61 TOOL #1: STOP PUTTING UP WITH SO MUCH You’re called to an important 7:30 a.m. meeting by the marketing department manager by email at 5:30 p.m. the night before. You have asked repeatedly for more advanced notice of meetings from this person, but your requests have fallen on deaf ears. You are forced to begin scrambling your morning schedule now to make this meeting. You’ve been slightly annoyed by the flickering fluorescent light over your desk for the past week. You know it would just take a quick call to the maintenance department, but it just doesn’t seem to get done because there are so many other calls you must make and other things pressing for your attention. You begin each day with the intention to get out of the office and take a walk during your lunch hour. Your commitment to exercise has been terrible in the past year and your doctor has just told you that your blood pressure is high enough to be concerned and act. You have great intentions every morning as you begin your day but by 12 p.m. the phone messages are stacked up; your assistant has called in sick and an emergency meeting is called by the Managing Director. Does any of this sound familiar? Do you ever get the feeling that each time you turn around you are facing something that irritates, distracts, or infuriates you and you are just putting up with it? All of us have things we put up with day in and day out. Some involve inanimate objects, and some involve places and people. Sometimes it is even our own behavior that we are putting up with. Whatever you are putting up with, it is important to know that the cumulative effect of having multiple things around you that you are tolerating costs you dearly. Each one of them takes a bit from you every time you encounter it. Each thing we are putting up with is like having a hole in a paper cup. Some of the things are small pinholes and some are large, gaping holes. The more holes, the less
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