I asked people at my company Nearsoft, what kind of topics might be of interest for me to write about. One of the comments came in the form of a question: “In a traditional hierarchical organization (i.e. not Nearsoft) as an individual contributor, what’s the best way to make a meaningful change to the culture? In a big organization, is it even worth it or is it just simpler to change jobs?”

Here is a quote I came across that really makes the point as to why companies need to break away from command and control operating systems, and adopt cultures that are co-managed, and co-owned.

“The greatest sign of success for a teacher … is to be able to say: The children are now working as if I did not exist.” ~ Maria Montessori

The same can be said about leadership. You know your organization is humming along just fine when leaders are no longer needed to lead. That’s when people are co-owning the vision, the goals, and the execution.

You don’t have to wait for a company to adopt freedom-based leadership principles in order to make your mark. As an individual you can begin to act as if you are the CEO, as if you are accountable to everyone. You can proactively do what needs to be done, instead of waiting for someone to come ask you.

For example, if you are in sales, proactively make your activity visible. Share you progress, update the CRM system without having to be asked to do it. Create success and progress metrics, measure them, and report them. Run yourself as if you are running the entire sales organization. Be proactive.

Evolving Towards Co-Ownership

I want to acknowledge that as an individual contributor in an environment that isn’t set up to run democratically, you’ll only get so far. I am not talking about political views here, but the real meaning of the word democracy.

de·moc·ra·cy /dəˈmäkrəsē/ a system of government by the whole population. Control of an organization or group by the majority of its members.

In order for an organization to evolve from a command and control structure to a co-managed, co-owned environment, you have to do away with the need for bosses. If you are a boss today, you’ll need to embrace being a servant to the organization, accountable to the organization, not the other way around.

Most importantly you’ll need to be ok with no longer being the boss. This isn’t an easy transition. There are egos involved, not just rationally good common-sense business reasons.

I can best equate this type of change to what happened in the late 90s when the vast majority of outsourcing initiatives failed. Companies were not ready to go from departments having their own teams, to suddenly working with some external third party to get things done.

I remember spending a considerable amount of time educating Fortune 200 companies on how to shift into decentralized models, like shared services.

By creating internal organizations that provided services to the various departments, companies began to get used to the idea of having to scope out work, do better planning, and having a third party deliver services. Albeit the third party was an internal services team. As soon as that became a natural way of doing things, it could just as well be an external team. That’s when outsourcing became more feasible and accessible.

That transition for most companies took time, in some cases it was a 2-year long process. It was a change in the operating system of a company. A significant change from kingdom owner mindsets to developing strategic alliances. Alliances work via enrollment, not commands.

It’s clear that for organizations to move to a more democratic work environment, there needs to be a bridge. More importantly there needs to be a mindset shift from training people to develop skills, to developing people’s emotional intelligence, with a major focus on self-awareness and leadership skills.

Self-Awareness Unlocks Greater Potential

Where there is great leadership, it feels more like a family who support each other through life. In an organization with not so great leadership the people talk about each other with a sense of judgment. It feels more like the current political landscape in America.

“Where there is great leadership, the people talk about the organization and about each other with a sense of pride.”

When employees (or citizen for that matter) are not positively engaged, the problem is with the leadership. The issue however doesn’t get solved by simply replacing the leadership. The issue is bigger, it’s systemic. It’s wide scope.

Rather than putting forward programs to increase employee engagement or trying to buy the employees affection with perks and toys, organizations would be best served to work on developing better leadership, and self-awareness skills with “everyone” in the organization.

With more self-awareness, comes more self-accountability, but more importantly comes more self-esteem and belief in one’s ability to affect change. In other words, the finger pointing stops, and the desire for resolution and mutual understanding begins.

People are Not Resources

Most organizations don’t invest enough on the health of people’s mindset. Mostly because people are treated like property. People are called human resources, human capital, and assets.

When shopping for a vehicle, we test it. When shopping for a home we test the appliances, and we have the home inspected. When we buy clothing, we try them on to test how they fit. We test potential “property” and we ask for warranties.

Sadly, without being consciously aware of it, we test employees and potential employees the same way … as if they are property. We give them literal tests to check competence, and cultural fit, and after we hire them, we test them some more during a probation period.

How do you feel about being property? Does that feeling encourage more engagement and loyalty?

“People are not resources. People are not property. People need to be treated with respect, with dignity. People are the highest expression of the generosity of the Universe.”

If things aren’t running so smoothly where you work, more than likely it’s a serious disconnect with how people are treated, vs. how they should be treated.

For decades this has been ok. Let me rephrase that, it’s never been ok to treat people like property, but companies have gotten away with it because we have family obligations, and “compliance” has been the mode of operations, instead of “reliance”.

Reliance means that you don’t need me, and I don’t need you, but we choose to rely on each other out of our mutual desire to achieve a goal, a purpose. Reliance is based on mutual respect. It’s based on inter-dependence, not co-dependency. Reliance is founded in human dignity.

“Companies need to move towards being more purpose driven tied to human values, and then set up operating environments that enable people to bring their very best and brightest selves freely into the success equation.”

The accountability needs to be moved from employee-to-boss, to co-owner-to-co-owner. This future of work operating model will ensure that anyone and everyone is free to make a difference, encouraged to do so, and develops a sense of responsibility that everyone is relying on each other to proactively be engaged towards everyone’s success.

“You simply can’t compete with a company where the people are united and committed to each other, founded on mutual respect.”

We are talking about conscious capitalism, where people come first, and genius comes out of a collective free people who are valued as co-owners, co-contributors, and co-leaders.

Worried this kind of people centered operating model will hurt your bottom-line? The facts show that companies operating this way have been outcompeting the growth of S&P 500 companies by a factor of 7X for the past 3 years.

This isn’t just a model good for people, it’s the most successful, profitable, competitive, and growth-oriented business operating model in production today. Period!

Before the development of the marketing concept as a management philosophy in the 1950s, marketing was defined essentially as selling. The traditional view of marketing up to that time was that marketing was responsible for creating demand for what farms, factories, forests, fishing, and mines could produce.

Marketing has also been viewed in the past as the function responsible for creating a satisfied customer and for keeping the entire organization focused on the customer.

Focusing attention on the company’s strategy for the delivery of superior value to customers is crucial. Superior marketing defined as customer-focused problem solving and the delivery of superior value to customers is a more sustainable source of competitive advantage than product technology per se.

In the final analysis, only the customer can decide whether the company has created value and whether it will survive in the hyper-competitive global marketplace.

More recently, the dominant business competence appears to be business flexibility. Significant competence is brought together within a flexible business network of inter-organizational arrangements. This is why the cloud is growing so fast, because it allows companies to be nimble in changing the moving parts sort of speak in an efficient way and with agility.

The conflict between the demands of the present and the requirements of the future lies at the heart of why a strategic shift in context and focus is needed. The environment in which tomorrow’s success will be earned is likely to be quite different from the environment that confronts organizations today.

To succeed in the new environment of tomorrow, the organization itself must undergo a significant and radical change from the traditional B2B, or B2C, or B2B2C, to become a people-to-people business.

By focusing on people, companies can outcompete and outperform everyone else because to serve people you have to know and own why you exist. Why you exist is tied to your values. The reasons that compel you to do what you do.

When you stand for something that matters, others with similar values want to be a part of it. Rather than just customers, you end up building an unshakable culture and community.

This is a key point of distinction. The most successful companies in the world build communities and serve those communities with focus and purpose.

Being everything to everyone is the quickest way to have the least loyal customers, employees, and relationships. It’s like being a business without a soul. A zombie business.

To be truly disruptive is to reshape your company so that others can’t compete with you. Today that requires a more radical approach, centered on people.

Build a Radical Brand

Why you exist trumps what you do and how you do it. Why you exist also ties to the purpose for your existence as a brand. If you exist simply to make money, then your value is making money. You would be best served by attracting people who only care about making money.

There is nothing wrong with that value, but it’s not heart based. What is the memorable experience you are creating for customers if your focus is only to make money? There is no relationship there. Everything is simply a transaction. Every day you have to start fresh and earn each customer — there is no stickiness in that business model.

The best way I can describe a heart base value is to share a recent dialogue I had with the CEO of a company seeking to get into the US marketplace from Europe.

I asked the CEO what business they are in, and he went on to describe his inventions and products for sustainable energy. I then proceeded to ask why he is in business, and he explained to me his desire to save the planet. Super noble cause, but everyone wants to save the planet or make the world a better place. 

You need to go deeper to understand the root of the why you exist.

In this case the company exists to save the planet. The next question I asked was to understand the values the founders hold near and dear to their heart, which prompted the desire to save the planet.

After several rounds of answers, and further digging in, it became clear that what he valued as the founder and CEO are respect for people, respect for the environment, and a moral obligation to future generation.

The company wants to save the planet, because it cares about people, it cares about the environment, and it feels a moral obligation to future generations. 

“Your values give more weight and meaning to the why you exist.”

In the case of this company, it does not matter if you care about sustainable energy or not. If you care about people, the planet, your children, and their children — you can connect to what this company is doing and will want to participate.

“Your values attract like-minded employees, partners, and customers, turning them into a community.”

This brings me to another important reason for understanding not only the why you exist as a business, but the values that pushed you into creating your business. Your focus becomes about enabling emotionally charged experiences, not selling a transaction.

Building your company as a people centric business culture will outlast, outcompete, and outperform anything else because you end up creating a community of interest with your employees, partners, vendors, investors and customers.

It’s a basic human need and desire to belong. Historically people looked to civic groups, religion, or other organized efforts to achieve this basic need to belong. Today, companies who understand the importance of creating community, understand that people still have a desire to belong and be part of something greater than themselves.

“When you shift your business mindset to people serving people, and instead of building a customer base you focus on building community, nothing can stop you.”

The future of work is people centric. In order to attract the right people, you have to be clear on your own values, and how those values compel you to do what you do, day in and day out. 

This self-awareness can further help you define the purpose for your business because the purpose or the why your business exists, becomes tied to your values. 

“The people centric approach to building a brand focused on values, guarantees you a strategic competitive advantage.”

You simply can’t compete long term with values like respect, integrity, honesty, abundance, acceptance, accountability, achievement, adventure, appreciation, autonomy, balance, benevolence, calmness, charity, cheerfulness, commitment, compassion, cooperation, collaboration, consistency, contribution, creativity, credibility, curiosity, decisiveness, dedication, dependability, diversity, empathy, encouragement, enthusiasm, ethics, excellence, fairness, family, friendship, flexibility, generosity, grace, flexibility, happiness, humility, inclusiveness, joy, kindness, leadership, love, loyalty, mindfulness, passion, proactivity professionalism, punctuality, recognition, relationships, reliability, resilience, resourcefulness, responsibility, responsiveness, security, stability, teamwork, thankfulness, thoughtfulness, trustworthiness, usefulness, wisdom, empowerment, and freedom.

The future of business is people focused based on values that create a lasting and fulfilling sense of community.

Remember as a kid when you purchased a puzzle and started putting it together? Some had 100s of pieces, some as many as a thousand. The more majestic the picture, the more complex the puzzle.

What came first, the puzzle or the picture? The picture of course.

The fun was putting the fragmented picture together so as to recreate it. You knew all the pieces fit together in a specific way, but you had to discover which way.

When it got really hard to put the puzzle together, it led me to give up on the puzzle till I was ready to try again. Sometimes I never tried again because I believed the pieces were wrong and gave up trying.

We can have the same experience in achieving our goals. We may have the end picture of what could be in mind, but in the process of assembling all the pieces of the puzzle together, we begin to have doubts and give up.

“The bigger the goal, the more majestic the outcome, the more complex the puzzle, requiring patience, perseverance and certainty.”

When doubt creeps in you can imagine a room wired with electricity. What happens when you flip the switch on? The electricity is there, the wiring is in place, the bulb works… you just take the action of flipping the switch and the room lights up.

The result of anything you wish to manifest in life is already in place. It is up to you to take the necessary steps, and actions to see it through.

“The outcome and process towards a goal exists before the thought, you just need to persevere in putting it all together.”

Focus Is Key

Before a problem comes up, so does the solution and the process to solve it. The same holds true with goals. The outcome and the process to achieving a goal exists before we even commit to it.

In a potential state, the process is fragmented like the pieces of a puzzle.

Focus plays an important role in achieving our goals. Without focus, actions don’t come together to form the end picture. Just like a puzzle, without focus actions towards a goal are like moving puzzle pieces around without purpose.

“To manifest life’s goals, we have to defragment all the pieces that go into it.”

Imagine what would happen if the order of the universe was off by even a nano-fraction of a second. If the Universe decided to stop focusing, it would be disastrous. With order and with the right focus we can create amazing values and achieve our goals.

Take something as simple as a chair. The chair was consciously designed out of the desire for something to sit on, but the composition of a chair required the conscious integration and use of nature’s resources (wood or metal), individual need (I want something to sit on), global benefits (everyone needs something to sit on), and business outcome (everyone will buy a chair).

What gave birth to the chair is the conscious integration of all four values: Personal, Business, Global, and Universal.

Self-Reflection

Life experiences can often shape how we perceive ourselves as a piece of the puzzle and how we fit in the bigger picture called humanity. We can’t see how all the pieces DO FIT TOGETHER, when we are fragmented within ourselves.

Fragmentation outside of us (chaos), is because of the fragmentation within ourselves (internal conflict).

How does one break free of internal conflicts that get in the way of achieving goals?

You have to be willing to see and re-trace where the fragmentation started. The purpose of becoming fully self-aware is so you can understand how to put the pieces together based on reality. It’s not work you can do alone.

Work with a friend, a mentor, a coach, a therapist… someone you trust to help you see aspects of yourself that are blocked.

“Stop for a moment focusing on being great and try to see the garbage you are holding on to that blocks you from being magnificent.”

A decade ago, I spent seven weeks with one of my mentors, teacher and friend retracing where I gave away sparks of my own magnificence. I listed 40 life events that had a profound negative impact on my life, dating back to as early as the age of two.

I wrote how they made me feel, and then one by one, I discussed them and relived them with the intention to understand any negative beliefs I created that shaped my future. In re-experiencing all those events, I began to see the sparks of my essence I gave away.

Using some neuroscience brain-hacking techniques, I took those sparks back. The benefit of retracing everything was in becoming more self-aware of the mental jail cell I had created for myself. I had replaced my sparks of magnificence with limiting beliefs in an effort to protect myself.

I often hear people talk about being afraid to be vulnerable as a defense mechanism. Often all we are doing is keeping ourselves locked into a mind prison.

“You can’t be bold and play life in a big way without being vulnerable.”

Being self-aware requires being able to see when we wear masks that manifest in a vicious cycle of self-sabotage. This isn’t work that can be done alone.

This kind of self-reflection is like removing arrows that have wounded you. It is dirty work requiring help from others who have already done the work or are willing to get into the weeds with you.

The theme that emerged at the end of those seven long weeks, was that to achieve my life goals I have to be willing to give more than I receive in life. That can’t be done if you are afraid to be vulnerable.

Give More

To achieve anything in life, you must be willing to give all you have to it and shift your narrative from being attached to the outcomes, to finding joy in the process.

“The fun of a puzzle is the challenge in putting together all the pieces.”

By detaching from the outcomes, we can focus on giving for the sake of giving. We can find joy in the state of giving more, and in the journey. This vulnerable state of being opens your heart.

An open heart allows the individual to see the puzzle pieces clearly, un-fragmented and that is one of the secrets to succeeding at anything.

Earlier in my career I had the work persona, and the at home persona. Even a DISC assessment revealed this duality. My natural state is someone who drives things forward and who uses encouragement, or influence to bolster support. My adaptive state is someone who plays by the rules, complies, and is a boring corporate suit.

I discovered over the years that my adaptive state was a proactive way for me to play smaller, so that my bosses could feel less threatened from someone who naturally becomes influential in the organization.

However, my natural state eventually emerges and that’s when conflict with the command-and-control bosses start. At least that is what I told myself based on the level of self-awareness at the time.

Later I came to realize the role relationships can have in everything we do in life.

Some work environments really suck, and there are some awful bosses out there. The question is why would anyone manifest such a work environment to begin with? Why do we stay in such an environment?

I don’t miss working in those environments. As a matter of fact, the reason I became a founding member of RadicalPurpose.org is because I am pretty sure most of you reading this, don’t like controls, and being dominated, or marginalized either.

It’s easy to point fingers and say that the system is setup to be command and control, and we are essentially all forced to comply, but the reason such systems like patriarchy or matriarch (both command and control paradigms) exist is because we allow it. Not only do we allow it, but we also create it in our state of consciousness.

Integrate or Suffer

Most people do not integrate their work with their life, as a result many despise their work life, they cannot wait for the weekend, and they dread the arrival of Monday.

Because of this lack of integration, a lot of people today get their sense of self-esteem, self-worth, and identity from what they do in their spare time versus what they do in their career while producing values.

This sad and unfortunate limitation encourages dishonesty, and in some cases the duality is so bad that it makes people turn to escapes like alcohol, drug use, and other addictions that end up causing neurosis.

When people turn to external sources such as alcohol, drugs, happy hour, parties, spectator sports, and hobbies to get short “one-shot” blasts of self-esteem, self-worth, pleasure, and happiness, it creates a void inside our state of being.

I don’t have anything against having a good time, if it’s not a need to escape.

“When you escape, you only get a momentary boost, and then you are worse off than when you started.”

Everything with the right consciousness and self-awareness can have amazing merit, however one-shot blasts are un-integrated, so they do not last. Escapes do not contribute to one’s net long-term happiness — one’s happiness bank account.

Still, to feel “good”, or to feel “happy”, people are driven to continually seek one-shot blasts. This usually leads to a life of wasted superfluous activities and dishonesty.

How much genuine pride and self-esteem can be earned by being the world’s best sports fan? Or by being the best television watcher? Or by being the best drinker? Or being super popular on Instagram and having lots of followers.

One need only take these activities to its maximum achievement-capacity conclusion to see the honest value of them. It then becomes obvious, for example, that being the best at watching television, or the best sports fan, or the best drinker is of little or no value to long term self-development.

However, being the best in one’s career will lead to great values for yourself, and society. All genuine happiness can be derived through the creation of values, as discussed in a previous blog, and by being your authentic self.

“When we begin to integrate who we are in all we do, we begin to grow in self-confidence, in self-respect, and begin to live fully self-aware.”

Self-Awareness is Key

The sad thing about the command-and-control paradigm we’ve been under for millenniums is that it causes people to think they are victims. If you are not in charge, then you are not responsible right?

Wrong.

This is the biggest problem of allowing the command-and-control paradigm to continue. The problem is that it does not foster self-awareness. Without self-awareness one cannot achieve fulfillment. This makes people turn to one shot blast of happiness.

From a societal point of view, we start to focus more on pointing fingers at what’s wrong with others, instead of identifying our own growth opportunities. We get energy from blaming people, from anger… it’s amazing energy. The problem is, just like the one-shot blasts we discussed, that energy doesn’t last. It’s not sustainable.

For us to achieve a sustainable sense of fulfillment, we must take 100% full responsibility for ourselves, and we must begin to be authentic in all our relationships.

The Person in the Mirror

Instead of thinking about our lives in compartments, my work life, my family life, my leisure life, my secret life. What if we simply focused on our relationships?

When you begin to focus on relationships, you start with yourself. You can start by asking yourself:

Who am I? What do I stand for? What do I believe? What is my truth? Do I love myself? Do I have gratitude for my life? Do I believe in myself? Do I respect myself? Do I value who I am? Am I fulfilled? Do I accept myself as I am?

The answers will reveal to you your most important relationship. The relationship with yourself. Then we can begin to relate with others in a more genuine and authentic way.

If you don’t love yourself so much, you won’t be able to love other’s either. If you don’t have gratitude for your life, you won’t respect other people’s lives either. If you don’t accept yourself as imperfect, you won’t be able to extend the same courtesy to others.

“Any disconnect we have with the relationship we have with ourselves, will cause a disconnect with the relationship we have with others.”

For years I used to think that my separation of work life, personal life, family life, spiritual life and so on, was justified. The DISC assessment validated my desire to fit in, so that I would survive. That wasn’t living fully present my friends.

Eventually I had to come to grip with the importance of having a better relationship with myself, and how that would extend to all those areas in my life that simply became my complete life.

Today, I have the pleasure of not having to separate anything. I work at Nearsoft (now Encora), where being yourself is encouraged. I get to just be fully me all the time.

The more we work and focus on relationships, the less power we will give external command and controls. Start with the person in the mirror.

A lot of people make affirmations about themselves on a regular basis that they love themselves. There is a way to validate if you are being honest with yourself or not.

How often do the actions of other people upset you? Do you find yourself blaming other people for who they are? Do you find yourself getting angry at situations, or people in your life?

If you find yourself blaming, cursing, angry, disgusted, uneasy by things and people outside yourself, chances are you still maintain judgement and unease feelings about the most important relationship in your life. The person in the mirror. You.

Maybe it’s time to forgive yourself? The world will be a better place for it if we all started with simply giving ourselves a break for being human. How about we give each other a break, and practice more self-awareness?

I was 20 when I started to learn golf. I remember being obsessed with the game. Playing as often as possible, reading how to books, and taking as many clients on the course as possible.

The best game I ever played was at River Run in Maryland. I finished seven over par, I was 25. At 26 my company at the time, MCI Telecommunications, had a golf outing with our global accounts on Long Island New York, and my foursome won 1st place.

Commitment Before Ego

I struggled to get good at golf, mostly because of ego which is rooted in low self-worth. One of the manifestations of low-self-worth is the inability to ask for help. Low self-worth also has an impact on our leadership development.

I used to think I was not good enough to play with the experts. I was more concerned about how I would “look”, than the benefit I would gain from being around experts and learning how to play better from them.

I was afraid to be vulnerable. I was afraid to admit that I didn’t know something, for fear that I would be judged as not good enough.

I think back to so many opportunities for growth that I had, where I let my ego get in the way by needing to look like I had it all together.

I want to help others not make the same mistake and miss out on growth opportunities. I did eventually learn an important lesson from golf about life and leadership.

“In the game of golf, the only competition you face is your bad habits.”

The greatest of golfers does not analyze how another golfer plays, he/she works on improving his/her own game by developing consistent good habits that generate consistently good results.

The smart golfers, take tips, own that it’s a game requiring constant growth and learning, and they don’t let ego get in the way of improving their game when others offer up constructive criticism.

The same is true in life, isn’t it?

The more open we are to learn, the humbler we remain, the more fulfilled we become as we grow and become better than we were the day before.

Sadly, much like when I was in my 20s and 30s, many people spend a great deal of time figuring out how to look like they are better than others, compete at all costs, and look like they have it all together.

“There is a fundamental problem with the fake it till you make it strategy. You are fooling yourself and holding yourself back from growing.”

Work on Yourself

By competing with others, you end up within a zero-sum strategy. You go after your slice of the pie, but there is only so much to go around. You end up having to force someone out of the game, and ultimately the same can happen to you.

What is the alternative?

When you focus on your own game, and you stay open to growing, learning and being adaptive, you gain the brilliance and means to create new values.

“Being humble and hungry for growth will enable you to add something to the life opportunities pie that is missing… making the pie bigger.”

Widening the pie benefits you, and others too. If more people adopted this mindset, we would never experience economic downfalls and more people would experience prosperity.

Much like the game of golf, for us to experience sustainable success in life requires we focus on developing ourselves to be consistent, productive, resilient, and above all people who add value to others.

“Focusing on adding values makes you a creator, while focusing on competing and beating others makes you a taker.”

When we are in creator mode, anything can be accomplished, when we go into taker mode, we might experience temporary gains in life, but we will ultimately experience chaos. It’s built into the taker operating system.

The economic crash we had in 2008 was a testament of what happens when we consume more than we produce, when we take more than we give. The only way for it to never happen again, is to become beings of creative and giving forces, vs. beings that need stuff to be happy.

The crash came from the need to compete in a zero-sum proposition world. If you are not actively adding value, you are taking from the pie and eventually this causes recessions, and depressions.

The key ingredient to growing as an individual is much like improving your golf game. Focus on yourself. Develop your own qualities. Become consistent, and productive. Improve your own game.

The winner in golf is not the one who beats the other players, the winner is the one who worked on improving his/her own game. The winner is the one who day in and day out outdoes his/her old game the most. Period!

“In life, winning means outdoing your old self, your old ways, your old strategy, your old views, and more importantly the way you view yourself.”

Let Go of the Need for Validation

Because of our desire to be validated, respected, and… we can focus on looking good, so others think well of us, and lose sight of the real game, growing as a human being.

“The real game of life is about evolving to be better, more loving, more giving, more compassionate, more authentic human beings.”

When we focus on just improving ourselves, becoming better than we were the day before, there is no other outcome but a winning outcome.

Validation, respect, and love are all verbs; they are actions that need to come from the inside out, not the other way around.

When a great golfer is losing, he/she does not use the excuse that “the wind” caused them to lose, the great golfer admits when they did not develop a strategy to not let the wind dictate their game.

“In life the wind is what others think of us. If you go outside on a windy day and try chasing it… you’ll never catch it, and you will find yourself exhausted trying.”

When you focus on being better grounded within yourself, you won’t even know the wind is there.

You will have control of the outcome of your own game, and since we’ve already discussed that that game is focused on adding value to the pie by creating values for others, everyone will win along with you.

You might win or lose in a competitive golf game with other players, but if you are focused on outdoing yourself day in and day out, you are winning at the bigger game — the game of life.

It’s tempting and easy to choose to see life as a glass half empty or half full. It’s also easy to judge having more or less, as either being full or empty. Abundance or scarcity. Are these two opposite realities something that happens in the mind, or do they manifest in real life in measurable ways?

The answer to both questions is yes. But the more important question is what comes first, the reality or the state of mind? In what order do they happen?

There are many streams of consciousness that make a strong case for whatever we manifest, first starting in the mind. Our state of being, what we focus on, our desires become reality.

I think someone who struggles with poverty, hunger, disease, and other forms of lack, is not likely to agree with the concept that he/she has manifested those things out of desire.

I am here to make the argument that we never lack anything at all. Whatever the situation we are in, there is something we are getting from it. Aware of it consciously or not, we are getting something from the circumstance we are in.

“We get energy from being in whatever situation we are in.”

We get energy from the reasons we aren’t making millions. We get energy from why we are not with our soulmate. We get energy from why we are not healthy. We get energy from anger. We get energy from sadness. We get energy from everything we choose to experience.

Why does this happen?

Because we value the situation we are in, albeit not consciously aware of it, more than the energy we would get from changing it. Breaking from poverty is hard work, it’s going all in and then some. It’s hard to break free, but not impossible.

We are materialized energy, and we are always full, it’s a matter of understanding what motivates us, but we are never at the mercy of anything outside of ourselves.

“We are the producers, directors, and actors of our own reality show — life”

Everything starts with desire, but desire without actions is just that… desire. What we manifest in our lives is a reflection of our strongest desires, conscious and unconscious, followed by our actions, voluntary or robotic.

Overcome the Need to Be Served

Energy is not static, energy is always flowing, it is either flowing to serve you in a positive way, or it is flowing to serve you in a negative way. Energy in itself has no purpose without consciousness.

“You are the source of your energy, and you are the vessel of it at the same time.”

We are either filling ourselves with outcomes that propel us forward, or we are filling ourselves with things like depression, procrastination, sadness, anger, resentment, and judgments.

Let’s call these container of energy “sabotage robots.”

“How energy flows in our lives, depends greatly on whether we are beings who like to give and serve, or beings who like to receive and be served.”

The reality is that to experience true prosperity in all aspects of our lives we need to be both, and at any given moment we are both.

My Buddhist mentor Felix, who was with the Dalai Lama and a monk for over a decade, said to me once: “Tullio to deny the animal inside you, is to deny the divine inside you.”

Our life’s purpose is to balance our animalistic consciousness with our higher consciousness. It’s a dance that if done correctly creates a balanced and fulfilled life.

Knowing that we are constantly in a state of giving and receiving, can help understand why at times we could manifest scarcity. When nothing that we perceive as good is serving us, we turn to those robots we’ve created called “sabotage.”

Our animalistic sub-consciousness reasons like this: “I can’t afford that new toy right now, because I don’t have the money working for me and therefore I don’t have the means to fill my need for happiness right now, so I am going to have sadness serve me because I need something to fill me, something to give me energy.”

There is energy in sadness, depression, anger, resentment, judgment… they are sources of incredible energy; those energy containers are not external of you, you created them and put them on reserve to come and serve you when you are feeling low on energy… so you deploy those robots who come and give you the feeling of control.

“Scarcity can be a form of temporary misdirected fulfillment, whenever we choose not to do the work needed to truly feel joy.”

This realization causes one of three things: Flight, freeze, or fight responses. Those who choose to fight, one by one begin to realize that leading a measurably productive, and accountable life as covered in one my past blog is about pouring energy outward not only into containers, but into pipes that drive the progress and improvement of humanity.

“A pipe has an entry and exit point; it is endlessly flowing. When we choose to let energy flow through us, instead of rest with us, we create synergy with the Universe.”

We create an endlessly supply of energy because we are actively sharing it, not hoarding it.

“The more you seek to be served, the more the sabotage robots are given permission to take over your life.”

When you become inner to outer directed, with the purpose of being a value creator for others, those sabotage robots begin to die. It’s kind of like when you are growing a lawn, the best way to kill the weeds, isn’t to pull them… weeds thrive on space.

You plant more healthy seeds and as the good grass thickens the weeds choke and die automatically, because you are removing space.

It’s very simple. What you give energy to determines your state of mind, and the related actions you take determine your mood. If you are not producing, you are taking.

The sabotage robots in the taking mode of operation are: One-time shots/blast of energy such as abuse of alcohol, drugs, no strings attached sex, anger, resentment, depression, doubts…

These are all intended to fill an emptiness within for that moment, but long-term emptiness cannot be filled from the outside, it can only be filled by emanating positive energy (planting more good seeds).

Fill a Void Without Filling It

When it comes to your state of being, much like the weeds in the grass growth example, you remove the space between the good energy you put out and the voids, by giving more positive energy outward.

“Only in emanating what we desire to experience, can we actually experience it.”

The voids in our lives don’t need to be filled, they need to be eliminated by creating more outwardly focused pipes of energy. If you have a plot of land that is empty, you don’t fill it with grown fruit trees, for they might live one season and die the next, you plant the seed, water it, and then you let something called nature take its course.

The seed of the trees are then rooted and participate in the process of growth in the plot of land they were planted in, they were not transplanted, and hence they can keep giving fruit, year after year.

When you create those positive energy pipes, all you do is plant the seed, and water (work towards the realization of those goals) but the actual outcome is not within your hands, the outcome already exists, just like a fruit tree is already existent within the seed.

How well the tree manifests and produces fruit is based on the farmer’s (you) actions, and then the course of nature (reality), which sustains the tree.

All around us there is energy which we are a sub-set of (reality), recognizing this principle will allow us to one by one remove the space in our lives, and stop asking the “sabotage robots” to come to our aid when we feel empty, but rather we begin to plant more positive seeds, (take more actions) realizing that we can be absolutely certain that whatever we plant, the outcome already exists in the Universal Consciousness that becomes reality.

“The reward of living a full and joyful life isn’t based on the outcomes of our actions. The reward comes in being able to play an active self-accountable role in the process.”

Being attached to the end results to be happy is a form of “sabotage robots’ we have created. Desire and action coupled with detachment is key. The way to never experience scarcity is to be proactive in your process to becoming a being of action, a giving force for the betterment of humanity, but stay detached of the outcomes.

In short, do your best, give your best. That’s all you need to do.