Coffee With Mike- What Keeps Us Grounded

What keeps us grounded? What keeps us going forward, persisting in what we know we should persist. Also what derails us? What keeps us from actually staying on track when we know we need to stay on track? Why is it that we allow something like being thrown off track to occur? It's a temptation of some kind, maybe you're tired, maybe someone else is tired, maybe things just didn't work out the way we wanted it to work out. What is it that keeps us on track? 

I was watching my favorite new show on Saturday mornings at 9:00, which is Smerconish on CNN. He had a guest on there, a professor at Wharton, and he talks about this book, I think it's called Think Again. The bottom line of what he was saying was that it's principles. If we understand what's important to us, it's the principles that we have to have nailed down. The principles are what hold us in place, keep us on track, keep us on mission, enable us to get as far along as we need to get along in order to be able to accomplish what we're setting out to accomplish. It's the principles that are important. 

How we do it, the methodology, the policies that we create around that, those things are going to change because, again, time changes every everything and everyone. If time changes everything and everyone, why would we try to create a permanent document within a temporal context? It's really not necessary, it's really actually harmful. 

The point is that we have to understand what's important to us. What are our values? What makes us feel like we're doing the right things? What enables us to be assured that we're acting in the right way; that we're with the right group; that we're investing in the right people; that we're investing in the right things; that we are actually doing with our lives what we need to do with our life?

It's the principles that are important to keep us on track. But, what can change around that is the actual methodology of how we do it. What can change around that is what we're using, the materials, the relationships that we have. Those things can evolve, those things can change, but what keeps us on track are the principles. 

Do you understand what your principles are? Have you actually acknowledged on a piece of paper, 'These are the things I feel strongly about. These are things I believe, and this is why I do what I do, I think what I think. This is why I love, how I love, who I love, and this is why I'm going to move forward, because it what I'm doing actually is fruitful, an outgrowth of my principles.