Episode 634 · Aug 11, 2022

Are You Making a Living or Creating a Life

Listen

Most people wake up each morning, go through the motions, check the boxes, and call it a day. But on The Daily Mastermind, host George Wright III poses a question that cuts right through the noise: are you making a living, or are you creating a life?

This episode is not about tactics or strategies. It is an invitation to pause, take stock of how you are actually spending your days, and decide whether you are drifting or living with genuine purpose.

Are You Living with Intent or Just Going Through the Motions?

George draws a sharp distinction between survival mode and intentional living. When you simply react to whatever the day throws at you, roughly 90% of your waking life is running on autopilot, driven by your subconscious. Patterns repeat. The same routines produce the same results. Days blur into weeks.

Living with intent means asking harder questions: Do you have a dream? Are you chasing it? Do you operate from a game plan, or are you winging it? Do you have a schedule, a direction, a clear sense of what you actually want?

If the honest answers are uncomfortable, that is exactly the point. Awareness is the first step toward change.

Why the Decision Comes Before the Plan

One of the most powerful ideas George shares is this: you do not need to know exactly how before you decide.

"You don't need a plan. You don't need the specifics of what you're going to do because the plan comes after the decision."

So many people wait until they have a complete roadmap before committing. But the decision itself is what activates everything else. George describes the reticular activating system (RAS) in the brain, the filter that helps you sort through tens of thousands of thoughts per moment. Once you make a clear decision about what you want, the RAS begins surfacing the opportunities, information, and connections that were always there but previously invisible to you. It is why, the moment you buy a car, you suddenly see that same car everywhere.

Make the decision first. The clarity follows.

What Life Will Pay You

George reads a poem he keeps in his office, and its message is striking:

"I bargained with life for a penny, and life would pay no more. However I begged at evening when I counted my scanty store. Life is a just employer, he gives you what you ask. But once you've set the wages, why you must bear the task."

The lesson is direct: life pays whatever you ask of it. If you set your sights low, you receive low. If you decide to pursue something bigger, life will meet you there. The wage you set is entirely yours to set.

How to Start Building Your Best Life

George offers a practical framework rooted in what he calls the Prosperity Pillars, a set of 12 foundational principles he developed after 25 years around leading thinkers. These include commitments like taking personal responsibility, acting in spite of your mood, surrounding yourself with positive people, focusing on solutions, creating an attitude of abundance, and visualizing and manifesting your life. They are not just inspiration; they are a daily operating code.

Beyond the pillars, George recommends three concrete starting points:

1. Create daily rituals. Discipline carries you when motivation runs out, and motivation is a limited resource. Rituals build the infrastructure for consistency. 2. Surround yourself with the right people. You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. That does not have to mean physical proximity; podcasts, books, and content all shape your mindset. 3. Get clear on what you want and hold yourself accountable. Set aside time, build barriers that enforce your commitments, and stay teachable. Keep learning, studying, and growing.

The Poem Les Brown Ends With

George closes by sharing a poem that Les Brown, a speaker he has known for many years, uses to end most of his talks:

"If you want a thing bad enough to go out and fight for it, to work day and night for it, to give up your time, your peace, and your sleep for it, if all that you dream and scheme is about it and life seems useless and worthless without it... with the help of God, you'll get it."

The poem is a reminder that desire, paired with persistent action, overcomes opposition, doubt, and circumstance. Print it out. Keep it somewhere you will see it.

Action Steps

Ask yourself honestly: are you operating from a clear game plan, or winging it each day?
Make one committed decision about what you want for your life and write it down.
Build a set of daily rituals that create structure and discipline when motivation fades.
Audit the five people (or voices, podcasts, books) you spend the most time with and ask whether they are elevating you.
Work through the 12 Prosperity Pillars as a daily creed: principles like personal responsibility, acting in spite of your mood, focusing on solutions, and visualizing your life.

The path does not require you to have everything figured out. It requires a decision. Start wanting what you have while you pursue what you want, and your best life begins to take shape. It is never too late to start living the life you were meant to live.

READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT

welcome back to the daily mastermind George Wright III with your daily dose of inspiration motivation and education are you making a living or are you creating a life that's the topic that we have for today but before I do that I want to give you the daily mastermind quote of the day if you haven't downloaded the daily mastermind mobile app I encourage you to do that it's a free mobile app and if you haven't been in there lately you might want to go check it out again because we have tons of ebooks audiobooks meditations guided and unguided meditations and you know just a lot of resources in there it's there for you on the go in order to really give you what you need the tools you need for daily rituals and to really create the life that you want which is the topic for today and the quote of the day today is treat others as you want them to treat you. It goes back to that Bible verse right in Luke which is do unto others as you'd have them do unto you and in business nowadays and in life and in the marketplace that is not as common as you would think and so I really encourage you to take that quote to heart. Now today today isn't really about strategies now for those of you that know me you know that I love to give strategies and things that you can apply in your life but my goal today is really just to inspire you and I want to inspire you to ask yourself a few questions. So when you get up every single day, I want you to ask yourself, are you making a living? Are you just busy making a living or are you creating a life? Ask yourself that question. Are you just living or are you creating a life? Are you living with intent or are you drifting? In other words, are you just going through the motions, doing the same thing every day to the point that 90% of your waking life is run by your subconscious. And the bottom line is that a lot of us get these patterns in our life that we continue to do. So you have to ask yourself, are you operating from a game plan or are you just winging it? So many of us are just winging it every single day. We don't have a schedule. We don't have a plan. We just do the things that we know that we have to do rather than the things that we want to do and ask yourself this question do you have a dream are you searching for clarity in your life or are you just drifting so you got to ask yourself these key questions are you looking for clarity are you chasing your dream are you creating a plan are you living from intent and intention so today is about focus right today is about the rest of your life it's about making the rest of your life the best of your life because it's never too late to start living that life that you were meant to live it's never too late to start living your best life but it only happens if you choose that it only happens if you if you make the decision because it does take a decision right you don't need a plan you don't need you don't need the specifics of what you're going to do because the plan comes after the decision so many of us don't realize that you've got to make that decision before you can truly engage all of those senses and things that you have inside yourself and you do have those inside yourself to help you to create your best life because what the decision does is the decision is going to start to create awareness for you it's going to start to create focus for you that's when that reticular activating system in your brain kicks in you know we've talked about that in the past that your mind just it's consumed with tens of thousands of thoughts at any given time and this reticular activating system in your brain is what helps you to sort through all those inputs and all those thoughts that you have. It's why when you purchase a certain item, you start to see it everywhere because it's on your mind. Get that RAS kicking in for you. Make the decision. Create the awareness because it takes specific intent for you to create the best life that you want. You know, there's a poem that I have in my office, and it's one that every once in a while I'll read, and it's one that I think might inspire you today as well because it talks about life is going to give you what you ask of it, and it's uh let me let me just read it to you in fact it says i bargained with life for a penny and life would pay no more however i begged at evening when i counted my scanty store life is a just employer he gives you what you ask but once you've set the wages why you must bear the task i worked for a menial hire only to learn dismayed that any wage i had asked of life life would have willingly paid. And I think we know that. I think each of you know deep down in your soul that you have the ability to create what you want in your life It going to take hard work it going to take discipline but more than anything it going to take a decision and a commitment to get started today So where do you start? What is it that you need to do in order to create this best life for yourself? Well, I suggest you start with Prosperity Pillars. The Prosperity Pillars, if you go to the prosperitypillar.com, prosperitypillars.com website, you'll see that. but also in the mobile app, we've got that under affirmations. And these are the foundations of what you can do to create your life. The 12 pillars are the pillars that I put together after 25 years of being around some of the greatest thought leaders. Things like I create my life. I take personal responsibility. I act in spite of my mood. I surround myself with positive people. I focus on solutions. I create an attitude of abundance. I choose to be happy. I always think win-win. I'm committed to lifelong learning. I create daily rituals. I attract success and I visualize and manifest my life. Those aren't just amazing principles. Those are literally a creed or an MO that you can use in your life to build your best life. So start with those and then create daily rituals. I highly recommend that you create daily rituals so that you can begin to create discipline in your life because the discipline is going to take over when your motivation wears out and motivation is a limited resource for sure also I suggest you surround yourself with the right people surround yourself with similar goal-oriented successful happy productive you know producers because when you hang out you know look you're the average of the top you know of the five people you hang out with the most just think about who it is that you hang out with right now are those the individuals that are going to take you to the next level? And it doesn't have to be physically hanging out. You can be listening to podcasts. You can be watching YouTubes. You can be doing things that surround you with that mindset. But I also recommend that you commit some time. You've got to make a decision and a commitment to make this happen, but set aside some time. Get clear on what you want. Hold yourself accountable. Find ways to set up boundaries and barriers to hold yourself accountable. and then find common ground with these people in your life Be teachable You know you find that if you start learning studying growing you going to find the path And then you going to realize ironically enough that the path is happiness Because when you start appreciating what you have, you've heard me say that before, start to want what you have rather than chase what you want. When you do that, that's when your best life is going to start to appear. That's when it's going to appear. Now, I want to leave you with a poem that an individual that I have gotten to know really well over the years, Les Brown, usually ends most of his talks with. It's a poem that you've probably heard before, but it's an amazing, amazing, motivating type of set of words and poem. And I want to read it to you real quick. It says, if you want a thing bad enough to go out and fight for it, to work day and night for it, to give up your time, your peace, and your sleep for it, if all that you dream and scheme is about it and life seems useless and worthless without it, if you gladly sweat for it and fret for it and plan for it and lose all your terror of the opposition for it, if you simply go after that thing that you want with all of your capacity, strength and sagacity, faith, hope, and confidence, and stern pertinacity. If neither cold, poverty, famine, nor gout, sickness, nor pain of body and brain can keep you away from the thing that you want, if dogged and grim you besiege and beset it, with the help of God, you'll get it. I think that's an amazing poem. I'd even encourage you to maybe print that out and have it around you. You've got to get that inspiration and motivation in your life. I want to encourage you to go figure out what it is you want and go get it. You have everything you need to be able to get what you want in life. Just make the decision and go after it. That's what the Daily Mastermind is all about. It's here to inspire, motivate, and educate, but inspire and motivate you to make decisions and do something with your life that you want to do to help you start living the best version you can possible and become the best version of yourself. That's my message for today. I hope it inspires you to start thinking about what you need to do. But remember, it starts with a decision. So figure out what you want and go get it. This is George Wright III, and this has been The Daily Mastermind. Have a great day.