Written by “The average person goes to his grave with the music still in him.” Oliver Wendel Holmes
In previous episodes of the Follow My Lead Podcast, we covered how to handle adversity, how to find good in tough times, and how to use ambition to fuel your success. In the latest episode, John Eades covers why now is the time for you to be the best you can be. But not just any kind of action, actions that make a positive daily deposit.
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Why Now is the Time to Be Your Best
When it comes to people taking action, most people delay. They tell themselves they will start tomorrow. Unfortunately, tomorrow comes and goes and they never take action. Oliver Wendel Holmes said it best, “The average person goes to his grave with the music still in him.”
It’s easier to take action and ensure you don’t go to your grave with music still in your when you realize: In your hands, you hold the seeds of failure or the potential for greatness. Your hands are capable but they must be used – and for the right things to reap the rewards you are capable of attaining.
Positive and Negative Daily Deposits
In order to take action and reach your potential for greatness it requires you to make positive daily deposits into the 4 primary areas of your life
- Work
- Faith
- Fitness
- Family / Relationships
Conversely, As Arthur Brooks talks about, there places you don’t want to make deposits.
- Money
- Power
- Pleasure
- Fame
While there is nothing necessarily wrong with any of these by themselves, if you are making negative deposits into these accounts for those reasons alone, you won’t be taking action in the right way. You will be on the road to nowhere, chasing and chasing and chasing this fleeting thing called happiness.
We are all susceptible to falling into bad habits and making deposits into negative accounts. No one, is immune from it.
But if you believe now is the time to take action for you, and you don’t want to go to the grave with music still inside you, now is the day to reevaluate where you are putting your deposits and start making them into the right accounts.
Here are 4 questions I want you to ask yourself:
- Did you do all you could yesterday to move work forward and the direction you want your career to go?
- Whatever your belief system, did you make a deposit into your spiritual life?
- Did you get 20 minutes of physical activity today?
- Did you give your family and or friends purposefully present time?
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About the Author John Eades is the CEO of LearnLoft, a leadership development company making victual training easy and effective. He was named one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices in Management & Workplace. John is also the author of Building the Best: 8 Proven Leadership Principles to Elevate Others to Success and host of the “Follow My Lead” Podcast, a show that transfers stories and best practices from today’s leaders to the leaders of tomorrow. You follow him on Instagram @johngeades.
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