I'm just making a comment, take it or leave it. The reason being is I feel like it’s so easy for us to make excuses in our life and justify why we don’t go for what we want. Some of it is worthiness, that’s another topic, but I think there’s a huge element of lacking self-belief that holds us back. As a culture we’ve been trained to be so averse to making mistakes that we wait until we feel ready and completely capable. Well I have some news for you… No one has it figured out, and people who are "succeeding" feel the same way, they’re just taking action anyway.

Remember when you were a kid and you met a 25 year old who was an adult with a job and had their life together? Then when you turned 25 you realize how unsure of a time that really is? Who you used to look up to as the “adult” is truly a work in progress, and that’s a trend that will carry much further into adulthood.

In the instances when you feel like you don’t have it figured out, do you know what’s the best way to learning it? Go out and do it. Experience it, taste it, better familiarize yourself with it. Because then the next time around you’ll have it a little more figured out, you’ll feel a little more confident, and you’ll slowly start attaining that original standard you wanted to meet to get started.

Myself included, I feel like we’re so comfortable waiting for things to be easy before doing them. But things don’t just become easy, they require specific experience so that you can use the lessons you’ve earned to inform how to think, act, and behave. And don’t overthink it - Everyone was confused, unsure, and taking a chance on themselves at some point in their journey. But they decided to go for it anyway, and the sooner you take that scary step forward, no matter the result, you’ll advance in your journey too.

Life is complex with many different factors all contributing to one result. Sometimes it’s hard to point out what plays the largest role in outcomes being generated, so let’s think about what we need to look for. It’s most common to think about what’s going well, but what may be more influential is managing what is limiting you.

And that’s where this idea of constraints comes in. When it comes to a process, what is the limiting factor that, if fixed, would allow for things to flow more smoothly? Call it a bottleneck, call it a failure point, but if you can identify and correct a deficiency then you’re truly optimizing a system where it matters most.

The classic example is a hose with a kink. If you want better water pressure you don’t need to turn the water on more from the faucet, you need to fix the area that is preventing the water to flow, which is the kink. Or more practically for personal development, look at your exercise routine. What is the most common things that keeps you from working out. Is it that you’re too tired, you have to travel far, or you don’t know what exercises you’ll benefit most from?

This idea challenges you to see things through a new lens where you get critical about what might be hindering performance. Then you can devise a way to correct it and allow the system to flow more easily, until you identify a new constraint. You tweak and adjust and fix things one at a time until you start generating the outcomes you want without the same resistance.

Everything has something that is holding it back from operating at its ideal state. Working to identify and correct constraints will help things flow more efficiently more often.

As kids we grew up constantly learning what we we’re capable of - What we can do, what we can’t do - and necessarily so because people like parents and teachers knew more than we did. We didn’t know that it could hurt going down the stairs until we fell, or that strangers shouldn’t always be trusted. But thankfully we had formative figures in our lives that taught us lessons to help us avoid those issues.

Now as an adult, it’s not all too different. You’d probably agree that you often feel like a kid in a grown up body. We still hardly know what we’re doing, we don’t always know the right decision to make, and when that happens we turn back to our childhood days. We look to others to determine how to respond, we’re still waiting to be told what we can and can’t do, and it’s holding us back.

That’s why I wanted to tell you today - You are capable. You can do it all by yourself. I don’t mean to say that we know everything about everything, but I am saying that we don’t need to rely on others to teach us what we need to know, we have the agency to pursue it ourselves and identify where we need to fill in the gaps of our understanding.

That’s what "capability" means - The ability, fitness, or quality necessary to do or achieve a specified thing. It doesn’t mean you have it all figured out today. It means you have the resourcefulness to figure out what you need to access to get it done eventually. And when you start recognizing that you aren’t a kid any more, and see yourself as the ultimate decision maker (and that your decisions generate real impact), you’ll realize that you are limitless.

But just in case that inner child is still looking for permission to dream big and spread their wings, I can give you that permission. You are capable.

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Let's talk about taking full ownership and responsibility for your life. The moment you recognize that everything that happens is because either you created it or allowed it is the moment that you take full control of your life. There’s no one who embodies this better than Danette May, a woman who has heroically risen from rock bottom to inspire so many people, and this is how she thinks about it.

This thinking is consistent with the book “Success Principles” by Jack Canfield, where he says that everything that happens to you abides by the same formula:

E + R = O. Event + Response = Outcome.

You are always in control of your response to the things that happen, and therefore, you are always influencing the outcome. So when you find yourself in the fire, control your response, find meaning in it, and it will resolve just as it is meant to.

I want to spin off of a common issue people have when it comes to measuring their own happiness and self-worth. You may know the expression “The grass is always greener on the other side”… A lot of people think that way, always comparing themselves to others who have what appears to be “more”. But that’s not the right way to see it, so instead let’s consider an alternative quote - “The grass is greener where you water it.”

Your energy, time, and resources are precious. And they’re effective, generating real results in the areas they are being applied. Call it manifestation, embodying affirmations, whatever it is for you, this topic covers it all by being the proof that you can grow and cultivate certain areas of your life. Keep in mind that this is happening at all times, with and without your awareness. Someone who is putting their energy into comparing themselves to others, well that's exactly where they're putting their resources, and some else's lawn gets greener because you’re wasting your water on them and not reserving it for yourself.

So when it comes to a more positive, fulfilling, enriching life, invest your energy in the right things. Set reminders in your phone to be grateful and you’ll find there will be more things to be grateful for. Send love to others when you wake up and you’ll find that you’ll be surrounded with more love. Energy is contagious, so make sure that you’re applying yours in ways that will attract more of what you’re looking for.

Don’t look at life in a way where the grass is always greener on the other side. Know the truth, the grass is greener where you water it, so pour into the things you care about and watch them blossom!

Today’s topic changed my life for the better. On the "We Are For Good" podcast, Dan Pallotta (who is a pioneering disruptor in the social impact space) casually asked a question that made me stop in my tracks. The question is, “What would you do if you could not fail?”

Dan talks a lot about having dreams, and how the size of our dreams should scare us and challenge us. But it’s unnatural and difficult to put ourselves in that space where we can authentically think about what that massive, transformational, personal dream might be. There are just too many caveats, excuses, exceptions, and considerations.

That’s exactly why, in my opinion, this question is so effective. It divorces you from the fear, doubt, and uncertainty you might feel because it removes the possibility of failing. It allows you to cut through the conditioning and convenient comforts that hold you back, and identify from an ideal standpoint what your life could most stand for. What would you do if you could not fail? Absolutely anything is possible, the sky is the limit and there are no restrictions, and the question in itself gives you permission to dream.

I’m still answering this question for myself, but I think it’s something along the lines of “Helping everyone in the world have access to what they require in order to meet their physical, spiritual, and emotional needs.”

Sink into this thought, and as yourself this question - What would you do if you could not fail? Your answer today may not be the entire truth, but it could be a breadcrumb that leads you toward your ultimate purpose.

Today I want to talk a bit about the difference between how things appear to be, and how they are. It’s natural to look at the professionals, whether it’s someone playing a professional sport, delivering an inspirational speech, or someone simply doing their job, and admire the effortlessness of their work. They do it so naturally, so perfectly, and they make it look easy. But there’s an important differentiator here - Making it look easy is very different than making it easy to do, and ultimately that’s more of what we want.

When someone makes something look easy they seem to be in a flow state. They operate with a technical precision that makes them extremely good at what they do, and they don’t seem to be straining at all to do it. It’s an incredible accomplishment to reach that level, but it’s not the whole story because you’re only looking at their act narrowly within that moment, without not acknowledging how they became capable of making it look easy.

And that’s where you need to think about the process. How do you make it easy to do? The paradox to it all is that you need to put in a lot of hard work to make anything easy. It’s the preparation, learnings, and trials and errors that allow someone to cultivate to such a skill that they can do it so easily. Similar to how it’s very difficult to simplify things, it’s also difficult to make things look easy to do.

So the point being here, this is an important awareness to have. When you see a colleague, or a celebrity, or a friend do something with so much ease, don’t be critical on yourself and jealous that you don’t have the same capabilities because you’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg to a lot of their hard work. Even naturals need to cultivate their skills, “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard”, and I’m yet to find an exception to that rule.

Today I’m going to let you in on a secret, but this secret is different because it’s important that everyone knows about it! In the years I’ve spent reading personal development books, listening to podcasts, having conversations with industry leaders, and experimenting on myself, I believe I’ve learned the secret to success. The #1, fundamental, most important thing you need to do to be successful… is to define success for yourself.

You will fail to be successful until you know what success means uniquely to you. And I’m guilty of being on the wrong side of this. I looked around me to see what others were doing, comparing myself and my path to theirs, molding my interests and habits around those of others in pursuit of being successful. I know I’m not alone in this, but what that does is it forces you to start living by the expectations of other people, and judging yourself when you fail to meet them.

You don’t need to wake up at 6am, meditate, exercise, and journal in your first hour every day if that’s not right for you. You don’t need to make a lot of money, drive a fancy car or have a lot of Instagram followers to live a life that’s meaningful. Attaining all of those things and being "that" person has consequences, and perhaps you’re sacrificing things that are more important to you in order to feel better about doing the things you think others are expecting of you. Living that way actually pushes you further from being successful because you’re not living in alignment with your values, interests, dreams and desires.

Only you can define what’s meaningful to you, only you can define what success is for yourself, and that’s why the secret to success, that most people don’t know, is simply knowing what you authentically want. It’s not an easy task, but it's one of the most important you're ever going to do, and at least now you have the next thing to figure out to start being more successful.