You can’t put a label on me. G-d knows I’ve tried to do it to myself and just when I think I’ve got it nailed down I realize I’ve changed. I’ve learned. I’ve grown some more. No one has ever been able to do it. My parents tried and they learned just as my wife has learned that I am going to do what I am going to do and I am going to be whom I am going to be no matter what. That’s why I can’t work for anyone. By design a boss will want to label me. They’ll want me to conform. That will only lead to frustration on both my part and theirs.

I live in my own little world and at least for the last 14 years since I’ve been sober I have spent much of my time building my world brick by brick. You’re welcome to come into my world and join me here. I am only too happy to have company and I am only too happy to share what I’ve built with everyone who cares to have it. But don’t you dare try and change it. You’ll find yourself on the other side of the bricks. Ironically without trying to change it if you stick around with me you will have to have an influence on me and in that way you most certainly will change my world. So I hope that clears it up.

My world is a place of opportunity. It’s a place for teachers and students to come together, experience the world and then share with one another what we’ve learned so that we can all grow. We grow the most by learning from one another and in order to do that we all have to remain teachable.

I have not wasted a single day of my life in the past 14 years. I’ve worked hard to build my world. There were times when I wanted to tear it all down. Start over. Simpler. Turns out it isn’t about what I’ve created or even what I am doing specifically from one moment or year to the next. It’s about how I am handling things. If you had told me 2 years ago where I would be 1 year ago I would not have thought I could handle it. Turns out I handled it. Came out on the other side. Whenever things have gotten tough I’ve taken the hits and may have even gone down for a while. At some point when I think I’ve had enough I don’t complain. I don’t become “the victim.” I come out swinging. I stop talking and I start doing the next right thing. I rebuild what needs to be rebuilt and I reinforce what needs some support. In the end. I never give up. No matter what.

Welcome to my world. I hope you like it here!

The constant evolution of life should also be a reminder about how important it is to stay right in this moment. You never know when you will get life changing news in the next moment (good or bad) and the more we learn to keep the moment upfront, the better equipped we become to handle everything that comes our way.

Most of this year I have been in a constant state of WTF! It’s almost over! On so many levels it is almost over and some days I find myself really wishing it was already over so I can just move on. It’s the not knowing what will happen next that can be devastatingly paralyzing. Once you have an answer at least you know.

Then as new opportunities arise new challenges pop up. New questions arise out of new unknowns. Then just when you think you are about to coast, the ball drops and you realize nothing is never permanent – even the things that you want to be permanent all have a qualifier. They have to work. If something doesn’t work or stops working it’s time for change. I saw a need to put my life into overdrive this year and that’s what I’ve been doing because nobody – and I mean NOBODY is going to do it for me. More likely than that, most people are going to stand by with their hand out stretched asking, “where’s mine?” At that point you’ll find me moving past them and thinking, “right here asshole!.. Right here.”

If you want something badly enough you give it 100% and that’s it. You don’t think about anything else, you eliminate all distractions and you charge forward with everything you’ve got. You get out there and you take what’s yours by earning it with sincere effort and hard work and you fight like hell to build the life you want for yourself. As long as you are not hurting anyone and always thinking about how you can help people then you cannot fail in spite of all of the people who will want to take you down. They will fight harder against you the more you succeed but soon enough and with all of your momentum you will be so far out of their reach that they will have no ability to have any impact on your path. They will continue to self destruct, cursing you for a fool while they remain stagnant and while you keep moving forward.

So keep moving forward and don’t stop. Ever!

What box can you put yourself in? What about the others who surround you? Where do they go? Does it all sort of blend together now? When I look at the people I know I see them as special. These aren’t common people. They’re personalities. This is whom I surround myself with because this is who inspires me.

I was driving yesterday on my way to see a client. Heading down Sepulveda Blvd at about 12:30pm on a Saturday. As I approached a red light I noticed a bus stop to my left. There was a homeless man sitting on a bench covered in heavy clothing and blankets. There was a “regular” looking guy standing there waiting and another somewhat regular looking guy walking past who stopped and started talking to the first regular guy. Maybe he was asking directions, I’ll never know but I looked at these three people and thought to myself, “are these REGULAR people?” The homeless guy isn’t. In fact he’s the one that I look at and think what a fascinating story a guy like this might have. If you could get him to talk and tell you how he got here? The other 2 guys, without knowing anything about them strike me as “regular” guys. Not much of a story to tell. Maybe work a 9-5 job and maybe they don’t have much in the way of “dreams” of a big life other than some vague hope that one day they might win the lottery and then everything will change. I would love to challenge them to make a choice and change everything themselves right now. Rock the boat, shake things up, stop playing the lottery and start making your own luck.

I won’t apologize for how I think. This is how my brain works and it serves me well. I can point you towards any of my “friends” and tell you what role they play in my life. The Spiritual mentor who sits quietly most of the time and doesn’t say much, but what he does say is usually powerful, insightful, profound, and short. Why short? I suspect it’s because of the following.

Think about your reaction when someone asks you about something that you have a lot of experience with. I am not talking about that topic that you spend every day dealing in your business or career. I am talking about that area where you have such a deep knowledge that you don’t even have to think about it consciously anymore. It is so deeply ingrained in you that it is second nature. You don’t need to “prove” anything about to anyone because in your experience it JUST IS. Got anything like that in your arsenal of knowledge? I do.

When someone asks me about something like I just described we understand it so well and there is no amount, not even a hint of insecurity about our understanding of it that we know just as well that we could never give someone else that level of understanding without giving them the same experience that we’ve had. And we know that we could never possibly do that in a short conversation.

So we give them just enough information to make them want to find out more on their own. That’s what a “spiritual mentor” does with life. The “Mr. Miyagi’s” in our lives. It can be so annoying because we just want the answer and the fact that this annoys us is the very ironic indication that we have no clue because if we did we would understand that there is no straight answer and even to tell us THAT would be doing us a disservice because we are always much better off learning what we can on our own.

Who do you call when you have computer trouble? Is it me? That would be the quintessential geek in your life. Maybe you would like to call the King of Geeks, Chris Pirillo. I am sure you would have to pay a lot of money to get his help and this is because it SHOULD cost a lof of money to hire a guy like him. And if you are a person who ever picked on the geeky kid in grade school then it serves you right that you now have to spend a fortune to hire someone like him or me. Yes I had the experience of being picked on at times. I hated it is so I changed myself into someone who was less likely to be picked on. I became a wise-ass and then at some point here in my old age I realized that being a “nerd” was a good thing so I went back to my roots but this time with a lot more confidence and comfort that it was ok to be a geek or a nerd. I think I like Nerd better because I think that we think of nerds as being more financially successful, like Bill Gates.

Who are the “characters” of your personal novel? Is it a story worth telling? I’ll bet it is. We all have interesting people in our lives and interesting stories to tell and the great irony of existence as I have come to know it is that what makes any of us interesting is that we are interested in other people.

Do you keep your personal life and your professional life separate? I respect it when people tell me that they do this but I also think those days are numbered. I think that the “job” is becoming less and less about your skill set alone and more and more about your “personal brand.” In other words it’s not as much about “what” you bring, it’s more about “whom” you bring. Who are you? What role do you play in the lives of the people around you.

There was a time in my life where I was a very fake person and I knew it and I didn’t care. I did what I had to, to get what I wanted and that was that. But it was a really empty experience and I wound up completely alone in the world with only a drug addiction to nurture.

It is a relief now every day that I wake up when I realize the moment my eyes are open that today I live life on completely new footing. I have no secrets, truly! So I can go through my life, my day a free man. No one has anything on me. No one can burst my bubble. I haven’t taken advantage of anyone in a long time. Sure people have disagreed with me and disliked me but today I know that is much more about them then it is about me. When I am brutally honest about who I am then it takes away any power anyone might have over me. I’ve rendered the world powerless over me and I have tapped into a power greater than any human power. It’s within me to be true to myself and then I can accomplish anything I set out to in this life.

I choose not to separate my personal and professional life. I tend to put it all out there. I like doing that because I think it gives me the best possible chance of connecting with people in the most real way possible. It also has a way of weeding out the people who don’t belong in my life. Also my profession IS my life. My social life, for the most part is about the people I meet and have lunch with.

So who am I to the people around me? I have always been the one who brings people together. When I was a kid it was in more of a social context. Today it is mostly in a business context. My friend Bruce McFarland sent me this today:
https://twitter.com/bruce_taxguy/status/269104606745870337

It’s amazing how a negative experience can burn a memory in our minds much more powerfully than a positive one. We’re trained to have our minds work that way. Most likely everyone around us is accustomed to making a big stink when an experience is negative and while we talk about the positive experiences we usually don’t talk about them with as much passion as we do with the negative ones. This is a good thing to remember when it comes to customer service

Why do we put so much more emphasis on negative experiences? Where did we learn this from? Do we blame the media? Maybe? After all a short look at the news on any given day and most of the stories are about disaster!

I remember last year Halloween so well. My neighborhood is always swarming with kids. They drive them in from other neighborhoods and from the looks of things and at the risk of sounding prejudiced I guess that these kids are coming from neighborhoods where it probably isn’t safe to go out trick or treating at night. It makes me proud that they come to my neighborhood and if I could afford to I would by them each a home here so they would never have to go back to a place ever again where they don’t feel safe. Talk about a negative experience! Last year at this time my wife had been working at the Chatsworth Veterinary Center. I wrote about the day that she was fired in my main blog: The Best Marketing Strategy Ever. Another negative experience. I wasn’t willing to mention the name of the place yet because the dust was still settling. Now I don’t mind saying that my wife’s experience working at The Chatsworth Veterinary Center was probably at the very top of the list in terms of the absolute worst place to work. EVER! I remember last Halloween because I was sitting outside with our bowls of candy waiting and handing it out as the ghosts and goblins came by. My wife has always loved this ever since our very first year in this house. Last year she came home from working at The Chatsworth Veterinary Center in such a foul mood because she was having such a bad experience that even these adorable kids dressed up in some of the cutest little costumes was not enough to over turn her mood. I sat out there alone. Frustrated and sad at the same time.

I like to talk about the experience we as individuals give others and how those experiences impact people. The impact goes several degrees deep. In this case the experience that my wife’s job gave her directly impacted me when she came home. Sure you could say it was up to her to make the choice to changer her mood. Much easier said than done especially after consistently being put down and essentially emotionally harassed by people for days on end. Even as she left that place the one or two people she thought of as friends turned out not to be. She never heard from any of them – not one call to see if she was ok. It was not a pretty scene when she left. All she did was ask to have a witness in the room while this awful man, Manny stood by and insulted her – telling her she was “psychologically inept..” because she “..cared too much.” Morons!! When she asked for this she was fired. I guess the guy had no balls. Not even to have someone else in the room to witness what an awful man he is/was.

Tomorrow I am going to publish a follow up to talk about what to do about the fact that these negative experiences tend to dominate the positive ones. I’ll offer you a possible solution. What you do with it is up to you!

The only difference is our state of mind. When we’re not worried it is easy to see why things like “It’s the journey that makes reaching the goal worthwhile” makes perfect sense. So how do I change my state of mind when I am worried about important things that I need and can’t seem to get, or things that I am worried I might lose if something seemingly out of my control doesn’t change?

The biggest problem with this is that in that mindset I am often stuck. Paralyzed by fear and accordingly powerless to do anything about it. So how do we fix this? Of course the first step is recognizing that we’re in this state.

The thing that has helped me the most is to stop and think about a few things.

1. What do I have today? Am I ok right now? (Usually the answer is ‘yes’). I realize right here right now that I have what I need and that means I have nothing to worry about.
2. It always works out in the end. There have been so many things I thought I could not live without but once it came to pass and I was without them it turned out I was ok.
3. Usually when I lose something it isn’t long before I realize why losing it was the best thing that could have happened – because I was freed up to take on something else. There are about 100 expressions and quotes that describe variations on this theme.
4. Even when I lose something valuable to me or it comes to pass that I won’t get what I wanted it is never as bad as I was originally thinking it would be.

If I can stop and think of these things, usually it puts me in the right frame of mind. Ironically it is this change in my state of mind that puts me in better spirits and that renders me capable of doing something about it. I am no longer stuck because I realize that it isn’t ever as bad as I think and now in this revised state of mind I can actually move forward and take action. It is those actions that I often find bring about the things in life that I really want to achieve. To GET! So while it IS easier said than done that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. It just means it may take some work. To use a cliché (just like all the ones we hate to hear when we’re feeling defeated or hopeless) nothing worthwhile in life comes easy. So work on it. Change your mindset. You can start by stopping right now in this very moment while you’re reading this and acknowledge this moment. If you’re taking the time to read this then I am assuming that you are not homeless, without clothing or starving at the moment?

Hungry people don’t stay hungry for long!

When I am in THIS state I am truly in the moment. I am no longer thinking about what I can or can’t do. I am simply thinking that I am going to do what ever it takes to create the world that I want around me. Then somehow, some way it always happens. Just not always in MY time

The more I think about it the more I realize that any time I am feeling negative feelings; worry, anger, self-pity, resentment, you can add to the list I am sure, it is either me living in the past or the future. The extreme picture of being completely in the moment is when your mind is completely blank. You have no thoughts going through your mind. Most of us only experience this in rare and extreme circumstances. An emergency is a great example of this. You’re not really thinking, you are acting according to the situation – call 911, does anyone know CPR – boom boom, you’re right on it. Being on a roller coaster (assuming you are not afraid) is another great example – especially the moment you come over the top and start heading down. The fear you might experience up until that moment is based on your mind being in the future. What could happen? I could fall out and die! Once you start heading down though your mind is blank. You are no longer thinking. You are alive and awake and as ever present in the moment as you can possibly be. Then very likely you are already living/thinking in the immediate past, thinking about how much fun that roller coaster was. I love the example that Ekhart Tolle uses in The Power Of Now of a Race Car driver who loves racing cars because it forces you to be as completely in the moment as one could ever be. Take your mind off that moment at 180mph and it very literally could mean your death. But we don’t have to go to those extremes to get this. That is sort of not much different from doing a line of cocaine to get there – trust me I speak from experience on that one. It may work for a few seconds but then you keep needing more!

I like to practice being in the moment in the morning when I am walking my dogs. It’s the perfect time for this and it is also easy to do. Every time I catch my thoughts wandering to either yesterday or later today as they often do I immediately re-focus my attention on my dogs. I focus on them – they are what is right in front of me and they are what exist for me right in that moment. You know what I notice is never there the second I am focusing on my dogs? The anxiety that otherwise comes with thinking about what I have to do today. I have no reason to worry, it’s all right there on my calendar and 9 times out of 10 it never goes according to plan anyway so what’s the point? Focusing on my dogs help me practice staying in the moment. Any other time of day when I find I am feeling negative feelings I just have to recognize it and then bring my focus right in front of me to whatever it is that I am doing at that moment. Like anything else, the more I practice at this, the better I get. The more time I spend in the moment, the less real happiness I miss out on in life!