Don't Throw Out the Baby with the Bathwater

A recent hike where I found a little lake that I didn't knew existed.

There are a lot of places to find information; Books, websites, podcasts, blogs, magazines, etc.   To make people "follow" you, there needs to be a message that is unique.  I have been doing quite a bit of searching over the past several years and I have gotten behind several of the messages.  One thing that I have started doing more recently is stepping back as well.  While each person that is creating content needs to have their schtick (their 3-5 things you need to do to be a perfect human), the theory or message behind every schtick is not necessarily unique. 

 

Let's take reading books for example.  Some people will read a book cover-to-cover, every time, every book.  Others will read the first 30-50 pages.  If the book doesn't grab them by then they stop and move on to another book.  Still, others will open the book in the middle and see if the content is interesting at that point.  What are you supposed to do?  All of these people are usually famous, wealthy, or thought-leaders.  Clearly, the rest of us cannot follow every bit of advice.  What we can do it step back and try it out.  There may be some things that you find that work better than others.  Keep those.

 

We have a book club where I work that was recently talking about the Simon Sinek book, Start With Why.  The premise of the book is that people don't buy What you do, they buy Why you do it.  I believe that to a point.  My feeling is that it just doesn't work for everyone.  If each person or business were to truly "start with why," who would be making toilet paper?  You can't tell me that every person that works at Charmin is so excited to get up and go to work in the morning because they know that when they make a roll of toilet paper the world is going to be a better place. 

 

None of this takes away from the fact that if you are unhappy with your life you shouldn't look at what is creating that unhappiness.  Is it with your work, your living arrangements, your friends, the weather…that is making you unhappy?  If so, you have a choice.  You can continue to be unhappy or you can make changes.  In this instance, I believe asking "Why?" is a good place to start.  Why am I here? 

 

If you do it right, it is not an easy question to answer.  We have been brought up to think that we need to have a good job and take care of our family.  That may not work for everyone.  Is that bad?  If everyone did that, would there be any creativity? 

 

Personally, I love finding ways of doing things that are more efficient or effective.  I have worked in several industries and have taken things that I learned from each to apply to the industry that I work in at the time.  I love looking at what I do each day and wonder is there a more effective way of doing that?  Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of things that I could be more effective in doing.  But it is about finding the pattern and path in each activity that makes me push forward and try to improve.  It's the reason that I listen to so many podcasts, subscribe to so many newsletters, read or listen to so many books.  One of my favorite quotes is: "Learn from the mistakes of others; we don't have enough time to make them all ourselves."  And that is what I try to do.  I take in the information (hopefully it has some context with it as well), see if there is someplace in my life that I can apply it, and try to incorporate it if it does.

 

One great example of this was something I learned from Tim Ferriss.  I read a lot of books on Kindle.  I never really saw the purpose of highlighting unless I had purchased the book.  If I highlight a book that I borrowed from a library and the book gets returned, all those highlights would be gone.  Right?  Actually, wrong.  There is a site you can go to on Amazon that has all of your highlights from any of the books you read through the Kindle or Kindle app.  Also, you can make notes about anything that you were thinking when you highlighted and those notes can be downloaded as well.  Who knew?  While I don't agree with everything Tim Ferriss does or says, this little gem has totally shifted how I read and retain what I read. 

 

Be curious.  Be questioning.  Be open.  But don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.