Negativity Killed My Creativity!

There are some things in our lives that we will never forget.  One thing I will never forget was the point in my life when I first started reading personal growth books.  The first book I ever read was Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude.  I read that book three times in a row the first time I read it.  By the third time I felt like I had the book memorized.  It was a life changing experience.  It opened my eyes to a whole new world that I never knew.  It was the first step to a better attitude, mindset and life.  If you’ve never read it I highly recommend picking up a copy.  It’s a quick read but it’s one that could change the way you think forever.

The topic today is an excerpt taken from Gitomer’s Little Gold Book.  It’s about negativity.  And it goes as follows:

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“Ever have an argument with someone and five minutes later thought to yourself, Man, I wish I would’ve said (insert the perfect comeback here) to that jerk?

Sure you have!  Everyone has.  The reason you couldn’t think of this snappy response in the heat of the argument is that arguments are negative, and negative blocks creative thought.

Negative occurrences, thoughts, and energy are (unfortunately) much more powerful than positive thought.  It takes twice as much energy to be negative than to be positive.  That’s why, at the end of the argument, you may be tired.

Understand that negative energy and negative thoughts BLOCK positive thoughts and creative thoughts from occurring.”

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Think about all the times in your life when things don’t go the way you want.  Now think about your reaction.  Is it negative?  Is it positive?  If it’s negative you are dooming yourself from the start.  You’re killing your ability to be creative… to come up with creative solutions… and to see the path to a positive result.  You are robbing yourself of the ability to find solutions by weighing yourself down with negativity.  All that will do is make the situation worse.  If you, instead, accept these negative emotions, let them pass and then think with a positive mindset you will be paving the way to a successful outcome.

You could spend the rest of your life dwelling on how things are not perfect, but at the end of the day that will get you nowhere.  A situation looks totally different when you look at all the good things that could come of it as opposed to focusing on everything that is wrong.  Being positive, and thus allowing yourself to be more creative about how you deal with everything that happens in your life, could be the one thing that makes you successful.

And when I say successful I mean on every level of your life: personally, professionally, emotionally, spiritually, etc.  Your positive mindset could spark the creative thought that solves problems for which nobody thought there was a solution.  This could change yours and others lives forever.  It’s amazing that something so simple can have such profound results.  That is why it is time for you to say farewell to negativity and open your mind to the positive realm in which it will thrive.

Happy Wednesday!

(Chad)

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Color-Code Your Life To Success

From Wayne Cotton (via Alwyn Cosgrove and Todd Durkin):

Cotton developed a system where he devises that your time can be broken down into one of four categories:

1. Green Machine – The time you spend actually making money.
2. Red Tape – The time you spend organizing your life, doing paperwork, organizing files, etc. that YOU have to do (you can’t delegate).
3. Blue Sky – The time you spend on visionary work, planning, strategizing, business development and continuing education.
4. Mellow Yellow – This is your down time, vacations, etc. where you relax and recharge.  There is NO work being done during this time.

The problem is that most people mix up the colors too much by trying to do too many things at one time.  And if you keep mixing up the colors you get brown – and brown is shit!  So the short of it is that you may be creating shit in your own life and you don’t even know it.

On the other hand, if you allocate enough blue and yellow time – a great by-product is you make enough green time.  In other words, when you take time off to recharge you create a life that has long term sustainability and when you put that in conjunction with the right knowledge + the right vision + the right plan, that equals money!

The big AHA! here should be organizing your life to make sure that you have time for all four of these areas.  It is important to make money so you can support yourself and your family, if you have one.  It is important to do the busy work that you need to do in order to keep yourself organized and sane.  It is important to strategize your life and your business as well as spend time working on personal and professional development.  And lastly, but certainly not least, it is imperative that you take time to relax and recharge.  One, because you will be that much more energized and productive when you are actually working.  And two, because you should recognize that if you let your mellow yellow time suffer you will likely pay for it in the end through physical or mental exhaustion, or through decreased productivity during your work hours because you are burnt out.  Having experienced this exact situation myself I cannot stress enough the importance of taking your mellow yellow time.  Don’t feel guilty.  It really does make all the hard work you do that much more enjoyable and meaningful.

At the end of the day this is just another system.  Recognize that the system doesn’t really matter, it just matters that you have a plan.  Once you plan the work, you simply work the plan until it stops working.  Then you adjust and try something new.  All the while you are learning and becoming a better person.  Talk about win-win.

Happy Wednesday!

(Chad)

Time… When It’s Gone, It’s Gone

Many of you might remember the post I did on Randy Pausch’s last lecture about childhood dreams and how you can achieve yours.  That post can be found here.  This is about another talk that he did at the University of Virginia on the topic of time management.  While there are a number of great ideas on time management, there was one part from his talk that really stuck out.

It goes as follows:

At the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon, students would come in during the orientation, I would say: “This is a master’s program, everybody is paying full tuition.” It was roughly $30,000 a semester, and the first thing I would say is: “If you’re going to come into my office and say: “I don’t think this is worth $60,000 a year”, I will throw you out of the office. I’m not even going to have this discussion.” Of course they would say: “Oh god, this Pausch guy is a real jerk.” And then they were right! But what I then followed on with was: “Because the money is not important. You can go and earn more money later. What you’ll never do is get the two years of your life back. So if you want to come into my office and talk about the money, I’ll throw you out, but if you want to come into my office and say: “I’m not sure this is a good place for me to spend two years”, I will talk to you all day and all night because that means we’re talking about the right thing, which is your time, because you can’t ever get it back.”

Talk about great perspective.  What an awesome way to evaluate your life.  Instead of being concerned with things like how much money you are making, or will make, why not just ask yourself the simple question: “Is this what I want to do with my time?”  That is an eye opener if ever there was one.  Simple yet profound.

So that’s all I have for today.  I just want you to ask yourself that question.  Is what you’re doing today what you really want to do with your time?  If yes, good for you.  If no, then what would you rather be doing?  Forget, for a minute, about bills, rent, how much money you need and all the responsibilities you have.  If you decide to do the thing that you really want to do with your time, your heart will truly be in it and you will find a way to make it work – this includes financially.  You just can’t be afraid of it.  And you have to be willing to work for it.  Another important thing to consider is what kind of person you will become by doing this.  Chances are you will become a better person not only for yourself but also for those around you.

We are naive to think that we have all the time in the world.  No one wants to look back and realize they wasted years of their life.  Or missed opportunities they wish they could have been a part of.  At the end of the day time is all we really have and one day you may find that you have less than you think.  So invest your time wisely!

If you would like to watch Randy’s speech it is below.  I would recommend watching it in 15 minute increments while you eat.  If you do, you’ll be through the whole video in 5 days.  Or instead, you could replace an hour long mindless television show with this video.  You’ll get a lot more benefit.  Also, I have the powerpoint slides and the transcription of the speech below.  If you want to follow the slides as he presents you can do so or if you would rather just read the speech you can do that as well.

Happy Wednesday!

(Chad)




Time Management Powerpoint Presentation

Time Management Transcript

Maybe Rocky 6 Wasn’t Such A Bad Idea…

Sylvester Stallone may have hit rock bottom and they probably should have quit after Rocky 4 but, nevertheless, this is still a great speech.  The part that really means something is transcribed below the video if you care to read it.

The main point is this: no matter what, you have to believe in yourself.  You could probably never say, or hear, that enough.  It’s something you have to work on every day.  It’s something that should be as routine as brushing your teeth or taking a shower.  It will enable you to trust that you will make the best decisions for yourself and those around you.

Sometimes you may make mistakes but that is a part of the process.  As long as you keep believing in what you’re doing and keep moving forward it is all worth it.  You must be willing to make the tough decisions.  You must be willing to look to yourself for the answers.  You must have a deep enough belief in yourself in order to not be infected by the negative mindset of the world around you.  Everyone will always know what you should do when they’re on the outside looking in and not taking the risk.  But what do they really know, they aren’t doing shit?  They’re just talking to hear themselves talk.  They’re too afraid to make the decisions that could make their life great.  But you are not.  So stop listening to them.

You must believe in yourself so you can view the bad decisions not as bad decisions but instead as great learning experiences.  You must believe in yourself in order to shut everything else out so you can really listen to your thoughts.  All of your answers are there, you just need to strip away the crap and pay attention to what your body, your mind and your heart are telling you.

Trust in yourself so you prohibit others from polluting your mind with negative bullshit, but recognize that their negativity should be a light bulb for you to recheck how positive your belief system really is.  Don’t let it go stale.  Make sure you keep improving it, everyday!  And lastly, excuse me while I say this… just fucking believe.  Have passion.  Have drive.  Have a fucking purpose.  Don’t let average, mediocre and good enough run your life.  Screw good.  Be great.  You know what, screw great.  Be fucking awesome!

Until you start believing in yourself you will never have the life you want or deserve.

Have an awesome Wednesday!

(Chad)

Rocky 6 – Rocky Balboa Speech

[…] But somewhere along the line you changed. You stopped being you. You let people stick a finger in your face and tell you you’re no good. And when things got hard, you started looking for something to blame, like a big shadow. Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now if you know what you’re worth then go out and get what you’re worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain’t you! You’re better than that! […] But until you start believing in yourself, ya ain’t gonna have a life.