1 Big Idea to Think About

  • Life is about contribution, not accumulation. When you are always seeking to contribute, you can more fully live your life in crescendo.

2 Ways You Can Apply This

  • Look around your family, neighborhood, or community and find a need you can fulfill. 
  • Contemplate what your purpose or mission is in life. Then, identify specific ways you can serve others using your purpose and mission.

3 Questions to Ask

  • What is my mission in life?
  • How can I serve others while accomplishing this mission?
  • What choices can I make even if I can’t choose all my circumstances?

Key Moments From the Show 

  • The origin of Live Life in Crescendo (5:01)
  • People are more important than things (13:28)
  • Your most important work is always ahead of you (21:06)
  • Shifting from something happening to you, to something that has happened for you (25:39)
  • The key takeaways from Living Life in Crescendo (29:51)
  • Our impact can’t be measured by our immediate impact alone (36:12)
  • Every contribution is important (38:02)

Links and Resources You’ll Love from the Episode

Greg McKeown:

Welcome. I’m your host, Greg McKeown. I’m the author of Two New York Times best sellers, Effortless and Essentialism. And I’m here with you on this journey to learn how to live a life that really matters. 

Have you ever felt like it’s too late for you? Have you ever felt like life passed you by, that your dream is gone forever, that too many awful things have happened to you? You’ve made too many mistakes along the way? Today I have as my guest the daughter of the late, great Stephen R. Covey. The name is Cynthia Covey Haller, and she has spent 10-plus years completing a book for you. She started it with her father. It was his last big idea. Today, we will share this new habit of highly effective people with you, along with actionable advice for putting it into practice. By the end of this episode, you will have learned or relearned about the greatest power that is in you, a power that will help you hope again. Let’s begin. 

Remember to teach the ideas in this podcast episode to someone else within 24 to 48 hours of listening, so they can hope again. 

Cynthia, welcome to the podcast.

Cynthia Covey Haller:

Thank you so much, Greg, for having me. I’m excited to be on your program, and I’ve listened to a lot of your different guests, and I’m honored to be a part of it.

Greg McKeown:

Well, I’m the one that’s honored because this interview has been a long time coming because, not only have we been talking about it for a while, while you were still finishing up this marvelous new book but also, I mean, I heard about this book years and years ago when your father and you were first working on it. Can you tell us, just to begin with, what is this book? What’s it about?

Cynthia Covey Haller:

I’d love to. Thank you. It’s got a long title, and my father said, “You fight to keep this title. It’s important.” Live Life in Crescendo: Your most important work is always ahead of you. And so the whole idea really came about, I think, because my dad started to see his mortality a little bit. And people would say to him, “Gosh, Steve, you’re, you know, you’re 65 now. You know, you think you’re gonna keep speaking. Are you gonna keep going so hard? And you ready to settle down? Or, you know, what’s going on? What do you see for the next few years?” And he was dumbfounded at that because, in our family, the retirement word was like “the R-word.” It was a curse word. He didn’t say retirement. And so he thought, Why would I step away?

I feel like I’m excited about my new material. I’ve got all these books still to come out that I’m working on. I have no reason to step aside. I still have passion for my work and what I’m doing. I want to make a difference in people’s lives and help bring out great potential in them. So why would I stop? And so he had a new mission statement, his personal mission statement, which was live life in crescendo. 

When he was 64, he and my mom built their dream home at 64. And it was a house that they wanted to be an intergenerational home where cousins could come together and play and become good friends and the place to gather. But to my brother David, he came up to the construction site, and he was just incredulous that he would undertake such a task at seemingly, you know, the end of his life. To him, as a young 30-something-year-old. And my dad’s building this dream house at 64. And so he stood at the construction site my brother did with his arms wide open and yelled out to him, “At the sunset of his life. And yet he builds.”

Greg McKeown:

David.

Cynthia Covey Haller:

He builds at the sunset of his life.

Greg McKeown:

Sunset of his life and builds.

Cynthia Covey Haller:

Yeah. He didn’t look at it that way. He looked at that I have so many other things to do.

Greg McKeown:

Yes, I love this idea that, as people were saying to him, Okay, well, what’s your moving off the stage plan? That didn’t even speak to him. It didn’t name anything to him.

Cynthia Covey Haller:

That’s right. He wasn’t interested in the least. And in fact, I asked him once, just to show how this came about a little bit, how I got involved. I said, “Dad, are you ever going to write anything as great and successful as the seven habits?” 

And he acted insulted. I didn’t mean to offend him. He said, “Are you kidding? Do you think all I have is the seven habits? I’ve got so many other ideas in my head right now. Why do I get up every morning if I don’t have a reason to write and to think of new ideas, and to inspire? I’m not one and done. Give me a chance. I still have a lot more up there.” 

One of those ideas was this book, Live Life in Crescendo. And he did at this, you know, in his mid-sixties, kind of toward his later sixties. He had, you know, seven or eight different projects going at the same time. And I acted excited about the material, and so we decided to do it together. He said, “You take my ideas and interview me and go with this mission statement, live life from crescendo. Then write up all the examples and stories. Let’s make it a practical book that people could read and see themself in it. See themself following this path and this paradigm.”

Greg McKeown:

And then, how often did you meet together to interview him and to develop this material?

Cynthia Covey Haller:

Well, as you said, Greg, this was years ago. This was 2008 when it first came about. And so I met with them for the next two to three years. I still had little kids at home, and I couldn’t write and do as much as I wanted and other responsibilities. And he kept bugging me to get it out and to work on it. And I did as much as I could. But he later had an accident and was ill and passed away unexpectedly. And so I regret that I didn’t have it finished, but his assignment was for me to be a faithful translator of his idea. And we, as a family, realized this was really his last big idea and maybe kind of his last lecture that he was giving. And he felt as passionately about this material as he did the seven habits or anything that people would say was very successful. He was turned on by this and really wanted to get it out. And the reason was because of the subtitle, which connects with the main title. Your most important work is always ahead of you. And he met so many people that were stuck in a midlife struggle. Maybe they had a divorce. Maybe they were in a job that they hated, in a career that they felt unappreciated or dead end? Or maybe they were really successful. They’d made a lot of money, and they’d kind of conquered everything in their career. So what’s next? What were they going to do next? What were their choices? Maybe someone had a life-changing experience? They got cancer, or someone died in their family, or they lost their job or something. They had a real setback. How are they going to respond? 

And then the last part is what got him into this is the second half of life. What do you do when you start getting older? Do you retire? Do you keep working? And he thought that was a false dichotomy. He thought the third alternative between retire and keep working is make a contribution. And he decided in this book that the main idea was that at any stage and age of your life, that you should continually be making contributions. And like the musical symbol, crescendo shows that it goes out, it spreads, it goes wider, becomes more powerful, more energy and power, whereas the opposite symbol, diminuendo, means it eventually slows down and doesn’t have much volume, and eventually comes to an end.

Greg McKeown:

There’s something so metta in what you’re talking about because here we have this principle live life in crescendo, and ten years after your father has passed away, this book is coming posthumously out into the world. Yeah. I mean, that is a manifestation, a literal manifestation of the very principle and title and idea of the book is that he’s not physically here, but the ideas live on. The ideas are coming forward. Your thoughts.

Cynthia Covey Haller:

You’re right. He’s not here, but his legacy and his ideas and things that he taught and believed in is still growing, is still coming out. And this is just beginning. So I had to live in crescendo, just to finish the book myself. It’s taken 10 years because of all the things that I’ve had going in my life with a lot of kids and grandkids and responsibilities. And I’m a first-time author at 65.

I’m just, you know, I’m living in crescendo, following his example to get this out because I could feel him breathing down my neck for years. It’s like, When are you going to finish this? When are you going to have time to get this done? And I wanted to get it right for him. And I feel a great stewardship and closeness to him. That is, that I’ve felt working with him, even though he is not here, to finish his great work at the end of his life.

Greg McKeown:

Now you say that you feel very close to him, and I think that deserves sort of a double click here for a second because as you’re reflecting, even at his funeral, if I remember right, each of his children, your parents’ children, you know, your siblings got to share one story about the connection relationship that you felt with him. Do you want to share that story with us?

Cynthia Covey Haller:

Sure. I think this story also you, right after he passed away, Greg, you’re the one that called me and asked me about this story, and it’s in Essentialism, and I loved it there, and I knew I was going to use it in my book, but I felt that it needed to be in yours as well. I was honored that you had it. That was basically an example of my father practicing first things first. Even though my parents, they weren’t perfect people, but they both tried hard to live what they believed and what they tried to teach us. And when mistakes were made, they would apologize to us. They were humble and would say, “We’re first-time parents. We’re trying to get this straight too, but we care, and we’re going to make things right.” And I appreciated that. And so this example took place when I was 12.

My father, sometimes, when he would travel, would take one of us on a date with him, a special trip that we looked forward to. And I was the first one to go because I’m the oldest of nine, and I was 12 years old. And part of the fun was planning it and talking about it for two or three months before we went. We had every detail down. He would speak at this conference. I would play around at this wonderful, luxurious hotel, swimming, shopping, and doing things on my own. Then I would meet him at the very end of his presentation. And before a lot of people could talk to him, we would try to escape. And we had had plans to go on the trolley cars. I’d heard as a little girl about these magical trolley cars that went all over the city.

So we were going to ride those. And we were going to go shopping for school clothes at these fancy stores. And then we were going to go to Chinatown and have Chinese food, which was, we both loved. Then we would race back, take a taxi back to the hotel, and go swimming before they closed it. And even if it was closed, my dad was good at sneaking in and getting the lap a few laps before we got kicked out. We’d go underwater and try to not pay attention to the guy yelling at us above. And then we would have a hot fudge Sunday from room service. That would seem so cool to have room service in a hotel. And then watch the late show. And we had every minute planned. 

So we were, I waited impatiently at the back of the room, and he finished, and he was making his way to me. And all of a sudden, one of his good college friends stepped like right in front of me and hugged him and said, “Oh, Steve, we haven’t seen each other for 10 years. I’m so glad to see you. I came to the conference knowing you were here. Why don’t we go out to dinner and tonight with my wife, and we could catch up?”

And he was friendly and hugged him and said how happy he was to see him. And said, I invited my daughter on this special trip. And he looked at me and said, “Oh, you can come too, that’s fine. We’ll go down the wharf and have some seafood.” 

Well, I hated seafood. We wanted Chinese food. And so I just, I could see my trolley car going down the tracks without me, without us and our special date. But I thought he’d probably rather be with this great friend that they loved each other for years than a 12-year-old all night. So I felt kind of betrayed but resigned to my fate. 

And then I heard my father put his arm on his shoulder and say, “Bob, I’m so glad to see you. I’d love to do that, but not tonight. Cynthia and I have a special date planned, don’t we, honey?” 

And he winked at me and grabbed my hand, and we were out the door before Bob knew what hit him. And outside, I was kind of choked up and, and said, “Gosh, Dad, are you sure? Wouldn’t you rather be with your friend? You haven’t seen him for so long.” 

And he said, “Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss this trip for anything with you this date tonight, and you’d rather have Chinese food anyway, wouldn’t you? Let’s go catch that trolley car.” 

And so, this seemingly small experience in my childhood represented to me a lot of things. Him putting me first, first things first, and I was the most important thing to him right then. I was essential, to take something from your book. And also that our relationship, how that it would grow from that, and how trusted I felt with him. And all of my siblings can point to a similar San Francisco type story in their own lives, where he showed that, as it says in this crescendo book, people are more important than things, and life is about contribution, not accumulation. So that was a special memory for me.

Greg McKeown:

It’s beautiful to have heard that story when you shared it with me years ago now. I mean, really, almost ten years ago, right after your father had passed away. And I remember you getting choked up even at that time, reflecting on how that moment, that trade-off…

Cynthia Covey Haller:

Yeah.

Greg McKeown:

Had now lasted a lifetime. And it’s profound for me again, in this moment, to think about how that moment now lives into a new level. Because you have now written this book, been this faithful translator, continued to invest in that relationship even in this unusual way.

Cynthia Covey Haller:

Right. That’s true. It kind of served as a foundation for our lives. He’d built it up before that. But as he wrote in some of his other books, in relationships, the small things are the big things. And I was glad I’ve become closer to him through writing this. I don’t know, just feeling his spirit with me and feeling the things that he felt were important to put in this. And it’s been a joint project, even though he hasn’t been here. I’ve taken the notes and from interviews and from other teachings and writings, but I felt like I kind of had his principles in my mind as well that came to me while I was writing, and that it was a joint co-authorship of this book. And it was a great experience.

Greg McKeown:

I believe what you just said. I can just imagine that process of really, I mean, I think that anytime you are reading, you are thinking with another person’s mind. And in this case, you are writing this together, even in this unusual way. So you are still thinking with his mind in mind as you are doing it, this co-creation.

Cynthia Covey Haller:

That’s exactly what happened because I chose to write this book in his voice. I toyed with how to do it. If we should have kind of, Steven says, Cynthia says. I never really liked those the way that, that, you know, some people would do that. I didn’t like that. It felt too splintered. And I wanted to write as one, but these are his ideas and his paradigm, which we call the crescendo paradigm, which is like a pair of glasses that you put on, is the way that you view and see everything else. And this crescendo mentality of looking at life that through that lens of, you know, I’ve had this hard setback. I found out I have this disease. How am I going to deal with that? Am I going to give up, give in, and shut down?

I have an example of Michael J. Fox in this book who found out when he was at the height of his career in his low thirties that he had Parkinson’s. And he was devastated. And he admitted he drank a lot and tried to be in denial and tried to ignore it. He didn’t know how to deal with it. And then he realized I have a lot of choices still. The only choice that I don’t have is that I can’t choose if I have Parkinson’s or not. But everything else is up to me. And so, from that point, he and his wife, Tracy Pollen, who I admire as well, they have lived in crescendo. He has become the face of Parkinson’s and has voiced for so many, brought this terrible disease to the forefront, went into Congress without taking his medicine so that they could see what the tremors were like, and how if they cut off funding for those, for the medicine with people with Parkinson’s, what it would be like, the reality of it.

And he was, you know, gutsy enough to do that and shaking and slurring and not speaking well in front of the committee so that they could see the reality. And then he has spent his life he still has done acting where he could, but he’s mostly,  people say this is his greatest role that he’s played. He still had more important work ahead of him than being a superstar actor. He still had more important work. And this was it. Although, you know, he, maybe he wouldn’t have chosen this, but he said how much he learned from it and how many other books he wrote about optimism and about how to handle setbacks. During the pandemic, he wrote another book. He can’t really speak anymore. He has to have someone translate it and is struggling more.

But he has raised $1 billion. And you imagine that a billion dollars for this foundation. And is still, he says, he’s still an optimist and still grateful for what he has. This is the idea of living in crescendo. When you have a setback, when you are stuck in a rut, in a dead-end job, when you have no relationship with your children or your wife, and maybe you’re divorced or contemplating divorce, you kind of have to step back and get hold of yourself and identify, “Am I going to choose to live in crescendo and keep fighting this, keep working, keep doing what I can to improve my situation, that I can consciously choose to do that? Or am I going to give into it and give in to defeat and have my life basically come to an end?”

Greg McKeown:

The first thing I want to say about this story back with your father, I don’t want to miss this because as you were talking, I realized that it’s because of that example, that story that I decided to travel with my children. So I travel. About 80% of the time, I’ll take one of my children with me as we go.

Cynthia Covey Haller:

That’s wonderful.

Greg McKeown:

And it was as an intention. My intention was to be able to create that kind of memory, that kind of sequence where you look forward to it, and you’re going to have an adventure, and you make that time. And that has been materially important for our family culture, for my relationship with my children. And, you know, I didn’t want to miss this moment to make that connection. That’s the first thing.

Cynthia Covey Haller:

That’s wonderful to hear.

Greg McKeown:

Now, to these stories you’ve just shared with Michael J. Fox, I mean, that is an astounding story. We know some of that story, but to hear it just laid out in the way that you have illustrated so clearly, this idea of something happens to you, and through this crescendo paradigm, you basically shift it from something has happened to you, to something that is happening for you. And as you then say, this can be the driver, the initiation of a whole new level of contribution that I otherwise wouldn’t have made, that, you know, that that choice really exists for people. That’s profound. 

My best friend, Sam Bridgedog, has terminal cancer here. He is the most amazing person. To say he’s been a friend to me doesn’t even scratch the surface of what that relationship has been and is now. I just spent some time with him just over the summer in person, traveling together, making memories, our family and his family.

And it was full of laughter, full of joy. And also fully aware that this isn’t what he chose. Right? This isn’t what I would choose for him, for his marvelous wife, Anna, and five children. I wouldn’t choose any of this. He wouldn’t choose any of this, right? Nevertheless, and he does talk about this. Now, this is, to me, a very profound discovery related to the subject at hand. 

What I have learned from him is that if you choose to live life in crescendo in terms of constantly serving, he is still serving in his community. He is still serving his children. He is writing letters to his children at various ages in the future, in case he’s not there to do it. I mean, that’s powerful. But there is a cost, a secret cost, and that is that it actually, in some ways, makes life more painful because he has more to lose than if he just gives up and just says, “Okay, well, what’s the point? My relationship with my wife is now terrible. My relationship with my children is awful. My quality of life is the worst.” 

Like, in a sense, there’s more joy but more pain in this crescendo orientation. That’s what I’ve observed. And that has surprised me in a way. But I wonder what your thoughts are about that.

Cynthia Covey Haller:

Well, your friend sounds amazing how he’s still serving and doing that. And I see what you’re saying, that it is more painful because he knows what he’s going to lose. And he’s such a wonderful person. What a legacy he’s leaving for his family. How would his family like to think of him and see him the last six months to a year of his life? 

Would they like to see him in a bed depressed, you know, discouraged, you know, resigned to his fate or how he has chosen to live? Even though more painful, it’s more, you’re right. It is more courageous to embrace life even more fully and to care about the relationships that are most important to you because you are going to, you ultimately will lose them. 

But what a way to end your life and what a legacy. Just like my father is gone, but his legacy lives on. His legacy is living on right now. He’s still here, but you’re speaking about him. You’re impressed by his spirit, and his family will be too. It will give them a lot of courage and strength when they too face setbacks and think, how would dad respond? Would he give into this, or would he fight, or would he just try to, as Thoreau says, suck the marrow out of life as long as he can. And I think he’s making the right choice, though. It is a courageous choice.

Greg McKeown:

To live life in crescendo. It’s courage. Yes, That’s what it is. Tell me this, what are your primary takeaways from more than a decade of living in, you know, in your father’s mind, but also in your own mind and your own insights? What are the key takeaways for the rest of us?

Cynthia Covey Haller:

Well, there are so many great inspiring thoughts I’ve had while working on this book that he gave to me and that are uniquely his. And I, like I say, I’m grateful to be a part of it. And I could feel him near to me many times when I was writing things. And even sometimes I’d put it aside and then come back and write the same thing and check it against what I’d written before and realized, you know, I wrote it again when I didn’t realize a month later, so I knew I was getting it right. But one that we’ve talked about is that you can consciously choose no matter what happens to your circumstances. You can choose your path to live in crescendo or to live in diminuendo. And it’s a conscious choice, and it does take courage. And I appreciate you bringing that out. I hadn’t thought about that as much, that it’s not the easy choice. It’s more the courageous, the harder choice. It’s the road less taken. But in the long run, I think it’s a blessing to the person that chooses to live in crescendo as well as those that are inspired by it. 

But, so I would think the first one would be to choose to consciously live your life in crescendo and courageously act upon it. 

And secondly, I think my father and I wanted to instill hope in our listeners that regardless of circumstances and what has happened, your most important work or your most important contribution, your most important things that you’re about are always, and I always put in italics in the front of the book, are always ahead of you if you so choose. You have great things ahead. They may be different than what you’ve done in the past. Maybe it won’t be as successful as what you did in the past, but it’s still important because it’s what you’re about now. 

And third is to hope to inspire listeners to really believe that life is about contribution, not accumulation. There are many needs around us. President Carter says this in a quote I have in the book that “look around and see so many needs and despite what you’re doing in your life, you’d better get on with it.” And so take action. 

Life is a mission, not a career. That’s a big takeaway in my father’s book that we all have jobs and careers, but that’s not. That’s not what life’s totally about. Life is about what? Finding your own unique mission and purpose. Everybody has one. Everyone has something that they should do on this earth. And we can find it through listening to our conscience, through looking around us, and responding to needs even in our own families that may be struggling and suffering.

And that he always taught, too, that we don’t invent our missions; we detect them. We detect them through our own research, through our struggles. And then we could find what you feel like your mission is about. And I feel like you, you’ve kind of done that with your two great books that have come out, that have helped people prioritize and care about what’s essential and effortless. To do things that are hard to make it more effortless to do maybe the easier things that can help you get through the hard parts in your life. The things that are right in front of you that are more effortless. And now you are going into a new, you know, you are getting more knowledge and learning more with more training and education. And that’s a mission you must feel strong about. 

And I feel strong about this mission that I’ve felt for the last, since 2008. This has been my purpose and my mission to get this book out. It was a daunting task because I don’t have a big name. My father does. And I was hoping that people would be interested in his last big idea. But we had to find a publisher, and there’s so many great books out there, and it was a scary thing. I had to be courageous to keep living in crescendo and believe that I could bring this about. And so I think the main thing I’d challenge the readers to do is just to begin. Look around you and see needs in your family and in your community; see needs and match it with your own talents and what you feel. You’re called to do your mission and just start something small.

Just begin by visiting your lonely neighbor down the street that has an awful yard. And maybe you spend a couple hours with your kids and clean it up and take ’em a loaf of bread and talk to ’em. Spend an hour with them. What a great thing to do to lighten someone’s life. And then maybe in your circle of influence, you see another need in your schools, and maybe you volunteer in an overcrowded classroom, or you start collecting, you do your own food drive where you’re like, people did during the pandemic. They did it right out of their own garages, and they just felt prompted to do something, and they acted. And so I would say follow your heart and do what you can. President Roosevelt said, “Do what you can with what you have, where you are.” And that said, very succinctly, and I believe that, and I hope that this crescendo mentality will inspire and bless others to look around them and to serve. And in the process of making other people’s life better, it’ll also greatly enrich your own.

Greg McKeown:

It’s such a beautiful sentiment, and this idea of letting the needs that you see be the trigger for living life in crescendo, that no matter what our circumstances are, the moment that we see the need of another and are drawn towards it, we start to make a contribution. 

I remember when my grandmother passed away, and I went and stayed with my unbelievably terrific grandfather. I stayed with him for a few days, right at that pivotal transition in his life. And I saw firsthand this 90-something man think about other people, serve his neighbors. He was in a different home than he’d spent the last 50 years of his life. So that was disruptive. And yet he told me about this person down the hall who he now has lunch with and, and this person over here who they, you know, they talk faith together with.

And it was still in that mode. And as you’ve already said before, right, this is just one more meta moment of this conversation that that contribution he made there can’t be measured just by the impact he had on those people around him in those few days. That contribution also finds its way into me and into that example in my life that sort of thunders down to me from him and also into this conversation now into a large audience of people everywhere who are hearing that story. 

So this idea that just simply seeing a need and responding to it, regardless of what’s happened in the past, regardless of the challenges that you are facing, that that will open up opportunities to make a greater contribution, I think, under all circumstances is a profound place to wrap our conversation.

Cynthia Covey Haller:

I love that. Make a contribution in any way you can. A lot of times, we ignore our own family needs. Maybe there’s one of our kids is going through a divorce, or maybe they are really struggling being a new time parent, or maybe they’re a student or whatever. Reaching out to our own, our own family and then, and then looking around the neighborhood, and I mean, everybody can do different things. That’s the exciting thing. Each contribution is important. Some will make huge ones, some that have a lot of money can make a big splash and can help so much with poverty. And if they choose to do that after a pinnacle of success career, then what a great contribution. But it doesn’t diminish the person that shows up unannounced at the food bank to help sort food.

And that will visit someone that’s lonely, or that will clean up an area without any accolades and just make their street a little brighter, you know? 

So it’s exciting to think making a contribution can create a domino effect. Like you’ve said, how your grandfather did that in your life. It made an impression on you. Well, think what it meant to the person that he was serving and a friend to, as well as giving him some sort of purpose and meaning. I mean, this, your grandfather had a reason to get up in the morning in this place that he didn’t want to be maybe and not familiar to him, but yet he had a friend that he wanted to comfort or he had something he was going to do that day that gave him purpose and meaning too. Pablo Picasso said, “The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” 

And that’s kind of one of the mission statements for the book is find your meaning and purpose and then give it away. Spread it. Enlarge your circle of influence.

Greg McKeown:

Cynthia Covey Haller, it has been a real pleasure having this opportunity to speak with you today on the podcast. Thank you for your contribution and for living your life in crescendo because if you hadn’t, the book wouldn’t come forth, and we wouldn’t be able to have this conversation. So thank you.

Cynthia Covey Haller:

Thank you so much. I really enjoyed talking, and I learned so much from what you said. So thank you for having me be a guest on your show, Greg. I appreciate it.

Greg McKeown:

Thank you. 

Let’s come back to the questions from the beginning. Have you ever felt like it’s too late for you? Have you ever felt that life passed you by, that your dream is gone forever? Too many awful things have happened to you. You’ve made too many mistakes along the way. I hope this episode has helped you learn or relearn about this great power that is in you, that it will help you to hope again because your most important work is always ahead of you, and you can live your life in crescendo.

If you have found value in this episode, please write a review on Apple Podcasts. The first five people to write a review of this episode will receive year-long access to the Essentialism Academy. Just send a photo of your review to [email protected]. Also, do yourself a favor and subscribe to the podcast so that you can receive these episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays effortlessly. The book Effortless and Essentialism together are designed as a formula to be able to help you to not only know that your most important work is always ahead of you but to be able to do that most important work that is always ahead of you. We’ll continue the conversation next time.