Nobody wants to live a conveyor belt life. Do not live by default. Live by design. But what
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does that mean? What is life design? That is what we're going to be talking about on today's
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episode. Welcome to the, What Could Go Right? podcast. I'm Emily Orton. And I am Erik Orton.
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In 2014 we bootstrapped a year on a fixer upper sailboat with our five kids. We lived on that
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sailboat for almost a year. And that just led to one adventure after the next and really strong
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resilient relationships with our family. So we are here to talk about personal growth,
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family connection, and now parenting adult kids. Thanks for joining us. So it feels like some
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people spend more time planning a wedding than planning a marriage. Or more time planning a
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vacation than getting clear on your values. Or maybe even more time planning your dream home
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than the dream life that you want to live. And so today we just want to talk about –we've had
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this question before –What is life design? We want to talk about what it is to live by design
1:06 What is a Conveyor Belt Life?
rather than by default. And maybe it will help if we start by talking about what we mean by default,
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or what we mean by the "conveyor belt" life. So how would you describe a conveyor belt
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life? Here's how I would describe it: For me, the way I was raised in North America,
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was you grow up. You go to public school. You go elementary, junior, high school/ High School.
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I went to public school. And after that, you graduate. You know, for us that I, you know,
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I went to college. And that was just sort of –most of the kids that I went to school with
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went to college– not all of them but most did. I took two years and went and did a church mission.
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And then came home. And then there was sort of a set of expectations, you know. And, I think,
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for a lot of people that might mean well, 'Oh, now, I in my family the conveyor belt is I go
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to grad school. Or, 'now I get married.' Or I go get a job. But I think each family, each culture,
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each country, each religion... Whatever. Whatever cultural current we find ourselves in, there's a
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conveyor belt. Yeah. For me it was including like, 'Oh, you want to you want to get get into good
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school so you can get a good job so you can get a you can buy a nice house. You can have a place,
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you know, get get married. Live with your kids. And then get a bigger house. And then get a bigger
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house. And however more successful you get, you're just going to like up.. keep upgrading your stuff.
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And that is like the plan. And then... Yeah. You work until you're 65, 60 to 70 years old.
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And then you retire. And that's when you for, you know, if you're a guy, you do a lot of golfing. If
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you're a woman ,I don't know what you do. But... Yeah. Just kind of like these are the legends,
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cultural expectation, you know. And then you get really old you play Bingo. You go into a
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retirement center and eventually you die. And that's the end of the conveyor belt. Yeah. So
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that's, you know, that's a long description of I think something that each of us is going to have
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our own different version of it of –a conveyor about life. But that's that's one example. I like
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that you say that the conveyor belt is essentially when someone else is deciding what success looks
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like and what the meaning of life is and what you should be doing next and next and next and next in
3:26 Dangers of Living by Other People’s Expectations
your life. So what are, then, some of the dangers of living by other people's expectations or living
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by what we're calling for the today the conveyor belt, by default? I think there's a, there's a
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bunch. One is that it's just a drag. It can be...I mean there's a lot of satisfaction in doing these
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things that we just talked about. I think there's a lot of satisfaction in in getting an education,
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in, I think, in marriage. There can be in having a family and owning a home. All these things they're
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not bad. I don't want to say that they're bad. But I'm just saying that if if they're not what I want
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for myself and I'm just doing it out of a sense of obligation or duty to other people's expectations
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for me, it's going to be a drag. And so I think... And if I'm living my life for somebody else's
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hopes, dreams, expectations, then my satisfaction plummets. And I think when that happens,
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the worst case scenario is people act badly. We numb ourselves because we're like, 'Man. I'm doing
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all the right things but my life is miserable.' That's when I think we fall into the traps of,
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you know, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, you know all kinds of escapist behavior. It can be sexual
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addictions. It can be you know it can just be you know treating people poorly in relationships, you
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know, stonewalling, silent treatment. You know, in the workplace it can look like quiet quitting or,
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you know... And this is something that ends. This is something that you know, not to go dark, but it
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can... This is what I think leads to breaking up families. It can be infidelity. It can be
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divorce or both. Or and I think, ultimately, when somebody is really really dissatisfied with their
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life it ends in suicide. You know, that's like the worst and so... But when people are living really
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vibrant, beautiful, engaging life, something that they really believe in and are striving for,
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those problems fall away. But when we're not, all those ways of numbing and escaping come into play
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because we just can't, we can't stand it. That's not when we're designed as human beings to not
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be comfortable with that. I like what you said about those things can be good things if we know
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we're choosing them and we have our reasons for choosing them because I think, a lot of times,
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we go along on the quote-unquote "wisdom" of others so far. And I think this is why it's
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usually called the midlife crisis because you're like, 'I followed the plan. I did the school. I
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did the college. I got the job. I got the family. I got the house.' And around that time you're
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around the middle of your life. You're maybe in your 40s, late 30s. And you're looking around. And
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you realize just the having of these things does not bring happiness. You're like, 'How come nobody
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ever taught me like quality communication skills in a relationship? O,r you know, whatever else it
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might be. You suddenly realize, 'This didn't cause me to be happy.' And now you look back on the rest
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of your life. Your brain has develop to the point that you start thinking back on everybody else's
6:48 Your Power to Choose
motivations and why they were telling you things. And, 'Did I really have a decision here or was
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I just pulled along by the conveyor belt (or by the social current) that I was in?' And you start
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getting dissatisfied. You start to recognize your own mortality and say, 'Wait a second. I
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don't have to go on like this anymore.' And people are like, 'What just happened?' He like... Well,
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this person just realized that they get to make their own choices and now they're going to do
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it. They just woke up. They just woke up to this fact. And so if we can come to... The sooner we
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can come to this realization –that we actually get to make these choices– the better. So this is...
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I would say the benefits of Life Design really come into play. And it's never too late but it's
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also not really ever too early. So wherever you are, if you haven't thought about this before,
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if you don't already know what your values are, what you think the meaning of life is, or what
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will be satisfying, this is the perfect day. This is the perfect day to get started. Tada! So what
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do you say, Erik, are some of the, like... What is life design? What does that look like? And what
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are some of the benefits? I would say that life design, for us because this is something that we
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teach... And I think this question came because there's somebody that we're we're taking sailing
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and we said, 'We're not going to be doing any life design as part of this trip.' And they said,
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'I was trying," They're like, 'I was trying to tell my husband about this trip and how
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it doesn't include life design. He's like, What is life design?' So it's a it's a very fair real
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question. And it really is living by design rather than default. And your question is, What are the
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benefits of it? Yeah. What is it? And what are the benefits? And you take that in whatever order.
8:42 Life Design Is…
I would say what it is ,is figuring out what you want your life to look like independent of
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other people's expectations. And I'll cut to the bone here –independent of your spouse if you're
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married, independent of your kids, independent of your parents, independent of the.. your neighbors,
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your community, what... All the people that are around us in our lives. Independent of everybody
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else, what do we want our life to look like? And it can be really hard to get there. And we
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actually spend a lot of time with people helping them get the courage to sort of shed those those
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layers of expectation and really dig deep down to what their heart really says. It can be a
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challenge because as they're going into, 'What do I want?' They're thinking, 'Well, my wife wouldn't
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really like that so I won't say that thing. I'll say this thing. Or that wouldn't work for our
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current family situation so I'm not even going to put it out there.' It's like, 'It's fine. We'll
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get to the collaboration and the compromise later. But what is it that you actually want?' We like to
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do our coaching of personal growth but founded in those relationships. So move forward without
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a fear that we will attend to those later. But this is this starting in the space, 'What is it,
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if nobody else's opinion mattered? What is it that you really feel in your heart you want?' So,
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it's one, getting through to those foundational aspirations for...that we have for ourselves. And
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I think it's like you said, it's also disregarding our current circumstances. Because if we want our
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life to look like our ideal version it's going to have a lot of different elements than what it
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currently has. And so we set a set-aside things like how much it's going to cost or how long it
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will take or where it's going to happen. We set... And we set aside... Or whether or not we believe
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it's possible. Or the probability of it happening. Exactly. And so when we set all those things aside
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we end up, If we're honest, we come up with things that feel really impossible. Things that
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just feel massively unrealistic and that's where it gets exciting. Because I can attest to you that
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when you get there it... When you start, it feels impossible. It feels crazy. It feels irresponsible
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sometimes. And yet... And then there's a process of that we that we teach that breaks it down to
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start moving something from that impossible to the inevitable. And and it's crazy to me to how many
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times it's happened in our lives but then also to see happen in our clients lives. But you're
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asking is, 'What are the benefits of it?' Sure. I think you did a good job explaining what it is.
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It's first figuring out what you want. And then there are multiple steps and sub-menus for how
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we overcome fear and pitfalls. And set up habits and ways of thinking and and managing fear as it
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creeps in every different format. And like getting into the current –on purpose– that will take you
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where you want to go. So all that we do in our coaching. But when now we want to talk about,
12:02 Life Design = More Confidence
yeah, what are... I mean imagine for yourself, what do you think the benefits would be of
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actually knowing where you're going? And actually who you want to become? And what you truly value?
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What are the some of the benefits there? Here been the benefits in my life and then I can share
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a couple of of people that we've worked wit. One is it's first it's made me happier. It's made me
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just... I've enjoyed my... I enjoy my life more. I feel like I enjoy being in my life more with you,
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with our kids, with the work that I do. And so it's just made me happier as a person.
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It's also made me exponentially more confident. Confident in the sense of I have skills. I have
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credibility. And I also have calm because I feel like my ability to deal with uncertainty. As you
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pursue seemingly impossible things you delve into a lot of uncertainty. And as you overcome obstacle
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after obstacle after obstacle, your confidence soares. That's been my experience. And then I
13:09 Life Design = Better Health
would also say that it's made me healthier. That's true. Because it's so stressful. Like, when I was
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working in jobs that I hated or just living in a rhythm of life that was not what I wanted, stress
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was ever present. Chronic. It was chronic. I didn't sleep well. My body felt heavy and unhealthy. And
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now I feel I have energy. Mhm. I feel buoyant in my body. And I'm able to do things that I wasn't
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able to do 10, 15, 20 years ago. Yeah. And I don't want to like go too far into this but having been
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with you through all of this, I saw you gain 30-40 pounds. I saw you... your immune system break
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down. And you had like welts and hives all over your body every day. I saw you come home early in
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fear and sweat with heart palpitations. And think like, 'Am I dying?' Like, things... Sometimes
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things were pretty extreme. And you also had like this massive chronic pain in your back. Yeah. And
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as we started like moving away from some of those other things, your immune system just popped right
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back into place. Your weight dropped off. Your back pain went away. When we started living in
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a rhythm and in a way that was of more of our choosing... And I guess I also want to say here,
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okay. I'll finish the thought. The more of our choosing and, yeah, it made you so much happier
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in your own life. That was the first benefit. It made you show up as a different kind of partner in
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our marriage and with more encouragement for me to also find those things for myself. And also more
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present and engaged as a dad. Always a good dad. Thank you. But just saying like a happier dad,
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right? Like, as a parent, you give, give, give. And when you're full, you're so happy to give,
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right? So that is true. That was super helpful in our whole family. And I would say, for me,
15:17 Life Design = Empowering
living by design, it takes away all of the structure of being able to blame other people. And
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it helps me come to solutions really quick because I'm like, 'Well, I can't blame them. I'm making
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these decisions. Or what do I want to do in this situation?' And it helps me just come right back
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to the source of power which is going to be the decisions I'm going to make. Yes, I might consult
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with other people as I make those decisions. I'm a faith woman. I always will try to consult with
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God. But I know that the decision and the action rests with me. And whereas before I used to spend
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a lot of energy either blaming other people or worrying about what might happen. And I don't
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spend energy on that so much anymore. I do want to say that, obviously, we don't always have control
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over the circumstances. I love that you said it helped you face uncertainty better because, you
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know, yes we want to say, 'Here's my aim. Here's who I want to be. Here's the kind of life I want
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to live. Here's what matters to me most. And now that it's clear and I know what it is.' As those
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obstacles come up and those circumstances change, right, you can't control the circumstances,
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which is why we teach what we call "navigating." The Navigator Framework because you always get
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to choose how you're going to respond to those situations when they're not in your control or in
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your influence. You're like, 'Well I'm choosing this. Can I just ..? It's powerful. You just
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feel better. It's it's nothing of the race to the bottom–who's the most victimized? It's like well,
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for me, in my life, I'm the one who gets to make decisions. And it comes back to me. So it's a very
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short line to walk as you try to figure out what's going to happen next. I'll throw out two ideas.
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One's really quick. I got a sticker this week that says, 'The waves are going to keep coming
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but you can learn to surf." And so that's kind of like the Navigator Framework –like super short.
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Yeah. Navigating is like a boat and you're going to cross long distances. But just like, you know,
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waves are going to keep coming on the beach of our lives and we can just get kind of like tossed by
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them or we can learn to surf. And I'd much rather learn how to surf. And I feel like that's actually
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what life design is. Like saying, 'This is what's happening. What am I going to do with it?' Yeah.
17:43 Life Design = More Wealth
Exactly. So there's that. And I would say one other benefit that I had never really expected
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of... life of benefit of life design is more wealth. I had not thought that going off and
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sailing for a year as a family was going to teach me how to make more money but it did. Now we,
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you know, we didn't have a lot of money when we went on that trip. But when we came home, I had
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a new kind of confidence. That and an openness to the world that let me go into different lines of
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work, different kinds of work that I never would have considered before. And was able to five X my
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income which was crazy to me. For us, we consider you know money to be the poorest form of wealth,
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right. It increased our health, improved our relationships, and gave us something even more
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valuable than money. Right. Time. All of it. Yeah, all of the things, everything you're
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saying is true. And so but just because I know that so often the stumbling block is money like,
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'Oh, I don't want to go do this or that or the other because I'm afraid that it's going to ruin
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us financially or it's just an irresponsible financial decision.' I never expected that
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engaging in this process of living deliberately in life design was actually going to teach me
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how to earn... add more value and therefore earn larger sums of money. And it's it's like magic
19:23 Write Your Answers
to me. And and so... We want this magic for you. Please, please, please write down. This,
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you know, answering this question, What kind of life do you really want to live? What do you
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really value? What matters most to you? What is in first place? What if you get to the end
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of your life and you haven't become or done or contributed or built or whatever it is... What
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things... What is that going to be that would make you so sad if you hadn't hadn't at least tried for
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those things? Because even the trying is so so empowering. Anyway, we hope that you really will
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take a moment to write it down because it's four times more likely that you're actually going to
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do it if you just take a second to write it down. That's a that's a real stat that. And no, it is.
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It is. I have...and anyway. But it does feel like magic. It's crazy. We've been doing this for over
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10 years now. And you're just like, 'Well, I wrote it down and now it's happening.' It's true. It is
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wild. Anyway what we always like to ask is, What could go right? So take that question with you,
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What could go right? Think about what kind of life you want to live and then work backwards
20:35 Let’s Talk
from there. And stay tuned. Stay tuned for more. We'll be here for you. Hey, there. It's Erik. If
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you haven't already you should really go sign up for one of our free Discovery calls. Have you ever
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asked the question what if? Or wouldn't it be cool if? If you're like me and a lot of people,
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you answer that question but kind of in a limited way. You don't really let yourself go there. And
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so what I love to do is get on a call with you and help you get past some of your limiting thoughts,
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limiting beliefs and answer that question as boldly and beautifully as your imagination will
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allow. They're fun. They're free. They're painless. All you got to do is go to the
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awesomefactory.nyc/discovery Pick a time slot that works with you. And we spend a few minutes
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and help you go to an amazing place and help you discover what's possible in your life.
