Most from experience some of them I heard in passing

Many of them I'm still practicing, but all of them I do believe are true

Life is not easy. It is not. Don't try to make it that way.

life's not fair, it never was, it isn't now and it won't ever be.

Do not fall into the trap

the entitlement trap

a feeling like you're a victim

You are not

get over it and get on with it

So the question that we gotta ask ourselves is what success is to us? what success is to you?

Is it more money? That's fine? I got nothing against money

Maybe it's a healthy family.

Maybe it's a happy marriage. Maybe it's to help others to be famous, to be spiritually sound

Leave the world a little bit better place than you found it

Continue to ask yourself that question

now your answer may change over time and that's fine

but do yourself this favor

Whatever your answer is don't choose anything that will jeopardize yourself

Prioritize who you are who you want to be

and don't spend time with anything that antagonizes your character

Be brave take the hill, but first answer that question what's my hill?

So first we have to define success for ourselves

And then we have to put in the work to maintain it

Make that daily tally

Tend to our garden.

keep the things that are important to us in good shape

Where you are not is as important as where you are

And it's just as important where we are not as it is where we are

Look the first step that leads to our identity in life

Is usually not

I know who I am. I know who I am.

that's not the first step. The first steps is usually I know who I am not.

Process of elimination

Defining ourselves by what we are not is the first step that leads us to really knowing who we are

You know that group of friends that you hang out with?

That really might not bring out the best in you?

You know, they they gossip too much, or they kind of shady.

They really aren't gonna be there for you in a pinch

Or how about that bar that we keep going to, that we always seem to have the worst hangover from?

or that computer screen

right? the computer screen that keeps giving us an excuse not to get out of the house

And engage with the world and get some real human interaction

Or how about that food that would keep eating?

stuff that taste so good going down, but makes us feel like crap the next week

We feel lethargic we keep putting on weight

Well, those people, those places, those things.

Stop giving them your time and energy.

Just don't go there. I mean put them down

And when you do this, when you do put them down, when you quit going there

When you quit giving them your time you inadvertently find yourself spending more time and in more places

That are healthy for you. that bring you more joy

Why?

Because you've just eliminated the whos, the wheres, the whats and the whens

that were keeping you from your identity

Trust me too many options.

I promise that too many options will make a tyrant of us all

So get rid of the excess

the wasted time

Decrease your options

If you do this you will have accidentally,

Almost innocently,

put in front of you, what is important

By process Elimination.

knowing who we are is hard

It's hard

Give yourself a break

Eliminate who you are not first

And you'll find yourself where you need to be

Instead of creating outcomes to take from us,

let's create more outcomes that pay us back

Fill us up

Keep your fire lit, turn you on,

for the most amount of time in your future

We try our best we don't always do our best

our architecture

Is a verb as well

Since we are the architects of our own lives

Let's study the habits, the practices, the routines that we have that lead to and feed our success

our joy

Our honest pain

Our laughter

Our earned tears

let's dissect that, and give thanks for those things

and when we do that guess what happens?

we get better at them

And we have more to dissect

Be discerning

choose it

because you want it

do it because you want to

We're gonna make mistakes

You've got to own them

Then you got to make amends

And then you got to move on

guilt and regret kills many a man before their time

So turn the page, get off the ride

You are the author of the book of your life