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One of the best pieces of advice I ever got in my life was from my Dad.

I wouldn’t say it necessarily made me happy, but it certainly made me successful. He taught me one critical thing: that you have to look for and anticipate problems before they actually become real problems.

For several years, back in the day, I was a builder working for my dad and his business partner. We did developments and things like that. They had a lot more experience than me, so they were teaching, and I was learning.

One time we were building a single-family home. I was there alone with the heating-duct guy who was down in the basement. I had to supervise a few other things in a few other houses, so I left the heating-duct guy there thinking I’d return later.

When I came back to that house, though, my dad was in the basement. He was like, “Harv, get down here!” As soon I heard that tone of voice, I knew I was in trouble.

I asked, “What?” He said, “Did you just now walk out of this house?” I said, “Yes.”

He said, “I’m about to dock you six weeks of your paycheck to fix the problem right here,” pointing to the heating duct. I asked, “What do you mean?” It looked clean, there were no gaps; it looked fine to me. He said, “Let me show you something.”

We went upstairs to the kitchen, right above where the heating duct would come out on the first floor. He said, “What’s going to be right here when this is finished?” He made me get the floor plans, measure it out, and guess what? The heat duct came up halfway underneath where the refrigerator was going to be.

The refrigerator had already been ordered, and the tile and cabinet space on both sides of where the refrigerator was going to sit had already been ordered as well. None of that could change. My heart just sunk.

My dad said, “You need to know everything.” At the time I thought, “What a prick! How am I supposed to know every single thing?”

Didn’t mean a damn thing to the heating guy who was now going to charge my dad to redo the vent to move it six inches over so it didn’t crisscross with the fridge. That money was now coming out of my pocket. I was only making about $75 a week; the fix was about $500.

My dad’s thinking was, “Why should I pay for your mistake? You were supposed to supervise this house, yes?”

A month of work went down the drain because I didn’t see six inches ahead of time.

The point I want to stress here is that this happens to people who start new businesses all the time! Especially for newbies, you’ve got to be involved in every aspect of your business from the beginning, from strategic planning to communicating that plan effectively so that everyone involved knows where your ideas are going and how to execute them.

Hell, I’ve seen experienced businesses throw money down the drain because of an incorrect date on a marketing pamphlet that hadn’t been proofread properly for an upcoming event. Imagine clients making travel and hotel arrangements to attend your seminar on the wrong dates!

Head off problems before you have to spend a fortune in time, money and energy fixing something that should never have happened in the first place.

Why do I obsess about this in my business? Life lessons aside, it’s because I want to see problems in what I do and deliver before you do. Once you see it, it’s too frickin’ late.

Are you working like that in your business? Or in any endeavor that’s important to you?

What are some potential problems that you could forecast in a project you’re currently involved in? And how could you work your way around these obstacles?

Head them off at the pass with caution, alternatives, or backup plans. If you don’t, it could literally cost you a fortune.

Tell us about your experiences and learnings about problems that you did avoid or could have been avoided. Share your stories, we want to hear from you!

‘Go Hard or Go Home’

I’ve seen that mantra in several different contexts, in particular to athletics or anything with a kind of “edge” to it. It comes off a little severe, like something those guys who pound each other in cages on Pay Per View would say. Train hard, push hard, work hard, fight hard. Otherwise, what’s the point?

In general, people recognize the truth in the phrase ‘Go Hard or Go Home.’ If you’re going to do something, either be the absolute best you can be or don’t do it at all. Well, not everything. You can enjoy the heck out of playing golf, but you don’t have to be a PGA player to get something out of playing. You do it strictly because you want to, no reasons needed.

Consider, though, the difference between something you do for fun versus something you’re doing for your life, like working toward financial freedom, or living a more healthy lifestyle. Being an average golfer is fine, but there’s no such thing as an average millionaire. You’re either a millionaire or you’re not, and quite frankly there aren’t as many millionaires as there are wanna-be millionaires.

In other words, you can’t just “okay” yourself to riches. You’re either going to master wealth, or you’re not.

That’s where the warrior mentality is critical for the mind of the millionaire. The warrior always chooses to be a master. A warrior has to! There is no other option. For a real warrior, mastery can make the difference between life and death. Not that being anything less than rich equals being dead, but the same kind of must-mentality is…a must!

Mastery isn’t as much a skill as it is a matter of discipline, desire, and commitment to taking your life to another level. Most people are not living anywhere near their potential because they’re playing in the minor leagues. Major leaguers, no matter what job or industry, are making lots of money because they’re not afraid of themselves, the work, the responsibility, making the necessary changes, of playing big, and they believe they must play big in order to win big.

Does it take more work to play in the majors than in the minors? Not necessarily. It takes more practice for sure, but sometimes all it takes are minor adjustments to your thinking and how you apply your skills in order to make big changes.

If you want to master anything, you’ll have to do at least some things differently. Your standards must change, your thinking needs to change from “This is okay” to “I can do much better,” and you’ll need to find reasons why there’s room to get bigger rather than reasons why not.

Can you be a master at everything? No, nor does anybody need to be. You need, instead, to prioritize, choose and focus on those things you really want for yourself. Whatever you choose, know that you’re going to master it or not take it on. If you aren’t willing to see your potential and hold yourself to it, then you won’t master much.

You will always get what you’re willing to settle for. The hardest part isn’t actually becoming a master. It’s deciding that you’re going to be one in the first place, and not going backwards from that moment on.

There’s a story of a Zen master who falls off the edge of a cliff, but he’s able to grab a berry bush sticking out of the cliff wall to keep from falling all the way down to the ground.

As it turns out, though, he looks down and he’s only about 10 feet away…but there’s a hungry tiger that sits there waiting for him.

He knows he can’t hang on for much longer, so what does he do? With his last ounce of strength, he picks a berry, puts it in his mouth and enjoys it. End of story.

What does that mean?

It means that it’s not the situation that creates your outcomes in life; it’s always your reaction to the situation that will determine your life.

There is a part of you, your higher self, that is into staying present with what you’re doing and where you’re at in any given moment, no matter what’s happening around you.

If you feel stuck, or like things aren’t moving or changing fast enough, or whatever negative weight you’re feeling, it’s because you’re not 100%, present with whatever is at your feet, even if it seems crappy.

Here’s the problem. You’re thinking, “Harv, you’re not giving me the answer that I want because I want to make a move and feel more satisfied now!”

I’m going to tell you something you’re going to hate: if you can’t be happy with where you’re at, you aren’t going to be happy in the next place either. How you do anything is how you do everything.

While you are in this job/ business you hate or whatever you want to change or improve, practice enjoying where you’re at now. Find the good in it.

I am going to tell you something you’re not going to believe. When you can do this, magic is going to happen. Something will unfold and call to you, and another opportunity is going to be standing right in front of you that you can move to with elegance and grace without fear.

Why?

It’s because you’re coming to your life with a positive and enlightened energy instead of a fear-based, negative, contraction-based energy that is only going to infect your next location. You probably won’t even see the opportunity coming.

I want you to do something totally counter-intuitive: act as if you’re going to be at that crappy job for the next 25 years, and you’re not going anywhere.

Regardless of the area of life we’re talking about that you’re dissatisfied with, find the satisfaction in it. Don’t look for anything outside of it.

Even if you end up doing this for 30 days, 10 days, or 3 months, it doesn’t matter; find happiness where you’re at and just be open to the new things that come into your life.

The point isn’t that you blindly accept people crossing your boundaries, or that you be a doormat in clearly unacceptable, intolerable situations that aren’t safe.

The point is that the satisfaction we’re all looking for–from who we want to be, to what we want to do, to what we want to have, isn’t something you can attain.

Just like your purpose or your calling. You don’t find your calling. Your calling finds you, and you’ll know it when you are engrossed in present love and passion of doing something, and you’re not thinking about it.

When it comes from joy, happiness, passion and excitement, that’s how you know. It comes from thinking, “I love doing this. When I’m doing this, I’m in my flow.”

You don’t have to love everything about it. I don’t love all the logistics about all of my workshops, courses and webinars, but I love being in the moment and speaking with people around the world!

This is the fruit of staying in the present and finding satisfaction now even when it seems like there is none to find. This is how true happiness and success finds you.

Tell me what you think. I want to hear from you!

A lot of us will come up with a big challenging action and get excited. We say, “I’m going to write a book” or “I’m going to start my own business.” It’s a big thing, and that’s what excites us.

What happens, though, is that we often tend to lose interest even though we were so sure this was gonna be it! Why?

One word: fear. We lose interest because it’s too big. We lose interest because our mind-frick says, “You can’t do this. It’s easier to just live the way you’ve been living already.” So we go back into our old ways, settling for less than what we really actually want to be doing.

So instead of taking on a big challenge, a far easier and much more effective way to get exactly what you want in your life is to create bite-sized, doable actions.

I’m not saying to take smaller actions. I’m saying: think of the first three things that you’re willing to do that will move you towards your big vision.

One of the reasons that we lose interest in big challenges is because our programmed brain is trying to save us from fear of failure. It’s easier for the mind to lose interest than to say, “I’m a failure. I can’t do this.” It’s a safety valve. We don’t want to make ourselves look bad…even to ourselves!

It’s like taking a pill to alleviate pain. Instead of saying, “I can’t do this, and I’m a failure at it,” we say, “It’s not that important to me. I’m not that interested in that anymore.” This is what we do.

Don’t create huge actions for yourself. You can create a huge vision, but how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

Just ask yourself, “What’s my next step?”

Don’t get into the big-thing idea because if you do you’re going to end up losing interest as a failsafe in order to not feel bad about yourself. Keep it simple.

People have asked me, “Harv, when are you going to write another book?” I don’t know. I write for a couple of hours, or one hour. Sometimes I say I’m just going to sit down and write, sometimes I just don’t worry about it.

I bring that up to say that if you want to write a book, for example, just start that way. It’s a lot easier, and you’re happier that way.

Of course, what’s going to happen is that you’re going to have a conditioned mind that’s going to say, “That’s not good enough. You didn’t do enough. You didn’t accomplish enough.” You just tell it thanks for sharing and keep doing what you’re doing.

Give yourself some momentum. A body at rest will tend to remain at rest and a body in motion will tend to stay in motion. Get yourself into a tiny bit of motion.

It’s very interesting when I am writing, by the way. Sometimes I’m doing a bunch of other things. Let’s say I’m watching the hockey game or a movie, and I don’t really feel like continuing to write.

Know what I do? My mind says, “Just relax. You don’t have to write tonight.” But then I urge myself to just check one of the concepts that I wrote on a post-it note and see where that goes in my outline. It will be pretty quick.

Then I pick up the next post-it note and think, “Where does this one go? Oh, wow! That’s cool! This is actually starting to come together and make sense!” Then I start writing maybe for five minutes.

Guess what I’m doing? I’m writing.

I don’t need to prod myself. I just need to do one thing. I just need to get back to the seat, relaxed and easy, pick up one post-it note and enter it. That’s all.

One tiny little step creates momentum.

The goal of this class is to help you create the momentum you need.

You’ll also learn my 7-step system to help you achieve your Level 10 life…one step at a time.

Click here to reserve your seat on my next class

No one’s above criticism. Keeping this in mind, everybody’s seems to be able to easily criticize someone about something. This happens everyday, all the time.

Just consider, though, that when you’re getting a critique pertaining to your job, your business, relationship, or whatever it is, listen up, because that person is giving you a critique for one of two reasons.

First, maybe this person really is a good teacher or highly skilled, smart, wise, or intelligent, and they’re critiquing you from the right place of genuine wisdom, caring and understanding. I’m no statistician, but my guess would be this is about 3 – 6% of the time for most people.

The second reason, however, is because a lot of people that critique or criticize other people are actually coming from a place of power and think, “I can do this to you, so I’ll do it. I’ll tell you what you’re doing wrong.” They’re saying it to feel good about themselves.

Most critiques are about the other person, not about you. They’re projecting a fear, desire, or insecurity. You just happen to be the one catching it at that particular time.

So what do you do? Something that can be hard, but I promise ultimately rewarding: you have to show some compassion.

You don’t have to take their criticism personally. Don’t take anything personally. What you’re listening to is somebody else’s stuff. If they’re in a good mood, guess what? They’re going to say good things about you. If they’re in a pissy mood, guess what? They’re going to say pissy things about you.

I teach thousands of people. When I’m on stage, sometimes I will go to the side, sign some books, and take some questions. Once in awhile, I’ll have somebody that will come up to me and say, “You sell too much. You promote too much. You speak too fast. I don’t like the fact that you don’t wear a jacket. You don’t honor us.”

When I first started in this business I would think, “Oh my god! They don’t like me. There’s something wrong with me. I’m never going to do this again. I hate this. I don’t want to go on stage anymore.”

Eventually, what I discovered was that what they’re actually saying is, “I feel unconfident, weak and low, so let me go up to the instructor and tell him what’s wrong with him. That’s going to make me feel better. I can darken his sky. I can put him down so I can bring myself up.”

With a lot of the critiques that you get, you need to see right through that critique to the weakness in the other person. You don’t have to say anything to them about that. Just see it so it doesn’t bother you. This is their shit that’s going on here, not yours.

Listen to it, and if there’s some validity in what they’re saying–that you can do better–then just take it in stride and say, “Thank you for that”, and be on your way.

None of this is easy. Why? It’s because we’re creatures of habit, and our ego takes over.

But the secret to being compassionate to others is to start by being compassionate to yourself. It’s two sides of the same coin. Both help each other.

Of the two, which do you think the gurus of the world would tell you to practice first, compassion to others or compassion to yourself?

If there has to be one over the other in that moment–or you’re going to put your attention on one only–which should be first?

The answer is compassion to yourself. You need to have it before you can give it. You can’t give away what you don’t have.

—-As your exercise for this week I want you to do two things. First, practice being compassionate to yourself. Practice nurturing yourself. Practice being kind to yourself. Practice being your own best friend. Speak to yourself nicely.

Then, the next time you find yourself being moved by someone else’s criticism of you, practice compassionately thanking that person for their observation without anger or resentment, and if you can go a step further, ask them why they feel the way they feel and take that opinion as emotionally detached as you can get. In others, give them an opportunity to recognize their own shit!

Leave a comment below and let me know how it goes. I want to hear from you!