Yesterday focused on the constant opportunities that surround us as we move through our lives.
But in order to take advantage of them you need to be willing to move outside your comfort zone.
It’s always easier to coast than it is to climb.
In the same way, it’s easier to play it safe with what you already know than to put yourself in the position of being uncomfortable and having to learn new stuff — and possibly look foolish or fail
So what if you do?
The world won’t stop turning, nor will a lightening bolt materialize and strike you. Oh. And the sky won’t fall.
I promise.
What will happen is you’ll learn, grow, get braver, and your interests will expand.
And practically a guarantee that you’ll go further in life than you would have otherwise.
Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.
Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.
Long after I wrote this I read something that says much the same thing, only far more memorably.
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!” —Hunter Thompson
I’ve always thought of life as a corridor with dozens of doors opening, each one representing an opportunity.
You may open one or pass them by—it’s your choice.
Each time you do open one and enter that door closes forever and you move down a new corridor full of doors.
The door you entered is sealed because whatever lay behind it changed you, so you can’t go backwards, only forward.
Some people to through life opening as few doors as possible, changing as little as possible and staying as safe as possible.
Others launch themselves through the most interesting doors with gusto, taking advantage of whatever opportunities are concealed and then on to the next door.
In honor of all those who are, or lean to, the latter description I dedicate these two Rules. They are especially apropos today.
Watch for big problems—they disguise big opportunities.
Welcome the unexpected! Opportunities rarely come in neat, predictable packages.
You can’t open every door and you don’t have to stay long if you don’t like what you find, but if you pass straight through never opening any doors you’ll stay in pristine condition and you don’t really want to arrive at the end as untouched as you were when you started — do you?
Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.
Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.
As you know, the blog was dark last week. It was the first time I’d taken time off and, while I needed it for many reasons, one major one was to revaluate the ROI I get from writing a daily blog. As I explain in this post, we should expect as solid an ROI from our actions when investing in ourselves as we do when investing in the outside world.
I haven’t made any hard and fast decisions, but I do know that changes are ahead.
How many times have you said something like, “I’m not very good at X.” only to be told not to be so hard on yourself, not to put yourself down, or some variation of that theme?
I grant you that sometimes these comments are accurate and that the person is under-rating herself, but, just as often it’s a valid statement of fact.
Maybe it’s partly a function of age, but, it’s mainly a function of knowing one’s self and knowing when a viable ROI on the time/energy investment to change/create/fix something in ourselves just isn’t there.
For example, All my life I’ve been a procrastinator. I was about an 8 on a scale of 10, with ten being the worst. Over the years I invested a tremendous amount of time and energy in changing that—and I did change it, to a 4. When I hit four, I realized that the effort it was taking me to move to 3.8 was larger than when I moved from eight to seven.
That meant the change wasn’t particularly productive, in other words, bad ROI. So I stopped investing in change and learned to compensate instead, meaning I channeled my remaining procrastination into areas that don’t really impact the important parts of my world.
The point of all this is two fold
Know yourself well enough to know what you really want to change—change is a very personal decision—because to change successfully, it must be your idea.
Recognize when the return on your time/energy being spent is too low to warrant the investment and develop work-arounds to deal with the remnants of the change-item.
Finally, don’t let those pesky don’t-be-so-hard-on-yourself comments push you into actions that aren’t in your best interest. After all, they don’t know me as well as I know me, or as well as you know you.
A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read allIf the Shoe Fits posts here.
Over the years I’ve written about the value of reading books, most recently in a Golden Oldie just before Christmas. A few days later I was talking with a group of founders, all under 40, a couple of which follow this blog.
They took me to task for expecting them to have spare time to read. They said it was difficult enough finding the time to keep up with what was happening in their field and tech in general and that if they needed additional information on a subject they could google it.
When I commented that that kind of information didn’t lend itself to enlarging knowledge or encouraging thinking things got a bit heated. It was simpler to let them think I had backed down and change the subject than to subject the others to an argument.
“In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time — none. Zero.” — Charlie Munger, Self-made billionaire & Warren Buffett’s longtime business partner
Why did the busiest person in the world, former president Barack Obama, read an hour a day while in office?
Why has the best investor in history, Warren Buffett, invested 80% of his time in reading and thinking throughout his career?
Why has the world’s richest person, Bill Gates, read a book a week during his career? And why has he taken a yearly two-week reading vacation throughout his entire career?
Why do the world’s smartest and busiest people find one hour a day for deliberate learning (the 5-hour rule), while others make excuses about how busy they are?
Not only do they read, they read widely.
Successful people focus on both the tactical (daily) part of their business/lives, as well as the strategic (long(er)-term) part.
Last week I wrote about Hurricane Irma bearing down on my home state of Florida.
It was a scary time and brought a dose of reality to life that is not often seen. Through the experience I had a chance to view the before and after effects on people and thought I would share.
In my post I mentioned that there was a mad dash at stores for food, water and fuel to prepare for the arrival of the storm. It tended to be everyone for themselves and as a result was a bit chaotic.
In the interest of safety and because I have lived through several hurricanes, I took my family and left.
The trip we took normally calls for about 8 hrs of driving, but in this case it took 12. Roads were clogged, gas stations were packed, when they had fuel, and everyone was heading one way, north.
The trip was not scary, but it was surreal.
We took a back road highway as the interstates were turning into parking lots. We also drove in the dead of night and it was still packed.
Small towns with one open gas station had traffic jams. People were driving in emergency lanes and all toll roads were suspending payment for evacuation purposes.
This all added to the overall discomfort.
I knew my family and I were safe, but when I left I did not know how my house would fare or if I would have a home to return to.
The great news is we suffered minor damage to a fence and that is about it. Others weren’t so lucky.
How does this bring comfort though?
I spoke to my friends throughout this experience and truly felt closer to them.
Strangers have been open and people are helping.
Now that the panic of the storm has passed folks are banding together. Because I was gone my neighbors that stayed watched over my home and sent picture updates after tot show the results.
It has been rewarding to be surrounded by a sense of community and love.
Now I know times like these are sometimes short lived, but the memory of it can last a while.
I would never suggest that you suffer a major tragedy to experience this sense of belonging.
I recently switched jobs to a company that is smaller than my last but where I have the ability to truly achieve success or crash and burn. It’s slightly terrifying but I try to follow Richard Branson’s example of just saying yes to things first and then figuring it out as I go along.
One thing I realized after taking the role is I am the one that must set the cultural standard. It’s not that the company doesn’t have one, but most of the employees are remote and we rarely see each other.
As a result there is not really a zeitgeist in the office that tends to guide everyone’s actions. It took me a couple of weeks to reach this conclusion, but once I did I sought out some resources on how to set a standard.
I was not blessed with an iron will. For me I must work every day at maintaining discipline and work ethic. It’s not a battle, but it’s something I am very much aware of and I take steps to ensure I set myself up for success.
One way I do this is through emulation of others. I realize this may not be groundbreaking but I think it’s important to remember.
When I was growing up I would see people at the top of their game or profession and a lot of times not think about the work it took to get there. As I have matured I realize it takes great effort to achieve success and we must make it a priority. There are several people I follow on LinkedIn that hold influence. I try to emulate what they have done to form my own identity and culture.
I have also sought out mentors throughout my career. Some of these are formal, but some are not. I reach out to them for specific needs or learning opportunities.
What do you use for guidance when setting a culture? Is it a company, ideal or person?
I believe all can benefit when creating an identity, as long as we are choosing the right example to emulate.
It’s amazing to me, but looking back over nearly a decade of writing I find posts that still impress, with information that is as useful now as when it was written.
Golden Oldies is a collection of what I consider some of the best posts during that time.
The year is nearly over, so I thought I’d focus the next few weeks on personal growth.
The principle of I/O as applied to ourselves is frequently overlooked as we search role models, gurus and pundits in efforts to grow and improve.
Personal and professional growth is a major focus for most people—that’s one of the reasons you’re reading this blog.
We research, dissect, write, discuss, preach, teach, and study, all with the goal of improving ourselves.
No matter what you seek to learn/improve think of yourself as a computer.
Huh?
In computing, the term I/O refers to input, whatever is received by the system, and output, that which results from the processing.
Programmers know that the results coming out of the computer won’t be any better than the information given it and this phenomenon is known as “garbage in/garbage out.”
And there you have the secret.
No matter if it’s career-related, relationship-focused, personal-internal or something else, I/O applies to everything in life.
What comes out is a function of what you put in.
Blindly accepting everything offered by even the most brilliant source will result in garbage out at some point.
Learning/improving requires critical thinking on your part—no one person, past, present or future, has all the answers.
You need to evaluate the available information, take a bit from here and a bit from there, apply it to your situation and, like a computer, process it.
The result will be at least slightly different from what you started with, because you’ve added the flavor of your own life experiences, knowledge and MAP to the mix—and that’s good, it shouldn’t be an exact copy.
Because, as Oscar Wilde once said, “Be yourself, everyone else is taken.”
I find it forever fascinating to try and decipher the minds behind the creativity that stretches the boundaries and adds unique beauty to normal, real-world stuff. Here are two wonderful examples.
It takes a rare mindset to see a utilitarian object, with its own shape and use, and turn it into completely different object with a totally different form and use. The beauty is found in the operational innovation, since each of the final forms looks totally normal.
Or the artist’s mind that takes something that’s been around for centuries and keeps it’s utilitarian properties, while changing it in ways so far beyond the normal decorative and stylistic features that it is almost unimaginable — except to that one mind.
Wouldn’t you love to share a meal (or a bottle of wine) and just talk? No agenda, no purpose, except to bask in the creativity that flows from a truly original mind?
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
Actually, it’s not just a question for founders, but for everybody.
