Posts filed under 'Beliefs'
I had an interesting thing happen today, someone used the contact form on this web site and asked me if I would be interested in selling a blog posting and/or a text link.
I’ve written in the past about building passive income streams, so I was interested to learn if the products or services this person wanted to promote would align with my own values for this site. I replied back and asked what they were selling.
The reply that came back was…payday loans.
They even prefaced their reply with, “I appreciate that your stance on our industry may be negative, but assure you that we are not out to editorialize or sway you in any way.”
Fair enough, we can agree to disagree on the “benefits” of payday loans, but what really made me stop and consider the state of paid-for-post blogging was this next sentence:
“To be frank, even a post about reasons to avoid payday loans would probably prove beneficial, while of course not vilifying our company in any way.”
Wow. They were offering me the perfect out, I could write a don’t-use-payday-loans post and still get paid - how could I say no?
Payday loans are a blight on the communities they’re in, and the fact they’re not illegal puzzles me (I know why, they spend a lot of cash lobbying for exclusions from usury laws). They put the people they purport to help into a cycle of near eternal-debt and the rates they charge are more than usurious. I don’t think it’s possible to over-vilify these companies!
I’m not naming companies or providing links, but their web site lists the APR on the loans at between 507% and 1304%. And that’s if you pay the loan in full when it’s due! If a “borrower” doesn’t pay the loan in full and makes minimum payments, the effective APR is even higher!
I certainly want to monetize my site and produce supplemental income, but I won’t do it at the expense of my beliefs and principals. What’s scary is that they would have been fine with a “negative” post, and I could have written this post and gotten paid for it. That seems to me a bit dishonest on everyone’s part; mine, the “advertiser’s”, and yours.
How about you? Is your conscience worth a little cash; even if you could “get away” with it?
January 28th, 2008
I recently sat down with Azher Khan of Calderon Textiles to interview him about his thoughts on success, goals, and self-development.
He is one of three share holders of Calderon Textiles in Indianapolis, Indiana and has been - by any measure - very successful in both his personal and professional roles. Azher is a native of Karachi, Pakistan and credited with the original concept of importing quality linens and distributing them to the U.S. market. He holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the American University. He also has been a key figure in Indiana providing relief to Pakistan in the wake of the 2005 earthquake that killed 75,000 people.
JC: People seem to be drawn to success individuals and want to know their “secret” or get some “quick-fix” advice that will make them successful too. What advice do you give to people who ask you how to achieve success similar to yours?
AK: I don’t know if you would like a word to describe what I feel is needed to be successful, but in my mind several people have talked to me, including a young person who is going through college and wanting that light bulb to come on, and I say two things are needed: Logic and Action.
Now there may be better words to describe what I am about to explain, but maybe my most favorite word or concept to tie them together is balance. You have these two things that are needed, and then you create a balance in everything you do. There is nothing that one can say they do where they don’t need balance. So these two things I feel are needed.
When I say Logic, I mean you have to be able to think through to make a plan – there is no “quick fix”. The best analogy I can share is to say I need to get to Chicago for business; I start putting a plan together. In order to be there at a certain time, I need to leave at a certain time. I need to get on I-465 and take the exit to I-65 and then get on IN-294 and so on and so forth. I’ve got to take money with me, etc. There is such importance in logical thinking and planning, and you know, understanding even why you’re going there or doing something – what your objective is – all of that. So to think through everything critically and be able to put together a plan is a great ability you have to develop.
Then the second ability is action. If you don’t put your plan into action, you’ll never get there. So if you take action, it needs to be consistent with the plan. So you say, “Okay, I’ve got to go to Chicago, it’s very important.” But if you never get going, then what good is all the logic and planning and thinking through?
And if you do get out but don’t execute the plan in a timely way, then it won’t work. So you get on I-465, but never look that you need to get onto I-65…and you end up going in circles. (laughs)
You would be surprised at how many people have one or the other.
They will either dream about something, but never take the time to think through and plan their lives and goals and priorities. Or they’ll have all these grandiose plans, but don’t have the will to get going. And unfortunately a young person I know is a great example of a guy who wants to do well; he thinks all of these things, but unfortunately he doesn’t take action. I’ve told him that. What happened is he wanted to go into law, and I was very supportive of his decision. Twice now he’s not made the time to take the LSAT. So he had a plan, but no action.
In those regards, and in everything else, you’ve got to have balance.
JC: A lot of people don’t look forward to going to work each day because their major motivator isn’t congruent with what they’re doing (i.e. they work for the money, not for their enjoyment of the work). What is your major motivator? What makes you jump out of bed in the morning, ready to tackle the day?
AK: The key is people. The key is people and a sense of committment to them. There is almost nothing I wouldn’t do for them. Once I had an employee with two small children who was thrown out by her husband. She was faced with moving to Southern Indiana where she had family, but instead called me. Do you know she stayed with my for two weeks - with two small children! It wasn’t two years or two months, but I believe it says a lot that she felt comfortable enough to come to me for help. It’s the relationships I have with some people - I feel like I can’t let them down.
I think that - going back to what I was saying about man being an animal - is that we’re a social animal. And understanding people is the key part of being a leader and a successful person.
I don’t…you can’t do major things without people. Even the best-of-the-best had people to help them - look at the prophets; did Jesus spread his message by himself? (pauses) He had disciples, exactly! And look at how young He was when He died and the power of His message.
And Moses - he had a stuttering problem - and he had to convince the Pharoh - and he was from the Pharoh’s house which shows that good can come from evil. And he prayed, ‘God open my tounge’ when we was going to meet the Pharoh and tell him to release the Israleites.
Last year I had to appeal to the Customs and Border about a large fine they wanted to levey against the company and I prayed to open my tounge and share the truth. The employees at Calderon, they rely on and counted on me to win the case and we did!”
Moses’ brother - I don’t know his name, in the Qur’an we call him ‘Haroon’ - was his ’spokes person’ and even the Prophet Mohammad had people around him he relied on.
I believe there is goodness in everyone - something good - in everyone and you have to “tap” it out. You get it not by being evil and fighting but with love and kindness.”
I respect everyone and expect respect…I will not comprimise on that.
You have to let the process prevale to find the goodness in people. You try your level best to find it, don’t give up on tapping the goodness. When you do find it the reward will be sweet and you will have a permanent victory by reaching out. You build a friend for life.
Now I don’t quite believe in ‘turning the other cheek’ - if you hit me I’m going to…to hit you back, hopefully harder (laughs) but you have to go a long way before I’ll write off a relationship.
JC: How do you balance between when it’s time to stop making the plan and when it’s time to start taking action? You can plan yourself to death, and you can take all the action in the world and not have a good plan. So what do you use as a barometer to balance the two, how do you know when it’s time to stop planning and start taking action?
AK: I think it is experience and intuition that helps you create that balance. You continue to stay focused on that balance and it helps you to continue to keep planning and thinking and vice-versa. Focusing on balance doesn’t allow you to just jump to action without thinking too.
So those two, logic and action, are important – the two ends of the scale – and in the middle is balance which helps you to not tip to far toward either end.
JC: Successful people are generally well read and enjoy learning new and interesting material. What great books are you reading right now?
AK: I would say there are several; it’s hard to pick one or two. However the book I would have to say is the most important and influential book to me would have to be Tuesdays with Morrie.
I also like books about people who have been in business and biographies because the whole point is to try to get as much experience as soon as you can! (laughs)
I would say that I wish we could go through life twice, but knowing what we knew when we were here before, because you learn the first time through (laughs). So what better way is there to learn than to read biographies of people and try to learn from their experiences? You know? Jack Welsh is a good example of this and probably someone you’ve heard of.
Another good book that I really enjoyed is Good to Great by Phil Collins or Jim Collins…something Collins.
A point I want to mention is that in my mind you can never read a book without a pencil. I always say you can’t read without a pen and pencil…and highlighter!
JC: Can you finish this sentence: “A man’s destiny is…….”
AK: …is to leave to his family, community, and country a better world.
If you’ve affected the home, you’ve affected – in some way – all of those. Then your children can affect the world, their children will effect the world – so you try to impact as much as you can, but the minimum is your obligation to your family, then to your community, then to your country, and then your obligation to this world.
JC: One thing that has always impressed me is the amount of consideration that you give to other people when you talk about being with their family. When you told me to, “Go home and be with Michelle” when she was ill, that’s rare – you don’t see that much today. How do you maintain the balance between family and home with business?
AK: You know it’s a tough one because of course there is so much to do at work, with travel, and all that. The best way – I feel – is two ways:
Number one is you always look at quality rather than quantity. You give your complete devotion. When I took three or four days out of the office, my daughter and I flew to Los Angeles, rented a car, and drove on Highway 1 to San Francisco. So you try to give the best you can during that time and just focus on that person.
The second is just the fact that they know you’re available, so trust is created.
I can use the example – a short story to share this with you – It’s about my other daugher when she got her first car. I was going out of town and I needed to borrow her car to take to the airport for an early morning flight. I left home at 4:30 in the morning. She came downstairs at 8 o’clock to go to school and said, “Mom, I need my purse and it’s in my car!” and my wife said, “Did you tell your father to bring it in last night?” She said, “No, but I know him, and I’m sure he did.”
My wife said, “No, I don’t think so, I saw him leave this morning and he didn’t come back in.”
She said, “No, I’m sure he did.”
And she went out into the garage and her purse and her friend’s water bottle were sitting on the steps, and she said, “See, mom?”
The point is that she was so convinced that she could always count on her father to look after her – to be concerned about her – even as he is leaving or is busy with something. The most import thing…trust. And by leaving her purse for her, it created and reinforced that confidence.
JC: The saying goes, “hindsight is 20/20” and we’ve all made mistakes that years later we realized had a bigger impact than we thought at the time. Are there any mistakes that – if you could go back and correct – would have led you to even greater success?
AK: Yeah, yeah…there are plenty of mistakes and if I think back I would say that there were many times I’ve acted contradictory to what I’ve been saying.
My brother moved from Pakistan to America. I was going to college at the time, but I really wanted to do my duty to him. I was consumed by my obligation to family and I was not able to complete my law degree and education. So some of that compromise now I feel did not create balance, it was too much towards his needs and not as much towards mine.
And I feel that the focus has to be in the right place – I talk about family and all – but you have to break it down to your obligations and priorities and understand your priorities.
Your first obligation is to yourself and your family, and then it needs to be your extended family, and then to your bigger family, and then the community. At that time I was so concerned and focused on my extended family that I was out of balance with everything else.
JC: Most of us plateau with our quest for personal growth if we don’t have a relationship with someone who strives to keep us raising our bar and building us up. Do you have a “coach” or mentor? How did you find that person and form the relationship? Is there any invaluable piece of information they’ve given you that’s stuck out more than others?
AK: I would have to give you three names of people who’ve had a great impact on me. Not in any particular order, but all three are important:
Bob (a management consultant) would be one of them. He’s just an incredible person, his motivation…I don’t understand it…he has so many clients, but he acts like each client is his only client. You can be calling at ten o’clock at night or five o’clock in the morning and he’s patient and thinking about the company. What I’ve learned from him is very incredible; so he would be one.
The other is a person by the name of Hamid; he is a vice president at Sallie Mae and head of their I.T. department. And he’s a friend, a very nice guy; it’s been a pleasure to have him as a friend.
The third would be my religious teacher – I don’t know if you want his name or not – his title is “Sheik”. He brings a sense of balance to his teachings. If you look at all of these other people, there are a lot of extremes with religious beliefs and I don’t feel like they have the right balance you know?
One thing I can think of that I’ve learned is that – Hamid made a statement – that I rely so much on relationships. I believe in people so much, and he said, “You can rely on relationships up to a point, after that you have to have the know-how, the knowledge, and all of the other tools necessary to get the job done.”
So you’ve got to continue to have your pursuit of knowledge instead of just relying completely on relationships.
JC: In our world of ever increasing appointments, and twenty-four hour-a-day lifestyle, how do you allocate your day so you don’t get overwhelmed with commitments? How do you block-out time to spend on your own growth and development?
AK: Yes, yes, that I struggle with all the time. I’m struggling with this now actually. And I don’t know if I’ve got the answer myself! (laughs)
JC: What do you do to relax, unwind, and de-stress yourself? How do you unwind from the pressure and stress of all your commitments?
AK: Several things, but most important is the kids. I can get one hug from Soha, one phone call from Ammar or Rima; that does a tremendous amount to relax me. Just yesterday Soha saw me and said, “Dad, what’s wrong? Let’s talk.” And it was just two or three minutes with her, but it meant a lot.
And I am trying to do – but not enough – walking. And using that time to think and reflect.
I love to be able to go and spend an hour just gardening. That’s one of the most enjoyable things I do; to do physical work and gardening, to put the flowers in and take the weeds out.
JC: Goal setting is usually cited as the number-one vehicle to achieving success, but most people never go further than to “day-dream” about how they would like their life to be or what possessions they want. How do you approach goal setting? Do you write your goals down? How often do you review them?
AK: I do, and most people do it the first of January and then don’t look at it! What I do is I have it [my goals] on my desktop, and than I try to look at it periodically.
And it’s okay to re-write them, you have to constantly go back to them as things change. It’s better to change the goal than to just give it up.
I don’t know if I have a set schedule to review them, it’s not every week, but whenever I know that I’m struggling a lot, I go back to them. When you struggle you’ve got to go back and review them, and if you need to, go back to the drawing board.
JC: Getting clear on what outcome you want to achieve is crucial to goal-setting, personal growth and achieving success. How do you define – to you – what you really want out of life so you can craft a plan to achieve it? How do you get yourself crystal-clear on your goals and ambitions?
AK: I think perhaps the biggest understanding that I believe in that helps me is the capacity and understanding of what greed is. I think that my relationship, especially with my business partners would be very difficult to have sustained for years if we didn’t keep greed in check. So we don’t start thinking, “Gosh, every effort that I make, the best I can ever do is one third. So how do I get the other two thirds – the whole?” So it’s very important to keep focused.
I think that the biggest thing would be…for me it comes down to family. It comes down to what I see I want to leave behind, and there is nothing more important than that to me and it is what helps drive me and create the energy to be able to get up in the morning and come to work.
The mistake people make is they look at the means as being the end. Their financial success is for what purpose? So giving to your family, giving to your community, giving to your country is important.
If you just completely focus on the financial and the material and the greed then you’ve lost focus on what the purpose was to be to begin with! So I think that understanding that – it’s my understanding – someone else may come along and tell you its wrong, that’s okay (chuckles), but I think it’s something else…
For example, currently I don’t have a car. I had to turn in my last car when it came off lease. Then in May, my wife had to turn in her car when the lease ended. So we both were without a car! Now I think it would be unbelievable for most people to think that of running a $70 million company and not having a car!
But my son had a car – you know – a G35 Infinity. And it was such a pleasure to see that as opposed to me having a car. I don’t say we can not have a car; the truth is you cannot get by without a car, but I’m saying that’s not the focus. It was so nice for him to get into the IU Kelly School of Business, that same day I got him a car and it has taken me – what – four months to decide for myself! (laughs)
JC: Do you have a formula for personal growth and development? How do you keep your mind nourished with positive and encouraging information to promote personal development?
AK: I think it’s a combination of all that we’ve discussed. So it is a combination of all of those things; family, a sense of commitment, religious experience, and the expectation I have placed on myself for, and to, others.
I now I cannot let these people down just because it is easy to get distracted.
Do I not look at a nice car and think, “Man, would I like to have that?” Yes, but it all gets checked by the beliefs that I mentioned, so you work on these things to create a situation – a point – where it’s very difficult to go backwards.
Let me end by saying this; it is possible to go from being a person to being a saint, but you cannot go from being a saint…down. We all develop up, and climb the stairs, but you cannot climb those stairs downwards – you know, going to steal, and do something wrong – because you’ve achieved a higher status.
Your own values and, peoples’ expectation shouldn’t allow you to go from being what you are to being any less than that. Now that you’ve climbed up, there is no down button on the elevator (chuckles).
I hope this captures the essence of what I’m saying. I mean, you can go from being Satan to being a saint, but how do you go from being a saint to being Satan?
You should always try to work hard to ascend yourself to the point even where God says, “What do you want?”
That’s what we have to do…just ascend, ascend, ascend. So for personal growth, to create that love and commitment, to continue…you just have to ascend!
October 1st, 2007
When was the last time you really took inventory of what you’re best at, what you’re good at, and what you weak at? If you’re like me, it’s probably been a long time.
You might be surprised that the saying, “if you don’t use it, you lose it” is actually true. I had an eye-opening experience this past weekend that has really caused me to pause and reevaluate myself - and you should too!
The short version
I have a good friend and colleague who runs a small web design and hosting company. He asked me to help him upgrade the software on his primary router (if all of this is Greek, just ignore the jargon, I’ll try to keep it light so you can follow along!).
We setup a time to do the upgrade, and he informed me that he had all of the software necessary to complete the project. I put the appointment on my calendar and turned my attention back to my day-to-day activities, safe in the knowledge that my calendar would alert me at the proper time.
Friday night around 11:30pm, I met him at him at his network center and we proceeded to begin the upgrade. This should have been a five or ten minute process.
For us it took almost two hours - and during that time a large chunk of his network was offline! After much digging and poking and prodding (and, I admit, some swearing) we were able to bring things back up and get everything working.
I was shocked at myself and how badly I had performed!
My backstory
I’ve always thought of myself as a “networking guy”. That had always been my strength, and among my peer group and clients I was the go-to guy for fixing their networking hardware and software problems…six years ago!
In the late 90s and into 2000 I spent almost all of my time working in or on network equipment. I was comfortable setting up the hardware and software that drove the Internet. It was what I did, and I took pride in the fact that everyone asked me to handle their routers, networks, and connectivity issues.
However in the intervening years I’ve moved steadily away from a day-to-day relationship with network hardware and software. As I assumed more and more management tasks and moved into application support and ERP systems I found myself touching the network less and less.
And I never realized how badly my skills had atrophied.
So when I was asked to upgrade the software I knew it would be a quick project - and it would have been had I been “in shape” so to speak. And my failure to realize I didn’t have that sharp edge caused my friend’s business to experience an unacceptable level of downtime.
Lessons learned
Going from hero to goat is an eye opening experience. And it really got me to thinking about what other skills I used to take for granted that I may have let languish. I kept thinking to myself, “What else haven’t you done, that you would be bad at now?”
As I came up with a list of things that I would probably screw up these days, I found my brain kept adding in comments like, “Yes, but you’ve learned how to…” and “Four years ago you didn’t know anything about…”
I started compiling my list of skills - whether I perceived myself at being good at them or not - and reviewing it.
As I wrote about in Is your “success resume” up to date? it’s important to keep your list of accomplishments updated while they’re fresh in you mind, I now know it’s also important to keep a tally of your skills, and your familiarity with them, too.
Taking inventory
There are two phases to completing a skills assessment: 1) Building a list of your core skills 2) Evaluating yourself on those skills.
It’s important to not mix up these steps because you’ll get bogged down in the minutia if you try. Get your skill list out of your head and on paper and then process it (you GTDers out there will click with this methodology!).
How do you know what skills you should list? That’s a bit up to your own personal preference, but I listed skills that I would expect to get paid for, or that someday I would like to get paid for. The reason I limited it is because if I sell myself as having XYZ skill and take money for that, but fail to perform, I’m hurting my client and myself.
For example; I’m terrible at painting, but it seems like it should be easy and over and over I get myself into situations where I’m painting a room and saying to myself, “I forgot how bad I am at this, and how much I dislike doing it.” But I didn’t add it to my list because I will never solicit money for painting!
Anyway, get your list down and don’t try to categorize it yet. Put current skills with past skills, mix in skills you’re just starting to pick up, but get them all out of your head and onto a piece of paper.
Once you’ve built your list it’s time to review it. Ask yourself questions like, “Am I good enough at this to get paid for doing it?” and “Would I talk about my abilities with that in a job interview?”
It’s time to be brutally honest with yourself - you’re the only person who will see this list. Some of the skills on your list you may have not used in years, maybe decades, but they will be so deeply ingrained that you would feel comfortable marking yourself as highly proficient with them.
Other skills may be just a few years old, but you have to mark down that you’re probably out of practice, rusty, or not up to speed anymore.
What now?
If you’ve been honest with yourself, once you’re finished you’ll have a concrete list of your core skills and your level of proficiency at each of them. If you’re anything like me you’ll find that about 1/3 of your list will be things that in your mind you were very proficient at, but are not as much anymore, about 1/3 will be new skills that you’ve developed and are very proficient with, and about 1/3 will be skills that your developing and which your proficiency will range from “not very” to “pretty good”.
You may find that your internal perception of yourself changes. Like I mentioned, I used to think of myself as “the network guy”. My perception of myself didn’t match my reality; I was reckless and it bit me.
Now my self image is more in line with reality. I still know a lot about network hardware and software, but I’m rusty and out of practice. Going forward I will need to invest some time refreshing my skills and even brushing up on new technologies and tools that have become standard since the late 90s.
Once you have a real assessment of your skills, you can make sure your self image and reality are in sync. You may even find that there are skills you don’t consider being great at in your self perception, but you are in reality!
July 2nd, 2007
How safe should you live life? Well, you obviously don’t want to live so close to the edge that you’re always in danger of killing yourself, but you shouldn’t live always looking for the 100% “safe” option in life.
Because here’s a secret that we all forget from time to time; there is no 100% “safe” option in life.
Did you get in your car and drive to work this morning? 49,000 people in the United States died in auto accidents in 2004. 1.1 million people world wide died in auto accidents, and 38 million were injured.
Even if you’re the most risk-averse person out there, it’s very likely you get into your car every day and drive somewhere - to work or to school. Driving can be a risky proposition, but we all still do it.
We do it because we calculate that we’re pretty likely to be safe, even while involved in a potentially risk activity. We weight the odds and roll the dice.
I love the quote director, screenwriter, and producer Robert Altman:
“To play it safe is not to play.”
–Robert Altman
The people who learn to play are those that excel in life. And when I say “play” I mean learn to take calculated risks while seizing the passion in their lives.
Have you every dreamed about staring your own business, but fear held you back? You’ve played it safe. If you did start your own business, what’s the worst that could happen? You might fail, and depending on how badly you fail you might lose your material possessions.
But you’ll still have your health. And you’ll have something more important and that’s the experience that will benefit you in your next endeavor.
Magicians Penn and Teller have a rule. They call this the rule of NPD - no permanent damage. Before undertaking a risky stunt or a tricky magic routine they ask the question, “Will this permanently cause me damage?” If the answer is yes, they don’t do it.
They are playing and not playing it safe. And they are outrageous and larger than life because they’ll undertake something that’s risky and on the edge. They’re using their rule of NPD to make them superstars - why can’t you?
Let me share a story…
Years ago I started an Internet business. It wasn’t because it was “the thing to do”, but because I really loved the potential and the possibility that the Internet represented. I knew how to make the Internet do what I wanted, but I didn’t know the first thing about running a business. I was a 20 year old college drop-out who had never taken a business class in his life.
It quickly became apparent that while I had all the necessary skills I needed technically, I didn’t have any of the necessary skills to succeed in sales and running a business. Sure, I was able to fake it for a while, but eventually my inexperience caught up to me and it all came crashing down around me. I lost everything I had at the time (which was admittedly not much at all), but I was still alive and I was still looking at things and trying to make the technology connection. I suffered no permanent damage.
So I tried again and put in place better systems to shore up my own shortcomings. And I fared much better. Bad decisions on my part (and my partners’ parts) led to us selling our business at the bottom of the “dot.com” crash rather than at the top (we go greedy). But that experience left me with more life experience and set me up for the next thing I tackled.
If I had played it safe, I probably wouldn’t have started the first company. But I also wouldn’t have had the experience to get where I am today and I certainly would have built the relationships and forged the friendships I have today.
I’m not advising you run out at take stupid risks because I said not to play life safe. I’m suggesting you look at the things you haven’t achieved and the things you haven’t undertaken and ask yourself why.
If it’s fear that’s holding you back, you have to ask if taking action would result in permanent damage. If the answer is yes, then you have to tweak your action or your desired outcome until you can confidently say that undertaking the action will not result in permanent damage.
And once you’ve tweaked and changed to this point, you need to take action! Get your risk under control and then “just do it!”
Don’t live life by playing it safe. Go and be a superstar!
February 24th, 2006
A few days ago I was sitting in a doctor’s waiting room, waiting on my wife. They had a TV tuned to a local station, showing the morning news. With my only other entertainment option being to read a 9 month old copy of “Good Housekeeping” - I settled in to watch the news.
There was a teaser right before a commercial block promising a must-see segment on how to protect my baby from RSV. I don’t have a baby and I wasn’t even sure what the heck “RSV” was, but the anchor sold it with such urgency that I knew I must stay tuned to learn these potentially life-saving tips.
When the commercials were over, the lead in promise me that I would soon be thanking the local news team for this vital information about saving my baby’s life from RSV; thus the segment began.
I learned that “RSV” is an acronym for respiratory syncytial virus - the news segment never really made it clear what exactly it was other than a respiratory “bug”.
The “life saving” tips amounted to a fancy on-screen graphic with the following tips (literally):
And with that, the news segment was over. There was no additional information about RSV. There was no additional information about how you could identify if the people around you had RSV so you could avoid them. The entire segment was very superficial and seemed to pander to a “lowest common denominator” viewing segment.
The rest of the time I watched the morning news program I realized that all they were doing was skimming the surface of every topic they covered.
And it made me think about my own interactions with people. Did I just skim the surface or did I dive deep? That is, did I make only a superficial effort with other people or did I really take the time and energy to get to know someone on a deeper level?
I think we make snap judgments when meeting people on whether or not we’re going to skim the surface with that person or dive deep and really get to know them, but why do we decide this? As compassionate and passionate people shouldn’t we want to get to know everyone on a deeper level?
There have been times I’ve been guilty of simply skimming the surface myself. I’ve been to parties or business mixers where I didn’t really make any real effort to get to know the people to whom I was introduced. When I’ve skimmed the surface in the past, those events have never been very meaningful for me.
Conversely when I’ve been at events where I’ve really made an effort to dive deep and put effort into really getting to know people on a personal level I find the events to be much more personally fulfilling and meaningful. And the times I’ve made an effort to dive deep in relationships with people, I’ve made friends and forged very strong relationships.
Some of these relationships have benefited me in business immensely over and over again.
Do you skim the surface in some relationships while diving deep in others? Why? Why don’t you dive deep with everyone? I realize that this is a bit of an idealistic statement - there are times where the other person is only interested in skimming the surface with you, there are times when you just don’t have the energy, etc. But think how many more fulfilling relationships you would have if you tried to dive deep with everyone!
This is where passion comes into play. If you’re passionate about success and achievement and personal development, you should be passionate about helping other people understand your success-oriented message. You can’t do this unless you dive deep and really build a meaningful relationship where trust and understanding is a key part of the foundation.
I don’t know about you, but I get excited thinking about the possibility of building deep, strong relationships like this. I might not be able to help everyone find passion and enthusiasm for personal development - some just won’t be interested - but when I can help that one person who needs help, well the feeling is just amazingly powerful!
And really, diving deep only takes a little more effort than skimming the surface. Think about a situation where you skimmed the surface with someone; what would it really have taken to go deeper? In most cases it will only take a sincere desire to really listen to and understand the person with whom your interacting. And you’ll have the added benefit of really making that other person’s day because we all feel great when we’re talking to someone who’s interested in letting us talk about ourselves!
So the next time you catch yourself skimming the surface with another person, make the effort to dive deep. Who knows, you might just end up building a long lasting relationship!
February 20th, 2006
It occurs to me - after posting about a specific product related to power napping - that you have no earthly way of knowing if I’m a shill for any service or product providers.
It’s a problem that the entire Internet is struggling with; who is legitimately posting about their experience with a product or service, and who is paid to post about products and services?
Other than the articles I write here at this web site, you don’t know me from Adam. Hopefully you’ve received good value from these articles, that’s my hope anyway.
About the only thing I can offer is this pledge to you, my reader: I will always disclose any relationship with any company about whose products or services appear on this web site. If I’m reviewing a “freebie” product I will disclose that fact beforehand (yes, I’ve been given “freebies” to review for my opinion on this web site; no, those articles have not been written yet).
I believe that you should be able to read an un-biased (or biased if I love the product) review and know that I’m writing it because I found the product or service really useful.
February 11th, 2006
How much weight does an idea have? How solid is an idea? It’s sometimes difficult to think about ideas as a tangible “thing” since they seem so ethereal and untouchable.
I think that ideas have a lot more “weight” than people believe. Consider this; every thing around you that is man-made started out as an idea. Nothing sprang forth into existence without first being someones dream and idea.
This web site started as a dream and then an idea. I didn’t just wake up one morning and - poof - I had a web site. It took planning and preparation and work, but it all started with an idea.
The company I work for didn’t just start in the state it’s in today. It started as an idea of one of the co-founders. His idea eventually turned into a booming business, but before there was inventory and offices, there was an idea.
I’ve read that every day, every person has at lease one “million dollar idea” - but most of us aren’t aware enough of the power of our ideas to realize it and capitalize on it. Bill Gates had an idea that he capitalized on - a computer on every desk. This idea, carried out, had made him worth almost $30 billion dollars today.
How often are you struck by an idea that sounds like a winner, but you’re not in a place where you can capture the idea? I’ve been hit with some great ideas driving in the car; I get excited because I think the idea really has merit, but by the time I’m home I’ve let myself get focused on a jerk who cut me off or I let myself get distracted by a song on the radio. Inevitably by the time I get home and am ambushed at the door by my dog and talk to my wife about her day, I’ve forgotten my great idea.
Or I’ll get a good idea for an article for this web site and I’ll think to myself, “No need to write it down, it’s such a good idea I won’t possibly forget it…” and ten minutes later I’m scratching my head, wondering what I was so excited to write about.
The trick is to not let these ideas slip out of your grasp so easily. Ideas can slip out of your head as easily as sand slips out from between your fingers. So to give yourself an advantage, you need to arm yourself with tools that you can actually integrate into your daily routine that will enhance your odds of being able to immediately capture ideas as they come to you.
1) Keep paper on you at all times
It sounds simple, but how often have you scrambled for some scrap paper to make a note, or ended up tearing up a napkin while jotting down a phone number? If you make it easy to keep paper on you at all times, you’ll never have to worry about what to write you idea on.
I like using 3″ x 5″ index cards because they’re big enough to put a lot on but still fit in your pocket easily, you can get them anywhere, and they’re cheap. To make it easy to hold them, I bought a leather index card case from Gifts For Professionals. Levenger also makes a pocket briefcase to hold index cards, but it’s $38.00 and the case from Gifts for Professionals is only $15.95.
I take blank, unlined 3″ x 5″ index cards and print them myself. I threw together a layout that works for me and includes a few nice “features” and I print them up on my laser printer by the hundred.
2) Keep a pen on you at all times
It goes without saying that if you always carry paper, you should always carry a pen, but which pen? A lot of HPDA users swear by the Fischer Space Pen - and as far as a company goes you won’t find one that does customer service better. I have one of their Bullet Pens myself. It’s a great pen, but I have to remember to put it in my pocket every day.
So I got myself a Cross ION pen. I like it because it clips onto my key chain, so if I have my keys with me I have a pen with me. It’s also a gel pen, which I find more comfortable to write with than a ballpoint pen.
3) Keep a voice recorder in the car
A couple of years ago I was given a small, digital voice recorder as a gift. I was never really sure what I should use it for, it only held 45 minutes and the quality wasn’t great. It wouldn’t be much use for recording seminars or classes and there was no way to easily download the contents to a computer, so I would only be able to fill it once before I had to convert everything to notes and delete the memory.
The one thing it had going for it was it was very small and it would keep track of individual entries, so you could scroll to the 15th recording and just play that one recording.
It quickly found a home in my car, clipped to the driver’s side sun visor. Now when an idea strikes me while driving, I just have to reach up and hit “record” to capture my idea. I then jot it on a note card when I arrive at my destination, before I leave the car. It also has the added benefit of being just good enough to record talk-radio, so if I get into an interesting story I want to relay, I can reach up and hit “record” and get up to 45 minutes of the program (music, however, is completely inaudible).
Keeping myself armed with tools to capture my ideas has - I feel - helped me tremendously. Once you understand how valuable ideas really are, you’ll know the importance of making it easy to capture them.
The next step is learning which ideas are the “million dollar” ideas, and learning how to capitalize on them. But that’s something I’m still working on myself!
February 10th, 2006
Scott Ginsberg of “HELLO…my name is Scott” has a free eBook available titled, “66 Priceless Pieces of Business Advice I Couldn’t Live Without.” One of his pieces of advice is, “Give value first.”
I think this is one of the most overlooked, but vital pieces of advice out there. How often have you heard someone complain they’re not paid enough or they didn’t receive a large enough raise?
I don’t know about you, but I hear things like this from people all the time.
Every time I hear someone say they’re not paid enough money for a job I want to ask them what value they’re providing. I’ve found there is usually a correlation between the value someone provides and their compensation; and most people are completely oblivious to this correlation.
On which side of the chart do you fall? The relationship of value-to-income is not a straight 1-to-1 ratio like most people think. There are a few reasons for this:
- value can be a vaguely defined quantity in a relationship
- most people want to see proof of value before they’ll determine (and pay) a price
- intangible factors can affect the worth of your value
Usually the relationship - when plotted on a graph - is a logarithmic curve. When you’re first starting to offer value, you have a lower income (or return on your value).
Once you’ve proven yourself, your product, your service - whatever you need to prove - your income rises. As you provide more and more value, the amount of income relative to your value will increase logarithmically.
This means you will eventually get to a point where your income and value are maximized. Whether we work for someone else or are self-employed, this point of maximum value and maximum income is where we all want to get in our professional lives.
But the “gotcha” of a logarithmic relationship is that when you’re first starting out you have to put more effort and energy into one axis of the relationship to generate output on the other. You have to initially provide more value from which you receive less income.
If your first effort is to maximize your income, you had better have the perfect value proposition. It’s not impossible to do, but it’s extremely difficult.
If you change your perspective just a little and focus not on your result (the income), but on your effort (the value) something special starts to happen; you will notice that the relationships around you are built better, on my solid foundations. You will notice that you care more about providing a better quality product for your customer. You will become input-focused rather than output-focused.
You will be building value first and trusting that income will follow. If you take this approach to life and your business relationships (and even personal relationships) you’ll always come out ahead because income will eventually greatly reward value.
Remember the saying; “if you build a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to your door.” The path doesn’t get beaten to your door because you’ve cornered the market on mouse catching, but rather because you’ve provided great value to people in the form of a better trap.
If you’re like most people, at this point you might be asking yourself, “If I provide all this value up front aren’t I taking a risk on the payback?”
Yes you are. But all of life involves some risk. The proposition is this; prove yourself first and be rewarded. It’s very possible you’ll run into someone who wants to take advantage of you. When this happens you have to learn to quickly trust your gut when starting to deal with someone in a new relationship.
And remember, value is a two-way street; if you’re giving but never getting, you’re free to change the relationship!
When you commit yourself to providing value first, you’ll be more likely to create “win-win” solutions in your relationships. Keep this advice close to your heart, put it in practice everyday and you’ll soon see returns on your value that you never predicted!
January 27th, 2006
When faced with a tough choices how do you progress and finally make a decision? Some decisions are simple to analyze while others create stress and agony for us while we ponder “what to do.”
There are books about making decisions in an instant, and when pushed into a tough spot most people go with their gut feeling.
Most of the time they’re right.
I’m a huge fan of the quiz-show Jeopardy. Often I’ll be watching - playing along at home - and when an “answer” is revealed I’ll blurt out a “question” (usually the first thing that comes to mind). Often I’ll think to myself, “No, that can’t be right…” and I’ll change my answer before the correct “question” is revealed.
Almost every time I revise my “question” to the “answer” I find I’m wrong. When I trust my gut and go with the first thing my brain called up I find I have a much higher occurrence of being correct.
I’m not right 100% of the time, no one is, but by making a snap decision - and trusting my gut and years of reading trivia to allow my brain to instantly call up the right “question” - I find that I’m right often enough to amaze my wife with the number of “answers” I “question” correctly.
If you’re the kind of person who loves (or hates) to agonize over a decision, researching and endless thinking about options and outcomes, you’ll spend a lot of time deciding and not much time acting. And it’s often the action that makes us successful in our ventures.
I have a friend who never seems to plan things out much, he really flies by the seat of his pants. He trusts his gut and is quick to make a decision - faster than just about anyone else I know. For all of his quick decision making and lack of planning and analyzing he’s remarkably successful.
He’s not successful because he’s only making the right decisions, he’s successful because he’s making a ton of decisions and quickly moving past the bad decisions. What he lacks in detailed planning he makes up for in sheer, massive action!
If you’re not making “gut” decisions because the very idea sounds intimidating the good news is that quick, “gut” decisions can be learned. I used to agonize over restaurant menus; I never knew what I wanted, I would waffle back and forth between several items and I always had to tell the server that I needed another few minutes.
One day I read a book on achievement and it said that Major League baseball hall of fame hitters only connect 3 out of every 10 times they’re at bat and that’s enough to put them in the hall of fame. They make snap decisions on when to swing and they recover quickly from their mistakes. That really sunk in with me - I needed to learn to make quicker decisions. So I started at restaurants.
The next time my wife and I were at a restaurant I started my learning process. I didn’t open the menu and I didn’t think about the options available to me. When the waiter came up to take our order I asked, “What sounds good to you tonight?” They were a little surprised and then said they were planning on getting the salmon. I said, “Gee, that does sound good. I’ll take that.” I didn’t really think it sounded good - I’m more of a steak man myself - but I wanted to force myself to make quick decisions.
It turns out that it was indeed a good meal. I’ve ordered it several times since and it’s one of my non-beef favorites.
So I slowly started making quick decisions at restaurants - trusting my gut and usually walking away full and happy. Slowly I noticed that I started feeling okay while making quick decisions on other, smaller aspects of my life; next came my career and work life and then those small decisions became a little bigger and a little bigger.
Now I feel comfortable trusting my gut in many situations. I’m not crazy - if I think a decision will significantly impact my life I will give it the time and research it’s due to make sure it’s a good decision. But for everything else I try to just reach down inside, do a gut check, and make a decision trusting that I’ll be right more often than I’ll be wrong.
Here are some additional tips to help you ease into trusting your gut when you make decisions. You don’t need to write pages and pages of detail, just enough so you can review your notes later - when you’re distanced from the decision - and see what the results were:
* When you are faced with a decision write down what you’re thinking and feeling. Be as objective as possible!
* Write down the pros of making the decision.
* Write down the cons of not making the decision.
* Write down how you will feel if you make the decision, and what you believe the impact on your life or career will be.
* Write down how you will feel if you don’t make the decision, and what you believe the impact on your life or career will be.
* Write down your “gut” decision.
* Write down your “analyzed” decision.
* Write down the decision you actually make.
After sufficient time has passed - maybe weeks, maybe months - and you’re feeling like you’re reasonable distanced from the decision pull out your notes and review them.
What was the outcome of your decision? How did it ultimately impact your life? Was your “gut” decision right - or if you didn’t make the gut decision do you believe it would have been the better decision?
Hopefully you’ll see that more often than not you’re gut feeling is correct when making a decision. You just have to learn to trust yourself and your abilities; and you have to learn that it’s okay to make decisions quickly because that gives you more chances to put action into your life.
When you have a lot of action you’ll find you make a lot more progress and achieve a lot more than you thought possible!
January 17th, 2006
Have you ever thought to yourself, “I can’t do that because…” - if so you might be letting your limiting beliefs hold you back from achieving your full potential.
Limiting beliefs are negative thoughts and images that have been drilled into our heads by friends, foes, loved ones, and society. Our brains are big computers, so we install them right along with positive or empowering beliefs.
Once a limiting belief has taken hold you don’t notice it often, but when it shows itself it’s power is surprisingly strong.
So how do you let limiting beliefs get installed and what can you do to uninstall them?
Many of our limiting beliefs don’t come from ourselves, they come from well meaning people who don’t realize they’re setting up a negative association. A parent who cautions a child, “If you don’t get a college education you’ll never get a good job!” is well meaning, but without follow up and support they can inadvertently install a limiting belief that there is no good job available for the person who didn’t attend college.
A friend might install a limiting belief by telling you, “You can’t make a living selling your artwork.”
A spouse might install a limiting belief by telling you, “Are you crazy? You can’t quit your job and start your own company. We can’t lose your steady paycheck!”
Pretty soon, if these statements are reinforced over and over, you’ll start to believe them whether they’re true or not!
You might even self-sabotage if you find yourself in a situation that isn’t congruent with your beliefs. If you do quit your job and start your own business, but you believe that it’s crazy because of a limiting belief, it’s possible you’ll subconsciously work against yourself so you eventually get back to a place where your situation is congruent with your beliefs.
If you do something when a limiting belief is telling you the exact opposite of what you’re doing, one of three things is going to happen:
1) You’ll self-sabotage your success and when the business fails it will reinforce your limiting belief, creating a self-sustaining feedback loop which makes the limiting belief even stronger!
2) You’ll get sick because your reality and your beliefs are not congruent. You will get yourself into a state where you’ll physically be ill and you will work to get yourself out of this state.
3) You’ll realize that your liming belief is self-imposed and not really such a limit after all. You’ll break through your belief and be successful. You might even install a new belief that says, “Working for myself is great! I don’t have to be chained to someone else’s schedule and I decide when and how I can earn money.”
Number two is the worst option above; I speak from personal experience. About three years ago I was presented with a business opportunity that looked great on the surface. It involved spending nearly 100% of the partners’ time on the phone, selling. I had done cold-calls in the past, and I wasn’t uncomfortable on sales calls; it looked like a good product and a good business idea. So I started calling, and calling, and calling.
But I had a limiting belief that said, “People don’t like to get bothered with sales calls.” I certainly didn’t like receiving sales calls, and I figured no one else would either. In this case I had a self-inflicted limiting belief.
I was uneasy the first two weeks of making calls, but I told myself that I just needed to get used to dialing and hearing, “No!” all day long - I would get better. By the fifth week I knew I was in trouble. I still wasn’t comfortable with 8 hours of rejection and I wasn’t okay with making sales calls; my reality was way out of line with my beliefs! I was physically sick to my stomach at the thought of getting out of bed and facing another day of making calls. I would sit at my desk and my hand would shake a little as I reached for the phone. It was awful. The business which looked so good on paper wasn’t working out quite like we thought it would, and I wasn’t able to mentally rectify my beliefs with my reality and it was making my ill.
My partners and I talked about it, and I told them I couldn’t do the job. They asked me to step out and I did. The moment I was “out” I felt a huge weight lift, my life was once again in balance. I no longer had to struggle with my reality out of line with my beliefs.
With this opportunity I wasn’t able to make the break through, step out of my comfort zone and realign myself to overcome my limiting beliefs. You can also see that in this case my limiting beliefs completely held me back from achieving my goals.
What limiting beliefs do you have that are keeping you from realizing your potential? I know you have some, everyone does. A better question is, how do you get rid of these limiting beliefs?
A belief is any cognitive content held as true. Beliefs can be based on fact and truth; I believe I will not fall off the Earth because I believe in gravity (which has been proven scientifically). Beliefs can also be based on conjecture and feeling; I believe in a supreme being because it makes me feel “good” inside (which cannot be proven scientifically).
So to change a belief you just have to change how you view that cognitive content; simple right? If only it were! Our brains are computers, but they’re pattern-based computers. Our brains love to find patterns in everything, numbers, shapes, beliefs. You name it and we pattern it. Our brain physically changes as these patterns get reinforced; new neural pathways are formed and our beliefs are literally hardwired into our brains! Our beliefs become habits and just like it can be difficult to change a habit; it can be difficult to change a belief.
Logic can help a little. Take for example the belief some have, “If you don’t get a college degree, you won’t get a good job.” Really? If you have this limiting belief, I can guarantee you know someone with a good job, maybe a great job who doesn’t have a college degree. So it’s not true in reality that you have to have a college degree to get a good job. Logically this belief is flawed - why not just get rid of it?
Logic isn’t nearly as powerful as emotions to humans. We tie emotions deeply to everything we do and experience. We also want to avoid pain and gain pleasure. If you have a belief you want to eliminate, logically knowing it’s false is a good start, but if you can tie emotional pain to the belief you stand a much better change of eliminating it.
You have to reach a point where you get your belief and reality so incongruent that the pain of keeping the belief is more painful than not keeping the belief. You need to use visualization and logic and experience and other, positive beliefs to build up this pain around your limiting beliefs. You really want the limiting belief to fester and boil just below the surface of your conscious, and you want to keep pressure on yourself that the belief is invalid and needs to be replaced.
And you need to be ready with a replacement belief that’s positive and uplifting! When you finally apply enough pain to keeping your limiting belief and you finally get incongruent enough your brain will just let it go. It wants to experience that relief you get - that weight lifting - and the only way to get it is to remove the belief. When this happens, you’ll have a void where your belief was and your brain will be ready to stick something into that void.
If you’re not ready with a positive and beneficial belief to fill that void, chances are you’ll end up with a new limiting belief!
You have to get clear on what you want before you get rid of what you don’t want. Your replacement belief might be, “I use my unique talents to make myself attractive and valuable to employers.”
Because beliefs are installed just like habits, you need to keep reinforcing your new belief. If you only plant the seed your new belief will probably not take root. If you spend time for at least thirty days reflecting on your new belief as you review your goals, you’ll not only plant the seed, you’ll water and fertilize it too!
Steps to remove a limiting belief:
1) Identify how the belief is flawed. It’s only a belief because you think it’s true. Figure out a way to think it’s false.
2) Tie emotional pain to keeping the belief. By nature we move away from pain as quickly as possible. Make sure that keeping the belief will trigger large amounts of emotional pain for yourself!
3) Be crystal clear on a replacement belief! Once you’ve tied enough pain to your limiting belief and your mind lets it go, it will be looking for a new belief to replace the pattern. If you’re not clear on a positive belief to fill this void you can end up with another limiting belief!
4) Constantly review your new, positive belief. Just planting a new belief isn’t enough, you need to spend time (at least a month) reviewing your new belief on a daily basis to make sure it “sticks.” A good way to do this is to write your belief on an index card and read it aloud twice a day; in the morning when you get up and in the evening before you go to bed!
January 5th, 2006
