Downgrade Your Lifestyle to Upgrade Your Life

If you’re not willing to downgrade your lifestyle for a year to have a lifestyle you want forever, you care too much about what other people think.” 

– Jim Carrey

We are way too attached to things, stuff, and material wealth.

Way too concerned about how others will judge us should we not be driving the right car, or living in the right neighborhood.

There’s even a colloquial expression for it. “Keeping up with the Jones’.”

It’s only becoming worse with the invention of social media and the so-called smartphone (which should be called a dumbing down machine), because now, more than ever, we can see what everyone else is doing, and they can see what we’re doing.

What we don’t always recognize is how this judge-and-compare universe is defining our assumptions of what happiness should be. We are always looking upward to define our growth and success, not laterally, or even downward.

The next rung in the ladder must be climbed.

But what if we’re on the wrong ladder?!  Surely it’s better to climb down the ladder and step up to the next one, beginning anew to explore our possibilities?

Jim Carrey’s quote is poignant because it causes one to pause for a second and understand how attached we have become.  

If we are so defined by our station in life, are we not also trapped within it?

That sense of being trapped, controlled, or defined is self-driven.  We decide the interpretation of society at large.  Most of society at large is way too busy to give a shit about what we are doing, driving, or dating. But we still worry about it.

Contemplating Jim’s question, if we can simply consider downgrading our life, and being comfortable with less, we free ourselves to so much more possibilities.

I actually did this very thing.  

Eight years ago now, I decided to take less money, dropped a number of consultancy projects, and revised the way I was living my life.  I did this with my partner, and we made an intentional decision to reduce our financial footprint so we could begin to craft the life we wanted to live.

Smaller house, outside the city, less amenities, a simpler life.  It allowed us to create changes that in turn gave us space to take better care of ourselves,  enjoy each other, and to be better parents.

It wasn’t always easy, but life isn’t easy.  But it’s the hard we want to do.  It’s the life we choose to do.

I get to do this.

How about you?

Recognize Your Value

“Try not to be a person of success, rather become a person of value.” 

– Albert Einstein

A large manufacturing plant has come to a halt, with thousands of dollars of production being lost each day. 

No one seems to be able to fix the broken machine that is responsible for producing the company’s valuable products.

Customers clamoring daily for the product are frustrated and take their business elsewhere.

Ownership growing angrier with each passing day, and a real sense of despair has fallen upon the company.

Their wits end, and General Manager reaches out to a highly recommended consultant who comes to the plant, assesses the machine, takes out his hammer, and pounds three times on a small part.

Suddenly the machine begins to run again, and the product starts rolling off the assembly line.

The consultant hands the general manager an invoice for $30,000.

The General Manager squints and looks again, then turns to the consultant and says, “$30,000 for 10 minutes of work and three strikes of a hammer?!”

The consultant sighs, and then says, “No sir, you were losing thousands of dollars an hour because this machine was down.  The $30,000 is for the years of knowledge and accumulated experience that told me exactly what I needed to do to fix your machine in the shortest possible time.”

Your value should not be mistaken for your self-worth.  These are two different things.  Self-worth is how you see yourself from within and requires deep personal reflection and a great mindset.

I’ve talked about some of this work in previous posts.

But your value is something defined by external interpretation.  What do you bring to the table that serves to improve or benefit those who seek your services or knowledge?

The Rapper 50 Cent began his foray into selling Vitamin Water after observing the difference between a gallon of water sold in one container for $2.89 and another down the aisle sold for .59 cents.  

He speculated that no one would know the difference between the two waters if they were poured in a glass side by side.  He realized that the “Brand” of Poland Spring, had figured out how to make people think there was a difference.

He later observed the difference between a bottle in a hotel room for free, in the local corner store for $4.00, and on an airplane for $9.00.  Real or perceived scarcity, convenience, and brand image all play into the decision-making of the customer.

Your ability to make a living from what you do, the service you provide, or the products you sell is determined by your ability to solve problems others can’t solve, or your ability to be there when they need solving.

But it is also dependent on your ability to recognize your growth, and your unique abilities as they become enriched.

It’s also dependent on your confidence in what you offer or provide. Your ability to walk away from those who don’t value what you have to offer.  But also your ability to be there when it’s needed.

Your value is complex, but it starts with knowing it doesn’t always have anything to do with the market price.  The herd mentality creates market prices and expectations, but those should not define your value.

Your value is always changing and often revised depending on circumstances, environments, and needs.  It’s important to keep a pulse on all of these things as your life and career progress. 

Mohamad Ali once said, “A man who sees himself at 50 the same as he did at 30 has wasted 20 years.”

On second thought, your value and your self-worth are intimately aligned.  The work inside is just as important as the work outside.

When you know your value, live it.

Mastering the Art of Living

“A Master in the Art of Living draws no distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind, and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his religion. 

He hardly knows which is which. 

He simply pursues his version of excellence through whatever he is doing and leaves it up to others to decide whether he is working or playing, to himself he’s always doing both.” 

– L.P. Jacks

I heard this poem the other day, shared by the author’s son at a Ted-Talk. 

Profound!

It’s the real concept of living a balanced life.  Creating this life takes time and intention, but the essence is listening to your heart as you work your way through life. Recognizing what aligns with your energy and what does not.

Too many of us ignore the signs, ignore the feelings, and plod on with life expecting at some point along the way that fulfillment will rear its wonderful head.

It doesn’t work that way. You need to listen as you work your way through each experience, each stage, each moment.  Evaluate how it made you feel, and recognize its worth.

As you do, and as you find your work of choice, you’ll begin to realize that work doesn’t feel like a job anymore, it is just what you do.  Play isn’t contrived but simply explored regularly.  Both become blurred by their synergy.

You aren’t working, you are being in the effort.  It might not be easy, likely isn’t easy. But you are doing the hard you love.

Further education is simply an extension of this internal compass, not burdened by having to do it, but immersed in the opportunity to play with it like a new medium of artwork.  

That’s it really, you do the next thing, not because you need to accomplish the next thing, but because it just feels right.  It’s a part of your expression, just like singing or dancing.  You don’t sing because you have to, you sing because you want to.

As the poem says, others may perceive you are at work because you are at work, but that doesn’t mean you are working.  Only you define the feeling.

I think this is the journey we are on, to slowly fabricate our lives, listening more acutely to our internal dialogue and owning the dissonance.  Not allow ourselves to accept the job, the relationship, or the situation because that’s what is expected by society, our community, or ultimately ourselves.

Stop, evaluate, revise, and set a new course.  Life is a series of experiments, each one helping to refine a better outcome. Slowly taking us to a place of mastery.

But we have to begin by listening and then doing something about it.

Don’t accept what doesn’t feel right.

Master the Art of Living.

There’s Always Going to Be a Bigger Boat

“While money can’t buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery.” – Groucho Marx

One of the things I’ve realized as I’ve gotten older is that there is no point of arrival.  You don’t get to get there. There is no there, there!

We’re convinced early on in life that making goals and achieving things, getting things, and acquiring things are what you do, and that somehow, when you get to the pinnacle of this process, you will have arrived.

But there will always be a bigger boat, a better car, a nicer house, a better job, etc.

We love to watch voyeuristically the crisis and controversy of the rich and famous. Shows like Dallas and Dynasty in their day, and now Succession and Billionaire are our opportunity to live vicariously through the characters.  

And yet, would we want to live that life? The excentricities of wealth never seem to solve anyone’s problems; they seem to simply make them bigger.

Chasing the next thing is a never-ending race to nowhere. Always looking back at who’s chasing you, and always looking forward to the next thing, never being present in the now.

Should we have goals and objectives? 

It’s important to want to explore what is possible for yourself no matter what the chosen medium.  Just understand that the reward is to be found in the effort and self-exploration, not in the actualization. 

Life isn’t a game you are trying to win.  There is no winning formula or trophy.  When we make it about the trophy, then we get caught up in winning another trophy.

It’s all simply about growing and exploring what you are capable of imagining and creating.  And your imagination and creativity should never stop until the day you perish.

Size doesn’t matter, LOL.  

What matters is that you expect to be restless and interested in something else.  It’s normal to be dissatisfied with where you are now so that you dream of where you might want to be next, realizing that when you get there, you won’t appreciate being there, you’ll be looking elsewhere again.

It’s a normal human characteristic.  It’s what caused us to explore the world we live in.  It’s what inspired the great explorers.  But as they all realized, once you get where you planned to go, there’s somewhere else to get to next.

Your satisfaction and fulfillment can’t come from the false prophecy of arrival, it can only come from the effort and experience in trying.

You’ll save yourself a lot of money, time, and frustration if you stop focusing on getting it, and start focusing on being in it.

There is no there, there.

Remember

“No matter what happens in life, be good to people. 

Being good to people is a wonderful legacy to leave behind.”

– Taylor Swift

Does legacy matter? 

It’s an interesting question.

Having spoken to hundreds of people on the podcast over the last seven years, and many more throughout my life, I can say there’s no consensus on this question.

For some, the idea of leaving a legacy is the essence of their existence.

For others, it matters not one iota. Or at least the notion that this is their purpose is something never pondered or considered.

But even though it’s not necessarily the focus or the raison d’etre of someone’s life, most of us, either consciously, or subconsciously in the deep recesses of our minds want to make a difference.

We want to matter.

Taylor Swift’s quote to begin this blog is quite poignant.  Legacy isn’t always about leaving knowledge, possessions, or a physical imprint. It’s often simply about your effect on others.

Being good to others is a wonderful point of embarkation for legacy.  Simply being remembered by others for how you treated them is an impact of great value.

How would you like others to remember you?  

You might not care right now, but you’ll most likely care as the days of your life begin to count down.  Having witnessed the descent of my mother’s health most recently, I can tell you that you don’t always get to choose how you will go, or what you’ll be able to do in your dying days.

The time to make peace is now, not then.  The time to define how you will be remembered is now, even if it doesn’t seem to matter now.

That doesn’t mean you have to have some bold objective, it simply means you carry yourself with a commitment to character and an honest effort to do right by those who you encounter.

You won’t actually know you’ve achieved it.  Legacy is an afterthought, not tangible to us in practice, only understandable by those who have been touched.

You are sewing seeds in a garden you’ll never see.

But wouldn’t it be nice to know it’s a garden worth talking about?

Does legacy matter?

I think it does.

Remember

“In Flanders Fields, the poppies blow. Between the crosses row on row. That marks our place, and in the sky, the larks still bravely singing fly, scarce heard among the guns below.” John McCrae

What did the men and women of the great generation fight for?

Why did so many give their lives, often without question, to the mission of the moment?

They were scared and did not know what awaited them on the other side of an ocean’s journey, but they went despite their uncertainty and trepidation.

The call of duty.

What required such sacrifice on the part of so many?

Numerous fascist regimes had taken power over their people and had decided to extend their power over the territories and belief systems of neighbors. Extending borders and taking land uninvited and unimpeded.

Indifference had been the nemesis of those who ignored the coming of such peril.  Many, until it was in their face, could go about their business unaffected by the perils of those unknown.

Why worry about someone else’s problem?

Hitler and Mussolini promised their citizenry prosperity and a return to greatness, and they delivered until they did not.

We should be careful when the illusion of prosperity deludes the factors that conspire to create it.

The facade of such totalitarianism eventually cracked and crumbled under the forces of those who would not acquiesce, but only after so much loss of life.

Young men and women at the zenith of their lives turned to dust in resistance to the forces of evil.

With the effects of the Great Depression on Japan’s economy, and impressed by the rise of the military-led authoritarian governments of Germany and Italy, Japan also chose to explore its regime of conquest.

Unfortunately, an isolationist sentiment of much of the American public stalled any resistance other than imposed sanctions. Only when attacked did the full extent of the power of America’s complete dedication to resistance rain retribution upon the axis of evil.

Once again, at the cost of so many.

In remembering, we should not forget that many lives were lost, and much human tragedy occurred until all who stood to lose their freedom awoke from their slumber and joined the effort.

The lessons learned are easily forgotten in time.  Forgotten is the ignorance that allowed such evil to perpetuate itself unchecked and unfettered.

Forgotten is that many would have continued to ignore the spectacle were it not for the audacity of these regimes and their belief that they could reach wherever they pleased, do whatever they pleased, and no one would stop them.

There was great darkness before there was light.  Many lost before it would end.

“Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil. The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference….

.…and the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.”

Elie Wiesel

On this day of remembrance, do not just remember those lost in times of war and their great sacrifice.

Remember that much of what they sacrificed could have been avoided perhaps by the simple act of our attention.

Stand up for what you believe.

Be ready to support others in such a cause.

Pay attention, not ignorance.

Always strive to elevate your character.

Pursue a worthy ideal.

Today, we remember.

Tomorrow let’s not regret, let’s strive to do better.

#LestWeForget

“There is a virtue in work and there is virtue in rest, use both to overlook neither.”  – Alan Cohen

How do you find rest?

Is it in the white space of time unoccupied by toil, or the toil unoccupied by rumination?

Many of us avoid the concept of rest as one might envision it….nothing to do and without guilt.

Mostly because we feel guilt!

Or some derivative therein.  

When we take time off, time away from the toil of work, or other responsibilities, our mind begins to play havoc on our gift.

Are we so deserved? Shouldn’t we be doing something? What about that thing that still isn’t done?

No rest of the wicked, and wicked are we who would choose to rest.

But rest isn’t a void, it’s an opportunity to release.  A void infers there is unused space and immediately requires fill.

Opportunity infers a choice to not be bothered, a choice to think freely and imagine, or create.  Rest isn’t about doing nothing, it’s about doing something you need to explore free of the responsibility of stuff!

Real rest isn’t what you have been sold it to be. Going on vacation, and managing all that comes with travel or transition.

Spa sessions and massages.

Real rest can be had right in front of you if you permit yourself.

That’s the key, can you permit yourself to not give a S*&t?

The FEAR acronym prevails, False Expectations Appearing Real.

We cloud our mind at rest with that which we fear, expecting it’s all just our imagination gone wrong.

Rest is allowing your mind to imagine gone right.

We must train ourselves to rest, it doesn’t come naturally. It’s a learned skill.

Start with permitting yourself.

Then imagine anything you want.

“You can not merely expect culture to be a natural occurrence; it has to be taught and made part of your everyday routine.” Mike Krzyzewski

There are many books and opinions about building team and business culture, and how great leaders can manifest great culture through their choices, modeling, and decision-making.

These are all valuable resources and concepts to ponder while building your culture.

But, the unsaid fabric of culture in a team environment is stewarded and protected by the support staff who create the roots for great culture to grow.

Misunderstood and undervalued, year after year great teams and great cultures thrive when their support staff work behind the scenes quietly defining the room through their everyday routines.

The mistake made by many in human performance who join a new team is to define the success of their work through their accomplishments or contributions. 

“I was hired to be the X, and as the X, I am responsible for the Y, and I need to do Y very well.” This is the typical narrative of new staff members on a team.  How can I show everyone I am a team player by doing my job well?

They inject themselves into the environment and attempt to prove their worth and value through the expression of their skills and knowledge delivery.  

They work hard, no doubt, but they often miss the mark. Instead of contributing to the perpetuation of culture, they create microfractures in it.

The hardest thing about working in a sports team environment is realizing that sometimes 70-80% of what you do will have nothing to do with the delivery of your technical acumen, and everything to do with your contribution to the calmness and consistency of the everyday stuff that needs to be done to keep a team running.

Often boring, rarely appreciated, and mostly unrecognized until it is missing or done wrong.

When I worked in the NHL for much of my career on the road, even though I had been hired as a therapist and performance coach, I helped the equipment staff by setting up and collecting the sticks.

Every time a game ended, I collected the sticks as the players exited the ice, systematically bagging them so that they would be easily re-set at the next destination.  

Then, when arriving at the next practice or game rink, I would pull all the sticks out and align them on a wall in order of number, ensuring each and every player would be able to go to that wall and know exactly where their stick was when they reached for it.

Many of the players never knew I did this duty.  They weren’t there when I pulled the sticks out and set them up. They knew their sticks would be in the same place, ready when needed.

I was rarely if ever thanked by anyone for doing it.  Occasionally the lead equipment manager would say a quick thank you.  Their thanks in my estimation, was their trust that I would always get it done and done right.  

The everyday routine would remain steady.

Being a part of a team culture means doing your work, and the teamwork, and the extra work every day without compromise, and without expectation.

If someone shows gratitude, show appreciation for that gratitude and continue consistently delivering.

On great teams, gratitude is shown not through pleases and thank you’s, but through trust and confidence in you. 

The fact that a multi-million dollar player knows you will do right by him or her, and they give you their trust is an exceptional expression of thankfulness.

When a coach, whose job is on the line every day based simply on wins and losses, gives you his or her consent to do your thing, that’s his or her thanks.

Trust is an implicit thank you.

If you expect, even for a second, to be thanked or recognized for what you do in the room of a team, you are automatically on the wrong side of the culture equation.

All that being said, if you are a coach, or an athlete, or a manager, or a leader, recognize that your culture begins and ends with your support staff.  They are the unsaid fabric of your team culture. They are the stewards of its relentless consistency.

Take the time to thank them now and then, and recognize the stuff they do beyond their scope, and on your behalf. It goes a long way.

Culture is formed, not in the loudness of the illuminated statements we make, but in the quiet darkness of the day-to-day.

The great oak tree rises and grows at the behest of the earth in which it rests.

“Despise evil and ungodliness, but men of ungodliness and evil, these, understand.” William Saroyan

As we creep slowly into the upcoming US election what strikes me the most is the growing absolute distrust that has been created around the idea of free and fair elections.  This idea of election denial has become very disturbing.

No level of counter-information, or treatment of the voting process seems to create or re-create trust in the process, more than disturbing, this is frightening.

The whole idea of democracy, as flawed as it might be is that the people get to vote and decide who their elected representatives will be until the next election.

The essence of a democracy is that people have different viewpoints on various areas of interest and concern, and they vote for the person they believe best represents their viewpoints and agenda.

Then, based on how everyone votes, these elected parties speak to the subject matter as representatives of their voting public.  It’s an imperfect system, but it gives everyone a sense that they can steward their republic through their vote.

This belief system has been insidiously damaged over the last ten years, and exponentially fractured since the election of 2020.  

Very little has been done to revise the approach to a free and fair election, and many have been informed that the efforts to create more belts and braces have in some instances been done to create even more disharmony than to create faith in the process.

How the people of the United States of America manage to navigate this next election and resolve this situation in the future is the burning question of just about every other democratic nation in the world.  

If the US can’t reform and resolve this distrust, how will any other democracy survive in the future?

Without the belief that your vote counts, the slippery slope of sociological confidence becomes that much steeper!

Simply being an observer of the outcome of this next election doesn’t make me feel any better about this challenge. It creates a concern with the belief of my own country’s population in our future elections as well.

Whatever happens, the resolve of the people to right this ship in future years would seem to me to be the X-factor in the future of a nation once revered for its representation as the greatest democracy on earth.

I can’t see the benefit to any single citizen in creating this disharmony, except to create a vacuum of faith with which they might take full advantage.

We can only hope that the future will be better, not worse.

“The true art of memory is the art of attention.” Samuel Johnson

There’s a lot of talk out in the world of self-improvement about how to use your time better.  How to create better schedules, get stuff done, or be more productive.

Even more important seems to be how you use your time to recover, self-reflect, and take better care of yourself.

Time is a valuable commodity, or currency depending on how you use it.  If you give your time or sell it, it’s a commodity, if you use it to barter or trade for something you need, in essence, it is a currency.

Like any currency, it’s a limited resource, and fundamentally, our time on this earth is finite so we should use it well.

But the nuance of time, and its real value is where you place your attention. How connected are you to what you are doing, who you are speaking with, what you are experiencing, or who you are serving?

Attention is the secret sauce of intentional practice and improvement.

There is a great deal of confusion around the 10,000-hour rule for generating expertise, which was made famous by Malcolm Gladwell in his book “Outliers: The Story of Success”. 

Gladwell frequently repeated throughout the book that the key to achieving true expertise in any skill is a matter of practicing that skill correctly for at least 10,000 hours.

This was a simple explanation for a rather complicated subject, but the truth is what matters most is not the volume, but the intention and “attention”. Bringing real focus and connection to the task at hand, and as a result, making finite modifications and improvements along the way is what creates real expertise.

Depending on the complexity of what you are doing, and the variability of the circumstances within which one must execute the skill or ability, a longer or shorter runway will be required.

But this rings true in just about every facet of life.  Especially when it comes to relationships and interactions.  We often hear people talking about listening better. 

Be a better listener, they say!

But the bigger question is what is your attention in the conversation?  Are you actively listening? Enough that you could reiterate the conversation to someone else shortly afterward?

We have a whole syndrome to blanket explain people’s inability to invest their attention. Attention Deficit Disorder.  Can’t focus on what’s important, now!

We’re much better at talking to ourselves. Not to be confused with positive self-talk, most of the time we are downing on ourselves and repeating our negative narratives.  The internal dialogue sabotages the act of listening.  Instead, we vacillate between thoughts irrelevant to the conversation, and thoughts about our next contribution.

Being present is about bringing your attention to the moment, to what you are experiencing.  If you are trying to get better at something, your attention needs to be on the act, not on other things disconnected from the act. 

If you want to be connected in someone else’s presence, your attention to them at that moment, no matter how short or long, is essential to the power of the interaction.

While writing this blog, my attention was momentarily diverted to the Netflix Series my wife was watching “The Starting Five”.  It follows the backstory of several NBA players during a season. I was struck when watching Lebron James at the end of Episode 4, about the traditions of the Christmas game in the NBA.

What struck me was watching Labron at the end of the game and his interactions with so many different people.  Here is one of the world’s greatest basketball players. His time is precious and the demands of his attention are pulled in every direction, and yet, I could see his real presence in every interaction.  

I didn’t see someone simply letting people be in his airspace.  I saw someone who cared to bring his attention, however fleeting to every interaction he had.  From the connections to the players he embraced and wished a Merry Christmas, to their children, and then on to connecting with the numerous members of his family waiting off-court. 

Not just saying hello, but remembering something important to them, or just being “with” them for just a moment.  I could see his attention in action.  Not distracted by the chaos of the environment, but delivering real hugs and handshakes, then redistributing his joy and spirit to a staff member making them feel special.

There’s a reason people become the best at what they do, and it’s not just about working hard or practicing, or doing more than everyone else.  The older I get, the more I realize the secret to this type of success is the ability to bring undivided attention to the task at hand whether short or long is required or available. 

The task at hand not only being about the work but also being with the relationships that support the work.

Think about the last time you were with someone you looked up to or were inspired by when you spent time with them.  I bet that when you reflect, the reason you felt that way was that you truly felt important to them even if it was just for a moment.

Attention is a powerful thing.

Where is your attention being focused?