I’ve Been Busy Integrating

My last newsletter went out May 26, almost 11 weeks ago. I didn't intentionally decide to stop writing. I've simply spent much of the last few months doing something I talked about in TLO Podcast Episode 168, consuming less information while spending more time integrating things that resonate into how I live.

The premise of that episode is that most people don't have an information problem. We have an integration problem. There is more information available to us than ever. Consuming more of it doesn't necessarily change anything.

Consumption collects information. Integration collects evidence.

I don't collect much information anymore. When an idea or principle comes into my awareness and genuinely resonates, I stay with it, practice it and test it against my own experience. Eventually it stops being something I know and becomes something I live.

That's largely what I've been doing since May and the result has been deeper participation in my own life.

Here are two real world examples.

Investing in Relationships

In February I attended a Profs & Pints talk in Washington D.C. called “The Science of Making Friends” by psychologist Dr. Marisa Franco, author of Platonic. The session was not just about making new friendships but deepening the ones you already have. It's that last part that stuck with me.

I could have listened, thought it was interesting and gone home. That would have been consumption.

Instead, it made me think about how I was showing up in my relationships. I realized I wanted to integrate a deeper concept of presence. I started having direct conversations with some of my closest friends about wanting to be more present in their lives, then changed my behavior to support it.

One of my best friends lives in Baltimore, about an hour from me. Historically he came down to spend time with me around D.C. I flipped that orientation and started going to Baltimore more to enter his world. We now have a neighborhood bar near his house where we've become mainstays, his daughter sees me much more, and I've earned the name “Uncle Moe" with her.

That same behavior change shaped my recent world walkabout. I spent time with a family in France I've known for 36 years, another family in Barcelona, Spain I've known for 37 years as well as a friend of 4 years who lives there, traveled to Malaga for the 40th birthday of a friend I met in Beirut in 2019, spent time in Mallorca with someone important to me, and squeezed in three days in Lebanon to be present with dear friends in my second home.

Today I'm in Atlanta with my youngest son visiting his older brother, and we're headed next to Jamaica for a family reunion next week.

May sound like it but this has nothing to do with travel. It's intentionality of being present with the roughly 50 people who matter the most to me rather than maintaining superficial connections with thousands. Deep relationships don't require seeing someone every day, but they do require presence. From time to time you have to enter someone's world, make yourself available and actually be there.

I consumed an idea about deepening relationships and changed my behavior around it.

That's integration.

Knowing When to Stop Building

Another example comes from Tony Robbins' Money: Master the Game, a book I've returned to repeatedly since 2014. It's part of a small collection of books I've read over and over for decades. I don't need 300 books. I'd rather understand a handful deeply enough that the ideas become part of how I operate.

One idea I've continued to integrate is that there are different levels of financial freedom. At some point the objective isn't simply accumulating more. It's creating enough financial independence that money supports your ability to live.

I had already experienced the problem in my career. The goalpost keeps moving.

In corporate life I went from consultant to manager, manager to senior manager and eventually had the opportunity to pursue partner. Every achievement presented another goalpost. When partner was put in front of me I realized it would require more of the very thing I had been trying to create financial freedom to control, my time.

I've recognized the same thing financially.

For decades I built businesses, bought real estate, used leverage and accumulated assets to create financial and time freedom. But if I continue building simply because I know how, the goalpost moves again. Another company, property, career, investment and obligation to manage.

So I've changed my behavior. I'm paying off loans, strengthening insurance protection, exiting companies and business relationships that no longer fit, and simplifying my financial world.

Building wasn't wrong. It worked. But I have to remember what I was building for, which was the ability to participate in life.

At some point adding more begins taking away from the freedom you spent decades creating.

That's integration too. Recognizing when the lesson isn't to build more but to live from what you've already built.

Integration Helps You Try Life On

These two examples are different but connected.

I'm putting more time and presence into the people who matter while removing complexity that competes for that time and presence.

More of what matters. Less of what gets in the way.

Neither came from consuming hundreds of new ideas. They came from staying with a few ideas that resonated long enough to change my behavior.

Consumption collects information while integration collects evidence.

And the evidence is how life starts to improve as a result.

Let's Integrate Something Together

Recently, members of the Try Life On Global WhatsApp community asked me to help them integrate one particular concept I've discussed for years, financial freedom.

That led me to record TLO Podcast Episode 174, where I walk through the mindset behind the 10-Step Financial Freedom Plan I've used for decades.

[LISTEN TO TLO PODCAST EPISODE 174]

But listening is still consumption. Integration requires figuring out what those ideas mean in your own life.

So on Monday I'm holding an open community call, not to rehash the 10 steps, but to work through the questions, fears and practical issues that appear when you begin applying them.

[REGISTER FOR MONDAY'S INTEGRATION CALL]

It's an opportunity to take something we've learned and work on integrating it together.

The Takeaway and Practical Action Step

What do you already know that resonates deeply with you but hasn't been given enough time and attention to become part of how you live?

Maybe you don't need another book, podcast, strategy or teacher. Maybe you need to stay with something you already know long enough to practice it, test it and allow it to change your behavior.

That's when an idea starts becoming part of your identity rather than simply something you know.

Pick one thing. Give it your attention. Practice it long enough to collect evidence in your own life.

Integrate it.

Then go participate.

Always here. Always Trying Life On.

Maurice