Category: Mindset

The Sage Advice Of The The Mediocre, The Entitled, And The Very Rare Lucky Few.

What I wouldn’t give to be able to make a living traveling the world, eating amazing food, relaxing on beaches, celebrating the good life with my friends all along the way. That would be doing what I love. Sure there are ways to obtain such a lifestyle and when I get to that point I’ll be sure to look back on my assension and tell you to just follow your passion but I assure you it will be a false claim.

In order to get anywhere in life we have to put in work. And unless hard work in whatever endeavor is truly your passion. You are going to have to do things you don’t outright love to do in order better yourself and your station in life. That will be the cost. Paid for in blood sweat and tears and your incredibly valuable time. If you want to build a business or gain muscle you don’t simply follow your passion of binge watching Netflix. You work your ass off for it. Some may love the gym and others may love building businesses and every little thing that goes into it. The marketing, the accounting, the long hours, the human resources, the management of others, the web design, the sales, the product development, and all the other things that go into starting and running a business. If you’re passionate about each and every minute detail, congratulations you’re a rare breed. But for most, I guarantee you will find one or two things you absolutely despise to do. You will just have to do them in order to get ahead.

Steve Jobs once said follow your passion in a commencement speech to recent college grads. This man, who by all accounts was one of the most tenaciously competitive business people on the planet. Do you think someone like that wants hungry college grads eager to make a name for themselves, to challenge his supremacy? That’s a message to lull you into this complacent fantasy that you may never break free from. This idea of do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life is the best way to hurt the thing you love. Here’s the true advice, feel free to follow your passion but be willing to sacrifice other things you might love or be passionate about along the way. Sometimes you can develop passion through hard work. And sometimes when you’re truly passionate about something you’ll put in the hard work. More often than not though life is about not always doing things you love. That sugar coated message has brought about a whole generation of flaky entitled individuals. I know because I once believed this to be the path. You can easily go through life on an endless passion hunt. When one of your “passions” stops being something you “love.” It’s on to the next shiny object you fancy, that you can fixate upon until your next passion strikes you. And the cycle continues. Just do the work, passion can be a control point that you construct your dream around but don’t allow it to be the basis of all that you do. Something’s will be a struggle, learn to grow a passion for that struggle. Don’t simply follow your passion, guide it.



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A Lack Of Proper Judgment And Restraint In Decision Making.

Boy is this one fun though. It’s fun to be impulsive at times to just fly out to a new destination on a whim, kiss the girl of your dreams, buy the car you’ve always wanted, go cliff diving, . The problem is not in the doing of these things. Doing can add much reward to your life. It’s the not thinking them through first that can come back to hurt us. It’s a gamble that you are taking a leap in the right direction. Sometimes it pays off immensely, sometimes it fails miserably.

I feel I’m impulsive all the time but that impulsivity comes from long thought out ideas over time and when opportunity presents itself, you must act quickly. If you have a goal set to visit every continent and than you purchase a ticket to South America on whim one day, that’s an impulsive act in the moment. But in actuality it’s been part of a plan all along. The opportunity came and instead of neglecting it or putting it on the back burner for later, you pull the trigger on it. It may seem impulsive at the time but technically this is not impulsive behavior at all but it can feel that way. It’s very decisive behavior. It’s the, I’m going to do this and I’m going to do it now mentality. This is highly beneficial when thought through. However it can be highly detrimental and can have major consequences if you have not thought it through or if your thought process is focused on the negative or the material. Or if your impulsions involves someone else and they don’t want to be a part of it. This is where you can potentially do harm to yourself and others. Steer clear of this if you can.

It’s really quite simple, just think before you act. If you going to make impulsive acts, plan them out long before they happen so in that moment you’ll know exactly what you want and won’t have to over think it. Make them decisive acts. Keep it all positive and optimistic and choose decisive acts that will enrich your lives and the lives of those around you.


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A Lack Of Decision Making Skills.

How often do we go through life debating with ourselves about what we truly want, only never to land on a definitive answer? This is the crux of the problem with indecision. We find ourselves stuck in neither what we want and can’t seem to find exactly what we don’t want either. Indecision sometimes just feels so safe and comforting, like you can just curl up and sleep in it’s warm inviting embrace. You don’t have to be weighed down with the pressure of having to make a decisions for yourself.

Decision making can be scary, there are so many variables that can arise from that proposition. Did you make the right one? What will others think? Will you be happy with that final decision? Everything from that point on falls squarely on you shoulders. You are the decision maker and what you say goes. It’s a tremendous amount of power you wield in your own life and definitely one of high pressure and stress. But doesn’t it just sound so much more of an amazing life than sitting idle in complacency?

We have so much power to control the trajectory of our lives, yet we under utilize it or differ it to another by not making decisions for ourselves. From the onset of morning, till you lay your head down in the evening. Everyday choose how you will create that day. What you will do, how you will do it. Will it be a positive progression? Will you make a difference in other peoples live? Make the decision and act on it.



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Did You Know Anxiety And Excitement Have The Exact Same Chemical Release In The Brain And It’s Just How We Frame The Situation That Dictates Which Is Which?

All we have to do is re-frame anxious situations as ones of excitement. Ever wonder how some people can love the thrill of jumping out of planes or public speaking while others cower at those same thoughts or actions. We all feel that same rush, some choose to thrive in it, while others might choose to look inward and express worry about unknown outcomes. It’s simply how we look at the task at hand. Do we want to be excited or do we want to worry?

So much of our worries are completely outside of our control, it’s usually over past or future issues. Issues that have already happened, or might happen down the road. Future what if scenarios that have yet to happen, if ever. We’ll worry about what we said or might say. Worry about what we’ve done or what we might do. We’ll tend to fixate on these outcomes or possible outcomes sending our amygdala in search of if this is a threat or not. If it’s deemed a threat, the brain in turn sends it to the thalamus, the reptilian part of the brain responsible for the fight, flight or freeze response. Once we reach this point, we now must ride out the storm till the threat has passed.

Most things pass through the amygdala as safe and will be sent right through to storage without us being none the wiser. But when we worry, we can activate that reptilian response and we’ll sometimes get ourselves stuck in that feeling of anxiety. Do we fight this, do we run from it or do we freeze? It’s not until we can find new safe harbors for our brain to anchor in, that we can then move on from this stress of worry. Be it a new thought process or relaxation techniques. And that is the cool part, because those safe harbors are completely within our control, either find a happy place to go to in your mind or simply live in the immediate here and now. No past, no future, just strictly in this moment and breathe deeply. When we breathe deep, it activates our parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for rest and digestion or in other words, the feed and breed part of the brain. Activities that require relaxation. So next time you feel worry arising try a simple form of box breathing. Breathe in for a count of 6, hold for 1 second, then breathe out for 8 seconds. Repeat this process until you’ve found calm.

Another thing I’ve found that helps deter thoughts from ever entering the thalamus in the first place is something a family member of mine once thought me. She said all you need is two powerful words when you feel a since of worry coming on. What are those two words you might ask, fuck it. Not, “what’s the worst that can happen,” because when you ask yourself that question, your mind will search for answers. Sending it into a tailspin and trust me it will find those worrisome answers. Just say fuck it don’t even let your thoughts reach your thalamus. Just move right on to a better suited task or thought process because worrying will solve nothing and complicate everything.



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There Is Such Beauty In Simplicity. I Like To Believe Perfection Is Found In The Imperfections.

Because that’s exactly how it was supposed to be. Just let it be. Why must we over complicate things? We do it to our lifestyles, we believe we must own the best of everything, the best house, the best car, the best spouse, the job that pays great and covers all the expenses for all your over complications but in turn keeps you locked in at 80+ hours a week or worse yet keeps you constantly at their beck and call with endless email and phone calls even during our down time.

And then we will in turn do it to our relationships. We’ll think we need things from our partner, the house, the car, the kids and when we find out those complications aren’t always the answers. We’ll look to get back to the basics but it might already be too late. Put yourself in position to be with the right person and everything you want from each other will come as a simple task, it will be as close to second nature as possible because you’ll both be working together towards the same simple goals you set out in the beginning. But regardless of all you do for each other, in the end we’ll all realize love was all we really needed.

Because sometimes in our blind pursuit of over complication of everything we begin to neglect what’s important, the simple things, the perfect things. Love, friendship, life. They all take work but its the simplest form of work. Love another and you’ll be loved, be a friend and you’ll receive one, enjoy life and life will bless you with abundance that freely comes to you because the best things in life are free. How much more simple can you get. So for argument sake I’ll keep this article simple. Life can be so easy, let’s not over complicate it.



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What’s That Old Saying? “When You Assume Something, You Make An “Ass” Of Both “U” And “Me””

It’s a ridiculous statement but there are some truths to it. Assumptions are pure guess work that you deduce through personal biases. Depending on what we assume, we could be setting ourselves free or shackling ourselves to ideas that are massive hindrances to our progress.

We’ll tend to assume another persons emotions. Sometimes we’ll assume their desires, what we think they want or don’t want. If you always assume no one could ever be into you, or no one will ever want what you’re offering. Your actions will manifest those feelings. And you’ll never take action to counteract those assumptions. You’ll simply go through life assuming that the glass is half empty and no one will ever fill it up. It’s what gets us into trouble with relationships, work and life in general. If we assume our partner is feeling a certain way, we could be completely neglecting their true emotions.

Not all assumption are bad but wouldn’t you rather know instead of having to guess. Instead of assuming we could just ask for what we want or how another person feels. There is another old saying “if you don’t a-s-k you don’t g-e-t,” It’s silly but true. If you don’t ask for what you want or what you assume others want from you. You’ll never receive what you need, be it companionship, information, sales, help, etc.

That being said, there are some blind assumption that can be positive and keep you on a path you would normally divert from had you not made those false positive assumptions. If you assume great things will come your way, you’ll probably be on the receiving end of great things from time to time. However that could also set you up for disappointment too. If you assume nothing, everything that comes to you is a gift, not just the great things. If I were to assume that these words I write are completely worthless and they hold no value in anyone’s eye, I may have stopped at article one. But if I assume the contrary, I might continue on writing forever in the hopes this reaches you and provides you value. That can be a benefit of assumption. There will always be both a negative and a positive to the equation. But when you frame assumption in a positive light you can keep going through adversity in the hopes of being right later on down the road.

The 4 Stages Of Action Theory.

Action is paramount to life. And this is our basic theory on how different actions impact you in different ways. You can add complexity to any given idea and the same holds true to this theory. But for sake of argument I have simplified it to four specific stages. These are what I believe to be the four stages of action.

First and most powerful is “Persistent Progressive Positive Action,” this type of consistent action will put you on the road that leads to success. It’s the actions that challenge you to constantly improve and to get better in any particular area of life. This is where we want to strive to maintain. Actions rooted in stage one will drastically improve your life and the lives of those around you.

Second is “Passive Action” which ultimately leads to mediocrity. This type of action is, at the very least positive, in the fact that you are taking a small action every day towards an easily attainable goal (say getting yourself to the end of the work day) and not standing still. It’s this type of action where you have reached a certain level over understanding and cease to make any more larger improvements. This is your 9 to 5 people, improvement is slight and minimal at best but it’s far better than inaction.

Which leads us to the third stage “Inaction” this action or lack there of, leads to atrophy, if you don’t use it you lose it, and complete inaction is death. If your heart, lungs, or brain are inactive you are effectively dead. Inaction can spiral you into a state where even the easiest of task can feel like climbing Mount Everest, steer clear of this phase if you can. It takes way more energy to move a stagnant object then it does to push one already in motion. Stay active and you’ll never have to worry about moving the immovable object. At the very least stay in stage two.

Lastly our fourth action is “Negative Action” these are the actions that inevitably lead to destruction. For example these are the actions that put you in jail or worse. Your drug users and thieves. Those using actions to commit poor acts that impact them negatively or work against their progress. However, we will see that this can be a highly useful tool in the four stages. It is when one begins to decline from peak performance that they can apply this stage. If you a the greatest in the world at what you do and you begin to decline in skill after applying every possible strategy to improve. It could be time to apply stage four and retire from that given arena. That’s not to say giving up, when you leave one area of expertise. You should begin immediately back in stage one with the next project you plan to master.

These four stages are brilliantly displayed in a documentary I recently watched called “The Fear Of Thirteen.” It’s a life story told by a man who spent over 20 years on death row, all because of the actions he took throughout life. Seemingly small actions that exploded to catastrophic results throughout each choice he made. He began in a world of negative actions both taken against him (he is raped as a young boy, which was not handled early on and we can see it snowball into self destructive tendencies later on in life) and applied by him. He started out as a small time crook robbing cars and using drugs. Which is always going to be a path that leads to negative results.

He finally gets arrested for his actions and at the time of arrest he chooses to be slightly difficult with the arresting officer (another stage 4). They book him for his crimes and add evading arrest and attempted murder of an officer. So he’s looking at hard time now. While awaiting trial for these accusations he came across a news article about a women who was raped and murdered. In his infinite wisdom he decided that he would turn states evidence about this crime. One he did not commit nor did he know anything about it but he figured if he could make up a convincing story he could roll that into a plea bargain deal and get a lesser sentence for the crime he was booked for. So he decided to make up a story to tell the cops about a guy he once knew as a heavy drug user and throw his name under the proverbial bus (stage 4). He spins an elaborate story about the murder and how this drug user commits it. What he didn’t know was that drug user had since cleaned up his life (stage one) and was clean and sober and nowhere near the scene of the crime. So after the trail for his current charges (theft, evading arrest and attempted murder of a police officer) was held. Most of the charges were dropped but since he provided so much in depth information on this other crime, the rape and murder of a women. And the person he implemented was not the murderer, he inadvertently became the only suspect in a crime he did not commit (stage 4).

It was an open and shut case, he was convicted of her murder and sentenced to death. While on death row he was not allowed to speak. For two years he was in complete silence, complete inactivity(stage three). While in prison he made even more negative choices. At one point he escapes transfer and goes on the run making many more mistakes while on the run but ultimately turns himself in because he knows if he doesn’t life will constantly be a struggle. His story takes a positive turn finally when at one he was given a book to read on death row, he had never read before but soon fell in love with the practice he began reading everything he could get his hands on always making progress to get better. He met a woman at this time and after getting to know her better he finally confesses to her he never killed that women. They begin to take positive actions to clear his name, filing petition after petition (stage one). Soon their is a breakthrough in DNA sequencing and the blood at the crime scene could now be tested. He tries over and over to get the blood tested. Years and years of walls and barriers to no avail. But its not all for nothing. No one ever completes the full test and when it seems like all hope is lost after 20 years on death row. He commits the biggest act of defiance and ask the governor to have his execution to be moved forward and instated promptly (stage four when all hope is lost). The governor surprised at this point, wonders how a man so fervently trying to display his innocence for over a decade would all of a sudden want to be executed. He immediately orders the medical examiner test the blood from the crime scene and it is proven he is not the murderer after all.

He is eventually released from prison but not before they take away all his freedom one last time, they take all his books and everything from him but what does he do with this time. He doesn’t stay inactive or begin sulking, he spends his time envisioning the perfect future he wants to build for himself when he finally gets out. And in turn he eventually makes that vision reality (stage one). Hopefully you can see how the choices we make and the actions that follow, can easily turn the tide and change the direction of your life completely, however small or large. Knowing that, you can use this information as a guide to improvement, stay out of the final two, sometimes three stages. unless the fourth stage is absolutely necessary completely avoid it. Be persistent, be positive, make progress by always taking massive actions towards those type of goals.



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Projecting Your Insecurities Upon Another.

Projecting is sometimes a defense mechanism for these insecurities. If you’re uncomfortable with a certain appearance, lifestyle, race, or gender, you may project insults at them in order to overcompensate for those insecurities. For instance if you think some one of another gender can do better work than you, you might ridicule their abilities to shine what you might think to be a better light upon yourself. If you’re a parent who never lived up to your full potential you might project on to your children the life you wanted to lead but never accomplished.

Projecting is very telling of who and what that person doing the projection is all about. It’s weakness in the most blatant form. Displayed for all the world to see. Bullying and bully’s are massive projectors. If you are making fun of someone’s say appearance for any reason what so ever I can guarantee you have have an area of your life you are very insecure in. And it might just be their own physical appearance they’re insecure with. This applies to everything even beyond appearance. If you deride another their are deeper seeded issues that need to be resolved within yourself, not the person you’re applying your derision too. Sometimes bully’s can seem to be the most popular, don’t buy into this air of vanity. It’s a facade and it’s a rare exception, not the rule. Only the insecure sheep would follow this self-conscious Shepard.

It should be said that some projecting is actually very healthy though. If we use it to build up another. It’s when we use it for honest encouraging praise of another that we see our best results in life. Both within ourselves and the other. That is positive projection and the only way we should be projecting upon another.



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