#69: How Thoughts Shape What Happens Next

Thought Is the Seed of Destiny

Most mornings before the rest of the world gets access to me, I read. My phone is typically on airplane mode, and I generally don’t allow emails, text messages, CNN, social media or someone else’s story to have jurisdiction over how I feel. I’ve learned that I feel, move and make better decisions through the day when I choose what enters my mind.

That’s part of what I call mental dieting, intentionally curating the information I allow into my space. If you want to go deeper on that, see Newsletter 51 and Podcasts 164 and 137.

I have a handful of books that I’ve probably read 40 or 50 times. Sometimes I simply scan the table of contents and choose whatever chapter title catches me that morning.

This past week I was reading Emmet Fox’s Constructive Power Through Thinking (1932) and landed on the chapter called Sowing and Reaping. On page 257, I read:

“Thought is the seed of destiny.”

I’ve read that sentence before. The beauty of rereading is the words haven’t changed but I have. Same words can hit differently because you’re seeing it from a different place.

And this time it did.

Same Office, Different Perspective

The TLO WhatsApp community includes people living in different countries and cultures with a range of experiences and perspectives. That diversity gives us the opportunity to see how the same ideas can look very different depending on who is experiencing them.

That morning a member shared she'd just returned from a week in Mexico and was dreading being back in the office. After experiencing a different sense of freedom while away, returning to a cubicle made her question whether she was meant for that environment anymore.

I shared that Mexico probably wouldn’t have felt the same without that very office life to experience it against. That’s life contrast. Sometimes we need to experience one thing to recognize value in another.

Her message made me think about my 25 years at Accenture, a global management consulting firm. I didn’t experience corporate life as something I needed to escape. For me, it was a tool, and that was the state from which I approached work pretty much every day.

Income helped me acquire real estate and build financial freedom, while international work, for example, allowed me to experience the world in ways that fit who I was. At one point, rather than taking a promotion in Washington, D.C., I chose opportunities with clients in Finland and Spain because they were more aligned with the life I wanted.

The two of us could therefore look at essentially the same thing, corporate life, and experience it differently without either being wrong.

For her, the office was creating a feeling of confinement and a desire for something different. I saw corporate life as a vehicle to create life.

Same circumstance. Different perspective. Different seed of thought.

The Meaning We Give It

Someone loses a job and sees rejection, embarrassment and financial fear. Another person loses the same job and eventually sees an opening to start a business, change industries, move somewhere new or build a life that fits better.

Same event. Different meaning.

The opposite can happen with circumstances everyone considers good. You get promoted, make more money and everyone congratulates you, while something inside you is quietly saying you don’t want any of it.

I’ve experienced versions of both in life. Things that appeared bad became openings, while things the world labeled good occasionally helped me recognize I wanted to move in another direction.

The circumstance is real and so are the emotions that come with it. The question is what meaning we eventually give the experience and what that meaning causes us to see and do next.

Our first interpretation doesn’t have to become our final one.

The Role of Contrast

This is one reason I’ve come to appreciate contrast rather than automatically assuming it means something has gone wrong.

Experiencing what we don’t want helps us recognize what we do want. Office life helped me understand how much I wanted to be out in the world, but I needed the office too. It financed assets, exposed me to people and places, gave me something to experience freedom against.

Her experience doesn’t have to follow mine. Maybe the office is something she eventually leaves. Maybe it becomes a bridge to the next business opportunity. Maybe she changes the way she works or her definition of freedom changes again.

The important part is paying attention to what the experience is revealing. Her office may not have changed, but the way she sees it has.

That's awareness.

Thought Is the Seed

This brings me back to Fox. “Thought is the seed of destiny.”

The two of us could experience essentially the same corporate environment and plant different seeds from it because we thought about it differently.

If she sees the tension she feels as information that she wants greater freedom, that thought may influence what she does next. I looked at corporate life as a tool, so I used it accordingly, building assets, choosing international experiences and gradually creating more of the Five Freedoms I wanted.

Neither perspective was right or wrong. We were simply looking at a similar circumstance differently, and that difference can influence what each of us chooses to do next.

How Are You Looking At It?

There’s a quote from Dr. Wayne Dyer that I’ve always appreciated.

“Change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

That’s the invitation for this week.

Think about something happening in your life right now. It could be your job, a relationship, money, where you live, an opportunity you didn’t get or even something everyone else considers a success.

How are you thinking about it? What seed are you planting in mind? What meaning have you attached to it? What are you assuming it says about you or your future? Are you looking at it through fear, frustration, possibility, curiosity, gratitude or peace?

You don’t have to force yourself to see it differently. Just become aware of how you’re seeing it now.

Have thoughts about your thoughts.

I’ve gotten very good at this skill over time, noticing what I’m thinking and questioning the meaning I’m giving something before automatically accepting it as true. It matters because the way we interpret what happens influences what we believe, the decisions we make and ultimately the actions that shape our lives.

I generally use the word consciousness to describe the internal place from which we see and interpret life. You can call it your vibe, mood, perspective or internal state. The terminology matters far less than becoming aware of it.

The circumstance in front of you may be exactly the same tomorrow, but you may not be.

“Thought is the seed of destiny.”

Different perspective. Different seed. Different harvest.

Have a blessed week.

Maurice, Try Life On