How to live
A Extraordinary Life
How to Live an Extraordinary Life | Melanie Weinberger | TEDxKlagenfurt
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[Music]
[Applause]
you are all here today because you have
a suspicion you have the idea that you
are capable of creating something
extraordinary of living an extraordinary
life and you're right you are and my
question to you is what does it mean to
be extraordinary when we think of people
who've lived extraordinary lives who've
given an extraordinary contribution to
the world you've changed the world maybe
we think of Elon Musk or Oprah Winfrey
or Mark Zuckerberg but what we're not
thinking about is what it's like to
actually be those people to be the
Creator to live their daily lives and if
you look up Elon Musk you'll see that he
talks about suffering from chronic
depression and he's not alone a third of
the world's entrepreneurs suffer from
extreme anxiety and stress and some
studies even show that half of them
suffer from this which means that being
an extraordinary creator a daily basis
doesn't feel good
so am i offering to you my suggestion is
that instead of waiting to be happy
instead of looking at what can I give to
the external world and then I'll be
extraordinary let's look at our inner
world let's create an extraordinary life
from the inside out
now when I started my entrepreneurial
journey I didn't know that and I wanted
to be a crazy successful entrepreneur
and build a company that made millions
of dollars have a hockey-stick startup
curve get on the cover of Forbes
magazine I also wanted to help people
and I started a corporate wellness
business and what we did was bring yoga
classes meditation and really
progressive education into the workforce
with the idea that we could bring work
back to life because as I saw it when
people went to work they sort of put
their lives on
hold and stop living you ever say to
yourself oh when I get home from work
I'll work out or I'll start that project
this weekend and then you don't do it
right so I aim to change that I aim to
change the world and I was going to do
anything to make it happen
and I did so as the founder of a
start-up you're sort of chief everything
officer so I was head of sales and my
buyer was Human Resources I went to
maybe a hundred meetings talking to
Human Resources teams telling them about
what we're offering and what they were
interested in their definition of
well-being was being as thin as possible
and if her people aren't overweight then
they're well and I was blown away by
this what it also meant from a business
perspective is that they weren't buying
right so my goal of being wildly
successful wasn't happening but I wasn't
going to take no for an answer so I did
whatever it took I launched a conference
so we could change the definition of the
marketplace of what it means to be well
I cold called businesses I knocked on
doors introduced myself some people
welcomed to me some people were like get
out whatever it took and the more I did
and did and did and did the less and
less and less I was feeling happy and
the less and less and less we made money
and I spun into a constant phase of
anxiety and eventually depression trying
to change the world so how do we build
an extraordinary world from the inside
out where do we begin
what is that the cool thing is I
discovered that there's a parallel
between building and extraordinary
business and building an extraordinary
life and it's a three-part framework and
if you follow along with me you'll leave
here knowing that on a daily basis you
are being extraordinary so I'm from I
live in Austin Texas and I joined a
startup accelerator program which is an
organization that helps startups get off
the ground and I sat in a class one day
with a brilliant teacher named Gordon
Doherty and Gordon was talking
how brilliant companies make really hard
decisions and what they use to do this
is something called their core values so
really great companies have a set of
core values and whenever they're faced
with should we do this or should we do
this they bump it up against their core
values it's kind of like their backbone
and if it hurts two or more of their
values they don't do it well it's the
same thing for a person you can discover
what your core values are and knowing
these you will not sacrifice what
fulfillment is to you what your
ingredients are for happiness and the
way you discover your core values is
first by asking yourself what do I want
so imagine you have a piece of paper and
you fold it in half and the left side
make a list of all the things you want I
want to be successful I want a family I
want a lot of friends a lot of money and
then on the right side make a list of
why you want those things and it's in
that list that you'll find your core
values now at the time I hadn't done the
work so I didn't know mine but I can
tell you now my core values include
feeling safe having fun
extraordinary health adventure freedom
but I was so focused on changing the
world I was living out here I wasn't
living from in here and so I was
sacrificing those things feeling safe
when I say I did whatever it took I
leveraged everything I had to be
successful I liquidated my savings
account my 401k I woke up one day and I
had a $15.00 on my checking account and
14 dollars in my savings account can you
imagine that and I still wouldn't let go
have fun every day I woke up I'm behind
we're not making enough money I'm late
I'm not successful yet no fun no fun for
me and then health well if you're living
in a constant state of anxiety here's
what it does to the body first of all
your thinking gets kind of funny
right so I'm gonna tell you about two
kinds of brain waves there's more than
two but I'm gonna focus on two one is
alpha brainwaves they kind of look like
this nice and steady
and an alpha brain you're calm you're
creative life's good
you're rational you're empathetic but
when you're anxious you are in beta
brain beta brainwaves some people call
this monkey break it looks way more
erratic and in beta brain I'm late I'm
not doing well we're going to fail I
don't know the answer and beta brain is
dangerous for entrepreneurs or big
creators because you actually can't be
creative you run in this constant
default loop if I'm not good enough I'm
not smart enough and you come up with
the same solutions over and over and
over and the same solutions don't net
new innovation right so it's your enemy
so you can't be creative next thing that
happens when you're sitting in anxiety
and you're in beta brain is your breath
starts to follow your body thinks this
fear is very very real these thoughts
are very very real failure is imminent
and you start breathing from here up
really shallow breathing using only 1/3
of your lung capacity you might not even
notice you've been doing it so you're
starving yourself from oxygen and then
your heart follows so very similar to
your brainwaves happy heart looks like
this and there's a metric developed by
an institute called heart math Institute
called heart rate variability and it's a
measure of stress and when you're in
that anxious state starts to get erratic
and when you're in that anxious State on
a daily basis
that's where chronic illness starts to
be born that's a constant state of
dis-ease and so what's worth it
what is worth working on every day if
that's possible the second part of this
framework is that you get to discover
your life's mission every great company
has a mission right a mission statement
of what we're going to chain
what we're going to do what's our big
why and you get one too and the cool
thing about mission is that it gets to
feel amazing and it's your truth the
only way you get this part wrong is if
you lie to yourself so the formula for
your life's mission is your passion
times your purpose so your passion is
when you feel most alive in the world
what is the thing that you do that you
love doing so much that you would pay to
do it
it could be dancing it could be playing
chess it could be writing code it could
be writing stories it could be teaching
and your purpose is if I could make the
world 1% different if when I was gone
this thing moved a little to the right I
would be happy that was worth it that's
your purpose my passion is teaching and
speaking and my purpose is to help
people make this distinction that by
building our inner world that's what
makes an extraordinary life so right now
I know that I'm on mission which is
awesome and you can have that too the
third part of this framework to living
an extraordinary life from within is
building a beautiful vision for how it
all comes to life so the first part the
beautiful vision is the tactical
expression of your mission so based on
my mission well I could become a
professor and I can teach classes on
building your inner world on mastering
and extraordinary experience I could
give a TEDx talk right there are a lot
of different ways that can come to life
and you might be asking well Mel how
could I create a beautiful vision and
not be thinking about the external world
at the same time you get two you get two
but the trick is not to attach to the
outcomes right create the beautiful
vision see it
but sit in the state of being instead of
the state of doing and to go back to my
first venture in my state of depression
you might be wondering how that ended
well I got I got the vision at my lowest
low I made the discovery
I mean I sat there thinking I must be
missing something that I don't even know
I don't know I think I'm pretty smart
I'm working so hard how could this be
happening to me and I read this book
called the power of now by Eckhart Tolle
and I realized that I was waiting to be
happy like dangling a carrot when the
company makes millions of dollars that's
when I'm successful when the growth
curve looks exponential that's when I
can be happy but actually I could be
happy right now and happiness and
fulfillment is an inside game and once I
figured that out I was like I have to
tell everybody everybody needs to know
this I I can't think of anything else
more important and so I created an event
about happiness I invited all the
companies I could think of in the city
of Austin Texas and I told them well
maybe about three months later I am
sitting in my kitchen in my pink pajamas
and this seems to be when I get all my
most important phone calls when
whoo-whoo-whoo under my pajamas and the
phone rings and it's a woman and she
said hi I need three wellness programs
for three different buildings in Texas
and went quarterly talks I want your
most progressive education I was like oh
my god yes yes yes who is it it's Google
every sort of stream right the customer
the logo I was through the moon emailed
my mentors called my parents we made it
and then the funniest thing happened a
week later week and a half later I woke
up
and I looked in the mirror and I was
still me my pink pyjamas were still the
same still woke up alone in my apartment
and I started to get mad wait a minute
where's the red carpet Google is my
customer why am I not on the cover of
Forbes why haven't I floated up to the
startup castle in the sky yet and the
twist of the story has a name it's
called hedonic adaptation and it's this
funny phenomenon with humans where when
something really good happens you get
happy but that happiness only lasts
about two weeks and then you adjust to
it the good thing is though if something
bad happens same effect so if you lose
your job or get a pay cut in about two
weeks you just do it and life goes back
to normal but within that paradox is the
reason that you can't invest what it
feels like to be alive in waiting for
certain milestones so the second part of
vision is not just how you accomplish
the mission but it's envisioning how it
feels to accomplish the mission
how it feels to be the Creator on a
daily basis that's the magic that's the
magic of living an extraordinary life
the feeling and if you ensure that you
hold up your core values you wake up and
remember your mission and you choose to
feel extraordinary you choose to feel
peaceful you choose to practice feeling
resilient that is how you live an
extraordinary life
so remember the most important business
you will ever build is yourself thank
you
[Applause]
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