Your life just consists of filling in the gaps.

As easy as that.

When you understand it, it's when groundbreaking changes come to your life.

We don't usually pay attention to the gaps.

We're so focused on what it's outside the gap that we ignore it.

From my perspective, that's a big mistake because GAPs are the answer to most of our questions.

It's in the gap where magic lives.

It sounds mystical, abstract, or even esoteric but, as a pragmatic person as I am, I will try to ground the concept to manage it better, so you can directly and quickly apply it.

• It's by applying things how one starts to believe in them.
• It's by seeing results how one understands why "spiritual experiences" are worth it in life.

Firstly, I will mention how some geniuses end up with this conclusion, and, later on, I will share my own experience because, as you may guess, I'm not a genius at all.

Amadeus Mozart

"The music is not in the notes,
but in the silence between."
― Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

It's not clear if Mozart quoted that, but it doesn't matter at all. Let's look at the concept behind it, that is what matters.

Mozart (or whoever) expressed a subtle concept.

What exactly goes on in between the notes? It's not always silence. Usually, you can still hear the previous note before creating or thinking of the next one.

What do you get out of this?

Just paying attention to the silence.

If you pay attention to it, you can stay calm, be more focused on the present time, and think better about what better fits next.

The more you stay at present, the better you can:

• analyze,
• think,
• make decisions,
• and perform at your best.

If you don't do so, you're just inside an endless (and nonsense) rat race, running from one place to another just for the sake of it.

Viktor E. Frankl

Just in case you don't know him, Viktor Emil Frankl was an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, philosopher, and Holocaust survivor.

He wrote a fantastic book ("Man's search for meaning"), that I highly recommend, based on his experience in the concentration camp (his father died in a concentration camp, and his mother and brother were both killed in Auschwitz), analyzing everything from a "cold and analytical" philosophical and psychological vision. It impacted me deep inside.

Frankl states this quote about "gaps":

"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
— Viktor E. Frankl

Let's look at it in a little more depth.

Whenever you're facing a situation, you're free to determine how it will affect you (the response you will give to that stimulus).

If you become a master of this, it will be life-changing because you'll be free at your highest level.

"The tranquility that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do."
— Marcus Aurelius

This concept is perfectly described by Ryan Holiday in his bestselling book "The obstacle is the way":

"Perception is how we see and understand what occurs around us. It's the first key to turning obstacles into assets."
— Ryan Holiday

How we perceive an "obstacle", a situation, and how we decide it will affect us is how our life will be.

It's in that gap where we can choose the way to fulfillment/happiness or the way to hell.

Now, let's move on to some of my personal experiences.

My meditation practice

I've been meditating for a long time.

At the beginning, before even practice it once, I thought meditation was something that belonged to mystic people, people who didn't care about reality and real life. People who believed in incense and candles.

How wrong (once again) I was!

It's through meditation how I've improved my performance to levels I had never achieved before (mostly because I didn't even know they existed).

One of the meditation's goals (because it has a lot) is being at present, enjoying it, forgetting about the past or the future.

To achieve that, one of the most common techniques is to be focused on your breath.

But let's move on one step further, where the magic happens.

If you don't focus on your breath, inspiration and exhalation, but in the space (gap) between, is when you're at the real present time. It's when you're fully at present, feeling that experience and sensation to the fullest.

It sounds bizarre, but give it a try, and you'll feel that amazing "present" sensation. It's when the past and the future totally disappear.

How I became an entrepreneur

It was by filling in the gaps how I started to understand what this story (life) is all about.

The real meaning of life.

Those "critical" questions that made you a better person, a better self.

It's the gap between who you are and who you could really be that generates dissatisfaction.

Your life doesn't make any sense, and you need to find out answers.

• I didn't feel right about my job.
• I thought I could do better things in life (my life).
• ...

It's what made me create my first company almost 20 years ago.

Today, I can say that gap made me enter the best period in my life. The most prolific, enriching at all levels, and the one that drove me to the way to fulfillment, to happiness.

Takeaways

Focusing on the gaps is what will make your life completely change.

It's what will make you think out of the box, where real added-value is.

Think deeply about the examples above to really understand the concept and start trying it step by step, day by day.

You will start experiencing those magic moments, the ones that change anyone's life.

Enjoy them, feel them, live them.

Photo at the top courtesy of JOSHUA COLEMAN on Unsplash.