Morning Mindfulness - Two Positive Minutes To Start Your Day

I often see people who are so fixated on finding the ends of the rope and untying the knot. I’ve done it too. While this may be a good exercise, I think the knot can be solved easier by thinking outside of the box, or using the legend’s terminology, by cutting the knot.

Today I just want to share an old story about what happened to me many years ago, when I was 12. At that time I was spending summers at my grandma’s house. She was keeping rabbits. People had them to eat. I don’t think I could ever eat a rabbit I was watching growing up. But my job was to cut the grass and bring to feed rabbits, and I was using a sickle to do it. Yes, just like the one on the Soviet Hammer-and-Sicke emblem.    So one Sunday I went to cut grass, and I cut my finger all the way to the bone. No, it did not really hurt. In fact, I was curious to look at my own bone...   Listen to the rest of the story...

Have you ever experienced a Workload Paralysis in your life? I certainly have. That is when people have so many things they need to do, that the brain just shuts down. Like, I don’t know where to start. It’s a total mess, chaos. Those are moments when I have to remind myself that I am not Clark Kent. But I can do things one at a time. And I will get them done, if I keep going of course.  I am talking about some tips that helped me.

The year is basically over. Christmas is coming in two days. And today I’d like to address specifically the topic about how to reset the goals we did not reach. I’ve done it myself many times. And I had to reset. Here’re some things I've learned about resetting goals.

I think many people have heard the concept of sowing and reaping. I am not going into discussion of the Biblical origin of this particular saying. Whatever you believe, it doesn’t matter. You may believe in Karma. The fact is, whatever you give, you will get back. And I think this is something that comes in mind when we hear about sowing and reaping.   But there’s more to that than just return on investment. I think this may be quite interesting to entrepreneurs. 

The third law of Newton says, “For every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction.” Yep, this is basic physics. You push on the ground with your weight, and the ground pushes back with equal force. They are equal, that’s why you are not sinking or flying up.   I think this basic physics law is applicable to our every day communication and dealing with the World around us. I call it “immediate reciprocity.” 

A lot of gossiping comes as a result of low self esteem of the person creating the gossip. These people are looking for the approval from their friend, like, look at him, he’s bad and I am good. And when friends agree with the statement, that creates a really positive emotion to feed the ego. 

My teacher taught me to look at every action, every event from a different perspective. We jump into conclusions based on our own experience. But what I learned from my teacher, we’ll never know the whole story behind the other person’s actions. So stop judging...

What I am trying to do in my classes is to give people options. There’s more than one Path to the top of the mountain, and they all may be right. However, my Way may not work for you. I believe everybody has to find their own Path, and also be flexible enough, just like water, to adjust the course if necessary. I’d love to tell you that my secret Path is the best one, but I know by now it’s not. It’s just something I chose to walk and enjoy.  

People wait until New Year, or next month, or Monday, or when stars align, or when numbers on the clock are set in Fibonacci sequence, whatever, I don’t know what they’re waiting for. If you want to do something, do it now. Today! Don’t wait until the whatever mark you set. 

There’s a very famous quote by Zig Ziglar that says, “You can have everything in life you want if you just help enough people to get what they want.” Also John Maxwell, for example, an amazing leader and a teacher, every time asks himself a question, “What can I do to add more value to people?” 

Today is part two of discussion about my memorization techniques. Yesterday I mentioned flash cards and my way of using them. One of the main issues I’ve discovered is that people forget the info as easy as they remember. And I was not an exception. 

Previously in several episodes I mentioned my method I used to memorize some random information. I did not use it to memorize text books, maybe you can try. But I used it to learn English on my own. I had to memorize lots and lots of words. I used it to study Latin when I was at the university. I learned shorthand. Yes I was writing all my lectures 25-30 years ago using shorthand. And you know what, I can still write, even though I got a bit rusty since I haven’t used it for several decades.

Do you know why are you making the change? Yes I understand we always come up with a reason why we do what we do. We can rationalize anything. But really, will the result justify the effort?   

Everything we practice is a combination of opposite approaches: like Yin vs Yang, Deduction vs Induction, learning old vs inventing new. This is how we progress. When it comes to learning, we have different approaches too. I’m not talking about visual vs audio, like we are use to. I am talking about what makes us interested to learn. 

Many years ago my teacher told me to take some time at night to reflect on the day I was about to complete. And this is what I’ve been doing for quite a while. In our school it is a form of meditation on the past. 

I’ll start today with a Quote by Max Frei: "I am leaving forever, and everybody's always leaving forever. It’s impossible to return: somebody else is always coming back instead of us..."

Almost everybody I’ve met has a habit of dwelling on the past. We worry about whatever happened yesterday, or a year ago, or even last millennium. How about that! Indeed, everything that happened before and including year 2000, is a last millennium. Why do we keep thinking about that?

So many people I’ve met in my life have past they wish has never happened. And you can count me in. Yes, I have things in my past I wish have never happened. But past is past, and we cannot change it. We have to live with it. There are several things I’ve used to deal with my memories.

I remember many years ago I’ve heard the statement that all genius things are very simple. People have an incredible ability to make things difficult. Every second we have numerous options we can choose from. But our mind often does not like to stay in the present. We start thinking several steps ahead, creating basically an infinite number of possibilities. If we are not careful, this can build up really fast, and we get trapped in our own thinking.