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At the beginning of February, I wrote a post on my next six months of reading. After month one, here’s my quick recap:

February – Life My Way

The Last Safe Investment – Bryan Franklin, Michael Ellsberg

Truly phenomenal book! This is one of the best books I’ve read. EVER. After finishing it I exclaimed to a friend it was instantly in my Top 3. After about a month to reflect, and the countless times I’ve thought about the concepts in this book, I’ll keep it in my Top 3 books of ALL TIME.  A must read for any millennial trying to find meaning in life, their community, friendships, and the life they want to build for themselves.

How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World – Harry Browne

I’ll be honest, I didn’t get more than a quarter of the way through this book. Although I agree with Browne’s sentiments, the way he laments about the government, and the mainstream world, put me into a pessimistic mindset. This month was about “life my way” and pessimism/f*ck the system wasn’t in my plan. I may get back to it, but for now, this one’s on hold. Overall it’s a good book for the libertarian wanting to live a life free of society’s grasps but it’s a bit too fantastical for me.

Leading the Life You Want: Skills for Integrating Work and Life – Stewart Friedman

Awesome, awesome, awesome for the first 60 percent of the book. In the first part of the book, Friedman dissects the lives of six highly successful people in all walks of life: business (Tom Tierney & Sheryl Sandberg), government/non-profit (Michelle Obama & Eric Greitens), and athletics/entertainment (Julie Foudy & Bruce Springsteen). This part of the book brought tremendous insight and value to my mindset. These are all highly successful individuals who integrated work, life, and the desire to serve their community while leading fulfilling lives. Although walking in their shoes was great, the last 40 percent of the book left much to be desired. Friedman takes the lessons learned from each segment and tries to give “life lessons” to apply what each of these people applied. For me, it wasn’t my favorite. A great book for 60 percent, and a mediocre finish. I still recommend it to anyone wanting to lead the life they want.

Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action – Simon Sinek

February has ended and I’m only a third through the book. I started this challenge on the third of February, plus it’s not leap year, so I guess I’ll use those as excuses. So far, so good. If you’ve ever heard one of Sinek’s Ted Talks or read any of his blog posts, you’ll be very familiar with Sinek’s writing. So far I’ve found it a true treat, and enjoy every minute of reading his book. Since it was written in 2011, I like to think it’s before he got famous, and he was first putting his thoughts into action. For that, I believe it’s a must-read. Not only does Sinek convey a desire to find out WHY, but he does so like a toddler seeing the ocean for the first time. It’s almost as if Sinek is enlightened as much as he’s trying to enlighten the reader. Overall, it’s a wonderful book, and a wonderful lesson to learn for business and personal life.

February has been a rock-solid month of reading. I can’t wait to finish Start with Why and I cannot wait to see what the next five months of reading have in store for me. A lot of wisdom, from a lot of reading!

The Definition of Creating Value

create: bring (something) into existence; cause (something) to happen as a result of one’s actions

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value: consider (someone or something) to be important or beneficial; have a high opinion of

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create value: bring (something) into existence that’s important or beneficial to someone

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Who isn’t afraid to bring something into existence?

a) That means it didn’t exist before

b) That means you’re the first to try or at least the first to try in this particular instance

And on top of creating something out of nothing, you have to bring value. Not only does your brand new idea, product, or service have to be a creation, but it also has to be a beneficial creation to someone or for something.

There’s no wonder people would be fearful of creating value.

Fear of Failure Highlighted When Creating

Creating something out of nothing always comes with the chance of failure. No matter what, if you’re trying something new, or unchartered, you don’t know what the result may be. It could be an immediate success, a far-off success, or a complete failure, but when creating you don’t know which. Instead, you have to do whatever it is to the best of your ability and hope for a good outcome.

Conveyor Belt Mindset

From a very young age, most of us (except lucky homeschooled kids) have been taught to follow rules, do as the superior wishes, and make sure to study the prescribed material. Very little of education rewards creation, and absolutely no benefits come from failing (well, getting kicked out of school is probably a benefit). Instead, we’re trained to do as the previous did before us, sometimes even learning the same coursework that’s been taught for decades.

Over time, the education system has taken away our mindset for value creation and replaced it with staying the well-traveled path. We’ve been trained that failing is bad and only bad things will happen if we try something outside the norm. The conveyor belt mindset changes our ideas from creating value to keeping the status quo. In order to start creating value, we must first break the bad habits ingrained in our minds over the past 20+ years.

Becoming a Value Creator

Thinking about value and creation separately will not deliver you at the gates of value creation. Instead, you must co-mingle the definitions and realize it’s one part creativity (art, engineering, etc) and one part value (benefits, money, time) for any project you’re involved in. It’s not enough to create art for the sake of creation but to create art because someone else will benefit from it, and will see the value you’ve bestowed upon them.

You also have to make sure to eliminate the fear of failure from your mind. Although you were trained from a young age to follow the rules, the biggest changes in the world won’t occur from following rules. You must be proactive in creating something out of nothing, even if that means falling flat on your face. Putting yourself out there with a new product, idea, or service may be a failure, but you will grow from it. Upon the lessons learned from failure, you will achieve another step to success, and in time, bring value to something or someone.

Creating value requires throwing the trained mindset out the window, becoming averse to the failures that may occur, and continuing to provide benefits to people.

 

One of the hardest parts about #adulting is trying to balance life from all angles. Hanging out with friends, going to work, finding a passionate job, finding passionate hobbies, and making sure to keep the checkbook going. For me, it has been a struggle in adulthood to keep up with all the tasks. Lately, however, I’ve stopped thinking about short-term benefits and started making decisions for six months from now in mind.

This change in mindset has definitely helped me in many aspects of my life. Instead of focusing on what might make me happy today, I think about what probably will make me happy six months from now. This mindset definitely detracts from spontaneity, but that’s something I’ve never needed more of anyway. Changing my mindset to the next six months lets me focus my efforts on creating a happy life for my future self, without sacrificing my current self. Instead, it gives me hope of who I will become if I stick to my plan.

There’s a really great segment in The Last Safe Investment in which the authors discuss filling in empty time with reading/listening to books. Whether it be listening to an audiobook on a commute to/from work or reading while waiting for someone. Within each person’s day, there are two to three hours of time to fill. If done daily, reading during that empty time will add up to reading a book a week. Since I’ve started an aggressive reading schedule, filling empty time has become a pretty necessary habit.

How I Read During Empty Time

We all have time during the day where things are laid back. Maybe it’s the minutes before going to sleep or a couple minutes of break time during work. No matter what we do in our lives, there is always time to carve out. I used to do something mindless, like catch up on Facebook posts or read blog posts. Now, I open up my latest book and dive in without regard to how far I can get.

The hardest part for me in reading is getting to a good stopping point. I used to try to read a chapter at a time, and if I didn’t have time to read the chapter I wouldn’t pick up the book. But there’s no time to do that when you’re trying to finish a book a week. So, I’ve created a bit of a rhythm when it comes to reading. Instead of trying to get through an entire chapter, if I only have a few minutes, I try to knock out three to four pages to get to the next subheading. Doing that about six to eight times during my empty time gets me through a chapter (in most books).

Then, when I get home from work, or before even starting work, I dedicate my time to reading. This way I am always connected to the book at hand, and starting/stopping isn’t an inconvenience. It also keeps the material fresh in my mind throughout the day.

Filling Empty Time

The past month has been extremely helpful for my brain in filling empty time. Not only do I get to read amazing books during my empty time, it also makes me think about the little decisions I make throughout the day. Each second I’m doing something, I could be doing something else. Each minute I spend slacking off, I could be learning or improving my abilities. Filling empty time has helped me in reading a book a week, but it’s also helped me managing my time in other aspects of life.

 

Day four of my mini “The Power of Mindset” series. If you’d like to read the previous three, they are here, here, and here. This post is about the optimistic powers that getting enough sleep creates. It’s both from a perspective on society’s practice to hold the 80-hour work weekers to a high degree as well as my findings, both personally and from reading, on sleep and mindset.

Putting Long Hours on a Pedestal

We’ve all seen the movies, and heard of the Silicon Valley startups, where people get congratulated for putting in 80+ hour work weeks. The praise coming from these people being so passionate about their idea that they’re willing to throw everything else aside (families, friends, health, to name a few) for a perceived benefit. Although society seems to think highly of this mindset, people practicing this kind of mindset shouldn’t be put no a pedestal.

There’s a quote, that I don’t remember who said it so I’ll paraphrase, whether you rose to success doing 80-hour weeks, or 40-hour weeks, that’s all you know, and thus that’s all success looks like to you. Meaning, the 80-hour a week entrepreneur will never be happy unless they’re working 80-hour weeks even though they could easily cut back their hours. Not all entrepreneurs are this way, but the 80-hour a week CEO is normal in the startup world.

Not getting enough sleep, and not taking care of certain parts of your life, have long-term damaging effects. From 4-Hour Work Week to Leading the Life You Want, there are plenty of people out there who have achieved a successful life without sacrificing their time. People try to balance their life so they can be equal part work, and equal part human.

Sleep and Positive Mindset – Science

There’s a book that I read a couple years ago called Brain Rules that explains all the ways the brain works from a scientific perspective. It has an entire chapter devoted to sleep, from how sleeping works, to circadian cycles, to sleep deficits, and finally to the importance of sleep for human beings.

After reading the book I definitely took away a lot of respect for sleep and the human mind. It’s abundantly important for us to get our needed amounts of sleep, and it’s extremely important for us to push for a culture pro-sleeping. As human beings, we weren’t created to push the limits of sleep, and in the long-run, lack of sleep will wear us down.

Sleep and Positive Mindset – Personal

On top of reading Brain Rules, I started implementing some of the lessons and really thought about how the brain works. No longer did I feel guilty taking naps (recommended to be 26 minutes) or feel ashamed for going to bed by 10 pm. Brain Rules started giving me clarity on the power of sleep for the human mind.

My first trial was to get out of a sleep deficit. I started sleeping 10 to 11 hours a night in an attempt to make up for lost time. Although I couldn’t calculate exactly how far in debt I was, I let my body rest more. I’d go to bed by 8 pm or take long afternoon naps, in order to get my mind the sleep it needed. After about a month of extra sleep, I started feeling the rewards.

Now, I don’t sleep nearly that much, maybe 6-8 hours a night depending on circumstances. But I build in days of rest in order to catch up. I try to make sure I’m sleeping an average of 7.5 hours a night, with the average being pushed up by “lazy” days. This rhythm has definitely helped me in many ways.

I used to have a mindset that I was young and could do it all. I could stay out late drinking, I could say yes to hanging out with friends until midnight, or I made up excuses to stay up watching Netflix. However, that’s not how my brain works, and that’s not going to lead me to happiness. As soon as I started taking sleep seriously, my brain started transforming. My brain was able to connect the dots while asleep and push my mindset towards positive thoughts.

Getting Enough Sleep

Society will always rush to reward people “working hard.” Society will praise the people who throw everything aside for their idea. That’s all good, and those people deserve to be praised if they’re a success, but life is a long-term game. Even the richest people in the world don’t always find happiness after their long hours.

Instead, if we focus on building a happy life for ourselves from the beginning, we won’t have to worry what life will look like when we’re a success. Getting enough sleep is definitely a part of the optimistic mindset and a key to living a happy life. Putting in long hours may get praise here and there, but getting enough sleep will get praise in the long run.

In continuation of the power of mindset theme, which I posted about on Monday (here) and yesterday (here), I am continuing to explore the mindset I’ve developed to cultivate optimistic thoughts.

One of the keys to keeping my mind forward-looking is having habits to fall back on. Whether I’m having a crummy day, or couldn’t be happier, my habits give me an anchor to bring me back to earth. They help me get out of ruts as well as solidify why I’m doing what I’m doing.

Note: Habits are not be-all-end-alls. Although I try to maintain successful habits 24/7, it’s nearly impossible. Sometimes life happens and I break habits, or I get burnt out from habits and need a break. I’ve found the best way to recover from a broken habit is to try and get back on track as soon as possible. Even if I can’t fully get back to a successful habit in 24 hours, I can still start righting the ship.

The 10-3-2-1-0 Rule

This is one of my new favorite habits which I learned from Craig Ballantyne in The Perfect Day Formula. The rule is as follows:

10 hours before bed – No more caffeine.

3 hours before bed – No more food or alcohol.

2 hours before bed – No more work.

1 hour before bed – No more screen time (turn off all phones, TVs and computers).

0 – The number of times you will hit the snooze button in the morning.

Although I’m not the best at sticking to all of these habits (specifically 3 and 0), when I do hit 10-3-2-1-0 I feel fantastic. When I can couple a few “perfect” days together, I really feel in a groove, and my mindset is fully optimistic. Plus, I never go for the afternoon coffee anymore. I’ve realized whatever I can’t do on caffeine I’m probably not amped up to do anyway.

Reading a Book

The one habit I continually find joy in is reading a book. No matter what life has thrown at me (whether ups or downs) I know I can find solace in a book. I prefer non-fiction, self-help style books, but pretty much any book reading would work.

I find the deep-dive into another person’s thoughts creates a powerful connection in my brain. Not only do I get to escape the surrounding world, but I get to glean ideas from some of the brightest people in the world. Reading books consistently is a skill I’m slowing developing, but every time I read a book I start to feel my mindset improve.

Freely Writing

A lot of times when I go to write blog posts I struggle to find what I’m going to write about. Once I decide on a topic I start to overthink everything, I check on my SEO, I make corrections based on Grammarly, and I forget the purpose of writing. A habit I find that successfully changes my mindset is to write freely and to write what’s on my mind. Letting the keyboard do the talking is the best habit I’ve found when it comes to writing.

In order to do that, I either jot my writing down on my note-keeping app of choice Google Keep or use WriteMonkey, which I wrote this post on. By taking the distractions away, I’m able to focus my mind on writing without worry. This allows me to clear my mind of the thoughts on the top of my head which leads to a more optimistic mindset.

Habits to Fall Back On

I am not perfect. You probably aren’t perfect either. Although we have habits we want to stick to, we cannot be 100% on, 100% of the time. Instead, I find it helpful to have a few solid habits that when the going gets tough, the habits will bring me back into rhythm. And if I am having a great day, good habits will make my day that much better.

Having good habits to fall back on is one of the best things I have done for my mind. It has changed my life from not having much of a direction, to knowing the base to get to in order to start an upward climb.

Yesterday I posted “Only You Have the Power to Change Your Mindset.” Today my post is about changing your mindset with regards to regret.

I hold myself to pretty high standards. I set a course of action in my head and attempt to always follow through. However, I’m human and I don’t always get everything that I want to get done, done. Before, my coping mechanism was to procrastinate, like procrastinating would make the problem go away. Unfortunately, all procrastination does is build up the problem and create regret. Although I still struggle with regret and struggle with using procrastination as a coping mechanism, I have developed a few habits to overcome the feeling. They all start with the power of thought and an optimistic mindset.

Live for Today – Be a Stoic

No matter the decisions you made, or the person you were, yesterday, it doesn’t matter. You can’t change who you were yesterday. You can’t go back in time and change the decisions you made. The only thing you can do is change your actions going forward. Instead of regretting things from your past, forget about them and take actionable steps forward today.

My mindset of “live for today” has a heavy influence from Stoicism. A basic principle from the Stoics is you are the only one in control of your life. No matter the rights, or wrongs, that have befallen you, only you can make the changes you want to see. One of their methods to making these changes is by living in today. This helps you define what you need to accomplish in order to feel good about your future self. It’s an extremely important lesson in mitigating regret.

Create a Plan (for Today and Tomorrow)

Ideally, we’d all have five-year plans mapped out with every detail, down to a checklist for every single day (“If I knock off all my checks for this five-year plan I’ll be a huge success!”). Unfortunately, life is too random to create such a detailed planned. Instead, we should settle for the next best option: creating a plan for today, and tomorrow.

I like to spend my wee-hours of the morning in planning for my today and tomorrow. I try to map out the future in my head and determine which tasks I can get done today to inch me closer to that place.

Not only is this a successful habit, but it also keeps me from getting too regretful. A lot of times my regret builds up over time if I let things sit for too long. Having a one or two day plan lets me focus on the things that matter most, and if something doesn’t get done for a while I know either a) to remove it from the to-do list or b) I definitely need to get it done.

Let Regret Go

At the end of the day, we aren’t machines. We can’t endlessly (and mindlessly) accomplish everything we want. Sometimes we think we can cure cancer, poverty, and world hunger with all of our hard work, but we can’t. No matter how hard we try we can only accomplish so much. Instead of focusing on the stuff we can’t finish, we need to focus on finishing the stuff we can to the best of our ability.

Eventually, trying our hardwork will pay its dividend. Even if it means not getting to things, we shouldn’t regret it. Each day that we take a step forward is a day closer to our end goal. Each day we fall flat on our face is another day to learn from and to try not to replicate. Either way, we must let each day go and not regret our decisions. What we do shapes our future, but it shouldn’t shape our mindsets. Let regret go.

Parting Words

If you’re like me and have a hard time getting out of your own head then I urge you to try things that limit regret. It’s easier said than done, and I have a hard time with it (still), but there are ways to mitigate regret. Once you start taking small steps it gets easier. You have the power to change your mindset for the better and you have the power to deal with regret.

 

Guilt, disappointment, sadness, and despair are all reactions you can have to your actions in life. Pride, euphoria, happiness, and abundance are also reactions you can have to your actions in life. The only difference in these reactions is your mindset. You have the power to think depressing thoughts as much as you have the power to think happy thoughts.

 My Less-Than Happy Past

Anyone who knows me from three to four years ago would know that I haven’t always found happiness. There have been a lot of situations where I didn’t live in a happy world and took for granted who I was and who I was becoming. My mindset was completely different. Instead of trying to find things that would make me come alive, I spent my time running from my problems.

Each time that I ran in a different direction, the problem eventually caught up. Not only would one problem catch up, but  I created more-and-more problems for myself by running. Then a whole bunch of problems would catch up to me at once and I was faced with a challenging situation. Instead of using my power to find happiness, I used my powers to become more and more depressed.

The Power of Mindset

I could tell I was going to a place that wasn’t good for me. I was aware enough that the life I created for myself wouldn’t find happiness. Instead, it would bring more and more despair. Using my power, I traced my steps, did a lot of learning, and developed self-knowledge into what I really wanted. After some poor performances at work, I realized a change was necessary. So I mapped out a path to escape the world I was living in and to find a new one.

My decision to leave Washington D.C., to travel the country for my new home, and to throw common-sense out the window ignited my mind, it taught me I had power. Since that time I have become ever more self-aware. I have reflected on my hard times and use the knowledge I learned about myself to make sure I don’t repeat past mistakes.

Using my power to change my mindset was the best thing I’ve ever done with my life. Instead of being unhappy, and getting trapped in landslides of depression, I live in a much happier mind. The habits I’ve developed, and the knowledge of my power to be happy, have created a far better world for myself than I could’ve imagined only a few years ago. Your ability to change your mindset is the biggest asset within your power. Use it for good.

Life will hand you tons of opportunities. Some might be fun, some might suck, but each opportunity is a chance to find what you’re interested in, and what you’re not. When you do find interests, you need to mark it on a map or a diagram. Over time, you can combine all of those interests and mark them on a diagram. The intersection, similar to a Vin diagram, will lead to your passion.

Most people believe that finding your passion is something only a unicorn can find. Most people also believe they will never be the unicorn that finds their passion. But that’s merely a myth. Finding your passion isn’t only for unicorns, it’s for everyone.

Finding your passion is about trying new things. It’s about finding what you’re interested in and what you’re not. That lets you know what you hate. And what you love.

Throw the stuff you hate aside and start doing the stuff you love. Once you get a chance to make money off the stuff you love, go full bore on the stuff you love. And keep going.

Each time you take a step towards your passion, you’re taking a step towards your intersection. At the same time, when you hate something, try to cut it loose as soon as possible. That is your guiding light towards the best you.

Thoughts spiraling around in my head. Creative juices zapped from a day of heavy thought.

Developing systems, implementing processes, and integrating applications are as artistic as I get. And they’re beautiful when they work, but they take a toll on brain output.

Writing used to be my creative outlet, but now I must learn to mend system development with the artistic nature of writing.

Both require ample thought, think 15 lemons to make an ounce of lemonade, and both require creativity. Both I have a passion for, and a desire to perfect. In time they will mold together to create a killer combo, but for now, they’re the bain of my brain.