davemarr

Not that all my previous Letters have been a waste of time and I’ve been saving myself, but I think the following is important and subtle to claiming a more substantive life than the one you’re currently living. I am making an assertion in this Letter, which means that what I’m about to say is arguable. Which means that I am either seeing something you’re not or I’m seeing something not there. Or, I suppose, what is subtle to me is obvious to everyone else and I’m a drama queen. Regardless, it’s all for you to decide anyway. By setting the stage thus, I am asking you to see just past where you’re used to seeing, stretch your mental fingertips out to touch a new sensation and categorize it as new. That’s where growth comes from, a categorization of something new.

In talking to a fellow traveler in marriage, he is having difficulty in connecting with his wife on important stuff. He loves her and believes she loves him. They have been having years-long difficulty for all kinds of reasons. Seemingly, by his description, the challenges are mainly because of an inability to connect, to feel like they’re on the same page, to have their cups filled by each other. Given his current approach with her, she is not responding to his efforts in such a way that makes him feel as though they’re making progress; rather, they’re just struggling for power. And here’s the real thing, because this has gone on for so many years and hasn’t changed much, he feels powerless to change circumstances or change her. Life is happening to him.

Now, I could cut to the chase and detail the advice I offered him about Languages of Love drawing small value in this story even though that information is a critical piece of the marital puzzle. There’s no subtle revelation in that. In fact, by characterizing his life as a treasure hunt where he’s just in search of that missing clue that will allow him to read the map and thereby find happiness is a losing perspective. It perpetuates the victim mentality that he faces, that we all face.

Life is not happening TO him, but THROUGH him. It’s that misconceptualization of his life that is at the heart of his issues. He’s not powerless. He can change himself. In fact, that’s the only thing he can change. He can change his perspectives. He can invite new ideas, new information, new priorities, new reactions, new habits, and most importantly, new disciplines of the mind. He can pursue an elegant solution that lifts himself and invites a path for his wife to lift herself. Even though he can’t see an immediate way forward, he must believe there is a way forward that leads him to the life he desires.

This Letter is not about marriage, or about this guy; this Letter is about you mentally capturing tomorrow what you can’t capture today. The blessing this guy has is that he’s really unhappy. Pain is a great motivator. For that pain, he’s willing to explore ideas with someone else. Even though his perspectives currently place him as a victim, he’s trying to push out. If he persists, he’ll find a path forward. But what if he weren’t so unhappy, but just happy enough – kind of a lukewarm happiness. What then? Wouldn’t he continue in his victim mentality? And, what if he takes this Love Languages idea and finds some growth and marital happiness in the short run, but settles back into old victimizing habits later and concludes that Love Languages were a passing fad?

The Good is the enemy of the Best. You can’t hear this aphorism enough. The above scenario is a challenge to you who might look at this guy’s marriage and conclude “That ain’t me. I’ve got a good marriage, a good career, a good life. He’s a victim and I am not.”  If you have that thought, then you might be running the risk of complacency. You might be missing a perspective that will lift you to a new level of maturity and wisdom that you don’t currently possess that is just barely at your mental grasp if you reach out.

The topic can be in marriage or business or health. Health is classic for the subtlety of my point – just because you don’t hurt today doesn’t mean you’re healthy. Good enough isn’t good enough, really, because in the end, good doesn’t last.

So, where’s the subtlety? There’s no telling whether you get my point or not because the subtlety is in the implications. I can only write out so many scenarios and none of them will apply to you. So you have to extract the point, apply it to your spectrum, age, energy, motivation, etc. and seek what I think is Godly direction ever propelling you up the mountain. Then experience will draw out the nuance of avoiding being victimized by doing good enough.

To your maximal life outcome,

Dave Marr

Windows of the soul. What do you see? What does opportunity look like?

Some men cannot see all colors. They are said to be colorblind. The X chromosome doesn’t produce photo-pigmentation in eye receptors so that a certain spectrum of light bouncing off a red blouse doesn’t capture the red, just the bounce. In other words, to make the analogy, red exists continuously, but the perceiver doesn’t perceive.

As is opportunity. Opportunity ubiquitously exists in our world awaiting the perceiver around every corner, with every chance encounter, in every phone call, with the morning news feed, email, or snapchat. Opportunity to move you forward in your goals and life is but a perception away. And yet, often, most often, we are blind. Why? And what to do about it?

To answer that we have to set the stage. First off, what is opportunity? Many who might be victims where the world happens to them would call it luck. Some who are irreligious where there is no guiding hand would say it’s serendipity. Others who ascribe to a Divine Being would say that opportunity arrives as Providence. Under any of those definitions opportunity is a beneficial happening that aligns with an agenda already in existence. And that’s the key to perception.

For example, Garrett Townsend is a manager that works in my office. He leads a team generating loan business. Garrett is all in. He is highly motivated and energized to build a successful mortgage business and does a great job. Recently he told me the story of dropping his daughter off at an event. He was coming up to the check-in station and as he was arriving as a woman was leaving. She looked up and they caught one another’s eye. Now if it were me, I’d look away as like normal. But not Garrett. He smiled and said hello. Just hello. She responded in kind and they talked. Come to find out she worked for a company that dealt with dozens upon dozens of builders. She knew them all. Garrett had been trying to break into that area of the mortgage business, so this chance encounter stands out. They exchanged contact info and agreed to get together.
When you analyze this moment of …Providence… all one has are assumptions and assertions. Pure conjecture. Of course you know how I look at this:

1. Garrett has declared his life is one of God-given abundance. That is his frame of reference, his starting point. He has declared to God and himself that he is on an upward trajectory.

2. Garrett devotes his waking hours to working on his business, but mostly on himself to be a Catalyst for Positive Change in the lives of everyone he meets. That’s the company mission statement and, I’m glad to say, Garrett’s as well. He is an agent for well-being.

3. Garrett projects positive. Lives positive. Expects positive. Creates positive.

4. Garrett wasn’t saying hello in order to squeeze out any selfish benefit that might exist from this woman, he was just being nice. Being nice, having an agenda, and being aware, opened the door to opportunity.

5. Garrett would have thought nothing of missing the opportunity had he said nothing. We don’t miss missed opportunities. But in saying hello he was in the flow of opportunity. Garrett is not colorblind.

The man who is colorblind lacks the physical properties necessary to see the world as it is. He doesn’t see the world as IT is, he sees the world as HE is. Think about this statement as it pertains to your life: You don’t see the world as IT is, but as YOU are. Any challenges you face are filtered through your imperfect lens. Opportunity is a God provided enticement to polish your lens.
When it comes to capturing opportunities that will improve our lives, we must have a plan to move forward, be in a state of action moving us forward, and seek perspectives that give us a clear lens. Opportunities abound. Ideas are ever present to improve your financial situation, create that ideal female relationship, build your body’s health, find a spiritual mentor, and create life of flow. Perspective comes one sentence at a time. What I mean by that is that at this stage of your life, you’re not going to have wholesale change in your perspectives, instead just small course corrections. So any epiphany from a new perspective will catch you as one insightful sentence in an otherwise ordinary paragraph. You’ll take that one sentence and throw away previously held limiting perspectives whereby your vision perceives at a different wavelength.

To see opportunities you need to change perceptions in your mind’s eye. I recommend you listen to Zig every day while getting ready for the day, while working out, while in the car or on the train. Listen to the classics: Jim Rohn. Denis Waitley, Brian Tracy, John Maxwell, Wayne Dyer, et al. As a daily activity it will mature your perspectives on motivation and abundance and result over time in your ability to see the full spectrum of color.

To your abundant life,

Dave Marr

Go Up Goals are goals where you get to fill in the blank. “I am a _____________”. These are the goals where you climb with persistent effort over a long period of time and achieve something worthwhile. Go Up Goals are big. You fill in the blank with something descriptive that you hold as close to pridefully as you can without overdoing it. “I am a marathon runner.” “I am a black belt.” “I am an MBA graduate.” “I am a business owner.” “I am husband.” “I am a father.” “I am a man of character.”

This Letter is about Motivation. Motivation is a term that is usually interpreted as this compelling desire that makes you want to drop everything else and pursue some objective, like it’s an energy that exists on its own. Go Up Goal Motivation has not been that in my experience. Imagine Go Up Goals being like you’re on a mountain path that forks up ahead. You have to decide whether to take the wider path that is well trod that leads easily around the bend and poses no obvious challenges. The other path is much less traveled. You can see immediately that it would be a challenge, steeper, require skill and dexterity that you’re not sure you have. But having risked your comfort zone, you’ll be able to fill in the blank. That is the Motivation I am familiar with – a choice that pushes you out of average.

To some, this imagery is all that is necessary; to be able to state that you’re different than other guys, willing to go off the beaten path, an individual. That feeling is exactly why I went to Sweden as an exchange student out of high school – to be different. That’s why I got my black belt when I was young and had the freedom to explore and be different. But as I got into life, it became more challenging to take the road less traveled. The MBA was when I was married, but had no kids. The marathon training was when the kids were asleep. Starting the business was because I had run out of other acceptable options and I had to make self employment work. I do understand Go Up Goals – In my head and ego each goal was me getting out of my comfort zone to become something bigger, something that the average Joe wouldn’t get off the couch to do.

There is a window in your life that you’re in. This window is the essence of youth with all its energy and optimism and relatively light responsibilities. I wish it lasted forever, but this window does narrow. It narrows when your responsibilities and comforts get to a point that crowd out younger desires. You subordinate your Go Up desires to the choices you’ve already made – wife, kids, home, debt, whatever. Don’t get me wrong, all those things are important and are life’s true desired realities. But if you haven’t pushed yourself in advance of that responsibility, if you haven’t tested what you can do before the weight settles around your shoulders, if you haven’t pushed yourself yet in adventure, skill, knowledge, economics, though it’s not over by any means, you could be in your comfort zone a bit too much for your own long term liking.

I think youth should recognize the blessed opportunity in this window of time to fill that
“I AM ______” blank with a recognition that you only have one life, so don’t put off something big for later. Start it today. Do it now. And if you don’t know what big thing you want to take on? Then you are not alone. Most people don’t know what will juice them up and get them going. So in the meantime, until God provides you with a destination that is worthy of your energies, substitute something else, anything else. Be a man of action. The best thing to do is become proficient in a physical skill because of all the mental, spiritual, and psychological spinoffs it provides. Karate was a hugely maturing, confidence building, toughening experience for me. Any martial arts program would be beneficial. I ran marathons as well because it was big. Maybe music is your thing. Night school for your next degree might light the fire. Maybe this year you talk with 10 older men about their life stories, the highlights, the big influences, the regrets, and take away the best thoughts and apply them to your life.

Bottom line, if you’re reading this email, then God could be talking to you. What can you do with 2017 that fills in the blank?

To your continued success,

Dave Marr

Dave Marr