When people attempt big changes in their life,  they often overlook the importance of their environment. By environment, I mean more than just the place you live. Your environment includes the people that are around you, too.

Friends and family tend to support your daily efforts and your “reasonable” goals. But, often when you decide to really streatch out and start to make a dream happen for you, you’ll find some resistance.

Subtle (or not so subtle) suggestions and actions may start. Suddenly, the people that most love and support you are telling you things like, “That sounds great, but don’t quit your day job.” or “That sounds nice. But, it will have to wait until everything gets settled first.”  These peer pressures ask you to put off your dream or abandon them.

Why would those that love you ask you to forsake your dreams? It’s precisely because they do love you. The want you to be safe. Just like the little piece of your brain that is constantly trying to keep you safe and looking good, they don’t want you to be hurt.

I don’t recommend arguing with them. Arguing or stating rational facts won’t necessarily win the day. You’ll want to calm them. Make sure they know that you are not jumping off a cliff, nor are you abandoning them or your life. Once they know that you are prepared and that you have considered all of the angles, here is where you get to invite them into your game…

Create an inspiring vision of how it’s going to be when you succeed. Tell them how great it is going to be for you. Use vivid, colorful imagery and really create a world that they can see. Tell them how it will be for them in your future, too. Bring them into this future world of yours and make them feel at home.

Instead of dealing with subtle pressure to just stay the way you’ve been, you will now have cheering fans 0n the sidelines and hopefully much more direct assistance too.

Another benefit of this tactic is that by creating a vivid, inspiring future for them to see, you are constantly reinvigorated by it, too! If you can see what it is you’re working towards, it will help you more easily clear any obstacles that show up along the way.

So, go create something awesome for your life and bring your friends and family for the ride!

Are you prepared for the Inspiration Age?

So, I am a tech guy and I think pretty linearly. I look for elegant answers to complex problems. AND, I’m into relationships, too. (I’ve been with my wife for 22 years.)

I know that people have been searching for this answer for years. And this topic has been the basis for hundreds of jokes by stand-up comics.

But, I have a valid solution and I hope that everyone will take this to heart and create happiness and peace in their relationships. I offer you the “magic bullet” to making relationships work! It’s pretty simple. Ready?

(Before you look below, you MUST realize that I mean this advice for BOTH sexes. Not just for men, as it is usually cast.)

Look at this diagram: If the seat is down, close the lid over it. If the seat is up, Put Them Both Down. Everyone. Every Time. Yes. You will have to open the toilet every time you need to go.


Results:

• No complaints about someone forgetting to put the seat down.
• Nobody is going to pee on the seat.
  Well, someone might, but they’re so drunk that you should be happy they’re not peeing in your fridge. (Which I have a true story about, but will not share more now.)
• Equality! Everyone will have to open the lid to go.

Just another problem I can help with!

Once there was a person that had amazing ideas, fantastic flights of fancy, creative whims, and invented wondrous things but kept them all locked up inside.

And there was a sibling that had some interesting ideas, not sensational or wildly creative necessarily, but workable. The difference is that the sibling spoke about the ideas, wrote them down, and shared them with others. The ideas grew and people began to make them into reality.

And the world was changed.

Thinking about great things is wonderful, but essentially useless until they are spoken out into the world and action is taken.

So, don’t wait for the Perfect Idea. Don’t wait until everything is ready. Go out now and Create something. Others will help you improve it, build it, distribute it, whatever needs to be done.

Circumstances are NEVER perfect.

Start now; where you are, with what you have and create something for you, your family, and for the world!

All things considered, we all have an equal chance at becoming succesful, rich, famous, powerful… whatever.

There are thousands of examples of people that are disadvantaged in some way that turn it around and become a champion in the very field that they have a disadvantage in.

Barabara Walters, with a lisp, becoming one of the highest paid tv reporters. James Earl Jones, a whispering stutterer, becomes “The Voice.” (Darth Vader and hundreds of commercials have brought him relative fortune.)

So, what keeps everyone from becoming everything that they dream about? It’s the dichotomy in the brain, the split that somehow has You talking to You in betweeen your ears.

Sit quietly for 60 seconds and just listen to how that voice tells you things; how it describes the room to you; how it tells you that it’s dumb to sit quietly for 60 seconds; how it says “Why would you do anything this guy tells you to do? Who is he anyway? And why are you so easily led?”

Well, that right there is the reason that so many people do not achieve their dreams. The voice says, “You couldn’t…” “Who would listen…” “That person has an advantage and its unfair, so you can’t…”

Listen. it’s talking TO you. It is is you and it’s talking To You.

It’s whole purpose in life is to keep you safe. “Don’t touch that stove! Remember when you were five and you did that and you got that scar and it HURT!” So, yeah. Staying alive and relatively unscarred is good.

But…
Safe, to this voice, also includes “Don’t look bad.” And if you would be willing to look truthfully and insightfully at why you do so many of the things that you do, you would probably find that at the root of them all lies some version of “Don’t look bad.”

You don’t want people to laugh at you, belittle you, yell at you, be superior or be right more than you. All of those hurt a little; and sometimes hurt a lot, especially when you’re young.

So, the little voice constantly coaxes, whines, wheedles and pushes whatever buttons it needs to push for you to act right, be smart, be quiet, be aggressive, be withdrawn or whatever else you can do to keep from being hurt emotionally, mentally and physically.

The problem is that it has no sense of scope or of future rewards.

To it, someone laughing at you because you answered a question wrong can be as bad being punched in the face. Something to be avoided at all costs. So, instead of taking a chance, you hold back. “Better to be thought the fool….” it quotes, reassuring you of your right-ness.

It doesn’t understand that getting out of bed today and going running is good for you in the long term. It’s says, “Run tomorrow. You were up so late.” “Skip one day. What’s it going to hurt?” It doesn’t quite understand that the slight discomfort now is worth the longer, healthier life.

It’s a different part of the brain that does those equations. This part just knows that the bed is warm and safe. “Running hurts and you could be more hurt, pull a muscle, get hit by a car!” Better to rest comfortably.

So, do me a favor. Go out today and do something you’ve wanted to do for a long time. Something you’ve been wanting to start, but have found just so many reasons why today is not the day.

Well, today is the day! Go now. Get prepared. Listen for the voice. Listen carefully. It’s there talking to you, telling you all of the things that it knows will work on you. And they would have worked yesterday, but now you’re listening and you can hear it for what it is.

It’s the simple, primitive monkey brain that only wants the best for you… in the short term.

Listen to it. Hear what it has to say. (Telling it to shut up Will Not Work)

Then go out and scare and amaze yourself at your power!

You really can do anything. People do astounding things every day and they are really no better than you. They just did it!

Love you!