Tag: hard work

Changing your mindset

Ask yourself, “what’s the worst that can happen?” Often, our decisions don’t boil down to life or death, so don’t make them out to be more than they are.

Default to saying, “why not?” Instead of being pessimistic and thinking, “why should I do X?” You should say, “why not?” If you default to yes and then look for a reason why you shouldn’t (primarily looking at health and safety), you open yourself up to the possibility of experiencing new things. But if you never try anything new, your life will become boring and stagnant.

Instead of saying, “I can’t” ask yourself “how can I?” Think outside of the box. If someone else has done something, you can too. But what will it take for you to get there? How can you achieve a specific goal?

Changing your mindset – being optimistic and believing in yourself – is the best path to unlocking your potential. There’s always bumps in the road. Things won’t go as planned. But as long as you know this going into your next endeavor, plan for the worst, and hope for the best, you’ll be alright. Just keep moving forward.

Having a team to go far

I’ve always enjoyed the quote, “if it is to be, it’s up to me.” This implies that if you want something done, you have to take action to put yourself in the position to get it. YOU have the power to change your life. It may take a while, and it may never come to fruition, but it will NEVER happen if you don’t do something about it. But this quote is very self-centered and, in my eyes, incomplete.

Recently, I read one of Gary Keller’s books and he modifies the quote slightly to, “If I want it to be, it starts with me.” At first, I didn’t think anything of it. It is changed a little from the initial quote, but I attributed the change more to an accidental misquote – almost like how the message always seems to change just a little from person-to-person when playing a game of telephone. But after giving it more thought, they really are different ideas. With Gary’s quote, it still says that if you want something to happen, you have to be the catalyst of change. I agree with this. But what Gary’s quote implies is that change only starts with you. If you have big enough goals, you’ll never be able to do everything by yourself. You’ll need to build a team around you.

This brings me to the last quote of the day, an African proverb, which states, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” You can move very quickly if you’re working alone because you don’t have to take time to try to influence others why your idea is best for the company. You can pivot at a moment’s notice when you’re working alone, not bogged down with bureaucracy. But you will eventually reach your capacity, whether it’s your time, financial, emotional, physical, mental, etc. We all have limits as individuals, but if you construct a team to “fill the gaps” where you are weak, you can prevail over those limitations! If you have a team of all stars to help overcome your capacities, you can achieve huge goals that you never could have by yourself.

So, instead of trying to be a superhero, doing everything yourself, work to build a team around you to reach the really lofty goals. It will eventually save you time and frustration, and if you enjoy their company, you will have some fun along the way.