Terry Hagan MD: Recent Episodes
Terry Hagan
Health is wealth. In our podcasts engage in discussions on how you can achieve the best of your mental, physical, medical and psychiatric health to enable you live the best of your life even as we discuss additional aspects of life to help you achieve an optimum and prosperous life.
Jack of All Trades
Recently a friend of mine was telling me about an idea he has for an app. He wants to create an app that will be used by many people and that will make lots of money. While his presentation was reasonable enough, although without a business plan yet, I was aware that he is also in school full time, has a job developing a media company, is trying to sell cars for people and is also selling real estate. With all that going on, how does he have time to develop an app? Assuming his time is full of activity, what is he currently doing that will have to receive less of his attention while he focuses on an app?
A few years ago, I sat down to do another self-improvement plan. Writing each major endeavor in my life on its own piece of paper, I ended up with eleven pieces of paper! No wonder I was stressed, overwhelmed, unhealthy, and in need of a self-improvement plan. AND I WAS NOT DOING ANYTHING WELL ! That moment, along with a conviction in church, led to major changes. I decided to sell “everything except the children”, and to simplify my life. And I did. I sold the mini-farm with a herd of alpacas and a barn full of Rocky Mountain horses. After filling three huge dumpsters with stuff I did not need and giving other stuff away to let others be happy with it, I moved into a house with a third of the space, and I was much happier. The eleven pieces of paper had been reduced to three: God, family and psychiatry. Now I was free to go on mission trips, which has led to the most rewarding experiences of my life, second only to having children. Now I mentor other people’s children too!
There is a saying: “A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.” It seems to compliment a person who has a competent grasp of many skills but who is not outstanding in any one. But viewed from an opposite perspective, a person cannot master an important area of his life if he also has a number of other things going on at the same time. Time and energy are diluted by spreading them too thin, and excellence fails to develop in any area. In my experience, having a lot of businesses at the same time sounds prosperous on the surface, but it is better to focus on one thing at a time, get really good at it, and keep it growing instead of stopping to do something else.
Being successful is not about having several businesses. It is more about being WILDLY successful in one’s area of expertise, by devoting all time and energy into the growth of that one area.
Stay focused on your major goals in life, resisting the distractions of unrelated opportunities.
It is what successful people do.
The Schedule
I have had a certain experience on Saturdays that makes a certain point. On a Saturday morning, I would think about a list of things that I would like to accomplish that day, things that one does on a weekend, such as running errands or getting things done around the house. So at the beginning of the day, drinking my coffee and looking out the window, I would make a To Do List. If I then went about my day getting things on the To Do List done, I would still feel a bit disorganized, constantly going back to the list to think about the next thing to do, working through the priorities and the tendency to procrastinate, to put off until later the things that I really did not want to do, so that I could also enjoy my Saturday. Then I learned to add a schedule to the list.
Imagine having 8 things that you would like to get done on a given day. Take a blank sheet of paper and write the To Do List on the left side of the page, as always. Without rearranging the list, prioritize the items by numbering them 1 through 8 from most important to least important. On the right side of the page, create a schedule for the day, numbering hours from 8 am to 4 pm, or for Africans, hour 2 to hour 10. Now, think about when you should do the most important item on the list and put it on the schedule, then the second priority and so forth, thinking also about efficiency. For instance, if you need to leave the house to do a series of things, plan a route to minimize travel time. Draw lines connecting the item on the list with the time on the schedule.
I have noticed that when I organize my day that way, putting the list on the schedule, that much more gets done. What happens is that having put tasks on a schedule, it then becomes the desire and effort to STAY ON SCHEDULE, without having to re-think the list, without finishing one task and then going back to the list to decide what to do next. It was already decided when the schedule was made. One simply moves from one item on the list to the next. And the “gold” is that much more gets done as one goes through the day trying to stay on schedule! You do have to want to stay on schedule, as a matter of character. It becomes a matter of INTEGRITY, of doing what you have told yourself that you are going to do. Integrity is doing what you say you are going to do.
Special considerations: Allow enough time. Do not schedule too tightly but rather leave blank spaces, called buffers, on the schedule, because the schedule will need to be flexible, allowing for some things to take longer, for distractions and for the unexpected. The idea is not to be a slave to a schedule but rather to have a day that is as SUCCESSFUL as it can reasonably be.
Suggestions: Make your own schedule on paper, or use a Word file. Or use business software or other scheduling software, such as Google Calendar, or any other system that you can create; whatever works for you. I have a schedule as part of my electronic medical record software, the primary purpose of which is to list patient appointments, but then I use Google Calendar to schedule everything outside of patient hours. If I don’t put things on a schedule, then I don’t get as much done, and I will eventually forget something important.
Make your To Do List, and then PUT IT ON THE SCHEDULE !!!
It is what successful people do.
Value Your Brain
In order to be truly successful, your brain will need to function at a higher level. Let me explain what I mean by that.
As you know, I am an expert on the brain. As a neurosurgeon and a psychiatrist, I know the brain quite well. I have observed my own brain and also the brains of many other people. I have observed that the brain can be made to perform at a higher level than one might expect. Here is how it works.
Imagine flowers growing in a field. Under optimal conditions of light, water and nutrition, the flowers will develop to their full potential. The results are glorious!
Consider the computer. If a computer is built to be more powerful and faster, its software will also be faster and more efficient, producing better results in less time. And if the software is more sophisticated, then the computer will achieve even more.
Now let’s consider a student who is studying for a test. In order to do really well on the test, he knows to learn the material, but also with a focus and an intensity such that he learns it well. He intends to do well on the test. He studies with intention, and with intensity. He is making his brain function at a higher level. Then, when taking the test, his brain is working at its highest level, with high expectations, driven to achieve its full potential, as evidenced by a test score that is as high as possible.
So it is with the achievement of success in life. Results will be better, and with high achievement, if one keeps in mind his own ability to make his brain work better and more efficiently, as a matter of choice. One can turn on his brain, to a higher level, by deciding to do it. Brainstorming ideas, setting goals, making plans, writing and following schedules, all are brain activities that will be done better when one decides to make his brain work at a higher level, and to see how good it can get!
I often tell students that the math you learn in school is not about the arithmetic you will need to know later in life. If is about teaching your brain the skill of analyzing and thinking precisely when it becomes important to solve complex problems, and to be precise when it is important to be precise. In the same sense, the more you learn and the more you expect your brain to function at higher and higher levels, the more success you will achieve in life.
The accumulation of brain power over the course of a lifetime can be astounding! I would challenge you to show yourself how you can achieve more by making your brain function at higher and higher levels.
After all, it is what successful people do.
The Almighty To Do List!!!
Let me confess, right up front, that I used the word “almighty” in the title of this chapter to get your attention, to get you to consider seriously a concept and a practice that is CRITICALLY IMPORTANT to success in life! It is hard for me to imagine living a day, much less a successful life, without making and keeping lists of things to do. It is a basic tool of goal setting and of time management.
It is said that if you make a list of everything you want to do, and then you prioritize the list, top to bottom, from most important to least important, you may as well cut off the bottom half of the list, because you will never have the time to do everything on the list, and it is important to get important things done while leaving unimportant things undone. This is a point about To Do Lists and time management.
My son marvels that I am the most productive person he knows, saying that I am always doing something. I like setting that example for him. I am happy being productive, and the To Do Lists help to organize everything I have to think about doing. Not everything will get done! It’s not about doing as much as you can; it is about organizing the things you want to remember to do. Some would say that they don’t need to make lists; they can keep it all in their heads. But I would say that if you can keep it all in your head, then you don’t have much to remember. You are probably not very productive, and you are not likely to be as successful as you could be.
In school, To Do Lists are actually in the form of study plans, and study plans are really a matter of scheduling the things that need to be studied. So the first To Do Lists I remember doing were in my first year after medical school when I was an intern. It was my job to get a multitude of small things done between morning rounds and evening rounds. I would carry a clip board with blank paper and write down everything that I needed to do, checking each item off the list as soon as it was done. Some items would carry over to the next day, making the To Do List an ongoing dynamic document of what had been done and what was left to do.
Now, I have many To Do Lists. I have a lists of things on my phone that I want to remember to put on the General To Do List, which is on paper. I have a list of things I want to do today, this weekend, or at some point. I have a Dreams List of things I want to do or accomplish during my lifetime. I make lists of goals I want to achieve in the short term and in the long term. I have grocery lists and lists of errands, lists of paint colors and projects I want to do in my house, of people who are important to me, of articles and books I want to write, of things to be aware of and areas of life to keep in balance. I keep lists of almost everything, as a way of organizing my very active mind. I used to keep all of my lists in a three-ring binder with dividers to keep them organized. Now, I have nine ongoing and ever changing documents on Google Drive that represent tent major areas of my life, my goals in each area and lists of tasks that need to be done. Some lists change often and some lie dormant for a while, but my Google Doc system of organization represents everything I want to achieve.
The more you keep To Do Lists, the more productive you become. Develop the habit! It is what successful people do!
Those Five People
About three years ago, four things happened in my life. First, my beautiful, smart and hard-working daughter began college on her way to medical school. Secondly, I was cultivating a friendship with a young man age 24, who was intelligent and ambitious and who had the knowledge and potential to become a very successful entrepreneur, and he is rapidly becoming that. The third thing that happened was that a young man from Kenya, a smart and academically successful 18 year old, came to live with me and was subsequently accepted to Stanford University on a full scholarship. Lastly, I was approaching my sixtieth birthday, determined to spend the next ten years becoming young and ambitious myself. During the last three years, my sons have become young adults, and with the addition of four more East Africans, the group of bright, intelligent and ambitious young people who surround me has grown to ten people. In many ways they have become like me, and in many ways I have become like them.
YOU BECOME LIKE THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU SPEND THE MOST TIME WITH. Think about it. A young adult has a full time job, or maybe she is in school full time, or maybe both. She probably has a vision of herself and of the future she dreams of, but even if she is not there yet, does she spend time with people who are like the person she wants to be? Does she spend her time with those who are having the success she wants to have? Or instead does she spend her time with those who tend to bring her down or at least fail to influence her in a positive way?
Yes, the point is about influence. Those five people that you spend the most time with will have an influence on you. You will tend to become like them, and they will tend to become like you. If you work hard and then spend your time with people who are lazy and not particularly successful in life, they will add nothing to yours and may easily bring you down to their level on some ways. On the other hand, if you seek out people who are driven and successful, then you will be influenced by them to rise to higher levels of success. Be aware of the pattern and choose carefully the people you allow to influence you.
I visited a small town in rural Kenya named Kericho, and I had the experience of listening to a sermon by a young African lady named Vivian. In encouraging her congregation, I heard her say, “YOU ARE THE AVERAGE OF THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU SPEND THE MOST TIME WITH.” I turned to my friend and smiled. We had just been talking about that!
Those five people? Choose them wisely. It is what successful people do.
The Morning Routine
Early in life, I was one to stay in bed until the last minute, getting up only to get where I needed to go on time. I would not have described myself as a morning person. However, I did notice that when I would awaken, on rare occasion, to watch the sun rise, I really enjoyed the moment. Later, I learned how valuable the morning can be.
Perhaps the first point to be made about the value of morning is that successful people are productive while others are still in bed. Getting more done leads to a greater sense of accomplishment and greater achievement.
Secondly, getting up a little bit earlier allows the time to organize the day, to think about what is on the To Do List and to schedule those things, or to review what has already been planned. Starting the day with that organization means that much more will get done.
Another very important reason to value the early morning hours is that the time can be spent alone, contemplating life, working out solutions to problems, praying or meditating or engaging in some light activity, all for the purpose of getting the day off to a good start.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, early morning is a time to create and review goals. One should have goals in all major areas of life. Reviewing them on a daily basis keeps them in the forefront of your mind so that your mind will continue to create the paths to success in all of those areas. Happiness is knowing that your life is moving in the directions that you have chosen and planned, that goals are being achieved, and that your life is what you want it to be.
My morning routine on most days is to awaken around 5:00. Coffee is ready in the automatic coffee maker that I set the night before as a part of my bedtime routine. I sit in my recliner drinking coffee and letting my brain wake up. Within 30 minutes I am feeling alert, and then I begin a review of my To Do List and the goals in each area of my life. The areas are spiritual, physical, family, financial, recreation, career and personal development. Those areas plus the To Do List are arranged in Google docs in outline form, constituting 8 files. While I do not review each file in a deeply contemplative way every day, I do it often enough to know that I am well organized and achieving what I have designed my life to do.
Then I go about cleaning myself up and getting ready for the rest of my day according to what I have scheduled for that day. Some days are more structured and some less structured. Sunday is still a day of rest. But I really enjoy my morning routine.
How can you build a strong morning routine? Plan time to contemplate your life, allowing your mind to work on solutions to problems or goals to be achieved. Include prayer or meditation or some form or relaxation to get your day started in a less stressful way. You will want to make a list (or lists) of what you want to do, putting those tasks on a schedule, and prioritizing the most important things first. Include a joyful attitude, a willingness to work hard, and a choice to stay on schedule. It sounds complicated, but it can be done in less than an hour each day, if you are patient and realize that it does not all have to be done at once. If fact, while it is a routine, it is also a process that is different from day to day. Think of it as a skill that you are learning, and then build it into whatever works for you. After all, you are the captain of your ship, and you need the time to stay organized and balanced, and to take care of yourself.
Consider waking up earlier than you have been, getting your day started with a much more meaningful and productive routine. It is what successful people do.
The Boss Works The Hardest
I learned this principle from my father. In teaching me that the boss always works the hardest, he was training me to think about the character I should have if I were to be my own boss and to own my own business. It is an attitude of willingness to work hard and then expect to be working harder than anyone else if you want your business to succeed. Hard work is good.
There are reasons why this principle is good to keep in mind. First, the boss knows more about how to succeed in his or her business than anyone else in the business. Secondly, the boss is constantly creating the success of the business. The goals of the business should be at the forefront of his mind. Thirdly, the boss is ultimately responsible for the success of the business. A fourth reason relates to the principle that “If you want a job done right, do it yourself.” That is, the boss may be more capable of doing a given task or project than anyone else in the business. Lastly, paying someone else to work is paying them what might otherwise be profit.
The opposite of being a hardworking boss is that of being a lazy boss, or perhaps a boss who just does not know how to be a really effective boss. When the boss is not hard-working, the business does not develop and grow consistent with its potential. A lack of leadership is perceived by the employees. Tasks and projects are not done in a timely manner and the results are not the best quality. Energy and intent to do a good job are less as enthusiasm is less.
If you want your business to be successful, and if you want to think of yourself as being a high performer, then expect to be the one in the business working harder than anyone else. Hard work is good for you and for your business.
It is what successful people do.
Be a Self-Starter
I was still a young man when my mentor asked me this question: When you finally become the man you envision being, what do you look like?
The question suggests that for each of us, there is emotional and intellectual development that continues throughout life. That process never ends, nor would you want it to. After all, how would you feel if you thought that you could never be better than you are today?
It is in that sense that we develop character. And with one’s development in the world of business, certain characteristics tend to propel us along the path of success. One of those characteristics is that of being a self-starter.
Dictionary.com defines a self-starter as “a person who begins work or undertakes a project on his or her own initiative, without needing to be told or encouraged to do so. According to Google Dictionary, a self-starter is a person who is sufficiently motivated or ambitious to start a new career or business or to pursue further education without the help of others. For example, "he was the self-starter who worked his way up from messenger boy to account executive".
Yesterday, a 17 year old patient of mine told me of two ideas he had for setting up his own business with a friend who would be his business partner. He has put enough thought and planning into the project that the next step was to make the decision to engage. I was impressed that the young man was smart enough and ambitious enough to start up his own business. He is already a self-starter.
Also, yesterday, I was seeing a patient who had come in to discuss the results of his gene testing. My computer was slow and uncooperative. When I stepped out of my office to complain about the computer problem, my secretary confirmed the computer problem and handed me a printout of the gene testing. She had anticipated my need and had solved my immediate problem without being asked to do so. I was again impressed. She is a self-starter.
Many years ago I read a book called A Message to Garcia, by Elbert Hubbard. A man needed to get a message to Garcia, who was deep in the jungle. The man engaged a messenger to deliver the message, but he did not know exactly where Garcia was. Without asking too many questions, the messenger figured out how to find Garcia and give him the message. The point of the story is that the messenger had to have the character to get the job done with minimal instruction, and he did. The messenger was a self-starter.
How does one become a self-starter? By decision. It is a characteristic that you assign to yourself, and then you go about developing that characteristic, looking for opportunities to do so. If you know what needs to be done, then you might decide that you could go ahead and do it without waiting to be asked. You would anticipate what the boss wants, or anticipate what the business needs. If you are an employee, you could imagine yourself as the owner of the business and decide what you would do; then tell the boss what you have decided to do, with his or her approval.
In the business world, one would be either the boss or the employee, although one might easily be both. An employee who is also a boss might be a mid-level executive, for instance. As the boss, it would be your responsibility to make the business succeed. In another book entitled Boundaries for Leaders, by Dr. Henry Cloud, he makes the point that what happens in a business is what the boss either creates or allows.
Make a decision to define yourself as a self starter.Look for opportunities to develop that part of your character. Beware of a tendency to wait for the next task to be assigned. Instead, think of yourself as an extension of the boss, thinking of what needs to b
Putting It All Together
We have discussed the basic necessity of To Do lists, the value of putting important tasks and goals on The Schedule, Goal Setting, and the Business Plan which maps out short term and long term goals and strategies. Now we want to pull it all together.
The first principle to believe is that these four areas all go together all the time. The To Do list is about tasks that need to get done. These tasks may come from yesterday’s list of important things not yet done, last week’s list, or from ideas and plans going forward. The To Do list is the most dynamic document, in that it is ever changing.
From the To Do list the most important items are scheduled. It is important to realize that, consistent with the 80/20 rule, only 20% of the items on the list are truly important and these tasks need to be done first as a matter of priority. Getting them done starts with setting a time to do them, which means they get put on The Schedule. And then the drive to stay on schedule and to do what you have told yourself you are going to do, kicks in, and the important things get done.
Goal setting is actually the beginning of the process, such that the to do list and the schedule are tools to use in achieving the goals. Without the goals, the items on the lists and schedules lack that bigger picture of purpose and achievement.
An ongoing, or at least periodic, review of the business plan helps keep in mind the big picture. It should include the timelines that tell you how certain projects or initiatives should proceed over the course of time, and it reminds you of when goals are set to be met, thereby pushing you to stay on time, to stay on track, not falling behind, in order to achieve a goal on time. Remember that part of goal setting is believing that your goal will reasonably be achieved at a certain time in the future, and what you want is for that time to push you to create the ways and means to get that goal to achievement at that designated time, your self imposed deadline. Remember that goals can be changed and deadlines can be moved if they become realistic. And remember that you must keep your goals realistic such that you believe they will be achieved.
It is easy to see then that The Schedule is not just the schedule for the day, the week, the month and the year, but it is also the schedule of the timelines set forth in the business plan.
Notice that keeping To Do lists, the master schedule and the big picture of the business, there is a high degree of organization to each major goal. Take the time to be highly organized. It makes you more productive, and it is what successful people do!
Keep Your Money Safe
We have a mutual friend who was walking down the street in Nairobi at 7:00 in the evening when he was robbed at gunpoint. Kenyans have a mobile banking system such that their money can be accessed from their cell phones. Our friend was forced to provide login information and was robbed of $400, or about 40,000 Ksh. The lesson to be learned from this frightening crime is, “Keep your money safe”.
And then there is a saying, “A fool and his money are soon parted.” A fool is a person who is not very smart, in this context, in handling his own money. A person who is not making intelligent decisions about his own money will spend it or give it away, and then he will not have it. ONCE SPENT, IT IS GONE FOREVER, while what has been purchased is temporary.
The first rule of protecting your money is to keep it in a secure account. Security has become a most important task for banks and other organizations whose service is to hold your money for you. But elaborate security systems don’t help much if your account can be accessed with simple login information. Do your part to keep your money secure.
A second important rule of protecting your money is to keep it safe from the people you know. In fact, the rule is “If people know you have money, they will try to get it from you.” While the rule applies to people who would sell you their products or services, it also applies to family and friends. Everyone wants more money than they have, and they will justify asking you to give them some money to meet their needs, if they can think of a reason for you to do that. If you give the money, then the money is gone forever, even with promises to pay it back. In The Richest Man in Babylon, by George Clason, we learn never to put our wealth at risk. Don’t tell anyone you have money, because they will try to get it from you. Giving back 10% is a principle that many would follow, but that principle is not relevant to a discussion about protecting your money.
The third important rule of protecting your money is to keep it safe from yourself. Budgeting your money means determining ahead of time how your income will be spent or allocated. Without budgeting, money is spent in small amounts for things you want in the moment, and the saving of money for future spending or investing is often not remembered in the moment. One of the best ways to protect money from yourself is to put a budgeted amount in an account that you are not able to access quickly, while keeping small amounts available to use immediately when needed.
Keep your money safe, not just from robbers, but also from sellers, friends, family and yourself.
It is what successful people do.
On Integrity
When I was 20 years old, I asked a professor about ending a course early, with good reason. But instead of granting my request, he taught me one of the most important lessons I have ever learned. He gave me a definition of integrity that I have never forgotten.
INTEGRITY IS DOING WHAT YOU SAY YOU ARE GOING TO DO. It is part of your character, such that if you do it well, people will think well of you. And if you do not, they will not think well of you, as they learn that they cannot depend on you to do what you have said you are going to do.
So I have young friends who could use some improvement in this area. To put it into context, many of my friends live in other areas of the world, such that we often schedule Skype calls with each other, and often the calls are scheduled at the same time each week. I am told by these guys how important our relationship is to them, and they are just as important to me.
Recently, with one of them, we agreed to talk every Wednesday night at 7:00 for a while. One day when I texted him earlier in the day to confirm, he asked to move the call back to 9:00, and when he did not call at 9:00, I went to bed. He then called at 10:20 leaving a message that he and his girlfriend had gotten into a long conversation. He has done things like that before, and I don’t like it. I feel angry and disappointed when that happens, as it makes me feel like I am unimportant and low priority. But then I have to accept that I must be a low priority, and the relationship suffers.
People notice such behaviors. There are understood, unstated expectations in any relationship, such that you are measured and judged by how you treat others. If you want close friends and successful business relationships, you will have to do what you say you are going to do. If you forget, if you allow yourself to be distracted, if you decide to do something else, if you ignore the person you say is important to you, if you decide your time or task is so important that you can ignore important people, then your friendships and your business relationships will suffer. You will have few friends, and you will wonder why your business relationships fail.
If you cannot keep a commitment, don’t make the commitment! It is better to say,”I don’t know if I can commit to that”, than to commit with the hope that it will work out when it may not.
I have had the experience many times of meeting a person who would provide a service to me, but then he does not call or does not show up when he says he is going to. I look for that character, or lack of it, early in a business relationship, because I don’t want to do business with someone who cannot be counted on to do what he says he is going to do. Such people are disorganized, undependable and unreliable, and they are not likely to do good work. When I see that character deficiency, I move on.
Lastly, when you tell yourself you are doing to do a thing, and then you don’t do it, you have failed yourself. You have failed to do what you told yourself you were going to do.
In your own self-observations and self-analysis, it is important to monitor that aspect of your character. INTEGRITY IS DOING WHAT YOU SAY YOU ARE GOING TO DO. Be a person of integrity! It is what successful people do. And more importantly, it is who successful people are.
Chewing Chicken
Recently a 20 year old American man made a request, that in the preparation of his food, that the chicken be shredded, as chicken in bite-size pieces took too much time and effort to chew. There was nothing wrong with his ability to chew; it just took too long.
Certainly the young man should be commended for wanting to be efficient with the use of his time and energy. He has learned that time is an important commodity and that once gone, it can never be retrieved. And in considering the amount of time it takes to chew chicken, less of that means more time to get things done that are more important than chewing chicken. Adding to time efficiency a number of other success principles, the young man may be destined to achieve much more than the average person. Or at least more that the average chicken-chewing man who is not aware of how precious time is.
One must keep in mind, on the other hand, that the time saved not chewing chicken should be used to produce more than chicken-chewing would produce. That is, the same amount of time and effort would need to be made during the extra time it would normally take to chew chicken, to make the non-chicken-chewing time more productive. Otherwise, the time saved not chewing chicken would be wasted. Chicken chewers around the world should be warned – don’t waste time chewing chicken!
Efficiency of time management is an important principle in the achievement of success.
As Benjamin Franklin said, “A work to the wise is sufficient.”
Health Is Wealth
In discussing the value of paying attention to one’s physical health, I want to tell you of correspondence that I had with my Kenyan friend, Josech Opula.
Dear Josech,
In recent conversations with you, I had asked you to help me think about being successful with one’s physical health. Specifically, I would like to be healthier through weight loss and exercise, and since you seem to be unusually healthy in those areas, I asked you if you could help me think about those aspects of health. Your insights have been so good that I asked you to write them down, and this is what you wrote:
“Health is wealth. Being physically and mentally healthy helps a person be socially and financially healthy too. Among many other habits that one needs to observe to maintain a healthy life, you need to focus on your eating habits and your physical exercise schedule. You should be careful that you do not take unhealthy food with high calories often. Try to maintain a healthy diet which should also be balanced. This helps with the first step of maintaining a healthy life. The second is to work out to keep fit. So often, you can focus so much on work that you don't get time to exercise your body. If not intentionally allocating work-out time, you might not get time to exercise your body. You need to create a schedule and be disciplined enough to follow it. You need to focus on the end goal in mind so as not to wear out on keeping a regular exercise routine. Focus on the fact that with each workout session, you are moving a step closer to being the healthiest version of you possible. This ultimately translates to a perfect physical and mental shape to achieve your life goals. When healthy, you become more energetic and can work with full efficiency to accomplish set tasks. With good physical and mental health comes the ability to accomplish anything else we want in life. “
Well said. On my first trip to Kenya, I noticed three things. First is that few Kenyans are overweight. Secondly, you tend to walk to work when you can or need to. And thirdly, the meals I am served in Kenya are usually healthy. In America there is so much wealth that people are indulgent. We eat so much food that we get sick on it. Statistically, two third of Americans are overweight and a third of the population is obese. We have to make an effort to get enough exercise and otherwise burn off the calories in the food we eat, and yet we drive everywhere instead of walking or biking. Good job, Kenya!
Living a successful life means being successful in all areas of one’s life, ideally. No one is perfect, but physically successful increases success in every other area, including wealth building.
Be physically healthy. It is what successful people do.
On Goal Setting
I think goal setting may be one of the most important topics I could discuss on the subject of success. There are two books that I recommend reading at the beginning of one’s learning in this area of success. If the first book to read about success and wealth building is The Richest Man In Babylon, by George Clason, then the second and more important book is Think and Grow Rich. In this latter book by Napoleon Hill, we are taught the value of setting goals.
Amongst people who study and apply the principles of success, it is well known that people achieve much more when they organize their efforts to set and achieve goals. The basic ingredients are as follows: First, set a specific goal that you believe is realistic and achievable and write it down. Second, decide what you are willing to give or pay in order to achieve the goal. Third, determine that you will attain the goal on a specific date. Fourth, create a plan of action, which will be an ongoing creative process. Lastly, commit to the goal. Having followed this specific process of goal setting, keep it in the forefront of your mind by reading it with passion and committing to it twice every day.
I love the concept of keeping one’s goal in the “forefront” of the mind, lest one tend to forget about it or allow more urgent matters to replace it as first priority. From a psychological perspective and from personal experience, I can testify that it works. Using this process, I set a goal to achieve a financial goal within five years, and the pressure is on to make it happen. What is happening is much more than would be the case had I not set a goal and kept it in mind for most of the last 2 years. (I wish I had learned about this when I was your age.) The process works because when a goal is set and the commitment is there, I cannot let myself down. I believe it can happen and feel the need to make it happen, every day, with persistence and dedication, driven by the vision of what is being achieved and what does exist with the passage of time.
Brian Tracy, a current and well known speaker and author on the topic of achievement, recommends going over one’s goals every morning as a way of starting the day with those goals in mind. Notice the concept of goal setting has moved from one primary goal to a higher number of goals that one might have in all aspects of one’s life.
Study and apply the principles of goal setting. It is what all successful people do.
Finish What You Start
A success principle that is important to keep in mind is, “Finish what you start.” Many of us are guilty of starting projects that we do not finish. Some would say that if it is not important enough to finish, then it is not important enough to start. It is a somewhat negative way of saying the same thing, but it underscores the frustration others might have when projects go unfinished.
So since successful people live by principle and by character, let’s discuss the issue of self-discipline versus procrastination.
Once one decides that a task is important to do, then it should probably also be done in a timely manner. If one then tends to put important things off until later, then we call that procrastination. And if procrastination means, “Not now, later.” then the opposite of that is, “Now, not later.” It is self-discipline that makes us decide to get the job done now.
A relevant character issue in this discussion would be that of integrity. Integrity is doing what you say you are going to do. People are watching and otherwise expecting results or leadership, and therefore a person who does not finish what he starts, and in a timely manner, is perceived as being unreliable and of weak character. Instead, you would like others to respect you, and you want to respect yourself as one who does what he tells himself he is going to do. It is a matter of character and also of being well organized.
There are reasons why one might not be good at follow-through, or of finishing what has been started. One reason might be that for many people, the initial creative phase of a project is more fun than the follow-through phase, unless at the end there is an anticipated gratification for a job well done, or of gratitude from someone important to you, such as your boss, your spouse, or your customer or client.
Another reason one might not finish what was started is that some people are too easily distracted by other issues deemed to be more urgent/important when they might be neither.
Lastly, it might be important to acknowledge that sometimes it is permissible or advisable not to finish a project. You might make a conscious decision that the project is no longer important enough to finish it, that it is not a priority, or because the person you are serving directs you to stop.
Be organized enough and disciplined enough to finish an important project.
It is what successful people do.
Early to Bed
Early in life, I had an interest in the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin, and one of the principles I learned was “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” For most of my life, I have known that it is a good thing to go to bed early and to wake up early.
I have not always followed that rule. For the longest time, I would do what most people do. I would stay up at night, entertaining myself or being entertained, often with TV. Enjoying myself, I would stay up later than I should, thereby deciding to sleep less, hoping the tiredness I might feel the next day would be justified by the enjoyment of the moment. After all, I had worked all day and deserved to relax and enjoy life, at night.
In recent years, without much to do in the evening except watch TV, which I think of as a waste of time, and not enjoyable enough, I go to bed early, so that after 8 hours of sleep, I will wake up well-rested and have an hour or two in the morning to enjoy my coffee before getting ready for work. During that time, I like to enjoy the moment, letting my mind wander and otherwise work through some of life’s issues. Brian Tracy, a well-known author and speaker on success and achievement, encourages waking up an hour early to go over one’s goals and to set a positive and energetic attitude for the day.
So it is interesting, from an analytic standpoint, that those who stay up late at night tend to view the next day of work, and meeting sometimes overwhelming expectations, in such a way that they dread the next day. They sleep until the last minute and then roll out of bed, hitting the ground running, so to speak. And then there are those who go to bed earlier, usually happy with the accomplishments of the day, and looking forward to the early hours of the next morning to start the next day on a positive note.
Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man or woman healthy, wealthy and wise. Being well-rested is physically and emotionally healthy. Thinking about one’s day and one’s goals, and getting the day started on a positive note, is not only wise, but it also increases one’s ability to make it a successful day. Those who believe they are successful “burning the midnight oil” will be out of balance with the rest of their lives and are not as successful as they could be.
Make it a practice of going to bed early, reaping the benefits the next day when you are able to start the day well rested.
It is what successful people do.
Being Well-educated
Recently, in a conversation with my 20 year old son, we were discussing the problem of leaving the lights on. He lives in the lower level of our house, and I had noticed that he and his brother would frequently leave the house for hours or even overnight, while leaving several lights on in their area. Such behavior results in an electric bill that is higher than it needs to be, therefore wasting both electricity and money.
In the same discussion, I mentioned that another way of saving on the electric bill is to use fluorescent lighting instead of incandescent lighting. I explained that a fluorescent light bulb generates light with a relatively small amount of electricity, which causes the gas in the bulb to glow, whereas in an incandescent bulb, the electrical current passes through a fine wire, and it is the resistance in the wire that causes the wire to glow. Much more electricity is needed to overcome the resistance in the wire than is needed to make the gas in a fluorescent bulb glow.
For me, the fascinating thing about this discussion is that I had never thought about the difference between the two types of light bulbs, at least not that I recall. Specifically, the physics that explains the difference I would have studied in college, and that was 45 years ago. I just cannot remember ever learning it, and had no reason to have learned it since then, unless maybe I read about it in an article on reducing one’s electric bill. I had to conclude that I know what I know about light bulbs because, generally speaking, I am well-educated.
Lots of times, I will be in a conversation with a student who is complaining about having to learn so much. It is the case with learning in school, that often we are learning something in detail, to do well on a test and to compete with classmates, without knowing the “relevance” of what we are learning. “Why do I need to learn this? How is this relevant to anything? They say you forget 90% of what you learn, so what is the point?” Actually, as an expert of the brain, I would suggest that most of what we learn is stored in our memories. Using hypnosis to retrieve memories is a good example of remembering something that would seem to have been forgotten.
The value of learning is often a matter of delayed versus immediate gratification. As a doctor, I will tell you that everything a medical student learns will be valuable at some point in the future. The more knowledge you have in your brain, the more you have to think with, and the more you have to understand and enjoy the world around you. It becomes a delightful thing, when 45 years after learning physics, I know something about light bulbs that I did not know that I knew. That is fascinating to me!
Another good example is math. We learn about math in school not because we are going to be using that arithmetic later in life, but because learning math is about learning the intellectual skills of problem-solving, of thinking in analytical and critical ways, and it is about getting it exactly right when it is important to be precise.
Everything you learn you will use at some point and in some way. You may or may not be aware of knowing it, but you learned it at some point. And if you are aware of it, then you may enjoy knowing about it and talking about it many years later. Emphasis is on “enjoy”, as in “Love, Joy and Peace”. And remember that learning is not confined to school. Most successful people are successful because of what they add to their knowledge base after school.
Learn as much as you can, and the more you enjoy learning, the more you will learn. Be well-educated. It is what successful people do.
The Business Plan
By Dr. Hagan and Josech Opula
A friend approached me recently excited about a business idea he had been developing. I knew that he had been thinking about for a while. It became apparent that he was talking with me about it again, with the hope of getting me to finance the project. With passion, he told me that I could trust him to work hard on the project to make it succeed and that he would do his very best. I kept listening for more detail and specifically the numbers that would tell me how the business would become profitable. So finally I asked, “Do you have a business plan?” Silence. I know that he knows what a business plan is, but he seemed to expect that I would agree to finance a new venture based upon nothing more than a good idea and lots of energy and enthusiasm.
Not every bright idea is a good idea. Lots of times we get excited about a business idea and start pouring time, energy and money into the bright idea, without first examining “the down side”. Once upon a time, I had a barn, and the money to renovate the barn, build fences and then to buy Rock Mountain Horses. I figured out that I would have the mares (females) bred, the foals (babies) would be born in the spring, and then we would enjoy riding them on trail rides during the summers. I would sell the foals to pay expenses and grow a business. After all, I had grown up training and showing horses, and I knew all about it.
BUT I DID NOT ALLOW MYSELF TO SERIOUSLY CONSIDER THE DOWN SIDE, which was that I had only 5 acres and not nearly enough pasture. The horses would have to stay in their stalls for many months over the winter, with little if any exercise. I would have to care for them with feed, hay and water and by keeping the stalls clean. I would have to hire someone to take care of the place if I wanted to go trail riding for a weekend, and there was the expense of the trip away. I loved the horse business for about 6 months, until I saw that there was a lot of money and time and energy going out, and nothing good was happening other than a little bit of enjoyment. Then the economy took a downturn, and I had to sell the horses, losing most of the money I had invested. And I lost a lot of money, because I had not invested it wisely. Not every bright idea is a good idea.
Before going into any business venture, a business plan is not only necessary, but it represents the emotional maturity that one should bring to managing one’s time, energy and financial resources.
A business plan is simply a formal list of objectives, and a road map which illustrates how you plan to achieve the objectives, with a budget for doing so. The plan can be simple but effective, or for larger venture, the plan should probably be quite detailed.
Basically, a business plan is an explanation of:
1. What you plan to do and the purpose of the business beyond just making money.
2. Why you think it will work given the market, competition and customer demand.
3. Why you are the right person to execute the business plan and bring the concept into reality.
4. How your business will make money.
5. When it will become profitable and then sustain its profitability.
6. How much money will be needed to finance the venture until it becomes profitable.
The content of the business plan will include:
1. The executive summary, which contains an introduction of your business, what you offer, your goals and your strategy in achieving those goals.
2. Company overview and strategy, which contains a detailed discussion of how you plan to achieve what you have set to achieve.
3. Product offering, which is a detailed account of your products and se
Academic Success
As a matter of normal emotional development, teenagers tend to want to be independent of their parents. From age 13 on, it is the expectation of the teen and his parents that he or she will grow to the point that he eventually is able to support himself financially and otherwise to function on his own without any help from his parents. In American culture, the age of 18 is frequently thought of as the point that a teenager achieves adulthood. But in another sense, the human brain does not finish developing physically until age 25. Interestingly, in Kenyan culture, it is my impression that young men are not considered to be independent of their parents until age 25 or later, when they are able to afford their own home and a wife.
As I counsel young people, and beginning at about age 13, I teach them a lesson about being an adult. Sooner or later, in your emotional development, you will take your eyes off of your parents and teachers with whom you might be getting into trouble, and you will put your eyes on the road in front of you, whereby you are turning yourself into the adult you choose to be. It is your responsibility, and you are the only one who can do it.
The problem is that many young people, when they do get some independence, are not mature enough to handle it well. Many leave home and go to college or university, and then they do things that are not good for them. They have been taught by their parents to have character and values, but then they decide instead to “have fun” instead of observing those values, as if they can do both. An example might be drinking too much alcohol, and then going to class the next day impaired, such that they are not able to learn as much as if they went to class with a healthy brain. Did you know that every time you get drunk, you kill off a million brain cells, most of which do not regenerate? And you thought drinking too much did not have any immediate consequences, or permanent consequences.
Another problem of emotionally immature college students would be cutting class. Some students think they can decide not to go to class, in order to have fun doing something else, defying in their sense of independence the obvious facts that one learns more when he goes to class, and that one is in school to learn. I believe young adults should not go to college until they are emotionally mature enough to value their education and how they will use it in their careers.
The first lesson of academic success is in the general attitude one brings to it. If you are not in school to learn as much as you can, then you will not learn as much as you can, and in some part of your mind you will feel bad about it. You will feel inadequate, and you will feel guilty to some degree, that you are not honoring the opportunity of becoming well educated. And you are not honoring the money that is being spent on your education.
SO LET’S TURN THIS INTO A POSITIVE!!! Imagine that you are a college student who procrastinated and forgot to sign up for your electives. And then are the very last minute you remember. You go online and find that the only elective left is Archeology 101. You are really disappointed, thinking that archeology is about people digging around in the dirt looking for bones and broken pieces of pottery, and you just have no interest in that. You have a negative attitude about having to take a course in archeology. And then you remember that Indiana Jones is an archeologist, and he makes archeology the most exciting thing in the world! So now you became aware that there are two attitudes that could be brought to a study of archeology – your and his.
So you decide to try his attitude, to have a positive attitude towards archeology. You meet the professor who
A Penny Saved
It was Benjamin Franklin who said, “A penny saved is a penny earned.” What does it mean? Saving money requires effort and self-discipline, such that when you are successful at saving money, you deserve to have that money not just because you earned it but also because you had to work, or to take an action, or to be emotionally mature, to save it.
I heard someone say once, “What is the point of saving money if you can never spend it?” Another person says that he wants to spend his last dollar on the day he dies, adding that you cannot take it with you. Such thinking seems to place an emphasis upon spending money. We see people who spend their “extra” money entertaining themselves, on clothes that make them feel more successful or more attractive, on food that they do not need. But these same people are in debt, or broke, such that they have no net worth. These people are not doing well financially, and I have learned that when people are not doing well, it is usually because they do not know how.
Why save money? One wise man said that when you have money, you have options. Having money in savings and investing means that the money is available in the future when an emergency expense arises, or when there is an opportunity to purchase something that one could not purchase without that money in savings.
Another wise man would say that the purpose of saying money is to become financially independent. In a worst case scenario, such as with loss of income, it is money that has been saved and invested that can be used until income is restored, whereas without that money, one has to depend upon other people or on government welfare to survive, or become homeless. Obviously, we would want to avoid such a catastrophe, but we will not be able to if we have spent all of our income.
How does one save money? The Richest Man in Babylon by George Clason, published first in 1926, is a small and entertaining book which many consider to be the first and most important of the books on wealth building, an important exception being the Bible. These books teach the value of hard work, and they teach the value of saving 10% of one’s income, investing wisely and conservatively such that the money is never put at risk of losing it. It is the accumulation of wealth that leads to financial security and independence.
One could develop the habit of saving money using the principle, “Pay yourself first”. When money comes in, take 10% and put it into savings first. Then use the remaining 90% to live on. For those who tithe, that 10% might be the second thing you do with your income.
When you are wise enough to save a penny, then you have earned it. You deserve to keep it and to watch it grow.
Saving and investing is what successful people do.
Be The Captain Of Your Own Ship
For most of my life, my favorite TV shows and movies have been versions of “Star Trek”, and when asked, “Who is your favorite childhood hero?”, the answer is always Captain Kirk. Not only have I been a Star Trek fan for most of my life, but I like to call myself “the original Star Trek fan”, as I watched the original series when it began airing in 1966. In “Star Trek The Next Generation”, there is a picture of the USS Enterprise hanging over the sofa in Captain Picard’s ready room. I have that same picture hanging over the sofa in my office.
As a psychiatrist who often counsels people on a number of subjects having to do with emotional health, I like to talk about the importance of being the captain of your own ship. Lots of times, people are stressed and unhappy as they try to meet expectations. They can be overwhelmed with a long list of responsibilities that they are expected to meet. Many of those expectations came from others – the husband, wife, boyfriend or girlfriend, parents of young adults and parents of teenagers, bosses and supervisors, and the list goes on. And many expectations are self-imposed, such as the person who takes on more and more responsibility to prove to himself and anyone else that he is intelligent and capable and responsible.
In this discussion of meeting expectations and otherwise managing one’s life, I say that it is important to be the captain of your own ship. Your life is like a starship and YOU are the Captain. It is YOUR SHIP! You are the only one who gets to sit in the Captain’s Chair. It is your responsibility to direct your life to do what you want it to do and what you need it to do. You should have a vision of your life’s mission and the goals you have in life. You have the responsibility to BE THE CAPTAIN, to be in charge of your life, so that your life is what YOU want it to be, not what someone else thinks it should be. Your parents and others might have opinions about that, but it is not their life to command: it is yours. And you need to be in charge of YOUR LIFE, because you are much more the authority on your life than anyone else will ever be, and you are in the best position to be in charge and to command your ship.
To teenagers, I have a special word. There comes a time in your emotional development when you will take your eyes off of your parents and teachers, to whom you are accountable and with whom you might be in trouble, and you will put your eyes on the road in front of you, whereby you are turning yourself into the adult that you want to be. It is your job to do that; no one else can do it for you.
BE THE CAPTAIN OF YOUR OWN SHIP. It’s what successful people do.
A Stitch in time
Time management is an important part of achieving success. Today I want to discuss with you a saying that is accredited to Benjamin Franklin. “A stitch in time saves nine.” It refers literally to a piece of cloth or clothing that will continue to unravel if one does not repair it in a timely manner. A stitch to repair a garment, done now, will suffice. Whereas to wait until later, the garment will continue to unravel until nine more stitches will be needed to repair the garment.
This adage applies easily to many situations in which one is inclined to procrastinate, which means to put it off until a later time. Such delay risks a much more complicated task at a later time to achieve the same result. If procrastination means “not now, later,” then the opposite of that is “now, not later,'' which is self-discipline.
Being successful involves taking the time to plan, to set goals and to put tasks on schedules, and then to manage one's time efficiently so that the goals are achieved on time, and without unnecessary delay. Sometimes goals and plans must be revised, based upon new information or upon unforeseen obstacles. But the principles still apply.
I encourage you to make the most of your time, to achieve the most in the time you have.
It is what successful people do.