Don't Worry, Be Happy! &^%$%^

Yeah right! How many times have you wished you could bit**-slap somebody for saying that at moment you least needed it? I know I have a bunch. The problem is, most of time you're in a moment of discouragement when that is said. So, those words come across as being insensitive and cold blooded.

Our first reaction is to lash out at person who said it, to give them a piece of our mind. And, sometimes we even tell them to stay out of our life and mind their own business. Of course, we really don't mean it; we're just reacting to discouragement that has pounced upon us.

But, have you ever considered this? The other person doesn't really feel your discouragement. Oh! Really, you say: Yeah, big revelation. Be nice to me now. Seriously, if they did, and especially if it was a loved one, they would never say words that would rattle your cage. But, discouragement at hand makes us want to take out our saber and cut off their right ear.

Then what happens is, other person, who at moment was probably feeling pretty chipper and happy, suddenly feels fury of your wrath so they take out their boxing gloves and then we got a full scale war on our hands. It all started because one person felt discouraged and now we got two people pi**ed off worse than a couple of fire breathing dragons.

Makes Your Hair Stand On End!

At a moment when you are really in your groove those words just roll off like water off a duck's back. But, discouragement can change whole face of situation. It can cause us to even sabotage our own best efforts. It can take best laid plans of mice and men and turn them into mush.

Do not underestimate potential effects of discouragement. It is like a virus; it spreads and can become so contagious that it acts like a permanent personality trait. Make no bones about it; it can make your dream not worth powder to blow it up. When roots get that deep, it takes military strength anecdotes to rid it.

A Thief In The Night!

Discouragement has probably caused as many business failures as lack of capital, because it is first to show up. The discouragement shows up long before money runs out. Then day by day emotional warfare begins and potential to self-sabotage everything we are trying to accomplish. At that point; money runs out!

At end, we blame it on lack of money, our spouse, our next door neighbor, our cat, or anything that makes us look not at fault and out of our control. After all, if we could have stopped it, we would have. But, what we really did was try to stop effects of failure before trying to stop discouragement that was fueling it.

I have come under personal belief that everyone is a leader to someone. Whether that someone be an employee (or thousands of employees), your spouse, a child or at simplest level, oneself – you are a leader. As a leader you have responsibility to develop a level of courage first within your self, then to instill that level of courage in those that look to you for your leadership. It is key to note here that you must first achieve a level of courage within yourself before you even attempt to instill it in those around you. Why? Well answer is simple… how on earth can you pass on that which you do not have? You will never be able to encourage others beyond very level of courage that you carry and demonstrate on a regular basis. Your level of courage is only limiting bar. Raise that bar and you raise your ability to encourage others.

The three guiding principles around raising that courageous bar are:

1.Courage = Controlling you fear. Growing up in a military environment taught me one thing that I know is fact - Everyone is afraid of something (often many things). From 6 foot Army Veteran who has served many months on front lines, to CEO of a Fortune 500 company, fear is a fact in each of their lives. But throughout history our true heroes were not men and women that were not afraid, but rather those that faced their fear, acted in spite of it, and moved forward to overcome its choke hold on their lives.