Ten Essential Questions to Guide You To An Extraordinary Life

1) Will this choice propel me toward an inspiring future or will it keep me stuck in the past?

2) Will this choice bring me long-term fulfillment or short-term gratification?

3) Am I standing in my power or am I trying to please another?

4) Am I looking for what’s right or am I looking for what’s wrong?

5) Will this choice add to my life force or will it rob me of my energy?

6) Will I use this situation as a catalyst to grow and evolve or will I use it to beat myself up?

7) Does this choice empower me or does it disempower me?

8) Is this an act of self-love or is it an act of self-sabotage?

9) Is this an act or faith or an act of fear?

10) Am I choosing from my divinity or am I choosing from my humanity?

Is there a life philosophy that you feel has carried you through your career?

My approach to what I do in my job — and it might even be the approach to my life — is that everything I do is the most important thing I do. Whether it’s a play or the next film. It is the most important thing. I know it’s not going to be the most important thing, and it might not be close to being the best, but I have to make it the most important thing. That means I will be ambitious with my job and not with my career. That’s a very big difference, because if I’m ambitious with my career, everything I do now is just stepping-stones leading to something — a goal I might never reach, and so everything will be disappointing. But if I make everything important, then eventually it will become a career. Big or small, we don’t know. But at least everything was important.

Mads Mikkelsen