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A team with talent can be good, but they must work together to be great. If you have a group of talented individuals working as lone operators, their ceiling is capped. But if you take that same group of individuals and have them working together towards a shared goal with people they respect, their ceiling is raised considerably. This is the idea of synergy and it goes back thousands of years. Synergy occurs when two or more individuals work together/interact to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate efforts.

This is why you can’t have silos (at home or at the workplace), where team members either aren’t able or willing to work together. If they are separated, working independently of everyone else, then the ceiling of the individuals’ contributions will be limited and the team’s growth will be hindered. This not only will affect how far the team can go for the short term (the next quarter or even year), but it can affect it in the long run as well. Company culture will slowly erode as relationships become nothing more than a brief hello or goodbye when passing each other in the office. The people who you once knew and cared for become just a co-worker with whom you have minimal interaction. You don’t care about them and they don’t care about you, not because you don’t have the capacity to care, but you don’t have the opportunity.

I love being part of a team. That’s why I enjoy team sports. And sports is the perfect way to show that individual talent with no team chemistry does not beat out a great team of lesser talent. The best teams work together to be the best that they can be. How can you start to apply the principle of synergy in your life?

Cognitive dissonance is defined as the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change.

When your behaviors conflict with your beliefs, you create internal tension. If you act in a way that goes against your values, or you’re asked to do something that you don’t believe in, you feel a certain amount of internal strife. The more your actions defy your belief system (whether in quantity of actions or in quality of the action), the more conflicted you will feel.

Make sure to act in accordance with your beliefs as much as possible. Ideally, you will always do the right thing, but that’s not realistic. We are all human and we all make mistakes. Do not seek perfection, but instead seek progress. Try to be better than yesterday, to learn from your mistakes, and to not compare yourself to others.

Lastly, if the above quote from Gandhi teaches us anything, it’s that one of the keys to happiness is to be happy with yourself. If your thoughts, words, and actions are not in alignment with each other, you can not experience true happiness.

Character traits to instill in ourselves and our children…

1. Integrity: The power of being honest (with yourself and with others) and of keeping high moral principles…doing what is right, even when it is difficult.

2. Resiliency: The power to recover quickly from difficulty/defeat…not giving up.

3. Dedication: The power of being committed to a relationship, an idea, a task, or a purpose…being faithful and working hard for something in which you believe.

4. Humility: The power of being free from pride or arrogance…understanding your role/importance in life and not overvaluing your contributions to team/family success.

5. Drive/hunger: The power of having a strong desire for self-improvement…always striving to get better/evolve.

6. Patience: The power accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset…keeping cool under pressure.

These traits are fundamental to a lifetime of success. When I define success, I don’t necessarily equate it to money, although most of the time, if the traits listed above are the foundation of your character it will lead to that. No, there is more to life than monetary success. You can have all the money in the world, but if you’re lonely, angry, have poor health, or don’t know God, I hardly consider that “success.” To be considered successful, I think that you should be able to reflect on your life and be content with the decisions you’ve made, the obstacles that you’ve overcome, the relationships you’ve established, the goals that you’ve hit, and the people you’ve coached/how far they’ve come.

While there are many other character traits that are vital to becoming the best person that you can be, but these six are the core traits that I choose to focus on for myself, my son, and my soon to be born daughter. These are the six traits of which we build on everything else.

Do you have core character traits for yourself or your family? Feel free to share in the comments section! I’d love to hear what you have to say.

“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” – William James

It is impossible to be up to date on all of the newest information available. It is impossible to be everything to everybody. If you try to know all of the answers or to be the hero for someone else, you are not only choosing to accept an impossible task, but you are choosing a never-ending task as well.

The world keeps going. It’s not going to stop for you as you try to tackle your next problem. You have to determine what you need to focus on and the let the other things go.

Prioritize what is important to you and focus solely on that. Let the trivial things go. If you give everything equal weight in importance, you will quickly become overwhelmed. We know that not every task is equal. Not every task means the same to you, nor should it, so stop acting like they do. Don’t give power to the things that don’t matter and they won’t affect you. Be selective in what you choose to focus on and, just as importantly, what you choose to overlook.

We humans are flawed…very flawed. When we get to buy or experience something that we really want, we enjoy it for a time, but eventually that novelty wears off. We don’t appreciate it as much anymore.

We land a dream job and after a few years, it becomes only a job. An obligation. We “have to” go to work. If you change your mindset from “have to” to “get to,” you will feel more content for a longer period of time. It puts things into perspective. You don’t have to go to your job, you get to go. You get to see people who you’ve grown with and care about. You get to make a difference in this world. You get to get paid, while others are looking for work, or looking to be paid as well as you do.

The same can be said about exercising. You don’t have to go to the gym, you get to go. Have you ever seen those YouTube videos of exercise equipment in third world countries? The ones where they exercise outside in the blistering heat and have to use old car tires for weighted plates? And you’re complaining about going to an air conditioned space to improve your health?

You don’t have to go pick up your children, you get to go pick up your children. You’re lucky to even have children. So many couples want to conceive, but are unable.

You don’t have to clean up after your spouse, you get to. He/she could have chosen somebody else to spend the rest of their lives with. Think of all of your imperfections that they have to deal with for you. They do it without saying a word to you because they love you. You should be able to do the same.

Focus on changing your mindset to one that you “get to” experience life and you will enjoy longer lasting happiness and gratitude. Your heart will be content and you will feel less stress. Don’t take life for granted anymore.