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We Are All Born Time Millionaires

Oct. 1, 2021
We each come into this life as time billionaires with about 2.5 billion seconds. It’s up to each of us to decide to make the most of this time – […]

We each come into this life as time billionaires with about 2.5 billion seconds. It’s up to each of us to decide to make the most of this time – we can create a legacy of value or squander it.

I watch in fascination the antics of some of the more high profile billionaires of our times, and the response in the twittersphere to it all. But are any of us really all that different than these high profile money’d celebrities?

The reality is we each have 86,400 seconds allocated every day — with the average life span of 78 years, this means we have about 2.5 billion seconds with which to use in the course of living our lives. But is it with this billionaire status, just like the current day financial billionaires, we get consumed by our more frivolous pursuits?

Yes, we can make the case, as Malcolm Gladwell does in his book Outliers, that our 2.5 billion seconds we’re given at the start of our lives, does have very different value depending on how well we did in the parent lottery. For example, being born into an impoverished and challenging situation, far more time is spent in the activities required for survival. There are also times in our lives too where we are dragged down by extenuating circumstances that make it more difficult to use our 86,400 daily seconds in the manner that would bring us (and others) the most benefit.

It is the challenges of extenuating circumstances where I find being a Cheetah Project Manager has created the most benefit. During those times in my life when stretched thin, the uber focus developed becoming a Cheetah Project Manager helped me continue to move forward and pursue goals that brought more value from my existence. On the flip side, when it felt like I had all the time in the world, I often filled my day, much like the billionaires of today, in frivolous, less valuable, pursuits.

This is so common — there is even a saying for this: If you want something done, give it to a busy person. Being busy is often faulted as escapism — but what is it you are busy doing? For me, when I’m busy making real progress in the pursuit of meaningful goals, this is where I’m most content. I figure, I can always make more money but I am more constrained in how much time I can make (it does, after all, take time to live a healthy lifestyle to maybe extend that 78 year average life span into more viable, high quality years). This is why being a Cheetah Project Manager is so valuable to me: it helps me make the best use of this very finite resource Time. Even if I did start out as a time billionaire, it’s a dwindling resource, the older I get.

Coming into this world as a time billionaire, do you think about how to best use the time you have left, even if you may have squandered this decreasing asset in the past? How we make use of our time, regardless of our circumstances, is something we can impact. Becoming a Project Manager can help you create a much more empowered reality where time is concerned.

For more information, visit www.cheetahlearning.com. To read my business-oriented blogs, please visit Cheetah Learning Blog at http://www.michellelabrosseblogs.com/, https://www.facebook.com/MichelleChiefCheetah/posts/956956998493883, and read my columns here in ISE magazine at https://isemag.com/author/michellelabrosse/.

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About the Author

Michelle LaBrosse

Michelle LaBrosse, CCPM, PMP, PMI-ACP, RYT, is an entrepreneurial powerhouse with a penchant for making success easy, fun, and fast She is the founder of Cheetah Learning, the author of the Cheetah Success Series, and a prolific blogger whose mission is to bring Project Management (PM) to the masses. Cheetah Learning is a virtual company with 100 employees, contractors, and licensees worldwide. To date, more than 50,000 people have become "Cheetahs" using Cheetah Learning’s innovative PM and accelerated learning techniques. Michelle also developed the Cheetah Certified Project Manager (CCPM) program based on Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality profiling to help students master how to use their unique strengths for learning, doing projects, and negotiating. Michelle is recognized by the Project Management Institute as one of the 25 Most Influential Women in Project Management in the world. For more information, visit www.cheetahlearning.com. To read my business-oriented blogs, please visit Cheetah Learning Blog at http://www.michellelabrosseblogs.com/, https://www.facebook.com/MichelleChiefCheetah/posts/956956998493883, and read my columns here in ISE magazine at https://isemag.com/author/michellelabrosse/.