Tag: success

Sharpening the saw

Just like the analogy of “sharpening the saw,” you need to take time to sharpen your body and mind. Take the time to prepare for the future. When you a sharpening the blade of a saw, you may feel unproductive because you’re not actually “using” the saw to cut something down. But, in reality, you’re being extremely productive. Because of you being proactive in sharpening the saw, it ensures that when you do go to use it, it will be more efficient and cut more effectively with less energy being expended.

This is why it is important to work on “sharpening” your body and your mind. Eating healthy foods, working out, and stretching (which I enjoy the least, but need the most) are a few ways to sharpen your body. Reading, writing, drawing, painting, doing puzzles, building things, and meditating are ways you can sharpen your mind.

By working on yourself today, reducing your weaknesses or improving your strengths, you prepare yourself for the work of tomorrow to be easier. If your training is harder than the actual event, the event will seem easy to you and you’ll be able to perform better than the competition.

Are you teaching yourself to be resilient?

When life doesn’t go as planned (and it hardly ever does), roll with the punches. Build your resilience. Don’t quit when things get tough. That is when you need to stick it out. Adapt and overcome. If you succeed and still want to quit, do it then, but not before. Otherwise you will train yourself to become a quitter.

Success leaves clues

Who are you modeling your actions and behaviors from? Who has already succeeded in what you’re trying to accomplish? How did they do this?

Try to tease out the similarities between multiple people who have achieved success in whatever field in which you are interested. What sets them apart from their peers? Is it their mindset? Their overall strategy? What specific tactics did they use to obtain the results you desire and are there any pitfalls by using those same tactics? Will they still work in today’s world or are the tactics outdated? For example, if that person did something in 1980, the specific tactics they performed may or may not work today. But can you figure out the concept behind what worked and apply that to fit in today’s market?

Success leaves clues. It is up to you to investigate and determine how others’ successes can help improve your situation.

3 yards at a time

I was listening to a podcast the other day when I heard the host make a football analogy for business success. He said, “if you just focus on getting 3 yards at a time, and you keep doing that every single play, you’re going to win the game. But if you keep dropping back to throw a Hail Mary every play, you might get it sometimes, but you’re going to fail a lot more often than not. That is how you’re going to lose the game.” And it got me thinking about how this applies to business, health, and every area of life.

We’ve all seen the people who swing for the fences because of some get rich quick scheme but lose their shirts. Or the people who are very intense with a fad diet, but yo-yo and go from being very strict to not adhering to their diet at all.

Focus on winning just a little bit each day. Start out with your mornings. Try to win your morning today. After that, try to win the afternoon. With your momentum being built, next thing you know, you’ll find that you’ve won the day. And once you string together enough days where you’ve won, you will set yourself up for enormous success.

Greatness and inner peace

“Nothing is great unless it’s also at peace.” – Seneca

Outward greatness can be deceiving. Someone can be the best at what they do but have inner demons that none of us would want. We wouldn’t trade our life for theirs.

Think of Antonio Brown…possibly the best WR in the NFL just over a year ago, probably even a top 5 or top 10 WR of all-time. But within the past 12-18 months, despite being an elite NFL receiver, he has been cut or traded from three teams. In a league that has a short season (16 games compared to 82 for basketball or 162 for baseball), that prioritizes winning above all else, three teams have moved on from a tremendous talent because of his inner demons. This goes to show that no matter how great you are (or think you are), there’s more to it than just being good at what you’re paid to do.

Do not be envious of others who only know how to excel at their job. You have to look at the whole picture. Are they still a good family member, friend, teammate/co-worker, and citizen? Do they have peace in their life? If so, that person might be a great role model or mentor. If not, don’t mistake their performance at work as overall greatness.