Making Time Count: Intentional Living for Success

Transcript

Introduction: Time Flies

Speaker 1 0:01

Hello there , this is Living your Success 24-7 , with Michael Caine in the house . Hey , oh , anyway , how are you doing today ? How's this week Going by fast ? This year 2025 , wow , it's just lightning speed going forward . That said , let's jump right into it . It's gonna do a little freestyle here . As far as we chat whatever's on our mind , I , I want to talk about this year speeding by .

Speaker 1 0:39

So the concept I want to talk about is time . How , how are you using your time ? You know , I was thinking , my God , the older you get each year , each half a year , getting older , start thinking man , tomorrow's not promised the time . How much time do we have ? How much time do we use ? How much time do we waste ? And you say what does that have to do about making money or being successful and being content ? A lot how you use your time . You use it unwisely or wisely . And it's good to have fun . Without fun , entertainment , vacations and celebrations , life would be really dull , wouldn't you ? Don't you think so ? We have to have that . Then there's the flip side of that coin called working . You know what I mean ? Working for the man I'll be gender neutral working for the person , okay . So how do you utilize your time . And then part B is that to move you to the result of being successful as you define it .

Speaker 1 1:55

Keep in mind everybody's definition of success is different . Some people can be content with working four hours a day , part-time , making just enough , and they're happy . And other people go to the other extreme workaholic , work 80 , 90 , 100 hours a week , get paid a lot of money to do that , but you may not be content , may not be joyful inside . Some people may . So you have to tailor this discussion about time which leads to purpose , to leads to goals . You have to make it your own , and I spent confession time .

Speaker 1 2:52

I spent many years doing something I probably really didn't want to do and so , but floating in the wind . I wrote a chapter in my book , slaying your Dragons Living the Life you Always Wanted , about being a feather . You know feathers , so light it goes . If it blows north , it goes north . If it blows west , east , south , any direction the wind blows , is that you Okay ? Maybe doing something is better than doing nothing , and sometimes the opposite is true .

Speaker 1 3:31

Doing something or not doing something Depends on what that something is right . If it's detrimental to you , then you don't want to do that at all , whatever that is , any vices . You know what I mean . I don't wanna do that at all . Whatever that is , any vices , you know what I mean .

Speaker 1 3:46

So what do we do after we come out of the womb ? Too bad , we don't have a game plan , then right , wouldn't that be neat . You're born , you just pop out and you got your plan ready to go . This is , in a way , we do have that . It's called our parents In their mind ,

Time & Purpose: How We Define Success

Speaker 1 4:11

goodly or badly in their mind . I got a blueprint ready for my child what I or we expect of he or she . We actually do , informal or formal . We got it , we got it , and so we have to ultimately charter on course .

Speaker 1 4:45

Now , that may be very difficult in culturally oriented families . I'm being polite . You know some ethnically . You're expected to be the doctor . You're expected to do this . Excuse me . You're expected to do this , excuse me . Expected to hold your T and 1 in the left hand , pinky up . You're expected to get married to this type of person . You're expected to go to this school . You're expected to wear these clothes . Go to this place of worship . You're on and on and on .

Speaker 1 5:37

Folks got their mindset , well-intended and well-meaning folks , but it may not be you , it ain't you ? Now , obviously , when you're five , six , seven , eight , nine , even three years old , you don't have too much say so . And they're not asking you your opinion , are they ? And that may be wise too , not relying on the wisdom of a four-year-old . I don't know how that will work out . Maybe you're a genius , I don't know . I don't know how that will work out . Maybe you're a genius , I don't know .

Speaker 1 6:22

But so at some point you have to stop and say am I going in the right direction with my time and what I'm emphasizing , what I'm focused on , and that's a yes or a no . Now , some folks don't do yes or no , they just again float in the wind . And this is no condemnation , but I'm just being straight up that you just still have no idea . And that could be a problem because you get older , if you waste a lot of time . But it's not an easy situation to break away from well-meaning folks called your parents or guardian or coach or , you know , mentor , to break away from all the teachings they've taught you the majority of your life , for a significant amount of your life .

Speaker 1 7:17

So may be difficult to say I gotta go my own way . That could hurt , yeah , it could so , but at the same time , do you really want to spend 40 years doing something you don't want to do , not inclined to do ? Where's your time ? Where are you in time ? We can't go back in a spaceship , that time machine . I tried , I tried . I can't try to get in that time machine , but it wouldn't work , it wouldn't take me back the time sheening of your mind .

Speaker 1 7:59

We can go and live in the past and regret . That's not nice either , is it ? That's another waste of time . But it's good to reflect . You need to reflect on the history and the past because you want to be remember that expression doomed to repeat it . So you got to be honest with yourself . But a lot of people don't want to be honest because it's painful , painful memories that people didn't get you , they didn't understand you , and I'm guilty on both sides of that . I'm guilty as a victim myself to some extent , and then also the perpetrator imposing the will on children . I have children Saying you really need to do this ? Well , no , maybe , maybe not .

Speaker 1 8:46

Now there's certain core things I believe you should do , like if you want to be financially independent , you need to make money . I mean legally , that's my opinion , legal money , right , stay out of prison , right . Right , get out and stay out of prison Right . And financial resources that will buy other resources like have clothes , a home and food . How about that ? Do you need a home ? Do you need clothes ? Do you need food , water you don't need soda , you don't need water . So those are necessities . Remember that pyramid Hierarchy of needs Right , the bottom is shelter , clothes , food and water . So you have to do certain things in order to survive .

Speaker 1 9:38

Now the big question mark is what are those things that will cause that'll able me to be happy and joyful but survive economically speaking ? So , no more useless degrees in college , please , you know , please , something that is impossible to never , ever , ever make money from .

Breaking Away from Others' Expectations

Speaker 1 10:07

Don't do that . Don't do that . Money's gone , school's not giving it back , you're not getting a job in it , so it's over .

Speaker 1 10:15

Regret , regret . I have regret in certain things , a lot of things , but I want to be the best version of michael cain . I can be here to express and be the best version of yourself . That means stop doing the stupid . So I decide , michael , do it again . No , stop doing the stupid . Cost me money . Cost that other one . Cost me three3,000 . That cost me $2,000 , 500 . How about $50,000 ? $50,000, ? Yeah , one of those stupids and didn't reason it out .

Speaker 1 10:50

Maybe talk to someone that you trust to give you advice , but it's still your decision , or whatever decision that is reflecting on how you're allocating your time and purpose and direction in life . So the sooner the better in answering basic questions of who you are , who am I ? Because if you don't know that fundamentally and have that value system tied to that , you could be all over the place . All over the place Wasting more time . Can't get time back , just can't Time in a bottle , jim Croce , time is in a bottle . Once it's in a bottle , it ain't coming back out .

Speaker 1 11:39

So you have to decide what's my focus ? What's my thing ? You ain't got a thing . Something , what's your time ? So I'm doing my best to remember this song and I just not going to do it . Ok , so we could be exacerbated and just say , oh , I give up , I don't know what I'm going to do every day . I don't know , I hate what I do . Yes , I hate that .

Speaker 1 12:19

Remember , if you create a void in your life , you have to replace it with something . So don't make , you shouldn't make . I recommend you don't make rash decisions , and just without thinking it fully through Meditating on it and having a two columns , the . You know the positives and the minuses . What's the good stuff that can happen if I make this decision ? What's the negative ? Things can happen and be brutal , because life will be brutal to you . Because life will be brutal to you . Nothing will give you a way out to be nice . Life can be rough , folks . It can be rough , but it's not impossible .

Speaker 1 13:11

And one other thing I suggest to be successful , this show is living your success , not dead your success . It only works if you're living . You're not living just to give someone else an inheritance or alimony or take care of them when you're dead . I hope your life is more than that . You don't want to just be that's what you defined as okay but you want to really have a directed life , an intentional life , tethered to the time . You know , just like if you're at work and your boss says okay , I need you to do this proposal . I need you to sweep this floor whatever . I need you to do this proposal . I need you to sweep this floor whatever . I need you to do it in one hour . See , when you have a deadline on something , it kind of has a different dynamic . In fact , I just had that recently and I thought I had . I did have my thought . I knew I had next week on this project . I knew I had next week on this project and so then got a communication saying , well , if you could really get it done this week instead of next week , well , really . So that shifted my horizon there and my speed , and I got it done . I got it done .

Speaker 1 14:36

Sometimes you may have to tell people we agreed on this date and time , this date and time , and I'll see what I can do . Don't be taken advantage of as a fool either , because people will do that , take advantage of you , unfortunately . Just expect it . You just don't know who it is . But stand up for yourself . Be strong . Bounce back up , you will fail , you will fall . Be strong . Bounce back up , you will fail , you will fall . Be resilient . Bounce back up . You may hear a thousand no's and it's that one thousand . One time you'll hear yes , and so a lot of times it is a numbers game or whatever it is , but you got to go back to square one . Okay , if life is a game , you're on square one . Who am I ? You know , and how much time do I have now , in the big sense of time . We don't know .

Speaker 1 15:32

We can live to be a hundred and a years old , 110 , 80 years old , 90 people live and not unlive . Okay , I don't know if that's an expression , Maybe you can quote me . Unlive I'm not predicting the zombie apocalypse when I say they're the . When they say the undead , they're the unlived .

Hierarchy of Needs & Making Wise Choices

Speaker 1 15:55

But unlived mean you didn't live your life according to your rules . Now , you won't always be able to do that as age appropriate . We're not asking a five-year-old oh , you want to smoke or drink bourbon ? We're not going there with that . So some things is just not appropriate . So don't get bent out of shape Now . Even when you're 18 years old , yeah , legally you're an adult , but you don't have .

Speaker 1 16:24

You know there's something still missing and that's experience life , anticipating what could go wrong . We don't have that sophistication system built in for the most part , and so not that you should hang on everyone else's word or mindset , but give yourself time to especially those on the younger side time to absorb life and don't rush it . You know you got people rushing to make decisions , doing this , getting married , doing this and doing all kinds of stuff they shouldn't be doing , and a lot of those things lead you to regret and resentment . This isn't a marriage or a couple relationships show , but in a way I do have to cover those things because it positively or negatively impacts your success on many levels , from the emotional joy to the financial sustainability of your lifestyle . So it has everywhere in there . It's intertwined .

Speaker 1 17:45

So who am I ? What am I going to do with my time today ? And let's say you have the big picture of what I'm going to do with your life . You can say you get a degree , or you get experience or skilled in something it could be plumbing , or it could be a doctor , in something it could be plumbing , or it could be a doctor , it could be a race car driver , a musician or whoever whatever writer , filmmaker , musician , whatever . And you still have to say , well , how am I going to best use my time and with whom ?

Speaker 1 18:16

You know you have friends that maybe you grew up with , let's say four or five of you , and you've got stuff to do . Let's say you're in a relationship , now you're married and maybe you have children . You can't do the same things you did when you're all single . Okay , you get together , have some friend time you know every so often and time with whatever significant other you have , and definitely your children . Don't be an absentee parent , long-distance parent , stuff that's kind of bad and crappy , but I want to be successful . That's my declaration . I want to be successful . Okay , that's very generic . So what does that mean to me ? So please write it down .

Speaker 1 19:13

As far as I'm going to spend my time on learning the guitar , because I want to play the guitar as a hobby , or I'm going to play it as a professional musician one day , those two pathways may dictate the intensity and the time you use or take to learn how to play the guitar , or maybe the same . Maybe you're intense in your hobby and you have the time , like me , I , you know I want to learn how to play the guitar . I really do , even if it's basic , just so I can just join in a jam session or someone say , hey , to get your guitar , let's play a few songs or something . I just want to play the guitar too , and I want to possibly do when I were into filmmaking or something like that more writing . So I have some goals and those goals can shift and change depending on the season of life , because when you're 10 years old , you got five years old , you're hey , I just want some candy . Just give me some candy , leave me alone , let me watch cartoons .

Speaker 1 20:30

Then you get 15 , you're a teenager , get serious , you know , you want to go out and hang out with your friends and get into trouble , possibly . And then you're 20 , 21 , 22, . You start saying , man , I want to be successful , I need some money , what am I going to do with my life ? You know , go to college , go to vacation , school , whatever . Then 25 , 30 , okay , you want to settle down maybe at that point , so you can't be at the bar and the pub with your buddies every day anymore .

Speaker 1 21:06

If you want to be alone , not have anyone , that's the way to do it , and that may be an option too Bachelor bachelorettes , you know and that's fine . There's no right or wrong . When you're the one making the decision . It's like just be careful what you ask for . That's all I told someone earlier . Be careful , you may just get it . And if you get it , you say , oh , dang it , what the heck did I do ? Sometimes we do that and then we regroup . Just make sure it's not a major poor decision , because those take longer to

Building an Intentional Life

Speaker 1 21:40

clean up , like when you have to file bankruptcy because you spent all your money up unwisely or trusted someone wisely , trusted them and had reason to , and they messed you over , stole all , took all your money , took all the family money and blew it up . And so things happen to good people Unintended consequences , stuff happens . Had it done to me . So I'm still striving .

Speaker 1 22:12

No matter what level of success you are today , you know you may want to go up another level , meaning more joy or more money , or both . Say hey , okay , I'm making $100,000 . I want to make $500,000 . So more tenacity , more grinding and building , and that's okay . Some of you may be content with only $50,000 a year and that's your definition of success I'm happy and I'm making $50,000 . I'm fine , okay . And so some of you are so driven you want to be billionaires .

Speaker 1 22:54

A lot of people want to be millionaires . Not everyone wants to be a billionaire . It's important that you know what you're going to and it all goes back to time . What you spend your time on is the most important thing you can do , because that impacts affects where you go from there If you go left right up down backwards as far as your level of success . So repeat after me I plan to be successful .

Speaker 1 23:27

I plan to be financially successful , not necessarily a millionaire , billionaire , but content sufficient . I can get on a plane and go to Disney World any moment , or Rich Carlton in New York . Get on the plane today and go . I want to have that kind of money where I can be reasonably well off , not rich per se , but just where you can periodically do stuff like that , which would be insane and crazy if you're like broke all the time or don't have sufficient funds . Insane and crazy if you're like broke all the time or don't have sufficient funds .

Speaker 1 24:10

Okay , or you're tethered to some kind of reality at this point like a bunch of kids and significant other . I'm not saying that's a bad thing because I have that . Just be planned on it . No oops and no mistakes . Oops , I didn't know . Yes , you did . What do you think was going to happen ? You know doing something and there's a consequence . Consequence could be good or bad . So don't say you don't know . Okay , so choose wisely , my friends . Choose wisely , so work on . You should have a uh , a journal or whatever . It is a tracking mechanism to track every day .

Speaker 1 24:46

What did I do to get closer to success Like ? One thing I'm going to put is to do this podcast with the goal of uplifting someone's life , at least one . At least one person can benefit from this . I hope thousands can , tens of thousands , it'd be a million . One day I would love to get to a million people to say Michael Caine impacted my life a million people . That's one of my goals . Is it realistic ? Maybe not , but it's one of the goals .

Speaker 1 25:33

Not to just brag Of course there would be bragging rights , but in my heart I said I really touched a lot of people in my life and I feel some way that can kind of help me move beyond some of those failures that shouldn't have been failures or unwise things done that shouldn't have been done . But again , you move on , and so it could be called redemption , whatever you want . That's fair . So it could be called redemption whatever you want . That's fair . And to impact the lives of many people . That's what I want to do . That's in person as well as digitally , you know , through various media , and so I want to .

Speaker 1 26:27

Also , my definition of success , too , is to be happy , to have joy , wake up with joy on so many levels . I'm not necessarily talking about spiritual here , but that's fine too . I do want to be in tune with my spirit and to be content and be a good heart , good spirit . And so I want to be healthy , a big one , because without health you could be just dead and not alive to reap the benefits of your toils and struggles . So I want to be healthy . I don't want to have diabetes . I'm borderline that . So I'm touching fate here . So I got to do better .

Speaker 1 27:16

I know I fell off the wagon of eating some junk stuff so I said , okay , I'm going to cut half of that and then 75% of that out Progressively , so I'm working . So I said no today to chocolate and some candies . I was proud of myself . Nope , Right there in front of me Sweating me , oh boy . I said , okay , move on , I'm going to do no chocolate , cookies and this and that , because that's not good for me .

Speaker 1 27:52

So , whatever you want to be

Balancing Relationships & Success Goals

Speaker 1 27:54

preventive , preventive , have preventiveness . You want to be catching up , trying to , you know , catch up with your good health , because you're doing something you know not so smart , with your what you drink and what you eat . And so having good health , excellent health , where I can be well into the 70s , 80s and be mobile and walk around Europe in my 50s , right . And so you say , wow , okay , mike , I didn't know you were like that old Really Well , compared to being 120 , maybe I'll be 120 .

Speaker 1 28:35

Okay , if you have a quality of life and there's people here that you know that , live it . That may not be a bad idea . But anyway , people here that you know that , live it may not be a bad idea . But anyway , define and define it like you're looking encyclopedia of your mind what is success to me and what am I going to ? These activities to help me to get to reach the success I always wanted ? So that's your homework . What is it ? See , a lot of people think they know , but then again they're floating in the wind again , doing this on Monday , doing that on Wednesday , doing that on Friday , saturday , something else and no full commitment .

Speaker 1 29:30

Let me tell you about the word multitasking . It can stop you , hinder you and destroy your time and your efforts to reach your primary goals . Focus on what matters . See , a lot of people focus on being busy but not doing what they need to do and doing the right thing . I've been guilty of that . Raise my hand . So you don't want to just be busy and just spending time , which is really just wasting time . So be intentional and pick those things You're going to spend your time , and remember , time waits , for no person Is moving . So where are you going to be by June of this year , by September of this year , by December of this year ? So it was important that you figured all that out Again . The answers may not come all at once today , but you need to be spending time , turn the TV off , stop talking and getting to a zone where you can think about all this .

Speaker 1 30:26

So , that said , I appreciate each and every one of you , wherever you are located in this thing called planet earth . Thank you so much . Please subscribe and get the notifications so you know when new episodes come up . Please support my channel . I appreciate it . My website is living your success . Calm , michael Cain , get me on Amazon , apple . I heart Spotify and more so . Appreciate you . And until next time , my friends , until next time , good ball .