​Cost leadership is broken.
 
“It's cheap, fuck face, what are you moaning at me for?”
 
Caring is the only thing a human can do that a robot can't (currently). If your business model is to get in stock, move them fast, sell them cheap then the customer becomes a commodity as well as the product.
 
Don't want to buy right now? Move on, go somewhere else. “You just lost me a sale” is the mindset of the sales person. There is someone else ready to buy and you are not. 
 
This works… Until the commodity dries up. Until the economy tanks.  Until a competitor has slightly higher (or the same) prices and cares just an ounce more.  Until someone else makes it a slightly more pleasant experience for the customer than you. 
 
Then the only thing differentiating you from everyone else dropping their prices is how much you care. If you want to be a cost leader then the extreme is to employ no people. Outsource. Use self-service for everything. But the barrier to entry for this is low and who is going to buy your products if no-one has a job in your country?
 
Caring is the differentiator.  Care more.  Care for more people.  Care more often.

Your state is the most important thing to get under control. If you are thinking of horrible things all the time, guess what you will find in life?
 
Work on your mindset, the rest will follow.
 
Try to not complain for a month.  Switch your watch or armband to the wrong wrist when you catch yourself complaining.  See what happens…

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​Being centred in gratitude is a great way to get perspective and be happier.
 
Entitlement is often used in modern language as a bad thing.  In that people who think they are entitled to things do not wish to put in the work to get them.
 
However, if you are in the mindset that you are going nowhere, then gratitude might make you feel better about it but it will not make you change.  Flipping a little entitlement on in your brain may be the trigger you need.
 
Between gratitude and entitlement emerges self-belief. Still wanting for more, to strive to become better all the time.  Knowing you are better than your current situation and being prepared to work yourself out of it.
 
At some point, there will be a breaking point between your current situation for which you are grateful, and a new opportunity to grow and better yourself.  So, don’t use gratefulness as an excuse not to move forward.  And don’t use entitlement as an excuse that you should get everything you want without working to better yourself.

​There is the adage that you are the average of the five people closest to you.  In writings about how to be “successful”, the advice is usually then to cut out the losers and get closer to people that are more successful than you.
 
If you have a truly toxic influence on your life then I agree, best to distance yourself from them. I have had to do this myself, but in hindsight, I realise that it was my problem rather than theirs. However, the ruthless culling of true friends based on their success is not something that should be encouraged.
 
Ask yourself, are they really holding you back, or is it just you?
 
Remember, you don’t have to listen to what other people say. If you cannot distance yourself from negativity and criticism then you are probably not going to have the spoils of the “successful” that can.
 
Also, remember that you are one of the five too. How much are you trying to pull the others up? Those that have been there for you in the hard times.
 
As Gary Vee says, there are two ways to build the biggest skyscraper in town. Afford this thinking to your nearest and dearest before you bulldoze everything around you.

​What leads to the good life is the good life.
 
Should you save money and hope you live to 65 before enjoying yourself?  Or, should you piss it all away in Vegas, buy fast cars, enjoy yourself now as you do not when you will die?
 
Life is full of paradoxes.  Why not do both?
 
It is often said that you should live each day as if it were your last.  But I think it was Derek Sivers who said that this is terrible advice. You will end up blowing all your money each day and making bad short-term decisions.  Better, he says, to live as if it were everyone else’s last day.  You would likely be kinder to everyone you met.  This is a great thought exercise for empathy and connection.  You never know what someone else is going through.  And everyone has their own shit to deal with.
 
Live each day as if it were a lifetime.  You would want to cram in a bit of each thing that made you happy.  And you would not want to go to bed with any bad feelings left out in the open.  Live like this for two weeks and see what happens.

Enjoy the journey.

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​There are no weaknesses, only superpowers.
 
I heard Ed Sheeran talking a lot recently about growing up a weird nerdy kid with a stutter.  He said that rap music helped him to get over it and look where his is now. 
 
Whatever happens to you can become a driving force or a self-pity loop. Even if nothing bad happens to you, that can also be bad.
 
Have no friends?  Great.  You won’t get distracted when you work on your side hustle.
 
Family member has cancer? Great. You now have something worth making more money for, so you can give more back.
 
You are homeless? Great. You have nothing to lose so you can try everything
 
You are reading this? Great. You are likely the in the 10% richest in the world, you can do more than 90% of the world’s population think is possible
 
Whatever is holding you back is the key to moving forwards if you set your mind right.
 
Like Marcus Aurelius wrote, “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”

Because the media is full of bad news, I took a news break, a la 4 hour work week's low information diet. However, I happened upon Great Big Story on my Apple TV, but it is available on all iOS platforms.
 
Similar to UpWorthy, that fills my Facebook feed, Great Big Story is a massive dose of connection, humanity and good stuff to fill your thoughts with. All in bitesized chunks that are put into playlists for you.
 
Fancy something more in depth? The "Really Great Big Stories" playlist contains 15-20min videos in collaboration with CNN films.
 
Check it out – its free!

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​When you're young you think you are invincible. Until things that "happen to other people" start happening to you, I don't think you ever realise bad things can happen to you.
 
The longer you live, the more likely it is that something that “happens to others” happens to you.
 
A natural disaster, a car crash, cancer.  Bad things will happen.
 
I don't want to leave it to chance whether I can deal with these things or not. I work on my thinking constantly.
 
And the best remedies for prevention and cure of hardships have stood the test of time. Through stoicism, meditation, gratitude, exercise and healthy eating. 
 
You need no more, apart from time to aid the healing.

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It turns out I am pretty happy at my day job. Who knew? I hate the engagement survey every year.  It somehow works the opposite and makes me think of all the bad things about the company.
 
How refreshing, then, to stumble across this survey to prompt you to think ahead of March 31st – “International quit your crappy job day.” Not only is it much faster than a usual corporate engagement survey, but it focusses on the real things that make a difference in employees lives, such as trust and friendships in the office.
 
I think this mirrors how my day-job company has turned itself around over the past few years. Being grateful of where you are and past achievements, but also knowing that there is still so far to improve.
 
This has been the thought process that has helped me the most in my personal development.  And why I am pursuing my side project whilst still working full time.  I enjoy both.
 
You need to decide if work is really holding you back from what you want to do or if it is just an excuse.
 
There are two ways to find out: quit or start anyway.

Someone will always have it worse than you.  Yet there are examples of people being successful from every background.
 
The market does not care about your excuses. Wherever you are coming from there will be opportunities that others will not have. 
 
Started homeless?  Rags to riches tale, free PR
Started as a minority? Automatic niche, word of mouth
Started rich?  Access to capital
 
Everyone has their own shit to deal with. 
 
Is your life filled with excuses or things that spur you on?  The only difference is your mind-set.