I’ve been putting off blogging for quite a while now, with a growing list of reasons to procrastinate. Along with some other commitments, which I’ll share later in this post, I’ve decided to once again attempt to achieve my greater goal of spreading the most positive energy to the greatest number of people possible. Writing is a scalable way to achieve that goal.
Because of a bout of food poisening ( there is an opportunity in every set back 🙂 ) I’ve had some time to spend thinking and reading. After reading some technical books like RESTful Web Services and Javascript: From Novice to Ninja, I turned to a oldie but goodie that has been neglected on my virtual bookshelf, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.
I was inspired after reading the following passage:
“Men who succeed reach decisions promptly, and change them, if at all, very slowly.”
Aftwards, I had the fortune to listen in on SendGrid‘s co-founders (Isaac Saldana, Jose Lopez and Tim Jenkins) discuss how SendGrid was created. During that talk, Isaac shared his decision making process learned while working on SendGrid and now uses in all aspects of his life.
In particular, Isaac outlined a series of four questions to consider when you make any decision:
- 1. Will I obtain any resources? Not necessarily money.
- 2. Will I learn from this?
- 3. Will I create or develop relationships?
- 4. Will I be happy?
All of which are satisfied by working at SendGrid BTW 🙂
I would add to this a fifth question:
5. What is the effect on others? Will the end result be overall positive for the majority involved?
Then, I came across Steve Pavlina’s blog post, “Are You Playing the Waiting Game?” This article hit home for me, as I’m always finding a reason why I need to polish this or buff that before releasing something to the public. When in reality, even after all that, there is no guarentee what I release would even be useful, let alone be perfect.
So, I have made a decision to be content with the objective that if I can stimulate at least one mind per day in a positive way, I’m moving towards my greater goal.
Earlier in the post, I mentioned that there were some other items I’ve made decisions on, they are:
- 1. Listen far more than I speak
- 2. Initiate conversations with far more people
- 3. Eat real food far more often than not
- 4. Exercise in some way each day and vigorously at least 3 times per week
- 5. Read or write some code each day
- 6. Read and/or write each day
- 7. Teach what I’ve learned through my blog and personal interactions as I travel
I hope that you and the Universe will hold me accountable.
What decision will you make today?
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