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You’ll Kill It If You Water It

by Walt | Jun 22, 2017 | Success | 1 Comment

Winemakers in Châteauneuf-du-Pape must adhere to strict guidelines if they wish to present their wines to the marketplace as wines from the Châteauneuf-du-Pape region . One curious rule is that, except in extraordinary circumstances (and then only with special dispensation), winemakers may not ever water their vines.

The land in the region of Châteauneuf-du-Pape is rocky, dry and laden with clay.

And so we inquired of the master sommelier in one of the vineyards we visited, “Why wouldn’t you water the vines?”

“Because,” he explained, “Without artificial irrigation, the roots of the vines must grow deep; and the vines become resilient and strong. If we were to water the vines, the roots would stay near the surface and the vines would be much more likely to fail.”

When you are compelled to grow your roots deep, you become resilient and strong.

That, of course, is the challenge of our lives.

To grow deep roots, to become resilient, requires discomfort.

We hate discomfort.

We want easy.

The magic, the majesty, the joy, the deep satisfaction is most usually found just beyond that place of comfort: one more rep with the weights, one more minute with the plank, pushing out one more mile on the run; holding the question just a little longer; staying with the ambiguity, in the uncertainty; digging just a bit deeper with the research; lingering just a bit longer with the words on the page.

Leaning into the discomfort; and not fleeing from it.

We’ve learned this lesson ourselves over and over again in the high mountains of the world when long after the packs have become way too heavy to bear, we break through the clouds to share what few will ever see; and on ultra-distance races, when long after our bodies have told us we were done, just a few more miles brought us to the finish line.

We’ve learn this lesson ourselves over and over again in our business when we’ve stayed in the insoluble problem long after the confusion and despair have set in to discover a way through that yields extraordinary results.

Of course, we’ve fled discomfort too. Too many times to count if truth be told. Retreating when the wind has blown too hard; and the feet have become way too sore. Abandoning a project because it has required that we become beginners again; and it all just seemed way too complicated.

And always with the fleeing comes regret. Regret for what might have been. If only we had leaned into the discomfort. Leaned in just a little bit longer.

We’ve learned hard lessons in our parenting too. Who doesn’t want to make the lives of their children easier? Who wants them to suffer; to experience discomfort? Yet all too often when we’ve stepped in to “rescue” a child, to smooth their road, to solve their problem, we’ve seen (in the rear view mirror with regret) the lost opportunity to grow their roots deeper.

“Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better,” Jim Rohn once said.

“With discipline comes freedom,” Ann says.

Deep roots make strong vines. And create extraordinary lives.

Perhaps a little drought is good.

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I promise that if you work with me as a coach, I will make your life way uncomfortable. When you’re ready, email me: walt@walthampton

I Hate Fridays

by Walt | Jun 15, 2017 | 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]

Your Gateway Drug

by Walt | Jun 8, 2017 | Success | 2 Comments

We focus on our To Do lists. Because, of course, there are lots of “things” we tell ourselves we have To Do in order to “succeed,” in business… and in life.

We get caught up in the vortex. We neglect the ONE success principle, the CORE principle, the GATEWAY principle that makes everything else possible.

Focus on the gateway principle and everything else will fall in place.

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Are you ready to bump up your game? Let’s talk. Email me: [email protected]

Longer Harder Faster

by Walt | Jun 1, 2017 | Leadership, Success | 0 Comments

More and more, businesses and organizations are embracing mindfulness and meditation as tools to increase the performance of their people as well as a way to reduce stress and overwhelm. Which is a good thing, because these are powerful tools, and important objectives.

But there’s a shadow side to this sudden enlightenment; a disconnect. The effort treats a symptom and not the cause.

Ours is a culture of overwhelm. We’re always connected. We’re always expected to be on. Nights, weekends, holidays, vacations. No refuge. No means of escape. Everyone suffers. And, as Claire Cain Miller said in her New York Times piece, “The pressure of the round-the-clock work culture – in which people are expected to answer emails at 11:00 pm and take cell phone calls on Sunday morning – is particularly acute in highly skilled, highly paid professional services jobs like law, finance, consulting and accounting.”

While mindfulness and meditation are great – I’ve been a practitioner for decades – the solution is to tackle the real problem: The truth is that the way we work doesn’t work.

The research is crystal clear: After 50 hours a week of work, our productivity plummets; multi-tasking robs of us our focus; and too little sleep saps us of our energy and our acuity.

But here’s the rub: Profit is a siren call. Long hours have become a status symbol; busy is a badge of honor; and we actually get huge hits of pleasure-inducing cortisol from our smartphones, text messages, emails and alerts.

Organizationally, to boost the bottom line, it’s tempting to put a Band-Aid on these challenges by dialing in a bit of mindfulness (and by the way, I’d be happy to come in and do that for you). But better to encourage your people to adopt more sustainable work habits. Model and promote good boundaries; discourage 24/7/365; reward work completed within the business day and week; and honor the time and space outside of work.

And entrepreneurs – yeah I’m talkin’ to you – creating a more sustainable rhythm to your work is critical to your success. While it’s great that you have the freedom and flexibility to choose whatever 18 hours of the day you want to work, having a rich, full and deeply satisfying life requires that you nurture the entirely of your being, and not just that nutty, passionate, success-driven piece.

There’s no such thing as work-life balance. There’s just life. So we might as well get it right. And then, as Oprah says, we’ll meditate.

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I will be sharing mindfulness and meditation at the Connecticut Legal Conference on June 12th. Stop on by.

The Thing About Barney

by Walt | May 25, 2017 | Success | 1 Comment

He sat at the bar, a Guinness to his left, next to a neatly stacked sheaf of paper. With an expensive looking pen in his hand, he wrote. Longhand. Slowly. Deliberately. With care. From time to time, he would stop and appear to ponder and reflect, sip from his Guinness, and write some more. A letter clearly; to whom, I couldn’t say.

He wasn’t more than 30, clean cut, nicely dressed. But this behavior… so aberrant; so weird!

No tablet. No computer. No smartphone.

Just a pen and some paper. (And a Guinness.)

So jarring to us was this sight that we called him over to our table as he was leaving the pub.

Barney was his name.

Barney was a visitor to our little village in Co. Cork. He grandfather had bought a place some 50 years ago. And Barney liked to come to enjoy the solitude, he said.

“And what about this (weird) writing thing?” I inquired.

“I like how it feels,” he said. “I like how I get to really think about what I want to say. I love that it takes time. And that it goes off in the post; and someone gets to open it and hold it in their hands and read it.”

We had a wonderful conversation with Barney on those lost arts of writing and connecting and deep communication that have been subsumed by email and text messaging.

Barney is a rarity (an oddity?) indeed.

There is a never-ending, ever-growing panoply of methods to communicate what you’re doing and how you’re feeling at any given moment.

I am a lover of technology. It allows me to live and work and serve my clients anywhere in the world I might be. I don’t want to be a Barney. But I do want to connect powerfully, meaningfully and deeply. And that’s difficult to do when we’re always on.

It is the great paradox of connection: That more hyper-connected we are, the more scattered and fragmented and disconnected we become.

So here are some recommendations on how to reclaim a sense of well-being, without resorting to being a Barney:

Pick a primary mode of communication. Unless you live in a little village in Ireland and have no clients or business interests to serve, it won’t likely be the post. But there is nothing more disconcerting to have a chain of communication that starts as a message on LinkedIn, continues as an email, and then morphs into a series of texts or Facebook messages. Putting aside the “paper trail” necessary in business communication, this is just crazy making and an invitation to error. You teach people how to treat you and how to work with you. Teach them a way that leaves you sane.

Be deliberate. Just because your technology allows you to communicate instantly, doesn’t mean you have to. You can take the time, like Barney, to slow down, to think and reflect on exactly what it is you want to say. It’s ok to step back, allow the dust to settle, formulate your thoughts, and get clear on your desired outcomes.

Don’t check your email (or smartphone) constantly. On average, folks check 150 times a day. There’s a huge time cost to doing this. Recent research suggests that we are interrupted (or interrupt ourselves) every 3 minutes of the day; and that it takes at least 11 minutes for us to refocus, to re-attend to the task that we were doing. If this is true, not only do you have the sensation, the feeling, that you can never catch up, you actually never really do!

Don’t check your email first thing in the morning. Your email inbox is someone else’s agenda for your day. If you are clear on what you value most and what your high value targets are for your day, do those things first. No one dies if your email waits until mid-morning.

Go off the grid. Experience what is like to not be hyper-connected. Connect with yourself; connect with those you love. Have a tech-free dinner; a tech-free weekend; maybe even a tech-free vacation. Talk! Read, write, reflect. Reclaim that still point within you. In that stillness is your power.

Our businesses and our lives rise and fall on our relationships. And as humans, we are hard-wired for connection. But real connection doesn’t happen in a 140 characters or via Snapchat.

I don’t want to be Barney. But he’s definitely onto something.

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Are you ready to become more deliberate with your career, your business and your life? Let’s connect. Really connect. Email me: [email protected]