Image: http://transitionvoice.com/

 

I went to bed on Wednesday night, unable to sleep, unable to breathe.

I was having an asthma attack (of which I’ve had many) but this time it wasn’t in my lungs it was in my head, it was in my heart.

And no amount of ventolin was helping.

When you’re having an asthma attack it’s like breathing through a wet hessian sack. Furthermore, your chest is stuck in cement where the ability to breathe out is okay but when you try to breathe in your chest only moves only like 2 centimeters apart. But you need it to move 15cm.

The air rattles and gurgles into your lungs, hissing and squealing on the way out. You’re doing you bset not to panic.

But you can’t breathe so it’s hard not to.

So I’m breathing through a wet hessian sack, whilst in cement, in the dark.

And in front of me I can see something burning. It’s horrifying.

Its money, and an hour glass.

They’re both on fire.

Hold that image in your head, and take a rewind to how I got myself there…

Earlier that day, I had listened to a podcast by Tim Ferris in which he interviewed General Stan McChrystal on Eating One Meal Per Day.

General Stan in the first part of the interview answered the pertinent question: ‘How do you only eat one meal a day?’

But the real ‘meat of the interview’ came later when they discussed mental toughness, special ops, books to read, influences, discipline and focus.

Say those two last words with me again ‘Discipline and Focus’ – you’re going to hear alot about them.

And to be honest with you I’ve struggled with those two words all my life.

Which is why I don’t have all the results I’m still seeking.

Perhaps you are similar.

That podcast lead me to learning about a Mark Devine author of “ The Way of The Seal”.

If you look up what he’s accomplished all you can say is HOLY SHIT. Just check out his Amazon write up.

In the book Mark talks about how we can all handle 20 times more than we think we can.

‘Environment, Association and ‘raising your standards’ are concepts repeated over and over and over ad nauseum about how these three things contribute to success.

A Navy seal has a totally different environment, they associate with different people and their standards are ridiculously higher than your average Joe or Jane.

And thats why they are Jo/ Jane and the Navy seal guy is the navy seal guy.

But then, the real nail in the coffin.

 

I learn about a crazy old guy who lives in Scotland, in his own private castle and people pay him a princely sum so he can shout at them. And by doing so he helps them make millions and billions of dollars.

Yes I’m talking about Dan “Just FUCKING Do It” Pena.

I cam across Dan Pena – the 50 Billion Man – in an email from Matt Lloyd. Check his website http://www.danpena.com/ and start devouring his articles and stuff.

This lead me to reading (and gasping) when I read this article.

Link: ‘$50 Billion Man’ Explains Why You Are WEAK and UNACCOMPLISHED

Dan is THE cankerous, foul mouthed, General Patton of personal development. Matt Lloyd is paying a lot of money to get his ass kicked by him in a month or two.

You either love him or you hate him. There’s no in between. And despite what you think of him, what is undisputed are his results – 50 Billion in increased revenue in his clients.

There’s a great interview with him on London Real that you can watch here but here’s some Dan Pena Gold here. Warning: Not for the faint hearted

So I have all this stuff swirling in my head – and a thought keep rising to the top of my conciseness and popping like a boil.

“You’re wasting your life and you not living to your potential”

Now some of you are probably saying I’m being too hard on myself, look at all the things you’ve achieved so far.

I’m not saying I’m a failure.

Actually I think I’m pretty awesome, I like myself.

But I KNOW, without a shadow of a doubt, I’m capable of more.

And if I had to quantify it, I feels like I’ve only touched 20% of my potential and I have a propensity to coast.

But coasting and only working to 20% of my capacity won;t get me to my goals, of being debt free and living a life of financial and time freedom.

Do you think if you were only living 20% of your potential you’d get to your goals?

Of course not.

If we had any machine, like a blender or even a new car and found out it was only operating at 20% of its fuel economy, it’s speed, its capacity – what would we do?

You and I both know we would throw itself out and onto the scrapheap faster than anyone can ask ‘What are the daily specials?’.

Now it’s not a good idea to throw out people. But what we can certainly do is throw out our old mindset.

So as I was having a asthma attack – having an existential crisis perhaps (it feels like I get them every second day) I started to question to my horror what were things costing me.

What is the real Cost of Things?

Warning: Rants ahead.

In this day and age the real dirty word is Boredom.

No one is allowed to be bored, to not have things to do. We can get instant entertainment, 24/7 streamed live to our phones, TV’s and iPads.

We can watch cute cats slapping each other on FB (hilarious by the way) and we can watch a whole season of Breaking Bad on Stan on our mobile phones.

In our house it got so bad when we were watching TV but we also had our phones with us, flitting between Facebook and TV!

What Does That REALLY Cost Us?

2 months ago I bought a game on my phone, its DOMination (combining Civilization with strategy and Cash of Clans money farming) – and its one of my favorite games. The app cost me $2. But is it the real cost?

Due to my addiction to dopamine which happens whenever my little men destroy someone else empire, when I dig for gold and farm grapes, I like to play this game ALOT.

Now there’s nothing wrong with playing games.

But if you have a closet high achiever it will SUCK up a lot of time. Because you want to WIN.

I imagine I’ve spent perhaps a solid full week of productive time on this game in the last two months. In between calls. In between lunch. Instead of lunch. Instead of blogging or exercise.

I’ve calculated my time is about $100 an hour average at the moment, I work about 8 hours a day. So by those calculations $100 x 8 hours x 5 days x 2 weeks = $8000

$8000!!

Thats how much it cost me to play a $2 app!!!

Well to utterly lay it on the table, I bought one of these $20 ‘Bonus Crown Packs’ to level up faster as well so that’s $8020 I wasted!

If you start thinking along these lines what else have you got that’s really costing you?

Well TV is an easy one. What is it costing you to veg out in front of the TV for 3-4 hours?

What if you only watched 2 hours of TV a night and you only say your time is worth $25 an hour.

Well thats $25 x 2 hours x 7 days x 52 weeks = $18,200

That’s $18,200!! A year!!

But you might say, well Sam, lets get real. I gotta have some down time, I work so hard already? (i.e insert excuses)

Ok thats fine. Maybe its NOT costing you money. But what else is it costing you?

What if your dream is to be a writer. Or a comedian. Or fit. Or you want to start an online business.

If you just want to put that time into family, is there anything else you CAN do as a family apart from TV.

We’ve been on this planet for tens of thousand of years and for 99.9% of that time we’ve been going ok without TV.

Some TV is fine. But don’t use TV as your only means of connecting with your family.

But it isn’t. And you’re not.

By putting in those 2 hours over a year into CSI: Cyber you’re NOT putting it into your dreams. What is the cost there? In unfulfilment? In not connecting with your family, in future earnings?

If this doesn’t resonate for you thats ok, feel free to not come back, to unsubscribe and continue to watch TV and play video games.

For the remainder of the 5%, let my wake up call be your wake up call.

I watched in horror as both time and money were burning. I had glimpse into the real cost of doing crap, and the real cost of not doing your dreams.

And I don’t want to see that again.

So lets wake up, lets get real.

You’re either desperately working on making your dreams a reality, or your reality will become life is one of work and quiet desperation.

And that takes sacrifices. But not as big as you might imagine.

Because when you add up all its costing you NOT to follow your dreams, those ‘sacrifices’ pail in comparison.

Thanks of reading, listening and watching.

As always I’m interested in what you have to say. So leave a comment, a rant, a question.