Wednesday, August 25, 2010

16 Rules to Live By

While half my office/metal clay/beading studio is looking pretty good, I've managed that by moving all the debris I need to sort onto and under a side table, and leaving half of the rest behind downstairs. Where am I going to put all this?


One of the best things about cleaning and reorganizing the studio is the great stuff you find that was lost in the mess. Sometimes it's just what you need for where you are right now.

One such thing that surfaced in the pile today was Bob Parsons' 16 Rules to Live By. Bob Parsons is the CEO of GoDaddy, the leader in web domain name registrations. He wrote up his 16 rules for a breakfast meeting as advice for new business owners. Evidently the response to his 16 rules was overwhelming, and I see why. They're pretty basic to life in general. Good things to review occasionally.

You can read the details at the link above, but here are the highlights:
  1. Get and stay out of your comfort zone.
  2. Never give up.
  3. When you're ready to quit, you're closer than you think.
  4. With regard to whatever worries you, not only accept the worst thing that could happen, but make it a point to quantify what the worst thing could be.
  5. Focus on what you want to have happen.
  6. Take things a day at a time.
  7. Always be moving forward.
  8. Be quick to decide.
  9. Measure everything of significance.
  10. Anything that is not managed will deteriorate.
  11. Pay attention to your competitors, but pay more attention to what you're doing.
  12. Never let anybody push you around.
  13. Never expect life to be fair.
  14. Solve your own problems.
  15. Don't take yourself too seriously.
  16. There's always a reason to smile.
It's interesting how many of them seem so particularly relevant to where I am right now. Number 3 is particularly resonating. Just reading that gives me renewed energy to keep going. I'm almost there?

I find myself wanting to make my own set of rules to create art by, but first I'll just be happy to get the studio back to a point where I can work again and the dining room back to the point where I could actually dine there again.

The above rules for survival are included with the permission of Bob Parsons (http://www.bobparsons.com) and are Copyright © 2004-2006 by Bob Parsons. All rights reserved.