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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Jeff Olson
Read between
October 1 - October 8, 2017
A friend of mine says that people make two lists about their spouses and carry these lists around in their heads. The long list is a detailed accounting of what’s wrong with their spouse, and the short list is a summary of what’s right. The long list they consult every day. And the short list? That’s the one they read at the funeral.
They never hold a grudge—not because it’s morally wrong (although they may agree with that reason, too), but because it simply gets in the way of the curve their life is taking. It slows them down. They’re too busy moving toward the future to be gazing into the rearview mirror.
You can’t change the past. You can change the future. Would you rather be influenced by something you can’t change, or by something you can?
But mastery is not an exalted state that lies at the end of the path; it is a state of mind that lies at the very beginning.
Tell your five closest friends about your biggest ambition, and watch how many of them squirm. Why? Because showing them your want (desire) also makes them more acutely aware of their want (lack).
When they do, it’s not out of malice or the conscious desire to blunt your excitement. More often it’s simply a form of self-defense. They’d rather not hear about the vision you have, because it reminds them of the one they’ve lost.
You can gauge the limitations of a person’s life by the size of the problems that get him or her down. You can measure the impact a person’s life has by the size of the problems he or she solves.
But remember, you have to go one direction or the other; you can’t stand still. The universe is curved, and everything is constantly changing. There are only two possibilities. Either you let go of where you are and get to where you could be, or you hang onto where you are and give up where you could be. You are either going for your dreams or giving up your dreams. Stretching for what you could be, or settling for what you are. There is simply no in-between.
Gandhi put it this way: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
“You know what?” I thought. “I don’t give a damn what anybody thinks of what I’m doing any more. If the odds are that iffy as to whether or not they even cry at my funeral, and chances are no better than 50/50 that they’ll duck out before I’m planted if the sky happens to cry for me more than the people do … then why am I spending so much time worrying about what they’re thinking now?”
Gigantic funerals are held and great crowds, even entire nations, mourn for those who spend their lives not worrying about what others thought.
Wanting is uncomfortable, yet wanting is essential to winning.
The sobering fact is, we all do 99.99 percent of our lives on automatic pilot.
The wisest investment you can make is to invest in your own continuous learning and development.
On the path to a goal you will be off-course most of the time. Which means the only way to reach a goal is through constant and continuous course correction.
We are all either building our own dreams or building somebody else’s. To put a sharper point on it, we’re either building our own dreams—or building our nightmares.
When you start at the beginning of anything, you’re at the highest level of anxiety. As you learn—through study and doing, information and experience, book smarts and street smarts—you gradually lower your level of anxiety by raising your level of mastery.
Once you’re in motion, it’s easy to keep on keeping on. Once you stop, it’s hard to change from stop to go.
Here’s a powerful exercise: Instead of writing down what you’re going to do (chances are you’ve been doing that your whole adult life anyway, and it doesn’t make you any better at doing them), write down at the end of the day what you did do that day. What actions did you take today that made you successful? Did you read ten pages of a good book? Did you eat healthy food and get some good exercise? Did you engage in positive associations? Did you do the things you need to do to be successful in your business? Did you tell somebody, “I appreciate you”?
On the path of mastery you have four powerful allies: The power of momentum: steady wins the race. The power of completion: clear out your undones and incompletes. The power of reflection: facing the man or woman in the mirror. The power of celebration: catch yourself doing something right.
Do the thing, and you shall have the power.
If you will commit to showing up consistently, every day, no matter what, then you have already won well more than half the battle. The rest is up to skill, knowledge, drive, and execution.
So when bad things are happening to you, embrace the funk. That, too, is cultivating positive outlook. When something is hard or difficult and adversity is at your front door, embrace it, because it will make you stronger and your life richer. You can’t know happiness unless you feel sadness. If you embrace it as part of the process, it can be life-altering.
And you can determine the size of the person by the size of the problem that keeps them down. Successful people look at a problem and see opportunity.
Remember this: whatever price you pay, there’s a bigger price to pay for not doing it than the price for doing it. The price of neglect is much worse than the price of the discipline. In fact, no matter what price you pay for success, the price for failure is brutal by comparison.
Show up. Show up consistently. Show up consistently with a positive outlook. Be prepared for and committed to the long haul. Cultivate a burning desire backed by faith. Be willing to pay the price. And do the things you’ve committed to doing—even when no one else is watching.
For a goal to come true: You must make it specific, give it a deadline, and write it down. You must look at it every day. You must have a plan to start with.
Here is another application of Pareto’s Law: 80 percent of everything you do tends to get done in the last 20 percent of the time available. And that can end up being an insidious truth. Because if you don’t create a concrete deadline, that last 20 percent never seems to show up—and you’re always living in the 80 percent time saying, “Someday…”
You have to start with a plan, but the plan you start with will not be the plan that gets you there.
Everything you do, every decision you make, is either building your dream or building someone else’s dream. Every single thing you do is either leading you away from the masses—or leading you away with the masses. Every single thing you do is a slight edge decision.
No matter how great your aspirations, how tall the dream and great the leap it means, the eternally repeating truth of the slight edge is that it is always built of small, simple steps. Easy to do—and just as easy not to do. Don’t go too fast, and don’t be too proud to stop, look at your life, and tell yourself, “This is a football.”
Your happiness is affected by 1) your outlook, that is, how you choose to view the events and circumstances of your everyday life; 2) specific actions with positive impact—things like writing down three things your grateful for, or sending appreciative emails, doing random acts of kindness, practicing forgiveness, meditating, and exercising; and 3) where you put your time and energy, and especially investing more time into important relationships and personally meaningful pursuits.
Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.
Abraham Lincoln spoke about taking twice as long to sharpen the axe as to hack at the tree. In your life, you are the axe; the slight edge is how you sharpen it. Sharpen yourself and pursue your path through those simple, small, easy disciplines, and compounded over time, they will take you to the top.
Life-Transforming Books The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor Before Happiness, Shawn Achor As a Man Thinketh, James Allen Multiple Streams of Income, Robert G. Allen The Automatic Millionaire, David Bach Start Over, Finish Rich, David Bach The Go-Giver, Bob Burg and John David Mann Go-Givers Sell More, Bob Burg and John David Mann It’s Not About You, Bob Burg and John David Mann The Aladdin Factor, Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie Acres of Diamonds, Russell H. Conwell The Richest Man in Babylon, George S. Clason The 7 Habits of Highly
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