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Tag: work

Odds

fail try fail try try try SUCCESS fail fail fail try almost try try try made it try fail try SUCCESS try fail try SUCCESS try fail fail try almost made it try fail try SUCCESS try try try try SUCCESS fail SUCCESS fail try SUCCESS fail fail fail try try fail try fail try fail SUCCESS try try almost try SUCCESS made it fail fail fail try try fail almost try try fail try fail SUCCESS SUCCESS SUCCESS fail try try try try try try SUCCESS try fail try fail try made it try fail fail try try SUCCESS try almost try try try fail try SUCCESS

(Try often, fail often, and your odds of winning increase. You never know when you’re going to hit.)

 

 

It is better to earn a high salary or be happy?

This is one of the questions I ask students as part of a broader English speaking exercise. “Do you think it is better to earn a high salary or be happy in your job?”
A pause always follows and eyes dart around the room before landing on empty notebooks. I give students a few moments to process before we begin.
Many friends and colleagues in America are on the quest to find work that is both meaningful and fulfilling, regardless of pay. My own answer is obvious by the lifestyle I’ve chosen. However, for eight out of ten of my students here in Nepal, the answer is a different one. “It is better to earn a high salary.”
Various reasons follow; respect in community, less worry, the ability to travel, family responsibilities. As one student answered, “I come from poor family, and I need to take care of them.”
Which has me thinking, is job satisfaction a luxury problem?
How fortunate are we who get to choose our work! And to those who have learned how to build their own course, through freelancing and entrepreneurship, how grateful we must be for the opportunity to play by our own rules!
It is our responsibility to make sure everyone can answer this question individually, not from a place of need and necessity, but from a place of passion and thoughtful consideration. Our schools need to be filled with teachers who show students how to find the loopholes.
If you’re interested in supporting this kind of leadership and education in Nepal, kindly do so here.

Ten times better

A “little better” doesn’t cut it. You have to be much better. Much, much better. Ten times better.
This is how you separate yourself from the competition.
This is how you improve.
This is how you win.
Everything is crowded. The marketplace, the speaker lineup, the dating scene, the applicant pool.
In an age where your value corresponds to your ability to separate yourself from the rest, your focus must narrow on becoming your best version.
A notch doesn’t tip the scale. Throw your weight around and put full effort into your vision.
Your best self and your most original idea depend on it.
(H/T David S. Kidder. I presented Startup Playbook to college students in Nepal last week, and they loved it.)

I will tell you how to get what you want

If I told you there there was one thing you could do every day to get you exactly what you want, would you do it? (The body, the girl, the salary, the job, the car, the book deal, the promotion, the ring, whatever.)
I’ll tell you exactly what you need to hear; concrete steps that inch you towards your dream, but before I do, you must commit to doing one act daily. (This tells me if you really, REALLY actually want it. Or if you’re just pretending.) You must promise: one action, every day.
Would you do it?
Because somehow we’ve stepped onto the all-or-nothing bandwagon. Yes, we’ll get on board, but only if we can run a fast sprint to where we want to go. “Daily” means commitment and time, both of which sound daunting. “Can you guarantee the outcome?” you say. “OK, maybe I’ll try. But ONLY if I’m promised That Thing.” Because it’s too much work, too much effort. And the dream! It’s so far away, we can’t even see it from here. So why bother?
Now I want to ask: What if your dream isn’t really it?
What if, at the end of 90 days, you change. If, 124 days later, your perspective shifts and you realize you actually want something else. What if, at the end of 315 days, you find yourself happier? On the 402nd day, you discover a completely new you, a you with more happiness and grace and wealth and peace than you ever before imagined.
Our lives expand when we move past all or nothing. All or nothing typically results in self-sabotage; we give up, we give in, we feel guilt and disappointment and shame if we can’t go from 0 to 10. We want what we want, and we want it NOW. If we can’t get it now, very few people will invest the time and energy to get it later.
But what if small steps made us feel better? If a 10 minute daily walk brought us more peace and comfort in our bodies than bi-weekly torture sessions in the gym? If small pieces of chocolate were included into our days instead of weekly binge “cheat” days? If our dream of writing a book happened slowly, over time, instead of “When I quit my job…when I take a vacation…when I get a raise…when the kids leave the house?”
What if your dream could start today? Maybe not the grandiose final version, not the iPhone 7, but the first generation; something real and tangible and in our hands. Today.
Would you take some rather than none? Or do you want to hold onto an empty dream?

“Maybe this doesn’t work.”

This feeling! It’s scary as hell. It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve found yourself whispering it, “This might not work” often accompanies a flailing leap into uncertainty.
But here’s the deal: all good projects, the very best work stem from this idea. “It might not work” is the risk we have to buy into if we want more.
As Steven Pressfield writes, “If we call ourselves artists or entrepreneurs, that’s where you and I have to live too.”