Half Full, Half Empty, Half Something

Maybe you should quit.  When you don’t succeed, you are disappointed, and you may want to quit.  I’m going to tell you why maybe you should. 

Its only been one month.  I started this blog then, and now I can reflect.  You should reflect on what you are doing too.  I had high expectations for this blog, and for so many other things.  I’ve failed in just about every one of them.  That’s the half empty perspective.  I know you’ve had this experience too.  The flip side of that is that even when we don’t meet our expectations, we’ve probably made some progress.  Maybe your progress was simply in identifying some avenues that didn’t help you meet your goal – that is knowledge and there is value there.  You are that much closer. 

We are learning that perspective is tremendously important.  I call perspective our unconscious visualization.  Perspective afterall, is how we see things.  The most successful people are those that visualize what they are going to achieve long before they achieve it.  The difference between those and most, is that they consciously do the visualization exercises. 

What do you envision for yourself?  Do you see the glass as half empty or half full? Both are historical views.  Look instead to the future, and see the glass full.

When reality doesn’t meet expectations, you should quit.  Quit looking at things that way.  Instead, recognize that reality rarely meets expectations.  You should be setting your goals high, and there will be failures.   We need to reflect on the past, but focus on the future – visualize your future. 

Seeing the colors demonstrates the effect that visualization and perspective can have on your life. 

I’ve a Bad Habit of Keeping Bad Habits

Maybe it is too much to try to create new habits while breaking old ones.  In the case of a new habit, which is replacing an old one, there is no alternative. 

 In my case, I am trying to develop better email practices.  Number one on the list is to have an empty inbox.  One way to do this is to embrace GTD and to process the email inbox and if something can be done in under two minutes, then simply do it, otherwise delete it, file it, or identify the next action. 

My problem is that I can process the inbox, but I haven’t yet figured out how or when to do the actions!  I suppose this is why I used to have a full inbox which acted as my collection to things to do.  I’ve simply changed where I’m storing all this information.

 It does feel good to have an empty inbox. 

Product Success Couldn’t be Easier

From where do new trends emerge and why?  I recently read Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point and the author identifies a number of commonalities amongst the societal epidemics he studied.    For something to take-off like wildfire, there needs to be three things:

• The Law of the Few
  • People that are connected like that octypus of electrical wires behind my stereo need to be involved and sold.  The mavens, the salesmen, and the connectors.
• Stickiness Factor
  • Whatever “it” is, needs to be different and attract and keep attention.
• Power of Context
  • It must be offered up within the correct context 

From a product standpoint, this means it has to be good, solve a meaningful product, and then those few key people must be passionate about it. 

All pretty easy in concept.  Then why is it so hard?

Exert or Inert – A Simple Choice?

Take this test if you want to see how with a few questions someone can infer a lot about you.

When it comes to Myers & Briggs Types, my personality type preference is ISFP..  I found the test enlightening and I hope you will as well.  For the ntrigued, you can read more about socionics for more indepth information.

What concerns me today is that first letter I, which indicates that I prefer the life of an introvert.  This means that I am most comfortable in thought or alone, and that doesn’t bode well for me as an entrepreneur or as a successful networker.  But it doesn’t set my fortunes, it simply means that I have to work against preference.

No one hands someone success, and if that were to happen, it probably wouldn’t feel like much of a success.  To be successful means that we must work. 

At the opposite spectrum are those who are E for extroverts.  These people are renewed by interacting with other people.  For me, that activity requires that I expend energy.

I’m going to have to come to terms with this, but recognition is the first step, and I can’t use it as an excuse.  I’ll simply have to develop some strategies, for days like today, where I don’t want to see anyone, and talk to anyone.  I simply want to be alone.

For now, I’ll just see that if I don’t challenge myself and grow, and push myself outside of my introverted preference, I’m going to remain inert.  I’ll only succeed if I exert myself.

That Familiar Spinning Sensation

I’m already feeling that familiar spinning sensation of my efforts culminating in the twirl of the toilet bowl, about to be lost to me for some period of time, if not for good.  Usually I’m good for at least a week.

Maybe this is a good thing.   I think what I need is to go into auto-pilot mode for a while, but I haven’t yet fiigured out what that is.  Here is what I’ve done so far:

• Created this blog
• Started thinking about planning
• Began cleaning up my RSS feeds
• Cleared out items from my GTD Inbox from my last failed attempt to do GTD

These are all things that I should do on a regular basis.  Maintenance isn’t supposed to be fun, but there is no rule that it can’t be.  I don’t yet know how to make it fun.   Maintenance and I don’t get along.  It is too easy for me to put off.  Usually I at least feel a sense of accomplishment, but not as of yet.

I think my next task will be to create maintenance checklists.  In fact, I’ve already added that to my inbox, so I can be done with that now. 

I’ve got to hold on to the edge of this bowl.  Maybe soon I’ll be able to identify how it is that I pressed the lever to flush.

Failure — Can’t You Smell It?

You either have or want a dependable job and career that provides for some comforts and security – in a word, some occupational safety. 

If you are like me, you’ve done your homework and you have successful career and can count your professional failures on one hand.  Like me, you feel pretty good about your success.  And if you aren’t like me, maybe you want to be like me, or at least have a job that provides for a similar or greater level of success and safety.

I’ll tell you why it isn’t safe at all, and why it guarantees failure.

I’ve made a career of studying and being in expert in certain classes of tools.  While such a career choice can be rewarding in its own right, at the end of the day, I’ve only helped others create.   While I can take some pride in this collaboration, it was not I who created anything. 

There is very little risk in my career choice.  While I can certainly be wrong about something, and while that is a failure, I typically have been well-studied and prepared, so I’ve minimized or nearly completely subverted the chance of failure.

At the end of the day, I’ve only lasted one more day.  I haven’t embraced or tried to campaign for change.  I haven’t created a damn thing.  One could argue that I haven’t even lived; I’ve only subsisted.

Subsistance would be a huge win if I were in Iraq.  Where I am, it all smells of failure because there is something burning inside that says I can do much more.  I don’t know how failure can be safe in the long run. 

One of the great mysteries of life is sometimes not being able to see what is directly in front of us.  We all know that the smelly guy three cubes down doesn’t know that he has BO, because he is constantly living in the funk.  How do you know if you smell funky?  Because you can smell yourself reek of course.  But if you never smell yourself foul, maybe you always smell foul.

If you never feel like you are at risk of failure, or you never fail, then simply put, you are not risking enough, and you are always failing.

Not for the Sake of Today

Today is the day that we traditionally make ourselves promises that we (I) never keep. 

How appropriate that I begin my documented string of failures on this notable and meaningful date.

How ironic that this date is purely coincidental to this undertaking.

So if not for the day, what is my motivation?  Selfish still, but I want to make sure that I can teach my kids something, and not by being an example of what not to do.