The 3% That Will Kill You

He’s sweating. The guy’s up 100,000.00. If he walks away now he can pay off the mob. He can buy his life back.

If he loses they will kill him.

But instead of walking away he puts it all on black.

Greed did him in. Greed does us all in if we let it.

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Sifu Brown was performing in a martial arts demo years ago. He had the whole thing scripted. He’s got two attackers. One guys got a knife. He’s going to do a series of moves and then finish the other guy off at the end with a side kick.

The guy that’s getting kicked is wearing a plate of ken-do armor. That way Sifu can blast him and knock him over without hurting him on the final kick.

The demo starts. The guy with the knife comes in. Sifu does a spinning crescent kick to block the knife.

But instead of the knife falling to the ground, it flies through the air, and STICKS into the chest plate of the other guy! A complete and crazy ACCIDENT.

Sifu had a whole series of moves planned. He had rehearsed for hours.

Instead he stopped.

He brought his partners to attention (including the guy with knife sticking out of his chest plate). Then he bowed deeply to both them, bowed to the audience, and walked off the stage.

STANDING OVATION!!!!!!!!

Moral of the story? …

Sifu says jokingly: … "Sometimes you’ve got to quit when you’re ahead!"

Life is like that.

You are either living or dying.

Unless you get hit by a car you don’t die all at once. You die a tiny percent at a time.

But that’s how you live too. You live by growing 1% every day. You try and be 1% healthier. Have 1% better relationships. 1% more mind power. 1% more joy.

But you have to do this every single day. When you do you grow. When you do you live.

It feels good to grow 1%. It feels so good you might get greedy. You might think “If I did 1% maybe I could go for 2 or 3%”.

Don’t.

Here’s what happens. You push yourself in an area. Harder, and, harder. Maybe you even get your 3%.

But you get hurt. Your knee is in pain. You’ve got stuff from work to catch up. The dishes get left in the sink.

Now your behind. You don't have time or energy to improve until you catch back up.

You're off the wagon.

Here’s a life principle. You can improve by 1% a day. But if you do nothing you will lose at a much faster rate.

The formula is to gain 1% and NOT 3% for a reason. Improve by 1% every day and your entire life will change for the better. Try and improve 3% a day and you will kill yourself.

It’s tiny accomplishments every single day that make all the difference.

You tear down fast. Real fast. All you have to do is skip days and you'll go south quick. But now you now know how to turn it around. 1% every day.

I wrote this blog post today. It was short. Now I can go back to bed.

But at least it was 1% more than I did yesterday.