It’s ok to be cheerful even when not everything is going well. It’s ok to be down even when most things seem to be perfect.
We need to be able to recognise that life is made of a multitude of pieces. The one that is in front of us right now is what determines our current mood. And fortunately there is much more for us to appreciate, at any given time.
The real edge in today’s world is not to have all the answers, but to motivate people to invest their resources – time, energy, money, attention – to find the answers. Possibly working with others.
We all heard that the world is more complex than ever, more ever-changing than ever, more fast-paced than ever. Yet we fail to understand what that means. Most of us are not asked to draw from their previous expertise to come up with ready-made solutions. Quite the contrary, the more you can tame the knowledge and information you have, sit with a problem, ask around, collect ideas, prepare the setting, coach people, lead the execution, the more you will be relevant.
We don’t need actions. What we need is systems.
Success is never binary. And very rarely you land on a 0 or on a 1.
Most often, you find yourself somewhere in between.
Understand this to appreciate the progress you have made, as well as the path you still have ahead of you.
If you navigate the internet in search of answers and all you get is confusion and frustration, you are not any different from most of us.
And it is not that people are mean and they don’t want to let you in their own secret.
The point is that there is no secret.
There are probably hundreds of roads to get where you are going. Some of them seem similar, some are very different, some contradict each other. Some are cryptic, some are clear, some seem to go in completely different direction but are actually the two sides of a same coin.
It’s easy to get lost on roads that others have built for themselves.
That’s when you understand that the only road that matters is the one you choose to take. Every day.
It’s rarely as bad as we think it is.
It’s rarely as bad as we think it will be.
We put stakes on the things that happen to us and we never pause to think that it is us who determine how important outcomes are.
Is failing at a job truly that disastrous?
Is delivering a project late really so determinant of the company’s future success?
Is expressing our doubts or asking a difficult question truly going to jeopardize the relationship with a friend?
If a behavior is repeated across time, it is wise to take note and try to address it. But if it happens only once, is it really going to be that bad?
Probably not.
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