The Odyssey

Hey, It's Ramon

Took Raquel and my daughter to see The Odyssey last night.

The whole time I was waiting for my favorite scene (SPOILER ALERT: it never showed up)

Odysseus is trying to get home from the war. Ten years of Gods jerking him around, cyclops, sirens, the whole tour.

And then he catches a break.

He lands on a floating island with bronze walls around it, run by a guy named Aeolus who keeps the winds.

Aeolus takes a liking to him.

Feeds him for a solid month. (Also his 6 sons are married to his 6 daughters, which is a whole other conversation.)

When Odysseus goes to leave, Aeolus hands him a going-away present.

An ox-hide bag, tied shut with silver wire, with every storm wind on earth stuffed inside it.

Then he leaves out one soft west wind to push the ship right up the coast to Ithaca.

So Odysseus takes the tiller himself and won't let anybody else touch it.

Steers 9 days without sleeping. Just him and this bag he never explains to anyone.

Day 10, he can see Ithaca. He sees the beach fires and the guys tending them.

And that's when his body quits on him and he goes out cold.

His crew has been staring at that bag for 9 days.

They figure it's gold.

They figure the captain got paid and they're getting nothing, again.

So they cut it open.

Every storm on the planet comes out at once and blows them all the way back to where they started.

I sat in that theater doing the math on how many people I've watched do this exact thing.

The good month finally shows up.

The client says yes at the new rate.

The account has a number in it you've never seen before, and you can see the fires on the beach.

Then you spend it down in 3 weeks.

Or you drop your price on the next call before anyone asked you to.

Or you start a fight with your partner on a Friday about nothing.

Or you get sick.

Or you open the laptop on Monday and do nothing with it until the following Monday.

Blown all the way back.

And people decide that means they're undisciplined, or that some secret part of them didn't want it.

Look at why the crew opened the bag though.

They weren't out to wreck the trip.

They opened it because after 9 days of watching, they'd decided the good thing wasn't for them.

They went digging to confirm what they already believed.

Your nervous system is the crew.

If you grew up in a house where the mail got opened at the kitchen table in a certain kind of silence, your body learned that money is a thing other people have.

So when the good month hits, some part of you starts cutting at the bag to prove it.

Here's what to do about it, and you can start this week.

1. Catch yourself the second something good lands. Payment notification, a yes, an unexpected check.

2. Do nothing with it for 90 seconds. Don't spend it, don't announce it, don't start planning the next thing.

3. Find where your body braced. Jaw, chest, belly, throat. It's the same spot every time, and most people have never once gone looking.

4. Breathe low and slow into that spot until it gives a little. 10% is plenty.

5. Go on with your day.

That's one crew member finding out the bag was for him too.

Do it 30 or 40 times and your body stops filing "more money" under threat.

The one thing I can't hand you in an email is somebody else on the boat.

Odysseus got all the way to the beach fires and lost it because he wouldn't let another set of hands near the tiller.

Talk soon,
Ramon

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