Peak Moments are the Doorway to Your Story

I’ve been thinking a lot about my story and  others’ stories.

I believe peak moments are like a door to finding out what your story really is. There’s a good chance that your story is not what you think it is. Try focusing on the memories of some peak moments and see if they can lead you toward your story.

I would absolutely love it if you would comment below about any peak memories you’ve had, or go to my youtube channel and post a video response about peak moments.

Better yet, if you don’t know what the hell I mean by a peak moment, I’d love to have a conversation about the idea.

As always, please feel free to email me directly at zander.robertson@gmail.com if you have any questions or comments.

​”Nobody Wants To Be Average, But Everybody Wants To Be Normal”

Fucking Lost

I believe that there is an epidemic of people who are fucking  lost. Not just lost, but fucking lost.

Let me put it this way: When I was a kid, most of the people that I knew (and by extension me) believed that gay people made a decision about being gay somewhere along the way. Like there is this secret society of people that sit around and discuss how much they love public ridicule, the chance to get their ass kicked, and the pleasure of being ostracized by their families.

Like they’re sitting around having this conversation:

Gay #1 – “Hey, you know we all have a choice about choosing our sexual preferences right?”

Gay #2 – “Hell yeah.”

Gay #3 – “Well, I’m going to choose the most difficult and heart wrenching thing possible, I’m going to choose to stand out in a way that might get me killed by some crazed lunatic. I’m going to choose to be gay!”

Gays 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 – (in unison) “Hell yeah, I love being ridiculed and put in grave danger!!! Let’s all make the choice to be gay.”

Obviously, I’m messing with you for effect. Nobody would consciously choose the ridicule and hatred of the ignorant masses if they could choose otherwise. To this day, coming out of the closet must be an incredibly difficult thing to do. I commend anyone who has had the guts to do it, and I support anyone else who is still mustering up the courage to do it.

What’s the link? I said there’s an epidemic of people who are fucking lost. For a gay person, I believe coming out of the closet must feel like becoming unlost. Coming out of the closet is a step towards becoming yourself.

Coming Out Of The Closet Professionally

Some people stand out in the professional or entrepreneurial arenas. In almost any field imaginable, there are stand out players. In tech, there was Steve Jobs. In Edmonton real estate there is Terry Paranych. In wine education there is Gary Vaynerchuk (this blog post owes a lot to him as I’m currently listening to his audiobook “Crush It”)

It’s hardly conceivable to imagine those visionary stand outs having fear around speaking their mind. I have to admit, I used to think Terry Paranych was a little bit fake. I still don’t like the old school bus benches and billboards that reek of a purely ego driven form of advertising. But when social media tools came around, and Terry had the opportunity to be himself on the social platforms, he continued to stand out, not as an ego driven real estate agent, but as a genuine and true professional. I get why he dominates the Edmonton residential market so handily.

What’s the link? They strike us as different, they don’t seem lost. They’re not suffering the affliction of the fucking lost (not professionally anyways). It’s the very essence of being themselves (which is drastically not-normal) that makes them stand out.

“Nobody Wants To Be Average, But Everybody Wants To Be Normal”

The point is that most people don’t have the balls to step out and be different. I’ve read the above quote somewhere on the social media matrix, but I don’t recall who said it. In any case, it’s stuck with me since the day I wrote it.

This is the affliction that I’ve lived with, so I can relate to it. Remember how I opened this blog post? I said that there was an epidemic of people who are fucking lost. I was that guy.

Being lost is the feeling that you don’t know who the hell you are, you don’t know what the hell you’re contribution to the planet is supposed to be. You spend your day doing something that doesn’t get you amped up, and even in that stupor of hating your life, you are still being unable to change because you don’t want to appear abnormal. That’s what being lost is.

As a divergent example, take my good friend Ian Szabo. Ian is an example of someone who did realize the he didn’t like what he was doing. He realized that he was lost. He realized that he wanted something to change. He realized that he would have to take action to change. He realized that he would have to be different to avoid being average. Most of all, he had the balls to stand out. Don’t believe me, check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE49RDHkrzE So what has happened to Ian. Well, his life has exploded both personally and professionally. Why? I believe it’s because he wasn’t scared to be abnormal. He started speaking his mind. He isn’t normal, and he damn sure isn’t average.

Ian inspires me because from him I saw that I could be myself and the results would be dramatically better than sticking to the bullshit story that I’d been telling myself (and everyone else), and quietly hating my life. He showed me that I could release average, if I had the balls to lose normal.

So, What’s The Point?

The point is that the trick to figuring out how to get unlost is an incredible journey that everyone must take. Notice that I didn’t say ‘should take’, or ‘ought to take’. Whether they like it or not, everyone will and must go on their own personal journey to get unlost. Here are the options as I see them:

1) Live from now until you die hating what you do. You will have lived in a state of semi-death from now until then. If this is the case, you will get unlost on your (literal) death bead. Then you will experience massive and all consuming regret. In other words, the most painful pill to swallow, wishing you’d lived life differently.

2) Start the process now or sometime between now and the day you die of figuring out what you really want. This was me. I was fucking lost, and a few years ago started the process of figuring it out. Now I know that I was put here on this earth to help people tell their story. There are still days when I feel fear at telling people what I do. Why? Because earlier I’d told them some other bullshit in a vain attempt to be normal. Now I’m being forced to tell them I’m not normal, and it’s as scary as fuck sometimes. But hey, at least I have a shot at not being average 🙂

3) You’ve already undergone the process of getting unlost.

I’d love to hear about how you’ve chosen to not be normal. I find normality incredibly boring. If you’re still stuck in the trap of not wanting to be average, but having a hard time letting go of normal, then I want you to know that you can do it. If you’ve already done it, I commend you and I’m inspired by you.

It takes a ton of courage, but I firmly believe this change is one of the tectonic shifts of our era. The more people that say  “fuck this’ and throw off the shackles of normality to reveal their inner weirdness, the better off we’ll all be.

Tell your story, and be you, and you will have an ally in me.

As always, I’d love to discuss anything in this blog with you. Leave a comment or email me directly at zander.robertson@gmail.com

Personal Growth Junky (and proud of it)

I’m currently reading the biography of Steve Jobs.

I like Apple. Our family owns 5 Apple products, and they’re generally excellent devices. But, I’m not one to fawn over Steve Jobs. Yes he was a visionary, and yes he built an incredible company that has made an immense impact in the world, but I don’t think of him as the savior that many seem to think of him as.

So, I picked up his biography to learn. Thus far, I’ve learned a lot about his mercurial behavior, his propensity to manipulate, and his ambition. I’ve also learned about his incredible vision and drive.

What I didn’t know about was his total commitment to personal growth. He tried everything from LSD to Scream Therapy, and Zen Buddhism stuck with him for life.

His practice of self improvement helped set him up for a lifetime of visionary creativity and leadership.

Lesson learned – work on yourself first. It will rub off on your broader projects. From within, we can find all the guidance we’ll ever need.

 

Seeing Myself Through the Eyes of Another

Seeing myself through the eyes of another has served me well, and it’s destroyed me numerous times too. It served me well when I saw my 5 year old son throw a tantrum and I realized that he was re-enacting the anger he saw in me.

Kids need guidance, they don’t brush their teeth without prompting, and they don’t get dressed for the day without prompting. Every time I couldn’t get him to do what I thought he needed to do, I resorted to the oldest trick that I know, anger.

For as long as I can remember, I used extreme anger to scare away whoever I felt threatened by. Anger became by trusted sidekick and safest way out of any danger.

When I looked at myself through the eyes of my son, I saw anger transmogrified. I was now a monster, using anger to control the precious being that I ostensibly loved.

When I saw what I was doing, I hated myself, but also knew that I could do something about it. Seeing myself through the eyes of my son taught me how angry I really was. Transformation is possible when you know.

Self-Judgement

On the other hand, there are people that I’ve met throughout life. I’ve engaged in the lowest form of communication with them, gossip. Speaking about others in a negative way is pure poison. It has taken me years to realize that my standard view of myself is through the eyes of another.

I said what I thought they wanted to hear in order for them to like me.

“Who am I?” turns out to be a question not so easily answerable. When you’re wondering what others will say, when you’re concerned what others think of you, and when you can’t even say which beliefs you’ve chosen, then you don’t know who you are. Everything else you do will smack of falseness when you approach life with these thoughts in your non-stop, every churning mind.

It’s a long and prosperous road back to yourself though. I’m on that path now, and I don’t give a fuck what you think 😉

See Yourself

See yourself through the eyes of a child who doesn’t judge you, but just emulates you. If you don’t have a real child to mirror back at you every day, then use your inner child. He/She is still in there, and chances are, the self-hatred and judgement you heap upon the big you will reflect on the little you. How do you really feel?

I know people who the whole world thinks is a hero. They’ve told me that they feel like a fraud, that if everyone else knew them for real that they’d laugh, scorn, and belittle them. How do you really feel?

I’ve pinpointed many things that make me feel great, I mean really great, “not sugar high, make money, I’m the man, ego driven” kind of great, but deep down satisfaction kind of great.

What’s crazy is that I’ve pinpointed things that make me feel like shit, and I keep doing them. That’s self-hatred, and that’s addiction. I’m addicted to feeling bad, and I know others who have the addiction worse than me. Cold comfort.

 

 

5 Modes of Work

It’s been said that we spend more time working than anything else. I’m not sure I believe that because I sleep… a lot.

But there’s no doubt we work a lot. Today I had a conversation where my interlocutor made a comment about someone they knew working for the money. I protested and said that the person in question did it because they love it.

Quickly we deciphered the different modes of work. This is what we came up with:

1) Make a lot of money and do what you love – randomly guessing, I’d say it’s achieved by perhaps 10% of people (probably less).

2) Do what you love and make little money – If your work demands that you simply can’t make much money, but you love it all the same, then this is your best option. Often you might have to start by doing what you love for little money, but it will develop into doing what you love for more or plenty more money. By all means, choose love of your work over money.

3) Do what you hate and make a lot of money – This truly sucks, but at least you have the money, which will buy you brief respites from the hell that you call work.

4) Do what you hate and make little money – When you feel truly hopeless and worthless, you might do this. Many people are forced into this, and they feel they have no other choice. Some of the most inspiring stories are of people who break out of this cycle.

5) Doing god’s work – Some work doesn’t pay anything and it never will, yet it’s the most fulfilling of all work. Perhaps it shouldn’t even be called work. Mother Theresa rings a bell. Everyone should do this at some point in their lives.

Inspired by the Tao Te Ching

I’ve been reading the Tao Te Ching lately and wrote this in my journal. It was very much inspired by Lao Tsu:

I’m happiest when I’m humblest.

I’m most fulfilled when I’m emptiest.

I’m most me when I’m selfless.

I’m most satisfied when I’m simplest.

I seek nothing and I expect nothing, yet give of myself generously.

All is brought to me, and I’m grateful.

Dear Zahra

May 27th, 2011

Dear Zahra,

Hi my sweet daughter. I love you so much. This letter is in anticipation of your second birthday which will be about 8 days from now.

I hope that one day this letter will reach you in when you need it.

Your smile brightens up my day like nothing else. I hope that you never lose this gift. A smile is truly a gift. It’s a gift to you and it’s a gift to whomever sees it. When I take you out in public, people always tell me that you’re beautiful and cute. I think what they mean is that your joy is infectious. The smile upon your face is the vehicle of that joy.

At the age of two you are a beautiful soul. Sometimes, I feel like my job as your father is not to ruin or tarnish that beautiful soul. I don’t want my own baggage to rub off on you and your brother. I think that’s every parent’s desire. No parent wants to pass along negative generational patterns to their kids, but the only way to break generational patterns is to overcome as a parent. If I don’t overcome my own baggage, I’m just deferring that job to you. However,  If I overcome it while you’re watching me, you will be inspired to grow, and you won’t have to experience the same pain that I have.

Don’t misunderstand me here, you WILL experience pain. There is no doubt about that. It’s my hope for you that the pain you experience will be for a bigger reason than the pain I’ve experienced.

In spite of the fact that I’ve led a charmed life, I have been tormented at times. I’m overcoming every day, and I’ll continue to for as long as I live. I don’t want to paint a melancholy picture for you here. My life is joyous and wonderful, but it would be a big fat lie to paint a picture full of only sunshine and rainbows. Life is about overcoming.  There is nothing as gratifying as overcoming a personal obstacle and blasting a former state of mind.

States of mind are what we carry with us everywhere we go. They are not real insofar as having an existence outside of our own mind. They are very real to us though. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my (nearly) 33 years, it’s that everything good and bad that we do in life is made possible by our state of mind. When I protect mine and allow it to go to a beautiful place, I’m able to do great things. When my state of mind is right I’m the father to you and Ronan that you deserve. I fail at that role and I feel significant pain when I don’t protect and enhance my state of mind.

How to protect and enhance your state of mind is an intensely personal learning experience which will continually evolve, and you will get better and better at it, or not, I truly don’t know. Many never get better at it, and their life’s trajectory is a spiral.  I’ve watched with sadness as friends and members of my own extended family have spiraled.  It reminds me of a great quote I once heard that goes like this: “don’t die with your music still inside of you”. The saddest thing about some of the people whom I’ve seen spiral is that they DID have beautiful music inside of them, yet they didn’t get it out during their lifetime.

I’ve also had the wonderful occasion to see people living a life filled with passion every day. I’ve found that these directed people derived meaning from their commitment to doing what they loved every single day. Don’t be fooled by the noise and clamor of crowds and what is considered great by others. You will need to determine what greatness means for you, and your happiness will depend upon it. There is nothing so unsatisfying as living someone the perfect life only to realize it’s not your perfect life.

Those are some thoughts that I’m having as I reflect on the fact that you, my baby girl, is about to turn two.

It is my greatest pleasure to watch you grow.

Thanks,

Dada

The Day I Realized I was a Bad Father

A True Wake up Call

My son loves playing soccer. In fact, he has an almost unnatural drive to excel at soccer. While the other kids are picking dandelions, he’s charging up and down the field scoring goals every time he touches the ball.

One day I realized that at the end of every soccer game, he rushes over to me and says “I scored 4 goals daddy,” or, “I scored 6 goals daddy,” and on the rare occasion he doesn’t score a goal, he breaks down sobbing uncontrollably. I never remember him saying “Daddy, I had fun!”

Now don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against kids wanting to do well at sports, but I can’t help thinking he’s driven to excel because he thinks I’ll love him more. When I realized this, it shattered me. I was truly sad and I had to ask myself the questions “Am I pressuring my son? Am I a bad father?”

It’s possible that I am pressuring him. Maybe I’m not that bad. But I gave myself permission to consider that I was pressuring my son and placing unreasonable expectations on his shoulders, and it opened my eyes to something remarkable.

Why Would I Do It?

I’d never intentionally do anything to harm my son, but I think the same about most people with destructive behavior, so not doing it on purpose is cold comfort. Patterns of neglect or abuse are by default rather than conscious choice. It’s the most difficult and heart-rending thing in the world to break a pattern like that. It takes self-reflection and support of remarkable people to do it. Both of these are gifts that not everyone will be blessed with.

Through my own self-reflection and support network, I realized that I was pressuring my son because of a lack of self-worth. I was using my son’s accomplishments to stand in for my own perceived lack.

A Chance to Grow

Allowing myself to consider this was one of the most powerful things I’ve ever done for my family. I told a group of friends about my deepest fear, that I was not a good father to my son. Someone in the room asked me why I pressured my son, and it was glaringly obvious at that moment. My response was simple “He’s just like me.” I can’t help but see myself in my son, and I want the best for that little guy, I want the best for that little me. The imperative to ‘be better’ translates into pressure. The equation is simple, pressuring him is rejecting him. Rejecting him is rejecting me. Why would I reject me? Because I don’t believe in me.

The next day, my friend who was in the room  said the most remarkable thing  to me. She said, “Practice unconditional love and acceptance of your son BECAUSE he is like you.”

My friend’s words have helped me to transform my relationship with my son. I look at him now and see myself. I see a little boy that I want to nurture not mold. I see something that must be protected and loved unconditionally, not pressured and pushed. I’ve always told him I love him, but more importantly now I feel more love for him. I remember that I was once a precious little one. I’m still a precious little one. I’m bigger of body, but just like when I was 4, my soul remains as always, precious and worth protecting.

Since Then

I transformed my relationship with my son that day. It’s a change that will last a lifetime. I will fight for my son’s gentle spirit, and I’ll nurture it. That’s my job, my duty, and my honour. I love that little guy. Actually, I love both of those little guys, the one inside him, AND the one inside me.

There’s Nothing Left To Do But Die

A friend of mine shared the most remarkable insight with me the other day. Over the course of months, we’d been discussing his experiences of growing up in an abusive home, with parents who treated him like shit. This led up to the bombshell words I couldn’t forget.

My friend had it pretty bad; first his mother abused him while he was in the womb by drinking. When he was a kid, he was beat with sticks and closed fists by his dad. By the age of 12 he was supporting his family by cleaning warehouses in the early morning hours. This was another indignation on his soul, as he watched his peers learn and grow together.

Even with all the pain of growing up in this manner, he sought the approval of his parents, and from a young age he did this through his work. He was known to do the work of 4 adult men. As he grew up, he got a great job in a stable environment earning 6 figures by his early 20’s. Even with that great job, something drove him back and he ended up working with his parents in business again, dragging them from a small, two-man operation up to a sizable business with 10+ full time staff.

Eventually, his parents pissed away the business, and even then they blamed him for the missing money, and finally paid him the ultimate insult, they told him to leave and that they never wanted to see him again.

The bottom line is that they gave him shit and abuse for his whole life, and to this day, he’s struggling to be free of them.

The Words I Couldn’t Forget

After learning his story over the course of months, he shared his extraordinary insight. He said that being as low as he’d been, after being kicked in the teeth enough times, after having enough dirt rubbed in his face, that at that low point “There is nothing left to do but die”. These words have been stuck in my head ever since, and I’ve been thinking them over and over. In the conversation we had that day, we had both noticed that he had developed something very much like intuition. He operates on gut feelings, he trusts or doesn’t trust based on these feelings, and more times than not, his gut feeling is proven correct. We agreed that this trait was prevalent in other friends with similar family histories. But, I kept thinking about his words

What I Think It Means

Being abused takes you to a place you never want to go. When alone in those moments, you can very well imagine the option of death. ‘There is nothing left to do but die’ is an expression of that desperation. Dying is almost logical when you feel so destroyed. But it can also make you take another path, you can actually choose to say “fuck it, I don’t care what’s expected of me, I’m taking my own path.” In reality, there is nothing left to do but die or be reborn.

The Path My Friend Chose

The reason I even know this friend is because he chose to be reborn many times. He chose to do things that most would consider impossible. He chose to grow, change, and be better than what the sum of his life experience would indicate he should be. He chose to make a generational change, and not do as his circumstances suggest he should. He chose to inspire and support. It’s a remarkable decision, and I believe one that some of the greatest among us have made.

The Saddest Path

My maternal grandfather chose death, in fact, he chose literal death. He committed suicide. Much like my friend, I believe (and from some accounts I know this to be true) that he was smashed, abused, and beaten down. Rather than be reborn, he died. Long before his actual death, he died slowly. He repeated the cycle of abuse in his own household. He let the overwhelm and fear rule him, and his legacy is a broken family.

Other Kinds of Death

Suicide is the extreme example, but I believe countless others are dying every single day. For example:

1) People who stay in shitty jobs or businesses that they despise. It’s like taking a small dose of death every day. How do you bounce back from the insult that 5/7 days brings you? Easy, you drink, drug, or medicate yourself through. You dream of escape, a way out of your horrible position. Always waiting for the weekend, or the next holiday, but always wanting out. If you stay in a job or business you detest, you’re choosing death.

2) People who stay in relationships they detest. Imagine the double whammy for the ones who also hate their job. Staying in a relationship you hate is choosing death.

3) People who treat performance as their alleviation to the pain they feel. Many people have the intense desire to perform, even at the cost of their loved ones, their friendships, and their health. Unfortunately, the emptiness of this beyond-natural desire to perform will never lead to fulfillment. It will always be a slow death.

Be Reborn

Please note: I don’t believe you have to experience the kind of pain my friend felt in order to be reborn. I think many, many, many people feel significant pain, and it comes from different places. The question is this: when will the pain be bad enough for you to be reborn? If you’ve already been there, you’ll know what the other side looks like. I commend you, and I appreciate you. If you’re going there, I support you, and I know you can do it. Don’t choose to die like my grandpa did or like the millions of walking dead do every day. Choose life, choose your second birth.

Dang, People are Kind

I was given so many gifts today. It was outstanding.

My neighbour used his Bobcat to clear all the snow away from the front of my house.

An old friend called me randomly and invited me to the Oilers game.

His dad, who was also there, bought me dinner.

My friends gave me the gift of friendship.

My baby daughter gave me the gift of her smile.

One of my clients gave me the gift of showing me one of the most creative deals I’ve ever seen.

Is every day like this and I’m just not noticing?