What makes you happy? What gets in your way? Don’t forget to also invest in yourself!

People are so busy in their daily lives that they don’t give themselves the time to see anything that falls outside of their routines and habits. Unfortunately, as a result, most people never achieve peak happiness. Take the time to do one of the favorite exercises that I do with my students :

– What makes you happy?

– What keeps you from doing these things?

More often than not, the first one revolves around family and friends. New experiences, travel, social gatherings and games are typically involved the descriptions.

While experiences often mentioned require some money in order to experience, they typically don’t require amassing possessions, which is most often what keeps people from doing these things. They’re often neck-deep in work so that they can pay for their amassing of bigger, better, upgraded possessions; most of which they don’t use nearly enough to ever break even on.

When I remove these individuals from their daily lives to see what they’re doing, it’s always so crystal clear to them. You see, humans tend to get into routines and develop habits. We just keep doing the same thing over and over again, even if it never helps us to, and even pushes us even further away from, achieving peak happiness. Nearly everyone keeps themselves so occupied that we don’t even give ourselves time to think about what makes us happy.

If someone finds themselves in this boat, they should block off time each week to remove themselves from their daily lives so that they can sit down, relax and just think about what makes them happy and what gets in their way. This will lead to a plan as to how to achieve more happiness while eliminating the obstacles.

Removing ourselves from our daily lives is a gift that everyone should give themselves regularly – a few hours each week and a few weeks each year – the return on happiness from doing so will be immeasurable.

You’re Doing It All Wrong (The Truth About Financial Freedom)

Budgeting your moneyYou don’t need to earn a lot of money to achieve financial freedom quickly. You just need to follow two simple rules:

  1. Live within your means (and)
  2. Invest the rest.

I’ve never paid myself more than $60,000 a year, I don’t live frugally, I spend $700 / month on food, entertainment and other stuff plus I donate $100 monthly. Yet I still manage to invest nearly $18,000 each and every year.

Isn’t it about time you make a spreadsheet, face your own truth and make some changes in your life? Take a look at mine and see how you compare, look for places you can improve and make decisions about what expenses truly bring you sustained happiness and which ones are holding you back from achieving your potential.

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In One Month You’re Dead

Celebrate LifeToday you have your annual physical at the doctor’s office. You wake up and enjoy a hearty breakfast and then head out for your appointment. All looks well and you’re sent for the typical tests that accompany your annual physical and then your appointment is done and you’re off to work. One week later you get a call from your doctor’s office asking you to come in to discuss your physical. You oblige and head in as instructed.

The receptionist calls you in and you sit down on the patient bed. The doctor walks in and closes the door. He flips through his notes, looks at you and slowly mutters the words “I’m afraid I have some bad news.” Your heart skips a beat as you hear him mutter some words about results and re-focus long enough to hear the dreaded words “I’m afraid you only have one month to live”.

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I Thought I Was Dying

Personal blog by our founder, Brent Mondoux

December 15th 2011

7:00 AM

My familyJust as any other work day, I awoke to the sound of the alarm clock. Sleeping on the opposite side of a king-sized bed, I was forced to crawl across to silence the irritating buzzing. As I went to move a sharp jarring pain radiated from the center of my back outwards. I couldn’t move, I was frozen in pain. I tried to breathe through it, assuming I had just pulled a back muscle as I had done previously, but the pain wouldn’t subside. I forced myself across the bed, struggling through the pain and silenced the damn alarm.

It felt like it took forever to get myself out of bed and into a vertical position. Getting dressed that day felt like the most tormenting ordeal I have ever endured. Far worse than an abscess tooth; far worse than a broken wrist; it was awful. I made my way downstairs to face my wife (Nat) and my son (Aiden). They knew right away that something was wrong. Visibly anguished, I bemoaned that I needed to go to the hospital. Nat looked at me and asked in concern “What happened? What did you do?” to which I confirmed “I don’t know. I must have pulled something in my back while sleeping but I can’t take this pain. I need to get it checked”. She acknowledged my comments and proceeded to get Aiden ready to drop off at school.

We drove up the street to drop Aiden off. Not wanting to alarm him, I put on my “big boy” face and grimaced through the pain as I got out of the car to hug him before he headed in. And then we were off. While heading to Ottawa, Nat was making small talk trying to comfort me from my pain, I could tell that she could sense my concern as well. She looked over at me and said “I think you should go to the medical center first. You won’t wait hours to be seen.” I agreed that it was a good idea.

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