WHAT IS A LIFESTYLE ENTREPRENEUR?
Think of the most successful person you’ve ever seen. What does he look like? Who is she with? Where are they going and how are they travelling? Despite the specifics, there is a good chance they look happy and radiate a sense of confidence that is born from accomplishment. This is what a Lifestyle Entrepreneur does. They are successful people who do what they want, when they want to, with whomever they please. And they do it in style, making it look easy and inviting in the process.
Endless opportunities present themselves to the successful, as do appeals for help and aid. In both cases it is because successful people are men and women of action who are involved in a variety of lifestyle pursuits and have myriad business interests. The confidence to make the decisions necessary to be successful comes from having a positive self-image and a strong identity. It requires that you know yourself through and through, and trust yourself to make good decisions given imperfect information.
They are successful people who do what they want, when they want to, with whomever they please.
You may already have a strong set of beliefs, or a blueprint for success in one area of life. If decision making comes easy to you, then you’ve got a headstart on discovering, or reimagining, your identity and expressing it through your lifestyle and businesses. If not, then it really is a process of discovering your identity, by removing any covers or filters that prevent you from acting the way that feels right and experiencing happiness in your life.
Success and identity go hand in hand. You can’t act in a way that runs counter to your basic values and expect to feel no guilt or shame, let alone happiness. No. Success is acting in accordance with your core values while pursuing business interests and passion projects with friends and partners around the globe. That is the path of a Lifestyle Entrepreneur on the road to mastery.
Taking inventory of your current belief system and identity is the first step towards becoming a Lifestyle Entrepreneur, so let’s get started!
Let’s begin with the end goal in mind. The Lifestyle Entrepreneur’s Roadmap summarizes the core concepts presented throughout Lifestyle Entrepreneur. Indeed, gaining an understanding of how these concepts interrelate will give you the tools to design your lifestyle and build businesses that reflect and amplify your identity, interests and passions.
These are represented by the star tetrahedron, or the Centerpiece Star. As two interlocking triangles representing the behavioral aspects of your life and what you are creating and manifesting as a result of them, this star serves as a reflection of your identity at any given time. As time goes on, interests change and life circumstances change. The Lifestyle Entrepreneur’s Roadmap is a flexible tool to help you create the lifestyle and entrepreneurial endeavors you value most.
DISCOVERING YOUR IDENTITY
Becoming a Lifestyle Entrepreneur begins with a true understanding of who you are through your identity and core values. This requires you to become self-aware and assess your current circumstances in life, and then to define and design the most compelling vision for the future you can. But before we get there, let’s begin by taking inventory of where you stand today in terms of your worldview, your competencies and skills.
To do this we will start by looking at the three internal identity drivers that inform your experience in life. These are the Mental, Emotional and Physical aspects of who you are. Collectively the internal identity drivers construct your perception of reality in terms of what you think is possible, how you feel about your life experiences and what you’re physical capabilities and limitations are. These are the biological foundations of your identity.
Once you realize the dreams you have today, the horizon for what is possible stretches extends and new goals that may have seemed totally unobtainable will start to come clearly into focus.
Then we will look at how the “inside comes out” through the three external identity drivers that determine how you perceive and experience your place in the world. We’ll refer to these as your psychological components, which describe what you Know, the things you Do, and the roles you play (how your show-up, or Be in the world). Collectively, the internal and external identity drivers are a function of your belief system and are the system that dictates how you see the world and how others experience you.
Following is an exercise that provides an opportunity to take an honest assessment of your biological and psychological foundations and will empower you to discover, and ultimately reimagine, your identity. It will tell you where you stand and what needs to be done to change and create the identity you really want. This is good because after getting clarity on your identity today, I want you to go through the exercise again to create your ideal identity for your future as a Lifestyle Entrepreneur. This will come about by focusing on your interests and identifying your passions, re-engineering the inward drivers of your identity so that you can support the new external manifestations, and ultimately living an entrepreneurial lifestyle of freedom and opportunity.
With clarity on the biological and psychological sides of the identity equation, all the other tools, tactics and strategies in this book will become a bridge from where you are today, to whom you’ll become tomorrow. And you know what the best part is? Once you grow and realize the current dreams you have today, the horizon for what is possible stretches further into the distance and new ambitions and goals that may have seemed totally unobtainable will start to come more clearly into focus. This is the way to build momentum and go from strengh-to-strength, exceeding your expectations and serving as a role model to those around you.
You can revisit this exercise at any time, take a snapshot of where you are, and strategize for the next steps you’ll take. The goal here is to be living in alignment with your interests and passions and doing it on purpose. When your internal identity drivers are aligned with your outward facing persona, actions and undertakings, well that is the sweet spot where the magic happens. This fully-expressed version of you is represented by the centerpiece star at the heart of the Identity Map. This is you living out your fullest potential with clarity and purpose, serving as an inspiration to others and making money in the process. I’ve seen it happen time and time again, in my own life, in my client’s lives and across the global network of Lifestyle Entrepreneurs who I deeply admire and consider some of my closest friends. The creation process never gets old.
The goal here is to be living in alignment with your interests and passions and doing it on purpose.
So let’s get to work! Here we will walk through the construction of each component of your Identity Map using my experiences as a case study. This should start the wheels turning in your mind so you can create an Identity Map that accurately reflects where you are today, and more importantly, where you want to go tomorrow.
THE INTERNAL IDENTITY DRIVERS
Your Biology: Mental, Emotional and Physical
Mental — The mental identity driver consists of your thought patterns and reasoning abilities. When you are thinking logically in terms of cause and effect, or thinking about the structure and blueprint that underpins a business, a language, a skyscraper or a class curriculum. All of the mental drivers reside in your mind. So when you are thinking and planning, you are engaging your mental abilities, and for our purposes here it is important to take inventory of how your thought patterns operate, and really drilling down on how you perceive the world.
For this exercise it is useful to write down 3-4 of the mental drivers you identify with wherever you are in life right now. What are the logical and rational qualities that you embrace when interacting with your friends, your family, your work colleagues or that you value in your relationships?
So grab a pencil and a sheet of paper! Finish these sentences and you will begin to get clarity on the current state of affairs for your mental identity drivers:
The intellectual challenges I enjoy most are…
My approach to planning and problem solving is…
I am most satisfied when I am thinking about…
I get my best ideas when I am…
When I think about my life a year from now the first thing I think is…
Why do I think ______ is totally unrealistic?
I think that I can….
My Mental Identity Drivers:
When I really think through the things I value most that reside in the mental sphere, I came up with these four:
Embrace a Culture of Life-Long Learning — Essentially my brain is wired to always be taking in new information and structuring it to be useful towards whatever I’m interested in and passionate about at the time (which become explicit with the external identity drivers).
Enjoy Challenge of New Languages — After spending a year living in Austria studying German and a couple years studying Mandarin Chinese in Beijing, Taiwan and UC Berkeley, it has become clear to me that I love studying languages as it gives me an expanded perspective on communications (in general) and how I interact with people in English.
Strategic Thinker — Since a young age I have always looked at situations and opportunities and projected forward how they could be elaborated and expanded. Basically, setting a strategy for accomplishing goals and minimizing things I’m disinterested in has become my default way of thinking
Crave Novelty — Scientifically, new experiences stimulate brain activity, increase neuronal connections and release dopamine, giving a feeling of satisfaction. For me, I feel the most satisfied when I’m pushing forward the frontiers of my knowledge on a number of fronts at once. I enjoy the stimulation that new sights, sounds and surroundings provide. Systematically introducing novelty gets me thinking beyond my current situation.
Summary:
The mental identity drivers (your thoughts) are the precursors to emotions and ultimately your actions, all of which are subject to your belief system. We’ll cover this in greater depth in an upcoming section. For now the important thing is to take inventory of where you are at today in terms of what you find mentally stimulating and in what ways your thoughts comprise your identity.
Emotional — The emotional identity driver deals with your intuition, feelings and creative sensibilities. Emotions are essentially “energy in motion”, which cause feelings and your emotional state to rise and fall. In contrast to the mental drivers, emotions are non-linear and are not subject to logic and reason. They are created by your beliefs and how your beliefs interpret events and the physical stimuli that your body receives. Emotional drivers are experienced through your intuition, your creative sensibilities and how you feel and fare in the face of challenging circumstances, as well as the feelings that accompany triumph and victory after working through them.
Much has been written about the difference between male and female brains when it comes to emotional capacity and emotional intelligence. However, it goes without saying that both men and women experience emotions, even if it shapes our identities in different ways. So no matter what gender you are, it’s important to recognize that emotions are a function of your beliefs and thoughts, and influence your actions and how you’re perceived by others.
Now begin to take inventory of your emotional identity drivers by completing the following sentences:
When a new opportunity presents itself I feel…
If I am excited about, but unfamiliar with, a topic/challenge I feel…
The activities that give me the greatest feeling of joy are…
Once I decide to do something I feel…
When things don’t go the way I planned my emotions…
The emotional environment I grew up in could be described as…
My Emotional Identity Drivers
Here are some of the key emotions, general feelings and emotional states that influence my identity:
Feel the Fear, Do it Anyway — When I’m certain about a course of action, but ensure about how stressful and/or potentially embarrassing it will be I just go back to this mantra, take a deep breath and dive in. Every successful person has failed numerous times before ultimately succeeding, so I know I’m in good company.
Proud of Accomplishments — This is the feeling of success after putting in the work. Pride on its own may not be the healthiest emotion, but taking time to appreciate my accomplishments has never diminished them in my eyes.
Determined to Succeed — If there is one thing I am scared of it is not so much failure as it is mediocrity. Falling down in the pursuit of a passion is a learning lesson that helps know what to avoid next time; failure is not getting back up. Determination helps me get up and keep moving further towards the goal line.
Healthy Nervousness — This is a little different than the first one in the sense that being a Lifestyle Entrepreneur isn’t really about surety and security; it’s more about facing the unknown and wanting to know it despite a healthy nervousness or anxiety to explore new industries and interests.
Being aware of your emotional state as well as what heightens it and depresses it is a critical part of becoming a successful Lifestyle Entrepreneur. Emotions are the biological bridge between thought and action. All great performers get nervous before hitting the stage, but that feeling focuses the mind and speeds up your biology so you deliver the best performance possible. Trusting your feelings is the key to integrating mental thoughts into physical actions.
Physical — The physical identity drivers describe how you relate to the world through your five senses, how focused you are on health and fitness and your genetic disposition. Just as your thoughts impact your emotions, and your emotions affect your physical state, so can your physical health and well-being alter the way you think and feel. As we’ll discuss in a later section, beliefs, thoughts, emotions and actions all impact one another and are the primary variables in formulating and maintaining your identity.
Taking inventory of your physical state includes what you do to your body and what you put in it, but also touches on what type of body you were born with. Being super tall can make people pre-disposed to say, playing basketball or needing to stretch more, while having some type of allergy or medical condition would drive a different worldview and lifestyle choices than someone without them.
Finish these sentences to start shedding some light on the physical drivers that influence your identity and lifestyle choices:
In order to stay healthy and in shape, every week I…
When choosing what to eat and drink, I focus on…
The environments and activities that make me feel energized are…
The traits I was born with that influence how I interact with the world are…
The physical traits I am most satisfied with are…
The physical traits I am not pleased with are…
To be even more healthy and fit I could focus more energy on…
My Physical Identity Drivers
Here are some of the physical drivers that influence and define how I interact with the world:
Cycling & Gym 5x/Week — Once I got serious about getting in the best shape of my life, and started feeling the benefits of doing so, this workout regimen started to fall into place. I love cycling and also getting a full-body workout in the gym. Fortunately the two are complimentary.
Mostly Healthy Diet — Yeah, that’s right, mostly. I like having a few drinks and some dessert from time to time. Other than that, I’m pretty careful about not eating too many empty carbohydrates or sugar. I use vegan protein supplements and drink lots of fresh vegetable juice in the morning. By dinner time, all bets are off.
Enjoy Being Outdoors — There is something relaxing and rejuvenating about spending time outside. After a walk outdoors, a long bike ride, or a swim in the ocean it is hard not to feel good.
Dairy Allergy — Life dealt me this deck of cards, and I’m playing the hand. I used to be very allergic to dairy (like no cheese on pizza growing up and forget about ice cream), now I can enjoy these things in moderation but this allergy lead me to discover some delicious alternatives like coconut water.
Summary
The key point I want to convey here is that changing your physical state can initiate changes in your emotional state and mental state. The internal identity drivers are all interconnected in this way, and I’ve found that many people underestimate the impact that improving their health, diet and sleeping patterns can have on productivity and accomplishments. When I know I need to focus on something important, I’ll make sure to exercise beforehand, eat healthy and get a full night sleep. Then my mental and emotional states are primed for productivity.
THE EXTERNAL IDENTITY DRIVERS
Your Psychology: Know, Do and Be
The internal identity drivers describe what’s on your mind, what’s in your heart and what’s going on with your body. Collectively these factors influence how you feel day-to-day and start to paint a picture of your own self-image, how you perceive and experience life from the inside looking out. The external identity drivers define how you are perceived by others in terms of the knowledge you have, the activities you’re involved in and the roles you play personally and professionally in the world. In the Discover Your Identity exercise they are represented by Know, Do and Be, which are the external manifestations of your internal thoughts and feelings through your physical being.
Essentially the goal of this exercise is to take a snapshot of where you are right now, today, in terms of living fully expressed and aligned with your interests and passions. Ideally, how you “show up” in the world and the things you do and pursue are an accurate reflection of your internal makeup. If something is out of alignment or some facet of your personality is not being properly expressed, well that’s fine for now, and it’s good to identify it, because it makes explicit the things to focus on it order to be fully aligned with your passion and purpose.
Take a snapshot of where you are right now, today, in terms of living fully expressed and aligned with your interests and passions.
The first run through this exercise gives you a snapshot of where you are today and then you can create the Identity Map for your tomorrow. This gives you a clearly marked path from Point A (today) to Point B (tomorrow) and all the other tools, strategies, case studies and stories in this book help form a bridge to get you there.
Know — These are the areas where you have considerable knowledge and expertise. Whether it is because you have studied extensively to grasp the concepts, or because you have first-hand experiences that inform your understanding, these are the topics and areas of interest where you have accumulated enough knowledge to speak confidently about them.
Looking forward into the future, these are the things that you want to learn more about, understand better and eventually master. This could be skills relating to a new business venture, just as they could be areas of interest that you have simply always wanted to know more about. One of the core principles of all successful Lifestyle Entrepreneurs is to “embrace a culture of life-long learning”, so dig deep and think about what topics in the world intrigue you to study, learn and attain a relative level of proficiency and expertise at.
To give you some structure and direction for identifying three to four primary areas of knowledge that you currently excel in, try finishing the following sentences:
Some of the topics that I really understand and have studied to support my career are…
The last three books I read were about these topics, or focused on this general field of interest…
One of the things I’ve always been passionate about and now have a solid understanding of is…
The things I actively read about, watch films or TV to learn more about or follow in the newspaper are…
The expertise that people are willing to pay me for professionally falls into these categories…
Knowledge Expressed as an Identity Trait
These are the things I’m interested in that show up externally to others in my life. The things I Know that others can observe:
Entrepreneurship — In the beginning, I turned my love of music and playing guitar into running a record label to support my band. That was learning by doing, but I have since founded a number of companies and read dozens of books on entrepreneurship (as well as written one!) so this is a fairly well-rounded area of expertise for me.
Chinese Language — From my first trip to Shanghai in 2008 to the present I have launched a wholesale USB business that manufactured in China, and studied Chinese in Beijing, Taiwan and UC Berkeley. I even won 3rd place in the California Chinese Speech Contest a few years ago, but I have since resigned this to an interest of mine, as opposed to making it my #1 career focus.
Lifestyle Design — As a function of my innate curiosity and love of new experiences, cultures and countries I have designed many interesting iterations of my lifestyle and now understand how to help others do the same. Being open to new experiences and not restricting myself with too many responsibilities in any given place or time allows me to have a fluid experience of life that blends work, play and travel.
Current Events and World History — One of the things I loved most about going to college later in life was the chance to really understand the bigger picture of what is taking place around the world now, and over the course of history. I studied Political Economy, which is essentially the study of how the world works and has worked over time as a complete system.
Summary
The extent to which you explore new areas of interest dictates how others perceive you and shapes the opinion others have of you. What you specifically choose to learn more about is a function of your internal identity drivers and is an important variable in your externally expressed identity.
Do — This is all about taking action. What do you do day-to-day, consistently over time and across the span of a year? This category describes the actions you take for your career and for personal enjoyment. These are the things you do (ideally) because they give you great pleasure and personal satisfaction, but if that’s not true today then you know what to write for the next exercise. Here you want to record the actions you take that have consequence and create value in the world
What you Do is a function of your emotions (or your energy-in-motion) and is analogous to your emotional internal identity drivers being expressed outwardly. Simply put, in an ideal scenario, you would Do the things that give you good emotions and imbue you with a sense of purpose and accomplishment.
To get your mind thinking about the actions you take and the activities you’re engaged in over time, try finishing these sentences:
If I were to describe the core function of my current job or business, the thing that I am hired to do is…
My daily routine consists of these specific actions…
I take the knowledge and experience that I have and put it into practice by doing these things…
One way I give back and help others is…
My favorite thing to do that is totally independent from work is…
If money, time and geography were not constraints, I would…
Actions As An Expression of Identity
Here are the top four things that I focus on doing consistently and with conviction, the areas where the rubber meets the road and I am taking action:
Launch Businesses — In the last year through Lifestyle Entrepreneurs Academy I worked alongside five clients to launch five businesses. I also launched co-founded a travel products company and a non-profit to provide funding to student entrepreneurs. It’s safe to say that launching businesses is always on my agenda.
Travel Abroad Three Months Per Year — For the last half-decade it has been my focus to spend at least 25% of my life outside of my home country of America. This is at once exciting and rewarding, but it also prevents me from having a limited perspective, I always want to have a global perspective, especially since the world is more interconnected than ever before.
Create Training Products and Services — With my experience launching businesses and traveling for extended amounts of time, I turn that knowledge into training products and services (such as this book!) to help others follow the path of a Lifestyle Entrepreneur.
Fund and Coach Student Entrepreneurs — Through a non-profit I co-founded with a former classmate, University Incubator, my partner and I provide 0%-interest financing to student entrepreneurs. Our goal is to help them “create their own job by the time they graduate”.
Summary
By and large you are what you do. At least in terms of your identity being externally expressed, what you do defines who you are to those around you in a big way. Conversely, if what you are doing now does not feel like an accurate representation of who you are and what you want to be, then it’s time to focus on acting more in-line with how you feel inside and beginning to update some of your internal identity drivers to support a more accurate external expression through your actions day to day.
Be — These are the most easily accessible aspects of your identity. These are the roles you play personally and professionally represented by the names and titles that appear on your business cards or website. This is how you are described in any marketing language or PR that has been written about you. Essentially, these are the expectations others have of you before they meet you, based on your position, rank or title. This how you appear to others in the world.
This is the analog to your Physical internal identity driver in the sense that it is the outward appearance you give to the world. What you wear and how you act are a part of it, but it’s also the qualities of character you embody and the first impression you give others before you say a word.
Finishing these sentences will give you clarity on what roles you’re currently playing personally and professionally:
The word or words that best describe me are…
The primary roles I play when serving others through my profession are…
The ways I appear to others when I’m living fully expressed in my interests and passions are…
On my best days, the impression I give others is that I am…
When I am introduced to someone new, the person making the introduction would say that I am…
To Be or Not To Be…
…that really is the question! So here are the top four roles that I play in a personal and professional context. If the first time you heard of me is through this book, then these shouldn’t be too surprising, but keep in mind that my Identity Map for where I’m at today is a lot different than it was five years ago and it’s something I worked methodically towards since then.
Lifestyle Entrepreneur — This is my answer to the first question above, these two words describe me better than perhaps any others in the English language. This is who I am, I use the skills of entrepreneurship to design and live an awesome lifestyle, and of course it’s the title of this book!
Instructor and Coach — For many years I was a professional dating coach, training guys to meet and attract the girls they found attractive. Nowadays, I’m the founding instructor for Lifestyle Entrepreneurs Academy and I coach aspiring entrepreneurs to turn their interests and passions into products and services.
Author and Speaker — These are in the same category since the majority of the speaking I do is based on Lifestyle Entrepreneur. When someone reads this book and comes to hear me live somewhere, it is an extension and expansion of the same content and experience.
Trusted Friend and Family Member — To my close friends, I am someone they can always count on. No matter where I am in the world, I’ll jump on a call (or a plane) if one of my friends needs help. When I’m not traveling I live fairly close to my family so we can stay close despite constant changes in our lives.
Summary
How you appear to others, the impression you give off and how others ultimately perceive you is the end result of the things you know, put into practice, take action on and are consistent with over time. When you know what you want, it becomes clear what must be done. As you do, eventually you come to be. And that is your identity!
Entrepreneurship — In the beginning, I turned my love of music and playing guitar into running a record label to support my band. That was learning by doing, but I have since founded a number of companies and read dozens of books on entrepreneurship (as well as written one!) so this is a fairly well-rounded area of expertise for me.
Chinese Language — From my first trip to Shanghai in 2008 to the present I have launched a wholesale USB business that manufactured in China, and studied Chinese in Beijing, Taiwan and UC Berkeley. I even won 3rd place in the California Chinese Speech Contest a few years ago, but I have since resigned this to an interest of mine, as opposed to making it my #1 career focus.
Lifestyle Design — As a function of my innate curiosity and love of new experiences, cultures and countries I have designed many interesting iterations of my lifestyle and now understand how to help others do the same. Being open to new experiences and not restricting myself with too many responsibilities in any given place or time allows me to have a fluid experience of life that blends work, play and travel.
Current Events and World History — One of the things I loved most about going to college later in life was the chance to really understand the bigger picture of what is taking place around the world now, and over the course of history. I studied Political Economy, which is essentially the study of how the world works and has worked over time as a complete system.
For reference https://blogging.org/
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