Read books. No, seriously – that’s it. Get a book, read it, and think about it. Your brain has increased in cognitive power. Pish posh that’s too easy! Ok, then once you are done reading that book, read more books. Heck, even talk to someone about the book. While reading a book, if you find a word you don’t know, use context to deduce it’s meaning first, then look it up and see if you were accurate or not. Even if you were horribly miscalculated it’s not failing – it’s feed back.

When I was thinking about this article I started thinking back to a time when I read much more and with greater depth and realized that in school, after every book I read, I had to take a test on the book. Not on the message the author was conveying, or how I felt the book touched upon any subject or any kind of analytical thinking. It was all just regurgitation. The biggest flaw in our school system today is kids are taught to memorize data, and then choose from four options, which one is the most probable. This is flawed thinking.

What happens when kids come out of school and life goes heres INFINITE possibilities… Pick what you want. “Well what are my choices?” or “I don’t know what I want” are typical responses to life’s question. And anybody wonders why people can’t choose a major or don’t find a career they are happy with? We obsess about the “right answer” as opposed to the problem solving skill to actually create the solution that fits the individual. The school system today is a glorified baby sitting service, training new generations of kids to be good, obedient, database driven cogs. Innovation doesn’t come from choosing from the following options, a b c or d — It comes from analytical thinking, from accessing the creative mind, or as Apple states “Think Different”.

I’ll end this with a quote from a man who failed in school, but was eternally successful and highly brilliant: “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” -Albert Einstein

The majority of my teen-era I wasted. I shut my creative mind off and became less social and I started playing video games more and more. I finally got tired of feeling robotic and isolated and decided to start making changes in my life. I decided what I wanted to be passionate about, improving my ability to speak, think and be creative, joined local groups to start socializing more as well as advancing my passions, and began living consciously and fully aware.

Over night I had a paradigm shift in my mindset and over the course of a few months the quality and richness of my life improved in leaps and bounds. And this change didn’t cost much money or time. Now as I reflect on the past I really see how much time I wasted away — but I refuse to see it as a loss. The time wasn’t all bad and anti-social and the experiences I had have lad me to a conscious lifestyle. I know where I don’t want to be and can move away from apathy and into passion. I truly believe this decision means that life gets better and better every day. I choose to be happy and content yet still remain driven towards my goals and passions.

Since I’ve made this shift, I’ve given several talks about the subject of passions and goal setting to local groups in Austin, I’ve had several people come to me to help them make a shift in their quality of life, and seen many people become more passionate about life in general… and it feels great! I love helping people enjoy a more full, rich, passionate life — So I’ve decided to start a new company doing just that!

I am still ironing out some details but I’ll make a post about this new business soon.

I’ve got several really large passions in my life and often times I find it overwhelming to improve my abilities with them because there is so much to do! I see the end goal I want and start thinking how far away I really am from that goal and it feels daunting at times. And if that didn’t make things hard enough — I have the attention span of a goldfish!

Yesterday I was updating my workout routine. I do an intense workout with a muscle group, then give it a week to rest. My schedule ended up looking something like: Monday chest/core, Tuesday shoulders, Wednesday back/core, Thursday bicep/tricep/forearms, Friday stretch/core, Saturday cardio, Sunday rest day. Then an idea hit me, why not do the same thing with my other passions? So I broke them down into smaller chunks and set days of the week to them just like muscle groups… So for Music I really want to learn the terminology, theory, scales, and chords. For web development I want to be great at design, markup, marketing, writing and scripting. For art I want to sketch, ink, paint and so much more (my awesome brother got me a Wacom Tablet recently).

My workout routine was already there, so all I had to do was expand upon it: Monday: Chest/Core, A-Scale,CSS/HTML, Sketching. Each activity gets a set duration which allows me to push through any attention issues, prevents me from feeling overwhelmed, and keeps me on the path of mastery for my passions. Now I dedicate time each day to developing my passions!