The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

This poem has been on my mind lately.

When I studied it years ago in secondary school, it did not strike a resonance as it does now, after living life as an adult for almost a decade.

"Sorry I could not travel both, and be one traveler"

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

Managing Change: Transforming a Hard Day into a Great One by Robin Sharma

By Robin Sharma
Author of The #1 Bestseller "The Leader Who Had No Title"

Last week, some smart soul on Twitter asked me to share my thoughts and strategies on turning a so-called "bad day" into a positive one. So he could show leadership versus victimhood. And focus on opportunities versus stay stuck on problems.

Excellent request. Ready to reply. Thank you for asking.

The first idea I'll suggest is that there's really no such thing as a "bad day".
(I still adore Nietzche's genius line: "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger.")

Everything that we experience serves our growth + expansion + progress + excellence. Hard times deliver a relentless stream of rich gifts that--properly leveraged--makes us smarter/faster/tougher. And infuse even more success and excellence into your life.

These gifts include:

-- insight and understanding
-- mental and emotional strength
-- greater levels of creativity and ingenuity
-- all-new levels of wisdom + knowledge
-- the confidence delivered via experience
-- higher levels of leadership mastery
-- humility and larger humanity

But, of course, The Blessings Within Adversity are easy to forget. We all have days that frustrate and discourage and irritate us. We all encounter moments that knock us off our game--and diminish our confidence and self-faith. That's just part of the leadership and life ride you and I are privileged to be on. Part of being a human being. And aiming for rare-air.

When faced with a challenging day, many people play the victim. They crumble into retreat, blame conditions and other people and believe they are powerless. But giving away your power is excusing yourself. And no victim ever changed the world.

You're different: a game-changer + exceptional producer + a true leader. So to keep you focused on getting giant things done and staying at your finest on even the most difficult of days, please remember these 6 practical ideas:

#1. All progress is messy. The very nature of any type of growth (business or health or personal or inner, for example) means you'll experience disruption, confusion and what appears to be difficulty. Just keep in mind that problems are progress in wolf's clothing. And that rather than going backward, your challenges are actually showing you you're moving ahead. Brilliantly.

#2. Think Like An Entrepreneur. No matter what you do for a living, embracing the mindset of an entrepreneur will serve you well. Entrepreneurs get that the only way to win is to hunt for the opportunity amid adversity. They get that what makes the best the best is not how you perform when all's going well but how masterfully you show up when everything's falling apart.

#3. Keep Perspective. Here's a good question to ask yourself on a bad day: "Has anyone died here?" Or simply remember that if you're healthy + have work that matters + people who love you + a roof over your head, you're a seriously fortunate person. I guess what I'm suggesting is that gratitude is the antidote to frustration. And that maintaining perspective in times of crisis is a beautiful leadership move.

#4. Manage Your Mindset. Related to keeping perspective is protecting your mindset (mindset's even more valuable than IQ to do world-class work and create a life you love). On a challenging day, it's so easy to start wallowing in self-pity, focusing on what isn't working and getting messed up with negative thinking. So--instead--I encourage you to maintain "a pristine bubble of total focus on your most valuable opportunities." Stop watching the news. Block out the noise of the naysayers (critics are just dreamers gone scared). Clear out any toxicity and get busy achieving giant results.

#5. Fuel You. Your productivity, performance and success are a direct reflection of what's going on in your inner life. The doorway to success opens inward--not outward as the dominant messaging of society suggests to you. So--on a turbulent day--take great care of your "inner assets". Go for a run. Eat like a nutritionist. Write in your journal. Connect with nature. Read the autobiographies of your heroes. Get some rest. Breathe.

#6. Stay Centered on Your Personal Everest. Here's a quote from Leonardo Da Vinci that's served me well over my 16 years as a leadership advisor to The FORTUNE 500 and top entrepreneurs: "Fix your course on a star and you'll navigate any storm." The key to staying strong and passionate is having a ridiculously clear mission and purpose (a vague vision delivers vague results). Know your mountaintop. Be monomaniacally focused on breathtakingly exciting goals. Then, when a hard day hits, you'll take the knock. But keep on going. With greater conviction than ever before.

I celebrate your success. And honour your talents. Keep Leading Without a Title. And go make awesome things happen! Please.

Probabilist

I am neither an optimist or a pessimist.

I am a probabilist, someone who believes that anything, whether inherently good or bad, is probable, or in modern slangology, a "never say never" kind of person.

We are not swans. We are sharks.

How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you're carrying a backpack. I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life... you start with the little things. The shelves, the drawers, the knickknacks, then you start adding larger stuff. Clothes, tabletop appliances, lamps, your TV... the backpack should be getting pretty heavy now. You go bigger. Your couch, your car, your home... I want you to stuff it all into that backpack. Now I want you to fill it with people. Start with casual acquaintances, friends of friends, folks around the office... and then you move into the people you trust with your most intimate secrets. Your brothers, your sisters, your children, your parents and finally your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. You get them into that backpack, feel the weight of that bag. Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks.

"Ryan Bingham, Up in The Air (2009)"

Random Quotes - Courage

The absence of fear isn't courage.

Courage is looking fear in its eyes, grabbing it by its collars and pulling it down with you while you leap of a plane at 15,000 feet with only a prayer that your parachutes will work.

Random Quotes - Big Words

Sometimes, when I write, I use words which I am certain is not used in the correct context, but it sounds correct because of the number of letters in that word.

I get away with it because smart people never read what I write, and not so smart people just skip that word, thinking that they are the ones who don't understand the meaning of said word.

A Traffic Light Love Story

The man saw her at the intersection of a busy street.

Standing opposite him, across the street, she was doing exactly what he was doing.

Waiting for the light to turn green.

She was beautiful. He had heard of woman being described as breathtaking, but never has he experienced it before this. He gasped, inaudibly, then took a deep breath.

Ten seconds passed. The little red man turned green.

He hesitated. He knew that if he crosses now, he would only be with the woman he now loves for that brief second when they brush past each other at the middle of the road, each heading in the opposite direction.

He knew that he will never again see her after that moment.

He has fallen in love at the traffic lights before.

He decided that he would wait for her to cross to his side of the road.

He pretended to drop his books on the ground, wanting to appear less than obvious as to why he wasn't yet crossing the street.

When he looked up, he saw that the lights had turned red again, and to his surprise, he saw her still standing at the exact same spot when he saw her. Only this time, she was looking at him too, from across the street.

When the pedestrian traffic lights turned green again, he walked over, and noticed that she was just standing there, as if waiting for him.

He approached her, and asked, "Why didn't you cross the street?"

She smiled and replied, "I was waiting for you to cross over to me."








He stormed off, walking away from the girl, only turning back to scream at her, "You lazy!#$%#W%%$#%! Not even willing to walk a little extra to meet me halfway!"