Wondering why you should be listening to the “fresh prince” about the keys to life? I’ll tell you why. Will Smith has an interesting video on youtube where he explains to the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards audience his two keys to life. After talking about Will Smith in the Pursuit of Happyness in the Don’t let anyone (and I mean anyone) steal your dreams article I wrote, I seen this video in Leo from Zen Habits‘ link tumblr page. Watching the video really had me think about things a bit and in this article I want to touch on the two keys he mentions and talk about what I think about each, and why I think these are two real keys to life.
Running is the first key to life
In the video, Will explains that the reason for this is because when you run, you have this little voice in your head that tells you “I’m too tired, I have to stop running. If I only walk for a second I will regain my composure and can run again. I wish I could just sit down” (paraphrased in my own words). He says that if you can conquer this voice when running, you can conquer this voice in anything that you do in life.
I couldn’t agree more. Regardless of the way you want to give the analogy, that voice in your head, which is based on fear, doubt and insecurity, will run your life until the day you die if you do not learn to conquer it early on. Running is definitely a great way to overcome this voice and has many benefits.
The Benefits of Running
Will Smith touches on the fact that overcoming the voice telling you to stop when you are running is the reason why running is beneficial and I don’t disagree with him but there are many other benefits as well.
Health Benefits - I put this first because I figured since most people like to skip over this fact of life, I wanted to make it stand out more here. RUNNING or ANY FORM OF EXERCISE is a great health benefit. Not only will running help you keep the weight off but it is also great for stamina. At the risk of saying too much, I will just say that stamina is a great thing for any man out there and you should pay attention to it more. (Sorry ladies if you found that offensive - contact me and tell me you did).
Running will also help your lungs open up which improves your breathing and good breathing can be very beneficial to concentration and relaxation. Ask anyone who meditates or does breathing exercises and they will tell you the same thing. Try it and I bet you’ll see the great results.
Freeing Your Mind - I know a lot of people talk about how walking helps them to relax their mind and free their thoughts. The same goes for running. When you run, you can think about many things but for some reason, to me at least, it seems to help me not ‘think’ about much at all, in the sense that I am not stressed about the things I think about. I actually get a lot of great ideas when I am jogging/running and always carry a tablet of paper and a pen with me. The writing might be horrible but I can read it so thats all that matters.
Anyone who is in business for themselves can comment on this and say that their life is at times a bit more stressful then they’d like. Running is a great way to remove a bit of that stress and free your mind for greater things. Looking at a screen all day will make things start to look like tunnel vision, so running is a great way to release some of those things and see life in a better light.
Reading is the second key to life
Will Smith then goes on to explain that reading is the second key to life and again, I don’t doubt that for a second. Anyone who is successful in business will have at least ONE good book they’ve read that helped put them in the right mindset or on the right track to making their dreams come true. I read Bootstrapping Your Business and that influenced me to start Bootstrapping Blog and write about the art of bootstrapping.
Anything you can read from Thomas Edison, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, or Benjamin Franklin will give you so much knowledge for life and business that you’d be upset you hadn’t read it earlier. Reading not only solves problems you might be going through, as Will Smith talked about, but it gives you a few more benefits as well.
Knowledge is Power - OK, I know everyone has read or wrote this phrase more than once in their life but it’s the truth. When you know more, you can do more. When you understand laws after you read a law book or study in law school, or study a CSS design book, when you are done reading, you will by far know more then you did before you read the book. The same goes with great blogs like Zen Habits, Pro Blogger, Skelliewag and Freelance Switch.
You’ll have the power to do so many more things in business and in life after you read these blogs and authors.
A good real-life example of this is that before I read the zen habits tumblr page, I didn’t know anything about this video or that Will Smith even said these things, but now, I am writing this very post because of it Knowledge does indeed give you power.
Better Communication - When you read, you will learn proper grammar (if the person writing it displays it, that is) and will learn a vast amount of new words. These skills will help you out in every day conversations with family, friends or co-workers. Your friends will laugh, or stare at you funny if you use some larger words in a conversation and they are the type to use a lot of slang terms or are the “myspace crowd” so-to-speak. I get a kick out of putting a 5 syllable word into a sentence instead of a 4-5 letter word just to play with people, its fun.
If you are in business for yourself, you normally are the name and face of your business and if you come off to your clients as ignorant or less-educated, you will surely lose many potential jobs and sales. I’ve seen many sales pitches with grammar mistakes that shouldn’t have been made, by writers who were selling their freelance writing services. This is unacceptable and easily avoided by reading more and learning more.
Why Will Smith is a Genius
Normally, people will give you some B.S. approach to succeeding in life, wrapping a cheap e-book page around it and slapping a $100.00 price tag on it while you have legitimate success stories (yes, I consider Will Smith a success story in himself) who give out great knowledge like this for free every day. All you have to do is open your eyes and ears while closing your mouth. Pay attention, you’ll thank me for it later…
Am I the only one that listens to what Will Smith and other stars say and grab the useful information from it like this?
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