W48 Digest – the Kid Who Kicked Open My Mind
“Mommy, did you know dogs age differently than us?”
A kid in the park announced to her mommy as she was petting my 4 month old cavapoo puppy in Central Park.
“1 year for dogs is 15 for human, then 9, then 5…”
Her mom looked at me with a little smirk and replied to her daughter, “no hon, every 1 year in dogs age equals 7 in humans”.
There’s nothing unusual about this conversation. I knew that every 1 year in my puppy equals to 7 years, so right now, at 4 month old, she’s going through her “kindergarten” phase. Which really means I can kick back, relax, and not worry too much about proper behavioral training until she’s 1 year old.
But something kicked me in the head — what if the kid is right? What if I am (as is with her mom) simply outdated?
“You know, she might just have the latest data on this” I said to the mom. Her mom simply shrugged it off and moved on walking, while the kid was begging to have her point made.
Later when I went back home, I googled “dog age to human age” and I was blown away by the stats:
1st dog year = 15 human years. 2nd dog year = 9 human years. Every year after = 5 human years
The long-believed “1 dog year = 7 human year” is a simple arithmetic exercise by referring to human lifespan (humans average life span is 70, a dog’s is 10, 70 / 10 = 7)
With this new insight, the need to put my puppy through proper behavior training just got more urgent. I don’t have one year to train her through her development stage, I have about 6 months.
Isn’t it funny that this 6 year old kid busted our long held bias, yet some of us won’t budge with this new data?
How much biases are so ingrained in us? How do we become aware of this?
How can we keep our minds open and be willing to embrace new information regardless of the source?
And kids, they may open up our minds, because it is quite true our experiences in life can calcify our minds.
Strangely enough, this experience ties back to my post-FTX experience (and here’s an update):
Last week I published an article on how to find self love from this debacle. Losing my savings definitely sucked and I was swept into a whirlpool of negative self talk. But this experience forced me to find a way out. To pull myself out of the rut, I began applying positive self-talk and self-love to myself every day, especially before I fall asleep and right when I wake up.
After a week of doing this, I experienced something quite miraculous. My life long negative attitudes were eradicated and replaced with optimism and zest. How funny it took only a week to eliminate these mental garbage and rewire my head. Now, I can’t wait to get started on my creator path to rebuild my life (and income) back.
For the first time, that bright future and life I so desire are possible again:
Want a loving spouse? It is possible
Want to quit your 9-5 job and build a biz that frees you financially? Yep
Want to experience the life and activities you’ve always dreamed of? It can be done.
All it really takes is shifting my perspectives and a little mindset engineering, and all becomes possible.
Why do I say that when I haven’t proven this theory out? Because the kid in the park showed me the dangers of self-limiting beliefs — if I brushed her off, I’d miss a crucial development period for my puppy due to my own pridefulness.
For myself, is it possible, then, to make a comeback from my FTX experience with my savings gone? To start a new career as a creator when all I knew was software engineering? To regain my old lifestyle back, where I was traveling freely and enjoying restaurants?
I believe so, and this is the quest I am embarking on.
Next, my first task is to reforge and upgrade my own self-image because I realized the reality I am experiencing is the result of my self-image – if I held the negative self-talk attitude, I’d cast myself into the abyss. Thus the task at hand is to reconstruct my self-image to be more positive and empowering. Just like my experience at the park, I can choose to be open to what the kid was suggesting, or stick with what I was conditioned by.
If you want to upgrade your self-image to empower yourself and life, follow my journey on my blog and my youtube channel. I will be posting my updates there.