I read somewhere a lesson by Eckhart Tolle that said  and I am paraphrasing: “when you are faced with challenges you have 3 options: 1) if you can change the situation, change it, 2) if you can leave the situation leave it, 3) if you cannot do either, then accept it”. You are probably thinking the same thing I first thought. After all I am a martial artist and a business professional. Does that mean to just lie down and take it? Does it mean to give up? What kind of crap motivation is that? It took me a long time to actually understand what that means and as I am trying to teach the same lesson to my teenage daughter, I thought I put down pen to paper and see where it leads.

I’m sure you have heard that “forgiveness is not for the person being forgiven but actually for the person doing the forgiving”. “Keeping anger inside is like having someone rent space in your head without paying rent”, or what Buddha said, “anger is like holding on to a burning rock with the intention of throwing it at someone”.  Well, the letting go lesson we started with is very similar. Given time and being in the right mindset makes things clear and we can understand the profoundness of the advice. Yet when you are in the midst of a challenge you are not really thinking clearly or metaphysically. Better said when my audience is a teenager that kind of reasoning is not going to hit the mark.

Let’s make it real and see if that can help us in business as well for a teenager, try to let things go. Eckhart Tolle wrote a book called THE POWER OF NOW. I have to admit it was not originally one of my go to books. With all the book I have read on the law of attraction and performance success, that was not one of my favorites. Everything in business today points to planning ahead and learning from the past etc.  How does being in the now help? I remember one of my school buddies once told me about a conversation he had on a plane on a business trip. He told me an old man next to him told him “… son if you have one food on the past and one foot on the future you are pissing on TODAY”.  That is a graphic representation of the ultimate truth.

Being prepared, doing your due diligence, and learning form past mistakes has nothing to do with not being in the now. If we think about it, we are doing all those things in the now. Let me say that again: we are DOING those things in the now. We ARE in the NOW all the time. That is all we have. Taking an action to prepare is not the same as our perspective and state of mind. BEING in the now takes so much practice. It is a skill set that needs to be practiced and nurtured and it will pay big dividends. What does that have to do with acceptance?

When I am faced with challenges that I cannot do anything about, for example a health challenge that will take time to resolve, there is so much damage I can do by brooding on the subject. That is not the same as planning things or talking to doctors. I need to make a distinction. Again, action has nothing to do with the STATE of mind. If I CANNOT change, or remove myself, not accepting the current situation will hamper any actions I take. It is a universal law, energy flows where attention goes. ACCEPTANCE in this situation, where I cannot change or move away, allows my mind to look for solutions instead of concentrating on the problems. Any one in business knows the difference in that STATE OF MIND.

When we are problem focused, we will undoubtedly attract the vibration of problems, which usually brings with them opportunities to have more problems. When we are solution focused, the vibration is very different. Concentration on solutions bring the vibration to attract more opportunities to see solutions. Letting go sometimes, allows me to step back and see the forest for the trees, instead of being so close that I cannot see the total picture. The sooner we can analyze the situation and decide if we can change it or get away from it, the sooner we can accept if we cannot do either. This in turn allows us to change the focus from that of negativity to positivity. That in turn will bring opportunities to experience more positive outcomes and the solution will be more likely.

If everything else fails, at the very least I am not stressing my body even more in a situation where at that moment in that NOW, I CAN DO NOTHING ABOUT THE SITUAITON. As a man that is a very difficult situation. I have a feeling women have a better innate ability to take this course of action. But it is a skillset and like any skill, it can be learned and mastered. The sooner I can master accepting things I cannot change or avoid, the sooner I can find answers or at the very least not harm myself mentally and physically any more than the challenge has done so.

I hope as businesspeople, this makes an impact greater than it did on my kid. I also have to accept the fact that it takes some “living” and maturity to understand these types of lessons. I am confident that the teens these days are allot more mature than I was when I was their age. They seem to have grown up much faster due to the fact that they have information at their fingertips, literally. That is why I am hopeful that this lesson will sink in sooner rather than later.  In any case I thank you for your attention and wish you well. As always remember “you can be what you will to be”.