Guest Blogger Shaun McCloskey: How to be Rich in LIFE…

Shaun McCloskey and Steve Cook are the founders of the Lifeonaire Movement, a philosophy that, if I had my way, EVERY real estate investor would be made to study. Shaun is my guest on tonight’s Real Life Real Estate; listen in at 5 pm eastern at www.RealLifeRealEstate.com (click the “listen live” button) or catch the podcast there next week.

A Lifeonaire is someone who is full of life.

Many people equate living life to the fullest with their financial means to do so; they think that having more money will automatically enhance their lives.  At the root of a desire for money is actually the desire for what people think money will give them:  a greater quality of life.  That focus typically results in the opposite of the goal, causing people to funnel their energy into earning more money rather than living an incredible life.

When someone is very “successful” in their career and spending a lot of time making a lot of money, often times they never really get around to experiencing the fullness of life for which they are working so hard.  This is evidenced by the broken families, damaged friendships, forgotten hobbies and interests, crumbling marriages and troubled children that result from neglect – all because their primary focus is on being more financially successful.

The first step to becoming a Lifeonaire is to determine what you want your life to look like.  (Creating a Lifeonaire vision)  Believe it or not, 98% (or more) of people don’t know specifically what they want their lives to look like.  Most everyone says they do, but very few people have any amount of specificity to their answer, nor have they taken the time to put it in writing.  Instead, what they know is that they don’t like the way it currently is, and they mistakenly believe that more money will be the solution.  This first step is critical, since your Lifeonaire vision will become the foundation that subsequent actions will build upon.

Most people think of success this way:  Start a business, focus the majority of your time on making it grow financially, and then try to figure out how to live life in the time leftover (if there is any).  For a Lifeonaire, we do the exact opposite; we spend our primary time on what’s really important and then fit our business into the remaining time.  This means we must learn to design our businesses to serve the life we want to live, rather than serving our businesses, hoping that one day it will provide the freedom we so desire.

Many won’t admit that life didn’t quite turn out the they had hoped it would.  Instead, they present a facade of enjoying success, when deep inside they’re frustrated, tired and feel like failures.  Why are they frustrated?  Because they’ve been playing by all the rules our society dictates to achieve success.  The problem is, they’re playing the wrong game.

Entrepreneurs tend to be the worst culprits since most of them play the game of accumulating the most wealth, yet don’t have a life.  (Many of which are business owners, authors, national speakers, gurus, internet marketers, people you likely already know or have heard about…)  I have to get them to change the rules. We teach them to set themselves up to win by rewriting the rules they choose to live by.

I’ll let you in on a little secret… In the end, most discover that what they want is to experience life and relationships.  Currently their mindset is that it takes money to accomplish this, but as they explore it further they come to realize that it takes time, which is the one thing that most trade away in pursuit of money.

Here’s proof:  When we ask people to tell us the names of all the people they know personally (Notice I said personally, not someone you read a book about or heard about…) who are living the life according to the way they want to live, most people can’t name a single person.  Many don’t know anyone who lives the lifestyle they so strongly desire.  Some may be able to name a few friends or acquaintances  that have a lot of money, but very few can name people they know personally who are truly free in every sense of the word.  And yet, all of them are following the same recipe for success that everyone else around them is following.

The sad truth about the American Dream is that it is a sham.  It enslaves people.  They pursue it thinking that it is synonymous with life, but it results in trading away life to attain and maintain the dream.  We’ve sold ourselves (our time and our freedom) for this dream that has no power to give us the life we truly desire.  To truly live life to the fullest, we must replace the prison of debt with the lifestyle of prosperity through simplicity.

So in essence, a Lifeonaire event is about winning the game of life.  But in order to win the game, you must know not only consciously choose the game you wish to play, you must also write the rules.  Most people are playing someone else’s game entirely, following rules they never wrote or consciously agreed to in the first place.

Take back the game. And this time, win the right game.