Live 1,000 Years
Have you ever had a week that felt like a year? Not in the tiring, grinding way, but one that's packed with lessons and insights.
I go through a new blank Traveler’s Notebook insert every 3-4 months. I mentioned in The Power of Journaling that my last insert was full of to-do’s and 2-week sprint maps, which is reflective of my focus on launching Mind Map Nation and participation in the LinkedIn Creators Accelerator . It’s plain, but effective in getting me through high productivity periods.
This new notebook, however, is full of introspections. The maps are more fluid, complex and aesthetic. They don’t follow a particular pattern or template because they are branching into unexplored areas.
One of the deep dives into my craving and aversion triggers - one of the insights was that I have a deep fear of judgement, both positive and negative.
They visually show that I’m undergoing a new period of creativity and growth. One that might rival the 8-month sabbatical I took from content creation from mid 2020 to early 2021, during which I traveled, rediscovered the value of genuine relationships, and reclaimed the pen to my personal stories. It allowed me to shape my own identity and destiny in a way previous growth periods have not.
This past week alone felt like a year’s worth of experiences. I took a few hours on Monday to capture and reflect on it. I knew that I needed to slow down and aside a few hours to capture the learnings. After all, are we truly living if we just let our lives blur by and forget its highlights and the wisdom and feelings they impart upon us?
I once again turned to my trusty Mind Maps - mainly because writing everything out would've taken an entire notebook.
How to Capture Your Week
Capturing the week's contents would've taken a whole notebook, but only 2 pages in a mind map. The drawing is of a book with pages (some are emerging while others are bearing fruit) coming out of its spine to symbolize rapid growth in multiple areas of my life. The pages are anchored by a solid spine of trust in my relationships, especially with Olivia, nourished by an underground well of intentionality.
Here’s how I mapped my week:
1) Begin with the date range just like how I’d approach my sprint maps.
2) Expand the Dates of interest as primary nodes. Example: “Mon 11/14” or “Wed 11/16”.
3) Expand out any Events that come to mind.
4) Further expand the highlights and details associated with those Events.
5) Take out your red pen and begin annotating:
Circles for key Events
Arrows for connections
Text for meta notes
Exclamation marks for positively reinforcing desirable behaviors and identities (this is huge for our growth and subconscious self image to celebrate wins! - I will explain this in a future article)
Stars for new insights & frameworks
As always, annotations are an important part of mapping because it teases out the main insights from an otherwise messy map. Now when I refer back to this map, I can easily see how each element is connected and contributed to the formation of new lessons and frameworks.
Cornucopia of Epiphanies
Here’s a summary of key events and resulting epiphanies - the mind map’s outputs if you will. Note that each day contains enough ideas to fill a standalone article - and taken together a whole book! That’s how much information can be efficiently captured in a single mind map.
1️⃣ Sunday & Monday: The earlier the relationship, the more communication needed
I met a friend on Sunday whose experience sparked a dialogue with Olivia on Monday night that resulted in us coming up with a framework to improve our communication with each other.
2️⃣ Tuesday: Mind Map Nation is created by capable, curious, courageous people
However, because of my late night chat (note the red arrows), I was sleepy going into Tuesday morning MMN office hours with Chris Rodgers and Emannuel Fadojutimi. With my guard down, I shared a personal childhood experience that took our conversation in unexpected directions, turning it into a sort of group therapy session.
I walked away realizing that Mind Mappers are by nature complex thinkers and as Chris noted, the things we discuss during office hours aren’t necessarily about Mind Mapping itself, but the insights and conclusions we derived through the mapping and introspection process. This makes for a truly incredible community of people who are intellectually hungry and courageous to dig deep into themselves and the world.
It was an ahah! moment that boosted my faith in MMN’s value and power. Furthermore, it solidified my own emerging Community Leader identity. I added an exclamation mark (!) to celebrate this milestone and reward my subconscious self image.
3️⃣ Wednesday: Defensive and offensive strategies in personal growth
On Wednesday night, I had drinks with a friend I haven’t seen in 3 months. Our last meeting had been momentous for her, kicking off an intense string of travel and self discovery. So this meeting closed many “feedback loops” that had started during our first session.
What could've been a quick catchup turned into a 3 hour deep dive where we constructed several new strategies around compartmentalization of work toxicity while creating mental space to discover our true interests. The conversation was so rich that I made a full spread mind map the next morning to capture and honor the epiphanies.
4️⃣ Thursday: Launch of MMN 1:1 Coaching
On Thursday afternoon, I had the pleasure of meeting Bob Sands, a MMN member, for the the community's first ever 1:1 Coaching session (a perk for all active members) where we mapped out his potential transition from ministry to consulting. It was incredible learning about his work helping thousands of families through bereavement (using mind maps no less).
The magic really happened towards the end when we mapped enough of his context, goals, strengths, and processes. We were able to connect the dots and arrive at a game plan to refine his clientele “funnel”.
In the process, I gained a huge boost of confidence knowing I can bring real value to MMN members through the program! Again, I noted this and fed my new Coach identity with this positive feedback.
5️⃣ Friday: Triggers & Boundaries Framework
On Friday morning, I had my second MMN Coaching session with Catalina Peeters who’s transitioning from her long time secretarial career into unknown waters. We mapped significantly more factors because of the open ended nature of her inquiry. However, our session also successfully ended with concrete next steps on learning about her options.
That afternoon I went to Berkeley to meet another friend whose conversation about distance and intimacy gave me new insights into the connection between emotional Triggers and Boundaries.
My subsequent dinner date with Olivia solidified my learnings, turning these epiphanies into a new Trigger Framework that I formally mapped out on Saturday morning.
The gist is that we should pause when we feel triggered by something to either 1) examine its origins or 2) take intentional action (like setting boundaries or expanding our comfort zones) rather than giving into our automatic reaction.
6️⃣ Saturday: Time % Framework
On Saturday afternoon, I bumped into a friend I haven’t seen in nearly 10 years. She moved to Salt Lake City a while ago and happened to be back in town for the weekend. The first thing she noted was that Olivia and I had our laptops open on a Saturday and questioned whether this was really “quality time”.
We already knew the answer to this rhetorical question.
Her comment helped me realize that even though I’m now doing much more rewarding work than before, it’s still work and doesn’t nourish my relationship with my wife.
Olivia and I had a conversation later that day around how we’ve been great at working through our needs and challenges by being analytical and clear in our thinking, feeling, and communicating.
However, as Sadhguru, a famous yogi, said during a talk at Google , analytical thinking is good at breaking things down, but poor at stitching things together.
As a result, I noted that the emotional undertones of our time together has become increasingly adversarial and abrasive even as our communication skills improved.
The only way to “heal” is to spend more time bonding and enjoying life together rather than dissecting our relationship’s dynamics - to “just be” with each other.
This discussion led to a new Time % Framework where we realized that we were spending ~30% bonding vs 70% just updating and analyzing our feelings. We had inadvertently become each other’s therapists. No wonder we were frayed at the edges!
Since then we’ve become more mindful of the energetic of our communication and actively shifting that % towards more bonding by catching up on our days during our commute, so that when we come home at night, we can just spend quality time together like listening to audio books or reminiscing over memories by making fun Instagram Reels .
7️⃣ Sunday: Bridging gaps with parents is like playing 3D chess
We met up with my parents on Sunday for early Thanksgiving festivities: cooking, baking, and setting up the Christmas tree.
Olivia put up the ornaments while I did the lights.
What was supposed to be a joyful bonding event turned into a heated argument between my dad and me when I found out that he had been hiding his health issues from us.
Being a fiercely independent immigrant man, my dad has always been my Stoic model - the image of solid integrity. However, this time his invulnerability and information withholding actually gave my mom and me more worry and trouble. Getting him to open up and trust me required every ounce of my rational and emotional intelligence, control and tact.
At the same time, the meta part of me stepped back to marvel at the new real time understanding of my father that was emerging. It was as if, for the first time, our father-son dynamic was lifted to reveal the colorful human being underneath.
From this experience, I realized that dealing with parents and intergenerational healing is like playing 3D chess. I had to be cognizant of his emotions and incentives, the historical context, my own reactions and approach while dealing with the parent-child dynamic that’s been ingrained for decades. Not to mention this all went down in Chinese, a language that I have the proficiency of a second grader.
All these layers play into each other as a whole. The kicker is that I couldn't have successfully navigated this complex system without undergoing this prior week’s mental “boot camp”.
In this way, the week itself is a system, the purpose of which is to make me into a better leader, husband, friend, son, and multifaceted human being.
The Real Lesson
Perhaps the most unexpected side effect of this exercise is the renewed zest for life.
Two days ago I woke up at 3am and couldn’t go back to bed. I realized that I’ve been treating my body like crap.
I'm a regular insomniac yet my sleep hygiene habits are in disarray. I have chronic acid reflux/GERD with a constant dull ache in the back of my throat. Yet I’m still drinking coffee and pouring acidic foods down the tube.
And for what? Just so that I can feel good in the moment or squeeze that extra bit of productivity out?
Screw that.
If a week can feel like a year, then every day we have is precious. In that moment, I decided to choose LIFE.
I choose to live healthy so that I can experience a thousand years in my lifetime - to witness this marvelous world with all its beauty and terrors with open eyes and a brave heart.
I’ll leave you with a passage from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations:
“We should remember that even Nature’s inadvertence has its own charm, its own attractiveness. The way loaves of bread split open on top of the oven, the ridges are just by-products of baking, and yet pleasing, somehow; they rouse our appetite without knowing why.
And olives on the point of falling: the shadow of decay gives them a peculiar beauty. Stalks of wheat bending under their own weight. The furrowed brow of a lion. Flecks of foam on the boar’s mouth.
And other things. If you look at them in isolation there’s nothing beautiful about them, and yet by supplementing nature they enrich it and draw us in. And anyone with a feeling for nature - a deeper sensitivity - will find it all gives pleasure.
Even what seems inadvertent. He’ll find the jaws of wild animals as as beautiful as painted ones or sculptures. He’ll look calmly at the distinct beauty of the old age in men, women, and at the loveliness of children.
And other things like that will call out to him constantly - things unnoticed by others. Things seen only by those at home with Nature and its works.”
Don't let life speed by in a blur. Note and map your experiences. Live a thousand years.
Make the most of your mind maps
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