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Live Strong
“Live Strong” was a brand created by Nike and Cyclist Lance Armstrong. Armstrong was world renowned for his greatness in cycle races, he became infamous based on the revelation that he used performance enhancing drugs to assist him during his great career. During his time on top he created “Live Strong” to represent recovery from Cancer. He survived cancer a few times and wanted to be a source of inspiration to others dealing with illnesses. "Live Strong" became a symbol of hope for many and a popular brand for Nike as a company. Lessons On How To Live Strong "Choose To Be Your Greatest Self." As Cycle Breakers we have to choose to be our greatest selves at all times. There is no other acceptable option. We are all human and we all make mistakes, however those mistakes do not have to drown out our contributions. Armstrong was using drugs to win races, but that doesn’t change the fact that he made a positive contribution to the world through the “Live Strong” movement. Let’s take “Live Strong” and apply it to our lives so that we can strive to be successful and positive despite our “failures, flops and flaws.” “Live Strong in Your Relationships.” To "Live Strong" in your relationships is to put your best foot forward and expect the best from those who are in relationship with you. Life is too short and too fragile to spend time in relationships with people who are not adding value to your existence. Seek strong and powerful relationships built on support, transparency and loyalty. “Live Strong in Your Associations.” Your associations are different than your relationships. Relationships require some level of intimacy or friendship. An association is not as strong as a relationship. It's simply a connection with a person who you have allowed to occupy some area of your life. It is important to “Live Strong” in your associations because your associations can lead to bad situations. For example: ☯️ Being in the car with an unlicensed driver can be the difference between you walking or riding home. ☯️ Going out with a group of people can be the difference between you having a good time or you being caught up in “The Legal Matrix.” ☯️ Listening to advice from the wrong person can cause you to make a decision that will change the direction of your future "Living Strong For Your Reputation." Your life matters, your assets matter. One of your greatest assets is your reputation. Choose to “Live Strong” so that your reputation creates opportunities for you long before you even arrive. Until next time, 🙏🏾 Please subscribe to my YouTube page where I go deeper into this subject and where I’m building a library of empowerment workshops.🙏🏾
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The Power of Meditation
I made it to 751 days of daily meditation!! I can tell you that it has been a game changer for the way that I approach conflict, challenges and every day living. It doesn’t make me or anything I face perfect but meditation has provided me with a tool that has helped me navigate life’s obstacles in a healthier way. Meditation has become a popular trend. You can find meditation experts, classes, challenges pretty much everywhere. There is no doubt that meditation has become an example of being “woke”. Diving deeper than just the glitz you will find that meditation has many benefits. The Power of Meditation Through silence there is speech When you sit still and intentionally block out the noise of the world messages will come to you. It doesn’t matter what your spiritual or religious beliefs may be, we all can acknowledge that there is a voice inside of us that speaks when we listen. If you want that voice to speak life to you, you have to listen. I must add a word of caution that depending upon what your current dominate thoughts are, that voice could be dark and negative. Don’t listen to a dark or negative message while you are meditating. Once you feel that emotion/message coming, acknowledge it and let it pass. Meditation strengthens the mind. Your mind is a muscle. All muscles need exercise or they will decrease in ability. Meditation can build your mental stability and memory, thereby slowing down decay. Meditation gives you space. When you meditate, even for a few minutes you are able to create space between actions and reactions. When you create space you are able to make better decisions. How To Meditate
There is another amazing tool. You can join Me and Carmen Wheatley, the “Nurse Yogi,” on a 30 day journey to healing and power! This Zoom group will meditate, pray, study and move our bodies! You will be amazed at the transformation your life will make after this program. The link is below.🙏🏾 Until next time, Who Are You Listening To? Who are you listening to? Why are you listening to that person? We are creatures of habit and environment. Our habits are picked up by the repeated actions, tendencies and behaviors that became normal to us. In our environment we do what we see and we are expanded or limited by the expanse of our environment. However, time and knowledge has shown us that it doesn’t have to be that way. We don’t have to stay in the prison of our past or our experiences. We can expand to new growth but it requires intentional behavior. Intentional behavior includes being mindful of who we are seeking wisdom from. A common mistake that we make in seeking wisdom is that we primarily listen to and get advice from people who we are comfortable with. However, we never stop and ask ourselves why are we comfortable with them in the first place. The truth is that we are comfortable with certain people because we have been in the same environment with them for a long time or we share a similar opinion about certain subjects. For example, those friends that you grew up with in the neighborhood you still look to them for advice and approval because you always did. That girlfriend that you meet for happy hour, she thinks you have the best relationship with the best guy, even though he physically and mentally abuses you. She supports your messy relationships so she is your confidant of wisdom. There is a better way. The better way is to be intentional about your pursuit of wisdom. The Wisdom Equation Wisdom is experience + knowledge + good judgement. A person with experience, who has gone through, survived and thrived in the area you seek needs knowledge and good judgement. Sometimes people survive and win by luck. Luck is not what you’re looking for. You’re looking for wisdom, so you have to make sure that the person you are listening to actually gained knowledge from the situation they experienced. How will you know if they gained knowledge? Knowledge is facts, information and skills gained through experience or education. In other words, what are the facts they learned? What information or skills did they gain from that situation? Lastly, the wisdom equation requires good judgement. A person can have all the experience and knowledge in the world but do they display good judgement on a regular basis? Life is too short to waste your time. Seek wisdom so that you don’t make unnecessary mistakes. Seek wisdom from the right people. Until next time, 🙏🏾 Please subscribe to my YouTube page where I go deeper into this subject and where I’m building a library of empower workshops.🙏🏾 Your Lack of Goals Will Create Your Lack
I spend a lot of time in thought trying to figure out how and why so many people take the path to destruction as opposed to the path toward a positive future. It would be unfair if I failed to acknowledge that all of us occasionally, and often, fall down, make mistakes and mess up. That’s different from choosing a path that will only lead to destruction and then purposefully staying on that path. Recently in my courtroom a man stood before me with two separate cases. One case was a probation violation, the other case was something new and more serious. The probation violation was based on the man’s previous charge of disorderly conduct. When he was found guilty of disorderly conduct, I chose not to send him to jail but instead I put him on probation and intended to enroll him in my “Finish First Leadership” program. He never reported to probation so he never got into my program, as a result, a warrant was issued for his arrest. Fast forward three years later, he is standing in my court in hand cuffs and, to follow procedure, I confirmed with my Probation Officer that the man never reported to probation. I didn’t bother to ask him why he didn’t report because on this day he had more pressing issues. His current charge was for murder. The report said that he shot another man in the head with a shot gun. How does a person go from disorderly conduct to three years later being charged with murder? I submit to you that much of it has to do with the path that he decided to take. He wasn’t interested in my leadership program. He didn’t have a goal that would lead him out of the hood and on to success. He allowed the destructive direction of his life to take him down a path that lead to despair and devastation. The same applies to you and I. You may not be on the path to murder but you may be in a situation where the lack of positive goals for your future will lead you into a bad situation. ☯️ Are you going to allow that bad relationship to drain you of your ability to flourish and love or will you set goals and change your direction? ☯️ Are you going to continue to underperform at work to the point where you lose you job or will you set goals to change your direction? ☯️ Are you going to continue to spend time with people who are up to no good and don’t mean you any good or will you set goals and change your direction? The choice of your path is up to you, but the destination of your path is already written. Until next time, 🙏🏾 Please subscribe to my YouTube page where I go deeper into this subject and where I’m building a library of empower workshops.🙏🏾 Re-Claim Your Time
We waste time. Of course there are some people who have mastered the ability to maximize their time, but for the most part we could all do better with managing our time. On the worst level there are those who have allowed others to take, use and abuse their time. This week I want you to consider reclaiming your time. You should do this if for no other reason than the fact that your time is too precious to waste. Re-Claiming your time means: ☯️ Stop taking yourself, and allowing people to take you, into debates and arguments about things that don’t really matter. I use to be a victim of this early in my career as a lawyer. I would wear it as a badge of honor to be able to debate with people on any subject. I was even on the college and law school debate team, but as I have grown Ian’s matured I now realize that my energy is more important than proving that I can argue. The same applies to you. ☯️ Stop spending your most valuable and productive hours on tasks that are not productive or valuable. Social media has a lot of good elements but it can also be a pit of distraction and destruction. Gossiping at work can have a benefit of spreading information but it can also be a source of toxicity. Make it a point to complete productive activities before you scroll social media or gossip with others so that you can re-claim your time and live your absolute best life. ☯️ Value your time and make others value your time. How often does someone totally waste your time, keep you waiting or discount the importance of your presence? What do you normally do when that happens? You likely say, “that’s ok,” but it is not ok. If you refuse to let someone know when your time is not being valued, their behavior will never change. They will continue to disrespect your time. Even more importantly, if you don’t value your own time no one else will. Today take these steps: Stop being late, arrive early. Stop moping around, move with purpose. Stop de-valuing your time because your time is your life. When your time is up, your life is up. Re-claim your time as the most valuable asset that you have. Until next time, 🙏🏾 Please subscribe to my YouTube page where I go deeper into this subject and where I’m building a library of empower workshops.🙏🏾 Dose of Positivity
Pain Does Not Have To Mean Suffering We all experience pain. Unfortunately we also have all experienced some type of suffering. Suffering comes in many forms. Physical suffering, mental suffering, emotional suffering, financial suffering and the list goes on. Suffering is natural but it is not necessary. I believe that most of us suffer because we are in the dark about how to stop that cycle. The cycle I’m referring to is the cycle from pain to suffering. When we realize that we can stop the cycle and then get the tools necessary to stop the check we will have more peace. What is suffering? The original root sense of “to suffer” was “to bear or carry.” The Latin “sufferre,” meaning “to bear, undergo, carry,” with that in mind, when we suffer it’s because we are carrying pain. For example: Constantly talking about your terrible break up = carrying the pain of the breakup = suffering. Constantly returning to a place of a tragedy = carrying the events of that tragedy with you = suffering. There are many other examples but the bottom line is that when we choose to carry the events that caused us discomfort or pain we are choosing a state of suffering. How Do I Minimize The Suffering In My Life? ☯️ Accept that there is nothing wrong with feeling hurt, sad, depression or any emotion at all. We are emotional beings so we have a full range of emotions at our disposal and we surely use them. ☯️ Set up guardrails. Guardrails let you know when you have gone a little to far. Guardrails in your life will do the same. They will let you know when people or situations have gone too far. When you get the guardrails notifications, back off or change course. ☯️ Limit the time of your suffering. Yes, actually put a time limit to the amount of suffering that you will allow in your life. It sounds easy and in fact it is. You have more control over your thoughts and the direction of your thoughts than you can imagine. Begin to build your mind control muscles by limiting the time you morn, talking about, cry about or suffer over a situation. Suffering can’t be eliminated but it can be controlled. Watch my YouTube video for a more in-depth conversation on developing your discipline muscle. Until next time, 🙏🏾 Please subscribe to my YouTube page below where I’m building a library of empower workshops. Dose of Positivity
Discipline In my experience as a Judge it seems that the word “discipline” has become a dirty word. When I use it to describe expectations that I have or use it to describe a path to greatness some people get offended. One reason that people get offended is because, as independent people, we all want to have and express control over our lives. We don’t want to answer to anyone, we don’t want to follow anyone (in real life) and we all want to be bosses. The funny thing about all those aspirations of independence is that they too require discipline. Discipline is the key to success in any area of interest. If you want to be good at something you have to practice discipline. If you want to be great at something you have to live a life of discipline. Let’s explore three “disciplines of discipline”. ☯️ ControlControl is required to have discipline. You can’t even begin to become more disciplined as a person until you foster the ability of control. Think of it as a first step. For instance, you have to learn to control your temper before you can be so disciplined to never get mad at all. The reason that many people lack in their development of discipline is because they try to jump directly to “Never doing (fill in the blank)” not realizing that they first have to control themselves when (fill in the blank) occurs. ☯️ PurificationPurification is another dirty or resented word. When I speak of purification I am not talking about walking around with no flaws in a state of perfection. I am referring to your ability to rid your mind of negative and dark thoughts. The benefit of getting rid of the negative and dark thoughts is that you are removing negativity and darkness as even a possible response to things that happen in your life. ☯️ Relinquishment To relinquish is to let go. To release. In order to have discipline in your life you have to release and let go of the things that contradict your goals. If you want to be in better health, but you have an addiction to sugar, relinquish the sugar. If you want to have a great relationship, but you are addicted to the person who brings you drama, relinquish the drama. If you can not relinquish, what you are saying is that what you think you want is not as important to you as staying where you are. If you don’t care about where you are or if you don’t care about going to your next level of greatness then discipline is not for you. But I can’t end like that. I know that you desire more from life. I know that you desire to win in all areas. I know that you understand discipline is a key to your success so let’s grow in discipline together. Watch my YouTube video for a more in-depth conversation on developing your discipline muscle. Until next time, 🙏🏾 Please subscribe to my YouTube page below where I’m building a library of empower workshops.🙏🏾 Contentment is so D*^% Hard As we enter this new moment of life, and every movement is a new moment of life, let’s reflex on the concept of contentment. Contentment is the ability to find happiness right now in the position, situation and space that you are in. Contentment often eludes us because the world fills our mind with a longing. We long for love when the love of God is all that we need. We long for materials when all that is required for our life existence is available to us. We long for more life when all we have to do is start living right now. Another reason that contentment eludes us is because we stay in a state of “get ready, get ready, get ready!” There is nothing wrong with getting ready, in fact I promote planning. However, when getting ready is your constant state of mind how can you be content where you are? I read this very interesting story of how a lady who practiced meditation every day, believing in its power to set her day on a great path, soon found herself in an uncomfortable mindset. She went to visit a friend and was suddenly overcome with the beauty and location of her home. Shortly she began to feel discontent. She was discontent with everything she had. She even began to feel that nothing was right with her life; nothing was right with her. Her morning began with meditation and a lovely visit to a friend’s beautiful home. How did she end up discontent, bruised and disgruntled with her entire life? How did she get here so quickly? One brief moment, a twinge of jealousy for someone else’s home, and within an hour she had forgotten that she has a beautiful place of her own. The answer is that she fell out of gratitude. The beauty of her experience for us is that we can recognize that we all fall out of gratitude from time to time but, as she did, we have the power to go back to gratitude. For you, me and all my Cycle Breakers I want us to be happy, full of joy and content. The best way to get to those places is to practice gratitude every day and every moment. True contentment, is performing duty and right action with pure joy. It is the true understanding that there is nothing more that can or does exist than this very moment. Until next time, 🏾 Please subscribe to my YouTube page below where I’m building a library of empower workshops.🏾 |
AuthorJust a Judge trying to help people live their greatest lives. Archives
April 2021
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