MM153 - Are you Living on a Life Raft? | MM Book Study Pt. 11

A life raft is an important emergency stop gap, it keeps us from drowning. But, we are not meant to live on a life raft, that is supposed to be temporary. Too many people cling to the life raft and have no engine or rudder to get them going in the right direction.

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[INTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Welcome to Morning Mindset. A daily dose of practical wit and wisdom with a professional educator & trainer, Amazon best selling author, United States Marine, Television, and Radio host, Paul G. Markel. Each episode will focus on positive and productive ways to strengthen your mindset and help you improve your relationships, career goals, and overall well-being. Please welcome your host; Paul G. Markel.

*Professor Paul*

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, whenever it happens to be that you are listening to the show Morning Mindset. That's a great thing about the ability that you have to listen to the show at any point in the time of the day or night. You don't have to listen to in the morning. I mean, maybe you want to maybe you can listen to it in the evening.

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But we're going to continue with our book study. That's right, the book Morning Mindset: a 30 Day Plan for a More Positive and Productive Life. We've been doing this for a little over a week now and we're going to continue, and as I said before if you don't have a copy of the book and you can't follow along because you don't have a copy you can fix yourself real quick fast in a hurry by going to Amazon.com or Amazon slash Kindle and picking up a copy of the book that way you can follow along.

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Alright, today's subject, Are you Living on a Life Raft? Like “No, I'm on dry land. I am not on a life raft”, So check, let's move on. Well, what is a life raft? “What is life raft, why is it there, what does it for?” You say, well a lifeboat, a life raft I mean, I know what those are. It's you have a great big ship and then all around the ship you have little tiny boats, little tiny rafts and so forth in case the big ship gets a hole in it like the Titanic and sinks or flips over or whatever, you can get in a small one and it keeps you from drowning.

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Alright, absolutely. So a life raft is an important emergency stopgap. It's there to keep you from drowning, right? Now a life raft is not considered a vessel if you wanted to leave New York and go across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe or England or wanted to go to you know through the. This is the Straits of Gibraltar or what have you?

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You probably wouldn't go shopping for a life raft, would you? Like “No, I wouldn't go shopping for a life raft, because the life raft-” well, what doesn't it have? A life raft doesn't have a motor, doesn't have an engine. It doesn't have sails. They might have one of those little tiny emergency paddles in there.

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But you know, that's just too kind of like turn you from one direction to another, it doesn't really help you, and what else doesn't a life raft have? A life raft doesn't have a navigation system. You know many, you know ships have what they have rudders and then the rudder is a navigator. It helps you get pointed in the right direction, right?

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It has a navigation system. It has a wheel, it has a rudder, it has all those nautical things right? Has an engine, if it doesn't have an engine, it has sails or what have you. All those things to get you going in the right direction. But a life raft doesn't have those. A life raft, once you're in a life raft, you're basically just bobbing along, you know on top of the Waves waiting for somebody in a big ship or helicopter or whatever to come find you.

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Now in our lives many times, we have to go for a life raft. We have to grab onto a life raft because we need that emergency stopgap. You know, and it could be you are in school, or you're out of school or you need to get a job to pay the bills, you get a job pay the bills right now, and you don't have time to be choosy. So you get a job too because you have to have a job, because responsible adult humans have jobs and they pay their bills and they buy food and all that stuff, right?

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So let's say you took a job because you needed to get a job, but you told yourself either “Well, my career goal is to do X Y or Z. I really want to be a blank or I we really want to do this or to do that with my life.” Maybe you took a job. Just as a stopgap, as an emergency life raft. Stopgap to get some money to pay the bills to you know, get yourself out of debt or what have you but that was a year ago or two years ago or three years ago and you find yourself, you know, all those dreams and aspirations and goals that you had once you've kind of forgotten about them and you're not really moving forward.

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You're just kind of floating, or you could be floating in a relationship. Maybe you reached out and you grabbed a hold of someone, because you didn't want to be lonely, because you didn't want to you know live alone. But you realize after time that your relationship is basically just a life raft. You just hanging on you're not moving forward, your life isn't productive and positive, you're just floating.

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Many times we find ourselves in our life-, now a life raft is important, don't get me wrong. I would rather have a life raft than nothing. I would have rather have a life raft than a life jacket. I would rather be out of the water in something than bobbing around in the water like a cork, waiting for the Sharks to come pull my legs off. But you need direction in your life.

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You need a guidance system you need an engine and a Rudder and a navigation system if you want to get somewhere if you want to move forward and Achieve goals and you know, increase your productivity in life. You can't really do that in a life raft. Can you say “Well, you know, I mean I can stick my hand in the water and paddle, but how far am I going to get that way, and maybe I could take off my jacket and act like, you know use it like a sail or something”.

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But the fact the matter is a life raft isn't really designed to get you anywhere. It's just designed to keep you afloat while you're waiting for something else to happen. Now many people are in a life raft, and they're bobbing along and you know philosophically they're living in a life raft, and they're just waiting. For someone or something to come along and rescue them and until someone or something comes along and rescues them.

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They're just going to float and what you need to ask yourself. Is that the position that you're currently in or have you been in that position in the past or do you know someone else that's currently basically, you know, they're living in a life raft. They're just floating along waiting for someone or something to rescue them.

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If you have the option to get out of the life raft and get into a boat with an engine and a Rudder and a navigation system that probably be a better idea, because then you can point the boat in a direction and go there. Maybe you need to point your life in a new direction, or maybe you need to do something to get yourself going faster or you know farther towards your goals.

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We all find that in our lives, we all go through soft periods. We all go through periods of depression. We all go through periods where we're just clinging to something and we tell ourselves that it's only going to be temporary, but then temporary becomes a year or two or three or more and what you thought was just going to be a temporary situation became really comfortable.
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You see if you're in a life raft, you know, especially if you're in a life raft by yourself. You probably got a lot of room to lay down close your eyes. You can become comfortable and just let the just let the sea take you where it wants to take you, and many people do that in their lives. They get comfortable in the life raft. They just put their feet up and they allow themselves to just drift along.

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How many of you out there have children, but you feel like are just drifting along in a life raft without Direction. So today it's all about self examination and considering whether or not you are currently living in a life raft. Now you may be in a life raft because you had to grab onto something. You needed to get a job, you need to have something to pay the bills, and you didn't have time to be choosy, and that's good. I mean that's fine, we all find ourselves that way but a life raft is supposed to be a temporary stopgap.

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You're not supposed to live there now supposed to be where you stay you're supposed to get out get some Direction get an engine get a sale and get moving forward towards your goals so that you can live a more positive and a productive life. Alright, ladies and gentlemen, that's all I have to say about that. I hope that you enjoy today's episode of Morning mindset.

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I certainly enjoyed sitting down behind this microphone to deliver it to you. If you don't have a copy of the book pop over to Amazon grab one get a paperback copy get a Kindle version so that you can follow along, and do me a favor. If you have read the book and you did enjoy the book. Please go to Amazon and leave a review.

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It does indeed matter and they do indeed follow that in order for them Amazon to promote the books that they have internally. They look at the reviews whether they're five stars, or what have you and the number of reviews before they do that. So if you would like other people to experience what you're experiencing right now, take a moment. Go to amazon.com and leave a review. I'm your host Paul Markel, I’ll talk to you again, real soon.

[OUTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Thank you for spending time with us today. To get show notes, submit a topic request, for more from your host Paul G. Markel, visit MorningMindsetPodcast.com. That’s MorningMindsetPodcast.com. Please leave a review of this podcast on your favorite podcast player, we appreciate your time & effort, and we look forward to reading your honest feedback.