As you operate your business, you realize that changes are necessary. You have to adapt in order to survive in an inconsistent world. The thing becomes an issue when everyone wants these radical changes, and people either love them or hate them. The crucial way to survive this is to set up wins along the way.

People obsess over this model idea of sitting on the beach, cashing in on millions with your phone while your company pulls in millions a year. They see these dreamboat stories on Snapchat or Instagram and it’s suddenly the American Dream of this century. It’s also a great big lie.

Human beings are technically an animal species. Maybe that thought hasn’t occurred to some of you before, but we’re an animal. We may be vastly different that most animals you know, who either swim or walk on four legs, but for the most part we meet all the criteria that make animals animals.

As a businessman, looking into the future is an absolute must. The long term goal is something that weighs heavily in my mind at any point in time. With people relying on me for my trade and my business with employees and their families, I have no choice but to focus on how to keep my business afloat and sailing. Instant oatmeal businesses go as quickly as instant oatmeal.

Unpredictability and chance are two of mankind’s greatest weaknesses, because there’s very little we can do about it. Science says that we cry out of frustration over any other emotion. When you think about it, that’s pretty accurate.

At the intersection of victory and defeat is opportunity. One opportunity, one chance to seize the moment and suddenly you’re on top. This is where patience comes in. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but at some point your opposition will underestimate you or take their eyes off of you and then you have every chance in the world to take it for your own. Maybe all you need is a little boost, support from people who have been in it with you since the beginning.

Life has a habit of going its own way, not our way. When you turn on the news and see the constant and unrelenting flow of misery and sadness, it’s hard to look around and be grateful for the world as it is. Yet, at the end of the day we still have homes, families, friends, and so much else.

We trade our fresh sense of curiosity for the comfort of the reassurance that comes from seeing the sun rise for the thousandth time. In every person’s life there comes the night they go to sleep fearing that the sun won’t come up the next day, only to wake up and understand that nothing will impede the sun from making its voyage across the sky. It’s a natural part of life, aging and growing old doesn’t have to be a sentencing, it’s something that can be savored and enjoyed.

No matter what profession or situation you find yourself in, one of the hardest things for us to do is tackle something by ourselves. It’s one of the unspoken difficulties of being a leader, in fact it’s something most people gloss over, but a lot of the time you are looking down the barrel of a gun at whatever challenge is coming up all by yourself. You don’t have the luxury of taking it on with a well-assembled team, you’re out there fighting all by yourself. You have to learn to be okay to do it by yourself.

One of the things most people don’t realize, if you’re driving a certain kind of car and you’re entering a hard turn, you have to accelerate into the turn. The car is a rear-engine vehicle, which means it requires more traction. This is a great life lesson because our life is often filled with hard turns and twists, whether we see them coming or not, it takes great amounts of mental stamina and preparation to deal with them, because we have to keep ourselves from steering off the road, colliding with other motorists, and ensuring the safety of yourself and your passengers.

I like to stress the importance of having people around you who support you and elevate you while pushing you to do your best. By surrounding yourself with people to help you maximize your potential, you’re creating a safety net. I’m sure you’ve seen in a movie or heard someone say “I’ve got your six” or “I’ve got your back.”

You’ve been told by coaches, teachers, friends, instructors, generally anyone with a pulse that “winners never quit and quitters never win.” As cliche as it sounds, it’s important to remember that losing and quitting aren’t the same. Losing is a type of situational criticism, as loss can be our greatest teacher. Sage wisdom doesn’t come from a place of overinflated self-importance, it’s a humble understanding and acceptance of your flaws, your weakness, and the revelation about how to do it better.

There may be times in your life when you feel that there is no lower that you could sink, that you’ve reached the bottom of the barrel, and I’m sure you can list several off the top of your head. Our lowest moments are something we never forget, but something that tends to escape our memory is how once we’ve fallen, we have to rise. There’s nothing to suggest life isn’t a struggle, we constantly encounter obstacles and setbacks on a weekly basis, but nothing can prepare us for the phone call or message that drops us to our knees.

In the Greek legend, Narcissus was a figure who obsessed over his own image to the point he fell into a pond in efforts to embrace his own reflection. How stupid that may seem to us, a man could love himself that much that he kills himself in his pursuit of self-love.

Life is what we would call a finite resource--we only have so much of it. We can increase it or decrease it, given the amount of care we take of ourselves, but ultimately there will come a time when we reach our due date. Those of us who have faith and believe realize that there is something that comes after, but that doesn’t mean we should waste the time and opportunities that we have here.

As much as you may want to strangle the snot-nosed brat with a beret ordering a 16-syllable drink at Starbucks, you have to realize for every one of them, there are three others who are hardworking and willing to see what the world has to offer. They don’t know the struggles of the past and how the world has changed, to them the world is inconsistent and equally full of threats and wonder.

Something no one likes, we all wish we could do without, but most of us benefit from in the end: criticism. In your time in school or work, I am sure you’ve had to go through peer review or peer edits, it’s inevitable. We use criticism to help evaluate our shortcomings and our talents to see what we can hone and what we can improve.

The wonderful thing about life is the vast potential it has for someone--anyone to tap into. There are endless capabilities and pathways a person can take. This can be daunting for anyone to realize, so, often we try to limit our scope to the easy and the possible.

Hesitation is the most crippling human affliction, it prevents us from taking the chances we need to seize to move forward. Especially in business, people are harmed by their inability to make a decision. For better or worse, the choices you make are more crucial to your business than staying still.

Something taught to me by a business owner I had the pleasure of working with years ago. He said, if you want things to get done, inspect what you expect. What he meant by that is how we should check up on the things we care about. Physically interact with every facet and joint of the business.