How Will You Bootstrap the Rest of This Year?

"Are you living on SOMEDAY ISLE?" - Bob Moawad

I was writing today about what AGENCY means and why it matters, and knew I needed a good origin story of why I’m on a mission about this topic. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it was our parents who facilitated AGENCY in my sister Cheri, brother Dave, and me.

By the way, I define AGENCY as "taking initiative to improve what happens to us, by us, and around us."

Notice the verb isn't control. We can't control what happens, we can improve it. Therein lies our AGENCY. Therein lies our destiny.

Cheri, Dave, and I grew up in a small mountain valley in Southern California, miles from the closest town. If you've ever lived in the country, you know that things go wrong.

Your animals get out. The windmill breaks. The pipes freeze. Lambs get stuck in the cattle guard. You get bucked off your horse and fracture your skull. (Yes, all that actually happened.)

At an early age, our dad, Warren Reed, an FFA advisor, shared Bob Moawad's quote with his teachers, students, colleagues ... and us.

"The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own.

No apologies or excuses.

No one to lean on, rely on, or blame.

The gift is yours. It is an amazing journey - and you alone are responsible for the quality of it."

Cheri and I have discussed that this philosophy of taking responsibility is one of the many gifts Mom and Dad gave us.

It is their legacy and we've done our best to pass this mindset - and skillset- along to our kids.

This is also why Cheri and I both feel comfortable being entrepreneurs.

Mom and Dad taught us to bootstrap - which means "to develop by initiative and effort with little or no assistance."

Even when we were young, if something went wrong, we were expected to get resourceful, figure things out, and take accountability for fixing it so it didn't happen again.

You may be thinking, "Well, good for you, but what's this got to do with me?"

Can you believe we have less than six weeks left of this year?

How can that be?

I don't know about you, but for me it feels like we just started 2024.

As Charles Bukowski said, "Time passes by like wild horses over the hills."

Have you kept your resolutions - or are you living on what Bob called, "Someday Isle?"

"Someday I'll write that book." "Someday, I'm going to learn how to play pickleball."

"Someday, I'll call that friend I haven't seen in ages." "Someday, I'll clean out the garage."

"Someday, I'll get back in the gym." "Someday, I'll start taking piano lessons."

What is your "Someday, I'll....?

The good news is, there's still time to bootstrap 2024 - to take the initiative to make it a year you'll always remember fondly.

A year you decide, "I will not make excuses. I will not blame other people or circumstances if things are not the way I want them to be. I take full responsibility for my life."

The right words at the right time have an amazing ability to deeply impact our beliefs and behavior, don't they?

Here are a few other quotes on how we can "own" our days.

I hope you'll share this post with your family (perhaps over Thanksgiving dinner?) and your team (maybe at your next staff meeting?)

You might want to ask everyone to pick a quote that's meaningful for them, and share how they'll bootstrap something specific to make 2024 a good year.

"Life may have been given you a cactus. You don't have to sit on it." - Joyce Meyer

Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved." - William Jennings Bryan

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our life." - Annie Dillard

"Even if you're on the right track, you'll still get run over if you just sit there." - Mark Twain

"Blaming our parents is just a negative way of clinging to them still." - Nancy Friday

"We all love to take responsibility for success and happiness. But taking responsibility for our problems is more important, as that's where the real learning comes from." - Mark Manson

"I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to earth." - Pearl S. Buck

"Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you." - Jean-Paul Sartre

"The moment you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for." - Maureen Dowd

"The most common way people give up their power is to think they don't have any." - Alice Walker

"Four of the worst words you can say, 'If only I had...'" - Jeff Bezos

"My happiness is on me, so you're off the hook." - Esther Hicks

Which quote resonated with you? Why? Do you have a favorite you'd like to share?