Where's the opportunity?

A couple of days ago I published a video that gives an overview of our current economic crisis. After viewing it, I felt more aware of what is going on, but also somewhat down. In the spirit of A Simple Twist, I really wanted to think more about what opportunities exist in this mess.

One of the more inspiring ones to me is the revamping of our values. For the past 20 years, the focus in America has been on over-consumption and over-accumulation. More. Cheaper. Now. It's a little overwhelming! And as the video showed, eventually more is unsupportable.

So let's embrace the value of enough. Let's make enough money to live our lives in comfort and fulfill most of our dream. Let's have enough food to eat, for everyone. Let's share our extra -- time, money, and food-- with others, so they can have enough too!

Easier Said Than Done...

Our business coach is consistently telling me to set my situation up so that I cannot fail--to see success as a set of very simple reasonable goals that WILL happen, and anything in addition to that as just icing on the cake. Now, as a teacher of such ideals you'd think I would have this down pat, but I do not. I find it quite challenging to do a job, feel just okay about it, and go out and celebrate a success. Last week I was shown why.

I did a presentation that I did not feel was my strongest performance. It wasn't bad, but I didn't walk away going, "YEAH! I nailed that!" I left with a feeling of acceptance and a desire to do better the next time.

A few days later I received a phone call about the presentation and an invitation to make a proposal for a major speaking engagement. I guess it WAS a success after all. We often hold ourselves to standards that are not easily achieved, especially when we feel passionate about something. That feeling makes us far more critical than others tend to be.

Moral of the story: Set simple, fool-proof goals for success; the rest is just gravy. Thanks, Jack.