Joy (n.) 1 – “feeling of pleasure and delight;” c. 1300, “source of pleasure or happiness,” from Old French joie “pleasure, delight, erotic pleasure, bliss, joyfulness” (11c.), from Latin gaudia “expressions of pleasure; sensual delight,” plural of gaudium “joy, inward joy, gladness, delight; source of pleasure or delight,” from gaudere “rejoice,” from PIE root *gau- “to rejoice” (cognates: Greek gaio “I rejoice,” Middle Irish guaire “noble”).
We all want to be happy at some point in our life; all the striving and chasing is all geared toward what we think happiness means to us. Optimizing for joy means doing only things that are making rejoice, laugh, feel good about yourself, surrounding yourself with high-energy people, avoiding energy drainers and protecting your peace. One of the ways that I have tried to achieve what the French call “Joie de vivre” – cheerful enjoyment of life, is by partaking in a lot of activities that raise my spirit, give me joy and make me hopeful for a brighter tomorrow.
I spend at least one-sixth of my daily 24 hours doing activities that are optimized for joy such as exercising in the gym (basketball shooting, swimming, weight lifting, pickle ball, badminton), participating in outdoor activities such as lawn tennis, outdoor cycling and outdoor running. One of my favourite activities is to read a great book or listen to an audiobook. Life is full of ups and downs, the challenges keep coming as it is not a matter of if but when. Having coping mechanisms that are optimized for getting joyful has made the bad days not too bad and solving the issues has not been too harsh.
A little more asking people questions and a little less telling people what to do.
In The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever, author and speaker Michael Bungay Stanier describes seven essential questions for becoming a better coach. Stanier advocates staying curious a little longer and asking more questions as a tool for coaching.
The real secret sauce here is building a habit of curiosity. The change of behaviour that’s going to serve you most powerfully is simply this: a little less advice, a little more curiosity. Find your own questions, find your own voice. And above all, build your own coaching habit.
The word “average” comes from the Old French word “avarie” which means “damage to ship or cargo,” and is derived from the Arabic word “awar” which means “damaged merchandise.” In the Middle Ages, “avarie” came to refer to the distribution of the cost of such damage among the ship’s owners and cargo owners. By the 16th century, “average” had taken on the meaning of a division of a loss or expense among several parties. Today, “average” is used to describe a number or quantity that represents a typical or ordinary value within a larger group or population.
In The Leadership Handbook, author John C. Maxwell presents 26 insights intended to help build the leader within not only those aspiring to new positions of leadership but also those veterans who aim to improve upon the steps that led them to the front of the line.
Nothing moves until you move; if you want a different result in life, you would have to take a different approach. Doing the same thing the same way and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. Most of us wish to achieve our goals, but we hardly do anything about it. The difference between high achievers and non-achievers is that high-achievers decide, commit, and relentlessly execute their goals consistently.
There is a riddle I recently heard that perfectly describes the difference between deciding and taking action. There are five frogs sitting on a log, and one decides to jump off the log, how many frogs are left? The answer is not four frogs but five. Why? There is a huge difference between deciding and taking action. Most of us decide to go on a fitness regimen, read more books, save more money, listen more, and achieve our set goals. We do not follow through because we lack the commitment and self-discipline to take action consistently in executing our goals.
Without commitment, you’ll never start, but more importantly, without consistency, you’ll never finish
A crisis is a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger. The word crisis derives from late Middle English (denoting the turning point of a disease): medical Latin, from Greek krisis ‘decision’, from krinein ‘decide’. The general sense ‘decisive point’ dates from the early 17th century. 1 The Chinese word for “crisis” contains two characters: The first character wēi (危) mean “dangerous” or “precarious”, and the second character jī (机; 機) mean “change point” which is a component of the Chinese word for “opportunity”, jīhuì (机会; 機會). As American talk show host Oprah Winfrey once said “You will be wounded many times in your life. You’ll make mistakes. Some people will call them failures but I have learned that failure is really God’s way of saying, “Excuse me, you’re moving in the wrong direction.” It’s just an experience, just an experience.”
I have learned that failure is really God’s way of saying, “Excuse me, you’re moving in the wrong direction.”
A crisis is an an opportunity for rebirth, a wake-up call
Your “comfort zone” is a psychological, emotional, and behavioural construct. It’s what’s familiar to you and what feels safe—your regular habits and routines. When you’re in your comfort zone, you experience low stress and anxiety levels. In your comfort zone, there’s little to no risk.
The comfort zone is a behavioural state within which a person operates in an anxiety-neutral condition, using a limited set of behaviours to deliver a steady level of performance, usually without a sense of risk.
White defined a zone where we perform at our best and Is often outside our comfort zone. He referred to it as the Optimal Performance Zone. He noted that, provided there is no change in the ‘anxiety’ or skills applied, the level of performance will remain constant. Equally, if there is a change in the ‘anxiety’ or the skills applied, then a change in performance will result – either upwards or downwards.
Since a performance-boosting increase in anxiety is, in performance management terms, a good thing, we can define this state of arousal as being the ‘optimal performance zone’, while we would define a level of anxiety that causes deterioration in performance as being a bad thing or a ‘danger zone’.
Our natural state as humans is homeostasis – the tendency toward a relatively stable equilibrium between interdependent elements, primarily maintained by physiological processes. We tend to move towards the path of least resistance, and we strive to avoid pain and discomfort. In your comfort zone, you do the least required in school, work, gym, association and how you live life. Doing the same thing the same way and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.
Life is like an onion, the more you peel it the greater your understanding on life. The layers represent you throughout your stages in life so peeling back a layer allows you to see more then as we peel back more layers we can see a greater picture forming ahead of us.
The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes. – William James
Locus of Control 1 is a concept develoved by American psychologist Julian Rotter in 1954. It refers to an individual’s perception about the underlying main causes of events in his/her life. Rotter observed that behaviour was largely guided by “reinforcements” (rewards and punishments) and that through contingencies such as rewards and punishments, individuals come to hold beliefs about what causes their actions. These beliefs, in turn, guide what kinds of attitudes and behaviours people adopt. 1 There are two types of Locus of Control:
“Becoming rich does not guarantee happiness. In fact, it is almost certain to impose the opposite condition—if not from the stresses and strains of protecting wealth, then from the guilt that inevitably accompanies its arrival.” – Felix Dennis, How to Get Rich: One of the World’s Greatest Entrepreneurs Shares His Secrets
I used to want to be rich until I found out the real difference between being wealthy and rich. Wealthy people are able to do what they want, when and how they want it – Freedom but most rich people are tied into obligations and responsibilities of trying to amass more riches – they have the money but don’t have the freedom to live life on their terms. Freedom is what we are all looking for but we make choices every day that are either taking us closer or farther from becoming free. Most of us are so poor that the only thing we have is money. Actor and comedian Jim Carrey put it this way: “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.”
“I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.” – Jim Carrey
Author Jim Rohn often said, ” The things that are easy to do are also easy not to do. That’s the difference between success and failure, between daydreams and ambitions. Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced daily, while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated daily.” I believe Rohn is very right, as the seemingly boring and mundane things in our life that look simple are also the hardest to do. Reading a chapter of a book daily is easy, but it is hard to sit down and read it. Going to the gym for at least 30 minutes a day is easy, but it is hard because we don’t see the result immediately; hence, most of us give up on our fitness goals. It is easy to tell your family and friends you love them, but it is hard to do because you don’t want them to read the meaning of it.
Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day, while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.
In The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success and Happiness, authors Jeff Olson and John David Mann write about the simple daily disciplines required for success: They are usually simple but also hard to do.
The simple things that lead to success are all easy to do. But they’re also just as easy not to do.
In The Power of Your Potential: How to Break Through Your Limits, author John C. Maxwell identifies and examines the seventeen key capacities each of us possesses.
Energy Potential—Your Ability to Push On Physically
Emotional Potential—Your Ability to Manage Your Emotions
Thinking Potential—Your Ability to Think Effectively
People Potential—Your Ability to Build Relationships
Creative Potential—Your Ability to See Options and Find Answers
Production Potential—Your Ability to Accomplish Results
Leadership Potential—Your Ability to Lift and Lead Others
The ten choices
Responsibility Potential—Your Choice to Take Charge of Your Life
Character Potential—Your Choices Based on Good Values
Abundance Potential—Your Choice to Believe There Is More Than Enough
Discipline Potential—Your Choice to Focus Now and Follow Through
Intentionality Potential—Your Choice to Deliberately Pursue Significance
Attitude Potential—Your Choice to Be Positive Regardless of Circumstances
Risk Potential—Your Choice to Get Out of Your Comfort Zone
Spiritual Potential—Your Choice to Strengthen Your Faith
Growth Potential—Your Choice to Focus on How Far You Can Go
Partnership Potential—Your Choice to Collaborate with Others
“AWARENESS + ABILITY + CHOICES = POTENTIAL”
If you are aware of yourself and your ability to improve, if you develop the abilities you already possess, and if you make the daily choices that help you improve, you will reach your full potential.
Caps You Can’t Remove
Birth caps: You had no control over where or when you were born, nor can you go back in time and change these things. You don’t get to choose your parents, birth order, siblings, or upbringing. Good or bad, you have to live with these circumstances and make the best of them. You cannot change your genetic makeup, your race, your bone structure, or your height.
Life caps: There are many things that happen to us in our lives that we cannot control. We suffer accidents or illnesses. We lose people we love. We discover that we don’t have the talent or ability to fulfill a dream. I call these “life caps.” We all have life-cap stories, some big, some small. We have our nicks and dents. Part of the process of fulfilling your purpose is becoming aware of the things you can’t change that limit you, so that you can direct your attention toward the things you can change to increase your capacity.
Caps You Can Remove
Caps That Others Put on Us
The first type of limitation comes from the caps that others put on us. People have put caps on you. You’re not even aware of some of them. But you don’t have to let others’ lack of belief define you. Be unwilling to surrender your potential to someone else. Be unwilling to allow others to put caps on you and define your potential. You’ve fought too hard to get where you are to let others control where you are going. Be open to the possibilities that are in you!
Caps We Put on Ourselves
LOOKING FOR APPROVAL FROM OTHERS
LIVING IN A LIMITING ENVIRONMENT
Too many people simply accept whatever environment they’re born into. They think it’s normal, and they start to believe they don’t have any other choices in life. When that happens, they’ve created a self-imposed cap on their life.”
HAVING FEW EXPANSIVE MODELS OF SUCCESS
If you wanted to, you could find plenty of reasons not to strive for your potential. Maintaining the status quo is easier. But that shouldn’t stop you. Trying to build your life without removing your limitations and increasing your potential is like building a car in a small shed and being unwilling to knock out the wall to get the car out on the road. Remove the limitations, and the world is open to you.
Energy Potential—Your Ability to Push On Physically
There are many capacities that we can increase, but there’s nothing we can do to expand time. The number of minutes in a day, days in a week, and weeks in a year are set. Even our time here on earth is fixed. Our days are numbered. That’s why we need to focus on our energy. That’s something we can influence. If we want to get more done and make a greater impact on the world, we need to increase our energy potential.
Focus your energy by using the three Rs to prioritize:
Requirement—what you have to do
Return—what you do well
Reward—what you love to do
Emotional Potential—Your Ability to Manage Your Emotions
Emotional potential is the ability to handle adversity, failure, criticism, change, and pressure in a positive way. All of these things create stress in our lives
• Most people do not see themselves as they really are.
• Many people don’t want to resolve their problems; they just want someone to listen to them talk.
• Some people are not emotionally strong, and as a result, they do not cope well with life’s difficulties.
Take responsibility for the things you can control:
• Attitude—you determine how you think or feel.
• Time—you determine how you spend time and who you spend it with.
• Priorities—you determine what is important in your life and how much time you give to these essentials.
• Passion—you identify what you love and what you were created to do.
• Potential—you determine where you commit yourself to grow.
3: Thinking Potential—Your Ability to Think Effectively
Become an Idea Digger
Becoming a better thinker means having the right mind-set. Two people can see the same things, go through the same experiences, have the same conversations, yet one walks away with a flurry of great thoughts and the other without a single new idea. To increase your thinking capacity, you need to become an idea digger. Always look for ideas and try to mine them.
“The difference between average thinkers and good thinkers is like the difference between ice cubes and icebergs. Ice cubes are small and short-lived. Icebergs are huge, and there is much more to them than meets the eye. Their potential is enormous.”
5: Creative Potential—Your Ability to See Options and Find Answers
WE BECOME MORE COMFORTABLE WITH OUR MISSES
If you throw a lot of ideas at the wall, some will stick and others won’t. And that’s good. You can’t succeed if you don’t try. And once you realize you’re no worse off for having tried and failed, it gives you confidence to keep trying.
Creative people fail, and the best fail often. They’re like children who try an idea before it’s formed, and if it doesn’t work, they move on to the next idea. And they keep moving on until they find one that works. If you want to be more creative, get used to missing the mark.
Responsibility Creates the Foundation for Your Success
The size of the opportunity determines the amount of responsibility required.
Opportunity is lost when responsibility is neglected.
Tomorrow’s opportunity is determined by yesterday’s responsibility
“The more responsibility people take, the more resilient they are likely to be. The less responsibility people take—for their actions, for their lives, for their happiness—the more likely it is that life will crush them. At the root of resilience is the willingness to take responsibility for results.”
The more you help other people, the more they usually want to help others. And that motivates you to help even more. That’s what I call the Abundance Paradox. The more you give, the more you have to give—and want to give.
Discipline Potential—Your Choice to Focus Now and Follow Through
Successful people are highly disciplined in doing their most important work. They are self-disciplined. They guide and encourage themselves to do the work they ought to do, not just the things they want to do. That’s what takes them from average to good, and from good to great. And that’s why the rewards in this world are usually reserved for those who are willing to do what the majority of people are unwilling to do.
Crowding Out Principle – Brian Tracy
If you spend all of your time on highly productive tasks, by the end of the day, you will have ‘crowded out’ all the unproductive activities that might have distracted you from your real work. On the other hand, if you spend your time on low value activities, those low value activities will crowd out the time that you need to complete the tasks that can make all the difference in your life. And the key to this attitude toward time and personal management is always self-discipline.
DON’T LOOK IN THE MIRROR
Take the focus off of yourself; you need to always keep in mind that life is not about you. You can’t worry about how you look to others. You can’t be afraid of looking bad.
DON’T COUNT LOSSES—INSTEAD, COUNT LESSONS
Instead of avoiding losses, learn from them. Ask, “What did I learn?” When you seek lessons more than you avoid losses, you become more comfortable with risk.
FOCUS LESS ON YOUR FEAR AND MORE ON YOUR DREAMS
When you focus on your dreams, your heart is 100 percent in.
All the best in your quest to get better. Don’t Settle: Live with Passion.
“Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day. It is the accumulative weight of our disciplines and our judgments that leads us to either fortune or failure. Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. We do not fail overnight. Failure is the inevitable result of an accumulation of poor thinking and poor choices.” – Jim Rohn
“Good better best never let it rest until good is better and better is best” was my favourite nursery rhyme growing up. The rhyme is an ode to what it takes to be excellent in any endeavour: exercising, running a business or raising a family. Consistency is the key to achieving anything worthwhile, Success is never an accident, and failure is usually not a coincidence. As author, Jim Rohn often said, “Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day, while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.” Greek philosopher Aristotle also echoed the same sentiment: “We are what we repeatedly do; excellence then is not an act but a habit.
Boundaries define us. They define what is me and what is not me.
We tolerate and rationalize inappropriate and toxic behaviours from our closest family and friends, all in the name of avoiding conflict, pleasing people and an inability to set clear, healthy boundaries. Setting healthy boundaries can be extremely tough, especially when you have been raised to avoid conflict; people please and prioritize others over your needs. I am the first grandchild of both my paternal and maternal grandparents; this placed a lot of responsibility on my shoulders, especially if you were raised in a place like sub-Saharan Africa, where the extended family unit is highly regarded. It takes a village to raise a child is a proverb drummed into an African child’s ear from a very young age, and this worldview is part of the challenge. It is a great value system, but if one is not careful, one might be addicted to martyrdom or become pathologically altruistic.
NBA Hall of Fame coach and executive Pat Riley is regarded as one of the greatest NBA coaches of all time. He led the 80s showtime Los Angeles Lakers team that had Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul Jabar to four NBA championships and won one more ring with the MIAMI Heat in 2006, taking his total as a coach to five rings. Riley is known to pep his team up with motivational and inspirational talks and quotes. Hall of Famer and five-time NBA champion Magic Johnson writes in his autobiography – My Life – Earvin Magic Johnson, about one of Riley’s favorite techniques he used with the team to keep their focus – “Peripheral Opponents.”
“He planned all his pregame speeches, writing them out in advance with a blue felt-tipped pen on a blue card. He was continually reading books, looking for quotes that might motivate us. And he loved inspirational one-liners like “No rebounds, no rings.”.
