There’s something that is at an all-time high.
It’s not Apple’s market cap.
It’s not the GDP of the latest emerging market.
It’s not Ja Morant’s vertical leap.
It’s not the number of LinkedIn posts that start with: “I’m honored to announce..”
And It’s definitely not the number of NFTs minted each day.
Oh no.
It’s something you can’t see, smell, or touch. I’m not talking about the metaverse.
It’s something more elusive. It’s all around. Like the air you breathe. It’s there, but our digital zombie generation does not talk about it much.
Perhaps, you have felt it before.
It comes and goes.
A rising in your chest.
A tightness in your gut.
A jarring past thought.
Yeah.
It is unhappiness.
And you’re not the only one, it’s becoming a global crisis.
The Elephant in the Room
Global unhappiness is on the rise.
There is a growing divide and it’s not just related to income anymore.
It’s a divide in the way of life – a “wellbeing divide”.
Happiness is linked to finance, meaningful work, good nutrition, close social ties, and safe communities.
The people that tend to have a good life have all these bases covered.
On the other end of the spectrum are those that don’t find meaning in their work (or don’t have work at all), struggle financially, don’t have strong social ties, are malnourished, and don’t feel safe.
All these combined is a cocktail of unhappiness.
In between the extreme, is a spectrum of people that lack in one area or another of wellbeing.
Guess who is not paying attention?
You guessed it: the politicians, the corporations, the so-called leaders out there. Your happiness is your job.
With the ocean of information that we’re submerged in, most people don’t even know where to start.
You can get to it with knowledge of yourself, adjusting your habits, and contributing your work.
Change your life by allowing your inner creativity to flourish.
All you need to do is rewrite your reality and tap into the underrated art of creative living.
7 Ways To ReWrite Your Reality
With the ReWrite framework, you would start becoming an expert in recognizing what’s holding you back on a daily basis.
You will see resistance everywhere and you’d know exactly what you need to do to get over the hump. You’ll overcome your self-doubt and build real confidence.
Like a magician, you’ll create time and find focus with wellness practices that facilitate your growth.
Most importantly you will cultivate meaning in your life that makes life more fulfilling.
Here are the 7 steps to rewrite your life and adopt the underrated art of reactive living.
- Recognize
- Engage
- Workshop
- Resolve
- Integrate
- Think & Reflect
- Educate
Recognize
Know the giant that you are up against.
One of the hardest things a lot of people struggle with is meeting strangers and making new friends.
Over the last 7 years, my mornings have started with meeting strangers.
I have to get on a lot of sales calls for my advisory business, meeting people I have never met before.
That’s how I built my business.
Thousands of emails sent.
Multiple meetings booked.
At the last minute when I’m about to get on the call, that’s when fear rears its ugly head. I don’t want to do the call anymore.
Fear is a mutha..*shut your mouth*
The enemy that is stopping you from achieving the life you want is within.
It’s called resistance.
You see, we have two lives:
- the life we live
- and the (unlived) life within us that we want to live.
Between the two stands resistance. Resistance is the real enemy
Until we acknowledge it, we will continue to procrastinate, overthink, and distract ourselves.
Resistance is invisible, everywhere, and ruthless. It is an equal-opportunity hater with one singular job – to stop you from doing your soul’s work.
It is the real matrix and Agent Smith is out to get you.
Recognize resistance in all its forms.
If you find yourself blaming “time,” “or a spouse,” “or friends that don’t support you.” There is a good chance that resistance has co-opted your mission.
The sooner you recognize it, the better.
Engage
Self-mastery is what you need.
One million cells die in your body every second.
Blink!
Just like that, another million – gone, replaced by new cells.
About 330 billion cells are replaced daily. This is equivalent to 1% of the total number of cells in your body.
Every 100 days, you replenish a new you.
Forget new year resolutions: new year, new you?
Nah. More like:
I got 99 days of problems.
And my past self ain’t one.
How much do you really know about yourself?
You have the power to choose happiness. It’s easy and hard at the same time.
Easy because you can easily tap into it. Hard because it requires discipline and long-term thinking.
Understanding who you are in the immersive resistance atmosphere is important.
The knowledge of where you are, where you want to go, and the gap to get there is what brings harmony and clarity.
Spend time understanding how your body and mind works. Investigate the recurring themes in your life to get direction.
Gain real confidence by detaching your self-worth from your ability to perform.
The path to true liberation is self-awareness and understanding how to find and nurture meaning in life.
Know thyself.
Create meaning in your life. External things are fleeting.
The real work of happiness that you seek is an inside job.
Workshop
Practice organizing the chaos around you.
Whenever I hear the word practice, I have to repeat it with a high-pitched voice as I squint my eyes.
“You talkin’ bout practice?”
It’s my rendition of the now-famous interview of Allen Iverson pushing back at reporters questioning the work ethic of the NBA Hall of Famer.
Through the years, I have realized that most of the entrepreneurs, creatives, and innovators I find myself around are just practicing.
There is a 3-step process to living your most creative, productive and fulfilled life.
- Start
- Organize
- Connect
When we decide to act, providence comes to our aid. Once you commit, things start to happen to support you towards your goal.
You have to create an enabling environment to develop and nurture your interests easily.
Commit to your process and start.
Develop your system to bring order to the chaos.
Prioritize getting into flow states over “output-focused” productivity.
Remember to take breaks and allow your mind to wander too.
“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”
~ Michelangelo
Start and show up. No one is going to do it for you.
Resolve
Develop resolve. Commit and ship your work.
How many ideas does it take to get to a great one?
2,000.
That’s according to Jeremy Utley and Perry Klebahn, co-directors at Stanford’s Institute of Design and co-authors of the book, IDEAFLOW.
2000-to-1 is what they call the “Idea Ratio.”
What gets great ideas to reality is consistency and volume.
Become an expert and not a planner. Deepen your expertise at completing.
Resistance, that ruthless and relentless raccoon, shows up the most at the end.
Push through!!!
The goal is to ship.
The goal is to publish.
Understand every project has a plateau – know how to conserve and get through.
Don’t fall for the enthusiasm trap. Always advertise your action steps and deprioritize distractions.
“Being self-made means never making an excuse as to why you can’t take steps toward whatever your goal is.”
~ Nipsey Hussle
Developing a system is what will help you get to your goals with ease.
Integrate
“Just…do it for your friends.”
That’s what my music professor at Stanford said on the last day of my digital music class.
“Just do it for your friends. Make your music for them”
I thought he was underhandedly telling us – students – that our music was not good enough to be enjoyed by anyone beyond our small friend circles. I watched him from the back of class with skepticism.
But the more he talked, the more I realized he was being sincere.
I later understood his wise words.
He was telling us to
Forge on
Be humble
Do it for “the love” and for a few friends.
The goal of differentiating yourself with your skill and expertise is to re-integrate with the whole.
You go inward to go outward.
You can only do this by letting go of your cherished work.
The labor of love that you hold so dear to your heart can only make a contribution if it is shared with the world.
To do this, overcome your fear of judgment and detach from the outcome.
“The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.”
~ Maya Angelou
Let go and connect.
Think & Reflect
Bring it full circle with reflection
After writing my first book, Press Play, I got very depressed.
It was the beginning of 2020. Business had slowed down and I had just spent the last six months shuffling between sales calls, executing projects, and writing a book about how music sparks change in communities.
Although I was keeping a positive tone in my writing, I had gone down a rabbit hole of researching inequality and oppression around the world.
I was writing a book to inspire hope but I had lost hope myself.
While the dark cloud hovered, I stumbled across an article that described the feeling of “post-creation depression.”
There was something that helped me out of that rut – more writing.
It was time to reflect.
The underrated art of creative living is about acting and reflecting.
It is a continuous process that feeds into one another.
Develop a consistent practice of action and reflection. Journaling helps.
Let your community keep you accountable too. Use feedback to facilitate growth.
Develop a good and sustainable pace of action and reflection.
Educate
Become a teacher of your experience.
A gardener of hope.
Teaching is in your future.
Remember you are the hero in your own journey.
Most heroes go through a similar journey.
The hero’s journey was developed by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero With A Thousand Faces.
Mr. Campbell found the hero starts in their “ordinary world.”
Then they get a call to adventure, where they enter the new world.
They go through trials and tribulations.
Conquer their enemy.
Then go back to their original world to share their learnings.
On this journey, you will learn things about yourself.
Your impact will be felt most when you go back to teach your community.
The greats always turn into teachers of their craft.
Do this with your stories.
Stories are the threads that bind the past, present, and future.
It is the way the human race thrives, nudging each generation onward.
Fanning the flame of hope. Saying to one another “We can make change. Tomorrow can be better than today.”
The pros become the masters of themselves when they teach.
“Storytelling is the ritual of a hopeful society.”
Become a gardener of hope.
Teach your experience.
Tell your story.
Final Thoughts
Create art and find people interested in their art.
That art can be music, a business, words on paper, or a community.
You just have to take a leap and start.
The truth is that you are here to make change but there’s no change without tension.
Competence is now a commodity. If you want to dwell on your competency, it is a race to the bottom. Competency is getting cheaper by the second.
Soon machines will be able to do what it took a team of competent people weeks to do in a few hours.
So where do you shift your attention?
Becoming a problem solver and using your creative mind. That’s where the value is.
Go create your art. Be generous. Do it like a pro.
Nurture the underrated art of creative living.
