Zugunruhe: Helping great people get [good] things done: Zoog.un.roo.ee

The Sanity of the Present Moment

Things have been crazy lately. It seems everything is due right now. An article for someone else’s newsletter. My own newsletter. This blog post. An important proposal for a prospective client. Oh yeah: I have a cold, too.

As often seems to be the case, my clients present to me the things I myself most need to work on. Like this morning, when one of my clients called and started by saying, “I’m overwhelmed and overcommitted. I don’t know what to do first!” I hear you, sister; I’m with you all the way. But as the coach, I’m supposed to be helpful and have some of the answers. Answers, when presented by a coach, come out sounding like questions.

I asked her, “What’s the very next action?”

What is the very next action? After you panic. After you start sneezing and sniffling. After you get done cursing the tendency to say yes all to often. What is the very next action that will move you one step closer to completing the most important thing on your list. Not the most urgent, mind you. What’s important? What’s the next action on the most important project?

When my clients are feeling totally overwhelmed with doing, they often feel too busy to get coached. Then when they take the hour with me to process and think and plan, they wind up being twice as effective as they were before. Take the time out to think. Withdraw long enough to catch your breath. Sometimes, the very next action is to step out of the rapids for an hour or so to get the lay of the land.

Once you’ve identified the next action, stuff will immediately spring into your peripheral vision and start yelling for your attention. Don’t ignore that stuff. Acknowledge it--say, “Yes, I see you over there,”--and write it down. Then bring your focus back on to your next action. It’s important that you stay in the present moment.

All the other important, high priority items in your queue want you to do everything all at once. If you think about this, it will drive you nuts. So don’t think about it. Capture it on paper, reassure yourself that you will not forget, and stay on task.

When the next action comes to mind, make sure it’s an actual step, not a collection of steps. Get the car fixed is not a next action. Call the shop for an appointment is a next action.

One question--what is the very next action--distilled, pared down, right now, in the moment. Not tomorrow. Not yesterday. All you have is now. So when the child interrupts with the stubbed toe, the next action is to turn, to kneel, to hug. And revel in the fleeting jewel that is the right now, the sanity of being nowhere else but where you are in this very moment. And suddenly, things aren’t so crazy after all.

Let Your Light Shine

If the power went out tonight at your house, would you dig out some candles, light them, and then hide them in the storage room or in a cabinet somewhere? Of course not! Not only might you burn your house down, but what good would it do to have a light and then not use it to illuminate?

When you copy the marketing approaches of other businesses, you’re hiding your light in the cabinet where no one can see it. The point of effective marketing--the Duct Tape way--is to put your light out where anyone and everyone can see it! That’s because you and your business are truly unique. You bring a unique set of experiences, valuable background, and point of view to everything you do. That’s what makes your widget business better for your target market than old so-and-so’s widget business is.

Once you’ve sharpened your focus and created a detailed picture of your target market, you need to identify what is unique about you and your business. You want to stand out clearly in the marketplace so that your target market will recognize you instantly.

One of the problems with letting your light shine, though, is that it’s sometimes hard to figure out how you’re different. Lots of business owners fall back on what amounts to their resumes. Perhaps you tell folks when your business was established or that you’re a member of the Chamber of Commerce. You say, “I’m highly trained,” or “I do quality work.” Yes, you are and you do. Just like all your competitors. And guess what? Your prospects aren’t impressed.

Fair prices. Good service. Quality work. Those are standards. Every business should adhere to those. Sadly, those words get bandied about so much that they’ve lost their meaning. So much so, that customers have actually come to expect less than stellar service, slipshod work, and low prices. To see proof, go to your local home improvement “warehouse” and examine the garden tools. I defy you to find a spade, hoe, or shovel that costs more than about $20 and will last longer than a day in the garden. What cheap really comes to mean is “worth nothing.”

To generate a message that truly means something, you absolutely must determine how you are different from everyone else in your field. There is an important distinction to be made here. You already are different. You sense this and your current, best customers know it. To be a savvy marketer, you must be able to articulate this difference. How are you different? Once you begin to get a handle on the key distinctions that make your light shine brighter for your target market than anyone else’s, you’ll begin to attract the people you are meant to serve.

Star Power

The oddest things can turn out to be powerful motivators. Take, for instance, receiving a gold star.

Remember those little stick-on gold stars from elementary school? I don’t remember who sent a sheet of those star-stickers, but a while back I got some in the mail. Rather than toss the sheet in the recycling bin, I got to wondering if I could use them like my first grade teacher used to do: as a small marker of good performance. A tiny little visual reward. My first foray into the power of the gold star was taming the email monster.

Like many of you, I get piles of email every day. My inbox bulged with unanswered, unfiled, and undeleted email. I don’t remember how many thousand there were--it was an embarrassing number. My idea was simple: get the inbox down to empty and then keep it that way. I started small. Once I emptied my inbox, I set a goal of inbox to zero for five days in a row. I upped the ante a bit by setting a companion goal of only checking email between 9 am and 5 pm on those five days. For every day I met my two goals, I awarded myself a gold star.

On day one, I noticed that I stopped checking email earlier than usual. If I was going to process what I had: write replies, delete the unimportant, and file the stuff to save, along with process next actions to my lists, and get the inbox to zero, I had to stop the flow early enough in the day to get all the other stuff done. I earned my gold star. The next day, I did it again.

I found that every time I got my gold star, I felt both pleased and firmer in my resolve. Somehow, it felt competitive, this gold star thing did. I had this strange sense of superiority--over whom, I’m not quite sure. Maybe I just felt superior to my former way of doing things. In any event, at the end of the first five days, I had five gold stars and a clean and clear email inbox. It worked! And so I did it again the following week.

By week three, I didn’t need my gold stars to keep me going. I simply emptied my inbox by around 4 pm and didn’t check email again until the following day. Since then, I’ve used gold stars to bolster my exercise habits and to remind myself to watch my calorie count. Yesterday, I started awarding myself gold stars for getting back to a writing project that had gone stale.

I can’t quite explain why this silly little stickers mean so much to me. My husband asked me if perhaps I had a hard time earning them as a kid. I remember getting “talks too much” on my report cards at that age, so maybe he’s right. I guess the root of the power of the gold star doesn’t matter too much. It works just great and that’s enough for me.

So how about you? Want a sheet of gold stars of your own? Email me and I’ll send you your very own sheet of gold star stickers to try. The only catch is that I ask you share your experience of trying them with me. If you don’t want to wait until you have some stickers to use, you can star right now with a Google Gadget: I created a virtual Gold Star that I can share. Just email me and I’ll send you a link so you can award yourself a gold star on your iGoogle homepage, anytime you want.

Marketing Rock Star

I have never gotten over my dream of being a rock star. It’s true. Here I am, a ordinary looking, middle aged woman. But deep inside, I’m still harboring this notion that I can be a rock chick with thousands of adoring fans. Every so often, I ask my husband if I can go to Rock Camp. So far, he’s advised me against it. To satisfy my inner rock star, therefore, I own a pair of stereo speakers that are almost as tall as I am (I’m five foot one, by the way), and I spend way too much time combing iTunes to track down all my classic rock faves. This morning, I was listening to The Who on my iPod while working out downstairs.

One of the coolest things about listening to music you love over and over again is you gain an intimacy with the details. Take, for instance “Who Are You?” which was recorded way back in 1978. Lots of people much younger than me are familiar with this song because it provides the intro and credit music for CSI (the original Las Vegas version). As I was listening to Roger Daltrey, Pete Townsend, John Entwistle, and Keith Moon this morning, it occurred to me that the song provides a remarkably good metaphor for marketing.

When you start your business, and put it out in the world--on the airwaves, so to speak--you have an intimate knowledge of the details. Nobody knows your business, your precious baby business, quite the way you do. And you’re in love with your business. Then a puzzling thing happens. There you are, listening to the music of your business, totally blissed out and groovin’, while your prospect starts singing that famous lyric back to you: “Who are you?” and not digging your business at all.

Maybe people don’t like the beat. Or they get put off by the lyrics. Perhaps it's the long guitar riffs. They never listen to the song long enough to hear the Keith Moon’s monster drum run in the background--the one that sounds amazing similar to one in Dave Brubeck’s jazz classic, Take Five. They miss the handclaps produced by actual people, not a synthesizer. They never hear the way Pete Townsend tickles the guitar to make it whisper like a wren on a soft September morning.

I’ve heard people say that they don’t need to market their businesses. Or they can’t afford to do marketing. And maybe the music of your business is so good that it really will sell itself. But I’m betting that very few people under the age of 20 would know and love “Who Are You?” if it hadn’t gotten heavy airplay on an extremely popular TV show.

In the end, most of your prospects hear a very small snippet of your tune--the core marketing message of your business--and never listen long enough to care, to dance, to buy. It’s true that nobody knows your business they way you do. That's both your blessing and your curse. And the only way to get a big crowd at your “show” is to put the message in front of people over and over again, in a myriad of ways, so that people hear the music and find something within it to which they can relate.

As I was researching this post, I visited The Who’s official website. The band has taken the title of their 1967 album, The Who Sell Out, quite literally. Practically all of the content is by subscription, one year at the time, for $50. I guess it goes to show that these guys are rock stars, not marketers…and that I’m a marketing coach, not a rock star. Ah, well, I can still dream can’t I? My next gig is on the elliptical trainer in my basement, tomorrow morning, at 5 am. Be there or be square.

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PS On Monday's post, I praised some deserving people. One more. Melanie, you are the unsung heroine of Duct Tape Marketing. Thanks for making it all look flawlessly easy!

Where to find great service in Kansas City, Missouri

A group of Duct Tape coaches-all the new ones--gathered in Kansas City, Missouri last week. We traveled from all over the country to learn yet more about Duct Tape Marketing from John Jatsch. I had a great time, met some fabulous people, and came home with my brain bulging with new information and tons of great ideas and inspiration. Another thing the trip did for me was to make me even more aware of the rarity of truly good service.

Most business owners will say that their companies deliver good service. However, what I’ve come to realize is that service is a lot like clothing sizes. If you a compare today’s clothing sizes to those of years past, you’ll find that being a ladies size six these days is more like being a size ten was fifteen years ago. Today’s good service seems to be more or less equivalent to yesteryear’s fair or so-so. It’s just not all that good.

The difference between good and great service got thrown into especially high relief after I devoured Zingerman’s Guide to Giving Great Service by Ari Weinzweig on the flight home. Ari Weinzweig is one of the founding partners of Zingerman’s Deli  in Ann Arbor, Michigan. What once was a tiny delicatessen, is now a celebrated family of businesses that hauls in over $25 million… a year. Yeah, baby, this is small business gone big time. But Zingerman’s is famous for remembering that each one of those $25 million dollars represents a purchase by a person. A real human being. That means that Zingerman’s has a commitment to customer service that just won’t quit.

Take, for instance, how Zingerman’s handles customer complaints. When a customer has a complaint, no matter how large or small, there’s a form that a Zingerman’s employee fills out. They call it their Code Red (to see it, go to this link). The idea is to document, simply and accurately, what happened and what was done about it. The idea is to make the situation right--whatever that takes. What does making it right mean? It might mean having an order replaced free of charge. It might mean an apology from one of the partners.

The folks at Zingerman’s aren’t stupid or pie in the sky about their commitment to great service. On the flip side of their Code Red form, the responsible employee must calculate the cost of the incident in time and dollars. Think about that. An busboy can learn what an error costs the business he works for. If you’ve hired employees that are good of heart, that has to have an effect.

The bottom line is not that Zingerman’s gives the best service anywhere. Frankly, I’ve never been there so I can’t say. But here’s what I do know for sure: any business that has the willingness to put customer service first--really, truly, demonstrably--will stand out from their competition. Having been in umpteen restaurants and other businesses over the past five days, I can tell you that genuinely good service is a real rarity and when it does occur, I remember it.

For Kansas City, here’s a lot of love and best wishes to

• Starker’s: from the greeting at the door by the young man who handles valet parking to the wait staff and everyone in between--friendly, warm, and pleasant--with a killer wine selection and a lovely view. The food was outstanding.
• The Kansas City Marriott: I arrived worn out and unprepared. Todd at the front desk was totally on top of everything and helped me get oriented in a flash.
  
• The Holiday Inn at the Plaza: friendliest staff on the planet.
  
• Eden Alley: vegetarian paradise in the basement of the Unity Temple on the Plaza.
• Last but not least, thanks to you, John Jantsch for your hospitality. Thanks for letting us be part of your incredible organization. You didn’t have to buy us all that fabulous meal at Brio and let us bring our spouses, but you did. Thanks! You rock, dude.

Zugunruhe's Low Carb Diet

A few weeks ago, I picked up a very interesting article in Inc. I learned that Enterprise Rent-a-Car is partnering with Terrapass to allow folks who rent their cars the opportunity to offset any carbon emissions they create by driving their rental cars. I surfed over to Terrpass’ website and learned, to my great surprise, purchasing carbon credits is cheap and easy. Easier than I ever imagined.

I’m not sure why I thought that carbon offsets were complicated, but for some reason, I had this idea that offsetting carbon outputs were for big corporations. But that’s simply not true. Anyone can purchase carbon offsets to fight global climate change and promote clean, renewable energy at the same time. Here’s how it works.

For my business, I decided I wanted to go completely carbon neutral. That means offsetting all the emissions associated with running my business: electricity, travel, the whole shebang. So the first thing I did was go to Terrapass.com and click on the Business link and initiated a conversation with Mira, Terrapass’ Manager of Sales and Business Development. 
It turns out that there are several areas of business activities which create carbon outputs:

• On-site energy use. The amount of carbon emitted varies with the sorts of power plants used in your region. If you’re on coal, that puts out a lot of carbon; hydroelectric, not so much.
• Next, there’s off-site energy use. This is the invisible-to-you power consumption that happens when you have a web site (hosted by a company like GoDaddy, for example). Like your own energy consumption, the carbon load varies, depending on where your server space is located geographically.
• If you travel, then you’re generating carbon outputs. That includes cars, trains, and airplanes, power usage during hotel stays, etc. If you commute a long distance, use lots of shipping, or your employees commute or travel a lot, this can add up to quite a lot of outputs.

Determining how much carbon my business emits was pretty simple. I run a home based business, so I provided Mira with data from a couple of recent power bills along with some information about how big my house is, how many square feet my office takes up, and how many miles I travel by car and plane every year. A few hours later, Mira supplied me with a simple run-down of what my carbon emissions were.

The carbon offsets you can purchase from Terrapass are “vintage matching”, which means that you offset your carbon outputs more or less in real-time. If you purchase carbon offsets in advance of your 2008 travel, for example, you can be assured that the projects that reduce outputs by an equivalent amount are happening in 2008 as well. For Zugunuhe, our carbon credits for 2008 are based on our 2007 outputs. Terrapass’ carbon balance projects include generating wind powered electricity and converting methane from cow manure and landfills into power sources.

If you choose to reduce your carbon outputs, either for business or personal energy uses, here are some things to think about:

• Make sure that whatever business you purchase carbon credits from is certified and audited by someone like Green-e. Green-e makes certain that the carbon reduction benefits are real. As part of my research for this article, I found a non-profit that sells carbon credits but had no obvious audit process. That makes me wary. Be cautious and go for well established companies and organizations that utilize third party audit.
• Consider reducing your outputs by opting for wind power or other renewal energy sources directly from your power company. Out here in Oregon, we have the option of buying “Blue Sky” energy which is produced by wind power. That means less outputs so less to offset through a company like Terrapass.
• Invite customers to be part of the fun. Enterprise opted to match offsets (up to a full $1 million) when folks renting their cars purchase offsets for their trips. This allowed Enterprise to do good and do well--and demonstrate that their carbon balancing act wasn’t merely for marketing purposes.
• Not all carbon offsets are created equal. Manure to electricity projects reduce carbon emissions in the here and now. Rainforests are part of what regulates the earth’s climate as a whole. Ultimately, I plan to invest in both but depending on your point of view, one may be more important than the other. Bottom-line: do your homework.
• Whatever you do, be transparent and authentic. You don’t have to do everything. Just do something and be honest about what you’ve done. Don’t exaggerate and don’t lie.
• Be accurate in how you talk about your carbon reductions. The folks at Terrapass told me that it's better to say "carbon balanced" than "carbon neutral" because being carbon neutral is impossible. You're fighting global climate change, not preventing it.
• Finally, stop worrying about the cost. I offset my entire 2007 offsets for Zugunruhe for a whopping $63. That’s right--less than a $100. So there’s not excuse not to do this and the nice folks at Terrapass included me in their partners program within minutes of finalizing my purchase.

You don’t have to do everything--none of us can. But that is not an excuse to do nothing. There are no magic bullets to fix the mess we’ve put our planet in. That’s why every thing you do counts.

Now get out there are get something [good] done today!

Resilience and the practice of not having your own way

I really enjoy getting my own way. I like being right, too. I guess that makes me just like practically everyone else (with the exception of a few saints, perhaps). Recently, however, I read an article that made a deep impression on me. I started thinking about why I would want to cultivate not having my own way, on purpose. It’s all about resilience.

Resilience is the ability to bounce back from adversity. When obstacles show up your life, how do you respond? Do those things drag you down, suck away your energy and devour your joy? Or you do find a way to let the bad stuff go and reengage with living? The latter is resilience in a nutshell. Resilience is the synthesis of hope, optimism and a sense of self-efficacy--that belief that you can act successfully and effectively on your own behalf. In short, resilient people are flexible in the face of change, stress, and bad life events.

The article that got me to thinking about resilience again was written by Darlene Cohen (you can find a copy right here). Darlene is a an ordained zen priest and widely revered teacher of meditation. A little over a year ago, Darlene was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Her illness was met with an outpouring of meditation, prayer, and love. (If you want to see an example of a loving spiritual community, read the string of emails that document Darlene’s diagnosis and surgery.)

From her perspective, Darlene descended into the hell of intense chemotherapy and total misery. And yet…she was present to the fact that outside her window, brilliant autumn leaves illuminated the countryside. The beauty of the light slanting through her room, the colors, created inside her a sense of profound awe. Even in the horror of great physical suffering and the uncertainty of life itself, Darlene’s world remained, in her words, “full, lush, and compelling.”

What gave her the ability to be so present and at peace in time of great stress? It wasn’t just her thirty year’s meditation practice (although that certainly must have helped). No, it was her practice of what she terms “non-preference.” For years, Darlene has practiced not always choosing what she prefers. What this means is that she has cultivated not having her own way all the time on purpose. What this did for her was to create an intellectual and emotional flexibility--resilience--so that when the big nasty hit, she was better able to cope with it.

When you insist on having your own way all the time, or insist that you only have certain kinds of experiences (the ones you prefer), you judge everything, every moment, every choice, through the lens of want or don’t want, like or dislike. By doing so, Darlene suggests, you never get to deeply engage or experience anything because you’re too busy judging. Simultaneously, you create within yourself a small, demanding, spoiled self, who gets derailed and very upset when things don’t go your way. Someone doesn’t fulfill expectation? You don’t receive the package on time? An appointment is missed? All those little things become excuses to rant and rave. And then one day the big thing shows up.

The really significant events are especially hard when you are someone who gets your own way all the time. Now, you are faced with an event you cannot change or alter. The child lies dead in the casket. The cancer has spread to his lungs. The divorce is finally final. Now what? Your preferences are out the window. What you want doesn’t matter anymore. How do you cope?

If you’ve practiced being used to not having your way all the time on little things, you might cope better. Darlene started her practice very small: reach in the underwear drawer and whatever you grab, you wear. And wear it without complaint or wishing it was different from what it is. Go to the ice cream shop and pick with your eyes closed; experience fully the taste of what you’ve chosen. It’s not about like or dislike. It’s about letting go. And when you’ve learned this tiny act of flexibility when the stakes are low, you might have an easier go of it when the stakes are much, much higher.

And so, I have started my own little practice of non-preference. Like Darlene, I started with the underwear drawer. I made the mistake of telling my husband this and he grinned. No telling what I’m going to find to wear in there now! But whatever it turns out to be, I will notice it and put it on and wear it, even if I like it very much. And later on, when the big, unpleasant life event shows up, I will reach into my underwear drawer and I will smile.

Do something [good] today!

I have a strong affinity for people who want to do good things. OK, affinity isn’t the right word. I love people who bring good into the world. I recently found someone whose heart is so big and so full of kindness that she won my affection right away. Let me tell you about Krissa Stephens.

Krissa traveled to Kenya last August. She went there to volunteer in an orphanage. While she was in Kenya, she met Mylene who is a single mother with two young sons. Mylene lives in a one bedroom shack. Mylene also used to volunteer at the same orphanage that Krissa was helping at but had to stop because she needed to search for paying jobs. Mylene is still unemployed but hasn’t given up hope of creating a better life for herself and her children--she wants to start her own business, selling clothing. After Krissa traveled back home to Corvallis, she didn’t forget about Mylene and her dreams.

Krissa has started a clothing drive to help Mylene start her business. That means that good, lightly used clothing is needed to send to Rongai, Kenya. It also means donations are needed to pay for postage. Will you help Krissa to help Mylene start her business and better care for her young sons?

To contact Krissa, you can email her at wave_rider442 [at] hotmail.com. I urge you to take a moment today and look at the clothes you’re wearing. You may take for granted that you have decent clothes to wear. You may forget that you have easy access to food, clean water, and a safe place to live. There are many who are not as fortunate. I know we can’t do everything…but we can all do something. Krissa did. You can, too.

Get something [good] done today!

Get Good 'n' Green

It’s everywhere you look. From O Magazine to Inc. to the 2007 Times Square New Year’s Eve Ball. Yep, they’re all going green. And for good reason, too. Recognition that taking care of the environment is reaching an all time high. A Gallup poll conducted in March 2007 indicated that roughly 60% Americans believe that the effects of global warming are already evident. (Only 11% polled thought that global warming wasn’t real or would have no effect.)  The question now is not “should we do something?” but “what can we do?” 

This is where you and your marketing come in. Because as a business owner, you can make a difference by doing good and market your business more effectively as a result. That’s because people are willing to go out of their way to do business with firms that are more ecologically conscious than those that are not.

According to reports gathered by the folks that put on the Good and Green Marketing Conference back in November, the fastest growing contributor to consumers’ perceptions of what a brand is worth is the environmental, social, and ethical stewardship of the company. They say that 30% consumers polled were willing to pay up to 20% more when a product is “green” or socially responsible. Think about that for a minute. If you’re tired of competing on price, this is big news. And the news gets even better. That’s because going green doesn’t have to raise your costs. In fact, going green may actually save you money!

Take reducing waste. How important is it for you to print everything? Must you have a hard copy? And if  so, must your hard copy be printed on a brand new sheet of paper? Can you reuse paper? I do this all the time. If I print something, and don’t need to save it, I tuck it right back in the printer and use the other side. How about reusing packing materials? Envelopes? Boxes?

Cut down on your energy use. Turn off your computer at night. Install power strips and turn off everything around your desk. You need to make sure that all your AC converters (those fat little boxes that are associated with your laptop and cell phone charger, for example) get unplugged or deprived of electricity when you’re not using them. That’s because as long as they’re plugged in, they’re sucking power. There is even software now, that will turn your computer off for you if you forget.

Let’s say you can’t reduce your power. Or you have a fleet of vehicles you have to run. Or you have to fly a lot. You can make a big difference in the world for very little money--buy carbon offsets. In essence, a carbon offset is a trade-off: you still do what you do but you pay a nice company (like Terrapass) to undo some of your bad by contributing to projects that produce clean, green energy. This sounds hard, expensive, and complicated but its not. Offsetting a flight of 6,000 miles costs a whopping…$10. Yeah, ten bucks. That’s it.

Even if you can’t offset your entire carbon footprint, you can do something. And you can educate your customers about what it is you’re doing and how they can help. And that, my friend, is marketing.

And now for today’s Duct Tape Awards:
The silver roll of the great sticky stuff goes to Progressive Auto Insurance. Finally, an insurance company that has figured out how to be distinctive on something besides price! As far as I know, Progressive is the only company to offer Pet Injury coverage. Yes, they are still trumpeting about price, but this is a good start to doing something that shows how they’re really different from their competition.

The green duct tape goes to the good folks at the ThePaperMillStore.com. Go to their webpage and scroll down to the bottom. See all those icons? This is what an environmentally responsible business looks like. I interviewed PaperMillStore CEO, Brian Cowie, who tells me that going green has saved his company tons of money, makes it easier for him to recruit and retain great employees, and protect the environment all at the same time. To hear our conversation, check out the podcast.

2008: Year of the Winning Mindset

This year, I am working to develop a million dollar mindset and I want to share with you some of the principles and distinctions I’m working with to make that happen. I’m sharing this with you because your mindset is vitally important to your success and I want to make sure you have the opportunity to develop the best possible state of mind to foster your actions that will lead to your desired outcomes and results. It’s my hope that something I say or do will provide you with a key insight that will lead to your success.

What does it mean to have a winning mindset? And why is having the right mindset so important?

A poor or self defeating mindset can drag down everything you do. Even when you’re making progress, a poor mindset can stop you in your tracks. A really bad mindset can even be fatal as you’ll hear about in a moment. On the other hand, a winning mindset can take you as far as you want to go. A winning mindset keeps you in action, it keeps your mind focused on the right things. I have two stories to illustrate these points. Both of these stories are true.

The uncle of a very close friend of mine was a highly successful professional in a large US city. This man had risen to a position of power and influence. He was a multi-millionaire. He owned a beautiful town home full of antiques. He drove a late model Mercedes. He gave lavish well-attended parties. He owned a second home at Lake Tahoe. He took vacations in Tahiti and Europe and Palm Springs. He had a wonderful life, a life that could be considered successful by anyone’s standards. For whatever reason, however, this man lost his job. Never mind that he had a bank full of money. Still owned both homes. Still had power and influence. Still had the same friends. He decided that the loss of his job meant he was a failure. He fell into a deep depression. Eventually, this man--a multimillionaire at the time he died--committed suicide. His mindset was that without his job, he was a failure and his mindset worked against him. When he became depressed, he refused help, even though help was offered. As far as he was concerned, his life was over. And he was right.

Let me tell you a different story. There was a man who was teaching his little boy the game of golf. His son was really talented and soon, he was playing in tournaments. This boy’s daddy knew how important having a winning mindset was to being successful but he was worried that maybe his son was getting nervous as they were waiting for tee-off time. So the man asked the little boy what he was thinking about. The little boy replied, “I’m thinking about where I want the ball to go, Daddy.” That little boy carried that winning mindset right to the final tee and beyond. You know that little boy as Tiger Woods.

The good news is that you can choose your mindset. You can choose to create your mindset around what you do--which is under your control--and create for yourself a winning mindset. In 2008, I’m working to create my own winning mindset in three key ways:
Defining success for myself around what I do and what I have control over
Re-defining and actively disputing negative, limited beliefs I have about myself
Taking the right actions

What does it mean to define success for yourself and around what you have control over? When you allow success to be determined by something you have no control over, your circumstances, how others respond to you, you are being blown around, jerked this way and that, depending on capricious fate. When something goes right, you’re up. When things go wrong or you go through a dry spell, you’re down. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live like that.

When you choose what success is for you and choose to define success by things you do, you can choose to be successful every day. Here’s an example for you. I did an information call on my coaching programs this morning. What made this call a success for me? Is it that I followed through on my commitment and performed at my best? Or was my success tied to the number of people who dialed the phone this morning? I can’t control people’s behavior and responses. I can, however, control what I do. I did a great job on the call--it was a success, regardless of how many people were listening.

There is a old saying about being faithful in the little things. Being faithful in the little things means being faithful and doing your best regardless of who you think is watching or listening, regardless of what result you think you might get. For me, being faithful in the little things--following through--matters and when I do that, I’ve been successful.

So that’s the first way that I’m developing and nurturing a winning mindset. I’m defining success by what I do.

The second way is a lot harder than the first. I’m working to actively change limiting beliefs about myself. This is tough because it’s breaking old habits and replacing them with new habits. It also requires being mindful and paying attention to what I think and say about myself that I hold to be true.

I’ll give you an example. A few weeks ago, I heard myself tell my husband, “I’m not especially good at forgiveness.” I was referring to a wrong that someone did me that hurt me very much. But I got to thinking about what I was saying to myself. If I repeat that thought over and over, I’m creating a mindset that says I’m not forgiving. That is not who I want to be. So now, I have an affirmation that I use everyday that says, “I forgive quickly and easily.” Every time I find myself holding on to some past wrong, I remind myself that I forgive quickly and easily. Over time, I know that I will become more forgiving if I keep this up.

The reason I know that it will work is because beliefs are thoughts that we hold to be true. These thoughts may or may not reflect reality. But we hold them to be true. But your thoughts are ultimately under your control. You can choose to think a certain way to your benefit or your detriment.

It’s important to note the role of feelings here. We often place a great emphasis on how we feel and let our feelings affect our thinking. The feedback loop is: thoughts create feelings, feelings create action, action creates response which affects our thinking. If you have the discipline and willingness to step in and change your thinking, you don’t have to depend on how you feel to tell you what to do.

And that brings us to taking the right actions. I had a client a while back who keep saying this or that just didn’t “feel right!” and she let her feelings be her excuse for not taking actions that would get her unstuck. You must take right actions and you can’t let your feelings become an excuse not to do what you know you ought to be doing. If you define success based on your actions and you create all these great affirmations to bolster your belief in yourself but then you do nothing, will you get anywhere? I doubt it.

So finally, I am taking right action. I created a detailed plan for 2008, month by month. Each day I look at the plan for January and ask myself, if I’m going to be successful today, what will I be doing?

So that’s it in a nutshell, my 2008 plan for creating a winning mindset. Did something I wrote resonate with you? If so, I’d love to hear from you. Pick up the phone or email me. Or leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you.