renown

i heard a story recently... and honestly i'm not sure what it's intended point was... you know, i'm not sure what "the moral of the story" was, but i just made up my own. applied it in my own way.
i tend to do that a lot.

the story went something like this:

a little boy was playing out in his back yard. he was maybe 9 years old.

he's playing baseball with himself - you know, throwing the ball up in the air to himself and trying to hit it.

as he's doing this he keeps saying “I’m the greatest hitter in the world. I'm the greatest hitter in the world. I'm the greatest hitter in the world.” Over & over.

he tosses the ball up... swings & misses...

Strike 1.

“I’m the greatest hitter in the world."

he tosses the ball up again... swings & misses...
Strike 2.

“I’m the greatest hitter in the world."

for the third time he tosses the ball up... swings & misses...

Strike 3.

The boy stands there for a second... then throws both arms up in the air and shouts


Someone was actually standing there watching all this happen. That person asked the boy, How do you know you're the greatest pitcher in the world?

the boy answered

now, i think that statement is one to live by. seriously.

usually when we complain we are not thinking logically. at all. it's 100% emotional. which causes us to focus on the problem and just complain.

which does no one ANY good.
at all.

in fact it does a lot of harm most of the time.
but we don't realize it because, if you remember, we're not thinking logically.

but what if you took just 10% of that "complaining energy" and reallocated it toward solving the problem at hand... i.e. - actually doing something about it?

wow. you could be surprised.

my goal is a little different though. i think i'm a cold turkey kind of guy. forget the 10%. i want to reallocate 100% of the energy from complaining to productively working to fix, solve, create solutions.

i hope i'm surprised at how well it works out.