What Are You Willing to Fight For?

BY Brett

There’s no better way to find out what your values are than to ask yourself a simple question:

“What am I willing to fight for?”

If you’re willing to fight for something – to take a stand, to risk getting hurt by someone else just so you can defend what you believe in – then you, obviously, must believe in it. You must value it. And, if you value it, then it must be an ideal that makes your life worth living.

People always talk about “being part of something greater than yourself”. Defending your values by fighting for them, by being willing to stop others who are violating what you think is just, is being part of something bigger than yourself.

No, you’re not defending your country by doing that. You’re not protecting religion. You’re doing something greater: you’re protecting the things that are dearest to you. You’re standing up for principles that make a life worth living possible; you’re protecting life, in a way.

...

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Passion Is Nothing

BY Brett

Passion is quite possibly the most overused term of the past decade.

I think even I have used it; at some point, I know I’ve exhorted you to do things that you are “passionate” about after I told you to quit a job you hate. A life filled with “passion”, I’ve written, is the only kind of life worth living – or, at least, I’ve expressed a similar sentiment before.

I’m here to tell you that I was wrong. “Passion” – especially in the realm of marketing and business – has lost all its meaning. Everywhere you go, people are telling you to pursue your passion, live your passion, make a living from your passion, and so on and so forth. If you don’t like – nay, love – what you’re doing, you’re doing something wrong, the passion-ites say. You’re wasting your life away if you don’t absolutely love what you do and have a burning desire to get to work every morning.

Guess what: I’ve since realized...

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No Matter What, Run the Program

BY Brett

I’m a believer that making plans is sacrosanct. Once you’ve made plans, unless there’s a bonafide emergency, you have to keep them, no matter what. That’s what I believe. After all – you don’t want to let the other people down that you made plans with, do you?

With that in mind, how often do you break promises to yourself? How many times do you say you’re going to do something, but you choose not to? How many excuses do you give to yourself? Things like:

”I’m too tired.”

“I can’t do this, because of what XYZ will think of me.”

“Really, it’d be better if I enjoyed myself now and I did this later.”

“I’m not procrastinating; I’m relaxing!”

All of those are excuses. If you told your friend that you made plans with that you didn’t want to hang out with them because you didn’t really feel like it, you’d let them down. They wouldn’t accept that as a valid excuse – because it’s not....

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When Are You Going To Be Fulfilled?

BY Brett

Are you going to sit around, waiting for the world to fulfill you?

If you’re going to try and make so much money that you’ll be fulfilled, you are mistaken. Money, no matter how much you make, will not fill the gaping hole in your heart.

If you’re going to try and accrue so many possessions to fulfill yourself, you are also mistaken. No matter how many things of “value” you surround yourself with, no matter how much you think they improve your life, you will not feel fulfilled.

If you’re going to go through the motions every day, putting minimal effort into the job you say you hate (or, worse, feel ambivalent about), you will definitely not feel fulfilled.

No matter how many books you read, countries you visit, social gatherings you attend, tests you pass, or degrees you earn, you will never feel fulfilled with those things alone.

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What Kind Of Identity Do You Have?

BY Brett

How do you define yourself? What do you believe about yourself?

Take a few moments to reflect on that. Who do you think you are, and why do you believe you’re put on Earth? This is a very important question – how you define yourself is probably the single biggest factor that determines how you make decisions and how you think.

Now that you’ve quickly thought about what you identify yourself as, it’s time for another question: how strong is your identity? How much evidence to the contrary would you need in order to prove that your conception of yourself – your very identity – is wrong?

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All You Have Is Hope

BY Brett

Sometimes, when all seems lost, all we can do is hope.

Hope that we’re just going through a rough patch right now, and that it’ll be over soon.

Hope that we have all the answers inside ourselves – and don’t need anything to be given to us by anyone else.

Hope that we do have what it takes, that we do have a vision that’s worth making real in this world, that we are worthy of success.

Hope that the risks we’re taking won’t hurt us, and if they do, all we can do is hope that we’ll be able to get up, dust ourselves off, and live to take more risks, to gamble even more on ourselves.

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Closing the Gap: Transforming Consumption Into Creation

BY Brett

How often do you create on a given day?

For me, creating is leaving an impact on my environment and leaving it better than I found it (otherwise, it’d be destruction). Thus, creation is adding value to the world. Nothing more, nothing less.

So – how many times do you add value in a given day? How long does it take you to add that value?

Unless you’re a creative professional, I’d wager that, for most of us, our “creation:consumption” ratio is way out of wack. We live in a consumerist society where we’re encouraged to take value over and over again through consuming other people’s products and services, but we’re not encouraged nearly enough to create value on our own. Yes – your job, if you have one, is to literally create value (that’s why you’re paid a wage) – but I’m talking about creating value everywhere, not just at the office. Being creative and adding value doesn’t stop at the office – it’s...

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12

Introducing The Pure Heart Challenge

BY Brett

I’ve gone long enough without pursuing a challenge for myself, so I decided to construct another one for myself: I’m calling it the Pure Heart challenge, as it’s designed to, well, make me “pure of heart”.

I’ve realized, over time, that I need to work on a few aspects of my personality – that is, even though I ‘know’ what I should do, I’m not doing some important things. These flaws are, among others:

  • Judging others and things negatively
  • Giving sarcastic, damaging criticism, instead of providing something constructive
  • Not being truly authentic; telling ‘white lies’ and hiding my true personality
  • Feeling defensive and closed to prevent others from truly connecting with me

The Pure Heart Challenge is going to address those flaws by trying to make behavior opposite to them a habit.

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Going From Good to Great

BY Brett

Inspired by two awesome posts – one by Jonathan Fields and one by Seth Godin – I’ve had yet another epiphany.

At its core, it’s this: always be willing to go the extra mile, to do what others might deem ‘unreasonable’, to do the right thing.

Why? Because, my friends, that’s just what you do. Doing what’s right and spending the extra energy to make sure it gets done should be a part of you, something that’s just part of your identity. It should be automatic.

Now – getting to that point isn’t easy. In fact, it’s incredibly difficult, since you’ll be fighting the temptation to give in and only give what’s deemed “good enough”.

But you have to tell yourself that being “good enough” just isn’t...

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30 Questions Guaranteed To Make You Think

BY Brett

Instead of giving you information that you want, I’m going to teach you something today by being indirect.

Here’s the lesson: everything you need, every revelation I’ve had, and everything that I could possibly write about on this blog, can be found inside yourself.

As in – with the proper thinking and questioning, you too can come to the conclusions that I’ve come to. You can help yourself instead of depending on me for help.

“But Brett,” you ask, “Won’t that render you obsolete? Won’t I, the reader, then be able to replace you?”

No, not necessarily. I’ll be able to give you the information at a rate much faster than you’ll be able to articulate it for yourself, which gives my writing its value. Also, my thoughts will usually be more clear than yours, since I’ve had a longer time to play around with my ideas within the framework of my reality.

However, the lesson I’m...

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