We will fall. We can rise. It is a choice.
Imagine what was going on in the minds of the initial 50 Japanese workers who stayed behind (while everyone else was evacuated ) to try and fix things at the nuclear reactor after the earthquake ...
Why would anyone choose to put themselves at that much risk?
Archimedes said "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world."
In this case, the lever was the fate of world, or at least their little corner of the world. Their actions might save and change millions of lives.
They had a purpose. And once you have a big enough "Why" ... the "Hows" seem to take care of themselves.
You don't have to wait to be a 'hero'.
On a related note, here is a TED video worth watching.
It is called: "Life Lessons From a Volunteer Firefighter".
Small Acts matter. Don't wait.
Related Info:
You never know where a spark of inspiration will come from. Sometimes you get it from a quote or a story; other times it might come from a question ...
The truth is that sources of inspiration are always there for you. The question is whether you are looking for them or notice them when they show up.
Here's a source that I value for its practical wisdom and insights.
"Today Is Your Day to Win" is a series of 99 daily lessons, delivered by e-mail. On more than a few occasions, it brought me a message right when I needed it.
It is written by Mike Brescia of Think Right Now, and it doesn't cost a cent. Of course, to get the benefit, you will have to invest some time and mental cycles to consider the content.
Here is a sample from one of the messages.
Good Things Will Come To Me When I ...
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Today's Empowering Quote
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"The best preparation for good work tomorrow is good work today."
--Elbert Hubbard
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Today's Empowering Question
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"What can I do now that will prepare me for tomorrow?"
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Today's Fast Session
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Often the most frustrating thing that any of us feel on a regular basis is to want something really bad, and not be able to get it right away.
Yes, it's frustrating. But it's usually not realistic, is it? ...
It's getting so that it's increasingly rare to find people who are truly willing to put in the requisite time necessary to get the traits or items they want. Our world today is trying to teach us that we must get what we want immediately; that it's our right. And that's why so many of us are jealous, smoke or drink, are overweight, use drugs, etc. ...
Life is NOT like school.
In school, you can trick yourself into thinking you're doing great if you cram for exams and get decent scores. It is possible to get fairly good grades for a while that way.
But you don't learn it. You're likely to just remember it until the exam is over... maybe.
That's why new college graduates often find it difficult to find a decent paying job. Companies like successful work experience. In college, you can fool the system and yourself. In the professional world and in most other areas of life, it's a lot tougher. Almost impossible.
Real life is truly like a farm.
On the farm, you must move the rocks, buy seeds and all the other stuff, plant the seeds, buy and maintain the equipment, pull weeds, keep the pests away, water the crops, buy and sell the animals, feed them, nurse the sick ones back to health, fertilize, etc. And you need to keep up with it all everyday...
Or you won't have a crop at the end of the season.
Life is like this, too. Just like a farm, you can't "cram" in life. Don't be fooled. Don't believe the lies that others want you to believe. You want to believe it. I know you do. But think.
The people who have the things you want earned them. And don't believe they just got lucky. Luck takes work.
Put the effort in today and you'll get luckier and luckier. Will it be immediately? Probably not. Beat this into your head... Anything worth having takes time to get it.
When I'm tempted to believe that I should have something (before I've earned it), I think of my grandparents.
They owned a farm.
And I realize that life can be long and that I can't put tomorrow before today.
Then I look at my goal, put my shoulder down and keep going...
With a smile on my face.
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Today's Winning Beliefs
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-- I'm at peace with my responsibilities.
-- I'm preparing myself for tomorrow today.
Here is a link to the complete archive of lessons.
Let me know if you found other sources of inspiration worth sharing.
It turns out that it only takes minor misunderstandings to radically affect progress. Likewise, it only takes minor changes to put things back on the right track and "unlock" a situation.
Here's an example from a recent strategic planning session in my company.
On several occasions during the planning session, I said "I've already given you that", or "we agreed on that before".
However, if we really were communicating, then there wouldn't still be an issue. Clearly, something was getting in the way of true communication.
What Can Cause This?
One of the issues was "bandwidth". If someone feels so overwhelmed that they can't take in anything more, then what would have been signal turns out to be noise. Another way to say that is even a reasonable request can seem unreasonable if the person is overwhelmed and doesn't feel like they have the resources to accomplish what they need.
A related issue is understanding, but not agreeing. In other words, we can talk about an issue ... but until someone says "yes" there isn't agreement. For example, in a car dealership there's a difference between saying "I really liked that car", or even "I really want to buy that car", versus "yes, I will buy this car."
The same dynamic plays out in a business meeting, and the stakes are often higher.
Chilean miner Edison Peña, who ran constantly when he was trapped in the San José mine, ran the New York marathon today.
In the mine he ran at least 10 kilometers a day, taking between 10 and 12 laps underground, with heavy rubber boots with steel tips. Peña said: “I ran inside the mine … I wanted to give a message to everybody”.
Peña was invited by the organizers of the marathon to be an honored guest, but he asked to participate instead.
It reminds me of something Viktor Frankl said:
"Our attitude towards what has happened to us in life is the important thing to recognize.
Once hopeless, my life is now hope-full, but it did not happen overnight.
The last of human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, is to choose one's own way."
~ Victor Frankl, "Man's Search for Meaning"
This video shows how narrow your focus can be. You'll have some fun, and what is revealed at the end is surprising. So pay attention as you watch the video. See what you notice.
It was done by pychologist, magician, and author Prof Richard Wiseman. Click here for background information about this video and the psychology behind it.
Professor Wiseman has more videos here.
In part 1 of this post, we examined Change Blindness and how we can miss incredibly obvious things (right in front of us) if our attention is focused elsewhere.
In an information-rich environment, attention is a scarce and essential resource.
Think how often your focus blinds you to the obvious.
Here are two books written by Professor Wiseman. The first is called Quirkology, and it is about discoving big truths in small things. The second is called 59 Seconds, and it is about little things that make big differences.
and
Here is a link to a short video about 59 Seconds.
You look, but do you see?
Daniel Simons' experiments on visual awareness have become famous. The primary conclusion drawn from his research is that we can miss incredibly obvious things, right in front of us, if our attention is focused elsewhere.
Test Your Awareness.
Watch this video and count how many passes the team in white makes.
This is worth doing so you experience it yourself.
Try to ignore the black team. Just focus on the white team, and see if you can accurately count how many times they pass the ball.
OK, click the video to do it now.
Did you get the right answer? Even though I knew what to expect, the result or effect was surprising.
By the way, there is a newer version of this video, here.
Think how often your focus blinds you to the obvious.
Change Blindness.
Missing an invisible gorilla or a moon-walking bear may seem strange. However, the next experiment may be more surprising.
This video demonstrates "change blindness". In an experiment, 75% of the participants didn't notice that the experimenter who bent under a counter was replaced by a different person.
If you liked that, here is a version done by Derrin Brown. It is quite clever and worth watching. It was even more surprising to me because it was done in public with "real people". How did people not notice a white male switching with a black guy (or an asian female) in the middle of a conversation?
Warning: Objects In Your Attention Span Are Fewer Than You Perceive.
Moment by moment, the brain selectively processes information it deems most relevant. Experiments, like these, show the limits of our capacity to encode, retain, and compare visual information from one glance to the next.
More importantly, this suggests that our awareness of our visual surroundings is far more sparse than most people intuitively believe. Consequently, our intuition can deceive us far more often than we perceive.
Clearly, in an information-rich environment, attention is a scarce and essential resource. So, pay attention (or automate the things you know need to be done right, every time).
Related Resources.
Do you focus on the past, present or future?
Professor Philip Zimbardo explains how our individual perspectives of time affect our work, health and well-being. Zimbardo is talking about psychological time (subjective time), not the objective time dictated by the clocks on our phones. As you might guess, "time" influences how we perceive ourselves, how we view relationships, and how we act in the world.
This short video offers some eye-opening insights.
Below is the illustrated version of "The Secret Powers of Time". The original video of Zimbardo speaking at a podium follows. While it has the same message, the visuals are very different. This side-by-side comparison shows the value of visual synthesis note-taking.
Here is the full version of that talk with Zimbardo as the focus.
Quite a different experience.
Back when I was in school, my father asked me to do something. I don't remember what it was, specifically ... but it was a normal thing for a father to ask a son to do.
Later that day, while we were talking, he asked how my day went. I told him about all the things I did. Then, he asked whether I did the thing he asked me to do. I tried to explain that because of how busy I had been, I didn't have time to do what he asked.
He frowned, and I still remember the look in his eye when he told me that from his standpoint, I hadn't done anything.
That put things in a different context.
Each day we make a host of commitments great and small. If my to-do list has 15 items on it, and I do the 13 or 14 of them ... then on one hand, I can feel good about how productive I was. Yet, on the other hand, chances are that the one or two things I didn't do were the only things that were supposed to get done for the person whose task got put off until another day.
Getting Things Done.
Stephen Covey makes a big distinction between importance versus urgency. It's easy to lose sight of what needs to get done if you fill your day with interruptions, distractions, busywork, or time-wasters.
By understanding what is both important and urgent it's easy to clarify the value of what really needs to get done.
Understanding why things need to get done is also a big step forward in terms of prioritizing what you commit to do. For example, Scott Scheper suggests your goal should be to balance out your tasks so that 20% are spent on reactive tasks, and 80% are spent on proactive tasks. Why? Because reactive tasks will make you a living, while proactive tasks will make you successful.
Ultimately, there are many ways to sort, sift, filter and prioritize your list.
There is a rule-of-thumb that 20% of your activities will account for 80 percent of your success (this is often called the "Pareto Principle" or the "80%-20% Rule"). In other words, if you have 100 tasks in your task list, there probably will be about 20 of those that are the key ones to focus on. The key is to find a prioritization method that helps you pinpoint these tasks.
Here is an interesting video from Chris Brogan.
A Little Bit of Automation Can Help Too.
I use several tools. Toodledo and Nozbe are both easy-to-use online to-do lists with a great iPhone client. For teams, I highly recommend the stuff from 37 Signals.
In addition, there are some terrific new Visual Thinking, Idea Mapping or Mind-Mapping tools available to help you think and plan better.
"If you think you can do a thing ... or think you can't do a thing; you're right."
I love football season, and I'm a sucker for plot devices like this.
Here is a clip from the movie "Facing the Giants".
There are times in life when it is hard to imagine finding a path to victory.
So often the answer is as simple as committing to the outcome desired, showing-up, playing full-out, and giving your best until there is absolutely nothing left.
