Richie Norton: Hacks to Living a Meaningful Life
Richie Norton’s life hasn’t been easy, but he has figured out how to ask the right questions and find he values most and live life to achieve what matters most. (And you can too!)
Episode Discussion Points
The interesting thing his dad told him when he wanted to get a job as a teenager
You can be creative and earn money as an entrepreneur
Don’t lose meaning in your life. Spend time doing the things that matter most
The passing of his brother-in-law Gavin & what he learned about not putting off your dreams
The passing of their little son Gavin and wondering how they would ever handle that
Gavin’s Law: Live to Start, Start to Live—meaning start living the ideas that are pressing on your mind.
Don’t let fear hold you back from living life to its fullest in the present, without regret
It is important in hard times to make like “airy & available” so you can navigate hard times.
With grief—a little bit of pain can fill your whole body
"Grief is a tunnel, not a cave.”
Goals are usually means to an end—so you need to ask yourself what your end goal? So, start with the end goal in mind.
Anti-time management means you control your time and live according to your values. Don’t work on your values last!
Time-management was made to control people
Example of rapper ________ (Sirah?)
When we decide “I am….” therefore, I will do and act like that right now.
Get over the self-imposed hurdles and be who you know you can be
How people aren’t afraid of failure, they’re afraid of slow growth or looking bad.
When he wondered, “Does God hate me?” And what he decided to do.
Don’t tie your faith to an outcome.
“And the greatest miracle of faith is having faith when there is no miracle.”
Do what you can with what you’ve got, where you are.
Assign positive meaning to even hard things and choose how you will look at it.
If you want a better outcome you should ask a better question.
What, “Begin with the end in mind,” means to him.
Ask yourself where you want to be in 2 years and bake in the real outcome from the start.
Live from your values and you’ll live without regret
Connect with Richie
Website: RichieNorton.com
Buy his new book Anti-Time Management on Amazon here
#tamarakanderson #storiesofhopeinhardtimes #podcast #hope #God #hardtimes #deathofchild #dreams #values #lifeofmeaning #whatmattersmost #grief #faith
Transcription
You can find the transcription of today's episode here:
Richie Norton 0:03
Like when when when I had all these tragedies--my son passed away, my brother in law passed away, my wife losing her memory, after a stroke (She got it back later), my foster kids being, you know, coming and going, my kid getting hit by a car. I thought God hated me. Does God hate me? And then I started thinking, these things actually didn't happen to me, did they? They happened the people I love. I'm not going in some dark path because He loves all them too. I'm not going there, obviously. But what was happening is in my head, I was stringing them all together and applying it to me. And then I thought, obviously, God doesn't hate me. Obviously, this is just a place where things happen. And I should just love God unconditionally.
Tamara Anderson 0:50
Welcome to Stories of Hope in Hard Times, the show that explores how people endure and even thrive in difficult times, all with God's help. I'm your host Tamara K Anderson. Join me on a journey to find inspiring stories of hope and wisdom learned in life's hardest moments.
Tamara Anderson 1:15
My guest today is an award winning author and serial entrepreneur, and executive coach to CEOs he has been featured in Forbes Bloomberg, Business Weekly, Inc, entrepreneur and the Huffington Post. Pacific Business News recognized him as one of the top 40 under 40 best and brightest young businessmen in Hawaii. He is one of the world's leading thinkers and top 100 coaches, and he is a CEO and co founder of Prouduct, a global entrepreneurship solution helping businesses go from idea to market with full service sourcing product strategy, and end to end supply chain. He is the author of several books, including his brand new Anti Time Management, The Power of Starting Something Stupid, and Resumes are Dead and What to do About it. Born and raised in San Diego, and having lived in Brazil, in Hawaii, he and his wife, Natalie, and they have four boys, one who has already made his way to heaven. They've also cared for three beloved foster children and live on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii with their little dog. I am pleased to present to Richie Norton, Richie Are you ready to share your story of hope?
Richie Norton 2:30
I'm ready, I'm excited to be here. Let's make it happen. Rock and roll. Here we go.
Tamara Anderson 2:37
Awesome. Now I thought I'd break the ice with a story from when you were a teenager. And you know, we all hit the age of 16. And we kind of say, Okay, I'm 16 I can now work. And you were thinking of getting a job. And your dad gave you some advice that you thought was kind of counterintuitive, but it ended up working out what do you mind sharing a little bit of that?
Richie Norton 3:00
Yeah, definitely. You know, I every, every teenager wants to be able to spend money, right, you know, at some point in time, and I wanted to be able to kind of control that and have some. And so I asked my dad, you know, tell him I wanted to get a job and he said you don't want a job. And then what kind of dad says that, you know?
Tamara Anderson 3:21
Yeah, exactly. I'm like, I can't even imagine my father saying that when I was well, I said, Yeah, you need a job. So let's hear what your dad said.
Richie Norton 3:30
Well, he said, you know, you're only going to be a kid once and you're gonna be working your entire life. Your job is to get good grades and have fun. And you know, middle class family you know, the we're doing our thing, it wouldn't have hurt me to go and get a job somewhere and, and and have my own money and do my own thing. But that when I tell a story from this angle, it makes it sound like it is what it is. That's not what he was saying at all.
Richie Norton 3:58
What he is saying is it's okay if you want money and there is a way to get money. But working for minimum wage as a teenager picking up trash at the, at the fairgrounds or working at you know, the gas station may not be the best use of your time. That's what he was saying. So, he told me this crazy idea. He said go to El Centro where there's a lot of farms and go to the watermelon patch and ask you can buy the irregular sized watermelons that they can't sell to the stores. And I'm like that's bizarre like where does he get these ideas?
Richie Norton 4:36
And so my brother and I we we emptied out the family van took out the seats out of the back and headed over there you know several several hours away from where we lived. And we we did my dad gave us a little bit of money seed money, I call it and we bought these watermelons fold up the van completely the it was low riding hard like getting hitting everything that way. We went rollover. And we sold those watermelons on the Fourth of July, and ended up selling... basically made enough money in one day. More money in one day than we would have made working the entire summer, for my age.
Richie Norton 5:24
And so when you say you don't want a job he meant don't trade, you don't have to trade your time for money. He meant you can be creative. He meant you can be an entrepreneur, he meant, you know, I all get that we want money. But money and meaning can go together. Why do we have to sacrifice our meaning for money. In fact, most people spend their lives chasing money telling themselves, they're doing it for meaning and they lose all meaning in the process. And he taught me that, you know, without without even saying a word about it, he taught it by just sharing a new way of doing things. And so that's kind of impacted my life in a number of different ways.
Tamara Anderson 5:58
Oh, it's so powerful. I mean, it really is to lead by example that way, and I admire your father's wisdom and teaching you those, those key ideas that actually kind of have become meaningful throughout your life, probably even more as you've had bigger and better experiences as you've grown older. Now, there were two Gavins in your life that had a very strong impact on on who you are, and some of the principles that you've begun to live your life by, would you mind sharing a little bit about them?
Richie Norton 6:34
My, my wife, and I got married. I live in Hawaii, we have, you know, amazing children. And for about five years off and on my brother in law lives lived with us. And without going into like all the crazy details, because it was just a shock to us that, you know, at the time, my brother in law passed away and asleep at the age of 21. Wow, it was devastating. To think that someone we know, someone we love, my wife's brother is gone. And we'll never have a chance to grow old.
Richie Norton 7:12
And to do the things that we've always been taught in America that we can do, meaning, work really hard for a long time and then be able to retire and live your life. Not possible. And when this happened, it really made us rethink. Not just that life is short, you know that that's cliche, but it doesn't make it any less true. You know, life Life is short, but not just that it's short. But the opportunities we have that are right before us need to need to be done now. Not in the future, when the future is elusive, and possibly non existent. In fact, we can never reach the future can we were always in the present. No matter how much we think about the future. We're always physically in the present.
Richie Norton 7:55
And so a few years later, my, our fourth son, we named him Gavin after my brother in law, Gavin. He was born and he gave us so much light and hope because we named him after his uncle. And so we thought of him filling the hole in some some little way. And it turned out after some time, that he got this cough, and the doctors said he was fine, and it would be fine. And it persisted. They said he had RSV and they were wrong. He didn't have RSV and it persisted. And finally, one night, he was having a really hard time breathing and the doctors again, we thought we'd be in and out of the emergency room. And they kept us there. Eventually, they looked for pertussis, which is also known as whooping cough. And turns out that that's what he had. Wow.
Richie Norton 8:48
And it was just so much on his little body. I remember my wife and I just praying so hard and, and you know, asking the world to pray. And my wife, my wife blogging, there's even someone from I think is symbol that said he stood up all night, you know, praying for our son. And we were expecting and hoping for a miracle. But I remember a nurse came in and she said, you know, you just stay the night, which was a bizarre thing to say. Because we always stayed the night that wasn't a thing. But she was cluing us in that this was the end.
Richie Norton 9:21
And they took out all the little wires and all the tubes out of his body. And I remember just holding him for a moment immediately handing it on to my wife. She's sitting on a rocking chair. And I have my hand on his heart and and she's cuddling him. And we just sing lullabies. And we just wait for those last beats. And he slips away. And when this happened, of course, it's your worst nightmare as a parent that my wife remembers to as we've talked about it, not realizing that she would ever have this drank the handle something like that. And whether it's her or the her inside of her, you know, this, this something extra something special. It changed us, it changed us.
Richie Norton 10:19
And someone asked, you know, what do you what do you learn from your experience from your brother in law passed away from your son passing away. And I came up with something I called Gavin's Law, you know, in their name, which is "live to start start to live." Because when you live a start those ideas that are pressing on your mind, you really will start living. So many people wonder what should they do, but they have this idea in their head, they don't do anything about it, because they're scared in the event walking around like the living dead, not knowing what to do with their lives, when in reality, there has been something some inspiration, something has been pressing for a long time, and he still won't do anything about it.
Richie Norton 10:52
So the idea of live to start start to live, Gavin's Law has empowered me to be able to say, You know what, I have this idea, I'm not sure if it's gonna fail or not. Even if I'm worried if it's gonna fail or not, I don't know, I want to live a life without regret. There are things in this life that are just so important. And not only are they important, they're timely. And every, every time I tell myself, I need more time, I need more education, it more experienced, I need more money, I am only pushing, I only pushing the things that are in my head right now into the future, where they will be harder to do and probably never happen.
Richie Norton 11:33
So Gavin's Law helps me to live in the present, as they say, but also with the perspective that there are things money and meaning even bringing it back to that original story. But you can do right now. And you should.
Tamara Anderson 11:51
Absolutely. Wow, such. First of all, I am sorry, you had to go through several hard moments to learn those lessons. But wow, the power and how that has completely changed who you are and how you live, is it's powerful. It's almost like you said you decided, okay, their life had meaning. And I can do some amazing things in a short amount of time and take these dreams from the future and place them right here and and get them done.
Tamara Anderson 12:29
Now, you have a new book that is just come out and time management. And the whole kind of premise behind this is learning to manage one of our biggest commodities here on Earth. And that is the principle of time. And some people call it time management. But you kind of go against that in this book and say it's it's not about time management. It's about deciding what we do with what we have and what we value. Would you mind talking a little bit about this, this principle of time tipping and how we react to situations and change?
Richie Norton 13:14
Yeah, there is a time if anybody remembers, they may or may not remember. But there was a time where the whole world thought Hawaii was about to blow up from a ballistic missile from North Korea. And I happened to be in Nashville, and my whole family was home. And I get this text on my phone saying there's a ballistic missile. And this is not a test. And that moment, my so to speak, movie moment, you know, life flashed before my eyes, but in reality, it actually kind of slowed down. And I thought of, you know, my two Gavin's, you know, our two Gavin's that passed away. But I also thought about our foster kids, you know, that that that you mentioned, I thought about who would come and gone at this point, who we love so much. And I thought about I thought about my son got hit by a car and crossing crossing the street and should should be dead, but he survived and he's, you know, riding these gigantic waves out here in Hawaii. And I thought that my wife had a stroke at one point and lost her memory.
Richie Norton 14:17
And I thought all these thoughts and I thought and now everything's gonna be gone, the whole islands gonna be wiped out and I'm never gonna see my family again. And I didn't think what was me I thought I'm so glad we live life without regret. That's what I thought. And it's interesting because when you experience hardships, the the idea and anti time management isn't that you're going to avoid them. Or that things you don't expect won't happen.
Richie Norton 14:46
The idea is to create space so that life becomes almost airy and available free will to make better choices under any circumstances. So, like for me, all these things bring drew grief. And for our listeners, I'm sure they've experienced grief, whether it's small or big, there's no comparing it is what it is they say like a little bit of gas and a room fills the whole room, a little bit of pain, a little bit of turmoil, a little bit of whatever can fill your entire body, your mind it can it can, it can just encompass you and make everything even feel debilitating.
Richie Norton 15:25
So I see time as and grief, specifically as a tunnel, not a cave. That that that it may be hard and it is hard. And it's okay to feel bad when you're feeling bad. And it's okay to sleep in when you're sleeping in. And to avoid punishing yourself, you know, when when you're feeling good.
Richie Norton 15:46
But when it comes to my last book, The Power of Starting Something Stupid, I started in the so called stupid ideas, which I think are the new smart, right. And I learned that people would say, I have a stupid idea rich, and I want to do it. And I go cool. And it wasn't hard to help somebody align their idea with money making, it's a matter of sales at that point, it's a transaction, you can have a transformational business. But at some point, money making is a transaction. And that's not difficult. It's difficult to do. It's not difficult in concept. So when you run someone up like this, this this path to make money. When you type in goal setting on the internet, you're gonna find some, some dude in a suit with a flag climbing a mountain. It's bizarre, it's bizarre, it makes no sense. And people all think that that is the way we do it.
Richie Norton 16:34
And so when I think about anti time management, and I tie it to the power of doing something stupid, you know, in this conversation, living without regret, I think are all the things I'm doing, actually accomplishing the thing that I want, because when someone tells me they want to start a business, let's just do one. It's a pretend it's a pencil business just for the sake of doing something really vanilla, right? They didn't want the pencil business, they want it what they thought would come from the success of the pencil business is a metaphor. So people will set goals in the run towards them really far, and they'll reach it and they'll be dissatisfied. Because it wasn't what they wanted. They thought they would get something from getting that goal. What's the job of the goal? To me goals aren't goals at all goals aren't ends, goals are a means to an end. Goals are means strengths or means habits or means.
Richie Norton 17:32
The idea is to move beyond them and beyond the goals beyond. Beyond the strengths beyond the habits is where antitype management lives is the success after the success. It's why we do the things that we do. It's the essence of the reason that we do the things we do. So when someone said they want us or for example, a pencil business wasn't hard to help them make money and sell a bunch of pencils. But when they didn't have the time and freedom to do what they really wanted to do, which was actually travel the world spend time with their family coach the kids sports, it changes the entire business because all you'd have to do is say, Oh, you want to travel the world, spend time with your family and you want to coach your kids sports? Why don't we start there and build a pencil business that supports that goal. Or once you realize that's the goal, you don't need a bit of pencil business at all, you might not even need to quit your job, easy to rearrange what you're doing.
Richie Norton 18:27
So, anti time management goes like this: time management what we know time management means they control your time. Anti time management means you control your time.
Richie Norton 18:41
Time management means they tell you what to do and time management is you decide what you want to do. Time management means they take up space. And time manager means you create space. I'm not saying that like a some some thing. I'm saying this literally from 200 years ago when time management was invented, this is an invention. This is a man made invention. It was designed specifically as a tool to control people. Every blood, every drop of blood, sweat and tears measured. Every motion of your arm is measured. That is time management. So the idea of time management entering the vernacular of self help is a bizarre concept. Because it has nothing to do with helping you as everything with controlling you.
Richie Norton 19:27
And so anti time management moves us away from the the misconceptions we have about time management and bringing us to what we really want which is living the essence of what we want one more one more example is if you bake a cake without sugar, you can expect it to be sweet. You know you can put in other kinds of things make it sweet, I get it. But time management is like baking a cake without sugar expecting it to give it to give you time. It's better to bake in the sugar from the start. It's better to Making the values from the start start, how can you expect to have a life not lived with values and eventually have your values.
Richie Norton 20:08
So the idea is to value your time, not time, your values, time management instantly tells people the time their values, I want this thing, it's a priority, I'll do it last. That's, that's weird. I have this value, I'm going to work for my family one day in the future, I will do it. That's weird. Why not bake in the time, the essence the love the values from the very start? Because when you do, you actually, you encourage and create systems that support not only your personal values, but it removes you as a bottleneck from the way you work, and allows you to be able to do your actual work better and more productively. Instead of having your work, take you away from what you want to do your work brings you closer to it.
Tamara Anderson 20:56
Wow, that is so powerful. I just I just finished reading your book. And and my first thought as I finish it was I need to sit down with my husband and like, say, okay, what are our goals? What are we working towards, you know, and and, and really sit down and kind of apply what what you teach in this book. I know, I loved three of the quest questions in particular that I think we're about in the middle of the book where you said, what would I do if I only had an hour to get this done. And it kind of helps you get rid of all the fluff and rarely pairs it down to OK, what is most important? Because I think we often spend our time spinning our wheels, doing things that really aren't important. And not focusing on what matters most to us personally. And the second one was, what would I do if I could only work an hour a day? And what would I do if I worked only an hour a week? And I just sat there pondering those, like, I think I literally stopped. And I wrote them down. And I was like, What the heck, where's this been all my life?
Richie Norton 22:15
What did you What did you decide you do?
Tamara Anderson 22:19
Well, you know, it really made me think because when I started podcasting, I think I felt like I needed to open up my entire schedule to allow time for people to, you know, bring people in to interview. And it's so interesting, here I am three and a half years into it going, I only record now on these days at these times. And And if people can't fit it in I'll I'll make exceptions, you know, every once in a while, but it's interesting how I went from I will record from nine in the morning till nine at night when everybody else can. To really say no, that's not what's most important. My life, what's most important in my life are is my husband and my children and taking care of them. And since I have two kids on the autism spectrum, you know, they demand a lot of my time. And so making sure that I prioritize, okay, they need my help at these times of the day. And so really prioritizing what is most important to me, and then okay, for my business, what do I really need to have happen and fitting that in.
Tamara Anderson 23:26
And so it just really made me... I think I've started coming to those same conclusions that you teach in the book, slowly, probably should have learned it faster Richie I'm telling you, but but I'm thankful that at least I can see progress in my own story. As I read this, I'm like, Yes, I am doing better at valuing myself and my time. Cutting things out that just want to take over want to control and take no, that's really not important. That's gone. And implementing. I love how you talk about "love" in the book, that what we spend our time on is what we love. Prioritizing what we love, I guess is the way you say it, I think. And so it's it's truly powerful and, and it gives life meaning. You know, we've talked about meaning a little bit, so I'm thankful. I'm thankful for that. You know, I took a lot from it. And I feel like I need to go back and really study the questions and go, Okay, how can I do better with this? Because I know that I have so many areas in which I can improve.
Richie Norton 24:44
Yeah, no. Yeah, we all we all do. We all do. I just think it's fascinating that people will either start a business or go to a job telling themselves they're doing it for their family at the actual expense of their family. Yes. I think it's so weird. It's bizarre. How does that make any logical sense. And it does make logical sense because we tell ourselves it does. But in reality, how we show up is a very different thing. You know, they'll they'll say, I want to create a business that has gives me more time only to lose all their time and at the business. So that's because they measured for that they use time management, they said, I have to do these things first. So I can have this thing later, instead of saying the thing I want later, I can bake in from the start, it completely changed everything you do. And yes, of course, you know, someone working in nine to five could potentially depends on the nature of the job, can potentially do the same work that from nine to five could do it from nine to 10. And why do they take longer, because that's how they're measured, they're supposed to be in the seat, they have to stretch it out, it's the way it works.
Richie Norton 25:49
But if they shorten it, their boss will give them more work. And not. This is, this is the world we live in. Everybody plays his little dance. That's cool. So I'm not saying like, what what's happening isn't real, because it's real.
Richie Norton 26:04
What I'm trying to say is, stop lying to yourself, about what you're doing, reaching your goal, when it will, when it won't. And then to recognize there is another way, and it is a choice, it is a choice. And if you can then act on that choice, you might be able to live that life, you were hoping would come five or 10 years from now, immediately. And I'm not saying that like philosophically, I mean, literally, that that Italy trip you guys want to do in two years could be done handbook today. But you told yourself, all these other things have to happen first, it's probably not true. It's probably not true. And, and the happy the happy part and the professional side is now you get to figure out how to do work in a way that actually supports your life. Instead of instead that you've already figured out how to sacrifice your entire life for your work. You figured that out from the day you were born, we were told to do that every day, kindergarten, preschool all the way up 12th grade College, sacrifice your entire life that you can one day have one, you can do the opposite to just a matter of learning.
Tamara Anderson 27:13
Yeah. And I love how you talked about being a matter of choice. You share a story in the book that really was powerful to me, especially since I interview people who have gone through challenging things.
Tamara Anderson 27:27
We're gonna take a quick break. But when we get back, we'll have more lessons, tips and things you can apply to your life. Stay tuned.
Tamara Anderson 27:37
Hey my friends, it's Tamara K Anderson, and I need your help. I am gearing up for a wonderful Christmas season this year. And I need your stories to be part of it. I'm launching a new part on my podcast that I'm going to start doing every holiday season called holiday stories of hope. And so I would love to hear your stories that you and your family have had happened to you during the holidays that in have inspired hope, in Christ hope in your family stories that perhaps you've passed down for generations. Or perhaps it's something that's happened to you personally. So if you have a story you would love to share. If you wouldn't mind coming on a zoom call with me and recording it. We can do it in 510 15 minutes. And then I will be sharing that this November and December with my audience so that we can all be inspired by your story of hope. If you're interested, go to my website, Tamara K anderson.com, and go to contact me and reach out to me that way and we'll get something set up. All right, guys, thanks for being such great supporters. And I look forward to sharing more of your stories of hope.
Tamara Anderson 28:54
You share a story in the book that that really was powerful to me, especially since I interview people who have gone through challenging things in their lives. And I'm going to forget her name. The rapper. What was her name?
Richie Norton 29:11
Oh, Sirah.
Tamara Anderson 29:13
Oh, yeah. That's it. Thank you. I'm like it begins with an S.
Richie Norton 29:17
Yeah, she's amazing. She's amazing. So
Tamara Anderson 29:20
I loved that she had had such a difficult and challenging life. You know, grew up dad addicted to drugs. She was too and then she had a pivotal moment where she she heard a voice saying, This isn't who you are. I'm paraphrasing, of course but you were meant to rap you are meant to sing and going in and following that dream and trying to figure out how do I do this? It gave her purpose to get off drugs. It gave her purpose to follow this even though she sucked it in the beginning. And she was able to move forward towards that dream and accomplish it. It was it was such a pain. Powerful story. And I thought, this, this is a great example of choice, you know, saying she could have lived as a victim her entire life. But she instead said, Okay, I'm going to stand on this as a platform and say, This is where I came from. But it doesn't have to be who I am forever.
Richie Norton 30:16
That's right. And the I am part is really, really important. Because she never had the chance to go to recitals growing up, she would never have a chance to go to the summer camps that, you know, we send our kids to, she would never be able to go through the whole protocol of learning and goal setting and getting a literal gold star and getting an award and getting a trophy for being 14, 15, 16 year old singer person, that was never going to happen. But when she decided she was a rapper, she showed up as one and became one and eventually earned a Grammy. When most of us juxtaposition, no matter where we are in life, no matter how hard it was, in the past, would say, oh, no, I need those gold stars. First, I need I need my recitals First, I need my lessons first.
Richie Norton 31:20
And we eventually go down five or 10 years or longer and never end up doing it. Because we keep telling ourselves we need something I will do something as opposed to I am something therefore I do something. So thinking from what Aristotle called Final cause, thinking from beyond the goal, to the essence of the goal, thinking from your future self changes the way you work, as opposed to saying I one day will become this thing. Which leads us down the path we already know and are familiar with, because that's the way most people live their entire lives.
Tamara Anderson 31:52
Mm hmm. It's interesting, I was telling you before we jumped on the recording that I just got back from a author training with Richard Paul Evans. And I was having this exact conversation with one of my friends down there at the Ranch. And, and he's been working on a book for quite a while and he said, I still can't call myself an author. And I'm like, hello, you've been writing for so long. He's like, I just can't do it. I said, you are an author, you need to claim it. He's like, and it's kind of like, we have these self imposed hurdles that that are holding us back, like, I'm like, how long have you been writing? I mean, you're you're getting your PhD right now. You're writing a dissertation. I'm like, you're an author. You're an author in so many ways, just because you haven't published this particular book doesn't mean you haven't been writing for years and decades of your life and like you're an author claim it. But it's hard, right?
Richie Norton 32:52
Yeah, you know, when I interviewed hundreds of people that were approaching retirement, and some of them were successful, some of them, quote unquote, weren't I think they had great lives either way. But the I would ask them, like, when things worked or didn't work, what was the difference? And they would say, this is kind of the the the refrain, hey, that that would that would that would come through. And they would say, I thought I needed more time. I thought I would wait till I had more time, more education, more experience, and more money to do what I really wanted to do, only to find out that now that I'm here in this spot I was waiting for, I still need more time, more education, more experience, and more money. Now, whether that's just psychological, or or like literal, I guess that would be circumstantial.
Richie Norton 33:43
But in the end, those who began where they were, with what they had or didn't have, were able to far exceed those who waited for more, because they were able to leverage resources that were out there, that the others decided to completely ignore or not believe that they had access to a totally different way of living. Plus, you know, we don't want our dreams, we don't want our dreams in the future. Think about who you were 10 or 20 years ago, you don't have to say this out loud. But like, think about who you were, it's 2022 Let's pretend it's 2012 Who were you? You were a different person. You had different money, a different circumstances, you had different goals. You don't even want those goals you had back then? No, it's better to go after the goals you want right now and the ones you think you want in the future, and bring them in now so you can build on top of them.
Richie Norton 34:36
And people aren't that scared of failure. People we say we say we say we're scared of failure, but we've talked about it so much and in the world fail forward, fail fast. You learn that it's like okay, I got it fail. It's part of the process. Cool. When people are really scared. I was looking bad. There. It's ego. It's pride. They're scared of slow growth. This will take too long for my people to validate me Therefore, I feel like a failure even though if they would just keep going, they'd be fine.
Tamara Anderson 35:04
Yeah. You know, this brings brings me to kind of an important thing that I'm going to draw out of your book. But but you don't talk about the spiritual component very much in your book. But I know you're a spiritual person. Sometimes God plants, these dreams in our heart, and their big dreams. And, and I don't think he's going to plant something in there. If he knows we can't accomplish it. And so my question to you is, I know you've had some ginormous dreams and goals that you've accomplished. How do you feel leaning on God has helped you overcome perhaps our own fear of achieving these dreams and goals and maybe giving you helped you find the resources to accomplish them?
Richie Norton 35:55
I don't think any of us could ever know the mind of God well enough, right? Like when when when I had all these tragedies, my son passed away, my brother in law passed away, my wife losing her memory after a stroke, she got it back, my foster kids being you know, coming and going, my kid getting hit by a car, I thought God hated me. And I started asking myself, Does God hate me? And then I started thinking, these things actually didn't happen to me, did they happen, the people I love, I'm not going in some dark path, because he loves all of them, too. I'm not going there, obviously. But what was happening is in my head, I was stringing them all together and applying it to me. And then I thought, obviously, God doesn't hate me. Obviously, this is just a place where things happen. And I should just love God unconditionally.
Richie Norton 36:52
Because every time people tie their faith to an outcome, they lose their faith every time they don't get an outcome, sign seekers. And the greatest miracle of faith is having faith when there is no miracle. Why isn't that the truth? So I started telling myself, I'm going to love God unconditionally and go to work. I'm going to do what I gives you, you can have faith and give yourself back the power instead of just waiting. So big dreams inspired or not big ideas, inspiring, not timelines inspired or not. You do what you can with what you have where you are. And it creates processional effects. And people come out of the woodwork. And you can't, in my opinion, stop attaching it to some divine thing, whether it works out or not. That's bizarre, assign positive meaning to the situation, whether it works out or not. I assigned positive meetings, my son passed away, it's the worst thing in the world, my wife and I told ourselves, we wouldn't let it tear us apart, you would try to live better because of him to bring us closer together. That's how you assign meaning. Hmm. So
Tamara Anderson 37:57
it kind of goes back to what you were saying how you choose, you make a choice on how you look at it. Yeah. And that's powerful. I love that. No, and I've seen that in my own life. And there was a time that I really prayed that for several, probably years, that God would heal my voice from their autism. And, yeah, it would have been so much easier if we hadn't had that struggle in our lives. But I think that was my one of my biggest epiphanies. One day was when I figured out that true faith is saying, I believe in you, no matter the outcome, and I trust that you see the end from the beginning and that you're gonna make all this work for my good. Like it says in Romans, you know, that all these things will work for my good. I remember friend pointing that out to me when I was a older teenager and and really looking at it and not understanding it. Truly, till later in my life when I was going through a harder time that I prayed God would save me from but he didn't.
Richie Norton 39:10
I love it. And you know, it's always frustrating to anyone who's gone through a hard time to hear this whole idea of have more faith. Sure, why not? But if you if you if anyone who studied the scriptures knows those people had terrible lives, for the most part. Many of them were killed. They didn't get anything they prayed for. It's terrible. I mean, like, what what are we making up? So the idea of having faith and going to work and continuing to be assign meaning to the things you're doing, even when there is no miracle. I respect those people. Yeah,
Tamara Anderson 39:51
Absolutely. This has been awesome. I appreciate you diving into this. Now. One of the phrases I love Often your buck was move from prisons of time, to prisms of time, and basically creating projects that create time for you and don't take time away from you. What? What do you feel that means for all of us today?
Richie Norton 40:20
So ask a better question get a better answer, right? That's, that's the philosophy. And so when someone says, I want to do this thing, and they end up in a quote, unquote, what I call prison of time, then they're there. And they think that's the way it's supposed to be. Because they've been taught it's supposed to be that way. In fact, sadly, by corporations, it was designed to be a prison of time. Why don't want you going out and having fun doing your thing. You're gonna make me money. Corporations, we know this, why? Why do we think that time in a corporation is going to give someone a better life in their personal life? It doesn't make sense.
Richie Norton 40:58
So a prism of time would be asking better question get a better answer. How can I do this thing? Without this terrible thing happening that I'm worried about? Over this year, over these next six months? And even though you don't know the answer, you create a space or a prison for an abundance of options and opportunities to come out of one choice. So most people are making 10 different choices to try and get one outcome.
Tamara Anderson 41:32
Distractions.
Richie Norton 41:33
In reality, they can make one decision that eliminates 100 other decisions and provides an abundance of different outcomes and opportunities and possibilities, just by asking a different question. So if you feel like you're stuck, ask a better question. Get a better answer. Most people so Stephen Covey, I'm a covey person, you know, he said begin with the end in mind. Children know this phrase now. It's everywhere. It's ubiquitous. He did not say begin with means in mind. We're always constantly substituting means and making them ends unto themselves.
Richie Norton 42:20
What's my goal? What's my strength? What's what's my habit? Means you could have any goal any strength, any habit, but the outcome is different. Now you want you want to be the top of the mountain to see a sunset. Cool. Does that mean you have to scale it with ropes? Can you climb it like a normal person? Could you get on a donkey? Could you ride a bike? Could you drive on the road they pave to the top of it, could you get a helicopter? See, once you realize the actual situation, you can change what you do. Oh, and by the way, maybe you didn't really want to be on top of a mountain of the sunset, you just wanted to be with your kids somewhere watching a sunset. When are you got to bring your kids and maybe doesn't have to be on a mountain maybe can be on the beach.
Richie Norton 43:06
See, once you realize Aristotle called a final cause. In academics, we'll use this example of a table they'll say final causes for there's four causes in Aristotle's philosophy here. And one is like you get these materials, you you, you have the form of what it's going to be you have some an agent put it together, and then it becomes this thing. So you get some wood, and then you get some, you have some design where it's going to look like someone puts it together. And all of a sudden you have a table. But in the modern world, like right, I could an acorn becomes an oak tree. In the model in the modern world, you say? What's the table for? Is it a legacy piece for my family every day for, you know, for the next several generations? Or do we just have something special happening in town and we can order UberEATS or go to a food truck.
Richie Norton 43:54
Because now if the if the actual goal was just to have a nice dinner with friends and family and loved ones, you don't need to spend any time or money on all this wood and wood building and craftsmanship that took away all your time and money completely unnecessarily. And yet we justify it. We justify the means because they think it got us to an end when in reality that could have happened with none of those means. As real stuff, man, that's real stuff.
Tamara Anderson 44:26
Totally. And that kind of blows my brain because you're right we do. We do spend our time on a lot of things that aren't bringing us the outcomes that we want. And so I love that begin with the end in mind and prioritize that. Because that's really what's going to bring you the greatest joy and happiness in long run. And that's what we all want, right? We want to be happy. We want to feel the love.
Richie Norton 44:56
Yeah, so So anti time managment is a learnable skill and it's actually Very simple. If anyone listening, just ask themselves, who do I want to be two years from now? When you know what you want to? Well, who you want to be, you'll know what to do. So, you know, two years from now, where do I want to be professionally, personally, with my people with play things that I like.
Richie Norton 45:17
Then create projects around them, oh, here's the things I'm going to do is how you bake it in from the start, and then eventually go, Oh, here's how I'm going to get paid doing this. See, you can still get paid first, by putting the business model of getting paid last. Most people say, I need to make money, therefore, I'm going to move to a city I don't want to be in and spend the next 30 years here. Why? When they could have said, I want to live in this cool spot somewhere in the country. And I'm going to find a way to make money here.
Richie Norton 45:46
So the idea in the book was build the castle then the moat. The castle is the dream. The moat is how you work and how you get paid. That protects the dream. Most people start with a moat and never get out of it. And in reality, they've made their work their castle, but in reality, they're making their work to protect someone else's castle. As soon as times get hard, they get fired, not by any problem or situation of their own. And then they feel lost. Why? Why would you could have done it differently. It's okay, when you put the castle first you can live your values. And even when your projects or work don't work out, you still live without regret because you're living from your values, not towards them.
Tamara Anderson 46:33
It's so powerful. Oh, my goodness. Richie has there. Has there been a scripture that's been influential in your life as you have lived without regret?
Richie Norton 46:44
Not not one that comes to mind like that? All of them.
Tamara Anderson 46:50
That's awesome. So where can we go to find your new book and type time management, where's the best place to buy that or the power starting something stupid, or you tell us
Richie Norton 47:04
Go to Amazon right now type in Richie Norton or type in Anti-Time Management, and the book will pop up and you just buy it. If you go to Richard norton.com. I have some freebies there for you, you'll see me offering a 76 day challenge. You'll see me offering some a toolkit, you know for for anti time management. And I can take you by the hand and help you turn your ideas into reality step by step. But of course, everyone's situation is different. So the idea is to help you learn principles that you can apply, wherever you are, and whatever you're doing. So yeah, good are certain.com Throw your email in there, and I'll be happy to help you any way I can.
Tamara Anderson 47:44
Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today and teaching us a little bit not only about your personal story, and and perhaps what taught you these principles, but also for being willing to put in the work to write an entire book about these concepts so that others too, can prioritize what is most important to them and live with that same principle of no regrets. It thank you for your sacrifice and doing that. It's powerful.
Richie Norton 48:21
You're welcome. Thank you. I appreciate it. You're awesome. It's been really fun. It's been really fun.
Tamara Anderson 48:25
Hey, thanks so much for listening to today's show. If you like what you heard, subscribe so you can get your weekly dose of powerful stories of hope. I know there are many of you out there who are going through a hard time, and I hope you found useful things that you can apply to your own life in today's podcast. If you'd like to access the show notes of today's show, please visit my website stories of hope podcast.com. There you will find a summary of today's show, the transcript and one of my favorite takeaways. You know, if someone kept coming to mind during today's episode, perhaps that means that you should share this episode with them. Maybe there was a story shared or quote or a scripture verse that they really, really need to hear. So go ahead and share this podcast. May God bless you, especially if you're struggling with hope to carry on and have the strength to keep going. When things get tough. Remember to walk with Christ and He will help you bear the burden. And above all else, remember, God loves you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai