You Are A Construction Zone

For things to change, YOU have to change.

-Jim Rohn

Rohn Get ItEach and every life form on this planet is a work in progress. There is no grand culmination to the evolution of conscious life. Every kind of critter from a bacterium up to a human being comes into the world with a certain hand to play. They play out their cards the best they can, learn as much as they can, teach what they can to posterity, and then it’s lights out until you come back around again (if you’re into that sort of thing). Success in the animal kingdom depends on the same thing as it does for us. It’s all very economical if you look at it. Life is simply trying to expend energy by making the best choices over perceived options to maximize safety, comfort, and growth.

I could listen to Jim Rohn lecture all day long. He is one of the best and brightest speakers still alive on the planet today. There are few people that understand the mentality of success so well and are able to articulate the message so that anybody with 1/3 of a brain can take some value away from his message. I like him so much because he was one of the first people to get me to see what my problem was. IT WAS ME! I had been pointing my finger so much that my hand was cramping up, but I needed the same slap in the face Jim Rohn did when his mentor told him “If you want your life to get better, you have to get better.”

Rohn ExcuseIt’s so ironic that every kingdom of life on the planet is fine tuned to it’s local environment the same way each instrument is tuned and timed to the same conductor in an orchestra. Everyone is playing like a beautiful symphony besides US, who are supposed to be the crowned achievers. There is quite a bit of truth to the whole story of man being tossed out of the garden if you read between the lines. When you stray too far from what is natural and harmonious your body, mind, and spirit all start to decay.

Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better.

-Jim Rohn

So what do you do? Start going to work on yourself as hard as you work on your job. If you don’t design your own life’s plan and make your own choices chances are you’ll fall into somebody else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much! Everyone stars in the movie of their own life. In the eyes of everyone else YOU are somewhere between a “best supporting actor” or an “extra.” You really shouldn’t be the star of anybody else’s movie. Parents struggle with this and often lose themselves and live vicariously through their children. You also shouldn’t give up the leading role in your own movie to anybody else. Don’t cast yourself into shitty roles on purpose either.

Jim Rohn PainSo what do successful people do that 97% of other people just DON’T DO? They merely sit down, decide to make a plan, and start taking steps in the direction of their end goal. THAT’S IT! There is no magic secret to changing your life. I know everybody at least makes it to the point where they say “ok, it’s definitely time… I know I need to change X.” Not everybody, but a good number of us make it to the point where we say, “in order to change X, I’m going to Y.” Here’s where we lose more folks on the path. These are the new year resolution people who make a change for two to five days then go right back to the status quo. Soooooooo few people actually stick with their plan UNTIL they get there.

How long should you keep trying? UNTIL!

Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.

Jim Rohn.

With as much violence and racism and all other forms of bullshit and garbage spread like wildfire in today’s media, it’s more important than ever for us to be taking matters into our own hands. You can’t change what’s on that TV screen by yelling at your neighbors. You can’t change anybody’s real quality of life with Facebook likes. Anything you see on the screen, no matter if its a computer, phone, TV or a billboard is already a DONE DEAL. It’s out there… It’s done and stagnant. What you can change is yourself and the way you conduct yourself in your own home and your own life. The way you interact with other people at work or at the grocery store. You can change more with a smile and a friendly hello than you can with a 45 minute rant you post on youtube. Anything you resist grows stronger. Don’t you realize that’s how you build muscle?

I EMPLORE YOU to take a look at something you can improve in your life, no matter how small. Draw a line in the sand for yourself and celebrate a little victory. Then make another, albeit slightly larger goal, and get yourself another win. One more easy one and you’ll be on a roll. Get your subconscious mind primed to carry out bolder and bolder lifestyle changes. It really builds steam and lights a fire under your ass. Before you know it you’ll be in a whole new dimension of possibilities you were never aware of before. If you don’t know where to start, go to work on what you’re putting into and onto your body with my STEP BY STEP PLAN.

Jim Rohn MoreThe key to life is that childlike state. Remember to be CHILDLIKE and not CHILDISH. Keep yourself in the state of curiosity. Of wanting to learn a new musical instrument, or learn to scuba dive, or learn martial arts. Of learning a new skill no matter what it is to stay fresh and young at heart. Most importantly of all we need to teach our kids to be authentic to what they feel drawn to and interested in. Just imagine what your life would be like if you had been coached and guided to be the most creative and loving being. Teach our kids to do what they love and the money will follow their joy. When you do what you love, you never work a day in your life. Teach our kids the path to growing up at the BEING LEVEL and be the model for them to follow.

Remember evolving a little every day in every little way.

Don’t let your learning lead to knowledge.

Let your learning lead to ACTION!

-Jim Rohn

Shifting gears from WHEN to UNTIL

Hopi ElderYears back I remember watching a documentary about the Hopi elders. The main idea that they were trying to get across to their own people and the world at large was the resounding message, “We are the ones that we’ve been waiting for.” They knew that great change was coming over the world there was nothing we could do to stop it.  They also knew that nobody was coming to save us. They were absolutely right on both the global cultural scale but also down to the daily personal level. It is truly up to each and every one of us to determine the trajectory of our own lives.

We are the ones that we’ve been waiting for.

-Hopi Elders

We have to face it. The majority of us are facing the harsh reality that we were raised by a generation with certain views that quite hold water anymore. Whether it be sexuality and gender, religion, political reform, or music, things have changed a lot and are still changing. The days of keeping the same position in a company for 25 years are also over. Now you have to be willing to work yourself out of a job to stay competitive. I’d say for about the past 100 years or so each new wave of humans has come up against challenges that their parents did not quite possess the mental wherewithal to coach them through effectively. Humans have seen wave after wave of technology and an explosion of information like has never been seen on the planet before.  Just think about it. Electricity, the automobile and industrial revolution, airplanes and travel, spaceflight, the internet, smart phones, and the list goes on. If you pulled out an iPhone with the Google Earth app and zoomed in on your house from space 500 years ago they would either burn you at the stake or worship you as a god depending on your locale.

info overloadIn a world where knowledge is power it is extremely important to be at your own helm. While it is easy for a person to be dis-empowered by a lack of information, now it is just as easy to stand in front of so much information and so many choices that they are frozen stiff like a deer in headlights. Indecisiveness and procrastination are the new plagues of our generation. Everyone says they hate being bossed around by leaders, but the truth is nobody does anything until push comes to shove. Nobody can make up their damn mind. Then if they do happen to make their mind up, they still don’t get off their ass and DO anything about making a change in their life. THIS MEANS YOU! And ME. This is a WE problem. We all need to get off our asses and start putting effort into making the changes we know we need to make to increase our quality of life as a species.

I say it over and over. We need to be making these changes at the level of our lifestyle. Permanent changes. They have to be practiced on purpose until the critical mass of momentum is reached. This is how the subconscious mind adds the new behavioral pattern into it’s auto-pilot programming.

It’s not difficult, it just has to be DONE. Life is about the DOING, not about waiting for things to be done for you. Nobody is coming to save you, and nobody CAN save you. I don’t care whether you’re waiting for Jesus to come back and or if you’re waiting on some advanced alien race to come show us silly humans how we aught to be running the show. These religious and other mystical figures aren’t supposed to be worshiped and knelt down to, they’re supposed to be emulated. They are a template for you to follow if you want to grow up as a being. If you’re just sitting back, pointing your finger, and waiting for a savior of any kind you have already lost the game. Nobody can be saved by anyone else. It’s like cheating on your math homework in junior high. You might sneak by a few times but when the test comes and you aren’t prepared, you fail the test.

It has to start some place. It has to start some how. What better place than here. What better time than now. ALL HELL CAN’T STOP US NOW.

-Zack de la Rocha

We can’t be waiting for the right time. “WHEN” and “IF” are two of the most toxic and pathetic words to think about making life changes with. Most times you use the word, you’re making an excuse and implying it’s somebody else’s fault.  You are putting yourself in a spot of weakness. Telling yourself the story in your head that you are a victim; not in control of your own life. Don’t be fooled by anyone who says they can save you without you putting any effort in. I like the Alan Watts quote, “Let me help you out of the water before you drown… said the monkey putting the fish safely up a tree.” If you were in a car you would be stuck in PARK. Maybe neutral if you’re lucky, but definitely not in drive. How many of these have you said or overheard this week?

I’ll be happy when…

I’ll be able to accept my self for my own unique weirdness when…

I’ll start eating better when…

I’ll start exercising more often when…

I’ll start working on my marriage when…

I’ll be a better parent when…

I’ll stop smoking/drinking/(insert vice here) when…

I’ll start learning that new skill when…

I’ll ___ when ___.

ExcuseGet real with yourself. Stop making excuses for why you aren’t the way you need to be in order to feel self confident. Telling yourself these stories in your head is the perfect recipe for depression. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that things like depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, and most chronic illness like obesity and diabetes are afflictions that you are just so unlucky to have fallen victim to. These are symptoms of a poor physical and mental habits that become ingrained into your damn soul. The consequence for inaction is suicide whether it be instant or in slow-motion. You have to put persistent effort into changing otherwise YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO GET ANY RESULTS and you are NEVER GOING TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT YOURSELF when you are alone with your thoughts.

Circumstances? What are circumstances? Hell, I MAKE CIRCUMSTANCES! ATTACK! ATTACK!!!

-Napoleon Bonaparte

The better appropriate word to use when you are talking about making self change is “UNTIL.” The word UNTIL implies that you are going to persist for long enough to reach that critical mass where the subconscious mind takes over. It sounds so simple. How did I not think of this before. Why is this kind of philosophy not taught to children in schools from a young age? Sometimes the answers are so simple that we overlook them and we keep looking aimlessly while life slips away. Like my grandmother always said while my grandfather looked for something right in front of his face, “God damn it John, if it was a snake it would bite you!”

Start replacing the WHEN statements with UNTIL statements:

I’m going to run 5 miles every single day UNTIL I lose 50 pounds.

I’m going to do 500 sit-ups a day UNTIL I have a six pack.

I’m going to make 50 sales calls a day UNTIL I double my commissions.

I’m going to practice my instrument UNTIL I can play at a concert.

I’m going to cut sugar and meat UNTIL my pancreas comes back online.

lighthouseYou get the picture. Start telling yourself these power statements when you wake up in the morning. Work like Arnold Schwarzenegger says with reps and sets of the desired behavior until you get the results you want. YOU WILL GET RESULTS WITH THE PROPER EFFORT. It is a damn law of the universe. You can overcome any obstacle in your life no matter how deep your depression or how bad of an alcoholic you are. $50K rehab programs and years of counseling are only as good as they are at making YOU help yourself. Retrain your body, mind, and spirit for balance and upward mobility. Don’t put bandaids on bullet wounds. Keep a daily journal that you fill with things you are thankful for, people you love and want to make proud of you, plans for how you are going to achieve goals. You can do it. From baby steps to big leaps.

Be the lighthouse showing others how to get out of the storm and safely to shore. That’s the meaning of life for me.

Evolving a little every day in every possible way.

Oh Grow Up!

We have all heard it… We have all SAID it… “Why don’t you GROW UP!” Perhaps you were even having one of those monumentally insightful (eyes rollingconversations about somebody close to you in the 3rd person and uttered the phrase “If he/she would just grow up, they could stop struggling with ___ (insert character flaw here).  thedudeI don’t even have to have ever met you and I am certain that you are guilty. I certainly am. Although we may technically be right, at least from our point of view, how much thought have you actually put behind it? Have you ever really contemplated what it truly means to grow up?

Growing Up at the “Being” Level

When we in our culture use the phrase “growing up” what do we actually mean? We aren’t really talking about getting older per se. Although there is a tangible amount of wisdom and experience that comes with age, the amount of birthday candles on your cake isn’t exactly correlated to how “grown up” you are. There is a strong current that more or less sweeps us along through our younger years and then past adolescence before spilling us into the Gulf of Adulthood. It takes some folks longer to get down the river than others, but most make it at least floattripto the gulf. After you’re a bonafide adult its on you. Because we all know of both 70 year old whiners and toddlers with the wisdom of an old soul.

I spent some time last summer with a group of these so-called responsible adults for a workshop in the mountains southwest of Washington D.C. One of our main topics of discussion every night was this theme of growing up, but growing up at the being level. We had the privilege of working intimately with NASA Physicist and Expert in consciousness research Tom Campbell who put a proper perspective on it for me.

What do I mean by the “being” level?

When I talk about myself at the “being” level, I am talking about the way that I “am” at the core. Not about the way that I act, but the way that I really am.  Me at my being level is the sum of my talents, my values, my habits, my fears, my beliefs, my assumptions and my overall disposition. It’s how I conduct myself in my interpersonal relationships. My level of maturity at the being level that I bring into any given situation has to do with my INTENT. The conscious INTENT is the key to having those “aha” moments that lead to real personal growth. Each personal epiphany is like a little trophy letting you know you “grew up” a little bit. It has everything to do with the story you are telling yourself in your own head while you are “acting” out your daily behaviors.

Age doesn’t define maturity, some people will never grow up.

crossingLets say I help an old lady cross a busy street. There are several possible intents that I could have while I was acting out the seemingly good deed. From a higher point of view, whether or not it was actually a good deed has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I helped anybody cross any street. It has to do with my “intent” and what I was thinking to myself at the time of the occurrence.

If I walked up and thought to myself “How stupid of her to be out here alone and vulnerable, now I of all people get stuck helping her.” Maybe I could have been thinking, “Hey, there goes an old lady who needs to cross the street… and there are a few other people around… and if they see me help this old lady they’ll really think I’m a swell guy.”  I could even be thinking, “There goes an old lady who needs help, and I know that Jesus wants me to help people, so I aught to be a good boy and help her otherwise God will be mad.”  All three of those show a low level of personal maturity at the “being” level.

Every human being is an artist. The dream of your life is to make beautiful art.

-Miguel Angel Ruiz

The INTENT of a person who has a certain maturity of the “being” would have to do with a genuine caring and love. It has to do with stepping in whenever help is needed because deep in yourtouching soul you want to make her feel safe and it makes your heart warm to add value to other people’s lives. Not just your friends and family, but everybody you come into contact with is worthy of experiencing the best version of you. Life should be an art form where we leave every person we interact with in a better emotional state than they were in beforehand.

Having positive and constructive interactions with other people literally super charges our attitude and raises our vibrational/emotional state to a place where we find more and more opportunities for personal advancement. This coupled with a childlike open minded curiosity to keep learning new things is all the fuel you need to keep growing at the being level. This is the true meaning of spiritual growth. When spiritual growth is the only thing we get to take with us from this Earthly realm, the ability to learn and unlearn becomes a crucial skill. The speed and quality of our growth depends on how much we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and put real, honest effort into rooting out our fears, getting rid of bad habits, and shedding light on false beliefs and assumptions.

caterpillarThink about it, who are you anyways? Who are you really? You have a body, and a brain, and a mind, and your thoughts… but YOU are not any of those things.  You are not your body any more than you are your Toyota. You are the consciousness that possesses and observes all of these things. We and our children accumulate these experiences through lifetimes here and there and everywhere gleaning the meaning and lessons taken to heart from each of these experiences over eons. Lets face it, wise men and women have been trying to WAKE US UP on this planet alone for thousands of years. Now it’s our responsibility to encourage each other to keep growing up with a genuine compassion, because we are all powerful beings waiting to be activated.

Know ye not that ye are gods?

Remember the plan.  Evolving a little bit every day, in every possible way.

TJ

What Should Be The Role Of A Good Parent In Today’s World?

sadhmountainI love listening to different perspectives on topics that pertain to struggles I am having in my own life. I recently listened to a recording of an Indian yogi and mystic by the name of Sadhguru, founder of the Isha Foundation, taking questions after a lecture he had given.  One question really struck a chord with me.

So… what should be the role of a good parent in today’s world?

His response was one of the most insightful pieces of oratory that I had ever heard on the topic of parenting.  Having two young children of my own, I’m always questioning whether the way I go about the monumental responsibility at hand.

A parent is a very funny thing.  Parents are trying to do something, that nobody has ever really known how to do very well.  Nobody in history has ever definitively handholdknown what the best way to parent their children was.  Even if you have 12 children you are still learning.  You may raise your first 11 properly and the 12th one can really put you through the ringer.

So if you are trying to give it your best shot, what is the best thing you can do? Sadhguru went on to say…

Spend sufficient time with yourself.  Look at yourself carefully.

How you are.  How you sit, how you stand, how you speak, what you do, what you don’t do…

I think you must look at yourself very carefully because the children are picking up everything. RAPIDLY… and they’ll exaggerate EVERYTHING that you’re doing.

This really hit home because I see every parentshadowslittle habit that my girls pick up coming from my lovely wife… and she sure as hell picks up every little annoying habit that I contribute to the pot.  It’s quite funny how it’s so much harder to see one of your own habits manifest in your child’s mannerisms than it is to spot those from others.

That being said, one foremost thing we have to work on is to at least make ourselves in such a way that we actually LIKE who we are and behave. Somebody else may not approve, but it doesn’t matter.  At least you have made yourself in such a way that you have a degree of self confidence. Maybe you can not raise your children to somebody else’s standards, and who even knows the kinds of standards that are set for you.  But at least you must become the way that you like the way you are.

securityhandsThat is a must, but that will only create the necessary ambiance.  It still doesn’t make you necessarily a good parent, but it creates the necessary ambiance. Creating the necessary ambiance is absolutely a large part of parenting.  A large part.  If you create the right kind of atmosphere of a certain sense of joy and love and care and discipline for yourself AND your home atmosphere, generally they grow up peacefully.

Of course you want to provide opportunities for them.  Unfortunately each of us can only provide an opportunity to the extent that we ourselves have access. You’ll always do your best according to your limitations, but the important thing is what kind of humanoutlate beings or brats you raise.  For that, what kind of being YOU are is an extremely important part of raising children.  So if your wife became pregnant, it’s time for YOU to start your transformation. Now because another life is coming in and YOU YOURSELF might not conducting yourself in such a way that is suitable to be emulated. Becoming conscious of what we are doing and what is rubbing off on even our babies is extremely important.

What should we be teaching and what we should do?

Sadhguru had the following piece to say that I really liked…

I think one important thing you should teach your children is to always question everything but not with suspicion…  With a genuine wanting to know.

If we could just bring the concept into our children’s minds, that they can freely question anything INCLUDING US and the way you are; in a healthy way (not in a sick way questioning things because you think there is something wrong with everybody) the children will be constantly exorcising SadhTalktheir intelligence.  That will not insure whether he or she is gong to become, a doctor, an engineer, so on and so forth, but one thing is clear. The curious higher intelligence is active when you do not stifle the innate curiosity. Of course you want to put him or her through the necessary physical activity to give a healthy body, but it is just as important to foster an active intelligence.

This next quote caught me off guard at first, but then made complete sense after I thought about it…

Try bringing him up without any sense of identity.

If you do not entangle his intelligence by being identified to this or that, then he is willing and open to everything.

If you bring him up this way, the best possible that he can make out of this life, he will do.  He may not become like somebody else, but he will grow to his maximum potential.

Of course along the way it depends on who he meets, what happens, what situations he gets into, whether he comes into a spiritual space, or he goes into a war zone…  Those things we can not identitycontrol. Right? However we do have control over some circumstances.  You CAN create an atmosphere of love, thoughtfulness, and openness. When you do not (knowingly or unwittingly) train your child to be exclusively identified with any particular social institution, naturally there is no sense of prejudice and no grounds for being offended. When you bring up a child free of prejudice, in a loving very open atmosphere, GENERALLY they do well. Buuuuuuuut, there is no guarantee because there are other influences in the society. There is no insurance or guarantee. That is a risk that you are taking. Always.

The only thing that matters is if you do your best or not, that is all there is to life.

Thanks for taking the time to read through my latest pondering.  I am happy to pass along insights that I come across in my daily journey. Special thanks to you all that have the patience to read all the way through an article that isn’t just designed to grab your eye and sell you something. You readers really don’t get enough pats on the back! Until next time my friends…

Evolving a little every day, in any possible way.

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