Connection. We all crave it. We all need it. COVID has been particularly challenging in the way it has left us feeling DISconnected. But why has it left us feeling so disconnected? That’s a question so obvious that we never thought to ask it. Perhaps it’s because the only way we know how to connect in this modern age is externally — through other people and through the world OUT THERE. Somewhere...
We think that we love things outside of ourselves. We think that we love people, places, objects. We have this idea that when we encounter these things they somehow “give us” the love that we feel. We think there’s a kind of flow of love that moves from them to us. But I don’t think that’s what’s happening. I think that what they’re doing is activating the love that we ALREADY had inside...
When I was kid I used to love playing on the seesaw. It wasn’t until later in life that I came to see the wisdom of the seesaw. Up and down, high and low, yin and yang. Does the seesaw not teach us everything we need to know about life? It also serves as a perfect model of correlation: as one side goes up, the other goes down. Like understanding and suffering. Have you noticed the correlation...
Historically, the goals that I’ve set for myself at the start of past new years have been “what” focused. What exactly am I going to DO this year? Where am I going to go? What am I going to produce? Examples would have included things like: go to the gym 4x/week, publish 100 posts, read 12 books, etc. This year, however, I’m taking a completely different approach. My goal setting for 2021 doesn’t...
You’re at a beautiful golf course. You’re standing at the first tee (par 4) and you are profoundly anxious. You’re anxious because you believe you only have one swing to get the ball in the hole. This is how most new grads feel coming out of university. They’re under the pretense that they have to “decide want they want to do,” and that they only get one swing to do so. I know this because I’ve...
Wherever you are, whatever you may be struggling with or uncertain about — just take the next step. Take one baby step forward. As your leg extends forward and your body follows you might notice something profound about the next step: that it’s actually a new birth. You have left behind the “you” that was there and you have stepped into a new “you.” As you take that step you might ask yourself:...
Authenticity. We like things that are authentic. Things that are REAL. We also like people who are authentic. People who are REAL. As our civilization grows, however, it seems to become increasingly difficult to live authentically. Why is that? As entities grow bigger — whether nations or companies — there’s an increasing need for organization. Structure emerges, and with structure comes rules...
A gorilla is standing in front of a Van Gogh. He’s standing in front of this painting and he’s intrigued. ‘What exactly is this thing?’ he wonders. ‘What does it mean?’ He wants to understand this painting, so he begins to study it. He makes a list of all the colors in the painting. Maybe that will get him closer to understanding the painting. Then he invents a microscope and sees that the paint...
As you progress on the spiritual path you will naturally find yourself speaking less and less. You’ll come to see that, most of the time, spoken words are the vehicle of the ego. I speak because I want to spread my thoughts and my beliefs. I want you to think and believe as I do. I speak because I want you to think of me in a certain way, and so I choose words as a way to construct my social...
I was telling my friend about my recent foray into scuba diving. “My first few times out have been a bit bumpy,” I told her. “I didn’t learn how to swim until later in life and, well, I’m just not very good in the water. Never have been.” She interrupted immediately. “Don’t say such a thing! Don’t program your mind like that. You’re great in the water!” And just like that she had pointed out a...
What’s the difference between philosophy and photography? One uses a camera. Aside from that, nothing. They’re both all about perspective. Don’t like what you see through your lens or through your life? Change the composition. Pan slightly to the left or to the right. Crop out the people, places, and habits that no longer serve you. Lacking direction, meaning, purpose? Zoom out. Keep zooming out...
A reframe is a comment or a question that helps someone think differently about something. The picture hasn’t changed, but how you frame it has. And framing can make all the difference. The ability to help someone reframe is one of those superpower skills to develop as a leader or a coach. Mark D was one such coach. I’ve written before about Mark D – the inspiring strength coach I had while...
Mark D was the ultimate strength coach. He was also every athlete’s worst nightmare. Six feet tall and built like a refrigerator, his goatee accentuated the stern look that he wore all year long and as far as I could tell he didn’t seem to own a shirt with sleeves. Even in the winter. On my very first day in the weight room he handed out t-shirts with a single quote written across the back. “Pain...
In June of this year I crossed off a major item on my bucket list by playing in the 2016 World Series of Poker held at the Rio Casino in Las Vegas. It was the culmination of a journey that started 10 years ago, when a teammate from my university soccer team coaxed me into signing-up on an online poker site so that he could redeem a $25 referral bonus — something he had exploited so well that it...
My roommate was laying on his bed, staring blankly at the bare ceiling. We were sharing a tiny concrete cell roughly 7 square feet in size, and we hadn’t spoken to each other in 8 days. Normally if you haven’t spoken to your roommate in 8 days it’s because you’re fighting. But we weren’t fighting. We were meditating. When I arrived in Myanmar the only thing I knew about Vipassana Meditation was...
I never wanted to be in sales. The only subject I enjoyed in university was philosophy. It was the only class where I found myself re-reading our textbooks for fun…on the weekends. It was also the only class I actually went to. So that helped. After graduation, however, I came to realize that there wasn’t great demand for “philosophers” in the workforce and so, like most other students, I found...
In a recent conversation with a mentor I mentioned how important it is for me to live close to nature. “You ARE nature,” he reminded me. Touché! At some point, our society began to inadvertently nudge us toward the false belief that we are somehow separate from the nature we see when we look out our windows. It’s with this understanding that we can start to observe nature in order to understand...
For some reason I always think of B.F. Skinner’s rat experiments, where the rats get an electric shock every time the scientist wants them to perform a specific action. That’s what life was like when I had all my notifications turned on. Work email, personal email, Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter…all of them. Ping. Ping. Buzz. Ping. Do all these notifications make me better? More productive? More...
With one quick exhale the shaman blew out the remaining candle and we were left sitting in the deep darkness of the Amazon with nothing but the moon and stars to illuminate our surroundings. I smiled, took a slow, deep breath, and closed my eyes. When I opened my eyes I found the French girl in our group lying in the fetal position at my feet, in the dirt, crying uncontrollably as she pulled at...
Life is hard. It’s hard looking forward, but it can be even harder looking back. We are essentially living two lives — we are characters living in the story of the present moment (I am sitting in my kitchen writing this article), and we are also characters in the story we’re telling ourselves about the past (I have had a good life). In order to be fully content, it seems as...
