The book itself is written as a tale of one man’s mentorship in the the Lead Without a Title philosophy. We are taken through a day of discovery as the main character and his mentor meet with four teachers. Each teacher reveals one of the core principles of the philosophy along with the corresponding set of rules. Initially, I was a bit disappointed in the story. It seemed a bit contrived and shallow. However, as I progressed through the book, I found myself thoroughly engaged in the story and felt strong emotion in the final pages as the story concluded.

I typically avoid parable style development books but I’ve been following Robin Sharma’s work for a while now and I felt he’d have something good to say. I was *not* disappointed. Although the book is just under 200 pages, I found it to be a quick, enjoyable read. Having previously practiced some of the advice given, I can definitely atest to it’s effectiveness. For me, this reminder of habits lost is most welcome.

If you spend alot of time reading traditional personal development books, The Leader Who Had No Title provides a refreshing change of pace. Conversely, if you’re new to the personal development world, this book will make for a good entry point. Either way, the advice is solid and putting the rules into practice *will* make your life better.

- Dave

By taking a timeout I discovered many interesting things about myself. I discovered that I actually like (and missed) a lot of the self-improvement habits I’ve developed over the last 6 months. I like getting up early and reading first thing in the morning. I like eating healthy. I like reading personal development blogs. It seems that once you’ve taken the red pill there’s no going back.

I also found a few things that surprised me. First, TV really sucks these days. Sure, there’s a few shows I enjoy but most of the content is crap! And the news isn’t much better – full of sorrow and suffering. Second, some of the habits I’ve developed have become so ingrained that it’s actually harder not to do them now (I actually had to force myself to go back to sleep a few mornings). And finally, it turns out I still have a passion for technology. I thought I’d lost that somewhere along the way but not so.

All in all, this was a very worthwhile exercise and I highly recommend this for anyone who’s interested in making quantum leap improvements in their life. In addition to a renewed focus on taking my game to the next level, I’ve also found it necessary to rework my five-year plan to reflect the changes in my thinking. Even though I was making good progress before, experiencing the profound difference between a “normal” life and a life of growth has rekindled my passion for being the best I can be, living on the edge, and making a difference both in my life and the lives of those around me. How do you feel about your growth these days? Is it time for you to do a hard reset?

- Dave

What Are Affirmations?

So what exactly are affirmations? Affirmations are positive, present tense, specific statements that are repeated to oneself regularly. The idea is that the subconscious mind cannot tell the difference between fact and fiction. It’s sort of like the “fake it ’til you make it“  principle. As mentioned, affirmations should be present tense. Stating things that you’d like to see in the future tends to convince the subconscious mind that you should not have those things now. Affirmations should also use positive wording and descriptive emotional adjectives such as confidently and joyfully. The subconscious mind cannot distinguish between positive and negative statements. Lastly, affirmations should be specific. Affirming for something vague like more money or being happy is akin to wishing and does not provide clear direction for the subconscious mind to act upon.

So, for example, if you would like to use an affirmation to get out of debt, you’d want a positive statement such as “I confidently enjoy a positive net worth in excess of $100,000″ instead of something like “I am joyfully debt-free and pay all my bills in full and on time”. Even though both may seem positive, the second one still subtly focuses on debts and bills while the first one focuses on abundance. Most importantly though, your affirmation needs to be somewhat believable to yourself. Trying to affirm a billion dollars for yourself when you’re in debt probably won’t work so well.

How Do You Use Affirmations?

Typically, you should use affirmations for a period of at least 30 days to cement them into your mind. Thirty days is generally recognized as the period of time needed to form a habit although, depending on who you talk to, you may be able to get away with as little as 21 days or it may take longer. One key thing to keep in mind is that you need to repeat your affirmations daily. Apparently, in a NASA study done on the ability of the eye to adjust to adverse conditions, a group of astronauts were required to wear glasses that inverted their vision. The study found that after 25-30 days, the astronauts’ brains would adjust the incoming signal so that everything appeared normal despite the inversion effect of the glasses. Even more interesting, they also found that if the glasses were not worn for even a single day in the 30 day “adjustment” period, the process was reset. That is, they had to do 30 days consistently without exception or all progress was lost.

Some people will recommend that you use your affirmations upon waking and just before going to sleep as this is when the mind is most receptive to suggestion. Personally, I state my affirmations at the same time that I watch my Mind Movies in the morning and evening.

Another consideration is whether it’s sufficient to state your affirmations in your mind or if you need to state them out loud. I normally state my affirmations internally only since my dogs get all bent out of shape if I speak when it’s quiet in the house; they seem to think I have something for them. However, if you can state them out loud, I suspect this is preferable as you’ll be getting the message of the affirmation through two channels instead of just one.

Another technique that can be used is writing out your affirmations by hand much like doing lines in school. Or, you can write out your affirmations on 3×5 cards which can be carried with you and read (out loud) whenever you get a moment. I’ve tried this during my Midday Timeouts but find it a bit awkward in public places. Still, this may be a useful technique if you can use it.

Complementary Techniques

Affirmations are similar to, and can be used in conjunction with, a vision board. Although I haven’t created a full-fledged vision board myself, I have made a bit of a vision board around my affirmations. They can also be used with visualization and/or meditation. I have not tried either so I can’t really say whether it helps or not.

Keep ‘Em Fresh

I’ve been using one core affirmation for the past 40 days and I’ve definitely seen results. However, it occurred to me today that maybe I need to switch things up a bit. My current core affirmation is seeming a bit stale and it’s become difficult for me to work up the associated positive emotions that help power it. So, I’m going to try a variation for the next 30 days and see how that works out.

In addition to my core affirmation that I have been focusing on, I have several additional affirmations that I try to use regularly. I have found that having too many affirmations tends to dilute my focus but you may want to have a few instead of just one. You could develop an affirmation for each of the areas of your life that you wish to work on. For myself, I have one specific area that seems to need more work than the others so I’ve concentrated on that.

Finally, you may wonder whether you should share your affirmations with others. You may have noticed that I have not shared my current affirmation. Personally, I prefer to keep them to myself since my affirmations tend to be very specific and somewhat of a stretch for me. You may wish to share them with those you trust and who are close to you but I’d say don’t make them public. If you really need to share with the world, restate your affirmations as goals/plans and share those instead. Of course, if you’re affirming out loud it may be a good idea to let your loved ones know what you’re doing so they don’t think you’re crazy.

Have you tried affirmations? Have they worked well? Or not so much? Let me know what you think.

- Dave

Lately, I’ve been finding myself focusing on the details a little too much and it’s causing me to lose sight of the big picture. This actually came to me while I was doing dishes. How ironic since I find there’s nothing more mundane and “small focus” than daily chores. Of course, these things need to be done but the key is not to get lost in them.

Levels of Focus

I see there being four broad levels of focus in life:

1. Daily “maintenance” tasks : most obviously, these are things like dishes, laundry and cooking. But I also include less obvious things such as the daily commute and status meetings at work.
2. Goals : these are the immediate actions you need to take to improve your life such as daily exercise, meditation, self-development reading and recreation (yes, I’m saying recreation is a worthwhile goal).
3. Dreams : these are the bigger picture things that you derive your goals from. Time-wise, they may be near term (90 days) or longer distance (5 years) but overall, they represent a milestone that makes your life better. This level includes such things as being healthy, having financial freedom and doing something difficult like rock climbing the Eternal Flame route up the Nameless Tower.
4. Life Purpose : this is what you long for and strive towards. It gives meaning to your existence.

Each level supports the level above while, ideally, deriving context from that level. So, your daily tasks are done to allow you to work on your goals which give progress towards your dreams which ultimately fulfill your life purpose. There’s much to be said on the details of each level but I’ll save that for future posts. Today I want deal with techniques for keeping yourself mindful of the higher levels of focus while dealing with the lower levels.

Techniques

I use a variety of techniques to keep things in perspective. All of them require time and that seems to be the thing in short supply when you lose sight of the higher levels. I really have to wonder if lack of time is a cause or effect of this short-sightedness. Anyway, here’s some of the things I do:

• Morning Meditation : I like to spend at least a half hour in the morning working on my mental state. I use a variety of different activities here including Mind Movies, meditating, reading, stating affirmations and quiet contemplation. Whatever activities you choose to use, the key is to mentally see and emotionally feel the power of living your life purpose. Then, let these images and feelings trickle down and infuse your dreams with energy.
• Bedtime Journaling : I end my day off by writing in my journal about how my day went, successes I experienced, written affirmations and anything interesting that happened. I generally exclude anything negative as that’s not something I want to pay attention to right before sleeping. This helps put perspective on my day and remind me of the bigger picture.
• Midday Timeouts : These are just quick 5 minute periods where I extract myself from daily living and enjoy some quiet contemplation. On the weekends, I’ll go find an empty room or step outside and listen to an uplifting song. During the week I’ll go for a quick walk around my office building or go hide in a bathroom stall (kind of strange, I know, but it works). This keeps me from drowning in the deluge of daily “stuff” that flows my way and allows me to remember that there’s a higher purpose to my actions.
• Mobile Motivation : Whenever I’m engaged in solo level one tasks, I put on my headphones and listen to either great tunes or motivational audiobooks. If I’m mentally alert and/or doing a task that doesn’t take much of my attention I’ll choose audiobooks otherwise I’ll use good music. This helps keep me from being negative about the activity I’m doing and puts me in a better state of mind.

Overall, I find the morning and bedtime activities are important and I strive to do them regularly while the timeouts and mobile listening are good maintenance techniques. I find it interesting that I’ve been staying up late this past week which has led to me sleeping later (never scrimp on sleep, that’s bad) which has led to my morning routine being shortened and I’ve really noticed the difference. It’s been hard to keep perspective on my dreams.

Give some of these techniques a try and let me know how it works out for you. Or, if you have some techniques of your own that you’d like to share, I’d love to hear about them. Stay focused my friend.

- Dave

When attempting to resolve conflicts like this you need to consider what areas of your life are impacted and what the priority of those areas are. Personally, I put myself first, then my family, then work, and then everything else. If you think that sounds selfish, consider the classic example of the instructions the airline gives when discussing the oxygen masks. You need to put your own mask on first before helping others with their masks because you can’t help anyone if you can’t breath. Similar concept here when it comes to taking care of needs. If your own needs are not met, how can you possibly meet the needs of others?

Here’s where it gets interesting. Based on the above reasoning, you could say that it’s more important that you take care of yourself by transitioning into a fulfilling career even if it means risking the well-being of your family. After all, didn’t I just say that you should put yourself first? And doesn’t that imply that your well-being takes priority over your family’s well-being? Well, you could use that reasoning and I suspect many success-driven folks do indeed follow that line of thinking. For example, while watching the premiere episode of Shark Tank the other day, one of the entrepreneurs admitted that he’d mortgaged his home twice, spent his retirement money and kids’ college funds and had nothing left to invest; in essence, he put his well-being ahead of his family’s. One of the “sharks” responded with the admonishment that you need to take care of your family first regardless of your business aspirations.

So, the question becomes how do you balance responsibilities against needs? We’ve established that a typical chain of responsibility should be Self > Family > Work > Everything Else (if God is a part of your life then the chain is God > Self > Family > Work > Church > Everything Else). When considering needs, I find Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to be a good model to work from. Basically, needs at the bottom of the hierarchy should be fulfilled before working on the next level up. The needs from bottom to top are Physiological > Safety > Social > Esteem > Self-Actualization.

Mapping responsibilities against needs results in a fairly straighforward method of determining which is more important. For each need in Maslow’s hierarchy, you should cover off each area of responsibility before moving up the hierarchy to the next need. So, in the case of pursuing a more fulfilling job vs the well-being of your family it becomes clear that your family comes first since Safety in all areas is more important than your personal Social/Esteem needs.

I am certain there are numerous criticisms possible of both Maslow’s hierarchy and the chain of responsibility outlined but I believe it’s important to have some sort of relatively objective framework. There are also gray areas in this model. A big one that comes to mind for me is friends. Where do they fit in? Life is messy and objectively compartmentalizing all aspects of your life may be difficult and/or inappropriate. Ultimately, you need to consider your choices and do what you feel  is best. Models like this merely provide some food for thought.

- Dave

Say Yes

First, let’s consider the main theme: saying yes to life’s opportunities. I think we can all use a reminder of this. It’s very easy to get caught up in the daily routine and shy away from anything that deviates from said routine. If you know anything about personal growth, you know that’s a bad thing. Change is good, it’s important, and it’s absolutely necessary for growth. Enough said.

You Can’t Audit Life

At one point early on, Carl (the main character) finds himself at a personal development seminar. Although the movie pokes fun at PD seminars in general, there was one line that really stood out for me. Carl, in trying to avoid attention claims that he’s “just auditing the course” to which the guru responds “You can’t audit life”. That is so true! There is no practice run, there is no do over, there is no “I’ll get it right next time” option. You are living your real life each and every day and you need to participate in that life.

Use Your Head

[Spoiler Warning]
Later on in the movie when the inevitable problems occur, Carl confronts the guru who tells him that he shouldn’t take the whole thing too seriously.
[/Spoiler Warning]

As with all growth opportunities in life, you need to use your head and consider how best to make any piece of advice work for you. It’s easy to get caught up in following someone else’s system. Everyone has good advice on what worked for them and it’s oh so tempting to do what they did with the hope that you’ll get the same results they did. Plain and simple, it doesn’t work that way. No matter how hard someone tries to capture the essence of their process, they will miss some of the bits that made the process work for them. We’re all unique individuals and no one system will work for everyone (or even anyone else).

Now I’m not saying that you shouldn’t try someone else’s system. But do it wisely. Try it out, then take the pieces that work for you and incorporate them into your life. For the parts that don’t seem to get you results, leave them be. Keep in mind that you may need to try something for awhile before you can be sure it doesn’t work for you. Personal growth is uncomfortable and you will struggle with change. Just try to be aware of the difference between persevering for the sake of growth and wasting your time on useless action.

Bottom Line

Growth is hard. It’s so much easier to sit around and watch TV instead of working towards your dreams (you have dreams, don’t you?) but the only thing sitting around leads to is more sitting around. To live the life of your dreams, you need to say yes to the opportunities life presents and then you need to take action. What action are you taking today?

- Dave

As a rule, I try not to regret past choices. I choose to believe that the current state of my life is a result of those choices, both good and bad, and while I may not be totally satisfied with my current state, I’m generally happy with the way things have gone. Keep in mind that if you’re totally satisfied with your current life then you have no reason to change/grow and that leads to stagnation.

So how do you break out of the cycle of mulling over past choices? What can you do to look forward instead of back?

1. First and foremost, you can’t change the past. There is absolutely nothing you can do to make it different. Sure, you can try and make amends but that doesn’t change the original choice.
2. Remember that even if a choice you made turned out totally wrong (from your perspective), at the very least you learned something. You might have to spend some time trying to determine what you learned but it’s there, keep looking.
3. Consider that maybe the choice you made was actually the right choice given the context of the situation. It’s quite possible that you weren’t ready to handle the demands of a given situation and would have found yourself feeling worse than you do now.
4. Check if it’s possible to make that choice again. Some opportunities do come around more than once. Say you turned down a job (or chose not to even apply). Check with the company again. It’s quite possible that the person they did hire is not working out or that they have an even better opportunity now.

It’s important to remember that life is a journey. We can choose to get stuck living in the past, always wondering “what if” or we can choose to live in the now, accepting the choices we have made and looking forward to the magnificent experiences yet to come.

In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

These words are most often attributed to Nelson Mandela in his 1994 Inaugural speech. Apparently they are actually by author Marianne Williamson in her book A Return To Love. Regardless of the source, this wonderful message reminds us that we have within us the power to achieve anything. We merely need to let it loose and give ourselves permission to experience the greatness within.

- Dave

I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.

I believe that the law was made for man and not man for the law; that government is the servant of the people and not their master.

I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living.

I believe that thrift is essential to well ordered living and that economy is a prime requisite of a sound financial structure, whether in government, business or personal affairs.

I believe that truth and justice are fundamental to an enduring social order.

I believe in the sacredness of a promise, that a man’s word should be as good as his bond; that character – not wealth or power or position – is of supreme worth.

I believe that the rendering of useful service is the common duty of mankind and that only in the purifying fire of sacrifice is the dross of selfishness consumed and the greatness of the human soul set free.

I believe in an all-wise and all-loving God, named by whatever name, and that the individual’s highest fulfillment, greatest happiness, and widest usefulness are to be found in living in harmony with His will.

I believe that love is the greatest thing in the world; that it alone can overcome hate; that right can and will triumph over might.

- John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

[Transcribed from The Secret of the Ages by Robert Collier]

Failing Fast

So, if we accept that failure is a good thing then, by extension, failing fast is even better. After all, if we’re going to benefit from our failure, it makes sense that we want that to happen as soon as possible. Now here’s where things tend to differ between personal development and business. More often than not, personal growth only occurs after much failure. Generally speaking, we will fail many, many times when developing new skills or habits. The key here is to recognize incremental improvements and hold on to those. View them as stepping stones to the endpoint we are striving for and realize that continually failing while taking the same actions is really what we’re after. On the business side however, continually failing by taking the same actions is a big no-no. Incremental corrections can be quite costly over the course of a large change. Continuing with the product example, suppose we hadn’t identified an alternate target market. Would it make sense to try another advertising campaign with only minor changes? Unless we received some sort of validation that our assumptions were at least partially correct, it would be pure folly to try again with only minor changes. In this case, a large-scale change is required; a complete change of direction. The key here is to make the cost of failing as low as possible: fail fast and fail cheaply.

The Price of Failure

Now here’s where things get tricky. It’s easy to talk about the benefits of failure but there’s a price to pay for failure even when we know it’s a good thing. On one hand we have the fear of failure. Even though it’s possible to convince oneself on an intellectual level that failure is necessary, fear is not an intellectual construct but an emotion; and as we all know, emotions don’t always pay heed to sound reasoning. To further complicate things, when we do fail, we get hit with the other hand of emotional confirmation. It hurts to fail. Anyone who says otherwise likely hasn’t experienced a real failure. Again with our product example, the fact that our target market didn’t like our product leaves us wondering where we went wrong. We wonder why the people we talked to claimed to like our product and why they aren’t respresentative of the larger demographic involved. We wonder if they were just telling us what we wanted to hear instead of being truthful. Furthermore, we internalize the failure and extend it to ourself. We begin to suspect that maybe we’re the problem and quickly forget that it wasn’t “us” we were selling but merely a product.

One who fears failure limits his activities. Failure is only the opportunity to more intelligently begin again. ~ Henry Ford

Perception Matters

This brings us to the wildcard in failure. People and their perception. As nice as it would be to have all our failures evaluated on a solely objective basis, that just doesn’t happen. People will judge us and our actions from their personal perspective. On the personal development side, people will typically associate us with our failure. They will not see the failure, but instead see us as a failure. Naturally, this is bruising to the ego and can be difficult to handle. This is where holding on to incremental improvements becomes important. Having something, no matter how small, to point to can go a long way in helping us cope. On the business side, things are a little different. The failure perspective tends to manifest itself as a lack of confidence in our ability to deliver and, given a business environment that does not implicitly understand the importance of failure, this can lead to general confidence issues both from others and for ourselves.

The Originating Story

What started me thinking about failure and it’s effects was a situation that occurred recently at work. I was tasked with developing a fairly straightforward solution for gathering data. While putting it together I discovered that one particular piece of functionality requested was actually rather difficult to implement properly. I spent a reasonable amount of time trying to make it work with no luck. Although there was a potential solution, it involved cutting some corners and I felt that was not a good idea. So, I informed the project manager that this just wasn’t going to happen. This admission of failure caused a bit of panic all around and a meeting was scheduled to deal with the consequences. In the meantime, a bit of brainstorming with a coworker revealed an alternate solution that I had not initially considered. I had been blinded by looking for variations on the initial solution rather than examining the core problem. After a little bit of thinking and experimenting we determined that we could put together a solution that should reasonably meet the requirements. At the meeting to deal with the failure, I presented the new solution and even though it seemed to meet the requirements, I could see that the clients were skeptical since I had previously declared “failure”. In the end, the solution was examined objectively and the clients accepted it with only minor changes.

Taking the Bad with the Good

Failure can be a very positive thing in all aspects of our life as long as we remember to consider and deal with the subjective consequences. Keeping the following in mind will help when dealing with failure:

• Failing is good
• Failing fast is better
• Failing is going to hurt
• Failing will change peoples’ perception of us
• Failing is necessary for success

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail. ~ Confucius

- Dave