Your Second Great Day

How to Catch a Plane

When I talk to people about writing a personal purpose statement I get varying reactions. But one of the ones that drives me crazy is the person that says, "Wow, that all sounds great. Maybe someday I will write a personal purpose statement."

I just want to say...someday? What do you mean someday? What do you expect to gain by doing something as important as this someday? Do you think you can make up the time by working harder or more effectively once you have taking the time to identify why you were put here on this earth?

I heard John Maxwell tell a story a few years ago that has stuck with me. It is one of those stories that you just can't get out of your head, nor do you want to.

Here is the story...

A man was on his way home from a long business trip. He was standing at a gate waiting for his plane home when he noticed this guy coming towards him very fast. He saw this man running toward him, well actually toward the gate at which he was waiting.

The man came running around the corner obviously trying desperately to catch his plane. As he turned the corner he realized he had missed his flight. The man coming home from the business trip observed all of this an approached the man.

The man who had been running had his hands on his knees and was very out of breath. The business man put his hand on this disappointed travelers shoulder and leaned down as said, "Had you only run a little faster you would have made your plane."

The man catching his breath, took a deep breath in, turned and looked at the business man and said, "No, had I only left earlier, I would have caught my plane."

Why do we put extremely important things off? We will not be able to make up the ground we are currently losing. So stop losing ground

You want to catch your plane...START NOW!!!

Write It Down!!!

A few years ago when I went back to school to get my MBA, I went to a university that at the time had a program that was ranked 12th in the nation. One of the first classes I took was Organizational Behavior. It was one of the best classes in my whole academic career (way to go Bonnie, keep up the great work!)

One of the many things that has stuck with me from that class happened when we were talking about goal setting. I would have to admit I sort of clocked out during this discussion because I had hear all of this before...but I still had something to learn.

Professor Bonnie asked all of us to raise our hand if we had ever set a New Years resolution. There were about 30 business, very corporate, white collar, "fast track" students in the class and we all raised our hand. Then she asked us to keep our hands up if we actually accomplished our resolution. I just about fell out of my seat when there were only two hands left raised, one other student and me.

Seriously only about 5% of these type A people actually accomplished what they set out to do? There has to be something wrong with this. So of course this was a perfect time for a discussion to figure this out. You know what came out of that time of discovery? Something very simple. You probably will not even believe me. Here it is...here is the only thing that separated success and failure. The two of us wrote our resolutions down!!! Seriously that was it.

So what are you waiting for? If you made a resolution...WRITE IT DOWN!!!

Seeing Blue

I want you to try something. Come on it won't hurt. Give it a shot. I want you to take 10 seconds and identify five things around you that are blue...GO!!!

STOP! How did it go? Were you able to find five blue things? It was pretty easy, right? Let me ask you this, did you see all of these things when you first walked into the room? Why not? Why in only 10 seconds were you able to identify these blue things when you might not have seen them before?

The answer...because I told you to look for them! That's why you see them now. You want me to really ruin your day? Ok, I would love to. I want you to identify as many blue things as you can for the rest of the day. You will not realize how many blue shirts, cars, folders, pens, and pictures there are in this world.

So why in a short period of time and with a simple statement were you able to see so much blue? Because being told to look for blue helped you develop a sensitivity to blue things. We all have the ability to find these blue items at any point in time, but we often get side tracked, busy, and sometimes careless.

One of the most powerful benefits of having a personal purpose statement is the heightened sensitivity that will be developed. You will start seeing opportunities, people, and resources that will help further your purpose. And instead of having your day ruined, you will have your life enhanced!

Insanity

I have heard insanity defined as trying the same thing over and over expecting a different result. I SAW this in action this week. I was at an auto shop getting new tires. (Doesn't car repairs feel like you are just throwing money down the drain?) I went to the check out counter to pay. And the guy that was checking me out was obviously having a bad day, which he proceeded to pass along to me.

His register was not working well. And he had to scan the paperwork that I received from the guys in the shop. He scanned it once, nothing. So he scanned it again, still nothing. A third time, same result. I am not kidding you when I tell you he tried to scan that paperwork over 20 times! I figured out he was not going to be successful after like five tries, but it did not click with him until much later.

Does this ever happen to us? We are going through life and things are not going the way we would like them to, but we just can't figure out why. So we figure well if we just keep trying the same thing, maybe the results will be different. Often times those around us notice sooner than we do that we are experiencing insanity. Trying the same thing again expecting a different result.