Feed your mind.
Feed it today. Feed it tomorrow, and the next day. Feed it with ideas and stories that will make you a better person.
Feed it when the sun is shining and you’re feeling good. You may be in for quite a fight when the storm begins to rage and you toss everything you’ve learned around like a hurricane. If you do, perhaps the lows won’t be as low. Perhaps the morning will come a day or two earlier.
I have fed my mind over the years quite consistently, but looking back, the last few years seem a bit dark. I watched a lot of television. I listened to a lot of sports talk radio. I did a lot of sleeping, or just laying around. I abandoned a lot of healthy routines, and ultimately settled for a melancholy life.
I did not read. Reading seemed like such an enormous, impossible burden, that was too difficult to overcome.
Since December of 2016 that all changed.
I quit television and I quit listening sports talk radio.
I think I know enough about storage lockers, being 600 pounds, and making my way in the world as an Amish kid.
I don’t understand why I cared that Dion Phaneuf was making too much money for what he was doing on defence for the Toronto Maple Leafs. I don’t understand why I was so angry that he had an untradeable contract. My mood is so much better, when I can just watch the game, ride the emotions of the moment, and not get stuck in a broadcaster’s angry micro analysis.
I think Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, has made the greatest impact on my life, but I have written about it before, and besides, I plan on writing about it in some more in the future. Lots more.
So let’s chat about what I have discovered in the last six months through books and audio recordings on Audible.
Colin Sprake
Malcolm Gladwell
Seth Godin
Rosamund Stone Zander & Benjamin Zander
Steven Pressfield
Jen Sincero
Jay Levinson
Michael Gerber
Napoleon Hill
and my favourite phonetic acquisition
Wallace D. Wattles
I cannot tell you how much the ideas and the persistent, unrelenting passion of these authors, has ignited my soul.
For two hours a day…
I have learned that I have much to give, and that dreams should never be extinguished.
I learned that the seemingly monotonous hard work of digging ditches, eventually, if given the time, leads to successful abundance.
I have been reminded to be grateful, to have faith, and to dream some more.
I have learned that I don’t own an alarm clock, because there is not much to be alarmed about, early in the morning. I am stirred awake by an opportunity clock, to go and live the life I choose and desire.
I have learned to make my mark and that I was born to win.
I have learned that I love money and money loves me. (This is a tough one to master).
I have learned that I need to work on my business, instead of being in my business. That success is brought forth through organized and clear systems and procedures, and persistant execution of those systems.
I have learned to set and write down my goals. Without them, we have no idea where we want to go, and worse, we have no way of assessing how close we have come of getting there.
The world is full of possibilities and mastering possibility is an art form.
I want to be a purple cow.
Life will always be hard, but if you are tough on yourself, life will be a little easier with us.
Thoughts become things.
Faith is important.
Your lizard brain will try to stop you buy you must fight the dragon. You should stand up to the resistance.
No matter what, we have no choice but to ship our thoughts and make a little ruckus.
There really is no one, definitive, mind changing, spirit uplifting book, program, school, or system. You cannot just read this or follow that and everything will now be.
No book or audio program is capable of transforming your life. That strength and desire lies deep within all of us. It is inside of your heart right now. It is present inside your mind. The books and audio recordings just help us to draw it out.
Overwhelmed with life and passion after the Colin Sprake Make Your Mark Seminar, I found myself listening to Seth Godin, and in turn that author lead me to another. I finished listening or reading one book, and it lead me to another one.
I have never been so happy realizing I that I know so little.
I say I know very little, because by contrast, in the life I lived before, I was certain I knew a lot.
I was wrong. I was unhappy.
I will trade knowing very little all day long. So I will therefore continue listening to the wisdom of the men and women who kick some serious ass, instead of holding onto my crippling illusion that I know a lot. I will not trade my happiness for being a learned miserable bug about to engage with a windshield.
