Welcome everyone! It’s been a while hasn’t it? Truth be told, I had started an entry that was supposed to be a 2019 review, which then quickly became nearly 3,000 words and I was barely past January! As they New Year of 2020 became more and more of an afterthought, it would become apparent that the lessons and stories would probably be better served spread across a series of episodes. There is then no better test of that notion than the strange times we find ourselves in now; imagine, at the time of writing that unfinished entry, this virus that has brought the world to its knees was probably not in 99% of the people of the worlds consciousness, now such is its gravity, that its effects, repercussions will likely find itself embedded into in all our DNA. If any of you know me personally, or follow my Twitter; you will know how much I denounce ‘hear-say’, ‘speculation’ or even how far we go down this rabbit hole of how ‘bad’ things can get, rather, let’s talk solutions! So I figured I can do a little to help the ‘good-fight’ if you will, by elaborating on something I think I’ve become known for in the last 12 months; the white boards. You can see the full collection of them on my Instagram, what this episode is concerned with is more to elaborate on the statements on the boards themselves, so what I will be doing between now and around the first week of April when I write will be the 7th board, is to espouse upon the contents of boards one and two, so with no further ado; here I hope is some good food for thought and more importantly, some good wisdom to keep in your armoury during this time of quarantine.
02/01/19: – ALL GLORY IS TO GOD!
It was the early hours of January 2nd last year; fresh off New Year’s Day, I was a man on fire, eager to bury shitty feelings of self-esteem and self-worth and what I felt I was becoming of myself in my own mind, I had originally penned the following statements more so as a reminder of these edicts and I suppose by proxy, a reminder of the anger and fire I was feeling, rather than a running commentary of consciousness that this practice later evolved into. I preface all of my boards by saying: “ALL GLORY IS TO GOD!”. This is so I stay honest, so I am always reminded of the spirit that I wish to be guided by, so I always remember who the ‘muse’ is, and not to fall down the pit that can come with personal development and the potential to almost deify oneself. This is my reminder that I am nothing without God, and only through the graces of God that any of this is possible.
1 & 2: I WILL BE RICH, I WILL BE SUCCESSFUL…
These statements can sound both conceited and quite obvious; like almost to the point of thinking why on earth would you need to write this? Well if you are someone like myself who in fact harboured a sense of guilt for ever wanting to be ‘rich’ or ‘successful’ for most of my life then it was actually one of the hardest things in beginning this endeavour was to tell myself I wanted great things in my life. I was beset by the notion that being successful and or rich, it was mutually exclusive to being “a good person”, or let me rephrase, you automatically had be a bad person in life to have those things. Writing this down was like removing one of the many proverbial albatross’ in my thinking and perspective. This will no doubt bring amusement to many, but fuck them with all due respect, don’t ever underestimate the power of writing something down, no matter how simple it is!
3: ALWAYS KEEP YOURSELF SHARP, FUCK COMPLACENCY!
A great example of a mirror of how I felt at the time; a timely reminder that this rage, this fury, this desire to overcome oneself, you cannot let go of, you can’t relent, you can’t regress, you cannot become ‘comfortable’ again. This is perhaps one of the hardest practices in life to maintain; after all, it is our nature to retreat back to a place of comfort and your nature is one of the hardest things you will be fighting against in your own journey. Your brain, your mind is predisposed to finding itself back in its safest space, after all, we are balancing the genes, memories of our ancestors who at one point only focussed on survival, with the new world we find ourselves in now, especially, those fortunate to be in a place like I am in terms of living in the 1st world, relatively well off and all the trimmings that come with not having to fight to stay alive on a daily basis. The other dilemma is that we cannot stay in ‘training camp’ 365 days a year; the duality of things alone dictates that in order to have your most ‘on-it’, there has to be a place of once being ‘off-it’; don’t think so? Then how can you measure that you were truly on-point if there was no point of origin to compare that state with? It is in knowing this that it becomes crucial to cultivate a base of level of excellence that you never defy, so that at least when you encounter your troughs and valley’s; your degree of regression doesn’t bring you back to a place worse than when you originally began. Also, it is important to practice a thing called ‘Blissful Dissatisfaction’ as termed by a man I consider a mentor: Ed Mylett, which is essentially the idea that we do in fact acknowledge the progress we have made, and are making, but simultaneously understanding that this isn’t the pinnacle and that we should always strive for more, always strive to do better in order to continue fortifying our best selves.
4. USE ANGER, BAD EXPERIENCES, THOSE WHO’VE DONE YOU WRONG AS FUEL! CHANNEL THIS INTO (YOUR) GREATNESS…
Again, this point follows the steam of consciousness if you will; a portal to a time where I was at the apex of my frustration with things that were happening in my life at the time. Admittedly, for large parts of 2018 I was living on the fuel garnered from the passing of my beloved Maxwell and a break-up from a long term relation, but once that force dissipates, you are then left looking at your life through another lens, the repercussions of Bruce Banner retuning back to his normal state after being The Hulk if you want to conceptualize! It is actually in this state looking that the real work begins, because no longer are on you something borrowed like the heightened-ness of your senses during those months. I am beginning to digress, the point here is that circumstances in your life should not be a crutch, should not be an excuse to be mediocre, should not be your go-to when you’re half a litre deep and you are bearing your soul in a slurring mess of sounds and emotion. All emotion is just an expression of energy, the energy itself is just that – energy, how it manifests is dictated by the emotion, especially when I think of how Dr Joe Dispenza so eloquently puts it: “a feeling that is attached to a memory is called an emotion”. We tend to think we find stumbling blocks and that’s why we fail, but what about if I were to propose that we look to fail hence why we find stumbling blocks? Don’t allow your detractors to wield consummate power of you by letting the emotions associated with memories of them control you like the proverbial strings of a puppet – no one deserves that jurisdiction over you. Instead, use what they gave you as a springboard, use this energy they have helped reveal like a treasure hunt and cultivate it to inspire yourself, use it to plug the holes of your being, use it to remind yourself never to want to feel so low ever again!
5. IF YOU’RE NOT CONTENT WITH YOUR LIFE, THAT’S THE SIGN TO BE PROACTIVE…
Every one of you reading this will have at point in your life felt the calling of the winds of change. At the time, I was very much a subscriber of ‘gut feeling’ and ‘intuition’, I have since revised my opinion of those phenomena (which we will save the thoughts on for another day), however, with a feeling of a malcontent is usually a longing for something better, something greater – if one has the awareness the see it that is. For those of you who like to be in a constant state of progression; being stagnant is as close to hell as one could find themselves. Again, stagnation is usually not to far behind another term – comfort. If all things done in a repetitive sequence can elsewise be known as habit; than anything we do enough times becomes the norm, and the norm can be doing the bare minimum, the norm can be neglecting the work, and likely what is the cause of your angst Recognise that discontent is your body’s way of telling you fix up, make a change; it is your being alerting you to how much you are straying. Know thyself and be proactive, change can begin from this very moment; never forget that.
6. WORK HARD AND EVEN HARDER!
I think this one explains itself! Cultivate irrational work ethic, become the hardest worker in the room. You will have no doubt heard opposing theories like “Work smarter, not harder” and similar adages, and while these edicts may ring true is some realms; there is in most cases no excuse for good ol’ fashioned hard work. Most of your favourite entrepreneurs didn’t get to where they go to with talent alone that’s for sure, most of the people that inspire you never got to that place on the basis of talent or waiting for this illusion of perfection; it in many cases was just a) starting, and then consistent hard work after that. I owe the vast majority of anything in my life that I have been successful at being due to work ethic, persistence, resilience and adaptability. Don’t be perturbed, just get your ass to work. We can’t choose talent; we can however decide how hard we wish to work at something. Furthermore, the harder you work, the more you are likely to derive fulfilment from the work itself, the more you cultivate confidence because you know are capable of going the extra mile, through how hard you work, you develop a framework of just much you know you are capable of dedicating yourself and giving of yourself; work hard and ever harder my friend!
7. YOUR CHARACTER IS YOUR DESTINY…
It is likely you would have heard many varieties of this adage, but to me, it has always represented the notion that the bed you make in, is the bed you sleep in… The person you are, the life you live is aligned to your fate. It makes perfect sense to me the old tales of the person who betrayed others to get to the top eventually being betrayed themselves by someone of equally as treacherous, or the thing that a person has been running away from all their life being that which they never escape from. This may make sense to some of you as “what goes around, comes around” or dare I say it “karma”. To me however, it is deeper and more profound than our rudimentary understanding of such philosophical arguments, because one could then argue, you are only being a “good person” just to avoid the repercussions of what may come as a result of doing “bad”, and subsequently, that act of inauthenticity is the actual crime, and in my humble opinion, a fake “good” or “nice” person is amongst the biggest scum that exits, and you can quote me on that I digress however, we are all a conglomerate of “good” and “bad”, of likely all dualities you can think; as humans, we can never be disavowed of that conflict. Your character however, is what you choose to act upon in-spite of this duality, not in the absence of any such choice. Character is when you make the choice “of 2 hands, only one can hold the sword (unless you’re Musashi, then both hands hold the sword), character is the one thing you can certifiably that separates you from each and every human being on the planet, for this only one version of you. When I keep this mind, it tells me that I actually have a choice, I can actually affect my own destiny to a large regard, and in knowing you can choose the person you wish to live as daily comes a tremendous freedom and responsibility; oh the paradox. I once tweeted: “Your character is your destiny, therefore: Become the character that you need to be in order to fulfil the destiny you desire OR Strive for the destiny that you desire so much that you are forced to become the character befitting of it” Lao Tzu put it so poignantly himself: “Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.”
8. TAKE NOTHING PERSONAL…
While this statement almost goes without saying, it is one of those things that everybody knows, yet nobody practices, or at least puts into practice enough, myself included. The reality is most people do not have a vendetta against you, you haven’t done a crock of shit to really have a “hater”, the closest thing to it are the crabs in the bucket you otherwise call company or “friends”. Particularly in relationships we find the things done to us as being “personal” and in many times it can be, and it is the running with that baton that makes us want do or say something even more “personal” back, and then the viscous feedback loop of guilt, memorising hate, acting out emotionally runs its course. Remember earlier when I quoted Dr Joe Dispenza “a feeling that is attached to a memory is called an emotion”, tell me that isn’t the case when you are fuelling that cunt of a fire called “memory”, or should I say your recollection of your memory; namely a version of the past geared to making you want to feel some sort of agenda has pontificated against you. Don’t get me wrong, feeling like it’s you against the world, and fuck everyone, can have its merits at times, no doubt; however, that energy source is very finite, and you run the risk of looking for things to hate or take personally in order to keep fuelling what eventually becomes a sentient and out of your control beast. There is a reason in fighting, at the highest level, the smaller advantages are won when one fighter can get into the head of their opponent; you all saw McGregor vs Aldo, you all saw what being an emotional mess will do to even one of the greatest of all time. More importantly, the more personal you are to take something, the more power of yours you give to someone; the fact of the matter is, the more you ponder, nourish, fortify anything, especially those with residency in your mind, the more they control you – don’t give anyone that power of you.
9. NO MATTER HOW MUCH OR LITTLE I HAVE, ALWAYS PRACTICE GRATITUDE…
For those of you that are into personal development, the idea of ‘gratitude’ has almost become a jargon that you and fellow self-development nerds speak to one another with, kind of like “manifesting”, “abundance” and “the universe” just to name a few. I’m not shitting on those terms or even the concepts that they encapsulate, but at its core, gratitude, gratuity is just a less sexy way of being thankful. You should absolutely be thankful whatever it is that you do have! The problem a lot of us have, both consciously and sub-consciously, is that we compare at every given turn. We look our peer’s Instagram story’s, we see their possessions, we see the things they are doing in life and we constantly compare. Interestingly, we seldom ever identify the life of another and flip the script and say ‘I’m thankful not to be in person x’s shoes/situation/mind state etc’, instead we compare to the point of crushing our own spirits. Don’t be that person whom if someone has something that you desire, (it is very likely that the person had to work very hard for what they have), and by not being grateful for what you have, in fact being borderline envious of what they have; it doesn’t justify you not doing the work that person has done, instead, it only further encourages your own mediocrity. Make the practice of gratitude a habit, like anything, it just needs training, and the beauty is the training can start right now. Actively be thankful for the fact you’re alive, you’ve been blessed with another day, you have a roof over your head, clothes on your back – it can be just as simple as that, and then think about the things you have that others would quite literally kill to have (I was going to say die for, but that wouldn’t really make much sense lol); if you are fortunate enough to have real friends, people that you know love you, loved ones of your own, income to facilitate doing the things in life that give you fulfilment. Take account of the “bad” times or times you struggled, because had it not been for those things, there would be no concept of pleasure, or any concept of duality for that matter. Again, this is not a cue to settle or to not want better or more in your life, I actively encourage everyone to pursue their potential, to maximize their gifts, but still doesn’t mean you can’t take a step back from time to time and be thankful; blissful dissatisfaction is a good thing, envy or forever being in a state of lack isn’t.
10. DISCIPLINE > MOTIVATION…
A personal favourite of mine; there are many ‘motivated’ people out there, there are very few disciplined however. Now, I should preface this by saying I have nothing against ‘motivation’, there will be times in life where motivation is the kick up the ass you need; but that’s all ‘motivation’ ever is; a jump starter, the propulsion, but as we have all found; motivation might get you up in the air, but it sure as hell doesn’t keep you there… That’s where discipline comes in. If motivation is what creates lift off, its discipline that’s going to keep you moving whilst you’re in the sky. That’s why discipline is so important. A Rocky training montage is ‘motivation’ and that might give you the stimulus to get your ass up and run, but that isn’t gonna make you do it tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that and so on; discipline is however. Discipline is what takes precedence on the days you don’t want to train, but you do it anyway, it is what makes you get the work done no matter what, it’s what stops you being a bum for lack thereof a better term. How do you cultivate discipline then? Discipline like anything else, is a skill, and by its very nature, it means it just needs to be trained and practiced often enough. You can argue that we are all disciplined in one way or another, regrettably, we are disciplined losers for the most part; we gravitate always to what is comfortable, “I can’t be arsed” mentality is the norm, we seek the easiest of gratifications, we are decadent. Therefore, learn to cultivate good discipline in your life; create cast iron rules that will never be broken (non-negotiables), create routines that enforce your greatness (structure); act upon them and watch it compound in interest! Discipline is nothing more than doing the work, the tasks you need to do every day to get to the place you want to be; by creating a base level of excellence, it ensures that when you enjoy your peaks and highs, they reach a sky-high level, and when you inevitably taper down and worse-so, fall into a bit of a mire; the collateral damage is offset by the base level of excellence that your discipline has established. There is no real easy way to get ‘discipline’, sure there are small techniques to help foster a sense of completing tasks and feeling a sense of reward for it; but therein lay the beauty of discipline: it isn’t easy, it’s damn hard, and there may not ever even be a ‘tangible’ reward at the end of your practice, however, the satisfaction comes from the discipline, doing something that you know not very many other people are capable or prepared to sustain; that it in itself is such an invaluable strength!
11. CONVICTION THROUGH REPETITION…
I still remember when this term made itself present in my head. I was thinking a lot about the habits I wanted to sustain and create, and what a habit was, and more importantly, what habits and practices will endure; and my years of martial arts training really put this into perspective for me – under duress, you are going to do what you have practiced most, practiced most under duress. A saying I have came into contact with recently is: “you don’t rise to the level of expectations; you fall to the level of your training.” Repetition is a word commonly associated with lifting weights, rather, reps is the word, but is a rep of anything? How often you do something, the same thing in repeat! Conviction by contrast, is more of a word associated with Biblical stature, but what is conviction? Simply, something you are convinced of! So essentially, what you do over and over is what you are convinced by! Henceforth, why the need for great habits, routines and structures become so critical to ones day to day existence. When you don’t feel like doing something – maybe it’s hot, maybe you’re hungover, maybe you’re tired, maybe you just can’t be bothered or you ain’t feeling it today; your body’s nature of repeating actions that serve you, actions that serve your purpose, actions that create value in yourself will shine especially under this scrutiny! Therefore, it must be trained! Fortunately, its training on the job in this instance as you the training is the job, get it?
12. TRUST THE PROCESS…
You hear this phrase a lot, and I think when I look back, I kind of took implemented because it felt right, and I suppose without knowing it at the time, I had already done things that illuminated a path where I had trusted a process. In my case, the process was physical fitness and martial arts. Never let anyone sell you short on the value of exercise, training and the like; this is a lesson that no sum of money could pay for, and until Matrix-Style downloading of consciousness becomes available, the only price you can pay is time and sweat equity! And honestly, it should be no other way! You commit to an endeavour, you may not see any results for some damn time, but I think this life’s way of weeding out those who ain’t in it for the long haul. You persevere, you do the work, and you wait patiently for the results! If you follow a training regime, you are eating appropriately, you are hydrating adequately, you are doing the work with correct intent and intensity, you aren’t slacking off, you aren’t taking your own extra set of days off; the process, the work almost guarantees results! Now, if someone was to come along and say do all of those variables properly (not just applicable to exercise, applicable to most endeavours I believe!) and in guaranteed 12 months you will be in the place you wish to be? Likely, 99% of people will sign up, if someone was to say it could take 12 months or it could take up to 12 years – would so many sign up? If someone was to say that it may take an eternity, I assume even less would be interested, but that in a nut-shell is trusting the process. Trusting that what you are doing, despite the doubts, despite the anecdotes and placebo’s of others, despite the never ending battle with the voice that thinks it’s always greener on the side – that you and what you are doing is going to come good; that’s trusting the process. This does bleed into two other avenues – where do we find the ‘process’? I won’t elaborate as heavily on this duality, that will be saved for another episode, however, we can either see recall what great things we’ve done in our lives, things that required a process that we executed upon to achieve a certain result or we can find a mentor or hear the testimony of someone who has already achieved what we are espousing to do; podcasts are an immense gateway to this if you do not have someone you can access personally… Tiger Woods I think says it better than me so just see what has to say on the matter!
13. ENERGY FLOWS WHERE ENERGY GOES…
I believe this may be a slight tweak Tony Robbins’ quote, and its core, what I believe he is saying is that what where we place our attention/energy or powers/energy is going to go to that very thing. It is a simple, yet also very nuanced statement; it is often remarked that those who excel in a field are obsessed – they are obsessed with what they are practicing. Now yes, it also remarked this obsession is borderline psychotic, and when you testimony regarding the likes of: Floyd Mayweather, Michael Jordan, Cristiano Ronaldo, Daniel Day Lewis et al; these individuals are borderline crazy with their obsession, but so is the level in which they have reached the tops of their respective games. However, let us dial the crazy down for just a notch; what really is an obsession? We’ve had one at one time in our lives or another, isn’t an obsession just an allocation of attention? If attention can be reduced to a percent, than isn’t obsession just the outcome of giving as close to 100% of your attention to something? Let’s take the obvious innate talent that all of those gentlemen I cited earlier possess, but would you not remark that it is that talent, in conjunction with an obsession that has enabled them to scale to the absolute pinnacle of their respective crafts? There must then surely be something in whatever we fixate upon, we naturally gravitate towards that very thing. Little do you know it, but you have probably been obsessing over things your whole life – why do you know your favourite team’s squad numbers for the last decade, yet others can’t? Why do you recall all of the movie quotes from the most obscure gangster movies, yet others can’t? Why can you recite quotes at will from your favourite religious text, yet others can’t? Why can you educate the lay person on every strain and grade of marijuana, yet others can’t? Why can some people name all of the country’s Prime Minister’s and their cabinets, yet others can’t? – application of a significant percentage of your attention over a long enough period of time! Now, there is a ceiling to many of the trivial things we have obsessed about in our time, but let’s look it at from another angle – if I obsess daily about the troubles in my life, or even worse, obsess over problems I have created out of thin air – what is likely to be the outcome? If I place my energy into bemoaning all that is around me, and making excuse upon excuse for myself, what is there a good possibility of occurring? What about, if the energy/attention I have at my disposal actually has no conscious or unconscious fixation, and I’m essentially meandering nothingness? Can anything multiplied by zero have a result other zero? Now, what if I placed my attention and consequently the expenditure of my energy on obsessing about my dreams? My goals? My vision? The vision of the person I wish to live as? The work I have to do to get to the places I need to get? What stands a better chance of materialising? Just some food for thought…
14. THINGS HAPPEN FOR YOU IN LIFE, NOT TO YOU…
I believe that I heard Ed Mylett coin this term, and it’s a term that returns back to you in relation to your faith in what is being proposed. Rather than looking at the events in our lives as the be all and end all; rather, what can we derive from the experience to benefit us in our growth, our journey our understanding? I remember Diamond Dallas Page (DDP) once said something to the effect of: “Life is 10% what happens to you, 90% how you react to it” and that always stuck with me as an adage. Bare in mind, this is a man who suffered a broken neck as a professional wrestler aged 48 in 2002, only to make an in-ring comeback in 2004, and then go on to launch his DDP Yoga series, speaks volumes about the power of perspective. In that moment, it would be easy to bemoan the world, say “why me?”, become bitter and devoid the world of anything you have to offer! But if we look at it from the point of it happening for him, rather than to him, we can see perhaps how he has been able to take the actions in his life in the following 18 years since! If you want to be inspired more by this man and his story, I implore you all to hear his appearance on Joe Rogan’s Podcast back in 2018. Now, I’m pretty sure you all know of someone who shares a similar recovery story, a tale of going from despair to abundance. Common wisdom, lineal thinking doesn’t give any one of these stories the right to take place, surely it should be game over, see you later alligator! So what then does owe to the power of perspective? And also, how much of your actions and experience of the outer world is dictated by the world inside? Think of times in your own life where have remarked something to the effect of: “I thought it was my biggest downfall, but it ended up being my biggest blessing!” Now apply this lens to those events, or to other seminal moments in your life, and reflect upon how you reacted to what happened – good, bad, indifferent or otherwise, and always keep alive the thought that you do hold power (or that you aren’t powerless), you do hold sovereignty because no matter the event; as long as you aren’t dead, you can choose how to react, and make it happen for you, rather than to you…
15. YOUR SUFFERING IS YOUR GUIDE…
I believe I head this phrase in a Michael Tsarion lecture back in 2006 called: The Future of Mankind. If you are suffering, if you are feeling angst; maybe that is your conscience, your true self telling there is something that needs to be overcome, there is some work that needs to be done, something needs to be addressed! While similar in name to point number 5 (5. IF YOU’RE NOT CONTENT WITH YOUR LIFE, THAT’S THE SIGN TO BE PROACTIVE…), the former point alluded more to comfort, and maybe, your ‘suffering’ is aligned with the feeling of staleness that comfort brings (familiarity breeds contempt), maybe you know you are aligned with the wrong people, maybe you feel your efforts and not being allocated correctly, or you are quite simply very lazy and are not applying yourself in any endeavour whatsoever. Maybe you feel there are character flaws that you need to address, for example: you find yourself pushing people away, yet you are actually craving company! The issue itself however, may lay deeper rooted in that you are possibly addicted to the feelings of tragedy or you don’t feel that you are actually worthy of having companions in your life, and this is how your behaviour takes shape in the outer world. Being self-aware that this is happening in your life is the first step of overcoming the problem, no doubt, but then intense inner-work, becoming truly self-aware; that is what the suffering is guiding you toward finding in my opinion! Imagine, using the scenario I have chosen, should person ‘x’ become aware of the actual reason they are pushing away the people closest to them, they can then begin to work on the cause and not just the symptom, and in turn, we now cause new effects with new behaviour!
IN CLOSING…
Wow, easily the longest thing I’ve wrote for some time! I had supposed to have published this during peak-lockdown; when was that April/May? If you read the last episode, then you will know why I have been sitting on my hands for so long, but hey, we are alive and kicking, I got rhymes, I’m singing haha! I hope you enjoyed this episode, I appreciate that it is a long digest, so rather than taking it is a full lecture, just take parts as and when, come back to segments, take from it at your will, and let what serves help you!
Goodnight, and God bless you all;
Steven
#RONIN #RoninStateOfMind #OSU #Aragami
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