Latest / The Daily Reset Podcast / Stop drifting. Start living on Purpose - the audiobook. Chapter 1

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Stop drifting. Start living on Purpose - the audiobook. Chapter 1 · The Daily Reset Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: chapter one the life that happens on autopilot I remember sitting on
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: yet another flight with my laptop open answering emails while
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: the cabin lights dimmed around me I was the only one still working
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: as usual it had become completely normal work on the plane work in
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: the hotel work early in the morning before meetings started work late into
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: the evening client dinners and drinks from
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: the outside my life looked successful I was traveling internationally working
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: on interesting projects building companies and constantly moving forward
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: and the outside had receipts i'd been managing
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: a six million pound investment portfolio at 18 i'd gone to london and ended up in
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: the music business working for the person who managed morrissey i built
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: the digital operation of a global investment house and helped scale it
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: into 30 countries success wasn't a story i was telling myself
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: by every external measure it was simply true but internally something felt wrong
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: i was always busy yet rarely present i was constantly achieving
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: yet strangely disconnected from the life i was actually living i checked my phone
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: before i went to sleep and again before i even got out of bed in
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: the morning i answered messages during dinners worked through holidays and rushed
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: through conversations because my mind was already focused on the next thing for
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: a long time i thought this was simply what success required work harder move faster
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: stay busy keep pushing
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Modern life rewards speed,
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  SPEAKER_00: productivity and responsiveness,
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  SPEAKER_00: so I convinced myself that exhaustion was simply the cost of ambition.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: You already know from the prologue where that road ended.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: What I want to show you in this chapter is something stranger and more useful,
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: how I got there without ever once deciding to, because nobody decides to drift.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: most people don't wake up one day and choose to live
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: on autopilot it happens gradually life gets busy responsibilities grow
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: and days start to blur together and autopilot exists for a reason our brains rely
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: on habits and routines to conserve energy without them we would have to think
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: through every small decision we make and we'd be exhausted by breakfast
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: the same mechanism that lets you brush your teeth without thinking is a gift but
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: that same mechanism quietly takes over much bigger parts of our lives
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: our routines determine how we start our mornings our habits determine how we respond
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: to stress our patterns shape our health our relationships and our work and
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: if those patterns were never consciously chosen they can lead us somewhere we never
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: intended to go here's how it actually happens not dramatically one decision at
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  SPEAKER_00: a time a job opportunity you say yes to without thinking too deeply about it
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: a schedule that becomes busier each year
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: habits that form around convenience rather than intention a phone that migrates from
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: the kitchen to the bedside table an evening routine that becomes a scroll none
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: of these is a crisis each one is barely a decision at all
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: but small choices accumulate and one day your life looks very different from
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: the one you once imagined and you can't point to the moment you chose it
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: because you never did life doesn't fall apart quickly it gradually drifts
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: why does this happen to smart capable people people who plan everything at work
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: and nothing about their own lives
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: because modern life rewards feed respond quickly produce more stay connected keep
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: moving and when everything moves quickly reflection disappears you stop asking
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: the deeper questions what do i actually want what matters most where am i trying
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: to go without those questions decisions become reactive rather than intentional
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: and reactive decisions slowly create reactive lives
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: there's a second reason and this is the one that kept me drifting
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: for decades success mask it if things are working externally the promotions
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: the income the recognition there's no reason to pause and question the direction
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: the momentum feels good everyone around you is applauding but success
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: and alignment are not the same thing you can be successful
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: at something you never consciously chose you can be excellent at a life
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: that isn't yours i was for years
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: the plane the laptop the dimming cabin lights
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: that woman was performing brilliantly inside a life she had assembled entirely out
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: of yeses she never examined and let me be careful here
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: because this matters i am not going to spend this book telling you
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: that your drive is a disease my drive built everything i'm proud of when i was
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: a single parent at 24 wanting more for my daughter that drive sewed tabards for
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  SPEAKER_00: a nursery so she could attend for free
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: it built her a fold down bed at a woodworking workshop and
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  SPEAKER_00: a massive habitat style sofa with my own hands it made a clothing line to sell
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: through a skate shop that was my maternity leave the engine was never the problem
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  SPEAKER_00: the question is only ever who's steering the dangerous thing about drift is
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: that it rarely feels dramatic
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  SPEAKER_00: while it's happening most people don't suddenly collapse they slowly disconnect
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: from themselves
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: that disconnection can look like burnout low energy emotional flatness constant
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: distraction overthinking
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: or that strange feeling that life is moving very quickly
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: without ever feeling deeply meaningful busy but disconnected productive
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: but exhausted surrounded by noise but out of reach of yourself if any of
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: that lands i want you to hear something clearly because it took me half a century
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: to learn it nothing has gone wrong with you you've been living in ways
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: that no longer work that's it and we're living in a world designed to keep us there
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: notifications infinite information constant urgency a culture that rewards busyness
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: and treats exhaustion like commitment if your attention has been pulled in
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: a hundred directions before you've even had breakfast
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: when we stop directing our attention the world does it for us that's why one of
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: the most important shifts we can make is this live on purpose not
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: on autopilot there is a difference between building a successful life and building
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: a meaningful one
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: drift builds the first kind on its own the second kind has to be designed but
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: before anyone can design anything something has to happen first you have to notice
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: and here is a problem with noticing drift comes with its own camouflage
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: a single word that lets you glide past yourself a dozen times a day
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  SPEAKER_00: without ever looking
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: in you said it this week you probably said it today somebody asked how you are
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: and you said you were fine let's talk about what that word is actually costing you