Tag / 7 habits of highly effective people

by Nathan Coumbe

What would it take to replace you?

Think about your work and personal life for a moment.

What qualities and skills would your employer look for in a new hire were she attempting to replace you?

Be that person now.

What would your spouse, significant other, or children look for in a partner or role model if you weren’t around?

Be that person now.

Start.

Be the person others in your life want and need; you will become nearly impossible to replace.

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by Nathan Coumbe

How do you ensure that you are pursuing your version of happiness?

You must define it.

What is it that you value? What principles do you want to guide your life?

Love? Kindness? Generosity? Education? Career?

What kind of person to you want to be?

Curious? Successful? Entrepreneurial? Intelligent? Understanding?

What do you want to do?

Write a book? Go skydiving? Play at Carnegie Hall?

What do you want to have?

A five-bedroom home? Two children? A golden retriever? A BMW?

What do you want people to say about you at your funeral?

Until you start defining your vision for your future, you cannot truly determine what your path to success will be.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Don’t wait to have – be!

There is a tendency to see a problem as being outside of oneself. The problem is “over there” or “with that person.” Sadly, there is nothing you can do about “that over there” or your idiot coworker Bob.

If you start to think the problem is ‘out there,’ stop yourself. That thought is the problem.” – Stephen R. Covey

If you wait to have enough time to exercise, you’ll never have it.

If you wait to have a more loving and understanding spouse, he never will be.

If you wait to have an advanced degree before you start trying to teach other people, you will likely fail to ever start teaching.

Instead of waiting to have something that will miraculously fix your problem, be the person who already has it.

If you want to have time to exercise, be the person who blocks out ten minutes three times a week to do a quick strength training session.

If you want a more loving and understanding spouse, be the kind of spouse who loves unconditionally, who listens to understand rather than to respond, criticize, or persuade to your way of thinking.

If you want to teach, be a teacher. Whatever you are currently learning, whether from a book, an online course, or a college curriculum, teach it to someone else. Write a blog post about it; have a conversation with a friend and try to explain the concept to her in a way that makes sense.

If you want to have marketing skills, be a person who spreads the word about something she cares about, someone who gets others involved.

The only way anything will ever change is if we, ourselves, grow. Be the change you want to see in the world, and the change will happen.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Natural consequences

You are free to do anything you want. You are not free to choose the consequences.

Every choice we make has a natural consequence associated with it. 

You can choose to eat McDonald’s three times a day (I’ve done this), but you cannot choose the consequences of this decision (I gained 40 pounds in a year, added 8 inches to my waist, and felt miserable most days). 

You can choose to put your finger on a hot stove (why would you?), but you cannot choose whether or not you get burned. The natural consequence is a burned finger.

When you pick up one end of the stick, you pick up the other. – Stephen R. Covey

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by Nathan Coumbe

There is no such thing as bad weather…

Only inappropriate clothing.

If it’s raining outside, why would you get mad at the rain? What good does it do?

Put on a jacket; break out the rain boots; grab an umbrella. Don’t curse the rain.

Things are going to happen that are beyond your control. All you can control in those instances are your responses to them. 

You’re on vacation in Hawaii, and it’s raining outside…so curl up on the couch with a good book and a hot cup of tea. Or go outside in your bathing suit — you’re in Hawaii, for Pete’s sake.

A politician you don’t like is voted into office…so go vote next time. 

You burn your hand while taking dinner out of the oven, and dinner crashes to the floor. You could kick the oven (that’ll teach it to burn you!), curse, scream, and tell everyone that the evening is ruined. Or you could run your hand under some cold water, put aloe on the burn, and order pizza while laughing at your clumsiness. 

Sometimes life sucks. Sometimes things happen that you wish didn’t. 

You can’t change or manipulate the events. It’s a waste of energy. 

You can only change yourself.

Spend your energy wisely. 

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by Nathan Coumbe

What is failure to you?

If you try something new, you might fail.

Why is that such a debilitating statement? Unless you are attempting to leap between two buildings or run past a speeding car on the interstate, our failures are rarely fatal.

Yet we are paralyzed by the thought of failing at a new side hustle, of being rejected when asking for a date, or of failing at the new hobby we have never before tried.

If being proactive means choosing how one respond’s to a situation, then we can fail proactively. You can look at failure as a reason to never again attempt something, or you can look at it as simply one way the new thing won’t work.

Thomas Edison tried 10,000 ways to make a lightbulb before he found the way that worked. He saw each failure, not as a discouragement to trying again, but as a stepping stone to success.

Choose to see failure as a learning experience and you will only ever improve the next time.

by Nathan Coumbe

What makes you uncomfortable?

Resiliency is a skill that can be developed through practice. The first step is choosing to practice. 

What makes you uncomfortable? The answer to that question will help determine where to start.

I hate asking people to make special accommodations for me: I always feel I am inconveniencing the other person (I rarely am), or that I am being a very annoying customer (if they think so, that’s their choice). So when my wife and I started to drastically reduce our waste production, I was uncomfortable with some of the suggestions she made. 

A story…

My favorite example took place at our local Mexican restaurant: they have delicious salsa that we would buy in large tubs to take home and use during the week. These tubs were made of styrofoam and had plastic lids. My wife suggested that I take one of our many empty glass jars and ask for salsa to be placed inside. I was so reluctant, so uncomfortably scared to simply ask. It felt dangerous, even though the worst thing that could happen was to receive no as an answer. No danger at all, but my mind made it feel dangerous.

After numerous arguments (I was scared, remember?), I grudgingly went to the restaurant and made the request. The host looked at me curiously, but he acquiesced and placed the salsa in our jar. He even went a step further and informed me that there were no preservatives in the salsa; it would only keep for a week or so. A wave of relief washed over me. 

But wait! 

The next week, when I went back for more salsa, there was a sign on the front counter. 

“$2.99 jars of salsa to go. Bring the jar back for a $0.99 refill.”

The host, who was also the manager, bought a stock of small glass jars and decided to sell them. He was actively encouraging people to reuse the jars while also proactively choosing to reduce the waste his restaurant produced. 

By choosing (i.e. being forced by my incredible wife) to do something that made me uncomfortable, my wife and I achieved one of our small waste reduction goals. But the most inspiring thing was the change it created in someone else. 

Seek out discomfort in all areas of your life. It makes you stronger mentally. Discomfort in the gym makes you stronger physically. 

Other people avoid discomfort, which means you will be doing things others won’t. The intersection of discomfort and action creates change the world desperately needs. 

Change makes things better. Seeking out discomfort makes things better. 

What makes you uncomfortable?

Go do that.

by Nathan Coumbe

Proactivity and resilience go hand in hand

Resilience is the ability to rebound from challenges, setbacks, and crises. When something happens, a resilient person is seemingly less affected by the event than a non-resilient person (not true). 

Is someone born resilient? Doubtful. 

Resiliency is a skill; it can be practiced and improved. It can be practiced by consciously choosing how to respond to a challenge, setback, or crisis. The effects of the event may indeed be negative: they might be seriously damaging to mind, body, or spirit. But that most fundamental human right, that of proactivity and the ability to choose, cannot be taken away by a negative event. 

Resiliency, therefore, is practicing proactive responses in the face of negative events. It can mitigate the long-term effects of a difficult situation.

Is it easy? Of course not.

Is it necessary? More than ever. It will make you stronger.

Choose how you respond; become more resilient.

by Nathan Coumbe

Your lens determines your reality

Imagine you are looking through a telescope. Is what you are seeing actually how the world looks?

What if the lens had a crack in it? The image is now distorted, but is reality actually cracked? Of course not.

Imagine a friend is looking through another telescope, and you are are both looking at the same thing. What if her lens had a higher zoom or some filter on it which changed the color? Or perhaps your friend has a degenerative eye disorder which makes it difficult to see. 

Would the two of you disagree on what you were seeing? 

Yet we do it every single day.

Each of us walks around using different lenses to see the world. Two perfectly rational people can look at the same issue and have completely different opinions about the “reality” of the issue. Stephen Covey would call these lenses paradigms — different ways of seeing the world. 

Why does this matter?

We can only become truly effective when we realize that our ideas and opinions are not the only ways, the correct ways, to see the world. Seth Godin talks about each person having her own unique noise in her head. What she wants is different from what you want, at least in some minuscule way. Sometimes that way is vastly different from yours. 

If, for example, you wanted to sell something to someone – an idea, a widget, or a plan – you would need to talk about it from the other person’s point of view. That person doesn’t care how you feel about it; they only want to know what it will do for them. We are selfish that way.

Be proactive when speaking with someone: consciously try to see the world through her lens.

Imagine a world where each person sought to understand the other person before arguing.

by Nathan Coumbe

What does it mean to “be proactive”?

If practiced regularly, the ideas behind these two words will change your life. 

To be proactive means to take responsibility and initiative in your life. 

Being proactive means making a choice; it is the most fundamental human right we have. Stephen R. Covey truly understood this when he read the words of Victor Frankl:

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

Frankl himself was a prisoner of Nazi Germany during the Holocaust: he lost his wife and most of his family in the concentration camps. In one of the most degrading situations in which a human could find himself, he realized that he still had the power to choose how he responded to his tormentors and imprisonment. 

Even if everything was taken away from you – your health, your money, your freedom – you would still have the power of choice. 

You might ask how Frankl could still have had freedom when everything was taken away. The answer is that he had freedom within his own mind – he could choose how he responded to the events in his life, however horrible.

Each of us has within us the power to choose how we react. If there is a rough situation at work, an angry customer, or a disappointed spouse, there is still a split second in which you can decide how you will respond. 

Response-ability –– your ability to respond appropriately. 

How will you take responsibility for yourself today?

P.S. I highly recommend you pick up a copy of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and read the first few chapters, especially the chapter entitled “Be Proactive.” You will be amazed at the changes you experience in your everyday interactions.