I saw this on Threads but didn’t see who this was actually credited to.  It caught my ear and I wanted to share it.  I have a lot of concern with AI and what it can/will/might do but that isn’t to say I don’t see value in it.  I do feel there have been valid points and value so when I heard the clip below, it made me think and I wanted to share it to give some consideration for the point of how to break the patterns we’ve created in society.  So here it is–How to raise a child in the 21^st century according to AI: Alright here we go.  If I were to raise a child who doesn’t become a broken adult, I wouldn’t follow the current education system because the system is designed to raise obedient consumers.  First instead of addiction, I’d teach them deep focus and falling in love with boredom and teach the super power of learning how to learn.  Second, instead of processed food, I’d teach them to grow their own food and cook with single ingredients.  Instead of trusting pills, I’d teach them to listen to their body, test and fix root causes.  I’d teach them to move like our ancestors, crawling, climbing, and jumping.  Then I will teach them to question authority, to ask who profits from this information, and to recognize propaganda when it’s packaged as normal.  Then I’d raise them with challenges and struggle because mental and physical muscles aren’t built in comfort.  I’d show them that technology is a tool not a master, and that intuition, sleep sun, and nature are non-negotiable operating systems.  And most of all I’d teach them to be sovereign in mind, money, and body because the future won’t be kind to the dependent

Today I am grateful for my voice.  I’ve had to make some tough decisions over the last few days regarding relationships that at one time were truly solid.  Signs have been on the wall that these relationships were suffering and that things needed to change for a while—and I had done what I could to fix them.  I’d communicated clearly where my concerns were and what I wanted to do to move forward.  None of those things happened with any of the parties involved and frankly it escalated to a giant slap in the face that these people had no intention of ever changing their behaviors no matter what we explained or asked—no matter how rational.  Their intention was to do what they wanted and tell us to fuck off in the process if they weren’t getting what they wanted.  Adult friendships are hard enough because we are all well set in our patterns and beliefs and it can be harder to see where we may be at fault when some cracks start to form.  But I am no longer taking on the weight of someone else’s shitty behavior, I am not letting shitty behavior slide, and I do not need to bend to accommodate people who can’t see that what they are doing is wrong based on standards we learned in kindergarten.  So I’m speaking up for myself, my family, and what is right.     

Today I am grateful for self-respect.  I need to follow up gratitude for my voice with gratitude for having enough respect for myself to use my voice.  I’ve so often played the peace-keeper, trying to find both sides of the situation so we can reach an agreement, that I often allowed what I was really feeling or thinking to take a back seat.  I tried over and over again to tell people what I was feeling in the hopes that the behavior would stop or we could reach a compromise or with the hope I would at least get an explanation.  When that didn’t happen it was evident that we did not hold each other in the same regard or with the same respect.  So this is a teaching moment and a learning opportunity for all of us involved: even if we are close to people, sometimes we have to worry more about being heard than we do about keeping the peace.  No one should ever feel bowled over in a relationship and when we voice our concerns and those matters aren’t addressed, then we need to be strong enough to walk away even if they are people we love.  I respect myself enough to know we are being fed crap and that the behavior will not change.  Sometimes doing the right thing hurts—but we do it anyway and I have no regrets. 

Today I am grateful for help.  I am grateful to receive help and I am grateful to give help.  Help isn’t a conditional thing, we all need help, sometimes in unexpected ways and times, and we need to give help.  Most importantly we need understand what a gift it is to be able to help.  As we get older, we will face mortality and fears and we have to accept that people and things we knew change—we all change.  We all become dependent on something and watch those who once held positions of power in our lives start to shift toward the point where they need help.  We are all human and time humbles us all.   

Today I am grateful for family, both blood and chosen.  I’ve come to realize how much we need that inherent support from people.  Not the kind of blind support that looks the other way, but the type of support that is there no matter what and still manages to shape us.  The family that understands who we are.  I grew up in a decently sized family that shrank down from a very large family, and now we are smaller still and I am so grateful to have the family I do, the people who have stuck with me, the people who understands the goal/point.  Life throws some nasty curve balls sometimes so it’s nice to know there are people who just get it—to laugh with, to cry with, to dig into the dirt with, and to create with—and those who support us when we go on to create something on our own.

Today I am grateful for adaptation.  I’m still going through some growing pains with the changes in my life but I am 100% leaning into the changes.  I truly couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given because these are literally things I’ve wanted and dreamt of for a while.  I’ve wanted to be able to call the shots in my life, I’ve wanted to live on my own schedule, I’ve wanted to maintain my health, my house, and my business while working, and I’ve wanted to start the transition to my life being supported by the things I love doing.  I understand the saying that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks because I’m working on that myself—the patterns we live are so deeply engrained that shifting that really can be difficult.  But I now respectfully disagree because I understand that old dogs can learn new tricks, it just sometimes takes a little longer.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead

The state of the world, or at least the state of the world that’s portrayed to us, is pure chaos.  We encourage and promote martyrdom and victimhood for the sake of our feelings not being recognized.  I am 100% guilty of that myself.  I am human and I know we are all susceptible to the things that go through our heads.  I know we worry about our value and worth and that our ego demands attention and recognition all the time.  I know that our society has promoted and pandered to the ego, believing attention is the most important thing we can ask for.  We’ve equated attention/recognition and money with survival and power.  We’ve convinced ourselves that power is the only way to survive, believing power and dominion over others somehow makes us more important or more likely to get ahead.  We still haven’t learned that power makes us targets, that power has its own level of responsibility, and that power comes in various shapes, forms, and sizes.  Power over others is limited and tenuous. Power over ourselves is absolute and can be harnessed for the greater good.

The leadership in this world leaves something to be desired—and that isn’t targeted to any one leader in particular.  I think part of the problem is that we have We have all fallen short remembering what the goal is, that we are here to work together to improve our state not our standing.  One of the key lessons we need to remember is that it isn’t about being right, it’s about doing what’s right.  We don’t have to agree on anything except doing the right thing.  Some may argue that our definition of the right thing may differ—and that can be true—yet we also have an innate knowing of right and wrong.  We are also born knowing compromise and that there is a middle ground.  We are born with the innate desire to lift people up.  It’s only as we are exposed to different beliefs around power that we start to shift toward the idea of personal power.  We all know what it feels like to not be heard or to be left out—and the truth is it doesn’t feel good.  But that isn’t the cue to find a way to assume all control, it’s the cue to find a way to make ourselves heard or to realize we need to find a different audience.    

We aren’t here for a long time and it is human nature to find a way to leave our mark.  We like the idea of being remembered but it is more important to question WHAT we are remembered for.  There are ways to be remembered that have nothing to do with power.  Instead, we can be remembered for looking for the right thing in all situations.  We live in a divisive culture where we think it can only be one thing or another but the mark of maturity is looking for that middle ground.  I don’t have to agree with all you say but that doesn’t mean I don’t see the value in parts of it.  We tend to make people all right or all wrong and that isn’t the case just as we know we aren’t all right or all wrong.  In Robin Sharma’s Leader with No Title (see my series on that as well)—seeking power (or the wrong kind of power) means nothing in the grand scheme of things.  We all have power in our lives, more than we allow ourselves to realize because we waste that energy on trying to control people and how they see things and what they do instead of controlling our emotions to arrive at the best place.  To change the world, to be the example of change, to do the right thing is to see the value in what is said over worrying about proving a point. 

I can believe with everything in me that I am a lion, I may even have the heart of a lion.  That does not in fact make me a lion.  No matter how much I believe, how much I feel it—it doesn’t change who I am.  But what we have lost sight of is the fact that being who we are doesn’t mean we can’t be who we want to be.  I can believe with all my heart that I am a 6’10” model who can sing better than anyone in the world and it will NOT change the fact that I barely touch 5’ and I am ok-ish at singing certain songs.  That doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy singing and having fun with it or that I can’t learn how to sing better—but I will not be able to change that I barely touch 5’.  There are intrinsic parts of us we can’t change but that doesn’t mean we can’t become something closer to what we see inside, it doesn’t mean we can’t hone the skills to become the best version of what we see—it doesn’t matter if others don’t see it that way.  The point is matching the action with how we feel, not to make others believe/see/feel/do how we do.  That’s manipulation and bullying.  It isn’t anyone’s responsibility to figure me out and treat me how I see myself—it’s my job to be who I need to be and express that consistently to the world. 

Society has a lot of healing to do.  We’ve been grossly misinformed that we are the ones who need tending to, that the world somehow owes us this weird honor of somehow stopping for us, people somehow treat us exactly as we think in our minds, that the world sees us as we see ourselves, that we will get what we want simply because we think it.  It’s a real tough lesson for people to grasp that we have this so backwards. The world literally owes us nothing.  We are here by the grace of some divine gift, divine timing, divine presence that we can’t perceive with any senses yet we feel it all around us.  We can’t control it but we are of it and part of it.  That gives us no dominion over anything in this world but our own autonomy, our own presence, our own ability to recognize and utilize our gifts for the benefit of the world that sustains us without question or real demand beyond “Don’t intentionally fuck it up or we will move on to fuck around and find out on a whole new level.”  Yet somehow in spite of all the mistakes we make as humans, as much as we seem determined to destroy ourselves as much as we still have the audacity to believe we are owed something, the Earth keeps spinning and keeping us alive.

So with in this vast expanse of space and time, we are somehow afforded the gift of being here right now.  We are gifted the ability to find this balance between knowing we are meant for something greater and bringing that gift to the world while also understanding those gifts are ours to use and harness, but only on borrowed time.  The more we use those gifts for the benefit of the world, the greater return.  This existence, while it may seem to be all about us and how much we can get for as little effort as possible, is truly about the inverse. What we put in determines what comes out.  I don’t want to waste my time telling people how to see me, what to think about me, how to treat me—some of those things are simply lessons we missed as kids and have nothing to do with us anyway.  I would rather spend my time developing my gifts and sharing them with the people who get it, the people who resonate with that message.  I don’t want to spend my time fighting to be who I am or to make sure the world sees me as I see myself.  It’s far easier to simply be ourselves and go about our business.  We get more done that way.

This piece isn’t meant to disparage anyone or discourage anyone from going for their dreams—in fact, it’s quite the opposite.  The point of going for dreams has nothing to do with how people see us.  It has nothing to do with convincing others of anything about who we are.  This is about shifting our perspective to realize that how people see us has no impact on how we see ourselves, how we feel about ourselves, or how we think.  We are the only ones who prevent ourselves from getting where we want to be, from doing what we want to do.  It’s our belief in ourselves and what we think we can do that pushes us forward or stops us in our tracks—no one else’s.  Humans are simultaneously super smart and super dumb and we all operate on context and experience—none of which is the same for anyone—yet we believe we somehow need everyone to think and see as we do in order to have any value.  We are gifted the differences of opinion, perspective, and desire so we can learn from each other and so we can HELP each other and so we can return something of value to the world.  So we can spend a little less time focused on making people see/think/feel something and spend more time making sure our actions align with how we see/think/feel.  It makes all the difference.

“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened,”  Anatole France.  It’s a true story.  I wanted to dive a little more into the Goat Yoga experience from this past weekend.  It was absolutely beautiful.  Animals truly are a gift and they sense all we are going through all the time. Some may be more intuitive than others, but they all know.  This experience with goats, specifically goats we had never met before, shows me how intuitive animals are, how they just know and that we need to trust our own instincts more.  One of the women we were with joked that she wasn’t exceptionally flexible and that she had gotten her period right before we started everything so she didn’t think she would be able to do the yoga.  One of the goats promptly curled up in front of her on the mat and just wanted her to hang out.  She didn’t let her participate—it was her way of saying that it was fine to just listen to your body and chill.  Be present with the animals and to remember our own animal nature.  It’s necessary to listen to that instinct. 

I have always loved animals and I’ve had animals around me my entire life.  Everything from frogs, turtles, and iguanas, to guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits, and chinchillas, to tarantulas and hermit crabs, to cats and dogs. I’ve always been fascinated with large animals as well like cows, goats, sheep, pigs all the way up to my favorite, the big cats and elephants.  The running joke (I may or may not have shared this before) is that I will die petting something I shouldn’t….and it’s probably more true than I like to admit even though I know I’d respect boundaries.  I understand animals more than I do humans and that’s because animals don’t lie.  Animals don’t seek to hurt others for their own benefit outside of survival.  Animals don’t play these games where they seek power over others simply to make them do their bidding.  Animals act on what is best for all and for the survival of all.  So the chance to connect in such an unusual way meant something.  Like, you can hang out with goats and you can do yoga.  But what is the point of bringing a goat in while you do yoga?

Truth be told there was no point to it—you won’t find goats doing yoga in nature.  You will, however, find them hanging out with each other, browsing around, seeking attention and pets every now and then but fully content to just go on their way and may be butt a few heads every now and then.  But this experience was about finding that animal in us again and allowing it to be, allowing it to calm.  It was simply a matter of establishing presence in the midst of distraction with animals that are just being animals.  We too are animals.  There were people in the group who took the yoga part super seriously—and that’s fine, we were there for a class—but they got ticked when the animals peed or pooped as if that part of them should have been put on hold because we paid for a class.  They are animals and they weren’t there by choice, but they were still present and doing their goat thing.  Animals remind us that all the time.  Even if we aren’t somewhere by choice, we can still be present and do what we need to do.  And if we are there by choice, then make sure we are fully present in who we are.  We just need to accept ourselves as we are, love ourselves unconditionally like we would the animals we surround ourselves with, and remember to let life be. 

I no longer expect that people understand what I need.  I opened my heart and soul to people dozens of times, hundreds of times, to be left standing wanting.  I’m also not going to pretend I understand what people need because I’ve been bold/annoying enough that I thought I knew what others needed, that I could read them, that I understood how the mind “really” worked only to be proven completely wrong.  My husband’s needs are different than mine, my friend’s needs are different than mine or each other’s.  Even if we think we need the same thing (in some cases we do) we may need them done differently.  I don’t need to spend $50.00 on a lunch for myself when I can easily accomplish what I want with something far cheaper.  I don’t need to spend $100’s on a single outfit when I can get an entire wardrobe for the same amount.  So not only are the needs different, the way we meet them is also different.    

We all have different priorities and for me, sanity is top.  Happiness is up there but that often only comes with sanity.  I know happiness can be fleeting depending on what we are doing, but it is often a goal.  I think we mistake the idea is that achieving the goal is what makes us happy when we really need to see that it’s how we approach things that make us happy.  We can approach anything with the goal of being happy and regardless of the outcome, we will still be happy.  If we are focused and clear on our driving factors, it’s much easier to keep perspective on the things that feel good/what makes us happy.  People aren’t designed to make others happy, rather we are designed to work together to make things happier for all.  It is human nature to approach things in different ways even if we have the same goal in mind.  My happiness isn’t contingent on doing it my way, rather on achieving the goal.  And even if we don’t achieve the goal, I’m happy if we formed a positive relationship and worked together well, if we learned something. Experience is valuable because it shows us what we need.  It shows us what feels right and it shows us what will and won’t work on our path.  There is nothing wrong with needing different things or even wanting different things.  My life in this moment is testament to the need for change.  I knew I needed to change and it took a while to get here, but once it was here, let me tell you, it’s nearly a complete overhaul.  New job, new hair, new clothes, redoing the house, helping my husband find what works for him, new attitude about money, new attitude about faith, taking chances, and learning confidence.  I knew I needed to make those changes and I knew that they were all the steps I had to take to get to the overall change in my life I was looking for: putting me back in the driver’s seat and working toward the goals I’ve put on pause for too long.  Action is the thing that drives people forward.  Even if it seems counterintuitive, even if it feels like moving backwards at times—my soul knew what I needed to match the reality a long time ago.  I don’t need to imitate what others want to be happy—I just need to listen to my heart and take action on it and that will get me where I need to go.  Sane.  Centered. Focused.  And most importantly, aware of who I am and what I need to do. That isn’t for anyone else to tell me—I already know.  And so do you.

I thought I could flip a switch and all would be fine, that I’d be indoctrinated into this new world, this new work and that I would flow through my days effortlessly because that was what I wanted.  I thought I had the answers about what my days would look like right off the bat.  That isn’t what’s happening.  I’m not naïve enough to believe I wouldn’t have had adjustments to make or growing pains—this is an entirely new lifestyle for me—but the issues I thought I’d never struggle with are the ones that seem to get to me.  Like, I always thought I’d just float through my days with no issues, knowing exactly what to do, my time scheduled but relaxed, perfectly planned to be effortless.  Instead this feels a bit like ai got a flat tire and need to pull over, figure out how to change it but all I have is the donut, not a full sized spare—so I can keep moving but it isn’t quite a right fit yet.  And that’s ok.  I know this is an adjustment period.  I am so blessed that I got nearly exactly what I was asking for.  Doesn’t mean I don’t still need to adapt or get used to it, it’s just my expectation was that I would automatically slide into this new life. 

This is almost recovery mode.  I spent years working in an environment that made it clear we were meant to be available 24/7 even for the things that had nothing to do with us.  We needed to be prepared for anything, even the stuff that didn’t fall under our scope.  We were supposed to be proactive and know what other leaders needed before they needed it.  The new work is nowhere near the pace of what I used to do, and it’s hard to slow that down.  I’m constantly looking for the next expectation, the next thing I “have to” do.  I’m learning and incorporating new skills and that always feels clunky at first.  I find that I’m struggling to “know” what I need to do next.  I eventually figure it out, it just takes a minute to orient myself after each task, to find what I should or could be doing.  I also struggle with ADD so being home (which is torn up from construction) has a different level of anxiety about it.  I find myself wanting to get everything done all at once and then getting overwhelmed with how much needs to be done—so I do nothing. 

The whole  point is that sometimes, even in the changes we want to make, there is difficulty in adapting.  It doesn’t go as smoothly as we think it will even if we’ve envisioned it .  It was like when we moved into this house.  We love the house and it has all we could ask for but some of the features were different than our townhome—we were giving up some decent features there.  It felt like we had to start all over again—and the truth is that is exactly what we were doing.  We had to learn to find our footing in this new environment, to find who we are here—even if most of us stayed the same.  But we have to learn to settle into the new.  We have to learn to work differently, to operate differently.  So even the changes we ask for come with some growing pains.  And it’s ok.  we aren’t meant to be like a light switch or a book—we’re off/on or we’re on one chapter and then the next.  There is a transition period.  So give it time—it takes a minute to get comfortable shedding what we used to carry all the time, to adapt to new clothes so to speak.  Just keep going because the pieces will fall into place and we will adapt to the point where what was a dream now feels natural in this reality.

If you can’t change the people around you, then change the people around you.  It’s important to know the difference.  We can never truly change someone—we can only ever change ourselves.  That isn’t to say that we don’t naturally shift when we are in proximity to one another.  We can soften or sharpen our edges depending on who we surround ourselves with—but the point is we change.  We all know those people who stubbornly persist in being who they are no matter what’s happening, those who refuse to acknowledge when they are outright in the wrong, those who believe they can do no wrong—the ones who believe, proverbially, their shit doesn’t stink.  Those relationships are nearly impossible to navigate.  Someone always ends up losing and it is often the person trying to adapt.  Part of maturing, part of life is understanding when we can’t do anything about where we are at—so we need to change where we are at.  There are times it’s simply a matter of need for change, it isn’t personal.  And other times it’s a matter of understanding the people around us aren’t conducive to our growth any longer.

This is in the same vein as talking about the value of our effort on Saturday.  Is it really worth it to try and fight people as they are, to try and change them?  Most of the time people will resist and run from that anyway—we can all feel when someone is manipulating us into something we aren’t or into doing something we don’t want to do.  So the choice becomes clear: we can either put up with it or we can move on and spend our energy better elsewhere. Truth be told that has nothing to do with difficulty of the task, it’s more about knowing when the effort simply will not pay off, when we won’t be able to make a change anyway.  I’m fortunate enough to understand that I needed to change my environment at my 9-5.  For a long time it felt like a contentious environment—and it was.  But over time we navigated through a lot of that and we got beyond the point of frustration with each other.  We even formed a real bond.  But I still knew that the work and the environment wasn’t getting me where I wanted to be.  The projects I wanted to work on, even at the 9-5, weren’t allowed to take off. My focus was everywhere but where I wanted it to be.   So an opportunity for something more conducive to what I want to do long term arrived and I took it.

This isn’t to say it was an easy change.  As I said, the dynamic in relationships changes and it isn’t necessarily animosity or anger that make us need to change our environment. Sometimes we simply outgrow each other.  Or we see we need someone to sharpen those edges instead of soften them or vice versa.  So while it isn’t easy, I will say that taking a page from my own book and making the leap into something new has paid off.  I have moments of confusion (we’ll talk about that this week) and even discomfort, but I know that the change is for the best.  No one could make me do that, no one could bring about that type of change in my life.  I needed to be open to it and ready for it and I had to see where the benefit for redirecting my energy would fall.  But when things come to us, sometimes we simply have to take the leap, take the chance, and go for it while it’s there.  I know I’ve turned down many opportunities to change because I thought it wasn’t the right time or that it wasn’t really meant for me.  This time even had a little of that as well—I wasn’t sure it was going to be a good fit or work.  But I’m learning that sometimes those leaps don’t feel right at first—we just need time to adapt.  So I’m not only changing the people around me, I’m changing myself as well.  Here’s to new adventures.

We’re keeping it nice and easy today.

Today I am grateful for fun

Today I am grateful for taking back my life

Today I am grateful for time with my family and love

Today I am grateful for the opportunity to be me

Today I am grateful to understand what I need, who I need in my life.

This year let’s stop choosing what we pursue based on how hard it is, but on whether or not it’s worth it.  Let’s stop jumping from thing to thing until something takes off and let’s focus on what needs to be done to accomplish what we’re trying to do—and to do it to the best of our ability.  No one here needs to be told that life is hard at times, but we also need to stop thinking all we do needs to be hard.  We have to reframe how we look at work, purpose, and effort.  Of course we like the idea of getting the most for the least amount of effort but life doesn’t work like that.  Nothing truly great came from sitting on our asses and settling for what came our way.  But it is also true that nothing truly great came from obsessing over an outcome and never letting go of it like an unrelenting drive to work 24/7.  In both scenarios we burn out and miss the point.  Let’s figure out our pursuits based on what clicks for us.  On what makes sense for us.  What I will say is that we can’t operate on whims, constantly shifting goals and tracks right in the middle of something else.  Nothing gets done that way.  We also can’t have such a hard focus on making things right and doing them at the right time that we paralyze ourselves in the details.

Challenging things aren’t always fun but if we are really honest with ourselves, neither are the easy things.  Just because we can mark something off of our list doesn’t mean that we accomplished something worthwhile.  The point isn’t to complete the list, it’s to design a life that has no list.  That flows and naturally guides us to what we need to do next.  I understand that sometimes even that isn’t fun because even in flow we can find ourselves in some pretty tough situations.  Humans have a habit of misjudging things, though.  What we think will be hard often proves to be simpler than we made it out to be and those things we thought we’d mark off the list in no time turn out to be far more complex.  That is the nature of life.  So if we tend to be a little wonky in judging the difficulty level of something, then we have no choice but to start looking at the value in expending our energy on it.  It becomes less about how challenging it is, and more about what needs to be done to close the gap to accomplish the goal. The pursuit always needs to be the goal, not the effort it takes to get it.  If we want something, let that be the driving factor. Even then life can still throw us for a loop but that doesn’t mean give up.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve felt the shift in my direction of thought and purpose.  I have these goals, these things I want to do and I plan it out every year—and in this time, I’ve accomplished very little of what I set out to do.  It’s something that I actually do carry shame and fear about because these goals are near and dear to me, it’s not like I’m randomly picking something.  These are important pursuits for me. I can say that I’m proud I’ve still stuck with them because I can see where some of the effort I’ve put in over this time has started to pay off.  But if I had simply given up and stopped doing what I wanted because it wasn’t happening, then I wouldn’t be here now.  Is it where I want to be?  Not quite, but I’m a hell of a lot closer than I was.  Sometimes we have to learn to refine and define our efforts better instead of completely shifting course.  We have to stick with what our gut tells us—we are drawn in that direction for a reason.  I’m not saying to not use discernment and trust that when something isn’t working despite our efforts that we need to give it up—that may be true, we may have to stop something we thought we really wanted.  But I am saying to work with enough clarity to evaluate our choices and understand the drive behind starting something.  Go for it if that is what calls us—we will find a way to get it done.