Category: Defining Success

Imagine being born a prince or a princess.

And growing up with parents who wanted to make your life perfect.

Imagine what that might look like… imagine what essentially unlimited resources (being king and queen) could do… imagine what they might do to make sure you never knew a moment of suffering and had every need and desire met…

Imagine them building up a wall around your castle so that you never saw suffering or met people of different classes… imagine indulging in the best foods daily… receiving every gift you even slightly wanted… having servants cater to your every need and demand…

…Imagine what that might teach you about the world.

I’ll tell you what it’ll teach you: not much.

Not only is the above the story of Buddha… but it’s the story countless parents play in their head of what they want for their children—whom are the most precious things in the world to them.

…And protecting them, caring for them, and creating a “perfect” little world for them to live in is an instinctual part of a parent’s nature.

But the more the world skews towards “perfect”—in the sense of every desire being met and no suffering—the less it actually teaches us about the world, isn’t it?

Because life is imperfect. The world is imperfect. Humans are imperfect.

Suffering is everywhere. Needs aren’t something given—they’re earned. Desires aren’t meant to always be fulfilled.

THAT is the nature of things.

And the more you intermingle with the “imperfect” world… the more flawed humans you interact with… the more suffering you see through to the other side…

The more you’ll learn about life for real.

Even when you follow the exact recipe… use the exact ingredients… in the exact proportions and prepared in the exact same ways… as is described exactly by your grandma herself?

How is it that it always tastes better when it’s done by her?

…I think it’s because love is an ingredient.

And I mean it in the same way that onions or garlic might be an ingredient.

Love transcends the metaphysical and becomes something tangible… something tasteful… something delicious…

It becomes a literal part of the recipe. And there’s no good substitution for it.

You either pour your heart into the recipe or you compromise and try “Attentiveness” or “Precise” or “Careful” or “Good enough” or “That’ll do…”

But you’ll always taste the compromise. Nothing tastes the same as pure, unconditional, un-rushed love.

And so it is for just about everything else you choose to do and make and create in this life.

Imagine this: you’re in the sunset stage of life… sitting in your rocking chair on your cozy porch with the light shining down warming your skin… and you reflect on your life:

• Reflection A: You never created what was always stirring inside because of fear, imposter syndrome, distraction, procrastination, and/or doubt.

• Reflection B: You never went viral, you never became a star, and you never connected with more than a handful of people… but, boy did you create. You have galleries worth of art, books worth of writing, and/or albums worth of music… and it’s all there surrounding you, like old friends, for you to revisit, re-explore, and maybe re-invent into more gifts for that handful of people.

It’s possible, too, that you have a Reflection C: you went viral, became a star, and everybody loved you and still can’t get enough of you. But, the point for me is simple… Reflection B isn’t as bad as so many make it out to be.

In other words, people weight how their creations are liked, commented on, and shared too heavily and quit too easily when the numbers don’t match their expectations. When really… it’s the creating in general that builds the true value, meaning, and fulfillment in the rocking chair at the end of life…

Forget about the day after stats. Stop obsessing over the pluses and minuses. Comparing yourself to lottery winners—in every sense of the phrase—isn’t going to help.

Focus on the quiet whispers of your soul. Lean into the pulls of your curiosity. Block out distractions, expectations, and that which fancies the ego.

Simply surrender to the ebbs and flows… and create.

Reads books.

Does inner work.

Exercises regularly.

Walks and sits with excellent posture.

Rarely eats fast food or uses the microwave.

Eats entire meals without checking phone.

Waits patiently, in line or traffic or elsewhere, without checking phone.

Can facilitate and navigate great conversations without checking phone.

Can disagree and hold a dialog with a person without attacking the person.

Speaks to others with steady eye contact.

Can dance wholeheartedly without any care of judgments.

Compliments more than complains; offers optimism more than pessimism; leads with love more than hate—both in-person and online.

Lives below their means—happily. Regardless of salary size.

Falls asleep quickly. Even after stressful and emotional days.

When discussing New Year Resolutions, an associate mentioned he wanted to read a-chapter-a-day.

His strategy, he explained, was that he had both a “serious book” and a child’s book ready so that on the nights he couldn’t complete a “serious” chapter… he could read from the child’s book instead.

Having attempted and failed this resolution in the past myself (minus the child’s book part), I offered him an alternative strategy.

Rather than making a-chapter-a-day the goal… I suggested he make reading a-page-a-day the goal. This way he could eliminate the children’s book altogether (unless he really wanted to make that his focus read) and read exclusively from the book(s) he most wanted to read from.

The thing about a-chapter-a-day is that chapters are definitely not created equal. And there will be days (most days, in fact) when your appetite for reading and the length of the chapter will be completely mismatched. You’ll find yourself reading short chapters on days when you’re feeling most motivated and staring gravely at the number of pages you still have to go on the days when you’re feeling the least.

The thing about a-page-a-day is that it fixes that. The challenge is equal each day and the strategy is optimized for the days when you’re feeling least motivated—precisely when you’re most likely to fall off the wagon. And if it’s true that we can read even one page on our worst days… then nothing is stopping us from reading every day.

…And what’ll probably end up happening is you’ll read the amount equal to your appetite each day anyway.

Exactly how it should be.

Today I watched a Hot Ones interview of Luka Dončić.

If you don’t know, he’s an incredible NBA basketball player.

In addition to that, he’s building an incredible foundation, The Luca Dončić Foundation—which focuses on creating a more positive and joyful environment for youth sports, particularly basketball, by addressing issues like excessive pressure and providing better support systems for young athletes.

And just tonight, as I was leading my martial arts demo team through our choreographed performance (that we have to show in two weeks), I felt myself walking this line between excessive pressure and maintaining a positive and joyful environment.

Because while, yes, being competitive and adding pressure to training pushes us to realize our full potential…

…That holds true only if we don’t quit because we aren’t having fun anymore.

Don’t miss the forest for the trees… don’t let the trophies supersede original joy and just plain having fun.