I feel I need to make a post about this. Tell a story. Make it poignant. But it’s really all I want to say:

Get. Keep. Grow.

It’s really hard to do those three things. It’s three different skills. Like with money. Getting it. Keeping it. Growing it.

I’ve succeeded and failed at all three. Repeatedly.

If you recognize these are three different skills and focus on each separately, then you can stop reading this post now.

Because the rest of this post is completely different. Because I’ve been doing it 100% wrong.

Why do you want to “get”?

Answer that many people give: “So I can feed my family.” “So I can pursue my dreams.”

Why do you want to “keep”? Because it’s really depressing to get and then lose.

“Why do you want to grow?” So that my children and their children will know I once lived.

I have made so many mistakes. Everyone seems so smart and successful and confident. How can I be in the same room as them? As you.

Because I know the one secret to “Get. Keep. Grow.”

Here it is:

Reverse it…

Grow your dreams first.

Keep your dreams when everyone wants to take them.

Get the well-being you deserved all along.

GROW

It took 13 billion years of creation to create You. So why slow it down.

Calm. Curiosity. Creativity. Competence.

This is what grows.

This comes first.

People think this comes last because nobody told them. Nobody told me. People die not knowing this.

KEEP

When I made some money I thought, “Phew! That was hard! Now I don’t have to do any of that hard stuff anymore.”

So I gambled. So I bought things. So I wanted everyone to think I was great.

Because of my insecurity I tried to act like a “big guy”. Someone who knew something about something.

So I lost it.

The most valuable rule of “keep” is to “give”. To not stop growing. Only by giving, do you make room to keep growing.

And if you can’t keep, then you grew the wrong dreams. Don’t be afraid to grow the right dreams.

Then you are allowed to keep.

GET

Almost all of our goals are man-made. We’re told, “Get an education.” “Get money”. “Get an award.”

But the only real thing to get is “Death”.

Here’s how you get a good death.

You grow from that first memory. You give, you create, you stay healthy, you inspire people around you.

Then you get to keep the byproducts: money, learning, creativity, art, giving, success.

Once you start growing, you begin to learn to start keeping.

And everything around you will start growing because of you. You are the water. They are the seeds.

Then when you “GET” a good death, you finally added to everything else.

GROW. KEEP. GET.

I used to be embarrassed when I wrote something personal.

Here’s what I learned: nothing is personal. We’ve all been there.

We’ve all been on the floor. We all wear masks that we gradually uncover. We all cried when she or he left us. We all cried when we were so scared of what would come next.

We’re all shy to ask the important questions. “Maybe someone will think I’m stupid.”

We’re all scared of the things that can happen to us on the “road to GET”.

But really all we have to do this moment is GROW. Then KEEP that growth.

Then everything else we will GET. There is no way to stop it.

You know what post I’m most afraid to hit publish on? The one where I’m scared, “what will people think of me?”

Not the one where I go blackout drunk in the middle of the street and pass out and lose all of my money and then go out of business and get divorced and lose my home and then tell you how I came back.

This one.

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