Clarity
Clarity
A balanced life is not the same for any two individuals. We are all
wired differently but being clear on what balance is for YOUR life
is critical to achieve the levels of success you seek. Steve has laid out
a great framework in this book that will assist you in finding your
balance, purpose and the confidence to pursue what is right for YOU.
Re a d D av i s
President, McGriff, Seibels & Williams, Inc.
I have known Steve for more than7 years and in that time
I have seen him personally transform the lives of countless
men and couplesin our community. Steve has a knack for
getting to the heart of the matter and helping people get clear
on what they need to do to change their lives. This book is
engaging, challenging and practical. If you are ready for change,
I recommend you pick up this book and start reading.
V i c P en t z
Senior Pastor, Peachtree Presbyterian Church
CLARITY
CLARITY
How
to get it
How
to keep it
&
How
to use it to
STEVEN CESARI
To my family,
my wife Indy
You are still my one in a million
and my children: Courtney, Stefany, Whitney, and Matthew
I am proud to be your dad.
aC K n o W l e D G e M e n T s
o many people work behind the scenes to bring a book to life that
its virtually impossible to name them all, but I want to recognize a
few who made this book a reality. Thank you to all the creative people
at Advantage Media: Adam Witty, Michelle Pyle, Brooke White, and
George Stevens. Thanks also to my editors, Denis Boyles and Ron
Geraci. Denis captured the vision and Ron created the outline, then
listened to my stories, sharpened my words and kept me focused.
To Chuck and my band of brothers at IRONMEN and to our couples
groups, you were all a constant source of encouragement and accountability. Iron truly does sharpen iron. A special thanks to Laura Poe,
who kept me motivated and on task.
Thank you to my former business partner, Tommy Newberry, who
directly and indirectly developed some of the concepts in this book.
A heartfelt thank you to my mom and dad, and my brothers and
sistersAlbert, Lucille, Linda, Jimmy, Cheryl, Susan, Rick, David, and
John. You have all helped to mold me into the man I am today. I love you
all and miss you very much. To my in-laws, George and Eleanor Soos,
whose determination and integrity I try to model every day.
To my beautiful wife, Indy, who is my biggest fan and source of encouragement. She listened to my stories, proofread manuscripts, supported
me through the process and kept me focused on the goal. She made
this a better book and she has made me a better man. I am eternally
grateful and I will love you always.
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a cKNo WlEDgEmENts
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Ta b l e o f Co nt e n ts
Chapter 6: 129
Get Rid of the Junk!
Introduction: 13
Chapter 1: 25
We Are All Terminal Dont Accelerate the Process
Chapter 7: 158
Respect the Power of Exposures
Chapter 2: 52
Know Why
Chapter 8: 181
Create a Wow Experience
Chapter 3: 63
Live With Intentionality
Chapter 9: 210
Get More HPA In Your Day
Chapter 4: 94
Find Your Genius
Chapter 5: 114
When The Will to Win Meets
The Will to Prepare
Epilogue: 239
Leave It All On the Course
i n T ro D u C T i o n
If you dont know where youre going,
any roador oceanwill take you there.
hen I was in college, during the mid 1970s, I got a call from
my brother-in-law in New York, Bob Pontz. He said, Im
taking my sailboat down to Bimini, which is one of the small islands
in the Bahamas about 90 miles off the coast of Florida.
He asked if I wanted to come along as part of the crew on a
32-foot-long sloop called Narcissus.
I was 21 years old. And it took me half a second to answer him.
Are you kidding me? I said. I would love to!
When you think about being on a sailboat and sailing to the
Bahamas, what picture comes to mind?
All I could envision was lying on the bow of the boat, basking in
the sun, drinking beer, pulling into port, andthis was before I was
marriedfinding a bar or a party and having the time of my life.
The only problem? My brother-in-law planned this trip in
September, which is the start of the storm season. I later found out that
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this meant sudden wind shifts, small craft warnings and six-to-eightfoot waves much of the time.
There were, including me, four people on the boat: Captain Bob,
his 22-year-old brother Corky, and Jeff, who was one of Captain Bobs
buddies.
The trip started out beautifully. Ill never forget when we set
sail from Mamaroneck, New York. I was standing on the bow of the
sailboat on that narrow plank of wood with the chrome railing going
around it. Everything seemed perfect. I was ready to start an amazing
trip.
Then the fog rolled in.
I couldnt see a foot in front of me. And that wasnt a great
situation, because my job was to look out for any junk floating in the
water, to make sure we didnt run into it.
As we sailed out past the Throgs Neck Bridge, I remember the
rain coming down so hard it was actually knocking the weatherproofing right off my rain jacket. Within five minutes, I was soaked. I was
beginning to regret that I had come on this sailing tripbut I tried
hard to keep an optimistic attitude, figuring we would get through this
unexpected rough patch and be laughing about it in no time. I was
on the boat, and there was no going back, so I was still hoping for a
magnificent experience.
Conditions improved as we sailed our way eastward. We finally
made it out to the Atlantic Ocean and were greeted by a couple of
days of perfect weather. I thought the rough start to the journey was
now behind us, and it would be smooth sailing from then on. It was
absolutely gorgeous as we sailed in the evening with the moon shining
on the ocean, and the plankton lighting up like fireworks as our bow
cut through the water.
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to feast on me. All I could think was: How did I get myself into this
mess? Im just a college kid looking for a good time in the Bahamas!
I was really, really, really afraid.
And things would get much worse.
When youre in the open sea and have no clue where you are,
Murphys Law starts to apply in sadistic ways. As we headed west in
search of land, the weather started to worsen again. The skies clouded,
rain fell and the wind began to blow. The sea became turbulent. The
waves were colossal. I was told they were 12- to-14-footers. As we came
up and over each wave, there was a wall of water in front of us and a
wall of water behind us.
After a full day heading due west in this weather, we still did not
see land or any other boats or ships. At this point, Captain Bob told me
to get on the radio and send out a distress signal.
This is sloop Narcissus! Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!
I said this for hours on end into a microphone, to no avail. Even
when the bad weather finally subsided, I kept on with the distress
signals.
Then there was the little issue of food and water. Remember,
we only had two days worth of supplies on board, because we were
planning on coming into port to restock every two days. We made the
decision to ration the food and the drinks we had, and this added to
the already tense situation.
For two full days we sailed westward, without any sign of land or
other ships. We were literally lost at sea and running low on food and
water. Day three came and went, and still no land sightings. I began to
wonder if we would ever see land again. I thought about my life and
started to negotiate with God. I didnt have a very strong faith back
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then, but the saying is true: There are no atheists in foxholes. I started
praying, asking God to get us through this mess.
By day four, we were down to the end of our rations. We had
some fruit and a six-pack of Diet Doctor Pepper. We called it DDP
and to this day, I cannot bring myself to drink it again.
At about noon on day four, we saw a bird. Not a seagull but
a regular bird. We all got very excited; land must be near! Later that
day, at about 4:00 p.m., the weather worsened again. But this time it
was a blessing. When lightning lit up the horizon, we could see the
distant outline of the shore. Finally, after four and a half days of fear
and misery at sea, and completely out of food and water, we found
land. We sailed into port, thanking God to be alive. We all jumped off
the sailboat and got down and kissed the ground.
We were in Morehead City, right where we had started several
days before.
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where you want to go. Youll have to apply the dedication and the effort
to take the journey. But youll have a map in hand.
Heres the first empowering secret to keep in mind as you begin
this journey: When you get clear about the person you want to become
and what you want to accomplish, you will attract the things you need to
make it happen.
How do I know? I married one of those precious things. On
my second date with Indy, I asked her what she wanted to do in life.
Without hesitating, she said, I want to have four children before
Im 30, I want to get my Masters Degree in Speech and Language
Pathology in five years and my doctorate in ten years.
Then she asked what I wanted to do.
I said, I think want to marry you!
Indy was crystal clear. She had extreme clarity in her vision of what
she wanted to accomplish with her life. She knew what her purpose was
and she was passionate about doing it. Today, we have four children,
and she has a doctorate in Speech and Language Pathology.
Ill say it again: When you have clarity in your life, and you know
what your purpose is and what you want to accomplish, its amazing
how youll attract the right people and resources you need to make that
happen.
Most people lack this clarity.
We see it in marriages. Consider that about 40 percent of all
marriages end in divorce. Most couples spend more time planning
their wedding than they do planning their marriages! They have a clear
picture of what they want out of their wedding, and what they want
their wedding to look likebut they dont have a clue what they want
their marriage to look like.
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ChaPTer 1
WE A R E A L L T E R M I N A L D O N T
A CC E L E R AT E T H E P RO C E S S
If I knew I was going to live this long, Id
have taken better care of myself.
micKEY maNtlE
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and the doctors came out. It was like a scene on TV: They brought him
into that little room, they closed the curtains and they hooked him up
to a machine that beeped in time with his heart rate. Ill never forget
that. Its emblazoned in my memory.
The beeps from the machine became slower.
Beep-beep-beep-beep. Beeep. Beeeeep. Beeeeeeep.
Then they stopped.
The doctors and nurses came out from behind the curtains. One
of them said, Your dad didnt make it. I was confused, in shock,
and wondering how this was possible. My father had seemed perfectly
healthy two hours before and now he was gone.
While I remember every detail up to this moment, the hours and
days that follow are largely blank. I remember going back home and
friends and family coming around to console us. But I was in a daze,
simply trying to make sense of what had just happened to our family.
And what had just happened to me.
The leTTer
About 20 years after my dads death, I received a copy of a letter that
my mom had received during that summer in 1968. This letter was
written by a friend and business associate of my dads. I learned more
about my father from this letter than from all the other people and
stories combined. And although I didnt fully realize it when I first read
it, over time I came to view this letter as part of a road map that would
help guide me through life. I would like to share this letter with you,
along with some of the lessons and wisdom it has given me.
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Then anD no W
For my dad, on that summer day in 1968, my attempts at CPR were
too little, too late. The damage had been done. He made choices that
damaged his healththough he had access to much less information
about how to maintain proper health, fitness and nutrition than we do
today.
And thats a difference I cant ignore.
Given this, its certainly no accident that I gravitate toward businesses that deal with health and fitness. My brother Rick and I started
Trillium Health Products in 1989, marketing a product called the
Juiceman Juicerwhich sold millions of units. I wanted to devote my
energies to a business that helped people make positive decisions about
their health, and helped them extend their lives through those positive
decisions so they might avoid my fathers fate. As a child, I couldnt
help my dad, but as an adult, I am passionate about helping others live
healthy and successful lives.
Thats why Ive put this chapter first.
If you dont follow the principles in this chapter, nothing else
matters. Sure, you can have a great impact on this planet even if your life
is short; I believe my father did. Certainly, you can have poor health, or
even be confined to a wheelchair or a bed, and still touch many peoples
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lives. But I firmly believe that you must do everything you can reasonably do to improve and safeguard your health, your strength, and your
energy in order to be effective in life. And today, you can do a great
deal. We now have an incredible amount of information about how to
live a high-energy, healthy lifestyle. And Im going to give you the basic
tools to do that.
Its important to understand that this isnt just about you. Our
poor choices have consequences for those who depend on us.
In our day-to-day lives, its very dicult to have a positive impact
on others if you dont have the energy and vitality to use your talents.
Further, there is a direct correlation between making good, healthy
lifestyle choices and making good choices in other areas of life. More
than any other factor, an unhealthy lifestyle will cause you to perform
poorly in many key areas of life. After all, if you are run down, tired
and out-of-balance, your ability to make good choices is compromised.
I see this every day. I recently met yet another person who is struggling in business and has poor healthand thinks his business trouble
is causing his health issues. In his case, I believe, its the other way
around. Quite frequently, when a person like this man starts making
better choices about his or her health, it has a ripple effect. They have
more energy and vigor, and essential tasks that languished begin to
get done. Fewer mistakes are made. Others place more confidence in
them. Its a cycle of improvement, and one thats quite gratifying to
watch. At this point, however, this man hasnt begun that turnaround.
And I know what hes dealing with, because Ive been there.
Some of the worst decisions I have ever made, in business and
in life, were made when I was extremely run down. And they hurt me
for long periods of time. The opposite is also true; some of my best
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decisions have come when I was in great shape both physically and
emotionally.
If you will follow the steps I have outlined in this chapter, you
can and will achieve a healthy, high-energy lifestyle. There is only one
catch: I cant do it for you. You have to implement it and make it
happen.
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accomplish. Notice that the goal is written in the present tense and
stated with certainty, as if it was already accomplished; Ill explain why
in an upcoming chapter.
Visual aids help. I have a picture of myself from 1986, when I ran
the 10K Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta, Georgia in under 40 minutes.
I was in the best shape of my life, or very close to it, and I continue to
use that photo as a visual reminder of why I want to stay in shape.
As for the second question, take it seriously. If you want to live to
be 90 years old, what habits will help you achieve this, and what habits
will hold you back? The best way to look at this is to take a sheet of
paper and draw a line down the middle. On the left side, write down
everything that is negatively holding you back. On the right side, write
down all the positive habits that will help you get there. Once youve
done this, you can start to work on getting rid of the negative habits
and replacing them with the positive ones.
Can you reach extreme old age without planning? Certainly. It
happens all the time, as a walk through any nursing home will reveal.
Id like to live to be 101, myself, but Id rather not join the ranks of
people who didnt arrive at that age ready to tackle its adversities.
2. Create and sustain a positive mental attitude.
It is not what happens to us in life; it is how we respond to what
is happening to us that really counts. Having a healthy, high-energy
lifestyle requires that you create and sustain a positive mental attitude.
It is not enough to have a clear goal if you are already telling yourself
that you cant do it. I call that stinkin thinkin.
An irony? All stressful or negative emotions begin as a stressful or
negative thought. The inability to deal with stress and worry has been
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A few weeks after the surgery, my wife and I flew to New York to
see him. When I asked him how he was doing, he said, Steven, I never
should have let them operate. I should have let God take me. I was
shocked to hear this.
My wife and I and other family members continued to support
and encourage him and give him a multitude of reasons why we and
others still needed him around. Slowly but surely, George fought
through the stinkin thinkin that had all but destroyed his will to live.
He slowly regained the can-do attitude that served him so well in his
life. He had to look inside himself and take action.
To recuperate, he started with just five minutes of exercise on a
recumbent bike each day. He slowly worked up to 10 minutes, and
then 15, and then 20 minutes each day. At the same time, he stopped
drinking and started to eat healthier. He began keeping a journal of
his food intake, exercise and weight loss; and he still keeps the journal.
As of the writing of this book, at 78 years old, George has lost over 60
pounds and isfor the first time since his West Point playing days
less than 200 pounds!
George demonstrated quite vividly to me that our attitudes can
either make us or break us. If you will take time to reflect on your
situation and choose to respond with a positive mental attituderather
than react with stinkin thinkinyou will be able to handle anything
life throws your way.
3. remember this formula: 75 + 20 + 5 = a healthy lifestyle.
What is it? Well, Ive heard almost every concept in existence to create
a healthy lifestyle, and this is the one that ultimately worked for me.
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Our bodies react the same way to the fuel we put in it. We are usually in
such a rush; we put the wrong fuel in our body. Although it may not happen
suddenly, the body will break down as a result. And $6,000 wont come
close to fixing it. I can promise you that.
The consequences of poor nutrition are rampant today. Obesity and
juvenile diabetes are at epidemic levels. Health experts are now emphasizing a terrifying possibility: For the first time in U.S. history, the current
generation of children might not outlive their parents.
There are several reasons for this. For one, eating has become something
that we do to entertain ourselves rather than to provide healthy fuel for our
bodies. This sad fact has opened a ready path for many companies to sell
products that exploit our bad habits, and has allowed misinformation to
spread. Take dieting; people spend billions of dollars on commercial diets
each year. The irony? Statistics show that almost 100 percent of the people
regain 110 percent of whatever weight they lost within 12 months of going
off the diet.
The message in that particular case is very simple: Diets dont work. So,
what does work? Its pretty simple. Making the right choices about what we
eat, so that our daily nutrition supports (rather than sabotages) our goal of
having a healthy, energetic lifestyle.
Okay, back to the 75 + 20 + 5 = a healthy lifestyle formula. It means that
75 percent of our health and vitality comes from what passes between our
lips. If were not intentional and focused about what we eat, its all too easy
to give our bodies a mix of fuel that harms us. With proper nutrition, you can
prevent a lot of the major degenerative diseases that occur commonly in
the U.S. In fact, research has shown that over 80 percent of the deaths from
the three top killersheart attack, stroke and cancercould be prevented
with dietary changes.
Proper nutrition is so important to our lives, Id like to share a mini-plan
with you to make certain you have the tools you need to get a handle on the
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Do I really juice? You bet I do. My family started juicing 20 years ago and
we still do it every day. Before working on this chapter today, I got up early
and I had my usual glass of pineapple/orange/grapefruit/strawberry juice.
I dont feel that I can get the right start to a good day unless I have all of
those nutrients from the fruits and vegetables in my morning juice.
Of course, rather than juicing you could eat your fresh fruit and vegetables in the raw (or as close to it as possible). That offers the best benefits
of all. Fruits and vegetables should be part of every meal and every snack.
They are packed with fiber and antioxidants that help our bodys immune
system. We need them to fight off the effects of environmental pollutants.
Usually the most colorful combination of fruits and vegetables contains the
most nutrients.
Im a juicer because its convenient, and it lets me consume more fruits
and vegetables every day than I normally would. I personally love fruits and
vegetables, but its very difficult to consume the quantity of fruits and vegetables you need for optimum health during the day. Having a glass of fruit
juice in the morning and vegetable juice in the afternoon gives me many of
the nutritional benefits of eating all those fruits and vegetables. Again, you
still need to eat fruits and vegetables to get the benefits of the fiber, but
to get the density and variety of many essential nutrients, juicing is a great
way to do it. It works for me and my family. Whatever works for you, employ
that daily strategy to continue to add more fruits and vegetables to your
meals and to your snacks.
4. Limit processed foods. What are processed foods? Think of them like
this: Anything thats not natural or has been processedwhite flour, white
sugar, saltall contribute to poor health. Do you know that the average
person consumes more than 200 pounds of sugar in the desserts, sodas,
candies, and other processed foods they consume each year? Thats 200
pounds of sugar! Thats scary, as studies have actually shown that sugar
acts as fuel for cancer cells to grow. And its obviously not helping with our
obesity epidemic.
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How much is enough? The recommended formula for water consumption is to consume one half of your body weight in ounces every day. So if
you weigh 150 pounds, you should consume 75 ounces of water per day.
Another recommendation is to drink 8 to 10 eight-ounce glasses of water
per day. Some nutritionists and medical researchers now feel that this
recommendation was never based on solid research, and may in fact be
an unnecessary volume of water to drink every day for most people, but I
personally feel that its a helpful guideline. Most people dont drink enough
water, so its important for you to find strategies that help you consume as
much water as you possibly can.
And by water, I dont mean fluids in general; I mean pure water. The more
you can replace other drinkscoffee, sodas, canned juices with waterthe
more vibrant your body and mind will be. Also if you drink an eight-ounce
glass of water before each meal it will help curb your appetite and you
will actually eat less, so its extremely important to maintain a high-energy
lifestyle that you consume the appropriate amount of water each day.
6. Eat smaller meals more often. Eating five to six smaller meals and
snacks per day is much healthier than the standard three large meals. Our
bodies and our metabolism function better when we eat smaller meals
more frequently. Large meals create a system overload, causing us to lose
energy and feel sluggish. When we consume smaller, healthier meals
more frequently, we allow our bodies and our digestive system to work
more efficiently and also to keep nutrients flowing throughout our body.
Our biggest meal of the day should be breakfast. A study done by
researchers at Vanderbilt University on overweight people found that
most were breakfast-skippers. Yet just by adding breakfast to the day, the
average person lost 30 percent of the weight they had put on.
While its a clich, breakfast truly is the most important meal of the day.
If youre going to eat a big meal, breakfast is likely the best time to do it
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because youre going to be more active during the course of the day and
youll give your body the opportunity to digest that meal.
Unfortunately, people typically tend to make dinner their largest and
unhealthiest meal of the day. Most of us are not very active after eating
dinner, so eating a large meal this late in the day leads our bodies to store
most of it as fat.
I recommend that you experiment with eating smaller meals more frequently, and see how it impacts your energy level. This will take planning.
Make sure you have healthy snacks already prepared and ready to grab.
This will help keep your metabolism going and avoid hunger.
Two tips to help you make eating small, frequent meals easier and more
satisfying:
Eat slowly. Try to consciously think about chewing your food, and try
to chew 20 to 25 times per bite. When you chew your food more thoroughly, youll help your body digest it, you will be more satisfied, and
you will tend to not eat as much. (I realize chewing every bite of food
20 to 25 times sounds a little crazy, but Ive done it and found it works
very well for me.)
Divide restaurant portions. Theyre usually too large for one person.
What used to feed a family of six now feeds a family of four, and the
portions that restaurants serve are truly enormous. Theres enough on
a plate to typically feed two people. So either share the portion, or just
tell your server when ordering to divide your meal in half and put half
in a to-go box, so you wont be tempted to finish the whole thing when
it lands in front of you. This will not only help you control the amount of
food that youre eating, but its also more cost-effective because youll
have another meal already prepared that you can eat the next day.
7. Use supplements wisely. Because todays foods do not always have the
appropriate level of minerals and nutrients, it helps to properly supplement
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vitamin along with omega oil once a day, as well as an energy powder called
Greenergy. I mix it in with my fresh fruit juice and it gives me a complete
boost in the morning. No need for coffee. If you want to learn more about
this energy powder, please visit my website at www.VitalVisionsInc.com.
I know people who take between 20 and 30 pills in a day. I think this
is foolish and unhealthy. Again, its called supplementation because its
supposed to supplement a good, healthy diet. In the formula I mentioned for
optimum health, 75 percent of our health is dependent upon nutritionor
the things we pass through our lips. Supplementation is just five percent
of this formula, so the pills are just supposed to fill in those nutrients and
minerals that we might be lacking.
Typically, people want to reverse this equation and use supplements
as a crutch. They want to take pills to replace healthy nutrition, and to
wholly compensate for the fact that theyre not eating properly. Again, that
just doesnt work. Im a big believer in nutritional supplementationand
I only take a daily multivitamin with omega oil plus and energy powder.
That should reveal a lot about the role I think supplements ought to play in
maintaining health.
With that said, remember that people have differing supplementation
needs, based on their individual diets, body compositions, level of health,
lifestyle, genetics, and other factors. In short, everyones bodies are
different and can react differently to certain stresses and stimuli (including
nutrients), so dont assume a cookie-cutter approach to supplements.
What works for another person wont automatically be best for you.
To learn what does suit you best, youll need to experiment. I recommend
that you become a student of good health and make it a habit to read as
much as possible about the latest information on nutritional science.
Explore the Internet for the latest studies. For example, if you did this now,
you will find that many physicians and researchers are recommending
that people take vitamin D supplements, as well fish oil supplements for
cardiac health. But things change. And thats why its important to keep tabs
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on the latest science. Ten years ago, for example, Vitamin E was the golden
supplement that received a great deal of positive press. Many doctors and
researchers believed it could help improve cardiac health, possibly reduce
the chances of developing Alzheimers disease, and positively affect a host
of other ailments. If you scoured the health press ten years ago, youd find
that a nutrient in tomatoes called lycopene was strongly thought to lower
the incidence of prostate cancer.
That was then; its different today. Science marches on. For both vitamin
E and lycopene, further studies did not show the same promising results.
Many physicians and researchers now feel differently about these two particular supplements. This is why its important to keep your knowledge of
nutritional science as up-to-date as possible. Granted, youll never have
an experts grasp of nutritional informationbut even if you did, youd only
find the experts often disagree. You can become better educated. I also
recommend that you have a reputable health professional advise you on the
latest research; I personally consult and recommend Dr. Michael Murray
(www.doctormurray.com). He has written more than 20 books. I suggest
starting with The Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine and his latest book, What
the Drug Companies Wont Tell You and Your Doctor Doesnt Know.
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yo u r e alreaDy in
G r e aT shaPe?
Thats wonderful. You have a big
head start, and a great advantage.
I would estimate that less than five
percent of the U.S. population is in
terrific shape, so youre in select
company. If youre already very
physical active, eating well, getting
WE arE al l t E r m i N a l D o N t a cc E l E r at E t h E P ro c E s s
There are some basic things that you can do to help create a better
sleeping environment.
First, avoid caffeine and alcohol products for four to five
hours before going to bed. Both of these substances tend
to disrupt the brain from getting into the state of deep,
revitalizing sleep.
You should also avoid eating a big meal in the evening. Most
health professionals recommend not eating for two to three
hours before going to bed.
If possible, its great to take a brisk, 15-minute walk after
eating that last meal to aid digestion.
Maintain a consistent bedtime and wake time. Keeping to a
routine helps.
Try not to watch TV or the news right before you go to bed.
They tend to leave negative thoughts or images that remain
in your subconscious and can, oftentimes, alter your sleep.
Well talk more about getting positive mental nutrition in an
upcoming chapter.
Review your written goals (well also get to these in an
upcoming chapter) for a few minutes right before you go to
bed.
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ChaPTer 2
KNOW WHY
The person who knows how will always have a job. The
person who knows why will always be his boss.
D i a N E r av i t c h
n the 2005 movie Cinderella Man, Russell Crowe plays the role
of James J. Braddock, a boxer in the 1920s and 1930s during the
Great Depression. In an era of limited opportunities, boxing was
the primary means for Braddock to provide for his wife and three
children, and he had several dicult years when he struggled just to
survive. After a streak of bad luck, he was given a chance to make a
comebackby fighting the heavyweight champion, Max Baerand
he took full advantage of it, fighting with all he had. Yet Braddock still
had moments when he faltered, when his confidence was threatened
and he had to remember exactly what he was fighting for.
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You may still hold some unrealized dreams close to your heart.
You havent totally given up on them, but you dont have a compelling
reason to take action and move forward. Consider this question: Are
those unrealized dreams still worth fighting for, even if the fight takes
weeks, months, or years? Whats holding you back? What excuses do
you hold onto?
Ive been a dreamer most of my life. Somebody once asked me the
difference between the people who make their dreams reality and the
people who dont. I boil it down to something very simple: The people
who do, do; the people who dont, dont. The people who have a dream
and take action almost always have a compelling reason why they must
succeed at whatever it is theyre going to do.
In working with hundreds of successful people, Ive found that
they always have compelling reasons why they must succeed in business
as well as in life. They have a desire and a passion to be the very best at
what they do.
People are motivated by two things: The pursuit of pleasure or the
avoidance of pain. Weve all heard the saying no pain, no gain. And
you know what? Most people are not willing to pay the price. They
dont have a compelling reason why they must change, why they must
turn their life around, why they must get into shape or why they must
follow through and pursue their dreams. Having a compelling reason
why you must succeed is the big equalizer in business and in life.
K N o W W h Y
match than his famous opponent, Max Baer, and thats why he beat
him for the heavyweight title. Baer was fighting for glory. Braddock
was fighting for milk. He was fighting for his familys well-being.
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Scott knew why he must succeed. He went out and found the
best trainers in Atlanta. He found people who helped him train to be a
world-class runner. He found a coach at a local high school who taught
him how to swim. He found an accomplished cyclist who taught him
how to ride the bike he had to borrow because he could not afford one.
Nothing could stop Scott because he had a compelling reason why he
must succeed.
When you step outside your comfort zone, when you take a
stance, when you decide that youre going to take action and move
forward to do something, when you have a clear vision of what it is you
want to do, you will attract the people, you will attract the resources,
you will attract the things that you need to make your business work,
to make your life work, to make your marriage work, to make whatever
it is that you are striving to do work. It has happened to me numerous
times in my life, and I know it will happen for you if you just create
that compelling reason why you must succeed.
Scott Rigsby was the first double amputee to compete in and
finish the Hawaii Ironman. While everybody else was changing their
clothes between events, Scott was changing his legs. He has a separate
set of legs for running, biking and swimming. His whole story is told
in a book he wrote titled Unthinkable. What a great example for all
of us. I always think of Scott when I feel like I cant go on and I ask,
Whats my excuse? So let me ask you the same question. What is your
excuse? Let me ask you a better question. What is your reason why?
Why MUST you succeed?
By the yard, its hard; by the inch its a cinch.
zig ziglar
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F.
Kennedy
challenged
When you break it down, little by little, when you know what
it is you want to do and you have that compelling reason why, it
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make-up tests, and itll help you through the process and prevent you
from burning out.
I speak professionally quite a lot, and I get a lot of emails from
audience members. Never have I received such a volume of heartfelt
emails as I got after I spoke to those medical students. Even their professors wrote to me. Here is an excerpt from what I received:
You know, were all on the verge of burnout and I cant
tell you how timely, appropriate, uplifting and motivating your
presentation was. Thank you for reminding us why we wanted
to become doctors. And will you come back and do it every
year?
If your why isnt big enough, your what wont matter. Knowing why
will carry you through any short-term obstacles and give you the motivation to keep moving towards your dream. What are you fighting for?
If you cannot answer that question, take time right now to figure it out.
Why MUST you succeed at what you are trying to accomplish? Come
up with a paragraph for each goal or dream that you have. Remember,
reasons come before results.
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ChaPTer 3
LIVE WITH INTENTIONALIT Y
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the
things you didnt do than by the ones you did do. So throw
o the bowlines. Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the trade
winds in your sails. ExploreDreamDiscover.
marK tWaiN
hen I conduct my workshops, I sometimes have the participants do an exercise in which they break up into small groups
of five or six. Then I give each group an unassembled jigsaw puzzle
with several hundred pieces, and I have them lay the pieces out in
front of them on a desk. I give them about five minutes to put as many
pieces of the puzzle together as possible. There are no rules; they can do
whatever they need to do to make it happenbut they can only work
with what they have right in front of them. At the end, I give a prize to
the group that assembles the most pieces of their jigsaw puzzle.
Everyone struggles when they do this. Why? Because they dont
have a clear picture of what the end results should look like. And that
is exactly the same as going through life without a clear picture of what
we want to accomplish; its like having thousands of pieces of a puzzle
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but no clear view of the result were hoping to assemble, and no clear
plan of how to put them together.
During some of these workshops, I give the groups the cover of
their puzzle box (showing the finished puzzle) to use as a reference.
When they have a clear picture of the goal theyre going for, and are
able to continually look at what the end result should be, they increase
their productivity three to five times. In other words, they can put the
puzzle together much quicker than if they tried to figure it out on their
own, without using the assembled puzzle as a visual reference.
There are some other ways in which the unassembled puzzle is a
metaphor for most peoples lives. Its been said that the average person
has up to 64,000 thoughts per day. Ive never counted mine, but I bet
this number isnt far off. Now, those thoughts are actually like pieces
of a puzzle. And if theyre just randomly floating in our brains, theyre
of limited use to us. It is very dicult for us to figure out which pieces
of the puzzle to take and fit together and how to complete the picture
that we want to pursue.
Again, if we dont have a clear picture of what we want to do
with all those thoughts that are floating around in our mind, our mind
becomes a jumble of mini-images, all of which are nonsensical because
they are incomplete. And the puzzle pieces constantly change.
If we dont intentionally try to use the thoughts we have in a
productive manner, to make progress toward a goal we value, the randomness of life will take over. We will spend our life reacting to events
and circumstances as they happen, rather than actively pursuing the
life of our dreams. We will have less impact on those who depend on
us and on those we come in contact with, becausein living a life
without intentionalitywe react to things as they happen rather than
proactively pursuing the things we want to attain in life.
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It wasnt until I read that letter, 20 years after my father died, that
I really began to understand the importance of having a vision and a
plan of action.
Reading the letter in 1988, when I was 34 years old, made me
think about what people would say about me after I had passed away.
What would somebody write in a letter about me? If they wrote to my
children and tried to state what I stood for, what I accomplished, what
would they say? I thought a great deal about this.
Still todayand this might sound a little morbidI often have
these thoughts when I attend a funeral. (Dont you?) I think about who
would show up at my funeral if I passed away at this point in my life.
I think about who would get up and talk about me. What would they
say? What type of things would I have accomplished that other people
would find admirable? Or meaningless? What type of stories would
people share about me? What type of legacy would I be leaving behind?
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As Stephen Covey says in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Eective
People, begin with the end in mind.
When we think about the end of our lives, how do we want to be
remembered? How do we want people to talk about us, to think about
us, to feel about us? What type of impact and influence did we have on
those who depended on us and on the people that we came in contact
with every day? How many children and grandchildren did we have?
How did we make the world a little bit different or a little bit better?
Did we live with purpose or did we just drift through life, letting things
happen as they came to pass?
How did our lives make a difference?
Think about these questions now. What type of legacy will you
leave behind?
The answers to all of these questions will be determined by what
you do with your life, and you really have only two choices: You can
leave it up to chance and react to life as it happens to you, or you can
live with intentionality and take action to move towards the life of your
dreams and create a life of success that will bless you and bless those
around you.
Stick with me, and I will give you some tools to help you do that.
seTTinG Goals
A lot of people ask me, Does setting goals really work? They look at
me skeptically, becauselets face ittheyve heard a million times that
you need to set goals in order to move your life in a positive direction.
Theyve heard it so many times that it seems like an old yarn that is very
easy to say, but has lost any real meaning.
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Many people are afraid to share whats deep inside their heart,
what their dream is, because they fear getting this negative reaction.
Perhaps they want to be a Broadway singer, or they want to ride their
bike across the United States, or they want to go to Hollywood and
become an actor...but they never mention it to others for fear that they
will be ridiculed. So it never becomes a real goal. And they never take
action to accomplish it.
3. They never learned how to set goals.
Even if you attended college, you probably never had formal instruction on how to set and achieve goals.
Recently, I spoke to two graduate classes at a local university in
Atlanta. The students there had an abundance of knowledge but they
had no idea how to set goals, or how to push themselves beyond their
comfort zone, and how to take the knowledge they had and apply it in
the real world.
Herbert Spencer wrote that the great aim of education is not
knowledge but action. I can read all the books I want about good
health and how to get in shape, but until I start working out and eating
properly, I am not going to get into good shape.
Whatever type of knowledge you possess has to receive a dose of
action to turn it into a practical application.
Ive attended numerous seminars on setting goals. Ive read a
multitude of books and Ive listened to just about every CD on setting
goals. But nothing changed in my life, and nothing will change in your
life, until you take the action and turn that knowledge into a plan and
execute it. And move from where you are to where you want to be.
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doesnt evolve. They dont go forward because what theyre doing had
worked quite wellat some past point in their lives.
This happened to me, actually. So, I know first-hand that if you
rack up some notable early success in business, you tend to stop doing
the things that make up, what I call a bootstrapping mentality. You
stop doing those things that got you to that successful point, and you
start relying on money. You begin to throw money at people, to try to
get them to fix problems, rather than using the same creative resources
and power that you used when you started your business.
You move from a bootstrapping mentality to what I call the
fat, dumb and happy mentality, where you just rest on your past
experiences and past success. In this place, we no longer look for ways
to continue to push ourselves out of our comfort zone or continue to
look for ways to improve our business, health, and relationships.
6. They fear failure.
Lets not sugarcoat it: Failure can certainly be worthy of fear. I know;
Ive failed quite a lot. And again, Ive already mentioned that failures
can be very valuable lessons, as long as they dont kill you.
But people who dont set goals have usually never failed themselves, because theyve never taken any risks. They have a vicarious
fear of failure, from (an often limited or misinterpreted) exposure to
someone elses experience.
In other words, people will say, My Uncle Bob tried to start a
business back in 1986 and he failed. Why should I make the same
mistake? Theyre afraid to step outside that little box where life is very
predictable, where they feel they cant fail because they know what they
need to do each day to maintain a status quo. They cant truly succeed
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at anything, but avoiding the fear of failure outweighs that negative for
many people.
People get stuck in that box and are afraid to step out because
they dont know whats outside of that safe environment. They dont
know whats going to happen if they leave their box, and they wont
act unless they can be certain of the outcome. Their mind monsters
offer many good excuses why they must never get out of the box: What
would happen if you failed? Would people think of you as a failure? Could
you live with yourself if you failed?
Heres the truth: If you havent failed, then you really havent lived
up to your potential, because you havent attempted anything significant enough that pushes you outside of your comfort level.
Just do it.
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Most of the mistakes Ive made in my life were made in the heat
of the moment. I had a short-term perspective, was just looking at the
circumstances. When I fall back into that kind of knee-jerk behavior,
my wife Indy has a great saying to help me regain perspective. She says,
The storys not finished yet.
By taking the time to write down your goals, you automatically
move into a long-term perspective. You remember what it is youre
trying to accomplish, and you remember who it is youre trying to
become. Then, when short-term obstacles pop up, you can respond
according to your spelled-out life goals, rather than reacting in the
moment on your emotions, or reacting by asking, Well, what would
everybody else do? A much better question to ask in those moments
is: Given the person I want to become and what I want to accomplish,
what is the wise thing to do in this situation? And respond to that
question, rather than reacting to the situation.
3. Your goals tell your brain what to focus on and what to think about.
Remember all those puzzle pieces? When you have written goals, you
have clarity on what the final picture should look like. And that helps
put those 64,000 daily thoughts into some useful order.
Men may have a greater challenge in this category. Of those
64,000 thoughts that we have, up to 60,000 of them are about one
thing (do I really need to tell you what it is?). So we have to work a
little harder to really make sure that were focused on what we want to
accomplish, and to write those goals down, so we tell our brain what to
focus on and what to think about. Left to its own agenda, it certainly
knows how to amuse itself.
4. You build self-condence as you take action and begin accomplishing goals. The following is a personal example. When I wrote down
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my goal for running a road race, I stated it like this: It is July 4, 1986
and I just ran the Peachtree Roadrace (10K) in less than 40 minutes.
A 10K is a 6.2-mile race. Running it in under 40 minutes is a
challenging goal for someone whos not a dedicated, everyday runner.
To achieve this goal, I found a running expert and asked him, What
do I need to do in order to run a sub-40 10K? I have four months to
train.
This expert was an All-American track runner in college, and he
developed an action plan for me that had many smaller, specific goals.
And I wrote each of those specific goals down. Accomplishing each
small goal gave me the confidence to tackle the next one, and they grew
progressively more dicult.
Running 6.2 miles in under 40 minutes breaks down to math.
You need to maintain a pace thats well under a seven minute mile. At
first, I needed to build endurance and speed. I needed to be able to
run a quarter mile in less than 1.5 minutes, and then run a half-mile
in under three minutes, and then run a mile in under six minutes. As
I followed the action plan, my runs became longer, stretching from
two miles to four, then to six and eight. By the end of my four-month
training regimen, I was on course to achieve my goal and running a sub
40-minute 10K race.
I finished the 10K in 38 minutes and 47 seconds. I didnt have a
clue how I was going to do it when I started; I could barely run a halfmile. But I accomplished this personally meaningful goal by following
a plan that you can use for any goal:
1. I decided what I wanted to do and produced a clear, defined
WRITTEN goal.
2. I enlisted an experts help to develop a plan of action.
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not only cared about winning, but he cared even more about how he
won.
A surprising fact? For the first 16 years he was at UCLA, he didnt
win championships. He even had a losing record for some of that time.
But he had compelling goals, and he always had his players establish
compelling goals. For 16 years he persevered with a plan, grooming
people to buy into his plan. He had a dream; he had a vision.
He set college basketball records that many believe will never be
surpassed. Heres whats really ironic: If John Wooden were coaching
today at a Division One school with a losing record, they would likely
fire him after the first two or three years. Allow him to remain the
coach without winning any tournaments or events for 16 years? That
would be unthinkable today.
7. You have a means of correcting your course to arrive at your destination. Remember the Narcissus, heading for the Bahamas? When we
were adrift at sea, we had to readjust our course. And we changed our
goal from going to the Bahamas to just getting back to land. Similarly,
if Stefany had been searching for work for 15 months without finding
her dream job, instead of five, she might have had to change her course.
This isnt settling for second best, or reacting to circumstances of the
moment; its adjusting your course in a very purposeful way when its
necessary to do so.
Businesses have to do this all the time, though some will stubbornly stick to obsolete goals far too long, even when its obvious they
should change course.
To get to the heart of this, I always ask clients to answer three
questions honestly:
1. Whats working? Whats working in your business? Whats
working in your life? Whats working in your marriage?
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accomplish and you never fail, you wont ever learn what youre really
capable of.
9. Your goal-building helps you create the future in advance. I have
six pictures that represent a goal for every area of my life. Im looking
at them now. Its the picture of what I want to do, and of what I want
to be in the future.
Actually, the writing of this
book is a result of putting it on
my visual goal map, as a daily
reminder of what Im trying to
accomplish.
Heres the way it works:
The pictures you create in your
head turn into the reality you
hold in your hand. Anything
that was ever accomplished in
this worldthe greatest athletic
feats, the greatest scientific
feats, the greatest romances,
the greatest achievementsall
started as an idea or a vision or
a dream in somebodys mind.
And they didnt happen until
they were written down and
somebody took action to make
them happen.
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10. You stay on the oensive. Playing life to win is playing offense, not
defense. Playing defense is playing not to lose. I meet so many people
who play life not to lose. They play defense; they protect themselves,
they live in a sheltered world where they dont step out to see what
theyre really capable of doing.
Ive found that many business people in our volatile economy are
stuck in their businesses because theyre playing defense, and trying to
protect themselves from not losing, rather than playing offense and
being creative and taking action to make their product or service more
relevant in the current environment.
The people who are creative and make their product or service
more relevant in this marketplace are the ones who are thriving.
Remember, almost 70 percent of the current Fortune 500 companies
were started in a down economy.
When you play oense, you take control. In sports, a good
offense really is your best defense. In the last 15 years, teams with
offenses ranked in the top five have won more Super Bowls than teams
with top-five defenses. Offense is where its at. Its making something
happen, being creative, moving forward andabove alltaking
action.
When you stand up and take action, good things begin to happen.
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He sat down with his wife and wrote his idea down on a napkin. Seven
years later he had a $3 billion dollar company.
In 2008, Bill and I were working together at a Get Motivated
event in Roanoke, Virginia, before an audience of about 10,000 people.
We were scheduled to zip off to the airport to catch our departing
flight, right after the presentation.
Naturally, as we got out to the parking lot, everybody was leaving
at the same time. There was complete gridlock. No one was moving.
We knew if we sat there much longer, we were going to miss our flight.
Suddenly, Bill jumped out of the car and disappeared into the
crowd of people and autos. About five minutes later, cars started
moving. As we got closer to the exit of the parking lot, we could see
Bill standing in the middle of the bottleneck point, directing trac!
He was the picture of calm authority, pointing, waving and signaling to
each driver. In 10 minutes, we were out of the parking lot and speeding
to the airport. We made that flight with time to spare.
I guess thats why hes a billionaire, I remember thinking. He
didnt let circumstances dictate his fate. He got up and took action.
He took responsibility. You cant do one without the other. When he
took action, he took responsibility for changing the circumstances that
10,000 people found themselves in. And when he took that responsibility, he had to make something positive happen.
Many people are stuck in their own gridlock; letting circumstances
(or their perceptions of their circumstances) dictate what happens to
them. They sit there and wait for something to change instead of taking
action.
Nothing happens until you take action.
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ChaPTer 4:
FIND YOUR GENIUS
Dont ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what
makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because
what the world needs is people who have come alive.
harolD WhitmaN
F i N D Yo u r g E N i u s
your personal mission, you become more creative, energetic and passionate. Like a child at play, you become totally absorbed in the pursuit
of your goals because your goals are in sync with what youre all about.
According to the depth of which you draw your life,
such is the depth of your accomplishment.
ralPh WalDo EmErsoN
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motivation in life because youll have a clear direction, and it will give
meaning to your life.
If you recall the letter my fathers friend wrote to my family after
my dad had passed away, it stated, Your dad was ahead of his time in
anticipating the needs of others and taking action to meet those needs.
He was a counselor and a friend to those who were lost or stumbled.
He had personal magic, and gave a lift and brought a smile to those he
met each day. In the eyes of God and the eyes of man, your dad lived
a successful life.
To me, that illustrates a life lived with purpose and clarity. Even
though I didnt know this about my dad, other people saw him as
having an evident sense of purpose. We all share a common purpose
of learning and growing, but within that larger purpose we must find
our genius.
Your genius is your unique path to learning, growing and contributing to the world. No matter how far you stray from your genius
it is always waiting for you, because no one but you can fulfill it. Every
life experience, no matter how random it may seem, can be utilized to
your advantage. It can fuel your genius. As I like to say, everything you
have experienced in life has prepared you for what youre about to do.
When you arrive at your genius, you will know it.
A sense of destiny will come over you as you come to understand
the difference in the world that only you are equipped to make. The
more you experience your genius, the more you will be drawn into it.
Tinges of dissatisfaction will fade. You will enjoy invigorating surges of
self-worth as you let go of the need to compare yourself with others.
You will be healthier, more prosperous and full of joy.
We spend a lot of our lives wishing we could act like him, or
look like her, or be as successful as him. When you unlock your
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2. This purpose for your life will align with your unique gifts,
talents and a combination of other factors.
3. The activities and pursuits that you find most enjoyable
and attractive are the best indicators of strong talent and
giftedness.
4. When you engage in activities that demand your special talent,
your brain releases chemicals that trigger within you a sense of
satisfaction and significance as an incentive for you to keep it
up. Its a positive reinforcement mechanism that is part of our
perfect design. These talents get converted into strengths and
eventually genius if we sustain the course long enough.
5. Your unique combination of talents, life experiences and
personality merge together and spark a vision or dream
within you. The more you engage in your strengths, the
more crystallized your ultimate vision becomes.
6. With this dream imprinted on your mind, you become very
intrinsically motivated, requiring less and less prodding from
the outside. You become inner-directed, and self discipline
becomes effortless.
7. This whole process is contrarian and countercultural. Instead
of competing to max out their potential, most people
compete to keep up with each other. They are in the wrong
race. Philosophically they tend to desire comfort more than
character. Strategically, they often find themselves in the
wrong career. Tactically, theyve resigned themselves to simply
enjoying their evenings, weekends and vacations. Thats the
very definition of the rat race. My friend Pat Morley says in
his book The Man in the Mirror, When youre in rat race,
even if you win, youre still a rat. Think about that. When
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youre in the rat race, even if you win, youre still a rat. This
leads us to
8. The dream in your heart wont come to fruition by accident.
Naturally, there is a price for all of this, one that requires you
to surrender the concept of safety and comfort in exchange for the
higher and more significant reward of living the life you were intended
to live, and leaving your unique mark on the world. You must grant
yourself a promotion and escape from your personal comfort zone if
you want to become a difference-maker. We all have the tendency to
get complacent and comfortable. Its like having a box around you, and
as you step beyond the borders of that box, you start to get an uneasy
feeling because you dont know what lies beyond that border. As Ive
mentioned previously, youre afraid of what people might think if you
try something and fail. Youre afraid of failure itself. Youre afraid of
succeeding. Youre afraid of the unknown, so you never wander beyond
the borders of that self-contained box. I have spent most of my life
trying to get myself out of that box, and, having learned how, it is now
my purpose and passion to help other people and organizations get
themselves out of that box.
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do this before you have the money, before you have the confidence and
even before you have the blessing of those closest to you.
The rst step is unconditional resolve. You must draw a line in
the sand. Then the plan will come, the resources will emerge, and
with all thought of retreat cast asideyou become an unstoppable
force. It reminds me of the historical account of De Sotos landing on
the shore of what is now Florida.
When the Spanish conqueror Hernando De Soto reached the
New World five centuries ago, he ordered his troops inland. They
marched along as ordered until they came to a rise. Looking back, they
saw the smoke and flames of burning shipsthe ships theyd arrived
on. Now they knew they had no alternative. They could not go back.
The only decision they could make was to move forward, do battle, and
defeat the enemy and win the cause.
What ships do you need to burn so that you dont have an excuse
to go backwards?
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ference between dreams that come to life and dreams that dont are the
actions or inactions of the dreamer. I cant tell you how many people
approach me with ideas but are afraid to take the first step. I always ask
them this question: Are you willing to mortgage your house and everything you have and invest it in this idea?
Most often the response is, No, thats why I came to you.
My response is always, If youre not willing to invest in it, why
should I be willing to invest in it?
The point is, most people arent really committed to their ideas.
Rather, theyre committed to the idea of the idea, but are unwilling to
follow through and sacrifice and take the steps to make it happen. Successful people follow their dreams by getting them out of their head
and down on paper so they can take action on a daily basis. They dont
always succeed, but they learn, they grow and have information for next
time. What do you secretly want to do with your life? Can you exercise
the courage to honestly identify where you have been uniquely blessed,
where you have special talents and abilities? If you dont know, pray about
it, ask your spouse or ask your friends. But whatever you do, seek it out.
I believe every person has the ability to become outstanding at
in at least one pursuit if they are strategically selective and they throw
their whole heart into it. Excellence and the abundant opportunities that
come with it can only be achieved if you do what you love and love what
you do, focusing on your unique strengths to the exclusion of all else.
If youre not passionate and excited about what you do, how can
you expect anyone else to be?
The concept of genius is closely aligned with two major principles of
peak personal performance: The Strength Principle, which states that by
focusing on your strengths you ultimately render your weaknesses irrelevant, and the 80/20 Principle, which states that 80 percent of your results
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come from only 20 percent of your input. Over the course of my career,
I have seen it time and time again. In business, 20 percent of your clients,
20 percent of your customers, 20 percent of your actions, will produce 80
percent of your results. In relationships, its the same way: 20 percent of
your input creates 80 percent of what comes out the other side.
What exactly is your genius? Your genius is a set of related activities that, collectively, produce superior results in the marketplace,
whether youre an athlete, a pastor, a business leader, an entrepreneur,
in law enforcement or a teacher. Everyone has a marketplace, a group
of people they are charged with serving in one way or another. When
you operate in your genius, you produce outstanding results. Best of all,
these outcomes are generated with an investment of time and effort that
is disproportionately smallas long as its properly calculated.
Your genius is where you are most fully leveraged. This is where you
can work less and earn more. This is where you can do less but become
much more. This is where you can significantly increase the dollar value
of each hour of your time. This is where youre capable of making the
greatest difference or contribution in the world and create the most
influence on others.
Courage is rightly the foremost of virtues for upon it all others depend.
WiNstoN churchill
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How often do you talk about what you do for a living? When youre
out socially, when youre around other people, when youre having lunch,
when youre at the ballpark? Im not talking about being overbearing and
always trying to sell somebody, but the first time you meet people, the
first question they ask is: What do you do for a living? Do you respond
with passionate enthusiasm or do you just say, Im a clerk.
Lyndon Johnson was on a tour of NASAs Mission Control in
Houston when he came across a particularly energetic and enthusiastic
janitor. Johnson said, Young man, I just cant get over it. I never met
a janitor who was as energetic and as passionate as you are. The young
man replied, Mr. President, Im not just a janitor. Im part of a team of
people that put a man on the moon!
How do you think about what you do? Are you just a janitor? Or
are you part of a team of people that put a man on the moon? The way
you think about what you do makes all the difference about the passion
and energy you exude to other people and if you arent passionate about
what you do, how can you expect anyone else to be?
2. Never stop learning: In your area of genius, youll notice that learning
new information takes little time and comes quite easily. New concepts
are easily visualized and quickly integrated into your existing knowledge
base. Just as important, the learning process is fun. Never-ending
improvement comes naturally. Your area of genius is characterized by a
vivid, clear and almost perfect memory. Facts, figures, dates, names, conversations and key points related to your genius activities are effortlessly
recalled when needed.
Im a voracious reader on the subject of health and fitness. I love to
read articles and books that talk about the latest breakthroughs. I make
it a point to stay up on it, not just so I can share it with everybody
else, but so I know for myself and I can take advantage of cutting-edge
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question: Do you get to use your greatest strength every day at work?
Amazingly, 8 out of 1080 percent!said they do not get to use their
greatest strength every day at work. That means that 80 percent of us are
yearning to work in our genius, but the environment we work in doesnt
allow it. Companies are losing billions of dollars collectively because
people arent working at what they do best.
I realize that at times we all need to do certain things. When you
have a boss and youre working for a company, it is very dicult to
launch out on your own and do your own thing. But the more you
can gravitate towards understanding what you do best, the more positive
contributions youll make to the company. If you run your own business,
it will help create more revenue and more downtime for you to spend
with your family.
6. Wing it: For a good portion of my life, I would do little prep before
I got up and spoke to people. I would just get up and wing it because
I really didnt know any better, and I was amazed that I received great
feedback. If theres something in your life you do well and get great
results from without much preparation, pay attention to that. It might
be a sign that you are working in your genius.
The above are all clues to discovering your genius. What follows
are the roadblocks to nding your genius. When you notice these roadblocks, go around them or over them or through them. You owe it to
your team and to yourself.
The foreign-concept roadblock: Most people are unaware of the concept
of genius and thus are uncomfortable associating themselves with it. Its
simply inconsistent with their self-concept. To most of the world, work
is something done for the sole purpose of paying bills, and enjoying
evenings, weekends and, ultimately, retirement. In that same Gallup poll
mentioned above, 86 percent of the people reported that they would
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found that every time we doubled in size, the person who had been the
perfect manager in a given position quickly became obsolete, because
they could not handle fast-track growth. Its not a reflection on that
person. The company simply outgrew their experience. I found we
needed to hire people for where we were going, not where wed been
or where we were.
The Lone Ranger mentality: This approach works for a while and then
you and your horse hit a wall. Ive seen many a startup superstar who
wouldnt give up certain parts of their business to others, even if it
would improve production. Some dont want to share the credit or
split the pie into another piece, even if it means the pie would be much
bigger. This is called the scarcity mentality, and its the opposite of
huge thinking.
I know what I know, but more importantly, I know what I dont
know. Most of my success has come from surrounding myself with
people who were much smarter than me. Someone once said, it would
be amazing what we could accomplish if we didnt care who got credit
for doing it. That person was right. If you are part of a team thats
working together with a consistent vision and mission, it will improve
the productivity of everybody when you empower them to do what
they need to do. When you sustain them, encourage them, compliment them, praise them and then constantly communicate your vision,
the environment will be such that goals have a much higher chance of
being realized.
The roadblock of mediocre hiring: This ones quite obviousyou get
what you pay for. Some of the biggest breakthroughs for our clients
occur when they hire an extremely able assistant who can take care
of their non-genius workload. They become much more productive.
With an average support staff, youll never acquire the confidence to
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unload the activities that are holding you back the most. With good
support staff, your output wont just be increased, it will be multiplied.
You can double or even triple your results over time.
When I was a partner in the 1% Club, the people who were
engaged in and practiced our coaching and accountability techniques
doubled or tripled their income in 12 to 18 months. This is not only
possible, its probable. And if you diligently apply these principles to
your entire life, you will see results. It wont happen passively or conservatively, you must be willing to break convention. You must be revolutionary or maybe even somewhat eccentric. When youve risen to the
next peak of super-effectiveness, youll find it hard to believe you used
to operate in any other way.
When I was trying to find my genius, I sent a letter to the people
around mepeople that I worked with, some family members, some
friends, and people who had interacted with me on business dealings. I
asked them two questions: In your observation, what are my greatest
strengths? and What do you feel I am most passionate about?
You can send the same letter, and it will either validate what you
already know or help you identify things that you werent aware of.
When we are acting in our genius, it comes so naturally, were often not
aware of it. The other part of this? You realize that those genius things
youve been giving away for free can earn you compensation.
If you still think you need more help in determining your genius
after using the clues Ive given you, and sending letters to those people
around you and receiving feedback, there are a variety of places you
can find tests and assessments that will help you uncover your genius.
One of my favorites is located at www.thediscpersonalitytest.com, and
is a series of tests from Kolbe (www.Kolbe.com) that Ive found very
helpful. Another assessment Ive used is called the StrengthsFinder
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ChaPTer 5:
WH E N T H E W I L L TO W I N M E E T S
T H E W I L L TO P R E PA R E
Im not afraid to die on a treadmill. I will not be outworked.
You may be more talented than me. You might be smarter than
me. And you may be better looking than me. But if we get on
a treadmill together you are going to get o first or Im going to
die. Its really that simple. Im not going to be outworked.
Will smith
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2:03, and as I crossed the line, I fell down from exhaustion. I left it all
on the course.
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Here are six steps to becoming more disciplined and putting the
X-Factor to work in your life.
1. be a true student of your craft or profession
To continue earning more, you have to keep learning more. What can
you do to learn more about your profession? The more you can learn,
the more you can contribute to it. What can you read? What seminars
can you attend? In general, the more you learn about your profession,
the more youll be compensated.
2. Give more value than youre paid for
I cant overemphasize this. When you go the extra mile, you wont
find many other competitors on the road. Give your customers, your
employees, your colleagues and your family more than they expect.
When you bring more value to the table than expected, people respond
positively. And that goes for everyone, in all areas of life.
For example, when I speak to a group, I go the extra mile by
calling some members in the group ahead of time and asking, What
do you really hope to get out of the seminar? Ill ask what their greatest
challenges are at the current time. Ill ask how the time that Ill be with
them would be most profitable to them.
The benefits of this are clear: I give a targeted presentation thats
tailored directly to the group Im addressing that day, and I know that
people wont be leaving the seminar disappointed.
The downside? I dont have the luxury of doing canned
presentations.
In 17 years, youre the only speaker who ever called ahead of time
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exactly what he said during those moments before they got up to buy
the Juicer.
We continually refined and tweaked the seminar until we knew
with great reliabilitythat 22.6 percent of the people who attended
the free seminar would buy a Juicer.
Now, lets fast forward 12 months. We were putting together a
direct marketing TV program, aka an infomercial. I took all of the
information that we had learned over a year and a half of the seminars
and applied it to a direct marketing program.
Given my research and my notes, I knew the words we needed to
say. I knew the concepts and specific selling points that made people
get up and purchase our product. When we put it on TV in an infomercial, we didnt hope it would work; we expected it to work. We had
done our homework. And the infomercial was just as effective as the
seminars.
We knew it would be.
Had we not gone through all of that preparation with the free
seminars, and just put together a TV marketing plan without knowing
how people would respond to the selling points, we would have lost a
lot of time, effort, and money.
Now, dont get me wrong. Just because you prepare meticulously
in advance and you do everything youre supposed to do doesnt mean
you can control the outcome with utter certainty. But when you
prepare in advance, and put great effort into that preparation, you are
drastically increasing the odds of achieving the outcome you seek.
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4. become an expert
In the hours youll spend preparing for success, you can reap an
extremely worthwhile and unexpected reward that may change the
course of your life.
You become an expert in a specific field or topic.
How much time? In his book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell
wrote that it takes 10,000 hours of focused practice at a fairly high level
to become an expert at whatever profession you choose to pursue. This
typically takes a minimum of 10 years.
This makes sense, whether youre looking at doctors or lawyers,
or professional football or basketball players. Many start working on
their craft early, whether through reading or hobbies, or organized
team sports. Especially for athletes, their practice usually intensifies
greatly through the four years of high school and four additional years
in college. If they join the pro ranks right out of college, most need two
more years of solid practice before they start performing well.
Quarterback Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts is a
prime example. He had losing seasons his first two years as a pro and
didnt play particularly well, but in the years that followed he set the
standard for quarterback play in the NFL. Thats certainly 10-plus
years of dedicated practice. Its not dicult to see how someone could
compile 10,000 hours of active experience if they live, eat and breathe
their sport or profession during that decade.
Again, its more than just putting in time. If youve been driving
an automobile for 30 years, youre probably no more proficient at it
now than you were 15 years agoeven though youve put in thousands
of hours of practice time. Those 10,000 hours need to be spent performing at a challenging level that forces you to learn and growand
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A lot of professional
doing it one small piece at a time.
athletes can make it to the
top level of competition on
talent alone. They could cut it in the pros and be an average player.
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But when they take the discipline of preparing every day with their
passion, and they get a coach or a mentor to continually help them
play their position better, it can take them to the elite level.
If you want to become an expert in your industry or field, you
need to find a mentor. Find a person who has already achieved success
in the field and, if you dont have a personal connection with them,
ask them for an hour of their time.
And pay them if necessary.
I have done this many times. Ive paid people their hourly rate to
sit down and pick their brains. I have paid people $1,000 to sit down
with them for 90 minutes of their time. You might think thats crazy, but
what if I tell you that those 90 minutes gave me an idea that generated
$50,000 in revenue? Would that sound crazy? This actually happened
to me. I consulted with a seasoned expert when I was in the middle of
negotiating a contract with a client, and the advice he gave me netted
an additional $50,000 of income in the first 60 days of the deal. People
have paid me thousands of dollars for my advice, and some of them have
made millions from it.
Ive paid mentors for their advice, but there have been many
other people who gave me free advice, or took the time to coach me
and mentor me without asking for payment. These relationships and
the wisdom theyve imparted have been the basis for some of my most
satisfying successes in several areas of my life.
For example, my wife and I knew an older couple that mentored
us on how to be a better husband and a better wife. We looked to them
for this purpose because they expressed the same values and stood for the
same principles that we did. We said to them, Look, 25 years from now,
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wed love to have a relationship like you have. What do we need to do?
They talked to us at length and they gave us the benefit of their wisdom.
I cant tell you how many times in business I have reached out to
people for advice.
And its often unbelievable how eager people are to share their
wisdom with you, to give you the benefit of their experience. Just make
certain that wisdom is truly all youre seeking. If your motives are suspect,
or if you want to get something other than advice from an expert or a
potential mentor, youre using that person and asking to be burned.
I remember a young man who called me and said he really admired
my accomplishments, and asked if I would be willing to have a cup of
coffee with him. I knew this young mans parents, though I didnt know
him very well, so I agreed to spend an hour with him.
When I showed up for this meeting, he brought his boss with him.
He didnt tell me he was bringing anyone with him, which was discourteous and unprofessional. To make matters worse, his boss had one motive:
To persuade me to buy the product he was selling. I sat at that table for
an excruciating 30 minutes. Then I said, Im sorry, Im going to have to
cut this meeting short. Thank you and have a good day.
I promptly telephoned this young man. Im really disappointed,
I said to him. I was prepared to give you an hour of my time and to give
you some wisdom that I have learned over the last 30 years. But instead, I
hope youll learn a valuable lesson from the mistake you made today. In
a nutshell, I told him to always let people know what your agenda is for
requesting a meeting, and to always inform them that other people will
be attending (or ask their permission before inviting other people). I told
him it would be a long time before I would agree to meet with him again.
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That might sound pretty harsh. But I believe that it was the best
thing I could have done for that young man in the situation, to help
him learn. You must have the right motives when you ask someone
to give you their advice. You have to care about the other person. If
you dont, youve broken a social contract that has helped generations of highly motivated, ethical people achieve their dreams. When
you find someone who will graciously coach or mentor youeven if
youre paying themalways remember to ask, How can I help you
in return?
u s e a P e n , noT a KeyboarD
When you meet with somebody
and they give you your time, write
them a handwritten note. Especially these days, a handwritten
note of appreciation means so
much more than an email. People
arent used to getting handwrit-
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Sales
Marriage
Marketing
Spiritual Growth
Health
Parenting
High integrity
Exceptionally experienced
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128
ChaPTer 6:
GET RID OF THE JUNK!
Stop acting as if life is a rehearsal. Live this day as if it were your
last. The past is over and gone. The future is not guaranteed.
W aY N E D Y E r
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g E t r i D o F t h E J u N K !
watching TV, one of our neighbors came running in and said, Johnny
fell in the lake and David cant find him. David was my other brother.
I ran down to the lake. I remember David standing on the raft,
panicked, and just screaming, I cant find Johnny! I took off my shirt
and pants and dove into the lake. I swam frantically, trying to find my
brother. But I couldnt. Neither could the rest of my family.
Within hours, several hundred people were lined up around the
fence outside our lake. There were ambulances, fire trucks, and police
cars. Out on the water was a rescue boat with those hooks they throw
overboard when they want to find a body.
I remember standing there, after three hours, as they finally found
my little brother.
I was 15. I was just starting to recover from the loss of my dad.
I didnt know how to deal with the grief of this loss, and, in time, it
became more heavy baggage that I carried through life.
Several years later, we would lose my brother David, too.
David was five years behind me in school. He was a fine athlete
and a leader as well, the captain of his West Point baseball team. In
May of 1983, my family was planning a big reunion up at West Point
to celebrate his graduation. On a Sunday morning two weeks before
Davids commencement, someone from the college phoned our home.
There had been an auto accident the night before, after a baseball game.
My brother was a passenger in a car that was part of the accident. He
had been killed instantly. Still today, I cant hold back tears when I
recall that awful loss. A huge void still wells up in me.
My brothers funeral was held at West Point. Instead of gathering
there for a family reunion and graduation festivities, we stood together
in shock and grief. The night before Davids funeral, on Friday evening,
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the cadets gathered in what they call The Quad for a moment of silence
at midnight. And they called out the full Corps of Cadets. And after
that moment of silence, they played taps. It was just like a scene from
a movie.
If youve never been to West Point, it is in an incredible setting. I
see it as vividly today as I did when I was experiencing it so many years
ago. On the day of the funeral, I remember going to the banks of the
Hudson River, and arriving at the cathedral where they were having his
service. The band was playing America the Beautiful as they brought
the American flag-draped casket into the chapel. Then the mourners
filed in. There must have been 1,500 people in that chapel.
The family members had been asked if we wanted to give a
eulogy, or just take a moment to say something about David. I didnt
volunteer. My older sister said a few words. Then many West Point
cadets, teachers, coaches and friends of Davids spoke. Hearing their
words, I realized I had feelings and thoughts I needed to share. I made
my way to the front of the chapel and looked out at the crowd of
people.
I told a few brief stories of the things my brother and I had done
together. I mentioned the time when I was his coach in high school,
and also his substitute teacher. He and a bunch of the other football
players were in my seventh period class, and I fell asleep because I was
up till 3 a.m. the night before. When I woke up, they were all gone!
Finally, I said, Out of all the things I did with my brother, I
never told him that I loved him. Dont wait until its too late. Tell the
people who are closest to you how much they mean to you and how
much you love them because you never know how much more time
youre going to have to spend with them.
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Im not sharing these stories so you will feel sorry for me. Ive
had dicult losses of loved ones that have shaped who I am. I share
these stories to emphasize that, in some way, shape or form; we are all
adult children of dysfunctional families. We all have pain and tragedy
weighing on us, and we really have two choices in life: We can drag our
past with us, use it as an excuse for why we cant succeed, or we can
learn to live with it and use it to help other people.
Its common to try and keep the worst of this bad stuff locked
away. The deepest, darkest secrets we carry have a huge effect, despite
the silence around them. It could be the pain we feel from the loss of
a loved one, or from an action or a mistake that we made in the past
and still regret. We think that if anybody ever knew these secrets, they
would never respect us or talk to us again. But when you bring that
thing out into the open, and deal with it, it not only frees you up to
become everything you were meant to be, but it also becomes a great
opportunity to help others who are struggling with the same issue.
I have personally found that in my life, those secrets that Ive
kept, and the things that I regard as tragic mistakes or regretswhen I
brought them out in the open, it freed me. It gave me the opportunity
to say to someone who was hurting, Ive been where you are, and
heres how I got unstuck. If I can do it, you can do it, too.
Of course, it took me time to reach that point.
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external things. But I learned that regardless of what I did to mask the
pain, I would wake up the next day to find my junk was still there.
If youre struggling with personal issues and pain, and trying to
mask it, youll learn what I learned, if youre fortunate. You can do lots
of things to mask that pain, but until you bring it out in the open and
learn to deal with it, you will never have peace.
I remember a benchmark moment that occurred when I was
in church almost 20 years ago. Our minister, Frank Harrington, was
preaching a sermon, talking about how we can best deal with the bad
things that happened to us in the past. He related stories of people that
had suffered tragedy upon tragedy, along with smaller-scale mishaps
and failures.
Then he said, There comes a point in your life when regardless of
what has happened to you in your past, you need to take responsibility for
who you are and where you are today. I was sitting there with hundreds
of other people, but I felt like he was talking directly to me. I had so much
stuff happen in my life and such trouble making sense of it all.
That sermon lit a spark under me. I took action to deal with the
junk that was holding me back by seeking out the advice of a friend,
Dr. Mark Crawfordand this friend just happened to charge me $175
an hour to listen to me. He said, Steve, we all have demons running
around the house, and the secret is to keep them locked in the basement
so they dont take over the whole house.
And then he handed me a little skeleton key. And he said, I
want you to use this as a visual reminder that when those demons start
to pop up in your life, you bring this out and lock them back in the
basement. And I still carry that key with me as a visual reminder to
keep my demons locked in the basement.
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Now, this doesnt mean that you shouldnt deal with your issues.
If you need to seek professional help, do it. But you dont let those
demons prevent you from living the life you were meant to live. In
other words, you need to let go of that junk thats holding you back. If
you cant let it go, you must at least decide that you wont use it as an
excuse or a reason why you cant do something in life.
If you adopt a victim mentality, it holds you back. When you
think somebody owes you something, or that somebody has to do
something for you because of the things that you experienced in your
past, youre not letting yourself live the life that you were meant to live.
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J u nK is a byProDuCT of ProDuCTiViT y
Junk is a product of our past mistakes and past decisions, and a product
of disorganization. But junk is also the byproduct of productivity. Let me
give you an example. My wife Indy is an incredible cook. She loves to
serve her homemade, three-cheese ravioli with sage and butter sauce.
Im getting hungry just thinking about it.
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When she cooks, her goal is to create an excellent meal. But in the
process she uses every pot and every pan in the kitchen. Flour ends up
everywhere. Before shes finished, it really looks like a tornado came in
through the kitchen.
Now, remember, the goal was to create an excellent meal: Threecheese ravioli with sage and butter sauce. But in the process she created
a mess, basically leaving a trail of junk. Thats not a bad thingunless
you dont clean it up. Thankfully for her, thats something I love to do.
But most people dont clean up the junk thats the byproduct of
their productivity. They let it pile up. Now, imagine starting to cook
meal six when you havent cleaned up any of junk left by the previous
five meals. Imagine all the pots, pans, dishes, and silverware are still
sitting in the kitchen. That would create congestion and confusion,
and make it dicult for you to cook an excellent meal. It would make
cooking more stressful, less fun, and the results and the quality would
be extremely diminished.
You face exactly the same challenges and complexities in business
and life in general. When were productive, we sometimes leave a trail
of clutter and junk behind us. And if we dont take the time to clean it
up (or hire somebody to clean it up), it makes it more dicult for us to
continue performing at that same level.
This means we are always going to have some level of junkof
mess and clutteraround us. Its a natural byproduct of life. Some of
it is preventable, but some of it is not. You must deal with it swiftly and
consistently, orin timethe junk will consume you.
There are six specific types of junk that I want to identify.
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1. Physical junk
The storage industry is one of the fastest-growing businesses in the
country because we are all pack rats. We love to collect and accumulate
junk, but we hate to part with it. And the average person accumulates
a massive amount of junk.
An example: We recently sold a home in Atlanta we had lived in
for almost 15 years. My wife and I raised four children in that house,
and now that they are all grown up, it was simply too big for just the
two of us. It was a rather large house, with ten bathrooms and seven
bedrooms. And, of course when you have all those rooms, and all those
shelves and spaces, you think you have to fill them up with stuff. You
cant have a big, empty house, right?
In the process of preparing for the move, we found that the stuff
we accumulated over time was absolutely overwhelming. There were
boxes in the attic. Every closet was chock-full. We discovered possessions we didnt even know we had. My wife and I set a goal: We werent
going to put a single thing in storage. We agreed to sell or donate
everything we didnt need.
It was a painful process and a very emotional one. We came up
with guidelines and had dear friends hold us accountable to them. If
we hadnt worn a piece of clothing or used an article for one year, it had
to go. We accomplished our goal, but it wasnt easy.
Sorting through the sentimental items was the most dicult.
We all have those things that we think we might want one day, but
what we found out was that we really didnt need very much, as long
as we had each other. In almost all cases, youre better off parting
with those reminders of your past that you dont absolutely cherish.
Its amazing how much you can simplify your life when you take the
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time to get organized and get the physical junk and clutter out of your
environment.
When you keep a messy environment, it tends to make you less
productive. You can control your physical environment by cleaning up
the messes you have around you and staying more organized.
2. financial junk
We all have too many credit cards. Many of us have too many bank
accounts. Others have too many accounts payable and accounts receivable on top of it all. And the vast majority of people I meet dont have a
financial plan, or they have an out-of-date financial plan. Not surprisingly, they find that more money is always going out than is coming in,
and theyre living beyond their means.
My wife and I were part of a pilot for a TV show called The
American Dream (unfortunately, it never launched). We worked with
a nationally acclaimed financial author and radio personality. And his
stats showed that seven out of ten people live paycheck to paycheck and
are in deep debt.
We also served on the board of an organization called Pro-Athletes
Outreach, which is an organization that helps equip athletes to have a
positive impact at home, at work and in the community. Through this
organization, weve learned that a surprising number of former athletes
are in financial ruin.
Consider some statistics for an NFL football player. They play
professionally for an average of about three years. And within 12 to 18
months of leaving the game, 78 percent of former pro football players
are bankrupt or divorced, or both.
Why? Financial clutter, a lack of planning, and just living for today
and not planning for the future. How can a football player making
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$3.5 million a year for three years be bankrupt in just 18 months? Well,
its pretty easy. They (or their spouse) spent $4 million a year.
Dont get hung up on the numbers. It doesnt matter if were
talking about $40,000 per year, $400,000, $4 million, or $40 million.
Its never about the size of the income; its always about lifestyle.
Getting your financial life in order means living a lifestyle thats within
your means. Countless books have been written about this subject. For
our purposes, Ill sum it up this way: When youre carrying a severe
financial burden, its very dicult for you to perform at a high level.
3. legal junk
There are legal vulnerabilities on a personal level and on a business
level. Im talking about not updating documents, or having an out-ofdate will or not having a will at all. Do you know that 80 percent of
people do not have a will?
One of the fastest-growing legal problems out there right now is
identity theft, and this is a growing cause of legal junk (and financial
junk, as a byproduct). When somebody steals your identity, its your
obligation and responsibility to undo the mess. For the average person,
it can take six to twelve months to undo the damage that the criminal
has caused.
Over those six to twelve months, spent untangling the mess
caused by identity theft, a lot more damage is done. During that
period, are you going to be at the top of your game? Are you going to
be productive in the workplace? Are you going to be fully present in
your relationships?
Of course not.
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Cesari for your help in settling this case. Mr. Cesaris idea of benefiting charity through this settlement was very creative and thoughtful.
Mediation of cases like this is clearly better than the risk, anxiety and
expense of going to the courthouse. I enjoyed working with you and
Mr. Cesari. Please extend to him my thanks for his assistance.
I could have fought for the remaining funds; they were significant. I could have demanded that the lawyers work it out. But instead,
I came up with an expedient way to get rid of a huge legal messa
colossal amount of legal junkthat was preventing me from focusing
on my business and my life. It was worth it, many times over.
4. Mental junk
We only have the ability to focus on a limited number of things. When
we spread ourselves too thin and lose focus of whats important, or we
over commit our time or energy, we are heading for breakdown and
failure.
Your brain is just like a computer. Your computer has a limited
amount of RAM, or random access memoryand thats the immediate
working memory that allows the computer to operate. When you open
up several programs at once, you begin to overtax the computers RAM.
So your computer slows down. If you keep opening up more programs,
what finally happens? The computer freezes or crashes.
Again, your brain is just like a computer: It has the RAM to focus
intently on one or two activities at a time, and if you keep giving it
more to focus on without getting rid of those attention-drainers, it will
slow down and eventually crash.
When you have a dozen open programs in your brain, thats
mental junk. We need to be able to compartmentalize the things we
think about, to make sure were staying focused on the things that are
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moving us toward our goals and helping us become the person we want
to become. We need to shut down the programs that cause us to dwell
on past mistakes or what we could or should have done.
5. emotional junk
Emotional junk comes from failing to deal with negative feelings or
emotions. Its guilt, resentment, fear, worry, anxiety. The pain of the
emotions that I felt (but never dealt with) when my dad died, when my
younger brother drowned and when my other brother was killed in a
car accidentthey caused me to carry around a great deal of emotional
junk.
Over 35 years ago, while attending that aforementioned Dale
Carnegie course, I bought one of the books they sell. I still carry it in
my briefcase. Its cover is crinkled and torn and hardly recognizable, but
the words on the inside still resonate today.
The title of the book is How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. In
it, Carnegie listed some fundamental steps for overcoming worry and
anxiety. Ill paraphrase the steps that I found most helpful.
Live in day-type compartments. Deal with what you can control
and deal with it today. Dont project in the future what might or might
not happen because you dont know what tomorrow holds. To face
trouble, ask yourself this question: What is the worst that can possibly
happen? I did that when I started Trillium Health Products. I thought,
Whats the worst that can possibly happen? Well, I can go bankrupt; I
can end up losing everything Ive built; my reputation could suer; people
might not want to associate with me anymore because theyll see me as a
failure.
I sat down and looked at each of those fears, and took the next
mental step: I prepared myself to accept the reality of them coming to
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fruition, and then did all the preparation I could to control the factors I
could. Then I compiled another list of all the positive outcomes, being
in business with my brother, fulfilling a lifetime dream, being my own
boss, traveling to the West Coast and helping to educate others about
good health and proper nutrition. Its a funny thing when you have
two conflicting thoughts; the one you dwell on is usually the one that
will come to pass. I chose to dwell on the later thoughts and develop a
plan of action to make it happen, and it did!
So let me reiterate the message: Stay focused in the present. Learn
from your past mistakes, learn something valuable from them, and then
do things differently in the present. Focus on now. And then respond
to what I call the WIN moment: Whats Important Now? Stay focused
on that, take action, and dont worry about what might or might not
happen tomorrow. Action overcomes fear and worry.
6. relationship junk
Who among us has not carried around some relationship junk thats
affected every other aspect of our life? Ive been married to my wife
Indy for 30 years. Ive noticed that when things are going well at home,
things usually go well for me in business. And when things are disruptive at home, when Im putting off dealing with an issue, it tends to
flow over into my business. (Yes, it works both ways; business issues
certainly tend to overflow into home life. But most people expect this,
because they remain hyper-focused on their business lives. Theyre
usually much more surprised to notice that having diculty in their
relationship will cause diculty in their business.)
Compartmentalizing is key. When youre home, be at home.
When youre doing business, do business. Try to keep them wholly
separate. Sometimes you cant help itthere are emergencies. But
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for the most part, its possible to compartmentalize these two major
spheres of life and still deal with many unexpected issues that come up.
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know they wont be a cancerous force that lingers and grows because,
while youre dealing with them, youre keeping them in their place.
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distract you from doing the things that you need to do. Follow this
advice and you will stay clear and focused on the objectives that you
need to deal with. Youll stay intentional on your own high-priority
tasks instead of dealing with somebody elses stuff.
Those urgent emails you might miss? Believe me, if its truly
urgent, theyll connect with you.
JusT in Ca se
What are the three words that cause more junk and clutter than the rest
of the dictionary contents, combined?
Just. In. Case.
We often dont let go of junk because we think it maymay
benefit us to have it down the road. We will hold onto a relationship, a
job, and countless material things just in case we end up wishing we
had them. We dont want to regret getting rid of themespecially if we
fear that we wont be able to replace them.
This is the scarcity mentality. And its deeply rooted in the just
in case scourge.
I know this might not be the best relationship for me,
but what if I cant find another person like her?
I know this job isnt the best fit, but what if I quit and I
cant get another one?
Ive had this thing sitting in my basement for 20 years,
and I could really use the space. But what if I get rid of it and
then wish I had kept it later?
I better just leave things alone. For now. Just in case.
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your values. You probably already know which choice deserves priority,
and which path you should take. If you have clearly defined, written
goals, they will give you the answer. If being a more attentive father is
one of your top goals, and getting a promotion is one of your bottom
three goals, youll have your answer.
Having clarity doesnt remove all discomfort surrounding your
decision and next steps. Many choices are interrelated. But at least you
wont be the person who lacks clarity and, at any given time, doesnt
know which path or action is truly the most important one to take
based on their individual goals and desires.
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80-20 PrinCiPle
Just as prioritizing is vital to eliminating junk, having a reliable formula
you can apply to all your decision-making is extremely valuable.
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Think about that again. What would happen if you just focused
your time, eort, and energy on the 20 percent of your customers that
generated 80 percent of the income or revenue to your business?
To get a very good grasp on The Pareto Principle, I highly
recommend that you read Living the 80-20 Way, by Richard Koch.
Heres an excerpt from his book:
As you simplify your life, youll notice many positive
changes. Living the simple life means less things done out of
a sense of duty and more done for fun and recreation. Living
the simple life means less routine and more surprises. Living
the simple life means less activities with a low return on your
energy and more activities with a high return on your energy.
Living the simple life means less time waiting or worrying
and more time enjoying what you do. Living the simple life
means seeing less of the people you dont like and more of seeing
the good friends and people you do like. Living the simple
life means less going to the places you dont like and more of
going to the places you do like. Living the simple life means less
phone calls and more time to think. It means less travel and
commuting and more peace and quiet. It means less driving
and more walking and cycling. It means less exercise you dont
like and more exercise you do like. It means fewer crises in your
life and more thinking about how to avoid crises in your life. It
means less taking the rough with the smooth and more taking
the smooth with the smooth. It means less information overload
and more information of specific and special interest. It means
less spending and more giving away and recycling. It means
fewer habits you dont enjoy very much and more daily rituals
you love. It means less big things that make a little dierence
and more little things that make a big dierence.
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Dont let the junk that life throws at you drag you down. Dont
let it prevent you from accomplishing everything you were meant to do
and from becoming the person you were meant to be. Apply the principles and tactics in this chapter, and you will find that you truly can
remove the junk and clutter from your life. Now go make it happen.
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ChaPTer 7:
RESPE C T T H E P O W E R O F E X P O S U R E S
Be around thepeople you want to be like, because
you will be like the people you are around.
sEaN rEichlE
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lifTinG uP V s. PullinG Do Wn
I have a dear friend, Lowery Robinson, who tells a story about speaking
to a group of young children. He asked a young girl to come forward
to the edge of the stage and give him her hand and just stand there.
Lowery used to play professional baseball and was a very fit guy. He
tried to pull this young girl up onto the stage with him, but he pulled
with all his might and he couldnt do it. Then Lowery said to the young
girl, I want you to grab my hand, and try to pull me down off the
stage. Sure enough, she gave one tug and down he came. He turned to
the group and said, Its just like that in life. Its hard to lift people up
to your standards and expectations, and its easy for them to pull you
down to theirs.
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based on what everybody else is doing, regardless of whether its legal, moral
or ethical.
A couple I know told me a story from when their son (whos now
grown) was four years old and had just finished preschool. At a conference with the teacher, they were told that their son was in a class with
several disruptive boys. Now was the time to decide whether hed stay
with this class, or be held back a yeara decision that might affect him
for his entire school career.
You might say, How can someone look at a four-year-old and
make that determination?
The teacher recommended that the parents hold their four-yearold son back a year. If they didnt, he would be with these same boys
for the next ten years. The class behind him, she said, had a group of
children from really solid families. So the parents made the decision
to hold their son back. They decided that this was the best choice for
them and their son, even though it went against the norm.
Now lets fast forward. Its almost 20 years later. Four of those
disruptive boys from the original class have actually been in jail, or are
struggling with alcohol and drug issues. The boy who was held back
a year? He has graduated from college and is currently getting his law
degree. Now, there are no guarantees that his being removed from his
original class was the influential factor in his current success. One cant
automatically assume that he, too, would have gone to jail or struggled
with substance abuse if he had remained with the original group of
disruptive boys. But theres good reason to believe that his being held
back a year, and spending his early childhood with a different set of
peers, was an influential factor in his development.
I find it amazing that the parents recognized the potential negative
impact that the association with those other boys could have on their
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That represents you. When you walk into a room you light it
up, you make it sparkle. Youre a diamond in the rough. You have an
incredible personality that positively impacts other people.
Then I put a rock on the table and said, Do you know what this
represents?
She said, No.
Now, I dont want to use the young mans real name, so lets call
him Bob.
I said, That represents Bob. Bob does not light you up. He does
not help make you sparkle. And you need someone who can make you
sparkle and lift you up and help you be all that you can be.
My daughter began to cry. My wife was frustrated with me for
not telling her ahead of time what I was going to do. But, to this day,
my daughter says, Dad that was one of the most important things you
ever did in my life.
When I asked her if I could share the story in this book she said,
Yes, because I learned such an important, valuable lesson, and I really
want other people to learn it too.
Remember, sometimes we have to bypass the rock to get to the
diamond. Legendary coach Lou Holtz used to ask his potential players
or potential coaching hires three questions that can transform the
quality of any relationship:
Can I trust you? If you cant trust the people in your life,
thats a big red flag, whether its a personal relationship or a
business relationship.
Do you care about me? What are the motives of your business
associates and people in your personal relationships? Do they
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truly care about you, or are they just associating with you to
get to something?
Are you committed to excellence? So many people in so
many companies are just committed to maintaining the
status quo, to just getting by and are not really committed
to continually growing on a personal and professional level.
If the answer to any one of these questions is no, you have
a problem. If you ask yourself the same questions, how would that
impact the choices you make? Remember, this whole book is about
clarity and making proactive decisions. Who you associate with is one
of the most important factors in that quest.
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2. attraction
You are a living magnet. You see this so often with people in dating.
People attract others who conduct their lives in a similar way, or individuals who reflect their most dominant thinking. It follows that
becoming the right person is the fastest way to attract another right
personin dating, business, and any other area of life. Relationships
are basically mirrorsthey reflect the quality and level of our thinking.
When you think well of yourself, for the right reasons, youre going
to attract that same type of person into your life. Remember, clarity
attracts. When youre clear about what youre looking for, youll attract
the right people and the right resources into your life.
3. excluded alternatives
When you choose to allow somebody into your life, you almost subconsciously choose to not allow someone else into your life. Low-value
relationships displace high-value relationships. When youre spending
time with the right people, you arent investing time with the wrong
people.
Please note that when I use the term right people, I dont mean
you should be judgmental in a petty way. Im talking about surrounding yourself with people who are going to lift you up and continually
challenge you and help you grow to be the person you were meant to
be. This doesnt happen by accident.
4. association
You inevitably take on the values, attitudes, beliefs, habits, and even the
body language and mannerisms of the people with whom you spend
the most time.
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7. accountability
Seek relationships and alliances with those who will hold you accountable to ever-higher standards of personal performance. Iron does
sharpen iron. How are your primary associations encouraging you to
grow? One of the common missing links in really helping people grow
is holding them to a higher standard, to the values that are important
in their life, and giving them the permission to tell you when you are
moving away from those values yourself.
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Our fourth game of the season was against the University of Rhode
Island. I sat on the bench as usual and started getting some stinkin thinkin
and a bad attitude. I was at college on a full scholarship but I was ready to
walk away due to my frustration at not playing. Quitting the team meant I
would probably lose my scholarship, and without that scholarship money I
would have to drop out of college.
I was frustrated. I was discouraged. I was ready to quit and give up.
But something happened in that game that changed my life. About two
minutes before halftime, the senior tight end ran across the middle to
catch a pass and took an incredible blow to his midsection. He got knocked
out of the game. We didnt know it at the time, but the blow had ruptured
his spleen and he was out for the rest of the season.
Although it happened under extremely negative circumstancesthe
injury of a fellow playerI finally had my chance. I played the whole second
half and gave my best effort. I didnt do anything spectacular. I caught a few
passes and made some nice blocks.
But after the game, the Rhode Island defensive end who played against
me came up to me and he said, I cant believe that youre not starting.
He said, In the first half of the game I totally owned the tight end that was
in here. But in the second half you owned me; you beat me on just about
every play.
I looked back and smiled, and said, Thanks. You see that guy over there,
the head coach? Can you go tell him what you just told me?
I had never met this guy before. All he did was walk over and give me a few
words of praise and encouragement. But it literally turned my life around.
In that instant, I stopped my stinkin thinkin. All thoughts of quitting were
gone from my head after this short exchangeeven though I still expected
to be back on the bench the next game, as no one knew the senior tight
ends injury was season-ending.
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I kept my place on the first string for the rest of that season, and was
the starting tight end for the next two years. I think about how close I
came to giving up. If that tight end hadnt been injured, and I didnt change
my stinkin thinkin, I could have walked away from a full scholarship and
dropped out of college. But due to a hard tackle and a few words of encouragement from a stranger, I completed my education and had a great college
football career.
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airport for a few dollars and give it to the female attendant in charge of
ticketing. Then he would say, You are a first class person, and so am I,
but you know what? Today theyve stuck me in coach. Is there any way
you can move me up front?
Eighty percent of the time he got a free upgrade for the price of a
rose and a sincere compliment.
Im not suggesting that you have an agenda or expectation when
you pay someone a compliment, but it will always make the other
person feel special, and that person will naturally want to help you.
I recently met with the CEO (chief executive ocer, in this case)
of Daves company in Oklahoma City, and you know what else I found
out about Dave? Hes the number one salesperson and producer in the
company. Do you think thats an accident? I dont.
When I was returning from Oklahoma City, I arrived at the
airport early and decided to try Daves tactic of a flower and a sincere
compliment. The only problem was that when I got up to the counter
there was a male attendant. I struck up a conversation anyway, paid
him a sincere compliment, and he started asking me about Atlanta.
He was seeking more culture than where he lived, in Oklahoma City.
We talked for maybe five minutes since no one was in line behind me.
When we were done talking, I said, Gosh, is there any room in
first class? Id love to have the room to spread out on the way back. He
put me on a list, and by the time I got to the gate, Id been approved
for first class. It just goes to show, when you appreciate other people,
they want to return the favor.
Becoming a CEO at home is important, too. Its easy to be
negative and point out when our children or our spouse are doing
something wrong that annoys us. Instead, find them doing something
right and praise them for it.
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Ask yourself these questions: Who in your life needs to hear sincere
appreciation? Is it your spouse, one of your children, a co-worker, or
your boss? We all have daily opportunities to impact somebody in a
positive way, to serve them, to encourage them, to show sincere appreciation. My challenge to you is to find somebody doing something
right at home, at work, or even in the community, and praise them for
it. Doing so can transform a life; it can transform a relationship; it can
re-energize a business.
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at any other time in our history. And the question is, how do you
discern what is truth, what is garbage and what is healthy and nutritious for your mind? I like what Zig Ziglar says about this: Every
morning when I wake up I read the Bible, and then I read the paper;
that way I can keep track of what both sides are doing.
The most successful people I know closely monitor what they let
into their minds.
When you put garbage into your body, you pay the unpleasant
short-term and long-term consequences. When you allow garbage into
your mind, you clog your potential for satisfaction and lasting success.
I used to think it was just garbage in, garbage out; but now Ive realized
that the garbage we let in our minds stays there. Our subconscious
mind retains the junk and retrieves it later. When you put the right
positive mental nutrition into your mind then good, positive benefits
come out.
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PosiTiVe self-TalK
I once went to Canada to launch a new line of supplements on The
Shopping Channel. I was well prepared for it, having spent lengthy
prep time with a mentor. I rehearsed in front of him before I made the
trip, and on my own I rehearsed in front of the mirror repeatedly. I had
about eight minutes on camera to make several pitches. The first spot
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was at 6:30 a.m., and I thought I nailed it. I came out of there pumped.
Immediately afterward in the green room I could see the sales numbers
as they registered on a monitor. My brilliant presentation had sold two
bottles of supplements. Typically, they want you to average between
$10,000 and $25,000 each time you go on air.
I sold $50 worth of product.
I felt like a loser. My confidence fell from the mountaintop to the
valley floor. I went back in to my dressing room and started packing
my bag to go home. I was supposed to go back out there six more times
over the course of the next ten hours, about once every 90 minutes, but
now I was scared to death. I didnt want to go back out and humiliate
myself again.
I called my partner, Tommy, back in Atlanta, and thank goodness
he picked up the phone. Tommy is very gifted at helping people
through tough situations. I explained everything that had happened.
His response: Steve, youre going to talk yourself back into success.
Get a pen and paper and write this down:
I am ready. I have an important message to deliver today.
I instantly connect with my audience. My voice is strong, smooth
and pleasing to hear. I smile a lot. I turn all conditions to my
advantage. I am calm and poised when I speak. I radiate confidence, competence and conviction when I speak. I am focused
like a laser. Ive got what it takes and more for this engagement. I feel ten feet tall when I speak. I love to be bold and
take charge. I have a commanding presence. I have boundless
self-confidence. I am turbocharged. I energize and inspire my
audience. My mannerisms are appropriate and eective. My
mind is quick, sharp, and alert. I am powerful, persuasive and
entertaining and charismatic. I have perfect command of the
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those old thoughts, like an automatic pilot, will keep you steering your
life in the same direction that its always gone.
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Eagle Scout, to his recent career choice, to growing into a man of high
character and integrity. If you can see yourself achieving it in your
mind, you can make it happen in reality.
Theres an oft-told story that the actor Jim Carrey. Before he became
a star, he wrote a check in the amount of $10 million payable to himself.
He visualized that someday, someone was going to pay him that much
for his gifts and talents. He actually achieved making that $10 million
because he believed it in his head before it happened in reality.
Present Tense
Like your goals, your self-talk should always be in the present tense.
The subconscious mind, where permanent change becomes rooted,
does not understand or acknowledge the past or the future; it operates
only in the here and now. You can affect subconscious change only by
communicating in the language of the present tense.
When you arm your goals and dreams as if theyre already
attained, you make the shift from being bogged down in reality to
being a visionary. Remember the most powerful words in the English
language are those that come after the words I am Thoughts such
as, I am responsible for my thoughts and I am relaxed and poised,
even when others are not, are mighty indeed.
Heres a sample list of present tense, positive self-talking points:
I am responsible
I discipline my mind
I experience maximum energy
I am clear about my goals
My thoughts, words and actions are positive
I think I can, I know I can
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I plan ahead
I let go of junk
I take action now
I am ready
I practice gratitude
I am centered and focused
I am honest with myself and with others
I see the big picture
I develop simple, effective rituals
I get lifted up just speaking those words. Even if youre not doing
the actions mentioned, youll be lifted up by just saying the words.
Personal
Self-talk is most effective when it is personal to your life and your goals.
You need to make up your own list and personalize it toward your own
goals. The more you positively pump yourself up, the better chance
youll achieve the goal. I use my list before I give a talk. I tell myself
about the outcome I want to achieve, and I achieve it in my mind and
convince myself Ive already done it before I even begin.
Whenever negative talk intrudes, I replace it with a positive
thought or a Bible verse. The first thing you need to do when you experience stinkin thinkin is to put a positive armation into your mind.
When you surround yourself with encouraging, uplifting people
and fill your mind with positive mental nutrition on a daily basis, and
then constantly reinforce your goals with positive self-talk, you will
become an unstoppable force.
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CR E AT E A W O W E X P E R I E N C E
There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire
everybody in the company from the chairman on down,
simply by spending his money somewhere else.
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always have a handful of people who had done business with Jay in the
past, and reported a negative experience.
We had a choice.
We could have said to them, Well, look, we didnt own the
business at that time. Its not our problem. We werent responsible for
Jays actions or mistakes during that time.
Or, we could have decided to take responsibility and make those
people happy, at our expense. And thats what we chose to do. We
chose to make 100 percent customer satisfaction our corporate policy.
In the first 12 months of the business, we absorbed almost
$100,000 in losses for problems we had nothing whatsoever to do with.
We incurred these losses mainly by giving Jays disgruntled customers
free juicers. But our higher goal was to create a WOW experience.
Jays past customers werent our only issue. We had product-quality problems of our own. When we started doing business, we had what
I privately called the best of the juicers on the market. The problem
was, there werent any really good juicers at the time. Ours was one of
the better products, to be sure, but it was still lacking.
We listened to what our customers were saying to us about our
product at the live seminars. It was like having hundreds of focus groups
a year. They told us what they liked and didnt like. As we received
feedback, we would ask our manufacturers to incorporate the changes
in our product. So we constantly worked on improving the quality of
our juicer as we grew our business. We constantly poured revenue back
into upgrading our juicers and upgrading our customer experience.
Staying in constant contact with your customer and then responding to what the customer is telling you to do is the most important
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thing you can do in business. Even after we stopped doing the seminars,
and sold our product exclusively on television and through retailers, I
would spend three hours every Friday morning sitting in the customer
service department and taking phone calls to hear the problems people
were having, either with the juicer or with customer service, and determining how to fix them.
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And, sure enough, she sent it in. We put it up on the wall in our
customer service department as a visual reminder that we would do
whatever was necessary to achieve 100 percent customer satisfaction.
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to leave their name and phone number, with the promise that we would
get back to them the same day (which we did).
How did this impact our bottom line? This helped us continue to
grow and become one of the fastest growing privately held companies
in the U.S.
This all happened because I dialed in one day on a whim. I gave
my own company a call. Had I not read that article, or been busy that
morning, it may have taken me many more months to learn about the
call delays.
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to achieve them, and well provide you with every possible tool to make
our relationship mutually rewarding.
Customer service. We are committed to offering exceptional products
and exceeding our customers expectations. As a result, company
policies and decisions are made with the customer in mind. We are
confident that by listening to our customers, we can continue to expand
our customer base and strengthen our position as one of the nations
leading marketers of health and nutrition products and information.
Corporate philosophy. We operate under an inverted pyramid style of
management. This system exemplifies our belief that the customer
always comes first. In this system, the customer is the initial source
of contact influencing the decision-making process in the chain of
command.
Following in importance is the sales and customer service staff,
which are the direct link to the customer. The next level of the pyramid
includes supervisors, managers and department heads. And then
underneath them and supporting them are the officers and owners
of the company.
We encourage people to be innovative in their sales technique. There
is no method or procedure manual of specific selling practices. Associates are simply asked to use good judgment and accepted business
practices, which are within the realm of being legal, moral and ethical.
And then, finally, we are a goal-oriented company. We encourage our
associates to continually strive for and maintain high standards of
performance. This quest to be the best has produced a welcome spirit
of competition and camaraderie throughout the company. Associates are constantly encouraged to expand their interests physically,
mentally and spiritually. Associates who join us become part of an
organization where individuals are accountable for their actions and
become total team players.
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CreaTinG Value
After the juicer, the next product we developed at Trillium was the
Bread Man Bread Machine. It was a very good product. Consumer
Reports rated our bread machine one of the best on the market. But we
created more value by offering things customers did not expect.
For example, we were the first company to include natural whole
grain bread mixes with the product. The machine came with its own
bread mix, so that within 90 minutes of getting the product home, you
could be eating fresh bread. You didnt have to go to the store and buy
ingredients. This really differentiated the product and customers loved it.
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norDsTroM
Nordstrom, a retail company based in Seattle, is world-renowned for
its customer service.
Few stories illustrate this like the one about the woman who came
to a Nordstrom location and wanted to return four tires. She had a
receipt, but it wasnt from a Nordstrom store. Nordstrom didnt even
sell tires. But they gave this lady store credit to purchase other products.
Now, thats going to an extreme. I dont know if I would have
done that in one of my businessesand Im a guy who replaced a juicer
that was destroyed when someone put bullets in it. But Nordstrom has
become world-renowned for creating the type of environment where the
customers have their expectations exceeded all the time. They create a
WOW experience every time you walk in the door. They train their associates to be astute in handling any sort of customer. Sure, they offer highquality products, but they offer a great environment in which to buy them.
When I started Trillium Health Products, I adopted the inverted
pyramid style of management, which came from Nordstroms example.
In a nutshell, the owners and executives of the organization support the
managers and supervisors who support the front line associates who
deal with the customers or clients every day.
When we looked at Nordstroms inverted pyramid system, we
believed it was the most direct way to create win-win-win situations in
which the customer wins, our associates win and the company wins.
And we believed it gave us the optimum environment for continued
company growth and new opportunities for both customers and associates through the following decade. We grew from zero to $100 million
in revenue in two and a half years.
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ago, I congratulate you and your fine organization for recognizing and utilizing a unique marketing happening.
Sincerely,
Kenneth Kolker
To sum it up, when you create a WOW experience, people want
more of your product. They want to be connected with you. When you
come out with your next product, everybody will line up to get it. And
thats exactly what happened in our organization.
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You may compete and survive, but without added value, a competitor
who can tolerate a lower margin will eventually wear you down.
It bears repeating: There has never been a more important time
in history for you to create a WOW experience on a personal and
a business level. People have too many choices now, for goods and
services, and for employees. The Internet has added limitless options
to these realms. So you cant be complacent. When youre in business,
there are only two choices: Youre either growing and playing offense
and moving forward, or youre shrinking and moving backwards and
becoming obsolete.
MaTisha
An example of how a business went the extra mile to give me a WOW
experience? I was having problems with my phone, so I had to call
the customer service line at a phone company in Florida. Typically, I
anticipate the worst-case scenario when I have this need. I expect to be
confronted with an endless maze of keypad- or voice-operated options,
and then, if I do get a human, ending up with someone who doesnt
care about my problem.
Well, I ended up getting Matisha as my customer service rep.
She solved my immediate problem, which satisfied my immediate
need. I was gratified to have this done, even though what she provided
was within the minimum expectation a customer should have. But
then Matisha went the extra mile. She looked at my billing record,
and said, You know, Mr. Cesari, we have mistakenly been billing you
for two accounts for the past three years.
She researched the problem. She voluntarily went above and
beyond the call of duty, and spent about 30 minutes researching and
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resolving a problem that I was not even aware I had. As a result, I ended
up getting a tremendous refund.
When this matter was settled I sat down and, for the first time
in my life, wrote a letter of appreciation to a phone company. I sent
this letter to Matisha and her supervisor, and I sent Matisha a book.
Thats how moving the experience was for me. She went the extra mile
and did something incredible that I didnt expect a phone company
to do. (She didnt just exceed my expectations; she amazed meand
remember, thats the nucleus of all WOW experiences.)
Now, how do you think Matishas supervisor reacted? Do you
think the supervisor clearly recognized that shes a special person?
Whats going to happen when Matisha comes up for her review? Do
you think she will be a likely candidate to be promoted, to be put in
charge of more people, to teach other people how to do what she did?
I certainly hope so, and expect as much. Ive certainly seen terribly
run businesses in which she would have been chastised for refunding a
large sum of money without being compelled to do so. But those businesses dont last long, because they are fundamentally flawed. I dont
know exactly what ensued in Matishas case due to my praising letter,
but Im willing to bet that she did very well at the company. Or shes
doing very well at some other job, and her company is making more
money because shes there. People who go the extra mile excel in the
marketplace. Thats a universal fact.
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for Dummies, along with several other books. He has a simple philosophy when it comes to differentiating your company from the others.
His advice: Dont try to figure out how to capture part of an
existing market. Instead, go out and create your own market. Create
your own playing field and dominate it.
Eric actually worked with our company when we marketed the
Juiceman, and his PR philosophy helped us expose our WOW experience to a lot of people. Eric was responsible for helping us deliver free
seminars to 650,000 people over a period of two years. He created a
PR machine that established us as experts in the health and nutrition
industry and established our product as one of the best available.
I have built several successful companies using these strategies.
Whether its on a personal level or a business level, differentiating
yourself from your competition is critically important. A very famous
example of this follows.
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And as a result, their business has been thriving for over 20 years.
When others are struggling in this down economy, they are receiving
national recognition for their outstanding service and knowledge in
their industry.
Why? The Jacobsons are not in the jewelry business. They are
in the people-pleasing business, and it makes all the difference. They
create a WOW experience because theyre passionate about what they
do. They do it better than anybody else.
Dr. haTraK
I work with a chiropractor here in Atlanta named Dr. Michael Hatrak.
There are about 40,000 working chiropractors in Atlanta, so the first
thing we did when we started working together, was rebrand Dr. Hatrak.
Instead of competing against 40,000 chiropractors, we positioned Dr.
Hatrak as a certified Synergy Release Physician. He developed an entire
certification program for candidates wishing to become a certified
Synergy Release Physician, and now trains other chiropractors to be
certified.
Ive worked with Dr. Hatrak and his team on creating a WOW
experience for his clients, and they have grown and moved from a
1,900-square-foot nondescript oce building behind a fast-food restaurant into a 5,000-square-foot Class-A, state-of-the-art oce space,
which they transformed into a state-of-the-art clinical environment.
Dr. Hatrak works with over 450 pro athletes, and this is part of
the WOW experience he creates for his clients. When you go to his
facility, you feel like you are being given the same caliber of treatment
professional athletes receive. As a matter of fact, when you walk into
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his oce, chances are good that youll rub elbows with a professional
athlete.
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4. Clear priorities
My wife, Indy, always reminds me that we have to deal with the whole
pie. We have the social, emotional, spiritual, financial, intellectual and
physical aspects of our marriage, and we must always try to keep them
in harmony. It is a balancing act. If you take care of several pieces of the
pie, but ignore one that needs attention, it can have a major impact on
you and your marriage.
What piece of the pie do you need to work on the most?
5. Progress, not perfection
There are no perfect people, so there are no perfect relationships. As I
mentioned before, its easy in any relationship to find someone doing
something wrong and scold them for it, but it works much better if
you can find your spouse doing something right and praise him or her
for it.
What can you praise your partner for today? Remember, you are
not looking for anything in return. You will be amazed at what can
happen to a relationship if one or both people do this.
Treat a man as he is, he will remain so. Treat a man the way he can
be and ought to be, and he will become as he can be and should be.
JohaNN WolFgaNg voN goEthE
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invited the rest of the family and about 100 of her friends, many of
whom she hadnt seen since high school. People came from all over the
country.
They were all waiting upstairs in a separate room in the restaurant. When we finished eating our dinner, I said, Were going to have
dessert upstairs in a special place. As we walked into the room to a
warm ovation, Indy was naturally shocked.
It took a lot of time, planning and effort, but it was certainly
worth it.
Thats just one example. But when you go the extra mile, it doesnt
have to be extravagant or expensive. Any small act can let your partner
know that youre thinking about them.
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ChaPTer 9:
G E T M O R E H PA I N Y O U R D AY
Lost time is never found again.
bENJamiN FraNKliN
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I love this poem. Linda Ellis was a virtually unknown poet until
this poem was read on the radio one day. The phone lines lit up at the
radio station. Since then, it has changed her life, and shes gone on to
become a nationally acclaimed poet. Millions of people have read The
Dash and responded to the reality of it.
How will you live your dash? As you know, a three-page letter
from one of my fathers friends written way back in 1968 told me how
my dad lived his dash, and helped me define how I live mine.
One way I want to live my dash is to practice something that Ive
learned. Ive learned that is not the things we accumulate in life or how
long we live that determines our success, but rather the hearts we touch
along the way and the difference we make in the lives of others.
Thats really what the dash is all about.
When all is said and done, the significance of our livesthe
dashwill be a reflection of the choices we make. And since we only
go around once in life, we need to choose wisely.
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suggestions. The clamor and noise in life can distract even the most
focused person.
No matter who you are or what you do, your progress and success
in life will depend, more than any other factor, on how you choose to
invest the 24 hours, the 1,440 minutes, the 86,400 seconds that you
are given each day.
s u r f i n G T h e inTerneT: a
M o n sT e r T i Me-W a sTer
ToPs
I was blessed to be the chairman of an organization called TOPS. This
is an acronym for the Techwood Outreach Program through Sports. It
was started by Bill Maness, a graduate of Furman. Right in the shadows
of Georgia Tech was one of the worst housing projects in Atlantaand
in the country.
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Ill never forget the day I drove those two young men to college.
They were given a vision of what is possible in life beyond the environment that they were brought up in, and they expanded their dash.
It wasnt giving them a handout. It was giving them a hand up.
And it created a longer-term focus. Several years later, the former
mayor of Atlanta, Andrew Young, wrote that TOPS was one of the best
programs of its type and should be used on a national level to help lift
people up.
To me, its amazing what people can accomplish in every aspect
of their life when they can identify ways to expand their dash. And the
outcomes or results usually come from the choices they make. You and
I have the ability, every day, to choose what it is we focus our attention,
effort and energy on. And Ive learned that the most successful people
in lifethe clients I work with that grow the quickest in their business
and their personal relationshipsare the ones that choose wisely. They
are the ones who focus on what I call high-payback activities in each
area of their life.
One of the biggest breakthroughs occurs when clients identify
their high-payback activities, or HPAs, and find ways to spend more
time working on them. Usually their high-payback activities will
also line up with their genius, which we discussed in chapter four.
Remember, your genius is what youre most passionate about and also
what youre really good at doing.
When my clients identify their high-payback activities and spend
more time engaged in themand delegate or get rid of their low-payback activitiesthey make the biggest breakthroughs. This is where
you will make the biggest breakthrough too, because then you wont
just be taking action, but youll be taking the right actions that move
you closer to becoming the person you want to be.
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tend to give the other person what we crave ourselves. If you want to
know what your partner craves, just ask.
Praying together is another high-payback activity for my wife
and me. It didnt come very naturally to me at first, but I persevered.
One study showed that out of 1,700 couples that were followed over a
ten-year period, the couples that stayed together often prayed together.
In fact, the divorce rate for couples that pray together is less than one
percent. Basically, that says to me that the couples that pray together
stay together. So we have made praying together one of the high-payback activities in our marriage. We have found it is dicult to be mad
at someone you pray with.
In business, one of my high-payback activities is speaking. When
I am speaking to people, I am in my genius. I am working on what
Im passionate about and what I do very well. When I am speaking to
people, its also a natural networking environment because people want
to ask questions. They want to learn more about the things I talk about,
which leads to consulting opportunities that help grow my business.
Another high-payback activity for me is developing content and
products. Im constantly looking at how to take my information and
develop it into content that will be relevant to the people that need it,
to help them get unstuck. Its a goal of mine to help them move their
life in a direction that will improve their business and improve their
personal lives.
The third focus area for me is health and tness. One of my highpayback activities in this arena is eating five to six nutritional meals
and snacks per day instead of three big heavy meals. I am very aware of
what I put into my body. Im 56 years old. Im 62. I weigh about 205
pounds. When my body fat is low, I feel really good.
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an hPa eXerCise
Heres a high-payback activity exercise that you will find quite easy to
do. It will help you identify the HPAs that most effectively move you
in the direction you need to go.
Identify your different key areas of life and write them down.
They will likely be business, personal, health and tness, marriage or
relationship, parenting (if appropriate) and spiritual. Feel free to add
your own areas. You can also add a financial area if you wish.
For every area of life, write three high-payback activities that you
have identified. What are the three steps or acts that would yield the
greatest return in each area?
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goal in advance. Then I always ask the bigger question: Is the meeting
really necessary?
Meetings need to have a goal. You need to have agenda. You
need to be prepared and, before scheduling one at all, ask the really
important question: Is the meeting necessary?
2. Doing things a certain way because this is the way weve always done it.
In my consulting work, Ive found that this causes more LPAs than
anything else. Due to traditions or habits, people get used to doing
things a certain way. In any organization, people tend to take on the
culture of that company. Remember, we tend to take on the habits of
the people we spend the most time with. These people may say, Weve
always done it this way. Why should we change now?
Well, heres one of the rules that Ive implemented in every
company Ive had: When it comes to productivity and the way we do
things to create results, if you have a more effective way of doing any of
them, speak up. We give people incentives to do this. We make a point
of rewarding people who have saved the company money by doing
something differently, or revealing an opportunity for a new revenue
stream. We compensate them and give them a percentage of the new
business.
3. Doing things you are not good at doing.
I know what my strengths are. Im what they call a rainmaker. I have a
great ability to influence people. Im very good at identifying problems.
I can see problems from a gut, instinctual level.
But Im not the classic detail person.
For example, I am not good at developing graphics for presentations. I delegate that responsibility to the other people on my team
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who are extremely good at this. They can create a WOW experience
through graphics. I cant. More accurately, any WOW that someone
may utter in response to seeing a graphic I created certainly wouldnt
be positive.
4. Doing things you dont enjoy doing.
When you dont enjoy doing something, you wont have your heart in
it and you wont do it well. Of course, there will always be things in
your work or personal life you dont enjoy doing. But the more you can
decrease them, and the more you can work in your genius, the more
productive youre going to be.
When you identify specific tasks that youre not good at doing
or that you dont enjoy doing, realize that there is almost assuredly
someone in your organization who loves to do themand is very good
at doing them. Were all wired differently, and we all have different
interests and different abilities. Your LPA is someone elses HPA.
The secret on any team is finding those people, and delegating
those LPAs that you dont like doing or dont do well. Again, the more
you can make this happen, the more successful youre going to be.
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If you work
20 hours a week
30 hours a week
40 hours a week,
50 hours a week
60 hours a week
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ChaPTer 10:
UNDERSTA N D T H E I M P O RTA N C E O F B A L A N C E
We come into this world head first and go out feet
first; in between, it is all a matter of balance.
Pa u l b o E s E
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The CarDinal
My wife and I used to live in an area where a beautiful red cardinal
lived. Cardinals are very territorial birds and will fight off intruding
birds aggressively. We had just purchased a new car, and I remember
coming out in the morning to see the cardinal attacking the mirror,
constantly flying away and then flying back into the mirror.
What a stupid bird, I thought to myself. His enemy is merely a
reflection of himself in the mirror. And then it came to me. You know, we
can be our own worst enemy and not realize it. By the choices we make,
by the people we associate with, by the habits we practice, we tend to
live our life as it happens rather than being intentional on how we want
to live life, and that is how we get out of balance. Its not on purpose. Its
usually by default. The only way to get into balance is to make it a priority,
develop a planand develop specific action steps to make it happen.
What is important to you? Is it your leisure time, career, friends,
family, volunteer work, your faith, hobbies or sports? Because we all
have different priorities, goals and values, there is no one-size-fits all to
achieving a balanced life.
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228
improve the balance in your life. The fewer questions you answered
true, the more room for improvement you have.
Dont get me wrong; there will always be times when certain
aspects of your life are out of balance. I remember several years ago
when my wife Indy was working on her doctorate. Our lives were
basically turned upside down. She was out of balance, and our lives
were out of balance because she had to focus so much time, effort and
energy on studying and going to class.
So there are always going to be dicult times. But heres what I
want you to remember about balance: Its all about progress, not perfection. Its about moving from where you are currently and becoming
more intentional about creating balance in your life.
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c l a r i t Y
4. Forgive others, even when you feel they dont deserve it. Its
easy to love people who are loveable. The real trick in life is
to love those who arent very loveable, and forgiveness works
the same way.
5. Practice unconditional love. We would always tell our
children, Look, we might not always like or agree with what
you are doing, but there is nothing you could ever do that
will ever make us stop loving you.
6. Stand by each others side at all times and in all situations.
7. Be humble and God-centered, not self-centered.
8. Seek to understand the other person before you seek to be
understood.
Now, again, dont get me wrong. Were not the perfect family, but we do
know what we stand for. And what I have found is, if you dont know
what you stand for, you will fall for anything. Once you have taken time
to identify your core values, you are then ready for the next steps.
eiGhT PrinCiPles
To aDD b al anCe
a ParenTinG
M i s s i o n sTaTeMenT
Indy and I developed a goal for
our parenting:
To model and mentor for our
children and their children
a life dedicated to loving
God and loving each other
unconditionally.
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c l a r i t Y
sT e fan
My friend Stefan is 37 years
old. He works four and a half
days a week in the financial
service industry and he is
usually finished with work by
3 p.m. He works hard and he
earns a great living. He plays
hard, and he spends lots of
time with his family.
How much time?
He takes ten weeks of
vacation a year.
Ten weeks.
Thats two and a half
months, or almost 25 percent
of the year.
You may be saying,
Well, Steve, that sounds
great. Stefan owns his own
company.
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c l a r i t Y
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c l a r i t Y
h aV e a bl aCKberry?
I do. I typically turn my BlackBerry off at 6:00 p.m. unless I have
pre-arranged a phone call. Thats
when its time to be with my family.
I turn it off so I dont see the red
email blinking telling me that I
have a text and or an email. I turn
it off. Have I missed many emergencies? No. If people need to
reach me after hours, they can call
me on my home phone number
and I find many people are more
reluctant to do that then they are
to just speed dial you on their cell
at 8 p.m. So there are far fewer
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If you just cut down by half the amount of TV that the average
family watches, that will give you two and a half hours a day. Two and
a half hours to interact with your loved ones. Two and a half hours to
give back to your community. Two and a half hours to exercise. Two
and a half hours to read a book.
8. be creative.
Think outside the box, as the clich goes. Think outside the box in
your work and also in your personal life. Nothing takes the excitement
out of life as much as getting stuck in the same routine. Do something
out of the ordinary to avoid the well-worn routines of your life. Try a
new route to work, a new radio station. Break out of your mold occasionally. If youre a runner, try something different. Try cycling. Try
swimming. Try anything different.
If your spouse usually plans dates and vacations, shake it up and
do this yourself and try something new. Read a good book on intimacy.
Travel someplace youve never traveled before. Try painting or writing
or photography. Meet new people. Its important to socialize. Your
employer expects you to be vibrant and enthusiastic and healthy. Your
friends want you to go to ball games and block parties and volunteer to
build a habitat house.
To keep your life balanced you need to meet new people and
exercise your wit, your wisdom, your humor and your charm. They say
the only difference between who you are today and who you will be five
years from now will come from the people you meet and the books you
read. Are you choosing both with any sense of purpose? Spend time
around other people who can help you think of new, creative ways to
put spice in your life and to put some pep in your step and to help you
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238
e P i lo G u e
LE AV E I T A L L O N T H E CO U R S E
It is not enough to do your best; you must know
what you want to do and then do your best.
W. E D W a r D D E m i N g
c l a r i t Y
goal was to beat her own personal record, and run the course in under
23 minutes.
The big meet was held at Berry College in Rome, Georgia.
Perhaps eight or ten high schools participated, and hundreds of people
attended it. Now, in case youve never watched a massive cross-country
running meet, Ill tell you that you dont get to see a heck of a lot. From
a short distance, you typically see the runners start, and then you see
them finish.
During Whitneys event, my wife Indy and I made our way
to a spot near the finish line, so we could wait to catch sight of our
daughter. The fastest runners soon came into sight, and began crossing
the finishing line in packs of eight and ten.
At about the 22-minute mark, we finally saw Whitney coming
down the final stretch. Ill never forget seeing her come into view. She
was clearly fighting the clock, knowing that she was approaching 23
minutes. She was running her heart out.
When she crossed the finish line, she collapsed and passed out.
Panicking, my wife and I fought to get to her, but there was a
massive crowd of people slowing us down. In the few moments while
we were fighting our way through, we lost sight of Whitney and she
disappeared. She had quickly been taken off the course, to the medical
tent. When we learned this, we found the medical tent as quickly as we
could; though fighting the crowd still took several minutes. When we
walked into the medical tent, we spotted Whitney lying on a stretcher.
She was conscious, thank God. She was packed in ice, with a moist
towel on her head.
I knelt down next to her and took her hand. It didnt cross my
mind at that moment, since I was so concerned for her, but she had
done it. She had beaten her personal best. Lying there, she knew she had
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l E av E i t a l l o N t h E co u r s E
done it. She later revealed that she had seen the clock and heard her
time before she collapsed. Whitney had crossed the finished line in just
under 23 minutes.
I held her hand gingerly, just hoping she was all right.
Whitney, are you okay? I asked.
Dad, if I dont pass out when I cross the finish line, I feel like I
didnt leave it all on the course, she replied.
Thats a great metaphor for the kind of dedication you can have
when youve achieved total clarity and identified your unique genius
and found true purpose and passion in your life. Its the dedication we
owe our families. Its the dedication we owe our careers. Its the dedication we owe the people whom we care about the most.
We only run this course once. We need to give it our personal best,
and that will require everything weve got. Finding clarity, purpose and
passion in your life is the best way for you to give everything you were
meant to give, and reap all the rewards and satisfaction you were meant
to receive.
Now, go and make it happen.
And remember; leave it all on the course.
241
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