All right, welcome back to The Daily Mastermind. My name is George Wright III. I'm your host. I hope you are joining us for our daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education because you're looking to increase the quality of your life. You're looking to truly create the life that you were meant to live. I believe that is something that we can all do. and today I want to help to inspire you with some thoughts I had and some things I put together based on a book that I was just reading recently. So before I get started, let's go ahead and get you going with the quote of the day. It's from Tony Robbins and the quote is, The past does not equal the future. The past does not equal the future. And I always find it really amazing that these quotes tie into the topic that I'm talking about for the day. You know, Who knows if that's on purpose or not, but at the end of the day, I hope you get something out of the episode today. I want to talk to you about a book that I've been reading, and it's called A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. I think the subtitle is What I Learned from Editing My Life. It's a book by Donald Miller. The reason I want to talk to you about it today is I want you to ask yourself a question. I want you to ask yourself if you feel like you are where you want to be in your life. And I ask you that question because I think most people would say the answer is no. Most people don't feel like they are where they are, where they want to be. And I think, you know, if you're really being honest with yourself, most people would say that they're not really, you know, proud of where they're at. Meaning they don't really feel like they've accomplished significant things and things that have made impact and gotten to the place they want to be financially, personally, spiritually, with relationships, business, and all those things. And it always brings me back to this quote that Wayne Dyer had, which is when you look back on the tapestry of your life, you know, things change, right? The meaning of things change. When you're in the situation, they maybe seem a little overwhelming, but in hindsight, they sort of make a little bit of sense. And that quote actually made me think about this book because, let me tell you about this book real quick and why I want to talk to you about it. So the author, Donald Miller, he wrote a really successful memoir. I don't even remember what the name of the memoir was. But then afterwards, it was so successful that some guys approached him about creating a movie out of it. And, you know, at first he wasn't too excited about it. You know, he was like, oh man, the story of my life is not really a great movie. But, okay, let's do it. And so as they started talking and as they started getting to know each other, these guys talked about how they needed to kind of change the story a bit. And he kept thinking, man, is that a reflection on the fact that my life was not very exciting or not very good? And, you know, they made it pretty clear to him that it's not that. It's that there are certain elements of a great story that, you know, when you're thinking about things in your life and you're reflecting on your life or you reading about your life makes sense but when you showing it in a movie it doesn make sense because they can read your mind So you have to put it out on paper And so it really was an interesting concept for me to think about because the power of storytelling is huge. You know, stories shape our lives. The meaning you give to your life makes a big difference. And applying the principles that these guys had in this book to creating a great story, when you learn to use those same principles in creating or giving meaning to your life, It really helps you to develop. It really helps you to grow. And I think there's some real powerful principles that you can pick up out of this. Because at the basic core of it, you can edit your life. If you were to look back on your life right now, what would you view it as? Would it be these obstacles and circumstances? And you know as well as I do that you can give different meanings to events in your life, especially in hindsight. And the challenge is most of us, most of us spend our life looking at the things in the past as things that have defined us. And we've talked about this before, rather than us defining the things that happen in our life. And so there's a pretty powerful title in this book that, you know, the lessons you can learn by editing your life. But I want to talk to you about it for just a second. So what are the elements of a great story? because I think we can take the idea of crafting your story, crafting the story of your life, and use that as a way to push you forward in your life into greater success, greater fulfillment, greater happiness. So what are the elements of a great story? Well, they're the same elements, ironically, as elements of a meaningful life. And the point of the story isn't really, and the point, I guess I would say, of a great story or a great life, you've heard before isn't the search for meaning as much as the transformation that happens through the search. Think about that in a great movie or a great story. It's not so much about what happened in the end. It's about how you got to the end. It's about the transformation that happens with the main character and the storyline. Think about how amazing a story is because of everything that the hero or the character in the story has to go through. It's no different with your life. You know, if you could just skip right to the end, although I think there are many days that we wish we could do that, then it wouldn't make for such a great story. And the whole point of having a great life and a great story is the transformation. It is the journey that you're going to go through. And so it's very important that we realize that when you look back on your life. You can edit the story to have more meaning. You can give it more meaning. You can fill in the gaps. You can, you know, elaborate or collaborate on the experience that you had. So I want to talk to you about a couple of different ideas. The first is that you have to learn, you know, in a good story and a great character, you have to learn to embrace change and take risks. See, you know, what a character in a story is feeling isn't as important as what they actually do, right? It's always about the actions of the character. So whatever it is you caught up in your head or you thinking about or you want to do or should do or you know have intention to do it only goes so far it all about what you do that makes the biggest impact on a great story and on a meaningful life and it this idea that a character a great character in a story is very simple it's someone that wants something really bad and overcomes conflict to get it think about that every great story or movie that you've ever seen was a character that wanted something badly and had to overcome conflict to get it. Without that conflict, the story is boring. Without that conflict, the story is not what it could be. So it's so important to understand the necessary conflict that's needed. And it's always about the importance of kind of stepping outside your comfort zone. Great characters are thrown outside their comfort zone. And there's a thought that they shared in the book that I really liked, which was when a character is inciting an incident in their life, they're stepping into something that's going to put them way out of their comfort zone. They're inciting an incident. It's a doorway through which they cannot return. And when you do that, when you incite an incident, which is something or a doorway that you can't return, you step out of your comfort zone, you launch your business, you go into a relationship, you take risks, you open yourself up to change, it's embracing the uncertainty that really creates the great story, that helps you to grow. We already know that if you don't step outside your comfort zone, you're never going to grow. So the key to a great story and a meaningful life is to step outside your comfort zone and embrace change and take risks. It's part of having an amazing story. The other thing is that you've got to learn to set meaningful goals. You know, identifying your purpose and your values and the things that you want to do, those are great elements of a great story, a meaningful life, a meaningful story. The other thing is that's pretty common in some of the best stories or, you know, if you want to create a meaningful life, some of the best stories out there is you've got to be overcoming your fear and resistance. Recognizing and addressing what your fears are, the things that you push against, the things you struggle against. And a lot of times it's what's deteriorating your self-worth. See, so many of us are going out there and creating all this confidence in our life, but deep down inside, we're avoiding our fears. We're avoiding the things that will really, truly get us to our greatness. And in a great story, you know, the character embraces or jumps into fear and overcomes these limiting beliefs or fears that they have. And so, you know, learning strategies for overcoming your fear and resistance is something that I encourage you to do. We talk about it all the time here on this podcast, learning ways to overcome your fears. And there was another thought that they shared in this book that I really liked, and that is the greatest Greatest things come to those that do not succumb to fear. And I think all of us would agree with that. You know the greatest things in your life are going to come to you when you don give in to your fears Because your fears your comfort zones the things that you using to protect yourself right now they keeping you from your best life from that incredible story, that thing that you're gonna get excited about, that you're gonna be able to look back on and say is amazing. And so it's very important to overcome your fears and resistance that you're giving to your fears. And then finally, cultivating relationships and community. I think most good stories have some type of a relationship dynamic in it. And it's important for you to gain those connections. And you can only gain those connections when you step into your fear. You go into the unknown. You take action. You get out and live in life. And you stop sitting on the sidelines. And so if we're talking about, and I know we don't have much more time here, if we're talking about you finding a way to create an amazing story, an amazing life, and if life's worth living, it's worth creating. And to do that, I think sometimes we have to look back on our story of our life and we have to learn to edit the meaning of the story that we've been telling ourselves. What is the story you've been telling yourself? How are you defining yourself? Are you letting your past define you or are you choosing to give meaning to your past and you proactively choose to say, I got through that. I learned from that. I grew from that. I'm now a better person. Because let's be honest, we are definitely not the same people we were one year ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. You've got to stop telling yourself that you're defined based on that. But more importantly, I wanted to highlight for you that the same elements that go into creating an amazing story in your life are the same elements that you can use into a great story are the same elements you can use to create an amazing life. And so it was a great book. I highly recommend it. Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. And I wasn't able to even really scratch the surface of the cool principles that it has. But I really just wanted to plant the seed that you have the ability to edit your life. You have the ability to give meaning to the events that happen in your life. And you also have the ability to craft your story moving forward. So make sure you're doing it with the right elements. Make sure you're doing it with things that will align with your passion, get you out of your comfort zone, help you to live a dynamic, successful, happy, fulfilled life. And when you do that, when you recognize that you are the author of your story, the main character in your story, the judge and jury, everything in your story, you have more power than you think you do. And I believe you have unlimited potential. And I believe that if you will just put focus on it, you can unleash a life that you were truly meant to live. And it's never too late to do that. So that's my message for today. I hope you have an amazing day and I look forward to talking with you more tomorrow Hit me up on the daily mastermind on instagram facebook or you can email me In fact go to just go to the website daily mastermind.com And connect with me. Let me know what you're working on I'd love to be able to help you and see what I could do to bring topics into your day that will help you to grow To your best level. That's my message for today. My name is george wright the third. This has been the daily mastermind I'll talk with you more tomorrow .
