33LessonsOf Life 3

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart seemed to live a pretty fast and quick life. He started writing his own music when he was just four years old. When he was six he played violin to the emperor of Austria. At 14 he wrote music for Milan Opera. As an adult he worked at a furious pace. By the end of his life he had written over 600 pieces of music. A life that ended early, just before his 36:th birthday. Mozart was buried in an simple way. But went down in the history as one of the greatest composers of all time.

“Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.”

1. Go with your gut : You are sure enough of yourself to not need or rely on praise from everyone anymore to feel good about yourself. You validate yourself. Instead of seeking everyone else’s validation in a rat race that you can keep running in for the rest of your life. Because other people’s validation will never be enough. You may be satisfied for a while. But soon the ego wants a little more.

“I pay no attention whatever to anybody’s praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.”

2. You choose how you want to be treated : The main point to me here is to not make yourself cheap. You set your own value. And as you do you might as well choose to set that value where you want it. So change the way you expect to be treated. Change the way your treat yourself (because that will shine through to other people and they may start treating your in a similar manner). Create and reinforce a new and more positive identity with the help of the people around you.

“One must not make oneself cheap here – that is a cardinal point – or else one is done. Whoever is most impertinent has the best chance.”

3. Ideas and insights can show up at odd times. Be prepared : Always write down thoughts and insights that feel important to you. Otherwise they’ll probably disappear as quickly as they appeared. And then you may forget and have to wait until they reappear. Replace the lazy habit of “Ah, I’ll remember it…” with the habit of taking careful notes. It may feel a little bothersome in the beginning, but that goes away when you start seeing how this tiny habit can affect your life.

“When I am travelling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep; it is on such occasions that ideas flow best and most abundantly.”

Now, who is Epictetus you may ask?

He was a Greek philosopher that lived about 1900 years ago. When he was young he was a slave in Rome but was later released and started to teach philosophy first in Rome and later on in Greece. Epictetus was somewhat of a lonesome minimalist. He lived with few possessions and by himself for a long time. He also seems to never have written anything, but luckily his thoughts were recorded by his pupil Arrian. Here are seven excellent pearls of wisdom from Epictetus.

“What is the first business of philosophy? To part with self-conceit for it is impossible for anyone to begin to learn what he thinks that he already knows.”

1. If you are going your own way, prepare for reactions: If you start changing then people may react in different ways. Some may be happy for you. Some may be indifferent. Some may be puzzled or react in negative and discouraging ways.Much of these reactions are probably not so much about you but about the person who said it and his/her life. Most likely they won’t react as negatively as you may imagine.

“If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.”

2. You choose to be insulted : What you feel and how you react to something is always up to you. But as you realize that no-one outside of yourself can actually control how you feel you can start to incorporate this thinking into your daily life and develop it as a thought habit. A habit that you can grow stronger and stronger over time. Doing this makes life a whole lot easier and more pleasurable.

“It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting.”

3. Forget about what you think you know : If you think that you already know something then your mind will not be open to actually learning it. So whenever you want to learn anything it may be a good tip to disregard as much as possible of what you think you know. Of course, the ego often wants to jump in to meddle and strengthen itself by making you think that you already know whatever you’re about to learn. Be careful in trusting that somewhat arrogant inner voice.

“It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.”

4. Listen : If you start to actually listen to what people are saying it also becomes easier to find potential paths in the conversation. By asking open-ended questions – the ones that will give you more than a yes or no answer – you can explore these paths and have better and more fun conversations.

“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”

5. Appreciate what you have : One good way to live a miserable life is to constantly focus on what you don’t have. If you appreciate what you have you’ll find everyday life more pleasurable. However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t focus on what you want. This will make it easier to get what you want since you always seem to notice and receive more of whatever you focus you mind upon.

“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”

6. Notice what is reflected : Like how what someone says about you may not be much of a reflection of you but of the person that said it. This is a good thing to remember whenever someone is saying something negative about you. It’s also useful to remember whenever you feel negatively about someone else. It cannot only help you forget about your negative emotion. It can also help you to learn more about yourself, what you fear and how you may be fooling yourself.

“When you are offended at any man’s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.”

7. Suffering is optional. And so is happiness : What you choose to think about determines how you feel. One tip that I have found helpful for this is to learn to reconnect as much as possible with the present moment. Suffering is to a large extent created when your mind is thinking thoughts about either the past or a possible future. To realize that you are not your thoughts or emotions. They are things that are flowing through you. But they are not you. You are the one observing them.

“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.”

Wayne Gretzky needs no long introduction. He is the most well-known ice hockey player of all time and one of the absolute best that there has ever been. But how did he make that happen? Here are three of Gretzky’s tips that may give some insight into his phenomenal success.

“The highest compliment that you can pay me is to say that I work hard every day, that I never dog it.”

1. Remember to have fun : Because when you find something you really love to do it doesn’t seem like work that much anymore. You keep going because you like doing it, not just because your want to reach some goal (although that can be exciting too). Taking action also becomes natural when you doing something you really want to do. It is OK to have fun. And that it is your responsibility to find and create that fun. No one is going to just give it to you.

“The only way a kid is going to practice is if it’s total fun for him… and it was for me.”

2. Practice, practice, practice today : Anyone who is really, really great at something has put in a huge amount of practice. More practice than most people are willing to put in. It is simply to have the self-discipline to not procrastinate and not bury yourself deep in a hole of boredom and inaction. Because some days are just rough or you have tough time getting started.

“Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy.”

3. Take the chances you get : It’s easy to find a million excuses to not take a chance. To not take a risk. But as Gretzky points out, if you don’t take it then there is absolutely no way of succeeding. If you give it a shot there is always a chance that you might make it, even if the odds suck and you don’t even believe in it yourself. If you do that enough times then you will most likely have some success. And succeeding is great. But just doing something and trying is great too.

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

Who is John Chow?

Well, as far I know he´s a pretty successful entrepreneur and dot com mogul from Vancouver, Canada.Apparently he rose to fame with The TechZone. I am however a fan of his blog JohnChow.com. John´s blog is basically about the internet and blogging – often with thoughts on the business side of things – mixed up with odd ramblings about, and pictures of, things he eats. Here are five of those lessons. Some are new, some are good reminders. Most are principles that apply not just to blogging but to many areas of life.

1. Be consistent – I´m, more and more, becoming a firm believer that one of the biggest keys to success is being consistent. John posts very regularly and with great frequency. The blog features a couple of semi-short posts almost every day of the week. Being that consistent is probably one of the largest factors to his blog growing so fast. Every time you visit there is always something new and – 7 times out of 10 something – interesting to read.

2. Be proactive – John´s networking skills seems to be a lot more energetic and creative than that of your average blogger. He quickly expanded his MyBlogLog community by holding a competition for everyone that joined. Today that community has 714 members. He has also expanded his part of the pay-for-browsing network Agloco to an impressive 6000 members by networking and blogging about it. And he created the clever Adsense-ads that said stuff like “I love Steve Pavlina “ or “I love Darren Rowse” and placed those ads on their blogs. Almost every week John reminds an amateur blogger like myself about the importance of being proactive to be successful.

3. Keep optimizing – John often writes about new plugins for blogger-software Wordpress or about other new opportunities for bloggers. But he doesn´t just blog about it but actually tests things out and, after a while, reports back. He seems to constantly be experimenting to optimize his blog and business. Every little bit counts in every part of your life. And those little bits soon add up to vast improvements.

4. Mix it up, lighten up and have some fun – One of the big factors that always keeps me coming back to John´s blog is that he writes well and, perhaps even more importantly, keeps a light mood in all his posts. I like how he manages to share a bit about his dining out–experiences and other personal stuff once in a while and not make it dull or that incongruent with the rest of the posts. For some reason it seems like his mouth-watering pictures and restaurant-reviews fit right in with rest of the site. And that mix plus the consistency in tone and mood makes the reading a whole lot more fun.

5. Give. Sooner or later you shall receive – In a few short months John has gone from making zero bucks on his blog to making a couple of thousand dollars a month. Not bad. And even though he´s the “self-proclaimed root of all evil” John seems to be a pretty good guy. He does nice write-ups about interesting sites once in a while, like this post about 12 year old blogger Paris Spence-Lang. John also donates all his blog-earnings to his church and other charities. I think John´s sharing and giving attitude certainly is a big factor in his quick blogging success (and probably earlier successes too). What goes around always seems to come around. Sooner or later.

“Every man must decide for himself whether he shall master his world or be mastered by it.”

“The thought in my mind was that I must be a good merchant. If I were a good merchant, the rest would probably take care of itself.”

As you may know, John Cash Penney was the founder of the very successful chain of American department stores that bear his first two initials and last name. He founded the company in 1902 and everything went swimmingly until the big market crash in 1929 and the following Great Depression. Penney went into a big financial crisis and as a result of that a health crisis too but managed to work his way out of them both. In his spare time he spent time on philanthropy with other positively minded people like Norman Vincent Peale – of The Power of Positive Thinking fame – and IBM-founder Thomas J. Watson. Here are 7 of my favorite tips for success from J. C. Penney.

1. You receive the value you provide : The key here is not to keep your main focus on the money. The key is to focus on the value you can give your customers. By giving value you get value back. The people that are really successful financially often seem to – a large degree at least – not care that much about the money. They love what they do and therefore provide a great amount of value to their customers and fans. And so they are richly rewarded.

“We get real results only in proportion to the real values we give.”

2. Give more value than expected : One of the big reasons people get “normal” results is because they give a normal amount of value to others. But some people go beyond that. They give even more. And so they not only receive more value because they give more, but also because they stand out amongst the rest. And, as Penney says, it’s that value that is most important because you don’t really have to give it and few do.

“It is the service we are not obliged to give that people value most.”

3. How you treat people determines your success : The best promotion is said to be word of mouth recommendations from one friend to another. It is also one of the harder things to get because people only recommend really good and valuable stuff to their friends. So you have to provide a big or, even better, an extreme amount of value to people to access this form of advertising and relationships.

“Courteous treatment will make a customer a walking advertisement.”

4. Listen : People want to be understood. If you are just waiting for your turn to talk instead of listening then you’ll often miss much of what is said (verbally or non-verbally). There will be a lack of genuine understanding. One way to become a better listener is to stay present –while listening. This will help you to decrease the bad habit of thinking about the future and what you should say next while trying to listen.

“The art of effective listening is essential to clear communication, and clear communication is necessary to management success.”

5. Books are good. Experience is even better : To really learn you have put what you have learned into practice. You have to take action over and over. Try one thing, then another. Learn from your mistakes. The more action you take, the more valuable feedback you’ll receive. The amount of practical knowledge and results you get is largely decided by how much action you choose to take and how much you are able to learn from previous experiences.

“The greatest teacher I know is the job itself.”

6. Think for yourself. Prepare yourself : But to fulfill more of your actual potential you have move beyond that. You can do that by educating yourself, by reading and talking to people who already are where you want to go. you must also do that by taking action over and over to learn, readjust your aim and to receive the rewards from the real world.

“As a rule, we find what we look for; we achieve what we get ready for.”

7. Improve : So you can build your view of the world upon the shoulders of giants and other people. On what you focus your mind on. Then you try. And you see what actually works for you out in the real world. And so you refine your maps of the world to – over time – make them more and more accurate and useful for yourself and perhaps for others. Because, as J.C. Penney says in the tip that will end this article, to have continued

“Success cannot come from standstill men. Methods change and men must change with them.”

“Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived.”

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.”

“What I am looking for is not out there, it is in me.”

Deaf.Blind.Helen Keller didn’t start out life back in the 1880’s with the cards stacked in her favor. But with the help of patient people she learned to communicate better with the world and went on to write books, work for women’s right to vote and became on of the most inspiring people of the 20:th Century according to Time Magazine.

Keller obviously summoned and created a great deal of courage and character to be able to do all that she did. Here are a few of her brave, tough, reality expanding tips.

1. Use your experiences to build character : To get real results you have to try things out, perhaps fail and then learn from those failures and try again. Instead of a feeling safe but also vaguely feeling that you’re not living up to your potential as you sit on your hands doing or trying nothing. As Keller says, you cannot develop character and success through quiet and ease. You must do things and go through things to become stronger and wiser.

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.”

2. Don’t cling to your illusion of safety : As written in the previous point, you cannot sit on your hands and take it easy and hope to get things done. But there is no safety out there really. It is all uncertain and unknown. As you stop clinging to your safety life also becomes a whole lot more exciting and interesting. You are no longer building walls to keep yourself safe as those walls wouldn’t protect you anyway. You can instead start your own daring adventure. Perhaps slowly at first, but still.

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature…. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”

3. Face reality head on : On one hand, it’s very useful to keep a positive attitude and view your world through that. And as you probe deeper into your life and your surroundings what you come up with will not always be pleasant. And although these conclusion may be unpleasant at first they may also be a gateways and turning points for you. If you face them and explore them and start to draw understanding and lessons from them. And then start to rewrite your map of the world.

“People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.”

4. You choose how you treat yourself. And how you want to be treated : No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. You decide if you let an insult hurt you or if you just reject that gift. You also decide how you want to be treated by the way you behave and how you feel about yourself within. One last and important thing on this topic: people around you will reinforce how you feel about yourself by treating you as they think is appropriate. That reinforces your self-image.

“Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.”

5. Optimism is the key to discover what life really has to offer : Without positivity and optimism you may get stuck in a pessimistic perspective. Perhaps pessimism isn’t that realistic either. So you may as well try optimism. It creates a lot more fun and excitement within. Something that you can bring out into the world and out of your world too. It is the key, attitude-wise, to discover what the world really has to offer and what you can really do.

“No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.”

6. Impossible is nothing : Yeah, Keller and the people around her really pulled something amazing off. The opinions of others can be helpful. But to take them as fact could be very limiting. Perhaps all of them don’t say things because they know much of those things but because they are stuck in a pessimistic perspective. Or want to cling to the safety they have created within.

“While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done, it was done.”

7. Keep on keeping on : Now, doing amazing things will probably not happen over a weekend. One big reason that people don’t get what they want may just be that they give up too soon. Perhaps because of a magic pill mentality where their expectation for success is stuck within a too small time-frame. To get the results you have stick with it. You have to persist. Not all people do. So the longer you persist the thinner the playing field can become.

“We can do anything we want to do if we stick to it long enough.”

8. Be open and flexible : To not get stuck and hung up on missed opportunities. When you are living in the and not stuck in the past I have found that it’s a lot easier to find the hidden opportunities in any situation. So whenever you see a door of happiness closing, take your eyes off it at least pretty shortly after. And instead of letting your awareness linger on what is in the past, use your time and focus to find the new opportunity to continue your daring adventure.

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”

As a human we all have the possibility to have good life. Take time today to look at this list and if it makes sense, decide which one you could implement on your quest for developing your life and you will become the person , who is very happy in life!

Thank You Very MuchSompong Yusoontorn