I don’t like it when I am in situations in which I allow other people to make me feel inadequate or inferior. My frustration use

Question for ya!

to be directed at those people but I realize it isn’t them creating that feeling in me, it’s my own self-doubt coming through and fostering a place for those feelings.

I will write more about this for my next article but I was actually more curious to see if anyone out there would talk about some of their experiences. Do you ever have those moments when someone makes you feel inadequate or inferior? Is it them or you? What do you do to deal with those situations?

It’s easier to blame than to be accountable. It’s also easier to be the victim than be accountable for how you got in your situation. However, there is an amazing power in accountability that I think is overlooked far too often.

It is a knee jerk reaction to displace fault or guilt, I understand that, but the simple fact is that the quicker you can be accountable and realize what it is you are doing to negatively impact you and your life, the quicker you can come back from it. I’ve also noticed that the more honest you can be in these situations the more people will look to you as a leader because of

Image via Wikipedia

that level of respect and envy they have of the ownership you are taking.

This is true in your personal life and in business…be honest, own the mistakes, give credit to others for the successes, and be positive. These are a few key things I believe in and that have served me well when I can remember to do them! Cheers!

Related articles

• What Makes a Person Accountable? (vistage.com)
• What Makes a Person Accountable, Part 2 (vistage.com)

I don’t love my wife one day per year nor do I show her that I care about her just one day per year. This is one of those

Valentine's Day candy

manmade days for companies to capitalize on so I will bypass all the bells and whistles and resort to my feelings and simplicity.

That being said, a short note to my wife:

This day like every other, I love you, it’s as simple as that. There isn’t one thing that makes me feel this way and I won’t try to sit and describe it but I will let you know how much I appreciate it. I’m not sure where I would be in my life if it weren’t for

you.

I have never in 35 years felt the degree of unconditional love AND support that you give freely to me. Every action and word from you seems to have no other intention than to make OUR world better and that is simply the most remarkable thing I know about you.

My only hope is that I have enough time on this Earth to return all of this amazement back to you. Thank you and I love you Annie.

Conformity (Photo credit: the|G|™)

Why is it we often avoid the urges that we should be indulging, but end up instead succumbing to the urges that only get us in trouble?

We hear stories all the time about people not having the strength to overcome urges to do drugs, drink themselves to death, or cheat on their significant other…we fall into these sicknesses and some are never able to properly stop the urges. Other urges such as always walking the tightrope of mundane, day-after-day living isn’t as deadly or bad as those mentioned above…but it certainly isn’t good either.

When we have the urge to live life we don’t allow ourselves to, most of us run back to the treadmill of monotony. For example, if I have the urge to throw caution to the wind and try living in Italy for a year, why don’t I follow through with that? When I have the urge to not work on Tuesday and instead go to the beach with my wife and just sit in the sand all day…I don’t do that either. Why?

It’s because we were “preprogrammed by the factory” and our minds won’t let us stray too far from the herd and when we do have the courage to break away something at some point typically triggers us back to the factory default settings. We can’t completely escape all aspects of the ‘default settings’ but I think we can strive for more ‘creative thinking’ and ‘creative doing’ in our lives.

I’m sure some of you can come up with endless excuses as to why you live that same boring existence day to day…but I call B.S. on every excuse you got. You’re either in denial or so blinded by the default that you can’t see clearly.

Do you honestly think your purpose in life is to conform and not push the limits?

Conformity breeds the same thinking, not new thinking; but as a society we make fun of those that have different ideas, different lifestyles, different clothes, and different hair which puts more pressure on you to conform. Stop making fun of creative, outside the box people and society can start cultivating non-conformity which can lead to new ideas and quite possibly to new creative solutions.

All this comes back around to the original question about urges. It’s almost easier to succumb to the urge of drugs and eventually disappear from the world and live under the bridge than it is to be strong and stray away from the herd and live that outside the box life.

The herd contains so much power…yet they/ we don’t use it to force our government to reform or to force an evolution in the education system. The herd uses that power simply to keep the others in the herd…mindless. This herd of ours has the numbers to do anything we want yet conformity has delivered fear to our doorstep.

We have choices…conformity or non-conformity? Being you or simply being one of many? Finding your voice or allowing your voice to be blended in with a billion others? Fighting for your art or simply being that cubicle worker?

I can finger paint if I want to, although I am not qualified.

I was struck by this post on Man Vs. Debt and he was inspired to write it based on this post at The Art of Non-Conformity by Chris Guillebeau. I don’t often write posts based on other things I’ve read but this hit me because it helped put words to things I’ve been thinking about and feeling for some time.

Are you doing what you were trained to do?

I’m not…I wasn’t trained to do anything.

I did well in school until about 8th grade, from then until graduating high school I simply did enough to get by. I hated high school with a passion and now looking back I realize it was because it went against who I was. All the clicks, gossip, arrogance, and value put into insignificant things like clothes and the kind of car you drive have always been against how I feel inside.

Unfortunately I fell into the trap…but I’ve been cutting the fat for the last few years and am finding me again.

College was fun but for some reason I never had any real motivation for it, therefore after roughly five years in community college I bailed and started my first business in 2006. I now own four businesses and I ‘m just not having fun with two of them anymore, although they’ve been very good to me and I’ve learned a ton…I want out!

And this brings us back to that question in bold up above.

I wasn’t trained to do anything, nobody taught me how to run a business or deal with getting business licenses or my California contractor’s license…I just figured shit out. There was nobody there to teach me how to get business, advertise, or take care of the money…I just figured that out too. I am not qualified to do anything therefore I had to make my own path and do what felt right on the fly.

When I have discussed getting rid of two of my businesses I have had people look at me like I was stupid. When I have told people that my goal is to work from a laptop full time the looks get even worse. I think those people are caught up in the broken system of qualifying everything and doing what that broken system requires of you.

I simply feel that this life is an experiment and just because I started a painting business doesn’t mean I have to do that forever. If I say my favorite color is blue, do I have the right to change that at any point in my life? I say yes and I do not think there’s a difference between changing my favorite color or wanting to change my business.

For the last month I have been thinking about buying some paints and canvas to mess around with painting (not houses) but one of my original thoughts was why would I waste my time doing that since I have never painted before or taken art classes. That’s just it though…I feel like doing it, so shouldn’t that be enough?

The painting is just one small example but the point is the same across the board. This is my one shot at life and I don’t want to miss out on something because I am too tied up with something else or because the system thinks I need to do something a certain way. When you think of the words adventure and experiment you certainly don’t think about status quo or coloring inside the lines….but life IS an adventure of experiments…it’s meant to be lived and I don’t feel I can fully live my life if I allow qualifications to hold me back.

So it turns out the one thing we are each qualified to do is to make our own path…I’m working on mine now, are you?

I love how powerful words are even in a world that is filled with so much chatter and static.

Words can hurt; they can sting on so many different levels. It can be from someone speaking words of untruth about you orwords that are so true they cut like a knife. Words can tear people down and lift people up…they can tell stories that want to be told and stories that yearn to hide.

Our words can express emotions like love and hate, happiness and anger…we can use words to wage war and words to call a truce. Whether one is educated or not…we all have words spun like webs in our minds that we use to tell our story.

My words can enter your soul and change your life or they may roll off like water on a ducks back. I can paint you a picture with these words of mine…typed or written…this white background is the writer’s canvas and the words are the paint.

We each choose what we do with our words…how they are said and what their purpose is; some of us tend not to worry about how our words are perceived by others while many of us shake with anxiety on what people will think.

Words can be poetic and graceful…they can be sung…they can have the rage and fury of the Bering Sea…that’s why, I love that words still have this power in a world so over saturated and drowning in noise…when put together just right they can still capture our attention.

A little more solving and a lot less ignoring!

…I struggle to understand what’s happening in our local government.

(This post probably applies to communities all over the country and world.)

I’m not going to rail against the machine here but I will give my two cents worth of opinion.

The first thing is that our Mayor, and some of the City Council, seems to lack any amount of charisma and energy. I know the economy sucks and unemployment is high, but it’s amazing what a person with charisma and positive vibes can do. It’s sad to me…people look to “leaders” for direction and tone…and right now I feel like this city is direction-less and tone-less. If the leaders don’t provide the direction or the tone (attitude, feeling), the city sits stagnant.

This is not about political agenda at all, this is strictly about being able to raise morale and bring people together in a community. There are a lot of smart people out there that may have great ideas on things that can be done but the city is not fostering that kind of community. This is a leadership issue not a political issue.

Most recently there has been some scandal in the news about our local police chief, it has not yet been proven whether she did do these things or did not do these things that she is being accused of…and I am not here to debate that. My two cents though is that somebody somewhere should be saying something, I understand that many people can’t talk due to legal reasons but to leave a community in limbo about this is absolutely disgusting.

The last thing I will complain about is all the empty commercial buildings downtown and near downtown. I keep hearing from business owners that the owners of the buildings are not willing to lower the rent at all which is driving many businesses to look elsewhere for a store front. If this is true those building owners are morons and the city officials need to be making phone calls and knocking on doors to persuade these building owners to keep rent prices where they are or lower them to make it more appealing to the small businesses.

Look, we are a tourist town and nothing looks more pitiful than a bunch of abandoned store fronts downtown where all of these tourists end up walking around. Again, can somebody somewhere do something? Anything? This strikes me as an easy way to go about handling it but maybe I’m naïve…either way, let’s stop TALKING about the problems, and instead start coming up with SOLUTIONS!!!

This goes out to all of us, and especially those in leadership roles…are you simply filling a position or are you going to do something amazing with the position you have?

All that being said, I do not dislike anyone involved unless they are simply being greedy…there’s no need for that. We will either survive as a community or go down as a community. What frustrates me is that we are falling back on status quo ways to run a city and conduct business…it does not work. We need people, we need leaders, that are going to by dynamic, energetic, and bold. We need people ready to solve problems rather than simply discuss them. We need people to thrive in the position they are in not simply fill the position they are in.

Please step up to the mic!

The below is a spoken word poem, so take that in context when reading. I use to write poetry quite often, not as much these days but this is new…wrote it on 1-17-12.

If you whittle away at this page long enough words start taking shape and out comes a story about life, the world, and the human experience. For some reason I can sit and keep drumming away at this keyboard searching for the meaning of life, the meaning of my life, or maybe just the right rhythmic beats to keep you captivated long enough to finish reading.

The stories develop as I search the filing cabinet in my mind with a fine toothed comb but soon realize my mind is fighting back trying to lock so much away, this I still do not know. We are one yet we go careening through this life with different goals and some tension, like one was jilted by the other. Evicted memories yet traces stay, enough to base a blog post on; but too much truth revealed leaves hurt feelings in the world because so many are ashamed of what they did.

And it’s in that fact that I try to take my voice back, a work in progress when you fear what others think or say but in the end I have to speak my truth because none of us are here to stay. That dilemma of choosing yourself over others, your voice over the noise, your worth over their words…that battle still rages in this man today even though I live a life so beyond my dreams that I write about how it’s undeserved.

The cries from children left neglected, unwanted, stained from the heroes in their lives is what keeps me coming back to this sunrise to live another day finding my way so I can give those lost souls an avenue to travel down with ticker tape and mended hearts…to those kids, and the one still fighting inside of me, this life is YOURS…those physical beatings, the verbal assaults and all that misplaced, displaced fear that your heroes pile on you is…well, it is for you to climb to the top of and use it as your mountain to speak from, to stick your flag in the ground and claim your self-worth, self pride, and self love.

For this is your time so do not let another steal your minutes here with good intent go forward and place your words carefully into this world and teach, help, guide, inspire others to do the same because it turns out this is not a game and we must know that to fix this we must break the already broken.

Gabby Giffords

A couple of things happened in a span of 24 to 48 hours…Navy Seals went in to Somalia and successfully rescued two hostages and Gabby Giffords resigned from Congress to concentrate on rehabilitation after being shot in the head over a year ago.

What’s so great about these two events other than the obvious?

To me, these two events show us how amazing people can be, they show how awesome life can be, and the true meaning of the human spirit…but you know what else they show?

Those two moments show us exactly how weak and infantile our politicians are.

How does Washington find the balls to bicker and point fingers when Navy Seals are risking their lives to rescue two people they do not know? How is it that our politicians gather up the courage to be so greedy and non-compromising when someone like Gabby Giffords has shown us how fragile life is?

There are a million examples we can use here to show how absolutely disgusting it is that our political leaders choose greed over giving, name calling over problem solving, and selfishness over selflessness.
When I was a kid, politicians were still people to look up to. Now…I am utterly disappointed in the behavior of our elected officials.

To the politicians…your greed, your dishonesty, and your unwillingness to compromise is beyond disgusting. There are people giving their lives in order for you to sit on your golden soapboxes, I would expect you to behave with more humility, more honesty, and more integrity.

Let’s hold people accountable.

Related articles

• Goodbye Gabby Giffords (bilerico.com)
• The AC360 Weekly Buzz: State of the Union, Gabby Giffords, Egypt, Romney, Gingrich, Oscars (ac360.blogs.cnn.com)
• Speaker Boehner Sheds Tears After Embracing Gabby Giffords (mediaite.com)

Pregnancy test

This is a guest post by my wife, Annie, to go with the post I had written a couple weeks back about our miscarriage:

I wrote this about a month ago, just to chronicle what was happening in our life. I’m not as much of a writer as Matt is, but I wanted to get my thoughts and feelings down on paper as we were going through things. As you know from Matt’s posts, we recently went through a miscarriage. Not to keep talking about it forever and ever, but turns out it’s pretty common and we want to shed some light on it. I wanted to share my thoughts and feelings here, with you, as part of the journey that Matt has shared with you. I also wanted to thank this community for all of the support that you’ve given us through this, and other things. It’s appreciated and felt more than you could ever know! So, here goes…

Another chapter in our life has ended…or started, depending on how you look at things. In early December, I had my last glass of wine for a spell, knowing that in the morning I would take a pregnancy test to confirm what I already knew was happening somewhere inside of me. From that confirmed moment, our world completely changed its entire rotation! We’re having a baby!

It took a day or two to really sink in, and then, after telling friends and family, we were floating on a big pouffy cloud of dreams. We talked and talked and covered it all; from changing diapers to who’d get to hold the baby more to how we’d take “him” with us on adventures and show him the world through our eyes.

I could feel it…my whole belly felt alive! It’s sort of possible that some of that was in my head, but maybe not. I felt a feeling that I can’t really put into words here, but will try; magical, special, responsible, beautiful, miraculous, capable, awe-some, humbled.

As wonderful as I felt, I also knew that there was the possibility that I could miscarry. After all, it’s pretty common especially in women that get pregnant at an “older” age. I turned 40 in December, so that puts me in the older category, even though I feel like I’m 25 on the inside!

On a Monday, a few weeks ago our fears were confirmed that I had miscarried. I had some mild cramping and bleeding and then, poof! Our magical, special little package was gone.

Here’s an excerpt that I wrote as this was all happening….

“I’ve been having some cramping and bleeding. I’m scared to death that I might miscarry, but have been assured by google and friends that it’s “normal”. My logical mind tells me that everything happens for a reason, my body will take care of things, I can’t change this outcome at this point. Hmmm, so we wait. We wait to see if this too shall pass and the pregnancy continues, or if it doesn’t and we have a miscarriage to work through. We’re logical people. We know the odds…my age, as well as general statistics say it’s completely common for me to miscarry. I don’t buy it. I don’t want to miscarry. I’m strong, I’m healthy, my body has always served me well and has never let me down. Why should it now? We deserve this, right? We’ve waited so long in our lives to have a child and here we are; faced with the chance of losing our little, tiny miracle. It’s the size if a pea, but has already had more impact on our lives than any other thing ever has.”

I felt an emptiness, not like and aching or anything, just missing that magical special feeling that I got to experience for a week and a half. I was sad, I was disappointed, but most of all, I was okay. Sound weird? Yeah, it might…but honestly, I felt at peace with it. I cried and all that and wondered what happened to make the baby not stay, but I knew I was okay, I knew we were okay, I knew that when things aren’t meant to be, it’s okay to let the dream fly away. There will be another opportunity for me to carry a magical special package when the stars align and things are just right in the world. Then we’ll meet…that baby and us. We’ll look into each other’s eyes and know that we we’re in this together, all three of us.

The funny thing about this miscarrying deal to me is just how common it seems to be. It might just be me, but I never knew that just about everybody we’ve come across has been touched in some way by miscarriage. Maybe I wasn’t listening, but my gut tells me that it’s just something people don’t really talk too much about, not like a dirty secret or anything, just one of those sad and unfortunate facts of life. It makes me want to talk about it more, makes me want to make it known that it’s part of the life process, part of the getting pregnant process. It’s kind of like when you get married and go through all the fluffy wedding hoopla and excitement and then nobody tells you that you and your handsome new hubby might not like each other every minute of every day. That’s just a fact of life, and the sooner you come to peace with that fact, the easier it is to negotiate.

I don’t mean to say that we should focus on the negative things in life, but I just feel like if we bring these kinds of things out into the open then they’re not hidden in the dark anymore and we can actually see what they look like. It’s like they say…we fear the unknown because it’s just that, unknown! Now that we’ve gone through this miscarriage, I know what we’re dealing with as we move forward. We have a whole different outlook on this “get pregnant” thing. Don’t get me wrong, I knew that there could be difficulties, but what we see out in the world are happy, glowing pregnant people with big bellies that we all want to rub, right? We don’t see all the other stuff that potentially goes along with it.

So here we go, moving along on our adventure through life and if the baby gods grace us with a successful pregnancy then we’ll happily take that path. If it’s just not in the cards for us then we’ll have this experience to take with us on a different path. Either way, we’re happy, healthy, and will continue to move through this very interesting life!

Related articles

• Miscarriages Suck (just stating the obvious) (matthewliberty.com)