“Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity.”
– Lao Tzu
There’s no need to expand on this simple yet profound message from Lao Tzu.
Do your work, then step back.
Enjoy the view.
Work
6 Human Needs; Why all people do what they do
This post mainly comes from the ideas of the great Tony Robbins while I only add to it.
You are seeking emotions and experiences. After researching experts, I have found that there are six basic, universal needs that drive ALL human behavior. Every human being has these needs, but we each put different VALUE on these needs. Our focus on these needs will determine the direction of our life! What need will you live for?
The six human needs include:
1) Certainty
2) Significance
3) Variety
4) Love/Connection
5) Growth
6) Contribution
Each of these needs influence every single human being’s life, and by understanding the needs that shape your behavior, you can take control of your life, and create new habits that lead you to the life you’ve been dreaming of living.
What do you think the most addictive thing in the world is???
Find out in a few paragraphs, it’s not what you think.
Before we get more into our human needs, lets look at how DECISIONS shape our destiny, and our decisions of course are intertwined with our needs.
Decision is the ultimate power. Decisions shape destiny.
There are 3 Decisions we are making EVERY moment of our lives:
1) What am I going to focus on? Focus=feeling. Past/present/Future…Self or others?
2) What does it(this situation/experience) mean? Is it the end or the beginning? Are you being punished or rewarded?
3)What are your going to do? Are you going to give up or move forward?
We make these decisions consciously or unconsciously.**
Lance Armstrong for example could have focused on his cancer but he continued to focus on biking and being the best. He continued to win!
Rosa Parks. Her focus was that she could change the world for her kids or grandkids instead of focusing on what she was told to do. She wouldn’t go to the back of the bus & she changed the whole world!
Entrepreneur Tony Robbins also has an incredible story. When he was a eleven years old with a very broke family and no food for Thanksgiving, a stranger came to his house on Thanksgiving to give them a turkey. Tony’s angry father and himself had VERY different PERSPECTIVES/FOCUSES on this event that went like this:
Tony’s Father: His 3 decisions: Focus was “this is charity” What does it mean “I am worthless” What do I have to do? “Leave my family.” Which he did…
Tony’s focus: There’s food! What does it mean? “Strangers care about me and other people.” What am I going to do? “I’m going to do something to make a difference.” Six years later he started feeding families when he was 17. Slowly but surely he built a foundation and has fed millions of people all over the world.
Your FOCUS determines much of your life. Try to be intentional and conscious of what you focus on.
& The most addictive thing in the world is….
Most people will guess wrong. The answer is Problems.
**Most people find a way to feel significant by having a significant problem. Problems are the safest way to connect with others and not be rejected. Problems are the biggest addiction in our culture.
And SiGNIFICANCE is one of the six human needs!!! Think about your life. Do you connect and feel significant through problems? And are you happy with constantly talking about problems or do you want to live a life with less complaining?
***Instead of just looking at peoples’ behaviors, see their attempts to meet their needs.***
A few insights into the 6 human needs:
1) Certainty
- People like to be certain, to have financial security, to trust people and experiences. But too much certainty makes us bored, so we need some variety.
2) Variety
- People like good surprises, if it’s a bad surprise they call it a problem.
3) Significance
- We all need to feel important, special, unique..People do this in so many different ways-tattoos, religion, joining a group..etc..One of the quickest way some people feel significant is through Violence. Violent things happen each day, just watch the news; these people have a striving for significance, as well as some big mental problems..I encourage you to be significant in a positive way. Join some great groups, read, write, travel.
4) What we really need is Connection & Love
- Connection and love are like rain to a garden of flowers, they make us grow. Surround yourself with people who support and love you. I am so thankful for my family because of their love. Also if you are feeling down and depressed, get a pet. Dogs will love you and are always happy to see you. Cats are different, but they can show love to their owners as well.
Every human finds a way to meet the first 4 needs. What will your FOCUS be to meet these needs???
The next two needs create fulfillment!
5) Growth
If you don’t grow, you die. Relationships, businesses, self, etc.
- We grow when we have something to give of value. So don’t always be thinking of yourself..I know it’s hard, but try to get out of yourself for awhile & see what you can give to others that can help them. EVERYONE has something great to contribute, but it can be very difficult to find it. Start by donating food or clothes, or doing something small for someone. It feels amazing and will help you grow. It’s funny how a selfless act will ultimately help you too.
6) To Contribute beyond ourselves
- Growth and Contribution are intertwined. You grow by contributing. Contribution=growth.
“The secret of living is giving.”
“It’s not about me, it’s about we.” Tony Robbins
People truly get excited to contribute once they experience it and not just talk about it.
We ALL have the same needs, but whatever need leads us will lead us to our destination.
People all try to meet the same needs, but we do it in different ways. A firefighter saves lives for significance while someone else kills a person for significance.
Try to appreciate how people are attempting to meet their needs, explore your decisions, and give.
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO FOCUS ON?
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?
Get more free time by using Parkinson’s Law!
Parkinson’s Law dictates that a task will swell in perceived importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted to its completion.
We work on things with a given deadline, but if we have no deadline we will take up all sorts of time wasting it.
Example—Someone who has a leisure day with no deadlines can spend the whole day writing an easy college essay that is due the next day. This essay should take no more than one hour, but lets see what happens…
The person wakes up slow, makes coffee and eats, showers, and 1-2 hours is gone. They look at what they have to do for a few minutes then get distracted with social media and surfing the web for an hour. Decide to watch Netflix for an hour or two, and the day is almost evening..
..They open up their paper and work on it for about 5 minutes before getting distracted and going back to checking out social media. This cycle continues for hours until they finally begin and finish the paper around midnight. The paper would have only taken at most an hour to finish, but this person believed they did not need to finish it first thing in the morning so they took all day to do it. They did not have a specific deadline for the paper!
This is similar to a typical 9-5 workday where many people babble their days away with coworkers in pointless conversation. There have been studies done about how much people actually work throughout the day at their 9-5 jobs and the average does actual work-related tasks about half of the time.
Useless meetings, lunch and water breaks, surfing the web and other distracting things take them away from “what they should be doing.” And if their bosses allow it, I would do it too! If a boss gives an employee a week to do something, that person will take the full week to lazily do that task, when it could be done in a much shorter time if given a shorter deadline. Check cartoon below↓↓↓
“Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.” I can’t say it enough.
By assigning the right amount go time to a task, we gain back more time and the task will reduce in complexity to its natural state.
Parkinson’s Law works because people give tasks longer than they really need, for different reasons, because they have an inflated idea of how long the task will take to complete. **You can’t realize how quickly some tasks can be completed until you test this principle.
Work smarter, not harder…when most people are working harder and not smarter.
A practical way for you to complete goals/tasks faster:
- Make a list of your tasks for the day, week, month, etc. and divide them up by the amount of time you think it will take to complete them. Then write down half of that time that you first gave yourself to complete each task! Make sure you view your deadlines just as crucial as you would if completing it for a boss.
- Stop checking your phone and email every 15 minutes and take 45-60 minutes of focused time to only work on your main task.
When you begin applying Parkinson’s Law to your life and your tasks, you will begin to be more productive than you’ve ever imagined.
Please share and comment, letting me know your thoughts and how Parkinson’s Law has helped you!
My 3rd, 4th and 5th Weeks in Denver
Crazy that I’ve already been in Colorado for a month. Time goes by fast when you’re living life to the fullest! —My car ride seemed like it took a whole month to get here; although it was less than 24 hours. Anyway here is what I have been up to the past few weeks:
During my third week in Denver I moved into my new apartment! No more sleeping on a couch. The hot tub and pool at the apartment complex were some big deciding factors, even though they are being renovated currently and I haven’t used them yet! So I moved all my stuff into the apartment, chatted with the new roommates-they are super chill and awesome. I also went to an orientation for substitute teaching after hours of paperwork to get there. I was outside most of the week really just hanging out with friends and enjoying the week before I started teaching. The weekend was fun, and then I began teaching during my 4th week here.
Monday I taught at a pretty rough school. I have previously been working with juvenile delinquents so I thought that teaching at all these schools would be a breeze…not so much. I taught freshman Biology that Monday and these freshman definitely challenged me and tested my patience but I made it through the day. Tuesday I taught a French middle school class. They were filled with sooo much energy-The classroom got loud, so I got a little loud back. Wednesday was amazing! I worked as a physical education teacher and the school does “team teaching” where some teachers work together for the lessons. This made classes very easy and the day flew by. Thursday as a middle school math teacher was okay; some classes were great and some weren’t. Friday I was a math teacher at the school I was at on Monday so I was ready for chaos, but since it was a different class with different students it wasn’t bad. Only one class was out of pocket. Substitute teachers experience all sorts of interesting situations throughout the day, and I was already beginning to experience these things. Overall it was a decent first week of teaching.
My 5th week and 2nd week of teaching here…This week was a lot better than last week as far as teaching goes. Monday I taught gym at an Elementary school and it was awesome. I got to play basketball and other sports with the students as we jammed out to music. Tuesday and Wednesday I was a floater. They needed me as a 4th grade teacher on Tuesday-I was not the happiest about this, but I do what they need me to do. The kids were crazy. Wednesday was okay. I taught another loud group of students, but I did get to leave early so that was awesome. I went to a park after school and played some football with a friend. Thursday was the best day of the week for teaching!! I was a high school gym teacher and the students listened and behaved so well. I was at a great school and I got to run and workout with students in each class. The teacher I was subbing for had a prep period at the end of the day so I got to leave a little early again! Good times. Friday was a good day too. I was a math teacher at a pretty good school and some of the kids had really funny jokes. I laughed a lot during the first period class.
A few things I have learned while working with students: Be patient, listen, and from the start make sure they know what rules and expectations they should follow.
In my free time I have been reading, writing, playing Fifa with friends, going to parks, working out, and I bought a new laptop!
“I think people who are creative are the luckiest people on earth. I know that there are no shortcuts, but you must keep your faith in something greater than you, and keep doing what you love. Do what you love, and you will find the way to get it out to the world.”
3 Takeaways from Mark Cuban’s Book, How to Win at the Sport of Business
Billionaire and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban gives insight into his success. He started from the bottom now he’s where he’s at, and he’s lovin it. Here are three key takeaways from his new book, How to Win at the Sport of Business:
1.Never Give Up
When Cuban was running one of his first companies, his secretary stole $83,000 dollars out of the $85,000 dollars they had saved. Cuban tried to get his money back but it wasn’t possible.
Instead of dwelling on the problem, Cuban focused on the positives, and what he could do to continue to succeed. He never saw or heard from that secretary again; she probably changed her name.
Anyway, Cuban being a stoic, a genius, and just being real with the situation said, “What’s done was done. Worrying about revenge, getting pissed at the bank and all those ‘I’m going to get even and kick your ass thoughts’ were basically just a waste of energy.”
Cuban got right back to work, and he never stopped, just call him the energizer bunny. Key takeaway is to be able to let go of people who have wronged you, and move on. Taking time out of your day to try and get revenge is only a waste of time. Let karma take care of it.
2.Become an autodidact
The most brilliant minds throughout history have all been in some ways an autodidact; that is, a self-taught person. Cuban himself is very much an autodidact, teaching himself how to program as well as continuously reading and learning.
Cuban reads multiple hours each day, and it pays off! Literally, he’s a billionaire, and a lot of why he is so successful is because he consistently reads. A huge take away from this book is to be able to teach yourself; learn how to learn.
If you don’t know something, stop sitting around doing nothing about it and research it! Study it! Whatever you want to learn is at your fingertips, we have the internet and Google! Almost all the information we’ll ever need is online, and usually for free! Be your own teacher. Stay ahead of the curve. Have the edge.
One definition Cuban has for the edge is: “Knowing that people think you’re crazy, and they are right, but you don’t care what they think.” Get up early, stay up late. Kick yourself in the ass before someone else does.
3.Enjoy the entire process
When Cuban was 23 years old he was sleeping on a floor. He was living in a 3 bedroom house with 6 people. He was basically broke and lived off of happy hour food during that time. He was having a blast though, not kidding, he loved it!
He got fired from multiple jobs but he was surrounded by great friends in Dallas and that made all the difference. Now he owns the Dallas Mavericks, and has made the team and program better with his approach. On this subject, Cuban says, “Start the day with a positive attitude.
You are going to screw up. We all do. But no matter what happens, every morning, the minute after you wipe away the crust from your eyes, remind yourself that you’re going to enjoy every minute of the day. You are going to enjoy the twenty interviews you have. You are going to enjoy waiting in the heat for your roommate to pick you up afterward. You are going to enjoy realizing how frayed your collar has become and how sick you are of your one, lonesome tie.
You are going to enjoy all the bullshit you have to deal with as you chase your goals and dreams, because you want to remember them all. Each and every experience will serve as motivation and provide great memories when you finally make it all happen. It’s your choice. What are you going to do?”
I hope these 3 key takeaways can help you as much as they have helped me! If you would like to order the book from Amazon you can order it here: How To Win At The Sport of Business. I highly recommend reading it however you can get it!
Who I Am
You may say that I’m a dreamer. I know I’m not the only one though. This world is filled with dreamers, but it is also filled with realists. Can you be a realist and a dreamer at
At The Beatle’s Story Building in Liverpool England. (2013)
the same time? I think so.
There are dreams each of us have every single day that become fulfilled, and there are dreams that are not fulfilled. A lot of times we don’t see our dreams as dreams. What I mean by this, is that most people expect to eat at some point in the day. They dream about it, they think about it. If they never thought about it, would they not eat? You have to eat to stay alive, so why don’t we look at success as if it were dinner? If ya know what I’m sayin. Need it, breathe it, think about it and be it.
There are also some dreams that some people may find unrealistic but that other people are doing. If someone else is doing it then YOU CAN TOO!! A few years ago I was presented with the idea of studying abroad. This seemed like it could be a life-changing experience, and it was, but I will get to that later. Looking back on what I did to make studying in England possible for a semester took effort. It was not easy by any means, but it was worth it. Paper work sucks, but sometimes it needs to be done if you want to do the things you really want to do. I didn’t look at studying abroad as a dream until it actually happened, and reflecting on that experience makes me see that that is exactly what that was, a dream come true. Many people talk about it, few people do it.
If you want something, go for it. Work for it. Put in TIME and EFFORT. Nothing worth having comes easy, but once you get it, the dream is something to be cherished forever.
With Ken Thompson 