Scrub the Soul, Get Your Dreams!

Outside my window is our tree trimmer doing his thing in cleaning out the branches to accommodate the massive growth of greenery that happens now and for the next couple of months. I can literally feel the flow of energy open up as he is cutting and thinning out all the unwanted branches.

It reminds me of all of the unwanted excess “stuff” that I hold onto that blocks the flow of energy in my life and that Springtime is a great time to remind us all of the importance of letting go of both physical and emotional “stuff” that impedes our flow of energy in all areas or our life. And just like when my tree guy who cleans up the dead overgrowth in order to make room for a massive growth spurt of new leaves and branches, we too need to get ride of all of our physical and emotional dead overgrowth in order to make room for some real massive growth in our own lives.

Every six months, my neighbors would see me cleaning out the garage to the point where they worried that I was preparing to leave the area and move on to another home. I would let go of “stuff” that was clogging up my life and instead of keeping it “in case I may need it in the future”, I released it now so I could make room for something that benefited me now. If the items were broken or unrepairable, then in the trash they went. As most of the items were in good condition, I’d find a new home for them or give them to a charitable organization that found a great home for the items and someone else would benefit from my old “stuff”. By keeping my energy flowing in my life, it opens up more and more new opportunities that I believe would never had happened if it wasn’t for my continual Spring cleaning habit.

I usually suggest to take an area of your life or in your house or office and give it a good thinning out of “unwanted dead growth”. And you know what I mean when I say “unwanted dead growth”. It can be something physical like that pile of unread, unused and out of date magazine subscriptions that block the doorway into your office. Or the “unwanted dead growth” that you’ve been holding on to in the form of un-empowering, limited belief systems. It’s not by accident that the acronym for belief systems is BS, because that’s just what it is, bull sh*t that we have created within ourselves and it’s holding us back to have, be and do the things that we really want in our life.

So Springtime is more than just cleaning the garage or trimming the trees, it’s about taking out the old emotional trash that’s clogging up your inner flow so you can attract and experience the new massive growth spurt that brings you another piece of your dreams right now!

The North Korean Army Can Teach You How to Manifest Your Dreams

As Americans, we seem more concerned about the saber-rattling of the North Korean Army than the citizens of South Korea, only 90 miles away. Reports come in saying that business is as usual in the city of Seoul and the consensus from  the many interviews with regular people on the street state that they are going about life like normal.

One American reporter asked, “How can you be so calm and nonchalant with the possibilities of war happening right on your doorstep?” To which one young person being interviewed responded, “Sure we are concerned and we are prepared, but to give any more attention to that fact will give the North Koreans and it’s leader, Kim Jong-un  what they want, attention, and then they would have won.”

So what this young South Korean person being interviewed said is that she is committed to being prepared, but not attached to the constant war threatening rhetoric.” Just like when we manifest our dreams, being prepared to receive those dreams is as important as asking for them. By being committed to what you want, the possibilities go way up that you will receive them.

It’s much like the understanding that within a typical American breakfast of eggs and bacon, the chicken is attached to the process while the pig is totally committed! By committing to our dreams as if it has already happened, we are manifesting what ever we want faster and more efficiently into our lives. By being attached to a dream means that you may think about it, and in some cases, it may be the only thing that you think about all the time, but you don’t believe that you have it.

Kevin Trudeau , on one of his radio programs, explains it best with a simple but powerful mind exercise. He would instruct you to think of a money goal, let’s say $100,000. Now think about the $100,000, write down on a piece of paper, think about what you could do with that kind of money and how it would impact your life. How do you feel? Did you think you were any closer to manifesting that $100,000?

Now what he would have you do is imagine that $100,000 again, but this time, imagine that the check has already been written, deposited in your bank account. but you won’t be able to access the money for another 4 months. But it’s there. It’s just not yet fully accessible to be withdrawn.

Now between the two examples, how did you experience one over the other? Which one felt more real? Which one felt like the $100,00 was within reach?

If you’re like most, the second example felt more real. The feeling of anticipation. The feeling that it’s happened and that just we need to be patient and continue going forward with our day-to-day actions that will bring us our dream of having $100,000. The second example creates the feeling of being committed while the first example is the feeling of being attached. It’s the “committed” example that vibrates the energy like a beacon attracting our dreams to us. That energy is created through our feelings and emotions, which communicates to the universe, God, your higher power,  that we are ready to receive.

So by believing that it is so, your dreams become your reality. Have fun, get excited and think about what dreams do you what to manifest for your life!

“Y Do You Care?”

“Y Do You Care?”

Your first quarter goals are wrapping up quickly. How are you fairing?

Here is the thing about goal setting, for both you and your team, its all good! What I mean by that is that whether you have already hit your marks, or coming close to your objectives, or way-off on achieving your outcomes, its up to you to determine your next move.

First determine if your goal is sound to begin with (read on to the next story), then if it is, choose the next direction you’d like to go. So if you’re underproducing according to your 1st Q plan, check out what needs to be done to get on track. Many times its just a “tweaking” of your action plan to assist in getting what you want. According to John Locke, the author of “How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months”, when he was younger and in insurance sales, he always hit his policy sales numbers. Unlike most of his colleagues who set very high, arbitrary numbers that were never reached; his numbers reflected the amount of action that he took to generate those sales. In other works, if his weeks numbers where lower than expected, rather than change the sales goal numbers, he’d look at how many presentations he needed to do. It got to the point that he could accurately predict how many sales of insurance policies he would do weekly just by the amount of presentations he scheduled. So paying attention to your actions can be just as important as setting the goal.

But the fuel that propels your goals forward is a powerful component called the “why” or finding your purpose. At CEO Chef, we find that this component can easily be assumed because obviously you wrote these goals because they were important to you or your business or career. But the action of taking the time to write them down is huge in determining your “why”. In fact this can be the number one determination to whether you achieve your goal or not!

Start by rereading your goals and immediately begin writing why this goal is important to achieve, or as I said in the title, “Y Do You Care?”. Take the time to dig deep, below the surface to get to the core of your “why”. It’s the reason behind the reason that is the real motivator, the thing that gets you up early to start and to stay up late to complete. Its the rocket fuel that propels you forward and gives you that rock solid focus to never give up. The “why” is your personal purpose and is connected to your core identity of who you really are. Make this the real reason to why you are achieving the goal that you set forth. Some people call it the goal of the goal and because of that, I believe that your purpose must be stated before your even set your goals.

So once you got that “what” clear, make sure the “why” is just as clear, but not just in your mind, but also in your heart!

Fun – The Secret Team Ingredient!

Smile'n Salad

Summer time still evokes feelings of fun, exploration and more fun. Even to this day, the closer we get to June, the more I want to hear the final school bell to sound and the beginning of summer vacation (aka fun time!) to begin.

This is the secret ingredient we use when we create our cooking team building for you, a fun experience that anchors you back to the time that brought your team together. Fun rips down the emotional walls that we put up; fun transports us to a whole other place; fun transforms our emotions in a heart beat, allowing us to forget what was just “stick’n in our craw!”

Fun is sometimes associate with being a kid. Well if being a kid helps me in being more relaxed, more productive and more successful in my endeavors, then slip on my Red Ball Jets (whoops, I think I just aged myself  ), dust off my Spider bike’s banana seat and let’s have some kid fun!

What’cha going to do for your kid fun?

Carmageddon!

It figures that Los Angeles,  the entertainment capital of the world, would name a major freeway project closure like the next summer movie thriller! “Carmageddon” is the latest name that’s being used to describe the 10 mile closure of Interstate 405 from I-10 to Highway 101 for this upcoming weekend of July 16th & 17th. What’s interesting is not just the unique names that are coming out of this major highway event, but how its brought the city of Los Angeles together!

That’s right, an inconvenience at best, a major cluster duck most likely has everyone talking, everyone focused and everyone coming together. I’ve heard this phenomenon before, when my son Chris was in NY during a major blackout, how people who would normally ignore each other would instead care about their neighbors. Well in a similar way, L.A. is coming together even more so than a championship win by the Lakers. They’re coming together through something that really impacts their lives, the lifeblood of Southern California, its highway system.

Because we are in the business of building relationships and maximizing your team’s potential in your business by using an experience that is common to all, eating and cooking together. It’s amazing to see the same effect large-scale that touches millions. It gives me hope that if creating a meal together, or experiencing a highway inconvenience city-wide bonds people together; then there is hope to find lasting peace in the world through our commonalities than through our differences.

So Carmageddon, as a city, we’re ready for you!

PS - In case you really need to be in another part of the city fast, I heard today that someone is offering helicopter rides for only $150 a pop!

 

The Power of Words

Many times when we are working with a group, during our conversation on effective communication, we talk about the power of words and their meaning to us as individuals. We would ask the questions, “When I say the word dog, what comes to your mind?”

The answers open you eyes to how varied people’s meanings are to a simple word such as “dog”. They have said, “cat” or “poodle” or “Lassie” or even “food” (it’s not what you’re thinking )

The point is that with the variety of answers such as that, it’s a miracle that we can string a thought together and have other people actually comprehend what we are meaning!

The point of this following video illustrates how changing the words to communicate the same thing, but in a more effective and eloquent way reaps you more rewards.

Enjoy!

The Sounds of Synergy

I came upon this video and  was mesmerized by the playing of the two cellists. I’m always looking for metaphors and examples in life to explain the concept of “synergy”. The most basic is the synergistic equation that 1+1=3 or the phrase, the whole of our team is greater than the sum of its parts.

Even though the video is titled “Dueling Cellists”, it sounds like synergy to me!

The Coach’s Coach, John Wooden

John Wooden, famous basketball coach of the 10 time NCAA champion UCLA Bruins, author, speaker, basketball Hall of Fame inductee as both a player and coach and overall great man, passed last Friday, June 4th, 2010.

I was not a former player of his or a personal friend either. In fact, I’ll even admit, I did not much like his teams growing up (sorry, I’m a Big East fan, more specifically, the Providence College Friars!). But even when I had to suffer through another missed NCAA championship to UCLA, I had to respect what they accomplished as a team. And the common link to those 10 NCAA National Championships was Coach Wooden.

Well the past 8 years, I’ve lived in the Los Angeles area and I’ve gotten to know and appreciate the local traditions and heros from the area. But no person is more uniformly admired than Coach John Wooden. He was more than a basketball coach to many young men. He was an educator first before he was just a basketball coach, and he became a mentor to many of them as well.

His quotes are famous, like, “Be quick, but don’t hurry” or “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” Or my favorite, “Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”

He has left behind a legacy and standard that we can all strive to attain. Thank you coach for your contributions. We are all better off because of you.

National Pancake Day!

I’m not usually one to follow obscure holidays named in honor of one thing or the next. But this day, National Pancake Day, you just can’t get away from it!

Without going out of my way, I’ve heard at least 5 references to this day, one on the radio, one on the web and the rest on television and oh, one reference talked about it yesterday!

Now usually a reference to obscure holidays are reserved at the end of an evening news telecast, during the “feel good” ending of the show. So after bombarding us with all the world and local negativity that we can stand for 27 1/2 minutes, the newscast writers figure that a cute story about it being, “Grandparents Day” (nothing against current grandparents ) is going to make all the icky news feeling just disappear!

But back to the pancake day stuff. What makes this obscure holiday seem to have a life of it’s own. Especially during a recovering (but still struggling) economy? What makes more than a few people reference this day of flat and fluffy, griddle cakes seem more important to talk about in the media?

My guess is once again, food, or in this case, the ultimate comfort food dominates our synaptic pathways. Especially during challenging times, we want to feel better about ourselves and about our life, something whose aroma smells of hope and possibilities. Well, this day’s solution is the humble but powerful pancake. Served in it’s many combinations, it’s ability to whisk us out of our typical day and connect us back to a time when we where young, when all we knew was hope and possibilities. Maybe that’s the reason more people today are mentioning the pancake. Why one sportscaster asked an up and coming football star, “What’s your favorite flavor of pancake?”

Or maybe, unconsciously everyone is burned out on their New Year’s resolution of eating “healthier” and they’re really only hungry and pancakes seem the perfect subconscious reference?

Either way, Happy Pancake Day to all and to all a good bite!

PS- I’m a whole grain and blueberry pancake man with 100% maple syrup!

“It’s Like Talking to the Wall!”

Friday’s emails always brings me one of my favorite newsletters call “Speakernet News”.  As you probably guessed, it’s a newsletter devoted to helping professional speakers in any way it can. 

In fact, most of the content (not counting the advertisements ) is from the readership so you know it’s been speaker specific tested.

Today, one such article was referring to “Busting the Mehrabian Myth” and if you’d like to enjoy the video that comes with it, go to:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dboA8cag1M

In essence, the Mehrabian theory refers to how we as humans take in new information. So as the theory goes, words represent only 7% of what we understand, the tonality and volume of how we say it represents 38% and the way we use our bodies and facial expressions make up the remainder of the 55% of what we understand and comprehend.

How this has been understood in the speaker/presentation community is “don’t worry about your content because they won’t hear it anyway!”

WRONG!

Can words make a mess of your message if you let it, sure thing! But you control the key to how the words are used, within what content they are used and how clearly they are presented.

As a leader (yes, you are all leaders who are reading this right now), your communication skills are always tested every time time a syllable leaves your mouth. What I’ve learned through countless training courses and years of presentation experience (yes, and some of the best learnings came from those “failed presentations”) is that the best way to teach, pass on information or just generally instruct an individual or group is to do the following:

1.  Be very clear in your head what needs to be heard.
2. Keep your message or instructions grouped in threes
3. Give clear examples, stories or metaphors that relate not to you, but to the listener.
4. Highlight important points and learnings with your tonality, volume and body language with once again remembering the circumstance and environment that you are talking in.

(Opps, I just broke my second rule!)

 

What other techniques or tricks do you use to help your listeners understand your conversation, point or presentation?