When we look at the great entrepreneurial examples in history one name is sure to be on the list — Henry Ford.
Ford is synonymous with the invention of the automobile, but why?
- Did he invent the first car? No.
- Did he invent the internal combustion engine? No.
- Did he design the best car in the industry? No.
There is little doubt that Ford was relentlessly driven to succeed, but he certainly was not a genius...
As you may know by now, I have a deep passion for 3 things:
- Scientific facts...
- Technological resources...
- And helping individuals achieve whatever greatness they seek.
Since starting Willpowered 2.5 years ago, those points reminded me why the exhaustion, doubt, and failure was worth it.
Facts.
When I was a teenager, there were few things I feared more....
Not because of school work, but because they were a reminder that I *was not the person I aspired to be.*
I don't believe it...
I thought as I hit my kick starter goal of $12,000 in November of last year. Only a few days earlier, everything seemed hopeless.
I was two-thirds of the way through the campaign, and only raised half of my funding goal...
**How was I going to raise just as much money in half the time, when I had already reached out to all of my friends, family, and subscribers!**
Over the last 6 years, I have deliberately put myself in "no retreat" situations.
I have moved to a new city, I have set a hard deadline, or signed up to do something out of my comfort zone. Whenever I'm becoming a big fish in a small pond with my personal development, I jump into a bigger pond – even if I'm not ready.
I've done this so often, in fact, that I developed a process that helps me achieve the "unrealistic" goals necessary to make it in the "bigger pond."
Right now, I have yet another unrealistic goal. So here is how I planned to achieve it:
"Have I told you that story about how Charlie Parker became Charlie Parker? Parker's a young kid, pretty good on the sax. Gets up to play at a cutting session… and he (screws) it up...and he's laughed off-stage. Cries himself to sleep that night...
Another morning… another day where feel like I can do nothing but stare blankly at the computer screen.
It’s time for me to continue working on the manuscript that has been the culmination of years of research, and that I raised over $13,000 to complete. But the bills keep piling up, and the publishing process is longer and more expensive than I thought it would be.
"People don’t realize Star Wars is actually a soap opera and it’s all about family problems – it’s not about spaceships."
Said George Lucas soon after watching Star Wars Episode VII in an interview with Charlie Rose. This was the first time he'd put Star Wars in someone else's hands, and he felt like it had been abused.
“There were two things that have been abused from the original release of Star Wars.
Every once in a while you get that sweet, “AHA” moment. You have found the solution to your problem, and suddenly it seems like a New World of possibilities is now open.
It feels great.
But the underrated cousin of the “AHA” moment is the “DUH” moment. When a solution has been there all along…but for some reason you ignored it.
I don’t know about you, but I have many more “DUH” moments then “AHA” moments–and this one was a doozy.
Three hundred and fifty miles of pain and suffering.
That’s what Joe De Sena and his three teammates were looking at as they approached the starting line of the 2001 International Raid Ukatak. The Raid Ukatak is an adventure race held in Quebec, Canada, in the middle of the winter.
Joe’s team was ready and willing to endure torture. This was Joe’s first real test of his willpower.
“This is it!”
Thought a young Warren Buffet as he picked up a book that would change his life forever.
Until that point, Warren Buffet was far from what many would consider a future success.
He was a rebellious kid who hated what he considered pointless schoolwork and the fact that he had to move from Omaha to Washington DC when his father was elected to Congress.
It was a simple a train ride from Manchester to London to most of the passengers on the train, but for one passenger, it would be the spark that would change the world of literature forever.
Joanne Rowling – better known as J.K. Rowling – was overcome with excitement as she saw a vision of a young, scrawny boy who the world would come to fall in love with.
“I saw Harry! I could see him very clearly – this scrawny little boy. And it was the most physical rush of excitement. It was the same feeling that you get when you meet someone new and feel as if you have found the person you are going to spend the rest of your life with.”
Drew Carey looked at the huge stack of paper on his desk, the hundreds of emails in his inbox, and the dozens of voicemails on his phone.
He just couldn’t do it - how was he supposed to have a life?
“There was no end to it. I felt like the more that I did in one area, the work would just start piling up in another area.”
At this point, Carey was one of the hardest workers in Hollywood. He was the host on Whose Line is it Anyway, he had his own hit TV show and hosted many events as the key speaker.
With all of these pulls on his time, improving his productivity was absolutely crucial.
The clock has just struck 5pm on Wednesday and Susan takes a look at her gym bag.
"Ugg. There is no way I'm going to be able to make it to the gym tonight."
Susan is on an 8-week exercise program. She has been trying to create a regular exercise habit for years now, but no matter how hard she tries, nothing ever works.
How many things are you able to do at once?
Most people believe that they are extremely good at multi-tasking. We believe that we can watch a movie, do productive work and carry on a conversation with a friend all at the same time.
But are we doing any of these tasks well?
In 1949, 19 year-old Warren Buffet picked up a book that he claimed changed his life. Security Analysis, written by Benjamin Graham, helped shape Warren Buffet’s investing philosophy from the start.
The book was so important, in fact, that Buffet decided that he would not make another investment until he fully understood every detail of the book. So he decided to read it again…and again. He read that book 12 times before he allowed himself to get back into the investing game (he had been buying stocks since the age of 11).
“Doing is better than perfect.” – Facebook Company Motto
There you sit. You have the goal in front of you, but you are not quite sure how you need to proceed. You have visualized what this project will look like when it is finished and you cannot wait to see it completed.
But for whatever reason it just does not feel like the right time to get started right now. You feel a little “off”. You do not know exactly where to start and there is not enough time on your schedule to get everything you would want to get done.
There are never enough hours in the day.
We can never seem to find the time to accomplish everything we want to on our to-do lists. Whether those things are work-related, family-related or goal-related, we just don’t seem to have enough time or energy to get them done.
“Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” – Mark Twain
I don't know about you, but I doubt Mark Twain is actually advocating that we eat live frogs. So what was the “frog” he was talking about?
A “Frog” is that thing that ugly, disgusting, thing on your to-do list that you want to put off until later more than anything else. It’s something that needs to get done, but you have absolutely zero motivation to do it.
We all have frogs looming on our calendars, and here are 3 reasons you need to follow Mark Twain's advice and eat it first thing in the morning.
“What time is it?” David Blaine asked a bystander at his Frozen In Time expedition in Time Square.
“It’s 2pm” the man responded.
“Jeez, that means I still have 8 hours left in here!”
Blaine had been standing in a block of ice for a full 56 hours at that point. Sleep deprivation was causing him to hallucinate terrifying images and characters doing unspeakable things. The unseasonably warm weather in New York had caused part of the ice to melt, resulting in a cold dripping on his neck similar to Chinese water torture.
You know the feeling.
That feeling in your gut that makes you want to avoid pushing yourself.
Staying within your comfort zone feels good. Life outside of it is scary.
It's complicated, it's challenging, and it can result in hard, cold, embarrassing failure.
But it can also result in growth.
Thus, life asks you a tough question – comfort today? Or growth tomorrow?
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