The "Ultimate Creative Project"

In the book “An Audience of One” I read this and loved it – 

“The ultimate creative project – making our lives a masterpiece”

And if you haven’t downloaded my album “Masterpiece” from iTunes yet – get it!  The last words of the last (title) track are….

What you really value

You can tell what you really value by how you spend your time; how much time you spend on doing this or that, and what you do when nobody is paying you to do it.

What does your schedule say about what you value?

Messy reflect weakness

I can’t remember the author or where I read this, but here goes –

“Messy surroundings reflect a weak psychological state.  If you are powerful you will dominate your life.  You will find time to clean up and create order.  You’ll want to.  Mess is an external manifestation of weakness and laziness.”

Mess also hurts our creativity and productivity.

Time to clean up?

"I love you"

Ok, this one is going to be a little difficult for some – that family member you don’t talk to much anymore….your father (for sons), your son (for fathers), that friend who was always there for you…..

Get your phone out and text those words to someone.

That’s it.

Drop the suitcase

“Always take your next shot unburdened by previous failures to hit the target.  Do not be influenced by your successes either.  Stay in the present moment.” – Eugene Harrigel; “Zen in the Art of Archery”

Whether it was good or bad, the past is over.  Drop the suitcase. 

Let this moment be what it is – fresh.  

Pain is inevitable, suffering is a choice

Like you, I have bad days. Things that are important and dear to me seem to be quite out of sorts some days. It hurts.

You read something like the title of this post, and it’s easy to say “yeah, yeah, yeah – whatever.”

But after years of “practice” and observation, I have noticed some things. When I have that bad day and feel the pain of disappointment, frustration or pain, I can easily keep replaying it in my head – feeling the sting again and again – and even magnifying it to be bigger. That’s the suffering part in the above caption.

Someone hits me with the whip, and I say “That hurts…and may I borrow that whip? – because I will use it on myself over and over again so I don’t forget how this feels.”

Do I have to do that to myself?  

So, I catch myself thinking about it and replaying it. I say to myself “No. Stop this.Stop thinking about it. Maybe reinterpret it and maybe not, but move on.” I may move my body – do something, go somewhere, be around people, interact. That helps.

Being more mature than I was, and not as mature as I will be, I understand now. 

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

The world will become better….

…when you become better. 

When you improve, so does everyone and everything around you.

You’re in charge.

The Alchemist

Want to read (listen to) a good book? Check out The Alchemist by Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho. I listened to the audio. It’s a great story with lessons for the ages embedded within. Here’s a passage – 

“The story of your life and the story of the universe were written with the same hand.”

Enjoy.

Neuro-Associations

What we associate pain or pleasure to is called “neuro-association.” Maybe we went to a party in Montclair and we were ostracized and had a terrible experience. Now when we even hear the word “Montclair” we have a negative reaction. When we hear someone lives there, we think they are horrible unfriendly people.

Maybe we met some French people who were really super nice and accommodating and they helped us out of a jam when we needed it. Now we feel an affection for anyone when we learn they are French, assuming they are wonderful people.  

It could be a place, a person, a food, a situation, a company, an animal – anything.

Neuro-associations are how we learned and stayed alive thousands of years ago, and are still useful. Don’t go to that area because that’s where the dangerous animals are. Don’t trust a member of that tribe because they ambushed us long ago. It’s still how our brain works.

Neuro-associations can be helpful or paralyzing and limit us. For today, we have to ask ourselves, “Is it true?” Is it true that all people from France are really nice? No, it’s not, but from where I sit, it’s not hurting me to think that way. Is it true that all people from Montclair are snobs? Of course not, and it is not good for my health or my social life to carry around that sentiment. 

Some people are hijacked by unreasonable powerful neuro-associations and walk around limited forever. We can challenge them and overwrite the unuseful ones by making new decisions.

Facing facts

“How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?”

What do you think?

This is a question posed by Abraham Lincoln to his team. His answer to them? “Four. Calling it something it is not, does not change reality.”

Sometimes we want to see an external situation one way so we make a story about it for ourselves that makes us feel better. Sure, we can call it optimism, and there is a positive side to doing that. But when you make important decisions based on your errant views, you make the wrong decisions.

At our School of Entrepreneurship, we say “To set things right, you have to see things right.”

What sticky situation do you have in your life? Before you make a decision about it, are you seeing it right?