"I won't let you down..."

I heard a very profound conversation while watching Fielder's Choice last month. When a promising Ad executive said to his boss: "I won't let you down."
His boss responded: "Don't let yourself down."

Hearing that really resonated with me because too many times we go around doing our best not to let others down. Interestingly, the same day I watched this film, I saw this quote:

"One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals. And so when I hear about negative and false attacks, I really don't invest any energy in them, because I know who I am." ~ Michelle Obama

I'm not saying you should not work hard and make others - parents, spouse, children, family and friends etc. - proud of your accomplishments. The point of working hard should be to make you happy and content with yourself. No matter how happy and proud those around you are about your accomplishments, if you are not happy, you have wasted your time (& life) living up to another person's dreams. Live your life!

The longest serving First Lady of the US, Eleanor Roosevelt, said:

Your ambition should be to get as much life out of living as you possibly can, as much enjoyment, as much interest, as much experience, as much understanding. Not simply be what is generally called a "success." 

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

 

Being emotional beings, we listen and care about what others think and say however, we need to have courage to dream, believe in our dreams and act to fulfill our dreams. The next time you want to say:

"I won't let you down" to someone

switch and say "I won't let ME down" to yourself.

Slow down to speed up...

So many of us are almost always in a hurry...either rushing to somewhere or rushing from somewhere or even both rushing from and to somewhere. There is always something that needs to be done "immediately." A principle that I try to live, by which a dear colleague has reinforced, several times this year is:

To be successful in anything,

you need 80% planning + 20% execution.