What's Important

Tuesday was my 14th wedding anniversary. As I do every year, I looked through photos of what was probably the best day of my life, with mixed emotions.

I see photos of people I'm no longer in contact with, people who have gotten divorced, and people who have died. But, those faces, on that day—along with those of my friends, family, husband and mine—were filled with love, laughter and happiness.

Our wedding took place just 4 days after September 11, 2001. Every one of our guests was affected by the tragedy, but they managed to open their hearts to celebrate our union and life that day. I felt blessed to be alive, in love, and surrounded by people I cared about.

Tragedy usually puts things in perspective. It makes us think about what's really important, what's really NOT important, and what we take (or took) for granted.

After a tragedy or bad diagnosis, we tell our family that we love them, hug them a little longer, and appreciate what we have. We are kind and patient when we otherwise wouldn't be. We have no interest in drama or the people that create it. Superficial things lose meaning. We are mainly concerned with health, well being and basic necessities.

Then, time passes.

Things start to annoy us again. The show we set to record got cut off; our internet is slow; we didn't make it through the light because the driver in front of us wasn't paying attention; the woman in front of us at the grocery store is taking time to look through her bag for exact change; the train was delayed—again.

There are a thousand things every day that we COULD focus on, get distracted by or annoyed about. But, if we are CLEAR about what we want and how we want to interact with others, then we can focus on what's important.

That clarity not only gives us a sense of purpose and identity, but helps guide the decisions we make each day. As choices are presented to us, we can ask ourselves questions like "Will this lead me closer to my goal?", "Is this how I want to express myself?" or simply, "Is this important to me?"

Take some time to think about what's REALLY important to you, the future you want, and how you want to present yourself. It may take time, discipline and work to figure it out and keep it in mind but, with rewards such as satisfaction and joy, I'm pretty sure you'll find it worth it :)

Living a High Performance Life: INFLUENCE

The fifth area of high performance is influence.

No man is an island, as the saying goes. You may have brilliant ideas, but if you don't get support from others, they probably won't ever come to fruition. You need to have influence over your family, friends, co-workers, and possibly strangers to accomplish your goals.

We use influence for little things in our daily lives—to get friends to try a new restaurant; to get your family to go to a movie you want to see.

Think about the person who has had the most influence over you. Why was that person able to influence you? Keep those qualities in mind as you think about an area you'd like to have more influence.