johnmaconline

Today is more about questions than observations and answers.

How can I connect with God today?
Is it even possible?
Is universal connective energy real?
If so, can I shape it?
What does “real” mean?
What is the relationship between God and universal connective energy?
How can I be more generous?
Is it going to be ok?
Am I paying enough attention?
Am I good enough?
How can I fix my foot?
What is my purpose with this writing?
What should I do today that my tomorrow self will thank me for?
When is the right time to get the legal system involved?
What do I need to care more about?
Who do I need to care more about?
How can I be someone that makes others feel good about themselves?
What should I be open to?

Who do you think you are?
How dare you?
Why would you do that?

These are trigger phrases. Either they trigger you to hit the brakes or step on the gas. What you do depends on how you see yourself. 

If you see yourself as someone who isn’t worthy, you hit the brakes. If you see yourself as someone who just might be the right person, you hit the gas.

Of course, how you see yourself is really “how you perceive yourself.” And perception is reality. 

Change your perception. Change your reality.

Dee Snider was my hero for a minute.

I was a child of the ’80s. Although I grew up in a conservative Christian home, my parents allowed me to listen to and play the music I liked. And I liked the hard stuff. They endured my garage bands creating horrible, wonderful, overdriven Marshall stack sounds from the basement of our three-bedroom ranch house in the country. They also endured my typical ’80s oversized boombox blasting metal from my bedroom at the end of the hall. 

They got it. They respected my choices and empathized with what moved me. 

But what my parents allowed was threatened by the “my morality is the correct morality” crowd. The PMRC, with its talons into the government, wagged its manicured finger and insisted that our music was sure to harm us.

And then, in September of 1985, Dee Snider took the stand. Edgy, yes. Blustery, sure. Disrespectful? Damn straight. But also eloquent, knowledgeable, and right on — keep the government out of the censorship business. 

A group of three easily decides what it will and won’t censor. But with a group size of 330 million, using the big stick of the government gets awfully attractive. 

Various political, religious, and social groups pass the censorship baton back and forth as each loses or regains power. When our team gets the baton, we use the government to ban books, censor art, and influence media platforms that run against our ideology. 

But it doesn’t help because, fundamentally, it comes across as “you’re bad.” 

Instead, let’s resist the baton and instead lean into respect and empathy. Respecting choices. Empathizing with personal journeys and worldviews.

When we care enough to do the hard work, there’s room for all of us.  

You and I have walked through the one-way gate.

Twenty-five years ago, I’d get dressed, have breakfast with the morning paper, kiss the kids on the forehead, grab my coat, and commute to the office with the morning sports radio guys. When the whistle blew, I’d turn off the machine, grab my coat, commute home with the afternoon sports radio guys, and kiss the kids on the forehead on my way back through the front door.

Your workday probably looked similar.

That daily procedure transformed us from our family identity into our work identity and back again. Two different identities split by time and space but linked by a commute.

But we didn’t stop there. On Tuesdays we’d grab our whistle and transform into coach. On Wednesday nights, we’d grab our notebook and transform into committee member. On Sunday mornings, we’d grab our shirt and tie and transform into pew-sitter. On the first Saturday in August, we’d stuff the car and head to the beach for a week.

All of these separate me’s were me, of course, but somehow compartmentalized. We sought and gained balance through the separation of time and space.

The internet, smartphones, and remote work blurred the lines. Now we check on work between innings. A quick email reply to the committee from the beach. The Sunday service from our couch.

The gate’s shut. Wishing won’t help.

We’re no longer looking for healthy balance. Now we need healthy integration.

To find it, look ahead, not behind.

A billion seconds feels like a lot. It’s about 31 years.

I’m in the middle of my 53rd year, which means that I might no longer be a time billionaire.

Let’s assume that my healthspan is 70 (aggressive, but I work on it daily), and my lifespan is 80 (statistically, also a little aggressive). That gives me half a billion seconds of healthy living left and 0.85 billion seconds of total life. 

One way to look at this is, “Damn, I used to be a multi-time billionaire and now I’m not. What have I done so far?”

Another is, “Damn, half a billion seconds is a lot of time left. What can I do?”

Still, a third is, “Damn, I’m grateful for the time I’ve had and the time left to come.”

All three are valid. 

Either you are or were a time billionaire. The time is yours. 

It’s not exactly your fault.

The System coerced you into misunderstanding the hiring process.
Don’t feel too bad. The System is a master marketer.

The System tells you that the hiring process is about finding the best candidate. The best candidate presents the best System-certified credentials. And that the best evidence for qualifying the best System-certified candidates is through past performance.

But what if…

The hiring process isn’t about finding the best candidate but eliminating the worst.
The worst candidates are just as likely to have System-certified credentials.
The worst candidates are just as likely to have outstanding past performance with relevant experience.

Eating your fill is easy if you’re the big fish with big teeth in an ocean full of small fish. You have your pick of candidates to fill your belly. If one isn’t filling enough, you just eat another.

But if you’re one of the small fish, you gotta think and act differently to keep yourself fed and healthy. If you miss one, you may go hungry for a while. You must make each one count.

Start by thinking differently about the hiring process.

I hate complainers, but I love complaints.

Complaints don’t necessarily come from complainers, and complainers don’t necessarily generate (the right kind of) complaints.

Complaints from the right people, though, are magic bullets. It’s all about proper context.

When you’ve made something new — something that might not work — and someone complains about it, you’ve just had the eureka moment. They care enough to take time and effort to make the complaint. They care enough to say, “I want, no I need this to be better.”

They care because they can see themselves using it, and once they see that, you’ve won the war’s first battle. It means you’re on the right track. Your thing strikes a nerve. That’s all you want and all you can know for version 1.0.

Now your job is to listen and determine how you can make it better. Not necessarily to “do what they say,” but to take in what they say, align it with where you’re trying to go, and do the work.

Go out and seek complaints because most of your competitors are looking for compliments.

This is how you win.

“Have faith in God,” Jesus said to them. “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” 

– Mark 11:22-24

Maybe you think Jesus is bunk. OK, what about Joe Dispenza and Bruce Lipton? Deepak Chopra and Louise Hay? Or perhaps Oprah and Tony Robbins? Napolean Hill and Zig Ziglar? Heck, even Lance Armstrong. 

It’s finally starting to sink in. 

Belief. Faith. Disbelief. Doubt.

Thinking and acting as if. Believing it is before it is. Faith creating. Mind over matter. Ask, and ye shall receive. 

I’ve read that passage from Mark a thousand times. I’ve read the books, listened to the podcasts, and watched the YouTube channels of the other names above a thousand times. 

The light bulb is starting to glow. Dim, but the filament is warming.

Knowing that it comes from God, the universal energy, through you, into existence. 

So simple yet so difficult for this engineer to…believe. 

(If you have any personal stories or connections to stories of mind over matter or faith, please share them with me. The more we share, the quicker the compound interest kicks in.)