Reposition Yourself
Digging Deeper with Allison LaMarr…
Blah! Does that describe the feeling that you’re fighting right now? I woke up on Monday morning with that exact same feeling myself. After a week on the road, I was having a hard time mustering the energy to get back into the swing of things at home. Strangely enough, several of the businesswomen I work with were struggling with their own versions of that same “blah feeling”, and it seems to be sweeping the country this week. This reminded me of a Digging Deeper column from last year that specifically addresses this funky feeling. So, I’m going to share it with you again now, we’ll overcome this feeling together, and then we’ll be back to our “original” discussions next week.
Have you felt the funk? I think we could all agree that it would be very easy to let a case of the “blahs” take over right now. But don’t let it! In fact, let’s focus today on how to do just the opposite. Today you’re going to give yourself a “mental flu” shot so that you don’t become a statistic to this sweeping epidemic of apathy. The news stations aren’t broadcasting it, but there is a very dangerous virus spreading around like wildfire this season. No one is immune to it, and it’s extremely contagious. It threatens to infect us with an odorless, tasteless, invisible poison that makes us behave like rat-race zombies. It’s time to vaccinate yourself with a vitamin called vision. It’s time to buck the trends, break the mold, and shake off the funk that has you sleepwalking through life. It’s time to reposition yourself!
The concept of repositioning yourself is one of the single most productive things you could ever think about. Average people resign themselves to their situation: “I guess this is as good as it’s gonna get, so I’d better buckle in.” Repositioning yourself is what wealth-minded people do. This is how normal people become successful and how successful people remain successful. How did Chris Gardner go from welfare to millionaire in The Pursuit of Happyness? He repositioned himself. How did Ashton Kutcher go from goofy kid actor to wildly successful and well-respected producer? He repositioned himself. How did Oprah go from poverty and child abuse to talk-show host, media mogul, worldwide philanthropist and self-named empire? She continually repositioned herself. How can you go from mediocre to mind-blowing? Bored to brilliant? Reposition yourself.
The value of repositioning yourself has life-altering implications regardless of the stage of life you’re in. However, as a society we tend to buy into generational limitations on this concept, so I’d like to discuss our repositioning by decade to dispel some of these lethal myths:
20s—Wanna know the single biggest mistake we make in our twenties? We think in terms of “someday”. At this age, we’re still ten feet tall and bullet proof. The life skills of proactive planning, wealth management, and strategic thinking aren’t taught in most high school and college programs, so we skate through the first decade of independence assuming that one day we’ll figure it all out. This is one of my favorite ages, because we’re young, energetic, brilliant, and full of life. But unless we learn the lesson of compound interest in this era, we can waste much of the next 40 years on regret. And I don’t just mean the compounding interest of money. I’m also referring to the compounding interest of time. For all of you who are under the age of 30 reading this right now (even if your well-meaning although highly irritating parent shoved it in your face), please take my advice on this: To get a jump start on the successful life you deserve to live does not mean that you have to give up your fun! Don’t listen to the goofballs who are just as broke and directionless as you are. Study the people you want to emulate and ask for their advice. You can make education fun, find a job you love, learn to make money, manage money, and invest money wisely ALL while having the time of your life—if you’re willing to reposition yourself.
30s—Why is becoming an adult so hard? Because we fight an ongoing internal battle of being the kid versus raising the kids. Now, I’m fairly new to this role, but here’s what I can tell you so far. The crowd is very enticing. Peer pressure is just as strong in this age group as it was in high school. It could be very easy to wake up at 35 and wonder what you did with the last 10 years of your life. But you can make up for it and then some—if you’re willing to reposition yourself.
40s—You may be a forty-something male. You’re married with kids. You find yourself working at a job which you try to convince yourself daily that you don’t hate just to maintain your sanity. You go to work everyday out of a deep sense of responsibility for your family whom you love very much and would do anything for. But what if you could find a job that you love and that pays well? They do exist. And if you can’t find one, you can create one. But you must be willing to reposition yourself. Or, maybe you’re a forty-something female and newly single mom. If you allow yourself to be washed down river with the popular socio-economic trends, you could easily spend the next fifteen years barely scraping by financially and having no life whatsoever, because you spend every last dollar and minute you have trying give your kids the life you know they deserve. But what if you didn’t allow yourself to be washed away with the current? What if you repositioned yourself and swam upstream? You could break the generational curse of mental and financial scarcity for your family. You could create a legacy of abundance and freedom for your family—freedom of both time and money—but you must be willing to reposition yourself.
50s—Are you in your fifties? Research has proven two very interesting facts about people in this age group.
Fact #1: The fear of old age is one of the six major fears of modern man. In the timeless classic, Think & Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill cited two common symptoms that will help you diagnose whether you suffer from this fear. The first is a “tendency to slow down and develop an inferiority complex, falsely believing one’s self to be ‘slipping’ because of age”. The second tell-tale sign of whether you’re buying into the fear is a “habit of speaking apologetically of one’s self as ‘being old’ merely because one has reached the age of forty, fifty, or sixty”.
Fact #2: The truth is that man’s most useful years, mentally and spiritually, are those between forty and sixty. To paraphrase Hill’s words, individuals rarely “arrive” or succeed greatly before the age of forty, In fact, observation of thousands of successful men and women proves that the most fruitful years for a person are between forty and sixty. This should encourage us to reverse the rule of fear and instead express gratitude for having reached the age of wisdom and understanding.
So, a person in this age category could choose to become old, simply by passage of time. Or they would choose to capitalize on their wisdom and experience, through application of life lessons learned. This would start with one decision—a willingness to reposition yourself.
60s and beyond—Our Golden Years will only be our Golden Years if we are willing to reposition ourselves. It’s not a rite of passage or a phase of life that is guaranteed to be golden. Anyone who successfully reached this stage of life to find it truly golden will tell you they did so through proper positioning of themselves along their journey. But what if you hit this stage without proper positioning? Is it too late? Not until you inhale your last breath. Ben Franklin said that we die from the neck up when we stop dreaming. You can reinvent yourself, create a new dream or bring the old one back to life, and find a way to live that dream—if you’re willing to reposition yourself.
Have you been buying into a lie? Have you accepted the false reality that you’re too old, too tired, too broke, or too stuck in your old ways? Did you accidentally buy a membership into the club that says you’re not smart enough, educated enough, talented enough, tough enough, or pretty enough? You may not be able to get your money back, but you can certainly exchange that old belief for a new one! Is it time to adjust your lenses on life? Would you prefer a new perception of reality? You see, “realistic” is whatever you want it to be. You’re never too bankrupt to become wealthy. You’re never too obese to become healthy. You’ve never failed too miserably in business to become successful. Telling yourself, “It’s too late for me” is like voluntary checking yourself into an insane asylum while trying to convince yourself it will be like a weekend at the spa. IT MAKES NO SENSE! And you can turn it all around…if you’re willing to reposition yourself.
Click here to subscribe to Digging Deeper
Stay in touch with Allison!
Visit us on the web at www.allisonlamarronline.com
You may copy this article if full credit and an active link is given to http://www.allisonlamarronline.com
