Asides

personal development

How to Do Amazing Things

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The gap between you and The People Who Do Amazing Things may not be as wide as you think.

Sure, there are people out there that are way smarter, fitter, richer, etc than the rest of us.  But they are a tiny minority.  And many of them accomplish nothing.

For the vast majority of people that accomplish enviable things there is just one major difference between them and you.

They believe.

Your beliefs limit your capabilities.  If you don’t believe something is possible you probably won’t even try it, let alone succeed at it.

Belief will carry you past pain, adversity, negativity, and failure.  Find a way to believe and the Vegas line on your chances of success just shot through the roof.

personal development

The Confidence Game

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Where does confidence come from?

You know, that annoying-as-hell guy or girl that seems to be able to walk into any situation with swagger, with a “Hey, I got this” attitude, brimming with self-assurance.

You might think for a bit and exclaim, “I know!  The more competent you are, the more confident you are!”

And you would be right.  But not in the way you might think.

Sure, if you’re a proficient negotiator walking into a negotiation you’re going to feel like Celine Dion auditioning for “American Idol”.  You won’t even break a sweat.

But it’s possible to be confident tackling something you’ve never done before.

How?

By being competent in handling failure.  If you can walk into a situation believing that you’ll do your best and, if your best isn’t good enough, that you’ll recover the better for it, you’ll be confident under just about any circumstances.

So get to it.  Take on those scary tasks, because even if you fail, you’re going to grow.

You won’t be afraid of falling down if you know you can easily get back up.

discipline, personal development

Feed Your Brain

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The last time you stood in line at the grocery store checkout, did you struggle to avoid reading the headlines of the various trashy magazines racked in front of you?  If you haven’t noticed how difficult it is, give it a try the next time you’re in the store.

It’s the same with billboards on the side of the road, or advertisements on a city bus or taxi.

Humans (at least those that are literate) are drawn to reading stuff.  Why?

It turns out our brains are voracious learning machines.  They have evolved to consume and process information, and when it’s offered the brain will gobble it up like a greedy kid stuffing his face with candy after a successful trick-or-treating expedition.

That’s why it’s so difficult to resist reading all those tabloid headlines:  our brain is itching to learn more about why Brad and Angelina are choosing family over fame, and what went on inside Beyonce’s wedding.

[Well, that and the fact that our brains love stories, but that’s a tale for another time.]

Marketers know this and exploit it.  Take a spin through any city or mid-sized town and you’ll be barraged with words, images, and symbols designed for the dual purpose of:

  1. Satisfying your brain’s craving for more information, and
  2. Getting you to buy endless quantities of stuff

But there’s no reason why you can’t exploit it as well.

Social media is addictive for the very same reason.  Your brain loves to chow down for countless hours on pictures, stories, and memes about your friends, friends of friends, and people you don’t even know.  It’s all new information, and your brain luuurves new information.

It’s not terribly useful information, of course, and in that way social media is more like M&M’s for the brain than it is protein and veggies.

So provide your mind with a little discipline.  When you find yourself craving some Facebook or Instagram, instead try consuming something both new and useful.

A few M&M’s once in awhile won’t kill you.  But filling up on them day after day will leave you restless and unfulfilled.

 

 

personal development

Overwhelm the Ugliness

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Don’t get discouraged when the world suddenly seems full of ugliness:  evil people, nasty things, and hateful actions.

The news media lives on profit, and the best way to make that profit is to focus on awful, scary, outrageous things.

Ignore them.

The ugliness is a blade of grass bloated to the size of a mountain by people who gain from your fear and outrage.

The world is overflowing with fantastic people, beautiful things, and thoughtful actions.

Let them, and they will overwhelm the ugliness.

 

discipline, learning, personal development

Always in Motion

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If you’re like most people, just about every major accomplishment in your life was achieved in small steps over a long period of time.

Sure, there may have been the occasional cataclysmic breakthrough, but for the most part big changes happen slowly and consistently over time.

[Here’s where you might expect to see a tired reference to the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon.  I’m not going there.  That sucker is so threadbare you could use it as a fishing net.]

Do you have a daily practice?  Do you do something every day to make yourself better?  Do you do yoga?  Meditate?  Solve a crossword?  Dig into math puzzles?  Work out?  Study chess?  Paint?  Draw?  Work on logic problems?

If you haven’t had a daily practice in awhile, take a couple of days to think about what you want to improve (balance, endurance, mindfulness, patience, writing ability, creativity, strength, analytical skills, computer literacy, etc) and how you can spend 10-30 minutes doing every day improving it.  Then commit to doing it for at least three months.

A week or two or four isn’t enough to experience real change.  Three months, however, will be enough for you to start to see the beginning of a shift, and you’ll get a taste of what’s possible.

Don’t wait.  The world is a wonderful place, but it’s always in motion.  You have some catching up to do.

entrepreneurship

Investment Tip

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If you’re a business owner or manager you have probably at one time or another wished for the ability to clone yourself.  “If I could just have 10 more of me,” you think, “this business would grow like crazy.”

Once employees are trained (also an important task, but not very difficult) it’s critical to keep them motivated to run the business with the same level of attention and energy that you do.  A few well-trained employees who treat your business like their own are an army capable of building something great.

So how do you motivate an employee?  Money only works for so long, and fear quickly backfires.

Instead, invest in them.

Take the time to find out what makes them tick.  Ask them what they need to get better at their jobs and give it to them.  Support them, nurture them, help them become better at their jobs and at life.

If you take an interest in people and help them grow, not only will they be more valuable to your business, but they will adopt your vision as their own and work their asses off for you.

Better yet, investing in people makes you a better person and your little corner of the world a better place.

Sappy?  Yeah, a bit.

Truth?  Absofreakinlutely.

 

learning, personal development

Stretchy

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Do you remember Plastic Man?

He was a comic book hero who dressed in red spandex (what else?) and white-framed sunglasses.  His super power was the ability to stretch into any shape imaginable, and he used it to foil evildoers and drive his super-powered friends batty.

You my friend, are Plastic Woman (or Plastic Man, if you prefer to be quite that plastic.)

You have the ability to stretch yourself into just about any shape you can imagine.  All of us do.  Look at all the amazing things human beings can become.

Gymnasts who dazzle with tumbles and flips.  Powerlifters who transform themselves into giants capable of lifting more than a thousand pounds.

Parkour experts who can leap from multistory buildings.  Free divers who can descend hundreds of feet below the ocean’s surface on a single breath of air.

Chess players who can memorize dozens of games at a time.  Mathematicians who can solve differential equations in their heads.  Teenagers who can crack a Rubik’s cube in seconds.

We’re surrounded by people who have pushed the limits of human abilities and created something new and incredible.

There are, of course, those who have natural abilities far beyond that of the average person.  But average people like you and me can be so much more than average.

Far, far more.

So what shape do you want to be?  What do you want to become?

 

personal development

100 Years

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100 years from now, everyone that knows you will be dead.  Shortly after that everyone that knew of you through them will be dead.

If you’re like the rest of us, posterity will know little to zero about you.

So why do you care what people think?

learning, personal development

Soaking the Other Side of Your Brain

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Who are you?

Do you embrace the mess, dive in, and see where it takes you?

Or are you the exact opposite: setting goals, ticking off the steps along the way, and marching towards progress with a gleam in your eye?

Dividing all people into two camps is a teensy bit of oversimplification (and heavens, lil’ ol’ me would never suggest oversimplifying things) but it’s not much of a stretch to say that most people approach things somewhere on the spectrum between these two styles.

But you’re not doing anything important just this second, right?  Let’s have some fun and play the “there are two kinds of people in the world” game!

Which type are you?  Are you the Creative Type?

Then let’s wade around a bit in the other pond, the “objective mindset”.  Set a goal, lay out the steps and milestones required to get there, and take your first steps.

[The details of goal-setting are beyond the scope of this post, but there are tons of great resources out there if you’re feeling Googley.  Get some.]

Are you that other animal, the Objective Type?  Do you constantly find yourself setting goals and working towards them?  So let’s flip it.  Find something that interests you, set yourself a frequency and a time limit, and follow it wherever it goes until something emerges.  Some examples:

  • Grab some colorful paints and work for 20 minutes a day for a week on that weird-looking water stain on your living room wall
  • Open up your laptop and spend an hour every day for a month exploring that strange idea you have for a play
  • Sit down with a couple of like-minded friends twice a week for a couple of hours to flesh out that off-the-wall product idea you have

Wherever you normally live, step out of your comfort zone and soak the other side of your brain for awhile.  Start small and finish.

Surprise yourself with what you can do.

personal development

Taking Inventory

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Inventory.

It’s a grey, dead word that conjures up images of counting rows upon rows of whatever crappy product was involved with whatever crappy job you had once upon a time.

Forget that kind of inventory.  We’re after something much more useful.

What about those things and experiences that give you pleasure?  What about those things that weigh you down?

Sit.  Take 10 minutes and write down those things that give you joy and those that give you nothing but headache.

Look at your list.  How can you get more of those things that bring joy?  How can you get more things (or experiences) that are similar to them?  Why do they make you joyful?

Now look at the headaches.  Why are they still in your life?  Can you cut them out?  Are you afraid to do so?  Do you believe yourself unable to eliminate them?

If you cannot answer any of the above questions, put the list away and look at it again tomorrow.  Think about it on your commute to work.  Ponder it during lunch.  Keep grinding on it.

Answers will come.