Why the Man Jumped Into The Cactus

One of my first teachers told me a story that still sticks with me.

Once upon a time in the old west, a cowboy was riding on a horse passing by a large cactus bush.

All of a sudden, he leaped from the horse into the cacti.

The razor-sharp needles tore his flesh, and his screams of pain and agony filled the valley.

Later as the sun set that day, he hobbled into the bar all bloody and torn up, sat on a stool, and asked for water. Someone at the bar saw what happened earlier and asked him "why in the hell did you do that?"

His answer was "Well... it seemed like a good idea at the time."

We all make mistakes sometimes.

We take wrong turns, procrastinate on our dreams, waste years on things that don't matter, stay in relationships that don't serve us anymore, burn down bridges we shouldn't have burnt, and make decisions that we beat ourselves up for about later.

Staying in a state of regret and self-condemnation is the most toxic thing that will keep you stuck even longer.

Have your pity party for a few minutes if you have to, cry, and release the pain, but you've got to move into self-compassion as soon as possible.

Whenever I find myself in such a place, I remember that story, smile, and take a few deep breaths.

Whatever you did or didn't do, whatever happened, it seemed like a good idea at the time, and you were doing the very best you could with who you were at that time.

No matter what's going on, how intense or difficult, have compassion for yourself, it's the key to easing the whole thing out and getting things moving smoothly.

Without self-compassion, deeper understanding and healing can't take place.

Without compassion, growth can't take place.

As long as you're being hard on yourself, the whole thing will feel like a grind.

It's not easy being human, but being easy on the human makes a big difference.

You did the best you could.

Now what else is possible?

What if you didn't make yourself wrong?

What if everything that's happening is happening for you, not against you?

Kacper

Six Weeks at Sea - What I Learned from Realizing a Vision - Part 1

Are you committed to your true calling?

Or are you committed to your excuses and distractions?

Every moment is a choice between those two.

I suppose commitment to the former is exactly how just a few weeks ago, my bedtime routine was replaced by a sharp knife in my mouth, a rope in my hands, and me on my knees on the deck of a sailboat in the dark as 50 mile an hour wind ripped through the mast and rigging so hard that you had to focus just to be able to breathe and not be knocked off your feet.

We were surprised by gale-force winds ripping through a gully.

One of our sails had gotten loose and would be torn to shreds unless we took swift action to undo a cacophonous mess of lines and canvas.

It was one hell of a night, and I loved every adrenaline-filled minute of it.

I haven't written or published a video in over a month.

Life has been an intense adventure.

Four years ago I had a vision: Sail the Stars.

To bring people together from all over the world in the spirit of sharing one of my greatest passions: adventure sailing and transformation.

To document the process and use the adventure to inspire people to follow their hearts and pursue their deepest visions.

Forces beyond my understanding compelled me.

I wanted to put everything I knew to the test and see if I could overcome my doubt and create something from my heart that felt expansive yet out of reach.

My first attempt ended in failure, I fell flat on my face, lost all the money I had, went into debt, and had to retreat back to my cave to lick my wounds.

It sucked.

I did everything wrong, I spent nearly 2 years pursuing a vision that went nowhere,

Even my girlfriend at the time told me I was chasing a childish dream and to let go.

I chose to let go of the girlfriend instead.

The tagline of Sail the Stars is "Be the Captain of Your Soul", it comes from an old Victorian poem called "Invictus".

"Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul." - Invictus, William Ernest Henley.

To me it means that ultimately you choose the meaning you give your circumstances, and that choice will either sink you or give rise to incredible strength, beauty, and creation.

Instead of viewing my attempt as a failure, I looked at it as a learning experience, faced my weaknesses and realized I had to grow as a leader and actually start thinking as a team.

I changed, started asking for help, took leadership courses and found new mentors with brand new perspectives, and started everything from scratch.

We did it, we went all the way.

From clear skies and stunning beautiful evenings in majestic anchorages under the stars to lightning, thunder, torn sails, gale-force winds, and gnarly seas.

We experienced every type of weather imaginable.

Greece treated us well, but held back no punches.

It was breathtakingly beautiful, magical, challenging, ups and downs, nauseating, sweat-filling, tears and a bit of blood included.

The last two weeks even blessed us with dolphins off the bow.

I've learned more from this experience than I did in the past 10 years of my life and have material to write and create for months.

For now, I'm writing this with the Ocean outside of my window as I get ready to lift anchor and go home.

I've learned two things from this epic four-year saga of my life.

1. The girlfriend was right. (more on that later.)

2. a. In life, the things that you think are going to be easy, are going to be hard.

2. b. The things that you think are going to be hard, are going to be damn near impossible.

But if you consider the fact that "what you think" is just imagination, that should give you a warm and fuzzy feeling about #2.

Your mind, like the Sea, can be a powerful ally or a treacherous monster that will beat you down t'll there's not much left of you.

The choice each and every one of us has every moment is the meaning we give our experience.

What limitation are you currently facing?

What story are you currently telling yourself about it?

Do you really believe that to be true?

Are you willing to not believe your own mind?

Are you committed to your calling?

Or to your excuses?

Those last four lines of Invictus always get me right in the heart:

"It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul."

The next expedition is to Alaska or the South Pacific, and we're going as a fleet of vessels.

Taking a break to rest and digest this one first, will be back in regular newsletter and video mode soon.

Thanks for reading.

Hope you found this helpful, and don't be a stranger and reach out if you want some mentoring in this area, my schedule opens up in a week.

How to "Mr. Bean" Yourself to Quantum Disentanglement From Your Problems

I have a life practice called “Mr. Beaning”

If you’ve been stuck with something I suggest you try it.

Simply ask “What would Mr Bean do?”

If you’ve watched the iconic Mr. Bean episodes by Rowan Atkinson then you’re familiar with the approach Bean takes to solving complex problems and situations.

Often what appears externally as totally moronic and socially uncalibrated behavior actually ends up in his favor.

ie: brushing your teeth while driving because you're late for your appointment and using the windshield wiper fluid to rinse your mouth, using a shoe and a plastic bag to make a salad...

...or bringing a fish and a potato with you to the appliance store to test out the potato peeler and the size of the frying pan.

(*If you've never watched Mr. Bean, you're missing out, here's a good one to start with.)

Atkinson made the audience reel with laughter at Bean’s mannerisms, but few recognize that underneath the character’s laughable poise is hidden brilliance that edges on quantum physics genius.

Mr. Bean defies reality, enters flow, and penetrates resistance of conventional limits by being oblivious to boundaries, socially acceptable norms, and conclusions.

Yesterday was a perfect example of how I used the principles of Mr.Bean-ism to bend time and get free luggage allowance at the airport.

I was traveling and was in a pickle... my life felt like a Mr Bean episode.

Normally I am one of these people that loves to organize and prepare for travel way in advance.

This is something I'm quite proud of in myself.

Organizing for weeks in advance, I had planned to get plenty of sleep, be fully packed and ready to go, flying to Poland and Greece to start the big sailing adventure...

However, life always has other plans.

Due to divine intervention, there I was running late to the airport, running on only 3 hours of sleep, brushing my teeth in the car while I was driving.

Some tooth-paste oozed out of my mouth and onto my shorts as I hit an unexpected traffic jam which added another 30 minutes to my lateness. "Perfect," I thought and had a laugh, breathing and comforting my nervous system as I assured my body that all would be well.

I arrived at the long-term drop-off-your-car parking and stammered out of the car as half a blender, socks, supplement bottles, boxes, rubber exercise bands, books, my favorite hats, and old electronic razors I had planned to throw out spilled onto the ground.

(I woke up and still had some things to pack, the Mr.Bean decision I made 2 hours earlier was "I'll deal with it later" and I just threw it all in the car instead.)

The driver of the the shuttle waiting for me looked on in amazement as I tried to make packing decisions on the ground.

"What would Mr. Bean do?" I asked.

Instead of packing, I threw it all into a big pile in the shuttle and hopped in.

This approach worked to make it to the gate as one of the last passengers to board the plane.

But the final Mr.BeanIsm is something I'm most proud of.

I had forgotten to pay for an extra baggage allowance and was carrying a big guitar case with my guitar and flutes in it.

Seeing me carrying my oversized guitar case a young man asked me "Sir, did you pay for that guitar case"

I turned and answered as obliviously as I could fake it... "Do I have to pay for this guitar case?"

"Sir, it's a plane, not a bus. Come with me.", he barked.

The order felt like a sharp shaming stab to my intelligence (a typical Spanish cultural thing) ...enough to infuriate any mortal into a snappy come-back, but I did not care, I was Mr. Bean after all, oblivious.

At the counter, the other staff member was having a near-screaming match with another woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

(The boarding staff of this airline was made up of some of the rudest human beings you'd ever encounter.)

"Sir, put your case against this measuring wall."

He pointed at one of these measuring lines against a wall with a big bold line and text "If it's bigger than this you have to pay."

Just at a glance I knew that my guitar was double the size of the height of the line.

"What would Mr. Bean do?"

I decided to play the fool and pretend I was as stupid as this man thought I was.

I placed the guitar under the measuring stick on an angle against the wall 🤣. (Basically laying it sideways.)

The guy shook his head and fixed the guitar to point out it was indeed over-size, but I could tell he was having a hard time not laughing.

He punched some numbers into his beep-beep machine and printed a ticket "Here you go Sir, you're lucky, normally this would be another 90 Euros."

Why Does Mr. Beanism work?

There's physics behind it.

In the book "Reality Transurfing" author Vadim Zeland goes in-depth into this by outlining the subtle energy dynamics responsible in changing timelines

To put it bluntly: The Universe is a big playful puppy, it's we who forget that.

The more you clamp down and tighten in an unfavorable situation, the more the laws of quantum reality work against you.

There are three ways to remove yourself from un-favourable influences and timelines:

1. Ignore the situation, don't feed it energy.

2. Do something unexpected.

3. Do something comical.

If you study Mr. Beanism closely you will notice that Mr. Bean uses all three of these quantum reality disentanglement principles simultaneously.

1. He is oblivious (thus ignoring 'reality')

2. He is unpredictable

3. His approach is often comical.

The result is that reality bends around him, and will for you too as you embrace these truths.

"Reality exists only where the mind creates a focus."

- Mahayana Buddhism Sutra

If reality only exists where we pay attention, then Mr. Beanism is a smiling pattern interrupt that basically tells the Unvierse: "Hey, I'm opting out of seriousness and into my own world."

It's extremely powerful.

But it's important to know that Mr.Beaning isn't just about playing dumb or being reckless.

It's about following your heart to the max, and assuming that God and the Universe always have your back.

It's about carving out your own path, and knowing that there is always time and always resources to do what your heart tells you to do.

The reason why I was late for the airport is that on a last-minute whim I met a woman so wonderful it was worth altering my plans for.

According to logic, I had to plan and be my organized self, but higher wisdom told me to trade my time for precious moments of connection late into the midnight hours. According to the news we're on the brink of World War 3 and I should be saving all my money to buy land grow my own food and stock up on gold... Mr. Beanism has me going sailing in Greece this week instead to make movies that inspire people to heal and live their fullest lives.

I could go on and deepen these thoughts.

Instead, here's a picture that speaks louder than words.

Nothing is impossible, only what your mind says is so.

Kacper