Don't Give away today

​Seth Godin recently said, "if you give away today, you give away your future."

It is a reality; our future starts today.

I know, it's a future strongly influenced by the things that happened yesterday. But only to the degree those things have influenced our starting point. Because there is no getting around, our starting point is today.

Our starting point is today and we all have an investor. That investor is whoever or whatever you believe gave you time. Whoever or whatever gave you the 1,440 minutes you have ahead of you today.

I got to wondering this morning. What if the investor showed up tomorrow morning and said, you know what, you gave away my investment yesterday, I'm not re-investing today. I'm investing your 1,440 minutes in someone else.

Maybe you already know this, but none of our futures look too bright without time....

Sometimes I wish the world worked that way. Since the earliest days of my life I've performed best under pressure. I'm a professional procrastinator. I have always found a way to rise to the occasion once the stakes have risen to a point of some urgency.

Trust me, having what I do today be a significant factor in whether or not I get tomorrow, that would be the ultimate point of some urgency.

Obviously, my world doesn't work that way because my investor doesn't work that way. I do wonder if someday he might. I wonder if there might be a life exit interview in which he breaks open an excel spreadsheet revealing all of my minutes (I've had over 30 million of them at this point) - and says, OK, lets take a look.

But why do I need that? Why would I even consider procrastinating with my future? Why doesn't my future come with an internal sense of urgency? Why can't I look around and see that this world needs the time that's been invested in me invested in them? Things I'm uniquely qualified to do with my time.

Because believe me, your investor is only investing in you because he knows your minutes give hope to some unique opportunities only you can pull off.

I know I don't give away all of my minutes. Maybe I don't even give away most of them. But I give away a lot of them. I give away enough of them that I have only me and not you in mind as I write this. Even though I think there's a good chance you'll relate.

I give away more minutes than would make me comfortable to meet with my investor to talk about reinvesting most mornings. And I think I have a very understanding investor.

I actually believe my investor would look at me and say, this investment has nothing to do with my future; it has everything to do with yours. So why would you give even a minute away?

Why would I give even a minute away?

That's a good question. I know I wouldn't if I knew my future depended on it.

Maybe today is a good day to figure that out - my future DOES depend on it.