Stuck between mediocrity and excellence

You live and die by the decisions that you make.  Maybe that's a bit extreme.  “It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.”  -  Tony Robbins That sounds a little better. So why is it so hard some times to make decisions. It really comes down to the fact that you start to play out all possible scenarios after you make a decision and not one of them looks very appealing.  When you respond to emails, you are predicting the response. When you make a huge purchase or make a decision that is a life event, you feel the potential pain that it could cause -- both to your financial state AND emotional state.  It's natural to predict a worse case scenario with a bonus of negative consequences. It's why many of us are "slow to drag our feet," as they say.  The truth is that many decisions are not permanent unless you choose make them that way.  “A real decision is measured by the fact that you’ve taken a new action. If...

Attend a Tony Robbins seminar.  Your friends think you attended a get rich quick conference.  Read a bunch of self-help books and business books.  Your colleagues and clients think you have too much time on your hands and that it's all idealistic, not practical.  Listen to podcasts. What are podcasts?? And why?? If you don't have advisers and mentors in your life, it's probably easier to laugh at the people getting help then to actually get the help yourself.  "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."  - Mahatma Gandhi I used to be the one laughing at the infomercials and the people listening to cassette tapes of motivational mumbo jumbo.  Now I'm one of them and wish I had done it sooner. Go figure.

In the day to day management of work that you either love to do or hate to do, it's easy to get caught up in your own agenda.  If you're a Manager, you have your own task list in addition to a list that you've delegated to others.  Each day you probably feel a sense of accomplishment by checking those tasks off and getting reports that the people that you've delegated to have checked their tasks off.  Then, because you've added more tasks to the list that day, you get to feel a sense of accomplishment all over again the next day.  But in the end, what have you really  accomplished?  What impact have you really made?  Tony Robbins says, "Success without fulfillment is failure."  If there is not one daily activity on that checklist that does not meet some internal sense of fulfillment, sound the alarm!  if you don't sound the alarm, you will end up hating life. Trust me. I know. Part of me still goes to that place that is not ...

I've been collecting success quotes for a few years now. I've watched enough TED talks to believe that I'm on the verge of becoming a genius.  My archive of Success Magazine and the CDs that come with it have become so vast, that I'm at least 6 months behind in consuming all of the information. In addition to my Kindle collection, I have a stack of hardcover books and have started using  audible.com  because my back can't take lugging books around from home to work and back.  To cap it off, I went to experience Tony Robbins live and in person.  Yet I still do nothing. Education and insight without action is meaningless. I know that. There are a lot of us out there that have an inner super-hero or beast that is aching to get out. But something is keeping us in the same place.  The pull to be great has to be so strong that getting out of what's comfortable should require zero thinking and unquestioned doing doing.  If you are still t...

In order to change, you have to have the motivation to change.  For a lot of people, the summoning up the motivation to change feels more painful than staying in the same.  (That's a combination of Tony Robbins and Dave Ramsey).  Why do we stay in the same job, work for the same client, and endure the same employer when we know each day is going to a bring a "Please shoot me moment"'?  Why do we complain about our health while drinking a gallon of zero calorie soda every day?  Why do we complain about our finances when there is a high-priced German automobile in the garage?  The problem with motivation is that many of us don't have it in order to make real change in our lives. We envy the ones that do when the reality is that each and every one of us has the power to do something.  We just don't.  Change doesn't happen overnight. Based on my current observations, it doesn't even happen over the course of a few months - and that c...

I was fully expecting to write about my experience at Unleash the Power Within  this past weekend.  I completely underestimated what ~50 hours of listening, writing, dancing, hugging, jumping, and mental exercising over 4 days felt like.  I was walking on fire at 12:30 AM on the first day. Seriously.  For those of you that are interested in the "what", here's a link to a blog  where it does a pretty good job of describing what each day is like.  For those of you that read what I write, you know that I keep it real. I like to call it, "being practical." Others may call it, "b*tching." Let's start with the question, "Is it worth it?"  Absolutely, YES!  You can read his books, listen his audio, watch some of his interviews -- but it will NEVER compare to experiencing Tony Robbins in person. He's the real deal. If you do go, here's my advice: Read or listen to Awaken the Giant Within . Tony is the...

Infomercials at 2 AM in a Starwood property on multiple occasions. Watching QVC at the wrong time. Starting and not finishing Awaken the Giant Within because I saw it on my parent's bookshelf.  Buying a box set of CDs that are supposed to change your life in 12 days and only listening to 5 days worth. It's all led to this. Unleash the Power Within over the next 4 days.  Life changing? We're about to find out.

There are organizations that sell you what they think they are.  There are some that sell you exactly what they are.  Which one are you a part of? Which ones do you think are more successful?  The organizations that sell what they think they are will end up falling short on delivery sooner or later. They end up falling short with employees - because the employees were sold a bill of goods during the recruiting process. They end up falling short  with clients - because they made a promise that they couldn't deliver. I've used this Tony Robbins quote before, "See it for what it is. But not worse than it is."  I am going to remix it a bit and say, "See your business for what it is, and not better than it is."  Don't call staff augmentation sexy. Call it what it is. Own it. Be a professional at it.  If you are going to be on fries at McDonald's, be the best d*mn fry guy that the place has ever seen.  The core of good business is tru...

I think there are a lot of people out there that are trying to find meaning in their work.  Does that status report and workplan you are spending time on really matter?  Is the client that is getting on your last nerve really going to appreciate what you've done to make his or her life easier?  In a large corporation, does what you do make an impact on the bottom line? Or are you absorbed in a line item within the company's operational expense column? The motivational person would say to you, "Your job is what you make of it." Tony Robbins would say, "See the work for what it is and not worse than it is." (Something like that.) Your best friend would say, "You need to get the f*ck out of what you are doing." And the reason your friend would say that is because you've described your job to him or her as the worst thing ever.  I would tell you that the reason you are doing sh*tty work is because you feel that there is a gap in w...