Your Rules
Here it goes…
… That time of year when people vow to quit things they won’t and do more of what they should (which they won’t). I’m sure there are studies in Behavioral Economics that will dictate why rule structures make success in one’s commitment to new beginnings as the calendar turns impossible.
Nobody Cares!
If you really had to quit something, you would!
If you enjoy something, why quit?
Health is important, manage it…..
If you are only nice to people during the Holidays, you are probably not a very good person.
If you have to commit to ending something, you’re probably capable of quitting.
Let’s look at three things you should do less of:
- Argue on Social Media
- Care about Politics
- Over-Consume
We’ve all had those episodes of proclaiming we will never utilize facebook again.
~ We want to see the faces of our friend’s children over coffee.
~ Then, we drink too much and argue politics with our phone screen.
~ And, people get offended and never talk to us again.
These things we debate with liquid courage do not encompass who we are when our arms embrace.
Use Social Media to promote good things…. ONLY!
A long time ago a very smart man told me NEVER to talk about Religion or Politics. He told me that these were sacred practices driven by divine belief rooted in emotion more than the mind could handle. I was told that God & Country were managed by one’s heart and that the mind and and the mouth have no place in the heart’s waiting room.
I’ve known people who chose to die rather than be loved by their children. I’ve known people who had nightmares while they were awake. An addict friend of mine once told me that there was an alarm clock ringing in his mind every second of every day. When you weigh 400 pounds it’s not because you are lazy. There are people who, at the first sign of love, run from it.
There are also three things you should do more of:
- Love the People who Love You
- Exercise
- Develop Unquenchable Creativity
My daughter is 9 years old and she still believes in me. She knows I am good. She cannot live without me. She thinks about me all the time.
Her brother is 3 years her senior. He once saw me approaching to pick him up from Rugby practice in the midst of a lightening storm. He thanked God when he saw me because he knew he was safe.
If you don’t have ‘dependents’ in this life, you are missing out on one of life’s true gifts. This is not a responsibility but a privilege.
I suffer from intense hyper-active disorder. I cannot sit still and would prefer to always be moving around. It drives my wife nuts. It also propels me to be consistently exercising. I’ve been an athlete and an outdoorsman my entire life. Others suck at sports and hate exercising. Get a dog and walk it (let’s start there).
We tend to be systematic because it makes decision making easier: Quantify and Assess.
I prefer story telling to proof by numbers.
What story are you telling? More important, what story are you writing?
The corporate world is justifiably characterized through lonely hallways with broke down cubicles and all the shambled souls in-between. But, I know better.
There are accountants who play in bands and HR people with really cool tattoos. The CEO might skateboard and the CFO could play bass. All of these droids have a programming in their lexicon that hints at fun. Fun is driven by creativity and the things that make us interesting people will be the very genre-bending characteristics that help us create the next great thing.
It’s 2018, the world of business is crowded with information from a billion unqualified authors, a millions new apps, 5 million new companies and a gazillion (actual figure) people who are just trying to hang on.
Now What?
If you are not creative, you will not survive. The mainstay of corporate life is change. Adaptation will require new thinking…. to destroy silos, to honor thought-leadership at every rung of the ladder, to seek information where before it had been discarded.
Build a network of informal advisors: it could be a bartender or a landscaper or a letter carrier or your kid’s coach or your wife’s guitar teacher. Find someone who is going to help you think differently.
Know your options: if you got fired today, where would you go? How much are your ideas worth? What can you contribute that no one else can? Are you realistic in your assessment of your market value? If not, you might want to start learning what you don’t know.
Dedicate Yourself to your craft: you’ve been selected to do what you do because your skills fit your profession. When you don’t do enough of what you are good at, you fail. You know if you haven’t done enough, if others have to remind you it may be too late to catch up.
Bend your brain: read a book, take in a movie, buy a record or go see a play. Anything to disrupt your path of thinking. Create something… anything! Pull apart the formula and find new horizons.
It’s only life…. you should live it!
~ Dave
