There’s a great book by Don Miller called “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.” At the beginning of this book, Don suddenly realizes:
“If my life were a movie, it would be so boring nobody would ever care to watch it.”
But he also realizes that he’s writing the script every day. Thus begins his quest to discover what kind of movie he really wants to live.
What about you?
If you think that you have to change identities or become mega-successful to live a fascinating life, think again.
Every single day I have a conversation, lunch meeting or encounter that could at least be the germ of a movie. Almost everyone I associate with endeavors to do something great with their life.
Yes, it could be the guy from Dallas I met last week who built a company to 6500 employees and sold it to a medical conglomerate. But it could also be my pal Emilia who’s been sober for 10 years now. Just yesterday told me she’s frustrated with her career.
If she escaped the clutches of the bottle, she can escape the clutches of a boring career. NO DOUBT. (Addiction to alcohol – addiction to paycheck – how much difference is there, really?)
And you know what? She is already living a life that will someday make a great movie.
I have faith that you are too. If you’re reading this email instead of watching TV – if you’re not living vicariously through somebody else’s movie – odds are pretty high that you’re already mastering the craft of screenwriting, directing, producing and acting.
And I’m not just blowing romantic smoke in your face. I am completely serious about this. 10-12 years ago when I was in the Dilbert Cube, I saw myself as living the story that I would someday tell. It needed to be fascinating, so I made it so. It needed to be risky so I took risks. It needed to pay off so I asked for favor.
You’re probably reading this on a Sunday night or a Monday morning. How do you feel about YOUR weekly routine? How do you feel about the movie you’re shooting?
If your script is boring, then…. what does a good writer toss into a boring script to spice it up?
If you’re not sure, watch a movie and find out.
My friend, the movie’s still shooting and you’re the writer. Seize the day.
Perry Marshall
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About the Author
Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.
He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.
21 Comments on “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years”
Well said Mr Perry – very insightful stuff
I was taught you attract experiences in agreement with your beliefs. To have a magical life you must energize that path in your daily thinking and actions. You could increase the power of this line of thinking with things like affirmations or a ritual. The ritual could be as simple as setting money aside for a trip or something special. An affirmation could be as simple as “I give thanks for …… that enters my life now”. The only rule is not to think things contrary to your new path. As you move through time you loose the old ideas and move upon another path.
Great post! You are the only one who can make your dreams come true and you are the only one who can make your day worth it. Make the choice to live that amazing life and it will happen.
WOW!
Perry,
I been on your list for some time now. Probably close to four years. I devour all your stuff but this particular piece hit me on the SOUL level.
I think in terms of movies. I actually consider my life to be a movie. I turned to the home based busines industry because I wanted to live out, in real life, the rags to riches story. I wanted to document it all and turn it into one big documentary, and share it with the world.
When people share stories with me about their hardships, their frustrations and the little quirky things that happen to them on a day to day basis, my first instinct to capture the moment and recreate it in a movie or a show.
I’ve never heard anyone articulate this feeling as clearly as you have and I thank you tremendously for sharing it with us all.
Thanks Perry, your messages & material are a real inspiration. I constantly re-read a book by Past. Chris Oyakilhome, the founder of Christ Embassy, titled “Recreating your future” – exactly the same message. This book is now compulsory reading for the Civil Service and college students in Ghana because the message – like yours – is so powerful!!
Perry, your post was a wake up call for me.
I met my husband when I was 24 and since that time my life was movie worthy. We had a great time, took many risks that were worth it, started our own business 22 years ago that was fun and interesting, and life was good.
Six weeks ago he died after fighting cancer for 6 years. Since then I have only been existing. This is not what he would have wanted at all. Your post made me realize I need to start figuring out the new script for my life.
I always look forward to your emails and this one could not have come at a better time.
Thank you,
Carol
Carol,
I have thought about you and Keith and wondered about you often. I left a message with your receptionist today.
My condolences to you and the lost of your best friend and partner.
Perry
Thanks, Perry, for this exercise in self-realization. Very elegantly done!
The actor-in-your-own-movie concept is an interesting way to help people experience the reality that we are all in control of our own life. Do we choose to create the scenarios we fear? Or, shall we manifest our deepest desires, in perfect trust that we can pull it off?
It’s our choice. If we’re the director/producer/writer/actor, why would we want our movie to turn out anything but happily?
Didn’t Shakespeare say something about “All the world’s a stage”?
Well said, Mr Perry…
I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t like
to re-wrtie the script of their horridly
boring life…
But…
Sometimes one is afraid that if one got
too adventurous with the script one
might come a cropper and so live the
rest of one’s life in failure of some
kind…
I think one would rather cope with the
boring script than get too risky with it
and end up a down-and-outer…
Not that I’m one of those people; I
conquer such fears every day and for
that reason know of the existance of
such fears amoung men…
Char
Char
Hi Perry
I am in the midst of rewriting my script. I think I hate my life. Most of the time I am doing inner battles, and venting or keeping bottled up frustrations. Fear has taken hold of a lot of my inner space.
I’m tuning into my inner self more often now… am able to say “Hello, that’s not want I choose to feel.” I am aware that the negative feelings are capable of creating just as much as my positive feelings.
Only problem is, the negative feelings sometimes have a vice grip hold over you, and you can’t shake it off. Affirmations, prayers and mighty friends help me forward, albeit more often than not, my initial steps are weak and uncertain.
Hey Perry:
Very thought provoking as usual. My movie gets more action packed and adventuresome everyday while I build my business and fight the good fight.
Thanks and keep on making a difference Perry.
Wacky Action Adventure Documentary
I’ve had a wide variety of careers that have all been interesting in their own way including selling fireflies.
But some of the truly interesting things that are important to me and my story: I’ve walked through a rain forest barefoot sinking calf deep into the muck…its an amazing feeling. And watched a volcano spew red hot lava down its slopes all night feeling the rumbling from just a few miles away. I’ve mountain biked in the solitude of Moab (harder to do nowadays) and joined 15,000 of my closest friends to bicycle across Iowa. Hiking in the Grand Canyon and watching amazing sunrises and sunsets there are another highlight. I once watched a sloth for 2 hours which was much more interesting than you’d think. Did you know there’s a Chicken and Egg Festival in Alabama? Been there, still don’t know which came first. I’ve been to a spider web farm as well.
I have a list of things to do and places to go. I’d encourage everyone to make bucket lists and write them down. You really can do whatever you put your mind to.
It really has very little to do with money for the most part and everything to do with just making things happen or taking advantage of opportunities. Ok, yes you need money to do a lot of things…so spend it on what matters to you. So how much money could you divert to doing things you truly care about deep down by canceling cable or bringing a sack lunch to work or cutting your cell phone plan back? Go buy a good thermos and bring your coffee to work most days instead of stopping at the coffee shop. I still go get a treat at the coffee shop and go out to lunch some days, but I sure save a lot of cash now.
There are kids who’ve never held a “real job” traveling the world right now that know these types of things writing the most amazing scripts. Maybe your mortgage or mouths to feed prevent you from seeing Everest right now, but there are cheap things to do and places to go that will blow your mind and everyone that you talk to about what you’ve done.
Don’t believe me? Join a museum and attend a members night where you can talk to curators. Take a class on something hands on like blacksmithing or jewelry making. Buy a travel guide for the area you live. Go camping with little more than a tent, a book and some smores. There’s no law that says an adventure has to be far from home in exotic locations. Thats just a bonus when you can make it happen. When you talk to people about these things you do they will be amazed because so few people take control of their own.
I really enjoy marketing and get obsessed and excited about it. Just ask my girlfriend that I have had the above adventures with. But what I do for a living is not the core of my story. It’s nice to be reminded of that sometimes.
I think I will post my bucket list at the office to help remind me more often. This and next week I get to cross off helicopter ride, submarine ride, 1 more national park and whale watching!
Well, my life has been anything but ordinary. There have been periods when it might have seemed so, living in Europe married with two children. But we were self-sufficient in most staple vegetables and by the age of six both littles knew their good plants and their bad, yet more than this still managed to enjoy trudging down to the allotment to … work! Every meal was made more satisfying knowing the goodness of the things that went to make it. Christmas dinners were our most special – for all the ingredients would have come from our own allotment and garden.
Well all of that is gone now, a divorce and they are growing gardens for themselves. So what of me? No money and fewer prospects. A move to the Netherlands and I started my own business making furniture, which you know all about. Not the stuff for the movies, but I enjoy my work and like my clients better.
Work actually is the least of it, there are things I have developed in myself that make each day special and unique, whatever happens, whatever the weather. I can’t quite put it in words, but to see beauty in everything I behold means that the world has become something so special and so lovely that every single day brings me happiness. Even if I am broke. It is a little like a folk tale from Korea where Hell is described as a place where the people walk around deeply unhappy and very hungry yet there is food all around them in plenty. Their problem is that they have been given chop-sticks that are six feet long and they cannot eat with them. Heaven on the other hand is full of people with the light of happiness in their eyes for they have arrived at a place with such bounty and goodness. That they have chop-sticks six feet long is no problem, for giving and sharing is the very least part of their nature!
What inspired me to post this is that I have spent the last few weeks in my childhood home of Bangkok, Thailand. I have to admit that when we lived there in the 1970s we lived in a small remote European bubble with chauffeurs and servants and afternoon tea at four. This is not so hard to understand as the Thais were very circumspect with their white visitors, most of whom were from the American Army. Mind you, there are still a few of them around, happily married to a Thai wife!!
So now when I visit, I do none of these things, I have brushed up my almost non-existent Thai and jumped on a bus to meet things I only saw through the glass of our limousine. Sights forgotten travelling to places barely remembered in the comfort of thirty seven degrees celsius. I was in heaven. The people I met were all of them happy, for I found that they appreciate someone who will give them the respect of trying their language and who will laugh with them when it all goes wrong!
When I left for Hong Kong last week I cried my eyes out. I knew there were things there that I needed and can only satisfy in that culture. Having lived in Germany and England there are things in those cultures which need “topping up” from time to time – the English Church bells and exquisite countryside and in Germany the fullness and satisfaction of the culture and their wonderful bakeries coffee shops and museums.
I think the moral of this tale is that I could make myself a home where I can be happy just about anywhere where there are fellow humans who can enjoy it with me. It might not quite be what you were wanting, but as lives go I would not want more. Of course there is the need for money, but it just sort of “appears” in my life there is never much but like the woman who gave the first of her cakes to Elijah, my oil jar and meal may never be much but there is always just enough.
Hi Perry,
I chuckled about your analogy of life being like a movie because making videos is one of the ways I’m using to turn my life around. I’m in my 5th year in the real estate business and believe me the first 4 were not very fruitful. Last September I started a new website for myself and I’ve worked on it diligently all winter. One of the things I do is make videos of neighbourhoods and put the videos on You Tube and on my website. I did use adwords quite a bit in the beginning but I’ve trimmed it back a lot like from $100 a month to $40 a month. I’m sure I could be doing better with that but most of my traffic comes from the organic search. I’ve gone from zero to over 700 visitors over the last 30 days in 5 months, it will be 6 months March 17th. The leads are not pouring in yet but they are starting to come. I am enjoying the learning process and found that it was what I was missing in my career (aside from money). I need to see results and after cold calling for 4 years I desperately needed to see some. Now my result is putting content on my website and I know that the traffic it brings will turn into prospects. Thanks for the encouragement!
Les Weir
Hi Perry,
Very inspirational message. When you take a moment, you realize that you are the director of your own movie and can make any changes you want to make to it. You must also realize though, that once the movies ends, there is no going back and changing anything.
When I first sobered up I remember my father telling me “if you never chance for fear of losing, then you’ve already lost.”
I never forgot it and I have been bankrupt, worth millions and have moved to a foreign country in the last part (well, maybe) of my life to “start another chapter”. Taking the first step to the unknown is always the most difficult… but after the first… you always know that you can succeed, no matter what.
Thanks for the great post.
Thanks Perry,
Will definitely add to my reading list. BTW the idea of writing your own life script has some very interesting ontological implications especially if you believe that you are guided – or want to be guided – by a transpersonal intelligent source (as I do). Have you ever come across Robert Scheinfeld’s work. He wrote a book called “Busting Loose from the Money Game”?
Sorry, not familiar-
Dear Perry,
Thank you for sharing…and it came to my inbox ON TIME! As I have been living a “movie-worthy” life, but struggling to “let it play in the cinema”, so it could possibly inspire someone out there…but not anymore, as I am undergoing a process of this project to let the story to be told in coming book, campaign, and event….I realize it is a far more worth-living for others than concern about what others would think of me. Your posts always inspire me to think deeper and take actions…thank you!
Kelly
in the words of the great folk singer song writer arlo guthrie, “the good news is the world is so f****d up that you don’t really have to look very hard to find a place to make a difference.”
I spent a decade owning a small day spa. It was almost the right fit, but not quite. Turns out I wasn’t cut out to manage people, just hated it. But I was really good at writing spa newsletters.
Now I’m focusing my efforts on building a done-for-you newsletter business for spas and salons. I’m working my ass off writing by day for another client, then finding time to work on my stuff.
Sometimes the goal seems completely unreachable. But I really want this, so I keep moving forward, one step at a time. I’m happy to say I’m getting great reviews.
But it’s definitely a challenge!