Keep moving
There’s a story behind that.
This is your daily message from Chad number 1079 to upgrade your mental game today by telling yourself a better story, because the most important story you hear is the story you tell yourself.
Here’s the upgrade:
You may think retirement means you’ve earned the right to stop, but upgraded thinking knows that the day you stop moving is the day you start dying.
Here’s the story:
Susan Young Browne turned 108 last week in Dover, Delaware. She was born in 1918 on a farm without water or electricity. She watched segregation unfold around her. She went to Delaware State College for Colored Students, graduated in 1945, and taught children in a one-room schoolhouse for thirty years.
At her birthday party—130 people showed up, including the governor—she got news: Delaware had just reissued her driver’s license. Valid until 2033. She’ll be 115.
When someone asked her secret, she didn’t talk about genes or luck. She said: “I don’t tell myself I’m old. I think I’m still here, so I have work to do.”
Three times a week, she’s at the Modern Maturity Center doing group exercise. Twenty years of a morning routine she does before anything else. “When I retired and I walked around that classroom for thirty years, I am not going to sit down.”
That’s not defiance. That’s clarity.
Most people trade one story for another the day they retire. Old story: “I have to work.” New story: “I can finally rest.” Susan traded it for something else entirely. “I’m still here. That means I’m still needed.”
The day you believe that story—really believe it—you stop aging and you start living.
The better story to tell yourself is, “I’m still here, so I have work to do.”
Tell me a story of someone who refused to stop moving to fromchadsmith@gmail.com. Send someone a text and ask them, “What are you still building?” You can get a free copy of my book, The Most Powerful Story in the World, by going to fromchad.gumroad.com. The transcript of this message and hundreds of others are always available at www.fromchad.com.
