Life
A Letter To My Former Servant Self
Dear Tim, I’m writing to remind you of your former servant self. Before we go on I have great news:
You will go from being the servant to the master one-day soon.
It may not look like it right now, but all of this struggle you have gone through will mean something. For you to be able to grow into the person that I know you are going to become, you must see the dark times. How can you talk about changing your life if you haven’t first done so yourself?
I know you may feel like you are reacting to everything around you rather than creating your destiny, but that’s because of your conditioning. Your circumstances and friends have conditioned you to believe that life happens to you.
Me – being your wiser self – knows that this way of thinking will disappear as you mature. Trust me. If you could see what I now see, you’d be impressed.
“Tim make a commitment to change one thing”
To go from being the servant to the master of your destiny Tim, you must first make a small change. This is where you always went wrong before. You tried to make humongous changes that made you feel overwhelmed. What happened next was that fear got the best of you.
“Fear became like a demon that always wanted to see you lose just as you were about to score from the three-point line, in the basketball match of your life”
It was like you were about to take the shot and then got crippled by a sudden illness that made you sick.
Having seen how this plays out Tim, I need you to start by making a small change first. Try these things:
1. Go for a short walk every day
2. Give up one small addiction like chocolate
3. Commit to 15 mins of reading per day
These activities may seem pointless: they’re not. You have to try a different strategy and start heading down a new path. These new habits are small so that you can’t possibly fail. What will happen over time is that they will become longer, more in depth and will lead to even more new activities.
“Tim we all experience pain”
Even Richard Branson has days where he can’t be bothered. It’s hard to believe I know. All of us have bad days where we look horrible, feel dreadful, or are uninspired. None of us are perfect and in fact Tim we are all broken in some way.
It’s this brokenness that makes us individual and shows the world our true beauty. Perfection is ugly! There I said it Tim and you may not have wanted to hear that. I’m here to tell you the truth and not sugar coat things for you. That’s another thing (sugar) that you’ll give up in the future, but shhh ☺
“Put yourself out there Tim”
You’ve hidden for so long Tim behind your so-called success. You’ve never revealed the struggle you’ve gone through and only shown people your good side. The thing is Tim that for you to go from being the servant to the master of your destiny, you have to share what you’ve learned.
I know you think your advice is dumb and I’m telling you that you’re wrong. I’m your future self remember so trust me on this point. Those things you called failure, those fears you have, all the things you didn’t try, the world is dying to hear about it. Why? Well because your fellow human beings have the same struggles and they want to know how and why you haven’t given up yet.
What you don’t realize is that you’re actually more successful than you think. There are plenty of other people who would have given up long ago or settled for a mediocre life. Even though you are going through a low point, you are not going to allow yourself to be happy with failure.
It’s this stubbornness that you thought was your weakness, which is your true gift. This stubbornness is going to lead you towards becoming obsessed with helping others.
“Tim stop being selfish”
One of the key reasons you are still a servant Tim and not a Jedi master is because you haven’t discovered the gift of why you were given life. Let me whisper it in your ear:
“You were put here to serve others”
That’s it, Tim. What you’ve done wrong up until now is only worried about yourself. By worrying about yourself, you’ve become obsessed with your own happiness. You’ve ignored everyone else’s feelings and dismissed everyone else’s thoughts.
You’re living in your own world which involves living full time in your head. Your head tells you lies and you listen to them because you only focus on yourself. It’s time to be brave Tim and go out into this world to serve someone other than you!
You are the reason you’re still serving as a servant rather than creating the masterful life you’ve always wanted. You haven’t been able to visualize an empowering future because there is no one in it to join you for the ride. What fun is a future without a team of people to enjoy the party with?
“Tim, everyone around you is affecting the person you want to grow into”
I know you think those cool kids around you are good for you, but they’re not. Every person in your life Tim is either contributing to your growth towards becoming a master or subtracting from it. To discover who you want to become you need to surround yourself with people who have done stuff.
Let me be more concise: you need to surround yourself with people that walk into a room and get a standing ovation for the outstanding person they have become. To start with, read some autobiographies of the greats in business, politics and sport.
Once you know what greatness looks like, go out and find people who demonstrate these values and accomplishments.
One of these people is going to become your mentor. The good news is they will help guide you. The bad news is they are going to make you work ten times harder and hold you accountable. You’re lazy when it comes down to it Tim so this will be good for you. No more Netflix and pizza every Friday.
“Tim the answers don’t all reveal themselves at once”
This journey from being a servant, to becoming a master Tim, is a road full of fog and hidden dangers. You’ll only ever be able to see clearly for a few hundred miles. The rest of the road will be hidden from your sight.
You’ll need a vision to help imagine it and then you’ll need to take action to uncover it. What you’ve always done poorly is tried to have all the answers before committing to a new goal. The thing is Tim you can’t pre-plan the entire future.
Stuff is going to get in the way and take you off course once in a while. These distractions will consistently make you check in with yourself to ensure you are putting your time into goals that light you up.
Embrace the detours because that’s where you will find some of the answers. You may even find love in these detours too. Don’t tell anyone I told you that buddy. That one’s just for you.
“Tim, don’t forget about now”
You want to know Tim what the difference is between the servant and the master? It’s the Zen state called right now. Living in the past and living in the future is a dangerous place to operate from. All that fear you and I know you have will be abolished if you come back to now.
That’s what you’ve been doing wrong all this time. You’re so focused on the past and the future where you can’t control what happens. By not being in control, you fall for the servant life.
Control of your life becomes possible again when you focus on right now. Add some meditation and you’re well on your way from leaving that servant life behind that you hate so much.
“Tim, don’t settle for second best”
When it comes to romance Tim, you’ve always settled for second best. Right at the start, you get told some impossible problem that a new partner has and you still signup to the pain that follows. Your intuition tells you to say no and find someone else, but you ignore it.
From now on, follow your intuition. If someone tells you something that makes you feel sick and it’s miles away from where you see yourself, don’t pass go and collect $200. There’s no hurry to find the right person even though you like being in love (we all do by the way).
Take a deep breath and find “the one” that makes your heart skip a beat. Find the girl that has the high set of values you are going to one day have for yourself. When that person appears, go all in, love them like you’ve never loved anyone before and show them you care.
Do nice things for them and keep doing those same things well beyond the start of the relationship. Tell them how you feel regularly and be grateful when you find the one. It will happen. I’m your future self remember?
So how does it end for you, Tim?
This is what you’ve been dying to know. I’ve shared all these wisdom bombs with you that have given you a glimpse into your future life.
Unfortunately, Tim, I can’t tell you everything because I need you to go through the failures, broken hearts, false promises, lies, cheating and so on, so that you can develop the armor you will need to become the master and not the servant.
I know that’s not the answer you were hoping for and that’s a good thing. It’s a good thing because I want you to get used to not getting exactly what you want. That’s what those Ivy League rich kids haven’t figured out yet: you don’t get everything you want just because you have lots of money.
You’ve got to earn your new master status and I’m here to tell you that your journey has started. Never give up. You’re gong to achieve wonderful things in your life that you could never have dreamt of. One day, you’ll be giving this advice to someone else. There’s a hint of the future right there.