Does it feel like New Year’s Day keeps coming faster and faster each year?
What is changing?
Are you?
Every year I can’t help but think of the people I know that had big plans, huge hopes, and daring dreams for the last year. I’m always pulling for my fellow warriors, so I hate when it’s all talk, no action.
Warriors go to war, they don’t just talk about it.
I’ll never understand how some folks act like there’s an unlimited supply of days like today. Fresh starts. New years.
Here we go…again?
The problem is we only have so many new years before we run out. This is a sobering thought for sure, but true nevertheless. What would you do if this was your last New Year’s Day?
Would you still keep dreaming or would you start doing?
If you need a calendar to push yourself, take it. But please don’t keep putting off what matters.
The most important project in your life is the one you’re working on right now.
The past may be glorious.
The future will always hold new opportunities.
However, what you’re working on right now is all that counts.
Your past doesn’t matter if you don’t win today. Your future doesn’t matter if you don’t get started on it.
I hear so many people reminiscing about “the good old days” or waiting for the great future they envision. They can’t move on from the past or they’re waiting to someday conquer the future.
I am an optimist. Even as I walk through tough, dark times, I can see a bright future ahead.
It keeps me going.
Though many 8pm Warriors are walking through dark hours in their business or career, I still believe the future is bright for those who invest in their future…especially now.
On Wall Street, we said “Buy when there’s blood in the streets”.
The man who is credited with that saying, an 18th century British nobleman named Baron Rothschild, made a fortune buying stocks during the financial crisis after the Battle of Waterloo. Many of those stocks were of his own companies.
His original quote is believed to be “Buy when there’s blood in the streets, even if the blood is your own.”
The blood in the streets is our own.
I see it every day. Small business leaders struggling, talented folks doubting, so many wondering, “when will things get better?”
I get sad when I see those who stop before they get there, the leaders who quit on themselves, or the suicides of desperate warriors.
If you believe that you’re working towards something special, don’t give up hope. Don’t quit now. Invest in yourself.
Organizations will either come together in a fight for a common goal, or turn inward and fight each other.
Look at any club, family, church, department, nation, or business you are a part of. When does the most infighting take place? Is it during a fight for its life? When pushing towards a common mission?
Nope.
Big, slow moving companies like Microsoft know what I’m talking about. So does the PTA at an already successful school. They’ve lost purpose. They lose focus.
When there is nothing big to fight, they find stupid little things to focus on and whine about. In the end up, they fight each other.
Whether they admit it or not, most people are warriors.
They’re looking for a good fight. They need a mission.
Leaders with a vision can keep people focused on a common goal. They rally their troops and get them fighting together, not against each other.
We need to embrace our team of warriors and give them something to fight for.
Usually, 8pm Warriors that make something great during their lives can point to key situations where success happened by an inch or two. It might be the large client that changed their mind and chose you, or the time you found just enough capital to push through a slow period.
Those victories are won by an inch. Every inch, every chance mattered for success.
The same goes for failure.
One of the reasons I am so passionate about pushing my absolute limits is because everywhere I look, I see inches. I try to take every inch when I can, not knowing how far I really have to go to reach my goal.
Even so, I am worried about missing by a couple inches. It’s one of my greatest fears and cause of numerous agonizing defeats.
I’m not alone.
We all need inches and tonight is the best time to find them.
PS. One of my friends mentioned that this pep talk below really fits with this topic. I agree. Check it out.
I’ve made every wrong choice a middle-aged man can make. I pissed away all my money, believe it or not. I chased off anyone who’s ever loved me, and lately, I can’t even stand the face I see in the mirror.
You know when you get old in life, things get taken from you. That’s part of life. But you only learn that when you start losing stuff. You find out life’s this game of inches. And so is football. Because in either game, life or football, the margin for error is so small. I mean…one half a step too late or too early and you don’t quite make it. One half second too slow too fast, you don’t quite catch it.
The inches we need are everywhere around us. They are in every break of the game, every minute, every second.
On this team, we fight for that inch. On this team, we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when we add up all those inches, that’s gonna make the difference between winning and losing! Between living and dying!
I’ll tell you this – in any fight, its the guy who’s willing to die who’s gonna win that inch. And I know if I’m going to have any life anymore, it’s because I’m still willing to fight and die for that inch. Because that’s what living is!
Great leaders find a way to build confident teams. It’s one of the most overlooked facets of amazing leadership:
How do you get your team to believe in themselves?
Do you send them to watch “motivational” speakers? Do you make them read the latest “inspirational” book? Do you lie to them? Fake it?
There is only one way. It must be earned.
I believe that teams, just like people, develop authentic confidence when they actually experience success and can attribute that success to the work they’ve done. Some people don’t believe in themselves because they don’t feel they’ve done anything remarkable. Teams can be the same way.
As a leader, you must find a way to get your team believing they can achieve great things. Here are four steps towards the power of confidence:
1. Hire talented people
2. Expect great achievements
3. Celebrate success
4. Remind them of what they are capable of.
Then, push them further.
There is something special about those who have authentic confidence. For them, anything they chase is within reach. It’s not magic, sorcery, or luck.
I recently watched “Nature’s Most Amazing Events” and found inspiration in the segment about the annual Pacific Salmon run.
The story serves as a great reminder to all who feel stuck on a path to something great.
Salmon are drawn by instinct to swim against the current, jump huge waterfalls, and avoid massive bears to achieve their mission. Out of every 1000 salmon that are born, only 4 make the round trip from their birth place to the ocean and back again.
It’s the challenge of a lifetime!
However, as if that wasn’t hard enough, sometimes the water levels are too low for the salmon to meet the bears, waterfalls, or heavy currents they’re destined to face. They get stuck before the real battle even begins.
It’s heartbreaking to watch and reminds me of so many brilliant, passionate 8pm Warriors who are stuck.
Then the rain comes.
Just as many of the fish are starting to lose energy and hope, the rainy season begins and allows the fish to resume their epic struggle against all odds to achieve their ultimate life goal. They can finally begin the fight they were designed for.
Sound familiar?
Many of my fellow 8pm Warriors are on their way to following their dreams. We all signed up for the challenges of developing new products or services, avoiding competitors, and challenging the status quo. We’re okay with swimming against the current.
What we didn’t sign up for was the lack of water.
This economy has dried up many options and left many 8pm Warriors wondering, hurting, and weak.
Tonight I urge you to hold on. Just like those salmon, do not turn back. Do not forfeit your goal or your path. Never give up.
The rain is coming!
The challenges we seek will be here soon enough and the days of funding issues and weak demand will be replaced with the challenges of finding the right people, products, and strategies again.
The pain of failure is much easier to take than the regret of quitting early on something great.
Many will go to bed at the same time, wake up at the same time, and get an extra hour of sleep.
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