Change Your Perspective. Or Don’t

There was a time in my life when I was the life of the party to believe it. How long ago was this, you ask? It’s been a little while now. So you’ll just have to take my word for it still comes out every once in a while. context of a wedding, big party, something like that. You know how it goes. And story that I want to share kind of kicks off. Today’s conversation is at a wedding, my friend, Jason got married. And it’s probably been 12 years now at this point, maybe longer. And we went to his wedding, my wife and I went to his wedding just had the best time, had the best time at the wedding there was singing there was dancing, all the things. And there was an after party. And at the after party, just just out of a bar that was close to the wedding venue, was just carrying on and having having the best time and was talking to a woman. And we were just, you know, just clicking or shared stories and laughing and just having the best time. Turns out that she is from northern Minnesota, which is where I’m from, like, oh, my gosh, and I you know how I didn’t discover this earlier. You know, that’s one of my, one of the first things I ask somebody is, where they grew up, or where they’re from or whatever. We’re always looking for commonality and connection and stuff like that. And because I’m just curious person, I want to know where people are from, because I find that that informs sometimes some things. And I’m from Duluth. And she looks at me, like just the color leaves her face. Her expression just totally changes. Looks me and she says, cake eater. What? said you’re a cake eater. And it just it hit me like a ton of bricks. Like somebody hit me in the nose. I was like, What are you talking about? She’s from a town in northern Minnesota, literally 20 minutes away, called Cloquet, Minnesota. And turns out that folks from Cloquet referred to or thought of people from Duluth, as cake eaters, and to sort of close the loop on what that even means. They thought we were like the rich kids, which, from my perspective is absolutely hilarious. I still, I still, I still think it’s the funniest thing in the world. You know, my family was working class, for sure. Talk a good amount about my mom was a single mother and a school teacher. And so we were always struggling to make ends meet, everything was fine. But by no means was I do I consider myself somebody who came from financial privilege. And so I just, I just, I had dig into this with her obviously, and just questioned question and she just stopped again. She’s like, you know, what if I called my husband right now, and I told him, I was talking to some guy from Duluth, you know what he’d say? Cake eater. It was just it was just amazing, amazing. Exchanging conversation. That’s obviously stuck with me. I can just see the look on this lady’s face, because amazingly hilarious. And I was just talking to a new friend. This week earlier this week, her name is Autumn and she was a guest on the podcast episode will come out soon. And as well, where did you grew up? She referenced that she had moved around a little bit. And she said, I’m from winter, Wisconsin. At first, she said, I’m from a small town in the Midwest that you probably haven’t heard of. I said aware, said northern Wisconsin. I said, Where winter Wisconsin, so you’re right. I’d never heard of winter. And I said, I’m from Duluth. And she said, Oh, that’s so funny. We used to do our back to school shopping in Duluth. So there you go. So it’s all about life’s all about perspective. And how you look at something makes all the difference and how you look at the circumstances and situations of your life. make all the difference. Whether you think that your situation is great, or you think that it’s crappy or you have enough or you don’t have enough or it’s good or bad. You get the idea. When I grew up in Duluth, certainly go shopping at the mall and the mall. Think that anybody who’s from smaller country Unity knows about the mall. And we would go down to Minneapolis to shop for some of our school clothes. So I felt like the variety and options in Duluth weren’t enough to meet my, my, my, my, my fashion needs. But you’ve got folks in smaller towns that thought that Duluth was the greatest thing in the world. So it’s all in how you’re looking at the situation, how you look at something makes all the difference. And that, again, is true of every aspect of our lives. An immigrant to the United States of America views the United States very differently than a lot of people who live in the United States of America. So the perspective immigrant mentality and the work ethic that many people bring, when they have the opportunity to enjoy the things that many people take for granted here in the United States, is a very real dose of perspective. The first kid in a family to go to graduate from college, very different perspective, first generation millionaire, very different perspective, the son or daughter of a billionaire has a very different perspective, somebody that starts a business, it’s a very different perspective than somebody who is working inside of a large company, just at every aspect of life. If you are a single child, no brothers and sisters versus a kid that grew up with 10, brothers and sisters, your perspective is going to very, very, very, very different grew up in a city versus growing up in a rural environment, your perspective is going to be very, very different. Certainly feel like rock and roll music versus country music versus hip hop, or whatever. All of these things help to inform and are informed by our perspective, how we view the world. And then there’s obviously our values and beliefs and things like that, but you your place in the world where you view your place in the world, having a sense of where you are. It plays such a critical role in your level of happiness, your level of success, your drive, your motivation, your inspiration, what you believe to be true, all informed by his perspective, I can remember being a beginner tennis player, and I had a very pretty long and successful tennis career that saw me as top 100, Junior in the United States to playing Division One and receiving a scholarship. So I remember when I was getting started as a little kid, and you’re looking around at the other kids that are in your class, and you start to look and compare yourself to the other kids at the tennis courts. And then you start to look at other kids in the city, and then the region, and then the state and you look at other kids different ages. And then you start looking at kids in different states. You start to I never looked at kids different parts of the world. But when he got to college, you start looking at the different just the levels, and that’s a different kind of perspective as well. And he looked at Novak Djokovic, who grew up and started playing tennis at a really early age in Serbia. So his perspective is different than mine. And obviously, Novak is now the greatest tennis player that’s ever played tennis. Most grand slams and everything else. Novak’s perspective, being number one in the world is certainly different than mine was when I started in Duluth, being a cake eater that I was playing tennis. That’s that’s pretty cakey actually looking back on that now playing tennis cake eating white shards. You get the idea.

But Novak’s perspective is the number one player in the world is way different than the number 1000 player in the world. Even though the number 1000 tennis player in the world is a freaking amazing tennis player, the number 500 player in the world, a top 100 player in the world. Still, it’s got nothing to do with Novak Djokovic, he’s not concerned with anybody outside of the top 10. So different perspective in tennis is such a it’s an interesting thing, particularly in the men’s side, because it’s commonly dominated by one person came out of an interesting era where you had Nadal and Federer and Djokovic toward the end. But normally it’s just one person that wins most of the matches. And that’s the perspective that they have perspective is that they expect to win. It’s an expectation because the way that they view the world and competition even though The skill level is very, very different. Or rather, the opposite of that the skill level between the top 100 tennis players in the world, probably the top 1000 is not dissimilar. And it’s just what’s between your ears, what you believe to be true the way you think and look at different situations. So true across everything. So you get to choose what your perspective is. And a big thing that I think it’s so important because we can really catastrophize things. We can look at situations and circumstances of our lives and think, oh, my gosh, the world is coming to an end. How is this happening to me? How could this happen? To me, this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to anybody. And it’s true that potentially the worst thing that’s ever happened to us the worst thing that’s ever happened to you, when we put things in perspective, take a big step back, say, okay, yeah, I don’t like this, this is pretty crappy. But is it really that big of a deal. So we get to make that decision, we get to choose how we think feel respond to the different circumstances of our life. And a massive part of that is is perspective, you know, full well, that you do not have control over many of those circumstances. But again, you get to choose how you think, feel and respond, move forward. With whatever’s going on in your life. And I think that your life, the life that you really want, is a lot closer than you think it is. Sometimes we think, oh my gosh, how am I ever going to do this? How am I going to get out of this? How am I going to accomplish that? How am I going to make all of this work? I’m not saying any of it’s going to be easy. But I think that a lot of it is a lot closer than you think. I think that the life that you want is a lot closer than you think it certainly accessible to you. A lot of it as at your absolute fingertips, whether you wanted to learn how to start growing your own food, you wanted to learn a language, you wanted to have a better relationship with loved ones, you wanted to learn how to play the guitar, you wanted to start a business, whatever. It’s not that far away, it’s certainly learn how to do it. There’s a lot more that goes into than just knowing how to get what you want, whatever it is that you want, you must make a decision. have to decide, this is what I want. This is what is important. This is the thing that I desire, to be really honest about it. And in the hopes that you’ll be successful in whatever you decide to do, and whatever you choose really wants you to think of all the way through. Because the things that I wanted, or I thought that I wanted when I was 20 years old, different than what I wanted when I was 30 and are on different when I’m 44 years old. And I’ve not been perfect about this by any stretch of the imagination, it took me till it’s really 35 years old, sit down and really think through my goals, and what do I really want. And just really critically think things all the way through. Take it to the end. Okay, I think that I want to do this, why do I really want to do that? If I did that, if I had that? Would that be really what I wanted? And I don’t know the answer to that I want you to, to think about it, make the decision. Whatever it is you decide that you want, make the decision to pursue it, whatever it is, and then make any necessary changes, make any changes that will be required to get you what it is that you want. sound sounds easy, does hard, decide make changes execute. And obviously, it’s not going to be just a straight line or a smooth path that will get you there. But I mean, at the end of the day, those are the things that you’ll need to do. And the thing about perspective is that oftentimes, it’s it’s hard one, and it’s difficult to hold on to. So it’s difficult to get hard to hold on to. We must remind ourselves, we must consistently remind ourselves of our place in the world. We must remind ourselves what it is that we really want. We must remind ourselves of why it is that we’re doing the things that we’re doing. And just keep checking in. Okay, I feel like I’ve lost my perspective. I’ve sort of lost sight of what I’m doing here, where I am. The opportunities that I have to be lessons that I’ve been given, all of that must remind ourselves, we must be consistent in that. And there’s a lot of different ways that you can do that you can journal, which I encourage you to do. When we write, for doing this, we’re really thinking about what we’re thinking about. Extremely valuable as you do that, you’ll get better at it. You can practice gratitude, just think about, find a time of your day in the morning or the evening to think about the things that you’re grateful for. We’ve all heard about that. Whether we actually do it or not, find something that will consistently remind yourself, I, I have a chain that I wear around my neck that has things that remind me, and so I can feel it during the day. And certainly when I take it off and put it on the end in the beginning of the day. It’s a reminder of my perspective, and what’s most important to me. And I think that that is a really helpful thing, because it’s easy to lose sight, because we’re all very busy. So if you’re interested in digging deeper into this stuff, and you’d like a framework for it, because it is not helpful for me to just tell you to just do it. I’m a person who appreciates frameworks and I have spent a lot of time thinking about how to get clear on these things, how to better develop a perspective and how to think about what it is that I really want. I want to be feeling and thinking. And the result has is the purpose book. And that is available now. And it’ll help you to figure out what your purpose is, what your goals are, what your beliefs are, and then create habits around doing all the things that you want to do. So check that out. And as always, do your part for doing your best