Take stock of your blessings

Being ambitious and going for more has a built-in problem.  We can start to feel dissatisfied with where we are when what we want doesn’t come fast enough.

Jim Rohn famously said “Learn to be happy with all you have, while you pursue all you want.”

Being grateful is a productive virtue.  When you take a minute to be grateful, it’s good for your happiness and well-being and helps to settle feelings of dissatisfaction, despair, and unfairness.

For each of us, it could be a LOT worse. Even good things going on around you are blessings for you.

What is going right in your life?

What blessings do you have?

A product of your habits

You made your habits.

Then they made you.

If you want to change (to improve is to change), then we have to change something we are doing each day.

Your habits are made for a life you no longer want.

Think on it.  Associate your habit as something that is not good for you. 

Stop doing it.  Start doing something better in its place – something that will get you the result you want.

Repeat each day until you don’t have to think about it anymore – you just do it.

Hard work sucks when you don't have a purpose

On January 14, a Sunday, we got back home from a little trip.  It was 39 degrees and the wind was blowing hard.

“I’m going outside to cut some trees up,” I told my wife.  “Really?  It’s cold out and so windy.”  “I know” I said.

I get my chainsaw, gas can, bar oil, scrench, helmet and gloves and go.  I spy the sickly trees I want to cut down and cut up.  Some dead.  Some were being choked out by giant vines that had their way.  I can see these trees from my house and barn.

Soon chips are flying into that wind.  Sweating, I took my Carhart coat off.  The vine choked trees I cut are not cooperative.  The vines connect to neighboring trees and hold it up.  They don’t fall, and when you do get them to fall, they certainly don’t fall the way you want.

Once dropped, there’s a tangle of vines like giant tumbleweeds to cut.  It’s very hard work.  The overcast sky gets darker as nightfall approaches.  I’m winning.  I love it.

How could I love THIS?

A have a purpose.  A couple actually.

I am 59.  I plan on living to be 100.  I know that hard physical exercise is good for me.  During the week in the winter I hit the gym 2 -3 times.  On the weekends I am outside getting it.  

I want to live.  I want to feel good.  I want to be useful.  I know am choosing the pain of discipline, so I don’t have the pain of regret.

I also love the way the woods look when I am done.  It’s forestry management.  But that is secondary to hanging onto life.

I get a huge secondary benefit too.  A normal day seems easy.

Hard work sucks when you don’t have a purpose.

Your purpose could be to be the best at what you do.  To do work that you are good at and makes you feel great about yourself.  To serve others.  To find out who you are and how good you can get.  To get a result.

Whatever it is, find a purpose in hard work – the hard work that you find a purpose in.  And once you find a purpose in that hard work, it’s not so hard anymore.

If you avoid it, you will be average.

News can control us – but not me.

There is no news without an agenda anymore.  It’s fear-mongering to get eyeballs and mindshare they can sell to make money. I am not their target.

A long time ago I stopped watching any news or news shows or commentary.  I have had enough and don’t like what it does to me.  I know enough about how things are by now.  I get it.

This year is an election year.  It will be full of lies and drama and bad behavior garbage.  I don’t want it in my head.  

When things happen that I need to know about, people will tell me. I will save a lot of time I can use to get better, do great things, or pay attention to the beauty of life.

I’m out.

And I will have ANOTHER awesome year being the best me I can be and making the world a better place.  I’m on it – every day!

Besides, I’ve got 520 Think Daily’s to write for YOU this year!

How about you?

School is never out for the pro!

If we are to be high performers and make an impact, we have to develop a habit of learning.

That means reading, listening, and watching the RIGHT things that will make us smarter, more effective, more able, and more productive people who can get things done in the world. 

We can go deep and specialize to what matches our inherent talent and interests, and/or we can learn about many other things that orbit what we do to get a better understanding of the world we are in and other areas of life that affect us.

I listen to audiobooks, but I also get emails from other people such as Darren Hardy, Tim Ferris, Joe Polish, Brian Johnson, and Dr. Mardy Grothe each day or week.  I also listen to some podcasts and subscribe to Masterclass.

I don’t have time to consume all that I get, but I have learned to tune in or skip and make it work.

Do I need to relearn things – yes.  Do I need to hear it again another way?  Yes!

Will I ever be done learning?  No.  Does it make me feel more able and less stuck?  Yes!

School is never out for the pro.

What do you do to keep learning? (Besides read Think Daily?!)

A world of your own choosing

Two people can live next door to each other and work at the same place, and live in very different worlds.  How?

By what they choose to pay attention to.

One lets in the news and searches for validation of his views on the internet.  Algorithms give him back what they think he already believes based on what he’s watched already, reflecting and reinforcing his worldview.

His neighbor pays attention to completely different things – things that build and lift and teach.  He asks for it and that’s what he gets.  He surrounds himself with it.

They walk on the same sidewalk and shop at the same supermarket – but live in two completely different worlds – each of their own choice and design.

What world have you chosen?

The great thing is you can change – if you can break what the world has done to you –  the habits of thought and patterns of behavior. 

The world you live in is a choice. 

The future is already here…

“The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.” – William Gibson

This idea is interesting.  It is true that some people somewhere are trying things and doing things that are not mainstream yet.  

I think that some parts of the future make things faster and give us more to pay attention to, but that is not necessarily a good thing all the time.  I think the innovators among us are always testing for what will make life better and what doesn’t – as we should.  But I don’t think that because something is new or uses more technology, that it is automatically better.

Many “innovations” are there simply to get our attention and hold it – to get our eyeballs and mindshare that they can sell.  

We each need to decide.

Would you say that you are on the leading edge; ‘in the future’ in some areas of your life?  Or are you behind a bit?

We made network news!

A month ago when I wrote about our experience and our win at the Baja 1000, I told you about a CBS News Anchor I spent time with and took for a ride in our race car.  Well, the 9-minute segment came out on CBS Morning News recently!  Here it is!

Preparedness and reputation meet opportunity!

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/drivers-from-across-the-globe-give-desert-racing-a-try-in-the-baja-1000/?intcid=CNM-00-10abd1h

Electric cars are the future

Pop quiz – 

When did electric cars first appear on the roads?

A) 1960’s

B) 1980’s

C) 1990’s

D) 1880’s

In 1912 about what percentage of cars on the road were electric?

A) 0%

B) 2%

C) 1%

D) 38%

When I was 18 years old I was excited to be able to buy a Corvette.  I’ve had one ever since.  This one was a 1968 convertible – red with a black top.  A week after I bought it I realized why it was so cheap – $6800.  It burned more oil than gas!

I was still thrilled to own a sports car (after my upbringing) – it was a thrill.  In high school I read Hot Rod and Car Craft magazines, and I wasn’t afraid to start taking engines apart.  Having no choice and no money (left), that is what I did.  I rebuilt the engine and put it back in the car.  When I turned the key – it started!  

Since then I have felt I knew more than the average person about engines.  I love internal combustion!

When my son bought a Tesla, I thought it was strange.  People reject things that are new and unfamiliar.  

When he moved to Utah he was selling the car, and so I bought it.  It reminds me of him.  He’s my buddy.  We spent so much time together riding ATV’s and dirt bikes since he was 10 months old.

Today I have the Tesla and the 2019 Corvette Z06 in my garage (and a 2016 Chevy pickup truck of course, and a 2019 Chevy Impala). Most days I drive the Tesla.  I am used to it now.  It’s fast, (probably faster than my Corvette Z06!) easy, quiet, all-wheel drive….so many fewer moving parts – and so efficient without so much friction from those parts or radiators to take the heat energy (that you paid for with the gas) away as waste.

When I get into an internal combustion car now I feel like it’s so antiquated – a relic of the past.

It will be cool when there are a wide variety of cars and trucks on the road that work like a Tesla.  We are getting there.

I’m not one for forcing the issue – that everyone has to drive an electric vehicle by a certain time – but it will happen.  

I love my gas-burning vehicles including dirt bikes (I have an electric dirt bike on order), but I know, the future is electric.

(Maybe they will make an electric Corvette!  Then you don’t have to worry if the engine is in the front or rear – just get rid of it!)

The answer to both questions is D!

Navigating Trouble

When challenges come along, remember they are put in front of you to make you better.  

If you do not see it this way you will whine and complain and suffer.

If you do, you will learn new things and employ your best virtues to meet them.

“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning to sail my ship.” – Louisa May Alcott

What challenges are you facing right now?  

How will this make you better?

Facing the Truth

Many times we do not want to hear the truth if it shows we have been wrong.  If we do not acknowledge the truth, we cannot improve in that area of our lives. Here are some notes on the subject you might reflect on.

“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it emotionally.” – Flannery O’Connor

“Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion.” – Edward Abbey

“The truth knocks on the door and you say ‘Go away, I’m looking for the truth’, and so it goes away.  Puzzling.” – Robert M. Pinsig

Are there any truths you have been failing to acknowledge? 

Get to Living

How old are you?

How old do you think you will live to be?

How many years do you have left?

What do you want to do before it’s all over?

Why are you waiting?

A wealth of information, a poverty of attention.

In 1971 social scientist Herbert Simon famously said “What consumes information is rather obvious.  It consumes the attention of its recipients.  Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”

This statement was made before smartphones, social media, texting, and email.  Today it is more important than ever.  

In a world filled with distraction, attention is our competitive advantage.  

Stop deli-slicing your attention and limiting your ability to focus deeply.

Do great work by eliminating distractions.

What are you trying to accomplish?

“The most basic form of stupidity is forgetting what you are trying to accomplish.” – Freidrich Nietzche

It’s a great question to ask yourself from time to time – 

All the things you do…all the stuff you bought….all the things you learned…

What are you trying to accomplish?

Surround yourself with people who believe in you.

Nothing is more damaging to a child than to grow up with people around them that call them stupid, don’t believe in them, and try to hold them down.  Of course for the culprit, this has nothing to do with the child, and everything to do with them.

But let’s take an audit of the people around us adults.  Are we around people who don’t believe in us and our potential?  Are we around people who tell us we can’t?  Are we around people who like us because we are living small and struggling like they are – and who would not like it if we improved?

(Are we one of those people to others?  Ut-oh.  Different subject!)

Nothing can take the foot off the brakes of happiness and growth in life than to get away from heavy negative influences like this.  And while it can be difficult, in the end, it’s simply a choice that takes courage.

It’s not about arguing or proving them wrong.  It’s getting your physical body away from them.  

Stand up for you.

An insecure future – good for you?

Here are some words that may whack you upside the head like a frying pan –

“Nothing is more damaging to an adventurous life than a secure future.

Better to have a short life doing what you like doing than a long life doing what you don’t like.

Playing it safe to live longer by doing what you don’t like is stupid.”

Wow.  Love it!

What do you think?

Comment with the orange button!

Being Extraordinary

Being average is not hard.  Just do what everyone else does.  Take advice from average people doing average things and living average lives and copy them.  For me, it’s okay to be normal in some areas of life.

But if you want to be extraordinary, you can’t be normal in all areas of life.  You have to get around people who are not normal.  Learn from them.  Think differently than most.  Look at what everyone else is looking at and see what nobody else sees. 

Then, you have to do what few others will.

That’s extraordinary.

My Philosophy for Living

I am attempting to write down my philosophy for living here.  I hope you will try to write yours.  This is without thinking very long and hard about it.

First, I’ll say that the older you get, the more mature and wiser you get.  Your philosophy may change as that happens.  

Next, there are so many dimensions of life, that I decided to create individual sentences to address different ones.  Compartmentalization is my specialty in such endeavors anyway.

1) An extraordinary life of shared experiences.  (That is my personal mission statement).

2) My life will never outperform my character.

3) Do it now.  Life is short.

4) Be nice to people.  It will make things much easier.

5) People, including myself, have much more potential than they are using.  Endeavor to bring it out of them.

6) Freedom is most important for people to thrive.  Talk about it, protect it, and defend it.

7) Step in front and be a leader.  As a leader, you are a steward of others.  Do not fail them.

8) Take “risks”, but don’t be reckless.  

9) Help and serve others by using the gifts you have been given.  That’s why they were given to you.

10) The best way to make a better world is to be a better person, and to take care of your family first.

11) Spend less than you make and invest the difference, no matter how small.

12) Turn your talent into skill and skill into achievement with continued effort.

13) Tune out voices that will not help you, and tune into voices of value as much as possible.

14) Just because everyone, or a lot of people, are doing it, doesn’t make it right.  I’ll decide how I behave.  

14) How high and far can I go?  I’ll keep going and find out.  It’s a long game.

Without writing a book, and spending fifteen minutes on it, this is what I have. 

What is in your philosophy?

You need a philosophy before goals

This post is around a comment by subscriber Willis Ponds.  He put it better than I did when talking about the futility of very long-term planning.  When thinking about what your life (or business) will look like in five years, ten years, or longer, you can’t help but make many assumptions.  In an unpredictable fluid world, you will much more than likely be wrong.

Instead, Willis tells us, you need a philosophy for living.  Then strive to live by it and take opportunities as they come.  When presented with a choice, follow the paths you love.

Philosophy.  Jim Rohn talked about it a lot.  

What is your philosophy for your life?  Good question.  I bet you never thought about it that way.  Tomorrow I will try to express mine for you.

You gotta have a system to stay organized

An active high performance life requires you to stay organized, plan your days and weeks and years, and not drop any balls or let people down. 

 Let me tell you how I do it.  I use a planner book.  The one I use is the Jim Rohn One Year Success Planner. (You can get one on Amazon.)

I can hear some of you young whipper snappers now – “Paper and pen?  OMG.  So old school!”

Ok, maybe, but you have to find something that works for you.  This works for me – really well.  It is also a big part of my liberation from screens.

It’s simple.  I can plan my year, my weeks, and my days.  I use the boxes at the bottom of each page to write in calls I have to make.  If it’s a hard appointment I write it in and draw a rectangle around it.  I put stuff to do first thing at the top of a day (column) and afternoon stuff toward the bottom.  When I complete something I highlight it with a yellow highlighter.  Of course, I use different color ink when I write things in to separate on thing from another with color.  

The only downside is if I lose my journal I am in a bit of trouble.  But I do not get a constant barrage of notifications and reminders about things I wrote in, and I don’t need or want them because I have the habit of carrying my planner home and back to work all the time and following it.  It works for me.  I will continue it.  I solved this challenge long ago.  I love it.  

I know there are many ways to stay organized and some have benefits.  Which one you choose is not the point.  That you have a system that works for you is.  

What is your time planning system?