Walt Hampton, J.D.

Creating the Work & Life You LOVE

Set It & Forget It; Crash & Burn

by Walt | Oct 20, 2016 | Success | 0 Comments

I’m a big fan of systems.

Systems make things easy; safer too.

Pilots have systems; surgeons have systems; successful entrepreneurs and business professionals have systems.

Systems routinize. They reduce mind clutter.

You have a system for brushing your teeth. (Thank god, you don’t need to re-think that every single day.) You likely have a system for making your coffee; and onboarding clients; and scheduling appointments; and keeping track of your finances.

When you systematize things, you free yourself up. You can turn your attention elsewhere.

But you can’t just set them and forget them.

An airplane traveling between New York and London can be off course 90% of the time and still get to Heathrow, so long as the autopilot is making its moment to moment corrections. But if the autopilot goes awry, and the captain is asleep at the switch, the plane may end up in Cape Town.

Or worse.

A solo sailor in the around the world British Open Challenge ran his expensive, high performance racer onto an island in the middle of the night because of error in the auto pilot.

A coach of mine once said there are no people failures, only systems failures. If something in your business or your life isn’t working well, you need a better system.

Maybe.

But I think we fail when we don’t check our systems to be sure they’re serving us well.

I recently checked the system I had put in place for one of my retirement accounts. Because I hadn’t reviewed it regularly, I belatedly discovered that I “enjoyed” a 15% return. But missed out on the 110% gain that I might have seen, had I been watching.

Oops.

That wasn’t a systems failure. That was my failure.

Good systems are essential for business (and life) success. And like everything in our planning practices, they need to be watched and reviewed.

You can set them and forget them; but you may crash and burn.

Why You Should Fool Yourself

by Walt | Oct 13, 2016 | Success | 0 Comments

I had to fool myself. It was the only way really.

It was raining hard. And it was rather dark. And I was tired. And my muscles ached.

I had a lot to do; a very full day.

I had a thousand excuses for not getting out the door to run.

But I’m a runner. And runners run.

So I told myself a story: I told myself that I wasn’t going to run. No, instead, I told myself that I was going for a walk. A short walk. A very short walk. A walk just to the end of the driveway; maybe as far as the corner; certainly no further than that.

I laced up my shoes and put on my raincoat. Out I went for my walk.

Well, it wasn’t raining nearly as hard as I thought. The air was fresh and clean. It felt good to be out of the house. The morning light lifted my spirit.

I started walking faster.

Oh, how good it felt to be stretching my legs; the oxygen filling my lungs; the dawn beginning to clear.

I walked faster still. And a bit further. I told myself I’d go a bit further.

And soon I was running. Full out.

Smiling; laughing. Feeling so good in my body.

I finished my entire running loop.

But only because I fooled myself.

I need to do this from time to time (as in, a lot) when it comes to writing, or digging into a big work project, or when the yard needs raking.

I tell myself I’ll just start out; I’ll just do “it” for just 20 minutes; I’ll keep it short; I can quit whenever I want.

I fool myself into action. To overcome that horrible first law of physics: inertia.

Action begets action. (The second law of physics takes over: momentum.) I settle into the flow, and before I know it, the project is done.

Fool yourself. It works. I recommend it. Often.

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When you’re ready to kick it up a notch, we should talk. I coach the fastest, easiest and most reliable system for getting more clients than you can handle, even if you hate marketing and selling (like I once did). Email me: [email protected]

Your Secret Recipe

by Walt | Oct 6, 2016 | Success | 0 Comments

Brené Brown, in her beautiful book The Gifts of Imperfection, has a wonderful exercise: List your “ingredients for joy and meaning,” she instructs.

It’s a powerful exercise because, for most of us, the ingredients are pretty simple; and they don’t cost very much. For me, they’re a long gentle run along the coast, feeling the wind on my face on a mountaintop, having the time to read a good book, sitting on my porch looking out at the sea, or sharing a simple meal and a glass of wine with my wife, my best bud, Ann.

But, for some reason, many of us lose track of our ingredients. Instead we race around looking for new and exciting places to go, and the latest shiny toys to buy. (Don’t get me wrong, I love to travel, and I really like nice toys.) We plan grand things for the year ahead and often end up exhausted and depleted. (Do you remember that last vacation that you had to go back to work to rest up from?) And we wonder why we’re missing out on joy and meaning.

We focus single-mindedly on the destination (as success driven folks tend to do); and neglect the journey. We get lost in the doing rather than the being.

Maybe Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz had it right. Maybe our heart’s desires aren’t so far away after all.

Maybe joy and meaning are here. Right in front of us.

As we live into this last quarter of the year, it might be worthwhile to remember the ingredients. Our ingredients.

The Spiral Staircase

by Walt | Sep 29, 2016 | Success | 0 Comments

Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

Sometimes life feels like a scene from that old Bill Murray movie: Goundhog Day. Every day the same thing. The progress we want to make, the goals we set… all seem to elude us.

What’s true is that, if we are mindful and earnest in our efforts, we really do make progress… it’s just sometimes difficult to see.

I am a fan of the religious writer Karen Armstrong who wrote a beautiful memoir entitled The Spiral Staircase. She likens her own growth (and the growth we all experience on this grand human adventure) as something akin to climbing up a spiral staircase… not necessarily repeating the ‘sins’ of the past… but turning back on those experiences, returning again and again, often from a higher perspective, to those certain lessons that continue to be necessary for us to learn.

Places that feel like old ground; places that feel familiar… but are not the same.

Our journeys, lived deeply, sometimes – necessarily – take us through these places. In our relationships, in our studies, in our jobs.

Growth… maybe not in that linear way so many of us strive for… but growth none-the-less.

One of the great gifts of the coaching process is the ability of the coach to see across the stretch of the road, to see the grand arc… to see progress when it feels, in the moment, like quicksand. And to re-assure that the way is sound, the ground secure.

Fall can be a time of new beginnings. But, as we return to our routines, it can also be a time of re-assessment… and frustration.

If the road ahead looks uncertain, don’t despair. The twists and turns can feel quit daunting. And circuitous.

Stay the course. It’s the slow, steady steps over time that lead to those magnificent results.

Show Up Do The Work

by Walt | Sep 22, 2016 | Success | 0 Comments

I nearly missed it.

It had fallen to the bottom of the mail basket.

I fished out the tiny envelope.

It was addressed to me; blue ink; the forced cursive of a now unsteady hand.

I didn’t recognize the return address.

The note inside said: “Dear Mr. Hampton, I stumbled over your book Journeys on the Edge: Living a Life That Matters in my library. I so enjoyed it. It meant a lot to me. I’m 84 years old. Old people have dreams too, you know.”

I wept.

Just that afternoon, I had devolved once again into that self-loathing, that self-pity, that narcissistic hand-wringing that so many of us – writers, artists, musicians, entrepreneurs, creators – indulge in: what’s the point of doing the work; does anybody really care; is anybody really listening; does the message really matter; maybe the message is screwy; is the work important; am I doing it right; maybe I didn’t rehearse long enough; maybe I’ll make a mistake; maybe I should have practiced more; maybe I already made a mistake; maybe I don’t have enough experience to be doing this; do I have the right system; maybe no one notices anyway; maybe I didn’t get the launch right; maybe the marketing is off; maybe the work looks stupid; maybe I sound dumb. Yes, dumb, so let’s not do that anymore.

“God, give me a sign that the work matters,” I had silently prayed that afternoon.

“Old people have dreams too,” the Universe responded.

You see, the work we do – the work all of us do – truly does matter. And our job is just to shut up – and do it.

Of course, occasional – or frequent – self-flagellation may somehow assuage some of us. But really, all that is ultimately required of us is that we show up; every day; and do the work of our lives.

George Leonard, who was an Aikido Master and a grandfather of the Human Potential movement wrote, “the master is the one who stays on the path day after day, year after year. The master is one who is willing to try and fail, and try again, for as long as he or she lives.” The master, said Leonard, shows up every day on the mat.

Julia Cameron, author of the Artist’s Way said, “I learned to get out of the way and let that creative force work through me. I learned to just show up at the page and write down what I heard. Our only job, Cameron says, is to show up – and allow the work to move through us.

Tama Kieves in her wonderful new book Inspired & Unstoppable, says: The blank page teaches us to write. The stage teaches us to perform. Even surgeons have to learn on real-life patients with real life consequences.” “It doesn’t matter how you begin,” says Kieves. “Just jump in. Get moving.”

And stay moving, I say.

The problem with self-flagellation is that it often paralyzes us; stops us dead in our tracks; interrupts our momentum; stops the flow.

The world needs your gifts.

When we do our work – and put our work out in the great river of our lives – it takes on energy of its own. It impacts lives – and travels to distant shores – beyond our wildest imaginations.

Believe in your vision. Believe in your message. Believe in the music of your heart.

Get out of your own way; get out of your own head.

Show up. Do the work. Do it every day. Then toss it out into in the river of your life.

The Universe will take care of the rest.

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Are you ready for the next step? Are you ready to create the work and the live you love? Email me: [email protected]