Yet here I sit at forty-one years old fairly mediocre. I’ve only sometimes achieved what I’d call success. And then only very modest success at that.

I’m a pretty smart guy. I already know what I need to do to succeed. Yet I routinely fail to do what I know I should do, what I know I could do if I just would do it.

Over the past couple months I have become acutely aware of the fact that even though it feel like something is holding me back from doing the things I know I need to do, in reality I am my own worst enemy. I am my problem. I just couldn’t figure out why I was so thoroughly and effectively sabotaging my own success.

Until last night.

Ah-Ha Moment

Last night I read something in yet another self improvement book, The Slight Edge: Secret to a Successful Life, on page 28, that was like a light bulb going off in my brain. For me it was one of those powerful “Ah, ha!” moments that comes along and can change the course of your life.

I’d figured out the first half of the equation on my own, even before reading those powerful words last night.

Easy To Do

I already knew that the deep down, core truth is this: everything that we need to do to become successful is relatively easy to do. And, for the most part they aren’t secrets either.

Do you want to lose weight and be healthier?

We all know that the surest way to lose weight is to eat smaller portions and increase physical activity by exercising regularly. And eating healthier foods will make our bodies healthier. These are all relatively easy things for most all of us to do. It’s just going to take a little time.

Do you want to improve your financial situation?

The basic steps involve reducing expenditures, paying off debt, increasing savings, investments and ultimately increasing income. While there are a number of strategies for accomplishing this, it really isn’t rocket science. But even following a good plan financial success isn’t going to happen overnight.

The way to succeed at most anything we want to achieve has already been mapped out by someone. Someone out there has done it and left a record for us to follow.

Often we find that road map with the things we need to do to achieve our desired goals laid out in easy to follow step by step fashion. We know how to follow directions, especially when the individual steps are so easy.

And yet in the overwhelming majority of the time we fail to follow the steps laid out for us and the weight doesn’t come off, the debt mounts and the years flow by while we plod along in the very mediocrity that sucks the life out of our spirits.

It’s like there is a huge mountain barrier that keeps us from following the steps so clearly laid out for us.

The mountain of a barrier blocking our success.

Easy Not To Do

Last night I discovered the reason I don’t do those things that I already know I could, should, and really need to do to become successful is because, not only are they easy to do, but they are easy not to do.

What do I mean?

Success and failure are both made up of the sum of thousands of tiny decisions, do this thing or don’t do this thing, that when compounded over time lead in one direction or the other. But each individual decision taken by itself is small enough that it won’t make or break you.

Just as it is fairly easy to choose to eat smaller portions, it’s easy to choose not to as well. I mean really, it’s not like you eat one fast food meal or skip one work out and you’ll have a near fatal heart attack that same day.

Truth is, if we don’t make that deposit in savings from this paycheck we won’t end up in bankruptcy court tomorrow.

Because the consequences of any one decision are incredibly small it is very easy to loose sight of the fact that they string together into a series of decisions, most of which we make out of habit, that march us down an unwavering path.

It is just as easy to choose not to do the things we know will lead to success as it is to choose to do them. We won’t see the effects of either choice until some time later down the road. Whether you eat a healthy meal or nothing but junk food today, you probably won’t see a difference in your weight today. Both meals are easy to choose.

Charge that next purchase or make one extra principle payment won’t have a dramatic influence on your portfolio either way today.

Because doing the right thing and not doing the right thing are both easy choices to make, all too often we find ourselves choosing poorly because it is just as easy & feels a little more comfortable. Well it’s more comfortable today anyway.

Eventually we’ll see the cumulative results of our daily choices. What we may not realize is that those results were inevitable because they naturally resulted from all those little, easy, choices we made along the way.

How To Make Better Choices

So then the key getting choosing to do those things that we know we should be doing is to put each and every decision, every little choice, into the larger context of where it will take us. We’ve got change our habits.

Instead of making the easy choices to not do those things we know we should, we’ll start making the equally easy choices to do those things.

To help keep this new insight in front of me I’m printing out a sign and posting it on my desk right in my face. Here is what it says:

Easy to do… Easy not to do…
You Decide!

You know the kind. You’re just trucking along thinking things are just ducky. You’ve got things figured out and you know exactly where you are headed.

Then. Wham!

A moment suddenly comes when a whole bunch of things you never knew before, or probably never even considered, are set right in front of you in a way that is crystal clear and obvious.

You know without a doubt that your life will never really be the same again. You are thinking thoughts that you’ve never had before. And those new thoughts will change the direction of your life forever.

Dinner and a Light Bulb

That happened for Gorgeous and I last night.

We had a friend over for dinner. I thought we were going to be talking about a web site for him.

I think we all entered into that conversation thinking we were going to be talking about a web site for him.

But instead, after four hours of talking with our friend, Gorgeous and I both shared one of those light bulb moments.

It will be interesting to see where this all goes. I’m sure we just stepped onto a new path, one that we never even considered before.

How About You?

Do you ever have light bulb moments?

How did you know it?

How did it change you?

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness…
–The Declaration of Independence

A Different World

This holiday I can’t help but think that the men who hotly debated the content of that formidable document and ultimately passed it 231 years ago were living in an entirely different world than we are today.

There are differences over and above the obvious technological changes. But just to help get your mind around how different the world is now, let’s do an imagination exercise.

Try to imagine how different your world would be without any of these things: cell phones, internet, email, computers, cars, trucks, electricity, air conditioning, refrigeration, television, antibiotics, anesthesia, contact lenses, air travel, plastic, synthetic materials, self propelled ships, artificial lighting, recorded music, radio, mass transportation, telephones, the list seems endless.

But living without all of those things would make for a radically different world to be sure.

A Different Worldview

When I read through the vast treasure troves of writings these great men left behind I can’t help but see that in addition to living in a completely different world, they also had a very different worldview than we do today.

The differences in understanding are legion. (Can you imagine the government today creating a significant political document today that said people “are endowed by their Creator” with anything? It would be a mess!)

One of the differences has to do with our understanding of happiness.

The great minds of the revolution such as Jefferson, Adams, Mason, and Washington saw happiness as something that was to be pursued. The burden of realizing happiness rested squarely on the individual. They felt the government’s role was simply to get out the way of the people’s opportunity to pursue their own happiness.

What a contrast with our culture today that sees happiness as something we are entitled to. If we are unhappy we’re quick to shout that it is someone else’s fault. Sometimes we blame the government. Or maybe it is our employer, or our family, or our circumstances that we target to change so we’ll be happier.

We’d rather fix the blame than fix the problem.

I suspect that whole mindset would be borderline laughable to those men of old.

Take Ownership of Your Happiness

This Independence Day, how about deciding to make a change?

Rather than focusing on what we can blame for our unhappiness, why don’t we start thinking about ways we can pursue our own happiness in spite of our circumstances?

As long as we give the responsibility for our happiness to someone else in this world, we will never get there. We’ll just be holding onto false hope and will be chronically frustrated.

The choice is ours. Actively engage in the pursuit of happiness, or sit back and complain how messed up things are.

If you choose to take ownership of your happiness, you might want to check out Chris Brogan‘s post today. He’s got some great pointers on Declaring Your Independence. He’s spot on.

The Battle of Kruger Video

There are a bunch of lessons that jump out at me watching this. Some from the side of the buffalo, others are from the lion’s point of view. Here’s a few to get our minds working.

Some Lessons

Running off on your own can be dangerous.

Lions never attack the center of the herd. Instead they go for the loners on the fringes that don’t stick with the herd for whatever reason.

What are some of the things that pull us away from the herd?

Maybe we don’t have the maturity to see which way the herd is going. Or perhaps we are too proud to accept that we need the herd at all. We might get so wrapped up in our own work and our own life hassles that we don’t even realize how isolated we’ve become.

Regardless being all alone can be very dangerous. It is one thing to work on your own. But hopefully we all have a network of professional friends and associates that we can turn to from time to time. That interaction within our networks can save us from getting into all sorts of problems.

But the network has to be there and we have to tap into it.

Someone may try to steal your steak.

Sometimes, just when you think everything’s going your way someone comes along and tries to steal what you’ve worked so hard for.

How do you protect against that?

Well one way is to look at that first point. If you have a network that can pull together you might have a fighting chance to defeat the interloper. And it never hurts to have a few friends who can share the duties of watching each other’s backs.

It was interesting that in the video, one of the lions changed roles when the new threat of the crocodile appeared. One that had been holding back standing guard joined in to help drag dinner back up the hill away from the crocks.

A group can work together to achieve things that an individual could never accomplish alone.

It’s hard to guard your prize with enemies to your front and rear.

This kinda goes without saying. When you’ve got an army marching down on you the last place you want to be is with your back up against crocodile infested waters.

The lions chose poor ground for their hunt. Sure the watering hole was a target rich environment. It seemed to make for easy pickings.

But there were some serious tactical problems created by choosing that particular spot.

In the same way, we should take care in our business to make sure the down sides of our choices don’t outweigh the apparent benefits of choosing the seeming easy money.

When the angry buffalo charges you’ve got two choices: run away or take a shot to the ribs.

It’s that old fight or flight thing. Only in some fights you know it’s going to hurt even if you do win.

There is no stopping over a ton of angry buffalo when it decides to charge. You stand your ground and there is going to be a collision. And it will hurt.

There are times when running away, even though it hurts our egos, may be the better choice.

Other times the right thing to do is to stand and take our lumps. It is important that we understand the consequences of our choices.

It Ain’t Over ‘Till It’s Over

Ah, yes. Don’t give up until the fat lady sings.

Sometimes when we see no way out, when the night has closed in and everything is at its darkest is just the moment when we will see victory.

Giving up too soon will prevent us from ever experiencing that sweet taste of overcoming those seemingly impossible roadblocks that have been thrown up in front of us.

It’s a great question.

I agree with those two that you can. But it is not easy. And both elements are vital in their respective quantities or the organization will flounder.

Big Takes More of Each

The bigger the organization, the more of both elements that is required.

When you are a one man (or one woman) show, you get to wear both hats. In fact you have to wear both of them or you are sunk.

You have to be able to see what what you want to accomplish clearly enough that it becomes real. And at the same time you have to roll up your sleeves, get to work, and figure out how to make your vision become a reality.

As your organization grows you will need more of both sides of the equation. In theory a larger organization is capable of accomplishing more. (As a side note, the primary reason a smaller company sometimes comes along and whups a big company is because they have more of one of these two factors than the established player has.)

In order to get more accomplished the growing organization will require many more folks involved in executing the day to day tasks that get it where it needs to go. It will also require a bigger vision.

But here’s the interesting thing. That bigger vision can be created by just one person. In fact, too many visionaries in a group can be paralyzing. Especially if they don’t all share the same vision for the organization.

Dreamers vs Cat Herders

The other day a friend of mine asked if I was a dreamer.

I had been thinking about that original quote on Twitter that got this whole thing rolling so I answered, “I’m a reforming dreamer.”

Yes, I am a dreamer. But I want to become an even better Prince of Execution.

It is far too easy for me to get caught up in my own dreams and forget to actually get into action and get my own things done.

The grand irony is that when I am part of an organization, I have no problem executing their vision. But to date I’ve tended to fall short where it comes to turning my own dreams into reality.

So as far as my own life is concerned, it is time for me to step up and get better at getting things done so that some of those dreams become real.

For me, when I’ve been part of an organization, my execution has been a little like cat herding. (I used to say cat juggling – you know, keep all the cats in the air without letting any of the pointy parts get you. But cat herding seems like a little more humane imagery.)

I know there are plenty of folks who are sequential task achievers and accomplish an amazing amount. For me I’ve never had the luxury of focusing on one thing very long. My operations experience has generally been much more like cat herding than assembly line work.

Whether it was strapped to the ejection seat of a jet keeping track of planes, ships and submarines, trying to get all the cargo on a container ship completely discharged and reloaded or working on a diverse group of client projects, I’ve alway seemed to have several things going on simultaneously. Multitasking has been a huge part of my professional life.

I started this post with a question. I’ll leave it to y’all to answer.

Can you move (or move someone) from one category to the other?

And I’ll leave you with one of my all time favorite Superbowl commercials. It just so happens to be about cat herding.

Enjoy!

The cell phone never seems to be more than three feet from me, even when I’m sleeping at night. Especially at night.

Its incredibly loud ringing shattered my sleep about an hour before the alarm was set to go off. The phone is always set on the loudest setting. I often find myself in noisy, industrial settings. I make it vibrate all the time too, just in case. The whole effect is very effective at shocking the system into the awake (and mostly coherent) realm when it goes off at night.

We need you at work. Now.

“OK. I’m on my way.”

I splash some water on my head, which serves the dual purpose of helping pry my eyes open so I’ll be safe driving in and knocking my hair down so I’ll be a little less frightening when I get there. Skipping the shave saves a couple minutes (but doesn’t help the fright factor).

Cook some water in the microwave for a cup of instant coffee while I get dressed. Then it’s out the door.

Surely I’ll be able to duck out a little early in the afternoon to get that time back and get to the things I had planned for the day?

Not a chance. Too much going on. We need you here. Gotta get it all done before I go.

Then this morning at 1:30 AM it started again. Water. Coffee. Clothes. Hit the road.

Another day’s schedule out the window.

Stay on Course Despite the Storm

It is easy to feel overwhelmed when life throws a storm at you.

A good dose of sleep deprivation has a way of magnifying the problems.

There are times when we all feel a little like the Andrea Gail from the movie The Perfect Storm, in that final inevitable scene where the little fishing boat is clawing and scraping her way up that giant steep wall of ocean water desperate just to make it over the top of one more wave.

Will we make it? Or will this be the wave that swamps and sinks us?

How do we stay on course despite the storm?

A Little Grace Required

Remember that scene in The Fellowship of the Ring where Frodo was running for his life because the black riders were chasing him?

Arwen was tending him just after the water had washed the black riders down stream. But Frodo was fading fast.

Arwen: Frodo? Frodo, no!
[Frodo begins to have a harder time breathing]
Arwen: Frodo, don’t give in! Not now!
[She holds Frodo close to her body and begins to cry]
Arwen: [voiceover] What Grace is given me, let it pass to him. Let him be spared. Save him.

There comes a time when we all need a little grace.

If you’ve ever spent anytime around AA folks you are probably familiar with the Serenity Prayer

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things that should be changed,
And the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

How do we stay on course?

We focus on the things that you can change, not those we can’t.

• If we have obligations beyond our control, we accept them with serenity.
• Where changes can be made to better our situation, we exercise courage to make those changes come into reality.
• And we listen, watch and pay attention so that over time we learn which things are which.

One of the participants asked a valid question as we were talking about sustaining business blogging activity and addressing how much time is involved in successfully blogging in support of your business.

He wondered if he’d be able to maintain that over the long haul. My initial response was that as a business owner did he have trouble being passionate about going to work? If so, blogging was probably not for him.

One of the beauties of business blogging is that it can be a natural off-shoot of the passion business folks have already for their work. If you don’t have any passion for what you do in your business, then blogging probably isn’t a good fit for your business model.

I was talking with my dad last night who is considering starting a personal blog. He said, “Blogging because it’s the next new thing is not a good enough reason to get started.” Dad gets the need for passion.

Most of us spend more time working than we do with our families. The vast majority of business owners have a tremendous amount of knowledge about their business (at least they should!) Couple that knowledge of what they do gives them a unique perspective to speak about their business.

And the familiarity that comes from all the time we spend at work gives us a comfort level talking about what we do.

Ideally all that will blend together into a passion cocktail that can spill out into the blog posts and keep propelling our blogs forward.

Do you have challenges with motivation when it comes to your blogging?

If so why do you think that is?

And what are some things we can do to keep ourselves motivated and moving forward?

Whew! Talk about a big question!

I mean I learned lots of things this year.

Some of them were relatively insignificant yet very practical. For example I learned that you shouldn’t put stop leak into the overflow reservoir of your 2001 Buick Century instead of into the radiator because it will gunk up the plastic reservoir tank, cause the sensor to turn on the “low coolant” light steady, and cost approximately $360 to get someone who actually knows about cars to fix. Oh, and it won’t stop the leak that way either.

Other lessons had a little bigger impact. I learned that doing the right thing for the wrong reason isn’t a good idea, especially if it involves a long term commitment. And sometimes you get to a point when you have to cut your losses and make a course correction to get where you really want to go.

I learned that you can’t change people who don’t want changing. And it’s not really your place to do that anyway.

I learned that unmet expectations can be painful sometimes.

I recently relearned the importance of backups, redundancies and contingency plans.

But I think the biggest, most significant lesson I learned this past year involves passion. Especially where it involves work. Working in something simply because it is what you are trained to do may very well leave you feeling empty inside over the long haul.

But if you invest the effort into figuring out what kinds of things really get you excited, what you get most passionate about, it can be a liberating experience.

Then, with a little time in serious thought, you can probably work out a way to earn some money working at those things.

And that, my friends, is a truly wonderful lesson indeed.

Because if you Work Where Your Passion is, it will feel a little less like work, and your motivation will be higher even when you are burning the midnight oil that is often required to achieve success.

So, as I wrap up my post on what I learned this past year let me leave you with a question that’s easy in the asking, but may take a bit of brain power on your part to answer.

Now personally I don’t think I really want know exactly what my future holds until I get there. If I did, I’m not sure I’d have enough heart to make it through the tough times.

And when I look back over my life so far as I approach 40, there have been some challenges that I’ve had to overcome. If I knew the extent of those difficulties before I got to them, I suspect I might have been more inclined to give up before I made it through rather than sticking with the stuff and actually overcoming the obstacles that have been in my path.

Another struggle I have with the whole see into the future scene is that it seems to me the professionals in that field are predisposed to tell only the good news to their clients. I mean we call them fortune tellers.

Do you think a psychic would be able to make a living if they hung a shingle advertising themselves as misfortune tellers?

Instead they tell us what we want to hear. We’re going to be rich, famous, or find the perfect person to marry. Blah, blah, blah.

I’m not convinced that message really helps us, even if it were true.

From what I’ve seen the road to success in pretty much any area is paved with adversity and challenge. And if we have false expectations that we will be traveling down easy street instead of the real road to success we’ll have that much harder a time hanging in when life begins to happen and things get a little messy.

But I realize I may be off base on this one. So here’s my question for you:

If you knew before hand how difficult running your own business would be at times, would you have started anyway? Would you have slugged through all that uncertainty, or do you think you would have gravitated toward a relatively easier company job instead?

Do you struggle with wanting everything to be “just so” before you get started? Are you looking for a sure fired guarantee that you will see the results you want so you can take that first step to get into action?

Are you a planner? I am.

I have been through long years of training and an even longer career where working out the details, preparing contingencies, covering my bases, and yes, even getting my ducks in a row.

Are you more comfortable working out the details than pulling the trigger?

Well Mike gives us a great reminder this morning. Ducks move. They are living things that don’t necessarily understand or care that we want them to line up in just the right way.

But Mike goes one step further and really drives the point home.

The only sure-fire way to get your ducks aligned perfectly is to kill ‘em – but then what do you have left? Dead Ducks. That wouldn’t be good.

Ooch!

A roundhouse punch of truth that leaves us perfectionists staggering!

Yes there is a place for planning. It is tremendously valuable. Yes! And Yes again!

But.

There comes a time when we must move. Plans are meaningless without implimentation. They are completely wasted.

And here is the kicker. Once we get into motion our plans will need to change anyway to adapt to the changing circumstances.

Back when I was in the military we were taught von Moltke’s maxim early on.

No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.

Once we get into motion things will change. Motion is movement and it is rarely predictable. Ducks move.

The key is to keep from becoming infatuated with our plans. Think of them more as guidelines than actual rules. Allow yourself to adapt, improvise, and overcome.

That is a radical and liberating concept for us perfectionists.

And it is freeing for people on the other side of the coin too. Are you the kind of person who doesn’t plan at all because you want to leave your options open?

If you are, please understand that plans can change. It is allowed. I looked it up.

By planning just a little it will greatly reduce your own stress. And it will likely reduce the conflict in your organization because the rest of the folks will have a better understanding of what you are trying to achieve. Some of us work a whole lot better when we can see a glimpse of what our desired destination looks like.

And if you are a perfectionist, you better get in motion or you’ll be stuck with dead ducks!