By the Ocean
Sunny 77 Degrees
7:30 a.m.
One of the most consistent partners on the road to success in business is a little guy named failure. That’s the word the world uses to label things when they don’t work.
Most of my career has been about creating things that don’t work. I don’t use that word though because failure implies “it’s over” instead of, “time to take a right turn so we can avoid the oncoming bus!”
No matter what you call it, if you let that part of the game get to you, it can drive you nuts.
There are things that can help. Ideas, strategies, entire ways of life. The Stoics offer one path. Epictetus, guys like that.
“Focus only on what you control.”
That’s excellent advice. Except that no one seems to have a handle on the obvious question that such a bold declaration brings up.
WHAT DO YOU CONTROL?
As best I can tell, the answer is somewhere in between nothing and everything.
If you control nothing, the pressure is off. You’re driving in a car with no steering wheel. All you have to do is look outside and figure out how to enjoy the ride.
If you control everything, the weight is off your shoulders there too. If it’s in your control, you can change it. That’s some pretty good news!
If you’re not sure which it is, though, that’s when the problems can begin.
Is that thing under your control? Is that other thing not under your control? How can you be sure?
So many times on this journey through business, I’ve learned that when you’re having a hard time answering a tough question, it might be because it’s not a question you need to answer at all.
What if it doesn’t matter whether or not you control things? Surely the answer will depend on who you ask.
Your monkey mind needs a certain answer so it can go back to its work of controlling your reality. Your Soul already KNOWS the answer even if you don’t have conscious access to that answer.
When you can’t answer the big questions, maybe the smartest thing to do is to ask even bigger ones.
Let’s take this one:
How do you want to serve the world?
What about that question? The moment you focus your heart and mind on that question, a few cool things happen:
- Fear disappears.
- Your ego takes a nap.
- The state of your physical form changes to a vibration more based on some flavor of love.
It doesn’t matter if you’re making $1 or $10 million, the process is the same. You answer the same magic question that instantly rearranges almost every part of your being:
HOW DO YOU WANT TO SERVE THE WORLD?
You don’t find many business gurus talking about that. Because human consciousness is only starting to get to the point where anyone but the “freaks” think like that.
Right now, most people still laugh at this line of questioning because their being doesn’t yet have the capacity to hold that level of power without feeling uncomfortable.
That will change. Based on what’s going on “out there,” it seems like it won’t be long.
But that’s no reason to wait.
Business is service. Service is satisfaction. Satisfaction is success.
You don’t achieve success, you choose it from the beginning.