Unexamined Ideals Spawn Global Dysfunction

As I sit in this seat of relative wealth and privilege, it is easy to take the comfortable aspects of that seat for granted. It is easy to believe that I know more about someone else’s life than they do themselves. It is easy to believe that I have solutions to another person’s hardship that they themselves cannot see or attain. It is easy to believe that my intention to save another from the challenges they face is genuinely selfless.

Beliefs fuel the ideals which inform our choices. But beliefs and ideals that were handed down or picked up during a time of relative innocence or powerlessness result in choices which lead us down an inauthentic path. Regardless of how far we walk down that path, and regardless of our degree of worldly success, enduring fulfillment will continue to elude us and 3 a.m. angst will still threaten to consume us. This lack of fulfillment is a root cause of many global issues including poverty, violence, war, disease, and environmental degradation.

When left unchallenged, ideals give rise to individual and collective “comfort zones”. Those comfort zones interfere with our ability to make compassionately responsible choices which further fuels global hardship. As such, it is imperative at this ripe juncture of evolution that we leverage the vast creativity of our prefrontal cortex to illuminate and examine our own conditioned biases. One immediate and effective way we can do that is by challenging elusive comfort zones.

This can be easier said than done since our limbic system is hard-wired for self-preservation. Often it takes some combination of deep fear and hope before someone willingly steps outside their comfort zone. But when that fear and hope stem from a hotbed of blind biases, the resulting step will likely do as much harm as it does good. A less common reason people willingly step outside their comfort zone is out of genuine curiosity. This alternate reason often yields great insights into the true nature of reality, and effectively illuminates blind biases.

Raising the curtain on my unseen biases, I become humbled by both my arrogance and my innocence. I am now far less likely to sit in judgement of another or take this seat of relative wealth and privilege for granted. Having endured great challenges, I have come to understand and appreciate the powerful way challenges incinerate false precepts. I am now able to arrive in each situation innocent yet wise.

Humble empowerment fosters an authentic path. Bowing to the “unknowns” of a given situation, I embark upon a path of discovery which ultimately reveals new insights about this life that is living me. Revelation is an unending source of fulfillment. Self-fulfilled, my choices now arise from a place of genuine curiosity.

Until we have seen clearly our own biases, we would be unwise to assume we know best how to alleviate someone else’s suffering. Until we have seen clearly the gift woven throughout our own struggles, we would be unwise to try and save another from the challenges they face. But when we have seen clearly the global dysfunction spawned by unexamined ideals, we take our first steps on an authentic path of humble empowerment. Only then can we explore from a state of genuine curiosity how to best leverage our seat of relative wealth and privilege in service to another.
 

Advice is a Poor Substitute for Insight

So you want to start a business, but you don’t know which of your many brilliant ideas to commit to. You ask friends, family, successful entrepreneurs, gurus, coaches, and really anyone who will listen (aka: random cashiers who seem genuinely sincere when they ask how your day is going). You run through all your different ideas, weighing the pros and cons of each, hoping that someone will reveal some angle that will tip the scale unquestioningly in favor of one idea over all the rest.

To even be contemplating starting a business indicates that you have experienced some degree of mastery with the jobs, projects, and assignments that others have entrusted you with. You have also felt stifled by the lack of opportunity to take that experience to the next level or express your own vision within that environment.

Starting a business is your opportunity to take full responsibility for the direction of your life. Only you know which idea you are willing to fully commit to. Relying on other people’s advice is an ill-advised shortcut: then you have them to blame when it fails. Then you are right back where you are right now, faced with the decision of committing your own vision or committing to someone else’s. As long as you are looking to others to choose your path for you, your experience of success as an entrepreneur will be limited.

The hard news is that your first attempt will most likely fail to some degree, but you will learn a tremendous amount in the process that you can successfully leverage on your next attempt. Ask yourself, “what idea am I ready to commit to and see fail?”

Know this:

• Ideas are not the determinant of success: commitment and persistence are.
• An entrepreneur who waits for the right idea at the right time for the least money dies without ever starting a business.
• Ideas are worthless unless you can execute them. Pick one idea that feels achievable, and learn the art of execution.
• Ideas are harder to execute on than you can even know at this point. Commit to one idea, and learn that lesson.
• If it were easy and cheap, everyone would be running their own business. You have to be willing to do what 96% of other people wouldn’t do.
• Clarity and confidence are a result of action, not a prerequisite.
• True success is an inner phenomenon, not a worldly statistic.
• If you are unwilling to invest in yourself (even if that means going further into debt), then you are adding significant time to your journey and missing out on unknown opportunities.
• Money is not an obstacle, it’s an excuse. Time is truly your most precious resource. Get started!

More than anything, stop asking “what should I do?” and ask instead “how do I want to be?”, then do that from the time you get up to the time you go to bed. Your need for a the “right answer” is blocking the original insight you need most. Relax, and trust. Realize you are complete even if you can’t completely see all of yourself. When you do that, you will discover the diamond in your pocket. From that space, you cannot fail.
 

How Full Is Your Wheel?

I was given a homework assignment this week as part of an inspired business development group I recently joined. My homework was to fill in a “life wheel”, ranking my degree of fulfillment in eight different key areas of life. At first, I stared blankly at the worksheet and tried to accurately assess each area on a scale of 1 to 10.

After several minutes of struggling to even fill in one part of the wheel, I wondered if my inability to gauge my fulfillment was the result of the wheel already being entirely full. I started filling in the wheel to see if that was true, and it turns out it was! All at once I was reminded of the realization I’d had six years ago: that fulfillment is always the case, and that the only thing that shifts is our awareness of it!

Now, does that “100% fulfillment” mean I am sitting pretty on a pile of money? No: not in a conventional sense anyway. Would I like that to be the case? Well, that would certainly allow me the opportunity to set up my humanitarian foundation, go all in on my life’s work of helping people take life to the next level, and add to the growing collection of books I’ve authored. And while I love the idea of those possibilities syncing up with my current reality, the fact that that experience is not here now takes nothing away from the degree to which I experience fulfillment.

You see, I think differently than most people, but that wasn’t always the case. Like so many people I talk to these days, I used to believe that if I got all the “right pieces” in all the “right places”, I’d be seeped in an experience of enduring fulfillment, and life would be a non-stop bliss picnic. But as good as I was at identifying and achieving my goals, there always seemed to be some area of life that fell short on fulfillment. After almost four decades of trying and failing to create an experience of enduring fulfillment, I was utterly depleted, and in a moment of deep resignation, I gave up my quest.

In the days that followed, an innocent curiosity took up residence in the mental/emotional space that had previously been filled with unrelenting angst. In that energetic expanse, I realized the sun never stops shining, which helped me enjoy the rain and no longer fear the dark. I realized the pinnacle nature of this one pristine moment, which put an end to my futile “striving”. More than anything, I realized that the only thing that had interfered with my experience of enduring fulfillment had been my limiting thought process which presumed that fulfillment was something that must be attained.

But why then, if I’m so fulfilled, would I still have goals to start foundations and businesses and books? That’s the beautiful part. These inspirations arise as a natural expression of fulfillment rather than as an attempt to attain fulfillment. Because I no longer chase fulfillment or run from fear, I am able to stand clear surveying the expansive horizon. I am able to step in whatever direction feels most aligned with who I know myself to be in this moment, and step towards experiences that will show me ever more deeply to myself.

Each step is fueled by fulfillment. Even if at times there is a fleeting experience of uncertainty or disappointment or frustration, those limiting conditioned (and human) experiences arise as a swell on the ocean of fulfillment. There is a coy smile woven throughout each brief heartache: a smile that quickly dispels the illusion of struggle and oppression. I bow to each moment looking for what I may learn, and in doing so, I learn what it is that I have to share and teach others.

Even the depth of loneliness, which had persistently threatened to engulf me numerous times throughout my life, has found safe harbor with me. When it knocks at my door, I invite it in for tea and conversation, and listen as it shares the depth of its sorrow. I thank loneliness for serving its purpose so honorably. Before long, loneliness is transformed into radiant warmth as a result of feeling seen, heard, and valued.

So how might this insight serve your own quest for fulfillment? Perhaps it will inspire you to rest the quest for fulfillment, and instead simply explore ways to expand awareness of the enduring fulfillment that is already the case. If you’d like some more insights on how to best do that, I’m happy to both share what I know and help guide you to original insights of your own.