CONCEPTS TO LIVE BY
Be Careful of the Company You Keep
When men sink into self-pity, they tend to find other men in the same situation. It's not uncommon for men in sexless marriages to get together and complain to each other about their wives. Basically, it's a circle jerk. None of them knows what to do other than complain.
Those companions don't just fail to help. They make things worse because every complaining session further ingrains the behavior that's causing the lack of intimacy. Everyone leaves feeling validated, and nobody leaves with a plan.
That doesn't mean there aren't real challenges. There always are. The question is whether you face them head-on when they show up and who you surround yourself with when you do. Choose people who ask what you're going to do about it, not people who agree that it isn't fair.
Poverty Is a State of Mind
Francis Ford Coppola once lost all the money he'd made from the Godfather movies. Everything. His take on it captures the difference between a victim mentality and a powerful one: "Bankruptcy is a temporary situation. Poverty is a state of mind."
Think about that statement. It's why generational poverty exists. It's learned behavior, passed down and ingrained from one generation to the next.
Victims often look at successful people and say, "Oh, you're just lucky." People have said that to me. Sometimes I ignore them. Sometimes I ask a pointed question: What have you done in the last six weeks to improve who you are as a human being?
They don't like that question. Usually, the answer is nothing. Nothing in the last six months. Nothing in the last year. Nothing in the last five years, other than complain and whine that the world is unfair.
Yes, life is unfair. Most of us are living on the better side of unfair.
I wasn't born into money. I learned how to make it, then wasted it. Made it, wasted it, and made it again. Luck had little to do with it. Better questions, effort, and getting back up had everything to do with it.
Take Responsibility Now
You are well past the point in your life where you can blame your parents, your siblings, your teachers, or the coach who wouldn't let you pitch in Little League for the condition of your life. You are responsible for it. Now is the time to take that responsibility.
The first place to start is repairing your relationship with yourself. That means being careful about the questions you ask when you're sitting alone. Make them results-oriented, and make sure those results are the ones you actually want.
Watch your language, too. Drop the victim words: can't, maybe, couldn't, I had no choice, I had to.
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