Lessons

Lesson Info

Building IRL Rules

Like we talked about with social media guidelines, in your real life, you should definitely fulfill your life's purpose. So think about your relationships, your job, your team, your career, everything that you're doing in your real life. Think about how that's fulfilling your life's purpose. In your real life, you should be celebrating your unique personality. You should actually like the things about yourself that make you special, rather than suppressing them and hiding them and pushing them down, let's bring them up and let's style them up to a hundred. In your real life, you should be proud of your strengths. So, the things that you're really good at, be proud of them. And don't apologize for them. Just be really excited that you're really good at something because that's awesome. In your real life, you should also encourage your peers to live their most fulfilled lives. It's easy to be judgmental of people that are different from us. But I think if you reframe it and have the atti...

tude that we're all special and unique and different, it's gonna be really easy for you to want to cheer other people on to actually be themselves and live their own version of their fulfilled lives. And I think that whenever you can embrace and be excited about how different you are, you'll also start to notice how beautiful it is when other people are different than you as well. So like that notion of everyone looking the same, acting the same, being the same, you'll start to kind of shed that and start to appreciate when people are different. And you'll naturally want to lift others up. And cheer them on. Alright, so this challenge, we're gonna write a list of at least five things you'll do with your life from now on. So your real life, we're talking about IRL, so in real life interactions, relationships with people, so what are five things that you're gonna start doing from now on that are gonna help fulfill your life's purpose? So for me, I thought, okay, I'm just gonna be kinder. I'm gonna be more compassionate to others. I'm gonna do acts of kindness to make people happier throughout the day. I want to fulfill my life's purpose with any interaction I have with people. So I want every interaction I have with all of you in the room, I want people to be a little happier after they've met me and interacted with me. That's really important. The second thing I said is, in my real life, I want to take time out of my day to make other people happier. And this is something that's not lazy, like I just have to stop being lazy, I have to get up and help people and make them happier rather than just like, oh this is convenient for me to hold this door open for this person. I need to go out of my way. A great example of this is, this still plagues me to this day. There was this comical scene when I was living in New York where this man had a big stack of mail in his arms and I was in a hurry or I was just feeling New York and just on my way to probably no where important. I was walking really fast and this man very comically like lost control of all of his mail. And his mail just flies in the air and goes everywhere. And it went in the street and it was just everywhere. And I thought, I should help him but I just kept walking. And while I was thinking I should help him, but I just sort of didn't care enough to actually stop and help him. And I think that's a really great example and that was a really good turning point for me of those are the moments when I think of helping someone and making them a little happier and actually don't do it? (laughs) What is that? It's just cuz I'm lazy or because I didn't want that awkward interaction of like, talking to a stranger and like sorting through their mail in the street. I should actually go out of my way and help other people to make them happier. Another way for me to fulfill my life's purpose in real life is to actually get out and stop being so lazy. I'm one of those people where, if I go home before going out, I'm not going out. I'll just stay home. (laughs) And so it's really important for me to actually I can't make other people's lives happier if I'm at home all the time. (laughs) So I need to actually stop spending so much time by myself and actually go out. I am extroverted but I love being by myself so much so when I'm at home, like watching a show or something by myself, I feel so good about it, that nothing in the world is better to me. But I can't do that all the time, I can't fulfill my life's purpose that way. Another one is to actually do things that make me whole. So when we listed out those activities that we love to do that we get the most joy out of doing, I find myself a lot of times not feeling very happy and I take a look and think about what I've been doing lately and I realize, oh I haven't been doing any of those activities. For me, it's like, traveling by myself, I like to walk a lot. I love to walk, I like to have moments alone, those types of things I love to take myself out for a movie by myself. Those things are all the things I need to do to feel whole. And I'll find myself not doing them or not taking the time for myself to give myself what I need to be whole. And so that's something that I wanna start doing from now on is actually going out of my way to make sure I'm taking care of myself and doing those things. And lastly, it's just cheer on my peers as often as I can throughout the day. So it's a great way to make people happy is to lift them up and support them and make them feel good about themselves by supporting and cheering them on and that's something that I wanna do. So why don't we go down and we'll talk about a thing that you wanna start doing in your life. Yeah I wanna spend more time just being creative and having fun with it in my personal life and not just for work. I think just generally, being weird. (laughs) Just like letting that part out and connecting with people in person. Um I actually wanna spend more time with myself because I do a lot of work in the service of other people so I can't do that if I haven't taken care of myself. Um, I think I just want to be kinder to myself. Like I'm really empathetic when it comes to other people but terrible to myself. So I think I just need to be a little more forgiving. Mine is similar to yours was finding even small ways to bring joy and surprise to the people around me. I wanna schedule my time more effectively. I think one of the things that happens when you become a freelancer is the divide between the down time and focus time kind of blurs and it kind of becomes a terrible version of both. So I wanna make sure they're more neatly defined again. Yeah very true, good point. Okay, so let's now, just like with the social media rules, let's outline five things that we're gonna stop doing from now on. The things that you've been doing that have been getting in the way in your real life of your life's purpose. So reading my examples, so I'm gonna stop from now on avoiding those small moments when I can help other people so that, like that poor man with his poor mail, I hope he got it. (laughs) It was years ago and I still think about it all the time. So I'm gonna stop avoiding those situations and actually help other when they need help. I'm going to stop looking at my phone so often where it affects my in person relationships. It's very easy for you to like, I am married and we do that thing in bed every night where we look at our phones until we fall asleep. And we're just both having family phone time and we're just on our phones in bed and I'll drop my phone on my face a lot, and (laughs) and then maybe he'll roll over me and roll over and show me a cat video but that's like kind of affecting our relationship you know? (laughs) So I wanna stop doing that. I wanna stop, this sounds so sad, but I wanna stop hurting the people I love. We all do that, like especially if you're in a relationship you find yourself saying things to them that you wouldn't say to most people because you feel so comfortable around them. And you kind of hurt their feelings sometimes and if you take a step back, and you're like, oh I really love that person, why would I do those things to them? I wanna stop doing those little tiny things. I wanna stop feeling responsible for everyone's happiness. I tend to do that, that's just something with my personality that I do, is I feel actually responsible for making sure that people are truly happy. And so I'll find myself spending hours trying to find a friend a job and then I'll actually find them a job when I need to just like, maybe they can find their own job. I can help them a little bit, but I don't need to be the one that goes out and knocks on doors and hands out the resume for them. So I tend to do that too much. I wanna stop that a little bit. And I wanna stop doing things that trigger my anxiety. I have anxiety like a lot of people do and I now know my triggers and I wanna just make sure that I avoid those things as much as possible so I can stay anxiety free. Okay, so let's talk about some of the things we're gonna stop doing. I'm gonna stop avoiding sort of talking about what I'm working about, working on in my professional life in social situations and be a little bit more vocal. Um, I think enjoying the moment and um not feeling the need to like make it pretty and take a picture of it and post it. (laughs) I'm gonna stop using work as an excuse to not do healthy things. I'm going to try to stop focusing on the negative. And think more about what's going well. I'm gonna stop feeling like if I'm not working, I should be around other people, hanging out and just be able to spend time on my own. I'm gonna stop worrying that I don't have enough time to do everything that I want to do because it just kind of stops you from doing anything in the first place. So true. (laughs) Alright, so that is it for the lessons but before we are totally done, there's a few things i just wanna remind you. The biggest thing is just to be kind to yourself. This is a huge long process, we're talking about your happiness and fulfilling a life's purpose. We're talking about huge huge huge topics here. And you're not gonna figure it out during this class necessarily. You're not gonna come up with all the answers and have everything completely figured out and be a hundred percent happy and fulfilled right away. Like I mentioned, you're changing, you're growing all the time. And you should be kind to yourself and allow yourself to naturally go through this process and to figure it out on your own time. But I hope that this class is at least an excuse or a really great opportunity to finally sit down and figure out some of the stuff for you. Cuz this, like this is just all gonna take so much time. It's a life's journey. This takes time, it's not something you could figure out overnight. So just allow yourself to be gentle to yourself and figure it out as you go. Alright, so in general, like to kind of recap things cuz this is important, this has been a long process, a lot of answers have been done, we figured out a lot about ourselves, is you are unlike anyone in this world. We are all different. Let's all try our hardest to stop trying to be the same all the time. Let's acknowledge what makes us unique and special and let's dial it up to a hundred percent and show everyone who we are because that's only gonna make ourselves love ourselves even more and be more excited about who we actually are. Why have a career that someone else is deciding for you when you are the one that knows yourself and knows who you are the most. So try to avoid situations where someone else is telling you exactly what you need to be doing. Try to communicate your skills and the things that bring you joy and the things that you're really good at that are different from everyone else. Try to bring that up in any situation that you can with work and your career if you have a job or if you're a freelancer or self-employed or have your own brand that you're managing. Try that bring that up as often as possible so that you can include all of the rich parts of your beautiful cloud that makes up who you are in your job. Alright, that life's purpose, alright? We're gonna have one from now on which is pretty cool, that's really a big deal. And just remember that that's something that should guide all of your decisions that you make. It should lead every decision and every life's choice that you make, which is pretty cool and it feels really great to have something that's guiding everything that you do. And it's really empowering to realize that the world actually needs you to fulfill your life's purpose. So if ever you start to feel really down about who you are or you're just not feeling very self confident about yourself, I think it's a really great thing to remind yourself that you have a purpose for living, you have a life's purpose and the world needs you to fulfill that purpose. Alright, and then that's gonna give you less burn out because if you don't have that work life balance anymore, if you have your work and your life is totally one thing, your entire life and career is gonna feel completely balanced. So you don't need a separation of work life to create a balance because you're already going to be so balanced. And that's gonna leave you feeling less burn out. And you're not gonna feel like you wanna retire at the age of 35. (laughs) Alright, the world needs you, just keep remembering that, that you have a reason for living and that's why you're here. And the world needs you to be here, to be yourselves. Alright, that's it, thank you all. (audience clapping) Alright Meg, we are gonna wrap up here. I do wanna give one shout out to Jillisa who's been watching the entire class from Menlo Park, California. Thanks for watching Jillisa and she had a question for you that I want to wrap things up on. And Jillisa wants to know if you could share either some people or some things that have inspired you as you've built this presentation, as you've been sharing all these things about your career and your life, who has inspired you to get to this point? Ooh, that is such a good question. I think that, there have been a lot of weird things about myself that are very specific to where I get my inspiration from, especially with being myself. I found that I get really inspired by people who are exaggerated versions of humans (laughs), um people, it's usually characters because real people aren't normally always like this. And so that's why I've always been attracted to characters. So a good example of these characters would be, Pee Wee Herman (laughs), he is absolutely an exaggerated version of what everyday people seem to be like. He is exactly himself and he's really confident about that and I've always been inspired by him since I was a kid obviously. But also, someone that I've also been really inspired by is Mr. Bean. Maybe that's where my love of mimes come from because Mr. Bean doesn't really speak, he mostly pantomimes everything. I love him because he's so expressive and he doesn't need words to show who he is. He's extremely himself all the time and has such a strong personality without using words which I find really intriguing. Other heroes of mine and inspirational people in my life have been, Lucille Ball as well. (laughs) Another person that is also a character actor but she has always inspired me that even though I'm a woman, I can be funny and it's not a bad thing. I think as I was growing up when I was a kid, I wanted to be a comedic actor. And I heard a lot of people and it kind of prevented me from doing it, tell me that women couldn't be funny and Lucille Ball really helped me through that. But all of these people, and to not have real people as inspiration except for Lucille Ball, who's no longer here, as inspiration, it just goes to show that people aren't being themselves, we have to leave it to characters to be this version of people that I'm really interested in. And so that's why I'm really excited in teaching this class so that I can teach other people to be not a boring adult that's just fitting a mold all the time. I'm trying to teach people that they can be an exaggerated version of a human which is what we actually all are, we're just suppressing it all the time.