March 20, 2018
I just posted this on my Instagram this morning.
Your judgment is trying to protect you. You don’t need that kind of protection anymore. Become a loving witness, to everything, so that you smash the boxes you keep trying to put things in, and stop pulling from your fears, insecurities, old definitions, and ego. When you notice, the world becomes big. When you judge, the world gets very small very fast. What would it look like to be a witness of your life today? Instead of judging everything and everyone. Including yourself.
Reading this again, it feels a bit cheesy. Like from a clip from an “inspiration” YouTube video. Those things are like candy. You can spend hours flipping through them but it’s just pure sugar. They get you pumped for all of two seconds. Inspirational videos will never change your life. You actually have to do something. You know this. Anyway, I do believe in what I wrote or I wouldn’t have posted it. But for some reason, my writing just feels like a bumper sticker today. White sugar. Processed.
I don’t know. You write about the same things long enough and things can get blurry. I guess I should take my own medicine and stop judging myself. That’s hard. But that’s “the work” as they say in my world.
I will be forty-five in a few weeks. I was going to rent out our old Popeye’s Fried Chicken in Long Beach that my family used to own, hire a DJ who will only play 90’s hip-hop and gangster rap, rent a bouncy castle for the parking lot, and invite thirty to forty friends. “Well, hell, me and Snoop, we dippin’ again”…
But I think I’m going to go the other way. Invite six close friends and buy them dinner in a new quaint cozy eatery in my neighborhood. Quiet. Intimate. Conversation and candles. Yeah, that’s more my mood these days. I mean I’m not too old to have my birthday at a Popeye’s Chicken. Don’t get me wrong. I think that would be epic. I’m just too old to deal with the emotional consequences if it turned out to be a disaster. No one shows up. I’m just sitting inside the place I used to dread going to, holding a chicken leg in my hand and wondering what the fuck I’m doing back here.
Our company JRNI is thriving. I’m learning so much about startups and how you’re only as good as your team. I’m also learning to stay in my own lane and focus on my role in the company. You’re only one piston. It takes many pumping together for the engine to move the car. This is the year I feel like it’s not my baby anymore. She’s finishing high school now. I’m just a part of her life. I feel a huge responsibility for every single person who has taken our Catalyst Coaching Intensive. I always will. This course represents so much of my life and my passion to help people help people. It’s become my soul work.
I turned in my book this week! The editors are trippin’ on how fast I pumped that shit out. The truth is that book wrote itself. It’s basically everything I’ve learned in crossing the great divide from boy to man. Not only through my own Hero’s Journey but also from friends and clients. I’m learning so much about the book business. And so far, I love it. I can’t wait to actually be able to hold it in my hands. I’m probably going to ride across America on my motorcycle followed by a U-haul filled with my books so I can pass them out in diners and parking lots. I dunno know. We’ll see. I’m always coming up with nutty ideas.
Speaking of nutty ideas, I’m also working with a production company on a nonscripted TV show. I’m writing about this because I want to bookmark it, look back at this post one day and see where I was and how I felt. Sometimes I’ll hit archive on my Tumblr and read shit from seven years ago. Talk about time machine. I basically have a public life journal. And it’s priceless and Medium is the new Tumblr so,
John, if you’re reading this from the future. These tv projects scared the shit out of you for many reasons. It pulled on a lot of old triggers. I don’t know what happened if actually got greenlit. It’s the entertainment industry so the chances are slim to none and slim just left town but I hope whatever happened, or didn’t happen, you didn’t allow the external to fuck up your internal. We both know any commercial success in your twenties and thirties would have set you off to a different path, one ending with tigers, hookers, and drugs in Las Vegas. I hope you stayed true to who you are. I hope you see all these projects, as well projects, things outside of yourself. Books, blogs, media, coaching. They are what you do. Not who you are. I hope you kept documenting your life. I hope you kept writing in coffee shops and talking to yourself in your nondescript bedroom half naked (podcasting). I hope you bought some real fucking furniture. I hope you found more peace. I hope you understand yourself better. Experienced deeper intimacy when it comes to love and relationships. I hope you’re more of a spiritual person and don’t feel like pregnant Demi Moore when you eat shit that bloats you that you’re probably still in denial about. I also hope you took some new photos so you’re not posting old pics of you with long hair. Hey, remember when you used to wear hipster glasses because you wanted to look like a writer? Are you still rocking those light blue Smurf sweats? Do you still run like you stole something?
Anyway, let me remind you of what you already know.
When you get to where you want to go, when you get what you want, it won’t be what you imagined it to be. Because a lot of where you are now, like getting a book published, is where you wanted to be years ago but it doesn’t feel like you thought it would. Right? I mean, I know you are grateful but you also now want to publish more books. You’ll only want more and / or different. Because you are human and humans are wired this way. Unless, you’ve learned to create distance. Unless you’ve learned to live higher. Unless you’ve learned to live more of a through-me life which you need to reminder yourself to practice more than just preach.
So practice what you posted on your Instagram on March 2oth, 2018 at 8:57 am, and become a living witness to your life instead of snapping back to the old Johnkim who chased shiny things. You’ll like yourself more. Trust me.
And finally, I’m going to tell you what you tell your clients.
Trust.
Your.
Story.
No matter what happens. As long as you keep making decisions based on your truth, things will unfold the way they’re meant to. There will be many more winters. You will have many more mountains to climb, dragons to slay. Revelations. Learnings. Disappointments. But your story is something no one can take from you. It’s something you had to write, chapter by chapter, day by day, year by year. You’ve earned that shit. Because you lived it, it has value. That’s the most meaningful “project”. Because it’s tied to who you are, not just want you do.
