Ever gone on a long road trip? I've done a couple from San Francisco to LA. On long trips it's funny how the time between leaving San Francisco and the first couple of towns goes by in a flash. On any other day, heading down south from San Francisco to a meeting in a place like Palo Alto feels like the great trek. Distance is all relative. The same can be applied to learning a new skill, starting a new career, building a business, friendships or moving to a new city.

Seeing something as part of a grander plan makes me more patient and gets me out of the rush rush 'I need it all now' mindset. Change the scale and be patient. Life is a road trip not a day trip.

A good mantra for any day:

The universe is beautiful and just and perfect

Don’t be afraid to trust your gut. If something doesn’t feel right then pause and listen. I’ve made some of my biggest personal and professional relationship mistakes when I’ve tuned out my gut and intellectualized or rationalized the feeling that was telling me it wasn’t a fit or there was trouble on the horizon if I worked with the person. As I’ve become more secure and self confident I’ve learned to listen and muster up the courage to act when I get that feeling.

The feeling is primal and it’s the reason I’m here today. If my ancestors had ignored those feelings it could have meant death. Animals in the wild survive by tuning in to weather patterns, sounds smells, vibrations and unseen energy…they have a finely tuned sense for signal. When the tsunamis struck Indonesia in 2004, the animals were seeking higher ground long before the humans were. That’s because we’ve tuned out our primal senses that have kept us alive for thousands of years.

Don’t over intellectualize. Have the self confidence to trust your gut. That feeling got your genes this far and it’ll keep you in the game if align you with it.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Just look at an abandoned building. Within a couple of months puddles of standing water start to form on empty concrete floor plates, mold grows on the walls, grass grows through the cracks in the sidewalk, window panes break and birds start to roost in the rafters.

When you stand still in life, nature finds a way to attach, draw you in and grow around you like a bougainvillea. It’s software is programmed that way. You sign a lease, you sign a cell phone contract, you make friends, your kids go to school etc. Nature’s software starts to operate.

Don’t be surprised if after a while you look down and realize you’ve planted in some random spot and are attached to all of life’s usual attachments.

If you are going nowhere then you’ll go nowhere fast.

When I’m visiting a new place everything I experience is in stereo and multi-color. It’s like I’m tasting a new food for the first time. Everyday mundane things like hosing down a sidewalk, the noise of morning traffic and the evening light reflecting off buildings are a sensory delight in a new city.

New York always does this to me. As I step out onto the sidewalk – I catch myself looking up at the buildings and looking down the long alleys. Locals are looking down at their phones as they wait for a train to arrive while I’m standing next to them noticing the smell of the subway and whoosh of warm air hitting my face as the train arrives. It’s delicious.

Back home, the downside of daily rituals is that I zone out the brilliance of everyday living. When I catch myself and wake up, I notice the joys of morning coffee, the fog rolling into San Francisco Bay, the smell of Eucalyptus or the hilly topography of San Francisco where every intersection has a new view.

Appreciating everyday routines increases my joy and makes the normal new.

“Look to this day:
For it is life, the very life of life.”

– Kalidasa