Steve Siebold, mental toughness guru, asked himself twenty years ago why some people were more successful and fulfilled than others. “Were they smarter? More educated? More talented?” He wondered… But, “the answer is no,” he says.
In his book 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class, Siebold mentions that he has indeed come across a genius or two over the years. But the answer to his questions is much simpler in 99% of the cases: Great people “become great because they are more mentally tough. Through time and effort, they have learned to take control of their thoughts, feelings and attitudes in the game of life and, in turn, life has rewarded them handsomely.”
Much to my delight, the author then goes on to say, “You can do the same thing if you’ll commit yourself to never ending personal growth and development.” (Hint: I know of a blog that will help you with that… 😉 ) “Champions invest time in getting better. School is never out for the great ones.”
Further, I laughed when Siebold asked, “Have you ever been to the bookstore and wondered who reads all those business and self-improvement books?” I think I know someone… Now, seriously, he continues, “The people who need it most wouldn’t even consider it, and the people who need it least wouldn’t consider missing it. A never-ending cycle of self-education is the centerpiece of world-class consciousness. All it takes to get started is the decision to do it.”
And I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes:
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss. From I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!
ACTION
TODAY: Siebold suggests asking yourself a few critical thinking questions: “Am I really committed to going pro? Am I willing to do whatever it takes to fulfill my vision?” Then make the decision, today, to never stop growing and always keep learning.
FUTURE: Once you’ve made the decision, remember that success leaves clues. Who has done what you want to do? How can you learn from this person? Never stop learning in your area of interest. Remember what Earl Nightingale said: “If a person will spend one hour a day on the same subject for five years, that person will be an expert on that subject.”
Know someone who is a lifelong learner? Please share this with them via email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
Yes, alchemy: “Lead into gold; creating something from nothing. Turning sand into Pentium chips. Turning a grassy field into a farm and crops. Transforming immaterial ideas into software and websites. Converting chaos into order.”
Marshall goes on to explain, “Even agriculture is alchemy. DNA, water and sunlight transform dirt into corn and grass. Corn and grass turn sperm into cows. DNA is instructions for turning minerals into living creatures and food. DNA is information. It’s an idea, a plan written in digital code.”
“Ideas are the basis of all creative acts. Thus, the most important resources for modern alchemists—you and me—are knowledge, imagination, and inspiration.”
The author recalls having a conversation with Richard Koch, author of The 80/20 Principle, where the latter said, “it’s human energy that creates the magic.”
How is this possible?
Think about it for a moment: “centuries ago, most people in the world went to bed hungry… many women died in childbirth, populations succumbed to famine and smallpox. Today, people at the poverty line enjoy more comforts than kings and queens of long ago.”
That’s alchemy.
And this should be the reason, says Marshall, “to be optimistic about the future, instead of getting seduced by the negativity and panic of the news media.”
Examples of alchemy abound: “An interior decorator walks into every room and considers how she’d re-do the furnishings, paint and decorations. A contractor drives by a dilapidated house, re-arranges everything in his mind and says, ‘I fixed it!’”
“Everywhere you go, every business you walk into, you think of ways to improve their traffic, their conversion, their economics.”
Perry then points out that, “YOU are a builder, a developer, an improver, an alchemist. You can’t walk into a pub or visit a website or buy a product or let the lawn service guy into your house without considering this.”
It’s true. We are all alchemists and our power resides in our ideas—and their execution—wherever we go.
Marshall closes beautifully by saying, “You are an alchemist. Create. Invent. Imagine… in such a way that the world is a better place because you have lived.”
ACTION
TODAY: Find out what your alchemy is. What kind of ideas do you come up with and execute? What’s your superpower? Be generous with it and you’ll reap the benefits.
FUTURE: Keep a notebook of your ideas. Author James Altucher has a habit of writing down 10 new ideas every day. This is brilliant. The more ideas you write, the greater an alchemist you will become.
Know someone who is an alchemist? Please share this post: Email, Facebook, Twitter. Thank you!
We all have our hot buttons that, when pushed, inevitably cause problems in the form of us getting upset, or saying things we shouldn’t, etc. And whether we point fingers and blame (“you made me mad”) or not (“I get so mad when XYZ happens”), the truth is that the only response we can control is ours.
M.J. Ryan, the author of Habit Changers, addresses this in a masterful mantra: “My response is my responsibility.” She goes on to say: “That doesn’t mean that the other person didn’t do whatever it is I’m worked up about, but rather that I alone am responsible for my reaction.”
The author shares how she deals with this: “If I get worked up, I need to deal with my reaction within myself until I’ve cooled down enough to decide whether this is an issue that needs to be addressed with the other person. Because it is only when I am calm that I can talk about it in a way that does no damage to me, the other person, or our relationship. Otherwise, I’m likely to say or do things that are mean or destructive because the ‘fight’ of the fight-or-flight response has taken control of my brain.”
Ryan’s suggestion is to give this a try if we find ourselves playing the blame game at home or work. She says, “You are responsible for your response, and it’s up to you to be as skillful in responding as possible.”
So true!
ACTION
TODAY: Give yourself some time to think about how profound a mindset shift this mantra brings. Identify your hot buttons and put past scenarios of times when they’ve been pushed against this mantra. What happens? I bet they melt away.
That’s what happened to me with one particularly ridiculous hot button of mine. It was a stupid, irrational and unfounded hot button (are any hot buttons smart, rational and well-founded??), and when it got pushed… Oh, no! It would drive me nuts! Once the realization that my response is my responsibility really sank in, then I felt truly embarrassed: how foolish of me to react in the way I have been reacting all this time! But this helped me become very aware of that particular button and be mindful of my reaction to it should it come up again in the future.
My hope is that sharing this story will help you set the intention to remember this mantra when one of your hot buttons gets pushed. That way you will be able to react better.
FUTURE: Make a mental note of being aware of the times when your hot buttons get pushed. Then keep the mantra in mind until you’ve cooled down and can skillfully respond.
Know someone who might benefit from this idea? Please share this post: Email, Facebook, Twitter. Thank you!
“The great successful men of the world have used their imaginations… they think ahead and create their mental picture, and they go to work materializing that picture in all its details, filling in here, adding a little there, altering this a bit and that a bit, but steadily building — steadily building.” – Robert Collier
“While [most people] think of imagination as child’s play, the world class relies on it as a mental preview of things to come,” says Steven Siebold, mental toughness guru, in his book 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class. This is true. In the world of sports, athletes are coached to visualize their efforts, from beginning to end of the competition, and in every possible scenario. (Here’s a 3-min video of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps where he talks about visualization at the 1:05 min mark.)
Yet imagination and visualization don’t just apply to athletes, it can apply to all of us, and we should use it as the champions in any industry do. Siebold continues, “Before champions make a move, they have lived out the scenario through imagination. The great ones know imagination is the first step in the design of the perfect house or the perfect life.”
Imagination is a natural, never-ending gift from which we can draw anytime. Siebold mentions that “champions often go on sabbaticals or places of great natural beauty for the sole purpose of heightening their sense of imagination when pursuing the solution to a problem.” That’s why Einstein rightly said that we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
The author points out that champions combine imagination with their penchant for action, and the results are remarkable and awe-inspiring. “While [most people] scold their children for daydreaming and letting their imaginations run, the great ones are impacting the world with the manifestation of their visions.”
Happy imagining!
ACTION
TODAY: Siebold suggests writing a one-page essay where you answer this question: “If you could be, have and do anything you wanted, what would that look like?” Forget about limits and write as if anything were possible.
FUTURE: Siebold encourages us to take this a step further: “Commit to investing three minutes each day reviewing the essay you wrote. Allow your imagination to run wild with ideas of your perfect life…Forget about the how-to part of the equation during this exercise, and suspend any disbelief you may have. This three-minute, daily habit has the power to transform your life forever.”
Know someone who would love this idea? Please share this post with that person: Email, Facebook, Twitter. Thank you!
In the last few posts, we’ve been learning how to change the habits that hold us back. Today we’ll read about another tool to help us in this area. “Feedforward is so simple I almost blush to dignify it with a name,” says executive coach and business guru Marshall Goldsmith in his book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. “Yet some of the simplest ideas are also the most effective. Since they are so easy to do, you have no excuse not to try them.”
Goldsmith points out that “Feedforward is a dramatic improvement on what we traditionally think of as feedback.” And while feedback has its merits, because “it’s a great tool for determining what happened in the past and what’s going on in an organization,” it’s no different than reading history. “It provides us with facts about the past but not necessarily ideas for the future.”
“Feedforward, on the other hand, is feedback going in the opposite direction… [it] comes in the form of ideas that you can put into practice in the future.”
Here are Goldsmith’s four simple steps to obtain feedforward:
1. Select what you want to change. “Pick the one behavior that you would like to change which would make a significant, positive difference in your life. For example, I want to be a better listener.
2. Describe and dialogue. “Describe this objective in a one-on-one dialogue with anyone you know. It could be your wife, kids, boss, best friend, or coworker. It could even be a stranger. The person you choose is irrelevant. He or she doesn’t have to be an expert on the subject… Some of the truest advice can come from strangers… And when a useful idea comes along, we don’t care who the source is.”
3. Ask. “Ask that person for two suggestions for the future that might help you achieve a positive change in your selected behavior—in this case becoming a better listener. If you’re talking to someone who knows you or who has worked with you in the past, the only ground rule is that there can be no mention of the past. Everything is about the future.”
For instance, the dialogue could go like this: “I want to be a better listener. Would you suggest two ideas that I can implement in the future that will help me become a better listener?” The other person could then suggest, “First, focus all your attention on the other person. Get in a physical position, the “listening position,” such as sitting on the edge of your seat or leaning forward toward the individual. Second, don’t interrupt, no matter how much you disagree with what you’re hearing.”
These two ideas are feedforward.
4. Listen and thank. “Listen attentively to the suggestions. Take notes if you like. Your only ground rule: You are not allowed to judge, rate, or critique the suggestions in any way. You can’t even say something positive, such as, ‘That’s a good idea.’ The only response you’re permitted is, Thank you.”
And this is it. Simple indeed. Do steps one through four. Rinse and repeat with someone else. “In seeking feedforward ideas, you’re not limited to one person… You can do feedforward with as many people as you like,” says the author.
Goldsmith swears by the effectiveness of feedforward because, he says, “Feedforward eliminates many of the obstacles that traditional feedback has created.”
So, what are those obstacles and why/how does feedforward work? Goldsmith explains that it works because while we may not like hearing criticism (negative or constructive feedback) we love getting ideas for the future. Also, it works because:
“We can change the future but not the past.”
“Helping people be ‘right’ is more productive than proving them ‘wrong.’ Feedback focuses on solutions, not problems.”
“People do not take feedforward as personally as feedback. Feedforward is not seen as an insult or a putdown.”
“[When] all we have to do is function as a listener, we can focus on [truly] hearing without having to worry about responding.”
Lastly, the author says, “I’m sure that all of us are surrounded by smart, well-meaning friends who ‘understand’ us better than we ‘understand’ ourselves. I suspect they would love to help us; most people like to help others. But they hold back because they think it’s rude or intrusive to try to help someone who has not asked for our assistance. Asking solves this.”
ACTION
TODAY: Try out asking a few people to give you feedforward. See what happens, I’m sure you’ll get some great ideas!
FUTURE: Keep this technique in mind so that when you feel stuck and want to change something you can ask for feedforward.
Know someone who would like this idea? Please share this post! Email, Facebook, Twitter. Thank you!
TODAY’S IDEA: School is never out
