Sunday, February 21, 2021

Sometimes we don’t feel the world understands us and that we’re in our own universe. Nobody understands “my troubles” and no one understands the stuff that we’ve been through. We feel like we’re going through some serious drama at work, in our relationships, and at home. We feel like sometimes we don’t have anyone to turn to or “you just don’t understand”, “you’ve never been there” or “you haven’t been in my shoes”. We get that and realize that everyone comes from a different background and upbringing and cultural context. Everyone has their own life and story thread that they’re struggling through to make their way in life, be successful in business, or as a mom or dad or helping in their own microcosm of the universe. And you can’t discount that part and unique aspect of your life that everyone has. Everyone is a diamond in the rough waiting to make something happen before they return to the dust of the earth.

Growing up I think we all have this limited window or view of the world and often think that no one faces the same struggles and so often people have this divided view of you versus me and us versus them. But as we get older and see more of the world we should realize that the rigid rules and unyielding views often leads to suffering of one or more parties and often it’s better to be compassionate and merciful where possible. We have expectations of what it means to be successful, be in love, or in a relationship and how a family should be run. And often it’s full of promises and expectations and unfulfilled dreams, when sometimes we need to relinquish the control of the wheel in some cases and realize that we can control most things, but not always everything about life. Else we would be all knowing and all seeing. The best we can do is aim for a goal and set your sights and target, lay out your plans and do the best you can and leave the rest up to luck. Many of us don’t realize that perspiration is part of the equation and leave it up to luck, but also that there are things that we can’t always control and the saying is “to have the wisdom to handle the things you can control, and the patience to deal with the things you can’t”.

Often we have a frustrated population, sometimes it is the youth, sometimes the older established groups or people that have been relegated to the outside fringe of society that’s been overlooked economically. If we were given more opportunities, able to receive needed education and certain assistance, we’d have people less frustrated and hurt and able to achieve their goals.

One thing that has been helpful has been during times when we have not had to deal with the daily grind of work, school, taking care of family and kids, and other chores, is to take some personal time to recharge your bucket. There was a certain employee improvement exercise that I learned a few years back about a “drop bucket” or stress bucket and goals to achieve improvement. The exercise went something like this: everyone had a metaphorical bucket that they are continuously giving and taking in a day. It basically stands for energy or chi or your health meter. Sometimes perhaps as a nurse you’re helping someone else and care taking or maybe you’re a mom or dad and taking care of kids. Sometimes you get drained because you have a particularly difficult day or dealing with rough customers and other people. You gave so much of your “water drops” of energy to other people and need to recharge. You can sometimes help others too by giving back with compliments or someone helping you out or other means. The point is that no matter what, we all need to be balanced and not over extend ourselves and drain our own energy. Sometimes you have to give someone else time and sometimes you need time to yourself. The same idea is why on airplanes they often tell the parents to put on their oxygen mask before helping their kids. You can’t be of help to someone if you’re not fully healthy yourself.

Another thing to know is that you don’t have to feel alone out there because some people have gone through similar backgrounds as you. Life sometimes seems like a slow simulation with various choices and outcomes, but people have done really amazing things and they can be truly inspirational and affect what you do in life. One of the things growing up is having a good network of people and social support group. Some people haven’t had the social clubs, sports groups, theater troupes, and church gatherings for instance be able to learn social skills and civic skills. It’s a great thing to be able to participate in these types of organizations to instill a bit of comradery and interaction. And we feel unfortunate that some of the people in school or growing up in from 2020 and in the post-Covid years these last few months will miss out on important life skills. We all need a group of people to help us through life events. We all need mentors.

When we first developed the concept of this site and the direction to take it, we found some gurus, bloggers, people that embodied the ideals of what we wanted to emulate and researched them. One teacher was Tai Lopez who mentioned it was useful to have a group of peers that you learned from, one you taught, and one you strove to achieve similar levels of success. And that often we could learn great lessons of our past and forefathers without going through the same hardships that they had to go through. As one of our parents used to say, you could ‘bounce around and have a rough life’ or learn some of the school of hard knocks from some of the advice they dispensed to prevent having to reinvent the wheel and wasted time. There’s at few ways to learn: book reading, advice, and doing it yourself. And sometimes there’s no substitute for one or the other. But you sometimes you have to do what works for you.

One of the recent pleasures and also useful takeaways was just simply taking time to learn about the people we admired or were interested in and what worked and didn’t work in their life. This is something actionable you can take every day or every night before you go to bed or even in the morning. Just take a bit of time maybe even once a week and read about someone you’re interested and their life and how they got to that point. It doesn’t even have to be someone you particularly like or agree with all philosophies or view points. But it helps you at least understand a person which is essential for empathy. With the internet it’s been great to look up biographies and stories about people. You can also find their books or autobiographies or channels or Twitter feeds and websites and learn more.

For example, here are some example ideas for study:

• Who eats Blue Zone diets?
• How did David Grohl grow up and come up with the song Everlong?
• What did President XYZ do before going into office? Were there any particular defining moments in their life?
• Did Sherman Hemsley do other work beside acting?
• How did the Wright Brothers invent the airplane and did they have any help from family?
• What was Grace Hopper famous for?
• How did Elon Musk meet his current partner and what did he do before working at Tesla?
• What was the final days of Martin Luther King Jr’s life like?
• How did George Clooney get his start in acting?
• How did Warren Buffet get his immense wealth?
• What are some of the favorite foods of rich people and do they eat healthy?
• What was one thing Jim Carey did to motivate himself when he was first trying to get into acting and comedy?
• Is Lewis Black married and what was his life like?
• What are some of the views of George Carlin?
• How did person XYZ get through their days of being a soldier, or a particular tragedy in their life?
• What was The Weeknd’s early life like before he achieved success and entertained at the Superbowl?
• What was it like being someone like Freddy Mercury?
• Celeb XYZ came out or was transgender, who were they dating and what are their views on the world?
• How did person XYZ deal with a particular situation while they were in office, CEO, or working at a particular company?
• How did this person get a record deal?
• This person made a million dollars from their blog, how did they do that? Was it a lot of hard work?
• How long did it take for Steve Jobs, Bill Gates take to develop their product?
• Who did this person befriend or have connections to?
• Did they graduate college or high school? Was a degree necessary for their success? What did success mean to them?
• How does this person deal with handling their personal successes? After winning trophies and Olympic medals or having multiple albums did they do well financially?
• This young teen invested in a particular currency or start up or venture capital fund. Is that how they became a millionaire?
• How did this person become a reporter?
• How did this person become a neurosurgeon and now politician?
• Why did this person leak information to the press? Was it a good or bad moral judgment? Was it for the greater good?
• How did this person develop this recipe for chicken and do business and what age were they successful?
• How many times did this person try to develop a company and how many successes and setbacks did they have?
• This CEO was briefly jailed in Brazil jail but came out with the information he was trying to find. What was it and who was he and what lesson can you learn from it?
• This person wrote several books with another successful business man and later did podcasts and ran several workshops that bear his name, who was this person and what life changing presentations and workshops did he go to before he became successful?
• This mentor who worked for a supplement company taught another motivational speaker who previously worked life a janitor, also had a mentor himself. Who were these people?
• This basketball player practiced his shots repetively a certain way and became famed for his diligence and dedication to his work, who was this basketball play who went on to do several ad sponsorships?
• This lady did adult film work before changing careers and going into another line of work, what changed?
• This guy worked in martial arts film as a stunt man and met another famous martial artist who almost knocked him over in one scene, who were these men?
• How did this humble actor deal with this one tragic aspect of his life and how did it change his work ethic and the films he made?

There are several other questions out there and the stories and possibilities are endless. If you’re hungry and thirsty for knowledge then you will never be lacking for topics to research and things to learn and always have motivation and goals every day for learning and self improvement. People that became successful you will often learn took several years and sessions of continuous work and research and often things were not overnight successes but instead took years of planning. As one mentor often said, the most important book is the one you haven’t read. You don’t have to read books now as there is Youtube, audiobooks and other media on video and formats. It’s just important to get a good feel for what others have done before you sometimes to get an idea what is accomplished. But don’t let that hold you back. Like some of the best runners, they realized that one of the speed barriers had never been breached, but once it had been broken past and they achieved that record others were breaking new records. It was a psychological barrier. So don’t let anyone’s successes or failures be a limiting factor or belief to what you can do. Instead let it be extra arsenal of knowledge to propel you to success and achievement that others have not done their research. It’ll give you a competitive advantage and power to have the additional knowledge.

Much success and have fun in your quest for knowledge. Hopefully you will learn and be inspired from other’s successes and avoid pitfalls of those before you.