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January 16, 2023 By Scott

“What Matters Most” -Your Stories Matter-

Your Stories Matter

Influence

This is the first in a series of blogs that I’m going to do to set the table for your future mindset experience.

I’m going to start by sharing my own story.

A story of accepting what it is that you are told to believe and resigned to believe, from your childhood. 

As you grow up, you follow through a process of development, mostly stewarded by your parents, and your parents define for you what you will believe, or won’t believe.

You accept some of the information that they provide for you as truth.

This is often reinforced by your siblings, family members, or your local cultural connections and environmental connections. Whether those are people you are connecting with on a daily basis, your teachers, your coaches, or anybody who has formal or informal implications for your life.

So all of these people are contributing along with your experiences, and the challenges you undergo, to create an experiential fabric that drives your belief systems. 

Sometimes you counterpoint those beliefs, you choose not to accept them as truths and do differently. And, sometimes you look at them as things that are true, and you don’t challenge them especially when you’re a kid when what you’re told to do is what you do.

I grew up in a family that was relatively well-educated. My father came from a very difficult set of circumstances, and higher education was his belief system. 

He had been told that going to university was an important element of his own development. He grew up in the 40s and 50s, and getting a university degree was not common. To some degree, it still remains less common than one would believe. Regardless, he believed that getting a university education was high value, and that’s what he did.

He went to university, then became a diplomat, and was a successful diplomat. So, when my turn came to choose higher education, his viewpoint was that I needed to go to University.  

Really, there was no sense of any other kind of excursion or opportunity in my father’s mind. You are going to go to high school, you’re going to graduate high school, and you’re going to go to university. You’re going to get a degree, and then you’re going to get a job, and that was really the story. 

I was sold that story from childhood, I was told that story by the culture and the fabric of every influence that I ran into whether that was TV or socio-cultural influences, after all, my friends were all doing it as well.

We all went to university and we chose a future of expectation. 

But before I enrolled in University, I had applied to do a college diploma program in radio and television arts. My inner voice was always telling me that I wanted to broadcast and express myself and to talk with people. I felt I had an affinity for conversation, I wanted to do talk radio, or talk TV.

But my father discouraged me from going to college and informed me that he would not help me with my schooling financially unless I enrolled in a University degree. 

So I gave up on that aspiration and instead, discovered the world of therapy and performance, became a therapist and performance coach, and went on to create a wonderful career. 

But all the time while exploring human performance, I had to find a reason for doing it. And it wasn’t really because I was excited about the idea of rehab or training. I like training, I lifted weights and had an affinity for it, and I was a strong kid. But it wasn’t my raison d’etre.

I was more attracted to human performance because it was an opportunity to stay in touch with sports, I loved sports. So I found a way, a vehicle to express joy for sport and performance sport. 

I got into that world and it became my de facto purpose for being, to show people I was good enough to be there. 

So I always focused on trying to live up to what I thought were the expectations of that industry. 

But, in so doing, I always felt a sense that I wasn’t good enough.

What is Good Enough?

I was always seeking to find the next platform that would sociologically define me as having arrived, or been successful. 

In the beginning that was to get a job at a major university, because at that time, that kind of role or that kind of responsibility was high value and well respected. So that’s what I did.

I also thought that working for my national professional organization and doing things from a political standpoint would again elevate me to a place of respect, and so I did these things to generate a sense of being respected as well.

I was always doing what I thought would allow me to feel like I was good enough.

After a while I became less excited about the work I was doing at the University, and realized I was not being fulfilled by the work I was doing. 

I thought the next level, perhaps the National Hockey League or professional sport would be the place where I would arrive!

During that period of time, I also struggled with a couple of personal relationships. I had been a heavier kid and I had struggled with my self image and self belief, so again, finding the right partner, a partner that somehow made me believe I was good enough was a challenge. I ran through a few unsuccessful relationships and a lot of trauma and and challenge around that area of my life. 

I realized no job or relationship was the secret antidote to my sense of self-image and value.

Finally, I got a role in the National Hockey League where I was able to work for eleven years.  I started with the New York Islanders, then two years with the NY Rangers, and then home to Montreal to work for eight seasons with the storied Montreal Canadiens. 

I could write a book on those eleven years as well but will hold on to some of those experiences for future blogs.

I believed I had arrived at the Montreal Canadiens at the pinnacle position in Canadian Professional sport. Now I was good enough, right? Wrong!

Seeking Fulfillment

Well, I was eight years into that and still not feeling this sense that what I was doing was what I really love to do. And I was still not feeling a sense that I was actually good enough. 

I also realized that 80% of the work I was doing was not fulfilling and only about 20% of what I was doing really energized me each day. 

So, I embarked on a mindset journey led by some mentors who helped me find my sense of self, and my purpose. I recognized who I was internally, through some valuable and insightful self-learning, and self-realization. 

At my core, I was a connector. 

I was somebody who had energy to explore what other people were doing. I was interested in connecting and conversing,  pulling on the threads of the fabric of what other people were experiencing, and what made them who they were.

I learned about myself and learned about my connection centric life, and the person that I was, and my desire to express myself. It all came back to this idea of broadcasting. I realized that this new genre of expression called podcasting was something that could invoke or allow me to potentially express my true self.

However, at this point, I felt constrained by the “How” and the challenge of making that happen. For another four years I waded through that feeling, and then finally took the bull by the horns entering into a course to learn how to do podcasting. 

Once I started podcasting, I knew I was somebody who wanted to explore and learn through other people’s experiences. I loved exploring through conversation on deeper topics and diving into the subject matter of human experience. 

I still enjoyed helping athletes succeed and solving their problems, and my resume in that industry had grown strong enough that I was able to selectively choose the kinds of projects I wanted to do, I found resonance in my craft. 

I also learned that I was somebody who had strength for teaching and presentation, so I began teaching. Sharing what I knew was deeply fulfilling as well.

Creating a fabric of life that allowed me to do all of these different and inspiring things was my definition of success, and the pursuit of this worthy ideal. 

The overreaching story that I want you to recognize and connect with is that fundamentally, this journey of self-investigation needs to start earlier in your life. 

The Essence of Self-Reflection

If you’re like most, you have not been encouraged to self-reflect. In fact, it’s often discouraged. Considered an older person’s thing to do. At 50 or 60 years old you try to learn more about yourself.

However, self-investigation and self-reflection should start way earlier in your life. 

Beginning as early as your teens where you can start to self-investigate what you’re excited about what creates a passionate experience in you, and what you do to connect with yourself. 

There’s nothing wrong with self-investigation and connection, and just recognizing what it is you’re capable of doing. 

If you live in the world of human performance as I do, if you take this concept out of the context of an internal call to a spiritual or psychological investigation, and you put it into the physiological, you are constantly telling your athletes or the people that you work with that they should monitor what and why they’re doing what they are doing.

What is the effect that they wanted to create, did they create that effect, and how are they feeling after this stimulus? 

What are their moods, and what are their energy levels? 

Take, for example, nutrition where you want to know what macros you’re putting into your body, How much protein, how many carbs, and how much fat? What are the different types of food, and when are you ingesting those foods? How is your digestive system, what is the effect on you, all this information is stuff you’re telling your athletes to evaluate, investigate, and monitor, so why should it be any different with regard to your mental state, mindset, or growth experiences?

That’s self-investigation. That’s self-reflection!

Self-reflection is necessary when it comes to knowing who you are, why you do what you do, and what you’re excited about. And it doesn’t mean that you have to stop or constrain yourself by that investigation, but simply inform yourself through that investigation. 

This first lesson in this series is that self-investigation and self-reflection are an important part of your life. And it’s something you want to begin doing very early in your life to recognize who you are, what you have an affinity for, what gets you up in the morning, why you’re excited. 

If you can’t realize or answer these questions, that, in and of itself is a reason for self-reflection.

It means you need to do more homework. You need to do more investigation. You need to do more trial, and error. You need to feel and try things and recognize and validate the experiences as either successful or unsuccessful to you based on your own set of criteria for what is success.

Fundamentally, you want to start to discover yourself, and recognize that one experience was good for you, and another one wasn’t.

As you go through this ebb and flow of trial and error, you start to discover the things that you enjoy more and the things that you enjoy less and so your goal over time is to build a life that brings more of what fulfills you, and you enjoy, or adds value to your life through your own creativity, and curiosity. 

Rather than feeling constrained by what everybody told you you had to do. You discover the world you are meant to do.

Growth is the End-Game

Going back to the beginning of this blog, the stories that people tell you, the beliefs that people set for you, the influences on your behaviors, the constraints that are put upon you by the society, culture, and fabric around you, these are all stories you tend to accept as truth.

You need to be aware of these stories, and understand that they are just stories, so that you don’t get hamstrung by, or constrained by those stories. 

You simply want to recognize that all of what you have come to believe is a series of stories, and that you have control over designing and creating new stories, and in turn, your new life. 

The more information you have, the more investigation, self-investigation you do, the more you grow, to learn about yourself, and make better decisions about what it is you can accomplish.

Try answering these questions to get started:

1 – What makes me unique?

2 – What makes me smile or brings joy when I do it?

3 – Who do I admire and why?

Never stop growing.

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May 6, 2022 By Scott

How to Stay Positive in a Negative World

Our brains are biased to think negatively. We lean naturally to the glass half-empty. We love to dwell on our mistakes.
Think about it, if I asked you to remember your worst day, you’d probably hit me square in the face with a big ditty story very easily. You’d take me through all the horrible details make it clear that nothing could have been worse. In short, it would be an easy answer to a softball question.
But if I asked you to remember your best day, you’d probably ponder, think for a little while about something suitable for consideration, and you’d probably question whether or not I will feel like it’s a good enough day to be worthy of the response.
We love talking about the shitty stuff that happens to us.
We love judgmental conversations, if not judging ourselves, then judging other people.
We are all quick to kick someone else in the ass, take a poke.
We are even better at self-deprecation.
Why did I do that!?
How stupid was that!?
What was I thinking?!
Common man!?
You’re just so stupid sometimes?!
That’s what’s circulating in our minds all the time. So when we look outward to take stock of what is going on in our life, we are already biased to see the crappy stuff.
We are biased to choose the one tough thing that’s in the way, then the twenty reasons why things look good. Even when things look good, we question how they can possibly be that good!
So if this is our natural state of mind, how do we change it? How do we move towards a more positive state of mind? How do we begin to see things with rose-colored glasses instead of dark lenses?
Step 1 — Acceptance
We first have to accept that this is our tendency. The tendency to be negative, to think negatively, is a truth.
So let’s get past debating it and understand that it’s a biased starting point for most of us, even those who profess to be glass half full people, the conversations going on in their heads are rarely quite as positive as the image on their face might profess.
Step 2 — Awareness
Once we accept that we lean towards the negative, we need to start to become more aware of how often we take the negative line.
Most of us don’t even realize how negative we are most of the time. It becomes habitual.
We wake up and we start thinking about how bad we feel, how crappy our sleep was last night, how late we got to bed, how hard it was to fall asleep, how tired we are, and on and on. Really, that’s the type of narrative our lives take on a daily basis from the minute our alarm sounds and jerks us out of our comfort zone.
You know what I am saying is not far from your truth. And the conversations just keep coming.
Could be a thought train about the daily commute, what project you’re working on, or who you have to deal with today, these conversations just keep coming.
So awareness becomes our next step in the process of change.
We need to start to acknowledge these conversations and recognize that we do live in this negative dialogue space.
We need to start to record it.
Journaling daily can be a very powerful mechanism for increasing our awareness. Writing down the negative topics that are our favorite discussion points. Become more aware of the commonalities, of the traditional discussions of the sort. What are our favorite negative topics?
Is it self-judgment?
Is it a lack of patience?
Is it anger at everyone or anyone?
What do you think about regularly?
When we recognize the frequency and consistency of these conversations, we can begin to understand where our state of mind likes to reside. Now we can become accountable for our language.
Step 3 — Be Accountable
Being accountable means that we don’t just have these conversations without any recognition. We start to see them, own them, and understand how much and how often we have them.
Sort of like understanding how many calories are in a cookie, or a bowl of ice cream. If we don’t know, then we can’t be held accountable for the cost of eating them. But if we know we only have 2000 calories to eat in a day, and the cookie and ice cream are worth 800, we now know that we’ve used up a lot of our allotment on two little snacks.
But, that knowledge in and of itself is not going to be enough to change things.
Accountability means we do something about it. It means that when we notice ourselves in these little conversations, we do something to change it. We recognize it, and we apply a strategy to change the direction of the conversation.
One such strategy is a flow switch.
When we begin to hear ourselves entering into one of our negative discussion paths, we immediately apply a flow switch.
A simple and effective flow switch is intentional breath. When you start to have a discussion that is one of your favorites, acknowledge it, and then take five long slow intentional breaths while you clear your mind of the clutter.
Breathing intentionally is an amazing counterpoint to negative talk.
Step 4 — Adaptation
When we start to recognize our daily language, we can then begin to apply accountability strategies and tactics to move away from the negative and move towards the positive.
Another huge and extremely powerful mechanism for positive adaptation is counting your wins. At least once a day, preferably at the end of the day, take stock and count the things you achieved or had happened to you that was positive.

Injecting your mind with intentionally positive thoughts helps to shift the flow towards the positive. By ending the day with positive thoughts, you begin to start the next day with more positive thoughts.

The combination of being more aware and accountable for your internal language, and then injecting intentionally positive language will begin to shift the tide. You will never be perfect, no one ever is, but you will begin to see life in a new light.

A light that lifts your mojo and sends you on your way each day with a little more jump in your step.

Start taking these steps today, and walk the road to a more positive life!

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May 6, 2022 By Scott

Three Things You Can Do to Reprogram Your  Mindset

Every day is a new day.

Some roll out without a hitch.

Some start well and for some unknown reason go sideways on us.

Some are just dreadful from the moment we wake up to the moment we fall asleep.

Not much we can do to change this right? We’re stuck with what happens each day, it’s just a matter of fate and circumstance, no?

Truth is that the day or even parts of each day don’t have to be determined by any particular moment of negative contemplation. Rather they can be re-framed by our perspective.

Our experiences in life drive our perspective and in turn our behaviors.

If something has happened to us in the past and resulted in a certain outcome, our brain likes to categorize that outcome, prescribe a reaction, and keep it for the next time it happens again, or worse, when it perceives it might happen again.

Yep, that beautiful brain of ours likes to predict so it can be prepared, so given free reign, it’s often likely to choose the path of least resistance.

Stay home, turtle, get out of the way, fold, or maybe just have a temper tantrum and storm away!

Much of the time, a bad day, or a bad part of the day will get defined by the way we frame the information, the way things are interpreted. We define things as binary, good and bad, happy or sad, up or down. Truth be told there is far more gray and far less definition in each moment.

But because of this nature, the outset, or the outcome of certain moments in our day can actually define our day and make it all look and feel far worse than it has been or will actually be!

What if I were to tell you that there are a few ways we can change our frame of mind and as a result, move the needle far more towards positive than negative?

Yes, it’s true, and the things you need to do are really simple, straightforward, and easy to implement.

What? Seriously?

Yep!

There are three techniques you can use, one starts your day, the second one can be used any time you start to feel a sense of negative energy welling up inside you, and the last one ends your day.

1 — Start Your Day with Intention

At the beginning of each day set one intention for your day. Intentions are objectives that are aligned with the person you wish to be and as such, they aren’t meant to be a part of a to-do list.

Intentions have meaning, they are connected to a feeling, the feeling of being a better person.

So, in the beginning of this process of re-framing your day, don’t be too hard on yourself and pick ten intentions you wish to make true, or even stress yourself with how deeply this question needs to be considered.

Simply take a moment to think of things that make you smile inside, things that make you feel warmer, happier, more connected to others, better about yourself, or simply calm you down. Make a list of all these things, chances are, they align with your spirit, and if they do, they reflect your image of yourself.

Now, just make sure that your daily intention is on that list, and get it done.

By simply setting this intention, you will feel better about your day, and you will be more connected to the intention of your day. When you get better at this process, when you know yourself, even more, you can begin to set more intentions at the beginning of each day that align with you, and your days will become even more powerful.

2 — End Your Day By Counting Your Wins

Just before you go to bed each night, take a moment to count your wins for the day. What were a few of the things you accomplished today? What were a few of the things you felt really good about experiencing? What were some of the things you did that align with you?

Make sure you write down the one intention you accomplished so you ponder your connection to that feeling especially.

The more these wins are connected to your intentions over time, the more powerful they will become.

Why?

Well first off, by just simply counting your wins you are creating a forced moment of positivity in your day. By doing it at the end of the day, your brain will recognize the positive energy and move you to a calmer place, and thus more likely a place where you will sleep more deeply. Good sleep equals a greater chance of waking up on the right side of the bed the next day.

So, counting your wins at the end of the day sets the course of your mindset towards a better start tomorrow.

But if your wins are connected to your true intentions, and your intentions are connected to the person you wish to be, well then all of this becomes just that much more powerful. The positive energy you will begin to feel over time will overcome almost any negative kink in your day.

The accomplishment of each intention throughout each day will serve to re-fill this positive state and you will begin to become far more aware of your progress and intentional state of mind.

You will begin to own your day!

3 — Re-Shape Your Day By Minding the Gap

The third technique is not necessary every day, but rather a great strategy for cutting a slip in humor from becoming a landslide into the abyss. No matter what we do, there will be days when things happen, and we won’t always react well, and when these happen, our brain likes to ramp up quickly.

When you feel that negative self-talk begins to ramp up and that sense that things are going sideways, take a few moments to reflect. This might not work in the heat of the moment, but if you start to become more aware of when the energy of the day is moving you towards the heat, take a time out and reflect on where you’ve come from, what you’ve accomplished recently, or even over the past year or more.

Minding the Gap is an act of reflection that helps you gain perspective on your life in general. We get very much stuck in time. Stuck in the state of mind of today, or this moment and that state drive our perspective moving forward.

Instead, take some time to look back at where you’ve come from, where were you a year ago, a month ago, a week ago. What have you been able to do that you’ve completely forgotten about, something that is actually far more important than this little crisis today?

This technique is especially powerful when you have become more connected to your intentions and you are living them daily. Minding the gap will allow you to really reflect on how much you’ve gained through connecting with who you are and being more intentional about delivering it every day. This is a truly empowering experience.

1-Set your intentions

2-Mind the gap

3-Count your wins

Daily practices that will change your frame of mind and set you on a course towards a better you!

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