The Graffiti Machine

How to you treat the mundane tasks in your life? It's often easy to half-ass the basic tasks that seem meaningless, but how does that look to those around you? How does it look to your own subconscious? There are lots of phrases that talk about this kind of thing. How you do one thing is how you do everything comes to mind. If we half-ass one thing because we think it isn't important, we're probably coming up short in other areas. Life is full of mundane tasks. Doing them well raises our standards and influences all aspects of life.

Something I've been trying to change about my mindset is when I hear about someone else's success when it's greater than what I've accomplished, I often allow that to make me feel bad about my own success. On the flip side, when I hear about someone failing, I often feel better about my situation. Both of these feel wrong and unproductive. If I'm not happy to see other people winning, am I programming my subconscious mind to think I don't like winning? Some people feel that this can have a reverse effect on the law of attraction. By being unhappy about other people winning, it is said that you're potentially manifesting losing for yourself. I'm not 100% sure what I believe in this regard, but one thing I do know is, when I'm happy to see other people win, it's a much nicer feeling.

On my way to the shop yesterday, I was thinking about the 'good old days'. It was sparked when I did a style of graffiti that I hadn't done in close to 30 years. The 70+ comments on the piece on Instagram got me thinking about things like nostalgia and hanging onto the past. Then a famous and profound quote came to mind: "I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve left them”. This was from the American version of the TV show The Office. The way I see it is, there are a couple ways to look at things like this. We can look back on those days and wish we could be back there. Or, we can realize we're actually in the 'good old days' right now and we always are. No matter what we're dealing with currently, there may come a time where we look back on this time with the same nostalgia. Not only that, but we have the control to make the time we're living in now something memorable.

I wanted to share a quote from the book Thick Face Black Heart on page 141. This chapter talks about if we had the ability to remove all negative experiences from our lives, it would not make us stress free or happy. "The absence of negative experiences in our life does not alone contribute to the quality of our life. As humans we need challenges in order to develop fully and bring forth all the positive aspects within ourselves. The only way to feel truly happy is by confronting these challenges and overcoming them." I find things like this helpful when times get tough. It's those times that create the most growth.

Something I need to remind myself of regularly is that the time is going to pass one way or the other. What I mean by this is, the timeline is ticking away whether or not we do what we need to do. For example, if we want to get in better shape, start a business, scale a business, learn a skill, etc., and we put it off, that time is going to pass. Say a decision was made to accomplish a goal, then three months later, we haven't even started. How far along would we be in that three months? Years can go by with us saying "I should get going on that" and we haven't moved the needle at all. Once the time has passed, I would much rather look back and be further along. The hard part is convincing my procrastinating brain of this at the time. “One inch of movement will take you way closer than a mile of intention.” — David JP Phillips "Learn to execute even if you don’t feel like it." — Andy Frisella

Most have probably heard the quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” or some variation of it. There's also a version of the concept in the book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People talking about sharpening the saw. Sharpening the axe or saw is about preparation and being more effective. The concept of taking time to prepare rather than just powering through with a dull tool is can be applied to pretty much any aspect of your life. I was listening to a podcast recently, the guy getting interviewed mentioned a book called How to Read a Book. This kind of got my mind racing. I use books to sharpen my axe. If I read a book about how to be better at reading books, is that another level of axe sharpening? It's like if Abraham Lincoln spent some time learning more about axe sharpening before sharpening the axe. It's got me thinking about different things this might apply to. Like Jim Kwik's book Limitless. If continuous learning is a way of sharpening your axe, this book is about how to learn better. It seems like there's always a level deeper with shit like this. The book How to Read a book is pretty cool by the way. Connect with Bus on social: INSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/bus166 TWITTER https://twitter.com/bus166msk

We all find ourselves in a rut from time to time. Whether it's an artist block, work related, fitness or whatever, sometimes we aren't feeling the motivation to get it done. The best way out of a rut I've found is to simply force yourself to start rather than waiting to be motivated. Sometimes it feels nearly impossible with motivation being so low. To effectively force momentum, a good way is to find easy tasks that get you moving. The more you get done, the more momentum you'll build. Eventually, you don't even need motivation at all. You'll be fully out of the rut and running full speed ahead. Connect with Bus on social media. Instagram @bus166 Twitter @bus166msk

Any given situation is supposed to go the way it goes. It has nothing to do with us. When we put expectations on things, it causes disappointment. Once we realize this and try to detach from the outcomes, our minds can find more peace. Doesn't mean we can't do our best to get the outcomes we want, but in the end, it isn't up to us.

I came to a realization recently that the reason my mind feels like it is in turmoil all the time is because I am not living up to my own standards. This realizations came from some weird places, so this episode goes into some seemingly off topic things like ghost stories, spiritual healing, and shit like that.

I believe in you. It may sound corny since we may not actually know each other, but it’s true. No matter where we are in life, we have the ability to improve and overcome the obstacles we face. If you search around, you can find countless examples of people bouncing back from bad decisions, came from nothing, or any number of things that would derail a life. We all have what it takes to improve. Countless people have overcome addiction, homelessness, obesity, prison sentences, and many other things. If they can do it, it’s possible.

The concept of accepting the things outside of our control is a simple, but powerful concept that I find really helpful when shit gets tough. Simple, but not easy to impliment.

If you find yourself in a situation where someone consistently breaks promises, misses appointments, or shows up late, it's natural to begin questioning the value of their word. This is a common experience that many of us have had. What's even more intriguing to think about is that if you fail to keep your own promises to yourself, your own mind may begin to perceive you in a similar light. When you repeatedly break commitments you make to yourself, it becomes easier to evade self-accountability.

Ever feel like you’re putting in the hours practicing, but not making the progress you feel you should be? I’ve definitely experienced this a lot over my life. The reason is most likely not a lack of commitment, but it lies in the way you’re practicing. I first came across the concept of “deliberate practice” from a book called 'The Talent Code'. Deliberate practice is a more purposeful approach to developing skills using focused, repetitive practice rather than simply putting in the hours. With deliberate practice, you’re hyper-focused on what you’re doing, you have a specific goal in mind, and you’re out of your comfort zone. With this level of intentionality, it helps your brain wire and strengthen transmitters faster than something like practicing casually while watching TV. I can remember back when I was trying to get better at graffiti letters in the early '90s. I spent a couple of years fiddling around with different things, but in 1993, I was given some letters by one of my mentors, Eklipse, and told to practice those letters exactly. Without knowing it, I was in a deep state of deliberate practice. I would draw those letters over and over, hyper-focused on every detail, trying to get it all right. I made more progress in two months than I had in the previous two years. This can be applied to any skill you want to get better at. Definitely something I find harder and harder to do in this era of distraction we are currently in. - Find Bus on various platforms linked here: https://bus.graffitimachine.com/

For some years now, I’ve been a student of stoic philosophy. The biggest lesson from this philosophy is to focus on what you can control rather than things you cannot. It’s often difficult to do and one can easily forget to apply this. Most of the time, all you have control over is your actions and the outcome is not within your control. Focusing on the outcome—especially when it causes stress—can really drain a lot of your energy. Energy that you could use on the part you can control which is your actions. I recently found myself doing exactly this. Focusing nearly 100% of my attention on the outcome and not on the actions required to achieve the outcome I wanted. The result was me performing below my own standards since a lot of energy was diverted. The moment I realized I was doing this and redirected my focus on the controllables, my stress levels went way down. Do you find yourself focused on the outcomes rather than the actions you need to take to achieve what you want?

It feels like we're in an age of massive distraction. We're being distracted by the media, world events, politicians, etc. Then we're distracting ourselves with social media platforms and other apps on our devices. Today, I talk about these distractions and some ways we can identify when we're being distracted and how to regain focus.

This episode gets into some concepts from Stoic philosophy about there being an order to the universe and other potentially interesting shit. Find Bus on various platforms linked here: https://bus.graffitimachine.com/

I heard that most of what we do is forgotten. A lot of the day-to-day life stuff comes and goes, and the memories are lost. Do we do something about that? Do we try to create more memorable experiences, or does the fact that a lot of stuff is forgotten make the things you do remember that much more impactful?

I was thinking about how many little tasks come up that could be easiy taken care of, but I put them off. Those things occupy space in my mind. It would be ideal to just knock those things out so they're out of my head, but they often get put off. They're often small things, but they build up. It's got me wondering what negative effects might be happeing by letting these things build up.

When we set big goals for ourselves, they can often feel impossible. One thing that can help put things into perspective is to look at some of the amazing things that have been accomplished by other people. Seeing these great achievements might help put your own goals into perspective. For me, I had an "If they can do that, I can definitely accomplish this" kind of moment. This episode breaks down some concepts about overcoming limiting beliefs.

For episode 100, I wanted to bring back a full conversation that Kub and I had. This episode was a the one that really set what we're doing in motion. I wish he was here in person for this, but we have a mission and we will just keep pushing forward. — Bus