Setting The Tone

Your alarm sounds in the early morning hours and you rouse from your slumber to turn it off. 

That’s your first action of the day—to make the incessant beeping stop. 

But what’s your next move?

Rolling back over to for a little extra rest? 

Telling yourself, “Just ten more minutes?” 

Or do you spring to action? 

Do you climb out of bed and start your day? 

Truth be told, there’s nothing inherently wrong with sleeping in. 

No one is going to look down on you because you choose to get up at the last possible moment before having to leave for work. 

So why do it? 

If sleeping in isn’t wrong, why give up the extra sleep?

You give up the comfort and warmth of your bed because among other things it sets the tone for your day. 

How you respond to that first test sets you on a path. A path towards strength, action, and victory. Or a path towards timidity, reaction, and weakness. 

There are two paths and the one you choose determines a great deal. 

Control

A thousand different things determine the outcome of your life. 

Of those thousands of things, you have control over only a handful. 

The temptation is to waste energy and effort focusing on things outside your control. 

Resisting it takes discipline. 

The discipline to identify the handful of things within your control and own them like crazy. To forget about the rest and banish them from your mind. The discipline to live in the present moment undistracted by what’s going on around you. 

Discipline keeps you on the path when those thousand different things come calling. 

Attitude Over Circumstances

The quality of your life and character isn’t determined by circumstances external to you—the things that happen to you. Both are determined by the internal choices and decisions you make in light of them. 

Which is good news because you can actually do something about them. 

“It is not as important to change our circumstances,” Tim Keller says, “as it is to change our heart’s attitude and stance toward them.” 

Your attitude is the key to turning even the worst situation around. How you think drives everything else. 

It’s easy to have a positive attitude when things are going well. But it’s a different story when they’re not. Those are the moments you need encouragement from a good friend. I want to be that good friend for you today, and remind you of a few things. 

Every situation (good or bad) has the potential to shape and impact you for the better. It might be hard and nearly impossible to get through, but it can make you tougher, stronger, and better if you’ll let it. The mental game is always the hardest part of any battle. Staying positive and upbeat when the waves are crashing about you is perhaps the most difficult thing you face on a regular basis. 

When things aren’t going well, I want you to remember what good things it could mean for you. Opportunities to grow and learn. Opportunities to be a better version of yourself today than you were yesterday. Opportunities that remind you why you’re here in the first place.

Check your thoughts the next time you find yourself in the damp dark pit of self-pity. Remind yourself that you’ve still got gas in the tank and some fight left in you. You’re not that easy to beat. You will never quit. You’re tough enough to hang in there and find the silver lining to even the darkest cloud. A silver lining that keeps you pushing forward and driving on when things are at their lowest. 

3 Takeaways From Watching What The Health

I sat down to watch What The Health yesterday afternoon. I found it disgusting, shameful and shocking—and not for the reasons you may assume.

For those of you unaware What The Health is the newest in a long line of documentaries discussing the gross and cringeworthy aspects of the American diet. WTH focused their attention on overturning the tables of the meat and dairy industries. 

I’m not here to convince you one way or the other. I don’t think this documentary is the greatest thing ever, or the worst thing imaginable. As with most things, it lands somewhere in the middle. Bottomline: You’re going to have to make up your own mind about the diet choices you make. That’s 100% up to you. 

What I do want to share with you are three takeaways from the film. We can all walk away from this documentary thinking and united on at least three things: 

1. There is a link between what we eat and our health. This isn’t groundbreaking or even new information. Far too few of us make decisions that reflect a deep understanding of this link. I know I haven’t. If we pause long enough to think we’ll see that the link between how we feel, the measure of life we experience and its length are all directly linked to the things we put into our bodies. 

2. There are some serious concerns with the meat industry. The meat, dairy, and egg industries have truly appalling practices that need to be addressed. The issues go far beyond the treatment of animals—which is an issue requiring serious thought and action—to include the items injected into the foods we consume. It is hard to square these practices with what ethics and sanity would call us to.   

3. You must take ownership of your own health. Regardless of where you land on the issue of nutrition and the great meat debate, your health is your responsibility. You can’t sit back, take it easy and pass the buck. Your health is no one else's responsibility. It’s something you have to seize control of. Your choices and decisions are yours to make. Do with them what you will, but don’t blame anyone but yourself for how things turn out. 

The Pareto Principle

You have so much going on that it can be quite overwhelming at times. To make it worse, a lot of what you spend your time doing doesn't add to your bottom line or help you accomplish your goals. With your attention pulled in so many directions it can be hard to keep focused on what truly matters. But how do you break this cycle and cut through the waste so you can focus on the truly important? 

 Vilefredo Pareto just might hold the key to unlocking the magic code to increasing productivity and regaining your sanity.

Never heard of Vilefredo Pareto? You're not alone.  

Vilefredo Pareto was an economist of little note who lived and died Switzerland almost 100 years ago. Not much of his work or life garners our attention. However, at some point in his 75 years of life Pareto stumbled upon a mathematical truth that could truly transform your life.

The Pareto Principle first popped up on my radar while reading The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss a little over a year ago. At it's most simple The Pareto Principle simply states that 80% of outputs come from 20% of inputs. This has been found to be true across all manner of disciplines including time management, customers, and economics.

A few alternative ways to look at the principle include:

• 20% of your customers generate 80% of your income

• 20% of your customers create 80% of you problems

• 80% of your results come from 20% of your effort and time

It drives home the concept of prioritization. What you focus on matters immensely. If you are focusing all of your efforts on the wrong things you won't get the results your working so hard to achieve. You will run yourself ragged with nothing to show. Thankfully, you can learn and apply the 80/20 principle to your life and alter the outcomes you are working so hard to reach.

Pareto and the 80/20 principle will be of most help to you if you leverage them to assess your current efforts. Here are three ways you can apply it:

1. Take stock of current efforts. Write down everything you are doing and outcomes it is producing. Be unattached from the outcomes here, simply list out your activity and how it has impacted your work, life, etc.

2. Reprioritize what's producing. Perhaps you find that phone calls are driving your business and resulting huge returns for you, despite the fact that you make very few. In that case, pick up the phone and start making more calls. The key here is to determine your areas of strength and multiply them.

3. Eliminate waste. Consider cutting those things that are wasting your time and energy. It might be something you think would be generating results but its just sucking up resources. Cut it ruthlessly. Find your inefficiencies and eliminate them. This will free you up to focus on what's actually generating for you.   

These three steps show where to double down and where to eliminate. Apply this principle to your life, get a hold of the few things that truly matter, and see how drastically it transforms things for you. 

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Bonus tip:

Develop a "Stop Doing" List

A few weeks back I wrote a series of questions to help you evaluate the items on your "to do" list that pairs well with the Pareto Principle that will be helpful to you. Here is an expert from that post:

"The solution to your crazy schedule and consequently a crazy task list isn't just another list but the process of evaluating exactly what you are doing each day. A "stop doing" list helps you take a cold hard look at what you are doing and literally stop doing those things that are not the most fruitful for you and your team."

Bonus Resource:

For more on the Pareto Principle and other awesome tips that are sure to shatter your world, in a good way, check out The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss.