002.a | Overview
Grab your phone from your pocket and hold it up to your face. Oh, you already were doing that… Sweet, sweet.
This might get meta for a minute.
Think of your life as this mobile device. Chances are you have your go-to “life” apps (even though you probably have more than you have time to use).
Now, picture the ability to merge all of these apps into a single dashboard. No need to toggle. No lag time. Every capability you’ve ever acquired, bought, or developed is now accessible to you simultaneously, in real-time.
What if you could wake up every morning
brimming with all you’ve ever lived?
Everything you’ve learned or created— your soul-connection, fitness and vitality, your network of family and friends, your talents and skills that have been collecting dust in separate silos… All of it: cued up and instantly accessible to meet the demands of the current day, in *this* moment.
What if you could tap any aspect of your diverse human experience and direct it toward any desired outcome? No scrambling for external information or rethinking your approach.
No stammering of thought or frantic cramming. No mental debate on whether you know enough or have enough to offer.
All that remains is the knowing… that you are equipped, that you are enough, and that you will handle whatever is in front of you with grace and with swagger.
Through expanding our non-negotiables, we realize we’ve been building something massive, (and of singular value) with *all* of our time.
This could be as simple as bringing your legendary sense of humor to work with you. This could be as complex as applying your chess prowess to maneuvering through political minefields.
How would your personal and professional relationships benefit from experiencing the whole of you versus the limited facades we’re trained to share in certain situations? What if you didn’t need to compartmentalize your life into family, work, play, creative expression, physical vitality, and so on?
Would you have more time?
Would you have more energy?
Exude more power and leverage it on a more consistent basis?
This is full-life
integration, a force-multiplier compounded
by each of our sacred life ingredients.
OUR NON-NEGOTIABLES. Whether we were conscious of it or not, we have always decided what to include in our lives. Once we distill these down to our absolute essentials, we protect them within a special classification I call our non-negotiables.
We can then arrange our non-negotiables in a way that builds upon, amplifies, magnifies, and sets up the next in line.
Each non-negotiable expands by its proximity to all others until we operate in a self-actualized state of full-life integration.
It’s my sincere belief that all of us chase various levels of freedom and creative expression. Upgrading our lens, defining our non-negotiables, and achieving full life-integration are the means to attain heightened levels of freedom and expression in everyday life.
002.b | “Enough of this shit. We’re forming Voltron.”
My fellow 1980’s latch-key friends may remember a (rad) anime cartoon called Voltron™. It was about a badass, giant robot that was formed by five separate robotic lions.
See figure 2.1
Each had their own unique special power. Every episode, some new alien threat would push the lions around to the point where their leader basically said: “OK, enough of this shit. We’re forming Voltron.”
Whatever your sacred life ingredients may be, over the years you’ve already disproven all the doubters or plain-old haters by saying, “I’m not giving up on my NN’s, simply because I don’t know any better. It’s right there, in the name, you dirty hater: NON-Negotiable.”
Just like Voltron, you’ll need each NN (lion) to create the whole of you.
In the nurturing of our seemingly disparate talents and skills, we experience moments of Full-Life Integration, where the whole of us beats alien ass on a whole other level.
See Figure 2.2.
But none of this is possible without
our most fundamental requirement.
002.c |Non-Negotiables
From gritty super-8 to pristine high-definition, our lens captures, magnifies,
and either enhances or diminishes all we experience.
We must embrace our singular perspective of the world. Our lens includes
the go-to filters we choose throughout our lives. The lens cannot be duplicated.
Thousands of corny books have been written on attitude, and I’ve enjoyed most of them. The digital age, with its relentless visual, auditory, and social stimuli requires us to go beyond maintaining an agreeable attitude. I, too, need to know what the hell is wrong with me when it comes to achieving and maintaining optimal levels of positivity. Prior to discovering the integration model, I would trip over fleeting moments of full-life integration. Now I make a conscious effort to…
You have to nurture a healthy way of viewing whatever is coming at you. You have to love and embrace what makes up your Voltron. When asked the question, “How do you view your life?”, if you hesitate, start whacking the gavel like Judge Judy, or cringe, you really need to start by checking your lens.
Is the cap on? Did you fall asleep, eyes open, face down in a large pad of butter?
When life demands it, we may need to upgrade our lens immediately. In the meantime, we always have the opportunity to focus, and expand it. # # #
REMEMBER: The Lens governs all we experience…
in This Epic Life.
Up Next: Why some people ask what the hell is wrong with me.
