I signed up a while ago to get Seth Godin’s latest manifesto, “Poke The Box“,  then forgot about it.  Last night I couldn’t sleep, so I opened my Kindle, found it there and started to read.

Big mistake.

Not because it’s bad. Actually, it’s good. So good that my mind started racing about all the projects I want to start, but haven’t yet. So good that I was tossing and turning about my Big Hairy Audacious Project and wondering if I’m being audacious enough.

And that’s the point of this manifesto.

“Poke The Box” refers to those “busy box” toys for toddlers, which have dials and cranks and buttons and make noise and flash lights. Do something and there is a response. The child’s face lights up and wants more, so she pokes it more, discovering the joy of initiating stuff.

But somewhere in the system, we bleach initiative out of children, so when they become adults, the natural action is to conform, to wait for permission.

The message Seth Godin started in “Linchpin” continues with his latest missive:  Get Going, Do Something and Ship It. Initiative creates momentum, and momentum generates power.

The directness of the message in Poke The Box makes me uncomfortable. Because I really don’t have any more excuses holding me back.

Making you uncomfortable is the point of this slim book. I’m sure that when you read it, you won’t be able to sleep either.

Here are some of the passages I highlighted:

• The first imperative is to be aware—aware of the market, of opportunities, of who you are. The second imperative is to be educated, so you can understand what’s around you. The third imperative is to be connected, so you can be trusted as you engage. The fourth imperative is to be consistent, so the system knows what to expect. The fifth imperative is to build an asset, so you have something to sell. The sixth imperative is to be productive, so you can be well-priced. The seventh imperative is to have the guts and the heart and the passion to ship.
• The challenge, it turns out, isn’t in perfecting your ability to know when to start and when to stand by. The challenge is getting into the habit of starting.
• We have built the largest economic engine in history. All the tools are here, cheaper than ever before. The market is waiting, the capital is waiting, the factories are waiting, and yes, even the stores are waiting. They’re waiting for someone to say “go.”
• Human nature is to need a map. If you’re brave enough to draw one, people will follow.
• Ownership doesn’t have to be equity or even control. Ownership comes from understanding and from having the power to make things happen
• When can you start? Soon is not as good as now
• The market responds to the power that comes with capital. My favorite kind of capital is the last one, of course (initiative). It turns out that this is the most important capital of our new economy.
• In a world where news travels instantly and the state of the art is visible to all, the half-life of an insight or an innovation is short and getting shorter
• I define anxiety as experiencing failure in advance…and if you have anxiety about initiating a project, then of course you will associate risk with failure.
• Most things break. Most ideas fail. Most initiatives don’t succeed. And if you’re the one behind them, if you’re the guy who’s always starting something that fails, then it seems you’re doomed.
• The first rule of doing work that matters: Go to work on a regular basis.
• The problem: you can’t get blander than bland. You can’t grow by becoming even more predictable and ordinary. You might have a dependable and predictable and cheap product, but if the market wants something better, you’ll be stuck playing catch-up.
• When the cost of poking the box (ptb) is less than the cost of doing nothing (ø), then you should poke! [ptb<ø—> poke]
• The connected economy of ideas demands that we contribute initiative. And yet we resist, because our lizard brain, the one that lives in fear, relentlessly exaggerates the cost of being wrong.
• Poking successfully also requires tact. You’re trying to change things, not have people recoil in anger or fear from your poking.
• Poke, but be smart about it.
• Excellence isn’t about working extra hard to do what you’re told. It’s about taking the initiative to do work you decide is worth doing.
• Please stop waiting for a map. We reward those who draw maps, not those who follow them.
• How often do our heroes stand still? It’s hard to imagine Spock and Kirk landing on a planet and just relaxing for a month or two. Just hanging out has nothing to do with boldly going where no one has gone before.
• The factory has programmed that adventurous impulse out of us. The economic imperative of the last century has been to avoid risk, avoid change, and most of all, avoid exploration and the new. An efficient factory fears change because change means retooling and risk and a blip in productivity.
• Implicit in all of my ranting about poking is this: You already have good ideas, already have something to say, already have a vivid internal dialogue about what you could do and how it might make things better.
• Starting means you’re going to finish. If it doesn’t ship, you’ve failed. You haven’t poked the box if the box doesn’t realize it’s been poked.
• If you don’t finish, it doesn’t really count as starting, and if you don’t start, you’re not poking.
• The challenge is to focus on the work, not on the fear that comes from doing the work.
• The person who fails the most usually wins
• I’m not encouraging you to be bold and right. I’m not encouraging you to figure out how to always initiate a smart and proven and profitable idea. I’m merely encouraging you to start. Often. Forever. Be the one who starts things.
• We often turn to authors and experts for instruction on what to do. If we only knew what to do, the thinking goes, then we’d do it.
• The shortage is in people willing to do it. To take a leap. To walk out onto the ledge and start. Apparently, many of us have forgotten how to do it.
• I believe there is. I believe that if you’ve got the platform and the ability to make a difference, then this goes beyond “should” and reaches the level of “must.” You must make a difference or you squander the opportunity. Wasting the opportunity both degrades your own ability to contribute and, more urgently, takes something away from the rest of us.
• It’s impossible to have a “success-only” policy. That policy itself will guarantee that there will be no successes.
• Starting doesn’t mean controlling. It means initiating. Managing means controlling, but that’s an entirely different skill.
• If you can’t fail, it doesn’t count.
• The alternative to planning on late is to initiate before it’s required, to ship before deadline, to put the idea out there before the crisis hits. This act of bravery actually gives you influence, leverage, and control in a way that planning on late never can.
• Instead of propositioning everyone within reach of your e-mail box, invest some time and earn the right to ask. Do your homework. Build connections. This makes the risk on your part a lot bigger because you’ve invested more than two minutes. Initiating when you have more to lose is often better than just winging it.
• If you know someone who needs permission, share this with him. If you needed permission, think about the mentor or coach or friend who gave this to you. Someone is giving you permission. Someone, perhaps indirectly, hired you, funded you, trained you, encouraged you—all so that you would see something that needed to be done and do it.

Special offer: If you’ve read this post up to here, then you’re ready to Poke The Box. Send me an e-mail with your address and tell me about the Big Hairy Audacious Project that you are working on or you want to start, and I’ll send you a copy of Poke The Box, my treat. The e-mail must be timestamped before Mar 31 2011. Let me know if you want the Kindle or paper version.

For more information

“Poke The Box” on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1936719002

Get the FREE workbook that goes with the book: http://www.thedominoproject.com/2011/03/poke-the-box-the-workbook.html

Seth Godin’s Blog (always intriguing): http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

My Kindle Notes Page (you must sign in with your Amazon ID to see): https://kindle.amazon.com/work/poke-box-seth-godin/B004KS3CGW/1936719002

My review of Poke The Box on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/review/R38JY4PYSH8FBD/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

Of course I read with concern about the sad events in Tucson. I see this as the inevitable outcome of the decline of leadership in today’s society, and the symptoms of the revolution that is about to happen.

Our leaders want to be seen to be “serious” and doing “something”. One way to do “something” is to provoke the “lizard brain”, i.e. stimulating the amygdala, that primitive part of our brain stem which generates the base emotions of fear or excitement. When the lizard brain is stimulated, we jump into action – or, rather, reaction. I’m noticing that it has become the habit of politicians, media celebrities and business CEOs major and minor to appeal to fear, worry, envy and revenge. This provokes reaction all right. But provoking reaction is not leadership, it’s demagoguery.

Why are the leadership classes sowing fear, hatred and terror? Because they are losing power, and they know it is slipping from their grasp.

And this power is slipping from “them” to “you”, should you choose to accept the challenge.

Lizard-brain leadership posits that we are living in a time of crisis: disappearing oil, water, land, food, money, freedom. Lizard-brain leadership views life as a zero-sum game, where if I give you a piece of my pie, there is less for me, and that’s not fair.

By all means, we should have hit the boundary conditions of finite resources decades ago. But we haven’t. Why?

This is my view of how this came about.

In the old days, the key to wealth was how much gold you held. Kings obsessed about the possession of resources. Wars were fought over land and spice, wood and gold. Wealth was in the hands of the monarchy and the aristocracy, the “political” class of the time. The equation for wealth was very simple:

Wealth = Resources

The Industrial Revolution changed the equation. Humanity started to organize itself, and invented ways to transform the resources, adding value, making their use more efficient and more valuable.  The new formula became:

Wealth = Resources * Technology

But the technology was still controlled by a few, those who had access to the knowledge and experience. The wealth spread from the aristocracy who held the resources to the business moguls who held the technology and means of production.

The Industrial Revolution created the concept of a “job” and a “career”, where each person plays a well-defined role, a cog in the monolithic societal machine. The machine worked because information was hard to spread, so although the political and financial classes held most of the cards, those who had access to some knowledge and experience (i.e. white-collar professionals) were also able to share in a bit of the wealth. This created the “middle class”.

After World War II, technology started to spread faster and faster. Consider the adoption rates of the telephone at the beginning of the 20th century, compared to radio, television and computers.  Access to technology became more and more democratized.

Then, barely 16 years ago, the Web was born. In an instant, knowledge and experience was no longer limited to certain classes. Information starts to circulate faster and faster. People can now seek out like-minded colleagues to form their own networks, communities, tribes. And this kind of self-organization unleashes a resources that multiplies our abilities in an exponential way: the power of Passion.

Passion is a very powerful element, because it powers our confidence, our courage, our persistance and our ingenuity. In the past, our societal and economic systems contained our passion. Passion at work was not encouraged, because the machinery of living depended on each person playing a well-orchestrated part in a precisely-defined box.

But when Passion comes into the equation, it adds an element that supercharges the wealth equation.

Wealth = (Resources * Technology) ** Passion

People powered by Passion are willing to go the extra mile, to go beyond the status-quo, to take risks and to innovate.

Passion is also a chaotic element. The Passion sparked by the democratization of technology and the ease of communication and association, means that the old top-down ways of societal and economic organization are fracturing. I believe that the root cause of a lot of today’s economic problems is not only greed or government regulation, but that all our assumptions about how to generate wealth have fallen apart. The old economic models of GDP and productivity and employment no longer have any relevance in this new, Passion-powered economy.

The political and financial classes of today’s society instinctively know the power of Passion, because they seek to provoke it by poking at our lizard-brains. But that is like pouring gasoline on a fire, it makes a big flame, lots of sparks, but becomes uncontrollable.

The real leadership we need to overcome the challenges of our time will not come from politicians nor from big company CEOs. Those social classes have too much invested in the status-quo to risk losing it through revolutionary change. They actually gain by pitting people one against the other: left vs right, public vs private, middle class vs poor. They gain because we get distracted from what we need to do.

The key to the new leadership is by moblizing people around visionary projects. Projects that fire the imagination and stimulate creativity. Projects that inspire everyone to reach for their full potential.

We have seen what visionary projects can do. The textbook example is President Kennedy’s challenge in 1963 that Americans would set foot on the Moon before the end of that decade. And they did, with six months to spare.

We’ve lost sight of what visionary projects are. Infrastructure is not a visionary, mobilizing project, because the outcome does not engage the imagination. War, however well-intentioned, is even less of a visionary, mobilizing project, because there is no win-win outcome.

It is the new generation of entrepreneurial leaders, you and me, who now hold the key to progress. We have our feet on the ground. We see what people need, want and yearn for. We also can aim for the moon, defining visionary goals that engage the communities we build around us. And as entrepreneurs, we master the skill of simultaneously seeing far to keep the goal in sight, while seeing close to make sure the next step is well placed.

I believe each of us has the right to fully live our own individual potential, and the responsibility to help others fully live theirs. I also believe that although the world has finite resources, the true multiplier of these resources is human passion, which is limitless.

We need to stop the lizard-brain thinking which is short-circuiting our society’s potential, and embrace the Power of Passion through Visionary Projects.

Stop playing for survival. We need you to play to WIN.

<end rant>

For more information

Although my motivation for writing the above post was inspired by a tragic event, and borders on a pessimistic view of the world, I remain resolutely optimistic about the long-term prospects for our society, our species and our planet. See my “manifesto” on my About.me page:
http://about.me/CoachDavender

To give historical context to this post, see this article from Huffington Post describing the assassination attempt in Tucson that left six people dead and many injured (including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords who is in critical condition as of this writing):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/08/gabrielle-giffords-shot-c_n_806211.html

I have read many articles by Naomi Klein, on the subject of her book “The Shock Doctrine”, which is related to the idea of the “old-guard” societal and economic leadership via fear and manipulation:
http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine

A thought provoking article that posits that the current economic system requires crisis events such as oil spills and disasters, just to keep in a steady-state
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keith-harrington/why-our-economy-required-_b_800143.html

Image credit: AmberBrooke via Flickr
Direct link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/amberbr00k3/4289936624/
Used under Creative Commons 2.0 licence

The SoloSuccess series of free webinars are starting again for 2011.  The focus for January and February is to help you start the New Year on a productive basis using Projects to transform your resolutions into results.

Here are the first three webinars planned for 2011:

Tuesday, January 11 (noon Eastern)
SoloSuccess: Resolutions Point The Way – Projects Get You There
Many people use the New Year to make resolutions. Resolutions are good, because they point the way to changes that you want to make. However, resolutions without action are meaningless. This is where the concept of a “Project” becomes important. A Project is a framework that brings together resources and actions toward achieving a specific goal. This FREE Solo-Success webinar will show you how to translate your intentions, resolutions and goals into a well-defined project that you can act on.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=123402574394266

Tuesday January 25 (noon Eastern)
SoloSuccess: Your Projects Define You. What’s Your Taj Mahal?
Some projects come and go, while others create results that stand for centuries. The projects you choose to which you devote your time and energies will determine the results you create this year. Will you empty your resources chasing after lots of little projects, or will you dedicate some of your energies for a Big Project which will take you to a whole new level of performance? This FREE Solo-Success webinar will show you how to outline a Big Project that will define your success this year.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=183899868305287

Tuesday February 8 (noon Eastern)
Solosuccess: Leadership Capital – The Value Of Delivering Results
In today’s world, too many entrepreneurs promise but fail to deliver. Being able to consistently ship is an asset that will set you apart from the average and help you get more and better clients. This competitive advantage is something I call “Leadership Capital”: the wealth embedded in your ability to effectively translate ideas into real-world results. This FREE webinar will introduce you to the concept of Leadership Capital, and how you can build this valuable asset.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=129643157099973

All the SoloSuccess webinars are free. They are recorded, however the recordings are normally reserved for paying participants.

For more information

The full Event Calendar is available here:
http://en.davender.com/calendar/

and descriptions of each event are kept on Facebook here:
http://www.facebook.com/frompassiontoprofit?v=app_2344061033

Is it a good idea to multitask? Studies of the impact of cell phone use on our ability to focus on complex tasks such as driving, operating machinery or walking, show that the brain does not multitask well at all – even if the inputs are being processed in different areas of the brain.

Juggling tasks that require cognitive, creative or problem-solving skills only aggravates the negative impacts of multitasking: reduced productivity and increased stress. If your work requires mental effort, and almost all modern jobs do, then it is essential to break the multitasking habit. Here are some ideas to help you reduce your multitasking, so you can be more focused and get more done:

1. Organize your day

Organize your day into focused blocks of ninety minutes to three hours of work, no less or no more. Choose a theme for each block: business development, problem-solving, administration, marketing, production, design, planning, etc. Group your tasks to execute on those relating to the theme during the allotted time block. If other ideas come up, have a little notebook handy to jot them down (the “idea parking lot”), then go back to what you were doing. You will find as time goes on you will experience fewer thought interruptions. Grouping your tasks into themes enables you to focus at peak efficiency.

2. Minimize context switching

We call it multitasking, but in reality it is time-slicing: focusing on one task for a moment then putting it on pause to switch to the other task. If the tasks are too dissimilar, it takes time for your brain to switch from one task to another. The context switching time can take anywhere from one minute to sixty minutes, depending on how focused, creative or analytical you need to be to carry out the task. This is why multitasking is not efficient. By grouping similar tasks together in themes, and executing each task in a serial order (one after the other), the context switching time between tasks is minimized and productivity soars.

3. Control external interruptions

Responding to external interruptions such as phone calls, e-mail or colleagues breaks your focus and triggers the context switching delay. Suppose your context switching time is five minutes for each interruption – this time quickly adds up! Let your voice mail answer your calls. Close your office door or put a “Do Not Disturb” sign. Discipline yourself to check and respond to e-mail and voice mail at most two or three times a day, outside of your focused working periods. This should be sufficient for even those who expect instantaneous responses to messages. You may need to reset the expectations of your co-workers or clients by letting them know at what times you are available to respond to calls, but they will appreciate your professionalism.

4. Create a space to focus

Space is an important element of focus. Create a physical work area distinct from your living area, so that when you go to your work area, it is a cue to your brain that you are now in work mode. Arrange your work area to minimize external distractions. I recommend wearing a pair of good quality noise-cancelling headphones, with or without appropriate music. Dressing up for your work periods, even when at home, is another powerful cue. I also have different places for different themes: client work is done in my home office, and creative work is done at a local coffee shop (where I wear my noise-cancelling headphones).

As you learn to break your multitasking tendencies and maximize your focus, you will minimize distractions, reduce context switching time, and get more done with less stress.

For more information

I originally posted this article on EzineArticles: http://ezinearticles.com/?id=4375260

An interesting article on multitasking in the journal of the American Psychological Association:
http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct01/multitask.aspx

And from ArsTechnica.com:
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2007/03/study-says-leave-the-multitasking-to-your-computer.ars

And why you shouldn’t text and walk (NYTimes.com):
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/business/25multi.html

Image credit: Ryan Ritchie on Flickr
Direct image link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryantron/4453018910/
Used under Creative Commons 2.0 licence

Much is made of the statistic that the half-life of a small business startup is 24 to 36 months. But I’m not sure that we’re doing the right thing by measuring the success of an entrepreneur by the longevity of the business. I think we need to encourage more failures.

Having gone through two short-term businesses (36 months and 18 months) that eventually triggered a personal bankruptcy, I can confidently say that I’ve learned more about entrepreneurship in my failures than with any course or coaching experience.

A very interesting article in a Russian blog about startups, Russia 2.0, examined the role of failure in Silicon Valley startups: “If one looks at actual time spent by entrepreneurs, as distinctively different class of people then salaried employees of successful startups that became big, they spend the most of their time and effort creating, enduring and recovering from failure rather then creating success.”

So what I propose is not necessarily to encourage is not more success, which limits innovation, creativity and resilience, but rather to encourage more churn. You need to do what Tom Peters calls “Fail. Forward. Fast“. Each time you fail, you gain valuable knowledge that will improve your chances of success.

You need to be continuously prototyping, testing, innovating, trying. Try things that are outside of your current area of expertise, take on a client you would not normally take on. But be ready to kill the project or jettison the client if things get out of control. Each time, do an “after-action” analysis of what you learned and what you can change.

The danger of aiming for success is that you will achieve the zombie-zone of mediocre success: just good enough so that you keep your head above water, but not enough so that you can declare victory.

So by assuming from the start that your best-made plans will go awry, you can learn to adjust your aim as you learn from your mistakes, and build something that eventually works in a big way.

The real-world measure of how good you are as an entrepreneur is not how long you have been in business, but how many times you’ve failed and got back up to try again. Long-term success is built on a solid foundation of failures.

For more information

Article in Russia 2.0 “The Epic Fail“: http://startup-russia.com/en/archives/135

From Dharmesh Shah‘s blog OnStartups.com: “Six Interesting Stats About Startup Success” http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/79/Six-Interesting-Stats-About-Startup-Success.aspx

Dharmesh links to an interesting paper:  ”Skill vs. Luck in Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital: Evidence from Serial Entrepreneurs“: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=933932 (Free PDF download) Note: I haven’t had time to completely read it yet but I wanted to share it with you because it looks very interesting.

Image: Photo by Dagny Scott (Fireflythegreat) on Flickr
Direct link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fireflythegreat/2845637227/
Used under Creative Commons 2.0 licence

Why do so few people live up to their potential?

In his book “Linchpin”, Seth Godin posits that people who are remarkable are those who are totally dedicated to their “art”, exhibiting a willingness to plunge forward despite the fear and the risks, and deliver results that change the world around them.

In one of his blog posts, he asks the further question: How much support does someone need before they create remarkable results?

His observation:

“(…)Most mentors and coaches and teachers will tell you that few of their students ever do, not in comparison with their potential. A few break through and change everything, and we celebrate them, but what about everyone else?
The artists are different. They took a leap.
They weren’t pushed. They jumped.”

What is the difference between jumping and being pushed?

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this, and what comes to mind is the idea that maybe the difference between jumping and being pushed is about expectations. And specifically, expectations about “winning conditions” that guarantee success.

As I look at the opportunities before me, there is a part of me that wants to leap, but another part of me that is holding me back, waiting for the right conditions that can maximize a successful outcome:

- If only I had more money in the bank
- if only I had more time
- if only I had more help
- if only I had more support
- if only I had more accountability
- if only I had more recognition
- if only I had more energy
- if only I had more resources
- if only I had more knowledge
- if only I had more structure
- if only I had more encouragement…

…then I could feel better about making the leap.

Deep down I want assurance that everything will turn out okay before I take the risk. I also want insurance that will compensate me if the result doesn’t turn out as expected.

But this is a lie.“Winning conditions” will never show up by themselves. And if they do appear before I make my move, it’s too late.

This is the conundrum: If I wait for the winning conditions, they can’t happen, because winning conditions are only created once I make an irrevocable commitment. It is the energy of my commitment that creates the winning conditions.

And that’s why being pushed is not the same as jumping.

If I wait for someone to push me, the winning conditions can’t happen, because the commitment is not fully mine. So I need to fully commit to jumping now, in the absence of winning conditions, knitting my parachute as I plummet to the earth, hoping I can make it work before I become a stain on some farmer’s field.

This is the problem with the coaching, personal development and self-help industry. We want to provide winning conditions for the client to make the leap. But if we provide the client with the parachute, and push him out the door, the winning conditions can’t appear. The client has to make the decision to leap on his own. As I look back on the success stories with my clients, it is those who decided themselves to take that leap, who succeeded.

If success were guaranteed, there would be no reward, because success would be so ordinary. The reward of success comes by pushing through the fear and the odds to create remarkable results that express my full potential.

Pain, disappointment, stress and fatigue are guaranteed. I chuckle to myself as I think about this… if it’s guaranteed to hurt, why am I afraid of the pain? Wouldn’t it be better to focus on the reward and aim for that? To have the unshakable belief in success carry me through the pain…

In my own life, right now as I write these lines, there are several amazing opportunities that are opening up for me. These opportunities challenge me to take my game to a whole new level, but also trigger my lizard brain to shift into overdrive, causing me to hesitate when I should be going full throttle. Seth’s post reminds me that maybe I’m waiting to be pushed, instead of leaping of my own accord.

Thus the real question I must answer for myself: Am I waiting to be pushed, or will I jump towards my potential on my own?

For more information

Amazon.com link for Linchpin:
http://www.amazon.com/Linchpin-Are-Indispensable-Seth-Godin/dp/1591843162

A very good overview and interview on Mashable:
http://mashable.com/2010/02/14/seth-godin-linchpin/

Seth’s blog post that triggered this thought process:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/05/mentoring-platforms-and-taking-a-leap.html

Related posts on this blog:

• This is Think Big Week!
  http://blog.davender.com/2009/04/this-is-think-big-week/
• Yes You Deserve It: Five Tips To Strengthen Your Deservability Muscle
  http://blog.davender.com/2008/11/yes-you-deserve-it-five-tips-to-strengthen-your-deservability-muscle/
• A Thought About Making Decisions
  http://blog.davender.com/2008/04/a-thought-about-making-decisions/

Image credit: Josephine Dorado via Flickr. Direct link to image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/funksoup/66512710
Permission via Creative Commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/funksoup/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Lately I’ve been “burning out”. I’ve been putting a lot of pressure on myself to launch new content simultaneously in English (for my Internet audience) and in French (for my local audience). It got to the point where my head was constantly buzzing with a low-grade headache, and my patience was in short supply.

Then I received a morning thought from Heather Frey, a fitness trainer who I follow on Facebook:

You are unfinished. Yet everyday you race, scramble, and pressure yourself to be finished, which is both impossible and exhausting. Your life is a beautiful project, not a task. It is not to be completed and put away but rather relished, enjoyed and learned from. Your life is not one day after another, it’s a span of time with rest in between where you get a chance to grow and build momentum. Your life is suppose to be joyous and your “project” is to figure out how. Stop trying to “finish”.

Stay CLEAR…stay FOCUSED…and it will be yours…

Best,
Heather

The moment I read Heather’s message, the buzzing stopped, and I felt a weight lift off of my shoulders.

I also then remembered what columnist Roger Cohen wrote in a recent New York Times essay called “Florentine Choices“:

In the U.S. culture of achievement, efficiency and logic are prized. In the Italian culture of aesthetics, the artful scam has its place. America acts in the belief that life is linear and leads to the realization of goals. Italy idles in the belief that life is circular and objectives an illusory distraction from pleasure.

Are objectives really an illusion? Did I get so wrapped up in the linear pursuit of trying to “complete”, that I started driving myself to exhaustion chasing the impossible?

For goals to have meaning, they need to be connected to what is most important to me: my personal mission, my vision of the change I wish to create in the world around me, and my beliefs about my talents, strengths and abilities (my “permission”). The point of having a goal is to orient my energy and provoke movement. Whether I reach the goal or not is, in the big scheme of things, “unimportant”.

I define “success” as creating an experience of life that allows me to explore my full potential.  The moment a goal urges me to take a step, my perspective about the goal changes. Whether the step is forward, or back, or to the left, or to the right, I’ve accrued a bit more experience, a bit more knowledge. This new experience causes me to reevaluate the goal – how is the goal still relevant to the experience of life that I wish to create, a life that allows me to explore my full potential?

It could be now that I’ve shifted where I am, that the goal is no longer as relevant. Or that it’s even more relevant. No matter, the objective is to be continuously reevaluating the goal, treating it as something dynamic rather than static.

If I am too focused on a static end-goal, my project ends when either I reach my goal, or the goal escapes my grasp. The end of a project is a little death. This is why goals need to be dynamic, always under reevaluation. Because the only purpose of a goal is to move me to action, so I can live an experience.

A linear life ends up being singularly focused on completion – and the ultimate completion is death. A circular life is focused on experience, and the experience of exploring my mission, vision and permission need not end… The circular life can go on forever, because it never needs to be complete.

For more information

Check out Heather Frey on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/SmashFit and Facebook Fan Page http://www.facebook.com/HeatherSmashFit Heather’s web site is http://www.SmashFit.com

The essay that got me thinking about “linear” vs “circular” lifestyle: “Florentine Choices” by Roger Cohen, NYTimes.com, 11 Mar 2010
Direct link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/opinion/12iht-edcohen.html

Image credit: ”Six Blue Circles” by qthomasbower on Flickr. Link to author: http://www.flickr.com/photos/qthomasbower/
Link to image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/qthomasbower/3835549101/
Used under Creative Commons CC BY 2.0 licence

What does the word “tactical” mean to you? It might conjure up images of heavily armed soldiers storming a building, a swarm of tanks overrunning enemy defenses, a squadron of aircraft dueling it out over the English channel. Tactics rhymes with execution, punch, getting things done.

Are you thinking tactically enough to win?

Most entrepreneurs have a big-picture idea of what they want, recorded in a business plan or vision document or a simple list of goals. But then the document stays in a drawer or on the hard drive as they stumble into reactive mode, day after day, and not accomplishing what they initially said they wanted.

Planning requires two levels of thinking: strategic and tactical. Strategic planning is vision-focused, the “who am I”, “what do I want to create” and “why is this important to me”.  Strategic is longer term, one, three, five, ten years out. Strategic planning is important, because it gives a context and a purpose for action.

Tactical planning is goal-focused, the “how“, the detailed actions needed to move the yardstick forward toward the big vision.

Where the strategic plan can be done in the abstract, because it deals with possibilities and assumptions, the tactical plan is how we dance with reality, respond to the actual situation on the ground, execute to create results. Tactical plans are meant to be short term: created quickly, executed boldly, then superseded by the next tactical plan based on the new situation. Rapid execution of a succession of tactical plans moves you step by step towards realizing the overall strategic plan.

For the entrepreneur, thinking tactically means creating a daily, execution-focused, tactical plan.

When I attended the Canadian Forces Staff School course in the early ’90s as a junior Air Force captain, I learned how to prepare a tactical mission plan, using an acronym I still remember today: SMEACS. Applied to your daily tactical plan, this means:

• S = Situation: What is my current status with respect to today’s operation? (the starting point)
• M = Mission: What is the Specific/Measurable/Audacious/Real/Time-lined (SMART) goal I must achieve today? (the result)
• E = Execution: What are the tasks and steps that need to be completed to get it done? When will I do this (put in today’s calendar)
• A = Administration/Logistics: What resources (tools, supplies) do I need to get it done? Where do I get these resources? How much money/time will I need to get them?
• C = Command: Who do I need to connect with to get it done?  (collaboration, authorization, support, accountability)
• S = Signal: Who do I need to communicate with to get it done?  (E-mails, telephone calls, letters)

To think tactical, focus on one primary project where you want to create a measurable result in the next 24 hours. Draw up a simple tactical plan in point form using the SMEACS format, so it is easy to keep in your head or on a single piece of paper.

For example, let’s say that my Strategic focus at the moment is to write my book. Today’s Tactical plan would be:

• S = Situation: I’m now at Chapter Two of my Ten-Chapter manuscript.
• M = Mission: Today’s mission is to create a rough draft in point form of Chapter Two in the next 24 hours.
• E = Execution: 1. Make a list of two dozen sub-points I want to include in the chapter; 2. reorganize into eight major points; 3. complete each major point by breaking it down into ten to twelve sub-points; 4. post it on the wiki; 5. dedicated writing times today: 9am to 10:30am (eight major points) and 8pm to 10pm (expanded sub-points)
• A = Administration/Logistics: 1. Make sure laptop is charged up and backed up before starting; 2. morning session at Starbucks after spin class, evening session at home (wash dishes first).
• C = Command: 1. coordinate with Thomas for a brainstorming call (suggest 9am).
• S = Signal: 1. confirm with Annie for feedback from Chapter 1 (e-mail); 2. send note to Mastermind group after morning and evening sessions informing that the wiki is updated.

As you execute your tactical plan, you will find that instead of feeling that you are running around in circles reacting to your environment, you will now be in control, act more deliberately, and get much more done. Being tactical puts you in charge of the momentum.

Strategy points you in the right direction. Tactics ensures you do the right things right now, so you can win at creating the future you really want.

For more information

This post was inspired by  ”Rip Up Your Five-Year Plan” by Ian Sanders, BNET Insight http://blogs.bnet.com/smb/?p=145

Image Credit: Tactical Bacon is a real product! Image from http://www.thinkgeek.com/caffeine/wacky-edibles/c399/

You’re good at what you do…but how many prospective clients know that? Most professionals rely on their credentials and certifications to communicate their competence. The problem is that most certifications mean little to your market, because laypeople usually do not understand (or don’t care about) the meaning of those letters after your name.

To get more and better clients, you need to stand out from the crowd by proactively positioning yourself. The real question is: Do people know what you’re good at…and how it benefits them? Communicate that clearly, and you will build huge trust capital with your market, and they will choose you before any of your colleagues.

This short course will equip you with strategies you can use right away to break away from the herd and become the preferred choice of clients who recognize the value of what you offer and who are ready to commit.

The result? You get happier clients who enthusiastically refer you to other people who are also the right fit for you. This means you will earn more, work smarter, and be happier!

People always have a choice. Make it easier for them to choose you.

This short course is offered in three sessions:

Session 1 – You are your positioning

When people hear about you, what images do they think about and what words do they say? The inverse is even more important: when people see a certain image or hear a certain word, do they think of you? In this session, you will refine your positioning by examining the triggers which cause prospective clients to seek you – and only you.

Session 2 – You are your clients

When people consider whether or not to do business with you, they look at the kinds of clients that you have. In this session, we will discuss how you can better define your ideal client, so you can be the natural choice for them. When you have better clients, you can do better work, earn more income and work smarter.

Session 3 – You are your message

You are highly qualified, but does your market know that? By demonstrating what you know, you educate and prepare your prospects so that when they become your clients, they are ready for you and you can do your best work. This session will point you to some essential strategies that you must implement to demonstrate your competence.

Structure

- Three 60-minute webinar sessions (audio and video)
- Online workspace with recordings of each session, reference material and worksheets
- Interactive forum to discuss the concepts and share your views with the other participants
- Access to one 30-minute individual coaching session via telephone or internet (offer valid for 60 days from the start of the course)

Registration

Launch special: CDN$149 / US$139  (Retail value CDN$239)
Price is billed in Canadian dollars.
Canadian residents add GST, HST and/or QST as applicable.

Session dates:
Session 1 – Wednesday 24 February 2010 – 2pm to 3pm Eastern
Session 2 – Wednesday 3 March 2010 – 2pm to 3pm Eastern
Session 3 – Wednesday 10 March 2010 – 2pm to 3pm Eastern

Registration link:
http://bit.ly/a8wYtL

Questions? Contact Coach Davender directly at 418-948-1553 or coach@davender.com

Why is it so tempting to procrastinate when faced with an otherwise simple task? Even if you have the skills, knowledge, experience, resources and even a great motivation to accomplish the task, there is something that can sabotage your best intentions, and before you know it, there goes another blown promise or missed deadline…

The culprit lies within the deepest recesses of our brain, in a primitive organ – the amygdala. This “lizard brain” is the centre of our basic emotions: fear, anger and sexual desire.

If fear exists is because it the amygdala senses a threat to our survival. Since the beginning of evolution, our natural fear reflex helped us to either avoid or react to the often fatal dangers we faced.  But does this visceral reaction still serve us well in our modern environment?

Consider the to-do list of the solopreneur. Instead of sabre-toothed tigers, what do we avoid out of fear? Tax returns, sending invoices or making payments, calling a client, going to a networking event … Objectively, none of these situations is potentially lethal, but something triggers the lizard brain, flooding the conscious brain with its fear response.

Afraid of what, exactly? The lizard brain does not like the unknown. Taking risks is anathema to the amygdala, because it seeks security in the known, the comfortable, the familiar. So, whenever there is uncertainty, the lizard brain triggers the flight reaction.

For me, I notice that my lizard brain is in full control of me when all of a sudden I’m sleepy in the middle of the day. Another symptom is a tension in my legs, as if I had to flee quickly. And the third element of evidence for me is a sudden desire to eat, especially something sweet.

The fatigue, the desire to flee and sugar are avoidance behaviors that tell me that my “lizard brain” is dominating my thinking. I can be totally aware this is happening, but I’m powerless to do anything about about it, because I’ve let myself become a spectator to my primitive self…

But is it true that I’m powerless? What can I do to dominate the fear response and regain control, so I can overcome the block and create the results I want?

A simple approach is to ensure to reduce or avoid the unknown or the uncertainties. Remove the risk, and the lizard brain goes back to sleep. Here is a simple strategy to do it:

1. Take the time to create a blueprint to guide you through the task. This blueprint should break the big task into smaller pieces, doable in 15 to 30 minutes each. Reducing the size of the actions reduces the uncertainty, because it is easier to see to the other side of the task.  In addition, a detailed plan provides allows the emotional brain to “rehearse success” – quelling the fear response and giving room to the logical mind so it can take control, even briefly.

2. Do one small action at a time, according to a precise schedule. Each action should be scheduled in the calendar, and rigidly controlled in time: do not take more that 15 to 30 minutes for the mini-task. When the action is done, move on to something else that is not as “difficult” to do.

3. Celebrate progress. Whenever you have done the action step, give you a small reward – something you love. But make sure your rewards do not become a distraction!

For example, if the “impossible” task is writing a blog entry, my plan is:

a. do a brainstorming of topics and write them in a list, without prioritizing. No ideas what to write? Surf on over to your favorite blogs and write down the subjects of the last four or five posts without necessarily reading the whole text. Don’t worry, this is allowed and even encouraged, as long as you refer back to the post that inspires you.
b. choose two or three of these subjects and break each one down four or five points for each subject – whatever comes to mind. If nothing comes to mind, move to the next subject.
c. choose one of these expanded topics, and for each point, write two or three sub-points
d. you now have a good outline for your post. Link the sub-points together and it’s done!

Allocate 15 to 30 minutes for each action, and the space them out by one to two hours during the day – this is how I wrote this note starting in the morning from a blank screen.

Whatever task you’re trying to avoid out of fear, remember: it doesn’t need to be perfect – it just needs to be done.

And the more you get used to producing, the more comfortable it gets for your lizard brain. Your task moves from the unknown into your comfort zone.

Remember that your lizard brain thrives on fear. Learn to side-step it and you will become a better producer – and you will be better able to create the future you really want!

For more information

Inspired by a note from Seth Godin
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/01/quieting-the-lizard-brain.html

This idea appears to be part of Seth Godin’s new book “Linchpin: Are You Indispensible?” http://www.amazon.com/Linchpin-Are-Indispensable-Seth-Godin/dp/1591843162 (no affiliate)

Photo credit: Image by lostartist on Flickr . Use permitted by Creative Commons CC BY-ND 2.0

Is your business project running off the rails, or turning into a “Death March”: a daily slog with no hope of any outcome?

If your project or your business is heading towards disaster, what can you do to get it back on track? In this discussion, Coach Davender Gupta will show you a simple process to take control of the situation and steer it back onto the path to progress.

Join Sharon Sayler as she interviews me about a simple five-step process to get you back on track, during her BlogTalkRadio podcast “Beyond Lip Service” this Tuesday at 1pm East / 10 am Pacific at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/BeyondLipService

Air Date: Tuesday Feb 2 2010, 1pm East/10am Pacific
Direct Link: http://bit.ly/9TzGvt

For more information:

Ustream.tv recording: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/4398483

Do you have a task that you’ve been procrastinating on, one that gets bigger every day even though you’re trying to ignore it? I usually have a couple of those on my list. These are tasks that I’m dreading for one reason or another: tediousness, refusal to face the truth, fear, shame…

The more I try to push these tasks to the future, the bigger they get, to the point that just resisting them is sapping my energy and blocking my ability to spot and respond to other opportunities.

So it’s time to do something about it.  

Mark Twain, that great philosopher-sage, said “If you eat a frog first thing in the morning, the rest of your day will be wonderful.”  This is the premise behind a delightful little book by Brian Tracy, called “Eat That Frog“. This book, which I highly recommend (even if you are not procrastinating on anything at the moment), provides a simple process to blast through procrastination: imagine the yukky task as an ugly frog that you must first eat before you can enjoy doing other things.

I’ve taken to call the tasks I’m procrastinating on my “Ugly Frogs” (UF).  UFs are things that only I can do (what’s left after the delegating and dumping), but I am loathe to get started on for any real or imagined reason. And it’s usually the latter. By identifying the UF, I can then go through a process to help me break it down into bite-sized pieces so that I swallow the whole darn thing…and therefore get it off my plate.

I’m currently implementing this idea in my weekly planning by asking myself the following questions:

1. What is an important task that I’m procrastinating on which is draining my energy and stopping me from moving forward? (This task must be on a critical path for my most important priority at the moment)

2. How can I break this task down into three to five sub-tasks that take between 30 minutes to no more than two hours each to complete? (An ugly frog is easier to swallow if I first cut it up into smaller pieces)

3. On what days this week will I accomplish each one of those tasks? (Schedule the day, and if possible, the time)

4. With whom shall I share this commitment to help me be accountable? (I find an accountability buddy to be invaluable in making sure I finish my plate)

Sometimes you might not get through the whole UF in one week, but can get far enough that there may be one or two sub-tasks left. If so, try to schedule them at the beginning of the following week so that the whole task is done, or if this is not possible, make sure you schedule them now so that you complete them as soon as possible.  Or maybe my UF is too big, like two frogs stuck together. Then the idea is to separate the tasks to make them more manageable. With practice you will learn what are reasonable task sizes and timelines for you, depending on your workload.

Even with this preparation, the actual eating of the Ugly Frog can still be distasteful, stressful, even nauseating.  I’ve had tasks that needed to be done that would take someone else maybe 20 minutes or so, but take me two hours because it feels like I’m moving through cold molasses. Hang in there, gut it out. You know that it will be over in at most two hours. This is where the accountability buddy is so valuable, for encouragement or simply someone to whine to…but make sure that your buddy won’t let you off the hook!

Brian Tracy explains more thoroughly this process of breaking through procrastination. Don’t delay, get it now, read it now and do it now.

Don’t stare too long at that Ugly Frog. Just pick up your knife and your fork and get at it, so you can move on to the dessert!

For more information

Read: “Eat That Frog” by Brian Tracy  Amazon.com link (no affiliate): http://www.amazon.com/Eat-That-Frog-Great-Procrastinating/dp/1576754227

Photo credit: Photo by wahoowins on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons licence CC BY-ND 2.0

Are you overwhelmed by everything that screams for your attention?

Join me and my guest, office productivity coach Athenee Mastrangelo, as we discuss how some simple steps can organize your workspace, get you out of the “Crazy-Busy” mindset, and help you get more done.

This is the inaugural episode of “From Passion To Profit Radio”!

Show time: Monday, January 11, 2010, 6PM-6:30PM (Eastern)
Location: Listen live or download the podcast at
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/frompassiontoprofit

“From Passion To Profit Radio” presents people with interesting stories, ideas, tools and techniques to help you power your Vision from Passion to Profit. Each episode is hosted by Coach Davender Gupta.

For more information about Athenee, visit her website at
http://www.actionchaos.com

For more information about Coach Davender, check out his blog at http://www.frompassiontoprofit.com and his main site
http://www.coachdavender.com

To access this and other episodes of “From Passion To Profit Radio”, visit
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/frompassiontoprofit

So it’s a New Year, but how are you going to make this different then the old one? Here are three ideas to help you make this year your best ever!

For more information:

Link to this video on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBAMjY2vHto

My YouTube channel (includes my videos and other “favorites”):
http://www.youtube.com/coachdavender

I use Google Reader to track of hundreds of blogs on leadership, entrepreneurship and success. Here are some great posts that turned up in my Google Reader lately:

• Successful People Focus on the Process, not on the Result
  Chuck Blakeman – TeamNimbusWest Blog
  http://blog.teamnimbuswest.com/2010/01/successful-people-focus-on-the-process-not-on-the-result/

Are we too focused on the result, thinking that “arriving” will make us happy? Why do athletes, music heroes, and business people who are already at the top of their field and financially secure keep going? Why don’t they retire as soon as they get there?

• Success and Motivation: What will you remember when you are 90?
  Mark Cuban – BlogMaverick
  http://blogmaverick.com/2009/12/04/success-motivation-what-will-you-remember-when-you-are-90/

Mark Cuban may be a multi-millionaire, but he does ask a good question that puts wealth (and the pursuit of wealth) in a proper perspective

• What Makes An Entrepreneur? Perspiration (6/11)
  Mark Suster – Both Sides Of The Table
  http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/12/21/what-makes-an-entrepreneur-perspiration-611/

A great series of posts by an entrepreneur-turned-venture capitalist about what it takes to succeed today. I like the point that he makes in this post the best: “If you want a safe job or a balanced life don’t be an entrepreneur.”

• 6 Things They Mean When They Say They Have No Money
  Naomi Dunford – IttyBiz
  http://ittybiz.com/customers-cant-afford-it/

The brutal truth about what “I don’t have the money” really means (and what to do about it)…

For more information

Check out these and other posts that I share from a list of over 220 blogs on my Google Reader sharing page:

https://www.google.com/reader/shared/davenderg

Do you have a blog you suggest I should follow? (Maybe even your own blog?) Post it in the comments below!

What matters most to me in 2010 is one word: Execution.

I love Peter Senge’s definition of Leadership from his famous book “The Fifth Discipline”: leadership is the ability to get things done.  Getting things done means turning ideas into results.

For the past ten years I have been working on this vision of mine. When things work well, it is because I focus on making things happen. When things don’t work so well, it’s because I get too wrapped up in dreams, hopes and wishes…

Yes, positive thinking is important. The Law of Attraction (Ask-Believe-Receive) sounds nice, neat and tidy. But all the Big Dreams in the world amount to nothing until someone is willing to roll up their sleeves and get sweaty all over.

Here is what Execution means to me, right now.

• Execution means clarity – keeping the main thing the main thing
• Execution means discipline – taking purposeful action regardless of how I feel (about it or about me)
• Execution means accountability – measuring and reporting my tangible and intangible results so I tell myself the truth about my current situation
• Execution means systems – having processes and structure to free my mind from sweating the small stuff, so I can focus on what’s important
• Execution means efficiency – doing things right to maximize the return on my investment of time, money and effort
• Execution means effectiveness – doing the right things that move me forward towards my goal
• Execution means progress – making sure I move forward each day
• Execution means commitment – doing what I say is most important to me
• Execution means collaboration – assembling and building a team that actively supports the vision and the mission
• Execution means communication – communicating my intentions constantly and clearly so that everyone who is involved and impacted by what I do knows what is happening and where I’m going
• Execution means purposeful courage – expanding my comfort zone by keeping one foot in and one foot just beyond, giving me a fulcrum from which to propel myself forward into the unknown
• Execution means planning – thinking things through before I act, to optimize my efforts and my results
• Execution means standards – establishing performance levels that I require of my self in all my actions
• Execution means results-focused leadership – ensuring that I stay out of the “strategy trap” where all I do is conjecture and plan, and that I move into action mode
• Execution means celebration – recognizing and celebrating progress so that I can enhance it
• Execution means acceleration – from first learning to crawl then to walk then to run, what is in common is that it’s all about putting one foot in front of the other
• Execution means boundaries – being clear about what I tolerate from others, and being grounded enough to say no (or no more) when it does not serve my purpose
• Execution means imagination – keeping the big vision alive in my mind’s eye
• Execution means relentless focus – being obsessive about creating results in alignment with what I say is most important to me
• Execution means responsibility – adopting the attitude that “the buck stops here”: if it is not working, first look at myself to see what I can change within me, if it is working, then recognizing the contributions of others that make it possible
• Execution means excellence – making a positive difference in the world that fully expresses Who I Really Am.

Dreamers open up the possibility of change, but it’s the doers that make revolutions happen. In 2010 I will be the revolution-maker.

What value matters most to you as you move into 2010?

For more information

Read my original post here: http://blog.davender.com/2009/12/what-matters-most-whats-your-one-word-theme-for-2010

Get Seth Godin’s thought-provoking e-book here: http://www.squidoo.com/Whatmattersnowfreeebook

Make this first day of the New Year a model for the kind of day that you want for each of the next 365.

I know that there are some things on my “To Get Started On” list that I have been delaying and delaying for several weeks, telling myself that I will get to it in the New Year. Well, the day has arrived, the excuse ship has departed.

Today, right now, I resolve to adopt three daily practices of personal transformation:

1. Let go of something – What is a habit, a situation, a task, promise or commitment, or even a relationship, that is not serving you? That is preventing you from expressing your full potential? Every minute that you tolerate something that is holding you back, you are paying a price, that of not living your full potential. So whether it is something simple such as tossing that unopened junk mail sitting on the side of your desk (okay, it’s now done!) or something big like closing down a project that is going nowhere, do it now. You now have made space for the next step.

2. Transform something else – What is a something that could be improved? Many times what is holding us back is that our tools, systems or habits are not quite serving us. What action can you take today to improve your surroundings or your systems so that they work better? For me today it is finishing a writing draft that I started a few days ago but never finished, and getting it out the door, hence this blog post.

3. Adopt something new – This is the fun part for me, because I’m a forward-looking kind o’ guy. What is a new habit, situation, tool or project you can adopt that will help you to move forward, faster? For me today the new practice I adopted this morning is do to my pushups and abs exercises as soon as I get out of bed (my goal is 100 pushups and the equivalent in abs exercises)

By adopting these three principles and making small adjustments each day, big changes can occur over time.

Why is this important?

I love the feeling when I go to bed at night and I know I have played to the limit, leaving all of my energy and my efforts, all that I had to give, on the playing field of life. That I did all I could do, no excuses, no regrets. That I’ve taken a step further along the path of “Creating the change I wish to see in the world”.

Resolve to make this year the best. It may sound corny, but I mean it. All those great promises one makes to oneself, especially near the end of the year, well now is the time to live up to them. Create a physical, spiritual, mental and emotional environment that supports you to perform at your best.

The media are doing a great job at pushing people into an emotional depression. What the world needs more than ever right now are role models of people acting with purpose. You and I need to look forward, think and act big, to be irrationally and foolishly optimistic, for beyond that glass half full there is a whole ocean waiting to be explored!

May your New Year be full of great adventures and challenges, heartache and happiness, humor and sadness, disappointments and accomplishments, and above all, growth towards your full potential, towards Who You Really Are. For you are the sum of your experiences, so resolve to make those experiences as real and as fulfilling as humanly possible. There is a message to be heard and a lesson to be learned from every one of those 86400 seconds we receive each day.

I look forward to supporting you on your journey to greatness, as you support me on mine.

Bonne année mes amis! Happy New Year, my friends!

For more information

Image credit: Paul Moody via Flickr
Direct link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulmoody/339827428/
Used under Creative Commons 2.0 licence