13.82 Billion Years In The Making
Roughly 13.82 Billion Years Ago..
“Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state
Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started, wait.
The earth began to cool, the autotrophs began to drool
Neanderthals developed tools
We built a wall (we built the pyramids)
Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries
That all started with the big bang! Hey!”
Bang. “Let there be Light.”And there was.
Here we are, living on the razor’s edge of evolution, a couple of social primates who think they know how to think.
Each of us, and everything we see, star dust – specs of sand on the shore of Infinity – swimming in the waves of a cosmic ocean where energy resonates into different forms of matter, and in the grand scheme of things, not all that much matters, until it matters to you.
Our first ancestors popped onto the scene five, six million years ago.
Homo sapiens just 195,000 years ago.
And apparently, every human alive today has DNA strands that trace directly back to remains found in Africa, of a female who lived 170,000 years ago — Eve.
And 150,000 years ago, sounds and grunts got codified. Language was born. Then, people started making up stories and lying to themselves. Don’t take my word for it. Check out the timeline.
Several reasons I bring this up. Mainly to remind you that…
Language is NOT our first Language.
Do the maths. Five, maybe 6 Million years, minus a buck giddy is a significant gap.
Without language, the early years saw little progress. Humanlike creatures roamed the planet still tuned into the rhythms of nature, communicated differently. They stuck to tribes. And didn’t have the head full of noise that comes with the thinking brain.
They lived on instinct, felt the magnetic shifts in the planet, lived in tune with nature, weather patterns, and animal migrations.
From 150,000 years ago to now, talking story reshaped reality.
Hammurabi’s Code made it possible for larger civilizations to form.
Sapiens are on an evolutionary journey where language distorts reality. But, we also an innate universal intelligence – a super conscious that isn’t worried about fitting in, the future, or trying to control every little thing.
We are more instinctual and emotional creatures than logical.Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow call it Bottom up Processing – where instincts and emotions run the show, and logic is backfilled later.
That’s what gets in the way of creating the life you deserve.
Dan Ariely suggests we might not even be in control of our own decisions in this TedTalk, and wrote about our Predictable Irrationality.
Robert M. Spolsky discussed why it is that Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers.
By the way, did you know you can sit through Stanford University lectures on Human Behavior for free on YouTube if you wanted to educate yourself.
Oh… Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, because they don’t ruminate about stupid shit, when they do get stressed, they let their body have a break and reset the nervous system.
What I’m saying here is that your brain creates it’s own reality, and you can take control of that, and upgrade your experience.
Aaaand I am suggesting that, now, more than ever training your attention is vital.
We’re not build for 2030, hell we’re not even built for 2021. Six million years of evolution is a pretty difficult thing to overcome. That’s why as your coach, I keep reminding you to slow down.
Breathe. Observe. Get an objective perspective of reality.
Get grounded and clear. And get on with it.
There are no shortcuts, fast tracks, or easy buttons.
Life is a daily practice.
As your coach, I will help you stop practicing your past self, and help you be true to your future self.
We start where you are, and begin to practice a little bit of detachment, pull your attention out of the stream of consciousness and help you rediscover a deeper sense of being.
Dr Michael Gervais, the mindset coach for the Seattle Seahawks, taught me that in order to create a rich, full, and meaningful life, each person must train three areas; body, mind, and craft.
Life is all about learning and experimentation.
Look at those three areas and determine what training would look like for you to level up.
As your coach, I’ll help you experiment with your attention, so you can take the actions that your desired future Self requires.
I should warn you, full potential can never be reached.
Potential is endless. Reaching it isn’t the point. The point is unleashing it and creating whatever your heart desires, and doing so without investing your sense of self in whatever you create — relationships, business, bank accounts.
Whatever.
None of is you or from you, it happens through you.
That’s it.
Be like Jay Z, “On to the Next One” double your money. Make stack.
Get on with it.
Desires, big or small, if it matters to you, it matters.
Relieve yourself the pressure of trying.
This isn’t about doing so you can get something so you can feel something, someday.
It’s about doing for the sake of doing.
Or as Campbell suggests, it’s about diving into the abyss and bringing something back with you over and over again so you can share it with your fellow humans.
It’s about fully engaging with your life, getting out of your head, and loving the life you live, while creating a life you love, by letting go, and letting the universe do its thang.
That’s what it’s about.
All the elements are in place.
Your experiences, natural talents and gifts are already yours already, some things just need to be developed more.
The process of creating stuff that matters is figuring it out as you go.
Everything in life is a skill.
If you suck at stuff that you want to be good stuff, then work on stuff.
If you want something you believe you deserve.
Work for it.
It is really just that simple.
Don’t make a big story out of it.
Detach and fall in love with the work.
Your work, is to create stuff that truly matters — magical moments with other people, love, business, music. Whatever.
Life is a choose your own adventure.
Clear Energy is Key
Clarity key. It doesn’t matter if you’re on a board in the Ocean waiting for waves, at the office, or stuck in line behind the lady with, coupons, pulling out her checkbook – remaining clear, centered, and detached allows you to make the most of every moment.
Life is going to roll you around like clothes tumbling in a dyer, and it might be just what you need so you can make better choices.
Time on the water teaches me to handle things differently on land.
I learn things like Balance. Awareness. Patience. Surrender, strength, proper leverage; rest and recovery.
I learn to wait between sets (opportunities).
Some days are choppy. Others glassy and clean. You get flat days, big days, small days and everywhere in between.
Show up to the same spot every day for a year, see what shows up, and do some work, glean a lesson, stay mindful and humble, and a year from now, you’ll look back amused at what challenged you back then.
It’s like that little bald kid told Neo just before Neo broke the vase, missed the point, and ate the cookie ..
If I were you coach, you’d come to realize that my jobs is like a yoga teacher, I help you adjust ever so slightly to the conditions of the water — ocean or lake.
There is a flow of the moment, mine is different than yours.
When you find yours, and fully engage with it, life seems magical.
Could be another delusion. Who knows? I’m just speaking from my own experiences and perspective.
Inside you is an Ocean, an Abyss of possibilities, that interacts with the world and triggers probabilities into waves of emotions, thoughts, and ideas that turn into stories. Those stories are the way the brain releases tension, don’t let them control your life.
When you hire me, or even if you don’t, my mission is to help guide you back home, take control of your attention, and free your mind to create stuff that matters.
My job is to help you live your essence – who you are – and not let the identity get in the way.
When you live your essence, synchronicity opens up, and life brings you exactly what you need, whether you like it or not.
And once you reorient your attention, dive into the abyss, and find your place of knowing, the ordinary world transforms in some seemingly magical ways, without the need for magical thinking.
When you show up “on time,” your time, everything changes.
That’s the practice.
Show up and see what happens.
Don’t try to control the universe, just control your attention.
You get a choice, bend and become what the moment needs, or let the moment bend you.
Choice is your.
Either way, stop Procrastinating.
Get on with it.
2020 was an eye opener.
We got to see how fragile the systems that run our daily lives really are, and how grossly underprepared we are for anything to go sideways.
On the flip side, those crazy ass prepper people seem a little less crazy now. Don’t they. Well, maybe not that much. But, a little.
Anyhow…
I loved 2020.
Got to see who people really are. They dropped the mask, oddly, because they were asked to wear a mask. We got to see what people are like when things change drastically, and how much people crave a return to normal, even though it’s not actually normal.
Normal is whatever you want it to be.
Remember, it’s not the spoon that must bend, it’s you.
There is no returning to normal, the point of living is to enjoy a process of ongoing improvement and to create stuff that matters.
It is a fools errand to try to keep things the way they are.
The universe is in a constant state of flux.
The only constant is change.
Let me say it again.
Ain’t no thing called normal.
Anyhow…
I made a promise to my dad, as he crunched lemon-drops.
“Chance of rain 100%. And Friday, cloudy with a chance of rain and snow showers in the morning. Then partly cloudy in the afternoon. Highs in the upper 20s.”
I’d get back to writin’.
It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do — Write, tell stories, move people.
I love creating and inspiring an emotional responses in others. I hope that’s what this did, and what the rest of what I write, publish and share over the coming years, hopefully decades of my life.
But, before we got here, I procrastinated.
Bought five Books by Steven Pressfield, a course on story telling for marketers, a workshop on screenwriting, and a book by Seth Godin just to make sure I had enough of the right information.
Because everyone knows, it’s better to take a course on writing than actually sit down and write the damn book.
Replace writing with getting in shape, starting a business, building better relationships. Whatever. We procrastinate rather than just get in and seeing what happens.
Point being, the books, programs, education, and coaching are useless without action.
What’s Socrates say?
Not that Socrates, the gas station attendant with two different shoes on, one brown, one black, because one needed a lift to balance his gait.
That Socrates said
“You know the difference between knowledge and wisdom? Knowledge is knowing how to wash a window.”
Tosses a squeegee.
“Wisdom is washing it.”
Way of the Peaceful Warrior
Procrastination led me “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield where he defines Resistance, and illustrates how it shows up at very predictable turning points in an Artist’s Journey, over and over, and the only way to beat it is to Turn Pro — show up and Do the Work.
The last two, just the titles pretty much say it all for most of us.
Anyhow.
A few classes later, I’m studying the structure of blockbuster movies.
Blew my mind.
I’ve known about George Lucas and Joseph Campbell for a while now. Must have watched that Bill Moyer interview fifteen, twenty times by now. And now I want to watch it again, later today.
Well, the screenwriting, the one with Michael Hague and Chris Vogel, that screen writing class blew my freakin mind. BOOOM!
Blew it apart. Bits, pieces, ideas out in that universal pattern of the Big Bang. As things reorganized, a different puzzle fell into place.
Story telling is the path of Transformation.
Metaphors. Archetypes. All the ways the human brain applies to make sense and feel safe amidst all the Chaos of the Universe, how we manage the uncertainty of life, it’s all right there.
The stories we tell ourselves make the prisons we occupy.
Paraphrasing Hague…
“Most great movies start out with a likable enough character who is paying lip service to an ideal or more to the point, their own Essence.”
Fuse lit.
“The story MAPS out an outer journey. A goal that we must move the main character towards.”
Sssssssssssssss…
“And through action, tension, and resolution.”
……sssssssss
“The Identity vs Essence battle also plays out as an inner journey of transformation. Where the hero faces death, and begins to live for something bigger than himself.”
BOOOM! Brain exploded. Every movie, novel, story and myth I love, and my own life’s experiences are stories. The Identity, Little s-self gets in the way of a good time, the experience of Self.
Identity vs Essence.
Little vs Big S — One needs safety. Other just in it for the experience.
The GAP is the difference between current reality and what you wish were real. Bigger the GAP, creates more tension, and that tension resolves itself by venting nonsense into your steam of consciousness.
Another way of looking at it is this…
The mind is a time traveler — a prediction & response machine holding on to the past, afraid of the uncertainty of the future.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
You can let go of the past, change the voice of your inner narrator, and open up and surf the waves of your past as they drive forward towards destiny.
One more thing, then another, and we’ll wrap this portion of the journey up, and you can choose if you want to continue with me where there is no normal but ongoing improvement, and very little resistance. Some. Just not the same as it used to be.
Feedback Loop Hell.
Roughly 13.82 Million Years Ago..
“Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state
Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started, wait…”
Bang! Chaos.
Systems Theory gives us a framework of how chaos operates, and chaos pretty much runs the show. Galaxies, solar systems, the web of life to the systems in place that come together and deliver you a meal at your favorite restaurant are governed by systems theory. Systems run everything.
“Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries
That all started with the big bang! Hey!”
Limbic System interacts with environments, what you put into your system and the processes you run on a daily basis create outcomes and a feedback loop.
Environments, Inputs, Processes that you run through your day create outputs that become part of the feedback loop. Notice the direction of the arrows. Which parts interact with each other.
The feedback loop reflects the system as a whole.
In other words, the stuff you notice, the things you want to fix, are symptoms of something off somewhere in the system. Most people get too focused on the feedback loop, when they need to focus on one of three areas and find the bottleneck of their system.
It feels natural to focus on what’s not perfect, the missing parts, the incomplete and the feeling insignificant, the lack and sense of powerless, that overwhelms us and makes us want to soothe.
The identity pretty much sets up camp in the feedback loop, makes it the set point and zone of comfort, then fights like hell to protect itself.
Habits, addictions, and retail therapy all live inside feedback loop hell.
To break out of feedback loop hell, I would suggest you slow down. Examine all inputs from your environments and the all the processes that create the outputs and make up a bulk of the feedback loop.
If you’re experiencing pretty much the same thing you experienced 10 years ago, it’s likely due to either an environmental issue, bad inputs, or a process.
Outputs and Feedback are downstream — effects of the upstream.
- Start with inputs – slow them down and choose them wisely.
- Change your environments, often and deliberately.
- Figure out better process and practice of living it.
I’m not sure if you realize this, but it’s easy to reverse engineer the type of feedback you desire. The feedback loop is collection of different outputs, that a process delivered, that inputs and the environment the process was in affected.
This is where storytelling come into play. Tell a story of the feedback loop you desire. You’ll see the GAP of where you are to where you want to be, it’s usually pretty obvious where you pay lip service, and what you need to learn, do, or (most importantly) be, for that story to be true.
Find the bottlenecks of your current reality and optimize around them.
Stay out of the Feedback Loop — don’t take that shit personally.
Easy peasy, lemon squeezey.
About Process
“Mise en Place”. From Dana Point, Laguna and Venice Beach… Ohio, Virginia, and Vegas, whatever restaurant you found me in, dive bar to Best in the World, the degree of “Mise en Place” being applied determines the experience.
In business and life production meets demand.
Demand determines flow.
Systems run it all.
And systems are only good as their weakest link.
If this were a warm up to a coaching session, I’d want you to have spent a week or so observing, collecting data, objectively from a bird’s eye view, your life’s systems. Not just the feedback.
Earlier in this conversation we went over the one pager of “The Goal” the novel about systems theory in manufacturing.
In that book, they discussed how most businesses, all that fail, and even some that succeed, work off faulty assumptions, track the wrong data, and optimize for all the wrong things. Most people do that too.
Note to self:
“You can spend a lifetime worrying about things that matter,
and never focus on the stuff, or the people that do.”
That book opened my eyes, transformed my life, became a foundation aspect of what soul surfer school and my life, The Tao of Tim — a process of ongoing improvement.
Think about it.
The body is made is made up of different systems, comprised of different parts, and a combination of systems make up the whole. Limbic systems, belief systems, and mental models that create the assumptions which affect your choices and decisions
You have some form of systems for your house, how you manage time (not possible), work spaces, and everything in between, all affected by that diagram above, the one with the Sun, squares, a rectangle with a triangle in the middle.
Certain principles apply in almost all areas of life. You just have to figure out what the first principles are, and reason out from ther.e
Remember Bottlenecks Determine Flow
First Principle – the weakest link of a chain determines strength.
A typical day is a chain of patterns. Mostly automatic. And when attention is stuck in feedback loop hell, there is no way out. Attention is the most valuable resource in the universe.
Remove the bullshit. Clear the clutter. Know what really matters.
Define your own “Operating Expenses. Inventory. Throughput.”
Manage your environment, inputs, and change your processes.
Mise en Place — everything in it’s place. You, in your place, being who you’ve always been. Magical, a Self-fulfilling prophecy.
Once we’ve optimize around your bottlenecks to open up your flow, free your genius, and create something that matters things get much more fun.
Health, Wealth, & Relationships, the big three, without so much neediness and resistance between here and ‘there,’ even though there is only here, no there.
Remember. You’re not broken. Change is hard and humans are designed to evolve, but also to resist change and survive. That’s why other people will try to keep you in the place they imagine is best for you, the place of the person they’ve always known.
Something in us all “likes the way things are” if when they suck.
Cognitive dissonance (holding two competing thoughts will shut the brain down), is a subconscious program in the brain, and it is responsible for knowing what to do, but not being able to do it.
Sound familiar? Well, guess what, it’s not your fault your brain works the way it works. Now stop fighting it, and learn to use it.
Choice is yours. Always has been. So, please get on with it. Create something that matters, deeper relationships, a business to provide a good life for your family, health and vitality. Whatever.
Another thing before this part of the conversation comes to an end.
Reality is an Acquired Taste.
Aquire a taste for it.
Geek out, get excited, form a fetish or two or three or four.
Most of the things you love, is an acquired taste. And all the skills you have were acquired as well. Same process involved: Pay Attention. Make distinctions.
Learning used to be fun. Till some asshole said “curiosity killed the cat” or maybe at the point when you realized everyone was full of shit.
Who knows?
My point is, you need to fall in love with learning again. To do that you’ll need to get over yourself. And know this. You will look stupid, people will make fun of you, it will be frustrating, and probably won’t work out the way you want it to for a long time, maybe never.
That’s life. The point is the learning, for the sake of learning. Working for the sake of working. Loving because it feels good to give love.
About My Process
The Tao of Tim
Pause. Get Stoked. Flow.
Pause. Attention is the most valuable Resource in the Universe.
Break Free From Attachment
Pay Attention. Your mind is a pattern recognition machine that will make up its own version of reality. What you think is not always real — Confidence, and self esteem are not required.
Modify the patterns in your life, be at ease with tension, and reduce resistance, so you can be whatever the moment requires.
Get Stoked. Love the life you live. Create whatever your heart desires.
How to Bring Out Your Best
Energy is Everything. This isn’t about being or feeling good all the time. It’s about objective observation of reality. Without judgement. Notice how you show up to what shows up.
Carve out the time and space to think about your life on a daily basis.
Slow down. Tune in. Know what matters to you and ignore the rest.
Release the need to control, let your Signal guide you.
No need to justify.
No need permission or approval.
Get on with it.
Flow. Unleash Your Genius – Start Living Your Real Life.
How to Get Out of Your Own Way
Tap into the Field of Potential. Dr. Daniel J. Siegel, MD tells us consciousness rises up from a “plane of potential” then filters through a matrix of subconscious impulses, memories, ideas and mental frameworks. (Unconscious)
Dr Dan created a “wheel of awareness,” a profound meditation that helps you find a space inside all the noise in the world and in your head. Google it. If you’re a little geeky like me, then you might want to grab his books “Mind” & “Aware”.
Those two books combined with 6 books about Behavioral Science convinced me that it’s a waste of time to try to program the subconscious mind.
In other words, it is possible to tune into the Super-Conscious Mind.
It takes a little experimentation and practice to reorient your sense of self from the “Self-Conscious” stream of information of the Identity to the inner “knowing” of your Super-Conscious Self.
And with practice your set point shifts, because it’s no longer anchored in the unconscious part of your mind.
I know exactly what you want to do, but just can’t seem to do it.
Good thing you have the ability to figure shit out.
Now.
Figure out what’s important.
Isolate the real thing you want to create.
- What do you need to learn?
- What skills need upgraded?
- Which Processes are wrong for that result?
Get on with it.
You got this.
If you need some help either reach out, or scroll down and enroll for free into Soul Surfer School, and we’ll study each you the main pillars of each part of The Tao of Tim.
You’ll get around 7-10 emails to help you slow down, reorient, and tap into The Most Valuable Resource in the Universe.
They’ll be short, maybe 1,300 words or less. Quick and easy. And at the end I’ll show you my EQ = S2 formula. All for the amazing, one time price of….
Drumroll please.
Free-Fiddy Nine. Ninety Nine.
And with each email you have a chance to reach out if you so choose, and I will coach you, all for that one low price because I think this will help, and …
I Love Your Face!
Tim
PS Enroll Here Now.
PPS. At the end of the series, you will be part of Soul Surfer School and receive a weekly email with occasional invitations to other adventures that you get to choose or ignore.