1%

Posted on March 16, 2018March 16, 2018 by jimmy thorpe

‘i want to be different. If everyone is wearing black, I want to be wearing red’ –

Maria Sharapova

A couple of months ago, I came to the realization that doing something you’ve never done…as consistently and often as possible…can be really healthy for you. It’s similar to my thinking around living ‘on the edge of comfort’. And it’s all about continually challenging ourselves, and putting ourselves in positions to earn grit, to try, to do…to learn.

As I was reading yesterday, I came to another realization. Yes, you can call it an ‘epiphany’ if that’s how you roll. The people that are getting the most out of life…that are the most fulfilled and content…are doing what most other people won’t do, or aren’t doing. The folks who are trendy, or first to the party. The ones that are different, but intriguing nonetheless (first time using ‘nonetheless’…nailed it!). There seems to be success and fulfillment in practicing the actions that most other people simply don’t. We should all be trying to be part of the 1% crowd!

e•piph•a•ny – a sudden, intuitive perception of, or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.

Being a 1 percenter (financially) has it’s own inherent connotations. Some of us believe that those folks make too much money, and that they owe more of their fair share. Others of us think that they create opportunities for the 99 percenters, and that their trickle down effect is truly beneficial to us bottom dwellers.

But I’m not speaking on financial earnings. I’m talking about our actions…our choices and our experiences.

So many people I know have had the same haircut since high school! Switch it up a bit. Try a different you! Be the 1%

There isn’t much interest for me in playing in the middle…in doing what everyone else is doing…in doing ‘what I’m supposed to be doing’. It suffices to say that there is much more intrigue in living on the outer edges…the fringes. And I’d go as far to say that better health, contentment, ‘success’, fulfillment, and overall happiness are found in living in the 1%

Here is an image, full of generalities, that should help illustrate my feelings here:

Considering all of that, a 1%’er is a person who chooses to live life on their own terms. They will live and die on their own sword. Instead of life happening to them…they are making their life happen.

I challenge you to create your own 99% and 1% column chart. Right now…write down 5-10 things you do that most of the population does. Then, write down the things you do that only 1% does. Use it as your journal entry for the day. What can you take from your chart? What can you learn about yourself? Are you playing in the middle too much…where everyone else is? Or, are you hanging out within that extraordinary population enough of the time? And…what do you feel about your actions, considering what side their on? Do your 1% actions bring you joy, vibrancy, passion, and love? Do they put you around people that are good for you? I bet they do!

Please share your chart with me, or any feedback from this in the comments, or on my Facebook page. I’d love to hear some results, and learn more about this! Here are some of my own results:

Some of My 99% actions

watching too much tv – March Madness, Celtics basketball, and I’m currently binge watching Breaking Bad for the 3rd time…oops.
consuming way too much sugar
not hanging with my guy friends enough
procrastination

Some of my 1% actions

I keep bees (and harvest my own honey)
cycling (road biking)
have my own business
work when I want
sing, and play guitar
eat a vegetarian diet
Write in a Blog
Have my own podcast
follow an ‘advanced athlete’ training program

Some 1% actions I want to pursue

swim (for fitness/health)
write books
start a wine club
start a dad/daughter club

All love!

emailsig

always be closing

Posted on February 21, 2018February 21, 2018 by jimmy thorpe

‘thoughts are great…but action leads to closing’

A.B.C.

I must admit it…my house is a mess! And…I just cleaned up that area. How does it already look like a storm hit it?

I have to confess…I’ve started a thousand projects around here, and about 999 of them still seem ‘under construction’.

I should accept it. I have a problem. Actually many, but I’ll start with this one and see if I can find closure with it.

I peg myself as really good at coming up with ideas. I have journals and sheets and post it notes collected with a bunch of random ideas. These can be related to business, the house, relationships, professional development, investments, blah blah blah. Most of my ideas are bad. However, I believe that while coming up with many poor ideas…and documenting them…I’m bound to come up with a good one here and there. It’s almost like I come up with 99 bad ideas for every one diamond in the rough. It’s a low shooting percentage but hey, if you don’t shoot you can’t score.

I do feel strongly about documenting by the way. If you don’t put your thoughts and ideas and goals down on paper, or somewhere digitally, they’ll just float around in your head, and possible float out of your head for good. Once you put them somewhere, you can make space in your head for developing that idea or adding interest to it…or coming up with another one. Find yourself a cool journal, even a good expensive one. It’s investing in your own brain/goals/ideas. And it will encourage you to put good use to it, and hold value in your own beliefs.

So I’m good with all that stuff. My interests are many. I’m quick to jump into things and just try something. I love learning anything new. However…I’m not good with following the practice of the phrase, ‘Always Be Closing’. This phrase is from the 1992 drama film called Glengarry Glen Ross, in which the character played by Alec Baldwin encourages some of the other characters to close deals within their sales work. Watch out for bad language, but here is a great clip from the movie. Look…it’s a very shallow message in regards to simply making more money above all else, and disregarding things like being a good dad, or being kind. However, it struck a chord with me in how it can relate to the idea of completing something. And this is what I have trouble with. As I said, I can start a bunch of projects. But I never seem to finish many of them.

This weekend, I had a task that I wanted to complete. The ramps in my landscape trailer have to be lifted in and mounted to the inside walls for transportation. Well, I’ve always had this crap system of a cheap eye-hook and bungee chords to hold them in place. Boring I know…bear with me. This system has bothered me for about 5 years. I can’t believe that! I’ve spoken about it, wrote down ideas, sworn at it many times…but never really done anything about it. Well on Saturday night and into Sunday morning, I came up with a plan, went to the hardware store for materials, and put in a new ramp mounting system. It was actually pretty easy! On Sunday, I found myself putting all of my tools back in their proper place, sweeping up the garage floor of all debris, and wiping down my workbench with a cleaner and paper towels. I suddenly thought, ‘Oh my…I’ve actually completed something, and I’m in the very final stage of cleaning up the mess associated with it. I never do this!’ I’m telling you…it felt so good. I immediately thought about ‘Always Be Closing’, and the benefits related to that. I thought about Casey Neistat, and how he has those words tattooed on his arm. He actually dedicated an entire Vlog to this idea. Watch it here!

Neistat says that if you start a bunch of things and don’t finish them, you’re a loser. That’s me…how sad. Someone who starts something and always finishes it is a closer. That’s not me. My new focus is to become more of a closer. I must bring my ideas to fruition…see them through to their fullest potential. I’m on it. By closing, and completing something, we are able to reap the rewards related to our project. After dealing with annoyance of the ramp system in my trailer for 5 years, and halfheartedly poking at it here and there with temporary repairs, no wonder I felt so good about putting smart and hard work to it and having it completed.

Closing leads to you feeling much more productive.

Closing frees up space in your head for other, more important ideas.

Closing encourages intellect and hard work over complaining and hoping.

Closing leads to more appreciation instead of expectation.

Don’t be a loser…be a closer!

Organization

A.B.C. totally relates to keeping our lives organized too. This is an area that I struggle with, and one that I’ll be putting some more focus into. When you come home…with a bunch of things in your hands…maybe a bag or two…and pockets full of receipts and change and hair clips (for some reason, I always find myself here)…do you put everything away in it’s designated spot? What I usually do is pile it onto my dining room table. It’s flat, easy to access, and I won’t need the table until about 5:30pm. That’s not closing. That’s losing! The worst is when I’ve put together a nice dinner and I go to bring plates to the table for Matilda and I, to find my loser pile in the way. Worst!

I do have all of the designated places for things. I have a file cabinet with nicely labeled folders, a piggy bank in the living room, a cup in the bathroom for Matilda’s hair clips. I just don’t follow that step of putting things directly into their proper place. And this is key. If you hired someone to come ‘organize your house’ or your life, a main thread would be to immediately place things into their position. Put them in their home. Look at your computer desk, your kitchen counters, the desktop on your computer…even your email inbox. Are you organized? I’ve started trying to get to a totally empty email inbox as often as possible. This entails creating simple folders, unsubscribing from all of the crap, deleting as soon as possible, and once a day, taking care of pertinent messages. It relieves so much stress for me to have a clean slate. But I need to work on the more ‘physical’ areas of my life…and organize those. I want to finish more projects on my to do list…not just start them. I don’t want to be a loser anymore…I want to be a closer! Please comment if you’ve found effective ways of ‘closing’ in your own life.

thoughts are great…but action leads to closing!

Music: Blind Pilot is an Oregon based band. They use interesting instruments like a mountain dulcimer, vibraphone, and a harmonium. Here’s a great one called New York.

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grow up

Posted on February 13, 2018February 13, 2018 by jimmy thorpe

originally published on 4/16/17

‘life shrinks or expands in proportion to ones courage’ – Anais Nin

Jimmy 08.jpg

As the perennials start poking through the soil, and colorful birds return from a warmer place, we are re-introduced to the Spring season. What a wonderful time of year to consider growth. If there’s one thing that makes me feel alive…it’s growing. And I’m thinking about two specific pieces of that: learning and doing. Much of how we grow is based on these two principals, and each are important in their own way.

We are all constantly learning. However, some of us are taking in much more than others. One can learn by simply sitting and thinking. Actually, one can learn by simply sitting and breathing. Sometimes the thinking can get in way of learning. On top of that, we as individuals get to choose what we learn. What have you chosen?

Over this past winter, I think I learned more than in any chunk of time in my life. By using the internet and my library card, I feel that I’ve taken a 4 month intensive course on a huge variety of topics. Because my business is landscaping, I have a lot of time off in the winter. I use much of this time to study some things I’m interested in. It’s allowed me to spend a lot of time doing exactly what I want to do, and follow my passions by taking an extreme focus on my interests. Although, I feel like a bit of a renaissance man in a sense, in that I have such a wide scope of things that intrigue me. Years ago, it seemed like this was a hindrance in life…and that since I was interested in many different ideas, I’d lose focus on the few that I should follow. Jack of all trades, master of none. However, as time has gone on, a couple of threads have persisted and continue to be present in my life. And on top of that, I feel really confident in casting webs in a bunch of other areas. I don’t want to miss out on something incredible because I didn’t try it. If I see something I like, I’m not afraid to dive right in. I’m always motivated to learn about my passions and seek out information through any way possible.

Actually, I prefer the most efficient way possible. Peter Theil (co-founder of PayPal) asks us to question our efficiency by saying, ‘How can you achieve your 10 year plan in the next 6 months?’ I love this idea! It’s not that you can easily complete everything on your list that fast…but it forces you to question what the most efficient way is to your destination. This can easily apply to things like travel, learning a musical instrument, starting a business, buying a house at the ocean, writing a book, etc. You may have to reassess your current routines and structures in order to achieve these things. But that can be a good thing! In fact, I would say that 90% of us would benefit from some sort of radical change in our lives. Are you willing to be ‘radical’ and take on that risk? Think about a part of your life that is so routine…or monotonous. Get out of it now!

Part of what makes it difficult is that we are trained to do what everyone else is doing. We are taught to melt ourselves down to a common denominator in order to neatly fit the mold that society has created for us. Once we are molded, we’re put on a track. Boys take a left, girls go right, black this way, white that way, gay over here, straight over there, religious down that ramp, agnostic up that ramp, college bound with that crew, others this way. Last week I wrote about how we think (Click here for the post), and touched on how I’ve fallen into a ‘normal’ that just didn’t feel good, but it seemed that everyone else was mostly doing the same. Life is waaaaaay too short for that type of thinking. We get such a small amount of time here. Spend it learning about the things you love!

Now, the other important piece of this is…doing. I was discussing this with a friend the other day, and he advised to not just get caught up in the learning portion of things. You can’t just keep watching and learning what others do. You have to implement it into your own life! If you’ve been meaning to start a blog but haven’t, stop reading so many others, and just get to creating your own. Want to start your own business, and you’ve been reading and researching and watching others succeed? Scale your idea down and start the process this week! Been wanting to learn Spanish for the past 5 years? Spend 10 minutes tomorrow beginning the process and creating an outline for yourself. Don’t let anything seem daunting or intimidating. Remember that once you decide on something…you’ll just put one foot in front of the other, and things will naturally start falling into place. In the words of Emerson, ‘Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.’

Here is a list how I’ve grown in the past couple of years…things I’ve learned about, or done. Hopefully it will help inspire you to try something new!

quit job
started landscaping business
kept bees – harvested honey
learned guitar
learned singing/voice
learned how to keep chickens
learned organic vegetable gardening – created garden site
snowboarding – finally cleared a big jump in the terrain park (I’ve been scared to try)
won a bunch of men’s league basketball championships
took up road bicycling – competed in race
took down walls in house – reconfigured stairway
started a blog
started a basketball training business
began meditating daily – practicing mindfulness
learned a lot about parenting – still an amateur
started writing a daily journal entry
brought Matilda to Disney World
created a new website
started a podcast
began writing on Medium.com (a community of thinker, writers, readers)
started indoor rock climbing
began an ‘advanced athlete weight training’ program

Now, along with doing a lot of these things…I failed a bunch a long the way. My bank accounts have been extremely low at times. I’ve fallen and hurt myself a bunch on snowboard jumps (only to have teenagers laugh at me). I’ve lost some basketball games, and found injuries there too. In my first bike race, I was destroyed by most of the other riders. I’ve been stung by my bees!

It’s not necessarily an easy road to follow the path that you’ve chosen, and that you’ve just learned. In fact, it’s probably more difficult. I’ve found that in life…the right decision is the one that’s more difficult. The easy way is the regrettable way. This is so true for everything from relationships to work. So why choose the hard way? Because it means you’re living a more passionate lifestyle, which will build your health and happiness…and that of those around you. Because it’s a life that you’ll want to tell your kids about. Because it’s different, and it’s what probably about 1% of people do. Because it’s fun!

If you need a couple ‘doers’ for inspiration…check out Tim Ferriss and/or Casey Neistat. These guys get cool stuff done, and are very inspiring to listen to or watch.

What is your potential in all of the areas of life? Are you learning about and doing the things you want to do?

I’m not living to my full potential in many areas. However, I try to be fully aware of that…and work hard to close the gaps.

I have a long list of things I want to try, places I want to go, and ways I want to grow. And as I check one off, I notice a few more have been added to my list.

Good luck with your list, and I wish you the best! Share your experience here if you’d like.

Music: In lieu of the brothers in the band Dawes, that I recommended on the last post…another pair of brothers that know how to play are The Avett Brothers. Check them out here!

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