Step Outside of Normal

A Step Outside of Normal

I'm plagued with a sense of greatness. I've always known that I'm destined to be different, to excel where others fail, to reach heights that others couldn't even imagine. I've known it since I was young. I am great. I will shake the world.

My plague.

A plague because I'm 30 years old and it's not happening yet. Hasn't happened at all. In fact, quite the opposite. I look around and feel that all my striving and effort has landed me squarely on the side of mediocrity. I don't have the life I dreamed of. My life looks less like a dream and more like a series of disconnected, unplanned events that have little in common except for the fact that I star in all of them and they all end up rather lackluster.

I'm plagued by an undeveloped potential. A haunting of a what might have been. A whisper that all the dreams and ambitions I had were mine for the taking but that somehow, in some way that I can't quite see because I'm too much of a blind dimwit, I squandered the opportunity. There's also another, equally insistent whisper that I was meant for so much more than what I have now.

Plagued. Haunted by failure.

Was the dream true? Was there ever any potential in me? Did I have it in me to shake the world with my footsteps? Am I destined to forever wonder if it was all just a dream? Or was it real but I somehow lost my way and fumbled the destiny I was supposed to have?

These questions have been haunting me. Swirling around in my head like cloudy water in a jar. Was it true? Or was I destined to die in obscurity from the beginning?

I'm tired of trying to figure it out. The questions are driving me mad. I have to find out. I have to answer this burning question: Is there still a chance? Do I still have time to find the destiny I sensed when I was young, or do I resign myself to a lifetime of mediocrity?

What will it take to find out? How can I discover or rediscover a purpose? What steps should I take? I've developed so many habits in my life that I don't even know what it takes to do something differently. Is it possible to change? Can my life be fulfilling and full of purpose?

This will be my journey. A journey to break out of complacency. A challenge to rise above the status quo. This will be a chronicling of the efforts that the undertaking will require. A blog, a traveler’s notes on the paths I choose, the steps I take, the pitfalls I encounter, and the victories I (hopefully) achieve.

God, I hope I achieve something wonderful.

I will step outside of normal. I will share the journey with you. I will be brutally honest. I will shatter the limits of the possible, or I will fail spectacularly. I will no longer wonder the middle-ground shadow lands of safety and boredom. I want to see if there is life, real life, to be had out there. I will see if greatness is possible – even accessible.

If it is? Well, then we can go there – together.

It is with a lot of excitement that I announce the launching of my new website, www.stepoutsideofnormal.com, where the journey will continue.  This blog will become less active - in fact, I won't update it anymore, but you can get all my updates over at my new, dedicated website.  Once again, that's:

Step Outside of Normal

I'll see you there!

When You Get Knocked Down

Wow, I wish I was that cool.

My website go hacked.  Not this one, the other one I was building to take over for this one.  After nearly a month of preparation, I was almost ready to launch my new website.  I had worked very hard to make sure that it was the way I wanted it to look, tweaked every little setting, found just the right colors, and spent generally too much time getting it the way I liked it.


After putting it off for longer than I had wanted to initially, I was ready!  I had written, edited, and re-written the opening essay.  I was going to launch it to the world with a lot of gusto.


Then, the day I logged in to post my article, my password didn't work.  Huh?  I tried again, pretty sure I hadn't recently changed my password.  Then I cruised on over to my homepage to find one very like the picture above (I didn't save the actual image because I was annoyed).


Great.  So here I was, everything in place, and someone comes along and hacks* into my webpage, ruining everything I had spent so long preparing.  All my work designing - gone.  All the thought and effort, wasted.


Honestly, I was tempted just to give up on the entire thing.  For real.  I had this whole inner monologue going on about the situation.  "What am I doing anyways?  No one's going to read a blog that I write.  Look, all this work and it just ended up getting hacked anyways.  Now you have to start over.  Who even knows if this will be worthwhile?  Look how much effort it is just to get a decent web page up and running, let alone creating something that other people will find valuable and worthwhile.  It's too much of an uphill battle.  I should just quit before I get too deep into this."


I find that voice accompanies me in many places that I am unsure of.  The voice that tries to predict the future by weighing the effort and pain involved against the potential benefit.  That voice, strangely, always perfectly imagines the pain and heartache I will face.  It never seems to get around to actually imagining the benefits of perseverance.


For example, I can clearly imagine how I will put time and effort into building a website.  It will mean me sacrificing time with my family, time away from entertaining myself, and time away from building friendships.  I will faithfully commit to these efforts, but once I get a website established it will be totally ugly.  No one will like it, and besides, it will be hacked every other week and I'll have to beg Allah the Merciful to knock it off.  When I do manage to produce content that inspires a reaction, the reaction I get will be from people who say that I'm pretentious and arrogant, or mainly to say that I have no talent or unique voice.  And finally, when it can't get any worse, and I finally give up, people will label me as a quitter and failure who can't even do something as ridiculously easy as running a web page.


Once I imagine that, I'm pretty much ready to close up shop.


The voice of my imagination never really gets around to the good stuff.  I never fully imagine what it might be like if I do succeed, and things go well for me.  I think part of it is because I don't always believe that I'm the kind of person that good things happen to.  But when I do take the time to really envision what would happen, it totally fires me up.


For example, let's say I start a blog that is actually somewhat popular.  Now, not only is it popular, but the people who read it are truly inspired.  They stop living boring, ordinary lives and instead start living extraordinary lives that bless other people.  They share their change and are grateful for the work I do.  I release products that people pay real money for and are clamoring for the next one.  I get book deals, and speaking engagements, and consulting gigs.  I'm so successful that I hire a techno-goon to hunt down the hacker, hack into his system and delete all his japanimation movies.  Life is good.


When viewed from that perspective, it seems ridiculous to not at least give it a second chance.  Basically, it's that old adage about getting back up when you get knocked down, and how a good man keeps getting up even when he falls over and over.  It's not the getting knocked down, it's the staying down that will destroy you and your dreams.


Besides, living an extraordinary life is not about putting myself in situations where I am sure not to get hurt.  It's about accepting the reality that life will throw things at me that I'm not prepared for, and that I may have a hard time accepting or dealing with those things.  Even though those things will come, I believe the payoffs will be worthwhile in the end.


So, I am still planning on launching a website, which will be awesome.  I am thinking of something special for the first hundred people who join once it launches, so be looking for that.  I'm thinking that the website will be rebuilt and ready to go in about 1 or 2 weeks.  Unfortunately, the reason I wanted to have it ready before this month is that I'm incredibly busy this month with the school I am running starting on the 28th, so getting the website done and the school running will be quite the accomplishment.  Stay tuned for updates.


Anyhow.  I hope this post finds you on the upswing, where everything is falling into place and things come easily.  If not, I hope it gives you the courage to get back up one more time and do something amazing with your life.


What are some things that help you get back up?
----------------------------------------------------------


*Technically, this is not a hack.  It's a crack.  Hacking is when you find some way onto a system that isn't supposed to be there.  Cracking is when you just get the password.

The Time I Got Paid to do Something I Didn't Know How to Do

Okay, so it wasn't exactly as complex as this lady's job, but still...

In this quest to find a life outside of normal, I usually encounter a little fear along the way. Most times, the fear takes on the form of a reasonable, sensible voice in my head that does its best to convince me not to stick out. It might tell me that I'll look stupid, or that I'll be a huge failure, or that I just don't have what it takes.

My goal is to overcome that voice so that my life can be unique and exciting. Sometimes I manage to be the victor, sometimes I give in and miss out on an opportunity to be amazed.

This is the story of one time I won, overcame the fear, and stepped beyond normal. For a period of time I had been working with a company that fixed and flipped houses. One of the guys I worked with was hired to do a small side job. He brought me along to help. It was supposed to be a two-day job, just the demolition of a master bathroom in a house belonging to a guy named Bill. All we were hired to do was tear the old stuff out and throw it away. After we did the “easy” stuff, the “professionals” would come in to finish the remodel.

Well, I handled the job like any other job I do. I showed up on time, I had a good attitude, and I did the best job I possibly could. The owners of the house were impressed with our work ethic, and asked what else we could do. We could do most of the rough work and drywall, so they kept us on to do that. That lasted about 2 more weeks, which was great for me because work was really slow and I really needed the money.

Now, the owner of the house, Bill, had been in contact with this tile guy to install the tile in the bathroom. And it was definitely going to be a nice bathroom. Natural stone tile everywhere, about 10 bazillion shower heads, heated floor, and big soaking tub. You know, one of those Home and Garden bathrooms. It was a very profitable job, but the “professional” tile guy Bill knew kept putting him off. First, his other job ran over time. Next, he was sick, or his dog was sick, or something. Then the next time it was something else. Basically he kept giving excuses to the point that Bill was sick of it and just wanted someone he could rely on. It was nearing the point where my portion of the job would be done, when Bill approached us and asked “Can you guys do tile work?”

You should know that I had never done any tile work my entire life. Maybe once I had helped my dad install some tile when I was about 10 years old, but I didn't really know anything about it. Neither did my other friends who were working on the project with me. Both of them, immediately and without hesitation, replied “Nope. Don't do tile. Wouldn't want to.”

Bill looked at me. I replied, confidently, “Sure, I can do tile work,” even though I never had before. The confidence is important, I think. Although I hadn't actually done it before, I was completely confident in my ability to quickly learn how and to do an excellent job. I was honest with him, and told him that I hadn't ever been paid to do it before. But because of my work ethic, integrity, and confidence, he was willing to let me take a shot at it.

That night, you can bet I was spending a lot of time reading tutorials, watching videos, and doing whatever else I could to learn about tile and how to do it well.

The next few days went great. I started with a small portion of the house that needed repair anyways, as sort of a test of my skills. It was definitely hard work (as all construction and remodeling is), but there wasn't anything magical about it. It was like most other things in life – it just needed applied focus and determination, along with a willingness to work as hard as was needed. I found I was actually enjoying myself because it was such a new experience. I did a good job, so Bill let me do the bathroom floor. Once again, he liked what he saw so he kept expanding the job. Finally, 3 bathrooms, one entry way, and one sun room later, I was done.

What was supposed to be a two-day job turned into a job that lasted for two more than two months, plus I got referrals to several of his neighbors which turned into more work for me. I think, all told, I made around $15,000 from those jobs. On top of that, I'm now a professional tile installer! I have a skill that is a permanent part of who I am and is something I can use to bring value wherever I go. And none of it was impossibly difficult. Hard work, yes, but new and exciting at the same time.

----------

None of this would have been possible if I hadn't been determined ahead of time to overcome fear in my life. If there had been even slight hesitation when Bill had asked if I could do tile, the fear would have won and he probably would have turned elsewhere to find someone who could do it. I would have missed out on everything that choice has brought me.

I like this story because it reminds me how much difference a simple attitude can make. Life is full of possibilities, and if you are determined to make the most of them, you can have a life that is full and enjoyable.

Be determined! Don't let fear stop you from living the life that is possible for you. Fear is the illusion that keeps you in mediocrity. You have a lot to offer the world, and, to be honest, we need what you can offer. Decide ahead of time that you will face the world with confidence, overcome fear, and see what doors open up for you.


------------------------


In other news, I'm planning on migrating this blog.  Although Blogger has been good to me, I'm looking to extend my wings a little and live outside the sheltered borders.


Keep reading for the updates, I plan on launching my new website by the end of this month!

Eight Reasons You Don't Have the Life You Thought You Would When You Were A Kid

What did you imagine life would be like when you were young?

1. You never defined what you really wanted your life to look like. It's hard to hit a target when you don't know where it is. If you feel like your life could be better, I would challenge you to figure out what kinds of things you would like to see in your life. Write them down. Discuss them with someone close to you. Make them specific.
   
   
   Don't do what many people do, however. Most people assume that having a certain amount of money is what they want. As in “If I only had a million dollars, everything would be wonderful.” Yes, a million dollars might make your life better, but what would you do with a million dollars? What would your life look like now that you have a million dollars? Where would you live? What would you do with your time? That's really what you should be striving for – not simply a random dollar amount. In fact, you'll find that if you concentrate on being the kind of person you imagine you would be if you had a million dollars, that you can probably get the kind of life you want without a million dollars. And just maybe, leading the life you love will bring in a million dollars. The point is freedom.
   
   
2. You accepted conventional wisdom. Doing what most people do will get you exactly what most people get. If you are looking for a life of obscurity and mediocrity, then by all means follow the typical advice. That usually involves going to college, getting a “good” job, finding a “good” house, and saving up for retirement in the off chance that you'll still be living and healthy enough to enjoy what you've worked so hard for. I spent some time as an insurance salesman for an agency that only sold to the medicare crowd, which is people who are over the age of 65. Many of these elderly people had followed the conventional wisdom of their time, and found that at the end of their lives they had little more to do than watch TV all day. Most were either too feeble or too poor to do something as simple as go for a walk in the park. The ones who did seem the happiest and most energetic were the ones who ignored, disregarded, or even poked fun at conventional wisdom.
   
   
3. You listened to well-intentioned advice. Most of the times when you explain big dreams to people, they try to bring you back to “reality” by explaining how things “really” work. But if you analyze their advice, you'll find that, first of all, they have given your idea almost zero thought, and, secondly, they say things that make them feel better about themselves. When I told people I was going to quit my job to go work as a volunteer in an organization that required me to pay them to work there, there were quite a few people who said that saving the world is all well and good, but that I should be realistic about earning some money first. They said that supporting yourself is “the way the world works.” At first, it caused me a lot of doubt and worry. But then I realized that they were just trying to justify their own life. By living outside of their accepted ideas, I was actually calling into question all the decisions they had made because of those ideas. Once I realized where they were coming from, it was a lot easier for me to jump into my own adventure without hesitation.
   
   
4. You worried about the wrong things. Instead of risk, you opted for safety. Instead of the long shot, you went for the sure thing. You were worried that if you gave it your all, you might end up just giving it all away. The reality of life, though, is that there is plenty of time for second chances and restarts. If you passionately and intensely give yourself to something for five years and in the end you don't have what you wanted, so what? At the very least you will have gained a world of knowledge and experience that will set you above 98% of the population out there. You will also have truly experienced those five years instead of simply passing time being safe and comfortable. It's been two and a half years since my wife and I gave away everything in our house, most of our clothes, very nearly everything we owned, and moved out of our town home. Most people spend a lot of time worrying about what would happen if they lose their stuff. But do you know what happened to me? It was the most freeing experience in my life. So many possibilities opened up to us simply because we were no longer tied down by our belongings. Life became alive for us. Worrying about “what might happen” is the only way to make sure that nothing happens.
   
   
5. You listened to the experts. Einstein was only 26 when he published his Special Theory of Relativity. Joan of Arc was 19 when she became the commander of the French army. Bill Gates was 20 when he founded Microsoft. They didn't listen to the experts. Roger Bannister was the first runner to run a mile in under four minutes, when everyone else said it wasn't possible for the human body to run that fast. Experts are only experts until someone who can see the impossible proves them wrong.
   
   
6. You thought you needed a pass-key. Many people believe they can only become successful if they have a certain something. What this something is depends on the person. For many people, it's a college degree. Or a master's. Or a doctorate. Or maybe it's meeting a certain person who will provide for them and whisk them away to a dreamland. Possibly it's getting hired at a certain company, or getting that promotion at work. Maybe it's closing that special deal, or buying that perfect house. It may even be that perfectly protected retirement account.
   
   
   Whatever it is, many people suffer under the delusion that they have to wait until they have something to start living the life that they dreamed about when they were a kid. But you don't need to wait! There's no real barrier. You don't have to wait for someone else to give you permission to enter. Figure out what you want your life to look like, and start getting busy doing it.
   
   
7. You never started. Although it seems simple, many people have fallen prey to this very trap. They think they want to be something – like an actor. Lots of people want to be an actor when they're kids, right? But when they get older, they never do anything to make it happen. They don't ever go to an audition. They don't research the industry. They don't improve their skill-sets or try to create opportunities to appear in films. They just sigh, and wish that the world were different, and that the universe had somehow, magically handed them their dream on a silver platter despite all the choices they were actively making which led them away from the very thing they said they wanted.
   
   
8. You found something you wanted more. If this is you, I applaud you. I know I fall into this category. You recognize that the specifics of a dream you had as a child aren't necessarily the true heart of the matter. As a kid, I always said I wanted to be a scientist when I grew up. However, the older I got the more I realized I don't enjoy what scientists actually do. What I really wanted was to do something that took expertise that would cause positive change in the world and in people's lives, and that would be exciting and interesting at the same time. In the cartoons, a scientist can do that. In the real world it's the people who spend time investing into other people that make things like that happen. So now I'm busy pursuing that goal. Everything I do is driven by it – even writing this article.
   
   
   I want everyone I come into contact with to be able to live an extraordinary life. It is possible. You can do amazing things that will change the world. We need you! The world is waiting for your brilliance to dazzle us. Me dream is to see you start that journey.

A Small Collection of Thoughts on Exceptional Living

The Siduhe Grand Bridge in China - 2,132 feet above the ground.  A reminder that all things are possible.

This is a small collection of things I like to remember that make a lot of difference in the way I live:

I am valuable. Incredibly, infinitely, unimaginably valuable. I'm worth so much that God stopped what he was doing, went to find me, turned the world on its head and paid everything he had – even his life – to buy me back. I'm that valuable.

I have something to offer. The things I think, the things I say, the things I write, the way I am with people – all of these are valuable to other people. Withholding the things I have to offer is acutally a disservice to others.

Trying to eliminate risk is the riskiest thing I can do. To gain much, I must risk must. The less I risk, the less I stand to gain. If I am interested in living a full life, I must be willing to take risks both large and small.

Life is meant to be exceptional. There is no rule out there that says I have to live a certain way, there is no reason I have to follow the crowd and fade into mediocrity. I can live the life I imagine – it is possible.

I always have a choice. No matter how bad things look, or how trapped I feel in my circumstances, I always have a choice about how to live my life. There's no reason I can't do something completely unconventional or unexpected. Circumstances don't dictate my life, I do.  I have the ability to choose each moment.

One person can change the world. Just because someone's been around longer or had more experience than me or seems more confident doesn't mean they know better than me. In all of history, the people who have really made a difference are the people who did so in spite of all the “experts” telling them that they were wrong or that what they were doing was impossible. So I can stick to my beliefs and change the world by living my own exceptional life.

There are always more possibilities than what I can see. Everything, truly everything, is possible. The main thing that holds me back from living the impossible is my inability to believe in it. The more I believe that there is nothing impossible, the more impossible feats I achieve.

There are options right here, right now. I don't have to wait for “someday” to start living an extraordinary life. I don't have to wait until I have a certain amount of money, or meet that certain someone, or get that degree or equipment or book or whatever. There are opportunities right in front of me that can change my life, or other people's lives, forever if I will just have the courage to reach out and take them.

------

What about you?  Have any thoughts that keep you living the dream?  I'd love to hear what they are.

Boredom

Boredom.

I've entered a period of life where my day to day activities are pretty routine. You might even call them boring. Now, I'm usually one who does everything I can to avoid being bored – like most people, I would imagine. Boredom seems like it can sneak up on me, but I know that there are several places I'm sure to encounter it.

For me, I get bored when I do the dishes. It's a brainless, repetitive task that requires almost no thought. But not so little thought that I can just check out to my happy place (where I happen to be an awesome ninja-poet who can conquer hordes of evil-doers and get the girl every time). No, if I check out to my happy place I'll spend the time to wash the dishes only to find little bits of crusted-on food that may or may not come off after repeated attempts. My mind has to be engaged in what I'm doing, otherwise the image of being a super-powerful ninja comes faces-to-face with the harsh reality that I can't even do the dishes very well.

Of course, I used to get really bored when I had to work in a cubicle. I remember some times when I would have to make a phone call, then another phone call, then another phone call. I was in one of those soul-sucking environments where you have to make 150-200 phone calls per day. I would literally have to force myself to dial the numbers, all the while thinking “I wish something would happen. Maybe the power will go out, or the phones will stop working. Maybe this number isn't another construction company, but a secret number for a government agency that is responsible for training super-spies. Maybe I'll get sick and go home. Sigh.”

And now, I find myself bored occasionally as well. Even though I've made the decision to leave all traces of a conventional lifestyle behind and embraced a life of adventure, I will still find myself bored from time to time. Ironically, part of this is by choice. I don't have a TV, so the usual number one place to turn when I'm bored is off the table. I also live in Oregon, so the weather usually precludes anything outside unless I feel like getting freezing cold and as wet as a dog at a cat-fish catching competition. Even though my life is headed in the direction I want it to, even though I am excited about what I get to do and the people I work with, I still find myself in moments of boredom.

But the more I experience boredom, the more I've started to learn some things about it. I've noticed that my first tendency is to try as hard as I can to quench the boredom, with almost anything at all. Books, magazines, the internet. Yes, the internet is a powerful tool. It also is a deep rabbit hole of pointless wastes of time known as flash games. It's amazing how much time I can spend trying to think of different ways to kill a pixelated elephant just to avoid that strange hollow feeling of boredom. In its own way, it's like a drug.

Of course, the more I thought about, the more I began to see that it really is an addiction. You can get your fix for boredom from a bunch of different dealers: movies, games, music, television, books, concerts, restaurants, theaters – the list goes on and on. I realized that I am actually addicted to entertainment. An entertainment-aholoic. Or alcoholo-tainmentist? Whatever, I can't go even one day without being entertained. When I look around, I see that most people are in the same situation I am. And honestly, most of the things we use to try to slake our thirst for entertainment are barely passable facades. Reality TV? Does that really entertain? No, it just distracts enough from the dreaded emptiness of boredom. But don't bore me with the details, just give me my entertainment – I don't care if it's hollow or vapid, it's fun!

I'm a junkie. There's no other way to say it. I have an addiction that I just can't break.

Not like I'm alone. I would say that, with the exception of a few rare souls, most people in this world are addicted to entertainment. Once, in South Africa, I knew a girl who lived in a shack that I wouldn't even store my lawn-mower in (if I had one). And in this shack that had no insulation, a roof that leaked, and barely enough room for a single bed that she shared with her one-year-old daughter, she had satellite TV (Ironically, she asked if I lived in a house like the people in “The OC” did). I can travel the world and find that the only thing I have in common with people is that we've seen the same movies. Yes, this addiction is certainly wide-spread.

But I've discovered something. If I don't stifle my boredom as soon as I feel the faintest tingling of it approaching, if I don't try to bury it in the nearest available entertainment, then something strange starts to happen. I find that my mind kicks in. It doesn't want to be bored, either. Almost like it says to itself, “Well, I guess my break's over. Back to work!” And then an incredible thing starts to happen: my mind starts to grow and expand. I find myself generating new ideas, thinking through new strategies, breaking out of old thought habits. I actually find myself growing.

Creativity, motivation, inspiration – it all comes flowing back. Tasks like writing that were so difficult and mundane before suddenly become exciting and full of life because the ideas just flow out of me. Almost as if all I've been waiting for is a break from entertainment long enough to actually think an original thought. It's like boredom is the gateway to creativity. Maybe my brain is so desperate for entertainment that it starts generating its own. Some people say that necessity is the mother of invention, I say that boredom must be it's father.

If you've embarked on your own Extraordinary journey, you may have caught onto this already. We're not built to have everything flow inward, to us. We're built to flow outward, to give to those around us and enrich their lives by expending our own. The crazy part about that is that the more we help people - the more we spend ourselves giving to others - the better we feel and the more we experience being alive.

So that's my challenge. Next time you start to feel bored, don't reach for the remote. Don't dive into the latest video game, or best-seller, or Facebook, or whatever (even a really cool blog that you can't wait to share with everyone you know). Let yourself feel it a little. You never know what a little time spent being bored could spark in your life – it might just change the world.

Take Someone with You

The Guide To Extraordinary Living - Part 5

I'm going to start by making a bunch of assumptions. I like assumptions, because they conform to my own little image of what's true very nicely. The assumptions I'm going to make are: 1) You've read the previous five articles on Extraordinary Living. If you haven't, start here. 2) That you are serious about living outside of an ordinary life. 3) That you've begun to dream big dreams and act on them, forgetting everything else. 4) That you think I'm awesome and are re-posting this blog all over facebook and twitter.

Well, hopefully you've done at least number four if nothing else.

The final step is less of a step, really, than it is a reminder of something to do along the way. In Part 1 we came to the conclusion that we need to be doing something that is outside of ourselves, that is bigger than us, and that is focused on other people. Otherwise, it's all just another take on padding our drab little cell. In Part 5 we bring that full circle. The fifth step of an extraordinary life is to take others with you.

You didn't want to keep all this awesomeness to yourself, did you?

If you are truly living extraordinarily, this should be happening to some degree already. There are two reasons that “Taking someone with you” is a separate step all on its own. On reason is that you need to be intentional with this, or it won't happen. There have been many examples throughout history of people who broke out, did great things, and then watched them fall apart because nobody was there to carry the vision after they got too old or too tired or too dead to do it themselves. The other reason is because you can't do it on your own anyways.

This happens all the time on our ropes course. We have a low obstacle course, and the goal is to get across a series of ropes, bridges, logs, and cables without touching the ground. Invariably, people will look at it, try to do it themselves, and fall flat on their faces. After trying several times they'll look at me and say “This is impossible, isn't it?” To which I reply “It's only impossible if you try to do it yourself.” That's when the lights go on and they go get help from a teammate.

That's what you need. A teammate. In fact, you need a whole team of teammates.

But immediately you will run into a dilemma. The dilemma is that there are just not that many people who are ready and waiting to break out of their box into the un-comfort and un-safety of an extraordinary life. If they were ready, they would have already jumped that fence and would be busy pursuing their own dream. You may be able to recruit a few of those people, and if you can catch them go for it, but on the whole they're a rare breed and you'll be lucky just to connect with them.

So who are you left with? The people who don't want to break out. Those who are content to stay inside their own little world of comfort and security. If you enlist their help without first helping them step into extraordinary life, then you run the risk of manipulating them and using them for your own personal gain.

So what can you do? Make your dream their dream. The best way to find people is to inspire them. Start talking about your big dream to anyone who will listen. Start sharing how it will change the world. Start informing people about how they can be a big part of what's going to happen. Inspiration literally means to breathe life into someone. You can be the breath of fresh air that awakens someone's heart. You can be the one to set people free.

Remember how great you felt when you broke out of your box? When the gray walls fell and you saw the fullness and richness that life can hold? Remember how excited you were, and how you felt like there was nothing that was impossible, how you could have reached out and grabbed the sun in your bare hands? Now imagine what its like to see that same light breaking over your friend's face, knowing that it was your love and dedication that helped them get there.

There's nothing better.

Now, none of this will never happen if you keep your dream all bottled up inside where no one can feel it. Let it out. Be courageous. Fight back against that tiny voice that tells you that you're not good enough, not strong enough, or not whatever enough. Tell that voice that it's not in control any longer. Stand up and join the ranks of those who dare to be great. Dare to live beyond comfort. Dare to live outside predictability. Dare to live an extraordinary life.

Dream Like Everything Is Possible

The Guide to Extraordinary Living - Part 2

Mr. Dream, a 235 lb. boxer, lost his only fight to Little Mac, 98 lbs.

Remember the first lesson, that everything is about others? Life is not about you. If you don't remember that, go back and read Part 1. Actually, find someone else who would benefit from reading Part 1 and have them read it, then you can read it for yourself.

I can hear you now: “It's cool. Life is not about trying to make myself happy. Check. Got it. Alright, I understand already. So, what should I do that's not designed to make me personally happy? Hmm..go buy a happy meal? Oh, wait, no, that's about me. Watch a movie? Oh, that's about me again. Make a sandwich? Hmm..this all seems to be about me. What should I do?”

Well, let me tell you. Start Dreaming. Go ahead – try it right now. Start dreaming about what you want your life to look like.




Okay, okay, stop. We're running into two problems. First of all, you're not sticking to the first principle, which is that things are not about yourself. These ideas are supposed to build on each other - like the beautiful and long lasting pyramids, not be stand-alone concepts – like the ugly and target-worthy Sphinx. Secondly, you're not dreaming big enough. You're dreaming like everything in your life just happened to go well, like you had the best day of your life or something. I don't want you to dream about winning the lottery, or scoring the perfect job, or marrying the perfect person. I don't even want you to dream about making the neighborhood you live in a nicer place (though that's a good start). I want you to dream WAY bigger than that. Dream like everything is possible.

What do I mean by that? Let me explain it this way: Suppose Bill Gates and Scrooge McDuck dropped by your house. They offered to fully fund whatever your dream was, for however long it took to accomplish it, and then said that if you somehow failed or came up short, they would supply the manpower that it would take to make sure it happened (or they would consult the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook, which might have just the solution you need).

What would you dare to dream if you were guaranteed to be successful?

Now we can really start the dreaming. Poverty? Gone. Preventable diseases? Prevented. Human Trafficking? Eliminated. Corruption? Confronted.

See, right about now I'm losing some of you. You're totally checking out. You've heard this before, you think. I can imagine that voice in the back of your head, the one that keeps whispering “How? How would you get there? It just isn't practical.” I can imagine that voice quite well, since it's in the back of my head, too.

No matter what you dream, that voice will be there. Many times, it will actually come out of other people's mouths – the very people who are supposed to love and support you. It will constantly be telling you that it's ridiculous to dream like that, that one person can't make a difference, that it's a waste of time to give yourself to a cause that's doomed to fail from the beginning. But let's remember something: Without a dream, life is already a failure. Dull, lifeless – remember?

So, what do we do with the doubts and fears that have stopped many people ahead of us? How do we handle the voice that will confront us every step of the way, even in the very beginning of our dreaming stages?

It's easy. We act. We take a step. We start making the dream a reality. The voice hates that.

That's also the next part in the series...

Accept That Everything You Think You Know is Wrong

The Guide to Extraordinary Living Part 1

Everything you know is wrong. Yep. I’m sorry to be the one to have to break this to you, but you’re wrong. Totally.

I don’t just mean the kinds of things you think I mean. I don’t mean the correct spelling of pseudonym or how many miles it is to the sun (even though, if we were being honest, you probably are wrong about those things, too)*. I mean the important things, such as the basic assumptions you have about what is real that direct the decisions you make, and ultimately how you live your life.

Huh?

Let’s take the classic example. Take the entirely fictional case of Timmy. Timmy is in his senior year of high school, and he sure is excited. He has big choices to make. Which college to go to, what major to choose, who to take to prom. Good thing for Timmy, he’s a child genius, the star Quarterback and a 100 mph left-handed pitcher. So he has his pick of colleges and prom dates.

He’s managed to narrow it down to two. Colleges, that is. On one hand, there’s Yale. On the other hand, Lone Pine Community College. He sits on his bed with the acceptance letters to both laying on the covers in front of him. His eyes dart back and forth. Finally, they settle on one. His hand reaches for the letter. Which one does he choose?

The wrong one.

No, not the community college.

They’re both wrong.

How can they both be wrong? Because they’re both based on the assumption that if he goes to a good school, he’ll get a good education. And if he gets a good education, then he’ll be able to get a good job or maybe even start his own company. And if he gets a good job he’ll make a lot of money and then he’ll be able to provide a safe, comfortable life for himself and his future family. And then he’ll be happy.

There’s the problem. He assumes that a safe, comfortable life will make him happy. But it won’t. It will make him dull. Lifeless. He may have a semblance of a happy life, but that won’t be the extraordinary life that he is longing for in his heart. Safe and Comfortable are what the padded cubicle walls are built out of. Instead of being set free by riches, he is made a prisoner by them.

You see, we've all bought into this idea that we are to be successful, or pursue what is in our hearts, or be rich or famous. That, whether we are teachers or shoe salesman or Fortune 500 CEO's, we should be happy doing what we want and that we should achieve some measure of comfort and stability. It's a subtle way of turning everything that happens into something about you. It's totally inward focused. The key to success supposedly lies somewhere inside of you, where if you can just create the right environment, you'll trigger this thing called happiness and then: you will have arrived.

Which brings us back to the dullness of life. We can't always do things only for ourselves – sometimes we are forced to go to a job, or live somewhere we don't like, or be in close quarters with someone we don't enjoy. We make up for this by going on self-indulging binges whenever we have the chance. Movies, food, sports, sex, video games, hobbies, TV, even religion. We pour so much energy into making ourselves happy despite the fact that we're obviously not happy that we miss the most central truth to all reality: life is not about us.

Life is not about you.

Real life, I mean. Extraordinary life. Think about it for a minute. Think what would happen if you stopped doing all the things you did every day that were designed to make you happy. If you seriously consider it, you might start to realize that everything you ever do is done in an effort to satisfy this insane hunger to become happy.

I would humbly suggest that the path to extraordinary living lies in exactly the opposite direction. Instead of the world flowing inward to me, to satisfy my needs and desires, it should flow outwards. I should focus my attentions and energies on other people, and pour myself out to help meet their needs and desires.

A few steps down this path, and you start to realize how amazingly refreshing it is. Don't get me wrong – it's not all clouds and roses. In fact, it feels a lot like I imagine a heroin addict would feel during detox – crazy, unstable, and intensely hungry. When you're not gorging yourself on entertainment, your eyes begin to see things clearly for the first time, and that can really hurt.

When it happened to me, I realized several things. That I essentially suck at relationships. That I don't make any sort of impact with people. That I am weak and fearful and hardly ever do anything daring or bold. But I also realized how free I was – how much more strength and potential flowed through every second of my day. Since nothing was about me anymore, I had way more space to move about. I was no longer a slave to my comfort.

So, that's the first step to extraordinary living: Accept that everything you know is wrong. That life is not about you, it's about what you can do for other people. If you can grasp that, you begin to sense the limitless potential and dream of much bigger things than a nice house or big screen TV.

But that's the next step...

*The sun is approximately 93 million miles away from earth. See, I told you that you were wrong.

Luke's Guide to Extraordinary Living

Let’s face it, life is drab. Real life, that is. Sure, there’s lots of excitement, humor, and drama on TV, but it can only come portioned in 30-minute or one-hour chunks. Real life is almost depressingly boring.

What do I mean? Boring is getting up, showering, going to a job, coming home, eating, sleeping, doing it again. Boring is looking back over the last three weeks and realizing that you don’t have one distinct memory out of the entire block of time. Boring is listening to radio, or reading the news, or watching TV, just looking for something to get worked up about.

Like I said, drab. Plain. Muted.

In fact, in most work places I’ve been at they actually encourage drabness. There was one office I worked at that literally had a policy that you couldn’t hang things on the cubicle walls because it ruined the “sound absorption qualities” of the cubicles.

I know most of us have come to accept that there is a certain amount of routine required for living, that in order to survive you have to have a paycheck, and in order to get a paycheck you’re going to have to get a job. The dullness just goes with the territory. You can have your fun on the weekends and holidays. I know most of us have come to accept that, but I believe it’s a very reluctant acceptance.

I think really we long to be free. We long to do something with our lives that makes us excited. We want to feel passionate about what we are doing. We know there has to be some way life can be more vivid, more inspired. We ache for the rewards of a life that has meaning to it, that can take our breath away with beauty and pierce our hearts with tragedy. We are tired of being numb.

But, we quickly let the sound absorption qualities of our cubicles stifle those thoughts, because immediately following them is a fear. A very subtle fear invades us when we start thinking about freedom and purpose. It’s not the kind of fear you would expect, not the “How would I pay the bills?” or “I have responsibilities, I can’t just let everyone down” type of fears. Those are simply the clothes we dress the fear up in. Those are the sensible words we use to cover up the fear that really eats at our souls. The real fear, the one we hardly ever truly address, is this: that there is nothing greater - that this dull reality is all there is, and that if we were to go crazy and risk everything for our dream of extraordinary living, we would find that it was all just a pipe dream and that extraordinary life doesn’t exist.

You see, as long as we don’t put extraordinary living to the test, we can at least hope that it’s out there somewhere. The hope - that maybe one day we will stumble into it, that the perfect job will come along, or we’ll marry the right person, or win the lottery, or invent something that will make us millionaires overnight - that hope keeps us alive and gives us the motivation to push through the dullness day after day after day. Without that hope, we have to face the awful truth that we are half-dead already.

So, is it out there? Can you truly live an extraordinary life?

Yes.

How? I aim to show you. In the next series of entries I will reveal a simple - yet difficult - guide to extraordinary living. It’s more possible than you ever imagined.

Stay tuned…