THE CHRISTMAS Rx: 2012 - Dr. Jack Kruse

READERS SUMMARY:

1. WHAT ARE MY FAMILIES CHRISTMAS Rx for YOU AND YOURS.

2. DO WE NEED A Rx TO CHANGE THE WORLD OR JUST OUR OWN WORLD?

3. WHY NO ONE PERSON, OR GOVERNMENT, OR DOCUMENT, WILL ALLOW IT TO HAPPEN. YOU CAN!

4. DO YOU CONTINUALLY TRY TO FIND YOURSELF OVER CREATING YOURSELF?

5. WHAT ARE THE THINGS THAT YOU MIGHT CONSIDER PUTTING ON YOUR CHRISTMAS LIST THIS YEAR?

I have enjoyed sharing my ideas with you all the past few years and on this Christmas Eve I wanted to share my Christmas Rx with you. I wrote this to myself a while ago, and mailed it to myself that year so that I would get myself right before Christmas that year. I had to edit it a bit to get it up live here for you today but the gist of the meaning I was trying to reenforce to me is still here. It had a profound effect on me and I saved it in my journal. I wanted it to help me change and see targets I could and would not allow myself too. So today, I decided to dust it off and share it with my blogosphere family. It was one of the best gifts I ever gave myself. I hope it can help even just one of you, reach for a target that has been elusive to you for what ever reason you have faced in your life. Here is my Christmas Rx for you.

1. Freedom lies in being bold and daring. We are socialized not to be bold because it is easier to control the meek and docile. Until one is truly committed to become daring, there is hesitancy, the chance to recoil from decisions. When it comes to concerning all acts of initiative and creative intuition, there is one foundational truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves into your life as well. Many will see this as insight or an intuition, but rest assured it is created by your action to begin. Daring people do things regardless of the outcome. Daring is a mindset and an attitude of action. Daring is the weapon used to defeat FEAR. Daring people go that bit further, they do the unexpected, they achieve the impossible and they live the improbable. If you want to walk on water, you have to get out of the boat. Getting out of the boat brings change, sometimes crisis accompanies change, but the rewards overshadow it. Rewards in life are in direct proportion to the level of service we provide and the difficulty in providing that service. Today begin to jump out of your situation, and grow your wings on the way down……Become daring.

2. Life is risky proposition. Your success is all about biology at some level. Biologic progress is based upon risk. Biology uses the environmental risks to fuel life’s direction. Why don’t you do that daily? The reason is quite simple. People look at risk with a negative connotation. But they fail to realize risk has two sides of value to us. Some people only see risk as danger, a perilous hazard, and jeopardy to be avoided at all costs, and as such, they are socialized to become afraid to assume any risk because of their fear of exposure to a loss. Did people stop cruising after the Titanic? Did NASA stop flying after the space shuttle blew up? Did New Orleans recoil from Katrina? Did NYC succumb over 9/11? Will NJ wilt over the losses from super storm Sandy? Will school children never go to school again to learn because of Sandy Hook, CT? We are socialized to believe all risk is bad. If all you want, is a life of certainty of moderation than occasionally embracing risk for massive gains then do so but do not complain about a boring life. See, life is not built with a blueprint so neatly packaged as that thought. You must pay your penny for gain, and you must take your chance on a wing and a prayer at times. Some risk will bring failure. But some risk will elevate you to places you could not even imagine you’d be either. Risk allows us to rise from our ashes no matter where we came from. It is a tool in life. If you think this is not true then why is that all of Warren Buffett’s best performing assets are based upon managing risk for others. There is more profit in risk tools than anything on this planet. Those who manage risk well are rewarded handsomely. Warren Buffet does it well and so does life and biology, so why don’t you? Why do you fear it so? Maybe this is a Christmas present you need in your “Rx for life” this season? Consider how you see and use risk in your life now. Adjust, adapt, enact action to move forward and win.

3. Optimism, you need a lot more this season to get the most flavor from life’s recipe in your pot. When you are in the street feeling defeated……look up and see the stars from your current perch in the gutter. For the moment, forget what put you in the gutter to begin with it. If you live in the past you will never see your future targets. The more you choose to live in the present the easier it is to create the life you want. The more your thoughts travels along the path of less anxiety, the greater your resilience and the more positive your outlook, which makes it easier for thoughts and feelings to continue taking this new route. A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. All chaos contains more opportunity than safety holds at any time. The best best gift you can give yourself is the one of self reflective perspective of this foundational question: How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world? Why do you persist on waiting? This Christmas, give the gift of optimism to yourself……….and watch your life and those who love you change quickly.

4. Vision: When you are looking up at the stars remember that you must always see your goal. You must have vision even when you are in the dark. When most are in the dark their actions are muted by that “GREAT UNKNOWN” and often this stops some people dead in their tracks. When you always see your goal in your minds eye you begin to realize you are never blind. You can still see targets no one else can. When you have vision you begin to venture CONFIDENTLY because what others see as exposure to loss, you realize as an exposure to massive gains because you see your goals. Even if your expectations prove to be wrong for any reason, you learn from the experience and you continue to move forward to hitting the targets you see. What everyone else sees is their problem. The DIFFERENCE in us all at a very foundational level is our PERCEPTIONS of our reality. We create our perceptions of reality by seeing our future before it happens. We forget this gift we have built in to our brains. This Christmas re open this gift and utilize it this year. We craft a plan and with small sequential actions we use the power of persistence and consistent action to hit that target. Our mind becomes the gun site on a sharp shooting rifle. Think of it like this analogy: Close your eyes and visualize a plane taking off at the airport. Initially, a lot of energy is utilized to simply get moving down the runway. But as speed and momentum take over, the plane is pulled forward and up into the sky to overcome its mass and inertia, faster and further by the second. Consistent action, no matter how small, has more power than you ever imagined if you use it. Begin now.

5. Attend to your goals. They need to be seen and heard and thought of often if they ever hope to come true. So as soon as you finish this post get a piece of paper and scribble down your business plan for you. To hit those targets you must begin to surround yourself with as many reminders as possible. If you get clothes that do not fit this Christmas do not return them. They may be the greatest gift some has ever given you. Hang it on your bathroom door and use it as a reminder of what you see for you. If the items are too big…….also save them. Use it as a reminder of where you no longer want to be. We must write ourself notes, use our FB status, use twitter, use anything you can think of to remind you of what you see no matter how the world mocks your vision. That is the coolest think about really intuitive smart people, the rest of the world thinks you’re nuts until your vision has sunlight or a flashlight give the faintest glimmer that maybe you just are bit more perceptive than the rest of the world on matters pertaining to you. No one cares for you more than you do……..begin to act like it.

6. Start small; think small at first. Forget stories of people who make dramatic change fast. Use this analogy: To drive you Ferrari its fastest requires you step first on the accelerator pedal and then push down slowly. If you push too fast you spin out an burn rubber. Most weeks you won’t be able to drop 20 lbs but you will most certainly be able to lose one pound per week if you are persistent. Think of it like eating a 56 oz porterhouse. The more you bite off the harder it is to chew initially. Instead, take a small bite and slowly devour and savor the steak……..enjoy the journey.

7. Come out of you cave of seclusion and share your vision with the world. Become married to constant journey of learning. I’d rather be a rising transitional ape than a falling angel any day of the week. We can learn things from the worse teachers and things in our life. Remember a great sailor is not made on a clam sea. So pay attention to your critics because you might learn just how much you can get away with at times. This perspective allows you to understand the setbacks you are going to experience on your journey to Optimal. Why should you plan for these setbacks? We learn best from our own failures. When we have an open mind to others who are against us, we can also learn from their mistakes and quicken our pace to success. The smartest people I have known use this recipe………begin to use it as well. When we use learning as our ally it allows us to begin to squeeze the most from our life. You leave your nominal for phenomenal. Explore your core, put extra in ordinary, be grateful not hateful. Become bolder, risk adverse, and call upon your inner winner. Leave your comfort zone now! Try to begin to reach further than you have before . If you nourish it with learning, you will soon author the autobiography that you desire this Christmas season. Sometimes the wrong choices bring us to the right places. Embrace your now, because you never know where it will bring you unless you live it!

8. LOVE: Embrace all kinds of love. Why? Because with love comes a life built upon a spirit of collaboration. When we use collaboration we use the experiences of others to make ourselves better quickly. Think of this analogy: How is steel hardened? It is forged and tempered by using heat to form it. It uses something dissimilar to itself to make itself better than it was before. Begin to do the same in every facet of your life. Use love as the modus operandi as the method of your madness. In the end all collaborations are LOVE stories. For example, a good marriage is a collaboration which consists of committed individuals who, in the spirit of unity and teamwork, communicate, cooperate and harness the power of their combination to make a contribution to their goals. Think about children or our family: We have all heard that it takes a village to raise a child……..but what you might have forgotten is that it takes a community to help individuals who can get out of their own way. Today you are in your own way and you do not see it. Remember that community comes from the combination of words COMMON + UNITY. This bond requires some degree of love at some level in your life. Begin to sprinkle it in to your daily actions no matter how small it seems. No person has truly achieved any success without the support of others at some point in their life. To get success you must also give love. Success is less about “me” and more about “we”. When we use the lessons of the world we understand that in the combining of thoughts, words, actions and resources we can achieve far more than if we try to do it on our own. When we share our wisdom and love it allows for an easy collaboration of dissimilar thoughts and paradigms so that we can synthesize the best of the best and discard the worst. We can also use the worst to learn something about the journey we are on. Love and sharing a collaboration allows for a combination of effort with the expectation that the synergy will derive our ultimate success. It also acts like windex on our glass eye to keep our targets within our sites.

9. Humor and play your way to your success. You did it as a kid and you need to go back to it every time you sense the journey is becoming to too serious or too idealistic for things to come to fruition. Sometimes we need a break to have fun to sharpen our blade. Play and fun add back the perspective to the journey and why we are doing what we are doing. Never forget to have fun even if you have to force yourself to do it. Surround yourself with people who have learned to live with laughter and play. Sometimes rejecting adulthood for childhood imagination is the best Rx for for rebirth. Taking a day off to go climb the monkey bars at a playground or swim naked in the pond is the thing to do. If a child lives with criticism, as an adult, he learns to condemn. If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight. If a child lives with ridicule, he learns to be shy. If a child lives with shame, he learns to feel guilty. When a child lives with humor and plays, as an adult, they find acceptance and friendship. We learn to find love in the world and that love can change you and the world you want to see yourself in. Begin to go back and find humor and embrace play……….They are part of the Rx. We are not independent creatures in adulthood but how we act has painted us into that corner. Our species craves and thrives in a social network, as children show us daily when they play. Accepting this does not imply we’re embracing mediocrity; it actually liberates us from our misconceptions about who we really are.

10. Become humble and begin to really understand yourself today. Understand your strengths and weaknesses as they are now. Erase the preconceived notions of what you or others think you are, or may have been. Today stop putting limits on your creativity. When someone cautions or mocks you expand your creative efforts. If you continue to let others frame your work or you yourself put limits on everything you do, your creativity will die on the vine. It will spread into your work and into your life. It will infect you mind and slow your potential to a standstill. There are no limits to our abilities unless we create them in our our mind. There are only plateaus in life that should be reflection points, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them every time. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.

Allow your present experience to give you wisdom by embracing your person humility now. It is what you learn about yourself after “you know it all” that matters most in life. When you embrace yourself as you find you today, you side step the dogma that has caused you to get in your own way to subjugate your goals. When you look within your present state, the mirror of truth always reflects your personal reality. It hides nothing from you unless you choose to hide from your personal truth. Today, become content, and start to intend, to use every occasion to lead others by serving others first. Feeding them rebuilds you.

11. A problem is not THE real problem. The real problem is your attitude about the problem. Get it? When you sow a thought, you reap an action. Reap an action, you sow a habit. Sow a habit, you reap a character. Sow a character, you reap your destiny. Our modern beliefs. perceptions, and paradigms are usually the cause of our ultimate decline in adulthood. Become fully aware that the human mind is a wonderful servant but usually is a horrible master. This will be a tough one for you to swallow; but it is an ultimate truth. We are often our own worst enemy and we rarely perceive it to be true. The worst decisions in our life is choosing to make no decisions at all. Making change in your life involves making a lot of decisions, both good and bad. And making changes is about what you are willing to give up to get where you want go to create the life you want.

12. Embrace your fears. Begin to revel in the comfort of your discomfort. Actually try to build a passion for fear and for chaos in your life. Why? This is where opportunity for the greatest gains you will ever reach are found. On the other side of your fears are the freedoms you seek. Cultivate your passion for them both. Developing this passion will be the greatest gift you can give yourself in this Rx. Always do what you are afraid to do. Knowledge comes to us by doing something new everyday, but we attain wisdom by letting go and pruning something everyday as well. Bits of knowledge come together slowly into wisdom. That wisdom is the fuel to hit hit targets no one else can see. Targets no one else can see are called ideas. One of the lessons found in human history is that even the deepest crises can be moments of extreme opportunity. They bring us ideas from the fringe of our mind into the mainstream of our daily consciousness to help us see what others can’t or won’t accept. Begin today to see once again what you might have forgotten.

This is my Christmas Rx for you and yours. Use it. Share it. But most importantly live it to create the best gift you can give yourself this year and every year you have yet to see.