021 - Been Here Before

“My mom always told me to keep life as simple as a #2 pencil. Now, I’m paying the price for erasing her advice.” - Johnnie Williams III

Like the news we read, lots of the experiences we face or confront in life are repeated over and over.

-Relationship trouble

-Emotional stress

-Addictive situation/substances

-Decisions that must be made

All of these things, we’ve been through before and are still here – to bear witness that we are enough to get through it again. My mother was suggesting with this particular thought that we as a society can write chaos and confusion into our own life stories or something more pleasant and positive as long as we keep things simple.

In this season 2 episode, I also share a 5-point analogy using a pencil that you don’t want to miss.

1. Shed the unnecessary things
2. Sharpen yourself daily
3. Don’t break what cannot be fixed
4. You can’t erase very much
5. Re-sharpen yourself when getting dull

Ask Yourself:

What does your mom advise you to do, but you didn’t listen?

What if any were the consequences as a result?

Visit JohnnieWilliams.com for more information or call (315) THOUGHT to ask a question or leave a message.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:41

Welcome to another Thought Stirring Experience. I'm happy to present episode 21 of season 2. Been here before. You ever been in some relationship trouble? Been here before. What about emotional stress? You know anything about that? Been here before. We all know something about addictive situations or maybe the substances. Been here before. And then there are the decisions that must be made that are very tough. We've been there before. Reading things that have happened over and over. R E A D. Relationship trouble, been there. Emotional stress, been there. Addictive situations, been there. And decisions that are tough to make. Been there. We've been through so many things that bear witness to the fact that we were enough then to get through it. Which would justify the fact that now that we're back here again and we've been there before, we're enough now to get through it again. But why are we repeating certain things? Did we not learn from our mistakes? Do we not learn from our failures? Now that brings me to this week's thought. And it suggests for us this. My mom always told me to keep life as simple as a number two pencil. Now I'm paying the price for erasing her advice. Mom always told me to keep it simple, simple as a pencil. And because I did not, I'm paying the price for erasing her advice. Have you ever gotten in trouble for doing something you already been in trouble for? And now here you are again, been here before, in trouble all over again. Why would my mom say to me what she did? What did she mean by a number two pencil? And how does that have anything to do with life? It sounds catchy, it's a simple statement, but what did she mean? I went back to my mother many years later and asked her about the statement, and she couldn't even remember telling me. She couldn't remember saying it to me. But I remember her saying it. So I sat down and took some time to think about it. What I suggest you doing, podcasts like this, or books you read, or advice you've mustered up from within your own self. Take some time to think about it. What came from my thoughts were a great metaphoric message that I was able to deliver in and out of this country. So imagine I walk into a room that you're in, or office, or theater, and here I am a stranger. I walk up to you as you enter and I give you an unsharpened pencil. You're welcome. Because I know you've been taught to say thank you, right? But you're wondering probably why this guy just gave you an unsharpened pencil. What's this for? Now, if I didn't give you a pencil and I gave it to everybody else, you'd be saying, why'd this guy leave me out? So I knew that by doing something like this, I was already engaging. I was reaching out and extending a gift, as simple as a number two pencil. And there wasn't a person that I came across that didn't extend their hand to receive, which meant they were receptive to what I was about to say. The pencil bought some time. Everyone wanted to know why did you give me this pencil? I'll tell you why. Because you, like I told them, have pencil potential. That's right. You got the potential to do some amazing things with your life that'll benefit you, your family, and humanity. But I need you to wrap your hands around this concept just as you would wrap your hands around the pencil. I have five tips that come with this metaphor. Number one, you gotta shed the unnecessary things in your life, just like a pencil has to be sharpened. Shed away the unnecessary ends of the pencil to begin to reveal the lead that allows us to write. You gotta shed the unnecessary habits, you gotta shed the unnecessary beliefs, you gotta shed the unnecessary people in order to write your story and not rewrite someone else's. Point number two, you gotta sharpen yourself. No matter what you come to contribute in this life, no matter what you come up with as a dream, no matter what you decide you want to do, you gotta sharpen your skills. You can't come and present yourself at the table of life as an unsharpened person, unprepared person, unrefined, uneducated. We're better than that. So shed the unnecessary things and sharpen yourself. Number three, be sure that you're careful not to break it. We break too many things just because they're breakable, like relationships, like promises, like breaking up. The pencil only has but so many breaks in it before it's done. If you've ever broken a pencil in half, you realize that you still might be able to sharpen it on two ends and still continue to use it. That's very difficult and often impossible when you break it more than once. Don't break things in your life that you don't know how to fix. Don't break things in life that you don't have time to fix, and don't break things in life that you have no interest in fixing. There are too many people that are breaking other people and they don't know how to build people up. So let's stop breaking things. It's unnecessary and it takes the simplicity out of our life. Point number four, you can't erase much. Gone are the days of the big eraser that we used to have. Now you got that little tiny eraser at the top of the pencil. So you only got but so many mistakes that you can erase in this life, in this digital space that we have, where everything is contributed to, all that is on the Internet of Things. You can't erase it. Pictures you post can't erase them. You think you erased them, but they're out there somewhere. Things you said can't erase them. They're out there somewhere. The way you made somebody feel, you can't erase it. So you need to realize that although you have a little bit of eraser, it'd be best you minimize the amount of mistakes that you make. Especially intentional mistakes. Mistakes you were already aware of before you even made them. And you thought that maybe you could get away with it. And when you can't, you want to erase the mistake. You only got a few opportunities in your life to erase some things. And far too often, people's lives are made complex because they made some mistakes that they gotta keep company. Here come the consequences that you must keep company. Point number five, resharpen yourself when you get dull. You gotta keep that pencil sharp. Sharpen your mind. So when you start to get dull, when you think that you've arrived and you reach your goal and you got the title that you're looking for, you got the degree, you got the money, you got the house, you got the car, you got everything you want. But if you don't stay sharp, you're gonna lose some things. That pencil potential, we gotta keep it sharp. Life shifts on you. You gotta resharpen yourself. Re-sharpen your pencil daily. That is why I created a brand called Think About It. There's so much for us to think about, it's endless. You'll spend the rest of your life contemplating and calculating and thinking about this and thinking about that to sharpen your mental pencil. You can write many things into your life. So I would advise that you leverage the advice wisely because time is ticking. You're here for a reason, and you only got but so much time to take this exam called life before you hear pencils down. Maybe that's why mom said the number two pencil, the pencil we needed to have to take a test. Had you been tested before? Are you ready? Well, you better get ready. You're here to take the life test, and you can't take the test with an unsharpened pencil. Yes, it's got potential, but until sharpened, you're not writing anything. So this week, as I conclude, I want you to ask yourself these things. What has your mom advised you to do that you didn't listen to? And what, if any, is not assuming that you didn't listen, but if you're like me, you didn't listen a few times. So, what were the consequences as a result of not listening? I invite you to download the Think About It app available for Apple and Android devices in both of the stores. The paid version provides you with quotes that will come in the future on this podcast out of my book Something to Think About. 365 quotes that'll be delivered each day to keep you thinking and help you sharpen your mental pencil. App is available in seven different languages, so if you'd like to see how the phrase in English looks in Mandarin or French or Portuguese or even Russian, it's available. I invite you to text me or message me on our thought line, 315 Thought. That's 315-846-8448. I've started getting some positive messages about what people think about the podcast, some questions, and also how some people are going to use the information that's come from these short messages. I invite you to do the same. And I look forward to either hearing your voice or seeing your text to me. Think about it, which is where this quote is coming from. Something to think about. And self-talk are all available online at johnnywilliams.com. My website can be accessed by merely going to the podcast notes and clicking on my name, and it'll take you to my website where you can find more information about me as well as some videos and other content that I have there. Lastly, I invite you to join the Thought Tribe. Log on to thethoughtribe.com and join our community of thinkers. We'd love to have you and love to hear your opinion, helping me sharpen my pencil. My name's Johnny Williams, and I'm excited to bring you season two. 20 episodes that keep you thinking. I ask that you share this podcast and any of the others that you've come across that make sense or might resonate in someone else's life. I ask you help me pollinate the good news and the positive messages. And I look forward to talking to you again real soon. Until