Inspiration

The best tips on productivity, motivation and dealing with depression

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I recently had the privilege of connecting and interacting with one of the happiest and most successful people I’ve ever known. He started as a salesman and built one of the biggest direct sales companies in the region. I always admired how he found time for leisure and everything else that he enjoyed doing, even during the busiest times of his business. He retired early and rich, while the company runs on the systems he had built. In the following note, he shared with me his thoughts on motivation, productivity and dealing with depression:

Books: Two books that helped me greatly are:

  1. How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World by Harry Browne
  2. The Happiness Purpose by Edward De Bono

And my favorite now for ageless wisdom is The Portable Thoreau edited Carl Bode.

Work Habits: 

  • Keep a ‘time diary’ for 10-30 days. Log everything you do from wake-up to sleep – every phone call, every meeting, every cup of coffee. Review and you will find there is much wasted and unproductive time, which could be spent constructively on work or quality leisure. Make the adjustments.
  • Do jobs IMMEDIATELY and FINISH them.

By doing these two things I accomplished the same in one third of the time than most people! Now I am stress-free and have lots of leisure. Continue reading →

Diana Nyad: precious life, extreme dreams, accepting defeat…

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In the 1970s, Diana Nyad set long-distance swim records that are still unbroken. Thirty years later, at 60, she attempted her longest swim yet, from Cuba to Florida. She talks about how to prepare mentally to achieve an extreme dream, and asks: What will YOU do with your wild, precious life? Extremely inspiring!

Steve Jobs: How to live before you die

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Which are you?

Mush Inspiration

…competent, inspiring, passionate, obsessed, provocative, impatient, hungry, driven, adoring, inspired, an artist, a genius, someone who cares…?

With all these remarkable, powerful, important options available to each of us, why do so many of us default to competent? (Seth Godin’s blog)

[Sunrise in South Africa – Sep. 2011]

5 inspiring quotes by Steve Jobs

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“We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it.” (Fortune)

“Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?” (Macstories.net)

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” (Stanford University commencement address, June 2005)

“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful … that’s what matters to me.” (Wall Street Journal 1993, shared by UK Guardian)

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square hole; the ones who see things differently; they’re not fond of rules. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.” (Think Different, narrated by Steve Jobs)

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4 reasons why we don’t achieve our goals

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[A repost from Sep 2010] I have wondered about these questions for many years: Why most people can’t fulfill their dreams? Why most goals are not achieved? Why most plans don’t work out? Why so much action doesn’t produce the desired results?

Working with thousands of salespeople and sales managers for over 20 years, I have learnt that there are only four reasons. Whether it’s about your career, health, money, relationships or any other goals that we fall short of, it is because:

  1. We don’t really want it. Whatever ‘it’ is that we are after. Are we having sleepless nights thinking and planning for it? What if we don’t get it? Will we settle without it? Do we have a specific time frame in mind? These questions can help us determine if we really want something badly enough. Otherwise, it’s not even a goal – just one of those wishes which may or may not be fulfilled. And we will be OK either way.
  2. We don’t believe it’s possible. It’s an inner voice that tells us, we can’t do it. ‘I can never lose so much weight.’ ‘I don’t think I am made for this.’ ‘It’s just not worth it.’ We believe we don’t have what it takes – the talent or opportunity or whatever.
  3. We don’t know how. We don’t have the knowledge or the skills required to achieve the goal, and worse still, we don’t even know that. Like the salesperson who doesn’t put in the time and effort to learn the product or the skills. Or like someone who spends an hour working out every day without knowing the basics of fitness or nutrition.
  4. We aren’t willing to pay the price. In other words, we don’t take any action towards our goal. We get lazy; we procrastinate. As someone said, ‘If you are only interested, you will do what’s convenient. If you are committed, you will do whatever it takes!’

Do you know of any other reasons? Knowing what’s holding us back is a big first step towards achievement of our goals.

[Photo taken recently of a seagull searching for fish]