Revealing secrets

As you go through life, there are things you are striving for.

Simple or complicated, there is something on the horizon that you want for a better tomorrow.

Instead of thinking about all the things you have, try to think about all the things you've done. 

How did you achieve them?

What were the obstacles?

How did you overcome them?

Was there a solution to the obstacle that seemed complicated at the time.
But now it was so simple?

Could you solve that same problem again with little effort?

I believe the life you want is the life you have.

I also believe the life you want is one simple solution away.

At Wizard Academy, Mark Fox teaches a class called Davinci and the 40 Answers. Mark is a rocket scientist who worked for NASA. He teaches a problem solving protocol that can be used for any problem you could imagine. 

There are only 40 solutions to any of your problems.

Once you learn the usage of his techniques, you see the world differently.
Roses tingle your nose.
Wine dances on your tongue.

And elephants tango with the stars in your dreams.

One of the 40 solutions is to turn the problem upside down.

Walk into dark room, and turn on a flashlight.
It will help you see, unless you turn the light toward your face.
You'll be blinded by the light and won't see anything.
Turn the light off. And your eyes will dance with glee as the darkness reveals her secrets.

The absence of light can limit your vision, but can also enhance it.
And light focused in the wrong direction will also limit vision.

Talking to a computer engineer named Dustin, he reminded me of Mark Fox's 40 answers. He boldly stated that he believed cancer was the key to humanity's immortality. 

Is it possible the thing we're trying to eliminate is the thing that is trying to save us?

As you think about your problems, look at the problem from a new angle.

Albert Einstein said, "A problem cannot be solved with the same level of thinking that created it". If Einstein had met Mark Fox, they would have enjoyed each others company.  

How have you changed your thinking to solve your problems?
Maybe the light is pointed toward your eyes too long.
Turn it off and your darkness may reveal your secrets.

Enjoy.

Pigeons pecking on the playground

There was a time when reality was something your teacher would tell you to come back to. You would look out the window to watch the pigeon peck on the playground while in the background there was a voice talking about the multiplication tables.

The voice would bellow, louder and louder until finally, it would awake you from your day slumber.

It is easy to go into that slumber as things around you become less interesting as the object of your attention.

Grade school was a million years ago, but those same tendencies still exist in all of us as adults.

Television was the first impactful distraction away from the dullness of life. Then came the internet, and the ability to watch anything, anywhere, anytime.

But the thing that has taken the most of our time and our interest is Social Media. With technology advancements with cellular phones, Social Media has become an all encompassing distraction.

It allows for the distribution of information unlike any other media has been able to reach. It takes the  benefits of television, radio, newspaper and internet and puts them into one ball and allows you to consume whatever information you desire. But it adds one other component the others are not able to do.

It interlaces all of this information with opinions and photos of people you know. And if that wasn't enough, it allows for any of their connections to reinforce or debate the original position.

Social media allows not only for communication, but also drama for all of its participants. Like television, some of the stories are interesting. But most of them are garbage and only interesting to the poster and his close connections (ie. REAL friends and family).

Social media gives us 4 million channels and 3,999,954 give us nothing but a feeling of anger, emptiness, sadness, unworthiness, and uselessness. Social media at its core is nothing more than reality television with people we know as the stars of the show.

It is the pigeon pecking on the playground.
And your life is calling you, but it's easy not to hear it. It's not that interesting and there's better things to do while we wait for something better to come along.

For these reasons, I have decided to limit my time on social media.
For these reasons, I have decided to limit my ability to communicate to you.
For these reasons, I have not been on social media for 5 days.
For these reasons, I do not know what's going on in your lives.

But when we meet, I will have more to say to you.

I will not feel like I know your whole life.
You will feel like I am more interested in you...because I will be.

So if you try to reach me on social media, I will not respond. The phone is disconnected for the time being.

Your life needs you. And you need it.

You shouldn't embrace change

Change is an emotion.

It's a feeling scratching at the backside of your eyeballs while hammering your pinky toe with a heavy object.

In the movie, Inside Out, you were told a story about how "Sadness" brings you to "Happiness".

Change is like "Sadness". It brings us to a happier place, when we embrace it.

No one likes change happening to them. It has to do with safety and security. When things go well, why would anyone want change? That would be a cross between insanity and masochism.

Despite not wanting change, it is inevitable.
A life void of change is unsafe and insecure.
There used to be jobs that people would do for a lifetime.
Changes in technology, competition and a shrinking global marketplace got rid of most of those jobs.

Change happens to you or by you.
It's your choice.
Your circumstances will change undoubtedly.
You can navigate the uncertain waters or be swallowed by their unforgiving ferocity.

If you captain your ship, and not blame the changing weather for your misfortunes, you'll get to a better place.
When you blame circumstances beyond your control, you victimize yourself. You limit your growth, your potential, and future opportunities. Living in past glories fogs your current judgement and denies you the realization the world has changed...and leaving you behind in the mud while all the change agents move forward to the next "Happy" place.

Unless you want to be sad for the rest of your days, you should stop changing.
Stay the same.
That only works for dogs, in my opinion.

The battle of your brain

If you're like me, the decision to do or not do is a battle every day.

The world pays attention to doers and ignores the non-doers. To live and have the world not notice you is a choice. It's a poor choice filled with limited opportunities, self-loathing, unfulfilled desires and regret.

But it's still a choice.

To not do is safe.
According to Abraham Maslow, safety and security is what you need after your belly is full.
Physical security is important for survival.
If you're facing physical danger with lions, tigers and bears.

Most of your fears are not based on physical danger.
They are based on mental ones.

One mental danger is the fear of not belonging.

You don't want to be shunned from a tribe, laughed into the wilderness, and cast off to a desert island.

That fear haunts you with every step.

As it does me almost every day.

Imagine a room filled with people you feel are smarter, and richer than you.
One of them knows Oprah.
One has his own TV show.
Another has a private jet.
You've been invited to this room, just like all the others.

I know how I'd feel because it happened to me. I was like Wayne Campbell in the movie, Wayne's World mouthing silently,

"We're not worthy. We're not worthy."

It's hard not to be the bumbling idiot in the room. The imposter syndrome shows up at just the wrong time.

In my room, we were asked if we had anything to share.
I had two pieces of writing: a radio ad and a blog post that I was proud of.

When it came time to share, I stumbled. I shook. I hesitated.
Ultimately, I lost an opportunity to demonstrate what I was capable of.

And now I live in regret, which is much worse than getting cast out of the tribe.

Deconstructing my own behaviour I noticed something.
I am insecure at my core.
As an artist, I don't want people to critique my work.
I don't want people to tell me my baby is ugly.
To be judged scares the crap out of me.

At the same time, I'm a proud papa.
No matter how ugly the baby, I love him just the same because I created him.

While my two minds of Insecure artist and Proud papa argued what to do, time slipped away.
The bumbling fan watched the superstars be great.
And instead of being on the same field, I became a fanboy.

And another opportunity was lost.
Until next time, when the battle rages again.

I encourage you to be vulnerable. To let your greatness loose.
Regret is a powerful pain that cannot be measured.

When you're vulnerable, people notice you.
Most people wear a mask to protect their flaws.
Shedding your mask is attractive to others as they struggle with authenticity for themselves.
And when they see you doing it,  you become more likeable.

It's ok to be afraid.
If you weren't, you wouldn't be human.

But act despite it. Opportunity is exponential.

Baking a pie

I like apple pie.
It's best 10 minutes out of the oven with a scoop of french vanilla ice cream.

The ice cream slides off the pie like a 5 year old boy screaming with joy on the playground.

The first bite reminds me of that one apple tree in my grandma's back yard. The grandkids would pick the tree bare each autumn so grandma would bake us a pie.

We called our grandma, memere, which is slang for grand mere in French.

Her freezer always had ice cream in it. Her favourite was Napoleon (neapolitan). But in the fall, she traded in her napoleon flavoured ice cream for french vanilla.

Apple pie is unremarkable without the ice cream. I've tried it and have been disappointed too many times.

My memere made the best apple pie. I'm sure you'll disagree with me. But she's gone and so is her apple pie, so we will never be able to settle that argument.

It's the first day of Autumn and I can't help but think of those apple pie days in my youth. Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer never had so much fun.

Yet today, I am reminded that my children's memories are as relevant as my own. My best memories are based on those simple experiences. I have to keep that in mind as I create memories for our kids.

It's not the big adventures, the grand gestures nor the latest toys.

The best memories are simple as apple pie. Sitting at my Memere's kitchen table eating a fruit that was picked the day before by me and my cousins.  And adding a scoop of French Vanilla ice cream just because today is a special day.

Where's your apple pie? And what's the scoop of ice cream that is going to put your simple pie into the "best ever" category.

Go make memories.
That's all we have, when all the other stuff rusts away.

Opinions are like a*&holes...

There's a new era among us.
In 100 years, we have seen the industrial age, the information age, and now there's a new age that parasites itself on the information age.

It's always been around.
Technology makes it more accessible and louder.
It sickens me.

I'm calling it the opinion age.

People have always had opinions.
Before social media, an opinion only had the breadth of someone's voice and network.
If you didn't like what someone had to say, you left the room. You disassociated yourself with the nut and you only hung out with people who believed in the same things you did.
If you were in radio or newspaper, your opinion was unleashed on the world if your manager allowed it.
Enter Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh with their right and left wing agendas.

If a person didn't have access to a radio microphone, and they called into a station, there was a gatekeeper.
The gatekeeper's responsibility was to keep crazies out.
If there was hate to distribute, a score to settle or an opinion without fact, the gatekeeper kept the person away from the masses.

Today, social media has given everyone a mass media microphone.
No gatekeeper.
No where to escape.
Just flimsy opinions flying around like paper airplanes.

We all have them.
I'm ok with that. I don't have to agree, and neither do you.
But when they are unleashed to create hate, fear, and anger, I have a problem.

I don't like where this world is heading.
I don't like internet trolls.
And I definitely don't like negative posts to build on hatred.

I spoke to a man from Pakistan yesterday who lived in the Kashmir region for 25 years.
He saw the devastations of hatred and is worried like me.

In 1963, there was an psychological experiment called The Milgram Experiment conducted at Yale.
The test was to see how far a person would go to obey orders from a superior.  The test subject was told to increase the voltage of shock on an actor in the other room for different reasons. With each increasing voltage, the actor pled for the shock to stop. In some cases the perceived shock was equal to a lethal dose and the test subject still obeyed his orders.

Professor Milgram wanted to understand why German soldiers could obey superiors to execute millions of prisoners during the Holocaust. I believe he discovered that humans want to conform their behaviour to be accepted by a group.

The actor in the Milgram experiment was in a different room and unseen by the test subject.
I also believe if the actor would have been seen, the test subject may not have gone as far.

It is my OPINION that as long as we don't SEE the pain of another person, we don't experience, care or understand what has been done.

If a childhood friend dies and you haven't seen her in years, you may be saddened. But you may not feel the pain the family feels if you don't see them in mourning.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to witness it, did it make a noise.
The logical answer is, "Of course".
My philosophical answer is, "No, because noise has to be heard to exist".

It is my OPINION that humanity is losing its way while guarded by a computer screen.  The pain is not seen, therefore doesn't exist on the other end of the internet.

Be careful what opinions you post online, your words have more power than you think.

The answers are easy if you know the right question.

There was magic recently at a coffeeshop in Moncton. I felt it. John saw it. No one else experienced...yet.

It's coming.

John is an entrepreneur. He bounced up and down his seat as he explained what he was trying to do. John is so hyper he probably should be on ritalin.  As he spoke, his voice intensified the more excited he got.  

I love watching entrepreneurs be passionate about their business. John is the most excited I've ever seen.

John is in the honeymoon of a new business and he's chomping to get started. He asked me for some advice on his logo, name and taglines.

I don't like giving advice on work already done because how do you tell someone their baby is ugly?

I've known John for 10 years, so I gave him an hour to vomit all his ideas on the table. 

An hour of listening to him talk about his new idea went by.  I couldn't get much of a word in as he kept cutting me off. 

As my time commitment was finishing up, I asked him my secret, magical question. 

His answer gave me goosebumps. I asked him to explain and as he did, he got off his chair. He was pacing around the coffeeshop. He looked like a madman who was either going to punch a wall or kiss the next girl who walked in.  

Stopping in mid pace, he looked at me and half asking he said, "I need to change the name of my proposed business"?

Yes John, you do.

But I've spent good money on business cards, name searches, and logos.

I understand. The money you've spent is peanuts compared to that you will spend on building your brand. The marketing you've already done is ok. But it's not going to get you noticed in a highly competitive market. This new idea will give you INSTANT recognition in your category. 

Is this the purple cow thingy you told me about?

Yes, Seth Godin defines a purple cow as a product or service that is remarkable. Your new idea is on the path of remarkability.

As we parted ways, I could see John bouncing to his car.  He turned and looked at me and said, "The answer was inside of me the whole time. You pulled it out. Why didn't I see it?"

As I walked by his car, I answered, "You didn't ask yourself the right question". 

Ideas built on a good marketing strategy fill me with bliss. I hope John follows through on our discussion. It will make me happy to see him succeed. He's one of the good guys.