Dan Waldschmidt's Blog, page 33

Move. And Improve.

You’re not competing against them.

The competition isn’t between everyone else and you.

It’s between who you are right now and the better version of yourself you could be with more effort and focus.

It doesn’t matter what they do to you. It doesn’t matter what they say. It doesn’t matter how many times you try really hard and still fail.

The only thing that matters is that you’re willing to learn and grow from your mistakes.

That’s the secret to winning the game.

You’re reading things that inspire you.
Trying new things that will help you.
And moving deliberately towards where you want to be.

Not without stumbles. Not without mistakes. Not as fast as everyone else around you. Or with as much finesse.

Learning. Moving. Improving. That’s the secret.

There will always be someone who is faster or smarter or more experienced. Someone who has more talent, more charm, or more money.

And if you’re only playing a game where you’re competing against the people you know — your game right now might be enough.

But that’s not the game you want to play.

You’re playing a bigger game. A bolder game. A more challenging game.

You’re not trying to be the first person to cross the finish line. You’re trying to change the world.

That demands another level of commitment. Another level of uncomfortableness.

To win big you’ve got to be a better version of yourself. You’ve got to fix you.

That’s the real competition. Move and improve.

That’s how you measure success.

Ask yourself:

Are you trying something new today?
What are you learning from your mistakes?

It never gets easier. But you can get tougher.

That’s when you notice momentum starts to swing in your favor.

You’re not competing against them. This is a battle between you and you. Play to win.

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Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

What You See When You Look Back.

The cost of greatness is pain. The cost of freedom is loss.

The cost of getting ahead is trying and failing and trying again.

You can’t have more without first having less. Progress isn’t automatic. It’s not guaranteed.

Even if you do the right things it hurts.

Every step of the way.

It’s easy in the moment of frustration or discomfort to assume that you’re doing something wrong because of the resistance you feel to making progress.

But that’s the resistance that everyone feels. Smart people. Average people. Hard working people.

They all feel the same resistance — the same push back — that you’re facing right now.

They too are faced with the same choice about whether they should continue or whether it is time to pursue something else more reasonable.

There’s a cost to getting to where you want to be.

An emotional cost. A financial cost. A physical cost.

Don’t misinterpret the pain you experience and the fear you feel as a legitimate reason to give up.

You’ll never look back having achieved success and wish you would have avoided the uncomfortableness that got you there. Never.

You might wish you would have done more.

Pushed yourself even further.

Looking back it’s all clear. If you want gain, you’ve got to be able to handle the pain.

That’s the cost of greatness. If you want your freedom you’ve got to fight for every inch of ground between where you are now and where you want to be.

If that feels easy, your goal isn’t big enough. Your dream isn’t important enough.

Tough goals take tough people. So stay focused.

Fight through the struggle.

Embrace pain as the pathway to happiness.

Don’t trade your destiny just to have it a little bit easier right now.

Dig your heels in and push.

The post What You See When You Look Back. appeared first on Dan Waldschmidt: Author of EDGY Conversations.

Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

Why Slow Progress Is Fast Growth.

Speed isn’t what you’re looking for. Momentum is.

You think you want more sales right now. You think you want faster sales right now.

But what you really want is to know that you can reliably produce revenue. That you can spot opportunities and turn those opportunities into revenue and increased wallet share with targeted customers.

So take your time to do things right.

Don’t just whip together a marketing campaign and expect to get amazing results. Invest in being unexpected and delightful.

What could you do that would convince your ideal customer that you’re not just like everyone else?

That person you so desperately want to speak with is being hounded with emails and letters, notes and marketing campaigns by everyone else in your industry.

Did you know that the average senior executive gets 30 new sales pitches a day?

It’s not a numbers game after all.

At least not a volume of numbers game.

It’s about quality and having something amazing to say. And when you master that, providing extraordinary value, you go fast.

Because now you have a process for generating a lifetime of revenue.

You’re not hoping that your last-ditch, throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks sales plan will work.

You’ve been thoughtful enough to know that it will.

The post Why Slow Progress Is Fast Growth. appeared first on Dan Waldschmidt: Author of EDGY Conversations.

Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

Willing Yourself To Win.

“You can’t leave and think you can come back and dominate this game. I will be physically and mentally prepared from now on.”

That was Michael Jordan after losing the NBA finals.

He had dominated basketball for many years, winning NBA championships and countless MVP awards. And then he gave it all up to go play baseball.

And while he was a superstar on the basketball court, he was relegated to Double-A and Triple-A Farm teams in Major League Baseball.

It was a tough time for Michael.

He wasn’t used to losing. The greatest athlete of all time in one sport wasn’t even competitive in another.

And so Michael Jordan decided to be Michael Jordan and go dominate the sport he ruled. But he didn’t.

That first year back in the NBA proved that even the greatest basketball player of all time could not coast his way to victory. They lost the finals in stunning fashion.

Leaving the locker room, Michael Jordan made that quote to reporters, “Never again.”

True to his promise, Michael Jordan led the Bulls to championship wins the next three years in a row.

Winning wasn’t about skill.

It still isn’t about skill.

It’s not good enough to be talented. It’s not good enough to set goals for yourself. It’s not even good enough to be better then everyone else.

If you want breakthrough, you have to dig deep into your soul and nurture the stubbornness to do what is difficult in order to achieve new levels of greatness.

That’s going to hurt.

You’re going to have to do things that are uncomfortable and unpopular. You’re going to be working long after everyone else is finished.

It’s all in your head. The difference from where you are now is what you allow yourself to think about.

You have to will yourself to win. It starts with your head game.

The post Willing Yourself To Win. appeared first on Dan Waldschmidt: Author of EDGY Conversations.

Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

That Stuff Doesn’t Work. This Does.

Ever felt like you are doing everything you should be doing but it’s still not working?

That might be what you feel right now. It’s something you’ve definitely felt before.

All those online training courses you purchased from the internet guru who promised that you would turn your life around by copying the path that he took don’t seem to be working as well as you saw advertised when you purchase them.

Success is complex.

How about that seminar you went to? At the time it seemed like you had it all figured out.

The speaker was giving you rock solid, guaranteed steps to make money, be happy, and live the life of your dreams. But now those guaranteed steps seem like complete fantasy.

And those books on your Kindle about success that you haven’t finished reading. That mastermind group you are a part of.

That coach you hired to help you take your game to the next level. That plan you created at the beginning of the year.

Success is hard.

Why isn’t it all working? Why aren’t you closer to where you want to be? Why do you feel stuck?

The hard truth about getting past the obstacle standing in your way is that success is more complex than just executing a series of steps.

Just because you’ve been successful in the past achieving a goal doesn’t mean you can do it all over again the exact same way sometime in the future.

Times change. So do people, technology, culture, and opportunity.

Success is demanding.

It’s painfully naive to buy into the notion that “success steps” work regardless of your environment.

You used to be able to make money selling newspapers door to door. Now people read their news on a mobile phone. That business model is dead.

The same is true for your independent bookstore, the milk delivery man, and countless other profitable business endeavors good that just don’t work anymore.

Those steps, that plan, that guru — you want to believe that they hold the secret to your success. That if you just do what they tell you to do, in the order that they did it, you’ll end up with enough money to put your problems behind you.

Success isn’t that simple.

But that’s not going to happen unless you’re one of those very few, extremely lucky people for whom everything automatically falls into place. In which case, you probably wouldn’t need the help in the first place.

Stop chasing steps and cultivate a winning philosophy.

Timeless principles of hard work, disciplined activity, giving more value than people pay for, and understanding the emotions that drive people to act the way that they do — these are the things that catapult you past your problems.

It takes time and you have to think for yourself instead of just copying someone else’s work. And you’ll find yourself executing steps you hadn’t considered before. Doing things you wouldn’t have imagined.

Success is messy.

It’s gritty and dirty, soaked in blood, sweat, and tears.

Anything easier is just a fantasy.

Think for yourself.
Develop good character.
Refuse to make excuses when you fail.
Never stop improving.

That’s the stuff that does work.

The post That Stuff Doesn’t Work. This Does. appeared first on Dan Waldschmidt: Author of EDGY Conversations.

Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

Blame Yourself.

It’s not over until you say it’s over.

You’re not finished until you decide you are through.

The easy truth about hard choices is that you’re the only one who gets to decide if you’re successful or not.

No matter what success looks like to you — landing that perfect job, making a relationship work, or navigating a tricky corporate decision — you determine if you get there or not.

You’re going to fail along the way.

No matter how smart you are or how well you think through your plan, you’re going to try and fail and have to decide whether you want to keep trying again or not.

And while the obvious decision for an outcome you care about deeply is to keep trying, the easy decision is to make an excuse and give up.

You blame God or the economy, your upbringing, bank account balance, or that “it just wasn’t meant to be”.

The people around you aren’t going to challenge you, because they’re making the same stupid excuses themselves.

They aren’t going to push you to keep fighting because they aren’t fighting themselves.

They’ve given up on themselves.

And so over time and after a track record of brilliant excuses, you forget that everything you are and everything you will be is a direct result of the hard work and focus you devote to your craft — when making excuses is an altogether less uncomfortable option.

Just because you’re down-and-out doesn’t mean you need to stay that way. Just because you’re not where you want to be right now doesn’t mean you won’t get there with a little bit more hard work.

Look up. Stand up. Move.

The post Blame Yourself. appeared first on Dan Waldschmidt: Author of EDGY Conversations.

Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

Honesty Isn’t The Best Policy.

You can’t tell your customer that your product doesn’t work as well as you hoped it would.

You can’t tell your best customer the real reason why their invoice got messed up.

The underbelly of business can get pretty complicated — and ugly. It doesn’t look good to you and would be absolutely terrifying to your best customer.

Sometimes you have to take the blame for something that isn’t really your fault.

Delivering the honest answer will put you out of business.

Being dishonest isn’t the answer either.

There is no valor in pointing the finger at someone else or in throwing your business or coworkers under the bus.

Honesty isn’t the best policy. Fixing your problems is.

If you have a problem and know you need to change things, change them.

Apologize when you screw up and improve.

You don’t need to share the gory drama of how your mistake was made or who did what. Just improve and move on.

Be humble enough to learn from your mistakes and shortcomings.
Be passionate enough to change whatever is necessary in order to get to where you want to be.

Start making being awesome a habit.

The post Honesty Isn’t The Best Policy. appeared first on Dan Waldschmidt: Author of EDGY Conversations.

Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

Sorry. It’s Not Me. It’s You.

It’s your problem. No one else’s.

It’s still going to be there if you don’t fix it.

Ignoring it doesn’t make the situation any better. It just makes you look like an idiot.

You know you have a problem. But you’re hoping that if you pretend like everything is ok, your life will magically improve. But that’s just complete buffoonery.

It’s your problem.

More importantly, it’s your life you’re screwing up.

That’s the crazy part about this. You’re just hurting yourself.

Not fixing the problem isn’t making you better.

It’s killing you. Destroying your dreams. Stopping your momentum. And creating problems that will come back to hurt you more in the future.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

No matter how big the problem is that you’re facing right now, small actions can put you on the path to redemption and success.

Admitting the problem and wanting to change — that’s the beginning. And it doesn’t cost you anything, except putting your ego in check.

No money. No consultants. No fancy plan. Just brutal honesty and the recognition that changing is the beginning of you getting to where you want to be eventually.

But you don’t have to do that.

You don’t have to change. You don’t have to admit that there’s a problem.

You don’t have to want something better for yourself.

You can stay stuck. You can keep pointing the finger at other people. You can keep making excuses.

Whining. Complaining. Justifying your poor behavior. It’s still your problem.

And it’s only going to get worse until you decide to fix it.

The post Sorry. It’s Not Me. It’s You. appeared first on Dan Waldschmidt: Author of EDGY Conversations.

Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

The 3 Only Things That Matter To Get Things Done.

You’re only as productive as you plan to be.

If you don’t have a process for remembering what needs to get done, scheduling out your priorities, and measuring and improving your progress you’ll never do enough of the right things to get you to where you want to be.

If you’ve ever found yourself trying to “remember what you forgot” you have a productivity problem. If you’ve ever found yourself with that feeling that “you know you should be doing something but you’re not sure what it is”, you have a productivity problem.

You have a “never going to be successful” problem.

You will never be successful if you can’t get things done. It is as simple as that.

You can do it all — a lot of that even at the same time — but you have to have a plan.

Being productive really just comes down to doing 3 things very well consistently — remembering, prioritizing, improving.

Remembering — Whether you use pen-and-paper or a simple task management tool like Todoist, Wunderlist, Asana, or Trello, you have to have a place that you go to consistently with ideas, goals, and promises you’ve made to other people. Whatever you use — it needs to be your second brain. It’s where you record everything that needs to get done. Everything. As soon as you think of it, you capture it. Stop wasting energy trying to remember what you should have captured the first time around.
Prioritizing — Despite your best plans, your life presents obstacles and disruption to getting everything done in a day. The key to productivity is to assess your resources and time — and adapt to the changing patterns of your day. If only certain tasks can get done during certain times of the day then make sure you leave time in those parts of the day to do those tasks. While it seems like common sense, managing your priorities requires brutal honesty and daily rigor. Use every moment you have to get you a little bit closer to where you want to be. Listen to books on tape during your commute. Follow up on important communication while you’re waiting for a meeting to start. Check the progress of your team while you’re walking to the bathroom.
Improving — You’re not going to get it right all the time. Sometimes you’re going to spend most of your day spinning in circles. Being more productive each day than the last demands you are honest about ways to improve. One way to do that is to spend a few minutes each morning assessing how you did the day before. Ask yourself one key question: “What is one thing I could have done better yesterday?” You don’t need to immediately solve that problem. But being aware of your own habits is vital to the long-term success. Tiny changes executed consistently make the difference between staying stuck and making progress.

That’s really the essence of productivity. Not that you stay busy.

But that you make progress on what truly matters to you.

That you are always moving a little bit closer to where you want to be.

Regardless of the tools you use or the methodology you swear by —  don’t overthink this idea of productivity and getting things done.

If you can remember what to do, do it, and get better at doing more of it, you’ll never struggle to find success.

No matter how scary big your goals for yourself are right now.

The post The 3 Only Things That Matter To Get Things Done. appeared first on Dan Waldschmidt: Author of EDGY Conversations.

Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

It’s Hard. So What.

It’s hard to hear other people’s criticism when you’ve given your best and it’s still not enough.

It’s hard to get up early when you’ve worked late and slept very little.

It’s hard to smile and be compassionate when inside you are facing demons of your own.

It’s hard to think big when your inadequacies make you feel small.

It’s hard to lead others when you’re looking for a leader yourself.

It’s hard to be helpful when all you can think about are the things you desperately need help with.

It’s hard to be consistent and disciplined when what you’re doing doesn’t seem to be working.

It’s hard to believe in your dreams when everyone else around you thinks they’re crazy.

It’s hard to get back up after you fall down.

It’s hard to keep going when you’ve already gone further than you ever have before.

The path to success is full of hard things.

You can’t avoid them. It makes no sense to hope they go away. They won’t.

They will test your mettle and force you to consider what truly matters to you.

Make no mistake — it’s hard to get to where you want to be. So what.

Make progress. Not excuses.

The post It’s Hard. So What. appeared first on Dan Waldschmidt: Author of EDGY Conversations.

Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...