In this week’s episode of Retire in Texas, Darryl Lyons, CEO and co-founder of PAX Financial Group, asks the profound question: “Where are you going with your life?” Using a blend of personal reflection and a structured framework, Darryl challenges listeners to take a step back and evaluate the direction of their careers, businesses, and overall life journey. Drawing inspiration from the life and leadership of Abraham Lincoln, Darryl introduces a powerful process for looking back, looking up, looking around, and looking ahead. He weaves in personal anecdotes, Lincoln’s wisdom, and the importance of aligning one’s life with a higher purpose.
Key show highlights include:
- A thought-provoking approach to reassessing your life’s direction and purpose.
- Insights from Abraham Lincoln’s leadership and how they apply to modern life challenges.
- A simple yet effective framework for planning your future with intention and clarity.
- The role of faith and values in guiding life decisions and financial planning.
- Practical advice on aligning your financial goals with your long-term vision.
Transcript
Hey, this is Darryl Lyons, CEO and co-founder of PAX Financial Group, and you’re listening to Retire in Texas. This information is general in nature only. It’s not intended to provide specific investment, tax or legal advice. Visit PAXFinancialGroup.com for more information.
Okay, so where the heck are you going? Like, what are you doing with your life? I know that’s kind of such a nebulous and kind of punch in the face kind of question, but really, I mean, like, what are you doing? Like, where are you going with your career, your business, your work, life, retirement? Like, where are you going?
There’s a saying that says that “If you don’t live a life by design, you end up living a life by default.” Another way to think about this is that imagine you ran into a friend in the airport, and you’re flying somewhere early in the morning, got your coffee, kind of waiting around. It’s starting to get a little sticky and hot in the airport. And you run into a friend you haven’t seen in a while, and you haven’t seen them in five years. And they say, “Hey, how are you doing? What have you been up to over the last five years?” And you’re like, “Hmmm, let’s see. I watch some zombie shows on Netflix. Spent a lot of time on politics, definitely way too much there. Man, I don’t… really nothing.”
And I don’t, I don’t think that’s really what you want. I think you want to be able to stand proud and say, I did these things, or I was a part of these things and leaving the world better than we found it. And so, I just want to spend some time helping you to think a little bit ahead. And by the way, just to be clear, this is not normal. Like a lot of people, I mean, we’re just doing life. We don’t take that time to think ahead.
And so, but we’re doing that today and we’re going to adopt a framework. And I’m really condensing a lot of content as best as I can through C12. C12 is an international coaching organization that I’ve been a part of for 10 to 12 years. And they have a framework, it’s very simple. It says, “Look back, look up, look around and then look ahead.” “Look back, look up, look around and then look ahead.” So, we’re going to adopt that framework. And I’m going to integrate a president and his life story throughout this framework only because it’s election time. And I thought that would be appropriate.
No, we’re not doing Trump, and no, we’re not doing Biden. We’re going to pick one that you know very well, and that’s Abraham Lincoln. And frankly, he’s just such an interesting guy, not only in terms of who he was as a person, but his resolve and his vision. And I think that, I think that’s very important.
Not every president had that. I’ve read a lot about presidents over the years, a lot of biographies. And Lincoln was exceptional. He was good at storytelling. I’ll share a story with you, while riding a train he said, “I was once accosted by a stranger who said, “Excuse me, sir, but I have an article in my possession which rightfully belongs to you.” How is that? I asked, considerably astonished. The stranger took a jack knife from his pocket. “This knife,” said he “was placed in my hand some years ago with the injunction that I was to keep it until I found a man uglier than myself. I have carried it from that time to now. Allow me to say this, sir, that I think you are fairly entitled to the property.”
So, Lincoln at all these kind of jokes. And if you haven’t read Lincoln, you need to do more than just watch that vampire documentary, I say documentary, that vampire movie, which was, by the way, that vampire movie with Lincoln was pretty interesting. I had to watch it. It was funny. But, okay so, let’s look back. Let’s look back, and let’s pretend we’re in that airport and we’re saying something really cool to our friend we haven’t seen in five years. And it’s not just about Netflix or politics. And so how do we look back and think through some of the events in our life so that we can look forward with more clarity?
The way I think about it is there’s three elements to our lives that help us. So God doesn’t, he uses stuff. And so, the three elements that I think of is: everyone has a unique life story. And that’s often a catalyst for ways that you can impact. In fact, here at PAX, I think about my unique life story and how there was many times that financially we were challenged, as a family.
Growing up many, many times, it was very difficult. My parents were good about kind of making sure that we had food on the table. But you, you heard the whispers, and you felt it. And so now at PAX, what we do is whenever somebody has hope, whenever we are as advisors, participating in a conversation where we help facilitate hope for families, we hit a legacy dong. Dong. And it hits in the hallway.
We’ve been doing that many years, and we recorded and documented, and we measure that. And that’s something that we do and we’re very proud of. So, my unique life story has been a catalyst for something that we do that is, I think, very impactful. Or you know what? Also, you could, this is the second thing you could use as you look back, is your anger.
And I’m talking about that righteous anger. Like it really gets me upset. Like you clinched the fist. And I got to tell you, I don’t know why I have this, and I need to orchestrate it in such a way, contain it that it doesn’t come off as judgmental. And actually, this is interesting relative to political conversation as well, because it extends beyond just Republican and Democrat, because I’ve, I’ve spoken with thousands of people about their money. So, I know this is a problem all across the board. But I actually get a little angry when rich people don’t give to poor people. I really do, it bothers me so much.
And so we did something called PAX Impact here, where we now measure the giving that’s done. And so, if advisors are facilitating dialog and they’ve encouraged a certain type of behavior in giving to those that are less fortunate, we celebrate and measure that. And it’s been a wonderful thing. I can’t say that I created that. That was Monica Cervantes and John FitzSimon that developed that. And, man, it’s impactful. It’s called PAX Impact. And that started really, the idea of hope, I would say, started with just this righteous anger.
And the third thing that you could do is, reflect on what makes you cry. Like, a lot of times, it’s kids. For me, here, this is where my faith runs deep. When I see somebody repent and turn away from their self, being their own God, they turn away from that and they turn towards Jesus. I honestly, that moment of salvation, that somebody has made that decision, I get, I get water. I get these, I, it’s just, I get teary eyed. And I don’t cry a lot.
So, if you think about it, those three things, your unique life story, anything that gets you angry, and of course, don’t over think that. I mean, it needs to be right, that’s why I say righteous anger. And then tears. You can look back in your life and likely find a catalyst for what can drive you going forward.
Of course, when we look at Lincoln, we think about slavery being that, that thing, that kind of that righteous anger. And he said, “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.” And we all know that it bothered him. What also bothered him, though, was a divided country. And of course, we might have heard it before said that a house divided against itself cannot stand. I think both of those things were driving him, and both of those had elements of his unique life story, his anger, and his tears.
Okay, so now we’ve looked back a little bit and gone deep for a second. Let’s look up. And a great Lincoln quote, “My concern is not whether God is on our side. My greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.” And here’s the thing about it right now, in this environment, we’re living in a very confusing world. I mean, even Colgate, even when you buy toothpaste, you have all these brands, but just Colgate alone has like 32 different variations. And then you’re, like, thinking about all the noise. Like, “Should I have jelly fish supplements?” “What about these fruit and veggie supplements?” “Should I start doing cold plunges?”
Like, there’s just so much noise that just weighs heavily on us. And if we think we can avoid it, we can’t. It’s noise. And a lot of it are articulated in half truths. And so, we have to define truth. And looking up is the only way because we know, I say we know, maybe not a lot of us know. From my convictions as a believer, Jesus said, “I’m the way, the truth and the life.” And so, when we want to define our future and define even success, we have to look up. It’s the only source for truth, it’s the only source for humility, and it’s really our home plate.
Another Lincoln story real quick, kind of him being able to discern truth from half-truths. At the height of the Civil War, there was a general John Pope. He telegraphed Washington that he had captured 4,500 enemy troops and was marching on the Confederates and would soon have the rebels in his power. And the cabinet asked the president, President Lincoln for his opinion. And he, you know, Lincoln was a great storyteller, so he said, “That reminds me of an old woman in Sangamon County who was ill. The doctor went in and came and prescribed some medicine for constipation. Returning the next morning, he found her fresh and well and getting breakfast. He asked if the medicine had worked, she confirmed that it had. “Well, how many bowel movements did you have?” He inquired.
“142,” she replied. “Madam, I am serious,” the physician replied, “I know you were joking. How many?” “142.” “Madam, I must know,” he insisted. “You couldn’t have 142.” “I tell you 142,” she said, “140 of them were wind.” And Lincoln closed the discussion by simply adding, “I am afraid General Pope’s captures, well, our wind.” So I think it’s important to look around. And that’s really what I want to try to do with our next conversation.
Next piece. So, we have four elements. We are looking, we’re looking back, we’re looking up, and now we’re looking around. And so, when we look around, we got to look around the people that we’re hanging out with. You are the average of five people you spend the most time with. And you know what, a lot of the people that we hang out with are rudderless. They just don’t know where they’re going. And again, this is a problem for all of us. And so, there may be a time that we just have to reshuffle our friends and the people that we spend time with.
Like Lincoln, he had to reshuffle his friends and his generals. That’s when he found Grant, and that’s when he was able to accomplish his mission. So I hate to say that, but when you look around, take inventory of the people you’re spending the most time with, and maybe it’s time to just kind of reset and put yourself around the right people.
Okay, finally, the fourth one. Like I said, we’ve got a look back, we’ve got to look up, and then we’ve got to look around. Then we got to look ahead. So, we’ve kind of laid a foundation for looking ahead. So hopefully you’ve taken inventory of your life. You’ve taken it before God. And you’re assessing the people you’re spending time with. And you’re saying, “Okay, here is not good. Where I’m at right now is not good, and there’s a better place, and I want to get there, and I can get there.”
And then asking yourself, what am I all about? What am I trying to do? What the heck am I doing here? What am I trying to achieve? Take a look at your life story. Ask yourself if there’s righteous anger there and maybe some tears, something that makes you cry. Lincoln said that the best way to predict the world is to create it. There’s some truth to that. But see, it’s hard when I’m giving financial advice to somebody and they’re asking me questions about money. Should I fund my Roth? How do I fund my kids’ college? And that vision hasn’t been crystallized. And they just do it because they know it’s the right thing to do. Well, how do you know it’s the right thing to do?
But if they said, my vision is for my kids to go here or for me to leave an inheritance, and then I want the money to be the fuel to get there. That makes sense to me. And so, what I’m asking you to do is better encapsulate the vision of your future, and then allow the people around you who are giving you financial advice, or maybe you do it yourself, have your money be the fuel to help get you there.
That way, when you look back and you see your friend in the airport, you can stand tall and stand proud and say, “Yeah, by God’s grace, I was able to do this for the last five years.” That’s what Lincoln was all about. Last Lincoln quote I’ll leave you with, “In the end it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” So, look back, look up, look around and then look ahead and remember you think different when you think long term. Have a great day
Tune in to this introspective episode filled with historical insights, personal stories, and actionable steps to help you navigate your life’s journey with purpose and confidence. For more resources, visit http://www.paxfinancialgroup.com. If you enjoyed today’s episode, share it with a friend!
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