The Empire Builder   thrives on power and innovation to create something of enduring value. At worst, you can be grandiose, dominating, or insatiable, but you also exhibit great capacity for hard work, focus, innovation, and decisiveness. My question for you is “Do you have enough to enjoy your life fully today?”

You’re probably an Empire Builder if:
• Your number—the amount you’ve told yourself would be enough to never have to work again and enjoy life to the fullest—has increased more than the rate of inflation over the past five years. If your empire isn’t financial, then perhaps the scope and scale of your artistic or philanthropic legacy keeps increasing.
• Your business or career occupies more than 75 percent of your attention during waking hours.
• You won’t pull money out of your empire, be it a business, a real estate portfolio, or a single asset, other than what’s necessary for ongoing spending.
• Your empire represents more than 75 percent of your financial net worth.

Painful Emotional States
Driven
Insatiable
Insecure
Stressed
Lonely
Grandiose

Common Distorted Thoughts (Conditioned Beliefs from the Past)
Once I have , I’ll be happy.

Liberating Wisdom or Ways to Focus
I have enough today to enjoy my life fully.
Achieving my goals is not going to make any real difference to my inner quality of life.
The only place I can be truly happy is in the present moment.

Archetype(s) You Most Need to Emphasize to Create Balance
Pleasure Seeker: enjoyment, relaxation
Idealist: passion, compassion

A Practice

BE FREE NOW.
Experiment and live just one day or, if you can, one week or one month, as if you had already arrived. Do what it takes to get rid of any and all things in your life that are not going to exist once you’ve reached your goal(s) (for example, business interruptions, crammed scheduling, thinking about business while doing something unrelated). If you had your ultimate empire today, what would be different, really? Is it possible for you to stop striving during this experiment? If not, how will you stop striving in the future? If you tend to tell yourself it will be different when X has happened, explore whether that’s really true before dedicating all your time and energy to getting there. As the Buddhists like to say, there is no ‘there’ there. Ask yourself, “What is the optimum way I can prepare for relaxing, for enjoying peace of mind right here, right now?”

To do more specific practices related to the Empire Builder, buy my book or attend a workshop.