From time to time, my mentors remind me of something that I try and keep at the forefront of my thought process: Good is the opposite of great. From my own personal experience, this seems to be the greatest deterrent from higher levels of success. We often get excited about getting to a certain point and it can blind us from really stretching ourselves to a more enjoyable level of satisfaction. Many times, we put a couple minor things on hold and reach that "good" point, and then let a couple of the minor things back in to the forefront. Then, not only do we sabotage our efforts of getting to great, but we also endanger our comfort-filled "good" position.
What am I talking about? Well, I'll use personal anecdote to explain. I love sports. Going to sporting events, watching sporting events, reading about and talking about sports. I played just about any sport I could growing up and multiple sports in high school. As a kid, the most consistent conversation I had with my Dad was talking sports and sports statistics. That hasn't changed a lot, actually. Regardless, sports was an enormous part of my life.
The business that I'm involved in, however, takes a great deal of focus when it comes to where and how I'm spending my time. There is often a direct correlation between personal development, action and end result. The only issue is that often times what determined the end result and it's time frame can only be quantified when the end result is met. I know, I know, you want it in English. My business involves dealing with many different personalities if one plans to succeed at high levels and very few people are naturals in this arena. Even those who are benefit from continued development, so commiting time to developing in this area is pretty vital to succeeding. The thing is, you don't usually know if you've worked on yourself enough until you're either attracting people with your behavior or repelling them until after it's happened. It's not like you read a chapter of a book like Bringing Out The Best In People and at that moment everything clicks into place.
What do these different ramblings have to do with how I started this post? When I'm at home at night, choices abound. I can do anything from trying to combine a little ESPN with reading just before bed, to falling asleep with the TV on before I even get to the reading part. When I leave my day job, I have the opportunity to either go out and shake some hands, make some new friends and delve into the personal networking part of my business, or I can stop at the house and spend an hour or so with my little girl before heading back out. Now, most people will say, "why can't you just do a little of both?," and to be honest, that's what I fight all the time.
Here is why I can't do both: watching some sports and reading a little or spending a little of my prime networking time at home with my daughter before heading back out will most likely result in me being good at what I'm trying to accomplish, but not great. The fear is looking back in two years, not having the results I could have had, and still be working in the active-income arena with a daughter that is two years older. To be more to the point, this is what I look back on now and get angry at myself about. I've tried to do both and so far I've become pretty good at knowing my business, my personal development and the growing my business. What stinks is that I look back and see that if I would have just focused solely on the business, I could be in position right now to be living in the strictly passive income world.
The solution seems obvious, right? Just keep the dumb TV off and give up a little time with the kid to spend all kinds of time with her in the near future. So why is it still so hard to do? For one, I believe that putting watching sports (or more honestly - Sportscenter) on the back-burner is essentially breaking a habit spanning multiple decades. I'm only 30, but sports has been a mainstay as long as I can remember. Don't get me wrong, I don't sit at home watching games during prime time. I've overcome that. The issue is postponing even the 45 minutes of Sportscenter that I can oftentimes fall asleep watching, thus eliminating my attempts to read. Honestly, in total, outside of watching a movie rental on a Saturday night with Mrs. Objects In The Mirror, I may watch a little less than 10 hours of television a week. For most, this is pretty good. For me, it's not great.
When it comes to the stop at home, it was a mini-habit that started from me stopping at home to change cars with Mrs. Objects. I couldn't just switch cars and be back on the road. I had to at least go inside and see the little one. Well, once I was in the house, Mrs. Objects had a touch of relief and tried to knock out a couple of quick things while I played with the little one. Before you know it, it's an hour later and I've lost vital time.
So here's what we're going to do: despite the fact that my Bears are odds on favorites to go to the Super Bowl this year and the Bulls are actually better than their record (I shouldn't even know their record if I want to be great,) I am putting myself on a timeout. How? I'm going into the old bag of tricks to get the job done. I can't get rid of the TV because the little one loves Baby Einstein, but I can leave notes for myself to not watch it. Notes that say things like: "Sportscenter doesn't get you out of your job." I'm also putting myself back on a book per week habit. The last time I set a focus like this I was very good at maintaining it.
Can I turn it around that easily? I think I can. My freedom is that important to me. I'm planning on 2007 being the last year I work for someone else, and if I'm serious, I have to be serious. Here we go ...
Friday, December 29, 2006
Monday, December 25, 2006
Staying Steady Through The Holidays
Ahh, the holidays. For many it's the perfect time to take that much needed break, and wind down with egg nog, Christmas cookies, and way too much food. Well, not so much if you want to keep some momentum going in your business. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't necessarily out conducting business on Christams Eve nor will I today, but in a business built on relationships, this is the time when maintaining and furthering those relationships can really come into play.
Everyone is with their family at Christmas time. It's a "spend time with the family" day. People expect to hear from those that are either family, or very much like it today. That's why spending an hour or two to jump on the phone with each of the people I'm working with is so vital. When I start working with people, I can't guarantee that they will be with me forever, but I expect people to want to take what we do the full way. As such, I expect to have long term relationships with them. I expect my kid(s) to play with their kids (when most of them have kids someday.) So as much as I am not always enamored with making phone calls, I get excited about today. Some of these guys, I've just started helping and working with. Some, I've been around for months.
It's also a great time to call people that we worked with at one point who may have decided to choose a different path for their future. I've always been taught to be an ambassador when it comes to my business. You always want to leave the door open for anyone whose dream may have been derailed for whatever reason. You can't make winners win and you can't make quitters quit, but you can welcome back a former quitter that wants to win now.
All in all, I am going to be out and about today. I was for a short while yesterday also. It's never a bad time to bring up a worthwhile business. I mean, at the end of the day, why would I want to shut the doors on my store?
Merry Christmas everyone!
Everyone is with their family at Christmas time. It's a "spend time with the family" day. People expect to hear from those that are either family, or very much like it today. That's why spending an hour or two to jump on the phone with each of the people I'm working with is so vital. When I start working with people, I can't guarantee that they will be with me forever, but I expect people to want to take what we do the full way. As such, I expect to have long term relationships with them. I expect my kid(s) to play with their kids (when most of them have kids someday.) So as much as I am not always enamored with making phone calls, I get excited about today. Some of these guys, I've just started helping and working with. Some, I've been around for months.
It's also a great time to call people that we worked with at one point who may have decided to choose a different path for their future. I've always been taught to be an ambassador when it comes to my business. You always want to leave the door open for anyone whose dream may have been derailed for whatever reason. You can't make winners win and you can't make quitters quit, but you can welcome back a former quitter that wants to win now.
All in all, I am going to be out and about today. I was for a short while yesterday also. It's never a bad time to bring up a worthwhile business. I mean, at the end of the day, why would I want to shut the doors on my store?
Merry Christmas everyone!
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Intention Manifestation/Power Of Spoken Word
Every day I learn something new about life or business, I'm amazed at how little is taught in schools. Schools aren't bad places and I have nothing against them, but why was Chaucer force fed to me when I could have really used a book on positive mental attitude or the power of getting what you speak? I know that right off the bat there are people that immediately are tuning out, thinking to themselves, "That stuff doesn't work. That's just hocus pocus, foo-foo stuff." These are the first people to respond "not much" when you ask them "what's up?" or "what's going on?" and then complain about not being challenged enough and how their days sometimes drag. Your words are the architect of your future. If anything, there is proof of this in the negative sense. How many times do you hear someone say, "Forgive me, I'm horrible with names," and then have to ask you three more times what your name is? Do you really think superstar athletes like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods got to where they are by telling themselves they can't make it and that it would be extremely tough to even try? Of course not.
In this vein, I have read a few books on this concept. Hung By The Tongue is brilliant in it's basic breakdown of how powerful your words are. It's a short, easy read and is pretty inexpensive. What You Say Is What You Get is a little thicker, still inexpensive, but even more detailed in how to control your speech. What To Say When You Talk To Yourself is even more vital if you ask me, as it gets into concepts such as positive confession cards and really delves into what spurns your actions and results in life. I find it hard to believe that someone who doesn't believe in speech controlling life reading that book and not seeing truth. Just get it, read it, and you'll understand (btw, I make nothing if you buy any of those books as this blog is not officially affiliated with Amazon, nor the authors in any way.)
I've been working on putting this concept into effect in everything I do. Whether it's how I greet people in the morning - "not much" has become "everything is going on!" My response to "how are you doing" has become, "Great!" or "Top of the world!" I have to tell you that just doing that makes me feel better about my day. When bad stuff happens (being positive doesn't mean that problems disappear,) I've been working on not overreacting and measuring my response before I just blurt out in anger. It's so easy to have something stupid happen and to stand there saying, "this sucks!" I've been using these methods to write positive confession cards and a personal mission statement. I went out and actually bought some 3X5 cards and a black Sharpie and started putting positive phrases on the cards. Things like, "Smile, it's free!" or "I can relate to anyone." I can pull these cards out at any time while I'm driving and remind myself that "Everything is going to be great" and that I can "Win Today" (two other cards I have.) My personal mission statement/full positive confession talks about where I'm going, what I'm accomplishing, and who I'm becoming. It speaks the type of people that will come into my life, the type of family I will have and the type of impact that I plan on having.
Over at one of my favorite personal development sites, I recently came across something that seemed very much like positive confession. In none of my limited travels had I read much about intention-manifestation, but after reading a little about it, it seems to simply be the secular way of saying the power of the spoken word. I even joined the $1M experiment. Why not? What's the worst that happens? I know, you thought I'd say the worst, but we're talking about speaking positive right? So I'll put it this way - it doesn't cost me anything to participate and has a tremendous upside.
Are you speaking positive in everything you do? Not to get to "astral-plane-hippiefied" for you, but we are creatures of energy and we do produce both positive and negative. What makes you words exempt from being a viable participant? Why would we think we can say negative things and somehow have it not affect us? I use to be very self-efacing. It's easy to make fun of yourself because you don't offend anyone, right? Wrong. You offend you, subconsciously. It's not geeky to tell yourself you're a good person. In fact, it's necessary. 70% of the words you hear come from your own mouth. Why not program it with positive?
In this vein, I have read a few books on this concept. Hung By The Tongue is brilliant in it's basic breakdown of how powerful your words are. It's a short, easy read and is pretty inexpensive. What You Say Is What You Get is a little thicker, still inexpensive, but even more detailed in how to control your speech. What To Say When You Talk To Yourself is even more vital if you ask me, as it gets into concepts such as positive confession cards and really delves into what spurns your actions and results in life. I find it hard to believe that someone who doesn't believe in speech controlling life reading that book and not seeing truth. Just get it, read it, and you'll understand (btw, I make nothing if you buy any of those books as this blog is not officially affiliated with Amazon, nor the authors in any way.)
I've been working on putting this concept into effect in everything I do. Whether it's how I greet people in the morning - "not much" has become "everything is going on!" My response to "how are you doing" has become, "Great!" or "Top of the world!" I have to tell you that just doing that makes me feel better about my day. When bad stuff happens (being positive doesn't mean that problems disappear,) I've been working on not overreacting and measuring my response before I just blurt out in anger. It's so easy to have something stupid happen and to stand there saying, "this sucks!" I've been using these methods to write positive confession cards and a personal mission statement. I went out and actually bought some 3X5 cards and a black Sharpie and started putting positive phrases on the cards. Things like, "Smile, it's free!" or "I can relate to anyone." I can pull these cards out at any time while I'm driving and remind myself that "Everything is going to be great" and that I can "Win Today" (two other cards I have.) My personal mission statement/full positive confession talks about where I'm going, what I'm accomplishing, and who I'm becoming. It speaks the type of people that will come into my life, the type of family I will have and the type of impact that I plan on having.
Over at one of my favorite personal development sites, I recently came across something that seemed very much like positive confession. In none of my limited travels had I read much about intention-manifestation, but after reading a little about it, it seems to simply be the secular way of saying the power of the spoken word. I even joined the $1M experiment. Why not? What's the worst that happens? I know, you thought I'd say the worst, but we're talking about speaking positive right? So I'll put it this way - it doesn't cost me anything to participate and has a tremendous upside.
Are you speaking positive in everything you do? Not to get to "astral-plane-hippiefied" for you, but we are creatures of energy and we do produce both positive and negative. What makes you words exempt from being a viable participant? Why would we think we can say negative things and somehow have it not affect us? I use to be very self-efacing. It's easy to make fun of yourself because you don't offend anyone, right? Wrong. You offend you, subconsciously. It's not geeky to tell yourself you're a good person. In fact, it's necessary. 70% of the words you hear come from your own mouth. Why not program it with positive?
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