NormsMilfordBlog

“The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.” (Chuck Swindoll) Swindoll went on to say, “Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.” Today’s saying from my favorite local blog – Jack’s Winning Words.

I used to spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about things that I just couldn’t change anyway. I still have occasional fits of anxiety-driven worry; however, I’ve tried to adopt the attitude that I’ll just let the scenario play itself out instead of worrying about all possible outcomes, especially the bad one that one’s imagination can conjure up.

Do you spend time worrying about what might be, instead of going on about the business of actually doing what will be? I saved another saying that appeared in one of Jack’s blogs that seems appropriate to that situation – “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.” (Niels Bohr)

Remember that “What will be will be” eventually turns into “It is what it is” and you really have little control over any of it, except how you act and react to the situation. So, don’t worry, be happy and play on the one string that you have.

The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and if they can’t find them, make them. – George Bernard Shaw

I have a whole raft of sayings by Shaw that I keep on hand for inspiration and reflection. This saying is one of Shaw’s inspirational sayings. Basically it admonishes us to take action to create the success (circumstances) that we desire. It is way too easy to just look around and not immediately see the circumstances that we desire and resign ourselves to living with what we do see. The harder decision is to take action to create what we do not see.

A key ingredient to achieving success would seem to be unwavering optimism. It is hard enough to keep plugging away in the face of adversity, much less trying to do so with an attitude of pessimism. I like another saying, this one by Paul Harvey to cover that topic – “I’ve never seen a monument erected to a pessimist.” That applies whether or not what you are trying to do is deserving of a monument.

I think another; more subtle message in the Shaw saying above is that you must be looking for that success (circumstances). This gets back to the message that forms the base of most self-help advice – you must visualize what you want before you can start to accomplish it. The antithesis of success is not really failure, it is apathy. Out of failures one can learn and move on; however, apathy tends to lock us in place.

So get up today and look around. If what you see is not what you want your life to be, visualize what you want, where you want to be, what you want to be doing and get started towards those goals. It won’t just happen; you’ve got to make it happen.

“The world is run by those who show up” (attributed to Richard Winegardt). This looks like at typical quote from my favorite blog – Jack’s Winning Words, but it’s not. This was in an article in the paper today. I tried to look it up the source of the saying and the best that I could find for an attribution was Richard Winegardt, an engineer. There are lots of variations of the saying to be found.

The intent of the saying is the important point. In life as in sports, you have to show up in order to have the chance to play or to win. And those who do show up end up making the decisions and doing the work – running things. There will always be those who sit back at a distance and criticize those decisions or the work that is done, but they didn’t show up, so their opinions are worthless or worse.

Little volunteer organizations, like churches or groups like the Milford Historical Society or the Rotary Club of Milford or the local Optimists Clubs are essentially run by those who show up – the volunteers who do more than sit off at a distance and critique what’s going on. Sometimes those who don’t participate get so upset by things that are going on that they storm off; leaving the group (an event that seldom causes big damage to the group, since they were not doing anything anyway) as a method of protest. If they were financial contributors to the group that can cause temporary pain to the group, but overall the group is probably better off without their often negative input.

In real estate the people who show up are the ones in local offices who are doing floor duty and sitting in open houses on the weekends. They are out hustling for listings or showing houses to potential buyers. There are also those who sit by tut-tutting about how they don’t do those things anymore (if they ever did). Some are fairly successful and have just forgotten that they got that success by showing up for those duties earlier in their careers. The really successful ones never forget those roots to their success and help mentor new comers through those processes and career stages.

So, today, think about the opportunities that are there for you, if you just show up. What things could you be doing in life or in business to be more successful? What activities are there to be done if you’ll just show up and make the effort? Maybe it’s prospecting, maybe it’s doing an open house, maybe it’s following up from an open house or prospecting calls. Maybe it’s just a little volunteer job with a local charitable group. No matter what it is, it won’t get done if you don’t show up. You can run things in your life and your business by choosing to show up.

From the Jack’s Winning Words blog comes this inspirational piece of advice – “You have to dream before your dreams can come true.” (Abdul Kalam)

How true. Sometimes we let the slog of daily life consume so much time and energy that we forget to dream or lose sight of our original dreams. Whether you call it dreaming or visualizing, you have to have goals in mind that you are working towards. Otherwise another old saying takes over your life – Where ever you go, there you are.”

More often that I care to admit I’ll end a day and realize that I got caught up in the minutia of life and failed to put any effort or time into things that would further reaching my goals or dreams. Sure many of the things that I did needed to be done. There are always things that need to be done; and, if you let them just take over and control your life, you’ll never get around to dreaming or doing those things that need to be done to realize your dream.

There is an interesting story in this week’s Bloomberg Business Week about a single mom with two children struggling to make it in one of the nation’s worst areas of economic blight. It could be a really depressing story, especially since Bloomberg has taken the slant that this is a story about the decline of America; however, the story focuses enough on one aspect of this woman and her daily struggles to make it inspirational.  She has a dream of a better life for herself and her children and nothing that she has to endure on a daily basis is able to shake her off accomplishing that dream.

So give yourself a break today and take some time to dream. Visualize what it is you want or where you want to go in life and then set about planning how to achieve your dream. Working on accomplishing that plan will make every day feel a little better.