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The Ultimate New Year's Resolution
6 Swift Lessons in Life Planning
passions. When people ask what he and his firm do, Friedler always responds, "We free Gullivers." The reference, of course, is to the protagonist of Jonathan Swift's classic Gulliver's Travels.
In case you need a refresher on Swift's tale, Gulliver was a doctor who couldn't make any money on land so he decided to ply his trade on the sea. When his ship was wrecked, he woke up on a beach tied down by hundreds of tiny strings. The strings belonged to a group of equally tiny people – the Lilliputians – who shot Gulliver with little poisonous arrows when he tried to escape. So, not wanting to deal with the pain, he allowed himself to be tied back down for a while before he was ultimately freed.
Friedler likens his clients to the beleaguered Gulliver, tied down by a lot of tiny strings: an unfulfilling career, a difficult boss, financial instability, too much credit card debt, too many social commitments. You name it. Separately, each string would be powerless, but together, they make up a formidable restraint system. The goal is to free his clients – whom he calls "Gullivers" – to discover and embrace their dreams.
- Freeing Gulliver really isn't that hard. We just think
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