10 Things Nobody Can Take Away From You

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A post shared by Michael J Mehlberg (@michael.mehlberg) on Sep 9, 2018 at 6:59pm PDT

People can steal so many things from you—your money, your attention, your time.

Here are a few things they can’t:

1. Your Fire

2. Your Skills

3. Your Ideas

4. Your Effort

5. Your Wisdom

6. Your Reactions

7. Your Perspective

8. Your Uniqueness

9. Your Experiences

10. Your Determination

11. Your Self Respect

There may be others. Comment if you think of any below👇.

In the meanwhile, take caution. While nobody can steal these things from you, you can steal them from yourself.

Stay diligent, stay disciplined, and always keep building that which cannot be taken away.

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About the Author

Michael Mehlberg

HUSBAND, FATHER, ENTREPRENEUR, BUSINESS STRATEGIST, AUTHOR, FITNESS NUT, ORGANIZATION FREAK, PRODUCTIVITY JUNKIE

I help high-achieving entrepreneurs live their passion and achieve their dreams by consistently saving time, getting productive, and being more efficient and organized.

Subscribe to my free, short, 60-second newsletter for tips, tricks, links, products, and other discoveries to becoming a more purposeful, passionate, and productive human.

Two Words That Will Help You Bring Joy to Others

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A post shared by Michael J Mehlberg (@michael.mehlberg) on Aug 26, 2018 at 6:45pm PDT

There are exactly two places in the world I feel 100% me.

The first is my home office.

I’ve worked from home for a decade, so have refined every corner of my office for optimal comfort, productivity, and happiness.

Take my typewriter, for example.

It’s my prized Olympia Spendid 66, refurbished and mailed from @mr.mrs.vintage in London. The machines curves and deep navy blue glossy finishes are beautiful. But when I start hammering those keys, it walks right off my desk.

So now, underneath, are four hidden globs of poster putty holding the typewriter within millimeters of my Game of Thrones book set (which is simultaneously on display and positioned for instant reading).

It’s not just the poster putty. Everything in my office is arranged just so. My whiteboard, my pictures, my computer, my chair, my desk. Even my samurai sword is on display, out of reach from my children, but accessible to me for the inevitable zombie invasion.

The second place I feel 100% me is Hotel Kabuki (@hotelkabuki).

When I walk through the doors of this hotel, unobtrusively located in Japantown San Francisco, I have dreams of buying the place, moving my home office across the country, and living there with my family for the rest of my natural life.

It’s the lobby library, stocked with history books, pop culture references, and classical literature. It’s the vinyl’s in a grid on the wall decorating the front desk. It’s the black and white wall art, squared off modern furniture, fancy phones, and bonsai trees in the garden exercise room.

But what really gets me is the coasters...

For all the grand decorations, coasters seem like a trivial flourish. But the small white round cardboard with its red brushed circle gives a certain zen-like calligraphy feeling, emphasizing a message that I’ve now taken to heart:

“Shine Brightly”

When my brow is furrowed because I’m concerned about how much I’m getting done or thinking too hard about what I’m supposed to be doing next, these two words remind me to keep trying to bring joy to others and to help those near me with what I have and what I’ve learned.

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About the Author

Michael Mehlberg

HUSBAND, FATHER, ENTREPRENEUR, BUSINESS STRATEGIST, AUTHOR, FITNESS NUT, ORGANIZATION FREAK, PRODUCTIVITY JUNKIE

I help high-achieving entrepreneurs live their passion and achieve their dreams by consistently saving time, getting productive, and being more efficient and organized.

Subscribe to my free, short, 60-second newsletter for tips, tricks, links, products, and other discoveries to becoming a more purposeful, passionate, and productive human.

Reset Expectations of What's Possible

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A post shared by Michael J Mehlberg (@michael.mehlberg) on Aug 23, 2018 at 6:09am PDT

Everyone knows it snows in Michigan.

I remember shuffling down the streets of Midland one October, trick-or-treating, with thick ski pants and boots covering my Halloween costume; just a kid with a pillowcase wearing a Chewbacca mask staring out from under a winter hat.

Two feet of snow. In October. And that was in the lower peninsula.

The upper peninsula? That’s no joke.

The people that live up there, lovingly referred to as uppers (pronounced yew-pers), get hammered in the winter.

Yet, even knowing that, we stopped in awe at a lone sign in the woods. Deep into our seven hour drive, in the northern part of Michigan’s upper peninsula, we stared up at the sky where this sign, 29.5 feet in the air, marked their record snowfall.

When you grow up seeing two to four feet of snow at a time, 29 feet seems unbelievable.

But this sign didn’t lie. It was accurate, and the record it represented has been beaten since.

(Email me a pic if you’ve seen it recently, I didn’t have a camera back then and I’d love to marvel at it’s height again)

This sign, and the extreme snowfall record it represented, reset my expectations of what’s possible. It made me wonder what else I didn’t know, didn’t realize, or couldn’t imagine.

It’s easy to get used to the status quo. But that’s not how to stand out. That’s not how you make the biggest impact. That’s not how to strike awe in your customers.

Recognizing that, it’s helpful to ask yourself a question—one that will help reframe your expectations of what’s possible:

“What am I continuing to do myself that I’m not good at?”

Think about it. Write it down. Then improve it, eliminate it, or delegate it.

Improve what you’re not good at and raise the bar on what you can accomplish.

Eliminate what you’re not good at and give yourself time to work on more important tasks.

Delegate what you’re not good at and buy yourself energy while allowing for someone more skilled to set the bar higher.

Don’t wait for a sign in the woods. Challenge what you know. Ask yourself this question monthly to reset expectations of what’s possible, what you can focus on, what’s important, and what’s holding you back.

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About the Author

Michael Mehlberg

HUSBAND, FATHER, ENTREPRENEUR, BUSINESS STRATEGIST, AUTHOR, FITNESS NUT, ORGANIZATION FREAK, PRODUCTIVITY JUNKIE

I help high-achieving entrepreneurs live their passion and achieve their dreams by consistently saving time, getting productive, and being more efficient and organized.

Subscribe to my free, short, 60-second newsletter for tips, tricks, links, products, and other discoveries to becoming a more purposeful, passionate, and productive human.

Need a Breakthrough? Try Working the Impossible...

For the longest time, I couldn’t squat more than 200 pounds. Though training 5 days a week had quickly pushed me from squatting zero to 195 pounds, adding five extra pounds to the bar felt like adding 1000.

I knew this limit was artificial, manufactured in my brain that tried as best as it could to preserve itself by not taking risks. Regardless, I couldn’t break through. So I looked to a friend and fitness coach for some expert advice:

“Throw 300 pounds on the bar,” he said. “Don’t try to squat it, just put it on your shoulders. Feel the weight, hold it, then re-rack it. Do this a few times, then drop back to 200 lbs and try squatting again.”

It worked.

In theory, nothing had changed. I hadn’t gotten any stronger. I hadn’t learned a new technique or used some new device to artificial increase my lift. I had simply forced my mind to believe that it was possible to hold more weight. And after holding 300 lbs, squatting 200 felt much, much lighter.

What seemingly impossible task are you dealing with right now? What is holding you back from taking that next step towards your goals?

Acknowledge it, but move quickly to build tasks that challenge you. If someone has achieved what you are trying to achieve before, study them. Open your mind to the possibility that, if they can do it, so can you. Push yourself to operate at a new level, even if only briefly. When you come back to your work, what seemed impossible before may be that much easier.

Sometimes, when you get stuck and can’t seem to break through to the next level—when you hit a plateau that prevents you from furthering your goals—showing yourself the impossible is possible can be the breakthrough you need.

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About the Author

Mike Mehlberg

In Search of Breakthroughs

Mike is constantly searching for breakthroughs for high-achieving entrepreneurs. Contact him to find out how you can get more productive, align your passion with your vision and purpose, and crush your goals with a balanced, achievable plan for success. 

When the Struggle Gets Real, Remember to Have Fun

​Baseball is a game of failure.

Failure to hit the ball. Failure to get on base. Failure to push a runner home. Over and over, play by play, someone, somewhere on the field is failing.

It’s not for lack of trying. It’s just the nature of the game. And, of course, there’s the flip side...

Some games see big hits, great plays, and few failures. Those games you usually win. Other games though, the failures accumulate and you wind up with a loss. Every once in a while, a real struggle sets in where every play seems to end up in error. Small failures build on each other until you see no chance to recover. Deep in your mind, you believe you are going to lose. And so, against all your beliefs and training, you stop trying; you just go through the motions until it’s game over.

Why the monologue on baseball? Because baseball (like any sport) is in microcosm of life.

You’ve faced failure countless times. Maybe you’ve swung at an opportunity and missed. Maybe you ran hard toward your goal, but just couldn’t reach it. Or, maybe you put all your effort into throwing a competitor out, but they somehow managed to slide under your tag and score.

Those are the times you feel the struggle; the times when winning feels too painful too bother trying. But you know you have to... try, that is. The question is, how?

Remember to Have Fun

Yes, have fun. This isn’t empty advice aimed at taking your mind off your problems, though it does help.

No, having fun is a call to action. A call to remember why you are playing the game in the first place. Having fun is actionable advice, reminding you not to take the game you play too seriously. It’s pain medicine administered to

• prevent burnout,
• spark creativity, and
• avoid giving up.

So the next time struggle hits you hard, step back and remember why you started. Remember what made your game fun in the beginning, then go do that.

If you’re a photographer struggling to capture the perfect pic, take some silly photos of your kids, weird looking bird, or whatever. If you are an entrepreneur struggling to capture the next big idea that will skyrocket your company to success, draw some wacky doodles on a whiteboard and brainstorm how you can build and sell whatever you’ve created.

Then, when your mind is at ease and your smile returns, gently guide your mind back to the problem at hand. Transform the fun you had into a renewed energy and focus, leveraging the childlike sense of wonder that first captured your imagination, long ago, before the stakes got too real and everyone started taking themselves too seriously.

Remember to have fun.​

About the Author​

Mike Mehlberg​

Chief Child in Charge​

Mike loves having fun, but often forgets because he’s “too busy” helping entrepreneurs get productive and turn their ideas into reality. Come to think of it, ​he should probably go have some fun right now. That way, next time you contact him, he’ll be fresh, energized, and ready to rock and roll.

All Great People Fail - So Should You

In this video, we look at a specific example of failure and discuss how we used this framework to deal with negative emotions and turn this failure into a learning lesson and ultimate success.

What do historical legends such as Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, and Abraham Lincoln have in common with modern day magnates Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey, and J.K. Rowling? The obvious answers are fame and success. But there is a more powerful answer that might surprise you.

They all experienced painful, demoralizing failure on their journeys to the top.

The kind of failure that would derail many people from going forward and pursuing their goals and dreams. Had they succumbed to these failures, they easily could have faded into anonymity. Their incredible contributions to science, history, sports, business, and literature may have been lost.

Edison was deemed "difficult" by a teacher and lasted a total of 12 weeks in school. Einstein dropped out of school at 15 and then failed his first university entrance exam. Lincoln lost eight elections, failed in two businesses, and suffered a nervous breakdown. Jordan was famously relegated to his high school's junior varsity team. Oprah was publicly fired from her first television job. J.K. Rowling, a single mother living off of welfare when she started her first Harry Potter novel, once described herself as "the biggest failure I knew."

This raises in an important question - what is it that fuels people who are wildly successful and separates them from others? Are they ultra-talented? Do they have access to special resources that the rest of us don’t have? Are they just lucky?

Sometimes it is easy to feel this way. After all, when we look at successful people, we see where they are today. We don’t see the difficult circumstances, the embarrassing mistakes, and the crushing disappointment that they have overcome.

But the truth is that these people earned their success in spite of failure, and they did it through effort, persistence, and resilience.

The Reality of Failure

Failure is an ugly word. No one likes failing and no one wants to be known as a failure. And yet, as these and many other examples reveal, failure is inevitable if you want to accomplish anything of note.

The reality is, you can be certain that you will experience failure in one way or another. So, you have a choice. You can:

1. avoid trying anything new or difficult to prevent failure from occurring,

2. experience failure and be crushed by it, or

3. embrace failure for what it is – unavoidable, necessary, and a chance to learn and grow.

Entrepreneur.com | Six Stories of Super Successes Who Overcame Failure >

This post is for people who are ready to step up to option 3. If you’re someone who already has a healthy tolerance of failure, this post can help you influence others to adopt a similar mindset. And while some people will have an easier time with this than others, we know with certainty that anyone can build the capacity and fortitude to overcome failures and achieve their goals.

Let’s look at why failure feels so bad, why we’re afraid of it, and strategies for turning failure into a catalyst for success.

Why Does Failure Feel So Bad? Why Are We So Afraid of It?

The answers may seem obvious. But it’s worthwhile to dig a little deeper to understand what informs our views on failure.

1. We Like to Look Smart and in Control

We admire people who appear to have all the answers and everything under control. We want to be the same way and we worry about what other people think of us.

Failure is not a good look when you prioritize how others perceive you. It feels embarrassing and shameful. If you see failure as humiliating, you’ll avoid sticking your neck out in fear of scorn and judgment by others.

2. We Judge on Outcomes, Not Process 

From a young age, we are taught to judge ourselves and others on outcomes. Getting an A on a test, winning a game, getting accepted to a prestigious school, these are defined as measures of success. But we often forget to acknowledge and praise the effort that it takes to achieve these.

Focusing only on outcomes, and not the process of success, makes us vulnerable to quitting and acquiescing to defeat when the going suddenly gets tough. It makes us question ourselves and withdraw the first time we get a “C,” have a bad game, or receive tough feedback.  

3. We Overstate Risks

When we look at a new challenge or opportunity, we may obsess over the downside. We are prone to hyper-focus on what might go wrong. When we do this, we paint an unbalanced picture of negativity that prevents us from moving forward. We will say “it’s not worth it.” 

4. We Are Impatient   

Everyone likes instant gratification. It feels good to achieve immediate results. And even though we know that there are few overnight successes, we set our expectations unrealistically high.

The problem with this is that we will be easily disappointed and discouraged at the first sign of difficulty. If things don’t go well right away, we may be inclined to give up and jump ship.

Together, these factors may cause you to be paralyzed by the idea of failure and to develop a closed mindset about what is possible and worth trying. This fearful mindset can become worse if you do gather the courage to try something and it goes poorly. Instead of seeing the failure as an event, you may begin to think of yourself as a failure. This line of thinking can have disastrous consequences.

It’s Time to Rewrite Our Story on Failure

Anyone can build the capacity and fortitude to overcome failure and achieve their goals.

There are plenty of reasons to fear failure, to avoid taking risks, to quit when things get hard, and to assume that successful people made it using some special abilities or powers that you don’t have. However, if you accept this as your reality, you’re also accepting that you aren’t going to go very far in your personal and professional endeavors, at least in terms of fulfilling your full potential.  

If you don’t like the way that sounds (and you shouldn’t), then it’s time to re-write the script on what failure is.

Failure is healthy. It is a sign that you are trying new things and pushing your limits. It’s an invaluable learning experience. It sends a message to others that you aren’t afraid to take on something difficult. It’s a challenge to be embraced. It’s worth experiencing failure because it puts us on the path to accomplishing more than we could have before.  

Theodore Roosevelt once said,

“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”

5 Steps to Overcoming Failure

Hopefully by now you are convinced that you don’t have to be one of those “poor spirits in the gray twilight.”  If so, here are five steps you can take to make sure that you are ready to take on failure without looking back.

1. Acknowledge That Failure is Inevitable

You need to accept now that things won’t always work out. You’re going to have ideas that go nowhere. You’re going to be rejected by others. You’ll be told that what you are trying to do is impossible. You’re going to try something new and find it to be much harder than you thought.

Knowing that these experiences are coming will help you to stay committed and not be deterred when things go sour.    

2. Stop Caring About What Others Think 

Yes, we all want to be liked. But it’s a real problem if you make your decisions and choices based on a desire to appease others.  It’s time to put that concern at the bottom of the priority list.  

Fast Company | How to Stop Caring About What Others Think >

You’re not going to convince other people to like you – so worry about achieving your goals and let the rest work itself out. Know what is most important to you and seek the company of those who will support you and offer positive, forward-looking feedback.  

3. Recognize That It’s Going to Hurt

Up to this point, we’ve talked about the need to embrace failure. This does not mean that failure is ever going to be fun. Even the most optimistic people among us are going to hurt when the bottom drops out on an idea or venture, especially if a lot is at stake.

It’s ok so spend some time with those emotions and to feel the frustration, anger, and disappointment. The key here is to not let these feelings linger in an unhelpful way. Let them go and see if you can channel them into motivation for whatever you pursue next.

4. Roll Up Your Sleeves and Get to Work

You can only control one thing when trying something new, whether it’s as simple as a new hobby or as complex as a new business venture:

Effort.

Keep grinding away and relentlessly pursue your goal. Having to work hard at something is not a sign of weakness. Effort is a hallmark of those who succeed.

5. Take a Step Back. Look at The Journey

When something goes wrong, it’s easy to lose perspective. Take a big picture view of your goals and progress and make an honest assessment of where you are.

“Effort is a hallmark of those who succeed.”

— Seth Sinclair

If you are only three months through a project that you knew would take a year, don’t panic. When you hit a setback, pull yourself out of the moment and try to be objective about what you are experiencing. It’s possible that all is not lost.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it never would have amounted to much if everyone gave up at the first sign of trouble. As Thomas Edison once said, “Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”