WORKING ON YOUR BUSINESS AND ON YOUR LIFE
OR JUST WORKING IN YOUR BUSINESS AND JUST LIVING LIFE?
THRIVING VS JUST DOING THE MOTIONS OVER AND OVER AND OVER
(Working notes to be edited, but the idea is here and is clear!)
Working "on" your business, your life, your relationship, your contribution - the same principle is true...
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A COMMON CHOICE
Whether it is business or life, if we are just "In" it, without thought and perspective, we are doomed to mediocrity and even to running like a rat on a treadmill. ("The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat." Lily Tomlin).
Those who are just "existing" and doing just whatever comes up next or what they are supposed to do are living like sensory robots in life, like passive PokeyMen, waiting to be stimulated by something, passively existing. Not thinking.
Just living the same day (or the same weeks) over and over, in a Groundhog Day existence?
Keeping the same problems, watching the same TV shows...
Learning a little, but very little, mostly by accident insted of actively seeing what is and isn't working and then solving what isn't working. Not getting better at it versus seeking the best ways to do things and finding what is most important to know and do to live a successful life or have a highly successful business.
Working "in" community affairs or working "on" the best way to produce the most value?
AN INFINITELY BETTER CHOICE
The supersuccessful businessperson is that person who thinks about what a better way would be and then figures out how to do it, and does it. The supersuccessful person in life is that person who thinks about and discovers a better way and how to do it, and does it.
Life does not deliver things to you (at least not the best stuff). Don't wait for it to. You must go get it.
You can't rise to the next level of success in business or the next level of existence in life without knowing what it is, what it looks like - it will not just "come upon you" as a gift from ....
If business is measure in "net dollars" (wages or profits) and if life is measured in "life value" (meaning, satisfaction, happiness), why is it that some people with the same amount of effort as others can do 10 to 100 times better?
Well, we know it isn't from just "keepin' on keepin' on" - just doing the same thing over and over, just trying to chop down trees with an ax.
The common example of productivity is the lumberjack who frantically is chopping away at the tree while his fellow lumberjack is often sitting and sharpening his axe and then chopping down more trees in less time. Good. That is "efficiency", with additional "productivity".
But then superproductivity would be to think about "what will work better" and to go find out. That is what results in getting a motorized saw to do lots more trees. And then, as we're thinking again, to figure out how to get others to do the work and make a little profit from each.
And we can do the same in life, with life value being produced by the most effective "tools" and thinking...eventually leading to producing 100 times more value and satisfaction in life. (That is the subject of my Life Value Productivity book, linked to from Books.)
Improvement, going forward, progressing, becoming better - all of those do not happen by accident (at least not much, anyway). They only happen by "working on" making things work better, rather than just working hard at life without great results.
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An email, to a highly stressed, super hardworking individual living a fraction of his potential:
A couple driving down the freeway:
"Dear, as I look at this map, I see we are headed the wrong way on the freeway."
"Oh. Well, that's ok at least we're making good time."
So, the question is:
Do we look at the map in life or in whatever we are doing? Do we even bother with a map? Do we just do what others put upon us?
Are we frantically trying to do "what's right", but can never seem to do enough? And/or are we being miserable along the way, with only occasional periods of "light and ease"?
Are we "killing" ourselves with busyness and stress and anxiety or enjoying the journey?
Obviously, if we actually think clearly, objectively and rationally, we know the answers to those questions (or at least can get the answers when we are unclear). But if we fail to "re-look" at what we are doing from, say, the 50,000 foot level, then we may be "making good time" (working hard) but only getting a fraction of the way toward what we truly want and/or can achieve in life.
The sign of a good 50,000 foot planner is that he/she lives a life of grace, ease, taking care of him/herself and those he/she cares about, with plenty of time for personal fulfillment. (He/she is then Living The 80/20 Life instead of doing life the hard way. He/she is Living Life As A Life Champion, instead of a chump of other people and of the circumstances. He/she is not only "sharpening the axe", but is also determining which life trees to harvest.)
