In this episode, Adam shares his personal experience of feeling isolated while pursuing his passions, and how it led him to reflect on his goals and align them with his values. He explores the idea that being alone in your endeavors can be a indicator that you’re on the right track, and offers practical advice on how to stay on course through reflection and alignment with your higher purpose.
Season 3 | Episode 3
Feel Alone? Good. You’re Probably in the Right Place
Feeling alone in your goals? That might be a good sign!
This episode talks about:
- How goal-setting can make you do crazy things.
- A life lesson from “Apocalypse Now”.
- Not all goals are set in stone, you can change them as you go.
Resources
Have you ever felt alone in what you’re trying to accomplish? I remember I found myself in the dark, 6:00 AM, very early, skateboarding, thinking, what in the world am I doing? I’m in my 40s, I’m outside skateboarding when people are either in bed or doing other things in the morning. I just felt so alone. I felt so, what am I doing? And I realized that the reason that I was doing that is because I set goals for myself. We’re going to talk about that today. First off, I just want to ask you, is your culture broken? Is your culture broken? Then let’s fix it together using your creative power. Visit adamlerosenfeld.com and make sure you subscribe so you never miss any of my podcast, posts, or webinars. I’m here to help you get unstuck to use the creative power you have to make a change in the culture that you find yourself in. All right. So if you feel you’re alone, that’s probably a good indicator that you’re doing something right. If you feel that you’re doing something and no one gets you, no one understands who you are, what’s wrong with you, what’s your deal, that usually can be an indicator that you’re actually in the right place with a big if, if you’re aligned with truth.
So we’re going to talk about that. I have this picture in my mind, that’s such a vivid picture in my mind, that really helped me understand what it’s like to feel alone and doing something that’s unique. And there’s a movie, I am not recommending this movie for content reasons or whatever. But if you’re familiar with the movie Apocalypse Now, this a depiction of the Vietnam War, there’s a very famous scene where Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore sends his troops out to battle. But this grizzled military leader has within the soldiers under his command some pro-surfers. So what he does is he goes out to battle, but he takes his pro-surfers aside. He says, Listen, the place we’re going to battle has excellent waves for surfing. So we’re going to go, we’re going to fight, but you go surfing. And in that same tone of voice, the gruff tone of voice of a military commander, he commands his soldiers to go to war, to go to battle. And in that same voice, he commands the pro-surfers to go surfing. And so you get this strange image of these guys surfing during a war. There’s things blowing up around them.
There’s napalm. It’s quite a harsh picture. But that image came to mind when I was skateboarding at 6:00 in the morning, trying to get something done, trying to achieve a goal. It was dark. I was alone. I could hardly see what I was doing. I felt that I was at such a low level. And I was thinking, is this even worth it? And then I realized that if you feel like you’re those surfers in Apocalypse Now, what am I trying to do? I’m surfing during a war. You might be on the right track. And I’ll tell you more about that. But I also was brought to thinking about the prophets in the Bible, and they were called to do some bizarre things. You remember, if you know from, I mean, the call in Isaiah 20 for Isaiah to walk naked and barefoot, I am not pointing at anything obscene here. I don’t know what the circumstance as exactly were. But that was the thing. He was walking naked and barefoot. He was specifically different from others. Others were not, as a whole, as a majority, walking naked and barefoot, but Isaiah was naked and barefoot.
Or Where in Ezequiel 4, Ezequiel was lying on his side for longer than a year. And what a strange picture. And it makes you think, what was the strangest thing? Ask yourself, what was the strangest thing that you have felt called to do? What have you been called to do. And I felt that skateboarding at 6:00 AM, it’s definitely nowhere on the level of the profits. But skateboarding at 6:00 AM felt strange to me. And I felt, what am I trying to do? And I’ll tell you in a moment how that helped me out. But I want to ask you, how do you know you’re feeling alone, you’re trying to make something happen? How do you know if you’re on the right track? And I want to be clear that many have been on the wrong side of this. Many people have felt like I alone know what needs to be done. And they went out and did things and things that weren’t the right thing to do. They were alone and they were wrong. So how can you be alone, that you’re feeling alone, but also feel affirmed that you’re on the right track?
And the only way that I can… The only thing that I can think of, and what helps me in life, is to have a rhythm of reflection, a rhythm that helps you A rhythm of reflection. A rhythm that helps you… A rhythm of reflection. A rhythm that allows you to look at your life and look at the things that you want to achieve in life. And I find this intertwined in my relationship with God. I am able to petition a God, the Lord, the person in control. I’m able to petition him with my desires and my goals. And it makes you think of something that the psychologist Jordan Peterson said. He said, Align yourself with the heavens and then begin your day. So If I have a goal that involves skateboarding at 6:00 AM, it was born out of a place of me reflecting, spending time with God, out of a rhythm of spending time with God, out of a rhythm of reflecting on my life, out of a rhythm of aligning myself with the heavens. So you may have goals. They may be physical goals, they may be spiritual goals, they may be business goals, family goals.
My skateboarding goal began It began as a physical goal. I wanted to develop my body through the pursuit of skateboarding, and it morphed into a social goal. I realized that if I’m going to be alone doing this, I’m going to be miserable. And so it led me to build social relationships in the skateboarding world that have really been a benefit to me. So my goal actually changed on the way. It began as a physical goal, and it changed into a social goal. And I was able to understand that through my times of reflection, reflecting on my life and bringing my life before God. But if you’re pursuing a goal and you feel alone, you might just be in the absolute right place for you. That could be a good indicator that you’re in the right place. So I just want to remind you, if you feel like your culture is broken, I’m here for you. I want to talk with you about unleashing your creative power on this world and helping you get unstuck. Visit adamlerosenfeld.com and make sure you subscribe with your email address so you never miss any podcast or post or webinar, or any way that I’m here to help you.
Thanks Have a great day.
July 29, 2024