“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.”
~Socrates
It’s amazing to me at how much our teaching and coaching and encouragement can grip a group of people. They hear our Lifeonaire message, it moves them, and then most of them go right back to their busy, unsatisfying lives.
Hey Moguls, Steve Cook here, and I’m not suggesting that everyone has a bad life, but every person I talk to who is moved by what we teach wants something different than what they currently have.
One of our students shared an article with us called “The Busy Trap.” It was a very compelling article, and one that very much supports what we teach. The writer of this article blames much of our busyness on the environment that we live in. Here’s an excerpt:
It’s not as if any of us wants to live like this, any more than any one person wants to be a part of a traffic jam or stadium trampling or the hierarchy of cruelty in high school-it’s something we collectively force one another to do.
Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.
We strive so much to feel significant that we have lost our way. Instead we seek significance by being busy with our business. We have really bought into the mantra that time is money, when in fact time is our life.
We spend so much of our time being busy that we rarely get to experience life and how great it is. We’re so busy filling our time that we rarely enjoy hobbies.
“If we are paying attention to our lives, we'll recognize those defining moments.
The challenge for so many of us is that we are so deep into daily distractions and
'being busy, busy' that we miss out on those moments and opportunities
that - if jumped on - would get our careers and personal lives to a whole new level of wow.”
~Robin S. Sharma
Busy – the new 4-letter word.
It’s also funny at how often people say to me, ‘Steve, I know you are a very busy man.’
The fact of the matter is that I’m not. I don’t just teach this stuff, I live it. I don’t believe in working 8 hours a day. I can’t do all the other things that are important to me if I work that much.
Instead, I work a few hours a day a few days a week. I may check email on the days that I’m not working, but I work very little. I always joke and say that I’m lazy, but sometimes that implies that I don’t have ambition. I certainly have ambitions, and one of my greatest ambitions is to experience a full life.
I protect my time and my life. I don’t want anything to get in the way of my experiencing an abundant life.
At certain times, I take stock of my business and sometimes decide that I want to ramp up my real estate investing. When most people do this, they expect to give it a lot of time. Instead, I decide to do so with investing no more than one hour per week of my time. As a result, I have a thriving real estate investing business that only requires one hour per week.
You can all do this too when you realize that busyness and business do not have to go hand in hand.
“Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.”
~John Lennon
Tell us your experiences.
Are you guilty of busyness? How did you break out of it? Share below.
Focus on only the most important parts of your business and let go of the busy-work time-suckers.
Spend time on life, enjoying your family, hobbies, etc.
Protect your life by not letting anything get in the way of experiencing an abundant life.
Steve Cook
was a nationally recognized real estate investing educator, author and real estate investor, prior to teaching Lifeonaire life coaching system. Today he is regarded as "The Coaches' Coach." Many of the people who have been coached by Steve have become coaches themselves, eager to share what they have learned with others.