Close
Enter your
text here
Thoughts After Two Months of Daily Blogging 150 150 admin

Thoughts After Two Months of Daily Blogging

So I’ve made it two months of blogging every day.  Check out the archives to see them all.  Here are observations so far.

  • It’s crazy to me that there’s still always something to write about – and I’ve written very little on current events.  I’m learning to trust whatever this is that’s giving me more and more ideas on what to write about.
  • It feels like I’m engaged with work – Finally! I like doing it.  It’s fun to me.  It’s a challenge to overcome my own blocks – and I love the challenge.  Contrast this with years of lots of boring, repetitive, non-stimulating easy work I did that left me deflated and disengaged from the thought of doing more of it.  Boring, easy work has a cost.
  • Listening to music helps with the flow of writing, but it does depend on the type of music.  I like music from John Mayer, Michael Jackson, Brian McKnight, Drake, Mac Ayers…something mellow but upbeat.  Matter of fact, this writing is under the influence right now.  I’ve been drinking too much John Mayer music.
  • I feel like I can progress because I’m getting thoughts I’m having up and out of my head. I can invite new thoughts and new actions because I’ve processed things through writing and can avoid circular thinking and circular living.  Shout outs to the people that taught me the importance of getting things “up and out”.
  • I’ve unearthed some big things for me.  One thing that comes to mind is the meaning behind writing so much about social skills.  It means a lot to me because I was told to shut up and be quiet when I was younger – a lot.  No blame, just grew up around pretty much all adults.  I had honestly forgotten about it all until all this writing.
  • There’s a higher sense of responsibility here to keep going.  To keep it fresh and fun.  To get it in front of other eyes.
  • There’s an edge because I don’t want to miss a day 🙂
  • Having clean space to work adds to the appreciation.
  • I want to do a better job of writing as soon as I get the inspiration to write.  Sometimes I push it off until the end of the day to my own detriment.  This is being written at 8:11PM, so I have lots of time and space left in the day to get everything out I need to get out.
  • So far so good 😉 Only…304 days left.
Keep The Same Energy Online As You Do Offline 150 150 admin

Keep The Same Energy Online As You Do Offline

Are you authentic with your feedback and criticism?  Is authenticity across-the-board something you value? Do you communicate with people online like you do offline?

The internet can be dark…why?  Because communication doesn’t have to be tied in with your identity.  The words you say don’t have to be tied in with your physical body, your government name, etc.  People have “burner” accounts and different fake accounts where they can talk with reckless abandon and suffer no consequences.

Xbox Live comes to mind for me.  I can’t count the amount of times I’ve been called the “n-word” just from speaking on a game like Halo.  When me and friends would play multiplayer games and that happened, we would just laugh at how cowardly it was.  I’d say to myself “would they say this to me in real life?” – Hell nah.

I see meme’s people create from famous people’s pictures…I will laugh, but it also makes me cringe at the person doing it.  Would you use that person’s image and profile if you knew them personally…in real life?  Probably not.

If character qualities such as authenticity and integrity are important, then it’s also important to keep the same energy online as you do offline.

Things I like 150 150 admin

Things I like

In no particular order…just some things I think are cool.  Things that are me.  I’ll keep adding to this list as I find out more.

  • Creative Expression
  • Passive income
  • Football
  • Basketball
  • Piano
  • R&b Music
  • Rap Music
  • Battle Rap
  • Skill Building
  • Apple Products
  • Personal Development
  • books – self help and biographies and how-to / physical books / audio / ebooks
  • online video conferencing (Zoom)
  • blogging
  • writing
  • creating courses
  • technology
  • Apple products
  • traveling
  • workshops
  • free trials
  • singing
  • 12-step programs and sponsors
  • nutrition
  • outsourcing
  • road trips
  • competitive card games (spades / VC / Texas Hold’em Poker)
  • pool (competitive game)
  • swimming
  • innovation
Global is Badass 150 150 admin

Global is Badass

How many people (and how often) do you connect with people outside of your city?  Outside of your state/province?  Outside of your country?  Outside of your continent?

It makes me smile when I hear someone’s accent when they’re speaking english.  It’s just a reminder to me that I have friends and connections all over the world, and that’s fuckin cool to a local Texas guy like me.

It reminds me that I’m not just a Texan, but I’m a human – and humans are all over the world.  Having connections – any connections – from around the world gives me a world pulse.  Especially if I talk with someone residing in another part of the world one-on-one vs. hearing about events on the news or through social media.  It makes me feel more connected to that place.

I will say thank you to the internet for this!  I connect with people outside of Texas, outside of the United States a lot through Zoom or forums or Whatsapp or some online platform.

Today it’s easier than ever to connect with people globally.  Tell someone thank you on social media!  Engage in an online conversation.  Join a Facebook group.  Learn different languages and travel to new countries (I’m talking to myself here too!).

I think the biggest thing you start to see is that…though we’re from different cultures and unique, we are all very much alike.  Also, you open yourself up to very different ways of thinking about the same problems.  You gain access to a wider variety of perspectives.

Connecting globally is officially badass.

Stock and Flow 150 150 admin

Stock and Flow

In the book Happy Money, a part that stood out for me was when he simplified wealth into two simple parts – stock and flow.

Stock is basically your reserves.  Questions like > How much do you have in your bank account?  What is your net worth?  How much money do you have right now?

Flow is basically personal cash flow…which equals total cash inflow – total cash outflow.

This makes it pretty simple to understand, and I see so much information on decreasing the cash outflow, but I see very little on mainstream media about increasing cash inflow.

This doesn’t take into account the stress / negative emotions that the cash

I also see this as a good social analogy.  How many aligned friends do you have now (Stock)?

Is there a good flow of meeting new people (Flow)? And/or Is there a deeper investment in the people you already are friends with?

Level-Up Moments 150 150 admin

Level-Up Moments

Have you had moments where you felt like your life really leveled up?  Are there any patterns you see in these moments?

For every level-up moment I’ve experienced, I can trace it back to something I embraced that was new for me.  Also, through taking in new input, it helped me see old things with a new perspective.

A Few Level Up Moments

For example, a moment when I leveled up socially was during a workshop.  I had been trying to solve this problem of making money in an inspiring, heart-centered way all alone.  This wasn’t working.  Instantly after meeting people who were making a living in a heart-centered way and connecting dots, things started shifting quickly in a positive direction.  I started making passive income every month after my first book was published 3 years ago (right after the workshop) and still continue to make a liiiiiiitle every month now.  This changed how I looked at finances.  I had been serving a company to earn money before…and that means I served one entity.  But with the book I published lots of people benefitted – in a smaller way, but the volume of people I served was waaaay larger and I loved a lot more of the process. From then on I saw how the solution to this problem was more of a social problem than a how-to, step-by-step, information / mental problem.  It made me look at the old way of doing things with a new perspective.

Another level up moment is when I joined a 12-step program, and left a lot of my life up to my sponsor.  It was beautiful.  From the moment I got the sponsor, health wise and weight-wise my life was better.  I ended up losing 110 lbs from that moment.  Again…the answer for me was social.  They told me exactly what to eat and when and how to satisfy my hunger to be able to sustain it to lose weight and have a normal-sized body.

I had to embrace spending $500 on a workshop and traveling to Las Vegas. I had never spent that much money on a workshop and never traveled to Las Vegas.  That was new for me.  I had to embrace joining a 12-step program (I actually didn’t know it was a 12-step program before joining) and having a sponsor who told me what to do.  That was new as hell!

Now I’ve seem to come to a place where I’m being called to embrace more input.  Even with this blog…it’s not receiving much traffic now, but i know the steps to get it off the ground because I’ve repeatedly gotten things off the ground before.  It feels like I’m being called to get more of my work/art/ideas etc into more people’s hands, to put it out there in a much bigger way, and invite more feedback and be able to handle and process it consistently.  That will be new for me in so many areas.  It requires me to face many fears, but it seems unavoidable if I want to take my life in a direction where I want to make my living through creative expression.  It is feeling like one of those level up moments.

Back to You

What is calling you?  Is there something in your life that you want to level up?  Embrace the new as much as possible to spark a level-up moment!  New experiences or new travel destinations or new vacations or new workshops or restaurants or new habits or new trials or new input or new physical exercise or new groups to join or create.

You might find old, mental conditioning rising up in your mind to enhance your doubts and fears, but suspend the disbelief for a while.  Don’t block the energy that is leading you to new.  Follow the breadcrumbs, stay curious and follow the energy where it wants to flow on step at a time.  Keep consulting with the present moment and allow the next right action step to come through.

Spending 3 Months A Year With People You Don’t Like 150 150 admin

Spending 3 Months A Year With People You Don’t Like

Working days are the days in the year that aren’t holidays or weekends.  In the United States there are 252 working days out of 366 this year (because it’s a leap year).    If you multiply 252 X 8 hour workday you get 2016 hours.  How many days is 2016 hours you ask?  It’s 84 days. What does this mean?

If you don’t like your coworkers, get ready to spend 84 days out of these 366 days of the year around them.  That’s a lot of time right?  Imagine if you could take those 84 days and spend them around people you do like!  Over the course of 5 years you’ll add an extra year+ around people you like.

OR

What if you go to a job where no one wants to be there…where you are all in agreement the job sucks, but people are just doing it for the money.  Imagine the energy of that space and the feelings you’re around.  Then multiply that feeling by 84 days!  Imagine how much time 84 days is in terms of memories, emotions, etc.  It’s going to be somewhere around that year after year if you stay in the United States.

Make a decision to seek out a way to make income that aligns with people who inspire you.  People you respect.  People you are proud of.  People you generally like.  It’s your ability to respond…or your responsibility to create this.

Going With The Flow vs Creating The Flow 150 150 admin

Going With The Flow vs Creating The Flow

In social situations, you’ll be presented with the opportunity to direct things sometimes and the opportunity to go along with the current.  I think there is skill to this, and as with anything the more you practice, the better.  The more you practice being in conversations with different groups of people, the better feel you’ll have for this.

If you were to look at my life, I probably have much more experience on the “going with the flow” side.  There can be problems if you only know this side though.  If you go with others flows that you know aren’t going to lead you where you want to go, then you end up having a pattern of being unhappy and complaining.

Too much going with the flow and you’ll feel like there’s not enough “you” in what you do.  You’ll go with other’s flow but not your own, and you are unique.  There are aspects about you that are unique and that call for you to do more creating flow.

When I say flow, I mean anything that flows.  For example…are your finances flowing the way you’d like?  What flow are you going with there?  Did someone else create that flow for you? (for example a job)?  Do you like where that direction is going? If not, you have the ability to change the flow and to learn to create your own flow.

Are you finding your conversations aren’t flowing in directions you’d like?  Who’s creating those conversations?  Are you just going along with dull conversations that offer no value?  Possibly gossip or complaining or blaming?  Who’s responsibility is it to create a different flow in your conversations?

Swing the pendulum towards creating more flow.  I think you’ll be surprised at what happens!