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60 Day Challenge: Intuitive Entrepreneur

Goal: To create and execute a new business vision by following my intuition.  And do so without neglecting my family’s needs.

They say time flies, but I, for one, never been a firm believer.  Sometimes true, of course, but time, to me, is elastic — ebbing and flowing, stretching and condensing, always inconsistent, always changing.  Not to criticize anyone whose time is flying, but in my life, I notice that time flows slowly when I’m being creative, fully engaged in something.  It’s a state I enjoy immensely, as I am having fun and time is not flying!

That said, this first week was turbulent, to say the least, and some of it was not definitely not fun.  In short, my comfort-accustomed system has been screaming in resistance, telling me every imaginable reasons why I shouldn’t be doing this.  I am launching myself into full-time self-employment/entrepreneurship by decidedly ignoring much of the business plan I spent months formulating, instead opening up my spirit to feel the currents of the moment and making decisions based on that.

I keep more of a diary elsewhere (personal one/business one) so here I’m going to summarize the major themes emerging from my challenge that’s relevant to a personal growth blog. Read the rest of this entry »

Hello, returning visitor! Thanks for coming back. Please leave a comment even if just to say hello.

If you happen to be a fan of modern rock music, please also check out my music.

Welcome to the February 6, 2009 edition of carnival of uplifting laughter.

This edition’s editor’s pick:  As a musician, I just had to laugh….

Brent Diggs presents Trans-Siberian Orchestra posted at the Ominous Comma.

And the runner-up.  A well-researched poke at the beloved Ahnud.

Len Penzo presents If Arnold Schwarzenegger Was My Household CEO… posted at Len Penzo . Com.

Read the rest of this entry »

“The ‘how’ comes after you get moving, rarely before. Not knowing how is one of the lamest excuses ever invented. Figure it out as you go.”– Steve Pavlina

Many of us dream of doing what we love more fully. I am no exception.

Yet, for all my life, I have never given myself a permission to fully pursue it.  Oh, I have pursued it, many times, in one form or another.  I was a music major in college, I’ve played in rock bands, sang in coffeehouses, stage managed at SXSW Music Festival, produced recordings, composed music for indie movies, and released my own rock album.

But throughout my pursuits, I was battling the sense that I shouldn’t be doing that, that I didn’t have the proper stamp of approval to really be doing that.  As a result, in each of those directions I pursued, I’d take on a project, do a great job at it, only to hit a wall after it’s finished — never able to sustain them with a string of activities.

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the January 30, 2009 edition of Carnival of Uplifting Laughter.

I actually had an idea for this carnival a long time ago, and having stopped the last blog carnival, I thought the time was ripe to try this idea.

The world of personal development/self-improvement blogs is SO SERIOUS!  I sometimes feel drained from talking about the big & deep.  I also know that I can always use more laughing — so I wanted to really up some humorists to see if we can create a collection that will make us laugh and uplift our spirit.

So here we go!  This week’s Editor’s Pick:

Kate presents My Infamous Seat Belt Ticket and Run-in with Mr. Sexy Cop posted at Advice on Love, Life, and Everything Between, saying, “A funny story about a run in with a handsome cop”

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And here are more submissions: Read the rest of this entry »

For my recent post on intuition, I received a great question from Jessica:

hi all! i am so glad i found this little forum….need some advice! i have been learning so much more to trust my intuition….i have looked at my past and some experiences and was reminded that i should have gone with what i first thought…not what everyone else thinks!! so i have had a real real gut feeling about someone…and i wont go into all the details…but things that have happened in the past i was RIGHT on…even when my friends thought i was crazy! well he is back in my life now…but went through a rough divorce…she cheated on him while she was overseas and he was back here watching her two kids….and he found photos to prove it….and i still feel the same intuition about him…we started things up again..but he seems to have pulled away…and i decided to give him the space…even though it is killing me! my question is what do you do when you have such a strong intuition about something…but you are powerless to do anything about it?? and logically it doesnt make sense….i had attempted to IM him just to say hi…but i had no response…so i just thought i would let it go….any thoughts on intuition when it comes to personal relationships??

In my experience, intuition definitely plays a part in relationships.  But it’s also very tricky, as there are always very strong emotions attached to these situations.  It’s hard to separate the two.  Consider this: Read the rest of this entry »

In this essay I discuss the nature of intuition and how I’ve decided to “surrender” to it — accept and follow my intuition without worrying too much about why and how.

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A year ago, my family uprooted our home of 10 years in Austin, Texas and moved to St. Paul, Minnesota.

Before moving, we tried to be safe by lining up a new job first.  There were several false alarms, and after a few months of trying, we simply decided to make a leap of faith.  It was just too difficult to line up a job while being so far out of town.  It’s one thing if I was at executive-level, where companies do national searches and deal with people flying in for interviews, but I was just a web producer/developer.

So we moved on the faith that once in town, I’d be able to line up a new job soon enough, before our savings would run out.  The move was not without a risk, as I had to get a job where I could commute by bus, which severely limited my search.  But in the end, I secured a perfect new job within a month.  The tax return covered for our moving expense and the lost income from that month.  Financially, we broke even — an outcome that was definitely better than we had braced ourselves to face. Read the rest of this entry »

This final installment of the series “How to Enjoy Challenges” examines how a challenge can bring the best in a person — or the worst.  By diligently removing threats you associate with challenges, anyone can become a brave soul who rises to the occasion and pulls out the best in him/herself.

A challenge can bring out polarized reactions from people.

Most everyone I know cracks under stress.  By that, I mean that people revert to the most immature coping mechanism in their arsenal.  It’s as if the stress reduces them to a mere child.  Some people say nasty things.  Others cower in a corner.  Some turn violent.

Who I Become Under Stress

For me, I have a number of built-in reactions to stress.

Verbally, I tend to become silent.  It feels too vulnerable to speak and express my stress, so I hold it in and let it fester.  Another impulse I have is to try to make myself blameless, by either wiping my tracks or coming up with rational-sounding justifications of why I am having a problem.  I revert often to lose-win deals so others are less likely to get upset with me.

The problem is that this kind of fear is really hard to hide.  I’m sure you’ve seen a child who makes up silly reasons for doing naughty things.  You can see right through such a child — and if you are mean-spirited, you’ll know exactly what to say or do to push the child exactly where s/he is afraid, and manipulate him/her.

Regressing under Threat

It appears that being threatened reduces us to a point in life when we first formed the defense mechanism to deal with such a stress.  Perhaps you got bullied as a child — or perhaps you were punished severely for an innocent mistake.  Whatever the incident, all of us acquire some kind of trauma in the process of growing up, and most of us carry defense mechanisms that we employ to prevent that painful event to happen again.  Except, these defensive tactics tend to be entirely fear-driven and immature, and often the effect is that it invites exactly the kind of threat you’re trying to prevent.  It’s just like a child who lies to cover up a mistake.  You have to keep on lying to cover up the lies you made up, and you drive yourself deeper into a hole.

Why would some of us become the very worst of ourselves when challenged, while others seem to do just the opposite — pull out the best in themselves?

The difference lies in how one perceives the challenge: whether it threatens them or not.

James Bond Remains Cool

I’m not a 007 fanatic or anything, but one of the things I’ve always liked about the James Bond character is that he seems to remain perfectly cool and collected in the most dire situations.  He doesn’t even lose his wit and humor.  Or in a more realistic example, I know people who are EMT (emergency medical technician — in US, they are the ones that arrive in an ambulance in a medical emergency) who are trained to function at their best under circumstances where most of us would be terrified and reduced to tears.

The reason James Bond and EMTs can function in gravely challenging situations is because they don’t feel personally threatened by the situation.

Notice I said they don’t feel, not that they aren’t.

The difference lies squarely on the perception of the threatened.  Sure, people are trying to kill James Bond.  Or as an EMT, if you screw up in a medical emergency there can be dire consequences.  These people have all the reasons in their world to feel threatened.  Except they don’t.

And because they don’t feel threatened, there’s no need to revert to childish defense mechanisms.  They can remain level-headed and rational, and deal with the situation in the most mature manner.

It’s the perception of threat that makes us crack in challenging situations, not the challenges themselves.

Every Challenge Is an Opportunity

Throughout this series we’ve been discussing how to remove the element of threat from challenges/problems facing you.  When you do stop associating the two elements, then there will be no more need to revert to coping mechanisms when facing challenges.  You’ll be able to remain calm and grounded, and call up necessary resources to overcome the obstacles.  In the process, you’ll gain fresh insights, acquire new skills, and boost your confidence.  Problem-solving becomes fun, just as a good board game is fun when it’s not too easy.  Worthy problems start motivating you. The more you build the history of rising to the occasions, the more you welcome such challenges, even to the point of craving them.  A positive cycle of growth ensues, and your childish coping mechanisms get left out in the dust, moldy and rusty from unuse.

A lot of people hate math.  It is said that girls/women tend to hate it more often.  Yet, my 5-year old daughter is doing 2-digit additions  for fun, and she figured out multiplications without being taught.  My wife loves to pass time doing logic puzzles — and she welcomes difficult ones.  Ones too easy are boring.  Obviously, they never learned to associate math with the frustration of not being able to understand or the threat of being embarrassed.

Rise to the Occasion

Disassociating threat from challenges frees you up to rise to the occasion, to pull out the best in you to meet the challenge.  And that reaction forms a new habit, and you grow to become able to meet bigger challenges.  This is how greatness develops.  A person’s greatness can be measured by the scope of the challenges they can face and overcome.

This potential is available to all of us, not just select few.  Work to separate threats from problems, because challenges are opportunities.  You have the power to make them so.  And when you acquire the ability to enjoy challenges, then little will rob the joy out of living.  Life is filled with worthy problems to solve.  You’ll gleefully go about your days, immersing yourself into bigger and biggest challenges you can find, enjoying every minute of pouring everything you have into solving them.

If you learn to enjoy challenges, then you’ll enjoy life.  I guarantee it.

The part 5 of the series “How to Enjoy Challenges” addresses a situation where either the scope or the number of challenges you face overwhelm you.  All of these coping tactics are easy and immediate, and are effective at fighting back that sense of dread stemming from having more problems than you can handle.

The fourth common reason that prevents you from enjoying challenges in life is when the challenge appears too challenging, or when it makes your overall workload (the length of your to-do list) seem too big.

In the other words, it’s really not about the problem you’re facing.  It has more to do with your capacity, or your perception of it.

But when you think about it, this is actually not a very big problem.  Why?  Because you are one element in your life that you have direct control over.

When you correctly identify the obstacle, then it’s easy to generate strategies for removing that obstacle.  This is an oft-covered topic, but allow me to run you down a list that is sure to get your creative juice flowing.

Gain Perspective

You feel overwhelmed because your challenge seems bigger than your capacity, but it that really true?  Think back to your life and remember other challenges and obstacles you have overcome.  Or reflect on the lives of people you know or stories you have heard in news, of people overcoming greater challenges.  Recognize that you it’s possible and realistic for you to actually have the capacity to rise above your current challenges.  You may have done it in the past, and there are others who have done it.

Detach Values and Emotions

This hearkens back to what I said previously on embracing reality, but it’s easy to spend a lot of energy on why or how of your problems, instead of solutions.

Imagine that you’re tasked to find the answer to 2+3 without a calculator.  It won’t overwhelm you, does it?  But what if the numbers were bigger?  Like 2,437+53,798?   What if it had more digits — 7, 8, 9 digits?  At one point will you start thinking “I shouldn’t have to be doing this.  That’s what calculators are for.”

And how long will you dwell on that thought?

Challenges, obstacles, problems — these don’t show up in your life to make you feel bad.  They only do if you make them do so by judging them based on your values or emotions.  So what if you have to add large numbers by hand?  Instead of spending your time on how you shouldn’t have to do that, simply get a pen and paper and work it out.  Often, once you get started, it isn’t as difficult or time-consuming as it may appear at the onset.

Tackle the Postponed Ones First

Postponing tasks and problems tends to make them appear bigger and more difficult than they are.  It creates a baggage on your mind and nags on you.  Once you free yourself of that burden, you’ll probably find that you have a larger problem-solving capacity than you thought.

Tackle the Low-Hanging Fruits

Or the other way to get you going is to start with small and easy problems before tackling bigger ones.  I, for example, am a person who works by immersion — it takes time and effort to get me going, but once I “hit the zone” I can be quite productive.  To ease the treacherous transition, you can start by crossing off quick and easy ones.

Break Them Up

It’s amazing how a simple change in perception can dramatically alter our impression.  Walking 10 miles may seem overwhelming, but putting one foot in front of the other isn’t.  None of us can perform more than one task at a time.  Simply break up your challenges into bite-size tasks.  And take care of one.  And after that, another one.

Prioritize

I know, I know — this has been said before, has it?  Yet, it’s still so easy to let small and insignificant tasks detract you from big and important ones.  Stephen Covey talks about how there are 4 quadrants to your tasks/challenges, based on importance and urgency.  And the ones we often feel most compelled to take care of are the urgent, yet unimportant.  Instead, redirect your energy on tackling challenges that are important — urgent ones first, but also the non-urgent ones — and let the unimportant ones slide by the wayside.

Replenish Yourself

If your problem-solving capacity is low, it makes sense to replenish or refill it, doesn’t it?  You don’t keep driving the car when your gauge says you’re near E.  Sleep, eat good food, take a break, exercise, laugh, read inspiring books…you know what works for you.  To me, the fundamentals are food, sleep and physical movement (it doesn’t even have to be full-on “exercise”).

Get Help

Finally, if your capacity is not enough, get a boost by adding someone else on your team.  Remember that a lot of people enjoy helping, particularly a friend in need.  Give them an opportunity to be the nice people they are by inviting them to share your challenges.

Conclusion: Don’t Make It Harder Than It Is

Obviously, this is not a list where you apply all.  You just have a few tactics in your arsenal, and pull the ones that fit your style and the challenges facing you.  If you master some or all of the tactics, your capacity to rise above the challenges increase.  Just like it’s possible for a person to enjoy demanding mathematical/logic puzzles, so it’s possible for you to become a person who enjoys challenges in life.

Being overwhelmed is an emotional problem stemming from a certain perception.  In the other words, the problem itself isn’t the problem, it’s how you look at it.  Life can be full of problems and challenges, and you have the choice to either enjoy them or not enjoy them.

Which would you choose?

The part 4 of “How to Enjoy Challenges” deals with something we all experience from time to time — a problem threatens your plan.  You start to worry about the outcome you desire, and that anxiety makes you the challenge as an enemy — something you view it with hate and contempt.  How do we turn this around, so you can embrace challenges with more positive attitude?

The third way a challenge deflates you is when you perceive the problem as a threat to your plan.

Many of us plan our future.  To what extent varies from person to person, but most of us in “developed” societies have to have some kind of plans.  But life being what it is, there are all kinds of twists and turns — and your plans may or may not come to fruition.  Your faith, or attachment, in your plan determines how you handle unexpected challenges.

My Carefully Laid-out Plan

With my recent challenge, it certainly changed my plans.  I was preparing a business plan to submit to a banker, and discovered that my accounting had a problem.  I didn’t have any appointments or deadlines to submit the plan, but I most certainly had a timeline in mind.  This was going to have to be adjusted.

Any time when things don’t go according to the plan, it’s easy to feel anxious.  I most certainly did.  I was coming close to an end of a contract I was working, and I needed to figure out my next step as soon as possible — and the business I was proposing was the next step I wanted.

So when the problem arose, it was easy for me to be upset and threatened.  A delay meant more potential for lost income and prolonged uncertainty.  The fact that the business plan had flawed financial components could possibly mean that my whole plan was invalid.

Do You Really Know What’s “Best?”

But here is where your plan needs to be questioned, and rightfully so.  How do you know your plan is “the best?”

To ponder this, let me share another personal experience.  This current business is not the first business I have tried to launch.  I have had a go at it at least twice before, and failed.

The first time was 5-6 years ago, when I tried to start a computer repair service.  At the time, I knew next to nothing about running a business.  I just thought that if I took out an ad in the Yellow Book and applied some of Guerrilla Marketing tactics, I would have a business.

I could not have been more wrong.

Not only did my Yellow Book ad generate no leads, but I discovered that I hated fixing computers while charging an hourly rate.  The few jobs I did, I felt rushed and uncomfortable, as the clock ticked and my client’s cost grew.  After only 2-3 months, I ceased operation and pretended that I never started it. Financially, I lost like $2000.  Emotionally, it was a miserable failure — I felt stupid and incompetent.

But looking back, I am certainly grateful for the experience and what it taught me.  Had my business been successful, I would have hated my own business, as I didn’t enjoy fixing computers and charging hourly rates.  Ever since this experience, whenever I take on any freelance projects, I always charge on per-project basis and not hourly.  I just want to take my time to do the good job and not have to keep watching the clock to minimize my client’s cost.

When I set out on that business, my plan was certainly to succeed.  However, the problems that made me change my plan, actually for the better — to get out of that business before I poured any more time and money into it — were the best things that happened to my ill-formed plan.

Stop Playing God — You Don’t Have to

By saying that your carefully laid-out plan is the best for your life and future, you’re pretending to be a god.  You’re putting value judgments on something you don’t know anything about, which is your future.  Obviously, this is a very insecure assumption.  Even the most educated guess, based on thoughtfully analyzing the past, is still a guess.  You feel threatened by challenges and problems precisely because you’re basing your values on an insecure ground.

Let’s all pause, take a deep breath, and accept this one truth.

You and I are not a god.  We don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

….and that’s OK.

Why?  Because all of us possess the power to rise above our challenges.  To gain from the learning opportunities these “problems” present.  When a challenge forces you to postpone, alter, or even abandon your plans, embrace it with arms wide open, instead of resisting it.  Because that change may well be the very best thing that can happen to you.

Challenges Are Opportunities

Time and again, I come back to the realization that challenges are opportunities.  Just like a blacksmith has to hit on his metallic creation with a hammer, so do all of us require all the knocks and bruises to chip away at excesses and ill growths.  Pruning is another example — you don’t just grow sporadically in all directions, instead you focus your growth for the better overall health of the plant.

If a challenge forces you to abandon a plan, that’s actually good.  Your intention was not standing on a strong enough foundation and would have died sooner or later anyway.  If a challenge forces you to change your plan, that’s good, because your resulting plan has the opportunity to be better and stronger for the change.  The fact that it survives strong oppositions means your intentions are rooted deeply and securely, and that you can have more confidence in your vision.

In all scenarios, challenges have the potential to do good in our lives.  It’s only our reaction to them that can do us harm.

So the next time an unexpected problem or a challenge threatens your plan, take the opportunity to reflect and evaluate.  Is my plan really the only way to achieve the desired outcome?  What are the reasons why changing a plan feels disappointing to you?  Can your plan withstand the change, or will it die?  Which path is beter — do you know?

Open your mind up to the limitless potential that lies in this uncertainty, and get the most out of your challenges.  Whether it’s the “best” or not, you can decide, later.

What Was Your Experience?

Have you had occasions in your life where you had to change or abandon your plans because of obstacles, and the outcome turned out better than you expected?   Please share below.

Challenges are demanding.  And when you can’t accept what it’s demanding of you, you can go into a denial, focusing all your energy on how reality shouldn’t be this way.  In this installment of the How to Enjoy Challenges series, let’s look at what happens when you get stuck in the world of shoulds.

Challenges often come in the form of problems.  And problems are most often interpreted as something undesirable, a disturbance to an otherwise good state of being.  It’s easy to fall in the trap of thinking that a challenge is something that should not be there, and any dealing with the said problem should not be required of you.

When you have a hard time accepting the existence of challenge to begin with, any possible solutions to it all seem undesirable.  And this line of thinking can spiral down into a massive state of denial, one in which the problem is bad and all solutions are worse.

Let’s take my recent challenge as an example and see how such a mindset reacts. Read the rest of this entry »