Tag: habits

Focus to Create Hot Moments

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Magnified Focus

focus - magnifyWhen I was a child, we used to take our magnifying glass outside and in the hot Florida sun we would hold it up and see the light shining through it on the ground below.  If we then moved it about we could focus that light into a single beam that would then start to burn a blade of grass or an ant.  The focus was the difference.

Note to parents:  if you are concerned that a kid who might read this has been suddenly given a way to perpetrate mischief, I got news for you; they already know this and if they don’t will soon discover it on their own.  I did.

Refracted light illuminates.  It can brighten and reveal.  It can even offer a low-level of heat.  This is both beneficial and productive.  Try reading or performing open heart surgery in the dark.  Try finding anything small that you dropped on the ground.  You likely won’t find it until you are able to provide ambient light to reveal its location.  Refracted light reveals but doesn’t empower.

Focused light provides power and heat and intensity.  Sunlight gathered by panels gets focus and turns into electrical power.  A laser in very simple terms is focused light.  Apply enough focus to the light and it provides intense and powerful energy.  The focus is the difference.

Your Laser Focus and the HOT MOMENT

When your energies get refracted, poured out all over the place, you may get illumination but you won’t get power.  It is not until you focus your energies on a particular point that you are able to unlock the intensity and power; that you are able to generate a HOT MOMENT.  The focus is the difference.

When we can create a HOT MOMENT, we build intensity and energy and power.  It drives us forward and isn’t easily stopped or even slowed down by anything that gets in the way.  We need momentum to keep us on track and on focus.  Once we lose focus, we lose momentum and the HOT MOMENT is gone.

To create a HOT MOMENT, identify your target.  Without a target, there is no focus.  A target must be very specific.   Identify what success is for that target.  Is it a deadline reached, value-added to a person or group, a product sold, a goal reached?  Once you have the target, funnel all your energy on it.  It doesn’t have to be for long periods of time; a laser accomplishes a lot even in just short bursts.  The focus is the difference.  Act immediately, don’t wait to “feel like it” or for the “right moment”.  The right moment comes when you create it; you will feel like it after you start doing it.  Act now and put all your energy into it and ride the HOT MOMENT for as long as you can.  Reward yourself for accomplishment.

Action Plan

  1. What one thing requires your focus this week?
  2. What does success mean for that thing?  How will you reward yourself for achieving it?
  3. Personally brainstorm for 10 minutes on ways you can dedicate more energy on that thing.
  4. What is the HOT MOMENT you can create through this?

The Lie of Experience as the Best Teacher

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Experience Happens

You have probably heard it said hundreds if not thousands of times during your life.

Experience is the best teacher.

Every day, from the moment you rise until you put your head on the pillow, you are going through a series of experiences.  Some experiences are what we would call good; nice things happen, we feel happy about it.  Others….not so much.

See the Ah-Ha! Moment of the Week on this topic.

Mistakes are painful when they happen, but years later a
collection of mistakes is what is called experience.
-Denis Waitley

Here’s the thing:  if every day we ALL have experiences then why is it that most of us don’t get any smarter?

More Than Experience

someecards.com - They say experience is the best teacher. That's why I'm so smart. I've screwed everything up at least twice.If experience were truly the best teacher, then would it not logically follow that each of us would be getting smarter every day and would never repeat the same mistakes because our experience would have taught us better?  Is that what happens in your life?  Is that what happens around you?  You know what I am talking about, the people who keep making the same mistake they made yesterday and the day before, getting the same results, and not getting that it ain’t gonna work that way.  Why?  If experience is the best teacher, then they should have already learned not to do that again.

I have to admit to being hardheaded this way sometimes.  I’ll do the same dumb thing over and over again, somehow expecting different results.  I might rationalize it, excuse it, or simply learn the wrong lesson from previous experience.  I’m not an idiot, I am a fairly bright guy.  Why isn’t experience teaching me anything?

Experience Plus

The truth is that experience alone is no kind of teacher at all.  It is REFLECTIVE EXPERIENCE that really makes the difference.  It is how we analyze what we experience that allows us to draw the appropriate conclusions and lessons from what happens to us and engage in positive behaviors to prevent it from happening again.  That reflection needs to be timely; it needs to happen within a short period of time after the experience.  It should not be rushed.  The best approach is usually to spend a little time at the end of the day thinking about what good things happened, what not so good things happened, and examining them.   Ask questions about each experience:

  1. What was good (or not so good) about it?
  2. Who was involved?
  3. What was the outcome?
  4. Was that the outcome I anticipated?
  5. What would have been a better or ideal outcome?
  6. Why did it happen that way?
  7. What can I do differently to change the outcome?
  8. How can I use this to add value to someone else?

Experience as an Even BETTER Teacher

The last question leads to the last point.  As the Denis Waitley quote said above, mistakes are painful.  So even if we are learning from our mistakes, we still have to go through the pain.  Just a show of hands out there, who likes to go through pain?

Yeah, didn’t think so.

So how can we avoid the pain?  Simply by learning from others experience.  In fact, I believe that other people’s experience can be absolutely the best teacher for us.  Examining the experiences of others allows us to be more evaluative about it because our minds are not clouded by emotion or pain.  We can assess the decisions, the process, and the outcomes and attempt to come up with practical applications to help prevent it from occurring in OUR lives.

One of the best ways to allow people to share stories with you.  Stories allow experiences to be personalized; we connect with them better and connect with the people involved.  Reading the biographies (and autobiographies) of people we admire also is an excellent way to do this.  If they have any level of transparency, they will readily share their mistakes in their stories and we can derive great lessons from people we know to be accomplished persons.

Action Plan:

  1. How are you going to implement regular reflection on your experiences?
  2. Pick at least two people that you want to learn from this month.  Get books about them, publications, web sites about them, or just sit down over coffee (or drinks) and talk to them.  Make notes on what you learn

How to Rejoice Always

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Rejoice – Enjoying What We Have

We All Ride a Roller Coaster

I try to be transparent with what I share here.  The more you can see me, warts and all, then the more likely you are to realize that success in business and life is attainable; that we all have flaws, shortcomings, and challenges we face.  Steve Jobs, despite his incredible vision and gift for marketing, had big character flaws.  Same with Bill Gates, and many others.  Ray and Maurice McDonald didn’t have the vision to make their restaurant a household name; it took Ray Kroc to do that.  We ALL have hurdles to face and have up times and down times.

I share that because recently I have been having a down time.  For a variety of reasons, things have not gone well in different parts of my life and I have gotten down on myself and doubts began to creep in.  When that happens for me, I go back and look for things that remind me to re-focus and think positive.

Warning:  The rest of this post will have a decidedly spiritual bent to it.  I apologize if it offends you; I do not apologize for who I am and what I believe.

REJOICEI ran across this:  I have a card I received at a men’s group meeting years ago that I keep around. It is shaped like a stop sign and, in fact, on one side looks like a stop sign.  On the other it carries this verse from the Bible, specifically from Philippians 4:4-7:

“Rejoice in the Lord ALWAYS (emphasis mine)!  I say again, REJOICE!  Let your gentleness be evident to all.  The Lord is near.  Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

Changes in Attitude

For me, of course, it is a reminder of where I have put my faith and my life.  It is also a reminder that no matter what else I have things I can take great joy in throughout my life daily.

Let’s expand it beyond and see what we can find for everyone.  When we have an ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE, we are better able to keep things in perspective.  When we rejoice in the things we have that cannot be taken away, that the world cannot touch, then we provide a solid base for how we regard everything else that happens in our life.  Once we have that perspective and are thinking in gratitude, therefore thinking positively, then we are better equipped to handle the crisis and not only survive but come out ahead.  Zig Ziglar often said

“The more you express gratitude for what you have the more you will have to express gratitude for.”

gratitude - thank youAdopting the principle of rejoicing yields big returns; perhaps not always in the way we expect.  Certainly, we all wish we had more money, more resources, more opportunities, more clients, more of whatever is on our mind right now.  Yet when we rejoice in what we do have, we see that not only do we have a full cup but that it actually overflows.  On the other hand, when we focus on what we don’t have we can lose what we do have.   I remember years ago watching a comedy sketch where a man asks another man who is holding a cup of coffee for the time.  The second man turns his wrist to look at his watch and pours out his cup of coffee.  Like the man, we lose focus on what’s in our hand to look at something else.

Consider This

What would your life be like if, for say at least a week, when someone asks you how you are you respond with “I am rejoicing!”  Don’t reflect on what people will think about you, center on what it will do for you.  Certainly it would be hard to say that continually and be negative.

I am going to try that for the next two weeks.  I invite you to try it with me and let me know how it goes.

Action Plan:

  • Begin a gratitude journal.  Get a notepad or journal or use an online one like Penzu.  Every day for at least a month, write down at least one thing you are grateful for.  Each day you have to enter something you have not previously added; in other words, each day is unique.  Look at the list often.
  • Respond to any greeting of “how are you” with “I am rejoicing!” for at least a week.  If someone asks you why, use the gratitude reason of the day or some other response if you wish.

I welcome your thoughts here about the ideas shared in today’s post!

The Key to Your Personal Loyalty

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Personal Loyalty

The Critical Mass of Loyalty

Some form of loyalty factors into every level of our lives:

  • our business or career success
  • our leadership
  • our personal relationships
  • our spiritual growth

IMG_20130911_154341Often loyalty is the missing factor that helps lead us to success in many endeavors.  Without loyalty, we cannot gather and lead effective teams and success eludes us.  Without loyalty,  we cannot lead or be lead by anyone because loyalty is what creates the dependent bonds that allow us to follow or care enough to lead.  Without loyalty all personal relationships fail because they drop to the level of simple transactional relationships instead of the caring and devoted connections that become permanent.  Without loyalty, we cannot devote ourselves to enlightenment and growth because we will never to open to having our heart touched or our soul fulfilled.

So critical is loyalty as a factor that the author of Think and Grow Rich and many other self-improvement tomes Napoleon Hill once said,

“Lack of loyalty is one of the major causes of failure in every walk of life.”

Loyalty Out Leads to Loyalty In

loyalty_memeThe best way to garner loyalty is to give loyalty freely.  By freely I mean that you build relationships and award loyalty without reservation once trust has entered in.  What you don’t want to do is wantonly through your loyalty around to whomever is the flavor of the week.

What are some qualities that demonstrate loyalty.  Use the word LOYALTY to remember to practice these qualities in your life.

Love others before they deserve it or earn it.  Care enough to want to add value to them.

Open your mind to the positive attributes of others.  Too often, we look for reasons to not enter a relationship instead of the reasons to enter.  If you are looking for a reason to be unhappy or dissatisfied, you will always find it.  EVERYONE has positive qualities, the question is how do you bring them out.

Yield to the needs of the other over your own.  It’s hard to be loyal to others when you are too busy putting yourself first.  A loyal person always puts others first.

Accept others as they are, warts and all.  Realize that YOU can’t change them.  Be prepared to take them as they are or not at all; and in most cases not at all is a choice that causes you miss out on anything positive that could come from the relationship.

Live to serve others.  Seek to add value in every encounter, with no expectation of receiving value in return.  Relationships, whether business or otherwise, are not always transactional; it’s not always a trade.  Be prepared to accept value when it is offered to you, but don’t expect it.

Trust others.  This is critical.  You cannot give loyalty unless you trust and you cannot receive loyalty unless you are trusted.  In an interesting twist, people who don’t trust are generally not trusted.  Think about it, how many people do you trust who quite clearly do not trust anyone else?

Yearn to spend time with others.  In a busy world, we too often have a tendency especially with business relationships to want to go in, conduct our business, and go out.  Big mistake.  Take the time to build.  Get personal.  Ask questions beyond the sale.  Build friendships, not just business partners.

When you apply these principals, you will develop loyalty to others and earn loyalty from them.  You will build mutually beneficial, symbiotic relationships that touch the heart.  They enlighten and enrich and are profitable; sometimes financially, sometimes spiritually, sometimes relationally.  They add and receive value.

That’s the key to a successful life.

 

Dream Your Way to Productivity

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Daily Productivity

Wave a stick around and you are bound to hit a pinata full of productivity tips somewhere on the web.  Everyone has their special tips on how to make your day more productive as an entrepreneur or small business executive or simply as a worker bee.  Some of them are quite good.  I am especially a fan of Helen Raptoplous (also called Helen Rappy).  She provides practical, easy to apply steps to manage your day more effectively and increase your productivity.  When you can get more out of yourself in a day, whether working for yourself or someone else, you will be more be productive.  You will achieve.  You will get noticed.  And you will be in demand as a result.

Dream to the Next Level

Dreams
http://www.dreamstime.com/future-look-stock-photography-imagefree90202

It’s been my experience that the ones who are most productive are driven; and they are almost always driven by a dream.  They have a vision of who they want to be, what they want to do, how they want to add value to others.

When you feel that you have something special you can offer people in this world and it can make a difference in their lives and yours, you are more inclined to look for ways to be more effective about it.  

No doubt about it, living your dream creates a new world with new possibilities and leads to to find out how to best share it with others.

That’s not to say that the dream alone is sufficient.  You still must focus on daily growth, learning more about what you do and how you do it.  You must learn to be intentionally productive.  Many times we are “accidental achievers”; things get accomplished and we are not exactly sure how.  What we want is to not only achieve our desired results, we want to know how we got there so we can repeat it.

Start that Dream

So, if the best way you can be highly productive is to work to realize your dream, then take a look at what you are doing today.  Ask yourself these questions:

  • What am I doing, small or large, to work towards my dream?
  • What one thing, my 1%, can I use to grow today?
  • What will I do tomorrow to build on that?

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