13 simple lessons people gloss over as not important when they’re crucial
1. Go small consistently rather than big once in a while
She was a writer with huge dreams. She’d spent years working on her book proposal and dreaming of being a screenplay writer. All her energy and time was being saved up for that one big moment.
You know what happened? Of course you do. She submitted the proposal and got three rejections in a row, then lost all momentum. I met her in a public speaking class and it was sad to watch.
The only solution she had was to give up because she’d put everything she had into that one moment, expecting it to pay off like the capital gains on Prince Harry’s investment properties.
You can take small steps daily towards whatever outcome you seek and get so much further.
Most of the moments that change your life don’t come from huge risks and one-off actions; they come from what you do consistently.
2. You didn’t get rejected; you closed one door and opened another
Life is just one series of rejections after another.
Given that rejection is guaranteed, the only way to deal with it is to reframe how you’re thinking about it.
You didn’t get rejected; you closed one door and opened another. One option was cut-off or removed and replaced by another choice. With this in mind, you won’t fear or be taken down by rejection again. And that sort of resilience is ridiculously helpful in life.
3. Back yourself like a venture capitalist
A venture capitalist really does one thing when you break it down: they find a startup founder and back them using their investor’s money.
They rarely back an idea or a company but an actual person with blood pumping through their veins, who they believe can do something amazing and, in turn, make a profit from. When they invest, they go all in and trust the person. They don’t dip their toe in or wait for a sign from the universe to tell them to invest.
Back yourself in the same way. Choose yourself. Accept yourself. Know that even you can do something phenomenal, but if you don’t believe, no one else can. It starts with you.
Invest your poker chips on yourself. Take the first hand. Lose. Get back up. Keep backing yourself — because you’re the only person you have control over.
4. Slow down chief
Been told to slow down? Of course you have. Ignored this tiny bit of advice and brushed it off? Probably.
Getting to your destination the fastest is not the idea; it’s the journey that you’ll look back on when you get there, and be proud of.
When we slow down and enjoy the process, we get all the fulfillment that comes with it and that adds a touch of meaning to our life that makes all the setbacks and obstacles worth it.
5. The people that scream at you often have their own problems
They might scream at you through social media or scream swear words at you in the car park when you accidentally cut them off or send you a nasty email telling you everything that is wrong with you.
What if all this anger had nothing to do with you? What if these people were frustrated with their own life and bringing you down was the only way to justify what was happening to them?
You don’t need to take all the crap that is thrown at you personally and blame yourself or change yourself because of it.
Most of the anger directed at you has nothing to do with you.
6. Read books over Netflix
“I’m relaxing,” you say. “Take a chill pill brudda,” you say.
This is an easy one. Streaming TV rarely teaches you anything and even when it does, you’ll probably forget it. Spend a disproportionate amount of the time you spend consuming content on books rather than Netflix.
That doesn’t mean you never watch TV again; it just means you allocate more time to books.
Books make you think. Books can be timeless. Books don’t require a whole season to get the message. Books can travel with you everywhere you go. Physical books have an interesting smell and feel good to touch.
Read a few more books and notice the difference. Expect nothing from each book and watch them give you things you never knew you needed.
7. Treat people beautifully
What does treating people beautifully mean?
What you dish out comes right back at you in weird and wonderful ways that make doing a life sentence meaningful and enjoyable. If you feel the world is conspiring against you, experiment with treating people beautifully.
8. If it’s hard, it’s good
When given an easy option, how many times are you tempted to take it? Taking the hard option may seem like a stupid decision but even if it’s the wrong choice, you’ll learn more than you ever will from the easy option.
The job may be outside of your current skillset. Take it.
The guy/girl may be out of your league when searching for love. Approach them regardless.
The business idea may seem stupid and obvious but matters to you. Work on it.
Add just a few more hard choices into the mix and you’ll see results and parts of yourself on display that you didn’t know you had. When you have to work hard for it and struggle for it, you appreciate it more.
9. Say thank you a lot (and mean it)
Many people over your lifetime will help you for some unknown reason. Say thank you to them and mean it.
Realize that they helped you and they didn’t have to, and the least you can do is thank them for it — and if you really want to go crazy, pay it forward.
10. Give more than you take
It’s a simple formula with a powerful result. Give more to the world and the people you encounter than you get back.
Don’t keep score like Scrooge McDuck and count your pennies. Give away parts of yourself, and the value you have, more than you need to.
Too many people keep score of everything they do and then wonder why they feel broke in life.
11. People you know aren’t good for you do harm (and you know it)
There are people that enter your life and you know deep down they are bad for you. Why?
These people are harming you and you know it. It takes every little bit of willpower to stay alive and deal with the tidal wave of rejection each of us faces just to have food on the table and a roof over our head. You don’t need oxygen thieves taking away your peace of mind and your belief that you can do something with your life.
Take a break from them — or if you’re game, get them out of your life. You can’t achieve your goals in life when your mindset is blown up by a twelve-gauge shotgun every day that you didn’t even pull the trigger on.
12. Watch how you act when you win big
People can be all nice and lovely until they get a bit of success in their life.
Don’t judge yourself during your day-to-day life; judge yourself when you win big.
Does your ego blow up? Do you treat people like garbage? Do you talk down to people? Do you become lost in dreams of money and Lambos? Do you help people on your way up and while you’re on top?
If you can be just as humble and helpful when you’re a nobody, as you are when you achieve a big goal that others praise you for, you’ll do well in life.
13. Optimism vs. Doomsdayer Mindset
There are two ways to look at life:
Both mindsets are true. Both can be backed up by evidence. The mindset you choose from these two options can and will determine most of your life. It’s the single biggest contributor to everything you will do in life and it looks like the dumbest, simplest, most insignificant, tiny decision you could ever make.
Many of us make this decision without even realizing it. If you have chosen option one, then it’s not too late to change. If you have chosen option two already, then it’s going to be awesome to see what you do.
Appreciate the simple life lessons many gloss over because they count for more than the eye can see when put into practice for long enough.
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Mindful Leadership: You Can Explore Your True Potential In 3 Simple Steps
“Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!”
- Anne Frank
Do you know your true potential?
Getty
I love the wisdom of this quote. We really do not know what our potential is even though we might think we do. Beginning in our earliest years, we have been told about our strengths and weaknesses. These assessments, given perhaps with good intentions, very often have unintended harmful results. They keep us from knowing more about our true potential. Let’s take a closer look at examples I have heard from professionals over the years.
In both of these examples, we see professionals who wonder if they are living the lives they were meant to live. What about you?
Perhaps there is an example of some form of limitation in your own life. Simple statements or an assessment of you at one moment in time easily become woven into your story of yourself. Are there factors that may be limiting your capacity to love, or your ability to accomplish your dreams?
If you are ready to begin an exploration for yourself, try these simple 3 steps:
It takes courage to push against evaluations and advice. Listen deeply to your own wisdom. In your personal life and your professional life, it is often easier to go with what is being told to you. Ultimately, however, you may be abdicating your responsibility to live our best life. As Anne Frank said, “The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be!”
At 8, Derek Jeter knew he wanted to play for the Yankees—here's how he made it happen
When Derek Jeter was 8, he walked into his parents' bedroom (the were in their pajamas) and told them he wanted to be a Yankee, he writes in his 2000 memoir, "The Life You Imagine."
"Most people thought I really was foolishly dreaming to think that I could be a major leaguer, but my parents didn't," Jeter writes. They sat him down and told him that he could do anything he wanted in life, if he worked hard enough and stayed dedicated.
On Tuesday, Jeter, who played with New York Yankees for 20 years and won five World Series titles, was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He came within one vote of being a unanimous pick for the Hall of Fame election.
After that day when he was 8, Jeter says, his parents — Charles, a substance abuse counselor, and Dorothy, an accountant, from the small town of Pequannock Township, New Jersey — were committed to helping Jeter make his dreams a reality.
The biggest thing his parents did for him, according to his book, was teach him that being a successful player was about more than just what happens on the field.
"They told me that I couldn't just be a good baseball player. I had to work hard, take care of my body with proper diet and rest, and do well in everything. They told me that I have to have the mind-set that I wanted to be the best in everything," he writes.
"For me, the dream of being a baseball player [was] a daily challenge," writes Jeter, "not only living that dream but ensuring that it stay[ed] alive."
In his book, Jeter says he learned there's a 10-step process to success, one that helps you get "from point A to point B in life," no matter your age or your goals.
"The lessons I talk about here transcend baseball. These steps are about life and getting what you want in life," Jeter, who retired in 2014, writes. He got what he "always wanted, and part of the reason why is because I had a plan for getting here."
Here are Jeter's 10 steps for achieving success.
1. Set your goals high
Jeter says to be successful, you must always set your goals high even the dream seems out of reach at the moment.
"It all starts with setting goals—we all need them. Whether your goal is to play for the Yankees or to win the pie-eating contest at summer camp, goals are what motivate us to do better. My ultimate dream was to play major-league baseball, but I had smaller goals along the way," Jeter writes.
For instance, Jeter set the goal of making the Little League All-Star team, and then starting on the high school varsity team as a freshman, making all-district and so on.
2. Deal with growing pains
Right out of high school at 18, Jeter signed a professional contract with the Class A Tampa Rookie Team. His first week, he failed to get a hit in his first 14 at bats. He questioned his decision to sign with the pros instead of attending the University of Michigan on a baseball scholarship, according to his book.
"I hadn't imagined that I'd wind up crying in my hotel room night after after because I was playing so poorly," Jeter writes.
But as much as struggled with the adjustment, he knew he had to push forward if he wanted to one day be a Yankee.
"It wasn't easy. There will definitely be times when pursuing your goals won't be easy, either...," he writes.
3. Find the right role models
While Jeter says his parents were his first role models, he had many over the years.
"If I saw someone doing something that I really wanted to be able to do, I'd analyze him until I figured out the proper way to do it, too," he writes.
For example, during Jeter's second season with the Yankees, Luis Sojo, a former player for the Seattle Mariners, taught him a better way to turn double plays, Jeter writes. (Sojo taught him to stay behind the base, which safer place for an infielder, instead of jumping over the approaching runner, which Jeter liked to do.)
"I was amazed at how much easier it made the play, and for those few days that Luis worked on this with me, this fielding magician was my role model," he writes.
Jeter says there are role models are everywhere and its important to seek them out and ask questions. They don't even need to be super successful — each one should just have something about them that you admire and can learn from.
4. Help others
Jeter says his parents were "always lecturing him about helping people," and that giving back is essential in anyone's pursuit of success.
His mom taught him that, "if you have a little, you give a little back. If you have a lot, you give a lot back." It is one of the reasons, Jeter created Turn 2 Foundation in 1996 to help teenagers avoid drug and alcohol addiction.
He says the philosophy has helped him stayed focused and humble throughout his career.
5. Don't be afraid to fail
Jeter says failure is essential for success (so does Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos). To reach your goals, you will need to push yourself beyond your comfort zone and take risks, says Jeter, and with risk comes some failure. But you should also expect that you will succeed.
"I don't succeed every time. But I can honestly tell you that I go into every game thinking I'm going to be the hero that night. I have to, or I wouldn't enjoy it so much," Jeter writes. "It's really a great approach. Believe that you're going to get an A on a test, believe that you're going to get accepted to your first college choice, believe that you're going to get that dream job. Believe in yourself and you'll be closer to actually succeeding."
6. Have a strong support system
"Surround yourself with good people. People who are going to be honest with you and look out for your best interests," Jeter writes.
He says surrounding yourself with "good, goal-oriented people" is critical.
"You can find them. They'll be the ones studying that extra in the library, taking some extra grounders when practice is done, or working at a part-time job in addition to going to school. Those are some of the signs of achievers. Those are the people who impressed me, the people I wanted to be like and wanted to be around."
Jeter says in addition to his parents' support, his longtime coach Joe Torre and Yankee's owner George Steinbrenner were essential in helping him thrive throughout his time with the Yankees. Both men believed in him, which helped him to continue to push himself to achieve more each year.
7. Be serious, but have fun
To achieve success, you must work on your skills every day. Jeter says he would spend hours at the batting cage working on his swing.
"There may be people who have more talent than you, but there's no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do – and I believe that.''
But Jeter believes that you must pursue something that you truly love and enjoy doing in order to reach success.
"Baseball is fun for me. I don't overanalyze it and I don't sit around and think about every detail so much that I can mess myself up. I'm not saying I'm not prepared, because I am. But I don't let myself because crazed obsessed in anticipation of what might happen. I just let it happen."
8. Think before you act
Throughout his career, Jeter says he has seen a lot of players come to New York and "get caught up in the lifestyle, and before you know it, they're sent away to another team because it affected their performance."
Jeter says its important to stay 100% focused and think about the consequences of your actions before you act.
9. Be a leader and follow the leader
Jeter writes that it's essential to do both throughout one's career because it keeps you strong and humble.
Jeter says he always liked being a leader who leads by example, he also learned to watch other people whom he respected and learn from their actions.
"I often think the smartest person in the room is the person who isn't saying a word. He listens to everything, soaks it in, and gets smarter while everybody else is too busy listening to themselves speak."
Jeter says he followed in the footsteps of his idol, former Yankees outfielder Dave Winfield, who was the first active athlete to establish a charitable foundation to help underprivileged youth and families in need.
10. Life is a daily challenge
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