Boundless Nation

October 13th, 2014 • Comments Off on Boundless Nation Appreciation & Gratitude, Boundless Nation, Efficiency & Personal Growth, Inspiration, Positive Projections, Travel, Want To Change Your Life For The Better?

What to say about Boundless Nation?

Those who know me personally – as well as those who have continued to follow this blog despite having never met me – know that I’ve undergone a personal transformation. I’ve moved around, lived in interesting places, and challenged myself to create offbeat work and art. I’ve redirected my life’s path while being completely honest with myself along the way: honest about who I was before and who I am now, where I’ve been and where I’m headed. I’ve severed ties with negativity as much as possible, ended relationships from the past, and begun new ones, too. This personal transition can be best summarized by saying that I’ve required myself to gauge and identify what really matters most.

Through a great deal of hard work and hard-earned experience, my perception of myself has greatly improved over the past three years as well. And perhaps more importantly, I’ve remained to feel good and happy to be alive in all I set out to do. Sure, I’m not all sunshine on the daily; but overall, I’m pleased with what I have in life and optimistic about where it’s going.

So, as a result of this extensive reconstruction of my life, I’ve experienced a renewed focus to help others. Ten years ago as a college student, I was quite idealistic, altruistic, and concerned with serving others. Involved in politics and the non-profit industry, I believed I could singlehandedly influence the world with positive change. But, young and inexperienced, I over-estimated the likelihood of my individual impact – whether that impact was with regard to our country, the global economy, the environment, or even just the internet. So much has changed since then. I am different, the world is different, and yet, here I am.

I’m lot more realistic than I use to be. I’ve learned what it means to be humble. And I’ve failed at a lot of things without letting it be the end of the world. I’m softer, more understanding, and perhaps even a little more wise.

When it comes down to it, one specific experience served as the pinnacle for this major shift: 36 days, alone in a rural setting, watching the sun rise and set each day. It was a level of solitude that allowed me to peel back the layers of my life in a deeper way than ever before, forcing me to recognize the good and the bad. In the process, I let go of things that held me back from being the better person I wanted to be. The time I spent with no company other than myself signaled a restart; a refresh; a wake-up call to find a new, better way to progress. I haven’t been the same ever since.

And people noticed. I was a different person: happier, healthier, and kinder. Through various social circles, people began to reach out and ask what happened, and how they too might feel better about their own lives. As if the qualities I had taken on were not only benefiting the way I felt about my own life, it seemed to be infectious. It’s propelled me as things have unfolded over the last few years, raising my awareness for more people to feel better about themselves and their path.

The world we live in can be complex and unfair, making it extremely difficult to maintain a sense of balance and purpose in the face of harsh external realities. Maintaining your own emotional, spiritual, physical, and mental balance – especially in the areas of work, family, and interpersonal relationships – requires constant monitoring. It takes great dedication to cultivate your own sense of happiness, and even more dedication to sustain it. Because of this fact, I suspect there are many who don’t know true happiness: to wake up with it everyday, for extended periods of time, feeling calm, healthy, and excited to be alive. Our personal burdens make it difficult to consider this possibility.

That’s what Boundless Nation is all about. It’s my attempt at spreading the happiness I feel, and attempting to help others help themselves. Everything that Boundless currently is, and could eventually be, comes down to the individual will. It’s up to each of us to find our own way towards whatever it is that truly sets us free. Then, we can be our best selves for ourselves and, ultimately, for each other.

I have great expectations for Boundless Nation – and with a healthy amount of reasonability, I’m putting it out into the world so that it may unfold to its greatest potential.

Here is the website and venture as it stands today:

http://www.boundlessnation.com/

Connect up, join the movement, be your best-self, and everything will be okay.

This is just the beginning.

Living My Whole Truth & Why I’m Moving

August 10th, 2014 • Comments Off on Living My Whole Truth & Why I’m Moving Appreciation & Gratitude, Efficiency & Personal Growth, Inspiration, Personal Writing, Positive Projections, Travel, Want To Change Your Life For The Better?

In a few days I’m moving from the Twin Cities where I’ve lived in various spots around town for the last 9 years. I’ve moved away before. In college I lived in the Caribbean for a while. My first job after college was in Washington D.C. working in the Senate. A year after that I lived in Austin, TX. Each of these moves were for different reasons and gave me some cherished life experiences and friends. Looking back now on the places I’ve lived in the past I can see and feel the distance between who I was then and who I am now. In some ways I’m not so different. I still have a lot of the same interests, mannerisms, beliefs, and the same kind of energy about me. But, the ways in which I’m different now are important and I feel more whole. I feel more complete in my being- if that makes sense. When I was growing up into my teen years and beyond into my 20’s I had a lot of confidence and didn’t fear much if anything. I was good at getting situations to end up in my favor. When looking back if I didn’t want to be completely honest with myself I could soften my perspective on my past by thinking of myself as a kind of energetic motivated eager charming fellow trying to make his way in the world. Which is partially true. But, if I am being completely honest with myself I’d also have to admit that my confidence wasn’t so benign and that more or less I had an ego problem. As in, I often actually felt like I was better, smart, or some other version of superiority than many if not most of everyone else. And that my motivations where often selfish. And my charm was a tool for manipulation. If I could get something from someone that I wanted, then why not? Although, I never took advantage of women. I hurt a few of them, but never intentionally.

Regardless my over active ego and manipulative charm work well for me for a long time. Generally speaking I got what I wanted, did what I wanted, and lived how I wanted. And I suppose I wouldn’t say I was a totally crazy ego-manic, but in the past I never would have or could have admitted that I had any sort of issue with it, mostly because I wasn’t self aware enough to even realize what I was doing. It’s just who I was. On some level I suppose I was born that way.

It took me a long time of failing and hitting a lot of the same walls over and over again to recognize the patterns that were showing up in my life and in the end finally being able to openly and honestly see my own part in them. It’s a super humbling experience to admit to yourself honestly that you’re a huge part of your own problem. It can hurt to look into the mirror and not have an excuse for the truth that is staring back at you.

The trick for me when I finally saw my whole self, the good parts and the bad parts was to not get too down on myself. Just taking it in for what it was. Seeing my own truth without putting any judgement on it. Taking stock of what was my reality. The reality that I had created and that I was living. And once I got to a place of real clarity and real honesty without judging myself I asked myself the only thing you can in that situation, which is, “What am I going to do about it?” Or rather “who am I going to be now?” My answer was simple. I wanted to become a better, more honest, more sincere, more humble, more healthy, and more happy person. I wanted to become the best person I could be.

My real hard look in the mirror moment happened about 3 years ago now. Since that time I have actually become a better person on some level in all of the ways I had hoped I could. And it’s a funny thing because the better you become and the better you feel the more happy you become and the more happy you become you just want to keep on going… and be as happy as you possibly can as much as you can. The feeling of deep and genuine soulful happiness is amazing. It has it’s own layers too. When you feel that way and you live that way things start to work out for you in amazing ways. People want to be around you. Other people want to help you. Strangers are nicer too you. Things line up for you. You feel lucky because you are lucky. You’re lucky to be so happy and so healthy- you’re alive. But, not just breathing, but alive in your whole being. You beam and everyone and everything around you knows it, feels it, and either loves you for it or tries to tear you down. But, when you’re there feeling super pure, super honest, genuine, good, kind, giving, loving, happy and alive – you are doing and being exactly what you were born to do. You were born to live in a way that makes you most happy that isn’t hurting anyone or anything else. That’s it. It’s so simple and I think we all know this, we all know somewhere inside of ourselves we’re suppose to be happy.

But, it’s funny how we get so lost in our lives. We chase other peoples dreams. We follow the rules of our society or our work place that we know are wrong. We lie and cheat and steal because we can get away with it. We overlook our flaws and over inflate our accomplishments. We do all kinds of things and live all kinds of ways so we don’t ever need to actually be completely and fully honest with ourselves because if we were it would mean we’d have to do something about it. It’s easier to pretend that nothing is wrong than try to fix something that might require a lot of hard work and pain in the process. But, if we all had the courage to admit our mistakes, admit our flaws, take ownership and responsibility over our own issues- the real things holding us back, we’d find out in the end that true freedom is on the other side of those walls. True freedom and happiness lives only on the other side of our own walls the ones we have created for ourselves. Your only limitation is yourself. It’s ironic really.

You can get there. I feel like I’ve made it. I’m happy. Not all the time and not everyday, but somehow I’m deeply happy in a way I never knew before and I know that it’s real. And living what I feel makes me want to see everyone else get here too. It’s not about me anymore. It’s about all of us feeling better. Being better.

So if I’m finally completely happy then why would I move?

Because now it’s time to celebrate. It’s time for dessert. It’s time to be free. And live exactly the way that feels most right. I’m living to fuel my happiness.

Plan For The New Year — Start With Purpose.

December 29th, 2012 • Comments Off on Plan For The New Year — Start With Purpose. Efficiency & Personal Growth, Want To Change Your Life For The Better?

The end of the year is a great time to reflect on your year gone by and to plan for the new year ahead. This is something I’ve done for many years in one form or another, but in the past I have struggled with actually accomplishing many of my goals. This last year I did a better job because I approached my plan in a different way.

I started my planning for the new year by fist sitting down and writing a purpose for my year. This is something that requires a good deal of thinking. It’s a deep question. It’s basically asking yourself, “Why should I be alive this year?” It takes me a long time to answer that question, but once I feel good about what I’ve written it becomes my foundation for moving forward with everything I do. It becomes the one thing I can always come back to when I find myself at a crossroads in the future.

Here was my purpose for 2012:

Purpose: In 2012 I will direct my best and most positive energy towards the people, places, and things I want, enjoy, and care for most in my life — while being joyful, humble, and appreciative of whatever outcomes unfold from my efforts. I will be present and happy in my daily life no matter how the details of my future year unfold. I will focus on my creative work in photography and writing. I will also focus on my organization, balance, health, slow growth, and contentment.

After I’ve laid the foundation of my year out by creating my purpose statement I then state a theme for myself. My theme becomes the things I want to focus my energy on and towards as I move forward. This was my theme for 2012:

Theme: 2012 is the year of organization, balance, and recommitment to my creative life and endeavors. This time next year, I will be content, happy, and satisfied with how my year unfolded.

Once my theme is mapped out I state some basic actions that will help me move towards my purpose and my theme. These were my basic actions for 2012:

Actions: 1. Create a daily ‘Things to do’ or tasks list. 2. Work on the 2 things I want to do the least first each day.

After my purpose, theme, and actions are defined I then write down what I’d like my outcomes to be. This is what I wrote for 2012:

Outcomes: At the end of 2012, I will be further along in my creative career and in a better position for long-term stability.

When you first read my purpose, theme, actions, and outcomes they might all seem a bit too broad or too general, but that is by design. The more specific elements of what I wish for my year moving forward are found in my specific goals. Goals are the most specific aspect of planning. There are also usually the place where most people start. The reason why starting with a purpose is so important is because sometimes our goals aren’t actually in-line with the greater things we want or need in our lives and it’s very easy to get lost in the specifics of our daily lives.

Goals: My 2012 goals were personal enough and long enough that I won’t share them here. However, there are a few very important things I’ve learned about goals over the many years I’ve tried to write them down and reach them.

1.) Only set goals for things you can control. For many years I set goals without fully understanding that I was trying to reach goals I could never control. For example, you can’t set goals for making more money. Yes, we would all like to make more money, but is that something we have direct control over? No. But, you can control things like, what you eat, when you get up, how you exercise, how you save the money you already have made, etc. So again, only set goals for things you can directly control.

2.) Once you set a goal create a timeline and action plan for completing that goal. Writing down a goal is great, but unless you have a plan of how you’re going to reach it you’ll likely never get it done. That’s the main reason why so many people have great new year’s resolutions, but then never actually get their goals accomplished. You need to make a plan for how you’re going to reach your goal.

3.) Keep coming back to your whole plan. Check in often with your purpose, theme, actions, outcomes, and goals. Print them off and stick them up on the wall in your room, office, or bathroom. Hold yourself accountable to the the changes you want to see or make in your life moving forward. You are the only person responsible for the life you want to live.

Start your new year off right – with a purpose!

48 Days of Efficiency: The Experiment – Part 3 – Balancing Mindful Content Consumption Vs. Mindful Content Creation

March 4th, 2011 • Comments Off on 48 Days of Efficiency: The Experiment – Part 3 – Balancing Mindful Content Consumption Vs. Mindful Content Creation Efficiency & Personal Growth, Photo Theory

Step Three: Mindful Media Content Consumption

This a biggie.  Like my previously stated semi-commitment to exercising and healthier living I’ve also at various times in my life struggled with my personal levels of ‘content consumption.’

For a short period of time I worked in the US Senate and was a double-Blackberry-25-news-sources-daily-reader kind of person.  Thank GOD twitter wasn’t invented yet.  If keeping up with the news was a kind of booze I would have been dead drunk.  I was consuming news and general media content so intensely I think it actually messed me up, definitely burned me out, and was a big part of the reason why I decided to leave the Hill.  When you work in the Senate you are expected to know just about everything that is going on with everything in the world all the time, which is unrealistic and kind of ridiculous.

At a certain point sometime before college I decided a similar thing about TV.  I still more or less strongly dislike TV.  I don’t own a TV and likely never will.  I decided there was essentially no content on TV worth ‘consuming’ and anything that was I could likely find on-line to watch later when it fit my schedule instead of my schedule needing to fit TV-land.

The choice to not own and rarely watch TV is something I still believe has been a very positive choice for my overall well being, and also for the purposes of this experiment, my overall energy efficiency.

BUT, where I left behind the TV – the internet, blogs, social media sites, feeds, and the like have taken up that void in ‘content consumption’ and likely then some.  The internet has become for me a kind of ‘choose you own adventure TV’.  It’s an endless pit of interesting tunnels or branches in a web.  One you’re caught in the web you can never get out! (insert evil laugh here).  Blast you Al Gore for your evil invention.

However, I rarely feel like my time on-line is wasted because I’m almost always using it to learn something new, interact with new people, or people I already know care about and am interested in their lives or work.  I’ve communicated with some of my creative heros only because of what the net enables.

But, it’s very much a double-edged sword.  No matter what I may be learning or doing that I feel adds value to my life while consuming media on-line it automatically takes away from my ability for ‘mindful content creation’.  In other words – No matter how great all the shit I’m taking in is… it takes time and energy away from my own work.  And for a person whose entire livelihood is dependant on their own ‘content creation,’ this can be a very damaging thing.

In starting out this new year I’ve put a lot of effort into being much more aware and mindful of how I spend my time in the, ‘content consumption’ department.  Becoming a more efficient person requires a lot  of attention to where your mental energy is being used.

What You See Depends On What You See: Perspective from a Bonsai Tree

January 21st, 2011 • Comments Off on What You See Depends On What You See: Perspective from a Bonsai Tree Efficiency & Personal Growth, Positive Projections

This blog is about challenging conventional thinking in/on photography and life by trying to highlight new paradigms from which to see the world.  – Mind over camera.  Think:

Today I had a sudden and slightly intense flashback.  While eating my lunch I remembered a conversation I overheard while looking at a Bonsai Tree exhibit in 2007 at the amazing local Como Park Conservatory.  A young couple was discussing the merits/values of bonsai trees.

The young women wasn’t very interested in or impressed with the bonsai trees on display and was making a case for why they were not interesting, beautiful, worth taking care of, or even worth looking at.  While the young man was trying to argue ineffectively with his mate that there was something more to bonsai trees than what she was seeing.  In the end, neither one of them would make very good lawyers, but her argument was something along the lines of, “There are more important things to do than take care of tiny trees, and they don’t even look that cool because they don’t have flowers….. and flowers grow fast and are easier to grow.”  While his argument was something along the lines of, “Yeah, but they’re really old and being old is important…”  Even though he couldn’t really explain why.

It wasn’t an earth shattering discussion, just one of those things you overhear and chuckle at while visiting a public space.

My only other experience with a bonsai tree was in high school when my best friend got one as a present for a birthday or Christmas one year.  We were both huge martial arts fans.  Both the films and in real life via a few years of kicking each other in the head at a Tae Kwon Do studio.  We got very good at kicking each others asses and I still maintain I’ve seen more martial arts movies than anyone I’ve ever met.  But, I digress….  My friend was fairly serious about taking care of his bonsai, which if I remember correctly was already nine-years-old when he acquired it.  The little tree required water daily in the form of mist from a spray bottle and was very temperature sensitive, which is kind of hard to control in Minnesota where you could experience an outdoor temperature swing of 50 degrees or more in a single day.  But, even in our punk high-school karate-kid phase my best bro managed to keep his bonsai alive and well for over 3 years.

But, at somewhere around age 11 my friends’ tree died.  And it didn’t die of a crazy natural disaster or from a flock of killer locus.  My friend basically just stopped caring about it… or watering it… and well, it died.  Looking back now, I couldn’t tell you exactly when that was and it wasn’t a big deal at the time to either of us.  There was no sleep lost over the dead 11-year-old bonsai tree.

That being said, somehow today while in mid-bit of a turkey sandwich I felt sort of sad about its demise.  I contemplated the ideals below the surface of the bonsai tree raising experience.

Perhaps what the young man was trying to explain to his young girlfriend at the conservatory in 2007 was that bonsai trees are important not just because of what they look like in their physical form, but also in part for what they represent on a deeper level.

Patience

In order to keep a bonsai tree alive you need a lot of patience.  Many of these tiny trees require a lot of work to keep alive and healthy.  They don’t care what you have going on in your own life they only require you take the time to take care of theirs.  And they don’t grow very fast or get very big.  If you expect to see any progress in their lives you’ll have to look at them for an extremely long time.  They don’t care if you have a fast paced life and they certainly don’t tweet.  They just live.  And chill…. for as long as you take care of them.  In fact, they’ll easily out live you.  It’s funny to think a tiny tree could live 3 or 4 times as long as you could.  Bonsai trees are a physical representation that other beings and even ideas take time to grow.  And require a huge amount of patience to make sure they keep on living.

Dedication

Taking care of a bonsai tree requires dedication.  Even looking at one you don’t own presents this to you in its form.  Each tree is carefully monitored, protected, watered, trimmed, misted, and transported.  It lives as long as someone is there to be its guardian.  It could be a life long commitment to take care of a single plant.  In the society we live in now there is almost no such thing as a life long commitment.  Less than half of modern marriages make it past a few years.  It’s amazing how much a tiny tree can symbolize the  idea or ideals of making a commitment to something outside of yourself for the long haul.

Fragility

It seems that bonsai trees are also an amazing symbol for the fragility of life.  Not just their own lives, but all life.  When you look at one you get an immediate sense of how easy it would be to throw it on the ground and after a few swift kicks kill it within a matter of minutes even if it had already been living for a hundred years or more.  It’s kind of amazing to think that these trees, like us, would certainly die without water any longer than a week.  Their weakness is a reflection of our own.   It’s interesting because I think when we’re healthy adults we rarely think about the extended periods of times in our own lives that we would perish without the care of others.  The very young and the very old require the care of other humans to live.  Those of us beyond or before these points in our own lives rarely think about the fact we would most certainly be dead without someone else’s care.

Beauty

Trees are amazingly beautiful things.  Stoic, silent, and humble living creatures.  Their beauty goes beyond their physical form in that they are a reverse reflection of our own human lungs.  They actually look like lungs and take the exact substance we release in our own process of exhaling and return to us the oxygen we require to live.  Trees are our twin caregivers.  The balance between our species is nearly unmatched.  This kind of beauty goes beyond any aesthetic explanation.

Dream of Trees

A handful of years ago I had a strange reoccurring dream involving trees.  I thought it would be interesting to look-up what it meant if you had a dream involving a bonsai tree in a dream dictionary.  It said this:

“Dreaming of a bonsai tree indicates the limitations of your own conscious mind. You need to consider what your instincts are telling you.”

Maybe these tiny old trees are trying to tell us something after all?

48 Days of Efficiency: The Experiment – Part 2

December 11th, 2010 • Comments Off on 48 Days of Efficiency: The Experiment – Part 2 Efficiency & Personal Growth

The Process

Step Two: Refocusing & Planning

During my process of slowing down and re-centering I’ve also been thinking about how to move forward in all aspects of my life.  Including how to move forward with my business, my health, all the way down to where I live and why.  In doing so I have created a plan.  An action plan.

However, for now the specifics of this plan aren’t as important as the process.  And the process of carrying out my plan has to do with its structure and execution.  Essentially I’m creating a set of rules for myself to create a space and time from with to work or carry out my plan within.

A Structure from with to Execute a Plan

Here is the structure for my plan of moving towards becoming more energy efficient in my life and my business:

1.)   For the first time in well over 10 years I am going to get up at the exact same time every single day for 48 days in a row.

2.)   For the first time in my entire life – I am going to go to bed at the exact same time every single night for the next 48 days in a row.

3.)   I am going to eat breakfast and dinner at the exact same time for the next 48 days in a row.

The underling idea or goal behind doing these first 3 steps is to create a rigid frame to work within, or in other words – I have the exact same amount of time everyday to use my energy.  No more staying up all night to work on something only to sleep half of the next day away.  And no more not eating anything for breakfast because I had a bunch of morning meetings and didn’t get up early enough to eat. etc. etc.

I am not a morning person. And I never have been.  Mornings are my Jedi kryptonite.  However, for the purposes of this experiment in efficiency I am going to set a reasonably early (for me) time to wake up each morning.

Over the last few weeks I have read a number of different thoughts on how getting up early lends itself to being generally more productive.  And I have generally stated throughout my life that I am way more productive at night.  But, I am willing to see if there is some magical thing I have been missing all these years and to test this theory out for myself.

I recently read two blog posts by Leo Babauta titled: How I Became an Early Riser & My Morning Routine.  Both of these posts made a lot of sense to me and are a part of my new ‘structure’ from which I will be executing my new plan towards efficiency in my life and business.

48 Days of Efficiency: The Experiement – Part 1

December 11th, 2010 • Comments Off on 48 Days of Efficiency: The Experiement – Part 1 Efficiency & Personal Growth

The Problem

Over the last few years I’ve become increasingly frustrated with a few major aspects of my life. They are as follows:

1.) I am unhappy with the amount of packaged foods I consume. I would like to no longer consume any food that comes in unnecessary packaging.

2.) I exercise in waves. I will exercise regularly for a few months and then not at all for a few months. Overall my commitment to my own physical health is inconsistent and I feel less physically healthy than I would like to be. I am not overweight or extremely out of shape. But, I am not in top physical condition and I would like to be.

3.) I have absolutely zero consistency in my daily life. I don’t have a single activity beyond walking my dog, eating, sleeping, and brushing my teeth (none of which I do at the same time each day on a daily basis) that I do daily.

4.) I do not use my energy with enough efficiency. Bottom line – I waste too much time.

The Process

A few months ago I started talking with a good friend of mine who owns a Minneapolis based photographic equipment rental company called Flashlight about how I was feeling like I wasn’t using my energy properly in many aspects of my life including my business.  These conversations motivated me to explore this idea more deeply and try to identify the specific aspects of my life I feel like are least efficient and how I can move towards becoming the most productive person I can be.

Step One:  Re-Centering

As an effort to move myself closer to my new goal of optimal energy efficiency I’ve made a few starter adjustments.  They are the following:

1.) I’ve joined an indoor rock climbing gym and have gone at least 3 or more times a week for the last month.  Besides climbing I have been running 5 or more miles twice a week as well.

2.) I’ve been sleeping more and don’t set an alarm clock.  I sleep for as long as I feel like and set meetings for later in the day to allow for me to sleep in if I feel like it.

3.) I’ve been doing a lot more writing.  Writing personal letters, blog posts, e-mails, and portions of a novel.

4.) I’ve been reading and thinking about the best way to move towards more efficiency.

5.) I documented and organized all of my 2010 financial information for my business for the year up to the current date.

6.) I’ve been turning down work.  And have been doing less overall.

Someone reading these might at first glance think one or more of these actions might seem like adjustments in the opposite direction of optimal energy efficiency.  My arguments against that thought would be this:

1.)   Before taking these steps I was burnt out.  I have been working harder than I realized over the last few years and had simply started to lose energy.

2.)   I was starting to feel although I’ve been working hard.  I haven’t been working smart enough or efficient enough and I haven’t been making as much money as I could be if I was more efficient with my time and energy.  Therefore, doing less, sleeping more, writing more, and getting one important aspect of my life organized has helped center me.

Without even being completely aware of it I have actually been doing this for about the last 2 months.  I have been slowly… slowing myself down.  I have been doing this to get reorganized, re-centered, and re-balanced to move forward towards prime efficiency again.  Because I have at various years in my life felt like I was living at a very high-level of efficiency, which is something that adds to my overall happiness.  And unlike some people I actually really enjoy an effective and forward-moving day of hard work.