A short motivational monologue by Chad Silverstein urging personal responsibility, self-improvement, and leadership. Silverstein criticizes complaining about uncontrollable external factors (money, happiness, workplace changes) and encourages focusing on controllable actions, owning problems, and taking initiative to improve one’s situation.
Chapters
One of the things that I had little patience for was people who complain about things, they don't offer a solution and they just tend to be negative. It always just drove me absolutely crazy. One, because I like to just find solutions to problems, and two, because complaining doesn't do you any good. And everyone is usually always complaining about things they can't control. There are other things that people are kind of Debbie Downers about in life. It might be, in my opinion, money. You know, you can't necessarily control a lot of the things when it comes to how much money you make. You can do your job and get paid, but at the end of the day, you know, the result of your wealth is the result of you doing good work. It's the result outcome of you providing a service or a product that people want. When you provide value, people pay you for it, period. Happiness, right? That's the result of recognizing what you have in your life. It's about appreciating what you have for free. It's not something you go chase. You find it within. And so it's a result. And I think just results in general are what they say they are. They're results, and they're an outcome based on the things that you can control. Yet people don't complain about that. They complain about what's being done to them, the changes that are being made that impact them. And it's easier because it doesn't put the onus on them. They're pointing fingers out. They like to look at the external factors that they can't control, because that's easier to complain about that than it is about myself. But the high performers and leaders who are built to lead, they always go in first, always, because they know they can control that. You have no excuse not to grow. You have no excuse not to get better. You have no excuse. If you're in a job that you hate, it's your fault. And you got to own that and you got to do something about it. If you don't want it anymore and if you're going to accept it, then stop complaining about it. Because you're either going to get yourself fired or you're going to make yourself so miserable that inevitably you're just going to quit anyways. So, you know, sometimes it takes a really strong person to rip the band aid off and just make a change. You have to be smart about it. For sure, you don't want to quit if you don't have another gig lined up. But control what you can control. And when you're not happy about something, keep your mouth shut and stop complaining about things that you have absolutely no control over. All it does is sabotage yourself. And I always say, loose lips sinks ships. You talk about other people. You talk about what you don't like, about what the leader in the organization, you know, did when they made that change. It only comes back to haunt you. And I can guarantee you it doesn't get back to the person the way that you said it. And so if you want to be misunderstood and if you want to sabotage yourself, feel free. Keep complaining about things that you can't control. So if you own it and you look within, you don't have to, like, worry about things you can't control because you're so busy focused on what you can control and getting better that the result is you become an outlier in whatever system you're in because there's no one else doing it. So if you want to stand out and be a differentiator and be distinct, you know, again, just do what everyone else is not doing and own your problems. Take responsibility for your growth and focus on the things that you can control. It's that easy.
