Walt Hampton, J.D.

Creating the Work & Life You LOVE

Maybe You Should Stop Thinking

by Walt | Jul 7, 2016 | Success | 0 Comments

I’m a big fan of thinking and reflection. In fact, carving out dedicated blocks of time for thinking and reflection is a practice essential for creativity, innovation, and long-term success. And sadly, it ‘s become a lost art; a casualty of our culture of overwhelm.

But ‘thinking’ can become a roadblock; and excuse for not taking deliberate action.

Perseveration the poor cousin of resistance.

(After all, who can really fault you if you’re ‘thinking’ about a challenge, ‘working’ on it, ‘trying’ to figure it out? Read this: sitting around, wringing your hands.)

At some point in time, you need to take action.

Races get run, mountains get climbed, art gets made, books get written, businesses are built, masterpieces are created… only when you act.

I have one client who tells me that he has been spending a lot of time thinking about how to discover his passion. Another has been thinking (a long time!) about how to position herself in the market for her job search.

It sounds rational to be doing this thinking. But it’s so easy to get stuck in a place of uncertainty; fearful that we will err; afraid that we might get it wrong.

My advice: Act.

“Feel the fear,” as Susan Jeffers says, “and do it anyway.”

Action is the antidote for uncertainty; action is the antidote for lack of clarity; and action is the antidote for fear.

It is in taking action that we put our thoughts and ideas to the test. We see what works; and what doesn’t. We revise, adjust, modify, pivot; and act again.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Martin Luther King said, “Take the first step in faith. You don’t need to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step.”

The next step will appear. It most certainly will.

Action creates momentum; action eviscerates resistance; action precipitates ideas.

Small steps over time lead to magnificent outcomes.

So just do it, as the Nike ad once said.

Get going. Take action. Today.

Just Go Away

by Walt | Jun 30, 2016 | Success | 1 Comment

This is a popular time of the year to take a vacation. Except that a lot of folks don’t.

Last year, there were about 169 million unused paid vacation days that were forfeited by U.S. workers, amounting to over 52 billion dollars in lost benefits. Forty percent of workers will leave paid vacation days unused this year.

Culturally, in many organizations, workers are explicitly or implicitly discouraged from using their vacation time. On my first day at The Big Law Firm, my mentor said to me, “You get three weeks of vacation.” And then he lowered his voice, looked me square in the eyes and said, “But no one ever takes them.”

This is dumb.

Vacations help you to:

Recharge

Refocus

Re-boot

The Huffington Post reports an internal study of Ernst and Young employees in which it was found that “for every additional 10 hours of vacation an employee took, his or her performance ratings went up by 8 percent — nearly 1 percent per day of vacation. That means companies where employees are leaving two and three and four weeks of vacation on the table are foregoing an enormous productivity boost.”

Tony Schwartz, CEO of the Energy Project, says that “the best way to get more done may be to spend more time doing less.”

We know that, in athletics and physical training, rest and recovery are keys to peak performance. For some reason, though, we pretend that this principle is not applicable to our work lives. So we just keep on going like hamsters on a wheel; which results in stress, burnout and poor productivity.

When you take a vacation – a real vacation (yes, that means away from the tether of your computer and your smartphone) – you come back rested, refreshed and ready to take on the world.

So go.

And if you decide to forfeit your days, please give them to me. I promise that I’ll put them to good use.

Why I Hate Fridays

by Walt | Jun 23, 2016 | Success | 0 Comments

Do you know that more heart attacks happen on Monday than on any other day? That’s because Monday is the most stressful day of the week.

Many people dread Mondays.

I know I did. For years. I was a gladiator. I did battle as a trial lawyer. I’d come to the end of the weekend and, as Sunday evening encroached, I’d feel a dark, black cloud settle over me. And on Monday morning, I’d drag myself out of bed and trudge to work.

“How are you?” I remember asking the State Marshall, a familiar face just beyond the metal detector at the courthouse where I often worked.

“Well, one day closer to the weekend,” he said.

It was Monday.

Too many live lives, if not of Thoreau’s quiet desperation, then of silent despondency. (Indeed more than 70% of Americans report that they are unhappy in their work; the number is 90% among attorneys; higher still among physicians.)

We don’t have the luxury of living just for the weekends. The sands of our lives run way too quickly through the glass.

We have the opportunity to choose a different way.

We have the opportunity to wake up every single day excited and on fire about what we get to do. In fact, we have the obligation to do that.

We get to create the work and the lives we love. Lives filled with purpose, passion and joy-filled possibility.

Steve Jobs once said, “For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something…almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”

I have the great privilege of working every day with those brave entrepreneurs and professionals who hear the ticking of the clock, who have the audacity to confront the status quo, and who have the courage to envision a better way. I have the great privilege of standing with them to bear witness to their creations: Work and lives that allow them the freedom to express their unique gifts in the world, and the joy of abundant prosperity.

I get to Fridays now and feel a vague melancholy. How did another amazing week fly by so fast, I wonder? And all weekend long, I look forward to Monday morning and the opportunity to begin again.

You. You get to wake up every single day excited and on fire about your work and your life. If you want to. It’s your birthright. To do otherwise, I believe, is to abdicate the gift of your unique humanity.

If you are in that prized minority, and love every minute of the work you do, please share this post with someone who needs a nudge to reclaim their sense of hope and possibility.

If you are living from weekend to weekend, do you hear the ticking of the clock?

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A decade ago, the life I live now, with the freedom and flexibility to work around the world with the most amazing entrepreneurs and professionals on the planet, was beyond imagination. And yet I knew in my bones that there was something more; something better; I knew that I couldn’t compromise, that I couldn’t settle, that I couldn’t continue to muddle through. My own journey, and the journeys of the now countless entrepreneurs and professionals I have witnessed, are testaments to what is possible when we listen to call of our hearts. When the noise of the clock in your head gets to too loud for you, let’s talk. Email me at: [email protected]

That Lie We Tell

by Walt | Jun 16, 2016 | Success | 0 Comments

I’ve had the great privilege of spending time with graduating high school and college seniors in anticipation of their commencements.

One of the things I tell them is: Don’t believe “the lie.”

This is the lie we tell; the lie that was told to me; the lie teachers and parents and well-meaning adults tell; the lie I myself have told my own children; the lie we tell ourselves; the lie that each of us must battle every day:

IF you work hard, take all the AP courses get good grades, join lots of clubs, get involved in student government, do lots of extracurricular activities, do community service, take an SAT preparation course, write a great essay, graduate at the top of your class, get into a great college, one with a great name, an expensive college, work hard, get good grades, get involved in student government, volunteer, get an internship, get two internships, graduate at the top of your class, get into graduate school or a professional program, work hard, write for a journal, publish, present, graduate with honors, get a good job (you know, one with benefits), work hard, settle down, find a partner, get married, buy a house in a nice neighborhood with a big mortgage, get a nice safe car like a Volvo or a mini-van, in fact, get two nice cars, have 2.2 children, get a place at the shore, work a lot of hours, stay really busy and productive, see a lot of clients, sell a lot of product, network a lot, volunteer, sit on a lot of boards, belong to lots of civic organizations, become the boss, the manager, the partner, the senior partner, get the corner office… then… then… finally… you will be successful… and then…then… finally… you will be happy.

It’s an empty, hollow promise.

In groundbreaking research at Harvard, Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage, has demonstrated convincingly that it is happiness that fuels success, not the other way around. Happiness comes first.

Many folks who have lived that lie for decades find their way to my doorstep for coaching feeling discouraged, depleted and demoralized. They have all the toys, all of the indicia of “success;” and yet, inside, they are empty and miserable. They can’t figure out why.

Because, happiness is not “out there” just beyond some “cognitive horizon” (as Achor says).

Happiness is here; it is now; it is in this moment.

May we claim it for ourselves.

May we have the courage not to perpetuate the lie.

Get Out Now

by Walt | Jun 9, 2016 | Success | 0 Comments

So many really talented entrepreneurs and business professionals toil in their businesses without ever experiencing the prosperity and success that they deserve.

Because they are toiling in their businesses, and never really working on their businesses.

Michael Gerber describes the typical set-up for this brilliantly in his book, The E-Myth Re-Visited.

A future entrepreneur (perhaps an accountant, physician, attorney, coach or consultant) comes out of school with a wealth of knowledge and information, goes to work for an organization…and excels. The organization derives extraordinary benefit from the effort… and the would-be entrepreneur wakes up one day and says: “Why am I doing this for someone else, when I could be doing it for myself?”

The now excited entrepreneur goes out, hangs up a shingle, and starts to toil…only to discover a roller coaster ride of feast and famine, insecurity, inconsistency, uncertainty, and lackluster returns on the monumental investment of time and resources.

The now demoralized entrepreneur can’t figure it out. “I’m so good at what I do; I can’t understand why I’m not making the money I deserve.”

Here’s the rub: Just because you’re a good x (x = doctor, lawyer, accountant, coach, consultant…); or just because you’re a good technician; or just because you’re an expert at the top of your game, doesn’t mean that you’re going to be a good business person. They are two distinctly different skill sets; two different jobs. And you actually need to work them as if they are, in fact, different jobs.

Think about it this way: Imagine you’re a young professional just out of school. You get an internship at a firm that you hope to be employed at someday. And to make ends meet, you work at Starbucks on the weekends. During the week, you’re at the firm; on the weekends, you’re at Starbucks pouring coffee. Two different places; two different jobs.

In the same way, in your entrepreneurial life, you actually have to do two different jobs; jobs that are that separate and distinct: One job being the professional, doing the technical work. The other the CEO/CFO/COO of your business, working on the foundation, the systems and the marketing of your business.

Working on the business v. working in the business.

Many entrepreneurs, if they’re aware of this distinction at all, make the error of moving in and out of these functions all day long, never really devoting the time and attention to the management of the business that is required (assuming, I guess, that the entrepreneurial myth doesn’t apply to them). They end up overwhelmed, scattered, stressed, exhausted, and poor.

What changes the game is when the entrepreneur learns to take off the professional’s hat, and put on the hat of the business manager on a regular, systematic basis. (As in punching out of the internship clock, and onto the clock as the barista.)

In its most powerful expression, the entrepreneur is blocking off days of the week, or parts of days during a week, to concentrate solely on the business of the business. And then, at least every 90 days, stepping out of the business completely for a day or two to ascertain exactly what’s working and what needs tweaking; then formulating a focused 90 day plan to guide the business through the next quarter.

Those entrepreneurs and business professionals who enjoy extraordinary success and prosperity know that the work on their businesses is every bit as important as working in their businesses.

So… if you really want that success, get out now!

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Walt Hampton, J.D. is President and Chief Operating Officer of Book Yourself Solid® Worldwide. Book Yourself Solid® is the fastest, easiest and most reliable system for getting more clients and customers than you can handle, even if you hate marketing and selling. If you’d like to get booked solid® worldwide, email: [email protected]