🤢How Getting Sick Relates To Productivity🤢

When You Break Something Of Value

By chris danilo on Feb 13, 2019 05:00 am
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Today, it broke.

It was a cheap rubber wristband that I have been wearing for the past few months.

Nothing this cheap was meant to last longer than that.

If you know me at all, you know that I actively try to remove excess stuff from my life–so you might be wondering why I care or why I have a cheap rubber wristband in the first place.

Here’s what happened:

I was running one of my team’s LEGO® shows for kids in St. Paul, MN.

Part of our shows makes room for displayers of all ages. It helps get locals out to be part of the show and it helps kids network with other builders who are in their community. Pretty cool, right?

Well, one kid was so excited to be there that he brought these rubber LEGO® wristbands to give out.

When I spoke with him and thanked him for his hard work, he gave me one of his wristbands.

“Thanks for inviting me, I’m SO excited to be here,” he said.

It’s moments like these when you realize that what you do helps other people be themselves and be part of a community that encourages learnings, that you smile and realize it’s all worth it.

This kid had the time of his life connecting with older builders and meeting other kids just like him.

So no, it doesn’t matter that the wristband broke–because I will never forget that kid.

Take this as a reminder that it’s easy to confuse the value of stuff with the value of experiences.

2 Minute Action

It doesn’t have to be a wristband, but what can you give to someone around you to let them know you appreciate them?

• It could be a handwritten “COUPON – Good For 1 Free BackRub.”

• It could be a flattened penny.

• It could be a pack of Juicy Fruit gum.

It doesn’t matter what the vehicle is, it just matters what sentiment you gave it.

It will take you 2 minutes to write a post-it note or give someone a wooden nickel with a story that holds meaning.

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Understand These 3 Concepts And Move On From Anything

By chris danilo on Feb 12, 2019 05:00 am
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Sometimes you just take a beating.

It’s not always because of anything you can control—it’s just part of operating in a world with other sentient beings and physical forces.

Pretending it didn’t hurt or avoiding the process of understanding where the pain comes from just makes it worse later on.

What’s difficult is spending your whole life converting the operations around you into processes you can control, being successful at it, and then facing something painful and uncontrollable.

Learning to let things go and move on is just one of those things that takes a lifetime to which to adjust.

Sure there are some skills we can master while we’re here, but there’s really no end point.

The only “point of arrival” is the end of life, really.

• You can get in shape, but you can’t ever finish eating healthily.

• You can work nights to pay for college, but you can’t ever spend enough on your kid’s education.

• You can become a race car driver, but you can still get rear-ended at a stop sign.

The goal then, shouldn’t just be to take control of everything, but to understand what we can and can’t achieve—and then spend our resources moving toward those achievable goals.

In the meantime, while we’re moving, it’s good to remember that we sometimes take a beating regardless of how reasonable the goal is.

In fact, we might get beat up just sitting at home where we thought it was safe.

So, it’s not useful to drop out when it hurts. Pain just doesn’t have a good enough correlation with circumstance to be the only factor in our decision.

It also helps, while we’re moving, to remember that adjusting to pain isn’t like flipping a light switch. It takes time and the amount of time it takes varies based on circumstance, personal experience, and predisposition.

Some lessons to take away from this:

1. Pain feels like an indication that we should change direction or hide but that’s not always the case.

2. Staying at home or avoiding risk can still lead to pain, so you might as well work hard to achieve what you want.

3. Being at peace with an imperfect world doesn’t mean you are eternally and outwardly happy, it just means you accept the often unfair pains of life.

2 Minute Action

Reach out to someone who is in pain and let them know you’re on their team.

Take a risk (it can be a small one) that you have been considering or avoiding.

Execute a small and possibly random act of kindness.

I promise you don’t need more than 2 minutes to do any of these.

That part is all in your head.

Today is up to you and you can completely transform your outlook and chances of success in 2 minutes or less.

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