EPHEMERAL & EVERGREEN

Books are windows into wisdom.

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Last week during Limhi.Live, a viewer asked what books have inspired me. I named a few, and decided to make a list of the books that have inspired me throughout my life. I grew up surrounded by books. My parents bought us all kinds of books to read, from classic children’s stories to short biographies of historical figures. I’ve spent countless hours reading books of different genres. In college I formed the habit of carrying a book with me. I would read a few pages right before class, on breaks between study sessions, during lunch, and while waiting for friends or classmates. When I went to law school, I continued the habit of carrying a book to read.

Reading has brought me understanding, joy, excitement, peace, inspiration, knowledge and wisdom, imagination of new worlds and possibilities, compassion and empathy, and so much more. A book becomes a treasure no one can steal, and one that endures forever. When you read, you open up to the worlds and experiences of others. You learn to see things differently. Reading books allows you to be tutored by the great minds of the ages, and to have personal mentors on all areas of life.

Here is an incomplete list of books that inspire me:

The Amazing Spider-Man comics

Aesop’s Fables

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

The Collected Works of Emily Dickinson

The Collected Works of William Shakespeare

Popol Vuh

The Book of Mormon

The Bible (King James Version)

The Koran Interpreted (Arthur Arberry Translation)

The Dhammapada (Eknath Easwaran translation)

The Upanishads (Eknath Easwaran translation)

The Bhagavad Gita (Eknath Easwaran translation)

Tao Te Ching: A New English Version (Stephen Mitchell translation) by Lao Tzu

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights by John Steinbeck

The Belgariad Series, The Malloreon Series, The Elenium Series, The Tamuli Series, and The Dreamers Series by David Eddings

The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis

The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics by C. S. Lewis

The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini

The Labyrinth of Solitude by Octavio Paz

Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

Paradise Lost by John Milton

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

The Gift by Hafez

The Essential Rumi

The Harry Potter Series by J. K Rowling

The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho

Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

Becoming Wise by Krista Tipppett

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield

Steal Like An Artist  and Show Your Work by Austin Kleon

Tribes by Seth Godin

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

On the Shortness of Life by Seneca

Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom by John O’Donohue

Featured Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Your taste is another person’s distaste, and that’s ok.

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Last night on Limhi.Live, I shared this video:

https://youtu.be/whpJ19RJ4JY

As the video was playing, a new viewer wrote in chat: “Not this feminism bs.”

He was obviously bothered. I shared with him that I didn’t see this as a feminism video but rather an inspiration video. Nike’s stated mission is to “bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world. (*If you have a body, you are an athlete).”

This new viewer and I disagreed on the purpose of the video. My interaction with him brought a renewed awareness to the fact that we are all inspired by different things.

You may be inspired by the video above, or you may not. If you’re not inspired by it, that’s ok. There is something else out there that does inspire you.

Just as there are different colors, different notes, different tastes, and different light frequencies, there are different sources of inspiration. Your task is to recognize what fills you with courage, energy, and joy.

Seek what fills you with light and love.

Featured Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash.

For more inspiration, watch Limhi.Live on Twitch.

Moments are the building blocks of Life.

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The past is meant to be reviewed, not relived. The future is meant to be created, not anticipated.

The past and the future are created in this very moment. You are writing the past and preparing the future right now. Focus on this very moment, improve it, and you will improve the past and the future.

Improving this moment doesn’t take much. The best place to begin is with gratitude. Focus on one thing you can be grateful for right now. With that focus you’ve already begun to improve this moment. Continue to improve the moment through your words and your actions. Choose those words and actions that will fill you with joy. As you do so, you’ve improved the moment again.

Moment after moment is how life is lived, and it’s how life is improved.

When times are excruciating and tough, it can be hard to focus on improving the moment. It’s like experiencing an accident. Your focus and attention is fixed on what happened, on any injuries, on the damage caused. You want to assign blame, scream and protest, and wish it hadn’t happened.

You may feel there is nothing to be grateful for in that moment, or that you don’t have the energy to even try to improve it. And if there’s a beautiful sunset or flower on the scene, you won’t notice them because your awareness is on the accident and it’s surrounding chaos.

When that happens, you can improve the moment by giving in to the moment. Flowing with what is happening instead of resisting it. Improve from resistance to acceptance, and from acceptance to ownership.

Do you want a life full of joy, peace, excitement, fun, and love? Fill this moment with those things…then the next moment, and the next, and so on…and you will create the life you want.

Featured Photo by Iker Urteaga on Unsplash.

To learn more on how to improve this moment, come watch my new talk show Limhi Live. You can watch it from my website or from my Twitch channel.

…often go awry.

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You can plan all you want, prepare every needful thing, review a checklist, iron out all the details, work out the kinks, practice and practice…and still end up with an undesirable outcome.

Sometimes things go wrong no matter how much you prepare. You do mistakes. Unexpected hiccups surface. Technical difficulties occur. Accidents happens. And when it does, will you be paralyzed or will you move forward?

A life filled with intention and purpose is a thriving life.

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Let me tell you about Joseph Anderson.

He is a transformational coach in the personal, business, and relationship areas of life. What he does is provide the ultimate life changing experience. An experience that helps you create the life you want. He’s the “It’s possible!” guy. He helps you believe and see that your dreams and goals are possible and within reach.

Joseph also challenges your thinking and the limiting stories you tell yourself. The ones that keep you from expanding into possibility. He helps you explore those areas that must be cleared before you can make progress. With his guidance, you’re able to zero in on what’s holding you back and keeping you from a life full of joy and purpose.

If you ask Joseph, he’ll tell you he loves helping people come alive. His ability to discern when you light up and you dim is one of his superpowers because it allows him to guide you to those places where you are at your best. When you think you’ve reached your edge, he challenges you to go just a little but further. You then walk into even more possibility.

Joseph will believe in you, cheer you on, challenge you when you need to be challenged, point out things you aren’t even aware of, and he’ll help you heal those parts of you that need healing.

He is someone worth having in your corner.

So why am I telling you all of this? Because Joseph is my coach. All of those things I mentioned above, he’s done them for me. He’s helped me to level up in life, to move into possibility, to expect magic and miracles, and to have the courage to take bold action toward creating my dream life. Thanks to his coaching I am making a greater impact in the world.

Sometimes we’ve butter heads because we have a different approach to things. But even when that’s been the case, it’s been beneficial for me to butt heads with him.

You can live your life on automatic and default, or you can live it with intention and purpose. A life on automatic and default is a life of survival. A life filled with intention and purpose is a thriving life. Creating a thriving life requires you to be more than you’ve been up to this point. Joseph helps you to be more.

When you’re ready to create a thriving life, seek the best help and support available to you. Whether it be a mentor, a spiritual guide or healer, or a life coach like Joseph. My money is on Joseph.

If you’d like to learn more about Joseph and his coaching, check out his website.

Featured Photo by Dan Burton on Unsplash.

For more inspiration, watch my new talk show streaming live Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 6 to 8 PM (MST). Visit Limhi.Live or here.

Being first is no guarantee of success.

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This morning a client mentioned an idea he wanted to execute, but he was hesitant to do it because someone else had already done it. My client expressed the belief that even though the other person had beat him to the punch, he could do it better. I asked him why he was stopping himself, and he replied that he wanted the credit for being first and didn’t want to come off as a copycat.

“What’s more important?”, I asked him. “To execute better than someone else? Or to be first?” Naturally his reply was, “To execute better.”

Being first does matter in some situations. But not in most. Especially not when it comes to creating your dream or reaching your goal. If you’re dream is to own a mexican restaurant, you know that you’re not gonna be the first mexican restaurant to open up. Unless you’re in an area that has zero mexican restaurants. Even then, you may be the first mexican restaurant, but you’re not the first restaurant.

In boxing, you may land the first punch, but the last person standing is the one who wins. Being first is no guarantee of success. It may give you a slight edge at the beginning, but in the long run, what matters is whether or not you execute better.

Take Google for example. Before Google came along, there was Yahoo, Webcrawler, and Lycos. Yahoo was the first modern search engine that gained wide acceptance and use. That little fact didn’t matter to the founders of Google. They saw that they could execute better. And they did. Their execution was so much better, their brand name became synonymous with searching the internet. Instead of saying “yahoo it”, people say “google it.”

So you see, being first doesn’t guarantee success. It just means you started earlier. Being better leads to success. Especially if you continue to improve over time and outperform yourself and others. Being better may not put you ahead of the curve initially, but it will keep you in the race longer.

Featured Photo by Ryan Tang on Unsplash.

For more inspiration, follow me on social media or watch my new talk show Limhi.Live streaming Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 6 to 8 PM (MST).

No success is absent of rejection.

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Last night on LIMHI.LIVE, I shared the story of American author Jack London.

Best known for his works “The Call of the Wild” and “White Fang,” London lived at the end of 1800s and into the early 1900s. He was one of the first authors to be internationally celebrated for his works and to profit greatly from his writings. In a sense, he was the J.K. Rowling of his time.

But before becoming a rich and famous author, London’s writings were rejected…a lot. He wrote 1,000 words almost every day for years. Week after week he mailed articles, essays, poems, and short stories. Publishers rejected all.

Each rejection letter he received was impaled to a spindle in his writing room, until finally he had a stack of rejection letters that was four feet high. Despite having a growing physical reminder of how much he’d been rejected, London continued to write. He was rejected over 600 times before a publisher finally decided to print one of his articles.

Once that first article was published, success started to materialize.

London’s example of perseverance is inspiring because it shows that success is not absent of “rejection”. Rather, rejection must come before achieving success. In some cases, a lot of rejection. In the pursuit of your own success, how much rejection are you willing to face?

Don’t give up on your dream just because you’ve been rejected. Keep working at it. Keep getting rejected. If you continue to persevere, you will eventually find the success you seek.

Featured Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash.

For more inspiration like this, visit the blog or watch my new talk show streaming live over at LIMHI.LIVE.

Success shows up when you do.

If you want to make your dreams come true, you must show up each day and just “turn on the lights.” Photographers, filmmakers, and vlogers understand that “turning on the lights” is the first step to creating something. If you’re a writer or a  blogger, your also have to turn on the lights to sit at your writing space. Musicians and artists have to turn on the lights in their studio.

Turning on the lights means showing up each day, and being willing to put your work out into the world. Yes, you want to put your best work out there. But don’t let the pursuit of perfectionism keep you from completing the work. How will people be drawn to your work if there is no work for them to experience?

Stop waiting to have the right equipment. Don’t worry about the haters. Ignore your fears and doubts. Focus on putting your work out into the world today. The more you produce “garbage” and “imperfect” work, the closer you get to your masterpiece.

A good example is Sir James Dyson, the inventor of the Dyson vacuum cleaner. Mr. Dyson spent 15 years – fifteen! – and came up with 5126 “bad” designs. Yes, he went through tough times, and even came close to bankruptcy. But Mr. Dyson kept showing up. One failed experiment after another, he learned from each mistake and improved upon it. He kept turning on the lights.

THE PROCESS BEARS THE FRUIT.

– Sir James Dyson

Be willing to make mistakes, to experience “failure”, and to produce bad work. If you allow yourself the freedom of being imperfect and expecting less than stellar results all the time, you will be able to enjoy the process of showing up every day and turning on the lights.

Do you have an idea you’ve been wanting to explore? Are there goals you’ve been putting off? Has your dream project been stalled long enough? Go turn on the lights and get to work.

Featured Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash.

Check out the video related to this article on YouTube.

The limitations you see in yourself are mere mirages.

When a baby elephant has a metal chain and shackle placed around its foot, it resists. It tugs and pulls, and tries to liberate itself from the bond that holds it captive. If the baby elephant remains shackled long enough, it eventually will stop struggling. It gives up.

As the elephant becomes an adult and is bigger and stronger, it remembers being held captive, tethered, and “stuck”. Having given up in its infancy, it no longer fights being tied down as an adult. Even if the elephant is tied with a shoe string, it will stop dead in its tracks once it feels the slightest tug. This is called learned helplessness.

Long ago the elephant learned that it was helpless to change a circumstance (being tied down with a metal chain and shackle). But it didn’t learn to discern that it was helpless at that time in that particular circumstance. It only generalized its condition and formed the belief that the present condition was true all the time. So when it grows into a powerful adult, it still holds the infant belief that it is powerless and unable to change its circumstances. Even though the circumstances would be much easier to change.

We often act like the elephant. We experience something early on in life that we internalize as a perpetual reality, and we give up. We give into the condition that existed at the time, and we mistakenly form the belief that the circumstance will continue forever, and that we are powerless to change it.

But it’s just not true. If we can become aware of how powerful we are and how capable we are to change our circumstances, then we will not be held captive by limiting beliefs, fear, anxiety, doubts, failure, setbacks, or any other negative circumstance we may experience in life.

You can unlearn helplessness. You can awaken to your capabilities and be able to change and adapt to whatever comes your way. Unlike the elephant, you can become aware of the shoestring that is keeping you stuck, and you can easily break free from its hold. The only thing that holds you back is your own belief.

If you can change your beliefs, you can develop the power to create a new reality for yourself. One where you are powerful and capable. You can break free from what’s been holding you back, and create the life you wish to live. You can be and do what is most fulfilling for you!

Opinions are not a true reflection of reality.

Last month I received the notebook pictured above as a gift. A friend gave it to me because the quote reminded her of me. Her gift was timely because presently I’m focused on living into possibility, expecting magic, and making miracles.

You have the power to shape reality. You can make life what you want it to be. It begins with your internal world. Are you pursuing dreams and goals based on opinion or belief? If you’re building from a place of opinion, you’re on shaky ground. If you are building from a place of belief, you’ve got a strong foundation.

Too often, opinions are counted as fact or reality. But opinions are often conclusions born out of incomplete information. Opinions change when new information is presented. As the opinion changes, so does the dream or goal. Even if the dream or goal doesn’t change. a change in opinion colors the perceived possibility of the dream or goal.

When you start from a place of absolute belief in possibility, you empower yourself to create reality, magic, and miracles.

Impossible things seem impossible because we choose to see them as such. Drop the “im” from an impossibility, and it becomes a possibility. As simple as it may seem, it really is that easy. We make it more difficult by focus on opinion rather than belief.

Notice that those who achieve great things do so because they focus on belief and possibility rather than on “reality” and impossibility. One example is Muhammad Ali. Here’s what he had to say about things being impossible:

Impossible is just a word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.

Are you living in the world you’ve been given? Or would you rather explore the power you have to change it? Don’t settle for the reality and the world you’ve been given. Choose to explore your own power and ability to make the impossible possible. Live into possibilities that excite and inspire you.