Day 472 – Colors

Day 472Color, during the Holi festival, celebrates the victory of good over evil. Bright colors make people smile and can make you look healthier (although there are no scientific proofs that colors can heal you). One thing for sure is people dressed with colorful garments look more cheerful that people dressed in black or dull colors. Colors have different meanings in different cultures and we should pay attention to this. However, in nature, you will find all sorts of colors, some subtle and faint, some bright and glowing. As my old friend Bernard, who believed in the power of colors on our mood, was saying: « when I need to dress conservatively for professional obvious reasons, I always make sure my underwear is colorful ». This memory makes me smile. But it’s so true and obvious. Bright colors drive bright mood.

How many bright colors are you wearing today?

Day 471 – Noise

Day 471When you tweet you gain some followers and lost some, it may mean something to you, but it’s noise.

When your health device facebooks the numbers of miles you ran this morning, it’s good for you, but it’s noise.

When you say hello world on social networks, it’s polite, but it’s noise.

When you send a selfie without any other form of message, you may be beautiful, but it’s noise.

Do not get upset if I unfollow you, but I’d rather enjoy the silence that being disturbed by noise!

Day 470 – The struggle

Day 470Some days are better than others. Some days, you struggle on that idea, you stumble upon this concept, you are not clear, ideas are blurred. One of those days. It’s what Steven Pressfield, the author of the War of Art, calls resistance. Resistance is my struggle, the little devil that spoils my effort, the nasty little voice that says you will not be able to do it.

You get rid of the struggle IMHO in two steps:

  1. Acknowledging the struggle is real. Because it is, if you struggle do not ignore it or do not bang your head on your table, fighting the struggle with its own power, it will only reinforce it. The struggle’s power increase with your energy to fight it.
  2. Ignoring it by acting. Do not fight the struggle, change the action. The struggle will die by itself and next time or a further time, it will disappear like magic.

Everybody has the capacity to win over our own struggles, doing it with sheer force will result in energy drain. We have to be smarter, and we can!

Day 469 – The most powerful word for productivity

Day 469It’s one of the shortest word in many languages and what I consider the most powerful. It’s one that will allow to unleash the best ever productivity and stay focus. It’s one my kids prefer when asking them to do something. And yet, it’s one we fear to pronounce sometimes to avoid the discussion. It’s the word No!

  • Do say No to people who want to overload you with stuff they can’t do
  • Do say No to tasks you have no bandwidth to execute well
  • Do say No to events that do not fit into your goals or interests

We have just one life to be great, do not let outside forces draw you away from delivering your greatness, learn to say No, with a smile!

Day 468 – What if…?

I like this question, with an ellipsis, what if…? What if people were nice? What if the earth was turning west? What if plastic was entirely forbidden? And so on. When you are stuck on a problem, what-if allows the mind to wander in places it would not normally go to. It’s said Einstein discovered relativity while seeing himself riding a photon. Whether it’s true or not is irrelevant, what matters is the question he asked, what if I was riding a photon?

Progress is only made possible by the virtues of chance, necessity or intelligence. A what-if question allows all dimensions to play together to find rather spectacular answers. Human imagination knows no limit, tap into it, it’s one of those resource you cannot deplete!

Day 467 – Growth or decline?

We hear from time to time proponents of economic decline to stop environment and development challenges. But what if human beings had only hope to barely survive and stop growing, personally, socially, economically, and spiritually? It would be the beginning of a steady decline that will eventually lead to death. Humans need to grow, we have the intelligence to grow holistically, it’s a matter of choice and conviction. The best is yet to come!

Day 466 – Change

Day 466So much have been written on change, and this article, entitled Why We Stay In Crappy Situations (And How To Get Out Of Them), by its simplicity I think struck a chord. I particularly liked the following sentence in the solution part: « We must be willing to surrender what we are for what we can become. » You cannot grow into a butterfly if you do not abandon your chrysalides.

As Robin Sharma rightly says: Change is tough at the beginning, messy in the middle and gorgeous in the end.

Keep the end in sight and run for change! And do not listen to naysayers that keep repeating that worse is coming! Run!

Day 465 – What will be your 5 wins today ?

Day 465This morning, my tweet feed contained this little message from Robin Sharma: What will be your 5 wins today?     And the picture on the tweet was the one I put on the right of this post. This is just so simple and so powerful. Every day, all of us do little things, win little victories, and contribute to a better world, most of the time without noticing. This post reminds us to notice. When we become intentional, we increase our footprint. When we become intentional, we notice and other notice too, even if they do not say it (but this is another story). So what are your 5 intentions of the day that will be your 5 wins today? Let me share mine to help you:

  • My daily running routine is generally around 5 to 6 kilometers. I felt for a while that I needed a little more, so today, I left 15 minutes sooner and did 8 kilometers. I feel great! – 8:00 AM – WIN 1, won!
  • I generally postpone the writing of this daily blog post to later in the day, when I have a gap, but it generates some stress, so today, my win was to write it before 8:30 AM, and here it is (I scheduled it for later though) – 8:26AM WIN 2, won
  • I booked time to prepare for two important meetings I have today so I can get more impactful and contribute more during those. Win in preparation. UPDATE – 11:35 AM, WIN 3, won!
  • I set the goal of cleaning my due tasks. There are not much, 4, but it will require some work without being disturbed. Time blocked in my calendar. Win ahead. UPDATE – 12:04 PM, WIN 4, won!
  • I will review my personal task list for the week-end before I leave on holiday in 10 days, so I am sure nothing will have been forgotten so I can benefit fully from my holiday with my wife and elder son. Beautiful win in sight. UPDATE – 10:18PM, WIN 5, won!

Voilà, this is not that hard. It took me 5 minutes. And I have a powerful blog post and a fantastic day ahead. Thank you Monsieur Sharma, once again you rock!

Day 464 – Extremes are always dangerous

Whether it’s called Ukip in Great Britain, Tea Party in the US, Front National in France or many other extremist parties across the world, they are all dangerous, because rooted on the hatred of others. I have said and written multiple times that diversity is a richness. By reducing their views to their own nation and wanting to close it to external influences, they refuse to see how the world has positively grown over the last centuries and particularly since WW2.

These days, I am fascinated by the fact that a rich culture like the German one during the Weimar Republic had turn into a racist and hatred one under the leadership of Hitler, in a matter of years. Yes, there was the great crisis of 1929, the humiliation of the Versailles Treaty, but moving from a rich and diverse culture and diving into such a dark one is fascinating.

I do not have a definitive view nor answer on this transformation, but it shows that things can go fast and can go unoticed for a certain period of time. I think that the « war » between the Le Pen father and daughter is the proof that those parties are rooted in denial of what happened a hundred years ago. Those parties cannot solve a country issue, they can only transform light into darkness because they close the door to world realities. Voilà, devil hides in the details and solutions are never in extremes.