1 - Today often falls to pieces – What’s the missing piece?
I was very excited to begin reading this book, and the first chapter gave me a glimpse of what the information that the rest of the book was going to provide for me.
To begin the book, Maxwell quotes a book, “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day,” by Judith Viorst. The quote says, “I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there’s gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning, I tripped on the skateboard… and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.” With that kind of start to the day, you can only imagine where the book takes Alexander from there on his very bad day.
Thinking about Alexander, Maxwell asks us numerous questions to think about our day:
How often do we have bad days?
If you were to rate the past day on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate it?
What basis would you judge the day?
Does it depend on how we feel?
Would it be determined by how many items you’ve checked off your to-do list?
Would you score your day according to how much time you’ve spent with someone you love?
How do you define success for today?
Maxwell then adds that we tend to judge our days and success in the wrong ways, which lead us to make poor decisions throughout the day, and the day is for not.
Maxwell then goes on to share with us some misunderstandings we have concerning success:
We believe success is impossible – so we criticize it
We believe success is mystical – so we search for it
We believe success comes from luck – so we hope for it
We believe success is productivity – so we work for it
We believe success come from an opportunity – so we wait for it
We believe success come from leverage – so we power up for it
We believe success come from connections – so we network for it
We believe success come from recognition – so we strive for it
We believe success is an event – so we schedule for it
After reading these, it was eye opening for me to realize that these are the ways that I/we think about success. The secret of success is your daily agenda. Maxwell then uses a great quote to help us think about success. He says, “People create success in their lives by focusing on today. It may sound trite, but today is the only time you have. It’s too late for yesterday. And you can’t depend on tomorrow. That’s why today matters.”
Knowing that today matters, Maxwell then introduced us to three simple ideas about why we may not grasp today like we should.
We Over Exaggerate Yesterday
We Overestimate Tomorrow
We Underestimate Today
In order to create success for today, we must forget about these three things, and focus on the now. Maxwell adds that we need to be able to make a few, firm decisions, and focus on these daily.
