I've been asking myself a very personal question lately:

What if I only had 6 years?

We don't need to get into the personal circumstances behind that question here. I will save that for another day.

But I will tell you this:

It has changed the way I'm looking at everything.

The way I spend my time.

The way I run my business.

The things I'm willing to wait for.

The things I'm no longer willing to wait for.

The experiences I want to have.

The people I want to be around.

The work I want to do.

And the amount of my life I'm willing to hand over to a business simply because I think that's what successful people are supposed to do.

Because when you really let yourself consider that you might have less time than you think, some things become very clear.

You stop asking, “What should I do?”

And you start asking:

“What do I actually want?”

You stop thinking so much about someday.

And you start looking at today.

You stop waiting for permission.

And you start asking for what you want.

You stop trying to build the perfect plan.

And you start paying attention to what's right in front of you.

And maybe you're not asking yourself, What if I only had 6 years?

Maybe your number is 10.

What if you only had 10 years?

Not 30.

Not 40.

Not “someday.”

Ten.

What would you do differently?

What would you finally ask for?

What would you stop tolerating?

What would you stop pretending you wanted?

What would you say yes to?

And perhaps the bigger question:

What would you stop waiting for?

Because I have a feeling that when you start asking yourself questions like these, you begin to see your life and the business you're building with a completely different set of eyes.

I've Been Thinking About This a Lot Lately.

Actually, I've been living it.

And the more I think about it, the more I believe this question changes everything—not because we should walk around afraid that our time is running out, but because it forces us to get honest about what we're doing with the time we actually have.

Because here's what I know:

You can build a very successful life and still build one you don't actually want to live.

I've done enough of that to know.

What If This Whole Thing Is a Game?

Here's another question I've been playing with:

What if none of this is as serious as we make it?

What if life is a game?

What if we're here to experience it?

To learn.

To love.

To create.

To screw things up and start again.

To ask bigger questions.

To follow the thing that lights us up.

To see what happens when we say, Wouldn't it be cool if…?

I don't mean that nothing matters.

I mean maybe we don't have to make everything mean so much.

Maybe we don't need to have every step figured out before we take the first one.

Maybe we don't need permission.

Maybe we don't need to know exactly how the story ends.

Maybe we can participate in creating it.

That's where things get really interesting.

What Happens When You Start Asking for What You Actually Want?

I've spent years learning that there is a massive difference between hoping something happens and actually becoming willing to ask for it.

And I mean really ask.

Not:

“I guess this would be nice.”

But:

I want this.

I'm willing to have this.

I'm willing to become the woman who can hold this.

I'm willing to let life surprise me.

That shift changes the way you show up.

It changes what you notice.

It changes the conversations you have.

It changes the opportunities you recognize.

And sometimes, it creates opportunities you couldn't have planned if you tried.

I've experienced this in ways that still make me stop and shake my head.

Sometimes Life Gives You Evidence You Couldn't Have Written Yourself.

A few weeks ago, I found myself sitting in a room with some of the most incredible leaders I've ever had the privilege of being around.

I was there as a founding member of the Success Principles Leadership Council.

And here's the part that gets me:

Jack Canfield and Patty Aubrey, my mentors and the co-creators of Chicken Soup for the Soul, reached out to me directly and invited me to be part of this brand-new council.

Think about that for a second.

The woman who was just getting started with this work years ago could never have mapped out that exact moment.

I couldn't have put it on a vision board and then reverse-engineered the path.

I couldn't have known.

I could only keep becoming.

Keep learning.

Keep showing up.

Keep following what felt true for me moment to moment.

Keep saying yes to the next thing.

And then life met me there.

And that's not the only full-circle moment happening right now.

Another mentor from an entirely different chapter of my life, Louise Rusk, recently reached out to me about my work with the Messaging Clarity Starter Kit.

Louise taught me an extraordinary amount about hair, education, travel, teaching, and coaching when I was 18 years old.

Eighteen.

And now, decades later, we're having a conversation about the work I've created around messaging and business clarity through my DMs on Instagram.

That kind of thing still blows my mind.

Because it reminds me:

You have no idea what you're building while you're building it.

You just have to keep building.

I Had to Change the Story I Was Telling About Myself.

None of this happened because I suddenly became someone completely different.

It happened because I started changing the stories I had been telling about who I was allowed to be and what actually made me worthy to want what I want.

For a long time, I thought I had to sacrifice myself to be successful.

My business came first.

Other people's needs came first.

Taking care of everyone else came first.

There was always something else to do.

Someone else to help.

Something else to prove.

And I called it responsibility.

But if I'm being completely honest?

A lot of it was self-sabotage dressed up as self-sacrifice.

I wasn't building a business that gave me freedom.

I was building a business that needed me.

That relied on me.

And that didn't function unless I was there.

There is a difference.

And I don't want that for you.

You Don't Need to Be Fixed.

This is one of the things I care about most deeply in my work.

When people start learning about success, mindset, business, personal growth, or coaching, it's very easy to start believing:

Something is wrong with me.

I've been living wrong my whole life.

I need to be fixed.

I'm behind.

I'm not disciplined enough.

I'm not confident enough.

I'm not clear enough.

I'm not good enough.

No.

I don't buy that.

You are not a broken person who needs to be fixed before you can create the life you want.

You are a whole human being who may need to refine some things.

You may need new information.

You may need a different strategy.

You may need to tell yourself a different story.

You may need to stop doing something that isn't working.

You may need to get honest about what you actually want.

You may need clarity.

But that's different from being broken.

And that distinction matters.

Because when you approach yourself from the belief that you need to be fixed, you spend an enormous amount of energy looking for what's wrong.

When you approach yourself from the belief that you are already whole, you can start looking for what's possible.

That's a very different conversation.

You Are Responsible for What You Create Next.

I believe deeply in taking 100% responsibility for your life.

Not because everything that has happened to you was your fault.

It wasn't.

And taking responsibility isn't the same thing as taking the blame.

Other people matter.

They do.

Circumstances matter.

They absolutely do.

But you still get to decide what you do with what happens next.

That's where your power lives.

You can't control every circumstance.

You can't control what another person chooses.

You can't change your past.

But you can become more conscious of the choices you're making today.

And you can start asking:

Is this actually the life I want?

Is this actually the business I want?

Does the way I'm running my business give me more freedom—or less?

Am I creating something that supports my life, or am I organizing my entire life around supporting my business?

Those questions can get uncomfortable.

Good.

Sometimes uncomfortable questions are the beginning of clarity.

The More I Loved Myself, the More Fun Everything Became.

One of the biggest lessons from my own journey is that self-love isn't just some fluffy personal-development concept.

It changes the way you build.

When I started taking better care of myself, something unexpected happened.

I started having more fun.

I became more present.

I became more open.

I became more willing to listen.

I became more willing to follow what felt right instead of constantly trying to force everything into existence.

And people noticed.

Clients noticed.

Opportunities appeared.

My business grew.

Because when you're not spending all your energy fighting yourself, you have a lot more energy available for creating.

That's part of what I mean when I talk about building a business that gives you your life back.

Freedom isn't just having more time.

Freedom is having enough space to actually experience the life you're building.

Sense Isn't Common.

Our parents told us to use our common sense.

But I've come to believe something different.

I wrote about this at length in my book, Beyond Common: The 12 Essentials for Success in Life and in the Workplace.

Sense isn't common.

Every person is operating through the lens of their own experiences.

Their upbringing.

Their beliefs.

Their wounds.

Their successes.

Their failures.

Their expectations.

Their colored glasses.

So I stopped expecting everyone else to see the world the way I do.

And I stopped expecting myself to know what everyone else needs.

That's another kind of freedom.

You can love people without taking responsibility for their entire experience.

You can love and appreciate your clients so much.

You can want them to follow through and build something extraordinary with their amazing skills.

You can see the success that's possible for them.

You can want it for them so badly.

You can show up for them and hold space for them to achieve it.

And you can do all of that without feeling responsible for the actions they take.

You get to trust that the work you've done is enough for them to achieve their goals.

And this is true whether you're talking about clients, staff members, parents, children, or all of the above.

You can understand someone without agreeing with them.

You can have compassion without abandoning yourself.

And you can lead without needing everyone to understand why you're going where you're going.

The Room That Lit Me Up.

Being in that Success Principles Leadership Council room reminded me of something else.

Growth is supposed to feel exciting.

I was surrounded by incredible people with different experiences, different stories, different levels of experience, and different perspectives.

Some had been doing The Success Principles work for decades.

Some were stepping into entirely new chapters.

Some were learning how to incorporate new technologies and AI into their businesses.

And some were talking about how much they love what they're doing—and how much more money and wild success they want to create from that work.

And I felt like I was lit up like a Christmas tree.

Not because I was sitting there thinking, I need to become more like them.

Because I was thinking:

Look at what's possible.

That's what the right mentor, coach, teacher, community, or room can do.

It doesn't make you smaller.

It doesn't make you wrong.

It doesn't tell you that you're broken.

It expands your view of what's possible.

And then you get to decide what you want to do with that.

So What Would You Do If You Only Had 10 Years?

This is the question I want to leave you with.

If you knew you had 10 years, would you keep building your business the way you're building it now?

Would you keep saying yes to things you don't actually want?

Would you keep putting yourself last?

Would you keep waiting until you're “ready”?

Would you keep hiding behind more education?

Would you keep overcomplicating what you already know?

Would you keep trying to become someone else before giving yourself permission to be yourself?

Or would you finally ask:

What do I actually want?

And then:

What would it take to build my business around that life?

That's the work I'm interested in doing with you.

Not fixing you.

Not giving you another list of things you're doing wrong.

Not helping you build a business that consumes every available minute of your life.

I'm interested in helping you get clear enough to build differently.

Because I believe your business should create freedom.

It should give you more of your life back.

And if what you've built doesn't feel like freedom yet, that doesn't mean you failed.

It means there is something to refine.

Something to clarify.

Something to redesign.

And maybe that's the invitation.

Not to blow up your entire life.

Not to become someone new.

Just to start asking better questions.

To listen.

To get really honest with yourself.

To notice what lights you up.

To ask for what you want.

To take responsibility for what you create next.

And to become willing to let your life surprise you.

Because wouldn't it be cool if...

you didn't have to wait until you were dying to finally start living?

That's the kind of business and the kind of life I want to help you design.

A business that gives you your life back.

Not a business that becomes your prison.

 

Ready to Build Differently?

If you're realizing that the business you've built isn't giving you the freedom you thought it would, you don't necessarily need to start over.

You may simply need to get clear.

Clear on what you actually do.

Clear on who you do it for.

Clear on why it matters.

Clear on how to say it so the right people understand and want what you have.

That's exactly where I start with my clients.

The Messaging Clarity Starter Kit™ is designed to help you untangle your message, see what you've been making harder than it needs to be, and finally say what you do in a way that makes sense to the people you want to reach.

You can complete it in one sitting, for less than a night out to dinner, and walk away with clarity you can actually use.

This is foundational work that so many business owners skip.

And once you get this right, you get to build everything else with more ease, creating more freedom every step of the way.

If you're ready to stop overthinking your message and start building from clarity, start here.

Get the Messaging Clarity Starter Kit™ →

With love 💜 and gratitude,

Tracey Watts Cirino
Freedom Business Architect
The Money Messaging Strategist

I help experts turn their brilliance into words that sell.

About Tracey Watts Cirino

Tracey Watts Cirino is a Freedom Business Architect, Money Messaging Strategist, professional speaker, 6X #1 bestselling author, and business growth strategist who helps experts turn their brilliance into words that sell.

Her work focuses on helping business owners get clear on what they really want, what they do, who they help, the problems they solve, and how to communicate their value in a way that makes it easier for the right clients to say yes.

Learn more about Tracey Watts Cirino and her work helping experts clarify their message.