In communities across Canada, hourly Amazon employees can grow their skills and their paycheck by enrolling in free skills training programs for in-demand fields. Learn more at about amazon.ca This is Optimal Living Daily Episode 813. Live like there's no tomorrow. One day there won't be.
By Alex Pappanicola with leonlogothetus.com and I'm Justin Molick. Happy Saturday, welcome back or welcome for the first time. This is where I read to you every single day to help you live a more meaningful life covering personal development, productivity and minimalism mostly. From some of the best bloggers and authors you can find with their permission, of course.
Today's article is a guest post on leonlogothetus' website. Leon is a creator of the Kindest Diaries series on Netflix and he has multiple books out. And Alex, the guest writer will be sharing an inspiring story. And since it's a weekend, let's get right to the post and start optimizing your life.
Live like there's no tomorrow. One day there won't be. By Alex Pappanicola with leonlogothetus.com. Inspirational people are a joy to be around.
They can join you out of your comfort zone and show you that life is a giant cupcake waiting to be devoured. Alex Pappanicola is one such inspirational chap. Our paths cross recently. It is powerful words of self-realization and hope resonated with me.
I felt the need to ask him to share some of his story with you. Be inspired. I was. Live like there's no tomorrow.
One day there won't be. My name is Alex Pappanicola and today I'd like to tell you a bit about myself and a subject that's on almost everyone's mind at this time of year. The dreaded New Year's resolution. More on that in a moment.
I'm 23 years old and grew up in a small town in the UK. And as you can see from the picture on this site, there is a wheelchair and disability involved in this story. When I was a baby I was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, a disability that affects a part of your brain that controls balance, coordination and fine motor scales. I vowed not to let this stop me.
Ever. Over the past three years I've made over 100 cities and 31 countries with a backpack in my electric wheelchairs companions. I've used hundreds of buses, trains, boats, taxis, cars and airlines you probably never even heard of. I've lived in Australia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.
I have lived. I now spend my time speaking, writing and coaching others on how they can take control of their lives, set a new definition for their life and grab a hold of what they thought was out of reach. In the process, I've learned that nothing is out of reach. Nothing.
Now, why am I telling you all this? I'm not trying to impress. I'm telling you because I am on a mission to teach people that what you can and can't do in your life, what your life means, how that affects you and everything in between comes down to one person, you. I am not special.
I am not gifted. Everything I've achieved came down to a decision I made a long time ago that I wasn't going to put myself in a box called Disabled. My disability was never going to define the rest of my life. The decision I made was simple.
I chose to give myself more choices. More choices. I hear you mutter. How confusing.
Think about it though. What would it mean if you had more choices in your life? Are the things you consider just impossible or unimaginable or thought of as, I'm not the type of person. It's out of my reach.
I don't have the skills, knowledge, education. That's for other people. All these crazy ideas like traveling, making more money, having better relationships, having a better body image. What if you took all these not possible labels off them and instead made them a choice?
What if you made them possible? There's a funny little secret about the way our brains work and that if you ask yourself why you can't do something, your brain will do a really good job of giving you a thousand reasons why you can't do it. But guess what? It works the other way too.
Our brain's job is to give us answers. Imagine what would happen if you suddenly took that impossible thing and made it a choice. You would immediately start asking yourself, how can I do this? And what do you think your brain would start doing?
It would start giving you answers. Oh yes, lots and lots of inspirational answers. Never ending streams of fresh and brilliant answers over and over again. You'd be drowning in a sea of answers.
Now of course, this is just a first step. I bet you can guess the next step. Taking action. Which brings us back to our New Year's resolution.
Most of us are very good at setting these lighthearted goals for the New Year. Nice to think about ideas we wish we could do, but no we won't. The best gift you can give yourself this New Year is the gift of opening yourself up to more choices. Choices that you never before thought possible.
Start asking yourself, what if I really could do this? What would that look like? How would I feel if I achieved that? And then comes the best part.
Action. Go exploring. Remember how much fun it was as a kid when you did things you knew you weren't supposed to do, not knowing what would happen, but just doing it anyway because it's exciting? I do.
So does my mom. Do things you wouldn't normally do. Say things you wouldn't normally say. Mix up your routine.
Get comfortable. Take a chance. Take a risk. See what happens and see what fits.
You never know. You just might stumble across the best thing to ever happen to you. I wish you the very best of luck and success for 2018. You just listened to the post titled, Live Like There's No Tomorrow, One Day There Won't Be, by Alex Pappanicola with LeonLogoThetis.com.
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And head to superpower.com and use code old at checkout for an additional $20 off your membership. That was written actually for 2012. So I made a slight edit to the year at the end. And for more from Alex, you can check out AlexPapp.com.
And it's Saturday, so I'll keep sending nice and short. But if you're not checking out the other podcasts in my little network, please do. They're very similar to this show, except I don't host them. I have different narrators for the other shows, including my brother, who hosts Optimal Health Daily.
He reads from many of the same authors I read here. And then Dan from Optimal Finance Daily reads all about saving money and retiring early. Again, from many of the same authors that I read right here, so it's not too technical or anything. It's great content on all five of our podcasts, in my opinion.
I pick all the content, so if you like this show, you'll like those ones too. Just search for Optimal Living Daily wherever you're hearing this show. And all four podcasts should pop up. And that's it for today.
Hope you're having a great weekend. Thank you for being here. And I'll see you in tomorrow's show, where your Optimal Life awaits.