Bet on yourself to be the person you want to be
It’s not the big changes but small changes that matter.
This article is based on Conor Neil’s Ted Talk
Who would you bet on? You have to put an amount on the table, but you need to give a name before putting the amount. And the name you pick, that person will share 10% of his future monthly income with you every month- month after month.
So, who would you bet on? Which names come to your mind? Friends, someone from school, uni, or some relative. You want to pick a name that will be successful in the future- a part of your income depends on it.
When I first asked myself this question, “Who would you bet on?” my name didn’t pop up. My mind came up with names who have scored the highest grades in school, uni. But I want you to think about it. You want to be successful in whatever you do; No one wants to fail intentionally.
I am writing this article hoping readers find it useful in some way and like it-claps. Of course, I can only write articles and make sure that I give my best. Liking or not liking is not in my control, and I agree that claps or there cannot be a single yardstick to define success. But keeping that aside, deep down, you want to be successful, get recognized in your field, but you don’t back yourself up for it. Your mind comes up with every name but yours.
I say bet on yourself. Yes. The one person who will own 100% of their income to themselves each month. What can you do to believe in yourself to the extent that you bet on yourself? Winning the bet is secondary but reaching a place that you are able to bet on yourself is no less than winning the bet.
Warren Buffet, one of the richest persons, has three criteria for picking names. He doesn’t manage a company, invent something, or sells something. He invests in people or company that gives him good return. And going by his success, he picks the names pretty well. You can learn from what Warren Buffet looks for when picking a name. He bets on himself to bet on a name.
Warren buffet’s three criteria are:
1. Energy
2. Intelligence
3. Integrity
Energy
Energy is good health and biased to action. The person should be healthy and have habits that lead to a healthy life. Only when you have energy, you act or take steps towards your dream.
Biased to action is whether a person tends to act or think. Suppose you have a maths test next week in your college. What kind of person are you? Whether you fret over the test because you find maths difficult or find a way to prepare for it- Ask help from your friend, try to read and understand class notes or take help from the teacher.
Action is the bridge between dreams and reality.
Intelligence
We are not talking about classroom intelligence but adaptive intelligence — the ability to mould oneself according to the surrounding. Our surrounding is changing. For example, a runner running on the path sees lampposts in his path. Is the runner able to identify the pattern so that they move just enough to avoid taking it in the forehead, but they still take the blow on their shoulder, allowing them to move forward.
Integrity
Integrity is saying no to others. Integrity is aligning what your calendar says, what you have to do, and what you say you have to do. If you often say yes to other people’s requests, you will often find yourself not able to do things that are important for you. As the speaker puts it: Your life is being divided into thousand pieces and spread amongst the priorities of other people.
How can you adopt these three traits in your life?
Intelligence
Write. Write about what’s happening in your life? Small things. When you write over a period, your intelligence is not just what you can think at that present moment, but your intelligence is the cumulative of ideas, events that happened over the period you have written. Your life is as good a resource as a book.
Write about your Marshmallow. The Marshmallow experiment wherein a child walks into a room, and a person is waiting for the child. The person offers the child a marshmallow and says, “this is yours; I am going outside, and if this marshmallow is still there when I return, you get another marshmallow. So, the child has two options:
1. They get one marshmallow if they eat it immediately
2. They get two marshmallows if they don’t eat the marshmallow immediately
50% of the children who took part in the experiment ate the marshmallow while the person was gone. The children’s lives who ate the marshmallow were compared with those who didn’t eat the marshmallow. The result was that those who didn’t eat the marshmallow had better lives- quantitatively and qualitatively- than those who ate the marshmallow.
The children who didn’t eat the marshmallow put their heads down, looked at their shoes, stared at the wall, anything that made the marshmallow out of their view. This showed how little control human beings have over themselves. If you are on a diet and chocolate is in your fridge where you see it every day, you may stop yourself one day or a week from eating the chocolate, but you will eat it sooner or later. Diet doesn’t fail at home; it fails at the supermarket when you buy the chocolate.
Write about your marshmallow. Describe it. You will know what’s stopping your progress and your chances to overcome it increases exponentially. You can take steps to avoid your marshmallow once you know what it is.
Energy
Deal with one marshmallow at a time. Just take one step. Just one step. Don’t think too far ahead. If you have planned to study for six hours every day, break the six hours into small chunks- 30 minutes each. Take one session at a time. If you think you must study for six hours, you may not even start.
If you want to write a book, you must write one page every day. You don’t write a book in a day; you write it over a period.
Integrity
A child spell loves as “TIME.” Yes, they measure love by the time we give to them. You can apply the same idea to anything you do. If you say that you love your parents, open your diary and see how many hours you have spent with them or what you have talked to them about. If you say, you want to become a successful writer, open your diary, and see how often you have written. Writing lets you know where you are directing your time and energy. Your actions should match your words. The intention is nothing without action.
You can only improve when you repeat or practice a skill regularly or whatever you want to improve at. Success is repeated, consistent good habits; failure is repeated bad decisions. Success in life is not one massive, good decision, and failure is not one wrong decision. Success is not one marshmallow not eaten, and failure is not one marshmallow eaten.
We so underestimate what we can achieve in a year and overestimate what we can achieve in a day.
To sum up
· Write stuff down
· Take one step at a time. Deal with one marshmallow at a time.
· Track where you are directing your time and energy. Writing helps you do this
