Are You Waiting?

Okay.

Today I have the pleasure to introduce Trevor Dreyer to the stage.

Trevor has been my coach for many years.

He's a fellow speaker.

The number of times I've said I have Trevor in my head right now as I'm writing a message.

It's making me better.

His message, I got to coach him this week.

It's a fantastic message.

I can't wait for you to hear it.

I can't wait for you to apply it into your life.

Can we give a big round of applause for Trevor Drager?

Vince, I was gonna give you a handshake.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

I don't know if you want me in your head, so I'm not gonna try to get the rest of you there.

That seems a bit strange if you're hearing my voice.

But good morning, welcome.

I am Trevor.

I have been part of the speaking team for forever, but usually that involves sacrifice.

In other words, I set someone up here to do this job.

And Vince is like, Do you want a shot at this?

I'm like, yes, I do.

But I did have to think about it for a moment.

We're in the middle of a really cool series, Shelf Life.

We're talking about books that, you know, don't just stay on your shelf, they stay in your head.

Just curious.

Do you have a book like that?

One that you recommend to a lot of different people, or one that's kind of transformed your life a little bit.

I started off with comic books a couple weeks ago.

If you missed that one, you can go catch it.

It was about how I realized that there was an opportunity with a secret identity to kind of rest, to recharge.

Vince continued on.

He went on to strengths.

He said, Hey, rather than worry about those weaknesses, why don't you worry on your strengths?

Get your strengths up.

And then he talked about, if you remember last week, consumption smoothing, spend till the end.

They were all really books that when we were getting the series together, were transformational in our thinking.

And they didn't maybe just apply to one area of life.

They seemed to have a broader context.

That's Shelf Life.

That's the series we're in.

Uh, I'm sorry, I'm not doing comic books again.

I know there's some fans.

I will do a regular book today.

I want to get you in, though.

I want to ask a question.

Do you know anyone who hates their job?

Do you know anyone who hates their job?

I've tried this with a few people that are like, is this a trick question?

I said, no, no, no, like, do you know anyone who hates their job?

I was having a really interesting conversation this spring.

As the gentleman who had answered that question and said I couldn't do it anymore.

He'd literally been working at a job and he said, like, they were having me do reports all day, every day, and it was just killing me.

But they were paying me well.

They were never mean to me, and they were actually really supportive.

But at some point I just realized this wasn't me.

I just couldn't continue to do it.

Wow.

And so I met him in the front of a market in Porto.

At that point, he was standing incredibly still.

He was now a living statue.

This is what he had decided he needed to go out and do.

I was intrigued.

And it was just getting set up, so I had some chances to ask him some questions because this is a unique conversation.

I don't know, often have conversations with living statues anyone.

No, it was my first time as well.

And I said, Hey, listen, just curious, what do you wish people kind of asked you about the living statue business?

He lit up.

It's like everybody, when I get out my stage, because there was a stage, there was water features, lights, uh, like little plants.

No one asks me about my water fountain.

They always ask me about the lights.

He said, Do you know how hard it is to get a little pump to get that water feature going?

I said, No, I never thought about it actually up until this conversation.

And then they asked me about my costumes.

He said, This is an old priest robe.

That's how I knew I could tell this story in French church.

This is an old priest robe that I'm in, but it's my easiest costume.

I just have to put on some makeup.

And then I come with my little van and I set up for the day.

And I'm doing pretty well.

Now, in my regular job, I'm a financial planner guy.

So I was kind of like, I wonder what doing okay or pretty well is, right?

But you know what was really, really apparent?

He was really, really happy.

How many people do you get to talk to in their jobs where they are just lit up?

They're excited.

That might be a harder question to think about, isn't it?

And you know what it got me thinking about right in that moment?

What am I waiting for?

What are we waiting for?

Are we guaranteed that we're gonna get more time?

We're likely here tomorrow, but are we sure and are we sure that tomorrow's gonna be better?

I don't know.

I haven't seen those guarantees.

I was thinking about what it must feel like for him to go to sleep at night.

You know, after a great day of standing and put his head on his pillow and say, uh, what did I do today that I valued?

What felt like me?

And for sure, he can answer a lot of cool things, right?

He's got sets, he's got costumes.

It feels like who he is, who he was trained for.

But you know what's hard about asking that question is I think there's a follow-up when our head's on the pillow.

What did I do today that I didn't value?

That wasn't me.

Worse, what if I did things that I hated?

That just feels hard.

Very hard.

Because if we're waiting for a better tomorrow, I'm not sure we're guaranteed that that's what's gonna happen.

It might be some actions we take today.

And that's entirely what the book I chose, and actually the book that refuses to leave my head.

The four-hour work week by Tim Ferris.

Any Tim Ferris fans in the crowd?

A couple.

I would say Tim is an interesting gentleman, but the four-hour work week sound appealing?

Yeah.

He said the publisher kind of helped me narrow down what would actually, you know, sell people.

But his intention of the book, I would say, was really answering those pillow questions.

We're saying, am I waiting?

And why am I waiting?

Why don't I take action today?

I think there's an interesting story.

I didn't pick this book out for myself.

My wife gave it to me in 2009.

Hmm.

I was in the middle of, you know, running a business really busy, and I was answering that question about what I value, what I don't, by just trying to do more every day.

You know, if if it if what I don't value is just at the bottom and I just keep shoving more of what I like on top.

Anyone heard of efficiency?

I'll just do more, sleep less?

That's an approach, isn't it?

My wife gave me this book because I didn't realize it, but maybe I was starting to crack a little bit.

She said, I think you'll really like this.

She will tell you sometimes she regrets giving me the book.

Ferris was asking that question again and again.

He was running a business, it was really busy, and it was like, what am I waiting for?

As I said, I'm in the retirement field.

I see people wait for 30 years before they start to have fun.

They work overtime, they work their weekends, family might not know them, but they're going to have fun at some point in the future.

And Ferris asked that question again and again.

Am I waiting?

Are we waiting?

And then he did something, at least for me, that was really interesting.

He said, the purpose of life is not just to work less.

I said, okay, well, keep going.

I'm I'm interested.

The purpose of life is to work less so that, what do you mean, so that you can do more of what you want to do.

So you can do more of what you value right now.

Oh, that was cool.

Now, Tim Ferris.

Tim Ferris wanted to take tango dancing in Buenos Aires.

He couldn't just go down the street to like a dance studio in his city.

He needed to go to Buenos Aires.

Anyone else dance tango?

No, I've never wanted to dance tango, but Buenos Aires is where it was actually born.

So he wanted to go.

And when he realized there was no way he could do that with his work, it just wasn't going to happen.

And he knew he had to make some pretty fundamental shifts.

For me, it's funny when I tell the story now, like 17 years later, the fundamental shift I started doing.

This is an old paper and pencil.

We had those in 2009, so I had to write it down.

I started scheduling my holidays.

Everybody who knows me now is like, oh yeah, Trevor, you always do that.

No, I didn't always do that.

But I would schedule my holidays.

You know what many of them were back in 2009?

Staycations.

But I wasn't working.

I wasn't trying to jam more in.

I was trying to think about, okay, what does this look like going forward?

Like, what can I do if I have a little bit more downtime?

So no.

Maybe you're not a tango dancer.

Maybe you don't need more holidays.

Now that seems silly as I say it.

Maybe we need all schedule some holidays.

But I'm not the pro at doing this.

I have a friend, and just see if you can answer this question, see if this seems logical.

Let's say you go to school for four years.

He did.

Let's say you're working three years in a profession that you're actually pretty good at.

You get actually one of those little stampy things.

He was an engineer.

Do you know those ones that like leave the imprint on the paper?

They're so beautiful.

I always wanted one.

Apparently, you have to go to school and work before you can get them.

And then decide this isn't me.

I don't think I want to do this anymore.

You know what I'm going to do?

I'm going to go back to school for a year and I'm going to go work in something that's actually going to pay me less money.

Do you know anyone who does that?

Must have seen a lot of noise.

No, it was my friend Clive that actually describes what he did.

He was asking those questions about what I value.

And what he valued is more free time so he could do more fun stuff.

And you know what he realized about engineering?

It only came with two weeks vacation a year.

He's like, I can't do anything with two weeks.

He said, There's too much to do in my day.

I can't possibly do that.

So he decided to go back and teach.

Now, just because they have three months of vacation, no one told him how much work it would be to get those three months.

But that was radical.

Can you imagine at dinner at Christmas?

You're talking to your parents, says, ah, mom, dad, yeah, yeah.

Oh, how's work going?

Well, you know that job I trained for for four years and been working at for three?

I quit.

Imagine you're his parents.

What are you like?

Oh my God, I thought I raised a good child.

What's going on here?

Oh, and I'm going back to school next year.

You're like, hopefully for no, not for masters?

No, no.

I'm going to go back and teach.

So you're going to get a job that's going to pay less?

Yeah, but I need more time off.

It's actually pretty rare, isn't it?

But the reason I use Clive's story is I want to tell you something really cool about why I think this is worth doing.

When you answer that, I'm done waiting.

And you kind of start to live your life.

What I've seen in the time I've known him, because I wasn't there for that decision, I probably would have been one of the friends saying, Wake up, what are you doing?

Don't do that.

So I'm glad he didn't have me as a friend then and didn't listen.

But I've seen how it's shaped the rest of his life.

He's built three houses because that's just kind of fun.

He plays in two orchestras and a string quartet because one isn't sufficient.

He's my running partner.

Be amazed how much stuff we learn on runs about each other.

And then when he's not running, he does bike trips.

Some to the Maritime, some to Portugal, some to BC.

I get tired a little bit listening to how busy he is.

But I know that when he puts his head on that pillow every night and said, What did I value about today?

There's so many check marks.

That's the vision.

That's what I think is so cool.

I think it can look like that for me, for us, if we say, I'm done waiting.

Why don't we do this?

If there's good stuff on the other side, why don't we do it?

This is hard.

It's hard.

I think back to my living statue.

And yeah, he probably had to have those conversations with his parents.

But I think back actually after he had his set design and all of his costumes, and I want you to imagine his first day.

He's loading his stuff in a little van and he gets to a market.

Now he doesn't know if that's the right market or not.

He doesn't know if he's there at the right time.

And he gets all set up and he just stands there and says, Man, is anyone actually gonna take a picture with me?

Are they gonna give me some money?

This is hard.

Tim Ferris talked about in order to get to tango dancing in Buenos Aires, he had to fire clients.

Now he's a business owner.

He'd done all this work to attract as many clients as he could get.

And now he's telling some of them, no, I can't work with you.

I just need to work with few clients.

Imagine those first weeks.

You've just fired someone who's been using your product and service.

You're looking at your revenue go down.

Like, well, I was this a good idea.

I'm not sure.

It's hard.

I already told you, Clive, kind of talking about that at Christmas.

But the day that I would love to have been there for, and if there's any teachers or any of you guys have been in schools, imagine his first day of actual work September 1st, and he's in front of 30 kids and said, I'll be your teacher for the next, oh my goodness, until June?

What have I done?

It's hard.

But it doesn't mean that it's not worth the work.

When you put your head on your pillow right now, how are you answering those questions?

What have I done today that I value?

What does that feel like?

There are things that I've done today that I just I it wasn't me.

I can we stop doing those things?

So this book, round and round in my head.

If I told you that this is not a new problem, I think you'd believe me.

Jesus was asked.

Number of people come up to Jesus and said, Rabbi, teacher, how do I live a good life?

And Jesus had an answer that was really interesting.

I want to get this right.

He said, I want you to enter through the narrow gate.

For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.

But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life.

And only a few find it.

Jesus has said, what he's asked, what would be a good life?

And he says, Enter through the narrow gate.

For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction.

And many enter through it.

But small is the gate, and narrow is the road that leads to life.

And only a few find it.

That's not a new problem.

It is easy to just kind of follow the follow the herd.

In my industry, when you tell people you're taking holidays, they're like, what?

Don't you want to make money?

What are you crazy?

Literally, I had someone brag.

My wife was at this event just this summer.

I haven't taken a vacation in six years.

I'm like, I was, I, I'm like, you're crazy.

But I love this one.

I'm just like, who's your boss?

We're self-employed.

That's terrible, isn't it?

But we brag about it sometimes.

We can brag about how busy we are.

It's okay to be busy.

It's okay to have a full life as long as it's about doing the things that we want to do.

What's my gentle nudge for me today, for all of us?

I want to stop waiting.

I really want to encourage every single one of us to think about that tonight.

Your head hits the pillow.

What did I do today that that was great?

Oof.

What were some of the things that I do that, oof, I could have skipped?

And then just start taking some small steps.

Small steps.

Start getting rid of some of those things that you don't value.

Because what it allows, it allows for more to come in.

It's a gentle nudge, it's an encouragement, it's a prayer.

But I can tell you from watching some of the people who do this, that narrow gate, it's worth going through.

That goat trail, it might only be you on the road a lot of the times, but you'll likely be quite happy there.

When I think back to that living statue, I'm just like if someone can be happy being a living statue, do I have any excuses?

He's pretty deliberate with his time, and he's doing really cool things.

Have a great Sunday, friends, church.

Gentle nudge.

Just be a bit more deliberate.

Stop waiting.

Have a great day.