Unscripted: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship pdfdrive com

AFTER
you’ve done all that. 
AFTER
you’ve bought everything and seen everything—
what would be next? Writing? Philanthropy? Making movies? Whatever it is, it’s
a clue into what gives your life meaning or purpose.
Still, if none of this clarifies your purpose, there’s not much you can do to
find it other than instigating life. Recluses won’t find purpose living out their
days in a sacred bubble. Partake in commerce, start working out, volunteer, go
on a mission. Do freaking something. Like a “fuck this” event, many times a
committed meaning is uncovered in tragedy, hardship, or momentous life
events. From having your first child and wanting to be the best parent you can
be, to being pink-slipped after fifteen years of loyalty are just a few examples of
how events can instigate purpose.
Unfortunately, if you Google “finding your purpose,” you’ll find your usual
hodgepodge of selfish flagellation, mostly dry humping the wonder twins.
Namely, every teenage boy wants to get paid to play video games, and little girls
have Cinderella dreams while riding ponies. Not meaning. Not purpose.
THE VALUE CHALLENGE: PERHAPS YOUR PURPOSE IS THIS SIMPLE?
If you haven’t pinned your purpose, try this experiment. I call it 
the value
challenge
: Start by simply smiling at a complete stranger—and not just any
forced smile. Smile as if that person was the first person you saw after being
stranded on an island for years. Do this as many times as needed until you get a
return smile.
Then observe how you feel.
Pretty cool, eh?
Congratulations, you just added value in someone’s life.

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Continue the value challenge by helping one person in the next thirty days.
Add value to just one life, and do so by virtue of your own creation, ingenuity,
and hard work. Also, you must do this by learning a new skill, or something
unfamiliar to you. DO NOT STOP UNTIL ACCOMPLISHED.
Your value challenge could be as simple as buying an old dresser down at the
Goodwill, stripping it down, refinishing, and reselling it on Craigslist. Or you
could write a short story and sell it on Amazon for ninety-nine cents. Whatever
you do, the key is to create value for someone else AND do it by a new process
(or skill) that you must learn on the fly.
Again, like the spirited smiling, pay attention to how you feel the moment
you accomplish the value challenge. You should feel good, maybe even a rush of
excitement. This same feeling happens in entrepreneurship once your feedback
loop transforms into a 
value loop
. I call the experience “entrepreneurial heroine.”
And once you feel it, there’s no going back. Countless forum users have reported
this “high,” and it’s what happens when your creative sweat creates value for
someone else. The value loop confirms with your first sale, your first customer,
or your first “your product rocks!” testimonial.
Now imagine if you didn’t provide value to just one person, but thousands…
The point is, creating value loops and getting paid handsomely to help people
is indescribably rewarding. It’s like watching your firstborn win Wimbledon.
Perhaps buried deep behind our “whys,” we all have the same generic meaning-
and-purpose—
to simply solve each other’s problems and make the world a better
place.
THE HAPPINESS SECRET (WHILE DOING WHAT YOU HATE)
But MJ, I can’t be happy doing something that I don’t enjoy! I want to race
cars, sell legal weed, and become a famous Hollywood actor! I’m passionate
about this stuff and I want to go for it! Hail, do what you love!
If you’re in the campy camp that believes you can’t be happy owning
something completely unrelated to the gravity of your life, I understand. If you
can reconcile your specific passions and loves with a legitimate market need or
demand, by all means, go for it. I certainly hope the next Michael Jordan finds
his way to the basketball court. Better to try than not try at all.
My polemic against the wonder twins wasn’t monism or a condemnation
against trying, but a rejection of these proverbs as universal and the one true path
to happiness.
It simply isn’t true.

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In fact, want to know what really holds the key to your happiness? It’s the
reason why you’re reading this book. Money? Business success? Respect?
Nope, none of the above.
The great happiness secret is 
autonomy
. Freedom. The ability to feel in
control of your life, to stockpile options, mobility, and whatever else you self-
determine and endorse. Remember my 
UNSCRIPTED
moment outside the Bank
of America when I realized I didn’t need a job for at least a year? It was one of the
happiest moments in my life because it gave me autonomy.
You see, anyone who tells you that money can’t buy happiness isn’t spending
it correctly. Money buys autonomy, or it buys a down payment on debt and anti-
autonomy. I shit you not. Autonomy is so influential it could cause you to love
life poor and hate it rich.
In 2014, I came across a headline that read, “Billionaire Who’s Proof that
Money Can’t Buy Happiness.”
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Before I clicked the link bait, I speculated on
how a billionaire could feel this way. After a few seconds, my guess was that the
billionaire lost autonomy, or control of something—like a nasty divorce,
lawsuits, or children with interminable troubles. Turns out two of my three
guesses were correct. Psychologists say parents can never be happier than their
least happy child.
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In 
The Millionaire Fastlane
, I defined wealth (and interchangeably
“happiness”) as having three contributing factors called the 3 Fs: freedom, family,
and fitness. These 3 Fs and their happiness correlation aren’t speculative.
Scientists agree and evidence supports it. For example, according to Roko Belic,
director of the documentary 
Happy
, autonomy, or intentional behavior and
choice, accounts for a whopping 40 percent of our happiness quotient, followed
by circumstances at 10 percent and genetics at 50 percent.
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Based on this, you
can manipulate your happiness baseline by 50 percent through winning choices
and improving your circumstances.
In another instance, a report by 
The Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology
cited “autonomy” as the number-one contributor of happiness.
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 Not
respect, not a jaw-dropping bod, and not 60,000 Instagram followers—
autonomy. Of course, when you’re pounding your car’s dashboard because
traffic’s backed up, you have no autonomy. When your job feels like a mandatory
prison sentence, autonomy is locked away and paroled for the two-week
vacation. For the 
SCRIPTED
, autonomy isn’t the elephant in the room; it’s the
elephant stuffed in the garage, waiting for the weekend.
According to data from the US Census Bureau and the Centers for Disease

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Control, New York City was ranked as the number-one city where Americans
are unhappiest.
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Yes, the home of Broadway, Central Park, and Times Square
isn’t stroking happiness. Could autonomy be behind this metropolitan misery?
Considering perpetual gridlock and an insane cost of living requiring a constant
cash drip of life rations, I think so.
In other research, the psychological self-determination theory (SDT) is
another theory that supports autonomy as well as connectedness as a critical
factor in happiness. Studied by researchers Richard Ryan and Edward Deci from
Rochester University, SDT posits that best forms of motivation and engagement,
including persistence and creativity, come from our experience of autonomy,
competence, and relatedness. Specifically, Deci and Ryan postulated that these
needs, when satisfied, enhance self-motivation and mental health (well-being),
and when thwarted, do the opposite.
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Basically, intrinsic improvement and
growth (competence), freedom (autonomy), and family (relatedness) are core
constituents of happiness.
And there’s more.
Research also shows autonomy has a significant impact on health and
morale. In one study, Yale psychologist Judith Rodin encouraged nursing-home
patients to exercise more control over their choices, from environment to facility
policies, and as a result, 93 percent became more alert, active, and happier. Some
lived longer.
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Another researcher, Angus Campbell, author of 
The Sense of Well-Being in
America
(recommended read) concurs with autonomy’s significance and
perhaps knew before all of us. Commenting on a University of Michigan study,
he stated:
Having a strong sense of controlling one’s life is a more dependable predictor of
positive feelings of well-being than any of the objective conditions of life we have
considered.
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Much of this research also explains why certain jobs are incredibly fulfilling
and why everyone doesn’t need to be an entrepreneur. If your job fulfills
meaning-and-purpose while also providing some autonomy, connectedness, and
a feeling of competence, you’ve struck gold. According to 
CareerBliss.com
, the
top three happiest jobs are school principal, executive chef, followed by a loan

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officer.
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Each job has its unique elements of connectedness and autonomy,
while surely providing each a heightened sense of competency.
So, perhaps the secret to well-being isn’t the wonder twins or a new Harley
but simply self-growth and autonomy while sharing connectedness with others.
And if you can’t find the job that hits the sweet spot, what better way to monetize
those needs than entrepreneurship? Maybe you can be joyfully fulfilled inventing
a better mousetrap without being in love with them—and you just don’t know it.