What’s priceless, yet is thrown away carelessly every day?

What’s more valuable than gold or diamonds or fame, yet we trade it in for these things, without a second thought?

What do we give away freely yet would pay anything to get it back when we feel it running low?

The answer is of course: ‘Time.’

Time: that precious commodity that we can always be certain is behind us, but never guarantee how much of it lays ahead of us.

It was my fortieth birthday a few weeks ago, and as I took stock of my first four decades I realized how much I have come to value each and every moment of each and every day.

You see I don’t take Time for granted. In the world I come from, too many young lives are snuffed out prematurely because of some bullshit on the streets, and these days I seem to hear more and more stories about guys running out of steam and running out of time in the white collar world too–retirement coming early, both unexpected and unwelcome.

I’m not sure why so many of us devalue Time, because for me, it’s pretty straightforward: Time is cash!. Every moment is a bright shiny, gold coin, that when it’s spent, is spent. And the thing is, you have no choice but to spend them as you earn them, ‘cos you sure can’t bank them, or hoard them and you can’t save them up or stuff them under the mattress for a rainy day.

In short, you’d better invest every one of those shiny, gold coins really, really smartly…!

And the good news? Well, the returns are potentially phenomenal! Investing your Time wisely will pay dividends, deliver the highest interest rates and make you wealthy in oh, so many ways.

I always say that every day is my birthday. Well make tomorrow yours, and make it the day when you re-evaluate Time–and then go and spend it as wisely as you can…

We’re all chasing the same end-game of ‘Success,’ as measured by wealth, health, and happiness. But most of us will struggle to find it. Yup. Young, old, middle-aged businessman or college freshman; black, white, brown or pink; CEO, construction worker or homemaker, we all need a helping hand…

So where do we find these helping hands?

Well there are thousands of self-help books on the market - over 70,000 listed on Amazon alone when last I checked. That adds up to skyscrapers of words, football-fields of advice, acres of epiphanies and more gallons of Chicken Soup than any of us could hope to swallow in a lifetime…

But though I’m going to be adding my own offering to those piles of pages (look out for ‘Success For Life‘ coming at the end of the year), everyone’s first port of call should always be family and friends, or people we admire–the folks who should care enough about us to give it to us straught…

Problem is, few people will.

We all spend way too much time pussy-footing around, trying not to hurt other people’s feelings, or expose our own; cause friction, or stick out our necks with a point of view we may actually have to stand by!. The result? Too often people end up dishing out mealy mouthed advice and in trying to help, can hinder or even hurt…

You look great…
You’re doing just fine…
She’ll be back…
You don’t need to change anything…
You haven’t put on weight at all…
That’s a great idea…
That dress suits you…

Maybe true maybe not.

Look it’s a natural human reaction to be kind, to want to make someone feel good. But I’m a big proponent of the ‘no-sugarcoating‘ school of life coaching. I tell it the way I see it, no frills, no fluff, no artificial sweetners. Because real advice is actionable advice. I’m not rude or unkind, and I’m always encouraging, but I am completely frank too, and though my ’straight from the hip’ approach may stop a few folks in their tracks, the overwhelming response I get is this: “Burrel, I appreciate you giving it to me straight man. Very few people (if any) are this honest with me…”

My point? We owe it to ourselves, and the people we care about, to be direct and honest. In the end honesty is undoubtedly the best policy: the best way to encourage, motivate and get someone on track to success, and to show just how much you care.

Come on y’all. It’s time for ‘less blah, less bullshit and more real talk….!’

No, it’s never too late.

It’s true. You can’t undo, unwind, erase or un-happen steps already taken, words spoken, decisions made, and shedding one skin and ‘growing’ a new one ain’t gonna fool anyone (least of all you) into thinking you’re a brand new person. But the wonderful truth is that we’re all living ‘works of art,’ and because we’re ‘living’ we’re also unfinished.

As I’ve mentioned before, at school I was a teachers’ worst nightmare. The only classes I was interested in at school were lunch and math–the latter only because it helped me become more successful in my playground commercial wheelin’ and dealin’.

But I sure did love to paint! Do you remember those ‘painting by number’ kits? Well, I was addicted to ‘em. There was something about the way a dazzling picture–a work of art it seemed to me at the ripe old age of seven-years–emerged from little more than chicken-scratchings.

But painting by numbers eventually got pretty boring.

Too neat.
Too tidy.
Too predictable.

Life, thank goodness, is nothing like that.

There’s nothing predictable about any aspect of our lives. Our individual stories are made up of layers of paint, color-on-color, multiple brush strokes and textures and like an impressionist painting, our pictures often seem clearer when viewed from a distance–losing focus and form when you get too close.

We ‘paint’ our own stories through a mix of experience, experimentation, trial and error. They’re never finished either. Each day we add new detail, new layers, and new colors, and an ever-more complex, expressive, picture emerges. And we never know what the end-result will look like either. There’s no nice photo on the lid of our box, no paint-by-number instructions telling us which color goes where.

No–as our personal portraits unfold, the images surprise, delight and even shock us.

And that’s a good thing. It’s called living.