Houston Southard
a name that looks so fake you'll care just as little to learn it's not
this is day one
drew dudley
Chapter 2 - The New Guy
Live every day like it’s your first. Think about your first day of work! On your first day of work you show up early; you dress your best; you try everything you can to impress your boss. You are patient with your coworkers, even the ones you know right away you’re not going to like. You ask all the questions you have because there’s no shame in doing that when you’re new. You double-check everything that you do. You stay late. You are never more committed to your job than you are on your first day. You are never more convinced it is going to be the best job you have ever had than you are on your first day.
Chapter 4 - Plan to Matter
When you don’t know what to do in a situation, ask yourself: “What would the person who I want to be do in this situation?” Then do that.
If you don’t take the time to define the things that you hope will define you, you’re always going to feel as if you aren’t living up to the person you want to be.
Chapter 5 - Day One Leadership
Impact is a commitment to creating moments that cause people to feel better off for having interacted with you.
What have I done today to recognize someone else’s leadership?
Chapter 9 - Courage
Get rejected as many times as you can
Confidence is acting like something doesn't scare you. Courage is doing something that does scare you.
“The need to save face keeps a lot of people from asking for the help they need. When you’re in deep you can save face, or you can save your ass, but you don’t get to do both. Choose wisely.”
“You wouldn’t worry so much about what other people think of you if you realized how seldom they do.”
The Magic Question: “Am I capable of five seconds of extraordinary courage right now?”
Why the blind adherence to a template we didn’t create? It’s because the list becomes embedded as we grow up. Our education system is one of the most essential and empowering systems in our culture, but it can also be one of the most dangerous and oppressive because it doesn’t teach courage—it teaches compliance. We need to change that, and we need to overcome the fact that it’s something to which many of us have already fallen victim. I say this not as an indictment of teachers but to point out that the system in which they work often rewards seeking external validation more than it does seeking personal validation.
Our emotions exist because for most of human history they made survival more likely. Anger, jealousy, fear, pride, and disgust all drive behavior that makes it more likely the person expressing them (and that person’s genes) will live on. In the process they often caused tremendous pain, damage, and even death, but that wasn’t always such a big deal in human society—however, it is now.
A huge number of people are terrified of public speaking. This makes sense: for most of human history being alone, undefended, and stared at by a large number of people was a tremendously dangerous situation.
As such, those who tended to avoid it were more likely to have children and pass along that fear. Who knew that they’d be saddling their ancestors with a maladaptive fear in a world that rewards those who can fearlessly and charismatically deliver ideas in front of a group?
We’re privileged to live in a world where many of the things that threatened our ancestors no longer pose a significant threat.
we continue to carry the emotions and survival instincts of those ancestors to this day. Those instincts push us to be risk-averse when what is really required to thrive today is courage. They sound alarms about potential losses that long ago were mitigated for most people. Our DNA carries a message that used to keep us alive and now often keeps us from living:
“Where you are and what you are doing is keeping you sheltered, clothed, fed, and connected to other people. Stay put and keep doing those things. Do not change anything, because you have what you need and changing something might cause it to go away.”
Courage in your life means you accept that there will be missteps—that constant and repeated change may be necessary, but that it is nothing to be ashamed of if it leads to a more fulfilling, positive outcome.
This culturally created schedule for change in our lives makes far too many leaders willing to settle short of the life they want and the life they deserve. It can be hard to detect when that’s the case and tremendously upsetting once you do. As such, one of the most courageous questions anyone can ask is: Where in my life am I settling?
“How far would you be willing to go for the chance to be happier?”
It’s not possible to lead others if we’re not willing to lead ourselves and a key step toward effective personal leadership is the willingness to honestly ask ourselves: “In what areas of my life am I settling?” Are you settling for okay in your job? In your relationships? In your health?
Chapter 10 - Empowerment
If your mind tells you that you haven’t reached your goals day after day, it changes you: you become bitter, cynical, and angry. It turns you into someone who is less capable of adding value and therefore gets fewer of the things that you want.
Give yourself only one goal—to add tremendous value in every interpersonal interaction of which you are part—and each night your answer to “Did I add value today?” becomes: “Yes. Just like yesterday, and just like the day before that.” (At least if you apply the process laid out in this book!)
Acknowledging you accomplished your primary goal every night changes the way you feel about yourself and it changes the way you interact with others.
Our access to some opportunities in life is controlled by others, so perhaps it’s best to make our lives about empowering others. People remember who helped move them forward.
“We serve others whenever we help them move closer to one of their goals,” he responded. “For some people that might mean an educational goal, a career goal, or a goal related to their legacy. But let me tell you, the most important goals you can help someone reach are the goals related to their dignity. People need to feel seen, they need to feel understood, they need to feel connected to another person. Too many people in this world don’t have those goals met.”
Chapter 11 - Growth
“I’m always free if I want to be”
Watch a how to video on youtube. Doesn't matter what for.
Chapter 12 - Class
Ice thaws one drip at a time.
Identify a moment you disagreed with someone, turned out to be wrong, and never acknowledged that fact. Go acknowledge that fact.
Publicly recognize a strength of someone of whom you’re not particularly fond.
How did I treat someone better than they deserved to be treated today?
Chapter 13 - Self-Respect
The Day One process aims to ensure you give yourself hard evidence every day that you are someone of worth: someone who matters and deserves respect.
When you believe you matter and deserve respect, it’s easier to treat others as if you believe it about them.
The problem with the question, “How many of you can tell me the single happiest moment of your life?” is it reinforces the idea that only the things at the very top deserve celebration.
It means other amazing moments get diminished in our minds just because they’re not the greatest we’ve ever had. I think it’s dangerous to teach people something that might make them diminish good things in their lives.
Instead, tell them to draw a line in their mind that represents great. For everything they experience in life their only question should be, ‘Did that fall above the great line’? If it did, file it there. There’s unlimited room above the great line. Your goal in life should be to create as big a collection of things above the great line as you can in as many different categories as you can.
Things don’t just happen for a reason. You’re the reason things happen.
Never diminish the person you are by comparing yourself to the person you might be one day
Every time you talk about somebody, act as if they’re standing directly behind you. Your life just gets easier.
Research has shown that personal value clarity is linked to improved pride, performance, commitment, and satisfaction and identifying our core values and the values of those we lead is an underutilized tool in our quest to be our best selves and to bring out the best in other
Chapter 14 - Identifying Your Own Key Values
Feel free to dismiss the judgments of anyone who is not as happy as you are.
Happiness is when most of the things you have to do every day are things that you want to do.
Your emotions aren’t the problem, judging yourself for having them is the problem.
Everything you want in the world is on the other side of something shitty.
The higher the speed limit on the road, the more boring it is.
Money isn’t everything, but debt can be. Save.
Only hurt people hurt others.
Success is feeling like you’re enough even when you’re going after something more.
Sometimes the best way to shine is to reflect the light of others. Just ask the moon.
Great stories aren’t about what you did, they’re about what you were afraid of while you did it.
It’s not complicated if you can explain it in 5 words.
Chapter 17 - Putting The Day One Process Into Action
Consistency is key: ordinary acts performed with extraordinary consistency change worlds.
Chapter 18 - What Kind of Day Has It Been
There are people who will come into your life who are so magical, so powerful, and so rare that you’re never quite the same. When someone changes you that way, has that kind of power over you, that’s a unicorn. Not everyone gets one. It’s a gift if you do.