During a recent trip to San Diego, I was reminded of the importance of deliberately chasing your dream life. On an early morning stroll on the beach, I walked past a surfer and said, Gosh, it’s early to be out here. He replied, I have to get it in early because I have to be at work by 8. I asked what he meant, and he replied, “I’m a CPA. I’ve built my whole life around being able to do the things I love, and one of the things I love most is surfing. On weekdays, I wake up at 5, I’m on the water by 6, and then I head home, shower, and leave for work.” It struck me how intentional he was about building his life. He’d identified what mattered to him and made it happen. Chase Your Dream Life by Interviewing Your Future Self My encounter with the surfer reminded me of an exercise I’d completed years ago, when I was working with an executive coach. It’s called The Reporter Exercise, and it required me to fully involve myself in a mind game in which I was being interviewed by a reporter five years in the future. The exercise is intended to help you identify your dream life through nine questions. For it to work, you must suspend reality and slide into your future self’s position so you can see exactly how you would like your life to be. When I went through the exercise in 2007, the vision I created was dramatically different from the reality I was living. Don’t get me wrong; it’s not that I had a lousy life. In fact, I was happy. But I clearly wasn’t where [...]