I’ve lived most of my adult life as an iconoclast. The downside of that approach is isolation. That means when you question or expose someone’s sacred cow, you are shunned by many.

This is not a rant that it shouldn’t be that way. It just is.

I can attest that when you travel a lonesome road, there aren’t many welcoming Inns on your journey.

If you’re being contrary on purpose, that’s not iconoclasm, that’s just being a dick.

If your iconoclasm is authentic, you will have a plethora of facts to back you up. If you’re just a blowhard, your positions will be blown away by the lightest of winds.

Iconoclasts don’t have a union. in fact, most of them are independent operators, not joiners. Some would consider them lonely, and some are. Others are so comfortable in their own skin that being on their own is a freedom that few people will ever enjoy. I’m reminded of what The Grasshopper offered many moons ago: “Alone is a fact; lonely is a state of mind.”

I readily agree with the English poet John Donne that “No man is an island.” Other people are essential to our growth and existence, but rarely the ones who worship glossy facades and fake gods. Sad to report that I find they are the overwhelming majority, which leaves iconoclasts in small company.

If you bury your iconoclasm, you are part of the walking dead. It needs to be expressed or it will eat you from the inside out.

Speak up if it’s from the heart and has legs to stand on. Not doing so will leave you alone with your thoughts which keeps you isolated from your creativity.

Just a recommendation to my non-iconoclastic friends. Going along to get along is truly a lonely existence.

All the best,

John

The short answer is to protect us. You may ask, “from what?” The answer: from the consequences of our actions.

If you willy-nilly open your car door and ding another car, what is one of your very first reactions? You may comment to yourself how stupid you are for not looking or you may blame the other person for parking too close. But it’s the next reaction that has us seek to escape the consequences. That conditioned reaction is to quickly look around to see if anyone saw us.

If you drive away after deducing that no one witnessed your act, you deny you are responsible, which is a lie.

When you see someone lie as easily as they breathe, you know they have something to hide. They are not willing to pay the consequences for their behavior.

One of the 5 signs of immaturity I have written about is the failure to take responsibility. The inveterate liar refuses to account for their actions. That not only makes them immature, it makes them unreliable – not someone you can count on.

If you want to be treated as an adult, stop lying and start accounting. If you continue to deny, your life is a lie, and no one can protect you from the weight of your fate.

All the best,

John

The Grasshopper gave me a puzzling message to reflect on: “You can’t dream without memories.”

Did you ever notice that dreams are loosely based on experiences that you’ve had (memories)?

Most dreams I have are like patchwork quilts. They hopscotch around and have bizarre twists and turns but are loosely based on experiences that I’ve had.

We may have met someone a week ago that had unusual eyebrows. We shouldn’t be too surprised that unusual eyebrows show up in a dream. Our dream may mix eyebrows with an experience that we had 10 days later and tie the two together.

Many moons ago I was introduced to the concept that we live our lives by reference. We’re always referring back to try and make sense of something unfamiliar that’s right in front of us now. We use past experience to try and figure out the present.

Dreams are no different, except for the fact that they’re a lot less sequential.

I find dreams to be an escape valve for emotions that are bubbling below the surface. We may choose not to deal with the emotions in our awake state, but the dream machine has no such option. It just stirs up lots of divergent stuff and sees what escapes.

Thankfully we don’t have to deal with all that angst in our everyday waking life. Our dreaming apparatus takes care of a portion of it while we sleep.

Some people attempt to make sense of their dreams and sometimes we can, but for the most part they are a confusing mix of disjointed events.

The takeaway here is this: Not all your dreams will make sense but they will make your life a lot less scary, because when you dream you let off some steam.

All the best,

John

Below is a post from long ago designed to make you uncomfortable.

“Success Lies Outside Your Comfort Zone.”

It’s my experience that marginal results come from staying inside our zone of comfort. If you claim you want success, you can’t refrain from moving towards the edge.

Many years ago, my hypnosis teacher, Dr. Dave Dobson use to say, “The luscious, ripe fruit is out on the skinny branches.” That picture he painted stays with me ’til this day and serves as a reminder that risk is a necessary part of reward.

The sales profession comes to mind. I’m sure there are some people who are very successful selling merchandise at parties out of their home – Tupperware, jewelry, makeup, etc. I’m also certain the successful ones are the exception rather than the rule. The bulk of the unsuccessful ones think they are professional sales people. They’re not. They are presenters and order takers. The successful sellers know the “dog and pony” show is only part of the skill set. They also know that future business isn’t going to come to them; they are going to have to seek it out.

That requires getting out of your comfort zone and making requests of “strangers.”

The life insurance industry knows they are going to have a large washout rate with beginning insurance sales people. They provide them training and then send them out to sell. Once these people pitch all their relatives and the neighbors they are “comfortable” with, their sales come to a standstill.

They all have a product to sell but most can’t sell it because they refuse to move out of their comfort zone. Here’s the ever-present excuse for failure to sell: “Oh, I’m just not a sales person.” Sorry, everyone is a sales person. The reason they’re not successful is because they won’t do what’s necessary – move out of their comfort zone.

We’re always selling something to somebody; it’s the give and take of life. That’s sales. To get better at sales, we need to make more requests. It’s really that simple. The first step to making a sale is making a request.

Want to get more sales in life? Make more requests. “But I’m not comfortable asking people for things,” you say. Then get used to not having what you want. I, again, for the zillionth time quote my 4th grade teacher, Miss Wagner: “You can either have what you want or your reasons why not.” Comfort is the reason you’re not successful.

You can either stay in your comfort zone (rut) or you can ask for what you want. Those are the plain and simple choices.

If you’re not in the habit of making requests, start. You can begin small and work your way up. But start now. When you branch out of your comfort zone, you start gathering in the fruits of your labor.

All the best,

John

I was visited by this blogpost from Christmas Past and thought the message would make the upcoming holidays more inclusive.

Seems just about everyone has a favorite Christmas movie – It’s a Wonderful Life, Elf, The Polar Express, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Christmas Vacation, etc.

The one that sticks with me most is Miracle on 34th Street (The Original). It stars a young Natalie Wood beginning to doubt the existence of Santa Claus. It’s a delightful film about believing and doubt.

Beliefs are something we all share in common. If you mentally exist, you believe.

Beliefs, by their nature, are exclusionary. The minute you commit to one, all the others on the same topic are on the outside looking in.

The stickiest of wickets is believing that your belief is right. “Right” is a word that has wronged for centuries. It’s also exclusionary. It makes anyone who believes differently from you on the other side of the fence.

The reason I like the little girl in “Miracle on 34th Street” so much is because she has doubts about her beliefs. It’s a childlike quality we can all aspire to because, by adulthood, our beliefs are more solid than month old fruitcake – no room for doubt.

Just like we bring out the holiday decorations once a year, it would serve us well to plug in an old belief and test it once a season to see if it still lights up – meaning, “Is it useful?”

Is there a long held belief you own that’s worthy of some doubt?

Doubt is the catalyst that makes you look in more than one direction.

Is this the season to dust off your doubt and bring it out?

Who purposely decorates their tree with burned out lights? – You and me when we refuse to use doubt to help us see.

Beliefs get re-gifted from one generation to the next never being questioned for their truth. Sadly, when we get to this true believer stage, there’s little room for doubt.

If no one else gets it for you this holiday season, you can give yourself the gift of doubt. It lights up the dark corners of Christmases past to see if their gifts are bright enough to light the way to a less rigid future.

This Christmas make sure the most enlightening gift is on your wish list. It’s the “Talking Thomas” doll – You just pull a string and he says, “I doubt it!”

All the best,

John

As we approach Christmas and the holiday season, I found an old post that addresses spirit and how it never gets old.

Old, as we have discussed before, lives somewhere on a continuum that’s older than you are. The old axiom, “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” underscores that our spirit remains the same. It’s vibrant and unchangeable.

My grandmother, whom I’ve also mentioned before, had a response to the question of “How are you doing?” She would say, “I’m getting old.” She never admitted to being old, only getting there. My mother was less delicate. She would respond to the same question by saying, “Not bad for an old broad.”

These people were in tune with their ageless spirit until their dying day. They recognized that old really is a mindset.

I have always had a great rapport with older women. I think it stems from a suggestion I got from my father in the 4th grade. Perhaps a story would be helpful . . .

The school I attended had a raffle each Fall and each student was required to sell tickets. After you sold your mother, father, aunts, uncles, grandparents and nearby neighbors, you had to find new customers. I was a little hesitant going out and asking strangers if they wanted to buy raffle tickets.

My father gave me the strategy that proved quite effective. Before I tell you his suggestion, I will remind you that at that time, most women did not work outside of the home. They were known as homemakers or referred to as a term that I’ve come to despise, “housewives.”

My father said it was most likely that a woman would answer the door. He said the first question I should ask them is not, “Do you want to buy a raffle ticket for my school?” He said to ask, “Is your mother home?” He said no matter how old the woman answering the door; I was to ask that question first. I sold the most raffle tickets in my class.

I was addressing the ageless spirit in each of those women by using that piece of stealth flattery I got from my father.

It grew into more than flattery for me as I grew older. I found that I began talking with older women and men the same way I would talk to people my age. I never made them feel old. I never presupposed that because they were older, they wouldn’t get what I was talking about or be offended by something I would readily say to someone of my generation.

Older people don’t need to be protected. They have lived longer than you and have survived more than you can imagine. To treat them as less of a citizen because of their age is demeaning.

Also, I have come to ask older people their opinions on decisions I have been contemplating. The wisdom that pours out is priceless.

Yes, you will find older people that only want to talk about their health and prescriptions and how it used to be, but you will also find those people in any adult age group. Once you’ve weeded out the chronic complainers, you will find a treasure of perception that may not be readily apparent to you.

If you assume they don’t know, you’ll never ask and remain impoverished.

Find your version of “Is your mother home?” and discover a mother lode from someone in their “Golden Years.”

All the best,

John

Below is a blogpost from 7 years ago today that sets the tone for the upcoming holidays.

There really is something magical about home.

Home is more than a place to hang your hat, as the old expression goes. It’s a refuge.

It’s more than a house, an apartment, or a room. It’s a love filled womb.

Everything is taken care of when you are home.

The multi-talented, Jazz/Pop singer, Michael Bublé sings an enchanting song about this sought after, soft landing called “Home.”

Truth be told, home isn’t a place; it’s a feeling.

The feeling you get when you are home cannot be described in words. It’s the peace that passes all understanding.

If you are attempting to find home by mentally seeking it, you will always encounter noise. There are no magical thoughts that get you to the peace of home. In fact, it’s the absence of thought that ensures you find your way to that ‘homey’ feeling.

If you hear the song “(There’s No Place Like) Home For The Holidays” this holiday season, let it serve as a reminder that home lies beneath all the hustle and bustle and is always there to welcome you.

Your job is to find a way to let the noise calm down. When you take steps to calm the noise in your mind, you are at the threshold of peace, and if you take the time to look down, you’ll see a door mat that says, “Welcome Home.”

All the best,

John

Here’s a post from 8 years ago that’s just as “real” today as it was then.

When you pit reality against destiny, it’s a mismatch.

Reality ALWAYS wins.

It’s amazing to me how we try and squeeze reality into our model of destiny. It’s the typical case of attempting to arrange the facts so they support our belief.

There is no arranging reality.

Destiny has an air of resignation about it. “It was meant to be this way.” Truth is, the only meaning it contains is the one you consciously added to it. That would be like saying, “The wind meant to blow off my roof.” The wind doesn’t care. It just is.

No one has a fate for you all lined up and ready to go. When you believe that, you can make an excuse for anything, my favorites of which are: “The Devil made me do it” and “It was God’s plan.”

I can think of no more limiting concept than destiny. It’s something we made up. Notice that reality contains the word “Real.”

Destiny keeps you contained in a self made box. Reality has no limitations.

The only destiny that exists is contained in your patterns of belief. Change your belief and you change your destiny. That’s the reality of destiny.

“I was meant to be poor” is a destiny myth. The reality is, “You were patterned to be poor.”

Your patterns can be your destiny if you let them. The key to a self made destiny is to notice your patterns. So many of them run on automatic pilot that we fail to notice the stimulus/response contained in each one of them.

Noticing that you have patterns is noticing reality. When we begin to notice reality, we begin to see the building blocks of the pattern we have labeled as “Destiny.”

You can create your own destiny; you just have to notice that you have the ability to do so. The process begins by noticing the reality of stimulus/response. When you recognize a stimulus and interrupt your patterned response to it and choose another, you have chosen a new destiny.

Unlike the current model of being resigned to your destiny, the new model of manifesting your own destiny takes some action on your part.

The action is to notice that your “Destiny” was created by your conditioned thoughts and behaviors. When you make the effort to interrupt them and choose others, you will discover the reality of your destiny.

All the best,

John

As I get older, I find myself asking, “How does this movie end?”

The focus is not so much on my ending but, more so, on what will happen with the people I leave behind.

There’s really no way to tell, but it doesn’t keep me from wondering.

How will my children and grandchildren fare? How will my surviving friends and other family members make out? Does the “Law & Order” TV franchise ever end?

I want to leave them something, something other than tangible things. I heard Katie Cassidy the daughter of the late, teen star David Cassidy quote her father’s last words: “So much wasted time.”

She took her dad’s message to heart and vowed to make the most of her time. Her father left her with a guidepost.

I remember when I turned 50. My father called to wish me happy birthday and I asked him a question. I said, “Dad, you’ve already been 50. If you were 50 again, what would you do differently? He didn’t hesitate and replied, ‘save more money.'”

He gave me a great birthday present.

I sure hope I’m acting in an epic movie that goes on for a long time but every movie ends. So what can I leave to those near and dear when I leave the theatre?

I’d like to leave them the gift of response.

So much of our lives are about patterned reactions which become stale over time and stultify life. Nothing new comes to us when we’re in reaction mode, which is almost always.

The gift I want to give to my family and friends is to let them know that they always have the ability to respond rather than react. Just becoming aware of your ability to respond brings more freshness to your life. Acting on that awareness and choosing a response brings a lifetime of options – options that would have remained hidden in the shadows of a reaction.

Each time you see the credits rolling at the end of a movie or TV show, let them serve as a reminder that you’re more than a pat answer. You’re a creator of responses – ones that direct your own version of “It’s A Wonderful Life.”

All the best,

John

Below is a “Throwback Thursday” musing from many moons ago.

I was testing out my new video camera yesterday. I recorded my neighbor’s golf swing and then my own and we were reviewing the finer points of our mechanics on the viewfinder frame by frame. Amazingly, we were doing just what our instructors had said we were doing. After this, I just sat down on my front steps, looked into the camera and spontaneously started talking about abundance.

Maybe it was Spring that was coming up all around me that inspired my musings but the essence of it went something like this:

There is a difference between glitter and gold.

That which we reach out for is glitter; that which we mine for is gold.

When we reach out to grasp something, it’s very difficult to hold on to it for long. It becomes heavy and slips from our grasp. It’s temporary. We attempt to hoard it so we don’t have the burden of holding it. This practice sets up a mindset of lack and produces thoughts and actions that there will never be enough.

The reaching out process keeps us off balance – just like when you lean off your merry-go-round horse to reach for the brass ring. The risk/reward ratio is not in our favor. Reaching is a large wager with a puny payday.

Also, with reaching, many of us have been conditioned that we have to take what we want. We have to “go for the gusto.” And if your parents are like most, they taught you something else – not to take things that aren’t yours. When you reach out for something you don’t have, at another level, it is sensed that you are taking something that doesn’t belong to you. This out of awareness tug of war will keep you reaching and dropping.

We reach because we are conditioned to be mesmerized by the shiny exterior. This has us reach for all things that glitter. Reminds me of an old joke . . .

Why did the husband give his wife a cheap, shiny ring for Christmas? So it would turn green in time for St. Patrick’s Day.

The glitter is the bait to make us reach. And even though our instructor has told us that reaching won’t get us what we want, we continue to do it until we see our actions, frame by frame, are not getting us what we want.

That’s when we start mining for gold.

All abundance comes from within and spills outward. There is no reaching and no illusionary thoughts that you are taking it away from someone. In fact, there is so much of it; there is more than enough to go around. This is the lesson of the loaves and fishes that Jesus taught his disciples.

There is no need to hoard it because there is plenty more where that came from. It is a self replenishing supply because it is coming from infinity to which there is no end.

There is no end to true abundance. Once you know that you are the source of it, it’s no longer necessary to look for it in the Jones’ driveway.

Once you begin to realize that the same abundance you see outside is also in you, that’s when you stop reaching and begin mining.

If you don’t know there is a mother lode within, you’ll never carefully look at your reaching strategy to find out that it’s not working. You’ll just keep making the same mistake over and over again and over extending yourself.

The real you beneath your grasping ego has access to universal abundance. You just have to go there and mine for gold. Once you recognize the abundant state within, your reach will never exceed your grasp.

All the best,

John