On My Current Growth

Since I am currently running an office, I am learning SO much about myself. I am only beginning to really grab a footing on the basic operations of the business and really setting my office up for success. Most importantly, I am discovering things about myself that I didn't realize I truly had before. I can be very tough on somebody if I have to be, for example. Also, I am realizing key weaknesses. Not just weaknesses that somebody else can really make up for me. I mean weaknesses in my core character. I am developing these every day. I am trying to gain more integrity and honesty on a daily basis. 

It isn't until you leave your comfort zone until you truly learn about yourself. That is where you can truly grow into a better person. I am extremely excited because I know at the end of this year, I will have grown more than I ever had in previous years. And the goal is to grow more and more every single year.

Side Note: I am so thankful to all those who message me about my blog and thanking me for it. It really inspires me to keep going!

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."

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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 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 Boundaries

"We predefine our boundaries."
-Christian Gouse

I personally believe every person on Earth was born to do great things. However, we set our limits as we grow based on what society tells us to set our limits to. The vast majority of people live an unremarkable life so they can have a safe job with a home. However, a person should constantly challenge themselves to improve so they truly have no boundaries at all.

The only boundaries you have are the ones you create. Nothing is impossible: I'm possible.

On Energy

I just went to Dunkin Donuts this morning to grab a quick bite to eat since I did not eat the most important meal of the day, breakfast, and knew I should eat something. So I picked donut (unhealthy decision). Anyways, I noticed about 15 people who already ordered waiting for coffee and the line to order was extremely long. I could not help but wonder if it was sad that so many people rely on coffee to really have energy throughout the day.

I remember asking a fellow District Manager, Ben Skowronek, while I was training, "how do you keep up your energy throughout the entire day?" Being a DM at Vector is exactly like running your own start-up company. And for those who are entrepreneurs out there, you know owning a company requires you to work much more during the day. So this was an important question to me. He told me while pointing to his head, "it is all up here."

Coffee, energy drinks, large doses of caffeine in whatever form may give your body the short term energy it needs, but if you really want long sustained energy, you need to love what you do.

Passion is the healthy fuel for energy, and it is more effective and more efficient than coffee.