Are Your Choices Based On Hopes Or Fear?
Good morning team,
Thank you for bearing with me regarding last weeks digital issue. My break was delightful and I’m ready to go. This issue is all about the future. Before we dive into this week, a quick note on what brought this topic out.
I hate talking about death, for obvious reasons. It’s not pleasant, and as someone who has lost a lot of friends and family over the years, the finality of it all is still a sensitive spot for me. I hesitated including death in this issue because I can already imagine the eye rolls as I say 'life is short’. Even I'm rolling my eyes as I type that. We all know life is short, however, it’s also a fact we sometimes choose to forget. It we really believed life was short, that reality should change our lives right now and indeed the future; the topic of this newsletter.
A friend passing in the last week reminded me again about the finality of life. It also made me assess the kind of life I was building and whether I’m happy with it. Her death pulled me into the present in a very powerful way.
Our age is measured in time, but the quality of our life is quantified in moments that made an impact on us.
The Powerful Present
We can experience a long life by being present for what is happening, good or bad, and not falling into the trap of the way things “should be”. In a 60 Minutes Overtime with Anderson Cooper(registration required), one of the leading authorities on mindfulness, Jon Kabat-Zinn, said,
“…everyone wants to figure out how to live longer, but [mindfulness] this actually is a very easy way for you to live longer. Maybe you’re not extending your life, but you are present and living more of the moments of your life.”
Living more of the moments of your life means you lived longer and more fully with the time you were given, no matter how long, good, or bad it felt.
Extending life and chasing immortality has been part of the human experience and imagination from as far back as we could record things. Recently, longevity has become the obsession of Silicon Valley billionaires who are pouring money into research and products for extending life. Google has put $1.5 billion into anti-ageing and everyone from Bill Gates to Peter Thiel and the Koch Brothers have given funding for research and product development.
We are faced with our mortality as we age but something else happens too, we become more reflective, look back on how we blazed through our youth and realize we need to reprioritize in order to have a high quality of life as we age. Wearables and nootropics (smart drugs) are not the only anti-ageing efforts sweeping over the entrepreneurial and startup community, mindfulness, meditation, and quality of sleep are quickly becoming the easiest, and most fashionable ways, to hack our quality of life and longevity.
A search of Amazon shows over 25,000 books have been published since 2010 with the keyword “mindfulness” versus 5000 books before that time.
Google shows a clear trend in “mindfulness” taking off around the time that “optimism” peaked in 2008. Optimism has limited application, but the benefits of mindfulness are nearly boundless.
The Powerful Future
Events over the last week also bought into my mind a powerful lesson I learned over lockdown.
In one of the organisations I lead, it came to my attention that one of the members of staff was leaving. I don't normally do the exit interviews, but I really wanted to do this one. The member of staff was a bright light and I really enjoyed working with her so I chose to conduct the exit interview. The zoom link was sent, she joined and we proceeded to have a very pleasant and positive conversation. At the end of the meeting, I asked her what was next and what she had planned for the future. I expected her to say she was taking a job locally and making the next step in her career. I was shocked by her response. She said she was going to America for a few months and then that she would go to Australia for a year to bartend and explore opportunities. I was stunned. Why would she leave security and safety here for uncertainty elsewhere? I smiled, wished her well and the meeting ended.
Though the meeting was over, so many questions lingered in my mind. All this lady had was hope and she seemed content with that, no particular plan., just hope. I initially left it and scoffed at the decision. Maybe she was just privileged or maybe she had rich parents funding it all. Despite my pessimism, the thought lingered. I soon learnt the powerful and life-changing message hidden in this interaction.
She was building a life where her choices documented her hopes not her fears. Her decision seemed foreign to me because I wasn't doing that. I was building a life where I would hold a dream in my head, walk 10 feet back and then do that instead. This may not seem that serious, however, when you spend a lifetime doing that, you will end up in a place far away from where you planned. Can you relate to doing this? Allow fear to dictate how you think about your future.
A lot of us are making decisions where our choices reflect our worst fears and not hopes. We are making choices fueled by compromise and we aren’t bold enough to hope. To believe that things can work and that we are capable of amazing things. I want us to change this. To live a life where our decisions reflect hopes and not fears.
Have an amazing week
M.T. Omoniyi
Im Buiding A Team
I have so many amazing plans for the future, I’m firmly in a place where I can no longer do that by myself. I’m looking to grow a team of dynamic and talented people.
Some of the roles will be paid and other ones will be voluntary. The team will work across all the projects I lead + speaking engagements and networking. We will be launching some new initiatives. If you are multitalented, dynamic, organised and also willing to learn then you will be a great fit. Lets work together
If you are interested: Complete this form