Tony Robbins sent me a video a couple days ago that I just got around to watching last night. In it, a couple of internet marketing gurus are visiting him to get a better understanding of why people who buy their products don't utilize them fully and what they can do to get people to put more effort into achieving results.
The video is about 40 minutes long and I'd love to link to it but I doubt it'll be available for a long period of time, unlike this blog.
Most of what Tony was saying, is the same things Tony is always saying, but he did surprise me with a couple really cool things which I want to share with you now.
In answer to the poised question Tony acknowledged that it's the same factor that makes a person complain about their weight and then eat a chocolate or be told by their doctor they have to quit smoking and then light up.
People want to make the change but lack the sense of certainy that they can.
What he did next really excited me because it made a somewhat complicated idea really simple to grasp. He drew four boxes, two over two. In the first box (and it doesn't really matter which is first) he wrote in 'Potential'. This represented the potential people have, which, generally is actually unlimited but greatly affected by your own perception of it. The second box was marked 'Action' for the amount of effort people put into their goal. So the more Potential someone has (or rather thinks they do) the greater the Action taken.
The third box (below) was named 'Results'. The greater the amount of Action the better the achieved Results. The last box was labeled Beliefs. The greater the Results achieved, the more you believe you can and will succeed which immediately pours into your Potential.
This very effectively explains why the rich get richer and the poor gets poorer.
Follow:
A person who already has achieved a level of success has a new idea. Since he's succeeded before he feel pretty positive about his potential in this new venture. He puts in a corresponding amount of action into it achieving positive results. Maybe not as much as he would have hoped or liked but positive results which means he can do it which then strengthens his beliefs which in turn increases his potential, resulting in greater action, better results, stronger belief, more potential and so on spiralling ever upward. The rich becomes richer. Even if initial results were below expectations.
Another person has the same idea but has never achieved anything that they consider noteworthy. They have little faith in their potential but a desire to achieve so they give it a go. You can guess what happens. With such a low (stated) potential they don't put too much effort into their actions (expecting failure), poor action nets correspondingly poor results, which fuels the belief that they will not succeed, which limits their potential, which reduces their action, decreasing their results, compounding their negative belief, and so on and so on and so on. The poor get poorer. Sadly, even if they achieve better than expect results, their poor beliefs will often attribute it to luck. If better than expected results continue they will begin to spiral up but generally as soon as they achieve less than expected results they drop quickly into a negative spiral again.
The lynchpin is belief. If people can be given a sense of certainy that they will succeed then they'll put in enough action too succeed. But people are naturally doubting Thomas', so how do overcome that?
Pain. Pain is one answer. People will always avoid pain naturally. For many who have succeeded, the thought of failing to achieve the goal was greater pain than the fear of failure itself. In other words, they felt they HAD to achieve the results, for whatever reason. In this case, they realize they may fail, but may is infinitely better than the will that will happen if they didn't even try. Failure is not an option. If they don't get the results they want they continue to try, since they don't feel they have a choice, until they do.
Visualization is the other answer. As per usual, Tony gave the example of Roger Bannister the first man to run a mile in under four minutes. Prior to him breaking the record (and according to Tony he had to repeatedly break it in his head mentally before he actually did physically but I am not able to substanciate that) it had never been done in all of recorded history but once he broke that mark, it was subsequenty broken by 24 people over the next two years. Now that is partly because athletic training was improving but also, truly, because the mental belief that it wasn't possible had been shattered. Today some high school students are running the mile in under 4 minutes.
More interestly than his tired Roger Bannister story was the fact that those two internet marketing gurus had themselves broken all concept of what was possible to acheive in online sales. One having set a record my earning $600,000 in a mere 7 days, only to be bettered by the other who subsequently earned one million in one day, a terrific result quickly bettered again by his peer.
Then Tony did a neat thing which I encourage you to try as well. He had the men put one arm up, finger pointing out in front of them and then asked them to turn around as far as they could without moving their feet and without strain. Once they had done this Tony had them put their arm down and repeat the exercise, only in their minds, but to see themselves going twice the distance. Then again doing three times the distance. Once they had visualized that he asked them to try in again in real life. Both comfortably, and effortlessly turned about 50% further than they had before. A result I also achieved as I did it with them to my own amazement. According to Tony, most people only do 25% better but this is a nice example of the power of visualization.
So by using visualization one can change their Belief, increasing their Potential, resulting in greater Action, producing better Results and giving credence to their Belief. However, visualizing success cannot be done once. It must be a habitualize way of being. You must always see yourself achieving the result you want even without any reference to support that. The golfer Jack Nicholson always visualized hitting the ball exactly as he wanted, before actually taking a swing at it. He was one of the very best in his day. Again, it was habitual, he always did it and consistantly produced results as a consequence.
There's much more I could say on this topic but I'd highly recommend you buy Tony's book (see link on the side) Awaken the Giant Within which goes into great depth on this matter.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Enjoy the Journey
One element people tend to forget once they become goal oriented is to enjoy the journey.
"Live your bliss"
It's not uncommon for people to become so fixated on achieving their goals that they put everything else in life aside until so they can focus on meeting that end.
This is similar to the person who has bought a cottage in a beautiful resort area and when he goes to travel there he's solely focused on arriving at the cottage. So he hussles his family, speeds along the highway and skips dinner to make it in record time. In his mind the fun doesn't start until he reaches the cottage, and probably not even then because there will no doubt be work that's required once he arrives. In this approach he's denied himself and his family the ability to relax, enjoy the scenery and have quality time together, all reasons he purchased the cottage in the first place, until after he's reached his goal.
You might ask what is so wrong with that. The problem is with life goals, it could be months or even years before you reach your goal. In that time, your goals might change or even met some unfortunate end. If you've been waiting until you reached your goal to allow yourself to relax and have fun then you would have lost all the time for naught.
Also, once you reach your goal, you will want to set another. Personal growth is only achieved when you have something to strive for. So if you deny yourself the ability to enjoy the journey, you will find life one continously endless and joyless journey as you continue to set new goals for yourself.
Another issue is the fact that you will enviatably become tired and discouraged when unexpected issues arise. You've lead a joyless life for years to achieve this goal and then when it seems certain, another roadblock that looks like it'll take more years to overcome. When you've allowed your life to become nothing but drudgery in pursuit of your goal, this might seem like a total deal breaker. More years of drudgery? Is it really worth it?
The answer is no, the end result isn't. All along it was the journey to the end result that was worthwhile. For along that road are all new experiences you havn't taken the time to enjoy, new sites to be seen, quality time to been had with your loved ones and the enjoyment of your own personal growth. If you had allowed yourself the ability to smell the roses, enjoy the views and laugh at your mistakes along the way, such a setback is disappointing but isn't a loss of years. You've enjoyed those years of growth and you will continue to enjoy them as you continue your journey towards your goal.
"Live your bliss"
It's not uncommon for people to become so fixated on achieving their goals that they put everything else in life aside until so they can focus on meeting that end.
This is similar to the person who has bought a cottage in a beautiful resort area and when he goes to travel there he's solely focused on arriving at the cottage. So he hussles his family, speeds along the highway and skips dinner to make it in record time. In his mind the fun doesn't start until he reaches the cottage, and probably not even then because there will no doubt be work that's required once he arrives. In this approach he's denied himself and his family the ability to relax, enjoy the scenery and have quality time together, all reasons he purchased the cottage in the first place, until after he's reached his goal.
You might ask what is so wrong with that. The problem is with life goals, it could be months or even years before you reach your goal. In that time, your goals might change or even met some unfortunate end. If you've been waiting until you reached your goal to allow yourself to relax and have fun then you would have lost all the time for naught.
Also, once you reach your goal, you will want to set another. Personal growth is only achieved when you have something to strive for. So if you deny yourself the ability to enjoy the journey, you will find life one continously endless and joyless journey as you continue to set new goals for yourself.
Another issue is the fact that you will enviatably become tired and discouraged when unexpected issues arise. You've lead a joyless life for years to achieve this goal and then when it seems certain, another roadblock that looks like it'll take more years to overcome. When you've allowed your life to become nothing but drudgery in pursuit of your goal, this might seem like a total deal breaker. More years of drudgery? Is it really worth it?
The answer is no, the end result isn't. All along it was the journey to the end result that was worthwhile. For along that road are all new experiences you havn't taken the time to enjoy, new sites to be seen, quality time to been had with your loved ones and the enjoyment of your own personal growth. If you had allowed yourself the ability to smell the roses, enjoy the views and laugh at your mistakes along the way, such a setback is disappointing but isn't a loss of years. You've enjoyed those years of growth and you will continue to enjoy them as you continue your journey towards your goal.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Invest in Yourself
I've heard this nugget of wisdom twice in the last week, once from one of the founders of modern success thinking: Earl Nightingale and again in different form from billionaire Bill Bartmann. It's solid advice and I thought I'd share it with you.
Earl eloquently but drolly expounded on the power of the human brain and correctly concludes that it, moreso than anything else in your life it will affect the level of success and enjoyment you achieve. However it is terribly underutilized but the vast majority of people.
Now I'm sure you are using your brain all the time. You use it at work, use it to figure out problems around the house, deal with family issues, romance issues, maybe exercise it with puzzles and problems. But how often do you sit down and proactively use it to plan out your life? Once in a while I'm sure. Once in a very long while.
What Earl proposes is that you use it a little more often than that. He suggests an hour a day. Yes, I agree, it'd be very difficult for most anyone to squeeze an hour out of every day but consider this. You might be spending time daily working out, or beautifying yourself, watching tv, browsing the internet, talking to friends and family, sleeping in, playing video games or even doing work around the house. Is any of that getting you closer to your goals and desires? No, it is not.
However through the consistant application of your mental facilities on the matter of how to achieve your goals, followed by action, surely you would see marked improvement.
Earl suggests that once you have a clearly defined goal (Bill calls them promises, which I like better) you spend that hour daily brainstorming for up to 20 ways to achieve that goal. You may not come up with 20 ideas and that's okay. In fact every idea you come up with for a week or two may be crap. You're not a certified genius after all but you don't need to be. All you need is one genius idea. Anyone who consistantly applies their abilities to solving the problem of how to achieve their goals will eventually come up with some gems. Keep refining those gems of ideas and eventually you'll come up with something truly compelling that no one else is doing. Why is no one else doing it? Because vertually no one else is applying their brains in this manner!! If they are, they likely have different goals than you anyway.
It is famously stated the Edison had over ten thousand failed attempts to create a lightbulb. No one says he was a moron or a failure becuase he had ten thousand ideas that didn't work. He's considered a genius because he continually applied his mind to finding the one idea that did. You can too.
If you met your future self, and they told you that you became amazingly successful by taking an hour a day to apply themselves to how to better achieve their goals, you would immediately rearrange your life to make room for that hour. You are not going to meet your future self obviously but you can meet the future of your desires in the same way.
Bill Bartmann's take was a little different. First off, not only does he state that you need a clearly defined goal or promise, he suggests that you create a business plan on how you are going to achieve that promise. In the same manner that a business lays out a course of action, budget and timetable to achieve the company goals you can do the same with your goals. Once you have your business plan Bill recommends you review it daily for twenty minutes. What are you doing that's working? What's not working? How can you do it better? Is the currently set goal serving you? Is it even your goal? Too many people are trying to achieve that which other people have told them they should be doing. Parents most notably.
By taking twenty minutes (much more digestible than an hour) daily to review your progress and brainstorming new ideas you will fastforward your progress.
If you were requested by your workplace to find ways of improving workplace efficiency you might find it a frustrating exercise but you would still do it because that's what you're getting paid to do. By finding ways to improve your own life inefficiencies and coming up with ideas on how to reach your promise you will be, in effect, paying yourself, as you will be consistantly making improvements in your life and increasing your earning potential.
You invest time in everything else around you - work, family, friends, responsibilities. Certainly you can take 20-60 minutes to invest in yourself.
Earl eloquently but drolly expounded on the power of the human brain and correctly concludes that it, moreso than anything else in your life it will affect the level of success and enjoyment you achieve. However it is terribly underutilized but the vast majority of people.
Now I'm sure you are using your brain all the time. You use it at work, use it to figure out problems around the house, deal with family issues, romance issues, maybe exercise it with puzzles and problems. But how often do you sit down and proactively use it to plan out your life? Once in a while I'm sure. Once in a very long while.
What Earl proposes is that you use it a little more often than that. He suggests an hour a day. Yes, I agree, it'd be very difficult for most anyone to squeeze an hour out of every day but consider this. You might be spending time daily working out, or beautifying yourself, watching tv, browsing the internet, talking to friends and family, sleeping in, playing video games or even doing work around the house. Is any of that getting you closer to your goals and desires? No, it is not.
However through the consistant application of your mental facilities on the matter of how to achieve your goals, followed by action, surely you would see marked improvement.
Earl suggests that once you have a clearly defined goal (Bill calls them promises, which I like better) you spend that hour daily brainstorming for up to 20 ways to achieve that goal. You may not come up with 20 ideas and that's okay. In fact every idea you come up with for a week or two may be crap. You're not a certified genius after all but you don't need to be. All you need is one genius idea. Anyone who consistantly applies their abilities to solving the problem of how to achieve their goals will eventually come up with some gems. Keep refining those gems of ideas and eventually you'll come up with something truly compelling that no one else is doing. Why is no one else doing it? Because vertually no one else is applying their brains in this manner!! If they are, they likely have different goals than you anyway.
It is famously stated the Edison had over ten thousand failed attempts to create a lightbulb. No one says he was a moron or a failure becuase he had ten thousand ideas that didn't work. He's considered a genius because he continually applied his mind to finding the one idea that did. You can too.
If you met your future self, and they told you that you became amazingly successful by taking an hour a day to apply themselves to how to better achieve their goals, you would immediately rearrange your life to make room for that hour. You are not going to meet your future self obviously but you can meet the future of your desires in the same way.
Bill Bartmann's take was a little different. First off, not only does he state that you need a clearly defined goal or promise, he suggests that you create a business plan on how you are going to achieve that promise. In the same manner that a business lays out a course of action, budget and timetable to achieve the company goals you can do the same with your goals. Once you have your business plan Bill recommends you review it daily for twenty minutes. What are you doing that's working? What's not working? How can you do it better? Is the currently set goal serving you? Is it even your goal? Too many people are trying to achieve that which other people have told them they should be doing. Parents most notably.
By taking twenty minutes (much more digestible than an hour) daily to review your progress and brainstorming new ideas you will fastforward your progress.
If you were requested by your workplace to find ways of improving workplace efficiency you might find it a frustrating exercise but you would still do it because that's what you're getting paid to do. By finding ways to improve your own life inefficiencies and coming up with ideas on how to reach your promise you will be, in effect, paying yourself, as you will be consistantly making improvements in your life and increasing your earning potential.
You invest time in everything else around you - work, family, friends, responsibilities. Certainly you can take 20-60 minutes to invest in yourself.
Monday, August 10, 2009
What is Success?
If you follow my sister blog Preston's Path to Prosperity, you know, or at least I sure hope you do, that the premise is to document one person's rise from living an average, non-exceptional life to one that is truly outstanding and the thinking and beliefs that lead to that rise.
The problem is, it's a bit of a lie. Why? Because, I have already achieved success. However, you probably wouldn't define it that way.
By and large people have a very superficial definition of success. It looks something like this:
Must be a millionaire or better
Must hold a position of importance
Must have an attractive partner or partners
Must be healthy and in North America that generally means muscular/sexy body and plastic surgery so you have an attractive, youthful appearance as well as good overall health
Probably famous
Owns beautiful mansions, cars, clothes, etc.
I think most anyone would agree a rich, handsome, well built man with a gorgeous young wife and lots of ostentatious wealth would be a poster child for success.
Motivational Speaker Anthony Robbins understands this and that's the life he leads. He has to. Not for his benefit but for yours.
Let's face it, if Tony gave all his money to charity and lived and dressed very modestly, if he didn't work out and was as skinny as he once was, (although still healthy), if he married a very average or below average looking woman (even if she was an outstanding personality) and if you had never heard of him, you would not for a moment think he knew anything special that was worth listening too. At least, not without someone else recommending him.
So even though, at his core he was the exact same person, living his life exactly as he chose, living a life of boundless happiness, married to someone whom he loves and is loved by deeply, with fantastic knowledge that could change your life in an instant, you would not perceive him to have achieved success, at least not unless you got to know him. Anthony must have all those superficial signs of success on display so people will listen to what he has to say.
Here's another example of success that flys contrary to the thinking of the masses.
Mother Theresa.
Was she rich? Heavens no. She lived an extremely modest life.
Was she beautiful? Internally yes, where it mattered but she not a women men would look twice at.
Did she hold a prestigious position in life? Not my most people's standards.
Did she have an attractive mate? Not a worldly one, no, never.
Was she healthy? Yes, but not in the Hollywood sense that North Americans use to define it.
Did she own lots of great things. No.
Was she famous? Yes, but she did not seek it nor would it have made her any less of a success if she wasn't.
Let's face it, if you took her out of her religious attire and put her on the streets people would sooner think she was a baglady than a truly successful person. I'm sure you would agree they would be horribly wrong.
So then how do we define success? What makes a person successful?
The difference between a successful person and everyone else, is a successful person is defining the life they live while everyone else is allowing life to define them.
To put it another way, successful people are walking in faith. They are asking God for what they want and walking towards that in faith that the Lord will provide. They are not limiting what they are asking for, for they know that the Lord has no limitations. They are not living in doubt or fear.
Although they face daily uncertainy because the way forward is not clear it does not disway them. They have come to the firm realization that like walking through a dense fog, as you make each step forward you'll be able to see your immediate surroundings and take another step forward. Even when they do bump into something, that's okay, they expect and accept that that is going to happen. They just move around the obstacle and keep going. If they come to a wall they trust God will provide a way over, under, around or through and diligently search for that until they find it. If they step off an abyss they know God has a rope around them and will pull them back up. So while it may frighten for the moment, they do not doubt in their heart they'll soon be back on solid ground. In time they make it to where they are going.
Everyone else meanwhile avoids the fog, worried they'll get hurt or lost or merely be directionless because they don't know where they are headed to begin with. So they either move away from the fog, and have their path defined for them by the fog of life or sit still, not going anywhere, until the fog and their life passes away.
So to succeed you must have a clear vision of where you want to be that emboldens you, you must have deep lasting faith in your heart that you will arrive there and you must, must, must be taking action to achieve that vision (do not wait for God to place it before you, boldly go and claim it).
Vision, faith, persistant action those are the hallmarks of success. Even if you have not yet arrived, you are defining what life you are living and that is success.
What everyone else is doing, irregardless of their place in life, irregardless of how many of the superficial signs of success they have, is merely existing.
So our poster child of success could be rich and famous because of his parents, could have a gorgeous partner and many fancy things because he has money, he may even be given ownership of the family business but without vision, faith and persistant action of his own, he is still merely existing and is no more spiritually rich or fulfilled than a pauper. He is not successful, he is merely a dim shadow of the success that came before. So do not put stock in those worldly things.
Success is a state of mind, a state of being. And I have already arrived.
The problem is, it's a bit of a lie. Why? Because, I have already achieved success. However, you probably wouldn't define it that way.
By and large people have a very superficial definition of success. It looks something like this:
Must be a millionaire or better
Must hold a position of importance
Must have an attractive partner or partners
Must be healthy and in North America that generally means muscular/sexy body and plastic surgery so you have an attractive, youthful appearance as well as good overall health
Probably famous
Owns beautiful mansions, cars, clothes, etc.
I think most anyone would agree a rich, handsome, well built man with a gorgeous young wife and lots of ostentatious wealth would be a poster child for success.
Motivational Speaker Anthony Robbins understands this and that's the life he leads. He has to. Not for his benefit but for yours.
Let's face it, if Tony gave all his money to charity and lived and dressed very modestly, if he didn't work out and was as skinny as he once was, (although still healthy), if he married a very average or below average looking woman (even if she was an outstanding personality) and if you had never heard of him, you would not for a moment think he knew anything special that was worth listening too. At least, not without someone else recommending him.
So even though, at his core he was the exact same person, living his life exactly as he chose, living a life of boundless happiness, married to someone whom he loves and is loved by deeply, with fantastic knowledge that could change your life in an instant, you would not perceive him to have achieved success, at least not unless you got to know him. Anthony must have all those superficial signs of success on display so people will listen to what he has to say.
Here's another example of success that flys contrary to the thinking of the masses.
Mother Theresa.
Was she rich? Heavens no. She lived an extremely modest life.
Was she beautiful? Internally yes, where it mattered but she not a women men would look twice at.
Did she hold a prestigious position in life? Not my most people's standards.
Did she have an attractive mate? Not a worldly one, no, never.
Was she healthy? Yes, but not in the Hollywood sense that North Americans use to define it.
Did she own lots of great things. No.
Was she famous? Yes, but she did not seek it nor would it have made her any less of a success if she wasn't.
Let's face it, if you took her out of her religious attire and put her on the streets people would sooner think she was a baglady than a truly successful person. I'm sure you would agree they would be horribly wrong.
So then how do we define success? What makes a person successful?
The difference between a successful person and everyone else, is a successful person is defining the life they live while everyone else is allowing life to define them.
To put it another way, successful people are walking in faith. They are asking God for what they want and walking towards that in faith that the Lord will provide. They are not limiting what they are asking for, for they know that the Lord has no limitations. They are not living in doubt or fear.
Although they face daily uncertainy because the way forward is not clear it does not disway them. They have come to the firm realization that like walking through a dense fog, as you make each step forward you'll be able to see your immediate surroundings and take another step forward. Even when they do bump into something, that's okay, they expect and accept that that is going to happen. They just move around the obstacle and keep going. If they come to a wall they trust God will provide a way over, under, around or through and diligently search for that until they find it. If they step off an abyss they know God has a rope around them and will pull them back up. So while it may frighten for the moment, they do not doubt in their heart they'll soon be back on solid ground. In time they make it to where they are going.
Everyone else meanwhile avoids the fog, worried they'll get hurt or lost or merely be directionless because they don't know where they are headed to begin with. So they either move away from the fog, and have their path defined for them by the fog of life or sit still, not going anywhere, until the fog and their life passes away.
So to succeed you must have a clear vision of where you want to be that emboldens you, you must have deep lasting faith in your heart that you will arrive there and you must, must, must be taking action to achieve that vision (do not wait for God to place it before you, boldly go and claim it).
Vision, faith, persistant action those are the hallmarks of success. Even if you have not yet arrived, you are defining what life you are living and that is success.
What everyone else is doing, irregardless of their place in life, irregardless of how many of the superficial signs of success they have, is merely existing.
So our poster child of success could be rich and famous because of his parents, could have a gorgeous partner and many fancy things because he has money, he may even be given ownership of the family business but without vision, faith and persistant action of his own, he is still merely existing and is no more spiritually rich or fulfilled than a pauper. He is not successful, he is merely a dim shadow of the success that came before. So do not put stock in those worldly things.
Success is a state of mind, a state of being. And I have already arrived.
20 Years - Don't Let Life Pass You By
On Saturday I was contributing my time to a Christian Concert event (http://www.musicinthesquare.com/). A friend and I decided to take lunch at the Wendy's across the street. We arrived at an ideal time as there was also no line ahead of us but one quickly formed behind us. As we were being served the manager opened another cash to help out. Upon seeing the manager my friend remarked she thought that the manager (a woman) looked familiar. So she went over to talk to her and sure enough, they did.
My friend had worked with this woman at Wendy's 20 years ago (and I had worked next door at Culture's) and here this woman was was still working at Wendy's 20 years later.
20 years of Wendy's?? No offense to the fine establishment that Wendy's is but we had a hard time grasping that reality. In those twenty years we had each held half a dozen different jobs and had our own businesses, gaining unique experience from each position along the way. What experiences has she had in 20 years of working at Wendy's? A whole lot of the same old, same old.
Now to be fair, it's possible she left Wendy's pursued other things and for whatever reason returned, although I doubt it. I doubt anyone would return to Wendy's once they had expanded themselves in their careers. Regardless, if someone told her 20 years ago this is what she would be doing now, without question, she would have venomously called them a liar and assured them she would not. So what happened?
Without interviewing her on the matter we can only speculate but some of the answers are clear.
Comfort - Staying at Wendy's was more comfortable than trying to do something new. Possibly she has limited education or just doesn't believe she's all that bright. Either way she has vastly underestimated her own potential and allowed herself to settle for what was easy and safe.
Fear - There's always some fear in changing careers. Fear you may not be successful in your new job. Fear you will be rejected and never find another job. Fear you may not like your new job. Fear can conjure all sorts of ridiculous notions into your head.
Doubt - Clearly she doubts she could do better. Ties closely into fear.
Lack of Vision - Does not have any dreams or vision for her life. So she's just cruising down the river of life, caught in the current, seeing where it goes, better or worse.
Lack of goals - As above. She's not setting goals for herself. Even if she doesn't have any dreams or aspirations, she should still have been goal setting to get ahead in her life. After 20 years she should, at least, be regional manager, not still working front line manager.
Not before we pass judgement on this lady let's look at ourselves first. While very few of us, nowadays are in the same career for 20 years, many of us are stuck in some area of our lives where we haven't really moved on. Most likely, we aren't even aware of it or if we are, we choose not to think of it. Reflect for a minute on all areas of your life. Is there some area where you've allowed yourself to sit for 5, 10, 20 years? Looking back 20 years, are you now where you would have envisioned yourself being at this point in your life? If not, why not? Most likely for these same reasons.
Do not allow any more time to go by, you've been idle long enough. Decide, right now to change. Define what you want that change to look like and then take immediate action.
Don't allow the next 20 years to slip through your fingers.
My friend had worked with this woman at Wendy's 20 years ago (and I had worked next door at Culture's) and here this woman was was still working at Wendy's 20 years later.
20 years of Wendy's?? No offense to the fine establishment that Wendy's is but we had a hard time grasping that reality. In those twenty years we had each held half a dozen different jobs and had our own businesses, gaining unique experience from each position along the way. What experiences has she had in 20 years of working at Wendy's? A whole lot of the same old, same old.
Now to be fair, it's possible she left Wendy's pursued other things and for whatever reason returned, although I doubt it. I doubt anyone would return to Wendy's once they had expanded themselves in their careers. Regardless, if someone told her 20 years ago this is what she would be doing now, without question, she would have venomously called them a liar and assured them she would not. So what happened?
Without interviewing her on the matter we can only speculate but some of the answers are clear.
Comfort - Staying at Wendy's was more comfortable than trying to do something new. Possibly she has limited education or just doesn't believe she's all that bright. Either way she has vastly underestimated her own potential and allowed herself to settle for what was easy and safe.
Fear - There's always some fear in changing careers. Fear you may not be successful in your new job. Fear you will be rejected and never find another job. Fear you may not like your new job. Fear can conjure all sorts of ridiculous notions into your head.
Doubt - Clearly she doubts she could do better. Ties closely into fear.
Lack of Vision - Does not have any dreams or vision for her life. So she's just cruising down the river of life, caught in the current, seeing where it goes, better or worse.
Lack of goals - As above. She's not setting goals for herself. Even if she doesn't have any dreams or aspirations, she should still have been goal setting to get ahead in her life. After 20 years she should, at least, be regional manager, not still working front line manager.
Not before we pass judgement on this lady let's look at ourselves first. While very few of us, nowadays are in the same career for 20 years, many of us are stuck in some area of our lives where we haven't really moved on. Most likely, we aren't even aware of it or if we are, we choose not to think of it. Reflect for a minute on all areas of your life. Is there some area where you've allowed yourself to sit for 5, 10, 20 years? Looking back 20 years, are you now where you would have envisioned yourself being at this point in your life? If not, why not? Most likely for these same reasons.
Do not allow any more time to go by, you've been idle long enough. Decide, right now to change. Define what you want that change to look like and then take immediate action.
Don't allow the next 20 years to slip through your fingers.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Steps to Success - Part 1 - Dreams
When I was a child, I used to write and draw my own comic books. I had a whole binder full of various heroes and villains I had created. I dreamed of the day when I would be a grown up writing comic books for real. Imagined the touching fan mail I would receive and how the fan boys would interrogate me at the comic conventions for some tiny little juicy tidbit of information about what was going to happen to their favorite characters.
Changes are when you were a child you had such dreams of your own. Of being a music star, a major league sports player, a model, a doctor, a airline attendant or whatever your heart desired.
Whatever happened to those dreams? If you are like most people, they somehow got lost in the process of growing up. You had to set them aside and 'get real'. Find a 'real' job and make ends meet. Some of you may have kept a little fire burning for your dreams but the sad truth is most people just abandon them. Instead they allow society to mold them. They fall into a career, make a decent living and just accept that as the way it is.
They go through life comfortably but without content. Something is missing and they know it. Sure they have a spouse, kids, a home, a car, a dog or cat and enough money to live comfortably but it all seems somehow unfulfilling still. Sure they like their job but it's not the job they really want to have. The house may serve adequately and harbour fond memories but it's not the home they really desired. The car or two certainly gets you around but it's not the car they want to be seen in.
However the single biggest factor in the discontentment is the fact that they simply don't know what it is they they even want. They have no clear idea what career they would rather be doing, what their dream house would actually look like or even what car they would own if their was no limit to what they could choose. They have given up on their dreams. Instead they have only loosely defined wants and desires with no passion behind then whatsoever.
Without vivid dreams life has no passion. Without passion life loses it's flavour. It's like steak without salt or condiment. It may fill your belly but you don't really enjoy the experience the way your know you should.
When you goto a restaurant the first thing they ask when you order steak is how you like it. What type of steak do you want? How do you want it cooked? Do you want mushrooms on that? What sides would you like? I bet you could quickly answer all those questions with little thought but when it comes to the steak of life are your answers so clear? They should be.
Before you can actually engage life and live it on your own terms you must clearly understand what those terms are, otherwise you are doomed to failure as you'll aimlessly zig and zag uncertain of where you're going. That's like going on a long roadtrip without a destination. You'll end up somewhere but without a clear objective you'll probably settle for the first decent thing that comes along. Which is probably how you got to where you are now in the first place.
Dust those old dreams off or chart out new ones!
Take 10 minutes right now and write out what you would like to do with your life. For now, put absolutely no limitations on your dreams. If you would like to visit the space shuttle, write it down. If you dream of marrying a movie star jot that down. Want millions and millions of dollar? Write down an amount irregardless of how crazy it seems. Go crazy, these are your dreams after all. Dreams are suppose to be the stuff of fantasy, it's goals that need to seem achievable and we'll cover that later.
Make 4 lists - Love and Social goals, Finacial & Career goals, Fun/Toy/Adventure goals, Life Enhancement / Charity goals.
Social goals are all your romantic notions, friends you'd like to have, social status you would like to obtion, etc.
Finacial & Career goals set what you want to be doing with your life and what that will look like. How much you want to earn, house you want to have, etc.
Fun/Toy/Adventure goals are spice of life. Where do you want to travel? What activities would you like to do? Do you want a sports car or outroad vehicle?
Life Enhancement & Charity goals are those things that will make you feel better and more complete about yourself. Want to learn more languages? How to dance? It's also important to have charitable goals too. You cannot recieve without giving so define what you want to give back to this world and how. Do you want to be a big brother/sister? Want to travel to some staving nation and distribute aid? Or finally start tithing a full 10%.
Spend 2-3 minutes on each. Just let it flow. Be crazy and adventureous and have fun!
Continue reading once you've finished.
Done? Okay...
Put a timeline beside each goal. Whatever you think is a reasonable amount of time for you to achieve that goal.
Then pick one 1 yr goal, one 10 yr goal and one lifetime goal for each list.
For each of those write out two paragraphs. The first paragraph says why this is an important dream. How it'll make you feel. What benefits it would bring to your life or those around you. The second paragraph says what the repercussions of never accomplishing that dream would be. How would that make you feel? What lost opportunties does that create? Make these paragraphs as compelling as you can.
Now transcribe all that onto a sheet of paper or series of card and put that somewhere where you'll see it everyday. Review it twice a day, everyday until it's ingrained into your subconscious. This is where you are heading in life and why. Once that becomes a part of your make-up you will automatically start seeing all sorts of potentials for getting there that you never even realized before because now your mind it aware that this is what it should be looking for.
Changes are when you were a child you had such dreams of your own. Of being a music star, a major league sports player, a model, a doctor, a airline attendant or whatever your heart desired.
Whatever happened to those dreams? If you are like most people, they somehow got lost in the process of growing up. You had to set them aside and 'get real'. Find a 'real' job and make ends meet. Some of you may have kept a little fire burning for your dreams but the sad truth is most people just abandon them. Instead they allow society to mold them. They fall into a career, make a decent living and just accept that as the way it is.
They go through life comfortably but without content. Something is missing and they know it. Sure they have a spouse, kids, a home, a car, a dog or cat and enough money to live comfortably but it all seems somehow unfulfilling still. Sure they like their job but it's not the job they really want to have. The house may serve adequately and harbour fond memories but it's not the home they really desired. The car or two certainly gets you around but it's not the car they want to be seen in.
However the single biggest factor in the discontentment is the fact that they simply don't know what it is they they even want. They have no clear idea what career they would rather be doing, what their dream house would actually look like or even what car they would own if their was no limit to what they could choose. They have given up on their dreams. Instead they have only loosely defined wants and desires with no passion behind then whatsoever.
Without vivid dreams life has no passion. Without passion life loses it's flavour. It's like steak without salt or condiment. It may fill your belly but you don't really enjoy the experience the way your know you should.
When you goto a restaurant the first thing they ask when you order steak is how you like it. What type of steak do you want? How do you want it cooked? Do you want mushrooms on that? What sides would you like? I bet you could quickly answer all those questions with little thought but when it comes to the steak of life are your answers so clear? They should be.
Before you can actually engage life and live it on your own terms you must clearly understand what those terms are, otherwise you are doomed to failure as you'll aimlessly zig and zag uncertain of where you're going. That's like going on a long roadtrip without a destination. You'll end up somewhere but without a clear objective you'll probably settle for the first decent thing that comes along. Which is probably how you got to where you are now in the first place.
Dust those old dreams off or chart out new ones!
Take 10 minutes right now and write out what you would like to do with your life. For now, put absolutely no limitations on your dreams. If you would like to visit the space shuttle, write it down. If you dream of marrying a movie star jot that down. Want millions and millions of dollar? Write down an amount irregardless of how crazy it seems. Go crazy, these are your dreams after all. Dreams are suppose to be the stuff of fantasy, it's goals that need to seem achievable and we'll cover that later.
Make 4 lists - Love and Social goals, Finacial & Career goals, Fun/Toy/Adventure goals, Life Enhancement / Charity goals.
Social goals are all your romantic notions, friends you'd like to have, social status you would like to obtion, etc.
Finacial & Career goals set what you want to be doing with your life and what that will look like. How much you want to earn, house you want to have, etc.
Fun/Toy/Adventure goals are spice of life. Where do you want to travel? What activities would you like to do? Do you want a sports car or outroad vehicle?
Life Enhancement & Charity goals are those things that will make you feel better and more complete about yourself. Want to learn more languages? How to dance? It's also important to have charitable goals too. You cannot recieve without giving so define what you want to give back to this world and how. Do you want to be a big brother/sister? Want to travel to some staving nation and distribute aid? Or finally start tithing a full 10%.
Spend 2-3 minutes on each. Just let it flow. Be crazy and adventureous and have fun!
Continue reading once you've finished.
Done? Okay...
Put a timeline beside each goal. Whatever you think is a reasonable amount of time for you to achieve that goal.
Then pick one 1 yr goal, one 10 yr goal and one lifetime goal for each list.
For each of those write out two paragraphs. The first paragraph says why this is an important dream. How it'll make you feel. What benefits it would bring to your life or those around you. The second paragraph says what the repercussions of never accomplishing that dream would be. How would that make you feel? What lost opportunties does that create? Make these paragraphs as compelling as you can.
Now transcribe all that onto a sheet of paper or series of card and put that somewhere where you'll see it everyday. Review it twice a day, everyday until it's ingrained into your subconscious. This is where you are heading in life and why. Once that becomes a part of your make-up you will automatically start seeing all sorts of potentials for getting there that you never even realized before because now your mind it aware that this is what it should be looking for.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
One Life to Live
I watched the Curious Case of Benjamin Button in which Brad Pitt plays the role of a man who is younging instead of aging. He's born old and gets younger as the years go by.
It's a thought provoking and touching movie and ultimately I found it very sad but not for the reasons you may think. While my daughter was crying because he died a baby in the arms of an old woman who had been the love of his life, I wasn't really touched by that (it was a pretty obvious conclusion), I was greatly sadden because here was a man who had lived a truly unique life, held a unique view of the world, unique experiences and challenges and although he had done and seen a great many things in his time, once he was gone, there was nothing left of him except a journal which because of it's inconceivable tale would probably never leave his daughter's care. A daughter that had never even know him. Really, when the old lady passed away so did any last trace of Benjamin Button. Like vapour in the wind.
What a tragic waste. Yet, it is any different than you and I? If you were to die, right now, what mark will you have left behind? Think about it. Most people will at least live on through their kids, somewhat, and hopefully they were a positive contributor to their child's psyche and didn't instill unwittingly a lot of their own limitations into their children's lives (got you thinking now, didn't I). But once those who knew you die, what's left? Anything? Will it have mattered at all that you ever lived? Does that even matter to you? Perhaps you're content to just go through life, experience it and then when it's up it's up. Like a day in school, and you're just another student passing through for a few years.
But the greatest thing we bring to this world, is our diversity, our individuality, our unique outlook on life. We are all Benjamin Buttons. We all go through life on our own unique journey, gaining experiences that while maybe shared, still hold a unique meaning to us, developing our own unique outlook on life. And while it was tragic to lose Benjamin Button's perspective because of his special circumstances, is it really any less of a loss to lose your special perspective? Of course, none of us live forever, we are all but passing through. While we are here, we have an opportunity to shape this world, to craft it in our own image, our own vision and leave a lasting impression on this world that will signal out to generations yet unborn and be a warning, an inspiration, a statement, a question or a general betterment of life so that because you suffered, you have made sure no one else will ever have to suffer again.
Everyone who has left their imprint on this world from Napoleon, to Shakespeare to Nelson Mandela to Alexander Graham Bell have all been great men but they are still just people, exactly like you and I, no different, no better, no greater except they determined that they wanted to make the world a better place (from their perspective and in their own method) and didn't allow the general river of life to pull them along. Instead of going with the current they stuck their paddles in the water and made their own way charting a new path for all to follow or learn from.
Benjamin Button did touch on a couple of interest life points too, like you never know what tomorrow may bring. At one point Benjamin is just a happy crew member of a tugboat company, a comfortable if unambitious position but one day, that boat is commission by the navy as they enter the second world war. For the most part life continues as it had before, only what they were hauling changed, until they come across a u-boat that sinks them and destroys the life Benjamin had taken for granted.
Despite the fact that the last 5 years have been rout routine does not guarantee that tomorrow will be. You could win the lottery or be shot. You could find true love or get into a violent quarrel that ends it. You don't know, so you have to work on today, making the most of it, being the most of what you can be and doing what you can to make this world a better place, now, while you still can.
On the flip side, Benjamin meets a woman who had a dream, to swim the English Channel and she tried as a young lady to do so only to fail because of inclement weather. She had always meant to try again but her faith was crushed and instead she fell into a life of comfort and quiet desperation. However before the end, she somehow regained her faith and tried again as a mature woman and succeeded.
In the same way, it's never too late to realize your dreams. Certain opportunities may pass you by never to return, you cannot become a star Olympic athlete at 80... unless you switch from being a gymnast to being an equestrian jockey. Unless you change from being the star to coaching the star or sponsoring the athlete. As long as your alive and of right mind, you can still find a way to make it happen and you absolutely have an obligation to yourself to do exactly that.
We are here, with but one shot at this thing called life, even if you believe in reincarnation, do you really want to do all this over and over again until you get it right? My son had to repeat grade 10 math three times and trust me, he never wants to do it again. He'd have been much happier if he had applied himself the first time and never needed to repeat it at all. So commit yourself to live the life you truly want to live and be the person you truly want to be. You will not always succeed, sometimes inclement weather will scuttle your swim across the channel but take heart, if you're alive then your dream is alive too and you have but to try it again, and this time you'll give yourself the grace to postpone a day or two if need be to get the right weather. Nothing is ever a failure as long as we do not fail to learn. Any experience from a failed relationship to a fail business is not a failure in our lives or out character as long as we've learned from it and can apply that knowledge going forward. There are always more people to love and more business opportunities to try one's hand at and if you stick with it, you will succeed. Successful people don't fail less, they fail more and learn from each misstep how better to proceed.
You are your own unique creation. You are your very own Benjamin Button or Edward Scissorhands. Embrace that, don't follow the wide path but strike out on your own in a direction that seems best to you. Win or lose, the world is better off for your endeavors and so are you. Find a better route and suddenly the world will stop calling your crazy for going into the harsh bush country and call you genius for having the foresight and fortitude to find a better way. In doing so you'll leave a legacy for the world will be forever altered for the better by your presence.
It's a thought provoking and touching movie and ultimately I found it very sad but not for the reasons you may think. While my daughter was crying because he died a baby in the arms of an old woman who had been the love of his life, I wasn't really touched by that (it was a pretty obvious conclusion), I was greatly sadden because here was a man who had lived a truly unique life, held a unique view of the world, unique experiences and challenges and although he had done and seen a great many things in his time, once he was gone, there was nothing left of him except a journal which because of it's inconceivable tale would probably never leave his daughter's care. A daughter that had never even know him. Really, when the old lady passed away so did any last trace of Benjamin Button. Like vapour in the wind.
What a tragic waste. Yet, it is any different than you and I? If you were to die, right now, what mark will you have left behind? Think about it. Most people will at least live on through their kids, somewhat, and hopefully they were a positive contributor to their child's psyche and didn't instill unwittingly a lot of their own limitations into their children's lives (got you thinking now, didn't I). But once those who knew you die, what's left? Anything? Will it have mattered at all that you ever lived? Does that even matter to you? Perhaps you're content to just go through life, experience it and then when it's up it's up. Like a day in school, and you're just another student passing through for a few years.
But the greatest thing we bring to this world, is our diversity, our individuality, our unique outlook on life. We are all Benjamin Buttons. We all go through life on our own unique journey, gaining experiences that while maybe shared, still hold a unique meaning to us, developing our own unique outlook on life. And while it was tragic to lose Benjamin Button's perspective because of his special circumstances, is it really any less of a loss to lose your special perspective? Of course, none of us live forever, we are all but passing through. While we are here, we have an opportunity to shape this world, to craft it in our own image, our own vision and leave a lasting impression on this world that will signal out to generations yet unborn and be a warning, an inspiration, a statement, a question or a general betterment of life so that because you suffered, you have made sure no one else will ever have to suffer again.
Everyone who has left their imprint on this world from Napoleon, to Shakespeare to Nelson Mandela to Alexander Graham Bell have all been great men but they are still just people, exactly like you and I, no different, no better, no greater except they determined that they wanted to make the world a better place (from their perspective and in their own method) and didn't allow the general river of life to pull them along. Instead of going with the current they stuck their paddles in the water and made their own way charting a new path for all to follow or learn from.
Benjamin Button did touch on a couple of interest life points too, like you never know what tomorrow may bring. At one point Benjamin is just a happy crew member of a tugboat company, a comfortable if unambitious position but one day, that boat is commission by the navy as they enter the second world war. For the most part life continues as it had before, only what they were hauling changed, until they come across a u-boat that sinks them and destroys the life Benjamin had taken for granted.
Despite the fact that the last 5 years have been rout routine does not guarantee that tomorrow will be. You could win the lottery or be shot. You could find true love or get into a violent quarrel that ends it. You don't know, so you have to work on today, making the most of it, being the most of what you can be and doing what you can to make this world a better place, now, while you still can.
On the flip side, Benjamin meets a woman who had a dream, to swim the English Channel and she tried as a young lady to do so only to fail because of inclement weather. She had always meant to try again but her faith was crushed and instead she fell into a life of comfort and quiet desperation. However before the end, she somehow regained her faith and tried again as a mature woman and succeeded.
In the same way, it's never too late to realize your dreams. Certain opportunities may pass you by never to return, you cannot become a star Olympic athlete at 80... unless you switch from being a gymnast to being an equestrian jockey. Unless you change from being the star to coaching the star or sponsoring the athlete. As long as your alive and of right mind, you can still find a way to make it happen and you absolutely have an obligation to yourself to do exactly that.
We are here, with but one shot at this thing called life, even if you believe in reincarnation, do you really want to do all this over and over again until you get it right? My son had to repeat grade 10 math three times and trust me, he never wants to do it again. He'd have been much happier if he had applied himself the first time and never needed to repeat it at all. So commit yourself to live the life you truly want to live and be the person you truly want to be. You will not always succeed, sometimes inclement weather will scuttle your swim across the channel but take heart, if you're alive then your dream is alive too and you have but to try it again, and this time you'll give yourself the grace to postpone a day or two if need be to get the right weather. Nothing is ever a failure as long as we do not fail to learn. Any experience from a failed relationship to a fail business is not a failure in our lives or out character as long as we've learned from it and can apply that knowledge going forward. There are always more people to love and more business opportunities to try one's hand at and if you stick with it, you will succeed. Successful people don't fail less, they fail more and learn from each misstep how better to proceed.
You are your own unique creation. You are your very own Benjamin Button or Edward Scissorhands. Embrace that, don't follow the wide path but strike out on your own in a direction that seems best to you. Win or lose, the world is better off for your endeavors and so are you. Find a better route and suddenly the world will stop calling your crazy for going into the harsh bush country and call you genius for having the foresight and fortitude to find a better way. In doing so you'll leave a legacy for the world will be forever altered for the better by your presence.
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