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Tag: Question Inspired

How Are You Spending The Building Blocks Of Your Life?

Time, energy, attention—these are the fundamental building blocks of what a life is composed of.

With what you’ve been given, you can either choose to spend, save, or invest these blocks—just as it is with money.

When you spend time, energy, or attention—it’s gone. Like when you watch a show on TV. There’s no return of more time, energy, or attention—it’s just used.

When you save time, energy, or attention—you increase what little you had to a little more. Like when you hire a professional to do a professional service. The time it took you to get the money to pay the professional is far less than the time it would have taken you to do the job yourself—so you pay them. Resources saved.

When you invest time, energy, or attention—you stand to multiply what little you had into much more. Like when you learn new skills and/or gain new knowledge. Not only do you no longer need to hire someone for their skills or knowledge, but you no longer need to hire them for the rest of your life. The return is exponential.

A good exercise to spend some time on:

  • Write down each task of your day.
  • Label each task as being either a spending, saving, or investing of time/ energy/ attention.
  • Think about how you might save and add more investments to your day.

Easy For You. Hard For Others.

When work aligns with your strengths, it flows and feels easy—even when it’s hard.

When work aligns with your weaknesses, it crawls and feels hard—even when it’s easy.

A good indication that you’re in alignment with your strengths is if you lose track of time while working.

If you find yourself constantly checking the time, either the work you’re doing is too mundane or you’re in alignment with your weaknesses.

Ask yourself: What’s easy for you that’s hard for others?

And then figure out ways you can do more of that.

Feeling A Creativity Dip?

Get more bored.

I find that the more I force myself into boredom, the more creative I get.

Conversely, the more distracted and entertained I am, the less creative I get.

When do I get some of my best ideas? While I’m showering, driving, walking, napping, meditating, staring at a blank screen… it’s when my mind is bored and free to wander.

And it’s not even close...

When do I rarely ever get ideas? While I’m working, watching TV, playing a game, having gossip-y type conversation, or otherwise actively engaged in some thought-provoking tasks.

You might think you’re“not the creative type” or that you“lost” your creative touch.

I’m willing to bet you haven’t and that you are—we all have creative energy inside of us.

You’re just not allowing yourself to get bored long enough.

Are You A Leader?

Leadership is influence—nothing more and nothing less.

And if you interact with people, guess what? You influence them.

You can’t interact with someone and not influence them.

Therefore, it’s time you started looking at yourself as a leader.

This, in and of itself, has the ability to change your whole demeanor.

Next, you must carefully reflect on how you’ve been using your influence.

  • Are you influencing people to become better versions of themselves or worse?
  • Are you using your influence to promote more good in the world or harm?
  • Are your means of influencing based in love or hate?

It’s time we stopped looking at leadership as a role reserved for a select few.

It’s a role that each of us gets to embody in full each day.

The question simply becomes: will you own it?

Who Brings Out The Best/Worst In You?

Question #1: Who brings out the best in you?
Question #2: Who brings out the worst in you?

And now for my real question: Is it really ever anyone but you?

In other words, sure, it’s easy to think that the best people will bring out the best in you and the worst people will bring out the worst in you. But, what comes out from you shouldn’t ever be dependent on them.

What comes out from you should solely be dependent on you.

Everybody should get your best. Not because they deserve it or have earned it—maybe they haven’t. But, because regardless of who you’re surrounded with, even the worst, nobody has the right to control your state of mind.

Life is too short to spend even one minute (that’s sixty seconds we’ll never get back) in your worst state.

And that’s not all—it perpetuates. Their worst state becomes your worst state which likely will become someone else’s worst state. We have to become the alchemists of our minds. We must learn to convert anger to patience; frustration to perseverance; pain to creativity. We must choose to break the cycle.

Otherwise, we might as well pass over the quality of our life to the people nearest to us throughout our days. And hope for the best.

Playing Versus Playing It Safe

What’s more important, watching your back or watching your step?

If your goal is to avoid pain, then watching your back would be the priority. You’d pay close attention to your vulnerabilities. You’d caution yourself around people and take your time looking for their conniving sides. You wouldn’t give people anything they could later use to hurt you with. You’d constantly be looking for ways to build bigger and stronger walls. You’d play it safe.

If your goal is to keep moving forward, then you’d prioritize watching your step. You’d pay close attention to your strengths. You’d check the rooms you’re in for opportunities, paths, directions—and you’d take your time looking for the fun in people. You’d give people anything that might help them keep moving forward because it, in all likelihood, would help you keep moving forward, too. You’d play.

Here’s the thing: are you less likely to get hurt playing it safe? Of course. Playing it safe—watching your back—is like sitting on the bench while at the playground. It’s the place where you’re least likely to get hurt. You’re positioned ideally to keep everybody in front of you, your chances of accidental bumpings/ bruises/ or bangs are minimized, and you can focus your attention solely on safety. But, is that really your life goal? To sit on the bench while staring at a playground?

Here’s what I think: when there’s a playground in front of you—you go and play. Playing is exploration. It’s interaction. It’s experimentation. It’s conflict resolution. It’s problem solving. It’s getting bumped/ bruised/ and banged—and getting back up. It’s having fun. And so it is with life, too. The point isn’t to not get hurt; the point is to play. Not to play it safe looking backwards, but to play joyfully with eyes eagerly forward.