Build capabilities, and opportunities will come

When you have no capabilities, you don’t even see opportunities when they orbit you.

If you do see them, you don’t get chosen because you are unprepared.

As you build your knowledge and skills, you see them, and when you are good enough, they land in your lap.

You can’t sit in front of the fireplace and say “Give me some heat and then I’ll put the wood in.”

Use Courage to get to Confidence

Confidence feels good.  Courage does not feel good.

When you have to muster up courage to do something it means you don’t feel confident doing that yet.

When we do something for the first time, or do something that doesn’t match with our own self-image skillset yet, especially in front of others, we feel uncomfortable and have to muster up the courage to do it.

But it is only by doing it that we can get better, and the courage is gradually replaced by confidence.

Be brave, and get better.

What will they say about you?

Imagine….you’re gone.  

It’s your funeral.

What will they say about you?

They will say what they thought of you when you were alive. 

What’s that?

Clarity

To bridge the gap between a goal/dream and your current reality, you must be clear on both.

How did you get here?  What did you think and do or not do to create your current reality?  (Most people will blame someone or something else.)

What do you want exactly?  (Most people cannot answer that question.)

Without clarity, you will be a wandering generality.

You did this

Look at your life. 

This is what your thinking, actions, and habits were perfectly set up to produce.

Cause and effect.

If you want something different or better, you have to change how you are thinking and what you are doing.

Adversity builds strength

The schools around here closed for a few half days because it was “too hot”.  Our kids are learning that when it gets tough, fold your cards and go home.

Of course, there will be challenges to come far, far more difficult than that.

“It is in the most difficult of times, metaphorically fighting the battles of life, that we often gain the most valuable wisdom of all.” -Marcus Aurelieus

What have you learned from the most difficult times of your life?  Tell us with the orange comment button.

You gotta do what you gotta do…

You gotta do what you gotta do, until you can do what you want to do.

You’ll never be able to do what you want to do, unless you do what you gotta do really well.

Be tough on you.

For many years, and even now, each day I made sure I did what I had to to get better, not mess up, and live up to my commitments, and more.  I learned how to do this better and better, especially by making mistakes.  I made it a habit.  Then the habit of being self-disciplined made it easier to be self-disciplined.

If you are tough on yourself, then life, work, and other people will be far easier on you.

If you want independence, you have to be self-disciplined.

Independence

“I’ll walk where my own nature would be leading: it vexes me to choose another guide.” – Emily Bronte

“The first of earthly blessings, independence.” – Edward Glenn

“If you are not your own agent, you are someone else’s.” – Alice E. Molley

“There is no support so strong as the strength that enables one to stand alone.” – Ellen Glasgow

Notes on High School

“I have a friend whose theory is that you’re from wherever you went to high school.  I think that is mostly true.” – Steven Soderbergh

“High school – those are your prime suffering years.  They don’t get better suffering than that.” – Steve Carrell

“In high school, my desire for friendship outweighed my talent for it.” – Beth Kephart

“Friends aren’t any more important than breath or blood to a high school senior. – Betty Ford

“We spend our whole lives recovering from high school.” – Paula Danziger