F#@k Your Goals: Why The Rest Of The World Could Not Care Less About Your Dreams

“There is no limit to what can be accomplished if it doesn’t matter who gets the credit.” —-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Inspiration and wisdom can come from the strangest places. Until yesterday, I would have called you insane if you told me that one of the wisest things I’ve ever heard would come from a recent NFL Hall of Fame inductee. That’s exactly what Deion Sanders did for me.

A little background. I am a Deion Sanders fan. I am an Atlanta Falcons fan and loved the days when Deion “Primetime” Sanders would make a great play and prance around the field in a doo rag. While I love the way Deion played the game, I always had the sneaking suspicion that the “Primetime” persona was not really who this man was. I was right.

This past weekend, Deion spoke for about 25 minutes about his illustrious and Hall of Fame worthy career. What struck me as odd was that for a person who always carried a larger than life persona and was the center of attention, 90% of his talk was not about himself at all. He thanked everyone he could from high school teachers to EACH and EVERY trainer and equipment manager on each team he played for. He joked for the first 15 minutes and then got deadly serious.

He spoke directly to the young people whom he mentors on and off the football field. He told them that what bothered him most about this generation is that their dreams are too small. Fine. I expected another clichéd and hackneyed, “Follow Your Dreams,” rant, but that’s not what we got. Deion told the kids, “When your dreams only involve yourself, there is something wrong with your dream. It’s not big enough.”

Wow. I sat there stunned.

Deion spent the rest of his talk explaining where the drive to become “Primetime” came from. He recalled, specifically and in great detail, a high school experience that would forever change him. A high school phenom, Deion was recruited to play on an affluent, mostly white traveling football team. His teammates were the sons of doctors and lawyers and judges. Deion’s mom was the janitor at the local hospital. One day at school, one of his teammates teased him because he was at the hospital and saw Deion’s mother picking up trash. This incident hurt so much that it made a Hall of Fame football player ashamed of his own mother. He promised himself at that very moment that he would become a success and retire his mother in style.

Deion went to college and encountered his first real hurdle: the realization that players who play his position professionally do not make a lot of money. That was not going to cut it for Deion and he was not going to renege on a promise he made to himself and his mother.

So a 17 year old kid in a dorm room created one of the most elaborate and memorable personages in sports history not for himself, but for his mother.

Throughout his career Deion would be ridiculed and criticized for his on and off field antics and the lifestyle that this “Primetime” character portrayed. During his speech, he even recognized the criticism that he never tackled very much. His retort, “To all those who said that I never tackled. Ask my mother. Since 1989, I have managed to tackle every bill my mother has put before me.”

This story illustrates an interesting point in a society bombarded with self-help, goal setting and personal coaches. The point is: human beings can endure more, achieve more and enlist the help of others more easily when those goals and dreams are larger than that individual and are achieved in the spirit of service to someone else.

If you want to achieve bigger and more awesome goals you need to aim to make a dent in the universe that goes beyond you and your ego. You want to become a millionaire? Great for you. I could not care less. Tell me you need millions of dollars to open homeless shelters, teach immigrant children English or fund young entrepreneurs who need a break, now I am interested.

What I am proposing is not wishful thinking. It is rooted in our biology. We are wired this way. We were put here to help each other. Humans function very poorly in isolation. Separate you from other human interaction for a while and your brain will start doing all sorts of funky things. When you announce to the world lots of lofty goals which are solely about you and your success/happiness, you are telling the tribe that you are in it for self and they should not expect you to be a helpful and caring member of the community. Clearly, this may not be the reality. Just know the signal that you’re sending out. By the way, guess why so many business contacts are made and deals are struck on non-profit boards? Each member of the board is signaling that despite their success, there is something that they care about beyond themselves.

I am not telling you not to save for retirement. I am not saying don’t work out. I am not saying don’t push to start your own business. These are all great things. But when we talk about BIG dreams, check the ego at the door and think about how what you have inside can benefit the world. I am talking about the type of dream that makes you sit in a dorm room and create an alter ego.

Deion made his dream big enough to include his mama. Who can your dream include?

The Wisdom of Sharon Kay Turner

The following are collected writings from notes my mother left to herself. She passes on September 24th 2011 after a long bout with breast cancer. May these provide you peace and guidance:

How to Deal With Stress

When confronted with crisis in life, you do not react with your worldly self, you respond from the inner spirit that is connected to the true you. God is within you and will keep you centered during stresses of life great and small. Be still and know. Go within. Connect and fill the power that is in the place of the most high.

On Winning

For a true winner achievement is not the most important thing.

On Important Things To Do Everyday

Meditate for 15 minutes.

On Doing What You Love

Do what you love and the money will follow. I love the job I have, it is peaceful and stress free.

On Connection

Our connection with Spirit is demonstrated in how we deal with things that come upon our path.

How To Make Yourself Feel Better

Send congratulations notes to yourself.

How to make a plan for your life.

Create a treasure map. Put up the areas of your life where you want to make changes and cut out pictures to go along with that.

On “Haters”

What you think of me is none of my business.

On Problems

When I am able to let go of my problems I shall have instant manifestation.

On Worry

Worry drains us of our energy when we need it, for a future negative thing. Focus on the positive. Remain in the now. Guilt and Worry are secondary emotions and not useful.

On Life

I began life as though I am going to live forever.

On Luck

Your winning lottery ticket is written in the mind of your soul.

On Confusion

There is no confusion in spirit.

On New Beginnings

Each moment I have the opportunity to awake to the morning of my renewed beginning.

How to release negative things

1. Write a letter to God. Burn it. 2. Yell and Scream. 3. Journaling. 4. Talk to a friend.

On Words

Only use words to: 1.Heal 2.Bless 3. Prosper

On Letting Go

Let Go and take your mental hands off. Give it to God.

On Faith

In the face of adversity I pray for all medical tests that I have to take will come back and show no evidence of the disease. And so it is. I put this situation in the hands of infinite love and wisdom.

Creating New Habits: Like Water Down A Mountain

The first time you try to ride a bike, you have to think about all of the mechanics: keeping the handlebars straight, balancing your weight, moving one foot in front of the other on the pedals, avoiding obstacles.  Once you know how to ride a bike, however, all of the mechanics happen under the surface, and it seems to come naturally.  Once you have ridden the bike several times, the subconscious brain is able to take over it so that your conscious brain can focus on other things.

Your brain automates anything you do habitually in the same manner.  You spend time consciously learning the mechanics of the required actions, and once your brain has grasped it, it transfers those duties over to the subconscious.  Whatever you do consciously is what gets burned into your subconscious.  We think that we are consciously in charge of all of our decisions, but many of these decisions are probably being made by your subconscious based on what you’ve done in the past.

I have a long-standing bad habit of hitting my snooze button.  I purposely set my alarm to go off well before I know I’ll need to get up to account for the inevitable snoozing that will happen.  Sometimes I’ll wake up and realize that I snoozed more times than I recall.  I’m convinced that my snoozing is burned so deeply into my subconscious that I can reach over and hit the snooze button without actually waking up.  This is what people mean when they say “Old habits die hard.”

The subconscious brain chooses our actions like water flowing down a mountainside.  When you make a conscious decision to do something, it’s like making a small divot in the side of a mountain.  The next time you are required to make a similar decision, you are naturally drawn towards the action that was taken the last time, in the same way that water flow is directed to the spots where the divots are made.  After you have taken  a particular course of action several times, you have created a trench in the mountain that virtually guarantees that the water will consistently flow in that direction.

Breaking a long-standing habit or changing long-held behavior requires digging a different trench down your mountain, one conscious choice at a time.  You cannot make a decision to one day start doing things differently and expect it to stick based on that one conscious decision.  You have to consciously choose the new behavior over and over until it is burned into your subconscious deeper than the old behavior.  If you’ve had the undesired habits for years, you can see how difficult of a process this is.  Most people go their entire lives without ever overcoming the decision trends they burned into their brains during their youth.

This is why recovering addicts refer to themselves as still being addicts.  They know that the choice to consume drugs or alcohol is burned deep in brains and that it is only the continual conscious decision to choose otherwise that keeps them from falling back into the behaviors that are so deeply entrenched.

This is also why I’m so disenchanted with stuff like The Secret.  I feel like that segment of pop psychology is selling the dream that the path to your best life is a smooth, enlightening journey.  It’s not.  The path to your best life is a slow, long grind that involves chipping away at the clay on your mountain to try to get the water to flow in the direction that you want.  If you want to establish a new habit in your life, you have to dig for it, hour after hour, day after day, until things start flowing in your direction.

There is some good news. Digging a trench in your mountain gets easier and easier as you go along.  At first it will seem like you are trying to dig, i.e., choose a new behavior, for days without getting anything to flow your direction.  But once the trench gets deep enough, the water begins to naturally flow in your direction; the behavior you’re trying to adopt starts to come more and more naturally.  When an athlete exhibits that seemingly unconscious high level of performance in competition, we describe him or her as being “in the flow.”  The same thing happens for skilled artists, writers, bakers, and surgeons.  For each of them, this high level ability has come from consistent and persistent chipping away at their personal mountain until their ability seems to just easily flow.  At some point, the water flows in your direction without you making any more conscious choice – it has been burned into your subconscious deep enough to where you are able to perform at a high level with seemingly little effort.

What trench could you dig into your mountain that would greatly benefit your life?  Would it be waking up earlier?  Choosing healthier foods?  Exercising daily?  Paying off your credit card monthly?  It is never too late to create a new habits that push you towards a better life.  The next time you are faced with a decision in the area you want to change, make a conscious choice to dig a divot in the direction that you want your water to flow.

Welcome to My Loft

My head is a house with no rooms; a huge loft if you will. There is no kitchen, den, bedroom, or any specific area designed for a specific task. I can use the stove while relaxing in my bed, run my bath water while sitting on the sofa, or park my car right next to the fine china. Every thought, idea, emotion, and memory residing in my loft can be accessed at any moment and is always in clear view. Now please understand one thing before I continue. My brain consists of the same “physical” parts as any other brain. I am very well equipped with all of the hemispheres, cortexes, and neurons that it takes for a brain to function. However, the way in which my brain functions is somewhat rare.

I have no rooms to hide or categorize my thoughts. Ideas from different areas of study are allowed to freely mingle and interact with each other. Race, religion, and politics have no pre-determined meanings or constructs. They just exist and become accepted based on their form and essence. For example: Christmas, Hanukah, and Kwanza are allowed to share the same space in my loft. They are not categorically separated into a Christian, Jewish, or Black “thing.” They are simply 3 different ways that 3 different groups of people celebrate their spiritual renewals.

I also don’t have compartments or space to judge people by their bad habits or vices. Of course some drugs and illegal narcotics are more dangerous and addictive than others. But let’s not give someone who drinks a daily 64 oz Big Gulp of fruit drink or cola the ability to judge the smoker. Both individuals are simply risking the chance of being diagnosed with diabetes or lung cancer. Neither one is right or wrong. It’s just a choice. My loft also gives me the chance to love and protect all animals from harm- not just pit bulls. My loft doesn’t understand the difference between the fictional Detroit Dog Fighters and the real South Carolina Gamecocks. Can someone with a more segregated and compartmentalized mind please explain?

I do understand that everyone’s brain can’t work this way. We do need rigidity, definition, and approximations in our world. Science and technology are not built on relative terms such as about, around, or almost. However, I do have space in my loft for every field of science. I allow art and science time to frolic and court. Besides, what painter doesn’t have a basic understanding of the color spectrum? What musician doesn’t acknowledge that math isn’t the foundation for all music. I even studied psychology and neuroscience to help me understand my loft. Science and art can go hand in hand…if you just let them be.

Therefore, I advise you not to always see the tub as a “tub.” Knock down a few walls in your head and view it as a large container that allows kids to play with their toys and adults to play with each other. Don’t view the refrigerator as just a “refrigerator.” Open your loft and view it as a large appliance where Mom puts her children’s drawings and good test scores. Don’t let an object or idea take shape solely based on its popular definition and use. Place that object or idea into your loft and allow it to exist on its own terms. Give people and ideologies a chance to define themselves: rather than you building upon preconceived notions. Allow thoughts and ideas to work or fail on their own rather than defining them as good or bad. Allow nature to take its course with love and relationships instead of you trying to control them. Finally, let people show their true colors without you projecting an image or label onto them. Rich people do have souls and nice guys can finish first. The world is not flat, time & space can be curved, and melanin is just a protein. Free yourself and enjoy your loft.

You Are Already Naked

I’m writing this essay from Mexico where I have been trying to use my rudimentary Spanish with varying levels of success. One thing I noticed was that sometimes when I saw that the other person spoke English, I’d switch entirely to using English even though I know I want to take advantage of having so many native Spanish speakers around to work on my conversation skills. I realized I was letting my fear of sounding dumb keep me from at least giving my Spanish a try.  But the other person can already tell I don’t know Spanish, so their perception of my language skills can only go up as I continue to talk to them. Keeping in mind that I have nothing to lose makes it much easier to just jump into Spanish with people as I move about.

The hardest part of doing anything new – from speaking Spanish with native speakers to writing a book – is getting started.  As I wrote recently, it’s not lack of knowing how that keeps us from getting started on something – it’s our psychology.

We are afraid of being criticized.  But pretty much anything you do that is out of the ordinary or new opens you up to criticism.  The route most people take is to avoid criticism by simply not trying to do anything extraordinary. If you never do anything different, no one will judge you for it.  Once you try something new, you’ve opened yourself up for possible failure.  If you write a blog, people may not like it or read anything you write.  If you record an album, it might not sell, and people may not come to your shows.  If you write a novel, it may not get published and people could deem it a failure.  Your screenplay may not get bought.  In fact, if you aim to do anything special or worthwhile, chances are there will be some failures along the way.  The more amazing the thing is that you are shooting for, the more spectacular the failure will probably be.

We’re also scared of haters.  Haters will talk trash about your blog, your book, your band. The haters aren’t writing blogs and books of their own, because that’s not what haters do.  Creating is not in the haters’ nature, because that takes away from their ability to hate on what others do without inviting hate to their own work. What people don’t realize is what the haters hate most is themselves.  They hate on the things you produce because they are projecting their fear of doing anything themselves.  They hate that they don’t have the guts to put their own creations out there to be judged.  They hate as a reminder to themselves of why they shouldn’t ever try to do anything extraordinary.  It’s how haters talk themselves out of doing anything cool.

People have a tendency to not admit failures or try to brush them under the rug.  We want to be given the opportunity to resign when we are really getting fired.  We tend not to admit that we were wrong, even on little points – we’re more likely to justify.  We want to present these perfect images of ourselves – the Facebook version of ourselves that we present to the world, where we’re always happy, we’re always doing fun and cool things, and we look good in every photo. We spend more time making sure our image looks good than doing the things that actually make our life better.  It’s like we all want to be Rocky Marciano and retire undefeated. So we don’t do anything that could put us in a position to lose.  Which means you don’t ever try much at all.

The thing is, that overwhelming desire to not fail is pretty silly.  No one around you actually thinks you haven’t failed.  By not giving that “something” a shot, you’re protecting an image that exists only in your mind.  There are no people that haven’t failed – there are only people that haven’t tried.  You either go after something extraordinary in life or you do not.

Steve Jobs says in the commencement address below, “All external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.  Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.  You are already naked.  There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

What are you allowing to hold you back?  What is the fear of embarrassment or failure keeping you from doing?  Release those feelings and take a chance at doing something that could fail spectacularly.  You are already naked.