"What I've felt, What I've known Never shined through in what I've shown. Never free. Never me. So I dub thee unforgiven."   - Metallica     

In this article, we will explore the tips and topics required to seriously consider relocating one's mind into a new frame of reference, to experience life, business, and the world differently. We all need to accomplish a degree of self-actualization along creative lines of exploration that deduce and expose our spirits to the world and those we care about. We wish to spread energy and joy, while inspiring some change in small but great ways within our spheres of influence! We won’t all do something huge, but we will do what we do well, when we combine the gifts we have been given and nurture connections well with others.

It begins with changing your mind about the things you may have been taught in youth, and while being indoctrinated into the ‘working world’ of a certain structure - depending upon the nation, culture, family, industry, education you were faced with, etc. But these predecessor templates that shaped you are not those which will define you tomorrow. We are in the process of changing them, and using their former teachings to revolutionize our new model for how we wish to live from a place of inspiration instead of from guilt, shame, obligation, and scarcity.

To shine in life, our days cannot be lack-luster, not all of them. There are always ups and downs, and unexpected trials and tribulations - but on the right footing to begin with, using the resilience we garner through diligent spiritual practice, we face head-on with a positive attitude, the adversity and thrive in it. Most importantly, we demonstrate a good example to others by the outlook we take and the creativity we boldly execute in a landscape of cookie-cutter templates of how to live life. Imagine if it weren’t for the people who did things differently and made you curious, would you have reached this far today? I would not have, that’s for sure.

Secondly, one can benefit from focus - not necessarily a plan or a sense of having all the answers, however some measure of combatting the tendency for complacency on one hand, and impulsivity on the other hand. The balance rests in ‘flow state’ where activations of informed and inspired ideas meet the current position and opportunities in sight to avail us of actionable intelligence and clear objectives.

We need to be willing to break our own prejudices and stereotypes that act as fences and closed doors - we are the only ones imposing these limits to upward mobility in our progress. Nobody else. Neither financial, socio-economic, political, family, educational, or intelligence considerations hinder us in fact from thinking and feeling differently about ourselves, one day at a time. Freedom is not only a ‘state of mind’, it is only attained in the mind. Nowhere else is freedom actually required, because nowhere else is it lacking. The world is already a free system of biodiverse and self-healing nature, self-regulating social and energy structures that freely adapts and adjusts to our true human intentions, without hindrance. We create it every day, and re-create it in our own image. What is insane is that we keep doing many of the same mistakes every day and expect different results, or expect more return to ourselves than the rate of inflation.

Without putting in different and better application of solutions, no better results will emerge. Together with certain techniques and in some smaller way, knowledge, more so self-given permission, we will institute the changes that I believe we all really want.

You can only be responsible for your own piece though, so your lifestyle, your work, and your stewardship of family is the groundwork where you will do your best and focus your energy - not on changing others or jumping into their fires, while trying desperately to change their dreams which they are creating and simulating according to their own images and templates. The pasts of others are not yours, and only your future belongs to you.

When it comes to many of the motivations and excuses related to business and sustainable finances, I can tell you that the profit motive is not evil, but it is not the driving element in the story either. Deriving value from elements, innovation, and work well done transmits and renders service to others, which is rewarded in various forms through exchanges of value and the accumulation of capital assets. This generative mechanism is not an ideology of capitalism versus socialism, but it is science, and it is disappointingly (to many) the way the fundamental world of existence works.

There are far fewer prerequisites to living life more appropriately than you might have been taught to believe: saving doesn’t make you safe, cash flow is king, but connection is the queen.

I suggest reorienting your belief system at this stage, within the context of your definitions of work, obligation, money, deserving, freedom, retirement, slavery, laziness, leisure, economics, community, responsibility, relationships, and the role of government in managing life. That will give you a start, and I’ll see you back soon once you digest.