Every Day Ends In Y

I get really irritated when people look at me with a miserable expression and exclaims that it is Monday. I get even more irritated when the same person looks at me on Friday and excitedly proclaims that it is Friday. This mindset that different days of the week have the power to automatically elicit the attitude we approach the day with is something that must be eradicated from our mental approach to life.

Think about this strictly from a resource perspective. There are 7 days in the week and you are required to be productive by an outside entity (meaning you are not forcing yourself to be productive) for five of them. On the first of those five days you get barely anything done because you failed to prepare for the week ahead and you have a miserable approach to the day. On the last day of the week you barely get anything done because you are so “wiped out” from your three days of productivity and you’re just killing time until the weekend is here. This means you are allocating less than half of your resources to what is required of you (48% to be exact).

The average American life span is 78 years. If 48% of your life is spent actually applying yourself and being productive then you are allocating 37 years of your life toward being productive and contributing to the organizations you choose to be a part of. I can see the counter argument coming out right now. “Well if we remove the first 20 years of life spent as a youth, then we remove the last 20 spend as an elderly adult, 37 years sounds about right.” HELL NO. 78 years on this earth is barely enough to make an impact.

As far as I am concerned we are already operating at a deficit from having such a short time on this earth to make a genuine impact on society. Episode 15 of the podcast poses an opportunity to reframe the way you think about approaching life. Who do you do it for? If for a moment you begin to consider all of the people depending on you to go out and change the world you understand that time is ticking. When you are laying in a casket or cremated in an urn and people are talking about the impact you had on the world, what do you want them to say? What will your children think about you and the life you led. What legacy will you leave behind for them to carry on?

I can promise you if you are removing Friday through Monday from your days of productivity and contribution to society it won’t be much. Think about it at a greater scale now. Your children aren’t the only ones depending on you. Your family, your community, this nation all need to you to go out and do great things. I am the first to point to the fact that technology has the ability to take away jobs, purpose, values, and a sense of belonging from us. If we consider the other side of the coin we have an opportunity to harness this power to increase our production output tenfold. If you can get in front of a computer today and you are mildly literate in terms of technology you have the ability to do the following.

1. Order a product from a manufacturer (internationally should you desire).
2. Build out an online store on (shopify or any other online store building website).
3. Market your product on social media
4. Use excel to monitor revenues and expenses
5. Use Quickbooks to file taxes
6. Call yourself the C.E.O of a company

That is just looking at things from a business perspective. You can also use said computer to start a blog, develop a podcast (cough PMP example). You can start a non profit in the same manner. It doesn’t matter what your desires are, you have a change-making machine that can go with you anywhere in the world. Start treating it as such.

I bring all of these opportunities up to point out the fact that you are most likely engaging in a pareto principle sin of using 20 percent of your potential. I can promise if you are showing up to your 9-5 and dreading 70% of it, you are most likely committing this sin. No one is forcing you to come home and sit on your but and watch Netflix all day besides yourself. Be on guard at the gate of your mind the next time your friend or co-worker wants to commiserate with you about what day of the week it is. Remind them that every day ends in Y. It is up to all of us to choose our attitude in our approach to the day, the week, and life.