It seems to me that there is a lot of waiting in life – waiting for something to happen.

What are you waiting for?

It may not be the case with you, but generally what I find is that when I say, “I’m waiting for _____,” it’s often an excuse for me not to take action.

Let’s pretend you want to paint a room and you have ordered a special paintbrush you want to use but it hasn’t arrived yet. “I’m waiting for the paintbrush” is a legitimate thing to say. But there are countless other things you can do to make this project go smoothly in the meantime – Tape the ceiling, assembling the drop cloths, paint cans and rollers, etc.

We wait to do those things and when the paintbrush does arrive, the project is a mountain to climb rather than just some walls to paint.

The paintbrush is a metaphor for what you’re waiting for.

What are you not doing while you’re waiting for something to happen?

Have you noticed that “not doing” takes on a life of its own and we justify that life by saying “I’m waiting.”

Here’s a secret others may not share with you: The thing you’re waiting for may never happen. That means that you have suspended living until what you are waiting for arrives. That means you are merely existing.

Being patient and waiting are not the same thing. There is a knowing behind patience – knowing that what you want will happen if you’re willing to give it the time that’s necessary.

Waiting, on the other hand, is just a giant pause with no guarantee. It’s a maybe at best.

What you’re waiting for may truly be worth it, but what you do while you are waiting either contributes to you or it doesn’t. If you’re “on hold” during this time, so is your life. I can tell you from experience that it’s not a pleasant feeling. A life spent in waiting is a life waiting to die.

What can you do to live?

I don’t know the answer for you, but I suspect it’s the same one I found: Do anything other than wait.

If you’re waiting for the paintbrush, your life may be dead, or, in the meantime, live a little and paint the town red.

All the best,

John

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The words, “Need to know” popped into my head when I opened my word processor this morning, so I haven’t a clue where this goes. Buckle your seatbelt and let’s take an off-road adventure together and see where we go.

My sense is that “Need to know” is sensitive or privileged information that is given to only a few.

The question I have is: Why was I kept out of that loop?

Am I too dense to comprehend the information? Am I a blabbermouth? Does it not concern me in the least? Am I not to be trusted with it?

Those are all thoughts that get in the way of me knowing what others already know. If I’m too focused on my thoughts about why I was left out, I’m ignoring the actions that others are taking who got this secret information.

Perhaps you never got the money memo. You know, the one that tells you how to make money. Since you were not on the need to know list, there is another way. Find the people who are making money and find out what they do and do it.

It also works in reverse. Suppose your parents were overweight and you are overweight as well. You did get the overweight memo, but you don’t want to be heavy. Reverse the role modeling – See what your parents do/did and don’t do that.

There are no secrets to success; there are plans and actions that will get you to a specific destination. You just have to find and follow them.

The finding is easy. Find someone who has what you want and find out their formula. Autobiographies are filled with such information. Informational interviews with successful folks is another avenue. Most successful people I know are willing to share their strategies. You just have to ask.

Following is where our efforts fall apart. Look at the typical gym membership. You found the neighbor who is in the shape you want to be in. You got their formula directly from them and you headed off to the same gym. The difference? You may not have followed through.

Follow-through is a quality of all successful people. It’s the secret formula in all the “need to know” memos.

Now you know. So every excuse you make from this point forward just shines a spotlight on your failure to follow through.

Plans without follow-through are dreams that die.

Following through is a habit. It’s one worth developing. It’s a transferable skill, so you can practice it in any area of your life and it will transfer over to other areas as well.

That means to find something small and follow through on it. Then find another small desire and follow through on that too. You are developing the habit of following through. It may seem that you are working on something too small to make a difference until you do it often enough that it begins to show up in bigger areas of your life.

Success sneaks up on you when you follow through. This is something I thought you needed to know.

All the best,

John

It can easily be argued that you are the sum total of your patterns. Your behavioral routines determine what you do and you are an amalgam of those repeated deeds, indeed.

But just like there are different ways to score your credit, there is another way to add up who you are – Subtraction.

Patterns are addition. Many of them are no longer useful or productive, yet we still run them every day.

We and our collected patterns are one in the eyes of the beholder. They can’t see the difference between the authentic you and the conditioned you. That’s because they too have summed up that they are their patterns.

We learn addition first so it’s quite natural to assume it’s the most important piece of life’s math. It’s more foundational than it is important. We cannot appreciate subtraction without first learning addition, sort of like not knowing “down” until we have a sense of “up.”

Once we learn that we are not what we have added to ourselves, it’s time to begin the process of subtraction. Subtraction takes you back to basics – back to an unadulterated you.

Subtraction begins by noticing what is no longer working for you. Just like a comedian who made you laugh with jokes he told 20 years ago, those same jokes now make you cringe. If he doesn’t notice and keeps telling them, the joke’s on him.

What collected pieces of behavior are defining you? It’s prudent to do an inventory. Some of those pieces are essential to functioning well in life, hang on to those. Other pieces are just additional baggage; those need a minus sign in front of them.

Subtraction leads you back to you – a beacon of light that wants to shine through.

Too much addition keeps the window to the soul covered over. Notice what additions are adding to your darkness and get curious about what no longer adds up.

It seems counter-intuitive at first, but subtraction adds to life’s score.

All the best,

John

One thing you will know for sure if you hear someone offer the platitude, “Forgive and forget” is that they are swimming upstream.

One of my pet peeves is that many people, some who should know better, offer advice without direction. “Forgive and forget” falls into that category.

Forgiveness is not something that you can consciously do. You can set an intention to forgive yourself or someone else, but you can’t just make it happen by saying so. Forgiveness, as I’ve written about before, is like the Christian concept of grace. It comes to you when it comes, not when you consciously decide.

How many people have you stated you’ve forgiven but haven’t? That’s because the feeling of forgiveness hasn’t arrived yet. If you could aver your way to forgiveness, there would be a lot more of it present. From my vantage point, that is not the case.

Forgetting is also not possible unless you are mentally impaired.

You are not going to forget something, especially something that caused you any sort of pain. The memory will be there as long as you have a memory.

So what are the directions to forgive and forget?

Willingness and updating your response.

Willingness is the catalyst that sets a process in motion. Once you are willing for something to happen, it has a much better chance of happening. You just can’t state willingness; you have to be open to it.

It’s like trying something new. “Ugh, I’ll never eat sushi” is an unwillingness. If you ask, “What’s the harm in trying?”, you have experienced the act of being willing.

Willingness is necessary to open the door to forgiveness. It’s not a guarantee, but you have just exponentially increased the odds of forgiveness walking into your life.

Again, regarding forgetting, you’ll never forget, but you can update your response to that unforgettable event.

The moment is a stimulus and “not forgetting” is your reaction to that moment. What if you could choose a different response? Would that be helpful? You bet.

Our mind updates things all the time. Look back on some pictures of you in high school and notice the clothing, hairstyle or adornments you had going on. You laugh. Those things were very appropriate for you then but not now. You didn’t forget them; You outgrew them. You’ve updated your response to those memories.

Not forgetting is living now like it’s still then.

Updating your response begins by noticing that it’s now, not then.

Ask any therapist about the number of clients still reacting to long dead parents as though they are here now.

That memory contains pain. There is a way to outgrow the pain. I learned the following technique from Dr. Dave Dobson. He would ask a client to rehearse themselves over and over again in a sensation that was pleasant to them so they could produce that sensation at a moment’s notice. Then he would ask them to retrieve the unpleasant sensation that went along with the problematic memory. The second they felt the unpleasant sensation, they were to call up the pleasant sensation. He would have them do this over and over again.

The results were amazing. After some practice, the pleasant sensation replaced the unpleasant one automatically. By doing the exercise, they updated their response or, as I like to say, “they outgrew it.”

If, after reading this post, you still choose to live in past pain, please be willing to forgive me for offering a strategy to try, and forget that I mentioned it.

All the best,

John

“Good, Better, Best” discussions will always be arguments without winners because all those terms describe opinions.

But we DO deem people as better than us in certain areas and our opinion is backed up by lots of other opinions and it almost seems like the truth.

What makes someone better in our opinion? There are lots of answers to that question – education, skill, know-how, intelligence, practice, stick-to-itiveness, etc. We can go down a number of paths to pursue an answer.

The answer I continually come up with is passion. When I judge someone better than me at something we have relatively equal skills and knowledge about, I find passion at the core of their “betterness.”

My hobby is photography. I’ll never be as good as some people I’ve encountered with more, equal or less skills than me because I lack their passion. They eat, drink and sleep photography, but for me it’s just something I like a lot.

Passion will make you better.

So the objective is to find your passion and you’ll find that you get better.

As Robert Frost offered in his poem, “Two Tramps In Mud Time“:

My object in living is to unite

As my two eyes make one in sight.

Passion is a uniting force and provides focus to your skill set.

If you’re the competitive type, passion, over time, will lead you to more wins than skill ever will. Skills will diminish but passion has staying power. Pursue your passion and watch yourself leave others with more skills in the dust.

But in the end, it’s not about winning per se, it’s about feeling better about yourself at the end of the day. Passion is the elixir that makes that happen.

All the best,

John

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The Grasshopper introduced me to a new Latin phrase: “Quid Pro NO.”

It didn’t take long for me to catch on to his message. We all know people whom we do lots of things for and when we ask them for something, they are too quick to say “No.”

If you are a parent, you implicitly appreciate this concept, especially if you have a 2 year old or teenagers. It’s next to impossible to get them to do things that you want done. It’s easier to get a bill through congress.

Simply put, they have no appreciation for your efforts on their behalf. The good news is most of us outgrow this behavior, but some of us don’t and just don’t reciprocate to others that often.

Reminds me of a story . . .

Years ago, I went out of my way to hire a person for a radio job. I had to lobby heavily to get them the position. There was lots of resistance from my boss to add to the payroll. I was persistent because I knew this person was a perfect fit for what we were doing. Their salary instantly doubled and they got raises each year. This broadcaster had all the raw personality to excel in this position and was coached heavily to succeed.

The story has two endings. One, this person was a great hire and turned out to be all that I expected and then some. The second ending had me being downsized (fired) from that position 3 years after that hire. When the news spread throughout the building, people I only knew casually came by and offered their words of consolation. When this person dropped by, the only thing they said was, “I just heard the news; that sucks” and then went on their way. If it was 15 seconds, it was a long time.

It bothered me.

I got to wondering about what it is that blinds adults to express gratitude and reciprocate to people who do much for them. I must not have been the only one who was wondering, otherwise we would never have gotten Mother’s Day as a holiday.

I’ve found that reciprocation is a two-way street but not for one-way people.

I guess the message is to notice “Quid Pro NO” in ourselves because we all do it from time to time. Perhaps it comes from some sense of entitlement that we’ve acquired along the way, or maybe it stems from not being taught the art of reciprocation. The origin of our behavior isn’t important; the expression of gratitude and the act of reciprocation is.

Each time we fail to reciprocate or express gratitude, we throw salt in the wound of unacknowledgement – a fate worse than death.

In closing, here’s a sublime rhyme: If someone has put something nice on your plate, remember to reciprocate.

All the best,

John

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Had a visit from The Grasshopper over the weekend as I was sitting outside. He said, “Nature doesn’t care about reasons.”

I wrote it down but had to let it sit for awhile before I could make sense of it.

I thought about the absurdity of giving nature a reason for destroying it. “The reason I’m polluting your stream is so that we can have a place to put our toxic waste runoff that we aren’t allowed to put anywhere else. Also, it’s legal.”

Lest you think this is a rant about the environment, please read on.

A reason won’t gain you absolution. What you did is what you did; it’s a fact. Reasoning away the facts doesn’t remove the facts. It’s like trying to get rid of a tattoo. There will always be some kind of remnant.

Your reason doesn’t work on human nature either. Just because you won the argument because you could reason better doesn’t mean that there wasn’t damage done by your reasoned away actions.

We have become a reason based society where just about anything we do can be reasoned away. The people you are “reasoning” to don’t care about your reasons; they want acknowledgement of what you did, period.

It’s so easy to go into reason mode; we do it all the time. I’m sure it will never be eradicated and, frankly, that’s not the goal. The goal is to notice how often we attempt to reason away our behavior rather than acknowledge it.

This focus of attention on behavior rather than excuses creates a mindset of personal responsibility that we build on each time we choose not to give a lame excuse.

Just observe yourself today about to reason something away and you will know, first hand, how widespread the decay. We pollute our life with reasons that keep our offending actions in place.

Notice how quickly you can come up with a reason not to take action on this offense to yourself and to human nature.

Will you reason away today or will you notice there’s no excuse that works?

All the best,

John

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“There are holes in peoples’ lives that keep them from becoming whole.” So said The Grasshopper this May morning.

We often don’t recognize the hole that we’re in.

When I’m coaching someone, I listen and look for what’s not there. They describe everything but the hole.

Everyone is an expert on their problem until it comes to solving it. Solving a problem requires that you unearth it from the hole that it’s in.

“What’s not there?” is a curiosity question that fires off in my mind when I begin to hear someone’s story.

The answer to that question is usually a piece of behavior that they are not recognizing or burying in a burrow.

Behavior is the root of most peoples’ problems. It’s the hole in their story.

Many people ask for help but reject it out of hand when they find out they have to lift a hand to solve their situation.

We are a magic potion society that believes there is something that will get us out of our hole without adjusting any of our behavior. For example, just ask any couples’ therapist and they will tell you this story: Each member of the couple holds the notion that if the other changes, then everything will be better.

They keep their behavior holed up and it’s a major hold up in solving their problem.

What piece of behavior can you adjust that will help solve your problem? “That’s just the way I am” is your first clue that you’re stuck in a hole that you dug for yourself.

I am a lousy second or third time listener. What I mean by that is when someone describes their problem to me multiple times, I become deaf. It was crystal clear the first time and the remedy is the same each time – adjust your behavior or stay in your hole.

If you notice that you have the same problem you had last week, last month, last year or ten years ago, you are in a hole.

The lifeline to extricate you from this pit appears when you notice the hole in your story – the lack of behavior recognition or a lack of willingness to adjust.

I’ve mention it before but one of my favorite songs from my church going days had these lyrics: “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.”

Our behavior begins with us. It’s the whole story.

All the best,

John

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Awakening is like a Lay’s Potato Chip, you just can’t have one.

I woke up last summer and I cannot describe the experience because awakening has no words. You’re so steeped in a serenely connected experience where words don’t belong.

I could speak but I didn’t want to, and when I did, the words didn’t pre-form in my head; they came from somewhere else without agenda.

This is not akin to any artificial highs I have ever experienced in my lifetime. They brought me below consciousness. Awakening is consciousness itself.

I have experienced brief awakenings since and it’s from this place that infusion begins. My life has become infused with more and more of these moments. They sneak up on me, and what a pleasant surprise it is when they silently say, “Boo!”

This isn’t about me; it’s about us. Awakening is available to everyone. You’ve experience awakening if you ever had your breath taken away by something of beauty – a sight to behold that couldn’t hold any words. They went away with your breath. You were just totally aware without comment.

It was raining last summer when I had this experience and it’s raining this morning as I write. I’m aware of the different sounds the raindrops make as they hit different surfaces – the leaves, the ground, the rain gutter. I’m conscious of things that normally escape my consciousness.

I woke up twice this morning – when my eyes opened and when my commentary shut down.

I have a friend who has many skills and one of them is his ability to guide you to an awake state. His name is Jerry Stocking and I encourage anyone curious about waking up to get to one of his workshops.

Potato chips, anyone?

All the best,

John

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It struck me the other day that the word “Onus” can be hyphenated to read: “on-us.”

I laughed when I realized how often we twist that word to suit our purposes. It seems we want to spread the responsibility when things go awry and often claim full credit when they go swimmingly.

It’s on-us when we do well, and on anybody but us when we don’t.

Here is a piece of wisdom from The Grasshopper that will save us all from the practice of spreading the poverty around: “Your behavior is your behavior and no amount of burden shifting can explain it away.”

Simply stated, your behavior is “on-you.” Think of it as a French word that means “total responsibility for your behavior.”

Behavior is, more often than not, programmed. That means we learned it along the way. We weren’t born with it; we acquired it.

Many of us, when we don’t like the way we behave, learned to shift the burden to avoid the responsibility for our actions.

Take the toddler being potty trained as an example. The child knows after several training sessions that the goal is to make it to the potty when they have that urge. When they don’t feel like making it to the potty, they do their business wherever they sit. When their behavior is discovered, they may offer up that they “tried” to make it to the bathroom. We learn at an early age that “try” absolves us from behavior.

We have shifted the onus of our behavior to a word that has no behavior attached – Try. That pattern of learned behavior follows us through life as we continue the practice, if you’ll excuse the expression, of spreading the shit around.

Try attempts to shift the burden from “on-you” to “on-us.” “Us,” in this case, means “not you.”

Our behavior makes up our life. Explaining away or ignoring our behavior has become our national pastime. We spend our time explaining away what we did rather than focusing on what can be done.

We do what we do. I hope you noted the period at the end of the previous sentence. The more time you take to blame and explain, the less time you have to take dead aim.

Noticing and taking full responsibility for what we do puts us on a path towards something new. It puts the onus on you to outgrow explaining away everything that you do.

All the best,

John

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