by Helena Escalante | Creativity, Goals, Growth, Mindset, Opportunity, Planning, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 25 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Build your future supported by the past
— From: Habit Changers: 81 Game-Changing Mantras to Mindfully Realize Your Goals by M. J. Ryan
M.J. Ryan, leading expert and coach on change and human fulfillment, as well as author of Habit Changers, says that a lot of people go to her when they are at a crossroads in their career. “They’ve gotten into a rut and want support in breaking out of it.”
She helps them out by taking them through a process outlined in the book I Will Not Die an Unlived Life: Reclaiming Purpose and Passion by Dawna Markova. “It’s an examination [of] strengths, passions and values, as well as the environments that bring out [people’s] best.”
Once that process is done, Ryan’s clients achieve the clarity they seek. However, she points out, “the problem is that getting from here to there can feel like standing on one side of the Grand Canyon and trying to figure out how to get to the other side. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and stuck.”
So, if you’ve ever been there, on the proverbial one side of the Grand Canyon, looking at building a better future on the other side, but have no clue how to get there or where to start, Ryan suggests looking at your past:
“Build a bridge to the future on the pillars of the past.”
Ryan says, “It’s about remembering to leverage what you’ve already done to create the new. […] Nothing you’ve done in the past is a waste. It’s all grist for your future. Reminding yourself of this will help you figure out how to get from here to there.”
The author explains how she leveraged her book publishing experience when she was branding herself as an executive coach to attract her first clients: they were publishers and writers whom she knew.
Similarly, whether it’s a project that you want to start or a life change that you are about to undertake, think of your past experiences and contacts and build on them to propel you forward.
ACTION
TODAY: What project or change are you about to undergo where you don’t necessarily have step-by-step directions? Think of something similar that you’ve done in the past and draw from there. Or innovate by taking bits and pieces from your past to build something new.
FUTURE: Stay in touch, every so often, with people from your past. Not only is it truly enjoyable to continue to nurture those friendships and acquaintances, but also it is helpful in case you need them to open doors for you or provide assistance or support. I know I am always happy to hear from people with whom I’ve worked or friends that I’ve made in the past, and I’m delighted to help in any way I can. I’m sure your friends and acquaintances will be happy to help as well!
Know someone who is trying to cross over the Grand Canyon? Please share this post with them! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Mindset, Planning, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 4 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Setting goals with PICS
— From The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business by Josh Kaufman
As we near the end of the year, the mad rush to achieve our goals begins. We have to meet Q4 goals and quotas, we want to accomplish those things that we said we would do back in January but put off until now, etc.
What happened?
Very likely, what happened is that we set vague goals.
Josh Kaufman, business guru and author of The Personal MBA, says “Well-formed goals accomplish two things: they help you visualize what you want, and make you excited about achieving it.”
Fuzzy goals like: “I want to climb a mountain” aren’t very helpful, because they don’t give your brain anything to work with. Which mountain? Where? When? Why? Without answers to these questions, you probably won’t do anything at all.
Well-formed goals pass the “Everest Test.” Useful goals look like this: “I want to climb to the summit of Mt. Everest before my fortieth birthday, and take a panoramic picture to frame on my wall as a trophy.”
In this example, this goal would be easy for your brain to envision: Arranging travel to Nepal, improving your climbing skills, searching for a guide, purchasing gear and equipment, buying a panoramic camera, and so on.
Kaufman goes on to say, “Once you make a conscious choice to achieve the goal, your mind automatically starts finding ways to get it done.”
So, what do we need to set well-formed goals that we can achieve?
Kaufman suggests framing the goals in a Positive, Immediate, Concrete, Specific (PICS) format:
Positive: “Refers to Motivation: your goal should be something you move toward, not away from.” If you have a goal like “I don’t want to be fat anymore,” the author says, “You’re reinforcing the negative instead of [changing] your mind’s prediction to get excited about improving.”
Immediate: “Refers to time-scale: your goals should be things that you decide to make progress on now, not ‘someday’ or ‘eventually.’ If you don’t want to commit to working on a particular goal now, put it on your someday/maybe list and focus on something else.”
Concrete: “Means you’re able to see the results in the real world. Goals are achievements—you should know when you’ve accomplished what you set out to achieve. Setting goals like ‘I want to be happy’ don’t work because they’re not concrete—how would you know when you’re done? When you reach the top of Mt. Everest, you’ve achieved something concrete.”
Specific: “Means you’re able to define exactly what, when, and where you’re going to achieve your goal. Climbing Mt. Everest on a certain date in the near future is specific, which makes it easy for your mind to plan exactly how you’ll go about accomplishing it.”
While all of this is very important to set goals, the part that I find even more important is when the author explains, “For best effect, your goals should be under your control. Goals like ‘Losing twenty pounds’ are soul-crushing because they’re not directly under your control—losing weight is a result, not an effort. If your weight randomly moves up a few pounds on a given day, it’s easy to feel defeated, even though you had no choice in the matter… make your goals actions that are within your [control], like thirty minutes of exercise every day and controlling the number of calories you consume.”
Keep track of your goals using whatever system works for you, whether manually or electronically. There are myriad ways to do this: the simpler, the better.
Lastly, Kaufman also reminds us that “it’s perfectly okay to change your goals. Sometimes we think we want something, only to find out later that we don’t want it so much anymore. Don’t feel bad about that—it’s called learning. If you find yourself working toward a goal you no longer feel good about, work on something else.”
And now, I will let you go work on framing your goals for the rest of the year. What are you planning to do? Let me know in the comments here, I’d love to hear what you’re up to.
ACTION
TODAY: What are you looking to achieve during the last two months of this year? November is almost here. Take some time to reframe your goals using PICS to ensure you can achieve them. If your goals are too big, break them down into subgoals that you can indeed achieve in 60 days.
FUTURE: Kaufman asks, “If you haven’t, can you set an arbitrary end state for now, leaving yourself open to course-correction as you progress?” As we move along on our goals, we learn and we course-correct all the time. Be disciplined with your actions to make your goal happen; but be flexible as time goes by and you course-correct (based on your experience of working on your goal), that way you can reach your destination sooner, faster, better, etc.
Know someone who is going trying to achieve a goal in the last 2 months of the year? Please share this post with them! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Productivity, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 3 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Akrasia
— From The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business by Josh Kaufman
Have you ever had the experience of knowing or feeling that you should do something that is in your best interest, but you just can’t bring yourself to do it?
That is not procrastination. There is a different term for that: Akrasia. (Pronunciation)
“Akrasia is one of the most widespread and persistent barriers to getting things done.”
In The Personal MBA, business guru Josh Kaufman helps us understand the difference:
Procrastination occurs when you’ve decided to complete a task, but you keep putting it off until later without consciously deciding to do it later. If you have “answer e-mail” on your to-do list, but you browse the Internet for hours without answering any e-mail, that’s procrastination.
Akrasia is a deeper issue: it’s a general feeling that you “should” do something, without necessarily deciding to do it. The “should” feeling doesn’t lead to decision or action, even if the action seems to be in your best interest. Most people experience Akrasia when considering changing habits they no longer want (“I should quit smoking”), taking a new action (“I should donate to that nonprofit”), or contemplating an uncomfortable topic (“I should look into life insurance and talk to a lawyer to write a will”). The “should” feeling sticks around, but never leads to action, generating intense frustration.
Kaufman goes on to say, “Akratic situations can take many forms: eating a cookie vs. ‘becoming healthier’ by sticking to a diet. Browsing the web vs. exercising. Staying in a bad relationship vs. moving on. Dreaming about a new business idea vs. testing it. Whenever you ‘should’ do something, but resist doing it, you’re experiencing Akrasia.”
Akrasia is a Greek term, and this problem was already being discussed in ancient Greece by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. And even though philosophers have discussed this for centuries, there is no cure. “Akrasia is a slippery problem,” says the author, “and there’s no easy, universal solution.”
But not all is lost: Kaufman points to many strategies and techniques that are useful in preventing and resolving akratic situations. “In order to spend your time making progress vs. fighting both sides of a battle of will, it’s useful to have a strategy for recognizing and combatting Akrasia when you recognize it.”
The most important thing, I believe, is to be aware of it. Now that we know it exists, we can point to it, recognize when we’re feeling Akrasia, and move forward to do what we should do.
You can read extensively about the strategies to recognize and combat Akrasia in Kaufman’s book online. (Kaufman has one full chapter—54 pages—devoted to “Working With Yourself” to combat Akrasia, procrastination and other maladies that impede our own progress as well as become superfocused and productive). Or if you don’t have the time now, you can take a quick look at these posts (each takes less than 5 min to read) that will help you shake Akrasia and move forward towards your goals:
Happy un-Akrasing!
ACTION
TODAY: Take some time to see where in your life you’re experiencing Akrasia. We all do, and it behooves us to tackle it to move forward on our goals. Now that we know that Akrasia exists, it’s easier to be aware of it and start taking action.
FUTURE: Keep in mind that we’re all human and we all experience Akrasia. The best way to find out why you’re having Akrasia about something is to ask yourself why 5 times. Once you get to the bottom of it, you’ll be able to move forward.
Know someone who is going through Akrasia about something? Please share this post with them! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Creativity, Goals, Growth, Leadership, Mindset, Opportunity, Planning, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 43 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: The New Niche
— From LINGO: Discover Your Ideal Customer’s Secret Language and Make Your Business Irresistible by Jeffrey Shaw
In today’s world, where we often hear that we must “niche down,” because “the riches are in the niches,” Jeffrey Shaw, entrepreneur, coach, podcaster, and author of Lingo, says, “Ditch the niche and diversify!”
Whaaaaaat??!
He explains: “It’s not that niche marketing is inherently bad; it just needs to be redefined.”
He goes on to say that most of us, as the creative thinkers that we are (creative here defined very broadly), “need freedom from the shackles of a tightly narrowed offering and market. We’re multipassionate warriors and we don’t want to be stuck doing one thing.”
So, what should we do about this?
In Jeff’s podcast and community of Creative Warriors, he refers to following all our passions as chasing squirrels. I own a dog who has tried to climb trees to chase squirrels (!) so I know how crazy this can get… Further, as an entrepreneur myself and a mentor for startups and small businesses, I know that our business minds tend to chase many squirrels too: the (in)famous shiny-object syndrome or SOS that tends to distract and derail us if kept unchecked.
Shaw says, “I’m not saying chasing squirrels is productive. But I am saying the creative thinker is going to do it anyway. Rather than make them feel ‘sinful’ for something inherent in being creative, why not figure out how it can be productive? We can make it productive by using the connections between them to unite the squirrels into a herd and then setting that herd off in a productive direction. We can cultivate a new niche.”
And here’s the key to the New Niche: “The New Niche is not the one thing you do or the one segment of a market you serve. The New Niche is the space you own, or, you could say, the area of expertise for which you are known.”
Note here that Shaw said “area,” because your expertise includes many things, so it’s not just constrained to the one thing you do.
“Space is expansive, even limitless as far as we know and so are the possibilities and creative freedom you have when you become known for the space you own. When you or your business are recognized for the space you own, you gain creative freedom. With clarity about the space you own, you can diversify your business and create multiple streams of income.”
Shaw goes on to explain the idea of the New Niche and the meaning of owning a space: “The space you own—as a solo creative entrepreneur or as a company—is what you are known for. It answers this all-important, fundamental question: Of what will your ideal customers say you are the expert?”
Further, Shaw urges us to imagine overhearing the tail end of a conversation on the street in which a person asks another one for a referral, “Oh, [your name or name of business] is the go-to expert for ___________.”
Fill in that blank. “If you don’t know almost immediately how to fill in that blank, then you don’t own a space yet.”
In his podcast, Creative Warriors, Shaw interviewed Christopher Lochhead, co-author of the book Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets. Lochhead refers to owning your space as being a Category King and emphasizes “the importance of not only being the ‘king’ of a category but also being the first in that category.”
To this, Shaw says, “Being the Category King can certainly give you an advantage. However, for many entrepreneurs, it’s less important to be first. It’s more important to create a unique category for which you can be recognized and stand out.”
So, what is your New Niche? Let me know in the comments here.
ACTION
TODAY: Answer this question about yourself or your business: “Oh, [your name or name of business] is the go-to expert for ___________.” What is the space you own? What is that New Niche of yours? If the answer comes easily, congrats! If not, no worries, give yourself time to think and to come up with the best answer for you.
FUTURE: Claim that space as yours… it is indeed! Make sure you are passionate about it, and that it is marketable, and you’ll be golden. Here are some additional posts on this subject: How to apply the Law of the Category to your benefit and Own a word in the prospect’s mind.
Know someone who chases squirrels? Please share this post with them! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Creativity, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Marketing, Mindset, Miniseries, Planning, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 37 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Little things make all the difference-Part 2
— From Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur, by Derek Sivers.
Yesterday we learned from Derek Sivers some of the things he implemented to make his customers smile during his days as CEO and Founder of CD Baby, an online store for indie musicians.
The key is to be thoughtful—it’s the little things that make all the difference—and provide the best service you can in a consistent way.
Let’s continue to learn directly (verbatim) from Sivers the stories of some of the awesome things that he did to turn his customers into raving fans:
Sometimes, after we had done the forty-five minutes of work to add a new album to the store, the musician would change his mind and ask us to do it over again with a different album cover or different audio clips. I wanted to say yes but let him know that this was really hard to do, so I made a policy that made us both smile: “We’ll do anything for a pizza.” If you needed a big, special favor, we’d give you the number of our local pizza delivery place. If you bought us a pizza, we’d do any favor you wanted. When we’d tell people about this on the phone, they’d often laugh, not believing that we were serious. But we’d get a pizza every few weeks. I’d often hear from musicians later that this was the moment they fell in love with us.
At the end of each order, the last page of the website would ask, “Where did you hear of this artist? We’ll pass them any message you write here.” Customers would often take the time to write things like, “Heard your song on WBEZ radio last night.” “Searched Yahoo!” “Found it here.” “I’d love to have you play at our school!” The musicians absolutely loved getting this information, and it always led to the customer and musician getting in touch directly. This is something that big stores like Amazon would never do.
Also, at the end of each order, there was a box that would ask, “Any special requests?” One time, someone said, “I’d love some cinnamon gum.” Since one of the guys in the warehouse was going to the store anyway, he picked up some cinnamon gum and included it in the package. One time someone said, “If you could include a small, rubber squid, I would appreciate it. If this is unobtainable, a real squid would do.” Just by chance, a customer from Korea had sent us a packaged filet of squid. So the shipping guys included it in the box with the other customer’s CDs. See the customer tell this story himself in this great video.
It’s no wonder that CD Baby created a legion of fans around them. Sivers and his team were thoughtful, creative, imaginative and always focused on the customer, to the point of going the extra mile to send cinnamon gum and even squid! And “the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved “Bon Voyage!” to [the] package, on its way to [the customer]…” ←This is another post about Sivers you don’t want to miss. He’s all about making the customers happy.
As you can see, it doesn’t take too much money or too much time, and a little playfulness and creativity will take you a long way. Sivers says, “Even if you want to be big someday, remember that you don’t need to act like a big boring company. Over ten years, it seemed like every time someone raved about how much he loved CD Baby, it was because of one of these little fun human touches.”
What little things can you do to make your customers happy? Who has made you happy and how? Let me know in the comments here.
ACTION
TODAY: Review your customer’s journey and focus on the many touch points that exist. How can you improve upon those points to make your customer happy[ier]?
FUTURE: As your customers become happier and happier, capture those moments as testimonials in writing or video. This will help prospects make a decision to go with you/your company for its outstanding service, and that way you can perpetuate a virtuous cycle.
Know someone who is always making the customers smile? Please share this post with them! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Creativity, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Marketing, Mindset, Miniseries, Planning, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 42 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Little things make all the difference-Part 1
— From Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur, by Derek Sivers.
“If you find even the smallest way to make people smile, they’ll remember you more for that smile than for all your other fancy business-model stuff,” says Derek Sivers, entrepreneur and author of Anything You Want.
Sivers was the founder of CD Baby, a very successful online website for indie musicians to sell their music (he sold it later for millions). As a pioneer in this field, he learned many lessons, and one of them was the importance of little details to make people smile.
He shares some of the things that made a huge difference on the CD Baby website. I’m adding them verbatim below, since I think Sivers writing conveys the stories very well. Enjoy!
Because we shipped FedEx at 5 p.m. each day, customers would often call and ask, “What time is it there? Do I still have time to get it sent today?” So I added two little lines of programming code that counted how many hours and minutes remained until 5 p.m. and then showed the result by the shipping options. “You have 5 hours, 18 minutes until our next FedEx shipment.” Customers loved this!
We answered our phone within two rings, always—7 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week. Phones were everywhere, so even if the customer service rep was busy, someone in the warehouse could pick up. All anyone had to do was say, “CD Baby!” Customers loved this! Someone actually picking up the phone at a company is so rare that musicians would often tell me later at conferences that it was the main reason they decided to go with CD Baby—they could always talk to a real person immediately. All employees knew that as long as we weren’t completely swamped, they should take a minute and get to know the caller a bit. Ask about her music. Ask how it’s going. Yes, it would lead to twenty-minute conversations sometimes, but those people became lifelong fans.
Every outgoing email has a “From:” name, right? Why not use that to make people smile, too? With one line of code, I made it so that every outgoing email customized the “From:” field to be “CD Baby loves [first name].” So if the customer’s name was Susan, every e-mail she got from us would say it was from “CD Baby loves Susan.” Customers loved this!
Please come back tomorrow for Part 2 because the things that CD Baby did to make people smile get even better! As you can see, thoughtful details can turn clients into raving fans. What details can you modify or implement to make your customers smile?
😀
ACTION
TODAY: Think about the positive feedback you get from your customers (customer is broadly defined here). Can you replicate that to make everyone smile? What can you do to always implement those thoughtful details that made the customer smile in the first place?
FUTURE: Make a habit of examining the feedback you get to always be improving your attention to detail. Having customers turn into lifelong, raving fans is a wonderful achievement.
Know someone who is always making the customers smile? Please share this post with them! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Collaboration, Creativity, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Resources, Wellbeing
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 15 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: No Skunking
— From Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business by Danny Meyer
Danny Meyer’s wonderful book Setting the Table is all about hospitality in the restaurant industry. However, the leadership style and the lessons that this great restaurateur shares can be applied to any kind of business, not just restaurants.
I was particularly struck about a passage in the book where he talks about the qualities of self-awareness and integrity going hand in hand: “It takes integrity to be self-aware and to hold one’s self accountable for doing the right thing.”
Specifically, he says, “self-awareness is understanding your moods and how they affect you and others. In a sense, it’s a personal weather report…” But no matter whether the personal mood is sunny or rainy, it’s crucial for people in business “to be aware of and accountable for their own personal weather reports.”
He goes on to say that “no one can possibly be upbeat and happy all the time, but personal mastery depends on team members being aware of their moods and keep[ing] them in check. If a staff member is having personal trouble and wakes up feeling angry, nervous, depressed, or anxious, he or she needs to recognize and deal with the mood. It does not serve anyone’s purposes to project that mindset into the work environment or on to one’s colleagues.”
Meyer’s term for that is skunking: “A skunk may spray a predator when it feels threatened, but everyone else within two miles has to smell the spray, and these others may assume that the skunk actually had it in for them. It’s not productive to work with a skunk, and it’s not enjoyable to be served by one either. In a business that depends on the harmony of an ensemble, a skunk’s scent is toxic.”
I think this analogy is perfect. My dog has been sprayed by a skunk twice (!), and it’s one of the most repulsive and disgusting experiences we’ve had. We’ve taken—and will continue to take—every precaution to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Skunking in the workplace should be avoided too, as it can spread widely if left unchecked, hurting the organization inside and outside as well.
And this is where we come full circle: it takes integrity to check with ourselves and determine what mood we’re in. If it’s a great one, fantastic, let’s spread the joy. If not, the first step is to acknowledge it and keep it in check, so that we can resolve it (or put it on hold temporarily) and change it for the mood that best suits our business endeavors. And remember: absolutely no skunking!
If this is of any help, I’ve found something that works for me: when I’m not in a good mood and I need to work, I give myself permission to change my mood temporarily. For instance, I tell myself that I will temporarily become happy and postpone my being upset or worried about whatever is making me unhappy when I get back from the office, because I need to be at my best during work and with clients. This usually helps, and by the time I’m back I don’t want to go back to being upset any longer, so I can see what was bugging me in a different light and focus on solving it favorably.
ACTION
TODAY: Take some time to do a personal weather report. Is your mood sunny and beautiful? Partially cloudy? Rainy? Cold and nasty? Be honest with yourself if you’re not in a good mood so that you don’t skunk others (not even inadvertently). How could your self-awareness and integrity help you in this instance? We’re all different: think of something that will work for you and the dynamics of your team.
FUTURE: Adopt the no skunking rule into your life and that of your teammates and business.
Know someone who has been skunked? Help them out by sharing this post! Email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
by Helena Escalante | Collaboration, Creativity, Goals, Mindset, Planning, Productivity, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 39 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Interruption is the enemy of productivity
— From REWORK: Change the way you work forever by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
I am back from vacation with renewed energy! However, upon my return, jet lag hit me and I’ve been waking up between 2 and 4 am (!). Instead of fighting it, I embraced it and decided to use that momentum to start catching up. It was wonderful: I was “in the zone” while there were no interruptions, and then I started to dread the rest of the day.
But why?
I love being on a productivity roll and, as the day progressed, I knew I would naturally get interrupted and wouldn’t be as productive… and I have so much catching up to do!
Since I don’t like to dread the day ahead but instead look forward to it, I did what I know best: look for ideas or an answer to this in a book. In case you’ve ever been familiar with this I-have-so-much-to-do-and-don’t-want-to-get-interrupted feeling, I’m happy to share what I found out in Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson.
“Your day is under siege by interruptions. It’s on you to fight back.”
“Interruptions break your workday into a series of work moments,” the authors say. “Forty-five minutes and then you have a call. Fifteen minutes and then you have lunch. An hour later you have an afternoon meeting. Before you know it, it’s five o’clock, and you’ve only had a couple uninterrupted hours to get your work done. You can’t get meaningful things done when you’re constantly going start, stop, start, stop.”
Instead, what they suggest is to get into what they call the alone zone: “Long stretches of alone time when you’re most productive. When you don’t have to mind-shift between various tasks, you get a boatload done.”
However, getting in the alone zone “takes time and requires avoiding interruptions.” The authors equate the alone zone to REM sleep: “You don’t just go directly into REM sleep. You go to sleep first and then make your way to REM. Any interruptions force you to start over. And just as REM is when the real sleep magic happens, the alone zone is where the real productivity magic happens.”
The good news for those who are not jetlagged—or simply not a morning person—is that “the alone zone doesn’t have to be in the wee hours.” Fried and Hansson offer these suggestions to implement throughout the day:
You can set up a rule at work that half the day is set aside for alone time. Decree that from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. people can’t talk to each other (except during lunch). Or make the first or last half of the day your alone-time period. Or instead of casual Fridays, try no-talk Thursdays. Just make sure this period is unbroken in order to avoid productivity–zapping interruptions.
And go all the way with it. A successful alone-time period means letting go of communication addiction. During alone time, give up instant messages, phone calls, e-mail, and meetings. Just shut up and get to work. You’ll be surprised how much more you get done.
Also, when you do collaborate, try to use passive communication tools, like e-mail, that don’t require an instant reply, instead of interruptive ones, like phone calls and face-to-face meetings. That way people can respond when it’s convenient for them, instead of being forced to drop everything right away.
As you can see, creativity and imagination come into play here to create an alone zone, whether for you or for your whole team. Put on your thinking cap and figure out the best way to accomplish this, you’ll get a lot done!
ACTION
TODAY: Do you find yourself in the situation of trying to carve out uninterrupted time for you either early or late in the day to get things done? Think creatively as to how you can implement an alone zone with certain regularity during your working hours to work on your priorities.
FUTURE: Take a look at this post about scheduling time. It may shed some light on how to run your schedule better according to the roles you play (maker or manager). Once you have established an alone zone that is working well for you, make it a habit and don’t deviate from it! You will become tremendously productive if you stick to it with consistency.
Know someone who dreads interruptions? Help them create an alone zone by sharing the ideas on this post! Email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Miniseries, Planning, Tools
Links to other parts of this miniseries:
Turn your inner critic into your inner coach-Part 1
Turn your inner critic into your inner coach-Part 2
Turn your inner critic into your inner coach-Part 3
Turn your inner critic into your inner coach-Part 4
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 18 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Turn your inner critic into your inner coach-Part 5
— From The Success Principles™: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Jack Canfield
Yesterday we saw the enormous difference that a full message makes when you include anger, fear, requests, and love to communicate it. Today we’ll see how it applies to a real-life example.
The first step, says Canfield, is to make a list of all the things you say when you are judging yourself. “Include all of the things you tell yourself you should do, but you don’t.” The author gives the following as a real-life example:
You don’t exercise enough.
You’re gaining too much weight.
You’re a fat slob—a real couch potato!
You drink too much alcohol and eat too many sweets.
You need to cut down the carbs!
You need to watch less television and go to bed earlier.
If you got up earlier, you’d have more time to exercise.
You’re lazy. Why don’t you finish the things you start?!
Once you are done with your list, then practice changing it into a message that contains the four-step process outlined earlier: Anger, Fear, Requests, and Love.
Spend a minimum of 1 minute on each step. Make sure to be very specific in the requests stage. State exactly what you want yourself to do. “I want to eat better” is too vague. Be more specific, such as, ‘I want you to eat at least four servings of vegetables every day. I want you to stop eating French fries, sugar, and desserts. I want you to eat eggs and some kind of fruit for breakfast every day. I want you to eat whole grains like whole wheat and brown rice rather than white flour.’ The more specific you are, the more value you will receive from the exercise.”
The next step is to tell this to yourself. Remember that the author says you can write it or do it out loud. His preferred method is aloud, and he recommends that you do it with as much emotion and passion as possible.
Based on the above, here’s an example of what the list—transformed by the 4-step process—will look like:
Anger: I am angry at you for not taking better care of your body. You are such a lazy slob! You drink too much and you eat too much. You don’t have any self-discipline! All you do is sit around and watch TV. Your clothes don’t fit and you don’t look good.
Fear: If you don’t change, I am afraid you are going to keep gaining weight until you are facing a health risk. I am afraid your cholesterol is going to get so high that you might have a heart attack. I’m afraid that you could become diabetic. I am afraid that you are never going to change and then you are going to die young and never fulfill your dreams. I’m afraid that if you don’t start eating better and taking better care of yourself, no one is going to be attracted to you. You might end up living alone for the rest of your life.
Requests: I want you to join a health club and go at least three days a week. I want you to go for a 20-minute walk the other 4 days. I want you to cut out 1 hour of television a day and devote that to exercise. I want you to stop eating fried foods and start eating more fresh foods and vegetables. I want you to stop drinking sodas and start drinking more water. I want you to limit drinking alcohol to Friday and Saturday nights.
Love: I love you. I want you to be around for a long time. I want you to have a wonderful relationship. You deserve to look good in your clothes and to feel good about yourself. You deserve to have all of your dreams come true. I want you to feel alive and energetic rather than tired and lethargic all the time. You deserve to live life fully and enjoy every moment of it. You deserve to be totally happy.
It’s an incredible transformation, don’t you think?
“Do not let the seeming simplicity of this technique fool you,” says Canfield. “It is very powerful.” Yet in order to derive its benefit, you have to use it. No one else can do this for you.
I will let you now go so that you can do this exercise. My wish for you is that, as Canfield says, “[You] get all of you on your own side—working together for the greater good of your dreams and aspirations.”
ACTION
TODAY: Take 20-30 minutes to do this valuable 4-step process. Don’t underestimate its value, your life will change for the better. Canfield’s changed and so did mine.
FUTURE: This comes directly from the book, and I think it’s a fantastic action to keep in mind for the future: “When you hear a part of you judging yourself, simply reply, ‘Thank you for caring. What is your fear? … What specifically do you want me to do? … How will this serve me? … Thank you.’” That way you will have a productive and full dialogue with yourself, as opposed to simply a partial one. And you can always come back and do the 4-step process any time you need it.
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by Helena Escalante | Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Miniseries, Planning, Tools
Links to other parts of this miniseries:
Turn your inner critic into your inner coach-Part 1
Turn your inner critic into your inner coach-Part 2
Turn your inner critic into your inner coach-Part 3
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 30 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Turn your inner critic into your inner coach-Part 4
— From The Success Principles™: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Jack Canfield
Yesterday, and the day before, we learned to distinguish the most prevalent negative thoughts and how to turn them around by replacing them with the truth.
But that is not all that Jack Canfield teaches in this miniseries.
Today, the author of The Success Principles™, will walk us through a four-step process that will help us transform our inner critic into our inner coach.
First, we must understand that our inner critic, the one that pops up in our heads with negative patterns of thought, is actually trying to protect and help us.
Whaaaaaaaat????!!
Canfield says, “Just as your parents disciplined you for your own good, your inner critic has your best interests in mind when it is criticizing you. It wants you to get the benefit of the better behavior. The problem is that it tells you only part of the truth.” Then he gives a great example to help us understand this:
When you were a little kid, your parents may have yelled at you and sent you to your room after you did something stupid like run out in front of a car. Their real communication was “I love you. I don’t want you to get hit by a car. I want you to stay around so that so that you can grow up into a happy and healthy adult.” But they delivered only half of the message: “What’s wrong with you? Were you born without a brain? You know better than to run out into the street when there are cars coming. You’re grounded for the next hour. Go to your room and think about what you just did.” In their fear of losing you, they expressed only their anger. But underneath the anger were three more layers of message that never got delivered—fear, specific requests, and love. A complete message would look like this:
Anger: I am mad at you for running out into the street without looking to see if any cars were coming.
Fear: I am afraid that you’ll get badly hurt or killed.
Requests: I want you to pay more attention when you are playing near the street. Stop and look both ways before you walk or run out into the street.
Love: I love you so much. I don’t know what I would do without you. You are so precious to me. I want you to be safe and healthy. You deserve to have lots of fun and stay safe so you can continue to enjoy life to its fullest. Do you understand?
What an incredibly different message!! The key, Canfield says, is to “train your inner critic to talk to you the same way.” You can do this verbally, talking to you out loud, which is the authors preferred way. However, you can also do it by writing it down in a piece of paper. If verbally, the author imagines talking to a clone of himself sitting opposite of him. You can do the same exercise or visualize talking to yourself in any other way that suits you best.
Come back tomorrow, as we will see an example of how we can apply this to ourselves in real life.
The author explains that after completing this exercise for the first time, something shifted inside him. He recalls, “I was able to stop feeling like a failure and start engaging in the activities that made my dream a reality. I was able to move from someone who was using my energy against myself to someone who was using my energy to create what I wanted.”
My wish is that after tomorrow’s exercise you will feel the same way! See you mañana.
ACTION
TODAY: In preparation of tomorrow’s exercise, start making a list of all the things you say when you are judging yourself.
FUTURE: Whenever you catch your inner critic judging yourself, come back to this 4-step process to turn the judgment into a full message so that you can truly derive the benefit of the internal dialogue.
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