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Category: Thinking Clearly

Calm; Collected; Collaborated

Published on September 28, 2024

It is becoming increasingly evident to me, with each day I consciously focus on it, that problems are almost always made better with the following ingredients:

1. Calm. Unless there’s an emergency, I do my absolute best not to run, speed, rush, yell, or spiral. All of these are inside my control and when problems hit that are outside my control, controlling these things and maintaining a calm demeanor helps tremendously. Not only does it keep the mind clear and free of unnecessary chaos so that I can focus on coming up with a solution, but it stops the problem from becoming worse. Which is always the first thing you should do when you find yourself in a hole… stop digging.

2. Collected. Acting too quickly on problems without a full survey of the land often leads to wrong turns and major detours. Once you’ve calmed yourself down and are thinking more clearly, it’s essential to clearly identify the problem, trace it to the root of its cause, and brainstorm a complete list of possible solutions. Oftentimes knee jerk reactions turn into big pains in the butt.

    3. Collaborated. You’re never as smart alone as you are when you’re thinking with other trusted brains. It’s best to enter this stage after you’ve successfully managed to complete the previous two. Otherwise, “collaborated” often turns into vent session, cursing, and exacerbating the problem (causing you to dig a deeper hole). But, when you’re calm and collected and have a proper inventory of the problem and possible solutions… collaboration becomes a powerful equation that turns 1+1 into 3.

    Consider What Might Be Possible

    Published on September 22, 2024

    I got an email from a local yoga studio today.

    They’re hosting a yogathon which features a two hour yoga class.

    At first thought, two hours might sound like a really long time—and you might think back to the times when you took a 45 minute or 1 hour class and were deaddddddd.

    And because of that you might count yourself out and resolve to do things that are more within the ol’ comfort zone.

    But towards the end of the email, they included this line: “Before you count yourself out, consider what might be possible if you didn’t!”

    …And what a powerful line that is.

    Before you turn up the volume on your self-limiting beliefs, consider turning up the volume on this other, just as easily accessible, channel.

    The channel that asks you to consider what might be possible if you didn’t count yourself out… what might happen if you did show up and try your best… what you might learn about yourself and how your life might change if you stepped into this extraordinary opportunity…

    …And I’m no longer talking about the yogathon.

    I’m talking about every extraordinary opportunity you’re offered in life.

    P.s. In case you missed it, you can read the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week, here.

    Tomorrow’s Success

    Published on September 20, 2024

    I had a rough day playing basketball today.

    I missed almost every shot I took.

    But, you know what? I successfully executed a drive-to-the-basket-move for the first time in a live game that I’ve been practicing. And of that, I left feeling proud.

    It’s important to remember that success is actually more of a lagging indicator that reflects the work you put in prior. And if you’re not finding success inside of a day, to focus less on forcing it and focus more on setting yourself up for tomorrow.

    Because successfully learning and executing new moves in today’s game is precisely the kind of thing that’ll stay with us and lead to the types of successes that both you and I want in our games now—today.

    …But we have to be willing to put in the work and suck before the today successes can come.

    Awfully Busy

    Published on September 18, 2024

    This type of busy is meant to describe being so busy… that it’s awful.

    Being busy is tough enough… it relentlessly sucks you out of the present moment (where life is lived), can fill you with anxiety (about how you’re going to get everything done), and makes it really hard to get important work done (because the urgent stuff keeps nagging for your attention).

    But, there’s another perspective to busy.

    …Being busy can also be a blessing.

    It means you’ve filled your day with tasks and activities that you get to do—versus being left homeless on the street with no family, no connections, no resources, and no life options…

    And rather than being awfully busy—eliciting a type of misery that follows you throughout your day into and out of every task… what if you tried being happily busy instead?

    All those tasks you have to do for your family…? You get to do.

    All those chores you have to do at home…? You get to do.

    All those projects you have to finish at work…? You get to do.

    All you have to do now is slow down, add a little deliberate to your day, and fill yourself with gratitude along the way.

    Happily busy is an exponentially more beautiful place to be.

    Living With Ease 101

    Published on September 13, 2024

    Man. It can be tempting to just throw your hands into the air, curse your circumstances, and blame everyone and the world for not teaching you this or preparing you for that.

    Anxiety. Addiction. Discipline. Depression. Relationships. Kids. Property. Taxes. Insurance. Medications. Death. Disease. Loneliness… Each curveball feels like it comes with avengeance, always from new angles, and only with increased intensity.

    And you know what?

    Nobody is coming to change that.

    Nobody is coming to save you.

    Nobody is coming to knock on your door and offer you the Living With Ease 101 Guidebook.

    And while this might sound grim or deflating… you know what?

    At least it will get you out of the mindset of waiting.

    Because too many of us are waiting for somebody to come along and do exactly those things… change our frustrating circumstances for the better… save us from curveballs of life… knock on our door and give us the answers to all of our current problems.

    The sooner we can acknowledge that we’re waiting to be saved… the sooner we can snap out of it and begin saving ourselves.

    Because while, sure, you hopefully have people in your life who are helping you out… ultimately, they have their own curveballs to figure out. And waiting for them to figure out theirs and then figure out yours, too, isn’t a good long-term strategy.

    The long-term strategy that works is taking ownership, taking action, learning from errors, and repeating forever onward.

    It’ll take just as much time as waiting.

    …And return a helluva lot more on your time invested.

    The Frustrated Eye

    Published on September 7, 2024

    While I was away at Burning Man, my email service provider (who sends out these daily emails) retired their services.

    …Of course.

    And so when I got back, not only did I have to unpack, reintegrate into daily living, and make sense of the other-worldly experience that was/is Burning Man… but I also had to find a new email service provider, migrate all of my subscribers over to them, redraft all of my email templates and rss feed settings from scratch, rebuild all of my email capture forms and popups, and create new automation flows.

    …Not exactly good timing when there’s a million other things to do after coming back from vacation.

    But, with that challenge came an opportunity that I had been procrastinating for a long time.

    My old email service provider wasn’t really keeping themselves up-to-date with the times. They had a service that worked, kept it minimal, and trucked forward for almost 10 years without changing much along the way.

    And while it worked just fine for me, it was definitely time for a refresh.

    And that’s what coming home to this challenge gave me the opportunity to do… refresh what I had been stubbornly refusing to do for so long.

    Worth thinking about for yourself: what challenge are you facing in your life and where’s the opportunity in that challenge?

    In the heat of the moment it can feel like there absolutely isn’t one—and the only presiding thoughts and emotions are all geared towards “the bad” and the inconveniences of the circumstance.

    …But with a calm and collected mind, you just might find there’s more to your life’s challenges than what meets the frustrated eye.

    Use The Damn Tool(s)

    Published on August 20, 2024

    In reply to my post on one lesson from 35 years, my uncle replied with the following:

    “It’s funny, most of the educated, ‘smart people’ I know told me not to retire early… ‘you’ll be sorry.’ Funny that they text me to see if it’s actually working… why??? Because they don’t get job satisfaction anymore and want to jump. It’s not about getting rich, it’s not about all the zeros in that account… it’s about having enough, having health, and being able to savor the flavor of life. I, we, take things slow, and my old way of looking at life is/has changed. Money can’t buy health or time.”

    Pair this with a nugget of wisdom from my great grandmother (that my mom shared at my birthday party this past weekend): “If your problems can be solved with money… you don’t really have problems” and two thoughts come to mind.

    (1) Damn, I feel so lucky to be surrounded by such incredible role models in my life. It makes such an impact (probably one of the biggest impacts) on a person’s life… and if you’re not surrounded by good role models… do everything in your power to change that.

    (2) Get rich, quick! is the current of modern day society—swim against it. Which isn’t to say you should disregard money. There’s no doubting the fact that money is a powerful tool. But, that’s just it… it’s a tool. Don’t become so obsessed with hoarding the tool that you forget to use the damn thing to do amazing things!

    The handyman who merely collects and stores tools is no handyman at all.

    Ask yourself… Is the person who merely collects and hoards money really living at all?