Have You Thought About Your Story Board?

It has only taken me a couple of weeks after the September 8th call to collect my thoughts and truly appreciate the invaluable information Ellie and the entire team contributed towards building our business interests, for each other and with all of us in mind.

Deciding how we want our lives to play out is like creating a storyboard for a movie. Storyboarding is the process of creating a panel of rough sketches that outline the movie and major changes involving plot or action in the production.

Storyboarding was first dreamed up by Walt Disney when he began his animated cartoons way back in the 1930s. It has since become an industry standard and has now moved into the “corporate” world with help from Bill Gates and his electronic storyboarding software, Microsoft PowerPoint.

That call reminded me that in order for us to create the movie of our lives we have to decide exactly what we want to happen.
First, we create an outline for the entire movie. We start at the end, deciding in the beginning what that outcome will be. We decide what we want in each area of our lives.

Next, we conceptualize the plot – we ask ourselves questions to determine specific goals in each category.

Finally, the camera goes on and filming begins – we create action steps for each goal and begin to live our dreams.

Shakespeare said, “All life is a stage...” so create your stage for YOU, for YOUR story, and the rest falls into place.

Seeing the big picture of the life you want to live is a tremendous achievement! Better yet, it’s exhilarating!
Most everyone who has achieved great success, both financially and personally, has had a clear vision of what they wanted their lives to be like. Now I am reminded of what I almost forgot; wisdom better said in an excerpt from Mark Victor Hansen:

Clarity is power. Without that vision we’re like ships drifting on the ocean without a captain or a destination.
You must become the captain of our own ship. You must map out a destination worthy of you.

Visualizing the future does not mean only focusing on our careers or business, because our lives consist of so much more than that. In order to live abundantly, we need to visualize abundance in every area of our lives.

Here are the seven categories of life in which I encourage you to begin storyboarding by developing an outline:

1. Health and Fitness – When it comes to this category, include spiritual fitness and mental fitness.
Note: Health is your first Wealth.

2. Contribution – Our lives should be brimming with contribution to those around us and to causes that we believe in. (Remember the reason we joined BraveHearts?) We all have gifts, talents, time, energy, ideas and/or money. It’s our obligation to the Universe to contribute whatever we have to give.

3. Relationships – This is the category where we concentrate on the people in our lives. They can be members of our family, friends, associates, or mentors that we’d like to learn from. We deserve to have amazing relationships, so deciding on the relationships we want is extremely important. Consider your criteria for what makes a relationship exhilarating, fulfilling and fun, then take the actions necessary to keep those people front and center in your life.

4. Personal – In our personal lives we need only concentrate on ourselves. Here, we need to discover skills we want to perfect, ALL the skills we have to offer.. and then seek those who will benefit from them.

5. Fun, Fun, Fun! - Unfortunately, this is the category that most people forget about or feel guilty about. That is nonsense! We are ALL meant to have FUN. We need it in our lives. I’m talking about real fun...whatever
it is that puts butterflies in your stomach and a smile on your face that you can't wipe off, THAT'S what I call fun.

6. Finances – In our financial lives we must focus on goals concerning the TOTAL income we would receive each week/month/year; the amount of money we want to invest in real estate or other appreciating assets, the sum of money we want to put into savings, and finally, the debts we want to pay off – all this while becoming debt-free, stress-free and set free. Write it all down...just like in a movie..if it's not in the script, it's not going to happen.

7. Business – In our business lives we need to consider every business we want to build, all of the different careers we want to have (whether there’s one or ten and no matter how crazy they may sound to anyone else) and even the key people with whom we want to work. This last point is incredibly important. If you don’t write down the type of people you want to work with or even write specific names of people you most
admire and want to learn from, you’ll miss so much opportunity in your life! (Another wise reason to join BraveHearts!)

Walt Disney had a full 50 Year Plan... What's yours?

“Each of us must do massive right thinking, take massive right action and get massive right results, right here, right now.” - Mark Victor Hansen

Note: Most people overestimate what they can do in a year and grossly underestimate what they can do in a decade. Grab a pen and start writing. What are you waiting for? Tomorrow begins today!

Live with Intention,