Blind Spots
Accountability is a key component of success and personal growth. Growing out of your blind spots requires a rare set of character qualities.
You have to know certain things, like:
You have blind spots
You can’t see your blind spots
Your blind spots are obvious to the ones who love you
Hearing about your blind spots feels threatening
You’ll naturally try to conceal your blind spots
Blind spots in most people are static because it’s easier to identify the blind spots in others. The nail in that coffin doesn’t end well.
The blind spots become dynamic with accountability. When someone holds you accountable they are saving you from yourself. Whatever you keep doing is self-sabotage and they are trying to stop you.
It’s often when love feels like judgmentalism.
The next time accountability comes your way and it stings a little…pay attention.
Stay humble, mi amigo!
Good Guilt
Guilt is the rumble strip for your day to day life. The Christian might call the rumble strip the spirit of God. A toddler naturally hides his wrong doings because what is right is hardwired in all of us. When what is “good” doesn’t match what we decided to do there is a tinge of guilt to remind us.
The world turns dark when we ignore the guilt and rationalize the action. Over time the guilt fades away and it starts to feel okay. Especially when you start spending time with people who have also muted their guilt. It almost disappears altogether and becomes the “right” thing to do.
The next natural occurrence is the feeling of judgment. Judgment from others who have not rationalized their wrong doings. When you watch someone else stay away from the rumble strips the guilt you thought you eliminated comes right back. The best thing to do in this case is to stay away from those type of people because they are “judgmental.”
But are they?
Humans are a mess but it’s worth taking a closer look at the feeling of being judged. What’s the source of that judgment?
Oftentimes it’s your conscience fighting for what is right and not condemnation from someone else.
If you don’t think there is absolute truth…the rumble strips will politely leave you to your ways and you will be miserable.
Loco
Most of the time we try to avoid looking crazy. Holding back our ideas in fear of looking dumb or incompetent puts the best stuff on ice.
Normal people evict these crazy ideas and move on to more acceptable or common modes of thinking.
If you’re a little loco, you don’t have to advertise it. Simply writing it down without letting it slip away is the key. Create a container to revisit, massage, and even play out the irreversible consequences of taking action.
You can’t be normal and phenomenal at the same time.
If people think you’re loco…you might be on the right track.
Seeing
We have a weakness. An unavoidable natural bend that is difficult to extinguish.
It causes great pain and anguish. It causes unhappiness and even sickness.
It’s how we see.
(Seeing what is right before us with the eyes of the past.)
The long list of caveats, judgments, and doubts rob us of the present reality. I tend to roll my eyes at the notion of “practicing the power of presence” as a woo woo platitude.
I’m changing my mind.
Equality
The mantra of our culture has been to make everyone the same. One man is not better than the other. We are all equal right? Those who want power (the nefarious type) strive to ensure that no one stands out as superior. If a person is superior, their money, land, ability to speak should be debased, confiscated and silenced.
After all, it’s not fair.
All men are not created equal. We all start with 99.9% of the same DNA but there is a huge delta between how we react to our pre-installed Divine blessings. What are you doing with your gifts? Are you allowing God’s power to flow or are you letting the plaque of equality constrict your rarity?
Hierarchy is correct and corrupt on the human level. Power is tyrannical and saintly. So what is the cause of a good thing gone bad?
Envy.
Don’t be afraid to be a lion among sheep.
Improvements
Making a significant improvement can be an uphill battle. The hopeful outcome of making something better is usually only half the story. If you spend any time at all looking back at a recent adjustment in your life or business you’ll usually see the desired outcome pretty quickly.
As time burns on things get interesting. The lead domino of a meaningful upgrade leads to so many unexpected ancillary improvements. Improvements you likely didn’t know were possible.
Spend some time doing a mental case study of your last upgrade. Take a look at the momentum that was created.
Notice the butterfly effect and leverage that to attack the steep climb to your next enhancement.
A bold and thoughtful improvement will be surrounded by unexpected but correlated velocity.
Decisions
Some people make snap decisions, others weigh all the options, turn over every rock and don’t make a decision (which is a decision.)
It’s been suggested by the science dudes that we make around 35,000 decisions every day. It’s the important ones that can snag us. They snag us because the consequences are more meaningful.
There is a deep correlation between the quality of our lives and the decisions we make. The key is learning from the bad ones. Copy what the Seals do…after every mission they engage in an after action review.
When things go haywire with your health, money, or relationships it’s likely tied to one of your decisions.
Learn to own them and course correct when needed.
Thank You Mr. Perfectionist
Perfectionists can be annoying. Always commenting on how things aren’t right…pointing out things that are out of place. Constantly correcting their environment. Nitpicky fixers who lose sleep over things that just aren’t right.
But Wait…
Without them the world would be a total mess. If they were erradicated everything would implode. Planes would fall out of the sky.
They are largely misunderstood. You might think they wake up in the morning ready to find mistakes, search for the crooked picture, the misspelling, the missing data. On a mission to correct you or throw a wet blanket on your idea.
It’s not true…and that’s why you might be annoyed.
Dear Mr. Perfectionist,
My guess is, mistakes assault you…you don’t have to find them, they find you.
Am I right?
Assumicide
In the marketing world, attribution is something that must be tracked closely. Dedicating ad spend and blindly hoping it converts is a quick way to burn cash. Knowing where the sales are coming from is a matter of analyzing data.
Living in the business environment makes it easy to assume it will also work in relationships. Studying data (outcomes) is a long way from the reality of someone’s motives. Trying to get into someone else’s head to figure out why they did or didn’t do something is a fundamental attribution error.
Coming to conclusions with your guesses is assumicide.
Pro Tip: If you think someone is being malicious or careless, ask them directly. Say something like “I get the impression you were late to the meeting because you don’t see it as important…is that true?” \
Saying nothing and resenting them is chickenshit.
Work Life Balance?
If balance is the goal not much will get done. Balance should be viewed as a reprieve instead of a destination.
If the expectation is homeostasis you’ll find yourself largely unhappy. Unhappy because you’re not in control of what happens to you. You become a perpetual victim of your circumstances.
What about what you can control? Grinding out a big project puts you out of balance. Sometimes it’s a season and sometimes just a few days. Enjoying the hustle is healthier than wishing for balance
The pursuit of balance is a limiting belief.
Balance will come…but if you search too hard you’ll end up finding laziness.
Corruption
It always gets uncovered…it's just a matter of time. Sometimes seconds, sometimes decades.
Corruption in the physical world is pretty easy to negotiate. Nobody wants to get into an airplane with a corrupt design. Nobody is going to drink water from a corrupt source.
Corruption in the spiritual world isn’t as obvious. Diversions from reality or truth can poison a society. It can put us on lockdown, it can keep us from speaking what’s on our mind, it can keep us from seeing reality.
Taking the high road often hurts in the short run and if you get gut punched long enough it becomes easy to rationalize a corrupt reaction.
Sometimes the corrupt reaction is silence.
Guard yourself against corruption and pursue the truth…even if it’s inconvenient.
A 2,000 year old pro tip? “The Truth will set you free.”
No Help
Some people want to be helped without asking. If you miss an obvious way to help them you’re gonna get the cold shoulder.
If they saw an opportunity to help, they would be first in line to dive in. They pretty much help wherever they go. Give, give, give. They are selfless people…
Not so fast.
If deep down inside you expect reciprocation…you’re not helping.
Keeping tabs leads straight to resentment, I checked.
Apology
Saying sorry is harder for some than others. Knowing logically that you are not perfect is the easy part. The hard part is owning it face to face.
Sometimes it’s a misunderstanding. Maybe your intention was positive but it was hurtful to the other person despite your motive. Within the scope of apology, the motive doesn’t really matter much.
A simple “sorry” with no explanation is the starting point. Allow it to sink in on the other side. Allow them to metabolize it without a bunch of nervous chatter. An explanation, rationalization, or excuse dulls the ownership and undermines the apology. At that point you’re making it about you instead of them.
Yesterday, I received an eye to eye apology with nothing extra. It took courage and we knew it. It drew me closer to the other person.
It reminded me to do the same.
Parting Thought: If you use “but” within a half mile of your apology…It’s not an apology.
Shark Bit
We often get stuck because we are afraid of doing it wrong. When making a decision if you wait for all the information things get really slow. Most of the time deciding to wait for all the information is a decision to not take action.
The best solution for this slow road is to shift your focus away from the lack of information to probability.
Probability is the key to decision making. Let’s assume you want to go swimming in the ocean but you’re afraid of sharks. You sit on the beach watching everyone enjoy a good swim while you worry about the sharks that could attack you. You’re sweating while the sun beats you down. You’re miserable because you are ignoring probability.
Many people fail to grow their business because they are fixated on what might go wrong. They are paralyzed by the sharks that “probably” won’t be there.
They know what they want but allow their emotions to cloud the reality of probability. It’s precisely why the house always wins in Vegas. They don’t build those beautiful casinos on your winnings.
BTW: The probability of being bitten by a shark is about 1 in 11.5 million, while the probability of being killed by a shark is about 1 in 264 million…
The probability of dying of cancer is about 1 in 5.
Time to swim in the ocean.
Excuse
Excuses are all around. Your productivity, the amount of money you make, the quality of your relationships hinge on excuses. The delta between success and failure depends on how often you use them.
The reality is that you know what you ought to do. God hardwired it into your soul. The moment by moment crossroads of right and wrong never stop.
Cookie or Apple
Work Out or Lounge
Beer or Water
Get up or Sleep In
TV or Book
Worry or Pray
Bible or News
Social Media or Conversation
Excuses rationalize the wrong choice. Don’t let your mind play tricks on you. Discipline is important but the more effective approach is to curate your habits to help you.
With a little effort you can alter your autopilot (aka habits) to water down the excuses and pave the way for a better version of yourself. With the right habits in place you can blur many of the crossroads. The exit signs are less legible and enticing.
God made you to be a part of making things better. You can easily sabotage your straight and narrow because…
If you look for an excuse…You’ll find one.
Presence vs Control
Being in the moment forces you to release control. Maybe this is why we often shift our mind to what happened last time and what might happen this time. We like control but it’s a distraction from what is real.
A mindshift to the past or future allows us to regain control. We decide what pictures we paint of the future or what we revisit in the past. We control the stories we weave. Trying to be in control in this context causes us to miss so much beauty and peace.
The present requires us to set aside everything and absorb what is currently happening.
All the sensations…All the emotions…
Take a deep breath and release control because the only thing that is real is right now.
Control is a fairytale.
God has it.
You don’t.
“You can do anything if you set your mind to it.”
It’s a silly thing to tell someone. I could set my mind to becoming an F35-B fighter pilot all I want but it will never happen. I can believe it, imagine it, put it on a vision board, and visualize it all I want but the Marine Corps won’t agree with what I’ve set my mind to. Ever.
People do amazing things every day because they “set their mind to it.” They do the work, they sacrifice, they take personal responsibility to execute when no one is looking.
Being in touch with reality is an important context. Mixed in with reality is our emotional interpretation of reality and how we interact with it. The reality is, if you don’t “set your mind to it”…it will never happen.
There are only two steps:
Set your mind to it (believe it can happen)
Get to work
Without both, you’re stuck.
Pro Tip: Spend time asking God to show you reality and what to “set your mind on.” The good news is, He will only show you reality in doses
Pet Thoughts
Thinking about something negative that just happened to you should be kept at bay. Allowing the thought to become your pet is a tempting notion. Playing the victim of a circumstance provides a litany of excuses and rationalizations.
It can become a library of reasons for falling short of your best self. A library curated by your ruminations.
People say you should just “let it go.” That works for the benign things but what about the more painful things?
Perhaps the solution is savoring.
Searching for the beauty right in front of you dissolves rumination…..drinking in the sunset, the comfort of your favorite chair, the giggles of a little one, or the way your dog greets you when you come home. Savoring the small moments neutralizes the unhelpful thoughts from taking root. Look for them…they’re everywhere.
Count your blessings. It’s a better way to live.
Old Man Strength
Aging is a bummer. The body gets stiff and creaky, the skin is less elastic, and recovery from anything takes longer. The good news is, for many, the mind becomes stronger in middle age. Don’t let your mind go too soon.
Body and mind are more connected than you might think. If your mind allows you to let go of your fitness there are mental consequences. The symbiotic relationship reveals itself in your vitality.
Being a good steward of your body is one of the keys to mental clarity and energy. You only have one body to take care of. Neglecting your fitness holds you back from your potential. Your fitness is the lead domino to a sharp mind.
We have two choices
Seek comfort
Seek growth
Parting Thought: We’re all going to die but hitting the “F-it” button physically will kill your potential prematurely. The price of excuses is high. Adjust your mental narrative and get moving.
What are you thinking?
It might be a good idea to stop taking your thoughts so seriously. The contents of your mind are not who you are anyway. Overidentifying with your thoughts causes all kinds of downsides. Allowing the wrong thoughts to run wild will cause anxiety and stress. Other thoughts cause pride, rigidness, and a closed-off spirit.
The fact that thoughts cause action and action cause feeling is enough reason to use caution when harboring them.
Thoughts need to be respected but are not your identity. It turns out that trying to control your thoughts is a fool's errand. Trying to block or erase them almost puts a spotlight on them. Instead, just notice them and gently show the bad ones to the door.
Pro Tip: When someone you love is an emotional basket case, allow them to feel. Their feelings are real and should never be argued. The better approach is to validate the feeling and later on gently discuss the thoughts that lead to the emotion. Mistaking someone’s feelings as thoughts doesn’t go welI, I checked.