The Glass is Not Half Full or Half Empty; it’s Just the Wrong Size!

The Basics:
If you see the glass as half full, get a smaller glass and enjoy it

Your goal should be to fill the glass of life everyday. Fill it the way a five-year old fills a glass of milk. Everyday of your life should be so full that it is about to spill over onto everything else.

Did today go as well as it could have? The answer to this question must always be, YES. If not, your perception needs to be changed so your reality can follow.

If your day could have gone better, it would have gone better. Don’t fool yourself. Your day goes exactly as the combination of you and the days events force it to go. You can look at bad event in its worst light or put some unrealistic spin to make it seem like it was good, or you can simply accept it for what it was and learn from it.

Take the time to plan for tomorrow to be better. Are you feeling sick? Then make the glass a bit smaller. Are you feeling incredibly confident? Then make the glass a bit bigger. Your goal should be to fill the glass everyday. Fill it to the top with just a bit spilling over. Fill it the way a five-year old fills a glass of milk. You know what I mean. It should be filled so high that just picking up the glass will spill something. Then lean over and drink a little bit out of it before you pick it up to start tomorrow.

If you do this every single day, you find yourself expecting a full glass at the end of everyday. If you expect a full glass you will usually ensure that you have a full glass. This is because, of course, you are responsible for everything that happens in your life. If you want the glass to be full, then stop looking at it and fill it up!

I find it odd that the happiest people in the world are never the richest or those with the most stuff. They are seldom the people who live in the "best" places". Truly happy people are told to "get real". Sometimes they are mocked because of their attitude. Fill your glass, live your life, be happy.

Always Play Offense

• Play to control the game
• Learn the rules
• Devise a strategy
• Get a coach
• Train and Practice
• Play Hard to Win

This is another one of my personal favorites. It is so easy to do, but so many people never play the game this way. Think about any team sport played with a ball. There is one team who “owns the ball” and the other team is trying to stop them. The owner is the Offense. The Pursuer is the Defense. Ask yourself: What if a team always treated the ball as if it were theirs?

Ask any of the great defensive teams of all time and they will tell you the same thing. Their goal was not just to slow down, pursue or get in the way of the success of the other team, their goal was to CONTROL the game. They felt like they owned the ball even when it was in the other team’s hands. It is often said that “defense wins championships.” Face it, OFFENSE WINS CHAMPIONSHIPS, especially when it’s played 100% of the game. If you are always playing offense, then the rest of the world must always be playing defense. This is true whether you are playing a sport, working in an office or just living your life. The best a defense can do is guarantee a tie. Even worse Defense’s greatest goal is to make sure that NO ONE wins! Life is a game that is all about winning. Whether it be small skirmishes with yourself or big battles against a foe, Offense is the only way to win.

STOP. THINK.

How many times has playing the “waiting game” worked well for you? How many times have you gotten what you wanted by not telling anyone you wanted it? Don’t let things fester and grow worse, play offense.
In the end, you control your life or it will continue to control you. You need to constantly be asking yourself why did that happen to me, or why did I get what I wanted? Be honest about the answer. The answers to these questions will give you the patterns to you DEFENSIVE TENDENCIES (WRITE IT DOWN). Once you know these you can crate offensive strategies to attack yourself and win the next time the same event occurs again, because it will

Get off your butt and take some chances in life. Actually, not “in life”, but “in your life”. It’s your life and you can either own it, PLAY OFFENSE and reap the rewards, or you can play defense and see someone else win.

Life really is a game. Always play offense and you will always have a chance to win.

What is this site all about?

BE HAPPY. HAVE SUCCESS. BE CONTENT. ON YOUR OWN TERMS!

This blog describes some simple, and not so simple, concepts that will help you be happy, successful and content. Working through these concepts may take days or years. You will need an open mind and soul as well as persistence.

Some things will seem familiar, others may cause you to doubt my abilities and/or sanity. You don’t need to trust me, simply apply the concepts. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people have used these concepts in the past and have defined their own happiness, success and contentment.

GOOD ENOUGH, ISN’T

How many times, while doing something you really love, have you said “that's good enough”? My guess is, probably not too many. When you have a passion for something you tend to do it as well as you can. You feel an obligation to yourself to get it right.

Here’s an interesting idea. What if you applied the same thought process to everything you did? It is very simple. Good enough, isn’t.

Nothing is ever good enough. Being good enough does not imply that there is no room for growth. Instead, it says that there is no need or desire for growth. It is basically a polite way of saying, “I give up.” Don’t be pathetic. Only pathetic people give up. Don’t plan to lose. Only losers believe that being the same tomorrow is a good plan for happiness. Get off your butt and figure out what “good” truly means and then keep striving until you reach it.

Does this mean than nothing will ever be finished? No. Does it mean that you can never be satisfied or feel a sense of accomplishment? Of course not. What it means is that you should never quit. If you design a building to be four stories high, and the guy in the next lot decides he’ll build one nine stories high, it does not mean that you have failed. If you decided at the beginning that four floors will suit your needs, then your building is fine. If you decided that nine floors would have been best, but for whatever reason, you could only build four, then shame on you. If the guy in the next lot can do it, then you could have too. Unfortunately, life only gives us one chance at a lot of things. If we do not do something our best the first time, we may never get another chance.

I dropped out of college halfway through my junior year. I had been a music major, but due to injury could no longer play. I had spent the final three semesters of school majoring in business, but was uninspired and did not have a mentor or guide to help push me toward a new goal. I figured I was smart and good at sales so a took a job that was good enough. I made three times more than my friends who stayed in college. I drove a better car. I had nicer clothes.

Six years later I was in a new entry level position, starting out all over again. I took a huge pay cut and learned a new industry. I quickly moved up through the ranks and became known as one of the best in my industry. While all of this was happening, my college classmates became leaders in the dotcom craze and made millions.

Simultaneously, people who started college ten years after me, were moving up through management on the basis of their degrees, talents AND skill sets. Without a degree, I was soon working for people much younger than me and clawing to find a path for advancement. My “good enough” decision in 1991 had lead to its inevitable conclusion fifteen years later.

This posting should have been written in 1995, but I was selling clothes. It should have been written in 2000, but I was trying to find my way back to a place where my soul was allowed to speak out loud. I have finally gotten around to it. It is never too late to better than good enough.

Trust me. Define good, or even great, and then do not stop until you have reached it. Good enough isn’t. Not ever.

Running from the Avalanche

It is human nature to work hard when absolutely required and rest when possible. Unfortunately, this often makes it difficult to succeed.

Imagine the frenzy of everyday life or the swirl or projects at work as an avalanche coming down a steep hill. You need to run your fastest just stay ahead of it. If you turn your head and look back at what you have done, you are likely to stumble and be swallowed up. If you slow down you will be crushed. So you run and you run.

Finally the slope is not so steep. The avalanche slows down a bit, and so do you. The rush at work has been attacked and beaten and everyone takes a deep breath and a day off. Sound familiar? The tear in your relationship has been patched for the moment so you focus on something else. On these occasions it always seems to catch us by surprise when suddenly the slope gets steep again and the avalanche in just as close as it always was.

Why are we surprised? We didn’t do anything ourselves to slow the avalanche down. We didn’t do anything to create more space between us and the avalanche. What we should have done was build a barrier or not slowed down. We need to be smarter than the avalanche. We needed to understand that it would keep on coming, unless we had a plan to stop it or avoid it.

Defy human nature. When the slope is flat do not slow down. Create more space between yourself and the avalanche. This will give you time to think. Of course it can be exhausting in the short term, but it will give you freedom in the long term. Once you have enough space you will be able to build barriers or change course significantly enough to get out of the avalanches path.

This concept applies to work, love, school and life in general. Imagine if you had just done your high school homework as quickly as possible after school each day. What kind of free time would it have left you in the end? What could you have done with that extra knowledge when taking courses in college? How about the busiest time at your job? Imagine if you tool the month after the busiest time to fix all of that years problems and implement solutions that would be useful the following year. The reward is not so immediate, but it is bigger and better. If you did this every year, soon the avalanche would be just a memory and your life would be yours again.

This is not an easy task, but if you feel harried or stressed, or if you feel like you are never getting ahead it may be because you let the avalanche determine your speed rather than you determining the avalanches speed. Get back in control. Don’t slow down until you can control the avalanche. If it looks like the avalanche cannot be controlled then create enough space to get the hell out of its way! If you are involved in a job or in anything in life that will require to run at top speed forever you may want to reconsider your choice. Perhaps another path will give you more room to breathe and enjoy your life.

In the end you need to control your life. Sometimes that means expending effort to save effort. Don’t spend you life running from the avalanche. Run fast and hard early so you can rest and relax later.

Irreplaceable is Unpromotable

A very smart person once taught me:

“Irreplaceable is unpromotable”. Basically, if you are the only one who can do what you do, you are the only who will EVER do what you do. Are you so fantastic at your job that it would take three people to replace you? If so, train two people to know everything you know and document everything that you do. That way when you look for a promotion, people will be comfortable with you moving on. You will also get extra credit for giving the power of knowledge back to the entire business rather than storing in your own head. Remember, information is only as valuable as people who want it think it is.

Many hard working professionals wonder why people with less knowledge or talent get what they want. It is very simple. Those people use the knowledge they have as a springboard to other success rather than as a foundation for current success. Once they have the knowledge they need to move on, they move on. They don’t stick around filling in holes created by others. They don’t feel esponsible to fix everything they can fix before taking on a better role. They realize that they are more useful to the company in a higher position,
with decision making functions and the ability to shape the business into a better total package.

Instead of trying to provide all of the answers from the bottom, they explain where answers are needed, from the top. Then they make sure their staff answers the questions and implement solutions. In the end they accomplish much more with what may be much less. And they do all of this while the "subject matter expert" toils away and gives them ideas for problems and solutions that should be considered for future success. Any knowledge that you can make part of the public consciousness gives you power to move on to better things. Any knowledge you keep as currency ends up limiting you to the bank you can create on your own. Irreplaceable is unpromotable, and that’s a big reason why many people with the best grasp of everything are left grasping for a promotion.

DON’T ASK HOW HIGH, ALWAYS GO THE LIMIT

I sometimes wonder if this is the most important thing I have ever learned. When I was a fifteen I met a man who changed my life. He was a former sergeant in the Viet Nam war and was a tough guy who demanded excellence. In one of my first practices with him he came up to me, got his face right into my own and growled in a low voice “When I say jump, what do you say?” Here is where I should mention that I was raised by parents who taught me to respect and listen to my teachers, while striving to be the best. I meekly, but confidently answered “How high”. I was shocked when he yelled out “You don’t ask me how high, you jump as high as you can and I’ll tell you if it was F—ing high enough.”
Needless to say, I didn’t understand the lesson the first time. I just thought the guy was a lunatic who in some way hated me. I spent more than three years working with this man and learned that, although he was at times a bit of a lunatic; he certainly did not hate me. He became one of my mentors and taught me that if a person always does something to the best of their ability, they will usually succeed and will never have to apologize for failing.
There is no reason to feel bad about failing if you did everything within your talent and ability to achieve the goal. This is true whether you are an Olympic athlete who comes home without a medal or if you are asked to do something at work and you cannot complete the task successfully. The key here is always doing everything as well as you can. If someone asks you to do something and you feel it is outside your capabilities, you may want to explain the possibility of failure right up front while at the same time making it clear that you will put everything you have into it. If you work your hardest at something and someone ends up better than you, congratulate them on their achievement.
Too many times we determine what the expectations are and set our goal to the same level. This often true even when exceeding expectations would take very little, if any, additional effort. Sometimes we forget that our glass needs to be more than half full, and that our own success depends on us moving forward. Instead of providing the best we can, we provide what is expected. Many of us don’t realize where the hollow feeling in what should be a goal achieved comes from. Usually is comes from us being dissatisfied with what we deliver because we know it can, and should, be better.
Do not undersell your life. Whether it is love, work or play, always go the limit. If you don’t know what people expect, you will never measure yourself to false limits. No one expected Bill Gates to one of the wealthiest, most successful businessmen in the world. No one expected Martin Luther King Jr. to change the world. No one expected Dr. Jonas Salk to discover a vaccine for Polio. No one expected Oprah Winfrey to become a force for changing the way the Americans read books. Because these people simply jumped as high as they could, they achieved results that even they could not have expected. They did not estimate their abilities based on the limits of others. You should decide what you want to do and do it as well as you can. If you need to, improve your skills so you can do your task even better.
Many people do things to the best of their abilities and are upset because the end result is not up to their own standard. Amazingly these same people often do very little to improve their skill sets. You must want something bad enough and be willing to do whatever it takes, if you truly want to reach your greatest heights. If you want to get a promotion you must do your job incredibly well. You must also be willing to learn new things and acquire to skills that, along with your experience and effort, will make you worthy of a promotion. If you want to run your own business, take classes in business management, accounting and other related topics. If you want to coach your kid’s baseball team, take the time to read up on how to work with kids and learn the best ways to teach the fundamentals. Approach improving your skill set with the same intensity as the rest of the project. Your skills combined with your effort will usually lead to success.

Take Responsibility for Everything That Happens to You

You can’t blame anyone else for your failures or success
Not your parents...
Not your Teachers, the government, physical limitations, race, sexual orientation, Uncle Louie, or ANYTHING ELSE
ONLY YOU!

I know this concept is hard to buy into. It’s easy to give examples of how the forces of the world and the people in it have molded you into who you are. No problem. But, why are you “that way” if you do not want to be? It is your life. You control it today, so you must take back the control for every day prior to today.

Only by accepting responsibility for everyday of your entire life can you truly take responsibility for the future of your life. Responsibility starts with removing the blame from everything that you feel has shaped you. What are the “facts”? Make a list of all the reasons you are the way you are. It may be that your parents did not express love or perhaps they abused you; you were not able to enjoy a life a wealth; you are not as innately intelligent as the smartest people you know (who is). Maybe it’s that your skin color puts you at a disadvantage, maybe you are short or ugly. Maybe you are too pretty to be taken seriously. OH WELL! Get over it and take responsibility for the effect those things have on you. Of course, you did not choose your parents or your skin color, but you can build your own life.

Of course, bad things have happened to you. They may have never happened in the same way to anyone else. Obviously you cannot say that you caused those things to happen, but you CAN effect how they cause you to feel and act. This is your life, damn it! And only you can reshape it. People with backgrounds and make-ups similar to yours are doing great all over the world. So it is not those “facts” that make you who you are, it is your ability to own them and take responsibility for how they affect every day from today on.

This blog will give you the building blocks that you can use to build the foundation of a great life. From this point forward and from this point backward, you are in now in control of everything.

I know a beautiful woman who has a successful career and great friends and family who love her deeply. She makes friends easily and everyone is immediately comfortable around her. She has, in her fifteen years in the workforce, held jobs in such diverse places as Minneapolis, Los Angeles, New York City and San Francisco. Had you met her at age 6 or 16 you would not have guessed that this was her path. Born and raised in Nebraska cattle ranch country she was allergic to nearly everything. She had a family who worked hard and was successful by the measure of their surroundings, but she did not come from wealth or warmth in her childhood. She spent her elementary school years, as did most of her peers, moving between several small schools, including at one point a one-room schoolhouse. She did graduate second in her high-school class, but considering that her graduating class was only eight students, the accomplishment was not perceived as it may have been had she been elsewhere.

When she graduated from high school she decided to start taking responsibility for her future. She chose the largest school she was familiar with and majored in a topic complete outside of her life experiences. At Nebraska University she lived off campus in an apartment. She was living in the largest city of her life, majoring in Business and enjoying life in many new ways Like most college students she worked many part-time jobs. On a whim she took a job with a stockbroker at a local branch, working in junior roles. Upon graduation, she applied, and was accepted, for a position in Minneapolis, one of the largest cities in US. Minneapolis is a major urban hub with millions of residents, skyscrapers and very little in common with rural Nebraska.

The vibe of the city was exciting and different and she knew that she was finally following a path that fit her personality and ambition. Her goal was to have what she wanted and to be happy in her life. The people and energy of the city helped her feel alive and she thrived in her new life. Many people would have been content to simply build and grow a life based on such feelings, but she knew that there was more waiting for her. After a few years she packed up everything that would fit into her car and drove across country to Southern California. She got a job almost immediately at a small start-up firm that worked in an esoteric arm of the financial world, variable annuities. Southern California was nothing like Minneapolis, much less Nebraska, but yet again she thrived. She kept her friends from her past and built new, strong friendships that helped make her new life even more vibrant.

After a few years her little, successful, company was acquired by a much larger company headquartered in France and with major offices in Manhattan. When offered a chance to relocate to New York she jumped, even though she had never been there before. When she got to the “center of the universe” she insisted on living in Manhattan, rather than one of the other four boroughs. Manhattan has an energy unique to itself and she wanted to soak it up, even though it was incredibly expensive and she was not paid a huge amount of money.
By most people’s measurement she was now a success. Amazingly she was not so sure of that. Although her professional career had been fantastic up to this point, she could make the same claim about her personal life and love life. She knew it was time to take responsibility for all of her life and decided to see a counselor.
She finally understood her own feelings and took responsibility for controlling them, rather than them controlling her. This didn’t happen with an epiphany followed by a ten-minute monologue like it does in the movies. It took months and years of work and the work continued long after she understood her feelings and knew what she had to do about them. The actions were difficult and at times traumatic, but the results were life changing.

After years of working on taking responsibility for every aspect of her life except love, she finally made the plunge there as well. At an airport in Florida she caught eyes with a stranger. When they landed in New York, she did something completely out of character. She walked up to him and asked three questions. If any of them were answered incorrectly she would know this wasn’t a guy she needed to waste time on. She needed to know if he was the right age. Too young and he would not be able to understand her life path, too old and, well TOO OLD. Where did he live? She loved New York and had decided that she wanted to spend much more of her life there. Lastly, was he already committed to someone? No use in expending energy if it was a one-way street.

To her amazement he answered the questions correctly and they went out days later. He, like most people, fell in love with her quickly and waited while she learned how to do it too. Eight months later he whisked her to the top of the Empire State Building, a place she had never been, and asked her to marry him. She said yes and within months moved in with him. She did this even though a week after they met he moved to Northern California, far away from New York, the city she loved so much. She says she is happier than she has ever been. She does not blame anyone for the bumps in her road and can take 100% credit for every good thing that has ever happened to her.

You probably saw parts of yourself in this story, especially the earlier parts and career success. The truth is that none of that would have made a bit of difference if she had not taken responsibility for the things that were brought upon her personally by others. No one will ever fix your life for you. No one can ever truly take responsibility for how you feel, except you. What happened is in the past. Of course it will affect you for the rest of your life. The question is simple: Will your past help you build your future or will it hinder you from reaching your potential. It is all up to you, your past is not your future.

I GET to do this (I don't HAVE to do this)

When I was still in high school I became fascinated with Billy Cobham. Billy is a jazz drum set player with some of the fastest hands in the world. He is a composer and performer and is famous around the world. almost 25 years after I first heard him play (on a vinyl album!) I finally was able to see him perform live just a few nights ago.

The show started at 8:00PM sharp and Billy and his quartet of a band played for the next 80 minutes without stopping to take a breath. As I watched him sweating and working I had this perfectly reasonable thought.
"At 10:00PM he HAS to do this all over again for the late show.
As the performance progressed and I saw and felt the joy that Bill and his band had in their work, I changed my thought. I realized that he didn't HAVE to do it again, he GOT to do it again.

Imagine a job, where every time you do it, you are in moment; and every moment you are not doing it you look forward to the next time! I realized that this was the perfect example for starting this blog.
Success in life is having the life you want. Nothing more and nothing less.

If your life doesn't reflect your passion yet, that's OK. Today is the perfect day to start figuring out what your passion is. We can all be lucky enough to GET to live our lives, rather than being forced to HAVE to live our lives.

It starts with the simple question. What do you want to GET to do?

Welcome to my blog - I Couldn't Be Better

After many years of contemplating the world of blogs, I have decided to get to work.

My name is Dan Walter. I was born in 1965 and love my life. I have worked in many fields including retail sales, massage therapy, project management and stock administration and compensation and management consulting. By far, my most rewarding position was teaching kids in a secular, non-profit organization. This lead me to realize the joy I have in helping others accomplish their goals.

I have since used this understanding to work with many people over the past couple of decades. My motivating factor is potential. My own and that of the people I work with. Much of this site is focused on developing the skills of individuals in the pre- through post-college stages of their lives. Even if college was many years ago, you may still find some useful information here.

I have been lucky enough to have had amazing mentors over the years. Many of them had no idea they were serving that role and, in fact, in many cases I didn't realize it until years later. I hope to use this blog to begin passing on the lessons I have learned on how to succeed, in life and work, in a world that often seems like it is working against you.

Come back frequently or bookmark this site to be alerted when updates take place. Share your ideas and thoughts to help make this a living site.

All the best,

Dan Walter