The freedom, purpose and wealth pistons.

Three pistons to help you live a deliberate life.

For about a decade now, I’ve used three key themes to help me live deliberately.

1. Freedom: Which I define as the ability to do what I want. To use my time the way I want to use it. To not have to be told what to do by too many people. I spent seven years in the military, and during this time, I didn’t have much freedom. When I ‘got out’ of the military (veterans often use prison language when we talk about our years of service), freedom became a very important theme for me. For example, I’ve got young kids at the moment (two boys, three and six years old) and I want the freedom to spend loads of time with them.

2. Wealth: I define this as having ENOUGH cashflow to provide for my family and live the way I want to live. Personally, I don’t have ambitions to have a big boat, mansions, and expensive cars; I just want ENOUGH money to live the life I want.

3. Purpose: This I define as engaging in things that move me deeply. The kinds of things that give me goosebumps or a lump in my throat. For years this has been as a social entrepreneur and increasingly now, it’s time being an author.

I think of these three themes as pistons that pump up and down. What this means is that unlike the image above, they are never, ever in a position where they are all up.

I’ve had periods where the purpose one is super high (for example, when I was working in a Kenyan village to launch a microfinance bank), but the wealth one was low… (I had to live on $2 a day). So there the pistons looked like this.

I’ve also had the wealth one right up where I’m up to my neck with stress scaling a business, but I had to keep saying no to my kids when they were asking if I had time to come outside and play with them. So my pistons looked like this.

These pistons help me figure out when I’m out of whack. When I need to do less of something and find a way to do more of something else.

What do your pistons look like right now? Do you need to make a change?