Fake and Phony solutions sound so believable. That's what makes them so poisonous. When we buy a fake and phony solution we always become immobilized and are tempted to give up on ourselves.


                     Show Notes
Fake and Phony Solutions still exist because:
1. we all have a lot of feelings we'd rather not feel
2. we want these fake solutions to be true
3. those who sell the fake solutions are very convincing

(From 3-2-1 Thursdays by James Clear)
Writer Jorge Luis Borges on transforming every experience into a resource:

"A writer — and, I believe, generally all persons — must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art."

Source: Twenty-Four Conversations with Borges: Including a Selection of Poems

You are able to stay away from fake and phony solutions but you must
1 Create and be very clear on what it you want to create -- not what others want you to do.
2. Commit to the craft of your dream. Not for a month or year but for your whole life. Besides, what else have you got to do but get better and better at creating what you want to create?
3. Stop Comparing yourself to others. You cannot make a judgement of your own self based on what others do and who they are. 

Third Culture Kids: 

Are you familiar with term “3rd culture kid”?  A 3rd culture kid (AKA TCK’s) is someone who grew up in one culture and then found themselves in another one. Gypsies who deviate from the cultural norm and Misfits who want to do different things and do them differently are considered TCK’s.  Being a TCK has a lot of benefits but like everything else it has a dark side and if you’re not aware of it you can end up in some pretty dark places. In today’s episode we’ll show you how to stay in the light. 

Today's episode helps us to beware of the self-sabotage  that we often fall into just as we get closer to our goals. We also have to especially aware of families' way of doing the same thing. 

In this episode from 2021 we learn how important it is to pay attention to our authentic self more than our social image and status. 

In the Hans Christian Andersen story, "The Emperor's New Clothes" it's a dumb little kid who turns out to be the smartest person in he crowd.

There are plenty of reasons to be the dumbest person in the room and in today's episode you will learn why it's a smart move. 

Let's stop calling it stress and call it what it is….Fear. Actually stress is what happens to the body when it is fearful. The symptom that shows up is stress in your body…BUT the real cause the real problem is fear. 

Fear is a liar….but if you dont know that….you will give in to its destructive power.

In today's episode we will learn a new way that will work for you. 

Farmers are an interesting bunch. They don't talk a lot but they are smart and in today's episode we will learn some timeless principles from agriculture that you must use to grow your creative process.

Focus and Energy. I'm sure you have noticed you do not have an unending supply of either. That's why you've got to be stingy with these assets and use them for creating NOT problem-solving. In today's episode we tell you how it sneaks up on you and what you can do about it. 

Do you ever get cold creatively? Do you ever get burned out? From time to time everyone does. This happens more when you don't know to build a fire and keep the fire going in your creative process  So today I want to teach you how to NOT QUENCH THE FIRE WITHIN YOU.

Creating by Robert Fritz is a great book for learning more about this and other helpful concepts. 

Endurance. That word is packed with meaning for people like you who are in it for the long haul. And sometimes enduring feels like suffering because it is not the most fun part of the journey but you mustn't give up because there will be suffering and something can be made from it. It's called creative suffering. And everyone who is in it for the long haul has to learn how to to do it. In today's episode I will show you how. 

Too many  of us suffer from those voices: “you’re a loser you’re a bum…why do you even try…just give up…and run away now before they all figure out you’re a phony….!”But when you change the game the voices can still come and it won’t even matter. In today's episode you will learn how to play the game so that there is always an upside. 

One of the ironies of productive, goal-oriented people is that we can lose focus very easily. And when that happens it is easy to feel like we don't quite know what to do next.  Today's episode will help you create momentum, imagination, and energy. 

Creating, by Robert Fritz is an excellent book on this topic. it can be hard to understand but is worth the time you invest. 

One of the reasons you’re a misfit is that you have this notion that you should do the things that actually FIT for you. And nowadays nobody wants to hear that.  Most people are looking everywhere to get some direction but the wise person knows where to look and I’m gonna tell you where that surprising place is in today's episode. 

A great book for today's topic is Why You Can't Be Anything You Want, by Arthur Miller. This book can help you -- if you do the exercises.  

More than likely if you are in your 40’s you have been dealing with some disatisfaction. What makes this weird is that the outer, object parts of your life are really not so bad…A lot of people would even trade places with you…and yet there is that nagging disatisfaction but it doesn’t have to be that way. You can actually thrive through your 40’s and in today's episode you'll find out how.


The Happiness Curve by John Rauch is an excellent book on this topic. John has done a   wonderful job researching the data and shows s how to interpret it.  he's also a really good writer. 

Sometimes we chase the things that we think will empower us but only weaken us. 

There are lot of fake and phony ways that masquerade as empowerment when in fact, the real ways to empowerment are not even being considered. So, on this last show of season 3  I wanted to leave you with something to ponder -- something you can really use for real and powerful empowerment.

Answer this one quickly : you have have been working hard and you just know this project will work because you are clear and focused.  And at the last minute everything goes sideways.  Whaat do you? No one could blame you for being disappointed or angry. A wise man once said failure is not really fatal but failure to change in the face of setbacks -- well that could be. I believe we all need help when we get hit with a setback. That is what you'll get in todays episode

In today's episode we will learn how seeming contradictions -- what we call a paradox -- can be the absolute key to helping you get where you want to go. 

Leadership is not what most of us think about when we plan our preferred futures. In today's episode we will learn how important it is to guide, influence and control ourselves if we want to get to the life we dream about. 

In today's episode we learn about an old and counterintuitive truth: The Negative way can be more helpful than the Positive.

It doesn't sound right and yet it is. This way of living and learning is often misquoted and misused but it leads to better decision-making. 

If you want to study up on this here are 2 excellent sources.
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb , Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder
- Wealest.com   Thomas  Waushenfelder

In today's episode we'll learn about how everything can serve your interests -- if you know what to look for. 

Writer Jorge Luis Borges on transforming every experience into a resource:

"A writer — and, I believe, generally all persons — must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art."

Source: Twenty-Four Conversations with Borges: Including a Selection of Poems
(I found this at Jamesclear.com) 

My guest today is Anne Merino, who is an accomplished dancer, writer, actress, and the author of Hawkesmoor: A Novel of Vampire and Faerie. In this episode Anne shares her unique insights on the creative process and what it takes to get to your goal. 

Why accept your frustrations and anxieties when you can hold a meeting with yourself and make some real progress on your goals at the same time.  Today we will be talking about how to talk to yourself and learning from two authors: Think and Make it Happen, by Dr. Augusto Cury, and King, Warrior, Magician, Lover,  by Robert Moore. I guarantee that once you learn the art of talking to yourself you will never stop using this tool as a way to enhance your creative process. 

Did you know that your growth can be lopsided? If we don'y pay attention to the different ways to mature our gifts and talents won't do us any good.   
We owe it to ourselves and to everyone else to make sure our growth is balanced and not lopsided. 

“Larry you are perfectly organized to get the results you’re  currently getting….” Hmmm…I put a lot of though into that…

Since I didn’t like where I was going at the time I had to take another look at how I was organized. And I had to admit that  he was right.  And that was a big eye-opener for me . In today's episode you can get your eyes open, too, and start organizing -- or structuring -- your actions so that they move you where you want to go. 

Sometimes we  Misfits spend way too much energy trying to fix our past.  Getting to the future you dream about, however, requires that you look forward -- not backward. In today's episode we will deal with your past in a way that gets you back on track.

Today's episode is important because as you are out on your journey you will meet other misfits  who are lonely and it's good to know how to help them.  Because loneliness gets worse -- dangerously worse -- when someone thinks:  “I must be the only one…” But you’re not and in our true story today we can learn a lot about how to re-inhabit loneliness in a way that’s good for you. 

We have so many designations for age groups today: Boomers, GenXers, Millenials, GenZers, etc. These designations can be helpful BUT can sometimes get in the way of important inter-generational partnerships that enable us to make a real difference in the world. 

No one can do it all by themselves. In today’s episode we learn how older dreamers and younger visionaries can bring out the best in each other. 

Do you ever get tense? Sure, we all do but did you know that there are basically two kinds of tension? One is really good and helps you get where you want to go with your life. And the other is very bad and will, if you let it, destroy all your plans and probably you in the process. 

You have to know how to use the good one and not get sucked into the bad one. The tools you need to build your life are in today’s episode.  

In today's episode I want to warn you about some traps you can fall into because they look and sound so good but they are so bad for you. Please heed these warnings or you'll threaten your chances to get where you want to go.

This episode will be a little hard to take but will be worth it because it comes from a place of genuine care and concern about helping you get you want to go. And it  will have long-lasting benefits for your journey.

One thing I knwo about misfits is that we have very sensitive consciences…. And that’s because we often dont have the support of our families….and that can make us feel like we are doing somethign WRONG when we are simply BEING WHO WE ARE.

THE GOOD NEWS is that there is way of out of this dillemma. In this episode you will learn how to check in with your conscience

Have you ever been in a situation in which it feels like you’re on a journey in a boat and  you’ve got to navigate through a very narrow straight?  On the left, rocks -- big ones. And on the right a whirlpool….A little too far right or left and you’re done.

I would bet you're in a situation like this or on your way to something similar. You can’t go right or left but that doesn't change the fact that YOU’RE THE HERO OF THE STORY. In today's episode we will learn more about how to navigate through narrow straits on your journey and what it means to be the real hero of your own story.

Everybody loves a winner and nobody wants to look like a loser. That seems harmless enough. At the same time we always have to be aware our need to have a positive social image because it has a dark side. In today's episode you'll not only learn how to keep from falling into that temptation but also how to stop wasting time, energy, and money on activities and things that do not get you where you want to go. 

Fake and Phony solutions sound so believable. That's what makes them so poisonous. When we buy a fake and phony solution we always become immobilized and are tempted to give up on ourselves. 


                     Show Notes
Fake and Phony Solutions still exist because:
1. we all have a lot of feelings we'd rather not feel
2. we want these fake solutions to be true
3. those who sell the fake solutions are very convincing

(From 3-2-1 Thursdays by James Clear)
Writer Jorge Luis Borges on transforming every experience into a resource:

"A writer — and, I believe, generally all persons — must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art."

Source: Twenty-Four Conversations with Borges: Including a Selection of Poems

You are able to stay away from fake and phony solutions but you must
1 Create and be very clear on what it you want to create -- not what others want you to do.
2. Commit to the craft of your dream. Not for a month or year but for your whole life. Besides, what else have you got to do but get better and better at creating what you want to create?
3. Stop Comparing yourself to others. You cannot make a judgement of your own self based on what others do and who they are. 

Most of us use some “strategies” to gain a measure of control over our lives. Here are some common ones that we all use from time to time. See if you can find your favorite default strategy:

    •     Denial 

    •     Comfortable boredom, laced with escapism   

    •     Irrepressible good humor

    •     Fatalism

    •     Hormonal surge of youth

    •    Magical belief in technology

    •    Comforted by the myth of control⁠1 

In this episode we try and get a better handle on our default strategies and getting to a healthy measure of control over our lives. 

1 Kleinman, 5.

The last year everyone has had an opinion about masks. But most of us are not even aware of the mask that was placed upon us when we were little kids. And it works pretty good until.....we decide we want to switch it out for a mask that fits better and expresses who we are. Misfits need to know this if they want to move forward with their 

We are all on a journey -- a journey that we hope leads to a meaningful and significant life. But everyone on this journey, at some point, also ends up taking some detours that take us to places we do not want to go.  This episode will help you if you want get off the dead end or avoid those detours altogether

Fill in the blank: When I was thirteen I usually felt kind of (fill in the blank…)

I have traveled around the U.S. and parts of Europe asking people that question in workshops and in private conversations. No matter the country, the people, or the culture, I almost always got the same answers. The power of that  question is that it always reveals our “point of vulnerabiltity…” This is important to know because many of us can sometimes be like middle schoolers who have aged. In todays’s episode we’ll learn that our point of vulnerability is not a weakness but a strength. 

Third Culture Kids: 

Are you familiar with term “3rd culture kid”?  A 3rd culture kid (AKA TCK’s) is someone who grew up in one culture and then found themselves in another one. Gypsies who deviate from the cultural norm and Misfits who want to do different things and do them differently are considered TCK’s.  Being a TCK has a lot of benefits but like everything else it has a dark side and if you’re not aware of it you can end up in some pretty dark places. In today’s episode we’ll show you how to stay in the light. 

The Spirit of Adventure

 Someone once said that the safest place for ships is in the harbor — but that’s not why ships were built. Likewise the safest place for you is in some kind of harbor where you’ll be safe. This leads us to a question: Is being safe the most important thing to you? Or is it more important to create something  which could bring meaning and significance into your life and help you live in the spirit of adventure? In today’s episode we’ll discuss the myth of being safe. 

Episode 3

DESCRIPTION 

Saboteurs: Our Families and Us

I believe every person has a personal story inside them and in that story he or she will see  SEE THEMSELVES AS THE HERO OF THE STORY. And all heroes have to go on a journey. It doesn’t have to be a journey where you travel far away but it is a journey nevertheless and not every family is willing to let us go on that journey. And sometimes our families, God bless them, even try to sabotage our efforts. We can get a handle on this sabotage dynamic but we must learn how to see it. In this episode you can learn how. 

Episode 2 DESCRIPTION

OBSTACLES 

Wouldn’t it be nice if we Misfits didn’t have to deal with so many obstacles? Maybe it happens to you: you make really good progress and then from out of nowhere comes another obstacle that pulls you back and hinders from getting to that life that you dream about; the life that has real meaning for you. In this episode we’ll uncover what’s behind those obstacles, and make a plan to help you overcome them.


                                            Show Notes for Episode 2,  4/13/2021

OBSTACLES: Avoiding Them and Overcoming Them

Larry discussed how obstacles get in our way and do it in a way we are not really aware of. 

This episode is not about problem solving but creating what  you want to create  LIFE OF MEANING AND SIGNIFICANCE? . He urged us to stay away from problem-solving as our main focus and turn to building the life we want to create. 

Unlearning things so we can learnt he new things.

                 1. Unlearn the quick fix solution. 

Makes you feel better but you do not get better. Move toward a long-term approach. “Resistance you feel is proportional to the love you have for the new thing.”⁠1

                     2. Unlearn seeing time as the enemy 

Larry discussed his 8 year- journey at age thirty to become a pastor. He discovered a powerful principle: in 8 years I’d be 8 years older whether or not I’m doing what I want to do with my life. Better to start now and enjoy the ride — if not you have to wonder if it really is that important to you. 

                       3. Don’t tell everyone about your idea

Keep it to yourself because that idea is your  baby. Protect that baby as if it was a newborn don’t let others infect the baby with their negative vibes. Once the baby is older (and you’ve made some progress on your plan) then you can let other people know what you’re up to. 

A plan for overcoming obstacles.⁠2

1. Ask the vital question: what do I want to create?

2. Understand your current situation in relation to your goal

3.  Each time you reach a small goal in your action steps it creates momentum and energy toward the big goal.

Larry gave us real life examples of how even creative and wise people can fall into the trap of structuring their life around what they DON’T WANT. And how to stop doing that. And how aligning with our identities is just as important as reaching our goals.

Larry believes that the listeners want to create a life of meaning and significance. But as much as we want it we also feel great RESISTANCE. But the resistance we feel is directly proportional to how important that goal really is to us. We make resistance our compass as we learn to stop moving away from the resistance and learn to follow it — wherever it takes us. And that feeling of resistance is always there no matter how old you are — even as old as Larry!

Larry directed us to misfitmentor.com for the show notes and the resources and links to his Instagram, Larry_Merino videos, and You Tube channel (https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCCKHgnIPxumhrSJPQ_FG6RA) .

TAGS:  OBSTACLES, RESISTANCE, STRUCTURAL CONFLICT, STRUCTURAL TENSION

1 See Steven Pressfield, The War of Art for a discussion on this powerful principle

2 See Robert Fritz, The Path of Least Resistance for a full discussion on these concepts. Also see Friz for the full definition of “structural conflict.” Snd “structural tension.” And The

Coming Out

In this first episode we deal with a very common experience for those who deviate from the cultural norm or from what we were expected to do or to be. There is plenty of disappointment to go around in these situations but when you are “the disappointer” it can be brutal. Coming out doesn’t have to be the gut-wrenching anxiety-producing event you imagine it to be. This episode can help.