Put a bit of Heart in your Head.

I want you to remove from your head the belief that you have little time. I want you to remove the pressure from your heart. I want you to embrace that you have all the time in the world and that the dream you so desire is unfolding as you let it.

Your deepest desires are not too far from reach. It is the fear, it is the doubt, it is the frustration and the external pressure that everything must happen NOW, and that a sense of external urgency force-fed to you over and over prevents you from actually being able to appreciate your present moment enough to build with it or even trust in it, that the life you so desire is only around the corner.

You are wonderful, maybe no one has told you today. And the idea that you are somehow lacking in some foreign way prevents you from sitting in the hot water of your hearts bath.

Immersed in love you are my friend, and yet you are blind to the abundant and limitless bliss that surrounds you.

If you could only remove the contrast and comparison of the the agressive perfection you are attacked by day by day; could you fully embrace the wonders of your graceful heart.

I want you to see the good, to see the well of goodness that surrounds you, and which emanates from within you. For you are different, you are special, you are here on a mission, and your sole purpose is to shine from within that incredible heart.

You are here to serve others, not as a slave, but as a master of your ship. You are here to serve others by being in service to your good heart. By being loving, and warm, and patient with yourself, and by allowing yourself to believe that the beauty you envision and so hope for is waiting for you behind that dreadful wall you distrust so much; the fearful future who holds over you what you want not, dictating the miseries of all the world.

Step aside, there is another path; faith. Have faith, and even if you don’t believe in some higher force, in yourself, and that for all the goodness that resides within you the world will somehow try to pull that out of you and bring it to the surface. Trust, that your good heart only has one purpose; to live within Love (to love and be loved).

You are a heavenly soul

To live a life worth living doesn’t seem like a life you can replace or sometimes even envy. Because to the outside eye, living a life of internal bliss doesn’t equate to being externally attractive, because we don’t live abiding to the rythme of the corporate result oriented or the profit driven salesmen… We live abiding to the musings of our abundant but quiet soul.

We don’t jump through the hoops to entertain, we silently sidestep them on our way towards that quiet cafรฉ on the riverbank. Where the wind whistles, and the reeves dance.

Rather than a circus freak performing for the everyday townsman, I am a lover of nature and a romantic enjoyer of spontaneous subtleties. The silent observer and soulful witness to Gods perfect manifestation around me. Can I transmit and describe acurately, no.

But I can strive to feel as aligned as possible to the finite and intangible benevolent forces, of course. This means I am more aligned with the real world which embraces me in my current circumstance.

Let the breeze caress your skin on this warm lighted, candle sented, sunny morning. The air is cold and cool, the tree’s are crisp, and the sunlight envelops their tiny leaves and branches while the birds chip and sing their fragrant melody and call out across this early spring.

Balm for my spirited soul, is my observance of such a quiet peace.

I hope not to replace it, with the brute-force presence of fearbased material driven people.

So I sit, and shun my work and write to you in the hopes my morning description kisses your heart and uplifts your feelings. Hopefully giving you an awe induced morning awakening.

Heaven is here on earth, heaven is here within, heaven is you; and you offer heaven to the world.

The intention of love.

I think, maybe the greatest tragedy, is that we don’t compliment the people we love nearly enough. And yet, we compliment people we admire, strangers,. Because they’re new and we pay attention to new. We pay attention to celebrities and megastars, because we aspire to them.

But the people who’ve always been there, who are loving, who have supported us every step of the way, or at least most. They get the most ungrateful return for birthing us into the world. They create us, yet they get the most stick. The people who stand by us and are there every step of the way, they get ignored, or worse we disguard them, because they’re there, simply in the background perhaps. Because these loving, caring, patient people, are in high supply, we value them less.

Human beings are wierd, they value what is rare, because some thousands of years ago what was rare was valuable for survival. Food wasn’t available in the fridge so they had to hunt and risk their lives faced with wierd looking scaly predators with big teeth. Then Gold became an important tool to measure payment to who had something of value instead of seashells.

And then somewhere along the way, having a crown watch or a red car became a signaling good to express that we have a surplus of material and we can afford to splurge on luxury, or unessential to survival. When we have everything covered financially, we can focus on the superficial aspect of things. Which is why, women tend to show superficiality as a marker of wealth (a lot of the time). Its a signaling state of their inherant value, or that society places on beauty. So they invest in signaling brands, signaling activities, signaling surgeries to show the level of worth they believe they are. And they become ‘rare’ or at least they act like they do, because they are in high demand due to the desirability factor.

But, back to what matters. The low demand, high supply in those we love.

It’s not because we don’t need someone, or that we don’t depend on, or require someone to do something for us, that they have no value. It’s simply that we can’t see that value because they’re not proposing the value proposition that we’re searching for.

So, when we have a parent who doesn’t necessarily meet our requirements for what is interesting or we meet a young woman who’s pretty, exciting and engaging and on our level; the natural response is to disguard them, or to ignore what they’re saying, or to be disrespectful in some way, or to belittle whatever value they bring to the table. This couldn’t be further from the right way to be.

The thing I like about Italian families, or Chinese families, is that multiple generations live together, supporting each other within the household. Obviously, in our western world, everything is disconnected, we become bachelors, live in houses on our own, and attract women who use all forms of signalling to show they have worth.

In my own way, I propose that everyday, instead of finding something that someone can be of value to us for, we find ways we can be of value to them. Paying back, being of service and being uplifting and supporting to those around us. Even if they’re not ‘seemingly’ making our lives better.

The thing is, I realized when my dad passed, that it’s not because someone is present that they don’t have value. And its not because someone’s not proposing something we value, they that don’t have value. What I like is subjective proportional to my standards and expectances of life. What someone else has to propose is proportionel to them. In every expression there is contribution, and everyone has a different expression to contribute. Which we’re all, too often, busy trying to disguard because it doesn’t fit the shopping list we want and aspire to.

Maybe, take a moment to value that we’re not all the same. That we all have different abilities, and we’re not all Leonardo Davinci great in everything we do. But we are great, in the intentions we put forth.

In my fathers last days, I realized that its not the perfect expression I wanted from him so much that I miss. It’s his presence, its his warmth, its his reaching out, its the exchange. It’s the little messages to see if I’m okay, and to checkup on how I’m doing. It’s the intentions to do the little things which make us ‘feel’ supported, which make us ‘feel’ valued. Even if the way its done is not perfect.

And these little intentions, even if they’re not expressed in the perfect way we want, make us feel the perfect way we want to feel.

The way our loved ones make us feel, is deeper than our mental standards, anything that someones wordly expression can bring forth.

In order of importance, our words and the way they’re used, count for 7% . While our tonality counts for 38% and our phyiscal expression counts for 55%. The words we use are by consequence of little value. It’s important to use the right words, but how those words are said, and with what intent matters much much more.

So, its worth noting the value of a relatives intangible and sometimes invisible intentions which influence the way they make you feel. The magic is under the surface, in what they bring out of you, and how special they make you feel.

Don’t lose any more time bikering about the details. Embrace the time you have left, focussing on whats important. The intention.

All the best,

Cherokee Goldberg

18 useful points (and a tiny smiley face)

New year, same me, different perspective, new goals.

Before reading anything:

Feel free to interpret this however it will serve you. Iโ€™m not a dictator. I donโ€™t impose what I write as a cookie-cutter solution for everyone. What you perceive in this may resonate, it may not. Read between the lines. Take things with a pinch of salt. And if you like something, leave a comment or a thumbs up so I know that I did something to good for someone.


Iโ€™ve decided to start documenting my journey, and build openly from 0โ‚ฌ to 1M, so that I can provide value for anyone who is struggling to make money and create actual value online. As well as keep trace of my journey. Itโ€™s also good because it give me a form of accountability.ย 

So far I’ve found these points to be of use to me.

Driving factor

This being said, there are many ways to make money online, though it is brought often to my attention through the people I encounter, and through my reading, that attempting anything solely for money just does not work. In fact, whenever money is the driving factor, I most always obsessively burn myself out because nothing else matters. And โ€˜elseโ€™ does matter. 

I confirm this through my own experience; over and over Iโ€™ve encountered failure after failure. Not because Iโ€™m not hard working, but because after a while, I lose interest, I lose the drive, and my focus fizzles out. I move on to the next, and lose interest all together in anything related to the project. Why? Because money isnโ€™t fulfilling, itโ€™s rewarding, and reward doesnโ€™t fill you up, the fulfillment you get during your process does. And I believe itโ€™s Steve Jobs who said that โ€˜the only way to do great work, is to Love what you do.โ€™

Some people can do things solely for money, though Iโ€™ve found that money can never be a decision factor for me. I like money, I enjoy using money, and I enjoy all the things I can do with money. Though, at the end of the day, it is a tool, something to help you (be, do, achieve, render service, haveโ€ฆ etc). Money doesnโ€™t fulfill you, especially during the process of acquiring it. At least it doesnโ€™t for me. 

Iโ€™ve found that, if money is at the top of my decision pyramid, all of my core values arenโ€™t as important as money and I become corrupted (corps-rupture = cut off from the intelligence of my body) and end up going down silly paths. In fact, without values, one becomes a wh*re for money (excuse my French) and all of our important values get thrown out of the window. Hence why we live in a society where most of our social media is based on hype and click bait. 

Define Values

So, it becomes increasingly important that one define their values first and foremost and then strive with the framework of those values as invisible guiding forces. If we stray away from our values, we most often find ourselves doing anything, and anything doesnโ€™t necessarily allow us dignity, or a constructive lifestyle. 

Iโ€™m a big believer that the process and standards we impose on ourself is what we impose on others. So, if we stress ourselves out and whip ourself into action; guess what, weโ€™ll most likely do that to others. So, self-love becomes quite important too in the achievement of oneโ€™s financial success. 

And come to think of it, I canโ€™t allow myself to start this journey with you by sayingโ€Šโ€”โ€Šas I said earlier onโ€Šโ€”โ€ŠIโ€™m going from 0 to 1M. Sure, thatโ€™s a nice vision to have. But it doesnโ€™t drive my actions, and it canโ€™t drive my actions. It does give me an indicator of scale, of importance, of the value of my work, and impact I have on helping others. This is what I can see within the 1M reference. 

Process

The larger the number, the more pressure I put on my creative process. But, we human-beings are not coal, we donโ€™t transform into diamonds. Iโ€™m all for pressure and steel forges steel and all that but, when it comes to quality, I like the approach of a local butcher my father introduced me to many years ago. Letโ€™s call him Mr.D.

Mr.D was a butcher and farmer who believed that the quality of the meat he sold to his clients was directly affected by the quality of the lives his animals lead. A stressed cow produces stressed meat. An unstressed cow however would produce a tender meat. So Mr.D decided to let his cattle roam free the entirety of their lives, right up to the very last second where heโ€™d drive one up to the back of the shop only a few hours before displaying it to customers. 

What I take from this, I apply to my creative process. The quality of the input of information I consume, is defined by the intention and quality of my state and mental process, and the result is that a quality input, and a quality process produce a highly valuable output of information/solution/production that has served me well. And this, I intend to continue doing. 

What the 1M reference doesnโ€™t take into account is personal fulfillment, enjoyment, the quality of the journey, the value of my work, attention to detail, how much effort will go into providing something that people want. The personal side of the venture. The joy I take in discovering a new fact, or ideate a new solution. 

When people lose interest and / or fulfillment on a job, they move on. This is why, being aligned with what we enjoy is of utmost importance. Which brings me to my last year. 

Understand your nature.

Since September 2022, I decided to go back to school to become a Full stack developer. And since this period, I have spent the majority of my time reading, testing, applying code. While it does have upside, and it can be helpful to produce solutions. I also saw a lot of downside to learning code. 

I saw my mental clarity become scattered, my handwriting started to slant backwards, my ideation flow became ebbed and because Iโ€™m an auditive primary (vakog) less words = less expression, my thought process became less fluid, and I became less and less clear about how I am feeling, what my intuition is telling me, as well as losing interest in being in front of a computer screen at all. 

And for a writer, or at least a creative dreamy ideator like me, this means feeling dead. Sure, I could write code, implement control structures, automate outcomes and add Apiโ€™s to things. But at what cost?! Because, my sole purpose to learn code was to get a job that could provide a stable income, I was doing it for money. Not necessarily because I โ€˜loved itโ€™. 

Straying from your nature will produce anti-productive outcomes

Another thing Iโ€™ve observed with โ€˜doing something we donโ€™t likeโ€™ is that when our daily process is spent doing something we donโ€™t enjoy for the purpose of money, we end up seeking forms of pleasure and instant gratification that we wouldnโ€™t normally have to if we were fulfilled by a work well-done. I believe the quote is to โ€˜live a life we donโ€™t want to escape fromโ€™. 

We canโ€™t live a life we donโ€™t want to escape from, if we spend the majority of our day focused or thinking about something which isnโ€™t what we truly want. And so, the inevitable solution is to find what we love to do. 

Connect the dots.

In order to succeed, Iโ€™ve found that we must connect the dots looking back and define a theme. My theme is [Ideation, writing, speaking, creativity] verbal expression/ communication. If I disconnect from that, I will feel a lack of enlightenment. I must read every day in order to write every day, and I must write in order to have clarity of mind. And in order to speak well, I must have clarity of mind and references of ideation, which come from reading and writing. 

This is the paradigm I must live in. If I donโ€™t apply it, it becomes my prison. If I do apply it, it becomes my liberation. But either way, it seems to be the only path which I can travel which fills my soul, and gives me the clarity and energy to do anything and everything else. 

Without food and words, life isnโ€™t really worth living. Love comes and goes apparently, but food and words must be daily. 

Deliver Value to others

Iโ€™ve found also that in order to succeed and do well in business, one has to wrap the entire business around two points. The first is to make that business customer centric. The second is to be in love with the process of delivering results to that specific customer. And I believe that if we have both ingredients, it hightens the probabilities of achieving a successful business. 

Use contrast to understand yourself and see life more clearly. 

Over the last few years, I decided to go experience as much contrast, difficulty, and even pain and embarrassment as possible. (Bear with me, there is a method to my madness). In order to create the fuel which would propel me towards achieving the pleasure I wanted. 

When I left high-school (2012, a good number of years ago now..), I observed that I was ambitious, but I had no drive, no motivation to make money. I was good at everything else in life, but money was not my strong suit. And I needed money to afford living a lifestyle that would attract the woman Iโ€™d want to be with. So, I devised of a plan to suffer and create references that Iโ€™d never want to ever experience again, in order to fuel me towards the desired outcome I dreamed of having. Drive is defined by an axis of Pain and Pleasure. 

Now, enough about me already.. How do I intend to succeed? 

Discover your zone of Genius / Strength

When I was younger, I noticed that I could do really well in one specific area; sports. I hated school, mostly because I rejected all authority (as an aftermath of rejecting the example my father lead), but I had a lot of energy to apply. So, I became the football captain and striker, I worked obsessively to run faster, and Iโ€™d train over and over until I could put the ball where I wanted. And so onโ€ฆ Okay, nothing special yet.. Then, I started to notice that because I was doing well on the team, I started to do well with the guys on the team. And because I did well with the guys on the team, this transfered to my social too, so I started to do a lot better with women because I could lead men. (I think lead is a strong word for a kid who could put a ball in a net, influence might be more appropriate). 

Doing well, and focusing on my strong suit, allowed me to develop confidence. This confidence allowed me to become more popular. And that popularity, allowed me to shine who I was. Now, I all of that was based on physical prowess and the fact I peaked in high-school and seemed to have some sort of a clue of how the world worked. I didnโ€™t, I simply understood how to work social situations to my advantage, like most students in schoolโ€ฆ Doing what was trendy, standing out, and being loud somehow, but also a little vulnerable. but I digress.. 

Focusing on my strong suit, allowed me to Shine. And in my ability to shine, I became attractive, outgoing and popular. So, that is a success for a student, who wants to be liked by his peers.

Focussing on my strong suit / what comes naturally to me, and going all in on what only I can do, in addition to finding a pain point to provide a solution only I can provide due to my strong suit, will allow me to produce a high output of value overtime, without too much fatigue. Because at the end of the day, its all about consistency and compounding of value. 

Be the Master your own narrative. Be selective of who puts what in your mind. Define your own future.

Which brings me to determining, What empowers you the most in the world? The information related to solving your present/current pain point. The one which will enable you to 10x yourself. The insight that will help you define the next clear step and direction you need to take.

As human beings, we are interested and curious about the future, but weโ€™re not able to determine it clearly. We love predictions and astrology and even the doomsday theories we imbibe when we listen to .. any random youtuber today, about โ€œhow the end of the financial market..โ€ or how โ€œAI will put an end to.. and youโ€™ll get left behindโ€ฆโ€. The point is, we focus on these โ€˜alertโ€™ messages, because we want information about how to go towards the future without encountering death. We need to prevent death. 

Though, when weโ€™re preventing death, weโ€™ve already lost the game. 

Hone the present day

You see, the most important thing to note is that, if someone else is telling you how the future is, they are dictating not only the future you will go towards, but they are robbing you of the power to take action in the present. Without a compelling future to go towards, we are robbed of the gift within the present moment: the possibility to take inspired action to build towards that future. 

So, itโ€™s my understanding, that if we reject the future, we will also reject our present, which prevents us from doing anything of value. 

In contrast, Iโ€™ve understood through my own experience, that we must START where we are. When you choose the state you are currently in, and accept it. You can start working towards where you want to go with the thing you want to evolve.

  • Start where you are mentally, find where you are on your internal path.
  • Start where you are physically, what weights can you lift and grow your muscle with here, not the heaviest you can lift, but what can your muscle comfortably support.
  • Start with where you are emotionally, what are you feeling right here and donโ€™t repress it.
  • Start where you are financially, what do you have and how can you BEST use those finances for the best impact Right now? Instead of wanting more to do what you can already best start.
  • Start out where you are health-wise
  • Start out where you are relationship-wise.
  • Start-out where you are business wise, start with what youโ€™ve got and do the best you can.
  • Start out where you are spiritually.
  • Start out where you are habit-wise.

When we can accept where we are, first and foremost, we can decide to empower what we have and appreciate what we have. When we reject where we are, what we have, we canโ€™t use it to our advantage, we canโ€™t build on it, we canโ€™t grow it. We must start from where we are. If you can start from where you are, you have control. You donโ€™t have control or power over something that is out of your reach.

Community

I’ve gone at it alone, a lot. Simply because I needed to make a lot of mistakes, and test a lot of things quickly. Though, once those things are over, one tends to feel somewhat isolated. And success isn’t supported by isolation, its supported by networking. We succeed as part of a community we participate in. Even if its simply being seen, witnessing someone elses presence can be a huge determiner of how well you perform. Being around other entrepreneurs and solopreneurs is a massive game-changer, and saves you a tremendous amount of time. Not to mention that it keeps you accountable to live up to your word.

Join a club, have a team

When, I was younger, I played soccer on the local team. I didn’t think much of it back then. All I knew was that I practiced a lot, and put in a lot of personal hours on the side. Though, with retrospect, being a part of a whole like a soccer team is valuable. It gives you a standard to perform at. On your own, you are at the mercy of even the wind blowing in a direction. When you’re surrounded by a team, you are within a structure which imposes a certain form of conduct, and expects you to live up to the same goals. So it’s important to be around other people, even if you don’t necessarily have the same values, who have a a similar goal to you. You’ll become alies in mutual success.

Having a clear and meaningful vision.

Lack of vision is probably the most painful state. Because nothing is clear and everything is anarchy. In order to make sense of anarchy, one must have a point to aim for, otherwise one gets swayed and caught within the disorder of what is passing at that moment.

Having a clear vision is also motivational. It helps give meaning to the actions and process we enact while going towards it. If the outcome is a meaningful vision, then the journey towards that vision will be all the better. Taking action, simply because it fulfills the steps layed out to achieve an outcome which has no meaning to us is worthless. And what is more, detached from our internal journey we travel while we work. So a meaningful vision is fulfilling as much as it is useful.

Enjoy the journey.

For the past 10 years, I’ve killed myself to produce outcomes, reach achievements and so on. But.. Living in a future which would never come. This is a draining way to live life. And what’s more, we miss out on the present life we have, while waiting for a better situation which could potentially never arrive. That, in my view is a waste, and I suppose I could say its ungrateful to God for the present circumstances given to us. If we truly appreciate what we have, then we also appreciate our present moment and time enough to optimize how we experience them and what we do with them. Living for the future is ungrateful of the present, and also if that future is taken away, your sense of meaning goes too.

Another thing; when you enjoy the journey, you are in joy. And when you enjoy yourself, it makes your experience worth living. Being in stress all the time wrecks havoc in your health, or at least your health takes a toll. Having faith in the journey and enjoying what is in front of us is beneficial.

Choose appreciation and Gratitude over impossible standards and complaints.

When we appreciate what we have, just like in trading when an asset appreciates, we grow what we have. Or at least we grow the reference of what we have within our internal kingdom; the mind. Being grateful for what we experience, for what we have, and for those around us, grows the amount of references/seeds we have within.

Embrace what is in front of you.

For the longest time, I rejected what was in front of me. The people, the environment, pretty much everything which wasnโ€™t what I didnโ€™t want. And so, I disempowered myself as a result of rejecting what was around me. Everything around us can be considered a block to build with, and if weโ€™re so stubborn as to believe that the grass is greener somewhere else, then you never water your own circumstances. Its with gratitude that we grow our current circumstance, and weโ€™re able to make use of everything that is around us.

Ex: I need to go to silicon valley in order to be around the best in the world. But, if I actually look around, there are startup incubators around where I am. There are successful people here too. There are opportunties here, and great people to network with. And whats more, if I donโ€™t succeed here, why do I expect to succeed there? Iโ€™m simply saying I need a better looking building and people in order to be able to achieve what I can achieve here anyway if I put my limitations and blockages to bed.

I think its Walter Wattles, in The Science of being Great, who said that: one must do a great job where one is, and only with a certain frame of mind can one grow out of ones circumstance.. That one will find ones personal mediocrity in every circumstance, until one becomes great where he already is. โ€” I hope Iโ€™m correct, although Iโ€™m quoting from memory, I read the book a long while agoโ€ฆ

Breathe.

Rome wasnโ€™t built in a day. Thereโ€™s no point getting yourself into a heart-attack by trying to have over night success, because everyone else is applying this AI tacticโ€ฆ Your boat wonโ€™t leave without you. Or as is said in Conversations with God, you canโ€™t fail. You may take a detour, but you will get there at some point. Just donโ€™t give up.

Take a break and breathe from time to time. Contemplate everything you have achieved. Witness the beauty around you, or if it is lacking, imagine something beautiful. Turn on some classical music, or a tune that elevates the mood.

Sometimes, doing more work isnโ€™t the solution. Taking a step away to see the picture clearer later on is.

You arenโ€™t subject to VCโ€™s, no one is on your back expecting an elevated return (hopefully). March to the sound of your own drum, and listen to your own rythme. After all, weโ€™re not in school anymore, the only person who takes care of us, is us. And if you donโ€™t respect yourself enough to slow down once in a while, no one else will.

If you donโ€™t have a plan for yourself care, someone will have a plan for you, and that doesnโ€™t look healthy.

๐Ÿ™‚

We can’t see the Love that cradles us, until its gone.

Family is only for a brief time. It’s a loving passage. It doesn’t always feel good, nor does it have to. And the funny thing about this message is that, only those who have witnessed this can recognize it, and those who have not cannot comprehend, because they haven’t experienced it, so the words don’t ring the same way. We can’t acknowledge this message before loss, only after.

I knew I would lose my father, I knew that some day my grand parents would die, and so on. I’d prepare, and sometimes be nostalgic by contemplating the fleeting time I had left with my dad for example. I knew the time would come where the inevitable would happen. But, only after his departure, nearly a year now, can I see certain things for myself.

And despite all and any attempts to percieve things the way I see them now, I couldn’t possibly contemplate how I’d perceive life, and ‘become’ after his departure.

Which brings me to the inevitable: we live a wonderful life, full of pains, and frustrations, surrounded by family entities, and sometimes family members we hate. We take that presence, whether good or bad, for granted. I like to describe it as free-love. People who love you, despite all and everything. They’re just there, no matter what. They are like the walls in your house, you don’t have to wonder about them, they’re just there. Even across sea’s. We perceive them as everlasting, continual, constant.

And so, come good, come bad, come up, come down, come snow, come rain… they are there, and we don’t know any different. How could we know any different, we haven’t experienced a life without them. The only life we know is with them, somewhere.

Until, the inevitable happens. And then, the warmth, the guidance (even misguidance), the exchange, the concern, the witness and witnessed, the observer, the loving presence, is no longer. It’s just quiet, silent, peaceful, nothing.

No one outside of your life knows, no one is any better off, but suddenly, that one part of your life simply doesn’t exist. As if you drive on a road every single day of your life, then suddenly the road is closed, and gets removed from existence, you can no longer take that road to go converse and exchange, be seen, anything. Gone.

The life you know, the exchanges you’ve had, the people… no longer exist. An entire personal support system falls apart over-night. An entire way of functioning, of exchanging, of being within a family unit. Rendered void over night. This isn’t good or bad, it’s simply new, different, other. An inevitable adaptation. Kind of like if your leg gets chopped off in an accident, you just have to accept that the way you’ve lived is gone and you have to move on to live differently now. It just is.

Now, I say all of this without any attached emotion, I feel like I’ve been over my attachments and my pains and so on. No, I’m saying all of this as an observation, that the way we believe life is, in our entitled little bubble of complacent self-centeredness, isn’t our fault. It’s a guiding force, a buffet if you will, of experiences, characters, and love, to show us who and what we want to experience. It gives us keys, and pieces of our puzzle so that we can decipher who we are. All the while preventing us from fully stepping into our entirety.

I believe that, a man can’t fully become a man, until his father is no longer in charge. This can be through death, or perhaps simply stepping aside as the natural order happens. Though, however this comes to pass, a man is only in his fathers shadow until the time comes for him to grow into his shoes. And that can only happen when he is faced with himself, with all the responsibilities his father carried before him, and most everything he was unaware of beforehand. I believe a man becomes a man, the day he suddenly has to face life full on with no one to help him but his will and his courage.

Our ascent starts the moment we let go of the weight

It all starts in the mind. With a decision.

Up until now, I’ve learned to listen to my higher self, or to a degree what I thought was my higher self. I’ve observed and strived to be in alignment with myself. And so, despite my fathers indications I followed my higher-self and wrote a blog. This felt right. It felt good. Maybe I was simply caressing my ego, maybe I was giving myself a boost of self-confidence, by taking time out from ‘real life’, maybe… It then lead me to publish a book, then a second, then a third, a blog, a newsletter, and then go back to school to learn how to code.

Then, my father passed away. I had no one to fight against. All of my habits had been in contrast to something / a point of view, in opposition to someone. Then, there’s no one there to rebel against, the invincible rock I spent my life verbally pounding against, was no longer.

In many respects, I believe that my opposition was justified. Not because my father was a bad person, but because of some of the points of views and beliefs he held. These didn’t sit well with me and I found them to be contrary to what I was striving for. Though, his opinions did not necessarily represent him underneath. We got along in many ways. Though, we didn’t get along when it came to what I wanted to do. I’ve never liked being told what to do, or even influenced in anyway. As if I’ve been striving to follow some divine internal guidance. And perhaps I have been guided all the while.

I’ve become accustomed to a way of life, and I’ve created the habit of functionning within certain parameters, only to be destabilised when faced with a deep challenge & change.

I’ve overcome a good number of personal issues in my life and the, in a moment of folly, I saw my vulnerable fragilities exposed. I say folly, I was hurting because my dad had just died and the grief ate me from the inside. As I observed this grief cause internal pain, I observed myself seek ways to numb the pain. Feeling powerless as to the depth and intensity, but also how scattered I had become in contrast to who I was only a few months prior.

So I began my downfall, only to observe that since I’d already overcome my issues, and had already built an interesting toolkit to do so, I was able to halt my fall before I went too far down the hill.

I am able to start my ascent back up my personal mountain, except this time I know where I am headed with more clarity. I’ve already been up and down these paths.

This time I get to fortify and solidify the points of weakness I didn’t address in my first ascent.

This time I get to do it better. This time I’m doing it for me.

Before we build a good life, we must first start with the foundation and I believe that is the mind. Everything starts in the mind.

Start where you are. (The key to success)

The greatest of understandings I’ve understood through my own experience is, START where you are. When you choose the state you are currently in, and accept it. You can start working towards where you want to go with the thing you want to evolve.

  • Start where you are mentally, find where you are on your internal path.
  • Start where you are physically, what weights can you lift and grow your muscle with here, not the heaviest you can lift, but what can your muscle comfortably support.
  • Start with where you are emotionally, what are you feeling right here and don’t repress it.
  • Start where you are financially, what do you have and how can you BEST use those finances for the best impact Right now? Instead of wanting more to do what you can already best start.
  • Start out where you are health-wise
  • Start out where you are relationship-wise.
  • Start-out where you are business wise, start with what you’ve got and do the best you can.
  • Start out where you are spiritually.
  • Start out where you are habit-wise.

When we can accept where we are, first and foremost, we can decide to empower what we have and appreciate what we have.

When we reject where we are, what we have, where we are, we can’t use it to our advantage, we can’t build on it, we can’t grow it.

You must start from where you are.

If you can start from where you are, you have control.

You don’t have control or power over something that is out of your reach.

All the best,

Cherokee Goldberg