Start With The End In Mind (Vision)

Hopefully the last post helped you get your passions in order. Now we're going to use those to craft your "vision."

I have three exercises for crafting your dream life. They are:

1. God / Richard Dawkins walks into your room.
2. You win the lottery.
3. Describe your perfect day.

Two and three are pretty self explanatory. One involves God (or Richard Dawkins if you prefer) walking into your room and telling that whatever you decided to do in life you wouldn't fail (Richard has hard science to prove this fact ;) ). The questions is, what would you do?

That's always been my favorite one as it gets me thinking about immediate things along with long term things, it also gets you to focus on things you would experience more than material things you might purchase if you won the lottery (although I recently read a spin on the lottery one that said you couldn't use the winnings to start a business, what business would you do, ie you don't have to worry about bills, etc.).

One thing that's nice about the lottery one is you may find out you want to live somewhere else and you'll be honest with yourself about the material things you want to buy. Describing the perfect day is a good one as well, but a lot of people may initially say to themselves "sitting around all day doing nothing!" That might initially be true, but that wouldn't last forever, try to see beyond that (that's just a reaction to being overly stressed with life).

The Important Thing About The Exercise

There are two things you really want to do here. Be as detailed as possible and remove limitations on your dreams. Think as big as you like! That doesn't mean you HAVE to think big, just don't limit yourself here. We'll get back to reality in the next exercise.

There are lots of ways to do this besides what I presented above. Vision boards, vision videos, people seem to use Pinterest, etc. What's important is to be as detailed as possible and remove limitations.

Starting Small Is TOTALLY OK

Don't get overwhelmed with "thinking big." You might not be in a good place for doing that. No problem! Work your way up. Think about it. Everything you do starts with the end in mind. Something as simple as getting dressed starts with the idea of having clothes on, then going through the motions. Preparing dinner is the same, you might have a meal in mind. You'll find a recipe, make sure you have all the ingredients and tools, then you'll cook, but you had the end image in mind first.

Everything you do has the end in mind. If you need to get conscious of it, or exercise it with small stuff, do that. Then work you're way up to bigger and bigger things until you're comfortable with the idea creating the vision of your "dreams" and getting the recipe and tools necessary to "cook" it. :)

My Vision for the Future

I have no idea how this is going to turn out, but I'm going to give it to you straight. I'll start with my smaller material goals that are mostly leftovers from growing up broke (and still being broke I suppose...) lol

Materialism

• Cars (all black) Ford Fiesta, Mazda RX-8, Lotus Exige
• A condo on the Lake in Milwaukee, a place in Taiwan and a place with good surfing
• Enough to pay for all that
• Whatever craziness my wife will want... lol
• Then I'll give it all up and be a minimalist (walking everywhere and whatnot). :D Although "the wife" will keep me tethered to reality. ;)

Now I'm going to list visions for a few businesses I've started or would like to start. Know that the ultimate aim behind every business venture is towards "Changing the world." Changing the world has come to mean different things to me at different times as I've grown older, but I'll try to define it as it stands now:

Elevating the consciousness of the planet and people on it.

I believe high concentrations of higher consciousness produces a better living environment for all parties within the vicinity for people directly or indirectly connected to that higher concentratino. So... The businesses...

Pwning Life

A personal development system and platform for me and others to do "peer to peer" life coaching. The goal is to have a system, books, seminars, etc. all which help individuals figure out their purpose in life and pursue it in a way that's fun (and helps others do the same). I would like to see this spread internationally and affect millions of people. I would also like to help people create their own systems based on the one I create (or totally new) in order to reach even more people...

Social Milwaukee

"Make Milwaukee the most socially connected city in the world," is how I describe it to myself. The way I intend to do that is by giving schools, churches, nonprofits, etc. the knowledge and tools necessary to get their messages out to a broader audience. I also want to see offline networking happening and help bridge some of the gaps between the city (Milwaukee is ranked #1/#2 as most segregated city in the US).

Black Horse Tai Chi

Make tai chi a MARTIAL art again. Create a style of competitive push hands which is inviting to people from other martial arts. Operate a main school and have a series of schools and clubs nationally and internationally.

MilTownKlan

A group of artists, bloggers and musicians that... do awesome stuff. Deeper than that, I'd like this to turn into an inner city "Shaolin Temple" type thing in Milwaukee where people trained martial arts, learned business, lived minimalistic, and learned how to be awesome citizens :D Totally want there to be a hip-hop group that does shows. I also want this to serve as an example of what other people can do with a group of friends to have a good time (while positively impacting the issues of their choice).

How It All Fits Together

My days would consist of waking, training, eating, then "work" (writing or consulting I would guess). Lunch, followed with more "work" (writing and consulting), I'd want to segue to the gym at some point and throw people around taichi style or get choked out BJJ style, eat again, train some more, relax, sleep.

Something like that. I figure the consulting I do would be focused on "tribe building" (making Milwaukee the most socially...) Instead of trying to change the world, I'll start with trying really hard to change one block of a city, then one neighborhood, then one region, then a whole city. If we (the teams that get put together) can pull that off, we can teach others how to do it in other cities.

I also plan on doing a lot of traveling where I do Pwning Life and Black Horse Tai Chi seminars along with MilTownKlan shows in cities we visit.

It's taken me a while to craft this vision up in my conscious, but it's been pretty solid for a couple of years now. The things that have been CONSTANT constants for over 20 years are changing the world and being a martial arts master. It has taken me a while to figure out how to change the world. Will probably take me a bit of time to implement the solution I believe I have. ;)

Start With The End In Mind

This all brings me back to starting with the end in mind. Now... I know my dreams are... a little epic. Yours don't need to be. Don't feel the need to out epic me or anyone else. All of the above seems to come from a "higher calling." A BIG part of me wants to ditch everything, generate a modest income online somehow and surf.

So, as I was saying, you start with the end in mind so you have a destination in mind when you're making your shorter term goals. Without a vision (large or small) you'll end up anywhere doing any old thing. It'd be like deciding to drive somewhere and creating the directions before having picked the destination.

Also, don't worry about "failure." The success of this system isn't reliant on achieving goals (although that's a part of it!) We actually redefine conventional ideas of success. Instead of it being based on achieving or acquiring something, it's based on walking the path to your dreams in a balanced and healthy way. As soon as you're doing that, you're pwning life! Just keep it up. Some days will obviously be better than others, but when you get knocked off the horse, dust yourself off and jump back on.