Chip was kind enough to send me his book and since I have an affinity for business, I read it. Success and Happiness are correlated but causation needs to be studied. What I mean is Success does not cause happiness and happiness does not cause success. The correlation of success to improve happiness may be there if you have your priorities straight.
Why is this important to me?
Success and Happiness are important to everyone and the Holy Grail in life. I wonder why they don't teach it in college. Jim Rohn said "Make rest a necessity not an objective. This thought is the key to unlocking the mysteries of life. Chip and Vernon dedicate 240 pages to success and happiness and one critical detriment is laziness. When you make rest an objective, you grind 5 days a week in a job you hate to simply load up on the weekend or wish for retirement.
When rest is a necessity, you are now busy crafting your life around your "compelling why".
Unfortunately people will spend more time planning a vacation then they do their life blueprint. This simple act is the biggest cause for an unfulfilling life. Utilizing the power of slight edge behavior and compounding, you can craft any life you choose. Think about this for moment. Can you commit to improving.1% per day in your activities? This is one tenth of one percent. If you did just that and did it daily, you would have improved yourself by more 30% in one year. The reason this is so strong because the improvement compounds on top of the last improvement. The opposite is also true. If you add one can a soda to your diet per day then in three years you will gain over 30 pounds.
Chip and Vernon cover all facets of life in this book. I will cover a few key points for the sake of time.
1. Strategic Contrarian - This is a mindset to go against the grain. This is very helpful in many aspects of life. The easiest example is seen in stock market investing. Logic dictates that you buy low and sell high to make a profit. Everybody knows this but consistently the herd buys when the market moves up and sells when the market moves down resulting in lost money. Using strategic contrarian thought in different aspects of your life will help immensely. Another example is job mindset. How many people do you know that say "it is not my job". This is a career killer yet many people feel entitled. Contrarian thought dictates you work hard and smart now and the money will follow.
2. You can do ANYTHING, but you can't do EVERYTHING - This is great advice. Trying to accomplish everything sets us up for failure and unhappiness. Having realistic goals and to do's allows us to enjoy the wins without the guilt of not finishing everything. Striving for everything causes undo stress and burn out. Think with the end in mind. If this was your last day on earth then it makes sense to focus on the "ANYTHING" and not the "EVERYTHING".
3. Vernon's definition of happiness is when a person makes peace between his ambitions and his limitations. This is really profound advice. I may want to be a pro football player but genetics stand in the way. Understanding "true limitations" is the key to happiness. This does not mean make up an excuse and call it a limitation. This definition is critical for people that are truly "type A" personalities.
There are some great resources in the book and tools you can use to sculpt your life's script. I think Chip may have a PHD in Microsoft Excel. He has a spreadsheet to track anything you want as it relates the life cube laid out in the book.
I hope you have found this short summary useful. The key to any new idea is to work it into your daily routine until it becomes habit. Habits form in as little as 21 days. One thing you can take away from this book is the power of thought. I picked the power of thought because to really get any use from the book, you have to know what success and happiness look like for you. That requires thought and reflection. If you made thought a daily calendar event then anything is possible.
Why is this important to me?
Success and Happiness are important to everyone and the Holy Grail in life. I wonder why they don't teach it in college. Jim Rohn said "Make rest a necessity not an objective. This thought is the key to unlocking the mysteries of life. Chip and Vernon dedicate 240 pages to success and happiness and one critical detriment is laziness. When you make rest an objective, you grind 5 days a week in a job you hate to simply load up on the weekend or wish for retirement.
When rest is a necessity, you are now busy crafting your life around your "compelling why".
Unfortunately people will spend more time planning a vacation then they do their life blueprint. This simple act is the biggest cause for an unfulfilling life. Utilizing the power of slight edge behavior and compounding, you can craft any life you choose. Think about this for moment. Can you commit to improving.1% per day in your activities? This is one tenth of one percent. If you did just that and did it daily, you would have improved yourself by more 30% in one year. The reason this is so strong because the improvement compounds on top of the last improvement. The opposite is also true. If you add one can a soda to your diet per day then in three years you will gain over 30 pounds.
Chip and Vernon cover all facets of life in this book. I will cover a few key points for the sake of time.
1. Strategic Contrarian - This is a mindset to go against the grain. This is very helpful in many aspects of life. The easiest example is seen in stock market investing. Logic dictates that you buy low and sell high to make a profit. Everybody knows this but consistently the herd buys when the market moves up and sells when the market moves down resulting in lost money. Using strategic contrarian thought in different aspects of your life will help immensely. Another example is job mindset. How many people do you know that say "it is not my job". This is a career killer yet many people feel entitled. Contrarian thought dictates you work hard and smart now and the money will follow.
2. You can do ANYTHING, but you can't do EVERYTHING - This is great advice. Trying to accomplish everything sets us up for failure and unhappiness. Having realistic goals and to do's allows us to enjoy the wins without the guilt of not finishing everything. Striving for everything causes undo stress and burn out. Think with the end in mind. If this was your last day on earth then it makes sense to focus on the "ANYTHING" and not the "EVERYTHING".
3. Vernon's definition of happiness is when a person makes peace between his ambitions and his limitations. This is really profound advice. I may want to be a pro football player but genetics stand in the way. Understanding "true limitations" is the key to happiness. This does not mean make up an excuse and call it a limitation. This definition is critical for people that are truly "type A" personalities.
There are some great resources in the book and tools you can use to sculpt your life's script. I think Chip may have a PHD in Microsoft Excel. He has a spreadsheet to track anything you want as it relates the life cube laid out in the book.
I hope you have found this short summary useful. The key to any new idea is to work it into your daily routine until it becomes habit. Habits form in as little as 21 days. One thing you can take away from this book is the power of thought. I picked the power of thought because to really get any use from the book, you have to know what success and happiness look like for you. That requires thought and reflection. If you made thought a daily calendar event then anything is possible.
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