Making a Living Vs Making a Dying: How to Do What You Love and Love What You Do

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1   Inherent Nature: Nature Of The Universe

Chapter 2   Importance: Create Your Dream Based On What’s Significant

Chapter 3   Inspiration: When You Have A Big Enough ‘Why’ The ‘Hows’ Take Care Of Themselves

Chapter 4   In The Past And Future: Love What You’re Doing First

Chapter 5   Invaluable Service: Convert Your Dream Into A Service, Product Or Idea

Chapter 6   Illusions Of Life: The Seven Fears And How To Overcome Them

Chapter 7   Individual Worth: The Art Of Self-Love

Chapter 8   Infinite Abundance: Cultivating Your Wealth Consciousness

Chapter 9   Instructions For Life: Master-Plan Your Journey

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

For those who know the world needs what they have

Preface

I kept hearing it everyday.

I feel stuck, Dr David, I have no idea what to do about it. I hate my job and the thought of doing anything else scares me. In fact I don’t even know what I’d do if I had the choice.

It always astonishes me that people continue to work at jobs they dislike. They wake in the morning and feel a sense of helplessness, frustration and anger at having to spend another day in an uninspiring vocation. This fact dawned on me during the summer of 2012 while I was consulting in my Chiropractic and Wellness practice. I never really set out to find out this fact, nor was it what I was really thinking about myself.

I had the fortunate situation to be in a job I loved. And now I’m constantly defining, refining and clarifying exactly how I’d love it to be. This was certainly not the reality other people began sharing with me in my office. It was often the same story told over and over again. They were feeling powerless at how to do anything about their current circumstance. Their ideal lives, if they ever had a vision of such a thing, had become so clouded by the noise and stressors of their current life.

As the evidence grew that this was the way things were for so many of my patients, I began to wonder if perhaps it was happening to others as well. The deeper I looked, the more I discovered that in fact it was the unfortunate truth for a significant proportion of the population.

This disturbed me. It viscerally shook something inside me.

So I decided to set out on a journey to discover the factors—the principles and practices—necessary to transcend a mediocre existence. I studied the lives of people who had made it a reality. I researched the wisdom of the ages from the ancient traditions of the East and the West right through to modern psychology.

The result is what you currently hold in your hands. I’ve distilled thousands of years of teachings into the nine steps to overcoming your limitations and learning to love your life. This book is my attempt at helping you live an inspired life.

Welcome to Making a Living vs Making a Dying.

Dr David Pierotti

Introduction

T he principles and practices taught here are part of the global collected wisdom; they are ideas that have been passed on for millennia. They are what I have found, through my research, to be the most significant steps to leaving a mundane or mediocre vocation behind and living what I like to call an inspired life .

This book is for the thousands of people out there, many of whom I’ve met over the years, who wish to transcend the uninspiring aspects of their lives. These same people may also have tremendous resentment, distaste, disgust, frustration, conflict and turmoil at the job or life they’re currently living. If you’re not doing what you love or loving what you do, there is turmoil in your life. There are, however, people who have found joy through work, and it is from these stately individuals I have sought to learn from. Harnessing the factors necessary to forge the path with heart is what I have attempted to distill into these nine short chapters.

Instead of wallowing in uninspiring tasks, your task is to go out and learn from those who have found a way to live with joy. I hope to transmute to you the knowledge of how to do exactly that. If you don’t learn how to change your attitudes, perceptions and circumstances around work, the result will be poisonous to yours and the lives of your loved ones.

I don’t believe anybody should have to continue to follow the so-called traditional route to success if it’s currently not working. I’ve made it part of my service to the community and to the world to touch as many lives as I can by creating harmony of body, mind and spirit. This program and everything else I do is driven out of the strong desire to assist people to transform their lives in those 3 areas. We won’t touch on the ‘body’ in this book but just know that through inspiration of the mind and spirit we automatically gain inspiration of the body as well. Your energy and enthusiasm for life is directly proportionate to the clarity of your vision. Therefore I will guide you on how to increase the vividness of that vision.

In truth, I can’t say that the writing of this book is a completely selfless act. I know that by compiling the knowledge and stories I will share with you, I’ve gained a great deal in the process. It’s certainly not a one-sided altruistic act nor am I getting more than I’m giving. And I think this is good thing, as we grow more when we do a little of both.

Often, as I have come to see through the research and writing of this book, people’s creativity has become stifled along their life journey. They don’t enjoy what they are doing now but also have no idea what they might enjoy instead. I hope to guide you through several exercises, or what I’ve called ‘play-sheets,’ that will serve to unravel your hidden talents and proficiencies.

After unlocking those talents and personal strengths, we’ll channel them into a dream and a vision unique to you. You’ll then be able to live each day as a creative genius in the field that inspires you the most. Sharing this creativity with others is also a key to having fulfilment through work. My feeling is that when you decide to shrink and play small, then nobody, including yourself and your loved ones will receive any benefit. If, however, you decide to give your gifts to the world in loving service, you will be repaid handsomely. I believe that service is at the core of this ideology. I go off on this theme throughout the book as well as specifically in chapter 5.

This book is called Making a Living vs Making a Dying - How to do what you love and love what you do. It’s called that for two reasons. Firstly, there is a sad reality for people that never engage in work that fully satisfies them; they can generally expect a shorter and less fulfilling life. There are scores of studies pointing out that when people are enjoying their work, they lead happier, healthier and longer lives. It is no coincidence that more heart attacks occur on Monday morning than at any other time. What mechanism would account for this phenomenon that is seen exclusively in humans? Our dogs and cats aren’t having heart attacks on Mondays, nor are lab mice. Therefore humans have placed a meaning on that time of day and day of the week. This is an act in perception unique to our species. Because of this negative association with work, there is a level of strain they are feeling when they think of it. Sadly, for some, it has reached the point of so much strain that the body doesn’t adapt, and fails under the load.

The second reason is because of the western notion of a working life followed by retirement. For the vast majority of people, the prospect of an arduous 40-or-more year stretch of work is only relieved by a light at the end of the tunnel. The traditional formula says that you work at a job that’s a means to an ends, to make money, or what many call making a living. The formula is adopted by so many people because of the promise of a future of leisure, joy and big wealth if you work hard and ‘do your time.’ But what part of spending your 20’s through to your 60’s in a role that’s unfulfilling is really ‘living’? Why wait until the day you leave formal work behind to start spending your precious time on the activities you love, with the people you love?

I’m redefining the word retire as the act of re-tiring, or ‘becoming tired again.’ This is what most people will experience once they hit retirement. If they spend a lifetime working at jobs that are unfulfilling, ignoring their true values, by the time they’re ready to hang up their boots, they have to rediscover themselves as if for the first time. This leaves many a retiree frustrated, bored, confused and resentful. Doesn’t it make more sense to seek your true self now, while you’ve got time ahead of you to experiment with more possibilities? I understand that for certain individuals the old formula may actually work. My best guess however is that since you picked up this book, you’re not one of them. And instead you desire to make a difference in your life now, rather than putting things off until retirement.

Something needs to be done to help people get unstuck from their rut; to lift them out of their funk and into inspiring and meaningful paths uniquely tailored to their needs and desires. I will attempt, as best I know how, to highlight the key areas you’ll need to master in order to transcend whatever is holding you back from total fulfilment now. This, in the truest sense of the term, is a guidebook on how to really make a living.

In his direct and inspiring way, Kahlil Gibran said "When you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God." He wasn’t referring to a dogmatic, father-figure, anthropomorphised God but he was describing the infinite part of ourselves. When we participate in meaningful work, we bind ourselves to our immortal selves. In this way, we can hope to dissolve some of the worries associated with the finite, mortal self.

Part of this process involves escalation from your current reality to a higher level. There’s a hierarchy in the world of work and service that flows like this:

job to career to calling

A job is not a career, nor a career necessarily a calling, but a calling is both a job and a career, plus something much more. A calling is having a strong inclination to give a service to humanity by sharing your gifts. Some may even consider it as a divine service or mission to serve the world as brought forth by God, Universe or Soul.

However you describe or define it, for most of us it constitutes a feeling from within that makes us feel inspired to partake in and also share our innermost purpose. It’s that driving energy that gets you out of bed in the morning. It’s the thing in which you feel the most meaning. The activity which we place the greatest value on. And it’s my hope you’ll be another step closer to that reality by the end of this book. The fact is, most people will spend more than a third of their lives involved in work to make a living. Doesn’t it make sense to want to optimise this huge portion of your life?

In the process of truly learning to make a living and find