On Mountains and Mastering change

ON MOUTAINS AND MASTERING CHANGE

 

Faith & belief do move mountains. And if you don’t believe an idea will work, then there’s no change you’ll act on it (and if you don’t act, how can you get results?). Thought is the mother of action and your beliefs really do become self-fulfilling prophecies.

 

Define what the mountaintop looks like: Articulate in writing, what success looks to you. Note what needs to change in your life for you to feel spectacularly successful and what will happen if you don’t improve. Then record your goals for all the key areas of your life. Write out what you want your reality to appear as five years from now. List the values you want to stand for. Clarity precedes success – and awareness precedes transformation.

 

Start climbing: There’s great power in starting. A single act – done now – sets forces into play. It generates momentum. And with the action you begin to experience positive results. That begins a positive feedback loop: more action, more results. And that, in turn, promotes confidence.

 

Take small steps: You can’t get to the top of the Everest by jumping up the mountains. You get to the mountaintop by taking incremental steps. Step by step you get to the goal. Every step gets you closer to the dream. Life’s like that too. Small steps each day get you to greatness over time. Why? Because the days really do become weeks and weeks become months and months become years. You’ll get to the end of your life anyway – why not reach that place as an extraordinary human being?

 

“You can’t get to the top of the Everest by jumping up the mountain. You get to the mountaintop by taking incremental steps. Step by step you get to the goal”

 

Problems reveal genius

PROBLEMS REVEAL GENIUS

 

Problems are servants. Problems bring possibilities. They help you grow and lead to better things, both in your organization and within your life. Inside every problem lies a precious opportunity to improve things. Every challenge is nothing more than a chance to make things better. To avoid them is to avoid growth and progress. To resist them is to decline greatness. Embrace and get the best from the challenges in front of you. And understand that the only people with no problems are dead.

 

An unhappy customer yelling at you might seem like a problem. But to a person thinking like a leader, that scenario is also a giant opportunity to improve the organization’s processes to ensure that doesn’t happen again and to get some feedback that may be used to enhance products and services. So the problem has actually helped to improve the company.

 

An interpersonal conflict at work can seem like a problem. But if you think like a leader and use the circumstance to building understanding, promote communication and enrich the relationship, the problem has actually made you better. It has been fodder for your growth and served you nicely. Bless it.

 

Problems & difficult situations bring depth, compassion and wisdom. They give self-awareness and make us the person that we are. I wouldn’t trade them for the world.

 

Problems reveal genius. World class organizations have a culture that sees problems as opportunities for improvement. Don’t condemn them – learn from them and embrace them. World class human beings turn their wounds into wisdom. They leverage their failures to bring them closer to success. They don’t see problems, they see possibilities. And that’s what makes them great. Remember a mistake is only a mistake, if you make it twice.

 

“The only people with No Problems are dead”

 

SIX REASONS TO SET GOALS

SIX REASONS TO SET GOALS

 

Few success practices are as important as articulating your most closely held goals and then reviewing them daily. Getting masterful at setting and then considering your goals on a consistent basis is essential to a life of greatness. And yet, most people don’t spend more than an hour a year doing this. It’s true: People spend more time planning summer vacations than they do designing their lives.

 

In my mind, there are six big reasons to set goals: Focus, Growth, Intentionality, Measurement, Alignment and Inspiration.

 

FOCUS: Where your focus goes your energy flows. I noticed that one of the primary traits of highly successful entrepreneurs, captains of industry etc is their focus. They know their “vital few”, in other words, the key goals they need to achieve to get to the extraordinary. And then they focus like crazy on them. Goals breed focus. Simple but very powerful.

 

GROWTH: Goal-setting promotes personal growth. The real value of reaching a goal lies not in the result achieved but in what the journey you’ve walked to get to the goal has made of you as a person.

 

INTENTIONALITY: It’s easy to live life by accident and sleepwalk through your days. It you don’t act on life, life has a way of acting on you. By articulating your goals and then reviewing them for five minutes each morning, you will exert your influence on the life and live in a proactive rather than reactive manner. By setting goals, you will have a framework or decision matrix that will drive better choices. You will become aware – within a few seconds – when you get off plan. You’ll make fewer mistakes and get more done in less time. As the novelist Saul Bellow said: “A plan relive you of the torment of choice”

 

MEASUREMENT: Amos Shapiro, CEO of El El, Israel’s national airline offered me a tour of Tel Aviv’s spectacular airport when I was last there. In one of the meeting rooms used by his staff, a statement appeared on a crumpled piece of paper stuck to a wall: “what gets measured gets improved”. Very effective. Setting goals gives you something to measure. If your physical goal is to get down to 12% body fat, you have a standard against which to measure your progress. And as you measure, you have a basis on which to improve. With a clearer awareness of your goals you can make their choices. With better choices, you will see better results.

 

ALIGNMENT: I’ll share one of my best “secrets of success” with you. Ensure your daily actions are aligned with your deepest values. Let me put it another way. There can be no happiness if your commitments are not congruent with your convictions. Isn’t that what integrity is all about, ensuring that your schedule reflects your values and what you stand for? Setting clear goals that are aligned with your most important values is a superb way to get to personal greatness.

 

INSPIRATION: Goals breathe life into your days. The very act of articulating your goals on a crisp white paper causes you to step into a whole new possibility for what your life can become. Setting your goals is a statement that you refuse to be ordinary. Setting your goals is a bold play for your best life. Setting your goals is an act of heroism because you are reaching for the potential that has been invested in you. As Mark Twain noted: “If everyone was satisfied with themselves there would no heroes”

 

“Setting goals is a bold play for best life. Setting goals is an act of heroism because you are reaching for the potential that has been invested in you”