Engineer that lifestyle

I think a misconception many people have is about how a certain lifestyle comes to be. I’ve realized that many people attribute such things to luck. This isn’t the case. I can guarantee that someone who clearly has done well for him or herself , and attributes their accomplishments to luck, are being if anything humble.

What kind of lifestyle do you dream of? Picture it in your head. May I remind you that a lifestyle isn’t just the where, the job, or the friends. It is made up of every detail of your life. It is in essence who you are. Your lifestyle reflects what you are about. Great people have great lifestyles. Keep that in mind.

Part of having an interesting lifestyle is actually being an interesting person. If you don’t constantly invest in yourself to become a better more interesting individual what’s going to happen? I’ll leave that for you to decide.

I’m going to teach you a secret. However you want your lifestyle to be, it can be achieved. I call it engineering your lifestyle.  Shhh! Our little secret.

So on to the how. Well that’s an easy question, but at the same time one that I can’t give you a direct answer. Why? Well simply because every individual is unique. We all have our own personalities and interests.

One thing I will leave you with is this.

Go get some paper and a pen. I want you to write down all the elements you want your life to have. Everything. Let me ramble on a little bit. Do you like cars? What do you want to drive? Do you have a specific place you would like to live? Write it down. Do you enjoy being single or do you prefer a nice long term relationship? Do you see yourself travelling the world? Maybe you enjoy music or art. Going to museums? What kind of people do you want in your life? How do you relate with your family? Ok.. I’ll stop.

This was just to give you some guidelines. Now with what you wrote down what you are going to do is try to figure out HOW to get there. Sound easy? It isn’t. For the most part what you are now looking for is what skills or abilities do you need to acquire or improve in order to reach that lifestyle.

That moment when you actually decide to plan out your life and go get what you want is just pure magic. See the difference ? Instead of knowing what you want but not really going for it, but actually thinking about what you need to do. Just that I bet starts bringing up all sorts of possibilities that are already in front of you.

Don’t expect to get there tomorrow. Be willing to have patience and work for what you want. It will pay off big time.  Take your time, and do it with love and care, after all it is your life you are talking about, the life of a Renaissance Man.

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Hold yourself accountable

One really cool thing I learned a while back, is that if you tell people that you have a certain goal to achieve, they can actually help you almost effortlessly. This is called holding yourself accountable for your decisions.

An example.

Say for instance that an important thing right now in your life would be  to lose a few extra pounds. How ? Let’s say a 4 day a week workout of at least an hour is what you plan on doing. Great. For how long are you planning on going through with this? One month, three months? Set a specific period of time.

Now here is where your friends come in to play. Just by simply telling them, they are likely to ask you every once in a while how it is going, but this is not what we are trying to achieve. How much are you willing to bet on yourself that you will make it? How important is it to you? How much are you willing to give to someone to hold, until the day comes that you don’t call and say that you just got out of the gym. If the day comes that you do miss a workout, you call that person and say. “Hey, that money you have.. it’s your’s. ”

This simple trick can help you more than you can imagine. If you have nothing to lose, you place no value obviously, but when you feel that there IS something to lose, you treat things in a different light.

Say 100 dollars is a lot for you. You choose a friend and give him a check for 100 dollars. The day you miss that workout, all he has to do is go down to the bank and cash it in. Also be sure to tell him to spend it all right away on something he likes. You shouldn’t run the risk of him feeling sorry for you and giving you a break.

Let’s say money isn’t a big deal to you. Find something that is. Find something that you absolutely hate doing and make a promise to a friend. Say you’ll clean his or her house, or mow the lawn, whatever it doesn’t matter.

This is a very simple way to self-discipline yourself into a mindset that teaches you that if you don’t do what you are supposed to do, there will be a consequence. That if you only do what you feel like doing, there will be a punishment involved.

Set aside a little time to think of a couple of things that would make a big impact on your life, if you systematically did what you should be doing. Imagine in a couple of months from now the impact it would have on your life.

Worth noting is that your friend will never know the truth. I am assuming that you want the best for yourself, and that you wouldn’t even consider self-sabotaging yourself. If this would be the case you are better off not doing anything at all.

Don’t take my word for it try it out.

-Renaissance Man

Fail! I beg you.

Have you ever noticed that many successful people tend to say that at one point in their life they were rejected over and over again?

Some of the most fascinating people I know all started out failing miserably at their craft. Also if you listen to some interviews you will often hear that their “secret” for success is simply being able to endure failure and rejection over and over again.

The higher you want to climb, the more resistance you are going to face, and the funny thing is, the process of failing and getting back up is precisely what will give you what it takes to make it all the way to the top.

When Thomas Edison was working on the light bulb, he was asked how many times he had tried to invent the light bulb. The number I don’t recall exactly, but I think was around 3000. The man amazed asked Mr. Edison “you failed 3000 times at making the light bulb?” and Mr. Edison simply said “No. I found 3000 ways in which the light bulb couldn’t be made.”

Great stuff.

The worse thing that can happen to any man is not failing, very simply because he who has not failed, hasn’t even tried.

So the next time you are out in the world, and an opportunity arises, don’t hold yourself back because you don’t want to make a fool of yourself, don’t trick yourself into taking the easy way out.

Go out there and fail! Fail miserably!

After a while you will see that all the failure and rejection you endured only made you a better person, and taught you very valuable lessons.

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Results over reason?

How do you measure your success?

What do you base yourself on, in order to figure out if you were successful in doing something?

It might sound like a weird question, but bare with me.

The most interesting thing came up during a conversation the other day. A friend and I were talking over some coffee, and he was explaining a problem he had come across earlier.

So there I was listening to him, and approaching the end of the conversation he blurted out something along the lines of:

“well, I did everything I was supposed to do, it just doesn’t make sense. It can’t be my fault!”

that sentence struck me like lighting.

He was doing what made sense instead of doing what works!

The thing is, in life common sense can only take you so far. It’s funny how many important things in our life are actually counter-intuitive. It just amazes me how human beings will completely generalize and distort what is in front of their faces, just so that things will continue to fit in perfectly with their reality.

So I kept the conversation going and asked him how he was so sure he did everything right, and after a couple of questions he started to pick up on where I was headed.

The thing we must focus on is not what is supposed to work, it is not common sense, and certainly not on what we think we know. The only thing that really matters is the result!

Result oriented people have very high levels of success in what they pursue because they keep their eyes on the ball. They do not think with common sense, and in the case of my friend, they do not give up because they did “everything right”. They only know what the “right” thing to do is, after they have found what works!

This is a very important subject, as it can be a tool used for success, or also the reason why we fail time and time again.

Someone once said:

“keep doing the same things, keep expecting the same results!”

Amen.

Next time you find yourself facing a problem or a challenge, when you hit a barrier instead of focusing on what you know works, you will start focusing on your outcome.

This shift alone in your thinking will open up a whole new world of possibilities. I guarantee it!

As always, I wish you the best!

Presence

Presence: The state of being present; — opposed to absence.

Interesting.

I remember being younger, and too many times I would be caught up in my head, thinking &  analyzing &  judging whatever was going on, and more often than not I would get a gut feeling. A gut feeling as if I were doing something wrong.

Not that I was actually doing any wrong, but something just didn’t feel right. I would snap out of my head back to the real world, but sooner than later I would be right back where I started.

Looking back I cringe at all the time I lost running thoughts and ideas through my head instead of having just been present.

If there is one quality I have to insist on one having, it would have to be the ability to stay present in any situation. All of your relationships, and most importantly, the quality of your relationships are affected by your ability to be present. Be it professional or personal, and regardless of any gender, if you are up in your head it is impossible to relate to the other person, let alone connect on a more personal and deep level.

Everybody needs time to think, time to plan and especially time to be with yourself, but apart from these situations you should be as present as you know possible. Picture this, you are with a friend over coffee, and he or she is going on about a problem that they are having. I can tell you right now that if you are not fully present you are inevitably going to be up in your head thinking about why they had the problem in the first place, or how you already had predicted that it was going to happen, or anything else along these lines, but do you see how none of these will actually help them? Do you see how being in your head detaches you from the “real” world, and prevents you from taking a quicker better and more efficient course of action?

A real man has developed the ability to be present. He knows he must be quick to think on his feet, and cannot afford wasting time in his head. He has already seen the difference he makes in people when he is fully present, as opposed to when he is “absent”.

How do you go about developing presence? Well for some meditation or yoga clears the head, for others maybe jogging does the trick, even surfing can bring you what you need to organize your head. The key thing is that you must learn to eliminate all that non important stuff that floats around in your head. You need to have a clear head to operate on a more conscious and present level.

Curiously people who are very present seem to have similar traits. They are high energy people, who tend to look others straight in the eyes. Not in an intimidating way, but in a way that conveys interest and understanding. They listen to what you have to say instead of interrupting you and rambling on.

I encourage you to practice being present at all times, as this is another step towards  becoming.. a Renaissance Man.

(I could go on about why this is a building block for success in general. Be it decision making, professional matters, success with women, or any other area of your life, but I think I will leave this as is.)

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
-Buddha

Be a man of purpose

Recently as I was listening to a woman speak her thoughts about what women look for in a man, I knew right away that I just had to scratch the surface of this topic on my blog. Why?  Simple.

A man is, if nothing else, defined by his purpose in life.

Go read that again.

Have you ever had an empty space inside, where you can just feel that something is missing but you just don’t know what? I would bet a lucky penny that lack of purpose is most likely the cause. Without a purpose, a man just cannot live at his full potential.

So are YOU a man of purpose?! Not sure?

Let’s try this:

• When you wake up in the morning, do you jump out of bed eager to start your day, or do you just strut along?
• How high are your energy levels while communicating with people and going about your normal day?
• Do you have any plans for next week? How about next month?
• Do you have goals and objectives written down for completion, or at least remind yourself of them constantly?
• How passionately do you feel about the things you do?

These are just a couple of simple questions, but I bet that as your were answering them your instinct told you how well on your path you are.

The bad news?

Well there is NO bad news. Even if you haven’t chosen your purpose, or if you feel you aren’t on the path to your life’s purpose, there is one simple thing you can do. Answer this question:

What are the things that you are extremely passionate about?

Out of all the things you thought about, your purpose should be related to one of them. Don’t worry if your not sure that’s what you want to do for the rest of your life, what you are looking for is a starting point!

If you don’t start somewhere, you will never get anywhere. Don’t forget that later down the road you may decide that the purpose you were fulfilling is done with, and that a new purpose seems to have appeared. Great!

Your life’s purpose, and by this I mean the way you see yourself and your life all the way at the end of the tunnel, is just that! It is what’s at the end of the tunnel. The path that leads to it, now that is what’s going to take you on one heck of a ride.

That path is the one which is going to throw challenges your way, and sometimes reject you, and all this other stuff that ultimately will mold you in to a better man. A true man of purpose.

This is a man who will not be controlled by fear, or by what others think, or give up after facing rejection, this is a man who has a strong sense of self because he knows what he wants, and he will fight for it every single day. When he gets up in the morning he just can’t wait to see what is going to come his way next, or who he will meet, or how he is going to take that one step closer to the picture at the end of the tunnel.

This gentleman, is a life worth living, and I assure you that living anything less than this, is missing out on all the fun and excitement of feeling completely alive.

If you do not know your purpose, find it out.. NOW.

Because that is where it all starts..

Do you know how to talk to people?

Talking to people is easy. Right? Anybody can do it. We open our mouths, make some sounds and boom, the other person understands what we said. That is the basic notion of talking to people, but what I want to talk about is the deeper meaning of a conversation.

Why do you have conversations? Sure some are to joke around, some are to make a point, some are short, some are long. But the short of it is that we try to get something across to someone else. If you want a cup of coffee, you ask for one, simple , but what if you are trying to make a point? What if you are trying to show your perspective on something?

One thing you will notice in men and women of purpose, is that they know how to comunicate effectively. This does not necessarily mean that they have a richer and broader vocabulary (which is a great tool by the way), but what it does mean is that they understand the dynamic of how things work.

They know that there is no way they can achieve with you, whatever it is that they are trying to achieve, unless they first try to see where you are coming from! Let me explain further.

I have an opinion that comunication skills are by far the most important skill you can have. In order for you to build long lasting relationships and trust in people, influence them, and be a leader, you must know how to comunicate.

It’s not rocket science, if a person feels that you really seek to understand them, they will value you more, and again place more value on what you have to say. It’s simple really.

So what can you do to start comunicating like a leader? How about this. The next time your friend or family member is telling you a story about x or y subject, instead being inside your head judging and all that useless crap, how about if you put your ideas aside, and only tried to understand them. To try on their shoes, and look at the world from their perspective. If you do this, you will gain a much deeper understanding about the person, and this understanding will enable you to comunicate much more effectively because you know where they are coming from.

I deeply encourage you to try this. The benefits it will bring you are great, and it will strenghten your realationships in all areas of your life.

“Seek first to understand, then to be understood”

-Stephen Covey

Start Here!

Alright, here’s how this works. We all have our goals in life. They can be physical, they can be fianancial, or they can be relashionship wise. Whatever it is, I want you to keep in mind that whatever is blocking you from reaching your goal, can only block you for so long. Why ?

Simple. Success isn’t for just a special few, there is no such thing as “you’re either born with it, or you’re not”. I don’t believe in that nonsense. Whatever your ambitions are, whatever your dreams are, they ARE possible for you to attain. This I promise you. With enough knowledge, hard work, and persistance, there isn’t a single thing that is impossible.

Knowledge has been around for ages. Life’s lessons and secrets have been around since forever. It’s nothing new. It’s the part of that equation that I can help you with, and that is the easiest to take care of. Now hard work and persistance are not for everyone, and are of course also essential.

This is exactly why most people never succeed in life.

I ask only one thing of you, I ask that you admit to yourself that you and ONLY you are responsible for your current situation. Don’t fool yourself into being a victim. Take responsibility for your life, only then can you start on your path to taking control of your life and fighting for your dreams. Don’t make excuses and blame others.

One thing history has taught us is that no matter where you start in life, or how bad your current situation may be, you CAN be master of your destiny and reach for your dreams.

If you have any comments you would like to make, please do so, or send me an e-mail. I am here for you.

God bless.

FEAR

“I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse!”

Gotta love it. Who can possibly not like the Godfather.

What are YOU afraid of? hm? Come on, let’s get serious here. What are you in fear of? What is it that is stopping you from reaching your full potencial? I want to know. I want to know because, I want to help you, and I want to help you because, I have been there too!

I know from personal experience that fear can actually paralise you. It can mess with your mind. It can guide you into -not- doing the thing you are supposed to do, and I could come up with a million diferent examples, but I’m pretty sure you have a couple in your head already. Use those.

You know, fear isn’t really so bad once you get to know it. Have you read yesterday’s quote? Good!

I want you to think about something for a second, I want you to imagine Armstrong, before setting off for the moon. Do you think he was scared? How about Donald Trump before making a multi-million dollar deal? Do you think Rosa Parks was afraid to go and sit in the front of the bus? All these people have this in common: they did not let fear rule their life!

It is precisely because they did not let fear rule their life, that we even know their names. Only those who are courageous stand out, and make their dreams come true. If you give in to fear you will live a second rate life, a life which is dominated by fear.

I invite you to take control of your life and of yourself. There is no way you can become a real man if you don’t face your fears head on. This I promise you. Living out of your comfort zone, and constantly pushing your boundarys, is quite possibly the single most important thing you can do to challenge yourself, and force yourself to grow and become a more valueable individual.

As they say, the only thing to fear is fear itself. Conquering your fears will set you free, and allow you to live a life of true freedom. People will respect you more, and do you know why? Because everybody lets fear interfere with their life. And when we see those special few who fight against it, we secretly cheer them on, and admire them because they are doing what we sometimes don’t have the guts to do.

But I can assure you, if you get to know your fear, if you learn to experience that fantastic feeling, tame it, and make it your best friend, you will learn that it is a natural part of you, and you will use it to your benefit instead of fighting against it.

Start living a life of truth and you will reap the infinite rewards it brings.

Have a great week!

Quote of the day

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence

of fear.

—Mark Twain