Let’s stop talking about Maya Angelou and start acting like her.

Humble beginning
When I heard of Dr. Maya Angelou’s death on Wednesday, I learned through the magic of the Internet tubes that her childhood home still stands less than two miles from where I live in St. Louis. I had to take a walk by it.

The house is on the south side of St. Louis and is an unimpressive, yet fairly well-maintained, home. Most of the original turn of the century homes in the area have been torn down and replaced with newer ones, but Dr. Angelou’s childhood home is one of a small number of the originals still standing. You might expect it to be a museum or at least have a plaque of some sort on it, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t appear to be anything special. In fact, it could use a little yard maintenance. A neighbor I spoke to had no idea it was Maya Angelou’s childhood home, but wondered why people had been taking pictures of it recently.

But it is special. It’s where one of the most renowned and influential women to ever live spent the first three years of her life. As I walked home, I wondered why she was so influential. What made her different than the other children born on that block, in that neighborhood, in St. Louis, in the United States, in the world?

Was it because she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend at the age of 8? Was it because she was a talented writer, teacher and poet? Was it because she was a Pulitzer Prize winning author? Was it because she endured life in a racist, segregated world?

Why Dr. Angelou was different
I believe it was because she decided to devote her life to talking about what she believed. She had something (a lot, actually) to say. The difference between Dr. Angelou and everyone else who is not as famous, loved, prolific or influential is that Dr. Angelou said what she believed. She said it through her poetry, her writing, her speaking, her teaching and more.

She not only said what she believed, but she also: said it often, said it well and said it at any cost.

She said it often.
Maya Angelou didn’t write, speak and teach about her beliefs on the evenings and weekends. She did it every second she was conscious. There was no on or off switch, no work week, no personas that changed depending on the audience. Her beliefs radiated from every single thing she said and did, every second of her life.

Whatever you want to do, if you want to be great at it, you have to love it and be able to make sacrifices for it.

Maya Angelou

She said it well.
When she lived in this house in south St. Louis, she was only 3 years old. She couldn’t read or write yet, much less produce Pulitzer Prize winning literature. By practice and learning (but probably mostly practice), she became an accomplished poet, writer and teacher — a global Renaissance woman. Dr. Angelou was devoted to her craft and her beliefs. This devotion made her what she became.

Of course, there are those critics – New York critics as a rule – who say, ‘Well, Maya Angelou has a new book out and of course it’s good but then she’s a natural writer.’ Those are the ones I want to grab by the throat and wrestle to the floor because it takes me forever to get it to sing. I work at the language.

She said it at any cost.
She didn’t let the repercussions of talking about what she believed stop her from saying it. There were consequences for speaking up for what she believed. It scared her often, but she did it anyway.

Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.

Maya Angelou

She became the Dr. Maya Angelou we know because she decided to say what she believed often, well and at any cost. She told Oprah:

There is a place inside you must keep inviolate. You must keep it pristine, clean, so that nobody has the right to curse you or treat you badly. No mother, no father, no husband, nobody.

Maya Angelou

That place is where you keep what you believe.

Dr. Angelou devoted her life to telling the world what she believed. The best way to honor her is to follow her example. Her childhood home still stands but you would never know she lived there. If she influenced you, make sure everyone you encounter knows she influenced you, not by telling them but by talking about what you believe often, well and at any cost.

I’m committing publicly to say what I believe more, better and at any cost. Will you? Tell us in the comments what you hold in that special place.

More Like This:

Everyone needs money. We need it to buy food, clothing, shelter, transportation, get medical care and everything else we need to live. That makes it hard to not make money the No. 1 thing in life. When asked, most people would say that money is not the most important thing in life, yet their lifestyle is largely defined by what they do to make money. Colin Wright, of Exile Lifestyle started by defining success around money, but he found something that works better for him.

The “normal” life path
Colin grew up in rural Missouri in a small, midwestern community. After high school, it was time for college. After graduation he got a job in Los Angeles — a big change from the midwest. A year later, he started a branding studio. He quickly gained a solid client base and was making good money.

Colin describes the lifestyle he found himself in as being about “getting as wealthy as you can” and “having wine parties and knowing exotic cheeses.” He was making good money, eating good food, drinking fancy wine and going to clubs three times a week. This was success — he thought.

But then he said, “Wait a minute, is this it? There has to be more to life.”

Redefining success
Colin began to rethink what success meant to him. As long as he could remember, he wanted to travel the world, see new things and get the unbiased perspective that can only come from getting to know people from many different cultures. He wanted to see different perspectives and experience new things. He wanted to learn things he wouldn’t even think to ask about.

A big change
Colin closed his branding studio for good and began traveling full-time. But it wasn’t just a summer vacation, he traveled to a different country every four months for five years and he’s still at it. This has taken him from New Zealand to Bangkok to Iceland. Colin has traveled the world, the whole time meeting people, helping them and taking a genuine interest in them and their cultures.

But what about money?
He still needs money. The approach he’s taken is a combination of keeping his living expenses low and creating assets, like businesses, books and investments, that provide passive income. These things he enjoys creating help pay the bills, but he says the most important asset he has is the relationships he has built as he traveled throughout the world.

As a result, he’s developed a large network of people who want to see him succeed at whatever he does. Whether he needs investors for a new business venture, advice or just a sofa to crash on, he has a large and worldwide network.

I feel pretty confident that if I decide to become a rodeo clown or some other career trajectory, I could probably get a pretty significant audience to come out and watch for no other reason other than that I’ve helped them out at some point or they just like the work that I do and they want to see what I’m doing.

Instead of working to earn money all year and taking a vacation for a few weeks, Colin’s focus is primarily on his real devotion: writing.

A day without writing for me is a day that I have no idea what to do with myself. I get so miserable anytime I try to take a vacation because that means taking a vacation from stuff that I love doing.

Are you ready?
While Colin loves his lifestyle, he doesn’t recommend it for everyone. He advises that everyone must decide for themselves what type of life they want. What that looks like for you will be very different than what it looks like for Colin. When you redefine success beyond money, you get to decide for yourself what success means to you.

Decide what success means for you. Then decide you deserve to have it.

You can hear the full interview with Colin here.

Above images by Kurt Langer (kurtlanger.com)

More Like This:

This is Rushmore. He goes by “Rush” for short. In his little brain, getting in the car means something great is about to happen. Maybe a visit to Grandma’s, the dog park, the lake or even the vet. All great stuff if you’re a dog.

Recently, while he was in the backyard unsupervised (just for a moment), he saw a car. It had some people and other dogs in it. The back seat door was open.

Rush found a small hole in the fence that he could slip out of pretty easily. So he bolted with lightening speed out of the fence and hopped into the back seat of the car — the neighbor’s car. He sat up in the back seat (exactly like a human would sit in a car) with a look on his face that said, “OK, we can go now.”

“There’s a car with it’s door open, people, dogs… what am I waiting for?”

The difference between dogs and adult humans is that we think more. Instead of going after what we want, we ask questions like:

• “What if it doesn’t work?”
• “What will people think?”
• “Will it be OK?”
• “What if she says no?”
• “Is this the right thing to do?”

What if, what if, what if…

Rush wasn’t thinking, “What if?” He just saw what he wanted and went for it. Rush can teach us adult humans a few lessons about getting what we want.

1. Know exactly what you want. There was no doubt in Rush’s mind that he wanted to get into that car. He had complete and total clarity about what he wanted. Successful people know exactly what they want.

Don’t worry about obstacles. Rush viewed the main barrier (the fence) not as a real barrier, but rather as a minor thing that must be overcome. He found a way to get right through it. This was not the first time he’s gotten out of a fence. Rush has six years of practice at getting out of fences. Successful people go over, under, around or through the things in their way. It gets easier with practice.

Stop caring what people think. Rush did not care if anyone thought it was inappropriate or weird to jump into a stranger’s car. He just did it. Successful people don’t care what other people think. They go after what they want without regard to other people’s opinions.

Figure out what you want and quit worrying about the obstacles and what people think. Run right out of the fence and jump in the car.

What would you do if obstacles didn’t matter and you didn’t care what people think?

More Like This:

Janak and Nalisha Patel made some big changes in their life, and fortunately, they had their bucket list to guide them. They’ve been together since they were 17 and 20 years old. Like anyone that age, they had big dreams; they wanted to travel, have nice cars, a huge house and live by the beach. They wanted it all.

Initial “success”:
They got off to a great start. Janak began a career as a mechanical engineer, and in 2004, Nalisha started a personal training business in their home country of New Zealand. In 2005, Janak was getting tired of the grind in his engineering job and quit to help Nalisha build her personal training business. At the same time, he began learning about online business.

Nalisha’s personal training business was very successful. They were making good money, had nice cars and lived by the beach. They finally had it all. They had everything they required for success.

Redefining success:
When the business began to experience some issues, they saw an opportunity to take a step back and reevaluate what was important. So they asked themselves, “What does success really mean to us?”

For answers, they turned to a very logical place — their bucket list. They had created their bucket list years before and decided this was the time to dust it off and actually use it as a guide to design their life.

When they looked at the list and saw items like go to Santorini, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium and run every morning in New York’s Central Park, they knew they needed to be mobile. They couldn’t be tied down to just one place.

Now, they had a new mission for designing their life.

Making it happen:
Janak and Nalisha knew what they offered in their fitness business did not have to be delivered in person. They could deliver the weight loss programs digitally via the Internet. If they didn’t have to be in any specific place to manage the business, a lot of new possibilities emerged. So they put their business completely online so it could be run with only a laptop and Internet.

In August of 2011, they put all their stuff in storage, rented out their house and booked a one-way ticket to their first destination: Miami Beach, Florida. They continued their tour for two and a half years, traveling to 45 cities in 16 countries. They recently took a brief hiatus in New Zealand, where I caught up with them for this interview, but they love their lifestyle so much that they can’t wait to get back to traveling.

Janak and Nalisha’s advice:
Janak and Nalisha offered three pieces of advice for anyone who wants to pursue a new and genuine definition of success.

1. Decide what you want. It’s your life. Decide what will make you happy — without regard for what society calls “normal” or what others want you to do.
2. Put in the “big rocks” first. Figure out the big things you want to do first and make sure they get priority over the things that are less important. For Janak and Nalisha, spending their mornings together with a cup of coffee or tea is a big rock they’ve put first. Big rocks aren’t necessarily that big.
3. Design your business around your life. Create a business that enables you to do the things you want to do instead of doing what is important to you after work is done.

Nalisha summarizes it up best: “Get off your butt and get going!”

Jeff Steinmann Interviews Janak and Nalisha Patel on their lifestyle of travel

You can get more information about how Janak and Nalisha created their mobile lifestyle and a free ebook, 7 Steps to creating an income online so You can Escape the 9-5, at NalishaPatel.com

More Like This:

There is a very dangerous drug on the streets that nobody is talking about. It’s called blameoin (pronounced: blame-o-win).

Blameoin is a drug that makes you believe that someone else is always at fault and there is nothing you can do about it. Blameoin users blame others for everything.

“That’s my incompetent boss’ fault!”

Blameoin allows its users to preserve their ego. Users don’t have to take responsibility for their actions. They can continue to believe they are perfect because everything is someone else’s fault.

Just like with other dangerous drugs, users feel better in the short term, but the drug slowly destroys their life. Every time they snort blameoin, they lose power to whoever or whatever they blamed. They make themselves powerless to improve the situation. If it’s your boss’ fault, what can you do about it? Your options are limited when trying to affect other people’s actions.

Your actions are the easiest ones to affect. Blameoin takes away your ability to control those actions.

“It’s the media!”

Instead of snorting blameoin, ask questions like:

• Could I do my part any better next time?
• What if I tried it this way instead of that way?
• Is there another way to look at this that might offer different perspectives or insights?

Don’t confuse blame with fault. Taking responsibility for the things you can control does not necessarily mean you are at fault. The other person may have done something horribly wrong, unfair or even illegal, which sucks, but you can’t control that. Blaming others will always prevent you from having as much control of the situation as you potentially could. Taking responsibility for the aspects of the situation you can control does not let the wrong-doer off the hook for what they did, but it does give you the maximum possible amount of control over the situation.

“It’s because of the big corporate conglomerates!”

What if you had complete control of your life? What if you were totally in control of every aspect of your life? What if you could do exactly what you want and have everything you want, every single moment of your life?

As nice as that sounds, we will probably never have that level of control. We may not even want it. But the best way to have the greatest amount of influence on your life is to always take control of the things you can control. Taking control means never ever, ever blaming anyone else for anything.

“It’s the government!”

Look around the world. Look around and imagine that everything you want is yours for the taking if you just make the decision that you are going to do everything you can do to make your life exactly what you want it to be.

The next time something happens that you don’t like, don’t blame. Become obsessed with figuring out what you could have done to prevent it and what you can do to improve it now. Become obsessed with doing what you can do now and could do differently next time.

When trying to break an addiction to blameoin, withdrawal symptoms are normal. It means you are breaking your addiction to blameoin and on your way to getting whatever you want.

Warning: There are blameoin dealers everywhere. Unlike other drugs, blameoin is completely legal and its use is even encouraged by the highest levels of government. Nobody will ever get in trouble for selling you blameoin. Blameoin dealers are on television, on the Internet, in the newspaper, at coffee shops — even in your own home. Blameoin dealers want you to believe that someone else is controlling your life and there is nothing you can do about it; making it impossible for you to have what you want. Don’t buy it.

Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash

More Like This:

We humans are an ambitious bunch of people. We want to accomplish all sorts of things in our short time on earth. We want to write books, help others, learn sign language, learn musical instruments, skydive, start businesses, learn foreign languages, make a difference, break world records, ride in a hot-air balloon — the list goes on and on.

What about you? What do you want to do? At the end of your life, what would make you successful? What must you build, accomplish, change, achieve, invent, establish, develop, cultivate, cause, launch, produce, or create that will make you feel like you have been successful? It’s yours to decide. Nobody but you gets to make this decision.

Now write it down on a piece of paper.

Everyone has a different answer, but no matter what that thing is, it will require work. In fact, it will probably require a considerable amount of work. But it’s the most important thing to you, right?

Assuming you sleep for eight hours, work eight hours a day and spend at least two hours commuting, preparing for work, doing housework, laundry, cooking and all the other stuff you have to do, that only leaves about six hours each day.

According to Nielsen’s March 2014 Cross-Platform report, American adults watch an average of five hours and 15 minutes of TV each day. That eats up most of your six hours. In fact, it only leaves about 45 minutes. Granted, there’s more time on the weekends, but not much. Weekends usually contain more projects, more work, more activities and probably even more TV.

Those five hours and 15 minutes of TV each day come to 37 hours each week. Most full-time jobs are 40 hours a week. It’s almost as much time as a second full-time job. And when you include the additional three and half hours of time shifted TV (DVR) that Nielsen reports Americans watch, it’s more than a full-time job.

Is 45 minutes a day enough to get done what you must in order to be successful at the end of your life? If you are working a full-time job, have even a negligible amount normal life responsibility and watch five hours and 15 minutes of TV each day, that’s basically what you’re working with. We haven’t even included social activities. We are left to assume that social activities are relegated to Facebook at stoplights.

Now take that piece of paper on which you wrote what would make you successful and tape it to your TV screen. Put it right in the middle so it obstructs the view of the screen.

Now every time you watch TV, you have to move success out of the way.

Photo by Paolo Margari on Unsplash

More Like This:

We are at a crossroads with smartphones. We have to make an important decision. We have to decide if we’re going to let them control us or if we are going to grab them by the arm, swat them on the butt, and say, “Now listen, you’re getting too big for your britches. You are living in my pocket and I’m paying your monthly service fees, so you’re going to follow my rules. And if you don’t, you’re going to bed without a charge.”

Just like kids, smartphones need boundaries. Here are five boundaries you must put in place if you want to take back control of your smartphone.

1) Don’t let them interrupt:
“Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, watch me!” your smartphone says as it beeps and buzzes with text after tweet after Facebook notification.

“Honey, just a minute. The grown-ups are talking,” you say to your phone. Would you let your 4-year-old interrupt a conversation? Of course not! You’re not raising a rude child. Don’t let the silicon screamer interrupt a conversation either. Commit to finishing a conversation before checking the text. It can wait.

2) Only let them speak when spoken to:
My grandpa used to say, “When I was a kid, you only spoke when spoken to.” That applies to smartphones, too. Put it on silent — all the time. What about emergencies? This is where it gets really cool. Kids aren’t allowed to call you at work any time they have a silly question or just want to say hi. They have rules they must follow. Your phone needs rules, too. There are lots of ways to silence your phone except for certain numbers like the day care, your job, spouse, elderly parents or kids. Here is how to do it for the iPhone and for Android.

3) Get a sitter:
Sometimes you need to have some mommy-and-daddy (or mommy-and-mommy, or daddy-and-daddy) time. Before cell phones, when you went out to eat at a restaurant, you would leave the number of the restaurant with anyone who might need to get ahold of you in an emergency. That still works today. Leave your phone at home for at least one social event per week. Smartphones are okay to stay home by themselves, as long as they understand not to open the door for strangers.

4) Give them a bedtime:
It is important that kids get adequate sleep, but another benefit of kids going to bed early is that it gives the grown-ups some time to themselves. Smartphones need a bedtime, too. Put them to bed (outside of the bedroom, in case you want to have sex) at a reasonable hour. Then they will be all charged up (pun intended… carefully planned, actually) and ready for a new day tomorrow.

5) Make them run errands:
“Go give the mail to mommy,” you might say to a child. Kids love passing along messages or running small errands. Smartphones are great for that, too. Set up your phone so that you can send emails but can’t receive them (here’s how). This is wonderful. If you think of something you need to tell someone or something you can’t forget to do, just send an email or send yourself a reminder. That’s it. You’re done. No need to deal with the incoming email until it’s time to do so. Email sent and you’re back to living your life.

Technology wasn’t invented for technology’s sake. It was invented to make your life easier. It’s supposed to help you spend more time living your life and less time sustaining it. Use it that way. Time is all you have. Use technology as a tool to enjoy more of your time instead of an obligation that takes you away from living your life.

Photo by Jonas Leupe on Unsplash

More Like This:

What do you really want out of life? Most of us just want to enjoy it. That means spending as much time living your life (doing all the things you love) and as little time sustaining your life (doing the boring things) as possible. I discussed the three circles in which we spend time here. The third circle we spend time in is building, which is creating things that increase the amount or quality of time we spend living in the future.

You probably have a long list of things you want to build. You may want to build a successful business, a great childhood for your kids, or a wonderful relationship with your spouse. You may want to create a better life for battered women or disadvantaged children. Whatever it is, it’s very important.

The ingredients for the things you build are resources. Wikipedia defines resources as “a source or supply from which benefit is produced.” Wikipedia goes on to say that “resources typically are materials, money, services, staff or other assets that are transformed to produce a benefit and in the process may be consumed or made unavailable.”

The resources you use to build things are your skills, money, time, or anything you might need in order to build that thing. In the process, these resources get consumed. That includes the most precious resource you have: time.

You can get more help, more ink pens, more chocolate, more friends, and more money, but you can never get more time. Time is the great equalizer. You, me, Oprah, Donald Trump, the Dahlia Lama, Abraham Lincoln, and your mom all have (or had) the same 24 hours in each day. The amount and quality of time you spend living is directly determined by how you use your 24 hours.

Every second you spend doing one thing is a second you can’t spend doing something else. Does making the bed give you a more loving relationship with your spouse? Does making the bed make your business more successful? Does making the bed help your kids become better human beings? Does making your bed improve the lives of those who you want to help? If you’re creative enough, you can say yes to any of those questions, but add to the end of the question, “more than anything else I could do right now?”

You can’t ever get more time. Spend it wisely. As you do everything you do today, ask yourself why you are doing it.

Photo by Reimond de Zuñiga on Unsplash

More Like This:

We are quick to say “life is short” or “live in the moment,” but if we don’t fundamentally change the way we look at the hours in our day, it’s just talk. Here’s a way of looking at your life that puts your most precious asset, time, before anything else.

First, you have to consider where your time goes. Everything you do (besides sleeping) falls into one of three areas: sustaining, living, or building.

Sustaining is just keeping life going. Mowing the lawn, brushing your teeth, paying the bills, getting your kids ready for school in the morning, and earning money are all part of sustaining.

Living is the best things in life — the things you never want to stop doing. Maybe that’s painting, walking on the beach, working for a cause, playing with your kids, or talking about a subject you’re passionate about.

Building is creating things that increase the amount or quality of time you will spend living in the future. Building includes things like establishing relationships, creating passive income streams, writing a book, or starting a business. Too many people spend almost no time building.

Think of each area as a circle in a Venn Diagram. The size of the circle indicates how much time you spend in that area. Usually the sustaining circle is the largest, followed by a much smaller living circle, and an even smaller building circle. These circles don’t overlap at all. This is how most people’s lives look:

The Problem
The living circle is too small. It’s an afterthought. The sustaining circle is the biggest, and building barely exists. Living starts after the workday is over, only after all the sustaining is done. Living is relegated mostly to weekends and the sacred two weeks of paid vacation.

After an exhausting day that’s been eaten up by sustaining, most people can only muster a few hours of TV on the couch before falling asleep, so they can get up and do it all over again. They’re too tired to even think about building. Their circles don’t overlap. Sustaining, living, and building are completely separate. They have to stop doing one to do another.

The Solution
Redefine success as the amount of time you spend living. Time is finite. Once you use it, it’s gone and you can’t get more. Define success by how much time you spend doing what is important to you — inside your living circle. Your circles should look like this:

Living and building are a lot bigger, and sustaining is a lot smaller. Now, the circles overlap. Large parts of building and sustaining are inside of living. It’s not enough to just make the living circle bigger and the sustaining circle smaller. You have to bring building and sustaining inside the living circle. There are two ways to handle building and sustaining: (1) Move them inside the living circle; or (2) get other people to do them.

As I write this, I’m living. I’m sitting on my patio next to a fire on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon writing (one of my favorite things to do) about lifestyle (a topic to which I’m fiercely devoted) and this work builds my business and spreads my message. So, I’m building and living, which is my favorite place on the Venn Diagram to be! I’ve moved an activity inside the living circle!

If I had an accounting firm and was writing a newsletter to my clients, I’d hate every second of it. I don’t like accounting, and I wouldn’t be living. I’d be building but outside the living circle. That’s why I don’t have an accounting firm!

You don’t just get up one day and decide to like everything you do. Building a lifestyle takes commitment. The first step is to look at every second of your day and ask yourself in which circle it lies.

The other way to deal with activities outside your living circle is to pay someone to mow your lawn; pay someone to do the laundry; pay someone to make dinner. Pay someone to do anything you can’t get inside your living circle. You’re not going to be able to completely outsource everything outside your living circle. I don’t know how to get out of your annual dental cleaning! If you have any ideas, let me know. But make it your goal.

You might say, “But I can’t afford to pay someone to do everything I don’t want to do!” That’s OK. Most people can’t. Getting your building and sustaining circles 100 percent inside the living circle is a destination you’ll probably never reach. Your happiness in life is directly determined by how much time you spend inside your living circle. Get as close as possible, and be as happy as possible.

When opportunity comes along, ask yourself if it will allow you to spend more or less time inside your living circle. Don’t go outside your living circle any more than you have to. Every minute spent outside your living circle is a minute of your life that you’ve lost forever.

Photo Credit: Photo by Pablo Heimplatz on Unsplash

More Like This: