Morning Mastery: Gates and Gratitude

Good morning. Steve Barnes here with the names of things, the labels of things change. The basic intent always stays the same. Call it morning mastery today. I just woke up today feeling like the conversation I wanted to have with you, tea, and clearing my mind out was really about looking at any arena of your life where you have achieved and then taking those skills and transferring them to another arena of your life. In order to do that, we use certain tools, various models, ways of looking at things. And what I invite you to do is to take a look at areas of your life where you have accomplished the things that you really wanted and see how you used these different tools there because that's getting a hold of the controls of your own mind. Lots of different tools to try to do the same thing, which is to find the area of life where you are already excellent and transfer that to the arenas in which you need more assistance. Now, being Steven Barnes and father of life, writing and fire dance and things like that, I'm going to ask you to look at three different arenas. Your body, your career, and your emotions, your relationships. All you have to do is find a spark of what you have done and what you have done well, and then begin to breathe on that spark and feed it and then build it up to a flame so that it begins to burn anything that, that you're doing. You know, as Musashi Miyamoto said, learn one thing, know one thing, know 10,000 things. So let's look at this. You know, I woke up this morning, the first thing I do is go through the kind of the magic formula to get myself, you know, what, what is it that I need to do today and how do I need to do it? I know that my primary thing is there are business things, there are family things, and there are physical things. And I have a map for each of those. I will take action in each of those. I have confidence that I'll take action in. In the, you know, based upon past experience, the best indicator of the future is the past. If your past is not doing what it is, that is not accomplishing what it is that you need to do. If you need to go in a different direction, then you'll need to make some disruptions in your ordinary schedule. You know, you can't keep doing the same thing and expect different results. Today is gratitude Wednesday. M A G I C. So let's focus in on gratitude. I decided, okay, fine. So I went through that process and I found gratitude. And when I thought gratitude, I got a little pop of energy. So what I thought I would do is take a look at the three Gates, which in some ways is the most controversial thing to talk about. I'll tell you, I was surprised that it was controversial because every culture in the world gives lip service to caring about being honest and kind and efficient. But what's very clear is that when you ask people to commit to those things and to measure their. The quality of their lives partially by those things, It was fascinating and surprising how many people got upset with me, took issue with this. And since some of these people were good people, I mean, we're not talking about bad people trying to excuse bad behavior. In some cases, there were people I find very admirable, but people who are trapped in their anger enough that there's a part of them that enjoys the possibility of being unkind to someone who they think deserves it, who is willing to distort what is true in order to accomplish, let's say, a political aim. I noticed that about politicized people, that accomplishing the thing was more important than being honest about the thing. For some of them, the goal was more important than the means of reaching it. In that sense, they were not both considered to be of equal importance. Which is one of the reasons why I prefer the philosophical position, which is to determine what is true and then make your politics based upon that and your actions based upon that. I mean, politics to me, doesn't even exist until I'm dealing with other people. And even then there has to be a certain number of people I'm trying to convince them, and we're kind of voting on it. I think that if it's just two people, you're talking communication, not politics. If you're three people, you could argue, you know, but I would apply that. Is it true that everything is political? I mean, everything is also biology, and everything is also physics, and everything is also history, and everything is also martial arts. I mean, it's also gardening, it's also cooking. Any discipline followed deeply enough will connect to everything else. But the metaphors that one uses to explain the world to yourself and to others will say something about who you are and how you see things. And like I said, I have noticed this, that there is this problem that if your quarterback can get the football across the line, you don't care whether or not he kicks dogs, because what you want is that super bowl ring. I think that we need to ask questions about whether or not this is a valid way of being, whether it's a way of being you would advise your children to have. Whether or not you on your deathbed would look back over your life and think that you had done the right things. I believe that it is always possible to reach any righteous goal to maximize your chances of reaching any righteous goal. Because nothing can guarantee you while staying within the three gates. And I'm not saying that I always manage to do it. I just always care about it. I'm always committed to it. Even if I was by some third party, objective, divine point of view, always kind and true and efficient, there would be people who disagree. They would say that's not true and that's not being kind. And I think that that's not efficient and effective. So you have to be prepared to walk alone in that sense. But the flip side of that is that you better understand that there are going to be times no matter how hard you try, that you're going to be wrong, that what you're saying is not true, what you're doing is not kind and what you're dreaming is not efficient and effective. This is just the human condition and we have to drill deep and be prepared to defend what it is that we're doing. To people who are of sufficiently alike mind that their values and what they believe about the world is congruent, I would say that the thing to do, the one thing that's really interesting, is to find other people who have achieved similar goals to what you want to achieve, but have different politics and different philosophies about it, who have tried, who have done very different things about it. Because if they've really accomplished those things and if they accomplish those things kind of starting from where you started, they're different positions on these things will often be educational and often be very, very useful. And if you are talking to people who've accomplished more than you have, you know, they are fitter than you are and they are more, you know, they've been happily married for longer when you're still fighting to find a relationship. And they make more money doing something that is honorable and contributing. And they started with the same resources you started from. Those people are gold. You really want to look at them carefully. So if G is for gratitude, today, let's talk about why. Gratitude. When I talk about these things, people will often say, you know, I don't have anything to be grateful for. And to me they're, they're not, their eyes are not open. That doesn't pass the smell test. If they're telling the truth, then they're telling the truth as they see it. And I would suggest that you ask yourself the Question. If you can read, if you can listen to what I'm saying right now, if you can see me, then you have eyes and ears, and they work. And furthermore, if you can understand what I'm saying, you have a brain that is able to translate language into emotion and meaning and pictures, and you have some form of logic that enables you to put these things together and interpret them. You're telling me that you wouldn't miss any of those things. And if you would miss those things, then wouldn't it be useful to be grateful for them now? I mean, if you've got Internet access, when your Internet goes out, are you ticked off? If you're only emotionally moved when something goes wrong, but you can't feel a positive emotion for the things that are going right, do you realize how you're crippling yourself? Because you are. See, if you don't feel grateful. Morning tea. If you don't feel grateful for what you already have, if you don't feel grateful for the things, the positive things that have happened for you in your life, the people who love you, a healthy body. Do you have anything that you're grateful for? A friend? An experience? Are you grateful for something that happened in the pack? Find something. Because if you're not grateful for anything that's happened in your life, for anything that you have, it's going to be almost impossible for you to have faith that anything positive will happen in the future. Do that. And you have just zeroed out the magic formula. You zero out. You have a zero in faith and confidence. You have a zero in gratitude. So I can already predict before you even start, you're not going anywhere. You're not in the game. You're not on the path of actually achieving your goals in alignment with your values, which is the point of this. And you're certainly not on the path of mastery. And the path of mastery simply is not being perfect. Nobody's perfect. Although everyone can perfect. Let me say that again. No one is perfect, but everyone can perfect. We can all get better at the things that we care about if the definition of better is properly designed. So, for instance, if I define improving my body by using a larger percentage of my current potential, that all I can do is use as large a percentage of my current potential, even though my current potential changes over time. You know, age is undefeated, time is undefeated. You're going to run into those things. But if your commitment is to use the biggest percentage of what you've got, you can get better every day. If your goal is to Love yourself more, to love others more, to give more of yourself to others, to feel more connection to your own heart. You can get better at that every day. If your goal is to learn something new about marketing and sales and the improvement of your craft within the context of doing more with what you've got, then even if the raw potential of what you are has diminished, the percentage of what you can use continues to increase. So if you think about it that way, then you have a life path where no matter what happens, you can find some way to improve by 1% this week. And that's what this is all about, improving just 1%. Now, yesterday I wanted to do 111 pages of correction and my brain fried at about 70, you know, oh, well, maybe 65. Well, I did the best I could. I had to run out of the house to take care of some things. I had a business call that went long. I could beat myself up about that because I didn't meet my goal. But instead of that, it's like, oh, I didn't do that, but I was motivated to do it. Setting that goal helped me motivate myself to stay on track. Is it true that you have nothing to be grateful for? I suggest to you it is never true. Is it kind to believe you have nothing to be grateful for? Kind to who? Yourself. The little child inside you. You're saying that the kid inside you who has tried every day to do the best she can, the best he can, never did anything that was worth applause? Really? Are you going to do that to yourself? Because if you tell yourself that you don't have anything to be grateful for in life, you are demeaning and diminishing your own heart. And it is that child inside you who has the creativity and the aliveness that you will use to solve problems and accomplish things. And you just told that child, if you're 50 years old, 40 years old, 30 years old, 70 years old, and you look back over your life and you've had nothing to be grateful for, you've never accomplished anything the way you're saying it, you are spitting in the face of the little child in your heart who has tried so hard to be a good girl, good boy. And if you then say, now, we have this challenge coming up, I have this goal coming up. I want you to work for me. I want you to come up with ideas for me. What motivation does your heart, your child, your soul have to put itself out there to try to be creative, to come up with ideas? None. None. You are an abusive Parent to your own inner child. I hate to put it that way, but that is honestly truth the way I see it. And if you awake up to this, you can be kind to yourself in a way that perhaps you never have, or a way that you've forgotten how to have. So truth and kindness. You need to be grateful in order to have faith. You need to have faith in order to take action. And you need to take effective action in order to bring your dreams to life. And your dreams are always dreams of diminishing pain or increasing pleasure. No matter what you're doing, if you can figure out how that goal decreases your pain and increases your pleasure, you automatically find the motivation just by visualizing the pain more or visualizing the pleasure more. So move to the third thing. Is it useful? Think of gratitude. Well, I think that we've established that it is true that there are things you have to be grateful for. It is kind to yourself to be grateful. And it is useful. It's crazy useful to be grateful. Since all we want, if the meaning of life is to be joyful and of service and gratitude is an antidote for fear and stress, if the core meaning of our lives is to be joyful, that anything that brings joy to our life in a healthy way, in alignment with our values is useful. Simple as that. Accept joy as a goal and you know it is true that you have to approach it indirectly. You can't just, you know, chase stuff that triggers your endorphins. You can get into trouble like that. But you can do things that create long term pleasure, safety for yourself and your family, have principles of honor and dignity that you live up to, or you work to live up to every day. So in terms of gratitude, I think you can say that my position, and I'm willing to die on this hill, is that gratitude is the truth. We always have something grateful for that. Gratitude is kind to ourself and to others. Kind to others because you don't look around and see how many people don't believe in themselves, don't believe that the world will give them a chance to be happy, that the world will give them a chance to be successful according to their own values. The number of people who believe you can't make money because all the money is gone, or that rich people are always evil. All these things. All of these things. If you can be loving and healthy and successful and you can communicate to the world that you care about the people around you, you begin to radiate this thing. You are in alignment, I believe, with nature and people are looking for those who are in alignment with the external world, the internal world, who managing to find joy and success and health and happiness without hurting. Hurting the people around them without betraying their souls. You become a light in the darkness. And that's what I'm asking you to do. That what we're talking about here is true. It is kind. It is useful. When you apply it to all three aspects of your being, your body, your emotions, your mind. It is totally safe for you to be grateful. It is, you know, find something that you're grateful for about your body, something that you're grateful for about your emotions, something that you're in, your relationships, something that you're grateful for about your career, your hunting and gathering, your mind, the magic formula, mapper, model, action, gratitude, clear intention and confidence. You're on the path. So gratitude in for things that connect to the three major areas of our body is essential to the three gates. And when you meet people who tell you that they have nothing to be grateful for, know that they are lying to themselves. They are asleep. Help wake them up, because life is. Life is happening. Life is happening fast. Help them enjoy this day. Help them love this day. Give them enough love and enough support if they're willing to have faith in themselves. If you can set them on fire, they can set others on fire. It's the ego that burns in the fire of faith. Take care, be well, and find something to be grateful for today. And also, if you'd like to see how these principles connect to writing, I can connect them to anything, but Tananariv and I connect them specifically to our writing and our careers. If you'd like to see more about how this works, including a complete map of how writing works, how the arts work, how we transfer our emotions into language, into images that we can then sell to people to support our families, come to our workshop. Our first screenwriting workshop of the year will be on February 17th, and you can find out more about that at www.screenwritingwebinar.com.