You May Be Closer Than You Think

You May Be Closer Than You Think
Stargate

My chance encounter last week got me thinking about the barriers that separate us from success. How one lucky break can get us through to a dream job interview, a new social circle, a whole new venture. Singular moments where your world collides with possibility, proving you may be closer than you think to your dreams.

It’s like there’s a thin membrane that separates us from the next big level in our lives. Like that portal thingee in Stargate.  If we can just break through this thin barrier, we can step into another dimension of success, using the talent and experience  we already have.

Challenging The Laws Of Physics

Try this little experiment. Get a cup of water and try to float a paperclip on it. If you’re like most people and most paperclips, you will fail. It will sink to the bottom.

Now, take a second paperclip, bend the inside loop 90 degrees to form a letter ‘L’. Then place the first paperclip on this ‘L’ shaped clip and lower it gently to the water’s surface. If you’re like most people and most paperclips, it will now float on the surface.

Amazing right? How can this piece of metal float on water? It’s because of a thin membrane of surface tension caused by air pressure pushing down on the water.

How Surface Tension Keeps Us From What We Want

Like the membrane on top of water created by surface tension, you may be stuck behind a thin membrane separating you from success.

A flexible barrier caused by opposing simultaneous forces. The outside force, pushing inward, is life’s circumstances that keep you in check.  Lack of  time or money or knowing the right people. Things that can be solved with effort, patience, and a little luck.

On the inside pushing outward, is the pressure from your internal beliefs. You create this in your head, thinking the things you want are so far away and require huge shifts in your circumstances.

Self-limiting beliefs cause the internal pressure that forms the thin membrane separating us from our desires.

You May Be Closer Than You Think

So, what if we lessen the internal pressure? Suddenly the membrane weakens. Our thinking can pierce the pressure that holds us back. Then it’s just a matter of  hustle and patience and persistence. Things we have. Things we can control.

We need to see what’s possible, and listen to the little whispers of our deepest desires. Yet most of us are afraid of our desires. They’re scary because they challenge our current circumstances. We can’t be stand-up comedians because we have families to support. We can’t be wealthy because we’re afraid of losing money in the stock market. We can’t be artists because we can’t make a living right now with our music, our acting or our poetry.

How We Self Sabotage

Those fears keep us from doing what we can do – chip away, little by little, with the discretionary time we do have.

Our desires are so scary that we actually manufacture situations so we can tell the little whispers they’re not practical.

We procrastinate little unimportant things, like paperwork and filing deadlines, until they become urgent. Then we tell ourselves that we can’t chase our dreams. We have to do these other things or the lights will go off or the IRS will garnish our meager wages.

In the end, we’re so afraid of trying and failing that we create situations that rob us of the chance to try.  We tell the little whispers to be quiet and go away – until we retire, or our ships come in, or our big breaks materialize.

Little Breaks Are All We Need

Big breaks are great, but what we really need are little breaks. Little cracks in the membrane, enough to allow us to squeeze through. To taste enough success to know our talent is real, our skills are valuable, and our dreams are achievable.

If you reduce the internal pressure on your membrane, you can start poking holes in it. Then you can take action and breakthrough to the success that is waiting for you on the other side. 

Gloria Estefan sang it best:

Get on your feet, get up and make it happen

Get on your feet, stand up and take some action…

So get out your paperclips. Bend them, float them, and once you see how you can challenge the laws of physics, use their little pointy ends to poke holes. Holes big enough to step through – in the direction of your little whispered desires. Because your dreams may be closer than you think

 

The Gift of a Chance Encounter

Chance Encounter
My Beach Haul

Yesterday was my birthday, so being a good Manic Impressive I did the only reasonable thing. I ditched work and drove to the beach. My particular piece of heaven is San Gregorio State Beach, just 39 miles from my front door. It’s where I go whenever I need to relax, recharge, and get inspired. Or get a gift of a Chance Encounter.

Before I could even get out of the parking lot, a man called out to me and struck up a conversation. He was out from Connecticut visiting his daughter at Stanford, and decided to check out the beach as a little adventure on his birthday.

I pulled out my driver’s license, shoved it at him and said, “you mean our birthday?” My instant new best friend Terry and I spent the next hour enjoying each other’s company. I gave him a tour of my favorite spots while we reveled in the beauty of the beach and our serendipitous meeting.

A Chance Encounter

What are the odds? Two men from opposite sides of the country who share a birthday, meet by chance on that very day. I could not get past the amazing coincidence. Neither of us were planning on being in that spot at that time. I only decided to go 90 minutes earlier. He was just wandering down Highway 1 on a whim. Continue reading The Gift of a Chance Encounter

One Man’s Trash Is Another Man’s Treasure

One Man's Trash Is Another Man's Treasure As I’m grinding through my clutter, I’m tempted to hold onto things and sell them. I know my trash can be someone else’s treasure, but this urge is often just a stalling tactic to protect my hoard.  Yet every now and then it works.

Like when I got up on a stepladder to inspect the beams in our ceiling.  Turns out they were not rough-hewn hardwood as they appeared. They were fake molded styrofoam. They’d fooled us for years, but the minute my wife found out they weren’t real, they had to go. Stat.

So we removed the beams and scraped the “popcorn” texture ourselves, to save money before hiring a painter to re-do our ceilings. It turned out to be a tough, messy job.

But I ended up with over a dozen of these cool fake beams. I was mesmerized with the possibilities. They looked genuine but weighed next to nothing, and you could cut them with a putty knife. I could build a fort, a cool 4th of July float, or sell them for gobs of cash. Continue reading One Man’s Trash Is Another Man’s Treasure

3 Damn Good Reasons To Clear Out Your Clutter

Most creative people I know have a bit of clutter in their homes. Sometimes the more brilliant and innovative you are, the more you’ll struggle to keep the crap at bay. Some of us accept this as part of our natures. But there are lots of good reasons to clear out your clutter.

This is my garage. The picture will be a Rorschach test for you. If you’re neat and tidy you’ll cringe at the mess. If you’re messy you’ll think it’s pretty organized. If you’re my wife, you’ll run inside the house and yell, “How’d you get the car in there?”

12 years ago we turned the garage into a playroom for our kid. It was sweet and cozy. 3 years later we had to cram all our furniture in there during a remodel. The work took a matter of months, but the garage never recovered. It turned dank and hoardy. Continue reading 3 Damn Good Reasons To Clear Out Your Clutter