During a recent presentation of my keynote, “Blasting Thru Brick Walls,” I gave examples of the four types of walls people build;

1. Circumstances
2. Style
3. Consequences
4. Design 

I was chatting with some of the audience members afterward and one of them said, “My brick wall is procrastination, what category does that fit in?”

Instant silence. All eyes turned to me. Clearly there was more than one person who wanted an answer to that question.

Procrastination, I explained, is not a brick wall. It’s a symptom of a brick wall. I mean, think about it – if you knew that moving forward was going to cause you to bang your head against a brick wall you’d put it off as long as possible, wouldn’t you?

Here are just a FEW of the problems that show up as procrastination – I could write an entire BOOK on this, but I don’t have time for that (which means I’m going to PROCRASTINATE doing it – see how that works?) But this will be enough to get you thinking about the walls that might be causing you to “put off til tomorrow what you would have BENEFITED from doing today!”

Keep in mind that most of these aren’t CONSCIOUS “notes to self.” This is the subtext behind your choosing to fill your time with something other than the thing you know you NEED to do to get where you WANT to be.

Let’s start with examples of the wall of Circumstance – the “I can’t do that right now” statement.

If I wait I might have more… money, time, focus…

If I wait I might be skinnier, smarter, more successful…

If I wait I might be more confident, educated, credentialed…

But WAIT – aren’t those all where you WANT to go? How are you going to go there without doing what you NEED to do?

What about the wall of Style – the “I can’t do it that way” statement?

If you’ve never taken the Kolbe A Assessment(TM) you may not realize how important knowing your personal STYLE is to being productive.

Kathy Kolbe, the theorist and scientific mind behind the Kolbe Wisdom says “Procrastination is the minds’ way of protecting itself from what it does not do NATURALLY.” Her mantra (mine too) is “Change your LIFE, not your SELF!” 

We’re all hard-wired to do things a certain way, and if you’re forcing yourself to do it in a way that isn’t natural you’ll keep putting it off because your subsconsious mind says…

If I wait I might discover an easier way to do it!

Of course, your “conative” abilities aren’t the ONLY style challenge you’ll have. (Conative, along with cognitive and affective, is one of the parts of the mind – it’s the striving instinct that says “do it THIS way or else.” It’s also what is measured by the Kolbe Assessments.)

But anything you ask yourself to do that is unnatural or far outside your comfort zone is likely to get put off for a LOT of tomorrows.

The wall of Consequences is a HUGE culprit in causing procrastination. This is the “I can’t do that because if I do THIS will happen” statement.

Every choice we make comes with an opportunity cost. If you commit to one thing other things get crossed off as possibilities. If you went to the Cardinals’ playoff game you missed the concert. If you bought that new couch you had to put off buying the new grill.

Every step taken in one direction is a step NOT taken in another direction.

But if you put off taking steps where do you think you’ll end up?

Which leaves the wall of Design – the “I can’t do it EXACTLY the way I have it pictured so I can’t do it at all” statement.

Oh boy – perfectionism and procrastination go hand in hand. They’re twin souls. Maybe Siamese Twins. Joined and separable only by a miracle. Right?

If it’s GOT to be a certain way, and you’re not convinced you are ready or able to make it that way, you’ll NOT do it for as long as you can get away with it.

(Ever wonder why I post so infrequently? Writing is one of the FEW things I am a perfectionist about. I go through a little agony every time I click “Publish.”)

So what to do to cure procrastination?

First step is to define the OUTCOME of doing whatever it is you’re NOT doing. Is it getting fit? Or maybe getting rich. Or maybe just getting STARTED!

Remember it is NOT getting the lawn mowed (it’s having a neatly mowed lawn) and it’s NOT having the thank you cards written (it’s one more level of relationship development with everyone who will receive one of those cards.)

When you are clear about the OUTCOME use it to fill in this blank – “What I really want is…”

Now you’re ready for the “blasting caps.”

But this post is getting long and I NEED to click “Publish.” (I promise not to let myself proof it to death – I’m teaching myself to “just release it.”)

So the Blasting Caps will have to wait til the next post.

That will give you time to diagnose your “wall.”

If you don’t procrastinate you’ll have that part all figured out by the time I tell you what to do about it.

I don’t get to say “I don’t believe in the law of gravity, and I’m not going to use it.”

Well, I get to say it, but I’m going to have a hard time proving it. (Richard Bach, author of such best-sellers as “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” and “Illusions; Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah” gave me a fantastic – and hilarious – analogy for that in my dialog with him, but that’s a story for another post.)

So if the Law of Attraction is one of those universal laws, then I “use” it in the same way I “use” the law of gravity – it affects my outcomes every second of my life. I either use it mindfully to my advantage, or I ignore it and it rises up to slap me silly every now and again.

I’m still not sure if the creation of Dynamite Live; Putting your dreams in drive and YOU in the driver’s seat is an example of me taking advantage of natural laws or the universe slapping me silly just to teach me a lesson. Only time will tell.

So here’s what happened…

I spoke at an event. That, in and of itself, wasn’t unusual. But this one was that “straw-that-sparked-the-shot-that-was-heard-around-the-world” kind of experience.

I was sitting down with my inner circle mastermind group (if I took a detour to tell you how incredible, unbelievable, amazing… ok, I won’t take that detour right now) and I started making a list of all the things I find frustrating about most conferences that are offered to entrepreneurs.

When I finally took a breath, one of the group (if I ever remember which one that was there WILL be consequences!) said, “So when are you doing your event?”

Lungs fill of oxygen, heart full of indignation, I said, “Oh, I’ll never do an event, but if I DID…” And I went on to describe in glowing detail the kind of event I would want to be part of.

I was eloquent, I was engaged, I was (remember this, it’s important) I was EMOTIONAL. I wanted SOMEBODY to make this event happen so I could be part of it, even just to be in the audience.

I was DETAILED (also important) about what the event would (and would not) include, the experience the participants would have and the outcomes they would achieve before they left.

I could SEE me (you guessed it, also important) at this dream event. Hugging people, listening to people share their stories, their dreams, their wisdom. Laughing with joy at all the “ah ha moments.” Crying… Nope, I didn’t see myself crying. But you get the picture – I was INTO it!

When I came up for air again every one of my friends, mentors, mastermind members (and sometime tormentors) was grinning from ear to ear and again one of them said, “So, when are you doing your event?”

Now that plans for Dynamite Live are coming together, excitement is building and registrations are coming in, I realize that I threw down a gauntlet to the Universe and the Universe laughingly took the challenge.

Tonight I was rereading bits of Mike Dooley’s “Manifesting Change” and it became crystal clear. (Yeah, he’s the guy behind TUT, Notes from the Universe – love those emails!)

First, our minds don’t understand negatives. The famous example of “Don’t think of a blue elephant” comes to mind. (Did you really read that without picturing, even fleetingly, a blue elephant?) So when I said “I’ll never do an event” my mind heard “Do an event.”

The Universe must have added “do an event” to my Stratospheric Success Map right then. And all those details I painted were, to the Universe, one big “to-do” list.

Second, in “Manifesting Change” Mike Dooley references one of the aspects of the Law of Attraction that is pretty much universally accepted, “Emotion is the turbocharger of change; our emotions supercharge the thoughts associated with them.”

So I may not have been attaching emotion to the thought of my doing my own event, but I was extremely emotionally bonded with the kind of event I wanted to be part of. Clearly, the Universe thought that was close enough.

Third, I put myself in the picture. Not as the event planner and host, but I was definitely “all in!”

The real clencher though, was when my coach, mastermind partner, dear friend and soul sister, Manifestation Maven, Kimberly Schneider, fed my own words back to me. (The Universe is not above using your dearest friends and dealing a low blow now and again.)

I had shared with her a story of a client who burst into tears literally 15 minutes into our first session because when she shared with me that she was frustrated at the lack of fellowship and support groups for her profession I said, “Sometimes when we cannot find what we need it is because it is given to us to create it.”

That’s exactly what Kimberly quoted back to me, in her gentle, uplifting voice, “Sometimes when we cannot find what we need it is because it is given to us to create it.” 

There was dead silence. I think they were all holding their breaths to see if I would cry. Instead I laughed. What else could I do?

What I chose to do was to rise to that challenge. The Universe, Source, God, Destiny, Highest Right… whatever you call that inner voice that guides us when we cannot see our way spoke to me in my own words almost two years ago; now it’s time to live by them.

You’ll notice I’ve listed three tips for “using” the Law of Attraction. I don’t teach manifestation or the Law of Attraction – I’ll leave that to Kimberly. She’ll be presenting material from her new book, “Everything You Need is Right Here” at Dynamite Live so direct those questions to her.

But I do “use” the Law of Attraction, just as surely as I use the laws of physics. And, unless I miss my guess, so do you.

Yesterday I rescued a dragon in distress. Or maybe it was a damsel.

In truth, it was most likely a dragonFLY or a damselFLY. But it was most definitely in distress.

I had let my dog out into the garden for her usual morning ramble. She’d given fair warning to all the birds, sniffed the newly opened flowers, taken care of “business” and demanded to be let back into “her” house. And right on her tail (almost literally) flew this confused creature.

I left the door open. I tried to shoo it back toward freedom. But the silly thing decided that the window NEXT to the door offered the best chance at escape and began to beat its fragile wings against the screen.

Now I am fond of dragons (my dog is even dubbed “The Dragon Dog”) and count a fair number of damsels among my friends. So I wasn’t concerned with WHICH kind of winged beauty was dying to escape from my kitchen, I just wanted to help.

Of course, my attempts to distract it from its escape plan and offer an alternative exit route only panicked the poor thing. And I realized, to this tiny, beautiful creature I am the dragon!

Not counting the gossamer wings, this thing was no bigger than my finger. My entire hand must have looked like a moving mountain. What little brains it had were all in “OH SHOOT” mode. (Dragons and damsels don’t use “bad” language, I’m told.)

I won’t keep you in suspense. The story ends happily. At last, exhausted and possibly encouraged that the mountain hadn’t yet toppled onto it, the dragon/damsel in distress clung to my finger. I covered it gently with my other hand and darted out the back door.

I pulled the door closed with my toe (NOT as easy as it sounds) and uncovered my unexpected guest. It blinked at me. REALLY, I think it was saying “thank you” – and then it flew away.

All day I pondered how often we try to show someone an open path to freedom, to power, to success, to greener pastures, to somewhere they SAY they want to be. And then have had to watch them beat their wings against the barriers on the path they have chosen.

I thought about how often I’ve been the dragon, frightening or intimidating when I only wanted to help. And I pondered how often I have been the dragonfly in distress, frightened and intimidated by the friendly dragon who was only trying to rescue me from my own stubborn blindness.

There are so many lessons in this story – for dragons and dragonflies both. I’ll share a few.

If you’re the dragon -

Saying “I’m a friendly dragon” with fire trickling from your nostrils may not be very convincing.  Your dragonfly isn’t a mind reader, it won’t know your intent, it will only know what you say and how you say it. Be empathetic. Ask “how will this appear to a dragonfly?” – not “how would it appear to another dragon?”

You may have to be patient, difficult when you’re having to watch the dragonfly bruising its wings trying to be free. But if you just grab the poor thing by its delicate wing and take it outside chances are it will never fly again. Your dragonfly will have to tire of doing things its own way and you will have to allow that process to take place.

You may have to move slowly, even if 30 seconds FEELS like 30 minutes. A hand the size of a mountain moving at normal human speed is a MAJOR threat to a poor little dragonfly. Offer your help at the pace your dragonfly can accept, regardless of how badly you want to see it fly on its own.

You may have to give the benefit of the doubt. A distressed creature isn’t thinking rationally. So you may be tempted to say “You’re too stubborn and stupid to be worth saving! Beat your wings to ribbons, see if I care!” But you know that is just your frustration speaking. Your dragonfly is plenty smart (for a dragonfly) – its just not thinking at full capacity right now.

If you’re the dragonfly –

DO NOT PANIC! (good advice if you’re the dragon too, but dragons are less prone to panicking. More on that later…)

Seriously, no matter how severe your situation (or how malicious the dragon) panicking serves no purpose. Have a breakdown later – when you’re safe and telling your tale of escape to all your dragonfly friends. Right now, keep your wits about you and THINK.

DO NOT ASSUME! (and yes, I know how to spell ass-u-me, but it can also make you DEAD if you make the wrong assumption about a dragon.)

If you assume the dragon will eat you and you’re wrong, you’re going to die beating your wings against the window screen while the dragon wrings her claws in despair. If you assume the dragon is friendly and he isn’t… well, I’ll let you finish that story. Pay attention to clues, then go back to the last tidbit of wisdom and THINK!

STOP being stubborn and OPEN your eyes! If you’d just admit you MIGHT be wrong about the best chance of escape being through the window you might be able to see the open door. ‘Nuff said!

REMEMBER – that dragon didn’t graduate from dragonfly status into full fledged, firebreathing dragon extraordinaire without learning a few things. (What? You say dragonflies don’t grow up to be dragons? How would YOU know?)

Just because you can’t see the open door, or any other path to freedom, to power, to success, to greener pastures, to somewhere you SAY they want to be, does NOT mean you need to beat your wings to ribbons against the window screen. The dragon can probably offer many other possibilities and paths if you’ll only listen.

In reality, I think being a dragon or a dragonfly is situational.

I have dragons in my life. I am blessed to have MANY dragons who have come along to rescue me from shredding my wings.

I’ve also had the opportunity to rescue a few dragonflies. Some flew thankfully on their way, some determinedly beat their wings against the screen.

Regardless of your role, dragon or dragonfly, just remember – you were BORN to fly!

One of the things that I love about working with Kimberly is that I am NEVER bored with my workout. I have a typical entrepreneurial mind – always in high gear. If it isn’t engaged with what I’m physically doing, my body just has to go on without it because it is racing away thinking about all the other things I’m going to do, want to do, dreaming of doing, and so on. That can lead to boredom, impatience, aborted workouts, and, if I continue with my workout after my mind has moved on to something more interesting it can spoil my form and keep me from getting the most out of my efforts. (It can even lead to injury if my form slips that much.)

So Kimberly, who tells me I’m in good company and a LOT of her clients are like that, keeps every exercise a little more mentally challenging by designing combinations of movements that make me have to think about what I’m doing. We don’t do squats then rows – we do them in combination. That means I have to think about holding the squat position, pay attention to keeping my shoulders back, abs tight, knees not over toes, AND keep the rhythm of the row going. That’s a lot to think about the first few times I do it.

This morning I observed that the more I had to think about, the less weight I could manage. When she adds another element I have to drop the weight until I master the form. For Kimberly, I think this might have been a “Well, DUH” moment but she was kind and didn’t say so.

It got me thinking though about how we go through our tasks on autopilot and how difficult it is to make changes in how we do something or to do something new. By the time I got home I had three pretty good principles that I believe apply equally to everything we do.

1.)    It takes repetition before we can do anything on autopilot.

I can take a walk, listen to music and compose a poem I will never write all at the same time. But that’s because I’ve been walking and listening to music and making up poems for a very long time. When I first started walking I had to pay attention just to put one foot in front of the other. When I first discovered music I was so fascinated I couldn’t NOT give it my full attention. When I first started stringing words together as poems I could get so lost in my dreamworld I’d forget that I was even standing on solid ground, let alone walking on it. After years and years of repetition, however, these are three things I can do with very little mental focus.

2.)    The more precise we need to be the less desirable it is to do it on autopilot.

Walking or running as part of a training regimen is a little more precise than just going for a pleasant stroll in the park. Switching to autopilot on a training run could lead to turning an ankle on an errant twig or tripping over a crack in the sidewalk. Swinging a kettle bell is more precise still, and going to autopilot and getting out of form can cause injuries in the lower back.  Doing curls while balancing on one of those squishy half circle things requires complete focus or I’ll fall.

3.)    The more desire you have to do a thing the more willing you are to put the focus and repetition into mastering it.

Brian Tracy, in his 7 Rules of Success says, “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.” For many of us, this is a real “brick wall” because we don’t LIKE to do anything poorly. We’re conditioned to enjoy doing only those things we do well. We’re also conditioned to avoid doing anything we don’t enjoy.

So to reach a level of mastery that allows you to even enjoy doing a thing, let alone do it on autopilot, do it consistently well, or do it for maximum results we must first DO it repeatedly. Never mind “practice makes perfect.” What about “practice makes possible?” Or, better yet, “practice makes FUN!”

Think about something you’d like to do consistently, effortlessly, effectively, enjoyably.  How OFTEN are you willing to do it clumsily, with difficulty and with less than desirable results? That’s the equation, the more often you do it the sooner you’ll do it the way you WANT to do it.

If it’s something you really, really want, but you keep hitting that brick wall of “doing it poorly isn’t fun” get help. That’s what I did and it makes practice FUN!

I recently asked for feedback from my audience after an afternoon of teaching “Creating Endless Referrals The Go-Giver Way.” I often get comments about networking strategies and systems or how to be more open to receiving and there were several comments along those lines. But this comment really stood out to me:

“The information is great and well presented but, (there is always a but) you talk about being authentic. How can I be real when networking and working the room is just so not who I am? I abhor salespeople and people who seem fake. I need more info on how to network and still be me.”

Translation – “How do I learn to initiate relationships MY way?”

I was reminded again of this comment while I was having a conversation with Bob Burg, author of Endless Referrals and co-author, with John David Mann, of The Go-Giver. He and I were recording a session about blasting thru the brick wall of “style” for the “Dynamite Dialogs – Blasting Thru Brick Walls” audio learning series and how that type of barrier relates to Law #4 from The Go-Giver which is the Law of Authenticity that this attendee is referring to in his comment. (Find out how you can get the session with Bob and get $50 off when you pre-order the entire series.)

Have you ever watched someone doing something you really want to be good at doing and thought either, “I could never do that that way so I can’t do it at all,” or “I would never do that that way so I can’t do it at all?” That’s what I call the “brick wall of style.”

I often use Bob as an illustration of how we say “I can’t” and create brick walls around “style.” As most of you know, I’ve been teaching the Five Laws of Stratospheric Success from The Go-Giver for over two years and now also speak on the system for networking your way to success that Bob pioneered in Endless Referrals. If I said “What I really want to do is help people be stratospherically successful by using the Five Laws and the Endless Referrals System,” I might very easily follow that by saying “But I can’t because I can’t present them the way Bob Burg does.”

If I had to be LIKE Bob in order to teach his materials I would definitely have a problem. Fortunately, helping people achieve Stratospheric Success using these fundamental laws and systems doesn’t require that I adopt Bob’s style, I can adapt the materials to my style and even adapt those aspects of Bob’s character that I so admire – such as his graciousness, attention to individuals, sincerity and generosity – to my personal style as well.

Bob and I had a great conversation about how to create a winning personal style by adapting (though as he is quick to add, NOT adopting) what you see and admire in role models and mentors and mindfully cultivating important character traits, but I kept thinking about this comment. What if you want to be successful at something and most of the people you see doing it are setting examples you don’t WANT to model? What if you not only can’t do it that way, but you just simply won’t?

First, let me suggest that for every “I don’t wanna be THAT guy” example there is an example of someone being successful in that role that you would want to model. They might just be going about it so quietly they’re hard to notice for all the commotion being made by people you don’t want to imitate. Pay closer attention and find those people.

The question of how to “work a room” without being that “fake glad-hander” is a good example. I know from extensive experience in networking situations and in coaching networking and relationship building, the “glad-hander” you’re thinking of is usually well-known, but seldom well-respected. So let’s not even think about figuring out how to be “that guy” (or gal.)

But what if circulating at an event still isn’t your style? I don’t think this person was suggesting that everyone who is good at working a room seems fake, only that for him to try to imitate their style would be fake and he abhors fakeness in sales people (and honestly don’t we all prefer authenticity in everyone?)

Perhaps the most important thing I can say to this person, to all of you, and to myself is that in networking, or in anything else, being anything less than authentic is a dead end. That road might end for you the minute someone shakes you hand, it might not end until you have a retained client who slowly begins to realize that you are not the person they thought that you were. But it WILL end.

As that pertains to networking (or what I would prefer to call “initiating relationships”) it is important to remember that you aren’t at an event (or online as the case may be) to meet a LOT of people. You are there to attract people who resonate with you, people who will like you and trust you once they get to know you. You don’t need to “glad-hand” to do that. You need to smile and say hello. You don’t need to be an extrovert, you need to be friendly. You don’t need to be the most interesting person in the room, you need to be the most interested person in the room. And if you aren’t authentically interested in them, why would you want to work with them? (And why would they want to work with you?)

A few tips to those who are a little shy of even going to events, initiating relationships or exchanging business cards.

1.)    Use the “buddy system.” If you attend with a person you already know you won’t be left standing alone until someone returns your smile. And you can introduce them, and have them introduce you, which is easier than introducing yourself.

2.)    Just make eye contact and smile. Some people will glance away, maybe they are also shy, don’t take it personally. Many people will return your smile and shake your hand. Yeah, you just initiated a relationship.

3.)    Ask for their card and only offer yours if they request it. Tell them you’d love to keep in touch and, if you have a presence on line ask if they use any of the social networking sites to stay connected.

4.)    Remember that you aren’t there to sell, and neither is anyone else there to buy. You’re there to get to know PEOPLE and give them a chance to get to know you. Even the next time, or maybe the next time, you connect with these people you aren’t “selling” anything except yourself. ONLY when you have established a “know, like and TRUST” relationship should you have a conversation about what you sell or who you’d like to meet.

I have found that ANYONE can use those four pointers to improve their comfort and ability to initiate relationships. Now take that and apply it to what you “really want to do.” Have you been trying to do it in a style that isn’t comfortable, natural or maybe even advisable and coming back with “but I can’t because?”

“Personal growth is not something to be forced but something to be nurtured and guided – an organic evolution of self. Plant yourself in fertile soil and welcome both the sunshine and the rain. The glory is in the bloom, but the essence is in the roots.”

As a coach I hear it often, “I need to work on my personal growth, but I can’t spare the time away from my business.”  To that common statement I offer two challenges:

First; growth isn’t something you can force, it is something that must be nurtured and that is a daily endeavor, not a project to be undertaken when you have the time.

Second; you are the driving force in your business (or your career.) Without you increasing your value as an individual how can you expect to increase your value to your clients (or employer?)

Have you ever purchased or been given a bare-root rose bush? There it is, looking like something from a Louisiana swamp, all knotted and spindly and prickly and decidedly not pretty.

Usually it comes wrapped in a plastic casing with a picture of what you can expect (or at least hope for) when you have done your part. The picture shows a verdant plant with glossy leaves and swirls and whirls of color and the text describes the scent in language that might be equally suited to an expensive wine, or at least cologne.

You read the directions and, unless you are an expert rose gardener or willing to take a risk of messing this one up, you probably read them again. They involve a specific sequence, precise measurements of depth and components of soil. You follow the guidelines as best you can and sit back to wait for your little bit of heaven.

That bare-root rose is a kind of baby, all potential and needing a lot of care. If it is planted in less than ideal soil or exposed to less than ideal conditions it may suffer. Its growth may be stunted and it may bloom very little or not at all. But if the roots are strong all that potential is still there just waiting to be discovered. Like roses, we can all grow strong and beautiful with a little self care.

Revisit your “planting instructions.” For all of us there are certain environments where we are most likely to flourish. Roses need well drained soil that is rich in certain nutrients. Some need a supporting structure, some stand on their own. Some can grow close together, some need more room. What do you need? Elements to consider; surroundings, stimuli, support and sustenance.

Your rose has been carefully placed in an environment conducive to its health. Do you think you’re done? Oh not even; you’re going to pray for sun, supplement the rain if it is too little or augment the soil if it is too much. You’re going to mulch and weed and watch carefully for nasty mites or moles.

No matter how ideal your situation you will need to continue the nurturing in order to grow. And rain is just as nurturing as sunshine, weeding out the unwanted elements is just as important as encouraging the growth of the rose.

Embrace opportunities that seem like “rain” knowing they are as essential to your personal growth as the more pleasant sunny days. Stay focused on producing “roses” but be mindful of the weeds, parasites or pests that can distract you from that end goal.

Finally green leaves, finally little buds and then, at last, the heavenly scent and velvet petals of the fully opened rose. Even now your work isn’t done. If you want more roses you will still be watering, weeding, protecting as well as shaping, pruning and deadheading.

Growing roses that produce glorious blooms (and what enjoyment would we get from a rose that never bloomed) requires continual engagement. The process can’t be rushed or forced, it isn’t a project that, once completed, continues to give and give with no further investment.

Think of all the people who are attracted to the rose. People pay dearly for them, prize them as gifts, display them at their most meaningful events. The value that is added to any venue when roses are present can be expressed not only in dollars and cents, but also in smiles and goodwill. Well worth the time and effort, wouldn’t you say?

If you want to increase your bottom line through your business or your career you must first add value for your clients or customers, be they external or internal. How can you add individual value if you are not growing as an individual?

Take stock of your opportunities to add value to your clients or customers. It might be by being more knowledgeable in a certain area, it might be through maintaining a more positive outlook or just smiling more often. Create a “gardening schedule” that allows you to build that kind of value in yourself. Do you need to enrich the soil? Enjoy more sunshine? Do some pruning? Engage a master gardener? Maybe you do need to uproot and move to a new “rose bed.”  Whatever your plan, know that it will be an organic and natural process that will produce valuable blooms for as long as you give the rose bush proper care.

What if one day you saw a dragon flying overhead? Wings spread wide, scales glinting in the sunshine, and flames erupting from his maw – a real, live dragon. Would you say “that is a dragon”?

I doubt it. Your mind would struggle to make sense out of the non-sense being fed to it by your eyes. Because your brain “knows” that dragons only exist in fairy tales and J.R.R. Tolkein stories. If we do not believe it is possible we won’t recognize it when it is right before our eyes.

It is a common barrier to living our dreams – not believing in the “impossible.”  Instead we buy into things like “I’m not smart enough” or “I’m not creative” or “I’m too old” and add “so it is impossible for me.”

Ask yourself “what if it were possible? What if my age didn’t matter and my creative abilities were validated?”  It’s called “suspending disbelief” – we do it when we read books or see movies about dragons for instance. We don’t believe that dragons fly our friendly skies along with the jets and the geese, but we are willing to believe in dragons in the context of the story.

Now ask yourself, “IF that were possible, what else would be possible?”

This is your story. If it has dragons in it then you need to believe in dragons. What else do you need to see in order to create your happy ending? What belief is keeping you from seeing what is right before your eyes? What possibilities might exist that you can’t see because you do not believe they are possible for you? Remember, if you don’t believe in dragons you will never see a dragon.

Know what possibilities or opportunities you’d like to see. Use techniques like vision boards or written goals to keep them right in front of you all the time. Be willing to say things such as “the opportunity exists for me to use my skills, experience and abilities to the greater good of mankind and make a good living while doing it.” And when the “yeah buts” raise their heads you’ll start to understand why you have never seen opportunities to realize that dream – the “yeah buts” are the belief systems that tell you that you are seeing geese when in fact you’re looking at a dragon.

You can prove yourself right, that is easy to do, just keep ignoring all those opportunities. Or you can admit that dragons do exist in your world. As each “yeah but” comes to the surface keep asking “but what would I do if I were smart enough, or young enough, or…” then go do it. Best-selling author (Endless Referrals and The Go-Giver) Bob Burg calls it “act as if” – behaving as though something were already true. Knowing how you would behave or what action you would take and then “acting as if” it were true will open windows and doors to possibilities you would have never glimpsed before.

That’s right - “Here be dragons”

Sometimes we feel like everything is in a state of flux and we are tempted to shout “stop the world, I want to get off.” We want to just be still, to take a break from change.

Have you ever tried to be perfectly motionless?

In yoga practice it is often suggested that we “find our way to stillness.” Even in the simplest poses, finding your way to stillness requires subtle adjustments to the posture. The body says “flex this, shift that” and if we ignore those requests for movement we will experience pain or we will fall out of the pose. Ignoring the need to make adjustments creates traumatic alternations.

So we heed these suggestions, make those minute modifications, but even when we come to a place where we can be still our bodies are not motionless. Our chests rise and fall with our breathing. Our gaze may be soft and steady on a distant or internal focus point, but our eyes still move slightly in their sockets. Our hearts still beat and our blood still flows. Only in death are we completely without motion.

And when we have brought ourselves to stillness, to the closest state to motionless that a living organism can create, it is a temporary state. The time will come for movement. It will either be a mindful, controlled release of the pose and a flowing into the next posture or a collapse as the body demands that its need for motion be fulfilled.

I have observed that it is much the same in our lives and in our businesses – which are, of course, only one aspect of our lives.

How often, when a traumatic shift happens, is it because you resisted making the more subtle adjustments when they were requested? How often have you avoided change, discounted the signs that you were becoming uncomfortable, even weak, and stubbornly held to your patterns and beliefs only to have them fail you in the end?

We strive to find our way to stillness, to find a place and pattern that suits us, that feels natural, right, even easy. Then, all too often, we ignore the signs that the time has come to shift. We hold that place through the little discomforts. We discount the strain, the weariness, even the weakness while we stubbornly hold to the pose.

As time goes by, we begin to believe that the sensations of discomfort and weakness are our own shortcomings. That pose felt so right when we first discovered it, surely if it doesn’t feel right now we must be doing something wrong. We continue striving to “be still.”

Isn’t that how we all wish to be loved? Not perfectly as someone we are trying to be, not perfectly as an ideal, but perfectly as what WE were designed to be.

Webster’s offers this definition of perfect – “being complete of its kind without defect or blemish.” Call me an idealist, but I do believe that each and every person is complete in their unique perfection and that personal perfection is something we allow in ourselves, not something we strive toward. Because we are all complete “of our kind” – there IS no one like us!

I will bet that your mind went one of two places – you are either thinking of the people you wish could love you as perfectly YOURSELF or you are thinking of the people you love and asking yourself if you are loving them as perfectly THEMSELVES.

But what about how you love yourself?

Are you able to love yourself as the perfect being you ARE?

Ah, I heard that. The little whisper that says “but I am NOT a perfect being, far from it.”

In Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem” there is a line that says “Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in.”

Then there is the story told to me by friend, peace advocate and proponent of radical trust, Annette Karr, about an athlete who was diagnosed with cancer and had to have a leg amputated above the knee. He spent his recovery time at a cancer center where they offered psychiatric therapy as part of the post-treatment care and the first time he saw the therapist she asked him to draw a picture to represent himself.

He drew a crude vase with jagged lines crossing it. When the therapist asked what the lines represented he told her those were cracks – he said he had once been a perfect vessel, but now he was irreparably flawed.

Time went on and this man began to heal. He took an interest in other patients, helped with their ongoing recoveries and even met and married another patient at the center. Some time later he visited with the therapist again. She asked him again to draw a picture.

He drew the same crude vase and the same jagged cracks, but this time he drew lines radiating from the cracks. When the therapist asked what they represented he said, “that is the light that pours out of me, it could not be shared before because I was too perfect.”

Does the light get in or does it pour out?

Yes, it does – both.

But only when we love ourselves as perfectly ourselves; when we accept our “cracks” as the blessings that they are.

Keeping your goals from becoming a glorified to-do list.

This week we begin a new year (and a new decade) and if you are like most of the Western World you have begun making your New Year’s Resolutions. If you are a business owner and entrepreneur like nearly all of my clients and a good many of my friends you’ve also begun writing out your professional and business goals for 2010. And if you are like the “average” person you will have already “failed” to meet your goals or stick to your resolutions by the end of January 2010!

So why start?

I think it is more a question of where to start. Most people start with questions like “what do I most need to accomplish in 2010?” They may even begin with “what would I most like to make happen in 2010?” Very seldom does their goal setting process include connecting to an impelling “why.”

I’ve had clients apologize to me for having financial goals and I’ve had clients who refused to confess to having any goals that didn’t lead to financial success. And to them all I say “why?”

Yeah, why? What will change for you if you make that happen? Why do you care? Is your heart and soul engaged?

If you are in business I hope you are in business to make money. Richard Bach, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Illusions and many more, was quoted as saying “I don’t want to do business with those who don’t make a profit, because they can’t give the best service.”

The character Ernesto, while demonstrating Law #1 in The Go-Giver says, “will it make money is not a bad question, it’s just a bad first question.” He goes on to explain to Joe that the best first question is “will it serve.”

So here is the vital question; “how will achieving your goals serve you?”

Again, “money” isn’t a bad answer. But it is a bad first answer. Because money, in and of itself doesn’t serve. No one wants money just to have money. You want money for what it will buy, for what it says about you, for the status, for the security, for the good you can do with it, for all kinds of practical and emotional reasons. Money alone doesn’t answer the question.

Why not try starting with the joy you will gain from achieving your objectives in 2010 and reverse engineer your goals? I can hear it now, “joy, you want me to start with joy?”

Yes I do. That kind of joy that sets your soul on fire and gives your heart wings. The outcomes that make you dance a jig and turn crazy cartwheels on the landscape of your mind. THAT k
ind of joy.

If you cannot think of ONE thing that you could do in 2010 that would have that effect you’ve already figured out why you don’t accomplish your goals. Or if you do it is a hard, hard road with more relief and pride than true celebration at the end of it.

Am I saying that your goals should not be financial? Absolutely not! There are no “wrong” goals or “wrong” resolutions – only “wrong” reasons. What is a wrong reason? One that you have no emotional connection to – one that does not light your fire.

What would happen if you started your goal setting or resolutions by asking yourself this question? “This time next year what accomplishment(s) do I want to look back on with tears of joy and a full heart and say – I did THAT?”

Grab hold of that feeling and don’t let go. Then start asking “what has to happen in order to reach that moment, who do I need to involve, what resources will I need, what must I do FIRST?”

Those are goals you are emotionally attached to, outcomes that light you up inside. And likely they will require that you make money, and they may even make you a lot of money. But the emotion isn’t about the money, the money is just a resource and a natural outcome.

So you say, “what about S.M.A.R.T goals?” (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely for those of you who haven’t been dipped in the magic well of Organizational Development.)

Stuff and nonsense (I HEARD those gasps of horror from my colleagues) AT THIS POINT. It’s too soon to think about being reasonable. I don’t want to hear about realistic and achievable. I don’t want to hear about “should” and “can’t” (although I’ll be talking about both of those brick walls in future posts.) Right now we’re still dreaming of the “impossible” and figuring out how to bring it within reach.

I have clients who are used to keeping five year business plans. And I have clients who never write a business plan. Either way, we don’t focus on the plan until we find the joy, the fire, the light they WANT to move toward. Only then are we are ready to write goals, plans, resolutions, create roadmaps.

Because when your “why” is clear then everything you write becomes an “I want to so I will” instead of “I should so I better put it on the list” and your goals become a sanctified “can-do” list instead of a glorified “must-do” list.