Bob McFerrin sings “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” It’s a great idea as a baseline plan, but in real life “happy” gets much easier the better you have your life situated the way you want it.
I was reminded of this last week when I went for a walk with a friend of mine with whom I have not really talked since the lockdowns a few years ago.
We were meeting right out in front of The Lazy Goat, a great spot to begin a downtown meander (or to dine) and “coincidentally” right by where I live.
As I walked toward the designated meeting spot, I saw what I thought should have been my friend but I noticed he did not look like the previous version 1.0 that I remembered at all. He was the right height all right, but he had “yuge” muscles and a glorious long ZZ Top-type beard. It was in fact my friend, and as it happens, when COVID came along he decided to take the extra found/forced time to make some changes to improve his own world.
On the walk I found out that in the last few years he:
- Built a home gym and became real serious about weightlifting, health and bodybuilding.
- Became one of the areas best bodybuilders and completely transformed his body and now has a popular Instagram channel where he is a mentor to thousands of young people getting into weights and bodybuilding.
- Found a great girlfriend who is into the same stuff he is, including the exercise/bodybuilding, social media and farm living.
- Started a hilarious TikTok series with his daughter which has thousands of followers, mostly just funny stuff and dancing and clearly a great way to bond with his daughter and have fun.
- Hired a coach to help him make decisions to grow his business, which had stalled, and which has subsequently grown threefold in size since COVID. (Now his big problem is not stalled sales but rather the ability to hire fast enough to keep up with the growth.)
- Sold his home and a few acres to an encroaching developer and bought a farm five times larger where he is building his dream retreat including barns and houses and ponds and a 150-foot slip ’n’ slide!
The list goes on.
Not to mention, he stopped shaving and grew the glorious beard which is how many people now recognize him.
The COVID break had this effect on many people, a moment in time where we can act on things that otherwise may get overlooked or put on the back burner because we are otherwise busy with life.
Of course, I am very happy for my friend — and I took away a big lesson from this walk:
Be happy and thankful for where you are today but never stop working to improve your future life and self.
And whatever your glorious beard is, don’t wait for the next global shutdown. Go ahead and grow it!
John Sterling is the Amazon bestselling author of “Sales for Noobs” and CEO of NOOB School, an online resource for new salespeople. Previously, John helped build and sell Datastream for over $200 million. He has trained and hired hundreds of sales reps globally. Subscribe to his YouTube channel for new sales content every week. https://noobschool.org
