Tag Archives: mood management

Pay The Price

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Yesterday’s bullets are the price I pay for my current life:

They are not what-it-takes to be a good husband and father.

The bullets are my “to do” list to have the capacity to improve.

If you invert the list: fatigue, poor nutrition, no exercise, interact with family when stressed, be miserly, focus on external validation… …then I start heading towards a different outcome.

An outcome many consider both normal and highly successful. The alternative outcome never felt right to me.

2016-11-18-08-30-18Before starting down the path of becoming better I had to create the capacity to change.

Telling myself that I was going to stop my “bad” habits didn’t work. Replacing my habits did work.

Salads, exercise, nature, acts of kindness and spending time in my best environments….

…taken together they displace a lot of poor choices. Choices that reduce my capacity.

Sleep and no-compete…

….increase my overall capacity.

Paying the price to change is uncomfortable but not changing is worse.

What I Learned This Year

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2016-11-23-18-33-09-2The #1 thing is to make choices about time allocation based on how it impacts my mood.

Continually, and gradually, phase out sources of stress. I’ve been chipping away since 2000.

Making an effort is worth it — having an exceptional marriage, loving kids and a lot of self-directed time requires a commitment to gradual self-improvement.

Twenty years ago, I was lousy at most of what gives me pleasure today.

2016-11-08-09-33-49What is the system that gives me the energy required to endure the discomfort of change?

  • Sleep
  • Eat huge salads
  • Daily movement in nature
  • Relate to the world in my best environment
  • Perform small acts of kindness
  • Don’t compete

There’s an article in each bullet and I’ll get to them December.

2016-11-18-07-06-50***The stuff we put in our lives is important for what it displaces***

We are really poor at seeing the cost of the status quo.

At 47, athletic competition inserts fatigue, removes me from my children, impairs my sex drive and eliminates my willpower.

If you are a sociopath with tendencies towards addiction, promiscuity and petty crime… then adding athletic competition might be a very wise move indeed!

Pay attention to what works.

Then, pay attention when it stops working.

2016-11-19-20-10-53Finally, I’m a good parent but I don’t always enjoy parenting.

I think we should be more honest about the way things are.

Effective Thinking

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2016-11-10-10-45-33What type of life am I looking to experience day-to-day?

I’m going to wager that you’re not aiming for grief-stricken, miserable, sad or angry.

If you can feel a desire for happiness within your self, then perhaps you’ll be able to see it in your adversaries.

If you’re still having trouble then get to know the children of your enemies.

I’ve yet to meet a preschooler lacking basic goodness.

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2016-11-09-16-39-44-1I’ve also found that, regardless of the merits of my beliefs, a negative attitude has strong effects on the people around me:

  • Negativity fatigues the loyal
  • Negativity repels the positive

Loyal, positive people are jewels in my life.

It’s worth a lot of effort to keep them in my circle.

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2016-11-10-20-49-55It’s not always easy to see the source of my negative attitudes.

So I flip the question and ask myself, “Which actions generate a positive vibe within me?” and pay attention when I laugh out loud.

I have a good idea about my playbook.

Do you know your own?

2016-11-12-09-40-50Then it’s up to me to do the work necessary to live the life I want to experience.

Do good work.

Reaching For Success – Young Families

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2016-08-20 10.51.46

What makes a successful family system?

If you ask around then you might hear love, kindness, tolerance and forgiveness. All good but, with a room full of youngsters, these “higher states” often seem unattainable.

Let’s focus on specific tactics.

2016-08-17 17.20.34Renunciation – As an elite endurance athlete, this was a strength of mine. However, what serves a high-performer’s goals is unlikely to serve one’s family.

What happens when deeply help beliefs get in the way of being a good father, a good parent, a good son?

Most of us have past habits living inside of us. Feeding these desires as a single adult have limited repercussions in our lives. As a father, self-indulgence leads to misery.

What beliefs/habits are holding me back from being a better man?

The difficulty of change is completely worth it.

2016-08-17 10.52.28Intangible Assets – What is peace of mind worth?

What price are you willing to pay for a happier spouse?

How much is it worth to teach a three-year old conflict resolution skills?

I promise that you will undervalue the intangible benefits of greater serenity and you will greatly overestimate the pleasure you receive from hard assets.

In my family budget, “luxury” spending is focused on two areas:

  • Pre-K for the kids
  • Childcare for your marriage

At the end of 2012, we downsized our home to ensure we could fund the above.

2016-08-16 11.24.53One-On-One Time – It takes one-on-one time to get inside your child’s world.

Spend the same amount of time (overall) with your spouse.

Hold sacred your daily quiet time with yourself.

With kids, spouse, self, job, PTA, laundry, parents… we have endless demands on our time!

It is “ok to say no.”

Get more comfortable doing enough for the family, rather than your best for yourself. You might never be fully comfortable with time compromises. Discomfort is OK.

2016-08-14 12.26.58Patience – it will take work, over time, to learn skills to maintain your sanity, within the natural chaos of a new family home.

Give yourself 1,000 days to see where you need help.

Go get help!

Experienced preschool teachers have a wealth of knowledge you can tap to become skillful at home.

Most my “problems” are created when a lack of skill meets my emotional habits of anger, retreat, sadness, aggression and revenge.

2016-08-13 21.00.46Renunciation, self-care, connection and patience.

 

What To Do

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2016-06-26 12.45.44We can be trapped into thinking that one person can’t make a difference…

…that there’s no point in bothering

…that we will be punished for good deeds

A bias towards inaction enables the enemies of a civil society to screw things up for personal gain.

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This is what I got done in June:

  • Sent in my naturalization papers
  • Wrote an elected official
    • Introduced myself and my kids
    • Told him where in his constituency I lived
    • Pointed out an issue where he had done a particularly good job
    • Told him my #1 issue for his consideration
    • Thanked him for his service to us
  • Continued my home-based practice of de-escalation — when my family watches me improve myself then our entire community is better off
  • I selected a political group and a politician that “don’t get it”
    • I picked an area from each where they “do get it”
    • I shared my areas of agreement with my wife
  • Consumed less violence – whatever your favorite source… MMA, NFL, CNN, hate speech, movies, video games – choose less – I pay particular attention to visual violence as well as violence I can feel in my body – the NFL scores uncomfortably high in terms of pleasurable, tribal violence
  • Generated less anger – I can hold emotions, rather than feeding them – my mantra is don’t act on anger – the “holding” is done while breathing calmly because speaking when angry merely feeds it

Each of the above was inconvenient but, collectively, improved my life.

I need to remind myself of the overall improvement because it takes sustained effort to create the life I want to live.

Indeed, it takes sustained effort to create the mind in which I want to live!

Do we care enough to change?

One small step, daily.

 

Family Risks

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cargobikeWhen you consider risks to your family’s capital, what sort of things pop up in your mind?

  • Stock market crashes
  • Unemployment
  • Death of main breadwinner
  • Divorce
  • Underperformance of family business
  • Change in political situation
  • Change in interest rate policy
  • War and civil unrest

If we broaden the scope to human capital, what might you add?

  • Addiction and Substance Abuse
  • Remittance dependence
  • Health and wellness
  • Dementia and eldercare

I’ve known five generations of my family and we’ve experienced all of the above.

Surprisingly, the top-of-mind risks are not our source of greatest loss.

Aside from mental illness, our greatest source of turmoil has been due to developing an abnormal sense of normal. More specifically, we’ve looked up to friends & family that led us astray with regard to our financial aspirations.

DaddyGIf you happen to be a self-made individual then you will, quite rightly, say “it’s my life and I’ll live the way I darn well choose.”

You are right.

I commend you.

Self-reliance is a wonderful gift to our communities and I hope to teach it to my kids.

…but I remind myself of the cost of benchmarking at ever higher levels of achievement.

  • The cost comes in time not spent with my spouse and kids.
  • The cost comes from choosing work that is ethically ambiguous.
  • The cost comes when spending time becomes spending money.

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This caution also applies to risk.

As a young man, I tracked into higher and higher levels of “acceptable risk.” A good friend died. Another went bankrupt.

Teach your kids to notice risk-seeking behavior in themselves, and others.

  • Mountaineers => good, great, dead
  • Property Developers => good, great, bust
  • Professional Athletes => good, great, disgraced

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Finally, consider the impact of neighborhood and peers.

A friend jokes that his daughter was one of the few kids at her Bay-Area school that didn’t have an elevator in her home.

What’s my children’s definition of normal?

Choose wisely.

Money and Attention

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storyGiven the firehose of media attention pointing at the US Presidential election, it’s easy to get tired, fed-up, angry, worried… you name it with regard to the state of politics.

It is worth remembering that the players have a vested, mutual, interest in getting us scared, and angry enough, to give them money and attention.

Rather than bringing fear and hate into the world, consider the following…

Take a characteristics of your least favorite politician and remove it from yourself.

  • You might have a concern about a lack of tolerance.
  • You might have a concern about a lack of integrity.
  • You might have a concern about a focus on personal wealth.
  • You might have a concern about fairness.
  • You might not like the way the person looks.

Whatever the trigger, we are going to be reminded of it, a lot, over the next five months.

Become aware of the trigger…

…and work to subdue the trait from within yourself.

My Children’s Laughter

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Loading UpIn my mid-20s, it dawned on me that I had saved enough money to sail around the world.

Instead of a trip, I took a promotion.

By my early 30s, my net worth had grown and I took a leave of absence, to effectively, exercise all-day everyday.

It wasn’t a feeling of financial security that pushed me to make the change.

It was a set back, an unexpected divorce.

Other major changes have been triggered by unemployment or massive financial loss. In buddies, I’ve seen health issues as the trigger.

Most recently, it’s been misery. Unexpected misery has proven to be the most useful part of parenting.

A story about coping…

BelleSince 2008, I’ve done, or seriously considered…

  • Studying ministry
  • Teaching my kids, my wife’s family’s religion
  • Selling my house, buying a catamaran, sailing around the world – this would include boat-schooling my kids
  • A bioscience degree
  • Various start-ups
  • Returning to finance
  • Pursuing a world-title in a niche sport
  • Pursuing a world-title in another, even smaller, niche sport
  • Relocating to Australia
  • Relocating to California

Pretty big list but I’ve discovered that major change is unlikely to be the solution to a question, that I’ve had difficulty framing.

In my search, two mantras popped up…

2016-01-28 10.03.11Everything I need can be found at home – there is no happiness available in a new sport, new town, new house, new job, new partner… that isn’t available within my existing life.

2016-01-27 11.38.06Meaningful work is part of the solution – everything that I’ve enjoyed in my life is a result of effort. I’m constantly trying to fool myself that doing less will create more happiness. I have the means to make myself miserable through sloth.

Road tripBut what to do?

There are two traits with guaranteed huge payoffs to myself and every person with whom I interact – patience and kindness.

Patience moves my inner life towards serenity.

Kindness vaccinates my mind against anxiety and the opinions of others.

At some stage in your life, I hope you realize that you are free. When that realization touches fear, and a feeling of “WTF now?!”, I hope you remember to fall back on kindness and patience.

What does all this have to do with my kids’ laughing?

After five years of effort, I wouldn’t describe my inner life as jovial. However, I live with three of the happiest children in the world.

When I listen to their frequent laughter, I know that I am happy enough.

 

Food, Sex and Money

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IMG_1573This week, I am holding down the fort (with a lot of help) and my wife’s away on a retreat.

She’s spending time with a bunch of smart ladies, most of whom are slightly older than herself. It’s an environment similar to the camping trip that I wrote about.

Before she headed off, I made the following observation…

If you listen closely then you’ll hear most minds focusing on food, sex and money.

Taken together, they are an influence strategy that you’ll see reflected in most scandals.

This coming week, you have a unique opportunity to tap into the life experience of older women, who understand the life heading your way.

Why don’t you ask them what to expect, what they learned and how best to cope with the inevitable changes of the next 15 years.

Love you, babe.

cheers

Deciding Who’s To Blame

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sharing

Today’s picture is my seven-year old sharing her birthday candles with her siblings.

Watching unconditional sharing in my oldest child showed me that I am not seeing things as they are.

My daughter has far more kindness than I perceive.

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bigbearListen to people discuss their difficulties and you’ll hear about the shortcomings of others.

How I can counter my tendency to fool myself within my key relationships?

Acknowledge stress – illness, injury, financial hardship, noise, lack of sleep – when I am under duress, I’m much more likely to “blame” people, rather than owning situations.

A house filled with little people is a stressful situation, certainly if you’re not used to it. Be watchful that you don’t form a negative view of others, simply because you’re under duress.

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2015-10-10 10.48.53Slow down – stress, combined with rushing, is my optimal state for making mistakes!

I can cut my error rate in half with well-placed pauses and noticing when I am holding my breath.

How often do you hold your breath? In what circumstances?

As I coach, I would teach cyclists to corner better by breathing-through-the-turns.

Like a nervous athlete descending a mountain road, we might not realize when we are holding our breath.

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happyChange externals – When I am falling out with people, consider if “people” are the problem.

If I want to make things work with an individual then focus on frequent small actions to reduce their stress.

With every person I see (especially my internal life), what is the scorecard of negative vs positive interactions?

A simple way to improve my interactions with others is to improve my own attitude.

What kinds of emotional fingerprints do I leave?

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Go deep – remember that it’s rarely about what it’s about.

External circumstances and basic needs drive most of our behaviors. What’s the unmet need that’s driving this behavior?

When you get the hang of manipulating others with the above… 😉

…then you can tweak your key relationships

…and, perhaps, yourself