Day 542. Doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity. I am paraphrasing the great Albert Einstein, but this is so true. In a fast changing world, we have no other choices but to embrace change. Trying to resist it is like staying aboard a sinking ship hoping it will stay afloat in the end. Of course change is hard. Change requires we drop activities, behaviors, ideas to start new ones. Change requires we wipe out the status quo.

In the crisis opposing the taxis to Uber in France and in many other places on the planet, we have two systems that collide. It should be a great occasion to rethink the models, to shake old fashioned way to do stuffs, but instead it becomes confrontational, taxis trying to preserve the status quo and their privileges, if any. Competition has always been a driving force to reduce pricing while increasing quality. In France, our paranoid government wants to forbid SFR to purchase Bouygues Telecom to save competition that they recognized behind healthy and a contributing factor for better pricing and quality, while at the same time wants to kill competition in the transportation area by forbidding Uber to operate. Try to understand the logic of those guys stuck in a 19th century mentality.

Taxis have no choices than to slowly disappear if they do not reinvent themselves. I confess I have not taken a taxi in France for years for two reasons: they are awfully expensive (an airport-downtown trip will cost up to three times in Paris what it costs in the US or Dubai for instance), and most of the time the driver is unpleasant. With what happens, I will not be inclined to take a taxi soon.

Of course change is hard, but it is necessary. It’s only by embracing change that we find peace of mind and can smile at what the universe throws at us. As Robin Sharma says: Change is hard at the beginning, messy in the middle and gorgeous in the end. Are you ready?

Day 537. Why are we angry? We can be angry at somebody or at something. Anger is an emotion. It can spearhead action and call for a change. This is what psychologists consider the good side of anger. However, it’s easy to cross the line that delineates the good warning system from the harmful reaction to our health and relationships.

Although, as for all emotions, we cannot control anger, we can however control our response to anger. Anger expressed with violence is destructive, anger expressed with assertiveness is helpful. Anger is actually the result of our ineffectualness, of our inability to handle a situation that we feel goes beyond our control.

We are angry at a kid breaking a glass while trying to drink. We are angry at a situation that goes haywire in a direction that we did not forecast. We are angry at an action somebody takes while we expected something else. In all those situation, it’s normal to get angry, it’s not constructive to react violently and vehemently. It may feel good, but it will always destroy trust, confidence and relationship. It’s much better to breathe and confront the reality by evaluating the situation and its outcome. One of the methods I found useful in most cases is to ask two questions to yourself or to the other party involved: Is this really important? What should have been different?

Generally, even if it’s an important event, there’s always a lot to learn from it. And as I was saying recently, either you win our your learn! When angers comes in, better learn!

Day 536. Shun Fujimoto. For most people, this name is unknown. In 1976 were held the Montreal Olympics. During those, the little prodigy Nadia Comăneci, got the first ever perfect 10 at the uneven bars (that was displayed 1.00 because the scoreboard had only 3 digits, as nobody ever expected a 10.00), but one of the other striking events was the gold medal of the Japanese gymnastic team, winning ahead of the dominant Russian team.

Victory was given to the Japanese by one man: Shun Fujimoto, getting a good 9.5 on the pommel horse and 9.7 on the rings. However, Shun participated in both events, with a broken knee cap! He broke is knee during the floor exercise, but did not want to let his team down. He therefore participated in the pommel horse and rings, which did not require standing station, but at the end of the exercise. If you ever broke a bone in your body, you know how this hurts (although endorphins generated by the physical exercise will sooth the pain temporarily). Shun participated, going over this pain, and the Japanese team won the everlasting Olympics gold medal.

Temporary pain was less important than the everlasting pride to have won an Olympics gold medal. Every time I face a hurdle in my life, I keep coming back to this athlete in Montreal (an easy memory for me as I was in Montreal at that time and had the chance to witness the French gold medal of Guy Drut on the 110m hurdles, but that’s another story). I do not know if I would have been capable to do what Shun did. It’s an example of what the brain can help you achieve when you value long term over short term. Are you ready?

Day 535. TGIF! Everybody knows what it means. It means that for a majority of people, this is the last working day of the week before a two-day week-end. Of course, this alludes to the fact that working is a chore and yes, the last day of a chore feels good. But it has another subtle meaning: the last four days were days of suffering and yes, this is about to be over!

Now, the question you have to ask yourself is: are you ready to spend five seventh of your life (around 70%) of your life suffering? I am not! Once image I always refer to is the coin. A coin has two faces, although it’s the same coin. A job has two faces to, and it’s your decision to look at the one you want. Either you chose to make it valuable and pleasurable, or invaluable and disagreeable. With the later, TGIF (but man, WTF). In the former, what? TGI already/only F! I had a great week and I look forward to Monday.

This is not about enjoying what you dislike, it’s about making your life a pleasurable experience. We have only one life I believe, and this should be a life of everyday happiness. Easier said than done? It’s a choice, like every action you take or do not take. Ready to toss the coin?

Day 534. Whatever you plan, whatever you do, never ever expect things to run and work as expected. There will always be this tiny cloud in front of the sun, this speck of sand in the sandal, this small black dot on the white page. So be it! You can always wait for the cloud to move, get the sand out and wipe clean the while page, but it will have been an unexpected hurdle.

Ever ran a marathon? If you do, there will always be a moment you will want to quit, even if you went through the best ever preparation and started with a high spirit. And this is the exact moment you should NOT quit. This is the exact moment you have to take action to go beyond this moment. You may call it the wall of pain, Murphy’s law, sh*t happens, whatever. It will happen and you have to go through.

This is generally the reason why people do not plan. If you do not plan you’re never surprised. True and false. Because if you plan, you are prepared, whereas when you do not plan, you’re unprepared. Change is natural and nothing works as expected. This is a basic rule of any project. Get prepared and go! Do not quit!

Day 533. The universe has no limit. We tend to think that our own world has its own limits. Of course, your eyes define the limits of what you can see. But the mind defines the limits of what you can imagine. With today’s technology, our own world does not have limits anymore. We have an almost unlimited ways to connect and an almost unlimited connections available.

We can send our information and our products to the other side of the planet, and even the astronaut, Chris Hadfield, has shown that music can even be made in space and broadcasted on our blue planet. The limits are gone! Therefore, you are only limited by the limits you impose to you. Of course, you may say that we are limited by our own resources. True, but there are almost limitless resources out there, it’s a matter of willingness to go, ask for them and use them.

All great successes relied on external resources at one point. If mankind was playing within its limits, it would never have gone to the moon. And then, there are all these vultures and crows out there, complaining about the crisis and the horror it created, about global warming and that we are killing the planet (the planet will survive thank you). Although it’s important to look for ways to do things better, fairer and with more compassion and help, the sky is not the limit anymore. Break the barriers, be bold, give you the authorization to go beyond the limits, nobody else can give it to you but you!