What You Do Isn't Enough, Challenge What You Think & Say - the Word Creates World Paradigm

"Whether you think you can, or you think you can't - you're right."
-Henry Ford

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can... I just did.

I'm here to take a look at the relationship between what we think, what actually comes out of our mouth, and what we follow through and do.  I'm going to start with an assertion: if you are reading this blog (and I assure you at this point, YOU ARE reading this blog), then you are a dreamer, and I further assert a dream-seeker.  Otherwise my incessant "live your dreams" bantering would be annoying.

This blog entry in particular, is intended to have you put your thoughts and words under a microscope for a moment, to devote thoughtful consideration to that what you think (even those thoughts you keep to yourself) and consider how deep that influence is on the world you manifest and create.

A brilliant 'Thought Diagram' borrowed from www.CartoonChurch.com

You either speak (and think, and act) from a space of LOVE or from a space of FEAR and your word creates your world.  Especially your thoughts (your words to yourself).  I haven't read the book "The Secret" but from what I understand from the people who've demanded I read it to embrace more magic in my life, this isn't anything in the realm of the law of attraction, nor manifesting things.  This is common sense stuff, in terms of how we perceive the world around us.

I have a rule for myself, and this is where it begins:

THE RULE OF ASSUMPTION
95% of the time in life, I am not going to know the answer, the truth, nor the reality of something.  As a human being my mind absolutely must fill in the blank with the answer my mind deems most likely to be correct.  If I'm going to make something up, it might as well be something that empowers me and propels me forward.  I'm just as likely to make up something positive OR negative that will be incorrect, but until I know the truth of the matter, I shall consciously and intentionally make up something empowering.


I'll give you a real world scenario to illustrate this long winded rule.  One of your friends, maybe a coworker, suddenly stops talking to you.  They no longer respond to texts, when you see them are suddenly quiet and reserved.  Why is it in these situations we commonly assume the worst?  That inner gremlin (my inner voice, I call it a gremlin because it rarely has really positive insight) says something to me like, "they're MAD at you about something" and I start to wrack my brain for what I could have possibly done or said that has offended them.  Now, I can be a particularly offensive person from time to time, I'm brash, over-the-top, I talk too much and listen too little, and I can be quite crass.  I'm never surprised when someone is upset or offended.  My stomach still bottoms out when someone is upset with me, especially a close friend or family member, but that bottoming out hasn't really changed my patterns of speech and behavior.  For better or worse, I'm ME in just about every situation.  I would have made a great court jester, until of course I offended the queen and was beheaded (I didn't research this piece, so not sure if that's even historically accurate).  When I IMAGINE that someone is upset with me, I naturally start to interact with them less.  Not seeing them, I start to miss my friend so I finally reach out (via email, of course) with a "hey, is everything okay? I noticed you're not yourself and I assumed I did something wrong and wanted to check in" type message.  A very high percentage of the time, I get a message back explaining some family trauma, somebody is sick, a relationship just ended, and it had nothing to do with me.  Suddenly, I realize that the few days I avoided this friend, I was being a horrible friend as they could have used some love and support.

Baseline message, fear sourced those thoughts and actions.  It influenced my perception, then my behavior.  Imagine the same scenario where you brought love to the assumptions and how it might influence those actions.  Can you see you'd think, speak, and act differently?  I know I have (when implementing my rule about assumptions).

Gratuitous Chan Chan pic of Sim and Cameron for no reason

Cliche as it may be, if your self talk (thoughts) indulges fear, fear grows and takes over.  If you seek to love and respect yourself, if you practice consciously creating things out of love, which starts with loving yourself (your strengths, your weaknesses, your perfect imperfections) this will translate into a foundation for loving others around you, consistently.

Next time someone is downright nasty to you (stranger or friend) for no good reason, before you knee jerk into their black hole of negative energy, ask yourself what they might be saying to themselves that is causing their sour behavior and perspective.  Sometimes the best way to help someone out of that space is to not join them in it.  Yes, that's much easier said than practiced.  But it is indeed possible.


"In order to carry a positive action we must develop [first] a positive vision."
-Dalai Lama

My relationship began and thrives with a positive vision (yet sometimes the gremlin rears it's ugly head)

A Journey of 7,609 Miles Begins with a Single Step - What Confucius & Forrest Gump have in common

So y'all know I love my inspirational quotes.  I throw them in Tweets, BLOGS (see below), post them on all social media outlets available to me, each quote is a log stoking my own personal fire of inspiration.  I love sharing what inspires me to help each of you (my family, my friends and my readers) learn to keep your own fire burning hot (the inspiration fire, for this analogy).  This morning was a really surreal start to a Thursday.  Many know that my favorite morning nearly every week is Thursday morning, as 99% of the time it starts with a Coyote trail run and 30-60 badass trail runners of the noob and advanced variety, and everything in between.  Today's run was full of unique circumstances and nostalgia, and since you're here, I'd love to take you on part of the journey with me...

Parker Mesa Overlook, off of the Los Liones trail called "the Chute" also accessed by Paseo Mirimar fireroad

"A journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step."
-Confucius

Kate and I running Route 66 miles together

Today marked my 1,000th run in the last 5 years.  Now this may seem silly for someone who heads up a group like the SoCal Coyotes, and maybe even trite for someone who has completed 11 races of 100 miles or further.  Yet I found myself thinking of the run Kate and I did together from Chicago to Santa Monica on the Route 66, which took us about 16-17 days in May/June of 2012, the Run It Forward tour.  There were 8 ultra runners (and a few more support crew who ran a leg here and there), and we completed the route with each of us averaging around 20-25 miles each day.

I started to do a little math in my head.  I started running this block of training on November 21st, 2006.  2,494 days have passed since.  By the averages, I'm running once every 2.5 days (or about 3 times per week).  Since 2006, I've actually logged an average of 5-6 runs per week (let's say 5.5 to split the difference).  My present cycle of running began in late-August, 2003.  It's been 3,673 days since then.  If one assumes I've run 5.5 times per week (on average) and rounds my 7.6 mile per run average down to 7.25 miles, it gives me a pretty safe estimate of around 40 miles per week, which considers weeks off, and a slow build up from August of 2003 to April of 2004.  40 miles per week times 525 weeks (how long it's been since the last week of August in 2003) is 21,000 miles (or my best guesstimate of how much I've run this past decade, a little over 2,000 miles per year).

Why do all these numbers matter?  Well, really, they don't, but we humans give everything meaning.  So, whilst I was running with Rachel this morning, I realized how difficult it was to START running again, from ground zero.  I recalled a week in late-May of 2001 when I promised my friend Troy "I will walk 2 blocks to get groceries" and I couldn't even do that.  I trained for 4 marathons before I finished my first.  Lack of motivation, sickness, injury, I withstood setback after painful setback, and the physical pains often led to much more complicated emotional pain and suffering.  I saw an opening when I finally went for that first run in late-May 2001, I felt liberated running down this fairway on a golf course near my apartment, and I never wanted to lose that feeling again.  I elected to go to a marathon I knew I couldn't finish (San Diego Rock'n'Roll in June of 2001, the first of the four I trained for before I finished the Chicago Marathon in October of 2002).

Y'all know I get hokey from time to time (so here goes): after picking up my bib at the SD R'n'R expo (a race I didn't plan to complete), I walked by a palm reader / fortune teller.  She said many things but one thing I buried in my subconscious was "you will be a very successful author, and have a few well regarded books."  Now, you can say what you want about fortune telling, fortune cookies (yum, best stale dessert ever), and horoscopes being incredibly general so everyone can relate, but this was something that in my mind (back then) was not on the radar, at all.  I thought to myself, "hahahaha, she picked the wrong dude for that generalization."  And while it remains to be seen how many books I write and how successful and well regarded they are, what I recalled this morning sent chills up my spine.  The first chapter of my book is titled: Breaking Through Inertia and is 100% about May of 2001 and the lead in to the SD R'n'R Marathon.  I'm still doing mental cartwheels over that one.

"Wherever I went, I. WAS. RUN-NING!"

“I don't know if we have a destiny, or if we're all just floatin' around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it's both. Maybe both is happenin' at the same time."
-Forrest Gump



So back to the numbers, and the meaning behind them.  At one point I thought I might never be healthy enough to run a marathon: remember that I trained for FOUR before finishing one part?  Then, after Chicago in 2002, I developed stage 3 patellar tendinitis less than a month later and was OUT of running again for 10 months.  At that point, I honestly thought I'd never run again.  So looking back on a decade where I've (hypothetically) run more than 20,000 miles and have a record for 7,608, that got me thinking about Forrest Gump and his run back-and-forth-and-back-and-forth-again across the US.

Just taking my verified mileage total, following a hypothetical route that Forrest could have run: I have (virtually) run from Montgomery, Alabama (Forrest started in the fictional city of Greenbow, so I used Montgomery to estimate distances) to the Santa Monica Pier, all the way across the country to a pier in Maine, back to Montgomery and I'm all the way to Colorado City, Texas (just west of Sweetwater) en route to the Santa Monica Pier again.  I'm not here to boastfully brag about it, but rather to say for someone who thought they'd never run again, for someone who was so depressed that I couldn't get out my front door to WALK TWO EFFING BLOCKS failing 7 days in a row when I promised my buddy Troy I would, well, if I can do all that, then YOU TOO can do ANYTHING.  That doesn't mean running, per se, you can do ANYTHING you dream of doing.  Um, okay, KAMF and Panda, please do NOT act on your dream of actually FLYING, this might not be the best "you can do anything" outcome.

To the rest of you: don't be reasonable about your goals.  Dream BIG.  Like Everest BIG.  Moon BIG.  And don't get overwhelmed by the enormity of it (you will from time to time, but then let the overwhelm go).  Be inspired by something that is so much bigger than you.  This is your one chance at this life, so do something so massive that it inspires so many people, that you suddenly find yourself inspired by yourself.

You can do it.  Now stop READING and do something about it.  Right. NOW.  Even if it's just simply writing that goal or dream down, you know, the one you keep rationalizing is not really possible.  It is.  Make it happen.  I believe in you!


SUCCESS (a poem by Berton Braley*)
If you want a thing bad enough
To go out and fight for it,
Work day and night for it,
Give up your time and your peace and your sleep for it,
If only desire of it
Makes you quite mad enough never to tire of it,
Makes you hold all other things tawdry and cheap for it,
If life seems all empty and useless without it
And all that you scheme and you dream is about it,
If gladly you’ll sweat for it, fret for it, plan for it,
Lose all your terror of God or man for it,
If you’ll simply go after that thing that you want
With all your capacity, strength and sagacity,
Faith, hope and confidence, stern pertinacity,
If neither cold poverty, famished and gaunt,
Nor sickness nor pain of body or brain
Can turn you away from the thing that you want,
If dogged and grim you besiege and beset it,
You’ll get it.
            *huge thanks to Jon Clark for that shout out!  Much love, my brutha!

Brian Lhee wrote one of his dreams down, now he's off to ICELAND!

Okay, here goes.  I'm even going to make STEP 1 of this 1,000 mile (or much longer) journey easy on you.  Post a comment (below) with your biggest dream/goal that you're presently either already working on or were previously not willing to admit.  POST it here and release it to the universe.  Because I'm rooting for you.  And I won't be the only one...

#JustPostIt  (yeah, I couldn't help myself there)

Adversity When Viewed as Opportunity - Evolution of the Spirit

"Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out."

"Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.”

-John Wooden

It's quite simple: some people persist when others quit.  Some people stretch for huge goals while others go home night after night and watch other people stretch for their huge goals on X Factor, ESPN and other reality based television.  There are the gladiators and there are the spectators.

In today's society, you have a choice to be in the arena chasing your dreams, or listing off the perfectly reasonable explanations as to why the world won't hand you your dream life on a silver platter.

The bottom line?  Some see adversity as the WALL preventing them from achieving their goals, while others see adversity as an OPPORTUNITY.  Adversity is challenges that provide a mainline to the lessons that will lead to the experiences that could help deliver your dream to reality.

I am living my dream life. I can tell you from much first hand experience, the dream life can still be a nightmare from time to time.  Failure is difficult to deal with, especially when chasing a dream or huge goal.  Disappointment is a very real part of the game, even if people view me as super positive and unstoppable in pursuit of my goals and dreams.  I often feel down, I have the wind taken out of my sails, yet I commit to getting back on my feet and moving forward again as soon as possible.

It starts here: I embrace the difficulty of life, the challenges of dream chasing and setbacks of large scale goal fulfillment.  This doesn't mean I don't feel deep disappointment when I fall short, but I do step back and take stock of what lessons I can learn from each failure to aid me in moving forward toward a next step in achieving that goal.  It isn't easy, but it is possible.  And if you're reading this now, no matter how loud that inner skeptic might be, YOU are very capable of this type of perspective shifting.

Set your goals high.  Embrace the challenges, setbacks, and failures that may line your road to fulfilling that dream.  And no matter what happens, keep moving forward no matter what that looks like (and sometimes it'll look like crawling).

Now go embrace those dragons...