Posts tagged energy

What is the common denominator of success?

What is the one thing that is essential in doing something extra ordinary?

Why are people who start from a worse situation that you and I more successful than we are at accomplishing their goals?

I think the answer can be found below in this speech given back in 1940.

I’ve edited the transcript down from the original 6 pages so that you can get the main points.

THE COMMON DENOMINATOR FOR SUCCESS by Albert E. N. Grey

The common denominator of success — the secret of success of every man who has ever been successful — lies in the fact that he formed the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do.

It’s just as true as it sounds and it’s just as simple as it seems. You can hold it up to the light, you can put it to the acid test, and you can kick it around until it’s worn out, but when you are all through with it, it will still be the common denominator of success, whether you like it or not.

If the secret of success lies in forming the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do, let’s start the boiling-down process by determining what are the things that failures don’t like to do. The things that failures don’t like to do are the very things that you and I and other human beings, including successful men, naturally don’t like to do. In other words, we’ve got to realize right from the start that success is something which is achieved by the minority of men, and is therefore unnatural and not to be achieved by following our natural likes and dislikes nor by being guided by our natural preferences and prejudices.

But if they don’t like to do these things, then why do they do them? Because by doing the things they don’t like to do, they can accomplish the things they want to accomplish. Successful men are influenced by the desire for pleasing results. Failures are influenced by the desire for pleasing methods and are inclined to be satisfied with such results as can be obtained by doing things they like to do.

Why are successful men able to do things they don’t like to do while failures are not? Because successful men have a purpose strong enough to make them form the habit of doing things they don’t like to do in order to accomplish the purpose they want to accomplish.

Many men with whom I have discussed this common denominator of success have said at this point, “But I have a family to support and I have to have a living for my family and myself. Isn’t that enough of a purpose?”

No, it isn’t. It isn’t a sufficiently strong purpose to make you form the habit of doing the things you don’t like to do for the very simple reasons that it is easier to adjust ourselves to the hardships of a poor living than it is to adjust ourselves to the hardships of making a better one. If you doubt me, just think of all the things you are willing to go without in order to avoid doing the things you don’t like to do.

All of which seems to prove that the strength which holds you to your purpose is not your own strength but the strength of the purpose itself.

Wow!!!  Let me know what you think about it.  Lets discuss it below.

Keep Doing,

Ron

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Thursday, 4th November, 2010

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Chatham House – spread the word

Chatham House is one of the UK’s finest think tanks, with expert, independent opinion on foreign and domestic affairs as a high point. They’ve recently posted an important new document at www.chathamhouse.org on the likely impacts of our coming energy crunch, caused by a lack of investment in infrastructure, increasing demand and finite supply of the black magic that we call oil.

A few important things need to be considered by anyone with oil connected to their business – farming, transport, energy, retail, property, construction, leisure – all connected to the wonder of fossilised sunlight. My top questions:

1. In an age when businesses worldwide have used ‘just in time’ as a way of pushing the payment point as far upstream as possible, with someone else paying for their stock storage, how little a bump will it take to fracture the capillary-thin, one-box, one-click delivery lines that we’ve come to depend on?

2. With only three days or so of food in the supermarket, another few in the warehouse, and precious little in the field, at what point will the security of our food supply become important enough to make a plan for the future.

3. With the UK’s ‘Feed in Tariffs’ giving rates of return far greater than the banks are offering, at what point will we, each of us, householders, decide to invest properly in the future and use PV and wind to wean ourselves away from an unsafe future?

The upside of the coming energy crunch is that there will be major opportunities for the businesses that step into the forthcoming gap first, and unwelcome consequences for those who don’t move until they’re pushed.

To navigate our way in the murk, we’ll need to use our creative imagination and the power of Do to the full to light the way with new ideas, designing services to replace products, smart closed loops rather than retail to landfill, and courage instead of security.

One tip. If you’re not up to speed yet on the likely impact of the energy crunch, don’t leave it too late.

Meta

Posted in Environment by

Tuesday, 27th July, 2010

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Peak opportunity

London’s Chatham House is the latest in growing list of organisations who recognise the mess that we’ll get into if we don’t prepare effectively for the incoming energy crisis that’s been catalysed by a combination of the end of easy oil / lack of investment / increasing demand. Speaking at a recent event for Clerkenwell Design Week for Cradle to Cradle seating manufacturers and Do Lectures Founding Partners Orange Box, I asked the audience (expecting a strong result) “how many of you are broadly aware of the implications of peak oil?”. Less than 10% put their hand up. The result was the same a few days back when speaking to heads of sustainable education from colleges that teach 100,000 people.

In case you’ve missed what’s going on, these are Chatham House’s views:
* Businesses which prepare for and take advantage of the new energy reality will prosper – failure to do so could be catastrophic
* Market dynamics and environmental factors mean business can no longer rely on low cost traditional energy sources
* China and growing Asian economies will play an increasingly important role in global energy security
* We are heading towards a global oil supply crunch and price spike
* Energy infrastructure will become increasingly vulnerable as a result of climate change and operations in harsher environments
* Lack of global regulation on climate change is creating an environment of uncertainty for business, which is damaging investment plans
* To manage increasing energy costs and carbon exposure businesses must reduce fossil fuel consumption
* Business must address energy-related risks to supply chains and the increasing vulnerability of ‘just-in-time’ models
* Investment in renewable energy and ‘intelligent’ infrastructure is booming.
As a minimum, businesses and public sector organisations will do well to work out what the implications of peak oil might be for their organisations , and at what stage they intend preparing for it.

My job, and yours, is to make sure that they ask the question.

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Sunday, 18th July, 2010

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