A while ago, somebody asked me, “Why are you so relaxed?   Why don’t you ever rush?”  They didn’t ask in a kind way, either… They were frustrated with me.  They interpreted my mild mannerisms as a lack of motivation.   I calmly, and patiently replied,

When you rush, you look like you’ve lost control.  You feel like you’ve lost control.

Repeat after me: There is no bull behind me.

Earl Nightingale put it best:  ”Go at it as you have never done before…  Not in a hectic fashion-- but with the calm, cheerful assurance that time well spent will give you the abundance and return that you want.”

Remember --  This is not Double Dare.  There is no :30 second timer.  Chill the fuck out.

If you still don’t get it, they wrote a song about it.  Like ta hear it?  Here it go.

What you see is what you get–

What you see in your mind is what you get in your hand!

If you’re not happy with what’s in your hand, change what’s in your mind.  It’s really that simple.

Your life is nothing less than YOU bringing harmony to a beautiful collection of small experiences.

YOU choose the small experiences– you hand-pick them.  But to see the beauty in each experience is totally up to YOU.  Its not up to anybody else to show you.   These small experiences add up to your life–  Your life is nothing less than the influence YOU leave on earth– What people remember about you long after you’re gone.

It just so happens that Life doesn’t happen to you– YOU happen to life.  So LIVE, got dammit.

“The Alchemist presents a simple fable, based on simple truths and places it in a highly unique situation.” –Amazon.com Review

Most of the time, when something is good, we want to keep it all to ourselves.  Every once in a while, something comes along SO GREAT, we MUST share it.  I have to share this with YOU, faithful blog reader.

“My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer,” the boy confides to the alchemist one night as they look up at a moonless sky.

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself,” the alchemist replies. “And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”

–WHOA.

This is the best book I’ve ever read.  The best part about it is, YOU can buy this book used on Amazon for under $3.

No, wait.

The best part about it is, its being made into a MOVIE, and LAURENCE FISHBURNE is directing and playing the part of The Alchemist.  I feel like a 5 year old girl on Christmas morning who just unwrapped a big ass plastic kitchen set.

We often disregard “imagination” as a silly surplus of fairy tale ideas that will never come to pass.  We also make the TRAGIC mistake of letting our imagination DIE with our childhood–  Our society isn’t encouraged to employ imagination throughout adolescence and adulthood.

A lot of people ask me where I get my ideas.  I hear things like, “Where did you come up with that?” or “How does your mind work so fast?”  I think these people forget one thing: that we all have an imagination.  And

I believe imagination is a muscle: The more you exercise it, the stronger it becomes.

I remember a time when I felt like I had nothing but dumb ass ideas.  One day, I had an epiphany: Even if I have 99 bad ideas, I would HAVE to have at least ONE great one!  And wouldn’t that be worth the work?  So as dumb and embarrassing as they seemed, I never stopped writing my ideas down.  Over a short time, they got better and better!

Its to the point now where I can casually “discard” okay ideas, that would’ve been GREAT ideas to me 3 or 4 years ago.  I get to choose!  And I haven’t had a ‘bad idea’ in years!

But, as with any other muscle, you have to “use it or lose it.”  And remember, that first day back in the gym will leave you sore than a sumbitch, but the key to success is repetition.

Exercise your imagination… It has the potential to be the strongest muscle you have.

According to Sean “Diddy” Combs, yes.  Watching the show “Making the Band 2″, I used to wonder what the fuck was wrong with him. You NEED 8 hours of sleep to function! Right?

I totally disagreed with Diddy.  That is, until I started to operate at a level of peak inspiration. When my goals were unclear, I would have trouble getting out of bed in the morning.  I’d be so tired.  AND I would take naps.  Sleep was one of the greatest things in my life.

Now that I have refined my goals, and hold them before me every day (imagining them as if they were already achieved),  I can’t WAIT to get out of bed.   There are an abundance of ideas that constantly flow into my mind, and its like a race trying to get them out– and into the physical world.

Now, I work effortlessly through bouts of sleepiness, because I’m having so much fun.  Most days, I have to FORCE myself to lay down, because I know I wouldn’t stop, if it was up to me.

The best way I can describe this level of peak inspiration is the feeling a small child gets on Christmas Eve–  In anticipation of the gifts he or she will receive.  There is a bundle of energy that bounces around frantically inside you… It won’t LET you sleep.

How many times have you heard a terrible song on the radio, and said to your friends, “How did they even get a record deal?”  The short answer: Because they believed in their SELVES.  They didn’t listen to anybody who told them they couldn’t sing.  Remember this dude?

William Hung actually dropped out of college to pursue his career in music.  American Idol judges (along with America) laughed at him, but he decided to laugh with America-- All the way to the fucking bank.  He ended up getting a record deal, and got “paid out the ass.”

In this video, he says, “Either I do really well, by lighting up the stage, or I don’t.” Well, people may argue that he BOMBED. He STUNK.  But if you ask me, he lit up the stage. With laughter and amusement. He entertained.  AND he did well-- even if it was only by his own definition.

So what’s the difference between him achieving his goal, and somebody who REALLY CAN SING, NOT achieving theirs?!?! Commitment. and FUCKING what ‘everybody else’ says. Because

When you truly make up your mind to do ONE THING, and stubbornly COMMIT to it, nobody can stop you.  No THING can stop you.

Not your family, not TV show judges, not even millions of people who think you couldn’t sing to save your life.  When you make up your mind to do ONE THING, and stubbornly COMMIT to it, the world (and every force in it) will bend and bow at your feet.  Yeah, YOURS.

Now that you have the world, what are you going to do with it?

We generally learn how to read around age 4 or 5.  Just because a person finishes a book, does that make them smarter?  Not necessarily!

I have a friend who has a HUGE book case. It almost takes up an entire wall in his office.  As a matter of fact, it doesn’t even house all of his books.  One day I asked him, “How many of these books have you APPLIED?

At first, he didn’t understand.  “You mean– How many have I read?”  “NO,” I continue, “EVERYBODY knows how to read. How many times have you absorbed what you’ve read, applied it to your life, and changed your mind?”   He had no answer.

Most of the time, the books we read end up being nothing more than

• conversation pieces
• another thing we start, but never finish
• reasons for us to get mad when somebody doesn’t return the copy they “borrowed” from us
• a collection of papers that we close at the end, and put in a collection.

I have two personal rules when I read: A) I take my time, and read SLOW.  Its not a race.  You might see me with the same book for a month or two. B) I never read a book less than twice.  Just like a movie, you can always catch new shit– if you’re paying attention.

Knowledge isn’t power.  It is only POTENTIAL power.

The APPLICATION of knowledge is power.

Steal this.  Share it.

I once had a good friend share with me what qualities she was looking for in a guy. One of the first (of many) things out of her mouth was, “He has to be successful.”  I don’t think she was being specific enough.

Why not? Because everyone is successful. We’re all moving in a definite direction, because success is nothing more than the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.

The person climbing the “corporate ladder” is no different (or better) from the person who aspires to be the best local musician.  You might even know somebody right now who has the “goal” to wake up every day, smoke weed, and play Nintendo. He’s successful.   He’s realizing a worthy ideal. Or an ideal that he thinks is worthy of him!

We don’t get to choose if we move or not, but we do get to choose our destination.

So its not a matter of IF you have a goal, and IF you’ll reach it, because you most definitely do.  And you most definitely will.

P.S. Steal this from me. I want you to. Make it yours– There are more where this came from.

Before Michael Jeffrey Jordan became “Air Jordan”, they called him “the next Dr. J (Julius Erving).”

When he entered into the fullness of himself, every kid wanted to be “Like Mike.”  There’s just one small thing these youngsters failed to realize:

The only thing in the WORLD that is IMPOSSIBLE for a man to do is to be like SOMEBODY ELSE.

Only two people have ever come close to being like Mike: Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James.   And ironically, everybody’s trying to be like THEM now.

I’m not saying people shouldn’t have role models, because they should.  People need somebody to look up to. Somebody to show them it IS possible to get where they’re trying to go.  It helps them set clearly defined goals.  But at some point, we have to stop trying to be like Mike, and be ourselves.  Then, others will follow US, and try to figure out what it is WE do differently.

Do Your Math!

If you want to be like somebody, but they’re trying to be like somebody else, you’re playing a game I like to call “Follow the follower.”

But if you want to be like somebody, and they’re busy being THEIR SELF,  the best way you can emulate them is by being YOUR SELF.

Have your OWN goals, your OWN thoughts, even your own STYLE OF DRESS, and you’ll probably never make another mistake as long as you live.

The 12 Things Losers Are Uncomfortable Doing

By Bruce  Briggs

1. Finishing what they start.
2. Keeping their goal and dream in front of their eyes every day.
3. Working diligently and progressively on their dream. EVERY DAY.
4. Working AHEAD.
5. Working out/ exercising every day.
6. Taking risks.
7. Learning new things/ expanding their knowledge on something they already know.
8. Making QUICK decisions.
9. Arriving at, and sticking to the decisions they do make.
10. Trying a NEW approach to solve an old problem.
11. Staying optimistic.
12. Forming new, positive habits.

“Winners are those people who make a HABIT of doing the things Losers are UNCOMFORTABLE doing.” – Ed Foreman

Preparation + Opportunity = Success.

The formula only works in that order.

Are you prepared for your opportunities? Let’s say you’re a musician. If Steve Rifkind called you right now, and offered you a recording contract, but you had to put the album out in a week, do you have enough material?  If he flew you out to New York, and asked you to perform for him, would you freeze up?

One way to know if you’re prepared for your opportunities is to review your vision and goals. If your goals are cloudy, unclear, vague, undefined, and UNWRITTEN, you won’t know how to prepare for your opportunities.  As a direct result, you won’t even RECOGNIZE your opportunities when they come.

Again using the example of the musician, an unclear goal would be, “I want to be a famous singer.”  Why is that unclear? Because you didn’t say HOW famous.  And you already SING.  If your uncle lost his job, and suddenly– you had 12 people living in a 3 bedroom house, and you felt the urge to belt out a tune in the shower… Guess what? You’d be a famous singer.

How many fans do you see yourself having? What cities do you see yourself traveling to? How do you feel when you step on the stage in Cincinnati, Ohio, and that spotlight hits you?  What questions do you hear journalists asking you?

Envision these things, and write them down! Rehearse the answers! Every day!

Define your dreams.  Make them detailed and elaborate.  When your opportunities come knocking, you will be fully dressed, and ready to go…  You won’t be in the shower singing over the noise of nine bad ass kids running around the house.