Denis Waitley delivers a concise motivational talk about living a long, fulfilling life by doing what you love, treating failures as learning fertilizer, and prioritizing passion over money. He advises continual personal growth—never fully retiring but 'retrying' and seeking new goals—and ends with a short bio identifying himself as author of the audio program The Psychology of Winning.
Chapters
Well, you know, a long and fulfilling life is possible if you keep it simple. But it's not easy. But it is simple. Find out what you love to do and do it as early as you can. If possible, dust off your childhood. Remember what you loved to do when you were 7 to 17. What really turned you on? What were you excited about when you were little, when you were in junior high and high school? And then what do you love to do now most in your work? What really turns you on when you get to the office or the factory or wherever you go to work? But more importantly, what do you love to do when you're not working? What do you love to do after work and on Friday night and on Saturday and when you're resting on Sunday? And if you didn't need money and if time was not a problem and circumstances allowed, what would you begin doing that you'd love to do? The secret to a long and fulfilling life is to love what you do by doing what you love, by delivering more than you promise and making sure that you give more in value than you receive in payment. And people will be seeking you for what you're giving to them. And the secret then is your name and work will outlive you and always command the highest price when you give more than you expect to receive. So the best way to go through life is always looking at your failures as learning experiences, temporary inconveniences, target corrections I look at failure as fertilizer. Doesn't smell good, don't want to be around it, don't want to roll in it. But if you plant your failures as a growing ground, your failures can become the seeds of greatness, things not to repeat, things that you can learn from. And therefore, I look at failure as the fertilizer of my life. And it was easy for me to fail. I've had a lot of failures, and I wasn't afraid to fail because I knew that I had failed and it was something that I could do all the time. But then I finally learned that if you don't fail, you won't know the meaning of success. And therefore you can't succeed unless you know how it feels to fail, because you wouldn't recognize it if you had it. So failure is a detour, not a dead end. And then one of the most important things of all is to make sure you chase your passion, not your pension. In other words, the passion, this intrinsic desire, this fire that burns inside of you has to come out. It's not the money you want to chase. Let money chase you. And that's the way to have money. Let money be your slave, but never be a slave to money, because money is only transportation and the fuel for your marvelous space shuttle. Money is fuel and it takes you where you want to go. Does you no good to collect it, only to use it, especially for the benefit of people other than yourself. So again, to live as long as you can, because you always have something more. Another mountain, another adventure, another idea. And that's what I do. I really learn from Gandhi. I live today is up, I might die tomorrow. But I learn and I yearn as if I'm going to live forever by always looking for the next opportunity. And by doing that, I always have another goal, something more to do. And I think that's one of the secrets of living long. Never to retire, only to retry, reinspire and look at yourself as a work of art always in progress. Because you never arrive at success. You're always under construction on that road to the top. That, I think, is the real secret. Keep it simple, even though it's not easy. Hello, I'm Dennis Whateley. You know, for the past 40 years, I've been training astronauts, Olympians, prisoners of war and top executives how to be a winner. I'm the author of the all time best selling audio program, the Psychology of Winning. If you like what you've seen so far and are ready to take it to the next level, then register for my new masterclass, SA.
