CategoriesActionFinancialObserveReframe your thoughts

Who Is Influencing You?

In an average day, who are the top five influencing voices in your day? Who are you hearing, reading, watching, seeing the most (time spent) or is most influential (short time but with major impact)?

On Sunday, one might be the leader of your religion, one of the Sunday newspapers, your spouse, your kids and/or your parents. On Monday it might be your spouse, your boss, your team at work, the nightly news and your favourite podcast.

On Thursday it might be your boss, your colleagues, your favourite author and people at your monthly meet-up.

Do you listen to them all equally or critically? Do you question their motives and bias or just some of them? Why do you allow them to influence you and not others?

Whoever you are letting influence you, you will become more like. If your boss is kind, or kind of a jerk, that will influence how you are with others. If they complain a lot, you will too. You better hope some of them are financially free or financially disciplined. If not, you might end up the same way.

Be very mindful of who is influencing you and why you let them. Sometimes it’s peer pressure, to belong, because of some of your values or fear of change and exploration. It’s time to deeply consider this and see if you can find influencers that are more positive or that will take you in the direction you would actually like to go. Don’t just drift along. Be intentional. Go!

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CategoriesActionFinancialObserveThink About It

Constraints

You can be paid more per hour but you’ll work fewer hours. Or the company will need to reduce staff altogether and you may be one of those affected.

Employees will make more if wages go up, so margins will reduce and shareholders will be affected by reductions in dividends and/or share prices.

There always seems to be easy answers. However, that is rarely the case. Tough decisions need to be made after careful assessment and an understanding of how best to balance the various constraints and options.

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CategoriesObserveThink About It

You Never Know

Never? Really? You probably know. You might not want to admit it though.

Face the brutal facts of reality. Assess them. Make a plan. Execute. (The plan…)

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CategoriesObserveThink About It

What If You Ruled The World?

Would you be a benign dictator? What demands would you have on others? How would you change things, if at all?

We all like to think we would be just and fair. But often people think they would rule on everything too. Though you wouldn’t have time to gather all the facts of every situation of all 8 billion people.

The world is fairly self-correcting. It isn’t perfect but it is pretty good. You may not get things your way all the time but perhaps that is a good thing.

What one thing, rule, law, situation, etc would you change, enforce or improve?

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CategoriesActionHealth & FitnessObserveThink About ItTime

Timing Is Everything

Think catching the bouquet, a fly ball or a wave. Or consider arriving on holiday as a hurricane is announced, living during a pandemic, or far worse, a war, or sharing a lift in a foreign land with the person you eventually marry.

Timing can be good or bad, brilliant or devastating. Try to set up your environment to win and set up your mindset to win too.

Maximise your good timing and minimise your bad timing. Get yourself where you’ll reap more benefits.

Perhaps timing isn’t everything but it is incredibly influential.

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CategoriesActionObserveReframe your thoughtsThink About It

Dream Versus An Idea

Lots of thoughts come into our heads. But which are our real dreams and which are simply ideas that have occurred to us but we aren’t in love with them.

Sift through these ideas. Dismiss the merely interesting ones. Grab the one or two that lift your soul and make a smile on your face. Those are the dreams.

Now take at least one step right now to progress toward them.

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CategoriesActionObserveThink About It

You Want To Be Different, But Treated The Same

This is a big challenge for a lot of people. We all want to feel unique in some way. It’s nice to think we are unique among 8 billion people. Maybe it’s your physical look, an attitude, the way we dress or the thoughts we think.

The challenge comes when we want to be recognised or celebrated for our diverse or different ways but don’t want anyone to point it out and treat us differently.

You might display and highlight your culture and its uniqueness But then you might want to be accepted by others and treated the same, even if some aspects of your culture are in conflict.

Put the shoe on the other foot. Recognise that different is different and that’s good. But don’t expect people to treat different the same way.

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CategoriesActionObserveReframe your thoughts

Stay Alert To Possibilities

Keep your eyes open and your imagination running to really spot the numerous opportunities that cross your path each day. Many opportunities are not completely obvious. Some of them need to be looked at in a different way. Train your mind to see what isn’t already there but rather what could be.

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CategoriesActionObserveReframe your thoughtsThink About It

The Stories People Create

“Obviously, she was thinking that….” How is it that we think we are so good at mind reading other people? Oftentimes people express what is on their mind and project it onto others.

Many people make a snap decision and then build a case around their view of the story. “He’s innocent!” And if he really is, then the police, prosecutor, witnesses etc are the real bad people.

They are often afraid to see what the reality could be, especially if they would be seen as taking the view of the other side compared to their usual orientation.

Think about this next time you create a story around something, or hear someone else do it. Where are the facts? Where did the story comes from? Are there elements that have probably been made up to fill in some space and make it more exciting or believable?

Stop yourself next time, especially if you’re making up negative points. Create lovely stories if you’re going to make stuff up.

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