Living - With Miles: Recent Episodes
Miles Robinson
I live by the knowledge that empowerment and excellence leads to a life well spent. The individual work we do inside ourselves is the dark side. The results we bring to the world is the light.
I explore, seek out ways to live life on the side of creativity, empowerment, creation, excellence and drive. There is a new language, a new perspective, one that brings value to all that we do. I am going to find it. Come with me.
Through strength, we overcome resistance, which feels pretty awesome. But sometimes we can get lost in that awesome feeling and forget the reasons we are overcoming that particular resistance in the first place. When we have forgotten the why, and glorify in our ability to overcome, we fall into the Trap of Strength.
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Here it is, the monthly report card. Accountability doesn't count unless you report and review the findings. Some wins, some losses, but all good insight and further refinement of direction.
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Reviewing a NYT article on the evolution of #hustle. It isn't new, or even old. It's ancient. It comes with some planning that might be valuable to consider if you have decided to go all in on the "Rise and Grind" lifestyle.
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Sometimes inspiration and drive are distant whispers that seem too far away to bother to do anything about. This attitude in itself is a clue to other things that may be going on in life, things that draw away creative energy and inspiration. Knowing how to listen for that and then evaluating what needs to be done to get back into the creative driver seat is a good skill set to cultivate.
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Focus and attention are valuable ways to be creative, and creativity leads to creation. Carving out time in busy lifestyles is a challenge sometimes. We need to make that time, and then we need to fill it with high value activities that make better use of it than we would normally. There are even a few factors to specifically consider.
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Consistency, Fortitude, Attention and Focus go a long way to make up for any shortage in natural talent or genius. Sometimes it is better to have them even. The very best have both. Let’s talk about attention and focus.
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A big part of Emotional Intelligence is being able to navigate our own inner workings. How to know when our unconscious self is at play and working for or against us would be a good tool to have.
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The use of negation language frames the mind with barriers and limitations. Sometimes that is helpful, but often it leads us into states of helplessness. Changing our language is sometimes the path to regaining empowerment in our lives.
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It's amazing what a change in perspective can do. We can unlock our inner power through a series of choices that free those things that are already within us waiting to be realized.
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Living a powerful and meaningful life means taking ownership of where we invest our time and energy. If we don't invest it actively, we allow someone else to invest out time in THEIR meaningful outcomes. When you are the investor, you are the Adult. When you are the investee, you are relying on luck and good will to find fulfillment.
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Sometimes to get through the big stuff we can use the little joys that we have to help push us forward. This requires a bit of self-knowledge, but once you have it, and you learn to use it, it can make all the difference.
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Cultivating the strength we need to do the great work we want to has a couple of tricks to it. Understanding the mechanics of how it works is really helpful. This is how I use those mechanics in my own work, and what I have found successful.
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Perfect Practice makes perfect, and likewise appropriate measurement makes for good outcomes and meaningful improvement. There are rights and wrongs to measuring, when morale is considered. Talking about how I track this month's improvements.
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Let's talk about what we are really doing here in this podcast. These are the things that are important and we are trying to figure out how to manifest them. It's a new year so a review of what we are trying to do is probably in order.
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I said I would hold myself accountable to you, so here it is. December saw some improvements and some less than stellar results, but here it is, my personal accountability to you, those who are with me on this journey.
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Fortitude, grit, tenacity, the grind, discipline, these don't come from nowhere. They are built one decision at a time one moment at a time, over time. And Happy Solstice!
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Goal setting has been a focus for me for some time, and I am changing the way I am thinking about them. Thought I would share.
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If we can cultivate a life where increase and upward movement in our goals becomes a normal habit, then we continue our path to success regardless of what life throws our way.
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Working in Tech, I have had to learn to not rely on my past work to represent my evidence of value, because 2 versions later, my work was gone. That’s Tech: a constant evolution of great things. So instead of looking to the past, I build the present to move me toward the future.
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Looking back on the way things have changed is always a tricky thing. We remember joy better than pain, and our memories play tricks with us. And when we are absent and then return, it can be a bit of a trial to get caught up without feeling put out at changes.
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Intuition is a great tool for a lot of things, and when it comes to immediate decisions around things we are intimate with over a long time, it can even be reliable. Let's not use it for things it isn't designed for. https://www.patreon.com/MilesRobinson https://www.facebook.com/Livingwithmiles @Livingwithmiles
In a world where cutting edge psych is being used in video games to keep us engaged, looking there to find ways to be more engaged in goals is not a bad idea. Level progression is a great way to look at long term progress, and finding some kind of progress bar that we can look at and easily maintain isn't bad either.
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Emotional Intelligence allows our challenges and frustrations to become our allies and useful helpers in working not only with ourselves, but with others. Vulnerability is a good example of this in practice. This is a talk about how that works.
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A lot of people talk about meditation in that way that makes me wonder if they aren't taking things a little too seriously. Me? I use it because it helps me think. I want to share a few thought experiments I do when I sit quietly for a while, and so I wanted to introduce the concept first. Might be a series. We will see.
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Had a bit of a revelation over the weekend, and I wanted to share both the revelation and the tool I used to come to it. Stories have characters, and in the story of our lives, we should probably be actively engaged in them.
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It's surprising what a little refinement, focus and intention done with ease can do for the mind of a person and all those around them. Today is a new experiment with scripting, all in an effort to help cultivate that grace within myself. Hope you will tell me what you think.
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Another Facebook request (thanks Aemorniel!): Sometimes we will make plans, putting off some of the things we want to do, some of our passions and our aspirations for another time when things are better or the timing is right. The time between now and then is lost opportunity. Let's use the time instead of lose it.
A request from the Facebook page (thanks Mona!), Allowing ourselves to be successful, and allowing opportunities to show themselves is an art form all its own that comes in two parts: releasing and accepting. Today we talk about how to do that.
It's Advent Calendar time, and I have an idea for a new one that I think would be a great tradition. It is an Advent Calendar of Appreciation, 26 days of finding things to be grateful for. It's more than it would appear.
When you want to live a productive life, accountability matters. So here is where we are with the Podcast and what my goals are for next month. I believe one should practice what he preaches, so ... here it is.
The last trap we need to overcome on our journey to restoring ourselves to full engagement: Overcoming the negative. But there is a trick to it. Sometimes just deciding (for the right reasons) we need to have a certain outlook is enough to make it true.
I love Adulting. I spent years getting to life's grown up table, and I wouldn't give up my seat for the world. So what's with all the "Adulting is Hard" t-shirts? We got this. It ain't nothing but a thing and the toys are so much better.
How do we rebuild respect in ourselves? Let's start like we do with others, by listening. I recall an old tool once again: the Should-shank. Works wonders for this kind of reflection.
How to stop the debilitating over-correction that happens when we get hurt. It's all about owning the risks and making choices. Another in the series on rebuilding trust in our lives.
Strength is overcoming resistance. In our personal relationships though, sometimes we don't help ourselves to be strong. We can do this by establishing and maintaining meaningful boundaries.
Last week we acknowledged the loss of trust. Now let's get back engaged in life and start moving forward. Time to get back in that saddle and get back in the adventure.
When we are ready to start rebuilding trust in our lives, it is important to build on a solid foundation. We are that solid foundation and we need to understand what that foundation looks like. Start through reflection of innate emotional paradigms and understand those motives. From there we can build out without sabotaging ourselves in the future.
In this time of real hardship from the California Wildfires, we talk about the stages of grief and how they interact with the trust recovery paradigm.
Whenever our trust falters, we resort back to some kind of innate set of emotional responses. We can be subject to them or we can come to understand and learn from them. Once we know, then we can chose what to do from a more empowered place.
There is an emotional safety net that catches us when falling through the holes that failed trust leaves. They are innate to our being. Knowing when they are active and working is a big help when trying to get back in the driver's seat of our lives.
Betrayal is something that can unmake our understanding of life by destroying trust. It is something that happens, but it doesn't need to be the end of the world. This will be the first of a set of episodes on how to take that on and work through reestablishing trust when we need it.
Being able to move toward our goals requires a kind of flexibility, a responsiveness, an agility to how we go about getting it done. Here is a tool to try out that works well for me.
There are a lot of ways to contribute to society. It's okay to choose one that gives you something back in return.
I'm at a conference, and surrounding yourself with others that have what you need is the place to be. Get engaged in the community of excellence.
Once we know how to change our world, we can look around and see what else needs doing.
Just being good isn't enough. The best see things in line with the value. So get on board and see a different world entirely.
When things get out of hand, we can take advantage of the new world we find ourselves in, so long as we are clever and don't get lost in the fear.
Getting back to the Void, sometimes to get inspiration I need to look outside myself and go talk with others face to face. It's all part of the package.
We all have things that we are good at and things that we are not. Finding them and putting them to use makes the road to excellence much more pleasant.
To achieve excellence requires that we go to places where there is no guarantee of success. So let's go there.
the struggles of life are what make us stronger, what make it worth doing. If it were easy we would never reach where we were meant to.
The endurance races in the Winter Olympics inspired a bit of a talk on getting things done.
It's a world of black and white, light and darkness. We know this landscape. Living in it requires keeping the light shining.
We engage with those who build with us, and build together something magnificent. For the rest, silence may be best.
When we enter into something new, we need to be willing to be novice, to understand there are stages, and that we will progress through them one after another. If we are willing to do so, then it makes learning much easier, and a bit more fun.
When we want to cement our commitment to a thing, often it is helpful to create a symbol to represent that commitment.
Sometimes we need to start form zero, and when we do it can be a beast to get the wheel turning, but once it does the power just builds.
When working on being your highest potential in working together, aggression and defensiveness can undermine collaboration and partnership.
Are you living a purposeful life? It's another way we leverage the primal mechanics to beautiful results.
What others think of you is often a reflection of how what you think you are doing is actually affecting the world. Let's use it as a tool and see if we are really delivering the value we desire to.
A little inspiration from a Billy Joel song that inspired a bit of reflection on the past. It's a short one this time.
Every culture has a version of the golden rule. Lets use that as a test of hypocrisy and see if we are ready to really practice what we believe.
So you have all your pieces on the board, everything ready to go, all the right moves in all the right places ... now what?
To understand Free Will, we need to think about Will, and about Liberty, and then take a real hard look at how free our will really is.
A little tool about understanding how we see ourselves and others by giving language to our feelings on ethical living.
In the event of sudden loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will drop from the ceiling. Put on your own mask first before helping others.
understanding the Value that we need to deliver to make a better world is better than understanding the tasks we should do.
Complex tools can be good but can also make things harder. Start with simple and build what you need.
It's one thing to bring excellence to the world, but the world needs to know how to use it. Building that world is the heart of living in the Light. Welcome to Light Side Living.
Know where the boundary of your personal power lies, and what lies outside that boundary but still impacts you.
Baggage is a pain to work with, but we all have it. Put it in it's proper place and get on with doing what is important.
Value and Task thinking, each have their place and are absolutely necessary. Can they each live in the same mind?
Reflecting on the roads we walk and how long they can take. Sometimes it's good to see where you are going, and sometimes its frustrating to not be there already. But that's the part that makes excellence come alive.
Here is a little tool that I use in my career development class that I thought might be interesting given recent conversations about individuality and unique personality make-ups
Victory is no time to let up. Sprint ahead while the coast is clear and make use of the power of momentum.
Projection is a valuable tool and also a horrible trap. I wanted to share my own experiences with it good and bad, and how to work with it.
All people are different, and how we get along with them is unique to each person. There is advantage in knowing how easy it is to have others in your life, and how easy it is for others to have you in theirs.
As the saying goes ... some days you eat the bear, and some days the bear eats you. The response to failure is one of the factors that separates excellence from the "also-ran".
Not all aspects of our Self are helpful, but some are life saving allies. We should probably know which is which. Another perspective for introspection.
"Let's Move On" are words that prevent excellence from being realized. There are times that we need to use them, to temporarily set aside things for immediate value delivery, but that doesn't set absolve us from the responsibility for going back and reconciling it in the future.
It's one thing to know something, it is entirely another to integrate it into your life so that it becomes part of you. That is how knowledge becomes powerful.
Doing work on your own has some limitations but it also has value. There is more to figuring life out than reason, and sometimes imperfect tools can help.
You can do pretty well on instinct alone, but for real excellence, the truth will set us free.
How we take information in, process it and use it ... probably a good idea to know explicitly how we do that.
Time is a challenge. Here are a couple tools for helping to see how you are using it, and perhaps how to motivate better application.
Once you figure out how to achieve goals, then it becomes a bit more complicated. It's all about putting on the big boy/girl pants on setting the vision a little further out.
Sometimes just doing something to be a better person isn't enough motivation to make the habit stick.. Sometimes it requires something more, like alignment with the greater work.
To work alone or together with others, that is a question worth considering and weighing the pros and cons.
Not all change is productive or profitable, but change is where opportunity lies. Here are some thoughts around making it work for you.
It's not only what you do but how you do it that defines greatness. Do great things, beautifully.
One way to look at how to bring excellence is by looking at how you function in your group.
A bit of a wander talking about how those with responsibility or accountability for growth see the world differently than those who do not.
Understand what you are working with and put the most effort into what provides the greatest result. Learn to see the world as it is, and use that to focus your actions to what is important.
There is a severe shortage of fun in a serious life. That doesn't need to be the case. Engage the childlike imagination to fuel the engine of creation.
Reflecting when it goes bad is normal, and happens all the time. Let's try doing it when things go well. Two ways to go.
What are you building? Are you building a name, a family, a fortune, a great society? The answers will mean very different lives. Make is a conscious awareness.
It's amazing what we collect along the way. Sometimes we are not even aware of what we are carrying. Ah, baggage.
In a world of the ambitious pursuit of excellence, there are other things that are important too. I have a couple suggestions.
A flood of thoughts around how to find new context and what responsibilities we own for our choices ... like training to get to the next level in things we are passionate about.
Taking two business concepts and seeing how to leverage them to inspire personal growth.
There are things that sometimes stop me moving forward. This is a talk about the two big ones.
What is the sword compared to the hand that wields it, and the heart that stirs it to purpose?
Though we pursue ambition, don't forget the other bittersweet emotion that makes the world turn. A little obsession can be nice now and then.
If you don't look back from time to time, then the improvements come slow, and I just ain't got time for that.
When you live for excellence, and in the realm of passion, sometimes there are side effects. Knowing they are there helps.
Living in a world sheltered from those who do not see the world your way leaves us ill prepared for when we really need to get things done. Learn to engage by putting yourself out there and taking a chance.
Competition fuels us when in the right environment. Accountability can do the same if the consequences of failure are real.
Here is the podcast that inspired this: https://soundcloud.com/al-sa-her/the-value-of-competition
Some thoughts around foresight when it comes to taking control in our world. Get a plan together.
Inspired by Marley from A Christmas Carol, forging the chains in life you carry in death.
When I was younger, I had different ideas about power, what it was and how it worked. Now I have some, and it's not what I expected.
Having a look at one way the Victim mindset settles in and takes root. It's subtle, takes a while, and unraveling takes a lot of inner savvy.
Destructive conflict is one we are all familiar with. Constructive conflict, on the other hand, is a bit more subtle.
Goals and Standards are good. Knowing the difference is good. Remembering they are only tools to greater purpose is better.
An experiment and exploration trying to apply professional support techniques to evaluate how I support others in my personal life.
Nothing in life stays the same. Building on successes sometimes means that relationships need to change to accommodate. Go forward with your eyes open.
Anger and pain are powerful forces, when we can apply them to purpose. When they are not aligned, we need to be more careful. The prices of utilizing emotion.
There is a thread, a direct line we can draw between these ideas that we might be able to use as a clue to unravel our barriers.
Setting Goals is just part of living a life that is better than yesterday. I have a few tips on how to make the most of it.
We want to manage our energy loss by tying things into our passions, but sometimes that takes a little extra planning. Note, there is a volume level change at 14:00. Gets a bit louder. Sorry about that.
To learn about the self, personal motives and ambitions ... is pretty self indulgent. That is expected and needed, and can conflict with other things we want.
New jobs are always challenging. They require new skill sets, new understandings and many are learned through mistakes. It's okay for it to be hard.
The gut feel we get that we learn to listen to ... it would be nice if it could just communicate with words once in a while.
The ideas created here were formed in a particular environment. Are they also applicable in other environments?
Knowing where your options are when you need to make decisions starts with being able to see the landscape with reference points. Here is a set for you to try out.
Nothing comes for free. Understanding the exchange of gain and loss is probably a good idea.
It's easy to lose track when in the middle of the fight. Keep the eye on target with 90 - 10 vision.
When we deliver value, others look to that and want that for themselves. It is not a case of if, but when you will be asked to lead.
If perspective is the secret, and context relative, then working with, rather than for, will make a whole world of difference.
An exploration of a new idea: Those who carry the world of the present on their shoulders do not do so for free.
There are a few choices we get when it comes to how we want to engage in life. Choose and get busy doing.
When your focus is on bringing value to the world, you have to figure out how to work with those who think rules are more important than results.
What happens when everything you know to be true becomes, in a moment, completely ... undeniably ... unmercifully ... false.
When we are in charge, we get to chose whether we give orders or look to persuade. Situation dictates. But what about when we are not the one in charge? Whether a boss or a spouse, our dark skills show how to get what we want and at little cost.
Life in the Void is a war, with tactics and strategy. Do you know what war you are fighting? Do you know what war you need to fight? It's all a matter of your active and hidden strategies ... and knowing the difference.
This is a pretty awesome opportunity we have to be part of something huge! Take advantage and be part of it. It should be one hell of a party.
Life is a lab experiment. Monitor, measure, experiment on ways to find your path to excellence. Empowered experimentation fueled by passion? A recipe for madness, certainly.
There is having emotional intelligence and there is using it well. These are two different things. We learn it through our inner work, but setting it to purpose is a whole different matter.
Two passions that define what potential greatness is yours: your passion to engage and your passion to escape.