If you’re on social media, whether it’s the Boomers Gone Wild of Facebook, the Graphic (in many ways) Instagram, the Millennial-Controlled Tiktok or the ‘business-oriented’ Linkedin, you will see the kind of posts I’m about to talk about.

Some people post things full of words—typically a graphic telling you in no uncertain terms a bit of advice. You will see these over and over again, and the more you read the more you’ll get the impression that they are not talking to you.

They are talking to themselves. It’s like they are looking in the mirror talking to themselves and you are forced to sit on the toilet seat next to them and watch—over and over again.

If you are someone who posts things like this, I am not trying to diminish your enthusiasm. If you have read The Status Game II (or will read my upcoming The Status Game III – Beyond Status) then you know that they most powerful emotion we can feel is validation. If you’ve listened to Stolen validation then you know what I am about to say.

(I encourage you to listen to that episode). If you tell everyone you’re going to lose weight, then you’ll get kudos and pats on the back and bask in the warm and fuzzy validation. And then… nothing. Why? Because you’ve already received your kudos, so why even do it.

You just stole the reward from your future self.

It is far more satisfying to share the results of your journey—which can include the entire chronicled journey—rather than to attempt to chronicle the journey in real time. And I’d submit it’s far less risky. Because failing in private (and perhaps regrouping and trying a different attack) is less painful than failing in public—in real time.

Those that are doing it just do it. Those that aren’t constantly post about it.

So if you have a lot to say and want to impart wisdom, that’s one thing. But if you are shouting into the void when it’s actually your bathroom mirror please don’t make us sit on the toilet and watch you.

Listen to the episode for the full conversation. This article is a summation for you.

When people purchase exotic cars, they are sometimes hit with something called deferred maintenance. As with many car buyers, they see the value of purchasing a car used. The positive of that is that they get a car they want at a dramatically reduced price. The downside is sometimes that they hadn’t considered there might be deferred maintenance.

With really expensive cars comes really expensive maintenance even down to just something as simple as oil changes and tire rotations can be shockingly expensive for those who have never owned an exotic car. And sometimes people own exotic cars, and realize they’ve spent the majority of their money on the car itself and don’t have a lot left over for the really expensive maintenance.

So they skip it. And when they do that, the maintenance is deferred to the next person, which of course is the person purchasing it.

All that time and they didn’t do it… 👀

As I’ve mentioned in other episodes, gratitude is one of those rare things in life that really access an antidote to a lot of negativity. It’s the last thing you would think would work and yet it does. When you have times of sadness or hopelessness or things aren’t going your way or you feel that life is unfair, the last thing you think you should do is just become grateful for what you do have. It seems like a copout, but it’s not. It’s exactly what acts as a remedy in those cases.

I rarely use this word because so many people do, but I find it to be quite powerful.

If a tree falls in the woods and there’s no one there to hear it does it still make a sound?

Well yeah that’s not how sound works.

If you feel gratitude for someone does it still count?
Of course it does. However, it has even more meaning if you share that gratitude with the person you have it for.

A license to be grateful

As I said in a number of episodes, you need to give yourself a license to write and be creative, instead of preventing yourself from doing so. The same applies to gratitude. We feel we have to wait for birthdays, Christmas Thanksgiving, or… worse.

We don’t. We shouldn’t.

I’m grateful for you—the person reading this or listening to my podcast. You spend your valuable time doing so. I’m grateful for those that give me feedback—whether its a review, or a comment, or a shoutout here or there.

I’m grateful for a lot of things that I could share with you here but instead, you probably want to think of what you’re grateful for.

Happy Thanksgiving to those that celebrate, wherever you are!

Cheers!

Here’s an interesting concept for you, just when you thought you understood that life is made of three things: Time, Energy and Resources. But after ll, this is alchemy.

Alchemy for Life™ has always been about life being three things. And we spend those three things on five facets. it’s the basis for the podcast, the coaching system, and a way to map your life out by a method tht nothing else can.

It’s energy, not time

We’ve talked about how often I’ve encountered someone who thought they didn’t have time to do something when almost invariably they don’t have the energy.

But there’s more to it than that. Even if you have the time and the energy to do something, if you don’t make the space you’re going to find it difficult at best and impossible at worst.

That’s where the new formula comes in. If you’re trying to accomplish something, there are really two ways to give yourself a means to do so:

You can just carve out the time you think you need, or you can give yourself the space for it.

Let’s talk about that concept in this week’s podcast.

References

multitasking and the forgotten glue

You may think that ‘positivity’ doesn’t belong with such states of being as OCD, Anxiety, ADHD and the others featured in this 13-part series, but I think it does because it is markedly different than the average person. Positivity isn’t just being nice. Positivity isn’t being positive blindly. It is a state of being in which your base level is high positivity. You tend to see the big picture and your scale is set properly (see below).

The reality is that this state isn’t just being cheery, but seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and not sweating the proverbial small stuff. People tend to be suspicious of people who are very positive. We think they are so nice to us because they must want something. They don’t. We think they aren’t listening or taking something to heart. They are.

It can get a bit daunting when you don’t know a lot of people who are also positive. When everyone else is down most of the time, and seem to always seek out the negatives you can feel a bit left out. Strangely enough, being the positive one can really make you feel like the odd duck when something doesn’t bother you as much as it bothers other people. When you speak up about it they tend to think you are taking the side of the opposition when in fact, you are simply expressing your perception of what’s happening on the whole.

People like commiseration and they will view your positivity sometimes as condescension, lack of empathy and lack of interest.

Sometimes with positivity, no good deed goes unpunished.

It of course is part of the human condition to have ups and downs—by design.

I have often said that without fail people who seem the happiest and kindest are the people who have gone through the most difficult of times. I have said that their scale is set properly and they actually know what zero feels like.

(listen to the story demonstrating this on this episode)

It might sound odd to ‘cope’ with something good, but there are downsides to this. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, but the silent one gets nothing. So, being positive and not complaining, and not speaking up when something isn’t perfect can mean that you get less attention, less forgiveness and, understanding. Sometimes you have to remember to ‘let something get to you’ so that you have an equal and opposite reaction to things in your life—instead of sitting idly by and envying those that always speak up and are treated with more respect.

It’s a delicate balance.

I designed the icon for this one simply as an up arrow. Because the charms have a loop and actually have an up and down, this arrow always points up.

Alternative uses and meaning for this charm:

You can always go to https://www.alchemyfor.life/balancecoaching/charms/ for the latest news on them and grab one, or two.

Remember: whatever your state of being, whether you grab a charm or not, you are seen. Join the community if you want to chat about this episode. It’s free.

This episode is part of a 13-part series on ‘states of being’ on the Alchemy for Life™ podcast hosted by Mark Bradford. Over 250 episodes are available on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube and anywhere podcasts are consumed.

Resources:

The podcast episode on the web

The podcast episode on iTunes

When we think of emergency responders, we think of paramedics and ambulances and firefighters and police.

If you make widgets, no one is going to call you at three in the morning to tell you they desperately need a new stapler or a wooden spoon or any number of things that aren’t considered an emergency item. That goes for services as well.

Other businesses and services may have a little bit of an emergency aspect to them, but for the most part are still handled proactively. Is this emergency aspect optimal? No. You should of course, be as proactive and not reactive as you can.

If you have a client that has been one for a while, and an emergency—perceived or otherwise—crops up, I’m fairly confident you would handle it as an emergency and help them as best you can.

When you call the fire department in the tragic event you have a fire, you may not have ever dealt with them before, but they answer the call with maximum effort because it’s their job.

If someone contacts you with no previous experience or connection to you, has never paid you, and also doesn’t know you from Adam, and expects you to respond to an emergency without any kind of established relationship, they are making you an emergency responder

In an almost-perfect world, there’s a chance that you can ride up on your metaphorical, big white horse and come to their rescue and save the day and this is now the moment they have you produce all of their spoons, handle all of their technology needs, or be their sole provider of napkins for their catering business.

But do people who want to establish a relationship with you, who have the forethought of being proactive, and aren’t the type to patch together things with bandages typically introduce themselves by forcing you to be an emergency responder?

Let’s go with “probably not.”

Love Bombing in a relationship is when one party absolutely showers the other with affection, gifts, promises and the like. I have often said that the amount of attention one gets in the very early stages of a relationship is inversely proportional to how much they’ll get for the rest. My anecdotal evidence has been discussed with four separate women who have told me the exact story of a man who did exactly that—showered them with affection, flowers, etc. and then soon after marriage became neglectful, jealous, and worse.

Instead, it’s the low, realistic, burn and build that makes for a solid relationship.

if you connect with someone who is going to hook you up with contract work or hire you as a consultant, refer you, or even hire you directly, and they not only paint a near perfect picture of your relationship and what you’re going to get out of it, but also continue to add bonus after bonus and all of the other things they can probably do for you—the proverbial carrots…

The same phrase applies.

If they want to connect with you—and they start selling past the sale, and start promising all those extra things they can bring to bear, with their metaphorical dozen roses…

The same phrase applies.

As a side note, if YOU are doing this—meaning you start making lots of promises about all the other things you can offer if they would just say yes—then you probably don’t really believe in your product.

Or worse, you are not telling the truth about it.

Because if you truly believe in your product, then that’s all you talk about.

ps – We of course weight each opportunity separately, whether it is a personal relationship or a business opportunity. But you have probably been through this and learned the hard way.

Wisdom is like that.

Are you an emergency responder?
You might be.
When we think of an emergency responder, we think of ambulance and the paramedics and the fire department and the police.
People you call in an emergency when there is an emergency and they know that their job is to help in said emergency.
If you create widgets or do something that’s relatively tame, no one’s going to call you at 3:00 in the morning and say, “Oh my god, I need a wooden spoon.” And I know you make wooden spoons.
Can I please have a wooden spoon?
Oh my god.
There are a lot of jobs and careers and functions that create whether it’s services or products that aren’t really of the emergency nature.
And then there are services or functions that do have an emergency aspect of them or to them.
If you’re coaching someone on mapping out their time, energy, and resources or their goals, there may be some slightly emergency moments, but for the most part, it’s going to go according to a plan with a lot of forethought and so forth.
If you coach someone on relationships and dating, well, then you’re getting into territory that might involve a bit more emergency stuff.
If you deal with electronics or IT, there is almost always that aspect of an emergency to it.
If you build servers or deal with networks or security, there’s going to be some downtime which might affect the business and therefore create an emergency.
Is that bad?
Well, it’s not optimal.
Obviously, we want to avoid emergencies.
But if we have a client that we’ve dealt with, a current client that we’ve dealt with for some time and emergencies crop up, you probably are someone who would just help them and deal with them.
Okay.
Well, you know, you’ve been a client for 10 years and I’ve made things as stable as possible, but things come up.
Of course, I’ll do the best I can to help you through this difficult time.
And hopefully your track record is one of a lot of stability.
And if you apply a lot of stability to something instead of bandages, you get very little emergency and downtime.
But then there are people who may want to use your facilities, your skills, your talents.
And those people may want to make you emergency responders.
When you call the fire department to your house because it’s on fire, you may not have ever dealt with these firemen before.
They don’t know you from Adam, as they say.
But they will come and they will do the best they can to help you in an emergency with no warning whatsoever because that’s their job and that’s what they get paid for.
If someone contacts you with no previous connection to you, has never paid you, also doesn’t know you from Adam, and expects you to respond to an emergency without any kind of established relationship, they are making you an emergency responder.

*See The Status Game II and Beyond Status for a detailed explanation on this in the chapter of the same name.

OCD stands for obsessive-compulsive disorder. It shares a symptom with ADHD in which you can be caught in a repetitive loop because of anxiety and stimulus.  But it is different than ADHD.

The reality of OCD often involves constant, intrusive thoughts and the need to perform specific rituals to reduce anxiety. Day-to-day life can feel consumed by repetitive behaviors like checking, counting, or cleaning, making even simple tasks take much longer. This can lead to exhaustion, frustration, and difficulty focusing on other responsibilities.

If you have to make sure all of the stove top burners are off, and you have to do it from right to left, and you have to do it three times before leaving your house you can be a bit… delayed. 

It is interesting to know that there is something very ritualistic about this behavior.

I tend to find a lot of value in both rituals and ceremonies, and you can learn more about that in the episode called become ceremonious. But become ceremonious is talking about giving more meaning to something and taking your time. On the other hand, OCD is creating a repetitious ceremony for other reasons.

As always I’m giving my experience, from my perspective on a particular state of being and this is no different. I’m not giving perspective from a clinical evaluation, and I think most people are in that same place. Most joke that they have ADHD or OCD or Autism, and are pretty convinced that they experience Anxiety. Your mileage may vary.

Having said that, I never really thought I was OCD. The exception being this: I have two coffee warmers—one in my home office, and one where I have coffee and wake up in the living room in the first hour. When I leave the house, even if I’m convinced that I’ve turned them off, I’l go back in and check all the while mumbling under my breath that this is dumb.

But I do it because it takes 30 seconds to prevent a fire while I’m gone. Nothing really has to be in a particular order—I don’t care if the food on my plate touches, I don’t arrange my many mugs a certain way. My office is a bit messy at times. I do like to fold my towels a certain way but that’s because I learned how to make them look pretty (I was having house guests and thought that would make them feel more welcome) and it just sort of stuck. True, if I have cheese, sausage and crackers at the end there’s almost always a bit of cheese, sausage and crackers cuz I like to eat them in parallel because they complement each other. But that’s it.

I tell you this in case you can relate. I tell you because it’s really easy for people to fall into the trap of pointing a finger at a specific affliction, or state of being.

It’s OK to be quirky. It’s OK to have a personality. And it’s also OK if you have OCD.

Do you? Do you think you have OCD?

CBT and ERT are used quite a bit to help those with OCD. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is commonly used to treat depression and other issues. In Three Voices, there are a number of exercises that are essentially CBT in which we use our third voice to overcome what our second voice tells us.

ERT (Exposure and Response Therapy) is like CBT but it’s used to gradually expose someone to the thing that triggers their OCD. So in the case of someone who has to check the locks even though they know they are locked, the therapy may go so far as to suggest someone leave their house without locking their doors at all. Obviously one should take care with this particular use of it. But you can do many things like this to challenge your own OCD. Being gradual can be a good way to slowly overcome it without setting off a strong reaction. These strong reactions are also addressed in the new book BeCAUSE!.

I’ll let you in on a secret—I originally wanted to make the symbol be of something very symmetrical, but then print it offset in such a way that would be annoying. But then that’s not a cool symbol. So after some thought, I came up with the universal symbol for power/on/off for electronic devices. My reasoning is that often OCD will cause people to check if something is on, if it is off, or turn things on/off in a particular order, or repetitively. So now you can have your own power button that you can push.

Possible Alternatives

Remember: Whether you have your OCD charm or not, you are seen. Join the community if you want to chat about this episode. It’s free.

Resources:

NIMH page on OCD

Are chainsaws bad? No. Should toddlers use them? No. We use chainsaws to perform a task, we don’t give them to toddlers because it is dangerous to do so and the toddlers don’t understand the balance of danger and functionality.

Does your car have airbags? Do you own fire extinguishers? Do you have insurance? All of these things are in place because you had to think the negative thoughts of contingency plans in case something negative happened. Entire departments exist within businesses for just such a purpose.

We have to think and speak negative thoughts. As I said in the The Holy grail of Positivity Bias and Just Be Positive, thoughts are just thoughts, and being afraid to think certain thoughts does not help you get to your goal. You can talk about the negatives all you want as long as you’re not creating barriers for yourself that don’t exist.

if you have been through a system for years, and you explain to someone the ins and outs of it and why you’re making the choices you are not being negative, you are explaining how things work. Beating your head against the wall repeatedly because someone tells you that to not do so is being negative is not realistic.

Let’s talk about the incredible waste of energy of avoiding negative thoughts.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. People with ADHD typically struggle with finding it difficult to focus. They are easily distracted in pursuit of stimulus. Sometimes the stimulus leads them to hyper-focus. 

The reality for many people is that ADHD is a constant challenge for them to focus. You’ll see often online that people joke about their ADHD I myself have joked about somehow ‘harnessing it.’ 

If you have ADHD, you may be very frustrated with your seemingly paradoxical ability to hyper-focus on something one moment and then have no focus for the things you really want to do another moment.  The hyper-focus is almost never the thing you’re trying to accomplish. But it does stimulate you.

As I said, I would often joke about weaponizing my ADHD to get an awful lot of things done. It seemed to be the likely explanation for all of the disparate disconnected things I was not only completing rather thoroughly but also in record time. Case in point all of the books that I wrote in a short period along with podcast episodes such as this one in addition to the pilots license I earned a year ago.

But I don’t believe I have ADHD. Though I am able to hyper focus on something. It is not because of a have a Pavlovian quest for stimulus. Instead, I have just learned to understand how to focus and how to pursue something to completion. It’s a mental stamina that I’ve developed. In the podcast episode called in the zone. I talk about being in the zone.

Though being in the zone share some similarities with hyperfocus, it is rather different. Hyper focus of ADHD can be so intense and all encompassing that the person loses track of time. Being in the zone does speed up time, but you still have an awareness of time passage, and in fact it is this awareness that sometimes makes you feel like you are just playing around when you’re actually getting work done since you are enjoying it so darn much.

As I am writing this, I am sitting outside. And Across The Street they are cutting down a tree. The constant chainsaws is very annoying, but I’ve decided that I’m going to push through it. It would be an easy excuse to just either move inside or put this off to a later date.

It is common, and almost a bit too common, that doctors will prescribe ADHD medicine. I had my own encounter indirectly when I mentioned to my doctor that when I took or used to take sinus medication it allowed me to focus without distraction. she said that one of the ingredients was also in ADHD medicine. 

I’m often surprised to find that people who suffer from ADHD have an absolutely terrible diet riddled with bizarre modern chemicals. They tend to stare at the TV and spent very little time physically moving. I would surprise that people should really try doing some involved exercises. Even walking Can change your state of being as I talked about in the parasympathetic nervous system episode.

No, I am not dissuading you from taking meds if you need them, but I think it’s important to have a baseline of healthy eating healthy outlets and healthy exercise. I think putting those things in place may give some a little reprieve if not a dramatic change in what they call ADHD. But By all means consult the doctor.

This charm uses the infinity symbol to represent the infinite thoughts that one can experience while focusing on none of them. It’s the infinity of possibilities that can be so overwhelming. Paralysis by analysis if you will.

As with the other charms I used a symbol that was not color-dependent so we can have some fun with color combination, as well as having the freedom to use and display it all we want (no infringement). And, as with the others, it can be used for something other than ADHD. Whatever it speaks to you is what it means 

You can always go to https://www.alchemyfor.life/balancecoaching/charms/ for the latest news on them and grab one, or two.

Remember, regardless of whether you grab a charm, you are seen. There are a lot of people out there quietly suffering, and I don’t like that. I want you to know you are seen.

Anxiety for some can be a fairly dull but constant sensation of having to attend to a problem—a nagging feeling that you need to take care of something. This can be from the demands of your job, your responsibilities as a parent, a spouse, a parent or a combination of all of the above. For some, however, it can be an instant-on attack of intense feelings of fight or flight complete with rapid heart beat, and even sweats. It is the activation of the sympathetic nervous system over something you are aware of, or something you are not.

The reality of anxiety is that everyone experiences it in some form. The problem is that sopme people get activated by things they are not even aware of (this is addressed in the upcoming book BeCAUSE!) and because of that, like many things, they can be going through a very intense experience alone. Some people get overwhelmed easily. Others are reminded of their past and how they failed at similar tasks (this is addressed in the book Three Voices).

For a very long time I was of the mind set that people who experienced it were just…well, stressed. Being self employed, going through a diovoce and raising two kids on my own 100% responsibility had it’s moments of stress. But I never really thought I experienced anxiety. I tried to keep ducks in a row, and sort of knew where all the stress was coming from. It was fairly predictable some days, some days not so much.

If anything I would experience what felt like a biological fight or flight, but no accompanying thoughts. This attack of panic would make me go hmm at best, and sometimes I’d check and say “Nope, all good.” Sort of like just having too much coffee—the effects are felt, but there was no fighting or fleeing. But my stress could be your anxiety.

As I mention in BeCAUSE!, there is an underlying foundation of directives that have helped you and hindered you. These directives can certainly cause you to avoid something like the plague or move towards things that make you happy. And if you don’t lknow what’s causing it, then it just “happens out of nowhere.”

The first step is getting to the root, and interestingly, the root can be a smell from your childhood, the tone of voice someone uses, or an unfortunate avoidance of something most people would not—because you never developed the resiliency to deal with it. Something as simple as reframing a thought can help. Things like yoga, meditation or the over-used buzzword of “mindfulness” can actually help. Breaking things down into smaller componets (which is a lot of what the AFL coaching is about) can allow things to be in digestable bites. You can listen to this episode on the book Three Voices and this one about how our Second Voices talk to us and others.

Anxiety is represented by a lightning bolt because it can appear suddenly and be very intense. As with all the Psych Charms the icon was something I developed to be universal, easy to understand and color-independent. It can also represent something other than Anxiety. Whatever it speaks to you is your relationship with it.

Alternate meanings:

You can always go to alchemyfor.life/charms for the latest news on them and grab one, or two.

Remember, regardless of whether you grab a charm, you are seen. There are a lot of people out there quietly suffering, and I don’t like that. I want you to know you are seen.

Those are some crazy words. They’re fun and I like saying them. But what do they mean?

I have always enjoyed looking at things as a system. It was only relatively recently that I realized that was what I was doing. it was so natural and innate that I didn’t give it much thought. Previous to giving it that name, i thought I was just gamifying things—but that’s a different thing.

Seeing things as a system is passively viewing what is in place to understand the interconnectivity between the moving parts. It is understanding the system in plce and how it works.

Gamifying is taking a system, a process, a procedure, and then making it a game. Many years ago I created two pen and paper role playing games, designed, molded an d produced three 12 sided dice to handle skills and combat.

Gamifying is typically taking something in real life (usually something you want to accomplish, or something that’s mundane) and making it fun. You can gamify anything from getting your kids interested in doing chores, to creativity, to motivating employees, to exercising and losing weight.

Making a “game” out of something does not mean you disrespect the underlying seriousness of what you are trying to accomplish. On the contrary, gamification can be used for some of the most serious things in life. It is a way to enlarge texture, to see things more clearly, and to give things a shape that otherwise would have none.

This may not be a word, but it is now. iconization is my term for taking something and literally making a recognizable icon out of it. Sure, the icon for the messaging app is a speech bubble, the icon for file manager is a manilla folder, and the icon for TikTok is a musical note.

But what’s the ‘icon’ for autism?

Well, the puzzle piece came to be a representation of autism, as the person who originated it said it was a “puzzling affliction.” But that doesn’t go over too well with a lot of those in the autism community.

But what about anxiety? Depression? Hypersensitivity? Not everything has a symbol or an agreed-upon symbol. And some of the symbols are over-complicated and rely on a specific color (or colors).

I was at a cafe and noticed the girl behind the counter had a punctuation tattoo on her wrist. “Oh is that a writer thing? Are you a writer?”

She explained that it is the symbol for those who have been affected by suicide—whether personally or knowing someone who went through thoughts on the subject or who took the ultimate permanent solution. I was taken aback in my blissful ignorance.

It was a way for her to be reminded, comforted, and was a talking point for those she interacted with.

But not everyone gets a tattoo. So I got to thinking… What if there was a way for you to carry a tiny reminder of something like that with you? What if you could be reminded and comforted? What if there was something that you could look at that told you it was ok to be different, that your sensitivity to sound might not be shared or understood by others and it would give you more stamina to be tolerant? What if it reminded you that with the downs eventually come the ups? That your ADHD gives you a million ideas but picking one might be a challenge, and that’s OK.

So I created little colorful charms that you can put on your keychain. They range from Anxiety to ADHD to Dyslexia to just being a very positive person. And I created a special charm for depression of all forms.

Some of these psychological states of being either don’t have an icon that goes with it, or has a symbol that is too complex or color-dependant or don’t have one at all.

So I invented a few. And I’ve created them in different colors, which is one of the advantages of not having a color-dependent symbol.

I’m going to focus on one for each episode. I have touched on some of these states of being in the past, but this will be a series that you can follow along with.

I hope you enjoy the episodes, the charms, and truly feel that you are seen.

Because you are.