Month: April 2017

The Mental Masturbation of Personal Development

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I’ve been a personal development junkie over half my life.

It started when I discovered the “self-help” section of the library in my mid-teenage years.

I “got off” on determination, drive, resilience and the “accomplishment” of absorbing a vast amount of personal development content as quickly as possible.

I read countless of books a month. From the greats like Napolean Hill, Dale Carnegie Deepak Chopra, Brian Tracy… Most of which I don’t remember anymore.

Pushing and racing into a disciplined “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” life, laden with productivity — tracked down to the minute.

Years later I realized, “It’s bullshit.”

It’s not what any of us really want. It provides you a temporary high and pleasure and sense of accomplishment because your brain is wired to value that which you work, struggle and hurt for. So with enough struggle, you feel that pleasurable “accomplishment.”

The greatest magic in my life happened when I left my corporate job and decided to travel the world. Everyone around me told me it was a “career ender”. It was crazy, it was unwise and it would create an unsightly “gap” of employment in my resume. I was told it was dangerous to go alone to 3rd world countries. I was told, “No, you cannot go.”

I was so miserable where I was. I was so empty. I was afraid. I was more desperate than afraid. And I was OBSESSED with going.

So what did I do?

I didn’t care. I said, “Fuck it,” and I left. If all went to hell, then to hell with it.

It was the most beautiful, most liberating most powerful experience of my life thus far.

So I learned that when I let go, EVERYTHING LINED UP.

And then I got another job. An amazing job that I love.

And I forgot about letting go again.

I pushed and struggled and strained to prove how strong, how capable, how extraordinary I was. It was exhausting. Literally. I required over 9 hours of sleep per night and would wake up tired. My mind was racing, life was a battle and city life was draining. It affected my health, my relationships and my worldview.

Everything became more challenging. I was living life in “expert mode” I became resilient as fuck. My mental fortification has become so strong I thought my body would die before I gave up.

I am very grateful for the opportunity to overcome these challenges.

But guess what?

Paddling upstream because you’re a badass, world changing, spiritual warrior leads to more upstream paddling. It leads to more challenges.

I couldn’t figure out why I was on a treadmill of endless challenges.

Intelligently, (and finally), I decided to pursue a new path.

In the meantime. I can hold out where I am. I can be resilient. I can overcome. I can hold on just a few more months. I can take it. I can take the criticism, the pain and the struggle that comes with paddling upstream.

And then one day I thought. “What if I just did whatever I wanted right now?”

Quit my job earlier and travel to Tibet. Walk over to that bookshelf and pick up a book to find a pamphlet about a homestay in the jungle and go there. What if I just did that?

What would become of my life?

And so here I am — ready to surrender. Ready to give in to a greater power. Let it take me.

I can hear the voice of my intuition waking up.

To all you personal development junkies — Go ahead. Tear me down. Tell me I’m a hippie. Tell me how unmotivated I am and how I’m going nowhere.

I read 0 books on schedule and a few when I feel like it.

The struggle is a lie. The work is real. But when you work from passion and alignment with your truth, it’s not work anymore — it’s fun. It’s energizing. You love it and want more of it.

How do you know if you are in alignment? You will feel a rush of good emotion.

Try both ways and see what happens.

I dare you.

🙂

Congratulations, You Don’t Fit Into the Box

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Dare to be yourself in a society that is not built to support you.

It’s one of the most heroic things you can do.

We glorify heroes with integrity, determination, innovation, grit, and the ability to stand for what they believe in — in movies.

We glorify failure and innovation. Yet in my experience, I have been put down repeatedly because I stand for honor, justice and truth.

I have been told:

  • You’re wrong
  • You don’t know
  • You make mistakes
  • It’s not enough
  • You can’t
  • Stop talking
  • You’re crazy
  • You’re too: strong, soft, loud, powerful, young etc.

I have spoken up, spoken out and been shut down. I have been judged, criticized, condemned, yelled at and told to just “take it.”

Now, let’s get one thing straight. I approach this “feedback” from a place of grace and humility, truly looking to learn something from it and improve myself.

I did not find anything major to fix, however. In fact, it was blatantly off the mark. Some of it was complete lies.

No matter how I tried to learn from it, I found nothing. I wasn’t learning anything and I questioned myself to the point of questioning reality. The feedback was, in fact, THE OPPOSITE of me.

I came to a few conclusions,  and let me preface that all of these are possibilites. I do not claim to be “right” and I am exploring the options.

So here we go:

  • Perhaps it’s the backfire of manifestation. I am focused too much trying to dissect the problem. That is a possibility.
  • Perhaps I am their mirror and their teacher. Highly likely.
  • Perhaps I have blind spots. Also possible.

And when I take a good, long look in the mirror, I am satisfied and at peace. I feel alignment and integrity in my heart.

Actually, I do know what I’m talking about. I know damn well.

So, going back to the concept of “no right and wrong” I realized this.

I don’t fit into your box. That doesn’t mean I’m wrong or you’re wrong. I just don’t fit into your box.

And the box may be anything from your social circle, your workplace, your city, your society, your religion or your culture.

There is nothing wrong with you. We don’t belong in boxes.

You may be the biggest “spotlight of truth” in your environment and you will get heat for it. And the environment just doesn’t sync with you. And that’s ok.

You are meant for greatness and you know it when you feel it in your heart, no matter how wrong or crazy the world tells you that you are.

If it weren’t for Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King, would people still be walking around accepting slavery and discrimination due to a person’s skin color?

That’s insane. And yet it was accepted as “just how it is”.

You have been chosen as a warrior to change the environment that doesn’t support us.

You — and many, many more of you.

Many of us with good hearts and good intentions feel that something is off. And when the whole world is off, the whole world will point at you and tell you. “You’re the one who is wrong. Because you don’t fit into this society.”

The society doesn’t support you. Society isn’t built in congruence with nature and it doesn’t serve you, so you are here to build a new one.

The following words will resonate more with your heart than they will with your mind.

It has been so many years that we’ve lived this way that we’ve forgotten what natural actually is. It is still reflected in our films and our music and our art.

We spend the majority of our lives in boxes with machines and it’s eating away at us. Elizabeth Gilbert explains it well in her book, The Last American Man

“I live in nature where everything is connected, circular. The seasons are circular. The planet is circular, and so is the planet around the sun. The course of water over the earth is circular coming down from the sky and circulating through the world to spread life and then evaporating up again. I live in a circular teepee and build my fire in a circle. The life cycles of plants and animals are circular. I live outside where I can see this. The ancient people understood that our world is a circle, but we modern people have lost sight of that. I don’t live inside buildings because buildings are dead places where nothing grows, where water doesn’t flow, and where life stops. I don’t want to live in a dead place. People say that I don’t live in a real world, but it’s modern Americans who live in a fake world, because they have stepped outside the natural circle of life.

Do people live in circles today? No. They live in boxes. They wake up every morning in a box of their bedrooms because a box next to them started making beeping noises to tell them it was time to get up. They eat their breakfast out of a box and then they throw that box away into another box. Then they leave the box where they live and get into another box with wheels and drive to work, which is just another big box broken into little cubicle boxes where a bunch of people spend their days sitting and staring at the computer boxes in front of them. When the day is over, everyone gets into the box with wheels again and goes home to the house boxes and spends the evening staring at the television boxes for entertainment. They get their music from a box, they get their food from a box, they keep their clothing in a box, they live their lives in a box.

Break out of the box! This not the way humanity lived for thousands of years.”

― Elizabeth Gilbert, The Last American Man

Stay within the lines, follow the crowds and chase the dream — but — it’s not our dream.

How do you know?

You feel it. Inside yourself. You’ll feel a deep misalignment. You can push it down, but it will never let you go.

So be brave, stay true to yourself and let criticism wash over you.

Here are some tips:

  1. Don’t take advice or criticism from someone who hasn’t achieved what you want to achieve. Many people talk a lot without knowing what they are talking about. They are just reflecting their current state of being, not yours.
  2. Just because everyone else is doing it, doesn’t mean it’s right. Trust yourself and go with that.
  3. Be brave, follow your heart, and stay optimistic. There are many more like you.

May we meet someday.

10 Steps to Getting Your Busy Life Back to What Really Matters

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Take a tip from Zen Buddhism.

In the western way of living, we pride ourselves on how much we can accomplish and what the accomplishment is depending on our values.

Many times in your circles of friends you will chat about how busy you are and how you have no time. Usually, the conversation goes like this:

Guy 1: What’s up man?

Guy 2: Nothing dude, just keeping busy. You?

Guy 1: Same, been working a lot. Also been working on the car and family’s in town. Been a little crazy.

Guy 2: Yeah I know what you mean. I’ve been doing designs for my indie t-shirt company, but work’s making me come in on Saturdays and between writing and the kids I have no time.

Guy 1: Yeah I feel ya, we went out yesterday and I am still hungover.

And you get the idea…

So here’s the tricky part. I’m going to share a tip with you taken from Zen Buddhism. The tricky part is that it’s up to you to figure out how to use it without becoming offended.

Both guys in the example above have a lot on their plates and no matter how much is going on in their lives their response is always, “Yeah I’ve been super busy you know, crazy busy.”

Many people in the western world believe that this is normal. In order to feel like part of society, you have to move like society and that means fast. Climb that ladder fast and do it in style. Because you graduated from college 2 years ago already and your buddies are already in management positions. Where are you? Aren’t you successful and productive? Do a coffee run because you have a big day! Did you take your dog to the vet and your clothes to the cleaners before noon? Good! Because you have lunch with your buddy and dinner and drinks tonight with some good friends. Make sure you get some gym time in.

Let’s face it. When we don’t have time, we aren’t making time. Sometimes we do all these things in a day and we are exhausted, busy, studying, working, working out, starting a business, hanging out, learning, improving.

Countless hours spent on the internet rabbit-holing about the history of beer or gluten free pasta, carnivorous plants or the origins of a cat’s meow. Before you know it, you can hold your own with a botanist and order a beer that you can identify all the ingredients and their historical origins and impress your drinking buddies.

Here’s the tricky part. Is this bad or good?

Well, it depends. It depends on you. It depends on your priorities and being able to concentrate on one or a few things at once. But we of western minds have a hard time with this.

Many people have told me this: “You can’t have it all.”

Do I listen to them?

No.

I disagree. So I tell you this.

You CAN have it all. You feel happiness in your ambitions and drive and accomplishments. Many of them. Go for it. Be a well-traveled, brewer, bonanist, wildlife protecting black belt, photographer who can identify the subtle language of cats. Who cares whatever. Are you happy?

If yes, then awesome.

My reality that I want to share with you is this:

“You CAN have it all but not at the same time.”

But usually, you are spinning wheels, feeling tired and busy all the time but really accomplishing and finishing what? What happiness are you bringing? Life seems to be an endless treadmill, but damn that treadmill is fast. Let’s simplify.

If you have 20 different hobbies, 1-2 jobs, 56 ideas for startups and way too many friends in person, (let’s not even get into the several hundred/ thousand plus on Facebook).

Time to pick a few and stick with a few. How do you know which ones those are? How to choose? How many? What’s important? What you want? Discipline? Ugghh..

Haha ok let’s start:

1. Evaluate Your Life

Track your days down to the hour and figure out what you spend your time on.

2. Find Out What You Value

Take your time because this is important. The important things are what your time is for.

3. Write Down Your Goals

Just do it.

4. Compare Your Goals With Your Life

See where you can change little things so that they align.

5. Pick Your Main Thing

The thing you love to do or want to dedicate the most time to. For some of you, this may be 2 different things. You love jujitsu but you spend most of your time at work. If you love your work awesome, we are on the right track if not, I recommend you find out how to live what you love.

6. Pick 2-3 More Things

Try for 2 but if you are having a really hard time, then 3.

When choosing, do not worry about what people think are worthy goals. If you love raising birds or gardening, let that be your thing. You can do anything!!

7. LET GO OF THE OTHER THINGS!!

Simplify, Focus!

8. Maintain

When faced with a decision ask yourself how this brings you closer to your goals.

9. Zen It Up

Seriously this is the hard part. Don’t do anything for a certain amount of time. Just sit there, be, relax, enjoy, be aware.

Your brain needs a break once in a while, just like your body needs a break, so allow it. When you give your brain a break it will work better for you.

10. Set Time Aside for Little Distractions

A plan this tight will be close to impossible to sustain without breaking in the long run. So what do you do?

You break it first. You design distractions into your plan. It takes the pressure off and reminds you that you are human and yes, you are allowed to slack off a bit to balance this epic life you’re building.