Adults Are Nothing More Than Deteriorated Children

We were all artists before the world taught us to be adults.

Never lose the sparkle in your eyes and your sense of wonder about the things most people take for granted.
But…

…you can’t get there by following the crowd and seeking likes, playing with your “smart” phone and being a cyber zombie coasting through life chasing trivial things.

 No. You must live YOUR life. Break free of mental limits and societal dogma.
 You need to be a kid again. Curious and brave and foolish and fully alive. Willing to laugh and fail and fall flat on your face.

This is what my latest book The Wealth Money Can’t Buy is all about. Real wealth versus fake success. True winning versus spending your life climbing a mountain, only to find out at the end that it was the wrong one. You can order it now by clicking here.

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Transcript

How much fun are you having? How much adventure are you injecting into your days, weeks, months, and years? Here's what happens to most people. They had a portfolio of passions they used to have when they were younger. They used to love mountain biking. They used to love traveling. They used to love snowboarding. They used to love writing poetry. They used to love making pasta. They used to love hand gliding. And then they became adults. You know, adults are nothing more than deteriorated children. And so what I'm challenging you when you consider this form of wealth, adventure, is to make the return to the innocence you knew when you were a child and understood the magic of life. Are you doing the things that you used to do that filled you with joy? And obviously, if you used to love mountain biking and you're not doing it anymore, That's why you've lost some joy. If you used to take nature walks, but now you're so busy running your career and lifting your family and paying your bills that you no longer take those nature walks, well, then do that to bring some adventure back into your life. And related to that, let me shift to physics. There's a term called entropy. And to summarize entropy. Entropy is the phenomenon of any body over time to dissolve into disorder. How does that be relevant to you? Well it's simply this. As you leave the perfection of childhood, as you assume the responsibilities of adulthood, a certain disorder of passion starts to happen. A certain dissolving of that ability... to be adventurous starts to occur. We start to have a hardening of our joyfulness. We lose access to that wonder and curiosity that I'm speaking about. And so you want to fight entropy by injecting adventure into every single one of your weeks. If you take a certain route to work, maybe tomorrow take a different route to work to fight entropy and complacency. If you usually... eat at Italian restaurants, I love Italian food, maybe tonight take your family out or go by yourself or go with your friends to a Vietnamese restaurant. If usually you read leadership books, elite performance books, productivity books, books on innovation, biographies of great business builders, maybe read a poetry book, maybe read a spirituality book, maybe listen to an audio book from a physicist. or a yoga teacher.If usually you do spin class, maybe next week you're going to try Pilates. I don't know how you can inject more adventure into your life. What I do know is this. Psychologists and neurobiologists will confirm that the human brain craves novelty. And I will suggest to you as well that the human spirit is most on fire, not only when you serve, and not only when you capitalize on your inherent power, but when you have fun. Here's an idea to play with. Don't lose your ability to play. If you take yourself too seriously, no one will take you seriously. So yes, be responsible. Yes, be productive. Yes, be prolific. Yes, change the world, but do it also with a childlike sense of wonder. It makes me think of that famous image of AlbertEinstein.You've probably seen it. And his hair is all over the place and he's sticking out his tongue at the camera. Perfect example of a heavyweight, someone who changed the world with respect to his general theory of relativity. And yet at the same time, he didit with that childlike spark. I mean, I... I've read a fair amount about Albert Einstein's work style and his lifestyle. He used to just love to sail in Lake Zurich and he loved to have fun. So I'm encouraging you, yes, be an A-player. I'm also encouraging you measure your world-class life also by your sense of festivity, your sense of joy, your sense of aliveness. Be a little bit of a pirate. Yes, be serious, responsible, and an awesome human being, but be a little bit of a pirate, you know? Break the rules a little bit. Make sure you have some fun, and never lose that childlike access to the joy that is within you.