REPEAT AFTER ME….There is no such thing as work life balance.

Work life balance is propaganda for the unconscious masses.

You will not find your dream life pursuing work life balance. Instead, you find yourself living in a nightmare.

Your dreams will die chasing this mythical unachievable high wire balancing act.

There is no separation between your personal and professional lives. 

We are the same person at work as we are at home. Try as we might, we cannot separate the two.

We are one whole human being. Our human components do not exist separately.

We have a conscious mind that loves to think and rationalize.

We have sub-conscious mind full of history, beliefs, attitudes, and emotional feelings.

We have spirit that seeks love, purpose, and meaning.

We have a body the provides the functional energy we need to live.

No matter where you go, you are there as one fully integrated human being.

We cannot deny this inevitable indisputable truth. We know no other way, but to be a whole human being.

We are who we are. Others are who they are. It’s time to stop separating these facts from reality.

Our futile attempts to seek a work life balance only serve to push us further away from our truth.

Chasing dreams requires finding our truth and finding a way to fully integrated all aspects of our being into everything we do.

Satisfaction comes from knowing we have fulfilled our needs and desires. Satisfaction is defined by living a life true to ourself, not a life others expect of us.

Aren’t you tired of trying to satisfy someone else’s needs and desires? 

Yet, every day the masses willingly choose to sacrifice their own personal satisfaction for professional satisfaction or vice-a-versa.

It’s time to put ourselves first. We are a fully integrated human being who desires both a personal and professionally satisfying life. It’s time to stop pretending we are not.

Our lives belong to us. We control the choices we make.

We choose to make choices that compromise or support our satisfaction. We answer to our decisions.

Give up this silly notion of Work Life Balance and start seeking personal and professional satisfaction in everything you do.

Start NOW. Say YES to the things that have meaning to you. Skip the rest.

Make choices that prioritize both your personal and professional satisfaction.

Your dream life demands it!

I’m wired to curiously explore the world I live in. To find finds ways to expand my comfort zone and go beyond what’s obvious to me.  I’m learning to unlearn the patterns of behavior that do not serve me.

I want to become the best version of myself and I want to help you do the same.

I’d never ask you to change or become the person I think you can be.  I want to inspire and motivate you into taking the deeply satisfying journey I am on.

Are you willing to unlearn and rewire your patterns?

Every day we get up and settle into playing roles. Roles push us into routines to comfortably cruise through the day, weeks, months, and years.

Routines are safe, comfortable and best friends with the reactive status quo.  They are fueled by the energy of doing to do.  Heads down and focused only on what is in front of us; never seeing the big picture in our lives.

I don’t want to spend my time and energy knocking things off a to-do list, handling the crisis du jour, watching the latest celebrity train wrecks, and getting up the next morning to repeat the same routine. I don’t want to live like that.

I want to be the superstar actor who gets to pick and choose the roles he plays.

Healthy proactively focused routines push us towards a life worth living. Our attention focuses on creating a future filled with new possibilities.

We look for and embrace new opportunities and experiences. We are curious and are always asking questions. We seek to expand our awareness of who we are and how the world sees us. We strive to become the best version of ourselves. We commit to the process.

I can’t just teach. I have to become more teachable myself.

How can I become the best version of myself if I am unwilling to challenges my attitude and belief system. I have to become a better student. I have to be willing to unlearn. I have to believe there is always more to learn.

Every moment provides an opportunity to learn and expand our possibilities.

Becoming teachable is not a quick fix magical smoothie we can drink for breakfast. It’s a lifelong practice of learning, unlearning, and relearning again.

Only you can decide if you are truly teachable.

Are you teachable?

Ever try driving a car with no hands and the peddle to the metal? Fear sets in…we are going to DIE!!! We pray for an unending straight away with no obstacles. Only one thing can result from this kind of reckless behavior…an epic crash!!!

Putting our hands on the steering wheel dramatically increases the thrill and excitement as we negotiate the road at high-speed. Heart-pumping adrenaline rush…we are alive!!!

Living without a sense of what we want is akin to driving with no hands on the wheel. An epic crash awaits without taking proactive action towards creating the life we desire.

What do you want?

Wants are not material desires. They are not the next iPhone or a new Macbook Air. Wants are much more satisfying and deeper than that. They are an emotional desire, something we crave or would like to accomplish. Desires excite and motivate us into action.

Determining our emotional wants does not come naturally. If it did, we would already know what we want and this discussion could end right here.

Passionate action comes from being connected to who we are, what we care about, and what we want. Here’s a few ways I’ve found helpful in determining what we want.

When was the last time you had conversation for future possibility with yourself?

In this conversation, you are only going to focus on what you want. Irrelevant thoughts, challenges, and risks will creep in. Acknowledge and park them in a parking lot for another time. This conversation is too important to let your resistance and fears get in the way.

Please try to avoid jumping straight into action. Reactive action puts us in the driver seat of a high-speed car without a steering wheel. Before we put our foot on the gas, we better be sure we want to travel down road in front of us.

Without wants, it’s easy to fall into the trap of doing to do.

Feeding our wants fuels our passion and thirst for life. We take action by following what is in our own heart. This is not what the market, your friends, or your family wants you to do. This is what do you and only you want.  Only you know what that is. Follow you.

What do you care about?  

Living our dreams is about committing to a world we care about. Operating on our cares enables us to be a part of something bigger than our selves. Freeing us to confidently be who we are in the world. The more connected you become to your cares, the easier it is to get behind the wheel and race at higher speeds.

What have you thought about doing, again and again, but have never started doing?

Thought, ideas, and feelings we repeatedly have are clues to what we desire most. What patterns of reoccurrence of these desires do you notice? Capture these events any way you can. Write a journal, take photos, shoot video, draw, paint, etc. Find a way to establish a tighter connect to what your heart desires. Need some guidance getting started? Take a quick personal inventory here.

The road of life is a journey that is full of heart pounding adrenaline pumping moments. Find what you want, and you will find all you are looking for.

What do you want?

Kids are brutally honest with their feelings, they know what they want, and they can resist change with every ounce of energy in their body.

My 3-year-old son wants to be like his oldest brother. He wants to play ice hockey. He DOES NOT want to skate.

His fears are putting up unnecessary walls of resistance. Whatever story he is telling himself makes him frightened to the point of an adamant NO.

I’m a strong believer in trying first, than deciding if you want to continue.  I refuse to accept NO without effort as a final response.

The local rink offered the perfect opportunity to give it a shot, they were hosting a fun and interactive learn to skate event. After a little encouragement, he stepped on the ice.

Watch what happens. Notice his progression out of his safety comfort zone into his empowered freedom zone.

Did you notice anything else?

Trying new things is what a kid’s life is all about. The learning doesn’t stop here.

I made this video to capture a life moment and to share it with my kids. I want them to be comfortable with living in a digital world. I want my kids to see how they show up in the world. I want them to learn from their experiences. More importantly, I want them to have fun celebrating the things they do and accomplish.

As a family, we celebrate these moments together. My son has watched this video 3 or 4 times. Each time he smiles and laughs at what he was able to do. His confidence and willingness to step into the unknown grows. He cannot wait to step on the ice again.

Inspired by my youngest son, my middle son asked to go skating today. He has refused to consider the possibility for over a year now. He is starring down his fears and I could not be any prouder.

At the time of this post, this video is less than 24 hours old and look at the impact it is having on my family life.  I felt inspired to share this story with you.

What do you feel inspired to do?

When we face our fears, we take control of our power. We create an opportunity for a new beginning. An opportunity to leverage up. An opportunity to go helium.

Going helium is setting your sights on the biggest dream you can imagine and going for it. I know…those big lofty dreams seem so far away from where you are at right now. They cast a long shadow and carry a heavy weight.  Big dreams don’t have to be that way.

Remember the last time you had fun..serious fun.  You lost track of time and immersed yourself in the moment. Hours went by like a moment in time. You were in flow.

Flow is a natural creative free-flowing state of being. We are connected to what we love. We are connected to our source energy.  This energy propels us forward busting through whatever obstacles are placed in our path.

The secret to getting is flow is busting through our natural innate resistance.  Resistance wants to keep us stuck in the status quo. Resistance loves the daily grind.  Resistance does not want you to break your routine and step into flow.

Resistance lives and thrives on your fear.

Fear manifests itself in many ways. When we talk about going helium, the fear language of “I’m not good enough” or “I can’t succeed” pops to the forefront. Welcome to your resistance. Say hi.

Think you are not resisting right now? We all do. What makes you unique is how your resistance controls your daily life.

Ready to take an inventory? Come on, what do you have to lose?

• Make a list of all the things you are resisting (exercising, eating healthy, career, relationship, etc.)
• Take a guess as you why you might be resisting each item
• Is there a common theme? Can you boil your resistance down to a key concept?
• How would your life change if you decided to change your approach to your resistance?
• Why is this change important to you?
• What are you going to do?

Deciding to get in the face of our resistance is a simple decision. If you think it isn’t, then you are allowing your resistance to rule the day.  Don’t  crawl up in the fetal position and surrender your life. Step up and punch resistance in the face.

Do it or don’t. There is nothing to deliberate.

Face your fears..make something wonderful happen. Push aside all the mundane superficial BS.  Find purpose and meaning. Bring your gifts to the world.

Your resistance has dominated your life long enough. It’s time for you to shine. Time for you to live the life of your dreams.

Time to for you to GO HELIUM!!

Whether we are talking about self-improvement or implementing a new product line, one thing is true, action is required.   If we don’t take action, then we are left with hope as a strategy.  Relying on hope is like standing on a rickety old three-legged chair expecting not to land on an ER stretcher.

Much of the action that takes place in the world is knee jerk reaction. This means we are already playing catch-up before we even begin.  We attempt to solve or overcome some problem without an eye on the larger overriding issues of the day.

Reactive action is a hope strategy filled with endless cycles of running in circles while choking on clouds of meaningless dust.

Warthogs are instinctively reactive animals. They have a keen ability to sniff out trouble and within a moments notice flee the scene. Moments into their reactive dusty sprint, they forget why they are running and stop cold in their tracks.

The same thing commonly occurs in business. We quickly react to a competitor’s action and just as fast deviate off our course to address something that may or may not impact our business. More importantly, this over reaction takes us further from who we are and what we are offering our customers.

Don’t be a warthog unless you like running in circles.

The way out of this dusty spiral is to get aligned with an Action Road Map.

• Ideation – Big picture idea, structured action steps for achieving
• Why – Why is this idea important? To you? To the people you serve?
• Connect – Emotionally connect your audience to your idea
• Action – Activate and empower your audience to take action

At a high level, this seems very rudimentary and that may be so. Before you completely dismiss this as more of the same, ask yourself a simple question.

Why am I living in such a reactionary world?

I promise you, the answer is not as simple as you think it is.

Solutions are simple. People make them complicated.

Need further proof, click here to find an unbelievably complex simple one-page Action Road Map.

I told you people make solutions complicated.

Do you want to learn more about how to apply these concepts to you life and your business? Send me an e-mail at david@wevivify.com

Society shines a light on successful people. We idolize and glorify their achievements. We secretly wish we were like them. The truth is we are. We just choose to live a life without the fanfare and paparazzi.

Believing you are a successful person is a personal choice only you can make. Daily life events make up the stories we tell ourselves. These stories make-up our perceived reality. The truth is, daily events in your life do not determine your life’s success, YOU DO.

We need to refine our success perspective by taking a machete to the overgrown story vines that hide our ability to see our truth. Hidden in our stories are undeniable hard facts. Living proof that something exists or has happened.

Facts by themselves are relatively boring. Adding emotional color gives them life and makes us feel safe and secure in the world.

Our truth lies in-between the stories we tell and the hard facts of our life.

By stripping away the emotional story wrappers we use to put a positives spin on daily life events, we find our truth.

Stop using stories to help you feel safe and secure in the world. Embrace and learn from the events that make you feel insecure and vulnerable. Honor your thoughts and feelings.

Finding your truth is your path to freedom. Real safety and security is found in knowing your truth.

The truth frees us to discover all the beauty and goodness in our life.

When we discover our truth, we will find the only way to live is to live by our TRUTH.

Fear not, the truth shall set us free.

You are a SUCCESSFUL PERSON right now. Live your truth!

Curiosity is a foundational character trait I have always owned. My parents encouraged me to ask questions and seek to understand the world around me.  Just as a compass points north, mine points towards a search for meaning in my life. I was missing grounding in my life. I longed for something to help me take my search to the next level.

Being a Dad has provided me with all the motivation I needed to jump-start my unknowingly meaningless life.

Before kids, my work life was my identity. I sunk every ounce of energy I had into work. I clung to the financial security of my six-figure salary. I rewarded my employer’s financial commitment by working harder to make a difference every chance I got. I routinely logged 60-70 hours a week. I genuinely cared about my fellow employees and the work we did. I remain friends with some wonderful people I met along the way.  I cherish some wonderful memories we created together. These events shaped the path I have traveled. As rich as the experience may have been, I derived no real deep heartfelt meaning from my work life identity.

Can you relate to this story?

Being a Dad turned my life inside out and upside down. Suddenly, nothing was more important in my life then my son. He ushered in an opportunity for me to cut through the superficial randomness of my daily life, and slow down enough to ask myself a powerful question.

What do I really CARE about?

Knowing the question is all fine and well, but answering it another story. This required reflection and true commitment to finding the real me. I needed to find courage to ask and answer these provocative questions.

You are familiar with these questions. They periodically pop into your thought process from time to time. They tug and pull at you trying to get your attention.

Will the real David McGraw please stand up?

Kids do the same thing. They tug and pull at you. They challenge your ability to focus and completely focus your attention to them. Being a parent requires skills we have not refined.

Basic skills are the same as being able to solve 1st grade math problems.  We all can do basic addition and subtraction. We take these skills for granted and think nothing of our ability to perform them.

Calculating if we have enough money to retire on requires skills well beyond our 1st grade math ability. Raising kids requires advanced skills. Finding out what matters most to us, what we really CARE about, requires advanced skills.

Taking work seriously was naturally easy. Taking my cares seriously was as hard for me as raising kids.

I was avoiding these questions my entire life. As I held my son for the first time, I felt true joy. I felt me.

To the world I maybe one person, but to one person I may be the world.

Instantly, he was what mattered most to me. The joy I experienced was only rivaled by seeing my beautiful bride begin her journey down the aisle to marry me. They events were extremely important to me. They were what I CARED about!

What I care about has become the most important operating principle I live by. I am motivated and directed by my cares. I bring these cares with me into every conversation and action. My wife and kids provide the grounding I need to confidently live by my cares. They push me closer to my cares and propel me towards the meaningful life I desire.

Being a Dad is not just about raising kids, it is about writing a meaningful life story.  A story worth living. A story I care about.

Are you writing a life story you care about?

We cannot escape the noise. Noises interrupt our life. Noise distracts us from focusing on what is important to us. Noise slows our progress towards accomplishing our goals and dreams. Noise blocks us from listening to our internal intuition. Noise stops us from taking purposeful action.

Not all noises are distractions we need to restrict from our diet. Reading expands our learning and teaches us about current thinking and trends. Listening to music brings calmness and stimulates our creative thinking. Watching videos helps us see the world through the creative lens of the content provider. Playing video games opens the door to competitive fun. Interacting with kids teaches us about ourselves and creates a window opportunity to see the world through curiosity and wonderment of a child. Engaging in conversation on a social media platform gives us a chance to share, connect, and learn about how we show up in the world.  Talking with friends and loved ones warms the heart.

Too much noise is the problem. We make a choice to succumb to the noise or to allow it to distract us from our personal growth. Like it or not, noise is a part of our lives and is here to stay.

We need to find a way to separate the distraction noise from purpose driven noise.

Wait….I like all the noises in my life. Of course you do. We are social animals and we like to keep ourselves busy. We like to go-go-go. We like instant gratification. Noise is an addiction.

Do you ever complain about not having enough time or being overwhelmed?  Do you wish you could do more of the things you love? Do you feeling trapped by your current situation? Answering “yes” to any of these questions, is a sign of noise controlling your life. The noise is keeping us from finding out who we really are and what we really want out of life.

We need to become more discipline and pragmatic with our approach to noise. Setting time boundaries around when and for how long we engage in noises is not good enough. Rigid structures tend to feel trapped and confining. They take away our freedom. They crush our spontaneous creative enjoyment of life.

We can navigate our way through the noise mind-field with a more nimble and flexible engagement plan. To be successful, we have to slow down and pay attention to what is happening inside us.

Slowing down creates new possibilities for ourselves. We think more creatively, make better decisions, and move rapidly towards our desires. We aligned with what matters most to us.  We act on purpose. We do away with the noise.

Is the noise controlling you or are you controlling the noise?

You will remember January 27, 2010 forever.

Apple’s long rumored innovative trans-formative device will be unveiled to the masses.  No device has been more highly anticipated than this one.  We expect Steve Jobs to knock it out of the park.  He will paint a brilliant masterpiece describing how this device will change the world.  We want to believe. We want hope.  We want this device. We do not need to know what it is. We want it anyway. We want this to be something trans-formative. We will buy as many as Apple can produce.  Santa Claus is delivering our presents today.

President Obama delivers the most important speech of his young presidency.  A year ago, he entered office to change Washington; to transform the world. We believed. We hoped. He was last year’s Santa Claus. Something happened. Our expectations went un-met.  We lost hope. We stopped believing.  Deep inside, we still want to hope. We still want to believe. We still want something trans-formative. Tonight, he will try desperately to restore our hope and belief.

Will you pay attention and listen as eagerly to President Obama as you will to Steve Jobs today?

These events are important for you, for our country, and for the world. Jobs and Obama will send a message to the masses.  The masses will decide if they believe in the message. You will decide if you believe. You will decide to restore or withhold your own hope.  Today, is your day to decide.

What can you do to restore hope and belief in your future?