If you are reading this or listening to this or watching a video of this message, then you already have the superpower in your possession.

Simply click the share or the recommend button, or tell a friend about this, or email a link to this post, and you are using your superpower.

Seems simplistic right?

But spreading an idea is not only a superpower, it is the most important superpower that we have as individuals.

THE MOST IMPORTANT SUPERPOWER YOU HAVE IS YOUR ABILITY TO CREATE CHANGE

Your ability to participate in the spreading of ideas is how you can change anything. It is what can change everything. But using this superpower is a choice. You have to choose what you pass on wisely. The same superpower in the wrong hands, with the wrong message, becomes a super villain.

YOU ALREADY HAVE EVERYTHING YOU NEED

Sure, you could add on a cape or an invisible jet or a beacon in the night. You could learn how to craft a great tweet or email to pass on this idea. (say your cape) Or maybe you are an amazing graphic designer who can turn this title into a graphic that everyone will share on Pinterest (say your invisible jet). Or maybe you are an influential speaker who can share this idea with a captive audience (say your beacon in the night). But your don’t need any of these.

YOUR SUPERPOWER IS YOUR ABILITY TO SHARE AN IDEA WITH ONE PERSON

All you need to do is is share an idea with one other person. Text them. Pick up the phone and call them. This is how ideas maneuver. From person to person, one mind to the next.

Many of us make the mistake of thinking that we are telling a hundred people an idea if we send an email to a list or write a post like this one, but what we are really doing is sharing an idea with a hundred individuals, one person at a time.

So if you have an idea, or you are in love with an idea, share it. And witness your superpower in action.

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CHAOS

We are surrounded by chaos. Even with all of the focus on simplicity in the design of the objects that surround us, the world beneath this veil of ease is growing infinitely more complex. And with that complexity comes more unpredictability.

Things that we could never have imagined lurk around every corner. And not just the unknown, but the unknowable. So why do so many of us choose to focus our energies on things far outside of our sphere of influence?

CHAOS, CONTROL. CHAOS, CONTROL.

Most of the world is outside of our control. Most of the world is chaotic.

But within that chaos lives a tiny pocket of potential, constraint. We can choose to constrain our thinking to the very few things that we do have control over, and this allows us to evoke our potential with more clarity because we are not paying attention to the chaos, we are paying attention to the things that we can influence.

And by placing this kind of constraint on ourselves, by choosing to exclude the chaos from our line of sight, we become much more effective in everything that we do.

 

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SELF TALK

We all do it. Most of us can’t remember a time when we didn’t. We all give ourselves pep talks and try to use the best possible words to convince our bodies and our minds to do the things that we know we need to do.

BUT THE MOST COMMON SELF TALK WE HAVE ALL BEEN TAUGHT MIGHT BE WRONG

Imagine you are the little engine that could, and you are facing some very difficult challenge, say a mountain, and you need one of your own personal pep talks.

Which one of these phrases would you use for you inner monologue?

1. I think I can.
2. I know I can.
3. Yes I can!

THE BEST ANSWER MAY TURN OUT TO BE NONE OF THE ABOVE

The reason I am thinking about this today is that I was helping my daughter with her reading and when she came to a word she didn’t know she said: I can’t do it.

Well, of course I broke out the the story of the little engine that could and told her to say: I think I can.

But right after I used the word think she proceeded to tell me that she had something better to say: I know I can.

And then from the other room my son broke in with the words that they use in his martial arts training: Yes I can!

But the problem is not with “think” or “know” or “Yes”.

THE PROBLEM IS WITH THE WORD I

When many of us are facing an extremely difficult challenge, we actually don’t use I. We switch from the first person (I) to the second person (You).

We say: You can do it.

Not: I can do it.

I first learned about this idea from a study published last month. You can see the write up here — How “You can do it!” Beats “I can do it”.

And when I thought about it, the idea seems to have validity. At least for me. I know that I switch over to the second person when I am really pushing myself. But I am still stuck on passing down the old wisdom. But I can change. Err, I mean. You can change. (Already feeling better about this.)

So maybe we should be trying to use this more. Maybe the self talk we need is the not the kind that comes from within. Maybe the kind of talk that we need comes from just a little outside of within. Kind of like our own personal boxing coach, standing in the corner of our minds, telling us that we can do it.

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I LOVE YOU

This week I got an email from a friend of mine and it was one of the kindest and most helpful emails I have ever received. It was like he sat down to write the email and thought to himself, I love this person, what can I do to help him in ways that he needs to be helped.

And this got me to thinking, what if every time we approached someone, whether by email, or on the street, or even someone very close to us, what if we imagined ourselves saying: I love you, how can I help?

Imagine how this could change the conversations we have. If our first words to each other came from a place of love and service, we could bypass many of the awkward moments in our lives.

But this is so hard to do. And not even just hard to do, it’s hard to remember to do. We all have our own inner monologue guiding us through the day and when we see another person coming, or we enter a room with other people, we very easily blurt out some trivial greeting, or what is on our mind right at that exact moment.

HOW CAN I HELP?

What if we just paused for 2 seconds and silently said: I love you, how can I help?

Then our greeting might not be so trivial. Maybe we would remember that their mother is sick, or they have a huge project due. We could ask them about those things, and then listen.

Listen deeply.

Listen with intent to agree.

Listen for how we can help them in ways that they need to be helped and not for the ways that we think help is needed.

I love you, how can I help?

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When we are stuck, it can be so easy to spin our wheels trying to figure out the best way forward. After all, we don’t want to make the same mistakes that got us stuck in the first place. And we don’t want to move forward without without a plan.

But most of all we don’t want to get stuck in the waiting place.

So what can we do? We can change gears and move forward. Slowly in the beginning, and then ramping back up as we are able. We can move forward without having perfect information. We can iterate along the way. We can just keep going and refuse to get stuck. If you say no to nothing else in your life (and you should say no to a lot), then say no to being stuck.

Being stuck in the waiting place will only weigh you down and eventually you will find yourself surrounded by other people who are stuck there too. And pretty the waiting place becomes, well, just the place.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. We get stuck because we are hurt or angry. We get stuck because we are still trying to see the world as we would like it to be and not how it is. But we will never gain mastery over our world by controlling it, by trying to bend it to our will. We can only gain mastery over our world through process. Through action. By moving forward.

So even if we are not ready to let go of the anger or the hurt, we can still move forward. We can choose action over inaction. We already know what needs to be done, we just need to do the work.

And in time, we will be ready to let go, we will be able to forgive. But by focusing on the work and the process, we will begin to see these old problems with new eyes and when the next challenge comes along we will already know what we need to do. Move forward.

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We are only given so much time on this earth. We all know this. But it is very hard to place this knowledge in the context of our daily existence. The roles that we have created for ourselves and the checklists that we have made in support of these roles often keep us too busy to pay attention to the moment that we will pass from this world.

In our communities no one really likes to talk about it all that much. Many people find that even the idea of the topic is just too depressing to consider. But what if we did the opposite? What if we focused on death? What if we really considered the moment of our passing and made practicing for it a part of our daily rituals?

This is exactly what Stuart Davis does. He practices what he calls little death exercises. It is a way of looking at the impermanence of all things and making that fact a part of who we are. By integrating the inevitable with the present moment and connecting them, we allow ourselves the gift of seeing things fall away as a natural part of life.

Here is a clip from my recent podcast with Stuart where he talks about this idea:

So while we are busy doing our work, or checking off the next item on our to-do list, we can practice the art of letting go. We all have things entering and exiting our lives at various times and by seeing those things as little rehearsals for death, we remind ourselves of what is essential. We are better able to see what really matters to us. And when we are able to remember what really matters, we can spend our time in the service of those ideals.

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Taco Tuesday is now Freedom Friday. On a Tuesday. You are all now free to build whatever you want.
So instead of taking the time to read any further please sto
 
 
 
Are you still reading this?
Really, you are free to build whatever you want. Taco Tuesday is over. Freedom Friday is here. To stay. We are all the special. So go ahead, my feelings won’t be hurt. Stop reading and star
 
 
 
 
 
 
STILL here???
Start, that’s where we left off right? Well, go on, dive in! Start something, build something, organize something, take away something, put it back, scale it down, dream it bigger and then start all over again and then dream it even bigger than before and when you are done tear it down and leave it in pieces so the next person to come along will have the same freedom that you have now but take some pictures and tell them the story of how you did it so they will have a place to begin, or better yet start building together and you can both create something that no one has ever seen before or would have ever thought possible.

( Oh, one more thing – you can even do this on a Monday)

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“Wisdom is know what to do next, skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it.”

– David Starr Jordan

BE VIRTUOUS

I came across this quote a few weeks ago and now I have a slightly modified version of it (see below) on my iPhone, and on my desktop. I realized that we are all talking about gaining wisdom and skills and while these are extremely important, the last, and the most important piece of the puzzle is the part that almost  no one is talking about. Virtue.

We are living in a time where there is no shortage of information. No shortage of ideas. There is inspiration everywhere we turn. (I found this stenciled on the trashcan outside of my local Trader Joe’s)

But all of this information and inspiration will not change the world in the slightest if we do not act on it, if we are not virtuous.

In the latest episode of the Discover The Road podcast my friend Joel Martin had this to say:

“Everyday there’s another opportunity to challenge yourself with.”

So the challenge I have given myself is to be virtuous. Everyday. And I know it will not be easy. And I know there are days that I will not succeed. But when I do not live up to my own standards, I will forgive myself and move on.

STEP BY STEP

For example, if we want to get to the top of a very long and steep staircase, how do we do it?

• We know what to do next (Wisdom): Put our foot on the first step and begin to climb.
• We know how to do it (Skill): Steady ourselves and put one foot after the other and do not stop until we reach the top.
• But to get to the top, we must act, we must  place our feet firmly on the steps and physically move our body upwards. (Virtue)

We know what to do. We know how to do it. We just need to do it.

Be virtuous. Step by step.

Dear Developers,

Thank you for your awesomeness.

No really, I meant it. I couldn’t have done any of this without you.
You have given me more than I can ever give back. So I hope that you will accept my humble gratitude for all of the long hours and late nights that you have spent making my creative life easier, more fun, and quite simply, better.

Gratefully,
Kirk

THANK YOU

I have been meaning to write this letter since April. That is about the time I started using all kinds of services on the web to build the platform for Discover The Road. But I have been so busy having creating with all of these amazing resources that the idea for writing this post was just another “get to soon” note in Evernote. (Case in point, Thank you to all of the folks at Evernote for being my digital brain.)

But the more I thought about this over the last month, I began to realize just how frictionless the creation of nearly everything has become. And just how beautiful we can all make things with a few simple tweaks.

And all of this ease is thanks to the incredible of the work of all of the developers who are spending their precious time on this earth working to make the tools that we all use everyday the most effective and yet seemingly effortless tools that the world has ever known.

And it just keeps getting better. Here is a short list of some of the services that I have been using lately. Most of these are free for me, some I pay for, but the cost is so small when you compare it to the enormous benefit that I receive.

• Evernote (As I said, my digital brain)
• WordPress (How I publish)
• Bluehost (Where it all sits)
• Trello (New to this but it has already improved my wordflow)
• Aweber (Nice responsive emails)
• Bitly (How I make the long links better looking and track them)
• Soundcloud (Love the embedding, matching the player to my site)
• Libsyn (Like my own personal radio station)
• Buffer (New to this to but wow is this easy)
• Canva (Making design uber simple)
• Filament (Makes it so easy to share from any post on my site)
• Sumome (love the simple popup with a smart sense)
• Medium (Honestly, where do I start? just beautiful work.)
• Vimeo (The best looking video and embedding tools)
• And of course the entire social web…Youtube, Twitter ,Facebook, Linkedin, Pinterest and so on….

And this list does include the programs, the apps, the people at say – Apple or Google. If I was going to make a list of all of the essential tools that I use day in and day out to feed my family, to be creative, to learn more about anything in the whole world that I am curious about in mere moments, I would be here for hours. Let me just say that I am grateful to be alive at what I consider the greatest time in history to be creating anything.
(And thank you to Aleksi Tappura via Unsplash for the photo above!)

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How we perceive the world is the most basic thing we do. We let in light and sound and smells. We step out onto the hot sand with our bare feet and feel the heat against our skin. But we are always living at the edge of what is actually there. Our minds have the amazing ability to interrupt the world in ways that, while they may not always be accurate, help us get through the day.

If you look at the picture above, the squares marked A and B are the same color but our perception is corrected by the shadow of the cylinder.

Philosophers throughout time have tried to make sense of these faulty mechanisms that we are each living with, and they have given us clues as to how we can best transcend this crack in the pavement of our humanality. One of my favorites is Schopenhauer.

In The World As Will And Representation he says that we can suspend our desires (our willing), for brief moments through aesthetic contemplation. By considering what is beautiful about something, or by contemplating the nature of something, such a transition is possible. We can move: “…from the common knowledge of particular things to knowledge of the idea…” And in these moments we can no longer “…separate the perceiver from the perception.”

So for me it does not matter that our perception is faulty. It still allows for this incredible transition from the knowledge of things, to the knowledge of the idea. And when we get a glimpse of this knowledge, we feel a sense of renewed purpose. We feel a sense that we are not just individuals, but part of a continuum. A deep and integral part of something mysterious that we can only partailly explain by means our our limited tools of perception.

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