All of us grew up with a very simple assumption: If you want to live the dream, you need money, lots of money. The Internet is full of “successful” gurus, selling eBooks about how to finally make enough money to live “the good life.” And, damn, does what they have look good. Sport-cars in the garage, a mansion in Beverly Hills, and a yacht full of the most beautiful girls (or guys) that you can imagine. We are somewhat disgusted by the superficiality of it all, but damn, this is what it looks like to be living the dream!

Look beneath the surface

I live in Los Angeles, and there is one thing that we all have in common: the dream of money and fame, or a little simpler, “living the dream.” Most of us are suffering, and can barely survive, but whenever we hang out and have fun, we claim that we are “living the dream.” Are we?

In reality, most of us Angelenos live maybe 5% of the dream that we had when we came to Hollywood. Somehow, we didn’t get the big gig, the big connection didn’t work out in the way we thought, but we got used to it and made it work anyway. Or maybe it did work out, but our dream job turned out to be so stressful and demanding that we simply want to throw it all away just to finally get some sleep. And we are the lucky ones.

Most people who come to LA have to leave after a few weeks or months, because they run out of money. Living the dream is expensive. You can’t live a millionaire lifestyle if you don’t actually have millions, right?

I’d say, not quite. And here is why.

Stop chasing rabbits

Everyone’s expectations of a dream life is different. But, for some reason, most of us are chasing after the same luxurious lifestyle that we see on TV. Why?

The answer is very simple: Many of us don’t really know what we actually want, so we follow the shiny objects. Every day, we are bombarded by one very specific version of a dream life that is all about having more than everyone else. And yes, I know, we artists, we dreamers, we think that we are different. We think that we know our dreams, but the truth is that even we are bound to patterns and images of “the good life” that often have nothing to do with what we actually, really want.

I came to Hollywood convinced that my biggest dream was to see my name on the credits of a 200 million-dollar movie. But what kind of dream is that? Having my name on something? How does this have anything to do with living the life of my dreams?

Be amazing

The truth is: all the glitz and glamour that many of us work toward, in whatever shape or form, really has nothing to do with actually “living the dream.” Most of the time, “living the dream” is nothing more than a deep desire to be accepted and appreciated as a person.

All that we really want is for the world to know us and to talk about how amazing we are. We want the people that surround us to be in awe of our achievements, we want them to look up to us and say, “Wow, you are amazing. I want to be like you.”

Yes, it helps to accumulate a lot of money, or to be really good and successful at something, to be recognized as an outstanding and incredible person, but there are other ways to get there. For example, simply being an outstanding and incredible person.

But what if that is not enough? What is the life that we dream about? What would our very own personal dream actually look like?

Here is what we can do

Money can’t buy happiness. Still, we would probably change quite a lot in our lives if we had – say – 150 million dollars in the bank. Let’s just pretend for a few minutes that we have that money. Now, what would our life look like? Take a piece of paper and write down your perfect day. If you’d wake up tomorrow at the perfect place, with 150 million dollars in the bank, what would you do tomorrow? What kind of breakfast would you have? Who would you hang out with? What would you do all day?

The result is the life that you actually want to live, if you are honest with yourself.

This exercise changed my life.

Design your personal dream life

If I had 150 million dollars in the bank, I realized that I would not sit in a recording studio 14 hours a day. I would be in the studio maybe 3 hours a day, working on something truly outstanding that only I could do.

The next day, I started to live the life I had written down. I made it work as much as I could. I got up early, took a long walk in the woods, had the nicest breakfast I could imagine, went back to the studio for only 3 hours to totally get lost in a creative idea, met some friends for coffee in the afternoon, watched a movie in the evening and went to bed early. The next day, I went to the beach.

I have been following this specific schedule more or less for over a year now, and for the first time in my life, I feel like I am living the life of my dreams. No fancy cars, no naked girls, no yachts or servants; instead: relaxed days, meaningful friendships, and fulfilling activities.

It is a strange thing to actually live the life I dreamed about, instead of working toward something that would eventually make it possible to do just that… in some far away future.  

Take it from the fisherman

It’s like the story of the fisherman, who relaxes on his small boat, happy with his life. Asked by a tourist why he doesn’t go out again to catch even more fish, so that he can make more money to then buy a bigger ship to catch more fish to make even more money, he responds:

“And then? What would I do then?”

The tourist replies, “And then, when you are really successful, you can finally sit down and relax.”

To which the fisherman responds, “This is exactly what I am doing now.”

We don’t actually need to go through all of the trouble to be the most rich and successful person if, in the end, all that we want is to sit down, relax, and enjoy our life.

The only reason we do that is because we like being liked, we want to be loved, the more the better. We want to be more amazing, more incredible, more outstanding than everyone else. We want to live like Angelina Jolie or the Kardashians or other celebrities that we adore (In my case, some sound engineers that nobody knows about). But why? Because they are respected and everybody loves them.

You are amazing

If you had 5 of your closest friends telling you sincerely how amazing you are, on a regular basis, wouldn’t that be better than having an extra thousand dollars per month?

Yes, we can spend our life on this planet accumulating enough wealth and/or skills to finally become that person we can look up to. Or we can start being that person right now, by simply doing what we love, being who we want to be, and living the life we want to live. We can start today, with our small circle of friends, to treat each other with the same respect and admiration that we have toward Angelina Jolie, the Kardashians, or anyone else who we look up to.