Category: Personal Development

We are all Leaders, yes you to

Leadership


We are all leaders, yes you to. It doesn’t matter what your position or title is.
According to John Maxwell the definition of leadership is influence. I believe it is the ability to influence others but how do we do that?
We influence others by how we live our lives, how we carry ourselves, how we treat people, and the example of excellence we present to those around us.
Notice, none of these things require a title or position.
All of us can set an example of excellence in how we approach our jobs, our friendships, our parenting, and our relationships with our significant others.
I was talking with a young man who was asking what he should do about a career, he didn’t go to college and had been working service jobs, fast food, waiter, pizza shop while he was performing in a band. He was having a great time, they recorded a couple of albums, they even went on a few short tours, but he realized they probably weren’t going to make it to the big time and the years were passing him by. He was afraid he was falling behind.

He was thinking of getting into a trade to try and learn a skill. As an old Electrician I told him I was a little biased but if he wanted to get into a trade he should pursue the electrical field. I reached out to a Contractor I knew, and they hired him. He asked me before he started If I had any advice.

I explained to him my position on creating value, I believe creating value is what we all need to do to keep a job, to be compensated well, and to rise in the ranks. Anyone can do the bare minimum and most people do. Value is created after you do what’s expected of you, when you go beyond what’s expected. You need to do what is expected and then do a little more.

Leaders dont fear hard work, they set the example.

I shared with him these tips;

• Arrive early every day, if you aren’t early, you are late. Be there early and ready to work.

• Do everything you are expected and or asked to do with a great attitude. I told this young man, if they tell you to carry 4” rigid pipe (very heavy) from one side of the site to the other, you be the best 4” rigid pipe carrier they ever saw.

• Pay attention to the smallest of details. Excellence is in the details. If you have done a task and you think, that’s good enough, then its not good enough. In my mind if its “good enough” it leaves room for improvement. The task is not done until it is done and done right to the best of your ability. It typically doesn’t take much longer or not much harder to close the gap between good enough and done right.

• Be willing to accept extra work, responsibility, and staying late.

• Don’t get caught up in gossip, complaining, and negative talk with other employees.

• Be the example of excellence, over the long term it will pay great rewards.

If you live these principles it will be recognized, and you will be rewarded. These principles translate to work, relationships, and life in general. Be the example of leadership.

Top three Fears that keep us in the mediocre mindset

The top three fears that keep us in the mediocre mindset, that keep us from living out our dreams and keeps us from chasing and achieving our goals can be overcome. I have been doing a lot of thinking recently as to why many of us aren’t relentlessly pursuing the lives we dream of. Why do we stay in jobs we don’t like, that leave us unfulfilled, and aren’t our true calling. What would you perfect life look like? What would your career look like? Would you be working the same job or in the same industry you are currently in? What would your relationships look like? What would a typical day look like if you were living the life you dream of? If the life you dream of doesn’t look like the life you are living now its time to make some changes. But why don’t we make the changes necessary and chase a full and significant life?

Its too late for me


Its too late for me, my time has passed me by. We are too comfortable, We have settled for a space where we can pay the bills, we’ve established some level of credibility in our careers, and our thinking is in line with 97% of society. We stay in this mindset where its safe. We don’t dare risk being ridiculed or judged and we don’t dare risk the “security” of that paycheck coming in each week. Often we are fixated with what could go wrong if we chased our dreams and goals instead of being excited about all that could go right. So we stay safe and never truly live fully. I’m telling you its not too late, your time has not passed, and you can change your life right now.

I don’t know How


I don’t know how or where to start is what I hear often. What I believe is at the heart of this fear is we don’t see a clear path to success. The time will never be perfect and before you start you may never have a full proof clear cut plan that takes you from start to achievement. If you are telling yourself you are waiting for the right time and for everything to be perfect you are simply procrastinating. It sounds simple but its important to understand, the first step is to take the first step, begin with the end in mind. What would success look like? What would the perfect day look like on your journey. It starts there. Now with this mental picture of what success looks like you work backwards and create a daily, weekly, and yearly plan and goals that take you closer to your goal. Re-evaluate weekly, monthly, and yearly and adjust accordingly. Seems simple but you’ll also need to add heavy doses of hard work. Success come disguised as hard work and preparation. Important key here, surround yourself with people with this mindset.

I have no experience in the field of my dream


Many of us find ourselves in a line of work we may not have chosen, we fell into a job that satisfied a need at the time and now we believe we are stuck. Maybe we don’t think we have the educations, or knowledge. I’m here to tell you none of that matters. Your will, determination, and tenacity will be the determining factor. I can tell you from experience, most people would say with my back ground I have no business writing book let alone a successful one. My book was an Amazon #1 hot list book in its category. You have to be smart about how you start and go about shifting into a new area of focus but you can do it. All the information you need is out there for you, the internet, books, mentors, etc. You can transform yourself, I am proof. Trust me, if I can do it, anyone can. It will be uncomfortable, it will be hard, it will be worth it.

Step out side of your comfort zone and go after the life you dream of. This life is not a practice run, make the most of it. Keep in mind no matter how slow progress is, mistakes made, and hard times you will be ahead of the 97% who wont even try. Get after it.

Faith Through Adversity

Faith through adversity is the story of my brother Chris and I and the adversity we both faced in 2011. I published and released the book December 28th, 2017. Chris was diagnosed with Cancer in February of 2011. I spent to entire spring trying to tell Chris how he she think, act, and feel about being sick. Who was I to tell him how to react to this diagnosis. I was healthy, always have been. Then I received a phone call that changed everything.

As I wrote and re-wrote this story over the last five years I struggled with my confidence. The negative thoughts ran wild in my mind and that voice in my head would tell me , your no author. I thought a lot about family and friends, what would they think? Thoughts of doubt, it not long enough, I have to come off more intellectual and astute if I expect to be taken seriously.

Step out of your comfort zone

Finally I decided the final product didn’t need to be any of those things. I just wanted to share my story just like I was talking to a friend. My hope was that this story would help others who are facing adversity. It doesn’t have to be life threatening situations but any adversity can be faced with courage, dignity, and faith. My writing was never going to be perfect. The timing was never going to be perfect. So I stepped out of my comfort zone and I and published it

Two lessons learned

I learned two things with this experience. First was more of a reminder, greatness is created outside your comfort zone. While I don’t claim that my book is a great piece of literature, Its a great story, and I believe it can help those who may be struggling. And it has given me the confidence to pursue more goals and dreams.

Second, I have received a lot of support and praise from friends and family since releasing and announcing the book, its actually been overwhelming. What is a little troubling, I’m not angry at all just disappointed, there will be those who will not be happy about your success. There will be those who will not acknowledge your accomplishments. Tony Robbins says. “No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying”. I would add, your ahead of those who are rolling their eye at you for trying.

Keep your head up, do the work, and the rewards will come.

Know the Top 5 Regrets of the Dying and start Living

The Top Five Regrets of The Dying


This post is a little longer than my typical post but I believe this is a deep subject that we all can relate to. Its important to think about if we want to live life to the fullest.
The top five regrets were complied by Bronnie Ware In her book “Top five regrets of the dying”

1. I wish I would have had the courage to live true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

Let me ask you, are you living the life of your dreams? Honestly, do you have the career that gives you a real sense of fulfillment? Do you wake up in the morning with out an alarm clock and just can’t wait to get working? If income were no issue, you had no fear of failing, or no fear of what your friends and family would think of you, what would you do?
Interesting that this is the number one regret of those on their deathbed. While I clearly understand why this would be number one. I take issue with the logic. Hard to argue with someone dying with very little time left but here I go. I believe not living to our true selves, or our true calling is a reality for most people. Have you ever asked yourself, there’s has got to be more to life than this? There is a fundamental hunger to do more, be more, and achieve more, to be significant.
Then why is it that many of us get in the car each morning, wrestle with rush hour traffic and go to a job we can’t stand? Why are we staying in this bad relationship? Why is it that some of us know what we really would like to do or create but we don’t, we don’t even try. Why don’t we…fill in the blank?
My issue with this “regret” as defined above is this, “not the life others expected of me”. Expected of me implies we don’t have control. While yes, some of us face great pressures from Parents or loved ones to do things to make them happy, ultimately though, it is each of us that have control over our decisions. The problem is we let our fear of what others will think of us, or what we believe they may think of us, control our decisions. Often these fears are unfounded, they dwell in our mind only. But they can be powerful.
We must be in control of our expectations. Two things we should fear with regard to letting others set our expectations. First is that others cannot truly be in alignment with the goals we have for ourselves. The second and this is a severe threat and common impediment to achievement, the plague of low expectations.
Often those closes to us judges us for stepping out of our comfort zone and for trying to be our true self. They judge us for trying to better ourselves or for chasing what may appear to them to be a crazy dream. That judgement typically stems from low expectations they have for themselves. You see, rather than they try to be their best selves and possibly face failure, they would rather play it “safe” and not try. They can’t bare for you to succeed because that will lead to them questioning themselves, their values and their worth. They say misery loves company, well so does low expectations.
It has got to be painful to realize that not only have you not realized your dreams, you’ve never even chased after them, and your time is done.

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

According to The Department of Labor, the average American spends 8.8 hours a day working. I know there are many of you that work ten or more hours a day. For many years now, I have worked nine to ten hours a day at a minimum and many Saturdays. I like many of you have a natural work ethic and a dive to get things done and get them done better than the average. But at what expense? Yes, this leads to promotion, maybe more money, but what this often leads to for many of us is more work. When you get more done, you work harder and smarter then the average, you get rewarded with more responsibility and more work.
Where this really takes a toll is with your relationships, the most important relationships, with your spouse, your Children, your friends. While your knee deep in your work and making a living, you may not even recognize the price you are paying, the moments you have missed and the opportunities to create memories with those that are most important to you.
Think of it this way, we spend on average 9 hours at work, 30 minutes getting ready for work in the morning, 40 minutes each way in traffic, and average 7.5 hours of sleep a night. That’s an average of 18 hours and 20 minutes a day focusing on work or sleeping. Leaving 5 hours and 40 minutes of time left to make the meaningful connections in between, preparing for the next day, running errands, shopping, etc.
Obviously, we must make a living, we’ve got to create income to survive, pay bills, and support our families but at what cost. Isn’t there a way to work smarter? I’ve read multiple reports that all say that at least 52% of Americans are unsatisfied and or disengaged with their jobs. Personally, I’ve been there, it’s a terrible feeling getting up early, driving through rush hour traffic to a job you can’t stand.
I am not opposed to being type A personality at all, I am and always will have a strong work ethic. What I believe would be regrettable is working so hard at a job you don’t like. Waking up after forty years realizing you never chased your own dream? Regretting never taking a risk and chasing your own passions. I don’t believe working hard on your dream, something your passionate about would be regrettable. That’s not a job, that’s called a full and meaningful life.

3. I wish I had the courage to express my feelings.
There was a popular song in the 80’s By Mike and The Mechanics called, Living years. It’s a story we’ve all heard, a Father and Son who can’t see eye to eye. They bicker and hold petty grudges, there’s a verse that goes like this;

“So we open up a quarrel
Between the present and the past
We only sacrifice the future
It’s the bitterness that lasts”
The bitterness last until one day;
“I wasn’t there that morning
When my Father passed away
I didn’t get to tell him
All the things I had to say”

That’s a regret. I wasn’t there the morning my father past away, or my brother, or a couple of my friends who passed away much to young. Your left with the empty feeling, did they really know how I felt about them. I wish I had one more chance to talk to them. Maybe you know this feeling?
How about letting your family know how much you love and care for them, Not only in words but in deeds. How about letting friends and coworkers know how much you appreciate and value them, consistently and genuinely.
If you truly made your best effort to consistently express how you feel about those important to you I don’t believe you have to have this regret. But too often we let trivial issues get the best of us. We allow our ego’s and pride rule and we can’t see clearly what we value most, usually until it’s too late.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
Currently its easier than ever to stay in touch with old friends through social media platforms. The issue I have is that keeping up to date with friends through post and tweets is not the same as having meaningful relationships.
Having a close circle of friends gives you a support group, a group that picks you up when you are down, guides you when you’ve lost your way, celebrates your victories with you, and stands with you when you lose, that’s a meaningful relationship.
While we all benefit by having friends that support us and have our backs, we too benefit by providing that same support to our friends. Supporting our friends in time of need give us a sense of meaning and significance. Sharing special moments of our lives, with empathy, enthusiasm, and trust with those we hold closest to us helps us live more confidently with a sense of fulfillment and we are happier.
There are many studies that report that people with a close nit core group of friends live a healthier, happier, and longer lives. I encourage you to reach out to your friends. Not just by clicking like on a post but hearing their voice and seeing their face, seeing their smile.
5. I wish I would have let myself be happier. This one hits close to home for me. I don’t think I have allowed myself to be happy or I just never felt truly happy with myself, my accomplishments, my career, or my life in general. As I continue to try a learn how to improve myself and development the best me I’ve come to the realization that the reason I don’t feel happy or fulfilled is because I am living the four regrets you just read about.
I don’t believe the regrets above are the fault of anyone else but ourselves. We make the decisions for our lives and we shape our decisions through our limited thinking. Take regret number one for example; I wish I would have had the courage to live true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
I dint believe what others expect of us should be the driver of the decisions we make for ourselves, but unfortunately that’s how many of us make decisions. Let me show you how. Its not necessarily what others expect from us that drives our thinking, its what we think others will think of us that drives our decision-making process. We all have that little voice in our mind trying to protect us from being hurt, humiliated, or embarrassed. The problem with this is this self-limiting talk limits our ability to make decisions that are in line with our higher thinking. It limits our courage to step out of our limiting belief, our comfort zones and pursue what we really want to be and accomplish in our lives, but why?
Because once we finally realize or are honest with ourselves that we aren’t living our true selves or dream life most of us have already established our personalities and the lenses others see us through, we are well into our careers and changing who we are now, what we do, and how we do “life”, makes us vulnerable and open for questioning and ridicule, real or imagined.
For the most part the fear of being ridiculed and vulnerability are a product of our own limited thinking and are unfounded. For those who may snicker, ridicule, and mock us for making the decision and taking action to live life to our fullest, they are the weak. They are living their limited thinking, and you stepping out of that thinking with courage, is a direct challenge to them. You are challenging the comfort of their mediocrity.

Having said all that its tough to break out of that thinking. Its tough to open yourself up and be vulnerable. It takes real courage. Often we are just to comfortable keeping the status quo and not risking being vulnerable.
Its tough to truly be happy in all areas of your life if you aren’t living the life that you want, without chasing dreams that you dream. As for me I buried myself in work. I’m known to have a very strong work ethic. I work hard, I prepare, and I put in what ever time is needed to produce results. So, this is where I receive my perceived value and get a sense of validation, yet I am unfulfilled. You see working hard and being perceived as successful or an over achiever leaves me empty. Its an empty feeling because while I am producing I am not chasing my dream, I am not achieving my goals, and not relentlessly pursuing my passions. Do you know this feeling?
It would be a shame and a huge regret not to realize this until your days are done. As for me, I am making the change right here and now. Will you?

Human Potential and Living a Full Abundant Life

Human Potential and living a full and Abundant life


I’ve been thinking a lot lately about human potential and living a full an abundant life. When I say abundant life I mean not just financial, I’m talking deep meaningful relationships with family and friends, making real impact on my community. I’m talking about making a difference in the lives of people I don’t even know. Living a life of significance.

Be a Champion


I have visions of making significant and meaningful impact on young men and women needing a mentor. There are those who believe they aren’t worthy, they’ll never succeed, their dreams will never come true. There are people my age and older who believe its to late to chase their dreams, they believe their time, and there opportunity has slipped through their fingers. They need a champion, I want to be their champion.

We All Have Greatness Within Us


You see I believe I was truly meant to make an impact, I believe that I have the potential within me to impact and change peoples lives for the better. There is greatness within me just waiting to be unleashed. I don’t think I am any different or better than anyone else. Its my belief that we all have greatness within us. We need only the courage to release it, to cultivate it, to unleash it.
Stretch The Limits of Your Potential

I believe it is our responsibility to push and test the limits of our full God given potential. We should set big fat audacious goals and then set out a plan of action to achieve them. We should aspire to be the greatest version of ourselves that we can possibly be. Remember, you can have all the potential in the world but it means nothing if you don’t take action. You can have a powerful race car but it wont move and get down the track until you put the pedal to the floor.

Will we ever really max out our potential, and be the absolute best version of ourselves? No, I don’t think its possible, and I can accept that. What is not acceptable for me any longer is not pursuing my best. Nothing less than a relentless pursuit of my full potential on a consistent bases is acceptable. Success is in the mission, in the journey where you leave a trail of meaningful relationships, achievements, and victories.

So What does Testing the Limits of Your Potential Look Like?

So what does pushing and testing your potential look like? Again, big fat audacious goals and an action plan to achieve them. It means taking consistent action daily towards our goals. It also means facing the questions, the unknown, facing your fears. Questions like, how could I ever do great things? You don’t have to have it mapped out, you just have to start, as you take baby steps the path will become clear. What will my friends and family think? What if I fail and everyone sees that? There is no failure unless we quit, only learning opportunities we can use to make course corrections. Through set backs and hardship, no matter how slow the process, we will still be ahead of those not even trying, and ahead of those rolling their eyes at us for trying.

I challenge you to test the limits of your potential and live a full and abundant life.

Your Potential, Your free will

Potential

We all have been blessed with God given talents and potential.  This is fact. It is also true that we have free will.  This is where the great divide occurs between greatness and mediocre.

It is your job to pursue those talents and stretch the very limits of your potential.

It is your responsibility to seek it, to cultivate it, and to consistently expand and test your limits.

Freewill

This is what free will is all about. You can sit on the couch and know every detail about a silly TV show or you can create a life others dream of.

You have all the power

Once you decide to choose greatness, seek out your God given talent. Maybe you already know what it is, but you are afraid of failure, or fear what others think. That’s where courage comes into play.  Push through the fear, the fear of failure, the fear of ridicule, the fear of being uncomfortable.  Push on with your passion.

Its a shame that so much power in the form of human potential goes untapped and is wasted. Tap into and push your potential to the limit.  We are more capable than we can even fathom if we just dare test our limits.

 

Health & Fitness verses Diet

I recently committed to a health and fitness mission for myself. I am strongly opposed to “diets”, that is diets in the way that is commonly thought of these days. And no this has nothing to do with a new years resolution. Resolutions are rarely honored for more than a few weeks and just like fad diets they have little long term success.

The new year is in fact a great time to renew and restart so I know many of you have made a commitment to losing weight and trying to be your very best. Many of us, my self included have fought the battle of the bulge. I believe what will be more helpful is if we look at the battle a little differently. Instead of thinking of your weight and how you look. Focus on health and fitness. I know this is difficult because focusing on a number on a scale has been engrained in us.

The goal should be to be the best you, that you can be. The focus should be to be the healthiest you, you can be. If you focus on a healthy lifestyle the weight you are supposed to be will take care of itself. Here are some points to consider when committing to your own personal health and fitness;

Five Pillars of Health

Diet


We must retrain our bring to understand what diet means. Diet, definition, is food and drink considered in terms of its qualities, composition, and its effects on health. The definition does say, deprive yourself of food. It doesn’t say just if this food, or don’t eat this food so you’ll lose weight. Your diet s what ever you eat and brink on a consistent basis. Make your diet a healthy lifestyle diet. The key is to focus on eating and drinking for health, not necessarily for weight loss. Some healthy lifestyle diets I suggest you research are The Zone and the Paleo diet. I am starting to read the new book by Tom Brady, The TB 12 method. I’m interested in learning his healthy lifestyle diet. What’s important is that you are intentional in learning what your diet needs to be, that works best for you.

Commit


We have got to commit to a relentless pursuit of health and fitness. Its easy to start working out and eating healthy, what’s hard is sustaining our commitment for the long haul, for life. It takes a commitment to re-committing everyday. Remind your self every morning what your goals are. Ask your self when you pick up foods you know you shouldn’t eat, is this going to improve my health or hurt my health? Is this food taking me closer to my goal and honoring my commitment or taking me further away from my goal?

When you don’t want to exercise, I face this issue all the time as I have committed to get up at 4:30 am to exercise, thanks Jocko Wilink. Its tough to get up that early and get going right away. When I hesitate and try to rationalize why I don’t need to get moving, I use questions that make me question my commitment to what I want to be and achieve. Questions like, what would a healthy person do? What would a champion do? I know somewhere, there are healthy people and champions out there getting their butts out of bed working at being the best they can be. And that’s who I want to be.

You can be the best you, you can be by focus and commitment. Focus on being healthy and fit and the pounds will take care of themselves. Take consistent action and re-commit each day.

New Years resolutions or Lifestyle commitment

I’m not a big fan of new years resolutions. The top two resolutions are #1, lose weight/eat healthier and #2 is life and self-improvement. Sadly statistics say that on average Americans keep their new years resolutions for three and half weeks or 24 days.
Continue reading “New Years resolutions or Lifestyle commitment”

Leader VS Boss, which are you?

boss-yelling-at-employee-high-resolution-istock
Bosses find blame, build insecurity, point the way

The Leader

Leaders assess a problem, they look for the cause of the problem to determine the most efficient cost effective method of correcting the problem.  The leader if at all possible will allow the person who has made a mistake that has caused the problem a way to save face.

 

whoismyboss
A Leader leads with vision, build trust, show the way

The Boss

A boss seeks to blame first,  escalates the situation, makes sure the person who has made the mistake knows he is to blame. The Boss lets

others assume responsibility for their mistakes or problems.

 

 

The boss in the short term may make progress but in the long run the true leader leads by setting the vision and strategy for long term strategy for success.  The leader then shows his/her people how its done leading by example and building trust. Be the true leader if you want to build a team that is enthusiastic and achieve long term successful results.

What is the Number One Personal Development Book

Dale Carnegie
How to win Friends and influence People Dale Carnegie  A personal development classic

We are well into the new year and its a great time to re-read Dale Carnegie’s personal development classic, How to win Friends and Influence people.  If you haven’t read this book I suggest you stop what you are doing right now and order it on Amazon or run to the nearest book store.

This book is a must read for anyone who works with people, has any relationships business or personal, wants to excel in a career and or as an entrepreneur. Okay I think that covers all human beings.  This is more than just a book that you read once and maybe pick up a few ideas you could apply in your life. Its more of a life and relationship manual that you need to keep on your desk to refer to once a month to review and hold yourself accountable to the teachings.

We live in a day and age where soft skills and being able to lead people in the true sense of the word is paramount.  You have got to have the people skills to be able to inspire and influence other to buy into your vision, perform at high levels, or to buy your product.  Dale Carnegie was way ahead of his time and that is why this book is more relevant today than when it was written in 1936.

You will find that there is a lesson on every page, you will need a new high lighter and a pen. My copy is high lighted, marked up with notes in the margins with many dog eared pages. While its highly educational its really interesting as well. The anecdotes about the tycoons of industry in the 30’s and 40′ like Charles Schwab, John D. Rockefeller, and Carnegie himself are fascinating.

How to win Friends and Influence people is a book for the individual who wants to succeed in business and in his/her personal relationships. If you want to improve your leadership and interpersonal skills this is a must read personal development classic.  We suggest reading it once a year and then refer to it once a month and scan over your highlighted passages and notes to keep the lessons fresh in mind.