What’s So Great?

Posted In Monday Morning Motivation | 1 comment

Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough. -Oprah Winfrey, media mogul and self made multi-billionaire.

This past week’s post stirred up some emotions and merits a deeper discussion. You see the truth is that nobody really likes to be pushed around but will only really admit it when they really feel challenged. I want to reiterate that my goal has always been to play the role of a seeing eye dog and help you all find the light switch that exists inside each of your minds. You are all so talented but often refuse to admit it because you allow the lights to be turned out…you simply stop thinking and roll off into a Nantucket style fog! But that indeed makes you guilty! You can’t hide and take yourself out of the game because that is simply the same as denying your own existence! You can’t sit around hoping that something or someone else will make everything all right for you! It does not work like that…you MUST participate or you become nothing more than a looter, a user and non contributor. Now I recognize that many of you reach the point of despair and hopelessness where it seems that all your effort is for naught, but that’s not true. Just when you think that you have reached an impasse is exactly when you are about to break through and if the only benefactor is you, then great so be it. You have to worry about what you can do for you with the talents you were born with…if that benefits everybody else then fine, but at the very least you give meaning to your own existence and that makes you feel really good. Before I digress too far I want to make my point about the successes of the past serving as our springboards to the future and why we should be grateful for those who went before us.

Let me give you the example of some of the greatest entrepreneurs of the present like Bill Gates…could he have even conceptualized his software without the existence of the computer? How about the electronic discoveries that trigger all the little 0s and 1s of the binary numeral system that make all this even possible…who did that? Not Gates, he built upon it! How about the comfortable buildings that we all work in late night inventing the products of the future…the steel structures, the HVAC systems, the elevator pulley systems and on an on. You see my only point was that we have to put the hubris aside and be grateful for the past. How about the cliche that we should learn from the past? Have you ever gone out and tried to do something only to fall flat on your face and quickly realize that someone before you said: don’t do it that way! Again I make my point that we are so compelled by our own insecurities that we can’t help but ignore the past and forge forward trying desperately to prove to the world that we are somebody…we are smart and count for something! Well you are right, we do and we should push forward with that entrepreneurial instinct, but there is no reason to do it so animalistically that we don’t use what we already know to our advantage. So I have a new strategy…reprogram yourself by being grateful!

If you are having trouble being grateful for all that you have then consider this…what if you were dropped out of a plane in the middle of the wilderness with absolutely nothing and I mean NOTHING? What now? Well of course you have all the raw ingredients that all of those who came before you had. So grab a couple of sticks and start rubbing them together to make a fire to keep warm…of course you know that fire even exists because somebody that came before you figured it out. How about going to the nearest body of water to find some fish to eat…what’s that? You have no SUV to get there, no gasoline because you wouldn’t even know how to pull it out of the ground let alone convert it to a useable form to run the engine that you have yet to build, no modern fishing pole complete with interesting lures….GET IT YET? Be thankful that many have crawled before you so that you might fly. Understand that the innovations of the past are the very things you take for granted and blow off as just being something that is. I ask you all to sit back in your easy chairs and ask yourself what you could really be if your back was up against the wall and you HAD to survive! I promise you the instinct would kick in and you would be more than you are when you are in that comfortable place. So stop launching grenades at the doers of our modern and past ages and instead be thankful for them, learn from them and become one of them. Be thankful for everyone and everything you have because you never really know their worth until it’s all gone and you have to start from scratch!

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  • Bob Zachmeier

    I really liked this post because I can relate to it all too well. Many years ago, I was very driven, but also very frustrated. I would set aggressive goals and always beat them, but I was never satisfied. As soon as I would achieve one thing, I would want another, and so on, and so on.

    One year during a soul searching session after my father died, I decided to volunteer to help people instead of always working on things that would benefit me. I volunteered to teach sixth and seventh grade kids through the Junior Achievement program. Many of these kids came from broken homes and had little or no self-esteem and most were destitute. This was a real eye-opener for me. I’d never stopped to appreciate how much I had to be thankful for, from the love and support of my parents to the lifestyle that I enjoyed.

    When my focus turned from the things I didn’t have, to the things I did have, my attitude changed. I became thankful and more charitable. Then a strange thing happened. It seemed like the more of my time and money I gave away, the more would come back to me! I thought this might be related to something like karma, where good deeds are repaid, but I was receiving way more than I gave out. It took me several years to figure out that what had really changed was my perception.

    When you’re saving every dime to achieve a goal, you tend to start believing and acting like there is only a limited amount of money. But, when you start giving money away, you tend to believe that you can recover it quickly somewhere else. This belief makes you more aware of the opportunities that present themselves to you every day. I’m certain that these opportunities were always there before, but I was so fucused on the pennies I was earning that I didn’t see the dollars that I was walking by every day.

    Our business has prospered and grown every year since we’ve started because we focus on what we give to our customers rather than what we receive in return. Some of the closest people in my life and in our business were drawn to us because we did what was right for them and not what was the most profitable for us. I credit this philosophy with our success. When you are grateful for the opportunity to help other people achieve their goals, they will be grateful of you. Many of the office staff and the sales team members in our company are former clients who enjoyed their home-buying experience with us so much that they joined our team! The leverage we receive from their efforts has propelled us much farther than any of us could have imagined possible. This makes us even more grateful, so the cycle begins again! Our goal is to always “pay it forward.”

    Keep up the good work!

    Bob Zachmeier
    Tucson, AZ

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