Make Yourself Obsolete

We all want to feel important and needed, but are we really?

For every profession I look at, I find myself wondering how necessary it really is.

Many of us are not truly working from the deepest, most serious part of our hearts.

Instead, we see it as just a job, just a way to make some money, just a temporary station on the way to something better.

Ask yourself, when something goes wrong with your work, do you care about this deeply? And if you do, is it because you truly care, or just because you worry that others will think less of you? Be honest and sincere here with your thoughts. I am asking you to reflect on these questions, not to feel the need to get defensive.

A few months ago, I spoke with someone in the Education field interested in developing a better curriculum for her students. I told her that she would succeed when the student no longer needed the teacher.

I felt that this was not what she was expecting to hear.

I advised her to make her job unnecessary.

Why would I do that?

I’m not sure it’s a success when students graduate to need another teacher, and another, and another. I’ve often heard that students decided to pursue the next level, whether it’s to a bachelor’s degree, master’s, or even a Ph.D. because they didn’t know what else to do.

Is that worthy? Is that success? Or is it futility?

On the one hand, ongoing learning is honorable. On the other, we keep learning more and more stuff and not having much to show for it.

Is it the contents in our minds that are valuable, or the power we have to make something happen in the real world? Many of us have been led astray or forgotten which of these actually mattered.

No one wants to hear that their job should be made obsolete. No one wants to think that success is in finding a way to make your job unnecessary.

We want to hear that we are essential, that society needs us, that society would crumble without our involvement. But that simply is not the case.

We need doctors so badly, you may say. Sure, but isn’t that because we have neglected our health, to the point that we have outsourced its care rather than taken responsibility for it?

The most common “solutions” offered are medicines, which to some degree, act as poisons with their side effects.

We need teachers so badly, you may say. Sure, but isn’t that because we never taught students to think from the beginning? We led them to become reliant on digesting specific curriculums and memorizing them, only to forget most of it anyway. And the material they remembered would become obsolete in a few years.

The most common “solutions” offered are more degrees and more courses, often with no clear path toward careers. And for the ones that lead to careers, there is no guarantee that such careers will still exist in a few years.

When the “solutions” keep us reliant on needing more and more “solutions” from the same place, are they truly solutions?

I have no problem with doctors or teachers. I have merely used these as examples. I could have used any other profession.

For any career I can think of, the motivation of that job is to keep you locked in. There is never a true solution to any problem. It’s just a treadmill that keeps you running but staying in place at the end of the day.

Whether conscious and done purposely or not, it seems to be a consistent theme across most jobs. The client becomes an eternal source of revenue – always needing to come back for something more.

We never arrive at some desirable end point. There is just this empty feeling of needing more.

I don’t expect anyone to take today’s lesson seriously. I expect you to read this and continue about your job the same way you always have, and I can’t blame you for that either.

You are one piece of a much larger system. If you talk to your boss tomorrow and tell him: “I realized we’re just running our clients in circles here, and I think I know a way to get their problems fully resolved, so they never have to come back,” you’ll probably get fired on the spot.

There is no profit in true solutions.

We fear becoming obsolete the most, but perhaps it was what we needed all along.

Somewhere, in the Amazon rainforest, there was probably a panacea (cure-all) plant that would have cured everything. And it doesn’t matter because it would have made no profit for anyone. The only profit would have been to destroy the plant to avoid competitors, make it into a patentable drug, and then sell it at a high price.

This is where we are.

We are more interested in making people need us rather than truly offering something worthy. The most worthy thing to offer would be that which would make us no longer relevant or needed.

No one wants to hear this.

I don’t even want to say it because I know no one wants to hear it.

No one will hire me to give presentations at a Fortune 500 Company to tell them that they should make themselves obsolete. They would laugh at the idea that they should look for ways to dismantle their job positions and the company they work for.

Instead, they are focused on growth.

But the more a company grows, the more it shows they haven’t solved anything. They have learned to make others reliant on them, is all.

But if [Insert famous product here] is so great, why do we need more of it? Why does it never satisfy us? Why do I need to keep buying it or keep doing it to get that feeling?

Mind you, this is a feeling which is fleeting and illusory anyway.

If it were truly the best product, I think I could buy it once, and I would never need it again.

Those products don’t exist, of course. The products and services we have are the ones that keep us chasing our tails, coming back for more, like strung-out addicts.

The “solutions” we have are those that work for a few minutes, maybe an hour, maybe even a day, but not much more. In a recent post, I said: “The problem with solutions is that they are all temporary fixes. No problem has ever been permanently fixed.”

Our whole lives, nothing ever worked, but we think: “Maybe this new product or service will do the trick.”

I hope my books and Thoughts help someone somewhere, but I don’t want anyone to feel like they need me, my books, or my Thoughts.

My goal is not to keep you on the line, needing more.

Some of the “best” writers out there are actually the worst. If I read someone’s blog post, and it’s so great, why would I feel the need to read all their books and posts? If they were so great, I wouldn’t need to. If they were that good, I could read an article or two, get the message I needed, and never return to them again.

But that is exceedingly rare.

These days, I am writing everything I feel the need to so that it wouldn’t matter if I were to die. Even if I die, you can still access all that I thought was ever worth saying.

There isn’t this sense of “I must write 100 books or 1,000 articles.” That is irrelevant. The point is, did I say everything I needed to say, to the point that if lightning struck me dead one of these days, it wouldn’t matter?

Did I make myself obsolete? If so, then that was a success in my book.

Again: I don’t need you to need me. If you can click away from this site, and never return and be better for it, then I have succeeded.

Here is a quick example of how making oneself obsolete can lead to success:

A friend of mine had a Master or Guide in his life. He provided direction and words of wisdom regularly. One day, that Master decided to move on. My friend had often received good counsel and friendship and was saddened by his departure. But after this, my friend grew immeasurably. He started to realize that he did not need that Master at all. Rather than following or abiding by the lessons taught, he was paving his own way. In being left Masterless, he was now finding the Master within.

The Master, Guide, Parent, or Teacher who can leave and make you something better for it is the truly worthy one. Don’t misunderstand me to condone abandoning anyone. Only you can decide the point where it is better to walk away, or give space, or leave and never come back. But know whether you do this selfishly or selflessly.

Make yourself obsolete. Make it so that even if you vanished, the world would somehow become better for it.

We risk being made (or revealed to be) obsolete by the natural order of things every day. We might as well do it ourselves.

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Today’s post may be a heavy dose of Truth for some of us. If you would like to dig deeper into Your Life’s Truth, you may wish to read a book I just published, Your Personal Truth: A Journey to Discover Your Truth, Become Your True Self, & Live Your Truth.

You can read the book on Amazon and other major retailers.

The Unknowing Teacher

Today’s post is an excerpt from my book, 7 Thoughts to Live Your Life By: A Guide to the Happy, Peaceful, & Meaningful Life.

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The Unknowing Teacher is something that many of us have in our lives and fail to be grateful for. This is someone who teaches you but without meaning to. Usually, this person isn’t a teacher by profession, and they are not teaching you specific lessons on purpose. Instead, they teach you based on the poor decisions that they have made in their lives, and you are the one who gets to see the results of those choices.

When we see people who have made poor choices in their lives, we can see why they now have a bad situation in life. They retired too young, and now they are broke; they ignored their children, and now those children have grown to become criminals; they took everything personally, and now they are perpetually unhappy; they drank every weekend instead of pursuing their dreams, and now their life is filled with regret.

The unknowing teacher teaches us a lot about what we should not do, how we should not live, and what to avoid in our lives. Such a person is a great resource to have and to witness because sometimes we need a reminder of where the bad paths in life will lead us. Be grateful for these people when you see them and learn from their example.

If someone very close to you is an unknowing teacher – perhaps a parent or a sibling, do not feel sorry for yourself. Simply through your everyday exposure to such a person, you will be able to immunize yourself from leading the same type of life. You will see all the bad behaviors that lead to negative outcomes and learn that this is not the life for you.

Remember this: Heed the lessons of the unknowing teacher carefully, or risk becoming one yourself.

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7 Thoughts to Live Your Life By is available on Amazon, Google Play, Apple, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble, and other retailers.

What Are You Thankful For?

I’m thankful to have had so much love and support from family and friends.

I was born into the right family for me, and I truly could not ask for anything more from them. My parents did everything they could to raise me well, and the rest has been up to me from there. I am always thankful for all the opportunities I was granted through them. Growing up, my mother made sure that my brother and I were always well cared for, and my father always encouraged us to push ourselves further.

I think a big part of what I am now grateful for is the belief that my parents always had in us (my brother and I). Of course, more than just belief, my parents actually followed through to help us make that belief into a reality. This is what truly made the difference.

Something memorable to me is that from around 8 years old, it was understood in my home that I would go to college. What that meant to me is that my parents believed in my abilities. Before I had a strong enough inner drive to know what I believed in, my parents believed in me. I wish everyone could have this. Before we can have our own Thoughts as children, we probably adopt our parents’ thoughts. So, it certainly helps if they have good thoughts worth having.

Through my career and sometimes through happenstance, I have connected with so many great people through the years. Some of the people with who I have built friendships with in the past years would be Arthur von Boennighausen (research engineer / real estate developer), Michal Stawicki (author of many self-improvement books), Dave Edelstein (co-author of Question Yourself), and Bob Rich (clinical psychologist). I have met many, many more who I am also happy to hear from, but these are the ones that I tend to stay in communications with regularly. I am thankful for these connections.

Of course, I am thankful for my wife and the extended family I have now, thanks to her. My wife and I see and support each other every day, and I’m grateful for this.

I’m thankful to have all my needs met every day

I know many people in the world are struggling, and I feel fortunate every day that I have not had to worry about having any of my needs met. My whole life has been a privilege, and I aim to give something back to society to help compensate for all that I have been given. A key way that I am doing that is through this blog.

To meet my needs, I must focus on some of the key fundamentals – such as eating well, meditating, exercising, and being spiritually centered. At this point, I’m grateful to have the time and energy to focus on this.

I’ll be honest and say it is quite easy to forget about all the needs you have every day when you actually have them every day. It’s easy to take for granted: clean water, healthy food, a dishwasher, a laundry machine, a clean space of your own to live, helpful friends and family, warm clothes, etc. It’s very easy to forget that these needs are not a given. It can take determination, hard work, and often even luck to get them. I make an effort to be conscious of this and be thankful every day.

I’m thankful for my career.

When I began my career, I was very doubtful about my abilities. I wasn’t sure which direction I was going in. I wasn’t sure if I could make a living doing this. Now, I am doing it. I am earning a living with my writing career, which is all I ever hoped to achieve. I get contacted monthly with new business opportunities, and it makes me smile. I am already at the point I had hoped to reach. I have found my rhythm.

Now, of course, I have new ambitions. I want to grow this blog. I want to produce more audiobooks. I want to have my books translated into more languages (my usual ones are English, Spanish, and Portuguese).

Speaking of translations, I would like to give a special thanks to my mother, who translates my books into Spanish. She works hard and does an excellent job. My books in Spanish are widely read, and I have to give her credit for this. I have published many books, and more often than not, she is working on translating one of them. I’m honored and grateful that she has been happy to help with this.

Even though I have reached the point I wanted to reach, there are always new goals for me to strive for. Luckily I have been enjoying the journey, the work, and seeing where it takes me. I’m thankful for all this.

In the end, I have to remember that my career is mostly about helping my readers. I’m thankful to be able to help so many people, truly.

To you, yes you, the person reading this now, thank you for reading!

This career is just beginning – I look forward to evolving and growing along with you. I hope you stay along for the ride.

I am thankful for my teachers

I’m thankful for all the teachers I ever had. Of course, a few stand out above the rest, as I think they went above and beyond what was truly necessary.

Mr. Strombeck, in the 5th grade, taught me many life lessons that made an impact on my life. He was a very strict teacher, and I dreaded the class when I was there, but many years later, I realized that he was doing his best to prepare us for real life. It wasn’t just another class.

Mr. Gerhold, in the 9th grade, helped me learn algebra by volunteering to tutor me in the early mornings, even though I was struggling and thought I was going to fail the class. He spent a couple of months working with me so that I could understand. With his help, I ended up doing very well in the class. I still remember what he taught me, even though my field does not involve algebra. While I don’t use algebra in my daily life, this class was critical to do well in geometry, trigonometry, and then calculus. If you don’t understand algebra, you can quickly get left behind.

Mrs. Short, in the 11th grade, was a ruthlessly difficult chemistry teacher. If you wrote out an answer and had it 90% correct, you still got it wrong in her class. Oh, and I shouldn’t forget to mention that she was (in)famous for assigning 2-3 hours of homework per night. Yet when I made it to college chemistry (for majors, meaning they made the class extra difficult), I was glad that my high school class had been so difficult. In college, my classmates were dropping like flies. Week after week, the chairs emptied as students dropped, transferred to an easier class, failed, etc. I made it to the end with an A, thanks to the fact that Mrs. Short never took it easy on us.

I am thankful for all the medical staff

In these difficult times, we can’t forget to be thankful for the medical staff (e.g., nurses, doctors, paramedics, psychologists, etc.) working hard every day to help save lives. I can’t pretend to know what they’ve been going through. I am sure the job can be quite grueling, but they are doing it. Whatever they are paid, it isn’t enough. These are true heroes, and we should all be thankful for the job that they do.

Remember that even if you have not needed any medical care this year, someone that you love may have. The important thing is that if you ever do need it, they will be there for you.

I will leave you with a question: What are you thankful for?

Finding the Courage to Challenge Yourself

Allow me to take you back to my middle school years (7th and 8th grades). One day toward the end of the year, teachers began handing out this piece of paper with a checkmark on it. On this paper, they decided whether we would take remedial, regular, honors, or advanced classes in high school.

In English class, the teacher checked off that I should take honors level English classes. Great, no problem.

In Science, the teacher checked off that I should take regular level, science classes. I would admit that I had not performed as well as I should have in 8th-grade science. I hadn’t taken it as seriously as I should have. While I often had a B grade, I was probably only performing about average for the class. After class, I spoke with the teacher, and I told her that I thought I could perform well at the honors level. I wasn’t sure if she was truly convinced, but she went ahead and decided to recommend me for the honors level.  Great.

The last class of the day was Algebra. At the beginning of the class, the teacher handed us our sheets of paper. I was shocked at what I saw. I had to read it over and over until it sank in.

The teacher had checked off that I should take pre-algebra in high school. This was quite a surprise because I had already taken pre-algebra in 7th grade, and I was currently in an algebra class. My grades in algebra were around the B+ level, and I was in the top 30% of the class.

I couldn’t focus on the class anymore at that point. I was sweating profusely. I felt mad at first, but then I felt embarrassed. I figured I had been in the class a full year. If the teacher recommended me for pre-algebra, then I guess this was his professional opinion. I had been hoping to take honors algebra, but that seemed quite unlikely now.

In my mind, I started to come up with reasons as to how the teacher could justify recommending me for pre-algebra. Sometimes I had filled out my homework assignments recklessly, not showing my work properly. My exam scores were decent – so I decided the homework must have been the problem. Or maybe I had done something to offend the teacher personally, and I just never realized it. My mind raced, making up possible reasons to explain how my entire future could be derailed by this.

Whether true or not, I felt that if I took pre-algebra in high school, then my college applications would seem laughable. My credentials would not be competitive enough to get into a good school. Of course, on top of this, I was insulted. The teacher was recommending that I go back to a lower level rather than move forward.

The class was almost over already, and I had gone through all this sweating, a spectrum of emotions, self-doubt, and even self-pity. I was so ashamed at the teacher’s recommendation that I had tucked the sheet of paper in my notebook, not wanting anyone to see it.

The class ended, and students were getting up to leave.

It crossed my mind that I should talk to the teacher, but I was a sweating, nervous mess by that point. I didn’t feel like I could talk to him – I didn’t know what I would even say.

Nonetheless, I needed to know why he was doing this to me. At the last moment, I went up to him with the sheet of paper with his recommendation on it.

In the most deflated way, I mumbled:

“Mr. S, I just wanted you to know that I was actually hoping to take honors algebra next year in high school.”

He glanced down at the sheet of paper I was holding with his recommendation.

“Oh my!” he said, realizing that he had checked off pre-algebra.

“That’s not right at all. Of course, you’ve been doing well enough in the class that I think you should handle honors algebra just fine.”

He crossed out his old recommendation and checked off honors algebra.

It was just a mistake, that was all.

This is a really old story if I’m going way back to middle school. It’s not because I have no other stories for you about courage. But it’s because, at that point in my life, it took a lot for me to talk to an adult directly. As a child, I avoided talking to adults whenever I could. It felt intimidating, and usually, I imagined that they would get whatever they wanted in the end. There was no point in getting into an argument with an adult.

What is interesting to me now is that this took not only courage but that I was actually using my courage to ask to be challenged. I was essentially telling my teachers that I didn’t want an easy ride in high school. I wanted them to push me further. Of course, I wanted to be competitive for college, but I also wanted the intellectual challenge for myself.

I never viewed myself as someone with much courage, but things get interesting when you want something badly enough. When you want it, you become willing to speak up and ask for it.

I see many of us moving away from the challenges, being quite happy to have things easy. We tend to feel better about ourselves when we are performing well in easy situations, but it’s important to push yourself harder, perhaps even to your limits at times. When you push yourself harder and harder, you may find that you are capable of much more than you thought.

The true lesson for me here has been the power of believing in ourselves. Although I struggled to believe in myself, and I almost didn’t say anything to my math teacher, ultimately, I had enough belief in my abilities where I felt the need to speak up.

We shouldn’t just be a leaf in the wind, being pushed this way and that by the forces around us. Rather, we should have some input into where our lives go. When we take our life into our own hands, we learn that what we do matters. Our actions can lead us toward something better or away from it. But if we don’t have the courage to live by our own will, then we may never learn that lesson.

Find the courage in yourself to strive for that challenge so that you may become something better. If you are not being pushed or challenged enough, then ask for it. You do not always need rewards to go along with it. The challenge is worth it for its own sake, to have the chance to grow beyond what you thought you could.

Often our true potential is much, much higher than we think it is. When we find the courage to challenge ourselves, we will begin to take steps that can ultimately lead us to greatness.