Here I am down in Orange County, California down at a private beach, a house located in a gated community with its own private beach just beyond the wall that I’m standing next to. An absolutely amazing place. I’m down here for the holidays visiting my family.
Here in the States, we have a holiday called Thanksgiving coming up. And Thanksgiving really, whenever you think about the history of Thanksgiving, I like to think of it as a time for gratitude, a time for getting together with friends and family. But I also use it as a time to reflect. A time to reflect on all the things that I am grateful for.
Today, I want to talk to you about being a tourist. Hopefully, you’re like me, and you love to travel. What if you were a tourist in your own life? Let’s look at your life from a one-month perspective. You’re able to tour your life for one month, and one month only. Now, this is a question I often ask people. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you want to go? I’m going to buy you a ticket. A one-way ticket. Anywhere you want to go. Where do you want to go? And what are you going to do when you get there?
I was talking to a client of mine; we’ll just call him Tim. Tim was having an issue. He said, “Doug, what happens is it’s like somebody else possesses me and they take over. I know what I should be doing, and I know when I’m making the wrong decisions. When I make a wrong decision, I just beat myself up. It’s like somebody else takes over and possesses my body.” What Tim was talking about in this conversation with me was, in particular, he had a very distinct goal. He has distinct goals in all five categories of his five to thrive, but in this one, he broke it.
We were talking this morning about a family member, a family member going through an extremely hard time. Where the conversation went up was like, “You know what? She’s only meaner, she’s only gotten meaner over time. And even though she’s going through this hardship, instead of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and actually being nice to other people, she’s actually meaner.” So the conversation went into, and my wife eloquently said, “Hey, you know what happens when bad times come around, is mean people get meaner, happy people get happier, joyful people get more joyful, sad people get sadder. You really go back to that set point that you have, and it just amplifies it.”
