If I were to ask the common person on the street what their goals were in life, what would be the most common responses?
Probably an initial response would be “I don’t know?” or they rattle off a few New Years resolutions and feel good about remembering a couple things they wanted to do.
What these people may not realize is first, they’re victims.
They are victims to their own minds and victims to a reactionary state of life.
Saying one thing and doing another.
Goals are dreams with a deadline.
It isn’t enough to simply state a dream and wish it to come true.
Although there is truth to the saying “what you focus on expands”, focusing alone will not manifest without action.
Action is produced through planning.
A set specific timeframe, down to the day and time is the best way to prove to yourself of when the goal is to be accomplished.
Many start out by having huge dreams and grandiose visions of their luxury lifestyle when their goals are achieved.
This is great, but motivation does not fuel a person over the long term.
Inspiration is the fuel that lasts.
Inspiration is cultivated monthly, weekly, daily, and down to the present moment.
Inspiration is the source where action is born within one’s self.
If you are not inspired, then your actions will be short lived.
Many people will over estimate their long term goals and underestimate their short term accomplishments.
Wanting it all now, only to fade into the same, and many times worse state that they were once so motivated to improve.
Without taking the time and energy to cultivate inspiration within themselves, their dreams are short lived and at best reviewed on a regular basis.
The culprit for almost any lack of action is fear.
Fear of unknown, fear of security, fear of failure or fear of success.
Action is the cure to fear, and action occurs when knowledge overcomes the fear.
When a person knows a predicable outcome they are much more likely to take action, or not take the wrong action.
In most instances, action isn’t as pain free and simple as it sounds.
There is still the learning curve of taking the first steps and overcoming a certain amount of fear but acting anyway.
One of the best ways if you’re stuck but really want to act on something is to get a coach or a mentor.
An outside perspective helps you see things in yourself you may not be crediting enough or even yet discovered.
It also places accountability to plan and produce what you say you want to do.
Otherwise save the heartache and stop making broken promises.
Listen to Yoda’s advice “Do or do not.
There is no try”.
Here’s some helpful questions to get an idea of why you want to make changes.
What is my ideal lifestyle?
Why do I want to live that way?
What contribution do I want to make to the world and why?
How much will it cost to support that kind of lifestyle and contribution?
Costs are in terms of money as well as time.
Who do I currently know, have read about or seen that lives the lifestyle of how I most want to be like?
Who is doing things I want to do, and has the things, people, and experiences of the life I want?
Start with these questions and work on them until the next step is clear from cultivating an inner purpose through inspiring yourself with clarity and energy towards a life you choose and not leading a life chosen by others.
There are no shortcuts, so doing the right things first starting on the inside will exponentially increase the odds and potential for the external accomplishments.
One of my favorite mentors Jim Rohn stated “Strive to be a millionaire not for the money but for the person you will become.
Then give it all away and start again”.
Think in terms of what can I give, not what can I get?
Serving others will trump selling over time and in the quality and retention of who you serve.
Your clients, friends and family will all benefit by the person you are when you come from contribution and not “what’s in it for me?”.
A true win-win is the servant hearted person.
A deeper level of trust, commitment and long term interaction is established this way.
Helping others get what they want, will allow you to get everything you want.
The scale of what you want will be determined by how many people you want to help.
Have fun with it.
There is no failing when you take action to help and serve others.
Imagine a football game where you’re the quarterback, running back and the receiver.
We can agree that would be a hard game to play in.
You are responsible for getting the ball to the end zone on your own, and you have less people to help you.
Some may think “why try that hard, I’ll just take the ball and run to the end zone without anyone to play against?”
The response would be, would you or anyone else consider that a touchdown?
Are there points put on the board when you run across the line without anyone going after you?
The answer is easy, no.
There are no points for simply taking a ball across a goal line without competition in any sport.
So back to your football game, this game is unique.
You’re not alone so there are stakes at hand, but you still are passing to yourself and running to catch the ball.
After many attempts you can do a decent job making the first pass but aren’t able to make long throws so you’re progress is small and at best positive yardage plays.
You try running, that is exhausting.
Once you catch the ball you have to deal with another team of people out to get you down as quick as possible with the least amount of forward progress.
Now imagine you catch your own pass, start running, when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, you get body slammed by a perfect form tackle stopping you dead in your tracks.
You shake your head dazed hearing the tail end of trash talk from the player that just laid you out.
You look up to see the number and it’s the same as your jersey number, you think “hmmm that’s a coincidence?” then you look at the face mask and through the grill you see your face.
“What!” you think.
“I’m on offense, it’s already hard enough out here playing against other people, now I’m tackling myself!”
The dots connect after a couple more plays like this and you realize that no matter how good of play you have in mind, playing yourself on defense is almost impossible.
You always know what play is coming next.
The hits get harder and working to make progress starts to seem pointless.
Your defensive self is strutting around racking up huge stats, the crowd roars and the opposing team starts to put up huge numbers.
You’re trapped and wish the game was over before it started.
Not to mention, it’s painful taking those hits!
This analogy is what is going on in our life and in our heads.
There’s always a person, another team or negative thought that is looking to keep us on the ground and does not like us scoring points.
Most of the time it is us that tackles ourselves on the way to scoring points.
We’re out numbered and over time the great ideas, perfect plays we draw up all seem pointless to put into action.
We have an ingrained genetic response to pain and discomfort, this is called fight or flight.
If it hurts or is perceived it will hurt – run away!
Even if we catch a break, or better yet score, we glance at the scoreboard to see it’s a drop in the bucket and winning seems impossible.
Ultimately we end up taking the pass that life gives us when we hand the ball over to the other side.
You’re taken out of the game and put on the bench, sitting on the sidelines, watching the game play out.
As you watch, other’s make playing look so much better and you feel like “no wonder I suck”.
That’s called daily experience.
Fortunately every moment of everyday we get this opportunity to play.
From the moment we wake up we are the star player ready to take on the other team.
In order to make progress we have to come up with a unique plan, practice that plan and then execute.
Never giving in, or giving up, or else we’re sure to lose.
Like the analogy, passing to ourselves, especially when we’re new at something or not as highly skilled as others will make for short progress.
Rocky said “It’s not how hard you can hit, it’s how hard you can get hit and still keep getting up.”
The good news is this battle is 90% mental and the physical abuse is almost always imagined.
We stop ourselves in almost everything we do, especially if we know it will take time.
We think the same thoughts, take the same actions (which can be doing nothing), have the same game plan and worst of all we give up after we get plowed into the ground.
Day after day this feels hopeless.
I’ll discuss further ideas how we can prepare and play to win.
For now, the first pass to success takes making the decision to step on the field and not worry about the outcome.
Focus on the goal, taking the hits and getting back up.
Improve each day and your average yards per catch will increase.
The difference between your results today and 5 years from today are the thoughts you think, the people you hang around and the books you read.
Making dramatic life change doesn’t happen overnight.
What can change overnight are those three things.
People can’t change people but they can change themselves.
Successful people have spent time on themselves first and foremost.
At one point early on or late when they found patterns to change with deciding what they really wanted, made a phone call, joined a group with others who have what they wanted, and visited the library, bookstore or Amazon.
Results don’t happen instantly, but thoughts are things and thoughts can change right now.
The thoughts you think:
How do you choose your thoughts?
First, believe change is possible.
Have a reason and something to go after.
Take a simple inventory, what are your beliefs, values and thoughts?
Take a moment every 30 minutes each day for a week to jot down what you’re doing and the thoughts you’ve been having.
If they aren’t what you want then figure out a way to change either your environment or your thoughts and actions.
What is the person you admire doing each 30 minutes in their day?
Hanging out with People you would like to emulate:
Successful people are happy to share their knowledge.
Not to everyone though.
It may take repeated attempts or proof you’re worth taking their valuable time before they agree.
Value their time before asking to speak to them by valuing your time first and thinking out with clarity what you are really after.
Better yet have a start on a project or business you want to build.
Success begets success.
Show you are actually taking steps towards your plan of success.
It’s a more productive meeting when you can help someone when there’s something created or started.
If you’ve watched the TV show “Shark Tank” the super successful people ask the aspiring entrepreneurs simple questions:
“What is your product or service?”
“How does it help people or make their lives better?”
“What is the market for this and where’s the proof?”
Good ideas don’t mean anything until others prove it’s a good idea.
That’s what an open market provides, supply and demand.
Meet with people by association.
The most successful people I get to meet with is usually through a connection or attending events successful people go to.
Hang out with someone who knows someone and can help you meet people at the top.
Do your best to bring value to others, and ask for ways you can help accomplish their goals.
Odds are their goals are bigger than yours and it would be a great experience to help them.
If you don’t know what to provide, just do your best and bring energy and excitement to the meeting.
Ask but more importantly listen when they speak.
Ask questions that will lead to explanation not “yes” or “no”.
Take immediate action of ideas you get from them so you prove you’re serious to them and yourself.
Keep looking for opportunities and eventually you’ll be doing more and hanging around a new group of people doing incredible things.
The books you read:
The greatest education you can get is your own personal education.
Formal education creates a living and is a great opportunity to interact with peers and make lasting relationships.
Just because you’re not paying a tuition anymore doesn’t mean you can stop learning.
Reading is one of the best ways to get a personal education to go beyond making a living, which is fine if that’s what you want.
For those that aspire for greatness to create an extraordinary life of wealth and personal abundance, reading is the fastest way to start a new path to success.
You can read from minds of the past, millionaires and even billionaires, geniuses, and creativity you didn’t know existed.
You can choose who you want to learn from, about any topic and eventually realize how reading literally changes your life.
I’ve spoke to a number of people who were drifting along in life and someone or something sparked their interest to read.
I felt the same way, when for whatever reason you feel like you’ve learned to read not just to write a paper or pass the time with a pointless magazine.
When you learn to read on purpose and with a new obsession of learning, your life changes instantly.
Ask successful people what they read.
Find topics you want to learn more about, create stuff, expand your skill set.
Reading may just be the secret why you keep your job and others don’t, why you break free and start a business, learn a skill you’ve always wanted.
Just dream it up, it’s yours for the reading.
Here’s a short list of some traditional and not so traditional things that have served me well over the last few years.
Some have helped change my body and some my mind, some my finances.
All have resulted in positive results so it’s time to share some simple good advice.
A 5th generation Cherokee American Indian taught me this, it was told young warriors would be better fighters if they heeded this ancient technique passed down for generations.
Okay, not really but a massage therapist told me this and it changed my fitness performance and helped correct a knee injury I got.
The advice:
Keep weight on inside balls of your feet in almost any athletic movement, or while standing.
This will help strengthen the inside of the legs to prevent injury and imbalance of outside muscles.
Extend your leg straight out and flex your quadriceps, push on the inside and then push on the outside.
Feel a difference?
If so, you may be creating an imbalance or putting unnecessary
stress on other parts of your body.
The body is smart, it will compensate for weakness so it still functions.
Over time it can cause problems.
To fix a problem you have to be aware of it.
Focusing on your weight displacement is a good start.
Eat better foods more frequently.
That’s pretty simple and redundant advice to what we “know” about nutrition and health.
If most people actually “knew” what certain foods do in their body, and the cost they are paying internally, they wouldn’t consume them.
Sure there are anomalies of your grandpa Jack that drank whiskey and has a big bowl of ice cream every night.
He’s fine, right? He lived life the way he wanted, didn’t need rabbit food or granola hippies telling him what to eat and drink.
Hopefully for grandpa Jack he’s not suffering major side effects that is brought about by poor diet and habits over time.
How’s his sight?
Energy levels?
Mental clarity? Risk of diabetes?
Our food has changed and the soil it grows in has changed.
It’s time to change our habits, and learn how to combat these changes or else suffer consequences of a modern cheap and convenient diet.
It’s pretty simple: eat nutrient dense, whole foods, at least 50% greens, that provide energy to feel great.
There’s lots of options for healthy, good tasting meals.
There’s also a million diets and what you should or shouldn’t eat.
The advice:
Personally study and test what makes sense in your lifestyle and choose food you’ll actually eat consistently over time and provides the feeling and results that works for you.
Use common sense.
You don’t put sugar in your gas tank to make your car run, you don’t burn a pile of tissues to stay warm all night.
Find food with substance, limited ingredients and that burns clean and over time evenly in your body.
Avoid spikes and drops in blood sugar.
The best answers are one’s that you find out for yourself.
It’s a tricky thing to only know how good you feel until you try feeling better.
I felt what I thought was ok, until actually feeling good through experimenting.
The cool thing is once you feel good, even once, you remember that and have a baseline to work towards.
Awareness.
Your current level of success is the extent that you understand what this word means to you.
I define success as:
the planned current results of your past actions and continual growth while striving for maximum potential in pursuit of what you really want.
The battle is on every day.
Awareness is a moment to moment reflection of your current thoughts within your current environment and how you respond to it, or react to it.
It’s a personal journey.
The advice:
Don’t listen to anyone but yourself until you can be honest where you’re at and how you got here.
Take 100% responsibility and then learn, read, join groups, meditate, journal, exercise, do whatever it takes to increase the quality of your thoughts and you will eventually see the truth and answers how to head in the direction where you really want to go.
Hang around others who can help.
You’ll need a coach or a guide, it’s a path that has no end.
It’s your choice.
“Everyone can, but not everyone will…why is that, and is that ok?” – Jim Rohn
The trap of motivation vs. inspiration (short term stimulant vs. fulfilling progression).
Motivation is a short lived “flash in the pan” a proverbial hit of the crack pipe that leaves you wanting more.
Albeit a powerful force, motivation does not have endurance.
In fact, it’s hard hitting power can leave those dreamers or people that sit on their hands feeling beat up after the ride is over.
Inspiration comes from within.
It’s the moment you take the outside force and internalize it into your own special super hero power.
The advice:
Never look for the answers you want outside of yourself, don’t compare your insides to others outsides.
Be careful who you take advice from.
Yes, I see the irony.
What the hell do I know anyway, figure it out yourself, that’s what you want anyway.
What’s in it for me?
Stop waiting for a handout or the magic pill and figure it out yourself.
Again coaching helps with this.
Sometimes to figure out what we want, we need assistance.
It’s ok, no one is really that smart, or else we’d all be perfectly happy if we could figure ourselves out.
Be yourself.
No one is paying attention anyway, so don’t worry what people think or how they’ll react.
You’re going to screw up, look funny, make a weird noise, look like a total idiot and then one day you will be ok with that and move onto more productive thoughts and take risks, be uncomfortable and actually like it making a fool of yourself, because you’re doing it.
Odds are you’re probably looking polished and professional if you’ve taken action long enough.
No one has control over the thoughts you think and the actions you take.
The advice:
Do what feels right to you.
There’s no time to worry.
Achieving goals is not the goal.
The goal is to do what’s necessary now in order to achieve those goals later.
Enjoy the journey, there will always be something newer and shiner along the way.
Have fun producing then give back once you figure out how to teach and help others.
It will make you feel warm and fuzzy.
The funny thing that happens at that point is you start receiving more of everything once you reach that point.
The more you give the more you get.
That would solve a lot of problems if more of us made that our goal.
My homeboy Earl Nightingale lays out a simple concept about how to use your mind to transform thoughts to things.
He’s on the man crush list for sure.
So solid with his message.
Investing, speculating, trading and all of the financial allocation strategies are topics I never thought I’d become so interested in.
For those that want a better life, all areas of knowledge come to light when you start looking around.
It seems the more I learn about life the more I see the correlations of just about everything.
From a young age I always had a basic interest in finance/wealth which, over time, has blossomed into a more “realistic” opportunity to become rich because it’s the plan that counts not the amount.
What really draws me towards this realm is the mental aspect and how that translates into the emotional aspect, or lack thereof which I’ll discuss later.
Risk management, strategy, psychology, discipline, and results based on these and other aspects are very exciting.
Not in a “I’m going to hit a home run
aspect, but I want to get on base and play the game the best I can with a goal of getting better each try.
I base life not in days, but in tries.
We have 365 tries per year.
It’s up to you how to use these tries as seen fit each day.
This is a process that has no end, until your end comes in time.
There’s always a way to get better.
The process is the path, but my strategies revolve around the simple truths and time to get the rewards.
Swinging for the fences in hopes of striking it rich may work for the very few extremely talented, knowledgeable, and more than likely seasoned veterans.
From a part time amateur’s perspective, trying to emulate the best should start with the fundamentals and building from there.
Being able to adapt, making good decisions, seeing things from different perspectives and asking better questions with more focused knowledge will keep you in the game.
The modern world is pretty much awesome.
Those fortunate enough to live amongst the conveniences so remarkable and technology so advanced for most it’s almost incomprehensible how all this stuff came to be in such a short amount of time?
There used to be a time when one would get an apprenticeship for years under a master and then they would become the master themselves over time and pay it forward.
It’s crazy that there is an option to find a master to learn almost any skill in books, on the web and even have the opportunity to contact people who would otherwise be out of reach, but now is an email or a conference away.
Not even the greats of the recent past slept on beds as nice as an average mattress of today, controlled the temperature of their home with the press of a button, or turned water on to any temperature you like from multiple sources in a home or apartment.
It’s really wild stuff.
Even in these incredible times I find myself getting caught up striving for a bigger better future or caught in the past reminiscing on distant opportunities.
Both of which do not do any good except frustrate or lead to minimal action which is rarely effective in producing desired results.
My path is towards inspiration and inspiration is found in the moment, usually one small event at a time.
Compiled inspiration over time then leads to actually getting somewhere mentally or on a path towards whatever “success” is to an individual.
Sometimes it seems like participating in this journey is almost pointless when one can look around at everything is available.
For the person that appreciates this realizes all to be grateful for but can’t help but want to win.
As it’s said “winners never quit and quitters never win”, a greater life is one that expands and develops.
Being grateful is fine, but doesn’t contribute to a life that enhances others than maybe being a pleasant person to be around.
I want a bigger life and I don’t think the answers are complicated to getting there.
It just takes the basic principles actually being applied to succeed.
Things like patience, persistence, knowledge, and simply doing what you tell yourself you want to do with the best idea you have at the current moment.
Do just a little bit each day and you’ll get momentum.
“The pain of discipline hurts much less than the pain of regret”
I have tons of ideas, or better put, I have tons of feelings each and every day.
We all do.
So anyone that cares to better their life, even a little, knows there’s a lot of options out there and there’s products, systems and I won’t bother to go on because this is already a broken record statement.
Put simply, we have every opportunity to do almost anything and it just comes down to a simple question of “will you?”.
Will you consistently do what the little voice says you “should” do each day, week, year?
There would be a lot more have some happy campers if we all followed that simple rule to just do what we say we’ll do.
The problem then becomes finding the inspiration.
This blog is something that’s literally and been years in the making in my head.
It’s for me to journal my thoughts and get better at what works and what I want to get better at.
It’s fortunate I’m only writing to myself and a handful of viagra spam emails I get sent to my comments section for this blog because it will be a learning process to lay out my thoughts.
Thanks for your support spammers.
In all the frustrations elation and decision making moments I face, the concept that we possess everything we already need to be what and who we want makes a lot of sense.
Unveiling that power is just a matter of..well a lot of stuff.
Luckily people smarter than me have a lot of really good ideas about that subject and have come up with ways to tackle this conundrum efficiently and effectively.
Change does happen in an instant.
It may take a long time, but once it finds the right conditions, change “magically” happens.
So that means all we need to do are take more tries.
In life we get 365 tries each day per year.
People that want a better life have to start somewhere and for me I’ve slowly and religiously put my mind to work each day and have come across a bunch of great information to help get some decent results so far.
My problem has been overloading all of this great stuff, getting super excited to try everything out but usually end up peaking in emotion then suffering the crash of regret for not taking focused specific action on what matter most.
At the same time I feel like I know the answers already when I stop the racing of my mind and ask better questions.
Luckily something has worked and things have progressed well in most areas in my life.
I’m also really glad that one of the most valuable lessons out there is to fail fast and fail often.
I’m well on my way with that, I’m sucking at blogging so good right now.
I know it will only get better.
But..whatever?
To learn, we have to study, practice and teach.
That’s where true progress is made.
I’d suck at the piano right now if I sat down and tried to play it.
Study, Practice, Teach.
I’ll keep plugging along with some of the best ideas I’ve come across and we’ll see what happens.
Big question:
How can you create/get what you want/need?
Ideas and our thoughts create the reality that we live in right?
So all we have to do is think better thoughts and have better ideas to take better actions to get better results.
This made me think so what is a good idea made up of?
What makes an idea good?
Is that even possible to answer on a broad spectrum?
What are examples of ideas that are considered good and what do they entail?
My quick thoughts of what makes and idea good:
clear vision of end goal in mind, purpose behind idea, specific focus, attainable results, easy to understand/implement, appealing, useful, it explains answers better than people can think of themselves.
has a different definition than most of what an idea is, he refers to ideas as a business or the purpose people are attracted to something.
He says that everything should be done in an effort toward the idea not yourself or other causes.
Why should we listen to others?
If no one is better than you and no one is smarter than you just maybe skilled in areas you’re not yet, why is it important to listen to people that communicate they are different or have proven methods that will guide you or help you towards your goals.
Is there a better way to implement your own thoughts with these resources people provide?
Or what’s the good stuff to keep in mind when getting involved in a new project?
Feel the Flow.
Gratitude.
You can create personal momentum through truly being grateful for what you have, getting a full time “home field advantage” on your side when you feel the flow of confidence, fluidity in movement and thought.
It’s about how you feel about the work you do and where you see yourself going while recognizing what you have now.
It starts with from within and can be amplified with association.
“Impossible” now becomes “I’m-possible”
All champions more than anything else have the power of uplifting others.
It’s the most valuable gift they can share and have.
Inspiration (unlike motivation) comes from within a person who truly desires greatness and with it has unlimited potential.
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