Repossible

Unless you’re a kid and go to a school where they require you to wear the same exact uniform to school every single day, you have a decision to make on a morning-by-morning basis. 

Just as you’re doubting the whole sombrero escapade, the hairs on the back of your neck start to tingle.

I could throw loads of science your way backing up the numbers behind the decision-making trajectory and possibly wow you with all kinds of theories and books and research.

Or the hairs on the back of your neck could stand up.

I’m all for science. I’m a numbers guy, a math lover, a guy who often reads the manual.

But then comes along gut feeling.

When you just know. Or at least it feels like something is right (or wrong). It’s not provable, you can’t necessarily share the why or what or how, but it’s just there.

I say this way too often in my books, but you can skip the rest of the chapters and go with this one if you’d like. That gut feeling? Those hairs on your neck? Goosebumps?

To me, those are the indicators that defy logic. The telltale signs of something larger at play.

I’m not saying you have to believe me. I’m only asking that you keep an open mind.

The next time you have that feeling—and you know what it is, however it comes your way—take note of it.

Take a moment and think about whatever it was that you just did caused something in your body to do something.

Take that confidence, that feeling of goodness and hold onto it because we’re about to head into the section of the book called doubt.

Hoping, wanting, dreaming, wishing, pleading, begging, whining, hoping.

These are just a handful of the actions you undertake, whether consciously or unconsciously before you decide. I often think in mathematical terms, charts, and line graphs. I see all of those actions or beliefs or thoughts as heading downwards. Sure, you might think that hope is ascending in that you are hoping for something better what sounds pretty much like ascending to me, but I see it as a short-term ascension. If you’re only hoping and hoping and hoping there is no plateau there is no resting place summit of the mountain where, guess what, you make the decision to then either stop or descend or ascend.

Maybe this is only my personal interpretation of the word but I see hope, again if you allow me to use something like a line graph, as somewhere way down there. It’s more of basic needs or survival or crawling out of desperation than it is ascending from, let’s say, a four to a six or an eight to a nine on a scale of 10. Hope, in terms of numbers, is something that I see as low down possibly even in the negative, let’s say from minus two to a plus one.

Don’t get me wrong, a minus two to a plus one is an increase of three and also pulling us out of the negative. But this is where I no longer want to use hope as my ladder but move on to more efficient, effective, uplifting, and positive means of ascending further.

Hope is the kindergartner who dreams of playing kickball at recess. The decision, which can either crush or enlighten, comes from the teacher who tells the children what the game of the day is.

Although possibly a bit of a stretch, the decision could be made by the kindergartner who chooses to create his own kickball game after school on his own terms.

Hope, therefore, can be a good place to start but is a stepping stone and not the goal. Hope might open up the door to the next level of understanding and action which then could very well be the decision to decide.

Decide: When you change your mind, you change your mind

As an author, I talk about my books with friends.* But a little-known secret is that I haven’t finished the books yet and I’m doing research for the upcoming book by talking about it.

Here I not-so-accidentally drag my entrepreneurial rockstar friend into letting me know how Jeff Bezos sees things.

Don’t forget that “the vast majority of decisions are reversible.”

I talk with an old pal of mine and it gets me content worth two chapters of my upcoming book.

So I got that going for me. Which is nice.

* And, of course, complete strangers. If they’ll listen.

I could be completely wrong about this, but I believe we all have an inner voice or we can call it our subconscious self or it’s actually fine to call it or relate to however you want. But I think something is there, something is in there and when we are connected with it, when we are aligned with it, following it, allowing ourselves to be pulled by it, then things are easier, more meaningful, and, dare I say, effortless.

If you’d like the transcript from this episode, it’s over on Pass the Sour Cream.

This is an excerpt from the book “Decide,” published October 17, 2018.

Decide: When you change your mind, you change your mind

Three minutes talking inspiration, struggle, and letting go with 104-year-old artist Tony.

Here’s a quick cut of laughter from a man who has a history of joy.

Small Wins

“How do you find the time to write?”

I replied, “I don’t find the time, I make the time.”

She looked a little dejected as perhaps she was hoping for a simpler answer although my answer, in my opinion, is both the good news and the bad news. It’s both the silver bullet, the easy way, something that’s under your control while at the same time it’s something as large as the elephant in the room, in fact, it is the elephant in the room.

Procrastination is a disease that spreads like wildfire. In fact, just like fire it spreads so simply and easily and can begin with something as small as a match. Just like wildfire, something that begins with the spark can turn into a raging forest fire that can decimate the grandest of ideas, the most important stories, and at the same time your confidence, belief, and passion.

We spoke together for only maybe five minutes, while I was in the middle of going through decades of junk in my attic. She just stopped by to hand off something to my mom and had no idea I was going to drag her down into the depths of passionate persistence to rise up and leap out of the water and give her the answer to her dreams: small wins.

My second answer as to how I did it, or how I do it, is to write every single day. I made the decision on November 1, 2012, to write every day and I have never wavered from that decision. If you only think about the words, “write every day,” they sound so simple, so innocent, yet they have been possibly three of the most powerful words, when put together in that order, that I have ever encountered.

To give her a bit of relief I reminded her that she doesn’t need to write 5,000 words or spend four hours writing every day but rather to begin small, wake up just 15 minutes earlier and, no, you can’t check your Facebook, pay that bill, or fix your son’s lunch. This time is exclusively and deliciously for you and for you only.

It is your safe haven, it is your heaven, it is your place and time on this earth to do what you want to do, perhaps what you are meant to do, or at the very least what you are meant to do for these next 15 minutes.

One of the side effects of writing every day and making the decision to do so are the unexpected benefits you accrue over time. Accrue meaning that they build up, that your muscles get stronger, that you get better at the work, that you make the 15 minutes more easily, that the 15 minutes turns into 20 minutes and that turns into 30 minutes, and eventually it might turn into a whopping hour of pleasure, of joy, of you living your passion. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. For her, it’s going to start with just 15 minutes per morning. Getting up before the kids, not letting anything, no, really, anything, get in her way, focus, sit and write.

If that sounds brutal that’s because to your ears it might be brutal. To my ears it’s the joy of the peace of every morning. She asked me if I could mentor her every day and give her a little pep talk to help her write even just a small bit every day and build her confidence. Knowing that she knows that I don’t even live in this country and that meeting with her every day is not really an option on the table, she then said, “Maybe I should just write it on my arm. Maybe I should write it in permanent ink.”

Without saying anything, and benefiting from the environment where we are, moving decades of junk out of my parents’ house, there just happened to be permanent markers everywhere.

I got up without saying a word, grabbed a bright red permanent marker, handed it to her and said in my best friendly yet still with a twinge of Mafia as best I could, “I challenge you.”

As a meta-note to this story, her small win is also my small win. I have conquered the beast of procrastination, I have slain the dragon of writer’s block. I have transitioned, transformed, morphed into a different human being than who I was when I wasn’t writing.

This is the gift I want to share.

This small win, these few precious moments on a Wednesday afternoon in the sweltering heat of Southern California, surrounded by boxes of my past, we drove a stake into the ground and declared that from this moment on, this is the future, this is her future, this is my future, this is our future and we’re in this together.

She then tattooed it on her arm.

What do you need to make it happen for you?

It’s Thursday. Imagine. After Wednesday and before Friday. 

Crazy. I know.

Where’s your inspiration coming from this week?

Here’s mine.

It’s Thursday. Imagine. After Wednesday and before Friday. 

Crazy. I know.

Where’s your inspiration coming from this week?

Here’s mine.