Let’s get the easy stuff out of the way first:
Merry Christmas,
Or Hanukkah,
Or Kwanzaa,
Or Yule,
Or Ashura.
Or Saturnalia,
Or whatever you do.
Oh yeah, and Happy Birthday to Jesus too. 2,023 years old. That’s what clean living will do that for ya.
“It seems you want it all.”
I got a letter last week from a woman I love. We’ve had some lumps and bumps no doubt, but I really do love her partly because she sees around the corners of my life I can’t. There was this one thing she said in her letter that struck me: it seems like you want it all. I’ve been thinking about that. It’s a comment that can be taken two ways. It can be framed as me being arrogant and entitled, or it can be framed as my having big aspirations and expectations for myself and my life. I’ll pick door #2 with some humility.
I learned something about myself this year. I learned that I can do a lot more than I probably think I can. I haven’t sat with a shrink to unpack this, and I don’t have a coach I pay every week to tell me what I probably already know but I’m not doing, I just proved to myself this year that I can do more than I probably realize. One milestone for me was writing the Sunday Blog Book. True, I’ve been writing it for 10 years (just like I am right now), but I’ve been saying for three years that I needed to publish something and now I have. Then I started thinking more about other parts of my life, like my investments, like making new friends, like working out every day, like preparing for national launches of the 20 Questions and Does it Pencil.
Do I want it all? Sure. You probably do too. I mean why wouldn’t you? All is better than half unless it’s tax debt or a glass of rotten milk. If we still want it all, we obviously don’t have it yet so the next question is why? Why don’t you have what you want? The answer to that is actually pretty simple: you don’t think you deserve it.
Why Not Me?
I had a meeting this week with a new real estate partner of mine. She’s SUPER awesome and we go together like chips and salsa. I told her about a development deal another partner and I are doing right now, and she was interested. The more we talked about it the more excited she got. Finally I looked at her and said, “You and I can do this too you know.”
She looked at me with a sort of anxious 17-year-old girl just got asked to the prom look. Then she asked, “Why me?”
“What do you mean why you?”
“Why would you pick me as a partner for this?”
I leaned in a little, looked her right in the eye, and said, “Wrong question honey. You should be asking yourself, why not me?”. She wasn’t expecting that. It was kind of awesome really.
Sticky Note Please
Sometimes in this Blog I suggest you, “Write that down on a sticky and put it on the fridge.” I think this is one of those. “Why not me?” is probably the best advice I can give anyone going into 2024.
Why not you? Why shouldn’t you have what you want? Why shouldn’t you get what you deserve? Why shouldn’t you be the person you’ve silently aspired to be for years? The first part of my message today is really just this: you can do more, be more, have more and give more than you currently are. We all can, and that includes me, but I think that it starts with your opinion of yourself, and what you believe you deserve. We forget about that. It was pointed out to me by one person this week, and then I paid it forward to another, and now you.
But…
If you want more of anything, whether is money, love, sex, likes, friends, shares, whatevs, you can’t just say “Why not me?” like it’s a Geanie’s belly and sit back and wait for your three wishes to roll up to your front door. No you cannot.
Once you put that sticky note on the fridge, here’s what you really need to work on: how you can give more. That’s right…how you can give more. It’s kind of a Law of the Universe that what you get is usually in proportion to what you give. It always has been. It probably always will be.
That may sound kind of corny, but it’s really not. I mean really, when was the last time you took out pen and paper or iPad and just started to brainstorm about how you could give more. Not how you can get more, how you can give more. Been a while hasn’t it? Well in the next couple of days after all of the booze, pie, prezzies and mistletoe (if you’re lucky), you should get on this. How can you give more in ’24? Maybe that should be a bumper sticker.
Three Icons
Success leaves clues so let’s finish up today by taking a look at three icons. Three people who changed the world and got super rich doing it. They all had two things in common:
They believed they deserved what they got.
They helped a lot of people.
Dale Carnegie
This guy was a poor Irishman who eventually became the richest man in the world. How did that happen? Well, it started in his mind. He really believed that he could do great things. And then he built the world’s largest steel empire that created the rails of the transportation system that connected America. And then he gave it all away.
Bill Gates
Total dork. I know, I’ve met him. But he believed in something bigger than himself: a personal computer on every desk. Then he leveraged his idea until it happened. And then he too became the richest man in the world.
Napoleon
Tough little dude. Tough. Born short and poor. He’s not even French (did you know that?), but he believed in himself first and his cause second. He really saw himself as the modern-day Caesar who would rebuild France after the revolution and unite all of Europe. He didn’t get a salad named after him, but a close second with and ice cream flavor. So that’s pretty good.
Good luck and have an awesome Christmas.
Joe Still
2023.12.24
Cite
“The Grateful Dead were very kind. It was Santa Claus. It did good things.”
-Mickey Hart