Focus

They say the average human attention span is one second less then of a goldfish. I believe this stems from all these social media channels and all these content platforms that are pulling for your attention. They are competing for the same eyeballs, our eyeballs, and it is creating a big problem.

Our focus is being pulled in every possible direction so what are we suppose to focus on? From home to school to work, we are constantly distracted.  

So how do we reverse this process? How do we reclaim our focus freedom?

One of my favourite movies is called “The Princess Bride” (1987) As a kid, I fell in love with the story and there is one character named “Inigo Montoya”  

Inigo Montoya watched his father get killed at a very young age by a man with 6 fingers… (How awesome is this movie, right?) And thus, he dedicated his life to being an expert swordsman so that he can avenge his father’s death.

Through this story, we learn two important lessons :

Lesson 1 - Consistency is the key to mastery

Think Malcolm Gladwell with the infamous, 10,000 hours of doing any activity to become a master at said activity. The more you do something, the more you find ways to get better at it, the better you ultimately become. What are you putting your 10,000 hours towards?

Lesson 2 - What you choose to focus on, you will get/see more of

This happens quite often when you purchase a new vehicle.  You start seeing this car everywhere. (On the highway, the parking lot, the neighbourhood etc…) It is because whatever you choose to focus on you will always get/see more of it.  

The simple truth:

Inigo Montoya focused and dedicated his life to being an expert at his craft. In the end, he was able to avenge his father because of his focus on this particular mission. 

Where our focus goes is where our attention goes, and where our attention goes is where our energy goes.  

If we have this grand vision of ourselves, we have this grand goal, all we have to do is just focus on achieving a certain picture. By focusing on achieving a desirable result, we will begin to attract the right people, the right process, and the correct method.

What if we do not have a grandiose picture of ourselves? What if we do not have these lavish goals? 

Well, can we not at least focus on the good in our lives? Can we not at least focus on joyous moments and moments that bring us happiness?  

Would it not be worth it to try to amplify that?

Just a thought…

Question of the day: What do you spend majority of the day focusing on?

(Please answer in comment section below. I read reply to all the comments myself and every little bit keeps me going)

Live with passion, live your dream, and live it now!

Jay

The Questions We Ask Ourselves

It is a common philosophy these days that our thoughts and our beliefs create the perception in our lives, but I want to take it a step further.

I purpose that it is the internal questions that we ask ourselves that create our perception. 

The other day, I was walking home and I saw this man sitting outside of the subway holding a sign.  This sign read, “I lost my job, I am not a thief, please give” 

This sign really struck me because it showed me that this person decided to create a certain perception around his scenario and he ended picking more of a victim mindset.

It made me wonder though, what kind of questions did he ask himself to get there? 

Perhaps “Why me?” or “why did this have to have happened?”  

How many times in our lives, do we use the same type of questions on seemingly trivial matters?

Maybe you are just a little clumsy or you got locked out of the house or someone spills a cup of coffee on you. We tend to jump to conclusions and perceive ourselves in a negative light.   

Our brain is such a powerful tool that when we ask these “low quality questions” it has no choice, but to pull from our past experiences and our passed references to answer our request. It highlights for us all the times that we have been clumsy or all the times that we have been unlucky.

Therefore, if we are aware of this process, why do we not in turn ask higher quality questions?  

Instead of asking, “Why me?”  We can ask “Why am I so lucky?” “Why did this opportunity present itself to me?”

Instead of asking, “why did all this happen” we can ask, “How do I survive this?” “How do I survive this and have fun doing it?”

By applying these little tweaks in our internal questions, we can stop lingering in the victim mindset and we start being proactive in finding a solution to our problems.  

The quality of questions we ask ourselves can make a world of difference.  

Question of the day: What has happened in the last week that has made you feel lucky?

Please comment in the section below wherever you are reading or watching this. I reply to everything myself when I see it.

Live with passion, live your dream, and live it NOW!! 

Overriding the Fear of Success

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us."

At first glance, fear of success sounds like a bad joke. Is it actually because we do not want to achieve financial freedom?  

Is it because we do not feel that we deserve our dream house or our dream careers?

What about the best relationships in our life?

I think the problem is rooted a lot deeper. If we think back to the tribal days, before the inventions of cities and societies: back when maybe there were only fifty to a hundred people to every tribe. 

To be successful meant that you would have to stand out. You have to go a bit against the grain.

In the tribal context, I think it might lead to one being banished or out casted from this tribe. Being out casted probably meant that you would not have shelter or food and unless you are this hunter extraordinaire, it would probably mean the end of your existence.  

We have taken the same fear and transitioned it back into our modern day life.  

And that’s why we see so many people lacking the courage to really go after what they really want.

To really chase their dreams. To go for it all.  

always like to think of life as a roller coaster, with each up representing its own respective success and each down representing its own respective failure

The other day, I saw a really great picture just the other day it was a picture of a heart rate monitor that you would see in the hospital and essentially the picture said in life, if there’s no ups and there are no downs, you are dead.”  

How many of us are already dead on the inside? 

We get into a cycle we cannot stop.

We do things that we do not even like to buy things we do not even need to hangout with people we do not even relate with.

I think the only way to get over this fear of success is to begin to embrace this roller coaster concept.   

To really try to extend and live in the moment as we are going through our ups and as we go through to our downs, our failures, to believe and to accept that future ups, future successes will come and that is how we should choose to live our lives.

 As always,

Live with passion, live your dream and live it NOW!  

Jay  

Little Wins add up to make a BIG difference

The concept of “Little Wins” can highlight to yourself how awesome one's life really is. 

A quick story: 

Just last week, my friend and I were invited to attend this conference a few hours outside the city.  It started pretty early, so we consequently had to wake up even earlier; about 5:30a.m. 

We were driving along this empty highway when we noticed the sunrise creeping out of the horizon. 

Now, here is something that I personally take for granted every single day. (For the record, I love sunrises, just not the best morning person) 

I started thinking about all these little things that happen in our lives. All these little subtleties that are awesome, but we take for granted on a day-to-day basis.  

Advice

One of the hardest pieces of advice that I have ever heard is “to want what you have” 

That is so difficult given we live in an age of social media and it is so easy to create a perception of one’s life. We slowly develop these bad habits of wanting what other people have. 

We start feeling as if we are not good enough or we are not cool enough and ultimately, we reach the conclusion that our life is simply not as awesome.  

By acknowledging the little wins that happen throughout our day, we are able to show ourselves how amazing our life really is.  

Just think about it… 

When was the last time you went out of your way to see a sunrise or sunset?

When was the last time that you allowed yourself to sink into that cup of coffee or that cup of tea and you did not have to run off for a trivial reason?  

When was the last time that you acknowledged your lover's smile ?

These little wins though subtle are ever so present. 

New Challenge: 

Try it out! Before you go to sleep every night, try to pick out three to five little wins that you had throughout your day. 

It could be things that you are thankful for or things that you are grateful for. By doing this exercise, we are starting to build more of a positive mindset and begin showing ourselves how to live in an abundant fashion. 

I really believe that at the end of the day it is the little wins that add up to make a big difference. 

Question of the day : What are some of your favourite "little wins" ?  Comment in the section below! 

Live with passion, Live your dream and Live it NOW! 

Jay 

The Real Reason You Set Goals

Today is the end of the six week goal challenge and it is also the end of Q1 for 2015. As we look back over the last six weeks to 3 months, I only see growth and improvement in all areas of my life.

Some participants have sent me messages and comments expressing a dissatisfaction with themselves and their progress. I thought I would address the real reason behind goal setting and how it fits into our lives from a macro perspective. 

From motivation to Kanye West, I tried to do it all in this one. 

This video is dedicated to all participants of the six week goal challenge and to those who simply need the reminder that it is always "progress over perfection." 

Did you miss the initial 6-week goal challenge?  No worries! You can catch part 1 and part 2 here.  

Question of the day :

What are the 2-3 things that you are most proud of achieving in the last 3 months? 

Did you enjoy the video? If so, could you leave a comment on the section below or on YouTube.  I read all the comments and they keep me going. Thanks for watching!  

Live with passion, live your dream, live it now!

Jay 

Hacking the fear of failure

It all comes down to perception of failure.  Rather than see failure opposite of success, change your  perception to failure being a part of the success story.  Failure tends to strike right before success.  “Failure is the prerequisite of success” 

Are you up for the 6 week goal challenge?

Breaking down goals 

Happy Chinese New Year to everyone and more importantly, Happy year of the sheep!! 祝大家，恭喜发财，新年快乐，心想事成，身体健康。 Thank you everyone for your support. To join the challenge， just COMMENT on the section below. 

New Year's resolutions do not work because they are intangible and too far in advance that it does not give us an opportunity to continually celebrate all the "wins" we have throughout the year.  By making a 6 week goal, we can accomplish more together and gain greater momentum for the big year ahead.  

Your turn now, what is YOUR 6 week goal?