The New England Patriot’s coach and winner of 5 Super Bowls is not a fan of social media.

He calls it “InstaBook”, SnapFace”, “ChatRun” on purpose and has vowed to do everything he can to fight its use as it pertains to his football team and life.

Here is advice to Millennials …

1. Make sure your career is motivated by love— passion over money.
2. Talent shortcomings can be overcome by hard work– he cites Tom Brady who “is not a great natural athlete … not even close” but he worked hard for what he achieved.
3. Fight for your big ideas – just because they are unusual or have never been done before is no reason not to use them.
4. Put away social media and concentrate on building real relationships face-to-face– success comes from relationships with people and not how many likes you get online.

Belichick:” success is more about who you know than what you know”.

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You can’t tell how the show is going to end if you leave in the middle.

Same is true about life.

About relationships.

And careers where a total dead end perceived one day could mean unanticipated advancements the next day if given the time.

Giving up is shooting ourselves in the foot.

No matter how challenging, no matter how discouraging the one thing we never want to do is give up.

We may lose.

We may win.

But throwing in the towel means removing the outcome that could be positive before it has a chance to reward us.

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The book One More Thing posits that by doing less, going small rather than big and focusing on one thing – the most important thing – outcomes turn out better.

Don’t focus on being busy. Focus on being productive.

Allow what matters most to drive your day. 

Whether you say “later” or “never,” the point is to say “not now” to anything else you could do until your most important work is done.

Don’t get trapped in the “check off” game.

The 80/20 rule still applies.

80% of our productivity comes from 20% of our effort.

Drill down deeper to the core activity that will bring you success.

In baseball everything comes down to the team that scores the most runs.

A one-hitter – not important if that one hit is a game winning home run and you lose.

How far you hit the ball, not important in the context of things. A bunt can win you a game, too.

If ball players focused on stealing bases, fewer strikeouts, the way the ballpark looked over scoring the most runs, they might be helping their efforts but not playing baseball.

In the end, every little thing essentially can be seen as mattering, but scoring the most runs is at the top of the list.

When we learn to think like this, we find a level of focus that makes us hard to beat.

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Recognizing that we are blessed and to be thankful for it increases happiness by 25%.

The feeling of gratitude has nothing to do with whether you are grateful for something big or small.

Saying you’re blessed is not as good as feeling it.

When someone does something for you without an agenda, it is selfless and something for which to be truly grateful.

We’re on constant lookout for bad things.

Be on the lookout for things that have been done for us by good people who have made an effort in a voluntary way and completely selfless is the definition of gratitude that we can feel.

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If you do two things at the same time, both things will suffer.

Email, texting, social media, managing tasks.

The average office worker gets interrupted every 11 minutes.

Yet it takes 25 minutes to return to the original task before the interruption.

In tests conducted by the University of California, interrupted groups answered questions correctly 20% less often.

It’s not just that multitasking is an addiction, but that it is adversely affecting our brainpower.

Prepare for distractions by consciously expecting them. 

Research shows you’ll actually outperform people who get no interruptions at all.

Expecting distractions but – and this is important – also being aware of that expectation constantly is one of the most effective ways to deal with distractions.

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Do one or two things daily that will remind you of the child within yourself.

When we are children, we enjoy the wonder of being carefree.

As adults, we forget discovery, joy, impulsiveness, fun.

In other words, we forget how to be childlike when we take on adult responsibilities.

Wander off and explore something new today.

Do something just for the fun of it.

When the adult in us says maybe we’d not, say maybe we had better. 

No one taught us how to be children but being an adult often teaches us how to forget the benefits.

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Don’t wait for a job interview, do it now.

Can you name it – quickly?

What is your best personal strength?

Honest

Loyal

Fair

Hardworking

Inclusive

Positive

Sensitive

Good listener

Generous

Continue this list until you’ve added more personal strengths and then identify the one that best describes you.

Without trying to turn yourself into something you are not, you may just find out that you’re pretty impressive as is – if you can just identify your best personal strength.

Listing some of the others won’t hurt either.

Remind yourself once a day of your best personal strength because no one can ever take it away from you unless YOU forget it.

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What kind of a screwed-up world do we live in where passengers pay to get mistreated by airlines?

The man who wouldn’t give up his spot on a United Airlines flight recently was dragged off the plane, his face bloodied and glasses hanging off his face.

All this because the crew said the flight was oversold and couldn’t get volunteers to give up their seats, so this abused man was forced to give his up.

United’s CEO fumbled two attempts at an apology.  The first, luke-warm, the second where he accused the assaulted passenger of being “disruptive and belligerent” and finally in his third try, admitting that customers should be treated better.

He also admitted the flight in question was not oversold after all.

When you apologize, make it sincere.

Don’t point an accusing finger at another unless you can recognize the three you have pointing back at you.

Compassion cost nothing.

An airline or anyone who treats another person this way should seriously seek help.

The world is a rough place, but if this is the way a company treats its customers, they don’t deserve to be in business.

Customers should be treated as if they are our loved ones and then you can never go wrong.

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It’s hard to even get out of the house in the morning without our moods being ruined with news, email and texts and leftover anxieties from the day before.

Be on the lookout for good.

Good people.

I had a dear friend who always used to say to me, “JD, you’re a good man”.  How could you not want to hear that?  How could he say it without feeling good about finding something positive in me and sharing it with me?

Marriage counselors would go out of business if we could tell our spouses something positive about them every day because, sadly, most couples stop doing what worked so well when they met.

Our children are too easily praised for showing up (i.e., the soccer mom syndrome).

Here’s an effective alternative:  Catch them doing something right and tell them what it was (i.e., “it was good of you to include Bethany in the game”).

Praise plus evidence.

Even an employer or boss that we don’t like can hear something positive from us if we look hard enough (“…that was very fair”).  Not liking someone’s management style is one thing but not being able to find anything positive in another person – even a boss – means we have some work to do.  That may be on us.

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In economics, the theory of loss aversion describes our tendency to prefer avoiding losses to acquire equal gains.

Some consider losses twice as powerful in our minds as gains that explains why people hate to give up something even if they could get something equal and better.

It is why people stay in bad relationships for fear of losing what they have no matter how bad even in the hope of getting something better with someone else.

Some argue that replacing the current health care law falls into this category – fear of losing what they have even if it is far from perfect rather than the expectation of something better gained.

Overcoming the fear of losing makes you special.

An achiever because you are willing to take a prudent risk to get something better.

A new job in a different field out of your comfort zone may be better than another one like the other one in your present field.

Sitting in the first row at a meeting or event where you might ordinarily sit near the back that shows you are willing to temporarily lose your anonymity to get closer to the speaker, participate more or become actively involved.

The helpful rule that applies to the fear of losing anything is …

Do the thing you fear to do and the fear will go away from you.

What a way to build genuine self-focused confidence.

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