Mankind just might have lived through one of the most troublesome, dynamic, weirdly exciting and scary months in history.

From the Ferguson shooting, human’s showering in ice cold water and the emergence of I.S.I.S, these past few weeks provided us with enough stories to give our scroll finger (previously known as your index finger) a hell of a workout.

Though the gazillion stories kept us entertained, some for the better, others for the worse, there were a lot of lessons to be learned from around the globe and some closer to home.

As we finish out the month, I’d like to share 5 lessons I gleaned from my own adventures and those all around us.

1. If you don’t take it to life, life will take it to you

For the first 7 months that I’ve been back home, I seriously believed that my charm, personality and what I accomplished in the past was going to be enough to carry me through new ventures and new mountains that needed climbing.

Life and all of her infinite wisdom quickly made me realize two things:

A. No one cares about what you have done in the past. We live in a “what have you done for me lately”, world (thanks Rolando). In order to succeed at anything, you have to humble yourself of any previous success, put the working boots on, remember what it was like to be hungry, and begin putting boots to asses, again. Once you remember what got you to the top, you feel like the hammer and every challenge around you is a nail. I think I found my hammer again.

B. Nothing is going to be handed to you. Whether it’s getting the hot girl back that broke your heart, succeeding at a new gig, building your own business, losing weight, or beating a sickness, you have to take it to each and everyone of your obstacles in front of you. I used to believe in the “if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be” mentality. That way of thinking does nothing but thwart you from taking positive action. You are capable of it, whatever your “it” is. Get off your ass, stop playing candy crush and go make it happen. There is no other way.

Take it to life, she is patiently waiting for you.

2. Live fearlessly, confidently and maybe even a bit cocky

Go ahead, do it. I dare you to.

You’ll be amazed at what happens when you act without fear and the results that confidence breeds while performing an action. For a while there, I was a bit timid, and felt out of character. I was scared of being back home and no longer being a big fish in a small pond. I questioned my own abilities and whether I still had the chops, skills and bravado that I used early on in my career to now propel me in my new ventures. I let others steal my cockiness and edge that I firmly believe you need a little bit of, because I was too worried about fitting in again.

One night this past month, while complaining to my mom about how things were getting harder and harder, she simply said, “ Ve al King Soopers mijo, y compra te una caja de huevos.” Translated: “ Go to King Soopers son, and buy yourself a box of huevos, or balls.”

That’s all it took. In her own way, she challenged me to live fearlessly, confidently and maybe even a bit cocky again. August, you can say, brought my balls back.

3. Ignore the noise

There is senseless noise around us everywhere. At work, at home and everywhere in-between. While at my old company in North Carolina, I asked Richard, the President of our company, what one of his keys to success was and he responded with; “Learn to ignore the noise, it’s nothing but a distraction.” There was a lot of noise in my background. From my family and friends telling me what I should or should not do, to the stories in the media, to the endless chatter in my own mind, August taught me to ignore the noise.

Control what you can control, trust yourself and leave the rest alone.

4. Floyd can’t read

Late last week, a story broke out challenging the literacy skills of undefeated pro-boxer Floyd “Money” Mayweather. By now you may know that rap star 50 Cent challenged Floyd to read a full page out of a Harry Potter book without struggling which led to an audio of Floyd, well, struggling to read basic english. Of course, this led to a barrage of sarcastic twitter post, memes on his reading ability, or lack thereof, and a waterfall of Facebook post poking fun at his unfortunate inability to read.

I’ll have to admit, I briefly got involved in the joking of the situation before I realized, “ Hey, who the hell am I to judge” and “Really, has our society become so fucking braindead that we get caught up in making fun of a millionaire boxers inability to read and quickly forget about our own faults ?”

I can’t swim. I mumble sometimes when I speak. It took me until 6th grade to speak and read the english language properly and I hate showering everyday (sorry ladies). My list of faults goes on and on and you know what?

I could give two fucks about what people think of me.

At the end of the day, as long as you work on yourself and improve any weaknesses, you will come out a better person. Nothing else matters.

Trust me, I get it. His douchebag actions in the past make it easy and a bit irresistible to target him and find as many things as possible to poke holes in his character, but next time you decide to worry about faults in others, or being critical of someone or gossiping about God knows what, take a look at one of your thousand selfies, and ask yourself how perfect you truly are.

5.We live in a crazy..scratch that, insane, kooky, out of control time in history

Between the brutality of the I.S.I.S terror group and the unfortunate beheading of American journalist James Foley, another murder of an unarmed civilian in Ferguson (note: I excluded the word “African-American” from this sentence, because at the end of the day, whether he was black, Mexican, Chinese or white, the police are here to serve and protect us , or so we thought) the ebola outbreak in West Africa and our fascination with watching each other drench ourselves with ice cold water, (the last one for an awesome cause ) we are living through a complex and erratic time in history. Our world around us is filled with what seems like endless chaos, unimportant news and our own personal battles.

As people, and ultimately brothers and sisters from whatever higher being created us, it’s important to remember that we are all in this storm together.

What would happen if we looked for the best in ourselves and others instead of focusing on the madness around us? What would happen if we realized that we were the eye inside the storm and had the ability to learn from our actions and change things for the better?

What would happen if instead of focusing too much of our precious time, time that we can never get back, on the chaos around us, and instead focused our time on improving ourselves or became a blessing to someone else?

“If there must be madness and time crunches and chaos in your life, then let there be chaos. But find the strength and stillness to be the eye inside that storm. These things are happening around you; nothing is happening to you”

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