Nick Glassett Inspiration

Dreams are free: Hustle sold separately.

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but those dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible”. T.E. Lawrence

Everyone has aspirations of some kind. After all, no one wakes up in the morning and wants to fail. No one drives to work looking to do a bad job. We all wake up with great intentions, and say to ourselves, “today, I want to make a difference.” That’s the easy part. The free part. A dream is just an idea, and great ideas are nothing without action.

One of the interesting things about being human is that we tend to judge ourselves based on our intentions, not our actions. We live in this fictional world that we create in our heads through self-narration. That little voice in the back of our mind is always talking, and always making judgements. We’re seeing other peoples actions, and judging them for it, some conscious, some sub-conscious. It can be what shirt they have on, to how they should be interacting with their own children. But there in lies the main difference; we judge them based on what they did. When we’re passing the same kind of judgement on ourselves, we pass that judgement based on what we thought, or intended to do. That’s why when something goes wrong, a person will rationalize it as not being the outcome they were intending to cause.

Moving intentions to action is where the ultra-successful differ from the rest of the world. It’s a fear thing. People are worried they’ll look bad if they try and fail. What if someone offered to pay you to pursue something you dislike (even LOATH) for years and years? Would you say yes and take the money or take a small risk to go for your dreams? Let me ask that differently; If the pain and frustration of not realizing your dreams after you gave it your all is a 3 out of 10, being as you really don’t risk THAT MUCH to begin with, then what on earth are you doing slugging your way through something that you dislike which is a seemingly-permanent 8 out of 10??? I’m not quite sure why, but it’s for some reason easier for people to do!

If you did go for it…

So let’s say you went all in tomorrow on following your dreams, and you failed. What’s going to happen? So if you have to quit your job to pursue your dream, you’d be without income temporarily. I’m going to make a wild prediction that you could get rehired into the same field, at a competitor, and actually make more money! At the least, you’ll be able to get a job. Now if you happen to enjoy your job,  and/or you don’t have to quit your job to get started, what’s holding you back? Right, you don’t have the time. Such a poor excuse that we all just accept. I challenge you to list three things that you did yesterday that didn’t improve your life. Ok now remove those from your day, how much time do you have?

So assume you failed, and had to get a job that you’re not passionate about to pay the bills. Imagine the story you’d get to tell your co-workers of chasing  something that you love! You’ll earn some serious respect! I’m also willing to bet that you’re a bit stubborn too, so it wouldn’t be a “fail” as much as a “regrouping”!

Now imagine you retire from your miserable career that you suffered through for 40 years, at the pain level of 8 out of 10 and the whole time you made excuses of why you couldn’t chase your passion. Man that’s a long prison sentence!

Next week I’m going to talk about if you fall into the category of already pursuing your dream, and not making the progress you want.

-NJ

Nick Glassett Job Crafting

5 Simple Steps to make yourself Stress Proof

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5 Steps to make Yourself Stress Proof
Stress is a funny thing, it comes about when you’re overwhelmed, or not prepared. The interesting part is that the stress takes away your ability to focus, work effectively, and be a strong leader, which then leads to a stronger sense of being overwhelmed. That in turn leads to more stress, which leads to more problems…it’s a negative spiral. The way that each person handles stress is different, and each person has varying degrees of productivity while under stress. Some strive under pressure, where as others collapse.

So what does stress solve? When you get stressed, how does it HELP? How does your team see you? How does it effect your work?

It’s my personal opinion that stress is actually a defense mechanism. When a person shows stress, they want sympathy, they’re too stubborn to ask for help, or they want people to see how much they’re trying. Let’s look a little deeper into those 3 things…

1. Sympathy –  No one cares why you’re stressed and thats because as a majority, humanity is pretty self centered. I’m not trying to be cold, it’s just people usually look out for #1, themselves. So instead of garnering sympathy, you really are just feigning weakness as a strength.
2. Stubborn – If you show stress as a way of asking for help, then I sure hope you hired a team of psychics. When your leader sees you stressed out, and then has to figure out why, and then figure out a solution, it’s time consuming and counterproductive. Instead, if you put your stubbornness aside, and ASK FOR HELP, we sure would could get to our goal a lot quicker.
3. Engaged – Being stressed to show that you care does work to some degree. If your in a hard spot, and your stressed, it does prove that you at least care about it. Beyond that, it doesn’t really help YOU.

So, if you get stressed it’s not going to do much, besides show people that you can’t handle the situation. One of the worst things a leader can do is have the followers think they can’t handle a situation. That’s when they stop following, and start looking elsewhere for a person that can lead them.

Stress Proof!! – I challenge you to become stress proof. If you do an action that has no positive result, why continue? That’s how stress works, it starts a downward spiral, so not only does it not have a positive effect, it has a NEGATIVE effect! Why allow yourself, to do that TO YOURSELF? Becoming stress proof isn’t easy, but it sure is effective.

Here’s how to become stress proof in 5 simple steps:

1. When you feel stress, remove yourself from the situation momentarily. Walk around the corner and take a deep breath. When you’ve calmed down, head back in and make a some adjustments to calm the situation down, or jump straight to #2.
2. Get it off your mind, and on to paper. The longer the problem lives only inside your head, the wilder your imagination will run. When you can get it out and on to paper, a strange calming phenomenon takes place. It doesn’t matter where you write it, just get it out of your brain!
3. Turn your writing into an action list. Look for opportunity to simplify the issue into 3-5 action steps you can take right now to get the issue towards resolution.
4. If you need to, make a call to someone. If it’s for guidance, or just to vent, you need to do whatever is necessary to get your head straight.
5. Last, enroll others to help you solve this problem. Use your action list to assemble a team using each person’s strengths to your advantage

When you’re stressed, it just means there is a problem that needs solving. With those 5 steps, you just went from stressed and ineffective to having a plan for success and earning respect from your team. They will begin to look up to you, and admire you for your strength and calmness under fire. Not only will you have more piece of mind, and better quality of life, but you’ll have fewer problems!

-NJ

If you’d like to get a Monday Morning message from me with 3 strategies to prime you for a killer week, then sign up for my free Monday Morning 3 Point Primer.