Have you ever heard about the “3 Secrets”? No? Well, you’re going to want to get in on this. The 3 secrets are at the root of the human algorithm. These are the steps on the ladder to becoming, and being who you were meant to become and be in this life. Learn these secrets and you will kick ass, take names, win the girl, win the boy, win the day, fit into those skinny jeans again, and crush your competition. Oh, and did I mention more fame, money, love, power, and success than your wildest dreams of greed and avarice? That too.
Secret #1
It’ll probably be no surprise these so-called secrets aren’t really secrets at all. In fact they’re very public knowledge. The difference is in your point of view. How you see them, how you understand them, how you embrace them, and finally how you implement them into your existence as you put your personal dent in the universe. You might want to get pen and paper for these, or maybe just a screen shot if that’s your thing, but whatever your preferred piece of papyrus, write these down and in your heart and mind because these 3 secrets have the absolute and resolute power to change everything in your life. OK, deep breath, drum roll…..the first secret is….
Your intentions.
“Well, that’s kind of a letdown,” you say. Just hang on for a sec my prematurely disappointed reader, let’s unpack this a piece at a time. Your intentions are the map you get to draw of the direction of your life, and that matters in this America. If you have no intentions, you will have no map, and with no map, you’ll just be a kind of pinball being bounced around the bumpers of your life as someone shakes and kicks you until you take that last fatal roll to the hole below. Your intentions are what you’re setting out to do in your life. What is it you want my Sunday friend? Do you even know? Or are you just saying you know so others don’t think of you as a dope? What if someone said to you, “Hey friend, just wondering, what is it you really want?” Could you tell them beyond a simple one-syllable or one-number answer?
You’d be amazed at how many people struggle with this. You might also be amazed at how many say something just because it sounds cool. They really have no clarity, conviction, or commitment, but something that sounds cool is better than nothing. It’s a social hall pass, but it’s like being served an empty glass.
When any new year begins, it’s a good time to take a sec and contemplate your lot in life. Do you have what you want, or are you more of a “someday when” person? Do you just give yourself a hall pass for what’s missing? The more honest you are with yourself, the harder this kind of thing is, but no matter where you are on your map, if you don’t know your intentions, you just aren’t going to get there, and there is one reason why. Let’s talk about that next.
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Knowing your intentions and being clear about them gives you a vigor and a vitality that everyone wants, but few possess. When you find this lightning in a bottle, you will finally be able to do the one thing above all others to help you manifest your intentions. What is this magical power you ask? Learning to say “no”.
Not knowing how to say “no” has put more people in bad rabbit holes, bad relationships, and wasted more time and money in the collective consciousness of human existence than just about any other first-world problem ever invented. It’s not a weakness per se, and people pleasers are a very pleasant part of the population, but if you never find the courage to say “no” to the wrong things, you’ll never have the room in your life to say “yes” to the right things. Think of it this way: you can’t park your car in the garage until you clean out all of the crap in it.
Start with your intentions.
Secret #2
This one is brilliant. It’s the chip to the salsa, the chocolate to the peanut butter, and the hamburger to the bun. Like secret number 1, secret number 2 requires a certain tweak of paradigm for you to “get it”, but when you do, it’s ‘Katie bar the door’. Secret number 2 is….
Your bandwidth.
“Holy disappointment Batman”, you say. Hang on my neophyte Sunday protégé, we’ll get through this together one secret at a time. In case you didn’t get the memo, the number of breaths, minutes, and moments you have in your life are all limited. Finite. Fixed. One they will be gone, and you will be too. As the Steve Jobs once said in his infamous graduation speech at Stanford, “death is the greatest motivator of all”. That’s not a morbid comment, it’s actually the best therapy you can get for free. The message here is simple: stop wasting your physical, mental, and emotional time and energy on stupid shit. Here’s a simple move a smart woman I met last week is doing to increase her bandwidth: she shut off all of the notifications on her phone. How brilliant is that? The smartphone is a pretty amazing thing no doubt, but it’s also more addictive than cheeseburgers and cigarettes. Are you one of those who spends yourself in an endless argument of senseless bitching and bickering with your person of 20+ years? Knock it off. You say you want to make $500K this year? Awesome. Why are you spending your precious limited moments doing things you can hire out for 15 bucks an hour?
Bandwidth my Sunday friend.
It’s your greatest resource.
Protect it accordingly.
Secret #3
Finally we come to secret number 3. This one is the glue, the rocket fuel, and the aphrodisiac all rolled into the perfect bong hit. If you don’t get it right on this one, you might as well just drop the other two. Secret 3 is the Big Kahuna, the Full Monty and the Grand Poobah. Secret number three is…
Your passion.
“Well, now this is making a bit more sense”, you say. All characters reveal their true identities at the end of the story and so it with this trilogy of secrets – your passion is your everything. You’ve got to find the love my brothers and sisters. You need to get your ass to the mountaintop and start yelling, you gotta dance in the pouting rain, put on the Santa suit, and join the Rolling Stones sing along. Whatever your jam is, you need to get punch drunk on it if you want to roll the rock up the hill. Note to leaders: your passion is the potion that makes your tribe your tribe.
Look, I’m not saying your life sucks. I mean maybe it does, and if so, you really probably need the trilogy of secrets more than the next Joe, but even if you’re just looking to polish your panache, fine tune your mojo, or nudge your swagger a skooch, the 3 Secrets are your 2024 road to righteousness. You must have a clarity of thought about that which you seek, you must recognize in real time that your resources are limited, and you must embrace whatever you desire with your whole heart. Lasso these three and a year from now you’ll look back and say, “Hey, that Joe was onto something.”
Here’s to you kicking some ass, cranking it up, and blowing it up in your 2024!
Good luck and have a good week.
Joe Still
2024.01.14
Cite
“The narrow bandwidth of TV has made us think that we are stupider than we are.”
– Jordan Peterson