Since moving to Dubai 2 years ago, the Capital Club has been my home away from home where I have met many like minded entrepreneurs and enjoyed much thought provoking conversation. A few weeks ago, I was having dinner with a small group of members whom I have come to regard as friends. One of them made a comment, a simple observation that I had never considered, and that I now think about most days.
“Your gravestone will state the year you were born and the year you die. Between those two dates is a dash. That dash is your life.”
“-“
That’s everything.
The totality of our experiences. Our love and our pain, successes and failures. Our family life, business life, friendships and life defining moments. We have that dash to make the most of our time in this world. It’s quite sobering.
I didn’t immediately write a blog on this topic because I wanted to ruminate over its meaning to me, and how it would, if at all, impact my actions.
I have always tried to fill my “dash” with experiences. I observed at an early age that too many people say things like “life passes quickly” and “where did the last year go?!”. I concluded then, that this was only true if you did nothing meaningful with your time. While I admit that sometimes I wonder where the years have gone, I also recognise that I have been fortunate enough to pack more into my 54 years than many people would pack into two lifetimes, so I generally don’t feel as if life is passing too quickly. To date, I have made sure that my “dash” has been fully utilised and I have no plans of changing my approach.
How can you do this? Well, there are two approaches I will propose in this blog. The first is taken from ‘The Greatness Guide’ written by Robin Sharma. The Greatness Guide consists of 100 short chapters, each giving a recommendation on how to live a fulfilling life. There are many good recommendations however the one that I have never forgotten in the 10 years since I read the book, is to do something every day that takes you a step towards your goal.
In order to do this, you need a goal – or a series of goals. You need to have identified something that you want to achieve. You then need to understand the steps required to achieve it. Each night when you head hits the pillow and before you sleep, however small, are you able to say to yourself “Yes, I took a step towards my goal today!”? If you can, then life will slow down as you take a series of steps requiring time and effort.
The second approach comes from a tool I use when coaching senior executives called the “performance mindset”. It very simply states that performance equals potential minus interference.
Performance = Potential – Interference
This simple formula opens a wealth of discussion. We all have unlimited potential however, for most of us we are not achieving it. Something is holding us back. That is the ‘interference’. Interference can be internal (limiting decisions or beliefs that you are not good enough to do something etc), or external (not having enough time due to work commitments etc). By taking time to identify what is interfering with our performance, we can develop goals around addressing this and then use the Robin Sharma approach mentioned above to move forward. One warning here; not all interference is bad (for example time with family), so be careful to distinguish between positive and negative interference!
You will likely have heard the saying “it’s not the years in your life, it’s the life in your years”. Make sure the life in your dash counts and you and those you care about will be richer and more fulfilled for it. This philosophical consideration of the “dash” over the past few weeks has been a timely and insightful process for me. I hope it can be for you.
*** I have recently started an Instagram account called “softskillsexpert” where I post short form videos, quick tips, useful quotations and other items if use related to soft skills. Please follow me on the following link! https://instagram.com/softskillsexpert?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
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