48: Weekly Wrap Up

As I get my tent and sleeping ready for a kirtan festival I’m attending this weekend, I’d like to break down a few of the concepts I explored this week.   Here’s the weekly wrap up. If you just tuned in for the first time, make sure to check on the past four episodes to see the longer version of these concepts.   Or there are some people who don’t have 10 minutes in their day, so they only tune in on Fridays. That’s cool with me. So, for those crunched for time, here’s four purpose-filled boosts to live more intentionally and connect the dots.   Surfing and Mindfulness   There’s a lot we can all learn from surfers. The next time you’re near the ocean or have some time to Youtube, watch surfers. They’re often ridiculously happy.    This is what they know: - To be grateful for when a wave comes - To celebrate your friends when they ride their own wave and you have to sit on the sidelines and cheer them all. I know that when I was trying to make it into the New York City personal training circuit and landed a really good job at an elite facility in Chelsea, Manhattan, one of my fellow trainers literally said to me in terms of getting customers: “You eat what you kill. It’s a dog eat dog world, man.”    I for one completely disagree and don’t even want to play that game.   Let’s build each other up instead of knock each other down   - Your wave will come. And it will end. Know that this is living and be grateful that you are living instead of just existing.   Trust in Discovery   I know I need to get better at trusting in discovery. Trusting in God, the universe, or whatever form of higher power you believe in. Like Steve Jobs said, you can’t connect the dots looking forward and plan all you want, that doesn’t mean you can connect your future dots.    We all need to trust in walking forward.    My buddy Tyson Adams knew this when found himself in the middle of Laos. He build a coffee shop where there had never been one and in the middle of a third world community, he took the money made from the coffee shop to build schools.   Somehow Tyson discovered Coconut Oil and that led to his latest path. But don’t take my word for it. Let’s listen to the man himself.   enter tyson   Be Unconventional    Finding your purpose is not about looking outside you. It’s about looking deep within, far deeper than most people ever look. Looking deep inside of who you really are is one of the scariest things we can do.   But in doing so, we are more easily able to place our feet in the right direction. The unconventional ways I explored on episode 46 include The Gene Keys which helps us discover the hidden purpose in our DNA, Ayahuasca, Meditation, and Pursuing an outwardly quest that peeks inward.    Unplugging   I feel like such a hypocrite whenever I talk about unplugging. Because I’m terrible at it. Some days I still find myself checking social media first thing in the morning because it helps me wake up before 5AM when my alarm goes off. The bright light wakes me up. But I know it’s not healthy to look at social media in the morning. It’s actually a terrible way to wake up. When I met Arianna Huffington, she told the group I was with that she doesn’t allow any technology in the bedroom.   Well, I’m no Arianna Huffington (yet, at least), but I do hope to one day master this skill.   Pursuing Your Quest   Isn’t it ironic that pursuing an outwardly quest like hiking around the world gives us the deepest peek inside of ourselves.   Chris Guillebeau showed me how pursuing a quest — not finishing a quest — is where you live your life on purpose. In a quest you’re not only challenging yourself. You’re  learning every day. You’re growing every day. You’re failing every day. But you’re motivated as all heck to keep on going.   ---   All right, well that does it for this week’s wrap up. I hope you got a lot out of it. As for me, I’m super excited to unplug and sleep under the stars at Omega Institute where I’ll get to join others in an ecstatic chant with Krishna Das, Ram Dass, and Jai Uttal. This is a new experience for me and I’m curious, thrilled, and a bit scared at what to expect.     For one thing, we sing from 8 pm till 5:30 in the morning. I have no idea how I am going to stay up, but excited to feel the power of kirtan: a spiritual call and response kind of singing that, like meditation, helps a person find the ecstatic beauty in the present.