If somebody gave you a bucket of oysters and told you that there was a valuable pearl in one of the oysters, wouldnt you be inclined to open each one until you found it? 

So it is in life.  We are each handed our own set of talents, skills and a bucket of oysters.  Sometimes that bucket seems huge and it takes a lot of time to find that lucky oyster.  But it is always there. 

The key is persistence.  Never give up looking for that valuable pearl.  Treat failures as great learning experiences.  They help you grow and offer incredible wisdom. 

Just when you think there is no pearl in the oyster bucket, one will always pop up - and when you least expect it. 

I read that today in a collaborative book that I am reading.  The author of this particular passage is Joseph Sugarman. 

I did a Google search on Warren Buffet for something else I was doing and I came across this excerpt of a Q&A that he did with some graduate students a couple of years ago.  While I’m sure his answers to the investing questions were wise, (admittedly I care less about that) his insight into life in general is what drew me in.  Here is an answer to a particular question that I found captivating. 

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Question: How do you define happiness and what about your life makes you most happy? When you make good on an investment, do you allow yourself to enjoy that success by getting excited - and on the flip-side, when an investment turns down, do you find yourself equally disappointed - or do you try to remove emotion from your work, as much as  possible?

Answer:  “I enjoy what I do, I tap dance to work every day. I work with people I love, doing what I love. I spend my time thinking about the future, not the past. The future is exciting. As Bertrand Russell says, “Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get.” I won the ovarian lottery the day I was born and so did all of you. We’re all successful, intelligent, and educated. To focus on what you don’t have is a terrible mistake. With the gifts all of us have, if you are unhappy, it’s your own fault. 

I know a woman in her 80’s, a Polish Jew woman forced into a concentration camp with her family but not all of them came out. She says, “I am slow to make friends because when I look at people, I have one question in mind; would they hide me?” If you get to be my age, or younger for that matter, and have a lot of people that would hide you, then you can feel pretty good about how you’ve lived your life.

I know people on the Forbes 400 list whose children would not hide them. “He’s in the attic, he’s in the attic.” The most powerful force in the world is unconditional love. To horde it is a terrible mistake in life. The more you try to give it away, the more you get it back. At an individual level, it’s important to make sure that for the people that count to you, you count to them.

What if you could buy 10% of your classmates and their future earnings? You wouldn’t buy the ones with the highest IQ, the best grades, etc., but you’d buy the ones who are the most effective. You like people who are generous, go out of their way, straight shooters who makes things happen.

Now imagine that you could short (this means betting against them) 10% of your classmates. This part is usually more fun as you start looking around the room. You wouldn’t choose the ones with the poorest grades. You’d look for people nobody wants to be around, that are obnoxious, the ones who are all talk.

If you have a 500 HP engine and only get 50 HP out of it, you’ll be beat by someone else that has a 300 HP engine but gets 250 HP output. The difference between potential and output comes from human qualities. You can make a list of the qualities you admire and those you despise. To turn the tables, think, if this is the way I react to the qualities on the list, won’t this be the way the world will react to me? You can learn to turn on those qualities you want and turn off those qualities you wish to avoid.

The best way to get success is to deserve success. I have to look them in the eye and decide whether they love the business or they love the money. It’s fine if they love the money, but they have to love the business more.Why do I come in at 7 every morning, I can’t wait to get to work. It’s because I get to paint my own painting and I like applause.

In my personal life, there are always things I could’ve done differently. But so many
good things have happened. It just doesn’t pay to dwell on the bad things. Finding the right spouse is 90% of it. If you have your health and lucky on your spouse; you’re a long way home.

Getting turned down by Harvard Business School was one of the best things that could have happened to me; bad luck can turn out to be good.”

This is not a story of mine.  It may not even be attributed to the correct author here, I don’t know for sure.  I do know this.  I have read this story a handful of times and each time I read it, I am struck by the simplicity of it but also the essential lesson to be learned.  Accordingly, this is the time of the year where most people have either abandoned their resolutions or promises for the new year or are struggling to sustain them (myself included).  What this story and the greater principles of life tell us is that like the Chinese Bamboo tree, growth is more a by product of purpose than it is of instant gratification.

The Chinese Bamboo Tree
By Charlie Dexter

Zig Ziglar, the famous motivational speaker, once told the story of the Chinese Bamboo Tree. It seems that this tree when planted, watered, and nurtured for an entire growing season doesn’t outwardly grow as much as an inch.

Then, after the second growing season, a season in which the farmer takes extra care to water, fertilize and care for the bamboo tree, the tree still hasn’t sprouted. So it goes as the sun rises and sets for four solid years. The farmer and his wife have nothing tangible to show for all of their labor trying to grow the tree.

Then, along comes year five. In the fifth year that Chinese bamboo tree seed finally sprouts and the bamboo tree grows up to eighty feet in just one growing season! Or so it seems….

Did the little tree lie dormant for four years only to grow exponentially in the fifth? Or, was the little tree growing underground, developing a root system strong enough to support its potential for outward growth in the fifth year and beyond?

The answer is, of course, obvious. Had the tree not developed a strong unseen foundation it could not have sustained its life as it grew.

Had the Chinese bamboo farmer dug up his little seed every year to see if it was growing, he would have stunted the tree’s growth as surely as a caterpillar is doomed to a life on the ground if it is freed from its struggle inside a cocoon prematurely.The struggle in the cocoon is what gives the future butterfly the wing power to fly.

We live in a quick-fix society. We get frustrated if we have to wait more than 2 minutes for service or a stop light to change. We want instant solutions to every complex problem and every fractured relationship. In short - we want it all now!

Maybe its time to reflect on an old, old poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that is as true today as it was when he wrote it over 100 years ago:

“The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Toiled ever upward through the night.”

He was going to be all that a mortal could be… Tomorrow.
None should be kinder or braver than he… Tomorrow.
A friend who was troubled and weary he knew,
Who’d be glad of a lift and who needed it, too,
On him he would call to see what he could do… Tomorrow. 
Each morning he’d stack up the letters he’d write… Tomorrow.
And he thought of the friends he would fill with delight… Tomorrow.
It was too bad indeed; he was busy each day, 
And hadn’t a minute to stop on his way;
“More time I’ll give to others,” he’d say…”Tomorrow.”
The greatest of workers this man would have been… Tomorrow.
The world would have known him, had he ever seen… Tomorrow.
But the fact is he died, and faded from view,
And all that he left here when living was through 
Was a mountain of things he intended to do… Tomorrow.

This is a poem by Edgar Guest about taking advantage of today rather than waiting for “tomorrow.”  I’d imagine at this point in the New Year, there are many who are struggling with the discipline needed to either form or sustain new behaviors that will help to achieve goals and objectives set for 2010.  Believe it or not, this is about as far as most people get with a New Year’s resolution.

We do not struggle with our plans, we struggle with taking the action necessary to get the ball rolling.  It’s tough - no doubt.  As Don Marquis says, “procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.”

How often have you looked at your list of things to do today and rationalized that “I will do that tomorrow?”  Too often we miss out on the opportunity to do something decisive today.

What one thing can you do today to put yourself on the path to success tomorrow?

Otherwise known as Day 3 of 365

Needless to say this time of the year there is a lot of talk about resolutions, goals and creating better habits for the new year.  I was actually surprised recently to read that only 14 percent of all people actually set some sort of resolution or goal for the New Year.  I was not surprised, however, to read that typical lifespan on those resolutions that are set is only 3 weeks.   Sad but True.

Ill have to admit that I’ve fallen into that latter category before on many occasions.  Not from lack of ambition, but from lack of follow through.  I always take the time to put together a set of goals for the new year or any part of the year for that matter. Once the excitement subsides and it becomes nothing but honest intention and hard work, sometimes I stray from the path.  Ultimately I end up batting about .500 - probably better than most people but not the standard Id like to set.

Again, I have a detailed 2010 Personal Success Plan for persistent growth and accomplishment.  However in an effort to get better results this year, I’ve decided to give myself intermittent 30-day focus challenges that coincide with those goals.

It’s kind of like a 30 day free trial just without the trial part.   I’ve carefully chosen actions that I know will bring huge benefit this year if I take the time to form them into habits.  I’ve made a non-negotiable agreement with myself to stick with each for 30-40 days until they are ingrained in my daily routine.

My initial challenge for the New Year is to become and Early Riser – to join the 5:00ish club.  So for the first 30 days of the New Year (rain or shine, weekday or weekend), I will set my alarm for 5:15am, allowing myself 15 minutes to shower and be ready to start my day by 5:30.  At 5:30 I will begin my Smart Start Morning ritual (more to come on that later) which will help put me in the right frame of mind for a successful day.  An added benefit is that I might be able to end my day a little bit earlier too (appointments notwithstanding).  I’ve done this previously but left out the non-negotiable concept and wouldn’t you know it, the snooze button got easier and easier to push over time.

This challenge also comes with bonus challenges.   The first thing that I will do each morning is to read a chapter from The Purpose Driven Life.   I’ve read the book a handful of times before but it’s been a few years.  There are 40 chapters in the book and since these two challenges essentially go hand in hand, perhaps this first challenge of the New Year will be a 40 day challenge.   If I haven’t ingrained the habit after 40 days then it’s going to be a long year ;)

Stay tuned …

It’s amazing how much things can change over the course of one year, much less 10 years.  I’ll have to admit, until recently, when I started to see the various countdowns of the decade on TV stations, I hadn’t given much thought to the fact that 2009 was indeed the end of the decade.

Over this past week Kristin has spent some time chronologically sorting boxes of pictures that have been neglected for a while.   From time to time, she will call me in and ask, “when was this?”   And we will sit there and try to hash it out, basing our rationale on hair-dos or Christmas presents in the pictures etc … It’s a real inexact science, but the truth is that some years are just more memorable than others.

That got me to thinking about how my life really did change over the past 10 years.  When you think about the fact that 10 years is a full third of my life to present, it is pretty profound.  I woke up on New Year’s Day 2000 half way through my Sophomore year at the University of Texas.

Just to give some context of the impact of a decade, can you even remember what was “normal” pre-9/11?  In the year 2000, American Idol was still two years away from debuting.   The New England Patriots were coming off of a 5-11 season having finished 4th or worse in their own division 3 years in a row.  The Dow Jones closed at 11,497 on 12/31/09 (more than 1000 pts higher than it would 10 years later).  Tim Tebow was in his 3rd year at Flori … ., I mean in Middle School (seems like he’s been at Florida that long).  Mack Brown was just the guy who followed John Mackovic and National Championships weren’t even a figment of the imagination. 

When you reflect on that, you realize just how much can over that period of time.

I’ve been extremely blessed over the past decade, having had the chance to play in the 2000 College World Series and win the National Championship in 2002.  I graduated college in 2003 and was given the chance to chase my dream of playing professional baseball the following spring with the Houston Astros.   The Horns won the National Championship in January of 2006, the same year that I started a new career.  I purchased my first home in 2008 and was engaged a few months later.  I married the love of my life this past year – and only after only a decade’s worth of dating.   Those are just some of the highlights but an amazing 10 years it has been.

Maybe I’m just getting older but for some reason I woke up this morning with a new appreciation for what the New Year brings.  Not because I’m looking to bury this past year.  In fact, quite the opposite, it was a fabulous year of personal and professional growth.  Its just that I have a peaceful feeling that 2010 is going to be the best year ever and I cannot wait to attack it with passion.