Do It Now! DIN DIN DIN

Do It Now - easier said than done sometimes. When I was a child, my grandfather (and sometimes my mother) always told me DIN DIN DIN about doing homework or chores. I thought it was complete nonsense because I wanted to be reading, playing or watching TV instead of doing what I was SUPPOSED to be doing.

As I look at my 500 emails a day, my job responsibilities, real estate and online businesses, relationships and chores these days, I am forced to admit that DIN DIN DIN is a really effective way to complete action items more effectively. I simply don't have time to look at the same thing or deal with the same piece of paper more than once if I don't have to. Do It Now, Delegate, File, Give Away, Throw Out are useful distinctions to make when figuring out next actions. The other observation is that leaving projects incomplete (and by that I mean with no forward progress after touching them) sucks my energy. That said, I am prone to getting overwhelmed at times, so I have to break projects down into possible parts to get done in a limited framework of time or I get discouraged. I notice that I, like many people, notice what I don't get done in the timeframe I consider appropriate more often than I celebrate my many successes. Do It Now is all about increasing energy flow because incomplete projects, relationships, whatever block energy and finishing stuff accelerates it and adds excitement and joy to life. I am never happier than when I am moving forward, learning and growing and DIN DIN DIN supports that.

Grandpa (and Mom - gosh, did I say that), you are RIGHT! Do It Now simply works.

When a Conversation You Haven't Had Yet Goes Wrong, What Then?

Has anyone else ever imagined a conversation going badly before it happens, whether it's about a romance, a business negotiation or a job? I notice that fiction sometimes gets bigger until I am ignoring entirely the fact that the conversation hasn't happened yet, the negative outcome isn't real unless I make it so. The tone of my interaction when it happens can change the outcome.

Seth Godin talks about the lizard brain which is primal and rules fight or flight, fear and anger. He has strategies in his new book, Linchpin, for negotiating around that lizard brain and choosing to be an indispensible linchpin that are really powerful. I have observed that my internal reality has the capacity to shape my external reality. In Washington, I saw boats raised along a graduated level canal by locks. When the water rose high enough under the boat in that section, it could move up to the next one. I think people work that way too, at least I do. The difference is that I can raise the water or not. Sometimes circumstances are terrible and all I can do is shift my attitude or reaction to what is happening upward and keep dreaming and knowing and wanting more, sometimes beating back fear that I'm wrong. It works.