SSC, the 3 instruments to build your amazing and unique life symphony!

Photo by Janine Robinson on Unsplash

In this article, we will explore 3 simple yet efficient ways to approach our life to make it the sweeter music to our ears.

But first, let me tell you a story that happened lately.

Him: What should I do next?

Me: I don’t know. I cannot decide.

Him: Now is the time, Sir. After it will be too late.

Me: Yes I know. It is just that my mind is not clear.

Him: But Sir, it is a simple “Yes” or “No” question.

Me: Well, maybe for you. For me, it is a life-changing decision.

Him: Do you want to sit down a little bit, and think about it?

Me: Yes, but not here. Do you have a quiet place where I can go?

Him: We have a bathroom if you want. This is the only private place in the store.

Me: Ok, thank you. I will be back in 10 minutes.

Him: Take your time, Sir. The car is not going anywhere….

30 minutes later…

Me, coming back from the bathroom: I still did not make my mind.

Him: But Sir, we are in a toy store. I am sure that your godson will be ok with whatever car you choose.

Me: Yes, you are maybe right. But I don’t know which color he prefers.

Him: Red or green, I am sure that he will still take more time to unwrap it than to play with it.

Me: Ok, let me call my wife. She is better than me for this kind of stuff.

5 minutes later…

Me: I will take the red one.

Him: Why red, Sir?

Me: Because, as my wife reminded me, my godson is color-blind.

Information overload, Blue Screen of Death (BSoD), inability to make simple decisions, we all have been there.

As our brain is bombarded with ads, an unlimited amount of breakfast cereals, notifications on our smartphones, relentless stream of 24/7 cable network news, we feel overwhelmed.

And naturally, our brain cut the juice to protect us. And here we are on freeze mode for a simple choice as to what car toy to choose for our godson.

And the beautiful symphony that life meant to be, becomes a torturous loud noise that makes our ears bleed to death.

What if we can reverse engineer that noise and turn it into a beautiful symphony?

This is the kind of Black magic you will learn in this article. And all it takes is just 3 simple things.

These 3 things are hiding in plain sight. The first time I met them was in my first walkman.

Do you remember Walkman?

Well if you are a millennial, I am sure you don’t.

How do I know?

Watch the video below:

My first walkman was the first piece of portable technology I had when I was 15 as a gift from one of my uncles, back in 1995.

A walkman with a cassette tape. It is the ancestor of Spotify, if Spotify was a physical object. It has only 8 songs and most importantly 4 buttons.

A stop button, a start button, and 2 buttons to skip backward and forward.

Yes, I did not have so many choices in the songs I could listen to. Yet it was a unique experience for me and a powerful one.

What can the simplicity of the Walkman teach us about life in 2021?

Well for me it is quite simple. It is something that I apply to my life when I wake up. It is something I apply to my life at the beginning of each week. It is something I apply to my life each month. It is something I apply to my life each year.

It is a simple rule of 3, 3 words carved into my mind, like the hieroglyphs in the walls of the pyramids of Egypt, more than 5 000 years ago.

If I share with you the pyramid of my mind, it has a pyramidal cornerstone with 4 faces. While sitting strongly on its main face, one word is carved on each of the 3 remaining faces:

1. Stop
2. Start
3. Continue

This is my SSC magic key unlocking the simple yet powerful symphony is my life. Like my cassette player, my cornerstone player in my mind has only those 3 buttons.

If I had access to my player before, I would not have needed my wife to decide which color of toy to choose. As it was not even relevant for the final recipient.

Let’s explore more.

1. STOP, CREATE SILENCE — We might think that we can stack so much stuff in our garage. As tie flies, we become garbage collectors as we hit on Amazon prime. Yet as there is a physical limitation on how much stuff we can squeeze in our garage, the same applies to our mind.

We cannot please everybody and ourselves at the same time. We cannot even please ourselves by trying to say yes to everything that comes our way.

At some point, we have to say STOP: Stop The Overloading Process.

We have to cut all the noises from the voices in our heads to the notifications in our smartphones to the sayings of influences and self-development gurus.

We have to acknowledge our humanity and our humility. We have finite time, finite energy, finite focus, and a finite body.

A trick that has helped me hit the STOP button was defining my values and what can help me have an impact for me and others, a positive one.

We have to say STOP to old habits to make room for new ones.

2. START, CREATE A SYMPHONY — Once we have made some room in our mind, once we have set our mind to the tune of the universe, we are ready to start new things.

We have to say no to many good things to get the opportunity to say yes to that one great thing.

Starting can be very challenging. We are afraid of the void, the blank page before us. Because most of our life, that void has been filled for us by others.

Now it is up to us to start. START of the Smart Technique of Action and Results over Time.

Yes, all the things that have been accomplished today were started by someone, at some point. As said by Nike, “Just Do it!”

I started reading more, learning more because I stopped wasting so much time on Facebook or binge-watching all the TV shows suggested by my friends.

We must start just because we can and not because we are given the permission to. We must start because of the journey, no matter the destination.

We have to start small. But most of all, we must start.

3. CONTINUE, CREATE A CONTINUUM — There are things we do in our life that we can continue doing.

Once we have stopped doing things that are not aligned with our values, once we have started new things, we can still continue doing some things we used to.

STOP does not mean stopping everything we do, everything we are. It sometimes means stopping some things to give more voice to other things already within us.

Now those buried things can have more room to express themselves. We have just to make sure that they contribute to our values and to the journey we set to take in our life.

Continuum or CONTINUe the momentUM is a way of building on our strengths and using them to serve us in achieving more meaning and fewer material things, maybe.

I continue using some social media platforms like LinkedIn or Medium because I believe that they will serve my purpose of having a meaningful contribution to my life and to others.

We must keep the momentum in the continuity of our humanity.

By using the STOP, START, and CONTINUE framework, we are taking back the narrative of our life.

We make sure that we are not overloaded by stopping what is not contributing to our life in a meaningful way.

We make sure that we are growing by starting new things or habits that will lead us to uncharted territories.

We make sure that we continue doing things that have their say on how we want our life to be in the near future.

Each of those 3 instruments is the building block of a pyramid of beautiful music. They are the magic notes that compose the symphony of your life.

Welcome to your walk of human life!

PRESS PLAY!

What is the one thing you are willing to stop doing this year?

What is one new thing you are willing to start right now?

And that one thing you will continue doing this year?

Leave a comment below.

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You can read my previous article on A letter to NEO, my 2 sons. They might HIRE you. You must FIRE yourself. (Friendly link)

Photo by Janine Robinson on Unsplash