2025-06-20
First, a few important questions: * Why should I read this? Today I saw a pigeon sitting on the edge of a house rooftop. * Who is this for? The breeze passes through the window when it’s open. * Is it actionable? Knocking on wood doesn’t hurt when done gently.I notice a certain call to expand my offering and capabilities to a higher level, one involving strategy and mindset work at the individual and team level. Developing something of my own, after spending so much time accumulating knowledge from other people. This essay is one of the first milestones toward attending to this urge, with humility and learning in the process.STAGE 1 - MINDSETIt's become increasingly apparent to me that almost everything in the way you conduct your business and life trickles down from your mindset — the way you approach yourself and the world. What you think and how you think have important, significant effects throughout your business and life. This was once reserved for self-help books and cassettes and has now slowly crept into scientific evidence, through the work of the Stanford Mind & Body Lab, as one example among many.So, the thing you must start with is your mindset. No matter what role you play in your business, your mindset will determine your whole experience. Allocating some energy to the endeavor of refining your mindset can have large positive effects for you and everyone involved. Because mindset is ultimately one of the main things that distinguishes humans, so imperceptible yet clear it is. Imperceptible because at first sight, you may not tell the difference in mindset between two humans. Upon further inspection, you may wonder why one person is living the life they want and another is constantly in despair, fighting against their situation, restless, anxious. One important difference is their mindset — the way they think, act, believe. Their mindset may have a direct causal relationship with their current state of being.The more you learn to enjoy whatever it is that you do, the more likely you are to be a craftsman, fully convinced in what you are doing, capable of appreciating its simplicity, and continuing to do it for a long time without accumulating tension throughout the body. Your mindset determines your longevity, and an effective mindset is one where you operate and exist in a state of parasympathetic activation the majority of the time — calm, relaxed, awake, connected — like a lion.So, one of the first interventions you do in your mindset is to stop confusing busyness with progress. You become capable of identifying the thing to do that is important and has multiple ripple effects throughout your business and life. You do that with enjoyment, calmness, focus, conviction. You learn to enjoy whatever you do with conviction. You develop a commitment to the doing. Learning to enjoy a bit more whatever you do is a sensation that can be developed. It is somatic — a sensation in the body, not a thought, as Joe Hudson [https://www.artofaccomplishment.com/about] often posits in his public live coaching sessions.There are two essential mindsets in this framework I propose. If you find resistance toward these ideas, consider this a game with two rules: * You can achieve anything you want, if you truly want it * You can change your current situation at any time Now internalize these rules and make them yours fully in the body. Feel (not think) what it is like to know that you can achieve anything you want, and that you can change your current situation at any time. Experience the openness and expansive feeling in the body, chest area, throat, stomach, pelvis, face. Let it pass through the whole body and let it go.STAGE 2 - KNOWING WHAT YOU WANTKnowing what you want is simpler than you may intellectualize it to be. When you stop consuming inputs from other people and comparing your situation with other people too much, you will find out what you want in a much cleaner, clearer, more apparent, relaxed, natural way than when you let yourself be swayed by other people's points of view. Consider those natural inclinations and interests, which will change over time, and let them guide you. The journey to achieving what you want is lighter than you may think, when you allow it to express fully and don't resist it.A goal is the state of being of visualizing yourself in a new situation, whatever that is. Once you see it, the space to become that thing opens up before you. You can now find pathways through that space that eventually lead to the new situation. This happens if you truly want the new situation (i.e., mindset rule #1).To identify what you want, there needs to be space for it. When you are spending all of your energy getting inputs from other people, especially via online content from disparate people all over the world whom you don't otherwise know, you lack mental clarity.Mental clarity is the sensation of spaciousness and relaxation in the mind and body, allowing you to be in touch with the source of yourself, which already contains everything you ever need. When you repress your source by not letting it express, pushing it down by accumulating notions from others, it desperately wants to break free, creating many kinds of physical and mental strains.When you reduce your inputs (opinions from others), you make space to increase your output and more clearly see what you want. You are then able to execute consistently without being swayed by other people's thoughts. Such a state has a quality of inherent longevity because your wants stem from within and are inherently open, truth-seeking, intrinsically motivated, purposeful.> “If you need willpower, it comes from the head. If you do not need willpower, it comes from the heart.” — Joe Hudson STAGE 3 - EMBODYTo be connected with yourself, you must live in the body, not only in the mind. To live in the body, you need to cultivate your connection with the body just like you do with the mind. Move, observe, touch. There are subtle layers of vitality in the body and it is often the case in modern society that we have lost touch with them in favor of overintellectualization. Go back to the basics. You are a mammal, after all, first and foremost.One of the first pillars of embodiment is breathing. Our breaths have become increasingly shorter, anxious, cut off by all the thinking happening in the mind. The body still has the capacity for slow, natural breath which is relaxed and ensures a state of calmness and connection. Like a lion at rest. Practically, you can follow the full breathing cycle for a few minutes at a time, from when air enters through the nostrils all the way down as it passes through the throat, chest, diaphragm. And back up in the opposite direction. Watch a video explaining human breathing here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM3PK5qy9uA&t=1s&pp=ygUPaHVtYW4gYnJlYXRoaW5n], so you can visualize what this means.A slow breathing pattern fosters parasympathetic activation — the state of rest and relaxation. As mentioned earlier in this post, this is urgently necessary for you right now.Another necessary step change you can consider is to let emotions process fully. This means allowing the sensations arising in the body from emotions to exist and live their course of life fully. This is a concept Joe Hudson mentions often too — emotions are sensations in the body, and like any other sensation, they arise and pass away. Once you internalize this truth and accept it fully, you can open up to emotions without restrictions. When something arises, you let it do so without applying resistance to it. Say, you experience anger, or anxiety — you can notice the regions of the body where they are most present and strong, and allow them to apply their pressure in those areas and move through them. For me, it is often the upper chest and throat areas that feel most clogged up when some seemingly negative emotion arises. I experience this often with work — feeling a sense of urgency, scarcity, fear of irrelevance and failure. I once decided to become curious of this state instead of resisting it like I had done until that point. These emotions arise most often for me during the early afternoon and I can feel them particularly in the upper chest and bottom of the throat. They cut the breath short, making it shallow and tense, concentrated in the upper chest instead of fully flowing through the respiratory cycle into the diaphragm and back out fully. I have lived with this sensation for many years, so changing this state has some resistance too — because despite being seemingly negative, this state is very familiar and convenient for myself, it seems. So I hold on to it in some way, while wishing to get rid of it in other ways. Both wishes are ok and necessary for change to occur; they are yin and yang, the call for chaos and order, renewal and homeostasis. At a fundamental level, all of this is intellectualization of something that is real and true beyond words. Accepting that truth and letting it flow through the body fully is a stepping stone toward everything and nothing.This may sound like spiritual bullshit to you. If so, that's ok — consider noticing where your resistance to this concept stems and how it develops.The final point on embodiment I wish to make is to move a lot. Physically move. Small movements, big movements, and anything in between. Move with structure sometimes and with a lack of structure other times. Practice some disciplines that provide structure and foundational movement patterns sometimes, and practice your own movements other times, integrating aspects from multiple disciplines to create your own movements. You are made to move and you can't forget about it, which it seems many of us did or do. If you feel resistance toward this proposition, see the previous point. Allow the resistance to be as it is. Don't resist the sensation. Don't resist the resistance to the sensation. Melt into the floor and allow things to be as they are while you remain fully connected. Be curious, observe, notice what you can relax to allow expansion instead of contraction.STAGE 4 - CONSTANT WORK IN PROGRESSYou are a constant work in progress, and so is everyone else you encounter. There is virtually infinite potential and exploration possibility within each human, so simple yet so complex we are. This belief can allow for open dialogues and connections with other people with humility. You can observe and practice within yourself and also stop being so self-centered in favor of focusing on being in service of others, externally focused instead of self-conscious. A constant focus on the self deflates humility in favor of a "proud chest," so to speak, which is unnecessary bullshit no one needs from you. Constant self-consciousness is also a hallmark of depression and other states of heightened rumination that doesn't serve you.You are a work in progress in any area of your life, no matter how many years you have done it, or what kind of reputation or titles you have been granted by others. Maintaining a humble, beginner approach to everything is grounded in reality, because everything is always new, no matter how many times you think you have done something. Each occurrence is new and different. Recognizing this truth allows for opening up to the way each occurrence of an event shifts your internal state and external environment. The way you see the world is directly correlated with the way you see yourself.STAGE 5 - SYSTEMSSometimes you practice order, and sometimes you allow chaos as part of the practice. Both are real and true. Suppressing any of them creates bottlenecks and leakages in your system.Setting up systems for the way you practice and execute can be helpful, many times but not all the time. They are helpful to provide a clear roadmap of actions. When you start training yoga, resistance training, a martial art, or anything else, systems allow you to know what to do and how to do it. You initially start with some types of movements, or parts of movements that provide a taste of the discipline. You then integrate them into other movements, and then integrate multiple movements, or "progress" into seemingly more complex expressions of the movements. You may assemble those "progressions" into a program that provides clear guidance on what to do. This is helpful and often necessary to start and allow momentum to kick in so you begin knowing the possibilities of now and then.With equal power, systems and structures can become a prison; a seemingly safe harbor that serves no one but your sense of insecurity and reliance on something external to avoid the scary, silent, void, spacious internal states. You can make them "routines," not noticing them anymore because they have become the default and you take them for granted and lean on them fully without realizing you are leaning on them. The mere thought of removing them scares you because you would get to face the void, stillness head on.This can be the case with establishing habits. It is often argued that a habit that becomes part of your identity is a positive achievement, because you have now fully incorporated that thing into you. Say, you make yoga practice a habit that you practice every day, and now you are a yogi! Congrats! Look at how enlightened you are! And what an incredible change you have made physically and mentally during this period!Now what happens if you experiment with not practicing yoga for one week straight, or one month, or the rest of your life? What becomes of "you"? How does your "identity" shift? What do you lean on now? How does your internal representation of self change or doesn't change? Who is behind the mask? What stories do you make up to explain your change of habit and how do you relate to them?When you embody the mindsets and philosophies I write about in this post, it doesn't matter. Being a constant work in progress means that everything is always new — there is no identity habit, no routine, no sense of arrival. No matter how many times you have done the thing, this time is new.I notice within me a tendency to systemize everything I can as fast as possible. For example, when I started resistance training, I decided I would train 6 days a week and set up a program, and I would track the program in an app. Great, now after a few days and weeks this became a "routine". Something I would do while thinking about something totally different with sped-up breathing and unawareness of the novelty and everything available in that moment, each time new. I notice this happens for me in many areas of life; where I find a pattern or practice to systemize, I put all sorts of rigid structures around it, and then never change it and "routinize" it to the core likely to avoid dealing with change and everything involved in its process.Psychologically, this may have to do also with conscientiousness, the personality trait that emphasizes orderliness, hard work, structure, industriousness. When you score high on this trait, you may experience a similar tendency like I described above. Overemphasizing this tendency at the expense of change, flux, expression, and improvisation steals your experience of the liveliness and sense of novelty that come from those opposite states. At the same time, systemizing and overindexing on order and structure can serve you well in starting new practices and achieving what you want—because they allow you to take action. Therefore, as mentioned before in this post, the natural, appropriate state doesn't overindex on one side of the flux between chaos and order, masculine and feminine, etc. It shifts between those states and incorporates them fully without resistance to them.Practically, this means incorporating opposites into the practice. If you tend to overindex and feel comfortable in order and structure like me, it is necessary to include unstructured, expressive, creative, unplanned practices into your life. If you never follow structures, then it is necessary that you incorporate some practices involving structure and order. This allows you to fully be, live, experience, without repressing any required state, which happens often and leads to all sorts of kinks in the pipe that is your nervous system (physical and mental issues/annoyances).STAGE 6 - EXECUTIONDon't edit when you are writing. Don't write when you are editing. Don't watch your feet when you are dancing. Don't dance when you watch your feet. Separate action from analysis. This is one of the rules here [https://www.bijab.com/wellness-blog/10-rules-for-life-john-cage/].There is a certain degree of expression and naturalness that must be present in execution to make it truly your execution and unlock a new level of the game of life. Execute without analysis. Then analyze, adjust, and execute again. Maintain a soft observing state throughout. Continue executing, learning, integrating the learnings, adjusting.This never ends. This is the essence of the practice, and if you think you have transcended this process, stop thinking. No matter where you are, you are always in the practice and you don't know shit.Creation and editing are inherently different tasks, engaging different brain circuits. Creation/production requires openness, relaxation, individuality to create something worth creating for you. Editing requires order, structure, detail-orientation. One is broad, explorative. The other is narrow, specific. These are opposing states, so why would you carry them out at the same time?One answer is because we feel insecure, exposed in the process of creation, which calls for individuality and self-expression to come forth with conviction. So many of us hide in the editing process hoping to not be seen for what we are. But no matter how conscientious [https://www.simonesmerilli.com/life/personality-big-five] you are, there is an inherent need to "be seen" within you, and the act of creation allows it to express itself. This is necessary for your well-being. With the same token, some others (likely a smaller proportion in my observation) are addicted to the act of creation and avoid analysis at all costs, because it would require looking in the mirror objectively and identifying areas of necessary change. This could hurt their inherent insecurity in not being enough. Yet, once again, overindexing on one side represses the other, which wants to burst out and can lead to all sorts of issues in the brain and body.Execution is one of the most essential stages. Without execution, we remain in thoughts, wonderland—lacking experiential understanding of something, which is far more important than conceptual understanding. Experiential understanding is embodied and requires descending down to the level required for execution, no matter how metaphorically low that feels to you. There is never low enough, or high enough. Those are concepts made for humans who wish to not be human and place all sorts of made-up barriers on their existence to avoid observation and real understanding. Real understanding comes from embodied experience.Personally, I notice execution is harder in some areas than others primarily because of thought patterns developed over time in those harder areas. Limiting beliefs preventing action to naturally unfold. Limiting beliefs are one of the strongest blockers to execution. They are thought patterns built up over time that stem from a mix of your natural tendencies and the people who grew up around you. That's all you know when you grow up, so it is natural to pick up all the things the people around you say and do. Then at some point you find out there is an individuality to you and you undergo the process of individuation [https://scottjeffrey.com/individuation-process], which is the process of exploration of the self and the wish to develop your own personality with some differences from the people around you. Individuation and social cohesion must coexist in your life because of the truth that overindexing on one side of the spectrum leads to all sorts of blockages, disturbances, issues. You develop your self while keeping harmony with others.As part of the process of individuation, you can question and process your beliefs and actions, and that includes your limiting beliefs. Some people seem to be more prone to be interested in this than others. Going back to my personal example, I notice limiting beliefs are the major blockage against execution, and therefore against the achievement of desires or transformations. For example, when there is an action that requires speaking about something that feels emotionally hard with someone else, there is a natural tendency of avoidance, stemming from the limiting belief that carrying out sincere conversations with others leads to conflict, destroys relationships, does more harm than good, leaves me worse off than before, ruins my reputation and possibly leaves me isolated and alone.This is a limiting belief because there is no evidence of all those things happening. The truth is that avoiding sincere conversations with others creates disconnection, a sense of isolation, and all those other things. But it does it silently, with a quality of complacency and subtleness that erodes those things over time by avoiding a short and quick burst of discomfort in the body—which is an emotion and therefore merely a sensation in the body that can be observed and accepted at any time.And in truth, the execution of emotionally hard conversations with others unlocks connection, trust, truth. Is there a better alternative to the truth? When you don't say the truth, it gets blocked up in your nervous system and as mentioned earlier, this creates kinks in the pipe, which at some point may burst from all the accumulated pressure. And such burst can also show in small, consistent, subtle behaviors in daily life—via passive aggression, neurotic events, body illness or disturbances.This reminds me of a reflection question I heard from Jerry Colonna [https://www.reboot.io/team/jerry-colonna/]: "How have I been complicit in creating the conditions I say I don't want?" Complacency—the avoidance of action to change a situation—is the primary cause of a lack of change and of stagnation in life. It is not the lack of action itself; it is the avoidance of the situation. So, sometimes we say we want something to change, and yet we let it be as it is; we don't execute on the situation to create any change. We are complacent and complicit, no matter how many other people are involved, or how terrible they are, or any other story you may have manufactured over time.So how does one develop a tendency to execute and take action instead of letting the default be as it is and avoid certain situations? I don't know. You don't develop such a tendency, until you develop it. There is no development, there is only practice. It doesn't matter how you develop it. It matters how you execute on one thing, and then the next one, and then the next one. The practice never stops, just as much as the tendency to avoid this practice never stops. You do it, and then you don't do it. And then you do it. You practice and you figure it out. You split execution from analysis. Dance now, watch your feet later.STAGE 7 - OBSERVATIONThen there comes a time of watching your feet; a time to observe and analyze. Observation is always present; analysis sometimes and separate from execution. Observation is the quality of being fully connected in each occurrence of something and everything. Picture a lion at rest; it is fully relaxed and capable of resting doing nothing, and at the same time it is fully connected, observant, vigilant with a restful quality to it. Fully relaxed and capable of springing out of its position to catch prey or defend itself at any time.This is the quality of observation I am describing here. During execution, observation is present to adjust accordingly and notice what's happening around and within you. It's a sense of observation without judgment. Light, awake, ever present, ready for adjusting the course of action without thinking about it. It stems from the body, not from the mind. This is how observation differs from analysis. Analysis happens detached from execution, it is primarily a mind state, and it enables adjusting and ameliorating execution the next time.For example, when I am practicing a movement in a yoga practice or at the gym or at the park, attention is fully present. I observe the execution, keep track of the current state and the environment around me in order to make the adjustments needed in response to an internal or external noticing. Internal noticing means sensations, the quality of the movement, the speed, the depth, etc. External means other people, animals, and the overall environment around me. The external environment remains in the background, while interoception is in the foreground. But a shift in the external environment produces a prompt and connected reaction if needed. It doesn't come as a surprise because I am fully connected, online, awake where I am, and that includes taking into account the surrounding environment.The reaction to observation is relaxed, gentle, stable, convinced — because it stems from awake awareness — a sense of connectedness and readiness at all times that is rooted far beyond and before the conceptual or thought layers. In such reality, everything is, it doesn't ought to be. This state generates a natural sense of ease and parasympathetic activation as explained earlier in this post.STAGE 8 - ADJUSTMENTSAnalysis can come later, detached from the practice of execution. Analysis can include thoughts, discussions, reflections, logic, emotions. Everything is considered to make whole adjustments rooted in truth. The state of analysis stems once again from awake awareness, lightness, acceptance, embodied understanding of the changes that are called for. The sense of observation discussed before allows the space to naturally make adjustments during the next execution. Execute, observe, analyze, adjust, repeat indefinitely. There is no end process to this game, and the game is the process itself. This approach provides a sense of openness and natural flow without constrictions, like the breath naturally passing through the full respiratory cycle from the nostrils all the way down to the diaphragm and back up and out.You can turn analysis and adjustments into "shoulds," emotionally-resisted processes that you block from naturally occurring. I wrote earlier in this post how this whole process requires fully letting emotions and thoughts pass through the body and have their pleasant ride. This includes the process of analysis and adjustments. There are no "shoulds." There is only the process of execution, observation, analysis, adjustments. "Shoulds" create tension and stuckness, which block the state of awake awareness and natural connection. They inject a sense of fake seriousness and tension that are fully made up in the mind realm. The state of natural connection is effortless, lighthearted, playful, relaxed. There is no police managing the place.—All of this that I wrote in this post is applicable, except when it is not applicable. One moment there are rules, the next one there are no rules. Now you are here, after you are there. Keep playing. Figure it out.FEATURED PRODUCTS * The Great CEO [https://www.simosme.com/products/ceo] * Advanced Travel Manager [https://www.simosme.com/products/adventure-architect-advanced-travels-manager-notion] STAY IN THE LOOPOnce a week, I will send you my latest essays and three pieces of life-enhancing content from the internet.Email Address Sign Up No spam. Unsubscribe at any time.Welcome! 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