chris brady | Why Should I Read That: Blog

What are you doing with your Life?

Posted on April 13, 2014 by Jon DeLange

What are you going to do?

Where are you going to college?

What kind of job are you going to have?

What are you going to do with your life?

If you’ve ever gotten sick of listening to people ask you these questions. You’re totally normal. Don’t worry, everyone ends up with these type of questions at some point in their life.

The good news is that there is a good way to answer. The answer isn’t in full, you won’t have a complete answer until you are done with your life. And that is good.

There is a very simple Three step Process that answers a lot of these questions. That process is simple, but it is not necessarily easy.

The simple process is this:

Define —> Learn —> Do

In a short summary, the way it works goes like this. Define what you want, whether that is lifestyle, income, legacy, relationships, contributions, etc. Learn how to get that from someone who has that type of result in life. And Finally, go and do what they tell you to do.

Like I said, this process is simple but not easy. There are hundreds of ways to mess this process up. Only three steps! And yet it is contrary to what so many people tell you or ask you. Go check out those four questions that we started out with and notice that not one of them start with the first step in the process! If you don’t start with Defining what or where you are headed, how will you know who to learn from or what to do?

I think it is ridiculous how much pressure is put on young people to make decisions about the third step in the process with little to no thought put to the first two steps!

So what now? How can we remedy this? Why would I tell you about the Define —> Learn —> Do process and leave you hanging?

One tool that I have recently come across is a great book called PAiLS by Chris Brady. I read this book about a week ago, it was so chock full of truth that I read through it in only a couple days.

PAiLS is an acronym for P.otential & A.ctualization i.nto L.egacy & S.pillage. I won’t spoil the book for you, but each of us has potential to be great in our own way that we implement through actualization into our enduring legacy (with some missed opportunities becoming spillage). This can be easily visualized as a Potential pail pouring out into a Legacy Pail.

“Becoming all you can be will require all that you are.” -Chris Brady

So as we consider Defining our life, a concept from PAiLS is valuable. The idea from Brady that life is lived out in layers! This youtube video by Chris Brady (Click Here) goes into Layer idea for about 10 minutes and is a good overview of the concept.

This can be a great introduction for one to understand that simply answering the question of “Are you going to _____ college?” isn’t enough planning for their future. There needs to be two previous steps, first to understand if College is going to provide a pathway to the life you wants and second to see if those that you’ll learn from have the results that they are teaching about. And that is only one of the questions…. to find out what you’ll do, you have some other things to think about first.

“Our greatest fear should not be that we won’t succeed, but rather that we will succeed at something that doesn’t matter.” – D.L. Moody.

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What’s your Treasure?

Posted on February 13, 2014 by Jon DeLange

Imagine trolling along through the crystal clear waters of the Florida keys. The sun is shining out of a powder blue sky, the warm breezes are ruffling your hair, you check the thermometer and see 82. The weather couldn’t be better. But now imagine that your salvage license has gotten revoked, your son died a few years back, your most loyal employee is now your competition, your houseboat sank, and you just found out you have cancer.

Talk about trouble in paradise.

This isn’t the beginning of a new novel, its the 100% true story of Mel Fisher and the year was 1985. Mel and his family spent over 17 years searching for the Nuestra Senora de Atocha. A spanish treasure galleon that sank in 1622. Traveling thousands of miles criss-crossing the ocean. Pouring over hundreds of dusty charts. Rummaging through old records trying to find documentation of the Atocha.

Then, finally, on July 20, 1985, Mel received a radio message.

Put the charts away. We’ve found the motherlode.

Yet the real lesson from Mel isn’t about the eventual massive payoff. Although impressive, (silver bars stacked nearly five feet high, 20 by 75 feet long, as well as about 160,000 silver coins. The estimated value: more than $400 million. A year later, divers found hundreds of emeralds that had been smuggled on the Atocha. They are still salvaging treasure from that ship, as well as La Santa Margarita, which also sank in the storm.) what we can learn is that Mel said something every day to his family and his employees.

Today’s the Day.

He searched for more than Seventeen Years!! His house sank! He went through a vicious legal battle when the state of Florida took his license! There were other treasure hunters that were cutting into his areas, threatening his men.

Imagine the doubt that he had to endure.

But, every day:

Today’s the Day.

You may not be pulling up $400 million worth of treasure from the ocean floor. But you can be in pursuit of that one thing that is your personal treasure. And when things are getting tough, because they will if it is a worthwhile goal, remember Galatians 6:9

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

It may not be “Today’s the Day” but you should have something that you tell yourself consistently to interrupt the doubt that creeps in. New York Times Best-selling Author Chris Brady says “Doesn’t Matter” when he comes across something that seems to be an obstacle. In that case, he immediately can think about the next step and many times- your obstacle doesn’t matter! It only seems like it matters!

So what’s your treasure? Are you willing to aim for a worthy objective and run past the obstacles? What are you going to tell yourself when the going gets tough?

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