Unexcused

Would you rather go all-in, or only venture part way?

Most of us will take the first option in theory. But we tend to follow the second one in practice.

One of our greatest talents is giving a full 95 percent. We do this for self-preservation — of mind, body and perception.

Going all-in in its truest sense is terrifying and potentially hazardous. Holding a little bit back seems like the safer play.

Yet, holding back comes with some nasty side effects. Most notably, it antagonizes our sense of accountability.

For when we give less than our all, we absolve ourselves of some responsibility.

In particular, we create a convenient forum for excuses when things don’t go right.

The buck no longer stops with us. We can name our own villains to make our lack of full commitment sound heroic.

We know this behavior is wrong. Immoral even. Yet, we still find ourselves falling into this obvious trap, time and again.

It’s human nature.

I understand this as well as anyone. I’ve long harped on the virtues of responsibility. On the importance of being conscientiously decisive. On the value of remaining accountable for our actions.

With every word I write and every idea I share, I seek to expand horizons and stamp out excuses.

Yet, I’ve done a poor job practicing what I preach. When others have asked why I haven’t taken the plunge on a daunting task, I’ve generally had a trusty excuse handy.

For the longest time, I didn’t think twice about this hypocrisy — the no excuse guy peddling excuses of his own.

But then, a friend shared six words that floored me.

Losers make excuses. Winners make money.

That message cut deep.

Not because I view the world as a zero-sum game of winners and losers. (I don’t.) Not because I’m keen on equating success with money. (I’m not.)

No, those words resonated because they quantified the value of excuses. A value that is precisely zero.

I don’t want to spend my days working on something worthless. And I’m sure I’m not alone in that regard.

Yet, each time we spout off another excuse, that’s exactly what we’re doing.

So, how do we dig our way out of this hole? How do we stop explaining away our actions to mask our cowardice?

We can start by hitting the throttle. By bursting through the barriers we build to self-censor our potential.

It’s time for us to stop demonizing heightened expectations. It’s time for us to stop fearing failure. It’s time for us to stop worrying about our external perception more than our internal growth.

It’s time for us to go all-in.

Excuses have no value in our narrative. Let’s leave them with no place to hide.

Lights On

Each year, as the days get to their shortest, something remarkable happens.

Up and down every street, we find rooftops, balconies, front lawns and driveways all adorned in light.

Whether you call them Christmas lights or holiday lights, these installations are a hallmark of our culture.

We’ve come to expect them. Yet, we still find ourselves amazed by them.

It’s not the displays themselves that give us pause. The ingredients of colored bulbs, green wires and brass fasteners are somewhere between tacky and blasé.

It’s not the fact that electric bills go up across town that grabs our attention. Only economists and this author find that noteworthy.

It’s not even the holiday spirit that leaves us gazing in wonder. The lights are just one part of a holistic ecosystem that makes us feel festive and warm as winter sets in.

No, it’s the sheer pervasiveness of these lights that leaves us in awe.

Even in a time when we can hardly agree which direction up is, we come together across faiths and demographics to light up the night. Across the country, we take on the arduous task of stringing lights all over the outsides of our homes.

It’s remarkable from a bird’s-eye view.

But take a closer look, and this practice can blur the lines between culture and cult.

There’s a Keeping Up With The Joneses aspect to holiday lights. Let it slip that you’re not hanging up your own lights, and you’ll be hit with an inquisitive Why Not?

The Why Nots seem to make more logistical sense than the Whys in this case. We generally celebrate the holidays indoors, so lighting up the outside of our home is not practical. And we don’t need an army of colored bulbs to lead us to the front door after dusk. Street and porch lights do just fine at that task year-round.

But none of that matters.

No matter the practicality, we’re expected to have our lights up between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. And then not to have them up the rest of the year.

These expectations drive the aura that surrounds holiday lights. For without critical mass, this phenomenon would merely be a spotty trend.

But what drives these expectations themselves?

What leads us to passively shun those who opt out of decorating? What inspires us to quietly shame those who put up their lights too early? What compels us to intuitively know when it’s time to take down the installation?

I believe the answer to this question is safety.

As members of a community, we strive for safety. We want to feel secure enough to trust others, and for them to trust us.

Few actions provide that sense of safety quite like putting up holiday lights.

It’s public. It’s communal. And it toes the line between conformity and expression.

Participating in this tradition helps us fit in. It indicates our goodwill. It broadcasts our good intentions.

In a world full of tribalism and deceit, we need those signals more than ever. But we don’t just need them in the winter. We need them in the summer too.

In fact, we need them year-round.

The challenge, then, is to apply the message from the holiday lights tradition to the other 11 months of the year. To illuminate our lives the way we illuminate our homes. To spread kindness and build trust, even when the overt reminders aren’t all around us.

We have the power to make these objectives a reality. But only if we let the light within us guide the way.

Let’s start today.

The Intersect

Fascination.

There are few emotions quite like it.

When it strikes, you find yourself transfixed, in a state of awe.

There are many ways we get to this point. Some of us get there through romance. Others by looking at art. Still others by working on string theory.

I get to a point of fascination whenever I uncover something long overlooked.

Whenever I’m exposed to a new way of viewing the world around me, I’m blown away. That which I failed to recognize before is now embedded in my mind.

It’s as if a light switch was turned on in a dark corner of my cognition. My behavior becomes more conscientious. My vision gains layers of depth. And I consider of how it would be it we were all awakened to this newfound vantage point.

I’m locked in to my new reality. The one that was there the whole time, but I was previously too inattentive to see. And all the while, I’m amazed by the altered perspective that just blindsided me.

But once I get past this moment of fascination — once the awe runs its course — what do I do next?

Do I play sleuth, taking a deep dive into the topics that generated these profound insights? Do I leave them alone and go stumbling down the trail, waiting for the next lightning bolt to strike?

As it turns out, I do neither. I follow a different path instead.

Now, this is not to say that either of the approaches just listed is patently wrong. There is some value each of them.

Devoting our attention to fully understanding what bit us can help us affect positive change. Continuing down life’s path oblivious to the next profound insight can recapture that sense of fascination and wonder.

Yet, there are also drawbacks to these approaches.

Going down the rabbit hole to fully uncover new theories and ideas can be exhausting. It can divert our attention from other important ventures. It can steer us off course.

And following the path of willful obliviousness carries a
hefty opportunity cost. It restricts us from fully expanding our minds and transforming our behavior.

Neither of these approaches seems right to me. So, I focus on the intersect.

The intersect is the point where a profound insight meets something we’re more acutely familiar with. It’s where a new way of thinking impacts an old way of doing. Where a fresh perspective transforms an inherent state of being.

Consider the following example.

In her book Quiet, Susan Cain fully explains the concept of pseudo-extroversion — where introverts effortlessly act extroverted in situations that call for it. Cain refers to a psychological study that supports this concept.

Cain also cites other studies throughout the book that illustrate how introverts and extroverts respond cognitively to various cues. Many of these experiments illustrated showed different levels of stimulation to certain parts of the brain, depending on whether the subject was introverted or extroverted. They unveiled the innate differences that drive the personality gap.

As an avowed introvert, I found Cain’s writing fascinating. And I was captivated by the psychology studies she referenced. As someone who’s a marketer by trade and a writer by passion, I understand the importance of captivating an audience. And I recognize that psychology can provide the key to unlocking the cognitions behind people’s actions.

Even so, I wasn’t tempted to start studying psychology. Or even to start reading books solely committed to that discipline.

I was focused on the intersect.

On how I, as an introvert, could live a more prosperous,
enlightened life. On how I, as a marketer, could better connect with the consumers I longed to reach. On how I, as a writer, could more holistically inspire my readers.

Psychology feeds in to all these objectives, of course. But I don’t have to dig very deep to extract the concepts that best apply to my journey.

The full depth of psychological studies only does so much for me. The intersect of psychology and my passion, livelihood and state of being is where the rubber meets the road.

I don’t feel this theory applies to me alone. It applies to all of us.

Yet, all too often, we fail to abide by it.

It’s all too easy to get manically excited when we feel captivation. To feel the desire to shift course and pursue a new direction. To long for that feeling of wonder, again and again.

But the true value of our insight doesn’t come from those moments of fascination. It comes from the intersect with what we’re already
doing, thinking and feeling.

Embrace the power of the intersect. It could help you change the world, even in the subtlest of ways.

The Conviction Morass

Conviction.

It’s the difference between a half-hearted endorsement and a full-fledged belief. And it can turn an idea into an inspiration.

Conviction helps our voice cut through the clutter. It helps our concepts gain an audience. It helps our vision become a movement.

In our attention-deficient world, these results are more than a nice-to-have. They’re essential for gathering any semblance of attention.

This means conviction has become table stakes.

When we speak publicly, when we write, when we create performance art — we’re expected to do so with conviction.

The ideas within our work — they matter to us. But we must be compelling in order to make them matter to the world.

I’ve taken this mantra to heart.

I speak with conviction. I act with conviction. And I try and share ideas on Words of the West with conviction.

Without conviction, the tens of thousands of words I’ve shared here would ring hollow. They would lie trapped between tradewinds of spreadable ideas on the high seas of prose.

Such a fate does no one any good.

So, I only write on concepts I truly believe in. I only focus on fresh perspectives that I feel could benefit the world at large.

Yet, each time I share my vision with the world, a haunting
thought gathers in my mind.

What If I’m leading my audience astray?

You see, much like a frontiersman’s pickax, conviction is a requisite tool to break through. But it’s as double edged as a Bowie knife.

All ideas shared with conviction are not necessarily good ones. In fact, conviction has helped bring about the darkest sides of humanity.

Totalitarianism, genocide and human trafficking each have their roots in conviction. These scourges on our existence are not native to our cognition. But when the misguided spread a message of divisiveness with great conviction, a devastating tidal wave can take hold.

Those who seek to send us backward can be just as effective as those who seek to bring us forward.

For conviction doesn’t discriminate on morality. It simply provides a bigger megaphone.

This is a sobering reminder.

While few of us aim to use the powers of conviction to denigrate society, the ideas we spread can still cause harm.

After all, the world is not black and white. It’s shades of
gray.

And a movement that inspires one person can send another spiraling.

I consider this morass each time I spread ideas.

I recognize the danger embedded within. And how it might remain at odds with my Do No Harm mandate.

Yet, I carry on.

Because ultimately, the opportunity cost is greater if I don’t share. Because ultimately, the benefits outweigh the risks.

This rings true for all of us.

Making a positive change in the world starts with speaking up. If your heart is true and your morals are strong, it is worthwhile to share your ideas with conviction.

So, don’t hold back.

Know the risks. Understand the responsibilities. Take the leap.

Go Your Own Way

If you could distill the way you live your life into a single catchphrase, what would it be?

My catchphrase would channel my inner Fleetwood Mac, in four simple words.

Go Your Own Way.

I don’t choose those four words because I have illusions of grandeur. I don’t fancy myself a rebel or a rock star.

No. I choose them because of what they represent, on a fundamental level.

Namely, the ability to be an individual. To zig where others might zag. To forge my own destiny.

I have embraced this mantra for years. The path less chosen has consistently been mine.

When my high school classmates went off to prestigious universities in the Northeast, I moved to Miami for college. Palm trees and sunshine aside, my classmates largely looked down on my choice. But I wasn’t one to follow in their footsteps. So, I went my own way.

In college, I didn’t take on “safe” vocational studies. Instead of studying finance, law or medicine, I got a degree in Communication. Sure, the job market was larger for financial analysts, lawyers and doctors. But I didn’t see myself in those fields. (I am a writer, after all.) So, I went my own way.

After college, I sought out my first full-time job as a TV news producer. But I didn’t find it in Miami, or up north. I found it in a city I hardly knew anything about — Midland, Texas. So, I moved halfway across the country for a position with a salary similar to that of the cashiers at the local Walmart. Not many people — even in the media — would go such a distance for an anonymous off-camera position. But I did. I went my own way.

After three years in the news, I was burned out. So, I left my job without a new one lined up and moved 300 miles east to Dallas — another city where I only knew a few people. Starting over is daunting. Doing so willfully, with no safety net, is borderline ridiculous. Yet, I knew in my soul that this was the best path for me to take. I went my own way.

It would be easy to say I was being bold by making these against-the-grain decisions. But that would not be accurate. Truth is, I am intensely introverted, and about the furthest thing from impulsive.

Because of my nature, the choices I made felt excruciating. Opening myself up to change, risk and doubt was not something I took on gleefully.

Yes, the moves I made came after much soul-searching and quiet deliberation. They built upon the realization that what is difficult is often what is necessary. That the road most traveled might not be the best path for me.

I share this because there is a powerful lesson we can all take away from my experience.

That lesson? That following our heart and soul might mean straying from the pack. That being true to ourselves doesn’t always mean following the well-worn path.

Indeed, it’s often when we branch out that we find ourselves.

What we’re made of. And what we can make happen.

So, when you’re considering your next move, don’t be afraid to blaze your own trail.

Go your own way.