Meet Your Family: Here’s Why Your Crazy Ideas Will Always Have a Home

Meet Your Family: Here’s Why Your Crazy Ideas Will Always Have a Home

“A company is not like a family. It is a family.” – Simon Sinek

Last week while at the TED Active conference, I heard Simon Sinek speak these words during his talk on leadership. The talk hasn’t been published yet, but it did kick off the inspiration for today’s post.

After you’ve read it, will you take a second to chime in with something fun about yourself in the comments? I want to see what makes this family what it is. More on that below…

I often refer to our community here as a family.

And that’s exactly how I see what you and I have built together at Live Your Legend.

Every time I write an article or email, I write it to one single person – to you.

Even though it gets sent out to over 60,000 people around the world, the whole point is to help you find and do work that excites you and surround yourself with the people who make it possible. That is the commitment you made to yourself and the world when you decided to join us, and it’s a constant honor to share that responsibility with you.

Over the past months and years, thanks to each of you, that one frustrated employee that I first helped over lunch years ago has turned into our own revolution of sorts. And another 100-300 of you join us every day. It’s still hard for me to believe.

So today I wanted to let you all know who makes up this family of ours. It’s my way of reminding you how much you are not alone in our pursuit of what matters and how I intend to serve you over the decades to come. (Yes, this is a 30+ year project for me – I hope it is for you, too.)

It’s also a nice chance for me to see where you all are in your journey and to be sure our future tools address what you need most. We have lots planned this year, and we always take your lead on what to build. That way, we’re much more likely to get it right than if I were to just guess at it, as many businesses seem to (unsuccessfully) do…

The information below comes from the over 5,000 new member surveys we’ve gotten in the past months as well as general data on our overall community.

Who & Where You Are – The State of the Live Your Legend Family

About 100,000 of you explore Live Your Legend on a monthly basis. And you all come from just about every place on the planet. 225 countries and territories around the world, in fact. That means we have every country in the world covered!

The bigger concentrations of Living Legends outside of the U.S. come from the United Kingdom (9,724), Canada (8,427), Australia (5,306), and India (4,110), but a lot more are close behind. Who would have thought that 623 of you are from Poland?!? So cool. Here are a few more…

Top LYL Countries

And some of your home locations I’d never heard of and have since added to our Round-The-World Trip list for next year, such as Lesotho (4), Bhutan (3), Swaziland (2) and Gabon (1). Bhutan has actually been on my list for a long time. I once took a geography class in college, but it doesn’t hold a candle anywhere near what you all are teaching me! I’ve always preferred practical learning…

Smallest LYL locations

For those of you on the smaller list, I welcome you to invite some of your friends and neighbors to the revolution. That’s where it starts!

Some of you even share a different first language – German (1,191), Spanish (903), French (704) and Portuguese (653).

57% of you are female, 43% male, and while we cover ages 14 to 70+ years, the majority of you are between 19-45. And I’d like to think that the parents in our community are helping us serve those under 19, because the most important steps for living your legend start long before we realize we’re even taking them. That’s why we do so much with kids via our partner charity impossible2Possible and speaking and working with various schools. The TEDx organizers from my high school district recently asked me to speak to their kids, and I cannot wait!

And here’s the best part…

We touch every corner of the world, yet all come from the same place.

And that’s where it starts to get interesting.

How many times have you changed jobs in your life?

  • 25% of you have changed 3 or 4 times.
  • 20% have gone on the hunt 5-7 times.
  • And 5% have tried 10-21 different jobs!

It’s a nice reminder that if you haven’t found the work that makes you come alive yet, keep looking.

What’s your current and ideal career situation?

  • 51% of you have a full time job, 13% are part time and 15% are self-employed.
  • 52% of you want to run your own company and only 11% want to work for someone else. The rest of you are still sorting it out.
  • And 77% of you are planning a job change in the next year or two.

Sounds like you came to the right place. 😉

And here’s some really good news – before joining LYL, 80% of you tried career books, 31% tried online courses and 26% tried seminars. This shows me you’re willing to fight for the change you want to make, which brings a huge smile to my face.

Now for the big one…

What areas of your life do you most need help with?

  • 62% – How do I find work that makes me happy?
  • 44% – How do I make the transition from work I hate to work I love?
  • 53% – How do I make extra money on the side?
  • 51% – How do I deal with finances when quitting my job and starting something new?
  • 47% – I have no support. How do I surround myself with people who will help me succeed?
  • 57% – How do I use the Internet, blogs and technology to build a business around my passions?
  • 42% – How do I grow my website or blog?
  • 64% – How do I become an expert who people are willing to pay for my help?
  • 80% – I’d like to attend in-person LYL events.

(We allowed members to check multiple boxes, which is why the results add up to way over 100%.)

And while questions like these are beyond helpful, what really moves the needle are the open-ended responses from all of you. Here are a few that come up all the time…

Your biggest challenges

Any of those sound familiar? I know I’ve been there (and still am at times). Like I said, you’re not alone. We’re family.

And this is the coolest part of all! I don’t have to wonder what it is you need the most help with. There’s a reason why Connect With Anyone and Live Off Your Passion are our two primary immersion courses. They cover the things you told us you needed most help with. That’s not a coincidence.

And as we look to offer more articles, online workshops and a possible monthly membership later this year, you can bet that you’ll be the one leading that charge – whether you know it or not. That’s just how we roll. You help this community more than you could ever realize.

But my favorite part is that you all are Dreamers.

And that is the first step to any new reality. You believe in possibility and know that you’re meant to have a more meaningful impact. That’s what gives me the most hope of all for this community. How do I know? First of all, because we receive hundreds of emails a week demonstrating just that.

And, of course, because I asked you. 😉 Here’s a taste of how you responded…

If you knew you could make money doing anything you wanted, what would you do?

The dreams of our community

We all have an idea of what could be – for some of us it’s crystal clear, and for others it’s still developing. Either way, the spark has been lit.

That’s the beauty of it.

We believe in the same things.

And that’s what makes us a family.

We share the same values, frustrations, ideas and beliefs about the impact we can have. We deeply align with The 15 Rules of OUR Revolution.

I think one of our 46-60 year-old members, who’s changed jobs over 15 times, said it best…

Why we're here

We come from all over the world. But we’re all the same. 

We might feel like the only one in our city or town, but we are not alone.

We struggle and fight for the same things.

Together we fight the good fight.

Living your legend might mean something different to you out in Andora than it does to me in San Francisco or someone else out in Kenya. But we’re all here for the same reason.

To make a difference.

Here’s to family – and never being alone with our ‘crazy’ ideas again.

There’s lots to come around here. Thanks for making us who we are.

Much love to every corner of the world – wherever you might be joining in on the adventure,

-Scott

For the comments: Where in the world are you? How do you relate to other members? What’s your spark? Tell us one thing about yourself. We’d love to know how your story makes our family what it is! Tell us in the comments here.

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Photo Credit: The Marin Headlands with a part of my running family training for last year’s humbling 50-mile race. I wish I would have done a few more of those training runs though! More adventure on my Instagram.