Although I wouldn’t say it while it’s going down and I’m in the moment, but after it’s all said and done, I’m sure It’s a blessing.

The fact that I have to find a way to drum up more business because we’re in a bit of a slump in sales and refine my selling technique, justify my pricing and find additional benefits to our product is probably a blessing. Even though it takes more time and effort.

Ultimately, whatever we go through in our lives is not as important as how we react to what happens to us.

We can choose to play the victim, blame circumstances and shirk responsibility or we can chalk it us as a blessing and move forward.

The choice is always ours to make.

I just heard this wonderful advice in regards to having conversations with others whether it’s for business or personal. I’m not quite sure of its’ orgin, but it’s inline with the basic rules of improvisation. It’s called, “yes and.”

I like it for more than one reason. It’s not negative and doesn’t discount what another person is saying, but adds to the conversation and directs it accordingly.

In improv, when someone establishes some sort of fact by stating it – “Why is your head so large?” You cannot say, “It’s not.” You have to accept it as fact and build on it. Maybe saying something like, “Yeah, and it’s really hard finding a hat that will fit properly.”

But, what if you brought that to the business world. Maybe it would sound something like this: “We can’t fit the cost of your product into our budget because your prices are so high.” The response could be: “Yes, and that’s because the quality of material we use along with the finished product is so much better than 90% of similar products. Because of that, our outlast the competition by 3X.”

Rather than negating what they said about your product, you build on it and address their statement directly.

It seems like a much less cryptic business strategy with respect and directness built into it.

I would think everyone would appreciate that.

There are many things we don’t have a choice about in life. Our height. Color of our eyes or the family we were brought into. But, we do have choices on how we design our lives. From the people we choose to spend our time with, to how we view the world to the way we talk to ourselves and other people.

And although we may feel like we’re victims of circumstances, often these are the results of our choices we’ve made in the past. Whether that is choosing to smoke cigarettes and now our health has diminished 30+ years later or choosing not clear up our past years of resentment that we continue to hold onto in the present day keeping us locked into the past unable to move forward.

WE are the designers of our lives. Only us. Of course we will always be dealing with circumstances that our beyond our control, but when we’re able to focus on our business at hand, by designing the life we long to live and show up daily doing the work, odds are, we’ll be much closer to the life we’ve designed than not.

I began writing these blogs a couple years ago as a reminder for myself as to the important things I want to keep in mind in order to be the best version of myself I can be. I don’t claim to know more than the average man. However, if any insight I have or life experience I’ve been through can shed some light on areas where others can learn, than it’s worth it. We’re all in this together and I find it helpful to share what we know with others who choose to listen.

I’ve heard it said that we don’t need to be on all the time. We don’t need to be brave 24/7 either. Nor do we have to give 100% in every single activity we take on.

What we need are short burst of brilliance in the right areas at the right time.

If we’re brave for 45 seconds, we might follow through with the meeting with the team member who is not pulling their weight and needs to be set free. When working out, we only need to go hard during the 5 1/2 seconds of sprinting until you do it again in 45 seconds. We might only need to give 100% effort during the meeting with a new client in order to close the deal.

It’s hard to sustain an energy level of going 100% on every task everyday all the time. So, we pick our moments for short bursts of our brilliance when the moment calls for it and we’re able to get as much traction as possible.

That’s working smarter and not harder.

It can be difficult for me to choose a different path and therefore perspective when stuck in a groove. It takes a concentrated effort to get out of the present pattern and see the world in a new way.

However, moving is the key. We cannot make changes from the sidelines, as the solutions come from the chaos of doing and not contemplating the doing.

Have a conversation with someone new. Get up and go for a walk. Go get your hands dirty in the oil paints or a garden. Write out some new goals for yourself for the next 3-6 months. Take apart some old electronic equipment to see how it works. Do something. Read a book.

It doesn’t matter, as long as we’re making an effort to learn, grow and evolve.

Today is a new day and this is a new moment.