Another Day Another Dollar Experiment
I decided to do a little experiment just to see how people reacted to the “another day another dollar” statement. In passing I would make the comment to people, “Well, another dollar another day, right?”
I was saddened by the majority of the responses, because most people answered “yes” or would just repeat the phrase in a dis-heartened tone of voice. However, there were a few that said, “No, not a dollar, only 50 cents!”
The responses of my impromptu survey results were:
53 people – “Yes, another dollar another day”
24 people – “Yes, Yep, You got it, or right”
2 people – “No, not a dollar, only 50 cents!”
7 people – “No, much less than that”
3 people – “Yes, BUT – It’s getting better, things are turning around, etc.”
This little experiment reaffirmed for me that by in large, people are not happy with their lives and most are not willing to do anything about it. Only 3 people out of 89 people have any hope of making a change for the better.
It’s unfortunate, but this attitude has existed for many years. The phrase “Another day, another dollar” originates from the 1800’s when sailors were paid by the day. The longer the voyage the more money they earned and they would say, “more days, more dollars”. So, just how many years have people truly been unhappy with their circumstances, but unwilling to do anything about it? Most likely for thousands of years. Even songs have been written about it!
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The songs lyrics say that they work everyday for their families, which may be the same reason that you do it every day, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
So, have you settled in life? Are you literally drifting through each day on autopilot or are you aware of your unhappiness, but have no clue on how to help yourself? The majority of the people in my short experiment are literally drifting through life – working for the weekend. MJ DeMarco, author of the Millionaire Fastlane describes this as trading 5 days for 2 days, which is not a very good ratio! You have to give 5 days of your life doing something that you may not like just to get 2 days away from it, and those two days may not even be enjoyable because you have to use them to recuperate from working the five days!
A recent Harvard Business School study of successful people showed that only 3% of people are a big success, while 30% are somewhat successful and the other 67% of the world simply watches life pass by. The differences between these people is a real eye-opener.
The top 3% very successful people had clearly define goals and a tenacity to make sure that they met their goals. They had a clear plan and they acted on their plan every day until they achieved their goals.
The middle 30% of somewhat successful people had goals, some even clearly written out. However, they weren’t near as tenacious in their personal accountability to meet their goals as the top 3%. They became lazy and let every day life get in the way of achieving their dreams. The bright side for this group is that they had goals and dreams, but lacked the focus to achieve them – so there’s still hope that they can be highly successful with a little guidance.
The bottom 67% of people didn’t have any goals. So, guess what? They never achieve anything. Unless they are open to learning about how to achieve success through planning and focus then they will always be at the bottom watching life pass by.
If you’re reading this now, you’re probably in the middle 30%. You haven’t quite made it, but you at least know there’s a problem and you’re searching for ways to address the problems so you can become more successful in life. I encourage you to sign up for our daily affirmation email. It will be a pleasant reminder to be grateful for who and what you are right now, but that there is so much more that you could be if you clearly define your goals and focus daily on achieving them.