10 Painfully Obvious Truths Everyone Forgets Too Soon

You know how you can hear something a hundred times in a hundred different ways before it finally gets through to you?  The ten truths listed below fall firmly into that category – life lessons that many of us likely learned years ago, and have been reminded of ever since, but for whatever reason, haven’t fully grasped.
This, my friends, is my attempt at helping all of us, myself included, “get it” and “remember it” once and for all…

1.  The average human life is relatively short.

We know deep down that life is short, and that death will happen to all of us eventually, and yet we are infinitely surprised when it happens to someone we know.  It’s like walking up a flight of stairs with a distracted mind, and misjudging the final step.  You expected there to be one more stair than there is, and so you find yourself off balance for a moment, before your mind shifts back to the present moment and how the world really is.
LIVE your life TODAY!  Don’t ignore death, but don’t be afraid of it either.  Be afraid of a life you never lived because you were too afraid to take action.  Death is not the greatest loss in life.  The greatest loss is what dies inside you while you’re still alive.  Be bold.  Be courageous.  Be scared to death, and then take the next step anyway.

2.  You will only ever live the life you create for yourself.

Your life is yours alone.  Others can try to persuade you, but they can’t decide for you.  They can walk with you, but not in your shoes.  So make sure the path you decide to walk aligns with your own intuition and desires, and don’t be scared to switch paths or pave a new one when it makes sense.
Remember, it’s always better to be at the bottom of the ladder you want to climb than the top of the one you don’t.  Be productive and patient.  And realize that patience is not about waiting, but the ability to keep a good attitude while working hard for what you believe in.  This is your life, and it is made up entirely of your choices.  May your actions speak louder than your words.  May your life preach louder than your lips.  May your success be your noise in the end.
And if life only teaches you one thing, let it be that taking a passionate leap is always worth it.  Even if you have no idea where you’re going to land, be brave enough to step up to the edge of the unknown, and listen to your heart.  (Angel and I discuss this in more detail in the “Passion and Growth” chapter of 1,000 Little Things Happy, Successful People Do Differently.)

3.  Being busy does NOT mean being productive.

Busyness isn’t a virtue, nor is it something to respect.  Though we all have seasons of crazy schedules, very few of us have a legitimate need to be busy ALL the time.  We simply don’t know how to live within our means, prioritize properly, and say no when we should.
Being busy rarely equates to productivity these days.  Just take a quick look around.  Busy people outnumber productive people by a wide margin.  Busy people are rushing all over the place, and running late half of the time.  They’re heading to work, conferences, meetings, social engagements, etc.  They barely have enough free time for family get-togethers and they rarely get enough sleep.  Yet, emails are shooting out of their smart phones like machine gun bullets, and their day planners are jammed to the brim with obligations.  Their busy schedule gives them an elevated sense of importance.  But it’s all an illusion.  They’re like hamsters running on a wheel.
Though being busy can make us feel more alive than anything else for a moment, the sensation is not sustainable long term.  We will inevitably, whether tomorrow or on our deathbed, come to wish that we spent less time in the buzz of busyness and more time actually living a purposeful life.

4.  Some kind of failure always occurs before success.

Most mistakes are unavoidable.  Learn to forgive yourself.  It’s not a problem to make them.  It’s only a problem if you never learn from them.
If you’re too afraid of failure, you can’t possibly do what needs to be done to be successful.  The solution to this problem is making friends with failure.  You want to know the difference between a master and a beginner?  The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.  Behind every great piece of art is a thousand failed attempts to make it, but these attempts are simply never shown to us.
Bottom line:  Just because it’s not happening now, doesn’t mean it never will.  Sometimes things have to go very wrong before they can be right.  (Read The Success Principles.)

5.  Thinking and doing are two very different things.

Success never comes to look for you while you wait around thinking about it.
You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.  Knowledge is basically useless without action.  Good things don’t come to those who wait; they come to those who work on meaningful goals.  Ask yourself what’s really important and then have the courage to build your life around your answer.
And remember, if you wait until you feel 100% ready to begin, you’ll likely be waiting the rest of your life.

6.  You don’t have to wait for an apology to forgive.

Life gets much easier when you learn to accept all the apologies you never got.  The key is to be thankful for every experience – positive or negative.  It’s taking a step back and saying, “Thank you for the lesson.”  It’s realizing that grudges from the past are a perfect waste of today’s happiness, and that holding one is like letting unwanted company live rent free in your head.
Forgiveness is a promise – one you want to keep.  When you forgive someone you are making a promise not to hold the unchangeable past against your present self.  It has nothing to do with freeing a criminal of his or her crime, and everything to do with freeing yourself of the burden of being an eternal victim.

7.  Some people are simply the wrong match for you.

You will only ever be as great as the people you surround yourself with, so be brave enough to let go of those who keep bringing you down.  You shouldn’t force connections with people who constantly make you feel less than amazing.
If someone makes you feel uncomfortable and insecure every time you’re with them, for whatever reason, they’re probably not close friend material.  If they make you feel like you can’t be yourself, or if they make you “less than” in any way, don’t pursue a connection with them.  If you feel emotionally drained after hanging out with them or get a small hit of anxiety when you are reminded of them, listen to your intuition.  There are so many “right people” for you, who energize you and inspire you to be your best self.  It makes no sense to force it with people who are the wrong match for you.

8.  It’s not other people’s job to love you; it’s yours.

It’s important to be nice to others, but it’s even more important to be nice to yourself.  You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.  So make sure you don’t start seeing yourself through the eyes of those who don’t value you.  Know your worth, even if they don’t.
Today, let someone love you just the way you are – as flawed as you might be, as unattractive as you sometimes feel, and as incomplete as you think you are.  Yes, let someone love you despite all of this, and let that someone be YOU.  (Read Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It.)

9.  What you own is not who YOU are.

Stuff really is just stuff, and it has absolutely no bearing on who you are as a person.  Most of us can make do with much less than we think we need.  That’s a valuable reminder, especially in a hugely consumer-driven culture that focuses more on material things than meaningful connections and experiences.
You have to create your own culture.  Don’t watch TV, don’t read every fashion magazine, and don’t consume too much of the evening news.  Find the strength to fill your time with meaningful experiences.  The space and time you are occupying at this very moment is LIFE, and if you’re worrying about Kim Kardashian or Lebron James or some other famous face, then you are disempowered.  You’re giving your life away to marketing and media trickery, which is created by big companies to ultimately motivate you to want to dress a certain way, look a certain way, and be a certain way.  This is tragic, this kind of thinking.  It’s all just Hollywood brainwashing.  What is real is YOU and your friends and your family, your loves, your highs, your hopes, your plans, your fears, etc.
Too often we’re told that we’re not important, we’re just peripheral to what is.  “Get a degree, get a job, get a car, get a house, and keep on getting.”  And it’s sad, because someday you’ll wake up and realize you’ve been tricked.  And all you’ll want then is to reclaim your mind by getting it out of the hands of the brainwashers who want to turn you into a drone that buys everything that isn’t needed to impress everyone that isn’t important.

10.  Everything changes, every second.

Embrace change and realize it happens for a reason.  It won’t always be obvious at first, but in the end it will be worth it.
What you have today may become what you had by tomorrow.  You never know.  Things change, often spontaneously.  People and circumstances come and go.  Life doesn’t stop for anybody.  It moves rapidly and rushes from calm to chaos in a matter of seconds, and happens like this to people every day.  It’s likely happening to someone nearby right now.
Sometimes the shortest split second in time changes the direction of our lives.  A seemingly innocuous decision rattles our whole world like a meteorite striking Earth.  Entire lives have been swiveled and flipped upside down, for better or worse, on the strength of an unpredictable event.  And these events are always happening.
However good or bad a situation is now, it will change.  That’s the one thing you can count on.  So when life is good, enjoy it.  Don’t go looking for something better every second.  Happiness never comes to those who don’t appreciate what they have while they have it.


Great article written by: Marc Chernoff

The 9 Things You Need to Know About Selling

If somebody told me years ago that a future generation of would-be entrepreneurs would learn how to sell from a bunch of writers, researchers, and consultants who’ve never sold a product or managed a sales force in their lives, I wouldn’t have believed it.

And while no article – or book, for that matter – can really teach you how to be a great salesperson, I can definitely share some interesting and counter-intuitive insights that took me a while to figure out, starting with the do's and dont's of delivering a sales pitch:

Selling is a marathon, not a sprint. Selling is a process – an often long and arduous one. The bigger the deal, the longer it takes and the more hoops you have to jump through. On the plus side, you’ll have more time to build a solid foundation for an enduring relationship. If you want to be the last one standing at the end, don’t push too hard in the beginning.

You’re always selling. Whether you’re pitching a new concept to investors, a potential partner to join you, or your board on a risky strategy, you’re more or less always selling something. And if you’re not aware of that, you’re not going to do the right thing to ensure your best chance of success. Truth is, even sales people spend more time selling their own company than their customers.

Make “yes” the logical and emotional choice. Selling is a skill set. Granted, a transaction does eventually take place, but the vast majority of the time, you’re cultivating a relationship, listening to determine your customer’s needs, or building a case for an investment of time and resources or a leap of faith. If you do it right, saying “yes” becomes the logical and emotional choice.

Be sure there’s a real opportunity. Cold calling isn’t synonymous with wasting your and everybody else’s time. Cold calling is when you believe there is a real opportunity and this is your first unsolicited contact with a company or individual. Once you’ve identified the right person and that there is at least a possible fit, then go for it. Otherwise, you’ll come across like a dummy, waste precious time, and maybe even burn bridges or harm your reputation.

Know whom you’re talking to. Try not to get too far along without knowing whom you’re meeting with, what their role is, what motivates them, and how to approach them. Do what you can to learn in advance what they’re doing and what they might be looking for. That way you can come up with a strategy that makes sense. There are ways to do that and adjust your plan on the fly, but that comes with experience.

Don’t try too hard to relate personally. This is probably the biggest mistake small business people make. Sure, you want to build a relationship, but if you try to get too personal too quick, you risk appearing too eager, invading their personal space, or turning the other person off. Instead, pay attention and react to their cues, tone, and body language.

Don’t show off how smart you are. I’ve been guilty of this myself, but not intentionally. Oftentimes, in a transparent attempt to relate and maybe indicate we know what others are talking about, we come off like know-it-alls who love to fill the air with the sound of our own voice. The truth is the customer doesn’t care one bit about what you know. He just wants to know if you’ve got a solution to his problem. So listen.

Give a little, get a little. Selling is a game of give and take. If you do it right, you give a little, get a little, and repeat the process over and over. For example, after providing a general outline of your product, you might ask them to tell you about their product or company so you can determine if there’s a fit. If, on the other hand, you spill your guts all at once and they say “not interested,” you’ve provided a ton of information, gotten nothing in return, and possibly missed an opportunity to offer a customized solution.

Never rehearse. There are several reasons for that, but the most important one is that it’s harder to think on your feet and adapt to new information. Instead, the rule you should always follow is to simply know your material cold, know as much about who you’re pitching as you can, come up with a reasonable plan, and then ask lots of questions, listen for answers, and adjust as needed. Trust your gut.
No matter what happens, remember this: You’ll make lots of mistakes but you’ll get better in time. Most people think I’m a natural-born salesperson, but nothing could be further from the truth. Just listen and learn … from the right people.

Great Article by Steve Tobak ( Tobak is managing partner of Invisor Consulting -- a Silicon Valley-based management and strategy consulting firm -- and a former senior executive of the technology industry.)

Facebook New MUST-HAVE Notifications!!! Can't Get Better than That!

1. Why They Really Broke Up

Not cool, Ryan. Not cool at all.

2. Who Is on the Receiving End of That P/A Status

You'd like to follow the Britney/Mark Facebook drama, but what if you're jumping in halfway through the passive-aggressive status update war? It would be good to know who's actually involved before you take your stance.
(Although we heard that Britney was being totally unreasonable.)

3. What You're Getting Into

I mean, just how crazy is she? You better check that out so you can evaluate whether Charlie is really worth the risk.

4. What You Left Behind (Sort Of)

He was up looking at your profile until 3 a.m. again?

5. What to Expect When They're Expecting

Hide baby pictures before they start.
Note: This one exists. Have you ever seen anyone use it? No. No you have not.

6. Who Did What at Your Party

You saw them canoodling near the punch table, but did something really happen?

7. Whether She Actually Looks That Good

This notification could be subtle, like how she subtly altered the photo so she looked skinnier.

8. Who Unfriended You... and Why?

It might also be nice to get an alert if you're guilty of some annoying Facebook activity, but we know, of course, that you would never be capable of something like that.

Great and Funny article by Taylor Casti

11 Life-Changing Questions You Must Ask Yourself

 

Keep this list handy. Ask yourself these questions every day--without fail. And then, based on your answers, take action.

1. Who would cry the most at my funeral?
Those are people who love you unconditionally. Start returning the feeling.

2. Do I spend enough time with the people who would cry the most at my funeral?
Probably not. Even though those are the people who see the good in you, and make you feel good about yourself.

3. Who would I want to cry the most at my funeral?
Chances are those are the people you neglect the most. You care about them but you're taking them for granted.
Stop taking them for granted.

4. Am I proud to tell people where I work?
If not, it's time to start looking elsewhere. Titles come and go. Money comes and goes. Pride is forever.

5. Is my company a business I would want my children to run?
There may be aspects of your business you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy, much less your kids: insufferable customers, unbearable employees, difficult working conditions, uncertain long-term prospects.
If you would say to your child, "No, I wouldn't want you to have to deal with that..." why do allow yourself to continue to deal with that?
Naturally you want your kids to be happy. You also deserve to be happy. List the problems, then fix the problems.
If you want a better future for your kids, show them the way by making a better future for yourself.

6. Does today feel different than yesterday?
It should, if only in a very small way. Otherwise you're sitting still.

7. Do I say "no" more than I say "yes"?
"No" ensures today will be exactly the same as yesterday. Or maybe worse.

8. Do I spend money instead of time?
Maybe you buy your kids "stuff" because you feel guilty for being away so much, or missing events, or being distracted most of the time. Maybe you buy your significant other "stuff" when you feel guilty about not paying enough attention or showing, by word and action, that you care.
Or maybe you spend money on productivity tools instead of putting in the time to change inefficient work habits. Or maybe you buy expensive fitness equipment and trendy workout gear instead of just sucking it up and working out more.
Money never produces the same results as time. Expensive clothes can't get you in shape; productivity apps can't make you more efficient; a new tablet can't transform your business life.
Money can change some things, temporarily. Time can change anything, forever.
And don't forget: Your kids will soon forget the video game you bought them but they'll never forget the afternoon you spent together.

9. Do I think of myself as a noun?
"I'm an inventor." "I'm a speaker." "I'm a writer."
You're in a box.
Start defining yourself as a noun and you start to feel like you've arrived (even when you haven't). Slowly your focus shifts to "being" rather than doing, to maintaining a sense of self rather than striving to continually improve specific skills.
And you slowly close yourself off to other activities, other ventures, and other possibilities.
Don't define yourself by what you do. Never let yourself be a noun. Be a person who does lots of verbs--and is always open to more.

10. Do I make people feel good about themselves?
Unexpected praise, like the gift given "just because," makes a huge impact.
Every day, people around you do good things. Praise at least one of them, sincerely and specifically. They'll feel great. You'll feel great.

11. Do I scare myself?
If not, you should.
Don't scare yourself with fear of the future, or the economy, or injury or death, but with things you decide to do that push, stretch, challenge, and leave you excited and thrilled and relieved in an "Oh my gosh I can't believe I did that!" way.
We all have fears. What matters is what we do when we're hesitant or nervous or afraid. When we turn away, we die a little inside; when we face a fear and do what we really want to do, we feel truly alive.
Are you living... or really living?
You only get one chance. Make sure you live.

Winter Olympians Throughout History Reacting Triumphantly Upon Winning The Gold