Logical Evolution Podcast

I want to give you a bit of hope today – and some guidance about that hope. I want you to know that creating those visions you have for how you want your life to be are not nearly as complicated as you make them. However, you do need to include one essential component – alignment. To succeed with less effort, we have to think more scientifically about our goals, and we must apply the universal laws that exist to reach those goals. Let's use an example. Let's imagine that “Ann” has a broken arm. We all understand what needs to happen when a bone is broken! Ann needs to get that bone aligned, and she needs a cast on it to fix it in place for healing. That's the natural intelligence of how the body works. It's only after that initial realignment has happened that she can move forward. When the cast comes off, that's when she can work on range of motion and strength. What DON'T we do is when an arm gets broken? We don't immediately say, “Oh, your arm can't lift anything heavy, let's start getting you on a strength training routine,” right? That's ridiculous, the bone is broken! This is no different from when we experience disconnection from an end result that we want to achieve. In this situation, the most urgent need for you is to realign. What is the basic focus for the experience you want when you reach your goal? When it comes to healing, and it comes to reaching our goals, we always want to start with alignment. Whatever is at the core will propagate out. Often, when we feel stuck in reaching a goal, we look for a new technique, and we try to take action. We put action on top of that “stuckness,” when that's not what's needed most often. Often, what we need to do is stop and ask, “Did I did I lose the alignment with my original intention?” We need to stop and remind ourselves where it is we want to be going, so that we can ensure that our actions actually match that and aren't in conflict with it. The more in conflict our actions are with our true intention, the more difficult it's going to be to get results that we're looking for. What we are doing to create the goal must reflect the qualities of the goal too. If I'm working toward a goal that I think is going to bring me more joy and peace, then my actions along the way to achieving it must reflect those same qualities. If one of the things you really value and want to create more of is integrity, then you want to make sure integrity is throughout your approach. We often get stuck because we're missing alignment, which is why I want to bring it to your attention today. We get caught up in trying to take more action, and it takes a lot of self-discipline to pause and ask, “Do I need to realign so that I'm able to move forward toward where I want to go, instead of run around in action and hope that what turns out in the end is aligned with what I'm looking for?” So, the very first strategy always has to be alignment – alignment with the principle you want to bring into your life through that goal. For example, imagine your goal is to get into a great romantic relationship. What does that mean? It's not about that person as the end goal. But, when you get there you want to be able to be authentic with the person, you want to have someone who appreciates you and who you appreciate. These are the type of alignments that we want to seek out as you're taking steps toward the goal. It's not about finding the person, right? Because not just anyone is going to make you feel like you've reached that goal. I hope this helped you today in thinking about where this urgency of alignment is needed for you and your goals. My goal is to help you create the life you want, and to feel like you have the power to create that life using universal laws that are really right at your fingertips. It's a matter of learning them and then choosing to use them – not getting caught up in what most of the world does and trying to take more action.

Have you noticed that there are moments in your day when you're clearly not feeling engaged in your life? Have you noticed times that it feels like you're just going through the motions? What do you do in those times? If you struggle in those moments, today I'll share with you an effective way to handle it. I think you'll recognize it as something you've heard before, but maybe you dismissed as too simple or categorized as too “woo woo.” So, I'm going to explain it to you more scientifically in the hopes you'll realize its value and start using it to your advantage. I want to remind you of the power of pause. When you see that you're going down a path that you don't enjoy, pausing must be the first step to effectively transform that moment. If you were planning to go somewhere, and you realized that you were driving in the wrong direction, you wouldn't just keep going! You would stop and say, “I need to make a turn; I need to move in a different direction so I really get to the place that I want to go.” However, chances are you may not do that in daily situations. Instead, I see that when we're feeling not engaged or joyful about our lives, we tend to just put action on it in a way that's kind of avoiding what we're feeling. We try to just “muscle our way through it” forcefully, which makes it even more difficult. The reason this approach doesn't work is simply momentum. I've spoken about momentum before, but I'm hoping that by looking at it from this angle, you'll see the real the real gem of information that's there. When something has momentum, it has a tendency to keep going. If you don't want it to keep going, then you need to do something to stop it. The best thing to do is to act opposite of it and bring it to a pause so that you can go in a new direction. That forceful approach is going to use a lot of your energy. If you're using energy in order to create a higher energy state (like joy) – well, it's counterintuitive. That doesn't work. By pausing (stopping momentum first), you actually KEEP the energy, so that you can now take it in a new direction. Pausing also gives us an opportunity to have insight. When we push through something, we are missing a huge opportunity to learn. There are many ways to pause, but to be honest, one of the best ways to do it is to use your own breath. This is where some people mindlessly chuck the technique into the “esoteric” bucket without considering it. Your breath is a very tangible thing – it is something specific, not “woo woo.” You can feel it physically, and you can hear it in many cases. Additionally, it's always NOW. Right? I can't breathe for yesterday, I can't breathe for tomorrow, if I'm aware of the breath that I'm taking now, I'm automatically conscious of the moment. When you're conscious of the moment, it's a momentum stopper. Now you have the opportunity to harness your own energy – you hold whatever momentum is happening in this state of suspended animation. From there, you can decide to go somewhere deliberate with it, not somewhere that's just an unconscious reaction to your day. So, my goal today is to remind you of this – of the power of pause. I want you to be able to keep the power that you have and use it deliberately to create. Harness this power by becoming conscious of your breath. What does this mean? It means to feel the sensations of your own breathing and make that the focus of your attention for a few minutes. When you breathe in, you feel the breath coming in – maybe you feel your ribs expand. When you breathe out, you might hear the sound, and you feel your body contracting. If you really engage in that for even 5 breaths, you will be in a different place afterwards. Don't leave all of your energy to chance. Don't let the world take it. Claim it for yourself. You claim the power in that pause, and then take that energy where you want to go with it.

I want to remind you of an important distinction today – the difference between a VECTOR and a SCALAR. I remember learning about this back in my physics class in high school. This is the difference between having speed, and having speed with direction. You can think of the idea of spinning your wheels – that's got a lot of speed and activity, but you're not going anywhere. Or you can have speed and direction – by driving down the road. This is a trap that I have found myself in before. Maybe you can relate, and maybe you have an area in your life where this is happening now. Maybe you have an area where you're taking a lot of action, but you're not sure you're getting anywhere. We can easily get caught up in taking action and forget about noticing whether we have the right direction. Are we actually moving forward with this action? Or are we just spinning our wheels? Recently, there's been a big emphasis on your morning routine. I definitely believe in the importance of a good, solid morning routine, so I, too, was seeking one out. I was learning from different people and different books and trying to gather all these activities and actions I needed to take to make my “amazing morning.” I ended up feeling like I had to have 20 things on this list! I had to get my cup of tea, I had to have my drink of water, I had to do my meditation, I had to do my planning, and so on! They just added up. What I eventually realized is that I disconnected my activities from my direction. Instead of focusing on whether I had all the “right” activities that these books and teachers said I should have, I needed to consider a different question: What do I want to create with this morning routine? How do I want to feel, and be, and think when I'm done with my routine? I needed to know where I wanted to end up at the end of this routine, so that then I could properly select the right activities that, for me, would take me there. Each activity might have a different effect on me than it would on someone else, so I needed to consider the direction the activity would take me specifically. I want to remind you to think about this in your life. If you're starting to feel tired or burnt out, or feeling like your efforts aren't taking you anywhere – maybe you've gotten caught up in activity. Are you focusing on speed more than direction? Are you being a scalar, when you need to be more of a vector – being conscious of where you want to go? When you pinpoint that place to you want to go, you are going to be much more likely to get there than if you are simply leaving it up to chance or other people's ideas. Take in that information that you can gather from other people, but then apply it to how you want to be and where you want to take it. I hope that helped you today. If you think this message would speak to someone that you know, please pass it on to them. Until next time, be your best and keep being evolutionary!

I want to ask you today if you've ever been told that you need to “suck it up,” or if those are words you've ever told yourself. I, personally, can think of those days at work after a long day of meetings and projects where I'm feeling kind of drained…but there's that one meeting left, or there's that one thing I have to finish in order to be done for the day. My inner dialogue is to “just suck it up, just gotta finish.” It's about getting that last thing checked off, so I can just go do something else. It's like I'm wishing away that moment. If I'm going to be honest, I have those times at the end of my work day when I'm making that transition to go be a parent too. There's a lot of times I don't really feel like it, and it's a similar internal conversation, that I have to “just suck it up to get through until bedtime.” But that's not the kind of person I want to be, or the kind of experience that I want to have. It doesn't lead to a very fun time for me, let alone everybody else. The “suck it up” strategy – which can work to get things checked off – is never going to create change in our lives. This strategy creates a life that feels like the same life on repeat. In order to change your experience of life, you have to look at a new strategy – the “level up” strategy. Instead of sucking it up, you need to level up. Our lives will not level up unless WE level up. The level up strategy is three steps – it's very simple, but it's very hard! Most people won't do it! You may be tempted to put it to the side, ignoring it as too simple. But I want to challenge you to try it. The first step of the Level Up strategy is pause. Pause and notice, what's your level of energy? What's your dominant emotion? We have to make that pause, and that can be hard for those of us who are get-things-done focused. Taking that pause is the first step, and it's sometimes the hardest because you have to break yourself away from what's going on. Our emotions and our energy state are very changeable, they are simply a result of what we've been thinking over the recent past. But that first step is actually stopping. Ask yourself, where am I on a scale of 1 to 10? After that moment of awareness, step two is to decide – what do I want it to be? What would I rather be experiencing right now? Do I want to be at a seven? Would I like to feel a little bit more hopeful, a little more enthusiastic? Step number three is to make that happen, to act to make that shift come about. It can be done in under three minutes. It can often be as simple as playing a favorite song of yours. It might be doing a yoga pose. It might be taking a moment to make a cup of tea or coffee. It can be done in just a few minutes – it's a matter of actually stopping and doing it. You have the option of being that that person behind the slow car, being aggravated at the time it's taking for someone ahead of you to move. Or you can be in that same position behind the slow car, but having a good time! It doesn't get you there any faster just because you're in a state of frustration. You're going into that last meeting or doing that last thing at work – you might as well do it in a way that is not only more enjoyable for you, but actually will have the effect of leveling up your life. When you choose to level up, your life will level up with you. So, my challenge for you today is to take these three steps and implement them. It can be done in five minutes or less Thank you so much for your time and your attention today! Until next time, be your best and keep being evolutionary.

Popularity or integrity? We can't have both. In fact, the more outspoken you become with your message, the more you're going to receive negative feedback. Just those of you who are parents I know can relate to this! Whether you oversee a team at work or a team at home (or both), think about some of the decisions you've had to make. Think of the ones that you know weren't going to be popular, among your kids or your team or your friends, and think about why you've made those decisions. It was likely because of something that you believed in deeply and that ultimately you believed would be of the biggest benefit to them. When something's beneficial for you – truly beneficial – it's beneficial for everyone. The more that we act in integrity, the more that these types of beneficial decisions are made. Sometimes there's a transition though, a point where we feel like we're rocking the boat if we make decisions like that. Sometimes there are turbulent times we have to go through to get to the other side if we've been on the popular track for a while, but the other side is always better. In order to be able to make decisions with integrity versus popularity, there's one thing that has to be in place. You have to know what you value, your core beliefs, what's important to you. For me, one of those values I have is truth. I believe in aligning with the truth. I believe that knowing the truth will make everyone better off than hiding from the truth. So for me, that's a benchmark to always refer back to. If I'm faced with a decision that involves being popular or standing with the truth, it's a no-brainer. I'm going to stand with the truth and I'm going to allow what's unpopular to be there. If we get our confidence, sense of peace, and self-esteem from looking inside ourselves and acting in alignment with what we know in our hearts, then it's ok whether someone likes us or not. Of course, it doesn't feel good not to be liked, but it's not going to matter. If we refer within, whether someone likes us or not is not going to move us off of our value system, beliefs, our desire to serve others through those beliefs. We need to think about some of the recent decisions we've made, and gauge ourselves. Where are we on a scale of 1 to 10? Am I making decisions out of popularity (a 1) or out of integrity (a 10)? Maybe there's different areas of our lives where we're in different places. Maybe with our group of friends we're sliding more toward popularity, but at work we're in integrity. Is it situational? Is it consistent? Is it at a place where I want it to be? Are there any situations gnawing in the back of my mind that just don't “feel right”? It's not too late. Ultimately, acting in integrity is going to draw you more into the life that you want. The universe knows what you stand for. If you're going for popularity, what you stand for is going to be all over the board, so your results in life are going to be all over the board. I go a lot more into this topic in my course, but also in my free 5-Day Mach 22 Challenge. The challenge also discusses this idea of really knowing your core beliefs and values that you want to express through your life. So, if this is a bit new for you, or if you're ready to recommit and reevaluate, then please go to my website home page and opt in to the challenge there. Take some time today to look at any areas where you're more concerned with popularity than integrity. Commit to bringing those areas to light, making shifts, and seeing the results.

If you're a logical thinker like me, then I bet you've had this same experience I'm going to share with you today! When I first realized that there was a whole world of personal development and that maybe it could help me create change in my life, the first thing I dove into was books – lots of them. I was living in Houston at the time, working at NASA, and I used to spend my weekend at the Barnes and Noble down the street from my house. I would wander up and down the Personal Development aisles, finding books and bringing them home. I was a studier – I had my highlighter, and I was doing all the exercises diligently. I don't know how many books in I was, but at some point I noticed that I was reading the books with an intention of trying to VALIDATE what I was already doing. What I realized within that is this – if I'm just looking for the ways I'm already doing it “right,” I'm not really going to find things I need to change to do better. I had to stop being afraid of seeing where I wanted to grow. I had to stop being afraid of wanting to be better. Having more in life and being a better human, friend, and family member was a great desire, but it also required that I become more honest. Instead of looking to validate myself, I needed to look at where I could live more into those desires. Was I nice? Yeah, probably. Could I have been nicer? Yes. Can I still be nicer today? Yes. I can still go to another level of kindness. I can go to another level of generosity. Allowing ourselves to be open and honest about where we want to evolve, that allows us to see the things we need to see for it to happen. So – Do you want to be validated or do you want to have change occur? Ask yourself – really! Letting go of being validated means you're going to open yourself up to feeling those negative things that we think are bad, like doubt, or fear, or shame. But what I want to bring to your attention is that seeing where we can change doesn't mean we need to judge ourselves as bad. As I said, maybe I'm a kind person, but I could be kinder. And if I want more of what kindness is going to bring me, I need to be willing to see those places. Being honest doesn't mean judging; that can be a big roadblock for people. So, ask yourself that seriously today! Do I want validation or do I want evolution? If you are someone who chooses evolution, let's stay connected.

I'm covering three phrases you need to eliminate from your vocabulary if you want to see change. Using these phrases is a habit that short circuits a lot of us because they indicate that we really don't believe we have the power to effect change. There's no way we'll create the changes we desire if we think on some level that we're unable to do it. The first phrase to eliminate is: “I had no choice.” It may be an undesirable choice, but we do have a choice. It's important to acknowledge the fact that the choice exists – in order to feel like we have any power in our lives. One context I have heard this in is with the statement, “I had no choice, I had to go to work.” You didn't have to, but the other choice was so undesirable that you unconsciously eliminated it. What if you decided not to go to work? Well, maybe the results would range from mild annoyance to getting fired. Maybe these are very undesirable choices that you don't want, but you do have a choice. To say “I had no choice” is not only reflective of feeling powerless, but it's also not true! One of the things that helps people get farther is that they are willing to look at truth – truth not for the purpose of judging yourself, but for acknowledging what is really going on so that you can engage with the real situation rather than your imagined one. Look at places this phrase shows up for you. Where do you feel like you're backed into a corner and you absolutely have no other choice? Maybe it's so undesirable you wouldn't think of making that choice, but it's still a choice. Better to say, “I do have a choice, and I am choosing to go to work.” The second phrase to eliminate is: “I have to (fill in the blank).” It's very similar to phrase one, but different enough to point out separately. For me, this brings up the day-to-day things. “I have to take the trash out.” These are also areas we can acknowledge that we have choice and we have power. We choose the way we spend our time. Our choices reflect what we prioritize. We may be in a place that those choices we're making today are not the ones we want to have to make in the future, but yet we're there today. When we acknowledge where we are today and what's necessary for our priorities to be today, then we open the way for us to shift those. If we constantly feel “I have to,” then how are we going to feel that we can change our lives? By reframing how you spend your time and reinforcing that it's a choice, you're paving the way to be able to make the choices you'd rather make. Where do you say on a daily basis things like, “I have to do the dishes” No, you don't have to! You can let them pile up. It's simply not true. Again, one of the reasons I'm bringing up these phrases in particular is that they're not true. By making a conscious effort to see the truth, it allows us to move forward. The third phrase to eliminate is: “I am (fill in the blank).” If what you filled in the blank with is anything you don't want to see continue, that's a phrase to eliminate. You're trying to reach a goal, but you say things to yourself like “I am lazy,” or “I am not smart enough.” Let's take the example “I'm lazy.” Again, these phrases aren't true (see a theme?!?). Just begin by saying it in a way that's more truthful. You might say “I didn't get up this morning to do that workout toward my health goals,” for example. That could be true. “I didn't get up at the time I set my alarm for this morning.” That could be true, but it doesn't mean anything about yourself as a lazy or not lazy person. When we make blanket “I am” statements, we're taking away the power from ourselves. This message today is about realizing the power that you DO have. Without acknowledging your power, it's going to be very difficult to have it happen. By bringing to your awareness these phrases instead of letting them replay in your head, you're giving yourself that power. You're paving the way toward more of what you want and less of this repetitive cycle.

Today, my message for you is this: wisdom is a verb. I'm wondering – Is there anything you want to have or achieve that hasn't happened yet…but you feel like you know how to do it and it should've happened already?!? If that's the case, it's likely that some of the things you've learned haven't really become wisdom just yet. Wisdom is a sign that we've incorporated what we've learned. So, until something's happened, we can assume that we haven't really, truly learned it. True learning leads to wisdom. We can take in information, but learning is being able to actually execute on that information. At times, we may be prevented from gaining wisdom, because that needed action is connected to a fear we all have. We may fear looking at the places where we don't know the answer and, especially logical thinkers, where we feel little bit dumb. We have to be willing to feel dumb to become wise. When I think back to my own situations and occasions of learning new things, this certainly plays out for me. I can understand the idea of something I'm trying to learn by taking in information. Maybe I've heard someone speak about it, or I'm watching webinars or reading books to figure out how to do something. And I think, “alright, that makes sense!” But then the moment comes where I have to put that information to use – and I realize in trying to implement it that I don't actually know, I have lots of questions that I didn't know I had until trying to use the information. I've only heard someone describe how to do it, but I haven't actually done it. So, I've learned how someone does it but I haven't learned how to do it myself. This is an important distinction! Hopefully, we are always living with future goals in mind. Those goals that haven't come to fruition yet for you – they require you to go to another level of wisdom. I've met a lot of people who've gotten trapped in this idea that they have to take in all this information, but they aren't learning. And they aren't learning because they aren't actually trying to do anything with the information. So, what is your next level? What is that thing you're working toward? And how can you start to become that now; how can you put that to use? How do you think you're going to be when you're more wealthy, for example? Do you think you're going to be more generous? Do you think you're going to be more confident? Do you think you're going to be more enthusiastic? Whatever it is, be those things now. Work on being those things now – because it's the blocks to actually becoming those things that are the blocks to you becoming wise in those areas. This wisdom is what opens up the next level. I've seen a lot of people want the next level of their career. They think, “OK when I'm in that level of management, I'll lead in this way.” You need to lead in that way today. Because it's in gaining that wisdom that allows you to gain that role or that outward accomplishment. Let the information about your desires for the future become wisdom today. You must be willing to look dumb, or to feel dumb, to become wise. So, I hope this won't just mean something to you today intellectually, but I hope it helps you put something INTO ACTION today. I bet there's a lot of information you've gained that's ready for you to try. Run with it!

Today I want to talk to you about two topics – control and freedom. They are two ideas, but part of one continuum. Control is one side – when we really want to be the one who makes things happen in a certain way or on a certain timetable. Freedom is on the other side – when we let go and allow. I think a lot of us logical thinkers tend toward the control side! My mission is to help logical thinkers achieve goals more efficiently – to help manifest those things in life that we think will give us the greatest experience and enjoyment. In order to move to those higher levels of achievement, we need to look at things like this. Where we tend toward control, we might need to adjust toward freedom, or maybe the other way around. First, control. I want to challenge you to think about something, or several things, that you can back off from your current level of control. Maybe it's some decisions that your kids are making, maybe it's coworkers or employees. What are things that really aren't yours to decide and possibly don't even affect you? These are great places to start with. When I first met my wife and we moved in together, we started to see the many things we do differently. It was such an interesting experience! We do have the same world view, but we approach tasks totally opposite from each other. So those conversations we had about loading the dishwasher or whatever it might be, really helped me broaden my perspective. I realized there's no reason why other ways can't work, and perhaps, maybe, I didn't need to be the one deciding everything! We need to do this more often in our lives. Controlling is never going to give us the best outcome, and it's never going to give us the best relationships. So where are some places where you can back off your level of control; where is it really not necessary? Now, freedom. I said that us logical thinkers tend more toward control and I think that's true. But one of the places that most of us fall into the trap of allowing too much “freedom,” is in our priorities for the day. If you're starting a day and you don't know your priorities, then you're using freedom in the wrong way. (I did a previous post about “going with the flow” that you should definitely reference and look at these ideas together in context.) In our daily priorities, that's where we need to have a level of control – called focus! We need to know: What are the key handful of actions I need to take to move my goals and projects along their path today? What kind of mindset do I have to have to reach those goals? I find that people are too focused on a to-do list and not giving attention to the mindset and the overall project momentum that needs to happen. Mindset can be a conscious part of any activities during the day. And the things you need to do to move something forward need to be just a few things out of the day, not an entire day's schedule. The day does need some space. This is just that right amount of focus in “controlling” what's going to happen that day. Lack of this will keep you spinning and prevent you from advancing toward your goals. That sums up what I suggest you look at today. Where can I pull back control from the things that aren't really needed to help achieve my goals or that aren't my decisions? Have I allowed too much freedom rather than consciously directing my plan and mindset for the day? I suggest that you take a little time to reflect on that now if you have the opportunity. Spend 10-15 minutes brainstorming or journaling on these ideas – you might learn something that will help you in reaching those big goals that you have!

Today I am giving you three reasons to “go with the flow.” Those of us who consider ourselves logical thinkers can sometimes get a little too obsessed with the linear thinking of our to do list. However, going with the flow can actually help you reach your goals faster, and today I'll explain how. It's finding that sweet spot of the list and the flow that allows you to access the most efficient path to reaching goals. The first reason to go with the flow is: energy efficiency. Think of a river. You use less energy if you're letting your boat use the current to your advantage. Rowing against the current takes the most from you and your energy. This idea of energy efficiency is being open to how the things you want to have happen can happen in the most efficient way – understanding that your idea of the order of events may not be the best. It's not the list that helps us the most, but the vision that helps us the most. (This is supported by quantum physics and is a bigger conversation – opt into my website if you want to learn more about that specifically.) If you are seeing what you want to have happen as a vision in your consciousness and imagination, then the flow of reality that's happening around you will actually work to stay aligned with that. Because it's outside your linear plan, it can guide you there in the best way possible. This leads right into the second reason to go with the flow: access to greater intelligence. Our life organizes itself through our intention, the images, and the vision that we hold repeatedly as a habit in our minds. Because of the available scientific support of that, you can trust that your life experiences will reflect your mind – without micromanaging it! Even though we're individuals, there's an element of our own existence that's part of the universal field of energy and has access to it. There's a place we all exist within scientifically that's connected to the whole. How a flower grows provides an example. It's connection to the greater field of intelligence allows it to know how much water to take up to grow, how to direct itself toward the sun, what to draw in from the soil. There's information that's available to us, too, that exists in this universal field. By going with the flow, I'm talking about a way that we make ourselves available to receive that information. It's like putting out an extra antenna. There's so much that's already happening to you in your life that's due to that universal field of intelligence – how your hair grows and how your body digests food. Why wouldn't you want to be able to access that intelligence for your bigger goals? The way we do that is by getting out of our own way – we do make plans but we simultaneously stay open to the twists of life. Now, the third reason to go with the flow is simply: evolution. As we adjust and adapt our linear plan, we are learning. We are coming up against other situations that we might normally try to avoid. But, when we address those things that are happening in the moment directly, that actually allows us to see what we need to learn to move forward. If we don't discount those things but instead trust that they need our attention, we actually have the opportunity to change and evolve. Without change we will never get to our goal. By definition, any goal that we have is going to require some change (otherwise we'd already have it). The best way to know what that change is, is to observe your life and let the flow of it bring these things to light. When we “go with the flow,” we are being present to what's happening in life and how we're being called to change and evolve. So, this is my message for you today! It's something I have to remember on a daily basis. I do tend to try to plan and control…but what I've found is that my life feels better and works better if I balance that with going with the flow. The more I continue to learn about science, the more this is reinforced for me. I hope this helps you too!

Today, I want to remind you of this science-based rule of happy living: only do what you want to get more of. What we find in scientific studies is that life is organized around vibration, and for us vibration refers to the intention that we hold. By holding onto a state of intention (a state of being) – whether it's peace, joy, or anger – we create around us similar patterns and we draw to us similar patterns. I want to remind you of this today because it's key in getting to the goals that you want to achieve. I've noticed recently in all the ways people engage with each other – this reminder is needed! Specifically, one of the ways I propose that you start considering this in your choices is this – let's avoid insulting each other! I've noticed an interesting thing in myself too as I scroll through Facebook occasionally (which I make sure only to do occasionally because it doesn't help me maintain my preferred state of being). I've noticed that when I see things that I'm happy or excited about as I scroll, I just keep on scrolling. But as soon as I see something that I think is wrong or illogical or that I don't agree with – then I want to comment! Now, I don't do that because I notice that tendency first and I remember this scientific law of intention. Instead, I go and find something I like, and I support it. This is really, really important to look at if reaching your goals and living in a better world is important to you. We must stop responding with insults. If you see things you appreciate being insulted by someone, the response of insulting the thing that they like is going to keep us in this hole – even if their statement is completely incorrect. I cannot stress this enough! Responding with insults is going to keep you in a hole in your life, and it's going to keep our world in a hole. Instead, we need to remember that what we put out there is what we are going to continue to experience. Think about how we teach children. If I want my child to learn to learn to engage in conflict peacefully, then yelling at them to tell them not to yell at me is ridiculously incorrect, and it is not going to get me to this place I envision. Instead – even though it's hard and I don't always succeed at it – when I approach this situation with a calm demeanor, and with an intention that I want this exchange to bring us closer, then that's what I need to be doing to create the result I want. And it does, when I'm able to do it! Now, I agree it's difficult, but it's simply the only effective solution. When these situations are on social media, these are great opportunities to practice because you're not in the midst of it, you can take some time to work through it. Stop yourself from reacting. Ask: What world do I want to create? If you see a world where people can talk to each other calmly and express ideas, then engage that way. Two wrongs don't make a right, and two insults don't make a more peaceful world. We must focus on how we're interacting with others to make this world into the vision that we see. It's really easy to find what other people are doing wrong. But really challenge yourself to look in the mirror. If you feel like there's nothing, then I believe you haven't looked close enough. We all have things we need to keep evolving in order to reach the end result that we want. For me, this is the fun of life – being able to understand and evolve! My favorite moments are when I see something in a new way and then move beyond it to a new stage of my own growth. So please take this to heart today if you, like me, see a world where people can coexist peacefully with differences. Please also share this with people who might want to be part of this conversation with you, who might help you work through this, who might be a sounding board for you as you delve into these ideas. We do need the help of a community! And, use science as your logical support to help you stay focused in that direction!

Today I want to talk about this metaphor of the “little drips.” These little drips add up, and they deserve our attention – especially in light of our world today. I had a conversation recently with a friend that motivated me to make this a topic for today. We talked about how, as we see some of the major issues in the world, we feel this immediate desire to try to help – to drop everything and to make change happen. While actions will be part of the solution for sure, I think this type of situation also demands self-reflection. For some people, it's their calling to drop everything and go. But for others of us, that feeling to drop everything is largely a desire to try to fix the discomfort that we're feeling about seeing the problem. It's like you moved into a new house and you pulled back one of the panels on the wall to find a giant mold issue. We feel this inner response as a need to fix it. What I want to call your attention to is that this mold problem started as a drip. Even those of us who are not directly in those moldy situations today, we have the drips that are contributing. By being responsible for looking at ourselves is sometimes how we do our part in the most effective way. Specifically, with the exposed racism in our country today, we need to look at the drips in our own lives. I'm talking about that basic drip of: “Where do I treat another person differently because of a way they're different than I am?” I really believe that this happens very regularly in our lives, that we're doing this and it's under our radar. These prejudices need to become above the radar, and they need to be addressed. We must noticing our responses to someone who has a different style than we do, who has a different way of life than we do, and someone who is a different race than we are. In some ways we adopt this closed view as a sort of survival skill: “I need to make sure that I conform to those around be so that I'm accepted and taken care of to survive in the world.” We need to find any places where we believe that and we need to shift them. While it may be a result of survival fears, it is not contributing to thriving in our lives individually or collectively. We thrive by actually bringing differences into our lives – it's those differences that cause our minds to expand and the world to grow in community. We can accomplish so much more together than we ever could trying to stay in our own little spheres where everyone is as much like us as they can be. It's a waste of time to judge somebody's outfit, judge somebody's accent – to judge people, period. We often do this subconsciously, and it's time to really take a look. How do you respond to someone, what are those inner feelings that arise, and what are they based on? One of my favorite things about working on the International Space Station Program was getting to work with other cultures, and other countries' space programs. They always did things a little bit differently, but that spirit of cooperation lead to actually listening to that different point of view and the reasoning behind it. It allowed me to appreciate those differences so much more than I did going into that role. So my request of you today is to be responsible for finding the places where those little drips are in yourself, in your own consciousness, and in your own interactions with others. In what ways are you treating someone else's difference as a reason to discount them, or avoid them? I guarantee you that you'll find something. Look for them in how you view your coworkers, your family members, the people who provide you services – they're there. Those are the places where those drips are adding up and that we can do our part. We control our own consciousness, so we need to find out what's there and change it if it's not in alignment with the world we want to live in.

How well do you know yourself? We've all had quite a bit of time away from our regular lives – more sequestered from others, maybe less dramatic on the outside than it was. Perhaps less busy, perhaps not, but certainly different. For me, in some ways life is a little bit more calm. This question, then, is a really good one to be asking yourself right now. It's a great time to be asking this because we might have more capability to really spend time with it. How you answer this question will tell you everything you need to know about why – or why not – you're achieving certain goals in your life. The more we know what goes on in our own minds, the better we're going to be able to create the future that we want. Science supports this idea – quantum physics in particular. What's going on inside our minds is literally the vision for our futures. So, if we are stuck in moving toward those places that we want to go, the answer is always going to come from self-reflection. So what is it that you need to know? I'm talking about questions like this: What are your feelings on a day to day basis? What are your beliefs? What do you value? What do you stand for? What type of intention are you carrying with you? These are the contributions from the universal field theory and quantum physics aspects of your consciousness – these are doing 80 percent of the creating in your life! The outer actions we take are necessary, but if the other parts are not in alignment too you will be forever held back from the goal. There's no path to the future that doesn't come through getting to know yourself. So, I encourage you to increase your level of self-reflection. Whatever level of reflection you are at – challenge yourself to go a little bit deeper. One great way is through a journaling practice. In a journaling practice, you're able to better hear yourself. We believe we know what we're thinking, and we do to a degree, but when you see it reflected back at yourself, you realize its significance. You can see what your mind is consumed with. What are the topics it's filled with? What are the ideas it's filled with? The beliefs it's filled with? The emotions and feelings? Once you see that, it'll probably be very clear why life is the way that it is. You can even journal your way toward your future by writing down the things you do want to bring into your mind more, the beliefs you do want to shift or challenge. There's a lot of things that I've discovered in my mind through reflection that aren't actually true, and definitely aren't helping me get where I want to go. When I've gotten those things out in front of myself – whether it was in meditation, in journaling, in talking with a teacher or a coach – those were the difference-making moments. Getting to know what's in your mind is a necessary step. You can't drive from one place to another without knowing where you're starting. You can't possibly get directions to San Francisco if you don't know where you're starting from, because in one case you need to go West and in another case you need to go South. It's very important to know where you started from because that is what informs what the next step is. So please, get to know yourself better. Getting to know yourself can feel scary at times, but it's going through that fear that's going to lead you to where you want to go. What's in there is already there, so actually seeing it isn't going to make anything worse. Whatever's there can be dealt with. There's a lot of stuff in our consciousness that we didn't choose to put there. Letting go of any tendency to judge yourself is going to be key in the process of getting to know yourself. We don't want to open ourselves to people who are judging us, and the same thing goes for ourselves. So, allow yourself that self-acceptance. My goal is to help you reach your goals. One of the very important ways to do that is increasing your level of self-awareness. You can start right now!

Welcome! Today, my question for you to ponder is: Are you still dreaming? My goal is to always help you move toward the life you envision and the goals you set using the principles of science. You have this mind that can organize information well and that can understand the workings of science – I take those same ideas and bring them into the realm of your regular day-to-day life. Science is working all the time; it doesn't just apply to things we look at in microscopes or telescopes – science is actually helping create YOUR life as well. The concept I want to talk about today is dreaming, or imagination. Einstein has a quote that I had a lot of trouble understanding initially. But, over the last couple decades as I've been developing the Logical Evolution Framework, I've understood it clearly. His quote is: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” In this case, I want you to ask yourself: Are you imagining your future? Are you in a creative space around what your future can be? Or, are you basing your future simply on what's happening now or what's happened in the past? We're all in a state somehow or another of pause. But your dreaming does not have to be on pause. In fact, the more your put it on pause, the longer it will stay that way. This is because the realm of quantum physics teaches us that our outcomes are drawn toward the vision that we hold. So, if you're giving your mind only what's happening now, it has no way to give you more. It's literally science, and what scientists observe when they study quantum physics – how we look at things makes the outcome change. Quantum physics is saying that your future life is being determined by how you see things, and especially how you see things becoming in the future. Whether or not you know when things are going to be different on the outside, the mind doesn't need to worry about timeline when it's imagining, dreaming, and creating – the mind simply needs to be in that state of dreaming. Creating the images is a separate idea from a timeline. The true nature of the universe is really not about time, and when we try to bring time into it we usually end up stalling our progress in some way. What I encourage you to do is to first think about this question: Have I stopped dreaming in some way? Have you noticed yourself thinking of some great big idea, some exciting things about the future, but then I find yourself pulling back from that because of something you don't know? It's in those moments that you want to start catching yourself and letting yourself dream. I'm someone who's had to work at this, I do find myself sometimes holding back from dreaming if I'm not really able to be sure I can do something. But anything big, anything that's a giant shift from where we are now, we're not going to be “sure.” My ability to dream and imagine, while also not “knowing for sure,” has been something I've practiced over time. Now is a great time to practice this! Can you get excited about your future? Can you see dreams happening in your life, just feel them happening? Let yourself be immersed in that. The more you're able to do that, the more quantum physics can work for you. There are three levels, which I go into detail in my course about, but quantum physics is right there in the middle. You need to have all three levels aligned with your goal in order to see it happen in the most efficient way. So, having the realm of quantum physics engaged in the future you want is essential. So I ask you to think about this, and if you'd like to share any thoughts with me, please do. I love to engage with other logical-minded people who are looking to evolve – that is my main mission in life and what brings me the most joy. Happy dreaming!

The topic today is SPACE, which I love for many reasons. The first reason I love it led me to my career path as an aerospace engineer – I've worked for the International Space Station program and the Space Shuttle Program, and now I work for the Dream Chaser Program. Obviously, the exploration of outer space is key to my life and is a passion of mine. However, today I'm talking about a different kind of space – not an outer space but an inner space. In particular, it's space for our minds. I want to encourage you to look at how much time in your day you're allowing yourself to have space – real space. I'm not talking about setting the to do list aside for 5 minutes, I'm talking about giving yourself time when there's an emptiness of activity, when there's a pause, when you actually can focus on just being where you are. This is something I had to learn the value of – I'm more of a check the box, move forward, get going kind of person. But eventually I realized that this approach wasn't actually taking me to the best places in life and the places I wanted to go. If you have anything new you want to create in your life – whether it's a new relationship, a new level of wealth, a new level of health – it will require space, because space is the necessary ingredient for creativity. The opposite of space is only taking things in, filling up our day with action, moving outward with our attention instead of inward. Much of our time during the day is spent “doing things” – whether it's tasks for our job, taking care of our family, or taking care of ourselves, there's a lot of this “doing” that does have to happen. However, at some point during the day, every day, you must find a pause – if you want to be able to create more. My goal is to help you create the future that you're hoping for. So, for that reason alone, space is something to consider adding more of to your life. When we're busy ingesting information nonstop, we don't give our minds a chance to be creative. With “receive only” mode, we're reacting to something from the outside versus generating something new from within. When we give ourselves that period to pause, it finally gives our minds the chance to express something. At first, it's going to be interesting to see what's there if it's not something you do regularly! At first, there's often some trash to take out. But once they are given the chance to go beyond that, our minds start to generate ideas and insights. If I've been busy, and then go for a yoga class or a jog, I make a significant shift after just 5-10 minutes. Giving my mind that pause generates insights that I have been waiting for and answers to questions that I've been asking for a while. Whatever that “pause” looks like for you – make time for it in your day. Often, I'll notice that when I have a few minutes to relax, I'll flop down on the couch and start the social media scroll. I've stopped keeping my phone on me 24/7 simply to call my attention to this and avoid it. I encourage you to do the same. Simply putting your phone elsewhere will create pause moments for you. Even if you have an intention to scroll less, it can be something we start to do without even being aware we do it if we can grab our phone mindlessly from our pockets. To create something new in our lives, we need to give our minds that time to expand, and the only way it can expand outward is if it has the space to do so. It's a great start to use those activities we get absorbed in. Ultimately, I recommend meditation to all those I work with on creating conscious life change. That can mean literally just sitting somewhere, closing your eyes, locking the door, setting a timer for 2 or 5 minutes, and just being with yourself. The harder it is the more you need it. The more space you have in your mind means more possibilities for creating. If you want something new or different in your life, you're going to need creative space. Even a few minutes makes a world of difference!

I want to tell you about how to gain instant insight into how quantum physics works, and instant strength toward something you are working on achieving. If you're like me, you set a lot of goals, and some are harder to stay on the path towards than others! One recurring goal I set is cleaning up my eating. It seems like I'm always resetting that goal because it's hard for me. Since that's one of my challenging areas, I definitely get into periods where my strength for maintaining progress on that is waning. I invite you to consider what area or goal in your life feels that way right now. Where do you feel strength, desire, or motivation for your goal waning? At those times, we need a jolt of strength, and it can happen in an instant. Instant strength comes from committing to our goal. I know that you've probably heard that before, but I want to share it with you in a new way – in the context of quantum physics. What you experience in that moment of commitment gives you a glimpse of what quantum physics does in your life, the role that it plays in creating your world and your particular individual life. One of the best experiences I have to explain it comes from when I would be in a yoga class. When I'm a student in the class and I'm holding a challenging pose, I can feel the waning of my strength. But in that moment when I'm holding a pose and that pose is difficult, how committed I am to holding it in my mind drastically affects my experience and my results. If I'm holding the pose and I'm connected to my goal – I remember that I want to become stronger and healthier; I'm thinking about how this particular moment is helping me achieve that – it helps me be in that moment of difficulty. If I'm holding the pose and not connected to the goal, my experience is much different. In this case I'm thinking things like: it's ok if I stop early; I'm not really sure I can hold it. Any thoughts along those lines would always lead me to feel very weak in the pose and usually resulted in me coming out early. But if you're working toward a goal, it's necessary to sustain the activities that you need to achieve it. So in those times when you are feeling strength waning, you need to have something to help boost it. Recommitment will give you instant strength. Life in general wants to move along the path of least resistance: there's gravity pulling us down; there's water that flows downhill; there's air moving from high to low pressure. If we want to do anything that moves against that flow, it's going to be challenging, and we'll have times that we feel our strength waning. I'm reading Glennon Doyle's book Untamed, and in it she talks about “the right kind of hard.” As we face these periods, there's something about knowing that what we're doing is the right kind of hard; that it's hard for a purpose. It's always an alternative to stop, but in those moments if instead you stop and reflect on what you want and recommit, it will help you. This is an important glimpse into quantum physics. Quantum physics responds to our observations; it is trying to create the images that we hold. In my yoga pose example, I can feel the difference. When I imagine myself staying in the pose, I actually feel it starting to happen because I see myself staying with it. When I'm seeing myself stopping, my whole world is going to start to evolve toward that. You can feel that you start instantly moving toward that outcome that you have in your mind. That's quantum physics! What you're holding as your future, you are instantly starting to move toward. It's those moments of recommitting that will pull you along, and you'll use the whole science of creation that exists in the world – quantum physics being a huge piece of the puzzle. What do you need to recommit to? I know there are things you want that it's hard to keep moving toward. But I'm here to remind you – recommit, pull in the strength, see your desired future, and let quantum physics pull you toward it.

Being a logical thinker, I'm guessing you're going to like the way I'm going to present this information to you today. Your success is important to me – I'm always looking for you to get greater results, specifically by using the logic that comes naturally to you. One of the ways I do that is to use equations and to think about things in terms of the variables involved that lead to a result. When it comes to getting results you want, your important variables are CLARITY and FOCUS. RESULTS = CLARITY + FOCUS Clarity means that you know what the goal is, you understand the steps, you understand why you want to reach that goal, and you have a clear vision of what it is you want to achieve. Clarity is seeing what you desire in detail, and being able to explain it in detail. The second piece, focus, is actually using your resources toward that. Focus is like the operation of a magnifying glass to the sun rays, it brings energy together in a way that amplifies its effectiveness. The important variables in getting results, according to this equation, are clarity and focus. So, if you're having trouble arriving at some of the results of the goals you have in mind, think about these two things specifically. There's a lot of other things we can talk about, things I go into a lot more detail on in my longer courses, but just looking at these two will give you a huge boost toward your goals if you stop and really check these out. Ask yourself about clarity – Do I really know what I want? This answer must be specific, not a generality like “I want to be healthier,” “I'd like to have more money,” or “I'd like to have a better relationship.” Define the result specifically and clearly. From there, it's about determining the actions you need to take and following through. We all know quite a few actions we need to take, but it's a matter of really stopping and taking the time to list and plan those out. You don't have to figure out all the steps, or even more than one step, but you DO need to take a step. Ask yourself about focus – Am I using my resources (time, money, energy) in alignment with my desired result? For example, if a goal you have involves purchasing something expensive, you examine your budget spreadsheet. You look at whether spending priorities match your life goals. Maybe you'll see a way you can divert money from less important areas to this priority to create what you need. Many people also describe a challenge with the resource of time. However, if you examine your day's time expenditures in relationship to your priorities, you could find it. If you've determined that you need 20 minutes each day to exercise, or study a skill you need to gain, then look at your day. At the very least getting up 20 minutes earlier would give you 20 extra minutes, or going to bed 20 minutes later. Or maybe there's a way that you can watch 20 minutes less of tv or take a book to read while waiting for an appointment. If you're looking for a solution rather than an excuse, there's very likely 20 minutes that you can find. So, there's hope! If there's something you're stuck on, let's look at the equation. Is the clarity in place and is the focus in place? Do I know what I want and am I taking steps? Both of those things can be a challenge at different times in our lives. We manage to be very “busy” throughout the day, but did we focus our efforts on the things we want to be effective at? I encourage you to look at these questions today.

Today I want to introduce you to an important gauge that you have available to you. This gauge needs to be one of your main references when you are moving through your day – in particular when you are making decisions. This gauge measures “expansion” versus “contraction.” These two states can be likened to that of our nervous system – we know about the fight or flight response versus the relaxation response. This is one aspect of this gauge that you may be already familiar with. Think about the state of fight or flight – it's a stressful state. In this state, we have emotions like anxiety, fear, anger, and frustration – all these things that tighten our bodies up. This is contraction, and it's a physical, emotional, and mental state. Not only does your body get tense, but your emotions become those tense types of emotions (fear, anger), and your mind gets tense as well. You feel there are only two options available to you – you can fight or you can flee. This is all indicative of being in a state of contraction. On the other side of the gauge, though, is the state of expansion. For the nervous system, this is the relaxation response. Think of the last time you were in a relaxation response. For me, I think about my rooftop deck, and sitting in the breeze that's been so nice and cool lately, seeing the mountains off my deck, and reading a book or having a nice mug of chai. This relaxation response feels calm and open. My body feels relaxed and open physically, my emotions are relaxed – I feel calm, joy, and peace. My mind is also relaxed – this is when ideas come! Instead of feeling limited to fighting or fleeing, I am creative. This is a creative space. Movement on this gauge is happening throughout your day. If you've not noticed it before, one place you can really start to see it is when you're scrolling news or social media on your phone. I find it very useful for me to use my gauge any time I'm scrolling! I'll read a post or a headline, which is usually just marginally accurate to a story, and I'll feel it. I'll feel my state of expansion flip right over to contraction. What I want to bring your attention to in particular is the mental shift. I think we all have heard a lot about the physical shifts, and we're getting more familiar with the emotional shifts. But mentally, we must realize that in a state of contraction we cut ourselves off from all creativity – and creativity is a necessary part of logical and open-minded thinking. If you've had an anger or fear response to something, you are no longer expanded. A key benefit of knowing your state is to make sure you avoid making big decisions when you are in a contracted state. A contracted state is not a place that will lead to decisions for your long-term good. You highest good comes from a place of expansion – this is when you really can know what's true because you have all options available to be looked at with a calm mind. If you've switched over to contraction, then you're cut off from seeing the truth. You're in survival mode, and survival mode is different from thriving mode. As you go through your day, start to reflect on this. In the beginning, it's not going to come naturally, so you may want to set a timer to remind yourself to check in every hour. Close your eyes or just take your attention inward. Physically, are you feeling a tight or relaxed body? Emotionally, are you feeling fear and anger or peace and calm? Mentally, are you feeling closed in and limited or are you feeling open minded and creative? The first thing to do if you find yourself in a state of contraction is to make a shift. It could be as easy as physically relaxing, taking a deep breath, and checking in mentally to a place of gratitude and calm. The more you can keep yourself in a state of expansion, the more you'll be capable of manifesting the life you want, and truly thriving. Make a commitment to developing a state of ongoing expansion in order to see your life evolve.

Welcome! If you are a human, you have a relationship with the word “perfect” and with an idea of perfection. Today, I encourage you to redefine it for yourself. I'm giving you three keys to follow so that PREFECT doesn't prevent your PROGRESS. Key #1: First, look at what you think “perfect” means, specifically. “Perfect” is also tied up in the word “failure,” so reflect on what both concepts mean to you, and what your specific definition of each word is. I have definitely been through quite a journey with my relationship to those words. I spent 12 years working in Mission Control in Houston where that's literally the motto – failure is not an option! So perfection and failure have been a thread for me, and my guess is that if you're a logical thinker, it has been for you too. My relationship with failure and perfection has really come a long way. Investigating what they mean to you reveals the elusive nature of the words. Without definition, the pursuit of “perfect” is a constant feeling that you are falling short. Key #2: Second, you must know the “needle movers” in your life. A needle-moving activity is one that is more significant in taking your life and most important goals forward. For example, taking out the trash might be on your list for the day, and so might spending 30 minutes of devoted attention to your children or partner. Those two things might be on your list, but one of them is more of a needle mover in your life and carries more weight. I can still remember the first time I was able to cross something off my to do list that wasn't done – I was able to remove something from my to do list! It sounds silly now, but it was a very big deal when it happened for the first time many years ago. In the past, if I wrote something on my to do list, my joy and self-judgement became immediately tied to getting those things done. If it was on my list and I didn't accomplish it, I used that as a stick on myself, feeling that I wasn't measuring up. Knowing what's important to do versus what's not important is a big key. All things on your to do list are not created equal and we should not treat them that way. So if you've identified your needle-moving activities you know at the end of the day that you've made progress. Key #3: Third, you must use intention. This is a very underused mode of making progress. I've spent some time looking into quantum physics, and I recommend that you do the same (I have other videos on that if you're interested). The physics bottom line is that intention has been shown to create impact. One of the ways I evaluate my satisfaction is based on how aligned I have been with my intention. At the end of the day, I want to feel like I treated people well and that I showed up for the most part (not 100 percent!) as the person I want to be. If I was able to identify at least one time during the day where I was off my intention (like becoming impatient with my son), and I changed that in the moment and realigned – that is something that I feel great about, because that's hard! It's hard to shift an emotional and intentional state because it takes awareness and it takes humility – things not commonly taught. What I know from studying quantum physics is that at the end of the day I can be 100 percent sure that the time I spent aligned with my intention moved me profoundly forward. So even if I didn't get some of the needle movers done that day, I know that I made progress. Perfect for me was this elusive attempt to be satisfied with my life and myself. But I hadn't defined it specifically, I hadn't understood relative importance in my daily activities, and I hadn't used intention to amplify it. Ultimately, it is up to you to live in a way that truly feels deeply satisfying in your heart. I hope the three keys I have shared with you today help you find it for yourself.

Hello! Today's message starts with a question. At any point over the last week, have you made yourself feel guilty or experienced guilt over anything? If the answer is yes, and especially if that's a recurring experience for you, then keep listening! Now, I wonder if you've been in either or both of these two scenarios before: Scenario 1 is that you've had a person in your life you felt really supported by – the kind of friend you could tell anything to and can be yourself completely with. Scenario 2 is that you've had a person in your life who offers the opposite experience – someone who's critical of you – when you're with them, you feel you're never quite measuring up to their standards. I'm guessing that you can relate to both. So then, the question becomes: Which person are you to YOURSELF? Are you that accepting friend, or are you that critical person? This is a key question! You have the ability to choose which way to relate to yourself – and I bet it comes as no surprise that being the accepting type of person to yourself is going to get you much farther than being the critical type. It helps you more now, and it helps you more in the future. Let's look at how. How does it help you more now? Consider a comparison of the experiences you've had with both of those types of people in your life. When you open up and share a challenge, which one resolves more for you? I've had experiences with both types of people too. When I've shared with a critical person, I feel worse, with more layers of guilt, which usually drives me to make additional choices that are less helpful to me. On the other hand, I've had many experiences sharing challenges with the accepting person in the first scenario. In those cases, not only do I feel accepted, but I find I'm able to actually work through the experience. I often hear myself sharing in a way that allows me to solve many of my own problems and answer a lot of my own questions. The accepting environment helps me move through it. How does it help me in the future? Simply stated – quantum physics. This reveals that the way that you are being now affects your future. Not only do you feel better in the moment when dealing with an accepting person, but it actually puts you into a positive space. If you're bogged down by guilt, you're going to continue creating experiences that draw more guilt – you'll see through that lens, and be driven toward decisions that aren't helpful. There's another key point related to this: When you're in a situation where you know you'll be accepted, you can open up. The same thing works with yourself. If I'm accepting myself, I'm able to see more clearly and truthfully. If I'm treating myself critically, I'm literally preventing myself from seeing the things that are helpful for my future. If I'm creating guilt for myself, I'm going to want to run from that situation; I'm going to want to mentally avoid it. As we saw before, when I'm accepted, I open up and can actually see bigger, move through the challenge, and get answers. Guilt does not equal growth. If we want to grow, we must be able to see clearly the things we need to change. We can only do that if we set the stage with an internal environment of acceptance. So, if you've been taught in the past that guilt leads to change, I invite you question that. Eliminate guilt from your own relationship with yourself.

Welcome! Today I want to ask you about how well you've been embracing the NOW. There are two specific things that I'm going to offer to you that could really help you thrive in this period of uncertainty. We can tend to lock into the way our habits and routines are. Then, when life makes a transition, we fail to make a transition in our habits. Instead, we “white knuckle it” through that transition. If we feel something will be short-term, we don't really let ourselves adapt, we kind of just wait around until things come back to normal. I've definitely done that myself at times, and had a tendency to be impatient for “getting back to normal.” We can experience a desire to just get to the other side of a transition or get through an uncertain period. But what I want to remind you of today, is that this approach won't help us thrive. Anytime we are just waiting for something, we're really keeping ourselves from fully thriving. So, I ask you to reflect and ask yourself – How have I been embracing the now? How have I adjusted my life to thrive as best as I can? Am I trying to do the same things in this stay-at-home situation as I was before? Or have I taken the time to step back for a moment and ask what does my ideal life structure look like within this environment? Right now, life is different. And the same things that worked before aren't going to work right now. I had a conversation with my wife about this. I'm working from home right now during the day and she's caring for our 3.5 year old son. We talked about how we don't need to pretend things haven't changed. We don't need to pretend that I'm at work and we're not together, because that's not what's happening. What IS happening is that we're all home! Yes, I'm getting my engineering work done during the day and they're playing, but we're still home together and we can have a different flow of the day. We can have lunch together; I can take a 15-minute play break so she can go get a break or a shower. I can adjust my day's structure to the situation in a way that can help me thrive. So if you haven't already, I encourage you to jot down notes or journal about this question: What does my ideal day look like under these circumstances we're in? There's no need to pretend things are the same way, when they're not. You might be able to adjust your life in a way that maybe you always wished you could! I love being able to have lunch with my family and then go back to working. I can do that right now. So, what are ways you can adjust your day to be fully embracing how you are, not pretending things are the way they were? That's my first suggestion to you – think that through. The second thing I want to suggest is that you consider ways to really make this time more novel, to bring more novelty into your day. Bring in something funny, something that breaks up the day and adds a newness to it – like having a Zoom call with family and friends. At my house, we've enjoyed taking slow motion videos of things and checking them out. It's super fun for all of us! It's just fun and it breaks up the day with newness. We're not really getting that as much as we used to! We're not out and about, we're not hearing other people's stories, so we need to find ways to bring that newness and fun into our lives. So those are my thoughts for you today. Embracing the now – adjusting your life to what's happening now so that you can be fully thriving, and not waiting for things to “get back to normal.” And how can you add novelty, some fun, to your day? I welcome any ideas you want to share – reach out to me or comment!

Today I want to bring up something I've seen repetitively as I've been in my house, like a lot of the rest of us, staying put during the pandemic. I've noticed two seemingly conflicting messages on social media. One of those messages is: be productive. This is the message of getting more done and maximizing this time that we have, since many of our lives are disrupted in a way that keeps us more at home. Some people are out actively engaging, but there's a good portion of us needing to just be at home. I fall into that second category too; I'm working from home and I'm staying in my house. Then there's another message: give yourself a break, relax, don't put so much pressure on yourself, you're doing your best and don't worry about trying to “be productive.” I ask you to consider that they're both good messages and they're both what we need to be doing to make ourselves feel the best that we can. We want to be productive in the sense that we want to feel good about how we spent our time; we want to feel the momentum of our life still moving forward even if we can't do the same things and engage in the world in the same way. But we also want to give ourselves a break, be accepting and kind to ourselves. To me, that's actually the best combination, because those two goals involve different parts of ourselves. They're different aspects of who we are, and they're actually different realms of science. Being productive in how we're choosing to spend our time physically is one part of the world. This is the realm of science that is Newton's Laws. The other part about how we're relating to ourselves is of the quantum realm or the universal field. This is how the world operates as well, just at a different level. So, when the message of “be productive” comes along, that's suggesting to us that we want to choose our physical actions to be things that move our lives forward. Why wouldn't we want to do that? We don't want to emerge from our houses in 1 month…or 6 months feeling like we backpedaled from where we wanted to be. That time is going to pass whether we use that time to move the momentum of our lives forward or if we don't. I think that message is a good one: let's make conscious choices about what our actions are. The other message is needed as well. How are we going to be internally on those more subtle realms of the universe? I think being kind to ourselves and giving ourselves a break is essential as well. Not only do I want to feel like I moved my life forward, but I want to feel relaxed within that. The person you're with the most, regardless of whether we are in this situation or not, is yourself. If you can interact with yourself and relate to yourself in a way that helps you to feel calm, which usually means with kindness and understanding, you're going to come out of this stronger, and you're going to feel better every day. So, for me it's not a choice of whether I should be productive or I should accept myself. It's an “and.” I want to be productive AND I want to accept myself. Neither of these need to be perfect. Being productive doesn't mean that all of a sudden you are getting 5 times done what you normally did, or that you are taking on another project. I personally don't have “more time,” because I'm a parent of a 3 year old and I am still working my job (just from home) as well. I don't have more time. I'm not trying to get more done than I did before, but I am trying to keep the momentum going of the projects I had already identified. I am focused on that and being kind to myself in the process. I ask you to consider that today. Are you seeing the two messages as conflicting or do you see how they work together as a way to be during this time that helps us to feel the most grounded and centered that we can be? Where can you do both productivity and self-acceptance, and bring those together in a way that helps you get through this as strongly as you can?

Welcome! Today we're all experiencing a similar state of unpredictability. We often face small periods of unpredictability, but it's been a long time since we've experienced such a collective unpredictability, and an unpredictability to such a degree. We're in the middle of dealing with this pandemic, and it's affecting everyone. It gives us an opportunity to really look at something together, to be able to use the same thing in our investigation. It's really easy to talk about something when we have it in common. Usually we need to draw parallels, and that works, but when we have the same situation to look at together, that can make our conversations even more powerful. So, today, I want to bring your attention to the unpredictable nature of not just this time, but of life. We often use unpredictability as an excuse to put things off, to delay, to avoid, and to keep us from setting the kind of habits we need to get to the places we really want to be in life. It's actually NOT essential that we GET to that specific goal we have in mind, but it IS important that we HAVE that specific goal in mind. What happens along the way is usually something better than we could have imagined, but it also gives us something to move toward. We often think we have clear goals for life, but if you find yourself easily putting things off because of something unpredictable, you'll have to ask yourself whether it's really a goal. There are some people right now in this particular event we're experiencing who have to go and take specific action because of their role in this world. For the rest of us who need to just stay where we are, we're in a different situation, and we're in a place where we can really look at our relationship to unpredictability. Think back to how you've been using your time over these past several days. Unless you've been very focused on your goal, I bet it's been all over the board, and probably a little bit of just doing things to pass time…like binge watching tv and things of that nature. Some things we may be saying to ourselves as a way to delay taking action on our goals (now or at other times) are, “when this is done” or “when I get to that place” or “when this settles out.” There's never going to be this “settled” place. Life is always in motion, and it's always to some degree or another unpredictable. Sometimes we're more aware of the unpredictability than other times, this being one of them! So I want to encourage you to look at your relationship to unpredictability, and to let that inform you whether you really need to sit down and get clear on your goals and your vision. If you do have this idea of your goal and your vision but there's not been any action, then that's where you need to look. There's always a way to make progress, even where we are today. There's always a way to get creative around how you can move toward that goal. Granted, in many cases it has to look different right now than what you thought, but that's the beauty of having a clear goal – you know where you need to move toward. You're just asking yourself, what can I do to move me closer to that place now? It's quite possibly a much different action than you thought you'd be taking right now, but there's still something you can do. We never know how long unpredictability is going to last; there's always going to be a different variation on it. So I'm here to remind you that RIGHT NOW is a time to take action. I'm here if you want to reach out to me! We need to connect globally, virtually, as much as possible, so I invite and welcome anything you want to share with me. You can reach me through my website, and please do share this video with others you think might benefit from it. I, too, am missing connection with the world, so let me know how I can be there for you, and how we can be there for each other!

Today I ask you to reflect on something: What was your emotional and psychological state when you last took action? I really want us all to reflect on this now, because we are all experiencing a similar stressful event. We are all experiencing this pandemic where we've been called on to make a lot of decisions lately, and we've had to take a lot of actions. Even though we could talk about this at any time because we all share the fact that we have stress in our lives, talking about this now gives us a stressful event that we have in common. If we look at this situation specifically, it gives us the opportunity to learn something. What I ask you to think about is this: What was your psychological and emotional state as you took actions in the face of what we have going on today? Maybe it was making that decision to telework, or going shopping, or checking on relatives – think back to how you felt emotionally and what led you to that point of taking action. This can be a discriminator between those who make progress toward their goals and those who don't – the difference is now centered you are when you are going through those actions. Many of us react to a situation emotionally as our motivation to get going. Instead, we can get better results if we address things instead from a place of clarity about our vision, from a centeredness and a groundedness within ourselves. For me, by the second or third article about the pandemic I realized that something I could do would have an impact on how this situation we find ourselves in would continue. I could see clearly in the data that if I made a decision to stay at home, to get prepared, to prepare my family, I am helping the future – I am going to help hospitals be able to keep up; I am going to avoid spreading things. I made that decision from a place of clarity that I want to be someone who helps in the world, who thinks about the globe in addition to myself. As our family was preparing to stay at home, to work from home, to keep our son at home, I was feeling very grounded and calm during that. There were others who took those same actions, but from a place of fear. Maybe their actions were motivated by seeing people freaking out, empty grocery shelves, emotional video pleas from other countries, or pictures of overcrowded hospitals. Think back to where you fell on that spectrum. Were you in a calm state of being clear on who you wanted to be in the world, or were you eventually forced to take action through emotions of fear and anxiety? Or perhaps you were choosing to live with blinders until there were mandates and government decisions. This particular situation we are all experiencing gives us a common perspective from which to look at this question. However, this was just as true two months ago, and this will be just as true a year from now as it is today. How you take action – whether it is emotionally driven or vision driven makes a difference. How you are approaching this situation is highly likely how you are addressing other situations too, including the day to day things that might typically go under the radar. So, take this as an opportunity to reflect and to think about how changing how you take action might impact the other goals you have in life. Think about who you want to be in the world, and act from a place of confidence in that clarity. You're strong when you're clear, you're weak when you're fearful. Your ability to string together those decisions of confidence and clarity will lead you toward your goals much more efficiently, effectively, and with more success. Today that is what I ask of you. Take time to think about this and let me know if there's anything you want to share with me about it. We're all trying to stay as virtually connected as we can right now so I welcome more than ever your thoughts, your emails, and your comments! Please share this with others you think might benefit from it.

Today I want to call your attention to something really important when it comes to effectively reaching your goals. This applies in particular when you are looking at yourself, but also holds true when you are looking at others. I want to remind you to BELIEVE WHAT YOU SEE. Our actions are what lead us step by step to our future. We can imagine a lot of things; we can think about a lot of things; but what ends up coming out through our actions is what is going to lead us toward where we end up – and hopefully this is where we want to go. Many times, though, we find ourselves moving in a direction we'd rather not. Why is that? We actually have a lot of inputs into our actions – our thoughts come from a variety of places. We have our conscious thoughts, but we also have our subconscious thoughts and our unconscious thoughts. There's a lot happening under our conscious radar, and many times we can truly feel that we believe something yet we are constantly acting in a different way. This is what happens when the conscious mind is not in the majority. Someone can tell you they value you, but if they are constantly criticizing you and creating problems for you, they don't actually value you. They might think they do, but what shows up through actions is going to reveal true beliefs more than the words. This is helpful when it comes to others, and I definitely encourage you to use that. But my concern is always how you can more effectively look at yourself to create more deliberate life change – because we fall for this ourselves as well. We think we value something (like healthy eating), yet we make other choices! We might consciously believe we really value eating healthy, but there are other factors that feed into our actions. So, what I want to encourage you to do is not to analyze and think about what you value. If you want to know what you value, look at how you spend all your resources. Where does your money go? Where does your time go? These are the things that reflect the summation of where your mind is. If you do this, and you discover areas that your actions are out of alignment with what you think you value – those are areas for more investigation. I do have a whole course that goes into that – Logical Evolution Mastery – showing you how to break that down, how to investigate it, and how to determine what it is trying to tell you. Only when we start to reveal those things can it really be within reach to make those changes. Our conscious mind can only go so far, but once we look at our actions to inform us of those deeper subconscious thoughts, that's when we are really empowered to make change. I want to encourage you today to believe what you see! Use this in your interactions with others to ensure you surround yourself with the people that are treating you the way you want to be treated. But also use this for yourself, so you can gain the insight that you need to move toward your goals confidently.

Today I want to talk to you about the idea of adaptability – and apply this idea when it comes to moving toward our goals. Humans are incredibly adaptable. From the simplest biological adaptations that happen when we move into different temperature environments or different altitudes, to the neurological adjustments that happen when we learn a new task – we are highly adaptable. The idea of evolution depends on adaptability – and this should be recognized more when it comes to moving toward our goals and undergoing our individual life evolution. Specifically for this application, adaptability shows up in how we handle the UNPREDICTABLE. Many people I know get hung up on the path to reaching their goals because they are set in their plan of progression of steps. What I want to remind you about today is that reaching your goals does not come from a focus on the how. It does come from a focus on where are you going, not how you are going to get there. When the things that we might not predict come along, we must instead see this as asking us to adapt in a way that's going to get us closer to our goals. I've found that when I finally reach a goal that's been difficult, the path to me getting there was actually quite different than I expected, predicted, or planned. But I ended up where I wanted to be because I responded to the situations as they arose. When something unpredictable comes along, we can tend to get stressed or controlling about it. This actually prevents us from going with it, adjusting, and allowing it to take us toward our goal in a way we hadn't planned but can benefit from. To help you use unpredictable situations to your advantage, I have three questions to give you. If you ask yourself these questions when something unpredictable arises, you will be able to allow it to help you in your progression toward your goals. Question #1: How do I feel about this? Being able to process your emotions is essential in your ability to move on from something. If you don't deal with how it makes you feel, then you will tend to get stuck there. If that happens, you're not going to actually be able to utilize the situation for growth and for progress. Question #2: What has really changed? Many times I find that people blow out of proportion what the unpredictable thing really causes them to change. If someone is following a plan to devote 30 minutes to a task and something unpredictable comes up, they may turn it into an all-or-nothing thing when they could choose a small adaptation instead. Perhaps they could just move that 30-minute activity to a different time, or they can even shorten it to 10 or 15 minutes to stay on track. This question is asking you to think about how you can maintain your intention and keep your end goal in mind while responding to this particular situation. Question #3: How can I live my intention and values within these circumstances? Even if things have to change in a bigger way because of the unpredictable situation, you want to remember the core of your goal. The core of physics theorizes that our world is organized around a vibration. When it comes to our individual lives, that vibration is created through intention. If you tap into that intention, if you stay true to your values and what that end goal signifies to you, then you are bound to move closer to it, regardless if your steps need to change. When you are tapped into intention, your mind can access more of the ideas that are aligned with where you want to go. I hope you will use these questions when you are encountering the unpredictable. Doing this will allow you to use the advantage of adaptability on the path to your goals!

Welcome today! I know I have a lot of logical thinkers out there, and I'm wondering if you have a similar role in your work that I do. My job title includes the phrase “Systems Engineer,” and I find that speaks to a very important function that we don't often take into our lives. My ultimate goal is to help you reach more of your life goals, so today I want to talk to you about the concept of integration. I think those of us who are in engineering roles or integration roles in our work really see the importance of it there. But how often do we think about it outside of a work context and more applicable in our own lives? Being a systems engineer and being in an integration role is honestly my favorite type of role – I like seeing something bigger happen when smaller relationships are forged and put together in a very deliberate way. When we really take care of the relationships between the individual parts of things, we can create something much bigger, and much more profound. Those of us who are very logically oriented tend to focus on the development of our minds over anything else. But what I want to remind you of today is that you are an integrated human being. All the parts of you need to be thriving in order for you to thrive overall. We are really reminded of that when we are experiencing some sort of illness or a cold and we realize how much depends on our health. Don't let that realization be just during those times! Realize that the more you take care of and cultivate your health, the more you have for those other areas of life. The same is true for our financial life, our relationships, and our mental/emotional health. They're all feeding our life as a whole. This message is especially important for you if you have found yourself getting a little narrow minded in how you live your life, and if you've neglected some other areas. So that's my question today for you to ponder – How do I need to be more integrated? How can I look at all the different parts of my life and find out which ones need more attention in order to fill me more, to fill my life as a whole and to align it with my goals? Please reach out to me if there's any way I can support you in creating a life where you are thriving!

My question for you today is to consider whether you are a more analog or digital type of thinker. Do you approach life in a more analog or a more digital way? The difference between the two has to do with a mindset that recognizes a continuum or one that sees things as on or off. A digital approach is binary – so it's on or it's off, it's 1 or it's 0. Analog is capable of sending a signal of varying amplitude. I find that we (especially logical thinkers) tend to approach our lives in a more digital way, and we could benefit by moving more to the analog approach. I used to use the analogy of a rheostat for light when I taught yoga, because I found that a lot of people, especially logical minded people like myself approached things in a digital way. I also started my yoga practice like this, which is also how I approached other things in life – either I felt like I wasn't doing it at all, or I was doing it ALL THE WAY. Like me when I started, I'd see people in my yoga class shaking with the sheer muscular effort they were putting into their practice. What I had learned since then is that that's exhausting, and usually it's actually counterproductive. When you are approaching it in such a forceful way, you're actually stressing your system out, which is actually causing more tension in your nervous system. So the very thing you went there to do, which is to try to create greater range of motion, you are actually preventing through your approach. I find that the digital approach actually does that in many areas of our lives, and I want to encourage you to look at it for yours. Instead of a light being on or off, we have the ability to dim it, and that's how we need to look at many areas of our lives. When we approach something, it's not either all or nothing, there's a continuum available. I think we can apply this idea of a continuum in many ways that would benefit our lives, but for right now I want to focus on how we approach our goals. Consider the example of a diet. If you are cleaning out your diet, but at the end of a long day you decided to eat a piece of candy…what happens next? In my experience, there's a part of us that thinks “Now I've ruined it. Now I might as well eat everything in the refrigerator.” But what if you had stopped after one piece? What if you'd thought, “Well that was off track, but I'll go back to my plan now.” That would have a very different outcome. It's not about we “failed” or we “succeeded,” it's about progress. I find that when we approach our lives in a binary or a digital way, we tend to actually lose progress. We tend to actually feel like we're going backwards in some cases. So think about that for yourself. How can you take this idea of a continuum in how you approach things? I think that in many places in our world, we define things in too much of an all-or-nothing way. Not only our lives but the lives of the people around us could be really improved by realizing life is a continuum. It's not that you're either on the Earth or you're down deep in the ocean! The bottom of the ocean starts as the shore and it goes deeper as you progress. If you think more of the continuum for yourself, it could really help you gain perspective, and actually enjoy the process more!

I have a question for you today that's really an entrance point into a topic that's very important when it comes to reaching your goals in the most efficient way. That question is: Do you read all your email? It seems that the answer to this tends toward the extremes. You look at someone's phone, and you see that little envelope, and you see the little bubble of how many unread messages are there…On one hand you have the people that want to clear the bubbles out as soon as they appear so that every last thing is organized. I tend toward that. But then there's the other person. When you look at their phone, you see tons of bubbles! You see the mail icon with 30,000 unread emails! If you are more of the first type, there's something inside you that kind of freaks out a little bit! Right? We definitely have tendencies toward one or the other. There's the person who wants to know everything that's going on, who wants everything to be organized, wants everything to be in its place. And then there's the person who, once everything starts piling up, finds it easier to ignore it. I think we all tend toward one or the other. However, whatever end of the spectrum you might find yourself on or leaning toward, there's really one thing we need to do to become more effective. That is to learn discernment. If you can stay up with all the things that are going on – numbers of emails included, especially in today's world – then you probably aren't thinking big enough. If you're out there, working to achieve goals, living a full life with friends and family and work, then you're probably not able to keep up. Your life is full, and you don't have time to read 10,000 emails a day. With that being said, how do we manage this? We can try to keep on top of them, but we'll be giving up time toward something else to do that. Or we could ignore them, but we might be missing things that are important. What we need to do is to keep our central focus. What IS important to you? What ARE you looking for? If you keep those two things in mind, you can easily clean out swaths of email. I definitely used to try to keep on top of things. I used to want to know all the details that I could, but it got to the point that there's too much to know for the things I'm trying to do in my life, and there's no way I can know everything. So instead, I know what's important to me. For example, while eating healthy is an important goal for me, maybe that's not my focus right now. I'm on plenty of email lists about eating healthy and nutrition, but if right now is not a time I'm focused on that, I don't need to read those emails. I see the subject and I delete them. On the other hand, if I've been interested in taking a language class and I see something in my email that's about that – those are the things I'll focus on reading. It seems pretty simple, but I really want you to think about how you're using discernment in managing your time and managing your life, so you can devote more resources toward the things that matter to you. I definitely fall into the trap sometimes of keeping things I “might want to do one day.” Instead, now I trust that when the time comes that it's important to me again, an opportunity will show up, and I don't need to keep 100 emails “just in case.” How can more discernment help you streamline your path to your goals? Maybe it does apply to how you approach your email. But maybe it also applies in other ways you are allocating your time and your resources.

Today, we're discussing an important distinction – especially if you're looking to reach big goals in life. You WILL come across this challenge – we all do as we progress in our lives more toward the things that we want. The important distinction is rules versus laws, and I'll show you some shifts to make that will allow you to experience more of the successes you've been working toward. First, I want to be more specific. I'm not talking about the “legal” version of the definition of laws. I'm speaking about the scientific version. Laws are true no matter whether you are aware of them or not. Laws are the way the world works; they are not choice-based. Rules are the opposite – they have nothing to do with how the world works scientifically, they are made up – by people. I've seen a lot of people get stuck by following what they think are laws but are really rules. A rule is something that we can choose to follow or not. There's such a long history of rules we've grown out of as a culture and as a society, but there's a lot that still needs attention. At one point there was a rule that women shouldn't get educations. That was a rule that people treated like a law for a long time – until enough people spoke up and said “This is made up and this doesn't make any sense!” You need to know that there are definitely things like that still happening. Even if there's just one rule in your life right now like that (I bet there's more though!), seeing that and deciding to stop following it can make a difference. There's nothing like having a 3 year old around to teach you what are rules and what are laws. Why can't you go out in public with a mismatched outfit if that's what you want to wear? There's no law – you totally can do that! There are a lot of things that we try to change about ourselves because we think we need to follow society's rules. But this is what is holding us back. Will some people think that you're odd? Yes, they will. But what I want to submit to you is that if the average person thinks that you're weird, that's a good sign! If you wanted to live your life like the average person, you could do that and you'd have average results. Really make a point to listen more to the people who have the results that you want to have than those who don't. So when it comes to rules, think about what you are following that really is made up. What things could you tweak that would lead you to more success? At the same time you want to eliminate those rules from your life, you want to bring in more awareness of the laws. Laws are things that are happening no matter whether you know about them or not. A baby doesn't have to be taught about gravity to have gravity be something that's happening in their life. A law is something that is creating results for you, so the more you become educated on what those laws are and how they work, the more you can use them to your advantage to get results. My course goes into a ton more detail, but to give you something for today, I wanted to bring in the idea of vibration and how that works as a law in science. We've definitely seen the studies that an object's vibration changes its surroundings. There are a lot of different applications of that study – from cymatics to messages from water – that I do go into in the course. But for today, I'll simply share that law. That law is that a vibration changes the world around it to be more aligned with it. We've also seen a connection that a person's sustained intention has a vibrational quality. So one law that you can start using today is to be deliberate about your intention and sustain it. Whatever you want to create – the quality that you want to your life to have – you need to show up with it. That in turn draws the matching things to you; it changes the world around you. There's science on that. I hope after this talk you'll find a rule to get rid of, and you bring in the law of intention that works according to the science of vibration!

Today's topic can definitely apply to us logical thinkers – rethinking versus overthinking. Understanding the distinction between the two will help you clear up places where you may be stuck or stalled. One of these, rethinking, is something that helps move you forward. The other, overthinking, is something that creates barriers for you and causes you to stall out. The main difference between the two is whether or not there is new information involved. In rethinking, you are bringing in new information. With overthinking, you are creating a swirl in your own mind using the same recycled information. There are three signs I'm about to share with you that will tell you whether you might be overthinking. My goal is to allow you to see clearly whether this is happening to you and keeping you from moving closer to your goals. My hope is that this will help you get out of any of these cycles and move forward. First sign of overthinking – You can't decide what you think. This is a big sign! If you find yourself continuing to change your mind and swirling in the same loop of indecision – you are overthinking. You look at one side and think you'll make one decision and then you immediately think of something else that throws you for a loop again. You can't figure out what it is you want to think about the situation or how to approach it. Really what you must do is decide something and go with it. Everything we do that's new requires us to make an assumption. You can gather information but you don't want to get stuck thinking you need more information. The best thing you can do to learn is to try something! In this case, my suggestion is that you pick something, you make a decision, and you realize you can address it again in the future. Second sign of overthinking – You haven't actually started yet. If you haven't started toward this goal, how are you supposed to know whether you need to make an adjustment? Overthinking is just being stuck in the same swirl – no new information can come in unless you start experimenting with it. If you are thinking, thinking, and thinking about something but you haven't already started, then you are probably overthinking. If you are taking steps, looking at the results, and contemplating them – that's helpful, that's rethinking. A sign you are overthinking is that you keep thinking through the same cycle over and over and haven't actually started toward this goal. Third sign of overthinking – You find yourself trying to predict what others will think. Overthinking can happen when you are projecting out onto others, making assumptions about others, and being concerned about what others think. If you need to know what others will think because they are players in this decision, you need to ask them! Simply swirling about what they might think if you do this or that – that's overthinking, you are actually not gathering any new information, you are making it all up. So if other people are a factor in this decision, you ask them. And then you have the information with which to make a decision. I wanted to cover this briefly and succinctly to help you hone in on areas where overthinking might be happening. If you are stuck or stalled, ask yourself if any of these 3 things are happening. If they are, I hope you will start doing something different – start making decisions, start taking steps, start asking questions.

Today my topic is resistance, and I am going to give you 3 ways that you can reduce resistance when you are working to reach your goals. Resistance is the stuff that counters your efforts toward a goal. How much resistance you are facing really does have a strong effect on how quickly you are moving forward – just like walking through water creates more resistance than walking through air. These counteracting forces of resistance can be internal or external. Today our focus is on reducing internal resistance because those are more under your control. However, each of the three I discuss also has an external component – if the people around you are doing these things too, it will affect the external resistance component. So, you essentially will have 6 ways to reduce resistance if you consider those around you as well as yourself. If you find others or encourage those around you – home, work, friends – to do these things too, you will reduce resistance even more. #1 – Clean out your schedule/prioritize. Make sure you look at your schedule and that it reflects your priorities. Clean them out of things that aren't in alignment with or supporting your goals. I deliberately started with this one because we want to first ensure the way we are spending our life is in alignment with our priorities and are our deliberate choices. If you find that there's something you are doing that feels like it's a total 180 from where you are wanting to go in life, it's time to look at whether you can eliminate that activity. A lot of us oversubscribe ourselves. So think about this for yourself and remember that the way you spend your time is a choice. For example, we don't “have to go to work.” We might choose to go to work to support us and our families financially, but we don't have to go. When you clean out your schedule, remember that everything is your choice and look at it from the perspective of what something is giving you when you are making those decisions. #2 – Eliminate complaining. This is a big one! We can tend to go with the flow around us and sometimes that includes complaining. If you want to be more effective with your goals, you need to take this habit out of your life. Ask yourself whether the people who engage in complaining are actually reaching the goals they have. It's the people who are willing to look at life differently who reach different goals. Complaining is an easy way to create resistance because it generates negativity, which lowers your energy output. At the very least, move from complaints to observations: “I hate this weather” versus “It's colder outside than I wish it was.” This applies to both your internal dialogue as well as the things you say out loud! Start changing your language through changing your perspective, and vice versa. Realize there are other ways to approach what's going on around you without decreasing your resistance. #3 – Accept the moment. Do what you can to set up a life in alignment with your goals, but there will always be things that don't unfold as planned or we just need to do anyway. When this is the case, accepting the moment will significantly break down resistance. Whether you have a cold or you are someplace you might not want to be but you aren't going to leave it – it's time to accept it. If possible – the extra credit step – cultivate enthusiasm for what you are doing, or at least gratitude. I used to hate errands, especially going to the bank to deposit a check. When I started realizing the role of resistance, I changed my perspective – “I'm so happy I have this money to deposit into my bank account!” You want to start creating momentum toward the joyful things about life, not dragging yourself toward the resistance. I hope these three ideas help you free up areas of resistance in your life. The bottom line is that the more you reduce resistance, the more effect your efforts have!

I'm always speaking to the logical thinker, but today is particularly engineering oriented. Today I am actually using lessons from airplane flight to talk to you about how to reach your goals more effectively. My passion is helping people reach the goals and set up the lives they dream of – because I know it's possible! We need to begin by identifying the forces involved in an airplane flying. These are the weight of the airplane, the thrust from the engines, the lift coming from the wings, and the drag from the resistive forces. Since the weight itself is inherent in the plane, I'm going to focus on the other three today. These three aspects of flight are also at play in your ability to eventually reach your goals, and you can affect these forces to have an impact. The better you are at affecting these, the more efficiently, effectively, and successfully you'll reach those goals. Let's first talk about thrust – thrust is that power that comes from the engines that moves the plane forward. For us in reaching our goals, thrust is our actions! It might be the way we are thinking, it might be the things we're doing, but it's the self-generated actions that move you toward that goal. The actions you need to take are based on where you want to go. First you take time to create a plan, and a plan is great, but in order to actually get off the ground, the plane needs to be firing its engines. You need to be taking those actions from a stop, and it's hard because at first the weight feels heavy to get moving – but that's what is actually going to get you started down the runway. Think about these questions if you have a specific goal in mind: What are those actions that you need to be taking daily or weekly or monthly to help move yourself in the direction of your destination? The second component I want to talk about is lift. This is the wind beneath the wings, what brings the plane upward. I equate this with the things the buoy us, the things that inspire and motivate us along our journey. This is important! It's hard to keep putting forth effort when you don't feel inspired. Instead of just pushing harder, I recommend that you look for more sources of motivation and inspiration around you. Find something that's helpful. Find a community or a resource, a podcast, or a place to go and learn, that is going to help keep you motivated and inspired. With this being said, remember that you can't get somewhere solely from motivation and inspiration. I notice some people who have a plan, and they seek out motivation and inspiration, but there's no thrust. They are not taking the action that actually allows those forces to do anything for them. Without the movement you can't have a resulting lift. A kite can just catch the wind and get a lift but you can't really control where it goes, it doesn't really go anywhere that it decides. So lift is the second one, and you can ask yourself how you can do that in a way that will keep you motivated and inspired toward that big goal you want to achieve. The third force I want to talk about is drag. These are the resistive forces. For us it could be the people around us who are negative or doing the opposite of our goal – these make it harder for us. It could also be our environment. Or it could be our own self talk, it could be that we're entertaining thoughts that are creating resistance within us! For your goal, take some time to think about what it is that you feel like is working against your efforts. We can put forth thrust but if the drag is too high we're not going to go anywhere. It's important to balance all of these forces. It's up to us to find that balance. Am I taking the actions needed to propel me? Am I properly inspiring and motivating myself so I feel buoyed and my goal feels possible? Am I seeking to lower the forces of drag, whether they are internal or external? Taking some time to think about these things will really help you!

If you are a human, assumptions are going to be part of life. In particular, assumptions will play a part when it comes to reaching those goals we've set for ourselves and creating that life we've imagined – because we're never going to know absolutely everything! When there is information or facts missing, we need to rely on assumptions to fill in those blanks to get started. However, the way that we treat those assumptions is essential to whether we will eventually reach those milestones of success. Today I am going to cover 3 of the main ways we derail our progress – and the 3 solutions to those problems. #1 – We don't take time to investigate them. For example, if we want to improve our health and fitness, we might be carrying an assumption about our genetics – but we might view it as a fact. We might think that some of our assumptions are facts, but until we have thoroughly investigated them we must consider them assumptions. I challenge you to purposely try to find evidence on all sides of the issue. This way, you can use your own logical reasoning to decide what to buy into. Do you want to keep what you have, or do you want to adjust it in some way? The bigger things you see as limiting you maybe just need to be rechecked as far as their validity. #2 – We use assumptions to manipulate our emotions. I see this one on more of a regular day-to-day basis. I'm going to use a very mundane example – driving. It tends to be a place where we become a bit more reactive and it is easier to see some of the patterns in ourselves. Something we may do is make assumptions about why other drivers are doing what they are doing. Such as: “Oh that person cut me off because their wife is in labor and they are rushing to the hospital,” etc. But if you think about why we are doing that, it is to make ourselves feel better about what is happening. If we were to make the assumption that “they're just a jerk,” that makes us feel one way. But if we make something else up, it makes us feel like we can let go of our anger. Be wary of assumptions that you use to change your emotions. First of all, all these examples are possibilities. What is the point of choosing one of them? Yes, it's a step up from just being an angry driver. But if you are here with me now, I am assuming you want to make further steps up than that! Go beyond making assumptions to help yourself feel better. The solution here is to notice when you are making those assumptions, and address your emotions instead. Being able to process your emotions will skyrocket your success – it is not a very common thing that occurs in the world. People are very reactive, making assumptions, acting out of their frustrations and anxieties. And simply the act of thinking, “let me see what I am feeling and how I can use it in a way that's helpful.” That will get you SO FAR in the world! #3 – We don't stop and identify them. I purposely put this one last, because I felt that if I put it first you might not realize some of the assumptions you are making that you hadn't identified. But I bet that you recognized yourself in some of the examples I gave in the first 2! Realize there are a lot of underlying assumptions. We don't have to find every single one, but there are some big ones that are really affecting your outcome or how you are approaching your goals. Taking the time to identify these is really going to shift your success. You may also notice them when planning your goals, as little voices in the back of your head saying why this won't work out. Bring these all into your awareness. Once you know what they are, you can check them out and decide whether they should be real or not. Just like in engineering when we find something is not working out like we expected, the first thing we need to do is check our assumptions. And it is no different with our life. If you are not seeing the results you expect, come back to your assumptions.

Today I am speaking to the heart of how you think the world works – I should really say not just how you THINK it works, but how you ACT like it works. I like to sum up the difference with this question: Do you operate like you live in a world that's ruled by Santa or by Einstein? The answer may seem obvious when you first hear the question, but I would really encourage you to reflect on it. I find that logical thinkers actually operate somewhere along the scale – and you might be a little closer to Santa than you might think! The Santa approach to life is acting as if the universe operates on a reward and punishment system – like there is some Santa out there that we are trying to please and avoid displeasing. If we are good, we get our toys; if we are naughty, we get the coal in our stocking. This is how we feel we can advance in the world – if we're good, we'll have good things happen to us. The other option, which I am calling the Einstein approach, is understanding that life operates according to laws – and it's about how well we understand the laws and are able to implement the laws that determines what we get back. In this way of approaching life, it doesn't matter whether you just helped an old lady cross the street – if you drop a ball from a building, it's going to fall just the way that someone who is a “good” person will experience the same result. To sum it up a different way: The Einstein approach lives according to this principle – there are sets of laws that the universe operates according to, and my ability to understand these laws and implement these laws determines how well I'm able to predict what the results are going to be. The Santa way is this – if I'm just a good enough person and do the right thing, then I'm going to get the things I really want deep down. As I mentioned, I find that people are on a continuum. Although I was raised in the world the way many of us are – with the pressure for this need to be “good.” But I've evolved, grown, and studied to be able to move into the Einstein way of living in the world. I can say that my ability to get the results that I wanted are much improved when I focus on understanding the laws and implementing them. The part that makes it really hard to make that transition from Santa to Einstein living, is that some of these laws are subtle. They take time, internal reflection, and personal evolution to understand. It is a learning process, which can make it harder to make the leap. This is the very reason that I do what I do – because there are logical thinkers out there who know that laws of the universe are a real thing and want to learn to live by them! There is a lot of information out there, but it's how we can actually make them implementable for ourselves – that's where I want to come in and what I want to help with. My framework – the Logical Evolution Framework – teaches those subtle laws. As I mentioned, the ability for me to achieve my goals over time has been exponentially improved as I've learned the actual laws. I personally believe in being a kind, generous, thoughtful person for many reasons, some of which do play into the laws (but not in the way that the Santa mentality wants us to think it does). It is difficult to see these kinds of discrepancies. There's this great person out there who has tragedy strike. It's not possible to make sense of a world from the Santa mentality. The only way to make sense of it is to find laws that you can understand and see evidence of. What I am really asking you to do today is think about this difference. Is something in you still trying to navigate that good/bad judgement when you are trying to reach your goals? Are you judging yourself and others every day? Look at how you're explaining why certain goals haven't come into your life, or why certain things are happening. And see what kind of thinking it reveals. Do I like where I am? Do I want to change it?

I want to talk about one of my favorite quotes today, because I think it has a lot of hidden information needed by those of us who want to set big goals. I will point out three things in particular this quote is telling us that we need to consider and implement in setting our big goals. If you are here, I bet you are someone like me – you want to make leaps forward in your life. It's one thing to stair step forward in life, but it is another thing to take leaps – to go somewhere totally new, to evolve – and it requires a different approach. That is what I seek to do and what I seek to help others do. The quote we'll discuss is from Einstein: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” There are three things in particular you can take from this quote that you should apply when you are sitting down to set your big goals. First, the quote reminds you to be UNLIMITED. Knowledge is limited; it becomes static. Knowledge is incredibly useful in everyday life, and in the stair steps toward goals – but when it comes to taking giant leaps forward, we must let go of our limits. This is where imagination comes in. Imagination asks us to see beyond how things appear to be; it asks you to tap into something more. Being unlimited in your thinking when you set your goals allows you to set those goals big. It doesn't tie you to the past; unlimited goals bring you into a new future. Second, this quote asks you to be ORIGINAL. Your imagination is about your own creativity, and looking inside yourself to see what you want to create. Imagination doesn't externally reference. Knowledge is about what's true “out there” while imagination is about what is true for you internally. You want to set big goals that are your original goals rather than a goal someone else told you to strive for or you read in a magazine. If a goal is not original, it will hold you short of where you could be. Big goals require your energy, and for your goal to energize you it has to be your original idea. Taking that time to look inside yourself, to imagine your desired future – that is what will feed your progress. Third, this quote reminds you that in setting big goals you must DREAM. Dreams are precursors to goals. You can't stop at a dream and experience it in your life, but a dream is the beginning. It has to start as a dream, something that is not yet real. Then the dream gets a timeline. If it is a big goal, it's a little bit hard to imagine. It takes effort to put yourself in that dream space and to make the unreal feel real. After this is when you take that dream and break it down – that's when the everyday goal setting strategies come in handy. It has to start at that dream level first. I hope that you will take one of your goals for this year and apply the three things alluded to by Einstein in this quote. He tells us that imagination will get us much farther in life. When we set our big goals, we must BE UNLIMITED, BE ORIGINAL, and DREAM. Start there, conceive those big goals that you yourself are inspired by, and begin to make those your reality. We need bigger dreamers in this world. I hope you will join me in employing these three aspects in setting your goals for this year. I'd love to hear any ideas that come to you as you hear this or ponder it in the days ahead!

Today my topic is the radical act of patience. It's radical because in our world, in our society in particular, patience is not necessarily emphasized. What I want to point out today is the importance of bringing more patience into your life when it comes to reaching your goals. The more you cultivate patience at the right moments, the better your results can get. One of the reasons I chose the topic for today is because as I am speaking to you right now it is a few days before Christmas. I remember as a kid that these few days in particular seemed to be going at a snail's pace. Maybe you are feeling some of that impatience yourself – whether it is around a holiday or a goal or something that you have scheduled coming up. Patience should become a part of all of your goal achieving processes. I consider patience an art because there is a technique to it. It's an inner state – it's a time when you don't yet have what you want, but you are in a state of calm about it. I deal with this a lot! I have a lot of goals that I am anxious to reach and I work with this actively. It's very important in cultivating patience, especially for logical thinkers, that we understand the physics of how things manifest. I have an entire course on that (opt in through my website to learn more). We can't go into that depth today, so instead I am going to use an analogy to communicate the point. I want you to think about water you want to freeze. How would you do it? You would put water into an ice cube tray and you would put that tray into an environment that is below freezing – your freezer, for example. We know that if the water sits in those conditions, it will solidify. It will become ice; it will freeze. All we need to do is wait and let it be exposed to the conditions. This analogy is quite applicable to reaching our goals. We have to set up the conditions (this is covered in the course in depth) and once we set them up, there is a period of waiting. There is a period of exposure to the conditions and maintaining the conditions that brings the goal to fruition. In the example of the ice cubes we can't keep checking on them, taking them out, poking at them to see if they are freezing. All of that slows down the process of freezing. The water has to be exposed to the conditions, and the more consistently it is exposed the faster it can get there. I think we forget that it is the same process for our goals. We have to set up the conditions, and we have to maintain the conditions and give them time to take effect. We can't keep checking on it, changing it up and messing with the conditions. The challenge is maintaining the conditions while staying relaxed because there is a confidence and trust that you know it will get there – because that's how it works! That's the confidence I hope to give you a little of right here. Taking this idea today and start practicing with it. I recommend this to everyone I work with individually – you want to work with the small things. If you want to lift a heavy weight, you first work with the small ones. Patience is the same way. There are a couple great ways that you can work with patience now. One of them is sitting at red lights. How often are we in a stressful internal dialogue about that? You know it is going to change! Probably in the next 60-75 seconds! What is there to do except to relax and let the conditions come? Waiting in general is the second easy way to practice – when you find yourself in a line running errands, or waiting in line to pick up your kid at school. Use waiting to practice patience. Can you be calm while you are waiting? When we practice in these smaller ways, we build up a tolerance for the bigger things we are waiting for. I guarantee patience will help you in your results because it works with the physics of how manifestation happens. And it is my goal to align you with how the physics of manifestation happens so you can experience more of what you want!

Did you know that being able to “strategically ignore” can be really helpful on your path to success? Have you ever thought about the role that ignoring things could play in your life and in your ability to bring big goals to fruition? It does play an important role! I wanted to bring this to your attention today so that you can take advantage of more energy directed toward your goals, creating more progress for you. When I say strategically ignore, it is not the same as being ignorant of something. Being ignorant about something indicates you just aren't aware of it at all. When you are ignorant, it's not your decision to ignore it; you have no idea about it in the first place. Strategically ignoring something is a decision to send your attention elsewhere. The word “decision” is a big distinction. It indicates that you are saying: “this is not where I am going to send my attention; I am going to send my attention somewhere else.” You make a “no” decision about one direction and fill that void with a “yes” decision for another direction. We can't stop at just deciding to ignore, we have to give our mind what to do instead. There are two keys when you are strategically ignoring. First, you have the awareness – “I could send my attention there but it won't benefit me to do that.” Second, you choose the new direction – “Where am I going to put my attention that will benefit me and my goals?” A great example of a time we do this frequently is when driving (if we are good drivers, anyway!). Driving is a critical activity, especially if there is a lot of traffic or the weather is not great. You might hear your phone ring, but you take a few moments to consider whether it is safe to look away from the road. If you're stopped at a light you might look but if you are on a busy road making a left turn, you will ignore the phone – you will decide on purpose to keep your attention on driving. Our big goals should be considered critical activities too. Where could ignoring help you reach your goals? Are you spending your attention on things that aren't helping you reach them? Do you find you have a big goal that you intend to work on but spend the day doing other activities? When you do get to sit down and start writing for example, do you look at every buzz of your phone or read every email notification that pops up? Be deliberate when you are taking time on a critical activity like a major goal. Your mind is your most powerful manifesting tool. Until you are choosing moment to moment what you want to give your attention to and what you need to ignore, you are not using the full force of your ability to reach your goals. It's my goal to help you get to your goals as efficiently as possible. Do not waste the power of your attention on things that don't matter! The ability to ignore is an art that can take you much farther than you are today. How can you strategically ignore to allow more force toward your goals, starting today?

Today, I want to discuss an important distinction. Many people are LOGICAL thinkers at heart, but have fallen into the trap of being a LINEAR thinker. I want to talk about what they mean specifically, because these may seem to be the same thing, but they are actually very different. Linear thinking tends to create a prison, and logical thinking tends to create freedom! So let's look at what these two terms mean and which way your mind might be going. If you are having trouble reaching any goals at the moment, then this might be a timely conversation for you. Let's look at the definition of LINEAR first. The definition of LINEAR is: • Arranged in or extending along a straight or nearly straight line • Progressing from one stage to another in a single series of steps; sequential The big point I want you to take from these definitions is the “straight line” reference. When you are in linear thinking, then you tend to look one-to-one and from your perspective only, your vantage point only. From this perspective, you can only make it to where you want to go through a path you can see. It relies only on your ability to make a connection to the next point based on what you can see. For instance, I used to fall into the linear thinking trap quite often in the past when it came to my time versus my goals. I would have to linearly correlate each item on my task list with a goal I was seeking to achieve. If I was training for a physical event, it was that workout that needed to get done that day. I would only devote time to things that I could directly connect to reaching a goal. It can seem like this is a positive approach. However, it made it really difficult for me to enjoy my life and actually blocked my progress in many ways. The alternative is a LOGICAL approach. The definition of LOGICAL is: • Of or according to the rules of logic or formal argument • Characterized by or capable of clear, sound reasoning Since it is used in the previous definition, the definition of LOGIC is: • Reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity. This is the distinction! Where linear is about your vantage point only, logical allows you to take in what's valid – not what YOU think but what the DATA shows is valid. When you don't have to see it from your own perspective, but you can look at evidence and weigh it for yourself – that's the ability to be logical. You have way more freedom and ability to reach your goals when you take in the data and see whether it makes sense to you. If there is a result you want, and you see that the data shows that these certain actions tend to lead to that result – now you can choose to try that even though it was not maybe something you would have thought of yourself linearly. The logical path will get you there more effectively and more quickly. One place I see people stuck due to linear thinking is in starting a meditation practice. There is an overwhelming amount of data that discusses the profound effects – the effects for people who want more success, who want better relationships, who want more financial abundance, who want peace in their bodies. There is a lot of data that shows the positive effects. So many of us want things on that list I just went through yet we don't adopt a meditation practice. I don't think you can find a high performer in any field who doesn't incorporate meditation for that reason – it amplifies your ability to reach your goals. So many of us want lives like those high performers have, yet we don't look at what they are doing and start doing those things ourselves. So I want to ask you today to think about this! For the goals you want to reach – have you become linear in your thinking versus logical? It might be challenging at times to give up the linear for the logical, but your future may depend on it!

I want to share a favorite quote of mine today. The reason I am choosing today's post to share this is because we are in the holiday season now, which is generally a time of greater personal reflection. If we have been too “busy” to look objectively at life or too caught up in the momentum of our day-to-day events, this time of year tends to encourage us to step back and reflect. The quote I want to talk about is attributed to Lily Tomlin, who I think is hilarious! She said: “I always wondered why somebody doesn't do something about that. Then I realized I am somebody.” There are three reasons I love this quote that I wanted to bring up to you today: • First, it encourages self-referencing. We are so quick to complain or look outside of ourselves to what we think other people should be doing. Instead, this quote says: What are YOU doing? It asks us to consider, what is my part in this, and why can't I be part of the change? • Second, it empowers. When I hear it, I become empowered – I realize the power that I have in a situation. I have the ability to intervene, I am somebody who can do something. Not only does it get me to stop looking “out there,” but it also reminds me of the strength and power that I have in a situation. • Third, it reminds me of the profound effect each of us has in the world. There is no way to say this with as much emphases as it should have! How you interact with one person – it makes a difference, it propagates into the world. This quote reminds me to be deliberate with the energy that I pass on to others. Positive interactions change your day, which changes the trajectory of your life. Whenever you want a situation to be different, the first thing to look at is how YOU can be different. Yes, things around you may need to change, but the only way they have a chance to change is if you change within it yourself first. One of the ways I personally fall into this need to “be somebody” is related to how the world treats people and the level of kindness that we show to each other. When I hear this quote, I am reminded that what I can do is have kinder interactions in my life. I can propagate that energy, I can make it my experience, it does create change, and I can encourage others to do that my doing it myself. So today I want to ask you – Where is it in your life that you need to be somebody? It might be something small, like being the somebody who cleans up the trash. Or it might be something bigger, like taking that one step you can to create peace on our planet. I am so glad you were here with me today, and I hope this message makes a difference in your life. You absolutely can reach your goals if you stay on the winding path that moves toward them. Please pass this on to any others who you think it will help, and thank you for your time and attention.

Today's question is a good one for the logical thinker to consider. I want to highlight a phenomenon that can befall the logical thinker. I have definitely fallen into this trap many a time – so many times, in fact, that it is something I look out for regularly now. That trap is falling under the spell of our lists – our TO DO lists! There are many levels to creating our desired outcome, which I go into in depth in my course. There are specific paradigms through which science is operating in creating the world we live in moment to moment, and our lives are not excluded from how this works. Results are generated in our lives in the same way. The simple fact is that we need to have all of the paradigms aligned in order to achieve the desired result. Unfortunately, we can often get focused on the steps that can lead us where we want to go but we can forget about why we want to go there. We forget to take as much care in maintaining the intention we have – that inner reason for that goal in the first place. It turns out that not only will that help us in getting there, but it is also the sustaining force for keeping it in our lives long term. It's true that we can focus on checking things off the list and doing the steps, but even if we do those things, which we can force ourselves to do sometimes, we find those things don't stay in our lives. The often-used example is the lottery winner who loses all the money in 6 months. They had a change in the external, but there was not an inner intention of sustaining wealth. It is one thing to get money, and another thing to sustain wealth. If wealth is a goal we have, we need to be doing both on our way there. We need to be looking at our list, designing our plan, but we need to be allowing it also to develop us into the person who will sustain it. We have big goals – me included, some that I am in the middle of. Maybe you can relate to this – I look back at the starting point of some of these goals I am in the middle of, and I really have come a long way. In the beginning, I remember that the goal was so big, I didn't know exactly what to do. Even though I couldn't predict what I would need to do in 6 months, I knew what I needed to do now, so I just started doing that. During that process, I had to summon more from myself to do those things. There were things outside of my comfort zone, there were things that I really wouldn't be able to make myself do, it was someone I had to become to do them. I want to encourage you to allow yourself to become the person you need to be on the way to your goals too. I see a lot of people looking up to leaders they want to emulate. What I notice is that they focus on what they did. But it is not those things that made them the leader. What made them a leader is who they had to become. You see the person who you know is tired at the end of the day but they are still being kind to others. It's not about doing all the things, it is about who you are while you do them. We need to remember not just where we want to go, but who we want to be when we get there. That creates a sustainable future. I want success for you – that is why I do this. Take a moment to think about what this message means in your life and on the path to your goals.

Today's question was inspired by the Jack Nicholson film A Few Good Men, and the famous courtroom scene. When I have a heart-to-heart talk with others about truth, and connect with that powerful feeling about what it can truly do in our lives, I always hear that booming voice in the courtroom – “YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!” Even years after seeing the movie, it still comes to my mind! These words are really an important statement, and they beg us to ask the question of ourselves, Can I handle the truth? Many of us do see truth in that way that Jack Nicholson's character is speaking to. We want the truth when it is convenient, when it doesn't challenge us, and doesn't make us look at ourselves. I am here today to point out that if there is some new place we want to go in life, we will absolutely have to do it. We need to look at our internal relationship with the truth. We need to develop that relationship. When I started my self-help travels, I noticed that I was really just looking to validate myself. I was reading these books in order to find what I was already doing and to try and convince myself that I was A-OK. But at the same time, I sought out those books because I was unhappy, and there were things I wanted to change. I realized that instead of looking for the things that were working, it would serve me better to look for the things that weren't. To face the truth. I don't agree with using the truth to criticize yourself. That's not at all what I think the truth is for. What the truth can do is give you clues about things that need to shift internally to take you where you want to go in life. We make choices and we experience results, and in the middle we sometimes act like there is this mysterious black box. What I need to tell you is that there is science happening in that black box – there is a logic to what happens! (This is what my Logical Evolution Framework covers in detail.) Our life is not randomly shooting out results. So when we decide to peer into that black box, we are able to reach our goals more quickly. I raise this question today in case there is a place you are trying to reach in life that has not been happening. There are a few clues that can tell you whether there might be some things to discover internally. These three clues are if you find yourself blaming external factors, other people, or luck (randomness) for your results. If you find yourself doing these things, I think you'll find value in stopping to ask what is going on internally, really. Stop and consider, with kindness toward yourself, that we must have a part in our results. The only way to discover more about that is to go inward. The truth you are avoiding will push you, but luckily if approached with an accepting heart, it tends to push you right in the direction of your goals! Let the truth push you in the direction of your goals. And let the answer to that question “Can you handle the truth?” be “YES!”

I hope you are well, and I am glad you are here for this interesting question: Are you following the directions? My work overall, and this post specifically, is for those people out there like me – who connect with a logical approach to life and also want to see change happen more effectively in their lives. There is a lot of logic applied in the realms of engineering, science, and finance, for example, but when it comes to our life goals there can be a void in logical explanations. I bring logic to this area – designing our lives the way we want – because changing our lives actually does clearly follow the laws of physics! I'm going to venture a guess…If you do have a goal right now that you are trying to reach, I am going to speculate that you have probably sought out knowledge about it already. I'll bet that you've researched or read some blogs or found some articles or listened to some podcasts…you have probably looked into it before this moment and found some good advice on the topic. So if that's true, I want to ask you this question. If you've had the benefit of being given guidance on how to reach a goal that you have, have you been doing it? Have you been following the directions? I am most definitely a student of this as well. There are goals that I am working on reaching, and I have a mentor for them. My approach is to study the material, then put my head down and do the work. I definitely don't always know why some of the steps are there, but what I do know is that they are proven to work, and the person I am learning from has had success in doing it. I am a firm believer in taking advice from people who have used it. I'm not so keen on taking the advice of someone whose life is not an example of one I want to lead. So if I want success, and someone successful has given me directions, then it is up to me to follow them. I don't know if you've tried to put together IKEA furniture with and without directions, but you can probably imagine the difference in results. I love putting things together, so I have quite a bit of experience with IKEA directions – which I definitely methodically follow. There's a lot of possible approaches and lot of parts and tools when it comes to putting together this furniture. Trial and error will take a very long time. If someone gives you the order of how to put in the 50 screws, by all means put them in in that order if you want to have that bookshelf at the end. This is a microcosmic example of what I mean in terms of reaching our goals. Could it work in a different order? Yes, you could probably put together some of it in a different order, but why overthink it? It just takes more time. If someone has set a blueprint in front of you and you want what that blueprint builds, then what are you waiting for? What typically happens when we don't follow directions is that we overthink it, we try to avoid parts of the process that make us uncomfortable, and we react to our own emotions – all things that impede our progress. By going through the process, we become who we need to be along the way. I want to encourage you – if you have the benefit of having something that you've been taught to do to get you to the place you want to be, the greatest gift to yourself would be to start working that plan. I want to encourage you to do that right now. The year is not over! You have weeks left in 2019, and you can make significant progress this year by picking up the plan and dusting it off, starting with step one. I would love to hear your feedback on what you've been stuck on and what happens when you take that first step!

Today I share with you three specific mindset strategies for increasing your success in reaching your goals. These are three things you can do with respect to using your mind that will help you move closer to those big goals you have for your life. Everything I am talking about here is based on the Logical Evolution Framework, which is an explanation of how to change your life that is based on the laws of physics. You don't need to know all of that today, but if you find that you do want to learn more, just make sure you are opted in on my website. I have a course coming out before the end of the year, and you'll learn more about it through those emails. Often, those of us who come from a logical background see personal development as illogical or esoteric. In fact, though, it is scientifically based but it is just not usually presented that way. Our conversation today focuses on the mindset aspect. As the Logical Evolution Framework explains, you must create the conditions you seek internally before you can experience them externally. This is actually a science-based statement – mindset is the personal development application of physics' string theory. Mindset is something you literally see show up around you in your life every day; it is the way life comes back to you. Here are three mindset strategies that you can start to use today on your path to your big goals. Mindset strategy number 1: Be Proactive. When you are seeking to reach a goal, you must ask yourself – What CAN I do? The goal may be so big that you are not sure what the full path will look like, but I bet you know at least one thing you can do to move you forward. This action actually sets you up for knowing and being able to execute the next step. I may not be able to see around a corner, but if I walk up to that corner I'll be able to look around it once I get there. Are you taking all the responsibility and action that you can in moving toward the goal? The goal will never just land in your lap! Mindset strategy number 2: Be Generous. I consider this related to gratitude, but I find that generosity typically encompasses gratitude. It is tough to be generous if you are not starting from a place of gratitude. When you are in this mindset, you are looking for ways to give. Where can you give more, where do you feel a level of abundance that allows you to feel free to give to others? I'm suggesting simple ways here: Can you allow the car to merge in front of you? Can you spend 5 minutes listening to your child with full attention? The importance in challenging yourself to give where you can keeps the fear of scarcity at bay. This fear will prevent you from full success if avoided! Mindset strategy number 3: Be Aware. Awareness is a central idea and key component of the Logical Evolution Framework and moving through the levels in order to gain efficiency in reaching your goals. By this strategy, I mean that you need to know yourself, seek out your limited beliefs, and find the areas where you have been hurt and not healed. These limitations and hurts will keep repeating themselves if left in the dark. You must be curious about why you do and think what you do – develop self awareness. This also means learning about your own thinking patterns and how they need to change to support what you want. Incorporating these three strategies can start supporting you today. I truly want to see more people happy and fulfilled out in the world doing the work they love. I hope this helps you, and that you will share it with 2-3 friends you also think it will help. Let me know what thoughts or questions come up as you work with these ideas! https://www.beingevolutionary.com/blog/3-success-mindset-strategies

My question to you today is an important one! Convenience or conviction – what are your choices being led by? This is an essential question if you are seeking to go somewhere in life you've never been. If you want exactly the same thing you have now, by all means feel free to live by convenience – do what's easy and habitual because it will continue to give you more of what you have now. This is totally fine for some people, but I am guessing that's not true for you. I'm guessing that, like me, you want something more. To have something different we need to do something different. We must have conviction for our goals and that conviction must show up in our day-to-day choices. If you want to know which you are being led by, look at your choices. Look back each day on the major choices as they relate to your goal and ask yourself – was this choice a convenience choice or did it show conviction for my goals? Conviction is much more difficult because it is outside the norm, outside the natural groove. Conviction cuts a new course to a different outcome that we are seeking to create. Getting to these new outcomes requires looking at our choices and asking ourselves whether we are allowing those little excuses come in. When we say we want greater wellness, but when it comes time to go to the gym “it's too cold,” “I'm too tired,” or “it's too early,” we need to look at this question. Do we tell ourselves that we can't take that brisk walk because our elbow hurts!?! We have all been there! Excuses lead us down the path to convenience. Conviction says, “I committed to this goal, what can I do? How can I do as much of what I set out to do as possible?” Conviction says, “I planned to walk for 60 minutes but I have time for only 20 minutes, I will do that.” This choice builds momentum, shows conviction, and our minds remember that. Next time the choice goes a little more smoothly. If we defer the convicted choice, it is not easier next time – it puts another brick in the wall of resistance. We take our choices too lightly. I was recently in a conversation with a friend where a business came up, a business that has a reputation for perpetuating discrimination. I personally choose not to give my resources toward entities that actively seek to create a world I don't believe in. My friend says “Yes, I don't like that but their food is so good.” From his perspective, the food tastes good, so the principle doesn't matter. But this is the very moment of choice that does matter! Do I go for convenience or do I say I stand for something, and even if it is inconvenient for me, I am going to continue to stand for it? The second option is the only option if you want to go somewhere you've never been – somewhere bigger, somewhere greater, helping more people and changing the world in positive ways. To go there, you will need to ask yourself this question. Does my life reflect convenience or conviction? I support you in this. It is a challenge – a worthwhile challenge. There are lots of ways I could make my life “easier.” But I don't want my life to be easier, I want my life to stand for something. It's worth it to me. I ask you to share this – share this with someone who wants to live by conviction and needs that reminder that it matters! We need more people with conviction! We have enough people in this world who are living by convenience. I ask you to join me in this endeavor to stand for something great.

High achievers work hard! On the path to our big goals, we are vulnerable to the experience of burnout. I bet you have had this experience in the past, and it was not one you want to repeat. Today, I'll share my definition of burnout, three signs you could be headed there (or are there!), and three ways to move out of it (or keep yourself out!). My experience of burnout in the past is that I often don't notice what is happening until I'm already in it. Over time, I have come to learn the signs so that I can see where I'm going before I get to that burnout state. My hope for you is that next time you find yourself on this trajectory, you'll see that and be able to choose a different outcome. If you are feeling any of the signs I am about to cover, it is very good that you are here today! Being burnt out means that we have been in a prolonged state of using more energy than we are generating. My definition of burnout is a prolonged state of negative energy balance. Sometimes it is days, but it can turn into weeks, months, or even years. When a candle uses all its fuel, its flame goes out. If we go day after day using more energy than we are creating, our spark goes out too. This is a physical experience, but also a mental and emotional one too. There are three ways that we can notice this energy state earlier on. These are things I have noticed in myself, and I encourage you to reflect back on any previous experiences of burnout you have had to come up with any signs unique to you. • First, I have noticed that our responsibilities begin to feel really burdensome. • Second, you notice yourself deferring the things you know help you feel positive and rejuvenated. Once in a while this is OK, but when the frequency increases to skipping these weekly or more – that's a sign! • Third, you notice that life doesn't feel as joyful or fun. I use Brendon Burchard's High Performance Planner, and one of the daily questions is to list something about the day you are excited about. A sign for me that I might be in a negative energy state is that I have trouble coming up with an answer! Now that I use this planner every day, I notice this after a few days rather than a few months! It gives me time to adjust. You can watch for these signs too, but if you see them, what do you do? There are three things that I will offer you today that can shift you back to a positive energy state. These are both internal and external shifts. • First, we must take responsibility for our choices. Many of the things we can start to think we are victims to are actually our choices. We may not like our current job – but we chose it and we can make a different choice. Don't let your responsibilities live you! You have the power to choose and to take ownership of your choices. There may be some things you'd rather not be doing, but even if they are necessarily temporarily it is your choice for now. • Second, make sure you find something that helps you let go of stress – whether it be jogging, meditation, talking to a friend, etc. Know what these activities are for you. These must get time in your calendar to ensure your energy starts to build. • Third, shift your paradigm! We are burning out because we are trying to get somewhere but we are not getting anywhere! Moving to the next level of results in our lives requires moving to the next paradigm or world view. My Logical Evolution Framework is for this purpose exactly – showing you how to shift your paradigm so that you can have better results in exchange for all the energy you put in. Make sure you are opted in on my website to find out about the course coming our before the end of the year. You can also find previous posts dedicated to this topic of perspective and paradigm. We owe it to ourselves to watch for and avoid burnout! I hope this helped you in some way today. If you know of anyone who might appreciate this information, please pass it on, and I'd love to hear your feedback!

Complexity has a way of getting in the way of the goals we are trying to reach. Right? When we really want to get somewhere in life, but the road ahead of us is full of forks and twists and turns, it quickly begins to look like an overwhelming trip. It can be difficult to begin. I've been there, wanting something badly but not having the first idea where to begin. Today, I want to talk about the solution to this because, if you are like me, you want something different – something big! When you want something big, as you look out toward that it can seem like there is a lot between you and that goal. I still find myself there sometimes, because I still have big goals! Complexity is always trying to come at me, and I bet you face it as well. However, I have learned how to manage it. When in a situation of complexity, one of two things needs to be done. The first potential solution is that we need to refocus what our goal is – we've lost sight of it. The second potential solution is that we need to take a higher perspective. A higher perspective is like a bird's eye view, it is more sophisticated. When you get more sophisticated, you find simplicity. When the first case is the problem, it's possible you haven't defined your goal specifically or have forgotten your goal. There are always a lot of things trying to get our attention, so if we are not staying conscious of our goal and aware of what we are specifically tying to do, it is easy for it to get blurred. I think software programs are a great example of this. When faced with a new software program, you really have to know what you want to learn. Don't go into it wanting to understand everything – you will be quickly overwhelmed! Instead, if your goal is to learn how to do something specific, you have a much better chance of success. Similarly, if you've lost sight of the specific outcome you are looking for in the next step toward your big goal, how to approach it becomes more complex and confusing. If you are feeling overwhelmed by complexity, ask yourself – Do I still know my specific goal? Has my goal become blurred and how can I refocus it? Is my goal too broad? Once you answer these questions and find that clarity again, the next step becomes more obvious. Moving to the second potential issue, you may need a new perspective. Shifting to a perspective that is more sophisticated is also simplifying. The process of doing this is really what my logical evolution framework is all about, and you can learn more by making sure you have opted in to my emails via my website. I have a course starting soon that I'll make sure to let you know about via email. I do encourage you to learn more, but I also want to give you something to help you today. If your perspective becomes focused too much down in the details of the problem, then you need to move yourself to a higher perspective. For me, a great example is in parenting. There is an overwhelming amount of information, tools, research, and strategies about parenting. If I am thinking from the day to day challenges, everything out there makes it too complex for me. Thinking of problems will always overcomplicate things; it is not the most sophisticated way to view the world. To take it to a higher perspective, I think of the central point – not my perspective but my son's perspective. My view from his perspective simplifies things – I seek to create a specific experience of the world for him. What I really need to look at is what is he being taught about the world when I make certain parenting choices. If you are struggling with complexity right now on your journey – look at these two things. Consider which one is getting in your way and make a change toward simplification.

Today, I have something for you to ponder related to achieving your big goals: Are you approaching them from innovation or insanity? I'm talking today about a very common trap people get into when trying to reach a big goal, including many logical thinkers. If this is you, you may be unnecessarily stuck, and I hope today's message helps! Unless you address this question – innovation or insanity – you will continue to feel like the more effort you put forth just tires you out rather than brings you more results. The definition of innovate is to bring in something new, to make changes in something that has been established. It's a new idea, a new approach, a new product. On the other hand, the definition of insanity that is pretty commonly known is thinking that doing the same thing is going to give you different results. Even though we know this logically, many logical thinkers tend to use their energy to work harder on something when they want different results; they double down current efforts when the current efforts are not moving them forward. This is the definition of insanity – you will not get different results from doing the same things. Therefore, if you want different results, you must recognize the need to change your approach, to move from insanity to innovation in your life. At this point, you have to introduce something new to get new results. There are two things that are needed when implementing a strategy of innovation in your life – clear knowledge of your goal and space – space in your mind. These two things combined create the environment for innovation. An example we have all experienced is not being able to think of something – like the actor in a movie. We try and try but it is just not coming to us. So we go about our day, and then two hours later it suddenly pops in! Because I had a clear goal in my mind, it was still ready to find the answer. As soon as adequate space is creating from the overthinking, your mind grabs the answer. I encourage you to do this same thing for your big goals. Acknowledge if you have been taking the “work harder” approach and decide to try innovation. First, you need clear knowledge of goal. I think what that means is pretty straightforward. Make sure you take time to get clear. The other component is more elusive. Creating space in your mind is individual, and can be a different circumstance or activity for you. For me, one guarantee that I'll get great solutions and insight is taking a yoga class. I become present in the moment and stop hyperfocusing on the problem – but my mind still knows I want the answer. For you this may be running or painting – anything that requires your focus fully but is a relaxing experience for you and calms your nervous system. I also find benefits from being outside, taking a walk, and enjoying nature. Journaling can be helpful as well, as long as it is not focused on your question or goal specifically but is more of a stream of consciousness approach. Come up with some things for you that create space. You know if an activity creates space when you are experiencing the opposite of the stress response. If you are stressed, no new answers can come in. Innovation is a big buzz word at companies right now. Innovation will never come from a schedule of back to back meetings. There's no space for answers! At work or outside of work, if you are going from one item on your to do list immediately to the next – that's not creating space. So if some of your big goals have been elusive, the message today is to think about whether you are living according to the definition of insanity or innovation! There are things you can do to create innovation, set up the two conditions and see what happens!

Can you be both logical and creative? Have you ever asked yourself this question? Many of my engineering friends say things like “I'm not that creative.” They've defined “creative” to be the same as artistic and having the ability to specifically create art. I am here to broaden that definition! The term “creative” has a much bigger definition than you think, and understanding that has a lot to do with your ability to reach your big dreams! I also happen to think that being a logical thinker can actually make you even more effective in being creative because you have a knack for understanding the rules behind what makes things work. “Creative” means the “ability to create,” and “create” means “to bring into existence.” A creative person is someone who can bring something into existence. You are, moment to moment, no question about it, creating your life, creating your story. You are 100 percent involved in creating your day, your experience of the day, the way your life moves forward – every day. You are the most responsible, most involved in this! Every choice you make is bringing something into existence in the future. My choices of what to eat and how I move my body contribute to how I create my future heath. What I choose to read and study creates my future work or ability to serve others. You are a creator. First, accept that role of being a creator because only then you can approach your role more deliberately. Every person is doing things daily to create the future, and it is your chance to change its course if you so desire! This is the first point to take away from today's message. The second point is the part of creativity that implies originality. To create is to bring something into the world that would not have been there without you. This individualizing of the creative process is part of my Logical Evolution Framework. We don't have time to get into it in these few minutes we have together, so you can find out more by checking out my website and opting in to learn about my courses. The main point I want to draw out of that framework to support today's discussion is that originality is a major part of creating the future you want deliberately and seeing big goals come to fruition. One way of accomplishing this is to really look at the things you are thinking and either throw them out or make them your own. Instead of letting your past and outside influences steer you around, ask yourself what you want to believe, how you want to approach things, and whether you really want to create what those influences have created! There is a whole process for doing that as part of my framework. But for today, understand that your “creativity” will improve the more you deeply look at your beliefs and thoughts. Without that there is little chance you will end up where you want to be. To bring something into existence that is original, you have to make this a part of it. You can't put your own spin on your life without it. So, to revisit the original question…Can you be both logical and creative? The answer is a resounding yes. Acknowledge today that you are creating your future and ask yourself if you want to start doing it deliberately. Think about what you are thinking; think about your decisions and how they are propagating into your future. You are a creator whether you thought you were or not! You are a creator whether you can draw or sculpt or paint. We are all creators!

I've never met a logical thinker who didn't want to be more effective! My goal is to help logical thinkers achieve their goals and dreams…and a major piece of this is learning how to make the most of each day. Today's topic is how to become more effective in your day. To me, being effective means that the energy spent moved you toward your goals. I'll share 5 ways that you can implement TODAY to become more effective from wherever you are. Each idea turns up the dial of your output. Implement them how it works best for you, but I do encourage you to implement something from what you hear today. Here's a summary of them all, and the post covers each one more in depth. 1. Take 10 minutes at the beginning of the day to set your priorities. If you actually stop and identify your priorities, they will be on your mind throughout the day. This becomes a focal point that allows you to make course corrections as the day progresses – you are able to identify the helpful activities versus the distractions. 2. Timeblock an important project. Timeblocking is carving out a certain number of minutes during the day to devote to that project. I love this one, because I tend to set big goals with steps that are more unclear. If a project is big and unclear, I can tend to avoid it. Decide how much time to work on it, set a timer and just focus on that activity for that time, without worrying about how much you are getting done. This will ensure you get to the project sooner than if you waited until you were ready with all the specific steps. 3. Make your email time deliberate. Email can be an efficiency sink. You can get caught for hours if you don't have a purpose. This is also a great one to use along with timeblocking to ensure you don't spend too much time on it. If you decide to engage in your email, make decisions about each one and move on. 4. Focus on one thing at a time. Our culture has had this romance with multitasking that I think is starting to pass. Multi-tasking is simply moving your attention between topics rapidly. However, each time you have to move your focus, you lose energy. It is important not to fool yourself that things are getting done faster – the overall time spent is not going to be less! Focus intensifies your effectiveness, so when you move between tasks some effectiveness is lost. 5. Acknowledge transitions. Building on the previous point, switching activities uses extra energy. However, you can retain more energy through the switch by being very intentional. Make a conscious point to close out thoughts on one task and remind yourself of your intention for the next. Any of these will help you in your day's efficiency. I encourage you to play with these and implement them! Reach out to me if you have questions or feedback, and please pass this on to others you think it will help!

Who is the information junkie I am referring to in this title? Well, it's me, but I bet it's you too! Logical thinkers often put themselves into this category. We love information! We love knowing things, we love learning things, we love figuring things out. I am with you – it's probably my favorite thing to. I'm not going to say that's a bad thing at all! However, there is something to watch out for, when you are an information junkie, that can be an obstacle to actually seeing improvement in your life. This obstacle is being more concerned with HAVING information than USING information. This is the difference between POTENTIAL energy and KINETIC energy. Potential energy is unrealized! Its definition is “having or showing the capacity to become or develop into something in the future.” Notice that the definition did not say “developing into something,” it said “the capacity to develop into something.” When something has the capability to have an effect, it is potential energy, but when it is having an effect, it is kinetic energy. Kinetic energy is about what is actually occurring and not what could occur. Potential energy does give us the option to have kinetic energy though, and the same is true with information. Gathering information and learning is essential in experiencing change in your life, but it is not the last step. Knowing does not mean understanding. Implementing information brings true understanding. This is why you don't just get credit for attending a lecture in school; you have to solve the problems too. A child does not watch people walk and then get up and do it flawlessly themselves. My message to you today is to encourage you to take what you have learned about reaching the goals you have and IMPLEMENT that strategy, work with those ideas. Logical thinkers want to be good at something right when we learn it, but that is not how learning works. Experience with the information is what turns it into wisdom and allows it to make a difference in your life and the lives of those you love. If you have noticed these tendencies in yourself, give yourself an advantage and start putting things into practice so you can benefit from the many things you have learned!