I’m a firm believer that winning the day begins with winning the first hour of the morning. We’ve all heard the science and the studies and the anecdotes of famous and successful people who get up before the sun rises.
The struggle (MY struggle) is in living life everyday with a family of 5. To be honest, I love getting up early and taking control of the day, but living in 3D has it’s inconsistencies. You know, having kids and a business and being deeply involved in a community of people and their lives… it doesn’t always work according to my random, arbitrary schedule. š
Nevertheless, hereās what the (ideal) first hour of my day looks like. My goal is to do it EVERY day. A lot of days Iām pretty successful at it, but sometimes I suck at it. Itās all about progress, not perfection.
Iād LOVE to know what yours looks like. What are you doing that’s working? How are you managing your day during these crazy times? Any tips?
However, don’t give up on your resolutions and aspirations to become your BRAVEST self. As our word gets noisier and more uncertain, double down on these 5 things (V.I.B.E.S.).
The very story of human greatness is one of so-called ordinary people whoāin a one moment of inspiration and self-beliefāmade a right angle turn into what had previously seemed impossible. And went down a road that shifted their lives forever.
Every day Iāve carried this Daily Stoic coin in my pocket for nearly 4 years now.
Every. Day.
Not out of some macabre death wish, though. On the contrary. Because every time I put my hand in my pocket, I am reminded that my time here is limited. Iām reminded that I am spending my one-and-only life like a coin. I can spent it any way I want. But I can only spend it ONCE.
Donāt waste your life today, friends. Do things that matter.
TAG someone who needs to hear this! Let them know that they MATTER to you! And be sure to subscribe to The Impactivist Show wherever you get your podcasts. Itās where ideas and inspiration COLLIDE.
I’m reminded today that responsibility is really just response-ability.
Problems will rise up. Inconveniences will happen. You and I can’t control much around us, but we can control our response to those things. So here’s a trick.
When something goes wrong, ask yourself āhow much of this am I willing to take responsibility for?ā 50% of it? 80%? ?
Because when you take responsibility, you have response ability. It may not be your FAULT, but it can be within your ABILITY to change it. But ONLY if you have response-ability.
For example, say I lose my job this year. It’s a tough time and things are terrible. So, how much response-ability am I going to take to change the outcome. Again, I’m not taking fault or blame… I’m only deciding not to see myself as a victim and take 100% response-ability in the outcome. I can simply decide that I have the ability to respond in the best possible way. I have the response-ability going forward to learn and grow and change the outcome of an otherwise terrible situation.
If I can do that, I am no longer a victim.
Here’s the downside: If I don’t take response-ability, I don’t have any power to change my situation or solve the problem. I’m at the mercy of another person, another company, another entity that doesn’t have my best interests in mind. And why would I do that?? Why would I give control of my one-and-only life to someone or something that doesn’t have my best future at the top of their priority list?
My encouragement to you is this: when life comes at you, when problems come (because they will), hold on to faith and hope. And take 100% response-ability to adapt and overcome. To learn. To grow. To serve. Make it your mantra to respond to struggle with the words, “I have 100% response ability in this situation.”
The #1 lesson I learned in 2020 is this: Life is a game of inches.
For me, that meant doubling-down on the number of books I read this year and being SUPER intentional about what I put into my mind. Out of the 24 books I read (or re-read), here are my Top 12 in no particular order. As always, I’d love to know YOUR favorites.
Like most of us, Iāve been called lots of things. Some good, some terrible, and some were just well-intentioned… but hurtful. People I looked up to used to call me a dreamer. But the more perspective I get in the world, Iāve begun to see Iām actually a REALIST.
The reality is you find whatever youāre looking for. You know the whole āseek and you shall findā thing? Itās legit. And when Iām frustrated and focused on crappy things (or people) in the world, you know what I find? More crap. More frustration. More things for me to feel superior over.
But when I focus on all the good things, the amazing people, the blessings… EVERYTHING changes. The REALITY becomes that I get to see everything else around me thatās filled with beauty and wonder and goodness. Not 0nly does it change my outlook and the way I treat/see people, it changes the actual chemistry in my brain and body.
So, Iāve decided to practice reckless optimism. I still believe most people are good, that I have a million more things to be thankful for than to complain about, and that as Impactivists we can take charge of our own lives and have an impact on othersā.Ā
I know this is long, but if youāre still reading… Iām proud of you. Keep going. Love those around you with no strings attached. Give without expecting anything in return, and dance like no oneās watching. (Theyāre all on their phones anyway…)
Whoās with me on this? You know those moments when you look back and think, āThat sucked at the time… but I wouldnāt be who I am today if I didnāt have to work thru all that mess..ā?
Jobs. Relationships. Friends. Or people you thought were your friends. Financial struggles. And even just tough seasons in life… it can knock you to your knees.
I know itās tough. But if you can see those struggles as a GIFT, everything changes. (Life doesnāt happen TO you, it happens FOR you.) Remember that those things are what made you strong. Those are the times you grew string muscles and a clear vision of who you wanted to become…
The heartbreak sucks. The struggle sucks. The frustration and anger suuuuuuuucks.
But youāve survived 100% of your worst days so far. And watching people (especially our Impactivist group) interact with each other, encourage each other, and be vulnerable with each other is an amazing thing. Itās proof weāre onto something valuable in our little tribe.
And itās proof of HOPE among all the craziness of 2020.
Thank you for sharing your lives with each other, and with me. Have a beautiful weekend!
Just some honesty hereā¦ I remember being (literally) laughed at by a best friend when I told him I wanted to be a songwriter and make a record. As a kid, I took that embarrassment and stuffed it down and didnāt tell ANYONE for years (even though I kept writing songs in my journal). I was so afraid of what people thought about me. (Any other people-pleasers reading this?)
Before he laughed at me, other family members told me it was foolish. A pastor chastised me. I thought, āIf the people who know and love me most think itās a ridiculous dreamā¦ then it must be.ā
So it was 20+ years later before I released my first song on iTunes. Such a simple thing. So liberating. And so terrifying.
We all struggle with fear. We all tend to give too much attention to the voices that tell us why things CANāT be done. Why youāre not good enough, smart enough, talented enoughā¦ Some of those voices come from the people closest to us. And some of those voices are like ghosts in our own headsā¦ leftover words spoken into us years and years ago.
In case you need to hear it today, fear is a thief. And once you stop feeding it, it will die.
So if youāre up for a challenge, Iād love for us to share our fears with each other. (YIKES!) Whatās something .. one seed of a thing, thatās been put in your heart, that youāve been afraid to do? Afraid to say out loud? Afraid to try? Is it too big? Too small? Too silly? Too irresponsible? Too grandiose? Trust me, Iāve said it all to myselfā¦
Is there a fear you need to stop feeding? How can we help each other here?
(If you donāt want to share it here, you can join the private Impactivist group where weāre getting into details with this.. )
Saying the 14th and 15th letters of the alphabet is hard. In order to keep performing at your best and producing your best work, you and I have to become disciplined at saying no to the wrong things– even if they are ‘good’ things– so we can say yes to great things. I discovered just how insanely valuable it is to learn to say them while writing my book, Unleashing Your Creativity. If not for this lesson, I’d have died a slow and miserable death of overwhelm and over-commitment.
How do you learn to say no to people, friends, colleagues… without feeling guilty? Feeling like you’re letting someone down? Or without sounding like a jerk?
Easy. Peasy.
Just save this handy-dandy graphic I came up with, hang it where you’ll see it daily, and randomly pick a response that’s easy, painless, and works in your favor. (And when all else fails, you can blame it on me.)
This is going to get me on someone’s blacklist. I just know it. But the last one in our list is the most important one of all: Do everything you can to schedule less meetings.
Iāll say it again for the people in the back: Do everything in your power to schedule less meetings.
In a lot of places, meetings tend to be the junk drawer of office life. If something’s on your mind, add it to the agenda and we’ll cover it in our meeting. Ever find yourself thinking, “What would I have done today if I didn’t have that meeting? What project would I have worked on? What could I have produced?”
I know Iām going to get push-back on this. I know it’s controversial. Iām not saying we should never have meetings. What i am saying is that 90% of all meetings can be reduced to an email or a phone call. Iām saying instead of blocking an hour for a meetingā-why did we arbitrarily schedule meetings in hour-long blocks anyway??ā only block 15 minutes. Give everyone 2 minutes to hear the problem or the issue weāre trying to solve, and 13 minutes to come up with 5 solutions. Then spend the rest of the day testing the solutions. Thereās no wasted time. The energy level is high and the output becomes productive.
Think about it this way: Lets say you call an afternoon meeting that involves 10 people. ten is an easy number to do math with, so lets say 10. And each of those 10 people makes an average of $80k a year in salary. So for a 3-hour meeting, youāre paying more than $1100 for them to sit and talk.
That might be a great investment if the results of that meeting produces a revenue of more than $1100 dollars. Until you gain an ADDITIONAL $1100, you haven’t made your money back from sitting in just that one meeting.
Especially when it comes to longer meetings, I’d challenge you to begin to ask “Is there something else we could be doing for 3 hours that might produce better results?
Maybe itās a 15-minute meeting, followed by 2 hours and 45 minutes of focused effort? Maybe itās a 30 minute meeting followed by 2 Ā½ hours of research and testing?
Research shows that fewer meetings generally lead to greater productivity. Many meetings generally donāt move the needle forward or get things done that couldnāt be done with a phone call or email.
Ohā¦ this is going to be controversial. People are going to say, āwell, weāre working from home now.. donāt i have to check in on everyone and get their status report and have zoom calls?ā
Well.. maybe. Or maybe not? Maybe it depends. A lot of us have been working from home for a while now. How’s that working? Has productivity gone up? Or down? Are you more motivated and excited about your work? Or less?
When we’re first forming our teams, sure! Go for it! Get those zoom calls, get those conference calls, get everyone on the same pageā¦ but as things move forward, donāt fall into the trap that everyone has fallen into for years, which is thinking that āmore meetingsā necessarily means āmore productivityā. It doesnātā¦ in almost everything thatās EVER been studied. EVER.
Itās important to only do meetings that absolutely move the needle forward. Maybe thereās a better way. Maybe itās worth a shot.
What do you think?? Have I gone completely crazy here?
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