Catégorie : Idea

Day 532. Repeat, repeat, repeat, and when you’re done, repeat again. An actor on a stage has rehearsed an incredible amount of time to make you feel the play is natural. A habit ingrained in our behavior is the consequence of thousands of conscious or unconscious repetition. If you want to play a music instrument, you’ll need to repeat hundreds of time a sequence before it becomes « natural » for your fingers.

And we want things to be perfect in a matter of hours! It’s foolish! The 10,000-hour principles describes by Malcom Gladwell is the book Outliers, though it can be proven wrong sometimes, shows that perfection does not come overnight, but it the consequence of hours and hours and hours of repetition, of work. Rome was not build on a day, as the old saying goes, and so is perfection.

The path to success is neither straight nor easy, it’s not what is shown in magazines or on TV. The path to success is paved with sweat, blood and tears to paraphrase Winston Churchill. Your goal is there to be reached, it’s your choice to put the efforts to make it, and to fall one hundred times and stand up one hundred and one times.

Day 531. I was busy, I was tired, I was about to say, tomorrow is fine. But no, tomorrow is day 532, and day 531’s post has to be written and published on day 531, so this is it. Just a simple post to remind that a commitment is a commitment, today is today, tomorrow’s another day. Never think doing tomorrow what you can do today.

Delivering on a commitment on the promised day is putting off a weight carried on your shoulders, and building the trust in yourself and the trust others give you. It’s simple, but sometimes difficult. It’s the simplest things that are the hardest, and the one that are so overlooked by mediocre people. It’s generally not a matter of great effort, it’s just a matter of being true to your words. Have a good night! Mine will be, I put the weight on the floor.

Day 530. Every month, my boss’s boss reminds everybody that either we win or we… learn. I like the idea, because it shifts with subtlety to a positive stance. Popular wisdom says that the « winner takes it all » and the others get nothing. Actually, you can say the others get nothing and if you are one of the others, you can put in your minds that you lost and got nothing.

However, it’s your choice to decide whether you got nothing or got something. Because I truly believe, you got something invaluable: you tried and did not come first. The two questions being: Why did not I come first? What should I do differently do come first? And this is the best learning ever. Coming second or third is a blessing, as much as coming first. First gets the reward, second gets the learning.

If you start looking at potential failure as learning experiences, you will change the perception you have of risks. This does not mean you should start to act foolishly as consequences of foolish behaviors can be dramatic, but this will make your decision making process fluid and bold.

Day 529. After a long day at the 2015 Mauritius Toastmasters convention, and having won the Humorous speech contest, two things come clear:

– If you want to succeed, rehearse, cut, rehearse, cut again, rehearse, cut more, rehearse, rehearse, rehearse and go!

– When shit hits, laugh, make fool of yourself, laugh at the shit and make it your ally. Martial art tells to use the energy of the enemy against him, today I understood it!

Your mistakes make your success!

Day 528. I talked multiple times about resistance, the little voice in your head that stops you. However, sometimes, it is the external voice that is hitting you badly. A surprising fact is generally, those voices come by two, three or four. It feels like a gang of thugs coming to hit you badly.

However, excluding all physical injuries, even when reality hits, the way you react starts in your mind. Because of our natural evolution for hundreds of thousands of years, we are not wired to stay flat, we are wired to kick back, to fight. The fight will generate the level of dopamine, endorphins, and adrenaline necessary to fight cortisol in our bodies. This is the natural fuel our brain generates to get back on our feet.

So, when you’re hit, even badly, regroup, breathe and kick back!