Life, death, and choice.

“Grandpa doesn’t have long. Maybe 24 hours. If you want to say your goodbyes, meet us at the hospital as soon as you get this. Love you, Chris.”

November 17th was the worst day of my life. And somehow one of the most special (a story for another day).

My Uncle Rob left a voicemail that my Grandpa was slowly passing away. I thought we had 24 hours. My Grandma, Uncle, Brother, and Wife arrived and within an hour he had gone. I’m convinced he wanted and waited for his favorite people to be there with him.

I think about life choices a lot.

Many of us go through life with maximum choice. We choose where we live, what we eat, where we work, what we do, who we talk to, marry, friends, you get the point.

Maximum choice.

Choice between thousands of different little interactions a day.

The longer you go through life, the fewer choices you have. Oddly enough, you start out life with almost zero choices at all.

Minimum choice.

This Friday, a close friend of mine called to tell me one of his favorite people on earth was going through one of the moments of minimum choice. She passed away unexpectedly a day later.

2 weeks ago, healthy and 34. Life in front of her. Experiences. Memories. The world was her oyster.

She went from maximum choice to minimum choice in what feels like the blink of an eye.

I’m 36.

Makes me think, am I taking complete advantage of my belief of maximum choice?

Are you?

If you knew you had 10 years to live, how would you interact with the world differently?

What about 5 years?

How about 12 months?

…12 weeks?

…12 days?

…12 minutes?

Who would you choose to spend your time with?

What would you spend time doing?

This brings me to the lesson of today. And the most important lesson I’ll share.

Maximizing choice.

This isn’t just about sales. It’s about life.

It’s about not letting your shithead boss ruin your day. Or a prospect ghost you bringing you anxiety at the end of the quarter.

It’s empowering you to take control of whatever choices you have.

Prioritize it.

And be ruthless with the time you give to others.

You see, time is zero-sum. You can’t spend the same time twice. A minute spent is a minute gone, is a minute you’ll never get back. Time is often considered a commodity. How can that be true? A commodity? It’s the most precious resource we have in life.

And it lives on a bell curve.

The left and right tails being the minimum amount of choice. The bulk in the middle? Maximum choice.

The realization I had today is that most humans believe they are in the middle of the bell curve. Maximum choice remaining. The reality is that the freedom of our choices could be gone in just a blink.

My homework for you headed into the holiday season?

Positively impact the lives of the people you choose to engage with.

Yes, this means prospects too.

Allow your life to be positively impacted by the people you engage with.

Say I love you more often.

Don’t let your time be wasted.

Don’t waste other people’s time. Yes, again your prospects.

Feel blessed you have the opportunity of choice.

And realize one day, you’ll have minimum choice.

Could be tomorrow. Could be 100 years.

But it will inevitably come.

And let the inevitable minimum choices you’ll have in life be the fuel for the maximum amount of choice you have today.

PS - You might be reading this and feel sad. Or feel something that isn’t what you typically feel reading this.

This isn’t sad. This is life. And you reading this means you still have choices that can change your life. Your legacy. How you’ll be remembered. Use this weekly edition to live your best life, with the best people, on your own terms.

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all.

Thankful for each of you driving me to write every single week.

PSS - And for god’s sake, if someones make a positive impact on your life. Have this be the reason to tell them.

Until next week,

Chris