Category: Josh Feingold Blog

Today I have an exercise for you.

It’s fun, I promise.

Go outside, sit on the ground, and close your eyes.  Take five deep breaths, and open your eyes slowly.  (f you are lazy, just do it where you are, but it’s much more interesting outside.)

Now focus on the edge of a blade of grass or a leaf.  Notice the detail.  See what you have neglected to see before.

Look at the colors, the textures, the oddities, and the symmetries.

When was the last time you slowed down and noticed the detail in life?

There are so many areas in life you can apply this.  With people, goals, work, or just relaxing.  But one important lesson to take away is that very often much of the detail of life is passing before your very eyes, and you are totally blind to the fact.

So stop, focus, and try to slow things down a little for a few minutes so you can appreciate the amazing details that surround you.  If you don’t, you’ll pass through life with a totally superficial perspective of the world.  Wouldn’t that be sad.

In my experience most of us suffer from extreme thinking.  We see things as either good or bad.  Black or white.  There are few shades of grey.

So when bad things happen.  We see them as very bad, and can’t see the good in them.

But life isn’t like that.  It’s just too complicated to say that anything in life (except perhaps death, but that could be argued too) is intrinsically bad.

Further, for some reason, we like to focus on the bad.  In fact, if you think about it, something could be 10% bad and 90% good, and we could see it as all bad, and not see it for the good that it is.  That’s just how we are.  Think about all the people you label as bad, that are probably just about 10% bad, or perhaps even less.

So that’s why they outcome of bad, is often good, since in truth, the potential for good was already there, and now has the opportunity to flourish.

Of course, the opposite is true as well, but I thought I would focus on the positive side of things, since it is always nice to remember that good stuff comes from bad stuff.

P.S. This is my 65th post, which means that I am 25% towards my goal of a blog that runs for a year.  Whoo hoo!  Let’s see if I can stay motivated for another 195 posts.  Better, let’s see if I can come up with another 195 unique ideas!

Knowing what not to do is as important as knowing what to do.

I heard this in the name of some business guru a few years back, and it bears repeating.  The reason behind this truth is that a lack of action is often an action.  Meaning that when you say yes to something, when the answer should have been no, it puts you on a path that you are responsible to complete, that includes time burdens, emotional burdens, and financial burdens, among other things.

Every day, we have opportunities that come our way.  Each opportunity needs to be weighed an evaluated to determine if it helps us get further along in our life goals (you have life goals right!) and if it doesn’t, then you shouldn’t be involved in the action, and need to say no.

However, it is not just a matter of saying no.  Rather, there is an evaluation process that we must do with each request, where we evaluate, make a decision, then determine if were should say yes or no.  So by learning to say no, we are making the same conscience choice of action as when we say yes, and taking a more proactive approach in life, which is always a good thing.

P.S. For some of you, saying no can be uncomfortable.  If that is the case, pay attention to the voice in your head when you say yes, so you can figure out why you aren’t saying no.  You need to get that voice under control.

 

In life you typically are making decisions with 60-80% of the relevant information, if you are lucky.  Accordingly, I have found that there are two main approaches that people take once they have made up their mind, after having invested time in coming to a decision.

The first group, makes a decision then digs their heels in, and no matter the information that follows, they reject it, and stick with their original decision.  These people can usually be easily identified though their defensiveness.

The next group, makes a decision, but never feels comfortable in their position, because they know that there is a x% chance that they are wrong, and they live their life in both worlds, which really stinks for them since they are neither here nor there, and often end up with the worst of both worlds.

The final group, makes a decision, and lives life in that decision, and waits until new evidence comes along that makes them reevaluate their earlier position, and if their decision changes as a result of the information, that’s great, and that’s the adventure of life!

I like living in the final group of people, and find that this is the healthy approach to life, since in general, we really don’t have enough information to make most decisions, and often times its not about making the best decision, but a good decision, so we take the data make the decision, and live life in that decision 100%, but we remain totally open to change should the OPPORTUNITY present itself.  The attitude has to be not that we made a mistake with our original decision, rather that the path we chose originally was the perfect one for the time, and was fun and exciting in its own unique way, but now another path presents itself.  However, to do this, we have to always be prepared to change our mind.

It is not a coincidence that the wise karate masters are portrayed as men of patience in movies.  If you want to control yourself, and in doing so, best control your environment, you must learn to master patience.

The world comes speeding at us faster than we can control it.  Our brain works to synthesize the stimuli provided by our senses, and turn it into some type of manageable thought that fits with all of the other thoughts that came before it, in a split second.  At the same time, our emotions that underlie thought step in, and try to mesh with the thought to see if we can make the everything work together smoothly – or if there is going to be some work that is needed first.

The feeling of unbalance that we feel when things are no meshing is our body’s way of warning us that something is off.  Its our internal signal, a blinking warning light if you will, that we need to step back and see what is out of place.  We all experience this alarm in different ways, but I am sure you have it.

For me, it comes as anxiety.  For others, they just feel unbalanced.  Some people tell me that they feel like something is missing.  You get the point.

So how do we fill that gap?  With patience.

Patience allows us to live with our warning light and try to figure out what the real issue is.  You see, many of us either ignore the warning light all together, which comes back to bite us later in life, or pull away from the situation, which also is a decision, and can impact our life negatively.  The better option is patience to figure out why the warning light is going off.

This requires living with the instability for a little while and introspective work, to think things through a little deeper.  I have found that the answer is always out there, you just need to gather more information, and that can take time – and patience.

So learn to live with your little warning signs, and become comfortable with them.  They are there to guide you and protect you.  Don’t ignore them, or make rash moves due to them.  Rather, be patient with them, and tread carefully forward, since you are on dangerous ground, and the decision you re making is important, and should not be rushed, rather well thought out.