The Best Years of Your Life… Now!

I have three cats:

Milu, a male is the oldest. Squeaky is a female manx rescue cat who’s been with us almost five years. Our newest edition is also a female, Kiki (A Somali) who is less than a year old and showed up at our door a few weeks ago.

Miles is mellow. He was brought home by me at 6 weeks of age. Squeaky is a rather small cat with a personality that fills up a room fast! She is possessive and quite prone to instantaneous 180 degree emotional change!

So here comes Kiki, who although young, is already twice as big as Squeaky.

Both of these cats had to fend for themselves before they came to live with my wife, Gwen, and I so I allow for their proclivity toward self preservation. It’s just that Squeaky goes to an extreme!

I’ve never seen so much energy expended on trying to remain aloof and in control! Even when she’s not in “attack mode” she lets her constant disapproval of the new cat be known in her every action.

This reminds me of certain people I’ve met through the years.

The ones who spend more time attempting to maintain an “image” or “attitude” that is obviously an act. These are the people who are so insecure about themselves that they adopt affectations in the way they dress and talk that is supposed to make them stand apart from the crowd.

What a waste of energy!

Like with my cat, Squeaky, I find myself also amazed at the lengths some people go to in order to assert themselves in ways nobody cares about! Except that is, their peers who are also wasting time and energy attempting to do the same thing.

I can understand a cat putting on an act. I find it laughable when I see an adult posturing and made up to be something that has little or no basis in the truth of who that person really is.

I know a lot of Artists.

The serious ones tend to create a lifestyle that supports their passion. They dress and act in accordance with what is most efficient. Their personal style is nothing more that what makes sense. They are not imitating anyone. They are just being who they are. This is why they can pull off their quirky and unique lifestyle choices.

A lifestyle and the personal culture it represents is not something you buy “off the rack” and wear… It is something that comes from inside yourself. Your lifestyle is an expression of who you are and what you aspire to. It’s not an act. You can’t make yourself appear to be different than what naturally resonates as your “vibe”. Clothes, make up and slang will never change your vibe.

Unlike Squeaky… my cat, Milu has the vibe of confidence!

He observes the fracas taking place between the other cats and never joins in ...And poor Squeaky is still trapped in her act after all these years.

-Bob Baran

It is a method for measuring progress against a known standard.

Artists, Craftsmen, Engineers and anyone else who has to rely upon a set of established standards uses benchmarking as a means of analyzing their progress. With benchmarking you can identify problems early on when it’s easy to make corrections.

A properly executed benchmarking system allows you to fix any new problem by simply stepping back to the last benchmark.

A ruler is a great example of a benchmark. With it you always know that a measurement of distance is accurate and repeatable.

Applied to your personal growth, benchmarking is a standard of excellence by which effort and accomplishment can be measured against. A properly executed personal benchmarking system also allows you to correct any problem (you identify) by simply going back to the last benchmark. It gives you the ability to directly observe what is now different and make the necessary adjustments.

Benchmarking gives you the freedom to experiment and explore.

There is always a known point you can return to if your trial and error does not bring you the results you hoped for. You could say that a personal benchmarking system is the ultimate form of “trusting yourself”. You are always grounded and have yourself centered upon a known and trusted benchmark.

This provides a level of confidence about pondering new ideas and embarking upon new possibilities. When you are aware of what your current benchmark is you are in the best position to quickly asses whether or not any new opinions, attitudes and actions are moving you forward, backward or keeping you in the same place.

Your personal benchmark is not static.

As you explore new and better ways of thinking and doing, these “best practices” become integrated into your personal benchmark. This means your personal benchmark is always evolving… Yet retaining the best of what you’ve learned and experienced through the years.

-Bob Baran

When was the last time you woke up on a work day and decided to get in the car a take a day trip… instead of going to work?

Talk about feeling free and having a sense of adventure!

Sometimes you just have to do something spontaneous to break up the monotony. My wife, Gwen, and I did just that a couple of days ago. There’s this great restaurant in Livingston, Montana which is about 130 miles from where we live.

The neat thing is that we can get there using the “less traveled route”. Imagine driving through some of the most breathtaking scenery in the world and seeing maybe one car every ten minutes or so! What an amazing way to spend an afternoon.

We don’t talk about the business or anything other than what we are experiencing at that moment…

After we arrive at our destination we have dinner then return home. When we get home we feel relaxed, refreshed and ready for the next day. A spontaneous one-day vacation. The secret is not to plan the day ahead of time. Just wake up one day and do it.

Sometimes you need to put your life back into perspective and the best way to do it is to spontaneously extract yourself from your day to day routine.

Don’t feel guilty about it either! It’s your life and it may be exactly what you need to actually make you even more productive at your job. (Just remember to call in and tell them you have to take a personal day off.)

Treat yourself to time free of any expectations.

Drive somewhere and go to a restaurant you’ve never been to before. That’s exactly how Gwen and I discovered one of our favorite restaurants one day taking one of our spontaneous Montana day trips.

Boy, was it fun!

-Bob Baran

Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged” was required reading back in the day when I went to high school.

It described a world where nothing worked anymore. Nobody cared, nobody was held responsible…

50 years after the book was first published (1958) I’m astonished to see how accurate her prophecy was: On time air travel is now the exception not the norm. Companies make it so difficult and expensive to get warranty repairs you give up and throw the item away. Nobody can count on their retirement anymore. The dollar keeps shrinking against world currencies (some 30+% in the last 3-4 years!) Oil topped $100 a barrel last week and we’re still driving cars with engines designed when gas was only 99 cents a gallon... And the sub prime mortgage fiasco which affects as many as 1 out of 7 mortgages in the United States continues to run its’ course!

Hey I didn’t mention global warming, the coming ice age and the new world order, did I?

You know what? Turn the radio and TV off for three days! Guess what you’ll find three days later? Nothing has changed!

So what does this reality check mean to you? It is important to create a controlled access from the “outside world” into your personal world. Stop letting the sensationalism and negative prognostications affect your ability to hope for and take action for a better future!

I’ll never forget the advice my Father gave me when I was around 5 or 6 years old:

“Your mind and your home is sacred! Be careful what you allow from the outside world into these sacred places. If you are not careful you will end up not having anyplace you will feel safe”…

It wasn’t until I was an adult that his admonishment made sense. You must be vigilant against thoughts and emotions that will dampen your spirits and rob you of your dreams. This applies not only to the media but to every aspect of your life. If you are contemplating embarking upon any activity which will result in changing your life in any way (IE: Following your dreams) you must be very careful about who you share your dreams with!

We already have a constant barrage of hopelessness coming at us everyday. You don’t need to also hear it from those you thought you could trust.

Keep your dreams close to your heart and let the result of your actions spread the news of your aspirations and accomplishments!

Taking personal responsibility for your life and your future is, unfortunately, not the norm in our present society. You are going to have to rely on your inner strength and resolve to create the personal momentum necessary to alter your reality.

Don’t worry! You will soon rise to the top the way cream does in milk. People who recognize you because they also recognize themselves (in you) will make their presence known to you. Reach out to these people and you will always find the support and encouragement you need.

When you get it, don’t forget to “pay it forward” by being supportive and encouraging to others as well. Maybe if we get a few people doing this we can turn that “outer reality” in a more positive direction.

A small bulb throws a lot of light in the dead of night.

-Bob Baran

It’s a well known fact that changing an existing habit or creating a new habit takes about 21 days …And during that time you have to be consistent.

The reason for this time frame has to do more with creating new behavior than actually changing old behavior. You are literally exchanging the new for the old. It’s the cumulative effect over time that ultimately changes a habit by creating a new one to replace it.

So why is it so difficult to change a habit by creating a new one if we’re looking at a mere 21 days to do so? The reason is, you are coming up against one of the most powerful self preservation mechanisms imaginable. In “The Intentional Prosperity™ System” I refer to it as the “status quo protection mechanism”.

In a nutshell, your mind feels safest within a familiar, predictable comfort zone.

The analytical left brain part of yourself resists change! Sure, your intellect may fool you by considering many options. Your core beliefs, which are reflected and supported by your attitudes and opinions, will always “rule the day” no matter what possibilities your intellect may be pondering…

That is unless you make a conscious, determined and consistent effort over time to turn a possibility into a behavior.

Is making a conscious change in behavior for 21 days easy? Yes and no! What you are going to face is how well suited, to your day to day activities, your old behavior has become! In fact, you will come to recognize that your activities are actually the result of your old behavior. Your behavior always determines your activities!

It will always be easier just to keep doing what you’ve been doing because it seems to work better within your day to day reality. But isn’t changing your reality the real point of changing your behavior?

Changing your behavior will always change your reality!

It all comes down to being consistent with your determination and action. The action you are taking to change has to “propagate” through your attitudes, opinions and beliefs in order to become fully integrated into your new comfort zone. Overcoming your own resistance to change will always be the greatest challenge you have to face.

-Bob Baran