Why We Shouldn’t Listen to Our Mothers [Love you Mom!]

Giving hints can be one of life’s best gifts. Apparently, life has been trying to get my attention. Over the last 6 months, I’ve heard “just do it” repeated over and over again.  Every culture has many sayings that we’ve been taught since we were toddlers.  Stop me if these sound familiar: If it sounds too good to be true…. Money is the root… Money can’t buy…. Good things come to those who…. Trust your gut.  Fine, fair enough – for some.  But have you ever stopped to really examine if there’s truth behind every saying?  

How Our Dollars Shape Our Future

There have been times in my life that I feel like I’m keeping faith despite lacking strong evidence in order to keep hope. I couldn’t be more happy that #GivingTuesday has been created and is taking off. Every year I’m still in disbelief that people are getting trampled, stabbed, and shot over a new game console or toy. We now have 5 days dedicated to spending as much as we possibly can with disregard to human life and the “actual” meaning of the holidays. 

My Marketing Philosophy

I believe language is a beautiful thing, and by wielding its power properly, it opens doors to greater influence.  Even the best people in the world aren’t going to make a difference if their message doesn’t get heard, interpreted accurately, or spread.  Marketing is a tool that enables anyone to be heard.

Why Asking the Hard Questions Will Get You Everything You Want in Life

I’ve been contemplating that maybe a person’s life reflects their values.  The principles you choose to live by impact every minuscule decision you make. A person is free to make any decision, but there’s a double-edge to the sword.  Your decisions are married to their impacts and are simply inseverable. I read an awesome analogy a couple of years ago and it was roughly this: it’s like picking up a stick.  You can pick up one side of it, but there will always be another side at the end of the stick.  So, if you’re eating box mac and cheese for dinner that’s your choice of course – but you’re obliged to the underlying repercussion: perhaps a laziness-in-cooking-and-preparing-meals habit, maybe a poor-health-from-not-choosing-better-options habit.  Maybe being impolite has a consequence that would make you think twice.

The point is: wake up and look around you.  Get out of your own head.  Are you doing what you love?  Are excitement and enthusiasm the first thoughts of your morning when you wake up?  Is your life a reflection of a carefully designed and constructed passion? If these are no’s – why the hell not?! Re-examine your own life.  If it’s not what you truly want, what are you doing to create a better life? Start actions to move you closer every day to your goals, even if those actions are currently small.  If there are patterns that pound your life like 30 foot hurricane waves then please accept the reality that you’re probably doing something wrong.  I know it’s a hard concept to accept for some, but it makes all the difference in moving forward.  Let’s say there’s a typo in an important document that you need to print.  You press print and realize there’s a mistake, so you press print again.  But the typo isn’t fixed – it’s still there!  So you press print again and again and again.  Not complex logic to figure out you’ll keep getting the same typo.  But isn’t that what so many of us are doing in our own lives?  We’re convinced that determination will win; never give up and eventually you’ll claw your way to the top.  If you’re getting the same mistakes, take the time to reprogram your blueprint.  Ask yourself the hard questions and re-examine your perceptions.  So many people can recognize Einstein’s famous quote: “Insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results.”

My hope is that people will start asking the hard questions.  About government, about our rights, about voting, about health, about health care, about education, about dating, about friendships.  There are things that good people should stand up for, and too often lately I’ve seen good people shut down, stop thinking, and keep quiet.  I’ve become more aware lately that you only get the value out of life that you put into it.  If you want any improvement in your life, what are you doing to help the person next to you?  What value are you contributing to other people?  Start embracing hard questions and I can promise you’ll gain from it.  Like that old cliché: You reap what you sow.