Einstein Time…You are Time!

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The Big Leap By Gay Hendricks
The Big Leap By Gay Hendricks

Over the last week I have been listening to the book The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks which was a huge suggestion by Cliff Ravenscraft, The Podcast Answerman.  You can find all of Gay’s content on his website at Hendricks.com.  You can find a quick list of Gay’s publications here.  You can check out all of Cliff’s content on his website at Podcastanswerman.com. 

There are a number of huge take away’s from Gay’s book The Big Leap which I will be talking about over the next few months or so as I fully peel back each area within his book to properly implement in my life.

Time

The first topic that is really important is not something I even expected when I started listening to the audio version of Gay’s book on my 7 hour car ride last week.  Its the topic called Einstein Time which I summarize as “You are time”.  So many examples to mention with this, and how I will be literally changing how I think about time in everything that I do.  Maybe I should call this a Time revolution in my life for the rest of my life.  A daily change and a daily process to make sure that I am not trapped by time anymore, every day for the rest of my life.

In today’s world, today’s society, time rules us all.  We are bound by it at such an early age that its such a normal aspect of our lives as we reach adult hood.  We think about time in a way that is choking our tasks, our creativity, and our overall lives.

To many times in my life, each day even, I have used any and all of the following sayings:

  • I can’t talk to you right now because I am running late
  • I don’t have enough time to do that right now
  • I don’t have enough time today to get everything done
  • Its going to take all day to get this done
  • I never have enough time to get the things done I need to do

Once again this is not an all inclusive list of sayings, but I think you can get the idea here.  In today’s Time Trap we don’t have time to do the creative thinking, to spend quality time with our family, to have love, and get all of the things we should be getting done, done.  This has been an issue in my life for some time now, maybe years even. Every day I create a master list of tasks I want too or need too complete but I always feel rushed and frustrated throughout the day.  In essence, I’ve been trapped by time.  Gay has a better way of saying this, “Time is the master, and I am the slave”.  Once you embrace this and start to really understand the implications of this in your life, I’m sure you will want to change it like I do.

Newtonian Time Paradigm

Before we can understand what Einstein Time is and how to fully embrace it day to day, we need to understand what our current time paradigm is, the Newtonian Time Paradigm.

Newtonian time assumes that there will always be a limited amount of time.  We will always have a problem with time, as its a limited commodity in our lives.  Gay compares this to a limited amount of food.  If we assume that there will always be a limited amount of food in the world then we will always fear the inevitable outcome of running out of food.  This compares perfectly with the Newtonian time concept that time is finite, and thus we will always fear the possibility of running out of time. In this model, we will always be rushing to catch up which is my case or we will be board out of our minds with nothing to do.

Einstein Time Paradigm

We made time and have been using it to manage our lives.  We have allowed it to rule us and our day to day actions for millennium.

You are where time comes from!  Its the single truth of what time is.  Lets take another step into this and say that You are time!  If you can grasp your mind around this truth then everything in your life will become so much easier.

Living your life in Einstein time means building a positive relationship with time.  It will allow you to properly balance your priorities with time and not be ruled by time.  You will be able to put in less amount of time and get twice the amount of work done.

The benefits of Einstein Time:

  • You will be generating time
  • Get everything done in half the time you expect
  • No more rushing, feeling hurried, or time pressure
  • No more stress, panic, or concern
  • You will feel good inside
  • No more feeling exhausted and didn’t get any of the important things done
  • Constant state of refreshing renewal
  • How to get everything done you need to do and still have the time for family, love, and creativity in life.
  • Expand the amount of time you have, you save time and you become the source of it so you can make as much of it as you want

Embrace the Space!

In Einstein time we make a change on how much space we occupy.  Lets use another example from Gay’s book to explain this concept.  When you are doing something that you love, or that you are unknowingly thriving on, time will seem to bend and you will enter a Time Tunnel.  When this happens, its like 1 hour of this time feels like a minute to you.  In direct opposition to this, if you are doing something you don’t want to be doing or something you totally distaste doing, 1 minute of doing this task will feel like 1 hour.  This is the Time Tunnel Gay talks about.

How do we get into a positive Time Tunnel you may ask?

You need to embrace the space you are in at the moment you are in it.  You need to understand that everywhere you are is the right place for you and the right time.  You need to let the space flow into you instead of letting the rushing thoughts of concern and worry enter your mind.  If you properly embrace the space you occupy, all of these issues with time will fade away.

Lets use another example of a situation that can go two different ways:

Lets assume that you work in a major city and take a train to work every day.  Now lets say in this example you are running late to your morning meeting.  As you get on your train, what to you do?

Option 1:

If you are following the Newtonian Time Paradigm, you are most likely looking at your watch or phone to keep checking on the time.  You are worried, rushed and the time pressure is really starting to make an impact on your physical state. You feel an overwhelming amount of stress, panic and concern.  This is still all while on the train heading to your meeting.  When you arrive to your meeting, you would be complaining about the traffic or late trains, just like everyone else in the meeting.

Option 2:

If you are following the Einstein Time Paradigm you would embrace the space you are in on the train.  You would know that you are where you should be and when you should be.  There is no need to check your watch or phone for the time, as you will get to your meeting when you are supposed too.  There would be no worried, rushed, or overwhelming time pressure.  Your physical state will be calm and collected. When you arrive to your meeting to find that no one else was in the room yet, you would enjoy that time by yourself.  When others arrived, they would be complaining about traffic and late trains.

Making the shift to Einstein time: 

As Gay encourages his readers and listeners of his book, I would like to encourage all of you to Make the bold move to use Einstein time every day of your life moving forward.  I’ve made the personal commitment to spend every day of the rest of my life in Einstein time.  This is much easier to say than to accomplish, especially for someone like me that has been trapped by time for so long, but it is something that I’m making a point to think about every day, and every situation.  If you adopt Einstein time, it can be a life safer for you!

How to start your shift to Einstein time?

  • You need to take full ownership of time
    • Understand that you are the source of time
  • Stop complaining about time
    • You will start to notice others talking about time around you
  • You need to acknowledge the different factors that are occurring:
    • Pain and discomfort, but why? You need to determine why its happening or you will feel the issues all day
  • Embrace the space you are in!

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About Zig Zsiga

Zig Zsiga, CCDE™ 2016::32, CCIE™ #44883 has been in the networking industry for 20 years. He is currently a Principal Architect supporting the CX US Public Sector Business and Customers. Zig holds an active CCDE and two CCIE certifications, one in Routing and Switching and the second in Service Provider. Zig also holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Computer Science from Park University. Zig is a father, a husband, a United States Marine, a gamer, a nerd, a geek and a big soccer fan. Zig loves all technology and can usually be found in the lab learning and teaching others. Zig is a published author now working on his second book, the CCDE OCG. He is the host of the Zigbits Network Design Podcast (ZNDP) where he interviews leading industry experts to talk about network design. All of Zig's content is located at https://zigbits.tech. Zig lives in Upstate New York, USA with his wife, Julie and their son Gunnar.