Aerial View:

• Intro thoughts

• Mindful Minute: Pursuing transformation over goals

• Conscious Consumer: MANGONES

• Quote of the week

• 3 key questions to reflect on

Welcome back men. It’s Monday- setting the tone for the week with a quick 24 hour fast. Hoping to reduce a little inflammation and give my system a little digestive break so it can recover elsewhere as needed. Tough for me because my god do I love to eat.

Learning new lessons each week, good ones, bad ones, easy ones, painful ones. Whenever I struggle to feel learnings and draw conclusions in real time, I try to remind myself that the deepest most profound learnings aren’t typically revealed right away. They take time and deep reflection. Lot of deep reflection for me lately, around a handful of things- personal, professional, deeper purpose, all of it. I’ve found myself second-guessing my steps a bit more than I have in the past few years, which is an opportunity for learning, but brings a level of unfamiliar uncertainty/questioning that I am currently working through.

As long as I speak truthfully, both internally and externally, and align my actions with that truth, I believe I cannot fail. But since I am a human being, every once in a while some questioning/doubt creeps in. But onwards we must trudge lads! All will work out in due time!

Let’s jump into a little thought/writing exercise for tonight’s edition. Here we go!

Mindful Minute: Pursuing transformation over goals.

Instead of ferociously pursuing the targets themselves, we can strive to work at becoming the type of person that inevitably accomplishes those milestones and does so naturally, out of flow, not force.

Whatever your goals- life, business, financial, spiritual, anything, I ask of you to go inwards right now and think deeply on the following question; am I someone that I believe to be capable of accompishing these goals?

As always, be brutally honest with yourself.

Let’s go through the following questions here to direct this exercise.

I recommend grabbing a journal for this and writing out the answers to each question below.

1. What are my 1-3 most sought after goals right now?

2. Are my consistent actions taking me closer to these goals?

3. Describe the type of person that you think would have no problem gitting these goals.
-What does his typical day look like?
-Where does he go? 
-What does he do?
-How does his day differ on the weekends?
-What does he eat?
-Does he prioritize exercise? Sleep habits? 
-What’s his morning routine like? Evening routine?

4. What does this guy FEEL? Anxiety, fear shame? Confidence, energy, pride?

5. How does this person talk to himself? With kindness and grace? Or with anger and guilt? Is he patient with himself?

6. How does he communicate with others?

7. Does he hold himself accountable or is he embodying the common victim mindset?

Is this guy someone that can make big things happen? I bet there’s no doubt in your mind that he’d hit the goals that you’ve set for yourself.

Ok, now returning to you. I want you to think about how you stack up to the man you just described or envisioned. Are you him? Yes? No? Maybe somewhat, maybe not at all?

There is your goal. 

This is the target that you should be in relentless pursuit of. If you’re not sure where to start, go back to your answers to the questions from before. Assess where there is any inconsistency between your response and yourself.

Pick any one. Start there. Only there, one at a time. You just wrote the roadmap to achieving everything that you want, believe it or not. I’m not a big fan of explicit statements, but it really is that simple.

Rather than pursuing the goals themselves, we should aim our efforts at becoming the type of men capable of effortlessly accomplishing these goals.

You’ll then be able to take on whatever it is that you choose, and along the way, learn so much about yourself that you may find your current goals aren’t even what you really desire. The evolution of self is truly an incredible journey.

If you ever feel like you’ve gotten off track, come back to your roadmap. Chip away.

Navy SEAL’s often use the expression “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” If you’re feeling overwhelmed, just remember this.

Just do one little thing at a time. The compound effect is real and little actions lead to big results. Start small. Start now.

Conscious Consumer

Quote of the week

This is from Steve Jobs’ famous commencement speeches, think it was at Stanford? But it’s been ringing in my head lately, particularly the last line. It takes serious courage to listen to your gut and take action upon that which is in alignment with intuition. It can be fucking painful and make no sense emotionally, or logically, or perhaps both. Too often do we see those around us leading and living against their intuitive compass. I’ve been guilty of it myself. It is the norm in our country and is one of the easiest traps to fall into. Shutting out external opinions & pressures, and just blazing your own trail no matter what? Takes delirious, all-consuming levels of courage, yes. But what it also takes insane levels of sacrifice. Committing to a higher purpose and pursuing it at all costs, and then living it day in and day out until it’s your reality? Cannot be done with extreme courage, and extreme sacrifice.

Rise and Reflect - 3 Questions to Inspire Impactful Action and Critical Reflection

1. What goals do I have that are just “nice to have” goals? What about “need to have” goals, the ones that are unshakable and driven deep into your being?

2. Do I have concrete goals written out or in mind that my intentions and actions are aligned with?

3. What do these goals tell me that I value from life?

My Ask of You

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Thank you for being here.

Sails up, eyes open.

Until next time,
Dan Baird