Who Does Your Time Belong To?

 This year I ended my recurring eight-week stand-up classes that I've taught for forever -- even though they were extremely successful and highly profitable.  Most of my friends thought I was crazy to do this, especially in this economy.

But, I made the decision anyway because of something more important that all baby boomers know: time is finite.

If you don't know that, you're either in severe denial, or you're under 30 and don't realize yet that wasted time is lost forever.  Without a doubt, our most precious commodity is our time.  And what we do with it is our ultimate act of creativity.  

So, you have two choices:

You can be a "time whore" -- giving away your most precious commodity to anybody who will buy a piece of it.

Or -- you can be strategic and creative, and use your time to create the projects, career, and life you really want to have.

It's all about making a simple choice. Do you want your time to belong to someone else ... or to you?

When I made the choice to stop teaching my eight-week workshops, it created a vacuum of opportunity.  Of course I was scared, because I was cutting off a steady income stream. But, fear is a great motivator; it really lit a fire under me to do things I'd wanted to do, but never had enough time to accomplish.

I wrote a new book proposal. I started teaching standup and speaking in other cities.  And I wrote a new speech based on my process called, "Getting What You Want Before You Forget What It Is."

The results? I'm doing workshop in places that I've always wanted to visit, like Sweden and Russia. I'm punching up speeches for extremely interesting people, like WWE wrestlers, bio-pharmacists, and NASA scientists. And, yesterday, I signed a book deal for "The Speaker's Bible" with St. Martin's Press.

So what do you need to give up to create room for the things that you really love? Do you need reclaim your time by ending a relationship with a person, by changing jobs, or by going cold turkey on your three-hour-a-day Facebook addiction?

Make some choices. It's your time -- do something with it.
 
"If you always do what you've always done - you'll get what you've always have gotten."

Want something different? Do something different.

-Judy