February 3, 2014

ISIQ-0370 ISIQ-0371 ISIQ-0372

“Dream. Choose. Commit.”

Today’s IQ is a triptych, for a few reasons. Firstly, I love the series of images and how well they work as a group. Check out this mockup of the three in a row:

ISIQ-0370-0371-0372

Secondly, I owe you three IQs today anyway.

Really? Yes, really.

I was absent – hopefully noticeably – for the past two days. I plan to go into detail about the whys and wherefores in a moment. For now, I want you to have three IQs today, to make up for the lack of the previous two. So now we’re square.

As for my absence, it’s largely related to these three IQs, and in particular the last one. Commit. My commitment to these IQs was made loosely in January when I restarted producing them after a 10-day break at the end of last year. (Remember the Top 10?)

But this year has been the patchiest month on record for actual consistency. I had a solid think about it this morning, and realised that while I had kicked off creating the IQs again this year, I hadn’t really committed properly to doing them every day. I have mentioned once or twice about how sometimes I feel quite apathetic about making these things, and a few of you have graciously written to me saying “Please keep going!”.

Even so, I found I was sitting on the fence about the whole thing. “It’s all too hard.” “I have too much going on anyway.” “What’s the point?”

One of you even suggested doing weekdays only, so I at least got two days off per week from creating an IQ, and I have to admit I was very tempted to simply write you today and say “Guess what? Monday to Friday only from here on in.”

But I realised too, that doing that would be a cop-out and a major insult to each of you who have stuck with me through my bumpy patches. I realised, after giving this serious thought – in the shower, of all places – that I want to publish these every day.

I want to be that guy that SHOWS UP. I want to be like Seth. I want to produce something meaningful, anticipated, worthwhile, every single day. Is this ego talking? Perhaps, perhaps not. I prefer to think that it’s part of the old saying “With great power comes great responsibility.”

I feel I have a great power in my ability to learn from my own daily experiences, create insight and meaning through these IQs, and express that to you in a useful way. As such, that power then brings a responsibility to share those insights to as many people as possible, so my light shines as brightly as it can, and inspires others to do the same.

I am on a quest for the best life I can imagine, and I want you to have the best life YOU can imagine. So in leading by example, and sharing where I screw up, and where I succeed, I hope to inspire you to try, screw up, and succeed in your own life.

The motivation for this way of thinking comes partly from Spiderman  (“With great power comes great responsibility” – the first recent remake, starring Tobey Maguire…) and partly from a beautiful passage by Marianne Williamson from her book “A Return To Love.”, which I have included below:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone, and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Isn’t that the most amazing piece?

Another reason I’ve been struggling with producing these IQs is actually how busy I have been, and the dark parts of my mind assail me at those busy times with ridiculous thoughts of cost-benefit analysis.

Huh?

Put it this way. I spend, on average, about 10-15 hours a week creating these IQs. Currently, there are 140 people on the email list who receive these each day. Now, let me say firstly I am massively grateful for each of you. However, a part of me often wonders if all the effort is worth it, for what is a kinda small-ish group. Is this creative work reaching a big enough audience to really make the impact I want to have on the world? I think not. At least, not yet.

I’d like to ask for a favour. It is slightly selfish, slightly selfless.

I want my IQs to reach a bigger community of people, because I deeply believe that they make a positive difference in your life, each and every day. (I have a collection of beautiful emails from some of you to prove this point.) If I can make a positive difference to more and more people, then that ripple effect will eventually build to a critical mass of people finding more joy in their day-to-day, living lives they love more, and being able to see the lessons and resiliently deal with whatever the world throws their way.

I’d like to humbly, but strongly, ask you to share these IQs with your friends, and encourage them to sign up for the daily emails. Please, share these on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Tumblr, wherever you hang out. Invite your buddies to look at them, and sign up via email. (It’s the most reliable way of getting something to you every day. FB/Tw/G+/etc don’t always show what we post to everyone, so email still wins the reliability test.)

If you’re unsure of what to say, or how to do this, perhaps you can copy/modify the paragraph below into an email, and simply send it to your friends.

—————

Hi <friend>,

I wanted to share something special with you.

Each day I receive an Inspirational Quotograph via email from this guy called Israel. He is a photographer in Sydney, Australia, and he takes photos and matches them with inspiring quotes, and sends one out via email for free every day. I think you’d really enjoy his IQs, so have a look at some of them, and sign up yourself.

You should know that he asked me to send you this email, because he believes really strongly in what he’s doing, and wants the IQs to reach more people. But I wouldn’t have sent this to you if I didn’t believe in it myself, and think that you’d enjoy the IQs too. 

Check out his blog at https://israelsmith.com/iq/ and sign up here: https://israelsmith.com/subscribe

Lots of love,
<you>

—————

(Tip: Change the <friend> and <you> bits to your friend’s name(s), and your name, respectively. But you knew that anyway, right?)

I really appreciate your help and support, in whatever format you can provide it. Sharing these around regularly will make a positive difference to the world, and the bigger the group of people these IQs reach, the bigger the positive difference we all make in the world.

In the meantime, here’s something to ponder, and something I’d LOVE to hear about from you:

Where in your life have YOU been “sitting on the fence”? What could you do TODAY to get off the fence, and get something happening?

As the triptych says: Dream. Choose. Commit. 

With SO MUCH F*CKING LOVE, just for you,
Israel. xo

 

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