Recession-Proof Your Life, Live With Intention
Book Sample (Page 1)
Life has a funny way of working out, doesn’t it? Picture me at the age of 34, if you will. Married, two children, a landscaping and construction company that had taken out some of the most prestigious awards in Australia, and a seemingly endless source of revenue. Hospital exertion tests would later reveal that at the time I was in the top 5 % of the population for fitness. Not a great surprise, given that I race downhill mountain bikes, have been ranked as high as third in the Northern Territory for rock climbing and I live to play in the outdoors.
So there I was, sitting in the backyard, pushing the kids on a swing, when all of a sudden I felt the most intense pain of my entire life. I remember lying on the ground thinking, "This isn’t quite the way I had planned to check out… hope that ambulance gets here soon." Fifteen minutes later I was in the back of an ambulance on the way to hospital. It came as quite a surprise to learn that the heart attack was just my body’s way of warning me to make changes or get my affairs in order.
Of all the learnings I’ve ever encountered as a result of this life changing event, the ones I intend to share with you over the course of this book are easily the most profound. You see, I’ve spent my entire life studying one thing or another. I picked up four degrees along the way and to me, their greatest value is that I now use them to hide a dodgy plastering job in the study. All I learnt from tertiary study was that the best way to get good grades is to memorise the stuff in bold type (or underlined), and if your lecturer is at the pub, get them as drunk as possible and pick their brain.
The really good stuff has been around for literally thousands of years, and was utilised by everybody from Jesus to Einstein. And here’s the real clanger ― it’s oh so simple. Taking a close look at your life and applying some ancient knowledge that I intend to share with you is easy. It has to be easy because I am lazy: a trait I cannot recommend enough to all of those currently in ‘busyness’ (business in which everybody is flat out doing nothing of value). The rewards of applying this knowledge will absolutely blow you away. Now, to truly recession-proof your life, you have to live with intention. It is with that in mind that I have included exercises at the end of each chapter.
If you complete these exercises you will find that recession-proofing your life becomes just one of the outcomes you receive from the learning.