When you put time and effort into something, you see the value in that right? Even if it didn’t turn out as well as you had hoped. Even if you need to spend extra time redoing what you just did. Well, I ask that you do the same for others and that you don’t discount their effort.

We’re in a culture that is so strongly controlled and driven by external validation that we design our lives around it. For this reason people often go about things without trying their best. Unfortunately this offers a nice and comfortable protection against the criticism of others, but it also holds so many people back from their fullest expression. As people we don’t want to feel like what we have isn’t enough so we fail to even show what we’re capable of. 

I think this problem is made worse by the nature in which we evaluate someone’s work, which is based on the result they generate and not their effort. This is a societal flaw with unbelievable emotional consequences. However, through our action we can help fight it, and help people feel more confident in their abilities by committing to being supportive in more empathetic ways. When people feel like the time and energy they invest in something is valued, and truly valued because they are being seen as a person and not evaluated based on their output, they will be more encouraged to contribute everything they have.

A discount is used to assign less value to something than it’s known to be worth. That’s not fair to anyone, but it’s a natural response given the way society tells us to operate. Don’t discount anyone’s effort and celebrate when people try their best, even if they come up short.

The imagery of this Helen Keller quote is something that makes it really appealing and attractive. We all know how shadows work and can draw associations about the meaning of light and dark, and this quote makes us reflect on how we can keep a positive mindset.

As long as there is light there will always be a shadow. There’s a contrast that exists in everything that is important to recognize, but it’s also important not to let it distract you. I believe that in many cases knowing there’s a shadow is enough, you don’t need to look back and confirm that it’s there. A shadow and the darkness within it holds you back and occupies your attention when you know well you’d rather be looking forward. 

Which is why Helen Keller encourages us to keep our face to the sun. Embrace the source of positivity and possibility. When our attention is directed toward the light, love, and lessons built into the world around us then we can be constantly reminded of how we exist in that way. We are so strongly influenced by our subconscious mind, which is often triggered by the environments we are in, so choosing to place yourself in the sunshine rather than the shadow allows you to literally see the blessings around you. 

That’s not to say the shadow isn’t important, it’s always there and always will be, but maybe let’s start looking for the sunshine more often!

Fortunately I was able to learn an important lesson at a young age. Whenever I lost a game playing sports growing up, I usually took it hard. My parents would console me and ask one question - “Did you do your best?” Not all of the time, but most of the time I did. It taught me to focus on what I can control, my own effort, when evaluating the result of a game.

I think that’s the only thing we can do, is to do our best. The results, the outcomes, the end-product are all dependent on so many external factors. In sports it could be an unlucky bounce, a bad call, or a teammate's error. In business it could be the political environment, a bad deal, or a global pandemic. And in life it could be a difficult situation imposed on you by others. In all of these cases, all you can do is your very best to work with what you’ve got to make the most of it.

But what does doing your best look like? It involves dedication - Being serious about the thing you want to achieve or work toward. It takes preparation - Anticipating in advance some of the things that might come up so that you can handle them better. And it takes effort - Applying yourself in the moment to your fullest capacity, putting your heart and soul into your craft in order to generate the best result you are capable of. If you do all of that, then you’re doing your best, and you can rest your head at night knowing that you gave it your all.

Doing your best is about you. The action steps you take, the way you play or engage, and the attitude you have through it all. And that’s entirely within your control. The best thing you can do is to do your best.

In an episode of “Charisma on Command” by Charlie Houpert I learned of the 30% rule, which essentially goes as follows - When speaking, we give ourselves 30% of the time a listener would give us to fill a pause without it feeling uncomfortable. It’s crazy to think the contrast is that drastic, 30%, but it's true.

To materialize this into an example, let's say you’re giving a speech in front of a group for work. You make a solid point, make a great transition to the next topic, then forget what you were supposed to say next. As you think, there’s a pause in speech. We know this moment, our adrenaline starts pumping, we feel our faces flush, and the moment feels like an eternity. You feel the pressure to continue saying something intelligent, so you rush to figure it out and then continue.  

That pressure and discomfort you experience is the 30% rule on display. In this scenario, I’d estimate that the average person starts to feel uncomfortable at 2 to 3 seconds of pausing. But what’s important to keep in mind, is the audience is much more tolerant, giving you more than 3x as much time to continue speaking without attributing it as an error or noticing anything too wrong. According to the math, your 2 to 3 seconds is their 7 to 10 seconds, and when you watch a video of someone pausing for that long you'll realize how it’s not that long after all. 

I thought that was important - being aware of this 30% rule of communication will help us be more confident speakers when expressing ideas we care about.

As I see it, everything in life is meant to operate as a cycle that can sustain and replenish itself through natural processes. There is truly more than enough to go around, but it’s a matter of how it goes around that provides for all who need it. Inherent to a cycle is the flow, which is how things actually move within the cycle. The force, volume, and rate of change all contribute to this flow. If you become intentional about facilitating the flow, the cycle can be more effective and return more of what it’s meant to create more often.

Think of the flow of money. If you readily pay others to help you, and you pay for things that you need, then you allow the cycle to return money to you and people will find value in your work and compensate you for it. Or think about karma, a good deed done returns to you. The universe has an amazing way of achieving an equilibrium, which means that when you offset that equilibrium it will construct ways to re-establish it. 

It’s all a process that is built on the give and take of contrasts, like night and day, masculine and feminine, and it’s so important to mobilize the value so that everyone can benefit from it. The alternative is to have little flow, which means that the value is not readily accessible. It’s stuck in containers, people can’t tap into it, and it becomes perceived as scarce and finite. But you can be intentional about facilitating the flow by serving first, spreading love, and being generous with what you have, with full faith that it will return to you exactly as you need it.

I love the idea of "attraction" and think it offers a really compelling and accurate visual for us to understand. In order to attract something you need to be magnetic, there needs to be some quality that pulls other things toward it because it’s in an aligned or matching state. The thing about our magnetism and attraction is you can choose your polarity, you can set the frequency, and therefore you can get very specific about what you attract. I believe that at all times we are subconsciously attracting and pulling things toward us, good or bad, and gaining an awareness of what that might be could be a great first step.

Now let’s talk about chasing. Chasing in my opinion isn’t all that bad! On one hand you can chase a partner or standard that you’ll never reach, but on the other hand you can chase a goal that really motivates you and gives you a sense of meaning and purpose. In either case chasing involves going against the grain and taking the more difficult and effortful route in pursuit of something. The chase is more of a game and if that’s something that you respond well too then there’s definitely a place for it.

I believe we should be both attracting and chasing. We should be the beacon that pulls things into our lives passively while still taking chances and putting ourselves out there effortfully. What’s important is that you are attracting and chasing the right things in order to realize the life you wish to have.

Despite the chaos and uncertainty we’re facing in life, especially now, there’s a lot of good happening that we’re not focusing on. It’s natural to be hyper-aware of the negativity, but just for a moment let’s bring your awareness to all of the positive. So much is going right in your life.

The reason you don’t think about some of these good things very often is because it’s just the way it is. However when something good is taken away we realize how good we had it and that we weren’t appreciating as much as we should have when we had it. Like a missed call from your Mom or Dad - That’s something you’re going to wish you had some day. Or the sweat and soreness of a tough workout while you're physically capable of it.  Or your health in general and how you go to sleep without chronic pain, or how you don’t have any difficulty breathing. These are all things that we may have in our life that we don’t think twice about, and they deserve more credit. 

It’s important to draw your attention to these small things because it initiates a cascade of gratitude that compounds and picks up momentum in your favor. When you train your brain and body to acknowledge more of the good, which surrounds you at all moments, it will begin to attract more of it in creative and valuable ways. And those things that seem like they’re going wrong? Well you can overwhelmingly counteract them with all of the examples of how things are going right, and start to build new associations and understandings that will help you overcome them. 

So I encourage you to take a 30 seconds right now to think about how much is going right for you in life, as small and simple as they might be, so that you can appreciate those elements before they’re gone.

A palliative care nurse named Bronnie Ware conducted a study as people were near death and asked them one question, “What is your biggest regret?” The overwhelming response by people at the end of their life said something along the lines of "I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me."

I bring this up because the concept embedded in this thought is the biggest obstacle we face today - We let life live us, we don’t live life. We choose to be responsive and reactive to the different things that are thrown at us, making the most of it, but also not being ambitious and looking to create an alternative for ourselves. We are so strongly influenced by others’ expectations that we default to meeting their standards rather than setting our own.

This influence is so subconscious, so deeply engrained in our decision making, that it becomes the greatest regret of the dying.

So what can we do to overcome this? To gain an awareness on this so that we don’t fall into the same cycle?

Be intentional. Set your own values. Make your own decisions about where you should put your time and energy. Determine what fulfillment, joy, happiness, and success mean to you and not everyone else. When you begin to think independently you attract opportunities in manifestation of those thoughts. You slowly find alignment in your life and the passionate inspiration that comes with it.

This is a difficult topic to talk about it, but I want to add some perspective to it. It’s the idea of pain. Pain comes into our lives in so many way - Physical pain after some kind of trauma or chronic condition, emotional pain as people come and go in your life, and spiritual pain as you weave in and out of integrity through your actions and choices.

I don’t want to undermine any of the pain you feel or have felt in your life, but I do want to change the label we place on it and frame it in more of a constructive way. Pain is simply a biological way of getting our attention. It’s a message from our body to our brain that something is wrong and that we should change our behavior. If that’s the case, then is it a stretch to say that the primary purpose of pain is to teach us a lesson?

If we see pain as a trigger that brings our awareness to a lesson, then it provides an understandable purpose to the pain. Instead of giving yourself time and wishing the pain goes away you can be proactive about discovering how this pain is meant to serve you. In the discomfort and emotion of pain it is hard to think rationally and positively, but by setting the intention in advance you can work through pain in a more productive way.

If your heart is broken by a breakup, how is that pain signaling the self-growth you’re meant to experience? If you were let go from your job, or not hired for a dream position, how does the pain of disappointment encourage you to reflect on what you could have done differently? If you feel dejected about breaking your own trust what values did you violate and how can you prioritize them in the future?

Pain is a signal, and it’s up to us to perceive the signal. I believe pain is merely a trigger for a lesson that you need to learn in order to attain the fulfillment and satisfaction you seek.