We can’t live someone else’s life.  (Many wish they could.)

We have something better.

We are able to experiment with our own lives.

The intensely curious AJ Jacobs has done this with his life in many ways, including living biblically for a year and outsourcing his life for others to live.  In The Rationality Project, Jacobs was questioning why he did the things he did – using Crest toothpaste because when he was twelve a friend told him it was cool – and he began to make changes in his life.

Fontainbleu professor Herminia Ibarra suggests trying out the question: What if I try this?*

Whilst the bad news is you can’t live someone else’s life, the really good news is there are many ways to live your life.

If you don’t, it would be like having the blessing of a new car but only going back and forth to the same place at the same speed for the same reasons at the same time of day.

Why not begin today:

Pick up a book you’d never have thought to read.
Change something around in your routine.
Try out AJ Jacob’s experiment of asking why you do the things you do, going as far back as you can.
Get to know someone new.
Encourage someone.
Figure out how to serve someone.

We think we have to have it together – like all the other people – before we can do something more, something different, but it’s the other way around.

‘But the main thing is to get testing and learning underway as soon as possible.’**

‘If people show low failure rates, be suspicious.  Maybe they are not taking enough risks, or maybe they are hiding their mistakes, rather than allowing others in the organisation to learn from them.’^

(*Quoted in Warren Berger’s A More Beautiful Question.)
(**From Warren Berger’s A More Beautiful Question.)
(**From Frans Johansson’s The Medici Effect.)