by Michael | May 30, 2017 | Featured Blog, Inspiration, Internal war, Motivation, Rules to live by
Why you can’t move away from the negativity that plagues your life. When Scott Summers, a member of the X-Men, first discovers his superpower, it comes in the form of an uncontrolled blast of energy from his eyes that destroys everything in it’s path when his emotions surge. Until the young man learns to control these beams of energy, he causes a lot of damage to himself and his surroundings. It is only his visor that finally gives him relief of the sporadic head pains and control of his vicious power. But unlike Scott’s eyes, our glare does not destroy the things we look at, but instead destroys our lives as we focus on them. Don’t we all have this power? Our brains have worked very hard over many years of our human existence to protect us from predators. Whether it was the saber-toothed tiger, an attack from the next village over, or losing our mate to a stronger man, our brain has evolved to spot danger and send us warning signals. It is like that beam of burning energy from our eyes, drawing us in, wherever we may look, always analyzing and sending stress chemicals through our body. The problem is, we no longer have saber-toothed tigers to watch out for yet the brain continues to spend massive amounts of energy on searching for anything that is a potential threat. We took things that hurt our ego, self-esteem, or social status and conditioned the brain to identify them as threats. This is why it is so much easier for us to zero in on the negativity and...
by Michael | May 21, 2017 | Featured Blog, Inspiration, Internal war, Rules to live by, Society
A “Nazi” and a “Communist” take an Uber together. A few days ago I was in Seattle for work. We finished up our project early and decided to catch the Mariners baseball game being played in town that evening. We ordered an Uber and hopped in, heading for the stadium. On the ride over, we learned our driver was born in Germany. His grandpa fought for the German’s in WWII, and ended up in a Russian prisoners camp for 13 years. I thought this was neat because I was born in Soviet Russia, and my grandpa fought against the Germans in WWII. He ended up in a German death camp for prisoners of war. Here we were, nearly 65 years later. We rode in the same car and we shared stories of a disturbing time in human history, a “Nazi” and a “Communist,” as we would have been called not too long ago. There was no hate. Why would there be? The war was fought by young boys, convinced they were fighting evil, justified in their actions. But it was started by manipulative, power hungry, ******* (Insert expletive here. I personally like the word “bastards.”) So how do you divide and create a hate between people, to the point of them murdering each other? Easy. 1. You make them believe they belong to a great cause, even greater than human life. We humans have an amusing characteristic. We NEED to believe in something and be a part of something. It’s what gives us meaning, a sense of belonging, a sense of community. Sharing a common belief with others gives us comfort...
by Michael | May 14, 2017 | Featured Blog, Inspiration, Motivation
It’s early morning and still dark outside, already she has said a prayer for you while you sleep. She can transform a seed into a child, a house into a home, a bag of groceries into a meal, and a child’s tears into a smile. She’s cleaned your poop, cut your hair, tucked you in, and held you tight. She will gladly lay down her life for yours. There is nothing in the world that can tear you from her hands of gold. She has sacrificed her body and put her dreams on hold… to raise you so that you can go and build yours. Who is this woman, nothing short of an angel? Well, you just call her “Mom”. Today is Mother’s day and again, we are reminded to love on the ones who have given us the greatest gift we could ever receive, the gift of life. Life can be beautiful but life can also be a pain in the ass. We have work, we have responsibilities, we have deadlines, and we have bills. Every day we have a hundred things, screaming for our attention. It’s so easy to forget to stop and lift our grumbling heads from our phones. It’s so easy to forget that the very women we often take for granted, have given us this gift. They are angels walking among us. Her silver hair is always in a bun. Her smile never leaves her eyes. And her words are ever so full of life. Today I am reminded to look at this mother, grandmother, wife, daughter, sister, and woman, through a new perspective....
by Michael | Apr 4, 2017 | Featured Blog, Inspiration, Motivation, Rules to live by
The guy in the leather jacket is Mike, a Portland Oregon Hip Hop artist. The good looking gentleman in the gray sweater, is me. When a few friends and I arrived at the partially stripped Vance Creek Bridge last Saturday, Mike had been sitting at the start of the wet and rusted beam for over an hour. He had his video crew waiting on him, trying to film a music video on the bridge. The beam starts at 20′ above the ground and eventually turns into the second tallest railway bridge in the United States. Mike was scared as hell and so was I. To get to the wood railroad ties of the bridge and ultimately to “safety”, you must first walk across 70′ of slippery metal. I crawled the first time across. When I came back, Mike was still fighting his fear with 6 different people giving him advice on the best way across. I offered to go back across with him to lead the way and Mike immediately took me up on my offer. We had never met but we had a common enemy, the ground below. One butt-slide at a time and cracking a few jokes along the way, slowly but surely we made it over and Mike over came his fear. Mike & I making progress Actions, not words, are the ultimate results of leadership. -Bill Owens I was surprised when Mike took me up on the offer, for all he knew I could have been a psychopath who would push him off the bridge once we got to the highest point. But there is something...
by Michael | Mar 16, 2017 | Avoiding complacency, Featured Blog, Inspiration, Internal war, Motivation
There are 3 “P” words that consume our minds when we are not busy masking our thoughts with our daily tasks. There is our PAIN Our “pain” is the job we hate, the financial situation we are in, the fears we deal with, the insecurities we mask, or the mundane cycle of life we live in. It is the place we are in now, the place we want more than anything to ditch and move on from. It is that thing which causes all of us to say the same thing over and over again: “There HAS to be a better way” Our pains are what cause us to seek something different, to step out and search for a different way, to try and do things differently. They are what drive us to seek change. Then, there is our PROBLEM Our problems are what stop us in our tracks. Our “problems” are what make us go back to our pains and repeat the cycle. Every time our PAIN hurts us enough to try and do something about it, our PROBLEM stands before us with a stern finger, pointing us back to our places. Problems are our excuses. These are the things we use as reasons for why we continue to hang out in the cycles, drowning in our PAIN. We say, “But the problem is… I don’t have the skills”, “… I don’t have the resources”, “… I don’t have the knowledge”, “… I don’t have the opportunity”, “… My situation doesn’t allow me”, “… I’m just not a motivated person”, “… My bills won’t pay themselves if i quit”, “…...
by Michael | Mar 6, 2017 | Featured Blog, Inspiration, Motivation, success
“Emotion is Motion!” “EMOTION IS… MOTION” It’s 8 hours into a Tony Robbins seminar and we have yet to see Tony. My ass and my back hurt. Finally the 6’7 giant makes it to the stage. The previous hours of pushy, overly confident speakers, trying to sell us on their academies and training’s are over. Robert Herjavec and a Gary Vaynerchuk hologram were the only reason I have not walked out up to that point. Finally, Tony comes out and proceeds to set the place on fire. He had a rave party going. 7,000 people out of their seats, on shoulders, jumping on their chairs for a good minute with music blaring. We were getting a lesson on confidence, body language, and emotion. A funny thing he taught us, about the way we approach people, whether it’s in a business setting, among friends, or people we are only meeting for the first time. “Emotion is Motion” — Tony Robbins The way we feel at the exact moment that we engage in conversation with another human will determine how they see us. It will determine the mood of the room. It will determine whether the person we just met will even like us. Motion changes our physiology, which in turn, changes our emotion. I have previously written an article on body language based on a popular TedTalk by Amy Cuddy and have experienced for myself how simply ACTING more confident actually makes us more confident. How changing your body posture actually changes your brain to feel different. Closed in, arms crossed, holding your neck, speaking quietly, shaking a hand softly all show...
