I think the video is very inspiring and touching.

Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is?

Curly: This. [holds up one finger]

Mitch: Your finger?

Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don’t mean shit.

Mitch: But what is the “one thing?”

Curly: [smiles] That’s what you have to find out.

I remember that part from watching the movie many years ago. It stuck somewhere in my mind but did not make much impact at that time. Now when I am older and (hopefully) wiser I realize that Curly’s law makes a lot of sense and summarizes things nicely.

One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don’t mean shit.

Just do one thing – How to find your passion.

Do one thing at a time – Zen To Done and Getting things done.

Do one thing at a time and be fully present – Mindfulness. ]]> http://fortyplustwo.com/2008/09/06/the-rule-of-one-or-curlys-law/feed/ 2 http://fortyplustwo.com/2008/08/22/the-garden-of-your-daily-living/ http://fortyplustwo.com/2008/08/22/the-garden-of-your-daily-living/#comments Fri, 22 Aug 2008 19:49:42 +0000 bengt http://fortyplustwo.com/?p=437 Continue reading →]]> I got this lovely text in a Yahoo Group I belong to. Original author is unknown, the text was posted by Ann.

PLANT THREE ROWS OF PEAS:
1. Peace of mind
2. Peace of heart
3. Peace of soul

PLANT FOUR ROWS OF SQUASH:
1. Squash gossip
2. Squash indifference
3. Squash grumbling
4. Squash selfishness

PLANT FOUR ROWS OF LETTUCE:
1. Lettuce be faithful
2. Lettuce be kind
3. Lettuce be patient
4. Lettuce really love one another

NO GARDEN IS WITHOUT TURNIPS:
1. Turnip for meetings
2. Turnip for service
3. Turnip to help one another

TO CONCLUDE OUR GARDEN WE MUST HAVE THYME:
1. Thyme for each other
2. Thyme for family
3. Thyme for friends

Water freely with patience and cultivate with love. There is much fruit in your garden because you reap what you sow.

Coaching is often about change, a new career, better balance in life or adding something new to “spice up” life. And in those contexts we often talk about finding ones passion and following ones passion.

Mike over at ZenDonut has a really interesting post about 3 Steps To Develop Your Passion … Not Just “Find” It.

I hear inspiring phrases like, “Follow your passion”, but I have difficulties describing that passion, let alone following it.

I agree with Mike, if you not have figured out what you are passionate about then you have nothing to follow.

Mike concludes that:

My concept is that a passion is not just floating around waiting to bump you in the head (i.e. “to be found”), but rather, by taking an active approach, you can develop your passionate interests proactively.

A passion will not be something new to you, something that you know nothing about. But it does not have to be the result of proactively developing your interest. Your passion might be right under your nose but not clearly visible. I will explain that by using myself as an example.

How did I find my passion?
Once upon a time.. Not really that long ago but I have been working with IT and computers for a long time. Due to the progress within that area my work was my passion, learning and doing new things at a pace that kept me on my toes. But I have always been doing other things in my free time, being active in organizations and learning new things – more or less related to what I worked with. Personal development, my own and others, has been a running thread in my life.

Eventually my passion for IT and computers started to fade, I wanted something else but could not figure out what. Like Mike says, I could not describe my passion yet I knew it was within reach. That was rather frustrating but I trusted my intuition, did let it take the time needed to settle. I worked with describing my own personal profile, in terms of knowledge – experience – interests etc, using mind mapping and other techniques to connect the dots.

After a while of connecting the dots I realized that several of my different interests tended to overlap to some extent. That made me curious and I focused on that common ground, the core area that united things. I started to describe that core area, realizing that I had found my passion. I want to help people be the best they can be.

I had been coaching friends and workmates before but in August 2007 I joined a coaching course at CoachCompagniet (Sweden) which made me a professional coach, see Key Coaching. I love being a coach, I help people find out what they want and achieve it. And I learn something from each session.

Update July 17, 2008
Mary Jaksch at Goodlife Zen has a great post about 15 Questions that Reveal Your Ultimate Purpose in Life.

Update March 26, 2009.
Alister Cameron has an interesting post about If you don’t have passion and purpose, greater productivity won’t help you!

Credit: Photo by Sarah-Isua-Amber.
Get this and other articles from the source at fortyplustwo.

Spiders are centralized, command and control, organizations. Historical examples are the Spanish army, the Aztecs and the Incas. Today most companies and organizations still work like this.

Starfish are decentralized with no hierarchy and no headquarters, an open system with no designated leader. An historical example listed in the book are the Apache indians. Modern examples are Craigslist, Wikipedia, Burning Man, AA, Skype, Kazaa and open source software like the Apache server.

An interesting part of the book is when they give examples of the spiders problems when they have to compete or combat against starfish. The Apache indians (starfish) managed to stand up against the Spanish army (spider) but the Incas and Azteks were spiders too and could be beaten. Todays music industry (spiders) fight against filesharing (starfish) and will most likely not win.

A hybrid approach means companies gain from both world, spider as well as starfish. There are examples of companies like eBay and Amazon that decentralize customer experience. And there are centralized companies like GE that decentralizes internal parts of the business.

If you want a quick look at some of what’s inside the book, see Lessons from a Starfish World.

There is a booksite at The Starfish and the Spider with links to reviews. Wikipedia also has a page about The Starfish And the Spider.

The monk who sold his Ferrari is a great book that covers much of Eastern and Western wisdom around life and success. The book is well written and the concepts are nicely fitted into a frame, a fable around the seven virtues. This book is the first one with the monk and where you get to know his history plus why and how he changed.

Discover Your Destiny With The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari is labeled “A potent pathway to self-awakening that will help you to live your greatest life and claim the happiness, prosperity and inner peace that you deserve”. Still, this is not one of those “just wish and it will be yours”-books, instead it is a guide book on how to discover your authentic self and achieve lasting inner peace.

The Saint The Surfer And The CEO is about a person’s three final questions: Did I live wisely? Did I love well? Did I serve greatly? I like this book too, it gave me valuable input to help change my life and views.

Maki at Dosh Dosh writes about The Benefits of Keeping a Private Journal.

A private diary is tremendously powerful. It can help you to greatly improve your business or website. If you want to be a success, you need to think and act strategically. At the very least, you should keep your goals in mind in order to work towards them daily.

And a private journal achieves all this more effectively than a static to-do list, which only lists end goals and results to be achieved. Unlike a to-do list, a well kept journal provokes introspection. It is a liberating and productive outlet for random ideas, thoughts and feelings.

I already had the habit of making notes but it was not as organized as a journal would be. Maki’s post made me decide to use journals as a tool to help me improve and keep track of things. For those who follow this blog it comes as no surprise that I opted for a paper version.

I decided to go for two journals, one for my coaching and one for my blogging. The reason for two journals is that they are two separate projects and I benefit from keeping them apart. Even though I have been writing my journals for a few days only I already see that the journals give me a better way to collect ideas and to follow progress and changes.

Note: Photo by Peter Kaminski.

Zen To Done takes some of the best aspects of a few popular productivity systems (GTD, Stephen Covey and others) and combines them with the mandate of simplicity. It makes things as simple as possible, and no more.

As simple as possible is what I was looking for. Zen To Done (ZTD) has a focus on doing, here and now, more than on planning or on the system. ZTD focuses on simplifying which is in line with my pen and paper solution.

Zen To Done is a set of ten habits that will help you get organized, simplify your life, get things under control and, last but not least, actually get things done. You can pick those habits out of the ten that will work for you. To really master a new habit, and to make it stick, focus on few (1-3) at a time and work on them for a month.

Each of the ten habits has its own chapter in the e-book, here is just a brief list.

1. Collect tasks, ideas, projects etc. Write them down and later add them to your to-do lists.
2. Process your inboxes. I need to work on that.
3. Plan for a week ahead, focus on MIT (Most Important Tasks) or “Big Rocks”.
4. Do, one task at a time. Finish them!
5. Simple trusted system. No complicated system and do not keep on trying out new tools.
6. Organize, have a place for everything. And put it there right away!
7. Review your system and goals weekly.
8. Simplify and eliminate. Reduce your goals and tasks to the essentials.
9. Routine, set and keep routines.
10. Find your passion. Seek work for which you are passionate, passion gives energy.

I already worked on habit one, three, four, five and seven before I came across ZTD. And I have touched on habit eight, Turning 2008 into 80-20. Now I have to set those habits which take me about halfways in the ZTD and then start working on the other habits.

If ten new habits sounds far too much there is a minimalist version of ZTD, the first four habits. Set those and you have achieved a lot.

Buy the ZTD e-book now, at $9.50 it is a bargain:

based on my personal experience, there’s a nasty demon hiding behind the excuses we make. This four-letter word represents a condition we don’t like to admit to ourselves, much less utter in polite conversation.

Yep, it’s the “F” word.

Fear.

Fear affects us all more than we care to admit

Brian’s article is about fear in connection with writing but his post is valid in many areas of life. He mentions five different fears, the key ones (to me) are fear of failure and fear of risk.

Under fear of failure Brian writes:

Countless psychological studies have shown that the fear of failure is the number one barrier to personal success. We fear failure because we don’t separate tasks from ourselves, and therefore our self-esteem is at risk every time we attempt to do anything we really want to achieve.

If we try and fail then we can get up and try again. But if we do not even try then we lock ourselves in where we are now.

This is a quote worth remembering:
Failure seldom stops you. What stops you is the fear of failure.

In the part about fear of risk Brian writes:

Is it really better to be safe than sorry? Sometimes, yes. But when it comes to your writing dreams and goals, being safe is a fate worse than death. Not only do your dreams die, but you get to live the rest of your life knowing it.

Remove the word ‘writing’ before dreams and this statement goes anywhere. Dreams are nice but until they turn into actions they remain dreams.

A while back I came across a quote that says a lot:

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. (Mark Twain)

The feeling of safety makes us often hesitate and take the easy way out (stay in the harbor, no risk, no failure) and not take the exciting way (leave for the high sea, take risks). I think I shall go and check my sails…

Note: The image is borrowed from the KSuccess blog.