50 Days...

Well, I'm over the halfway point and feeling really good. Commitments that initially seemed difficult at the onset of this undertaking, are now becoming normal, ritual, and habit. As Goethe said, "Everything is hard, before it is easy."

I officially started my Photography business, A Frame Forward, this past week and have been busier than ever. I feel more productive right now in my life than I ever have before, and I know that I have this program to thank for the extra boost in all around energy, clarity and commitment.

Here's the recap of my past 10 days...

1. PhilosophersNotes - I can't thank Brian Johnson enough for making these and sharing his passion, his diligent work, and knowledge with us. I wish everyone would take the time to sit down for 20 minutes and listen to his insightful, wisdom-packed summaries each and everyday. I am very grateful that I get to, as the wisdom is proving to be very enriching and life-changing.

Here are the books I covered this week:

Overview of Ken Wilber
Learned Optimism - Martin Seligman
Letters from a Stoic - Seneca
Love - Leo Buscaglia
Loving What Is - Byron Katie
The Magic of Thinking Big - David J. Schwartz
The Man Who Tapped the Secrets of the Universe - Glenn Clark
Man's Search for Meaning - Victor Frankl
Mastery - George Leonard
Meditations - Marcus Aurelius

Here are my favorite quotes to share from the past 10 days: (lots)

“A good character is the only guarantee of everlasting, carefree happiness.” - Seneca

"If you shape your life according to nature, you will never be poor; if according to people’s opinions, you will never be rich.” - Seneca

“Away with the world’s opinion of you, it’s always unsettled and divided.” - Seneca

“You have to persevere and fortify your pertinacity until the will to good becomes a disposition to good.” - Seneca

“How much better to pursue a straight course and eventually reach that destination where the things that are pleasant and the things that are honorable finally become, for you, the same.” - Seneca

“To be everywhere is to be nowhere.” - Seneca

“God is near you, is with you, is inside you.” - Seneca

“Man’s ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born. And what is it that reason demands of him? Something very easy, that he live in accordance with his own nature.” - Marcus Aurelius

“The worse a person is the less he feels it.” - Seneca

“A consciousness of wrongdoing is the first step to salvation. You have to catch yourself doing it before you can correct it.” - Seneca

“Everything, a horse, a vine, is created for some duty. For what task, then, were you yourself created? A man’s true delight is to do the things he was made for.” - Marcus Aurelius

“Your mind will be like its habitual thoughts; for the soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts. Soak it then in such trains of thoughts as, for example, where life is possible at all, a right life is possible.” – Marcus Aurelius

“To live each day as though one’s last, never flustered, never apathetic, never attitudinizing, here is the perfection of character.” - Marcus Aurelius

“Take it that you have died today, and your life’s story is ended, and henceforward regard what future time may be given you as an uncovenanted surplus, and live it out in harmony with nature.” – Marcus Aurelius

“Men seek for seclusion in the wilderness, by the seashore, or in the mountains, a dream you have cherished too fondly yourself. But such fancies are wholly unworthy of a philosopher, since at any moment you choose you can retire within yourself. Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul. Above all, he possesses resources in himself, which he need only contemplate to secure immediate ease of mind , the ease that is but another word for a well-ordered spirit. Avail yourself often, then, of this retirement and so continually renew yourself.” – Marcus Aurelius

“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion. It is easy in solitude to live after our own. But the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“O world, I am in tune with every note of thy great harmony. For me nothing is early, nothing late, if it be timely for thee. O Nature, all that thy seasons yield is fruit for me.” – Marcus Aurelius

“Time is a river, the resistless flow of all created things. One thing no sooner comes in sight than it is hurried past and another is borne along, only to be swept away in its turn.” – Marcus Aurelius

“Let your one delight and refreshment be to pass from one service to the community to another, with God ever in mind.” – Marcus Aurelius

“Cultivate these, then, for they are wholly within your power…sincerity and dignity, industriousness, and sobriety. Avoid grumbling, be frugal, considerate, and frank. Be temperate in manner and speech. Carry yourself with authority.” - Marcus Aurelius

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” – Marcus Aurelius

“Keep yourself simple, good, pure, serious, and unassuming; the friend of justice and godliness; kindly, affectionate, and resolute in your devotion to duty.” - Marcus Aurelius


“You have to persevere and fortify your pertinacity until the will to good becomes a disposition to good.” - Seneca

“This discipline and rough treatment are a furnace to extract the silver from the dross. This testing purifies the gold by boiling the scum away.” - Rumi

“I realized that it’s insane to oppose it. When I argue with reality, I lose...but only 100% of the time.” – Byron Katie

“If I think that someone else is causing my problem, I’m insane.” – Byron Katie

“The greatest stock market you can invest in is yourself. Finding this truth is better than finding a gold mine.” – Byron Katie

“We never receive more than we can handle, and there is always just one thing to do.” – Byron Katie

“Everything happens for me, not to me.” – Byron Katie

“Here is the first step toward success. It’s a basic step. It can’t be avoided. Step One: Believe in yourself, believe you can succeed.” – David J. Schwartz

“The more successful the individual, the less inclined he is to make excuses.” - David J. Schwartz

“Go deep into your study of people, and you’ll discover unsuccessful people suffer a mind-deadening thought disease. We call this disease excusitis. Every failure has this disease in its advanced form. And most ‘average’ persons have at least a mild case of it.” - David J. Schwartz

“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” - Calvin Coolidge

“Just enough sense to stick with something—a chore, task, project, until it’s completed pays off much better than idle intelligence, even if idle intelligence be of genius caliber.” - David J. Schwartz

“Stickability is 95% of ability.” - David J. Schwartz

“Fear of all kinds and sizes is a form of psychological infection. We can cure a mental infection the same way we cure a body infection—with specific, proved treatments. Condition yourself with this fact: all confidence is acquired, developed. No one is born with confidence. Those people around you who radiate confidence, who have conquered worry, who are at ease everywhere and all the time, acquired their confidence, every bit of it.” – David J. Schwartz

“Action cures fear. Indecision, postponement, on the other hand, fertilize fear. Jot that down in your success rulebook right now. Action cures fear.” - David J. Schwartz

“To think confidently, act confidently. Act the way you want to feel.” - David J. Schwartz

“Motions are the precursors of emotions.” - David J. Schwartz

“You see things and you say ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were and I say ‘Why not?’ - George Bernard Shaw

“Be an experimental person. Break up fixed routines. Expose yourself to new restaurants, new books, new theatres, new friends. Take a different route to work someday, take a different vacation this year, do something new and different this weekend.” – David J. Schwartz

“The best way to get a good idea is to get lots of ideas.” - Linus Pauling

“Don’t let ideas escape. Write them down. Every day lots of good ideas are born only to die quickly because they aren’t nailed to paper. Carry a notebook or some small cards with you, when you get an idea, write it down. People with fertile, creative minds know a good idea may sprout any time, any place. Don’t let ideas escape, else you destroy the fruits of your thinking.” - David J. Schwartz

“We must be willing to make an intelligent compromise with perfection lest we wait forever before taking action.” - David J. Schwartz

“Do you know your particular fears? And what do you usually do with them? You run away from them, don’t you, or invent ideas and images to cover them? But to run away from fear is only to increase it.” - Krishnamurti

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” - Frank Herbert

“I never let the thought of failure enter my mind. My knowledge of my unity with the Universal One and the fact that I must do this thing, and the inspired belief I should do it as a demonstration of my belief in man’s unlimited power, made me ignore the difficulties that lay in the way.” - Walter Russell

“The Life Triumphant is that which places what a man gives to the world in creative expression far ahead of that which he takes from it of the creation of others.” - Walter Russell

“I believe that every man has consummate genius within him. Some appear to have it more than others only because they are aware of it more than others are, and the awareness or unawareness of it is what makes each one of them into masters or holds them down to mediocrity. I believe that mediocrity is self-inflicted and that genius is self-bestowed.” – Walter Russell

“Mediocrity is self-inflicted. Genius is self-bestowed.” - Walter Russell

“Concentrate all your thoughts on the task at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.” - Alexander Graham Bell

“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.” - Goethe

“Every successful man or great genius has three particular qualities in common. The most conspicuous of these is that they all produce a prodigious amount of work. The second is that they never know fatigue, and the third is that their minds grow more brilliant as they grow older, instead of less brilliant. Great men’s lives begin at forty, where the mediocre man’s life ends. The genius remains an ever-flowing fountain of creative achievement until the very last breath he draws.” – Walter Russell

“You can become a great creator or a little one as the intensity of your desire is little or great.” - Walter Russell

“If you are alone long enough to get thoroughly acquainted with yourself, you will hear whisperings from the universal source of all consciousness which will inspire you.” - Walter Russell

“Lock yourself up in your room or go out in the woods where you can be alone. When you are alone the universe talks to you in flashes of inspiration. You will find that you will suddenly know things which you never knew before. All knowledge exists in the "God-Mind" and is extended into this electrical universe of creative expression through desire. Knowledge is yours for the asking. You have but to plug into it.” - Walter Russell

“There should be no distasteful tasks in one’s life. If you just hate to do a thing, that hatred for it develops body-destructive toxins, and you become fatigued very soon. You must love anything you must do. Do it not only cheerfully, but also lovingly and the very best way you know how. That love of the work which you must do anyhow will vitalize your body and keep you from fatigue.” - Walter Russell

“A menial task which must be mine, that shall I glorify and make an art of it.” - Walter Russell

“I have had my share of what one calls defeat, in plenty. I have made and lost fortunes and seen great plans of mine topple through my own errors of judgment or through other causes. But I do not recognize these as defeats. They are but interesting experiences of life. They are valuable stepping-stones to success. Defeat is a condition which one must accept in order to give it reality. I refuse to give it reality by accepting it. In my philosophy I have written these words: Defeat I shall not know. It shall not touch me. I will meet it with true thinking. Resisting it will be my strengthening. But if, perchance, the day will give to me the bitter cup, it will sweeten in the drinking.” - Walter Russell

“Success is the result of good judgment, good judgment is a result of experience, experience is often the result of bad judgment.” - Tony Robbins

“We fail to realize that mastery is not about perfection. It’s about a process, a journey. The master is the one who stays on the path day after day, year after year. The master is the one who is willing to try, and fail, and try again, for as long as he or she lives.” - George Leonard

“Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second. Give your dreams all you’ve got and you’ll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you.” -William James

“Could all of us reclaim lost hours of our lives by making everything, the commonplace along with the extraordinary, a part of our practice?” - George Leonard

“A human being is the kind of machine that wears out from lack of use. There are limits, of course, and we do need healthful rest and relaxation, but for the most part we gain energy by using energy. It might well be that all of us possess enormous stores of potential energy, more than we could ever hope to use.” – George Leonard

“Much of the world’s depression and discontent can ultimately be traced to our unused energy, our untapped potential.” - George Leonard

“If you’re planning to embark on a master’s journey, you might find yourself bucking current trends in American life. Our hyped-up consumerist society is engaged, in fact, in an all out war on mastery.” - George Leonard

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no “brief candle” to me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it over to future generations.” - George Bernard Shaw

“Do what you say you are going to do, to yourself and others, again, and again, and again.” - George Leonard

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing; the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor Frankl

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort but where he stands at times of challenge and discovery.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

“The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.” – Carlos Castaneda

Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities. Always see them, for they’re always there.” – Norman Vincent Peale

“I don’t want to be saved, I want to be spent.” - Frtiz Perls

“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.” – Viktor Frankl

“Be not afraid of going slowly but only afraid of standing still.” - Chinese Proverb

“Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued, it must ensue.” – Viktor Frankl

“Again and again I therefore admonish my students in Europe and America. Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success. You have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run, in the long-run, I say, success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.” – Viktor Frankl

“Your work is to discover your work and then, with all your heart, to give yourself to it.” - Buddha

“A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the ‘why’ for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any ‘how.’” - Viktor Frankl

“What is to give light must endure burning.” – Viktor Frankl

“Brother stand the pain Escape the poison of your impulses. The sky will bow to your beauty, if you do. Learn to light the candle. Rise with the sun. Turn away from the cave of your sleeping. That way a thorn expands to a rose. A particular glows with the universal.” – Rumi

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it over to future generations.” - George Bernard Shaw

“If he desired to know about automobiles, he would, without question, study diligently about automobiles. If his wife desired to be a gourmet cook, she’d certainly study the art of cooking, perhaps even attending a cooking class. Yet, it never seems as obvious to him that if he wants to live in love, he must spend at least as much time as the auto mechanic or the gourmet in studying love.” - Leo Buscaglia

“I would not want to form a partnership with an architect who has only a little knowledge of building or a broker who has a limited knowledge of the stock market. Still, we form what we hope to be permanent relationships in love with people who have hardly any knowledge of what love is.” - Leo Buscaglia

“What we think is less than what we know. What we know is less than what we love: What we love is so much less than what there is, and to this precise extent, we are much less than what we are.” - R.D. Laing

“To love others you must love yourself. You can only give to others what you have yourself.” - Leo Buscaglia

“It’s never too late to learn anything for which you have a potential. If you want to learn to love, then you must start the process of finding out what it is, what qualities make up a loving person and see how these are developed. Each person has the potential for love. But potential is never realized without work. This does not mean pain. Love, especially, is learned best in wonder, in joy, in peace, in living.” - Leo Buscaglia

“To the extent to which you know yourself, and we are all more alike than different, you can know others. When you love yourself, you will love others. And to the depth and extent to which you can love yourself, only to that depth and extent will you be able to love others.” - Leo Buscaglia

“You were born with potential. You were born with goodness and trust. You were born with ideals and dreams. You were born with greatness. You were born with wings. You are not meant for crawling, so don’t. You have wings. Learn to use them and fly.” - Rumi

“One does not fall in or out of love. One grows in love.” - Leo Buscaglia

“We need not be afraid to touch, to feel, to show emotion. The easiest thing in the world is to be what you are, what you feel. The hardest thing to be is what other people want you to be.” - Leo Buscaglia

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” - Leo Buscaglia

“Birds never sing in caves.” - Henry David Thoreau

“Change and growth take place when a person has risked himself and dares to become involved with experimenting with his own life.” - Herbert Otto

“For both excessive and insufficient exercise destroy one’s strength, and both eating and drinking too much or too little destroy health, whereas the right quantity produces, increases or preserves it. So it is the same with temperance, courage and the other virtues. This much then, is clear...in all our conduct it is the MEAN that is to be commended.” - Aristotle

“A human being is part of the whole, called by us "Universe". A part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison.” - Albert Einstein

“In the heart of Emptiness there is a mysterious impulse, mysterious because there is actually nothing in the heart of Emptiness, for there is nothing in Emptiness, period. Yet, there it is, this mysterious impulse, the impulse to create. To sing, to shine, to radiate, to send forth, reach out, and celebrate. To sing and shout and walk about, to effervesce and bubble over, this mysterious exuberance in the heart of Emptiness.” - Ken Wilber

"Think of the great yogis, saints, and sages—from Moses to Christ to Padmasambhava. They were not feeble-mannered milquetoasts, but fierce movers and shakers, from bullwhips in the Temple to subduing entire countries. They rattled the world on its own terms, not in some pie-in-the-sky piety. Many of them instigated massive social revolutions that have continued for thousands of years. And they did so, not because they avoided the physical, emotional, and mental dimensions of humanness, and the ego that is their vehicle, but because they engaged them with a drive and intensity that shook the world to its very foundations." - Ken Wilber

"The great yogis, saints, and sages accomplished so much precisely because they were not timid little toadies but great big egos, plugged into the dynamic Ground and Goal of the Kosmos itself, plugged into their own higher Self, alive to the pure Atman, the pure I-I, that is one with Brahman. They opened their mouths and the world trembled, fell to its knees, and confronted its radiant God. There is certainly a type of truth to the notion of transcending ego. It doesn’t mean destroy the ego, it means plug it into something bigger. Put bluntly, the ego is not an obstruction to Spirit, but a radiant manifestation of Spirit." - Ken Wilber


2. Jump Attack - I enjoyed my completion of the first of 3 phases of the program, which gave me one week of rest. My legs needed it and I enjoyed getting to play basketball with fresh, and stronger, legs. I started back into Phase 2 of the program which intensifies, as the weights increase. I've felt strong in my workouts and know I am getting closer to being able to dunk the basketball with every workout. I am looking forward to reaching that goal but more importantly in being an all-around better basketball player. I've always shot a high percentage from the field, and being more athletic will allow me to get in position to get off more, and better shots...and hopefully the occasional dunk too. I'm excited to keep at it, patiently, diligently, and persistently until I can report back with the good news. Soon...


3. Nutrition - I've been staying strong with my plant based diet and feeling really good. I have been enjoying my latest discovery of Seitan. It is really good and can be incorporated in a variety of dishes. I've experimented with a few new recipes this week, including a Tofu Taco and a Teriyaki Stir Fry meal. I love eating really well and feeling good because of it. I look at food in a different way. I see it more along the lines of nourishment and nutrition as opposed to fun and filling.


4. Yoga - I've still not been consistent with the Yoga. I've taken on a huge commitment with this program and I this is the one area that has suffered the most. I still do it, but not even close to the way I had hoped I could, which is daily and routinely upon wakening. Life's demands, work, kids, etc have kept me from being consistent. I'll keep getting it in whenever I can however.


5. Sweets and Refined Foods - Doing good and staying strong. This is the longest I have ever gone in my entire life without caving into my sweet tooth. It makes me feel good knowing that I have, with integrity, stayed with my commitment. It is empowering.


Thanks for listening, caring and being who you are. Best wishes with all your goals & dreams, and joy along the way to reaching them!

See you in 10 more days...