365QOD- Day1071

The Taste of Pain

“Recycle your pain”- Eric Thomas

The other day I listened to several YouTube segments in which Eric motivates people to not use excuses to live a meaningful life.  The videos are pretty motivating messages that take the excuses off the table.

This line appeared on one of the screen shots and immediately I knew that I had to comment on it.  What does pain taste like?

I believe that we often get motivated or de-motivated by people and events.  Unfortunately, most often it is the demotivating that tends to stick with us.  Just because someone tells you you can not do something we allow it to become our reality.  It does not have to be BUT we just accept it.

This line teaches us to taste the pain of being demoralized and to recycle it to better use.  The taste should motivate us to move forward and achieve.  In many classic Bruce Lee fight scenes he tastes his own blood that someone has caused and gets motivated to kick their tail.

Paint should be the source of wanting to do better.  For most of us it takes a mind shift before we can recycle the pain for benefit.  But we must be like Bruce.  Taste it and use it against the causer.

Today’s question is:

“Do you recycle your pain for good cause?”

365QOD- Day798

"A true measure of your life is how much you would be worth if you lost everything"- Robert Trajkovski

I read a quite today which stated that a true measure of your wealth is what you would be worth if you lost everything.  It seemed to me that it was missing something.

Wealth is but one dimension on which to measure life.  Recently I worked on a workbook of 26 power virtues that one would evaluate along physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, interpersonal, and financial dimensions.

Wealth is simply the financial dimension.  I thought of a complete loss of everything: wealth, family, career , friends, etc. would be more drastic.

Where would you begin to rebuild? Would you have the courage to even start?  Kind of a dark chain of thoughts.  In the end I concluded that any loss in a singular dimension should not stop you for too long, unless you let it.

Todays question is:
"Where would you begin the rebuilding process after a devastating loss in any one of the six dimensions?"

365QOD- Day729

“I just give up” – often heard

Sometimes giving up is the right decision.  Often it is not.  The “stick-to-it-ness” most of the time can guarantee good results.

To me stick-to-it-ness is another way to say grit.  You will continue the fight until you persevere through the difficulty. 

It might require long hours.  It might require a lot of sweat equity.  It might require believing in yourself and your ideas when others have given up. It might require that your world changes completely.  It might require growing beyond your current self.

Today’s question is:

“On a scale 1(weak)-10(best), what is your stick-to-it-ness level?”

365QOD- Day725

"No plan survives contact with the enemy." -  German Field Marshall Helmuth von Moltke's

Recently during an internal interview I was asked about how I plan my projects.    I could easily spend an hour talking about how to generate plans.  The simplest way I can explain it is

G- Goal

O- Objectives

S-  Strategies

P- Planning

A- Actions

L- Leaning

This is a technique I wrote about in several posts many months ago.

My answer focused on the imperfection of planning.  I stated that no matter how “perfect” you believe your plan will be it is a matter of time before the holes in it are exposed.  No plan survives contact with reality.  You will quickly see the limitations and feel like you failed.

However, the value of a plan is not the plan.  By planning you go through the thinking required to complete the project.  You should never fall in love with your plan. 

BUT you should understand that how you respond to the contact with reality decides whether you will succeed or fail.  You need to be flexible enough to modify your plans as you move away from the assault.

Remember that, as Mike Tyson pointed out, everyone has a fight plan until they get hit in the face.  Expect it! BUT believe in yourself that you will respond to it with greater force and flexibility.

Today’s question is:

“How do you respond when your plan gets hit in the face by reality?”

365QOD- Day714

“Consider your wake up call a blessing.  Your life, like my life, is finite.  It will end, and none of us can say when.  Do you want to die in the state you are in?  With dreams unrealized?  Negative habits firmly holding you back?”- from This Year I Will by M.J. Ryan

I am convinced that we place most of our limitation on ourselves.  Yes it is easy to blame the parents.  BUT after we become adults the choice to accept bad information given to us by others is our own choice.  AND with time we should be able to re-train ourselves to be the people we want to be.

I never said it was easy.  If you think it is tough then take a look at this video.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50138905n

I guarantee you that after viewing the video you will feel that you are not limited.

Today’s question is:

“What is stopping you?”

365QOD- Day699

"Why as many as 65%?" - my question to the TV segment

This being the beginning of the new year, people are still striving to achieve their new year resolution(s).  Well most of us.  By end of first week it is down to 75% and by end of January 40% will be on track.

The show I watched this morning showed that of the 45% of Americans that create a resolution only 8% achieve it at the end of the year.  BUT what was scary to me was the 65% group of the folks that did not have at least one new years resolution.

Why?  Well, I believe life tends to beat us up and the 65% have tried before and failed and are probably thinking, "what for?"  They have thrown in the towel.  The fight is over.

By not setting any goals then failure is not possible.  But the truth is that so is success.   I guess I value tenacity and grit to much.  If I fall then I must get up.  If I am heading into a bad situation then I have to figure out how to get a better result than bad.

Maybe I am naive but I expect failure as a given.  I expect that I will not succeed on the first try but have to nudge it a little each time to get a better result.  As a matter of fact I just got through reading a book on the Power of Failure.

In the end I would rather fail and grow then sit and give up.  But that is just me.  I fight to be in the 8%.

Today's question is:
"Have you given up the fight?"

365QOD- Day686

“Historically, good men with poor ships have fared better than poor men with good ships.” -George Patton

It is foolish to believe that if we are given more then we would achieve more.  There is no guarantee that that will happen. 

Most of us believe that if we were just luckier then our problems will look so much smaller. 

It is not the size of our problems that is the problem.  It is the size of our desire to be bigger than our problems.  We simply want the problems to go away.

In reality, problems are always replaced by similar and often bigger problems.  Our size does not change without an effort.

Today’s question is:

“How do you become bigger than your problem?”

365QOD- Day649

"If God does not change a circumstance, then he will use it" - Nick Vujicic

We often complain about our current state.  We want something else.  We want to have a better XYZ, whatever XYZ you crave.

But maybe our current state is exactly where we need to be.  Maybe we are being polished with a bit of sand paper?  Maybe the grit feels rough but continued polishing will expose us to finer grit and lastly smoothness.

I am not a believe in a God that punishes.  I believe in a God who teaches us and gently nudges us towards a better state.  I did not say 'ideal' because we might still not be totally happy with that circumstance.

Today's question is:
"Can you accept that a circumstance you are not happy with could lead you to a better state?'

365QOD- Day613

"Your adversary is your advantage" - hard thing to believe

During my younger working years I had many people around me that picked on me.  I used to walk in the morning meeting and get picked on for what seemed like an hour by the senior employees.

This 'pick on' Robert went on for three years until I started walking in and picking on everybody else.  Amazingly the picking on me stopped.  Their job was done.

Looking back the old guys were doing me a favor.  They were my adversaries in that situation and improved the quickness of my response time.  I no longer had to sit there and formulate a response.  The response was almost instantaneous.  This ability has served me well.  I can respond without seeming to react.

Today's question is:
"Have your adversaries ever done you a favor?"

365QOD-Day527

"Grit is tough because you don't get the psychic payoffs that come with an exciting discovery or a shift in direction.  You rarely get big wins to celebrate.  In fact, you may never truly win." Garage myth

Success is an inch-by-inch process.  It's called winning by doing the little things that people normally ignore.

Many years ago Larry Bird ruled as a supreme basketball player.  Looking at him was difficult to believe that he would be a champion BUT he was.

Larry Bird's grit was legendary.  He would shoot baskets for hours before a game, during the game, and for hours after the game.  He was willing to pay the price.

Today's question is:
"Do you come in early, work hard, and leave late?"