Pleasure Vs. Happiness

"Don't mistake activity with achievement."

- John Wooden 

Have you ever noticed how we get such pleasure in doing the urgent all day and mixing in the pebbles (the small things) on our "to do" list? The pleasure we get from putting out that fire, answering employee questions, scratching through that small to do - sound familiar?

Notice I used the word pleasure. Too often people confuse that word with happiness. They are entirely two different things. Pleasure is all about the short term. We get pleasure from eating a nice warm donut. We get happiness from being active and eating right and staying in shape.

We get pleasure from being busy, knocking off those must do's. How often do you look back on your day, your crossed off lists and unhappily say to yourself, "Did I really accomplish anything today"? You might be thinking, "I never got to the Rock, the big thing I needed to do". We get happiness from working on the big things (the Rocks), the essential things that will keep us energized, passionate, and fulfilled.

We put off the big things until we don't feel like doing them or try to fit them in and procrastinate.

So think about it for tomorrow morning. Do the big things first (the Rocks) while you are the most energized and in a good mood.

Steve Chandler:

"Know ahead of time what the Big Thing is.  Set it up to be TAKEN OUT WITH MASSIVE UNSTOPPABLE ACTION while you are at your most resourceful and energetic.  That is the ultimate source of a person's professional happiness...the feeling of accomplishment you get when you take out the big thing!

 The look on your face alone will motivate others to follow you."

I might add, it will also give you a tremendous amount of energy to take on the rest of the day, and at the end of the day you will be happy with what you got done. Put the Rocks in the bowl first, the pebbles will all fit in.
 

All the best,

Rick Wallace

The Rabbit Is Not Real

"If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's. And guess what they might have planned for you? Not much."

-- Jim Rohn, Motivational Speaker

My guest blogger this week is Michael Neill whom I met at a coaching school with Steve Chandler in 2007.

Over the years, each one of these stories has helped me to step back, slow down, and enjoy my days more than ever before...

1. On Best-selling authors and Billionaires

True story, Word of Honor:

Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer
now dead, and I were at a party given by a billionaire
on Shelter Island.

I said, "Joe, how does it make you feel  to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel 'Catch-22'
has earned in its entire history?"

And Joe said, "I've got something he can never have."

And I said, "What on earth could that be, Joe?"

And Joe said, "The knowledge that I've got enough."

Not bad! Rest in Peace!

2. The Reverend and the Greyhound

I suspect it didn't happen quite like this, but I'll let Dr. Fred Craddock share a surprising encounter he had with an old greyhound dog his niece had recently adopted...

I said to the dog "Are you still racing?"

"No," he replied

"Well, what was the matter? Did you get too old to race?"

"No, I still had some race in me."

"Well, what then? Did you not win?"

"I won over a million dollars for my owner."

"Well, what was it? Bad treatment?"

"Oh, no," the dog said.  "They treated us royally when we were racing."

"Did you get crippled?"

"No."

"Then why?" I pressed.  "Why?"

The dog answered, "I quit."

"You quit?"

"Yes," he said.  "I quit."

"Why did you quit?"

"I just quit because after all that running and running and running, I found out that the rabbit I was chasing wasn't even real."  

3. The Rich Man and the Beggar

Many years ago, a man was sitting in quiet contemplation by a riverbank when he was disturbed by a beggar from the local village.


"Where is the stone?" the beggar demanded. "I must have the precious stone!"

The man smiled up at him. "What stone do you seek?"

"I had a dream," the beggar continued, barely able to slow his words to speak, "and in that dream a voice told me that if I went to the riverbank I would find a man who would give me a precious stone that would end my poverty forever!"

The man looked thoughtful, then reached into his bag and pulled out a large diamond.

"I wonder if this was the stone?" the man said kindly. "I found it on the path. If you'd like it, you may certainly have it."

The beggar couldn't believe his luck, and he snatched the stone from the man's hand and ran back to the village before he could change his mind.

One year later, the beggar, now dressed in the clothes of a wealthy man, came back to the riverbank in search of his anonymous benefactor.

"You have returned, my friend!" said the man, who was again sitting in his favorite spot enjoying the peaceful flow of the water before him.  "What has happened?"

The beggar humbled himself before the man.

"Many wonderful things have happened to me because of the diamond you gave me so graciously. I have become wealthy, found a wife and bought a home. I am now able to give employment to others and to do what I want, when I want with whomever I want."

"For what have you returned?" asked the man.

"Please," the rich beggar said. "Teach me whatever it is inside you that allowed you to give me that stone so freely." 

This week, do your best to enjoy your life and everyone in it. You have enough. The "rabbits" you've been chasing aren't real. And there is something alive inside you which will make your life richer than the wealthiest beggar in all the world.

Have fun, learn heaps, and happy exploring!

- Michael

But What Do YOU Do?

 "You can't be in the parade and watch the floats."

- Tony Beets, Gold Miner

For Business Owners, Management and Coaches:

From Seth Godin:

"Do you make your own paper? Do you start with wood pulp and mix and bleach and set and produce the sheets you use? My guess is that you save time (and a lot of money) and just go to Staples and buy a ream or two.

The theory of the firm shows us that when people work together in an institution, they are able to produce more than if they work separately. Pareto optimality makes it obvious that if one person mixes the dough while the other bakes the loaves, they'll get more done than if each did the whole job.

This explains one reason why big companies keep getting bigger. They gain economies of production and marketing as they specialize their workforce.

But what about the small enterprise, the freelancer, the soloist?

The web now makes just about every task outsourceable with a click. Not only don't you have to make your own paper (or hire a paper maker) but you can have someone process payroll and bills, design a website, answer customer calls, schedule appointments and a thousand other things you used to need to do on your own.

Which leads to the key question: When you can outsource everything, what do you do? When you can choose the kind of value you create, you are also choosing what you're going to outsource and what you're going to do yourself.

Here are three reasons to do something as part of your work, from worst to best:

1. Because you are the cheapest available worker. Because you need to do something, and it's more profitable for you to do this task than to pay someone else to do it. Because you can't find something more beneficial or profitable to do.
2.  Because people (clients) will notice when you do it. That might mean that they notice your presence, or they notice the unique nature of what you create (your art) or they will notice that you've learned something doing this when it leads to you doing something great later on. Mario Batali doesn't cook for 99% of his customers (physically impossible), and they can't tell. And he doesn't design 99% (or 5%, I have no idea) of his recipes, ecause we can't tell. In fact, the only thing people can tell is that it's him on the TV, and that his decisions are guiding what his organization does next.
3.  Because you love it. Because the work matters to you, and this task, right now, is the best version of the work you can find.

Every time you hire yourself to do something (make paper, pay a bill, change a logo design), you've just decided not to do something else instead.

The first step: your job is to make decisions about what you do. And my guess is that what you do is make decisions."

Focus on the Essential things, the right things. The things that will add the most value to your company and not the comfortable things, the easy things, the reactionary things. Delegate or outsource those things.

All the best,
Rick Wallace

Pay Attention - Grow

"If I have an area of the business I want to improve I simply set some goals and begin measuring and posting the numbers to the team every week and it gets better. "

- Keith Koetting - Owner North Texas Sales and Distribution

 

From Steve Chandler:

"It will become amazing to you, your client or friend can increase whatever she wants in her life if she only remembers to pay attention.  She "pays" attention because she "invests" it.

My friend Jim Blasingame hosts a popular nation-wide radio show called The Small Business Advocate.  He recently told me that the first year he was on the air with his show he directed all of his attention to the worries and problems of the show......and the show really struggled.  The next three years he began to pay more and more attention to the audience....and the audience grew!  Whatever he put his attention on would grow.

Anything you pay attention to expands.  It grows.  Pay attention to your house plants and they grow.  Pay attention to your favorite sport, and your passion for that sport grows.  Attention is like that.  Anywhere you point it, the object of that attention grows.

When you have conversations with people who are struggling, you will notice that their attention is fastened on problems and obstacles. If you want to help them, your work will be easy. Shift that attention to the goal - e.g., shift it to the customer."

As a business owner pay attention to ONE BIG THING a quarter. Inventory, Customers Acquisition, Virtual Bench, A/R, whatever it is, set some KPI's or goals then decide on 3-5 Rocks (Projects, Actions) that, when executed, will return big dividends from the Attention you Paid to them. Then measure and track progress of those goals and Rocks in your weekly Huddles. The results will astound. 

All the best,

Rick Wallace