Intangible Wealth (IW)

It was a summer night and I’ve just returned home from the local bookstore. As I walked into my living room, I thought about the new set of objectives I had set out for myself. I began to list these objectives in my notepad:

• Edit the Intangible Wealth e-books

• Mutual study with wife on how to cultivate our marriage

• Improve foreign language skills

As I reviewed the list, I asked myself, “When am I going to find time to accomplish these?” I decided that the morning would be the best time to do it and that I would focus on doing one of them during that time. In reviewing my schedule, I decided to concentrate my morning time on improving my foreign language skills!

Why would I want to study foreign languages in the morning?

In the past my foreign language studies were erratic, lacking a definitive track and milestones for improvement. Fortunately, I knew that I could do better than that. I decided that I needed to follow a self-study program with milestones to test my competency in vocabulary and vocal intonations. That type of program is proven to demonstrate faster and better results.

I asked my wife: When in the morning am I going to get this done? I already wake up late as it is, my clothes aren’t ironed, I’ve got to cook breakfast and shave in before leaving out the door in 45 minutes!

One thing we decided is that we need to set our alarm clock one hour earlier throughout the week. That would set aside a specified time to work on my foreign language skills. By sticking to the regimen for the next 6 months, I’d be well on my way to attaining fluency. Excellent! Plus, by doing it first thing in the morning, I know that I will get it done! Problem solved.

When I thought about waking up earlier in the morning, I got excited knowing that we would be taking another step toward our development. I even envisioned awakening in the morning to the pleasantries of hearing the birds sing and the soft caress of the fresh morning air. I inhaled slowly deeply…ahhh, so invigorating.

But it all stopped.

That experience was short-lived and the symphony of bird songs ceased. The soft caress of fresh morning air came to an end. It all concluded the moment that…

I started coming up with excuses

In that moment, my objectives were pushed to the side and my morning time reverie turned into painful drudgery. The excuses poured in as a raspy little voice started questioning me about my reasoning. It said, “Hey Dion, you already wake up early enough, you don’t need to wake up another hour earlier.” Later it followed with,“You’ll be sooo tired! You won’t have any energy throughout the day if you wake up that early!”

I was hit with a blitzkrieg of excuses that had little to do with my objectives for improvement. All of this over waking up one hour earlier in the morning! As I stood there listening to this sales pitch of excuses, I decided I needed to refocus. The raspy little voice began fading out when I started putting everything back into perspective, reconciling all of the excuses and fears with my objectives. In fact, the raspy little voice shut up completely when I asked myself one question:

“If I knew that by waking up one hour earlier in the morning to work on my goals for the next four years I would receive one million dollars in the fifth, would I do it?”

I answered, “Absolutely.” At that point, I knew that…

I found an error in my personal philosophy.

Here’s the error: I found that I valued a million dollars more than I valued increasing my foreign language proficiency. When it was non-financial, only self-education and personal fulfillment, I came up with excuses not to do it. Getting up an hour earlier every morning for the next 6 months to work on a goal that required compromising my personal comfort scared me and caused me to stall. There was no money involved, just sweat equity. On the other hand, when it was a matter of waking up an hour earlier every morning to gain a million dollars I chose to do it without hesitation. There was hardly a delay in making the decision.

This is a red flag.

For me to promptly respond “absolutely” at the thought of waking up early every morning for a million dollars five years from now and respond with doubts and hesitations for self-education and personal fulfillment is a red flag. That type of error in my way of thinking will lead to poor decisions that diminish my potential and undermine my Intangible Wealth . If we ask ourselves these types of questions and answer honestly, I bet most of us will find similar errors in our personal philosophies.

Make an honest self evaluation

Monday thru Friday, most of us set our alarm clocks for early in the morning for work. We get up as the sun rises – some of us eager and some of us dreading – to work hard on our jobs day in and day out. But how many of us are willing to set the alarm clock Monday thru Friday for the sole purpose of investing in our personal improvement?

Action Step – Fix Your Clock

I challenge each of you to set your alarm clock one hour earlier for the next five days to work on a personal goal. Just think of it as daylight savings time!

Not sure what you could do during those extra 60 minutes? No worries. I’ve listed three questions to help you brainstorm a list of rewarding activities to kick-start your day this week:

• What are the 5 things that excite you?  For each of the next five days use one to kick start your day in an exciting way.

• Is there an organization that you’ve wanted to learn about, an opportunity you’ve wanted to invest in, or a career you’ve wanted to research? Do it tomorrow morning so that you start pulling yourself in the right direction.

• How about that idea you’ve been thinking about but have yet to put into action? By following the advice in this article, you now have an extra hour during each of the next 5 mornings to experiment with it. Try it out.

It’s up to you. Are you listening to that raspy little voice bombarding you with excuses? If so, ask yourself, “If I knew that by waking up one hour earlier in the morning for the next four years I would receive one million dollars in the fifth, would I do it?”

Yes! So get started. You’re worth more than a million dollars, aren’t you? By following the action step you’ll feel like a million dollars every morning.

It was a beautiful September night and the sounds of crickets ricocheted through the trees with soft winds rustling the leaves. My wife and I sat on the sofa with the aroma of incense and the soft glow of votive candles. This was our romantic night of brainstorming where we put our minds together to think creatively!

“This is the perfect idea!” I said while we developed product and service ideas. “This will be a good one too” I said as the ideas were really beginning to flow.

With a pen in hand, I wrote down each specific idea that we developed. Eventually, the page was filled with an assortment of creative projects and random phrases of inspiration. This was a very energetic brainstorming session and, after generating so many different ideas, I was shocked at the variety of ideas we came up with.

But what is an idea without action?

Of course none of the ideas we brainstormed will manifest without work. The page I wrote on was filled with great ideas but without taking the steps to bring them to life the entire list can easily transform from a nursery to a cemetery.  In other words, action gives birth to our ideas; inaction brings death to our ideas.  Activity is vital. And as we came up with ideas we made sure to remind ourselves of this fact.

There’s a deeper concern than just action.

But do you know the evil culprit that tiptoes under the guise of activity? It can sneak into any of the ideas you undertake. It is so sneaky that it can sneak into well-intentioned and even well-planned activity. In fact, it thrives on activity. Simply put, it breaks in the moment you decide to… wait.
And I don’t mean “wait” as it is used in the typical sense of inactivity where a person is on standby for the next step in a sequence of events. Instead, I am referring to when a person is engaged in activity, even vigorous activity. I’ve found that waiting, as I define it, can be detrimental to any of the ideas my wife and I are taking action on. Here is what wait really means…

Wasted Invaluable Time (WA.I.T)

In this sense, to wait does not mean that you are being inactive. It means that you may be taking action all the while. Therefore, you can actually be busy and be… waiting. You can have a full schedule lined up for yourself and still be… waiting. You may be thinking, how is that possible? It doesn’t make sense? If I’m taking action then I’m not waiting at all!

Let me explain: whenever you take action steps that are contrary to the action steps you need to be doing… you are waiting. We often fill our agendas with activities that make us feel like we’re accomplishing our goals but they actually are not. They are illusory steps that keep our schedules occupied in order to dodge the real action steps we need to be doing. We wait by creating a mirage of activity that is meaningless.

How I Waited

As a visual artist, I’ve had quite a few years experience drawing. All of my art was merely for my own private viewing and not intended for marketing. I just wasn’t interested in marketing my work. But with my mother, brother, uncle and aunt’s encouragement I decided to do some marketing. I figured here’s an opportunity; why not give it a shot?

So I pulled the trigger and started my business selling my motivational artworks. Ready, fire, aim was my approach! With this approach, I was vending and selling my art but I lacked a plan. My efforts lacked niche-market specificity and it was solely premised on face-to-face transactions. It also did not harness the leverage of other people’s time, other people’s money, or available technology. I was setting myself up for a setback! The effort to sell my artwork became very costly and laborious. I decided I needed to make some changes if I wanted to continue so I started brainstorming. I came up with two great ideas:

1. Research niche-markets for the product
2. Automate the sales process so that it does not require my presence

In a few days, I compiled a long list of potential customers in the niche-market. Before long, I also found a way to automate the sales process. I’ve got the niche-market and I have an automated system that can get them the products. Excellent! Now I’ve just got to contact the list of potential customers and coordinate.

But, hold on… wait.

Even though I had a sufficient list of potential customers, I told myself that I needed to do more research to find more customers before contacting any of them. I also figured it might be a good idea to create more products just in case the customers want more products than I had to offer. So I got busy doing more research and creating more products… waiting. Wasted invaluable time (wait) continued passing by as I preoccupied myself with useless activity.

Although it may appear that additional market research and product generation were necessary, they were not. They were illusory steps that kept my schedule fully occupied in order to dodge the real action steps I needed to take. What I really needed to be doing was calling the list of customers I already had, not researching more as a prerequisite for contacting any. What I really needed to be doing was marketing the products I already had, not creating more products as its prerequisite. These actions were contrary to what I needed to be doing. I was waiting… and waiting… and waiting…

What were the consequences of this?

There are three basic consequences to waiting:

1. Delayed Goals
2. Frustration
3. Quitting

My goal of contacting my niche-market and truly utilizing the automated system were pushed further back. For each day I decided to do additional research and product generation rather than active marketing, I delayed my goal. As the goal moved further away, the results I wanted traveled further with it. I started getting frustrated with my efforts and more exhausted chasing after them. Despite running as hard as I could to reach the goal it never seemed to get closer. The problem was that I was running hard at wasting invaluable time (waiting) with meaningless tasks. Eventually I began losing enthusiasm and doubted my efforts. My motivation decreased, activity slowed, and I eventually quit. Waiting ruined my business.

Why do we wait?

The real reason we waste invaluable time is because of fear. We’re scared of taking action and doing the things we know we need to do. So we create a façade of activity that makes it seem like we’re being proactive when we’re just being cowards. That’s what happened to me. I was being a coward. I hid in the comfort of being busy because I was scared to face potential rejection, scared to be uncomfortable, and paralyzed with fear.

Waiting is a losing game! Get down to business and take deliberate action on the steps that need to get done. Activity is not an end in itself. We need to stop being busy with our goals and start being productive with them.

3 Action Steps to Stop Waiting

1.  Set milestones for yourself. World renowned business philosopher Jim Rohn says that we should make “measurable progress in reasonable time”. Don’t give yourself one year to do something that should take a week! Break your larger goal into smaller steps. Write those smaller steps on calendar dates leading up to the larger goal’s completion and stick to it.

2.  Use Parkinson’s Law to your advantage. Compress time frames and put the pressure on. Set shorter timeframes to reach each milestone. If you give yourself less time to get it done chances are you will complete it in less time also. Test the possible.

3.  Reward yourself. Positive reinforcement is critical. Give yourself healthy incentives for completing your milestones. After completing your milestone, I guarantee you will be excited, so go do something else that makes you smile!

What are you wasting invaluable time with? Do you have any methods that have helped you stop waiting?

In August, I posted an article titled “Life, Plants and Three Principles You Should Know”. In the article I used the experiences of my friend Andy to convey three principles that I’ve discovered between life and plants. Self-Suffice – one of our readers and also an extremely talented hip-hop artist and teacher – shared a great analogy with us in the comments section.

In his analogy, he made an excellent metaphor between our focus and drops of water. He equated each water droplet to one second. After a full day we accumulate a bucket of water that we can use to water our gardens. And did you know that there are 86,400 seconds in our day? Each one of those seconds is an opportunity (drop of water) that can be invested into different areas of our lives (gardens).

It can be a serious challenge to successfully invest in all of the areas of our lives! How many of us have ever gotten overwhelmed trying to focus on everything at once? It can feel like an impossible task and, in fact… it is.

Self-Suffice stated, “If we only pour our focus into 1 or 2 gardens for too long, the others will grow weeds, rotten fruit, and dying flowers.” And he went on to ask a big question …

How can you water all of your gardens?”

It’s such a pertinent question for us all, isn’t it? I came up with four simple ideas on how you can water all of your gardens. Yes… all. Following these four basic steps will help you get everything done at once.

#1 – Eliminate unnecessary gardens

#2 – Expand your time horizon

#3 – Get a team to help you

#4 – Make compost

#1 – Eliminate Unnecessary Gardens

Cease contributing your time and focus to unfruitful activity. We often invest our time in time consuming and unfruitful endeavors that need to be uprooted from our agenda. Bottom line: if it’s not beneficial get rid of it. Check out my post “Winners Quit” for a practical exercise on how to do this.

#2 – Expand Your Time Horizon

Establish the appropriate time horizons when watering your gardens. This will help reduce the pressure to complete tasks in unrealistic timeframes. With only 24 hours in a day, there’s only so much you can do so you may need to expand your timeline to a few days or a week, for example.

Remember: all plants don’t need to be watered every day!

#3 – Get a Team to Help You

Expand your effectiveness by getting others to help you water and plant. There may be tasks you can have other people handle. By delegating tasks to other people you free time up to do the things you do best and to do the things you want to do. Plus, each additional person adds 24 more hours to your day. Getting just one additional teammate adds 24 hours; two teammates will add another 24 hours.

If you’re bad at math, take a look at this: your 24 hours + 1^st Teammate’s 24 hours + 2^nd Teammate’s 24 hours = 72 hours in one day. Wow! How many teammates would you like to have?

#4 – Make Compost

Turn the negatives into positives. Use the weeds, rotting fruit, and dying flowers to make compost. All of the plants and fruit that withered away can help foster conditions for other (better) things to grow. Try not to worry too much about lost crops and make the best of your current conditions. In the plant world, our failures are biodegradable!