💎 Issue #103 - The Last Lecture

“Through gratitude, I’m not slowing down but rather realizing my full potential by being more present and kinder to myself.” — Lisa

Last weekend marked the end of the inaugural LivingOS Fellowship cohort. 

Looking back over the many conversations I’ve had the honor of guiding, I found that so many have been around the old stories in life.

At some point along the fellowship journey, our fellows may wonder: Can I solve my hauntings? Can I live out my dream life? My job is to guide our fellows to cultivate the joy and urge to chase what excites them. That’s the key to a well-lived life.

Today I want to share how the systems have impacted their lives.

Week 1: Get In Touch With Your Wants

“I’ve learned to ask myself the right questions when I am stuck.” — Nicole

In the first week, we talked about how to define the twelve favorite problems. Once we identify the critical problems to solve, we can measure whether our learnings have genuinely made a difference in the issues that matter in our lives. 

Week 2: Unravel Your Old Stories

“I no longer feel scared to tackle the problems I once thought unsolvable.” — Jenny

In the second week, we coached our fellows to face and analyze the 30 Hauntings. One of our fellows mentioned, “sharing my old stories with strangers is kinda embarrassing at first, but it turned out to be the fastest and clearest way to hear your voice.” It turned out that this exercise is the key to create a vulnerable, safe space that connected everyone together.

I also introduced the emotional inquiry exercise to help fellows identify how emotions came about and helped their lives. Once we soften the intensity, we can let the emotion guide us to discover what we truly want in life. “Strong feeling shows the strong urge to solve the problem,” Jenny shared in our Slack channel. Once we accept the feelings and get past the bottleneck, the initial fear will put us on a path towards excitement. 

This might be the most transformational week of the fellowship.

Week 3: Write Your New Story

“After accepting that I don’t like to socialize, I feel empowered to begin recruiting again.” — Viola

To heal our hauntings, we need to accept our thoughts and emotions. As Eva said, “I value what I have and appreciate my shortcomings.”

Successes and failures are all parts of our story. Successes help us build the confidence to take on new challenges. Failures help us take note of important lessons. Some people fear success because they don’t want to be seen. Other people fear failure because they don’t want to be shamed. If we are afraid of embracing our past successes and failures, we are ultimately rejecting a part of ourselves.

The good news is that these rejections are often correlated with how badly we want something. We can redirect our focus to building muscle and getting what we want in life. As Jenny said, “Stop telling the sad stories. Start taking responsibility to fix the problems, so that you can inspire people around you to do the same.” Regardless of who we are, we can choose what story we want to tell. 

By taking responsibility and showing up for our lives, we can love ourselves and cultivate the trust that we are equipped to handle it all. By embracing your new story, we can behave like the person we have been longing to grow into. 

Week 4: Build Your Mental Models

“I realized that I have the answers. I can look within myself to discover new perspectives, new understanding, and get closer to my aspirational self.” — Ashley

As we began to rewrite our stories, we introduced a series of life experiments to practice some empowering mental models. Once we honor our wants, we can stop procrastination and start taking action on living out the full potential of our lives.

Week 5: Unconditionally Love Yourself

“Through gratitude, I’m not slowing down but rather realizing my full potential by being more present and kinder to myself.” — Lisa

When we have created the space and boundary for ourselves, we will stop fighting ourselves. As Jenny said, “I came to love myself a lot more.” Our end goal is to help us see ourselves completely and love ourselves unconditionally.

Week 6: Make It Happen

“Dream day schedule is amazing. I feel so proud of myself after each day.” — Lily

The final week is all about creating the systems to nudge you in the desired direction. This system will help you align how you spend your time with your twelve favorite problems. This system doesn’t have to be perfect. I like to position every project as an experiment. Through rounds of iterations, we will get to create the life we’ve always wanted. As one fellow said, “I can finally live my dream day and heal my relationship with family (already well under progress with sleepovers with sisters).”

Final Words

“One of the coolest things about the program was most people come from an Asian/high-achieving background (and I’ve never had other reflective, vulnerable spaces with this type of demographic before). I’ve been able to connect with other fellows on specific challenges I face at home/from childhood experiences and start to overcome them.” — Ashley

Reflecting on the last six weeks, what are you most grateful for?

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