"The innovation point is the pivotal moment when talented and motivated people seek the opportunity to act on their ideas and dreams."
Hi Guys,
I’m going to be in LA, San Francisco and San Diego from the 19th of December until New Years Day! If any of you guys who read my blog want to meet up for drinks, that would be so cool!
If so, you can send contact details to…
jevets01@gmail.com.
Let the good times roll! Dood!
“Hey Steve, want to go for a drink?” “Uh, no thanks. I’m tired and I have some work to do anyway. Sorry!”
“Hey, we are having a get together next week, you should come!” “Oh, sorry, I can’t, I’m er, …busy that day.” “But I haven’t told you which day its happening!” “Well, I mean I’m busy all week, I don’t think I could make it, I’m really sorry”
“Steve, we are going to London on Saturday for a day out. You should come”
“Ahh, I think there’s something I have to do Saturday, I just can’t remember what it is right now. Can I let you know later in the week? Cheers”
Ever found yourself saying any of the above? Of course you have, everyone gets invited to things they don’t want to or can’t attend for one reason or another. What’s more troubling however are those times when you find yourself taking a rain check when you have no real good reason to.
We all have moments when we get inspired. Moments when we feel we can turn things around; really makes a change in our lives. In those moments we discover new goals that inspire and motivate us. We start planning how we can satisfy those goals and our future seems deliciously ripe with promise. Unfortunately, over time we tend to drift away from those goals. Something happens so that they just don’t seem to be as compelling anymore. They lose their shine and slowly, day-by-day we get pulled back to our everyday life and before we know it, the goals have died and we are back to the status quo. Why is this the case?
Though it’s been a little quieter around here on WLI lately, it’s not that I’ve been neglecting my posting duties. A few weeks ago, I was honoured to be offered a writing gig over at TastefullyDriven.com (TD). TD is a brand spanking new lifestyle site that offers quality products, unique blog articles and a community forum to provide a 360 degree lifestyle design experience. Set up by four 20 somethings from Albany, NY, the site also has a conscience - giving 5% pre-tax profits to charitable orangizations in Upstate New York.
My first post for TD talks about problem solving and how we can all improve it. Here’s a quick appetizer:
Commuting to work; most of us have done it or know people that do. Traveling mid to long distances to work either each day to a work location or staying over for the week and traveling back home again for the weekend. This has become so prevalent that it’s given rise to a new phenomena - the relationship commute, or the telepartner. This is where you spend the majority of your time at your work location and commute back to your partner at specific times - e.g. the weekend. In the US, apparently more the 3.5 million couples live like this, double the figure taken in 1990.
You would think this would be a tough challenge for most relationships, and yet the figures given by the Center for the Study of Long Distance Relationships (and who knew that existed!) show that such couples are no more likely to break up than couples who spend the majority of their time living together. Indeed, such couples are likely to be no less satisfied in their relationships or more likely to cheat.
Answer: Have a lot of ideas.
end of post.
Only kidding. It is true though that most of the people who have had great ideas have had hundreds if not thousands of terrible ones. As Thomas J. Watson of IBM once said: “Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure.”
The common approach to getting good ideas is to brainstorm. To get together with others and throw ideas out there while holding back on the inner critic. It’s often advertised as an almost magical, zen like leap into creativity, where all our problems can be solved. Trouble is it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because people can’t keep there mouth shut. Read the rest of this entry »
Ever thought you’d like to be doing something different? Ever dreamed about that high paid job with all the prestige, with the nice car and the big house? Ever contemplated going on a river boat ride down the Zambezi, or a hike through the Andean mountains? Ever wondered what it would feel like to swim with dolphins off the Florida Keys? Ever [insert personal dream here]? Are you doing anything about it? No? Then I suggest that what you’re doing instead is what you really want to do.
There’s a phrase that goes: you are what you do every day. What I am suggesting here is what you want to do is what you do every day. Sounds crazy I know but hear me out. Let’s be honest, for the most part we have all chosen to be where we are in our work and lives. Nobody held a gun to our heads, and even if they had, we could still have chosen the bullet! But no, we are where we are because of the choices we have made. If we are unhappy with our position in life no one is to blame but ourselves. What we do every day we have in a very real sense chosen to do. Even if that choice was the lesser of two evils, we have still freely chosen it. Luckily though, we are free to choose again.
You stack shelves for living or you clean the sewers or you’re doing a PhD or you work for a large corporation. You chose that, but you are free to choose something else at any time. If you do decide to change your situation then all you need is time and planning to make it happen. If you don’t do the planning, then ultimately you don’t really want it. And this brings us to the crucial point: what most of us don’t accept is that planning is part of the experience of what we want. Read the rest of this entry »
