It occurred to me in a daydream that self-doubt is a dream. So is self-confidence and “self” anything else.

All the “selfs” are mind based dreams – meaning they’re a collection of made-up thoughts, nothing more.

I hate to call on the tried and true again, but old Abe Lincoln was pretty spot on when he said, “Most folks are as happy as they make up their mind to be.”

Most of us dream up self-doubt after a couple of failures. Imagine if we did the same thing when we first started to walk or talk.

I’ll be the first to admit that no matter how much confidence we dream up, there are certain things we just can’t do – like me beating Tiger Woods at golf. If he had the flu and a broken arm, he’d still win. I have legitimate self-doubt concerning that match.

But how much of our self-doubt is just something we dreamed up without a lot of evidence? We’ve replayed our fantasy so many times to ourselves, that we believe it must be real.

Reminds me of a story I’ve told before . . . Our family used to take a vacation to the beach every summer. It was something we could afford according to my calculations. But we had never gone to Disney World. That according to my dreamed up calculations was way too expensive. I was doubting without evidence.

I guess I got curious enough to poke past my doubt and visited a travel agent. As it turned out, we could take the family to Disney for the same money we spent going to the beach. I woke up from my dream about self-doubt.

The question you may want to explore is: “What have I dreamed up, without much evidence, that keeps me doubting?”

Once you isolate an answer, you can take on that endeavor with your eyes wide open this time, rather than walking around in your self-doubt, sleep walking trance.

If you dreamed up self-doubt (and you did), you can dream up something new that won’t get in the way of what you want to do.

Yes, there will be work involved to do what you desire but the major step that has to come first is to wake-up from the dream of self-doubt.

And finally, about this there can be no doubt: Self-doubt is a nightmare that isn’t real.

All the best,

John

The Grasshopper offered this over the weekend: “There are no surprises, only reality.”

I had to mull that one over a bit before I could garner any insight.

“I’ve been surprised, so there are surprises in my world” was my first thought. Then it hit me that “surprises” are just interpretations of reality. Just like “good news” or “bad news” are interpretations of reality.

Every moment is made up of reality and reality contains every interpretation – including surprises.

It should come as no surprise that reality will visit every moment and many of those moments will contain what we call surprises. But we tend to deny that reality when we make declarations that defy reality.

“I’m never going to cut myself again.” “I’ve had my last mosquito bite.” “I can eat just one Lays potato chip.”

Then we act surprised when we’re looking for a band-aid to nurse our new wound.

Here’s a reality that may seem surprising to some: “If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got.” There are no surprises in that scenario, only predictable realities.

Don’t act surprised when you are faced with a predictable reality; it will just show your stupidity.

Denial of reality is the biggest cause of surprises.

What is real that you’re in denial about? It’s a sure bet that if you don’t take time to “get real,” you’ll suffer an unsurprising bite in the ass and claim you didn’t know it was coming.

Maybe it’s time to throw yourself a “Reality Party” and surprise yourself that you can have a different effect on your future.

All the best,

John

Where do you find comfort? What a great question to explore.

I watched Stephen Colbert interview Vice President Joe Biden and it was crystal clear to me or anyone paying attention that the Vice President, who has seen more than his share of personal tragedy, draws a lot of comfort from his faith.

For some people, faith leaves them cold. They find comfort elsewhere.

The where isn’t important; the finding is.

We all need to be comforted. Even the most stoic among us, need a shoulder to dampen or a safe haven to go to when storms are swirling.

Here’s what I have learned from experience: If you are forever lobbying for your method of comfort to anyone who will listen, you really haven’t found comfort; you just talk about it.

I have yet to encounter anyone who has knocked on my door proselytizing who was coming from a place of comfort. My sense is that they are still seeking it and peddling something they don’t own.

I find the people I’m most comfortable around are the ones who are comfortable within their own skin. Their comfort has a way of generating comfort within another.

Here’s a suggestion: If you are seeking comfort, hang around people who are comfortable. It will begin to rub off. If they’re famous and inaccessible, read their works; watch their videos – the effect is the same.

13 years ago I had the following experience that I’ve written about before which addresses one way of offering comfort:

“I was attending a 7 day workshop where there were two days off in the middle to process the teachings. One of the off days was to be a day of silence. You were asked not to speak for an entire day. You had to interact with the world and your classmates without speaking for a 24 hour period. One of the women came to our cabin to visit on one of the off days and it was my day for silence. She had her day of silence the day before and was able to speak. She began to chat on about this and that and then began to offer up a painful situation in her life. I listened with curiosity at first and then shifted into a state of presence where I had no internal chatter of my own – just full attention to her and the moment. The results were extraordinary. She had a bout of tears and an emotional release and then came over and gave me a big hug. She said she hadn’t felt this good in 10 years. What did I do? I offered no sage advice. I just provided a space she could rest in.”

Just to be clear, comfort isn’t anything like numbing yourself; that just delays your discomfort and has it come back stronger.

Finding your place of comfort is really finding yourself – the you beneath all the window dressing. Once you discover that, you’ll find comfort wherever you are.

All the best,

John

Ran into a neighbor on my morning dog walk yesterday. Her greeting was as follows: “It’s not so bad in the shade.” I replied, “It’s not so bad in the sun either.” That started her on a mini rant about how she didn’t like the hot weather.

I have no issue with hearing peoples’ weather preferences; I am a bit taken aback when someone’s opening salutation is a complaint. To quote my sainted mother: “Not a hi, hello, kiss my ass or anything.”

I have as many complaints as the next person but also have enough awareness that offering them up to you in a casual setting isn’t going to discharge the angst associated with them.

I avoid complainers like the plague. They sap my energy.

Allow me to define “complainers” as those who complain in just about every encounter.

“You have to have something more worthwhile to talk about than this drivel you’re spouting” is my complaint inside my head. I just don’t let that complaint out there for public consumption too often.

Like I said, we all have complaints but when you consistently lead with yours, I’m headed off in another direction. If I’m in a situation where I can’t leave, I’ve learned to politely nod and do Sudoku puzzles in my head.

If the irony hasn’t hit you yet, I’m complaining about complainers. I promise that I won’t blog about it every time.

All the best,

John

Seems to me that competing with the past is not a clear cut or winning strategy.

It’s not clear cut because our vision of the past is opaque – clouded by forgetfulness of what really happened combined with the rose colored glasses we choose to remember it through.

Attempting to create something better than an airbrushed past will leave us with an unsatisfying present and a future filled with past mistakes.

We are attempting to compete with a fantasy that our current skills can never match. We can never match or top our memory of the way it was because it was never really that way to begin with.

Good old days remembrances are quite fun for a class reunion, just like dressing up on Halloween as someone who you’re not is fun for a night. After that, it’s pure drama that won’t stand up to the scrutiny of the morning light.

“I want to be better than I used to be” is a noble goal. But you’re apt to make more progress if you change your mission to: “I want to be better than I am now.”

Now doesn’t suffer from distorted memories; it only has the data present that’s here now. I’m reminded of the words of NFL, Hall of Fame, football coach Bill Parcells who responded to the following statement with his legendary present day reminder.

Player who just lost a football game: “We’re a better team than this.”

Parcells: “You are what your record says you are.”

“Where am I now?” is the best assessment we can make to move us forward. Going back has us competing with a mythical legend that we have muddied memories of. That strategy keeps us mired in the muck – translation: Stuck.

“Here’s where I am and here’s where I want to go” is an attitude that will get you there quicker – more so than the game plan of a person at a bar, late on a Tuesday night, remembering how great they were through the filter of liquor.

All the best,

John

The Grasshopper had an interesting question this morning: “Would you rather change minds or hearts?”

It seems to me that changing minds is an ego trip; changing hearts takes someone to a deeper place.

If I want you to change your mind about something, it usually becomes a battle of wills. That’s usually a standoff. We both win some, we lose some, and after protracted battles, no ground is gained. It’s really a fight about who’s right.

Notice that often when someone else is proven “right” and you’re “wrong,” you still mentally stick to your guns, regardless of the evidence. Look no further than the parent/teacher conference. “My son would never do such a thing.”

So you’re not going to change too many minds in this lifetime, so your efforts are better served going after the heart of the matter.

How do we go about changing hearts? I wish I knew.

I’m not sure how to do it but my sense is that it’s the pursuit of hearts that will get you closer to more hearts. How does one pursue hearts? I’m not sure past setting the intention.

One idea that came to mind is to lead by example. If you’re preaching something, make sure your life is an example of it. Your example will change more hearts than any manufactured rhetoric you can come up with to change minds.

“Do as I say, not as I do” is an attitude that won’t send any hearts aflutter, it will just cause you to politely nod and under your breath to mutter.

One of the reasons most people fail miserably at sales is because they don’t believe in the product. They are attempting to change minds about something which their heart is not in. That attitude cannot be disguised by any slick pitch.

A quick story may be helpful . . .

In the past, I have not been a fan of popular golfer, Phil Mickelson. He’s a fan favorite but something about him had always rubbed me the wrong way until . . .

He won the tournament known as The Masters in 2010. I had seen him win this prestigious tournament once before, but his stellar play and comments after that round did not win me over.

Upon winning The Masters in 2010, his wife and little daughters were there to give him hugs and kisses. I should note that his wife was going through breast cancer treatment at the time and was bedridden all week. I’m sure it took a lot of effort for her to travel from California to Georgia to be there for the final round. Then he grabbed my heart. As I wrote back in 2010:

“After Phil put in the final putt and sealed the victory, he briefly exalted, hugged his caddy, shook hands with his playing partner and headed off the course to sign his score card. It’s there that he saw his wife and leaned down and hugged and kissed her. It was one of those embraces where neither one wanted to let go. It was a powerful, emotional moment caught on camera.

He had just won one of the most prestigious tournaments in golf but he spent his glory moment demonstrating what was important (to him).”

Phil won my heart through example. I wonder how soon we can all be better examples and win more hearts than minds.

All the best,

John

If you’re like me, when you hear, “to make a long story short,” you immediately know it’s going to be longer than it has to be.

And I’ve often quoted a piece of wisdom I got many years ago at a management conference: “Shorten the storm.”

But “short and long” in the context of this post refers to the short view and the long view: small picture/big picture.

I love big picture folks. Their bubbles tickle. They are sometimes visionaries but often just dreamers. Their enthusiasm is what sells their vision, not necessarily the content of their dream.

The small picture folks too often get caught up in the minutiae that doesn’t allow them to get past the first step. This keeps the dream tethered to the ground.

There are pluses and minuses for both views but when push comes to shove, you have to do the work that short demands to get to the big picture promised land.

The long story has to get shortened to its parts so that assignments of effort can be given to each. Shortening the storm in this case is withdrawing from the grandiose long enough so you can see the components and the effort necessary to build to the long view.

The short view has to be infused with what’s going on now so that you can address it now. You can’t address now in the future. That’s the lesson of the short view. The long view often ignores what’s happening now and has its pipe dreamer owing the piper in the end.

Too much investment in either view (long or short) will take you to the same place – well short of the mark.

Here’s the long and short of it: Whatever your dream is, you have to bring at least one foot out of the clouds to walk the path to make it happen.

Just about all big dreams take you to a point where you’re going to have to take a gamble to make it happen. The odds are long that you’ll succeed if you give short shrift to short.

All the best,

John

Have you ever had someone attempt to “talk over” you? That’s when another lives by the premise that “the loudest one wins” and just wants to drown you out. They not only want the last word but the only word.

That’s what we do when we want to deny our feelings. We “talk over” our feelings. We start to justify them or philosophize about them instead of feeling them. Our penchant of “talking over” them is our attempt to make them go away.

The strategy has never worked for longer than a minute. I’m reminded of Dr. Dave Dobson’s analogy of trying to hold a beachball under water. It takes all your effort and you eventually lose the battle.

Your feelings are not going away until you let them have their “say.”

Whatever sensations we attempt to “shout down” will hang around until we notice them and fully feel them. They are immune to our bombast.

I wrote about angry people a couple of weeks ago. Many of them attempt to bury their anger. That never works. Just remember Dr. Dave’s beachball. The result of burying or “talking over” their anger, insures that it will eventually come out in a torrent.

The recommendation is not to “let it out” and spew on everyone in sight, but more so to “let it in” and feel it rather than fight it.

Whatever sensations you have going on, notice them first. Take stock of your feelings and notice that you have anger or unhappiness or whatever you are feeling inside of you. Once you recognize them and give them credence, it’s time to feel them and let them have their say.

For many, feeling our feelings is a fate worse than death. Feelings puncture the myth we have created about ourselves in our head – the image we are attempting to sell – that we’re strong and unaffected by our feelings. That is eternal hogwash.

Feelings can’t be shooed away with a soliloquy; they need to be felt in order to metabolize.

Noticing and sitting with your feelings is the remedy for letting the air out of the beachball.

Talking over will eventually take you under. Start to monitor rather than ignore your sensations and feel what your body is urging you to feel. It works a lot better than lips that aren’t sealed.

All the best,

John

Working hard and doing your best will certainly earn you respect but to get a paycheck you have to do the job at hand.

I have been following the story of the NFL football player who had his two, young sons return their trophies for just participating in an event. His claim was they did nothing to earn them but show up. His belief is that’s not enough to claim a reward. That may seem harsh but it is the reality they will eventually face.

My experience is we all want to be paid for working hard but when we hire someone, we only want to pay them for results. That is the way of the world.

Working hard and getting results are not the same and each will have a different employment level. If you’ve ever worked in a factory or waited tables for long hours or did some kind of construction labor, you know you worked hard. The rub is you weren’t paid for hard work; you were paid to get a job done. If you were incapable of doing the job, no matter how hard you worked, you were eventually out of a job.

Results often follow hard work but not always. Some people are working hard at the wrong aspect of their job – the aspect that doesn’t get them paid.

One of the nicest people I ever worked with worked harder than anyone else. But most of his work went into the minutiae and not the job at hand. As nice as he was and as hard as he worked, it didn’t get him the rewards I’m sure he thought he truly deserved, just an invitation to pack up his things and move on.

The job at hand is getting results, not producing sweat.

People who have bought into the hard work myth generally fall into the category of what I refer to as “thinking like an employee.” But regardless of how you think, the thing you’re going to get paid for is getting results, unless you’re a member of congress.

A question that will gain you focus is: “What is the job at hand for me?”

This question applies to all aspects of life, not just what you do for a living. Zero in on doing the job at hand and notice how much you increase your results, which often results in you getting more zeros after the comma in your yearly income.

All the best,

John

We all react. Even a non-reaction is a reaction. So the question I pose is: “Are we slaves to our reactions?” The answer is “Yes” and “No.”

Yes, because we will have automatic, lightning quick, conditioned behavior fire off when we are met with a certain stimulus. No, we’re not slaves to behavior if we begin to notice it. That’s our only chance to outgrow it.

When I have a reaction, I have a choice if I notice I’m having a reaction. As mentioned, a reaction is a programmed way of responding to a stimulus. If every time someone says, “You’re an @%#&%,” your retort is, “You’re an @%#&%,” you have re-acted with some programmed behavior.

I have found that it’s best for me if I keep my reactions on a leash, otherwise they may run amok like a spirited dog. That means if I have a reaction that’s going to take me down a path that goes deep into the woods, I notice it and pull back.

If my reaction has been let out of the bag, I have a brief opportunity to mitigate it by reeling it back in. As an example, imagine this back and forth between a couple. Add to the scenario that one member of this duo has had a “trying” day.

“Would you like to go see the new Meryl Streep movie tonight?”

“No, I don’t want to go to a crowded theatre and sit with the great unwashed.” (Now noticing the reaction) “But ya’ know, that movie has gotten some great reviews, can we go see it tomorrow night because I’ve just had a day and wouldn’t be the best company tonight?”

Staying with your initial reaction will get you what it got you last time. You’re like a scripted actor in a predictable scene. Noticing your reaction and interrupting it before it becomes drama is your only chance for growth.

Start noticing your reactions and notice that they take you to the same place each time. If you’re looking for new vistas, start saying “hasta la vista” to your programmed reactions by noticing them and you’ll find yourself acting in fresh, unscripted scenes.

All the best,

John