Be Stubborn About Your Calling. Be Flexible About the Construction.

It all starts in silence, with a blank page, with something empty before anything happens.Welcome to the show.Tired of the hype about living the dream?It's time for truth.This is the place for tools, power and real talk so you can create the life you dream and deserve your ultimate life.Subscribe, share, create.You have infinite power.Welcome to your ultimate life, the podcast.Hey.To help create the life of purpose, prosperity and joy.And, you know, think about this.Before there's a song, there's silence.I mean, I'm a composer, I'm a singer, I own a studio, play the piano.But before that, there's silence.Like thinking about the before.Right.One of the ways I think about this is I've seen some recent stuff about cosmology talking about before the Big Bang.Like, we all know have heard of the idea that the universe is expanding.And if the universe is expanding, then if you rewind smaller and smaller, and if you rewind far enough, 13.8 or 26 is.You know, I've seen different estimates, but most of them are in the 13 to 14 billion year range.If you rewind it, then it all has to be in the same place.You know, black hole singularity and started the Big Bang.But now they've started thinking, you know, maybe that's not right.And there's a before and, you know, on and on.Today we're talking about life, creating, making things happen, most especially creating a life that you love every day.Now, I talk about that a lot, and I do, because it's on my mind a lot, not in a yearning way, meaning I wish I had a life that I loved.Because I do.I love my life, I love my wife.I love everything about it.I love my kids, I love my grandkids.I have the most amazing kids.I was talking to someone earlier today, and they asked me if I had kids.And I said, I have 10.10 Kids, and I love every single one of them.They're amazing.And they ask, where are they?Scattered all over the place, Right?If you rewind, your life, was yesterday beautiful?How about the day before, the week before, a year ago?Sometimes we get this nostalgic bent, the good old days, you know, back there somewhere, things were good before, before now.And we do that sometimes because we feel like right now it's hard.This is oppressive.It's difficult.There's a struggle.It's not going like I want.You know what?There were no good old days.Today is the day.In those days, they were the days.So you may have a Story about other things being better.And maybe they were in some respects.But what I want to talk about, and I want you to join me in thinking about.Is how do we make it?Like we can sit about.Sit and think about what was.But instead, how about if we make right now perfect?How about if we make today the most beautiful day?I have a friend that says, you know, BDD O M L. Best damn day of my life.I love that.And I even say it sometimes.And I love him for saying that.But this is the best minute of my life.The best hour, the best day, the best week, the best month.And there's several reasons.One is obvious.It's the only one I've got, so it's the best.And if it's anything less than that, then I'm living in this idea of future and past.But I want to talk today about creation.Because you and me, we build life.Like, when you woke up this morning, what was your very first thought?Interesting question.Do you even remember?I woke up and my alarm set for five.I rarely, like, very rarely wake up to an alarm.I wake up a few minutes before today.It was an hour, 3:54.But before I knew it was 3:54, I lay in bed and I thought, I am so grateful.Isn't that interesting?I didn't do it on purpose.It's like I didn't think to.To think I'm grateful.The first thing that popped in my mind is, I am so grateful.And then I. I thought about thinking that, right?And from that place, I created a beautiful day.And it still is.So.Before the song, there was silence.Before my day, there was sleep.And then emptiness.And then it's a beautiful day.Gratitude.Before there was a book, there's a blank page.And you hear people talk about all that all the time.Writer's block.Staring at the blinking cursor.Ding, ding, ding, ding on the page.But before there was a building, there was empty ground or another one that needed to be torn down.Before there was a company, there were no employees, no customers, no logo, no bank account.There was nothing.Before the marriage, there were two people who may not even know each other.Before the airplane, there was no machine capable of carrying humans through the sky, right?So every single created thing passes through this weird condition.It is somehow real enough for somebody to see.But not yet real enough for anybody to touch.Now, that's a fascinating thing, and I want to sit in that for a minute.Because creation has two births.Two birthing processes.The first birth Is.Is consciousness, awareness, ideation.Somebody imagines a form, a possibility, a line of poetry, a thought that needs to be expressed, an emotion.Somebody imagines a solution to some situation that they've seen or are experiencing.Someone imagines a melody.That happens a lot with me.I have all kinds of tools.And with AI, the number of tools and possibilities are expanding all over the place.Not only in music, but in written things and everything.I love working with Chat GPT writing song lyrics.It's fun.It's really good at, you know, creating lyrics, and then I have to fix them because it didn't say what I wanted to say.But before there's a song, before there are lyrics, there's an idea, there's something that we've got to say before you write something down.There's a yearning, right?So somebody imagines that form.Remember the story of Michelangelo who sat in front of the marble for I don't know how many days or weeks, and his assistant or.Or apprentice ask him what he was doing, says, I'm working.And finally when he started, he said somewhere in that process he described, I see the statue.And then my job as a sculptor is just to remove all the marble that's in the way.Wow.So think about that.In writing or in composing or in creating a relationship, you see the possibility of love, of beauty.You know, I've heard it said in a lyric of a Bryan Adams song that I like.When you can see your unborn children in her eyes.And it's talked the name of the song is have you ever really loved a woman?And that idea of seeing it before it's there, maybe what you see is a.An improvement, a better condition.So that's the first birth.Consciousness, awareness, ideation.Sometimes in yearning, sometimes in vision, sometimes in sound.But it all takes place in the imagination or the thinking.The second birth, then, is the form.So first birth is consciousness, and second birth is form.And both of those take time because sometimes you've got to refine the idea a lot.And in form, it might need to be done two or three times.It might enter paper or wood or the computer, or as an app or a program.It might enter a steel.It might be software or sound waves.And, you know, I always come back to music because I. I love.Might take form as a law.I know a person who personally is responsible for getting a law passed in Australia and then that influenced a law in the United States.So that idea came forward and a bunch of action.It might manifest as an organization.It might Manifest in form as a changed behavior where something is different about how we think or look or interact.It might manifest as a relationship.So between the two births is that entire work of creation, right?Creation is.It's.It's like the bridge between an invisible possibility and some stubborn physical reality.Right?So here's some things to think about in the context of creation.The creator, the person who sees, the visionary, the architect, the designer, you know, whatever you want to call it, even the divine, the.The creator has to tolerate the space and the time and the condition of having no evidence, right?And this is really important because when the thought is in your heart, your mind, your whatever, there isn't any evidence.Like you can't point to anything.You can talk about something and try to describe it, but you know how that works.How many times have you tried to describe something to someone, something maybe that you think is really cool and really important?And you try and try and it just becomes clear.Yeah, they just don't get it.And, you know, you're not.You, me, whoever, we're not doing a great job in communicating that vision.That's a powerful skill, and we'll talk about that another time.But the ability to paint a picture with words and ideas, that's so powerful that the idea is transmitted, that's a powerful.That's a superpower.So that someone not only sees or hears or understands what you do, but they're excited about it also.Now, it's possible you communicate the idea and they think you're stupid and doesn't work or won't work or won't matter.That's possible too.But it's also very possible that if you're talking to people in your circle that share some of the same or many of the same values, which we tend to attract, then if we communicate that well, then there's powerful connection.But anyway, the creator, you or me or any of us, we've got to tolerate to condition where there's no evidence yet.That's critical.Because at the beginning, there may be no evidence at all.No physical form, no product, no software, no picture.Maybe there's a scribble on a napkin, but that scribble on a napkin, you know, it's.It's.It's some symbols.Think about language.What an invention.Language, the ability to use sound to convey an idea or written language.The ability to use squiggles on a piece of paper.And we even say the pen is mightier than the sword, which means them squiggles have got moxie.So when we first start, there's no evidence, there's no applause, there's no customers, there's no completed chapter or chorus, no proof that the song is good or that the invention even works.Like, I read something about an inventor.You know the process of being an inventor, and you know how many inventions fail?We've all heard the story about Wozniak and Steve Jobs trying to invent the PC, and how many efforts, how many tries?Edison and the light bulb?A thousand?Maybe it was 10,000, I don't know.But a boatload of no guarantee the invention works.But the idea kept driving Edison and others.So the creators got a hold.This paradox, this thing does not exist.And I'm going to behave as if its existence is worth serving, worth pursuing, worth chasing, worth sacrificing for, right?You think about the stories of people that sleep in their lab or in their, you know, on the floor or on a couch in some office somewhere.Think about that.So I want you for you, because this is you, your ultimate life.What vision is in your heart right now?What vision is in your heart that you're so committed to that doesn't exist yet?Not like you see it, not like you can imagine it, maybe a little, maybe a smattering here and there, but what exists in your heart right now, but you are so committed to it that it's worth serving?You're going to dedicate time, energy, money, resources, thought, sacrifice, whatever, to get that thing.So there's the paradox.You've got to hold a vision of something that doesn't exist yet, but you can see it so clearly it's worth serving.Now, that's not a delusion.You tell the truth, right?I'm not saying you're delusional or you lie.Some people may say that, but you test your, you know, you test your inventions, you make some adjustments.Edison and the light bulb again, is perfect example, but there's a million of them.I'm thinking about rockets now.SpaceX, I think it is.But they're launching rockets and they expect them to explode.Like, how much does that cost?We launch a rocket and it gets so far and then it blows up.And they learn a lot more from the explosions than they do a successful launch.Guess what?They don't just launch it again the same way and say, well, that shouldn't have failed.No, they make adjustments.There's analysis and adjustments.And here's a fundamental thing.I want you to hold this near and dear in your heart.The lack of present evidence, meaning proof, Right now is not proof of impossibility.Now, there's going to be plenty of people who will prophesy failure for you.There's plenty that are going to point out to you one at a time, the dangers, the difficulties, the probability that you'll fail.There's going to be a boatload that say, you'll never make it.You can't do this.Who are you to try this?And you're no, you're no person to make this vision happy.We all know that there's plenty of those.And sometimes our own mind is the biggest.You know, has the loudest voice in the chorus.But remember, the lack of that present evidence is not proof that your creation, even though it's in your mind, is impossible.And this, this time, right there, this moment, is where optimism and imagination become practical, real world force.Optimism is not just a disposition.Well, they're sunny disposition.They always look on the bright side.Maybe real optimism is a choice.I want you to hear this and drill it into your heart and write it on your forehead.Optimize.Optimism's a choice to see the glass half full instead of half empty.Okay?A realist.Realist and pessimist are the same thing in my book.A realist or a pessimist looks at it and says, you know, we're never going to do this, or we probably can't do this.An optimist chooses to look at the same situation and say, there's got to be a way.I don't know what it is yet, but there's got to be a way.So optimism is a choice.And yeah, you can choose it too long and there's all that.But instead of arguing for the case of where something is overdone, why don't we just lean into the truth that optimism is what's helped create most of the breakthroughs we enjoy today.Somebody wouldn't give up.Somebody was optimistic.Optimism.And the second part is imagination.They.They become real practical forces.Because without that optimism, there's got to be a way, an imagination, the ability to see something finished that's not there yet.Without those practical forces, we'd all quit.So remember, at the beginning of every creation, reality disagrees with the Creator.Think about that.Reality disagrees, argues with the Creator because it doesn't exist yet.Reality says, it ain't here.And the Creator says, yeah, not yet.Now, I want you to sit on that for a minute, because I don't know about you, but I have certainly had many times in my life where people argue with My view, my vision, the possibility.You know, one of my visions right now, a big one.The Ultimate Life University.Four schools.The School of the Sovereign Architect.A school where you learn to live your life fully by design instead of default.The School of Transformational Authorship and Creation, where the authors transformed and produces work that changes the world and makes a boatload of cash.The School of Transformational Coaching, where people learn to embody the truths they teach and work with technology like AI to create hitherto unheard of power.School of Transformational Leadership and Business.So I've got that vision.And there's lots of people that I know who, if they even heard me talk about it, would say, you're crazy.You're crazy.You can't do that.You know, you can write it on a piece of paper, put a logo up online, and it doesn't make it real.So reality says, it isn't here.And the Creator says, yep, it ain't yet.And the Ultimate Life University is here.The School of the Sovereign Architect is open.The School of the Transformational Authorship and Creation is open.Both have students.The other two are coming.If those inspire you, get a hold of me and let's talk.But more importantly, what is your vision?Where reality says, it ain't here yet.All right, now let's move on to the next step.Because as a creator, you've got to hold that vision.You've got to hold that paradox where it isn't here, but optimism and commitment, optimism and intention.Optimism and choice.To move forward is your fuel.And here's the next step, a vision.I don't care how good it is.I don't care how clear it is.I don't care how exciting it is.I don't care how much it makes you get up and dance.A vision without commitment is entertainment, okay?Because I'm not doing manifestation fluff here.I'm not saying create a vision board or a mind movie and go for a long time and it'll show up, because it won't ain't happening.We're killing all the manifestation fluff.And I'm not saying your intention or your vision or your language doesn't create.Of course it creates.But if all we do is sit around and wish and put in our order with the universe, you're nuts.You're going to live in disappointment.Imagining is not creating.If Michelangelo had just stared at the marble and not gone to work with the chisel, David the beautiful, timeless marble would not exist, even though he imagined the daylights out of it, the marble wasn't going to form itself.A building doesn't build itself.A song doesn't compose and write itself, AI notwithstanding.Now, daydreaming can feel good, and it changes nothing.Maybe it changes your mood, maybe you feel good.But you know what happens?Here's what happens.When I daydream, I daydream and it looks good and it feels good for a minute.And then I get up and look at the clock, and I realize 10 minutes or an hour or an afternoon is gone.And I felt good and I have a picture.But if it doesn't spark behavioral change, if it doesn't spark time in my calendar to do something, exploratory conversations, if it doesn't spark commitment, nothing happens.Vision becomes creation only when it starts making demands.Like Michelangelo had to say no to a lot of stuff to be all over that marble for who knows how many hours, days, weeks.I don't know how long it took to carve.So here's what it requires.Because after the visioning, which is necessary and powerful, right?You start with the blank page, and then you've got imagination and you hold that paradox.It requires a choice.A choice to dedicate time, energy, resources, attention, love.We have to choose.We have to trade, because our lives are full.You know, for the most part, we don't get up, sit around all day after now, after sleep.And so our life is just empty and just waiting for a commitment.No, we do stuff.We go make money.We go to work.We, you know, we do whatever, but it's full.So if you want to.To go from a blank page to finished book, you know, here's one of many that I've written.If you want to do that, you have to make a choice.You have to.Have to make a declaration.And that might look like, I'm finishing this book, no matter what.A better declaration is, I'm finishing this book in 60 days, no matter what.You know, I'm finishing this book, and then I'm going to market it and publish it because I think it will do this good in the world, that kind of declaration.Then to make that declaration, really, we got to make a commitment.I got to go to the calendar and put in hours of writing, hours of working with, you know, whatever AI I'm working with.I haven't used Chat GPT, but it could use whatever for editing and for working and bouncing ideas and, you know, working as a creative partner.I've got to put some time in because that doesn't happen accidentally when we put Time in it requires us to trade because whatever I'm doing with that time, I can't do something else.If I want to finish a song in the studio, I've got to have studio hours on the calendar and that means during them studio hours I'm not doing something else.In fact, I'm not even thinking about something else.Because if I'm in the studio working on a song, either singing or putting parts down, or you know, mixing or doing the studio work, recording, and my mind is somewhere else, I don't do a good job.I'll give you an example.I was mixing a song yesterday, last two days, working on a couple of songs.And one of them I had this weird feedback loop, a digital feedback loop, and I couldn't find it and I had made a careless routing choice inside the software that created feedback.And so what it shows, like the software that I use has all those sliders just like you see in, you know, big old style mixing consoles.I used to have one of those eight foot mixing board and so forth.But anyway, it had this feedback loop and so the, the needle went right to the red zone and just sat there and nothing I did could fix it.And finally I had to go in and undo every single digital connection in order to start over and create it.Well, because I was careless somewhere.So that's what happens when there's not full commitment and focus.After you make a trade, you've got to have a plan.And as you go along with the creation, depending on what it is, you might want feedback.If you're creating a product for the market, you need feedback.You need early adopters, beta testers, proofreaders.If you're writing something right, if you're painting something and you have a vision in your mind, maybe you don't do feedback till it's done.You just paint what you want and there it is.If you're creating a product for the market and you want it to sell, then you're going to need feedback and you're going to make some adjustments.I wrote a book about that and it's called the Results Equation.And you know, like every book, I wrote them for me.I went and got a haircut this morning and I was talking to the barber and he asked me what I do and I said I'm an author, podcaster and stuff, coach and whatever he asked me about, you know, how I go about creating these things.I was thinking about the results equation.There's a one term.The equation is like five terms.One of them is Called creating the future.And it's this very visioning process where you imagine and you hold that tension between what you see and what's not in existence yet.And the next step is courageous planning.And I call it courageous planning because you got to make those trades.I'm going to quit doing this or take these hours every week to build this thing, or try to.And then the last term is relentless execution, precisely because.Why?Well, imagination by itself can't produce a result, right?However hard I imagine.So if you want to know that formula from dream to done in five simple steps, and it doesn't matter what you're building, it is the invincible process to get a result.It's called the results equation.You can find it on Amazon.Anyway, here's the thing.The invisible.My mind and yours only becomes real when the creator starts paying the bill.Think about your electricity.If you use electricity and you don't pay the bill, they shut it off.And here's what that means in creative terms.If we don't start devoting some time to it and turning it into reality, the vision fades and it goes to the back burner and then turns off, kind of like yesterday's news.So this invisible yearning that we have, that is a gift from the divine, from the unseen, the creation.Creative impulse, whether it's writing, singing, standing on your head in the corner, working out, creating products and services, whatever it is, it only gets real when we start paying the bill, right?And the bill in electricity is money, but in creation, it's probably ours.There's another kind of bill.It's probably embarrassment.It's sacrifice of things.You may not want to give up embarrassment if you put something out there.Nobody likes it.It's repetition.I literally cannot count the thousands, tens of thousands of hours I have sat at a keyboard, mostly the piano, and done exercises and practice and everything else.Why?Because I want to get good at a skill.So it takes time.It takes embarrassment, repetition.It might cost money, you know, might have to invest in something.It might cost failure.Failure is a beautiful thing.I lean it and love into it.Love it and lean into it.Or I lean it and love into it.Whatever.You know what I mean?I do that all the time.Because failure is an idp.I want you to hold that in your heart.Just an idp.Interesting data point.It doesn't mean anything except that didn't work.What we do is we turn it into a story about us.And that's not true.It just means that something didn't work.Well, like when the rocket ships blew up, that didn't work.Okay, so the next step, after we've had an ideation, we've sat with the paradox and we've dedicated the time and effort to start the creation, we have to protect that tender thing without, like, worshiping it, because it's going to change.When I started doing business online in 2010, 16 years ago, I created my first products.They were successful, but very, you know, small and early ideas are fragile, right?If we, if we get worship about an early idea.Joyce sees this all the time in our publishing company.An author will come with an idea for a cover, and it's not very commercially viable.It doesn't stop the scroll, it doesn't scream about the topic, it doesn't capture attention.But the early idea from the Creator, they just worship it.And they got to have it.It's got to stay.And of course they control the creative process.But without taking into account other, other things, things that work, things that are commercially successful, often it simply fails because they're worshiping an early, fragile idea.One of the reasons that happens is because when we get an idea, we get hooked on it, we get stuck to it.This is it.This is right now.Sometimes that works.Remember the story of Sylvester Stallone?Rocky wrote the script, he wasn't going to let anybody buy it, even though they offered him more and more money, unless he starred in the movie.Finally, he did it, and it worked.So that happens sometimes, but it's very rare, and that's why we write stories about those.But most of the time, early ideas are fragile and they need adjustment.One real danger is asking the wrong people too early because they can't see what you do.And they might say, it's stupid or wrong or you can't do that, or nobody wants it.They can't see or understand what's in your heart.And they may accurately observe stuff like, well, it doesn't exist.There's no such thing.Well, you already know that because it's an idea in your head.That's one danger.But the opposite danger is treating every criticism like some kind of proof that you are a persecuted genius.Well, maybe you are, but more likely that there's things that you or I can't see.Okay?So if we treat every, every criticism or suggestion as proof that you're a persecuted genius, you're not going to bring much into reality, because the real sovereign Creator needs.Unless you're God who has all the experience and perfect all of us imperfect people creating.We need to Be open.We need humility.We need to listen.We need to test.That doesn't mean we accept other people's opinions as gospel, but there's a balance.I struggled with that terribly.I used to hate putting songs, singing, books, ideas, papers, music, anything out there, because if someone didn't understand it or didn't agree with it, I felt personally attacked.Because I, from whatever in my growing up and form formative years, I had the idea that I was already supposed to know that as a creator, it was supposed to be.I should have known that and I should have foreseen it and I should have done it and it should have been perfect.Boy, that killed me.Because then I kept things hidden and I didn't exhibit any openness.And it wasn't really about humility.It was about fear.I was afraid that I sucked and that someone would see it and tell the truth, and then I would know for sure that I was right, that I sucked.Now I revel in openness, feedback.Tell me what you like.Tell me what sucks.Why does that suck?What would make it not suck?So humility testing.Counsel from good people that have walked the road before it.It's one of the reasons I love the book challenge that I do in helping people write books is because everybody has a story in their life they know could change the world.A set of experiences they know would be valuable for others, but they're afraid to share them for the same reason I just described.And I love being the catalyst, the helper, to help them see the power and write the story and tell it in a way or share it in a way that's powerful.And so what we need as creators is we need a measure of openness and humility.Testing of things, counsel, discernment.Okay, so here's the difference, because otherwise you're designing by committee.And designing by committee is a disaster also.So when you give feedback, here's the secret.Now hold your breath and pay attention, because here is the secret.Protect the vision.Rigorously interrogate the plan.Protect the vision, which is the outcome, the difference, the service, the product, what do you protect that.But interrogate the plan, the method, the process, lots of things about it.Like think about.I don't know if you know much about designing cars, but they have all kinds of things that get drawn and practiced before they do that.Product services, software, all kinds of things get tested and tested.The vision is to create something that does this, but the process and plan might need to get changed three or four or five or six times.The vision and the plan are different.Here's the line.You can write it down and hold it if you want.Be stubborn about your calling and flexible about the construction.Hear that?Be super stubborn, own your calling, own the truth of your vision.All in, period.No matter what.It's what I'm doing with my vision of 300 million in the ultimate Life University.I'm doing it, I'm creating it.And I'm super flexible about how I'm going to get there.Because the ways that I thought to start with don't work other ways show more promise.So be firm, obstinate, be stubborn about your vision, the calling, and flexible about the construction.Okay, so here's the final questions I want you to end with.What are you seeing right now that isn't here?What is the vision in your heart?What solution to a problem you see?A little one or a world changing one?What music are you hearing?Poetry, books, ideas, thoughts, processes.One of the things I love most about being a coach is drawing that out and just sitting in awe as I listen to people describe the vision they have for a changed world.Where things work like this and they work like that.I love it.What music do you hear?What relationship do you have?You know, I failed at three marriages before I found my angel, Joy 20 years ago.Now I, I, that's the most important thing in the world.And I have created it successfully and I've learned how and learned through guess what?Counsel and sacrifice and change and figuring out what works and doesn't.The vision has not changed.The path wandered all over the place and I got there.What music do you see?What work do you see that changes the world?Here's a powerful one.What version of your own character do you see that you're not at yet?What is that greatest version of yourself?And here's the fun thing.That's going to change.It's going to change all over the place.You know why?Because as you climb the mountain, your view changes.As you have more life experiences, it all changes.So what you thought was perfection in you five years ago, or maybe even last week will now be different.Because you've had another set of experiences and you're looking at things differently.So what version of your own self and character, what service that you might offer, what business that you might be in, what piece of beauty, what healed conditions in yourself or others, what contribution do you visualize that doesn't exist right now?That's the first place.Because right now it's not there.And then you have the ideation and we hold.We as creators, we hold that paradox.I see it, and it's not real.And then the real question because remember, ideation without some kind of action is fantasy.What physical act?A conversation, a drawing, a diagram, a conversation with ChatGPT?What would constitute the first molecule, the first millimeter of that creation?Is it a phone call?Is it a paragraph?Is it a book title?Is it a rehearsal?Is it a song lyric?Is it a conversation with somebody?Is it a deposit?Is it an hour blocked this afternoon?I plead with you.You're a genius.You're a divine creator and you know it because you felt, thought and seen those things.So remember, there was nothing here until somebody you saw what wasn't there.And then they became loyal enough to that vision, to that invisible, to begin creating the form.That beautiful power and capacity belongs to you too.And one thing I know were built and born to love and serve each other.We're built and born to love and serve the common good.We're built and born to create and live the ultimate life.Right right now.Your opportunity for massive growth is right in front of you.Every episode gives you practical tips and practices that will change everything.If you want to know more, go to kellenfluekegermedia.com if you want more free tools, go here.Your UltimateLife CA 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