Shownotes
Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy
Welcome to Day 483 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.
This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
Designing a Better Future – Attitude (3)
Thank you for joining us for our 5 days per week wisdom and legacy podcast. This is Day 483 of our trek, and today is Philosophy Friday. Every Friday we ponder some of the basic truths and mysteries of life and how they can impact us in creating our living legacy.
Currently, we are in a multi-week trek as we explore the teachings from some of my virtual mentors, such as Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar, and Earl Nightingale. The core of our current trek is based primarily on Jim Rohn’s book called The Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle. I have learned a considerable amount from reading and re-reading this book on my own trek of life, and I trust that it will benefit you also. Keeping with the continuity of Wisdom-Trek, I will be adapting it to The Five Trails on Life’s Trek.
We are broadcasting from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. Since we celebrated Thanksgiving in the United States yesterday, we had the opportunity to stop and reflect on all of God’s bountiful blessings throughout the year. We had Thanksgiving with my brother Jack, his family, and my dad. This Saturday we will have another Thanksgiving meal with two of our children and other family members, so it is a full few days.
We should pursue an abundant life for each day. That abundance is largely a factor of choices we have made in the past, and the choices that we make each day, which determines our future.
Today on our trek, we will continue on the Attitude Trail. Last Friday we explored how drastically the past and present does impact our future. Today we will focus on designing a better future and the investment that is required for an abundant future.
If you have missed the past few Philosophy Friday treks, it would be good to go back and review them to get caught up on our progress so far. We have a lot of ground to cover today, so let’s break camp and continue on the second trail of this extended trek as we cover…
The Five Trails on Life’s Trek – Attitude Part 3
As a reminder, our overall extended trek will cover these five trails:
Philosophy
Attitude
Activity
Results
Lifestyle
1. Designing a Better Future
There is a very special emotional magic that takes place when you design the future and set new goals with a specific purpose in mind. As you see the future clearly in your mind’s eye, you experience a level of excitement in anticipation of the day when all that you dream will become a reality. The more clearly you see the vision of the future, the more you are able to borrow from its inspiration. This borrowed inspiration finds its way into your conversations, your energy level, your relationships, and your attitude. The more excited you become by your future dreams, the easier it is to develop the necessary discipline and make refinements to your philosophy. In other words, your dreams inspire you to think, act, feel, and become exactly the kind of person you must be to realize your dreams.
If you are intelligent enough to invest your experiences of the past and wise enough to “borrow” the excitement and inspiration of the future by clearly seeing that future in the “mind’s eye,” then past experiences and future excitement become today’s servant. The finished product you foresee guides you in your present efforts, making the attainment of the better future an inevitable conclusion. You become pulled by the future and guided by the past because you have chosen to take intelligent action in the present.
The unique ability you have for investing your past experiences and borrowing inspiration from the future is an incredible force. The good news is — anyone can do it! You have the capacity for designing the future in advance so that when the new day arrives, it is more than it might have been simply because you used part of your past and your future to create it.
The power of the future is an awesome force. What can have the power to drive you to do all that you can do?
The power of the future is an awesome force.
2. The Investment in Your Future
The promise of the future is not free. There is a price to be paid for any future reward. The price the future exacts from you involves discipline, labor, consistency, and a burning desire to make the future better than either the past or the present. Those are the price tags of progress, but the price becomes easier to bear when the promise becomes clear. When the end becomes attractive, you become keenly interested in the investment required. You must see and want the promise with an insatiable desire, or the investment it requires will overcome your wishes. And you will fall back to where you once were.
If you are sincere about wanting a rich and satisfying life, you must ask yourself what you see in your future that is fueling your fires of confidence and excitement. How much of that future do you actually see and believe, deep within your own soul, that you will achieve? Is it clear enough in your mind and heart to drive you out of bed each morning and keep you up late each night? Are you so locked in on the target you have selected that you can brush away any obstacle and disappointment? In your desire to change yourself and your current circumstances are you fully prepared to go over, under, around and through whatever challenge life throws at you?
You cannot move casually into a better future. You cannot casually pursue the goal you have set for yourself. A goal that is casually pursued is not a goal; at best it is a wish, and wishes are little more than self-delusion. Wishes are an anesthetic to be used by the unambitious, a narcotic that dulls their awareness of their own desperate condition.
The challenge is to let this obsession fuel the fire that heats your talent and your skills to the boiling point so that you are propelled into a whole new future.
As you become serious about designing the future in advance, you derive an immediate emotional benefit. The future is exciting! The more clearly you see the future and the more keenly you sense its promise, the more positive your attitude becomes that you can and will achieve your dreams.
It is this new attitude that will provide you with renewed ambition for progress and the faith that you really can move mountains. Attitude is closely tied to the faith that you have in yourself and your future. In one of Jesus’s teachings about faith in Matthew 17:20 he says, “‘You don’t have enough faith,’ Jesus told them. ‘I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.'”
How is your faith in yourself and in God?
We are deliberately taking our trek on The Five Trails on Life’s Trek slowly as we hike now on the Trail of Attitude. Designing a better future for yourself requires that you invest in yourself. It requires not being held back by your past but using what you learned to invest your present and your future.
Next week on Philosophy Friday, we will continue on the Trail of Attitude and focus on the need to partner with others and how important a good self-image is to success. I know you will find these insights interesting and profitable in living a rich and satisfying life.
Our next trek will be Motivation Monday as we explore more trails of how to get and stay motivated to bring value to your world. So encourage your friends and family to join us, and then come along on Monday for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.
That will finish our trek for today. As you enjoy these daily doses of wisdom, we ask you to help us grow Wisdom-Trek by sharing with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person when you meet with them and invite them to come along with us each day. If you would like to listen to any of the past daily treks, they are available at Wisdom-Trek.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to Wisdom-Trek so each trek will be downloaded to you automatically.
Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal.
As we take this trek of life together, let us always:
- Live Abundantly (Fully)
- Love Unconditionally
- Listen Intentionally
- Learn Continuously
- Lend to others Generously
- Lead with Integrity
- Leave a Living Legacy Each Day
This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you on Monday!