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Dave Lukas - Lessons for Hannah360: Lessons For Hannah - Dadisms Volume 2
Hello Misfit Nation! Welcome to another edition of "Lessons for Hannah!" Many years ago, I introduced a new format that alongside our regular episodes called “Lessons for Hannah.” Hannah is my daughter and one of the main inspirations for the Misfit Entrepreneur. I wanted to have a place where she could go and learn from her daddy and his Misfit friends throughout her life….even after I am gone. If you haven’t listened to the first episode of "Lessons for Hannah," I urge you to as it gives some more background and tells the amazing story of how Hannah came to be in our lives. Lessons for Hannah are short, very useful, and sometimes comical lessons, that I want to share with you and give to Hannah to help in your lives. Because I want Hannah to have these for her life, I’m going to speak as though I am talking directly to her. These episodes are a lot of fun and if you think there is a lesson that we should include in these episodes, please don’t hesitate to send it over to us at [email protected]. We’d love to share it. This week’s Lesson for Hannah Hannah, I started the year out with an episode on what I call “Dadisms.” These are little nuggets of life wisdom that I hope you remember and put to work for you throughout your life. You’ve heard me say some of these many, many times and hopefully they have stuck with you. Seeing that we are now halfway through the year, and you are about turn 11 years old, I thought I’d share a few more of them for you. Here are 8 new “Dadisms” that I hope you can use in your life. In this episode, I want to share 11 of my favorite “Dadisms” with you. Here they are. 1. If Possible, Pray on Your Knees Everyday I started praying on my knees about 5 years ago. I am not perfect and don’t do it every day, but I do most days. First and foremost, just taking the time to pray is one of the best things you can do for yourself every day. I have found that when I pray on my knees, it takes on a bigger significance. It connects you with God, grounds you, and helps center you. It also helps you to be humbled in realizing that ultimately you are not in control and that God’s will is – and when you realize that you can offload many of the burdens that plague you to God and free yourself from torment, it is really amazing. Remember, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” 2. At the end of each day, ask yourself, “What did I achieve today?” There are a few great exercises to do each day that make a real difference in your life. Praying on your knees is one of them. Taking a few minutes to write down or just state 3 things you are grateful for is another. One that I have always loved doing is at the end of each day just taking a couple mins and looking back on the day asking the question, “What did I achieve today?” Each day, I make it my mission to achieve at least one thing that moves the needle in life and business. I can sleep well knowing I accomplished this goal. So, each day, just take a few moments to take stock of what you achieve and make sure you are getting better. 3. It’s not enough to work hard. You must work not only hard, but smart, and work on the right vehicle to drive the results you want. Hannah, I’ve known a lot of people that have worked very hard over the years and unfortunately don’t have that much to show for it. The key to working hard is being smart about the work that you do and making sure that it is giving you an exponential return on your investment of your time and effort. And that is why you need to be working in the right vehicle to drive the results you want. For example, if you want to be a fast sprinter, it is important to work the muscles of your body very hard, but if all you do is lift weights, it is going to be hard to be a good and fast sprinter. Instead, you need to do speedwork and if you want to be really good, you need to ensure you are doing the best exercises that sports science has shown give you the best improvement and help make you the most successful. Those exercises would be the vehicle you would use. So, you would work hard and focus on speedwork which is smart, and you use the best exercises that have been show to give the best results – the right vehicle vs. just running as you feel like it and lifting weights. 4. Focus on results, not time. Hannah, one of the best lessons for success that I have learned is to focus on results and not time. A lot of society, especially in the work world, is built on time – trading hours for dollars. This has always confounded me as it dis-incentivizes success and hurts potential. For example, if you have a job to do and you are being paid by the hour to do it working 8 hours a day, most people will take their time and do the job in 8 hours. But, what if they were paid for the results of the job and the more results they got, the more they got paid? Do you think they would get more results? They would. You see, the results are what matter. The amount of time you put in doesn’t or shouldn’t. I can make an options trade in 5 minutes and make more than someone makes in a day or even a week. I don’t say this to brag, I say this because of my last principle. I worked hard and smart to understand how to create cashflow from the stock market and then I refined those skills to do it with the best system (vehicle) to do it consistently. And I focus on results – not my time. This helps me to be able to succeed at higher levels across multiple businesses. This simple thought shift can help anyone be more successful. 5. You have two ears and one mouth for a reason, spend more time listening than talking. I admit, out of all these, this is the one I have struggled with the most over the years. Part of it was maturity and part of it was ego. I used to talk a lot more than I listen, which certainly did not help me. But over the years, I learned to listen more and think before responding. One of the best things that taught me this was being a father to you. As a parent, it is important to listen and think through your responses and actions when raising your children. Being married to your mother also helped me to get better at this and I thank her for putting up with me at times. The point is when we actively listen and engage and take time think through our responses, our conversations and impact are much more meaningful and better. 6. Be careful of the things you decide to sacrifice, it can be a slippery slope. I recently wrote a blog post about this. When we work hard, smart, and on the right vehicles, we will eventually find success. Sometimes massive success to the point where we reach our goals or exceed them. This is where a big success killer can prey on us. And that is simply becoming complacent or thinking that we can cut corners on things. This is a slippery slope, because once we start to do it, it gets easier and easier and before you know it, you are doing it all the time. In the article I used my training as an example sharing the following: I train every day for long periods for Ironman. I've been doing it for years and I've reached a lot of my goals. I have competed in the Ironman World Championships. I have reached levels where I am Top 5% in the world rankings. I have achieved more than I thought from where I started out. And racing for me is not a job. I have a few sponsors, but I'm not paid to do it. It's something that I am afforded the ability to be able to put the time, effort, and money into because I found success in other areas. In short, while I enjoy it, I don't have to do it. So, it's natural that there are times where I just don't want to do the things I know I need to do. The things needed to remain competitive and fit enough to keep competing at the levels I have built my capabilities to. It's in these moments that I have to be my strongest mentally. It is so easy to skip a workout or not perform a workout at the intensity it calls for. What 's the harm right? It's only one work out or just slacking a little bit - no big deal. But, that is the slippery slope. Once you begin to give into these impulses, it gets easier and easier to do it the next time and so on. I've seen it with athletes, entrepreneurs, and people in general. Once you give in, you begin to set the bar lower and lower for yourself. And eventually, you lose your edge. The edge that brought you success in the first place. And it then can impact all areas of your life. It is in these moments where I have these thoughts or feel like giving in to this success killer that I have to push through and go harder and breakmyself of it. And I do. And it has made me a better man, husband, father, and entrepreneur. Hannah, be very careful about what you sacrifice on in life. 7. Value street smarts as much or more than book smarts. A lot is made of getting good grades in school and learning the materials, etc. And by no means should you not try your best and put forth the best effort to get the best grades in school. This develops the habit for high achievement. But I will say that there are different kinds of smarts. School smarts or book smarts is one. Street smarts are another. Street smarts are worldly experiences not from dealing in theory or a textbook, but from actually living it. For example, you are almost a 2nd degree blackbelt in Tae Kwan Do. You did not get to this point because you read what do in a book. That can give you an idea of what to do, but you got good by doing it and making the mistakes to learn how to do it well and pass the real-life tests you had to do from breaking boards to sparring against other black belts to handling a sword. It’s very hard to learn that in a textbook and it’s very hard to learn the little nuances or moves you do in addition to the technique that give you an edge without having done it in real life. As you continue to learn and grow make sure to get all the real-world experience you can across a wide variety of areas. It will pay off in huge ways throughout your life. I will help you with this. 8. Every choice you make impacts you directly and indirectly. It may not seem like it, but every choice, every single one that you make has an impact. It can impact your life and it can impact others. And some choices have a bigger impact than others. Each day we make hundreds of choices, mostly without thinking about them, but they do have an effect on us. For example, you get up and brush your teeth every day. You don’t think about it, but this action has a huge impact on your health. What if you didn’t brush your teeth? Well, you would start to get health issues and the longer you went without doing it, the bigger the issues would be. The health of your mouth affects several areas of your body. By not brushing your teeth, you would create a host of health problems, not just in the mouth area. A little choice, but over time, a big impact. So, what if we learned to think more about our choices? Could we make better choices? And if we make better choices, could we get better outcomes? Of course, we would. This is easier said than done, but maybe just thinking through one choice each day to ensure you make the best one is a good start and once you get good at that, then it will apply to more and more. After a year, you would have made hundreds of better choices. Can you imagine where that could take you? So, I urge you to think more on the choices you make and do your best with them as I know the difference they can make and the impact they will have. Hannah, the last I did a Dadism’s episode I said that I could probably put a hundred of these in an episode, but I think it is best to give them to you in small groups so you can think on them. It’s best not to eat the elephant all at once, but one bite at a time. In future episodes I will give more, and I hope you can learn from these and use them in your life to help guide you. I love you, Dad 
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