I write 1-minute insights daily. Below are my latest. Like? Enter your email to get updates.
I help busy people do inner work.
I write 1-minute insights daily. Below are my latest. Like? Enter your email to get updates.
A friend of mine just recently broke up with her boyfriend.
And as we were talking about it, there was one line I said to her that I thought was worth passing on:
“We tend to get what we settle for in life… and by refusing to settle for coldness, mistreatment, and emotional cheating… you’re moving more of the opposite into your future. Believe that.”
This is what we mean when we say, “Never settle.”
It’s not a motion to never settle per se.
It’s a reminder to never settle for anything less than what you truly deserve. And by knowing what that is and moving away from anything that ain’t it… you’re allowing your future self to finally settle with someone who knows how to treat you for all that you’re worth.
A martial art student I occasional work with texted me the other day some frustrations she’s having in competition.
She said, “I’ve been feeling kind of lost currently with my fighting, I just don’t feel like me in the ring so just frustrated with that…”
And what I said to her was something along the lines of, sometimes our path makes us humble before it allows us to become great. This way we can truly appreciate everything that comes with greatness… because we know *truly* what it’s like to struggle… to lose… to be incredibly frustrated.
And what I told her to do with that frustration was channel it into a ball of constructive energy and use it to train harder, to train smarter, and to train more purposefully.
…What she’s going through now is the exact same thing all the greats go through. The question of whether or not you’ll become great comes down to how you manage these pivotal moments over the course of weeks, months, years, and on.
After dancing almost nonstop for seven hours this past weekend… I looked at a friend I was with and said, “I can’t believe there used to be a time when I was too self-conscious to dance.”
The inner work I did to overcome that first hurtle of hesitation—and dance as uncaringly as I was able to on that first night (linked above)—was like a bud sprouting from the shell of its seed.
But, like the growth of any plant (and where a lot of people get inner work wrong)… sprouting isn’t the end… it’s only a beginning.
And since that sprouting, I’ve done my best to grow away from that shell of self-consciousness that was holding me back oh so tightly before… and strengthen the root and body of that flowering thought with as much uncaring dancing as I’ve been able to add to my lifestyle.
And this past weekend, it was as though I had a potent moment of realization that… damn… I think the pedals are starting to show.
P.s. ICYMI you can read the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week, here.
They will try and plaster propaganda on the walls of your mind.
They will spray paint hate and lies and criticisms on any and all un-patrolled surfaces.
They will try and define beauty, happiness, and success in ways that always leave you coming up short… so you’ll keep spending more.
The process of unlearning is recognizing, accepting, and strategically acting in reverse of this.
It’s about taking an honest look at what’s plastered on the walls of your mind and tearing down what’s leading you astray.
It’s about turning spray paint into art and alchemizing hate, lies, and criticisms into love, truths, and clarity.
It’s about deleting all that you’ve been told is beauty, all that you’ve been brainwashed into believing will lead to happiness, and everything everyone else has told you about what will make you successful.
…And it’s about getting back to that place where your walls are blank canvas; where the art that’s being hung is uniquely your own; where beauty, happiness, and success are defined from within… from experiential learning… from inner work… from living confident and free.
P.s. Here’s the picture I took that inspired this post.
My sister went to Toronto last weekend for her birthday.
While there she spent most of her time exploring quaint and classy bars and restaurants.
And during her explorations, she stumbled upon a small restaurant that was semi hidden in an unbusy mall.
And something struck me as being incredibly inspirational about this restaurant as she was describing it to me.
She said the women who was running the restaurant was one of the most kind, sweet, and present women she had ever met. She wasn’t there to do a job or get tip money. She was in alignment. It was as though she had a dream and was evidently living that dream in real time.
And it brought to mind for me the person who chooses a path… and then walks that path with a full and present heart.
All too common in today’s world are people who choose a path… and then spend all of their time walking that path looking at other paths… and comparing… questioning… envying…
You’ll never feel fulfilled walking a path this way.
Which is why it’s so incredible to come across someone who is in such alignment.
You don’t need to be a CEO, multi-millionaire, silicon valley startup founder to feel fulfilled. All you need is alignment and a full, present heart. And sometimes, that looks like a small restaurant that’s semi-hidden in an unbusy mall.
…Don’t complicate it.
Such a simple idea that could significantly help customer oriented businesses: treat customers the way you would want to be treated as a customer.
I have been stunned at how I’ve been treated by several major companies lately and it just makes me wonder how such disconnected practices and systems have been put into place?
Like… YOU, customer service representative, would HATE the very experience you’re putting me through right now if YOU were the customer… How have we gotten here? Why is it like this? How can we change it?
Some of you reading this are in customer oriented businesses. And I encourage you to challenge your practices and systems and see if they pass the above test.
And some of you maybe aren’t. But, you certainly interact with them regularly. Keep pushing back against bad practices and bad systems. Keep voicing your frustrations and suggestions for improvement. Keep voting for good business with how you spend your money… and stop giving money to companies who have bad business practices.
Big change never happens all at once.
…It happens slowly, slowly. One push, one shove, one vote at a time.
One trap I’ve fallen into in the past is spending too much time preparing and planning—and not enough time experimenting and doing.
I recognized this in myself very early into my DJing journey.
I was spending SO. MUCH. TIME. downloading music, filling in meta data, setting hot cues and memory points, and creating playlists…
So much so that I was barely doing any actual DJing.
So I’m trying to more mindfully walk this balance between prep and go. Because, yes, too much go and not enough prep leaves you confused, disjointed, and without a coherent sound… but too much prep and not enough go leaves you just as confused and disjointed as you come face to face with the decks.
So much of life is about finding the balance between these two.
…About sorting through the infinite information that’s available and acting on what’s chosen.
…About building book smarts, but also street smarts.
…About picking a direction and just as importantly… walking the path picked.
How are you doing with this balancing act?