Design your life: it doesn’t have to just happen | DFS 310

Jennifer, welcome to Destin for success.

I'm your host. Jennifer Takagi, and today I want to talk about

designing your life. It doesn't just have to happen. You have

more control than you think you did. Okay, so there I said it

like you really do you have more control than you think you do?

Let's go back in time. Let's go way back in time. What is your

story on how your life will go? What's that story in your head

that you've had forever? I have someone in my life who always

says and started this when I was like 1112, years old, life's a

bitch, and then you die. Well, that's not very positive and

optimistic. I don't know that I want to embrace that train of

thought. What if we flip that around? Life's an adventure with

something magical at every turn that feels a little bit better

about me. But what is your story? I ended up following my

dad into housing. Someone said, Well, that makes perfect sense.

Well, it didn't make sense to me at all. I have a degree in

French and Spanish, working for the federal government in

housing, providing safeties and sanitary housing to low income

families was never on my radar, never. But when I graduated with

my magical degree in French and Spanish and no, I don't speak

them fluently anymore. It's been too many years, but when I

graduated, I had a vision that somebody would care that it

would matter, and I would get a job, and I would use my

languages, and I would get better and more fluent all the

time. But when I graduated, we were in a pretty big recession,

and things were kind of bad, and just any job was a job, and it

was a good job. And back then we still, oh, wait, we probably

still are, but we were definitely in an era of women

needed to be in clerical positions versus, like

journeymen, doing real kind of work. Every position is

necessary, but it makes a difference on what the mindset

is on where you think you can go versus where the organization

thinks you can go. But what's your story? I was a little

disappointed, because, given the time, it worked out the way it

did, but I also had a story that I would have to work the rest of

my life. That's actually why I went to college, because I knew

I would have a full time job the rest of my life. And to me, that

didn't sound fun. I didn't really want to do that. I wanted

to put it off as long as possible. So given the

opportunity to go to college, I did it. I jumped on it. That was

great. I was very happy I made that choice. What's your story?

Is your story? You have to stay there no matter what. I see a

lot of people quite a bit younger than me in some of these

other generations, and they hop jobs left and right. They don't

think anything about going from one company to the next in less

than a year. When I was coming up, the story was you had to

have a job for three to five years at least before you left,

or you were considered a Job Hopper and not committed, not

loyal. I don't think that's the case anymore, and part of the

reason that's not the case is I don't know that organizations

are as loyal to their employees as they were back in the day,

however long ago, back in the day was for you. So what is your

story about your life? Do you have a picture that you work

full time and your kids are in daycare and happy and healthy

and you get whatever help you need? Or do you want to stay

home with your kids and get a job where you can work from

home, which is more possible now than ever, like. What is it?

Have you ever even stopped to think about what you want your

life to look like? I have to say, I'm jealous of some of the

people younger than me these days, because they have spent

more time thinking about that than I did. I wanted a stable

job, a stable paycheck, and retirement, if at all possible,

that's what I wanted. Oh, and health insurance, like, that's a

biggie, right? I wanted health insurance. So what is your life?

What? What are you going to create? How are you going to set

your life up to be what you want it to be. What is it that you

want it to be? I'm going to say my life didn't turn out anything

like I planned. I had a vision. I had a plan for the longest

time, that I would get married, have kids, quit my. Job, and

then I would volunteer at the church. I would be, you know,

big in their school. I would cook dinner every night, which I

do, cook dinner about every night anyway, and keep a perfect

house, not quite so much on that part, I live in my house, so

there's that. But imagine my horror to find out that we were

never having children. Well, if I not gonna have kids, then I

found it really hard to want to quit my job. And by the time I

got to that point, I had so many years in, it was like, Yeah, I

might as well stay longer. And and I did, and it was a good

choice that it worked out. I'm very happy and grateful that my

career worked out that way, and it has afforded me the ability

to do what I do now. I'm an entrepreneur. I train people.

I'm a business coach. I do energy healing. I read people's

records and give them guidance from their spirit team. I do all

kinds of cool stuff. I would have never been able to do any

of this cool stuff if I had stayed at my career until I was

65 or 70, it wouldn't have happened. It would not have

happened. So when things don't work out, how easily and quickly

can you shift and change lanes? When I was given the opportunity

to leave my career Early or move to either Fort Worth or Kansas

City, I did not want to move. I've lived other places. I

always come back to Oklahoma. I didn't want to go somewhere

else, and I had to think about it really hard, because I was

not ready to leave financially. I had been playing a lot and

having a really good time, but I chose to leave. I Eve, and I'm

thrilled that I did, and it was a great move for me. So the

question becomes, how are you going to shift a lot of

companies close down and people lose their jobs, and they've got

to move on to something else. Sometimes the job just isn't

what it was cut out to be, and you gotta go, and we all need to

make a living one way or another, but what's it going to

be, and how gracefully Are you going to embrace that change?

For me, I had somebody call the office the day after I found out

my choices, and she said, It's all about the money. Just figure

out how much you would get for leaving early in your retirement

account, because I was way too early to leave, but find out how

much that would be and how you could make up the difference.

Some of the best advice I've ever gotten. It took me a number

of weeks to run numbers and figure out where I was and what

was, you know, what was, what, how it was going to come out.

But it worked out, and I'm happier, and it's fine. I now

have a life where most days I can get up when I want to. I've

got a couple of mornings coming up soon where I have to be up

and ready and out of the house very early, which is not really

my favorite thing anymore, but for the most part, I have the

life I want. I can take vacations, I can work from

anywhere, as long as I have internet, I'm kind of good to

go. So what kind of life do you want to build and create. I know

a couple of people who literally travel full time. Their kids are

grown. They sold their houses and they travel. They stay in

hotels, they stay with friends, they go to resorts, and

everywhere they go. They're doing something that brings in

money, because they're an entrepreneur, and they had a

vision for that, and I have some very close friends who

immediately said, I would never do that. That's but, no, no,

that's not me. It's not me either. But I totally dig that

other people are into it. Did you catch that word dig, that

was kind of intentional. They they do it because that's what

they want to do. One of my friends I was traveling with,

and I travel with quite a bit, and she introduced me as her

travel friend, and she said she travels full time too. And I

went, No, I don't. I have a house. I have a little lake

house. I have a husband, I have a cat and a dog like I just

travel a lot. I travel full time.

But what does that look like, and how quickly can you shift

and adapt? I literally am certified at doing training in

change management and looking at the way. People respond to

change, and we have a natural response to change. Sometimes

it's like, oh, yeah, I'm all in. Other times it's like, no, we

can't do that. Other times it's like, wait. Like, let's weigh

the pros and cons. We all have our natural desire on that. I

pretty much want to keep things the same. That's really kind of

how I was built. But I can look at the other side. I can come up

with ideas. You can choose how you respond. Typically, the

older we get, the more set in our ways we are. But I want to

challenge you that it doesn't have to be that way, and just

because it was always that way doesn't mean it has to be that

way. Now, my sister was working on a presentation on change, and

I was like, I like to share the story that I don't want to work

with the Big Chief tablet and a number two pencil anymore. I

like having a computer. If we didn't have technology, if we

didn't have change, I wouldn't be able to type it all on the

computer. I'd be writing it all out by hand on a big chief

tablet with a number two pencil. What do you want to your life to

look like and embrace your experiences and milestones along

the way? Because that's what brought you here when I started

doing training, and I've trained well over 10,000 in the time

I've been an entrepreneur, someone said, Aren't you just

really sad that you didn't get into this sooner? And I said no,

because the experiences I had working in mortgage banking and

for the federal government led me to where I am today. Each

experience, each milestone, gave me something else to work with,

work on, work for, work towards and share with other people. The

only little bit of regret that I have is that I wasn't a better

leader when I had that role. I didn't have the skills I think I

did okay, but now I look at it and I think, oh my gosh, all the

situations I would have handled differently, personal growth,

personal development, it is an ongoing thing. I'm in Brendon

Burchard mastermind group called Ultra and I have gotten

certified in his high performance coaching program.

And every time I learn something new, and it builds me up more as

a person. I think, wow, I would have made some different

decisions if I had had more information. Do I regret that I

didn't have it then? No, but I'm surely going to embrace it now.

I'm going to embrace the experiences that I had. I'm

going to embrace the new learnings and teachings that I

can in incorporate into my life now and be a better person. Some

organizations aren't really big on personal growth. I don't know

why they should be, but personal growth leads to professional

growth, and it leads you being a better employee, a better

spouse, a better partner, a better friend, a better aunt,

uncle, cousin, whatever it's part of who we are. Our bodies

are constantly growing and changing. A cell is either

living or it's dying. Our brains are living and growing and we're

taking in more information, or we're not. So the question is,

have you designed your life to make it the way you want it to

be? Because your life doesn't have to just happen to you. Be

sure to grab my 12 minute gift.com for more information

and training on how to design your life. I'm Jennifer Takagi,

and I look forward to connecting with you soon. So.