Survival

"In the end the survival rate for everyone drops to zero." - Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

For Americans old enough to remember, 09/11 brings resounding anguish. The United States was under siege from an unknown force, and it seemed as though there was nothing we could do about it. 

Nearly 3,000 lives were lost that day, many heroes were made, and the world has looked different ever since. 

Life can change in an instant. 

Life is fragile and delicate. And time is fleeting. 

While 09/11 has the effect of making people angry or sad, I advise taking advantage of the opportunity to recognize how lucky we all are to just be alive.

It's already beyond a miracle that one of a billion from your father became one with a single egg from your mother... but to think what you've survived since then. 

And, now you're no longer a Spring chicken, but a worn and wise ol' bird. 

You could die in this next instant, but thank goodness, you were able to finish this blog post first... because you are loved and have been so lucky. 

Incremental Improvements

In the pursuit of success and mastery, improvements often continue incrementally. 

Daily disciplines repeated continuously are what warrant the rewards we seek. 

To test and learn from one's own actions to gain a slight edge in strategy or execution pays the dividends in the long run. 

Yes, not everyday is a success. 

Yes, not every discipline yields a reward. 

Yes, not every test provides a breakthrough. 

But life isn't a finite game, either. Nor is business. 

We get the opportunity every morning to wake up with a great attitude, bring our whole selves to the marketplace, and practice our discipline in the world's arena. 

Win or lose today, when we seek incremental improvements everyday, we are unstoppable. 

Deep Breathes

As a long distance runner in high school, focusing on breathing brought me to finish strong, whether my body liked it or not. I believed that if my mind focused on breathing, my body could focus on pushing through its limits. 

That's what I loved about running. Pushing myself further than I thought I could go. And, breathing. 

By my late 20s I'd become a workaholic. The stress of overworking, pushing myself further than I thought I could go hurt my body. 

My adrenals suffered, my teeth grinded, my body tried to let me know. 

And, how did I recover? Deep breathes. 

I'd learned in a book over a decade back that Navy Seals did something called square breathing - breathe in for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, breathe out for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, repeat. 

It calmed my nerves. By focusing my mind on breathing, my body could focus on calming itself down. 

Deep breathes bring oxygen throughout the body, accelerates blood flow, reduces stress, decreases pain, increases attention, and improves sleep. 

Now, in my fourth decade of life, running isn't a pastime of mine, I'm not a workaholic, but deep breathing remains. 

In some ways I wished I started doing it from a younger age. 

Feeling angry? Deep breathes. 

Feeling anxious? Deep breathes. 

Feeling excited? Deep breathes. 

Feeling ready? Deep breathes. 

Preparing the mind? Deep breathes. 

Preparing the body? Deep breathes. 

Preparing the spirit? Deep breathes. 

In some ways, I think I started doing it at exactly the right time. 

Positive Thinking

Many folks consider positive thinking as detached from reality. 

"I'm a realist," they say. "I call 'em like I see 'em." 

"Don't look at the world through rose colored glasses." 

They're not wrong. They realistically see the world as a limited place. They call out others to feel better about themselves. They search out the negativity to prove their worldview. 

That's because, what one focuses on, expands. 

Winston Churchill said, "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." 

Our world is in a perpetual cycle of life and death, the circle of existence. 

Every day the sun rises and every night, the sun sets. We can count on it. 

We can also count on each new day bringing new opportunities and challenges. 

We can count on the fact that if we work towards a goal every day, that we're likely to get closer to it. 

We can count on our bodies returning to the Earth in some moment past the present. 

But, this moment, right now, is a gift. This moment we can turn it all around. We can change direction. We can start a new path. We can continue on a path we believe in. We can express love and gratitude. We can be so immensely grateful for the people that have touched our lives. 

In this moment, we can take a deep breathe and smile from ear to ear thinking of the immense blessings this world has given us.

Albert Einstein said, "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."

Let’s choose to change how we see things right now.

Let’s embrace each moment in front of us. 

Let’s commit to positive thinking. 

Zig Ziglar preached, "Positive thinking won't allow you to do anything, but it will allow you to do everything better than negative thinking will."  

Great Crises

The great crises of our time are the great crises of all times. 

It's in our literature. It's in our dreams. It's in our lives. 

Man vs Man, Man vs Nature, and Man vs Self. 

While these all remain complex and interconnected, the solution to all remains the same. 

It's "with" rather than "versus." 

Man with Man, Man with Nature, and Man with Self.

When our adversaries become friendships, when we gain harmony with nature, and when we find peace within ourselves, conflict is resolved. 

This is why we treat everyone we meet well. This is why we treat ourselves with respect. This is why we are in awe of nature. 

Together, we can create peace and unity... in our homes, it our communities, in our nation, in our world. 

Skin Thickness

Blue Whales have thick skin, often several inches or more thick, in fact. Their skin is so thick that most marine predators don't even consider attacking a grown whale, which is also the largest known animal to have ever graced this Earth. 

On the opposite end, I love peaches, with their soft, fuzzy skin that sometimes you can peel off just by pushing your thumb against the side. You can cut into it with a butter knife, and it was uniquely designed by nature over hundreds of millennia to bear delicious, fruit sought by the tiniest of creatures to the largest land animals. 

And each has a purpose. But we can likely agree, durability matters. A peach grows and dies in a season, while a blue whale gets close to becoming a centurion, like the most blessed amongst humans. 

To survive until ingestion, one needn't have thick skin - thinner skin is your ideal. If your rotting softens the ground for a seed of you to take root, then rot you must. If getting eaten gets you closer to reproduction, go do it for in this case life is death. 

For others, though, life is more. The blue whales traverse all oceans of the world, save the Artic Sea. At 300,000 pounds and pushing 25 meters long, they majestically swim the Earth with orcas and humans as their only natural predators. 

And, while humans managed to wipe out 99% of the population in a few decades about a hundred years ago as whaling exploded and then conservation efforts first began, Blue Whales have been on Earth for over 4.5 million years. 

Thick skin helped Blue Whales survive from a moment in time when hominids were a diverse species of fur covered mammals, 2 million years before humans could create fire, until today. 

Thick skin has done quite well for them. Methinks it may do well for others, as well. 

Freedom of Choicelessness

As a parent, restricting choices for children is not too difficult of a task, "Would you rather have corn, carrots or broccoli?" But for ourselves, in the age of global access, our choices truly are endless tunnels only restricted by our imagination. 

I'm lucky that we practice "low-gluten" in my household, because a few weeks back we had guests that wanted a specific bread, and it had been SO long since I'd been in a supermarket bread section that I was completely overwhelmed. Aisle upon aisle upon aisle of bread. Finally, after walking around multiple times, I spotted the brand they wanted, with 9 different options available. Then I did what I knew was right - I called my wife and she solved my problem. 

What a responsibility! 

Barry Swartz has defined this well in his thesis on The Paradox of Choice - the reality that having too many options increases the difficulty of choosing AND the satisfaction of our choices. 

So how do we decide what to do? How to proceed in a world with endless options and opportunities? Personal Values & Long-Term Goals. 

If you continually revisit who you are and what you want, and are on the road of continual improvement and achievement (even if it's just a baby step of progress), then what's important becomes more transparent. 

And, prioritizing the important is what a life well lived is all about. 

So, choose your priorities to gain freedom of choicelessness. 

Abundance

The world is abundant with endless opportunity. 

A flower blossoms. A caterpillar transforms into a butterfly. To indulge in the pleasure of a sunrise or sunset. To sulk in the abundance of nature that provides for us all. 

To breathe in deeply. And, then, to breathe out. 

It's sometimes easy to forget that we're still in the garden of eden. Our ancestors survived thousands of millenia for us to be in abundance now. Our birthright is to have gratitude towards all that this wonderful world has offered, is offering, and will offer. 

When we set our goals and intentions consciously, discipline our actions towards them, and march to the beat of our own sacred drummer, the world responds. When we plan for abundance, expect abundance, and put forth efforts to attain abundance, we rarely find ourselves in scarcity. 

Scarcity. That dirty word that infects the minds of all of us from time to time. That fear of loss at the pit of your stomach. The fear of doing the wrong thing. The worry and pain of analysis paralysis. Impostor syndrome sneaking in to poison internal dialogue. 

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that..."

Indeed, I say, "Scarcity cannot drive out scarcity. Only abundance can do that..."

Feel the abundance shining on every morsel of your being. Feel the opportunity knocking at your door. Walk into the abundant future that surrounds you. 

Continue into your eternal becoming... one breathe at a time. 

Show Up

Woody Allen said, "80% of success is showing up." In my youth, I would have disagreed. While I was always a good student, perfect attendance was never quite an academic goal of mine. 

My philosophy of get it done, get it done right, get it done on time, and get it done quickly works most of the time. 

What always works is showing up for the discussions. Showing up for difficult conversations. Showing up for easy conversations. Showing up to show support. Just showing up. 

And, I've found that after many years of business toil, that showing up every single day makes a HUGE difference. Being relied upon to show up makes a huge difference. Being trusted to be consistent makes a huge difference. Showing up matters.

The next door neighbor of neglect is absence. And, while absence makes the heart grow fonder, they say... that's only for those who've already shown up.

For those that will be persistently, consistently, irresponsibly, and frequently absent, well, they may as well go somewhere else and start, again, somewhere where they can show up.

“Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” - Unknown

Everyday when we open our eyes, our lives are filled with endless choices. Do we rely on our lizard brain to tell us our processes, to walk us through the minutia, to execute the mundane? Do we utilize our higher thinking to perform meaningful tasks, to build the future we aim to see, and to bring ourselves into the ever-constant now? Likely, we do both. And, equally as likely, the more we focus on the latter, the more we make of ourselves and our lives.

No matter if you’re 4, 40 (***cough cough***) or 104, everyday we receive choices of what we make of our day and what we make of our lives. So, when our brain is flooded to review how we’ve allocated our time and resources, upon our final breathe, our final heartbeat, our true last hoorah, will we feel like we’ve made enough choices that we look back on a life well lived?

When discussing influence, experts often speak of two main drivers - hope for gain or fear of loss - and the real experts combine the two. “Once you sleep with this pillow you’ll never worry about sleeping poorly, again!” “This magic pill will ease your pain, and make you feel better than you’ve ever felt.” But in our daily lives, once our basic needs are fulfilled, we must drive our own persuasion, and become our own fortune tellers.

So, how do we determine our future? By identifying what we’d like the future to hold, what we’d like to gain, what we’d be fearful of losing if we didn’t gain this future, facing ourselves towards our imagined inevitable, developing the habits and nature to accomplish, then waking up everyday realizing that, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life,” and taking action on it.