David M Masters

If I asked you right now: “What's your message?” you might not know. That's a big question. It sounds like you should stand up, walk to a podium, clear your throat and say something suitable for engraving on a monument. 😂

So let's try something easier. What do you keep saying? That's different.

What do you find yourself telling people over and over? Not because you memorized it. Because it keeps coming out.

• Maybe you're always telling people:
• "You have more options than you think."
• "Call your mother."
• "Stop waiting for permission."
• "You don't have to do it the way everybody else does."
• "Read the contract."😂
• "Ask another question."
• "You're allowed to change your mind."
• "Don't confuse being busy with making progress."
• "People matter more than the procedure."
• "You should really back that up somewhere besides your laptop."

Some of those may not be your life's message. That last one might simply mean you've experienced a hard-drive failure. 😄

But patterns are interesting. Because when something matters deeply to us, it tends to leak.

• It appears in conversations.
• In the advice we give.
• In the stories we tell.
• In the things that frustrate us.
• In what we wish somebody had told us twenty years ago.
• Sometimes even in what makes us angry.

I've noticed that the subjects people can't quite leave alone often contain something important. They bring the conversation back there. Again. And again.

Not because they're trying to build a brand. They may not even realize they're doing it.

They just care.

That's worth noticing. We sometimes make discovering our message much harder than it needs to be. We sit down with a blank sheet of paper and try to manufacture something profound:

MY MESSAGE TO THE WORLD

Well, that's enough pressure to make anybody suddenly forget everything they've ever believed. 😂

Maybe don't start there. Instead, listen to yourself for a week.

• What do you keep saying?
• What do your friends already know you're going to say before you say it?
• What subject makes your family lovingly roll their eyes and announce: "Here we go…" 😂
• What do people call you about because they already know what you'll tell them?
• What lesson did life make you learn so thoroughly that you now recognize it everywhere?
• What do you wish people understood sooner?

There may be something there. And here's another clue: Your message doesn't necessarily have to be original. That's one of the traps.

You don't have to discover a sentence no human being has uttered in the previous 200,000 years. Good luck with that. 😄

Maybe millions of people have said some version of what you believe. They haven't said it through your life. They don't have your stories. Your scars. Your sense of humor. Your mistakes. Your peculiar collection of experiences. Your way of explaining it.

The message may be ancient. The messenger isn't. That's where you come in.

So, if you've been trying to figure out what you're supposed to say, teach, write, create, coach, speak about, or build something around… maybe stop trying to invent it for a minute.

Listen. You may already be saying it.

Your message might not be waiting somewhere in the future for you to discover it. It may be hiding inside the sentences people have already heard you say a hundred times.

☕ What do you keep saying?

Write down three sentences. Don't make them impressive. Make them yours.

You might be surprised by what's been following you around all these years.

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Have you ever had somebody you love start telling you about something you have absolutely no interest in? 😂

I mean… none. They're excited. Very excited. And you're trying. You really are. But apparently there are seventeen different varieties of this thing.

There are specifications.
Backstories.
People involved whom you've never met.

Somebody changed something in 2018, and apparently that was controversial. 😄

And they're looking at you like: “Can you believe that?”

No. I cannot. Because approximately four minutes ago, I didn't know any of these people existed. 😂

But I've learned something about love.

I don't necessarily have to care about the thing. I can care that you care about the thing.

That's different.

Maybe your kid wants to explain a video game to you.
Your husband wants to tell you exactly what was wrong with the carburetor.
Your wife found a particular plant she's been looking for.
Your friend is obsessed with some television series you've never watched.
Your granddaughter wants to tell you what one of the horses did today.
Your coworker is ridiculously excited because some obscure piece of equipment finally arrived.

You don't have to fake fascination. People can usually tell. But you can become interested in their fascination. That's something I genuinely enjoy. Watching somebody light up.

They talk faster.
Their hands start moving.
They remember details.
They lean forward.

For a few minutes, you get to see what the world looks like through a window that matters to them. And sometimes I think we miss those moments because we're waiting for the subject to become interesting to us.

Maybe it doesn't have to. Maybe the person already is.

There's a little sentence I've found useful: “Show me what you like about it.”

That's a beautiful question.

Because now I'm not pretending to be interested in antique fishing reels, Korean cooking shows, quilting patterns, engine parts, horse tack, baseball statistics, or whatever marvelous rabbit hole you've disappeared into. 😂

I'm interested in you inside that world. Show me what you see.

Why this one?
What makes that unusual?
How did you get interested in this?
What makes this fun?
Now we're not really talking about the thing anymore.
We're talking about a person becoming visible.

I think love does that. It notices what makes somebody come alive. Not so we can turn it into a lesson. Not so we can monetize it. Not so we can diagnose their personality type.

Good grief. 😄

Just because there's something wonderful about seeing somebody animated by something they enjoy.

And there's another side to this.

Think about how it feels when somebody does it for you. You know they couldn't care less about the subject. But they remember enough to ask: "Hey, whatever happened with that thing you were telling me about?"

Oh. You remembered my weird little thing.

That's love. Maybe not the kind that gets written on greeting cards. But perhaps the kind that builds a life. Because loving somebody isn't only being present for what hurts them. It's learning how to be present for what delights them.

I think we need both.

So here's today's little experiment.

When somebody you care about starts getting excited about something that does absolutely nothing for you… don't immediately wait for your turn to talk.

Try: “Show me what you like about it.”

Then watch their face. You may discover the subject becomes interesting after all.

Not because you suddenly care about the thing.

Because you care about the person who does.

❤️

☕ What wonderfully uninteresting thing could you become interested in today simply because somebody you love lights up when they talk about it?

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Have you ever been sitting somewhere feeling increasingly… blah? Not devastated. Not depressed. Nothing particularly wrong. Just… blehhhh. 😂

And because we're thoughtful, self-aware human beings, naturally we begin investigating. "What's going on with me?"

Maybe I'm dissatisfied with my work.
Maybe I need a new direction.
Maybe something unresolved is bothering me.
Maybe I'm disconnected from my purpose.
Maybe—

Hang on. When was the last time you went outside? 😄

I've had moments when I thought I needed an entirely new outlook on life… and apparently what I needed was to leave the room. That's humbling.

We sometimes assume every internal state requires an internal solution.

Think differently.
Process something.
Understand something.
Heal something.
Resolve something.

And sometimes, absolutely. But we're also physical creatures occupying physical environments.

Rooms affect us.
Light affects us.
Noise affects us.
Temperature affects us.
Movement affects us.
People affect us.
Being in the same chair staring at the same screen for six hours affects us. 😂

So I've learned not to immediately trust every existential thought that appears after I've been sitting too long. Sometimes I'll change the environment first.

Walk outside.
Open the door.
Stand in the sun for a minute.
Go somewhere with people.
Leave somewhere with people. 😂
Take a drive.
Walk around the block.
Move from the office to the kitchen.
Move from the kitchen to the porch.
Put the phone down and go feed something.
Do one physical thing in the actual world.

Then see whether the Great Crisis of Human Meaning still requires a committee meeting.

Sometimes it does. Fine. We'll reconvene. But sometimes… it disappeared somewhere between the front door and the mailbox. That's information too.

There's a tendency in personal growth to treat ourselves like puzzles that constantly need solving. I don't think we do. Not every uncomfortable feeling is a message from the deepest recesses of your soul.

Sometimes you're tired.
Sometimes you're hungry.
Sometimes the room is stuffy.
Sometimes you've consumed enough internet for one human nervous system.
Sometimes you haven't spoken to another person all day.
Sometimes you've spoken to far too many people all day. 😂 And sometimes your energy is simply asking for a change of scenery.

So here's an experiment I like because it doesn't require understanding anything.

The next time you notice yourself slipping into one of those vague, heavy, restless states… change something outside you before deciding something is wrong inside you.

Different room.
Different chair.
Different light.
Different sound.
Different activity.
Outside.
Inside.
Quiet.
Company.
Movement.
Stillness.

Give your system some new information. Then check again.
You might still need to deal with something deeper. But at least you'll know the thought survived fresh air. 😄

Sometimes raising your vibration isn't about thinking a higher thought. Sometimes you just need to move your body into a different piece of the world.

☕ Before you overhaul your life today, is there any chance you just need to leave the room?

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We love asking customers why they bought. Makes sense. "What did you like?" "How did you hear about us?" "Why did you choose this?" Useful information. But there's another person I'd occasionally like to have coffee with. The person who almost bought. 😂

They clicked. They read. They asked questions. Maybe they even put the thing in their cart. Then… nothing. Off they went into the wilderness.

And businesses tend to interpret that silence for them. "Too expensive." Maybe. "They weren't serious." Maybe. "They found somebody else." Maybe. Or maybe the button didn't work on their phone. 😄

Maybe they couldn't tell what happened after they paid.
Maybe they needed something you offer but never mentioned.
Maybe they thought your six-week program required attending live and couldn't make Tuesdays.
Maybe your product description answered seventeen questions they didn't have… and somehow missed the one they did.
Maybe they wanted it. They just couldn't quite get themselves across the line.

That's interesting.

Because businesses usually put people into two neat piles: Bought. Didn't buy.

But there's an enormous amount of human behavior between those two piles.

Somebody who never had any interest in your offer may not have much to teach you about selling it. But somebody who got 90 percent of the way there? I'd listen to them.

They may know exactly where the bridge is missing a plank. And sometimes it isn't even a big plank.

I remember how easy it is, when you're close to something, to assume everybody understands what you understand.

You've explained this product 400 times. Of course you know what it does. You know who it's for. You know what happens next. You know what that little phrase means.

The customer doesn't. They're seeing it for the first time. And then they encounter one tiny unanswered question.

They don't necessarily call.
They don't submit a support ticket.
They don't schedule a committee meeting to discuss your confusing checkout process. 😂

They leave.

That's why I've learned to become interested in friction. Not just rejection. Friction.

Where did somebody hesitate?
What did they ask twice?
What did they misunderstand?
What made them say: "Let me think about it."
What were they looking for immediately before they disappeared?

Sometimes increasing sales isn't about attracting another thousand people. Sometimes it's about making the path easier for the hundred who are already standing there.

And this doesn't require chasing people down the street yelling, “WHY DIDN'T YOU BUY MY THING?”

Please don't do that. 😂

Ask gently.

If somebody inquires and decides not to move forward: "Thanks for considering it. I'm always trying to make this easier to understand. Was there anything that made it not quite right for you?"

Then—and this part matters—don't defend the answer.

If they say the price confused them, don't explain why the price makes perfect sense. If they say they couldn't understand the packages, don't give them a seventeen-minute explanation of the packages.

They just gave you something valuable. Information from the other side of the counter.

Say thank you. Write it down. Look for patterns.

One person's confusion might be one person's confusion. Ten people getting stuck in the same place? There's probably something there. And somewhere inside that little point of friction may be money you've been trying to find by buying more advertising, posting more content, creating another product, or shouting louder.

Maybe you don't need more people at the door. Maybe you need to notice why the people already there aren't walking through it.

☕ Where do people get almost all the way to “yes” in your business—and then disappear?

There may be a very profitable question waiting there.

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Have you ever had something in your life that once felt absolutely right… and doesn't anymore? A job. A business. A project. A role. A way you served people. Maybe even a dream. That's confusing. Especially if you once believed: “This is what I'm supposed to do.” Because if it really was your purpose… shouldn't you still want to do it?

I don't think so. Not necessarily. I think we've done something strange with the idea of purpose. We talk about it as though somewhere in the universe there's one job description with our name on it. Find it. Commit to it. And apparently keep doing it until somebody carries us away from the desk. 😂

But when I look back over a life, that isn't what I see. I see seasons. Things that mattered enormously for a while. People I was supposed to help. Things I needed to learn. Things I needed to build. Doors I needed to walk through because something on the other side would lead to something I couldn't see yet.

Some of those things lasted years. Some lasted decades. And some were surprisingly brief. That doesn't make them less meaningful.

A bridge doesn't fail because you didn't build your house on it.

You crossed it. That was its job.

I think sometimes we stay too long in old purposes because leaving feels like admitting we misunderstood them. "Maybe I was wrong." Maybe you weren't. Maybe it was exactly right. Then. That's the word we forget.

Something can be completely right for one chapter of your life without being required to appear in every chapter afterward. Parenting changes. Relationships change. Careers change. Our bodies change. What fascinates us changes. The problems we feel compelled to solve change. Even the people who need what we have to give can change.

Why wouldn't purpose have seasons, too?

I've known people who keep trying to manufacture enthusiasm for something that clearly doesn't have life in it anymore.

They aren't lazy. They aren't quitters. They aren't necessarily burned out.

They're just standing on a bridge they've already crossed… trying to figure out why they don't feel called to keep crossing it. 😂 Maybe you're not supposed to.

Maybe the question isn't: “How do I get my passion back?” Maybe it's: “What did this season give me that I'm supposed to carry forward?” Now that gets interesting.

Maybe you learned how to lead. How to listen. How to sell. How to teach. How to survive. How to love people you didn't understand. How to recognize what isn't yours anymore. Maybe you met someone. Maybe you discovered something about yourself. Maybe the whole chapter existed partly to prepare you for a sentence you haven't written yet.

You don't have to drag the entire chapter with you. Take what belongs. Leave what doesn't. And turn the page.

There may even be a little grief in that. That's okay.

We can be grateful for something and still be finished with it. We can honor what something meant without trying to make it mean the same thing forever.

Purpose doesn't always say: “Stay here.” Sometimes purpose says: “This way.”

And once you've gone that way… it points again.

☕ Is there something in your life you've been trying to revive that might deserve to be honored instead?

Maybe it wasn't your forever. Maybe it was your bridge.

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Have you ever forgiven somebody… and then kept the receipt? 😂

You know what I mean. Something happened. They hurt you. They disappointed you. They made a mistake. You talked about it. Maybe they apologized. Eventually you said, “I forgive you.”

Beautiful. Except three weeks later, there's an argument. And suddenly: "Well, remember when YOU…?"

Ahhh. Apparently the account wasn't closed. 😄

Maybe we didn't forgive the debt. We just put them on a payment plan.

I've done versions of this. I suspect most of us have. We don't necessarily mean to. Sometimes the old hurt is simply sitting close enough to the surface that when something brushes against it… out comes the invoice.

Amount due: That Thing You Did Six Months Ago.

And here's where relationships can get strange. If somebody can never finish paying for a mistake, eventually they stop believing forgiveness means anything.

Every disagreement becomes a retrial. Every new mistake gets attached to the old one. Pretty soon you're not arguing about what happened Tuesday. You're presenting the complete historical archive.

Volume One through Seventeen. With exhibits. 😂

Now, I want to be careful here. Forgiveness does not mean pretending something didn't happen. It doesn't automatically restore trust. It doesn't mean removing boundaries. It doesn't require you to remain in a harmful relationship. And sometimes consequences continue even after forgiveness.

If somebody breaks your favorite lamp, forgiving them does not magically reassemble the lamp. That would be convenient. 😄

But if I decide to continue a relationship with somebody… and I tell them I've forgiven something… I think there's a question worth asking: Am I actually allowing this person to live beyond it?

That's different from forgetting.

You can remember something without using it as a weapon. You can learn from it without making the other person kneel before it every time you disagree. You can rebuild trust slowly without making shame the building material.

And perhaps most importantly… you can address today's problem without inviting every previous problem to the meeting.

That's a skill.

"What happened today bothered me."

Full stop.

Not: "What happened today bothered me, and while we're here, I'd like to revisit the spring of 2019." 😂

Love sometimes requires a surprisingly disciplined relationship with history. Because history contains useful information. But history makes a terrible roommate when you give it the master bedroom.

There may be things you aren't ready to forgive. Be honest about that.

There may be things you're still working through. Say so.

Real forgiveness doesn't need to be rushed or performed. But if you've reached the point where you genuinely want to release something… then maybe release the right to repeatedly collect on it, too.

That's the part we don't talk about as much. Because one of the greatest gifts you can give someone who has genuinely acknowledged a mistake and changed… is the opportunity to become somebody who is no longer defined by it.

And perhaps you'd appreciate the same gift. I know I would.

So here's today's little relationship experiment:

The next time you're tempted to bring an old offense into a new disagreement, stop for half a second and ask:

“Does this belong to today's conversation?”

If it does, talk about it. If it doesn't… maybe leave the receipt in the drawer. ❤️

Because forgiveness shouldn't become an invoice you keep resending.

☕ Is there an old receipt somewhere in one of your relationships that might finally be ready for the shredder?

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I spilled something the other day. Not a catastrophe. Nobody called emergency services. Civilization continued. 😂 Just one of those irritating little messes that happens at exactly the wrong moment. And I noticed something.

For the next few minutes, everything else started annoying me too. The thing I couldn't find. The thing somebody left where it didn't belong. The computer taking approximately seventeen years to do something that normally takes four seconds.

Suddenly my mind had assembled a compelling body of evidence: This is a bad day.

Whoa. Wait a minute. When did we hold the election? 😂

It was one annoying thing. Maybe five annoying minutes. But somehow those five minutes were trying to acquire the naming rights to the other fifteen hours.

We do that.

Somebody cuts us off in traffic.
Bad morning.
A customer sends an irritating email.
Bad afternoon.
We get into an argument before breakfast.
Bad day.
Something doesn't work.

"Of course. That's just how today is going."

Is it? Or is that how 11:17 went? There's a difference.

I think one of the simplest ways we can change our frequency is to become a little more careful about the stories we attach to moments.

A bad moment is real. You don't have to pretend you enjoyed it.

A disappointment hurts.
An argument can shake you.
A mistake can be frustrating.
Something genuinely difficult may need your attention.

But none of those automatically gets custody of the rest of the day. The next moment hasn't done anything yet.

I like that. The next moment is innocent. 😄

It hasn't spilled anything.
It hasn't sent you a rude email.
It hasn't lost your keys.
It hasn't broken the printer.
It hasn't said the thing you wish somebody hadn't said.

It's just standing there… waiting to see what happens. And sometimes all we need to do is stop dragging the previous moment into it. Not suppress it. Not deny it. Just stop renewing its lease.

I've found that tiny physical resets can help.

Wash the coffee off the counter.
Walk outside for two minutes.
Change rooms.
Put on another song.
Get a glass of water.
Take the dog around the block.
Finish one tiny task.
Say: “Well, that was unpleasant.” Then let the sentence end.

You don't necessarily need to turn it into: "…and therefore everything is terrible." 😂

There's something almost rebellious about refusing to let one lousy moment become the narrator of your entire day. Maybe nothing magnificent happens afterward. Fine.

We're not demanding a miracle. We're simply allowing the next hour to make its own case. Because sometimes raising your vibration doesn't mean turning a terrible day into an amazing one. Sometimes it's much smaller.

You stop calling it a terrible day. You call it what it actually was: a terrible five minutes.

And then you see what happens next.

☕ Has something that happened earlier today been trying to claim more of your day than it deserves?

Maybe you can let the next moment introduce itself.

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You know who you are.
Somebody mentions they haven't been sleeping well, and while everyone else is listening to the complaint, your mind is already wandering:
When did it start? What changed? Stress? Food? Medications? Minerals? Sunlight? What haven't they looked at yet?
Someone tells you about a natural remedy that worked for them, and later that night you're researching it.
Then you discover six other possibilities.
And suddenly it's 2:00 in the morning. 😄
You may already be a Natural Alternative Specialist.
For years, I've known people like this—the investigators, researchers, experimenters and relentlessly curious people who seem naturally drawn to finding another possibility.
Now St Pauls Free University has a certification program built specifically for them.
Not a “take this for that” course.
Not ten weeks of somebody's favorite remedies.
We're going to learn how to listen, ask better questions, investigate possibilities, compare what we find, recognize boundaries, respect people's choices, observe what happens—and recalibrate.
Because one of the principles behind the entire program is:
There may be 200 ways to do a thing.
The first live 10-week class begins Tuesday, October 6 at 6:00 PM Pacific Time.
I'm delighted to be stepping in as instructor, and enrollment is now open.
If you read this far and thought, “Wait a minute... that sounds like me,” you might enjoy seeing what we've put together.

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I love finding money that's hiding in plain sight. It's much easier than working harder. 😂 And there's one particular hiding place I've learned to look for in a business: The thing the owner doesn't think is worth anything.

I'll be talking with somebody about what they do. They explain the product. The service. The packages. The pricing.

Then somewhere in the conversation they'll casually mention: "Of course, before we do that, I usually spend a few minutes helping them figure out which direction they should go."

Wait. Go back. What do you help them figure out? "Oh, that's nothing. It only takes me five or ten minutes." Ahhh. There it is. 😂

Potentially the most valuable thing in the conversation… being given away because it only takes them ten minutes.

I've seen versions of this many times.

The contractor who can walk through a building and spot three problems the owner hasn't noticed.
The marketing person who looks at an advertisement and immediately knows why it isn't working.
The mechanic who hears the noise and says, "That's probably your wheel bearing."
The accountant who looks at a situation and sees the tax problem coming six months before the client does.
The coach who hears three sentences and asks the one question that changes the entire conversation.
The author consultant who can look at a book idea and see the course, audience, positioning, and backend hiding behind it.

How long did that take? Five minutes? Maybe. Plus twenty years.

That's the part we forget. People aren't necessarily paying for the minutes. They're paying for everything that made those minutes possible. Years of pattern recognition.

Mistakes.
Experiments.
Conversations.
Training.
Failures.
Things you've seen work.
Things you've watched explode spectacularly.

😂

All of it gets compressed into: "Have you considered doing it this way?"

And because the answer came easily to you, you assume it has little value to them.

Those two things have almost nothing to do with each other. In fact, sometimes the opposite is true. The part that comes easiest to you may be the hardest part for somebody else to get anywhere. That's worth investigating.

I'm not suggesting you start charging your spouse every time they ask where the scissors are. 😄

Generosity matters. Free advice can build relationships. Helping people without keeping a meter running can be part of who you are.

I'm not interested in squeezing a dollar out of every human interaction. But business owners should occasionally examine what they're routinely giving away.

Especially when customers keep asking for the same thing. That's a clue.

Listen for:

"Can I pick your brain for a minute?"
"Before I buy this, could you tell me…?"
"Would you mind taking a quick look at…?"
"What would you do if…?"
"Can I run something by you?"

One request means somebody needs help. Twenty people asking the same question might mean you have a product.

Maybe it's a consultation. An assessment. A diagnostic. A workshop. A checklist. A report. A small service. A book. A course. A premium level of something you're already doing.

Or maybe it remains free. Fine. But make that a decision, not an accident.

Here's a fun business experiment.

For the next week, don't begin by asking: “What else could I sell?”

Instead ask: “What are people already asking me for?”

Then pay particular attention to the things you've been dismissing because: "Oh, that only takes me a few minutes."

There might be money hiding there. Because sometimes the expensive part isn't the thing that takes you the longest.

It's the thing that took you the longest to learn.

☕ What do people routinely ask you for that you've never thought of as something valuable?



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