Raj Daniels

What works for me?

Ask yourself this question.

Then apply this to every area of your life.

There is a catch.

How do you know what will work for you?

Well, you’ll have to experiment?

You’ll find that what works for you will usually be a combination of what has worked for you in your past and what works for other people sprinkled in with nuances that make it work for you. This blend will essentially provide you with customized solutions to fit your needs.

If all you do is attempt to exactly replicate other people’s methods, rarely will you get the results you’re looking for. Because and obviously, you’re not them. Although, you might share certain similarities, there are still minute differences that will give you wildly varying results.

Ultimately, and the sooner the better, you will have to come to terms with the fact that you are unique, just like everyone else. This insight will be liberating and you can begin to push towards activities, actions and techniques that have the potential to move you towards your personal aspirations.

By the way, people will always try to convince you that you that their way is the right way, and it is for them. Don’t begrudge them. Listen, and if you like what they have to say, then try their ideas. But always come back to the question. What works for me?

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Day in.

Day out.

The same.

Week in.

Week out.

The same.

Year in.

Year out.

The same.

Life all clumped together, nothing different.

How does that sound?

Nicholas M Butler, Nobel Peace prize winner said “Many peoples’ tombstones should read, ‘Died at 30, buried at 65.’” If that doesn’t sound appealing to you, then you’re going to have to do something different to ensure it doesn’t happen to you.

You have to claim responsibility for your time and decide on a continuous basis just how much life you’re going to put in to your life.

You’re going to have to pay attention to your days, weeks and years.

No one else will do this for you, nor should they.

If you want anything extraordinary out of life then you’re going to have to put in the work to do so. You’ll have to take chances, some perhaps riskier than others, but they’ll be required in order to escape the gravity of an everyday existence.

So you have daily choice to make.

The same or something different?

The bad news and the good news is, it’s always up to you.

Choose wisely.

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What does a successful day look like for you?

Is it?

A day where you’re able to complete your to do list?

A day when you helped someone?

A day that leaves you feeling fulfilled?

Or a day that is a combination of action, effort and results?

Your successful day can be as simple or as complicated as you’d like it to be, but only after you define what it should look like will you be able to accomplish it.

A great way to ensure you have a successful day is to begin with being intentional about your day. How you define a successful day is entirely up to you and should be based on what you want to accomplish and how you want your life to look. It should not be based on the comparisons to another person’s day or results.

A successful daily routine will give you a sense of personal fulfilment. It will help in freeing you from the feeling of a mundane or monotonous life because you’ll experience the feeling every day of moving towards a life you want to live.

So develop the habit of setting daily intentionality for yourself, take ownership and drive towards your definition of a successful life by first designing your successful day.

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The patient has six month to live – the patient lives for twenty years.

The company is doomed to fail – the company goes on to become one of the biggest companies in history.

The candidate has no chance of winning – the candidate goes on to win the race.

The team is an underdog and doesn’t have the experience to win – the team wins.

I could go on with many more examples, but I’m sure you get the point.

Experts can be wrong.

But why are experts so often wrong?

It’s because they’re over confident in their understanding of a subject. The thing they most often fail to see is that their predictions are always based on historical events. And although the future can be similar to the past, it has its nuances that make it different.

This doesn’t mean that experts can’t be right; it’s just that you have to decide how much of your future you want to put in the hands of the experts. If you’re pursuing something you believe in and are told by experts that it can’t be done, you have to make the decision whether to continue or not.

Don’t forget that once upon a time the experts thought the world was flat. Can you imagine what life would look like if they had been believed and the great explorers had never set out to sea?

So as you move forward in your endeavors, be an explorer and keep in mind that no one, not even the experts ever knows for sure what’s really going to happen.

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What are the possibilities?

How many are there?

How will you know?

These are big open ended questions, and rightfully so.

They are questions designed to prompt you to think beyond the scope of what currently is.

Don’t infuse them with probabilities, at least not yet.

When you’re exploring possibilities, learn to leave your mind as open as possible.

There have been numerous times in history when individuals dreamt of things that would eventually become possible. For example, Da Vinci’s drawings of flying machines were way ahead of his time but this didn’t limit him from thinking about what could eventually be possible.

Many times it takes technology and other events to catch up to ideas, but that shouldn’t constrain you from dreaming about what might be possible. When JFK first announced the idea of going to the moon and back the space program didn’t even exist. One could say that such a bold claim was foolish at the time, but in hindsight you can see that only after he announced what could be possible did the resources come together to make it a reality.

I mentioned probability earlier. The challenge with probability is that it only deals with the knowns of today, and there’s nothing wrong with that except that it can limit your thinking. If you start adding probability in to the equation too early then you’ll very quickly give up on your possibility thinking. Yes, having a healthy dose of skepticism can be helpful, but not if it holds back your thinking.

Learn to actively explore possibilities. Wide open ended possibilities. In fact, the more ridiculous the possibilities sound the further you should push them. So learn to keep pulling on the thread of ‘what if’ and ‘what can be,’ and discover as many possibilities as you can.

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Sing along with me.

Sticks and stones will break my bones.

Come on, you know the rest.

But names will…

I can’t hear you.

Never hurt me.

Did you sing it?

Even more important, do you believe it?

Do you believe that names can never hurt you?

You can either consider this to be a childish rhyme to be ignored, or a life mantra.

However, if you decide to ignore it, you do so at your own peril. If you make the choice to let names hurt you, then you’ve drawn a large red emotional bullseye on your back. And unfortunately you will encounter people throughout your life that will use you for target practice because they’ll know they can provoke you by calling you names.

Building a thick skin to protect your emotions against name calling takes time and practice. It’s harder when you’re young because your life is so influenced by those closest to you, so you’re always working to fit in. However, as you get older and aren’t as dependent on others you can begin to train yourself against the name calling and taunts of others.

The sooner you realize that another person’s opinion of you doesn’t define you, the better off you’ll be. So the next time you find yourself in a situation where you’re being a called a name that aggravates you, or raises your defenses, sing sticks and stones quietly in your mind and watch your anger evaporate away.

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How often do you find yourself asking, what’s next?

The minute you finish one task, or in some cases even before you finish the thing you’re working on, are you asking what’s next?

When does what’s next end?

What if instead of asking what’s next, you started asking, what’s now?

The reality is, that now is all there really is.

But if all you ever ask is what’s next, then you’ll never really get the opportunity to enjoy or really experience now.

Asking what’s now is one way to bring your attention back to the present moment. What’s now will allow you to appreciate, concentrate and focus on your task at hand. Even more important than the task your working on is if you’re in the presence of another person. They will feel your ability to present with them in the moment, because they will be at the center of your ‘what’s now.’

When you practice pausing throughout your day and asking yourself ‘what’s now,’ you might be surprised to find that asking the question will seem to make time expand. The reason for this is, when you continuously ask what’s next, you experience a sense of overwhelm, a feeling of too much to do and not enough time.

So now that you’re done reading this, you have a choice right now to ask yourself, what’s next or what’s now.

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“The South Indian Monkey Trap is an age old method for catching troublesome monkeys looking to steal food from local villagers in parts of India. This simple but ingenious trap consists of a coconut that has been carefully hollowed out at one end and chained to a pole in the ground. Some sweet rice is then placed inside the coconut through the hollowed out opening, which is big enough for the monkey to place its hand in and grab a handful of rice, but too small for it to then remove its clinched fist with the sweet rice. Eventually some monkeys would come along, discover the rice, reach inside the coconut, greedily clutch as much of the rice as possible, thus making a fist in the process, and suddenly find themselves trapped.

Oddly enough, as you may have picked up, there is no actual physical barrier preventing a monkey from escaping the trap – they could just let go of the food and they would be free, but they dont.”¹

So now I ask you, what are you holding on to that you can let go of?

What beliefs and values have you held on to that have now become your own trap?

If you have beliefs and values that aren’t serving you, then perhaps it’s time to ask yourself why you’re still holding on to them.

Changing a belief or value will seem difficult at first because they are ingrained deep inside you. However, you do have the ability to do so. You might experience feelings of guilt or even fear just thinking about changing something that’s at the core of who you are. But if you feel that you’re being held back by your beliefs and values, then you owe it to yourself to at least consider changing them.

Look, you don’t have to be like the trapped monkey. Fortunately evolution hast been kind to humans and given us greater thinking ability than the monkey. So if you have beliefs and values that have trapped you then why not use your ability to think and reason and just let go?

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1 Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values,’ Robert M. Pirsig

There are about 76 shades of the color blue.

There are about 75 shades of the color green.

There are about 445 shades of the red, and still rising.

There are also several variant shades of black and any other color you can think of.

So why is this important?

Well, it can give you some insight in to perspective.

There’s a great likelihood that you and I experience a color differently when we see it. So when we describe a color to each other and we don’t agree, it’s not that either one of is wrong, it’s just that we’re experiencing a different reality.

Although on a macro level our brains seem to process reality in a similar manner, on a micro level we are all very different. The macro level allows us to co-exist and agree on certain things, like stopping at red lights for example. But on a micro level we are all experience reality with a just a shade of difference.

Most of the time a slight difference in processing reality is not a problem, except or until there’s a disagreement or an encroachment on strongly held beliefs. Then we just can’t understand why people can’t see things our way.

And that’s why I started out with the facts about the colors.

The next time you’re in a disagreement with someone and you find yourself at a stalemate, or about to accuse them of not being able to understand your position, realize that you might just be right. They might not be able to see your facts because that’s not how they see the world. Their entire perspective is different from yours.

So rather than attempting to badger or sway them to agree with you, understand that their shades of reality are indeed, and perhaps will always be different.

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How much love can you infuse in your daily actions?

Not love in the romantic sense, but love as described by the ancient Greeks as Agape.  Agape is known as the modern concept of altruism, defined as unselfish concern for the welfare of others.

What if you could find or express love in some of your simple, almost overlooked actions throughout your day?

You could express love for an individual as you

Hold the door open for them

Let them cut in front of you in traffic

Send them an email

During a conversation

Or any other way that works for you.

As you emote the feeling of love towards another person, both you and they will begin to feel it. And your goal here is not for any other reason except you appreciate and recognize they are just like you.

The more you practice this kind of love, the more compassionate and empathetic you will become. At first this behavior might seem a little strange, but over time you’ll get to the point where if you don’t express love and respect in your action towards others, then you will feel inauthentic because it will become part of who you are.

Begin to practice your own version of agape today. Whenever the opportunity presents itself, even if it’s the smallest,  and perhaps to you irrelevant, put love in to your actions. I can almost guarantee that the more love you put in actions, the more love you will begin to feel towards you.

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What do you do when you see a sign that says road closed?

Do you pull over; get out of your car and walk away, vowing never to drive again?

What do you do when your flight is delayed?

Do you cancel your trip and head back home?

If these actions sound a little extreme or ridiculous then we’re in agreement that they are. But how often have you witnessed someone, or perhaps even yourself, give up on a dream or goal because of an obstacle or two?

Road closures, flight delays and even traffic congestion don’t appear or concern you until you’re going somewhere. Think about this for a minute. Right now, while you’re reading, there might be a 10 mile traffic jam right around the corner, but it won’t be of any consequence to you unless you have to go somewhere.

Life is very similar in the sense that you’ll experience no delays or obstacles until you decide to pursue something you want accomplish, and then all of a sudden they’ll all appear. And here’s where you’ll be tested. You’ll have to make a decision, sometimes daily or on occasion even minute by minute, just how much you want that thing you desire and whether to continue on or not.

The choice to stop and turn back or to find another way is up to you.  Keep in mind, your choices will begin to define the kind of person you are. You’ll have to decide if you’re the kind of person that views obstacles as dead ends, or just as temporary detours between where you are and where you want to be.

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How many fear based decisions do you make on a daily basis?

Fear of repercussions.

Fear of failure.

Fear of being ridiculed.

Fear of losing.

Fear of not fitting in.

Fear of losing what you have.

Fear of being left out.

Fear of being left behind.

Fear of being chastised or scolded.

Fear of being alone.

Fear of… you can add your own fears here.

How much of your life is guided by fear?

What if you could unshackle yourself from fear?

If not forever, then at least for one day.

Imagine what life would feel like if just for one day you could operate totally free of fear.

This is not an encouragement for you to act with reckless abandonment, putting your or someone else’s life in danger. It’s more a prompt for you behave with certainty and boldness. Its one day of you feeling and saying that ‘today I will base none of my actions on fear.’

Can you do this just for one day?

Or are you fearful just thinking about it?

If a day seems too daunting, then perhaps a morning, or just commit to being fearless for just the next hour.

How much of whom you really are, or want to be has been living behind the veil of fear?

Maybe today is the day you decide to stop being guided by fear, and instead you commit to being brave, bold and true to your real self.

Look, at least give it a shot. If you don’t like it, you can always go back to letting fear guide you tomorrow.

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What emotions, feelings and events are you reinforcing in your life?

What anchors are you putting down to remind of you things that happened?

As a child you don’t have the conscious wherewithal or maturity to decide how you will interpret events, but as an adult you gain the ability to apply a higher degree of judgement and perspective towards events. As an adult you’re able to choose how you see past events.

As an adult it’s up to you.

Are you going to view events in a way that empowers or dis-empowers you?

Are you going to work on reinforcing events that limit who you are, or that free you from your past?

And the events that constrain you don’t have to be from years ago, they could be as recent as last week or even yesterday.

Your behavior and thoughts today, right now, about something that happened even just a few moments ago will reinforce how you feel about it in the future.

The emotions and situations you choose to reinforce are entirely up to you, although at times it might not feel that way. But that feeling in itself is proof, because that’s a feeling you’ve reinforced over time.

How you choose to reflect on the events of your past will with almost undeniable certainty determine how you experience your present and view your future. So get into the habit of asking yourself what you want to reinforce and let your emotions and thoughts work for you, not against you.

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How much information can you get from a sound bite?

Let me rephrase.

How much information do you think you can get from a sound bite?

Sound bites used by broadcast media are designed to lure, tempt, and in many cases make you feel as though you’ve learned something. When the truth is that a sound bite is a thin sliver of information that may or may not be true. Sometimes they can even be rumors on steroids.

The problem with the sound bite is that many people form their opinions about an entire subject just from a sound bite. Or even worse they repeat the sound bite to family and friends while adding their own opinions giving the sound bite additional life, and in some case more credibility.

The sound bite is not only a tool used by media. Many a time individuals will share with you an edited version of an incident or story, that’s usually in their favor, and you will have to make a decision based on limited information whether you choose to believe them or not.

Here’s where things can get a little tricky because a person might not outright lie to you, but they might be attempting to gain your favor, so they ‘conveniently’ leave out important information.

And then they ask you, so what do you think?

And there you are. In your heart and mind you know you don’t have the complete story, but you’re being asked for your opinion based on a semi-factual sound bite.

So, what should you do?

I’m sorry but I don’t know what you should do because it depends on your relationship. What I can suggest is you employ a heavy dose of skepticism. Not outwardly towards the person, but internally. Learn to refrain from jumping to conclusions or heavily weighted opinions. Come to terms with the fact that just like the sound bite, you will rarely know the entire story.

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How do you separate fact from fiction?

Actually, a more important question is, how often do you take the effort and time to separate fact from fiction?

Facts and fiction get muddled together all the time, ultimately giving you a distorted view of reality. This is especially true when fiction is built upon a fact or two that gives it a sense of credibility. The distortion could be a simple as someone telling you that a person behaved a certain way, but because they used the person’s name you conjured up a story about them in your mind, which in turn moves you to believe or not believe the story.

Although daunting, separating fact from fiction is your responsibility. It’s hard, tedious and time consuming, but if you don’t develop a system to do so, then you will begin to believe everything you hear and are told.

Now there’s no easy way or shortcut to separating fact from fiction, but there is one rule of thumb that might be able to guide you. Take everything you hear and see with a grain of salt, essentially go with the premise that what you hear and see is not true unless you yourself can prove it.

This might sound like a very had lined approach to take, but not if you understand the majority of information being conveyed to you is someone else’s fiction.

And it’s not just you; we’re all victims of compounded fiction.

The best part of realizing that almost everything you hear and see is fiction is that you can now begin to make up your own stories. Maybe you’ve been living with stories that haven’t served you, but you believed them because they were told to you by people you loved and trusted, and so you willing adopted the stories as your own. And they didn’t tell them to you out of malice, it’s just that’s all they knew too.

The fact vs fiction ratio leans heavily in the favor of fiction and you can use this to your advantage. Once you’ve identified the few facts that do exist, you can use them as a foundation to build a fictitious world that can now benefit and support you.

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You should be ashamed of yourself.

Well, are you?

What is your flaw or vulnerability that you’re hiding?

If you let it, shame can play a debilitating role in your life.  And the sad thing about shame is that if you suffer from it, there’s a great likelihood that it was placed up on you when you were a child and you’ve carried it ever since.

Shame has been used as a weapon to protect the status quo. Shame is also used to control and manipulate, because the tribe says ‘if you embarrass us then there’s a danger we’ll disown you and then you’ll be alone.’

People will use shame in an attempt to control you because it provides them with safety and security, don’t let them. They will threaten to withhold their emotions if you don’t comply with their shaming, and this will be difficult for you, but try to keep in mind that this says more about them and their insecurities than about you.

Escaping shame is extremely difficult because it takes deep resolve and an exposure to vulnerability. It requires you to believe that it’s okay to have flaws, and that everyone does, some are just better at hiding them than others.

If you find yourself being victimized by shame, commit to fighting against it. Don’t live to be but a shadow of your true self that’s living behind a curtain of shame.

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Can I have a raise?

No!

Will you go out with me?

No!

Can I get a better deal?

No!

Will you buy from me?

No!

Can I try again?

No!

Can I leave early?

No!

No, no, no, no, no, no!

How do you feel when you’re told no?

Do you feel rejected, dejected, perhaps even a little less worthy?

What if you didn’t have to feel this way?

Fearing no is not entirely your fault. According to experts the average toddler hears the word no about 400 times a day. That’s a lot of no’s. Now a few young ones are able to push past or endure the constant barrage of no’s, but for the majority, the no becomes the invisible electric fence often used on animals. They develop an internal Pavlovian response, they just stop asking.

What if you could convince yourself when you hear the word no, it’s actually an opportunity?

Well you can, but first you have to remove your ‘self’ from the situation. What I mean by your ‘self’ is essentially your ego. When you hear no, it’s not always about you. Most rejections aren’t about you in the way you think they are. They’re just a story you tell yourself, and you can choose to stop repeating it. You can choose to stop listening.

You can choose to view a no as an opportunity or a permanent setback. You can choose to have resolve and use the no as motivation, or decide that it’s not worth pushing forward. Many times the difference between those who get what they want and those that don’t, is that former have come to an understanding that no’s are just obstacles they will have to overcome in order achieve their goals.

How you see a no is entirely up to you, but just keep in mind that when you hear a no, you haven’t really lost anything and there are always other opportunities out there just waiting to say yes.

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Are you familiar with the Goldilocks Zone?

If you are then good for you because you know your astronomy, if not then don’t worry, here’s a brief definition. “The Goldilocks Zone refers to the habitable zone around a star where the temperature is just right – not too hot and not too cold – for liquid water to exist on a planet.”

According to scientists, as long as we’re living on earth, we are living in the Goldilocks Zone. Imagine for a moment just how much perfection had to occur in the galaxy for the earth to be a habitable planet. I mean first of all you have this solid orb just suspended in essentially nothing and now it has life on it. It really had to be ‘just right.’

Right now you might be asking, so what?

Well, I’m glad you did.

If we played out the number of ‘just right’ occurrences that had to happen for you to be reading this right now, I’d venture to guess it would have to be in billions. That’s right, billions of almost perfect events for you to exist in this very moment. Now if that doesn’t sound miraculous then I’m not sure what does.

I know it might not always seem as though you’re not just right, or things aren’t just right, but that’s because your mind has the incredible power telling stories and of living in the past and future. But if you could just pause that thought process for a moment, you’ll realize that right now is just right. And you’re just right, living the in Goldilocks Zone.

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What active steps do you take to prevent your mind from being bogged down in the daily monotony of routines?

What do you do to free your mind?

Continuously feeding your mind information doesn’t provide it an opportunity to digest and really think about all that it’s consuming.

Stepping away from daily life activities for just a few minutes a day can provide your mind a brief burst of fresh air that it can use to reset and refresh itself. One of the best ways to free your mind is to build some slack in to your schedule. Actively scheduling slack or downtime in to your schedule doesn’t mean you have to step away for hours or days, a few planned minutes a day can do wonders for your creativity and enthusiasm.

Meditation is a great tool for relaxing and freeing your mind, but if it’s not for you then you can do a simple short breathing exercise, doodle, take a short nap, or even just look out of a window for a few minutes. You can choose to do whatever technique suits you best to give your mind just a little relaxation.

If you’re familiar with history then you’ve probably heard that many of the greatest eureka moments didn’t occur while engaged and engrossed in consuming information, they occurred when the individual stepped away and freed their mind. So schedule some time to free your mind, who knows, you might have your own eureka moment too.

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What was the last fun project you worked on?

If you’re like most people then you probably only work on projects that are necessary and not just for fun.

But who has time for fun projects?

Well, I’d venture to guess that you do, but your time is probably spent elsewhere.

Now, I’m not suggesting you build a life size model dinosaur, unless of course you want to. No, what I’m suggesting is that you make or build something small. Something you can put your name to and say, I built that. Not for a sense of pride, although nothing wrong with having pride in your work, more for a sense of accomplishment.

In today’s world of knowledge work, rarely do you experience the satisfaction of making something tangible; expect of course if it’s your job to do so.

Humans were designed to be builders and makers, but because you can now purchase anything you want to, there is very little reason to make or build anything of your own.

As I said earlier, you don’t have to start with something big and complicated; it can be as simple as a small paper origami project, just something to get your dormant natural builder synapses firing again. So, carve out an hour or two for yourself this week, fire up your creativity and use your hands to build something. Who knows, you might just end up building that giant dinosaur after all.

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