Intro

On May 4th of this year I had the privilege to lead an entire Jumpstart session for my first time ever.

For context, Jumpstart is a monthly self-development meeting where attendees discuss topics on confidence, career, business, investing, relationships, mental health, and more. Jumpstart was founded in early 2019 by my friends and mentors Jerry Hart and Shalom Mascarinas. The meaning of Jumpstart is to learn from your past and embrace the present to Jumpstart your future. I am usually an active participant during the meetings, but for this time around I was the lead speaker and coordinator for the entire 2 hour session. This blog posts follows the format from this Jumpstart presentation.

The following contains writing exercises and prompts to get you thinking. My goal is to stimulate your brain to visualize, brainstorm, and clarify what your peak life looks and feels like. In order for you to extract maximum value from this blog post, it will take some work on your end. As with anything in life: You get out what you put in.

So grab a pen and paper, or open up a blank document on your computer, and lock in.

 

What were some Things you Loved as a Kid? 

What is something you Loved when you were younger, that you stopped having interest in because others told you it’s not cool? Or because “society’ wouldn’t accept it? Or maybe you were embarrassed to express it? 

Was there a movie you loved to watch? A music group you used to listen to? A toy or game that was your absolute favorite? 

At what point did you stop loving it? Did you simply grow out of it? Or did you stop giving it time because of fear that others would think you’re weird? 

Maybe you would still be interested in it now. Maybe it would bring you great joy if you started doing it again.

Think back to your early childhood memories, or even later on through high school, and think of those things that brought you joy. When you were a child, you most likely looked at the world through a lens with less judgment and assumptions.

Write these all down.

 

Describe Your Perfect Day like a Schedule

Let me be clear — this is not about describing a day of never-ending bliss where you’re sitting on the beach drinking piña colada’s. This is about describing your typical day in the life where you have gotten to where you want to be in life, and you have become the person you want to become.

This is a day of working at the dream job you want. This is a day of running your dream business that you want to start or that you already started. Write this as if you are already living this life.

Write it like a schedule starting from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed. Describe how you feel. Describe what your relationships are like. What food are you eating? What city are you living in? What’s your lifestyle like? What does your body look like? How do you feel physically? 

For example, you may feel a sense of freedom and artistic release while running your own art business.

Here is an example of my perfect day:

 

 

 

How do you Define “Living Your Dream” ?

I feel like “my dream’ is something we casually use; “Living there would be my dream” , “I dream of doing that one day”, "My dream is to ...." , etc.

What do we mean by "My dream"?

To me, living your dream life is the result of living in accordance with your Passions and your Purpose. The more we are living a life that is built around our Passions and our Purpose, the more we will feel that we are living our dream. It is living a life of peak fulfillment (note that I didn’t say “peak happiness”). Spiritual fulfillment is deeper and more important than happiness.

Write down what "Living your Dream" means using your own words.

 

How do you Define “Passions”? 

The reason I am defining terms is because it is important that we are on the same page about the words that we use. Defining words can prevent miscommunication and strengthen our everyday language. I encourage you to define the words you commonly use (yes, look them up in the dictionary). This is an approach I learned from Alex Hormozi.

How would you describe the word "passion"?

In relation to this blog post, this is how I'm defining it: 

Passion:

• Your interests
• Activities, hobbies, topics, or entertainment that you love
• Things that are fun or make you forget about time
• What comes naturally or easily for you
• Something you can do all day and never get tired or bored of it

Some of my own passions are fashion, food, cooking, fitness, basketball, traveling, and writing.

What are your passions? What are you passionate about? Write them down and make a list.

 

Brainstorm Business Ideas from your Passions

For example, I love desserts and I have a major sweet tooth. A couple business ideas could be to open up my own donut shop (that of course sells exclusive cllctd. t-shirts), or create my own recipe for a healthier version of a cookie that has protein built in.

I also love Star Wars and sci-fi action movies. I would love to create a sci-fi film of my own one day. I have really no clue how I am going to do it, but I am still going to put the idea out there.

The goal of this exercise is to help you realize that money-making ideas can arise from the things you love. When you are writing down business ideas, don’t worry about it being a “good idea” or not. Literally write EVERYTHING down. Write down every single idea you get. Basically, take your interests and think of as many ways that you can possibly make money from them.

It's okay to get crazy with your ideas here. The point is to remove all inhibitions from your imagination and just get down as many ideas as possible. 

 

How do you Define “Purpose”? 

How often do you think about your purpose? Do you ever get a gut-feeling that what you are doing in that current moment just feels right? Or, have you ever seen someone you look up to and think to yourself; "I can see myself doing exactly what they do."? There's a good chance that these feelings are clues to your Purpose. 

This is how I would define Purpose:

• Your reason(s) for being here on Earth
• Your ‘Why’ 
• Your Faith, belief in a higher power
• Your intuition
• Your mission, what gets you out of bed in the morning

We will probably have multiple purposes at once, and they will change over time as we grow through stages of life. For some people, their children is their purpose. For others, it could be about helping people with disabilities, or saving endangered animal species, educating others, being a strong leader, etc.

When it comes to your purpose, it’s important to keep it at the front of your mind. When your thoughts are more centered around your purpose in life, it will guide your actions in everything you do and with everyone you interact with.

What is your purpose? Write it down.

 

Go Through a Process of Self-Discovery

How clearly do you really know yourself? How clearly have you defined the person you want to become? Once you have defined these two "characters", you'll realize that there is a gap between them. Within that gap is probably a set of skills, relationships with people, character traits, values in action, and a different mindset. Here you go, you now have an actionable list of skills to learn, types of people to meet, and character traits to engrain into your being.

This will take intentional effort. This will take time. This WILL take you out of your comfort zone. Some of the current you will need to be left behind to make space for the new you to take form.

2019 was the year I started cllctd. This year was full of change for me. On top of starting a clothing business, I also transferred colleges, made many new friends, moved out of my parents house for the first time, and I started to put myself out there more. All of this was intentional. This year was one of the most uncomfortable years of my life, and I remember experiencing a lot of anxiety. Yet, this was one of the best years of my life. This was the first time in my life where I experienced what it felt like to live my Dream Life.

This doesn't all have to be "serious" work, it can and should be fun. I simply encourage you to try new things. Meet new people, try new food, go to new places, wear new clothing styles, try new stuff! You’ll never know what you could like if you don’t try it.

Describe, in detail, the type of person you want to become.

Things that will Happen Once you’re on your Path to your Dream Life:

Your friends will change.

Your faith will be tested.

You may experience periods of extreme uncertainty, then shortly after experience extreme confidence.

You’ll get signs from the Universe that you are on the right path. If you aren’t on the right path you should find out quickly.

You will make a lot of mistakes.

Once you've found your path, problems and setbacks certainly don't come to an end. It's important to have a Growth Mindset. A Growth Mindset means that, through learning and persistence, you will get stronger, better, and wiser over time. Having this type of mindset will equip you with fortitude when you do encounter a setback or make a mistake.

I wasn't always this way, but honestly, when I experience a failure, mistake, or something bad, I get excited now. Because I know that there is always growth on the other side.

Final Notes

You must program your own mind. If you don’t, it will be programmed for you. When you gain control over your mind, you gain much more control over your life.

To help gain control over your mind, fill it with books, podcasts, videos, and conversations that strengthen your confidence and your faith. Follow people and pages on social media that inspire you. Don't just mindlessly scroll on social media which allows others to program your mind.

To bridge the gap between who you are now and who you want to be; learn the skills you want to have, determine the character traits you want and start putting them into practice, hang around people who are more similar to the person you want to become, and most importantly, have persistence.

At the beginning of this blog, I had you recall childhood interests. I think there are often clues there. Also, when you think back to your early memories, you can begin to write a story about your life. When you make a story about your past, it helps you make sense of the present, thus creating a launch pad to write the story of your future.

My goal here was to show you that it is possible to build a career and a life around the things that you love.

Live a life that you design.