In marketing there’s a term called Key Performance Indicators, or KPIs, and they are exactly what they sound like - Agreed upon standards that help you measure your work against your objectives, aka your performance. Things can get complicated, with many marketing campaigns pulling many different levers, so KPIs are used to understand fundamentally if the work you are doing is driving business and generating results in a reliable way.

There are two types of KPIs, a leading KPI which is more a direct, objective measure of a tactic, and a lagging KPI, which is the longer term effect or the business goal you are trying to meet.

Within the context of personal goal setting, we over emphasize the lagging KPI, or the final objective, and believe that just by stating it it’s going to happen. Getting clear on the ultimate goal is definitely important from an efficiency and motivational standpoint, but where’s the structure? That’s where our leading KPIs come into play.

The leading KPIs are what we execute on every single day to produce our end goal. They are the fuel behind the growth and development that leads to an improved result. Remember, personal development is the process, self improvement is the state.

Take a community member, Arozo, for example. She’s training for a marathon and was looking for some goal setting guidance. The lagging KPIs were clear - to be able to finish the race, as well as to be able to run X many miles by Y date. That works great as a progress check, but how does she get there? Leading KPIs - Run this many miles a week, cross train that many times, the things she does on a daily basis to build up her fitness. It’s consistency in the daily activities, measured by leading KPIs, that generate the real impressive results, as indicated by the lagging KPIs.

I was reading with my nephew a number of months ago and the book we were reading, “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” by Dr. Seuss, left a big impression on me. It’s a clever story that gives great advice on how to navigate life and deal with adversity. 

While I encourage you to read the whole book, I am going to recite a few of the final lines that I particularly enjoy.

“You’ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step. Step with great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dextrous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed? Yes you will indeed! (98 ¾ percent guaranteed.) Kid, you’ll move mountains!" 

There are a few underlying thoughts in this excerpt I want to highlight. First is to acknowledge imperfection. You’ll make mistakes and wrong decisions and get caught up in the wrong places. Second, as a response to that, is being intentional. While you can’t control a lot you can control yourself, and it’s up to you to strike the balance that best fits your needs and circumstances. Then finally, in the face of adversity and within those choices, success is inevitable. It’s just about guaranteed!  That’s because those things that you thought weren’t possible, that seem to present inconveniences and limitations in your life, are non-existent. And that’s exactly how the story ends. 

“So… be your name Bauxbaum or Brixy or Bray, or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O’Shea, you’re off to great places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So… get on your way.”

I wanted to honor the message and eloquence of a leader who has passed. I’ve seen the response the community has had toward Chadwick Boseman's life and contribution, and wanted to acknowledge his legacy. Despite strong opposition, Chadwick persevered to give a voice to so many people and represents a new era of black empowerment. Not surprisingly, he did so through a trial and error process that guided him toward his purpose.

It’s not always smooth, and it doesn’t always seem like it’s working, but everything you experience is preparing you for the deepest expression of your purpose. Life and its challenges are a training ground for you to be able to contribute to your ultimate capacity.

First, to understand why forgiveness is important we need to reflect on its purpose. To forgive is to overcome the negative emotions you feel toward someone or something, and no longer let that thing have power over your well-being. The underlying root of this is that something inside you hurts. You’re in pain because of something in your past and you need to rationalize that pain by attributing it to something else.

So what you must do before you externally forgive is you must internally accept. While I do want to remain respectful of any past traumas you may have experienced, you must recognize that your past is part of your life. It cannot be changed, and the best response you can have toward things that cannot be changed is to accept. This often involves finding meaning and purpose in the trauma or experience, because then it can be viewed as a necessary element to your growth and actualization rather than something that holds you back.

Basically, you must first forgive yourself and process your emotions before looking externally. Then at that point, if you feel like it’s important and productive, you can begin to forgive externally and relive those difficult emotions in a vulnerable way but with a new perspective and purpose behind it.

This moment right now is a miracle. You have ears and eyes that have evolved perfectly to experience the world around you, which is an incredibly delicate process. Your life came from 400 trillion to one odds that two specific cells meet, to then divide and create everything that makes up you and your body. The order of your actions and thoughts in the next hour are completely dependent on every second before it, in your lifetime and beyond, and every detail of your future is still being designed right this instant!

Everything that happens in this existence is a miracle.The definition of a miracle is “a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.” The odds of things happening exactly how they did are unbelievably low, which makes you wonder, what if they hadn’t? This belief is a powerful perspective to take because it represents how everything that has happened and will happen is all a bonus. If that’s the case, then we can welcome any and all things into our lives with curiosity and enthusiasm just like any miracle deserves.

An underlying sentiment to this thought is gratitude. It doesn’t matter if you interpret these events as divine or coincidental, the consistent truth is that it all happened against all odds. And the fact that it all happened for you, in such a precise and profound way, gives you a lot to be grateful for.

One of the most important, but most difficult traits we can possess is empathy. Empathy is an ability to place yourself in someone else’s shoes, observe the context around their mental processes, and understand why they believe things to be a certain way or feel a certain way. This characteristic serves us in a number of different ways - Emotionally supporting a friend or loved on, attempting to motivate someone, trying to do business with someone, or trying to understand how someone has different political beliefs. 

But the flaw with empathy is that it is largely based on assumptions and when you assume, it leaves a lot of room for interpretation, subjectivity, and opinion. So if you want to be more effective, you need to remove the judgment and biases you're feeling and try to approach the situation at face-value. 

If you want to emotionally support a friend, ask more targeted questions to understand the context of the problem, so that you can address the root of the emotion and not about the superficial display of that emotion. If you want to motivate someone, think about their goals and objectives and how you can position what you want them to do as a means of achieving it. If you want to do business with someone, think about the stakeholders and pressures they must respond to and how this would make them look in the eyes of a boss or superior. 

Your ability to be empathetic is strengthened by your ability to remove yourself from someone’s situation, which requires radical open-mindedness and zero judgment. Empathy is a fundamental trait that, when exercised right, will allow you to be more effective in your interactions with others.

Let’s keep it simple and take it back to 3 words that changed my life. It’s a concept I do morning affirmations on and it’s something that a lot of emotions hide behind. Those 3 words are: You are worthy.

Those dreams and aspirations you have, you deserve them. That community group you’re involved in, you belong. Those feelings of joy and fulfillment you’ve experienced in the past, you earned them and you’re capable of feeling them again! Don’t let everyone else’s negativity get in the way of your shine.

Your past experiences may have set a standard that you’ve been living by, but when you have the self-confidence to look beyond those standards you’ll see how they’ve been limiting you. You might be appeasing others’ opinions and expectations out of unworthiness, which is keeping you from allowing yourself to live a fully-expressed life.

But remember, no matter how bad things have gotten or how low you’ve been, your existence today demonstrates that you are capable of persevering! And every time you persevere you create evidence that you are capable, you do deserve it, and you do belong. When you believe that you’re worthy of receiving what the world has to offer, it will deliver with abundance and you will elevate without restrictions.

To get to that place of believing in your worth, what do you need to do? You need to produce proof. You need to take action in a way that is consistent with you believing you're worthy. By investing in yourself and putting yourself out there knowing you’ll be okay if you fall short. You’ll quickly find that you are worthy, you are abundant, and now is the time to shine.

I think we’re all guilty of this to some extent, and we definitely know someone who operates in this way. It’s easy to talk the talk, but it’s not easy to walk the walk. I’ve found that the most difficult part of doing anything is the follow through, actually doing it, and it creates a large emotional and psychological divide. It’s so easy to talk about wanting to do something - You state large ambitions, make big plans, and talk a big game, but nothing comes from it if you don’t take action. And if nothing comes from it then what purpose did it serve?

For that reason, when I try to get a read on someone I look at their behavior and what they’re doing, not what they’re saying. Someone who keeps grabbing handfuls of chips but says they’re on a diet. A person who complains about not having enough to do but doesn’t make any effort to try new things. There’s a reason the expression “Actions speak louder than words” has been true and effective for decades!

But fortunately, the same goes for the things you tell yourself. Oftentimes negative self-talk isn’t validated by your actions, and it arises from social conditioning and insecurities that distort your perception of truth. But these negative things you say about yourself don’t provide evidence for who you are, it’s what you do that provides evidence. You think you’re unhealthy but you log your food intake. You think you’re lazy but you have a full calendar. 

Take this very moment for example. You are taking the action to read an excerpt related to self-improvement podcast, which in itself separates you from so many people! Let that action motivate you to take another action, and another action, until you recognize the path you're on and the growth you're experiencing.

You know all of that stuff that comes into your life and seems to weigh you down or force you off course? It’s all of the bullshit you deal with throughout the day. My boss wants me to do this task that isn’t worth my time. My car broke down and now I spend time and money getting it fixed. My best friend went around my back and is really pissing me off. All of that sucks, right? Or maybe that’s just the meaning you’re choosing to make out of the situation.

If you find yourself negatively affected by these little inconveniences, maybe you need to rethink why you view those things as so inconvenient. A powerful reality about our existence is we always have choice, and your decision to attribute negative meaning to an event is your way of handling the situation.

That’s why I’m saying - Your BS is your belief system. If you perceive something as negative it’s because your beliefs say it is so. We need to understand how deeply rooted our beliefs are, and how often they are being exercised without our conscious awareness.

If your boss wants you to do some menial task, why do you see it as menial? If you zoom out and approach it with empathy, do you understand why it needs to get done? Maybe you're the only person she trusts to get the job done.  Or if your friend goes around our back, maybe that’s their indirect way of asking for help. Maybe this is a huge breakthrough in your relationship because it’s creating a platform for them to be vulnerable with you.

The BS in your life is only there because you choose to let it be BS, and that choice exists within what you conclude to be true based on your beliefs. It’s a matter of perspective. The “bullshit” you deal with might be someone else’s dream. It’s only perceived as bullshit because you believe it to be so.