35 Lessons From 35 Years: Round Two

How you doing today, folks? This is Nick, the poet from Cadre. I am a coach, an author, a filmmaker, a poet, a mental health advocate, a sober guy, and I want to share with you 35 things I've learned in my 35 years. I'm going to do ten today, and I'm going to do twelve tomorrow and 13 on Sunday, or some approximation thereof. And so my number one lesson is, don't take yourself too seriously. And this has been a really important lesson for me to learn that life doesn't need to be as serious as we oftentimes make it in our mind, and that it can just really help loosen up.

And paradoxically, things can go better a lot of times, you know, when I do that. And so my number two one is to be serious is life's greatest pleasure. Voltaire. And so I intentionally started with the first two being paradoxical, because I have found that life is paradoxical. We think it means one thing, but it's another. We think we're doing something for one reason, but it's another. And so becoming comfortable with those paradoxes is maybe, you know, one of the biggest lessons I've learned.

So I've opened with those two, because to be serious, you know, it has a lot of benefits, and to take your commitment seriously and to, you know, be ambitious or whatever it may be, to work with other people to achieve a goal. You know, there's a lot of beautiful things about being serious, and I think we can kind of walk that tightrope path and almost do them simultaneously. And I think that's maybe one of the arts of living. And number three, positive attitude leads to good results. And, you know, this one, I certainly believe now, when I say positive attitude, I don't mean that we shouldn't acknowledge the shadow self.

We shouldn't acknowledge when things are wrong. I'm not talking about toxic, you know, positivity, as it's been called, but I'm saying that if you can be as positive as you can within the circumstances and almost follow this path of unconditional happiness, that no matter what is happening externally, I can maintain that positive internal attitude, because a lot of the times, once again, paradoxically, I thought that the external things are the important things, right? And that I want to try to control and manage those, to create the happiness within.

But little did I know, and I did not learn this for a long time, that that's all backwards. It's all backwards. It's a ruse. We've all been fooled, that the external stuff will lead us to joy. It's an inside job, right? It's. If we change inside, right. Then we could be happy in any circumstance, no matter what's happening on the outside. And this seems to be a lifelong practice, even having this knowledge. I have to keep practicing it because it's so ingrained. Right? So. But that's a. That's a big one.

Number four, live the question and you will grow into the answer. This is a quote from Rainer Marie Rilke in his letters to a young poet. And I found it to be incredible advice. I want to know the answer. I want to know what's happening. What's it all about, Elfie? Well, guess what? We can only live the question one moment and at a time. And so it might be important to ask yourself, you know, what is the. What is your question? What is your most important question in your life? Is it, what do I love?

Is it, who do I love? Is it. Is it, what is my destiny? Is it, you know, what am I going to have for dinner? What, you know, it can be big or small, but thinking about those questions that we're asking ourself can be big. And then live that question, and before you know it, you'll find yourself growing into the answer. And number five, I have that. Number five here. I have that. Love is the answer, right? And so I have to grow into that. And it really does seem that, you know, maybe the Beatles had it.

Had it right, you know, and that, you know, we can kind of look at life as two things. We're either moving more towards love or more towards fear. And I found that to be true. So at every moment I can ask myself, what would love do here? You know? And once again, it's so easy to live from the intellectual mind and the rational mind, which doesn't always know the answer that our heart knows. And our heart, I have read, is 60 times stronger than our mind. Our heart has all its own sensory thinking stuff going on.

So just ask yourself maybe a new question. Instead of, what do I want? What does my heart want? You know? And we, including myself, are oftentimes so disconnected from our body and our soul and our hearts that we live that we. It's like a superpower, if you can tap into that. So just something to think about for you, number six. We think that we need more self improvement, but what we really need is more self love, right? So we are in a success culture. Get better. You're not doing it right. Something needs to change.

Advertising telling us, you don't have this, you don't have that you need it, you know, go get it. Well, guess what? Once again, it's another ruse, right? It's important that we, you know, self improvement can be a major thing, and I'm a big proponent of it. But I think a lot of times is what we actually need is more self love. And if we're coming from that spot of self love, it's like we're not putting the cart before the horse. We're not trying to change our. Our small mindsets and habits before we change the big.

The big question. Right? And so, you know, once again, it's like, why did they teach us this stuff in, you know, grade school, right? Everything was so performance based. But that's okay. Learning to grow up and let go and let love is a. Is a lifetime process, and I'm glad I've gotten on that trail. And you can get on it, too. And it's fun, and it's free. It's. It's free for the most part. You know, there's no, you know, subscription fee to follow in your heart. And, you know, for me, lesson number seven is to create, connect, and collaborate.

And that's really my current personal credo, create, connect, and collaborate. And it's led to some really interesting opportunities. By focusing on those three things and by really getting clear about my purpose to create, connect, and collaborate, then I always know, you know, when those opportunities come up, I'm ready for them. Number eight, giving and service will heal. So oftentimes, I want to have personal accomplishments, you know, or whatever it is, whatever I'm chasing at that moment, I want that to heal me.

But once again, paradoxically, it's through giving and service where I discover, you know, more things about myself, and I discover kind of what needs to heal. And I meet people on that path who become, you know, my teachers. Because everybody that I meet can become my guru in that moment. You are my guru, right? I can be your guru for a moment. We're all in this together. No man or woman is an island. Number nine, aspire to inspire, and the universe will take note. The universe? What is that? The higher power, the cosmic connection?

The great is the source. Whatever it is. I'm not sure exactly, but I do know that there's something out there, and it seems to take note when I do things. It seems to, when I live to inspire, then the universe kind of takes note, and someone says, okay, good work, Nick. Here's this or that, or maybe here's a new tool or a person that you need to meet, you know, I believe we can have a connection with this universe, and I believe the universe is trying to speak to us and guide us all the time. And in my experience, it's little stuff.

Like, last week, I was walking, and I was kind of struggling a little bit with something in my mind. And the song I was listening to on apple music, I don't even remember what it was, but it mentioned worms. And then I looked down, and there's a worm at my foot. Now, some may say that stretched it a little far, but that's just in my, you know, world, that's. That's the. The universe or the great is, you know, kind of winking at me and just be like, nick, you're all good, bro. You know? Or if I see the numbers 1234 in a row, it's like, just keep stepping, 1234, right?

If we're. If we're paying attention to these little. What Carl Jung called synchronicities, they're showing up all over the dang place, and it's just a more exciting way to live. And I want to believe that I live in a benevolent universe. I live in a good universe, right? There's evil in the world, or there's whatever bad things happening all over the place, but I can choose to believe that the universe is good. And once again, that is inside of me. It's not the external circumstances. It is inside of me.

Finally, your relationship you have with yourself sets a tone for every other relationship in your life. Now, sometimes when I'm struggling or I'm tired or I'm sad or whatever, I'll think, you know, I'll be lying in bed at night and I'll think, Nick, you fool. You fool, you fool. Well, I would never talk to a friend like that, right? And so the more that you can positively talk to yourself and be your own friend, that's gonna affect every other relationship that you have. If you're hard on yourself, you're gonna be hard on others.

Once again, this is a practice. We grew up in a certain way. We learned certain things. We've practiced, you know, these kind of retrogressive grooves of fear. But we can slowly get out of them, and I think we can get out of them a lot better together. When we're a Cadre, right? Like this platform, we're a crew. It's not just you. We're a crew. Okay, so that's my number one through ten. And I'll go eleven through 35 over the next couple of days. So hope you enjoyed this. Hope this was beneficial.

In some way, I will catch you on the flippity flop side. Peace. Peace.