Life can hit you hard.  It can feel like a ton of bricks.  Maybe it’s the loss of a job.  Maybe it’s unbelievable news.  Maybe it’s the loss of a loved one.  Maybe it’s a series of unfortunate events.  Maybe it’s your world turned upside down.

Whatever it is, moving on can be tough.  In fact, one of the toughest things in the world, is to move on.  If you’ve ever ever been inconsolable, you know what I mean.

People might tell you, get over it.  They might say, just move on with your life.  You might even want to.  But then you might find yourself stuck.  Or you might find yourself wallowing.  Or you might find yourself numb.

This is where some of the world’s best words come in to play.  Whether you want to make like a phoenix and rise from the ashes, or you want to bounce back after going down for the count, or you simply want to just find a way forward … moving on quotes can be your best friend.

My gift to you is this deep collection of quotes for moving on.  You’ll find insight and inspiration from Bruce Lee, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Gandhi, and more.  Find three quotes from the collection below.  Hold on to them, and play them in your mind, when you need them most.

Top 10 Moving On Quotes

1. “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” — Dr. Seuss
2. “Get mad, then get over it.” — Colin Powell
3. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; And wisdom to know the difference.” — Reinhold Niebuhr
4. “I gather strength from life’s storms.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
5. “Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass… It’s about learning how to dance in the rain.” — Vivian Greene
6. “Look at life through the windshield, not the rear-view mirror” — Byrd Baggett
7. “Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” — Maria Robinson
8. “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” – Author Unknown
9. “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” – Proverb
10. “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” — Lao Tzu

A New Day and Moving On

• “Do not worry if you feel low; the sun has a sinking spell every night, but rises again all right the next morning.” — Author Unknown
• “Don’t let yesterday use up too much of today.” — Cherokee Indian Proverb
• “Goals give you more than a reason to get up in the morning; they are an incentive to keep you going all day.” — Harvey Mackay
• “I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.” –  J. B. Priestley
• “Let every day be the first day of the rest of your life, but especially let today be a new beginning.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
• “The darkest night is often the bridge to the brightest tomorrow.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
• “Today will never happen again. Don’t waste it with a false start or no start at all.” — Og Mandino
• “Whatever you want in life, start today. Not tomorrow – today. Let it be a small beginning – a tiny beginning. Your happiness depends on starting today – every day.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
• “With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

Action and Moving On

• “Achievement seems to be connected with action. Successful men and women keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.” — Conrad Hilton
• “Just keep moving forward and don’t give a shit about what anybody thinks. Do what you have to do for you.” — Johnny Depp
• “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.” — Albert Einstein
• “Part of being a winner is knowing when enough is enough. Sometimes you have to give up the fight and walk away, and move on to something that’s more productive.” — Donald Trump
• “So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don’t sit there. If we screw it up, start over. Try something else. If we wait until we’ve satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late.” — Lee Iacocca
• “Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
• “We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” — Walt Disney
• “What surrounds us we endure better for giving it a name – and moving on.” — Emile M. Cioran
• “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” — Proverb
• “You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, Know when to walk away and know when to run.” – Kenny Rogers

Baggage, Hurts, the Past, and Moving On

• “Get over it – Life isn’t Supposed to be fair.  Get over yourself, and be of service to others.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
• “I had to cease to mourn what could never be and make the most of what was possible. And I would begin doing that by trying to mend the hurts of the past.” — Cameron Dokey
• “If you bury the pain deep down it will stay with you indefinitely, but if you open yourself to it, experience it, and deal with it head-on, you’ll find it begins to move on after a while.” — Greg Behrendt
• “Keeping baggage from the past will leave no room for happiness in the future.” — Wayne L. Misner
• “Moving on, is a simple thing, what it leaves behind is hard.” — Dave Mustaine
• “Moving on is easy. It’s staying moved on that’s trickier.” — Katerina Stoykova Klemer
• “My Mama always said you’ve got to put the past behind you before you can move on.” — Forrest Gump
• “Often the thought of pain is actually worse that the pain itself.” — Greg Behrendt
• “People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” — Thich Nhat Hanh
• “Sooner or later we’ve all got to let go of our past.” — Dan Brown
• “The secret of joy is the mastery of pain.” — Anaïs Nin
• “Those who do not know how to weep with their whole heart do not know how to laugh either.” — Golda Meir
• “When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” — Kahlil Gibran
• “You can’t look back – you just have to put the past behind you, and find something better in your future.” — Jodi Picoult

Blame, Victim, and Moving On

• “Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.” — Helen Keller
• “What’s the point of pointing the finger, other than to stall your own progress in moving on?” — Lisa Steadman
• “You are responsible for your life. You can’t keep blaming somebody else for your dysfunction. Life is really about moving on.” — Oprah Winfrey

Bouncing Back, Resilience, and Moving On

• “Fall down 7 times.  Stand up 8.” – Chinese Proverb
• “He’s a million rubber bands in his resilience.” — Alan K. Simpson
• “Life only demands from you the strength you possess.” — Dag Hammarskjold
• “Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit.” — Bern Williams
• “The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward.” — Rocky Balboa
• “Whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you’ll find that when you’re free . . . your true self comes out.” — Tina Turner
• “You all know that I have been sustained throughout my life by three saving graces – my family, my friends, and a faith in the power of resilience and hope. These graces have carried me through difficult times and they have brought more joy to the good times than I ever could have imagined.” — Elizabeth Edwards
• “You can fall, but you can rise also.” — Angelique Kidjo

Change, Choices, and Moving On

• “Any change, any loss, does not make us victims. Others can shake you, surprise you, disappoint you, but they can’t prevent you from acting, from taking the situation you’re presented with and moving on. No matter where you are in life, no matter what your situation, you can always do something. You always have a choice and the choice can be power.” — Blaine Lee
• “Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.” — Wayne Dyer
• “I chose and my world was shaken. So what? The choice may have been mistaken; the choosing was not. You have to move on.” — Stephen Sondheim
• “I choose not to project my past onto my future.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
• “I demolish my bridges behind me …then there is no choice but to move forward.” — Fridtjof Nansen
• “I won’t let the sun go down on me.” — Nik Kershaw
• “If you don’t like something, change it.  If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” — Maya Angelou
• “It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult undertaking which, more than anything else, will determine its successful outcome.” — William James
• “Life is about making the right decisions and moving on.” — Josh Rayburn
• “Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.” –  Bruce Lee
• “The only way to change our lives is by changing our minds.” — Author Unknown
• “The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.” — Charles Kettering
• “Things do not change; we change.” – Henry David Thoreau
• “Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons.” – Pascal
• “We are set in our ways, bound by our perspectives and stuck in our thinking.” — Joel Osteen
• “We can not become what we need to by remaining what we are.” — Oprah Winfrey
• “When you start to abandon your old beliefs or values… you may be stuck at the threshold for two or three years. Before moving on, you have to clear away your cherished beliefs.” — Dick Raymond
• “You must make a decision that you are going to move on. It wont happen automatically. You will have to rise up and say, ‘I don’t care how hard this is, I don’t care how disappointed I am, I’m not going to let this get the best of me. I’m moving on with my life.” — Joel Osteen

Courage, Confidence, and Moving On

• “80% of people’s problems are about how they feel about themselves.” — Joyce Meyer
• “Courage is not the absence of fear, but simply moving on with dignity despite that fear.” — Pat Riley
• “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, I will try again tomorrow.” — Mary Anne Radmacher
• “It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.” — Theodore Roosevelt
• “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” — Anaïs Nin
• “The great courageous act that we must all do, is to have the courage to step out of our history and past so that we can live our dreams.” — Oprah Winfrey
• “You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” — Christopher Columbus
• “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

Endings and Beginnings

• “A graduation is a small but significant tradition that I think everyone should take part in. What a great way to symbolize a part of your journey and to represent your thoughts for moving on.” — Martin Stoleman
• “Another sunrise, another new beginning.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
• “Celebrate endings – for they precede new beginnings.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
• “Every exit is an entry somewhere.” — Tom Stoppard
• “It’s true that we don’t know what we’ve got until we lost it, but it’s also true that we don’t know what we’ve been missing until it arrives.” — Author Unknown
• “Sometimes the hardest part isn’t letting go but rather learning to start over.” — Nicole Sobon
• “There are things that we never want to let go of, people we never want to leave behind. But keep in mind that letting go isn’t the end of the world, it’s the beginning of a new life.” — Author Unknown
• “Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald
• “When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” — Alexander Graham Bell

Failures, Setbacks, and Moving On

• “A bend in the road is not the end of the road … unless you fail to make the turn.” — Author Unknown
• “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried something new.” — Albert Einstein
• “If you’ve fallen down, today is the day you can get back up and try again.” — Amelie Chance
• “Intelligence is not to make no mistakes, but quickly to see how to make them good.” — Bertoit Brecht
• “Keep on beginning and failing. Each time you fail, start all over again, and you will grow stronger until you have accomplished a purpose – not the one you began with perhaps, but one you’ll be glad to remember.” — Anne Sullivan
• “Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.” — Bob Newhart
• “May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
• “Some things are just never meant to be, no matter how much we wish they were.” — Author Unknown
• “You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” — Maya Angelou

Forgiveness and Moving On

• “By forgiving and choosing to move on, one takes the power back to morph it into positive energy.” — Eugenia Tripputi
• “Cry. Forgive. Learn. Move on. Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness.” — Steve Maraboli
• “Forgive and forget.” – Proverb
• “Forgive yourself for your faults and your mistakes and move on.” — Les Brown
• “Forgiveness and letting go are steps on our road back to happiness.” — Tina Dayton
• “Forgiving is not a gift to someone else – Forgiving is your gift to yourself — a great gift — the gift of happiness.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
• “Forgiveness is the cleansing fire that burns away old regrets and resentments.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
• “Hanging onto resentment is letting someone you despise live rent-free in your head.” — Ann Landers
• “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” – Buddha
• “People can be more forgiving than you can imagine. But you have to forgive yourself. Let go of what’s bitter and move on.” — Bill Cosby
• “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” — Mohandas Gandhi
• “To be able to move on, one has to learn to forgive not only the person (or people) who have done one wrong but also oneself.” — Eugenia Tripputi

Letting Go, Holding On, and Moving On

• “All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.” — Havelock Ellis
• “Don’t cry over spilled milk.” – Proverb
• “Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today?” — Mary Manin Morrissey
• “Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.” — Author Unknown
• “How do geese know when to fly to the sun? Who tells them the seasons? How do we, humans know when it is time to move on? As with the migrant birds, so surely with us, there is a voice within if only we would listen to it, that tells us certainly when to go forth into the unknown.” — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
• “Let go. Why do you cling to pain? There is nothing you can do about the wrongs of yesterday. It is not yours to judge. Why hold on to the very thing which keeps you from hope and love?” — Leo Buscaglia
• “Letting go doesn’t mean giving up, but rather accepting that there are things that cannot be.” — Author Unknown
• “Letting go doesn’t mean that you don’t care about someone anymore. It’s just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself.” — Deborah Reber
• “Letting go has never been easy, but holding on can be as difficult. Yet strength is measured not by holding on, but by letting go.” — Len Santos
• “Letting go isn’t a one-time thing, it’s something you have to do everyday, over and over again.” — Dawson’s Creek
• “Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.” — Hermann Hesse
• “You will find that it is necessary to let things go; simply for the reason that they are heavy. So let them go, let go of them. I tie no weights to my ankles.” — C. JoyBell C.

Life and Moving On

• “A man who does not leave his hut will bring nothing in.” — West African Proverb
• “I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance.” — Beryl Markham
• “I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing.” — Anais Nin
• “It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.” – Buddha
• “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” – Kierkegaard
• “Life is as easy or as hard as you think it is.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
• “Life is lived in the living. Set aside convention, caution, and arbitrary “rules” about how life is supposed to be lived. Choose! Explore! Adventure! Live life to the fullest.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
• “Life is unlimited – it expands with the generosity, compassion, inventiveness, and service that you contribute.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
• “Life’s burdens are lighter when I laugh at myself.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
• “Part of growing up is just taking what you learn from that and moving on and not taking it to heart.” — Beverley Mitchell
• “The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.” — Reinhold Niebuhr
• “We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.” — Joseph Campbell
• “Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.” — Kahlil Gibran

Loss, Grievance, and Moving On

• “And perhaps there is a limit to the grieving that the human heart can do. As when one adds salt to a tumbler of water, there comes a point where simply no more will be absorbed.” — Sarah Waters
• “The loss of love is not nearly as painful as our resistance to accepting it is.” — Tigress Luv

Now, The Present, and Moving On

• “Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.” — Oprah Winfrey
• “The past always looks better than it was because it isn’t here.” — Finley Peter Dunne

Relationships and Moving On

• “Don’t rush into any kind of relationship. Work on yourself. Feel yourself, experience yourself and love yourself. Do this first and you will soon attract that special loving other.” — Russ Von Hoelsche
• “I don’t want to lose you, but I don’t want to use you just to have someone by my side.” — Patty Smyth
• “I think it happens to everyone as they grow up. You find out who you are and what you want, and then you realize that people you’ve known forever don’t see things the way you do. And so you keep the wonderful memories, but find yourself moving on.” — Nicholas Sparks
• “If you really love something set it free. If it comes back it’s yours, if not it wasn’t meant to be.” – Author Unknown
• “It happens to everyone as they grow up. You find out who you are and what you want, and then you realize that people you’ve known forever don’t see things the way you do. So you keep the wonderful memories, but find yourself moving on.” — Nicholas Sparks
• “Loving someone is setting them free, letting them go.” — Kate Winslet
• “Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher.” — Oprah Winfrey
• “The heart was made to be broken.” — Oscar Wilde
• “You may have buried or repressed your own power for so long a time that you feel incapable of moving on without the strength and support of a lover, even the lover you just left behind.” — Howard Bronson

Regret and Moving On

• “I have no regrets in my life. I think that everything happens to you for a reason. The hard times that you go through build character, making you a much stronger person.” — Rita Mero
• “It’s never too late to be who you might have been.” – George Eliot
• “Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can’t build on it; it’s only good for wallowing in.” — Katherine Mansfield
• “Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.” — Henry David Thoreau
• “Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves – regret for the past and fear of the future.” — Fulton Oursler
• “Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience.” — Victoria Holt
• “Regret of neglected opportunity is the worst hell that a living soul can inhabit.” — Rafael Sabatini
• “The only conquests that are permanent and leave no regrets are our conquests over ourselves.” — Napolean Bonaparte

“Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald

People often ask me why I’ve been at Microsoft so long.  It’s simple.  It’s the people.  It’s people with a passion for more from life.

The variety of people is mind blowing.  From teachers to scientists to you name it.  There are doctors on staff who even write code.   There are world-class musicians, mathematicians, best-selling authors, outstanding speakers, and inspiring minds that bring science fiction to life.

What brings such an unlikely band of heroes together?   Values.   Values are the lightening rod that attract and bind us.

Just about everybody I know wants to change the world and make a difference in their unique way, and to leave the world a better place.  So many unsung heroes give way more than they’ll ever get, while they follow their heart, and give their best, where they have their best to give.

Values at Microsoft

Here are the shared values at Microsoft as you’ll find them on Microsoft.com:

“As a company, and as individuals, we value integrity, honesty, openness, personal excellence, constructive self-criticism, continual self-improvement, and mutual respect. … We take on big challenges, and pride ourselves on seeing them through.”

That’s some powerful stuff. If you are a fan of continuous learning or personal growth, Microsoft is the ultimate dojo of personal excellence.   There are so many people to learn from in so many ways, and the feedback loops are extreme.  It’s an arena that’s empowered me expand my capabilities beyond my wildest imagination, in leadership, business, and life.

I joined Microsoft to follow Bill Gates.  Here was a guy with all the money in the world, yet he showed up every day and worked harder than most people I know to do what he loved.   He wants to empower people.  He wants to change the world and technology is his way.

When You Know Your Values, You can Live Them

I value adventure, excellence, and empowerment.  In one of my leadership trainings, a colleague pointed out to me that adventure is a strong theme in my life (she mentioned my motorcycle, my Jeep, my passion for road trips, etc.)  She challenged me and ask me how I could bring more of that to work?

There’s no shortage of big challenges at Microsoft.  I decided to treat each of my projects as an epic adventure.  For each project I took on, I would envision what the movie poster would look like.  The energy was contagious and it helped inspire the teams I lead.  One of my colleagues said they thought of me as, “the director of block-busters.”

Excellence is another theme in my day to day.  I challenge myself to master my craft or hone my skills or expand my capabilities.  To do so, I model the best.  I find the people that are great at what they do and I learn from them.   This helps me stay in the game, and grow better at what I do.  It also helps me keep a “beginner’s mind.”  I’m always open to new ways and new perspectives.  It’s a quest for the best, and failure is an option, as long as it’s failing forward.

Empowerment is another theme that drives me.  I empower people.  I like to bring out the best in people and often that means setting the goals and getting out of the way.  People get creative and resourceful when they take on challenges.  The trick is not to tie their hands with process or style, but instead to help them internalize the tests for success.   Then they can use all their resources and passion to rise above the challenge before them and grow in the process.

Every day, there are so many chances to spend more time in our values, if we first know what our values are.  As one of my colleagues put it so well, “Do more art.”

Don’t Break Yourself Against Your Values

During my interview for Microsoft, my hiring manager asked me if I was joining for fame or fortune.  Ironically, I didn’t want either.  I told him I wanted to make impact.  He liked that answer.

I was not actually a fan of fame.  In fact, what I like about Microsoft is how many unsung heroes there are among the halls.  There are so many people with so many amazing lives and amazing achievements.  You would just never know.  For example, do you know Wikipedia?  Well, I used to work with the guy that created the Wiki platform.  He never bragged about it.  In fact, he never brought it up unless I asked him about it.

I prefer to make impact behind the scenes and to lead in a quiet way.  For me, I measure my success internally, not externally, and my bar for me is high.  I learned early on to practice the art of leadership aikido and to “shape without a wake.”  My manager’s philosophy was — make great things happen, but don’t leave a wake behind you, and don’t leave a trail of dead bodies.

Sometimes I run into a conflict where the culture values visible and vocal, while I value quiet and effective.  What I’ve learned is to blend.  What I found is that it gives me more options, and I can choose the most effective approach for the scenario.

The more important lesson I learned though is that many things that seem like conflict of values, are really conflict of styles.  Conflict of styles is easy to deal with when you see it for what it is.  You just change your approach.  A Darwin way to put it is, “adapt or die.”  The way to see through style conflict is to always connect back at the values, find the common ground, and create shared goals.

We have a lot more in common then we think we do, if we don’t get blinded by conflict in styles.

Every now and then, there truly is a conflict in values, such as one person value freedom, while another values control, or one person values routine, while another values innovation, or one person values people while another values things.

In my experience, it’s better to find a better fit than to break yourself against your values.  If roller coasters aren’t for you, find another ride.

My Related Posts

• Finding Your Values
• Guide Your Path with Vision, Values, and Goals
• Living Your Process

“Give it your best shot.”   Growing up, I heard those words of encouragement time and again, whenever I was venturing into something new, or competing in something where the competition was fierce.

I learned to treat BEST as a chance, not a chore.

I never regretted giving my best shot.   Even when my best wasn’t good enough.  I only ever regretted the times when I didn’t.  The funny thing about BEST is that it’s all relative, yet everybody roots for you when you give YOUR best.  In a way it levels the playing field where each of us has the chance to rise to our own level.

When was the last time you gave something your best shot?  BEST is contagious.  It’s habit forming.  It spills over into everything you do.  That is, unless you reserve your best for special occasions.

Like anything, BEST gets better with practice.  It takes work to hit your high notes, but the more you make BEST a habit, the more high notes you’ll hit.

In the book, Little Book of Leadership: The 12.5 Strengths of Responsible, Reliable, Remarkable Leaders that Create Results, Rewards, and Resilience, Jeffrey Gitomer writes about BEST as a way of life.

Do Everything Full Force

No holding back.  Go with gusto.  Show the world what you’re made of.  Jeffrey writes:

“One of the most interesting aspects and one of the most unspoken parts of action and/or doing is the desire, your desire, to do everything full force.  Better stated, to do everything at the level of ‘best.’”

The Result Will Speak for Itself

BEST has a way with words.  Actually, it’s the strong silent type.  Jeffrey writes:

“It is better never to SAY, ‘I am doing the best I can.’  Rather, just DO the best you can, and you will never have to say it, the result will speak for itself.”

It’s Easy to Feel

You know how it feels.  You recognize it when you see it.  It’s the difference that makes the difference.  Jeffrey writes:

“The word BEST is very difficult to define in writing, but it’s easy to react to and easy to feel when you are doing it.  It’s a personal dedication, and a work ethic, not a word.”

Example of Best

To illustrate what BEST looks like, Jeffrey shares an example using Pete Rose.  Pete Rose was “walked” 1,566 times.  He could have walked to first base, but he ran every time. He was the only player ever to do so. He was also known for stretching singles into doubles with his head first slide.  He holds the all-time record for doubles.  That’s BEST in action.

When are you at your BEST and who gets to experience it?  BEST just might be the best thing that ever happened to you.

Photo by tibchris.

“To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone and a funny bone.” — Reba McEntire

This is a 101 list of some of the best insights and actions for work and life.  This is the stuff you can use to change your frame, to change your game.

I started with the simple goal to build and unleash the world’s greatest “ah-ha” collection. I really, REALLY want this to be the gems of insight that are the super insights in life that really do change your game.

While a lot of the ideas should look familiar, many should be surprising, and instantly useful to your every day. I took an 80/20 approach, and targeted many of the common pitfalls, pains, and opportunities we face through life, in an attempt to arm us with the wisdom of the ages and modern sages.   When we take the balcony view, we can draw from books, people, and quotes to “stand on the shoulders of giants.”

This collection of insights and actions is a “hub-and-spokes” model.  By providing a “bird’s-eye view”, you can easily scan and find the ah-has that are right for you.  For each item, or “spoke”, I link to more depth and additional resources.

Enjoy.

1. 20/20 Hindsight — “I knew it all along” phenomenon.  The “I knew it all along” phenomenon is also called the “hindsight bias.”  It’s when you assume you knew the answer all along, when somebody gives you the answer or the information.   It happens when you see something and it seems like common sense, or that you knew it would happen.  The problem is when you build false-confidence, or don’t really know the information as well as you thought you did.  See What is the “I Knew It All Along Phenomenon.”
2. 30 Day Trials — Try something new for 30 days.   If you want to grow your capabilities, learn something new, change a habit or adopt a new one, try it for 30 days.   Whether you do it as a 30 Day Challenge, or a 30 Day Trial, or a 30 Day Improvement Sprint, there is power when you get time on your side, and take a small action each day.   See 30 Days to Success, by Steve Pavlina,  watch a video by Matt Cuts on Try Something New for 30 Days, or read my post on 30 Day Improvement Sprints.
3. 80/20 Rule – 80 percent of your results come from 20 percent of your efforts.  You can use this rule of thumb to spend more energy on the vital few things that count.  Amplify what counts, and you amplify your impact.   This is the key to exponential results.  The 80/20  Rule is also known as the Pareto Principle, and the idea is popularized in The 80/20 Individual, by Richard Koch, and The Four Hour Work Week, by Tim Ferris.  See the Pareto Principle.
4. “A Sense of Urgency” — The key to change.  Early success can lead to complacency.  Change can be hard.  People can resist change for all sorts of reasons.   Because change can be hard, and to get over the humps, the key is to create a sense of urgency.  You do this with stories, and appealing to emotions, in ways that compel people to action.  John Kotter teaches us that the key to change is creating a compelling sense of urgency in the book, A Sense of Urgency.
5. “Absence makes the heart grow stronger,” or “Out of sight, out of mind”? In the short term, “absence makes the heart grow fonder”, until you move on and “out of sight, out of mind” takes over.  In the long term, absence can make the heart grow fonder, in that we tend to remember the good things, and forget the bad.  In this way, if you reunite with somebody that was “out of site, out of mind”, you might be fonder.
6. “Absorb what is useful” — Find what’s true for you.   Draw insight and action from anyone and anything, but find what works for you, and tailor it to you or your situation to make the most of what you’ve got.  Bruce Lee says it best with, “Absorb what is useful, Discard what is not, Add what is uniquely your own.”
7. Ah-has are sticky — “Find the surprise.” Things that surprise us are easier to remember.  One way to find more insight is to ask, “What did you learn that surprised you?” … or “What did you learn that you didn’t expect?”  Chip Heath and Dan Heath teach us that unexpectedness sticks in the book, Made to Stick.
8. Agree, build, and compare to build rapport — Watch your “ABC”s.   Agree when you agree.  Build when others leave out key pieces.  Compare when you differ.  In the book, Crucial Conversations, Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler teach us to use our ABCs to agree, build, and compare our views when we disagree with the other person’s facts or stories.  Don’t start with “Wrong!” – Instead, start with, “I think I see things differently.  Let me describe how.”
9. Ask, don’t tell – “Lead the horse to water.” Your self-talk is the key to willpower.   Ask, “Will I do this?” over state “I will do this.”    “Wondering minds” are “more goal-directed and more motivated than those who declare their objective to themselves.”   See The Willpower Paradox (Scientific Americana.)
10. Ask, “How can I use this?” If you want to find more insights or make more information actionable, then ask yourself the question, “How can I use this?”   This will help you hone in on the parts you can use, ask better questions, and turn insight into action.
11. Ask, “Is it effective?” — Measure against effectiveness. It’s easy to fall into the trap of doing something that doesn’t actually work.  It’s a simple question, but asking, “Is it effective?” can be exactly the insight you need to find your breakthrough or get results.
12. Avoid “Learned Helplessness” — Don’t make it permanent, personal, or pervasive.  When something goes wrong, be careful how you explain it to yourself.   Don’t make it permanent, personal, or pervasive.  For example, don’t rationalize it as “I’ll never be good at this,” or “Why always me?” or “Why does everything I try go wrong?”   That just leads to “learned helplessness.”   In Learned Optimism, Martin Seligman teaches us that one of the most important things we can do in life is have a healthy “explanatory style.”  Recognize that you change and your situations change.  Know that it’s not always about you.  What applies to one aspect of your life, does not automatically apply to others.
13. Balance connection and conviction. Connection is simply how cut-off or how connected you are to others.  You improve your connection by listening, validating, empathizing, and showing interest.  You don’t want to be cut-off, avoiding, or indifferent.  You also don’t want to be extremely approval-seeking, over-accommodating or dependent.  Conviction is how flexible or rigid you are in your position or belief.  The key here to improve your effectiveness is to have clarity on your position, but to be open and flexible to other realities or perspective.  This is how you improve your ability to use better judgment and make more thoughtful decisions.  It’s also how you avoid pushing people away by taking dogmatic positions.  It’s also how you keep your emotions in check by distinguishing between your feelings and your intellectual process.  See Balance Connection and Conviction to Reduce Anxiety and Lead Effectively.
14. BE-DO-HAVE, over HAVE-DO-BE. Don’t put your life on hold or wait mode.  You’ve heard the saying, “Fake it, till you make it.”  Don’t wait until you “HAVE” something to “BE”.  Don’t “BE” happy, when you “HAVE” a better life.  Don’t “BE” a better leader, when you “HAVE” a better job.  If you want something to be true, then first believe it to be true.   “BE” the change you want to see, and make it so.  When you “BE”, you “DO” actions that flow from your beliefs, and you find you “HAVE” more of what you want.
15. Be careful what you wish for – you just might get it. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side.   In Stumbling on Happiness, Dan Gilbert teaches us that we aren’t good at predicting what makes us happy.  We are better off asking friends we trust what movies they liked, what vacations they enjoyed, and what jobs they like, and borrow from their experience.
16. Be the change you want to see – Lead by example. Feel free to lead the way.  Mahatma Gandhi said it best, “You must be the change you want to see in the world.”  The beauty of this approach is you empower yourself to take action, and you avoid falling into the blame game or being a victim.  You can set the example of what good looks like, and attract others to follow your lead.   Jim Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner teach us to “Model the Way” in the book, The Leadership Challenge.
17. Beware of specialization. Specialization is a good thing, unless things change.   As Gerald Weinberg says, “The better adapted you are, the less adaptable you tend to be.”  And, we know what Darwin says about survival of the fittest … it’s the most adaptable that win in the long run.   There is something to be said for “Jack-of-all-Trades” and master of some.  A polymath or Renaissance man approach might be the key to adapting in an ever-changing world.  See Polymath.
18. Big Five personality traits – “OCEAN”. The Big Five Framework is a lens for understanding the relationship between personality and behavior.  You can remember it with the OCEAN acronym: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism (moodiness.)   Openness to experience is a spectrum of inventive and curious vs. consistent and cautious.  Conscientiousness is a spectrum of efficient and organized vs. easy-going and careless.  Extraversion is a spectrum of outgoing and energetic vs. solitary and reserved.  Agreeableness is a spectrum of friendly and compassionate vs. cold and unkind.  Neuroticism is a spectrum of sensitive and nervous vs. secure and confident.  See Big Five Personality Traits.
19. Black swan theory — “Expect the unexpected.” While we can’t predict certain highly improbable events, we can build better robustness to negative ones, and better exploit the positive ones.   Black Swan events are highly improbable and unexpected.  In the book, The Black Swan, Nassim Nocholas Taleb  teaches us that a Black Swan event is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was.
20. Blink — Thin slices of data tell us a lot. Snap judgments can tell us a lot.  Less input is better than more, if it’s the right input, and we can make better snap judgments if we train our minds and senses to focus on the right things.  In the book, Blink, Malcolm Gladwell teaches us to think small and focus on the meaning of “thin slices” of behavior.  The key is to rely on our “adaptive unconscious”– to provide us with instant and sophisticated information to warn of danger, read a stranger, or react to a new idea.
21. Blue oceans — Compete where there is no competition.   Don’t compete where there’s competition.   Create new uncontested market space, and pursuit both differentiation and low cost.   In Blue Ocean Strategy, W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne teach us that lasting success comes from creating ‘blue oceans”, which are untapped new market spaces ripe from growth.  The idea is based on a study of 150 strategic moves spanning more than a hundred years and thirty industries.
22. Blue Zones – Add 12 years to your life, and be 40% happier. The Blue Zones are the world’s healthiest spots, and they can teach us how to live a better, longer life.   The average American could live an extra 12 years and be 40% happier by optimizing their lifestyle and environment.   Take the Happiness Test.   Take the Vitality Test.  See 9 Ways to Add 12 Years to Your Life.
23. Change the question to change your focus. You can change your focus by changing the question.  Rather than asking yourself, “What’s wrong with this picture?” try asking, “What’s right with this picture?”  If you want a simple way for better days, try asking yourself, “What’s the favorite part of my day?”
24. Change your procedure or change your perception — Change your emotions with skill.   What if you knew that no matter what negative emotion you felt, in a moment or two you could get out of that feeling?   According to Tony Robbins, you can.  At any moment when you feel any negative emotion, you can change your procedure, or change your perception.  In other words, you can change what you’re doing about it, or you can change how you are experiencing it, by changing what the experience means to you.  Changing the meaning of something is one of the fastest ways to change how you feel, and you are your most important meaning maker.
25. Change your “Why” or change your “How.” You can’t always change the “what” you have to do, but you can always change the “why” or “how.”  If you change your “why” or change your “how”, you can find your motivation, even for tasks you don’t normally want to do.  This approach for motivation works because instead of rely on external motivation, you make it intrinsic or internal.  You basically find your drive from the inside out, rather than wait for it, or react to external pressure.  To change your “why”, find a higher cause, make new meaning, or tell yourself a compelling story.  To change your how, make it a game, master your craft, pair up with somebody, change when you do it, link it to good feelings, or set a time limit.
26. Change yourself first. The fastest thing you can change in any situation is you.   You can’t change somebody else, but you can change yourself in an instant.  Even if you want to change somebody else, or to change the situation, your fastest path to change is to change yourself, whether that means how you see things or how you show up or how you choose to do things.
27. “Choose-To” over “Have-To.”   Don’t say you “have to.” Say you “choose to”.  Make it a choice.  Make it your choice.   A little choice goes a long way so choose away.  By choosing to do things, you’ll find you enjoy them more, and you’ll be less of a victim and more empowered throughout your life.
28. Cognitive Dissonance – We change our thoughts to match our actions. We seek consistency.  Wikipedia says, “cognitive dissonance is a discomfort caused by holding conflicting cognitions (e.g., ideas, beliefs, values, emotional reactions) simultaneously.”   In a state of cognitive dissonance, we try to reduce the dissonance by either changing our beliefs, or by adding new ones to create a consistent belief system.  Cognitive dissonance comes into play when we explain our unexplained feelings, minimize regret of irrevocable choices, justify behaviors that oppose our views, or when we change our perceptions of somebody to match how we treat them.  You can use cognitive dissonance by familiarizing yourself with the Belief Disconfirmation Paradigm, The Induced-Compliance Paradigm, The Free-Choice Paradigm, and the Effort-Justification Paradigm.  See Cognitive Dissonance.
29. Delayed gratification – The key to competence and success.   You might have heard of the “Marshmallow effect.”  If you can delay your gratification, it can serve you through life.   To put it another way, are you “future-oriented” or “present-oriented?”  (Delaying gratification is future-oriented.)   In the Stanford Marshmallow experiment, kids were tested if they could resist eating a marshmallow, they could have two instead of one.  Researchers found that kids with self-control, that could direct their attention, and delay gratification, performed better in school and were perceived as significantly more competent.  This characteristic stuck with them through life.   Whether you eat the one marshmallow now, or wait for two later is an indicator of whether you are “future-oriented” or “present-oriented.”   Future-oriented is why you delay gratification.  If you are present-oriented, you don’t – you just eat the marshmallow.  See Stanford Marshmallow Experiment and Marshmallow Effect.
30. Deliberate practice — Success takes practice.   In Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell popularizes the “10,000-Hour Rule” .  According to Gladwell, the key to success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours.   To do deliberate practice, you perform your skill (or a piece of it), monitor your performance, evaluate your effectiveness, and tune your performance based on feedback.   The repetition, precision, and practice are key.  This is how you build experience and bake things into your muscle memory and basal ganglia, while learning principles, patterns, and techniques.   See The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance.  The paper includes data on chess players, gymnasts, piano players, runners, swimmers, tennis players, and violin players.
31. Delphi Method — Use “Collective Intelligence” to find the best answers.  The Delphi technique is a way to use experts to forecast and predict information.   It’s a structured approach to getting consensus on expert answers.  The way it works is a facilitator gets experts to answer questions anonymously.  The facilitator then shares the summary of the anonymous results.  The experts can then revise their answers based on the collective information.  By sharing anonymous results, and then talking about the summary of the anonymous results, experts can more freely share information and explore ideas without being defensive of their opinions.  See Delphi Method.
32. Conditioning is the key to lasting change — “Do it daily.” If you want to change a habit or adopt a new one, then do it daily.   Zig Ziglar jokes, “People often say that motivation doesn’t last.  Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”  Tony Robbins says that the key to lasting change is to use conditioning.  Rather than a program you run once, you condition your success.  You don’t comb your hair once, brush your teeth once, or workout once and then you’re set for life.  Instead, you build a habit, and learn to love the conditioning.  If you’ve ever fallen into your old pattern or habit, it’s likely you are using your old frame of reference, and running your old pattern.
33. Correlational vs. causational – Correlation does not imply causation. Just because something happens at the same time, doesn’t mean it’s the cause.  It can simply be correlated.  If you recognize the difference, then you can better pursuit finding the root causes, rather than chasing the correlational ones.  See Correlation does not imply causation.
34. “Don’t wait for inspiration” — Action, then motivation.  If you’re “waiting for inspiration” that could be a problem.   We have to start taking action, and then motivation will follow. David Burns shares the insight that we can’t wait for motivation iIn the book, Feeling Good http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0380810336/thbosh-20/ .
35. “Doublethink” — Think twice  to visualize more effectively.  Think twice to succeed.  Focus on the positive and the negative.  You can visualize more effectively if you imagine both the positive side and the negative side.  First, fantasize about reaching your goal, and the benefits.  Next, imagine the barriers and obstacles you might face.   Now for the “doublethink” … First, think about the first benefit and elaborate on how your life would be better.  Next, immediately, think about the biggest hurdle to your success and what you would do if you encounter it.  In 59 Seconds:  Think a Little, Change a Lot, Richard Wiseman says that Gabriele Oettingen has demonstrated time and again that people who practice “doublethink” are more successful than those who just fantasize or those who just focus on the negatives.
36. Dream big dreams to stir the blood.   Disney taught us to dream big dreams.  Little dreams don’t inspire the way big ones do.  It’s the big ones that inspire the mind, and stir the blood.  Daniel H. Burnham said, “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably will themselves not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die.”
37. Emotional Intelligence is the key to success.   Emotional intelligence (EQ) is what propels people forward, or it’s what holds them back.  Wikipedia says, “Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to identify, assess, and control the emotions of oneself, of others, and of groups. “   In Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman teaches us that five skills of emotional intelligence determine our success in relationships, work, and even our physical well-being.  The five skills are: 1) The ability to quickly reduce stress, 2) The ability to recognize and manage your emotions, 3) The ability to connect with others using nonverbal communication, 4) The ability to use humor and play to deal with challenges, 5) The ability to resolve conflicts positively and with confidence.
38. “Energized differentiation — Stand out from the pack with vision,  invention, and dynamism.   John Gerzema and Ed Lebar teach us that “energized differentiation” is how some brands stand out.  They communicate “excitement”, “dynamism”, and “creativity” more effectively than other brands.  According to Gerzema and Lebar, the keys to energized differentiation are 1) “Vision” – how the company presents leadership, convictions, and reputation, 2) “Invention” – how consumers perceive innovation in the design or content of the product or service, and 3) “Dynamism” how the brand creates a persona, emotion, advocacy, and evangelism.   See Energized Differentiation Separates Brands from the Pack.
39. Enjoy the journey — The journey IS the destination.   Stop and smell the roses.  Live your values and find ways to enjoy the journey as you go.  Sometimes the journey is all we’ve got.  Remember the words of Rainer Maria Rilke — “The only journey is the one within.”
40. Errors in odds and errors in value – Why we make bad decisions.  Dan Gilbert teaches us that we make bad decisions because we don’t estimate the odds of something occurring very well.   And we aren’t very good at estimating value either.  See Why We Make Bad Decisions: Errors in Odds and Errors in Value.
41. Establish rapport before influence.   If you want to influence somebody, first you need rapport.   Rapport is when you are in sync with somebody, or on the same wavelength.  If you try to influence when you don’t have rapport, your chances of success are drastically reduced.  Rapport helps you understand and sense the needs and concerns, and it helps build trust.  In Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions, Guy Kawasaki shares principles, patterns, and practices for building rapport and influencing with skill.
42. Find the 3rd alternative.  Think “win-win.” Don’t fall into compromise or win-lose.  There’s always another option.  In The 3rd Alternative, Stephen Covey challenges us to find the creative solution that rises above the trap of limited thinking.
43. First impressions are lasting impressions.  First impressions count.   It’s true; you never get a second chance to make a first impression.   There is a way to change the perception though.  The key is to have somebody reevaluate you under a new situation or context, and you should be able to show a dramatic contrast from the original impression.
44. “Fortune Cookie Effect” and self-fulfilling prophecies – You’re the one that makes it come true.   Your mind can rationalize anything.  Simply put, a self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that causes itself to become true.  What ends up happening is you act in ways that cause it to become true, whether consciously or sub-consciously.   Or, you end up attributing random events to the prophecy or fortune, even though they are unrelated or non-causational.
45. Focus on what you control, and let the rest go.  Accept the fact that you can’t control everything.   This doesn’t mean give up.  Instead, give your best where you’ve got your best to give and make the most of what you’ve got.  Focus on what you can control.  You can control your approach.   You can control your attitude, your actions, and your response.  Focus on your approach, not your results.   Results are feedback to be aware.  Use your results to tune your approach, but focus on your approach, and don’t dwell on your results.
46. Gambler’s fallacy — Just because something hasn’t happened for a while, doesn’t mean it’s more likely to happen now.   For example, if you’re playing Roulette, and black has come up a few times in a row, that doesn’t mean, it must be time for red.    See Gambler’s Fallacy.
47. “Groupthink” — Group pressures lead to bad decisions.  Is it “wisdom of the crowds” or “following the herd?”   Two heads are not necessarily better than one.   Being in a group exaggerates decisions, and the final decision can be either extremely risky or extremely conservative.  In 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot, Richard Wiseman writes, “Polarization is not the only phenomenon of ‘groupthink’ that can influence the hearts and minds of individuals when they get together.  Other studies have shown that compared to individuals, groups tend to be more dogmatic, better able to justify irrational actions, more likely to see their actions as highly moral, and more apt to form stereotypical views of outsiders.  See Group Think Overview.
48. Hack away at the unessential.   Bruce Lee taught us the following:  “It is not daily increase but daily decrease; hack away the unessential.”
49. Halo effect – “Good across the board”. The Halo Effect is when we evaluate somebody globally, but then apply it to their specific traits.  For example, we might think somebody is likeable.  Because they are likable, we might then assume they are intelligent, friendly, and display good judgment.    It’s like looking through “rose-colored glasses” and the positive things overshadow the negative things.  See Halo Effect.
50. “How does the story end?” – How the story ends, matters more than how it starts.  A happy ending is a very powerful thing.   The ending of the story is often more important than the beginning.  Daniel Kahnenman says that a bad ending can ruin your overall experience or memory of the event.    See The Two Flavors of Happiness.
51. How to measure your life.   Like a non-profit you can measure your life against your mission.  If you’re a fan of the play Rent, you might measure your life in seasons of love.   Clayton Christensen teaches us to measure life in terms of the people we touch.  See How Will You Measure Your Life.
52. Informational power is the most transient form of power.   There are six bases of social power:   reward power, coercive power, referent power, legitimate power, expert power, and informational power.   Information is the most transient form of power.  Holding on to information is the weakest form of power.   If you want more durable power, then work on the other sources.   See Social Psychology (p. 353)
53. Inspect your thinking to combat distorted thinking.   Our mind has its flaws.  Inspect your thinking.  Our thinking has pitfalls and traps whether it’s cognitive biases, distorted thinking patterns, or logical flaws.  Recognize the thought patterns that are not serving you well.  Challenge your own thinking, especially in situations where your thinking or feeling is not particularly effective.  For example, you might find that you have a habit of jumping to negative conclusions, without actual facts, or you might find that you let negative emotions get in the way of interpreting your situation.
54. Intrinsic motivation vs. extrinsic motivation — Find your drive from the inside out.  Don’t poke and prod yourself with carrots and sticks.   Find your drive and motivate yourself from the inside out.    One way to do this it to connect what you do to your values.  For example, if you value learning, then make everything you do a chance to learn something new.  If you like adventure, then turn what you do into epic adventures.   Don’t look to external rewards or acknowledgement.  Do things for a job well done, and impress yourself first.
55. Irrationality – Our innate optimism, greed, and self-ignorance leads to bad daily decisions.  If you want to commit yourself to change, then act like each decision really counts.  Peter Ubel, a behavioral scientist, says that, “No single M & M caused anyone to have diabetes. No one experienced a heart attack because they were 20 minutes short of their exercise goal. And yet our lives, our waistlines even, are the result of thousands of such decisions and behaviors.  To improve ourselves, we have to act like each M & M matters. Like each decision has important consequences.”  See eBay and the Brain: What Psychology Teaches Us about the Economic Downturn.
56. It’s energy management, not time management.   We all only have 24 hours in a day.  That’s fixed.  The part that’s flexible is energy.  People who manage their energy get more things done with less effort.  In The Power of Full Engagement , Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz teach us that energy management, not time management, is the key to sustainable high performance, as well as to health, happiness, and life balance.
57. Jigsaw technique — Pair people up to get over prejudice.  One of the most effective ways to get people over their prejudice is to have them pair up on a project.  Throughout the project, they learn that we are all people with basic needs, feelings, hopes, and dreams, and vulnerabilities.  We’re all human.  See Social Psychology (p. 182)
58. Job satisfaction — Autonomy, identity, feedback significance, and variety.  If you want to truly enjoy your job, focus on the following characteristics: skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, feedback.     See  Social Psychology (p. 423)
59. Johari Window – We have our blind spots.    One of the keys to effectiveness is to know and show yourself enough.  If you know yourself well enough, you can share relevant information to improve communication and connect with others. One tool to help you with this is the Johari Window.   The Johari Window is made up of four quadrants: 1) “Open Self” – What others know about you and you know too, 2) “Blind Self” – What others know about you, but you don’t. 3) “Hidden Self” – What others don’t know about you, but you do.  It’s your secrets 4) “Unknown Self” – What others don’t know about you and you don’t either.See Know and Share Yourself Enough.
60. Learning style – Know whether you prefer “Audio”, “Visual”, or “Kinesthetic.” The gist is this:  we tend to have preferences for interacting with, taking in, and processing information.   We all have a main modus operandi.   For example, “audio” preference might speak more slowly, particularly, and precisely.    “Visual” preference, might speak more quickly, use pictures and metaphors, etc.   “Kinesthetic”  preference might speak very slowly, and really feel their way through what they are saying.  The way you use these learning styles and interaction preferences is to identify your preferences and put information or experiences into forms that are more meaningful for you.   You can also use these modes to better connect with others by putting things into forms they better understand or prefer.   See Learning Styles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles
61. Less is more.   Less means more focus.  The 80/20 Rule says we achieve 80 percent of our results from 20 percent of our activities.  The Paradox of Choice says more is a bad thing.    In The Power of Less, Leo Babauta promotes the idea that less is more.
62. Linchpin – Be indispensable.    When you’re really good, they used to call you Cracker Jack.  Now they call you linchpin.   A Linchpin is somebody who is indispensable.  In Linchpin, Seth Godin shares ways to become indispensable at work.  A linchpin goes above and beyond the call of duty.  A linchpin’s worth is measured in contribution, not time spent.   A linchpin  breaks the rules to change the game, gives their all, and does more art.  A Linchpin rises above the status quo to create and flow more value, and make the world a better place.  A linchpin does not take the easy path.  They lean into the challenges, do what matters, and make things happen.  See The Linchpin Manifesto.
63. Link it to good feelings.  If you want to adopt a new habit, link it to good feelings.  Our emotions help us keep it going.   If you don’t like how it feels, chances are you won’t keep doing it.  You can change how you feel by reframing what it means to you.  You can also change how you feel by doing it a different way.   Play around and find the fun factor.
64. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs — Move yourself up the stack.   Maslow identified a set of needs that people tend to share in common.   It includes: physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging, esteem, self-actualization, and self-transcendence.  If you familiarize yourself with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it can help you understand other people’s drivers as well as your own.  It’s tough to move up the stack, if you’re worried about basic needs.  The less you have to worry about the basics, the more you can move up the stack towards self-actualization and transcendence.    See Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
65. Mentors are the short-cuts.    If you find a good mentor, you can shave years off your path, and avoid painful pitfalls.   A mentor with a good map and good models can help you focus on what counts, and can help you bridge the gap between where you are, and where you want to be.  Chances are that whatever you want to learn or get good at, you can find somebody who has been there, and done that, and can help lift you up faster than trial and error, or just going out on your own.
66. Micro-expressions — How you really feel in the blink of an eye.   If you know the show Lie to Me, you might be familiar with the term micro-expressions.   A microexpression is a brief, involuntary facial expression.  Unlike regular facial expressions, it’s tough to hide microexpression reactions, even if you know how they work.
67. Mind-Style—Know whether you prefer “Abstract”, “Concrete”, “Random”, and “Sequential.” Dr.Gregorc’s Mind-Style’s model helps us understand how we prefer to perceive and order information.    Perception is about how we grasp information and translate it into either abstractness or concreteness.   Ordering is about how we prefer to sequence information as either random or sequential.    You can use this model to better understand your own learning style, as well as to understand how others need to see or hear information.  Do they need it more “abstract” or “concrete”?  Do they need it more “random” or “sequential”?  Maybe you need to explain something to a colleague in a more concrete or sequential way.   On the flip side, maybe you are losing them in the details, and they need a higher-level abstraction.  See Abstract/Random/Concrete/Sequential, Links.
68. Mirror Cells — Monkey see, monkey do is true.   Mirror neurons are basically complex cells that can mirror other people’s intentions or feelings. We all have them.  In fact, humans have more than any animal.   Mirror cells help explain anything from empathy to imitation.  See Cells that Read Minds.
69. Nature favors the flexible.  It’s not the smartest or the fastest that survive.  It’s the most flexible.   As Charles Darwin said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
70. Opposites attract, but similarities bind.  Values are the lightening rod.  We connect at the values.   While we might like things that are different, and variety is the spice of life, it’s shared values that bring us together, and ultimately bind us.
71. Parkinson’s Law — Time expands to fill its container.  If you want something done faster, then give it less time.   According to Parkinson’s Law, ““Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”  See Parkinson’s Law.
72. Pygmalion effect — You get what you expect.  It’s a form of self-fulfilling prophecy in terms of expectations of other people.  If you look through rose-colored glasses, they can do no wrong.  If you expect the worst, you get the worst.   See Pygmalion Effect.
73. Reciprocity of Liking — I like you because you like me. In general, we like people who like us.   The caveat is, when we don’t like ourselves, we don’t like people who like us.  After all, if we don’t’ like us, why should anyone else.  See I Like You Because You Like Me.
74. Return on Luck – The question is not “Are you lucky?” but “Do you get a high return on luck?” Jim Collins says the way to leverage luck is to see luck as an event, not as some indefinable aura.    According to Collins, a “luck event” is 1) independent of the actions of the main actors, 2) potentially significant consequences, and 3) some element of unpredictability.   Collins says, “This ability to achieve a high Return on Luck (ROL) at pivotal moments has a huge multiplicative effect for 10Xers. They zoom out to recognize when a luck event has happened and to consider whether they should let it disrupt their plans.”  Read What’s Luck Got to Do With It.
75. “Satisfice” to get things done.  How do experts make decisions faster?   In Sources of Power, Gary Klein teaches us that they “satisfice.”   They find the first solution that fits the situation.   Experts do draw from their experience and do rapid pattern matching.   You can actually think of intuition as rapid pattern matching against mental simulation.  The more formal name for this is Recognition-primed decision or RPD.  “RPD is a model of how people make quick, effective decisions when faced with complex situations. In this model, the decision maker is assumed to generate a possible course of action, compare it to the constraints imposed by the situation, and select the first course of action that is not rejected. RPD has been described in diverse groups including ICU nurses, fireground commanders, chess players, and stock market traders.”   See Recognition Primed Decision.
76. Self-Efficacy — Your self-efficacy beliefs determine how you think, feel, motivate yourself, and behave.  In The First 90 Days, Michael Watkins teaches us that we can build our self-efficacy through three pillars:  pillar 1: adopting success strategies, pillar 2: Enforcing personal disciplines, and pillar 3: building your support system.  See Self-Efficacy and Three Pillars for Building Self-Efficacy.
77. Situational vs. dispositional — Is it who you are, or did the situation make you do it? Attribution theory is how we attach meaning to other’s behavior or our own.  A simple way to remember this is “situation vs. disposition.”  Is someone bad-tempered (disposition) or did something bad happen (situation)?   We tend to explain our own behavior in terms of the situation   On the flip side, we tend to explain other’s behavior in terms of their personality or disposition (e.g. “They’re just a jerk.”)
78. Small is the new big — Get small. Think big.   In a Darwin world, small is your friend.   It’s the key to flexibility.  It’s also the key to faster, efficient, and more effective.   In Small is the New Big, Seth Godin teaches us that  small is the new big and it’s how we survive and thrive, as we move from generalization to specialization, and to hyper-competition.
79. Social loafing – More hands, doesn’t mean less work.   The more people there are, the less hard they work.  Researchers found that people work less hard in groups.  When it feels like the pressure is shared by other people, people don’t put in as much effort as they would if they felt individually responsible.  What this means is, more hands does not mean lighter work, especially if you are the one that has to pick up the slack.  See Social Loafing.
80. Speak to people’s communication needs — Action, Accuracy, Approval, and Appreciation. The communication needs are action, accuracy, approval, and appreciation.   Dr. Rick Kirschner, best-selling author of Dealing with People You Can’t Stand and How to Click with People teaches us that people give us clues whether they need to hear action, accuracy, approval, or information.  If we pay attention to the clues, we can speak to the needs and be more effective in our communication.
81. Start with why – Think, act, and communicate from the inside out.   Why do you do what you do?  In Start with Why, Simon Sinek discovered that the leaders who’ve had the greatest influence in the world all think, act, and communicate in the exact same way.  It’s from the inside out.  They start with “Why.”  They drive from “Why”, then “How,” then “What.”  Simon calls this idea, “The Golden Circle.”
82. Synthetic Happiness – Fabricated happiness is a good as the real deal. Dan Gilbert teaches us that it’s not just “sour grape.”  We can create our own happiness, and it’s just as effective as genuine happiness.  See Synthetic Happiness.
83. The Effort Effect — Why some people achieve their potential while others don’t. According to Carol Dweck, a Stanford Psychologist, it’s not talent, but effort that makes the difference.  And your effort is limited or unleashed by your mindset.  It’s whether you look at ability as something made, not born.   One of the best things you can do to make the most of what you’ve got is to reward your effort.   Read The Effort Effect, by Marina Krakovsky.
84. The long view — Play out the “What If’s” We can’t predict the future, but we can play out the “What If’s”  In The Art of the Long View, Peter Schwartz teaches us to go beyond forecasting the future and actually prepare for it, by playing out the scenarios.
85. The Paradox of Choice — More is less.  More choices may lead to a poorer decision or a failure to make a decision at all and analysis paralysis.  In The Paradox of Choice http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060005688/thbosh-20/ , Barry Schwartz popularizes the idea that more is less, when it comes to choice.   See Decision Theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_theory
86. The power of Identity — Root yourself in something durable.   If you root your self-acceptance and sense of self in your positions, then you don’t have stable ground.  Instead, root yourself in something durable, while enjoying your unique journey of growth.  See Self-Acceptance vs. Personal Growth, by Steve Pavlina.
87. The Power of Regret — Reflect on your worst, to bring out your best.    In 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot, Richard Wiseman says, “research conducted by Charles Abraham and Paschal Sheeran has shown that just a few moments’ thinking about how much you will regret not going to the gym will help motivate you to climb off the couch and onto an exercise bike.”
88. The Principle of Contrast — It’s all relative.   It’s easy to lose perspective.    Things look better when you compare them to things that look worse.  Two hundred dollars seems small compared to two thousand.  You can use the principle of contrast when you are negotiating fees, explaining value, or simply changing your perspective.  It works by changing your frame of reference.  Just when you think things are bad, remember they can always be worse.  This is also the stuff that slippery slopes are made of.  It’s easy to bite off something small by comparison.
89. The Progress Principle — We like to make progress.   Even a little progress goes a long way to make our day.  It’s progress not perfection.  And that is what matters.  Progress is one of the biggest keys to employee engagement and job satisfaction.  Progress is a catalyst for positive emotions, strong motivation, and favorable perceptions of the organization, your work, and your colleagues.  In The Progress Principle, Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer teach us how to activate two forces that enable progress: (1) catalysts—events that directly facilitate project work, such as clear goals and autonomy—and (2) nourishers—interpersonal events that uplift workers, including encouragement and demonstrations of respect.
90. The secret of “The Good Life” — Spend more time in your values.    One of the simplest ways to live “The Good Life” is to find ways to spend more time in your values.  For example, you can find ways to do more of what you love at work.   It all starts with first knowing what your values really are.   See The Good Life.
91. The two questions of happiness — “How happy are you?”, and, “How happy are you with your life?”. Daniel Kahnenman teaches us that there are two questions to happiness.  One is how you feel in the moment, and the other is about fulfillment.  See The Two Flavors of Happiness.
92. Think the thoughts that serve you.   What’s one skill you can learn today that can help you shape a better moment, a better day, and an even better tomorrow? … It’s simple to learn and get fast results, but it takes practice to master.  Here it is … Think the thoughts that serve you.  How can you practice? …  Simply ask yourself, “Does that thought serve you?”, or “What thought would serve me better?”
93. “To-Go” vs. “To-Date” Thinking — Focus on what’s ahead of you, or what’s behind you? The point is that if you are highly committed to a goal, then focus on how much is left to go.  If you are not highly committed, then focus on how much you have done to-date.  This works because if you are committed to your goal, then focusing on what’s left to-go, helps motivate you.  It also works because if you are not committed to your goal, then it’s better to focus on how much you’ve done.  It’s like asking yourself, “Am I committed?”, and if you see that you are spending time and energy, then you decide the goal is important to you.  See Dynamics of Self-Regulation: How (Un)accomplished Goal Actions Affect Motivation, by Minjung Koo and Ayelet Fishbach.
94. Urgent vs. Important — Focus on what really matters.   One of the keys to time management is figuring out what’s important vs. what’s urgent.   Stephen Covey teaches us that we live our best life and achieve our long term goals by spending more time on non-urgent, but important things.
95. Use stress to be your best — Distinguish between stress and anxiety.  Stress is your body’s “fight-or-flight” response.  Anxiety is your cognitive response.  It’s your interpretation of how you feel.   Anxiety is the enemy, not stress.  When you were younger, you linked your poor performance and anxiety to stress.  You didn’t know you weren’t skilled.  All you knew was that when you felt stressed, you didn’t perform well.  With that in mind, you can turn your high-stress scenarios into your best performances.  One thing to keep in mind is that stress can help us perform simple tasks, physical tasks, and tasks we’ve practiced better.  It can get in the way of performing a complex task or learning a new task.  See Use Stress to Be Your Best.
96. Will power is like a muscle.   Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you either have it or you don’t.   You can actually build your willpower.  In Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength,   Roy Baumeister teaches us that willpower is like a muscle that you can strengthen it with practice.  You also need to know that willpower is a limited resource, and it fatigues by overuse.  Don’t burn out your willpower by wasting it on little things that don’t mean a lot.
97. Yerkes-Dodson Human Performance Curve — Don’t work harder to achieve less.  Make time for downtime.  Avoid sustaining high-levels of stress beyond your capacity.   Otherwise, you’ll be working harder, but producing less.   See Yerkes-Dodson Human Performance Curve.
98. You are who you hang with.  You can actually think of your network as a container that enables or limits you.  You’re the sum of your network and you are who you hang with.  You end up modeling your friends.  They can grow you, or they can hold you back.  It influences what you think about, how you feel, and what you do.  While you can rise above any challenge, the key is to find as many sources of support and build a firm foundation for your success as possible.  See You’re the Average of the 10 People You Spend Time With.
99. You grow faster in your strengths.   Sure you can work at your weaknesses and improve them.  Or you could accelerate your success by focusing on your strengths.   In Go Put Your Strengths to Work, Marcus Buckingham provides strategies to develop our strengths and spend more time in our strengths at work. In Character Strengths and Virtues, Martin Seligman gives us a language for strengths and provides strategies for developing our strengths.
100. Your thoughts shape your feelings.  And the reverse is true too – your feelings shape your thoughts.  If you know this, you can change how you feel.  How?   Change your focus.  Remember how to change your focus?   Ask a different question.  If you want to feel better right here, right now, ask yourself what’s the favorite part of your day.
101. Zeigarnik Effect — Use the “Just a Few Minutes Rule” to defeat procrastination.   This may just be the closest we have to a silver bullet for procrastination.  We like to finish what we start.   The way to defeat procrastination is simple:   Work on things for “just a few minutes.”   We’re more inclined to finish what we start.   This is a good reason to “just start.”  Start with something small, because we also don’t like to start what we can’t finish.  If we don’t finish what we start, it tends to hang around in our minds.  Scott Hanselman calls this Psychic Weight.   The Zeigarnik effect helps explain this.  The Zeigarnik effect says that we remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than the ones we complete.  See The Zeigarnik Effect and Suspense

Is this is the end?  No.  It’s merely the beginning.

Feel free to share your best insight or action and inspire others to lift their life.

“The people whose lives you touch may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” — David B. Haight

There are a lot of yardsticks you could potentially use to measure your life.  Some work better than others.   If you use a “me”-centered yardstick, chances are you’ll fall short.  You amplify the power of purpose when you focus on the greater good, and the role you play within that.

Passion and purpose ignite us.

Stephen Covey, Randy Pausch, and others teach us that it’s not the things we did, it’s the things we didn’t do in life that we regret.  But how do we measure life along the way, and what’s our North Star?

Measure Against Your Mission

We can take a page out of the playbook of non-profits.  They don’t measure their success against profit.  They measure their success against their mission.  This is where your purpose comes into play.  Are you giving your best, where you’ve got your best to give?

Seasons of Love

If you’ve seen Rent, you know the song, “Seasons of Love.”  It starts off by putting time into perspective … “Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes.”  Those are the minutes in a year.  But counting the minutes, doesn’t count the smiles, the laughter, the sunsets, or even the cups of coffeee.

But you can measure in love … the seasons of love.

The People Whose Lives You Touch

Clayton Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor and author, shares his insight on how to measure a life and choose the right yardstick:

“I have a pretty clear idea of how my ideas have generated enormous revenue for companies that have used my research.  I know I’ve had a substantial impact.  But as I’ve confronted the disease, it’s been interesting to see how unimportant the impact is to me now.  I’ve concluded that the metric by which God will assess m life isn’t dollars, but the individual people whose lives I’ve touched.”

That’s a pretty clear yardstick … “the people whose lives I’ve touched.”

If you want to explore more, you might enjoy my guest posts, How Do You Measure a Life and What is the Meaning of Life, and Clayton Christensen’s HBR article, How Will You Measure Your Life.

My Related Posts

• The Good Life
• Life Quotes
• The Two Flavors of Happiness

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop to look around every once in a while, you might miss it.” — Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

You can add up to 12 years to your life, and look and feel younger along the way.   Research shows that genes only account for 10% of our longevity and the rest is our lifestyle.

The Blue Zones teach us a lot about how to live longer, healthier, happier lives.   Dan Buettner and the National Geographic team of explorers studied the Blue Zones to identify the keys to adding years to your life, and life to your years.

By adopting the patterns and practices from the world’s healthiest spots, you too can add years to your life, and life to your years.

9 Ways to Add Years to Your Life

Dan Buettner shares 9 ways to add life to your years, and years to your life:

1. Move Naturally
2. Know Your Purpose
3. Down Shift
4. 80% Rule
5. Plant Slant
6. Wine at 5
7. Family First
8. Belong
9. Right Tribe

Buettner refers to these 9 habits as the Power 9.    His simple frame for adding years is that moving naturally adds 4 years, having the right outlook adds 4 years, eating wisely adds 8 years, and connecting adds 4 years. (That’s a total of 20 years, but I guess you only get to keep up to 12.)

Here are some ideas on how to turn this insight into action …

1. Move Naturally

Find a way to move it, move it.  Walking is a great example.  Regular, low-intensity physical activity can add years to your life.  In the places where people live the longest, people are constantly nudged into activity.  It’s part of their daily life.  If they do an intentional activity, then it’s something they enjoy.

2. Know Your Purpose

Find your ikigai.  Ikigai is a word in Okinawan that roughly means, “the reason for which you wake up in the morning.”  If you know your purpose, you can add years to your life.  In fact, people that know their purpose live up to seven years long than those who don’t.   If you need help finding your purpose, check out Discover Your Why and explore the Purpose Pack.

3. Down Shift

Stop and smell the roses.  In a world that’s always on, you need to find your way to turn it off.  Research shows that chronic inflammation from stress is related to every major age-related disease.  One of the most effective ways to deal with stress is to learn the relaxation response.  Rather than respond with a stress response, you can teach your body to respond with a  relaxation response.  It’s something you can learn, and then practice for life.  See Relaxation Techniques for Stress Relief.

4. 80% Rule

Eat until you are 80% full.  According to Buettner, Okinawas, begin every meal by saying, “Hara hachi bu!” The saying translates to “Eat until you’re 80% full.” In addition, Buettner also recommends eating slowly off smaller plates to make smaller meals more satisfying.  See Hara hachi bu (Wikipedia.)

5. Plant Slant

Eat mostly a plant-based diet.  The diet should be heavy on beans, nuts and green plants.  This is consistent with Dr. Joel Fuhrman who focuses on nutritional density for health and he reverses disease through nutrition.  See Dr. Joel Fuhrman.

6. Wine at 5

Drink two glasses of wine per day if you want to live longer.  Buettner says that the research shows drinkers out-live non-drinkers.  In Sardinia, Italy, one of the “Blue Zones,” the men live the longest in the world, and they have ten times more centenarians than in America.  A key factor may be that their Wine has three times the level of polyphenal antioxidants than any type of wine in the world.

7. Family First

Put your family first.  Buettner says that a thriving family can add up to six years.  In Okinawa, the older you get, the more equity you have.  The more wisdom you’re celebrated for.  This is good for aging parents.  It’s also good for the children of those families.  They have lower rates of mortality and lower rates of disease.  It’s called — “The grandmother effect.”

8. Belong

Connect.  Buettner says that people who show up to their faith community four times a month live an extra 4-14 years.  In America’s Blue Zone, Loma Unco, California, the Adventists community celebrate their Sabbath from Sunset on Friday to Sunset on Saturday.  It’s their 24 hour sanctuary sanctuary in time.

9. Right Tribe

Thrive with your tribe.  Your social circle can add security and social networking.  According to Buettner, five years ago the average American had three good friends.  There’s strength in numbers and it helps to know someone has your back.

Additional Resources

• Power 9
• TED Talk – Dan Buettner on “How to Live to be 100+”
• The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest

“Life is like a ten speed bike. Most of us have gears we never use.” — Charles Schultz

Where do people live the longest, healthiest, and happiest lives on the planet? The Blue Zones.

The big idea behind the Blue Zones is that if we study the places in the world, where people live the longest, healthiest lives, then we can learn from them and replicate their success in our own lives.

Only about 10% of how long the average person lives within certain biological limits is dictated by our genes. The other 90% is dictated by our life style. The premise of Blue Zone is if we can find the optimal life style of longevity, then we can come up with an ideal formula for longevity.

It makes sense — If you want to live a longer, better life, then learn from the best examples.

What Really Helps Us Live Longer, Better Lives?

There’s a lot of confusion around what really helps us live longer, better:

• Should you be running marathons or doing Yoga?
• Should you eat organic meat, or should you be eating Tofu?
• When it comes to supplements, should you be taking them?
• Should you be taking any hormones?
• Does purpose or spirituality play into longevity? How does the how we socialize impact our longevity and quality of life?

There is a lot of competing information on these topics. If you try to sort your way through, what you find is there is a mixed bag of facts, feelings, and opinions about what should work, mixed in with what actually does work. One way to cut through this is to just look at the places in the world where people actually do live longer, healthier, and happier lives, and study their success.

The Blue Zones

These are the places where people live longer, better lives.  The Blue Zones are:

1. Okinawa, Japan
2. Sardinia, Italy
3. Loma Linda, California
4. Nicoya, Costa Rica
5. Ikaria, Greece

In Sardinia, there is an area where men live the longest in the world with the most vitality, and they have ten times more centenarians than we have in America.

In a northern part of Okinawa, we find the oldest living female population, and it’s the longest disability-free life expectancy in the world. They Live seven good years longer than average Americans. They have five times as many centenarians. They have one-fifth the rate of breast and colon cancer. They have one-sixth the rate of cardiovascular disease.

Loma Linda, California is America’s longest lived population. The average life expectancy for women in America is 80. In Loma Linda, California it’s 89. The average life expectancy for men in America is 76. In Loma Linda, it’s 87.

TED Talk on the “Blue Zones”

Watch the video where National Geographic writer and explorer, Dan Buettner, study the world’s “Blue Zones” to find the path to long live and health:

TED Talk – Dan Buettner on “How to Live to be 100+”

The Book on “Blue Zones”

Dan Buettner wrote a book on the Blue Zones.  It’s  a New York Times Bestseller with rave reviews.

• The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest

My Related Posts

• 10 Years Younger
• Breathe with Skill to Dramatically Improve Your Health
• Health and Fitness Books

Do you instantly know why you wake up in the morning?

According to Dan Buettner, in America, we tend to break our adult life into two phases: Work and retirement.

In Okinawan language, there is not even a word for retirement.  In Okinawa, there is one word that encompasses everything.

That word is Ikigai (eek-y-guy).

Roughly translated, ikigai means, “the reason for which you wake up in the morning.”

Ikigai, or, your “sense of purpose”, is very personal experience – and it manifests itself in many ways.

There is great power in purpose.  For example, we know that people with a strong sense of purpose have boosted immune systems.  They also enjoy lower stress hormones, and are better able to deal with the difficulties that life throws their way.

Watch this 3 minute video on the power of ikigai, where Dan Buettner shares his insight on this cornerstone of Okinawan longevity.

My ikigai is to help you lead a better life with skill.

What’s yours?

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Walter Oelwein on lessons for life learned from Zelda.

Walter is one of my colleagues at Microsoft, and he knows his stuff.  What’s his stuff?  Performance improvement.  Walter focuses on improving performance through systems, skills, and tools to get results.

Walter has more than 15 years experience as a management and performance consultant,  where he improved business and strategic planning skills at the individual, team, and organizational level at places like Microsoft and Nintendo.  Walter also has a varied background with a Master’s Degree in Comparative Literature, a Bachelor’s in English, and he has been a student of philosophy in Paris.

What intrigued me the most is what Walter learned from the game, The Legend of Zelda, and what we could apply to life.  So I asked Walter if he could share his gems of insight with the readers of Sources of Insight.

Without further ado, here’s Walter on life lessons learned from Zelda …

I like to joke that, at one point in my career, I was the “The World’s Greatest Zelda Theorist”. Back when I worked at Nintendo of America, I had the awesome job of training the Game Play Counselors, the people who would help you get unstuck in your game via phone support. Yes, this was before game walkthroughs were commonly available on the Internet.

As the Game Play Trainer, it was important to understand the structural underpinnings of 2000+ games that we provided support on, and, of course, in the gaming world nothing matches The Legend of Zelda games for its structural elegance in creating a gradually unfolding adventure. Zelda games were also, by far, the game that drove the most call volume.

So every Game Play Counselor needed to know Zelda. So I developed a module in the training program called “Zelda Theory” and taught it over and over again to the waves of intrepid newbies joining the mysterious elite known as Game Play Counselors. Once you knew your Zelda theory, you could effectively translate the theory into effective game play counseling, not just on Zelda games, but on any adventure game.

That is how important Zelda is.

I was proud of my Zelda Theory. The thousands of calls we took that helped people get unstuck provided ongoing practical application of Zelda Theory to the incoming slew of Zelda players who needed to know where to find that last heart piece or which item was to be used to get out of a dungeon room. It was applied Zelda Theory.

So proud was I of my Zelda Theory, that I mustered the courage to tell the great Shigeru Miyamoto, while he was on a visit to Nintendo of America’s headquarters, that I was the “World’s Greatest Zelda Theorist.” He listened, and did not dispute this wild and impossible to confirm claim. Yes!

After amusingly recounting this anecdote with J.D. Meier, he asked me to write this article, “Life Lessons from Zelda.” I guess that when you claim to be the world’s greatest Zelda Theorist, this is the kind of assignment you get. So here goes.

Quick Overview of Zelda Theory

Now, the core of my Zelda Theory was developed for Game Play Counseling purposes. This is not to be confused with Zelda Timeline Theory, which attempts to construct a coherent timeline of the different adventures and improve the narrative cohesion of the series. My Zelda Theory draws significantly from the critical approach of Structuralism, which examines an underlying (or overlaying) structure to understand the greater whole in a system — in The Legend Zelda’s case, that’s Hyrule.

In Structuralism, the use of binary oppositions informs the structural elements. In Zelda Theory, the key binary opposition that must be understood is the distinction between the “overworld” and the “underworld”.

The overworld is a single connected world that provides access to several distinct underworlds.

In Hyrule, Link explores the overworld in a seemingly haphazard manner until he gains focus on what the main task is – go into the underworld (either a dungeon or palace), pick up a key item that grants Link a new skill, and defeat the boss that adds to his lifeline (heart piece). The item obtained will open up new sections of overworld, and the quest-style adventure continues.

Once you know that the overworld is for exploring, and the underworld is for focused action, you now have the core understanding of Zelda Structuralist Theory.

I could go into other Zelda Theory, like Zelda Psychoanalytic Theory (seminal text: The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, with it’s strong themes on dreams and Link’s unconscious) but that doesn’t have the same immediate practical application of Zelda Structuralist Theory.

So now our key life lesson from Zelda Theory: There’s a time for exploring, and a time for focused action.

Overworld Ethos

The Legend of Zelda games teaches us that when you first start, you know very little about the world, and it is best to just wander around and talk to people, pick up pots and throw them against the wall, and cut down bushes in hopes of finding rupees (money). You may also get refills of your magic, bombs, and arrows.

Fine, so real life doesn’t really net money and other weaponry when you cut down bushes haphazardly (so this is decidedly not a life lesson from Zelda), but what this does teach is that it is OK to just wander and explore – get to know people who may help you out, and soon you will get an idea for what is important to you and you can create specific goals. You will also pick up inventory in the process.

So don’t forget life in the “overworld” – it is a key phase that one must return to on an ongoing basis – a time for discovery, exploration, opening new parts of Hyrule. Use your new skill to explore the edges, and you’ll discover new things and have new adventures that will get your further on your quest – but in an exploratory, unfocused, and less risky manner where people are available to help.

In the overworld, the elements are: Talk to people, wander around, try new things, listen, and gradually gain focus on what to do next.

Underworld Ethos

But life isn’t only an “overworld”; there is also an underworld. Zelda Theory teaches us that in an underworld, there are very specific actions and goals. At the most basic level, Zelda Theory teaches us that there are Items to be found and Bosses to be defeated. There’s always that focus. When you go into a palace or dungeon (an “underworld”), you have specific tasks with limited resources:

The task: Get the item, then defeat the boss (a structural consistency across all Zelda games).

The resources: Your existing inventory of items and knowledge of how to apply them, limited heart pieces, limited magic, limited arrows, limited bombs, no keys, and no map.

So prior to going into the underworld, max out on the resources you can get – do not go in with half of your heart pieces filled or a half-filled quiver of arrows. Also, make sure you remind yourself what the items you have in your inventory can do – Zelda games do an excellent job of requiring that you apply your recently acquired knowledge and items – better than any other game series, ever. When in the underworld, the focus continues: If you find something in an underworld, like a map or key, you use it in that same underworld. There’s definitely an opportunistic element of the underworld experience!

Explore with a Focus on Getting Further

During this focus period of “getting something done” in the underworld, you still need to explore, but it is done under duress – increasing amounts of enemies, escalating puzzles, a dwindling lifeline, quickly-shutting doors. So you must manage your resources, take risks, and master each successive room. You may need to exit the underworld and replenish. But you aren’t going out to the overworld to wander around, as before, but to use the less stressful time to recharge.

Once back in, get focused and battle – Zelda games require that you apply your recently acquired skills. What was the last item you obtained? You most likely need to use it in a new and creative way – either to get further into the dungeon, or to defeat the boss. This may take a few tries.

Apply Your Collective Knowledge on What Works

It’s easy to get stuck in a Zelda underworld. The first lesson to apply here is to “try everything” (that worked before). When exploring an underworld in Zelda, you must first defeat all enemies (unless they can’t be defeated, like the pesky laser turrets in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past), and then apply your full repertoire to try to open the door to the next room. Depending on the Zelda game, this could include the following:

1. Defeat all enemies
2. Push on walls
3. Push on all blocks (from all angles)
4. Pick up and throw blocks/pots
5. Step on switches/push or pull levers
6. But most importantly – look at what you have recently learned, and try applying that to the situation.

If you got the Hookshot recently, you need to select it from your inventory and try it. It could help you get across that chasm that was impossible before. The same goes for the boss. Got the Bow and Arrow recently? Try that on the Boss.

In later underworlds, you will probably need to use a combination of your items in creative ways – Create a block with the Cane of Somaria, throw it over the chasm, and use the Hookshot to latch onto it and you are now on the other side.

Celebrate Achieving Your Goals and Reflect on What You have Learned

Once you have achieved your goal in an underworld (you have obtained the item and defeated the boss) you are now stronger (with an extra heart), have new skills, and you should take a moment to celebrate. That’s a good life lesson.

Now take the newly acquired skills and apply it back to the overworld with general, unfocused exploration. You will meet new people learn new things by just talking, and eventually arrive at the next focused task. But what’s the hurry? The overworld experience informs the underworld experience, and vice versa.

Key Binary Oppositions in Hyrule

So Zelda Theory teaches us that there is value in both the overworld and underworld experience, even though they have opposite qualities:

Overworld: Singular, Expansive, Unfocused, exploratory, “light”, unthreatening, replenishing, upbeat

Underworld: Multiple, Limited, Focused, clear objectives, “dark”, depleting, somber

You need to be creative in both phases, but there is value in the different modes of learning. Precisely because of the “darker” elements of the underworld(s) in Zelda, this is where skills are stretched the most. But you also need time in the overworld. Don’t forget that, or else you will always be “in the weeds”, where it is always dark and you will be defeated.

Always Learning

You are always learning in Zelda, whether in the overworld or underworld. In fact, the only time one is considered “stuck” is when you have stopped learning. And a common way to be “stuck” is not applying to your adventure the things you have most recently acquired. So Zelda teaches us to keep learning and exploring and acquiring new skills, and it can be done by either exploration or by focused action with objectives, and is best done when you apply a combination of both.

Zelda has tons of life lessons, as does Zelda Theory! This only scratches the surface as the Zelda universe and accompanying theory possibilities are huge. I hope you have enjoyed this introduction to Game Play Counseling’s intro to Zelda Theory, and how it applies to life!

Image by Walter Guru Larry.

“No matter where you go or what you do, you live your entire life within the confines of your head.” — Terry Josephson

With our minds, we can spiral up, or spiral down.   If we think the thoughts that serve us, then we can put ourselves into a more resourceful state, find our motivation, and attract more of what we want. If we drink from the steam of polluted thoughts, we can quickly disempower ourselves, put ourselves in a state of anxiety, and lose our motivation and drive.

A colleague told me that sometimes you’ll see questionnaires ask things twice — once in the positive and once in the negative.   She explained they do this for two reasons: 1) Because you might have missed the point of the question, and 2) Because some people tend to think in the positive, and others tend to think in the negative.  I thought it was a great bit of insight.  For me, I know I shifted to more positive by focusing on what I want, not what I don’t want, and by asking “What’s right with this picture?”, before asking, “What’s wrong with this picture?”  If you want to change your focus, change the question.

In the book, 180: Climbing the Two Ladders of Inner Strength and Outer Freedom, Rob White shares insight and action on how not to sip from the stream of polluted thoughts, and instead, direct your thoughts in a way that lifts you.

Thoughts are Forever Flowing

Rob says that there’s no shortage of thoughts to tap into:

“The collective consciousness of humanity is jam packed with thoughts of every nature.  These thoughts are forever flowing through your individual field of consciousness, and are as immediately available to you as the air you breathe.”

Don’t Sip from a Polluted Stream

Rob says that toxic thoughts work against our vital life:

“Just as continually sipping on a stream of polluted water will harm your body, continually sipping on a stream of polluted thoughts will harm your psychic condition.  You cannot experience a vital life with a damaged psychic condition.”

You are the Air Traffic Controller

Rob says that we direct our thoughts and determine the stream from which we drink:

“You are the air traffic controller when it comes to the stream of thoughts that land on your field of consciousness.  You determine the stream of thoughts that you flag in, and the stream of thoughts that pass through, unnoticed by you.”

Are you thinking the thoughts that serve you?

Photo by SteveD.