Image, Canva

Once in a while, a concerned mother, foster parent, or volunteer asks me to mentor a young man who is struggling. Most are between 17 and 35. Many come from broken homes, hard streets, or the foster system. Most have learned not to trust anyone.

Eye contact is rare at first. So is honesty. Trust has to be earned.

I recently met one I’ll call Jake. We met at a coffee shop near the group home where he was living in Mesa, Arizona. He looked half asleep even though it was only 10:30 in the morning. His foster mother came with him and quietly sat nearby during our first meeting. She struck me as one of those rare people who keep showing up for kids who have every reason to believe nobody will. Saintly.

When I meet young men like Jake, I do not start by giving advice. I start by listening. I ask about school, work, interests, goals, and what they think is holding them back. I try to understand the person before I say much about change. In my experience, truth usually follows trust, not the other way around.

Many of these young men have no stable role models, no clear goals, and no real sense that life can improve. Some are heavily medicated for anxiety, depression, anger, or trauma. Many seem to move through life in a haze. My mission is to help them believe they are more than what happened to them. To be a guiding light.

By the end of my first meeting with Jake, I learned he had stolen more than a hundred cars before the age of 17. That stopped me for a second. His father and mother separated long ago. His father was deported. His mother lives far away.

I don’t take notes. I listen and try to hear what is not being said. After hearing what Jake told me, I said, “Jake, that tells me something important. You never need to doubt that you can get very good at whatever you put your mind to. The real question is whether you’ll use that ability to destroy your life or build one.”

He smiled, and we made a deal

Once he got his phone back after a school suspension, we would get to work on better habits, better influences, and a better path. We had built a bond of trust and set the stage for making progress.

A week later, I called him at the group home. We talked for nearly an hour. It sounded positive. That same evening, I got a call saying the Department of Corrections had picked him up and taken him to jail.

One question kept hitting me. Why do human beings do things that so clearly work against their own best interests? Why do we destroy relationships, careers, health, money, trust, and peace of mind, even when part of us knows better?

Jake is not the exception. He is the example. He did what many of us do. He repeated a pattern that was hurting him because, somewhere deep inside, that pattern felt familiar. That may be one of the hardest truths about human behavior.

What looks like self-destruction is often self-protection in disguise

Human beings are not wired first for happiness. We are wired first for survival. That matters more than most people realize. Long before we had careers, social media, retirement plans, and modern stress, we had one main job: stay alive.

The human brain evolved to detect threats, avoid pain, and protect us from danger. The trouble is that the brain does not always do a great job of distinguishing between physical danger and emotional pain. The National Institute of Mental Health offers a useful foundation for understanding how the brain responds to stress, fear, and threat.

To the nervous system, rejection can feel like danger. Shame can feel like danger. Uncertainty can feel like danger. Abandonment, financial fear, divorce, humiliation, and loss of identity can all trigger the same basic alarm system. The American Psychological Association has published extensive material on trauma, stress, and coping that helps explain why people often respond to emotional pain in ways that appear irrational from the outside.

Pain is where a lot of self-destructive behavior begins

Being human is hard. A person drinks to numb anxiety. Someone stays in a toxic relationship because loneliness feels worse. A high achiever works themselves into exhaustion because slowing down feels unsafe. A young man steals cars because power, risk, and control feel better than helplessness.

What looks irrational from the outside often makes a strange kind of sense from the inside. That does not excuse destructive behavior. But it does help explain it.

I know this because I have lived my own version of it. When I was younger, I used alcohol the same way many people use distraction, work, anger, or control. I used it to numb pain. I used it to escape insecurity. I used it because I did not know what else to do with the discomfort I carried around. Back then, my friends and I jokingly called it “beer muscles.” It felt like confidence, until it didn’t.

Looking back, I can see that much of what I did was not freedom. It was compensation. It was a survival strategy. Early instability at home had taught me to overcontrol life, overreact to stress, and run from pain rather than understand it. Daniel Kahneman’s work on fast, automatic thinking helps explain why so much of human behavior runs on old patterns before reason ever gets a vote.

That is how these loops work

The mind confuses what is familiar with what is safe. If fear, chaos, shame, or emotional distance shaped us early on, we may unconsciously recreate those conditions later, not because they are good for us, but because they are familiar.

Our brains love patterns. The body keeps score of trauma. The more often we think, feel, and behave in certain ways, the more automatic those ways become. Bessel van der Kolk’s work has helped bring this reality into mainstream conversation by showing how trauma can shape the body, brain, and behavior long after the original pain has passed.

Carl Jung put it plainly: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.”

That line has stayed with me because it explains so much about my choices and how I perceive the world around me. Most people do not wake up intending to damage their own lives. They act from wounds they have not fully seen, named, or healed.

Jung’s collected works remain deeply useful if you want to understand shadow, projection, and the hidden forces that shape behavior. A child grows up in chaos and becomes an adult who recreates chaos. A person learns that they must earn love and spends decades trying to prove their worth. Someone who felt powerless early in life becomes controlling later on.

Different story, same pattern

And this is not just personal. It is collective too. The same forces that distort individuals also distort families, communities, and nations: fear, tribalism, short-term thinking, shame, and the need for certainty.

History is full of examples of human beings choosing what feels emotionally safe in the moment over what is wise in the long run. That is why self-destruction can show up everywhere, from a private addiction to public madness.

Still, there is good news in all this

Awareness changes the equation. We can change for the better once we desire to stop suffering. The goal is not self-condemnation. It is understanding.

The moment a person stops asking, “What is wrong with me?” and starts asking, “What happened to me?” something begins to soften. The pattern becomes visible. We break the cycle. And when we can clearly see a pattern, we have a chance to interrupt it.

That is where real change begins. Not with shame. Not with force. Not with pretending. With awareness.

It’s not selfish to self-reflect

That is why honest conversation matters. That is why therapy, journaling, coaching, faith, and inner work matter. Human beings can change, but usually not by being bullied into it. Change starts when truth becomes clear enough that we can no longer hide from it.

We shift when we get tired of suffering. We can unlearn what we learned. We can rewire our brains given the desire. What once looked like fate can become a conscious choice. That does not mean life becomes easy. It means we become more awake.

As we wake up, we pause sooner. We see the trigger before the reaction. We stop running over ourselves. We stop calling old survival habits our personality. We stop mistaking pain for identity.

Humans may seem self-destructive, and often we are. But beneath much of that behavior is something deeper, pain trying to protect itself. Once you understand that, you start to see people differently. You also start to see yourself differently.

That may be where healing begins. It begins when two people from different worlds come together because of a shared love for life and a power embedded within all of us: light.

I’m an author, artist, and mentor. Discover the power of the Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method® for improving your career, business, and life at www.CliffordJones.com.

- Self-Reflection, 2022 by author

If you have ever sat in a room full of people and felt like an alien, this is for you.

If you have ever wondered why other people seem to love things that leave you cold, sports, crowds, parties, and group rituals, this may help.

I could be the only human being who walked out of a Super Bowl game thinking to myself, How boring and stupid is this? True story. It was Super Bowl XXX, hosted in Tempe, Arizona, in 1996.

Everyone who knew about my Super Bowl stunt thought I was stupid. As if, Dude, what’s wrong with you?

For most of my life, I asked myself the same question

Was something wrong with me, considering I always had an aversion to spectator sports, group activities, and cruise ships? Not broken in some dramatic, obvious way. Just off. Different in a way that made ordinary social life feel unnatural, and at times, downright absurd.

I used to feel so out of place that my exit strategy was to hammer as much beer as I could and get drunk enough not to care about walking out.

Was it possible God made me with the intent to completely suck at belonging, spectating, and doing “normal human stuff”?

Or maybe it was something else

Here is what made it more confusing. I have been an athlete most of my life. I love sport when I am learning it, doing it, chasing mastery through it.

As a kid, I watched professional tennis players, Nordic skiers, alpine skiers, swimmers, and cyclists because I wanted to study them. That’s all. Playing sports was the identity that kept the agony of adolescence tolerable, but barely.

By the time I left for college, I was the small-town “star” in tennis. Later in life, I did the same with archery and pickleball. I watched to learn. I watched to improve. I watched because I wanted to win the gold, stand on the podium, and for one shining instant feel like a superhero.

I had a desperate need to be seen, heard, and win, rivaled only by my need for other people’s approval.

But I routinely felt like I sucked at belonging, until I didn’t.

Age helped. So did suffering. So did paying attention.

Life gets better when we let go of the ego

As I’ve gotten older, the need to compete and win is practically gone. For decades, I hustled, hawked, and marketed my way through building a couple of successful small businesses. But these days, I’m sick of promoting myself and have no need to be on a podium. It’s as if my ego did its thing and now sits way back in my psyche.

And I’m pretty much done arguing with reality. I let go of any delusion that I can control the uncontrollable.

I’m living proof that people change

But we have to work on ourselves to understand and manage the inner game of being a social animal. Suffering can change us if we let it. It only requires being sick of it, owning your part, and shifting your mindset to replace lame habits.

But back to the sports thing. What I finally came to understand is that many people do not love sports because of the sports themselves. They love what the sport gives them.

Belonging. Identity. Ritual. Tribe. A ready-made way to say, These are my people.

That helped me understand something about myself.

My problem was never that I hated sports. My problem was that I spent too many years assuming that because I did not respond to the tribe the way others did, something was wrong with me.

It wasn’t. I hadn’t found my way yet, because I didn’t know enough about who I am.

I was simply not wired for borrowed identity. I liked participation, not spectatorship. I liked mastery, not noise. I liked learning, not ritual. I liked direct experience, not emotional secondhand smoke from a stadium full of strangers or a living room full of men yelling at a screen.

That difference matters.

Some people come alive in crowds, some do not. I do not. I prefer solitude, reflection, and one-on-one connection. That is the real me.

Maybe you do too. If so, neither is right nor wrong. It simply means human beings are wired differently.

What Jung said about finding yourself

In Carl Jung’s thought, finding your true self is not about inventing a new identity. It is about becoming conscious of what is already within you but has been buried, denied, or left undeveloped. The way to find out who you are is often to learn who you are not.

Your aversions will tell you a lot about who you are, if you pay attention.

Looking back, I can see three things were going on in me at once. First, I had a deep need to achieve. Second, I had a deep need for approval. Third, I was never comfortable with mass behavior.

Whatever the cause, the result was the same. I spent much of my life feeling like an outsider looking in.

That feeling can mess with your head

When you do not fit smoothly into what everybody else calls normal, you start to question your own nature. You wonder if you are defective, antisocial, too serious, too intense, too independent, too weird.

That is the real pain of not belonging. It is not only loneliness. It is self-doubt.

But age has a way of burning off illusions.

What I see now is that I was never damaged goods. I was never less-than. I was never missing some key ingredient of manhood or humanity because I would rather talk to the women, hang out with the kids, or disappear into my own thoughts than watch a football game with a bunch of grown men.

I was just different.

Being okay being different

Being different is not a diagnosis. It is data. It is useful information about who you are, what feeds you, what drains you, and which social rituals make you feel like you are betraying yourself.

Real peace comes when you stop arguing with your own nature. So if you have felt this same alien feeling your whole life, maybe the answer is nothing.

Maybe you are not broken. And if you are, let the teacher within guide you. To do that, you need to surrender to win.

Maybe you were just built for a different path. Your path. Your way.

Maybe your life was never meant to be lived from the outside in. Maybe it was always meant to be lived from the inside out. And if my experience helps you stop apologizing for your nature, then it has served a purpose.

Go with the flow today.

I’m an author, strategic consultant, and mentor. Discover the power of the Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method® for improving your career, business, and life at www.CliffordJones.com.

- Janice, Cliff, grandchildren

It’s been a brutal stretch these past six months. The image you see is my wife and me with our three grandchildren. Here we are in our happy zone, in the eye of a recent storm.

Most of my energy has gone into helping a family member through a crisis I would not wish on anyone. Coaching, writing, painting, photography, all of it stopped. I sat down to write more times than I can count, only to come up empty.

The fact that you are reading this now means something finally came through, and it feels honest.

Enjoy.

The crisis

Three years ago, a close family member was hit by a car while riding a bicycle and suffered a traumatic brain injury. Over time, the full weight of that injury became clear.

What started as recovery turned into serious behavioral health issues. We entered a system akin to a black hole. We were not looking for surface-level solutions. We needed care that matched what brain scans were showing.

I can’t tell the full story. I won’t use names. Here is my side of it with a few key lessons.

Staying strong under extreme stress

There’s good stress and the kind that slowly crushes us. I’ve attracted buckets of both. I’m grateful for all of the past and present, now.

I’ve spent a lifetime leaning into stress as an athlete, entrepreneur, builder, and creative. I know how to push. I know how to endure.

But when life hits, it slams my face into the ground, and staying calm is hard. Sometimes it feels impossible. Yet, I’m finding my way.

Being human is about making spiritual progress

Spiritual work and mental health work are not separate. They move together. I’m steadier than I used to be, even when everything around me feels unstable.

As the family patriarch, I need to show up for my family, especially my wife. Not perfectly. But consistently. With acceptance, compassion, and love.

Steadfastness, not reaction.

Even when a marriage may not survive. Even when there are no clear answers.

There is still a way to find gratitude in the middle of it. “Thank you, God.”

The way is grace

We’ve grown a lot as a family over the last six months. Faith and grace carried us when nothing else did.

Finding the right help was harder than expected. When someone does not fit cleanly into the system, you feel it fast. We spoke with doctors, specialists, and providers. We made countless calls.

We found some answers, but mostly resistance. Insurance helped very little. Many providers do not accept it. The real solutions often require paying out of pocket.

That’s the reality.

The storm has eased a bit in recent weeks, thanks to family, close friends, and a few professionals who stepped in.

Every crisis teaches something, whether you want it to or not

Suffering strips life down to what is real.

You either fight reality or accept it and ask what it’s here to teach.

I’ve learned to say, this is hard, step up, let’s find a way.

The best way I’ve learned to deal with fear is to focus on the present and to be grateful for everything, including the hardest lessons. The present is one of the greatest gifts we receive.

We don’t get what we want until we are grateful for what we already have.

Everyone processes the crisis differently

That’s why presence matters.

We are still working to find the right support, and we are not stopping.

At the same time, everyone in the family needs care, not just the person in crisis.

We talk openly. No matter how uncomfortable it gets.

We are in this together, even though one of the units is breaking apart

Therapy matters. Support matters. No one carries this alone.

I meet people where they are, not where I want them to be. I listen. I hug. I reassure.

When anger and rage showed up due to the brain injury, I had to remind myself that this is the wounded part of an otherwise good man.

We cannot control others. We can only control how we respond.

Stay calm. Stay grounded. Stay grateful.

Family is first

Family is first for me because I know what it feels like when it breaks.

My wife and I have built a 40-year marriage. That unity matters now more than ever.

Sometimes family is the only thread holding things together. It’s not clean. It’s not easy.

It takes intention.

Mental health is not an event

It’s a process. There is no quick fix. Real healing takes time, effort, and community.

Stress and trauma can shut down logic. When that happens, people act in ways that don’t make sense.

Understanding that helped me stay grounded.

Life is hard. Family is hard. Accept it. Expect it. Learn from it.

There is a purpose in suffering

You learn patience. Compassion. Forgiveness. Strength. Love.

But only if you’re willing. That starts with ownership. Every person in the family has a role. It’s to be accountable and respectful to all.

No one becomes willing until they are tired of suffering.

Without struggle, growth doesn’t happen. I believe that we are here to evolve in how we love.

You see it everywhere, even in the worst conditions. Love still shows up.

Learning emotional maturity is one of the keys to happiness

I don’t surf in the ocean, but I’ve learned to surf my emotions. Prayer, breathing, movement, and focus keep me steady.

Reading, journaling, and simplifying matter more than ever.

Gratitude changes everything. It shifts your focus. It calms the mind. It softens the edges.

Life gets better when you let it

My life has improved with age. That’s true for many people.

But we live in a world that pulls our attention in every direction. You have to rise above the noise. You have to find stillness.

You have to choose meaning, even in crisis.

Suffering will change you. The question is how and when. Let it go by letting go.

Together, we are learning to be okay even when we’re not

Acceptance of what is becomes the springboard to serenity. We are healing. Not perfectly. Not completely. But we are moving forward.

Communication is open. Respect is growing. We are more united than we were. The hard truth is, there may still be a divorce ahead. That may be the deepest wound.

But one thing will not change. I will love my family unconditionally.

Because learning acceptance, compassion, and forgiveness are the rungs on the ladder to unconditional love and inner peace.

And in the end, that’s why we are here.

I’m an author, strategic consultant, and mentor. Discover the power of the Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method® for improving your career, business, and life at www.CliffordJones.com.

Image credit author

In the mid-1990s, most Americans believed millionaires lived in big houses, drove luxury cars, and wore designer labels. They were wrong. Very wrong.

Published in 1996, The Millionaire Next Door quietly dismantled the American myth of wealth. Nearly 30 years later, its findings are still quoted, debated, and misunderstood.

The question is not whether Stanley was right. He was. The real question is what has changed since then, and what still hasn’t.

By the end of my article, you’ll see what it takes to be wealthy.

The Premise That Upset a Culture

The Millionaire Next Door offers a simple idea: study people who actually became wealthy, not those who look wealthy.

The authors found that most millionaires were self-made, lived below their means, avoided status spending, and built wealth slowly over decades. They were teachers, engineers, small business owners, and middle managers. Not celebrities. Not hedge fund stars.

Wealth, they discovered, was a behavior, not an income level.

Turns out, when it comes to wealth, mindset matters.

The Authors Behind the Research

Thomas J. Stanley was a PhD researcher and professor who spent decades studying wealth accumulation. He was not a motivational speaker or financial entertainer. He was a data guy. He passed away in 2015, leaving behind a significant legacy and body of work.

William D. Danko, his co-author, brought statistical rigor and academic discipline to the work. Together, they conducted surveys and interviews with thousands of millionaires over multiple decades.

Standley didn’t deal in theory. It was behavioral economics before the term was fashionable—hard data.

Stanley later expanded on the research in books such as The Millionaire Mind and Stop Acting Rich.

The Core Findings That Still Hold

The data produced several insights that remain uncomfortable today.

• Most millionaires did not inherit their wealth

• High income did not guarantee wealth

• Frugality mattered more than intelligence or prestige

• Small, consistent investing beats big, flashy wins

• Financial independence mattered more than social approval

A Term for Rich Posers

Stanley coined a term for people who look rich but are not, UAWs, Under Accumulators of Wealth. Many high earners fell into this category because spending rose faster than savings.

Keeping up with the Joneses comes at a cost. I am one.

What Has Changed Since Then

A lot, and not much. Let’s take a look at a few of the current economic and social dynamics that may seem obvious to you.

1. Housing and education costs have exploded. Home prices, college tuition, and healthcare costs have grown far faster than wages. This has made early wealth accumulation harder, especially for younger generations.

2. The rise of visible wealth. Social media has turned lifestyle into performance. Stanley studied people who avoided attention. Today’s culture rewards conspicuous consumption, even when funded by debt.

3. Income inequality is wider. Top earners now capture a larger share of income, and asset ownership is more concentrated. That does not invalidate Stanley’s findings, but it raises the bar for discipline and patience.

4. Access to investing has improved. Low-cost index funds, automated investing, and financial education are more accessible than ever. The tools are better. The behavior problem remains.

5. Time horizons have shortened. Stanley’s millionaires thought in decades. Today’s culture thinks in quarters, clicks, and trends.

What Has Not Changed At All

Wealth still comes from margin, not magic.

Margin is simply the gap between what you earn and what you spend. That gap is where wealth grows. Magic is the idea that more income, a big win, or a clever investment will do the work for you.

In the real world, people build wealth by keeping some of what they make, every month, for years. Those who spend it all, no matter how much they earn, stay stuck.

The math is boring. The results are not.

Wealthy Habits

Here are the habits of wealthy people:

• Spend less than they earn

• Invest consistently

• Avoid lifestyle inflation

• Value freedom over image

• Play the long game

Those principles are boring. That is why they work.

How do we develop these habits? Mindset.

Change yourself, shift your life by doing the work to build the money muscle memory it takes to liberate yourself.

What would it look like for you when you no longer have to work for money? Seriously. Think about it. Stop and see if you can visualize what that might be. What it would feel like.

See, feel, and believe. These are the keys to transformation—the shift from within.

The Takeaway for Today

The Millionaire Next Door was never about becoming rich. It was about becoming free.

That message matters more now. Look at us. Any of us who grew up in the 70s or 80s remembers the first wave of high inflation. Heck, there was even a time when our government decided to grab all the gold from Americans.

So, here we are. Clearly, we learn little from past mistakes. But some of us, even a numnut from New Hampshire like me, can live freely in the middle class, so can anyone, given the right mindset, habits, and, at least for me, divine intervention.

Financial illiteracy, money trauma and anxiety, debt loads that suffocate us, and our mindset are the obstacles. We have to commit to becoming wealthy if we can agree that true wealth is having the spiritual, psychological, and physical well-being, and the family, friends, and connections that lead to an authentic, fulfilling line of work, financial security, and ultimately, the kind of freedom I get to enjoy in my mid-60s, is possible.

There is Hope

As long as you believe in yourself. Self-help, self-development, self-discovery, self-awareness, self-actualization, and self-individuation are all words for investing in and creating a more authentic, healthy, wealthy, you.

It’s not selfish to invest in yourself.

You, Inc., have hope in yourself. Lean on your higher power—curate faith. Learn. Train your mind. Take action. See what happens.

Adapt as you go. Never stop.

Stanley documented one of the few proven paths to financial independence. The environment is tougher. The distractions are louder. But the math has not changed.

Build wealth the same way. Slowly. Intentionally. And often invisibly.

True, sustainable wealth is about more than money.

I’m an author, strategic consultant, and mentor. Discover the power of the Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method® for improving your career, small business, and life at www.CliffordJones.com.

- Dragonfly, 2022

What happens when a person gets to the end of their career without knowing their higher purpose? Or how to reinvent themselves? And use their time for the second half of life?

Stuck. Lost. Kind of like falling into a black hole.

For example, all based on a true story...

• A partner at a law firm loses his season tickets and parking space. (I know, first-world problem.)

• An influential, 7-figure CEO no longer has his board.

• A world-famous author loses his fame and his private jet.

• A retired, divorced banker gets sick of playing golf with his buddies and starts day drinking and calling his broker every other hour.

I call it “wealth without purpose.” Emotional bankruptcy. Lots of money. Too much time.

Limited self-awareness. No purpose. Bad combo.

The business of life is bigger than money and material. If you have time, money, and no purpose, it’s tough to know what to do.

It’s a heck of a lot easier to reinvent yourself when you know who you are and what you want. That takes lots of time and experience for most of us.

Ultimately, it’s about purpose. Follow it, and you’ll be good.

True self. There’s only one of you, really.

Clarity follows purpose.

Here’s how it works ...

You start wondering why something feels off. But you’re not sure what. You start thinking, “Hmmm, what’s this all about?”

Boom. Ask, and you shall ... start listening to yourself. That higher part of you deep inside and all around us.

A voice that whispers in the middle of the night, “Wake up, it’s time to shift.”

Finally, you’re ready to answer the call.

Your job is to be curious, ask questions, recognize the gap in meaning, the void in purpose, and the toll it takes on your energy.

Keep asking ...

“Where do I feel the most alive? How can I make a difference in my community? How do I get my health back, or stay healthy, even better?”

“Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.”

— Dale Carnegie

Acceptance is the gateway to serenity. It’s a great place!

Reinventing yourself is much easier when you know yourself, what you want, and how to invest your free time.

And you don’t have to wait to reinvent yourself. If you’re having a tough go of it right now, know this ...

All the tough stuff you go through will be worth it when you look back from your 50s or 60s and beyond. (If you do the inner work.)

Just answer the call! After that...

• You won’t sweat the silly stuff as much.

• You will let go of any regrets from the past.

• You will start forgiving yourself. That’s the springboard to forgiving others.

That’s how we stay young. Virtue, not vice.

“Purpose is the fountain of youth.” (Did I just make that up?)

During the process of reinventing ourselves, we notice the overactive ego melts away.

Remaining fears lose their grip. Acceptance, compassion, and patience take over. If you’re stuck, ask for help. Do your best. Finish strong.

Be the real you. That’s the art of life.

I’m an author, strategic coach, and mentor. Discover the power of the Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method® for improving your career, small business, and life at www.CliffordJones.com.

Self-portrait by the author

Ernest Hemingway said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

Only a writer could relate. I started writing when I was 13. I was pissed about inflation in 1974. It crushed my dad’s business. My family struggled financially. Mom and Dad started fighting.

Fear is a bitch. What follows is a fun-to-write rant and story about my history as a writer and my later learning to be an artist.

Back to inflation-from-hell in the early 70s. It sucked for everyone. Gas prices went through the roof. My dad’s hotel business started to crash. Fear gripped America as if we were all falling into a black hole.

So I decided to write a Letter to the Editor for our small-town paper. Everyone who can read reads the local paper in 1974.

Writing that letter was fun. Getting a dose of whoop ass from my parents was not.

Screenshot by author

Fast forward to college.

My writing evolved to journaling. I still have the journal I kept while living in France for a year as a college student.

Today, when I read that journal, I see a creative, outlying, misfit who would and could never last for long in corporate America.

“You can make anything by writing.” — C.S. Lewis

I wanted freedom. Creative freedom. Time freedom. Making money definitely helps.

Until I crossed the line from teenager side jobs like raking leaves and shoveling snow to early adulthood.

“The first draft of anything is shit.” — Ernest Hemingway

So I did the best I could, just like the rest of us. Learning was fun, even if nobody read my stuff.

No, I didn’t identify as a writer until I hacked one of the world’s crappiest books with a bunch of other naive consultants and coaches who didn’t know how bogus “Chapter Books” are.

Image credit author, Mount Humphreys, Flagstaff, Arizona

“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” — Toni Morrison

I write for fun.

Over several decades of pounding on my keyboards, I found ways to make money; sales letters, seminar invitations, slide decks, investor pitches, sales pitches, proposals, website copy, email copy, blog copy, and a shit ton of money made not as a writer, but as a consultant who could write and get top-ten search engine results before AI ruined SEO for everyone.

So, for me, doing what I loved led to making money. That’s money well-earned. Work doesn’t feel like work.

Imagine that.

“Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.” — Mark Twain

Image credit author, - Scottsdale Landing @ Sunset, Scottsale, Arizona

It doesn’t matter what I write because everything I write is fueled by inspiration. I’m a seat-of-the-pants wordsmith. I can type faster than anyone I know.

And no, I don’t look at the keyboard. I own that thing.

The hard part about writing is the editing. But less than $200 a year for Grammarly solves that problem. And it beats hiring an editor like the old days.

“You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it.” — Octavia E. Butler

I still crank out thousands of words, documents, articles, and other forms of content that get deleted before they're closed into a saved folder or sent to my printer. As with photography, an artist learns to be more discriminating in their art.

Over time, with practice, we learn. We find our zone. Our sweet spot. Our style. Just like writers find their voice.

We find our way to be creative. Doing what we love.

That’s wisdom in action.

Image credit author, - Dragonfly

In closing, here’s what I’ve learned about myself after writing for all of these years. I love it. I hate it.

And I like photography and painting much better.

Why?

Because if a picture is worth 1,000 words, it’s 10,000 times easier to knock out a great image or painting after practicing these other art forms.

And people notice my artwork far more than my writing. I could be; my writing sucks that badly, or so I think.

Head trash is a bitch, too. But every decent artist learns to deal with that.

Remember: You are an artist here to create the life of your dreams. That’s why I’m telling you all of this. If you don’t believe me, think back to how creative and playful you were as a kid.

I’m an author, strategic coach, and mentor. Discover the power of the Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method® for improving your career, small business, and life at www.CliffordJones.com.

- Self-portrait, me at 64.5 years young

Retirement is sold as a finish line. Work hard. Save enough. Stop working. Enjoy life.

That story is incomplete—and for many people, it’s harmful.

That’s why I recently decided to create a new body of work addressing the massive fear, anxiety, and suffering we experience over money, work, and retirement. My premise is that as soon as we are willing to shift our mindset about all of this, the easier it is to reduce the struggle of being human.

Heck, it’s already hard enough down here. But the truth is, most of us beat the crap out of ourselves mentally, and it takes a terrible toll on our health and quality of life.

Here’s a short history of retirement in America

Retirement is not a reward. It is a major life transition built on systems and assumptions that no longer align with how long we live, how we work, or how we stay healthy and fulfilled. To understand why so many retirees struggle financially and emotionally, we have to look at where retirement came from, what it does to the human mind, and what actually works instead.

Modern retirement began in the 1930s. When the Social Security Administration was created in 1935, the United States’ life expectancy was about 61 years. Full retirement age was set at 65. In other words, retirement was never designed to last decades. Many people never collected benefits at all, and those who did often relied on them briefly.

After World War II, employer pensions expanded. Workers traded loyalty for guaranteed income. Careers were stable. Lifespans were shorter. The system worked—for a while.

Then pensions declined. The rise of the 401(k) shifted risk from companies to individuals. Most people were never taught how to manage long-term investing, market volatility, or the psychological stress of funding 20 to 30 years without earned income.

Social Security, which was never meant to be a primary source of income, became exactly that for millions of retirees. The system didn’t collapse. It quietly became outdated.

At the same time, the conversation about retirement focused almost entirely on money. What it ignored was something just as important: the human need for purpose. I call this the “inner game.” I developed five simple steps, a process, for anyone to shift their mindset to solve almost any problem.

A process for shifting your mindset

The Clarity Shift Method™ is what I use to teach and coach. It’s all about changing what we can and letting go of trying to control what we can’t.

Here are the five steps I teach for shifting your mindset:

1. Self-awareness. This includes a realistic view of your situational awareness. We all become a byproduct of the environment we live in. Become the observer of yourself. Learn to be authentic. No B.S.

2. Higher understanding. Step back. Take a deep breath. Pause when upset or frustrated. Change your perspective on any person, place, or thing that bothers you.

3. Introspection. Search within yourself to find clarity about your values, desires, needs, and the suffering that holds you back.

4. Focused intention. What do you want next, and what will it take to get it? Focus on one thing at a time. Be super intentional. See, feel, and believe as if you’re receiving what you asked for.

5. Transformation. It’s not a burning bush kind of transformation for most of us. It’s a gradual realization that day by day, you are enjoying your life and doing the best you can to maintain peace of mind. It’s a shift in awareness.

I know it’s real because I’ve been living this way, self-employed, loving my work, in a position to retire now that I’m almost 65. But I have no desire to “stop working.” That’s what retirement means, literally.

Here’s the truth about work

Work does more than provide a paycheck. It gives structure to the day, identity to the individual, social connection, and a sense of contribution. When work ends abruptly, those things often disappear overnight.

This is why retirement is not a steady emotional state. It unfolds in stages. Research and lived experience show a predictable pattern, clearly described by Dr. Riley Moynes.

Here’s a quick summary of his four stages that address the emotional aspects of retirement psychology.

• Phase 1: The early phase feels like a vacation—freedom, novelty, relief. Eventually, that fades.

• Phase 2: What often follows is loss: boredom, restlessness, identity erosion, and anxiety that catches people off guard.

• Phase 3: Many then move into a trial-and-error phase, experimenting with activities, roles, or part-time work in search of meaning.

• Phase 4: Those who thrive eventually reach reinvention, where purpose is rebuilt around something new.

Here’s the critical insight: many people never reach reinvention because they were taught the wrong goal.

Why shifting your mindset is the best place to start

The core problem with modern retirement thinking is the belief that leaving the workforce leads to fulfillment. Humans are not wired that way. People are wired to contribute. Purpose is not optional. Without it, mental and physical health decline—often faster than finances.

Instead of dwelling too much on the problems we face, let’s focus on a common-sense approach to improving your life and any semblance of retirement you choose to pursue. The real solution is not just saving more money or delaying retirement by a few years. The real solution is a mindset shift.

First, the old concept of retirement has to be discarded. Retirement should not mean stopping. It should mean shifting. The question is no longer “When do I stop working?” but “How do I want to contribute without burning out?” The goal is not leisure. The goal is engagement without exhaustion.

That shift requires honesty—something most people avoid. Retirement forces uncomfortable questions. Who am I without my title? What do I actually enjoy doing when no one is paying me? What drains me? What gives me energy? What do people naturally come to me for?

Pretending leads to empty busyness. Honesty leads to alignment.

How to thrive in life

Thriving later in life is not about age. It’s about design. People who do well intentionally build their days around a sense of purpose. That purpose usually sits at the intersection of their unique abilities, genuine interests, natural gifts, and activities that create value for others.

This does not require full-time work. It may look like mentoring, teaching, consulting, creative work, community leadership, service, or small, flexible businesses. What matters is contribution and structure, not the number of hours.

Money still matters, but in a way most people don’t think. Freedom doesn’t come from maximum spending. It comes from sustainability. People who thrive in later life tend to simplify. They reduce unnecessary expenses, step off the status treadmill, and design a lifestyle that fits their values. Living within your means is not about deprivation. It’s about control. Financial stress destroys freedom faster than aging ever will.

Age is a state of mind

The final piece is staying young—not in appearance, but in mind and body. Decades of longevity research point to the same conclusion: people who live longest don’t retire from life.

Communities studied by the Blue Zones Project don’t have a word for retirement. People remain active, socially connected, mentally engaged, and useful to others well into later life. They move daily, maintain relationships, contribute to their community, and wake up with a reason to get out of bed.

They don’t chase leisure. They live with purpose.

The retirement crisis is not just financial. It’s conceptual. We built systems for shorter lives and told people the goal was to stop. Longer lives demand something different. Identity must evolve.

Contribution must continue. Money must support life—not replace it.

The truth about retirement is uncomfortable but empowering. If you shift your mindset, get honest with yourself, and design a life around purpose, unique abilities, and sustainable living, retirement stops being a risk. It becomes a reinvention.

I’m an author, strategic coach, and mentor. Discover the power of the Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method® for improving your career, small business, and life at www.CliffordJones.com.

- Sonoran Sunset by yours truly. (It’s a desert, an oasis.)

Worried about money, your job, or whether you’ll ever be able to retire? You’re not alone. Millions of Americans feel trapped—working jobs they don’t love, running businesses that drain them, and quietly worrying about what happens if the paycheck stops.

Let me offer some peace of mind.

Retirement, as most people imagine it, is largely a myth.

Now, if you’re a financial advisor, let me explain myself before you grab the bat.

I’m not saying people don’t retire. Many do. Some love it. But the idea of retirement—the finish line where stress disappears and meaning magically appears—was invented for a different world.

An industrial world. One that no longer exists.

The modern concept of retirement showed up in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when factory work physically broke people down and life expectancy was much shorter. Retirement was designed as an exit ramp for worn-out bodies, not fulfilled lives.

Fast forward to today. We’re living longer, working less physically demanding jobs, and being sold a dream that fewer and fewer people can afford.

Most Americans are nowhere near financially prepared for retirement. Federal Reserve data makes that clear. And here’s the part that rarely gets talked about: even among those who retire comfortably, many report boredom, loss of identity, depression, or a dull sense of emptiness within a few years.

So they go back to work.
Or they volunteer.
Or they drift.

I know this because I’m 64.5 and living it. And because a hunch I had 30 years ago has now proven itself.

Solving for retirement isn’t the real problem. Finding meaningful, sustainable work is.

Look at people in the so-called Blue Zones. They don’t even have a word for retirement. According to research popularized by Blue Zones, wealth is measured by purpose, not portfolio size. Work doesn’t end. It evolves.

Work isn’t the enemy. Meaningless work is.

I see this every day with my coaching clients—most of whom are half my age. They want purpose and meaning more than money. They want a quality of life that doesn’t grind them down before 50.

I learned this the hard way. Slowly. Over decades.

In my early 30s, I worked as an independent retirement planner and later at Merrill Lynch. I was successful. I built trust. I did right by my clients. I understood sales. I understood systems. I had more hair.

What I didn’t understand was life.

I was working for money and purpose while constantly worrying I wasn’t good enough, rich enough, happy enough, or successful enough. Fear was my fuel.

Being motivated by fear instead of love is a slippery slope into a dark abyss. Unfortunately, fear controls most of us until we wake up.

Most of my clients who wanted to retire didn’t love their work. Many were twice my age. I was helping them prepare for a future I hadn’t lived yet.

The real education came two years after they retired.

The call usually sounded like this:

“Hey, Cliff, we need to come see you. Retirement’s been great… but Johnny’s bored playing golf. He’s sitting around the house pouting. We’ve traveled enough. We need a new plan. Oh—and we could use some more income.”

Those calls fueled my hunch: retirement felt unreal. Like an oasis in a scorching desert—beautiful from afar, but often a mirage up close.

Now, in my mid-60s, I know that hunch was right.

We’re being sold an illusion by a massive wealth-management marketing machine. Fear is profitable. Anxiety sells. The promise is simple: work hard now, suffer through decades you don’t enjoy, and someday you’ll be free.

But free to do what, exactly?

Free to do what you want, when you want, within the limits of your lifestyle. To afford a life you actually enjoy.

If retirement simply means “stop working,” what replaces the structure, identity, social connection, and sense of contribution that work provides?

That’s the question the glossy brochures never answer. Where’s the purpose?

Some of the most successful people alive rejected the idea outright. Actor Clint Eastwood put it plainly: “The idea of retiring is absurd.” Investor Warren Buffett said for years he’d keep doing what he loved as long as he could—and largely did.

This isn’t about glorifying hustle or denying rest. It’s about realism.

If you love your work, why would you stop—unless your health forces the issue or the job physically breaks you down?

The real problem isn’t retirement. It’s a culture that disconnects people from meaningful work. But once you understand the rules of the school of life, you can stop blaming the culture and start choosing differently.

Americans are taught to chase income, attention, fame, and fortune first—purpose later, if ever. This mindset is reinforced by Wall Street, private equity, and financial institutions that profit from fear-based planning.

Here’s a simpler, more durable solution:

Know yourself.
Know your values.
Be aware you have a purpose.
Find work you enjoy and can adapt over time.
Spend less than you make.
Save and invest the difference.
Never stop evolving.

Do that, and retirement anxiety largely disappears.

You’re no longer dependent on politicians or the long-term solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund. You stop counting the days until escape. You build a life that works now—and later.

Real wealth isn’t a number in an account.

It’s knowing yourself.
It’s understanding your unique gifts.
It’s having something meaningful to wake up for.

That’s freedom without illusion.

I’ve lived this way since 1991, when I quit my corporate job at 30.

Retirement isn’t a destination. It’s a story we were sold.

The truth is simpler: retirement promises freedom.
So why wait until you’re old to claim it?

That’s when fear finally loses its grip.

I’m an author, strategic coach, and mentor. Discover the power of the Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method® for improving yourself, your career, business, and life at www.CliffordJones.com.

Photo by ketan rajput on Unsplash

There’s a kind of understanding that only shows up with time. You can’t download it. You can’t rush it. It comes from years of pushing yourself to fit, wondering why life feels harder than it seems to others, and slowly realizing that the problem was never about effort or intelligence. It was a mismatch between who you are and how you were taught to operate.

Looking back over more than sixty-four years, the real work for me wasn’t becoming tougher or less sensitive. It was learning how to work with my nervous system instead of fighting it. Once that relationship changed, my experience of work, relationships, and even conflict began to shift in measurable ways.

If this resonates with you, you’re not alone. Many highly sensitive people grow up believing they’re flawed, fragile, or somehow behind. By the end of this article, I hope that you’ll understand why that belief is wrong.

With that, you’ll be better equipped to get along with yourself in case you’re like most of us; you say things to yourself you wouldn’t let others tell you.

In my experience, when that relationship improves, the rest of the world becomes easier to navigate as well.

Understanding highly sensitive humans

Many of us who identify as Highly Sensitive People (HSPs) grew up believing something was wrong with us. We heard they were “too emotional,” “too slow,” or “too intense.”

For me, it was, “Grow up,” and “Don’t be so immature.” The words used to cut me like a knife. The good news is, I was blessed with great parents and a childhood, even though I had to navigate a few gene-pool riptides, like most of us.

A psychologist’s perspective

Here’s the deal. Over time, messages like this don’t fade. In the worst-case scenarios, they became internal voices. In Chapter 3 of The Highly Sensitive Person, Elaine N. Aron explains that healing often begins when the “adult self” learns to listen to the inner child instead of overriding it.

Psychologists often describe three functional ego states operating within each of us.

• The child state carries emotion, instinct, and unmet needs shaped early in life.

• The parent state carries internalized rules, expectations, and learned judgments, often borrowed from authority figures.

• The adult state is the regulator. It interprets reality, evaluates options, and decides how to respond in the present.

Problems arise when the parent state exerts pressure or criticism, and the child state reacts with overwhelm or withdrawal. Healing begins when the adult state steps in, not to silence either one, but to listen, interpret, and respond with discernment.

As a parent for nearly forty years, I’ve learned a lot. The following quote resonated with me as soon as I saw it:

“The main task of the parent part of the psyche is to protect the child, not to push or shame it into performing.” — Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person

We’re born this way

Aron’s is not symbolic language for its own sake. She is describing a nervous system shaped early in life. Roughly 15–20% of people are born with heightened sensitivity to stimulation.

This trait is biological, not learned.

I remember the agony of feeling “unseen” and “unheard,” while my sister and brother saw much of our childhood in a different light. That’s typical for siblings. After all, each of us is different.

When the environment, such as the home, does not support that sensitivity, the child adapts by suppressing needs. The cost often appears later as anxiety, burnout, people-pleasing, or chronic self-doubt.

The inner child of an HSP carries clear messages. When we ignore or block those messages, the nervous system stays on alert. When we observe, feel, honor, and process these teachers, the inner child settles.

What follows is not self-indulgence. It is learning self-regulation.

Ask your inner child, be still, and listen

Here is what that inner child is often asking for — and why it matters in adult life, work, and relationships. I’ve extracted these insights from Aron’s book, and I suggest you read it if you see yourself as a highly sensitive person easily prone to burnout.

Suggestion: Observe yourself, be conscious of your breathing, relax, and notice what you feel as you read the following attributes of your inner child. Imagine your inner child is talking to your parent and a rational adult. (As a parent, you can also be aware of these attributes when raising your children.)

1. The sensitive child asks for protection from overstimulation. Loud noise, rushed schedules, conflict, and constant demands overload the HSP’s nervous system faster than average. Without protection, the body remains in a state of fight-or-flight. Over time, this leads to exhaustion, irritability, and emotional shutdown.

2. The child asks for rest without guilt. HSPs process information deeply. That depth requires recovery time. Rest is not laziness; it is neurological maintenance. When we deny ourselves sufficient rest, performance drops and health suffers.

3. The child asks for gentleness around strong emotions. Criticism, anger, or rejection can feel overwhelming, even when unintended. The sensitive nervous system reacts more intensely. Emotional safety is not a preference — it is a requirement for consistent functioning.

4. The child asks not to be shamed for feeling deeply. Sensitivity increases empathy, creativity, and moral awareness. When we label feelings as weakness, the HSP learns to mistrust their own experience and instincts. (Our culture shames feelings, especially at work.)

5. The child asks for time to think. HSPs often reflect before acting. In fast-paced cultures, this is mistaken for hesitation. In reality, it is careful decision-making. Rushing an HSP frequently leads to poorer outcomes, not better ones.

6. The child asks not to be compared to others. (Like on all social media!) A different nervous system needs different strategies. Comparison to less sensitive people creates unrealistic expectations and fuels unnecessary self-criticism.

7. The child asks for trust in subtle awareness. HSPs notice details others miss — tone changes, environmental shifts, emotional undercurrents. This sensitivity often prevents problems from escalating, especially in leadership and relationship contexts.

   These needs do not disappear in adulthood. They show up at work, in families, and in how people respond to pressure. Burnout often occurs not because HSPs are doing too little, but because they are doing too much without the conditions they require to recover.

8. The child asks for kinder self-talk. Internal criticism hits HSPs harder because the brain processes it similarly to an external threat. Harsh inner language increases stress rather than motivation.

9. The child asks for emotional safety to perform well. Research shows that HSPs thrive in supportive environments and underperform in harsh ones. HSPs are not fragile; they are highly responsive to their environment.

10. The child asks for permission to withdraw when needed. Pulling back is how the nervous system resets. It is recovery, not avoidance.

11. The child asks for respect for intuition. HSPs often integrate information unconsciously and arrive at accurate “gut” feelings. These insights may not be immediate, but they are frequently reliable.

12. Finally, the child asks for advocacy. Many HSPs did not have someone protecting their limits early in life. As adults, they must learn to do that themselves by setting boundaries, choosing environments wisely, and saying no without apology.

Become more aware of your feelings

Aron’s message is direct: ignoring sensitivity does not make it go away. Instead, pay attention, direct your awareness to feel everything within you.

Ignoring or numbing feelings only drives them underground, where they surface as stress, resentment, and self-blame. What actually helps is not pushing harder, but aligning behavior with biology.

When the adult self responds with protection instead of pressure, the nervous system calms. From that place, clarity improves, energy returns, and sustainable success becomes possible.

In closing, ask yourself two questions. Which of these needs did you learn to ignore? And what would change if you stopped?

I’m an author, photographer, visual artist, and mentor. Discover the power of the Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method® for improving yourself, your career, business, and life at www.CliffordJones.com.

Based on my current life expectancy and actuaries, I might have about 1,200 Saturdays left, give or take. Depressing? Nope. Because I live in the now, and I’m here to share something that’s dawned on me in later years.

It’s about energy. Mine. Yours. And in general. What you’re about to read is about the art of life. I’ve been far more focused on my photography and digital artwork than writing lately. And it’s all good because I’m energized as heck.

Time

Most of us are glued to a calendar; life, work, and what little else. Time. “Oh no, I’m going to be late.”

But a calendar does not make a life. It is one way to track time. It sure beats a sundial.

Energy is beyond time. It simply changes form, like my face and everything else that’s aging in my 6-foot-1-inch frame. When we shift to thinking about life as energy and attention, we have the opportunity to discover the ultimate gift, the best present of all.

The here, and now.

Awareness

Some people are more aware of this than others.

Highly sensitive, bright, and often introverted people tend to notice energy shifts early. Psychologist Elaine Aron, Ph.D., who coined the term Highly Sensitive Person, found that roughly 15 to 20 percent of the population processes sensory and emotional information more deeply.

Guess what? I used to be so highly sensitive that I believed something was seriously wrong with me.

However, that has consequences. And consequences for me led me to do tons of inner work, which partly explains why I read and write about psychology and metaphysics.

Arousal

Let’s talk about what you notice the most. Psychologists call it arousal.

Do noise, light, emotional tone, loud sirens, conflict, and overstimulation register quickly, sometimes instantly, for you? If so, your body knows before your mind can explain what’s going on.

It’s as if you have a sixth sense more developed than most. The real you inside is not fragile. It’s light. It is sensitivity paired with awareness.

Aron’s research shows that highly sensitive people are often more attuned to what drains them and what sustains them, especially with age. Many learn this the hard way. I know I did.

The Shift

I’ve experienced this shift in my energy awareness the most over the last 15 years. 60+ years in the school of life offers a few lessons for any willing student. How you develop your awareness of energy is up to you.

You have to be intentional.

Ignore energy long enough, and it shows up as burnout, illness, irritability, or quiet disengagement. Pay attention, and something else happens. Life becomes more sustainable. Choices become clearer.

Even if you do not identify as highly sensitive, experience teaches a similar lesson. Longevity, physical and psychological, depends on self-awareness. You begin to notice patterns. What fuels you? What costs you more than you want to admit? What environments support you, and which ones quietly wear you down?

Asking

Ask, and you shall receive more insight into who the heck you genuinely are. (Warning: Requires believing in something far bigger than us.) This kind of awareness is not indulgent.

It is sacred wisdom.

The early Greek philosophers understood this long before modern neuroscience gave us language for it. The Stoics primarily wrestled with the same existential questions we still face. Who are we? Why are we here? What are we supposed to be doing with this limited time?

Seneca cut straight to the point: “It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste much of it.”

Boundaries, Energy Efficiency

Waste does not always look like idleness. People pleasers often sacrifice their most precious energy, giving it away. Same with do-gooders and perfectionists. Think of all the tension of their energy.

Boundaries created huge efficiency for me over the years. That required being more self-aware, OK, and confident in who I am vs. who I am not.

It seems like overcommitment. It looks like saying yes too often. It looks like pouring energy into work, relationships, and habits that no longer align with who you are becoming.

And you are drained. That’s not the real you.

Marcus Aurelius framed the internal side of the equation: “You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”

That insight sits at the heart of energy management. You cannot control most external circumstances. Trust me, as a recovering control freak, one of the fastest ways to drain your energy is to argue with reality.

Shifting Yourself

You have to shift yourself into a higher gear of self-awareness. You find the “real you.” That requires looking in the wrong places and facing some tough lessons.

Consequences. Suffering. Change.

Change yourself, how you see yourself, and the world around you. You can get to the point where people, places, and things don’t bother you like they once did.

You can learn how to better observe, filter, interpret, how long you carry thoughts and certain feelings, and how much energy you allow them to consume. Over time, that discipline becomes a form of freedom.

When you see life as eternal, infinite energy working through your mind and body, and learn to work with it rather than against it, life becomes nearly effortless.

Life

Oscar Wilde captured what happens when this awareness never develops: “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”

Existing is easy. Living well takes attention. Better yet, it takes intention.

Energy shows up everywhere. Again, I ask you to ask …

Does your work give you more energy as the day unfolds, or less? Are there people who leave you calmer and clearer, and others who leave you tense and depleted?

Think about this stuff, but don’t overthink it.

What you read, watch, eat, and scroll through all register in the nervous system. The body keeps score long before the mind catches up.

Physics tells us that energy is never destroyed; it is only transformed. Human beings are no exception. Burnout is rarely caused solely by effort. More often, it comes from prolonged misalignment, giving energy to things that do not nourish meaning or growth.

Age Benefits

I love this stage of life. If life is hard for you right now, believe that your life will get better.

With age, if we are paying attention, we get better at this. We simplify. We protect our attention. We choose environments more carefully. We learn when to engage fully and when to rest without guilt.

It’s not withdrawal from life. It is a more skillful way of participating in it.

When work, relationships, and creative practices energize you, something shifts. Time feels less oppressive. Effort feels cleaner. You may still get tired, but you are not empty. That difference matters more than most productivity advice will ever admit.

The art of life is not about squeezing more into fewer hours. It is about aligning limited time with what sustains your energy and deepens your awareness. That alignment is what allows a life to feel long, meaningful, and fully lived.

Like when I create new art.

For now, I will leave you with the wisdom of our Dog. He’s stretched out in the sun, recharging his seventy-three-year-old dog body without apology or hurry. He understands something many humans forget.

He observes all. Rest is not wasted time. It is how wisdom keeps the lights on. It’s like Under Dog basking in the glory of the light.

Follow the light in your heart.

I’m an author, photographer, visual artist, and mentor. Discover the power of the Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method® for improving yourself, your career, business, and life at www.CliffordJones.com.

Image credit Canva Pro with edits by author

It’s been weeks since I had time to sit and write. Part of it has been family matters that require my attention, as well as my evolving photography and visual art business. It’s been both draining in terms of emotions and the family health matter, and energizing because my dog photography and art business is taking off.

I’ve also been reading. I recently started reading The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You by Elaine N. Aron, Ph.D. After getting through most of it, now I know why I cry so often.

I’m a highly emotional person. You could be, too. That’s what the rest of this article is about.

Feeling Too Much?

From a young age, I always felt like I felt too much. Almost as if, no, as if, something was or is wrong with me. Like damaged goods.

After 64 years of trying to solve the great mystery in my head, I’ve learned a few things about myself, my sensitivities and values, how to get along with people from all walks of life by meeting everyone where they are, and so on.

Because of understanding my emotional nature, I’m okay, you’re OK, and everything’s OK even when it’s not. Because acceptance is the springboard to serenity. And finding that takes lots of ongoing, daily practice.

Being a Kid Has Always Been Brutal

Let’s get back to what I’ve learned in the book that may apply to you, especially if you and others think you’re “too sensitive.” Let’s dive into how our sensitivities and programming start.

One of my coaching clients told me he has social anxiety. I asked him, “You mean like when we were kids?” He said, “Yeah, like that.” I told him, “Everyone deals with that, and some of us learn to work through it sooner than others.”

Another client, while working through his life issues, said, “Cliff, I don’t really know if I experienced much trauma. I had a great childhood.” I replied, “Being born into this world is traumatic, and all families carry some level of intergenerational trauma. We all deal with emotions we never learned to process, but we carry them at different levels.”

We learn to manage our emotions from a very young age, some better than others.

Toxic Culture: Byproduct of the Environment

If you see American culture as our macro environment, it’s easy to agree that it’s toxic in many ways. As a result, we have a mental health epidemic. Social media and the erosion of core family values make it even harder to be a kid these days. It’s brutal for all of us.

If I had social media when I was 11, my highly sensitive self might have turned out much differently. Comparing yourself to a false ideal is a fast track to feeling not OK.

What’s more, we all become products of our environment until we learn to shift our awareness and adopt healthy habits. Managing our energy, health, and emotions is an essential habit. There’s no getting around that humans can be sensitive, and not. But how we manage our emotions makes all the difference.

Look for Similarities, Honor Differences

Everyone has some level of sensitivity, with narcissists being close to the bottom of the scale. Yet, highly sensitive people are different from those who move through life with thicker emotional armor and little empathy.

We feel more, notice more, and react more deeply to the world around us. This trait is called sensory processing sensitivity. It exists on a spectrum. We see it in about a third of the population. If you recognize yourself in the descriptions below, you might fall on the higher end of that spectrum.

How to Know If You’re a Highly Sensitive Person

Being highly sensitive makes being human even harder. So, let’s figure out if you can relate. See how many of the following traits have your name on them. Read through them, listen to your heart, and take notes accordingly.

You can find a free, online assessment and lots of resources on Dr. Aron’s website.

1. You notice things other people miss. Highly sensitive people pay close attention to small details. You hate it when someone moves your stuff. You can quickly sense a change in someone’s tone. You notice subtle shifts in the weather. And energy. The simple fact is your brain processes information more deeply. It is not a choice. It is how you are. Many people with this trait also notice seasonal changes before others or pick up on delicate scents, textures, and sounds without effort.

2. You absorb the emotional tone of a room. If someone is frustrated, tense, or sad, you feel it fast. High sensitivity often comes with strong emotional awareness. You might understand what another person thinks before they say a word. You can be a steady friend, a compassionate leader, or the person others lean on. The challenge is learning how not to carry everyone else’s emotions as your own.

3. You react strongly to life, both the good and the bad. Sensitive people feel their experiences deeply. Praise can lift you higher. Criticism can hit harder. A beautiful song can move you. A chaotic scene can drain you. Reactivity is a key part of the trait. It does not mean you are fragile. It means your emotional and physiological systems are more responsive to what happens around you.

4. You process everything on a deeper level. Many highly sensitive people think about decisions from multiple angles. They ask more questions. They reflect before acting. They want to understand what something means rather than rushing past it. Your depth of processing can look like overthinking, but it is actually careful, deliberate thinking. It often leads to strong insights and better judgment.

5. You get overstimulated when too much is happening. Bright lights, loud noise, crowded rooms, and fast-moving environments can overwhelm sensitive people. When there is too much incoming information, the nervous system becomes overloaded. You can become irritable, fatigued, or need to pull away and reset. It is not a weakness. It is a normal response for someone whose system takes in more data than average.

6. You appreciate art and beauty more than most. Music, paintings, nature, poetry, or meaningful conversations can move you deeply. Many people with this trait report feeling connected, inspired, or even changed by these experiences.

   Your sensitivity to positive stimuli is just as crucial as your sensitivity to stress. It is one reason many highly sensitive people thrive in creative work or environments that value meaning.

7. You reflect on life’s big questions. Philosophical thinking is common among sensitive people. You may find yourself wondering about purpose, values, identity, or the meaning behind events. It’s part of the deeper cognitive processing that defines the trait. You are not content with surface-level answers. You want clarity. You want understanding. You want things to make sense.

8. You can read people well, even without trying. Social sensitivity is another hallmark of the trait. You might pick up on someone’s discomfort before others notice. You might sense unspoken tension or understand how a situation could make someone feel. You are skilled at connection and empathy. It often leads people to trust you, open up to you, or seek your guidance.

9. Positive experiences lift you more than most people. High sensitivity is not only about challenges. Research shows that sensitive people benefit more from supportive environments. Encouragement, kindness, and positive surroundings have a more substantial impact. When you are in the right place, with the right people, you grow fast. You thrive. You become your strongest self.

10. You need more time to recover after overwhelm. Negative experiences, people, places, and things likely drain you. Because you take in more information, you often need more time to decompress—quiet time, rest, and space to think help your system reset. It’s not avoidance. It is self-regulation. Sensitive people do best when they build regular pauses into their schedules, giving their minds and bodies the chance to calm down.

11. You enjoy meaningful conversations more than small talk. Talk about the weather? Boring! You might prefer honest, deep conversations over meaningless banter, gossip, and the like. Many highly sensitive people value a connection that feels real. They want to talk about experiences, ideas, purpose, or growth. You desire depth and meaning in life, relationships, and work. The older and wiser you grow, the easier it becomes to hold boundaries.

We Are Not “Damaged Goods”

There you have it. That’s the essence of what I learned from the book. I highly recommend buying a copy and reading it. Because here’s the deal.

You’re as OK as you can be right now. Same with me. If we’re doing our best, we’re doing our best. Being a highly sensitive person is not a flaw. For most of my life, I held a self-view that a part of me was broken, not good enough, not OK.

Not anymore.

A highly sensitive nature carries traits with calm waters and rip tides. It can help us become great thinkers, strong leaders, creative artists, or caring partners. It can also lead to stress or overwhelm if not understood.

Shifting Self-Awareness

The key to understanding yourself is self-awareness. When you know you are wired as highly emotional, you can shape your life so you are supported rather than drained. You can create healthy boundaries for yourself and buffer stress.

“Learning to value your sensitivity rather than hide it is perhaps the most important journey an HSP can undertake. It is the journey toward self-acceptance, authenticity, and peace.” — Elaine N. Aron, Ph.D.

I’m learning that sensitivity is one of the many ways the human brain adapts to the world. Some of us are built to respond fast. Others are built to notice, reflect, and think before they act.

Both patterns have value. Both roles matter. That partly explains why my wife and I have made such well-aligned best friends and are married for life.

If you recognize yourself in these traits, you are not weak, broken, or “too much.” You are wired differently. That wiring gives you strengths the world needs more than ever. Cherish your empathy, awareness, depth, and insight.

When you understand your sensitivity and work with it instead of against it, you don’t just cope. You find your flow state, which is when you can get through the most challenging lessons life delivers.

I’m an author, photographer, visual artist, and mentor. Discover the power of the Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method® for improving yourself, your career, business, and life at www.CliffordJones.com.

- The Cage, image credit author

How different are you when you’re working compared to the real you? The one your family knows, or the one who laughs with friends when no one’s judging? How much of your energy goes into keeping up the act that pays your bills?

Before I started working for myself, I felt like I was trapped in a cage. I wore a suit to the office every day and a mask I couldn’t take off. On the outside, I was confident, sharp, and driven. Inside, I was anxious, unsure, and trying to prove that I belonged.

Like many professionals early in their careers, I thought success meant playing the part—looking the part—at any cost. I didn’t realize how much energy it took to maintain that image. I spent years performing instead of living.

I battled Imposter Syndrome. I worried constantly about being “found out.” I compared myself to others, chased titles, and worked harder than everyone around me to feel safe. I told myself I was ambitious, but the truth is, I was afraid.

The stress never let up. I tried to please bosses, coworkers, and clients while ignoring my own needs. I became skilled at adapting to others' expectations, but I lost touch with who I truly was.

By my late twenties, I was burned out and disconnected. I had the appearance of success but none of the peace. That’s when I knew something had to change.

That’s when I began to shift my perspective and find the time and creative freedom I always wanted by going into business for myself.

I was only 30, and today, my shift made all the difference.

S – Self-Awareness

The first step was realizing that my stress wasn’t random. It was feedback. I was living out of alignment with my true self. I began to notice the discrepancy between how I behaved at work and who I was at home. That awareness was uncomfortable, but it was the beginning of freedom.

H – Higher Understanding

Next, I began to see that every struggle had meaning. My frustration, exhaustion, and disconnection weren’t signs of failure—they were signs that my soul was calling for something more. I stopped blaming my job or my bosses and began looking at what life was trying to teach me.

I – Introspection

I slowed down. I began reading self-help books, writing, journaling, meditating, and asking more profound questions. Who am I when I’m not trying to prove myself? What do I truly value? What kind of work feels like a natural expression of my gifts? This inner work helped me reconnect with the purpose I had buried under layers of ambition and fear.

F – Focused Intention

Once I gained clarity, I decided to live and work in a different way. I set the intention to follow my curiosity, use my creativity, and build a life that felt authentic. That decision led me to start my first business. It was scary, but it was also liberating.

T – Transformation and Trust

Transformation begins when you step into the unknown and trust that you’ll grow through it. The early years of self-employment were challenging. I faced new types of stress, but this time, the stress had meaning. It fueled growth instead of burnout. I was building something real, something aligned with my purpose.

“Most of our tensions and frustrations stem from compulsive needs to act the role of someone we are not.” - Dr. Hans Selye, the father of stress research

That was my life before I shifted—pretending to be who I thought I had to be instead of embracing who I really was.

When I stopped acting and started aligning, everything changed. The pressure didn’t disappear, but it transformed. Instead of crushing me, it shaped me. My work no longer drained me. Work energized me.

That’s what the Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method® was born from—my own journey of self-awareness, higher understanding, introspection, focused intention, and transformation.

Loving My Work Guiding Others

It’s why I love guiding the younger versions of myself today: the driven, high-performing professionals who are silently struggling behind polished LinkedIn profiles and polite smiles. I help them peel off the mask, reconnect with their purpose, and rediscover the freedom that comes from being their true selves.

Because I know what it feels like to fake it to make a living. I know what it’s like to wake up successful on the outside but empty on the inside. And I know the courage it takes to stop pretending and start living with purpose.

When you finally choose authenticity over approval, your entire life shifts. Your work becomes an expression of who you are, not a performance of who you think you should be. Your stress becomes a signal for growth, not a sentence of exhaustion.

The truth is, freedom doesn’t come from quitting your job or running your own business. It comes from being true to yourself wherever you are.

If you’re tired of wearing the mask, maybe it’s time to S.H.I.F.T.

Because when you do, your work—and your life—stop feeling like an act and start feeling like the truth.

I mentor motivated Millennial and Gen Z leaders to escape soul-sucking careers and become purpose-driven founders, creators, and successful entrepreneurs. Learn more at www.CliffordJones.com.

Image credit, Alexander Jones

This weekend, my wife, Janice, and I celebrated 40 years of marriage. We had a low-key celebration with our children and grandchildren, and it was perfect.

We met during our freshman year in college. For me, it was infatuation at first sight. A long-term loving marriage wasn’t on the radar back then, but as destiny would have it, I was able to court and marry the woman of my dreams within two years of graduation.

Looking back, I see marriage, parenting, and everything else as a lifelong classroom. I was never more than a C student in school, but I feel like I’ve earned an A+ in life.

At my worst, most women would have tossed me over the edge of the Grand Canyon for a portrait gone bad. But, because Janice chose to stay the course, our love grows deeper and beyond words, even for a pretty decent wordsmith.

What follows are several of the most important lessons I’ve learned, knowing that life’s tests never stop. Reflecting on the many joys, challenges, and moments of grace we’ve shared, let me assure you that Janice will always be the more mature of the two of us.

I was one of the children.

We married when we were kids, full of dreams, energy, and naive idealism. Neither of us had any idea that Janice would have three children to raise. The first two were our sons, Chris and Alex. I was the third.

I was never great at math, but if I had to guess, I had the emotional maturity of a man a decade younger than my real age.

Trust me when I tell you that it is the woman in most marriages who decides if the marriage will last. That was the case for us when I imploded in my late 30s.

True love is unconditional.

Trust me, infatuation wears off fast. What follows lust is either a train wreck or lasting love, depending on your fate. True love isn’t based on performance or perfection. It’s forged over decades through the toughest of trials.

Show up even when you don’t feel like it. Stay even when it’s hard. Forgive, not because it’s easy, but because it’s necessary for the bond to survive.

And keep your vows. Love that lasts isn’t built on infatuation or endless excitement.

It’s built on the daily decision to care, to listen, to give grace, and to keep the commitment.

Unity takes practice.

Marriage isn’t about finding the right person. Sure, that helps. But how many of us truly know what the hell we’re doing when lust hacks the brain? Success in a long-term relationship is about growth and becoming the right partner.

Unity requires faith, trust, loyalty, accountability, time, and divine intervention.

There were years of joy and years of indescribable stress. But each time life tested us, we found a way to return to center, and to remember why we chose each other in the first place.

That’s where faith comes in. Faith in God, faith in the process, faith in each other, and faith in the possibility of renewal.

Friction is part of the design.

When two people from different families and belief systems come together, sparks will fly. That friction can break you apart, or it can polish you like stones in a river.

“If two people agree on everything, one of them is unnecessary.” — Unknown

We had to learn to handle differences with humility, to speak truth without blame, and to see each other’s perspective without losing our own. The quicker we learned to admit mistakes, forgive, and move on, the stronger our unity became.

Today, we live as one. We’ve endured the tests of time.

Forgiveness is a superpower.

Pride destroys more relationships than betrayal ever could. With time, our egos faded into the past, and we chose love over being right; peace between us emerged.

“When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” — C.S. Lewis

There were times I failed as a husband, especially when work, ambition, excessive play, and way too many motorcycle expenses and adventures took their toll. But forgiveness, both given and received, helped us heal and start again.

Pause when agitated, forgive fast, and grow up as best you can.

Family is the real fortune.

Forty years later, I can say that Janice has been my greatest blessing. I tell our kids so they can tell their kids, “Our priorities are God, family, and everything else.”

Together, we raised two wonderful sons and now watch three grandchildren grow up. Even though our role as parents has changed, we’re learning what it means to be the patriarch and matriarch of a growing family here in Arizona.

We’ve shared laughter and tears, victories and defeats, setbacks and comebacks. Through it all, Janice has been my anchor, my confidant, and my best friend.

If I’m the rock of the family, Janice is the glue. Rocks crumble. Glue binds.

Marrying Janice is the best decision of my life. Sure, the incessant love notes, my hot, persistent pursuit, and lots of love notes helped. But she believed in me when I doubted myself. She stood by me through every reinvention, every new idea, every risk I took as an entrepreneur.

I could never have built or sustained my small businesses without her love and support. And our home equity. Behind every small success and every failure I’ve learned from, there’s been her quiet strength and unwavering faith.

Love is the miracle.

A lasting marriage isn’t luck or chemistry. It’s two people choosing each other again and again, through every season of life. Love matures, deepens, and becomes sacred; it is a spiritual partnership that is part of human evolution.

Regardless of time, I’m pretty sure that all women wonder if they married the right person.

After forty years, I’ve learned that love is less about finding happiness and more about honoring the sacred nature of two souls striving for unity. The opportunity is learning to love as God loves, freely, fully, and without condition.

For example, no matter how many parents may dislike what their children do, there is always the power of unconditional love behind them. When you catch even a glimpse of that kind of love, you realize how precious it is.

And therein lies the opportunity to keep trudging when most couples would part ways and head for the hills.

So we didn’t simply celebrate an anniversary this year. We’re celebrating a journey of faith, growth, and grace with the woman who taught me what love truly means.

I’m an author, career, and executive coach. Discover the power of the Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method® for improving yourself, your career, business, and life at www.CliffordJones.com.

Photo by Paul Hanaoka on Unsplash

If you got into an Uber and told the driver you wanted to go to five different places at the same time, where would you end up? Probably nowhere.

That’s how most people live, scattered, conflicted, pulled in too many directions by their own thoughts. What follows is the story of a man who discovered how the mind can steer the body toward health, happiness, and success through belief alone.

Before we dive in, think about this. What’s on your mind before you fall asleep? Are your thoughts mostly positive or negative during the day? And what does your self-talk sound like, encouraging or critical?

What we believe shapes what we think. And what we think shapes what we become. The conscious mind programs the subconscious, and the subconscious runs the show.

Meet Émile Coué

Most people have heard the phrase, “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.” Few know it came from a quiet French pharmacist who helped millions heal themselves with nothing more than belief. His name was Émile Coué, and his discovery reshaped how the world understands the power of the mind.

Born in 1857 in Troyes, France, Coué began his career behind a pharmacy counter. He noticed something strange. When he told patients, “This medicine works wonders,” they often recovered faster. When he said nothing, the results were mixed. That simple observation changed his life.

Coué realized that suggestion, not the pill, held the real power. “When the imagination and will are in conflict,” he wrote, “it is always the imagination which wins.” He began teaching patients how to use that same power intentionally through what he called conscious autosuggestion, a daily practice of repeating positive thoughts until they took root in the subconscious.

It’s self-hypnosis in a nutshell.

By the early 1900s, Coué’s method spread across Europe and America. People came from every class and background to attend his lectures. He never claimed to be a miracle worker. “I have never cured anyone,” he said. “I have simply shown them how they can cure themselves.”

Science eventually caught up with him. Today, we call it the placebo effect and neuroplasticity. Biologist Bruce H. Lipton would later describe it as epigenetics, also known as the Biology of Belief. It’s the idea that our thoughts and perceptions can alter gene expression and influence health. A century before Lipton, Coué was teaching the same principle in simpler language.

He believed that thoughts were not harmless, passing things, but active forces shaping reality. “Every one of our thoughts becomes concrete, materializes, and becomes, in short, a reality,” he wrote. His daily mantra, “Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better,” became a cultural phenomenon, even as critics dismissed it as naïve optimism.

Yet the science of belief has vindicated him. The brain changes through focused thought. The body responds to expectation. And life bends, quietly but surely, toward the images we hold in mind.

Coué died in 1926, but his insight lives on: what you believe about yourself, your health, and your future matters. Belief is not fantasy. It is biology.

So ask yourself: What do you believe? Where do you want to go? What do you want more than anything else?

Because, as Coué proved long before science did, your answer might just shape your destiny. Choose wisely.

I’m an author, strategic guide, and mentor. Discover the power of the Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method® for improving your business, career, and life at www.CliffordJones.com.

Image credit unknown; courtesy of George A. Quimby

What if the secret to healing wasn’t hidden in a pill, a procedure, or a doctor’s hands, but in your own mind? Long before modern science began to prove the link between thought and biology, a self-taught healer from Maine was demonstrating that belief itself could be a form of medicine.

Let’s go back in history. Long before epigenetics became a field of science, and a century before Dr. Bruce H Lipton’s The Biology of Belief: Unleashing The Power Of Consciousness, Matter And Miracles linked thought to cellular behavior, a self-taught healer from Maine was proving it through experience.

His name was Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, and his discoveries in the mid-1800s revealed something modern science is still catching up to: the mind shapes the body. Quimby wasn’t a doctor. He was a clockmaker and inventor whose true passion became understanding human suffering and finding ways to heal.

Medical practices of the past, oh my

In an era when medicine relied on leeches, bleeding, and toxic tonics, he noticed that people’s beliefs about their illness often determined their recovery. When a patient believed they were dying, they usually did. But when that belief shifted, healing followed.

He concluded that disease begins not in the body, but in the mind. “If a person believes he has a disease,” he wrote, “he has it; and the cause is in his belief.”

That simple statement anticipated what neuroscience and quantum biology later confirmed: our perceptions have a profound influence on our biology. Decades later, Bruce Lipton’s work demonstrated that thoughts and emotions send chemical messages that activate or deactivate genes, literally altering our physiology.

You don’t have to be religious to believe any of this

Quimby intuited the same truth without a lab, a microscope, or a PhD. He called his method the “Science of Christ,” meaning the divine wisdom within each of us that restores harmony when we align with truth. His teachings went on to inspire a generation of spiritual pioneers, including Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, who was once his patient and student.

He also influenced Warren Felt Evans, a Swedenborgian minister, who adapted his ideas into early New Thought philosophy, and his influence spread to leaders like Emma Curtis Hopkins, also known as “the teacher of teachers.” Hopkins trained many of the later New Thought teachers. For example, she mentored Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, the founders of Unity Church; Ernest Holmes, author of The Science of Mind; and other central figures behind New Thought.

Quimby attracted intelligent, influential people because he demonstrated, through simple language and direct experience, that the mind could heal the body and that disease often originated from a false belief.

Dogmatic thinking has a bite

Being too dogmatic can be hazardous to one’s health. But imagine what life was like in the 1800s in an era dominated by rigid medical practices and dogmatic religion.

Quimby’s vision offered hope: that healing and transformation were available to ordinary people through inner alignment with truth and the power of belief.

Quimby would sit with patients, listen deeply, and help them identify the false ideas, fear, guilt, or despair that had taken root in their minds. The body began to heal when a patient overrode prior beliefs; the power of the subconscious mind is real.

Quimby’s legacy influenced a wave of thinkers, including one of my heroes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Joseph Murphy, the author of one of my favorite books, The Power of the Subconscious Mind, which I recently reread.

All of these people carried forward the same core principle: change your thinking, and you change your life. It all begins with an open mind, a willing heart, and a genuine desire to believe.

My experience, faith converges with science

Fast forward to today, and I can personally attest to the truth Quimby intuited. What’s more, in my early 40s, when suffering from a debilitating back pain, I had surgery that led to recurring issues. I needed a walker to get around, and I knew a pain I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemies.

However, by studying and practicing the work of John E. Sarno, M.D. Specifically, I experienced direct and profound healing from back pain through the books Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection and The Divided Mind: The Epidemic of Mind-Body Disorders.

Today, I practice this wisdom every day, and it’s how I remain lean, fit, and pain-free, with less than a year to go before I’m eligible for Medicare.

Common sense shouldn’t be rare, but it is

Sarno’s and Lipton’s research made complete sense to me. What they wrote made a profound difference. Modern-day doctors and scientists reinforced what Quimby's insights over a century earlier revealed: how unconscious emotions manifest in the body as pain.

It’s all about how awareness, faith, and alignment with truth can restore health. My own recovery stands as living proof of the same mind-body connection Quimby pioneered. All I needed to do was shift my thinking.

Millions beyond my story have experienced the same truth: healing begins when our beliefs change. Those unwilling to look within, clinging to doubt or bias, will carry their pain like a badge of honor and never understand why they fail to recover.

The humble man from Maine practiced the biology of belief long before science gave it a name. Quimby recognized every human being as a self-healing system guided by divine intelligence. Today, modern research confirms what he proved in practice: when we shift our consciousness, our biology follows, and true healing begins.

I’m an author and strategic coach. Join me for live, weekly Zoom calls and discover the power of the Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method® for improving your business, career, and life at www.CliffordJones.com.

Image credit Canva Pro

In my role as a strategic guide, coach, and mentor, I work with people from diverse backgrounds. Recently, I worked with a young man who had lost his job and was struggling to find his way. When I first met him, he spent his time hanging out with friends who loved to smoke weed, play video games, and pretend everything was okay.

What follows is the dialogue from a Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method® session that lasted about an hour. I met with the young man, let’s call him Steven, several times after our initial meeting, and today, he’s made a tremendous shift to improve himself.

The Shift Begins with Discovery

I start with, “What brought you here today? Tell me what’s going on.”

“I don’t even know why I’m here, Cliff. Honestly, I’m fine, I guess.”

That’s how Steven opened. A young man, in his early thirties, shoulders hunched, eyes heavy. He’d dropped out of college, lost his job at a marketing agency, and now most of his time was spent in dark rooms with friends, video games on one side and weed smoke on the other. He said he was fine. But you could see he wasn’t.

The first step in the Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method® session is understanding self-awareness. It’s about how we perceive, feel, and interact with ourselves.

I smiled. “Okay, let’s just talk. What’s going on in your mind right now?”

“I feel like a loser,” Steven admitted after a pause. “Like I had a chance, and I blew it. My parents are disappointed. I’m disappointed. And honestly, I’m just numb. I don’t even know what I feel anymore. It’s like a heavy weight is holding me back.”

The story Steven was telling himself was simple: I’m a failure.

The second step in the shift method is cultivating a higher understanding. We shift the self-view and change the way we see the situation. In other words, we take ownership and begin to commit to changing from within.

“But is that the truth?” I asked. “Or is it just the story you’re stuck in?”

He thought for a long moment. “I guess it’s just a story. The truth is, I’ve got time. I’m still young. I know deep down I’m creative, I have ideas, I just don’t know where to put them.”

Now we were getting somewhere. Steven’s higher perspective reminded him that failure in his twenties isn’t final. He can shift through and overcome the negative self-view, self-doubt, fear, and noise he’s creating in his mind.

The third step in the shift method is introspection. It’s about searching within ourselves and finding what’s true, rather than believing the negative nonsense that holds us back.

“So what’s holding you back?”

“Fear,” Steven said. “Fear I’ll try again and screw it up. Fear I’ll never live up to what people expect. Maybe that’s why I hide out, get high, play games. It’s easier to escape than to face myself.”

He looked down and muttered, almost to himself, “Yeah, but I’ve tried before and nothing changed.”

I let the words sink in before asking, “What would you need to let go of to move forward?”

“The idea that I’m supposed to have it all figured out by now. That I have to be perfect, especially for my mom, who is always on my case.”

The fourth step is getting to what Steven wants for himself. Here is where we begin to set a new focused intention as the guiding light and his improved story or script.

I leaned forward. “What outcome do you really want for yourself, say, in the next six months?”

His eyes lit just a little. “I want to get back into something creative, like video. I love psychology, too. But I’m not sure what to do with that. I want a job again, and I feel proud of myself. Even if it’s just a small step, I want to find work and get off my mom’s payroll.”

“So what’s a new script or story you could practice every day? Let’s think of a new intention, a vision, or a dream you can tap into. Intentions are bigger than goals. It’s what lights you up.”

He nodded slowly. “I’m not a failure. I’m learning. I’m building. My creativity has value. I can do this because I’m sick of feeling stuck where I am, and having to ask my mom for money.”

I always encourage clients to use a new journal or notebook to help document the shift that starts with the first session. I’m not attached to the clock. My role is to guide them into clarity.

The fifth and final step in Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method® is the transformation that begins. Transformation is about making progress, rather than focusing on perfection.

“What will you do, starting today, to help you shift the way you see yourself, and change the story you’ve been telling yourself?”

“I’ll stop hanging out with the guys. I think I’ll be better off if I don’t smoke weed. I need to start eating better and get off the sugar. I’ll start looking for a new job and make time for doing things I love, like sketching and drawing. I also think working out in the gym will help me lose some weight. Even just an hour a day. And I’ll tell myself the new script when the old one starts up.”

I smiled and added, “That’s great progress, Steven. Want another suggestion?”

“Sure,” he replied.

“Okay, hear me out, then write it down in your notebook. Block a few minutes in the morning when you first wake up, again in the middle of the day, and before you go to bed to unwind. It’s time for you to work on yourself, to practice your shift from feeling stuck to seeing, feeling, and believing in the power of your subconscious mind. It’s simple. Simply sit in a comfortable position and practice your new script. Write it down after we’re done here today, send it to me, and I’ll help you edit it if you like.”

Steven took notes as if he had started to care about shifting the way he saw himself and being intentional about who he was becoming. For the first time in our conversation, he looked less weighed down. His posture straightened, and he even cracked a small smile.

Before we wrapped up, I asked him to recite aloud the new story he had chosen. He read from his notebook: “I’m not a failure. I’m learning. I’m building. My creativity has value.”

I nodded. “That’s it. That’s your shift. Keep practicing it until you believe it, and then watch what happens.”

When Steven walked in, the story in his head was, I’m a failure. By the time he left, the story had evolved to one of learning, building, and having value. That’s not just a change of words. It’s a change of trajectory.

The Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method® isn’t about fixing someone in an hour. It’s about helping people pause, take an honest look at themselves, and rewrite the script that’s been holding them back. With practice, those new scripts become new beliefs, and new beliefs shape new lives.

Steven went on to keep his commitment. Within a month, he distanced himself from old habits and old friends. He re-enrolled in college. He landed a new job. Most importantly, he shifted the way he saw himself. And when that shift happens, everything else begins to follow.

That’s the power of a simple shift.

And if you’re reading this, ask yourself: What’s the story I’ve been telling myself? And what new story could I begin today?

I’m an author, strategic guide, and mentor. Discover the power of the Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method® at www.CliffordJones.com.

Image credit, author - Granddaughter Penelope

We are all born in a state of flow, and then we lose it. Look at a child like my granddaughter, Penelope. She is completely absorbed in play, fully present and free of self-consciousness. That natural state of awareness is our birthright.

Over time, children begin to experience self-conscious emotions, such as embarrassment, shame, and pride, which reflect a growing awareness of how others perceive them. As noted in developmental psychology, these emotional shifts often become more pronounced in early childhood (around ages 6–8), when the mirror of awareness becomes smeared by expectations, comparisons, and fear.

Reflect on your early childhood and try to recall the state of innocence and joy that existed before life began to take its toll, as it did for me and all of us. For much of my formative years and adult life, I lived in a state of clouded confusion driven by ego. At my worst times, stress, anxiety, fear, and anger weighed me down.

I reached for alcohol and other substances to numb the pain, to find some relief. They worked for a little while, but the morning always came, and with it more regret. What I didn’t understand then was that the state I was chasing outside myself was already inside me. I didn’t need to manufacture it. I needed to remember it.

The Psychology of Flow State

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi studied this state in the 1970s and coined the term "flow." He interviewed artists, musicians, athletes, and people from all walks of life who described moments when time seemed to disappear, awareness and action merged, and effort became effortless: a state of flow that I describe as the ultimate high.

Csikszentmihalyi called it flow because people said it felt like being carried by a current. In his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, he explains that this state is not an accident. It arises when our skills meet the right level of challenge, when distractions fall away, and when the activity itself holds meaning.²

I’ve experienced a state of flow at various times throughout my adult life, whether playing tennis, pickleball, golf, hiking, or engaging in activities such as photography, painting, and writing. However, I’ve wondered for decades how to find something more sustainable. A state of mind that I could carry with me through the day.

Over the past several months, I’ve discovered it. At first, I wondered if I could actually sustain it and live a normal life. And the answer is yes. I’m sustaining it pretty much everywhere I go, and when I feel fear, self-doubt, frustration, or my egoic judging mind takes the reins, I default to conscious breathing and various prayers or sayings, including “Here, now.”

As a result, I describe it as a sustainable state of serenity that compels me to realize I’ve been looking for this kind of high my entire life. And I didn’t need to move to India or Tibet and move into a monastery to find it. It’s been within me the whole time, but living life makes it hard to remember until I did the work and developed a process I could teach to others.

The Spiritual Paths to Flow

Yet flow is more than psychology. It is the essence of what spiritual traditions have been pointing to for centuries. In Tibetan Buddhism, Dzogchen teaches that our true nature is inherently perfect, a natural state of awareness known as rigpa. Chögyal Namkhai Norbu explained it with the image of a mirror in his book, The Self-Perfected State.

The mirror never smiles first. The mirror is a metaphor for our state of consciousness. It reflects whatever appears before it, but it remains clear. Our awareness is the same. Thoughts and emotions come and go, but the awareness that underlies them remains constant. Flow is living from that recognition.

Taoism calls this Wu wei, or effortless action, the art of moving with the current of life rather than against it. Christians read in Matthew 18:3-4 something similar:

“And he said: ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.’”

I’m not a theologian, but I’ve studied all the world's religions and take to heart the truth, way, and life of Jesus. It’s not about religion unless we make it so. The bottom line is that a child receives life with trust, humility, and an open mind.

The same wisdom runs through the world’s great traditions for those willing to see it. In Yoga, the ancient Hindu discipline that unites body, mind, and spirit, it is called Samadhi, a state of deep absorption in which the separation between subject and object dissolves.

Different Ways to the Same Thing: Transformation

Different paths, different words, yet the same universal principle that anyone willing to do the inner work can find and accept. Through my own journey of sobriety and decades of study, I came to see flow as both universal and deeply personal.

Out of that journey, I distilled a process I call the Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method®. It begins with self-awareness (S), the simple but profound act of paying attention to what is happening inside you. Noticing your thoughts, emotions, and the tension or ease in your body opens the doorway. Once you are aware, you can no longer live entirely on autopilot.

From awareness grows a higher understanding (H). As you step back, patterns become clearer. You begin to see that your struggles are not random but connected to deeper causes and choices. Awareness provides information, but understanding gives it meaning.

Because you understand more, introspection (I) naturally follows. You become willing to look deeper and ask the harder questions: What is driving me? What story am I believing? What am I afraid to face? This honest reflection brings hidden obstacles into the light, and with light, they begin to lose their power.

Because you have faced the truth within, focused intention (F) becomes possible. Instead of scattering attention on distractions or old habits, you make a deliberate choice to align your energy with what matters most. Intention is what takes insight and turns it into action, like a rudder guiding a boat with the current rather than against it.

And when we sustain the intention for flow, serenity, unconditional love, forgiveness, and acceptance, transformation (T) unfolds. We return to the childlike state we all had until life pounded it out of us, and we forgot.

Flow and transformation rarely happen in a single moment, but rather gradually. Instead of waiting for a burning bush experience, become a willing student and practice finding your flow state. The grip of anxiety loosens. Fear quiets. Anger softens. In their place comes presence, clarity, and a flow that no longer feels accidental. It becomes a natural way of being.

Discovering the Middle Way to Live and Work

Here’s a saying, a mantra, that I came up with to describe my philosophy and way of being at this stage of my life. The phrase “Middle Way” has deep roots in the teachings of the Buddha, who described the Middle Way as the path between extremes of indulgence and denial.

Instead of chasing pleasure or punishing the body, the Buddha taught the importance of balance, moderation, and wisdom. In many ways, this principle has also been echoed in other traditions. In Christianity, for example, we see it in the call to live with temperance and humility. In Taoism, it’s reflected in harmony with the Tao. In modern psychology, we recognize balance as a key to resilience and sustainable well-being.

“Not too high, not too low. Not too left, not too right. The middle way is the way to go. Therein lies the shift.”

My process does not create something new. The Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method® uncovers what was always there. It is the same truth Dzogchen expresses when it says there is nothing to add and nothing to take away. The sky is always present, no matter what clouds pass through. Awareness is always present, regardless of the thoughts or emotions that arise.

Today, I live in the state of sustainable flow that I once tried to find in a bottle or bag of weed. Substances dulled my edges, but flow sharpens them. Substances numbed my pain, but flow integrates it. Substances disconnected me, but flow connects me to myself, to others, and to the God of my humble and limited understanding.

Every tradition points back to the same truth. Awareness itself is perfect. We are born in it, we lose it, and we can learn to return. Flow is not escape. It is life aligned. It is the ultimate and sustainable high, and it’s a great place to be, considering the many challenges we face on earth.

Sharing the Love, Teaching the Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method®

Now that you know more about my story and process for shifting into a flow state, you can understand why I love sharing and teaching my process. The shift isn’t just my story, it’s our shared human story.

We are all born in flow, we lose it, and we can find our way back. What I’ve discovered is not a secret reserved for mystics, monks, or psychologists. It is available to anyone willing to pause, to look within, and to walk the path of awareness.

Flow is not escape. Flow is life aligned. And when you live from that place, the sustainable high you’ve been searching for turns out to be the one that has been within you all along.

I'm an author, mentor, and facilitator. I help founders, executives, and professionals overcome career burnout, stress, social anxiety, and lack of engagement. Discover my unique, five-step method at www.CliffordJones.com.

Photo by DODJI DJIBOM on Unsplash

America is in the midst of a mental health crisis. By almost every measure, depression, anxiety, suicide, and substance misuse are worse today than in previous generations. The U.S. Surgeon General has called loneliness an epidemic. Suicide rates are at historic highs. Among teenagers and young adults, depression and anxiety have surged dramatically in the past decade.

The question is: why? What’s driving this crisis, and how do we begin to solve it?

The Burden of False Ideals

Carl Jung once warned that identifying with masks, roles, and false ideals instead of our authentic inner selves could lead to neurosis, even psychosis. While he didn’t use modern terms like “social media comparison,” his insight applies directly to today’s reality.

Think about this for a moment. Suppose you spend most of your day comparing yourself to the false ideals portrayed by celebrities and influencers on social media. In that case, it's no surprise you'd start to feel bad in comparison.

Theodore Roosevelt said it well, “Comparison is the thief of joy.”

We live in a world saturated with comparison. Scroll through Instagram, LinkedIn, or TikTok, and you’re confronted with curated, filtered, and exaggerated versions of success, beauty, or happiness. The message is clear: you are not enough, unless you match these false ideals.

Jung argued that such comparisons pull us away from the natural process of individuation. That’s the journey of becoming who we truly are. When we replace that inner truth with collective illusions and external standards, the psyche revolts. It is little surprise that many today feel fractured, burned out, and unmoored.

Stress, Disconnection, and Despair

Beyond comparison, other forces feed the crisis. Workplaces demand long hours while offering little security. Many Americans live paycheck to paycheck, weighed down by debt and uncertainty. At the same time, traditional community bonds, family, faith, and neighborhoods have weakened, leaving people isolated.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that loneliness leads to social isolation, not only to depression and anxiety, but also to higher risks of heart disease, dementia, and early death. Mental health, it turns out, is inseparable from social health.

Add to this the constant churn of political division, economic instability, and the flood of negative news, and the conditions are ripe for despair. For young people, the picture is even more stark. School shootings, climate anxiety, and academic pressures compound the effects of social media. Rates of self-harm among teenagers, especially girls, have risen alarmingly over the past decade.

Why the System Struggles

Awareness of mental health has grown, but access to care remains a significant barrier. Many communities lack affordable providers. Insurance coverage is patchy and often inadequate. Even when help is available, stigma still keeps many from reaching out.

As a result, millions are trying to cope alone, often turning to substances. The opioid epidemic is one example of how untreated pain, trauma, and disconnection can spiral into addiction and death. And don’t get me started on the weed epidemic that’s brewing.

Some of my readers may recall that my passion as a student of psychology led me to explore getting a Master’s degree in psychology. After researching several universities and applying to one, I decided the cost, time, and burden weren’t worth it. I decided to stick with coaching and mentoring, and I’m glad I did.

Toward Solutions

Almost every family is touched directly or indirectly by the mental health crisis. The crisis is complex, but the path forward is clear. We already know what works. Healing requires reconnecting with ourselves and others, learning healthier ways to process stress, and making support accessible.

Several approaches stand out:

• Therapy
  Evidence-based therapies such as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and trauma-informed care help people reframe their thoughts, face fears, and heal old wounds. Therapy provides a structured way to process pain and grow stronger.

• Coaching and Mentoring
  Coaching is not therapy, but it offers accountability, perspective, and clarity. For professionals, coaching and mentoring can primarily address stress, burnout, and questions of meaning in ways that traditional therapy may not. A good coach helps people align their inner life with outer goals—precisely what Jung meant by individuation.

• Community and Connection
  Loneliness resolves itself through meaningful connection. Support groups, peer networks, and even workplace mentoring programs reduce isolation and give people a sense of belonging. Faith communities and volunteer groups also play a decisive role in re-establishing purpose.

• Lifestyle Interventions
  Regular exercise, better sleep, and mindfulness practices lead to lower rates of depression and anxiety. These are not replacements for therapy or medication when needed, but they are powerful complementary tools.

• Addressing Root Causes
  Finally, society must confront structural drivers: economic insecurity, access to care, and cultural polarization. Individual solutions matter, but the larger system needs to evolve if we want widespread healing.

Choosing the Inner Path to Wellness

I can relate to the severity of the problem through what I’m learning by coaching and mentoring stressed-out executives, professionals, founders, and entrepreneurs; fear of failure, financial pressures, stress, and anxiety are taking a massive toll. Becoming a bigger part of the solution motivates me to market and promote the Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method™, which seems to make a difference even though I’m not a therapist. It’s coaching and mentoring-based.

At the heart of the crisis is a loss of inner clarity. We compare ourselves to others, chase false ideals, and measure our worth by standards we didn’t choose. Jung’s wisdom reminds us that the antidote is not more comparison but more authenticity.

Therapy, coaching, and mentoring are not luxuries. They are lifelines. They guide us back to the more profound truth of who we are. They help us find meaning, rebuild relationships, and chart a healthier future.

The American mental health crisis is real, and it’s time for more of us to take a stand. That begins with awareness of the severity of the problem and the willingness to talk about it and take appropriate action.

Healing begins when we turn inward, reject false ideals, and take the courageous step of asking for help. Individually and collectively, that’s how we restore balance, not just to our minds, but to our lives.

I'm an author, mentor, and facilitator. Ask me how The Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method™ helps executives and organizations improve performance by building trust, enhancing communication, and driving alignment. Learn more at www.CliffordJones.com.

Clear Sky and Cloud, image by author

Imagine ending the struggle within you. See yourself being okay, simply being the objective observer living in a blissful state of flow, no matter what goes on around you.

Instead of arguing with reality, learn to accept it. I know that may seem silly, but I’m the guy who tried to control the uncontrollable for decades. As a recovered control freak who got sick of the constant struggle, I studied the masters like Namkai Norbu, the author and teacher in the book Dzogchen, The Self-Perfected State.

In fact, I’m rereading the book, and every time I do, I’m reminded of the genius that lies in the simple approach to finding inner peace. That’s what this article is about.

The Self-Perfected State is living in flow by letting go

There is a state of being where everything flows as if a magical river of bliss. Stress dissolves, resistance drops away, and you feel as if life itself is carrying you. Athletes call it flow. In Dzogchen, the Great Perfection of Tibetan wisdom, it’s called the self-perfected state.

You don’t have to be a monk in a mountain retreat to access it. You can experience it everywhere you go, in the middle of your busy life, when you learn to quiet the striving mind and return to what is already whole within you.

Having a process is where the Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method™ comes in. It’s a framework I developed to help myself, and for the last year or so, I’ve been sharing it with my coaching and mentoring clients with phenomenal results.

It’s about finding your flow state amidst the many harsh blows of being human. After all, being human is hard. However, when you discover your flow state and learn to sustain it, being human becomes a lot easier.

Why the flow state seems elusive

Most of us are caught in the “sickness of effort.” We push, strive, and grind, hoping that more doing will lead to peace, purpose, and freedom. Yet the harder we try, the more disconnected we feel.

Flow is not the result of effort. Flow reveals itself when effort relaxes. You don’t chase it, you uncover it. This is why Dzogchen says, “Everything has already been accomplished.” The truth is, you already have the capacity for flow. What you need is a way to access it intentionally.

It’s also essential to acquire knowledge and dedicate yourself to finding a teacher who can help you practice. For me, the biggest shift came from learning to let go of my former attachments, such as the Five Passions described in Dzogchen: attachment, anger, ignorance, pride, and envy.

The way to do this is by finding a teacher, committing to practice, and acquiring wisdom that transforms you and your way of being into a veritable flow state.

Shift using these five steps

The Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method™ shows you how to step into this self-perfected state. To be clear, this is the method I developed for myself and clients. I am not a teacher of Dzogchen.

Nevertheless, there are similarities if you’re willing to learn. Here are the five steps of The Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method™.

1. Self-Awareness — Notice the present moment

The present, the now, is the greatest gift. Pause right now. Take a breath. Notice what is happening in your body, your emotions, your thoughts. Observe and accept what is within you.

Flow begins when you are present to what is, rather than lost in what was or what might be. Awareness clears the noise so clarity can emerge.

Practice: Set a timer for three moments in your day to pause, breathe, and simply notice.

2. Higher Understanding — See the bigger picture

Flow comes when you zoom out from the narrow tunnel of stress and reconnect with a higher perspective. In Dzogchen terms, this is recognizing awareness itself, the vast space in which thoughts and feelings come and go.

Shift your understanding, change yourself.

Practice: When you feel caught in effort, ask: “What’s the larger story here? What truly matters in this moment?”

3. Introspection — Release the judgment

Most resistance comes from unexamined patterns, fear, self-doubt, or the need for control. We judge. Flow requires letting go of these internal contractions.

The more you let go of judgment, the more unrestricted the natural flow of life can move through you. It’s the natural state of being that all of us forget while growing up.

Practice: Journal one limiting belief you carry. Then ask, “What if I didn’t need to hold this belief? Who would I be without it?”

4. Focused Intention — Align with what matters

Flow is not drifting aimlessly. It is an effortless action in alignment with a clear purpose. When your attention is focused and uncluttered, you can move forward with ease.

The power of intention lies in focusing on the intention behind your intention. Intend to live in your flow state, and you will find it.

Practice: Each morning, set one clear intention for your day. Not a to-do list, but a guiding principle, “listen deeply,” “move with calm,” or “create with joy.”

5. Transformation — Live in the self-perfected state

When you integrate awareness, perspective, introspection, and intention, transformation happens. You begin to trust the natural flow of life. Work feels lighter.

Creativity opens. Relationships deepen. Stress loses its grip. It’s as if you go through life floating on a cloud with a gentle tailwind.

Practice: At the end of your day, reflect: “Where did I feel flow today? How can I invite more of it tomorrow?”

Living effortlessly; finding your flow state

Flow is not something you achieve once and then lose. It is the natural rhythm of life when you stop interfering. Birds sing without effort. Rivers flow without striving.

Flowers bloom without forcing. You, too, are designed to live this way.

The Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method™ is not about adding more techniques to your overloaded schedule. It’s about stripping away what blocks you from your natural state of clarity, purpose, and presence.

When you stop fighting life, you discover that life is already carrying you. And in that discovery, you don’t just perform better.

You become better.

When you stop arguing with reality and seeking to control

If you’ve been grinding, striving, or pushing without peace, consider this your invitation to step into a different way of being. Flow isn’t reserved for the elite or the enlightened. It’s available to you right now, in this breath, in this moment.

The next time you feel yourself tightening, remember the shift path: Become more self-aware and present. Expand, rise, and shift your perspective to higher ground. Let go of the resistance and arguing with reality, which is futile. Focus your intention on what gives you joy. And therein you will notice your transformation.

Your ultimate transformation is being able to sustain the self-perfected state. Flow is the perfected, natural state for humans. And it’s yours to live if you’re willing to learn and practice.

I’m an author, mentor, and facilitator. Ask me how The Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method™ empowers leaders to build trust, enhance communication, and drive organizational alignment. Learn more at www.CliffordJones.com.

For the first fifty-five years of my life, my mind was filled with static. Thoughts clashed like dull swords, memories replayed on endless loops, and imagined futures felt like chasing the wind. I tried everything to end the noise and find inner peace; success, distraction, even numbing myself, but nothing truly worked.

Then I discovered Dzogchen: The Self-Perfected State. Reading it wasn’t like many other books that described long, narrow, difficult paths. It was more like a reminder from the universe that what I was seeking was more accessible than I knew.

It revealed a truth that changed me: the mind, in its essence, is already perfect.

About the author, a true master

Chögyal Namkhai Norbu (1938–2018) was a Tibetan Dzogchen master, scholar, and one of the first teachers to bring the ancient wisdom of Dzogchen to a global audience. Recognized as a reincarnate lama in childhood, he studied under some of the most respected Tibetan masters before leaving Tibet in the 1950s.

After settling in Italy, he became a professor of Tibetan and Mongolian studies at the University of Naples, where he combined profound scholarship with spiritual practice.

Namkhai Norbu founded the Dzogchen Community and spent decades teaching throughout the world, offering a direct introduction to the nature of mind (rigpa) to thousands of students. His writings, especially Dzogchen: The Self-Perfected State, remain among the most accessible and influential presentations of Dzogchen in the West.

He is remembered as a bridge between East and West, illuminating the path of self-liberation with clarity, warmth, and authenticity.

The Great Perfection

The profound teaching that changed my life is called Dzogchen. That means the “Great Perfection.” It explains that our awareness is pure, radiant, and whole. Peace isn’t something we must earn through endless striving or self-improvement. It isn’t waiting for us at the end of a long journey to a faraway ashram or temple.

Radical clarity, our true self, is here, now, always present. The noise only comes from not knowing, or worse, forgetting a truth with which we are born.

“When all our obstacles have been overcome, and we find ourselves in a state of total presence, the wisdom of enlightenment manifests spontaneously without limits, just like the infinite rays of the sun. The clouds have dissolved, and the sun is finally free to shine once again.” — Chögyal Namkhai Norbu

When I first read the book, I felt something shift. For the first time, I saw that I didn’t have to fight my thoughts. I didn’t need to fix myself. It was no longer necessary to sit for hours in an uncomfortable position, wondering why my mind raced as if I had stolen a car.

My true self was already untouched by the chaos in my mind, like a vast sky unbothered by passing storms. Therein lies the beauty of discovering our innate awareness.

This truth, the inner reality, our true self, is available to anyone who picks up the book and lets its words sink in. Some have found the same thing by sitting on a park bench in utter despair when struck by a flash of bright white, loving, and overwhelming light. Others find it with plant medicine, but that kind of transcendence can be fleeting.

Our true nature, awareness, is known as Rigpa

The book speaks of rigpa, the clear and open awareness that is our real nature. It is not hidden, but overlooked. To recognize rigpa is to return home, to rediscover the stillness and clarity that was there all along.

“Rigpa” refers to a form of pristine, non-conceptual awareness. It’s the pure, self-luminous knowing that is the fundamental ground of our being. It is not something to be constructed or attained; rather, it is what we are when layers of confusion (known in Dzogchen as ma rigpa) fall away.

When you rest in that awareness, the constant chatter begins to lose its hold. Thoughts still appear, life’s challenges still come, but they no longer define you. You see them as passing clouds. You, the open sky, remain clear and vast.

If I can find it, so can you

Dzogchen can help not only me, but anyone who reads it with an open mind and heart. Those of us trapped in the darkness of dogma and religious tradition won’t even bother to look. They will quickly dismiss it with contempt prior to reading the first page.

Dzogchen does not ask you to believe in a new philosophy or adopt a rigid practice. Instead, it invites you to look within and recognize what has always been there. And the fact is, this profound philosophy and way of self-discovery can fit well with any spiritual path you take.

Embrace and integrate it.

If you are weary of the noise in your own mind, tired of regretting the past, and feeling anxious about the future, consider buying and reading the book. If you long for a more profound peace than external success can give you, I encourage you to explore Dzogchen. Approach it not as a scholar chasing ideas, but as a seeker willing to be shown what is already true.

For me, this book marked the end of the endless war in my head. The fear, anxiety, and anger that used to consume me are gone. The silence I sought was not the silence of a conquered mind, but the recognition that no battle needed to be fought.

I discovered the path home to myself. So can you if you’re willing to search inside yourself.

I’m an author, mentor, and facilitator. Ask me how The Clarity S.H.I.F.T. Method™ empowers leaders and professionals to enhance communication, prevent conflicts, foster trust, and achieve alignment. Learn more at www.CliffordJones.com.