A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Microsoft founder Bill Gates once said, “We often underestimate what we can achieve in a year and overestimate what we can achieve in five years.” To run a marathon successfully, you need to increase your run mileage by running consistently. To finish a 700+ page book, you can read 20 pages per day, and you would be done in 30 days. Most of our biggest goals seem overwhelming and out of reach, but if you take one step towards achieving your goals daily, the incremental progress will increase your confidence, and ultimately, you will achieve your goal. As author and motivational speaker Les Brown often said “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.”
“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.”
There’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing.
The Scandinavians have a saying “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing”. There is nothing we can do about the weather, but we can surely control what we wear in the weather. Complaining about the weather or the challenges that we deal with in life would not change the situation, the only way to change anything is to take action; nothing moves until you move. As author, Jim Rohn often said “Don’t wish it was easier wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenge wish for more wisdom”. Life is going to happen to us all at some point, whatever will go wrong will eventually go wrong. In the words, of the British writer Vivien Greene “Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass.It’s about learning how to dance in the rain.”
Solomon’s Paradox is named after the ancient Israelite king, Solomon’s paradox describes our inability to reason wisely about our own lives, even if we demonstrate good judgement when faced with other people’s problems. 1 Most of us have the tendency to easily activate advice-giving mode instead of genuinely listening, staying curious and asking questions to understand the real issues.
In his book, The Intelligence Trap: Why Smart People Make Dumb Mistakes 1, author David Robson describes why intelligent people act stupidly – and why in some cases they are even more prone to error than the average person. One of the examples that Robson cites to explain the intelligence trap is Solomon’s paradox, which is our tendency to demonstrate good judgment with other people’s problems but find it hard to reason wisely on our problems.
Temptation bundling 1 is a term coined by University of Pennsylvania’s behavior researcher Katherine Milkman and her colleagues in a 2014 study. Here’s how it works: Basically, you “bundle” a source of instant gratification (like checking Instagram or watching an addictive show) with a beneficial but less fun “should” activity (like running on the treadmill or working on a spreadsheet). In Milkman’s study, the researchers gave participants iPods with four audio novels they wanted to listen to — but they could only access the iPod while working out. By and large, the participants’ gym attendance increased when an indulgence was tied to it.
Temptation bundling—a method for simultaneously tackling two types of self-control problems by harnessing consumption complementarities.
In their research, Dr. Milkman and her colleagues measured the impact of bundling instantly gratifying but guilt-inducing “want” experiences (enjoying page-turner audiobooks) with valuable “should” behaviors providing delayed rewards (exercising). Initially, full and intermediate treatment participants visited the gym 51% and 29% more frequently, respectively, than control participants, but treatment effects declined over time (particularly following Thanksgiving). After the study, 61% of participants opted to pay to have gym-only access to iPods containing tempting audiobooks, suggesting demand for this commitment device.
I have always loved watching basketball as I love the game. I started watching NBA basketball around 1994/1995 as a kid who was intrigued by my fellow countryman Hakeem Olajuwon leading the Houston Rockets to back-to-back NBA championships. I followed Michael Jordan’s second run of winning his last three rings with the Chicago Bulls and I had some late nights watching the Bulls play Malone-led Utah Jazz team in the 1997/1998 season. Watching the Netflix miniseries, the last dance during the COVID-19 pandemic brought back some childhood memories as I was following some of the events in the series as a kid.
Small, seemingly insignificant steps completed consistently over time will create a radical difference.
One of the most exciting things that I do on a daily basis is to exercise and improve in the process. I cross-train, the action or practice of engaging in two or more sports or types of exercise in order to improve fitness or performance in one’s main sport. I practice the following sports activities: Basketball, running, weightlifting, swimming, pickleball, badminton, cycling, tennis, volleyball and badminton. Apart from the fitness and movement goal, I try to stay consistent with practicing each sport as it is a medium for improving daily. For example, I start my daily exercise routine with shooting basketball drills and the more I shoot, the more I know I can get better.
“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.” ― E.E. Cummings
Halloween is a worldwide celebration on the last night of October, on the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows’ or All Saints’ days. The word hallowe[‘]en is derived from the Scottish form of All Hallows’ Eve – “the evening before All-Hallows Day” 1 Some popular Halloween activities include trick or treat, guiding, souling and most especially putting a mask in disguise. Just like the mask used during the Halloween celebration, most of us have a mask throughout our lives and days. We put on a mask to perform our different roles at work, at home, with family, friends and acquaintances. Depending on the circumstances, we constantly disguise changing the mask to fit the situation we are in leading to inconsistency in our behaviour and action.
American essayist and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.” Acta Non Verba is a Latin phrase that means Acta (Action), Non (Not) Verba (Words), which translates also to Deeds, not Words. To achieve anything worthwhile in life, you have to take the necessary action steps to complete your set objectives. As Sir Isaac Newton stated in his first law of motion, “An object will not change its motion unless a force acts on it.” Nothing moves until you move; to get the results you have never obtained, you must do what you have never done. As the saying goes, Motivation gets you started, but Self-Discipline keeps you going.
“There can be no success without enthusiasm. The secret of a full life is lots of enthusiasm, the kind that keeps you fighting and winning overall obstacles-and enjoying every minute of it.” – Alfred Krebs
Enthusiasm is derived from the Greek ἐνθουσιασμός from ἐν (en, “in”) and θεός (theós, “god”), meaning “inspired or possessed by [a] god.” It can also refer to a person possessed by God or exhibited intense piety. To be enthused means to be interested in something, a subject or an activity. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the Second World War, Winston Churchill, once quipped, “Success is the ability to go from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” Not losing one’s enthusiasm when the challenges, vicissitudes, trials and tribulations of life arise is one of the hallmarks of highly successful people.
“Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.” – Samuel Ullman
Life can be challenging most of the time; the storms of life are always coming; it is either this or that, and it can sometimes feel overwhelming. Losing a loved one, getting laid off, getting divorced, dealing with a medical condition, and managing various life stressors can result in a loss of enthusiasm. Having the mental fortitude and strength to withstand whatever life throws at us is a skill set that needs to be continuously cultivated and harnessed. To maintain your enthusiasm, never let success get to your head and do not let failure get to your heart. Whatever will go wrong will eventually go wrong (Murphy’s Law). The key to navigating the roller coaster of life is to accept the impermanence of life radically and have some compassion for yourself.
“If you have passion, there is no need for excuses because your enthusiasm will trump any negative reasoning you might come up with. Enthusiasm makes excuses a nonissue.” – Wayne Dyer
The Johari Window is a visual framework for understanding your conscious and unconscious biases. It is a tool that helps you know yourself, how people see you, relationship dynamics, and your blind spots. It was invented in the 1950s as a tool for mapping personality awareness. The Johari Window was created by two psychologists, Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham. The name Johari is derived from the combination of the first names of the creators: Joseph and Harrington.
The model is a 2×2 grid, which represents things that a person knows about themselves on one axis and things that others know about them on the other axis. By plotting the levels of self-knowledge and the knowledge held by others, the person can develop a greater understanding of their personality and how others perceive them.
I watched the movie Akeelah and the Bee, which is a 2006 American drama film about Akeelah played by Keke Palmer, an 11-year-old girl who participates in the Scripps National Spelling Bee and eventually wins the competition. Akeelah’s mother in the movie was played by Angela Bassett (one of my favorite actresses) and her coach, Dr. Joshua Larabee (Laurence Fishburne). Prior to viewing the Akeelah and the Bee movie, I had been playing Scrabble sparingly but after seeing the movie, I fell in love with the board game called Scrabble. The game was a natural fit for me as I am incurably curious and always looking for an opportunity to get better.
Getting fired from a job is one of the most challenging things to happen to anyone. I was once furloughed from my cybersecurity gig in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was tough going through that experience. Navigating the aftermath of a layoff can be traumatic and lonely as people might begin to act awkward around you like you did something wrong. Some of your so-called friends would desert you like you have a disease, and others would ask you insensitive questions like “What did you do?” and others would not even reach out at all because they did not know what to say. It might not seem like that right now, but your firing is an opportunity for a rebirth, recalibration and a setup for your triumphant comeback.
Life will happen to us all at some point, whether getting fired, getting a divorce, losing a loved one or a health/financial crisis. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong (Murphy’s Law). The key to navigating the vicissitudes of life is to keep the challenge in perspective; nothing lasts forever; this too shall pass, and you will overcome this present storm. As author, Jim Rohn once advised ” “Don’t wish it was easier wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenge wish for more wisdom”.
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
You are going to be called names, the closest people to you are going to tell you that your ideas would not work, people are going to be mean to you for no particular fault of yours, and you are going to be stereotyped because of your gender, religion, or race. In the age of social media, we have become more unkind to each other, shutting each other up, and not listening to each other is the new norm. Learning to filter out the noise and tune into the frequency you want to listen to, is an act of self-discipline. People are going to try to hurt you with their words and actions but always remember that “It is not what you hear, it is what you listen to.” As the Austrian psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor, and author of Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl once said “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
It takes someone who is hurt to try to hurt someone else, hurt people hurt people. Most people are going through a lot of things that you know nothing about, behind those smiles is someone that is using their hurt as a cry for help. When people say nasty things or do things that try to hurt you or bait you for reaction, remember the words of the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius who said:
“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own – not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.”
You are doing the best you can based on your present level of awareness, be gentle on yourself: You are doing your best with the resources you have. If you cannot forgive yourself for your past mistakes and transgressions, it is going to be hard to forgive others if you don’t forgive yourself. We are often hard on ourselves for our past mistakes and errors, we forget that we are human sometimes. We even find it easier to forgive others than to forgive ourselves. Everyone’s life is different, and we are all doing our best. “Our best” today may not be “the best there is,” but it’s the best we can do today. Which is strange. And yet true. And could draw us down into helplessness and isolation if we don’t stay anchored. And the way we stay anchored is with gratitude. 1
I first got exposed to the concept of the mastermind from reading the classic book, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. He describes the mastermind as the “Coordination of knowledge and effort, in a spirit of harmony, between two or more people, for the attainment of a definite purpose.” In the past couple of years, I tried forming a mastermind with some friends but we were not able to stay consistent with it as life happened to us all. I have recently been exploring and seeing firsthand the power of the mastermind in my goal-setting journey.
Mastermind – Coordination of knowledge and effort, in a spirit of harmony, between two or more people, for the attainment of a definite purpose.
