, and that underlying belief that we have agency to make things happen, that no matter what happens, you can persevere, that no matter the level of success that you achieve or feel like you've achieved, that you've had a direct impact based on your habits, based on your bold moves, based on the support structure you've built for yourself. And so that's what I want to talk about in this episode of the Meaningful Revolution. I want to talk about how do we create and design our lives, and how do we implement that vision we have for ourselves, for our families, for our communities and organizations? Right. So it's pretty much the wide gambit. But each one of these areas needs you to be a leader, to step up, to assume responsibility for how things are going and to do what. What is ever in your power to make it. I know that seems super idealistic. And notice I didn't say they need you to succeed. They need you to show up and try. And I think that's a very important distinction because a lot of times I feel in culture, we're so focused on results, but you're measuring the wrong things. You're not going to get the outcomes you want. What do I mean by that? That if you are trying to improve the quality of life for your family and you're working 120 hours a week flying all over the world. That's not sustainable. One, your health will give. Two, more importantly, your relationships will give. So your family might not know who you are ever because you're never around. Maybe you're on for holidays, so three times a year or whatever, you get the point that you can focus on that act of providing to the detriment of living your life, connecting with people. And people talk about work life balance. It's more of a work life mix and what you need to do to feel healthy, to have healthy relationships, to have support around you, to share in the victories of life and whatnot. So how do we implement our visions in a way that is balanced, that has the right mix and all that? So I feel like there's four components here that we should be thinking about of designing a life and implementing it. And first one is to actually sit down and get clear on the vision. And this is just Basic Personal Development 101. Sometimes you have a dream journal or a vision board or whatever, a secret or whatever the iteration is. But at the end of the day, you need to know how you want to live your life, how it's going to impact others, that level of service and meaning that'll be generated from that service. And be very clear on how you want to feel in life. And I feel like you say, hey, just have a vision and personal development. Like it's again, this big nebulous thing, but it concretely means how healthy do you want to be in the next five years, 10 years, 20 years? How kind of the cool things you want to be working on in the next 5, 10, 20 years? How do you want your relationships to feel? Intimacy with closeness, with shared experiences? How do you want to have your legacy and contribution in the next 5, 10, 20 years be? And to write that out, I'm going to challenge you today to write down your vision in a journal. Take 30 minutes and write as granular as you possibly can of the life that you want to live and how you want to help and all those things. Health wise, relationship wise, work wise, feeling, just general feeling and emotional, health wise and service wise. So those five areas and you want to paint a picture of for this podcast, I want to reach millions of people. I want millions of people to say, hey, you know what? I'm working on making the world a better place. However that is, I have no idea what that is for each person. I have no idea if it's in alignment with things that I believe about the world. And that doesn't matter as much to me, what matters to me is you're actively out there trying to make it happen, act with integrity and to bring people in again with that act of service. I feel like if you have those components of I want to leave the world better off, I want to help people along the way, I want to feel like I've lived a great life that had meaningful works and pursuits, then we're on the right track. Yeah, we can't go wrong there. Because if everyone had that mindset and you had people that had counter values, you're going to sit down and be like, okay, we have to figure out how we do this together. And I think that we're missing right now. So we need to have vision. Second point, we need to have habits that then reinforce that vision happening. So after you granularly written your perfect day, all those different factors on how you want to live and feel in the world, what are the habits that are going to help have those visions show up in your life every day? And so it's oh, like the habit of waking up doing a morning journal where I'm every day getting clear on how I want my life, the life of my family, the life of my organization, community to be, to really make sure that part's done. I have health habits where I'm going to wake up and go for a walk outside and get some sun and get in the open air and get the body moving and just kind of wake up a little bit drinking water and maybe having a healthy breakfast, which it consists of a breakfast salad, so it's fried haying on spinach and pickled onions or whatever that is. But did you hear the shift there? So I'm describing my vision in terms of concrete actions and concrete habits, right. Not meaning you have to implement everything tomorrow that you brainstorm because that comes into the next step. But so many people, when they think of their lives like I want the big house and fancy car and all the these things, but those are goal posts and not habits, right? Those are the goal posts. They're not the field that you're going to be playing on to realize that dreams. So it's super important to be thinking about all sorts of habits, right? So like for your work habits. So I'm going to get up, you know, I'm going to do my morning thing like I just said, take care of my health and getting clear on my vision. Then I'm going to sit down and the first hour of my day, I'm going to plot out my day, I'm going to Consider what is the most important thing I need to be doing? Who do I need to reach out to? Who am I waiting for things on? What am I excited for this day? So I have the motivation and healthy headspace, so I feel connected to the work. I feel optimistic and excited for what's to come. So again, habits. What habit would you have for your health, relationships, work, well, being and service? So five habits, right? If you just had to start with five habits, what would those be? One in each of those categories? And how can you then implement it? Because that's the next point which we need to be consistently doing those habits every day. And you'll find that getting a little bit of momentum on that vision you have, you know, seeing the habits to build that vision and then starting to live it, you are literally manifesting that dream. And it again, it doesn't have to be perfect. You might struggle some days, a kid might not sleep the night before and you're just completely wrecked for their whole week. Between trying to keep up with work and manage the kid that can't sleep, that happens. But the more consistent you can incorporate those habits, the more authentically you'll feel like you're living your life, the more you'll likely be excited for the life you're living. And so when those hiccups come, you'll be able to move through them with a little bit more grace, with a little bit more resilience and a little bit more writing. So it's a really great, so consistency. What can you do to consistently have those show up in your life? First thing is to put them on your calendar. As a coach, I'm constantly trying to get people put things on their calendar because a lot of us are get this, that particular habit from corporate America. But two, there's something about writing down the habit when you're going to do it, or putting it on your calendar or however you manage your day, however you manage your time, that's magic because you might be like, oh, something came up at work. I wasn't able to do my workout in the morning because I had to handle emergency. But it's on your calendar, so you move it to right before. It allows you to be a little bit more tactical when things go sideways. But more often than not, if it's on your calendar too, it's the reminder to go and do it. Because if you're just reacting to the world we know from high performance, you're going to constantly be at the whims of your environment and not driving the life and the things that you need to get. All right, so to recap, so far we have. You have to have a vision, you have to have habits, and you have to have a sense of consistency of implementing those habits in your life. And the last component to designing your life and implementing it is have to have love. And I chose this word in particular because you have to care about the outcomes. You have to care about how you're showing up and leading the people around you in all the different areas of your life that we've talked about. You need to really have a sense of care in wanting to improve things, of wanting to advance things, of wanting to, again, leave things better than you found them or than were given to you. Because again, like Jobs said, once you realize that everything around you that you called life was made up by people that were no smarter than you, then you realized you can change it. That's such a powerful thing, and you should change it to make things better for everyone, that level of service to other people. And so as you're thinking about your vision, your habits, and consistency, like, how can you bring that level of care to your life, to that vision, to those habits, to where you're not just going on the treadmill for half hour because you need to work out. You're doing it so that you'll be able to live and spend more time with your. Or you'll be able to feel more alive and engaged in the world so that when things get stressful at work, you're not screaming at everyone. You're able to poorly handle it in a way that allows you to be more effective in situations. That's what I wanted to leave y' all with today. I hope this is a little bit clearer way to imagine designing a life that you want to live and implementing it. Again, create that vision very grandly, put it in terms of tangible habits and have a habit for your health, your relationships, your work, your feeling in the world. You know how well positive mindset, how you feel and level of service, put it on your calendars or come up with other habits that will help you be consistent. And don't sweat it if you're not perfect, because you know that's part of the fun of it and part of life. And then do everything with a sense of passion, a sense of love, a sense of care for how you're showing up. And again, if we can all do this, I think we will be living a much more meaningful life. And that's what this is all about. With that said, thank you for listening. To this episode. We have some exciting changes of the podcast coming up that I'm working on and I hope to announce yeah, lots and lots of different ideas and actually I'm going to be asking you guys for some advice but I'll tease that for maybe next time. Thank you for listening to the Meaningful Revolution podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a few friends who you think might like it because it helps us out. In particular, if you could subscribe and comment on Apple podcasts, that's what helps us out the most. But you're on Spotify or Google Play. Totally cool too. Or checking us out on the old YouTube channel. And with that said, we'll see you guys in the next episode. And if you get like this episode, we have an episode over here where we're talking about purpose I think you'd really like. So go check it out and we'll see you there. Take care of Sam.