Greg's Right FIT #355

Quick notes to help you grow your business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week. 

In this issue: 

- Thoughts on Momentum
- Being Human
- Random Stuff

Thoughts on Momentum

• Progress is rarely along a straight line, "​​up and to the right," as they say. It moves in fits and starts. Bursts of activity followed by fallow periods. You know this, so use it to your advantage in planning 2023. When are you going to let momentum build? When will you lie still?
• Roadblocks are often easy to spot, as they tend to be external. Restraints are not as obvious and often internal. Building momentum requires dealing with both. Hint: from experience, releasing a restraint results in more progress.
• Dealing with your own nonsense is hard to do on your own. Professionals can help, a trusted mentor can help, and in a pinch, writing can help. Pen to paper is surprisingly effective.
• No matter how you deal with your roadblocks and restraints, they have a habit of re-appearing in new and unique forms. It helps to know this going in. The more things change, the more things change, or something like that. 

Being Human - True wealth

“The gratification of wealth is not found in mere possession or in lavish expenditure, but in its wise application.” – Cervantes

I am becoming convinced that the true measure of wealth is shifting. Traditionally, when we think of wealth we think of assets. Over time, we can be talked into ideas like true wealth is controlling your time. They say things like, "you can make another dollar, but you can't make another minute," and we nod along. It makes sense. 

These days, I see true wealth in how un-plugged you can be from the grid. Specifically, how long can you go without a smartphone? It's no longer enough to be able to afford the things you want in life, or to feel in control of your schedule. Today your wealth can be measured by how long you can unplug from everything connecting the world. 

Of course, if you never connected it's one thing, but the people I'm thinking about owe their livelihood to this interconnected world. It's a power move to not have a phone on you and not be compelled to race back to your car to check on what you missed. To be able to go a week without your phone and not have anyone trying to reach you, yet still contribute to society, make a living, and control your time is almost unfathomable. 

Just know this, I've seen it in action. 

The man who unplugs for extended periods of time came to me through a talk I was having about Momentum. I described working on stringing together "streaks" of productivity versus making the most of each day, and the person I was talking to said, "this sounds just like a guy I know who goes weeks without using a phone." No phone, no email, no social media, for weeks. It's like he disappears.

He approaches these time periods like you would a vacation, but he doesn't go on vacation. He just unplugs. In his connected time I talked to him about how he does it. He starts small by deleting apps on his phone. Then he slows responses to calls, emails, and texts. Eventually he goes places without his phone. This stretches into periods where his phone isn't even charged. He becomes completely unplugged while continuing his existence. If you ran into him on the street, you'd talk and never notice he was untethered. 

It blows my mind.

The thing is, I can kind of imagine it, because this used to be my life. Most of my young adulthood I was unplugged. I can't imagine what I did with my time before getting constant dopamine shots from my little handheld device. My kids don't have that experience, especially the youngest one. They only know about being connected. 

The future of true wealth, especially for the youngest among us, will have something to do with unplugging and privacy. Having the ability to ignore prompts and turn off the outside world without disengaging from society. For this to happen they are going to require resources, intellectual firepower, and a strong moral compass. In return, they'll have moments of untethered time.

A true measure of wealth, you might say. 

Random Stuff

"In ancient Rome, There was a poem, About a dog, Who found two bones."  – Devo

This week my sister informed me that she caught her teenage son singing a song she knew from her youth. She knows this song because it's a favorite band of mine, and I played it very loud, very regularly. 

I still know all the words to these songs, and many others, from that period in my life. Words, images, places. I read a story about what scientists are learning about the teenage brain, and they said in this development period we have an incredibly active amount of synaptic activity going on compared to adulthood. When we look at our kids and think, "how are they so creative?" it's a real thing. Their brains are firing at twice the speed of ours. 

It's one of the reasons the music we're exposed to in our late teens sticks with us. It's probably why when I see the norm-core-vibing models wearing their rugby shirts on the latest Land's End catalog I think, I want that.

It's definitely why whenever someone says something about walking I think of the Devo video "Freedom of Choice," about 2:40 in. I involuntarily find myself starting a little march, knees high, arms pumping, finger pointing here and there. 

It's locked in, baby.

Locked. In. 

Forever.