Make Everyday Your Masterpiece.

“Nothing is original.

Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination.

Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows.

Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic.

Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery – celebrate it if you feel like it.

In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.”

                                            ~ Jim Jarmusch

Synchronize Your Life

World Order Japanese Band

Everything you have done;  everything you have learned; everyplace you have been; everything you have tried;  all of your successes; all of your failures;  everyone you have met, those you have loved and those you have loathed  — it has all brought you to this point in your life. It’s time to…

Pull it all together and create something uniquely you in the New Year.

Below is an example of what Genki Sudo created out of his martial arts background….how can you synchronize your life experiences to-date…make sense out of it all…put it all together… 

Live While You Live.

Keep Going.

Don’t Give Up.

Create & Keep Creating.

Go ahead, struggle through it. Pick up the pen already and put it to the page and stop whining. Write.

Pick up the brush and be mean to yourself for a change. Paint.

Dancers, put on the loose chemise, tie the ribbons in your hair,
at your waist, or on your ankles and tell the body to take it from there. Dance.

Actress, playwright, poet, musician, or any other. Generally, just stop talking, Don’t say one more word unless you’re a singer.

Shut yourself in a room with a ceiling or in a clearing under the sky.

Do your art.

Generally, a thing cannot freeze if it is moving.

So move.

Keep moving.

          ~ Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

The above picture is of the pencils that were on Frank Lloyd Wrights’ (the famous architect) desk when he died at 91 years old. He kept moving…he kept growing… through the ups and downs of his life (and there were MANY) he KEPT creating what was in him to create.

What are YOU waiting for?

It’s time to create what is in YOU to create (even if that is just to dust yourself off and re-create YOURSELF). GET UP and MOVE….and Keep Moving until you can move no  more…and don’t worry about “failure”…remember this is YOUR life…you have to do what YOU are passionate about…what YOU value…what represents YOUR gifts and highest skills…or else –  WHAT’S THE POINT???

Transform Yourself

 It Takes Courage to Grow Up and Be Who You Really Are

~ e. e. cummings

Have you grown up yet…or are you still trying to play the game of life within “the system”?

“The System” that says: “do-this, do-that, do-it-this-way, do-it-that-way, go-here, go-there, now-do-this-next…”.

What’s “the system” you might ask? The school system, the work system,  the money system, the holiday shopping for Christmas commercialization system, the government retirement system…should I go on or do you get the point?

Haven’t you had ENOUGH of the system? Aren’t you ready to stop playing the game of life by the systems rules now that you recognize it? Are you still afraid to question the system and worse yet, question yourself?  Are you afraid to question your beliefs?  What about questioning the control others have over you because of their beliefs, or going along with what you “should” do or believe.

Sometimes you have to dis-believe and carve your own path

…why…

Because this is YOUR life and YOU need to live it.

Are you afraid to take the risk and live your life and find your path?

Yes, you might have to admit that you’ve made some wrong turns here and there, but you have to be willing to right the ship.  Take the risk to change and be alright with the tunnel of change. It’s time to create a new you, not the you that you are “supposed to be”. It’s time to say yes to life and stop being “afraid” of fear or what “could” happen as you transform yourself.

Sometimes all it takes to say yes to your life is to question the answers.  The answers you’ve been giving yourself for all your life. Once you realize that this is your life, not  anyone else’s, but yours and that you are responsible for yourself and your decisions, you start the transformation process.

And yes, there are things you need to do, duties or responsibilities that you might need to bear…but question those to. Question all the “you aughta, you should, you must, you shall”…that you put on yourself or allow others to put on you.

You know how the story goes as that voice in your head starts telling you…

 “I can’t do this. I could never do that. I can’t quit my job. I can’t leave this relationship.”

EVERY TIME YOUR MIND TALKS TO YOU LIKE THAT ASK YOURSELF –

WHY NOT?

If you just keep asking yourself why not then you will realize that all those “reasons” why you can’t, couldn’t or  shouldn’t may not even be your own beliefs, but your parents, or your spouses, or from your culture – but not your own true beliefs.  These beliefs might be limiting you and holding you back.

What happens when you don’t question yourself?

You look up and you’re  in your 30’s , 40’s or 50’s and you have NO clue how you got where you are, with who you are with, in the profession that you are in and you feel like you either can’t or shouldn’t make a change.

How much time do you really think you have left in this life to be who you are supposed to be?

Honestly, think about that.

If you just stay stuck where you are, and if you aren’t growing, then you aren’t really living  you are existing and basically wasting your time — and your life. Your life is measured in time – seconds, minutes, days, weeks, months, years, and decades.  So where are you?   If it is day-after-day-after-day of the same drudgery, then ask yourself why you feel you have to exist like that. It makes NO sense.

 So, now,  what do you do?

1. Get by Yourself

Try solitude for short periods of time first and then for longer blocks of time.  If you MUST have people around you and stuff happening all the time you should ask yourself why that is.  Is it a distraction so you are not alone with your own “scary” thoughts? Are you scared to really figure things out and then do what you need to do?  Are you afraid to challenge the status quo – the known for the unknown?  Are you afraid of change?

The level of fear that you have to change is positively correlated to the level of fear that you have to living life — because life is about change.  

Being – Becoming – Being – Becoming

Letting Go – Letting Come 

2. Question Yourself

Question the answers to your questions.

You will be surprised just where that rabbit hole will take you.  Just keep asking yourself questions that start with “why” and/or “how”.  Don’t settle for the first or second answer either.  Ask it at least three times until you get to the heart of the matter.

Questioning yourself fully and allowing the answers to emerge will take you past fear, past doubt, and past ALL the lies you’ve been telling yourself (because you’ve been afraid of change or in other words to live your life authentically).  Now, when you do question yourself, you must be willing to allow even the scariest thoughts of “if I do this then this might happen” scenarios to emerge.  Just allow those thoughts.  What you find is once you allow them, then they aren’t so “scary” anymore.

It’s not easy to search and challenge your own assumptions, but if you keep doing what you’ve been doing you are going to keep getting what you’ve been getting… and if you are happy with where you are in life then you would not be reading this far into this post – so start questioning your assumptions!

3. Focus on Solutions

Who gives a hoot about the problem.  After you identify it as a problem it’s time to just singularly focus on solutions. I can’t tell you how many people I know or have known who tell me all about their problems.  I get that, but I always steer them to focus on solutions because whatever you focus on is what happens.

If you focus on finding problems or things “wrong” then that’s what you’ll find.  If you focus on solutions or on things “right”, then that’s what you’ll find.  (There is an entire theory called Appreciative Inquiry that studies this.) 

So, I bet some of  you are saying right about now that the “problems” that you have are your “duty”. You know what you need to do.  You can’t make a change because you are just “bearing what you must bear”.  You are just doing what you “ought to do”, or you don’t feel free to make your own decisions,or what you want to do will hurt other people, or make them sad, or you don’t want to be selfish, or WHATEVER story you are telling yourself —so you can justify why you are miserable (in your job, in your marriage, in your skin…fill in the blank).  

Well, that type of thinking is okay for a period of time, BUT NOT FOR YOUR ENTIRE LIFE. Eventually you are going to have to face facts that you can’t live your life through other people, or for other people, or based on what other people think you should do.  It is time for you to grow up.  Move on. Leave. Make the Change. Just Quit.  Be Who You Are Suppose To Be.

Keep Discovering Your Passions

What are your hobbies?  If you don’t have any then you need to find some.  Hobbies are just another word for passions.  If passion is too strong a word for you then start looking for hobbies.

Create something.  Make something.  Write Something. Paint Something.  Grow Something. Fix Something. Clean Something. Try Something….and don’t expect to be an expert…just keep at it, see if you like it, all you have to do is enjoy doing it…

If you don’t have anything you are doing in your spare time (and television DOES NOT count – because you are watching other people perform THEIR hobbies and passions) it’s time to start doing something – ANYTHING that makes you lose all track of time. This is your first step on the path to finding your passion(s)…and yes, it is passions and not passion, because they too will change and evolve over time.

Remember this is YOUR Life.

One day you will die, but today you are alive.

No matter your situation, just ACT like you are free.

Free to be happy.  Free to sing.  Free to dance.  Free to smile.  Free to give. Free to love.  Free to sit.  Free to walk.  Free to Be.  Free to Just Quit

 

 

Success is Not Overnight

Don’t Give Up Yet!

Actually, I’m an overnight success, but it took twenty years. ~Monty Hall

• When you see people who are successful it only looks like it happened overnight.
• You’re not seeing their failures and their false starts.
• You weren’t with them when no one believed in them or in what they were doing.
• You weren’t with them when they had to look in the eyes of family and friends who didn’t understand  exactly what they were doing.
• You weren’t with them when people asked: ‘Hey, what are you up to these days?”  and they knew that they really couldn’t talk about their stuff to certain people, because they wouldn’t get it or if they got it they would try to kill the idea with questions, doubts, and just how many ways this thing they were doing was “different”.

You Have To Be “Different” To Be a Success

Success only comes when you are true to yourself, in spite of who you are and in what others say.  It only comes when you ARE different.  When you are who you are – and are okay that “you’re different”.  When what you are doing is radical.  When it’s new.  When it hasn’t been done before.  When it hasn’t been done how you’re thinking about doing it.  It’s unique. It’s you.

Success only comes when  you believe strongly in what you are doing.  It only comes when you keep going regardless of what others may or may not think of what you’re doing.  It only comes when you’re okay with allowing things to play out.

Living A Everyday Mundane Life Just Doesn’t Cut It

There are 7.5 billion people in the world and many just live “everyday normal” lives that amount to not much but the daily routine of living.  Growing up, going to school, working, marrying, having children,eating, eating out, going to movies, sleeping,  going on vacation, retiring, playing sports, lounging around, entertaining themselves, enjoying holidays, and then-they-die.  They never really find their own path.  They never look for their own path.   Even those who find or think they might have found their path get caught up in living the mundane everyday life.  They have a flash of inspiration. They figure out what they’re good at.  They lose all sense of time when they engage in this activity or creative expression.  Then they don’t pursue it.  They miss their own deadlines.  They keep delaying the process of discovery and walking their path. They can’t let go of what is…the everyday normal stuff…to do what could be. They don’t give things a try because they are afraid of failure, afraid of looking stupid, afraid of things not working out – just afraid of being “different”, doing something “different” from what is  “normal”….and they look up and they’re still living just a mundane life.

Successful People Had The Same Doubts

Success comes to those who try and fail, maybe a hundred times.  But once you are a success people can never really see those failures, they only see what is in front of them – the successful person that – they watch on television, read their books, watch their movies, watch them play sports, see them at their businesses, see a piece of beauty in their artwork or walk into their corporate headquarters.

One day those successful people were afraid.  One day they were discouraged.  One day they didn’t think whatever they were working on was going to work out either.  One day they were alone developing whatever it was that brought them success, when others were seemingly having a good time (but in all actuality those other people were just living mundane lives…waking up, going to work, going on vacation…ect…).

One day those successful people were telling themselves that  it wasn’t going to work.  It could be better.  It could be branded differently.  Who did they think they were to keep on trying, BUT they overcame those days, and those thoughts, and just kept pushing on. They didn’t spend time living a mundane life.  They didn’t spend time entertaining themselves, or working for someone else, or working to keep up the pretenses that they had a good life – a good marriage, a good family, a good job, ect –  all the while knowing that they were really dead inside.

One day they just let all of those things go and pushed forward doing what they felt they needed to do, even if they failed, AGAIN.

Success only looks like it happened overnight, but it happened over MANY long nights, MANY sleepless nights, MANY lonely nights of knowing that no one really understood or cared about what they were doing or studying.

Finding the Right Track for the Remainder of Your Journey

Just know that we are all on a  journey.

It is an individual journey.

You have to find and take the journey for yourself.

When you get on the right track that’s for you then your journey starts to take off like a train you’ve been waiting for.  You know it because when you get on that track you don’t look back.  You know all those other tracks have led you to this one. You know you are still on a journey.

You know the way forward is unknown,  but it seems almost familiar.  The scenery is something that you’ve envisioned or experienced or thought out at some point in a waking state or a dreaming state or another place and time.  It just seems like: “Oh, this is familiar,  I found it,  I’ve been looking for this track and I finally found it.”

Then things start to just keep moving along and you look up and you’re successful.

Even before it actually manifests in your physical environment, you know you’re going to be successful if you stay on this track.

The Struggle Mind-Set Is Gone

People think it’s overnight and no matter how many times you try to tell your story (or embellish it) they don’t seem to hear it or believe the struggle that you went through because things are now effortlessly coming to you.

It’s’ even hard for you to believe your struggle story (did that really happen to me?, was that my childhood?, did I work there?, did I lose money on that idea?) because your mind has progressed to a place of such peace and alignment that you can’t believe you were so off track.

But you needed to be off track in order to know what being on the right track felt like.

You know that you needed to let go of things, people, ideas, concepts, places, and belief systems – that kept you stuck in the place that you knew you needed to leave.

It was not easy.

It was difficult.

Those decisions were hard.

You had to make them in order to let go of the struggle-type life and mindset. You knew it was not the right track for you, because you were honest with yourself.  You just have kept letting go (once you recognized that you needed to). Now you can see, or are in the future moment that you’ve only dreamed of. It even seems like it happened overnight to you…but you know that your success was not overnight…it just seems that way.

Success is Not Overnight…Keep Going

 

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” 

~Soren Kiekegaard~

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Are you still asking yourself that same question that you were asked when you were in high school?

High School, that sure was a fun time. The joy of going to football games, hanging out with friends, going from class to class, dating, feeling weird most of the time, and trying to fit in.  (Even the so-called popular kids were feeling weird and trying to fit in.)  Think of all of those “decisions” that you had to make EVERYDAY in high school:

• You had to get up, either on your own or with the help of someone yelling five to six times for you to get out of bed.
• You had to find something to wear.  You had to be cool, of course, even if you only had a few cool clothes to mix and match.
• You had to get to school (by riding the bus, walking, or driving).
• You had to go through the day with other students, teachers, and administrators (you knew them just as principals).
• You had to make friends, keep friends, find friends, and try to be a friend.

The whole time you were wondering who was going to get on your nerves today, who was going to give you problems, and how you were going to deal with whatever would happen. On top of everything else going on, you had to do all of this schoolwork that really didn’t relate to anything going on in your real life. You had no idea what life after high school was all about.  You didn’t know what adulthood would mean.  All you knew was that going to school was what you HAD to do.  It was “your job”. You took all these classes, did the best you could, tried to have fun, and wanted to be popular and liked by others.  The whole time you were just trying to figure it all out. By the time you knew it, high school was almost over.  You had only a year or two left to go. People were now starting to ask you more frequently what you were going to do with your life. How on earth should you know? You were only 17 or 18 years old. What kind of question was that? They really were asking you like you were suppose to know!

Who knew what you were going to do with your L-I-F-E? 

YOU were supposed to know. 

Here is the really sad thing:  all of these “smart” people in your world really could not help you.  You were basically on your own in figuring it out.

What Did Others Think?

Of course, there are those parents and “loved ones” who knew EXACTLY what you should do because they wanted the best for you.  (Actually, it was them vicariously wanting to live through you. Now that they had some years behind them, made some wrong turns, they now thought THEY’D FINALLY figured it out. ) 

Well, you’d listened to them seemingly since the beginning of your time on earth, and YOU sure didn’t know what do.  You either did what they told you should do, or you did the very opposite of what they told you should do. No matter what choice you made, you begin to realize that in the end you had to figure this out for yourself.  No one could really make all the decisions for you.  

You started making decisions and pretty soon these decisions were becoming “YOUR LIFE”.

So now, where are you today? Maybe you need to make a turn, maybe you need to just stop.  Is today the day that you need to wake up and Just Quit doing what is not working?  What will your life look like if you keep doing what you’re doing?  Any regrets?  Are you happy?  Did you live YOUR LIFE or did you live somebody else’s?  Today, begin again, you can live the life you were born to live.  

It’s time to figure it out…finally…go on an adventure and search for…Who YOU Are? 

Just Quit Working for Someone Else

 

 

You can not discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. ~ Tibetan Proverb

Working for others goes hand in hand with working at a job that you know you need to Just Quit.

Most of us know that working for someone else is not going to really get us anywhere, but most of us are scared to make it on our own.

Why are we scared?

Usually there are two reasons:

1. We like the idea of a steady paycheck, and
2. We like the idea of going to the doctor.

It you don’t have a job working for someone else, then you may struggle to get paid and have health and life insurance.  (At least that’s how it is in the USA). Isn’t that really the bottom line?

Have you ever stopped to consider that every organization that has employees had to start at the beginning with an idea? Someone just decided that they would start one day. Someone had a good idea and decided to make that idea materialize and become a reality.

Let us dream…

Let us dream of you being the employer who provides the paycheck and the insurance. It might just be for you, but it could be for others as well.

This has to be possible because people are doing it everyday. Why can’t you be one of those people?  You can be that person. You might have to take it in stages.

You might have to figure out a plan and work the plan. It might take you two, five, or ten years.

You just have to start.  You just have to begin.  Just take the first step.

Name the business.  Type the business plan.  Get the business license.  Find the building.  Find the suppliers.  Get the quotes.  Work out the service you are going to provide.  Find the target market.  Design the presentation.  Find the warehouse.  Find out how much money it will take.

                  

What can you commit to doing today towards your business idea?

Do It. 

Just Start.

Then Keep Doing Something  (even if it’s a teeny, tiny something) EVERYDAY.