Escaping Cages

Photo: Squirrel Trapped in a Cage

The cage rattled and the creature inside gnawed and pulled at the metal bars. It was a Grey Squirrel, one of several that had chewed a nest into the side of my parents house. My dad was catching and releasing them several miles away with the hope that they would find another place to nest. The trap was designed to cage, not harm, so thankfully the creature inside wasn’t hurt.

Due to the design of the trap, tipping the cage over would cause the doors to unlock and open. The squirrel was definitely big enough to tip the cage over, but instead he paced back and forth and occasionally stopped to gnaw and pull on the metal enclosure.

That’s when I found myself wondering what a human would do if placed in the same situation. Despite there being no indication that tipping the cage over would open the doors, a human would surely try that anyway.

I realized that’s what makes us unique: When the outcome seems hopeless, we test the impossible.

Continue reading →

Taking Initiative and Instigating Change

After reading my last blog post, Pemala, a Nepali friend and a regular reader, left the following note on my Facebook Wall:

Reading "The Revolution Starts Here" was very insightful. It gave me the moral support that is lacking in our community.

I have had enough with the Nepali community leaders in Boston who were fighting among each other for position. I took a stand and voiced my opinion in front of everybody. I thought, I could go home and talk about it or I could take a stand and let everybody in the community know what was happening.

I am planning to gather [the] younger generation for suggestions to improve the organization and have more youth involvement. And, I am going to propose that they help organizations like Nepal FREED who is doing something worthwhile for Nepal.

It was incredible to see how writing a blog post could help someone feel motivated to take action and possibly translate into things that would help the children I visited in a remote part of the world several months earlier.

Pemala's message caused me to really dig deep and consider the far reaching effects of our actions. It made me analyze the reasons for my own inaction and gave me the missing piece to the puzzle of why I've been feeling stagnation in my life since returning from my trip overseas.

Her message allowed me to see the role initiative plays in instigating change. Continue reading →

Fear of Failure as a Barometer for Success

Fully loaded soda bottle truck in Kathmandu, Nepal

"Fear of failure is a ticket to mediocrity. If you're not failing from time to time, you're not pushing yourself. And if you're not pushing yourself, you're coasting." - Eric Zorn

That quote came across my screen after having spent almost twenty minutes aimlessly passing time on Facebook. I suddenly realized that for the past few weeks I haven't been pushing myself or risking failure. I've been coasting.

Case in point: I wasn't going to publish anything on this blog today. I had already decided that my next post would be on Friday. It was easier that way. I had no idea what to write and I was relying on inspiration to strike at some point between now and then to write a great post.

The truth is that ever since releasing my first ebook and visiting the schools in Nepal, I've felt the pressure from my inner perfectionist to continue outdoing myself. Continue reading →

A Himalayan Quest – I need your help!

Nepali School Children

Early Sunday morning, two brothers will pick me up from my hotel in Kathmandu. We will drive several hours to a place called Sole Bazaar and from there I hear it's an eight-hour hike by foot, through areas infested with leeches, to the remote village where the project is located.

This isn't a photo expedition or a mini-vacation. If the weather holds out, I will be taking plenty of photos but that's not the purpose of this trip. I'm doing this for the kids like those in the photo above. Continue reading →

Punching my Inner Critic in the Face: An Interview and a New Project

It's so easy to be our own worst critic. When I was recently asked to do my first Skype interview, I immediately thought back to my teenage struggles of talking on the phone.

I felt fear build up inside me as I recalled how nervous and unsure of myself I used to feel. I remembered the fear of being laughed at or of saying the wrong thing.

Now I was going to talk on the phone for thirty minutes while being recorded?

Since those days as a teenager, I've held several jobs that required talking on the phone. I learned to manage those fears and not let them get in my way of getting things done.

But this was my first Skype interview -- the first time I had recorded something that was intended to be shared with the public. That gave my inner critic new ammunition to generate fear and self-doubt. Continue reading →

10 Ways to Nudge Yourself Into Action

I recently took action on a big decision. This “taking action” literally came down to pressing a button on my keyboard (I was sending an email). Pressing that one button turned out to be a lot more difficult, and much more interesting, than I had expected.

As time ticked on, I watched my subconscious surface with unseen doubts, alternative outcomes, and a bunch of stuff that I hadn’t anticipated getting in my way. I had literally planned and thought about this event for months and decided earlier in the week that it was time to take action.

It’s funny how we can psych ourselves up to do something, only to turn back with our tail between our legs the moment we’re face-to-face with actually having to do something about it. Taking action can be scary, and for good reason: Wielding the power to control or influence the future is a daunting task.

If you need to take action on something and you’ve made up your mind that you won’t back down without a fight, try some of these tips to help nudge yourself into action. I used all of them the night I sent that email.

Get your blood moving. Get up and walk around. Go for a run. Workout. Fresh blood running through your veins gives you new energy and helps you see your thoughts, and the situation, from a new perspective.
Move to a different location. Physically moving to a different location helps change the context and let's you see things from a different angle.
Ask yourself, how bad is the alternative? If the decision is big enough to warrant as much attention as you've already given it, doing nothing will most likely do more harm than good.
Does your happiness depend on it? If the thing you're having trouble taking action on has any chance of improving your happiness, then taking action is damn well worth the risk!
Remind yourself why. What made you want to take action? Why are you doing this? Simply remembering what motivated you to take action in the first place can nudge you to take that next step.
Time is limited, your opportunities are not. There will always be a greater opportunity out there. There will always be a better time. You can choose to do nothing now and let time run on, or you can choose to take action and move yourself forward, thereby placing yourself into a position of receiving those opportunities.
Without action, nothing happens. It sounds obvious, but we often want and expect things to change without doing anything to make them happen. If you want air, you breathe. If you want to eat, you feed yourself. If you want to get somewhere in life, you need to do something about it.
You will always make mistakes. And that's good! Mistakes make us better -- it's a basic function built into nature. The more mistakes you make, the more likely you are to grow and learn. Most of us don't make enough mistakes!
Envision what comes next. What will your world be like after taking action? What things can you be absolutely certain of? The clearer your understanding of how the world will be after taking action, the easier it will be to nudge yourself into action.
Realize how you'll feel if you don't take action. If you're feeling antsy now, how will you feel if you don't take action? Will those feelings continue to build up? You'll feel so much better after this "taking action" step is behind you.

What things have helped you nudge yourself into action?

Water in the Palm of your Hand

Take a deep breath. Go ahead, do it right now. Doesn't that feel good? Breathing is an amazing stress reducer. Our body needs oxygen to function and the function of our brain is actually constrained when it doesn't have the amount of oxygen it requires (which is why drowning victims can have brain damage if they were without air for a long time). When we're stressed out we unconsciously take short breaths. This causes our body and brain to work harder and thereby create even more stress. Try to consciously take deep breath's throughout the day and you will feel a big improvement in your overall physical health.

My dad, Adam, and myself had an interesting conversation last night when I visited my parents house. I won't go deep into the conversation, but a couple of key points from the conversation are worth mentioning:

The zone. Most people who are skilled in a particular field have experienced it. It's that feeling you get when things seem to happen without conscious thought, when you feel as if you're watching yourself do the work without actually needing to think about doing it. I've had that experience while typing on my computer, when words and thoughts seem to flow from my head straight to the screen. I've also felt it while running on the treadmill and when lifting weights. When you stop identifying what you're doing as your action and remove your ego from the picture, energy flows without your ego's intervention thereby creating "the zone".

React to problems as water reacts to rocks; flow around them. There is always a tomorrow that exists with the problem in the past, so keep that day in mind and the problem will seem easily manageable.

Life is like water in the palm of your hand: you have a limited amount of time. Do something with it.

I can directly relate to reacting to problems in a calm, intelligent way. My experience with the Bowers St incident has made me feel as if I can tackle any problem that comes my way.

Don't put things off until tomorrow. Would you want the you of tomorrow to have to deal with it? No, so get it done today and the you of tomorrow will thank you for it.