Courage of Conviction

I wrote an article about washing my cell phone. Yes, it’s true - I wasn’t careful, didn’t check the pockets of my shorts and ended up with a clean, but unworkable phone. In times like these, there are plenty of lessons to be learned from such mistakes. In fact, events like this give us a moment to ask some questions of ourselves. Here’s a sample of the questions this event caused me to ask:

I tell you this story for a couple of reasons - first when you go through an unpleasant experience, what’s the silver lining? What are you learning from the experience? What do you have control over?

Second - make an assessment - ie. ask yourself questions - How bad do I need a phone? Can things wait until a later time without chaos happening?

Recently, I wrote a post on the idea of change and status quo.  The deeper issue is control - what is control?  What do we have control over?  How do we use this?  How does control affect entrepreneurs?  All great questions.

Here’s a short part of the post:

It’s been said that the only thing that stays the same is change.  Yet how often do we attempt to hold on to something?  Why is it that we attempt to keep things the same?

The simple answer is control.  As human beings, most of us are obsessed with control - especially us entrepreneurs.  We will do whatever we can to prevent change and hold onto the status quo in order to have control of a situation or our lives.

Read the rest here.

Today I wrote a post about control.  Here’s an excerpt:

What do you have control over?  Be honest, and I mean really honest, with yourself - what do you really have control over?

The answer is - not much.  You really don’t have control over much of what happens.  About the only control that you have, to some degree, is how your react to things.  Even then, our subconscious habits control most of how we react.

Today on my EADDblog, I posted an article on saving money and how it relates to life and business.  Here’s an excerpt:

This past week, I cut out about six different monthly services that my wife and I haven’t been using all that much.  These were for both business and personal use - including the landline phone at home.  It’s been months since I picked up the landline to make a call - so why did we keep paying the phone company $35 each month?   

In total, we’ll be saving just under $200 each month by canceling the services that we did.  So why didn’t we do this months ago?  Why did we keep sending our hard earned money to other people for things we didn’t use?   

and…

The lesson is simple - small things, when combined, can make big impacts.  It’s true when in comes to money.  It’s also true when it comes to time.   

Over on my EADDblog, I posted an article about signing up for the Hartford Marathon, why I decided to run another marathon and how it relates to business.  Here’s an excerpt:

The marathon signifies so many things to me - perseverence, dedication, development, pushing yourself to your limits and beyond, attitude, focus, and more.  People ask me how I can do it, year after year.  How can I do all the training that is required, especially with a young family.  How can I run 4 hours straight.  How can I be excited about getting out an running in the rain in the early morning.  How can I…

The simple answer is that I can’t do any of that - what I can do is be someone who takes one step and then another and then another.  It’s not about running 26.2 miles - it’s about running up to the next corner, or taking the next step - pushing myself to do just one more because I know I can.  Small and simple is the way you do a marathon.  As the old Chinese proverb goes - the journey of a thousand miles begins with one first step.  The same is true with a marathon. 

The key for you, my dear reader, is to relate the marathon to yourself.  What is your marathon?  Is it your business? 

Enjoy.

Today, I posted an article about thinking on my EADD blog.  Here’s a quote from the article:

A Stanford Institute study showed that 79% of people do not think.  When I first heard that, it shocked me.  But upon further thought, that pretty much fits into the 80/20 rule.

Enjoy the full article.

Rhonda Hebbard, from Luxor Marketing, posted some ideas about distraction on her blog.  She related an experience she had with distraction with somethings I had told her recently.  Enjoy!