Your Story

It’s all about the tale to be told: About the stories of your life.

Do you know your story? If you sat down right now and had to write out where you’ve been, what you’ve seen, who you’ve touched … would you be satisfied?

Maybe it’s enough: Your story up to this point. But if you have spent any time reading this blog I intuit that you’re up for more. That the story of your life may have had some ups and downs, but you are not even close to finished with your rock-and-roll ride.

We don’t usually think about our life’s story until it ends, until we’re near the end and we look back, sometimes soulfully, sometimes regretfully, at the circumstances that accidentally crossed our doorstep. But what if there was another way: A way not to accidentally allow your story to unfold, but a way to consciously curate your next chapters.

What if you could live a designed life, a consciously curated life, a life so full of wonder that it takes even your own breath away? Would you? Could you?

I recently had the chance to spend an evening with a few rambunctious college students. And you know what, this group has no boundaries. They don’t understand the word no, or live within the confines of their predecessor's societal norms. They are brilliant in their ability to desperately need to handcraft their own stories.

Along with my rambunctious college kids I was wondering the streets of NYC and had the chance to see stories unfold through the restaurant windows, the displays of shops, and the bustle and hum of New York. And you know what, it turned a spring in me, a hunger to consciously write my next chapter. The city can do that to do … make you hungry.

So here’s my question: “What would it take for you to shed your current writing style and re-write your world?” I know it’s scary, and nerve wracking, and … and … thrilling.  Tell me … what’s your next chapter about.

See you on the wire

-- Steven Cardinale

Passion

Exploring with curiosity and seeing the world through new eyes creates a passion that is hard to compare. Getting completely lost within someone, something, some place losing yourself is the passion we all crave.

Have you ever dissolved into a new experience? Become lost, consumed, overwhelmed with a new … something?  It’s that out-of-body experience I’m exploring. Not necessarily the new age definition of an out-of-body experience, but something more about the coupling of an experience, a person, place or thing that let’s your mind quiet down, and for a moment you are not the same "you" that awoke this morning.

We chase this experience by playing with drugs, getting drunk, having that one sexual union that opens up the universe, running until we’re high. All of us want to lose our mind every once in a while in a safe place and truly connect with something outside ourselves.

Some of you might think I’m talking about religion, but if you know me at all, that is definitely not what I’m referring to. What I’m talking about is becoming a witness to your own spinning mind, stepping outside, and asking yourself what your are really passionate about. If you can let go of your mind then you can explore your passions and you’ll be amazed at what a little walk down Curiosity Avenue can reveal.

So here’s my question: “What, who, where, can you be passionate about for a moment.” And remember passion means you’re willing to let go of yourself and dissolve completely into someone, someplace or something else. You’re willing to become so curious that your passion burns white hot and you explore something beyond yourself.

So do it. Let go to your inner passion for a second and see what you find. Might be more interesting, and more than just a little terrifying, than you initially thought.

See you on the wire

-- Steven Cardinale

The Windmills of my Mind

So I’m off on an adventure, traveling the globe with a specific destination in mind: Africa: The plains of Kenya and Tanzania and the mountain jungles of Uganda. But I’m not really exploring the terrain and creatures living in the jungle and on the plains, although I will definitely encounter and engage with many different species, both human and otherwise.

What I’m really exploring when I travel is inside my mind. I’m exploring the regions of my mind that keep my feet in the same spot they have been for a while. I’m trying to let the gears of my mind roam free and dislodge the muck and mire of my own and other’s notions. I’m desperately trying for a moment to be free of the maps I’ve drawn in my mind that shut me down. I’m trying to free myself from my mind and be completely alive.

What does it mean to be alive? It means to be open: Open to new ideas. Open to new thoughts, new conventions, to let go of what you think is all the answers. Letting go of my assumptions of what is right, what is possible, what is accepted, what I should be doing. To let go of the daily cacophony of noise that fills my room and keeps me moving in the same old direction. And it’s simple things that make an impact. For example, did you know that getting an Ice Tea in the Heathrow airport in London is virtually impossible? What I was so sure was a simple request has suddenly become a major challenge. What I thought was part of the maps of my life (that Ice Tea would always be there simply within my reach) evaporated with a simple plane ride.

Staying in the same spot for too long will dull your senses. It will provide you the illusion that all the answers you have come up with are the right answers. I’ve said it many times: “A better question is more important than the right answer. Because it is usually and right answer to the wrong question.” So the question is not “how can I get the Ice Tea I’m used to”, the better question is “what are the drinks in this place now.”

Find and surround yourself with people who have better questions. Surround yourself with people who don’t carry prejudice (they haven’t pre-judged people, places, or things). Prejudice freezes your ability to live. It is the opposite of alive. We are not born with prejudices, we are open and free. We are taught pre-judgment by the tastes of others given to us. Better questions force you to burn the maps in your mind and explore the forbidden, the unknown, the taboo. The questioning forces you to be intelligent, to explore with curiosity and go wrong many many times until the truth starts to reveal itself. Not because you became and explorer and found it, but because you let go of your old world and became awash in a new one.

So here is my question: “What old world beliefs create the maps and windmills of your mind?” What if you didn’t have access to the Ice Tea of your day, how would things change? What if suddenly your professional career evaporated? What if your family didn’t know you? What if you couldn’t get your Ice Tea? Would you be better? Would you change? Would you suddenly explore a new terrain and map of your mind? Do it. Let go of something. Something simple but something that you cling to, and see where you end up on the African plains of your life.

See you on the wire

-- Steven Cardinale

Technicolor

I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced it. True color. Visual vibrations so bright that everything shifts. Blues so brilliant they shimmer off the water. Rambunctious Reds; Golds that make your breath hitch; and Chocolate Browns so deep they melt into puddles on your tongue. I’m not talking about colors you can see.

I’m talking about the colors of your life. The colors of your expression; The colors of experience. 

Recently I’ve had the chance to experience grey. You know that grey: The grey of an anesthetized life. It’s kind of a corporate color, almost a uniform of modern society. A drab mixture of duty, social constructs, should’s and would’s with just a pinch of gotta make it happens. It’s a grey we’re all used to. It colors our world from the inside out. Makes everything look less … appetizing.

But then a shift happened: Partially conscious, partially driven by the winds of fate, partially

a desperate hunger in myself to start tasting the passion in life again.

And the conscious piece was less about a drive towards color and more of an awareness of how I refuse to live life without dipping it in color. An awareness of a moment when I understood how to really bite into the tomato of life and have it drip red ripe color down my chin.

So here’s my question: “Are you living in Technicolor?” If so enjoy it. Embrace it. Taste it. Get your tongue wet with it. When did you start tasting in color? Do you remember the moment? Don’t let that moment go.

And if you’re still in black, white and grey, here’s the challenge: What would you have to do to let your world explode in color? Who would you have to meet, where would you have to go, what would you have to do? Close your eyes and imagine for a moment … then let yourself go there and take a …

Big bright colorful bite out of life.

See you on the wire

-- Steven Cardinale