Fishing for Success

It is impossible to catch anything, without having your line in the water. If you walked by someone that was on the side of a dock. They had their tackle box, bait and a rod but they just stood there. If they said they were fishing, you would call them crazy but that is the way we treat our success at times. We stand and we wait for success to come to us. We worry that we do not have the right talents, skills and drive when all we need to do is cast a line.

The more times you cast your line, the better your chances are at catching a fish. The more times you try the better the chances you are at “finding” success. Success is a process, there are many times that you will do your best and fail. It can wear on you, do n stop. If you stop, you will never get anything.

Fishing requires skills and talents just like success. Build up your “tackle box”, with skills and hard work so that you can be successful in any situation. Stop just trying to catch something, focus on what you really want. Different environments require different skills to be successful.

What you fish for determines how you fish and where you fish. You can spend your entire life on Lake Michigan and never catch a Tuna, no matter how hard you tried. Understand and commit to what success means to you and then build your environment around this. Many times we just get on the boat and cast our line, because that is what everyone else is doing. We can catch more than anyone but we continue to wonder why we are not happy or successful, it is because we are fishing for the wrong things.

How long would you wait for a fish to bite before you moved? Success is much like fishing in the fact that while you may change locations, tactics and what you are looking for, you never stop fishing. So while your outcomes may change and tactics may change, never give up on creating success.

Investing in your future

If you only invest from the age of 20-30, you would have a bigger retirement than if you invest from 30-70. This is the magic of compounding interest.  It is pretty amazing but the great fact is that it goes beyond your investing for your financial future and it can be applied to everything you do in life.

When you save for your retirement, you do not want to put it off this same rule applies to reaching your goals. Stop putting off action to reach them and start today.

It is hard to start investing for many people because there never seems to be enough money. How can a 100 dollars a month do anything for us? This is the same way we see our own future. How can a spare 15 minutes help us achieve our dreams? We would need a day, a week or a month to truly make a difference. If you are alive and breathing, you know that blocking off a month to just focus on what you want to do is near impossible. If you want to do it, you can find a way but that is a different story.

Consider this. If you invest just 15 minutes a day in a year’s time you would have over 90 hours in towards reaching your goal. Just like investing in your retirement, it is not so much how much you invest but the fact that you invest something. You need to make an effort to do it.

If you invest consistently, you will get a greater return on your investment. Consider the example before. If you just invest 15 minutes every other day, you would only have 45 hours invested. You would be half as close to your goal.

Make it a priority to not only invest in your retirement but to invest in reaching your goals. Everyone has things that come up and something that goes wrong. At the end of the day, the choice lies with you. Will you invest or will you not. Your circumstances are not an excuse.

Every month, I have money drawn from my paycheck to be invested into my retirement. I never see it so I never miss it. Apply this lesson to reaching your goals by making it a habit. Always set time aside to focus on reaching your goal.

In every investment, you get something in return. It may not be the return that you want but you will always get something back. If you invested in Google, Coca-Cola and Enron, you would have dramatically different outcomes in pure financial terms but you would still gain something from all of them. When you invested in Google, you found something that worked well and out-performed; Coca-Cola was stable and returned expected results, nothing crazy. Enron, you learned what not to invest in. Not necessarily what industry to not invest in but what to watch out for in investing. This is like your life and how you choose to invest your time. We worry about making the best choice, when all we have to do is make a choice. If you did not invest any money with any of the organizations you would still have your money but you lost all the potential to grow.

The One Question to Change Your Life

In a busy world it is easy to get lost and lose track of what is really important to you.

I do not believe that people are not hard workers, don’t’ have dreams and want to settle, it is easier now than ever to be stuck and not know where to go.

Some books want you to think if it feels right, if it makes you happy or whatever you want to put in there. Why that is all good, it is hard to get to sometimes. Emotions have a funny way of taking control of our life.

My solution is to ask yourself, as often as you can “Is this helping me get towards my goal?” Whatever you do, should be helping you reach one of your goals. Stop letting what does not matter; the trivial things in life get to you and keep you down.

Let’s make one thing clear. Goals are up to you. Your goals do not have to do anything with money, work or your future but just be ready to accept the consequences. That goes for both people who are focused on just the present and those that are focused in the long-term.

When life throws 10,000 things at you, ask yourself, what will help me get towards my goals?

7 Tips to Finding your Purpose

Following last week’s post I felt that there was something missing, that even though your purpose should be simple it needs to be explained.

1. Your purpose is not your job. Your job is an avenue to get to your purpose.  Although it may seem to be the same, understanding the difference is critical. Your job does not determine your purpose but it can help you get there.  Stop trying to find a job that fits your purpose exactly and bring your purpose to your job.

2. Your purpose can change. Too often we get caught up in the belief that we need to find a perfect silver bullet for our lives that consumes us and that we just know it is the right thing. This is what makes finding purpose so hard for so many people. We put it out there as the Holy Grail spend our whole lives trying to find it, dying of thirst when all we need to do is try and create something, and change it when the time comes.

3. Your purpose is simple. My purpose is to help people understand how amazing they are and that they have limitless potential. Just thinking about it, gets me so excited. Do not over think it, it is going to be simple, clear and concise. Listen to your gut or to your heart.

4. Your purpose is beyond you: If you truly want to come alive with your purpose, it needs to be bigger than you and impact and serve more people than you. Your purpose is not to make money, be popular or be a boss. Those all end with you.

5. Your purpose should excited you to do work. People that live on purpose and that have a purpose have to do work. I know, some of my closest friends excel at leading and living their life on purpose. They are not just eating bon-bons and Cheetos all day. It is hard work but that should excite you. It is long hours, days and nights. It is never ending because there are so many opportunities.

6. You are ready for your purpose. You are ready now, like right now. This very instant you are ready. No amount of training can make up for the ability to go and try.

7. You can never be too good: You always have an opportunity to learn and to become better. It may seem this contradicts six but it supports it. While you will always be ready, you can always be better and you should want to always get better. When an opportunity to be more educated about your purpose comes up, take it. It does not mean you are not smart enough, it means you want to get better.

What else would you add?

Present

When was the last time that you can remember being fully present and not pulled in multiple directions? How did it feel and what were you able to do?

The ability to be present is key to being successful in today’s world, whether it be at work or in your social life. In a world where our attention is constantly being drawn into hundreds if not thousands of directions, the ability to focus on one thing is not only a difficult task but a critical one.

What does it mean to be present? It is beyond just showing up and checking your name off the list, it not just one thing but multiple things you must do in order to be present. It is hard to just tell people to be present as the ability to be present is not a direct input but rather an outcome of how you act. Here are some of the traits I see as needed in order to be present.

Purposeful: If you want to be present you must live with a purpose. A purpose helps you stay grounded and provides you direction. Your purpose acts as your guide to making your most critical decisions. If you are busy trying to decide what your purpose is, you will not be able to pay attention and truly be present. Don’t worry, you do not need to know your life purpose in order to be present but you need a purpose for the day. So when you wake up, pick one thing you want to focus on. It can be a project or it can be a skill that you want to improve upon and make that your focus for the day.

Respect: This applies to everything: people, projects, ideas, and whatever else you can think of. Without respect you are constantly judging people against what you think is right. You are not giving your whole self because you lack the respect that is needed to do so. Forget if the other person does not respect you, that is their choice. You have a choice and if you want to live in a life based on the decisions of other people you will never be present and more importantly you will never be living.

Listen: The ability to truly listen. It is an amazing and not used often enough and many people have the definition wrong. You are not listening if you are thinking about what to say next or what you want to say. You are not listening if you try to finish the other person’s sentence. You are not listening if you are busy on your phone or on your computer. No matter how small the “other thing” is, it is still not listening if you can focus on something else. If you truly want to be present you need to listen.

All-In: It is impossible to be present unless you are all-in, in what you are doing or the conversation that you are having. If there is anything else competing for your attention and you let it get some you are not being completely present. When you are all-in you are focused on one thing. You have to give it your best effort if you want to be present.

Courage: If you do not have courage you cannot be present because you will be too focused on being “right” and not making a mistake. You will hold yourself back from being your true self and therefore not be able to give 100% of yourself. Courage is not always facing a giant; it is sometimes it is disagreeing or making a small decision that has a big impact. It is having courage in not only the people and projects in your life but more importantly the courage of you.

Faith: Now this is has nothing to do with religion or spirituality, that is a whole different subject. This faith is the faith in yourself to begin with. Faith that you are able to do whatever you have been asked to do and that you will succeed. It is faith in everything around you and that you are on the right path. When you worry about what could be or what could go wrong, you stop yourself from being present.

Most importantly what you have to remember is that he ability to be present is a choice that cannot be faked. While it may be hard and difficult to be present, the investment is worth it. When you are present you are able to reach your fullest potential and do your best and most impactful work.