My wife and I got back a couple of weeks ago from a trip to Spokane, WA. We went out for a Family Reunion and to learn. Sounds strange but for us it was a blessing we were there! One of the conversations I listened in on was about “The Secret”. Now, of course, you can Google it and find a lot of stuff out there. After a lot of looking I realized there are many, many versions of “the secret”. Some of them are weird, some are older versions recast and some are spot on. Now, I’ve heard “the secret” many times before but never applied it to our life. For some reason, this weekend really resonated with me and we are making a change!
I also spend 5-10 minutes a day on Google+ and Facebook. Neither are high or critical items on my list but I do get into some interesting conversations. Like this one from a gentleman in England. He posts a “Question of the day” and sometimes I answer it. This one got my attention!
“What is your tagline and why did you choose it?”
My answer? Here you go:
Live, laugh, love, inspire, serve.
To be successful we are often told to visualize what we want; like houses, cars, bank balance, etc. My wife and I discovered 2 weekends ago something a little more powerful for us. We brain stormed and thought about what we wanted others to say of us in 20 years AND 4-6 words that would sum up our lives the way we wanted to live it.
Of course, we have further fleshed out exactly what each of those 5 little words mean to us, not only with pictures but with the underlying attitudes to go along with them. Well, not completely yet but we are getting close.
As we move forward, every decision will be passed through this tagline (filter) and the outcome will be decided on everything that makes up those 5 words for us...
And now you are wondering what a tagline has to do with “The Secret”. First, let me define “The Secret” as best as I can.
- Want it with all your heart.
- Fervently believe you can do it.
- Vividly imagine it all the time.
- Enthusiastically talk about it all the time.
- Treat it as if it were a matter of life or death.
It - What does it mean to us? What is it?
Like I said, we talked on our drive home from Spokane. We turned over what it meant to us. We both then realized that it was not something physical, it was not money in the bank, it was a way of life. It is the legacy we leave behind us. And it is what we are excited about! And it was what we were defining on our drive home!
From our notes on 07/15/2013…
Live - to live life richly, deeply, fully, without hesitation, enthusiastically, adventurous, passionately, purposely, to flourish, to make the most of life, faith filled, with conviction, boldly, without regrets, with the belief that we are worthy of blessings
Laugh - heartily, no job, no stress, no debt, freedom, relaxed, often, freely/unforced, success is increased by being happy
Love - openly, honestly, freely, no guilt-shame-condemnation, passionately, deeply, compassionately, to empathize-not sympathize, boldly
Inspire - uplifting, with conviction, raise others up, lead by example, to be defined by our victories not our trials, to be a catalyst in others lives, when you walk into the room be someone who walks into the room, have a clear direction and focus on it with or without your current team, be the lead goose, always treat/encourage people (to be) more than they think they are, hope givers, encouragers, to be a couple others want to follow and run with.
Serve - selfless not selfish, eyes out not eyes in, treat everyone like they are the most important person in the world, to find out what people want and help them achieve it, focus not only on our family's legacy but the legacy of our team, help people get their "end state", be a couple our team can count on.
Our next step is to further clarify each of the 5 parts of our tagline, our method of living.
