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Today’s Date: October 27th 2019 (It’s Saturday night and Halloween is in a few days)

The time is 12:21am, The place is the club in the ATX.

“People often say motivation doesn’t last. Neither does bathing,

That’s why we recommend it daily.”

—Zig Ziglar—

Today I went to a friend of mines wedding, his named is Josh Stern. Josh is a very cool cat. I’ve been blessed to know him for at least 10 years, and it was nice to see and speak to him just minutes before he walked down the isle. I could see the nervousness in his eyes and face and even the way he gently fidgeted. It makes me smile when I think about it, not because he was nervous, but instead because he was nervous and is still willing to do something that he has never done before. And to do it because he wants to share moments of life with someone else that he finds to be important to who he is as a person.

Being there made me think about my own future. For some odd reason it put a smile on my face as I thought about my future. Quite nice. Sadly I could not be there for very long though. I still had to come to work. But as I got here to work, I could intuitively smell something in the air. What exactly was it? Hmm. I’m not exactly sure, or at least I wasn’t exactly sure. But as I got settled in (by the way, I got here an hour late) As I got settled in, I could finally feel that what I was sensing is a small feeling of a Halloween party in the air. It’s not quite Halloween yet, but it is the Saturday before Halloween and I could feel that people were naturally in a fun/good mood. Maybe it was also the crispy feel of the coolness in the air as I drove from the Castle, where the wedding was located, all the way to work.

But what’s going on with me, Max? Well, today and last night, (specifically before bed) my mindset as of late is to work on ensuring that I get at least 7 hours of sleep. I am starting to feel that my sleep, or lack there of affects my blood sugar. If you have read any of my last few posts you will remember about me trying out a very extreme and dangerous version of the keto diet, and me having a very bad experience. But now, I’m gonna try and do it a little healthier, and a hopefully a little smarter,however, along with the keto diet is also the need to get enough sleep to allow my body to repair itself and give me maximum health from the sleep. And trying to sleep 7 hours is extremely difficult, but I know that I can reprogram this part of my life.

So sleep has been very high on my priority list. And I am also trying hard to get myself to eat at home and not go out to a restaurant. I have a lot to understand about my current programming for not wanting to eat at home. Much of my feeling is the fact that maybe, just maybe I don’t like eating alone. And although when I go to a restaurant, I am eating alone, at least I am not alone. Plus, I have not learned to enjoy washing dishes. But I’m working on it. Getting a routine, a real habit, can be so difficult when my mind cannot connect the dots to the fact that its about “survival”. When things are about fun, then habit is very easy to do, however, I somehow have subscribed to the idea that most things that are fun are unhealthy. I have not yet subscribed to eating a lot of vegetables as “fun”. Luckily I have finally opened my mind to eating sweet potatoes on a regular basis. And even that took painful reprogramming. Somehow I MUST learn how to reprogram my thinking by thought alone. And not in a way that takes months or years.

Over the last few days, I have been somewhat struggling to find something to listen to or watch that I would enjoy and also help me towards my goals. This has been cumbersome. Then I came across a youtube video that is called “Crushing”. It’s a video with TD Jakes and Steven Furtick. The video was about TD Jakes newest book (as of this writing) named Crushing. The video made me feel good. It is something that I truly enjoyed watching. After that I saw that the video I saw was just a condensed version of the whole interview. So I decided to watch the whole interview, and for some reason, afterward I could get a sense that what I am needing is for my soul to feel or see that I wasn’t alone.

Oddly enough I have the belief that we as humans have within us a soul that gets lonely. And that the soul gets lonely simply because before the soul was inside our body, that it was interconnected with all souls at every moment in time. And the moment that our soul entered our body, it was then disconnected from the umbilical cord of all souls. And so for me my soul needs to find a way to feel connected and loved with all souls and that my journey is in alignment with what my soul is yearning to do. So yeah, I am starting to connect that when I am lost on what I should be watching/listening/learning, that I should first quench my soul with some type of motivation that allows my soul to not feel alone or in despair.

Also in the back of my mind is of course my taxes. I’m not gonna lie, if I allow my mind to ponder it, I think that it will drive me batty. And so for now, I have literally told myself that God is not going to allow me to die here, that my dreams and goals will somehow be propelled forward and that somewhere and somehow, that angels in human form will somehow help me with this situation. ( I love you God, I know my goals are meant to be done, please unlock it in a loving way)

And within about 10 or so days I will be traveling out of the country to visit my brother. We are both traveling from different countries and meeting up in Bogota Columbia. This will be my first trip to Columbia. And today I asked a girl I work with as to what I should eat during my visit to Columbia, here response was “Arepa” It’s a thick corn tortilla (about a 1/4 inch thick) I don’t yet know if it is deep fried or pan fried. But supposedly they also sometimes fill it with different ingredients. I consider it a lot like the Cuban version of “tostones rellenos” (green bananas that are smashed and then formed into small cup like shapes then deep fried and filled with ingredients) It’s like, or at least it feels like almost every country has their version of some type of fried dough with food filled inside of it. But yea, this trip will be interesting. Over the last 3 years or so, around this time I usually visit Homestead Florida. That’s where I want to plant my feet and call it home-base, but this year it will have to be Columbia that I take my 72 hour vacation.

I also recently visited Joan (my professional organizer), during this visit, I wanted to touch bases on how to organize. I told her that I wanted to get back to the basics on the things that she has taught me, and to give me a small refresher on the different methods what I have used to shape my thoughts and put things in order. The funny thing about all of this is that it is really simple….It’s make a list and then follow thru. But yet somehow, making that list can be so difficult because its the decision on what is truly important. And more than that, it’s the decision on what do I really want for my life. Then there are many other questions and the list can run deep on all the questions, but the most basic is to decide ….What do I want to do with my life…..especially when the reality is that life is a buffet of “everything” given to you by God.

Which when I think about mentoring people, whenever I read, hear or see a video that in any form talks about the ways to mentor someone to be their best, that is when my ears perk up, because if I am going to be blessed enough to help a young mind, boy or girl, from having to go thru all the bullshit of such a painful and crappy life, then I must come armed with an arsenal of knowledge. One of the most important things I have learned just through my own journey is that in reprogramming the mind, the brain needs multiple ways of hearing the same thing, and that after multiple times of hearing the same idea, or thought, and through hearing it in different formats and or in different visual thoughts, that somehow the brain finally clicks and gets the ability to see it/understand it…… Or maybe, just maybe, each person needs to see and or hear something in a specific and exact manner, and in that, I must have all forms of knowledge available to me so that I will eventually be able to help someone with the exact thought or idea to unlock a new way of thinking for them. And once we have decided on what we want, we then must then find ways to stay motivated to make it the journey of what is required for each of us.

So Chronicles To A Million is really a chronicle of reprogramming the mind. And if I can learn to reprogram my own mind, and attain my goals, then somehow, God will allow me to help others find the best within themselves.

Today on my way to work and on my way to the wedding I was listening to “The Ultimate Sales Bible” by Jeffery Gitomer. I can’t express how important it is for me to know every word, thought and idea in that book. Today as I was listening to the audio book, I was able to connect with certain thoughts and ideas better than before. I was able to see myself practice some of his teachings. I could see myself using the techniques of what “true” selling is. I could see myself using some of these techniques on and with some of the girls I work with. And for anyone that might in some small form think that true selling is about misinformation or misdirecting someone, then you are missing what “true selling” is. True selling is about one thing and one thing only…. giving of yourself first. Jeffery calls it “giving value first”, others might call it caring before selling, and if you need a super easy and clear understanding of this concept, then look at the most widely sold book in the world….. The bible.  The fundamentals of its teaching is about “giving first”. Even their lead character preached fundamentally about giving…And what became of that way of thought….. selling the most widely printed book known to man.

But giving/caring requires energy. And depending on the depth of how you were taught or not taught to care and or give, then giving and caring could require an exorbitant amount of energy. And the only real way to consistently find this energy without others around you, is to find and cultivate motivation on a daily basis (shit, sometimes it has to be done on a hourly basis – but that’s just me) . And some people might even say that listening or talking about motivation is useless, however, I disagree, and instead I can’t help but to agree whole heartedly with one of Zig Ziglar’s famous quotes…….

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last, but then again, neither does bathing….. that’s why we recommend it daily.”

With great love,

Max.