Jeff Olson Quotes Page 4

“There is a natural progression to everything in life: plant, cultivate, harvest.”

“Time will either promote you or expose you.”

“Trying to get rid of an unwanted habit is a bit like trying not to think about an elephant (the more you try not to think about it, the more you think about it). That’s because what you focus on, grows. Which is why people who put a lot of energy into focusing on what they don’t want, by talking about it, thinking about it, complaining about it, or fretting about it, usually get precisely that unwanted thing. It’s tough to get rid of the habit you don’t want by facing it head on. The way to accomplish it is to replace the unwanted habit with another habit that you do want. And creating new and better habits, ones that empower and serve you, is something you know how to do. You do it the same way you built any habit you have: one step at a time. Baby steps. The slight edge.”

“Two critical areas of life: everyday happiness and long-term impact.”

“We only need to walk or bike ten percent of the time to make a significant change in society. That is just two days of walking, bicycling or taking transit per month for a typical commuter.”

“When you don't take responsibility, when you blame others, circumstances, fate or chance, you give away your power. When you take and retain full responsibility – even when others are wrong or the situation is genuinely unfair – you keep your life's reins in your own hands.”

“When you have a better image of yourself physically, you have a tendency to live your life in a more positive way.”

“Why lottery winners lose. Your philosophy is your view of life, something beyond feelings and attitudes. Your philosophy drives your attitudes and feelings, which drive your actions. By and large, people are looking in the wrong places. They are looking for a big break, that lucky breakthrough, the amazing 'quantum leap' everyone keeps talking about.

I call it the philosophy of the craps table and roulette wheel, and I don’t believe they’ll ever find it. I’ve seen an awful lot of remarkable successes and colossal failures up close, and in my experience, neither one happens in quantum leaps or 'breaks', whether the lucky or unlucky kind. They happen through the slight edge.”

“With children it is often so much easier to take the path of least resistance — to let them eat that fast food they love rather than cook something healthy, to let them watch TV rather than read to them, to let them play video games rather than interact with them.”

“With just 30 minutes of physical activity a day you can:
- Reduce health risks (high blood pressure, stroke, osteoporosis, coronary disease, type 2 diabetes, certain cancers).
- Keep off excess weight.
- Ward of viral illnesses.
- Help keep your arteries clear.
- Strengthen your heart.”

“Write your dreams down; make them vivid and specific; give them a concrete timeline for realization;”

“You already know how to do everything it would take to make you an outrageous success. All you have to do is keep doing the things that have gotten you this far. Which is exactly what 99.9 percent of people don’t do.”

“You are either going for your dreams or giving up your dreams. Stretching for what you could be, or settling for what you are.”

“You are either improving or diminishing in personal and professional value.”

“You can break down the bulk of happiness research into three areas. Your happiness is affected by
1) your outlook, that is, how you choose to view the events and circumstances of your everyday life;
2) specific actions with positive impact — things like writing down three things your grateful for, or sending appreciative emails, doing random acts of kindness, practicing forgiveness, meditating, and exercising; and
3) where you put your time and energy, and especially investing more time into important relationships and personally meaningful pursuits.”

“You can gauge the limitations of a person's life by the size of the problems that get him or her down. You can measure the impact a person's life has by the size of the problems he or she solves.”

“You can't build your dream by what you're going to do or planning to do or intend to do. You only build your dream by building it.”

“You can’t change the past. You can change the future. Would you rather be influenced by something you can’t change, or by something you can?”

“You have both a beach bum and a millionaire inside you, a potential failure and a potential success. We all do. What makes the difference in how things turn out? Actually, you do. The truth is, you have complete control over the direction that the rest of your life takes.”

“You have complete control over the direction that the rest of your life takes.”

“You plant, then you cultivate, and finally you harvest. Plant, cultivate, harvest. In today's world, everyone wants to go directly from plant to harvest.”

“You see, there is no magic bullet, quick fix, or quantum leap method to reach success.”

“You will become as small as your controlling desire, or as great as your dominant aspiration.”

“You’ve probably heard the stories about lottery winners losing it all. They’re not urban legends; they really happen. The depths people fall to after big lottery winnings are heartbreaking and mind-boggling. And it isn’t only lottery winners. You’ve also heard the stories about famous movie stars, recording stars, or star athletes who make incredible fortunes, literally hundreds of millions of dollars, and somehow manage to wind up broke and in debt. And when you heard those stories, you probably thought the same thing I did: “Man, I don’t know how they pulled that off, but if I made that kind of money I sure wouldn’t squander it all like that!”

But let me ask you a tough question: are you sure about that? Speaking as one who’s made it to the top and then seen it all evaporate, all I can say is, you might be surprised. There’s a reason those lottery winners lose it all again, a reason those shining stars plummet to those dark places: they may have had the big breaks, but they didn’t grasp the slight edge. Their winnings changed their bank account balance — but it didn’t change their philosophy.”

“Your attitude is the thing that translates your abstract understanding (philosophy) into your concrete actions.”

“Your habits operate at the unconscious level; you are not normally aware of them. It's only by bringing a habit into your conscious awareness that you can observe what it's doing, how it empowers and serves you or doesn't.”

“Your income tends to equal the average income of your five best friends,”

“Your philosophy is your view of life, something beyond feelings and attitudes. Your philosophy drives your attitudes and feelings, which drive your actions.”

“Your ship’s not coming — it’s already here. Docked and waiting. You already have the money. You already have the time. You already have the skill, the confidence. You already have everything you need to achieve everything you want.”