do it yourself FREEDOM

Impacts: Mind, Health, Home, Work, Money, Community, Time

“As the soil, however rich it may be, cannot be productive without cultivation, so the mind without culture can never produce good fruit.” – Seneca

We all need time to relax and rest our minds. We also must have opportunities to play and challenge ourselves physically and mentally. These recreational activities are often fulfilled by what is more accurately defined as entertainment in our modern culture. Things like television, movies, video games, the internet, listening to music, and the use of intoxicants often serve as the mechanisms for facilitating modern entertainment; and this is a problem.

The problem is that when we choose activities that give us little opportunity for personal growth we are using our time unwisely. If we were to choose activities that exercise the mind and/or body while we are relaxing or having fun we begin earn back time to live quality lives. We also give ourselves the opportunity to grow and/or improve our health. Every time we spend our time being proactive and productive we move closer to realizing more personal freedom.

Take Action

• Read instead of watching television.
• Play music instead of listening to music.
• Write or read online instead of just surfing or gaming.
• Avoid intoxicants.

Impacts: Mind, Home, Work, Money, Community, Time

“Games of chance are traps to catch school boy novices and gaping country squires, who begin with a guinea and end with a mortgage.” – Richard Cumberland

A friend of mine says, “The lottery is really just a tax for people that are bad at math.” In fact if you stop for a moment and think about the odds of winning in any type of game of chance you’ll quickly realize there’s not a lot of money in gambling unless you’re the casino. Continue to look around and you’ll notice that those casinos seem to be getting bigger everyday. I wonder where they are getting all that money?

The problem with gambling is that it’s all about taking risk without thought. The few people that fall into the category of mathematical genius and learn to count cards or otherwise beat the system get banned from big casinos because they have some kind of unfair advantage. That’s pretty funny actually. Who has the unfair advantage?

You can also apply the idea of gambling to other things in life beyond casinos. Anytime you take on unknown risks for the chance of getting ahead you are choosing to put your future in the hands of luck. Maybe that’s the core reason why people gamble in the first place; they are seeking the excitement delivered by risk. It’s a bit ironic that the excitement of an unlikely win somehow outweighs the disappointment of loosing, at least for a few moments.

So the trick is to ask yourself if the excitement is worth the cost.  The next time you’re considering taking unknown risks for unknown gains stop and brainstorm ways of having fun for free.

Take Action

• Make all choices carefully and try to factor in all risks.
• Avoid buying lottery tickets.
• Avoid casinos and online.

Impacts: Mind, Work, Money, Community, Time

“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.” – Francis Bacon

“When the pupil is ready to learn, a teacher will appear.” – Zen proverb

I’m a true believer in the idea that we make our own opportunities. But I’d also say that opportunities expand at an exponential rate. The inverse is also true; when opportunities are sparse creating new opportunities is extremely difficult.

This is why you hear those of us who have achieved a certain level of success saying things like you make your own opportunities. What you don’t hear most successful people say is that it is really hard to get started, but you’ll hear everyone say that if you persevere you will succeed and anything is possible. This is most definitely true, getting started is the hardest part.

Another simple truth is that opportunities come from connections with other people. They don’t come out of thin air. Building quality authentic relationships with other people is the secret sauce to creating opportunities. Also keep in mind that the number of connections is secondary to the quality of relationships. You can also think of it like this, it’s not how many people you know but who you know.

Now that particular idea might leave a bad taste in your mouth because it sounds like how the good-old-boys-club works and in fact it is how their club works. But it works for them because it can work for everyone. The community you build around yourself will the source of the opportunities you make. If you choose to get and MBA and climb the ladders in the corporate world the opportunities you make will come from those people higher on the ladders. If you choose to connect with other groups of people you will make a different set of opportunities.

Take Action

• Spend more time with more people online and in person.
• Build friendships and relationships on trust.
• Be loyal.
• Be authentic and honest.
• Be yourself.
• Carefully think through your thoughts and put them out there.
• Always listen to new ideas and remain open.

Impacts: Mind, Health, Home, Work, Money, Community, Time

“When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.” – Thomas Jefferson

“Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.” – John F. Kennedy

“I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.” -  Abraham Lincoln

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” – Buddha

“Peace is more important than all justice; and peace was not made for the sake of justice, but justice for the sake of peace.” – Martin Luther

“War is the greatest plague that can affect humanity; it destroys religion, it destroys states, it destroys families. Any scourge is preferable to it.” – Martin Luther

“Though the bamboo forest is dense, water flows through it freely.” – Zen proverb

The main problem with choosing to resolve differences through conflict is that the final cost is incalculable at the onset. This is because it is not known what the opposition will bring to the table or what responses will be required. This is true for every kind of conflict from arguments at home, to lawsuits, to world wars.

When the final cost is incalculable it’s impossible to know if choosing to resolve the difference through conflict will turn out to be positive or negative. It’s like jumping off a cliff without knowing the height of the fall. It could be a street curb or the grand canyon. The risk is only acceptable if you know the final cost.

The only certainty is that the conflict will cost money, time, energy, and sometimes lives. This is why conflicts of all kinds should be avoided. Conflicts by their nature involve accepting unknown amounts of risk and gambling without knowing the rules of the game.

The people who enjoy or profit from conflict will always advocate war, legal battles, and incite arguments. Some do it for sport and others for profit. It is also easy to get sucked into conflicts so the next time it happens to you try to step back and consider the potential benefits and costs and look for other ways to resolve the difference.

On a larger scale try to always vote for the elected officials who put war after diplomacy and social services before defense budgets. Governments wield enormous amounts of power and can spend money we don’t have at extremely fast rates. The world will be a better place to live when we can choose people to represent us in government who recognize that war and conflict is not the best way to bring us peace, prosperity, stability and freedom.

Take Action

• Be like a duck.
• When opportunities for conflict arise look for ways both sides can walk away with a win.
• Find alternative ways of dealing with anger. We often get enticed into conflict by our own feelings.
• Be on the lookout for those that like to stir things up. Avoid these people.

Impacts: Mind, Home, Work, Money, Community, Time

“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” – Theodore Roosevelt

At first delegating might seem like dumping your responsibilities to someone else. You may also be an avid do-it-yourselfer and prefer to complete your tasks by yourself. Or you could just be a penny pincher and think it doesn’t make financial sense to pay other people to do something you know how to do.

Those all seem like perfectly reasonable reasons to do-it-yourself but every time you take a step toward reducing your load you take a step toward realizing your real goals. Some tasks chew up valuable time, energy, and money and the truth is nobody is great at doing everything. Some things are better left to people who do them all the time.

A simple example is moving the lawn. It doesn’t take much training to mow a lawn. Depending on the size of the lawn it may not even take that much time or energy. But all chores like this can eat up time and require that you work it into your schedule.

Keep an eye out for tasks you don’t like doing and cost very little to have someone else do. Every time you delegate a task you buy back time literally because delegating often costs money. Simply weigh the cost against the benefit. If it makes sense to try it, give it a shot, you can always go back to doing it yourself.

Take Action

• Make a list of the regular tasks you do.
• Order the list by least favorite.
• Get some estimates from people who do that kind of work.
• Weigh the cost against the benefit in recaptured time and mental clarity.
• Give it a try, cancel the service at any time.
• Reevaluate that decision regularly.

Impacts: Mind, Home, Work, Money, Community, Time

“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly. ” – Buddha

Staying focused on the present moment can be a challenge; we naturally multitask. Maybe it’s because our minds are so active, or maybe it’s because we lack the ability to concentrate. Whatever the reason the benefits of focusing on the tasks and issues at hand will improve your interactions with the people around us and improve your ability to complete tasks. Staying focused and completing tasks are required for achieving long range goals.

Take Action

• When in a conversation try to give the other person your full attention.
• When working on a task try to filter out distractions and complete the task.
• If you feel overwhelmed try making a list and tackle each thing one at a time.

Impacts: Mind, Community

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” – Mark Twain

You might this suggestion is a little hypocritical because I say things like burn less, travel light and travel more with almost the same breath. Traveling more definitely comes at a price but it can also be tremendously rewarding. So maybe the right way to think of it is, when you travel, make it count.

When you travel to other places, especially places foreign to you, it exposes you to new ideas, new challenges, and opens your eyes to the extreme diversity of the human race and the world we live.

Europeans might be the luckiest people in the world in this regard. Their proximity to each other and their diversity has its draw backs but it definitely helps them appreciate each other in a way many Americans don’t experience. In America cultural diversity is one of our strengths but we  have few opportunities to truly experience and appreciate other cultures fully. Europeans have an opportunity to experience different cultures, languages, neighboring governments all in a relatively small region.

Traveling frees you because it can change the way you think about other people. This new understanding follows you home and can help make you a better community member because you’ll see more commonalities than differences in the people around you.

Take Action

• Begin saving money now for travel.
• Schedule a trip to a new place and plan to stay a while. World-wind trips often seem like a better deal but seeing more places in a shorter period of time may only leave you tired and overwhelmed. Pick a new place each year.

Impacts: Mind, Health, Home, Work, Money, Community, Time

“Procrastination is the thief of time.” – Edward Young

When you choose to live life strategically you quickly realize that time is the most limited commodity. Achieving goals requires a plan, action, a little luck and most importantly time. Much of our lives is spent doing things that don’t move us forward, but simply help us tread water. Finding ways to spend the time you have more carefully will give you back potentially wasted time.

Sometimes you have to get creative and find ways of catching two birds with one net. When you procrastinate it’s like tossing your net on the ground and wishing the bird into it, which won’t catch you any birds. Procrastination is more than wasting time it’s the complete denial of progress and because it’s mostly in your head it’s an incredibly behavior to overcome.

Confronting yourself and getting things off your mental back burner should become one of your top priorities. As you begin to bring them forward, work through and resolve them you’ll feel an enormous lightening of stress and weight. This very fact should shed a little light on how much these back burner tasks were a burden.

Learning to procrastinate less will propel you forward because you’re not just saving time, you’re saving your peace of mind. You’re removing the cancer lingering suppressed thoughts grow in your mind.

Exercise

• Confront your procrastination. Make a list of the things on your back burner.
• Prioritize the list based on the level of stress these things cause you.
• Post the list somewhere you’ll see it often, on your desk, by your bed, etc. Don’t do this to torture yourself. Do it to remind yourself and help your self feel better because you’re at least being honest with yourself about your back burner projects.
• Work the list from least stressful to most stressful. Build momentum with the easiest stuff.
• Cross items off as you complete them, leave the list up as motivation.

Impacts: Mind, Home, Work, Money, Time

“A man in debt is so far a slave.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our strong desire to consume tends to lead each of us into incredible economic trouble. Money has become so easy to borrow we now take borrowing for granted. Virtually everyone from kids to corporations operate on a daily basis on borrowed money. We’re living on the margin; the margin between the borrowed money and the next payment and this existence has literally turned us into debt slaves.

Sadly this is no exaggeration and the worst part is that it is almost impossible to free ourselves from debt without making some difficult choices. Back in the middle ages this was called indentured servitude and it was a bit more forced on the masses by the rich. Today we choose debt slavery happily so we can share in the essentials and spolis our culture requires and provides like beautiful homes and nice cars.

Breaking this pattern is difficult. Money fuels and limits our freedom in so many ways. Earning more money doesn’t solve the problem; learning to control our need for instant gratification is the solution. Money doesn’t set you free, changing how you think about money sets you free.

Making more money seems can have the reverse effect on debt because the more you make the more able you are to borrow more money than you can afford. Without discipline it’s easy to fall into the trap and choose to buy the best things you think you can afford and have earned.

The trouble is that your brain may still be stuck in instant gratification mode and your greed will get you stuck deeper in debt. You eyes may then open and you realize that your debt has also shackled you to our job. If you’re luckily enough to love your work your shackles may seem to disappear, but your freedom and options are still limited. You may also convince yourself that your job is a requirement and unavoidable, but ironically the opposite is true.

Deciding to live more frugally sets you free. Paying down debt sets you free. Living well within your means sets you free. After watching the economy crash and the housing bubble burst it’s not hard for most of us to realize how debt enslaves us. Remembering this valuable lesson when things turn around could be the most valuable lesson of them all.

Take Action

• Avoid accumulating dept.
• Spend far less than you make.
• Always pay more than your payment.
• Avoid buying things that don’t move you toward your goals.
• Buy only what you need.
• Eliminate unnecessary payments.
• Reduce how much you spend for things you need like transportation and housing.
• Be more frugal.
• Downsize.

Impacts: Mind, Community

“It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

“The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.” – Henry David Thoreau

When we stop to really listen to the people around us we give ourselves the opportunity to truly engage with and participate. If we choose to remain closed or focused on our own stuff we inadvertently miss the opportunity to learn, grow, and connect with others. We chop-off what might have been the easiest way to open doors and create opportunities.

It’s not surprising that a culture built on concepts of individualism would produce so many people that find it hard to listen. As a teenager one of my favorite quotes was, “Opinions are like assholes, everyone’s got one and most of them stink.” In hindsight, pun intended, this simple sound bite actually tells a much larger story about our culture and begs the question, why do we take opposing positions so quickly. Why not just take other peoples’ opinions with a grain of salt, appreciate the person’s point of view, and glean what we can?

I’m not sure that anyone can become a perfect listener but those that try will find themselves opening new doors and taking great strides toward a happier life.

Take Action

• Begin with family and friends. Stop to listen and carefully consider what they have to say.
• Engage in discussion. Avoid arguements. Instead focus on exploring and discovering why others feel the way they do. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.