Geoff Blades

Gone In 60 Seconds

The Family Guy got me thinking about life and what happens at the end of it.

Not the end or where to from there, but the one minute right before all that.  If you could take your mind off the fact you only had 60 seconds left to live, what would you think about?

Would you consider where you’d been or where you were going? Would you think about you or other people? How would you feel about how you had used your time? Would you choose to ruminate on what you did or didn’t do?  Do you think you would feel good about your life?  Would it be 60 seconds of celebration or one minute wondering why you didn’t do more with your time?

Now think about the last 60 seconds, one hour, 24 hours, one week, two months, six months, one year, two years, five years, ten years.  Now, consider how you would evaluate how you’ve been living your life and using your time relative to how you would think about it if you were to be gone in 60 seconds.

Consider the parts of your life that you would cherish and wish you’d spent more time on.  Also consider the parts of your life that you would change if you could.  Then choose two of those.

Choose one part of your life that you cannot change, and use it to cultivate acceptance.  And, choose one other part of your life that you have now decided to change.

Then take another 60 seconds.  Write me and tell me what you came up with and how you’re going to change it.

Planning To Living

Part of what I endeavor to do is deconstruct life and develop practical frameworks for re-constructing YOUR life in order to live the life you truly want.  Today I’ve been writing about what I call a Directed Life.  It’s the term I use for building a life plan. 

But each time I get too technical about planning your life – life components, balance, sequencing, blah, blah, blah – I keep coming back to a simple trap of life.  A trap that the happiness literature clearly points out but each day many of us stumble into – that we don’t know what we want in the future.

In fact the research suggests that we aren’t even good at knowing what has made us happy in the past, let alone projecting what will make us happy in the future.  So the best we can do is know what makes us happy today and get this – look at what makes other people happy in their future. 

So when all this planning gets a little dense for me I remind myself that we never really know what we want.  And we certainly don’t know how we will feel about it in the future.  Then I tell myself that the best we can do is know what we want at each point in time.  Then figure out how to live it. 

So I’m going for a motorcycle ride.  I’ll figure out what I want in the future when I get back to it.  

Reality: There is No You. Just States of You.

In The Untethered Soul, Michael A. Singer writes, “Lao Tzu fell asleep and dreamt he was a butterfly. Upon awakening, he asked himself, ‘Am I a man who has just been dreaming that he was a butterfly, or a sleeping butterfly, now dreaming that he is a man?'”  It would seem the question is rhetorical; surely he is a man dreaming?  After all, we know he is a man, right?  Nope.  We’re just more likely to assume it because we know we too are human.  What if instead we knew we were butterflies dreaming we were human? 

I’m holding out that I may be from the future but I for one don’t think I’m a butterfly. My arms and perception of reality don’t stretch that far.  But the concept speaks to one aspect of the perception of reality – the observer of reality.  To who we are when we observe reality.  We are of course [perhaps] static, you are always you, I am always me, but the way we feel is not static, it is state-based.  That is, the way we feel changes based on our emotional state – sadness, anger, happiness, etc. – and therefore our perception of reality is also state-based.  

For instance, to most of us a blue pen is likely just a blue pen.  An instrument with which to write in blue ink. The reality is that it’s just a blue pen.  But what if you’d had a childhood that involved someone writing profanity up and down your arms in blue ink? The reality may be that it’s just a blue pen.  But to you, your emotional reality is likely quite different.  The sight of a blue pen likely changes your emotional state.  To you, it is likely more than just a blue pen.  

Similarly, if you showed up at a wedding a week after your own bitter divorce, you are probably far less likely to get into the emotional state of the wedding – love – than if you had arrived at the wedding a week after your own wedding.  Again, you are still at the same wedding, the reality of the wedding remains the same, but your perception of reality, your experience of the wedding, will likely be influenced by how you feel when you arrive – bitter from divorce or excited about marriage.

Both of these are examples of one of the five types of reality, Emotional.  The first example would suggest a deep emotional pattern associated with blue pens.  The second is more immediate – how we might experience the reality of a wedding based on how we feel a week after our own divorce or wedding.  Both examples highlight the role that our emotional state plays in our perception of reality. Said differently.  There is no such thing as reality.  Reality is state-based.  You are state-based.    

There’s a powerful conclusion from all this gibberish.  You may not be able to change your reality.  But if your perception of reality is state-based then you can change your perception of reality by changing your emotional state.  Put simply.  If you want a happy reality, choose a happy emotional state.  Easier said than done, right? Perhaps.  But said is the first step to done.  

Daily Reminders – What's Yours?

People often tell me that I live a fascinating life.  It’s strange to hear because to me it just feels like my life. It’s a response that speaks to the human trait of adaptability. Physically and mentally we are highly adaptable creatures.  As a species, we are able to adapt to almost any climate, food source, and raw materials necessary for surviving, and indeed in most cases, thriving.

As individuals, our bodies are highly adaptive.  Consider one simple example, walking.  The physical movement, the sense of footing and balance, the adjustments, etc. Each step an adaptive physical process we call walking.

Mentally we are even more adaptable.  Consider for instance the mind’s ability to affect physical performance, say through the activity of mental rehearsal.  In this case, a weight-lifter can’t think more muscle, but by harnessing his mind he can think more strength.  Mentally, we adapt all day every day – constantly processing new information, circumstances, decisions, people, thought processes, whatever.  Our minds and bodies are literally and physically continuously adapting.  

Adaptability has massive benefits but requires some Attention.  It’s this adaptability that enables humans to keep pushing forward.  As a species, it’s what got us from the farms to the factories and exploring the seas to exploring the galaxies.  As individuals, it’s what gets us from achieving our goals and resting on our laurels to choosing new goals and pushing forward – what took Eminem from Refill to Recovery.   Adaptability also helps us overcome adverse circumstances – deaths, failure, etc. – and to survive and thrive in a world of constant change.  But, the cost of all this wonderful adaptability often comes in our failure to appreciate what we have, when we have it.  

And what’s the point of all this pushing forward – as a species, as individuals – if we can’t appreciate what we have at each point in time that we have it?  From hot showers to iPods to freedom.  And what’s the point of all this adaptability if we don’t appreciate what we had to adapt for?  To grow. To achieve something. My life is fascinating because I have the time and financial flexibility to explore my passions.  I’ve adapted to it.  My daily reminder is to appreciate it.  What’s your daily reminder?

Stop Hating Your Job

Although it’s not always easy to change our jobs it’s always easy to change the way we think about them.

For instance, if you think of work as something you have to do, it will feel like an obligation, like something you don’t want to do.

Or if you think of it as “just a job,” then it will feel like just a job.  It will be just a job.  But it’s easy to change the way we think about our work.

What Ways?

Consider: Your work isn’t just a job.  It’s how you earn your income, how you support your life and perhaps the lives of others.  It is your livelihood.  

Or: Your work isn’t just a job.  It’s how you spend most of your days.  It is how you spend your time.

Or: Your work isn’t just a job.  It’s how you express yourself in the world.  It is who you are to yourself and others.

Or: Your work isn’t just a job.  That’s like saying your life is just a collection of hours.

No matter what job, you can think of it as you choose.

Look For What Is Good

I’ve seen this in my jobs from factory floors to Wall Street and read about it in books about happiness and Working.  The happiest folks in their work are not those with the “best” jobs.

They are the folks that choose to look for what is “best” in their jobs and to be happy in their work. A common example being janitors seeing themselves alongside doctors and nurses as part of overall patient care.

They say more than 65% of people are dissatisfied in their jobs.

I’d suggest that dissatisfied is a pretty lousy option when you have two perfectly good options. 

If we don’t like our jobs we can change them or change the way we think about them.  Each goes hand in hand.

When we stop thinking about hating our jobs we have more time to think about what we like about them and/or how to change them.    

There Is No Such Reality

Reality is experiential.  There’s no such thing as reality.  In fact I know of at least five types of reality.  My favorite to talk about is Attention.  That what we call reality, more specifically our perception of reality, is in fact the result of how we direct our attention.

For instance, surely you’ve heard somebody say something like, “now that I picked up my new car I’ve noticed them all over the road.”  Of course it may be true that their car has become popular but it’s more likely that their perception of reality has shifted based on attention.  They are now directing more attention to other cars that match the make, model, color, etc. of their new car.

A neat way to toy with the reality of Attention is music.  Consider a simple question:  when you listen to a song where do you direct your attention?  What do you listen to?  For instance, some people listen to the words and sing the lyrics, some tap their foot to the beat, some strum the air guitar, and some dorks air strum the upright bass.  Think about that for a moment.  What’s your reality when listening to music? What do you pay attention to?

As a singer I naturally direct my attention to the lyrics and more often than not sing along whether I know the lyrics or not.  My buddy Josh, who’s a drummer, listens to the back beat and plays air drums.  My mate Greig, who plays electric guitar directs his attention to the lead guitar and air strums the solo.  Another one of my friends, Jerry, who’s a composer, directs his attention to the structure and composition of the song.

So although the Physical reality is that the same song is being played from the same source, for each of us our reality of the song is based on which instrument and aspect of the song we direct our attention to.  Think about that for a moment.  Consider how many realities of the same song you can listen to by directing your attention between the different instruments, listening to each of them individually, as well as listening to the song as a collection of the individual instruments.

As with each song, so too the way we perceive the reality of our lives is a function of the reality of Attention. Imagine what that means.  It means that in all “instruments” of the song of our lives – work, relationships, hobbies, etc. – we can create an infinite number of realities simply by changing how we direct our attention.  Further, the reality of our lives is the collection of these instruments.  By directing our attention to each of them, and to the overall song, we can create an infinite number of realities in our lives.  Attention is a type of reality.  Are you paying Attention?

Abe Lincoln: History of Failure

We don’t succeed unless we’re also willing to fail.  In Gettysburg my parents bought a $4 Lincoln bust – made in China of course.  It reminded me of Abe Lincoln’s legendary history of failure.
1831 – Failed in business
1832 – Defeated for legislature
1833 – Again failed in business
1834 – Elected to legislature
1835 – Sweetheart died
1836 – Had a nervous breakdown
1838 – Defeated for speaker
1840 – Defeated for elector
1843 – Defeated for Congress
1846 – Elected for Congress
1848 – Defeated for Congress
1855 – Defeated for Senate
1856 – Defeated for Vice-President
1858 – Defeated for Senate
1860 – ELECTED PRESIDENT

Takin' It Easy

I’ve been on vacation with my parents for a few weeks.  Truth be told, an old investment banking hangup I’m sure, I’m not so good at being on vacation. I’m always looking for something to do. Books to read, things to learn, whatever.  For this reason, it was fitting that our trip took us to Winslow, Arizona.  The Eagles helped me persist on my low information diet.

 

Mindfulness – Practice What I Preach

I’ve written before about having a noisy mind. We mostly all have ’em, particularly ambitious, hard-charging types.  Rather than pull your hair out, the simple solution is to practice mindfulness.

It took me a long time to figure out that there’s no secret to a quiet mind. Like any activity we get better at it through practice. We practice mindfulness by being present in any activity we perform, paying attention to the details, becoming absorbed in the moment. Unless you have tonnes of time, don’t do what I did and read dozens of books on this stuff. Just read any one of these and use your extra time to practice mindfulness.

  • This is the classic psychology side know as Flow

Music and Life

I took singing lessons for a couple of years. I was pretty terrible to begin with and I was only moderately terrible when I stopped. But improving my singing was only part of it.  It was mostly about the thrill and challenge of learning something entirely different, and something that’s hard to get good with, exposure and a skill.

As an audiophile I sing mostly to get closer to music.  Learning to sing encouraged me to listen to songs far more closely and get much more from my music.  Some of the songs I sing teach me something about myself, some teach me about all of us.  Here’s one of those – Aerials, System Of A Down 

Life is a waterfall

We’re one in the river

And one again after the fall

Swimming through the void

We hear the word

We lose ourselves

But we find it all….

Cause we are the ones that want to play

Always want to go

But you never want to stay

And we are the ones that want to choose

Always want to play

But you never want to lose

Aerials, in the sky

When you lose small mind

You free your life

Career Advice: From KFC to Goldman Sachs

I went to McDonalds the other night.  I don’t remember the last time I did but it was likely also with my parents.  We were on Sunset, in West Hollywood.  Just like a child I stood next to my parents waiting on our Big Macs and my mother’s tailor-made cheeseburger – no pickles, no sauce.  While we waited I watched the crew go about their work.  And I thought about my work.

It reminded me of being a kid working part-time at KFC.  I worked there a number of years, cooking chicken and serving customers.  Truth be told, it was one of my most fun jobs.  I learned many of my career principles from my part-time jobs, and it was KFC that taught me some of my most important.  Standing at the counter with my parents, on my blackberry I started to type – My top 5 lessons from KFC to Goldman Sachs.

  • Always take the shift.  At KFC I always took the extra shift.  It gave me more money and it made me more reliable, which gave me more options.  At Goldman it was about shifts and deals.  Early in my career I always took the extra deal and worked the extra shift, the graveyard shift.
  • Be your best.  Lil’ Wayne says, “be good or be good at it.”  If you’re cooking chicken or working on Wall Street do it well.  Putting more in means getting more out.  This attitude will leak into every area of your life.
  • Clean as you go.  At KFC it took 14 minutes to deep fry chicken.  That mean’t you had 14 minutes to clean the kitchen before the chicken was cooked.  On Wall Street you don’t go back and do it later.  There’ll be something else to do later.
  • Multi-tasking.  In a kitchen you are doing many things at the same time.  It means being thoughtful about planning and sequencing of tasks and being focused enough to simultaneously do many things well.  This is multi-tasking; it’s a life skill.  Driving and typing on a blackberry is not; it’s a death skill.
  • Rotate jobs.  No mechanic wants to only be able to change a tire.  Rotating stations at KFC improved my experience and gave me more “career” options.  I did the same at Goldman – four jobs and offices in eight years.  It gave me more experience and options along the way and once I left.

 

Alien Invasion – When Aussies Visit America

When the Blades’ go on vacation, we go extraterrestrial. Yesterday we were standing on the edge of the best-preserved meteorite crater on Earth! and today we were in Roswell, New Mexico, the most famous alleged UFO crash site in the world.

Initially I was planning to write about deep impact and the probability of being killed by a major meteor, which is higher than being killed by a terrorist.

But then I thought I’d write about aliens, about Carl Jung’s skepticism, or the “truth” about Roswell, or about Stephen Hawkings’ warning.  Now I’m in Santa Fe, however, and having tasted a couple of Silver Coins at The Shed I figured I’d just write about the last frontier.  When the Blades’ on vacation we go extraterrestrial. Then we sip a margarita.

Turn Down, Turn Out The Lights.

Sustainability > Global Warming. Global Warming may be the equivalent of creationism science but sustainability needs no science.  It is obvious that sustainability of all our planet’s natural and biological resources is one of the greatest threats to survival of our species.

I’m no expert on energy conservation but it would seem we could do with more of it.  Making my way through a city at night I often lament the excessive use of lighting.  Take for instance your average office tower, which is lit from the ground up, from the top down the sides, and many of the empty floors in between. This is known as Light pollution.  

Light pollution is mis-directed or mis-used lighting.  While important as it relates to energy use and sustainability, today I’m reminded of it for a different reason, stargazing. In this regard, by polluting the sky with artificial lighting, light pollution reduces visibility of the night sky, limiting scientific astronomical observation and ruining the sport of stargazing.

I was introduced to it many years ago while stargazing at Bryce Canyon, and today I’m reminded of it as I wander the streets of Flagstaff, Arizona.  With more than fifty years committed to limiting Light pollution, Flagstaff is the world’s first International Dark-Sky City – in this town, even McDonalds, KFC, and Taco Bell shine less bright.  And the city is a whole lot more calm and natural for it.

Like many topics of sustainability the solution to Light pollution is very simple. Um, TURN DOWN AND TURN OUT THE LIGHTS!

Never Give In, Never Give In, Never, Never, Never

I often get asked about what really matters to success.  I say execution, getting it done.  But what matters to execution is the never say die attitude that gets things done.  When I’m looking to follow Rocky up the final set of steps, I often dig into my bag of quotes on persistence:

“Character consists of what you do on the  third and fourth tries.” – John Albert  Michener

“My greatest point is my persistence. I never give up in a match. However down I am, I fight until the last ball. My list of matches shows that I have turned a great many so-called irretrievable defeats into victories.” Bjorn Borg

“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never…” Winston Churchill

“Tie yourself to the mast my friend and the storm will end.” The Verve

“Within every adversity is the seed of an equal or greater benefit.” Napoleon Hill

“Show me a really great triumph that is not the reward of persistence.”  Orison Marden Swett

“Victory belongs to the most persevering” Napoleon Boneparte

“The Law of Averages will favor the man who persists”.  Robert Collier

“94% of all sales people quit after the fourth call.  But 60% of all sales are made after the fourth call.” Jack Canfield

The iPad Is For Kids – Avoid The Srail Effect

Because I read tonnes of books people keep asking me when I’m going to trade-in my Kindle for an iPad.  I am an Apple groupie but no serious reader will exchange their Kindle for an iPad.  There are at least three reasons why.

DISTRACTION:  Known as The Srail Effect, the iPad offers an unlimited supply of distraction.  When you read on the Kindle, however, you READ on the Kindle.  You don’t check your email, surf the web, open some application to figure out a word of the day, and so on.

EFFICIENCY:  We don’t just save time when we avoid The Srail Effect, we also massively increase our efficiency.  Brian Tracy in Eat That Frog notes, “it has been estimated that the tendency to start and stop a task, to pick it up, put it down and come back to it can increase the time necessary to complete the task by as much as 500%.”

CAN’T READ IN THE SUN:  The iPad has a backlit screen.  You can’t read a backlit screen in the sun.  And who doesn’t want to read in the sun?

Optimism Drives Prosperity. Happy Labor Day!

We are a nation known for optimism.  It’s easy to be optimistic when the world is your oyster but optimism matters more when we have cause to question it.  Labor Day is a day when we celebrate the efforts of the American worker and the prosperity those efforts have created.  Effort is a function of mindset and optimism as a mindset is a powerful driver of effort. At a time many Americans are becoming less optimistic, it’s important we recognize that it is optimism and effort that will continue to drive our prosperity.  These are some of my favorite quotes on optimism.  Happy Labor Day!

“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were.” – JFK

“The key to success is delusional optimism. Some people call it resilience. You’re lying there bleeding on the ground and you basically have to say, ‘Maybe tomorrow will be better.'” – Melissa Rosenberg

“An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight…. The truly wise person is colorblind.” – Dr. Albert Schweitzer

“Optimism is true moral courage.” – Ernest Shackleton

“What we want is not blind optimism but flexible optimism—optimism with its eyes open. We must be able to use pessimism’s keen sense of reality when we need it, but without having to dwell in its dark shadows.”  – Martin Seligman

“We believe in having a positive and optimistic (but realistic) attitude about everything we do, because we realize that this inspires others to have the same attitude.” – Tony Hsieh

“If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn’t. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.” – Oscar Wilde

“My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.” – Henry Rollins

“Optimism doesn’t wait on facts. It deals with prospects. Pessimism is a waste of time.” Norman Cousins

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” – Helen Keller

“Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power.” – William James

“Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.” – Colin Powell

Read: Way of The Peaceful Warrior

My friend Jon reads this book a couple of times a year. He can be a little obsessive about things but Way of The Peaceful Warrior is a book worth being obsessive about.  I’m not one for writing book reviews and I’d simply say that of the many personal development books I’ve read this is one my favorites. It’s a classic hero’s journey, a piquant fiction/non-fiction with a long list of principles for living a richer life. Here’s some of my favorite quotes:

  • “Life is not a private affair. A story and its lessons are only made useful if shared”
  • “Life requires more than knowledge; it requires intense feeling and constant energy. Life demands right action if knowledge is to come alive”
  • “If you remain blind to your weaknesses, you can’t correct them—nor can you play up your strength”
  • “There are no accidents, Danny. Everything is a lesson. Everything has a purpose, a purpose, a purpose”
  • “If you don’t get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don’t want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can’t hold onto it forever”
  • “Stay in the present. You can do nothing to change the past, and the future will never come exactly as you plan or hope for”
  • “There are no ordinary moments!”
  • “All these years I had been sustained by an illusion—happiness through victory—and now that illusion was burned to ashes. I was no happier, no more fulfilled, for all my achievements”
  • “Better to live until you die. I am a warrior; my way is action”
  • “Lao Tzu fell asleep and dreamt he was a butterfly. Upon awakening, he asked himself, “Am I a man who has just been dreaming that he was a butterfly, or a sleeping butterfly, now dreaming that he is a man?”

Careers: Education is Continuous Learning

“20%  of America’s millionaires never set foot in college and 21 of the 222 Americans listed as billionaires in 2003 never got their college diplomas.” Jack Canfield

There’s a renewed focus on improving the quality of our education system.  I believe it oughta be one of our nation’s most important focuses.  I also believe, however, that it’s crucial we each change the way we think about education.  I believe we’ve entered an era of personal development where success will become increasingly contingent on our ability to self-educate, where adapting to accelerating change will demand continuous learning.

Changing our approach to education requires questioning the current approach.  On that note, here’s some excerpts from a thought-provoking article by teacher and author Camille Paglia.

Vanishing of jobs will plague the rest of this decade and more…College education, which was hugely expanded after World War II and sold as a basic right, is doing a poor job of preparing young people for life outside of a narrow band of the professional class…

Jobs, and the preparation of students for them, should be front and center in the thinking of educators. The idea that college is a contemplative realm of humanistic inquiry, removed from vulgar material needs, is nonsense…

Jobs, jobs, jobs: We need a sweeping revalorization of the trades. The pressuring of middle-class young people into officebound, paper-pushing jobs is cruelly shortsighted…

Our present educational system defers credentialing and maturity for too long. When middle-class graduates in their mid-20s are just stepping on the bottom rung of the professional career ladder, many of their working-class peers are already self-supporting and married with young children…

The elite schools, predicated on molding students into mirror images of their professors, seem divorced from any rational consideration of human happiness…

Read, Relax into Trance

I’ve been slipping in and out of trance state all week.

Having finished ten days doing hypnosis and being hypnotized my body is eager for more trance.  Yes. I know it sounds weird, well, to anybody who’s never been in hypnotic trance.  Or at least anybody who didn’t think they’d been in trance.

A Natural State

We go into mild trance all the time.

Take this example of highway hypnosis, when we zone out driving along the road.

Or the many times we find ourselves just staring into the distance. Or sometimes while watching TV, relaxing into a trance-like state.  Or while reading, just letting the words fade out and staring calmly at the screen.

You see, it’s perfectly natural that we go into these trance states many times a day.

Easy To Practice

Because these are natural ways of being, it’s easy to practice this calm, relaxed way of being.

As we focus our attention on say a point on the screen or the stillness of our hands, we allow our bodies to relax.  As I relax, I often notice a calmness in my mind, like my thoughts slowing down.  As my thoughts slow down I begin to notice my breathing.  My heart rate slows, my breaths become shallower.   As I breathe more slowly, my body relaxes.  As my body relaxes, I breathe more slowly.  That’s right. It’s this easy to bring our minds to this place.

It’s a wonderful way of being, and also a powerful experience for evolving our minds.

Walk Your Path. Leave A Trail.

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail – Emerson

Talking about HYPNOSIS has some of my friends questioning my sanity.  Yesterday a friend of mine asked if I really “believed in it.”  It led me to ponder how far off the beaten path I sometimes stray.  It led me to ponder the definition of “beaten.”  It led me to realize that there’s no such thing as A beaten path, just THE path that each of us beat.

Odd paths to some – hypnosis, healing, the Singularity, MMA, etc. – these paths I’ve experienced through my interests are THE paths of others.  I’ve learned more about myself from walking other’s paths than from most other experiences and the hundreds of self-help books I’ve read.  Training with pro fighters taught me about toughness, healing taught me about my minds, and learning hypnosis taught me reality, that there is no one.  Not all of us want to shift our reality, to walk other paths.  Here are some of the reasons I DO.

  • MIX IT UP:  There is no perspective without contrast.  I call this mix it up – hobbies, reading, people, travel, whatever.  Our definition of reality is experiential. Change experience, change reality
  • WHAT ARE WE LEARNING?:  We rarely learn just what we intended.  As Dale Carnegie once noted, “he didn’t teach people to speak, rather he taught them to conquer their fears and develop courage”
    • SEE THE MATRIX:  It’s easier to get the world as a whole when you’ve experienced more of the parts.  As Michael Singer writes in Untethered Soul, “Life is not something you get; you experience”
  • LEARN, SKILLS:  We are built to learn.  Learning new skills is one of our most engaging life experiences. It also equips us with new skills.  My friends laugh now but when the machines attack they will call me
  • PEOPLE, PLACES:  New interests expose us to different types of people and environments.  We learn and grow and adapting to different people and environments is an important life skill
  • BEING BAD:  It’s important to do new things, to get comfortable with having to learn from scratch, from being bad at something.  It builds character
  • YOUR PATH, THE TRAIL:  There is no path, only YOUR PATH.  But it’s not the path that matters.  It’s the trail
✕