Living With a Vacation Mindset

I played bocce ball this weekend on the same court I discovered the game ten years ago @ the Solage in Calistoga, CA. I remember how strange being playful felt back then. Play felt inconvenient, unimportant and wasteful. The story I’d told myself was that life was about battle and survival. Stay strong, hang tough and don’t quit.

A lot was happening in our life that required grit and fortitude to keep going. Play hijacked my tight grip on life. I noticed how much lighter and happier I felt when I gave play space in my life’s framework.

A lot was happening in our life that required grit and fortitude to keep going but play hijacked my tight grip on life. I noticed how much lighter and happier I felt when I gave play space in my life’s framework.

It started with a simple question, what are my habits and beliefs while on vacation?

I taste and smell the food I eat.

I leave my phone behind or turned off and stay present.

Internally, I permit myself to be off. No production-only restoration.

I shower outside.

I take the longer route, not the shortcuts.

I ride a bike or walk, keep the car parked.

I take naps.

I notice and try new things.

I exercise but leave my watch behind.

I laugh and linger.

I pray and meditate.

I play analog games.

I allow curiosity to lead me.

Over ten years, I’ve incorporated this ethos into my everyday life in straightforward ways. One practical story to illustrate, I used to commute to work for about an hour each day. My return trip could get hairy with traffic backups. I would stew about how many minutes and hours of my life were vaporized-lost forever.

Vacation mindset reframes: I think I’ll throw a spare set of running clothes in my car, pull over in heavy traffic and go for a walk or run instead. 15–30 minutes later, behind the wheel again with less traffic, I’d cruise home without that bundle of stress inside and ready to fully engage my people.

On vacation, sitting in traffic wasn’t a frustrating, white-knuckle experience. I’d always find a way to reframe the experience. The same playful, whimsical curiosity from vacation can transform our real life every day. To have the life I want externally, I’ve learned I have to start living that life internally first.

How Not To Be Eaten By Sharks or People

I see a lot of similarities between people and sharks. Sharks instinctually protect their environment. This time of year on the coast of the Big Island of Hawaii, Tiger Shark momma’s are scouring the shoreline for safe places to lay their eggs. Simultaneously on shore, the Willi Willi tree blossoms it’s orange flowers to warn locals to stay out of the water.

Going into the ocean for a casual swim doesn’t register for a Tiger Shark. Our presence in their habitat provokes a natural protective response.

I also see how people instinctually protect and preserve what’s theirs. If you step on their nest, they bite. If you go in the water when they are feeding, they bite. Threatening people’s self-preservation triggers their automatic survival responses.

Eat. Run. Fight. Survive.

Staying out of the ocean when the sharks are feeding and laying eggs is wise. Maybe the same goes for people? When food is scarce, the future is uncertain, and people feel threatened, either get out of the water or be ready to be bitten.

Becoming Unstuck

Getting stuck happens. Trapped in thinking ruts. Stuck in behavior ruts. We tell ourselves rehearsed stories that we come to believe are true. “I’ll never lose this weight,” “He will never change,” “It will never get better.”

We get stuck believing the stories that others tell us are true, “You should be thankful for this job,” “You’d better play it safe,” “You have to go to college.” People like us thrive when we exercise our belief that life is pliable and that our future is untold. Individuals who believe that yesterday is proof that today will be the same stay stuck on a loop of disempowered despair and can’t find the off switch.

The choice to get unstuck starts new every morning. Incremental, continual, small experimental shifts in our decisions, our thinking, our beliefs change our course heading.

Start New When the Old Stops Working

Today I saw a sign for a divorce financial analyst. I’m guessing that means that he helps people during and after a divorce make sure they get a fair shake before the dust settles. I imagine that once upon a time that type of work was empowering and felt noble. In fact, I’m sure the work itself is significant and genuinely helps people navigate a complicated set of circumstances.

At what point does being good at your job intersect with being ready for a change? I know individuals who are good at what they do, in fact so good they feel like they can’t stop. The income they earn now after decades of becoming an expert has painted them into a corner.

Mr. Divorce analyst is probably tired of people squabbling over money. When I walk a few feet in his shoes, I think of how weary I would feel after my one thousandth customer served.

It is never too late to make a change.

We can lower our lifestyle commitments to make room for the freedom of choice to enter into our career options. Just because you’ve spent your whole life becoming an expert doesn’t mean you have to spend the rest of your life in that career field.

If you are happy with your achieved expertise and love your work, that’s great. Don’t stay in a job that lost its luster a long time ago. A lot of people change careers three and four times over their lifetime.

Do what you love. Find what you enjoy. Start new when the old stops working.

Keep Being Brave

I think about quitting sometimes. I reflect on shrinking back and playing small not exposing my interior life. The alternative, of course, is to be numb. To pretend I don’t see and hear what I witness. To fit in. To crank out more widgets, to blend into the edges of good enough.

Of course, then there is TV and politics, I could spend a lot more time catching up on Trump’s antics.

Or maybe, even when it’s hard, even when it doesn’t seem to make any difference in the world, I should keep pressing forward?

Maybe there is a tipping point and quitting too soon could be disastrous? And maybe going with your weird, being misunderstood and living with constant uncertainty is the braver path?

And you my friend, I know you to be brave. When I hear your stories, I know you should keep your chin up and keep forging ahead. Quit? Never-not you.

Instead, what if we both lean our ear slightly away from the noise and towards our internal compass? Our true north that keeps inviting us forward. Tonight, I’m going to keep being brave and believing that this difficult path is brilliant.

Let’s keep going-
Aaron

Investing Your Yes

I started carrying a folded piece of paper in my pocket that read “No.” I’d pull it out when I needed a reminder that “No” is a perfectly acceptable answer. The best part was it had a period after the letter “o.”

I learned that I had fewer “Yes’s” in me than I pretended. I’d say yes when I meant maybe. I’d say maybe when I meant no, and I thought no was impolite until I learned that a hell yeah was so much better than a half hearted maybe. Learning to invest my yes’s fully in fewer areas makes the yes’s of my life way more fruitful.

What deserves a no?

Where are you saying maybe, but you know it should be no?

If you fully invested your yes in fewer things, how much greater might the results be?

Check out our Reboot Your Life Experiential Workshop October 13-15, Colorado Springs. Sign up details available here.

How Blame Corroded My Relationships

My life didn’t turn out as I planned. I started to believe it was someone else’s fault. I blamed God. I blamed the long lines of people who always wanted something from me. I blamed myself for not being tougher. I silently accused anyone who inconvenienced me.

Brene Brown says, “Blame is the discharging of discomfort and pain.” My discomfort and pain started spilling out. I couldn’t keep the lid on the jar anymore. The problem with blame is that accountability is assigned to other people for our life, work, relationships, health, kids, finances, and family don’t look like we believe we deserve. Resulting in the energy projection of “my life sucks and it is your fault.”

Deeper than the blame, I felt powerless. Powerless to steer my life towards better outcomes. Powerless to save my daughter from death. Powerless that being a good guy didn’t save me from a life full of pain and disappointment.

The pain became the lens through which I viewed all things.

Feeling like my life was a bullet train, moving at 200 mph, I felt there was no way to get off or slow it down. The problem with blame is it prohibits us from looking inward to see what’s wrong with us. When it’s always someone else’s fault, then I could skirt responsibility for my own poor decisions, unhealthy rhythms, and character defects.

My transformation began when my therapist, my friends, my family illuminated the pathway of empowered that lead to new choices. I’d spent decades managing my externals in hopes of arranging for peace internally. I invested most of my energy on managing outcomes; Organizing for other people’s happiness often at the expense of my own.

It turns out happiness is an inside job.

Friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, customers, employees, innocent bystanders at the grocery store, please forgive me. I didn’t know that despite all of my life’s disappointments that I could choose joy in spite of the pain.

Check out our Reboot Your Life Experiential Workshop October 13-15, Colorado Springs. Sign up details available here.

Aligning What You Value Most With Your Daily Life

In his book, Simple Ways to Stop Doing Dumb Things with Money, my friend Carl Richards said, “You can’t say that you value time with your kids when you just bought a new Lexus.” He continues on his riff with how the Lexus requires you to earn that bonus and to win the bonus you must work additional five-eight hours a week which results in missing your son’s soccer practices. In the end, Carl concludes, that your actions tell the story of what you believe.

Carl helped me put words to aligning my values with my beliefs. Another friend of mine says, “Actions reveal our beliefs 100% of the time”. I find this incredibly helpful to take a look at my actions, my decisions, my behaviors and appreciate that my deeply held core beliefs reveal through what I do, not what I say.

I just returned from a business trip to Europe. I love the exploration of new places. I love the professional challenge of conducting business in foreign countries. I love being with my family. I love being a part of everyday living with my wife and daughter and friends. When I travel, I’m not involved in the daily happenings of their lives.

What do I value most? My highest value is my family. My second highest value is adventure and exploration. I used to travel 50–70% of the time which resulted in dissonance within my soul. Now the choices I make are overlaid with this value meter. Aligning what you value most with your daily life isn’t about perfection. It is about having intentional awareness and personal responsibility in the decisions we make.

Nobody made us buy that Lexus or accept a job that requires international travel; we made that choice. If we don’t like the results or requirements of our decisions, or the behavior gap caused by our actions and beliefs, we should remedy the situation with different choices.

Check out our Reboot Your Life Experiential Workshop October 13-15, Colorado Springs. Sign up details available here.

Dispatch: The Viking Ship Museum Oslo, Norway

As pyramids are symbols of Egyptian achievement, Viking ships are to the Norwegians. The Oseberg and Gokstad ships flawlessly display the Viking age. In the 800’s AD, these seaworthy battle ships are intricate and mighty with dragon head carvings, sixteen oar holes for 32 men and enormous rutters and masts. 15 feet wide by 75 feet long, these ships are massively impressive. Their preservation quality is hard to believe. Pulled ashore they became burial ships for their mighty warriors. Like an Egyptian tomb, the Viking soldiers laid to rest in their afterlife-ready ships with horses, treasure, pets, and women. More details on visiting the Viking Ship Museum.

The Viking Ship Museum in Oslo Norway. Intricate stories carved into the spine of the 1200-year-old ship.
Stores like Beowulf became more vivid to me standing below the mighty Viking Age ships. When deployed in battle these ships were tricked out with armored shields and full-color sails.
15 feet wide by 75 feet long, these ships are massively impressive.

Do Less Better

Sir Edmond Hillary claimed he climbed Mt. Everest, “Because it’s there.” Reframed, I think he meant “Because I can.” Not everyone possesses the athleticism and grit to achieve the summit of Mt. Everest. We concede the fact that we are not trained Himalayan mountain climber, therefore, lacking the necessary capability and capacity.

The problem is most of life doesn’t present itself in a simple -easy yes or no format. Instead, we face viable offers, requests, and demands that fall within our areas of capability. Available capabilities without an accurate resource assessment lead to being over-committed, over-extended, producing sub-par results.

The frontier-the unfamiliar challenge to explore is to commit our abilities, only when we genuinely possess capacity resources to fund the new endeavor.

Start making your decisions based on your available resources. Only commit to what you earnestly know you can support from your available capacity.

Get real. Do Less. Do less better.

Check out our Reboot Your Life Experiential Workshop October 13-15, Colorado Springs. Sign up details available here.