Many people are familiar with the sentiment that “the end justifies the means” when pursuing goals and ambitions.  However, in the realm of business and life, ends and means are quite important.  In many cases, ‘how’ you go about doing something is equally (if not more) important than what you are doing in the first place.  Many times, it is easy to pursue short-term results by bending or breaking rules.  However, long-term success requires attention to both the goal and the methods used to reach it.

Most people recognize this fact in the natural world.  It is not difficult to see what happens if you attempt to plant and harvest wheat without following the right steps.  No matter how hard you try, it is not possible to ‘wing it’ to success in the natural world.  However, many people are gripped with a desire to fast-talk their way to success in the world of business and relationships.

The truth is that ends and means are a matter of natural law that hold equally true in the physical world as they do in the world of relationships.  The fundamental difference is that when dealing with people, it takes longer to see the impact.  However, the impact is always in effect regardless of whether it is immediately apparent.  The hard work must be done if ‘real’ success is every to be achieved.  It may be possible to temporarily gain the appearance of success through slick dealing and clever tricks, but there is no way to fool nature.

Ultimately, the way that each person chooses to pursue their goals is important.  Relentless pursuit of excellence sounds great in commercials, but if it causes you to sacrifice everything else in your life for the sake of one goal, is it really a worthy endeavor?  This is not to say that people should not have goals and ambitions . . . quite to the contrary.  However, it is imperative that the pursuit of those goals be done in such a way that it is part of a complete life and not an unbalanced obsession.  This will likely result in many goals that take longer to accomplish than some of us would like, but it will also result in greater happiness, contentment, and completeness in our lives.

 

Recent news about the 8.9 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan has caused many people to pause in consideration and prayer for those affected by this natural disaster.  As the news and images of the disaster comes in, they make the perceived difficulties of our lives pale in comparison to the real turmoil faced by those who are on the front lines of responding to the earthquake and tsunami.

When events such as this unfold, they draw a sharp line between the things that we spend time getting worked up over and the things that are really important.  In response to this, it would be wise for many of us to “get over ourselves” and put the so-called problems of our life in context.

Most of us remember the drama-filled days of high school when the tenner of our life revolved around what one person was saying about another person, and the furthest we looked ahead was the upcoming weekend.  The depth of self centered obsession in our youth only becomes apparent when the wisdom of age and experience has had an opportunity to emerge.  Upon deeper analysis of our lives in the context of a larger and more complex world, it becomes more and more apparent that the drama of our lives, which seems so important in the moment shades pale when compared against the larger world in which we live.  When mired in the depths of self-centered obsession, this is extremely difficult to see.  However, when one steps back from the gritty details of their own life, it becomes quite clear very quickly.

When thinking about the concerned of our personal world, it is important to understand that each of us are only a small piece of the larger scheme.  It is important to simultaneously avoid over-estimating the extent of our impact and take personal responsibility for the results of our own life.  Situations like a natural disaster frequently leave people with a feeling of powerlessness, as there is nobody to blame for the circumstances.  (Not that this fact stops people in power from attempting to assign blame or take credit)

It is most certainly true that none of us can cause, nor prevent a natural disaster.  It is also true that none of us can cause nor prevent a humanitarian crisis or economic recession.  What we can do is take specific actions to create specific results.  We cannot stop an earthquake in Japan, but we can contribute to the response.  We cannot stop an economic recession, but we can act to ensure that the financial well being of our family is secure.  We cannot stop people from being self-destructive in their personal decisions, but we can teach our children to make wise decisions in their own lives.

In the end, “getting over ourselves” ultimately comes down to a frank realization of what we can and can’t do.  This understanding allows us to focus on the things that we can do, the decisions we can influence, and the goals we can achieve.  In this way, each person can help to create a better world at large by creating a better world within their own sphere of influence.

 

Life can frequently feel out of control with a myriad of commitments, deadlines, and things that need to be done immediately.  Each of us have a list of things we would like to accomplish that exceeds our available time, effort and energy by a considerable margin.  In this situation, it frequently feels like we cannot afford to stop moving, because every minute gone by is one less minute to accomplish our goals and ambitions.

 

As we go throughout life, it can sometimes seem mysterious to think how we arrived at our current place.  Each person’s life represents the aggregate total of all their decisions and the influence of chance.  For many of us, it can be tempting to blame ‘fate’ or the actions of other people for the fact that their life has not turned out the way that they had previously imagined it would.  For many people, this has resulted in a slowly burning internal anger against their circumstances.  The enduring problem created by this phenomenon is that it constructs a mental barrier that prevents people from taking the actions that are necessary to improve their circumstances.

The first and most important insight that must precede any sustainable improvement in our life situation is the realization that we are fully responsible for the course of our life, and our decisions are the means by which we navigate the river of chance.  It is most certainly true that we cannot control chance.  There will always be events and circumstances in our life and the world at large that are out of our control.  The secret to influencing your future lies in understanding that there is no point in worrying about things that we cannot control and focusing all of our attention on the decisions and events that we can influence.

One example of how this situation creeps up on people is where you have a person that is living paycheck-to-paycheck and encounters an unexpected automotive repair, medical bill, or some other necessary expense.  With no financial reserves, this person may find themselves forced to go into debt, or possibly default on their financial obligations if they are already in debt.  From this person’s perspective, they have been assaulted by fate and ruined by chance.  However, the situation that placed them at the mercy of chance was completely the result of their decisions.  By modifying their lifestyle, these people could have built-up a savings reserve so that unexpected expenses could be met without destroying their budget.  By consistently living below their means, they could have ensured that their debt limits were not maxed out so that true needs could be met at the critical moment.  By understanding that the future is necessarily uncertain, and planning accordingly, many of the disruptions that cause disasters for other people could have been effectively avoided.

The critical insight here is that our ability to shape our future is dependent on our willingness to embrace a long-term perspective.  By thinking further out than our current wants and needs, we begin to see the benefit of making short-term sacrifices for the purpose of long-term gains.  Thus, by improving our decisions, we make the outcome of our future less dependent on luck.  In this way, making intelligent choices reduces our exposure to chance.  It requires us to discipline our feelings and emotions so that they do not dictate our actions.  It requires us to make conscious decisions that support optimal long-term results.

In the end, our circumstances are determined by both choices and chances.  However, the impact of chances is directly related to the choices that we have made in the past and continue to make into the future.  Each of us must ask whether the choices we are making today prepare us for a more prosperous future.  Each of us must ask whether the decisions and choices we make are the result of our feelings and emotions or if they are conscious and deliberate.  Most of us have a clear vision of what we would like our future to look like, and most of us also know the kind of things that are necessary to attain that vision.  What remains is to develop the discipline so that our decisions turn that vision into reality.

 

Recent news of the US national debt topping $14 Trillion and nearing its legislative ceiling have spurred another (badly needed) discussion concerning government spending obligations.  Whenever the topic of national debt re-enters the domain of public conversation, there are two opposing priorities that consistently pull against one another.  The first is the desire to continue current (unsustainable) rates of government spending, and the second is a concern over the burden that is being passed onto the next generation in the form of a tremendous national debt.

An appropriate metaphor for this concern is the Greek Titan Atlas who holds up the world and heavens on his shoulders.  In our case, the future productivity of our children and their children will need to be confiscated for the purpose of paying for money that was already spent to subsidize the recipients of public bailouts, entitlements, pensions, and subsidies.  However, nobody has every stopped to consider the possibility that the future generations will not want to see their productive efforts go to subsidize other people’s lack of productivity.  To put it in the language of Ayn Rand, what if Atlas Shrugs?

This is a very appropriate, and very under-examined question.  What happens if the next generation decides that they no longer wish to pay for subsiding the lifestyle of other people?  What happens if the taxes and regulations are so burdensome that there are no new innovations to drive the economy?  What happens when the cost of employing workers grows so high that nobody is willing to hire anybody?  What happens when the rest of the world stops lending us money at low rates of interest?

The answer to all of these questions is essentially the same.  The standard of living that multiple generations of people have come to regard as their entitlement will come crashing down around them with nobody in sight to pick up the pieces.  When the farce of creating prosperity through legislative fiat is finally uncovered, there will be no comfort to ease the bitter hardships of life.  There will be a large mass of people who have been conditioned to avoid making their own decisions and who have been trained that producing something of value is not a necessity of life.

So what can you do?  The answer lies in reading the prior sentence again . . . what can YOU do?  The answer is that you must take ownership and control of your own life and your own destiny.  In short, follow the John Galt Promise from Atlas Shrugged, and commit to live your life for the sake of no other person and ask no other person to live for the sake of you.  Make decisions for yourself and do not expect others to make decisions for you.  Use those decisions to create a bright future for yourself and your family.  Learn how to create value in everything that you do so that each person who works with you is better off than they were before.

In this way, you will become the captain of your destiny.  Every decision that you make is a proclamation of your intellectual liberty.  This is not any kind of exhortation for greed or self-centered living . . . rather, it is an exhortation to make your own choices.  If you choose to be charitable, make it a choice, not a reaction to guilt.  When you produce something of value, refuse to feel guilt for your success.  Be humble in your success, understanding that all things are gifts from God, but never allow yourself to act out of guilt.  Focus all of your attention on the decisions and actions that you can make for the attainment of your own success and the success of those you care about.  In short, go out and do something great.

 

One of the most true axioms of life is that all things have their price.  This is true for things we want to buy, and also true for things we want to achieve.  For all things that we want in our lives, a price must be paid.  Sometimes this price is paid in money, other times it is paid in effort, but at all times it is paid in lost opportunity.

Any time that we take one action, it means that we are implicitly choosing not to take a different action.  Over time, these choices shape and define our future.   We decide to pursue our ambitions or we decide to stick with what feels safe.  We choose to prioritize our families or we allow the urgency of whatever we are doing at the moment to take precedent over that which we tell ourselves is most important.

As we go throughout our lives, each of us will need to forge our own definition of the success that we are seeking and the price that we are willing to pay in exchange for it.  These conscious decisions regarding the priorities of our life are what determine how we deal with conflicts between our personal, professional, and financial goals.  When two objectives are standing in opposition to one another, we must first seek a smarter solution that does not sacrifice one for the other.  When a smarter solution is not possible, we must ultimately choose.

Most people desire to maintain a successful family life and a prosperous career or business.  In most cases, these two goals compliment one another.  However, they can come into conflict if a particular family event conflicts with business.  In these cases, we must ultimately decide which tenet of our personal vision to pursue.  The important point to communicate is that this is a choice we should consciously make, lest we fall into the unconscious trap of prioritizing the seemingly urgent over that which is truly important.

This insidious form of lazy thinking is how many people end up extremely busy, but not remotely productive.  Decide what your vision of success looks like.  Decide what price you are willing to pay in order to achieve that vision.  Decide what price you are not willing to pay.  Actively do that which brings you closer to your vision of success.  Actively avoid that which takes your time, but does not achieve your goals.  Turn everything that you do into a conscious decision that consistently propels you closer to your goals.  By paying the price for success, you will also be laying the foundation for a more prosperous and fulfilling life.

 

The holiday season is a time when many people pause to think about the things that they are thankful for.  In many cases, people rightly think of their family and the fact that we live in a country with high affluence and public safety relative to many other places in the world.  However, there are some deeper dynamics of being thankful that are very important in both business and in life.

The first pillar of thankfulness is the understanding that there are many people facing more difficult situations than you.  The importance of this insight is that it displaces complaining with gratitude and thankfulness.  Complaining is an artifact of the scarcity mentality.  Those who believe in scarcity think that the ‘pie’ of affluence is fixed and that everybody who succeeds must be taking something away from everybody who is not as successful.  Those who believe in the scarcity mentality frequently ask ‘why me’ when life becomes difficult.

In contrast to this is the abundance mentality.  The abundance mentality recognizes that my success does not necessarily come at your expense.  (Thievery notwithstanding)  Those who recognize the blessings of abundance are thankful for what they have, and are not afraid to give some of it away to those who are less fortunate.  It is important to note that giving should not be done from a sense of guilt or obligation, because then it ceases to become a part of abundance and contributes to the scarcity mentality.

This is where the notion of “giving back” has become so insidious in popular culture.  There is a belief that if a person is affluent, they have a responsibility to “give back” because of their success.  This completely misses the point of giving and thankfulness.  The point is not to repay some sort of debt, but to express gratitude because of the blessings in your life.  In contrast to the guilt-based giving back, I would counter with an exhortation to just give.  You don’t need a reason to give, other than being thankful for the blessings of your life.  You don’t need to wait until you have become ‘wealthy’ to give . . . do it now.  It is less important that we give a certain amount and more important we learn to become a giving person.

In the end, it is important for each of us to approach life from a mentality of abundance.  In the world of abundance, each day is a blessing that we are thankful for.  In the world of abundance, there is never a time when we cannot afford to give something to those less fortunate than ourselves.  In the world of abundance, we do not need to scorn those who have been successful, and we do not need to feel guilty when we achieve our own success.  Giving thanks is not just for one season, it is a way to live our life.

 

I’m pretty sure I know what your thinking right now . . . what business of life podcast?  That’s exactly the point.  Business of life LLC will be launching a new audio podcast soon, and we need your help.  The reason is because the topic of this podcast will be exclusively decided by our audience.

This new podcast will consist of our answers to your questions being broadcast to the world in the form of a podcast feed.  Each week we will release a new show that features your questions and our answers.  Because of this, we need to hear your questions.  Please submit a question for the Business of Life podcast below, and you may hear our answer on a future podcast episode.  We are looking forward to hearing your questions, and working together to build the “Business of Life” online community.

 

As we go through life, there are many decisions that we will make.  Some of these decisions have a greater impact than others, but there is a single decision that frequently has a greater impact than most other decisions combined.  This monumental decision is the selection of a spouse to be your partner in life, or possibly a decision to be permanently single.  Either decision will have an extremely profound impact to the remainder of your life, and should be made with a significant degree of consideration.

This is complicated by the fact that our character and personality are in a perpetual state of change.  The person who we are at 21 is different than who we are at 31, who is different than we are at 41, who is different than we are at 51.  It is most certainly true that a good marriage can be the greatest of all experiences, but it is also true that a bad marriage can be among the worst.  The inherent difficult of creating a fulfilling marriage comes from the fact that it is not always clear how the character and personality of each person will develop.  In some cases, both people will develop together.  In other cases, one will develop while the other desires for things to stay the same.  In a few cases, both people will develop but they develop in different directions.  In all cases, it is more difficult to anticipate the future than most people imagine.

On the other hand, the window for marrying and raising a family does not last indefinitely.  It is important to keep all of your goals and ambitions in perspective so that imprudent decisions are not made by either rushing into relationships or avoiding them entirely.  In all cases, it is important to be flexible and supportive of the person with whom you decide to dedicate the remainder of your life.  By making the decision to spend the rest of our life with one person, we are implicitly deciding to make sacrifices for the purpose of facilitating a happy and fulfilling relationship.  Sometimes people exhibit a resistance to making these sacrifices, which frequently influences their partner to avoid making sacrifices themselves and can plunge the relationship into a self-defeating spiral.

In the end, marriage is a critical decision that requires considerable commitment for success to be achieved.  In this way, it is similar to (albeit vastly more important than) a business venture.  Nobody realistically expects to enter into business with half-hearted effort and achieve success.  People starting a business expect to invest many years of hard work in exchange for long-term success.  However, there appear to be a disturbingly large number of people who enter into their marriages with the expectation that a minimal level of effort will be sufficient to create success.  By approaching the most important decision of your life with even greater resolve than that of a business entrepreneur, it will cultivate the seeds of success for both you and your family.

 

The holiday season is a time when many people pause to spend time with their family and loved ones.  It provides an opportunity to temporarily suspend the hustle and hurry of normal life and consider where you are at; personally, professionally and financially.  As we take the opportunity to examine ourselves, it is a good time to consider ways that our family and loved ones can become a greater area of focus.

The unfortunate situation that many people find themselves in is one where their desires leave little time to spare between work, hobbies, families, friends, investments, and other interests.  In some cases, the ‘odd man out’ in people’s schedule becomes friends and family.  This can generate very dangerous long-term effects if relationships are neglected.

One of the most important things that a person can do is to really determine where they draw the line in regards to time spent between business, family and friends.  The importance of this decision rests in the fact that life is a series of trade-off decisions.  Every time that we decide to do one thing, it means there is something else that does not happen.  When people become busy, it is natural that something we desire to accomplish will not get done.  The only question is what will fall off the end of the table.

A common practice for many people at the end of each year is the creation of “new years resolutions.”  As 2009 draws to a close, it may be worth your time to examine how your time is spent and dedicate one of your resolutions for the new year to living your life in accordance with your personal values and priorities.

Most people have a very clear idea of what they value the most in their life, but sometimes allow the ‘tyranny of the urgent’ to influence their life’s priorities.  By focusing on what is important, instead of only on what it urgent it will allow you to make 2010 one of your best years ever.