I am re-reading an exceptional book by Marshall Goldsmith (2022) titled, The Earned Life. He is also the author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. The latter book is one I read years ago when I started being coached by an amazing executive coach (Dr. Pat Lattore). This is an aside from the purpose of this post, but Pat had me read a book every 4-6 weeks. We would discuss the key topics from the books and how my decisions, actions, and beliefs connected to those big leadership ideas. What a gift it is to have such a sage person in my life. Years later, I return to the lessons from those early texts and my deep coffeeshop conversations with Pat.

Back to the point of the post…In Goldsmith’s The Earned Life, he provides a writing or contemplative exercise at the end of each chapter. After Chapter 1, he offers encouragement to write two letters to yourself. The first is to “write a letter to a previous you expressing gratitude for that previous self’s specific act of creativity or hard work or discipline…that has made you better today in some way” (p. 11). The second letter is from “the present you to future you, one year, five years, ten years down the road. Spell out the investment…you are making now to benefit the person the letter is addressed to” (p. 12).

I recently paused to take the time to write these two letters. Wow…what a powerful exercise.                 

There have been many times in my career when I have been asked at the end of a leadership development retreat or training to write a letter to myself. Then, in about 6 months or a year later, I receive the letter (with the address in my handwriting) in my home mailbox. It is always a pleasant surprise.

This letter-writing exercise hits home in a different way because of the focus on how key intentional actions and decisions connect to the concept of the earned life. Regardless of your previous experiences or current realities, who do you want to be in the future?

The question is not: What do you want to have in the future? When you look back on your life, will you say that you were intentional about pursuing a better version of yourself grounded in your true purpose?

After writing the letters, I created a Google invite to read both in one year. I attached the letters to the calendar invite, so I will know exactly where to find them when the time arrives. I look forward to seeing how my future self was intentionally set in motion one year and many decades earlier.