Download it, print it out, put in on your wall and share it with those close to you.

This is how we live. Stand tall and enjoy!

So… What do you think?

Btw, the full resolution Creed is a lot bigger – makes for the perfect poster! Click the Creed to download the full image (or click here).

And if you wanted to share the love on Twitter, here are a few tweetables:

Learn by doing, but question everything and assume there’s another way. Tweet

Realize freedom is a state of mind. You’re already there. Tweet

Believe in everything you do, or don’t do it. Tweet

There is no progress without action. there is no failure, only learning. Tweet

The biggest risk is doing nothing. Do something. Anything. Tweet

Measure against your own standards not others. Tweet

Do things for the impact, not the money. Tweet

Environment is everything. Choose your friends wisely. Tweet

Everyone is an expert at something. Use your strengths to help people. Tweet

Pay attention. Act on what you learn. Be your own leader. Tweet

Life is an experiment. Push limits and test what’s possible. Tweet

Be the revolution. Do something that MATTERS. Live Your Legend. Tweet

We are what we repeatedly do.

Follow the above and life starts to get pretty interesting.

I’m damn excited about what’s to come.

How about you?

Onward,

-Scott

Have you downloaded the free Live Your Legend LIVE Event Field Kit yet?

This Creed is one of eight components in our recently launched LYL LIVE Event Field Kit. The Field Kit is a very comprehensive step-by-step guide to hosting your own LYL live meetup anywhere in the world. But more importantly, it’s a tool for dramatically transforming your surroundings.

The people around us change everything.

Become the host in your own town, surround yourself with other Living Legends and your world will begin to transform. We want to do everything in our power to make that possible for everyone in the LYL community. I see this as a huge step in that direction. As Living Legends we all share this responsibility of bringing passionate people together.

My vision is to have meetups happening all over the world. But I cannot do it alone.

Now the ball’s in your court. I can’t wait to see what you do with it!

If you’re interested in hosting or attending an event, please leave your city and country in the comments on the Field Kit launch page. Last week over 150 people from dozens of cities and countries offered to help or host their own local LYL events. I can’t tell you how excited that makes me. I hope you’ll join in the action.

You can download the full Field Kit here.

Now please share, send or email the creed to one person who could use it.

Then print it out and put it somewhere special!

P.S. Next Thursday I’m hosting a special live presentation on How to Find & Meet Passionate People In Your Hometown (& become unforgettable). Spaces are limited. Click the link above to register.

P.P.S. And… our official LYL “Do Something That Matters” shirts are finally ready and will be going live very soon. Keep an eye out!

“Do nothing but put a group of passionate, inspired, crazy people in a room together, and the world-changing will take care of itself. “

- The LYL Creed

The Power of Having the Right People in the Same Room…

Today is a big day for all of us.

We are launching a free tool that I think will dramatically change the impact that our community and this revolution has on all of us (and the world). It’s been in the works for months and I’m damn excited!

As of this morning, the Live Your Legend LIVE Event Field Kit is available to download. And it’s 100% free to all our community members (you can download it at the end of this article – and the kit also includes a graphic poster of the LYL Creed which has never been published on LYL!).

The Field Kit is a very comprehensive step-by-step guide to hosting your own LYL live meetup anywhere in the world. But more importantly, it’s a tool for dramatically transforming your surroundings.

If you’re interested in hosting or attending an event, please leave your city & country in the comments!

Now let’s talk about why I believe this project has so much damn potential to help us…

Community. Is. Everything. Now You’re In Control.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about the 10-30+ year vision of Live Your Legend.

And I can sum that vision into one word: Community.

I used to think the purpose of LYL was to provide you with the tools to find and do work you love. Sure that’s a huge part, but over the past few years I’ve realized the tools are secondary.

By far the most powerful ingredient in doing what matters, is surrounding yourself with the people who make it possible.

If we can put ourselves in an environment where the people around us inspire, support, help and encourage us to push limits, pursue our passions & ideas and make our own impact, magic starts to happen.

In the right environment I believe anyone with enough conviction, can begin to move mountains.

That’s how marathons get run, businesses get launched, and the world starts to change.

So that is the real purpose of our community, movement and Revolution at Live Your Legend: To provide the environment and resources to help you find and do work you love, by building a supportive community of inspired people to make it possible.

I believe this community is one of the core pillars that sets us apart from the thousands of other generic “follow your passion” type sites out there.

That’s why we created the Ultimate Mastermind Workbook, How to Connect with Anyone and now the Field Kit. It’s also why the future of LYL will be laser focused on building and connecting the most passionate and supportive community of Living Legends on the planet.

Because people transform our potential.

YOU are that community.

That’s the beauty of it. Without you, LYL would be nothing more than text on a screen.

But add 37,000 passionate people (from 177 countries) to the equation, who believe in possibility, and we start to have a legitimate revolution.

This community began online, but the true power comes when we meet face-to-face in the real world – When we spend time around each other on a day-to-day basis, sharing ideas and making real progress.

I noticed this first-hand during our LYL LIVE event last year at Samovar Tea Lounge in San Francisco. The energy of the 100+ of you in the room was like nothing I’ve ever felt. People were in tears. They were inspired. Their thinking started to change. And as a result, so did their actions.

But it wasn’t because of Scott Dinsmore or even Live Your Legend.

No, it was because for the first time in many of their lives, they were surrounded by people who believed what they believed. For the first time, instead of being told they were stupid for thinking differently, they were encouraged and supported. And that is when everything starts to change.

It’s All of Our Responsibility to Become the ‘Host’

My goal is for these in-person meetups and events to start happening all over the world.

And they already are.

Four weeks ago, Leah, Naz, Melanie and Nikki, from our LYL and Connect with Anyone communities decided to host their very own LYL meetup in Sydney, Australia, at a pub near the Opera House. Nearly 30 Living Legends showed up and spent hours trading ideas and, well…partying. And it was all their idea, not mine. They did it all on their own! My eyes began to water when I got on the live video feed during the event, along with people from four other continents. You can read more about their Sydney event here.

Oh and these women met as a result of our Community Maven Liz Seda placing them in a mastermind team through our Connect with Anyone course. They’ve since launched The Pursuit of Purpose, a business they founded together (and they’ve done a damn good job with it!).

All Liz and I did was connect a few passionate people. They did the rest…

The power of putting the right people in a room together cannot be overestimated.

They even had a videographer there. Here’s a 2-minute video from their event.

This is so far beyond what I’d dreamed about when I first launched Live Your Legend.

And weeks ago another group met in Vancouver. A week before that Yaron hosted a meetup in London, and his next is this Sunday at 1pm (you all are welcome to join!). Plenty more have happened over the past months. A group of PhD students even formed a LYL club at their university last year!

Other members of our community have offered to host events in…

• Montreal
• The Dominican Republic
• New York
• Columbus
• Raleigh
• Munich
• Buenos Aires
• Hong Kong
• Just to name a few…

Just think for a minute what this community and movement could become if every one of us became the leader and began to host their own events in their hometowns?

It could start to get crazy very very fast. And something tells me that’s exactly what’s about to happen.

Because with the right community the impossible becomes possible, and people become unstoppable.

Download the Step-by-Step Guide to Transforming Your Surroundings

So today I’m asking you to become the host in your own town – not for LYL but for yourself and for the people around you. To be the person who decides to bring those people together who can make all the difference.

I plan to host a lot of events in the months and years to come, but you do not need me to change your surroundings. I don’t want to be the bottleneck.

So I’m transferring the power and control from me to you. Actually, from me to US.

This kit is a year in the making and has taken weeks of creation and design work by half a dozen people. In fact Leah, Naz and Melanie created the first 23-page draft after they hosted their Syndey event. And I didn’t even ask them to – that’s the power of a common vision! Thank you for everything ladies. You’ve helped change the game in a big way. Oh and Michael Paradise also crushed it with the sexy design.

The kit is comprehensive and is designed to provide everything you need to transform your surroundings by hosting your own live meetups in your hometown. Feel free to follow every step or none at all. Whether it’s for two people or 200 makes no difference. You don’t even have to mention LYL if you don’t want to.

All we care about is that you do your part to bring people together to help each other make an impact and do work that matters. That is what makes the impossible not only possible, but probable. We can’t wait to see what you do with it…

The field kit includes 8 rather gorgeously-designed tools:

1. The Quick Start Guide: General guidance for hosting successful events.
2. Core Values to Guide Your Event
3. Live Event Detailed Agenda & Guide: More specific step-by-step guidance on agenda ideas, talking points and just about everything else you could imagine
4. Email Templates: Specific scripts for getting the word out and building excitement
5. Event Checklist: The specific things you want to be sure you have on the big day
6. LYL Creed Poster: A high-res graphic representation of the LYL way of life, that you could print for the event (no one has seen this until today!)
7. LYL Logo Banner: A high-res printable LYL sign to let people know they’re in the right place!
8. Access to our community of 37,000+ people to promote your event: I’m happy to send an email to the members of our community who live in your city or country!

You can download the full LYL Live Event Field Kit here.

I hope to look back on today’s post as a tipping point.

In order for a revolution to reach its full potential, everyone must take on role of the leader. I want to do everything possible to put the power in all of your hands.

I see today as being the biggest step in the that direction in the history of LYL.

Environment is everything.

And it’s 100% in our control.

You are the only one who can transform your surroundings.

I’m doing my part.

And I appreciate you taking the next step to do yours.

We are here to help any way we can.

-Scott

Now, as a member of this community I ask that you do two things:

1. Download the free LYL Live Event Field Kit here and spend a few minutes browsing through it (the design files are gorgeous and big, so be patient as it downloads!)

2. If you want to host (or attend) an event in your hometown, please tell us in the comments. We’ll do everything in our power to make it successful.

P.S. Also I’ll be hosting a free webinar soon on How To Transform Your Surroundings & Create Your In-Person Passionate Community, so keep an eye out! Community is the future of LYL and we want to make this stuff as useful as possible.

Thank you all for making this movement what it is.

“Natural forces within us are the true healers of disease.” – Hippocrates

The Health Benefits of Loving What You Do.

I believe doing work you love will change the world.

But a lot of people still spend their lives filled with stress, anxiety and despair about how they spend the majority of their working and waking hours. As many as 80% of the world lives this way (although I’d like to think our Revolution here is beginning to push that number down).

Yet despite the constant pain and frustration, we find reasons to push off change one more day. One day turns into a year, which turns into forever.

But as we’re about to see, there are serious risks in putting off the change you know you so badly need to make.

The biggest risk of all? Life.

Yes, there is real scientific and medical proof that doing work you don’t enjoy will actually shorten your lifespan.

So for those of you on the edge, or who know people on the edge, today I hope to offer a wake up call that trumps all others. But I’m not qualified to tell you about it. Instead I’ve brought in an expert and good friend who’s hard to deny.

Lissa Rankin, M.D. studied medicine for over twelve years and then spent another decade seeing patients in her clinical practice. Then frustration set in – she realized most of her patient work and prescriptions weren’t actually helping people. So she left it all, sold the second home and gave up a very profitable business to go on a quest to discover why some patients experience miraculous cures from seemingly incurable illnesses, while others remain sick even when they receive the best medical care. She scoured medical journals and data from some of the most reputable medical establishments in the world, including Stanford and Johns Hopkins.

What she found blew a lot of minds.

Diet and exercise, while important, were not at the top of the list.

What was? Things like time around close friends, laughter, the health of your marriage and wait for it… doing work that genuinely fulfills and excites you. 

She didn’t just find stories and anecdotes of this stuff being the case. She found real peer-reviewed medical evidence proving it to be true. She recently published her findings into her third book, Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself, which launches this week.

This is the evidence I’ve been waiting for.

Lissa now devotes herself full-time, as a mind-body medicine physician, to her mission to heal our broken health care system, both by helping patients play a more active role in healing themselves and by training physicians how to facilitate, rather than resist, such mind-body healing. She is the founder of the Whole Health Medicine Institute, which includes guest faculty such as Martha Beck, Christiane Northrup, Bernie Siegel, and Larry Dossey. She also has two of the best TEDx Talks I’ve seen on health, medicine and the power of the body.

I believe in possibility.

I believe that in most cases ‘the impossible’ is a state of mind.

Lissa’s work puts proof to this belief.

In my eyes she is doing some of the most important work on the planet.

Lissa’s experience, friendship, support and proof that the impossible is not only possible, but often controllable, could not come at a more important time right now for me personally. I’m grateful to have her in my life.

Enter Lissa Rankin M.D. 

You probably know that having a toxic job that stresses you out and sucks the soul out of you isn’t exactly good for you. As a physician who has experienced work stress myself, as well as witnessing it in my patients, it’s obvious to me that work stress is poisonous and can translate into physical symptoms. You know this already. Anyone who has ever gotten a migraine after a deal went bad or stiff shoulders after the boss criticized him can attest to that.

But did you realize that work stress can actually kill you?

In Japan, they even have a word for it – karoshi – which is defined as “death by overwork.” Karoshi usually happens to relatively young, otherwise healthy people who are burning the candle at both ends in a less-than-dreamy work environment.

The first case of karoshi was reported in 1969, when a worker died of a stroke at the age of 29. But it wasn’t until 1987 that the Japan Ministry of Labor began collecting statistics on karoshi. Since that time, Japanese officials estimate that approximately 10,000 cases of karoshi occur each year.

This should be big news! Some lawyers and scholars even claim that the number of karoshi deaths in Japan equals or exceeds the number of traffic accident fatalities each year. But when was the last time your doctor added “Alleviate work stress” to your preventive maintenance or treatment plan?

What Happens Physiologically When People Die of Karoshi?

Karoshi is not a single disease. It’s a constellation of what are believed to be stress-induced physiological changes that usually lead to either sudden cardiac death or stroke, most likely caused by repetitive triggering of the “fight-or-flight” stress response that activates the sympathetic nervous system, raises blood pressure and heart rate, and overstresses the cardiovascular system.

Just before dying, most karoshi victims complain of varying combinations of dizziness, nausea, severe headache and stomach ache. In 95% of karoshi cases, death occurs within 24 hours of the onset of severe symptoms, though milder symptoms sometimes precede the severe ones. (If you’re stressed at work, do any of these symptoms sound familiar to you? If so, listen up. That’s your body telling you your work could be harming your health.)

Death by Overwork in the United States

It’s not just the Japanese who are working themselves to death.

Although most of the data on karoshi comes from Japan, the International Labor Office released statistics showing that the United States far exceeds the Japanese when it comes to overwork. Our doctors and our government have yet to recognize karoshi as a distinct disease or award workman’s compensation benefits the way the Japanese do, and because we don’t track it, it’s hard to say how frequently work stress manifests as death in the United States.  But you can bet it affects the health of many.

One study found that one in five Americans come to work, even though they were ill, injured, or seeing a doctor that day. The same sort of work obsession keeps about a third of employed Americans failing to use accrued vacation time. This failure to use vacation days has actually been proven to predispose to early death.

One study, published in Psychosomatic Medicine in 2000, looked at 12,000 men over nine years and found that those who failed to take annual vacations had a 21% higher risk of death from all causes, and they were 32% more likely to die of a heart attack. Yikes!

It’s not just early death that work stress can cause. Another recent study found that disenchanted, burned out employees developed heart disease at a 79% higher rate than those who liked their job.

And there are financial costs to all this burn out! The New York Times reports that health issues related to job stress costs the American economy $200 billion annually – roughly the economic cost of Hurricane Katrina. It is an epidemic that just might be affecting… you.

How Your Toxic Job Can Harm Your Body

You probably know that work stress isn’t good for you, and you probably know that if you hate your job, stress reduction would be a plus. But do you understand how work stress harms the body?

Here’s how it goes. Your boss yells at you when you did nothing wrong, and you get pissed. Or you’re on the floor of the stock market – or in front of a jury – screaming until you’re red in the face. Or you’re up all night, faced with the repetitive stress of performing a perfect surgery when you’re exhausted, like I did for over a decade. Or someone steals your idea and doesn’t give you credit. Or your job requires you to try to sell cigarettes – and when you do, you also sell out your integrity.

You keep quiet when you want to speak up.  You lack the power to make the change you know needs to happen. You’re trying to please an office full of narcissists. Or whatever.

Sound The Alarm

It doesn’t matter what the stressor is. All that matters is that the amygdala in your lizard brain reads “THREAT!” and signals the alarm that lets your brain know you are in danger, probably because a tiger is chasing you. Your amygdala isn’t very smart. It doesn’t really listen to your intelligent forebrain and fails to realize that your boss isn’t actually a man-eating tiger. (Or maybe she is…)

Either way, your amygdala sounds the alarm and the “fight-or-flight” physiological stress response is triggered, flipping on your sympathetic nervous system, exposing every cell to harmful stress hormones like cortisol and epinephrine, elevating your heart rate and blood pressure, and worst of all – deactivating the body’s natural self-repair mechanisms, the ones that kill cancer cells, fight infections, repair broken proteins, slow aging, and help you live to be a hundred.

The Relaxation Response: The Solution…

Fortunately, your body has a natural counterbalance to the potentially poisonous stress response, which Dr. Herbert Benson famously named the relaxation response, which is also the title of his bestselling book from the 1970’s. The relaxation response shuts off the stress response, turns on the parasympathetic nervous system, and flips on the body’s self-repair mechanisms so the body can do what it does best – heal itself.

The Power of Living Your Legend

So if you think work stress might be putting your health at risk, what can you do?

Well, you’re already doing just what the doctor ordered by being a part of the Live Your Legend community, getting inspired about how to get out of any job that sucks out your soul and starting to engage in work you love.

As it turns out, the most effective way to optimize the health of your body is to reduce stress responses.

The average American has over 50 stress responses per day. But when you’re doing work you love, feeling a sense of mission and purpose, helping other people with the work you do, staying in alignment with your integrity, feeling a sense of personal power in an entrepreneurial business, working with people you admire, and expressing your creative gifts, you naturally experience fewer stress responses – and the body’s self-repair mechanisms have a chance to do their business.

But What If You Can’t Quit Your Soul-Sucking Job?

Still mired in the cubicle or married to the golden handcuffs? Don’t worry. You can start today – before you quit.

To prevent death by overwork, you’ll need to implement a two-fold strategy by reducing stress responses in the body, while simultaneously activating relaxation responses.

To Activate Relaxation Responses:

• Meditate. And here’s some good news. According to Dr. Herbert Benson, author of The Relaxation Response, you don’t even have to close your eyes and sit down to meditate. He has proven scientifically that the body responds favorably when all you do is pick one word and repeat it while passively disregarding other thoughts. This means you can activate relaxation responses while running, driving, or grocery shopping. Cool!
• Laugh. Even if nothing is funny, the act of laughing triggers relaxation responses. And you’ll feel so silly, you’ll probably laugh some more.
• Play with animals.
• Express yourself creatively. You don’t have to paint or play an instrument to get the health benefits of creative expression. Even setting a beautiful dinner table or gardening can relax your nervous system.
• Get it on. Need I say more?
• Dance. Even if you’re dancing by yourself to a Pandora playlist.

To Reduce Stress Responses at Work:

• Set healthy boundaries. Skip the 12 hour days. Be willing to have a heart to heart with your boss, even if you are your own boss. No amount of job security or money is work dying young.
• Take vacations. People who fail to use their vacation time are 32% more likely to die of a heart attack.
• Stay in integrity with yourself. If you’re selling your soul for a paycheck, your body will suffer.
• Do what you love. When you’re motivated by a sense of mission and purpose, your nervous system relaxes and your physiology responds positively.

In my book Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself, I walk you through the 6 Steps To Healing Yourself that include not only how to reduce stress responses, but very specific actions you can take to activate more relaxation responses – things like meditation, laughter, playing with animals, hanging out with friends, getting a massage, doing yoga, attending services as part of a spiritual community, giving to others, or hugging someone.

Ultimately, it’s all about the ratio between stress responses and relaxation responses in the body, so if you can’t reduce stress responses, you can still add relaxation responses – and my book will teach you how to do that.

The big question is…Is your work hurting you, or do you love what you do?

Share your stories in the comments below.

- Lissa Rankin

Lissa Rankin, MD, is the creator of the health and wellness communities LissaRankin.com and OwningPink.com, author of Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof You Can Heal Yourself (Hay House, 2013), TEDx speaker, and Health Care Evolutionary. Join her newsletter for free guidance on healing yourself, and check her out on Twitter and Facebook.

*****

Thank you for doing the work you do Lissa – and for your contribution. The world is a lot better (and healthier) because of you.

For those of you who’ve been putting off a change, I hope this will be the last wake up call you need.

We’re here to help any way we can.

To doing what matters & living a full life,

-Scott

For the comments: I’ll see if I can get Lissa to chime in on any specific questions that come to mind. Something tells me she’d love to help. Please ask away!

—–

Image credit

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” – Sir Isaac Newton

Learning from Masters

TED is one of my favorite organizations on the planet.

What their 2-18 minute-long talks have done for the distribution of ideas, disruptive thinking and creativity is something I’ll never fully be able to get my head around.

I credit TED for much of the inspiration and ideas that have come to life through Live Your Legend – and just about everything else I do.

They’ve helped me launch businesses, run ultra marathons, connect with world-changers and even kept me from having a breakdown from time to time…

Aside from ideas and inspiration, I believe a good TED Talk is one of the fastest ways to start surrounding yourself with passionate world-class experts.

That is priceless.

I often watch at least a few a week and always have some saved on my iPad or iPhone for bus rides to the office, flight delays, whatever.

The below list was very hard to make, as I’ve seen hundreds of talks and so many deserve our attention.

So please look at this list as merely a starting point.

Every one of the below have had a profound effect on my career and approach to the world – and for our purposes today I’ve only chosen the ones that cover the various steps of making the transition to doing work you love.

Why more people aren’t taking advantage of this stuff will forever baffle me.

If TED hasn’t been a part of your daily life before now, I hope that one of the people below will cause that to change.

These are some of the best story tellers in the world (a skill that one is never done mastering). Pick one for now and follow up with the rest throughout the week.

Enjoy the show… and share your own favorite talk in the comments so we can keep learning!

1. Simon Sinek – How Great Leaders Inspire Action (& how to rally the world behind a common idea or movement)

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” This single sentence of Simon’s has been the most profound concept I’ve learned in at least a few years, if not ever. I built LYL from the ground up based on his idea of starting with Why. I literally take it into account with almost every interaction I have – business or personal.

He lays out a blueprint for finding purpose and building a movement around your vision. I’ve watched this at least 15 times. He also did an interview on LYL last year: Simon Sinek Shares the #1 Business Principle that Changes Everything.

2. Steve Jobs – How to Live Before You Die (& not spend your life hating what you do)

I believe this is hands down the best career talk ever given. Ever. I’ve watched it over a dozen times. Not originally a TED talk, but now one of their top videos.

3. Amy Cuddy – Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are (& how to create confidence and influence out of thin air)

Whether you want to land your dream job or attract the hottest guy or girl at the bar, Amy’s ideas are gold. A huge part of our Connect with Anyone course. “Fake it until you become it.”

4. Brené Brown - The Power of Vulnerability (& how to become the most memorable person in the room)

It’s impossible to find and do work you love if you don’t represent who you actually are – both to yourself and to the world. This is the foundation of any genuine connection or passionate career. No more puffing your chest out. Let it all hang out (or at least most of it…).

5. Elizabeth Gilbert – Your Elusive Creative Genius (& how to create content and value in a sane, consistent way)

Harnessing creativity can be terrifying, especially as an artist or entrepreneur. Elizabeth’s alternative approach to this is brilliant.

6. Jonathan Fields – Turning Fear into Fuel for Brillance (& how to not let uncertainty kill your progress)

There’s going to be fear no matter what – and even more of it when you’re pursuing what matters. Jonathan turns that on its head. This and his book, Uncertainty, saved me more than once. His stories also give me chills.

7. Sir Ken Robinson – School Kills Creativity (& how to educate and learn in a way that nurtures innovation)

Most school systems are set up to kill a passion long before it has a chance of becoming a career. If we’re going to seek out the solution, it helps if we better understand the problem. Ken offers both.

8. Larry Smith – Why You Will Fail to Have a Great Career (& a more worthy alternative)

This dissects the problem of why I believe the Live Your Legend movement is so damn important. Hilariously told too. As Charlie munger says “Tell me where I’m going to die, that is, so I don’t go there.”

9. Rory Sutherland – Perspective Is Everything (or how to become a marketing genius)

Every world-changing career involves plenty of marketing, selling, persuasion and influence. I’ve never seen a more genius approach (or comical delivery) for positioning your product, service or yourself in a way that actually interests people.

10. Benjamin Zander – The Transformative Power of Classical Music (& what it looks like to be madly in love with what you do)

When transitioning to passionate work, it helps to see people who have already found it. This is one of the most brilliant displays of a man deeply in love with the work he does. I never thought classical music could make me cry.

11. Jamie Oliver – Teach Every Child about Food (or how to mount & lead an international revolution from a standing start)

On par with Zander, the passion Jamie has for the revolution he’s leading proves that anything is possible when your Why, purpose and passion are deep and congruent enough. Jamie won the TED Prize in 2010. I watch this and Simon’s before every talk I give.

12. Cameron Herold – Let’s Raise Kids to Be Entrepreneurs (or a realistic approach to getting the next generation to do work that actually excites them)

Doing work you love is not just about you or me. It’s about the people who look up to us whom we can inspire to take a path they actually care about. That is all of our role as mentors, friends and parents. I believe Cameron’s approach will be a huge part of the solution. I look forward to raising my future children with this as the blueprint.

Honorable Mentions (and still very well worth your time):

Chip Conley - Measuring what makes life worthwhile (and how to love jobs that most people would hate)

Daniel Pink – The puzzle of motivation (and how to incentivize yourself and others for peak performance and fulfillment)

Ben Dunlap – The life-long learner & talks of a passionate life

Jason Fried – Why work doesn’t happen at work

Nigel Marsh – How to make work life balance work

*****

No one does anything alone.

I owe these people (and many others) more than I’d probably care to admit. They are responsible for much of what exists today, and their ideas certainly served as my foundation when I got the chance to give my own TEDx talk in 2012 on How to Find & Do Work You Love. None of that would have been a dream, let alone a reality, if it weren’t for my surroundings.

The resources, ideas and people available to us today are priceless. Yet they also happen to be 100% free.

The question is, what are we all doing with it?

-Scott

P.S. Thank you all who chimed in with your favorites over Facebook and Twitter this week – I so wish I could have listed all of them!

For the comments: What did I miss – what talk is a must for the LYL community? Please share the link in the comments and teach us something new! I plan to watch them all…eventually .

“Life is nothing more than a series of experiments. Test and share you ideas. Give them a chance to have an impact, and an impact you’ll have.”

Important Note & Warning: This is a special post — a manifesto and guide on experimentation & learning. It’s in-depth and it’s important. The whole thing will take you about 15 minutes to read and another 15 minutes to implement. I believe it will dramatically transform your career potential. That’s exactly what it did for me.

If you must, you can scan over the first part. But the next 9 steps are vital. I spent a lot of time making this as directly useful as possible. Please do something with it.

I meant to write it a year ago. It’s about time …

Stacking the Deck in Your Favor & The Power of Feedback Loops

Just under seven years ago, I discovered a tool that completely transformed my career and ability to impact the world. It became the vehicle that allowed me to have the impact, lifestyle and experiences that I only used to encounter in the occasional book, movie or dream.

And it took me four years to realize I’d found it.

Without it, Live Your Legend wouldn’t have a chance at existing.

As it turns out, doing work you love is simple. 

Now before you spit and scream “Blasphemy!” all over your screen, realize that I said “simple” — I did not say “easy.” There is a very big difference. Please don’t confuse the two. Most of the important things in life are simple. They are not easy.

The simple process goes something like this:

1. Know yourself. Wake up to your talents, your strengths, the things you love and hate.
2. Use it to help others in a meaningful way.
3. Offer a fair price in exchange for your help (or work with a person or company already having the impact you want to have).

I see life as a never-ending experiment: Test, learn, help, refine, repeat.

The more we can understand who we are, what excites us and how we can use that knowledge to offer our talents to the world, the faster we can see how people respond to what we have to offer.

Without this feedback loop, it’s nearly impossible to build a career around our passions, interests, talents and strengths.

And I have good news — there exists a tool today that is likely more powerful at creating this testing environment than anything in history.

And it happens to be free — or less than the cost of a few cups of coffee, depending on which option you choose.

Ready for the best passion discovery & monetization tool on the web?

Here it goes … a blog.

I know, of course I’m biased, but hear me out.

If you already have a blog, good work, but you are still going to want to hear this material (especially if you’re not giving your blog much attention) and certainly have a look at this post: The 4 Pillars to Starting a Blog that Actually Matters (& grow it by 160x in 2 years)

Important: I am NOT talking about building a business around a blog. That may or may not be your thing, and that takes a whole business model and strategy and a ridiculous amount of work (just like building any other business).  Let’s save that for another discussion.

No, I’m talking about a blog as the easiest and most powerful tool for exploring what excites you and learning how you can uniquely help people.

Whether you decide to make your blog into a business or leverage it to get hired, find clients or simply connect with other passionate people is up to you. It will help you do all of that — and plenty more.

While we’re at it, let’s get something else clear. In its simplest form, a blog is nothing more than a website that can be easily updated and doesn’t require code to set up or manage. That’s the only reason why I started my old site, Reading For Your Success, back in 2006. I read a very useful (yet poorly named) book, Internet Riches, that claimed even my technically-challenged self could start publishing things online.

That was enough to get me started. Without that experiment, that directionless start years ago, the LYL movement would not exist.

Personal Branding 101: When someone googles your name, what do they find?

What’s the first thing you do when you want to learn about someone new — be it a potential date, employee, boss, whoever?

You go to Google.

Are you proud of what comes up? More importantly, are you doing your best to control what comes up?

Will people see some random Facebook pictures of your new cat or you crushing beers back in college, or will they see the image and brand that you want your name to represent? Will they get to learn about your talents and how you want to impact and help the world?

It’s time to be intentional about what you’re letting the world see.

If you’re at all serious about Living Your Legend (and you wouldn’t be reading this if you weren’t), you must have a way to express yourself, explore your ideas, bounce them off others and hold yourself accountable to continued learning and discovery.

And a blog just so happens to be the easiest, fastest, cheapest, most powerful and scalable way of doing this. I’m sure it will be something else in ten years from now, and I look forward to learning about it, but for now this is the all-powerful tool.

Blogs are nothing more than tools — a medium for self-expression. And they are much more powerful than most realize.

They’re a simple way to explore and share the thoughts and beliefs you’re excited about and for people to immediately see and provide feedback. They also happen to be a really fun way to learn the ins and outs of the web — an essential skill if you want to leverage what’s possible when it comes to passion and work.

Don’t worry about whether you’ll make money from it or who will read it. That’s not the point, unless you want it to be. The point is to constantly fuel something that interests you.

Case Study: From Cooking Dinner to Being The Chef

For years, my wife Chelsea has loved to cook vegetarian meals.

A year or so ago, she decided to start a simple recipe blog called Food-Life Balance, and the most fascinating thing started to happen. Her cooking changed from something she simply did, to something she eagerly shared and talked to others about. She also started cooking about five times more new delicious recipes than she used to. As her taste-tester, I had no complaints …

She suddenly had an audience for something she cared about.

Her standards began to change and suddenly she started to become The Expert.

She pursued new recipes and classes (such as the one we took in Chiang Mai last month). People started to thank her and cook her recipes at their own home. This upped her game even more. When she publishes something, it literally effects what people will be putting into their mouths that day or that week. How cool is that?!

Last Friday, “we” even cooked Thai food for seven of us in our miniature kitchen (it ended up being a feast fit for 14, including green curry, sweet potato curry, Pad Thai, Pad See Ew, veggie spring rolls and tofu satay). A few blog posts suddenly became a feast with friends.

And whether she realizes it or not, her blog also happens to be reinforcing and complimenting her personal brand and expertise as a fitness teacher/manager and health fanatic. Maybe she’ll do something more with it in the future. Maybe this will lead to private cooking classes or a cookbook. Then again, maybe she’ll just let it continue to develop on its own. Either way is fine – people are happy, and Chelsea is a much more talented cook as a result (and she was damn good to start!).

But none of this would have come if she hadn’t taken her interest to the next level. Be sure to try a few of her dishes!

Chelsea’s recipe lab didn’t have to be a blog. That just happens to be one of the easiest ways of doing it these days. 

Everyone needs a way of developing their ideas and exploring what their “thing” might be.

That almost always starts with throwing random thoughts and ideas on the wall.

The problem is that most people never get any of it out of their head, so it never has a chance to flourish and develop into something meaningful.

Interesting opportunities start to show up when the world knows your passions and talents.

It opens people up to your world and proves you care about something (even if it changes over time, as it surely will).

This creates connections, and connections lead to serendipity — a force more powerful than most.

Then one day you’ll get an email or a friend will pull you aside and say, “Thank you. What you wrote last week finally helped me confront my toxic relationship (or put me over the edge to lose that 25 pounds, or kept me from taking my own life).” All of these are notes I’ve received from readers.

And one day you’ll get the same — if you decide to build that environment. When you do, you will be changed — forever.

You’ll realize that you are relevant.

Even if to just one person, knowing their life is better because you decided to share your talents with the world is the most powerful motivator and creator of possibility on the planet.

So today I’d like you to make the decision to have that impact — first for yourself, then for those around you.

Here’s how …

*Note: The instructions below are intentionally very, very simple to get you up and running with a totally basic WordPress blog so you can start publishing ideas ASAP.

There are about a million other decisions you could (and eventually probably will) make regarding your blog or site. Please do not worry about that today. All that matters is getting something published. Don’t worry about how it looks. Today is about creating your sandbox and starting to play a little. Landscaping (and other excuses for deferring getting a little dirty) can be addressed later.

And for the most advanced folks, this is your next step: The 4 Pillars to Starting a Blog that Actually Matters (& grow it by 160x in 2 years)

How to Start a Blog in Less than 30 Minutes: 

1. Sign up for the most basic website hosting account at Blue Host.

I fully endorse Blue Host, am a proud affiliate partner of theirs, and it’s where all our domains live. I’ve tried a lot of hosts in the past and this is by far the best discount option available based on personal experience and the people I respect online (They’ve also been a top recommended web host by WordPress since 2005). All you need it is the most basic option, which comes with a free domain (website address) of your choosing. The only add-on you might want is Domain WHOIS Privacy ($9.95/yr), which keeps your personal information for being made public on your site.

You do not need any of the other add-ons or up-sells, such as Site Lock or Site Backup. All of that can be sorted out later. We want to keep this as simple as possible!

One reason we love Blue Host is because their customer support is awesome. If you’re unsure of what to do, just start up a chat session with their support team and they’ll get your issues sorted out.

Here’s the link to set up your site on Blue Host.

A few clarifying points:

• This Blue Host setup will run you about the cost of one or two lattes a month. It’s a very small price for finally getting traction on what makes you come alive. But there are also some totally free options through sites like Blogger or Tumblr, although to be honest, I really don’t recommend those since you have much less control and won’t actually own the website. So if you go that route and decide to take your blog and site more seriously in the future, they can be a total pain in the ass to switch to something like the Blue Host option in the future. You will also have a ton more resources and options available through the slightly less than free option we suggest.
• Also since we’re an affiliate of Blue Host (as well as the other tools mentioned in the post), we will get a small commission if you decide to use them, and as you should know by now, we only recommend things that genuinely help you. I don’t care where you set up your blog as long as you get something live.
• Due to the increased traffic and complexity of Live Your Legend, we host it on a more robust platform via WP Engine (which I LOVE), but at $99+ per month, that is definitely not the option you need to start out.

2. Pick your blog name (called a URL or Domain Name).

This is part of the sign-up process through Blue Host in step #1.  When you sign up for basic hosting, you get a website name for free.

Keep it simple. Don’t hold off just because you can’t come up with the wittiest web 7.0 name. Using your first and last name (or a similar rendition) is fine and might even be better since this will be a general blog covering your interests, given that you might not know the specific niche you want to focus on. Using your name can also allow the site to serve as a simple online resume if nothing else, and it helps with your name’s Google rankings.

3. Set up WordPress on your new site (or better yet, have Blue Host do it for you).

Once you’ve purchased your hosting/domain, you are ready to install WordPress, which will allow you to edit and update your site without needing to do anything technical. Most every blog on the planet from LYL to ZenHabits to 4-Hour Work Week are all run on WordPress.

Installing/setting up the very basic version of WordPress on a new Blue Host account is a pretty straightforward process. But I’m always a fan of having customer support do it for me. They should be happy to set it up. Just tell them something like, “Hey, I’m super excited to get started with my blog and a big reason I chose Blue Host is because I’m not technical and I heard you guys could get WordPress installed for me super fast. Could you please install WordPress on my new site so I can get started publishing content? Thanks so much!”

If you stall out on any of these steps you can always search Google or YouTube for a video tutorial on setting this stuff up, but again, that’s what customer support is there for. They love helping new clients.

4. Play around/get familiar with WordPress & pick your theme (not mandatory).

A theme is kind of like a template. It’s an out-of-the-box design for your blog to make it look sharp without needing a designer. There are literally thousands upon thousands to choose from. Again, don’t stall out on this one. Pick one fast, or better yet, just keep the standard theme for now. The good news is you can trade out themes at the click of a button later on.

5. Publish something.

The goal is to start getting your ideas out to the world as soon as possible. Keep it short to start so you actually do it. Maybe even just a few paragraphs for the first post — perhaps covering your reasons for starting the blog. Or just throw up something fun. Your call. This is your world. Anything goes. If you’re scared to put yourself out there (as I certainly was), remember not that many people are reading it, at least yet!

6. Write consistently.

Do it daily or weekly. Ideally first thing in the morning. Start with one sentence. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself, but any time you get an idea that excites you or notice something on your mind, open up your computer and get it out there. Treat this as your online journal of sorts. Write about what fires you up or catches your interest. Developing your writing is a priceless skill, and the refinement of ideas that will result is magical.

If a passion or idea doesn’t have room to breathe, it will die.

7. Tell a few people.

Send out an email to those close to you, or maybe announce it on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, wherever. Explain your plan to keep your ideas online and welcome your buddies to keep up and follow your progress. Maybe even ask them to check in here and there to keep you accountable. Nothing beats the expectations of others when it comes to taking action.

8. Set up a way for people to sign up to get your posts via email (also optional, but very useful). 

You want to make it easy for people to pay attention to what you’re doing. Collecting their email is the best and most focused way to do this. There are different free options available, but given the importance of creating a community, I’d recommend a more robust and user-friendly option. For this I love AWeber email management. They do an amazing job of making it easy to get started without having to be technical or knowing how to code.

You can try their service out for a dollar a month. And they have a really cool visual editor for intuitively creating nice- looking email forms to put on your blog. Go here to get set up on AWeber.

9. See what happens.

My favorite part!

None of this would be here without a blog.

Seven years ago, I built my first blog without even knowing it. It started as an experiment to see if a guy who didn’t know a thing about technology could start a website.

It worked.

The site was hideous, but I was damn proud of it — I loved it. The focus of Reading for Your Success initially was writing book summaries and recommendations on all the personal development books I was reading. I had no intention of turning it into a business, let alone its own movement. I didn’t even know that was a possibility.

Most importantly, it was an outlet for me to explore my ideas and what actually mattered to me. At first my writing absolutely sucked (the posts are still in this site’s archives if you really wanted to see them, but I’d rather you didn’t.) 

Over time, I learned what topics made my heart race and what seemed to connect with others. Knowing people were watching (even if only my parents and girlfriend at first) motivated me to continue to learn and grow.

An audience naturally makes us want to get better.

Before long, more and more people were asking for help on different fun things, especially related to quitting a keyboard-pounding job and doing work that mattered. One thing led to the next (i.e. I worked my ass off), the community grew along with my passion, and then Reading For Your Success eventually became Live Your Legend. Those three initial members of the community turned into tens of thousands.

The site and topics started to become my personal brand. A brand I was proud of. One I believed in.

That brand turned into a career.

People had a reason to come to me, and a specific way they wanted help. And I absolutely loved helping them.

The confidence and conviction that came with it were priceless.

But building a business and movement is not why I started. If it was, I would have given up long ago.

I started because I was pursuing something that I thought might interest me. That continued for four years of exploring and refining, without any publicly visible progress. I kept at it because I’d found an outlet for focusing and honing the impact I wanted to have. And it was published in a place the whole world could see, if they decided to look.

Momentum is a powerful thing.

Once a snowball starts rolling, it become difficult to stop.

Give your ideas a place to grow and transform, and you might be surprised where it takes you.

Actually, I know you will — and that’s the most exciting part of all!

It’s about time you get those ideas out of your head and share them with the world.

Serendipity is waiting,

-Scott

Now it’s time to take some action. I want to see how many blogs we can start or revive in the next week!  

1. Start your blog. Visit Blue Host, click the orange button and take 15 minutes and do it right now.
2. Write your first post. Anything goes, no matter how short or simple.
3. Tell a few people and follow the above. Start by posting a link to your site in the comments below. We want to see your work!

Need more advanced help in starting a blog that matters? Try this (+ here’s a free copy of Live Off Your Passion ‘Lite’)…

I know a lot of you are serious about building a business and community around a blog, and I can’t blame you, assuming you’re willing to do the work. For you, these instructions are probably too basic. For the advanced stuff, I definitely don’t have all the answers, but I might know someone who does.

Corbett Barr’s course, How to Start a Blog that Matters, is definitely worth checking out. It’s the exact process I used grow LYL by 160 times in two years and turn it into a multiple-six figure business (LYL is one of the main case studies). I’m confident this will be the only course you’ll need.

Corbett is a good friend, mentor and genius when it comes to this stuff and I fully trust and support his work — LYL wouldn’t exist without it.

And to make it even more useful, when you purchase Corbett’s course through my affiliate link (which I do earn a commission from – this bonus is me saying thanks!) I’ll give you a copy of the the ‘Lite’ version of my Live Off Your Passion eCourse, which includes a nearly 100-page written guide and associated workbooks full of exercises, activities and experiments for identifying your passion and building a career around it (The full LOYP course is $197). The two go hand in hand.

In order to get your free copy of Live Off Your Passion you must:

1. Purchase the course through my affiliate link.
2. Forward a copy of your receipt to scott@liveyourlegend.net along with your name and best email address so I can send you the course download link.

Click Here to Purchase How to Start a Blog that Matters by Corbett Barr.

And for some advanced reading and more about how Corbett’s strategies helped turn Live Your Legend into what it is, don’t forget to check out one of my favorite LYL articles of the past year: The 4 Pillars to Starting a Blog that Actually Matters (& grow it by 160x in 2 years).

Remember, action is all that really matters to me. I don’t care what tools you use or courses you learn from, as long as you are making progress in doing what matters. I will only ever recommend the things I know work, but you always have the option to do this stuff totally on your own.

It’s your world.

I’m here to help any way I can!

—–

image credit 1, 2, 3, 4

“Focus is the key to the world.”

- William A. Dinsmore III (my dad)

Admitting Defeat to Allow Victory…

I have a confession to make.

For the last few months I’ve been working on launching a top-secret project that I think could help this community in a totally new and fun way.

I’ve briefly mentioned it in the past, and many of you have showed serious enthusiasm – which further fueled my distraction, I mean excitement…

This is also what I was referring to in my interview with John Lusk on Difficult Decisions last week – so figured it’s about time we make it public.

To recap, here’s the first item from my 2013 goals post:

“Launch a real-time fully-exposed case study on how to take a physical product from idea, to market testing, to manufacturing and to selling — all by using today’s online tools. This is going to be our biggest project EVER, and we are going to take you along for every step of the ride. Keep an ear out for the launch of the new site to track this project as well as what the physical product will actually be. I could not sleep this weekend because I was so excited for it.”

Since then, my partner Nic and I have invested a few thousand dollars in branding, design, setting up web sites, and even hired an architectural designer to create high-end CAD drawings so we can manufacture our first physical product prototype.

What’s the top-secret product you ask??

Well it’s a height-adjustable stand-up desk of course!

See below for a few of our concept sketches, courtesy of the very talented Bryan at Camber Studios, whom we found on Elance. I hope you enjoy how all-over-the-map these are!

Initial concept sketch – “Pull-handle & hydraulic”

Concept 1 – “Water canister counter-balance”

Concept 2 – “Simple Slider”

Final protype rendering

And that’s just a taste…

I won’t go into all the reasons why we chose the product we did, but let’s just say that I have a huge interest in health (standing for long periods is generally better for you than sitting), I’ve always wanted to create a physical product and our office of four close friends is a bit tight on sitting space.

So you’re probably wondering when this project is going live.

Which brings me to my next confession.

The answer is… never.

Last week we decided to kill it.

Focus is the Key to the World

This is a decision that’s been weighing on me for weeks, and I so badly wanted to keep it going – both because the project was really fun and exciting, and because I know so many of you wanted to see it come to life.

But then I remembered seven words my father casually mentioned in one of our informal strategy sessions a few months back:

“Focus is the key to the world.”

I’ve thought about that statement every day since. Then a reflective month in Thailand allowed it to further hit me in the face – over and over.

You see, I am notorious for spreading myself too thin. I love starting new things and get mesmerized by the possibilities. My guess is some of you can relate…

And with today’s access to so many tools and resources, it’s easier and cheaper than ever to start things.

Don’t get me wrong – this ability for us to rapidly get up and running is an amazing phenomenon (like wildly amazing!), especially as you’re starting out and experimenting with different passions, projects and ideas, as I did for years. And I fully believe that treating life as an experiment (or a series of many small ones) is the single most powerful way to find and do work you love.

But in doing this, without knowing it, we train ourselves to be jugglers.

And as my own passion project, Live Your Legend, has grown into the business and community it has over the past few years, naturally my capacity to juggle has dimished (more than I’d obviously like to admit).

Just Because You Can, Doesn’t Mean You Should

I believe we should continuously push ourselves to do the things that others tell us (and we tell ourselves) are impossible. But this too has its limits.

As much as I liked to call this stand-up desk idea a “side-project” – that was just another mental trick to convince myself I had the bandwidth to take it on.

When, in reality, this was starting a totally separate business, with a different customer base, learning completely new skills (I don’t know a thing about manufacturing a real-life product, potentially overseas) and building everything from nothing. Oh and I was going to track the whole thing live on a separate site.

Does that really sound like a side project? Seriously, what was I thinking??

For months I convinced myself otherwise. Looking back it’s easy to see the common thread in the feedback from all my friends, mentors and advisors… “Wow that sounds like an awesome project. But wait, isn’t that going to be an insane amount of work?” Hat tip to Jonathan Fields who had an especially elegant way of hitting me over the head.

Focus Is the Key to the World.

Those words are now permanently on my whiteboard.

I’d love to build this project. It’d be a blast to learn so many new things from scratch. And maybe one day I will. But right now, and for a very long time to come, I have the project of my dreams to focus on: Live Your Legend – this community, OUR community.

And even that requires plenty of focus. Just in the coming few months the list of things I want to do for this community gets pretty deep…

1. Create a LYL Live Field Kit so you all can easily host your own in-person events in your hometown (We had ones in Sydney & Vancouver in the past two weeks!)
2. Create the totally redesigned Live Off Your Passion v2.0 so it’s much more interactive & intimate
3. Launch a low-cost monthly membership program for those serious about bringing their passion projects to life and making real progress
4. Fully redesign the LYL site and user experience
5. Host a LYL event at World Domination Summit (and maybe a casual one in SF before that)
6. Oh, and launch the LYL line of branded t-shirts (wait until you see these!)

I believe the above will help our community more than anything else I could focus on (well I guess the t-shirts aren’t a must, but you gotta have a little fun, right?).

So this is what’s going to be getting my attention. And I could not be more excited to have the renewed bandwidth and focus to bring them to life with all of you.

I share my story because I know how many people in our community (and everywhere) bite off more than they can chew.

Society trains us this way. Leaving us afraid to say no, and fighting to keep up.

Think for a second about how you’re spending your time.

What do you know deserves your attention? What will allow you to have your biggest impact? What fun new sexy shiny objects and ideas are detracting from that?

What needs to die so something else can thrive?

If we want to do what matters, we must say no to what doesn’t.

Even if it means killing projects that you know would be a total blast on their own. If it doesn’t directly contribute to the impact you intend to have on the world, then save it for later or give the idea to someone else.

If we’re intentional about it, each of us will have the opportunity to do a lot of amazing things in the years and decades to come. But if we try to do it all now, it’s likely none of it will ever be meaningful.

Focus is the key to the world.

How to Create Your “Avoid at All Cost List”

The good news is I have an unblievably simple way to help you know which projects need to be put on long-term hold or killed.

I first learned this from one of Warren Buffett’s pilots a couple years ago and it’s turned into the most useful big picture focus exercise I’ve ever seen. The full process is outlined in the post Warren Buffett’s 5-Step Process for Prioritizing True Success.

The process is painful, yet quite simple:

1. List your top 25 goals and dreams you want to experience in the coming years and life.
2. Pick your top five goals and circle them – with a big bold pen.
3. Make a specific plan for how you plan to accomplish each of your top five.
4. Commit to what you will NOT do. Everything you didn’t circle just became your ‘avoid at all cost list’. No matter what, these things get no attention from you until you’ve succeeded with your top 5.

That last step hurts – trust me, I know. But it’s absolutely neccessary.

Often the things that are the most dangerous are your second or third best ideas, not the really bad ones.

Just as job complacency is more deadly than job misery – at least the miserable situation will force you to make a change.

Diluting your best idea and project with your second, third and fourth, is a recipe for disaster. It’s also a way to turn four individually fun edeavors into an all-out grind.

Embrace the experiments. Learn what sets you on fire.

Then when you think you’ve found it, give it everything you have.

The world will thank and reward you for it.

Thanks for the focus dad.

And thank you all for giving me the best project in the world on which to direct it.

-Scott

For the comments: What lingering project do you need to kill? Be honest.

P.S. Oh and next week’s post is going to be a lot of fun. I’m covering what I consider to be the single most useful (and free) online tool for developing and monetizing a passion. I credit most all of LYL’s success to this one thing – Keep an eye out!

Want a free workbook to create your ‘Avoid At All Cost’ list? Download it below…

The Prioritize Success like Warren Buffett workbook is free for all members of the LYL community (i.e. everyone subscribed to email updates). It’s just a way of me showing you how much I love and appreciate you all. To get the workbook, just enter your email address below (don’t worry if you’re already a subscriber you – won’t be double-subscribed, you’ll just get access to the download page).

Don’t see a form? Click here to get the free workbook. 

—–

image credit

“Choices are the hinges of destiny.” – Pythagoras

Today I’m going to share a true story with you that you couldn’t make up if you tried.

But first a little background…

The Money or Your Life?

It’s the age old question.

And the crazy thing is, you used to actually have to make that choice.

Today it’s a little different.

John Lusk is perfect proof.

In 1997 John started at Wharton Business School, one of the most prestigious finance schools in the country. On his first day, he and five friends swore to each other they’d become entrepreneurs instead of the typical investment bankers and consultants that their school was known for producing.

Easier said than done…

When John graduated in 1999, it was the heart and height of the Dot Com blow out. His friends were becoming paper multi-millionaires right and left, and banks were offering $1 million signing bonuses to keep up.

But John had a vision.

He wanted to learn what it felt like to build a company, and create a real, tangible product.

So he turned down the million dollars.

And instead moved back home with his parents, and maxed out his credit cards to build a MouseDriver – a computer mouse that looked like the head of a golf driver.

Most his business school buddies laughed at him, as their stock options began to double – again and again.

Then, after a year or so of swallowing some ridiculous humble pie, people actually started to buy the thing.

Before long he was on the cover of Inc. Magazine and featured in nearly every major business publication.

He was then asked to publish a book, The MouseDriver Chronicles, that is now used in over 200 university courses around the country.

John has since become a serial entrepreneur, and is currently the founder and C.E.O. of Rivet & Sway, the only online shopping boutique experience exclusively for women’s eyeglasses.

Oh and somewhere along the way, a kid knocked on his apartment/office door in a neighborhood not far from mine in San Francisco. He asked John if he’d mentor him as the kid built a nutritional supplement company that followed a similar outsourced manufacturing model.

The same kid later asked him about writing a book and even asked John for an advanced testimonial.

Then that kid published his book, The 4-Hour Workweek. His name was Tim Ferriss. 

And that’s just the beginning…

From Laughable Idea to Tangible Product – While Turing Down a $1,000,000 Paycheck

You really cannot make this stuff up.

Here’s a bit more of what we cover in the below interview…

• How to negotiate & barter absolutely everything – from credit card rates to advertising fees and access to industry parties
• How to ensure business school actually turns you into an entrepreneur instead of training you to be a highly paid corporate jockey
• The only two skills that matter in business and why so many get it wrong
• How to successfully outsource and manufacture in China – despite having thousands of units getting lost in a typhoon
• Growing a subscriber list to over 10,000 people before blogs even existed (he had to email 100 people at a time via Outlook)
• Leveraging a passionate community to crowdsource near-impossible solutions and build the ultimate hybrid mentor
• Using passion to eliminate the majority of the risk in starting a business
• His biggest surprise in taking an idea from concept to market
• And a dozen other ridiculous stories…

This interview will change your view of what it means to take ‘risk’ and become an entrepreneur. If it doesn’t turn you on to exploring the road less traveled, I don’t know what will.

Enjoy!

Don’t see a video? Click here.

What Story Will You Write?

It’s a question John’s experience begs us all to ask.

Is it a story you’re proud to tell, or is it time to rewrite the script?

You get to choose – and the alternative has never been more real.

I’m grateful to call John a friend, mentor and inspiration – and to have him a part of our community.

Be sure to check out his latest projects at the links below:

• The MouseDrive Chronicles Book
• John’s Blog and the story after MouseDriver
• MouseDriver Insider Newsletters – that gave birth to the book
• Rivet & Sway, Women’s Designer Eyewear - John’s latest project offering a new experience and approach to a woman’s online shopping experience

And if you have questions for John, please leave them in the comments – I’m sure he’d be happy to jump in!

Here’s to making the right decisions – and to the choice becoming a little more obvious,

-Scott

Email readers, watch the interview on LYL here.

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“We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small does not serve the world. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”
—Marianne Williamson, abridged

Who Do You Inspire?

It’s a question we all too often forget to ask ourselves.

Take a few seconds to answer it.

One thing I promise you is that there are people out there who look to you to help them find their way. They admire something (if not everything) about how you live your life.

This is a responsibility we all share.

Once we realize this, the real question becomes: What type of life am I going to live to take my responsibility seriously?

So today is about you.

Last week 197 of you told us your Passion Projects – and what you’re doing to Live Your Own Legends.

You showed us how you plan to help and inspire those around you. And I was blown away, as I am any time I interact with our community.

I could not have asked for a better birthday present.

Thank you for sharing with us – the 31 winners of The Alchemist will be contacted shortly.

The crazy thing is as of this morning there are 34,420 of us in this community – all with a Passion Project dying to be set free on the world.

Imagine the impact that could cause.

It starts with the belief in possibility…

Our biggest goal at Live Your Legend is to inspire you to believe in what’s possible – and then to provide you with the tools to do it yourself. The best way I know of doing this is to show “everyday” people like you and me doing the things most of the world only dreams of.

That is the purpose of these Living Legends Reader Spotlights. And it gives you the chance to help support the dreams of our community.

Now, let the possibility unfold and pick one of the below people to help out in some way. We all thank you for it.

I absolutely LOVE these posts – enjoy!

6 Mini Case Studies of Live Your Legend Members Changing the World

—-

1. Helping Young High School & College Women Dream Bigger than Society Usually Permits

Living Legend: Stacy Taubman

Location: St. Louis, Missouri

Why and How Stacy is Making an Impact:

I have been a teacher and coach for over ten years, and I am setting out to make a huge impact on young women’s lives. I want to build a community similar to LYL but for high school and college age women. Girls so often feel alone and isolated. They don’t feel comfortable talking to their parents, and their friends are ill-equipped to help them.

My company is called Girls Dreaming Big and I hope to help them do just that. I want to offer any and every service that helps young women feel a part of something bigger than themselves and provides them the tools to achieve their dreams.

How you can help: 

I know how alone girls can feel in college and high school, trying to fit in and having so many pressures to deal with. Please share our free resources with the young women and girls who need them. We’re here to help!

Learn more here: Visit Girls Dreaming Big and watch our short welcome video with some of the girls!

Fun fact: Sadly, no matter how stupid the show or movie is, if there is gymnastics or dance involved, I still love it!!! Oh and I found my amazing website designer and brand consultant, Lis Dingjan, through the Live Your Legend Facebook group!

Watch Stacy’s fun video with some of her girls below…

Don’t see the video? Click here.

—-

2. Started a Non-Profit Fund to Save His Brother & Best Friend from a Coma

Living Legend: Jason Schonhoft

Location: Indianapolis, Indiana

Why and How Jason is Making an Impact:

My little brother fell down a set of unforgiving concrete steps and suffered a brain injury, leaving him in a coma. He’s 22 years old and a student at Purdue University studying mechanical engineering. He’s my best friend in life and I’d do anything for him.

A few days after the accident, I started racking my brain for ways that I could help him through this. The only thing I could think of was to raise money for him and raise awareness of his situation.

Before I was aware of my audience and the extent of his injuries, I set a goal to raise $25,000 on Fundly.com. We have already raised 53% of that goal. I also set up a website to sell WakeJake t-shirts and wrist bands. So far I have raised a little over $20,000!

How you can help: 

I’d like to raise a total of $50,000 for my brother to cover his medical bills since he does not have insurance, our mother’s insurance isn’t very good and our father passed away six years ago. I’d also like for this to branch into me living my legend. I’d love for you to pick up some WakeJake merchandise or donate to the cause!

Learn more here: Wake Jake

Fun fact: I love inspiring people and making my friends happy. I’m also very adventurous and love traveling, snowboarding, mountain biking and rock climbing.

I’ll Ask Again – Who Do You Inspire?

Or better yet, who could you be inspiring if you were doing what really mattered to you?

Thank you all for continuing to write and live your story in a way that inspires possibility, not only in me and this community, but in everyone you interact with.

Never forget who’s looking towards you for guidance. Someone always is.

You have a greater influence and impact than you realize.

We all do.

Take it seriously.

Here’s to doing something that matters!

-Scott

P.S. Please pick one of the projects above and spend at least 2 to 5 minutes learning more about their mission, and find some way, big or small, to support the impact they intend to have on the world. Remember, no one does anything on their own.

For the comments: Share your reaction to their Passion Projects or an idea or way you can help one of them (email readers click here). Thanks for the support!

Oh and if you want to tell the world your story, please fill out the Living Legends Reader Spotlight form to get a chance to be featured in one of our upcoming monthly articles.

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“It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.”

― Paulo Coelho, Alchemist

Today is A Fun Day…

This morning I turned 31 years old – and while I plan to spend the day outside playing, I first wanted to celebrate with all of you.

So I hope you’re up for a party!

One of the most amazing things about the past few years, and this past year specifically, is our community that all of you have created at Live Your Legend. It’s no question one of the most exciting, fun, rewarding and inspiring parts of my life.

And I want to say thank you.

So I’ve decided I want to give away 31 copies of my favorite book, The Alchemist. 

I don’t believe there is any more inspiring book out there for pursuing dreams and spending your time doing the things that matter to you – and to the world.

I read it for the 7th time while sitting next to a small river in Thailand last month, and it became even more obvious why the Live Your Legend name and movement was born out of the story told in this book. After all, the story is about a boy who’s pursing his Personal Legend – the work he can’t not do. The project, passion and adventure he can’t help but pursue.

While traveling I decided that even though it’s already sold over 30 million copies in 65 different languages, I wanted to get a few more out to the world…

Starting today until this Friday at midnight PST, I am hosting a simple Ask the Reader comment contest.

I will choose 31 of the people who leave a comment and mail each of them a free copy of The Alchemist.

All you have to do is answer the below two questions in 3 sentences or less:

1. What is your Passion Project?

and…

2. What could Live Your Legend & I do to help you take the next step to make it successful?

Email readers click here to answer the questions.

Our primary goal at LYL is action and progress.

It always has been.

For you to discover your talents, skills and passions, and find a way to build a career around adding value to the world in your own unique away. That is what we consider a Passion Project. It could be anything – as long as it matters to you. If you don’t have one yet then tell us what you want it to be.

Every Ask the Reader post has a specific purpose.

The reason for these two questions is to understand the specific ways you’d like help in making progress toward pursuing your passion, creating value for others, building upon your idea and simply making progress towards doing what matters.

So many of us find excuses that kill our progress. That’s how ideas get lost and dreams stay dreams.

We want to change that.

We Want to Make Progress a Certainty

Over the next month we will be creating a very simple and inexpensive service to help you get results. It will be part accountability, part learning, part group coaching and all action. The pure focus will be on helping you make your Passion Project a reality.

Your answers to this question will help both you and me tremendously.

And I hope you would answer this question regardless of there being a free copy of my favorite book involved – after all, hearing from you is the only way we can really help you Live Your Legend.

I just wanted to add to the fun this time around!

And if you’ve already read the book and you win a copy, please give it to someone who needs it.

Thanks is only the beginning…

I love to spend this day each year around people I love, and outside reflecting on all the things I have to be grateful for.

So today I just wanted to say thank you.

I hope you enjoy your birthday gift as much as I do.

I can’t wait to read your responses!

-Scott

Now head down to the comments, and in 3 sentences or less, answer these two questions:

1. What is your Passion Project? 

2. What could Live Your Legend & I do to help you take the next step to make it successful?

The contest lasts until Friday at midnight. We will announce the 31 winners next week.

Email readers click here to answer the questions and claim your free copy of the Alchemist.

$1,000,000 in the bank isn’t the fantasy. The fantasy is the lifestyle of complete freedom it supposedly allows.

― Timothy Ferriss

Today I want to tell you a 250 word story that changed my view of the world.

But first I have to let you in on a little secret…

How Average People Can Feel and Live Like Millionaires

This morning I woke up to what I’ve decided is the most breathtaking morning view of my life.

I’m writing from the deck of a modest thatched roof bungalow  set over a small soft sandy beach cove on the Island of Koh Lanta, Thailand. The hotel, if you can call it that, is aptly named ‘Relax Bay.’

Yesterday we upgraded to a ‘VIP’ room with air conditioning (last night had no AC, which made for a tough 85-degree high humidity night…). It’s the only room in this cove that is actually on the sand. We have a full view of the private turquoise bay from our deck, where a nice little hammock also hangs.

The real kicker? This experience cost me nothing…

This room, which will no doubt be the room by which all future Dinsmore vacation standards will be measured, with breakfast and wifi included, costs 4,050 Thai Baht, which translates to just over $140 USD a night (most our rooms have been closer to $65/night). If we want a 60-minute massage, it will cost an additional $13.

A room at the Best Western in the San Francisco suburbs near my hometown easily costs more than that on a slow night.

To add to the fun, we booked our flight using free airline miles from our credit card, allowing us to travel like millionaires, in the front of the plane in Business Class, complete with full bar menu and 5-course meals on fine china — while paying less than $45 for our round trip tickets from SF to Bangkok. That saved us over $3,300 if we were buying coach tickets, or $16,000 for two ridiculously priced full fare business class tickets (which we would never even consider buying).

We also found someone to take care of our apartment, using Airbnb, who paid us $2,800 before we left — God I love that service!

So from day one of this trip, we were over $6,100 in the green.

With the Right Creativity Anything’s Possible

I tell all of you this to show you that a trip like this is not as out of reach as most think. Chelsea and I are not able to take this trip because we have some absurd amount of money (which we don’t). We are able to take it because we got creative and found the flexibility. As a result, it’s possible this trip will cost us a net of zero dollars.

Remember, it’s not the money that everyone is after, it’s the experiences we imagine that will come with the money.

As it turns out, often you can have the millionaire experiences without the need for all the zeros in your bank account (and the wasted decades to accumulate them). That is a very freeing realization.

I hope you all take this into account as you think about any excuses you might have found in the past, which have kept you from exploring. I believe world travel is the most powerful self-discovery and learning tool on the the planet. There is no better education and no better way to expand your understanding of what’s possilbe.

That’s why I spend as much time as I do with the ‘travel hacking’ and all else to make sure these trips happen.

I do everything in my power to kill the excuses.

I hope you’ll prioritize to do the same.

One such revelation came at just before 7am this morning as I awoke and looked out my window to see a lone fisherman in his boat, collecting his fishing nets to see what the previous night had brought him.

It was possibly the most serene and calming view of my life.

Seeing his early morning efforts immediately reminded me of a story I refer to often. One that whether you’ve heard it before or not, is always worth another read.

I don’t think any set of 250 words has changed me more than this one…

How Simplicity Swindled the Investment Banker (and the rest of the world)

The simple Thai fisherman who inspired this post…

An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied, “only a little while.”

The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish?

The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.

The American then asked, “but what do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siestas with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine, and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life.”

The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually New York City, where you will run your expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?”

To which the American replied, “15 – 20 years.”

“But what then?” Asked the Mexican.

The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions!”

“Millions – then what?”

The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”

Are Your Working Towards What You Actually Want?

Too often we try to over-complicate things.

I am more guilty of this than most.

When we clear away all the noise and societal expectations, most of us will be refreshed to see we already have all it is that we really want. And what we’re told we should be working towards, is actually taking away from our ability to experience what matters.

As I swing here in this hammock, I’m overcome by this realization — and this inspiring feeling of responsibility. Of possibility. That while the message we strive to deliver and help people with at Live Your Legend is quite simple (spend your time doing things that make you and others come alive), it has the profound ability to change the world.

Our revolution here means everything to me.

And none of it would be possible without all of you Living Legends who make it what it is.

I have never been more committed to the cause we all believe in and the task we have ahead of us.

Our impact is going to be huge.

May we all spend a little more time fishing today, and every day going forward — whatever that means to each of us.

As for me, I think we’ll stay in this room a few extra nights…

-Scott

Calling All Aussies – We’re having a LYL meetup in Sydney in two weeks!

Some of our most dedicated and inspiring Living Legends and Connect with Anyone members are hosting a live meetup on Saturday April 13th in Sydney at an inspiring cafe overlooking the Opera House. They’re appropriately calling it A Party of Purpose.

I know there are a ton of you who live around Sydney and Australia – or happen to be traveling through. I strongly encourage you to make whatever arrangements you can to attend this event. You will not regret it. I so wish I could be there in the flesh, but the Thailand travel plans didn’t quite line up this time. I will be providing something special though…

The women putting it on (Naz, Leah, Melanie and Nikki) are some of the most passionate Living Legends I’ve ever met. I fully stand behind everything they do.

Click here to check out the details and RSVP.

You know how I feel about surrounding ourselves with passionate people. This event is the perfect opportunity!

Now tell us in the comments – what did this fisherman make you realize?