Truth or Dare?

Stress is a code word for fear. 

All stress comes from us making things bigger than they are.

Do you want to change your life? Start by asking yourself new questions.

When you’re upset, it’s because of the meaning you’ve attached to it. You get to choose the meaning of things.

What if you could come to a situation with a new set of possibilities instead of problems?

If you begin to build new empowering meanings to things, you become someone perceived as having elegance. You choose to elevate those around you. You uplift people with your positive emotions. You unite instead of punish.

You have to find empowering meanings to things so that people and things meet your expectations.

“If someone tried to take control of your body and make you a slave, you would fight for freedom. Yet how easily you hand over your mind to anyone who insults you. When you dwell on their words and let them dominate your thoughts, you make them your master.” - Epictetus

Pain and pleasure influence all things in life.

What do you want people to equate to you? Stress? Pain? Negative reinforcement?

Most of us are so busy with the demands of our lives and the to-dos on our list that we fail to focus on the person we were today. Who were you today?

Life is relationship. And the quality of your life is directly influenced by the way you bring yourself to the relationships you have. How do you show up with your team? How do you show up with your loved ones?

What emotions are you magnifying? What emotions are you feeding to others?

There is something visceral and almost ethereal that occurs when there is a connection between a team of individuals all striving towards a higher purpose.

People are electrified with feeling. They share their emotions—not simply their ideas. The power is in the sharing.

Your life is a direct proportion to the amount of your soul you’re able to share with others - the pure energy that you pour into those around you.

You have to listen to them. Hear them. Feel them. Experience them.

It’s not simply a data dump to somebody else. Community comes from relationship. There’s growth - expansion.

• What do people relate to most?

• What moves them?

• What creates harmony?

The power is in the unity.

If you want the most out of your life, the edge comes from extraordinary emotion, and that comes with the capacity to share with quality people at a deep level of relatedness on an ongoing basis.

This will cause you to grow and stimulate you to expand.

Standards

The more rules you have, the more pain you will have in life. If you have too many rules, you will always be in reaction. Most upsets are due to you having too many reasons why everything is going wrong.

We get triggered by things that have happened from our past or we use negative emotions to fulfill fundamental human needs. We all need certainty, variety, significance, connection, growth, and contribution. But everyone pursues these in different ways and often, these needs are being met by negative emotions.

Imagine if you could truly make people feel special? Or feel deeply connected by your relatedness?

Love is a need that is so deep within us that without it, we die.

The greatest fears of life are that:

• You're not enough.

• You won't be loved.

Think about it… your survival from birth revolves around a total dependency on another human being. If a baby is left alone, it dies.

Not everyone is your mom who is drugged with oxytocin and dotes upon you. We become connection freaks when we are rejected by others.

• What do you want?

• How do you want it?

• What drives you as a human being?

• Are you in reaction mode?

• Are you surrounded by people that are biochemically different from you? Which energies do you develop the most within yourself?

The way you make your relationships work or the people around you come to respect you is by creating a better relationship with yourself.

You have to learn how to accept yourself. Because if you enter anything—whether that be a personal relationship, a business relationship, or even leading teams—from a place of want, you won't be able to give.

All that you are looking for is inside you.

The way that you create relatedness is inside of you.

How Do You Lead With Love?

If you wanted someone to feel completely, utterly, unequivocally loved and desired by you, what would you do?

When was the last time you looked at someone so devotedly that there was no doubt that you loved them with your whole soul?

You can’t give other people love if you do not have it within yourself. And you certainly can’t go into a relationship or team environment on empty gas and expect the people there to fill you up or to enjoy being around you. The people there will not feel good about being related to you—they will feel as if you are a taker and not a giver.

So learn how to fill yourself up.

What could you do for yourself Sof, so that you do not feel so utterly empty?

The people on your team deserve the absolute best version of you that you can be.