Adam Kayce

In case you haven’t seen it yet, my buddy Alex Shalman, from AlexShalman.com (Practical Personal Development), recently launched his "Happiness Project." After hearing Tim Ferriss recommend Dan Gilbert’s book, "Stumbling On Happiness" (which I read, and whose TED video I’ve set up for you at the bottom of this post), I’m very, very curious about people’s findings about one of the most sought after prizes in life: good, old-fashioned happiness.

So, I’ve accepted Alex’s proposition, and here are my answers.

1. How do you define happiness?

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gari.baldi

As you know by now, a big part of my approach to work is about healing the voices within that keep us from showing up at our best.

So when I got tagged (more on that in a second) for Peter’s “Think Different” challenge, it was a no-brainer; the idea, basically, is to try thinking differently about something in your life that you’ve been holding as a negative… start thinking positively about it, and see what happens.

(The “tagging” debacle? I was told by Tristan Loo of the Synergy Institute that he tagged me, but he actually tagged a different Adam (he has since added me to his tagged list, though!). I sorta put it out of my mind, but then Jennifer Mannion of Heal Pain Naturally tagged me from her post… so that’s when I figured the Universe was trying to tell me something!)

As the wind bloweth

Now, thinking differently about something you’re holding as a negative is good… and, in my experience, it can be like trying to keep a paper cup on a picnic table in a wind storm. You can try to keep your thoughts in the positive, but if you’ve got a strong wind — belief systems, in this case — that keep on blowing the same way they have been, then you can try all you want to keep that cup on the table, but it isn’t going to happen.

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You face hundreds, if not thousands, of choices every single day. How do you know what one thing to choose over another? What’s your litmus test for right action?

With the cornucopia of choices that you deal with every day, wouldn’t it be great if there was a simple rule to handle at least most of them? Well, at the risk of getting too simplistic, I’ll share an over-arching “rule” with you that I found years ago that has served me pretty well.

It’s one of my favorite prophetic sayings from all of Sufism: “Leave that which makes you doubt, for that which does not make you doubt.”

It carries a call to right action that strikes the tuning fork in your heart, resonating with the place in you that knows what’s right for you, and what isn’t. The exhortation to walk away from things, thoughts, actions, and attitudes that keep you spinning, lost, stuck, or worse, is undeniable.

And from what I’ve seen, the knowing in our hearts is true. We just have to listen to it.

In honor of Blog Action Day, an awareness-raising campaign to honor the environment, let’s look at how this saying applies to our ecological footprint — the impact we have on our planet.

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Sip fruity drinks out of a coconut shell on a tropical island?
Take singing lessons?
Reorganize your sock drawer?

Unless you haven’t been paying attention (and with the deluge of information out there, it wouldn’t be that surprising), you’ve probably at least heard of Tim Ferriss’ landmark book, The Four Hour Workweek. I’ve touted it here before, and the book has made it to #1 on the NY Times bestseller list.

As impressive as the book’s success has been, it’s what within the pages that has interested me the most. In short, it’s a complete recipe for creating the life you’ve always dreamed possible — and I don’t say that lightly. It’s damn impressive, to say the least. And that brings me to the reason for this post.

Say you do liberate yourself to work only four hours a week. For most of you, that frees up at least 36 hours of time that you have to fill… and my buddy Ed Mills of Evolving Times seems to think that most people haven’t a clue what they’d do with all that extra time (Tim even says — and I believe rightly so — that “after a few days of sitting on a beach rubbing lotion on your belly, you’re going to get bored out of your mind”). And since it’s hard to get anywhere without compelling motivation to get there, thinking about the ‘Why’ behind having a four-hour workweek is time well spent.

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You may have seen Priscilla Palmer’s Personal Development List that’s making its way around the blogosphere…

Thanks to Edward Mills, I made the list. And in the words of Albert, the Urban Monk (no relation), I’ve gotten enough traffic from the list not to join in.

So, the idea is here… and I’m adding:

Colleen Wainwright of Communicatrix
Mona Grayson of Question The Mind
The TED Blog
Jessica Hagy of Indexed
Garr Reynolds of Presentation Zen

And now, the list…

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Well, the Learning Edge meme has been traveling far and wide, much to my surprise, amazement, and delight!

I’ve compiled the list I have of all the Learning Edge posts that folks have made so far; if you’ve written one, but don’t see it here, leave me a comment with a link to it, and I’ll add it to the list. There are also a half-dozen or so people who left comments on the original post, sharing all the Edges they’re up to… be sure to check it out.

And if you haven’t written one, and would like to, check out the original post for directions, and join in the fun! In addition to growing your own horizons, you’ll also get a few links out of it, which never hurts, right?

Colleen Wainwright of Communicatrix wrote What’s your Learning Edge? (The hypnotherapy project)
Evelyn Rodriquez of Crossroads Dispatches wrote Learning Edge, or you can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf
Dailytri of DailyTri wrote My Learning Edge
Eve of Sparkle Life wrote Try and Catch Me
Sue Melone of Ignite What Matters wrote an untitled Learning Edge post
Siona at Zaadz wrote What’s My Learning Edge?
Ben Yoskowitz of Instigator Blog wrote Starting a Business is One Massive Learning Experience
Jean Browman of Stress to Power wrote Lifelong Learning
Edward Mills of Evolving Times wrote What Is Your Learning Edge?
Dawud Miracle of dmiracle.com wrote How Do You Use Social Media To Grow Your Business?
David Thomas of Glittering Muse wrote What’s Your Learning Edge?
William Harryman of Integral Options Cafe wrote What is Your Learning Edge?
Peter Clothier of The Buddha Diaries wrote What’s Your Learning Edge? And, “Come Hell and High Water”
Apollo Lemmon of Frozen Truth wrote Learning Edge + 7
Stuart Baker of Conscious Cooperation wrote My Learning Edge
Pamm of My Secret Spiritual Dance wrote Edges Meme
Kent Blumberg of KentBlumberg wrote The Learning Edge
Jeremy Cherfas of Another Blasted Weblog wrote Lifelong Learning
John of Technology For Living wrote Where My “Edge” Lies Now
Isabella Mori of Change Therapy wrote What’s Your Learning Edge?

That’s quite a list, eh? It reminds me of a quote I read once, about how birds fly, fish swim, and people learn. It’s just what we do.

Thanks, everyone, for sharing… and we’ll see what happens next!

Image by me, under a Creative Commons license.

And thanks to all those who commented on the previous post so far: Jean Browman, Edward Mills, Mary Schmidt

I’m stubborn, I’ll admit it. I’m so stubborn, not even the modern educational system could drive my love of learning out of me (although to be fair, I was lucky to have a handful of wonderful teachers over the years who fanned that flame, rather than dump water on it).

I’m always learning something — right now, I’ve got a stack of four books from the library on my desk, and two more in the living room, plus all the ChangeThis manifestos I still need to read, and the myriad of blogs in my Google Reader that are patiently awaiting my attention.

In fact, one of the aspects of the blogosphere that makes it really easy for me to spend way too much surfing is the amount of wonderful information and personal perspectives that are out there. New learnings are just a click away.

So, here’s my challenge to you, and my invitation:

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I know it has been a couple of days since my last post; I had a big flurry of posts last week, and then hunkered down to get ready for the inaugural class of the Create a Business People Love group that kicked off on Tuesday this week (it went great, by the way; thanks for asking ).

I came out of tunnel-vision to find that I was tagged for another meme, and it seemed like great timing, not to mention that it’s about a subject dear to my heart: music.

Joanna Young of Coaching Wizardry tagged me in Hilda Carroll‘s meme about “Songs That Make Your Heart Sing.” With a title like that, how could I refuse? (Besides, as Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “Most people go to their graves with their best music inside them.” Not me, friend.)

The challenge is to pick your “number one energy-raising song of choice”. And now you know why I’m calling that a challenge!

How to pick one? My iTunes library has 1863 items in it (that’s 11.81 GB of data) that could play for 14.7 days… and Hilda wants me to pick one. Sheesh, where to begin!?

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I’ve been doubly tagged recently, for two memes. I figured I’d combine them into one post, since… well, why not?

The first is David Airey’s “Face Behind The Blog” (tagged by Dawud Miracle), a chance to look behind the scenes of a blog you read and see who the person is that’s typing on your behalf.

The face behind my blog is a rarely-captured one, to tell you the truth! Most of the photos I have (digitized ones, at least) are of my family, and since I tend to be the “guy behind the lens” as well as the “face behind the blog”, I have many more pictures of my kids than I do of me. That said…

Family is, obviously, the largest aspect of my life. Here we are at some family outings, including DisneyWorld (when Sara was four months old), bowling, at Hershey’s Chocolate World, the DC Zoo, and more.
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