Gerald Platt has been a leader for more than a generation. His day job is as an emergency room doctor. He has mentored residents for more than a decade. ER doctors work in high-pressure, high-stress environments. Perhaps that’s why he developed the skill of condensing his wisdom into tight phrases he calls “mantras.” I blogged about one of his mantras I found impactful a few months ago. Last week, I shared 9 of his 100 mantras.
Here are a nine more of his mantras that are meaningful to me. These mantras might enable you to build up others and/or improve your life. The text in parenthesis is my phrasing of the same idea.
- Wisdom does not guarantee a great result. (Sometimes good results can come from chance or a poor choice. Stack the odds in your favor to make wise choices.)
- Complexity breeds errors. (Some situations and problems are inherently complex. Seeking simplicity requires deeper thinking, but the return is worth the effort.)
- The best things are not things. (Typically, hospice patients regret broken relationships more than lost objects.)
- Often, we can make our own weather. (Decide what you will bring and what you will exclude from the human environments you influence.)
- Live it once. (Many experiences are painful or necessary but not worth dwelling on.)
- Touch it once. (Tasks to be done are a poor hobby.)
- Plan to be early, and you’ll really be late. (If you can’t be on time, be early.)
- It’s OK to visit Memory Lane, but don’t buy a house there.
- Sometimes the devil gives you two bad choices and asks you to choose one. (Wisdom seeks another option.)
If you find these mantras valuable, reminding yourself of them can worthwhile to you. There are multiple ways to remind yourself of what you consider life truths to be.
Some people have a rotating list on their phones; others may have file cards like my dad’s Rolodex, and some use a journal or notebook. I’m a three-ring-binder guy. My binder has different sections for how frequently I want to review the most diverse or the least impactful material I have gained over the years.
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Please share a couple of your important life lessons and mantras.
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Terry Moore, CCIM, is the author of Building Legacy Wealth: How to Build Wealth and Live a Life Worth Imitating. Read his “Welcome to My Blog.”