MAN UP, SHUT UP, SUCK IT UP & WORK!

It seems that wherever I go there seems to be a feeling of despair, hopelessness, stagnation and negativity. For the most part, these feelings are justified at a time of tough social economic conditions. Financial strains create stress and the fallout is felt not only in business, but is also transferred through our stress and worry on to our family and personal relationships. When your wife loses it because you didn’t use a coaster or your husband freaks out when your son is late for school, invariably it has nothing to do with the coaster or the clock, it’s residual stress that forces itself out to unsuspecting and mostly innocent bystanders.

Then she closes her finger in the door and blames you. The other day my daughter blamed me for her immune system because she got a cold. When I was a kid, my mother blamed me for her being overweight. She would constantly tell me how she only put on weight after having me. This normally happened after the stress of her new diet not working.

So, what are the solutions to tough times, poor results and testing relationships? 

MAN UP! 

I am a man. I think like a man. That’s why I say things like, “man up!” It’s not meant to exclude women, it’s just a saying and I could just as well have said, “step up”. For me it talks to courage. Problems and tough times happen to everyone and as my good old friend W Mitchell says, “it’s not what happens, it’s how you handle it!”

If something is not going right in your life right now, the first step is to own it, to face it, to step into it, in spite of your fears. I know it can be scary, the thought of facing rejection, or things not working out, are probably real but nothing changes unless you have the courage to face whatever situation comes to you. I know it’s scary, hell we all get scared and as my six-year-old once said to me, “it’s okay to be scared Daddy, Mommy won’t be angry if you give her cake.”

SHUT UP! 

Let’s stop bitching, whingeing and moaning. Let’s stop blaming other people (even if they are to blame), let’s stop talking and complaining, and let’s rather “speak” by our actions. Because I am so outspoken, one of my self-improvement aims is to be silent more often. To speak only when I know what I will say will improve the situation or when someone is paying me speaking fees to listen to what I have to say.  So, when I’m not on a stage I try to listen to these silence mantras to help me shut the +&*4^ up!

“If I talk a lot they will think I am a fool, but if I am silent they will be intrigued”

“The smarter I get, the less I speak”

“Wise men are not always silent, but they know when to be”

“I don’t waste words on people who deserve my silence”

“People who don’t understand my silence will never understand my words”

“Weak people take revenge, strong people forgive, and intelligent people simply ignore”

• When the idiot is mouthing off – shut up.
• When it didn’t work out as planned – shut up.
• When he says something mean or cruel – shut up.
• When the tea is cold, when the deal falls through, when things don’t work out as planned – shut up.
  

SUCK IT UP!

Again, from the classic movie “Rocky” the words spoken by that modern-day philosopher Sylvester Stallone, “The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows, it’s a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, nobody is going to hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you get hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much you can take and keep moving forward; because that’s how winning is done.”…. Okay now for the full effect, inject your tongue with novocaine, drop down to your lowest voice and read that again.

WORK!

The only way to get out of a slump is to WORK yourself out of a slump. The only way to fix a relationship is to WORK on the relationship. The only way to get results is to WORK for the results.

I have a bad habit of not recording the names of the quotes that I collect. I do this partially because I forget, but mostly because most quotes are ascribed to people who never really said them in the first place. But I love this one,“Let your schedule govern your actions, not your level of motivation.”  I think we all place far too much emphasis on being motivated, inspired or passionate about something. I think what you need is a work ethic that draws out your passion, that forces you to find new solutions every day because you are working on it all the time.

Here’s another one I got from a fantastic writer and researcher James Clear.  I think he got it from someone else, and I have paraphrased and manipulated it for my own purposes.

“The most important thing you can do, is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week or every month you know you’re going to finish one project. It is only by going through a volume of work that things will change, things will turn, results will come.The person who works hard, pursues opportunity, and tries more things, is more likely to stumble across a lucky break than the person who waits.”

Eric Thomas is an extremely powerful speaker and motivator and he also speaks about how you always find people around you who will have more privilege, more talent, more skill, more opportunities, but it is work and work alone that levels the playing fields. As he famously says,

“I will not be out worked, period!”

You see, work, hard work is a discipline. It requires considerable inconvenience. Let’s stop worrying about motivation and “feeling” like doing it. Most successful people never feel like doing it, but they do it every day. Again, let your schedule govern your actions and stop waiting to be motivated, inspired or feeling like doing it. Set the schedule, do the work, shut your mouth, suck it up, it’s not easy – so dig deep.  So now, let’s be politically correct and say, Step up, Shut up, Suck it up and Work!

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