We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give. -Winston Churhill (1874-1965), British Prime Minister.
Teleological. Goal seeking organism. According to Aristotle, that’s what we all are. Some call it go-getters, others refer to it as survival of the fittest. Kill or be killed. Only the strong survive. All that don’t fight are fit for extinction!
Really? Is this the human condition? Wouldn’t an unbridled attack attitude lead to chaos? Look at how much ill will there is toward the wealthy. Certainly we celebrate the inventors like Steve Jobs who brought us pleasing and life changing products, but what about all those bankers who raked in massive fees while their industry tanked…where was the value added cried the abused!
So it appears that the masses tend to lean towards fair play…no problem that there’s a game to play and win, but when you cheat you get reeled in quickly and chastised. So what’s at play here? To some extent we all like to “get” and advance our own cause, but is there a right or better way to do it? And if there is, who says what’s better? Who makes the rules anyhow?
Some would argue that there’s a moral authority that we should look to, but what if you don’t believe that God or any higher power exists? What about a referee? Do we need one? Can we even find an unbiased one that’s incorruptible?
Rather than get exasperated about trying to police unbridled “getting”, why not look to giving? Consider the historical perspective…who do we remember the most? The extreme “getters” such as Napoleon, Hitler, Hussein amongst other enterprising conquerors and the extreme “givers” such as Gandhi, Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King.
When you feel lost maybe it’s because you lost your mojo, but what is your mojo and how do you find it once it’s lost. We could make the argument that your mojo is that personal swagger, not necessarily your ego, rather a simple confidence that makes you feel good.
In the context of your business, start by asking yourself why you’re the best option for the consumer and watch as your passion to compete swells up. Listen to the conviction with which you describe the problems in your industry and how the lesser competitors could never compare to your compassion and level of service.
Then write it all down. Clean it up. Simplify it. Convert it into a simple claim based statement that tells the world why they should choose you. Then there you have it; the campfire that your mojo loves to gather around.
You can do this in any aspect of your life. Simply remember that all you need to find your mojo again is to turn your passion loose. You’ll always find your way back!
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. -Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher.
My word is my bond. My name is everything. This is what I heard from a few real estate agents this week when I asked them about their values. This all came in the context of of helping them build the presentations that they give to their prospects. My train of thought had been challenged by something I recently read that said all great presentations were based on values and described values as internal states of emotions…something more abstract than simple words.
Perhaps this discovery is at the very heart of why so many people seem to be going through the motions in business and life. It’s one thing to be taught something that works, but if you’re not really feeling it internally, won’t it shine through? If you believe that we can read each other by simple body movements, wouldn’t a lack of true conviction be obvious? Furthermore, if other people truly are looking for leaders and experts why would they line up with somebody that didn’t fully believe in themselves and their message?
Many of us are always after that seemingly illusive concept of success. We want it so badly that we tend to get obsessed with its pursuit. Some of us will even cheat to get it. Enormous volumes have been written about it. Many works about success eventually conclude that we have to start with why we’re after it at all. Why we want to be successful might ultimately be as simple as our drive to survive, which in modern days invokes a more complicated plight in the information age than kill or be killed.
Getting hit motivates me. It makes me punish the guy more. A fighter takes a punch, hits back with three more. Roberto Duran (1951-) One of the greatest fighters of all time known as Manos de Piedra (Hands of Stone).
So many ups and downs in life. The tide rises and carries us to the top of the mountain where we catch a glimpse of glory only to come crashing back to sea level as the wave slams back down on the sand. Just watch a surfer go from taming a monster wave to getting tossed like a rag doll only to paddle back out and look for some more.
It’s so frustrating to continually be pounded down to the ground and eventually we wonder what the heck happened to all those good days. The times when nothing seem to go wrong and if it did, how we were able to keep rolling forward and nothing could stop us.
The other night, I watched a fantastic boxing match where the champ traveled from England to come into the challenger’s home town of Washington D.C. The battle was ferocious from the get go with the champ knocking the home town fighter down twice in the early rounds. The tilt of the ring made it look like it might be an early victory celebration for the visitor.
Yet in spite of being shaken early, the challenger kept coming forward and he never stopped all night. He kept throwing punches with great intent in spite of being over-matched in the skill department. In fact he was so relentless the champ resorted to pushing him away and lost 2 points for trying to regain the edge.
Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself. -Suzanne Somers, Actress.
So you’ve done something wrong. It keeps gnawing away at you. You keep burying it deeper. You rationalize why you did what you did but it keeps poking away. It wakes you up in the middle of a deep sleep. It invades your peace of mind. You get mad every time you think about it. You blame the circumstances of those who “made” you do it.
Eventually you run out of ways to make it okay. It tackles you to the bed. You pull up the sheets as the anger turns to depression. You start to wonder if a drink or a pill will make it just go away and it does…but for how long? The bottle doesn’t seem to be deep enough and before you know it you’re further down the wrong path. It all seems to be slipping down the hill quickly.
You come to the realization that life is like a game of shoots and ladders. One minute you’re climbing to the top and discovering the best of who you are and the next minute your dropping through a trap door and plunging into the abyss. What was the tripping point? Where did it come from? Was it a sudden event or was it like a cobra laying low in the grass for hours just waiting to pounce?
Suddenly one day it just seems so clear. You see all the silly things that you do in those moments of weakness and compromise. How you hurt other people just to self-satisfy and get ahead. In the moment, you never see the cloud building over your head. The one you create. Eventually it cracks wide open and floods your life. You know you caused it. Now the tough part.
Thankfulness…the attitude of gratitude. For what? The good things only? How about the tough times and the trip-ups that teach us too? Why aren’t we thankful for all of it?
Just up the road a bit from where I live, the Pilgrims gave thanks. They had plenty of ups and downs, especially in the first winter when many of them didn’t even survive. To this day you can go there and witness the rugged conditions those early settlers had to endure.
Nevertheless they were thankful. They were free to live and worship as they saw fit. Nobody telling them how to think. They made plenty of mistakes but found meaning in all of it.
So how about you? Are you grateful that people like that came before us and struggled immensely to chisel out greater opportunity for future generations? Is your life really that hard? Look around and I bet you’ll find somebody today struggling like an early American settler. Be thankful that you have what you do and reach out with your talent and your resources to help.
Thanksgiving is a time to recognize the blessings that you really have but might have forgotten…so slow down, take inventory and be thankful!
No man means all he says and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought it vicious. -Henry B. Adams (1838-1913) Journalist and member of the Adams political family.
My mother was always threatening to wash my mouth out with soap when I was a kid…so I challenged her with a wee bit of vulgarity. Not only did she keep her promise, she upped the ante by coming after me with a mop in an attempt to clean me up once and for all.
Obviously since I’m still talking about it, the impact and lesson was important. At first blush, it might seem as simple as a parent trying to reel in the rebellion of just another wild kid pushing the envelope, however, the key point is that I never realized the words were having a much greater negative impact on me than my mother.
I’ve come to realize that although the brain is wired a certain way upon birth, it can be changed either over time or in an instant during a traumatic event. Regardless of the circumstance, we tend to attach great emotion to any situation and create a picture in our minds…a virtual movie. That movie is then added to our in-brain library and plays both on-demand or consciously and automatically or subconsciously.
When anything dominates our mind, we feel compelled to give it life through words. If the emotions are positive we tend to use wonderful words to release the movie to the public, often times in a very conscious way. However, what if the movie is a tragedy filled with pain and suffering? Who wants to talk about that…throw that thing in the back of the library and lock it down. Not so easy.
How much talent is hidden throughout the tiny cracks in society? Somewhere deep in the woods somebody is running through the hills just because…the next extreme marathon champion. Locked in a room some kid is playing the guitar and singing to the mirror and has no idea how great she really is. A scientist is somewhere locked down in a lab questioning the methods he’s been taught and is experimenting with logic and putting simple things in a new order…maybe sitting on the cure for cancer?
They’re everywhere! So why don’t we see them. Even with the explosion of the Internet, we still don’t see all the talent emerging that we should. Not everybody wants to jump on YouTube and be seen. Why?
We all tend to underestimate any talent that we have. We’re afraid to jump off the cliff and find that we really can fly. Some of course do. We call them Mavericks…risk takers. We watch them and marvel at their self-motivation. How do they do it without a push? Maybe they found a way to embrace the fear. Maybe the fear they feel is actually the rocket fuel that propels them to push their talents.
Yet for most, we need a push or at least a constant reminder. So this is a call to arms. Go out and encourage somebody to get on the stage, to express their thoughts without fear of embarrassment. Stay right next to them if that’s what it takes. When they get knocked down wipe them off and push them right back up.
Let’s stop hoping talent emerges, let’s go on the hunt for it and call it out. Free the talent!
Studying, reading, accumulating information. Sure it’s all part of the learning process, but so what if that’s where you stop unless your life’s goal is to become an expert theorist. The key is in the doing of the thing.
Start by taking an inventory of why you started your search to being with. Why did you suddenly seek out that knowledge? What was it that you were hoping to discover? When you did begin to dig, what new level of awareness did you achieve? Did you feel satisfied about your new awakening?
Your new consciousness alone can make you feel like your part of the “in-the-know” crowd, but beware that you will not be satisfied staying there as you watch the doers leave the group and move to the next level…in fact, you might become downright angry…with yourself.
Becoming a doer will come at a very high cost. You’ll have to break the old you. The persona that you’ve always been will not be good enough. So how will you break free? You have to really want better. You must be willing to sacrifice comfortable and throw caution to the wind.
Why not? Fear? Of what? Is it really a matter of life and death, which would be the ultimate push? Maybe if it was you’d have no choice but to get it done, so why not act as-if it is!
So what if there is more than one person inside of us? What if it’s critical that there are many more than one? Would that make you feel like you had a split personality disorder? A bit confused on whom you should call upon in each situation? Which one would be in charge of all of these people?
Maybe it’s less complicated? Perhaps it’s just an evolution of the same core person who becomes more complex with new multiple layers? More of a straight line evolution that fortifies the weak spots as we grow; but does it just happen naturally or does it take willingness to learn and a humble open-mindedness?
The challenge exists in the simple wisdom that you don’t know what you don’t know, but that leaves you wondering, how do we then know to search and what would we be searching for? Maybe it’s not even a function of consciously searching for anything? What if we’re just wired that way from the start? After all if we’re designed to survive, then hunting and gathering must already be preprogrammed on the motherboard.
Once upon a cave ago, the best hunter-gatherers certainly didn’t know what they didn’t have a clue about, but through experience they learned. So by default, the evolutionary learning was in the doing of the thing. Those that hunted more, learned more, did it more efficiently and learned how to change their behaviors to succeed. Simply put, the workers that did the most in the beginning, evolved the fastest.
Passing that down to the newer members of their tribe, they would have advanced as a community faster then their competitors. Was there anything wrong with the other groups or people? Maybe not at all. In fact we could make a certain bet that many people evolved quickly, but did they continue to push for growth is the real question.
