“People think that they have to make life long choices but in reality they don’t.” - GaryVee (Patreon)

Gary Vee is an entrepreneur and is highly active across social media platforms for his talks on business and marketing. One of the people I currently work with loves him and it took me watching just one of his videos to understand why. 

My fav thing that Gary does are these videos called “The DailyVee”. He travels around a lot for interviews and speaking engagements and always has a camera crew with him. So when they do the DailyVee it’s small snippets of his day were he’s giving advice or speaking but it’s very casual and candid. 

In the video I watched today he was approached by a young man while he was having lunch who was going to see him that evening at a speaking engagement. He walked up and introduced himself and they just jumped right into a conversation. 

The young man thanked him for everything that he does and confided in him that he wasn’t doing too good at the moment. He felt that he got to the age he is by working so hard and having no self care that he was burning out at 22. That he had been all about school and business but was getting back in touch with his creative side and mentioned said, “so I think I’m going to do that.” 

To which Gary said:

“People think that they have to make life long choices and that they can only be or do one thing but in reality they don’t.”

I think that’s SO true and SO important to realize. He went on to tell the young man that ok, so right now you take a little break and you focus on yourself. Then you do something creative for a bit, say you do it for 8 years and then at that point you want some more money so you jump back into the business side of things. Nothing is set in stone, we can change. Life is long and people act as though you have to make a choice TODAY and live within that choice for the rest of your life but we have the power to choose. 

All of this is SO true. I’m not quite sure where the idea comes from but I know that I had it ingrained in me that you grew up, you went to school and you picked ONE THING to “be”. I specifically remember that I didn't think that I could “do” something, it was that I had to “become” something. That something had to be specific and I had to choose wisely. I thought that I only had one choice and one chance. That I was going to choose a profession and if that didn’t work out it would be the end of everything, I would be a failure. 

The world and life does NOT work like this. 

Gone are the days where you got a job with whatever company, worked there for 40 years and put into a pension that would take care of you for the rest of your life after retirement. 

Today we often have multiple jobs at once. We change because our economy and industries change on a faster timeline. I personally don’t think that’s a bad thing (although I def see both sides and things aren’t secure). Now, we have far more skills and get to experience different things that give us a wealth of knowledge. We are no longer just one thing and we should no longer raise children to think that they need to “become” a specific profession. 

What is good for you at 25 will be far different from what is good for you at 38 and then 52. In your 20s, I kinda think that you just do whatever you can to make money, in your 30s something that’s still the case otherwise we settle more into what our specialties are and have more choice. (I haven’t hit 52 yet.)

The real point though is that you have choice. I get that we all need to work. That we need to make a living and support our families or the lifestyle that we desire. However, I don’t at all think that there should be as much fear in us to make a change. To want more, different or better. I think that choice is there and for those who take it, it can be a really amazing thing. 

I also think that at the end of our lives we are SO.MANY.THINGS. You are so many things today. I know that had I taken my own self care into account when I was younger I would have left some pretty horrible employment situations and I would have been better for it. 

Now, I fully embrace that things change. You get jobs, you lose jobs, sometimes you chose against jobs. But that job doesn’t define you, you are more than what you do and things in life are forever in transition. 

I know that I wrote this regarding work but it can be ANYTHING! It could be about a friendship, a relationship, a specific group that you’re apart of. It could be about your health. You always have the power to choose something different.