#22MinuteChallenge | Bible Project Reading Plan
Suggested Video
Day 059 | The Wilderness
Deuteronomy 17 – 20, Psalm 59
Source: Bible Project Reading Plan
Monday, February 28, 2022
Adebayo Martins | #JustAThought | #iMuse | #2022 | #021 | THU.04.02.2020
Say the Word, to sow the Word.
“This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is God’s word.
Luke 8:11 NLT
“For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater, So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
Isaiah 55:10-11 NKJV
Adebayo Martins | #JustAThought | #iMuse | #2022 | #021 | THU.04.02.2020
Sunday, February 27, 2022
#22MinuteChallenge | Bible Project Reading Plan | Day 058 | The Wilderness | Deuteronomy 15 – 16, Psalm 58
#22MinuteChallenge | Bible Project Reading Plan
Suggested Video
Day 058 | The Wilderness
Deuteronomy 15 – 16, Psalm 58
Source: Bible Project Reading Plan
Saturday, February 26, 2022
#22MinuteChallenge | Bible Project Reading Plan | Day 057 | The Wilderness | Deuteronomy 13 – 14, Psalm 57
#22MinuteChallenge | Bible Project Reading Plan
Suggested Video
Day 057 | The Wilderness
Deuteronomy 13 – 14, Psalm 57
Source: Bible Project Reading Plan
Friday, February 25, 2022
#22MinuteChallenge | Bible Project Reading Plan | Day 056 | The Wilderness | Deuteronomy 10 – 12, Psalm 56
#22MinuteChallenge | Bible Project Reading Plan
Suggested Video
Day 056 | The Wilderness
Deuteronomy 10 – 12, Psalm 56
Source: Bible Project Reading Plan
Adebayo Martins | #JustAThought | #iMuse | #2022 | #020 | SAT.03.21.2020
Much more than you know how to sow,
God can cause it to grow.
But you have to sow.
Those who sow their tears as seeds will reap a harvest with joyful shouts of glee. They may weep as they go out carrying their seed to sow, but they will return with joyful laughter and shouting with gladness as they bring back armloads of blessing and a harvest overflowing!
Psalms 126:5-6 TPT
“While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Winter and summer, And day and night Shall not cease.”
Genesis 8:22 NKJV
Adebayo Martins | #JustAThought | #iMuse | #2022 | #020 | SAT.03.21.2020
Thursday, February 24, 2022
SUMMARY ATTEMPT | SLIGHT EDGE | JEFF OLSON | CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
LIVING THE SLIGHT EDGE
“Gentlemen, this is a football.”
— Vince Lombardi
The modern business world has an expression for this mindset: “Assume nothing.” The Zen Buddhists call it “beginner’s mind.” It’s a mindset of humility and fresh inquiry, always looking for the most meaning and importance in the smallest things.
No matter how great your aspirations, how tall the dream and great the leap it means, the eternally repeating truth of the slight edge is that it is always built of small, simple steps. Easy to do — and just as easy not to do.
Don’t go too fast, and don’t be too proud to stop, look at your life, and tell yourself, “This is a football.”
Let’s revisit the seven specific areas. Make a simple roadmap for each one, consisting of three elements:
1) your dreams for that area, expressed as goals — specific, vivid, and with a timeline;
2) a simple plan to start
3) one simple daily discipline that you will commit to doing each and every day from now on.
1. The Slight Edge and Your Health
There is nothing more basic to your life than your health, and there is no area of life where the slight edge is more vividly in operation, working either for you or against you.
Taking control of your health is just a few daily actions away.
Take a few moments to work out your own slight edge plan for your health.
My dreams for my health (specific, vivid and with a timeline): ____
Plan to start: ____
One simple daily discipline: ____
2. The Slight Edge and Your Happiness
If health comes first, happiness is right on its heels, because once you start practicing simple daily disciplines that increase your levels of happiness you’ll find it feeds every other aspect of self improvement you’re trying to implement.
Remember: success does not lead to happiness — Greater happiness is what leads to greater success. The most significant factors in your happiness are your actions. What you do every day.
Your happiness is affected by:
1) your outlook, that is, how you choose to view the events and circumstances of your everyday life;
2) specific actions with positive impact — things like writing down three things your grateful for, sending appreciative emails, doing random acts of kindness, practicing forgiveness, meditating, and exercising; and
3) where you put your time and energy, and especially investing more time into important relationships and personally meaningful pursuits.
The most important thing to know about increasing your happiness is that it is something you can consciously, intentionally do — but it doesn’t happen automatically or just by saying, “I resolve to be happier.” Happiness is like health. There are concrete steps you need to take to make it happen.
My dreams for my happiness (specific, vivid and with a timeline): ____
Plan to start: ____
One simple daily discipline: ____
3. The Slight Edge and Your Relationships
Here is the ironic truth of human existence: no matter how great our accomplishments, it is ultimately other people who give them meaning. All the success in the world means little if there is no one to share it with.
Your relationships, like your health, are built up or torn down in the subtlest ways. It is the little things, day by day, that add up over time to unshakable contentment or unsalvageable misery. It is the little things that count.
The future of every relationship you have, like that of your health, is a choice that is always in your hands, and it’s no bigger than a penny. The key is to make the choice — and keep making it.
My dreams for my relationships (specific, vivid and with a timeline): ____
Plan to start: ____
One simple daily discipline: ____
4. The Slight Edge and Your Personal Development
I’d rather be worth a million than have a million. If I’m penniless but I have a million-dollar mindset, then it won’t be long before I have the million dollars, too. But if I don’t have a million-dollar mindset, then even with a cool million in the bank it won’t be long before I’m back to being penniless again.
Your income will never long exceed your own level of personal development.
You will become as small as your controlling desire, or as great as your dominant aspiration.
- James Allen, As a Man Thinketh
You already know my number one slight edge recommendation here: read at least ten pages of a powerful, life-transforming book each and every day.
Audiobooks are a great way to do this. Listening to audios is an especially powerful slight edge tool because it can turn your “down time” into up time and double your productivity. Listen while you drive to the store, to work, to school. Listen while you jog, walk, or exercise, while you sit on planes or stand in line. Feed your mind with life-transforming information and insight.
My dreams for my personal development (specific, vivid and with a timeline): ____
Plan to start: ____
One simple daily discipline: ____
5. The Slight Edge and Your Finances
The world of finance is one of the easiest places to see, objectively and logically, the power of the slight edge in action.
Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.
- Vince Lombardi
Treat your personal finances like the precious resource it is. Emulate the masters of slight edge economics described in The Millionaire Next Door.
Be like my mom: live below your means. Set up a modest savings plan and stick to it.
My dreams for my finances (specific, vivid and with a timeline): ____
Plan to start: ____
One simple daily discipline: ____
6. The Slight Edge and Your Career
“Lieben und arbeiten.” Love and work.
- Sigmund Freud
Work is one of the most defining, overarching aspects of our lives. It molds and establishes nearly everything about our everyday existence; it is something we do practically every day and will do practically every day for most of our lives.
When someone asks you, “What do you do?” what they are really asking is, “What is your work? What is your career?”
Yet here is the sad irony of work in the world of the 95 percent: most people don’t love their work. A pretty good number, in fact, hate it. Not the 5 percent. The 5 percent have learned one of the great secrets of long and happy life: loving your work.
Before you go to work tomorrow, ask yourself this question: “Why am I doing this?” There could be all sorts of reasons, but they generally come down to one of these two:
a) Because I have to.
b) Because I want to.
Now, if you’re going to be honest, your answer probably needs to involve some of the first. Just make sure it also includes a healthy dose of the second. And here is the good news: your newfound understanding of how the slight edge works, your new philosophy, can transform your career just as surely as it will transform your health, your happiness, and your relationships.
My dreams for my career (specific, vivid and with a timeline): ____
Plan to start: ____
One simple daily discipline: ____
7. The Slight Edge and Your Positive Impact on the World
What kind of impact can you imagine yourself having on the world that will last long after your own life has run its course?
What will people remember you for after you have come and gone?
Remember, it’s your life; what would you like it to mean?
My dreams for my life (specific, vivid and with a timeline): ____
Plan to start: ____
One simple daily discipline: ____
Everything You Do is Important
Toss a rock into a pond, and you’ll see ripples from its impact spreading out until they reach the opposite shore. The same thing happens in life. In most cases you never see those ripples.
You teach someone to read ten pages of a good book a day, and you may see how it changes her, but chances are you won’t see how it changes her kids, and her kids’ friends, and their friends. And as these ripples spread out, they grow bigger and run deeper. For better or for worse, with positive impact or negative impact, even your smallest actions create a ripple effect that has an incalculably great impact on the world around you.
No matter how high-minded or long-term your life dreams may seem: It starts with a penny. Start finding your pennies
Essential Points from Chapter Seventeen
*Write out your goals and dreams, a simple starting plan, and a single daily discipline:
* For your health
* For your happiness
* For your relationships
* For your personal development
* For your finances
* For your career
* For your impact on the world
#22MinuteChallenge | Bible Project Reading Plan | Day 055 | The Wilderness | Deuteronomy 7 – 9, Psalm 55
#22MinuteChallenge | Bible Project Reading Plan
Suggested Video
Day 055 | The Wilderness
Deuteronomy 7 – 9, Psalm 55
Source: Bible Project Reading Plan
Adebayo Martins | #JustAThought | #iMuse | #2022 | #019 | MON.07.05.2021
A relationship with the Owner of the stage,
prevents envy towards those He allows on the stage.
The opposite is true. The parts of the body that we think are weaker are the ones we really need. The parts of the body that we think are less honorable are the ones we give special honor. So our unpresentable parts are made more presentable. However, our presentable parts don’t need this kind of treatment. God has put the body together and given special honor to the part that doesn’t have it. God’s purpose was that the body should not be divided but rather that all of its parts should feel the same concern for each other. If one part of the body suffers, all the other parts share its suffering. If one part is praised, all the others share in its happiness.
1 Corinthians 12:22-26 GW
Our bodies have many parts, but these parts don’t all do the same thing. In the same way, even though we are many individuals, Christ makes us one body and individuals who are connected to each other. God in his kindness gave each of us different gifts. If your gift is speaking what God has revealed, make sure what you say agrees with the Christian faith. If your gift is serving, then devote yourself to serving. If it is teaching, devote yourself to teaching. If it is encouraging others, devote yourself to giving encouragement. If it is sharing, be generous. If it is leadership, lead enthusiastically. If it is helping people in need, help them cheerfully.
Romans 12:4-8 GW
Adebayo Martins | #JustAThought | #iMuse | #2022 | #019 | MON.07.05.2021
Wednesday, February 23, 2022
SUMMARY ATTEMPT | SLIGHT EDGE | JEFF OLSON | CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THREE STEPS TO YOUR DREAMS
“First comes the thought; then organization of that thought into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality.
The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.”
— Napoleon Hill, The Law of Success
I like to keep things as simple as possible, because simple is usually far more effective. Even more importantly, simple is what works best with the slight edge. Remember easy to do, and you won’t stray far from having your hands on the slight edge.
For a goal to come true: You must make it specific, give it a deadline, and write it down. You must look at it every day. You must have a plan to start with.
Step One: Write It Down
The most critical skill for achieving success in any area whatsoever, from sports to high finance, radiant health to fulfilling relationships, is the skill of envisioning.
Envisioning something simply means having the ability to create a vivid picture of something that hasn’t factually happened yet, and to make that picture so vivid that it feels real.
If your dreams and aspirations are happening in your mind only, that easily winds up being no more than wishful thinking.
“Do or do not — there is no try”
Envisioning means quite literally making something up out of thin air — and making it real. By definition, you can’t do that within the confines of your brain. It needs to become physical; it needs to involve your senses. In other words, you need to write it down. Making pictures of it, which people sometimes call a dream board, is even better. Speaking it out loud to another person is the most powerful of all. But at the very least, write it down. The moment you do, it has started to become real.
Pick a dream that you’d truly, deeply love to have come true. Write it down, describing it in just a few words. Good. Now, let’s have you add two descriptors that will make your dream more concrete: what and when.
First, go back to each dream and add whatever wording you need to make it absolutely specific. For example, if you had a dream to “be financially free,” what does that mean specifically? How much money do you need in the bank or investments, or coming in as annual income, to achieve what you call financial freedom? If there are any other conditions that need to be met (such as “being completely debt-free”), add those in, too.
Now, the second descriptor: when. It’s been said that goals are “dreams with deadlines.” Let’s reshape your dreams into tangible, practical goals by giving them timelines. Go back through each dream and answer the question, “By when?”
Write your dreams down; make them vivid and specific; give them a concrete timeline for realization; and you’ve taken a giant step toward making them real.
Step Two: Look at It Every Day
The single most compelling reason for writing down your dreams is so you can look at them and read them every day. The reason you need to look at them every day is the same reason you need to keep yourself in the company of positive people: you need to counteract the force of gravity. Or to put a different name to it, the force of mediocrity.
If you don’t keep yourself constantly, repeatedly focused on your destination, you’ll be like a rocket ship without its gyroscope: you’ll simply coast off into the outer space of failure, never coming even remotely close to reaching the moon. Or back to earth again.
Autosuggestion:
the power of regularly, consistently telling and retelling yourself what your goals are.
What we can do — and need to do — is surround ourselves with our own yeses. Surround yourself with messages that tell you that your dreams are real, your dreams are real, your dreams are real. Not only are they possible: they are inevitable. That’s the message your subconscious needs to be soaked in constantly. Having your dreams concretely spelled out, on paper, in the most vivid and specific terms possible, and with a very tangible, concrete timeline, provides you with an “environment of Yes!” for your goals, dreams, and aspirations. And when that nineteen-to-one force of gravity starts leaking in from our subconscious and whispering, “Yeah, but are they really?” we need to respond instantly and without hesitation, Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!
Here is the amazing thing — and I’ve seen this happen so many times, yet it never ceases to fill me with awe: when you clearly, tangibly set your goals, life has a way of rearranging itself, setting in motion a series of events that you could never have predicted or planned, to get you there. If you just sit there and try to figure it out, it doesn’t happen. But when you surround yourself with the vivid expression of your tangible goals, your subconscious brain goes to work on it — and if you have the right philosophy, the philosophy of the slight edge, then you will come up with the right actions and keep repeating those actions… and a series of events will kick in, including circumstances you could never have dreamed of, that will take you there.
Step Three: Start with a Plan
You have to start with a plan, but the plan you start with will not be the plan that gets you there.
The point is that you need a plan to start with, the same way you need a penny to start with before anything can double. The way you took your first baby step. The way you furrowed your brows, pursed your lips, and struggled to sound out the first sentence you read.
The power of a plan is not that it will get you there.
The power of a plan is that it will get you started.
People make the mistake of thinking they need the perfect plan. There is no perfect plan. By definition, there can’t be, because a plan is not getting there — it’s only your jumping-of point. And that’s exactly the reason you need a plan: if you have no jumping-off point, there won’t be any jumping off happening.
In fact, if you put too much energy into the plan and fuss around trying to make it perfect, you’re likely to squelch all the life, spontaneity, intuition, and joy out of the doing of it. Do the thing, and you shall have the power. Don’t try to figure it all out. If you want twice the success, double your rate of failure. You start with a plan, then go through the process of continuous learning through both study and doing, adjusting all the time like a rocket ship on the way to the moon, off track 97 percent of the time, your gyroscope feeding information to your dream computer to bring you back on track, and continuing on the path of mastery toward your passionately dreamed-for objective. Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.
Keep holding that as your philosophy, and you will generate the attitudes and actions you need to keep progressively realizing a better and better plan. You need a first plan so you can get to your second plan, so you can get to your third plan, so you can get to your fourth plan. Your starting plan is not the plan that will ultimately get you there — but you need it so you have a place to start.
It’s like learning to play music: there are only twelve notes, after all. But to learn it, you need to hear it, and play it, over and over. It’s as vivid an illustration of slight edge success as I’ve ever seen.
Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I have learned a great respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:
“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!”
- W. H. Murray; The Second Himalayan Expedition
Don’t try to figure out the whole race. Just figure out where to put your foot for the starting line. Just start. Take a bold step onto the path of mastery. The result looks incredibly complex, but it’s not. It never is. It’s always the simple little things that take you there.
Everything you do, every decision you make, is either building your dream or building someone else’s dream. Every single thing you do is either leading you away from the masses — or leading you away with the masses. Every single thing you do is a slight edge decision.
Essential Points from Chapter Sixteen
* There are three simple, essential steps to achieving a goal: Write it down: give it a what (clear description) and a when (timeline).
* Look at it every day: keep it in your face; soak your subconscious in it.
*Start with a plan: make the plan simple. The point of the plan is not that it will get you there, but that it will get you started.
#22MinuteChallenge | Bible Project Reading Plan | Day 054 | The Wilderness | Deuteronomy 4 – 6, Psalm 54
#22MinuteChallenge | Bible Project Reading Plan
Suggested Video
Day 054 | The Wilderness
Deuteronomy 4 – 6, Psalm 54
Source: Bible Project Reading Plan
Adebayo Martins | #JustAThought | #iMuse | #2022 | #018 | SUN.07.25.2021
The part of me you believe I am, is the part you'll see;
no matter how hard I try to show other parts.
So they answered, “John the Baptist; but some say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered and said to Him, “You are the Christ.”
Mark 8:28-29 NKJV
The fear of human opinion disables; trusting in God protects you from that.
Proverbs 29:25 MSG
Adebayo Martins | #JustAThought | #iMuse | #2022 | #018 | SUN.07.25.2021
Tuesday, February 22, 2022
SUMMARY ATTEMPT | SLIGHT EDGE | JEFF OLSON | CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CULTIVATE SLIGHT EDGE HABITS
“Sow an act, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character.
Sow a character, reap a destiny.”
— Charles Reade (attrib.)
We tend to overlook the enormous power of positive, intentional habits. It’s not that good habits don’t exist, or that we don’t have them. We do. It’s just that we typically take them for granted.
Habit and Choice:
There are two kinds of habits: those that serve you, and those that don’t. A habit is something you do without thinking.
Every habit; the good and the bad, has its roots in choice — in little decisions you make and over which you have complete control. Complete control, that is, at first. Until they become automatic and take on a life of their own — a life that will determine the direction of your life. So the question is: which behaviors do you want to have take on a life of their own?
The creation of habits is a pure slight edge: simple little actions, repeated over time. The compounded effect of those habits over time will work either for you or against you, depending on whether they are habits that serve you, or habits that don’t. Your habits are what will propel you up the success curve or down the failure curve.
“The individual who wants to reach the top in business must appreciate the might of the force of habit — and must understand that practices are what create habits. He must be quick to break those habits that can break him — and hasten to adopt those practices that will become the habits that can help him achieve the success he desires.”
- J. Paul Getty
The key to your success, to mastering the slight edge through the long-term effect of your everyday habits of thought and action, is your philosophy.
Each choice is like a length of steel wire. By itself, it’s not that big a deal — but when braided together, when compounded with all the other choices you make, these slender lengths of wire form tree-trunk-like tension lines of awesome strength.
“Nothing is stronger than habit.”
- Ovid
The cables made from your right choices uphold and support you. Those made from wrong choices imprison and restrain you. These cables are your habits of thought and attitude. Want to know where the slight edge is taking you? Look at your predominant habits of thought and the kinds of choices you habitually make.
Your habits operate at the unconscious level, which means you are not normally aware of them. It’s only by bringing a habit into your conscious awareness that you can observe what it’s doing, how it empowers and serves you…or doesn’t. By developing slight edge thinking — and especially by using the slight edge ally of reflection — you’ll shine the bright light of awareness on your habits. Once you’re aware of a habit that doesn’t serve you, how do you change it or get rid of it? All it takes is knowing where to focus your energy. That, plus time.
It’s tough to get rid of the habit you don’t want by facing it head on. The way to accomplish it is to replace the unwanted habit with another habit that you do want. You do it the same way you built any habit you have: one step at a time. Baby steps. The slight edge.
Here are seven positive, productive habits of attitude and behavior:
Habit #1: Show Up
Be the frog who not only decides to jump off the lily pad but actually jumps.
Skill, knowledge, experience, connections, resources, finesse, expertise, all these things are part of the journey — but none of them are possible until the journey itself is initiated. Do the thing, and you shall have the power.
If you’ll just commit to showing up, that’s half the battle right there. By simply showing up you can rise above half of the population in any circumstance.
Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don ’t give up.
- Anne Lamott, author of Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers
Habit #2: Be Consistent
According to Woody Allen, 80 percent of success is showing up. That’s a philosophy I subscribe to wholeheartedly — but I would add two words: 80 percent of success is showing up every day.
As essential as it is to show up, it is consistency that greatly multiplies its power. Showing up consistently is where the magic happens.
In baseball, my theory is to strive for consistency, not to worry about the numbers. If you dwell on statistics you get shortsighted; if you aim for consistency, the numbers will be there at the end. - Tom Seaver
If you will commit to showing up consistently, every day, no matter what, then you have already won well more than half the battle. The rest is up to skill, knowledge, drive, and execution.
Habit #3: Have a Positive Outlook
Approaching the events of everyday life with a consistently positive outlook moves you toward your goals.
People who consistently practice seeing opportunities instead of problems, who focus on the best in a situation rather than the worst, who notice other people’s better qualities and look past their weaker ones, who see the glass as at least half-full in every circumstance, are happier, more creative, earn more money, have more friendships, have better immune response, have less heart disease and strokes, have better and longer-lasting marriages, live longer, and are more successful in their careers.
In fact, people who have made a habit of positive outlook don’t just see the glass as half-full: they see it as overflowing. And because they see it that way — because that’s their attitude — it consistently ends up being that way for them.
Of all the factors possibly influencing health, vitality, and longevity, Dan Buettner, (author of Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest,) and his team compiled a list of nine.
These people:
(1) live an active life
(2) cultivate purpose and a reason to wake up every morning
(3) take time to de-stress (appreciation, prayer, etc.)
(4) stop eating when they are 80 percent full
(5) eat a diet emphasizing vegetables, especially beans
(6) have moderate alcohol intake (especially dark red wine)
(7) play an active role in a faith-based community
(8) place a strong emphasis on family
(9) are part of like-minded social circles with similar habits
Cultivating positive outlook does not mean you are always happy.
When something is hard or difficult and adversity is at your front door, embrace it, because it will make you stronger and your life richer. You can’t know happiness unless you feel sadness. If you embrace it as part of the process, it can be life-altering. Life is going to get you down and the funk is going to get you. Embrace it and fight through it and know you are not alone. Take baby steps, remember all the slight edge allies you have, and know that there is a path out of the funk.
Habit #4: Be Committed for the Long Haul
Showing up is essential.
Showing up consistently is powerful.
Showing up consistently with a positive outlook is even more powerful.
But doing all that for a week … is just doing it for a week.
Farmers know they have to wait a full season to reap their harvests. In our post-industrial world, where so much of everyday life is accessible through the click of a mouse, it’s easier than ever to forget that. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t still true.
Plant, cultivate, harvest. And that second comma, the one between cultivate and harvest, often represents a loooong period of time.
It takes a long time to grow an old friend.
- John Leonard
No matter what you are trying to accomplish, you need to ask yourself, am I willing to put in 10,000 hours or more to get what I want?
Habit #5: Cultivate a Burning Desire Backed by Faith
Here is the truth about burning desire: it is a powerful force, and it works in two directions depending on what you see. Most people wish for big things but can’t really see themselves getting them. The few who achieve great things are those who not only passionately wanted to achieve them but also clearly see themselves achieving them. That’s the key to harnessing the power of desire: it is like a team of wild horses that need a driver to steer them in the right direction, and that driver is your vision.
A burning desire backed by faith simply means deeply, passionately wanting to get somewhere and knowing — not hoping, not wishing, but knowing that you’re going to get there. In other words, there has to be congruence between your desire and your faith.
In the course of your journey all sorts of obstacles will appear in the path. And you can determine the size of the person by the size of the problem that keeps them down. Successful people look at a problem and see opportunity. A burning desire is what motivates you to confront them, rather than turn tail and run. But it’s a burning desire backed by faith that takes you through them.
Habit #6: Be Willing to Pay the Price
Actually, it’s not that dramatic. Your dreams may be big (in fact I hope they’re huge), but the steps you take to get there are always going to be small. Baby steps; easy to do. And the price you pay works the same way. You don’t have to pay for your million-dollar dream with a million-dollar personal check. You can pay for it with… well, a penny a day
But you do need to understand what that penny is — and you do need to be willing to pay it. Whatever the dream, whatever the goal, there’s a price you’ll need to pay, and yes, that does mean giving up something.
Remember this: whatever price you pay, there’s a bigger price to pay for not doing it than the price for doing it. The price of neglect is much worse than the price of the discipline. In fact, no matter what price you pay for success, the price for failure is brutal by comparison. It may take five years and 10,000 hours to put your success on track, but it takes a lifetime to fail.
Habit #7: Practice Slight Edge Integrity
There are many definitions of integrity. Honesty. Truthfulness. Congruence between words and deeds. The aspect of integrity that is most applicable to the slight edge is this: what you do when no one is watching.
Slight edge integrity is one of the great secrets of entrepreneurial success. When you own your own business, there is no one telling you that you need to be at work or shouting in your ear to make sales calls. No one is there to make sure you are on top of your vendors and your books are up to date. This is all up to you now. You have no boss.
Actually, that last statement isn’t quite accurate. You do have a boss, but that boss is you. Serving as your own boss, and doing so successfully, consistently, day in and day out, takes an uncommon degree of slight edge integrity, and frankly many business owners just don’t have it. They become intoxicated by the freedom of being their own boss and fail to maintain the kind of structure it takes to become successful. Without that integrity in the little everyday things, a new business can’t keep its head above water for long.
The truth is, living a life is being an entrepreneur. No matter whether you are one of ten thousand employees working at a gigantic corporation, a sole proprietor running your one-man ice cream stand, or a stay-at-home parent managing the household, you are solely in charge of the steadily unfolding course of your life.
Your life is an Apollo rocket headed for parts yet unknown, and there is no one at the helm but you. You are a novelist, and the story you are inventing, with its rich plot and imaginative palette of distinct and believable characters, is your life. You are the screenwriter, director, and producer of an epic film, one that will run for years. Like Edison, you are an inventor; like Fritjof Nansen, an explorer; like Emerson, a philosopher; like Steve Martin, an entertainer; like Lincoln, a statesman; like Wilberforce, a patient liberator. You are all these things and more — and the fabric of the tapestry upon which you’re assembling this story is made up of tiny threads that few will ever notice as you weave them. You may think I’m exaggerating. I’m not. You are capable of great things. I know this, because I’ve observed the human condition, and every soul alive is capable of great things. Most will never achieve them or experience them. But anyone can, if they only understand how the process works.
Show up.
Show up consistently.
Show up consistently with a positive outlook
Be prepared for and committed to the long haul.
Cultivate a burning desire backed by faith.
Be willing to pay the price.
And do the things you’ve committed to doing — even when no one else is watching.
Essential Points from Chapter Fifteen
* There are two kinds of habits: those that serve you, and those that don’t.
* You have choice over your habits through your choice of everyday actions.
* The way to erase a bad habit is to replace it with a positive habit.
* Here are seven powerful, positive slight edge habits:
1. Show up: be the frog who jumps off the lily pad.
2. Show up consistently: keep showing up when others fade out.
3. Cultivate a positive outlook: see the glass as overflowing.
4. Be committed for the long haul: remember the 10,000-hour rule.
5. Cultivate a burning desire backed by faith: not hoping or wishing — knowing.
6. Be willing to pay the price: sometimes you have to quit the softball team.
7. Practice slight edge integrity: do the things you’ve committed to doing, even when no one else is watching.