Wayne Dyer says “Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.” It’s a great intention, but it doesn't anything by itself. I’ve found the best way to operationalize it is by changing the questions we ask. A new, different, better question serves as a prompt that leads your thinking down a new, different, better path. With new thoughts your perspective changes, and it creates new conclusions.

With that in mind, let’s use a famous quote from former US president John F Kennedy to demonstrate its power. Kennedy says "Some people see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."

Instead of collecting a list of why something is going to be challenging, why you’re going to struggle, why you can’t do it right now… Trade that line of thinking for 'why not?' When you approach your life ahead of you with the attitude that anything is possible, things become more possible.

The difficult part is we’ve been taught to focus on all of the reasons why we shouldn’t do something. Is starting your own business the responsible thing to do? Is it really the right time to sign up for a marathon, can you actually train for it? What if when you ask that person out on a date they reject you?

I’m not encouraging you to recklessly do whatever’s on your heart without regard for the consequences of it, but I am giving you this alternative perspective to find evidence around why it might be a good idea. When you ask a better question, ‘Why not?’, and let that influence the way you think about achieving your goals and dreams, you’ll feel so much more inspired to actually change your life! 

And in this quote, JFK approaches the future with a world of optimism - To do what’s never been done before, to conquer the unconquerable, to turn your vision into reality. And while his scope is related to the happenings of the entire world, you can take the same philosophy and apply it to your world.

So think about it - What’s that one thing that you’ve been ruling out being possible for so long in your life? That dream you have, the achievement to earn, the next level to reach, and ask yourself - Why not? You’ll see that the first steps you need to take toward making it reality become evident, and it’s up to you to step on the path.

This is something that has completely transformed my life, and I know it could do the same for you and many others. Share this with someone in your life doing big things to let them know that you’re here to support them with it!

Do you want to change your life - To get into the best health you’ve ever had? Go on that dream trip? Make enough money to retire your parents? Have a deeply loving marriage?

You need to believe that you can. If you don’t think that the future vision you gave for yourself is even possible, you’re going to keep getting in your own way and keep yourself from materializing it.

When you have belief, it’s an intangible force working in your favor. Things just happen for you as you effortlessly navigate forward. The reason being is that your beliefs shape the unconscious way you show up for things. A belief creates an environment that dictates the decisions you make, the actions you take, and the results you get. 

Having the belief you can achieve something is like wind in your sails pushing you forward. Not having the belief you can is like a head wind you are constantly fighting against. Either way, you feel yourself putting in the same amount of effort but the corresponding progress you make for it is very different.

Fortunately, you can change your sense of self-belief around something. The subconscious mind is impacted by your daily behavior and grows in the direction of your actions. So the more consistent action you take, the more you’re strengthening your belief.

Now the question becomes, what’s keeping us from taking action? The answer is self-sabotage. This is literally the subconscious mind’s way of keeping you from doing new things, and it uses fear, irrational thinking, procrastination, negative self-talk, and emotions to keep you from taking action.

A specific form of self-sabotage that’s worth considering is ‘overwhelm’. If you see the wide gap that exists in your life between where you are and where you want to be, it could produce an emotional experience (like overwhelm) that causes you to conclude that you can’t do it.

But all you need is a little evidence otherwise to pierce that belief. If you hit a simple milestone that’s on the path to the end goal, you start to believe that you can do it again (and again) all the way until you achieve it. And the only way you reach that first intermediate goal is by clearly defining it and taking action in the face of the overwhelm, fear, and emotions of self-sabotage.

That’s where a simple, clearly defined goal like a 21 day challenge can get you over that bump and unlock a new world of potential. It builds self-belief, and with that, what was impossible becomes easy!

In leadership positions, or when we’re trying to influence people, there are two ways we can show up. The differences are subtle but they lead to drastically different outcomes and levels of sustainability. It’s the difference between using power and authority.

As you can imagine, using power is more destructive. It involves using force to create a certain result with way less care for the consequences. Power is something that you impose on others and it manipulates the result because there’s a certain pressure being applied to shape it.

Authority is more grounded. It comes from a place of mutual understanding, and its effectiveness has been earned.  When you have authority it means that you have credibility on a topic and that your instructions, recommendations, or guidance should be taken seriously. The outcome of authority is that people get to respond to the influence that you offer rather than be unwillingly manipulated by it.

This contrast makes the most sense through the lens of leadership. If you want to influence someone to do something, flexing your power over them is less ethical and sustainable than leveraging your influence. Different situations call for different needs, but for the most part you’ll want to come from a place of genuine trusted authority rather than power.

But beyond the way this distinction plays in relationships, there’s a similar application in the way we view ourselves. When you use power over yourself, like will-power, it has consequences. You use power to do things that you don’t feel like doing in the moment, which works in the short-term to change your behavior (and again is needed for certain reasons) but overall it doesn’t come from a place of pure motivation or desire.

Again, authority is more grounded. In a personal application you have authority when you feel inspired to maintain a certain standard, to follow through on a certain habit, or to make a certain choice. That’s not to say all of that is meant to feel easy, but when you reflect on it you’re connected to the purpose of it. It makes consistency easier because it doesn’t take from you like power does, it gives to you in the form of self-belief and self-gratification.

Let’s use the example of choosing whether you want to have ice cream as a dessert. Using power would be telling yourself not to do it. Using authority would be connecting that reason not to do it with your health goals, and that you’re choosing progress toward that over the short-term gratification of enjoying something sweet. Again, authority has reason and purpose to it.

To make this actionable, the way you cultivate more authority in your life is through clarity. Having clearly defined goals, expectations, standards, and habits will help you to live in alignment with them.

I’m going to propose a very, very difficult question. In order to receive it I want you to know that you don’t need to take action on anything in this, a good outcome would be creating awareness to start.

There are certain things in our lives that we find ourselves not paying attention to. Maybe you’re in financial strain so you don’t want to look at your expenses. Maybe there are some red flags about a business colleague or romantic partner that you’re ignoring. Or maybe you’re telling yourself a story that 'you’re giving your all' to something and not getting the results you want.

We all shape our reality in a way that is comfortable, but in doing so we often misrepresent the facts. With that in mind, the difficult question is - What are you pretending not to know?

What are the things that you’re too afraid to give a voice to because the reality of it is difficult or painful? What thought sits in the back of your mind as a lingering fear that you don’t want to face up to? 

We all have some story we’re telling ourselves to keep secrets with ourselves. But once we acknowledge and work through the secret, we tap into a well of opportunity for self-growth and personal evolution.

Again, the purpose of this right now is to become aware of some of these things. And in order to discover it let me add a few prompts.

Is there a piece of advice that you received and pushed off because it was so different from what you are doing?

Is there a bad outcome you created that was caused by something in particular that you don’t want to admit?

Is there a different reason why you showed up, or are showing up to a certain situation, in a way that you don’t want to other than the reason youu're already telling yourself about it?

What this overall question suggests - “What are you pretending not to know? -  is that you do know what’s happening. You do know what’s wrong. And whatever it is, acting upon it would add some short-term pain to your life because it would add so much work to do, undo the progress you’ve made, lead to difficult conversations, make you question yourself and your abilities, or whatever else it might be.

What are you pretending not to know?

One of the most inexplicable, incredible things that we experience in life is love. This is romantic love with a partner, deep-seated love with a family member, mutual love for a friend, and even a passion and love for the work you do. Love is an incredibly motivating force that can drive you to do things you aren’t capable of by yourself. 

Having said all of that, many of us neglect the most fundamental form of love - Self-love. This sometimes gets a bad reputation because people are uncomfortable with the idea of giving yourself hugs or staring longingly at yourself in the mirror. That’s not all that self-love is...

Loving yourself is making decisions that are respectful to yourself, that help you maintain integrity. It’s accepting who you are with all of your strengths, weaknesses, quirks, issues, and passions. It’s being understanding of yourself and giving yourself grace when times are hard.

Adam Roa says it beautifully in his famous spoken word - “Treat yourself like someone you love.” Imagine how much doing that would change the conversation we have in our head.

Beyond the fact that you’re worthy of love and you deserve love, self-love is important because it enables you to give love. So those people and projects that are most important to you - You’re only going to be able to pour into them as much as you have to give.

That’s why today’s positivity quote is “Love yourself first”.

It’s not selfish to tell someone you don’t have the energy to do something for them. It’s allowing you to show up that much better when it is time to help.

It’s not selfish to take a mental health day at work if you’re feeling overwhelmed and stressed. Respecting your needs is the best thing you could do for your work so that you move forward enthusiastically with it.

Jim Fortin says “Your doing is only as good as your being doing the doing”. So make sure you’re taking care of yourself, challenging yourself, and loving yourself in the ways that feel right to you so that you can be the person you want to be everywhere that takes you.

Self-love is a much larger topic than this, it's difficult to do, and it's uncomfortable at times. But like anything it’s something that can be improved and that only happens when you give attention to it.

This week I had the pleasure of meeting Ben Newman, a performance coach who works with elite athletes and executives, and embodies high performance himself. As someone who supports people to succeed at the highest level, he noticed a very interesting trend that I wanted to share with you.

He calls it being ‘seduced by success’. When someone tastes success, big or small, a natural reaction is to find comfort in it. It’s the payoff you’ve been working hard for and earning it appears to be an opportunity to enjoy it. However what Ben calls out is that there’s a complacency that comes in the shadow of success that keeps people from sustaining and elevating their success over the long-term.

This reminds me of Greg McKeown’s “Clarity Paradox”. The paradox goes:

1) When we have clarity of purpose, it leads to success.

2) When we have success, it leads to more options and opportunities.

3) When we have increased options and opportunities, it leads to diffused efforts.

4) Diffused efforts undermine the very clarity that led to our success in the first place.

The Clarity Paradox suggests that there are elements of success that make it more difficult to reproduce, just like the seduction we experience by getting favorable results.

So Ben Newman’s recommendation is simple - Do not neglect the process. In Steven Covey’s “7 Habits For Highly Effective People” he emphasizes a relationship between production and production capacity, which he calls it the P/PC balance. It’s a reminder that you must maintain the factors that produce success in order to consistently achieve it.

With a little more awareness around how this works, hopefully you are more prepared to capitalize on success when it comes your way, and push it even further by doing the right things to maintain it.

When someone acts courageously and boldly, especially in the face of fear, and gets a good outcome from it, people use the expression - “It takes nerve”. Have you ever slowed down to think about what it actually means?

When we encounter fear, distress, or high-stakes opportunities it provokes a host of emotions. In major cases it could be the fear of death or harm. Poor performance could lead to less respect. Those who perform best in these situations have a way of being able to deal with the stress and anxiety of the situation so that it doesn’t affect them.

In other words, these individuals are great at calming down their nervous system. “It takes nerve”. It takes self-control and nervous system regulation so that their skills are not compromised by the emotion of the circumstances.

That’s what emotions do, they hijack the brain. They make us feel a certain way, causing a physiological response that then changes the mind’s environment. This is why people ‘freeze’ from speaking when they’re nervous, or why they’ll agree to (or say) something something they normally wouldn’t if it weren’t for the heat of the moment. Our cognitive ability is impacted by our emotional environment.

Like a surgeon who makes the perfect cut in a complicated procedure, or the pro athlete who hits the shot when the game is on the line, the people who ‘have nerve’ do a great job of not letting spontaneous emotions impact their overall abilities.

Another more formal term for this is equanimity. It’s a stoic philosophy of not getting too invested in your current emotions because it could lead to biased judgment and performance. 

If you want to get better at performing when the stakes are high, so you can maximize the opportunities in front of you, I’m going to share two things to consider for now. 

First, per this expression, the more you can down-regulate your nervous system, the less distracted you’ll be by your emotions. Slow and deep breathing is a great tactic for doing that. 

Second, preparation is a great antidote to underperforming in the moment. With preparation and repetition you create stronger subconscious imprints for yourself, helping you to take action even when your conscious mind is flooded with emotions.

Overall, the better you start handling these challenging moments, the more self-confidence you’ll develop and the easier it will get to have ‘nerve’ and equanimity moving forward.

One of my good friends, David Terzibachian, taught me an analogy about a picture frame that I’ve found creates a really compelling point around perspective.

In each of our own lives we experience the things around us through the very narrow lens that is 'us'. We’re limited by our own perception, we shape things to fit into our mental models and beliefs, and we struggle to take a truly objective look at our choices and reality because we’re emotionally invested in it.

The analogy is - Each of us are figures in a picture frame. We’re the main character, front and center, dominating the picture. But since we’re in the photo we have a limited awareness of what’s happening around us in the rest of the photo. We might have some idea about what’s going on, but we cannot see the full-picture because we are in it.

When you acknowledge that you have a limited understanding of your own life, and you embrace what you don’t see with an open-mind and curiosity, you can allow yourself to see the bigger picture and accept yourself. You can forgive yourself for mistakes you make because they came from a limited awareness.

In other words, to fully understand ourselves and to maximize our potential, we need to see the full picture. But if a lot of what’s in the picture are things we’re incapable of seeing ourselves, or unwilling to see ourselves, then how are we meant to accomplish it?

This is where other people can come in and inform you on what’s happening. Other people are not in your picture, which means that they can take a step back and see more than you can. 

Have a hard time seeing the blessing and lesson learned in failure? Someone else might.

Not realizing how a belief is guiding your behavior and manifesting the same problem over and over again? Someone else could.

Reaching your goals and making serious progress but you don’t even see it? Someone else is already celebrating for you.

Now this isn’t a perfect process because when it comes to sharing what they see, everyone brings their own biases, judgments, and assumptions into their conclusions, which may or may not be helpful. That’s why it’s recommended to have a coach, or someone you trust to give you feedback, to tell you what they see.

In the last 2 years I’ve been working with a coach who is helping me to see my full picture and I cannot understate how much it has accelerated my growth and self-awareness.

To wrap this up - You are too close to your life to see everything that’s happening around you and even who you are within it. If you’re committed to breaking through your current limitations and grow into the next best version of yourself, you need an expansion of awareness and perspective to tell you what you’re not seeing, and that often comes from someone else who can see the full picture.