Forty-Five at Forty-Five

Today I turn 45 years old. Here is what I know after 45 trips around the sun.

1. Life is made up of love. Period. Full Stop. In the end, there won’t be anything more valuable to you than your closest relationships. The sooner you start behaving that way, the better your life.
2. The story of your life is the story of your relationships.
3. There is no more powerful tool when it comes to influencing other people than truly caring about them. It is unmatched in its power. It cannot be faked.
4. The fastest way to show another person that you care is to listen to them, to give them your full focus and attention.
5. All relationships, whether in business or in life, are built on a foundation of trust. Honor trust, and you honor the relationship. Violate trust and you dishonor the relationship.
6. If you want to accomplish something with your life, do something to help other people. Great or small, it doesn’t matter. If it affects one life, you have made a difference. There is no greater accomplishment than helping another person in need.
7. Relationships require care and feeding. They take an investment of time and energy. You can’t have as many relationships as you would like, and you likely have more than enough.
8. Most relationships die of neglect, complacency, or a violation of trust.
9. We are all more alike than we are different. Most of what divides us is manufactured.
10. Scarcity isn’t real. People that believe that scarcity exists are consumed by fear. Treat them with kindness and compassion.
11. Very few people are truly evil. When they do something that you don’t agree with or understand, it is almost always due to a lack of resourcefulness and a lack of understanding that there are better options. Don’t assume evil intentions where none exist.
12. We touch each other for good or for ill. If you want to be happy, you will build others up instead of tearing them down.
13. You can want something for someone, but until they want it for themselves, you will be miserable trying to convince them to want for themselves what you want for them. You don’t have the right to impose on someone else what you want for them.
14. It is wrong to impose your perceived limits on other people. Support them in living their dreams, even when you think their dreams are crazy.
15. It’s wrong to write people off. If you love them, stand and fight. But when other people make you feel bad about yourself, part as friends and move on with your life.
16. Give other people the same forgiveness that you hope that they will extend to you. It’s likely you need it.
17. If you are frustrated with someone else, it isn’t his or her behavior that is frustrating you. It’s your lack of resourcefulness in dealing with their behavior or it’s that you are investing too much meaning in their behavior.
18. Most of us spend too much time fighting over things that aren’t important and too little time fighting for what is.
19. Leadership is an act of love. It’s the act of serving others and helping them to reach their full potential.
20. The greatest results you will ever achieve you will achieve with and through others. You accomplish more with others than you can ever hope to accomplish alone.
21. Great leaders have muddy boots. They lead from the front. Those who you serve as leader will follow what you do, not what you say.
22. It’s the leader’s job to protect the healthy culture they create from harm. The results you produce as leader are the results of the culture you create.
23. Negativity is the only cancer that is spread by contact. You have to remove the cancer as soon as you identify it, or the healthy culture you create will be lost.
24. Moral authority is far more powerful and effective than formal authority.
25. If you want people to produce results, give them the mission and let them find their own way to complete that mission. Their initiative is more powerful than your directives.
26. There are few things that do as much to make deposits in relationships as saying thank you.
27. It’s a leader’s job to catch people doing things well and visibly praising those behaviors.
28. Be grateful for the gifts you have already been given. There may not be a bigger sin that squandering the gifts with which you have been blessed.
29. The fastest way to claim value is to create it for others. The rewards that flow to you flow to you in direct proportion to the value you create for others.
30. The only permission you need to succeed comes from you. You give yourself the greatest gift when you give yourself permission.
31. Saying “no” to small things is necessary so you can say, “yes” to larger things.
32. Do the most important thing you need to do each day first thing in the morning. It will get done, and the rest of the day will feel like coasting down hill.
33. One of the primary obstacles to success is fear. Mostly fear of failure. You will fail on your journey. Instead of fearing it, expect it, embrace it, and let the lessons you’ve learned improve you.
34. Another major obstacle to success is a failure to do the work. Countless great ideas have died of neglect and inaction. Countless lesser ideas have succeeded through the shear force of effort. Do the work.
35. Another major obstacle to success is discounting the value of your ideas. Your ideas are worth far more than you know. But they are meaningless unless you share them and take action to bring them to life.
36. Success isn’t certain. It isn’t fast. And it isn’t a straight line. But its pursuit is it’s own reward.
37. After caring, the greatest of all human attributes is resourcefulness. There is nothing that man can think of that he can’t bring to life and make reality, given a long enough time line.
38. Everything you do is tied to your identity. Change your identity and you change your results. You need to be the best version of yourself.
39. Most people suffer from having a too small vision of themselves. You’re bigger than your present vision.
40. You will either listen to your inner critic or your inner motivational speaker. The quality of your life and your results will depend on which voice you listen to most often.
41. The only real limits to what you can accomplish are the limits that you set for yourself. You are capable of far more than even you can imagine.
42. Success comes with a price. You can’t have what you want until you pay that price in full. Figure out the price and pay it.
43. Success comes with another price: the price of delayed gratification. To have what you want, you will have to make sacrifices.
44. You capacity to succeed is limited by your capacity to deal with fear, stress, and uncertainty
45. Success is incremental. Progress is made over the course of days, the course of weeks, the course of months, the course of years, and the course of a lifetime. And the measure will still be made in the measurement of your relationships. See number 1.