How does it feel to be out of your mind?

You know, that moment when you have an idea or thought that doesn’t fit within someone else’s thinking, and they say, ‘you’re out of your mind.’

Does it catch you off guard?

Do you question your sanity?

Or do you give your idea the oxygen it needs and protect it from being smothered by the doubt of others?

If you’re a dreamer, idea generator, and experimenter, you will often hear some form of you’re out of your mind. And the truth is that, at times, you might be.

However, the secret is that you need to be out of your mind to see and create the new.

You can choose to always stay within the safe boundaries of your mind and have a perfectly wonderful life.

But you can also choose to occasionally stray beyond the confines of your mind just to see what you’re capable of thinking of. And you’ll know when you’re there because someone will be sure to tell you that you’re out of your mind.

P.S. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please share it with one person you love.

Have you heard of Mickey Mouse?

Chances are that if you’ve lived almost anywhere in the world during the past 50 years familiar with Mickey or have at least heard about Disney.

I’m a big fan of Disney, to the point that I even wear a Mickey Mouse watch.

I wear it because it’s a constant reminder of what one man created with just paper and a pencil, the simplest of tools.

In today’s time of endless productivity tools and technology, people often get caught up in either what tool to use or what they need in order to pursue their dreams.

I implore you not to get caught in this trap.

In fact,  I challenge you to start wherever you are.

If you’re reading this on your phone, use the Notes app. If you’re at a desk, then grab the first writing instrument and any, I repeat, any piece of paper you can write on and start dreaming.

Just let your mind and hand work together without applying judgment or any thinking that will slow them down.

Almost everything you see around you that is not created by nature probably came to life when the idea was first expressed on paper.

This exercise is not for you to create the next Disney. Instead, it’s designed to allow you to imagine and then write out what it would look like to create your own wonderland.

P.S. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please share it with one person you love.

What are you taking for granted in your day today?

Some of the simplest creature comforts in your everyday life didn’t exist a hundred years ago, even for the wealthiest people.

Central air and heat

Computers and the Internet

Indoor plumbing

Modern mattresses

Refrigeration

Running water

Stoves that work with a press of a button

Unlimited electricity

Individuals spent countless hours building and developing these things, and now you can experience all of these modern-day miracles before you even leave your home.

You also have

Community

Family and friends

Health

And then you have life itself.

Your ability to take long deep breaths of abundant clean air that your body processes without ever having to think about it.

Even if you only think about all the beauty and miracles you experience within the first hour of your day, you might be surprised at how much you’ve been taking for granted.

Stop for a moment today, and think about all you take for granted. It might just remind you how fortunate you really are.

P.S. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please share it with one person you love.

What is on your to-do list today?

Is it full of essential tasks that will move you toward your goals?

Great!

However, I’d like to be so bold as to add a few small tasks to your list.

Smile.

Stretch for one minute.

Drink water.

Tell someone you love and appreciate them.

Say hi to a stranger.

Let someone else go first.

Stand outdoors for one minute.

Sit still for one minute.

Take six deep breaths.

Be grateful for all that you have.

As you work through your day focusing on your big tasks, think of these small activities as the mortar used to fill the gaps between bricks.

Indeed, the items that I’ve added to your list might not improve your health, get you a promotion, or even lead you to financial prosperity. But they will enhance your journey as you continue toward your goals.

P.S. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please share it with one person you love.

Why do you expect them to understand you?

They don’t see what you see.

They don’t hear what you hear.

They don’t think what you think.

They don’t feel what you feel.

Your experiences are unique to you.

You will never be exactly aligned with anyone you know.

The sooner you realize this, the more unrestricted you will be.

This doesn’t mean your life will be without challenges, but it does mean that you’ll find solutions that’ll be uniquely suited to your personality.

The best thing about living true to yourself is that you will begin to attract people that accept, appreciate, and enjoy who you are.

And again, they might not always understand you, but that’s okay because you probably won’t understand them either.

P.S. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please share it with one person you love.

If you’ve spent time with computers or smartphones, you’ve seen a message that says something similar to ‘New Update Available.’

The manufacturer of the product you’re using is constantly updating the hardware and software of your device to provide you with optimum performance; this is especially true about the Operating System or OS of your device.

The OS is the computer’s version of a foundation. Therefore, if the OS has problems, it doesn’t matter how great the installed software is. It will not perform to the best of its ability.

The same applies to you.

It will not matter how much education you acquire, books you read, or information you gather, if you’re not constantly updating your own OS.

Your health and mind are your OS; if you don’t take the time to work on them, you will be unable to perform to the best of your ability.

Take steps to work on yourself because you will not receive any messages about new updates being available, but you will begin to experience poor performance.

Don’t wait until it’s too late.

Create a minimum care plan for yourself, things that you can do for yourself on a regular basis. Think of the plan as new updates for your own OS.

Unlike your device, your health and mind are the only ones you’ll have, so keep them as healthy, ‘updated,’ as possible.

P.S. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please share it with one person you love.

How do you get out of a rut?

How do you stop doing what you always do?

You start by stopping.

If you’ve ever had the wheels of your car stuck in mud, then you know that the best thing to do is not to keep spinning your wheels. Instead, the best thing to do is stop and assess the situation and perhaps rock the car back and forth or put something under your tires to give you traction.

You can use similar tactics to get unstuck in life.

Rocking a car back and forth requires help from others, and you probably wouldn’t hesitate to ask for help, then why hesitate when it comes to your life?

Reaching out for professional help in any area of your life is not a sign of weakness. On the contrary, it’s a sign of maturity and strength.

There are unlimited resources that can help you free yourself from whatever rut you’re stuck in. So, the sooner you stop spinning your wheels and get help, the sooner you’ll be unstuck and on your way again.

P.S. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please share it with one person you love.

What do you think when you hear that someone has succeeded against all odds?

Who determines the odds?

Oh, right, the statisticians.

And how often are they wrong?

According to statistics, we are all here against significant odds. For example, I recently heard that scientists estimate the probability of your being born at about one in 400 trillion.

Now isn’t that something…400 trillion.

So now that you’ve beat such great odds of being born, what will you do next?

Or are you worried that the odds are against you?

What if you didn’t know about the odds against you?

How often have you heard the words?

She’s the first person to.

He’s the first person to.

We can’t believe they did that.

A new world record.

The previous statements describe people and organizations refusing to back down to the odds against them.

So the next time you want to accomplish something and a kind, caring soul tells you that it’s against all odds, just smile and say, I’m here, aren’t I?

P.S. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please share it with one person you love.

Are you ready for the unpredictable?

Ok, you can unfurrow your brows now.

I realize it’s obvious you can’t be ready for the unpredictable because you don’t know what will happen next.

Or can you?

What if there was a way to always be prepared for the unpredictable?

What if you could find a way to remain steady in the face of unpredictability?

There’s always a gap in time or space between an unpredictable event and your response, and you can learn to manage that space.

The key is to make the moments between the event and your response work to your advantage. And it starts with a decision.

Although, at times, it might not seem as though you don’t have time to decide how you will respond, the reality is that you do. It’s just that, in most cases, you default to how you’ve always responded.

Practice not responding. Literally, when you see or hear something, don’t respond. Or respond in the opposite to how you would typically do so.

A quick caveat, you don’t have to tell anyone you’re doing this. This is just practice for you.

The more you practice, the better you’ll become at handling unpredictable situations because you’ll learn that, almost always, it’s your response to the event rather than the event itself.

Also, keep in mind that you’re already great at handling the unpredictable. It’s just the size of the unpredictable events that throw most people off.

P.S. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please share it with one person you love.

How do you handle the ambiguity of life?

The times when the answers are along the lines of sometimes, this will happen, and at other times something else will occur.

Even the best, highest paid, and brightest amongst us don’t know how things will turn out for sure.

What they can provide is their best-educated guess at the moment. If you listen carefully, you can hear them hedging their sentences with a, sometimes this will happen, and this is what we’re hoping for.

They use the word ‘sometimes’ sparingly, knowing you don’t want to hear them say it because you might lose confidence in them. But in their hearts, they know that little of what they forecast or speculate is guaranteed to occur.

Life is all about ambiguity, and although feeling sure about an outcome feels good, your feeling is only a mirage.

Learn to live and be comfortable with not knowing what will happen next. After all, one aspect of life’s beauty is its ability to surprise you continuously.

P.S. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please share it with one person you love.

Is there a limit to how much food you can consume in a day before you get sick?

How do you know when you’ve overeaten?

For most people, their stomach sends a message to their brain saying there’s no more room in here, I need a break, and then it works on digesting the food.

What about your brain?

When your brain is full, where does it send a message saying it needs a break and time to digest all the information it’s being fed?

Your brain might seem like a vessel with endless capacity, but it also needs time to collect itself and process all the information it’s fed.

Now you might say that your brain will process while you’re sleeping, and that’s true, but why not give it some breaks throughout the day too?

Take breaks for your brain the same way you take breaks between meals.

You don’t have to sit around for hours between activities, but just a few minutes of focused breathing can be an incredible reset for your brain between tasks. 

Your brain breaks can also lead you to have new ideas and perspectives because you’re giving yourself time to digest all the information you’ve consumed.

Practice treating your brain like you treat your stomach and give it the breaks it deserves and needs.

P.S. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please share it with one person you love.

Would you like a magic key to help you achieve your future goals?

Then memorize this question.

In fact, say it out loud.

If I can do this, then what else can I do?

Maybe it’s not quite a magical key, but it will help build your inner confidence, and building your confidence to pursue new goals is half the battle.

The next time you come up against a challenge, or obstacle or have a new goal, think about something you’ve succeeded in doing in the past. And don’t worry about how big or small the goal was because if you begin to diminish the goal, then by default, you will lessen your confidence.

Remember how you approached your previous challenge and focus on how it felt once you had accomplished it.

This exercise of returning to your memory enables you to shine a light on your natural talents and strengths, which you can then re-apply toward your new goals.

Use the key of building on your past wins and learn to leverage them to help you accomplish your future goals.

P.S. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please share it with one person you love.

When is suffering easier?

The idea of suffering being easy is probably not something you’re used to thinking about, but it’s true for so many.

You see, suffering can sometimes be easy because change is hard.

So many suffer in poor health, bad relationships, spiritual emptiness, and other areas of life because it’s easier than doing the work required to create change in their lives.

Suffering is easier for some because there are endless factors, both external and internal, that can be blamed for the suffering. However, if the decision is made to change, then the responsibility shifts from things that can’t be controlled to something that can, and this can be a huge burden.

If there’s something you’re suffering through just because it’s become easier to do so, then perhaps now’s a good time to re-evaluate.

The idea of change might seem daunting at first, but you don’t have to go all in at once. Instead, you can ease into it at your own pace. And if you decide at some point that you don’t like the change, you can always go back to the ease of suffering.

P.S. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please share it with one person you love.

What’s holding you back?

If you can read and understand this blog post.

If you can perform simple arithmetic.

If you can get out of bed.

You’re already halfway there.

There are high school dropouts running billion-dollar companies.

There are illiterate individuals who create amazing works of art.

There are individuals with physical limitations that accomplish amazing feats, such as a blind person climbing Mount Everest.

These people don’t focus on their limitations; they focus on what’s possible.

If I asked you to play the drums, even without any official training, you know what the basic moves are. You’d probably take the drumsticks and start beating the drums, and that’s the first 50% of playing the drums.

If I asked you to start a business, you’ve been in and around enough businesses to know the basic premise. Now you just have to learn the details.

So learn to remove your internal limitations and view yourself in a new light.

Almost anything you want to do, you’re already halfway there and have an understanding of the basic concepts. All you need to do is fine-tune and learn the other half.

P.S. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please share it with one person you love.

What is Systems Engineering?

The official definition is “an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design and manage complex systems over their life cycles.”

Now that’s a fancy definition.

All business organizations, at their core, are the same. They are all in business to make a profit. And they share many similar basic systems and functions but then use systems engineering to customize and optimize to best suit their organization.

People are also the same from a DNA and functional perspective, but there’s customization when they find what works best for the individual.

So how does this apply to you?

Well, you’re a complex system, and you need to learn to manage yourself over your own life cycle.

If you want to accomplish anything, you need a system to do so. Of course, now you can get things done in an ad-hoc, loose format, but even that is a system.

An effective system is one that works for you.

STOP. Read the previous statement again.

Now you can adopt some elements of other people’s systems, but there’s always going to be a degree of customization based on your own individual personality.

As your own system engineer, you need to be able to identify your weaknesses so that you can best accommodate for them and your strengths so that you can leverage them quickly.

So awaken your inner engineer and start engineering systems that you can use to design a life customized just for you.

P.S. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please share it with one person you love.

Shhhhhh.

Can you hear that?

It’s your mind.

What’s it saying?

What is that little voice in your head up to?

Is it on your side or against you?

Is it telling you all the things you can do, or is it saying, ‘you can‘t do that?’

Does it whisper, ‘they’re watching you,’ so you better not mess up, or does it say, ‘they’re always going to watch you, so go ahead and give it your best shot?’

The little chatterbox in your head will never go away. Sometimes it might seem as though it’s gone quiet, but it’s just waiting for the right opportunity to speak up. And you already know when that is, right when you’re about to ‘step out of line.’

So how should you handle the voice in your head?

You should recognize it, appreciate it for its input, and then decide what you want to do.

If what it’s saying moves you towards the kind of person you want to be and the life you want to live, then great, but if not, remind it that you’re in control.

P.S. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please share it with one person you love.

Do you have a role model?

Is there someone that you look up to or try to emulate?

When you’re looking at someone as a role model, you’re more than likely admiring the results they’ve created for themselves.

If you ask people about role models, many will rattle off the names of famous people, yet the majority of the best role models will be everyday people that very few people have heard of.

Having a role model can be wonderful, but it can also be tricky. Once you see someone in a particular light, you tend to focus on their one or two outstanding traits that you admire. However, if they falter in other areas of their life, it can be disheartening for you.

Modeling another person’s behavior is also extremely tricky and almost impossible because their genetic makeup is unique. However, you can find ways to create similar results in your life by watching them and leveraging your unique traits.

Choose your role models carefully, and don’t forget their journeys are always different than yours. And keep in mind that you, too, someday might have the responsibility of being a role model for someone else.

P.S. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please share it with one person you love.

Have you ever seen a tree grow?

You see trees around you, and you know they grow, but you never see them do so.

How much time would you give a tree to grow to its full height and width until all the branches fill out to their full potential?

What about you?

How much time do you need to reach your full potential?

When do you think you stop growing, not physically but mentally?

When do the branches of your mind stop being able to learn or generate new ideas?

Science has proven that, barring any medical condition, you can continue to grow new brain cells even into old age.

Your potential to learn is only limited by you.

Yes, it might take you longer than someone else to learn, but that’s okay. If you’re committed and can reconcile that learning is an individual skill and should not be viewed as a race, then you can learn anything you want to.

Don’t worry about how old you are or who’s ahead of you or behind you. If you want to learn something, then step and go for it. Every time you put your head down to study, the branches in your brain are growing, and just like the tree, you can’t see them doing so.

P.S. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please share it with one person you love.

How did we get here?

No, not just me and you. I mean all of us.

We walked.

That’s right. From the earliest days of evolution through current civilization, we humans got here by walking.

Now I could go into the numerous health benefits of walking, but you’ve probably heard them all before, or if you haven’t, you can research them on your own. What I’m talking about are the emotional and mental benefits.

Many great people have recommended and praised walking as one of their keys to success. It’s been shown to promote creative thinking and provide emotional benefits too.

Many great ideas have been credited to taking a walk. And I’m guessing it’s because taking a walk to think removes you from your current environment, provides your brain with much-needed fresh air, and allows you to change your perspective.

Another tremendous yet obvious fact about walking is that almost anyone can do it. You don’t need special equipment or clothing and can do it anywhere.

So the next time you find yourself stuck on a problem or perhaps in a swirl of emotions that are draining your brain, don’t just sit there and stew in your mind. Instead, get up, get out and take a walk.

P.S. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please share it with one person you love.

Are you an emotional vending machine?

Do people know exactly which one of your buttons to push in order to get you to react?

It doesn’t need to be this way.

In fact,  you can surprise them by changing your emotions in the same way vending machines can be re-stocked with different merchandise.

Your emotional responses are something you’ve adapted over time. At some point in your life, you decided that if A happened, you would respond with B. And maybe this kind of behavior served you well at one point in life because it allowed you to protect yourself or get ahead.

But what if it’s no longer beneficial?

What if your emotional reactions are now eroding your relationships or no longer working in your best interest?

If you’re tired of people pushing your buttons, or if your emotional reactions are no longer serving you well, then it’s time for you to change your emotional inventory.

Try it for a few days and see what happens. Of course, if you don’t like it, you can always re-stock your old emotional responses.

P.S. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please share it with one person you love.