The 50-Year Plan
Look at yourself at the end of your life in five categories, physically, mentally, financially, spiritually and family-wise, write three things for each, and let that picture tell you what to work on today.
Dandapani works on a 50-year plan. At 51 that means picturing himself at 96 across five categories, writing three things in each, and letting that vision define what to do now, so that if he wants to hug his daughter at 96 he has to hug her today. When you do not know what you want, he suggests taking segments from the people around you, like pieces of a mandarin orange, until the picture is whole.
What this talk covers
- He works on a 50-year plan, looking at himself at the end of his life across five categories, physically, mentally, financially, spiritually and family-wise, with three things written down for each.
- A clear picture of the future tells you what to focus on now, so if you want a great memory at 96 you can start by no longer telling everyone you are terrible with names.
- Physically he wants to sit cross legged for extended periods at 96 rather than be a gymnast, so he knows to work on flexibility and hip opening now.
- If he wants to hug his daughter fifty years from now, he has to start hugging her now.
- If you do not know what you want, take pieces from different role models around you like the segments of a mandarin orange, combine them with your own ideas, and you have a whole picture you can also articulate to anyone whose help you need.
If I want to hug my daughter 50 years from now, I should start hugging her now.Dandapani
Questions
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Picture yourself at the end of your life, which for him means at 96, and write down three things you would see for yourself in each of five categories: physically, mentally, financially, spiritually and family-wise. Then come back to today and work out the next steps.
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Look around you at role models and take pieces from each, like the segments of a mandarin orange. No one person can model everything for you, but slices from several people combined with your own ideas form a clear picture.
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One-year, three-year and five-year plans are fine, and he comes back to them. But the greater picture of the future is what allows you to know what the next steps are and where to invest your finite time and energy every day.
Transcript
782 words · 3:48
I like to work on a 50-year plan, and 50 is a number that I use randomly. So I'm 51, for example. So one way you could approach this is look at the end of your life, just say you are 96 years old, for example, and look at yourself in five categories, physically, mentally,
financially, spiritually, and family-wise. For each of those categories, write down three things that you would see yourself at the end of your life, just say at 96 years old, right? 50 years from now, for example.
So let's look at it mentally, for example. Someone may say, I want to have great memory when I'm 96. Then what do I do now? Well, one of the things I should stop doing right now
is stop saying, I'm terrible with names. How many times you meet somebody and you introduce yourself and go like, oh, I'm not going to remember that. I'm terrible with names.
Well, if you say that every day, I can guarantee you when you reach 96, you're going to have terrible memory. So now that you have a painted picture, a clear picture of where you see yourself mentally in the future, you know what to focus on now.
And there's only three goals that I may have mentally. Now I know what to go narrow and deep on. Same way physically. I meditate and I like to be flexible when I'm 96.
I don't need to be a gymnast. I don't need to wrap my leg around my head. But I want to be able to cross-legged for extended periods of time. So now that I have a vision of what it is I see myself when I'm 96 years old, I know what to work on now.
I know I need to work on my flexibility and my hip openings and be able to sit cross legged for extended periods of time. I have a daughter. What is my relationship with my daughter when I'm 96? Can we have conversations on different topics? Do we hug? Do we shake hands? If I want to hug my daughter 50 years from now, I should start hugging her now.
Because if I don't hug her now, then I'm not going to be hugging her 50 years from now. Sometimes, then you come back and it's okay to work on a one-year plan or a three-year plan or a five-year plan. But having a greater picture of the future allows us to know what the next steps are. And you know, to address one of the points you made, you know, Aaron, it's like,
how do I know sometimes what I want? Sometimes people say, I don't even know what I want. Look around you. There's so many role models that you can pick examples for. So the way I built my painted picture of my life, so for example, when I left the monastery,
I didn't know anything about entrepreneurship. So I looked around me at entrepreneurs and I looked at it like a Mandarin orange that has segments.
And if I took a piece from you, Aaron, and I took a piece from Jim, and I took a piece from Julie, and a piece from Sally, and I put those pieces together
along with some of my ideas, those combined pieces and my idea form a whole of what I would vision myself having an entrepreneur's life. Similarly, physically, I may not know what I want physically or financially.
I lived as a monk. I had no money. So I had no concept of wealth or how to make money, how to invest money, keep money, grow money.
So I looked around me and I took pieces. No one person can emulate everything for you, but if you took slices from different people, you could piece them together and have a clear painted pictures, okay, this is the vision of where I see my life going now, can I come back to
today and create a one year goal or three year goal and start working towards going that now also if I wanted your help, for example, Aaron, I could go to you and articulate to you and say, Hey, Aaron, this is where I want to go. This is what I'm trying to achieve. Can you help me to get that? But it's very hard for you to help me if I can't even articulate
to you what it is I want. So having clarity around a vision of what we see for our lives is so helpful in knowing where to invest our finite time and energy every day.