Last week as part of a community session I led, I got to hear a beautiful story from one of my colleagues Henry.

As a member of the Rotary Club he does a lot of work in the community and shared about his experience with a special needs kickball match.

He then elaborated on how he supports a program that helps to refurbish old wheelchairs and ship them internationally so that people in need can have them. He said that it’s a dream come true for many of these people and gives them a freedom in their life that they never had.

It was a heartwarming moment, but then it got me reflecting on how differently I view a wheelchair. If someone were to provide me with a wheelchair, it would mean that I lost my ability to walk. It would mean that I was now confined to the limitations of what I could do in a wheelchair.

How interesting is it that the same reality of receiving a wheelchair could lead to so different outcomes...

For me it would appear to be a tragedy and for others it’s a blessing that helps them access a new quality of life.

This is the power of perspective.

Everything we perceive is just the meaning that we assign to a set of facts. We can control the narrative so that our life is filled with more positivity, hope, appreciation, and acceptance.

For example - Let’s say that I did go through something that took my ability to walk. I could feel sad, dejected, and like my life is over. Or I could choose to see the gratitude in my situation, where I have the resources many people don’t have to still live a full-life despite a disability.

This isn’t easy to do… But it is embedded in everything we do. Our reality is dictated by our perception, and this example of what being in a wheelchair means about the quality of someone’s life is a great example of it.

Whatever hardship, circumstances, or challenge you're facing or have faced, you can invite this perspective by asking these two questions:

#1 - What about this situation is really good compared to what it could be?

#2 - How could this be a great thing to have happened to me?

The quality of our life is highly-correlated by the quality of the questions we ask ourselves, so let’s ask better questions!

A character trait that people really respect in others is honesty. Being honest is about being consistent with your version of the truth. And to be honest requires us to accept the way things are even when it’s painful or takes courage.

We’d all benefit, and the world would be a better place, if we became more honest.

But being honest isn’t as straightforward as it might seem. While the ‘honest’ thing to do is more black and white, the way that we deliver it is more variable. Certain settings have certain considerations, and we can be more effective with our honesty when we’re aware of those things.

A quote that I believe can be best attributed to leadership coach Kathleen Seeley goes - “Be brutally honest with yourself and skillfully honest with others.”

The most impactful thing we can hear from ourselves is the direct, unbiased, unfiltered version of what’s going on. Our mind naturally tries to protect us from anything that’s psychologically challenging, so we add fluff to mute the blow. But it comes at the expense of us knowing what’s required of us to grow through the challenge. 

It doesn’t mean to be so blunt that you become self-deprecating... But to give yourself grace as you accept what is most honest, especially when it’s hardest to admit.

Now when we deal with others, the same approach can become problematic. There’s a lot more context that comes into play when honesty involves someone else. That’s why Kathleen says it needs to be skillfully done.

We don't negotiate what the honest thing is - that’s cultivating a lie - but what we do is present what’s honest in a way that’s more likely to be well-received by others.

The recipient must be open to hearing what you have to say if you want it to be effective. So navigating honesty more delicately, with different layers to it that unfold over time or in a series of ways, allows the message to be less confrontational and more collaborative. 

Here’s a personal example:

Before meeting and marrying my wife Irene, I dated a girl who is great person but our paths were incompatible. Had I been more brutally honest with myself earlier, I would’ve acknowledged the issue sooner and advanced in my life sooner than I did. There are many areas of our life where this would serve us, but in this case I wouldn’t change a thing because the timing of it all led me to being with Irene!

Now what if I had a friend who was in the same circumstance, and had a glaring incompatibility with their partner. It wouldn’t be right to bluntly tell them that they need to break it off ASAP. There’s more to it than that, so I could be honest about my opinion but communicate it in a more indirect way.

What’s more appropriate is to encourage them to think about their relationship more long-term and give voice to the incompatibility I see, so that they can process it themselves. 

That’s the nuance: Brutally honest with yourself, skillfully honest with others. Honesty is non-negotiable, but the way you go about it is more so.

This might sound overly simple but I promise it’s something that many of us are missing (including myself!)

Those things that we really enjoy doing, that infuse our lives with joy and fill up our cup - Why don’t we do those things more often?

We live in a culture that works really hard, and many of us try to be more productive and efficient so that we can create more free time. But it’s free time to do what? All of our favorite things!

When we do have free time there are other responsibilities and things that we choose to fill the time with. And in whatever it is we have left over, we don’t have the energy to go and do the things we love and would rather just rest.

But what is everything else for if not to support us in being able to do our favorite things?

So rather than seeing if we have the time and energy to do our favorite things after all is said and done, why don’t we just plan to do our favorite things from the very beginning?

The idea of productivity needs a rebrand.

It’s not about getting as many things done as you possibly can… Instead it’s to spend our time doing what we want to be doing as often as possible.

Central to this is doing our favorite things!

And making our favorite things a priority is as simple as planning it.

Going for a walk on the beach, or hitting some golf balls, or getting out to a dance class, or hosting a dinner with friends is really hard to pull off on the same day but really easy to pull off with just a week’s notice. 

Rather than it being something that you try to fit into a busy schedule, what if it was something that you built your schedule around?

I found out just how possible this was when I started Jiu Jitsu. Rather than feeling like I didn’t have time for hobbies, I made a decision about what days and times I was going to get in for training. With little consequence the rest of my responsibilities settled in around the commitment.

So for you - What is one of your favorite things to do that you haven’t done in too long? Make plans today to do it one week from now. You’ll realize just how possible it is to do your favorite things more often!

If you have an adventure buddy or someone that you have a lot of fun with, send them this article as a way to hold each other accountable to actually doing it!

In honor of Mental Health Awareness month I wanted to support those who are going through something challenging right now.

Whether that person is you or a loved one, this simple practice could be the first step toward a more hopeful and empowered future.

Gratitude is an incredible medicine. Not only does it have incredible short-term benefits to positively impact your physiology, but it offers remarkable long-term shifts as well.

Every time you bring to mind one thing you’re grateful for, your mind goes to work to answer the question.

As you process the request, you’re actually training your mind on how to think.

You’re teaching it that it’s important to be able to easily access things to be grateful for, which makes it a little more likely to proactively look for those things on its own.

When you do this consistently enough, you actually start to shift the unconscious pattern! You begin to see more things to be grateful for without having to tell yourself to.

This is why 30 days of gratitude journaling will change your life.

The conscious choice of gratitude journaling causes you to seek gratitude. The more you do it on purpose, the more your unconscious mind uses gratitude as a filter for everything it perceives without effort.

So for those who are having mental health challenges right now, this is something very simple to try: Ask the question “What could I be grateful for right now?”

The question is structured this way for a few important reasons:

First, it approaches gratitude as a brainstorm. So rather than trying to replace negative thoughts and discredit them altogether, it makes a soft suggestion to explore it.

Second, it asks about ‘today’. It directs your mind to find something amidst the sadness, depression, or challenges of right now to be grateful for. It proves to you that you can be grateful even though you feel a certain way, which supports the unconscious development.

Ask this question once a day, consistently for 30 days, and see how it goes. Doable right? I think you’ll be surprised to see how powerful it is!

In today’s world it’s nearly impossible not to offend someone. People have their own views on things and unfortunately we’ve gotten progressively worse at learning to listen to each other, not better. 

As social creatures who desire to be liked by others, more than ever we face the choice to speak up and risk creating confrontation and disagreement… Or not.

A famous quote by Aristotle that relates to this is “To avoid criticism - Say nothing, do nothing, and be nothing.”

The quote is meant to be sarcastic.

Of course Aristotle’s recommendation isn’t to shy away into a meaningless existence - The intention is to highlight how inevitable criticism is when you take a stand for anything.

Rather than say nothing, speak up because no matter what you say it will create conflict. So you might as well speak what’s true to you.

Rather than do nothing, pursue whatever is most meaningful to you. If people disagree it’s their problem, and if you fail then at least you had the courage to try.

Rather than be nothing - Contribute. Let your presence be known in the way that you impact people. 

While ‘Saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing’ does divert attention and make it less likely that you’ll receive criticism, it also guarantees that you won’t be living your fullest life. 

As humans we are all designed to be creators. The language of our spirit is self-expression. And if you deny yourself of that, you’ll find yourself living a comfortable but passionless life.

We’ve got big plans and moves to make! That’s unacceptable. 

So say what’s on your heart that is honest, fair and appropriate. Do the things that light your soul on fire, or at least don’t shy away from trying. And commit to being someone who is extraordinary because that’s what the world needs right now.

You have greatness inside of you! Don’t let the opinion of a few keep you from sharing everything you have to offer with the rest.

I think we all agree that the core objective of self-improvement is to become the best version of ourselves we can be - The healthiest, most intentional, most contributing person that we’re capable of becoming (so that fundamentally we are as happy and fulfilled as possible). 

Abraham Maslow calls it “to be all that we can be”. But as is the process of self-actualization, ‘your best’ is a moving target. It’s constantly evolving, updating, and changing.

This leads to a common misconception about being our best - We typically envision it as a well-defined endpoint or a level to reach, that it’s something to attain and then maintain...

But if such a point existed we’d call it perfection.

We know that we’re incapable of true perfection. Be we are capable of doing our best. That's why - Your best isn’t perfect.

So what is our best then?

It’s the current, most optimized point within the current dynamics. If a teammate is sick we do our best to get the project done on time even though it’s understaffed. When we receive bad news we do our best to have a good attitude about it and emotionally process in the way that is healthiest for us. 

If our best was perfect then we’d always be pursuing the same ideal - the ultimate, unobstructed, unrestricted version of exactly what we want. It certainly serves us to have as much clarity on what that is (and what it isn’t)! But in reality our best is more practical than that.

When you rub your ideal life against reality, you start to see the failure points and incompatibilities. On one hand you can completely uproot your life to create more compatibility, which is a more radical approach… Or you can make subtle shifts that help you get more of what you want within the current macro context.

This is the concept behind redesigning your life.

The different aspects of your life are like building blocks, not puzzle pieces. They fit together in more than just one way. You can either completely knock down the structure of your life and start over, or you can make fine adjustments to some of the blocks and see if it makes your structure stronger.

The more practical approach to becoming 'your best' is to optimize one block at a time. Get a coach for this here, enforce better boundaries there, set up a new system to do this thing differently. One small adjustment at a time you get feedback on how your life is set up and how close you’re getting to your ideal.

The craziest part is, most people don’t realize that they can control aspects of their life design. They don't think to challenge the way they do things to see how it goes. Worst case scenario, you get it wrong and you set it back up just how it used to be.

To better understand how to create a strong foundation that you can build your best-life on top of, you’ll want to know the 7 Fundamentals To Self Improvement.

They are the building blocks to your best-life.

The ultimate force that governs the way we unconsciously interact in our life is our identity. When we have the self-image that we are a certain type of person, or do things a certain type of way, it guides our daily decision making in invisible and unnoticeable ways.

This is commonly accepted in personal development teachings - It’s the reason why someone who says “I don’t smoke cigarettes” is way more likely to avoid smoking than someone who says “I’m not smoking tonight.” The former is based on who they are and the latter is based on what they do.

But practically how does our identity work to have this all-powerful presence in our lives?

This is a newer philosophy for me, but I believe this happens because we have a need to be consistent with our identity. 

The core function of our subconscious mind is to keep us safe. That means every influence our subconscious has on us comes with this objective.

Our identity, which connects closely with our belief system, is our best understanding of what has best served us in keeping us safe in the past. Looking forward, we naturally use our identity to guide our decision making so that we make choices that are most likely to keep us safe in the future as well.

So when we begin to act inconsistently with our identity, our subconscious mind flags it as threatening because ‘different is dangerous’. During this processing our mind produces an unmet need for integrity and immediately gets to work on changing our behavior or surroundings to meet that need. 

This is really dense so let me take a step back and summarize: The great pull force of our identity works because it creates a need to take action in ways that are consistent with it. And that’s why the unconscious path we take is in alignment with that identity, because our minds are evolutionarily designed to meet our personal needs. 

For example: I have the identity of being self-disciplined. This comes not only from me wanting to feel genuine about practicing what I preach but also from the hours of subconscious priming I’ve completed to install that identity. One of the personal routines I practice every night is keynote speaking. 

On the days when it’s late at night, when I’m tired, or when I really don’t feel like doing it, sometimes I tell myself “I can skip just this once.” But the instant I have that thought, my identity kicks in and creates a need. 

I get anxious, internally I feel like I’m doing something wrong, and I start to convince myself why I can’t skip a day of practice. I feel out of integrity with my choice. It’s a literal example of my identity creating an emotional need that redirects my choices and behavior.

This is why identity is so important and our focus in our self-growth must be about becoming a certain type of person rather than doing certain things. 

Last week I was finishing up a run and as I was walking up to my house my neighbor was outside. He saw me dripping in sweat and panting after a good workout and jokingly said “Pick up the pace next time, will ya?”

I laughed it off and we had some witty banter back and forth, but when I got inside and sat down I had a huge realization that touches on a massive concept in personal development.

There was no part of me that felt threatened by my neighbor’s comments, and I believe that’s because I have such a strong identity about my fitness.

I have always been in really good physical shape and exercised consistently. I also know that I’m a good runner. So I had a mountain of evidence to believe that there wasn’t any truth in my neighbor’s jab at me for not being in good shape, and therefore it didn’t trigger any kind of emotional response.

However, oftentimes a comment like that could bring to light something else that we don’t have so much confidence in, that hits us more personally, and it could lead to a different result. 

Let’s say instead my neighbor made a joke and it triggered something I was more insecure about, like “What, you can’t afford nicer running shoes than that?”

My money mindset and confidence in my ability to provide for my family isn’t as strong. And I probably would’ve been able to joke it off all the same. But it would’ve left a different psychological imprint.

The comment would filter through my belief system and unconsciously bring to light a weakness about me. In an effort to protect myself, my mind would deflect attention away from this weakness and influence a different output. It could have led to me getting defensive and jabbing back about his old car, feeling embarrassed and flustered, or it could have caused me to shut down and not say anything at all. 

We don’t realize it but constantly we face stimuli that kick off unconscious processing. This processing than influences our logical thinking in ways we don’t even realize. And as long as this all stays unconscious there’s nothing we can do about it and it will continue to cause issues behind the scenes. 

There are two things you can do to gain consciousness and therefore, begin to offset the impacts of unconscious mind.

First is to journal and reflect on a daily basis. Get curious on the times where something might have triggered you into an emotional response. Second is, while experiencing a temporary emotional response, getting into the habit of attempting to understand it and what caused it.