Fundamentals

“Making it” in America – or almost anywhere in the universe – is both deceptively easy and deceptively hard.  As I’ve sought to break the code on why some people “make it” but many don’t, several recurring themes have surfaced as fundamental to successful passage.  A beginning list follows … in no particular order of importance:

1. We need to have an ever-expanding wellspring of ideas, possibilities and reference points to feed an evolving course of ever-advancing personal development. This requires ardent “mining” of the universe for all the raw material we can get our heads and hands around to support the effort and to build a solid reserve of justifiable HOPE.  This is where our “unscheduled time” becomes so valuable … in mining.
2. We need to have onboard a workable set of values and principles to help “curate” raw material and to help guide processing and actions beneficial to the enterprise of “Becoming all that we can be.”
3. We need VISION … an ability to “see” beyond the horizon … to Dream large Dreams … to imagine and flesh-out a blueprint for a brighter, better, more brilliantly encompassing future.
4. We need a resolute trouble-shooting and problem-solving ability.
5. We need balanced, right-reckoning judgment to tie the application of values and principles to specific actions in specific circumstances, particularly to new and different circumstances, and particularly where risk is involved. Curiosity, exploration and risk are essential components of a creative and expressive life, but choices can make us or break us.
6. We need boundaries to eliminate judgment-lapse over-rides – such as from emotional triggers, “Pleasure Center” usurpations, rationalizations and/or conscriptable entitlements. (How about donuts & Ding Dongs, drinking and driving, texting and driving … and a whole bunch else?)  Not all of us (ANY?) can be trusted to do the “right thing” in all circumstances.  [“But, if it’s beyond temptation, how can it be considered ‘Sinful’?”]  So we need boundaries.
7. At some point, we need to “morph” into mature adults and complete the transformation from self-serving, self-centered, “Neanderthal”-indulgent, small-pond, tribal malcontents to fully fledged, fully engaged, duly contributing citizens of the universe.
8. We need discipline to focus our efforts most productively and avoid distractions fueled by impulse. Discipline requires the sacrifice of junk bond indulgences for blue chip investments.  It generally means leaving some very attractive stuff behind!

“You have to give up good to get great.”

Glen Campbell

“The only barriers to success

were [lack of] discipline and the extent of one’s talent.”

Doris Kearns Goodwin

“Team of Rivals” p. 28

9. We are well-served to have purpose, a mission and the passion to carry it forward locked-in for sustainable pursuit of the highest caliber endeavors.
10. We need perseverance to get us through the toughest, roughest patches … “through “thick and through thin”.
11. While talent helps immensely, we need carefully honed marketable skills and tools with which to contribute OUR portion to the fabric of the universe. Underdeveloped talent is a mendicant’s curse.
12. We need openness and open-mindedness – even to a point of vulnerability, with a receptivity to new and different ideas … to constantly emerging “new realities” … and to the most encompassing outlook and understanding of the universe possible. A willingness to give up unworkable hypotheses, unfounded assumptions, unrealistic expectations and unwarranted entitlements is the mark of true champions.
13. We need legitimacy … a well-established legacy of trust, dependability and accountability. This has to be solidly built and consistently expanded for the duration.
14. We need authenticity … with transparent, “what-you-see-is-what-you-get”, no excuses consistency.  [e.g., it’s OK to say “I don’t know … but I aim to find out” and “I was wrong … but I’ll make it right.”]
15. We need engagement within a community where there is mutual respect, a diversity of resources, challenges to rise to excellence, a diversity of talent, encouragement, accountability, and affirmation. All other things being equal – and equanimity clearly in play, diversity of opinion doesn’t hurt.
16. Initiative. Without a generative “Drive-to-Do”, very little of the big and tough stuff will ever get done.
17. A sense of urgency. Doing stuff “later” is like not doing it at all.
18. An attitude of helpfulness, positive, participative engagement, and inclination to work toward a common good or goal … a greater good.
19. Resilience. The world is changing at an ever-increasing pace.  We have to be flexible and adjust quickly or be left behind.  Plans get dashed, jobs get lost, disasters happen, etc.  So we have to find ways to pick ourselves up, get back in the race and keep going.  Our ability to function off-balance and our ability to regain balance quickly – keeping our focus firmly on brighter horizons ahead – is critical.  (See 21 below)
20. Experience. Everything we do adds to our knowledge base as well as to our track record.  Those things we do well, we try to replicate and do even more and better in the future.  Those things we do not-so-well, we learn from and either do differently or do better or hand-off to someone who can.  Experience informs our forward passage and legitimizes the currency we carry.
21. Associations. We’re not going to get where we need to go or be by our own reckoning and by “pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps”.  Significant others are essential in vision building, mission and purpose building, navigation, bridge-building, mentoring, applying “refining fire”, complementing our strengths, invigoration and resilience.  (NOTE: “Who knows YOU” – and what you can do – is even more important than “Who you know”!)
22. Patience.  The good stuff takes time, it takes incubation and simmering, and – often – it takes trial-and-error modeling and maceration.   Starting EARLY helps validate / justify, develop and deliver a methodical approach and a masterful outcome.
23. Generative Regeneration. Stephen Covey calls it “Sharpening the Saw”.  It’s refilling the reservoir and renewing the spirit.  It means reconnecting with our greater mission and purpose and expanding the scope of our horizons.  It’s sharpening our skills and adding to our knowledge base.  It includes any spark of inspiration we can find along the way … one of the reasons we have to keep “mining” (see #1).

Numerous additional fundamentals may help.  But these will get us started.

[For a summation of fundamental SOFT SKILLS needed, including many of the above,

see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_skills ]

You want the shorthand version … the Cliff Notes?  [This is the “deceptively hard” part!]

Lock in a PURPOSE, a MISSION, a PASSION, put your UNSCHEDULED TIME to use in “mining” toward those ends, and then simply …

“Do what you’re supposed to do,

and life will turn out the way it’s supposed to be.”

Inscription on an Old Farmhouse Calendar

Quartermaster