Before and after

What you are today is nothing compared to what you will be tomorrow.

And what you are today is massively more compared to what you were yesterday.

Life is continuous progress. Many look for success in what lies ahead – I will have more – while at the same time regretting the lack of what once was – I was better off. The point is to completely revert the perspective, and start measuring success looking at the path so far while aspiring to what comes next.

It’s always the journey, not the destination.

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.

Epicurus

Opening up

The only way to get people to share their ideas, their thoughts, their feelings, their problems, their feedback, is for you to shut up.

If you keep talking, they will stop thinking. If you interrupt them, they will give up trying. If you go first – particularly if you are in a position of power – they will just repeat what you said.

To get people to open up you have to willing to give them space and just listen.

Ideas fly away

No matter how fantastic an idea is, how relevant it is, how sure you are you are never going to forget it and you will keep improving on it.

In the busyness of the day, the idea will most likely fly away.

If you ever want to achieve something meaningful (for you), take the habit of writing things down.

It makes a difference.

Confidence

You don’t always have an answer, you don’t always know what to do, you don’t always understand what is happening.

The trick is not to try to fake it. Not to try to escape it.

If you can just stay with the feeling for a while, what you need will come.

Confidence is about being at ease with uncertainty, without wanting to get rid of it at all costs.

Breakthrough

You don’t have to tell, to explain, to convince, to persuade.

You just have to listen, understand, and play back.

That’s copywriting.

Copy cannot create desire for a product. It can only take the hopes, dreams, fears and desires that already exist in the heart of millions of people, and focus those already existing desires onto a particular product.

Eugene Schwartz, Breakthrough Advertising (1966)

P.S.: Thanks Katelyn Bourgoin for sharing this in the first place.