Alexandersmap

    Tag: Jim Rohn

    • The Given

      “I inherit from the past of my family, my city, my tribe, my nation, a variety of debts, inheritance, rightful expectations, and obligations. These constitute the given of my life, my moral starting point.” — Athenian oath

      If the way we live our lives is based on the routines and beliefs we establish for ourselves over time, the foundation for those routines and beliefs is that which we’ve been given by the circle of people who have surrounded us from our beginning. The desire to break free from that circle begins in our teenage years, but there’s no getting around the momentum of the given. Our very identity is formed by those we’ve been surrounded by. Is it any wonder that some people move away, that they may be someone else?

      When we think about the people who have influenced us most, we begin to understand ourselves more. Our positive and negative voice that quietly whisper to us as a running dialogue, waiting to rise to the surface to make an appearance in our best and worst moments? Given. Our fallback position on everything from religion to politics to underlying feelings about people who are “different from us”? Given. Our lives begin with momentum. But that which is given is merely our foundation. We are the architect for who we become beyond our base.

      “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” ― Jim Rohn

      That circle changes over our lifetime. The gravitational pull of our belief system from when we were a child changes as the circle influencing us changes. When we go off to college or move to a faraway place, we are breaking free of that which once influenced us and placing ourselves in a new, developing circle. Most of us have the personal freedom to choose who we want to be. It begins with who we surround ourselves with, and how we spend our days. Habits and routines are as essential to our becoming as who we started out as in the beginning.

      Lately I’ve been in many conversations about what we’ve been given. Our emotional, intellectual, physical and financial foundation established momentum for each of us. It’s up to us to keep that momentum going from there, but there’s no doubting the impact of the forces that brought us here. It’s easier to become what’s next with a running start than it is from a static position. Reflecting on our own momentum might enhance our empathy for those who start without any. When we think about it, we are all part of the same tribe, aren’t we?

      “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” — Winston Churchill

      We are all part of someone else’s circle. Isn’t it just as fair to ask ourselves what are we giving, perhaps even more than what are we getting? That Athenian oath doesn’t just speak of rightful expectations, but of obligations too. Living a meaningful life demands that we use that positive momentum to pull others up as well, that our circle grows larger. Great societies and cultures are built on such things as this. This is true excellence, for it lives beyond us.

    • Earning Deserving

      “To get what you want, you have to deserve what you want. The world is not yet a crazy enough place to reward a whole bunch of undeserving people.” ― Charles Munger

      “Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become.” — Jim Rohn

      We are all trying to reach someplace better than we began. Some of us began in a pretty decent position, some are well behind the 8 ball. It would be irresponsible to not acknowledge that starting position isn’t important in our lives. Head-starts do matter, but we ought to remember that where we start doesn’t guarantee where we finish. Most people in a free society have agency over their lives. Many simply choose to relinquish it.

      We all know examples of people who waste their potential. The mirror is particularly handy when we think of those what-might-have-beens. There’s an old saying about mirrors being much smaller than windshields for a reason: we must look forward not back to get where we want to go. Put another way, if we aren’t moving forward we’re in danger of being dragged backwards by the past.

      But forward is daunting. It’s changing the very things that make us who we are, and becoming someone else. The same is comfortable, while change seems like a lot of work. Crossing that chasm seems impossible at times. This is where that small mirror can help offer perspective. Think of the things that we once thought were impossibilities in our lives that are now core parts of our identity. The future doesn’t look so daunting when viewed from the lens of possibility.

      Sure, excellence is a habit. Who doesn’t want to reach their level of personal excellence? It turns out plenty of people would rather be comfortable than try to leap across chasms. More often than not, I’d rather be comfortable than working out or hiking up a mountain or doing the work that leads to uncommon results in my career. The struggle is real, and the only way forward is to take those incremental steps necessary to move onward and upward. When we keep checking boxes we close gaps between who we were and who we want to become. Deep down, we know that deserving is earned one step at a time. It turns out that all that really matters is what we do next.

    • On Time

      “Days are expensive. When you spend a day you have one less day to spend. So make sure you spend each one wisely.” — Jim Rohn

      We have an extra day added to the calendar this year. Leap Year and all that. What will we do with one more? Each day in the books is one less, if you look at it a certain way, or one more, if you look at it another way. Do we look at the scarcity of time left or the abundance of experiences we’ve accumulated along the way?

      Perhaps the answer is to be aware of the time going by and to be deliberate in our use of it. Wasting less time by utilizing it better. That’s a good reason to make goals and focus on productivity, but the root of each ought to be a resounding answer to the question, “how do I want to use my time?”

    • That Person in the Middle

      We each build our identity through our actions—on the people we become through our habits and relationships. As Jim Rohn pointed out, we are the average of the five people we associate with the most. There’s a lot of truth in this observation. The people around us influence us, and amplify our own actions and beliefs as we in turn influence them.

      So what happens when the people we associate with the most begin to fall away? Someone fills the void, or perhaps nobody does, but either way the dynamic has changed. The pandemic surely taught us that relationships and routines are fragile things indeed. What we lean into when our circle begins to fall away will define who we become next. Our core identity often rises to the occasion in such moments, and it’s up to us to decide whether we like who that person is. Every day is an opportunity to change the story.

      The thing is, we have agency. We may yet decide what to be and go be it. Stasis isn’t our natural state, by it’s very nature it’s what we settle for. We ought to stop settling and continue becoming. There’s more story to be written for us, friend. Consider Gordon Lightfoot, who just passed away. He was a notorious drinker, until he decided not to be. He became healthy and active when he changed the people he spent his time with:

      “I love Canada. I’ve traveled all over the North in various canoe expeditions. Fortunately, I… fell in with a group of people about 30 years ago who were into canoe trips. I got into it and over a period of about 15 years I did ten trips. I’ve done a lot of the major rivers in Northern Canada — the Coppermine, the Back River, the Nahanni, the Churchill. I feel very fortunate about being born in Canada. Never really wanted to leave.” — Gordon Lightfoot, “Gordon Lightfoot on Meeting Miles, Canadian Canoe Trips and That One Time with Ozzy”, The Exclaim! Questionnaire

      There’s a heavy dose of identity in these words. Not just about being Canadian, but about being out there exploring the wilderness of Canada. This is a man who became something far more than a heavy-drinking musician. It almost certainly extended his active lifetime by many years.

      And what of us? What is our identity, and who are we becoming through our associations and habits? We must continue to play an active role in writing a story worthy of a lifetime, for our entire lifetime. People inevitably come and go in our time. What we’ll always have is the person in the middle.

    • Active Influence

      “You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.” — Jim Rohn

      If we operate with a high level of agency, we are active influencers in our days. When we operate with low agency, conversely, we feel we have no control over what happens to us. Extraordinary events aside, we each have more control than we might believe. We each have a say in how our lives go. But it always begins with reflection and a clear idea of who we want to be. Decide what to be and go be it, as the song goes. This is a high agency attitude, and must be followed with an action chaser. For if not now, then when?

      We must choose to be active participants. We must choose high agency. To relinquish control of our lives to others would be an individual tragedy. The world doesn’t need another person with no direction, no purpose, no zest for life. The world needs active influencers building positive outcomes.

    • Give It Wings

      “Days are expensive. When you spend a day you have one less day to spend. So make sure you spend each one wisely.” — Jim Rohn

      “Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.” — Jim Rohn

      When we think of life as brief, we realize the expense of each day. How we use them in turn matters more. In fact, we come to realize that everything matters. Each day, each decision, stacked together makes up our life, however big or small it may be. Over time we might see that we have agency over our days, and in that realization everything changes.

      That word, agency, is usually greeted with a blank stare. Most people don’t think in terms of agency, of believing to the core that we have a say in how we react to our environment and the actors working for and against us. Thankfully, in the modern world slavery largely doesn’t exist as a legal construct. Yet how many settle for subservient lives?

      “A slave is he who cannot speak his thought.” — Euripides

      We each grow into our potential. We each decide what to be and, within reason, have the opportunity to go be it. Living a larger life doesn’t come simply from the decision, for we must build habits and systems that carry us across the gap between desire and achievement, but it begins there. We plant our seed and nurture it until it is fully realized, selectively watering that which will become our future identity.

      We each develop a working philosophy for our lives, shaped over time. If we’re lucky it’s derived from a place of high agency and boldness. We know, deep down, what we wish to become. Each day offers an opportunity to bridge the gap: To rise up to meet our potential, uniquely ours, represented in the hopes and dreams we shelter from the harshness of the world. Like any fragile dream, we must set it free to fly or flounder on its own. The way to realize a fuller life is simply to give it wings.

    • Looking Back and Filling Forward

      “When I look back on resolutions of improvement and amendment which have year after year been made and broken, either by negligence, forgetfulness, vicious idleness, casual interruption, or morbid infirmity; when I find that so much of my life has been stolen unprofitably away, and that I can descry by retrospection scarcely a few single days properly and vigorously employed, why do I yet try to resolve again? I try because reformation is necessary and despair is criminal.” — Samuel Johnson, via Daily Stoic

      It’s that time of year again. We hustle through the year and arrive at the end forever changed. We’ve gained insight, lost people from our lives, picked up habits, and either raised or lowered our expectations for what’s next. We aren’t just what we repeatedly do, we’re also what the world does to us and how we react to these things. We are, each of us, works in progress. We ought to take a moment to take stock of where we are, and what we might do with ourselves in this next chapter.

      What went exceedingly well this year? What fell apart despite our best intentions? What’s missing? What is overly present? What can we do to influence a better result in the New Year? These are the usual questions, worthy of our consideration, that generally lead to resolutions and writer’s cramp.

      “Decide what to be and go be it.” — Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise, The Avett Brothers

      The biggest moments tend to be scheduled. We book events and trips and seek our milestone moments. Occasionally we participate in a wonderful moment of serendipity, but the big stuff in life generally happens when we put it on the calendar. Knowing this, we ought to schedule a few big moments for ourselves in 2023. Just as we must make a reservation at a great restaurant if we hope to have an epic meal there on a Saturday night, so it follows that we must book our bucket list moments when, and while, we can.

      The thing is, we don’t just live one epic moment to the next. Our lives are the things that happen in between such highlight moments. So it follows that the quality of our life is directly related to how we fill in the rest of the calendar around those milestone moments. Each day is our lifetime. So we ought to fill each with people and habits that sustain and energize us. We ought to do work that does more than pay the bills. Careers and lives are built on purpose.

      “There’s always a sunrise and always a sunset and it’s up to you to choose to be there for it,’ said my mother. ‘Put yourself in the way of beauty.” — Cheryl Strayed

      Life is more than paying bills and making it to the meeting on time. If the world is filled with beautiful moments, why aren’t we seeking them out more? One of the best habits I ever established was using a one line per day journal and make it a mission to write down something amazing each day. Not every day is amazing, of course, but when we work towards it that stack of days can be a string of magic.

      “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” ― Jim Rohn

      Our best intentions can be derailed by that which surrounds us. Does our circle of friends and family lift us up or hold us down? How about our habits? For these are related, aren’t they? Our circle of influencers and our daily habits will either make us better people or they eventually pull us over the cliff. If we’re surrounded by people with bad habits and a horrible outlook on life, we tend to pick these things up ourselves. Conversely, when we’re around creative people with productive habits, we tend to lift ourselves up to meet them. So what will it be for you and me?

      No matter how old or experienced we are, we each must reconcile our time in our own way, each day. If we want a better life filled with nuggets of joy and moments of adventure we’ve got to put ourselves out there and try many things to find our thing. This all begins with looking back at what our days were filled with and deciding what was fulfilling and what we’ve had our fill of. Taking stock in such a way, we can now gaze ahead deliberately and fill that blank calendar with purpose and hope.

      We are indeed works in progress. Reformation is necessary. But we can find joy in the creative process. What better project is there to work on than our own life?

    • Avoiding Casual Disbelievers

      “Always remember this: whenever you have thought long and hard about a new idea or plan of action, working out lots of details and preparing for all sorts of contingencies, and you first tell someone else about it, they are hearing it for the first time. It will be nearly impossible for any newly informed person to be as enthusiastic or as confident as you are. And it’s natural for your own confidence level, like water running downhill, to settle at the lowest point nearby. That’s why it is so important to be very careful about how you share your plans with others, and limit your exposure to the negative thinking and negative comments casual disbelievers can produce.” ― Tom Morris, True Success: A New Philosophy of Excellence

      As we become more aware of the world and the influence those around us have on our life, we learn to stop saying what we’re going to do and start showing what we’ve done. It’s far better to simply begin working towards our goal than to have our hopes and dreams questioned by well-meaning but casual disbelievers. The thing is, plans aren’t reckless when they’re well thought out. They may present risks, but the risk of not doing something is also present. Which is more corrosive to our lives long term? What might have been, of course. So take the leap while there’s still time. Just be selective about when we tell someone we’re leaping.

      We are the average of the five people we spend the most time with, Jim Rohn once said, and we ought to be very selective about who those five people are. In turn, to become part of the five people someone we aspire to be more like associates with the most, we’ve got to earn that place at their table. So does everyone else. In this way we all grow.

      The alternative of growth is to settle. There’s no magic in settling in life, it’s where dreams go to die a slow death, strangled by excuses and inaction. That’s not us, friends. We must take one small step today towards our plan of action, and then another. Incremental growth is still growth. What seems insignificant is extraordinary over time, for momentum comes through small habits consistently done.

      “All big things come from small beginnings. The seed of every habit is a single, tiny decision. But as that decision is repeated, a habit sprouts and grows stronger. Roots entrench themselves and branches grow. The task of breaking a bad habit is like uprooting a powerful oak within us. And the task of building a good habit is like cultivating a delicate flower one day at a time.” ― James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

      I have a friend, currently sailing around the world, who frequently teases me in the comments section of this blog about focusing on productivity instead of breaking free from my career and doing what he’s doing. Ironically, he’s one of the most productive people I know, and is sailing at this very moment precisely because his productivity led him to this moment, and carries him in subsequent moments. We are where we are because the sum of our actions demonstrated that our individual plan, conceived not so very long ago as bold and reckless, brought us here. Knowing that, how do we not conceive even bolder plans for our future?

      Be bold today. Just be selective in who you tell about it. Let’s make it our secret and just show them later what we’ve quietly, relentlessly, done with our time.

    • Good People

      “They’ll never be any shortage of good people in the world. All you got to do is seek them out and get as many of them as possible into your life. Keep the rest the hell out.” — Charlie Munger

      “You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” — Jim Rohn

      I’ve tried to live this “no assholes” philosophy in every aspect of my life. We are who we continually surround ourselves with. It’s one reason you’ll never find me on the extreme edges of politics, fighting for every dollar in certain business cultures, or spending any significant amount of time on Facebook. I enjoy living a happy, trusting life surrounded by wonderful people. Call me crazy.

      We’ve seen what a toxic culture can do. The world of assholes has an awful stink. Find the good people where the air is clear. Where the building of bridges happens. Where there’s hope for the future and an earnestness to contribute to it.

      When you find a company that is filled with good people, trying earnestly to make a positive difference, you want to try a little harder to measure up. When you join a company filled with people trying to step on you to climb a notch ahead, you either kick them back or immediately find another company. Seems an easy choice to me.

      Where did all the good people go,
      I’ve been changing channels I don’t see them
      On the TV shows
      Where did all the good people go,
      We got heaps and heaps of what we sow
      — Jack Johnson, Good People

      Sometimes I surprise people when I tell them I don’t watch a lot of television, and definitely don’t watch a lot of news. Talking heads on a program, no matter how earnest they might seem, aren’t there to serve you and me. They’re there to amplify and draw you in. There are surely good people swimming in the red ocean of news programming, but why risk getting eaten alive trying to find them? Swim in the tranquil sea instead. The water’s great, come on in.

      If all this seems rather utopian, well, it’s not a determined ignorance of the dark side of humanity. No head in the sand here, thank you. Rather, it’s an informed decision to associate with the best people you can find, people who will lend a hand. People who make you want to be a better person yourself.

      That kind of good vibe builds on itself. That’s how communities are formed. It’s how families stay together. How marriages last a lifetime. Find the good people and earn a place at the table. You might even discover happiness was right there, waiting for you to stop paying attention to the not very good people.

    • Killing Our Previous Self

      Sacrifice the things you used to believe, and the ways you used to be.
      Learning leaves a trail of little deaths.
      – Derek Sivers, How To Live

      The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it. – John Ruskin

      We all transform into something different. This is the only way, for no matter how much we might embrace the comfort of our current self, it must ultimately die and be cast aside for the person we become by our actions. The question isn’t whether who we once were dies, but rather, who does the killing. Do we move ourselves towards that which we aspire to be, or does the world leave us behind, a shell of our previous self? Don’t let this happen to you friend!

      The pandemic killed more than the people who succumbed to COVID-19. It killed what was comfortable and routine for the masses, changing us in profound ways that we might not fully understand. But that death of our former self was going to happen anyway, it only accelerated in the pandemic. Mourn what has passed if you will, but then dust yourself off and ask yourself, what comes next for me?

      I mourn the passing of old friendships. People I was once close with who have disappeared down the path of their own lives. But then again, I’ve changed too. Learned new things, built new habits, formed new alliances. Our paths were once parallel and then diverged. Old friends might still gather and celebrate what once was, or look towards a place where we cross paths once again, but ultimately we must keep walking our own path, just as they do. Whatever will be will be. Should we meet again, wouldn’t it be better if we built a great story of how our lives grew in the time we were apart?

      Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become. – Jim Rohn

      I celebrate the journey others are on, even as I continue on my own path. We’ll have so much to talk about, should we meet again. Stories about those long-dead former selves transformed into something different. Don’t we owe it to ourselves to make that story greater than what it once was? To learn and grow and follow the path that brings us the most meaning in our lives, and share this greater self with others? That, it seems to me, is what success really is.