Adam Kayce

Out with the old, in with the new.

That’s my motto right now. I reserve the right to change it, if/when it suits me, but that seems to be the flavor of my thinking lately.

Ever have the feeling your business could use an emema? I did/do, and I’ve been laying down on that table for quite some time now.

To help steer me away from expanding on that metaphor, and to give you some context, let me give you some background. This will be especially helpful for those of you who haven’t known me all that long, all that well, or just are curious about the path I’ve come to tread and where this blog is going. I’ll try to be succinct…

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If you want to make an impact in the world, you have to express yourself. And the way you’ve expressed yourself so far has been good, in that it has gotten you to where you are now. But if you want to go beyond where you’ve come, you need to make a shift. And making a shift in how you express yourself is one of the toughest things to do. (Spinning plates, juggling knives, doing a back handspring? Child’s play.)

Expression isn’t about words, and it isn’t about style… even though these factor into it heavily. It’s easy to get into ruts with your language, your catch-phrases, your metaphors. Expression is about viewpoints. It’s about perspective. It’s tied fundamentally to the eyes through which you see the world around you, and all the filters between your brain and the world it’s trying to make sense of.

Try this: think about your business. Think about who you serve, and what you do for them. Write it down. Keep it simple. Got it?

Now, come at it from a completely different angle, and do it again. Try seeing it as you’ve never seen it before. (Go ahead, take a minute and do it. I’ll wait.)

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This past weekend I attended SOBCon08 (the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers Conference) in Chicago, and today I had planned to write all about it. There were some fantastic messages shared, I made some great new friendships, lots of new connections, and had a blast with everyone I met.

Of course, writing about it was what I was going to do today, but… on the way home from dropping off my rental car, we had a tire blow up on the interstate. Knock on wood, we were fine, although the wheelwell got a bit ripped up when the tire’s tread flew off.

And, knock on wood, even though there were a bunch of cars around us, there were no collisions, no problems (except ours)… everyone was fine.

And, knock on wood, the tire actually still worked! The tread blew clear off, but the rest stayed on and inflated, so we could actually limp along in the shoulder until the next off-ramp. (And no, it wasn’t a retreaded tire… the guy at the tire shop said that what happened really shouldn’t have happened. But, of course, it did, so it just goes to show that improbable things actually happen all the time, just in case those of you out there with 100% normal lives were wondering.)

And, amazingly, we were able to drive on the busted-up tire all the way into the next town (over 10 miles), and then into the next town—ours—without incident. Why so far? There’s only one tire place on the way, and they didn’t have one in our size (it’s a truck tire shop, primarily). The shredded tire held its air for one last journey, and we made it all the way to Bob’s Tire Service…

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I read an article years ago about tall people, and their supposed nomenclature for describing how tall they are. “What are you?”, one tall guy says to another. “Three,” says the second guy, who’s 6’3″. “You?”, he continues.

“Five,” says the 6’5″ guy, clearly feeling superior about the extra two inches of height he was given (and didn’t lift a finger for, of course). The two men size themselves up for a moment, swagger and grunt a few times, and both walk away feeling good that they’re in the upper percentiles of vertically-endowed men, and equally happy they didn’t come across LeBron James. Or Leonid Stadnyk.

Is This True?

I don’t honestly know, although I can say with all certainty, as someone who’s 6’4″ myself, I’ve never referred to myself as “four”, nor have I ever had some guy come at me and say he was “six” or “one” or “hey, I’m four, too.”

The idea, though, of self-identifying with a number is, of course, pretty darn silly (not to mention indicative of some serious insecurities that you should probably seek help with). There are plenty of metrics you can use to get a better grip on where you are in your life, and height isn’t one of them, unless you’re a teenage NBA hopeful. For the rest of us, let’s take a look at one metric that can have direct bearing on the kinds of conversations you are having, whether you realize it or not.
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She lives so large, she makes superheros nervous.

Edna Mode, referred to as "E" (analogous to Superman’s "S", or Mr. Incredible’s "I"), fashion designer and costumer of superheros in Pixar’s The Incredibles, packs so much juice, boldness, and raw energy into her tiny frame that she’s a force to be reckoned with, even for indestructible superheros.

If E can have that kind of effect on fantastically empowered champions, imagine what thinking like E could do for you.

Superheroes are easy, darling. Mediocrity is much more difficult to work with—and it is in such great supply.

Why You Should Think Hard About Thinking Big

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I’m always amazed when I talk with people who haven’t heard of EFT. Of course, before I heard of it, I hadn’t heard of it, either…

You’re going to hear more from me about EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), that’s for sure; I’m a huge fan, and my wife is a practitioner. Even my 8-year-old taps, on her own, whenever she’s nervous or feeling ill.

What is it?

It’s a method of healing that’s based on balancing the body’s energy system, and it gets its history in large part from Oriental medicine. No needles, though; you tap with your fingers on the same points acupuncturists put needles into. And it works for physical symptoms, emotional issues, belief systems, you name it.

I love it. And, I’m not the only one… as I understand the story, the same filmmakers who worked on The Secret were so impressed by EFT, they worked with EFT’s founder, Gary Craig, to create this video to introduce people to it:

You’ve got to watch it, it’s well worth the few minutes.

If you’re interested in learning more, and want to experience it yourself, give my wife a call. She’s amazing. And if you have experience with EFT, feel free to leave a comment so we can hear your experiences, too.

Searching for meaning? Want to know what your purpose is?

Get in line.

- end of post -

Just kidding!

It’s obvious that there’s no one answer to these kinds of questions. It’s a search, an exploration… one that we all take once bitten by the “significance” bug. It’s a part of living an examined, awake life.

The trick is this: it’s one thing to search… and it’s another to stay sane as you do.

Discovering your purpose isn’t a race.

Instead of adopting the attitude of, “I’ve gotta find it NOW, so I can get going and make it happen!”, with a drive for perfection and a now-I-can-stop-searching-and-just-be-happy attitude, you’ll be far better off taking a page from the book of Japanese aesthetics, and more specifically, the concept of wabi-sabi.

What’s known to millions as a philosophy of "imperfection, impermanence, and incompletion" can keep you from ripping the hair from your head as you walk your walk. (and if you’re curious, mine is shaved, not ripped.)

So, with help from Leonard Koren’s book, Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers, let’s take a look at some of the principles of wabi-sabi, “a nature-based aesthetic paradigm that restores a measure of sanity and proportion to the art of living,” and how they relate to the search for meaning and purpose.

Slow it down

To experience wabi-sabi means you have to slow down, be patient and look very closely.

In the search for purpose and meaning, I’ve seen an agitated frenzy erupt in some people. “I’ve gotta find my purpose! I don’t know what to do without it!”, or, "I can’t believe I’m x years old, and don’t know what my purpose is yet!" But discovering and living one’s purpose isn’t a pop-a-pill-and-be-done, download-it-now experience.

Just like wabi-sabi, your purpose is something that isn’t jumps up, does a dance, and hollers in your face. It’s often times a glacial process, where bits and pieces get uncovered as you go.

Because sometimes, when you stare at something, you miss it.

Instead, slow down, relax, and get in tune with your self — not the self that takes its cues from the world around it, but the you that you are in the absence of external input. The you that yearns to express itself in its own unique way.

Pare it back

Pare down to the essence, but don’t remove the poetry.

Your purpose is most often simpler than you might think. It’s like a mission statement — the longer and more loquacious they are, the less they’re probably saying. Instead, seek simplicity, much like Guy Kawasaki talks about in reference to "making a mantra" in “Art of the Start” (you can download his manifesto which talks about this from ChangeThis). Rather than drone on endlessly about "adding value through optimized ventures and time-honored blah blah blah", the statement of your purpose can be simple and clear, like, “serving children,” or, “expressing uniqueness through design,” or, “creating beautiful moments.” Wabi-sabi speaks of the power of simplicity, and at its finest, so does your sense of purpose.

Simplicity is at the core of things wabi-sabi. The essence of wabi-sabi, as expressed in tea, is simplicity itself: fetch water, gather firewood, boil the water, prepare tea, and serve it to others.

Let it go

Wabi-sabi is exactly about the delicate balance between the pleasure we get from things and the pleasure we get from freedom from things.

If your search for meaning is about getting something tangible, think again. While knowing your purpose and working from it can result in a more successful business (clarity attracts, if you catch my drift), the main reward of inner lucidity isn’t material, it’s spiritual. Fulfillment, more than fame and fortune, is the pot of gold at the end of this rainbow.

It’s your life, after all

Nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.

You are a work in progress. Your work is a work in progress. And no matter how good it looks, or how much you convince other people (and yourself) that you’ve "got it all together," the simple truth is that you can’t. And the good news is, you aren’t meant to.

Rather than rail against the messiness that continuous learning precipitates (you mean I have to re-write this ‘About Me’ page again?”), you’ll do far better to accept that you are always evolving. As Soren Kierkegaard said, we are “constantly in the process of becoming.” He also said, “Be that self which one truly is.” (Maybe I need to do a post on ‘The Kierkegaard Search For Purpose’…)

At its core, wabi-sabi is, to me, about recognizing the beauty in what is, so you can step back and appreciate what you have all around you. Not a bad prescription, I think.

Images by suika*2008 (out) and d’n'c.

By and large, we are chickens. If we had it our way, we’d prefer to know what to do before we start doing it.

Thank goodness, then, that life’s lessons show us what we need to learn, despite our preferences.

Over ten years ago, I began studying spiritual healing. A core part of the system I learned was the use of intuition, to show you what you (and your client) didn’t know was there, but was actually the source of the client’s complaint (and believe me, you can process, work on, and dissect issue after issue, but unless you’re getting to what matters, you can spin your wheels forever).

Fortunately for me, developing my intuition was something I became very good at. Soon, I became known as something of an expert at it. So when a student asked me once, in a gathering of over a hundred students, “How do I know what I’m getting intuitively is right?”, my answer was, “You can’t — “ (which made the jaw of the person I was teaching with drop to the floor), “until you trust it and act on it, that is.”

In intuition (as in all life), trust comes before knowledge. You have to trust that the path you’re on, the person you’re with, or the idea that just popped into your head is worth something, before you can actually find out whether it is or not.

It would be nice (you think) to know that a new flame is worth the cost of dinner and a movie before you fork out the dough, but the only way you’re going to find out is if you go for it.

It would be nice (you think) to know if an idea is worth its salt before you invest your resources in it (hence, the ubiquitous — and often wrong — focus group).

But the truth of it is, you often have to go on an unripe sense of whether or not something is “right”, and trust that your heart’s inklings are pointing you in the right direction.

Think about this: if Edison had tried to play it safe, we’d still be working by candlelight.

Here are some other examples of places where trust has to come before knowledge:

Relationships: trust the person has good intentions before you know for sure.

One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life.
- E.M. Forster

To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved.
- George Macdonald

Expertise: trust that you know what you’re talking about even before you can find out through experience.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Entrepreneurialism: trust that your passion will impact people, even before you know it for sure when they show up.

Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.
- Marie Curie

Trust the Universe. Trust and believe and have faith. I truly had no idea how I was going to bring the knowledge of The Secret onto the movie screen. I just held to the outcome of the vision, I saw the outcome clearly in my mind, I felt it with all my might, and everything that we needed to create The Secret came to us.
- Rhonda Byrne (creator of The Secret)

Management: trust that the person who you delegate a task to can do it before seeing that they can. Let them show you how they can shine.

Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him.
- Booker T. Washington

Team building: as Peter Drucker says:

The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say "I." And that’s not because they have trained themselves not to say "I." They don’t think "I." They think "we"; they think "team." They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don’t sidestep it, but "we" gets the credit. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.

And, last but certainly not least, enjoyment of life: trust expands your heart, and distrust closes it. It feels better to live a trusting life than a doubtful one. Whether you end up being right or wrong, it ultimately doesn’t matter as much as the quality of the moments you enjoy along the way. As the Irish say, “When mistrust comes in, love goes out.”

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
- Samuel Johnson

We’re never so vulnerable than when we trust someone – but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy.
- Walter Anderson

Wouldn’t it be great (we think) to know, first, before we have to extend our trust.

And how lifeless, dull, and uninteresting life would be if we did.

Image by ishrona on Flickr.

Cronfeld

Yesterday I talked about a system of fitness called CrossFit, to help make the point of General Work Preparedness (GWP). In a nutshell, you take a generalist’s view of what it takes to be successful at work, rather than a specialist’s, by not just focusing on improving your working skills, but by becoming a better all-around person (more details here).

Well, to be perfectly transparent, I’m a CrossFit addict now. I live and breathe all I can of it, because I find it more exciting than wearing a hand-buzzer at a networking convention. I’m subscribed to their journal, I frequent the message boards, and I work out (mostly) along with CrossFit’s 3-on-1-off schedule. It’s the bees knees, baby.

I read something on the CrossFit message board the other day that struck me as having great value, and not just in fitness terms. Damien Del Russo (one of the thousands of community members) wrote, on a thread about losing weight:

Keep in mind that CrossFit is not meant to be a weight loss plan. That is one of the effects of being fit, but not the point of the [program].

Because CrossFit is about creating a "broad, general, and inclusive fitness" (a hallmark tenet of CrossFit), it doesn’t focus on one particular result, but on the ability to get better across the board: speed, strength, agility, coordination, etc.

When you train this way, and follow balanced nutritional guidelines, your body finds its natural and optimal balance. If fat needs to come off of you, it will. If you need more muscle, it’ll grow. If your heart needs to be more fit, it gets stronger and more efficient. So, you train for inclusive fitness, and that’s exactly what you get.

Now, the "crossover" part…

It’s easy to get specialized when it comes to spirituality and personal development, and start compartmentalizing our goals, such as:

• "I want to work on my anger."
• "I want to be more patient."
• "I need to learn how to forgive myself."
• "I need to be better at managing stress."

And so, we launch ourselves into programs and initiatives to try to develop those aspects of ourselves. We read books and take classes to learn how to communicate from the heart, do mantras to help us become more compassionate or relaxed, do service projects to learn selflessness, and so on.And in the quest for the solitary examples of what we think will make us better at certain things, we lose sight of what we can do to make us better equipped to handle the multitudes of situations that come our way each day. We strive for compassion, for example, because we think that’s an element of being a better person. What about working on becoming a better person all-around?

Train for connection, end up compassionate

In all the spiritual paths I’ve learned about, the fundamental teaching is connection. The more you can connect to your inner self, the better off you are. The more you can connect to your fellow human being, the better off you are. The more connected you are to the natural world, to the spiritual world, to your thoughts, emotions, and body, the better off you are.Is that it, then?

Of course not; it’s way too simplistic (and wrong) to imply that one focus will do it all for you. In CrossFit, we run, because running builds one kind of endurance. But we also lift heavy weights, and do bodyweight exercises, and gymnastics, and on and on. Multiple points of focus to train your whole body. And the cool thing is, when you’re a better deadlifter, you’re a better runner. And jumper, and rower, and cyclist, and anything else you need to do.

In your spiritual/personal life, you’re also going to need to focus on a multitude of topics in order to best develop the whole of who you are. The better you are, for example, at tapping into your spiritual connection, the better you’ll be at all kinds of other personal skills.

The trick is to kick your spiritual couch-potato tendencies, and get going.

And how, pray tell, do you do this?

Well, in the words of Michael Valentine Smith (Robert Heinlein’s protagonist in Stranger In A Strange Land), "I am only an egg." I wouldn’t endeavor to be more inclusive, than say, Buddha, Lao Tzu, or any of the world’s Prophets.

Because even if you’re "spiritual, but not religious," you have to admit that the experience of thousands of years of spiritual practice and personal development can’t just be tossed aside because it doesn’t fit your paradigms.

Am I saying that you should adopt a formal religion? Heavens, no. I mean, go ahead if you want to; I’m not against them if your intentions are clean and your discernment strong. What I am saying, though, is that success leaves clues. There are teachings available from the spiritual and religious doctrines of the world that, when practiced with a certain degree of self-responsibility and awareness, can yield immense benefits in your personal development, and help you build a "broad, general, and inclusive spirit" — path or no path.

And if you don’t have a "path" already?

Then start simple: Get to know yourself. Spend time inside (your heart, not indoors). Connect; with yourself, with others, and with whatever sense of "Oneness" you perceive and/or believe in. Live responsibly. Act sincerely. Extend a hand graciously, and receive one just as amiably. Love. Love some more. Forgive. Be grateful. From there, follow your heart.

Is there more?

Of course there is. Keep watching this space!

If you’ve never heard of the TED conference before, you’re in for a treat.

Every presenter at the "Technology, Entertainment, and Design" conference (which happens yearly in Monterey, California) is a thought leader, inspirational figure, or leader in their field, so watching the videos of their presentations is a great way to catch a glimpse of some very influential figures about what’s on their cutting edge. And at about twenty minutes a piece, they make for great lunchtime viewing, too…

The other day I watched Mathieu Ricard’s talk (it’s well worth the time to watch it); Ricard is a Buddhist monk of French origin who has been living in the Himalayas for at least twenty years or so now, and has earned the moniker of "world’s happiest man."

As Ricard shared about cultivating happiness through "mind training", he mentioned, almost in passing, four characteristics that caught my attention: serenity, inner strength, inner freedom, and confidence. They jumped out at me, because I felt that they were four key qualities worth pursuing in the practice of living the Monkish lifestyle.

Serenity

I’d define serenity as the experience of peace; a quietude in your being, as if you are, in body and mind, at complete rest. It doesn’t mean you aren’t in motion, it just means that whatever you’re engaged in, you’re 100% there, and not feeling pulled or pressured to be anywhere but in your moment.

Inner Strength

Strength, in my opinion, is about both power and resiliency. Chapter 76 of the Tao Te Ching states:

…softness and tenderness are attributes of life,
And hardness and stiffness, attributes of death.
Just as a sapless tree will split and decay
So an inflexible force will meet defeat.

Having the ability to marshal your inner resources when needed is one aspect of strength, and so is sovereignty. But equally important is the ability to compromise, flex, and bend with the forces of nature that we are a part of, but often forget that we aren’t separate from.

Inner Freedom

A slave is one who must act not from her own will, but at the direction of another. And while we’d all like to think of ourselves as free, how free are we? Where do you get caught in the tides of popular opinion, culture, or just plain ol’ desire for something you don’t have? When you hand the reins of your self-determination over to anything outside you, no matter how subtly, you’re giving away your inner freedom. Living free means living by a deep, inner awareness of what’s right for you in every moment.

It doesn’t mean that you aren’t open to learning from others, of course. But it does mean that you take what you get from the world around you and trust your own heart’s determination about whether or not it’s right for you. Which leads us to…

Confidence

Defined as, "belief in oneself and one’s powers or abilities", the word "confidence" sources from the Latin roots con + fidere, or "with" + "trust."

Do you trust yourself? Do you trust in your own heart? Your resolve? Your commitments to the values you hold most dear, whether they’re values like compassion, love, honesty, and valor, or truth, virtue, service, and fairness?

When push comes to shove, can you rely on yourself to make the kinds of choices you know in your heart to be right?

Have you had moments like this? Would you like more of them?

With any of these characteristics, the way to cultivate them is two-fold:

1. Pursue them directly, and
2. Learn how to regain them when you lose them.

It’s great to be able to sit in a quiet place and be still; and yet, for those of us who have chosen to be a part of an active society on a daily basis, times of seclusion tend to be much less prevalent than times of immersion in the busy work-a-day world. In an environment rife with distractions, being able to regain your focus when you lose it is critical to your mental well-being.

There was a great line in Evan Almighty, where Morgan Freeman (reprising his role as God, from Bruce Almighty) said,

Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?

Having time in your day to devote to spiritual practices—time when you sit in meditation, for example, to cultivate awareness and inner quiet—is essential… and, so is the active practice of regaining your calm when life’s events draw you away from it.

For example, being able to stop your cycles of emotional over-reaction, and eventually diffuse them altogether, is just as important—or more important, some might say—as time spent in direct pursuit of serenity through sitting quietly and learning to quiet your thoughts.

How? Well, there are a lot of methods out there: EFT, Sedona method, the Work, Doyletics, NLP, Hypnosis, you name it… I’ve tried a bunch of them, and there are many I haven’t tried… but less important than having a multitude of methods, I believe, is to have one or two that you’re fluent in, and can use when you need them.

The trick, of course, is consistency in using them, though, isn’t it? How many methods of personal healing do you know or have you tried? And how often do you use them? My guess is that you’d agree that the more you practice, the easier it becomes, and, the more likely you are to use them to get you through the rough spots in your life.

Why not get (back) into the habit of cultivating Ricard’s four qualities in your life, starting today?

Image by by GNU license via Wikipedia