Dan Waldschmidt's Blog, page 48
July 21, 2015
What If You’re Wrong?
What if you’re wrong?
What if what you think is going to lead to success only turns out to be someone else’s wishful thinking?
What if your shortcut is really just a disappointing dead end?
What if everything you think you know about being successful and happy is wrong?
What then? What happens next?
Do you still plan on fighting? Or are you just going to make excuses and quit?
Think about that for a minute.
What’s your plan for when the bottom drops out?
Because it’s going to happen — and usually when you least expect it. If you aren’t sure what you’re going to do, you’re going to do something you’ll regret later.
You don’t want to fail.
You don’t want to quit. You don’t even want to consider the possibility of not getting to where you want to be. How do you know that you won’t quit?
You’ve been told that if you have a plan and work a process that success is inevitable.
And that’s right. Mostly. Kinda. It is true that if you keep moving towards where you want to be you’ll eventually end up there.
But that doesn’t mean you’re not going to have horrific setbacks and tragically unexpected challenges along the way.
It’s going to get tough.
No plan can save you from pain. No process can eliminate hard work.
A great plan might make it easier. A great process might make your work faster.
You’re still going to have to go through the valley of suffering. You’re going to feel like you can’t take another day of the misery that your life has become.
You’re going to have to look fear and agony straight in the eye and keep moving forward.
Even when you don’t want to.
Frankly, it doesn’t really matter at all if you’re wrong or if your shortcut is a fast path off the side of a cliff?
If you’re determined to continue then you have everything you need. Soul power.
The worst time to try to find that power is when you need it most — when you’re backed against a corner and struggling for air.
The time to get tough is now.
The time to be belligerent is now.
Perhaps a most important question than if you’re wrong is: “What are you doing today to make yourself tougher for the hard times coming tomorrow?”
Will you be ready to win or just making excuses for why you’re still losing.
Show up. Push yourself. Work manically on what matters.
Exercise your will to win.
The post What If You’re Wrong? 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...
July 20, 2015
You Don’t Have It Any Tougher Than Anyone Else.
We’re all going through something. You. Me. Everyone you know, meet, or work with — today or any day.
You might be struggling with your health or money or addiction and the person next to you might be struggling with how to keep their marriage together, which business options to pursue, or what to do when they feel stuck.
Struggle is a necessary part of achieving success.
If you’re not struggling, you’re not achieving anything of value.
It’s hard to hear. Harder still to live through it.
But that’s the most honest explanation of achieving success you’ll never understand.
You have to struggle, get pushed down, fight to stand back up, and learn lessons that propel you past the obstacles standing in your way.
You can’t shortcut that process.
You lose your power when you try to avoid pain. You lose your power when you complain about your struggle — when you try to pretend that you’re the only one going through something that is difficult.
Instead of emerging from your life lesson as a hero with battle scars from a victory well won, you limp away having learned nothing.
Worse off. Unrehabilitated.
Just because you’re hurting doesn’t that mean that everyone else has it better than you.
Just because those around you are smiling when you don’t feel like it doesn’t mean they’re not in a lot of pain.
Maybe they’ve learned an important lesson you need to learn. That what doesn’t break you builds you stronger.
And why would you want to whine about that?
The post You Don’t Have It Any Tougher Than Anyone Else. 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...
July 15, 2015
The Smartest Way To Use Your Time.
Nothing works if you don’t work.
Your education doesn’t work. Your self marketing and social media engagement doesn’t work.
Your big ideas and grand ambition — they don’t work unless you’re willing to work.
You have to work at it. Maniacally.
Not just go to the motions. Not just check finished tasks off a check list. Not just being busy.
Achieving success demands putting in lots of effort.
The more you want for yourself and the bigger the challenges you face right now the more hard work you’re going to have to invest.
Exponential effort.
Not more. Massively more.
It’s time to get your expectations back in line with reality.
Just because you’re awake 16 hours a day doesn’t mean you’re doing things that matter. Just because you’re in your office 8 hours a day doesn’t mean you’re putting enough effort to be successful.
It’s time to re-examine your relationship with success.
The real question isn’t how much you want to be successful but how hard you’re willing to work until you get there.
This is a discussion about quantity of effort. Not quality.
Hard work. Not smart work.
The truth about you being successful is that you don’t know smart work from dumb work right now. You don’t.
Sure you have gurus and experts telling you what they think you should be doing, but they don’t really know. And neither do you.
So don’t waste your time agonizing over silly decisions about the smartest way to use your time.
The smartest way to use your time is always by working hard.
That’s it. Hard work.
Sweat, blood, and tears.
You’ll figure out how to work smarter later — after you’ve put in enough effort. Right now, your mission is to fortify your soul for the brutal effort that’s success demands.
If your life isn’t working out the way you want it to be, you’re not working hard enough. Or for long enough.
If you want it bad enough, you’ll do whatever it takes for as long as it takes.
You need to remind yourself of that every day. Then roll up your sleeves and get back to work.
The post The Smartest Way To Use Your Time. 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...
July 13, 2015
That One Thing.
You don’t need to do 100 things to be successful.
You don’t need to do 50 things to achieve outrageous success. You don’t need to do 20 things or 15 or even 10.
You just need to do 1 thing.
One thing — really really well.
Which means you’re going to have to be more disciplined than you’ve been in the past. More curious. More demanding about your performance.
Instead of just glossing over the details you’re going to have to dig in, be brutally honest, and take no prisoners.
You can’t do that with 10 things or 5 things or even 2.
It’s the hardest job in the world to do that with 1 thing.
Which is why you need to slow down, scale back, and focus on what makes you magical.
Instead of trying to please everyone else, you need to get serious about taking your skills to the next level.
No more excuses. No more hiding behind activity that doesn’t really matter anyways.
No running from the truth.
Just an uncontained exuberance for breakthrough in 1 clearly defined, outrageously awesome category of life.
For right now at least. You can move on once you’ve conquered.
But you can’t go anywhere until you build up enough momentum to turn your 1 thing of ordinary into 1 thing that’s extraordinary.
What’s your 1 thing?
The post That One Thing. 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...
July 9, 2015
You Don’t Have To Do That.
You don’t have to waste your life doing just enough for things to be OK.
You don’t need to stay stuck at a job just because it pays your mortgage.
You don’t have to back down just because someone else thinks your ideas aren’t worth pursuing.
You don’t have to stay on the ground just because life pushed you down.
You don’t have to agree with the crowd so your life gets a little bit easier.
You don’t have to stop believing in your dreams just because you haven’t succeeded so far.
You don’t have to have a degree, certificate, or anyone else’s approval to go be awesome.
You don’t have to give up, slow down, or fold.
You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.
Anything you do is because you make a choice to do it.
You make the choice to do everything that you have done, are doing, and will do.
Everything is a choice.
It might be difficult to make a decision other than the one you feel pressured to make right now.
You might feel like you don’t have a choice. Like your hands are tied.
But the truth is that everything is a choice. You get to decide everything.
Even the hard stuff.
Successful people do the hard things. They make tough choices, invest ridiculous amounts of effort, and do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to get what they want.
If you are not as successful as you want to be, maybe you’re not being honest about what you “have” to do.
The post You Don’t Have To Do That. 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...
July 8, 2015
These Two Flaws Are Costing You Massive Success.
If you can’t manage your money, you’ll never be successful in getting to where you want to be.
The reality of life is that achieving success most often demands you being able to handle money smartly.
There are services that you can’t beg, steal or borrow. You have to pay for them. And as the old adage goes: “You get what you pay for.”
If you’re not good with money, you’re going to fail.
Unnecessarily so.
It’s wildly important to develop financial skills.
Being clueless about money doesn’t make you more virtuous. It’s stupid, dangerous, and shortsighted.
There are two key areas that you need to be smart about: 1) How to make more money and 2) How to manage debt.
If you can master these two skills you’ll be alright.
No matter what you want to achieve.
Take this seriously. If you can’t figure out how to make money and manage your debt, you’ll struggle for the rest of your life. It’s that brutally simple.
Make more. Waste less.
Making more money comes down to a really simple concept: Selling something that other people consider worthy of them spending their money on. Figure out what you can offer that is awesome. Sell it.
Managing your debt comes down an even simpler concept: Spending a lot less than you make, saving more than you spend, and avoiding any kind of debt at all costs. Find a way to live on less. You can always tighten your belt.
That’s what it takes.
Figure it out or plan to keep failing.
Spend less. Make more. Spend less. Save more. Spend less. Invest More. Spend less. Work harder.
That’s the plan. That’s the process. That’s what you do every day of your journey getting from where you are right now to where you want to be.
Obsess about it. Be militant about protecting your plan.
Fix what’s broken. And do it quickly.
Your future depends on your ability to get this right, right now.
The post These Two Flaws Are Costing You Massive Success. 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...
July 7, 2015
8 Rules Awesome People Live By.
Don’t let other people’s lazy ideas and small-minded thinking stop you from working hard — even when it seems like everyone else has it easier.
Force yourself into scary situations where it seems like failure or getting hurt is the only likely outcome.
Always keep improving by learning from the failures of those around you, before you make the exact same mistakes.
Dedicate time each day to protecting what you think about, what you expect to accomplish, and those that inspire you to be the best version of you.
Obsess about the details even when it seems like they won’t make you more successful or even get noticed by anyone.
Be willing to sacrifice anything in the pursuit of getting a few steps closer to where you want to be some day.
Never forget that conventional wisdom seems smartest to people who confuse mediocrity with brilliance.
The post 8 Rules Awesome People Live By. 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...
July 6, 2015
It’s Time To Stop Pretending.
It’s time to get serious about being successful. It’s time to stop playing games.
Time to stop pretending. Time to start winning the battle against mediocrity.
It’s always been that time.
You just haven’t cared enough in the past to notice.
You were busy saying all the right words and doing all the “right things” everyone else told you that you should be doing.
If you weren’t so embarrassed you might admit that you were just going through the motions. Spending more time keeping up appearances then making the changes that progress demands.
It’s time to change.
Your future depends on it. Your life right now depends on it. You have to change.
It’s going to be hard.
But not as tough as not changing.
Right now you’re building up a legacy of failure. You’re perfecting the art of losing.
If there were a competition for making excuses and being a fraud, you would do well at that. But you’re not awesome at anything that matters.
You’re going to pay for that. Right now. And for a long time to come.
That’s what hurts the most.
You think you’re saving yourself from pain and frustration by not putting in the hard work you need to be putting in.
You think you can avoid the truth by avoiding the brutally honest conversation about your performance.
But that’s ridiculous. And you know it. You’ve been waiting for a reason to change.
You’ve been hoping secretly that life would force you to clean up your act. Force you to get serious about being awesome.
Today is that day.
Right now is when it’s time to change. Not tomorrow. Or next month. Or when you think it’s going to be easier.
This moment is the opportunity that you would normally avoid. A time when you would be better equipped with excuses than effort.
The only way to make a change in your life is to start changing.
The best time to start is right now.
Isn’t it time to stop pretending and go be awesome — for real this time?
The post It’s Time To Stop Pretending. 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...
July 1, 2015
The Truth About Being Awesome.
You don’t have to be perfect to be awesome. You don’t even have to be right most of the time.
But you can’t make excuses for what you do — and you can’t avoid working incredibly hard. Being awesome — no matter how you define that right now — is the result of tenacity, focus, and irrational belligerence.
You have to think for yourself.
Just because someone else tells you that you “should” be doing something doesn’t mean that it’s best to automatically run to do it.
Just because a guru who made some money some time ago tells you “a quick and easy way” to be financially independent doesn’t mean that you can reproduce the karmic results you’re hearing about.
Most of the time it won’t work.
The truth about being awesome is that most of what you think will work or used to work probably won’t work for you getting to where you want to be.
You’re different from everyone else in thousands of complex but distinct ways. You have different skills, goals, passions, strengths, and weaknesses.
You’re you. They’re them.
Being awesome isn’t something that you can manufacture simply because you follow a series of steps that work the first time you try them.
You have to be invested in what you really want. You have to care so deeply that your bones ache when you feel like you aren’t making progress.
Try. Try. And try again.
That’s the real secret to being awesome.
And one that you can get started on right now.
The post The Truth About Being Awesome. 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...
June 30, 2015
The Scary Truth About How Hard You’re Going To Have To Try.
Do you have big goals? Huge dreams?
Not sure when it’s time to give up? Not sure how hard you need to try?
If you want to be awesome, you have to try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and tryand try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try some more.
By the way, that’s how many tries it took for Harland Sanders at 66 years old to find a single restaurant owner to believe in his recipe with 11 secret ingredients for better tasting fried chicken and become his first franchisee — over 1,000 rejections.
Four years later Sander would have 400 franchises. Forty years later there would be over 9,500 franchises.
He had accomplished the impossible.
Think your dreams are as important as drumsticks and breading?
Success demands that you try an absurd number of times.
That’s the formula.
To be awesome you have to keep trying. Until it hurts. And then a whole lot more.
Every day — until you end up where you want to be.
Try more.
The post The Scary Truth About How Hard You’re Going To Have To Try. 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...
