The Power of Words

Today I’m drawing inspiration from Seth Godin.  For those of you not familiar with Seth, I’d encourage you to visit his blog  at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/  Each day he puts out a brief thought on some subject.  He’s one of the folks that I draw on for inspiration; however, normally I don’t use his topics — but do enjoy reading them!  Today he chose the topic of “adopt” as it really hit the spot with me after reading his post about “future”.

Seth’s message — and I agree with it — is that you need to take one of two approaches to dealing with the future:

• Adoption — Here you truly embrace the future.  You “accept it in to your family”.  As with an adopted child, it’s part of you.  You’re totally committed to it and the bond is incredibly strong.
• Adaption — Here you decide to make the bare minimum changes slowly over time to exist with the future.  Think about that for a minute.  Howe would it sound to say you “adapted to the child” as opposed to “adopted the child”?

There shouldn’t be any doubt in your mind after reading the above difference between adoption and adaption that there is a huge difference in the path you pursue.  And when it comes to the future, you need to get on board with the adoption approach.  Because others are and they’re leaving you behind.

 

There are some things that really resonate with you.  One of my favorites is “We judge ourselves by our intentions, others judge us by our actions”.  Truer words were never spoken.  When you couple that with the classic of “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”, you start to see a pattern.

Today I’m going to keep it short.  It’s great to have a solid plan and a vision of your future.  And you should take the time up front to make sure that you have done the requisite planning.  However, ultimately you’re going to need to take an action.  That’s when it becomes real to you AND real to others.  Rarely will taking that first step be easy.  However, there’s no chance of success without action.  And it’s up to you to initiate the process.

 

One of the most interesting concepts I’ve been exposed to over the past year is that of “pivot”.  Previously when I thought of pivot it was  either in regards to a mechanical hinge mechanism or in the context of the game of basketball.  If you examine both of these, there are three key things that emerge:

• They involve a change in direction or motion
• The new direction is linked to the past
• They’re critical to the mechanism or team functioning property.

The new concept of “pivot” that I’ve seen over the past year refers to a change in direction of our life and career.  It refers to leveraging our past experiences to move on to new experiences.  It involves facing our fears and recognizing that the change in direction associated with a pivot are normally a good thing.  Just like the mechanical pivot or the pivot that a basketball player uses, pivots are critical and a part of the process we must go through to achieve our goals — be they spiritual, personal, physical or financial related.  Mind you, the pivot point isn’t always going to be smooth/sometimes it’ll need some oil (read help from an outside agent) and sometimes it’ll result in a traveling call (a single event in the game that rarely defines success).

 

With the fast pace of life today, it’s sometimes easy to forget the old axiom about “taking time to smell the roses”.  That’s a mistake that we each need to take special care to avoid making.  Sure work’s important.  And it’s great to make a bunch of money.  But at what price?  Your health?  Your relationships?  Your soul?

 

Personally I’ve made the mistake of forgetting WAY too many times.  It’s both embarrassing and frustrating.  But it’s not the end of the world.  In fact, I can use the same ability to forget to address my past transgressions.  I simply choose to forget about the things that I’ve done wrong or poorly and move on.  Now mind you I don’t totally ever forget.  Rather I remember what I did wrong and forget to do those wrong things in the future.