The video below is Steve Jobs’ Commencement Address at Stanford University in 2005.  He says that every day he asks himself, “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?”  Whenever the answer is no for too many days in a row he says he knows he needs to change something.  WOW!  Talk about thinking differently!  The whole speech is amazing but I specifically love that quote regarding his daily mindset.  I recently came across the article below in Success Magazine and I thought about how we are often reminded of our own mortality after such a public death and funeral as what we recently saw with Michael Jackson’s.  Here are parts of that article by John C. Maxwell from the June edition of Success Magazine

People Will Summarize Your Life in One Sentence-Pick It Now
‘What do you want your legacy to be?  What would you do if you knew you only had a short amount of time left to make an impact?  Eventually our lives will be summarized in a single sentence.  What do you want yours to be?
Clare Boothe Luce cleverly called this your “life sentence.”  It’s the one sentence that you would like people to say about you when your life is over.  If you are intentional about creating your legacy, people at your funeral won’t have to wonder what your life sentence was.
What Do You Want to Be Known For?
I encourage you to begin the process of writing your life sentence.  Yes, this will take some time and thought on your part, and it will cause you to ask yourself what do I really want my life to be known for?  What do I want my legacy to be?
Sociologist Anthony Campolo tells about a study in which 50 people over the age of 95 were asked one question:  “If you could live your life over again, what would you do differently?”  Three things consistently emerged:
• Reflect more
• Risk more
• Do more things that would live on after I am dead
If you want to create an intentional legacy, you need to rethink your priorities.
Live Life Fully
Too many people make their life an intermission.  Instead, you need to make it a mission.  John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach, has been a close friend and mentor to me for some time, and he shared with me a lesson about living life to the fullest that has stuck with me for years.
Coach Wooden knew his players, and he could tell when they weren’t giving 100 percent at practice.  Instead of calling them out where everyone could hear, he would go over and put his arms around them and say, “I know you’re probably tired or you were up late studying for exams, and I know what you’re thinking.  You think tomorrow you’ll come back and you’ll give a little extra, and you’ll try to make up for what you didn’t do today.  I just want you to understand you can never give more than 100 percent.  So if you give me 60 percent today, you can’t give me 140 percent tomorrow.  If you give 60 percent today, you leave 40 percent on the table.  And you’ll never get it back.”’

All the best!

 
Tim Schmidt

Some of you know that I’m a recovering Engineer…haha, emphasis on ‘recovering!’  Well what can I say, I like formulas!  I totally dig equations!!  Weird I know but its okay, luckily my awesome wife is a recovering engineer too.

Anyway, I ran across this formula in the book ‘The Speed of Trust’ by Stephen M.R. Covey and it ROCKS!  It really makes sense not only in business but in life generally.

LOW Trust = LOW Speed and HIGH Cost

HIGH Trust = HIGH Speed and LOW Cost

Now I love the example he gave in the book.  He talked about how before 9/11 you could get to the airport 30 minutes before your flight and just wiz on through the lines.  So, trust was high, speed was high and the Airlines costs were low.  Ahhh, remember the good ole days?  What is it NOW!!!  Get there almost 2 HOURS before your flight so that they can check every inch of you, your baggage and perform a full background check.  (Ok, just kidding about the background check)  Perfect example right!  Currently, there is low trust, the whole process is slow as molasses and the costs are extremely high!  We don’t even get peanuts or cookies as a snack anymore! 

How can we compare that to your life?  Not just business but life in general.  Because as you can see from the formula’s listed above the more you trust, the easier life is.  So now the big question, how can we build more trust in your life?  Some people think that ‘either you trust someone or you don’t’ and I’m not going to address each and every circumstance but I will say this.  If you find yourself NOT being very trustful of a lot of people, well there is one common denominator in that equation my friend, and that’s YOU.

So how does trust work?  According to Stephen Covey, ‘it is a function of two things:  character and competence.  Character includes your integrity, your motive, and your intent with people.  Competence includes your capabilities, your skills, your results, your track record.  And both are vital.’  We trust people who are honest, and whose skills have proven they can get the job done.  Both of those things are learned behaviors that we ALL have to work on. 

He's got a different trust equation, but any way you factor it, TRUST is important!

“Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him” – Booker T. Washington 

All the best!

 
Tim Schmidt

How many of you have ever heard someone say this, “If only I would win the lottery, THEN I would be happy?”  Or maybe something like, “If only that rich relative of mine would just pass….I know they are going to leave me something.  Once I get that, all my problems will be gone.”  Really?  Where do we get these ideas?  Is that what the media is teaching us these days?  Whew, better keep a close eye on what you and your kids are watching. 

If happiness equals a big bank account then why do 80% of the people who win the lottery end up in worse financial shape five years after their ‘big break?’  Not enough happiness for them?  What about our country’s current financial situation?  Watching the news they reported how many big time CEO’s committed suicide in the last quarter due to the falling economy.  I don’t remember the exact number but it was enough that they referred to these people as ‘econo-cides.’  Chasing the almighty dollar obviously didn’t bring them happiness. 

You know the founding fathers of this country wanted to give everyone the right to pursue happiness.  But they didn’t GUARANTEE happiness to the citizens like some people in the government want to do these days (better not even touch that soapbox).

I challenge you to make sure these words and phrases are NOT in your vocabulary.  If they are, focus on taking them OUT!  ‘That’s not fair! It’s not my fault! It’s not my responsibility (or that’s not in my job description)! I’m just not a lucky person!  I can’t believe they did that to me!  I can’t believe they said that to me!  They shouldn’t treat you that way!  They can’t treat ME that way!’

Those things appear when someone gets infected with what I like to call SFN disease.  Yup, ‘something for nothing’ disease is sweeping across the nation.  I guarantee when you succumb to a ‘victim mentality’ and start pushing away responsibly all you do is hurt yourself and the people around you.  Happiness and contentment will fall further and further away.  Happiness comes in the pursuit of your dreams and goals.  It’s the Dream-Struggle-THEN Victory that makes you happy!  Nothing worth pursuing in life is FREE or EASY.  It’s the things I fought for that matter to me the most today.

*Words can’t describe this man’s story.  You gotta watch the video!

Take care,

Tim Schmidt