Overcoming the Fear of Death

One of the greatest fears that we all share is the infamous “Fear of Death”

That is because it is all unknown. Unlike the Internet, nothing is indexed and through our religion and stories, we attempt to depict what really happens when we finally pass away, but the reality is that no one really knows. 

The Internet is filled with articles and lists of peoples' top regrets as they lay on their deathbed. “Top five regrets, top 10 regrets…” You know the type that I am talking about.

After reading a few, patterns start to emerge. “I wish I had the courage to pursued my dreams, I wish I could have been more honest with myself and with others, I wish I would have tried etc….”

The best imagery I ever heard of this is by Les Brown.

He says “Imagine for a second that you are on your deathbed and surrounding you, instead of your families and friends are these monsters. These monsters are representative of the dreams that you never took action on. As they look at you with their glaring eyes, they yank you up and they ask “Why? Why did you not take action on us? We came to you!”

Powerful image right?

Even Jay-Z says “ I am not afraid of dying, I am afraid of not trying” At the end of the end of maybe that is it. Maybe all we have to do is pursue our dreams.

We have to write the books that we were meant to write

We have to sing the songs that we are meant to sing

Create the businesses and cultivate relationships that we were meant to have

There is a beautiful quote from Robin Sharma “ when you are born into this world, everyone around you rejoices while you are crying, make sure to leave this world as you rejoice and everyone around you is crying”

I think the only way to do that is to try to be iconic. Attempt to be Legen-dary 

To really pursue all the things that we want to do. Every last inkling, remaining desire, and mysterious adventure. Any option that left you thinking twice. Take it.

Maybe only then, at the end of our lives we can look fear in the eye, we can look death in the eye and we can say that we put it all out there.

We lived our lives fully and we left the world a better place then when we were here.

Overcoming the fear of death is about living with no regrets. If we can find the courage to do everything that we are meant to do, death will only become the next adventure.  

Question of the day: Do you have a dream that scares you? If so, do you have the courage to share it with us in the comment section below? (I triple dog dare you) 

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