Less vs Loss

Change a vowel and everything changes in a word. Less & Loss, only one letter changes but it changes the whole meaning.

Appetite becomes less, it's OK. One can survive on less food. Appetite is lost, one can die of hunger!

'Less' one can cope with, 'Loss' almost always results in huge stress for most people. Unless ofcourse one thing happens - and that is - it is put in perspective.

Let's see if this example drives home the point.
You go to Atlantic City (not promoting gambling, simply an example) and bet $10. Right number, and it becomes $100. You love it. You bet all $100, and it becomes $1,000. You are loving it and decide to go for it all again. And guess what, you hit it again and this becomes $100,000 now. You know you are unstoppable. And the greed has set in too. You bet it all, one last time. Oh no, it's down to $0, BIG FAT ZERO!

How much money have you lost? Most would say, $100,000. And they will be upset for a long time about it. Why? Because they LOST it, the LOSS was BIG! But some would say that it is OK. They have $10 less now, that's all. How big is the loss to them? $10? No big deal.

While many of us are very smart to get this and many of us will only call it $10 less in this example, that is not how we deal with it in the real life. And that is why the stress takes over.

Check right now to figure out why you are stressed and you will see that it is over some PERCEIVED loss (even though you are much better off than before). Use this Atlantic City example often for every LOSS and the stress will be gone every time.

You lose a sale. Call it one sale less
You lose your job. You didn't have it before. And you can get another with LESSER money anyhow.
You lose some salespeople in you office. You still have more than you started with.
You lose money in stock market. OK, OK, you got the point.
This applies to every scenario and you have a choice - is it LESS or LOSS?

Making sense? See it as a loss, and the stress will result into a disease. See it as less, and while the circumstances won't change, the outlook will and so will the results.

The change starts with self. So this story/lesson must be remembered by me too all the time :)).