Hi I’m Kendel Christensen, Welcome to Learned Empowerment.
What is Learned Empowerment?
Learned Empowerment is about believing we can change reality. If there is something in life we don’t like, we can change it. It’s about making a conscious decision to not be a victim in life, and instead ask ourselves more creative questions. This mentality, I believe, will get us exponentially more out of:
- Our time.
- Our relationships.
- Our lives.
Today I want to talk a little bit about the getting more out of our lives.
In one of my favorite books, a mysterious old man appears to the main character and explains to him, when he is doubting what will turn out to be the most important decision of his life, that when each of us is young, “everything is clear and everything is possible. [We] are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything [we] would like to see happen [in our] lives. But, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince…” us that our deepest dreams are just that—dreams. Not reality. We should accept how “the real world” works, and live like the ‘practical’ people around us.
And in a way, that seems like a wisdom of its own—We all suffer from a lack of time, fear, information overload, distractions, too many commitments, the list of understandable barriers is interminable. We can only expect so much from life, right?
WRONG. The mysterious old man calls this “the world’s greatest lie”
The truth is that each one of us has nearly-unfathomable potential. No matter where we are at in life, we can unlock entire dimensions of new skills and abilities. We have insights, stories, and feelings that would connect us uniquely to other people. We have knowledge and latent talent that can contribute lasting good to this world…
But so often, so much of that doesn’t fully blossom. It gets stunted, interrupted, put off, or pushed aside. So often, merely getting through the day is the best success we aim for. We are conditioned to aim for “practicality” and, over time, this translates into accepting what is merely average.
Let me tell you a story. A successful man of business was in Africa concluding a successful venture when he passed by a lot of elephants in captivity, held there with nothing but a thin rope around a tree which they could easily break at any time. But for some reason, they did not. The man was puzzled and asked one of the trainers why the elephants made no attempt to escape. “Simple,” the trainer replied. “When the elephants are young, we tie them up to trees with the same rope. At that age, it is enough to hold them. It is relatively easy to condition them to believe that struggling to break free is not worth the effort.
“It is that belief that keeps them captive.”
In many ways, we are just like those elephants. In psychology, this condition is referred to as learned helplessness. We feel we have tried everything, and nothing works.
So we accept less than our full potential. I want to be an advocate for learned empowerment. That our reality can be so much more than what we sometimes assume is “all there is”.
It comes down to this: right now, you and I—all of us— have a certain conception of reality. To you and me, certain things seem possible, certain things seem impossible.
This perception influences the risks we take, the things we say and do, the friends we make, and ultimately the lives we live. But my question is: What if you knew about a better way? Had access to higher knowledge? A more efficient process? A radical new technique? Or, perhaps even more powerfully, saw someone achieve something you never would have thought they had in them?
Take a moment and realize how many scientists, how many experts, how many overly obsessive people have overly obsessed with finding answers to life’s questions… of that vast reservoir of combined human knowledge, how much of it goes undiscovered, unapplied in our daily lives?
In my mind, anyone who is curious about expanding their knowledge, who wants more out of life, who is open to doing things in new ways and does not want to accept how things are done merely because everyone around them does them that way… is a part of learned empowerment.
Learned Empowerment is about taking control of our lives, about acknowledging our real limitations—and still feeling worthy to do amazing things, and finding hyper effective ways to do the most important things in life.
Things like reaching our most cherished aspirations, finding peace in a world of constant overload, and cultivating truly satiating relationships. Stay tuned for some awesome things appearing on this site. Together, we’ll become better, more capable people, unlock our full potential, and live up to our privileges in this journey we call life.
I hope you’ll join me. Together, we can change reality. Thanks for watching.
Committed to your Success,
Kendel
PS
Here are two songs that capture some feelings of this movement:
I stumbled on this website accidentally. I found it extremely interesting and thought provoking.