Latest / From Chad / Whistling #1151

Transcript

Whistling #1151 · From Chad

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  How to make the extraordinary out of the ordinary.
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  There's a story behind that. This is your daily message from
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  Chad #1151 to upgrade your mental game today by telling
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  yourself a better story. Because the most important story
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  you hear is the story you tell yourself.
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  This message is dedicated to Teresa Smith on her birthday.
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  Happy birthday, mom, You get a free copy of my book, The Most
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  Powerful Story in the World, by going to from chad.gumroad.com.
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  The transcript of this message and hundreds of others are
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  always available at www.fromchad.com.
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  Here's your upgrade. Your work may be ordinary, but
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  upgraded thinking knows ordinary is a stage, not a sentence.
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  Here's your story. Dave Vaughn walked the same
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  streets of Pemberton, NJ with the same mailbag for 43 years.
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  Same town, same route, the most ordinary job you can imagine.
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  But he decided the job would be his stage.
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  He started whistling so the neighborhood dogs would get used
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  to him. And then he just kept whistling
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  because he liked it. Soon the whole town knew he was
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  coming by the tune in the air, and he became the whistling
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  mailman. He learned every child's name on
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  his route and every birthday, and on your birthday you'd get a
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  little ring folded out of a dollar bill.
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  Each month he showed up in a rotation of costumes, a Pilgrim
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  at Thanksgiving, red, white and blue for the holidays.
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  He grew out his beard every fall so that by December he'd be a
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  real Santa walking mail up your driveway.
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  Nobody told him to do any of this.
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  There was no bonus for it. He wasn't looking for promotion.
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  He took a routine and decided to fill it instead of just get
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  through it. As the adage goes, if you do
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  what everybody else does, you'll get the same results everyone
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  else gets. In 2004, a neighbor nominated
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  him for Citizen of the Year, and when they handed him the plaque,
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  he kept it simple. I just like to make others
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  smile. The extraordinary wasn't in his
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  title mail carrier. It wasn't part of his salary.
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  It was in the small, almost playful decision he made every
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  single morning to add something extra.
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  A little cheer, recognition, a little theater.
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  Until his retirement in 2012 after 43 years.
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  See, extraordinary is just ordinary with a little extra on
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  it. Most people treat a job as
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  something to survive. Dave treated it as his container
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  that he filled with his own personality.
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  You don't need a new title to do that.
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  You don't need a stage. Anyone would recognize you have
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  a route. Everyone does the same desk, the
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  same commute, the same people you pass every day, the same
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  place as you shop. Orison Sweat Martin said.
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  Don't wait for the extraordinary opportunities.
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  Seize common occasions and make them great.
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  The question is whether you'll just walk it or whether you'll
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  whistle. The better story to tell
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  yourself is I will add a little extra.
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  Tell me a story of ordinary made extraordinary to from
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  chadsmith@gmail.com. Send someone a text and tell
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  them do a little extra.