Walt Hampton, J.D.

Creating the Work & Life You LOVE

I Don’t Care How You Feel

by Walt | Mar 10, 2016 | Success | 0 Comments

I had just finished speaking to a university audience on leadership and goal achievement, and had stayed on afterwards to chat with the students.

“I know exactly what I want,” my young listener proclaimed.

Looking earnest, he furled his brow. “It’s just that I don’t always feel very motivated.”

“I don’t really give a fuck what you feel,” I replied with an equal amount of furling and earnestness.

“If you know exactly what you want… and you want it badly enough, then you’ll show up every day and do what needs to be done whether you feel like it or not.”

He flinched, only slightly, as I jabbed my finger in the air for extra dramatic import: “Motivation is vastly overrated.”

And it is.

I rarely feel motivated to run, or go the the gym, or put on over mitts to go out into the arctic cold to climb. There’s not a whole lot of motivation going on when I think about driving three hours to a ski area or hoisting the kayaks onto the roof of a car. I almost never feel motivated to write. In fact, I’ve put off writing this blog until the very last moment possible, perhaps just to dramatically punctuate my own perpetual lack of motivation!

You see, motivation is flighty. It’s not dependable. It comes… and it goes. Sometimes it shows up; more often than not, it doesn’t. Even when it comes to stuff we like or want.

What’s important is the knowing. Knowing what you want. Knowing what you like. Knowing where it is you want to go. And why.

When you’re clear about your destination, when you know your outcome, then all you need to do is act. You’re pulled forward by the vision of what you will achieve. How you feel from moment to moment is irrelevant. In fact, your transitory ‘feelings’ usually just end up getting in the way.

I know how much I value my fitness and vitality over time when I run. And so I run. Whether I feel like it or not.

I know how much I love the creative process of writing and the sense of satisfaction I have when the words I have written have an impact on someone I have never even met. So I write. Whether I feel like it or not.

Get clear on what you really, really want.

Then get going. And stay at it.

In the meantime, it doesn’t really much matter how you feel.

It Happened At The Urinal

by Walt | Mar 3, 2016 | Success | 0 Comments

It was just an ordinary visit to the men’s room. For a very ordinary reason. It was a pretty nice restaurant. But I didn’t really expect that moment, that transformational experience.

There I stood at the urinal. Looking at the wall, as one does. And there on the wall… on the wall that so often contains crude drawings and classic limericks reminiscent of days gone by…was a TV monitor. Streaming one of those talk news programs. With the volume turned up.

And in that moment I realized that nearly every place of silence and solitude in our world has disappeared. Gone even from one of the most hallowed of our spaces of refuge… the bathroom.

As I went from place to place, I began to notice: televisions in grocery store lines, at convenience stores, in dining areas… even ‘upscale’ ones. Televisions everywhere.

iPads too… bolted to the middle of your table… so that you have no choice but to engage in the device rather than the person sitting on the other side from you.

Input. Constant stimulation. Everywhere. In every moment. With no means of escape. So that we are compelled to live out our existence in a state of continuous partial attention.

And in that state, we lose touch with the most precious of resources: Silence.

In the silence there is the space to think, the space to reflect, the space to create; the space to consider the core essential questions of our lives: who we want to be, how we want to serve, what we want our legacies to be.

The constant input, the overload of information, our cultural cacophony, has put in jeopardy our capacity to sit still and be still and know the beauty and the grandeur of the here and the now.

Indeed when we walk away from the input, often it induces anxiety… fear… a fear of missing out… a fear of what it might mean to be alone… alone with ourselves.

When I go home to my hillside in Ireland overlooking the sea, the silence in arresting: For a moment I wonder if my ears are broken. Then I soak in the silence. And renew. And revel in what is possible without the noise.

Seek silence. Seek the grace of solitude.

For in the silence is your power.

It was just an ordinary urinal. But an extraordinary moment.

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If you’d like strategies on how to beat the overwhelm, check out my book, The Power Principles of Time Mastery: Do Less, Make More, Have Fun. Click HERE.

Why Business Isn’t Complicated

by Walt | Feb 25, 2016 | Success | 0 Comments

A lot of entrepreneurs and business professionals live in a constant state of overwhelm.

Sure, there are lot’s of things that seem to require our time and resources in business: branding and marketing and websites and list building and lead generating and marketing and sales and fulfillment and service and bookkeeping and record keeping and…..

There are lots of things that draw our attention too: the latest landing page design, the new webinar platform, that fancy CRM.

Of course, the Internet marketers don’t want us to overlook them: that one thing that will make you money; the 6-week program that will transform your business; the 3-secrets to marketing magic; that certification that you surely shouldn’t go without.

And in the midst of all of this noise and confusion, we forget: business is about relationships. About creating, sustaining and nurturing relationships. That’s it. That’s all there is.

All things being equal, we do business with people we know, like and trust. And guess what? All things being unequal, we do business with people we know like and trust.

It’s about credibility and likability.

Think for a moment about how you yourself do business when you need a professional or service provider you can rely on. You turn to someone you know, like and trust. And if you don’t know someone that fits that bill, you turn to a colleague or friend for a referral.

Business may seem complicated. But it’s not. It’s about relationships. Start there. Keep your focus there. And everything else will fall into place.

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I teach the fastest, easiest, most reliable system for getting more clients and customers than you can handle, even if you hate marketing and selling. Using this system, 90% of entrepreneurs and professionals see a 40% increase in revenues in the first year. Email me and we’ll talk: [email protected]

Why You Need Your Feet In The Fire

by Walt | Feb 18, 2016 | Success | 0 Comments

The gym is nearly empty again. And the runners with their new gear have mostly disappeared.

It’s the middle of February. How are you doing on your 2015 goals and resolutions?

Statistically, only a small percentage of the population bothers to make New Year’s resolutions anymore. And of those who do, most abandon the effort by right about now.

You see, life is just way too crazy busy… and even with the best of intentions, it’s easy to slide back into the ‘old ways.’ That book that you had so wanted to write, that new product you were going to drive to market, that new business that you planned to launch, the new job you were going to apply for, your sales calls that you had planned to boost, the weight you said you were going to lose, that fitness program… all back on the shelf again.

“Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans,” John Lennon once said.

And it sure is easy to get distracted.

Frankly, that’s one of the reasons that I so appreciate our coaches (we have 2)… not even considering their perspective, their mentorship, and the resources they provide, the accountability piece is HUGE… staying on track… staying the course… even in times of turbulence and change.

Someone to hold our feet to the fire!

And watching the impact that coaching has in the lives of our own coaching clients – seeing the things that can be accomplished – is nothing short of amazing: businesses, books, health & wellness, new relationships, exciting new careers. It is powerfully transformative and deeply satisfying work.

Peak performers all have coaches… in the arts, in business and in finance… Every Olympic athlete… If you truly want to up your game, if you seek excellence, if you really want to accomplish those important goals, then dial in a coach. It will make all the difference. It certainly has in our lives.

And by the way, if you have fallen off course, no worries. Did you know that a plane flying from San Francisco to Honolulu is off course MOST of the time… but it still gets there because of constant course correction? You can do that too!

Every day is a new day. Every day the chance to begin again.

And the opportunity to finally achieve your most cherished dreams.

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Email me if you’d like to explore how coaching might transform your life!

[email protected]

Has Your Cart Gone Off The Track?

by Walt | Feb 11, 2016 | 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. And nearly half of February. 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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If you’d like help getting your cart back on the track, email me: [email protected]