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“Most unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself rather than talking to yourself.”

~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

- Or life as a movie

One of the biggest realizations in my life in the past two years is that my life is fluid moving image and process. I am “being” as a human and moving through life – not toward a destination or final outcome.

The only outcome on the horizon is death. That’s the snapshot I have to look forward to. So I need to make the most of this life while I’m here. For some that’s living life in excess. For others it’s a mission or calling. But we all get about 70-100 years to act out our “movie of life.”

I “am-ing” all the time. It’s not a static image or frame. It’s more like a movie that is in process.

There is no group of people planning your life for you

I think John Lennon said it best…
“Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”

Have you taken responsibility for the outcomes that you want? You have dreams. What plans have you made to realize them?

That trip to China you want to take – or that novel you want to write – or that business you want to start.

Write down your dreams right now as if they are the script for your “life movie.” Be clear on what it is that’s important to you and begin doing SOMETHING…

ANYTHING

… that will move you closer to your dreams.

One day the move will end and you’ll look back and regret that you didn’t see the day coming sooner. You kept deferring life… for what?

No go take action.

“Every facet, every department of your mind, is to be programmed by you. And unless you assume your rightful responsibility, and begin to program your own mind, the world will program it for you.”

—Jack Kornfield

I’ve been doing a test over the past week or so to rid myself of negative thoughts. I call it the “rubber band snap.”

Our thoughts lead to our beliefs which lead to our actions which lead to our results. If I’m not getting the results I want – then I MUST change my thoughts.

I learned this from listening to T Harv Ecker (Affiliate Link) talk about empowering/disempowering thoughts. He suggested to put a rubber band on your arm each day and as you catch yourself thinking something negative to SNAP the band and immediately stop the thought.

The Good Part

The good part about doing this is that I indeed have been training myself to stop thinking negatively. As I continue my mind will start making new connections based around the snapping feeling on my wrist.

The Challenging Part

To be honest … it is a CHALLENGE to remember to put on the rubber band each day. Even when I put it somewhere obvious the night before I forget. So I’m missing a lot of days when I could be using it to stop and eliminate thoughts.

Worth A Try

It’s worth giving a try. Start by wearing the rubber band around one day and see what happens. Let me know if you try this in the comments so I can see your progress.

Friends and I had coffee yesterday with blogger Steve Pavlina. He is an interesting guy with some amazing perspectives on personal development and radical life experimentation. For example he turned me onto the idea of lucid dreaming.

You can read this article by Steve to get an idea of what I’m talking about.

I’ve had some lucid dreams in the past but nothing very specific or intention focused.

Last night when I went to sleep I set the intention in my mind to have a lucid dream and early this morning as I was coming in and out of sleep I experienced a short one. Very exciting. I didn’t have much detail or control over the dream but I did get some glimpse into what I need to do next to make lucid dreaming more of a reality for me.

Lucid dreaming is a world where I can play around with reality a bit and experiment with various outcomes that I want. Excited to keep working on this.

Have you had experience with lucid dreaming?

I spent all day yesterday and today in the studio with the Genius Awakening team shooting video for a product launch in July.

I love Death Cab For Cutie. I think what is great about this video is that they decided to debut it online and not on TV. The world is changing fast. And online content will soon dominate traditional channels.

Here is a Mashable article about the video:
Death Cab for Cutie Shoots Live, Scripted, One-Take Music Video

… and the song is great too. (Fast forward to 16:30 mark for the actual song)

I think Sir Ken Robinson is the bomb. Here’s why…

Merry Christmas…

I attended Wordcamp Mid-Atlantic on 11 September 2010. Here’s what I took away from the day.

• Think of yourself as a publisher.
• Evergreen content is better than news content when building an authority site.
• In general, SEO is about inbound links from “authority” sites combined with great content.
• Caching is very important for speed and reliability.
• The best way to meet people at a conference is to walk right up to them and introduce yourself.
• Most bloggers seem to come from the tech side not the content side.
• No one has all the answers. The smartest people actually know what questions to ask
• Think of SEO as a long term strategy not a quick fix.
• Platforms are just that – platforms. They enable online publishing. It’s not Wordpress vs. Moveable Type. They all do the same thing and enable content publishing.
• Publish now. Prepare for the future. Don’t wait. Work, work, work.