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Jumbo Shrimp

by Walt | May 15, 2014 | Leadership, Success | 0 Comments

I unintentionally stirred a shit-storm last week with my newsletter.I recommended that everyone take a vacation this summer; that vacations are essential to our well-being.This, apparently, is controversial.Taking vacations, so the criticism went, suggests that you are not a team player. It might even mean that you’re weak. If your boss tells you not to take them, then you can’t.I get it. I worked in that culture. I coach a lot of folks who work in that culture.It’s not a sustainable culture.We are not machines. We cannot be ‘on’ 24/7/365. It’s just not possible.The studies are clear and the science backs it up: In cultures that promote a ‘machine’ model, stress is high, turnover is high, the error rate is high (this, of course, finally gets the attention of the professional firms I work with), employee engagement is low, productivity suffers, and job satisfaction is in the toilet.The testosterone laden, muscle-drive, brute force thing can get us through emergencies and the rare episodic project that has a real (not imagined or manipulated) deadline. All of us have to endure these episodes from time to time. But these are exceptions in a culture of wellness, in a corporate culture that truly values its people. And they exist! They really do! I had the great privilege of doing a series of wellness workshops for a number of accounting firm in the middle of tax season! Talk about evolved cultures!In order to have work and lives we love, we need to rest and recover. We need vacations!This was a hard-learned lesson for me. When I worked in The Big Firm, I was told at orientation that we needed to bill 2000+ hours a year; and that we got three weeks of vacation… but that no one ever took them. And as an endurance athlete, I believed that the best way to train (and work!) was, in fact, to keep on going.Of course, societally, this is exactly what we’re taught: That in order to succeed, we need to work longer, harder faster.Until what? We’re dead?

But then I discovered, through my mountaineering and as a distance runner, that rest and recovery is actually an integral part of the equation. That we get stronger when we rest and recover. That we can go longer, harder faster… when we have rested and recovered.That we’re more focused, attentive, engaged and productive when we’ve rested and recovered.The same is true in our careers.Last year there were more than 500,000,000 (that’s 5 hundred million) unused paid vacations days left on the table by American workers. That’s screwed up. I took 12 weeks of vacation last year and enjoyed every single one of them… and then was able to bring a focus and vibrancy to our business and the people we serve in a way that would not have been possible without that time away. (If you’re going to leave some days on the table this year, send them over to me… I’ll be happy to use them. But I’d prefer if you’d take them for yourself.)I got asked at a workshop this past week how you make this happen for yourself in a culture that doesn’t support it (this from a woman whose husband works in the brokerage industry). This is a very tough question with no easy answer… we want our jobs, we need our jobs, we want to be perceived to be ‘on the team.’ It feels horribly risky to break from the pack. (And sometimes it is.) But, at the same time, if we’re truly going to be responsible for ourselves and for those we love… and if we are going to be leaders, regardless of our job title, or position, we have an obligation to advocate for ourselves… and for those around us.If you are leader or manager reading this piece, I urge you: Deep dive into the research, evaluate your culture and study the impact. The managers and leaders who see their people late at night or on a Saturday morning and take them aside to coach them on being better stewards of their time: These are the companies that will lead; these are the companies that will thrive.I know it seems paradoxical. But less really is more.Hopefully it’s one of those paradoxes that maybe, just maybe, we might learn to live with… kinda like jumbo shrimp.

I Envy You

by Walt | May 8, 2014 | Finding The Way, Journeys, Success | 0 Comments

She ran up behind me and matched my pace.

I didn’t know her. But she clearly knew me.

“I loved your Facebook pictures from Ireland,” she said. “I envy your lifestyle.”

“Yeah, thanks, it’s pretty fine,” I gasped as I crested the hill.

She peeled off to the right.

If I hadn’t been hypoxic in the moment, I would have said more.

I would have said that envy is good.

Envy is a voicemail, a text message from your heart.

Envy tells you that there is something that is lacking, something that you want, something that your Spirit seeks, something that would bring you joy.

I would have said to her that you need to listen to your envy.

What’s it saying?

What’s not working? What needs to change? What needs to be subtracted? What needs to be added in?

What are the goals you are not attaining? What are the dreams you are not fulfilling?

Yeah, my lifestyle might be good. But what are you thirsting for? What is it that you want; that you really, really want?

Know your envy, befriend your envy, understand your envy. Deconstruct your envy. Hear its siren call.

And after you’ve snuggled with your envy for a bit, harness its energy.

Put it to work.

Too often envy can be turned inward; and become bitterness, resentment, victimhood.

Know that envy calls you higher.

Get clear. Take action. Grab hold of the life you want.

Envy is not a deadly sin. It is a gift.

Get busy. Use it.

Time Is Money

by Walt | May 1, 2014 | Success | 0 Comments

(This is an encore of a post first published on November 10, 2011)

What if money didn’t exist anymore? What if it was no longer the medium of exchange?

What if, instead of money, time was our currency?

This is the premise of the Justin Timberlake movie, In Time.

In the movie, everyone who is born lives to age 25; and is then allotted just one more year. A clock, ingrained on each person’s forearm, starts counting down to zero.

Zero is the moment of death.

People earn more time by working. The harder and longer they work, the more time they earn. People expend time by buying groceries – and lattes. Time is traded between friends and loved ones. And stolen by thieves.

Such a commodity has time become that it is publicly traded on world exchanges.

People who have only a little time are poor. They live from minute to minute, day to day, barely getting by. The poor, those without time, rush about in frantic efforts to survive, hoping to scrape enough together to live another hour, or another day.

The rich have amassed great surpluses of time. They live palatial lives in walled cities, guarded carefully against the masses who threaten to overthrow their comfort and occupy their streets.

Time is controlled and manipulated. It favors the smart and the quick and those of the manner born. It is dominated by the powerful. The rich get richer; their years accumulating into decades and centuries.

For the poor, the clock runs out.

Even for a die-hard capitalist, In Time challenges significant assumptions and raises troubling questions: Shouldn’t everyone have equal access to time? Why should the “rich” have more time than the “poor?” Shouldn’t there be a redistribution of time so that everyone has an equal amount? Why should the few live long lives at the expense of those many who are less fortunate?

Of course, there are those who have worked long and hard for the time they have saved. They are rewarded for their tenacity and creativity,their intelligence and ingenuity.

And then there are those who squander their time; and piss it away.

The movie forces us to confront the ultimate truth of our lives: money doesn’t really matter; time is our only currency.

It’s all we ever really have.

How we spend our time makes manifest our being in the world; it is our legacy.

At the end of the movie, Timberlake’s character is asked how much time he has left. He looks at the clock counting down on his arm and says, “Just a day. But think of what we can do in a day.”

Each day, a new gift.

What can you do in a day?
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TODAY marks the publication of my second book, The Power Principles of Time Mastery: Do Less. Make More. Have Fun. Take advantage of our special pre-publication offer and get your signed copy today. While there’s time! Click HERE now!

No Sorry There Isn’t Any

by Walt | Apr 24, 2014 | Success | 2 Comments

Time.

Everyone wants it. No one has enough of it.

We all want to manage it.

But here’s the problem: Time can’t be managed. Time is just an idea, a construct. Time just is.

Einstein said that time is relative. He talked about a space-time continuum.

More recently physicists have hypothesized that time is all laid out on a palette, on a landscape before us: past, present and future.

I think time is more like the wind. We can feel it blow across our face. We can see its ravages in the mirror and in the faded photos in our drawer. We can perceive its impact on the lives around us and upon the world we live in.

But you can’t grab hold of it. You can’t contain it. You can’t wrestle it to the ground.

You can’t command it to stop. You can’t get more of it.

And you certainly can’t ever hope to manage it.

That’s the bad news.

But there is a sliver of good news.

The good news is that you can manage you. And when you do that, you will become a master of your time.

Becoming a master of your time means getting clear on what you value most and then choosing – consciously choosing – continually, courageously relentlessly choosing – to devote your time to what matters most. And saying no to all the rest.

I’m not suggesting that this is easy. Of all the issues that challenge our private coaching clients, and all of the business leaders and professionals with whom we work, this ‘time management’ thing is the most challenging of all.

But getting it ‘right’ is crucial.

Because the sands run quickly through the glass.

Because there is no time.

Because at the end of our lives, none of us is going to wish that we had ‘spent’ more time in the office, billed more hours, accumulated more miles, closed more deals, seen more clients, sold more products, networked more, Tweeted more, or updated our Facebook status more frequently. What will matter will be the experiences we have had, the lives that we have touched, and the love that we have shared. What will matter will be whether we have fulfilled the deepest longings of our hearts, whether we have spent ourselves, not on the urgent, but on the important; whether we have lived without regret.

I want you to become a time master.

In the next few days, I am releasing my second book, The Power Principles of Time Mastery: Do Less. Make More. Have Fun. It’s chock full of tools, tips, strategies, exercises and templates that will engage you and empower you to take charge, to choose well, and to become a master of your time.

I have a special pre-publication offer. Go here to order your signed copy today. (Put the word INTRO in the Promo Code box)

While there’s time.

Time Management for Losers

by Walt | Apr 17, 2014 | Success | 1 Comment

I’m working feverishly this week to complete a draft of my book on time management; so I have no time to write! Here is a great guest post on the topic from the inestimable Ann Sheybani:

A long time ago, when I was selling photo copiers for a living, I met an older woman who gave me a piece of advice I will never forget.

“Darling,” she said, smoothing back her hair with steady hands, “there’s a time and a place for everything. You can’t do it all at once, no matter what they say.”

My husband at that time was working at the University of Connecticut as a temporary professor. One of the perks as his spouse was the ability to take free classes, which I thought I should avail myself of. I was feeling a thousand years behind the curve because I’d just returned from living in Iran, and I was beginning all over again. I was banging on doors from 9 to 5 in a 70-mile territory; I had two small children at home, a marriage on the rocks; and I was convinced that I should drive an hour each way, maybe three times a week, to further educate myself.

So, there I was at a print shop, waiting for my sales appointment, when I ran into the elegant older woman who gave me that advice, who told me I should give myself a break and forget the classes until my kids were older.

What she’d done after her children had grown made her words memorable. She and her husband sold their house, moved to Switzerland, and studied together at the Carl Jung Institute. At 60, they moved back to the U.S. and opened a booming psychiatry practice. In each of the stages of her life, including the one as a Mom and housewife, she’d felt happy and fulfilled.

I think our generation struggles so with the Super Woman mindset: This notion that we should be able to do it all, have it all, be it all, then balance it all, NOW, NOW, NOW, in order to be enough.

We consider ourselves ~~fucking losers~~ lazy if our house isn’t spotless. If our children aren’t adorably talented, our career impressive, our abs six-pack-alicious, our sex-life worthy of Penthouse. If we don’t have a couple of side businesses, a book on the bestseller list, and a circle of hilarious friends who meet for brunch on Sunday mornings wearing Gucci.

It’s why we keep looking for THAT ONE time management secret that will help us pack it all in.

I believe we can have it all, just not all at once.

This coming from someone who operates a couple of businesses, climbs big mountains, runs ultra-marathons, writes, speaks, coaches, and travels the world like it’s my job.

We’re human beings AND there are only 24 hours in a day. Something has got to give. Let me be more precise: Something WILL give.

I’m highly suspect of people who claim to have all aspects of their life totally under control. I tend to chalk up much of that bullshit to spin. I wonder how they managed to cover up their stint in rehab, or their gruesome 3^rd divorce, or the fact that their kids haven’t spoken to them since 1996, that sort of thing. But that’s probably just me being bitter.

I do believe that you can have a lot more, and that there are some really valuable tricks of the trade when it comes to having it all—secrets that are worth bending an ear for: drawing boundaries, saying no, asking for help, delegating, repurposing, drop kicking perfectionism, and so on, and so forth. (I mean, I coach on this topic.)

But I really think the only way to forgive ourselves for not winning the Master of the Universe Award is to set some priorities, priorities based on our highest values, and let the other stuff go to hell, at least for the time being.

Otherwise you walk around in ratty pajamas all day feeling totally defeated, and hopeless, which is so not how you want to do this gig.

My kids are grown and out of the house. I’ve done the heavy lifting there. And it’s true, what that wonderful stranger said, I have time, now, to pursue all those things I was chomping on the bit to do. All those things that would have felt unbelievably overwhelming way back when.

I still have to choose, EVERY SINGLE DAY, what I’m going to focus my time and attention on, and what will get waaayyyyy short shrift. So, sorry, if you’re looking for balance, it ain’t here.

Today I’m writing, and my house looks like looters have ransacked it.
I’ve been focusing on building a business or two, and my memoir is gathering dust in the bottom drawer.
I bought a house in Ireland, and my marathon training is spotty at best.
I’ve conducted some great on-line writing courses, and my friends can’t remember the color of my hair.

But that’s OK. Because I know that the in-basket is always full, and that there’s a season for everything.

And that it’s not a crime to use cliches. Thank God.

This is my garage. It needs help.