If you have ever had a problem

First let’s break this down in the most obvious way. If lack of power is my dilemma then my solution is that I need power. So where and how do we find this “power?” By searching fearlessly within ourselves. The problem here really is not with the lack of control – there is nothing we can do about that. The problem is in how we deal with the lack of control. There are many things that we can say and do which give us the illusion that we can control other people, but it is just that, an illusion. We can manipulate people and that could work for a time, but all it takes is for that person to get sick of us and then we lose all control. Like a hit off of a crack pipe, manipulating people is not a permanent solution to the problem. And if you’re a real control freak like me then you want a permanent solution.

Next I have to believe that everything that is happening now is happening for a reason whether I can see it or not. If I really believe that then I can begin to realize that someone doing something that I think they should be doing, or not doing something I think they should be is based on my arrogance. Who am I to presume to know anything about another’s experience in life and why they may or may not be ready to accept what I have, or not accept what I haven’t.

Simply put, if I just focus my attention on being accountable for my own actions and behavior and if I truly believe that I have something to offer then all I really have to do is live by example. If someone cares enough about what I am doing with my life (and they will, especially if I am doing “good”) then they will ask me for help. If someone doesn’t ask me for help then it isn’t worth my time trying to teach them anything. My time is better spent elsewhere and what really comes out of this is that now I am focusing on how I can be useful to others instead of focusing on how others aren’t being useful. When I am focusing on how I can be useful then I am tapping into the power within me to actually do something. Forcing my opinions and feelings on people who don’t want them is not useful. Moreover there are lots of people out there asking for help with lots of things that I have experience with. That’s where I want to focus my energy. That’s where I can find that I DO have power. It’s a power greater than any human power and it exists within each and every living being.

Many of us reflect on the past year at this time. We think about what happened, what we accomplished, and maybe we looked to recap some highlights? I even started a document last week called 2012 highlights. I went through my new Facebook timeline thinking that was going to give me some ideas and found myself disappointed. I wasn’t disappointed in the year or in what happened, I was disappointed because I am pretty sure Facebook was only showing me selected posts from the beginning of the year because the timeline was moving too quickly from Jan through March and I know there had to be more that I posted than what was shown. So Facebook proved to be useless.

Now I find myself thinking, who cares? 2011 has been a great year and while I didn’t finish off with $1,000,000 in the bank like I had hoped, I woke up last week and realized that the very thing I was feeling afraid about in reality was my dream literally coming true! Virtually no more consulting clients and all of my time is now spent training people. This is what I have been wanting for some time now and it’s actually happening. Sure it’s scary. It’s a shift in my business model and the short term effect is a reduction in income/revenues so that I can focus on building the business model that I really want for myself. Of course that’s scary but it’s also exciting. So instead of reflecting on the past or even projecting about the future I am going to focus on the here and now. What a great day it is today and to top things off, I can’t wait to head out on my new bicycle and go riding with my friend Thomas whom I haven’t seen in a few years. Having the bicycle was another goal of mine that I’ve now accomplished.

I’m going to stay focused on all I have.. TODAY!

Life is good!

This is my personal blog so I don’t want to bore you with details about accounting and cash flow, but I do want to share about what I recently have experienced in the bigger picture. More and more people asking me for help and letting me know how helpful I have already been. A shift in thinking is all it took recently. I spend a little less time hanging out on social media sites and a little more time focused on my work as well as my recovery (drugs and alcohol). In translation I started going to more meetings which always leads to being asked to speak more and I spoke once this week and I will be speaking again on Sunday at a rehab. My wife has taken a job and it seems like we are passing each other by in our own home and saying hello and goodbye. I just got myself busier but more diversified (ie not spending all of my spare time on Facebook or Google+). The results have been almost immediate. Higher billings and less time at the computer. A simple plan – I figured out a set system around how I wanted things to work and started using that system and it worked! A set amount to be transferred each month from the business to the personal account based on 1/4 of the monthly expenses. A monthly payroll to run for myself to offset these distributions and pay in my taxes. Knowing how much I need to see my balance increase each week helps me spend less on things I don’t actually need leaving more for the big picture goals. But I digress.

This cash flow webinar was a big “FINALLY” for me. I have done free webinars that had little or no turnout. This one had a great turnout and I am confident that the recording will also sell well in my Knowledge Store. I have worked hard to get to this point and now I have some “next” items on my list of projects and I will tackle them ,but first a redirection of my focus once again. Back to the gym and more downtime to recharge. I need this. So my plan is simple! I live by the calendar. That is my outline for my design for living and I use it even to plan my down time. I also want to put more emphasis on building my bookkeeping business. All of my focus has been on the training and consulting (from my end). I have not brought in any new bookkeeping clients (ie where I send them one of my immortal “Nerds”) to handle things. I did get one referral for a big and very good client, but I used to bring in new clients for bookkeeping work every single month.

So What’s next? I’ll tell you.

• More downtime
• Better focus (more often I am asking myself while I am posting on Facebook, “Is this what I want to be doing right now or aren’t there other priorities?”
• Projects – finish my Twitter Guide For Accounting and Bookkeeping Professionals then on to develop my online course for bookkeepers!
• More gym time
• More downtime

But first! I think I need a week off from recording and screen casting and all of it. So that’s what this week is going to be all about!

Thank You!

The typical scenario – we do something nice for someone. If we truly, genuinely are doing it because we want to, then it doesn’t matter whether or not someone says “Thank You”. If we really don’t expect the “Thank You” then we can’t possibly be disappointed when we don’t get it. Otherwise what it amounts to is that we were really doing the “nice thing” and expecting something in return for it. Our intention whether conscious or not was to indebt the person whom we helped. Maybe not with money, but even expecting the “Thank You” is expecting something.

I’m Sorry

Here we come to expect someone to apologize when it becomes apparent that they have screwed up! We want to make them pay for their mistake with at the very least an apology. This is better known as resentment on our part when we want this. Simply put it is arrogant of us to come to expect an apology and we may never get it, even if we truly deserve it. The person who “owes” it may be too embarrassed or caught up in their own pride. That’s their issue. Ours is to deal with the resentment we are feeling because WE are the ones feeling it so we are the ones who have to find a way to deal with it and we have to assume we will never get that apology that we may think is the cure.

It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us.

Bill Wilson – 12 Steps and 12 Traditions

You get what you pay for

Think about it. Is it really worth anything if you manage to force and apology or a thank you out of someone? The quote above is literally true. If I am upset with someone, no matter how wrong they might be I am the one with the problem because I am the one who’s upset. So I am the one who needs to do something about it. I can try and force a “Thank You” or an apology out of someone but that is really trying to control someone else. The sooner I recognize that I can’t control others the closer I am to a solution that will work for me without the need for any behavior from others. Now I can take responsibility, not for what THEY did or didn’t do, but for how I am feeling about it. There is a place where I do have control – in how I choose to react. Now I have the power within myself to act appropriately and find whatever way I can find from within to rid myself of this resentment I have. Otherwise the result will likely be that I will cause harm to the other person (and then I will owe THEM an apology) when I publicly ostracize them for not doing what they “should” have. Who says they “should?” Maybe they shouldn’t? Maybe they didn’t want my help? Maybe I wasn’t the right person to help them with that particular thing and maybe I was only trying to make myself look good instead of actually trying to help the person. So when I think anyone “should” do anything then I am really coming from a place of arrogance. Instead my solution is to come from a place of humility. Act in service of others by genuinely looking for ways to help people without expecting anything in return. Then I can keep moving forward knowing that I am doing MY part to make the world around me a better place to live in –especially for those who come into contact with me because they will not have to live in fear of when I might call them out for not doing what they should. That’s the kind of behavior that actually can have a person living a life apart from others. For me I want to be a part OF others.

So drop your expectations about when someone should say thank you or I’m sorry. Just make sure that YOU say these things and most importantly mean them when you do and don’t worry about what others do or don’t do. Your life will run along much more smoothly when you live this way. Trust me mine does when I remember this.

You can probably fill that “blank” with many things. What is the one thing you do more than anything else when you need to get out of yourself? Some of us fill it with food, others sex and of course there are those who fill it with drugs and/or alcohol.

AA fills it with alcoholism, NA (Narcotics Anonymous) fills it with “our addiction”, and CA (Cocaine Anonymous) fills it with, “Cocaine and all other mind altering substances.” Many meetings of AA only want to hear from people who are “alcoholic” and not drug addicts. The others are trying to accommodate anyone who wants help. AA is focused on what they refer to as “singleness of purpose.” You focus on helping one problem and solve it, and there is something to be said for the fact that someone who only drank and didn’t do any drugs may very well have a difficult time relating to and for that matter getting help from someone who was shooting up with heroine or smoking crack. There are different dynamics. My personal opinion, and this is after recently working with a sponsor who feels that cocaine addicts should focus on helping cocaine addicts (like AA for Alcoholics) is that once I get into the solution, it really doesn’t matter what the “substance” was. That only matters at the very beginning.

I know I can take just about anything and abuse it if it makes me feel good. That’s because I have an obsessive personality, but that isn’t what makes me an addict. As I mentioned in my last post on addiction what makes me an addict is that once I start doing it, there is no telling where/when I will stop. If you look closely at the 12 steps this is the only one where any specific substance is mentioned. The rest of the steps are about the solution, not the “problem”. Then again we find as we do some work on ourselves that we only thought drugs and alcohol was the problem. When I had the drugs and alcohol removed from me I found out that the real problem was just beginning. Me! I used drugs and alcohol to avoid dealing with things responsibly. I used them to avoid myself. It worked for a long time, too. I had fun, didn’t have a care in the world, and bonded with other people who shared my passion for getting loaded and believe me it was a passion. That was my identity. I was a guy who got high. For a time I was a guy who was able to do a lot of drugs and still get good grades in school. This didn’t last forever though.

In the end my life was a mess. I couldn’t make it to work and just about lost a government job which you have to try and do. I found myself in and out of 3 rehabs before I was finally able to get clean. My friends all either didn’t understand what was wrong with me, wanted nothing to do with me, or just lost touch. My family had no idea what was going on. The closest people, my parents and my brother knew “something” was wrong and probably could’ve guessed, but didn’t dare say anything for fear that I might react as I often did in those days, with anger.

Anyone can stop doing something they don’t really want to be doing

The bottom line was that I WAS powerless. I couldn’t stop once I started and when I did manage to stop, it was only for a period of time. Then stone cold sober I would do the most insane thing ever. Take the first hit knowing full well what was going to happen and doing it anyway! So the only solution to this was to find power. This is true for anyone who is doing something more than they really want to be doing it. I used to find myself literally driving to the dealer and telling myself, “Seth turn the car around. Just go home!” Only another addict will understand what I mean when I say that I just had no power to do it no matter how conscious I was of it. That’s the best explanation I can offer and a “normal” person, whatever that is will say it’s just will power. Will power is what kept me out finding ways and means to get more when I desperately wanted it, but “WILL POWER” was not a strong enough power to overcome my addiction. I needed something much more powerful in my life, but I had no idea what it was or where to find it.

Sitting in my therapists office and feeling inspired

Taking the action is more important than knowing where you’re going or what you’re doing. Often times I’ve found that it was actually taking SOME action – ANY action that gave rise to the ideas that helped shape my plan for what I wanted to do. In fact I think it is almost better not to know or not to think I know exactly what I want my life to look like. Only in a general way. This way I can just take the next action that seems to be in front of me and see where that takes me. My own direct experience is that this approach makes life a little more exciting. Not only that but I’ve read and I believe that there are people who at 40 still have no idea what they want and yet they are much more interesting than people who have known and done exactly what they want since the age of 20. Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with knowing what you want and going after it. If you truly know what will make you happy then go for it!

I like to open myself up to the idea that anything is possible which means I may in fact have no idea what will happen next. Things that have happened to me that I thought were going to be devastating turned out to be the very thing I needed that launched me into something very successful – the next phase (if you will) of something I was working on.

You know those times when you do something that you think was so bone headed that you can’t believe it? Just believe it. Then believe that this was exactly what was supposed to happen and improvise. Make it up as you go! This is exactly how I am learning to get over it when I am angry about something. I can accept that there is a reason this is happening and that my job now is to improvise. I adapt, I overcome – to take a quote from Clint Eastwood

So make it up as you go. When life throws you a curve ball, roll with it. Take a swing in a direction you had never thought of before and just see what happens. See what ideas you get.

I stayed home from work that day and of course called back home to NY to be sure that my family and friends and their families were all ok. If you are from NY then I don’t think you can say that you don’t know someone, at least one person who was directly affected by this travesty. So much anger. Who could do something like this? I can understand hating us as a nation. I can understand thinking of Americans as gluttonous pigs. Many of us are. But all that gives anyone the right to do is to leave us alone. Ignore us. Want nothing to do with us. Fine ok! We love our freedom and some of us take that to an extreme. I think, however that the reaction that followed proved us to be ultimately a strong nation of good people who came together to help one another through this.

My wife told me a story of a company who lost 600 employees that day. This could have wiped the company out completely, but instead the surviving employees re-built the company so well that they have taken care of every family of all of those who perished and made sure that their kids school – through college was paid for. There are many stories like this and these are not the actions of a broken nation. They are the actions of a nation that took a cold cock in the face, got up and said “Fuck You” to the less than human, less than animal, lower than low form of life terrorists who proudly took responsibility. They hate us because of what we believe in. Now we could hate them for what they have done to us. Many of us do, but more importantly we stand up today. We are rebuilding that space and we are not letting them break us!

What quiets YOUR mind? How do YOU meditate?

I originally read this book when my old friend Larry Nicholas suggested it to me. I think I was about 18 at the time. I am now 40. Even at that young age and even while smoking pot on a daily basis the book changed the way I looked at things. I remember being much more serene for a long time after reading it, but as with many of these kinds of things, if you don’t keep up the practice.. if you don’t maintain the discipline, you lose it. Dan himself was a gymnast and no matter how good he got he still had to practice on a regular basis. Ask any pro athlete and they will tell you the same thing. They might even go as far as to say that if you really want to be truly great at any one thing, you have to sacrifice everything else for it. I am living my life today in the specific hopes that this is not entirely true. I’d like to think that you can be truly great at a few things because I know that my passions take me in a few directions on any given day.

I am excited to be reading Dan Millman’s book again. I have such a different set of eyes to read them through and such a different outlook on the world. No longer using any substances and haven’t had anything that affects me from the neck up in over 12 years. It’s a good feeling. I feel like I can actually accept and put into practice what I am reading on the deepest possible levels.

So far I am learning as I have learned before but still do not put into practice enough that it amounts to finding ways to quiet the noisy mind. Gymnastics did it for Dan Millman. Swimming does it for me. Always has. When I am in that pool it is the one time when truly nothing matters. There are no distractions, no one calling wanting to know when the project they asked me to work on for free will get done (sorry I had to get that dig in there). Reading also does it for me and I am so grateful for the Barnes and Noble Nook because ever since my wife bought me this I have done more and more reading. A goal of mine since New Years 2009 has been to read a lot more and I finally feel like I have accomplished that. I already have the next book lined up. I found out about it while listening to a podcast and it’s called, Start With Why by Simon Sinek.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow. The second in what I hope to be a long series of Sundays unplugged. No computer and no phone. Just me, my wife, and either the TV or our cameras if we decide to go somewhere! Wish me luck!