The infamous Stoic philosopher, Epictetus, who was born as a slave, pioneered a movement that we now call mindset. He called it "reasoned choice". His core teachings center around taking ownership for your actions and responding to the events around us with emotional control. A classic Epictetus quote is “You can’t learn what you think you already know.”

This opens the door to a larger conversation about perception. We are surrounded by an infinite amount of stimuli, too much to process at any given moment. Our perception takes the fraction of a percent that seems to be most important and creates meaning from it. 

However, this is not a perfect process because what ends up being prioritized as “important” is biased - influenced by our past, patterns, and preferences. Our perception has been shaped in such a way that we don’t see what has been hiding in plain sight and therefore, it doesn’t have the chance to impact us.

Who we are, and the lessons we have to learn, are vulnerable to the same challenges. Once you build a mental model around a concept your brain will look for ways to verify it. You will always find the evidence for what you choose to believe. 

“You can’t learn what you think you already know.”

So as growth-oriented, humble life-long learners, what are we to do about it? We must always keep a curious spirit and an open-mind. As long as we believe that there are other ways to do things, and that it’s possible the current way may not be the best way, we allow our perception to stay more open. We’re willing to consider new ideas because it no longer threatens the way we see the world.

And when you do that, you leave space for improvement, experimentation, and iteration. If you want to evolve you cannot reject the process that induces it. And with that in mind, I’d love for you to reflect on this question - What do you feel so certain about that it might be limiting your ability to explore alternatives?

As humans we live very social lives. Originally our well-being was dependent on the safety and shared resources of a tribe, which evolved into economies, culture, and now virtual settings. Throughout each chapter of human existence the nature has been the same - We have a baseline need to belong. 

We want to have friends, be seen, and enjoy strong relationships. We want to be understood and appreciated for our uniqueness. This is so central to our existence that recently the longest longitudinal study in history confirmed that social connectedness is the greatest contributing factor to our well-being.

Sometimes people wish they didn't care so much about what other people think, but I disagree. Our interest to prioritize and maintain strong social connections is fundamental to our success as a species! As individuals, humans are relatively weak. But collectively, we are strong!

What most people are actually alluding to is that sometimes this need is expressed in unhealthy ways. In order to appease our ego we seek validation, approval, and acknowledgment from others as a means to confirm our importance. 

But when this happens it is superficial, like a bug bite that you scratch to feel good in the moment only for it to itch more a few minutes later. This may cause you to do things out of integrity, or that aren’t in alignment with who you want to be, because you need quick access to the validating spike of feeling important.

What we’re actually searching for, that leaves a deeper and lasting impression, is other people’s respect. This is a level of acknowledgment that goes beyond what you do and into who you are. It’s a comment on your character and your values. For obvious reasons this is much more difficult to earn, and in a society that is addicted to immediate gratification, sometimes we don’t even have the patience to get there.

But your relationships and connectedness to others will feel so rich, so pure, so potent, when you get to that level of respect. And it’s okay to feel good about it when you get there because it will inspire you to make someone else feel that way themselves, and the ripple effect can continue. 

I was part of a really profound call with a mentor of mine, Jim Bunch, where he very briefly talked about the difference between truth and honesty. As someone who is still slowly becoming aware of my truth, and working up the courage to live it more often, I found it particularly insightful.

The core theme of the lesson was related to truth and energy. Many people rationalize their way out of acknowledging their truth, or acting upon their truth, because they are afraid of the consequences. Having that tough conversation, changing jobs, leaving that relationship, or whatever it is you might need to do to express your truth comes at a cost.

The assumption is there will be a lot of damage control that will be very energetically demanding of you should you initiate it.

But here’s the thing. Hiding, restricting, and resisting your truth is exhausting. It involves constantly trying to convince yourself of that same old story, quieting down your intuition so that you feel safe, and squashing your soul’s nudges to make a change. 

This comes at an even bigger cost, and it’s even more energetically demanding than dealing with the fall out you’re trying to avoid.

Continuing on this conversation about energy, and taking a more metaphysical and spiritual approach, everything has a vibration to it. The single thing that vibrates the fastest, faster than sound and light, is the truth. It is the most powerful form of energy that when utilized can accelerate manifestation.

The truth is not negotiated. It’s a fact. It is undeniable and unrelenting. When you allow yourself to start living within your truth everything around you finds alignment and it all starts to flow. 

But many people, myself included, reject the truth… Why? It’s the fear of what it opens up, the uncertainty of how things would change, and the acknowledgment that you’ve been living a lie.

The best way to open this vessel (that is your truth) is to be honest. Honesty is an expression of the truth, a disclosure of the truth, to either yourself or others. Get more honest with yourself and you’ll start seeing thing for how they really are, and how they can be. Start being honest with others and you’ll start seeing the world shift around you!

I quickly wanted to share a profoundly hilarious moment in my new favorite TV show ‘Ted Lasso’. As someone who played semi-pro soccer (the show is about a fictional professional soccer team) and tries to have an overly optimistic mindset, the show really gets me. Not to spoil anything… But the show recently introduced a new character named Zava, a spiritually enlightened, world renowned phenom who had a quote worthy of it’s own podcast episode:

“Dream big and you may never wake up.”

While the delivery and timing of it was so out of context that it made me laugh out loud, at the same time it was deeply insightful. The quote plays on the two types of dreams, in our sleep and our desires and aspirations, but connects them in a way I’d never seen before.

It’s all about allowing ourselves to dream big. This means that we are giving ourselves permission to think without limitation, without restriction, and most importantly without the requirement of practicality. This allows us to imagine possibilities for our lives that are viscerally fulfilling and genuinely inspiring. The only way you’ll ever be able to achieve your dream life is to have the vision for it in mind and the courage to pursue it.

Now let's talk about the dreams in our sleep. We talk about how peaceful and comfortable they can be, how they defy what we know to be true about the world and give us an outlet to experience moments where anything is possible. It’s an opportunity for us to live in our limitless imagination.

That’s the connection, and that’s what this quote means. What if the limitless thinking that is you tapping into your deepest desires and aspirations, became your forever experience? That’s what’s possible when you give your imagination the permission to run-free and you commit yourself to doing what’s necessary to make it a reality.

“Dream big and you may never wake up.”

Allowing ourselves to believe that we’re capable of our dreams is our first step to obtaining it. Yet many people don’t pursue what they want most because they feel like it’s so impossible that they don’t bother trying. This leads to a life of tolerating what’s good enough rather than becoming disappointed when you fall short.

But that’s no way to live, not you, not us!

To set the context for the rest of this idea I want to start by asking you a question - Where in your life do you feel like you’re not fully committed? Is it in a diet or fitness plan, taking a leap in your career, getting serious about a romantic partner, or something else?

While all situations are very nuanced and complex, you can think of your ‘lacking commitment to something’ as straddling. Similar to how you straddle a horse with one leg on each side to ride it, we straddle decisions and opportunities in an attempt to hedge our bet and be in two places at once.

In some cases we do this intentionally, but understand that straddling often happens unconsciously and comes with serious consequences. Your effort, focus, and attention is being split and therefore, the quality that you deliver is diluted. Whatever it is you’re hoping to do well doesn’t get everything you have to offer it.

Emotionally, straddling might be appealing because it protects you from finding out the truth of what you’re actually capable of. It can give you an excuse before you even get started, protecting you from having to truly internalize the pain and failure of falling short. If we don’t go all in, we can always fall back on the excuse that we were not fully committed. While this can be comfortable and fear-limiting in the short term, it can lead to regret in the long term.

Strategically, straddling doesn’t give us the opportunity to see if the approach we're pursuing will even work. Getting results in anything is hard, and if your efforts are distributed among different strategies, you’re simply not going to get the best outcomes.

When people find themselves straddling it’s usually because of two reasons. The first is lacking confidence. If you don’t have the confidence that things will go well, you won’t take the risk to try in the first place. Or if you don’t know that your self-esteem can handle falling short of a desired outcome, you won’t put yourself in a position to pick yourself back up when you fall down.

Alternatively, if someone finds themself straddling two options, it could be because they lack clarity. They don’t know which path they want to go down, or which specific goal they want to pursue, so they do a little bit of both. This is different than intentionally testing two strategies, that has a clear goal. Straddling involves compromising the speed or extent by which you get your desired outcome because there’s less coordination in effort.

Whether it be due to lacking confidence or clarity, I find many people are hesitant to make that commitment. It seems like there’s a lot of pressure to get it right. But more often than not, the decisions we make aren’t permanent. We can go through a door only to realize we didn't like what was on the other side, and come right back to where we started.

Don’t get caught straddling because it leads to you not giving anything everything you’ve got, and that’s what the world needs from you!

We’ve all heard the expression “Life is a journey, not a destination”, and I completely agree. Life's fullest enjoyment is in the process of becoming rather than the reality that is your life once you’ve achieved it.

No matter how much we know this lesson we still often get it backwards with our feelings of being a success. We allow ourselves to be motivated by the idea that “one day, I will be successful” and we make short-term sacrifices to our well-being and life enjoyment as a means to achieving it.

That’s why I want to share the perspective of Tom Bilyeu, who by many people’s standards is objectively successful - Does purposeful work, has made more money than he knows what to do with, is in a great marriage, highly influential, the list goes on. He’s observed something about people that I want to challenge you to observe about yourself.

“If you achieve the same level of success as someone you admire, you believe you’ll feel that same sense of admiration for yourself.”

Read that again.

But Tom says that’s not true. Do you know why? Because it’s still you looking at your achievements and determining if it’s enough, and if you’re enough. 

In other words, the way you feel about what you've achieved is independent of what you’ve actually achieved. It’s a reflection of how you feel about yourself. So if you feel unsuccessful right now, and you have different’ insecurities, limitations, beliefs, or whatever that’s causing you see your life that way today, all of that will still be there in a different set of circumstances.

This is because of something called hedonic adaptation. We acclimate to how good things feel and over time, they stop feeling as good because we get used to them. It becomes more normal. When things get normal we fall back on the same old patterns and old ways of thinking. 

Your perception of yourself relative to your environment doesn’t change. On paper, the results you get may be bigger and better than they were before, but your perspective is blind to the scale of your external achievement because you’re seeing it through the same eyes. 

Success is an inner-game. Don’t postpone your feelings of success for that future moment because if you do you’ll be disappointed by how it all still feels the same. Start stacking wins today. Be grateful for all of the ways you’re making a difference in the world. Give yourself credit for what you’re contributing.

Are the results today a fraction of what they can become? Absolutely! And you should keep pursuing them and building. But don’t delay your sense of fulfillment about how you’re doing because you’ll feel just the same when those results scale.

Something that's just a part of life is adversity. It’s all of the things that don’t go according to plan, all of the things that are out of your control that are making things harder than they need to be, and all of the ways you feel like you’re being challenged in ways that you’re not choosing.

Our natural human response is to try to eliminate adversity from our life because it can be a source of stress, strain, and discomfort. This causes us to shy away from uncertainty, be more conservative in the decisions we make, and generally not put ourselves in situations that leave us vulnerable to the world.

But even if you do that the universal truth remains - You cannot avoid adversity. At any given moment adversity is 3 things: It’s here right now, it just left, and it’s on its way.

So what does that mean for us?

It means we cannot let adversity slow us down. No matter the form it takes - whether you’re living paycheck to paycheck and worried about putting food on the table, or you live a perfectly comfortable life - We must stand up to our adversity and direct it rather than let it direct us.

The best way to do that is to have certain standards that you uphold. Who are you in the face of challenge? What's your mindset around failure and shortcoming? How do you relate with tragedy?

When you know who you want to be and you commit to being that person, you then get to assert that into your environment.

If you have a project that you need to get done but you’re feeling tired and cranky... You can take action to reset your energy and be accountable for how you want to feel.

If you feel like you’re stretched too thin and people are making requests of you that you can’t fulfill... Honor your boundaries and enforce them.

Adversity is the stimulus and that stimulus will always be there. You are the response. Having clarity on the standards of who you want to be will help you to better manage the adversity. 

While life will always have elements of it that are hard, and adversity is here, just left, and on its way, you get to choose your challenge. And that’s what this work is all for - For you to get better about choosing authentically and wisely!

Often the best thing for our self-growth isn’t to learn some new hack or strategy, but rather to be reminded of what we already know. This idea focuses on our communication and how we can be more appropriate, empathetic, and effective in the way we deliver our message.

In the book Silent Messages, Albert Albert Mehrabian, a UCLA professor, announced the 7/38/55 rule. He says that 7% of meaning is communicated through spoken word, 38% through tone of voice, and 55% through body language. Focusing on verbal communication, this ratio suggests that your tone is 5 times more influential than what you’re actually saying.

And the reason being - We are emotional. We are hyper-attuned to the emotions around us. This is evidenced in the phases of brain development both evolutionarily and within our life-cycle. First comes the instinctual hindbrain, regulating the physiological and psychological processes that are core to staying alive. Then it’s the midbrain, involved in emotional awareness and threat detection. And then finally is the forebrain that executes higher level thinking.

What this all means is that when someone is listening to you, they're listening with their emotional midbrain. They want to know how this new information impacts their safety, security, and state.

What’s equally important to consider is how your emotions then go on to influence your logical thinking. If you’re feeling motivated and inspired you will draw different conclusions than if you’re cranky and hungry. Your logical mind is shaped by your emotional environment.

So now the question becomes - How do we control our tone? How do we make sure our communication is representative of what we want someone to understand about what we’re saying?

We need to pause more often.

Emotions are reflexive. They’re unconscious. The more we can put space between the impulse and the action, the more time we give our higher level thinking to catch up and play a role. So especially if you feel yourself aroused, triggered, or agitated, give yourself some time.

Whatever it is you're feeling compelled to say in the moment, and the tone of that expression, is emotionally motivated. The best version of ourselves gets curious about those emotions, understands them, and chooses how to respond rather than reacts to how we’re feeling.

This concept may not be entirely new to you, but hopefully this helps you remember how you can be intentional about communication. If you found this valuable, please share this article with someone who you think would enjoy it just like you!