Lines are a way to keep order and offer the power to create your world.
Waiting
Meditations
What’s Next?
We tend to try and reach a place where things are steady, life is good, and we can just relax.
It’s as if life is like a car and we simply need to turn on cruise control or pretty soon auto-drive and coast along.
But if you notice kids are never like this.
They are these insatiable monsters of what’s next.
Because life is an adventure, because there’s so much to learn, because they are up to something big . . . growing up, and becoming human.
As soon as we lose touch with creativity and replace it with cynicism and resignation we start to look for a smooth ride.
It also means if we’ve stopped asking what’s next? it may be time to take a look at where our taste for joy has gone as well.
Today I will practice asking what’s next? with delight instead of dread.
Self Care Later?
We mostly think of taking care of ourselves later.
When we get done with work.
Once we finish this quarter.
On our next vacation.
But for the master caring for self isn’t a bonus. It’s a foundation.
Olympic athletes don’t care for self last, they do so first.
They eat the best food, train in a carefully planned way, and get the rest they need.
If you’re truly serving a deep purpose, caring for self last isn’t heroic, it’s either arrogant or foolish.
Today I will remember that I am the foundation of all my work. I touch everything I love. I will care for myself like I am the precious resource of my life. Not by being lazy, but by being intentional.
Moby Dick
The future is out there.
Like Moby Dick.
Under the surface.
A Floatie In The Ocean Of Life
Some people say that the key to life is discipline:
– Make a plan and stick to it
– Make a list and check it off
– Don’t eat too much
– Save your money
– Be cautious
Some people say that the key to life is fun:
– Live like theirs no tomorrow
– Enjoy the flow of life
– Stay out late
– Take a lover
– Eat that cake . . . Carpe Cake’em
Both are simply strategies for dealing with uncertainty.
Life is uncertain so prepare for it.
Life is uncertain so live it.
Life unfolds regardless of our strategy.
Some people arrive at the end of life with a large bank account but no living.
Some people end up in a hospital in a foreign country unable to pay their medical bills.
Life doesn’t care about your strategy. Nothing is certain. And when we lay back against this, like lying in the ocean we start to notice we have been appointed to something. To a mission that has space for both the ebb of discipline and the flow of fun.
The trick is to learn to balance and bob, never needing certainty to arrive too late or be taken too soon.
Today I will notice my favorite life strategies and learn to embrace the simple rhythm of declaration and surrender.
You can learn to do this alone or with help. If you want to learn how to create from declaration and surrender I challenge you to step into the deep end of the pool.
I’m currently creating 100 conversations on surrender in service of my life’s work, if this is showing up for you I challenge you to let go and claim a spot – http://bit.ly/SurrenderW
Love,
Toku
What’s Missing?
When something is awry, in breakdown, or unclear, we tend to go looking for problems or complaints.
Millennial employees don’t work very hard. The sales teams numbers are down. People won’t ever pay my new fee. The coaching industry is too bloated. This company doesn’t have any good assistants. There’s too much bureaucracy.
We tend to look for the what’s in the way. Instead of the gap. Instead of what’s missing.
But moving things out of the way can be hard. People are people and their humanity get’s ALL over everything.
So instead of looking to move people, problems, and life out of the way, it’s easier and more effective to look for what’s missing.
Your understanding of millennials.
A compelling vision for the sales team.
Data on why clients aren’t paying.
The empty spots in the industry.
A way to create better assistants.
The power of the system.
If you look for problems you find them, if you look for what’s missing you find gaps, and gaps are the fuel of mastery, they’re how the light gets in.
Today I will notice all problems I ‘think’ see and look for what’s missing instead. I will wonder how to create what’s missing instead of fretting about how to ‘fix’ the people around me.
No Such Thing As Stuck
There’s no such thing as being stuck. I mean unless you’re physically trapped by a boulder or tied to laser table in a James Bond movie.
Mostly what you describe as stuck is a state of noticing you don’t like what’s going on, but aren’t sure how to change what’s going on, and afraid to try the wrong thing.
It’s a mix of aversion and confusion. But when you look closely, there’s no stuck, not really. You can try something else, you may not believe it will work, but that doesn’t mean it will or it won’t.
Stuck is a declared state. So if you want to get unstuck, declare something else.
– – –
Today I will notice what I think is stuck, find the breakdown, declare it, and get back into action in alignment with my commitments.
Practice and Performance
There are two ways to get better at something:
Practicing and Performing
And really performing is just practicing in front of people.
Most people only focus on performing and hoping to please others and get approval.
Masters and those seeking mastery focus on practice first and last. It’s why masters always stand out.
They see practice as a mountain with no top.
You’re Going To Keep Having That Argument
Unfortunately, the majority of marital conflicts fall into this category [perpetual problems] — 69 percent, to be exact. Time and again at four-year follow-ups we’d find couples still arguing about precisely the same issue.
– John Gottman
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work
There are two types of relationship breakdowns: Perpetual and Solvable
Solvable problems are mostly situational – Like figuring out where to go to lunch when three people want pizza and two want sandwiches.
Perpetual problems are existential – Like your style is direct and the client’s style is indirect. They get upset when you say it ‘how it is’, you get upset when they hint instead of asking.
You might learn to be more subtle in how you communicate, but you’re going to tend towards directness, your client can be more clear, but they are going to tend towards vagueness.
Conflict arises when you think it’s ‘your way’ is the ‘high’ way.
If you find yourself thinking “Why can’t people just be direct like me? It works so much better?” Then you think you’re right, and you’re probably also in trouble.
So instead of being right, you might be better learning how to work in the midst of the unresolvable humanity in the people you long to serve.
People Die For Pointless Wars and Deep Meaning
During the Vietnam war protesters declared that the deaths of all those fighting in South East Asia were pointless and foolish, and they were right.
During that same war, thousands in the military fought, died, and lost those they loved for the declared purpose of protecting the world from the power of evil men, and they were also right.
Memorial day is supposed to be a day to honor something simple, those that had died in war. But of course, the war that it was started to commemorate (the American Civil War) was anything but simple. Just like the Vietnam war, or World War II, we paint wars as simple battles between good and evil.
- The noble North and the racist South
- The narcissist Nazi’s and the savior allies.
- The communists and the capitalists
But war and life is never that simple.
For those who died, many fought for something they believed in, others fought out of fear of being labeled cowards or traitors, others fought in pursuit of glory, and others after being compelled by the government. And of course, this is true for both sides
War, like life, is full of nobility and complexity. We want there to be simple lines of black and white. Right and wrong. But there rarely are, at least on the level of a single person.
And so on this day as we remember those who died in wars, good and bad (and in truth always a bit of both), let us remember that for each son and daughter that died, there were those who loved them.
Let us remember that even in the worst parts of humanity there is more often than not a thread of love and hope. Let us memorialize that and then choose to see this in the humans we go to war with inside our own minds, on political posts on social media, and in the traffic we fight on our way to work.
This is a practice truly worthy of those who died and even more so, of those who lived.