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Contentment is dangerous.

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Pursuit, Not Acquisition

We work so hard to achieve contentment. Be careful, it could be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Since the early 1900s we have been taught to pursue the three S’s of the Industrial Age; Safety, Security, and Stability. The three of them together can lead us to contentment, which at first blush seems pretty cool.

The Contentment Fence
But contentment is a kissing cousin of balance, and both of them are like sitting on a fence; you can’t stay there very long. Pretty soon you’ll either fall off or jump off, and the question is, on which side of the fence? Falling off one side begins a downward spiral to victimology. Making the decision to intentionally jump off the other side leads upward to better things, and the fourth S of the Participation Age, Significance.

How can contentment drag us down? Living in contentment (and balance) could very quickly lead to boredom, because you have no vision for how to challenge yourself to take your life to the next level. Boredom is the first step down and it breeds pessimism, doubt, worry, blame, anger, insecurity, and eventually powerlessness – I’m a victim.

If you find yourself content, the best thing to do is proactively get the heck out of there by figuring out the next challenge and chasing it with everything you’ve got. Contentment can be a great springboard to the next challenge. If you get a solid picture of the future and what you want next, then contentment will lead right into optimism, hope, powerful expectation, enthusiasm, and passion for something new.

Jump Or Fall Off
Contentment is fleeting. You are either going to fall off or have to jump off. You can fall off on the side of victimology, or you can take control of your life, and intentionally jump off on the side of chasing something worth catching.

Have you “arrived”? Are you on cruise control with your business or your life? Be careful. It won’t last, it never does. So take charge, jump off the fence, and intentionally run toward something. You won’t be content while you’re chasing it (or balanced), but that’s ok, because the joy is never in the acquisition, but in the pursuit.

A goal realized is no longer motivating.

What’s the next thing you want to pursue? Jump off the fence and go catch it.

The 2nd Most Important Business Word You’ve Never Heard

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Wouldn’t it be great if…?

All too often I hear people say, “I got it”, when everything about their actions says differently. The process of truly getting it is much deeper.

Today, education means getting something into your head. Learning, in it’s traditional form, means doing and being. Education is what a PHD gets. Learning is what an apprentice does.

Notice the difference – you “get” or obtain the first one, you “do” or become the other one. One fills your head, the other one fills your heart, your hands, your life and your wallet. Learning takes four steps, but education is set up to take us through only two of them.

Step One – Hear
William Glasser says 10-20% of what hits our hearing actually gets to our head, and almost none of that gets any farther to actually change something. Hearing is the worst way to learn anything, but is the most common form of education. For college students, itting through canned lectures is what makes Thursday night drinking attractive.

Step Two -Head
Cognition rarely becomes conviction. A very small percentage of what gets into our head actually makes it to our heart as information that we believe can actually make a difference. Most of college is set up to get things stuffed into our heads, and almost never are we challenged by the orators/professors to build a conviction around the information and go do something with it.

Step Three – Heart
A small percentage of information that goes into our head actually stirs our emotion and creates the desire or conviction that we should do something about it. Who challenges us to take the information and use it to be transformed? This is the kind of thing that happens in life, but almost never in education.

Step Four – Hands
While information is rummaging around in our heart, we’re all excited about applying it to our business or our life. But then we get back to email, the phone and the ongoing Tyranny of the Urgent, and the “feeling” goes away. Nothing has changed. Only when we hear something and the information goes from our head, through hearts and out our hands, will it ever make a difference in our lives. Which bring me to velleity.

The Second Most Important Business Word You’ve Never Heard
Velleity is the 2nd Most Important Business Word You’ve Never Heard. (See the first here – http://chuckb.me/x2) Velleity means, “The desire, with no intention whatsoever of doing anything.” Velleity is at the root of the common wishing and hoping phrase, “Wouldn’t it be great if…?” Velleity is something getting all the way from our ears through our head into our heart, but never coming out our hands. We get excited, but never doing anything about it except wish…”Wouldn’t it be great…?”

Doing vs. Knowing
The Greeks (and our education system) were both wrong. We do not think our way to a new way of acting. We ACT our way to a new way of thinking. Want to change something in your life? DO something different. Otherwise it’s just a bunch of velleity.

From our ears, to our head, through our heart and out our hands. Step Four is what creates success. Before that it’s just wishful thinking.

Wouldn’t it be great if…

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Random Hope is a lousy business strategy.

Chapter Six in my next book, Bad Plans Carried Out Violently, is about Conation, the most important business word you’ve never heard. Its antonym is just as obscure and just as critical for you to know – velleity.

Our whole community of business owners use this phrase all the time:

You get what you intend, not what you hope for.

Nothing could describe the above better than two of the 1,000 most obscure words in the English language – conation and velleity (vel-lee-ity).

Conation is “Committed Movement in a Purposeful Direction”. The dictionary says its the desire plus the volition at the same time. I know I want to do it because I already am. I don’t need to desire it and get all motivated. I just do it because I want it.

Velleity is the desire with no intention of ever doing anything about it. It’s the exact opposite of conation. Wouldn’t it be nice if things worked out better next year? Wouldn’t it be nice if I only worked half as much as I do now? Would it be nice if… that’s velleity.

What’s the difference between a visionary and a dreamer? A visionary is already doing it (conation) and a dreamer is talking about how nice it would if… (velleity).

You get what you intend, not what you hope for.
CONATION < – – – – – – – – – > VELLEITY

Conate.