36525 days to live

Merry Christmas to all of you who have been following this
blog all along in 2010. I thank each one of you for your comments,
your encouragement and your suggestions. Special thanks to
Stephanie and Clément who have been correcting the grammar in my
posts regularly.  Special thanks to Jean Sébastien Lavoie for the great graphic identity.

 I wish you all the best for 2011.

This is a good time of year to think about work/life balance.

Many people work crazy hours to fill a void in their life. Some are just so driven and excited about what they do everyday that they cannot think of anything else.

In my case, I still don’t feel successful with work/life balance because I don’t work from 9 to 5. The lines are blurry.

So in 2011, I’ll stop trying.

From now on, I’m aiming for harmony instead of balance.

What does it mean? It means that I will try to enjoy every moment whatever I’m working on. Thomas Edison said that he never worked a day in his life… and yet, he was spending 18 hours a day in his labs. He was never successful with work / life balance because for him it was all play.

Those of us who will be shutting off over the next couple of weeks, make sure that you use that time well. Enjoy your time off from work while you are … away from the job.

The first rule of doing work that matters

Go to work on a regular basis.

Art is hard. Selling is hard. Writing is hard. Making a difference is hard.   (SO TRUE)

When you’re doing hard work, getting rejected, failing, working it out–this is a dumb time to make a situational decision about whether it’s time for a nap or a day off or a coffee break.

Zig (ZIGLAR) taught me this twenty years ago. Make your schedule before you start. Don’t allow setbacks or blocks or anxiety to push you to say, “hey, maybe I should check my email for a while, or you know, I could use a nap.” If you do that, the lizard brain is quickly trained to use that escape hatch again and again.

Isaac Asimov wrote and published 400 (!) books using this technique.

The first five years of my solo business, when the struggle seemed neverending, I never missed a day, never took a nap. (I also committed to ending the day at a certain time and not working on the weekends. It cuts both ways.)

In short: show up.

What are you working on?

If someone asks you that, are you excited to tell them the answer?

I hope so. If not, you’re wasting away.

No matter what your job is, no matter where you work, there’s a way to create a project (on your own, on weekends if necessary), where the excitement is palpable, where something that might make a difference is right around the corner.

Hurry, go do that.

“The fault is NOT in the stars, but in ourselves.”

Shakespeare

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How many times do we blame others for what happens or what doesn’t happen to us?

When we point our finger at someone, did you ever notice that at least three of them are coming back towards us?

Confucius used to say; “Don’t complain about the snow on your neighbor’s roof when your own doorstep is unclean”

When you complain about something, 80% of people don’t care about your complaining and some of the last 20% are happy about your misery. Why? Because the first 80% are too preoccupied with their own lives. The remaining 20% are simply envious of you and that makes them secretly happy when something bad happens to you.

What was the question again? Oh yes, Who’s fault is it? Sorry folks, but it’s almost always your fault.

And what if it wasn’t ? Well, it’s your responsibility.

“It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation, which give happiness”

Thomas Jefferson

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Thomas Jefferson was describing the “Flow” before it was clearly defined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Proposed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the positive psychology concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields.

According to Csikszentmihalyi, flow is completely focused motivation. It is a single-minded immersion and represents perhaps the ultimate in harnessing the emotions in the service of performing and learning. In flow the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand. To be caught in the ennui of depression or the agitation of anxiety is to be barred from flow. The hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even rapture, while performing a task.

Colloquial terms for this or similar mental states include: to be on the ball, in the zone, in the groove, or keeping your head in the game.

(source: Wikipedia, english, May 18, 2010)

How often are you experiencing the Flow?

“It is not that we have a short life to live but we waste a lot of it”

Seneca

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Sometimes we waste our time because we don’t have much control over what is happening to us. In this case, there’s not much we can do about it.

At other times we waste our time because we lack a definite purpose in our lives.
This we can do something about. We must take the time to ask ourselves the important questions, the ones that concern only us.

It may look like a waste of time at first, but in the long run, it will save us time.

Benjamin Franklin used to ask himself these important questions every night before he went to sleep.

What did I do wrong today?
What did I do right ?
What can I improve tomorrow?

Apparently, he did this for most of his life.

If you want to learn more about this, I recommend that you read his autobiography. It will make you realize that even if he lived more than 250 years ago, he was facing similar challenges like the ones we have to deal with today.

It seems to me that we are stubborn students of life.

Life seems to tell us; here is a situation you need to face for your own developpement, and yet, most of the time, we will try to avoid the lesson. Why? Because it’s too damned hard! The curious thing about this is: the lesson we try to avoid seems to come back to us in many unexpected ways. Somehow, we can’t escape it. We have to meet the challenge.

An example?

I know some people (actually quite a lot of them) who move from relationship to relationship only to discover after a while the same problems they were experiencing in the previous relationship. It seems to me that what they are trying to avoid comes back to them in another form and with a new label.

Personally, I start too many new projects and I don’t finish all of them. I know it, I’m aware of this but somehow, it doesn’t seem  to change. I have to admit I can’t do  it alone. When I face this kind of situation, I try to find a coach, a mentor or a personal trainer to make sure I am accountable to someone.

When we focus on the moment and accept to face what we have to, it can be difficult, but it is one of the best ways to grow, to outgrow the challenge.

What does this post have to do with time?

If we do what WE MUST do when WE HAVE TO do it, the day will come when we will do what WE WANT to do WHEN WE WANT TO do it.

The sooner we understand this concept and we put it in practice, the more time we will save to do other activities that we really enjoy.

Will you try it?

“What a wonderful life I had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner”

Colette

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Life is not always easy! Sometimes, life throws a curve at us and we have a hard time dealing with it.

This is why it’s important to remember our blessings, especially when things don’t go our way. Because, most of the time, even when things are not as good as we’d like, there is still a lot going well. It’s important to take the time to be thankful EVERYDAY for the good things in our lives.

In 1985, I had a car accident and I was immobilized without being able to walk for about 6 weeks, then after I had to go to physiotherapy for a couple of months. That was the bad side of the accident. The good side of it is that for the first time in  my young life, I took the time to read good books and spent time all alone away from the distractions of the world.Time to ponder upon what I was going to do with my life.

This was the beginning of a process of introspection that lead me to question constantly what I was going to do at almost every moment of my life. As Socrates once said, “A life not examined is not worth living”,  from now on, I would question myself and question others continuously. I would start to doubt common beliefs and confront them. it was not because everyone said something that it was necessarily true.

As we question ourselves and others, it is tempting to become sarcastic, but this is when it’s important to take a long-term perspective and realize that something bad in the short term might turn out to be a good thing in the long run. Many curses are opportunities in disguise. It’s up to us to learn how to recognize them.

Everyday we must look at the good things in our lives even when everything seems to be hopeless.

Everyday we must count our blessings and try to minimize our sorrows.

This is one of the ways to appreciate how wonderful life really is.

Will you count your blessings today?

Some of us live under the influence of alcohol.

The influence is good as long as we are under the influence. The next morning, the influence can be quite different.

Some of us live under the influence of shopping, and the influence is good until as we receive the credit card statement…

Some of us live under the influence of gambling, and the influence is good until as we realize that the house wins most of the time.

Some of us live under the influence of buying expensive toys to impress others who don’t care at all. This influence is gone when we realize that we become a slave of this habit.

Some of us are under the influence of a new religion, and the influence seems to disappear when that special God of ours doesn’t answer our requests.

Some of us indulge in sexual escapism, and the influence is gone when the temporary thrill is over.

Some of us will study philosophy and believe that they have found the Way, only to wake up later and realize that their particular philosophy can fail them.

Some of us will swear by the world of reason and science, only to discover the actual limitations of our understanding. At least at this point in our evolution.

Some of us will invest in the joy of parenthood only to realize later that our kids will be entitled to their own lives.

Some of us will want to earn a lot of money until they realize that money can’t buy love.

And while most of us live under one kind of influence or another, Time goes by.

Under what influence are you living ?

Is this the kind of influence that you enjoy?

It’s up to you!

 I think it is good to be “Voracious”.

“Voracious” means to be very greedy or eager in some desire or pursuit.

The intensity of your desire will determine how long it takes for you to reach your goal. When it comes to reading, writing, respecting some deadlines, exercising, traveling, learning new skills, and meeting new and different people, I consider myself to be extremely “Voracious”.

What is good about being “Voracious” it that it saves a lot of time.When we enjoy doing an activity, it takes a lot less energy. That is why it is so important to invest more time on our natural strengths. On the other hand, we can delegate or eliminate what we don’t like to do.

This is the way to keep our level of voraciousness extremely high.

Do you consider yourself “Voracious” ?

Look at what Leonardo da Vinci has accomplished in only 24 488 days. It fascinates me how someone like him could  have accomplished so much in so little time and with much less resources and knowledge available to us nowadays. There were no computers, no Google, no Wikipedia, and yet take a look at the description of who he was and the scope of his realizations;

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance man, a man whose unquenchable curiosity was equaled only by his powers of invention. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived. According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent and “his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, the man himself mysterious and remote”. Marco Rosci points out, however, that while there is much speculation about Leonardo, his vision of the world is essentially logical rather than mysterious, and that the empirical methods he employed were unusual for his time. Leonardo was and is renowned primarily as a painter. Two of his works, the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, are the most famous, most reproduced and most parodied portrait and religious paintings of all time, respectively, their fame approached only by Michelangelo‘s Creation of Adam. Leonardo’s drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon, being reproduced on everything from the euro to text books to t-shirts. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings survive, the small number due to his constant, and frequently disastrous, experimentation with new techniques, and his chronic procrastination. Nevertheless, these few works, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, compose a contribution to later generations of artists only rivalled by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo.

Source, Wikipedia, December 4, 2010.

“Just as iron rusts from disuse, even so does inaction spoil the intellect”

Leonardo da Vinci, artist

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Are you active enough to keep your mind intellectually stimulated?

I was walking on the 103rd floor of the tallest building in the United States

and suddenly, I chickened out…

In October 2009, I visited the Willis Tower ( formerly Sears Tower) in Chicago. When I reached the top floor, I noticed some glass balconies that were suspended outside the building. The all-glass boxes allow visitors to look through the floor to the street 1,353 feet below. The boxes, which can bear five  tons of weight, extend approximately four feet over Wacker Drive from the 103rd floor.

It is a very interesting experience to look down at the cars when we feel like we’re walking on thin air.

As I entered one of the balconies, I walked right in it and I wasn’t able to stay in the box more than 30 seconds. Beside me, there was a child of 3 years playing in the box without a worry in the world. The boy played in the box for at least a good 10-15 minutes.

I suddenly realized how fearful I had become as an adult compared to this little child. I knew the boxes were very solid, but I didn’t trust it enough to stay longer than 30 seconds. 30 very long seconds.

Was it the structure of the box or myself I didn’t trust?

I was humbled by the innocence and the complete trust of a child.

How many times in your life do you avoid doing something because you don’t trust yourself? 

Because you’re afraid…

or you don’t finish what you start…because… because… because.

Do one thing EVERYDAY that scares you!!!!!!

Turn your weakness into a strength!

One of the most inspirational stories ever told is the story of Dumbo the Elephant. Throughout most of his young life, Dumbo was persecuted for having big ears. As a result, he hated his ears because they always brought him down. One day, however, he falls from an airplane, but then something amazing happens. Dumbo begins to flap his ears, and he can fly! The very things that had brought Dumbo down his whole life are now lifting him up.

A good book that explains how to turn your negatives to your advantage is…..

How many times in your life did someone make fun of you only to realize later on that it was actually your strength??????

How many times did someone criticize you for doing something good????

How many times did you feel guilty because of other people’s personal beliefs?

How can you learn to turn your “weakness into a strength”?

Next time you feel this way, try to remember Dumbo.

“If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner.”

Tallulah Bankhead

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It’s good to make mistakes!!!

Repeat after me,

It’s good to make mistakes!!!

Forget about what others will say.

You will experience failure many times in your life. Not all the time, but you will. If you don’t fail enough, it’s probably because you don’t try new things very often.

We can do this with our dreams; wish them away, let them slip away because we are afraid to fail, afraid to get started or because we are waiting for the right moment. The right moment? Most of the time, is an excuse or at best, an illusion.

I make so many mistakes all the time. Am I a slow learner? It’s possible, however, it’s the only way to improve anything. Every time I take a chance to make a mistake, I also get a chance to do something right.

An exemple?  The top scorer in the NHL will miss his shots more often than he will score a goal, but we don’t remember when he misses, we add up the goals.

We will always miss 100 % of the shots we don’t take.

Some of you may argue that we should learn from what we are doing good, and I agree. We should always repeat our good experiences to the extent that we benefit from them.

However, we should not let ourselves be paralyzed with inaction because of the fear of making mistakes. The young baby who is learning to walk will fall. The one who is learning to swim or to dance will not be very elegant at first. The failing is part of the learning process.

Will you risk making a mistake today?   At least one…

“I have a new philosophy. I’m only going to dread one day at the time.”

Charles Schulz, Peanuts, cartoon

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A while ago, a lady went to a restaurant in downtown Montreal to celebrate her birthday with her husband , as they entered the restaurant, apparently they asked the hostess for a seat near the window to get access to a better view…

This is an excerpt of the Montreal Gazette July 17, 2009

I spread your idea because

Ideas spread when people to choose to spread them. Here are some reasons why:

1. I spread your idea because it makes me feel generous.
2. …because I feel smart alerting others to what I discovered.
3. …because I care about the outcome and want you (the creator of the idea) to succeed.
4. …because I have no choice. Every time I use your product, I spread the idea (Hotmail, iPad, a tattoo).
5. …because there’s a financial benefit directly to me (Amazon affiliates, mlm).
6. …because it’s funny and laughing alone is no fun.
7. …because I’m lonely and sharing an idea solves that problem, at least for a while.
8. …because I’m angry and I want to enlist others in my outrage (or in shutting you down).
9. …because both my friend and I will benefit if I share the idea (Groupon).
10. …because you asked me to, and it’s hard to say no to you.
11. …because I can use the idea to introduce people to one another, and making a match is both fun in the short run and community-building.
12. …because your service works better if all my friends use it (email, Facebook).
13. …because if everyone knew this idea, I’d be happier.
14. …because your idea says something that I have trouble saying directly (AA, a blog post, a book).
15. …because I care about someone and this idea will make them happier or healthier.
16. …because it’s fun to make another teen snicker about prurient stuff we’re not supposed to see.
17. …because the tribe needs to know about this if we’re going to avoid an external threat.
18. …because the tribe needs to know about this if we’re going to maintain internal order.
19. …because it’s my job.
20. I spread your idea because I’m in awe of your art and the only way I can repay you is to share that art with others.

Where do ideas come from ?

1. Ideas don’t come from watching television
2. Ideas sometimes come from listening to a lecture
3. Ideas often come while reading a book
4. Good ideas come from bad ideas, but only if there are enough of them
5. Ideas hate conference rooms, particularly conference rooms where there is a history of criticism, personal attacks or boredom
6. Ideas occur when dissimilar universes collide
7. Ideas often strive to meet expectations. If people expect them to appear, they do
8. Ideas fear experts, but they adore beginner’s mind. A little awareness is a good thing
9. Ideas come in spurts, until you get frightened. Willie Nelson wrote three of his biggest hits in one week
10. Ideas come from trouble
11. Ideas come from our ego, and they do their best when they’re generous and selfless
12. Ideas come from nature
13. Sometimes ideas come from fear (usually in movies) but often they come from confidence
14. Useful ideas come from being awake, alert enough to actually notice
15. Though sometimes ideas sneak in when we’re asleep and too numb to be afraid
16. Ideas come out of the corner of the eye, or in the shower, when we’re not trying
17. Mediocre ideas enjoy copying what happens to be working right this minute
18. Bigger ideas leapfrog the mediocre ones
19. Ideas don’t need a passport, and often cross borders (of all kinds) with impunity
20. An idea must come from somewhere, because if it merely stays where it is and doesn’t join us here, it’s hidden. And hidden ideas don’t ship, have no influence, no intersection with the market. They die, alone.

“Life begins when you do”

Hugh Downs,  American Broadcaster

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Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an African American civil rights activist, whom the U.S. Congress later called “the first lady of civil rights”, and “the mother of the freedom movement”.^[1]

On December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks, age 42, refused to obey bus driver James Blake‘s order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger.

Parks’ act of defiance became an important symbol of the modern Civil Rights Movement and Parks became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation. She organized and collaborated with civil rights leaders, including boycott leader Martin Luther King, Jr., helping to launch him to national prominence in the civil rights movement.

When Parks refused to give up her seat, a police officer arrested her. As the officer took her away, she recalled that she asked, “Why do you push us around?” The officer’s response as she remembered it was, “I don’t know, but the law’s the law, and you’re under arrest.” She later said, “I only knew that, as I was being arrested, that it was the very last time that I would ever ride in humiliation of this kind.”^[22]

^{Source, Wikipedia, November 28, 2010}

Almost 55 years ago, Rosa Parks decided that enough was enough and her courageous decision changed the course of her life and the course of the lives of many others after that day.

Are you ready to make a Rosa Parks decision?

When you do, you could help trigger a vast process of change.

That was the day when her life began…

When will yours begin?