Your Far-Fetched Life
When I started publicly sharing ideas, stories, and insights, I never anticipated the amount of active pushback I'd receive. Perhaps I was naive, but I missed the mark by a mile on that one. Whenever you share ideas publicly, you (knowingly or unknowingly) open the door for reciprocating feedback from the public.
The feedback ranges from encouraging to discouraging, serious to humorous, and loving to hateful. If I had a nickel for every time someone told me to "go eff yourself," I'd have a lot of nickels. My favorite all-time comment was when someone said my wife was going to have an affair and leave me for her CrossFit trainer. That would be sad, so let's hope something like that doesn't happen. Luckily, Sarah doesn't do CrossFit....
However, one common piece of feedback stings a bit. It doesn't sting because it hurts me, or I take offense to it. Rather, it stings because I feel terrible for people who feel that way. It's when people tell me these ideas of meaning over money are "far-fetched," "out of touch," or "unattainable." It's not that they don't want to prioritize meaning over money, but they don't believe it's even a possible path. Thus, they must concede to a life of chasing money and throwing away decisions that provide meaning.
I don't feel any anger toward these people. More than anything, I have empathy. I wish I could shake them and show them first-hand how much better their lives could be. I wish I could be like one of the ghosts on A Christmas Carol who can teleport the person to their alternate reality and peep at what it looks like. I want them to see, touch, and feel it with their own eyes, hands, and hearts.
I don't believe what I believe simply because I've lived it in my own life. A sample size of one is too small to rely on, and it would be foolish for me to believe my way is the right way. Instead, I've been privileged to watch hundreds of people follow a similar path. Friends, clients, podcast listeners, blog readers, social media DMs, and people who approach me at my speaking events. Hundreds!
Like the countless clients who made drastic 180-degree shifts in their careers to aggressively pursue meaning when they knew it would likely result (at least initially) in far less money.
Like the young man in New Zealand who DM'd me out of the blue to tell me he discovered the podcast, binged 70 episodes in two weeks, and it changed his life, career, and marriage—not because of me, but because of meaning.
Like YOU, the blog readers, who generously and repeatedly share profound stories about choosing meaning when seemingly everyone advises you to do the opposite. People see what you're doing. You're l bending the culture.
You are normalizing a "far-fetched" life, one decision, one story, one impactful act, and one meaningful day at a time.