I wish I’d said that

I like to read Steve Pavlina. He advocates personal growth that I find applicable in business as well. He’s not a wild, jump around and make crazy changes kind of guy. He’s more like a slow conscionable change, introspective and mindful sort of guy. He writes long posts too. Here’s a tidbit of what he wrote yesterday regarding patience:

Be patient with yourself…growth is part of your life, not merely something you check off your to-do list. If you fail, don’t beat yourself up. Just get back up and try again. It’s not like you have anything better to do…a better question is, “Why do we expect personal changes to be easy?”

A big part of the problem is that …marketers have given us terrible expectations. New books, audio programs, and seminars promise to make us all overnight successes, solving all our problems if we merely plop down the cash. It’s an easy sell because we’d all love to believe it. So the real problem is our desire for expediency, which often works against our common sense.

I often tell people to think in terms of months and years, not days and weeks, when it comes to personal growth….I’d rather tell people it’s going to be hard and challenging and set them up for success, even if it means I’ll end up driving a less expensive car, as opposed to promising them the world and watching everyone give up in frustration while I enjoy my new Porsche…I’d prefer to keep my soul, thank you very much. Also, I don’t really want to attract thousands of dummies as customers, even if they do have credit cards. Writing for smart people is a lot more fulfilling, and it helps me grow as well.

One particular passage above really nails it for me, I wish I’d said this:
…I don’t really want to attract thousands of dummies as customers, even if they do have credit cards. Writing for smart people is a lot more fulfilling, and it helps me grow as well.

…continue reading Steve Pavlina’s Be Patient with Yourself

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One comment

  1. Speaking of failure… there are a bunch of good articles about failure in the current issue of Wired Magazine. Personal failures that ended up being the key to success for people like Bill Clinton and Mike Tyson. Here’s Clinton:

    When I was defeated for reelection as governor in 1980, there didn’t seem to be much future for me in politics. I was probably the youngest ex-governor in American history. But if I hadn’t been defeated, I probably would have never become president. It was a near-death experience, but it forced me to be more sensitive and to understand that if people think you’ve stopped listening, you’re sunk.

    Also see Accept Defeat: The Neuroscience of Screwing Up.

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