I have led an experience-rich life. Millions of life miles. And the same in those amazing, pressurized sardine cans.
I fancy myself an astute observer of people and life. As the smart folks I work with in my public life wrote: Some people collect stamps, memorabilia, music, dolls, Zippo lighters, bottle caps, stamps, Happy Meals toys, rocks, bad habits … I Collect People and Stories.
I express my observations, conclusions, musings as a storyteller, satirist and some think, a provocateur.
Borrowing some from Krauthammer: “I think that I am betraying my life if I don’t say and write what I think and do that honestly and bluntly.”
- Life is not a dress rehearsal.
▸We are living this now:
– this may not happen again
▸This is the big show :
– live today and every day
All that “someday I want to, or I will do this or that or … ”, all that soft stuff, you end up with Swiss cheese without the cheese.
- A life without passion is not a life worth living.
▸Imagine waking up in the morning and yawning all day long, not because you are sleepy. Rather because you have nothing in your life you are passionate about.
▸I can bring the same passion to my breakfast as I do to something that happened yesterday in Somalia or sub-Saharan Africa or Des Moines, Iowa or …
I eliminate people from my life who are not passionate about things and events and people BECAUSE IT IS NOT about them, or “so what: there is nothing i can do about it.”
- Seek knowledge and wisdom all the time and everywhere and from everyone.
▸Knowledge is ubiquitous, endless.
▸It would require multiple lifetimes to just put a dent into gathering that.
▸Nearly 100% of knowledge is absolutely accessible.
– That incomprehensibly massive library in the sky is just two finger taps
away.
— You want to know about the mating habits of wallabies, in the
month of April, two taps!
— You want to know much about you or me, just tap away for one or
two minutes.
▸Always ask the next question and the next. Understand that there are no
definitive answers to most questions for most of us: just testable hypothesis.
▸Be a shameless researcher: talk to everybody who will talk to you.
– You find that people are absolutely willing to share and educate! Just ask.
And maybe offer some quid pro quo. Often, just expressing thanks will do.
- Inventory your new knowledge every day. This is an absolute!
If at the end of any given day I cannot identify two things that I learned that day, became clear to me for the first time, even if just new to me — to a newborn every joke is new — I wasted the only commodity that is truly perishable: time.
- The real chore in life is to find one’s place in the world.
The world is an elaborately staged tragicomedy!
To be successful in this world, you must find your role in it. Script and direct it yourself. And live it fully and honestly.
Words to the wise ….
In live, we have three options: lead, follow, get out.
Get out?
What exactly is the point of that?
∙ It is mindless to concede defeat, even before giving the gig a yeoman’s try.
∙ It is much easier to fail than succeed. In that case, best be anticipating an inheritance windfall.
Follow?
Just get into the flow? Be ordinary? That is your path to obscurity. No. No. No. Never be ordinary!
Lead!
There are many ways to lead in life and business. The most elegant way is to be a thought-leader. To influence what people think. And even more importantly, how they think! That is the holy grail of leadership!
©2021-2024. Steven J. Manning. All rights reserved worldwide. Any reproduction, in part or whole, in any medium is strictly prohibited.