He walked around the classroom and handed plastic flutes to each student.

My immediate thought: “Where did these flutes come from? Have they been used before? Have other kids before us put their mouths on these flutes?

I sat there at my desk with a confused look on my face. Noticing that something was wrong, the teacher asked me if there was a problem. I voiced my questions out loud. Some of my fellow students rolled their eyes at my obstinacy while the others snickered at my pickiness. Everyone but me seemed to be ready to go with the flow.

The teacher confidently assured me that the flutes, although they had been used before, were thoroughly sanitized and were therefore safe.

I wasn’t satisfied. I couldn’t shake the feeling of being grossed out so I requested to not participate. He said it was a mandatory exercise. I told him I wasn’t going to put my mouth on that flute. He allowed me to sit out, but the school called my parents. My dad took my side and offered to buy me a new flute. I came to school the next day with my own brand new instrument.

Guess what happened next:

ALL of the other students saw my flute and requested new ones too. It turns out that many of them were grossed out as well. They felt just as I did, but they didn’t think they had a right to protest.

Long story short, the school ordered new flutes for everyone and allowed the students to keep them when the school session was over. By being grossed out, I literally changed my elementary school history.

The moral:

Never allow yourself to be fooled by what other people seem to be okay with. If something is distasteful or unacceptable to you, it probably feels that way to someone else. If you suppress your feelings in order to fit in, you’ll miss out on a potential opportunity to change the way things are done.

T.K. Coleman

Everything is easy relative to the state of consciousness and level of preparation necessary for the task.

If something seems difficult, it only appears to be so because we temporarily lack the knowledge and experience that would make it easy.

In the film Man on Fire, Denzel Washington’s character, Creasy, attempts to help a young girl, Pita, prepare for a swimming competition. Discouraged by difficulty, Pita expresses her frustration by declaring her goals too tough to reach.

Creasy says: “There’s no such thing as tough. There’s trained and there’s untrained. Now which are you?”

Creasy’s message is simple (no pun intended): All challenges are negotiable because difficulty waxes and wanes with training.

When we label the conditions in our lives “difficult”, we disempower ourselves by giving the final word to something other than our capacity to expand and improve.

We do not have difficulties. We have neutral experiences, some of which we are trained to deal with and some of which we are not.

For every seeming hardship, there is a level of consciousness capable of processing that hardship in an empowering  way.

Don’t reach for an easier life. Reach for a higher perspective, reach for a deeper connection to Source, reach for the actualization of your potential, reach for your evolution.

That’s something you can change and when you change that, your difficulties wont feel as difficult.

T.K. Coleman

She encouraged us to use phrases like “I can, but I don’t know how” or “I can, but I haven’t taken the time to develop my potential in that area” when people asked us questions about subjects in which we were ignorant or incompetent. Even if those questions were “Can you fly a plane?” , “Do you speak Greek?”, or “Can you slam dunk a basketball?”, we were required to answer by saying “I haven’t dedicated myself to becoming skillful at that.”

Here’s what mom knew: Our lives are reflections of our priorities and our potential has nothing do with what someone says we can or can’t do. What we know, what we achieve, where we are, and how far we will go is determined by what we decide to devote ourselves to.

If there’s something you say you want, you are free to admit that it’s not a top priority. It may be important to you, but not as important as other things you deem necessary. That’s okay. If you aren’t okay with that, then you can choose to make it a top priority and hold yourself accountable to the results you want to produce.

Whatever you do, however, don’t say “I can’t.”

No statement is more self-negating than that.

T.K. Coleman

You can take the ”yes, but they’re situation was different from mine” approach and focus on the parts that don’t apply to you

or

You can adopt the “I’m so hungry for happiness and success that I’ll hang on to whatever evidence I can get for well-being” approach and reach for the parts that do apply to you.

An empowered life requires empowering beliefs and you don’t get empowering beliefs by always adopting the obvious viewpoint. Empowering beliefs are the rewards you receive for being willing to fight for new ideas as if your life depended on them.

Positive messages don’t work unless you make them work by digging deep enough to unearth any tiny piece that can be used to help you get where you want to be.

You can’t afford to sit back and wait for encouraging news to present itself to you in an undeniable fashion.

Be proactive and make the effort necessary to find evidence for ideas that advocate your possibilities.

Look for that one guy, that one girl, that one song, that one news article, that one story, that one small element that applies to you, that one whatever it is that gives you a reason to believe you have a chance at life.

T.K. Coleman

I recently watched a film in which a teenage girl was defeated in a fencing match by a 27-year old, military trained male.

She was clearly outmatched and her performance was less than impressive.

The Winning Response

Her reaction: Where did you learn to fight like that?

Which led to: Can you teach me how to fight like you do?

Which led to: Her becoming a better fighter.

Which led to: Her helping the military leader defeat the villain at the end of the film.

Which led to: Her becoming a highly respected, nation-wide hero.

That wasn’t her only option. She could have chosen…

The Losing Response

Possible alternative reaction: Of course, you’re a better fighter than I am. You have advantages that I don’t have. You’re a grown man, you’ve been trained by the military, and you’ve been fighting for a longer amount of time.

Which would have led to: My failures have nothing to do with any changes which can be made on my end and your superior results are not based on anything I can emulate.

Which would have led to: I am doomed to remain the same because I lack your good fortune and God-given advantages.

Which would have led to: stagnancy, bitterness, and disillusionment.

Both responses are right, but only one of them leads to better moves

Here’s the deal: If you have any goals that involve getting off the couch and making an impact, you are going to encounter people who are doing a better job than you at producing results. Your reaction to that experience will determine everything for you.

Will you interpret their success in a way that allows you to improve?

or

Will you simply dismiss them as just another lucky person who has it easy, while you go on with your life using the same ineffective moves you’ve always used?

T.K. Coleman

In a world where “be informed” is touted as an axiom for success and responsible citizenship, it pays to distinguish useful information from over hyped updates about the latest crazy thing that some crazy person did in a really crazy place at the craziest possible time.

Many people orient their conversations around facts. If what’s being said is true, regardless of what it is or who it’s about, that’s enough for them to spend energy discussing it.

In spite of what some information distributors and discussion groups would have us believe, we don’t need to know about factual claims just because they’re popular, polemic, or provocative.

Time matters and our attention is our life. These are the most valuable commodities in our possession. Whatever we make of our lives, our time and attention will be the primary ingredients employed.

The burden of justification needs to be placed on facts and the people who espouse them. We must demand a compelling answer to the question “why should I give you my time and attention?”

Are these facts relevant to problems we’re solving or goals we’re pursuing?

Does knowledge of these facts empower us to act any differently from what we’re already able or willing to do?

Will discussing these facts require us to take our time and attention away from activities that make us better and happier? Does the discussion offer us anything of equal to greater wealth in return?

If we look in any direction, we’ll observe a ceaseless proliferation of facts. Our world is one in which “the uninformed man” will soon be extinct. The accessibility of information is unprecedented, but so is the opportunity for distraction.

The people who succeed in the information age will be those with clearly defined intentions and a low tolerance for irrelevance.

Fortunately, we get to define what our intentions are and, consequently, what “irrelevant” means.

Let’s just make sure we’re the ones who are doing the defining.

T.K. Coleman

Money, tangible possessions, bodily comforts, and other delights of the sensory world are all potential outlets through which the divine can be experienced and expressed.

It is neither physical pleasure nor material gain which needs to be sacrificed, but rather the idea that goodness and beauty, in any of its forms, comes from some place other than the purity and perfection of The Infinite.

Our bodies are temples of divinity and the world is a sacrament mediating the reality of the Sacred.

To enjoy the richness and depth of corporeal life is among the holiest of all undertakings.

T.K. Coleman

If you want to feel good, you have to “edit your profile.”

Put the following in your personal “news feed” and read daily:

1) “Un-friend” your dramas

2) “Add” a better perspective

3) “Like” yourself

4) “Update your status” by telling a different story.

5) “Delete” everything and everybody that distracts you from 1-4.

Follow this prescription and you’ll stop getting “blocked” by life.

T.K. Coleman

When you fail to identify your involvement in the creative process, you hinder the development of self-confidence and you become more vulnerable to the notion that life is something which happens to you involuntarily.

Faith can’t be manufactured from a blank slate. It is the by-product of thoroughly investigating everything that goes right in your life, until you learn to detect the presence and power of your own intentions.

When something wonderful occurs in your experience, treat yourself like a prime suspect. Then, act like a detective and do the best job you can at pinning some of the responsibility on yourself.

When you take ownership of the positive effects in your life, you impress the subconscious mind with evidence that you do, indeed, create your own reality.

Once you know and feel this to be true on a subconscious level, nothing can stop you from demonstrating confidence and creativity in every area of life.

Create a great day,

T.K. Coleman

Other people may open doors for you simply because they like you. Surely you don’t deserve any credit for that, right? Wrong. No matter how much someone adores you, it is possible to turn them off by behaving in ways that would destroy your connection with them. If you didn’t ruin the relationship with bad decisions, then you get some of the credit for mantaining a status of “good standing” with the people who want to help you.

Other people may have taught you everything you know. Well, you get the credit for listening to them and choosing to learn. After all, you could have decided to ignore them. Every single teacher you’ve ever had has been ignored or dismissed by someone, but you were one of the students who decided to keep an open mind. That credit belongs to you.

You can’t spell “opportunity” without a “u” because you play a role in every experience that you have

Giving yourself credit is not the antithesis of being grateful. It’s good to express appreciation for those who’ve helped us along the way, but it’s also important that we never underestimate the creative power of the value we bring to each moment.

We’re usually very good at blaming ourselves when matters do go wrong, but we’re often slow to accept credit when they don’t go wrong. This is logically inconsistent because credit and blame are two sides of the same coin. You can’t deny yourself credit for something that went well if you would have accepted blame for a bad outcome.

Either you’re responsible for the results in your life or you’re not. If you’re one of the people who considers himself responsible for the things that happen in your life, then don’t make exceptions when it’s time to take ownership of the good things.

You wouldn’t be where you are today without the help of others, but the help of others wouldn’t matter one bit if it were not for you.

That’s my two cents,

T.K. Coleman