I vowed that 2014 would be the year that I started to live a big life.
I sent out a note and told friends and acquaintances that I would be interested in doing new and different things. I asked people to keep me in mind if they had any projects that required a different type of leader. I wanted to be invited to different kinds of events in 2014.
My network didn’t disappoint me.
I created a spreadsheet and tracked results. I had a 90% response rate, which is good for any sort of email marketing campaign.
Some people wrote back and asked, “Can you be more specific?”
I could not. Those people couldn’t help me.
Others wrote, “Are you interested in a job?”
Again, if you don’t know me by now, you will never ever ever know me. Whoa.
But some people invited me to cool dinners, asked me to consult on fun projects, and encouraged me to speak at events all over the world. I had 42 different client engagements, this year. Some of them didn’t pay cash — only travel. Some paid too much money, believe it or not. And some experiences were weird and a waste of everyone’s time.
It’s possible for you to live a big life in 2015.
You don’t have to be an extrovert. You don’t have to have a lot of money. You don’t need to be an obnoxious carnival barker or a pushy salesperson to expand your horizons. You just have to be a little braver and ask for help.
Start with an email. Tell the world you’re open to new adventures and new ideas. Ask for people to think of you..
It is possible to make this upcoming year the best year of your life. The only limiting factor is you.
Dear Laurie,
I believe this may be the first time I have commented on your blog. I’m usually content read because the content and delivery are great, but this post motivated me to contribute because the central message resonated with things I got to do in my own life in 2015.
Its tough to be open to new experiences – it probably gets tougher as you get older and more set in your ways. As a near 40 year old, I’m as conscious of this as anybody. We get comfortable. We get tired. Maybe we lose courage.
Living a ‘Big Life’ is exactly the description of what we all need to do. We have to open to the new, and go to those places where we are out of zone of predictable comfort we have made for ourselves.
And as you took care to mention, its not about fake extroversion. Its about being open and defaulting to ‘yes’, rather than ‘maybe’, which is the cowards ‘no’.
Go ahead and live your big life in 2015 and make sure you tell us about it. I’m going to try too.
Best wishes
Hung
…and that – it would seem – is the difference between doing it and explaining the reasons you can’t do something. I love this post and idea.
That’s very inspiring!
2014 was a tremendous year for me (if you’re following my blog.). I can already tell you in 2015, you will see new changes in my blog after nearly 9 years of existence. About damn time.
Laurie, this is marvelous and, indeed, inspiring. It’s very much the payoff of your spending years building an amazing network that generates new adventures and new ideas.
” The only limiting factor is you.” This is often the case for most things that are outside of ones norm.
You go get ’em LFR!