Daily SPARK Minute with Simon T. Bailey

“Did you know that in the dictionary failure comes before success? That’s right! So, no matter what failure you have experienced, you will eventually move towards success. Just embrace the failure.”

“I found out a long time ago that when you find your spark, you find your joy. When you find your joy, you find your voice. When you find your voice, you find your freedom. Prior to me finding my freedom or my voice, I was, at best, an annoying echo instead of a person with an original voice. I was comparing myself with everyone else, and when you compare yourself, you end up having the disease called comparison inferiority complex. John Mason in the book called ‘An Enemy Called Average’ said, ‘Most people are born originals, but they die copies.’ When I read this quote, I said to myself, ‘You know what? Average does not live here anymore. I’m done.’ That is when I took off the layers and decided to just be my authentic self.”

“Brilliance is your insight, your potential, your genius, and your it factors. When you find your brilliance, you find the thing that sparks you to live from the inside out. So, brilliance is finding the combination to the vault of you. You open the vault from the inside out and when you open it from the inside out, you wake up every single day to give joy, not to take. To ask, not to tell. To listen, not to hear. You are in your brilliance. Here’s the other thing. You are not threatened by anyone else who might outshine you because you are on your journey at the pace you’re going.”

“This is the age of the woman. Any business that’s going to be worth its salt must have women leading or co-leading the discussion. Why? Women have this ability to look at a problem with a 360-degree view, whereas, in some things, men are very linear in their approach. That’s number one. Number two, all the rage is AI, ChatGPT, which is nice, but it will never replace WI, women’s intelligence. Women have a sixth sense of knowing about something that the data doesn’t reveal. Number three is according to all the research when women are leading or co-leading, or at least involved in moving something forward, there is a positive net net bottom-line impact because women are going to make sure that everybody benefits from the outcome of whatever is being done.”

“AI is so wonderful. I have used ChatGPT, it is wonderful, and we are just at the very beginning. If we remember the Internet when it first launched in the 90s, this is kind of like the beginning of AI, it is only going to get better. But here’s the thing; it also forces us as human beings to tap into our own creativity because something that AI will never have is that spontaneity, that creative spark, that idea that only humans have the ability to bring to the earth. So, what I am so excited about is there are five skills that LinkedIn, which has almost 900 million people on its platform, has identified that are critically important. The five skills are creativity, adaptability, collaboration, storytelling, and emotional or social intelligence.”

“Business tip for you: Always Be Connecting (ABC). I’m in Toronto and I just reconnected with a friend of mine that I used to work with at Disney, and we got together the last time about 10 years ago for a quick bite to eat. Today, we reconnected, and I specifically shared with her the new business project that I am working on and I said, ‘I need your help.’ She said, ‘Absolutely.’ So, when I talk about ABC, always be connecting, who’s the one person that you can reach out to and connect with? I didn’t ask for something, but I also had something to give and share. So, today’s business tip is who can you serve today as you ask for help, and when you do it, make sure you say thank you for that follow-up because you never know what it might lead to. That’s your business tip for today.”

“Elevating how you do what you do every single day comes down to ‘How do we win the moment?’ Roger mentioned yesterday about playing to win, and when he said it, I made a little mental note and I said, ‘If you’re playing to win before you can truly win the game as you elevate your game, you have to win the moment.’ Once you win the moment you, can win the minute. When you win the minute, you can win the hour. When you win the hour, you can win the day. When you win the day, you can win the week. When you win the week, you can win the month. When you win the month, you can win the quarter. When you win the quarter, you can win the year. How many are tracking with me so far?”

“Self-improvement starts with a daily decision: How do I choose to be better today than the day before? Recently, I learned to swim and I had not swum for a really long time because I almost drowned when I was 8 and I had the trauma of ‘I’m going to drown again.’ But I pushed that out of my way and signed up for swimming classes at the YMCA. In the first class, I didn’t do so well, but I showed up for the second class, the third class, and the fourth class, and then when I wasn’t going to class, I was still doing laps every single day. I was improving from one lap to three laps to five laps. Now I am up to 10! It all started with the decision to improve one day at a time. What can you do today to improve yourself because that’s where the brilliance happens?”

“Being productive is understanding the difference between being effective and being busy. So, today what do you need to accomplish? I want to invite you to create a list. Not a list of 20 things you need to accomplish because you’re not going to accomplish them. The fire drill will happen, you’ll get a phone call, you’ll get a text, and it’ll totally throw your entire day out of whack. So, what would it be like to create a list of three to five high-value things that you need to do as you begin to go through the day? Check those off and guess what! You’ll probably surprise yourself that you’ll get through all five. When you do, then start a new list, but make the list the night before for what you’re going to do the next day. That’s how you take control of your day instead of letting others take control of the day for you. So, being productive is how you ensure that you’re doing what you need to be done in order to get the results you want to have.” 

“When I practice kindness by starting with myself the first 15 minutes of the day, 15 minutes a day impacts seven days a week. Seven days a week then creates 30 days, and 30 days creates 90 days. So, how did I get to the quarter? Reverse engineer. What have I been doing for the last 90 days? How have I been practicing self-love, practicing gratitude, and practicing surrender? That created 30-60-90. How did I get there? What have I been doing for the last seven days? How did I get there? What have I been doing with 15 minutes a day? So, how you start the day determines the day. Before you even leave your residence, I want you to start with yourself because when you show up, you set the tone for the environment.”