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I Have Cracked The Code

by Walt | Nov 19, 2015 | Success | 1 Comment

I finally figured it out. I cracked the code. I discovered – at long last – the secret to success.

God knows that I searched high and low. For years; decades even.

There was a time when I thought that it was a matter of luck; that success was reserved for those for whom the stars aligned; kinda like winning the lottery. I was pretty certain that birthright was important; that having a lineage of successful forebears really mattered.

I’m a big fan of higher education. Education had to matter, I thought. The right courses and seminars and workshops and trainings and certifications. Degrees; a lot of letters after your name. Those people with a lot of letters had a much higher probability of success… I was sure.

A good suit. A great logo. A flashy business card. A nice car. A jazzy website.

The right CRM and lead capture. Expensive hardware; cutting edge software. A really good VA.

Downloading the next free report; attending the next webinar; buying the next B school; discovering the right product; nailing the launch sequence; going to the next live event. The answer certainly had to be at the next live event… at that expensive, exotic destination with a lot of up-sell to that maxi-emerald-diamond-sassy-platimum-mastermind-secret handshake society. No doubt if I knew the secret handshake after having spent a lot of money at an expensive destination, I most certainly would find success.

Then… one morning I woke up; and even though I was tired and exhausted and depleted, I opened up my laptop to begin my day. My calendar was full of great clients; and my bank account was solidly in the black; and suddenly…in that moment… I realized that my business was… successful; that I had had the best month ever…. that I had found… at long last… success… .

I became curious. I looked back over the preceding years…. looking for the clues… and I found the one thing.

The code. The secret. That one ingredient that had eluded me.

Day after day over the preceding years, even though I was often tired and exhausted and depleted, I trudged to my laptop, opened it up… and… and… did the work.

It wasn’t sexy… in fact, on many days, it was downright painful.

But doing the work… day in and day out… that is the secret.

Aikido master George Leonard says that mastery comes from showing up on the mat every day… and staying 5 minutes longer than anyone else.

The Internet and various purveyors of “success” programs have done a huge disservice to entrepreneurs hawking solutions to business problems that promise instantaneous, overnight success.

The real overnight success has worked many overnights.

There is no question that having good mentors, coaches and guides make a huge difference in the rate of your business growth. And having a proven reliable system that you don’t need to re-invent really matters. (I learned and now have the privilege of coaching the Book Yourself Solid System®.) But I have built five businesses successfully from the ground up. And in the end, there is only one thing that matters.

One secret.

Showing up every single day. And doing the work.

Where Are You Right Now?

by Walt | Nov 12, 2015 | Leadership, Success | 0 Comments

Are you thinking about what just happened a moment ago… or yesterday? Are you pondering what’s next… the next call, the next email, the next meeting, the next…?

Doubtful you are here. Right here. Right now. In this present moment. Because it’s so hard to be right here.

Not because we don’t have enough in this present moment; but because we have too much: too much information; too much noise; too much stimulation; too much to do.

We’ve become addicted to the stimulation and outside input, checking and re-checking our smartphones and our tablets and our emails; responding incessantly to the phone calls and messages and notifications and alerts. Overwhelmed and inundated by the expectations and the deadlines and the demands, endeavoring to pay attention to everything and succeeding only at a continuous partial attention.

We’ve become addicted, as Jim Collins, author of that wonderful business book, Good to Great, says,… we’ve become addicted to “the undisciplined pursuit of more.”

Perpetually distracted.

Untethered, unfocused, unproductive.

And despite our hyper-connectivity… isolated and disconnected.

I love the power of still photography; and yet I am aware that every time I put my eye to the viewfinder, I pull myself away from the moment as it is right in front of me; from the intimacy of the experience as it is.

I love the power of social media; and yet I am aware that when I am thinking about how much fun or interesting it will be share my experience, in that instant I have left the experience itself.

I love the power of technology; and yet I am aware that the very technology that allows me the freedom to live and work anywhere in the world also can enslave me.

Our distractions dishonor; and disempower.

So here are some simple things that have worked for me that you might do to reclaim the power of the present moment:

Avoid your email inbox first thing in the morning.

Turn off all of those annoying alerts on your smartphone and desk top

Don’t multi-task; it can’t be done

Work in block time; do just one thing

Let your calls go to voicemail

Don’t flit in and out of social media

Have a smartphone free dinner (or evening)

Carve out some (dedicated) time to read, write and reflect

Make (real) dates with yourself; and your loved ones; and honor them

Go off the grid entirely from time to time

Life unfolds only in this moment. Our power to impact, to influence, to make a difference, to touch a life, to do an act of kindness, to smile, to hold, to love, to leave a mark, exists only in this moment.

What is past is gone. And the next moment is promised to no one.

So be here now. In this one and only moment.

Maybe It’s Just A Bad Hair Day

by Walt | Nov 5, 2015 | Success | 0 Comments

I’m old; I’m fat; I’m out of shape; I’ve lost my edge.

At least those were the stories I began to tell myself on my morning run.

I pushed on. Turned out it was just an off day.

Some days are like that: Some days, it feels as if someone has poured cement into my running shoes. On other days, I flow like the wind.

All of us have days when it flows; and days when it doesn’t.

The problem is that, when it doesn’t flow, we tend to think that it “means” something; that something’s wrong; that’s something’s broken; that the magic has vanished. We get dark and despondent. We think it will last forever. We get discouraged. We want to quit.

The truth is: Some days it just doesn’t flow.

And it doesn’t mean a damn thing.

This is true in writing, in business, in finance, in relationships, in art, in music. Shit, I’m fairly certain it’s true in everything.

Some days, it’s just a bad hair day.

Thankfully, there’s a remedy: Show up the next day; and the next. Pretty soon it will flow again. Just as long as you haven’t given up.

I recently heard an audience member ask best selling author Theresa Ragan what the secret to her success was, what her secret was for being so prolific. She said that she showed up every day, “put her butt in the chair,” and wrote.

Julia Cameron in her book The Artist’s Way said that our only job as creatives is to “show up on the page;” to be present on the canvas.

George Leonard who wrote the book Mastery using the metaphor of his Aikido practice said that our only job on the path to mastery (in anything) is just “to show up on the mat.”

This means showing up in the practice room, the board room, the laundry room, the bedroom; this means showing up in our business, in the classroom, on the track, in the studio, no matter what happened yesterday; or the day before; or the day before that.

Whether it flowed brilliantly; or not.

The judging, the evaluating, the questioning, the hand wringing, the self-deprecation: they’re all just distractions; they’re all just a waste of time and energy.

Our job – our only job – is to show up and do the work.

The rest will take care of itself.

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If you’re ready to push through whatever is holding you back, let’s explore whether coaching might be right for you. Email be at: [email protected] today!

When 1 = 0

by Walt | Oct 29, 2015 | Success | 0 Comments

Who are you without the striving? Who are you when you’re not accomplishing?

Who are you when you’re not busy?

Many of my executive coaching clients feel anxious and untethered if they’re not in the thick of it, if they’re not juggling a multiplicity of projects, if they’re not moving at the speed of light. Their coach too. Birds of a feather and all of that.

One of my very favorite books is The One Thing: The Surprising Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller. Gary postulates that Pareto – the dude who came up with the 80/20 rule – that idea that 20% of our efforts lead to 80% of our outcomes – was overly generous. Gary suggests that, in most circumstances, there is just One Thing that matters.

The question that he recommends for consideration is this: “What’s the ONE Thing you can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”

I came back to my Hillside in Ireland after two weeks in the States. Nine cities. Two transatlantic flights. My body and my mind were buzzing. I was depleted, exhausted, fried. Yet, I had dozens of things that needed and wanted my attention; people that I needed to connect with; and events that I had to prepare for.

I got out my journal and starting writing frantically: What’s the one thing? What is the one thing? For god’s sake, what is the one thing?

I couldn’t focus. My mind swirled.

And, then, almost as if I were on a Ouija board, I found myself writing: “The one thing is no thing.”

I needed to rest; to recover; to sleep; to be. To do nothing.

Stephen Covey calls it sharpening the saw, “preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have – you.”

The one “habit” that is most challenging to “do” for achievers.

But sometimes 1 = 0.

Wealth Beyond Measure

by Walt | Oct 22, 2015 | Success | 0 Comments

On my first day at the Big Firm, I walked into my new office and there on my polished mahogany desk was a stack of time sheets. And on top of the time sheets, my mentor had left a little yellow sticky note that said, “Remember, your time sheet is your Bible.”

“Time is what we sell,” he would remind me. And like many young lawyers, I became obsessed with the billable hour, neurotic about capturing my time, measuring myself (and my worth) in tenths and quarters of hours. Driven to inquire in every moment, “Is it billable?”

Happily I have left the billable hour behind. But I realize that my mentor wasn’t completely nuts.

Time is all we have.

I picked up my friend Kevin at the quay; he had anchored his beautiful sloop out in the harbor of the tiny village in Ireland where we spend half the year. Kevin is about 10 years older than me; and about a decade ago he had cashed in his chips from a career in financial advising, bought a sailboat and sailed to the Caribbean; then, single handed, had sailed across the Atlantic to Ireland.

“How are you?” I asked.

Kevin looked directly into my eyes and grinned. “Wealthy,” he said.

I didn’t quite know what he meant… had he hit the lottery?… had he made a great play in the market?… so I let the statement just hang in the air for a moment… .

Kevin’s eyes sparkled. “I am wealthy in time,” he said.

Those of us who are driven to succeed (yes, of course, I’m talking to myself here too) often measure our self worth by our net worth. We forget that wealth is not just about our bank accounts. It’s about our health and wellness, about the quality of our relationships; it’s about our spiritual and emotional grounding, and our capacity to reflect; it about the lives we touch, and about the impact we are making in the world.

It’s about how we value and spend our time. As Annie Dillard writes, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

We’ve come to the last quarter of the year. How will you spend it? What will the bottom line look like for you when you come to the end?

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And while we’re at it, HOW is 2016 shaping up? Would you like to make it your best year ever? If you’re ready to take your business, your career, and your life to a whole new level, let’s have a conversation and see if coaching might make sense for you. Email me at: [email protected]