The Q-Wave: November Edition

Welcome to this month's Q Wave.?

There was a bumper sticker on the back of a Jeep that said, "The journey is the destination." Now, that's a fascinating concept. The journey is the destination. How do we do what was said in the movie Dead Poets Society, carpe diem? How do we seize the day? How do we keep the day really important to us? How do we make it a priority? How do we keep our passion? How do we keep our focus? Now, Steve Jobs, he is quoted saying that, "Keeping our focus is about saying no. It's about saying no to the hundreds of good ideas, to make sure that we stay focused on the best ideas." Now, a key in life to staying passionate is to say no. If you want to make the journey the destination, if you want to make the journey of your life the destination, it comes from saying no.

Now, you have to decide. You have to decide, D-E-C-I-D-E. You have to decide to remove the things from your life that are not important. So DECIDE is the mnemonic. If you want to stay focused and intentional about how to live your life, DECIDE. The D stands for distractions. You have to remove the distractions from your life. That means you have to identify what's deeply important to you, and anything that blocks you from that, you should eliminate from your life. E is your ego. Ego is your degree of self importance, and not embracing humility is part of this journey. The C stands for criticism and that doesn't just mean criticism of others. It means criticism of yourself. Now, a very powerful tool is to not externalize negativity. What does that mean? Of course, we're going to have thoughts that come into our head from time to time that are not empowering. Our job is to not externalize them because it makes them between 40 and 70 times more powerful, based on research out of Harvard. So don't criticize yourself. Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others.

DECIDE, D-E-C, I is an indulgence. Now, indulgence has a couple of different definitions. I'd suggest to you that indulgence is the opposite of discipline. If you're disciplined, then you set your intention in life. Now, there are four disciplines, and the disciplines are A, B, C, D. Discipline A is accepting responsibility, that I'm 100% in charge of my life. Discipline B is balance. You have to have a disciplined use of discipline to keep your life in balance. C stands for commitment to truth. You have to want to know the facts and what's deeply honest. And D is delayed gratification.

DECIDE, D-E-C-I-D, the next D is drama. Now, drama, as defined by myself, is excessive or unnecessary conflict. Now, there are some people who love drama, unnecessary or exaggerated conflict. And some people thrive in that environment. I choose to eliminate that from my life. And the last E is excuses. If you want to live an optimal life, you have to get the excuses out of your head. Realize, "I'm responsible for my life." Don't blame other people for things.

So how do we keep the journey as the destination? How do we love our lives? Well, you decide to. A quote that was hanging on the wall the last time I was in the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas said this. It said, "Now is my favorite place to be." How do we stay in the moment? Well, a huge part of it is being intentional about eliminating the things that distract you from the moment, that takes you from the moment. Remember, guys, God gave us our brains to use.

And one of the biggest things we can focus on is where we choose to stay cognitively. We can go back in the past. We could, and there's value to that. There's value to looking at past behavior to predict how the future will be. But there's value, as long as it's leveraging your behavior and not harming your behavior, not depressing you, or making you sad. Things happen in our past. Now, to ignore them is not allowing us to learn from our past. If you have something in your past that's painful, it is important to heal from that. And to learn the lessons from that to allow you to grow.

Now, we could project into the future. We could live in the future, and there's value to that. There's value to setting goals. There's value to that, as long as it's empowering, not disempowering. Too many of us escape from the present into the future because, either out of ignorance that they don't know that they're doing it, or it's compensating. They don't want to accept what's happening in the moment. Now, we can use our brain to stay very present and very in the moment. And when we do that, there's no fear. There's peace. So God gave us brains to use so we can decide where we spend our time in the past, present, and future. And taking time to meditate and really staying present in the moment. Have you ever been so intently focused on something that you lost track of time? Whether it was a movie, a song, a relationship, an intimate encounter. We can control that with where we spend our time and how we use our mind.

Guys, thanks for reading this month's Q Wave.