• WRITE Your Goal down and make a list of compelling, visceral reasons that you MUST achieve it
• Schedule your time in advance
• Get an Accountability Partner
• Create a BINDER with all of the reasons - images, inspiration - that you MUST achieve the goal
• Create Commitment Contracts and Consequences
• Create a PUBLIC Accounting - like my NotSoFatFrazier Blog - where you are displaying your progress (and setbacks) for all to see

The Exercise Imperative:

Why You Must Commit to Regular Exercise In Order to Jumpstart Your Other Commitments

A couple of weeks ago, I got a 7:30 wake up call from my business partner, Dave.  We had committed to a 30 day “personal transformation” plan and one of those elements (for me) was waking up early and to codify the commitment, we had arranged for a 7:30 “Commencement of the Day” call.  My own personal transformation was languishing a bit (and by “a bit” I mean that I was no closer to achieving my 30 day transformation goals then if I had locked myself in my basement eating bon bons and leafing through “Star” magazine) so I was typically Grumpy.

“Uh,” I believe I answered. 

“How are you feeling?” Dave’s annoyingly (but fairly standard) chipper voice chimed in on the other line.

“Not so great.  “Law and Order” had a marathon last night and there were several episodes that I hadn’t seen so I was up late (NOTE to Reader: I’m not sure if that’s what I actually said, but it was probably something that pointed to a similar level of lack of personal discipline).

“Yeah,” Dave replied, “I was up late as well.  Felt pretty awful this morning, but I’m going to take my daughter for a walk to get myself charged up.  That would work for you too.”

Now, for those of you who wonder which personality characteristic wakes up before any other, let me answer the question – it’s the “Being an Ass” gene.

“Dave,” I said in my most patronizing voice, “I fail to see how you’re going for a walk is going to help me at all.  Because I can assure you, there is zero chance that I’m getting out of bed.”

And then, to his credit, rather than ignoring my sarcasm and petulance and going on with his day, Dave reminded me of something very profound and important, something that we all “know” and “understand” but that we may not know and understand.

“Frazier,” he said, “you’ve got to get up and get your body moving.  Your body and your mind are connected.  You need to get some activity, some fresh air, some movement to get your mind working and your creative juices flowing.  Your mind and your body are connected.”

Now typically at this point in the conversation, I would hang up on Dave and go back to sleep, content to wake up minutes (realistically, seconds) before I had to get up, feeling weak and discouraged about my ability to master this basic human task (but probably well rested).   But that morning, Dave’s words hit me differently.  It wasn’t just a truism that I heard, it was the truth.

There is no doubt that getting your body moving (especially in the cold, bracing air of late November/early December) can do wonders for getting your mind moving, but I think that that value of that morning interaction goes beyond that realization on to a larger epiphany: You can’t begin to accomplish big things in your life if you can’t master yourself. 

So many of the big tasks and dreams and projects that we are taking on when we decide to become achievers require self-discipline and a change in our “normal way of doing things” and the ability to “take on” the parts of ourselves that (historically) have held us back.  In fact, every worthy pursuit requires that ability to shift gears and do things differently (it’s a rare challenge in our lives that simply says to us, “Just keep on doing the easy things that you’ve been able to do well up to this point and everything will work out fine.  Where would you like the keys to your Lamborghini, Mr. O’Leary?”) 

Your access to personal power, your access to that magic key that will unlock your ability to begin transforming your life, has been hidden inside your body and every day, every moment is a test of whether you will have the discipline to unlock it.  By making decisions to wake up at a certain time (and by extension to go to sleep at a certain time), to get started with your day, to challenge your body at the beginning of the day with activity – when all that your mind and body want to do is lay dormant and undisturbed – you are serving notice that YOU are the one in control of your fate – not circumstances, not habits, and not biological or chemical connections in your brain that say, “10 more minutes, mom”.  And that is true power.

Maybe 10-15 years ago, I remember reading about an interview with Bryant Gumbel, the former Good Morning America host, where he was asked about how he got up so early in the morning every day.  He said something that, for whatever reason, stuck with me for a long time.  He said, “I realize that I’m never going to feel like getting up in the morning.  So I don’t worry about how I’m feeling and I just do it.” (this is a complete paraphrase).  I remember being inspired, confused, and challenged by that all at once.   I think that I have always held in my head that if we really are unhappy about something or if something isn’t easy for us, then there must be something “broken”, something that needs to be fixed.  Whether it is that we’re not thinking about it the right way or whether it is that we aren’t in the “right job” (because the right job would, of course, mean that we would bounce out of bed every morning, regardless of the time), I think that I’ve always invested my “feel like”s (i.e. how I felt about something) with a certain amount of wisdom, similar, I suppose, to how I might respect pain that my body was feeling – as an indicator that something is wrong and needs to be inspected more closely.

Now, I have often said that it doesn’t take much to get you to not do something that you don’t want to do and getting out of bed, or exercising, or making a cold call, would all fall into that category of items – things that we really don’t want to do but that we should.  Other things – like writing up a daily plan, sticking to a schedule, maintaining an organized office, tracking your time, etc – might fall into the category of things that don’t “feel” like they fit in with the spontaneous, “natural” lifestyle that you equate with being truly free and successful.  This sentiment might be best expressed by the conundrum: “I don’t want to have to get up early (do paperwork, clean out my car, etc) when I’m really successful and happy so this doesn’t feel right.  Going back to bed…night night”. 

What I’m going to suggest is that we stop investing our “feel like”s with “wisdom” and thus giving them more respect than they deserve.  What deserves respect is your decision, your commitment, the plan that you’re deciding to implement – your feelings about doing or not doing, what you like, what you don’t, what you feel like or don’t feel like, are all just the background noise created by the person that you’ve been up to that point.  It’s very natural that when you are trying to make a change in your life, that your “old you” would chime in and say, “This doesn’t feel right.  I don’t feel like doing this.  You’re doing something wrong.”

It’s said that you’re more likely to act you way into feeling a certain way than to feel your way into acting.  Treat this as your guiding light.  Decide what you want to accomplish, what specific actions need to be taken to accomplish that result, and resolve to take a “Thanks for sharing” attitude towards your “feelings” about whether you should or shouldn’t do them at the time.  If you’re doing anything different or worthwhile, your “feel like”s can be counted on to undermine and distract you, not support you, so while you might not be able to kick them off of the team permanently, at least don’t make them the captain!

Or, at least, so sayeth Bryant Gumbel.

"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestioned ability of a man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor."

     — Henry David Thoreau

Developing the Integrity Plan and implementing it is a source of unbelievable power and inspiration for me and I hope that it becomes something similar for me.  Looking through your life for the “splinters”, the undones that cause you discomfort and any form of pain (disappointment, regret, embarrassment, a sense of failure, whatever), and then actually resolving to face and complete them is your surest route to your committed goal – a transformed you in 30 days.

So far I have delivered a wedding gift that was 4 years overdue (and was given to me to deliver to someone else – boy, that friendship is ruined), bought the cold weather clothes/gear that I needed to initiate my outdoor workout program, fixed my IPod and loaded all of my CDs on to it, got shelves for my office so that I could begin to organize it, and plugged in my “serenity fountain” and put water into it.

Now, that last one is at once the stupidest and the most profound illustration of the Henry David Thoreau quote above.  One day, several years ago, I looked at my office and I asked myself what I think is a great question that I would encourage everyone to ask at least once a week: “What could I do that would make my time in my office during the day?”  Now the question can vary – you might ask, “What could I change in my office to make me happier?”, “What could I do/buy for my car that would make my commute more enjoyable/productive?”, “What changes could I make in my life to make me productive/happier?”.  This is how you bring the wisdom of perspective to your own life – anyone could look at your life and make suggestions for simple, easy things that you could to do remove stress/increase productivity/bring more joy into your life.  Because we’re the ones forced with living it, being buffeted from stressful situation to stressful situation, we lose the wisdom of perspective and become more like animals acting on instinct, unable to take advantage of Thoreau’s “most encouraging fact” listed above.

Which bring me to the stupidity of the serenity fountain “undone”.  For the past 6 months, this simple joy of mine has been sitting about 12 inches from me, unplugged and with no water in it, unable (through no fault of its own) to provide me with the soothing pleasures that being near running water bring me.  Now, I know what you’re thinking – “Frazier, you probably haven’t been stressed at all over the past 6 months.  You’ve got things so together that you probably just haven’t needed the fountain.”  Yes, I know that that’s the way it looks like to the outside world – that I am a self-actualized, enlightened millionaire mogul who has everything together (please, please, please hear the overdone sarcasm that is dripping from my words as I write this).

No, the reason that I deprived myself of this simple pleasure was because I was acting unconsciously.  I never stopped, thought, and asked the question, “What could I do right now to make my life better?”.  I never walked to the bathroom for a glass of water to fill the fountain and reached down to the floor to plug it in.  And because I was “too busy” for a conscious endeavor, my life was poorer for it.

Part of the integrity plan asks you to take on any “undones” in your life – many of those undones might be  disagreements that need to be resolved or errands that are causing discomfort because of being overdue.  But there’s another category of items – “life improvers” that have been put off even though it might be a very simple process to use a conscious endeavor to elevate your life immediately, even if in a very small way.

Take a look at your office.  Your Closet.  Your car.  Your bedroom.  And put on your Life Re-Engineer’s hat.  What simple changes could you make that would have an immediate impact?  Watch how you live your life and look for the little ways, the little things that you could do that might have a big impact. 

Obviously, there is an immediate positive benefit from implementing that approach but I would suggest that there is a bigger payoff in your life as well.  Once you start taking on change, even in the little things, you become a person who takes action to improve your life.  And I can think of no more encouraging fact than that that power will always be in your hands, for the rest of your life.  How will you decide to use it?

I remember reading a book about 10 years ago that had a profound impact on me.  I think that it was titled, “How To Get Yourself to Do What You Really Want To Do” and it may or may not have been by Albert Ellis, the founder of Rational Emotive Therapy (I didn’t say that the title or author had a lasting impact on me, you’ll recall).  What had an impact on me was the story that the author told about his attempt to extinguish his shyness with regards to members of the opposite sex.  Basically, he made a decision that it was time to get rid of that personality characteristic because it was holding him back from having the kind of life that he wanted and felt he deserved and he decided to take a “strategic” approach for getting the result that he wanted. 

He recognized that, if left to his own devices, he would talk himself out of action when confronted with an opportunity to meet a woman, so he decided to create a game that encouraged him to do the thing that he “really wanted to do”, but found that he kept not doing. 

So what Ellis (or whoever it was) did was established a scoring (no pun intended) structure to encourage him to initiate conversations with women who passed by a particular park bench that he established as his outdoor laboratory.  He committed to sitting on the park bench all day and he committed to talking to every (attractive?) woman who came by.  He then would award himself points based on how far he pushed himself through his comfort zone.  He would get 1 point if he said “Hello”, 3 if he initiated a conversation, 5 if he asked her out for a date, 10 if she said yes and 10 if she said no.  (The details of this experiment are a little hazy for me; I don’t recall if the author created a greater level of specificity in the point scoring based on what happened “on the date”.  J)

The magic of the system (as evidenced by that author’s success -- in Paul Harvey “Rest of the Story” style, “And that boy’s name?  Hugh Hefner.” Just kidding) – the magic of the system lay in the ability of the author to do the following: 1) He made a decision about the kind of actions he wanted to take, 2) He established an “artificial” structure that enabled him to “turn off his mind” and just focus on how to take those actions most effectively. 

In reality, he “fooled” himself into acting in the way that he really wanted by removing the element that holds us back – our annoyingly human tendency to question, second-guess, and consider.  “Is this the best use of my time?” “It’s really cold outside, maybe I should start tomorrow.”, “I’ll probably be more successful if I call in the afternoon.” “She probably doesn’t want to be bothered.”, “I need to know/understand/practice/learn more before I __________”.  These are the “momentum killing” rationalizations that 99.9% of humans use to prevent themselves from leaving their comfort zones and taking the actions that would give them access to the power that we all crave.  And the truly pernicious thing about these rationalizations is that they speak the language of our mind and thus sound reasonable and worthy of attention.  If we said, “I’m scared to do it”, “I don’t want to make a change”, “I don’t want to upset my comfort zone”, our minds would be disdainful of those sentiments because they are so obviously inconsistent with the values that we prize.  But appeals to wrong timing, the need for better preparation, the need for more resources hit us where we live – the “supposed” desire for effectiveness and results.

Well, my friend, if your opponent (in this case, your mind) is a master of the game and its rules, then you need to change both.  Take away the ability to consider or reason if this is the “right” action to achieve a desired result by making the action itself the desired result.  Creating a “point” system for doing more of or less of the things that you want to do more or less of changes the equation and transforms your mind from your chief opponent to the best player on your team.  Your mind loves a “how” question and a puzzle and a challenge.  Once you’ve decided on a course of action or a discrete list of things to do more or less of, award a point value to the different actions and sit back and watch yourself go.  Track your results and challenge yourself to score more points today than you did yesterday.

Remember, the goal of this exercise is to change your results.  Your mind will recondition itself as it changes its actions and will become more trustworthy as its “worldview” changes, but the “damage” will already be done anyway – you will have a history of taking the actions you desire (eating less, speaking up more, taking walks, making calls, etc) and whatever positive results come from those actions.

Remember, thinking is bad for business.  If you’re having difficulty “getting” yourself to take the actions that you know that you want to, “game” yourself into doing them.

After all, it worked for Mr. Hefner.

One of the key ways that you can tell that someone has really made a decision to transform their lives and that they aren’t just going through the motions as they’ve done so many times before is that they actually start making changes to their habits, environment, and behavior to prevent themselves from falling prey to the temptations, distractions that they “always” do.  It sounds silly to say that, but isn’t it true?  How often have we made a resolution to change __________ (our eating habits, our exercise habits, take on a new business opportunity, the list goes on and on) but we “forget” that making a change in that area will likely require subsidiary changes through the rest of our life to support (or at least not torpedo) that primary change?  A great example is making a resolution to eat better but then not purging the cabinets/fridge of those foods that will, inevitably, play the forbidden apple to our Eve.  Of course, many people do do just that – they go through and clear out the fridge and the cabinets, depositing all of the offending foods in the trash (only to, several hours later, dig into the dumpster for a half-eaten Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup…oh c’mon, I know that I’m not the only one.)

What people don’t typically do is that the massive and proactive action necessary to support them through those perilous early days of their transformation.  They rely on momentum and will-power rather than taking a cold hard look at who they have become over the past 20, 30, 50 years and identifying and defusing the very, very, very foreseeable pitfalls, temptations, and potential setbacks in advance.  Remember that the failure in the diet/exercise program didn’t happen when you pulled into the McDonald’s Drive Thru (I’m speaking from personal Dec. 27^th experience here) and order the large #1; it happened when you didn’t anticipate that sometimes you get overwhelmingly hungry when you don’t eat until 1:00 and that when you are overwhelmingly hungry, and you’re on the road, the pull towards McDonald’s has the power to (temporarily) overwhelm your connection to your goals.  (Now, remember that you do have the power in that moment to make a different choice, but it’s an unnecessary reliance on a new and fragile pattern of behavior to demand that your willpower save you from “not thinking things out in advance”.)

Could you right now identify the ways that you “historically” have sidetracked yourself from staying on course towards your goals?  Whether it was eating right, getting up in the morning, keeping your office clean, being loving towards your spouse, or getting started with your new business, aren’t there eminently foreseeable and predictable things that, if you were really, really serious about making a change, you would prepare for? 

Here are some of mine:

• I get caught up in Internet surfing reading political commentary and blogs (distraction from work)
• I “used to” not be able to wake up in the morning – thank you, Decision CNG (and Dave Schiman)
• I get righteous and irritated with my wife (distraction from being loving husband)
• I see nachos and wings and pizza as essential to enjoying a football game (distraction from healthy eating plan)
• I get overwhelmed by all of the projects available and I “jump” from one to the other (distraction from maintaining the focus necessary to complete projects and giving myself an “out” from facing difficult things)
• I work out of my house and have a 3 year old daughter and a wife who occasionally needs to process things in conversation (distraction from getting projects done)

If I am serious about transformation (and I am), I have to put in place proactive measures to help me deal with the things that I know will come up to distract me from achieving my goals.  In addition to the “physical measures” (e.g. healthy food at the ready, a prohibition (or a limit) on Internet surfing, a process for tackling projects in smaller pieces), I need to have “positive self-talk” to counter the chatter that undermines my commitments.  Do any of these sound familiar to you?

• Oh, c’mon, you’ve been working hard – take a little break and go read the sports pages.
• You know, you did stay up late last night.  If you got a few extra minutes of sleep, you’d be more productive during the day.
• C’mon, you’re out with the guys.  This is what football and hanging out is all about?  You can start the diet tomorrow.
• Don’t you love your daughter?  She’s growing up faster than ever; you better spend time with her now.

They all sound very reasonable and compelling, don’t they?  They are.  And so is your desire to transform your life so that you can have access to greater amounts of wealth, freedom, and happiness than you can even conceive of now.  If you don’t prepare in advance to support your transformation by anticipating and countering these predictable external or internal factors, you are flirting with what Quentin reminded us was the definition of insanity, “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result”.

How My Six Pack Abs Rescued Me From the McDonald’s Drive Thru Last Night

Yesterday, I wrote about the importance of having a “game plan” to deal with the tempting, decision crushing “emergencies” that might pop up during the day.  By “emergencies”, of course, I mean those eminently foreseeable and predictable events, temptations, distractions, etc. that anyone with a fifth grade education and the ability to have witnessed your life for 5 minutes could have envisioned would cause you some challenge.  I also wrote about how necessary it was to have some “counter chatter”, some language or arguments to deal with the extremely reasonable and compelling persuasive talk that your mind (specifically, your “I don’t want to change” comfort zone) will throw at you when you are at a decision point – go down this road and you are on your way to your 30 day transformation and achieving more than you could have ever imagined was possible, go down this road and you’ll end up face down in the gutter with bon bons oozing out of the side of your cheeks, penniless and on the run from the law (metaphorically speaking, of course).

Well, last night, clarity came in the form of the Golden Arches (as it often does).  I had just dropped my wife and daughter off at Dulles Airport for their weeklong trip to San Francisco (visiting relatives) and was driving home eagerly anticipating a full week of nothing but work (I don’t say that facetiously – for me, there is nothing more satisfying than being able to work without distraction on improving the curriculum, adding new features to the web site, or modifying the program administration to make it more delegateable).  What better way to kick off my 8 days of working debauchery than a Large #1 at McDonalds (Big Mac, Fries, and a Coke, for the uninitiated).  Now, sure, I could see some inconsistency there, but before that inconsistency could start arguing for driving by, my “I’m OK – You’re OK” comfort zone voice kicked in.  “Frazier, you’ve been doing great.  You’ve been exercising by walking every morning.  You’re carrying your goals with you.  You’re taking care of some things on your integrity plan.  A little stop at McDonalds isn’t going to wreck things.  You deserve a break today.  It will get you fired up for the week.” 

Now, how many of you can hear those voices coming from your own head…Better question: How many of you can hear those voices coming from someone else?   Your wife or husband?  Your kids?  Your friends?  “C’mon – (fill in blank) – you’ve been working so hard lately.  This isn’t going to kill you.”  “C’mon (fill in blank), we don’t get together very often; don’t be a Scrooge.”  Whether they are intentionally trying to thwart your progress and keep you down or whether they are “looking out for you”, you’ve got to remember that you are the only one who can keep yourself on track.  And how do you do that when the world and even the voice within are agitating pretty vocally for you to follow the path of least resistance?

With the help of friends.  And, luckily, I had one in the car last night.  I didn’t have any “counter chatter” to help me respond to my Big Mac advocate.  I did however have my Transformation Binder with me.  And right on the back cover was the “me” that I am becoming.  The “me” that doesn’t have the time or room for a large #1.  The “me” that has a clear prescription for what to do (and what not to do) in order to realize the vision that I have for myself.

And, from the passenger seat, he said, “Frazier, pull out of this drive thru and go home make yourself a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich.”

And so I did.  If I hadn’t had my goals and a visual illustration of one of my goals with me, I would have made a different choice.  Remember that, for the most part, transforming your life comes down to those simple every day choices that we make – should I eat this or that?  Should I get up now or hit the snooze?  Should I watch this show or read this book?   Should I get angry or smooth things over?  Should I make that call or put it off?  It’s not glamorous, but it’s undeniably true.  The only question that we’re faced with is, how do we get ourselves to do the things that we “want” to do when we don’t “feel like” doing them?

I was talking with Joe Serafin last night about having goal pictures.  Joe was mentioning that he was going to get a picture of a luxury car to post around his world so that, when he was struggling with whether he should follow his plan or not, he could have a visual reminder of one of the things he was doing it for.  I agree wholeheartedly; I think that you should consider taking it a step further.  If one of the “prizes” that you’ll get is a new car or a new house, go down to the dealership or to a McMansion and get a picture of yourself in it or in front of it.  If it’s a new body, get an appropriate photo and put your face on the top of the body.  If it’s your son or daughter graduating from college, get a picture of a commencement and put their picture right in the middle of the crowd.  If it’s your first deal, get a picture of you in front of a “Sold” sign or with a big fat check with your name on it (it probably won’t be hard to get a sample check, go to a Guru’s site!)

Remember, you’re either serious about this or you’re dabbling.  If you’re serious, pull out all of the stops.  Post your goal list everywhere.  Post your Integrity Plan around your world.  Put Pictures up in your car, at your office, in your bedroom.  Connect with some of the people in the group for accountability partners (don’t give yourself the out that Frazier screwed up the assignments – this is your life that we’re talking about!!!).  Your goal has got to be to change your behavior – if your behavior hasn’t changed completely, you just need to take more action and putting the things that we “know” work in place is a great starting point!!!

So, I was clicking on all cylinders until I hit the weekend.  I was dreaming big, putting my change patterns into play, thinking about what a bad a** I was becoming.  And then the weekend hit.  I did ok in terms of eating (sort of), but my walking disappeared and in its place appeared a familiar old friend – the “rationalization”.  “C’mon, Frazier – it’s New Year’s Eve.” “C’mon, Frazier, it’s New year’s Day!”  “C’mon, Frazier, it’s the day after New Year’s.  You couldn’t be expected to get up and walk on Monday, January 2^nd, could you?”.  It would be a miracle if any one (not in Decision CNG, that is) was able to persist with his/her New Year’s Resolution beyond January 10^th.  An absolute miracle.

But I have come here to bury the Old Frazier, not to praise him.  If the key to real estate is “Location, Location, Location”, then the key to transformation is “Decision, Decision, Decision”.  It’s when that decision falters that all is lost and it’s the power of that decision that enables you to see resources and support in places that you might have overlooked when your mind’s energy was focused on “considering whether”.  To paraphrase an old saying from Benjamin Franklin, “Once a fortress or a maiden has begins to consider, all is lost”. 

I was able to wake up this morning and go walking but I can speak from bitter experience that it was much harder this morning than it has been over the past week.  Momentum (or lack of it) is a powerful force.  If we remember that our muscles are either strengthening or weakening with every step, action, decision that we make, we should be instructed to be very cautious “letting things slide”.  It’s much harder to “re-start” than it is to continue going in the (positive) direction that you have been going.

Obviously, the best way to escape a breakdown is to not have it happen in the first place, but the recipes for maintaining your momentum towards your transformation are fairly similar to those that will help you hop out of the breakdown ditch if and when you fall into it.

Uncle Frazier’s Recipe for Maintaining or Regaining Momentum Towards Your Transformation

Do a 5 minute Review Your Goals, especially your “compelling why”s – the reasons that you are committed to making this transformation

Commit to 15 minutes of Immersing Yourself in the Liquid Goo of Success through listening to audio tapes, your IPod, and reading the Success Principles

Review your plan and Decide to do one thing that moves you towards your goal – there’s nothing that can pull you out of your funk faster than getting something done

Call Your Accountability/Coaching Partner – Get Support and Encouragement

Recommit to your decision – see this as an eminently foreseeable and predictable event  (an EFAPE) rather than any kind of “real” setback

Expect that you’re going to have some set backs and breakdowns and losses of heart along the way.  Your ego and comfort zone are not your friends in this endeavor and they will likely take any excuse to say, “Why don’t you come back and join us on the couch?  We’ll play PlayStation 2 and put all of this “transformation” bunk behind us?”  That is not for you.  You have stepped into elite company by clarifying your goals in writing, making plans to achieve those goals, and carrying those plans with you every day.  You’re not going to be allowed to retire from that company and return to the Other 97%, Inc.  This was a permanent step up.    When the challenges come (and they will), remind yourself of your decision and use the same tools that are going to get you the life that you want to help you get through that muddy patch of road.

I think of myself as a fairly positive person.  I am not the type of person who says, “You can’t do that” or “That’s unrealistic”.  I don’t consider myself a dream stealer, but a dream promoter, a dream cheerleader.  That’s why I was taken aback this weekend when I realized that I was tearing myself down from within with the most insidious, subtle and pernicious form of self-talk – the “you’re not good enough” refrain.

The occasion for epiphany: I was searching for an old college friend (not one of my big undones, but someone that I remembered when I was scheduling my tour of the White House – one of my “to dos” for the year.).  His name was Russ Horowitz and, because he was once a deputy press secretary to Pres. Clinton and might be famous now, for all I knew, I decided that I would Google him.  Now, while I didn’t find “my” Russ Horowitz, I did find “a” Russ Horowitz, a young (34) guy who apparently was the CEO of some big dot.com company and a captain of the “new” economy.  I took an interest and started reading about his company and what he was accomplishing and that’s when I heard it.  That very faint, but unmistakably familiar voice in the back of my head, “I don’t think I could ever run a public company.  I don’t know if I would ever be able to be a CEO of a large company.”  It might appear to be a preference (as in, “I don’t know whether I would want that type of life”), but I knew better.  The message of that little tick of a self-conversation was, “I don’t think I’m good enough.  I don’t think that I’m a good enough manager.  I don’t think that I could handle it.  I might be brilliant and creative and entrepreneurial, but I couldn’t succeed in a corporate environment…especially at the top.” 

Now irrespective of whether I want to be a corporate CEO or not, I started to wonder about the effect of that sort of self-talk and I started to look to see where else that had come up in my life.  The quickest (and coolest) revelation was that I had similar thoughts when I looked at the big self-improvement, transformation gurus (the Tony Robbinses, the Brian Tracys, the Jack Canfields) – I looked at them and, while I liked what they were doing and saw myself in some of it, I also had a little voice in my head that whispered, “They’re out of your league, Frazier.”.  The interesting thing is that that message (which, if I heard it on a conscious level or if someone else said it to me, I would have dismissed or refuted [I am a positive person after all]), that message disguised itself on a subconscious level.  Rather than saying, “You’re not good enough”, it sounded like, “Do you really want to have that kind of life?  Do you really want to have to be “on” all of the time?  Do you really want to have all of that pressure?”

Doesn’t that sound different?  Doesn’t that sound like something that your friend or your family might say to you?  Well, here’s the wake up call – it’s just code.  Code for, “You’re not good enough.  You’re not up for that.  You’re not ready for that.”  And that sort of negative self-talk needs to be rooted out, challenged, and destroyed…immediately.  Someone once wrote that, if you argue for your limitations, they become yours.  I would say that the same applies if you allow those limitations to linger without refuting them.  Don’t let your subconscious mind, your ego, your comfort zone, or well-meaning friends and family place little voices in your head that steer you away from accomplishing the brilliance and the success that you are meant to accomplish.  You have to stand guard at the gate of your mind and prevent destructive, limiting thoughts, beliefs, choruses, suggestions, etc. from entering the castle and running rampant inside.  And remember that occasionally (say, every day or thereabouts), you’ll need to do a search of the castle to see whether any got inside when you weren’t looking.

Create an environment that supports you in refuting those limiting beliefs.  After I “discovered” that limiting thought about my “being out of the same league” with the self-improvement gurus, I made up a “magazine cover” listing a select group of the 100 Power Performers and I put my picture squarely in the center.  Now, I look at that picture every day so that when I see people that I respect as power performers like Roger Dawson or Robert Kiyosaki or T. Harv Eker or Donald Trump, I see myself right along with them.  There’s nothing like a picture to root out and weaken that negative self-talk.

If you haven’t achieved a specific goal yet, there’s likely some sort of negative, self-limiting belief hidden in your experience.  And if there isn’t a specific negative belief, then there certainly is an absence of enough positive, empowering beliefs there, pulling you in the right direction.  Give your transformation a boost by creating the future you desire in advance.

I wrote a couple of days ago about the importance of surrounding yourself with “How I will be” pictures.  Have you done it yet?  Have you gotten a picture of yourself in a heated conversation with a native Spanish speaker?  Have you taken a picture of yourself working on the blueprints of your dream house?  Have you gotten a picture of yourself in that wedding gown or holding that 10K trophy?  Anything that you conceive or believe, you can achieve and there’s a reason that that they say a picture is worth a thousand words – your mind thinks in pictures; give it something to work on.

Spiro Agnew, a former U.S. Vice President, once warned about the “nattering naybobs of negativism” that were helping to sink the U.S. economy and morale.  In your life, you are either climbing or sliding and the scary thing is that sometimes you don’t realize the slide until you’re back at the bottom.  Buoy your efforts by surrounding yourself with positive talk, positive images, positive people – if anyone complains, whether they are inside or outside the castle of your mind, show them the door.  They’re not going to fit in with the new décor anyway.

I Pod – Do You Pod?

You’re on schedule and on course to do some magnificent things.  Over the next few weeks and months, we’re all going to be taking our most ambitious projects, goals, and dreams and blowing them out of the water with true “shoot for the moon” thinking.  So much so, in fact, that what seems unattainable for you now will be unrecognizably puny for you by the end of the few months.  So, with promises of comfort zone challenging (heck, reality challenging) sights being set and distances being bridged over the next 12 months, how will you keep your negative “chatterbox” from sidetracking you?  How can you ensure that the energy that we create during our time together on Mondays and other events isn’t consumed by the habitual negativity and inertia that our society seems to breed and leave around the house to stick on us?

The answer that I’ve been using over the past 3-5 weeks has been the I Pod.  The I Pod (and by I Pod, I mean any kind of high storage capacity mp3 player – I’m not just a shameless shill for Apple – but buy an Ipod; they’re the best) is perhaps the greatest gift to people trying to transform their lives since…something that was really valuable in helping people to transform their lives.   I have downloaded all of my “motivational” CDs onto my IPod and I now am in the enviable position of being able to listen to hundreds of hours of the “greats” – Jim Rohn, Earl Nightingale, Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy, Roger Dawson, Jack Canfield, T. Harv Eker, Robert Kiyosaki, et al – all day long.  When I’m waking up in the morning, when I go for a walk or a jog, in my office, in my car, when I’m SHOPPING FOR GROCERIES, when I’m falling asleep at night – during all of these times, I’m able to reinforce the positive, motivating beliefs that are going to ensure my continuing process rather than leaving myself at the mercy of the internal chattering of my mind (which, to its credit, is doing what it does best – looking for things that are wrong, things that are broken, things to “protect” me from).

Beyond immersing myself in the positive goo of goal and achievement thinking, I’m also able to use my I Pod for continuing learning.  (Note to Copyright police and the FBI – this next section is part of a science fiction short story that I’m writing about the dangers of Internet piracy) I go to the library and get all of the language learning CDs that I can find and immediately download them to my I Pod.  Several people – Joe and Youshea, specifically – expressed that one of their 2006 goals was to increase their proficiency in Spanish.  The Ipod is the greatest gift to a person seeking to learn a foreign language that I can imagine.. You should have heard me in my car on the way back from the library last night, chattering away in Russian (I was using Bernard as my “accent” inspiration – yes, Bernard, I know that you’re not Russian, but the accent is cool, nonetheless). 

The next step for Ipod enthusiasts and achievers is to record your own affirmations, statements about the “you” that you are becoming and download those to your IPod.  (I will be doing some of these and making them available to you to download).  Imagine what your life would be transformed into if your actions and decision making were influenced by belief such as:

I am a confident, competent deal maker.

I make decisions quickly and easily.

I am a healthy person who exercises frequently.

I am destined for great things.

rather than

• I am just not good enough at this real estate stuff.
• I just can’t make decisions.  I’m bad at making decisions.
• I’m lazy and I can’t control my eating.
• I’m not able to take on big projects.

It’s easy to see how pernicious negative, disempowering “beliefs” can been.  The problem is that we think the negative ones are “real” and that we’re “fooling ourselves” by trying to implant positive ones.  “We’re brainwashing ourselves”.  Well, I’ve got news for you.  You need a good brainwashing, because your mind is polluted.  Polluted with crap that you collected when you were 5 and 12 and 17 and that for some insane reason, you have continued to carry with you well into your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s.  The question isn’t whether you need a brainwashing.  The question is whether you’re going to be powerful enough to give yourself one and to replace the negative, disempowering beliefs and “lies” that have been renting space in your brain for so long with beliefs and the “truth” that will support you in achieving the things that you are capable of achieving.

You have access to a technology that will transform your life.  Unfortunately, the decision to use it is not an I Pod accessory.  That’s up to the owner.

The Key To Success:
Work Harder On Yourself Than On Your Job

(I probably should have entitled this “The Key To Success?” because I am not speaking as an authority here but as an interested explorer)

I’m not sure where I first heard the expression that the key to success and wealth was “working harder on yourself than on your job”, but I do remember that when I first heard it (and for many of the times thereafter), I dismissed it as not being relevant to me.  I knew after all that I wasn’t going to achieve the kind of success that I was after by working in a “job”.  It had to be a quest or a mission for me and I had to be committed beyond the job “requirements” (or even better, to be working for myself) in order for me to be successful.  So, I dismissed it and said to myself, “Definitely.  Those wage slaves need to hear that so that they will free themselves from the bonds of employment and start working for themselves.” 

Well, if we needed any reminder of the pitfall of the “I know that” when it comes to personal development, I submit myself as a warning to the masses.  Someone once said (you’ll find that I’m not much for researching the details) that men need not so much to be taught as reminded.  Well, I was “reminded” of that truth about the key to success a couple of days ago when I was listening (on my IPOD!) to Jim Rohn, “The Key To Exceptional Living”.  When he said, in his distinctive voice, that the key to success was to work harder blah blah blah, I heard it in a different way.

I work very hard.  I always have a lot of projects going on.  I spend my time doing a lot and those efforts have gotten me to where I am right now.  What I interpreted Jim to be saying is that if you want to make a “quantum leap”, always ensure that you’re working harder on self-development than on project development.  What does that mean?

Well, first, it means knowing what are the Key Success Factors in your life and career?  Where, if you got better, even marginally better (i.e. more skilled, more competent/confident, more effective or efficient), would there be the greatest difference in your satisfaction, your results, your performance?

I’m looking at myself now and asking that question.  The answers that I’m coming up with are:

• Focusing, Prioritizing, Choosing between many options
• Subsection (Not having 27 different word documents open at the bottom of my screen right now – literally)
• Natural Persuasion Techniques
• The Discipline of Sticking to a Schedule
• Keeping my mind focused on the person that I want to become
• Personal Grooming and Appearance
• The Discipline of Putting/Keeping Everything in its place
• Being a Loving, Empathetic husband
• (I’m sure the list goes on)

I think that the message of Jim Rohn’s maxim is that it’s easy to focus on results and it’s extraordinarily important to get and measure results, but if you focus on improving yourself, making yourself better (obviously, through actions and implementation and the feedback cycle), then (a) the results will naturally follow and (b) your primary asset will have increased in value.

Stephen Covey (of 7 Habits fame) identified the 7^th Habit of Highly Effective People as “Sharpening the Saw”, which meant taking time to ensure that you were continually improving as a person, employee, entrepreneur rather than simply “working at results” all the time.  Covey and Rohn both recognize that the temptation (heck, even the rest of their instruction) is to improve the results and that that focus naturally can draw your attention “outside of yourself”, looking to see how other people can be changed and how stuff can be rearranged.

What I’m taking on is the following process: (1) noticing the changes in the external world that I’d like to create and (2) stepping back into myself and saying, “What are the internal projects that I can work on that will have the impact of creating those results but at the same time making me a “better version” of myself?”

Maybe that’s the Protein Shake talking, but I think it sounds profound.

• Ride a mechanical bull
• Learn Guitar and perform at an open mic night
• See a Steelers Game
• Watch a session of Congress
• Go on a Cruise
• Buy a New Car