Except it’s bullshit.

When failure means death

If you were really swimming and went out of your depth then failure means drowning. In this literal sense failure while being out of your depth can result in death. Now that’s a serious negative consequence.

But when in your life does being “out of your depth” mean that you might literally die from failure?

That new job you took? Giving a speech? Running your own business? Playing a new sport?

Nope. For most of life’s experiences being out of your depth will not kill you.

Don’t worry about the depth

Depth is not the real issue. Once you go past the point where your feet can no longer touch the ground depth becomes irrelevant. It could be 2 metres or 200 metres deep. Either way you still have to work hard if you want to keep yourself afloat.

If depth was the real danger then everyone would be happy to just wallow in the dubiously warm, waist deep waters of the kiddies pool. Safe and comfortable. Ahhhhhh.

But the kiddies pool is not nearly as fun as the big pool or, better yet, the wide open beach is it?

The real fun is had out in the deep water.

Worry more about waves and currents

And the real problem is not the deepness of the water water but the dangerousness of it.

A 10 metre deep diving pool with calm water is infinitely safer than a 2 metre ocean with tropical winds whipping up giant waves and creating strong undercurrents that can easily suck you under water mid-breath.

In life these dangers are people, situations, and events that happen around you but outside of your control. They can churn the water around, they try to suck you in, and they can crash down upon you without warning.

But, just like the waves in the ocean, you cannot control these things. You can only choose how you will handle them. Will you remain calm and keep your head above water or will you flail around aimlessly and tire yourself out?

Don’t fight against the current

Growing up in Australia I had ample beach experiences and there is one golden rule that is always used when you find yourself getting in to trouble in the water: don’t fight against the current.

Why? Because even the best swimmers can be overwhelmed by a strong current and when caught in a dangerous situation it is stupid to waste your precious energy on a futile task that gets you nowhere.

Life is no different. When surrounded by murky and dangerous waters there is little point to spending all your time and effort pushing against them. Instead, realign yourself to use their force and direction to end up somewhere better.

Being out in the deep is fun

Remember this next time you feel “out of your depth” – deep water is where all the fun happens. Surf boards, jet skis, boats, paddle boards, kite surfing, and scuba diving. None of that works in the shallows.

Being out in the deep is fun.

It is too easy to get caught up in the rat race, using bullshit phrases like “time poor” as excuses for inertia, and just plugging away in a boring and monotonous life in the hope that we can get to the fun stuff later.

Often “later” never comes. Often we put our hopes and dreams off further into the distance. We hope that a short-term sacrifice will lead to a better future but then when that future arrives we just sacrifice it again for another future hope.

It does not have to be this way. It is possible to enjoy yourself now and not just in some rose-coloured future dream. All it requires is to find something that excites us – find a passion project that makes us jump out of bed every morning raring to go, an idea that gets us so pumped up that we have ideas flowing out quicker than we can write them.

But passion is only part of it. You also need to be dedicated, to work hard, and drive towards a specific goal. Be focused like a laser. Harness the excitement of your project and guide it towards your desired end-state.

The result? Happiness, fulfillment, and general sense of feeling freaking AWESOME!

At least that is what has been going on for me over the past few months. Here is my personal example, a case study if you like, on exactly how a bit of focused hard work combined with passion can yield success. Here is the story of Arb King.

Arb King

Arb King is a new product/website I recently launched. Technically it was a soft launch but I’m still counting it because I’m super product of my effort and everything I have achieved, especially while balancing work and family commitments.

Arb King is a sports betting arbitrage alert system. It retrieves odds on sporting events and identifies opportunities to setup an arbitrage to take advantage of differing prices on offer by various bookmakers with no risk. I wont go into detail here as this post is not about shamelessly cross-promoting (and I doubt there is much crossover in the audience here) so if you want to know more then head over to the Arb King website.

Passion

The Arb King project is definitely classed a passion project. Right now it is a free service and I’m not really thinking too much about monetizing it. Instead I built the product because I thought it would be useful and because it combines so many things I enjoy.

The Arb King project utilised (and enhanced) the skills I love using (programming, web design, database design) and was focused in subject areas I have a deep passion for (sports, betting, data, and maths). A true passion project!

But it takes more than just passion to succeed. I first had the idea for Arb King in 2012 and I even built an early prototype but the idea never came to fruition. There was always some excuse. Another project to finish first, waiting for XYZ to happen first, or blah blah blah. I had the passion and interest but I did not have the direction. I needed a proper goal!

Setting goals wisely

When I first built the Arb King prototype I was focusing on the efficiency of the service, mainly for myself. I figured if I could have my own personal alert system running 24/7 then it would be a handy way to make some extra cash. And it was but when my computer died I stopped working on the project.

But in a recent depression-driven soul-searching session I was pushing myself to get reenergised by looking at my passions and the Arb King project resurfaced. Here was almost the perfect thing for me to focus my attention on and I tried to remember why I had stopped in the first place? I figured out that I needed a better goal. Hell, I needed any goal

So I said to myself that I would make the Arb King arbitrage system available to the public, not just for my private use. I said that it would be a website with free signup and it would be available by the end of January 2014. I said “Holy shit, I need to get cracking…”

From that moment on I was driven to succeed. It was like a fog had been lifted from my vision. I had a clear and precise end-point in mind and I could see the little steps that were needed along the way. I could classify tasks as “mandatory minimum” functions or simply “nice to have” features and it was going to be very easy to determine if I had been successful or not – the website and corresponding arbitrage email alert system had to be ready by end of January 2014.

Not only did I meet the deadline, I crushed the deadline. The website was up for testing before Christmas 2013, I held a private alpha testing in the first week of January, and then I opened up the beta site to the wider community before mid-January.

Why did I do it with ease this time when I had previous started and never finished this project? What was the difference? The answer was pretty obvious – the clear well-defined goal was the difference. That goal gave me the direction and motivation to succeed, it gave me the push to get through the tough periods, and it gave me a quantifiable measurement of my success.

Your turn – follow your passion

Enough raving about myself. It’s time to turn the spotlight onto you. Are you really happy with your life? Are you following your passions? Do you even know what your passions are?

If you answered no to any of those questions then you need to take action. Here is what I recommend:

Discover your passion

Not sure what your passions are? Sit down and think back through past events (both recent and distant) in which you were happy. What were you doing in those moments? Or what about those topics that got you so worked up you could have deep conversations (or arguments) for hours? Or those moments in which you had a big smile just because you were doing something so simple that made you happy. Those are things you are passionate about. Use them.

Create your own project

Now create a project that aligns to your passions. Combine as many as you can even if you think no-one else will be interested in your whale-knitting stamp collection. Your passion project is not for them, it’s for you.

Don’t try to make your passion project economically viable before you start. Don’t try to second guess what the market will want. Just do something that makes you happy and you can sort all that other stuff out later.

Set a clear goal

Set a clear goal. Pick an end-state that is attainable, measurable, and realistic. You might not be able to become the first person to nude snowboard down Mount Everest but you could definitely push yourself to learn snowboarding quickly enough that you can handle the black/diamond runs at your nearest mountain range, nude or otherwise.

Persevere

Don’t give up. Push through the resistance. There will be tough times when it feels like you have hit a plateau but just keep going. The next incline of productivity is ahead but you only get there by persevering. Giving up guarantees you will never get there. In case you don’t get it when I say “get there” I mean “be happy and fulfilled and truly enjoying your life”

Celebrate and share your success

And when you get there? Celebrate and share your success. Tell your friends and family. Hell, even tell that boring guy who cornered you at that party and told you about his dental work in too-much detail. Tell everyone who will be positive and share in your success. Be proud of what you have done. Make a big deal of it and enjoy it because that will give you the motivation to do it all over again – the next version or the next project. Because there should always be a passion project in your life.

So how is your passion project going?

Don’t worry I know the feeling all too well. Over the past few months I have been busier than a drug-sniffing dog at a music festival and my writing here as taken a backseat because of it.

But for months I kept trying to keep up. I kept trying to write more and whenever I didn’t get to I felt bad about it. I started guilting myself about writing, even though I knew that I had more important things to focus on. It was then that I realised I needed to officially take a break.

Taking Breaks

Taking breaks is sometimes a necessary evil. You can be slugging away and making steady progress but sometimes you just need to step back and get some perspective. Or maybe you’ve got too many competing priorities and the only way you are going to get through them is to focus on them one at a time. And sometimes you just need to relax and the only way you can do that is by taking a break.

This is exactly what has happened to me for my blogging for the greater part of this year. I’ve had a lot of good ideas for what I can write about here but ultimately I had other priorities that took precedence. But the guilt that I imposed on myself for not achieving some imaginary quota of writing was not useful or healthy. I knew that I had other things to be focused on but I kept beating myself up about not writing. Why? Because I could not switch off. I could not let it go until I told myself that I was purposefully taking a break.

By making it official I made it OK that I was not writing. I released myself from the pressure (real or imagined) that I was putting on myself. I gave myself permission to leave my writing to the side and just make sure I got though the others things on my plate. It was liberating.

And it also freed me up to focus on my other priorities. I found that I gained a whole lot of time and energy that I had been otherwise wasting on my unnecessary stress over not writing. That’s right, just by simply acknowledging that I was taking a break from a task that I was otherwise too busy to do anyway I managed to improve my productivity. Crazy hey?

But that is the hidden beauty of taking breaks. Sure a break will make you feel refreshed and can give you some new found enthusiasm but everyone knows about those benefits. What people don’t know, or have forgotten, is the profound impact a well-timed break can have on your other priorities.

A purposeful break will boost your energy, increase your free time, improve your productivity, and ultimately enhance your performance on your other tasks and priorities.

Changing priorities – How to stay focused

Sometimes priorities change. You cannot define your priorities once and then think they will be correct forever. Life gets in the way so you need to be constantly reassessing and changing your priorities. Otherwise you spend a lot of time trying to do too much at once and not actually getting anywhere.

And, if you are like me, you guilt yourself about it.

The better way is to accept that priorities are fluid. They are not rigid. They ebb and flow just like life. If you accept this fact then you can save yourself a lot of heartache and self-flagellation.

Here is a simple 4 step process I use for staying on top of things:

1. Write down what you want do in life – pick whatever time-frame you want. You can do it for tomorrow, next month, next year, or the next decade. Just keep in mind the longer you look ahead the more likely things will change before you get there.
2. Prioritise it – put a rough priority on your todo list items. If you have a big list then don’t prioritise everything, just pick a handful of things that you will focus on immediately and prioritise those.
3. Record success – when you complete a task then do something symbolic to celebrate your success. This can be as little as just ticking the item off your todo list or as big as having a party to celebrate. The main point here is to reward yourself and encourage further productivity and successes.
4. Regularly reassess – set a regular review period and sit down to look at your priorities. It can be as little as 5 minutes every week. The key is to review your entire list and reassess the priorities you assigned. Maybe things have changed since you wrote them.

That is how I try to live my life and I think it is a simple process that would make sense to most people. But from observation of others and my own experiences I believe the biggest failing point is the last one – failing to regularly reassess. It is easy to set goals, draw up big todo lists, and define priorities but without regular reassessment our priorities become outdated and confused. That’s exactly what happened to me earlier this year and it was not a good place to be.

But it is a simple fix. I took some time to reassess my priorities and I solved my problem. It’s simple but often the simple things work best.

Sharing my todo list

In the name of sharing I decided to create a page here to track my todo list (or my Epic todo list as I am now calling it after some inspiration – keep reading).

I have kept this list, or similar ones, for years and I feel that I have achieved some of my goals because of it. Just knowing what I want has helped guide my decisions in life.

I had considered making my list public knowledge for a while but just hadn’t gotten around to it (I had other priorities you know!) but after I stumbled upon Steve Kamb’s Epic Quest of Awesomeness (which has some disturbing similarities to my goals) I knew that I should put my list out there too.

So check out my epic todo list, leave a comment, and have a think about creating your own list of priorities. After all, it’s your life so you should know what you are trying to do with it.

Good luck and stay positive!

Image: Me

My realisation has been that I simply am not one of life’s “workers”.

That does not mean that I should bum around and never work another day in my life, but more that I am not the kind of person that can just turn up and do a job by following a set of rules blindly and…you know what, just read on and you will understand what I mean.

My Story (Chasing the “perfect job”)

I’ve tried – oh how I’ve tried – to fit in to the general expectation of society for the concept of working. I’ve tried to enjoy my job, I’ve tried to believe that we’re all supposed to turn up and do the same repetitive tasks every day, and I’ve tried to accept that this is simply just how life works. I’ve tried and I’ve failed.

And for a long time that “failure” did not sit well with me. Initially I thought it must have been the type of work that I was doing. I did not enjoy the work in either a micro or a global sense – I did not enjoy the small tasks that I did every day and I had no interest in the overall outcome or success of the project, or indeed the entire organisation that employed me.

So I changed my work type. I switched roles and experienced projects from an entirely different perspective. It was exciting and fun but not for long. Pretty soon the new role lost its shine and I was back living in the void of boring work and no job satisfaction. The type of work had not been the problem after all.

“The culture!” I exclaimed as an epiphany during one of my late night philosophical debates with myself. “The culture is the problem with my work. I do not fit in there. I need to find a new place to work that has a different culture”. And so the search began again.

Shortly, I found a new job that not only had a very different culture but one where the work type was also completely different to my previous experience. Oh, and it paid more too. How could it go wrong?

But after the initial new-job-gloss wore off I realised that I was not any happier there. It turns out that the different culture I had found was not one that suited me. The new job was filled with a series of fake and impersonal interactions. No-one had conversations with other people – they networked. No-one helped someone else – they demonstrated their skills. In short, no-one cared about anyone else but themselves.

This was not the work culture I wanted.

I had been so caught up searching for any other culture that I had forgotten to look for the culture that suited me best. Instead I took the first job that was different and I paid the price. My unhappiness was back and twice as bad now.

Some more soul searching later and I concluded, having tried changing roles, work type and culture, that I would never find the perfect place to work and instead I should act like a mercenary. I decided that if I was going to be unhappy at work at least I should be paid better for it.

Once again I found a new job (this one was a change of work, change of culture, and a significant pay rise – the jackpot!) and I began with vigour, passion, and excitement. But, once again that soon turned to despair, dismay and near-depression. It turned out that the increase in pay was still not enough to compensate me for being unhappy at work.

I began to wonder if I was the problem. I had tried all these changes in my working life and none of them made me happy so it only made sense to wonder if the real problem was me. Maybe it was me who had to change.

One evening during this pontification my wife cheekily remarked to me: “you are just not one of life’s workers” and it became a running joke with us. I was never going to fit in or be happy at work and I just had to accept that. We laughed about it and I tried to move on. But I couldn’t.

Fast forward to now and I realise just how much truth was in that innocuous off-hand joke from my wife. She was 100% right. I’m not one of life’s workers.

Managers and Workers (the current system)

I believe the current structure of our working environment is predominantly split into two types of people – the managers and the workers.

The managers run the show. They own the business or at least have been given some higher level of power and control of part of the business and they wield their power as broadly as they can. They set the rules, they control the work, they dictate how things are run, and while all that is happening below them they go out and look busy.

The workers are the ones that actually do the little parcels of work that make up the whole project. The workers collate the data, write the documents, have the meetings, and do the small individual tasks that, when added together, create the whole picture.

The problem with this is that the managers tell the workers what to do and you only get to be a manager when you have “served your time” as a worker. But of course managers want to protect their jobs and as such they make it hard for a worker to progress. Opportunities are scare and often those people that befriend the current managers are promoted ahead of those that actually have the skills and knowledge that would actually make them a good leader (note: I didn’t say manager).

Sadly this just makes things worse. The wrong people get into positions of power and through a mixture of many quasi-psychological issues (fear of failure, feeling like a fraud, lack of confidence, inability to be wrong, not understanding they don’t know everything etc) these people then do whatever it takes to protect themselves. They micromanage, they blame others for problems, claim credit for the success of others, and they discourage any creative problem solving. The result is that they foster a “yes-man” work culture that workers hate rather than a supportive, creative, and innovative environment that workers love.

Does that sound familiar to you? I bet it does, because I have seen this pattern produced time and time again, in dozens of organisations. This is how the current system works. Managers set the rules and look busy and important while workers just have to shut up and do their job in the hope of being promoted some day in the future.

But I believe it can be different. I believe there is a third role that is evolving from the inefficiency of this two-role system –that third role is known as the leader.

The Leader (the new option)

A leader is an innovative thinker. A leader is not afraid to be wrong or to take a chance. A leader does not think they know everything. A leader is constantly seeking improvement and learning new things. A leader makes strong decisions and takes the initiative.

But a leader is also part dreamer and part doer. A leader is creative. A leader can have intense passion mixed with solid logic. A leader questions everything and always wants to know why/how things occur. A leader wants to solve problems. A leader wants to help others to succeed.

In short, a leader is neither a manager nor a worker. They straddle a magical area somewhere in between the two.

In managerial jobs where they have a team of people reporting to them a leader gives the team freedom to run their own projects and control their own destiny. The leader will encourage the team to grow, to explore their skills, to implement unique solutions to problems, and ultimately to discover their own innate leadership abilities. This is the difference between being a manager and being a leader.

But a leader, in the sense that I am using the word, does not always occupy a managerial position. Real leaders can be, and often are, found lurking in worker roles. They get stuck doing the repetitive and mundane tasks that are dictated to them by managers (not other leaders) because they achieve results. In these roles, a leader will do some amazing things –create innovative solutions, make critical business decisions, and identify and solve problems that others cannot even see – but only for a short period.

A leader who is stuck working for a set of managers (once again, not leaders) will quickly lose interest in their job. They will get beaten down into the mediocrity of achieving the average expectation of the worker. They will stop going “above and beyond” in their job and start delivering the bare minimum to get by. They will become under-achievers and they will hate doing so.

This is why leaders, at any level of an organisation, need to be nurtured. They need to be given freedom to run things their way, make their own decisions, and solve problems in their own way. Leaders are the innovators of our time but we need to ensure they actually have room to innovate or they will be wasted.

And guess who has the ability to be a leader? You, me, and even that weirdo sitting opposite you on the train. Ok maybe not him, but never say never right?

But seriously, everyone has the potential to become a leader. The skills exhibited by true leaders are not a luck-of-the-draw result of the genetic lottery – they are learned skills. Real leaders come from practice and experience. All of us have the basic skills that serve as the building blocks for leadership. All of us could train ourselves to become great leaders but we’ve just forgotten how.

We’ve fallen into the trap of just accepting the manager/worker view of the world. We have learned to hide our true intelligence and just accept what is given to us. We have learned to do what we are told rather than think creatively. We have learned to be workers or managers or some poor combination of both. Put simply, we have learned how to not be a real leader.

But we can change that.

My Challenge – Being a Leader at all times

This is where I am up to in my present-day thinking. I have realised that the reason I have never been happy for long in a job is because I was trying to fit myself into the worker-manager view of the world. Talk about trying to jam a square peg in a round hole.

In every job so far I have seen issues that others ignored, I have developed creative solutions to recurring “unsolvable” problems, I desired to make a positive difference, I have wanted to help others achieve more, and I have been prevented doing so at every opportunity.

It is not the fault of any particular person, but just the outcome of having to work within the rules that accompany the worker-manager system. A lot of people can just accept this and if you are one of those people than good luck to you. But for me this kind of environment just hinders my natural abilities, squashes my creativity, and I start underperforming.

But that is because I choose to. I start looking for something different in the hope that I will find a place where I fit in and that it will be different. In the mean time I have given up at the current job and I start delivering average work that scrapes me through another day.

That is not the attitude of a leader. And I want to be a leader.

So my personal challenge is to take pleasure from delivering awesome output even for the most trivial and mundane tasks. My challenge is to always deliver creative solutions even in the face of strictly-by-the-book procedures. My challenge is to always be contributing as, and demonstrating the skills of, a strong and passionate leader.

Manger, worker or leader – which role are you?

So the question begs to be asked to you, my lovely readers – which role are you? Are you a manager, a worker or a leader?

Maybe you are happy as manager or a worker. Maybe you are one those people who love the worker-manager dynamic and it suits your perfectly. Maybe, but not likely. Even if you are a highly-paid executive manager in some global business, if you are not getting an opportunity to actually be a leader then the chances are that you are not really happy at work.

And if you are reliable worker, churning out work and keeping the business running but never getting an opportunity to apply your creative problem solving skills then it is just as likely that you are not happy either.

Which leads me to the really important question – which role do you want to be?

That is a question that only you can answer and it is not as easy as it sounds. The path of worker-to-manager is safe and reliable and understood. You work hard, follow the rules and you get paid for your time. If you work hard enough (or long enough) you may even get promoted to manager.

Breaking out of that cycle is hard. You have to go against the majority of society and how we have been taught to see the working world.  That is the problem with being a real leader – it is difficult, confronting, and it goes against everything that feels safe.  But the rewards are worth it.

Like anything in life the decision is ultimately up to you. Now go be the best damn leader that you can be!

Image: SweetCrisis at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A common problem I see is that people set the wrong kind of goals or use the wrong kind of motivation for chasing their goals. For example some people will say “I don’t want to be poor” instead of saying “I want to be rich”. It is a subtle but profound difference. The latter is a positive focus on something they want to achieve and the former is a negative focus on something they want to avoid.

The Driving Difference

Being driven by your desires, your goals and your dreams is being proactive. This attitude is ultimately positive as you are focussed on the end-goal you are chasing and what you need to get there. And because the brain always finds information that supports it’s current focus it will begin finding opportunities that can progress you towards your goal. Very handy.

But being driven by what you don’t want is just being driven by fear. This is the negative and reactive approach to life. Instead of living with an abundance-attitude you live with a negative fear-based attitude.

This attitude means you are always running away. When you encounter a situation you don’t like you just react by running away from it. There is no planning, there is no alignment of your actions to your goals, and there is no positive outcome. It is a purely reactive state. When you don’t like something you blindly jump in any direction that will take you away from it.

In these situations, when you are driven by what you do not want, you essentially live your life in a random method. You do not control, or even look toward, the location in which you are trying to travel. Instead, you spend all your time looking backward at what you are trying to get away from. And by their very nature, the random “jumps” that you make to run away from your fears will not take you towards your goal. They just focus on taking you to anywhere else and not actually toward anything specific. And sometimes this means that you end up in a worse position than what you started in.

But when you are proactive, when you drive your decisions by looking toward your goal(s) then life becomes a whole lot easier. It becomes filled with opportunities and fun. It becomes joyous – an adventure towards your destiny and a chance to fulfil your dreams. But to master this proactive and positive attitude you need to develop awareness and discipline.

Goal-Awareness and Discipline

Awareness is required because you need to know and understand all your goals before you make a decision. Often in life opportunities appear suddenly, without notice and they require quick decisions to capitalise on them. If you are not ready and pre-armed with the awareness of what your goals actually are then you will miss out on these opportunities. You will not have enough information to make the right decision in the heat of the moment.

But if you actually know what you want BEFORE these opportunities are presented then you become more able to make flexible and adaptable decisions on the fly. You become ready to take advantage of whatever situation may arise and thus ensure that you are always moving towards your end goal.

When presented with a bad situation, the self-awareness of knowing your goals allows you to assess all your options and make a conscious and proactive decision on which step to take. Your decision will be based not only on which step will take you away from the current bad situation but, more importantly, which step will take you in a direction that is towards your goals. This is the difference between being reactive and being proactive.

It is important to note that not every step along the way toward your goals will be linear. Not every step will occur in a straight line. Sometimes a step may be required that feels like it actually moves you away from your goal in the short-term but it will provide better opportunity to achieve your goal later. Being able to identify these moments is a skill which only comes through knowing your own goals and drivers.

If you are not aware of your goals, or do not keep them in the forefront of your mind, then you slip into reactive mode. You will never have the foresight of being able to make a short-term sacrifice for a long-term gain. You will never see the possible benefits of a short-term backwards (or sideways) step even if it really is the best long-term option for you. The result? When you reach the decision point for that short-term sacrifice you will only see it as a negative and instead of being proactive you will slip right back into the reactive mindset. You will panic and just “jump” away again in any random direction, losing all possible long-term benefits from your original action. This is why you always need to be aware of, and driven by, your goals.

The final thing to remember about being goal-driven is that your goals are allowed to change as you progress along your path. In fact you should expect that your goals will change several times before you reach them. Not many people actually know exactly what they want at the start of their journey.

Most people will not get their goals completely right the first time. You will make the best guess at the time, based on your current experience and knowledge, but as you start making progress you will learn more about yourself and your goals. This will cause your goals to shift, sometimes drastically, and I’m telling you that this is OK. In fact it is better than OK – it is perfect. Your goals are supposed to shift.

It is only through living a dedicated, purposeful and goal-driven life that you will begin to discover what it is you truly want. Initially you can start with a goal or a dream – something you think you want – but as you start working towards it you will realise that achieving it will not actually make you happy and that something else will. But, without the drive that came through chasing that initial goal you would never have discovered what you actually want.

The initial goal starts you on the path but rarely will it be the actual endpoint so do not get hung up on it. If you feel an urge to change direction then do not ignore that. Do not be afraid to regularly change your goals but just make sure you always have at least one goal that you are working towards to keep you motivated.

Now it is over to you. Are you goal driven or avoidance driven? Are you running towards your goals or just running away from your fears?

Image: M-Pics at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Do what you do do well boy
Do what you do do well
Give your love and all of your heart
And do what you do do well

Grandad’s Philosophy

Grandad was a kind, funny, and witty man. He loved a good joke and always had a few hundred up his sleeve to tell whenever the right moment presented. But he was not only a joker. He was also a leader and a teacher, showing his kids (and later on his grandkids) how to do many things from cards to problem solving to playing tennis. He was a “doer” and whatever he did he always did it to the best possible way that he could.

And he taught us to live with the same attitude. No matter what we were doing he always expected us to give 100%. He ensured that we took pride in our efforts, and not just in the results. He showed us the value in trying hard and focusing on our own development, and not to get caught up comparing ourselves to others. He instilled us with the attitude of doing everything as best as we could.
Which is why the song, and particularly the chorus, was the perfect summation of my grandad’s philosophy which has now also become my own philosophy for life: Do what you do, do well.

Applications

This attitude applies to EVERYTHING in life. No matter what it is that you are doing you should be always striving to do it the absolute best of your ability. If you find yourself doing something in a less than fully dedicated manner then ask yourself why? Why are you holding back? Why are you not maximising your effort? Are you afraid? Or are you just not interested?

If you are afraid of committing 100% and pouring all your energy into something then maybe that something is not right for you. Or maybe you need to change your mindset and stop being afraid of failure and afraid to put yourself out there. If these don’t apply to you and you are just simply uninterested and unmotivated in the current moment then why are you even there in the first place? Why bother putting a half-arsed effort into something that you don’t even want to be doing?

No matter what it is that you are doing make sure you always do it to the best of your ability.

This is the principle to live by and it applies to all facets of life. If you are not fully dedicated to your partner or your relationship then there will always be a level of tension in your relationship, if you are unmotivated at work and keep turning in a half-baked deliverable then you will create a habit of poor performance and negativity that will permeate into other areas of your life, and if you keep finding excuses to avoid change then you will be stuck in your current life and will never achieve your dreams.

But if you turn your attitude into one of always putting in your best possible effort then some pretty amazing things will happen. You will pay more attention to every moment of your life because you won’t want to waste any opportunity, you will make conscious and empowering decisions to control your destiny, and you will have a lot more fun and laughter. That’s how my grandad lived and he was definitely onto something.

Helpful Tips

Here are some quick tips you can take away and start applying to all aspects of your life – relationships, work, friends, family, sports, and hobbies:

1. Take notice of your effort level. When you are doing something just stop and take note of how much effort you are putting into the task and whether it has your full attention or if you are distracted or unmotivated. Are you really committed to it or just bumbling along?
2. Make conscious decisions. If you realise you’re not fully dedicated to something then it is time for you to make a decision – you must either commit 100% or stop doing it. Don’t sit on the fence and don’t string other people along.
3. Don’t leave anything in the tank. Once you have decided to do something you need to throw every resource at it. Even if it is just having a laugh with friends you need to put everything into it – have the biggest possible laugh you can! Do not do anything half-arsed.
4. The final result is not everything. Take enjoyment from using your skills to learn and develop, and remember that performing to the best that you could and making the most of every opportunity is what really matters. Remember that Paul H Dunn quote: “Happiness is a journey, not a destination”

No matter what it is that you are doing make sure you always do it to the best of your ability.

Over to you now. What things in your life are you not fully committed to? Where do you waste your energy by just “going through the motions”? Where could you benefit from being 100% dedicated and focused? How would your life change if you did everything at your maximum potential?

While on the training course I did learn a handful of new tips, techniques and structures from the course but these were more like adding polish to my existing skills rather than creating a big shift in thinking. The biggest benefit that I actually got from the course was the subtle reinforcement that I was “travelling the right path” with my current attitude toward life and other people.

The course gave me a timely reminder to be confident and back myself and my thoughts even in the face of resistance. It reinforced the strength and power that underlies my way of thinking (which is often counter-point to the normal), and it demonstrated the simple (yet difficult to master) skills that I believe are required to build positive and successful relationships.

And that is exactly what inspired me to write this: 3 tips on building positive relationships.

Let’s begin…

Think Judo rather than Sumo

This was one of the key phrases from the training that resonated deeply with me and my attitude towards dealing with other people – think Judo rather than Sumo.

Consider a Sumo wrestling match. Two big and powerful guys launch themselves at one another and a tremendous crash is heard as their massive opposing forces collide in the middle. The sheer force generated in this initial clash is amazing.

But a lot of that force is wasted. Both wrestlers exert most of their energy in direct opposition to that of the other person and the result is that they create a near-stalemate situation in the middle where each wrestler is pushing their entire force against the other. In the end, the man that is stronger or more powerful slowly establishes control and eventually wins the match by pushing the other out of the ring. If the wrestlers are anywhere near equally skilled or powerful then the match is not won or lost in that initial clash of bodies but in the tussle that follows.

This has a lot of parallels to how some people interact with others, especially in a business environment. These people believe the best way forward is for them to throw all their force and power at a problem in the hope of steam rolling the opposition. But, as in most sumo wrestling matches, this initial energy is just met with an equal opposing force and no progress is made. A lot of pushing, grunting, and sweating occurs but not much progress.

Which is why it is better to think Judo rather than Sumo.

Judo, meaning “gentle way”, is a martial arts technique that focuses on reacting to, and using, the force of your opponent to control and win the fight. Instead of utilising direct and forceful attacks, Judo minimises the effort expended by harnessing the energy of the opponent to immobilize and subdue them.

Extending this metaphor into establishing relationships should be obvious. Judo, in interpersonal interaction means avoiding direct attack-on-attack situations. Instead you focus on being flexible and adaptable, deflecting direct aggression and turning it into a positive situation for yourself. Let the aggressor come at you, be strong and prepared, and ready to use their own force to change direction and take the interaction where you want it to go.

This judo-esque approach is not just for business relationships either. It has applications to all forms of relationships within life. If you and a friend get into a heated discussion don’t counter with direct sumo aggression. If your wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend/lover gives you some criticism then don’t get angry and respond with a personal attack. In these examples the controlled Judo approach works just as well as long as you apply a slight twist – aim for a win-win outcome. In personal relationships it is not about an individual winning the fight but about creating a positive win-win situation that encourages the relationship to grow.

Win-Win (aka “Don’t try to screw other people over”)

This philosophy is one the fundamental “rules” I live my life by – always offer win-win situations. I always try to create scenarios in which all parties get a win and I never try to screw anyone else over for my own advantage. This is a key aspect required in order to achieve successful and long-lasting relationships with other people. If you start building these relationships on a foundation of positive intentions (i.e. creating win-win outcomes) then people will respect you more, trust you more, and like you more. It’s simple nature. No-one likes being screwed over.

But the funny thing about the negotiation training course was the number of people that operated from a completely selfish viewpoint. Some of these people did negotiation as part of their daily job but not many of them could grasp the concept of constructing win-win outcomes. In fact, most of the time these “experts” spent too much time arguing and trying to screw the other person down as hard as they could rather than trying to find a middle-ground solution that was positive for everyone. More than not, these people failed to come to an agreement and failed to achieve their desired outcomes simply because they were only thinking about what was best for themselves.

In fact over the three days we had nine simulated negotiation sessions and only managed to reach an agreeable outcome three times, and this was with a bunch of people who do some form of negotiation as part of their jobs. These are poor results simply because they could only focus on what they wanted and not on what others want. To create successful working relationships it is imperative to consider what everyone wants and needs, and not just our own motives.

And this attitude applies to all facets of life, not just business. All positive long-term relationships need to be built on a win-win foundation. If one person begins purposefully trying to get the upper hand at the disadvantage of the other then the relationship is ultimately doomed. This is particularly true for personal relationships.

Each personal relationship has a unique power balance that underlies all the decision making within that relationship. Sometimes one person is the clear leader of the relationship, making most of the decisions, and sometimes both people contribute equally, acting more like a committee for important decisions. Either way (or anywhere in between) can work but only if the people making the decisions are opting for win-win outcomes.

Even the most lopsided relationships (in terms of power) can be positive relationships if both people operate with a win-win attitude. Think about it. If one person is making 90% of the decisions there is a definite possibility for selfish win-lose decisions to be made (think corrupt politicians and businesses). But if that person never tries to screw the other person over, if they are always trying to find the outcome that is best for everyone, then the relationship will be successful.

Win-win is how great relationships are built.

Be honest, without being desperate

I believe in being honest at all times but the negotiation trainers added an interesting twist to it – be honest without being desperate.

I like this take on it. Previously I had recommended a technique called Brutal Honesty, for learning how to be more open and honest in life. I still believe this is a great method for building confidence and becoming comfortable telling the truth but the caveat of being honest without being desperate makes a lot of sense for everyday usage.

The main reason for this thinking is that sometimes other people are not interested in playing fair and building win-win outcomes. Even though I hate admitting it, some people are just selfish. These people are always looking to find an advantage for themselves even if it comes at the direct expense of others. For dealing with people like this, it is not always best to lay all your cards on the table, especially if any of your cards will make you seem desperate. Don’t give these people an excuse to try to screw you over.

Normally I would just recommend not dealing with people like this at all. I am a strong believer in the benefits to be gained just by removing all negativity, including constantly negative people, from our life. These kind of people create a build-up of negative energy that attracts other negativity towards it so the less time spent with them the better.

But sometimes this is not always possible. Sometimes we are forced into situations where we cannot just cut and run from these negative people and instead we have to try to work with them. It can be extremely difficult to do so and even harder to maintain a positive attitude in these situations but you must resist the urge to “fight fire with fire”. Don’t get caught up playing their negative games as that will just make you angry and ultimately disappointed. Always maintain your integrity and your honesty, without being desperate.

Honest win-win Judo. That’s all you need to remember. In fact if that’s all you remember from this article then I’ll still be happy for that is the blueprint to beating negativity, building strong positive relationships, and turning into a relationship zen master guru. Which, by the way, I’m told is an extremely exclusive club that requires that you wear long flowing robes or have a long flowing beard. Or both if you can manage it.

Good luck!

People who want you to change, or want to belittle your thoughts and dreams, or just want you to stop being yourself are not healthy people to spend your time with. These attitudes are negative and poisonous and they will constantly degrade your life if you allow them to exist around you. Do not do this. Do not let these people and these attitudes in to your life. If people cannot respect you for being true to yourself then they need to be shown the door.

This is not heartless or callous. This is simple fact. Our lives are ultimately an individual experience. We share many of our experiences with others, form relationships and so on but ultimately we are all individuals who see and experience the world in our individual way. We are all individuals operating with our own set of ideas, thoughts and beliefs and as such we should never sacrifice that individualism to please others.

If you are willing to sacrifice your own identity for the sake of others then you are just letting their view of the world, and their ideas and thoughts, take precedence over yours. Why? Why should you take on their values or their set of rules for how to behave? Why does their view mean more than yours?

By changing yourself to suit others you are essentially saying that your own view of yourself is wrong and that others know and understand you better than you do. But it is you, and only you, that lives with yourself 24/7. No-one else sees or experiences the world in the exact same way as you and no-one else is inside your mind, observing and responding to your experiences within the world. That means that no-one else is in a position to ever fully understand you as much as you can understand yourself.

That is not to say that people will never understand you. The basis of forming healthy relationships is that you connect with similar people on various levels and this connection implies a deep understanding of each other. But, as close as you can become with others, and as much as they can learn to understand you, it will never be to the full amount to which you understand yourself. Only you see the world through your eyes, so only you know exactly what is happening within your world.

The point I am pushing here is not to say that you should be a loner with no friends and no relationships, and never letting anyone into your close inner circle. In fact I recommend quite the opposite. I believe that we absolutely need these types of relationships in our lives. We need to connect with others, we need to form close bonds, and we need to experience love. But we need to do this while being true to ourselves.

We must always choose being true to ourselves over being fake just to please others. Being true to ourselves is the only way that we can be truly happy in our lives and this is obvious for two reasons:

One, if we are not operating in a manner that is 100% congruent to our inner thoughts, feelings, beliefs, drivers, and desires then how could we ever expect to become fully happy? We would always know deep down that we have not been living completely true. We would always have things to regret, things to wish we had or had not done, and things to resent others for. That is not the recipe for happiness.

The second reason for living this way is that it means we start attracting only good, positive, high quality people to form relationships with. We attract people who accept us for who we are and people who are not worried about changing or judging us. These people are naturally happier, more positive, and also more understanding of how relationships work. These are great people to have in our life.

But if we spend our life being fake to please others, changing ourselves to project whatever image we think others want to see, then the quality of people we attract in to our life will not be high. And besides that, we will be attracting people based on whatever fake version of ourselves we have portrayed to them. That means we will have to maintain that façade forever in order to maintain that relationships. Or, as normally happens, we would eventually start showing them the real us, to which they will react negatively because it feels like we have changed from the person they first met and connected with. This is the main reason why relationships break down.

In the past, I have been the fake people-pleaser in my romantic (and platonic) relationships and guess how they all ended? Not well. Deep down I hated the fact that I was putting on an act rather than being myself and that caused me to slowly resent the other people in the relationship even though I was essentially blaming them for something that I had chosen to do. And when I started “opening up” and showing more of the real me the relationships degraded – we did not get along as well, we argued more and loved less, and I heard “you’ve changed” countless times.

It took me a long time to realize that I was causing the problems in my relationships by not being true to myself but when I finally did it was an amazing shift of perspectives. I started being completely upfront, honest and true to my inner drivers whenever I met someone new and the results were fantastic. I now have a great group of close friends and a wonderful wife that I love very much. This is not gloating, just me recognizing that this would not have been possible without me learning to live my life for myself.

Which is why you need to always be living true to yourself and never apologise for doing so. Not only does it create a much healthier and happier life for yourself, but it also attracts people who actually like you for being (the real) you.

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This article is an excerpt from a book I am currently writing. If you loved it, hated it, or want to provide any feedback please do so in the comments section or by email directly. Also, I will be contacting my subscriber list over the coming months for ideas, reviews, and chances to obtain pre-release versions of the book. If you are interested to participate then please use the newsletter sign-up form below to register.
Thanks – Zac Sky

But why stop there? Why stop at thinking big? Thinking is only one part of the success-process (that’s right I hyphenated those two words to make it sound like a 1990s infomercial product – deal with it). There is another, more important, part to fulfilling your dreams: actually doing something about it.

Which is why my motto is: Don’t just think big; do big.

Thinking versus Doing – aka “Paralysis by Analysis”

It’s all fine and dandy for people to tell you to think big but that just puts the entire focus on the thinking, or planning, stage. And I’ll be honest, this is NOT where the most progress is achieved.

Sure, thinking things through and undertaking some effective planning sessions are great tools but they don’t actually get too much done do they? If you’ve got a great idea then sitting down and planning it all the way through just doesn’t work. It blunts your creative flow, it halts your progress, and it drastically effects your enthusiasm. And if you put too much emphasis on the planning stage (i.e. thinking big) then sometimes you never actually make it to the doing phase. This is known as Paralysis by Analysis.

Many people have grand plans and big dreams, but not many achieve them. Why? Because they spend their life analysing the possibilities, they waste their time worrying about every little detail, and they never take a chance to actually do something about their dream.

They think and think and think and think and then think some more just for good measure. They think things through to the millionth possible degree trying to factor in every possible outcome (“so I could quit my job to start my own business but then what if the US President dies in a freak golfing accident which triggers another world war, causing oil prices spiral out of control, and resulting in a massive depression? I’d better not even bother…”) just to feel “safe”. But to be blunt, these people are not being safe. They are just making excuses.

Making excuses

Are you one of those people? Are you making excuses for your life and for why you’re not chasing your dream? If you say no then I say you’re lying because everyone makes excuses for themselves at some point. I still catch myself thinking in this excuse-oriented mindset because it is an easy habit to fall back into. But just because something is easy doesn’t make it right.

The key to snapping this bad habit is to learn to recognise what you are doing when you make excuses and ask yourself why. Why are you making excuses? Why are you holding yourself back? Why are you not even trying? What is it about the possible fulfilment of your dreams that you don’t want?

Most of the time the answers will be fear-based (e.g. fear of failure, fear of new things, fear or change) but guess what? That fear is completely normal. But so is pushing through it.

As I mentioned in a previous article, fear is useless and irrational. It does not actually provide us with much benefit. In an evolutionary sense it was used as a system to invoke sudden bursts of energy (i.e. strength for fight, or speed for flight) to save us from life threatening situations. Except now we don’t face many of those situations in our everyday lives and instead we just create a sense of fear when looking to the future.

When we feel this fear it invokes our natural fight-or-flight mechanism. We are urged to put up a fight or run away. The problem is that there is nothing to fight. The fear we feel is a fear that we created through imaginary negative outcomes set in the future, meaning that what we are fearing has not even happened yet. Because there is nothing to “fight”  the result is that we always activate the “flight” option when we are in this fearful mindset. We cannot fight what does not yet exist but we can certainly try to run away from the possibility. This is exactly what we are doing when we hold ourselves back from our dreams through fear.

I would also wager heavily that most fears people have about their dreams are not directly life threatening. I bet that not too many people have dreams that are so dangerous that anything but the successful completion of that dream will mean death. So the question needs to be asked: if you cannot actually die by chasing your dream then why are you fearing it?

Try before you die

Too many people die with regrets, wishing they had followed their inner passion and gone after their dreams. But it is not that they didn’t achieve their goals that really haunts them. It is that they never even tried.

Chasing your dream and missing out is much better than dying without trying.

When I talk about chasing dreams I am not just focused on the actual accomplishment and fulfilment of said dreams but also on the wonderful benefits received just by trying. Here is why chasing your dream is good for you:

Reason 1 for chasing your dream – you live life with purpose

When you coast through life, avoiding challenges and not chasing dreams, then you are not living life with purpose. You are just living from one day, one bill, and one job to the next. But when you chase your dreams then your life becomes filled with a purpose. A strong and meaningful reason for your existence. Suddenly every little action becomes a step towards something greater rather than just a means to an end. This attitude shift makes everyday living a whole lot more fun.

Reason 2 for chasing your dream – you meet wonderful people

When you set your mind and attitude on fulfilling your goals you start sending out different signals to the rest of the world. You start showing a positive, productive, and happy attitude and that starts attracting similar people. You will naturally find those people that are living their lives with purpose and passion. And these people will want to help you succeed. They will share their insights and their experiences and they will do whatever they can to help you on your road to success.

Reason 3 for chasing your dream – you might actually achieve it

Brace yourselves. I know this may sound crazy and far-fetched but when you take action and attempt to fulfil your dreams and goals then sometimes you actually succeed, and in some of those times you even achieve more than you ever could have dreamed of. Crazy huh?

But do you know that there is only one single action that guarantees you will never achieve your dreams? Doing nothing. When it comes to your dreams, doing anything is always better than doing nothing.

Don’t just think big; do big.

And we’re back full circle to where I started this article. I’m not just encouraging you to start living your life with passion, to follow your dreams and find something that excites you, but I’m telling you to do it in the biggest possible way that you can imagine.

If you dream of starting your own business but need money then get out there and find some venture capitalists to pitch to. Prepare a kick-ass presentation, impress them with your idea (and your passion) and then ask them for MORE money than you initially budgeted for. It’s your dream, don’t settle for less.

If you have a great idea for a novel series but are fearing your lack of credibility as a writer then sit yourself down and just write the bloody thing. Not just one book, but the whole series of books. By the time you have written your five-book masterpiece I guarantee that you’ll have more than enough credibility and that will result in more than enough success.

If it has been your life-long dream to travel around the world and see every country then do not settle for a quick three week trip squeezed in between work projects. Quit your job, book your tickets and just go. Indefinitely.

That’s how the real dream-achievers do it (another 1990s informercial style phrase). That’s how they succeed. When it comes to their dreams they don’t just think big – they do big too. And so should you.

But not a weak leader. A weak leader tries to paint themselves as an expert in everything without realising that they are just setting themselves up for significant and embarrassing failure. By not accepting that they do not know everything (or even just accepting that no-one else believes them when they pretend to know everything) they are forced into an uncomfortable position of always having to give an answer. Even if they have no idea what they are talking about.

The better solution is to accept that everyone has holes in their knowledge and just be honest about it. Saying “I don’t know” is a much stronger option but alas, not many people like to admit they don’t know something. The feel insecure about admitting to a lack of knowledge, even though doing so actually gives off a strong impression of confidence and self awareness.

But admitting to a lack of knowledge is only half the problem. Not only do people pretend to have knowledge in areas they know nothing about but they also tend to drastically overestimate the accuracy of their knowledge.

You could say that these people have no idea that they have no idea. Put in a nicer way – these people don’t know what they don’t know.

People don’t know what they don’t know

This has been proven in many psychological studies but a prime example is the work conducted by Alpert and Raiffa. They tested a set of Harvard MBA students by asking them to make range-based predictions of an unknown variable and to ensure they achieved 98% accuracy. The test was not to measure their actual knowledge but their individual evaluation of their own knowledge.

If we assume that everyone can accurately estimate their own knowledge then the expectation is that we would only find 2 errors per 100 people surveyed. The results, however, were vastly different.

These “experts” over-estimated their own knowledge by so much that the actual error rate was a mammoth 45%! That is to say that nearly half of the test population failed to accurately understand the difference between what they actually knew and what they thought they knew.

This problem isn’t limited to just highly-educated professionals. Similar studies have been repeated with all sorts of cross-sections of society (different race, religion, socioeconomic status etc) and the results are all undeniable. The average error rate is in the 15-30% range (not the expected 2%) and this occurs for all groups tested regardless of the makeup of the individuals within the group.

Applications for leaders (and wannabe leaders)

This has important consequences for those diligently (or desperately?) trying to look like an expert so they can climb the corporate ladder. Put simply: don’t bother.

Don’t pretend to be an expert if you aren’t one, don’t try to seem like you know everything, and don’t try to bluster your way through work (or life) with bullshit and lies. It just doesn’t make sense.

Instead, have enough courage to admit what you don’t know. Be honest and accept the holes in your knowledge. There are many benefits to doing so.

Firstly, by being honest to yourself about your level of knowledge you allow yourself to be continually learning and growing. If you admit that you do not know everything then you can actually ask questions of the real experts and start learning more. That’s right; you can actually get smarter when you don’t care about looking smart.

Another benefit to be gained from not being a know-it-all is that people won’t treat you like one. This is a good thing as it means people will actually listen to what you say. When you always have an answer (even if you’re just making one up on the spot) people will give your ideas and comments less credence. But when you are honourable enough to say “I don’t know” it changes the way you are seen. People give you more respect and are more willing to listen when you speak up later on.

Finally, the biggest and most important part of being a good leader is that your job is to manage and motivate other people to grow.  A good leader is someone who knows that their main responsibility is to get the best out of the real experts. A good leader is uninterested in showing off or appearing smarter than they actually are – they only care about delivering the best possible outcomes and they do this by leveraging the knowledge of the experts around them.

A good leader is not an expert in everything. A good leader is an expert at knowing what they don’t know and an expert at motivating others. Are you a good a leader?