Accomplish One Thing

“You can accomplish a hundred other things but if you do not accomplish the one thing for which you have been sent, it will be as if you have done nothing.” - Jalal ad-Din Rumi was a 13th century Persian Muslim poet and Sufi mystic

What You Need To Succeed

"In order to succeed you need inner strength, self-belief and true grit. Never give up on your dream even when times are tough. Aim high and you will achieve your goal". - Rebecca Adlington, Swimmer, Double Gold Medal Winner (GB) at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing 

Self-Discipline is An Act of Cultivation

"Self-discipline is an act of cultivation.

It requires you to connect today's actions to tomorrow's results.

There's a season for sowing a season for reaping.

Self-discipline helps you know which is which."

~ Gary Ryan Blair

Keep People in Your Life Who Bring Out The Best In You.

Today a friend wrote to tell me of the hurt caused by siblings who keep attacking him in writing, dragging up his faults and wanting to make him feel guilty for past behaviour.  He acknowledges some of the "accusations" but sees no point in dwelling on past mistakes.  He certainly does not want to retaliate and point out their faults so prefers to break contact with them for a while.

I replied, 

"You must do what you feel is necessary with regards to the family.  I don't know why they feel it necessary to keep having a go at you and your faults as they see them.  If they think you are such a bad person, why do they even want a close relationship with you?   As an outsider looking in and having lived 40 years of a family feud, I don't know why they can't just let you go and have whatever contact that arises out of mutual will, not obligation.  Keep above it and don't resort to mud throwing.  That will only come back at you and you have enough to cope with as it is.  Keep people in your life who bring out the best in you now and in the future and encourage you to rise to the best of your abilities and qualities, not people who want to drag you down and keep you rooted in the mistakes of the past.  We all have them but don't need to be constantly reminded of our worst attributes.  If they don't want to grow and build something positive, that is their loss."

I once attended a seminar where every time we committed the offence of shaming, blaming or justifying ourselves or someone else, in the room or otherwise, we popped a Pound coin into a collection pot for charity.  Think about that.  It might stop you in your tracks.

Change Your Perspective

Try looking at a situation from another view. All of a sudden things can appear quite differently.

Personal Development in the 21st Century

I Had The Strangest Dream Whilst Taking a Catnap

I had the strangest dream whilst taking a catnap during working hours.

Next to my bed was a carpeted seating area with lots of cushions. Outside of this was a small flat roof which was overflowing with rainwater although it seemed to me there had been no rain recently and it was pleasantly sunny. The rainwater did not go down the drainpipe presumably because it was blocked by leaves and I had not cleared the blockage. Instead the rainwater was coming into my bedroom via a ventilation brick. I saw the water which was a couple of inches deep and was moving the cushions away when I heard a sound in the adjacent store room.

I found there a workman and asked him what he thought he was doing and how had he got into my house? He replied, “Well, I’m working with Mark.” Mark was a carpenter who specialized in marquetry. I had hired him to do some decorative woodwork in my living room. At that point, Mark walked sheepishly into my bedroom, apologized that he had not told me that the other man would be there and he had used my key rather than first check whether I was at home.

Suddenly, I heard my son laughing and playing in the garden and remembered that he had a friend with him. I looked out of the window and saw them running out of the garden down a side road. I called out to him but he did not hear. I left the workmen and ran after my son and his friend.

At the bottom of the road were ordinary houses but today the area had been transformed into an outdoors convention of The Salvation Army, the people who wear uniforms and play religious music and preach the Gospel. They can often be seen in town centres around Christmas when people give them money for the poor. In fact, I saw a TV commercial for them yesterday hoping to raise money for families who could not afford to buy any Christmas presents, let alone the ones their children really wanted. Meanwhile my children will receive an excess of LEGO and other toys which they want.

There were some stands set up providing drinks and food for these people but not the loud, garish burgers and chips type of stalls. They were serving plain warm English food like stew and bowls of soup.

This chain of events is symbolic to me. First, I was sleeping during working hours. On the one hand I know I should not have been doing this although I accept that a short sleep is better than a couple of coffees when tired. I know tonight that I have two hours of driving and an evening of networking so want to be refreshed.

I thought it had been sunny and had not noticed the rain which was now overflowing. There is a financial crisis on which I tend to think of affecting other people, not me, due to my mindset. At the same time I am dipping into capital rather than doing the necessary work to create income through different sources.

I was spending money on decorative work rather than ensuring the foundations were strong ie allowing the flooding to happen by not clearing the drainpipes. Beauty is a high value of mine and I like to look at beautiful things. Sometimes I fail to see the reality because I am so focused on what I want to see.

My son and his friend were alone yet I was responsible for them both. Why was I sleeping instead of supervising them? I am often doing my things but not being there for my children, especially my younger son, as the older one receives more attention through help with his school studies.

The Salvation Army were gently, in a non-intrusive way, reminding me of my soul, my spiritual side.

All very vivid and clearly lots of messages.

©Antonia Harrison 2011 from Personal Development in the 21st Century

Top Five Regrets of the Dying

I saw this article about a a powerful book by a wonderful woman named Bronnie Ware which focuses in on the actual voiced regrets of people she encountered when they were dying. Powerful stuff – go and pick up the book! Here’s a small excerpt:

For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives.

People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learnt never to underestimate someone’s capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.

When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.

It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.

This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.

We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.

It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.

When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.

Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness.

POST YOUR QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS BELOW

P.S. Did this article stir something in your soul (like it did with mine)? Let’s talk. I’ve worked with many clients who have the same questions — and we developed a successful plan to turn that around. If you’re not a client . . . pick up the phone and call me. You can find me at http://www.AntoniaHarrison.com

article by Rich Gee

Clarify Your Values

By: Brian Tracy August 28, 2011

Decide What You Stand For

What are your values? What do you stand for? What are the organizing principles of your life? What are your core beliefs? What virtues do you aspire to, and hold in high regard when you see them demonstrated by others? What will you not stand for? What would you sacrifice for, suffer for, and even die for? These are extremely important questions that are only asked by about three percent of the population, and that small minority tends to be the movers and shakers in every society.

Write Out Your Key Values

When I first began this values clarification exercise some years ago, I wrote out a list of 163 qualities that I aspired to. I think I eventually came up with every virtue, value or positive descriptive adjective that referred to personality and character in the dictionary. And I agreed with all of them. I felt that they were all important and I wanted to incorporate every single one of them into my character.

Focus on Very Few Core Beliefs

But then reality sets in. I realized that it is very hard to learn even one new quality, or to change even one thing about myself, let alone dozens of things. So I scaled down my ambitions and began narrowing the values down to a small number that I could manage and work with. Once I had settled on about five core beliefs, I was then able to get to work on myself and start making some progress in character development.

Select Your Five Key Values

You should do the same. You should write down the five values that you feel are the most important for you to live by. Once you have those five values, you then organize them in order of priority. Which is the most important value in your hierarchy of values? Which would be second? Which would be third, and so on?

Learn To Make Better Decisions

Every choice or decision you make is based on your values. Whenever you decide between alternatives, you invariably choose the alternative that you value the most. Because you can only do one thing at a time, everything you do is a demonstration of what you consider to be the most important at that moment. Therefore, organizing your values in an order of priority is the starting point of personal strategic planning. It is only when you are clear about what you value, and in what order, that you are capable of planning and organizing the other activities of your life.

Action Exercises

Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action: First, clarify your core beliefs and your unifying principles. Write them down and compare your life today with the values that are really important to you. How are you doing? Second, organize your values in order of their importance to you. Which of your values is most important? Which is second? And so on. Do your current choices reflect this order of values?

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How To Be The Best Entrpreneur in the World

Editor’s note: James Altucher is an investor, programmer, author, and entrepreneur. He is Managing Director of Formula Capital and has written 6 books on investing. His latest book is I Was Blind But Now I See. You can follow him on Twitter @jaltucher.

Iʼm writing this white sitting in a hotel room. To my left is the Pacific Ocean and all the magical San Francisco fog stuff people kept whispering to me about. About 12 floors downstairs Claudia is doing yoga in the gym.

About four feet directly behind me is a woman that is a complete stranger to me who is having an unbelievably long orgasm. Thereʼs a wall between us. Hold on a second while I take a glass and listen against the wall.

If there was no wall there then this whole thing would probably have been pretty awkward. I probably would not have been able to keep staring at the computer screen, for instance.

—

Sex is like driving. In polls, nine out of ten people think they are “above average”. Letʼs say for a second that “average equals median” (I donʼt want to get into basic math arguments in the comments). Clearly, then, itʼs impossible for nine out ten people to be above average.

Itʼs also like sales or negotiating or poker or being “a good judge of people”. Nine out of ten think they are above average.

Most people have overinflated views of their performance in a variety of areas.

Letʼs go back to Malcolm Gladwellʼs book, “Outliers” for a second. To guarantee being among the best in the world at something you pretty much need 10,000 hours of practice as per his “10,000 hour rule”. He cites the Beatles as an example. They were basically average, then they put in their 10,000 hours by playing 24 hours a day for a few years in German strip clubs and then they became the best band in history. You can argue Bobby Fischer was a fairly average chess player until he put in his 10,000 hours. Then he was the best in history. My friend Ylon made nothing in poker for ten years then suddenly made $3 million and was among the best in the world. He put in his 10,000 hours. (See, “My Year Where I Did Nothing But Play Poker”)

You donʼt have to be the best in history to be above average. But most things that are worth doing (being an entrepreneur, amassing a good amount of money as a result) have a very steep learning curve and then it flattens out. So maybe 1000 hours gets you better than most people (above average) and then the next 2000-5000 hours gets you to be the best in your circle of colleagues (i.e. good enough to make a great living at it) and then from 5000-10,000 hours is the subtle refinements that are needed to be the best in the world. They require 5000 hours precisely because they are unobvious and subtle.

But thatʼs ok. Who cares about the other 5000 hours. Itʼs the first 2000-5000 hours that are the most important. We need to feed our families and then be able to enjoy life. Not everyone needs to be the Beatles (who, its unclear if they were ever truly happy) or Steve Jobs (who was screaming on the phone at Eric Schmidt months before his death about how much he was going to sue Google for stealing the Android operating system). (See also, “10 Unusual Things I Didn’t Know About Steve Jobs”)

Based on my own experience being an entrepreneur and talking to hundreds of other entrepreneurs, 2000-5000 hours experience is whatʼs needed to be a successful entrepreneur. Successful enough to build a product people want, get revenues, sell the business.

Itʼs nice to have the 2000-5000 hours in your passion or field of interest and then spend the next 10,000 hours focusing on how to be happy and healthy. This is my recommendation at least.

What do you do during those 5000 hours? How do you get better at something? If you are doing any of the below then you have my permission to clock in on the 5000 hours, but I think the below have to be done with balance. You canʼt do one without the others:

Experience. The Beatles would never have gotten good if they just read books about music. Tiger Woods started swinging the club (iʼm being literal) when he was three, etc. If you want to be an entrepreneur, start coming up with ideas now, ideas that are doable with limited resources. Start doing them, start selling them to customers, investors, acquirers. Just start.

Self-analysis. Thinking about what you are doing and coming to logical conclusions about how to be better. For instance, in poker, reviewing the hands you played that day and thinking of ways you couldʼve played them differently.

Tutor/Mentor. Every great chess player has had a teacher. I donʼt really think there are any exceptions to this. That probably goes for most games, sports, or anything thatʼs difficult to get good at (race car driving, etc). Most entrepreneurs I know have had mentors. For myself, I worked at a big corporation before I was an entrepreneur. The corporation: HBO / TIme Warner, is one of the best-run mega-corporations out there. The corporation itself was my business mentor (“corporations are people, my friend” – Mitt Romney). Iʼve also spent a lot of time with one of the best unsung businessmen in history.

History. The Beatles clearly studied the music of Elvis. They probably also studied jazz from the 20s. My guess is they also studied the art of the fugue from Bach. Bobby Fischer once disappeared for a year (as a 13 year old) and studied every game played in the 1800s. When he resurfaced he had subtle improvements on obscure chess openings (the Latvian Gambit, for instance) that were last seen at high-level play in the 1800s. A great example of his knowledge of the history of chess is how he secured a draw in the last game of the Fischer-Spassky match when he transposed a complicated very modern Sicilian Defense into an old, drawish Scotch Gambit to secure the draw and win the match.

Talking. Associating with not just tutors but other serious students of the field you are interested in is a good way to exchange ideas, synthesize the ideas you have about the field you are in with the ideas you have, mate them, and come up with new ideas that neither of you wouldʼve thought on your own. The collaboration between Lennon and McCartney being a great example of this. The collaboration between Brin and Page being a modern entrepreneurial version of this. (See, “Why is Larry Page different than me and why didnʼt Google buy my company?”)

Failure. Learning from your accidents (“I will no longer drive through a Stop sign”) catapults you through the learning curve very quickly. My kids often give up instantly when they lose at something. Thatʼs ok. They just arenʼt interested. But once you find something where you pick yourself up and you say, “I have to do better next time.” Then you know you are onto something – a passion, a dream, the field where you can become a grandmaster, the field where you can become an entrepreneur. Itʼs a secret you learn about yourself and you can be privately proud that at last you have found the area where very few people will be able to compete. 99% of people give up after a failure in a field. Itʼs the best filter that will tell you that you will eventually succeed. Then, once you fail and want to learn from it – go to #2 above – Self-Analysis, and begin anew.

Explore. How do you get to be a great computer scientist? Study biology. How do you get to be a great investor? Study music. Ideas mate with each other and then evolution will get rid of the deformed offspring and keep the offspring that quickly adapt to the new generation of trials. The only way to have those offspring in your hands is to fully explore brand new fields and make the connections, correlations, causations between the field of your interest and the new field you are studying. I would like to get good at meditation, for instance. What I have found recently is that studying quantum mechanics provides unbelievable insights that I would not have dreamed of. Or being a good daily blogger – I found that studying the insights of Charlie Brown has been immensely helpful.

Balance - In the post, the Nine Ways To Guarantee Success, I list nine things that could get in the way of success for entrepreneurs but it really applies to any endeavor. Avoiding the nine obstacles of: sickness, doubt, vacillating, etc. Then the question is: why do I need to be great at anything. Canʼt I just get by? Sure, but then you probably wonʼt have as much fun in life as the woman with the forty five minute orgasm who is presumably sleeping blissfully just four feet from me.

Source: James Altucher