PODCAST - what gandalf knew about time (and how it can change your life)
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AI is rising. And so are we
Now, let's dive in. Today on the show, I'm gonna share with you what Gandalf knew about time and how it can change your life. He said, all we have to decide is what to do with the time that has given to us. The Lord of the Rings has been my favorite. Trilogy of movies since I was 11 years old. I was in a small hotel room in Albuquerque, [00:02:00] New Mexico.
When I watched the Fellowship of the Ring, the first movie in the series for the first time, I was watching it on a television that was deeper than it was wide, and I was glued to the screen. Watching Frodo Baggins, the hero of this tale, an unlikely hobbit, which just a very common folk in this universe living a very common, peaceful lifestyle in his home.
The Shire being tasked with the impossible goal to destroy the one ring that provides the power of the sorcerer sorrow. To rule the world, you could say that Frodo was the chosen one, and Gandalf knew that Frodo was the one to complete [00:03:00] this impossible goal. Now, you may feel just like Frodo, just like my client, Mario feels.
With his impossible goal of haling the world suicide rate. In the next three years or less, you may be chosen to lead this goal and like Frodo have support other who's other people to support you along the way, like Gandalf, like the rest of the fellowship of the ring. Either way, you may at times feel overwhelmed, just like Frodo and Gandalf did in the first installment of this trilogy.
In the first movie, the Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo says to Gandalf, I wish it need not have happened. In my time referencing that, he wishes that peace. Could have continued Gandalf replies, so [00:04:00] do I. But that is not for us to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
What makes this quote so powerful for you and I today is the intersection between time and value value. It is something that we are given something that we can give something that has weight in our life. Well, this quote puts a direct correlation between time and value. We don't choose when we live only how and because of what Gandalf knew and what I want you to walk away with today time.
Is not just something you spend, it's something you [00:05:00] decide. And this is why time is the most valuable currency that you and I have in our entire life. Now I'm gonna share with you what the most common mistake people make, business owners and non-business owners when it comes to time. And then I'm gonna share how you can harness the power that Gandalf expresses in this quote.
And the power of time in your life on a day-to-day basis. The most common mistake that business and non-business owners make in their lives is thinking that time equals money, time. It does not equal money. Time is exponentially more powerful than money, and if you don't believe it, let me put this a different way.
If you were told that you were [00:06:00] gonna die tomorrow, would it matter how much money you have? No. It wouldn't matter at all. Money is renewable time. Is not,
what does renewable mean? Renewable is a resource that renews itself that you can replace time. You cannot, and well, you can live a healthier lifestyle. You can take care of yourself to live longer. You don't know how much time you have left. There's been movies made about this where time is literally the currency of life.
Why do you and I trade time? [00:07:00] For money. Well, because we've been made to believe this fallacy that time is money. But you and I both know because Gandalf told us time is why people want money, because people believe that the more money you have, the more time you have. Since time is non-renewable. Once you spend it, it's gone.
You can't replace it this moment right now. So while we can always earn more money, get more money, we cannot replace the time that we've already spent. It is irreplaceable. So can you and I agree that time is exponentially more valuable than money. And that this moment in the Lord of the Ring's trilogy may be the [00:08:00] most important in the entire series.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. Time is a tool. Dr. Benjamin Hardy has written numerous books on the subject, including. Time is a tool. Be your future self. Now, the science of scaling 10 x is easier than two X and many others. In all of his work and his research, he has discovered the power of time, the same power that Gandalf has shared with us in the Lord of the Rings.
Time is something we use to decide what to do with. As we get farther along in the series, the stakes, the pressure on roal increases exponentially 'cause [00:09:00] time. Is running out. He has a deadline of how long he can take to destroy the one ring, and everyone else in his life that is on this same mission, his fellowship.
The fellowship of the Ring, his companions ranging from Gandalf to my favorite character, eor, they are all taking actions to buy Frodo more time because they understand that time. Is a tool. They understand how valuable time is. They aren't trying to go after riches. They are going after time and their actions that they are taking, just like the actions you and I take every single day should be towards how can we use our time more efficiently, effectively.
How can we add to our [00:10:00] time? How can we slow time down? These are the decisions we need to make. Frodo knows that if he fails his quest. That there will be no more shyer, which is his home. There will be no more middle earth. There will be no more freedom. So he could at any time, and there's so many times when you will see if you haven't seen the movie or read the books, where Frodo has a decision to make, what do I do?
Do I keep on my journey or do I go home? But he knows that if he doesn't complete his journey, there will be no home to go to. All we have to decide is what to do with the time. That is given to us. At 11 years old, I had no idea that Peter Jackson, the director of the Lord of the Rings, was bringing [00:11:00] JRR Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings concept of Time to life, the Importance of Time to Life.
Fast forward 20 plus years later and I understand exactly what I was being told. At age 11, and this is what I share with all of my VIP coaching clients and my enterprise learning accelerator clients on a weekly basis. I invite you to do these two things together with me right now. Number one time is something we decide.
And if you aren't forced into an impossible goal like Frodo Baggins, this means that you need to set your impossible goal for Mario. My VIP coaching client in Australia, his impossible goal that we [00:12:00] are working on together, I'm part of his fellowship is. Halfing, the world suicide rate. By 2028, he has decided that this is what he's going to do with his time.
And me and my team, as part of his fellowship, we have decided that we are going to support and help buy him time, help propel him forward in achieving this impossible goal. So step one, if you don't already have one, I invite you to set your impossible goal. Now, Dr. Benjamin Hardy talks about how when you're setting your impossible goal, you need to look at doing two things.
Gandalf supports this as well. The first thing is it needs to be a goal that makes you feel uncomfortable. It needs to [00:13:00] be larger than just a two x jump for what you're doing right now. There are over 700,000 suicides globally every year, cutting that in half. To 300 to 350,000 is an impossible goal for one person, one organization to achieve.
That's what I mean when I'm saying a huge goal for me. I've done this in multiple areas in my life. Currently, my impossible goal is to serve a hundred million. People worldwide empowering mission-driven organizations using learning to change the world. Whether that means saving lives, creating opportunities, or spreading hope by building scalable learning experiences that save six figures or more per year, even after paying us.
That is my [00:14:00] impossible goal. That is step one of the impossible goal, a bigger and better. Reality, not something that's two X better, something that's 10 x better. That's step one. Step two is an aggressive timeline. Of three years or less. For my impossible goal, I have selected three years, but Johnny, what about 10 years?
Frodo didn't have 10 years to destroy the ring. Now, once we get to the end of the movie, we find out that it took a little over a year for him to complete his journey. Three years. Is plenty of time [00:15:00] when you look at what Frodo had to do and what you are tasking yourself to do what you are deciding to do.
So number one, set bigger and better goals, a bigger and better reality. 10 x better with a timeline of three years or less. Really, the purpose of this is to start informing the decisions that you are going to be making. In the present, and this brings me to part two, time is your tool to achieve your goals.
If Frodo didn't have this looming deadline and the stakes continuously escalating throughout this series, would he have achieved what he did in such a short amount of time? Would he have achieved it? In general, if Frodo was told, Hey, [00:16:00] there's this ring. It'd be great if you destroyed it. Eh, we're not really worried about Saron coming around and taking over the world for 10 or 20 years, and so eventually in the next 10 or 20 years, you need to destroy this ring.
Do do you think that Freal would've left the Shire immediately heading to Mordo to destroy the ring? Or would he have just sat down at his local pub, the Green Dragon, drank another beer or seven with his best friend, Sam, Mary and Pippin for the next three to five years, maybe for the next 10 years. And then it'd be like, oh, you know, I was supposed to go and destroy that ring.
I haven't heard anything. I mean, Gandalf hasn't been here for a while. Yeah, and I don't know. We'll, we'll, we'll do it next year time. Is your tool. When you decide what you're gonna do with your time and you give yourself a [00:17:00] time period of three years or less, you'll start making different decisions in the present.
For me, I know that if I'm going to serve a hundred million learners people worldwide, that I can't do it alone, but I can do it by partnering with amazing mission-driven organizations like Mario. Mario knows that if he's going to half. The world suicide rate in the next three years, that he needs an approach to reach as many people as possible in as short of a time as possible.
That means impacting organizations with thousands of employees. That means selling his SOS his support over suicide training to thousands, if not tens of thousands of people all at once. Impacting one to many. If he didn't have this goal of haling the world suicide rate in three years, then he wouldn't make [00:18:00] different changes in the present.
A couple years ago, I had this goal of completing a hundred K Ultra well, if I didn't actually have a timeframe to complete this goal dictated by deciding to sign up. For a hundred K Ultra, then I could have for years just been like, okay, you know, I'm gonna do it. You know, 10 years from now I'm gonna achieve this goal.
Do I need to actually do anything today? No, I don't. Don't have to do anything. But when I have six months to complete a hundred K Ultra completely changes everything I need to start running today. Time is your tool. So what I like to do with my goals is I start with three years, but then I like to come up with a one year version of this goal and a 90 day version.
And I do this because depending on the timeframe, [00:19:00] you're creating different pathways of solving the goal. So if the goal for me. Is to serve a hundred million people in three years, it's gonna look a lot different than 90 days. So I like to ask the question, if I was gonna serve a hundred million people in 90 days, then what do I need to do?
This means that I need to partner with organizations, with reach, with influence. If I have three years to do it, I have a little more time. To figure that out. Same thing with Mario. He has figured out that in the next 90 days, he needs to impact 50,000 people. 50,000 people. So what does this mean? This means that he could find one company
with 50,000 employees or. [00:20:00] He could serve 50,000 people individually,
one at a time. This is a much more powerful pathway. This seems nearly impossible. So what I want you to do now is you came up with your impossible goal. With a three year deadline. Now I want you to ask yourself, what if you had to do it in one year? Write that down. What if I had to do it in 90 days?
Frodo didn't know how long he had. He just knew that it wasn't a lot of time. Gandalf made sure that he knew that this was a looming, that the stakes were high from a storytelling perspective. Tolkien and Peter Jackson show us that the stakes are high with SARS forces hastily taking over the world. [00:21:00] So even during the Lord of the Ring, even if it started with, oh, I have three years to do this, the time period decreased, decreased again.
And it got to the point where Frodo had zero days to complete this task. So now all you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you. And if you want a guide, a partner on your journey, I invite you to check out my VIP coaching experience linked. In the description below where I work with mission driven businesses to grow their business with global defining missions like Mario and Australia with his SOS program, halfing the World Suicide Rate in the next three [00:22:00] years.
If this sounds like you apply to see if the program's a fit in the description and in the show notes, if you're listening to this as a podcast and I'll see you. In the next episode.
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Thanks for listening and I'll catch you in the next episode.
AI is rising and so are.
