Category: Be Your Best

  • Regrets

    Regrets

    “Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around.”

    You can use your regrets as fuel. If you didn’t do your best with something, or you regret the way you handled the situation, you can fix it and turn it all around.

    When graduating from high school, we were seated by GPA. Highest GPAs were sitting in the front, and all of my friends were in the front row. I was sitting about 1/3 back in the audience. I was so disappointed with myself that I resolved to do my very best academically in college. I used this regret from high school to fuel my performance in college.

    When you find yourself regretting something, turn your attention to the future. Don’t get mad about what happened in the past, which you can’t change. Instead, figure out what you can do to turn that regret into pride as you fix your mistakes and do it right the next time around.

    Also: “Don’t cheat yourself by not giving it your all.” -Rich Leonard

     

  • Confidence

    Confidence

    Confidence in yourself and your abilities is probably one of the most important virtues for you to pursue. So many good things come from confidence. Your relationships, happiness, and success will much improved from a high degree of confidence. With a big enough confidence, you will end up believing in yourself and it doesn’t much matter what other people think. The good thing is confidence is something that can be nurtured and developed.

    Where does confidence come from?

    Part of the answer is competence. How do you become competent? Hard work over long periods of time. You don’t get really good at anything overnight. And you don’t get really good at anything without hard work. If you want to be an amazing chess player, it’s really hard work. You have to read books, study your games, work with a coach, and put in the time. Do this with anything, and you will undoubtedly develop a lot of competence over time.

    Another part of the answer of how you become confident is through winning. Even small wins will start to develop your confidence. Enter a chess tournament and beat a higher ranking player and you’ll start to feel more confident. Practice a speech and nail it in front of your class and you’ll feel the momentum building. The critical point is you can intentionally design a roadmap along any skill to build your confidence. Don’t bite off too much too soon. Even if there’s no course or certificate out there for you, you should design a bunch of smaller challenges that you can overcome to start building your confidence.

    Note this post is about confidence, not cockiness. As much as people like and want to be around a confident person, they run away from a cocky person. Be confident but not cocky. Usually this means don’t talk about how good you are. Even if you’re the best in the world at something, don’t brag or boast. Let your actions do the talking. As Teddy Roosevelt said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”

  • Why?

    Why?

    When you try new or different things, you’ll always have people asking you some version of “Why would you do that?” Why start a company? Why volunteer? Why put your reputation on the line? Why make that investment? Why risk it?

    My answer to this is always the same: “Why not?”

  • Knowledge is Attainable

    Knowledge is Attainable

    Knowledge is attainable. If you are willing to put in the time to learn, you can become an expert in just about anything. Books is your best way to start. Elon Musk has a famous quote on this… whenever anyone asks him how, with no engineering background, he learned to build space rockets, this is his three-word answer: “I read books.”

    I learned this lesson early. My dad, a MIT physicist, used to have no mercy on me as a kid when we played chess. He would destroy me every game. I got so mad once that I decided I was going to spend the entire summer between my freshman and sophomore year studying the game. I read every book I could get my hands on. I remember my dad would come home from work with countless pages made by his copier at work scanned from chess books. Well, by the end of the summer the tables had turned and it was me who was mercilessly beating him at chess. After that summer, he didn’t want to play chess much any more. And I learned a lesson that has been serving me ever since: You can get really good at stuff just by reading books.

    (change this image to playing chess with Dad)

  • On Becoming a Millionaire

    On Becoming a Millionaire

    Become a millionaire, but not for the money. For what it will make of you to achieve it. – Jim Rohn
    Greatest value of your activities is not what you get. It’s what you become.
    The flip side of this is beware of what you become in pursuit of what you want.
  • Don’t Wish It Was Easier. Wish You Were Better.

    Don’t Wish It Was Easier. Wish You Were Better.

  • Friends

    Friends

    Who am I around? What are they doing to me? Is that okay?

    Friends are such a major influence on your life and what happens to you.

    You are the sum of your five closest friends.

  • Advice to a Young Leader

    Advice to a Young Leader

    I was a young leader. I was the president of my high school and college. I was an officer in the Air Force and put in charge of 23 people… at only 22 years old. I made a lot of mistakes, and if I could go back and give some advice to my younger self, this is what I would say:

    A title is not authority. Just because you are “in charge” doesn’t mean you are actually in charge. If you want to lead, you have to earn credibility over time, especially if you’re a young leader. How do you earn credibility and followers?

    • Capable – learn how to do your job extremely well – this will earn you respect
    • Committed – be in it for the long haul
    • Open minded – realize you may not be right and be open to other approaches as you learn
    • Humble – defer to the more experienced people around you and openly recognize that you are learning and don’t have all of the answers
    • Patient – young people typically want results overnight. Realize success and progress can take time
    • Curious – ask a lot of questions and learn why things work the way they do
    • Passion – young people are also passionate – don’t be shy or embarrassed about this, it’s one of you best tools to rally other people around you
    • Don’t Judge – be slow to form opinions and judgements about those around you. While someone may not fit your ideal mold for something, it doesn’t mean s/he can’t contribute to the overall success of the team.
  • The Choice is Yours

    The Choice is Yours

    Two twin boys were raised by an alcoholic father. One grew up to be an alcoholic and when asked what happened he said, “I watched my father.” The other grew up never having had a drink in his life. When he was asked what happened he said, “I watched my father.” Twins with the same environment came to completely opposite perspectives. They chose to have different perspectives.

    You have the ultimate choice of how you perceive everything in your life. You can choose to be a victim. Or you can choose to make the setback your opportunity for greatness. It’s all about perspective.

  • Solicit Feedback

    Solicit Feedback

    As Steve Jobs said, we are in our own reality distortion field. We see the world through our own lens, with unconscious biases and perspectives. What you don’t know about yourself will doom you to failure. Want to be a better leader? Want to be a great entrepreneur? Want to be a better parent? Want to be better person? Then you have to become an expert at soliciting feedback. I say expert because this is a learned skill that takes many years to master. The reason being is it’s VERY hard to hear feedback. It’s hard to hear that you have weaknesses and you have to work on improving yourself. It take courage and thick skin and the ability to keep the end – your improvement – at the top of your mind. On the other side of the table, it’s VERY hard for other people to give you honest feedback. They don’t want to hurt your feelings, even though some things you do may really bother them.

    How to get honest feedback:

    • Ask for it! There are many questions you can ask to get feedback, and the first step is alerting the other person that you actually want to hear it.
    • Try your best to not react defensively or get upset, especially in the moment you are getting the feedback.
    • Act on it! When someone gives you feedback, you have to show them you heard them and are taking it seriously by actually acting on it.