While there are lots of good rules and habits for making sure you get where you want to go safely, let me share a few that have steered me wrong in the past
- Make sure that you’re “whipping yourself” into shape.Yeah, bringing negative reinforcement to a new activity or process will really help move things along. While you’re at it, why not start the negative reinforcement when you’re just thinking about making changes
- Eyes on the prize (but nothing else). Aiming high is great stuff, but unless you pay attention to what’s going on around you, you’ll get side-swiped before you know it.
- Be the expert. Robert Kiyosaki (my personal financial hero) likes to joke that he hires people smarter than he is. There’s a real gem of truth there. If you insist on being “The Expert” then you are not open to new knowledge or experience. You’ll end up inflexible and your plans will shatter under stress.
- Make sure to confuse apathy with a positive mindset. It’s one thing to have your mind geared for a positive mindset. This gets the wheels turning and keeps you on your toes looking to maximize what you are doing. However, simply being apathetic is a different matter.
Example: Imagine that you are looking to start construction on a building but you aren’t sure of the history or zoning on the property. Someone with a positive mindset will see to it that it’s all squared away so the deal goes as smoothly as a hot knife through butter. They might even check to see if there is something “historically noteworthy” about the property that can be used for marketing.
Someone in apathy will either assume that it is all ok (without actually checking) or will cloak their apathy in a falsely positive statement like “I have faith that everything will put itself together”. I’m the last one to speak out against faith, but this isn’t really faith. This is apathy tinged with fear leading to someone sticking their head in the sand rather than get the data. Deep down they secretly fear something is wrong, and don’t want to deal with it. That is why I wouldn’t call it faith in the truest sense.
- Take yourself out of the loop. It’s so great being a team player that you’ve gotten to the point where everybody is completely independent. You don’t need to know what’s going on, so you don’t even ask. You just kick back and watch everything unfold. Of course, nobody has any guidance on where you want to take the project, and you probably don’t have any systems in place to keep everybody honest, but you’ll worry about that later, like when you’re unexpectedly bankrupt because you didn’t specify that the action figures were to be sold in toy stores instead of army surplus stores.
- When all else fails, realize you’re just not good enough and reach for your favorite poison. That’s right. It’s not a matter of not having the knowledge, or a missing method for keeping track of important data. It’s not that the organization didn’t come together or your timing was a little off. If you’re serious about this process, remember: You’re lazy, stupid, incompetent, socially inept and bad at Fahrenheit/Celsius conversions.. Oh, and you’re a bad, bad, bad, bad person too. Why not unwind with your favorite intoxicating substance or soul-eating pastime? How about some obsessive online gambling while drinking grain alcohol? Before you know it, you’ll have driven yourself to the physical and emotional wreck that is the pinnacle of the process outlined here. Congratulations: You have now driven yourself crazy.
Do you have any more to add? Please share them in the comments!
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