1. What does your ideal life look like?

We speak in words, but we think in pictures. So when you are thinking about your ideal life, what are the pictures that are coming to mind of your ideal life? They could be pictures of things that you want to do and have never done. They could be more pictures of things you've done that you want to do more of. What does your ideal life look like?

2. What does your ideal life sound like?

Your ideal life does actually have sounds. For example, you might be thinking about the sounds of certain people laughing. My friend Phil Jones has got twin three-and-a-half-year-old girls, and I know the sound of them laughing makes him happy. It's an ideal life sound. I'm an avid snow skier. I'm actually kind of a powder hound. So when I'm skiing in deep powder, there's a sound that the powder makes as it's hitting. And this is what you want it to do. You want it to actually hit you in the face, hit your goggles and your helmet, and go over your head. And that sound makes me smile. If you're an avid golfer, maybe the sound of the golf club striking the golf ball at the sweet spot and the other people in your foursome saying, "Nice shot." So what are the sounds of your ideal life? Remember, they're yours. It's personal to you. I'm just giving you some examples.

3. What does your ideal life feel like?

What are the just pure emotions that you experience as you think about and actually are living your ideal life?

4. When you're living your ideal life, what are you doing?

I know you love your work. I know you love to help people make smart choices about their money and achieve their goals and fulfill their values. It's very satisfying work. And there are other things that you like to do besides work, right? So when you're living your ideal life, what are you doing?

5. Who are you with?

When you're living your ideal life, who are you with? There are definitely some ideal life people, and there may be some people in your life currently who are kind of sucking the ideal life out of you. So while you're considering who you're with, you might also be thinking about some people you might spend less time with because they're either not facilitating you living your ideal life or they're having a negative impact on that as well.

6. Who are you being?

It could be as simple as being happy. It could be as simple as being philanthropic. I know in my ideal life, the older I get, the more philanthropic I enjoy being. My charitable endeavors, both writing checks and being personally involved, definitely are ideal life things for me. And I've always done some, but I'm progressively doing more and more. So who are you being? 

Those are the six ideal life questions. What a lot of people do is they'll take those six questions and not just think about them in a vacuum but you might also use this as a brainstorming session with your spouse or your partner, maybe your entire family. I've gotten great feedback from financial advisors who've turned these six questions into the vacation discussion where they and their kids at a younger age than you might imagine are already talking about living your ideal life.

I do a presentation at Pepperdine University every summer for 17-year-olds, and these are kids between their junior and senior year of high school. Pepperdine has something called the Youth Citizenship Seminar, and it's a week-long camp, and they take one high school student. no more than one from each high school in the state of California, and this is the exercise.

I have 17-year-olds actually start writing down their vision for their ideal life. Because essentially what you do is now you make all your decisions filtered through your ideal life vision. So for them it's like where are they going to go to college? Some of them have said, "I think I'm making decisions on somebody else's vision of my ideal life."

So when you think about your ideal life, what does your ideal business look like that creates your ideal life? How many clients do you want? How much money does each client pay? What are the personality characteristics of each of your clients, especially your ideal clients? How many hours a week are you working? How many days a week are you working? How much real, unplugged vacation are you taking to be fully present with the people you're on vacation with? You're vetting all your business and life decisions through your vision for your ideal life.