What would you do?
A classic coaching question is “if time and money were no object, what would you do?”
But what if we turn the question around and asked. “If you knew that your time was finite, what would you do in the countdown?”
Jimmy Carter died on Sunday at the age of 100. He has been universally hailed as a thoroughly good, unpretentious man of integrity, who stayed true to his conscience throughout a long, distinguished career of public service.
This morning, I listened to a BBC interview with patients of different ages who know that they’ve been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, a disease that shortens lives and erases memory. They seemed remarkably stoic and serene, given the inevitable and currently incurable disease they ‘re living with. One person even said, “everyone is terminal. It’s just a matter of how you live with that.”
Indeed, the link between Jimmy Carter and the Alzheimer patients is that they were both living fully in the NOW.
After leaving his one-term presidency, Carter, it seems, didn’t waste much time mourning no longer having “hail to the chief” played whenever he entered a room, nor trying to enrich himself on the post-presidential speech circuit. Instead, he focused on international relations and human rights, brokering a lasting peace between Israel and Egypt and winning the Nobel peace prize in 2002. Through the Carter Center, Jimmy and his wife Rosalynn collaborated closely with Habitat for Humanity… and actually went out and physically worked on building houses for the neediest. Whether on a world or an individual scale, he stayed true to his values and focussed on what needed to be done next.
And now, at the turning of another year, what are your values and priorities, and what is one thing that you really want to have done? Keep it small and doable, and then move on to the next.
What is within your control, and manageable, that would improve your quality of life or that of those around you?
Give it a think. Start small…
if you’d like a free, no obligation consultation to help identify where to start, contact me below or at rduclosel@gmail.com. I’d be glad to hear from you.
So here’s to a constructive 2025!