Finish Strong

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Today it is not so much about what I write as it is that I write. Purely symbolic, maybe. But important. Critically important. Important that I close 2016 and step over into 2017 from my happy place...doing what I absolutely love to do....in private, nakedly baring my soul.....in public, painting word pictures on the canvas of your mind. How are you finishing the year?


Did you finish strong? It may have been a turbulent year. Nothing much may have gone the way you planned. Life's like that. It throws us in at the deep end sometimes and if we're not careful, sink we will. I had many of those days this year. There were days I felt the futility of my efforts hit me straight in the face; days I felt overwhelmed and under-appreciated; times when I felt weighed down by a sense of stagnation and sterility. But then I learned that all this is a part of the process.

And so I kept at it. The good thing in all this is that I learnt long ago not to play to an audience, and  I've learnt over time to shed things I have no interest in...things I do not feel called to do. And so today, I am driven by passion and purpose,,,,and that helps. It helps to provide the fuel when my natural adrenalin levels dip; It keeps me going when there are no cheers (and that's more often than not). And maybe most importantly, I've learned that in any moment, right at that moment, all is as it should be. And I forge ahead.

And so through the ebb and flow of 2016, I have kept the keen awareness that all is in alignment. I watched as others around me prospered, and I wished them well. I did my best to build others up; I built a bridge where I could....and I let it be. I didn't chase opportunities, but eventually they came. I learnt the value of discipline and I set my sights towards BECOMING....and eventually I finished strong.

So yes....there's no way I could have closed this year without coming back to my happy place....to celebrate my strong finish; to express my gratitude to my Creator; to reflect on all that has passed and to embrace this strong sense of hope that I have for 2017.....for my own growth, but more importantly, for the thousands I plan to assist in building something worthwhile...for the difference I will make in big and small ways. I trust you have already accounted your blessings and realize that you finished strong. But if you haven't yet, there's still time. In the dying moments of 2016...reflect on your path and count all the ways you conquered and indeed you'll find that you did, after all, finish strong.

It's Your Race.....Your Pace

Discipline, they say, is the bridge between goals and accomplishments. It is the single most important ingredient in our 'becoming'.....and becoming is what life is all about.....at least that's my view....more than my view, in fact.....my obsession. Becoming better. Becoming more.

The only trouble is, I lack discipline. I fight to set myself goals and some days I achieve them. But then there are days I can't stand to hear the word. Some days I just want to live free...no constraints, no artificially imposed standards of behaviour, nothing I don't absolutely want to do in the moment. And it's then that I live 'free.'

But the consequences are heavy. I see my 'becoming' fade even further into the distance. I see that elusive version of myself slowly drifting asea, further and further from my grasp....and 'becoming' becomes an even more painful reality. And I wonder if it's even worth it. After all, what's all the fuss about? At worst, I remain who or what I am...and I'm not such a bad version of me right now, am I?

It's called rationalization. Trouble is, it works for some.....not for me.

It leaves me forlorn....downright unhappy. So I keep at it. I don't always keep the daily routines that lead to discipline, and so I don't always make the big goals. I'm not as consistent as I ought to be. But I put something into everyday...because I know that everyday counts towards my 'becoming' who I want to be...

But be careful now...setting and not meeting goals can be the easiest way to demotivate yourself. So be gentle with yourself. Discipline is important. Consistency is critical. But you may want to go easy on the 'big hairy audacious goals' sometimes. I like the small achievable ones. The ones that build self-confidence...little by little. The ones that don't quite stretch you yet....the results are not usually very noticeable but that's okay. It's that little extra that makes the difference. 

So if you find that you have not been meeting the goals you've set yourself on your way to becoming more, maybe you need to step back a little. It's your race. Your pace. It need not be a sprint. Slow progress is better than no progress. Consistent slow progress is fine...much better than 'big, hairy, audacious goals' met once in a while. Keep at it!

Don't be Scared of a little "Scared"

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It's the season to talk about being scared so here goes: Have you ever felt like you are on the threshold of something big, like you've built up enough momentum to take you to the next level but you find yourself too scared to take the next step? You calculate the risks, take stock of the sacrifices you would need to make, and are just too petrified to make another move? I don't know, but they say you're in good company. They say anybody who's ever had some measure of success has felt the fear and made the plunge anyway. (Not sure who 'they' is either....I'm just going with the flow.... ). Seriously though.....I've come to realize that feeling fear and vulnerability are necessary parts of the journey. Business owners risk that the market will accept a new product or innovation; Potential start-up investors know that on average seven out of ten of these investments go belly-up. Most new entrepreneurs hear the 'eight out of ten new ventures fail' tale every-day. But they do it anyway. I guess everybody comes to the place where they realize it's do or die.

Some weeks ago, as I read Brene Brown's "Daring greatly", I was faced with two big questions. One I had heard many times over, "What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?" It's a question I have answered several times in my mind - ranging from running a full time business (and yes, its all done on paper) to speaking to a live audience of thousands - but the second question is what really got me thinking (and excited). She asked us to contemplate "what's worth doing even if you fail?" Hmmmm. Now that's something else. What's important enough to you to risk failing at? What matters enough to you to get you beyond the point of being scared? How willing are you to challenge Henry David Thoreau's assertion that the 'mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to their graves with their song still in them?"


So what's a little 'scared'? It's a good thing, actually. It renders you vulnerable, humble, dependent on expert advice and most importantly, teachable. It makes you aware of the mistakes you make along the way and therefore provides a host of what-not-to-dos next time round. Mistakes, they say are better teachers than successes. It's wisdom you can pass down, paying it forward as you progress in your business, building strong networks of partners and team members. So embrace the fear. Know that it comes with the territory. Just do it again, and again, and again....Do it scared that's how you get there,

So today, challenge yourself to identify that one thing that you are scared of that's likely to have the biggest impact on your dream. Now juxtapose that fear against your biggest WHY...What's your most important reason for wanting to pursue your dream? How do they stack up against each other? Do you find your 'why' more compelling than your fear? Does your 'why' not push you beyond those boundaries? If it does, you're in a good place. Feel the fear and do it anyway.....

Learning how to Measure Value

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Recently I stopped to compile a list of likely little known quotes about how to create value in the home and at work. These reflect the thoughts of entrepreneurs, inventors, authors and politicians. At first glance they appear trivial but but they unwittingly hold a wealth of wisdom. Take some time to give each some thought:

1. "We must teach our children not to spend their money a dollar at a time. If you spend your money a dollar at a time, you'll wind up with trinkets not treasures. You can't buy much of value a dollar at a time."
2. "When you do more than you are paid to do, you'll be paid more for what you do."
3. "You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget your errand."
4. "Profits are better than wages."
5. "We must seek the opportunity inherent in the risk, knowing that we must sometimes run the risk of going too far in order to discover how far we really can go."
6. "The highest reward of a man's toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it."
7. "It's best to start the discipline of generosity when the amounts are small. It is easy to give ten cents out of a dollar; it's a little harder to give a hundred thousand out of a million dollars." 
8. "Being grateful for what you already have creates magical pathways to infinite possibilities 
9. "The greatest good you can do for another is not just to reveal to him your riches but to reveal to him his own."
10. "Many of the things you can count, don't count; many of the things you can't count, really count."
11. "The borrower is servant to the lender."
12. "What you become directly influences what you get."
13. "We get paid for bringing value to the marketplace. It takes time.....but we get paid for the value, not the time."
14. "Formal education will make you a living. Self education will make you a fortune"
15. "The rich invest their money and spend what's left. The poor spend their money and invest what's left."
16. "Here's the major problem with going on strike for more money: You cannot get rich by demand." 
17. "Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money; you cannot get more time."
18. "The greatest reward in becoming a millionaire is not the million dollars. It's the person you must become in order to be able to earn that million dollars."
19. "Poor people have a big TV; rich people have a big library.
20. "Money is usually attracted, not pursued."

Are there others that you have come across and would like to add?

Actions, not Ideas, make the difference....

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The world does not pay men for what they know. It pays them for what they do with/about what they know. I often hear people express fear about having their ideas stolen. I tell them the world is probably better off for the many ideas 'stolen' for had it not been for these 'idea thieves' we might never have been exposed to these life-changing solutions. The fact is, ideas are a dime a dozen - no matter how innovative they seem. It's been said that anyone who has ever taken a shower has had an idea with the potential to 'change the world.' That's how cheaply they come. The real truth is, it's no matter the extent of your imagination, the creativity or novelty of your idea or the breadth of your vision, it is only what you do about them that counts.

Life has a way of making room for the man (or woman) whose words and actions show that he knows where he is going. Thomas Edison, the famed inventor, is known to have said "If we did the things we are capable of we would astound ourselves." Have you ever stopped to think of the number of times you have been complimented for a particular talent or skill you possess? Yet you find yourself constrained by thoughts of your inexperience and inadequacy. Add that to your thoughts about how humongous the task is, then stir in your habit of procrastination. The result? You're stuck. Inaction characterizes your existence. What's worse, you look ahead of you and find people with far less skill and aptitude making their way happily across the finish line....and you ask yourself 'how'...and 'why'?

It's not rocket science. It's simply that they have learnt to be more action-oriented. They do not wait for perfect conditions to move. They understand that while timing is important in business, every moment is perfect for some level of activity. They possess an ability to sense, mobilize and act under conditions of uncertainty. "Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap" (Ecclesiastes 11:4). It can't get clearer than that!

As life would have it, finding is reserved for the seekers and doors of opportunities are opened to those who go knocking. How many of us have ideas upon which we sit like hens brooding over her eggs? The problem is, unlike the hen, our ideas will never hatch with inactivity. Continuous activity/effort - not strength or intelligence, wishful thinking or hope - is the key to unlocking our potential. What we know and how we feel merely determine our potential for achievement. We must find ways to demonstrate externally what we possess on the inside. If not, our values will remain unappreciated and our talents undiscovered and unrewarded.Now what will you DO about it?

Choose the Lens You Use

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"The way we see the problem is the problem." So said Stephen Covey. That's powerful. Indeed, I have learnt that if I always see a problem as a problem, then that's a problem. Learning to see the opportunities buried in the challenges that face us, not only increases our ability to problem-solve, it equips us to meet the next challenge head-on. Indeed, there are two distinct ways of seeing the world...we can see the things we want to accomplish, or we can see the things that prevent us from accomplishing the things we want. When we begin to see challenges as within the scope of our influence we feel empowered to create change. But when we look at our challenges as outside the domain of our influence....as mountains we can't climb, as anchors that keep our ships grounded, then indeed our ability to problem-solve will be significantly compromised.

Now I'm not suggesting that we look at life through rose-coloured glasses (though, believe me...it has its advantages). What I'm suggesting is that we be mindful of the fact that we don't always see things as they are. More often than not we see them as we are. We bring to every interaction, every challenge our past experiences, our perceptions, our established ways of thinking. Obviously, these become the point of reference for all new experiences. In order to see things as they are we need to be mindful of the focus. Though we may be pre-disposed to a certain way of seeing things, we must mindfully choose the lens we use.

So how do we get to that place of power?

• We begin to see challenges as growth opportunities - we keep our eyes on the broader vision and remember that the problems come to improve our abilities to operate at the next level.
• Be mindful of the things we focus on - what we feed our minds everyday will manifest in our approach to life
• Understand the power of influence - Limited association, increased association and complete dissociation are options available to us. It's always better to choose the people who influence our worldview than to have them chosen for us.
• Harness the power of reflection - Maybe at the end of the day, maybe in a moment in between high-intensity activities, whenever some down time comes around, take a moment to consider if your last interaction left you proud of the person you are. It forces us to see the world through the eyes of persons with whom we interact; obviously, this improves empathy and emotional intelligence
• Remain a dreamer - Dreams help bring the impossible into the realm of possibility; dreams help keep us hitched to a star, keeping us unhinged from the mundane. 
• Understand that in every moment all is as it should be - it keeps us hopeful in times of despair.

In every challenge we face we have the power to control the way we see what we see. You can change that picture by changing the lens. We change our lens as we carefully filter the influences upon our mind, We make ourselves into possibility thinkers or we lead lives of quiet desperation. The choice is ours

Faithful when the Amounts are Small

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Once when noted business philosopher, Jim Rohn, was asked the most important advice he would want to leave with new entrepreneurs, he said, "be faithful when the amounts are small." Over the years I have found it to be excellent advice. The truth is, many of us have fanned the flames to keep a dream alive in our hearts; we have had great ideas that we were/are convinced would take the world by storm; we were pretty sure that we could and would attract investors with our novel startup ideas..only to find that reality had some very different ideas about what could become of our dreams. We are unable to attract the start-up capital we envisioned; readers are not as excited about your blog as you though they would be.....your website has been up and 'running' but it has not been attracting the kind of traffic you were expecting.....and, to add a little of the trivial, the numbers of facebook likes and adds you were sure you would be getting have just not materialized. Life sucks sometimes...too often....I know.

So I think right about this point is where I remind you of Jim's great advice. Press on. Be faithful when the amounts are small. Small amounts matter. They add up. Once, as I taught a class in entrepreneurship, and we discussed the concept of failure, a student asked "when do you know it's time to stop...if your results continue to fall short of your expectations, when do you pull back and call your venture a failure?" Without thinking too much about it, I found myself telling him, "when the fire inside you dies." As long as the dream still inspires you, as long as you are still able to will yourself to do the tasks, push through the mindset that tells you the results aren't worth it. The results will compound over time. But it's crucial that you remain faithful.

If you are a wee bit spiritual (as I like to think I am...yeah, a wee bit) and you make the scriptures your reference point, you will find a verse over in the Old Testament that says, "Do not despise the day of small beginnings..." Point underscored. It's important not to be discouraged by the size of either the input or the output early in the game. And who is to say how long that period of small beginnings will last? Maybe that dream you are 'birthing' needs a longer gestation period. What's important is that you do all it takes to keep the dream alive.

One important lesson I have learnt over time is that the dreams we easily stop pursuing were never meant to happen. Contrarily, there are those of us who have a dream pursuing us...ones we don't have the luxury of releasing as they refuse to release us. So even though we get discouraged by poor results, even though others are not seized with the essence of our desires, even though we find ourselves in the ring alone...we dare not be discouraged by small beginnings. We press on. We remain faithful when the amounts are small. We continue in the arena....We continue to dare greatly.