Because some things never change

Seth Godin talks about the problems with trying to give customers what they want.

No one actually understands what the market wants. When you choose to make something magical instead, when you bring passion instead of calculation to your work, you’re as least as likely to get it right as the guy who is selling out.

Do you dare to follow your passion rather than the market?

Kent Beck, software development expert, said in a course I attended, that he often found the following to be true.

The more discussion there is about something, the less important it is. Everyone agrees about the really important ones.

Obviously, it is not always true, but in many cases it is. People can get into almost religious wars about things like which brand of sports car is the best even though most of them are really similar, and any of them would be a great car.

So true, it almost hurts. From the great Seth Godin.

You don’t need more time
…you just need to decide.

It doesn’t get any simpler than that.

Lifehacker published a quote from American pastor Robert Schuller. The quote represents a very good way of finding out what you really want.

What Would You Attempt to Do If You Knew You Could Not Fail?

What would you do?

Something I believe strongly in, here expressed by Seth Godin.

If you can’t sign it, don’t ship it.

Easy to say, hard to do. Many people choose to work for a big organization precisely so they can avoid signing much of anything.

Are you proud of your work? Would you sign it?

FranklinCovey is an education company founded by Stephen R Covey, author of the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Recently they have launched The 5 Choices, a set of five principles to improve one’s productivity. They are:

1. Act on the important – don’t react to the urgent
2. Go for extraordinary – don’t settle for ordinary
3. Schedule the big rocks – don’t sort gravel
4. Rule your technology – don’t let it rule you
5. Fuel your fire – don’t burn out

To properly launch this new concept, they do a 175 city world seminar tour. These seminars are free and available in most countries, so take a look, they might be coming to you too. The seminars are obviously marketing for their concept, but they might very well contain something of value for you nevertheless.

A short but in my opionion great read, is the article:

The Courage to Live Consciously by Steve Pavlina

It describes very well how we might easily live our lives “unconsciously” without realizing it. We often simply live out the expectations from our friends, parents, colleagues, neighbours, and the society in large. The article then describes why and how we can make concious choices about how to live our life.

A short summary of what Steve means by “courage”, and what the article is about:

By courage I mean the ability to face down those imaginary fears and reclaim the far more powerful life that you’ve denied yourself. Fear of failure. Fear of rejection. Fear of going broke. Fear of being alone. Fear of humiliation. Fear of public speaking. Fear of being ostracized by family and friends. Fear of physical discomfort. Fear of regret. Fear of success.

Both my life and this blog have to a large degree been inspired by this article.

Make use of the moments when you have a surplus of energy to prepare for the times when you know you will be short on energy.

For example, pack your gym clothes for the next day before going to bed. Prepare dinner for next day while you’re cooking for today.

A challange taken from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. It is something very simple, which you can do at anytime.

For a full day, listen to your language and to the language of the people around you. How often do you use and hear reactive phrases such as “If only”, “I can’t”, or “I have to”?

Now, go try it! Then think about what you could say instead.

The 16th president of US, Abraham Lincoln, said:

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

Have you made up your mind yet? What did you decide?