Live The Dream

I've always loved when weird ideas turn out to be true. Like how you can microwave grapes to make plasma. Or how the smell of Play-Doh can lower your blood pressure. Or how, apparently, trying less might actually get you more.

That last one? That came from a book I almost didn’t read because it had the words “business” and “productivity” on the cover inseam, which usually means some guy is about to tell me to wake up at 4:30am and put butter in my coffee. But then I cracked open 10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy, and it hit me in the exact spot I didn’t know needed hitting: our national obsession with the struggle.

You know what I mean ... "No pain, no gain! Grind ‘til you die! Rise and grind! Eat kale! Make six figures before 6AM!" And suddenly I’m wondering … do we have to be miserable to be successful?

In this suspiciously good book, Sullivan and Hardy say no. In fact, they say if you want to make a big leap, like a 10x kind of leap, it actually requires less effort than just trying to double your results. Because doubling means you’re just doing more of what you already hate.

Like imagine if I said, “Hey, you’re going to eat twice as much broccoli, but now with half the cheese sauce.”

That’s 2x thinking. Sad. Bland. Soggy.

To go 10x, you have to change the way you think. You have to stop tweaking what’s not working and start imagining what could.

That’s what separates the Marys from the Alices.

Let me explain. . .

The Tale of Two Friends

Mary and Alice both write a novel. Like, a whole book. Not a blog post. Not a tweet thread. An actual novel.

They send it out to literary agents.

Rejection.

Same form letter. Same crushing blow. Same pint of ice cream.

Mary says, “Welp, I guess I’m not meant to be a writer,” and goes to law school. (She now makes great money and cries in parking lots.)

Alice? She says, “Okay, I just haven’t found my agent yet.” So she keeps going. She sends it out again.

And again.

And again.

Eventually, someone bites. Boom. Published.

Now she’s seven books deep, doing author panels in black turtlenecks, and wearing scarves indoors. She's living the dream.

Same rejection.

Completely different outcome.

Why?

Because Alice believed her future was going to be amazing. And that changed how she responded in the present. And now, when she looks back at her past? She sees it as the gritty, romantic, against-the-odds journey that got her to Oprah’s Book Club.

Meanwhile, Mary sees a sad pile of rejection letters and still cries in parking lots.

What This Means for You (Yes, You. Sitting There.)

If you want to rewrite your story, start with the ending.

No, not in a creepy, Hitchcock kind of way. In a visionary, build-your-dream-future kind of way.

Here's how I do it:

I think of the future me, the future John-Michael (JM), the one who’s already doing the thing that I want to do.

What does that JM believe? What does that JM know? What did that JM let go of to get there?

Then (and this is the key to it all) I start doing things now that match who that future JM is.

That’s when my past starts to feel less like baggage and more like seasoning.

Joy in the Time Warp

Now, I know time is supposed to be this straight line. You’re born. You get older. You pay taxes. You stop understanding TikTok. You croak.

But the more we learn about time, the more we realize, it’s weird. Like, quantum-level weird.

Scientists say all moments (past, present, and future) exist at once.

So why do we live like we’re stuck?

You’re not. You’re just used to telling the same story. But your future? It’s calling.

And it wants you to rewrite the past.

Now go dream something big. Then go live like it already happened. The future you is already living it. So, start living like the future you, right now. Go on, live the dream.❤️