There is a third option

In the past 9 days, the frequency and level of anger on the web has reached a level that makes it hard to concentrate. In the United States both sides of the political spectrum attempting to half-heartedly change the other sides opinion, in reality,i t is a fight to be “correct.” Because he who wins in the comment section is the victor, right?

Here is the problem with being correct, much like the news you consume on a daily basis — correctness is a matter of opinion, not fact. So all your posts that are pro-march or anti-march, pro-ban or anti-ban, pro-Trump or anti-Trump, they don’t make you correct, they make you part of the noise.

Part of the idle distraction to keep you fighting online, keep you addicted to the “ding” of notifications on your phone, keep you from thinking about a problem instead of acting on one.

But what if there was a third option between correct and incorrect? Between right and wrong, between left and right?

What if you DID something?

What if instead of internet anger your default gear was DO.

Imagine if today you started getting engaged with the process, helping at charity you were passionate about, joined a non-profit board, got involved in your local government, ran for higher office?

Imagine if every person you saw online instead of posting about an issue — DID something about it.

Imagine if every political post online (a majority of which would be from people who didn’t show up on election day) disappeared overnight and people showed up at city hall, at local capitals, at the nation’s capital to DO the work?

Yes picking up a sign and marching could be a start, but what did you do Monday? The day after that?

Throughout history there are thousands of examples of single individuals who did something to bring about tangible change in the world. They started by getting up and doing the work not by blaming the other guy.

Right — Wrong — Do.

Blame doesn’t create change, action does.

No control

You have no control over….

What others do

What others say

What others feel

How others act

You do have control of….

How you act

What you say

How you feel

The decisions you make

The legacy you leave.

On a day like today it is important to remember to focus on what is in your control and resist the urge to focus on and attempt to change that which is not within your control.

1% Extraordinary

There is a myth out there that the human mind uses only 10% of its horsepower in order to run the body, organize thought, problem solve and otherwise survive in the general sense. This thinking is flawed at its core but, for a second, pretend that isn’t the case. In the same way that the average American reads only one book a year, if the average person only used 10% of their possible brain power if you were able to get your brain up to 11%, just a single percent, that would make you extraordinary, right?

There is a coffee shop near my house that I go to a lot and over the holidays I needed to grab some gift cards and when I walked into the store the man behind the counter said, “Hey Eric, would you like your usual?” On its own not a profound question, except I never go into this store ( I use the drive-thru) and have no idea who this guy is — but he takes customer service seriously and made an impact by simply remembering my name and my drink. I watched as he did this for most of the customers who came in that day, here is the thing, he only went 1% farther than everyone else at that store, what happens if he went 2% or 3% farther? What if the other team members picked themselves to be 1% better? Would that be the most sought after coffee shop in the city?

The thing is being 1% extraordinary isn’t really that difficult because most people are too selfish or too self-involved to even care about other people. I know this because we tell stories about great customer service in the same way we talk about the show “Finding Bigfoot.”

So what if you working on being 1% better today at something, remembering names, birthdays without using Facebook, your co-workers family members, or even a stranger at your coffee shop’s favorite drink. 1% at a time for an entire year, which means by the end of the year you would be 365% better than you are while you are reading this.

That of course, is the problem with resolutions.

We attack them as full meals; we go for all 365% on day one and fail by day eight. But if we are in it for the long haul, not the 3-day cleanse, the quick fix, or the diet version we can see sweeping change in our life a minute at a time, an hour at a time, a day at a time, all adding up to one big change.

What is your 1% extraordinary?

When can you start?

The one you feed

“We forget: In life, it doesn’t matter what happens to you or where you came from. It matters what you do with what happens and what you’ve been given.”

- Ryan Holiday

My best friend was fired today.

This happens and sometimes it happens on the tail of a terrible year, sometimes it happens in one of your best years. Your job, in the abstract, doesn’t care about you. It makes decisions regardless of how it might affect you; it pivots in order to survive in a disruptive market, because like your job — the market doesn’t care about you either. Life can be an uphill climb.

But here is the thing. I believe in life there are only two types of people; those who take a punch shake it off and keep coming and those who crumble when it gets hard. (insert your Ronda Rousey jokes here) The people who can take a punch get stronger, find better jobs, start a new business, reinvent themselves, and actually become better because that job didn’t fit them in the first place. The people who can take a punch are gracious in the face of adversity, welcome the lesson and learn from it.

The people who crumble take to the internet and bitch about how unfair the world is, blame those around them, take on the role of the victim and blanket themselves in the “how could they do this to me” mentality.

My best friend can take a punch; in fact, his post on Facebook sums up the class by which he approaches the obstacles in life. (have edited for context)

Losing a job is never fun, but my mom’s recent passing has given me the perspective to know that this is but a minor speed bump as I move forward.

My thanks to all my amazing colleagues over the past half decade,

I’m going to take some time to sleep in, enjoy my family, and be more intentional in 2017

I like the grace and the optimism of his post and my hope is that you read his words and get to work. We don’t get any extra time, this isn’t Mario Run and you don’t get another chance. You get one and sometimes life takes a moment to remind you that the best time to start was yesterday but today will do. What will be your start in 2017? Who will you impact this year? Who will miss you when you are gone?

You are going to hit roadblocks this year at work, in your relationships, with your fitness goals, with your financial goals but the only thing that matters is how you respond to them. Do you bite down on your mouthpiece and put in another round? Do you thank your opponent for teaching what to watch out for next time? Or do you quit and go home?

He is going to get up tomorrow morning and get to work.

I suggest you do the same because safety is not a luxury we have, but how we manage the time we are given most certainly is.

Don't make a resolution!

“We should not trust the masses who say only the free can be educated, but rather the lovers of wisdom who say that only the educated are free.”

-Epictetus

When I was a kid my mother would gather us around the dinner table before our New Year’s Eve meal and have us write down our resolutions, fold them up, and seal them in an envelope until next year. When the following New Year’s Eve came around we would open them having completely forgotten what we wrote in the first place. As I got older I parted ways with that tradition because it stopped making sense to write down something I would never do in order to read it a year later. Instead, I look at time as more of a continuum and strive to be better each day.

I look to create an analog version of what Google calls “micro-moments” and those build into much larger changes over time. While we only get one chance here, I look at the larger game instead of the quick win. With that said, here are 5 things you can do to have a better year in 2017 that have nothing to do with a resolution.

1) Read.

Not read more, just start reading.

When you lose your curiosity and your willingness to learn new things that is when you start planning your own obsolescence and find yourself on the wrong side of cuts at your job. The new digital world we live in moves incredibly fast and if you aren’t reading anything longer than a tweet or a facebook post you are not only changing the way in which your brain interprets information, (read: making it worse) you are putting yourself at a serious disadvantage when it comes to being successful. The good news is the average American reads a single book a year…so the bar starts pretty low.

2) Don’t be the smartest person in the room.

I have spent a lot of time in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, boxing, kickboxing, and in my younger years, swimming and you know how you get better in individual sports? You train with people who are better, faster and smarter than you are. If you are always the smartest person in your circle of friends or at the office — you need to find people outside those circles to challenge you.

We are meant to be pushed harder than we think we can be, for years the idea of the 4-minute mile seemed impossible, that is, until May 6th 1954 when Roger Bannister broke that barrier. That isn’t the incredible part, the incredible part is that once he broke it only took 46 days for someone beat his time and in that proceeding 12 months 14 people all broke the 4-minute mile because they understood it was possible. Find your Roger Bannister in order to change impossible to possible and push yourself further than you went in 2016.

3) Stop bitching.

If you spend most of your time with those people at work who say how “shitty” the place is or you get excited when people like your passive aggressive Facebook post that you put up just to get some attention, all those people are holding you back.

The truth is nobody cares about your petty problems, not one person, and the only people who do are those who thrive off of an environment where everyone is as miserable as they are. Ditch those people this year and spend more time being thankful, doing things for other people, and in general becoming more optimistic and you will see a lot of change in your life.

4) Make every minute count.

Do you plan your day? When?

If you plan your day when you get to work — it is too late. Jim Rohn once said, “You run the day or the day runs you,” I know I have written about this before but it bears repeating if you want to change how your life works you have to plan it. You have to create a morning routine that works for you and have your day mapped out — random acts of success are no way to change your lot in life. It takes preparation and the understanding that without a plan you are waiting for life to happen instead of making life happen.

5) Start

Stop waiting for a “magic” day for your life to change, start right now. New Year’s Eve and all that comes with it benefits champagne producers, gym memberships, nicotine gym companies, and the calendar industry but does very little to help you. However, if you look at the year as a series of opportunities to make yourself better incrementally instead of joining the near 85% of people who will fail their resolution before Groundhog’s Day, you will see a dramatic change in who you are today vs. who you will be this time next year.

Happy New Year.