Powerful Vulnerability

The first thought that many of you reading this might have is that the title of this post is a contradiction in terms, but I assure you it's not.  It's taken me many years to realize that vulnerability and power are intrinsically linked and that the power of uncomfortable exposure and honesty can be very significant.  Two years ago I started this blog as a way to educate people about the struggle of having a speech impediment and also to give myself an outlet to talk about my journey of dealing with it.  At that time I really didn't understand how much of an outlet it would give me to not only address my speech, but to take inventory of my life in general.  I have never been a person to keep a journal or any other type of chronicle for my life, but this blog has served as a journal of sorts.  The difference is that because it's public, I felt a certain amount of pressure to make sure that the content was carefully thought out and well-written.  In a sense, that pressure is responsible for the intensity and depth of self-assessment displayed in the content.  The intensity and depth of personal development I delved into has lead me to  a pinnacle of realization that the greatest benefit of this blog has been; realizing the power of vulnerability.  Dr. Brene Brown said in her TED Talk that "Vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage" and I agree 

with her.  

Vulnerability vs. Weakness

Many people confuse vulnerability with weakness and I believe they couldn't be more different.  In fact I believe it takes a tremendous amount of strength to be vulnerable.  It's much easier to suppress, cover up and ignore your problems than to face them head on.  Facing your problems at the very least involves an external acknowledgment which then creates a measure of accountability to resolve that issue.  This is to essence of vulnerability to me, exposing your flaws or problems and allowing others to hold you accountable to take action.  Exposing a problem and taking action is a powerful thing to do because it gives you control over your life.  Hiding your flaws, problems, and emotions robs a person of their power and puts your issues in the driver's seat of your life.  It is my belief that a great deal of people are comfortable in that situation. People who are comfortable being out of control may not be happy with their circumstances, but may also not be unhappy enough to do the work to change it.  In any case, they will at least they have a great excuse for why they haven't achieved their goals or bothered to set any at all.  I have lived this way for many years and it may feel safe to take an acceptable refuge in your comfort zone for a while, but in the end I felt as if I cheated myself.  Getting vulnerable, taking control and putting your life into action, I have discovered, is the best way to live a life. 

Reconciling the past and Thinking Forward

I started this blog to reconcile issues from my past so that they wouldn't affect my future, even if I didn't fully realize it at the time.  I discovered that the depth of my issues were much more extensive than I initially thought.  By the time I had the idea to create a blog, I had been carrying around 20 years of emotional garbage and desperately needed a place to dump it.  While I have come to the realization that it will take more work and time to completely put the past behind me, I have come to a place of acceptance of the past and excitement about the future.  This blog has served its purpose very well and provided me with a platform to assessment my life and develop some effective strategies to improve the quality of it.  With that in mind I feel that it's time for a new medium and outlet for my new perspective.  It's time to lay this platform to rest in the same place as my past.  Thinking Forward is now my main focus and ensuring that the next 30 years of my life are vastly different from the first 30.  My past experiences will always be in clear rear view sight, but they will remain in their proper place which is in the past and not in my present or future.  Until you hear from me in again....

Think Broad & Think Forward

The Blueprint: A Gift or A Curse

How many of us ever take a step back from life and take a moment of absolute silence to figure out what drives us?  We live a culture of constant stimulation, personal and professional demands, unfulfilling ambitions and mass distractions that prevent us from making this assessment.  The sad fact is that so many of us get so busy living life that we don't allow ourselves the necessary time to do the work to live life to the fullest.  I made a post a while ago about the rules that govern our lives.  This topic is closely related.  Think about it as the rules that dictate how we react to life provide the foundation the blueprint that governs how we live our lives.  Each of has certain expectations of what we think we deserve or should expect from life.  This our blueprint and it is often is conflict with our current circumstance.

Life Condition=BluePrint

In an ideal world our vision for life would always be in alignment with our present circumstances.  Unfortunately, this world and the lives that we live while on it are far from ideal.  The common condition of most people is to live a life far less than what they imagined as children or young adults.  I'm sure we all have had those defining moments when we realized that life would never measure up to what we envisioned as kids.  That was a debilitating moment for me and at that time I had two choices; change my life condition or alter my blueprint.  I did neither and was paralyzed for years to come as a result being unable to create a new vision for my life.  This was the worst position I could have put myself in because I was stuck in emotional and mental suspended animation.  Changing our Life Condition or altering our BluePrint are the two basic choices we all have when facing a shift in our lives.  However, sometimes we can't escape the hand that life has dealt us and our only option is alter the blueprint.  For example, my stutter is just a fact of life and I can't change it.  The only option I have is to change my perspective on it.  My blueprint must change to allow me to be happy, fearless and fulfilled even though I can't speak like everyone else.  This idea can relate to a wide range of issues from money, weight, relationships to health.  Today if your current circumstance is Life Condition≠BluePrint, what will you choose?

Problem or Opportunity

Problems are just a sign and fact of life.  No matter how much money we have, how much we have achieved, how many people love and respect us; no one can escape problems.  The problems of life are what cause the disruption between our life condition and our blueprint.  It's what we do with these problems that can bring these back into balance.  I know from personal experience that the quality of life is directly related to the psychology we use to deal with problems.  The key is to create an extraordinary psychology to give empowering meaning to our problems.  This mindset can turn a problem to an opportunity, which can lead to tremendous growth.  Most people don't want any problems and as a result most likely avoid the ones they do have.  How much growth can be expected from that approach to life? Not much, and that I can also attest to from personal experience.  An empowering psychology gives us control over our lives and makes us the driving force behind our journey in life, as oppose to simply reacting to what life throws our way.  When we have control, our life condition is our hands.  If our life condition can't be changed, then at least we can alter the blueprint to create a mindset which can allow us to transform a negative condition into a positive opportunity.  

Pain is a Fact of Life, Suffering is a Choice

Pain and problems go hand in hand.  Problems can cause immense pain in our lives which is why we avoid them at all cost.  The real problem is that we can ultimately cause ourselves more pain than any problem ever could.  Problems may cause pain, but how we react to them can cause suffering.  There is a distinct difference.  After I graduated in December I had a much more difficult time finding a job than I anticipated and it caused me a lot of frustration, anxiety, self-doubt and feelings of rejection.  What I did to myself was much worse.  Instead of using this experience to create an opportunity for myself or as motivation to be more creative, I made myself suffer.  My mindset was incredibly negative during this time and I felt defeated almost every single day.  This went on for months until I got a call from my dad one day and he told me that my opportunity was coming, but that I had to be prepared for it.  This really helped to change my mindset because up to this point I was only focused on the opportunity and not if I was actually ready for it.  There are many of examples that we see where opportunities mean nothing if the person receiving them wasn't ready.  I decided to stop suffering and start preparing.  Now this wasn't an instantaneous shift, it took time.  As my focus started to change so did my attitude towards life.  I began to focus on personal development instead of self-pity.  As I began to work with a speech therapist again, my attitude towards my stutter started to shift.  I still feared  that dreadful prospect of a phone interview, but being prepared for it sure did make quite a difference in my approach and the outcome.  When we choose to stop suffering, we take control and life feels a lot different when you're in the driver's seat instead of being taken for a ride.

Unreasonable Expectations

Adjusting your blueprint can not only help you adapt to a life condition, your blueprint can also be the foundation for a great vision.  Sometimes it's necessary to alter your blueprint in order to adapt to a condition that can't be changed, but I believe more often the blueprint can be our motivation.  At times it can be a good that our Life Condition≠BluePrint because our situation could use some improvement.  If a person's blueprint tells them that they should be a wealthy entrepreneur while their life condition is stuck in a dead end job, that person has put an UNREASONABLE EXPECTATION on themselves.  Unreasonable because it may not be fair at times to demand certain things of ourselves, but necessary in order to push us to reach our full potential.  I believe having unreasonable expectations is the only way to pull ourselves up from the lowest point in life to becoming dynamic and productive people in this world.  If not for unreasonable expectations, a person would let their place of origin determine their destination.  These expectations may not start our as lofty as they end up and develop incrementally with each success that we experience.  I doubt that Barack Obama or Bill Clinton expected to become presidents when they were young, but they did have the unreasonable expectation of graduating from prestigious universities and becoming lawyers.  When Obama was elected to the Senate I'm sure he didn't imagine that it would lead to the White House, but at some point he had the unreasonable expectation of winning a presidential election.  

Demanding more of ourselves in the only way that we can grow and the more we demand of ourselves the closer we get to realizing our potential. This begins with our blueprint and view of how life should be.  Now this can become a delicate balancing act because we never want to feel inferior because our ultimate blueprint doesn't match our current life condition.  The blueprint should encourage us to work harder, think bigger, expect better while empowering us to adapt to and use those life conditions that we simply can't change as an opportunity to make us stronger.  I challenge you to examine your blueprint. Determine if it matches your life condition, how it's affecting your life and where is it ultimately leading your.

The Power of Identity

WHO AM I?

This a question that I would bet every person who has every existed has asked themselves. I believe that it's an instinctual part of us as humans to establish an identity for ourselves.  People have many different ways of identifying themselves.  It could be based on profession, income level, family role, personality traits, past mistakes etc., but regardless of what the factors are we all have an identity.  We often fail to realize the power that our identities can have and the how much control they exude over how we live our lives.  For example, think about why people who want to lose weight, beat an addiction or change any other type of behavior have periods of success and relapse.  It's because a change in behavior without a change in identity can only produce limited results.  If a person who still identifies themselves as an alcoholic, but is attempting to break the addiction may most likely have a relapse at some point. Why is that?  Because alcoholics drink excessively and as long as that person identifies themselves as an alcoholic, they will behave as an alcoholic. I believe the foundation of personal growth and change can be found in how a person identifies their role in this world.

I have experienced this type of success and setback myself. I made a conscious effort to choose a graduate program that would challenge me in ways that would develop my character. I needed to be challenged in more ways than just in classroom. The reason why is because I identified myself as a fearful person and I wanted to break the hold that fear has had over my life.  So I confronted my fear of the world and my voice. I made some great strides, but that wasn't enough. I still saw myself as a person filled with fear and of course despite my triumphs I still did things that a fearful person would do. In some situations I still shrank back, lowered my voice, chose not to show up and refused to raise my hand and be acknowledged. What I really needed was not just to do things to break out of my comfort zone, but I needed to see myself differently.  By seeing myself differently I would require more of myself.  A person's identity can empower or hinder. Now I am paying close attention to what I attribute to my identity and what behaviors or traits I simply identify as points of improvement.

Expanding my identity

One of the main things I am correcting is how I address my speech

impediment.  I will never again say that I am a stutterer, but that I simply have a stutter. That may not 
seem like a big difference to some, but from my perspective it can make tremendous impact.  Having a stutter just describes an innate impairment of a motor function, but I am a stutter makes it a part of my identity. My stutter has no direct influence on who I am, while my experiences as a stutterer have helped to shape my identity. The other facet of this that I'm focusing on is deciding how much of my identity is dependent on my present circumstances. In order to expand my identity and forcefully push myself to

reach my potential, I have to focus heavily on the vision for my future while still working to develop myself in the present. I don't have to wait until I achieve a certain level of success to identify myself as successful. If success becomes a fundamental piece of my identity now, then everything I do will be an effort to bridge the gap between my present and the vision for my future.  The same way that my identity as a fearful person has caused me to do certain things to bring that identity to fruition, creating a more positive identity will result in me making some substantial progress in my personal life and career. I now believe that it can be as simple as thinking and speaking positively can manifest positive results, while internalizing negativity will do the opposite. Now I'm tearing down the identity that I have unintentionally created and working to build a new identity that will empower me to achieve my goals as well as develop my character. Until that identity is completely defined, I will just say that I am...

A person who conquers fear.

The ULTIMATE Resource

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" Hebrews 11:1 NJKV

I am delving deeper in my Tony Robbins program and was very excited to move on The Ultimate Resource volume.  Resources is very appropriate topic for me right now since I spend a considerable amount of time trying to figure out how to forge a path to success with access to limited resources, seeking out existing resources or people with resources and thinking of ways to create resources.  I was very intrigued to find out what Tony Robbins had dubbed the ULTIMATE RESOURCE and very surprised to hear him say faith.  Not time, talent, connections or wealth, but FAITH???? That's exactly the message I needed to hear because I had forgotten how far faith has taken me.  I had become so wrapped up in connections, skills, education and professional experience that I neglected that faith is what big dreams are built on.

The Bible's definition of faith is best I've read and it's also simplistic enough to relate to the smallest things in life that we take for granted to the awe-inspiring dreams that motivate us to do the impossible.  Faith is essentially believing in something that is not yet visible and this applies to much more than just God.  A person could have faith they have the potential to be a CEO, when they only middle management experience.  Or a young senator of Illinois could have faith that he could be president of The United States.  Some may think faith is completely illogical and even comical and it is.  But that's what makes it such an inspiration when we act on it.  Faith is what made me go get a passport when I didn't even have a destination.  Faith is what made me apply to an MBA program with a foreign language requirement when I only spoke English.  Faith is what made me investment money in Mandarin lessons for the same MBA program when my GMAT score didn't even measure up.  I saw myself in France, Brazil and China before there was an inkling of evidence that this could become a reality.  I was walking blindly into a future that only existed in my imagination, but that I believed would come to fruition.  

People have faith in things everyday without realizing it.  Why would people wait at bus stop when there is no bus in sight and the only proof that you have that it will be there at a certain time is a schedule?  Because it was there the previous day.  Their faith is reinforced by a previous experience.  Some might say that's not faith, but nothing is guaranteed in this world from one day to the next and just because something happened yesterday doesn't mean it will happen again.  Now how do you have faith in something that has no precedence?  That's when faith is tougher to manage, has more fulfilling rewards and more disappointing consequences.  Faith isn't always rewarded the way we envision.  Faith also teaches us hard lessons.  I have only given positive examples of faith, but I have more examples of disappointment than success.  Faith doesn't just reward; it teaches, refines and sharpens us for a later time and a better destination.

Resources can come and go very quickly in this world.  Market fluctuations can jeopardize a person's wealth, relationships dissolve, time is finite, but faith can exist in any circumstance.  If a person has nothing expect a vision, there is a chance to make it a reality when everything else indicates that it's an impossibility.  "The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It's our handle on what we can't see." Hebrews 11:1 MSG 

Think about this verse and think about the quality of a life without faith.       What's your vision? What do you have faith in?  

Below are a few points I took away from the Tony Robbins audio program I'm listening to.  Hope you find something that resonates with you and your life.

• Faith is what you turn to when you have reached the limits of your abilities, efforts and options
• Tragedy is only tragedy if we do nothing with it. 
• Find the lesson and purpose
• A lack of faith keeps us in positions that we have outgrown
• A lack of faith makes us think we are being punished when things go wrong instead of looking at the spiritual lessons
• Faith allows you to see opportunities in hard times
• Either focus on the present and think it will be your future or create your future and activate your faith to make it a reality
• Faith and fear are both imaginations unleashed
• We need philosophy and strategy to be successful
• • you need to know what you are doing and the purpose in what you're doing
  • success without purpose is empty
• First quality of leadership is faith
• • Lee Iacoca took existing resources and turned Chrysler into a leading automaker
  • He had faith in the company
  • Step into the future first

Rules are meant to be BROKEN!!!

We all know the old adage, rules are meant to be broken, but this is not one that I necessarily live by.  In fact, I'm the kind of person that thrives on order and structure in certain situations.  While rules can be a great tool for facilitating order and discipline, too many rules or rules that are too constraining can be destructive in various ways.  

Let me go back to how I came to this conclusion about rules.  I had a free session with a Tony Robbins coach after taking a personality assessment and I scored almost 100% in the cautious category, which I'm sure will come as a surprise to no one.  The most striking piece of advise that she had to offer at the end of our conversation is that "YOU ARE F*&%@# IF YOU LIVE BY CERTAINTY".  This of course caught me off guard, but started a thought process that resulted in my current view of rules.  

What I realized is that I had been unconsciously living by certain rules and had no idea the impact that it was having on my life.  I also began listening to a Tony Robbins audio program, which would've been laughable to me even a year ago, and he said that when a person gets frustrated with life or another person it's the violation of a rule, not the person or the situaton, that is the source of the frustration.  

Lights bulbs begin to go off as I looked back at my life from a kid to now.  What I realized is that as a result of my experiences as a child I created a set of rules for myself to give all those tough times purpose as well as to set a standard of success for myself.  All of the anger and frustration that I have felt during my life is not because of my circumstances but as a result of all of those rules being violated.  Those rules have kept me from feeling good about myself and acknowledging the successes in my life simply because they didn't measure up to my rules.  Tony also gave an example.  He said that he asked two men if they thought they were successful.  One said no and one said yes.  The one who said no was a CEO with a $1.5 million salary and 9% body fat.  I'm sure you're thinking what I thought, which is how could this guy not think he is successful.  His rule prevented him from recognizing his success.  According to his rules he had to make $3 million and have 8% body fat to be successful, while the other guy said being above ground made him a success. Who do you think is the happier person?

The bottom line is do your rules empower or hinder you?  The fact of life is that many things are out of our control and a good indicator of how your rules affect your life is to realize if your rules concern things that you have no control over.  Everyone lives by and judges their life by a set of rules and in order gain more clarity about our lives, we have discern what these rules are and if they are fair to us.  My rules haven't been fair to me and it's no shock that I have inflicted undue stress, frustration and disappointment on myself as a result.  What is empowering about reflecting on this is that you aren't at the mercy of your circumstances.  You can begin to redefine these rules in order to maintain an energy and passion for life in any situation and not just when times are good.  I encourage everyone to do some self-reflection and start destroying the rules and standards that are hindering your happiness.

Lessons Learned from Atlas

We all know the mythology of Atlas and have seen images of the lonely figure with the weight of the world on his shoulders.  Until last night Atlas was just just an image for me, but I had an experience that made that image come to life.  I realized that I am Atlas in a sense.  I assume that everyone who reads this is aware that I'm a stutterer and have been since I was a child.  As a kid, my dad would always tell me that he outgrew it and that I would likely outgrow it as well.  My entire childhood and teenage years were spent waiting for that day to come when I would wake up and be able to speak normally.  That day still hasn't come.  

Because I was waiting for some switch to flip with my speech, I never dealt with emotional ramifications of having a speech impediment.  I just thought if it was going to dissipate over time that there was no reason to delve into that part of the problem.  Before I go any further, I need to explain what emotions I'm referring to.  The best analogy for stuttering is probably an iceberg.  What people hear is the speech problem and think that's entirety of the problem, but there is so much more that you don't see beneath the surface.  The emotional baggage that a stutterer develops as a result of having difficulty finding their voice can be overwhelming.  This is the full picture of a stutterer.

Unless you are someone who has gained the intimate trust of stutterer, you may not ever hear the emotions that lie beneath the speech problem get addressed.  It may come as a shock that a stutter can cause so much turmoil, but it does.  Facing it alone can compound that turmoil exponentially.  This brings me back to Atlas.  The burden on my shoulders that I chose to face alone is my stutter.  I have always felt out of step with world around me as a result of it and felt isolated because there was no one who understood my experience.  

Now this part is my fault because I have always avoided support groups and organizations dedicated to stutterers due to my reluctance to confront the emotional toll that it had taken on me.  I basically never wanted to see the struggle in others that I face within myself.  If I dared to do that, it became real and I couldn't ignore it.  That also meant facing the reality that being a stutterer could possibly be a permanent part of my life.  Well last night I attended my first support group and it was every bit as emotional for me as I anticipated.  I saw the struggle of others and knew exactly how they felt.  The therapeutic part of the experience is that they knew exactly how I felt too, without me having to explain.  The power is empathy is truly amazing!

My current sessions with a speech therapist is what led me to finally facing the reality that part of my identity as a person is that I am a stutterer and that will NEVER change.  This week I sat in front of my therapist and realized that I would have rather been anywhere else in the world than there.  I reminisced about my childhood therapy sessions and I would have never guessed that 20 years later I would be sitting with therapist struggling with the same problem.  I thought ahead another 20 years and saw myself as a middle-aged man still dealing with life as stutterer and I felt exhausted by that prospect.  It hit me that I had to make a choice to accept this part of my life as it is or continue to be in denial.  I'm choosing to accept it, confront it and get it under control.

The conclusion that I have come to is that it's always better to face reality than ignore it.  If you can face it with a support system, then take advantage of it because it's not only for your benefit, but the benefit of others.  My pride has been pushing me to face the world alone, but my commonsense is beginning to take over and make me realize that I don't need to.  I am no longer Atlas.

Burying the Past

Life’s a journey…Surrender

The past few months have made it very clear to me that life is indeed a journey and once you reach a milestone in your life, it's immediately time to look ahead to the next.  My biggest mistake after making it through the life-altering adventure I had last year was treating it as a plateau as opposed to a growth spurt.  I conquered quite a bit of fear and doubt during the Global Partners experience only to find that festering beneath the tip I melted away was an iceberg of fear waiting to sabotage my efforts to begin building a new life for myself.  I guess you can’t cure 20 years of conditioning that easily, but if it was easy then everyone would be willing to confront their flaws and attempt to correct them.  I have been able to identify one thing that has been a major contributor to this hard fought transition and that is reluctance.  My reluctance to let go has been a major obstacle to becoming a brand new me because I can’t seem to part with the baggage of my former self.  This brings me to the crux of this post which is the necessity of burying the past.

R.I.P.

I have become quite a fan of the OWN network recently, especially any program featuring Iyanla Vanzant.  I recently learned that Iyanla was born Ronda Harris.  She changed her name in her late 20’s, as she put it, because she no longer had a need for Ronda due to her transformation into a new person.  Iyanla realized that she was carrying the burdens, pain, scars and habits of Ronda into her new life of success.  Regardless of how great a situation may look, if you bring old habits and an antiquated mentality into a new environment nothing really changes.  You will do in present as well as future circumstances what you have done in the past unless you shed certain aspects your former self that simply don’t fit into the life you want to live.  Iyanla said that she essentially buried Ronda Harris, not out of anger or spite, but out of necessity.  She was living a life that she was no longer meant to live and the only way to breakout of the cycle was to let go of Ronda and embrace Iyanla. 

Derek 4.0

While I’m not going as far as to change my name, I have realized that this is what I need to do.  In retrospect, I see that this transformation has been an iterative process for me and now it’s time for the next phase.  The way I see it, I have had three pivotal transitions in life and heading into a fourth.  Those transitions are:

Graduating from high school

Going back to school to finish my undergraduate degree

Graduating with an MBA and seeing more of the world than I ever expected

DEREK 4.0!!!!!!!!!

Now I figure it’s time to start making some arrangements because the experiences of my distant past don’t fit the life that I’m hurdling towards.  It’s time to make peace with and bury the past in order to move forward into the person I’m meant to become.