What you think

Chapter 151

Thomas Traherne: “To have blessings and to prize them is to be in Heaven; to have them and not to prize them is to be in Hell. . . . To prize them and not to have them is to be in Hell.”

There are a lot of heavens and hells here in this statement. But that is actually not the point to be made here. All the points pertinent here are thinking perspectives, and what you think about it matters most of all. It may be the only thing that matters at all.

What I think constitutes a “blessing” is what indeed makes something, whether it be material thing or event or relationship or whatever, a blessing. What I think about it will impart blessing-worthiness on that objective, or not. Does my thinking create physical matter? Well no, but what I think about this piece of physical matter will determine whether or not it is important to me, a blessing so to speak.

Of course “prizing” them, valuing them or not, is the very essence of what I think about it. What you and I prize, is something that we have mentally ascribed high value to, we place the most honor upon this, we seek it more diligently than we do lesser things.

And Heaven and Hell, while they may well be physical geospatial places somewhere in the universe, they are most definitely what I think about them. What mentally makes one place the most sought after, and another the most shunned, is what I think about them.

And what you think about these matters is what will ultimately determine all the pieces of this blessing prizing puzzle of heaven and hell.

Defang the old story

Chapter 150

Giving what you didn’t get, can be a really powerful new story, a new narrative in your life. Inspiration for a lifetime.

It is not enough to give what you didn’t get. It is a marvelous start, but it is not enough. It has huge wonderful ramifications, but it is not enough. This delivers amazing potential, and exponential promise, but it is not enough. This can destroy a scarcity-mentality and keep you from being boxed in by small thinking, but it is not enough. Giving what I did not receive, giving what lacked in my life, giving what I wish I had gotten, giving in ways and methods and manners that I never received - these are powerful freeing experiences and choose, but they are not enough.

Give more. 

Give what you didn’t get. 

Love more. 

Drop the old story. - Garry Shandling

They are not enough, because they keep you locked into the old story. Of what you didn’t get. Of what you needed but never received. Of what should have been yours but never was. Of what damage or abuse or other negative that ruled your old story.

You gotta drop the old story. You need a new narrative that defines you and measures you and gives you entirely new boundaries. You need space to grow and be more, and that old story won’t ever allow you that. You want to completely defang that old story, so that it is powerless to limit your present and your future. This is the day after Christmas 2019 and we are giving more, giving what we did not get, loving more, and dropping any old stories that can harm or limit us.

Give what you didn’t get

Chapter 149

Give more. 

Give what you didn’t get. 

Love more. 

Drop the old story. - Garry Shandling

This chapter is being written on Christmas Day 2019. No idea when I might publish it as a blog or in a book or if ever. So if you happen to be reading this, know that it was written on Christmas. That is important because this is a perfect subject for Christmas Day.

To me, this short poem by Garry Shandling is epic. Especially since he evidently had a very difficult childhood - lost a sibling in childhood, emotionally disturbed mother, years filled with anguish. While most people have difficult pieces and events in their childhood, few deal with what Shandling dealt with as a kid.

That makes this recipe all the more potent. Because he chose not to repeat those injuries, he led a much different life, and influenced millions with his choices. If a person like my wife, with a perfect childhood, chooses to live like this, that is easy to understand. But when a person whose childhood was so painful makes a decision to live like this, that is inspiring!

So on this Christmas Day 2019, I sit here looking back on my life and my choices, what I could control and what I couldn’t, and I realize that I could and can Give more and Love more. But the Give What You Didn’t Get and the Drop The Old Story parts, have been central to my life. 

We all need to take a moment and intermesh these ideas more deeply in our lives, adjusting as necessary.

Give more. 

Give what you didn’t get. 

Love more. 

Drop the old story. - Garry Shandling

TMI

Chapter 148

“The problem is no longer getting people to express themselves, but providing little gaps of solitude and silence in which they might eventually find something to say….

— Gilles Deleuze

The more a person thinks, the less they feel compelled to talk it seems to me. People overshare all the time. Constantly. Non-stop it seems. TMI at all levels. Too much information! In fact people are talking so constantly, that as the quote above implies, there are no gaps in the the noise for them to have a chance to express themselves.

Not that this is a problem for my dad and his sister. She talks even more than he does! And they both talk so much and are so totally and completely into what they are saying, it seems that it is impossible for them to hear the other person speak at all. The results are 79 unfinished and incomplete stories statements and points, because they never let one another finish what they were saying, before they override the other one with another unrelated stories, statement or point. So funny. So confusing. So sad. This is not communication, its a competition for who can orally fart the loudest and longest.

This is not how adult intelligent people communicate. First of all, we listen. Listen some more. Listen so hard that it hurts. Then we might speak. If we have something important to contribute, that will enhance what has already been contributed. Otherwise, we have the control to not speak. Read it again - we have the control to not speak.

Try it sometime, it is more difficult than you might think, and it is very empowering when you can do it.

Oversharing

Chapter 147

We overshare publicly and under-reflect privately - Somebody

The snooze button has become my most used instrument - in social media, not on my alarm clock. People say way too much on Facebook and I snooze them for 30 days, unless it is a second infraction and then I unfollow them completely. Like I said, one of my most used instruments. But they don’t just share too much on social media, they just share too much period. We even have a phrase for that too - “too much information” - TMI.

I learned the hard way that oversharing was very dangerous, as I had a job that afforded me 90 minutes of public speaking each week, and I had far too many opportunities to insert my foot in my mouth over and over. In fact, this is one of the reason I started using a full manuscript when speaking, so that I would completely stop oversharing! So that I would completely stop revealing how little was going on in my brain - my lack of reflection and thought!

This lack of reflection is bad, and ubiquitous from where I am sitting. Most everyone I meet is guilty of this, and if I find someone who is actually using their brain, it is so rare, I spend as much time with these people as I possibly can. And am always looking for them!

Vocations

Chapter 146

“I want to be brave enough to be myself—whoever that is.” - Cardello  

This is more daunting than one would think. It requires a special kind of courage that is not found lying around in the locker room shelves. And there are at least two parts to be brave about with this idea; knowing or discovering who you are, and then finding the courage to embrace it. 

Who you and I are though, is not merely a vocational idea. I have to resist that even as I sit here and write about it. Maybe it is intensified by gender? I don’t know, but at least for men, this is a critical point - that we (me strongly!) struggle to think of ourselves in non-vocational ways. So who I am, is a question of whether I am a mechanic or a college professor, but it is also much more than that. The challenge is getting to the “much more” part.

Our vocations define us so deeply, I know that I spend over a decade trying to untangle myself from my previous profession. That still reoccurs regularly in my life, because OTHERS still define me by my previous vocation. They are the ones struggling with this version of me, even after more than 10 years. But regardless if they struggle with this best version of me or not, I will stay this course.

This much more part of me, the non-vocational part, is both comprised of both positives and negatives. But this too is part of myself, whatever it is. Much better to face it and deal with it, rather than hide it out of sight. In fact, isn’t that the point? Be who you are? And if you don’t like what you discover, chose differently.

Just tiny matters

Chapter 145

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Potential and possibilities within each of us are unbounded, there are no caps, no limits. The only boundaries are likely our imaginations. We are all unicorns in a sense. Yet as Emerson implied, we usually give far more weight to our histories completed in the past and the trajectories of our futures.

Our pasts and futures are a weight we carry, and they bump into us all throughout our days, affecting pretty much every aspect of our lives. They are an unseen yet ubiquitous part of our thoughts and decisions and choices. Our pasts and futures and what we think about them, drive us like cattle in certain directions . . . directions we likely would not have chosen if we were free from the constraints of these histories.

And that is beauty of what Emerson is offering us, by making our histories appropriately insignificant, compared to our potential and our possibilities. Our histories are tiny matters on the scale of our promise. We can chose ourselves instead of waiting for our past or our futures to dictate what we can or can’t accomplish. Our histories can be the fuel that drives our promise and potential, or they can be the water that puts out our passion and enthusiasm to change the world. Our histories can be that which gave us additional tools and incentives to be more, or the bonds that cripple our actions and efforts.

What lies within you?

What binds it there and keeps it from blooming into something amazing?

When will you put the past where it belongs?

Doubt? Or the truth?

Chapter 144

“We want to sit with doubt. We want to savor it. We want to follow it where it leads. Because on the other side is truth.” Holiday

Not only am I not as smart as many people want to think I am, I am far less certain than ever before, about a great many things. I know less and less about more and more. Know being the operative word. 

But Doubt is an uncomfortable friend. Very unsettling sort of chap. We don’t like doubt, we like certainty. Knowing. Assuredness. Conviction. Certitude. Factualness. Confidence. Conviction that we know something, feels so good. Safe. Sure. 

Certainty though can be a trap, and Doubt can be a road. And most of us need to ride that road much more, no matter how uncomfortable it feels. No one is saying that certainty and confidence are bad, but I am suggesting that we have far too much of them in our lives. All you have to do is read social media to see what I am describing - blazing statements of solid conviction about whatever, and without a shread of evidence or any facts or any experience.  So while convictions and confidence and knowing are all fine and good in measured doses, cultivate your Doubt a great deal more.

Doubt is like the bridge between belief and unbelief. And while it may be uncomfortable, it may be unsettling, it engages your mind and your heart and your soul, into the furnace of wrestling with difficult and thorny problems that the world faces, that you face, and resolving them in better and smarter ways. Here you can discover the truth about a great many things.

100% responsible for me

Chapter 143

The mental powerlessness of entitlement

Depending on others when you think they are responsible for you in some way, renders you powerless. This lulls you into not taking action to insure a positive outcome when it is in fact within your power to do so. In fact I would go so far as to say that it is imperative that you do so. Be 100% responsible for what happens to you.

The idea that someone else will take responsibility or the initiative is a deadly response to your personal duty to take care of your own needs. Long story short, I should have taken a taxi, rather than waiting for the airlines to come pick me up this morning. While I deserved and needed a room since I was delayed in my travels, the burden to get back to the airport on time for my flight was mine to own. I didn’t though. And it almost cost me dearly. Instead my lizard brain just let the airline determine when my pickup was supposed to happen. They were late. They they made two additional stops on the way to the airport. You get the picture.

I have had this experience too many times to still be falling into this trap.

This also happens to people taking money from the state or government. They lose control of their own destinies if they are not careful. Each benefit I accept, costs me some say over my life.

You need to own your own outcomes and not expect others to make sure you get what you need. Be 100% responsible for what happens in your life. Don’t allow others, for good reasons or bad, chose your course of actions, or limit your options, nor constrain your choices.

Chose to be 100% responsible for what happens to you. Don’t be seduced into powerlessness.

This is truth

Chapter 142

It’s humbling to learn that we are not as smart as we thought we were. - Holiday

Recently I was talking with one of my clients, one of the top five I admire most. He is incredible. He confessed that the greatest challenge facing him these days in his rapidly growing business is hubris, ego, arrogance. I just admired him even more for owning this, for realizing that this could easily be his downfall. When I am with highly competent people like this client, and see them confess such things, I understand that humility is a foundation to greatness.

However I personally know and understand that humility and appropriately understanding our own intelligence and weaknesses, is often gauged by the company we are with at a given moment. Not to take a single thing away from how awesome my client is, but that confession was easier for him, because he was making it to me, Dr. Aderholdt. Were he asked the same question by one of the people cleaning his office, or an uneducated unemployed vagrant, that the answer likely would not have been the same.

You see, I can more easily be humble about my limitations and temptations and challenges with my peers or higher, but with those who haven’t worked as hard as I have, or those who are much younger than me, or those who seem to have low IQ’s, or those with far less education or experience, it can be nearly impossible to admit that we are less than perfect. 

I am not nearly as smart as most people think I am. This is truth.

And I need to say that clearly and often. It was Socrates’ superpower.

My lack of mental discipline

Chapter 141

If we want more revelations—more insights or breakthroughs or new, big ideas—we have to create more room for them. Ryan Holiday

Not only is basic thinking affected by the constant bombardment of the neverending fight for our attention and focus, but more importantly, deep work, revelations and insights, best of all breakthroughs and new mental connections, (big thinking) are also lost through the noise. As I have stated previously, reading and breaking the processes are my superpowers, but the superpower I most diligently seek, is a focus so intense that no amount of noise or distraction can get through. I wish I could focus so intensely that the house could burn down around me!

Holiday gets it completely correct in that most people can’t have these things, even if they had the silence and quiet and focus needed, merely because they don’t have the mental space for them. They have so overclocked every moment of their lives, more and better don’t have a chance. They are so mentally and emotionally disorganized that their mental and emotional clutter takes all the room they possess.

This is not only an absence of mental clarity, or absence of thinking issue. It is also a stillness issue. A quietness of heart and mind and soul. A center of powerful confidence and rock solid mastery of me inside all three elements. I have so far yet to go. The most disappointing moments in my life, are when I fail to be calm and rational and at peace in my heart, mind and soul. When I find myself raging at some perceived loss or encroachment on my rights or disruption to my plans, I can see the full lack of my emotional discipline. This is mental clutter. It takes all available space, leaving no room for the amazing, innovative, important, change-the-world thoughts.

The rarest gifts

Chapter 140

“Thought will not work except in silence,”  - Thomas Carlyle 

I live in a world of constant partial attention and I can attest to the truth of this statement. I find myself constantly striving for more and more silence in my life, in order to be able to think well. Or think at all most days. The practice of constant partial attention is like dancing on a floor covered with broken glass shards - you cannot not dance nor clean the floor properly, at the same time, and to try and do them at the same time is dangerous.

Quiet in a world that can’t stop talking is the bane of my existence. Silence is the golden place of quiet. It is the palace of productivity and thinking. There are few things more undervalued in the modern world. I personally own three sets of noise-cancelling headphones and earbuds, for I am constantly striving to find more quiet and silence. In fact I am wearing one of these at this very moment.

Intrusions, disturbances inside and outside of us, distractions, sounds not of our own choosing, endless words that have no purpose or meaning, are some of the millions of mind numbing sticks in the spokes of our mental clarity and computations. Thinking is a difficult and fragile enterprise and it is effectively bombarded by almost everything and anything.

Certainly you and I can develop systems and resilience to this bombardment of distraction and sound and attention swerving intrusions which prevent us from doing the hard work of thinking effectively. Since I have largely given up on controlling my environment, it is simply beyond my actual control much of the time, I am constantly working on these systems and resilience- and it often feels like one step forward and three or four steps back.

Far easier and much more effective to keep finding silence and quiet. No amount of focus and discipline will be more effective than those rare gifts.

IQ’s and such

Chapter 139

“People in authority tend to believe that position elevates IQ.” Rockwell

Positional power and authority are real, however they come with many traps as well. Here is a primary one that must be resisted - that the position you have is a reflection of either your intelligence or your importance. 

Your intelligence is improved and enhanced by hard work and competence-building, not by climbing some corporate ladder or organizational structure to what some consider “up”. You cannot get smarter simply by movement in some system of advancement. This will in fact, fool you into believing that you have increased something that cannot increase with a simple change in office or desk size. Instead you will need to apply the hard work of sharpening your intellect with practice and challenges and experience. Don’t be tricked into believing for a moment that you role defines or elevates your intelligence.

Actually, most people would argue that those in positions are there because they are “company people” or that they have no real skills or intelligence to do the most difficult tasks. Others refer to this in the “Peter principle” where many are elevated to the point of their incompetence. Does that sound like position equals intelligence, or an increase in intelligence? Not at all.

Positions can be opportunities to serve others, and advance a cause or goal, and if so utilized in those ways, can provide opportunities for learning more and eventually increasing your competence. But the smartest person in the room rarely has the position of authority or power, because they frequently choose NOT to have that added responsibility, instead preferring to stay in a place where they can utilize their real expertise. I have seen this and done this many times.

Be humble.

Always be learning.

Achieve greatness

Pretending

# Chapter 138

“We pretend to be doing more important work, and more competently, than we really are.” Dennis Tourish

Tied closely to the previous chapter of hurry-hurry as the overriding theme of our Westerner lives, this chapter points out that few people actually have so so so very much overwhelming important work, that can properly fill each and every moment of their lives, and thus we fall into pretend, framing, posturing, telling ourselves (and everyone else that will listen) how busy we are, and thus how important we are.

This constant overclocking each minute with far more than it can contain, prevents us from acknowledging our weaknesses, and consequently prevents us from retooling, improving, or learning new things we need to keep moving forward toward the best version of us. It seems the more we cram into each minute, the more our hubris about our importance and intelligence grows, when in fact, just the opposite is true. We diminish ourselves and our capacity for the important, in step with how we allow or encourage the urgent to overtake our lives.

You must understand the difference between the important and the urgent, otherwise urgent will always triumph over the important. If we want to increase our level of important work, and improve our competence, then we must resist and filter the urgent, the loud, and that which is designed to consume our attention (there is a whole segment of writing about the attention economy, which is the bulk of the pings, dings, bells and whistles that our phones and computers sing).

Silence and quiet and thinking will garner a much higher return on accomplishing the important, than will that which is demanding our attention. Focus can carry you further than busy almost every minute.

Monochronic or polychronic?

# Chapter 137

“The high value put upon every minute of time, the idea of hurry-hurry as the most important objective of living, is unquestionably the most dangerous enemy of joy,” Hermann Hesse

This whole idea of squeezing every single second of possibility out of every single moment is a huge trap in life. I don’t know precisely who or what has fostered this mentality, but it becomes a drive that pushes out any remaining value in the proposition, except the productivity itself. This mentality has permeated the whole modern world it seems.

I spend half my time in client conversations encouraging people to slow down, make mental and time space to think, to do less better, and to decide early what “enough” looks like. The whole concept is likely wrapped up in the monochronic view of time, that time is linear (yes some people don’t think it is, just relax) and bounded and limited. So in a monochronic time view, each minute is one lost or used, but unrecoverable regardless. This feeds that inner urgency to “hurry-hurry” and gain something from each one of your limited minutes in life.

Whether time is polychronic or monochronic is not the point of this chapter, nor is it necessary to make a decision about which point you favor, your urgency or lack of it about these minutes of your life, will tell you where you stand. I live in a country in Eastern Europe that is largely polychronic, and time here is elastic and in certain situations absent entirely. No matter what you think about their view of time, you must admire the release of responsibility to maximize each moment of life. Here, you can just be.

Intentionality

# Chapter 136

... intentionality is “the consistent action you’ll take to get there.” Mark Sanborn

Once you have some clarity, you will be totally compelled to put it to use! Here is where intentionality comes in to play. But it can be really difficult to pull the trigger and actually DO something. Not only this, but generic doing won’t suffice, because of your clarity, specific, consistent, systemic action is required to get you where you need to be.

So once you conquer inertia, you can use the momentum, the gravity, the force of being in motion, to propel you forward. But you want to align this forward motion toward those actions which will bring you in the direction of your clarity. Busy and sweat don’t necessarily mean progress in the right direction.

Don’t think of intentionality as some obscure wish or wanting or desire. Think of intentionality as discipline and force, and a refusal to be denied. A certainty of starting, even if you can’t be certain of the results. Getting something moving is always the most difficult piece.

You are likely growing weary of hearing this, but systems and structure will help you tremendously in this endeavor. Nothing kick-starts a dependable consistent action like a daily system. You will not be denied. You will not fail. You will not allow anything to stop you. You are unbeatable, because you show up every day and are dependable. Your intentionality is powerful like nuclear fusion and will carry you forward.

“Action is the antidote to despair." Joan Baez

Clarity

# Chapter 135

“Clarity, tells you where you’re headed” - Mark Sanborn

Persistence is an amazing gift that it just keeps giving . . . if you have the clarity to be going in the right direction. Without said clarity, you just may be persistently wrong. Or obnoxious. Or evil. Or selfish. Or small.

Clarity can represent a number of things, like clear-headedness, or insight, or foresight. On the other hand, it could be puzzle-resolution or the simplification of complexity. Clarity makes the right direction apparent. Clarity sheds light on the darkness of confusion. Clarity straightens the tracks of misalignment.

The winter season has arrived unfortunately and I so miss the warmth of the other seasons. The worst part of winter is that it forces me inside, no more long rides on the bicycle until the temps reach the 40’s again. Instead, all I can do is ride the trainer. A contraption I hook my bicycle up to during the winter months, and I can sweat some and get some exercise, but I don’t go anywhere.

That would be an apt metaphor of our lives without clarity - lots of effort and sweat and grunting and action, but no progress. Action does not equal progress, any more than busyness equals accomplishment. Clarity is understanding and knowledge that you know where you are heading, that the target is recognized, and that in turn quantifies every event, bump, incline, curve and pothole that you face along the way. This is the synergy of clarity - that all these progress markers are simply confirmation that you are moving in the right direction.

Clarity is probably the most underrated value in the entire world.

The beaver

# Chapter 134

“One cannot overestimate the power of persistence.” Wheeler

If I have a second superpower, it would be persistence. Grit. Stubbornness. Whatever you want to call it. The metaphor that most rings like truth in my decades of life is a beaver, consistently gnawing on the tree until eventually, eventually it falls. This was true in high school, college, grad school, and my doctoral work. It has been true in every job I have ever had. It is true of every relationship. It is true of each investment. It is true of every thing I ever tried to learn or master. And especially parenting and grandparenting!

And the way that most people accomplish this persistence is with systems. Systems can be routines, habits, calendaring, checklists, paper and pen, however you organize your day. But whatever you use, use it rigorously and strictly and well . . . persistently and consistently. This is loop that will strengthen itself the more you practice it. The more rigorously you practice your systems, the more persistence you are capitalizing on. In other words, the simple use of your system of working toward a goal or anything, is in and of itself persistence.

Systems can give you clues and levers and steps and directions to your persistence. IFTTT (if this then that) kinds of clues. First thing in the morning I write down my measurements from the day before (you do what you measure), did I exercise, did I read a book, publish my blog, etc etc. This has to happen,BEFORE I do the next tier of tasks, which are exercising, writing this 275, devotions and meditations, etc etc. And all of that has to happen before I am allowed to open or write email or answer/read texts. Otherwise, the bulk of my day will be derailed and I will find myself at the end, with no reading accomplished, no exercise sweated, no paragraphs written. Get the important things done first, and then the urgent follows.

The power of persistence.

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit." ~ Will Durant

Change the mind change the world

# Chapter 133

“There is one thing on which we are agreed: There are too many books in the world to read in a single lifetime; you have to draw the line somewhere.” Setterfield

Reading has always been my one consistent superpower. Even before I started school in first grade, I could read. It was the primary focus of my mother’s attention toward me in my early years. Neither she nor my dad graduated from high school and they both felt the stinging results of that, as most good paying jobs required that high school diploma and neither had it. In my mother’s eye, reading was the key to education and of course education was the key to good jobs.

Even though the world we live in today is a very different world than the one my parents grew up in, this gift has served me well. It is also the reason why we don’t have a television, and don’t play the radio in the car and why playing games drives me nuts - there are too many books waiting to be read! In my world of living overseas these past 25 plus years and moving constantly, ebooks are my salvation, as we have lost or given our dead-tree library away three times now. We only have 40-50 of the most key books remaining in our physically library, while our digital libraries are vast and our wish lists long.

As my fellow change-the-world compatriot Bernie is fond of saying, you will be the same person you are today in five years, except for the people you meet and the books you read. Those are the external input factors you can accelerate and be purposeful about today.

Read more.

Read more widely,

Change a mind, change the world.

More imagination

# Chapter 132

“With a bit more imagination they might have been able to leap the bounds of their own expectations” Setterfield

I hear and read regularly that disappointment is the result of unmet expectations. What a fail. That entire configuration needs to be restructured so that disappointment only happens when your expectations are not aligned with the direction you need to be going, not when you fail to reach them. Expectations do not have to be part of the disappointment factors in your life. While I see that they are for many or most, the direction the expectation is pushing you is far more important than the anticipation factor. Change your orientation to these disappointments, these failed anticipated results, because . . .

. . . Expectations are boundaries. They are the boundaries of your future hoped for results. Expectations are your anticipation containers and they are likely limiting what you can conceive in a given situation. Stop doing that! Its preventing you from breaking out of your life two sizes too small. Its limiting what you can reach for, constraining what you can strive for, even defeating your wish to live (or understand!) a life two sizes larger than you are living right now. Expectations are structure in your mind and structure is an inherent “no”.

What we need is more imagination. This is the task that is at the core of my working life. Taking leaders to new peaks and down new paths and letting them see a different view, than the one they had before. This is just another metaphor for imagination. Another way to crack the boundaries of existing expectations. Another way to raise the bar. Another way to scale.

“The longer you wait for the future, the shorter it will be.” Loesje