Category: work at it

Happiness: You Get What You Work At

Happiness isn’t something that just lands in your lap—it’s something you build, bit by bit. We often think joy should be effortless, but the truth is that the happiest people put in the work. 

Happy people practice gratitude, set boundaries, and choose their mindsets daily. Mindsets are like muscles—the more they exercise them, the stronger they become. 

Happiness is not avoiding pain.  It is facing challenges with resilience and learning sometimes hard lessons that will help you do better. 

Whether we maintain positive relationships, develop healthy habits, or pursue passions, every choice shapes our well-being. So, if happiness feels distant, ask yourself: What small steps can I take today? The effort you put in will shape the joy you experience.

Only When You Do

You can build an one-person entrepreneurship. You can then take that start and make a small company. Working with the company and improving, along with putting perceived earnings back into the company, you can end up with a viable corporation. If you work hard and are lucky you might end up with a business empire. Unfortunately, if all this was done merely in your brain you really don’t have anything, do you?

To make your thoughts reality, to see them grow and bear fruit, you need to move the ideas from your thoughts into action. Making this action vital is essential to begin your forward movement to wherever your ideas are going to take you. We have a saying around the co-working office that says your dreams do not work unless you do. I do not know where this saying came from (it was not an original of mine,) yet I know it to be true.

When you have a dream that you want to see in the marketplace, helping others, and leading everyone, including yourself, to prosper, you will need to put it into action. Until you do, it is only a dream. When you do, the effects can be breathtaking.

You need to include others in your work. They can bring with them great ideas to help with improvements, marketing, investing, and understanding. Everyone needs someone to turn to and gain shared experience.  Mentors and subject matter experts are always willing to talk to someone and give a little advice. Thanking them in writing gives them a little notoriety and helps them in their pursuits.

As the week goes on, we will continue this train of thought in discuss possibilities for your best actions, aiming your ideas towards those who require your products and setting up plans for positive activities and renovation on the road.

Whatever you do we know you always want to offer your best. We will discuss the difference between holding up something forever as you continuously try to improve the offering. We will also talk about putting everything together as best you can and then put it out for testing in the marketplace or with those who it may help the most.

Thank you for being with me today. I hope to be with you again tomorrow.

You Can Do This (If you work at it.)

Please make no mistake, if you are going to do something well and make a living at it, there is going to be some real work involved. ‘They’ say that if you do something you love, you never really work. The ‘they’ in this case are probably the ones not getting paid for their work. After all, whether it is the work you do, or satisfying the people you do it for, real work is involved. If you want the finished product to magically appear, you need to strike a deal with the magical gnomes who work between midnight and 6 a.m.

If you’re going to do work independently, you should look at some of it as learning, some of it as donations to charity, and for some of your work you should absolutely get paid actual market value. Exact percentages can be based on several different factors, how your work helps others, what you learn by doing a specific job, and how you grow as a professional. The value of the work is not truly how much time you put into the design and building. The cost of your work is measured by the market value of what you offer.

Everyone believes that their work is worth a lot of money. If I spend five hours writing out multiplication tables for zero through 14, and it takes me five hours to do so, can I charge $15 an hour and try to sell the mathematical tables for $75? Well, sure, I can. Will I sell any? Doubtful.

If I’m going to sell something, I should sell something that is of actual worth to someone. something I make and sell should be something that people need and don’t have a less expensive way of procuring (like a five-dollar calculator.)  And it should be of true worth, not something I made up for a quick buck.

I remember a speaker once who noted that in the late 1800s and early 1900s for a $20 Double-Eagle gold coin, a person could purchase the most elegant suit made. It was also pointed out that for the price of that $20 Double-Eagle coin, you can still buy the most refined suit made today. Items of worth, measured at market value, will always hold their value equal to other things of the same amount.

If you build something, first make sure of its worth.  Also, make sure that it is not about to be replaced by a different or better technology.  To succeed, you must be one of those who do your homework and make it happen.

Thanks for being with me today. I hope to be with you again soon.

Do You Align

In our day and age, our technologies, education, and attitude towards individual freedoms allow us to be, and to do most things we wish. If we want to be rich, there is a way to do that. If we desire to have a particular lifestyle, we can do that. If we wish to live in a specific area of the country that is indeed possible. Our freedoms and abilities have led us to this point.

Now I have a question for you. Between what you want and the way you act towards obtaining that desire, do you align? There is quite often a difference between passion and action. If you really desire something you work towards it. The work can sometimes be hard, and occasionally you have to give up some things to gain others. Yet, in the end, you can usually find your way to the goal you initially set out to do.

The real trick is you have to work at it. I know some people who become rich by taking what they can set aside and invest that money into stocks or mutual funds. Others buy and sell precious metals or other commodities. Others work hard at other passions to get to where they want to be.  These people are working towards a goal. If they are smart and work diligently, they stand a chance to reach that goal.

If your desire is wealth, and your plan to get there is stopping by the Quick-Mart on the way home and buying a lottery ticket every week, you might still get rich. It might take 2.9 billion tries to do so though. At three dollars a play you could pay up to $9 billion to possibly earn $500 million. In this case, your desire and actions look as though they may be significantly out of line.

I am a large preacher of research. Figure out what you are passionate to accomplish and while researching that path, ask a lot of questions. For each item you have, research qualified answers. Talk to people who are professionals or specialists in whatever you are trying to find out.

Friends, relatives, and fellow workers will always give you advice and hearsay, yet how much of that is true, and how much of that is good (or malevolent) intentions? If you’re going somewhere or planning to do something you need to hear from the people who have done it, not those who have excuses why they could not.

Will getting from where you are now, to where you want to go be easy? Probably not. And, that is okay. Since when has anything really worth striving for ever been easily obtained? Do your research. Do your work. And stick with your alignment.

Thank you for being with me today. I hope to be with you again tomorrow.