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Just One Thing

by Walt | Feb 12, 2015 | Success | 0 Comments

The phone rings. A fax comes in. There’s an email alert. Your associate needs help. The school calls about your sick child. Your Outlook chimes. There’s a LinkedIn request to connect. You’re mentioned on Twitter. Your associate needs help. Your gCal pops up. A text comes in from an unhappy client. Someone ‘likes’ your post on Facebook. Your partner messages you about dinner plans. There’s a customer at the desk.

“I really like my work,” Dan said after the talk. “It’s just that I get to the end of the day and I feel so scattered and unfocused. It’s exhausting”

I had been speaking to a group of attorneys about emotional wellness and sustainable peak performance.

Dan is not alone.

We live in a culture of distraction. We suffer from information overload.

Everything seems urgent; everything competes for our attention; everything wants to be done… now.

Except that it can’t be.

We can only do one thing at a time.

It’s when we delude ourselves and pretend that we can do it all – and all at once -that we deplete our limited resources.

We love to indulge the myth of multi-tasking. We love to feel significant and needed.

But the hits of cortisol are addictive. And continuous partial attention extracts a huge toll.

Without laser-like focus,

We make mistakes.

We’re unproductive.

We become emotionally fragile.

We experience stress and overwhelm.

We dishonor our relationships.

We miss opportunities.

We end up being poor stewards of our time.

Focus is fuel. Focus is power.

Focus is the doorway to creativity and innovation.

You nurture focus through practice; you strengthen it like a muscle.

If you want to be resourceful and resilient; if you want to create deep relationships and change lives; if you want to advance your career or grow your business; if you want to serve at the very highest level and make an impact in the world, then focus.

Do just one thing.

3 Things Successful People Do Differently

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

Many folks think that success is like magic. It just happens. It’s a matter of luck; or birthright; or privilege. It’s reserved for the fortunate few.

But actually, success is like a cake recipe. There are ingredients, and particular steps; and if you follow the recipe, you will be successful.

Study successful people. You will see some of these common ingredients.

Here are three of them:

Successful People Focus on High Value Targets

Most of us wake up to a “To Do” list that overwhelms us. Everything looks like it has the same level of urgency and import. But that’s not true.

Successful people know that there are really only a few important things in their day to get done. They apply the Pareto Principle ruthlessly focusing on the 20% of things that lead to the 80% of the results. They focus on what matters most.

And successful people say no. Often.

Steve Jobs once said, “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.”

Successful people practice leadership expert John Maxwell’s principle, “Say ‘no’ to the good so that you can say ‘yes’ to the best.”

They know that less is more.

Successful People Don’t Work Like Machines

Our industrial age mindset is that, in order to be successful, we need to work longer, harder, faster; that the more time we put in, the more successful we will be. Show up early, leave late, work overtime, nights, weekends, holidays: that’s the path to success.

Successful people know that we’re not built like machines. They know that, just as we sleep in rhythms, our awake time has rhythms as well. They know that humans work best in 60 to 90 minute segments; and that throughout the day, they need to take breaks to recharge their minds and refocus their attention.

Successful people know that, in order for peak performance to be sustained, they can’t work 24/7/365. They know that performers and athletes and artists at the top of their games ‘practice’ their crafts for 5 or 6 hours a day; and then turn their attentions elsewhere.

They know that the secret to success is not working harder; it’s working smarter.

Successful People Take Care of Themselves. First.

Most folks, especially those of us in service-related businesses, charge into the day, never focusing on their most important resource: themselves. They give and they give and they give some more. Until there’s nothing left. They know they’ve heard that old schpeel from the airline attendant about the oxygen mask and putting it on first before helping others. But for some reason, they believe that the adage doesn’t apply to them; that they won’t end up dead on the cabin floor.

Successful people know that in order to show up in the world, serve at a high level, and really make an impact, they need to take care of themselves first. They know that you don’t run a high performance vehicle around and around the track without ever stopping.

Successful people stop. They fuel their bodies with good food; they hydrate; they rest; they sleep. They fuel their minds with good books and good conversation. They nurture their spirits with time for reflection, mindfulness and meditation.

Successful people surround themselves with others on the path with similar values and powerful visions. They know that they don’t want to be the smartest person in the room; that they constantly want to be growing and learning and called ever higher.

Successful people know that when they take care of themselves first, they can change the world.

How’s your recipe? Is it time for a new one?

Danger. Danger

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

This is the end of the line for most folks. This is where the cart goes off the track.

Despite the most heartfelt resolutions, despite whatever the best intentions might have been, most folks give up on their New Year’s promises to themselves… right about now.

Not because they didn’t mean what they said.

Not because they didn’t want to change… because they did.

Not because they don’t have dreams for a better life… because they do.

But because life gets in the way.

I know. I was a single dad for a dozen years raising three young boys. I would get up (too late) in the morning, run around getting dressed, getting the kids up, finding the lost socks, and the lost homework, making the lunches, packing the lunches, unpacking and re-packing the back-packs, running the kids to school, tearing off to my office, arriving (too) late to gather up my files, speeding off to court, tying my tie in the rearview mirror and balancing the coffee in my lap (and spilling it), getting the call from daycare to come back because the kid had a 103º fever or head lice or both, scheduling parent-teacher meetings in between client calls, rushing off to soccer practice, making dinner, mitigating the fights, helping with the homework, returning emails and phone calls, and falling into bed exhausted and depleted… only to wake up the next day and do it all over again.

I know.

But change can happen. (I know this too.) What you really, really want in your heart matters. Your hopes and dreams and aspirations matter. They are the call of your Spirit, the Divine within you, to live your best life; to share those gifts that are yours and yours alone to share with the world in the most perfect way possible.

And it’s not too late. (It’s never too late.) Yes, January may be over. But the canvas of this New Year still awaits you.

Here’s what’s true: All you need to do is apply a very basic success principle, one of the easiest of all success principles. Take tiny, tiny steps.

At just 1 pound a week, you’ll still lose more than 40 pounds this year

At just 1 page a day, you’ll have well over 300 pages for your book

At just 1 watercolor a week, you could mount an entire show

One job application a day is 30 in a month

One extra sales conversation every single day might double your sales

Take that tiny step today. Just for today. And then do it again. And again the next day. Small steps magnified by time leading to magnificent results.

But today, just think about this day. And take just one tiny step forward.

Remember, races are run one stride at a time; businesses built one product at a time, one customer at a time, one sale at a time; mountains are climbed one step at a time; novels written one sentence at a time; symphonies written one measure at a time; and cathedrals built over generations one stone at a time.

Go back to the beginning of the year, and remember why it was that you wanted to set out on your path. Reclaim that grand vision of that perfect life that is yours.

In every moment of danger, there is also opportunity.

Opportunity still waits for you.

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This is an encore of a piece first published on January 30, 2014.

What’s Your Secret Recipe?

by Walt | Jan 22, 2015 | 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 year ahead, it might be worthwhile to remember the ingredients. Our ingredients.

Make It Happen

by Walt | Jan 15, 2015 | Leadership | 0 Comments

It was already late in the day when I called. So I made the request gingerly.

“I know it’s last minute, but might we have Table 13? It’s our favorite table.”

Now, at most restaurants, the response would be, “We can’t promise that,” or, “We’ll see what we can do.”

But not at this one.

Daryl, the manager on duty at a local wine bar said, “I will make that happen.”

Indeed, when we arrived at 6:00 pm, Daryl greeted us by name; and our table – our favorite one – was waiting for us.

I will make that happen.

In a culture of waffling and equivocation, ass-covering and risk aversion, who says that?

The statement connotes purposefulness and power, confidence and certainty.

When I heard those words, I felt a deep sense of satisfaction and security. Someone was actually taking responsibility. Someone was a leader. Someone was in charge. Someone was taking care of it. Someone was taking care of me.

I was being served.

Customers, clients, and loved ones want to feel that way.

What will you make happen today?