Project management is among a top skill to master in any business; especially one wanting to grow.
Why?
Because without project management, business owners will unnecessarily run into common issues:
You often get derailed by "the unexpected.”
It’s inevitable.
You get interrupted an unexpected number of times daily. Those interruptions come at unexpected times. They each take an unexpected amount of time with which to deal.
That’s why it’s "the unexpected."
These interruptions kill your flow, destroy your focus, and force you to work on the urgent instead of the important.
So how do you deter, prevent, and deal with the problems these unexpected interruptions incur?
I was shocked, hurt, and felt like my idea had been stolen. Though I had the idea first, Nintendo would be the star. Nintendo would make $millions. It took years before I was old enough to recognize the important lesson in this experience...
Are you second-guessing your next great idea? Are you downplaying the value you could provide to others? Are you upset that you found a competitor in the market who seems to be offering everything you want to (and seems to be finding great success doing it)?
It might be time to step back and realize a few important things.
The legend of the koi isn’t well know.
As it’s told, a school of koi swam upstream through China’s Yellow River. They worked together, against the current, until they came upon a waterfall called the Dragon Gate.
Upon seeing the obstacle, many koi turned away, unwilling to tackle the challenge. The rest remained, jumping with all their might in an attempt to reach the river above.
But their efforts brought more struggle.
I’ve got a message for the pissed-off suburbanite who posted an emotionally charged and personally-identifying Facebook story about a terrible person speeding through our neighborhood with reckless abandon.
You are the problem. You.
Not the person who was allegedly going 15 over in a school zone.
No.
If what you say is true, a local cop should serve that someone a ticket as punishment for their mistake and to pump a bit of funding into our sheriff’s coffers.
But that so-and-so was speeding, probably like you have too. It’s just that you happened to eat an extra bowl of bitch-flakes this morning, giving you some holier-than-thou complex that made you the judge, jury, and executioner.
So congratulations. You win the Internet shaming award. And you, being the problem, should change your ways.
Oh, and while you’re at it, take down that picture of their vehicle, or at least blur out their license plate.
You’re acting like a two-year-old, and shaming doesn’t work.
Here’s why.
It’s overwhelming, isn’t it?
The constant hustle. The endless grind. The relentless push to overachieve.
Every other social media post seems to have some self-improvement quote floating over a well-dressed celebrity, hustle-guilting you into working harder.
They tell us to never stop, never surrender.
They tell us to wake up at 5 am, exercise, side-hustle for a few hours, then put in a full workday and side-some hustle some more before hitting the sack.
Everything you do, or experience, or think is affected by the expectations you already have.
Take your arms, for example.
With both arms intact, your brain works swimmingly. It sends signals to your limbs, they move, they provide feedback, and your brain breathes a sigh of relief that the cycle is complete. When you expect your arm to move and it does, your expectations are fulfilled. All is well.
But if one arm were missing, this feedback loop doesn’t close. A variety of sensations, including pain, can follow.
In a fascinating book Phantoms in the Brain, Dr. Ramachandran explores the world of neuroscience through people who have lost a limb. Patients experienced phantom sensations in an extremity that no longer existed; some as simple as a fleeting tickle, others as irritating as an un-itchable itch and, in the worst of cases, pain.
The patient’s brain, having sent a signal to the missing limb, would expect a response. Without receiving one, its neural pathways would get confused, causing severe phantom pain where none should be possible.
Ouch.
Or take relationships, for example.
You are a block of stone.
Chipped and cracked and carved by life.
Molded since birth, you now embody a unique shape, reflecting all that you’ve become.
Your parents were the first to sculpt you. Using the only tools they knew how. Tools given to them by generations of parents before them, they whittled you into the shape they wanted, or needed, or were proud of. A sculpture of sorts.
What he said to me was, “You’re such a nice guy, Mike. The nicest.”
What he meant was, “Everyone is trampling all over you. You’re not aggressive enough. You’re never going to get anywhere in life, and you certainly aren’t going to find success in this company.”
I’ve heard it a thousand times before.
“Mike, you’re such a nice guy.”
or
“Mike, you’re the nicest. So nice.”
Which would be great if it were a compliment. But it’s not.
Of course, there’s truth to what they say. I am nice. I do treat others with kindness. I would give you the shirt of my back if you needed it.
But their so called compliments are laced with an undercurrent of misgiving concerning my ability to get ahead in life or, at the very least, avoid the wrath of distrustful, self-interested sinners who would rob me of my possessions, my honor, and my virtue.
These stabs at my character disguised as flattery are enough to make me wonder if I should be more of an asshole.
Nice guys finish last, right
Sorry, this post isn’t for you.
It’s for me.
It’s for me internalize the mindset of a big-screen hero, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Someone who, though I’ve never met, I respect and admire.
It’s for me to capture the thinking of a giant who has been kicked around, ignored, laughed at, and ridiculed only to bust through to success in endeavor after endeavor.
It’s for me to embed an absolute can-do, break -through-walls, leap-over-obstacles kind of attitude into my psyche.
This post isn’t for you. It’s for me. But you can read it anyway :-).
In fact, I’d love everyone read these ideas and watch the video at the end.
I want everyone to hear Dwayne Johnson’s heartfelt words and catch a glimpse of how this success-genius made his way through failures from poverty to continual and lasting success.
Because unlike so many other successful people who share what they’re doing today to be successful, he talks about the mindset he fostered in the past that led him to his present and will help him grow and win big in the future.
Less than 10 minutes after waking, I threw up cigar chunks into my master bathroom toilet.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise.
Twelve hours earlier, the groom and I were celebrating his upcoming wedding with a night on the town in historic downtown Leesburg, Virginia.
As you might have guessed, this night included alcohol and stogies.
We drank and walked and talked and smoked and drank some more. We hopped from restaurant to restaurant, downing wine and beer and whiskey, all the while drawing down a box of cigars purchased at the local tobacconist.
At one point, the groom had me laughing so hard that I bit down on the cigar butt, crumbling the outer paper, which I inhaled, coughed up, then involuntarily swallowed.
I washed it down with a swig of wine—all of it came up the next morning.
Gross, I know.
But it perfectly illustrates the entire point of this article...
I can attest from first-hand experience that striking out sucks.
It doesn't matter how you do it.
Swinging under a ball for that third strike feels like opening a drain to let all the potential flow out of your body. No base hit. No home run. No chance to be the hero in front of an audience of cheering fans.
