Milk…The Success Cocktail

Image by Salim Virji via Flickr

Got Milk?  It’s nature’s wonder-serum that gives you everything you need to build bones and improve health.  Milk breeds perfection!  You can be drop dead gorgeous like Naomi Campbell, an ageless sports hero like Brett Favre, or a songstress like Taylor Swift with the magic of a milk mustache.  What do all of these people have in common?  They still drink milk like kids and push through any and all obstacles to pursue their goals in life.  The irony is that adults are very partial in what they accept and apply from childhood.  A child’s beverage is deemed valuable, but juvenile courage is considered senseless and inappropriate.   You’re not just being sold Milk, you’re being sold success through liquid courage.  Get your fill!

Are you still just holding and analyzing that glass of super juice?  What would you do differently starting today if you knew failure wasn’t a possibility?  Would you go back to school?  Become an entrepreneur?  Interview for a new job?  Enter into a committed relationship?  What’s keeping you from doing these things now?   Is fear and discomfort silencing that voice within you that wants to venture out?

Lose the fear.  It’s nothing more than a barrier you create to short-change yourself.  Don’t put limits on living up to your true capabilities.   If you were going to play the lotto for a $100 million jackpot you wouldn’t ask the cashier for a cheaper ticket for a lower payout.  So don’t play the low stakes with your life.

I remember growing up and learning how to play baseball.  I would sit in the batter’s box waiting for the underhand pitch to come across the plate for the chance to send it deep into the outfield.  The only problem was I couldn’t seem to introduce the bat to the ball.  After countless attempts and mounting frustration, my Dad helped me realize something.  It wasn’t that I couldn’t aim at the ball.  I simply wouldn’t allow myself to lose the fear and swing.  Anxiety was my confidence-zapping monster.  Once I shelved the monster and focused on having fun, baseball became exactly what I wanted – a new game I could enjoy.  Set yourself free.  Stop choking the bat and allow your good to become great.

It’s not the circumstances we can’t control that are keeping us from maximizing our potential.  It’s us.  We keep holding ourselves back.  The Wright Brothers didn’t just give up on the concept of man flying like birds and opt to build a kite.  They didn’t let their understanding of gravity and mother nature derail their passion.  They built a plane.  You know what to do.  Get the hell out of your own way.

What about the people in your social circles?  Consider how much influence others have on your life. It’s probably much greater than you’ve led yourself to believe.  I’m not saying you need to surround yourself with nothing but people that think the way you do.  Growth takes a difference in perspectives to get outside of the box.  But ask yourself: are the people I’m around helping me build a plane, or are they stoking the fear?

How would you classify your personality and approach to life?  I’ve been told I’m overly optimistic.  In my opinion, most of those critiques came from overly pessimistic people.  Optimism is ground zero for dream creation. Pessimism is the catalyst for shattering hope.  Don’t be naïve – pessimism can be a solid reality check.  Just keep it on a short leash.

Lofty dreams and goals are real, not ridiculous.  Things that seemed lofty to me years ago are realistic today.  Everything that I’ve done in my career has been a trial of some sort, but at the same time I’ve treated everything I’ve done as something I could be the best at, in time.  I’ve gone from roles in Advertising to Sales positions and am always looking for new avenues to grow.  I’ve created student television shows, done freelance photography, and helped start a non-profit.  The point is – if you aren’t setting lofty goals, how will you ever reach your limits?  Don’t accept mental boundaries.  The brain only knows what you’ve exposed it to up to this point.  Navigators thought the world was flat for centuries, but it was a dedication to test the boundaries that proved it round.  Test your assumptions. Don’t let anyone or anything convince you the ceiling isn’t made of glass.

So what are you afraid of?  Break up with your boyfriend/girlfriend named “Fear.” You are what you eat, so ingest positivity.  Modify your social circle.  Stop creating obstacles and complaining about the path being so tough!  Dream bigger.  Set goals that will stretch you beyond comfort.  Get out of your doggone way. Everyone else isn’t the problem it’s you!  Yes, I’m telling you what to do.  Put your brain on the shelf and bring the “analysis paralysis” to an end.  Let loose and swing the bat.

This Is Going To Hurt Me More Than It’s Going To Hurt You

“You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin’ to? You talkin’ to me? Well, I’m the only one here. Who the f**k do you think you’re talking to? Oh, yeah? Okay!”–  Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver

“A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.” – Timothy Ferriss

This is my last Mastermind Project blog post of the year and I wrestled with what I wanted to say and how to say it for quite a while.

I was going to recap the year by reliving the big wins of the group and by telling everyone to be grateful for their blessings. Blah blah blah. I couldn’t bring myself to do that. As you have probably noticed, we in the Mastermind Project have different writing styles and different themes that we like to explore. A theme I will be exploring with you is the art of uncomfortable conversations and facing harsh realities.

My writing tends to be very personal. I don’t mind. Exposing shortcomings and admitting mistakes is how we grow.  I am figuring this stuff out just like you are. Just because none of us in the Mastermind Project is perfect nor have we achieved all of our goals does not mean that there is nothing to learn from us and our journeys. Truth is truth. Messages sometimes have to be separated from their messengers.

So, instead of patting ourselves (myself included) on the back for a job well done this year, I’d like to call bullshit. I’d like us to force ourselves to take a good hard look in the mirror and look at reality for what it is. Did we do our best? Did we learn from our mistakes? Did our egos get in the way of learning? Did fear paralyze us yet another year?  We cannot afford to spend another year fooling ourselves.  It’s time to take the Band-Aid off.

In the spirit of the holidays, below are short messages that some of us should have gotten in our holiday cards. Some of these will sting a bit, but each card is me speaking to myself just as much as me speaking to you. If none of these apply to you, congratulations. Or, you might want to skip to the “Rationalizer.” You may be in worse shape than I thought.

Remember: this is going to hurt me more than it is going to hurt you.

Selfish and Single

Dear Selfish and Single,

Another year has passed and you are still single. You are not totally to blame for your predicament.  There are significant social and economic shifts that are taking place which have created disruptions in the dating market. So what? I want to share with you what I observed and heard from you all year. First, you are entitled. If you are a part of my generation, you are a victim of the self-esteem movement. Yes, victim. You have been coddled and told you were special your whole life. A lot of what you’ve gotten out of life has been given to you or it just worked out. Until now. When I talk to you about dating and/or marriage you can’t help but to tell me who you are looking for and what that person has. That’s because you don’t understand love and you think that a mate is a special prize to you for being so “special.”

You’re not that special. Just because you want something doesn’t mean that you will get it nor do you deserve it. In 2012, focus on love and not your ego.  Ask yourself if you are who you are looking for. You probably weren’t in 2011. Love is not about you. Love is about giving. You keep complaining about what you’re not getting. I don’t know what that is, but it’s not love.

P.S. I know it’s hard for you, but be patient. The world doesn’t revolve around you. Good things often take time.

Money Bookmark Man

Dear Money Bookmark Man,

Congratulations. You spent another year complaining about money. Don’t get me wrong – money is important. However, study after study reveals that past a certain point, the incremental happiness provided by money is just not that great. So instead of taking a good hard look in the mirror and actually deciding what will make you happy and what fulfills you, you take the shortcut.  All you say is, “When I make more money, THEN I will figure out what I want to do.” Sadly, it doesn’t work that way. Rather, it shouldn’t have to be that way. The money bookmark allows you to not take responsibility for today. Since you don’t really know what you want, there is no actual dollar amount in the future that will satisfy you. So, you can play the money bookmark game for decades instead of going for it. If money is the only hurdle, then I challenge you to sit down and price out everything you need/want to be content. Put a dollar amount on everything. Everything. Once that is tallied up, write down a plan to get money out of the way. The first step is to identify what you spend money on now that didn’t make it on your list of items that would make you content and eliminate them. You probably won’t do this because you will most likely see that it is fear and not money that is holding you back.

P.S. “If…then happiness” never works, but this one is a real stinker.

Man Trapped in the Xbox

Dear Man Trapped in the Xbox,

You are over the age of 25 and the only conversations that you have with your male friends revolve around women (actually sex), money, sports and video games. I love all of these things. However, if you have not reached a level of friendship with your male peers beyond these topics, you are hanging out with the wrong people and you don’t have real friends. You have Call of Duty buddies.  One thing that amazes me about the Mastermind Project is that after the first six months of meeting every other Wednesday we stopped talking about bullshit. We took the fig leaves off and started talking about real life things. As men, we pride ourselves on being strong. Strength to me is telling your friends that you miss a parent that has passed on or sharing that you have met the woman of your dreams or that you have always wanted to climb a mountain or donate a building in the memory of your grandmother. It’s not about sitting on the couching discussing feelings with Dr. Phil. It’s knowing that if anything should happen to you, there are men you call friends who will make sure that your family is taken care of.

P.S. For those of you who are slow… those will not be your Call of Duty buddies

The Procrastinator

Dear Procrastinator,

You didn’t do anything last year. Why on Earth would we expect anything different from you this year? Please don’t litter our email, Facebook or cell phones with grand pronouncements of what you are going to do. We don’t believe you. Next year, give us a call when something is done and there is evidence that supports your claim. We love you. You have time. You just don’t have a lot of time to waste.

P.S. You would amaze people if you just showed up to things for one whole month 15 minutes early.

The Self Saboteur

Dear Self-Saboteur,

Bravo. Another year has passed and you could have succeeded if you wanted to, but you didn’t want to succeed.  You showed up late. You didn’t study. You made excuses. You blamed others. You half-assed it at work. You did everything in your power to assure your ego that it couldn’t be bruised because you never really tried. It is quite remarkable actually. It takes a lot to sabotage oneself. Sooner or later your self-image must come into contact with this harsh place that we all know as reality. I know you think you’re better than Kobe Bryant and Derrick Rose. It’s easy to say it from a couch and you’re 25 pounds overweight. Why don’t you get out there? Show us what you are made of. Oh yeah, that’s right. I know why not. Deep down in a place you are afraid to acknowledge, you know that your ego isn’t real and you’re probably not that good, smart, good looking, cool, etc. It’s easier to be a legend in your mind than to try in the real world where you might fail. Next year, you should pick 12 things that you have never tried before. You will suck at them all. By the end of 12 months, you will realize that everyone sucks when they start and it’s not the end of the world.

P.S. You are probably also Selfish and Single and string multiple people along to feel good instead facing the vulnerability of actually liking one person who might not like you back. Stop it. You are wasting a lot of good people’s time.

The Rationalizer aka Too Smart to be Delusional

Dear Rationalizer,

You are one of my favorites.  You cannot be wrong. People with different political, economic or social points of view are clearly intellectually inferior. You believe what you believe because you are enlightened and informed. Except none of this is true.  The truth is that you cannot even trace the origins of your beliefs. Most of your beliefs stem from emotional reactions of which you are not even aware.  But you are smart. That’s what your ego says to you at least.  It turns out that not feeling smart (or right or pretty) is something that our psyches cannot handle very well. So here is what you do. You rationalize. You watch the TV stations where people have your same views. You hang around people who engage in the same behaviors. The next time you catch yourself doing something that is questionable, dangerous or just plain dumb and your justification is, “Everybody is doing it,” you are the rationalizer. It’s the reason that 90% of the people in this country believe that they have above average intelligence and why politicians can get away with saying things like “I want everyone to be rich,” when, by definition, neither of those statements can be true.  My gripe with you is not that you are delusional. We all are. My gripe is that you foist your world view on the rest of us. You blindly believe that if the world just saw things your way, it would be a better place, not realizing that some of us disagree with you now and would be miserable in your utopia.  You think you know more than you do and this arrogance thoroughly screws the rest of us.

P.S. As a society we MUST stop rewarding these people and assuming that this is what leadership is about. If we do not allow our leaders the freedom to look at facts, assess situations and change their minds when the situation calls for it, we will be stuck with smart people chained to terrible ideas.

All of Us

Dear Us,

I want to conclude this post with a simple request. Before the clock strikes midnight on the 31^st of December, I want us to go into the bathroom for 10 minutes and ask the following questions as honestly as possible.

• What is true regardless of whether I believe it or not (Hint: gravity and death are good places to start)?
• What are the three biggest lies I am telling myself right now? (I didn’t gain weight? All of my past relationships are the other person’s fault? Maybe.)
• Who are the people in my life that allow me to lie to myself the most? (Am I surrounded by  yes people? Probably.)
• Regardless of how people might judge me, what do I REALLY want from life? (Spend 5 minutes on this one. Ignore everyone. Your family. Your religion. Your kids. Your education. Keep it 100% with yourself.)
•  Why am I afraid to try, fail and/or make a mistake in public when I have already done all three?
• Why will this New Year be any different from the last one?

A year’s worth of blogs here at the Mastermind Project cannot help you in any way until you sit down, take off the mask and look at reality for what it is. Until you do so, you are trying to change a reality you cannot see. It would be like trying to make out someone’s face in a hall of mirrors. You can tell it’s a face, but the mirrors distort the features so much that you might be mistaking a nose for an ear.  Some things are true whether you believe them or not. You don’t have to believe in gravity. Go ahead and drop a bowling ball on your foot from 10 feet in the air and see what happens.  The truth hurts, especially about us.  However, if I didn’t give you this medicine before the New Year, I wouldn’t be your friend. I’d be your Call of Duty buddy. And you mean more to me than that.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. RIP Steve Jobs

P.S. I wrote each and every letter above to myself. Trust me. It hurt me more than it hurt you.

BREAKING NEWS: I Just Got Divorced

Four months ago, I did a Reassessment.  I tracked where my time was going, by the hour, for a week.  The purpose: to see if I really didn’t have time to work on my slacking projects or if I was just making an excuse.  The results shocked me.  When I saw on paper how much time in a week I dedicated to things like watching TV or playing on the web, I could no longer claim I didn’t have time to work out more or finish that book I meant to read.  Confronted with where my time was really going, I realized that I didn’t need to force myself to do more stuff, I needed to do less.  I had to cut off unnecessary wastes of time before I could add more to my load.

One of the biggest culprits stealing my time was the news.  CNN, Yahoo, the local newspaper’s website, news links posted by my friends on Facebook – I found myself checking all of them, multiple times a day.  Most of what I read added nothing to my day.  The occasional compelling story was drowned out by hordes of over-sensationalized junk meant to fill up a 24-hour news cycle and maximize the number of ads I saw.  How many of the dozen news stories I read each day did I remember even a day or two later?  Not many.  Reading news websites was choosing to spend hours per week on things I admitted had no benefit over things that get me closer to my goals.  Unacceptable.

I also found that reading so much news harmed me by itself.  Visit the front page of your favorite news site and you’re guaranteed to find the most horrible thing another human has done in the past week.  Constantly refreshing ourselves with the latest tragedy of human behavior affects us. It gives us a sense that there is more crime than there is.  It promotes fear-mongering.  It degrades our faith in mankind.   What good does it do you to get angry about each and every injustice that occurs among the seven billion people on this planet? You can always find something to offend you if you’re looking for it.  I want to worry less about things I can’t control, not more.

Divorcing the news freed up time.  I’ve probably redirected thirty to sixty minutes a day of reading, watching and listening to news to more important things.

Divorcing the news freed up emotion.  I believe we have a limited capacity for worrying.  If I’m worrying about every problem on earth, I’m not spending that time on things I can control.  I’d rather make a difference in my little corner of the world than worry about everything and do nothing.  When I took my time back from the news, the time I spent on more important things went up without me even trying.

When I have shared with others my decision to divorce the news, almost every person has voiced the same concern: “I like to stay informed.”  I honestly don’t feel like I’m missing out.  I’ve heard about every truly newsworthy event through friends, family and Facebook.  I’ve kept up with Steve Jobs’ passing, Gadhafi’s death, American troops leaving Iraq. To be fair, I’ll admit that I’ve also been lost in a few conversations when people have brought up details of the Sandusky molestation accusations, the latest Herman Cain scandal, and Kim Kardashian’s wedding.  I’m OK with that.

After seeing the benefits I got from not watching the news, I divorced the stock market.  I was keeping track of my investments on Google Finance.  I’d refresh the screen to see how my stocks were doing multiple times per day.  I kept up on the day to day movement of a 401(k) I don’t plan to touch for decades.  I’d read articles about what was going on with the companies in my portfolio.  For what?  I’m not competing with institutional investors and financial experts.  Why was I worried about what happened to the Dow Jones between 2 and 4pm on a random Tuesday?  Divorcing the stock market boosted my daytime productivity, and I don’t miss the stock checking at all.

Next on the chopping block was politics.  It’s not that I’m not interested in the issues.  I’m probably too interested.  Similar to reading articles about assaults and murder, getting worked up about every political issue I can’t affect was frustrating.  Also, I have my ideas and beliefs, and like most people, I’m not changing them based on what the politician du jour is saying.  I wasn’t learning new information and rationally adjusting my positions. I was doing what most of us do: nod along with articles we agree with and ignore opposing views.  This is called confirmation bias.  We listen to the people already on our side.  Pundits preach to their respective choirs, and we sing four-part harmony. I don’t need to convince myself of stuff I already believe.  Tracking politicians’ speeches, positions and personal lives helps if I’m storing up arguments for a debate or answers for trivia night, but I have more important stuff in my own life to focus on.  If I can’t devote the time to making a difference on an issue, it’s not worth adding my voice to the political noise.

Divorcing news, politics and the stock market isn’t for everyone, but I would challenge you to take a closer look at the gremlins that eat up your time and be honest about which ones you could stand to ditch.  Worry about things you can change instead of things you can’t.  Fight the urge to simply “stay informed.”  Killing time on CNN and Yahoo could be killing your dreams.  Be stingy with what you allow to fill your precious time – you don’t get that time back.  You either guard your time with your life, or you waste both.  You know what you could do without.  It’s time to get divorced.

Six Steps To Murder Your Dreams

The Mastermind Project encourages you to aim high and achieve your dreams. However, our attempts to be positive have demonized people who enjoy doing nothing with their lives. This is a free country and we all have the right to give up on our hopes. You may dream about being the leader of the free world, becoming an American Idol, or winning the office Holiday Sweater contest.  The size or scope of your dream doesn’t matter.  Society has no right to pressure people into being successful.  So in the spirit of equality, The Mastermind Project has decided to teach people how to murder their dreams. Please take note:

1. Identify and target your dream.

You’ve had this dream for a while. Maybe you want to travel the world, start your own company, be a movie star, fall deeply in love, or just be happily retired. Whatever the case may be- you know your dream. You talk about it when you’re drunk or trying to impress rich and attractive strangers. You think about this dream whenever you open a Fortune Cookie or play the lottery. This dream isn’t simply what you like to do – it’s a part of who you are. Find that happy place and isolate your dream…so that we can kill it.

2. Learn your dream’s routines and habits.

Your dream can show up at any time. It often comes at night- right before you go to bed. Sometimes it comes early in the morning when you first wake up. You think about it in the shower and even on the toilet. You think about it on the elevator to work (especially on Mondays).  Every time you get frustrated or upset at your current life your dream creeps up on you.  Please be on the lookout December 31^st at 11:59 p.m. because dreams love the New Year. Become aware of exactly when you start to dream and what you’re feeling. This will prepare you for the next step.

3. Create a plan to “set-up” and trap your dream.

Dreams are attracted to people with confidence, positivity, and patience. They love people who take risks and aren’t afraid of failing. Dreams also linger around productive and progressive people. Pretend to have these characteristics and watch your dreams take shape. Take a new class, start a new relationship, or even take up a new hobby. Remember not to actually finish or complete these projects. You’re going to self destruct, fail, and blame the world instead. Just do enough to trick yourself into thinking that you can be fulfilled and content. You will become happy and start to dream. This is where you strike.

4. Go in for the kill.

Make up an excuse why you can’t achieve your dream. Tell yourself that you are too old or that you don’t have enough schooling or money to achieve anything. Remind yourself of your past failures and ask, “Why would this dream be any different?” Listen to all of your negative friends, peers, and co-workers. They will constantly remind you how impossible it is to achieve your dream and why you should ditch your dream for a life of comfort, safety, and stability. Always think about next weekend, but never think about next year. Having fun instead of planning for the future will send your dreams to an early grave.

5. Make sure that your dream is Dead.

Dreams are persistent. They have a way of surviving tragedies and setbacks. You can’t just stick a knife in your dream. You have to twist and turn the blade to ensure heavy bleeding and a guaranteed death. Surround yourself with stagnant people who hate anything new or different. View creative and innovative people as aloof, out of touch, and weird. Hate on other people’s dreams. Remind them that this is the real world and then mention a startling statistic about how impossible it is for them to achieve their dreams.

6. Don’t Leave a Paper Trail.

You never want to run into someone who can remember and call you out for killing your dreams. Therefore, never speak a word about killing your dream and hide any shred of evidence that it ever existed. If your dream was to be a filmmaker, sell that camera and throw away those screenplays. If your dream was to be in a better relationship, then cancel your gym membership and become a slob. Spend all of your money on things that entertain and distract you. Hang out with couch potatoes who do the same things over and over. You’ll be so far removed from your dream that people will forget that your dream was ever alive.

Remember – your situation is always someone else’s fault. All poor people are lazy and all rich people are jerks. You may as well stay in the middle and be a “lazy jerk.”  You were NOT put on this earth to achieve great things and live your life to the fullest. You’re here just to get by. Grasping this concept is the key to killing all of your dreams for good. Good Luck!!

It Hurts So Good

When you lift weights that are right at the edge of your ability, until you can no longer do any more reps, it’s called working your muscles to “failure.”  Your muscles are broken down from doing something beyond your current ability. After your muscles recover, they’re stronger than they were before, and you’ll be able to lift more weight.  But it hurts to work your muscles to failure.  Most people would rather not work out at all than feel that pain, even if they know the pain would be good for them.  Even with the people who do work out, most don’t work out hard enough to ever see real growth.  If you don’t challenge your limits, your strength will plateau. Only those people willing to suffer through pain in the weight room will see gains.

In the same way that your muscles must be broken down to eventually grow back stronger, your ego must also be broken down.  In order to overcome your mental blocks, you must admit you have them.  In order to break through those mental plateaus, you have to challenge your own limits.  But your ego gets in the way.

Your tendency to think that you’re a lot greater than you really are is a kind of defense mechanism.  You are probably aware that the instinct of self-preservation is behind most of your deepest motivations: your urges to eat, sleep, drink water, have sex, get money, protect your children – all of these come from the motivation of self-preservation.  These urges are essentially avoidance of pain: failing to do any of the above activities results in some form of pain or another.  As adept as your brain is at avoiding physical pain, it’s probably even more impressive in how it works to avoid bruising your ego.  In the same way that your brain operates to keep you alive, it is just as desperate to protect your feeling of self-worth.

In order to protect ourselves from the hurt feelings of reality, we delude ourselves.  Most people think they are smarter than average, better liked than average, more attractive than average – because it’s less painful than admitting the opposite.  We all harbor nonsensical beliefs that the groups we belong to are superior to other groups – anywhere from what school we attended to the region of the country we’re from, to the race or religion we belong to – because we need to feel good about ourselves.  Our brains spend a lot more time trying to prove to ourselves that we’re fantastic than admitting that we might suck.  As a result, we’re mostly blind to our own faults.

Your friends and family, for the most part, won’t tell you your faults either.  You see, if I tell you the unvarnished truth about yourself, it might sting a bit.  Your ego would be bruised.  In return, you may decide to say some things back to me that could hurt, just to show me that I’m not perfect either.  I don’t want my feelings hurt, so I don’t say anything – even if what I have to say would help.  We are all playing this funny game, pretending to be oblivious to each others’ flaws, as part of an unspoken agreement to protect each other’s egos.  We even do this with small things. People let each other walk around with spinach in their teeth, bad toupees, easily curable bad breath – just so they don’t have to hurt their feelings.  People allow their loved ones to make it all the way to a videotaped American Idol tryout without telling them that they can’t sing.  Better that you embarrass yourself on national TV than me having to be the bearer of pain.

Maybe the greatest benefit of being in a Mastermind Group is that I have five men who have permission to point out the metaphorical spinach in my teeth.  Yes, it hurts at first to hear someone point out my faults.  Most of the time it’s something obvious, but something I’ve rationalized myself into believing it’s not a problem.  Something like “it’s the Taco Bell, not your metabolism, that keeps you from losing weight.”  Or “instead of being mad at your boss for yelling at you, why not just show up on time for work?”  Loyalty is not taking your friends’ side in every dispute, no matter what.  Loyalty is telling someone what they need to hear whether they like it or not.  If and when that person decides to address their faults, they’ll recognize that you were helping them become a better person. I may curse my personal trainer under my breath during our workout, but I give him a hug afterwards.   I know the pain is required for my growth. A real friend will get over the bruised ego, and just like the sore muscle, your relationship will be stronger when it heals.

It’s time to face up to the pain.  Avoidance of pain keeps you out of the gym.  It keeps you from taking on the challenging assignments at work.  And it keeps you from having the difficult but necessary conversations with the ones you love the most.  People watch their lives’ biggest dreams drift away because they are paralyzed by the fear of pain.  You can reach those dreams if you’re not afraid of getting bruised on the way.  Yes, it will hurt.  It has to hurt.  Happiness is the moment directly following an intense period of pain.

In the end, avoidance of pain doesn’t work.  You will feel pain in one form or another.  If you choose to avoid the pain of hard work, of difficult conversations, of heavy weights, you’ll still feel pain.  But it won’t be that sharp and sudden pain that comes with embarrassment or a conversation when your feelings are hurt.  You’ll feel a dull and depressing pain for the rest of your life as you realize you’ve missed your chance to do something extraordinary, that nagging ache of knowing you let your fear keep you from even trying.  You can’t avoid pain altogether, but you do get to pick your poison.  In your life you will either feel the pain of personal growth, or the pain of missed opportunity.  Which will you choose?