There’s a difference between being liked and being valued. A lot of people like you, not as many value you. Be valued.

A person of value delivers something of consequence to the equation.

The more interesting variable in the thought process is “what specifically constitutes value?”

In its most traditional expression, value is something that is exemplified through virtues or attributes that a specific person might embody, that are equal to, or greater, than the virtues or attributes of the other people around them.

For example, someone might be stronger, more intelligent, have a higher degree of training, a higher degree of personal aptitude, or be financially more secure. Value is something that is measured by the perceiving party. Someone may have incredible qualities of value, but, to the wrong audience, those qualities are completely lost for any one of one hundred different reasons.

In the course of trying to be someone of value, we improve ourselves through any of the myriad potential opportunities at our disposal. When we find ourselves in a group, those values are exemplified through a host of different qualities and attributes.

That said, there is a clear distinction between being valued and being used for one of your attributes. That difference lies in the heart and the motivation of the third-party who (presumably) values you. For example, you might be taller than average, so a person with lesser height might value you, just because you can reach the items on the top shelf. Or you might have very specific training in a narrow field of focus that is highly desirable to the party who wishes to leverage your knowledge to their benefit.

But value is not always a positive variable. In the dating world, there are plenty of people who will value you, just so you will take them to a fancy restaurant and buy them an expensive meal. Is that value? Or is that just being used by a party who is wise enough to leverage your assets to their benefit? 

Working to become someone of value is a life journey. It is truly not achieved at any one particular point in time, rather it aggregates over the course of a lifetime, through a series of growth chapters, in which your value escalates exponentially as a direct result of whatever it was that you did that created the value in the first place.

When you select the people with whom you are most desirous of associating, you must continually remain cognizant of your value in the equation, so that they are more readily appreciative of all that you bring to the table. Once you have this perspective, the personal quality that is an appropriate companion for being someone of value, is genuine humility.

When you awaken to who and what you are, everyone else automatically awakens to who and what you are, without a word spoken.

Happy Tuesday!

I will allow life’s changes to make me better not bitter.

There is a tremendous growth opportunity, awaiting each of us, at every stage of the equation, especially in those moments when it is clear that we are not going to get exactly what we asked for, nor what we were seeking.

There is a tendency to feel “sour grapes” when the events don’t work out our way. We are quick to find fault with everything that we were so enraptured with, prior to the determination of our not getting it as we had expected.

There is a human tendency to discredit something that we were previously in favor of, as a direct result of our inability to acquire it. It is natural, but it does not have to be the way we choose to engage with the world around us.

When something is not working out as expected, often times, that means we will find our way into something substantially better for our not having been distracted by what we were so certain we needed to have previously.

This optimistic perspective is so much more opportune for an overall life strategy, than to resort to some degree of an angry disappointment remedy, just because it did not go our way.

When we find the maturity to embrace the loss as just being normal in the course of doing business, we are more able to write it off as an intermediary variable, as opposed to any kind of a crushing defeat, even if it feels like such, at the time.

Today’s aphorism fully explains that our opportunity to grow in this equation is substantially better for us long-term, then perhaps any particular unrealized outcome that we had been pursuing. For in the course of our learning to weather such a disappointment, and to quickly rebound, improve ourselves, and get substantially stronger, we develop an internal core tool in our arsenal, that will aid us in countless other life experiences, and perhaps be the principal factor that navigates us out of a predetermined loss, into an eventual win.

When we are capable of detaching our logic from our emotions, we are able to review the larger picture and walk away. With an enlightened perspective, we discover we are a continuous work in progress, and that it is only our continual willingness to improve every aspect of our being that will ultimately give us the ammunition to succeed on a much larger scale going forward.

If you find yourself migrating towards bitterness, you are most wise to take a step back and go to a quiet sanctuary, so that you have ample room to mature in an intelligent fashion, rather than having to remedy any kind of a negative situation that comes as a direct result of your bitterness.

The choice is always yours.

Happy Monday!

Sometimes you need to walk alone, to find yourself.

There are times, when the very best person for you to discuss something extremely controversial with, is yourself. These are the moments when you have the most difficult considerations before you, and genuinely no one else will be able to help you to make those decisions.

Having an opportunity to seek one’s own counsel is of immeasurable value. This usually requires tranquility and a period of complete non-distraction, in order that you may drill down into the core issues, and give each one of them the thought, and consideration that they warrant. 

When we get to the point of zero distraction, we find our brain is much more willing to finally confront the deepest concerns that trouble us. In this contemplation, we are more likely to find our own internal understanding, such that we might be fully capable of not ducking away from the responsibility, and instead, going many layers deeper into the deliberation necessary to assist us in our choice for going forward. 

The journey through life is fraught with many chapters, not of our choosing. In the course of our having to weather these experiences, our growth improves exponentially, and our ability to avoid similar circumstances in the future, improves as a direct byproduct.

When we take a walk, the kinetic energy is transformational and ultimately lulls us into a sense of tranquility. This provides a tremendous foundation for making the most controversial of decisions. The avoidance of distraction further enables our focus to lift some of the layers of confusion that blind us during a normal period of our day, such that we are much more vivid in our understanding of the consequences that we are contemplating, in making such a decision.

Sometimes you just need to walk away to get to where you are going.

Happy Sunday!

There are no rules about leaping into the NEW… because no one has been there before. 

ZORINA BRAM

Venturing into the unknown is one of the most amorphous experiences one can possibly pursue.

For me, I can honestly share it has been an addiction, most of my life. Certainly, for as long as I can remember.

The aphorism today came from my mother’s best friend. She said it to me when I was about 16. and it connected so deeply for me that I wrote it in my quote book and have never forgotten it. When I heard her say it, I realized it was what I loved so much about being a photographer. My father had taught me the art of taking pictures when I was very young, and we experimented with any technique that Photographic and other magazines would publish. I was consumed with trying what they did and then going much further from there, with my flavor of whatever they had tried. Standing on the shoulders of these giants, I was able to see further and find my way into the unknown.

I had a partner who is working with me on a project at the moment, ask why he would willingly take on such a monumental task in such a short time frame. The answer is obvious. In working on the IMAX Film, Everest, and talking with our climbers, they all gave one reason for their motivation to risk their lives against such an almost impossible ambition…. Because it is there. 

That is the sum total reason.

Jumping into the NEW carries a mystique to those who crave it, because it is limitless. We live in an unparalleled time in artistic history. There have never been more tools, systems, technologies, interactions, engagements for a creative person to interact with, than  there is, right here and now in 2023.

I have watched a lot of art-oriented technologies emerge in my time. The Illusion Factory has beta tested and lead the road on the development of artistic expression, in many of them. Just because someone has a tool, does not make them an artist. Just because someone has a metaverse doesn’t necessarily mean they have the vision as to what to do with it. The metaphorical white canvas of Spielberg, Tarantino and Scorcese delivers very different results.

People are drawn into the NEW in all walks of life, in all industry verticals… it is a calling. There is an inescapable lure to the prospect of doing something before others… Of being the pioneer in new territory. In breaking new ground.

The opportunity to explore without any limitation is such an irresistible attraction, it has been the single greatest cause of human evolution since our rise from our early mammalian ancestors. We are perpetually curious creatures, and that curiosity is what has accelerated us to our current moment of opportunity, freedom and experience.

If you feel this calling, you must start with the core tenet…. There are NO RULES.

Happy Saturday!

The right people hear you differently.

LALAH DELIA

When you are connected to the right audience, they instantly comprehend whatever you are communicating.

The massive diversity of humanity creates a wide spectrum of people with whom you are fortunate to connect.

Each of us bring our own life experience, knowledge, expertise and personal bias to any equation. As a result, the filters through which we process all that we experience, will inevitably create a substantial disparity in how each one of us will react to any particular stimuli.

Sometimes we may be working to engage a professional colleague in a discussion about an area of expertise that they will instantly comprehend, and drill deep down into the core essentials of the topic, whereas to try to explain the same to a person without that knowledge may prove a fruitless task.

In our personal relationships, there are those who can genuinely relate to what we are chatting about, and others who had might as well be speaking another language. In that range of disparity, we find deep connections with those who understand us, and more superficial connections with those who are less capable of relating to whatever it is we are opting to speak about.

As we put many years in the rear view mirror, we learn that the most irreplaceable asset we have in our personal holdings are those who have known us for a long period of time. In those treasured relationships, many shared experiences create a bond of understanding that one who had not been there personally, can fully understand.

So when we find those with whom we treasure spending time, we connect on a much deeper level. Our appreciation of them, and their appreciation of us, grows exponentially.

Working to expose yourself to many different types of people, outside of your traditional comfort zone, and learning to relate to them, is an art form, and is truly essential to growing in life. In many cases, your only opportunity to expand your personal holdings, is directly related to your ability to connect with others who are outside your traditional comfort zone. In these communications, you are most likely to grow and improve your ability to relate to a much wider audience than before.

But when you have something that is most critical to communicate, you are always going to be most appreciative of those who really hear and understand what you are working to share.

Happy Friday!

Bring love wherever you go. Shine light wherever it’s dark. Leave blessings wherever you’ve been. Be kind wherever you are.

MARY DAVIS

The choice to be a luminous being is always yours. 

Regardless of circumstance. Regardless of consequence.

In your determination to be such a person, you are inevitably going to encounter the opposite. When that happens, you will find yourself at a crossroad. You must either continue on your chosen path, or you will stray in favor of stimuli that causes you to discard your optimum mindset and leave some of your luminosity in your wake.

If you find that you have been distracted off of your course, you may quickly revert to the perspective you chose to embrace and work your way further down the road. It is not a perfect journey, but with practice, your direction will become more consistent; your perspective, more focused and your determination to maintain your course of action, more resolute.

You have the power within you to deliver on your internal promise to be exactly whom you believe yourself to be, independent of other variables that presume to encompass your sense of self.

When you walk through life with luminous intentions, you are a ray of light. To some you are just being yourself, and to others, you might be just the ray of sunshine that they were praying for.

You may never know which you are being, but at a minimum, you could potentially brighten someone’s day who truly needs you to do so.

And in the end, isn’t that the core meaning of wealth?

Happy Thursday!

You can’t change how people treat you or what they say about you. All you can do is change how you react to it.

MAHATMA GANDHI

Are you impervious to the way others feel about you?

Is anyone?

We might all like to believe that we are such, but the reality is that almost all of us remain susceptible to the outside opinions surrounding us. Why is that so necessary?

Is it because we are raised in a society that continues to reflect in on itself? And in doing so, are there ample opportunities for every last person to find fault in another?

In the world of unequal attributes, it stands to reason that everyone will find qualities in another that they either admire, disrespect, or covet. That is just a human experience.

In order to be fully evolved as a higher level being, coming to terms with the fact that you will never be approved by everyone, is a core tenet that must be adopted, in order to have a relatively peaceful and less stress-oriented existence.

Once you are clear that regardless of everything that you do, everything that you try, every compromise or adjustment you are willing to make, there will always be someone on the sidelines feeling negative feelings towards some aspect of who, or what you are, or what you are doing, the more free as an individual, you ultimately become.

We become trapped in our own society’s issues. We witness them in various media, only to transpose those feelings onto our world with apprehension that perhaps we are giving others the cause to judge us.

But do we really have an opportunity to live our lives to their fullest if we are continually trying to dance to the tune of someone else’s calling? Wouldn’t it perhaps be wiser for us to recognize this simple truth? Once we are capable of understanding that we are never going to please all of our potential detractors, we become instantly liberated from a large assortment of their shackles, placed upon us for the most part, by our own allowance.

When we take control of our allowance, and eliminate any external and internal reaction, we are considerably more free to dance to the own tune of our own choosing.

In the end, no one can mentally hurt you without your own permission. If you are truly capable of revoking any permission internally, that you might be granting them in the course of your daily existence, you eliminate all of the power that a third-party might have in reducing any feelings you might have, that are positive towards your own self.

In the end, you are now free to go about life at your own options, and if others are incapable of understanding, or appreciating the choices that you are making, you have put all of that problem on their shoulders and eliminated it from your own.

These are the tools that will enable you to live life on a considerably more free basis, such that you may experience all that life has to offer without the values that others have expressed towards you in their own limited capacity to understand everything that is going on in your world, and the reasons for the choices that you are making.

Happy Wednesday!

First it hurts, then it changes you.

Some of the most difficult lessons in life, are anything but painless.

That is perhaps why those particular lessons are so hard to actually learn. You need to experience them empirically prior to your having a real understanding about what someone else is going through.

For example, until you have suffered the loss of a parent, you cannot begin to imagine the magnitude of what that experience is like. If you have ever had the wind knocked out of you so harshly that you are gasping for breath, losing a parent is like that, but exponentially harder. It is truly unfathomable.

How does that change you? For starters, when you are in that state of massive overwhelm, you might be taken back by how many people try to comfort you by telling you how they lost one of their parents and they want to tell you an anecdote about their experience. The truth is, you have absolutely zero bandwidth to even listen to their story, nor be polite about it, nor have an intelligent response. If you are in emotional control at that moment, you listen silently and acknowledge what they have said, and all the while you are hoping and praying that they will stop this story as soon as possible. You are completely in grief and they have nothing in their story that is going to make you feel better, and at that moment, your empathy and compassion is running on empty, so you weather the experience.  Suddenly someone else is telling you a similar story, and all you want to do is go into a sanctuary and work through your own grief without trying to be polite about someone else’s story.

Where is the lesson? 

From my own personal experience, I have changed how I react when someone loses a loved one. If I knew the person, I tell them a warm remembrance as to how that person did something, or said something, that made me feel joyous or appreciative of their presence. If I did not know the parent, I am most often saying something like, “I did not know your parent, but the acorn does not fall far from the mighty oak and they must have been a remarkable human being to have raised a child such as you.” I have found this simple comforting phrase helps make the true connection I am trying to convey and I can tell from their reaction that there is actual comfort in the phrase, not a polite acknowledgment.

I send my morning musings to a small group of friends on a daily basis. One in particular was suffering from some tough life issues. There were many days when he would take the time to respond to one of my musings and share how it made him feel and how energized he was from the thoughts. He called me his sensei, which is flattering, but hardly appropriate. I am just a guy writing thoughts. I noticed he had not responded to anything this month, so I sent a text back asking how he was, and his wife texted me back that he had passed away on New Years Day.

I sat there quietly trying to process the information. I reflected on the times we spent together, the Genesis concerts we had seen, the deep passion for music and entertainment that we shared. He had found me through one of our mutual friends and published more than 50 of my best concert pictures in a magnificent book he was producing and placed my work as a 16 year old, side by side with the greatest concert photographers of my generation. He gave me a gift in that choice that made such a difference to me.

Life is short. If you are not making every day count, you are wasting your most valuable of all currencies… time.

Tell people you love them. I told him this on many an occasion and it seemed to make a difference to him, and it certainly made a difference to me.

Happy Tuesday!

Sometimes you have to let go of the picture of what you thought life would be like, and learn to find joy in the story you are actually living.

RACHEL MARIE MARTIN

How often are your preconceived notions accurate?

We all forecast concepts of what we believe is going to come to pass. But, as is often the case, while you are busy making plans, life comes along, and either distracts you, or (temporarily) impedes you from fulfilling that which you had forecast.

As focused as our efforts may truly be, there are often other things, which supersede our own surface layer of will and intent. These more hidden energies attract other combinations of variables, which may ultimately play out in our bigger picture.

As these experiences come to pass, it seems appropriate to embrace the actual events that are surrounding you, feel gratitude for your participation in them, and elevate your consciousness to a new level of harmony with your overall existence.

So many lives are spent lamenting that which they did not accomplish, when in actuality, the same lives could be spent celebrating all that they have accomplished. This is much more than “the cup is half full” perspective, in that it is also an opportunity to see the world for what it is and to embrace reality with a newfound sense of gratitude and appreciation for all that you have been blessed to receive.

Your life may be taking a different tack from where are you thought you might be going, but, perhaps that is actually a great thing. If you are capable of seeing this, you might wake up to discover you are actually in a much better place than the reality of what you might have previously forecast as being your future.

It is a continuous set of calibrations. On one side, you must continue to focus on building and attracting the future that you are most desirous of achieving. I do not think it is wise to ever let go of that drive and the perspective that will carry you there. On the other side, if you are not appreciative of all that is going well in your world, you are letting another day go by that you will never have again. If you are consciously appreciating all that is working, your energies will carry you to where you truly wish to be.

Let your emotions be your guide. If you are feeling negative emotions, you are reverberating signals from your inner being that things are not well and need your attention. Once you feel those negative emotions, it can serve as a flashcard for you to wake up out of the fog and turn things in your favor. Whereas, if you are feeling joyous emotions, your inner being is showing you that you have many things in your world to be appreciative of and empowering you to accelerate further forward in that direction.

Happy Monday!

Don’t depend too much on anyone. Everyone changes when they meet new people.

In the professional world, we are caught short by enabling one particular client to consume too large of an overall percentage of our volume of work. It is a very common scenario where one particular relationship is working so well, as to outgrow and out perform all of the other relationships combined. The pattern is familiar, the revenue, consistently growing, and our overall dependence is quietly and consistently moving in favor of that client. If for any one of countless reasons, that client opts to produce their work elsewhere, or is perhaps forced out of business, we will be left in a highly vulnerable position from which we must quickly extricate our business. Otherwise… our business will fail.

In a personal relationship, people are quick to bond and develop ties of magnitude. Witness what happens to close friends, when they both hit that age where their peers are getting married and having children. What was once an inseparable bond, is slowly eroded into a more casual relationship, due to life’s cycles, experiences and requirements.

As an employee, depending too much on your employer can cause equal havoc over the course of time. Understanding the dynamic between you both, learning the variables that your employer considers most valuable and working continuously to surpass their expectations is your core strategy. But you are always potentially vulnerable to the next potential hire that they opt to bring into their organization, so keeping your horizon wide open and your options very clear, is critical to your success.

Conversely, as an employer, your vulnerability to your key employees, is equally a concern. If you have built your company around one or two star performers, you are continuously susceptible to the choices that their life may give them cause to make. In that vulnerability, you may find yourself having to either make significant concessions or lose them to another employer.

In a personal, romantic relationship, you may also feel equally secure. But there does always lie the possibility that your security is not as foundational as you might predict. You could be well served to survey the dynamic between you both and watch for areas of weakness. If, or when, you discover these, open a clear and non confrontational communication between you both, so that you may ask the hard questions and learn how your true dynamic really fits into both of your respective realities.

There is one person you may always count on. And that is yourself. With each and every passing day, you should continue to mature, grow, learn, and evolve into the single greatest asset in life that you could ever possibly hope for. If you can elevate your personal stature to such a state of impressive characteristics, you can become the single greatest best friend you could ever hope to have. Then, when or if, your circumstances with others evolves, you still have the most important ally in your corner.

Happy Saturday!