I saw my neighbor helping his pre-school daughter into his car this morning. You didn’t need to be psychic to know this guy was carrying around the weight of the world on his shoulders.

The way his body was positioned and the look on his face were dead giveaways that he was caught up in something inside his head.

What he didn’t realize is what we all forget to remember: There is something ever-present that we have at our disposal that we rarely use – Choice!

The amazing thing to me is how often we defend our unresourceful frames of mind. Some even wear them as a badge of honor. “If you had what’s going on in my life, you’d be this way too.”

Maybe so, but defending that way of reacting negates the one thing that will free you from it – Choice!

My neighbor wasn’t recognizing that he had a choice. He’s not alone; we all have that blind spot.

It’s helpful to remind ourselves, when we recognize that we’re caught up in something, that choice is always available. It’s as omnipresent as oxygen.

Our initial reaction to something is often chosen for us through conditioning. That’s choice silently at work. You don’t have to make those choices; they make you.

Your ever-present choice is this: “Are your choices going to choose you OR are you going to pick them?

Either way, a choice will be made.

Even making no choice at all is a choice. In that case, you are allowing whatever automatic choice that takes place to decide how you’ll react.

My purpose in writing this post today is to remind us all of something we too easily forget – Choice is ever-present.

When you recognize you have a choice, you have released your free will from the prison of conditioning. The only thing left to do after that happens is to choose.

Choose to remember that you have a choice.

All the best,

John

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It occurred to me recently that a large part of getting a meal ready to serve involves back timing.

It never really dawned on me that I was using a skill I honed in the broadcasting industry to cook diner, but such is the case.

You roughly have to know how long things take to cook and start the longest thing first, followed by the second longest thing etc. Everything takes a specific temperature for a certain amount of time to cook properly. Let’s say the baked chicken takes 33 minutes and the string beans almandine take 17 minutes. You preheat the oven to the desired temperature and set the timer at 33 minutes when you put the chicken in. When the timer reaches 17 minutes, you start cooking the string beans on the stove top. Everything is ready at the same time and you just serve.

I’m sure that’s Home Economics 101, but I missed that class.

I also missed the class on back timing for life. Maybe you did too.

There’s enough actuarial data to approximate how long you’ll live. Yes, you could trip over a Dixie Cup lid and shorten your time or be the anomaly and have Willard Scott wish you a “Happy 100^th,” but you have a general idea.

So you take that approximate age and then factor in the age you are now and you have successfully back timed your life.

That’s the easy part. Now the question is: “How do I best spend that time?”

Many people when they come to this realization concoct a “Bucket List” – things I want to do before I die.

I believe that’s quite natural but the focus is somewhat misplaced.

The focus on things takes us away from what we all really want – the ability to feel alive for every one of our remaining moments.

If you have to rely on a thing to make you feel alive, you’ve not only missed the point, you’re missing your life.

If you need something outside of you to feel your aliveness, you have bought into the concept of “It’s out there somewhere.”

Imagine for a moment that a tree, in order to feel its aliveness, has to go to the “Rain Forest Café” every Friday night. His thought process may be, “If I don’t show up there, I’m just dead wood.”

Ain’t nothing wrong with hanging out on Friday night, but if your aliveness depends on it, you’re already dead – dead to the aliveness that permeates every human being.

How do you reincarnate that aliveness and feel it wherever you are? Stop the chase!

The mindset seems to be “If I stop running I will die.” It’s just the opposite; you’ll find your life.

The aliveness of life is there regardless of what your life situation is. You just have to stop all the noise in order for its soft voice to be heard.

Your bucket has a hole in it if you expect to find your life in there.

Take the time to back time your life and find out how really alive you can be, otherwise you can’t see the forest for the trees.

All the best,

John

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I’ve had a new phrase creep into my vocabulary when people ask me how I’m doing.

In the past, I would say something like “swell” or “peachy.” Those words seemed antiquated enough to get peoples’ attention. I’ll admit, those answers aren’t as colorful as the one my friend, Kenny gives who says, “Fair to partly cloudy.”

But one day this answer came out and it seems to cover all the bases. I said, “I’m evolving.”

If nothing else, it will get peoples’ attention.

It’s become more than a pat answer. It is a trigger for a mindset – one that suggests what we all are: A work in progress and moving forward.

It’s a reminder that we never arrive. Arriving and staying in one place is an illusion not supported by reality. The old expression that “change is the only constant” comes to mind.

Like most people I have reverie about the “Good old days.” The operative word in there is “Old.” There is something fun about walking down memory lane but you never want to build a house there. The foundational material is quicksand. You quickly get enveloped by something that won’t allow you to evolve – the past.

Recognizing that your natural drive is to evolve keeps your side trips to the past and your regrets to a minimum. You get more focused on the drive to be alive that’s going on right now.

Life cannot be captured in a jar and preserved. It’s always evolving.

You can never start from where you were. The starting point is always where you are now. It’s the key to evolving.

This is not an argument against tradition and preferences. You may have found a style that works for you and that’s to be celebrated. It’s when you refuse to recognize that your way isn’t the only way is when you put your evolvement on hold.

Please don’t confuse evolvement with the penchant to chase the horizon and find your missing piece out there somewhere. That’s just another drive to arrive. You’ll know you aren’t evolving when you notice that “one step forward and two steps back” is the constant in your life.

Evolvement requires shedding baggage, not acquiring more of it.

In order to grow, you have let go of the past and plastic pursuits.

Evolvement doesn’t have a destination in mind, just the pure drive of being alive. It’s the recognition and appreciation of that aliveness that keeps us progressing.

It’s easy to stagnate, just decide that you’re not enough or attempt to find who you are by pretending everything you need is outside yourself.

Evolvement begins when you discover you are not defined by your possessions or pursuits or by what you have or don’t have.

You also begin to grow when you find out you don’t know all there is to know. It’s this realization that opens you up to progression because you find out there really is lots of room to grow.

It’s the day that you discover that you are enough that you begin to evolve. Everyone is enough; it’s just our conditioning that tells us otherwise.

If you pay careful attention you will see the word “Love” in evolve. Love yourself enough to know you have everything you need to evolve.

If your life has become a revolving door, it may be time to look for an exit point – evolving.

All the best,

John

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I’m happy that you’ve found happiness.

It really doesn’t matter which direction it comes from, happiness is to be celebrated.

If you just won the Super Bowl and I lost, I’m happy for you.

Yes, I may be sad for me, but as I said, “Celebrate happiness.”

When you celebrate happiness, you are celebrating a feeling inside, not a set of events. Every time you spot happiness, it’s the happiness in you that recognized it.

When you celebrate happiness, you cultivate that feeling within you. Happiness belongs to everyone, not just the others you see enjoying it.

If you’re at the airport and you see family members or lovers gleefully greet each other at the baggage claim, take a moment to silently celebrate with them. When you take time to notice, you are calibrating your “Happy Meter.”

The side trail you want to avoid is the internal conversation about happiness. “Look at those people; they are so happy. If only I could be like them, but that will never happen for me.” That’s envy and dejection, neither of which leads to happiness.

Get in the habit of noticing happiness.

Another pitfall to happiness is dictating the direction from which it’s to come. (A formal sentence not ending in a preposition).

“I can only be happy if such and such happens.” That’s a life sentence of waiting which postpones happiness indefinitely.

Everyone’s happiness belongs to you if you notice it and celebrate it.

There is not a lack of happiness; we’ve just convinced ourselves that it can only happen if a certain set of circumstances are in place.

You may be unhappy about something and it’s useful to notice that as well. Many never feel their unhappy feelings fully, so they can never metabolize them. They keep pushing it away and it just patiently waits and comes back another day.

Unmetabolized unhappiness is drama which always stands in the way of feeling happy.

Yes, we will have many unhappy moments in our life. Feel them fully and they will let go of you much sooner.

We also keep our unhappiness around much longer when we fail to celebrate happiness.

Nothing is true unless it’s true for you. Don’t believe what I’m saying; put it to the test. Celebrate happiness wherever you see it and notice how quickly more of it comes your way.

All the best,

John

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The Grasshopper hopped right onto my bed late, last night and said: “Truth is a one-way street.”

I had to sleep on that.

Seems we all claim to have the truth about something, when, in fact, all we have is an opinion or a preference.

If you and I have a different truth about the same thing, it can’t possibly be the real truth because the real truth has no opposite.

In fact, the real truth can’t be described in words we can argue with.

You can know the truth but you can’t explain it – only what it’s not.

The truth is never about being right.

There is no smugness attached to the truth. There are no tit-for-tat arguments about the real truth because it’s never a set of facts.

You’re not going to find truth in the legal system or the political system. That just gets you a consensus of opinion.

The closest we come to defining truth is attempting to explain reality. What shows up on a moment to moment basis is the result of truth.

Reality is the child of truth.

Truth is the backdrop to our lives. It’s always there in its unformed essence ready to wear the uniform of reality as it shows up in our daily lives.

Unlike our version of the truth, real truth has no agenda.

My sense is that real truth is our life force – whatever it is that animates us. That life force goes by many names and the one that seems to get the closest for me is truth.

No one has cornered the market on truth because it’s impossible to corral it. That doesn’t mean we can’t use it to our best advantage.

To get access to the truth we have to let our thoughts calm down and make a path for it to show up in our mind. And even though we get thoughts about it, we can’t fully explain it. It’s like the vivid dream that fades away with each waking moment – the details become fuzzy. But we know that feeling.

So you have to go inside for the truth to come out. That means that your thoughts about it have to calm down so you can experience the real thing. When you experience the truth on a regular basis, there is no more need to win the argument about truth.

The one-way The Grasshopper was implying is that truth doesn’t go in; it comes out. We don’t tell ourselves what the truth is and then it forms. It’s the other way around. The truth forms and shows up in our reality when we make a space for it by letting go of our preformed notions about it.

You’ll never hit anyone over the head with the real truth because truth is not a weapon. It’s more of a quiet knowing that can be trusted. Catalogue the feeling you get when you experience the life force known as truth so that you’ll be able to distinguish it from a set of facts with which to attack.

No one will ever adequately define truth; we can only feel it infuse our lives.

All the best,

John

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Call me impatient, but I don’t like to wait.

I could easily blame it on my years in the military where the notion of “hurry up and wait” gained notoriety, but upon further inspection this dislike was alive and well before then.

I’m sure some of it is hard wired but most of our impatience seems to be nurtured.

Men are more impatient than women – just sayin’.

Nowhere is this more pronounced than in the area of answering questions. We men have been conditioned by our cultural forces to have an instant answer. It may not be the correct answer, mind you, but we’re sure as hell going to give it to you fast.

Women are certainly catching up, but men have been cultivated into the role of decision maker. We are expected to make decisions everyday and we don’t disappoint, we decide. We are expected to solve problems, and the quicker the better.

The hardest thing for most men to learn is the art of waiting.

There is an old management axiom that underscores the wisdom of patience. It basically says, “Some problems will solve themselves, if you just wait.”

“Grabbing the bull by the horns” is certainly a popular strategy, but applied too often can produce results that can be rather gory. Reminds me of a story . . .

Years ago, I really wanted to fire a guy in the worst way. He had just browbeaten another employee and was acting like a bully. I needed my boss’ approval to let this guy go, so I entered my boss’ office in a huff. I explained what I wanted to do and why. He listened very carefully and asked me a simple question: “Can this wait until tomorrow?”

The answer, of course, was “Yes.”

As it turns out, when I arrived at work the next day, I had two voice mails – one from the browbeater and one from the browbeaten. The essence of the messages was that apologies had been issued and fences had been mended, all without me having to decide.

There is wisdom in waiting – not fence sitting – but waiting.

The wisdom is to wait for the appropriate answer to surface. There will be a number of conditioned answers that come to the top of your mind. Sometimes they work, but oftentimes they gum up the works. You already know from experience what a pre-fabricated answer will get you. If you recognize it as a conditioned response and just let it pass by, you have just discovered the art of waiting.

When you condition yourself to let all the familiar answers parade by, you are perfecting the art of waiting. You may very well select one of those common answers after waiting, but more often than not, you will expose yourself to something new coming from you.

The art of waiting is heavily dependent on trust. You must trust that there is a part of you capable of coming up with a useful answer, if you just wait.

This is not about stalling. That’s a do nothing strategy whose goal is to do nothing.

The art of waiting is reconditioning your mind to allow yourself the opportunity to find an answer you would have never arrived at had you, too quickly and automatically, picked one of your familiar choices.

The conundrum is the art of waiting takes patience. The effort is totally worth it. Here’s a rhyme worth remembering:

Rather than take the familiar bait
Decide to wait and change your fate.

All the best,

John

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If you’ve ever been to some kind of conference in a distant city where you are meeting new people, invariably the small talk includes, “Where are you from?” and “How did you get here?”

“Oh, me and Jennifer drove in from Dubuque, ran into some incredible snow through Kansas, worst I’ve ever seen.” You then answer with your story – “I’m from Rhode Island and our plane must have run into some of that ‘weather’ you experienced because I’ve had smoother rides on Space Mountain in Disney World.”

This get acquainted chit-chat is standard operating procedure to attempt to find common ground. Some do it better than others.

How useful is it to tell that arrival story again and again and again to the same people? Imagine it is 15 minutes or an hour later and that same person tells you their story again. Yes, you may smile politely but you don’t want to hear it. The bigger question is, “How useful is it?”

What’s your “How I got here story?” How often have you told it? And most importantly, have you noticed that it doesn’t matter.

How you got to where you are in life is interesting from an historical and human interest perspective, but it has little to no transformative power to get you somewhere else.

Every time you tell the story, you are there, not here. It’s not possible to get to where you want to go without traveling through here. If you continually go back there, you never transfer to the vehicle that takes you forward – Here!

Where you are now and where you want to go is the only recognition you need.

The incessant trips back through the mud are what give therapy such a crappy track record. To quote my late mentor, Dr. Dave Dobson, “Do you need to go to the dump to remember what garbage smells like?”

Telling how you got here over and over again is like taking a dump in someone’s living room. It’s quite inappropriate and it’s not useful.

Many use how they arrived as a justification for not changing. “I’m the daughter of abusive, left-handed, little people who always called me a ‘Big galoot.’ That’s why I am the way I am.”

That may very well be the sound reasoning how you got here, but hanging on to that story insures that you remain a “Big galoot.”

Retiring your story is painful. Many view theirs as a life preserver. Your story may be shaped like one, but it’s made of concrete and holding on to it will sink you to the bottom.

Letting go of your story is more painful than letting go of an addictive drug or substance. We’ve convinced ourselves our story is who we are and we feel as though we are losing our identity.

The only thing you lose is your story. What you gain is the recognition of where you are now. Here and now is the only place you can move forward from.

Whether you got here by train, boat, plane, or camel, you are here, not there. When you recognize that you are here, that’s a story worthy of retelling.

All the best,

John

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Which one is easier to do – include or exclude?

My sense is excluding is easier than breathing, yet including ultimately feels so much better.

It’s so easy to keep others on the perimeter if we view them from our perch of perceived perfection or island of isolation. This forms the basis for exclusion – they either don’t measure up to us or fit in with our closed way of doing things. This perspective has us miss a lot.

Including takes a bit of sacrifice. Reminds me of a story . . .

Years ago we had an impromptu, uninvited guest show up right around dinner time. I learned a lesson of inclusion that night. My initial reaction was, “not them, not now.” Luckily for me, my wife had a different idea. She introduced me to an idea her mother instilled in all of her children. She called it “Family hold back.”

The idea was simple. If each family member took a lesser portion, there would be enough for everyone and the guest would feel welcome, included.

My perspective that night went from intrusion to inclusion. I wasn’t a bad or a stingy person before that evening, I just had my accent on protectionism, exclusion.

What you sacrifice when you include is your concept of “separate and apart.” It’s a sacrifice because it goes against our conditioning to exclude and protect.

What we’re protecting is an image of the way things are supposed to be rather than how they actually are.

Inclusion is a reality based strategy. Exclusion is a strategy to protect the illusion of separate and apart.

Inclusion opens us to the concept of diversity. Exclusion keeps us right, and left out.

This is not an argument against doing things in a preferred way; it’s more of a wake-up call to recognize that way isn’t the only way. It’s in that moment of recognition that we discover that what we are protecting and defending is a way of life that doesn’t allow for procreation. That means we can’t grow.

“Separate and apart” is the basis of all conflict. Inclusion, as my friend, Jerry Stocking says, is love.

It’s hard to exclude someone who’s the same as you. That’s everyone. They may look different and have different conditioning and ideas, but make no mistake – that’s you in someone else’s skin.

Just begin to notice your pattern to exclude. Each time you notice, you weaken its hold on you and open yourself up to the inclusive view that everybody is you.

All the best,

John

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I am in awe of people who have skills I don’t own.

When I watch the Olympics, I get treated to athletes of all stripes with skills I will never have.

When I watch the DIY (Do IT Yourself) Network on TV, I witness people with all sorts of mechanical skills I can only dream about.

When I read an article online about someone who has invented something that’s just mind-blowing, I, again, am reminded of gifts I don’t have.

That seems to be our collective obsession – focusing on what we don’t have.

Now for some, that’s a motivational strategy to go get what they want. For most, however, it’s a blueprint to stay stuck.

We get locked into comparing ourselves to cream of the crop or airbrushed examples and pooh-pooh our own skills.

The lack of appreciation for our current skill set is what keeps people from taking the next step towards improved skills.

Reminds me of a story . . .

Many years ago I went to a management seminar and got a terrific piece of advice. The group leader was asking us to assess the skills of the people who worked for us on a scale of 1 to 10. He said if a person was a 5 or under, we should consider replacing them, but then offered this piece of wisdom. Regardless of where the person scored on our scale, the initial goal was not to get them to 10. If they scored a 6, the goal was to get them to a 7, not 10, not now.

How often do we aspire to be a 10 when we’re only a 5? That breeds frustration because of our lack of appreciation of where we are.

If you can accurately assess where you are, you have a much better chance of getting to where you want to go as long as you don’t expect to “leap tall buildings in a single bound.”

Progress begins when you accept where you currently are. If you diminish your current skill set, it’s hard to get started.

Everyone has skills but we have been conditioned to discount them if they’re not comparable to the leading people or where we want them to be.

We may never get to a 10 but that doesn’t keep us from progressing if we’re moving towards the next number. This is not a strategy to lower your expectations; it’s a strategy to overcome inertia.

Reminds me of a strategy I offer for exercise at my seminars . . .

Most people who are overweight don’t exercise on a regular basis. They may join a gym or get a piece of home exercise equipment but the membership goes unused and the home gear becomes what I call an “exercise dust bunny.”

What people do is shoot for a 10 when they’re at a 3. It’s the American Way.

What I recommend is to begin so slowly that it feels like you are doing nothing. For example, I ask someone who is not exercising if there is a telephone pole near their house and they usually say “Yes.” I then ask how far it is from their front door. They guesstimate the distance and then I ask if they would have any difficulty walking to the pole and back. The answer is usually “No.”

I then say, “There’s your exercise program. For the next 7 days, hell or high water, you are going to walk to that pole and back everyday.” They scoff and ask, “How is that going to be helpful?” I respond that for the succeeding next 7 days they are to walk to the telephone pole further down the block, and then for the next 7 days, they are to walk to the one that is 3 blocks away. By the time a month goes by they have a full blown exercise program that only feels like they are walking to the telephone pole and back.

The key to beginning an exercise program and staying with it is to begin so slowly that you can easily replicate it without much effort and then increase the amount at regular intervals. If a teenage boy picked up a newborn calf around his neck everyday, he would not notice the weight increase when it became a full grown cow.

The key to getting into a progressive mindset is to assess your skills rather than diminish them. After assessment, your job is to fashion a strategy to get to the next number. That is your only goal.

Your current strategy is doomed to failure if you’ve given yourself an unreachable goal based on your current skills. When you do the little things with regularity, the big things take care of themselves.

The only obstacle to following this strategy is lack of patience. Most have never noticed what a lack of patience has gotten them so far – lots of starts and stops instead of perfecting their chops.

Assess your skills today and only shoot for the next number, then you’ll be on your way.

All the best,

John

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This may not be the truth but it sure feels like it – Life’s biggest myth is control.

Based on my experience, it’s usually a bigger myth for men than it is for women but control is not opposed to equal opportunity.

What is it we’re trying to control? – That which is.

Once we get a glimpse that we are attempting to control the totality of reality, it would be useful to just stop and have a big belly laugh, but we rarely laugh at our folly but rather push on to control the next uncontrollable moment.

Here’s a warning sign that you’re steeped deep in control: You hate being told what to do. That’s a result of the amount of polarity you have left over from childhood and the belief that you don’t have to answer to anybody.

Reminds me of a story I may have told before . . .

My late teacher, Dr. Dave Dobson had us do an exercise where we would imagine ourselves in a situation where we were being told what to do and rebelling at the notion. Once we felt that rebellion get to its peak, we were to look down into the palms of our hands and laugh aloud.

This was a pattern interrupt. We were noticing that we were running the “I can’t be told what to do” pattern and interrupting it by laughing aloud.

The consensual truth is that there will always be people who can tell you what to do, no matter if you are the President of the United States or the richest person on the planet.

Reminds me of another story . . . when I did a radio talk show many years ago, we had a caller named “Larry.” Larry was a regular caller and his issue was that income tax was illegal. He made all the cogent arguments for his position that are still being made today, but what Larry failed to grasp was the grasp that his rail against reality had on his happiness and health.

Larry was angry, perpetually angry. He had heart problems that he never recognized that he contributed to by his approach to the reality of taxation. This is not an argument for or against Larry’s position; it’s more of a warning sign to recognize what your behavior is doing to you.

Larry’s fight wasn’t with the government; it was with his opposition to being told what to do. The government was just an easy foil to continue believing in the myth that he had control. If illegal taxation wasn’t his issue, it would have been something else he would have pursued to prove he had control.

Please don’t construe this to mean not to take action against oppression – it’s more of a reminder to not let your mission destroy your mental well being and your health. I think of the distraught soul who set his house on fire and flew his plane into the IRS offices in Texas. He believed dying was the only way of taking control. His belief cost him his life and he took innocent lives with him.

Reminds me of another story . . .

Again, many years ago I took on the topic of the slogan for the state of New Hampshire – “Live Free or Die.” That is one of the most controlling statements that has ever been written. In essence, it says, “If I can’t control the situation, I choose to die.” Where is the consideration for staying alive and attempting to figure out another way to be free? That takes too much patience for someone who believes in control.

I have no issue with peoples’ passion against things they don’t like. My point is the control you seek doesn’t exist. That doesn’t mean your actions towards a solution are misguided or won’t work; it only means that if you believe in control, you will suffer.

Suffering is always the result of attempting to control reality. You would do yourself and any cause you may have a giant favor, by taking a moment to laugh at your absurd attempt to control reality, and then regroup with another focus that isn’t bent on control. You’ll live longer and accomplish more.

All the best,

John

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