determination – Mobiusman

Getting through your “eventually”.

by David

It’s long been known that nothing that is worthwhile is easy to do or easy to get.

“There is no free lunch” is an old saying that’s been around since the 1920’s depression era.

Art Williams is a self-made millionaire who, having worked as a high school coach, went into selling insurance. He decided one day to start his own insurance company. In the early years it is said that he was so terrified of starting out each morning that he’d throw-up from the stress of it.

But he overcame all that and eventually built one of the most successful businesses in America.

Notice I said “eventually“. That word can describe some of the longest timelines one could ever imagine. You start out doing something worthwhile and soon the ‘eventually’ kicks in. From then on it’s work and toil without much gratification.

That’s the way it’s been for every accomplished person since the beginning. I know, believe me, I know.

If you’re setting out to do something new try not to think of how long a word “eventually” will be for you. Your true story of accomplishment will be written in your tears and your brave moments when something finally clicked.

“Easy” never could make much of a compelling narrative in comparison to “tough” anyway. That story of accomplishment, created through the act of endurance, is your story. It belongs to you, and what it presents to you is the hard evidence that builds a strong irrefutable belief in you that says “yes”, you are worthy. That alone makes the journey worth it.

More power to you.

Mobiusman
PS: Did you know that persistence is not something that the head brain can produce but that the gut brain is fully in tune with? Find out how to train your head brain to know what your gut brain is doing to help you get through your “eventually”. Leave your comment below and I’ll tell you all about it.

Skill Of The Creative

by David

The simple paperclip can be a doorway to a creative moment

The ultimate skill of the truly creative person is their ability to survive change no matter how varied it may be.

Acquiring and then expertly utilizing already structured knowledge is the attribute of the very learned.

The creative person is uniquely interested in newness.

That, coupled with a passion for what they do, fires a gut-drive infused with persistence that sustains a vision that never changes.

It’s different than a dream.

It makes the timeline from start to finish, even if it’s very long (and it often is), seem more bearable.

Even when it looks like failure is following failure yet again this drive wins out because it won’t let them give up easily.

Another word for a creative person like that is “entrepreneur”.

In the 1920’s, and for many years after, Napoleon Hill interviewed one hundred and twenty-five of the most financially successful men of his day.

Know what he discovered? The top two attributes for their success was their persistence and determination. Not intelligence or connections. Too bad Hill himself never nailed down exactly what the nature of persistence and determination was and how to get more of it into your life. He instead got wrapped up in laws and lists of principals. More head brain work for you to do.

All that is a far cry from finally finding out what exactly it is that allows some to survive long periods of discomfort and to maintain a motivation through it all. For creatives who want to ‘make it’ on their own terms it’s as essential as air.

More power to you.

Quotius #6

by David

Each week I intend to dispatch my pent-up creativity by creating a new version of something I call a “quotius”. (Learn about the genesis of it here.)

Say what you mean …Mean what you say. (No attribution. I couldn’t find any.)

When I was starting out this blog some three years ago I was writing away and constantly I struggled for clarity. My job, as I saw it, was to describe a long-lived mystery. Over the centuries great thinkers tried to bring us closer to the truth of it but still it retained its core secret.

It’s the mystery that would describe the properties of the energy that causes persistence, determination, or perseverance to exist.

For a long time I had a hard time trying to say what I meant to say. It took me till now to find enough clarity. Even then I didn’t find it in words only. I found it in a simple little three-dimensional model made of a long thin strip of paper. When I eventually learned to use video and upload it to my blog I combined the use of quotes together with that little three-dimensional model to help me up the ante in the delivery of my message.

Now that I’ve been doing this for awhile the meaning of my message has become a lot more penetrating and fun to understand.

So here’s the take away:

Do you too have trouble finding the words to tell your story?

The fact is that words, while known to be powerful, can only realize their full strength if they are so skillfully used that the message within them finds its rightful home in your accepting audience. [Personally I love to read words when arranged this way. That’s why I’ve long appreciated some of the creative I’ve seen in certain advertising campaigns over the years.]

For myself though I simply didn’t feel I was quite that good at it. I figured I needed more. That’s when I did something different. When I devised a demonstration, then added words into the mix, it delivered the meaning of what I meant to say in the fullest measure that I could muster. It may not be prefect yet but, as they say, immediate action blows away meditation any day.

So, if you’re having the same trouble “saying what you mean and meaning what you say” you might like to create a simple demo the next time you need to communicate your idea too.

More power to you.

PS: Have you noticed that a lot of personal development methods no longer pack the punch they once did? Could be the times. I went ahead and invented this simple little brain tweak that makes a huge difference in leveraging your efforts for creating a better version of yourself. Want more? Check out my FREE webinar here.

The Annual New England Xylophone Symposium by DoKashiteru is licensed under a Attribution (3.0).

Same Word – Different Culture

by David

Mobius Monday Minute – June 6 , 2011

Persistence is one of those things that each culture on earth has it’s own word for. Here in North America we have at least three words for it. Determination, perseverance, and dogedness.

Doesn’t matter though which ones you use the meaning stays pretty much the same. “Trying to do something and never quitting till the thing is done successfully” is the meaning that works for me.

In other words: Persistence means success.

Should be the same for you too. No matter where you live.

More power to you.

PS: Would you like to learn about a new way to discover what you are really meant to do? What is true and natural for you instead of taking direction from others? Check out my free Mobius Effect Webinar.

Seeing Things

by David

# 15 April 11 , 2011

I see things.

No I’m not saying that I “see” strange things. I don’t for example see a boogie-man hiding under my bed or anything like that. Nothing so weird or dramatic that it would be such that you might imagine streaming from the likes of Stephen King or Alfred Hitchcock.

Sorry to disappoint.

Please understand it’s just that my job demands that I see things. I was trained as a graphics guy you see. I studied as a visual artist and graduated from art college back when desk-top computers were still in short pants. I had a lot of catching up to do in that department but that’s another story.

What I’ve been working on for the last 30 years or so was trying to come up with a way to visually understand a phenomenon that we all experience at one time or another: The moment when a peculiar drive kicks in causing us to create a successful conclusion. We know it as persistence, determination, perseverance, or doggedness… take your pick.

Of course there is a more generalized word for it. One that describes the entire landscape that I wish to “see” more clearly in three dimensions. That term is the ever-familiar phrase “human potential”.

Know how I see it?

It’s an ocean. I say that because, like the five physical oceans on this planet, it’s huge (and even liquid-like) in its nature. In fact it’s incomprehensibly huge. It’s so huge a pattern that it won’t even fit into the boundaries of the human brain.

Not only is its sheer size problematic but it’s weirdness is troublesome as well. I mean, if you consider it, how can you describe something in words that does not lend itself very well to fitting into the terms of reference we might otherwise use in our daily lives?

That’s why I’m glad I found out about the mobius strip. It’s a shape that is the perfect metaphor of the impossible becoming possible. I figure that human potentiality must have been born in a shell with a shape like this. Just look at it. It’s got the weirdness thing down pat. A simple two-dimensional object that occupies three-dimensional space? I need to put a cold cloth on my noggin just to think about it for more than a few minutes.

But I’ll make it easier for you.

Just consider the video posted here.

A young violinist, who just happens to be deaf, is forced to make a choice and close her eyes to the notes she’s playing and see the beauty of the music in her soundless world through the realm of shapes and colors. In the greatest moment of need these are delivered to her quieted ears through the most gut-felt drive of persistence and determination. Working so fully-engaged with her potential she triumphs over all adversity.

Now that’s the best pair of ears I ever heard of wouldn’t you say?

More power to you.