(The following is an excerpt from the book, Hacking Normal by John Stevenot available on Amazon.com)
Living day to day, fidgeting in an uncomfortable chair, tapping hours of my life away into an Excel spreadsheet was the last thing I ever wanted to do.
But, as I saw my life slowly turning toward that reality, I realized I had to find a way to escape. Much like the shark, my freedom was being taken away and I wasn’t going to let that happen without a fight.
As Jack Sparrow says in the movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, “It’s a pirate’s life for me.”
The pirate’s life, put another way, is a life built around intentional living.
It is a lifestyle of freedom. It is a lifestyle dedicated to the principle of being able to do what you want when you want to do it.
The pirate’s lifestyle is living your dreams, having fun, and enjoying life today.
Click to preview Hacking Normal for FREE at Amazon.com
I once heard Tony Robbins, the world-famous performance coach and advisor to everyone from Bill Clinton to Mikhail Gorbachev, from Leonardo DiCaprio to Oprah, say, “[In life], we get what we tolerate.”
We get what we tolerate.
Think about that. Everything you have in your life is there because you said, “Yes, I think this is good enough.” You’ve settled. You’ve said that this person, this object, and this situation meets your minimum expectations.
But, as you will find, minimum expectations are not good enough. Minimum expectation only gets you what’s average or, as I like to call it, normal.
Life Is About Growth
For me, working in an office, chained to a desk for eight hours a day for 40 years is the last thing that I ever want. #%& that.
Let me repeat myself: #%& that.
Life is about growth.
Growth comes from learning new things, experiencing new places, succeeding or failing with new challenges, and creating relationships with people from all walks of life.
How in the hell can I (or anyone) grow while sitting behind a desk interacting with the same people, doing the same monotonous tasks for the rest of my life?
I can’t, and neither can you.
If you aren’t growing, you’re dying.
Unless you are ready to be buried in the ground or scattered into the ocean, it’s time to free yourself from the confines of your office, regain control over your time, and start living for the now, rather than the later.
Three Pillars of Hacking Normal
To free yourself from the fetters of traditional office life, we will focus on three pillars. These three pillars have helped me upend the traditional employee-employer relationship in a healthy and mutually beneficial way.
You get autonomy; your boss gets value.
With autonomy back in your hands, the dream of living life to the fullest becomes an immediate reality rather than a distant dream. The three pillars are: control over your time, location, and income.