Category: Success

“Don’t use a lot where a little will do.” -Proverb

I recently saw a reality show about reviving struggling restaurants. The premise is that an expert comes in to help save a family business and in the process helps the owners rebuild their relationships and their lives.

In the beginning, the expert suggested the family reduce their menu from multiple pages to just one. They originally created a massive list of selections because they assumed this created more value. In all reality, it was overwhelming.

In many instances, less is more.

This is a big part of the philosophy behind Tiny Buddha. I publish one post from the community every day, which allows me to spend a great deal of time with writers.

Conventional wisdom of the web suggests that more content leads to more page views, which ultimately creates a successful site. Yet I’ve found the opposite can be true.

Having a lower quantity allows more time to focus on quality and also allows more time for connection through comments. In this way, it’s not about building a large community; it’s about fostering an engaged one. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no greater success than that.

Regardless of your project or dream, the “less is more” philosophy can go a long way in creating value and enabling progress.

You may not have a large number of hours to commit, but this means you have an incentive to prioritize your goals, and that just may help you focus and become optimally effective.

You may not have abundant resources, but this means your passion and purpose may be your greatest assets, and there’s no limit to what you can accomplish when you invest yourself in a vision that moves and inspires you.

You may not have countless readers or customers, but this means you can focus on providing exceptional service, which can be far more valuable than dozens of cursory connections and standard experiences.

Most importantly, when we focus on doing less and doing it well, instead of doing more and assuming it’s better, we’re less scattered, more deliberate, less harried, and more present.

And really, isn’t that what we want? It’s not just the goals and the outcomes we visualize; it’s the happiness and satisfaction we imagine we’ll experience when we get there.

It may be the biggest advantage to doing less: we create more space to enjoy those things now.

Photo by saebaryo

“Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.” -Theophrastus

There are certain things I don’t want to do that I sometimes feel I should.

Case in point: A lot of people who run blogs similar to Tiny Buddha eventually begin coaching, running seminars, and offering eCourses on personal development.

Many of them email me with opportunities for partnerships. I respect and admire them. They’re insightful, well-intentioned individuals who are sharing what they’ve learned to make a difference and make a living.

But the reality is I have no interest in following their lead. I run this site because it fulfills me; and while I appreciate that it helps sustain me, I simply don’t want to spend any of my time teaching, coaching, or running self-help programs.

I’m happiest when I spend my time writing and engaging in creative pursuits. This is what I know is right for me. Regardless of how much money I can earn by partnering with other people in the personal growth sphere, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt it’s not something I want to do.

The only question that remains is: How willing am I to honor that knowledge?

This, I’ve found, is where things can get complicated. It can be tempting to lose focus of what we actually want if we compare ourselves to other people, or start shifting our attention away from the activities we enjoy toward the income we could generate doing something else.

The irony, however, is that money is not what makes our time feel valuable. It’s the sense that we’re doing what we want to do in the way we want to do it.

That being said, money is necessary to live, and sometimes we need to take on work we don’t love to make ends meet or get from A to B.

But once we’re in a place of enough, we’re faced with two options: base our choices on what earns the most; or based them on what feels valuable to us individually. This will be different for everyone, meaning we truly need to own our choices and resist the urge to compete or compare.

My genuinely happy place might look like your comfort zone; your fully content might look like my inauthentic.

These are our hours to fill. Only we know what makes them feel valuable—and only we can do something about it.

Photo here

“Try not to become a man of success but rather a man of value.” –Albert Einstein

As I was getting my coffee the other morning, I thought about this article I once read on a popular news site about a man who lost his big corporate job and accepted a barista position at Starbucks.

When he decided to don a green apron, he’d lost everything in life—including his marriage, his livelihood, and his health. Through his experience in the hospitality industry, he gained a sense of humility and peace, away from the hectic world of professional ambition.

When I read this article, I remember thinking it was interesting that, as a society, we’re fascinated with people who fall from grace and then learn to love a simpler life—and yet we don’t generally attribute the same awe to people who choose that from the get-go.

I know many people who’ve chosen to work as waiters and retail sales associates, only to find themselves the recipients of well-intentioned advice from friends who think they should aim higher in life.

From a very young age, we’re taught to reach for the stars and believe in our potential—and to be careful not to become complacent underachievers.

We learn that ambition is a sign of self-confidence, competence, and intelligence, and the ultimate indicator of success in life. We also learn to associate a lack of ambition with laziness, aimlessness, and indolence.

A lifelong blue collar worker, my father once told me that drive is not a measure of worth, and that we all have a right to honor our different temperaments and preferences.

I had never thought of it this way. I assumed that if I consciously chose to do less, it would mean that I was thinking small, selling myself short, or generally hiding behind fear.

But maybe he was onto something. We each have the same number of hours in the day to fill—and we have a right to decide what might make them feel valuable and meaningful to us individually. The money and attention those activities generate only dictate our success if we define it that way.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to achieve and strive in life. But happiness is generally a byproduct of doing what we genuinely want to do, not what we think we should do based on what we’ve been told.

Photo by pearlbear

“Of course there is no formula for success except, perhaps, an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.” –Arthur Rubinstein

Can ambition and wisdom coexist? Can you simultaneously want something specific and drive yourself to create it while accepting that what will be, will be?

The other day, a reader emailed asking this question—if he can motivate his team at work to “do whatever it takes” to reach their goals, and also teach them to embrace the idea of surrendering.

At first glance, these two ideas seem conflicting. Implicit in the suggestion to “do whatever it takes” is the idea that there is a way—it’s just a matter of finding it. Surrendering, on the other hand, implies an understanding that the future is uncertain and not entirely within our control

So what does it mean to persevere, and believe fully in your vision, while knowing that there are no guarantees? How can you motivate yourself to keep plowing ahead toward a specific goal, while also detaching from the outcome?

If you surrender to the unknown, will you lose that sense of urgency—that drive, that hunger that propels you toward your dreams?

A teacher once told me that successful people act as if they can’t fail—that the outcome they want to create is a given, so all they need to go is keep going until they find their way through the maze of obstacles between now and then.

I understood his intention. If we believe we can’t fail, we won’t doubt ourselves or lose confidence when we inevitably stumble.

But this teaches us to ignore our instincts when they tell us we no longer want to do something; or that it would be smartest to cut our losses and do something else. The reality is that there will be times when it’s wisest to change directions or give up.

Surrendering is recognizing that this is always a possibility—and then being open to the signs that tell us when to persist and when to change course.

Ambition without wisdom is inflexibly attaching to a specific goal, even if it means making foolish decisions that conflict with your values, beliefs, intentions, and instincts.

Wise ambition is the knowledge that you can still “succeed” and be happy, even if you need to change your goal or adjust your action steps.

Buddha image via Shutterstock