Be Useful

HAVE A CLEAR VISION

The happiest and most successful people in the world do everything in their power to avoid bad decisions that confuse matters and drag them away from their goals. In­stead, they focus on making choices that bring clarity to their vision and bring them closer to achieving it. It doesn’t matter if they’re considering a small thing or a huge thing, the decision-making process is always the same. The only difference between them and us, between me and you, between any two people, is the clarity of the picture we have for our future, the strength of our plan to get there, and whether or not we have accepted that the choice to make that vision a reality is ours and ours alone.

NEVER THINK SMALL

When it comes to you and your dreams, the naysayers have no idea what they’re talking about. And if they haven’t done any of the things that you’re trying to do, the question you need to ask yourself is: Why should I ever listen to them? The answer is, you shouldn’t. You should ignore them. Or better yet, hear what they have to say and then use it as motivation.

WORK YOUR ASS OFF

If there is one unavoidable truth in this world, it’s that there is no substitute for putting in the work. There is no shortcut or growth hack or magic pill that can get you around the hard work of doing your job well, of winning something you care about, or of making your dreams come true. People have tried to cut corners and skip steps in this process for as long as hard work has been hard. Eventually, those people either fall behind or get left in our dust, because working your ass off is the only thing that works 100 percent of the time for 100 percent of the things worth achieving.

SELL, SELL, SELL

You are your first customer, when you really think about it. The purpose of getting crystal clear on your vision and thinking about how it’s going to happen is to sell yourself on the possibility of your own dream. But eventually you need to sell the world on it too. One of the easiest, most authentic ways to start selling it is to speak your inner voice out loud so others can hear it. All those things you tell yourself about what you’re going to achieve, you should start saying to other people.

SHIFT GEARS

To me, focusing on all that negativity is a waste of time, because I don’t just want to survive, I want to thrive, and I want you to thrive too. That’s why I believe we all have to get better at embracing our circumstances and shifting our perspective toward finding the positive in whatever situation we find ourselves in.

SHUT YOUR MOUTH, OPEN YOUR MIND

Being curious and being a good listener are a big part of how to effectively utilize your relationships with other people in pursuit of your goals. I don’t mean that in a ma­nipulative way, only practically. When it comes down to it, people are resources. But it’s only when you learn to soak up what those people tell you— not just let it go in one ear, out the other— that you truly begin to make your­self useful to others and become a resource yourself.

BREAK YOUR MIRRORS

I am not sharing these stories with you as a way to tell you to do what I did, or to do what firefighters and com­mandos and first responders do. I am also not asking you to be Robin Hood or Mother Teresa, or to abandon your personal ambition or your personal possessions. I am only asking you to break your mirrors and do for others what you are able to do. I am asking you to give back. To pay it forward. To be useful as often as you can. And I am asking you to do that for the same reason that any of us have chosen to give back. Because we owe a debt of grati­tude to the people who got us where we are today. Be­cause we can do for the next generation exactly what the previous generation did for us. Because it will make the world a better place. Because it will make you happier in ways you could never have anticipated.