On A Powerful Sentence

I recently lost some motivation and struggled to get up in the morning for a job that I know I love to do. However, everybody has days where they feel like quitting. Everybody has days where they feel like they are not making progress. Finding an office was one of the most frustrating times in my life.

However, I have since turned it around this week. The way I turned it around was really rooted from my demotivation and asking "why?" Why wasn't everything working properly? Why aren't people coming into training? Why have a couple of my reps gone missing? It came down to the question, "Am I helping others?" My answer was no. I thought I was not truly helping anybody. I even felt like I lost the respect of my friends and family. And I spent hours searching for the answers at night with no ability to fall asleep.

Finally, it came down to this: "If I were to die tonight, what would people remember me for tomorrow?" This is pretty powerful. It induced me into extremely deep feelings as far as who I truly felt I could become and how I should get there, and get there as soon as possible. I started reading again after this question, writing, and continuing this blog now.

I began to tell people my thoughts about life again and what I feel motivates people. I am giving speeches to nobody as I walk around alone at times just envisioning myself preaching to a full arena. Now I realize the sentence that truly motivates me when I feel down.

"Live life as if every day is your last day and influencing people is your purpose."

-----

I laid out my thought process behind this sentence in the hopes that maybe one of you can utilize that process and find your purpose and incite action today.

Make a sentence:

"Live life as if every day is your last day and __________________________ is your purpose."
Read it out loud WITH PASSION every morning.

On Culture

I want to briefly go over the steps I follow to building a culture in my office. This can be applied in other situations such as raising a family, teaching a class, etc.

Step 1:
Define who you are in 7-10 words.
I am the perfect blend of weirdness and intellectualism.

Step 2:
Define your culture by replacing "I am"with "It is" in the previous sentence.
It is the perfect blend of weirdness and intellectualism.

Your culture should be who you are. Do not try to establish somebody else's culture because it probably will not match your personality. Make sure your culture is authentic for you!

Now to build the culture, you need to determine how you will portray this. I have a room dedicated to being remarkable and different in the heart of my office. It will be filled with intellectual things such as self-help books and leadership quotes, accompanied with Dr. Seuss books and cat memes.

Now that you have your why (I believe in the perfect blend of weirdness and intellectualism) and your what (manager, teacher, mother, etc.), you need your how to connect the two. How will you portray why you live through what you do? This answer is the answer to unlocking your culture.

On Ideas

One of my favorite things to do on my free time is thinking of ideas. I just go off and bring in ideas that may be ridiculous but occasionally, I get the ones that work. For example, The Do Good Campaign for my office may be one of the best ideas I execute this summer. Another idea I thought of tonight was the REMARKABLE room. My office will have one extra room that I have previously thought of as a lounge area. A place to hang out. But this is so much cooler! The room will be for REMARKABLE. The best part is: this room is in the MIDDLE of my office! It drives who I am and what I preach! Be Weird! I cannot wait to see all the weird things on the walls in this room! Whatever fills it, will fill it to be remarkable. I want people to leave my office knowing that we are different and we are the place to be!

The reason I share this with you is to promote ideas. Ideas steer our lives. Everything we do comes from the idea of doing it. I want to promote that you consciously think of ideas. Also, since many ideas come during fleeting moments of our lives, I recommend an ideas notepad that you carry with you at all times. You can write your ideas in as you go! (Or use your smart phone to take notes!)

Accept all ideas at first and believe them to be possible. All things that have been accomplished were once impossible.

On Why

The most powerful question in the world is "why do you wake up in the morning?"

Think about that question. Think about it for a long, long time. This is what DRIVES you. Find your why.

My why is "I desire to help others reach their fullest potential."

Your why needs to be short and simple. Don't make it too complicated. You should be able to say it at a moments notice without a blink of an eye.

Find your why. Let it drive you to do REMARKABLE things.

On Strengths

I highly recommend you read a book call StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath. It is a great read but most importantly, you can take a strengths test online and it will give you an entire report on how to use your  strengths to the fullest extent.

We need to focus on utilizing our strengths and improving our strengths, rather than improving our weaknesses. When we focus on just improving our weaknesses, our strengths remain mediocre and our weaknesses become mediocre (maybe) and all we get is one giant mediocre person. When we focus our intensity into improving our strengths, we develop certain traits to a point that others admire. We excel in some things and do not do well in others. The key is finding other people to surround you that truly excel in those traits in which we are weak.

For example, Walt Disney was extremely creative and visionary. Roy Disney was organized with a businessman mindset. Together, they made Disney the greatest motion picture company in the world, a company that represents true happiness, and a company that has impacted most of our lives while growing up. But these grand accomplishments could not happen with only one of them at the helm. Walt needed Roy and Roy needed Walt. They were strong in different areas and it cumulated into greatness.

Find your strengths and develop them. Hone in your talents to the point where they become truly REMARKABLE! Find others to cover up your weaknesses. That is team work. Nobody can do great things alone. Even Jesus needed 12 others.

On NEFAW

NEFAW means No Excuses, Find A Way. This is an extremely powerful mindset to live by on a daily basis. It means no matter what happens during your day, you will find a way to accomplish what you have set out to do. 

This week I have really begun to embrace this. I have been struggling to sign a lease for my office because the owners are taking their time (oddly). However, I anticipated this to be finished last week so I already scheduled group interviews this week. Last night with 15 people present, I walked to Independence Hall and conducted the interview on the lawn put front. I laid out blankets for the recruiting class to sit on as I stood with my PowerPoint on my laptop. Basically, I found a way to run the interview instead of rescheduling them and possibly losing some high quality recruits.

If you live by this principle, you will be truly amazed by how much you can accomplish in your life. It leads you on a path to being truly REMARKABLE!

On Shortcuts

It is rare that shortcuts are a good idea. Shortcuts are usually taken with the mentality of, this will get me to my end destination quicker. However, nobody ever picked up a guitar and started playing Stairway To Heaven. Usually they start with something like Smoke On The Water. You need to learn each step as you go along. Even if you tried to learn Stairway To Heaven and that is all you did until you mastered it, you still have not learned the fundamentals like chords, proper finger technique, or scales. After learning Stairway, you will fall because you do not yet know how to create songs. You do not know how to learn songs. And you probably do not even play Stairway To Heaven correctly.

Apply this to other aspects of life. Creating a business: if you try to grow too fast, you will fall since you do not have the people in the organization capable of holding up your company. Being a student: If you do not study throughout the year, your grades will hurt at the end.

Always remember, if a path feels like it will be hard, but it is the correct way of doing it, then do it every time. It is easier in the long run.

On Mothers

How deep does the connection between a son an a mother entrap itself in our daily lives?

So much so, that we argue passionately about the risks I take while she defends security due to her worrisome nature and I defend risk due to my entrepreneurial spirit.

So much so, that when we spend time together, we stroll slowly rather than walk normally, let alone stride quickly.

So much so, that when I make a mistake, I feel so ashamed of myself mostly for believing I may let my mother down, despite knowing the impossibility of such an event.

So much so, that the first person I hugged after graduating from college was my mother as a lone tear trickles down my cheek.

And although many times it may seem that I forget this connection when I rarely call while I am away or listen when you want to talk, I know the connection is love and I will never let this subside.

Happy Mother's Day

On Reading

Reading is one of the most important foundations of personal growth. I read books frequently myself, not only self-help, but also things like autobiographies of influential leaders, books about top companies, positive psychology, philosophy, leadership, etc.

While reading, take notes on the books. This creates a learning environment to allow yourself to truly make strides in your personal growth. As you read further, you begin to see patterns between books that show what habits you need to establish to master yourself. 

I further suggest to pick your favorite books and read them with a highlighter and a notebook and go through rereading it several times. Rereading will allow you to hone in on your knowledge and truly refine your skills, while making it easier to establish habits under the constant knowledge that you should.

Reading allows us to realize how REMARKABLE we can truly become and force us to pursue better habits at all times.

Another Blog

I will be doing a Tetris Effect and a Focus Five on another blog for those who would be interested it is http://tetrisfive.blogspot.com/

On Writing

Apologies to Stephen King for stealing the title of his awesome book "On Writing." If you like to write, read that book!

I write frequently (obviously per this blog). I honestly believe writing down your thoughts is extremely helpful when trying to think through a decision. Whenever I decide on something, I tend to write about it until all my thoughts are on paper. Furthermore, I go back and edit what I wrote. This refines the thoughts I previously wrote down and clearly translates them into something I can effectively explain and communicate. There are not many ways to effectively organize your thoughts and writing is the easiest, most effective method of doing so.

I highly recommend you write on a daily basis, every morning. It can help you sort through your life and whatever important decisions which currently engulf your mind. Write your way into being REMARKABLE.

Also, a good recommendation is to write down 5 things you want to accomplish during the day (Focus Five) and 3 things you are grateful for that happened to you in the past 24 hours (Tetris Effect). These two methods will likely get their own blog posts sometime in the future as well since they are heavy parts of my life.

Writing is good. Writing is powerful. Writing is efficiency. Writing is thinking. Writing is wellbeing. Writing is REMARKABLE.

On Lending A Hand

There is nothing more powerful than something as small as helping another person in some small way. Little things really add up to big things and people forget this in their every day lives. There are so many opportunities to help other people every day and don't forget it! Keep an eye out every day and if an opportunity presents itself just lend a hand! It is so simple. Just give somebody else a small piece of your time!

On Stable Jobs

Stable jobs are no longer stable. They no longer exist in the Western world. We have switched from a manual labor society to a mental labor society. All solid jobs now require cognition to make money. Which means, now, you need to be risky. No longer are you just trying to do the task at hand, you are trying to do what is handed to you and then discover the process of doing it and then going above and beyond and making more recommendations. That describes today's work environment. Either get with the program or work at fast food.

Now, this means jobs are not stable. Everybody stands at the risk of losing their job at their next mistake, because it may just be a very, very, extremely large mistake that costs lots of money. Look at all the stable job employees that have been laid off since recently. During the last 4 years, we saw a large decrease in middle wage jobs and a large increase in lower wage jobs. This is because people with the cognition to perform higher tasks are now underemployed.

The point I am getting at here is stable jobs are a thing of the past. They no longer exist. They are dinosaurs. Now, you must be able to be risky. You must be willing to fail in order to win. You must put yourself out there so everybody can notice your mistake as you fall just short of success once so that next time you put yourself out there like that, you just may succeed. You make money today through risk.

On Emotions

During my reading binge over the past few years, I started to realize the subtle message they delivered about emotions, but it really hammered home when I read about Yoga philosophies. First, I want to establish that we choose our emotions. Nobody makes us angry, sad, happy, etc. It is your CHOICE to be angry, sad, happy, etc. 

When I was reading about yoga, one of the things that struck me most about the emotional aspect is the control of your emotions. This arose while I read the Samurai Code as well. You have to control your emotions to drive you to better results. You must be angry when you are supposed to be, sad when you are supposed to be, along with happy when you are supposed to be.

This is an important distinction. It is human nature to let your results drive your emotions. When things go wrong, our emotions go wrong. This will send us in a downward spiral. Also if things go right, we become content... and then things go wrong. 

Also, this means suppressing one's emotions is ineffective as well. You still let results drive your emotions but just because you don't tell anybody about it, does not mean you are not in an emotionally fragile state.

So use emotions to drive results! For example, Jesus used anger in the temple to show it was a place of respect and worship. Gandhi used sorrow to try to unite Hindus and Muslims in a newly free nation. Steve Jobs used excitement to realize his visionary products.

Similarly, you must grieve when you need to grieve and be joyous when you need to be joyous. Just remember, you need to use these emotions to drive results. Choose what emotion you want and utilize it to become REMARKABLE!

On Advice

I want to steal one out of Newton's book of physics and say "For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction." This is true when giving advice. For every negative advice, there is an equal but opposite positive advice. A negative advice is something that uses words like "don't" or "can't." Something positive does not have the word not anywhere in it.

The reason I am starting with establishing this basic rule is because negative forms of advice are not effective and may actually be counterproductive. What people tend to focus on is what tends to happen. So when we say "Don't drink and drive," it may be possible that just saying drink and drive in there will produce more drunk drivers. Rather, we should say the equal but opposite positive form "Ride Sober." This has a much more positive connotation to it and people are more likely to follow it's advice.

If you think about it for everything, you can always find the equal, but opposite form of advice.

"Anti-war" becomes "Pro-peace"
"No sexual harassment" becomes "respect others' space"
"No littering" becomes "Recycle/Throw your trash in the trash can"

These are just things that are present in culture. We focus on "no war" and "no sexual harassment," yet we live in a time where these have become more present and are becoming more present over the years.  We need a peace campaign or a respect campaign.

This applies in personal applications as well.
"Don't raise your voice" becomes "Let's calm down and talk"
"Don't buy Pepsi" becomes "Buy Coke" (Coke is better)
"Don't lie to me" becomes "Be honest with me"
"Don't leave dirty dishes in the sink" becomes "Put the dishes in the dishwasher"

It is best to sit and think for a second about how you can spin it in a positive direction and use that form of advice. It is proven that people are more likely to do what you focus on (whether you tell them to do it or not). So focus on the opposite of what you don't want them to do. They are more likely to follow your advice.

On Life Changes

Many times people find themselves in a position where their life will change drastically. Right now many people, including myself, are graduating from college. This is a pivotal time but when you form your life, you have to remember a few fundamentals that apply to every change and you can become successful in whatever you do.

First, whatever you do in your free time defines who you will become. Do not waste time doing nothing or watching too much television. Spend your free time active and doing things. Life will become far more enjoyable and if you do something consistently, like play in your room with physics like Einstein or start a new business or read personal growth books or write poetry or read this blog, you can become a master of that task over time. Do you want to master watching tv or writing poetry?

Second, embrace change. Without change, nothing gets better. You need life to change to move somewhere in life. Always remember to embrace change, even if it is bad, because every change is an opportunity to do something great!

And finally, have a plan. If life is changing, make a plan to handle that change. Many times a plan does not work for the little details but making one helps you achieve the final destination since you already know how to get there.

Good luck in life people! Be REMARKABLE!

On Motivation

There are many differences between highly productive people and not so productive people and motivation is one of the key differences. Most people believe to do something, you need to be motivated to do it. "I will go to the gym when I feel like it." I don't care who you are, if you are sitting on the couch watching tv, nothing about that will motivate you to go to the gym. They key to motivation is to start doing it and THEN motivation comes to you. If you get your gym bag go to your car and start driving, are you likely to go to the gym? Yes!

You need to act your way into feeling! (This comes from John C. Maxwell somewhere). Think about what you need to do to make your business go, to get good grades, to work, get in shape, etc. Most likely you can envision where you want to be, but to get there, you need to do "annoying" daily tasks. Do not wait for motivation to make you do these acts. Just do it (Nike). 

"Being a professional is doing the things you love on the days you don't feel like doing them."

-Julius Erving

The key to being REMARKABLE is doing the little things. They always add up.

On Life Balance

Balance in life is dependent on your own happiness levels. If you love work and life then balancing it is not a trick of time, it is a trick of optimal life satisfaction. For self-employed people, entrepreneurs, and students, it is extremely important to learn balance. Much of balance comes from energy management. You need to put the same amount of energy into your family life, your social life, and your work life. If you keep your energy levels up high, people will not blame you for spending time at work. You need to show your family and friends that you love them by giving them your full attention whenever you are with them. Make sure you schedule important things for all circles in your life and attend them.

Time is a factor as well. You need to spend time with each circle to optimize your satisfaction levels. Maybe some weeks, you spend more time working than others. That is natural for anything other than a 9-5 job. I suggest each week you sit down and work out your schedule. You start by plugging in all of the most important things. Then you list how many hours you want to spend with each circle. Then you fill out your schedule accordingly. However, the amount of time you spend in each circle will not mean much if you do not bring your full attention during that time! ENERGY IS KEY!

Without energy, how can you be REMARKABLE?