When it comes to your business, your career or your sport, or any other interest that you might have, what does it mean to thrive in life?
Well, it could mean to grow, to develop, or to flourish.
But what if to thrive in life was to mean for you to reach your truest, highest potential – that is unique to you – so that you get the recognition and the reward that you desire – and ultimately get to make the impact you want to make,
or you get to make the difference you want to make – whether that be in your business, your career, your family, your community, your country or in the world?
And what if it was also to have freedom?
For many, when the word freedom is used, it conjures up financial freedom or personal freedom.
However, I view freedom as much more than that.
It’s complete freedom.
It’s being free to be the true essence of who you are. Without the limitations. Where we don’t have anything holding us back in terms of the negative thoughts, judgements, patterns or beliefs that keep us from achieving that which we innermost desire.
Where we get to achieve what we want to achieve. What we’re meant to achieve.
That for me is real freedom.
In my last blog post I talked about The Snakes and Ladders Life – about where we find ourselves sometimes moving three steps forward and two steps back.
Where throughout our life we encounter challenges while also achieving wins.
But I also mentioned that life is a game – and with it being a game – it’s supposed to be fun. In order to thrive in life it is to be fun.
So what if you had the rule book and the knowhow in order to not only win the game, but to excel at playing it – and that life then turns out to be fun and enjoyable.
Where you get to see the much bigger picture – as well as your part in that picture – your role – your purpose.
As well as knowing how to achieve it and fulfil it.
Well when I’m working with clients, that’s what The Executive Code does in order to help clients to thrive in life.
In this blog, I’ll be talking about the elements that you need – so as to know the rule book, as well as how to play the game of life – so that ultimately you get to reach your truest, and highest potential.
But why is it that people don’t reach their highest potential?
Well if you were to break the population down into 4 categories
What you will find in the first category are the people that struggle.
These are people that no matter how hard they work, and they generally work very hard, their business still struggles.
Generally what keeps them struggling is their fears.
Then the next category are the people that are doing just ok – this is where the majority of people are, and because they’re doing ok – they hit a glass ceiling – what I call the good enough ceiling.
This is the ceiling that what they’re achieving is good enough for them.
And what keeps them going is that when things start to drop from being good enough, to being ok, fear starts to kick in, and then they start working harder or doing something active in order to get back to being good enough.
And as soon as they reach their good enough ceiling – they relax and take the foot of the gas.
So they continuously go through this cycle of good enough to fear – to good enough to fear – to good enough…and so on.
And for the ones that want to get past the “good enough” ceiling, well they’re the ones that get to being great.
These people do a lot better than all the others – the strugglers and the ok people. They’re doing just great!
And then there’s the small percentage of the population that are thriving. They get to thrive in life.
It’s a really small percentage.
But why is that?
Well, take many of the clients I’ve worked with over the years as a business consultant and the thousands of people I’ve observed.
The vast majority of people have a vision of where they want to get to.
They have an image of what they want their life, their business, their career to look like.
And in order to achieve that vision – they invest in all the mechanics of getting their business, their career or their life right – the product or service they’re going to sell, the career path they’re going to take, the relationship, home and family they want to bring about.
And they also look at what they need to help them along the way – so they invest in people, sales & marketing, technology, university courses, for their business or career – or they’ll look for the house, or relationship that will make them fulfilled.
But then there’s the percentage of people that understand that they themselves need to improve – so they attend courses or get coaching on how to be a better business owner, manager, employee, or partner – and they believe that by improving themselves, they’ll succeed more, and be better for others.
On one of these blog posts I’ll talk about why that is such a bad idea. But for now, let me talk about the tiny percentage of people that thrive.
They’re the ones that realise that it’s not about changing others, and it’s not about changing themselves. In order for them to thrive in life they understand that it’s about changing how they view the world and how they interact in the world.
You see, Buddha talked about three different types of people and this forms part of what I’m talking about here – they’re the people that are asleep. Then there are the awakened. And then there are the enlightened. They’re the ones that know who they truly are.
But there are also the ones that not only know who they truly are – but live life from being who they truly are.
And that there is a very very tiny percentage of the world population.
Let me tell you what happens.
There are twelve “states of being” that people pass through. What I mean by a state of being is that it’s about how you view yourself.
It’s how you would describe yourself in terms of your mental state or how you perceive yourself in the world
For the purpose of this blog post, I’ll cover 5 of the twelve states.
There’s the state of despair – this is where you feel empty. That your life is meaningless and you wonder what the point of living is for. You have a sense that other people just “don’t get you”. You might even find yourself curled up on the couch crying, as well as literally crying out in despair for your situation. How it shows up is that you have a low mood or you have little energy for doing anything. You isolate yourself from others and sometimes contemplate ending your life. In fact, you’re just surviving. And for many people this is their life behind closed doors. Whereas to the outside world, they portray something completely different. They might portray the “everything is fine” persona – because as I said, others just don’t get them.
Then there’s the state of hope – it’s a good bit better than despair. This is where you’re looking towards the future. You’re planning ahead. You have desires or dreams to fulfil, but you also have fears that hold you back. But you’re not thinking about ending your life, your thinking about and hopeful for what your life could be like in the future. You have a sense of identity of who you are, and this might be expressed in terms of your business, your career, your job title or whatever is most important to you in your life. You have a focus and you’re interacting with other people. It doesn’t matter if you class yourself as extrovert or introvert – you’re still engaged with the world and not wanting to isolate yourself – unlike when you’re in despair. You’re hard-working as you’re hopeful about the future and want to achieve your goals as quickly as possible.
Then there’s the state of belief. Belief about yourself. You have a sense of how good you can be. Your ego is higher than in the other two states of despair and hope. You feel more confident. You feel you are becoming more successful. Your aim is to achieve as much as you possibly can. But it tends to be in terms of money, relationships, or status. In essence, there’s no real meaning to what you’re doing, you’re doing what you’re doing to get ahead, to get the money to pay the bills, to buy the things you want to buy, to have the holidays you want to have. You’re ambitious. You’re driven. You have loads of toys – the cars, the houses, the holidays, the meals out, the possessions – and you have the title.
And it’s at that state of being that the critical line is present.
It’s that critical line that is the threshold. The threshold that can prevent you from being able to thrive in life.
On one side you have the states of despair, hope and belief.
And then on the other side of the critical line are the states of knowing and mastery.
There are a number of things that can show up in our life that makes us aware of the critical line. It can be the sudden death of a loved one. The illness that alters our life. The financial loss from our business or redundancy. Or the separation or divorce.
It’s these moments of impact that get us to reflect inwardly.
For some people, they get over the speed-bump so to speak, and they go back to the way they were before, before the death of their loved one, the illness, the financial setback, the divorce – or whatever it was.
But for others, there is a slow awakening.
They have a desire for something better – to be greater – to thrive.
Or they have a sense that they should be doing something different. Like as if they’re being called to something greater. To make a difference. To make an impact. Not just in terms of the business or career that they have, but in terms of making other peoples lives better off.
It’s at that critical line that they move to the state of knowing.
They have an inner calling to change towards something greater. They have more compassion for others or for their environment. They get more inspired thoughts as they listen more to their intuition or unconscious mind. They seek out more and more knowledge. They attend more courses in the search for a deeper truth. As Buddha describes – they are becoming more awakened. They become more deeply spiritually aware and have a much deeper awareness of a Higher Power – God, Universe, Higher Mind, or Source. They become more about giving to others and serving others. It’s less about themselves and more about others. They understand deeply what is meant by emotional intelligence – because they feel it deeper inside themselves. They become more emotional themselves. They’re more inspired by the wonderment of nature, the universe, and the accomplishments of people. Some get involved in coaching others or volunteering as they see and feel the impact that it makes for themselves and for others.
But for many, they are still a split person. Inwardly, on one side, they’re trying desperately to hold onto the old world that they knew on the other side of the critical line. That critical threshold line. The world of what fed their ego. While on the other side they’re aching to follow what their inner self is calling them to. And this unsettling battle between the outer and the inner world can be very difficult for many people if they don’t know how to navigate it or they don’t have someone to guide them.
And then there’s the state of mastery. The ultimate way of living. The ultimate way of being. Because in this state you are on a mission. You’re driven – not like before. You’re driven to achieve your mission for the impact you know it will have on others. You feel abundant in all meanings of the word. There is no scarcity. You are in sheer awe and gratitude of how the universe works. You are completely in flow and have total freedom. The freedom that I spoke about earlier. You are free from everything. You have no attachment to anything. You are one. You are in oneness with everything and everyone. You know love in its pure sense. In its divine sense. In its unconditional sense. In its nonjudgemental sense – for everything and for everyone. You are a pioneer in your field. A leader. A maverick. You question the status quo as you know there is a better way. Your desire to make an impact is at it’s greatest. You want to bring about change. Bring about influence. And equally are well rewarded for it as you completely understand the law of compensation. You know how to flow and interact with the universe. You have become the true alchemist. That’s true mastery. You know, experience and work with the true inner power that you have inside. That amazing power that everyone has – but they just haven’t tapped into it.
That’s the state I want to bring you to through what I call The Executive Code. That’s the state that gets you to thrive in life.
To recap – the five states that I’ve outlined here, out of the twelve in total, are – despair, hope, belief, knowing and mastery.
For many people, they can spend days, weeks, months or even years in the same one state.
Whereas for others they might find themselves going up and down different states throughout the day, the week, the month or the year. A bit like the heartbeat monitor I spoke about in the last blog post.
Different things trigger them. And from that trigger, their state changes. It’s by identifying the triggers and then dissolving them, that we manage to maintain equilibrium and then move up to higher states quicker.
When you know and understand the different states of being, and you know the difference between each state – you realise what needs to be done to get to a higher state, and therefore ultimately to get to thrive in life.
So in order for you to get to thrive in life, it would be good for you to identify which state you would consider yourself as being in – and then from that, determine what you need to do to move to one of the higher states.