taking action | The Caleb Barney Collection

Influence vs. control

You can influence others, but you can’t control them. Others can influence you, but they can’t control you. You get to decide what you do or don’t do. Don’t blame someone else for “making” you do something or feel some way. They may have influence over you, but only you get to determine if they control you or not.

Let’s take that a step further and apply it to life circumstances. We don’t get to control what happens in our environment. We can influence it to an extent and it can influence us but we don’t control it and it doesn’t control us.

Don’t blame the economy, the government, the president, your boss, or anyone else for something that isn’t right in your life. They’re only a small part of the problem. The bigger part of the problem is your attitude and your actions.

The good news is that if you’re the majority of the problem, you’re also the majority of the solution. Work on fixing yourself and your life will get better. No matter the circumstances, you can always try to improve your situation by improving your attitude, being prepared, working hard, and being kind to others. If you do this everyday, you’ll soon find out that outside circumstances eventually have less and less influence (and absolutely no control) on your life.

Embarrassment

Never be embarrassed by where you are in life – by what car you’re driving or what house you live in. Everyone has to start somewhere. If you’re going to be embarrassed about anything, be embarrassed about if you’re taking a victim mentality and blaming others for your situation.

Instead of being complacent, how are you using ambition and drive to improve your situation? Just because you’re somewhere right now, it doesn’t mean that you have to stay there. But if you don’t take action, chances are you’re not going to be in a very different spot a few years from now.

So if you don’t like where you’re at, again, you shouldn’t be embarrassed or ashamed of it. But that means that you’re not happy with the results of what you’ve done so far. Now is the time to change. Take action everyday to improve and you’ll be amazed at how far you’ll go in a short period of time.

Take a shot, take a chance

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky

This quote isn’t just about hockey, or basketball, or any other sport for that matter This quote is a metaphor for life. If you want something more for yourself or your family, you have to take a shot at it. You might miss. It might be embarrassing. But if you don’t take the shot, and you “play it safe,” eventually you’ll realize that playing it safe wasn’t so safe after all.

Diminishing returns

Have you ever heard about the concept of diminishing returns? Basically, there’s a theory in economics that predicts that after some optimal level of capacity is reached, adding an additional factor of production will actually result in smaller increases in output. In other words, at some point, more is less and less is more.

For example, you can work out for 10 minutes and get good health benefits. But if you work out for 30 minutes, 60 minutes, or even 90 minutes, you will probably see greater health benefits. But at a certain point, the more you work out, the less beneficial it becomes. So if you work out for 8 hours per day, you probably are not letting your body recover properly. And instead of building your body up, you’re tearing it down.

Something that I know I need to work on is this topic when it has to do with self-improvement. I love reading, listening to audiobooks/podcasts, and learning new things. But I should not confuse reading/compiling more information for taking action. It is not a substitute for actually doing what I need to do in order to reach my goals. At some point, reading more on a subject is not going to help me anymore. So while it is tremendously beneficial in the beginning to read, consume information, and learn, at some point I will have to take action if I want to achieve my ambitions.

Bottom line: Learning prepares you to take action, but if you never do anything with the information you hoard, it’s almost like putting on floaties and never actually getting in the water when you’re learning to swim.

Doing is better than saying, but delegating is better than doing.

“Well done is better than well said.” – Benjamin Franklin

I think of Ben Franklin’s quote above in two ways. The first is how I believe he meant for it to come out, which is being a smooth talker and having a quick wit is great, but you need to be able to actually accomplish what you say for it to mean anything. (Talk is cheap.)

The second part related to this quote is that I don’t think it matters whether you are the one who is physically doing the work or if you delegate it (using your words to convey the purpose/inspiring others to take action to accomplish the goal). That doesn’t matter – it’s about the end result. In that case, saying it well can lead to doing it well (by others).

Do you think Elon Musk is working on a space shuttle, turning a wrench on a Tesla, or doing the bulk of the engineering work to bore a tunnel under Los Angeles? Is Jeff Bezos packaging and delivering each Amazon order? They’re working on their business and focusing on the big picture to move their companies forward. It is still very important to do the other things, or else the companies would go out of business, but without growth, stagnation creeps in and other companies will eventually catch/pass them.

When starting a business, you’ll probably have to do the majority of the work yourself or as part of a small team. That’s probably a good idea because it allows you to have a better understanding of best practices, what not to do, etc. But you will eventually reach capacity (there’s only one of you and so many hours in a day). At that point (or, hopefully, before you reach capacity) you need to think of hiring others to help you. You can then delegate the work that doesn’t need to be done by you anymore. The end result is the same (it gets done), but you get to focus more on the big picture/expanding your business. If you don’t do this, and you are always the one doing the work, the only difference between you and an employee is that you own your job. You’re not a business yet. Because if you get hurt, sick, or want to take a vacation, guess who’s not making money? You.

Have at least a basic understanding of how to do things well, but it is equally important to learn how to say things well, as that is what will eventually free you from the “rat race.”