When you go to the airport to get on a plane to fly across the country, the airline will always weigh your bag.

A 50 pound limit policy is enforced, anything over that is an extra charge.

Your baggage can only weigh so much, it can only be so big or you aren’t allowed on the plane.

Too much weight and the plane can’t fly.

Too much weight and fuel costs go way up.

Too much baggage and we can’t even fit all the bags on the plane.

The airline knows about limiting baggage, but what about your business and your personal life?

I recently filled out an intake form with my life coach who has coached me for over 10 years.

One of the questions said “what are you tolerating in your life right now that you shouldn’t be?” 

A great question.

One of my answers was – “A dirty car”

I took the car in for a cleaning after I identified it. The dirty car was baggage.

This past week I fired a long time employee in my office who had no future with the company. He had been demoted twice, had no plans for improving himself and I believe he was stealing through falsifying his time sheets.

He was baggage and I let him go.

The wonderful thing about eliminating baggage is that as soon as you lighten the load and get rid of the excess, there is space for the good things to enter your life.

As soon as I fired my “baggage” employee, immediately as though the universe was waiting, a hot-shot wonder-kid employee, a top 1% asked for a job and offered to move across the country on 7 day’s notice to join the team.

Get rid of the baggage and allow the good things to enter your life.

A forest must burn to allow the new trees to grow or the old trees choke out the new growth.

Destruction and creation are part of the same cycle.

Getting rid of baggage is the only way to allow new and good things to enter your life.

This applies everywhere:

If you go eat a value menu $1 cheeseburger at McDonalds, your appetite is spoiled for a good home cooked dinner. Everything takes up space and weight in your life. Would you rather have the $1 cheeseburger or the home cooked meal long term in your life?

The same applies to dating, the fun girl who is not wife material is taking up space that Mrs. Right could be occupying.

The dirty car takes up the space of a clean car.

The sub-par employee takes up the space of a good employee.

A sideways business takes up the space of a great business. 

A stagnant career is taking up the space of an outstanding career.

Anything in your life or business that you are “tolerating” but not completely in alignment with is baggage.

Baggage costs more, weighs down the airplane and if there is too much baggage the plane can’t even get off the ground.

The universe rewards white space. When you eliminate baggage, and allow space in your life, your time, your energy, your relationships, your business, the breathing room is where greatness can happen.

Don’t be emotional about your baggage, don’t cling to it, don’t be loyal to your baggage, if you find something in your life to be baggage, identify it and let it go. 

The free space, the free time, the free energy will always find a better solution and just like Jim Collins says in his famous book Good to Great – Good is the enemy of great.

Ask yourself, what are you tolerating in your life or your business that needs to go?

What is only good that is stopping you from greatness?

What are you carrying around that is baggage in your life and how can you let it go?

The airlines have known about baggage for years and have set limits on how much you can carry, why don’t you?

Respect The Grind,
Stefan Aarnio