The Moment Of Change By Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

Learn to recognize the counterfeit coins that may buy you just a moment of pleasure,

But then drag you for days like a broken man behind a farting camel.

-Hafiz (Ladinsky)

You have the power to reinvent yourself. The difficulty lies in the objectivity and honesty you need about a very subjective topic–yourself. You’re fairly objective about improving or upgrading things, like your car, or your stereo, or your golf clubs. Reinventing yourself requires a similar objective assessment of the most important thing of all. Your life. Buying a hybrid car, or a cutting-edge computer or communication system, or changing investment choices, or even trying out a nontraditional style of sexual relationship, are often unconscious substitutes for the inner signals urging you to change something about your life. It just seems easier to do something in the outer world. When you’re aware of inner messages about your life, there’s a far bigger payoff than any worldly thing or activity can return. You increase your options by being aware of the reasons you’re choosing what you do, but more importantly, you are able to distinguish between a moment of pleasure and a moment of quantum change. Reinventing yourself, in my book, is more than just possible, it’s a lifesaver.

For example, if you’re an ex-smoker today, the decision to be a non-smoker was preceded by thoughts about reinventing yourself. You incorporated objective data about the health dangers of smoking cigarettes and subjectively examined the things you disliked about being a smoker, which may have included a health scare. In all likelihood, you went through moments of knowing that measured maintenance is more difficult than total abstinence, to paraphrase the Greek dramatist, Aristophanes. While your mind may convince you that change is a gradual process that involves long, painful steps toward the achievement of a new you, the fact is that change, like life, takes place in moments. Years or months of thinking about giving up smoking, while the habit persists, even if gradually diminishing, were lived moment to moment as a smoker, until a breakthrough moment of becoming a non-smoker. That quantum change moment is when the reinvention of your life occurs.

Yes, you can go from being introverted and fearful to a robust risk taker in the quantum blink of an eye. Yes, you have the ability to go from pushy and arrogant to peaceful and kind. Yes, you can shift from the acquisition of wealth and power as a top priority to feeling your work has meaning and value, and enjoying your wealth and power as secondary benefits. Yes, you can be in business, or politics, or anything else for that matter, and still be the real you.

The shift that happens in moments when we reinvent our idea of how and why we’re living our life is available to all of us. I’ve had these shifts many times during my life. Here are some examples of how I’ve implemented this process.

One year ago, I made the decision to reinvent myself by removing many of the stressful factors that occupied so much of my life. The decision occurred in a moment. However, it was preceded by the objective honesty and subjective awareness that a way of life that I’d enjoyed for 30 some years was no longer fulfilling. Then, in a quiet moment of contemplation, I was transfixed by a wave of energy and a clear mental picture of what I needed to do. Closing the door on an office that had 30 years of accumulated books, clothes, manuscripts, photographs, files and furniture, and walking away from three decades of one way of life to enter a new world when I was 65 years old was a decision that happened in one quantum moment. It is still vivid, and somewhat surprising, and has been benevolent and endures.

Another example from my personal life is the day that I took my last drink of an alcoholic beverage. The day began with a surprise awakening at 4:05 A.M., 17 years ago. I awoke feeling a wave of energy encasing my body, the bedroom was filled with light, and I literally heard a voice saying that I was about to embark on a journey that involved leaving alcohol behind. That morning remains vividly in my memory. Prior to that day, I had consumed a minimum of two or three beers every evening for two decades. That quantum change has endured, with never a moment of wanting to return to being a person who enjoys alcohol.

History is full of stories of people who’ve experienced these quantum changes in many startling ways. St. Paul, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther, Florence Nightingale, Joan of Arc. These quantum moments aren’t only for heroes and well-known people. We all have access to this life-changing process. Suddenly, in a speck of time that is overwhelming in its authenticity, you know that today is the day that you are reinventing your life. Here are my suggestions for accessing all the moments of your life and implementing quantum changes.

1) Have a mind that is open to everything

2) Don’t die with your music still in you

3) Notice what you really want in your life

4) Stay inspired

5) Get back into balance

Reinventing yourself involves change. Now. And the change I am suggesting is a matter of realignment. Begin the practice of aligning your thoughts so that they are balanced with the you that you desire to be. Thoughts and behaviors that don’t balance are the items that need your expertise to balance them. Desiring a stressless tranquil life while thinking, “I can’t be peaceful with so many demands being placed on me,” is a misalignment. Instead, think something along the lines of, “It is my intention to be more peaceful and I will take the time to meditate today for 15 minutes.” This is being in balance and reinventing yourself, at the least, in the moments you’re meditating. This is how radical shifts evolve. Move into balance by aligning your inner creative energy, your thoughts, so that they match perfectly with your desires.

At one time in my life, I would spend endless hours on the phone making business decisions and planning an over-full schedule. Now I spend a minimum of 90 minutes every day doing yoga, and another hour either walking along, or swimming in, the ocean. I am at peace, my life is balanced, largely because my thoughts and behaviors are in alignment with how I desire my life to be lived. And I did it in that quantum moment I described earlier. The change occurred in the moment that a force beckoned to me to live my life in harmony with my highest desires. Always keep in mind that this force is something far greater than your ego.

You are responsible for any imbalance between what you dream your life is meant to be, and the daily habits that drain life from that dream. You’ve invented the you that you’d like to change. Now reinvent yourself with the words of the famous Danish theologian, Soren Kierkegaard, to motivate you. “The majority of men live without being thoroughly conscious that they are spiritual beings.” Then tell yourself, “With spirit, all things are possible.” Now what does that leave out?

Wayne W. Dyer, Ph.D., is the author of 29 books, has created many audio programs and videos, and has appeared on thousands of television and radio shows. His books--Manifest Your Destiny; Wisdom of the Ages; There’s a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem; and The New York Times bestsellers 10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace, The Power of Intention, and Inspiration --have all been featured as National Public Television specials.

Wayne Dyer: Reinventing Yourself

Celebrity Second Acts

Reinventing Rehab

Poll: What would you most like to change about your life?

The Two Most Important Words To Your Development - by Kent Sayre

The Two Most Important
Words To Your Development

In this article, I’m going to explain to you the two most important words to your development. Your development means achieving your goals and developing yourself in all areas of your life. You will benefit from these words by integrating them into your vocabulary and applying them.

The first word is “start”. To reach the end, you have to have a beginning. Start things up. Let me tell you something you probably already know but maybe hadn’t thought about really consciously until now. There is no perfect time to start something. So why wait? There’s no reason. Many people describe their goals as “When I…X” or “When X happens” where “X” is the condition they’re waiting on
and will continue to wait on.

Just get up and running. If you want to do something well, it’s worth doing badly at first. It’s the way we all learn. My philosophy is to just start up and go for it. When I take one step, the next step will be revealed to me. Sure, I may not know what the heck I’m doing and yet I believe in myself enough to figure it out. If I don’t know what to do, I have the second most important word to lean on, which I’ll describe later in this article. Just take one step. Promise yourself to take one small action every day.

Again, there won’t be any perfect time. Shoot, I can wait years for the stars to align, for the ocean tide to be high, for my astrological sign to be aligned with the moons of Jupiter and so on and so forth until I get the right “sign” to begin. But meanwhile, I’m burning up my most precious commodity; my time.

When you burn up your time, it’s like you’re taking the present that the Universe/God/The Great Spirit is giving you and slapping it away. And you can never get it back. My point is to just start doing something. Do it badly if you must and just say, “Hey, I’m going to find out some of the ways this won’t work and when I run out of ways it won’t work, I’m going to succeed.” It’s true. Run out of ways NOT to succeed and you’re bound for success.

Think about something you do incredibly well now. This could be at your job, at home, with your hobby, with your family, or in sports. At some point in your past, you probably weren’t as good as you are now, are you? You may have even been downright rotten. What happened? You kept at it and you got better and now you’re successful at it. See friend, this part of the article is not groundbreaking. I’m just reminding you, “Hey, remember when you didn’t do something well but now you do? Well, anything you want to do well now but aren’t so red hot at is just the same experience repeated.”

You’ve got all the resources in you to do it. This is undeniably true. You’ve been less-than-excellent in the past and now you are excellent at something. You learned one skill which means you can do it again, now. And I do mean right now! Not tomorrow, not the next day. Now, now, now, now. You get the drift of what I’m saying, don’t you?

So after you get up and running, you may run into snags. Snags are obstacles you meet on your journey to success. Still, I commend you for using the first word start” to get rolling. Now here comes the second most important word to your personal development ever. Are you ready? It is “help”. Help, to me, is a near magical word. You can summon others to help you achieve what you want.

Ask for help early and often. For whatever you want to do, achieve, or solve, there is someone or something out there who not only knows how to help you but who WANTS to help you too! They may have already handled this challenge you’re facing. Stubborn pride cost me a lot because I wouldn’t ask for help from others in the past. I thought I had to do it all alone. Meanwhile, I wasted time fumbling around while another person could have immediately helped me.

Any worthwhile pursuit will have snags along the way. So get help when you find them. Defeat the snag and move on to bigger and better things. And when you get help, pass along your expertise too to others so that everyone benefits.

There you go. ‘Start’ and ‘help’ are the two words that will put you on the path to achieving your every goal and living the life of your dreams. Congratulations. As you imagine leading your dream lifestyle, you can picture it now so clearly, and tell yourself inside how great a job you did, as you feel wonderful with this powerful sense of achievement … you can remind yourself that you did it because you got started and you asked for help along the way.

---

Kent Sayre is a worldwide persuasion expert and author of “The Ultimate Persuasion Formula” available at: www.TheUltimatePersuasionFormula.com

Furthermore, he is the author of the bestselling book “Unstoppable Confidence” endorsed by such celebrity authors as Brian Tracy, Robert Allen, and Jim Rohn.

TP’s “Top 41” Quotes

TP’s “Top 41” Quotes

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”—Eleanor Roosevelt

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”—Charles Darwin

“We may not be interested in chaos but chaos is interested in us.”—Robert Cooper, The Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty-first Century

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”—General Eric
Shinseki, retired Chief of Staff, U. S. Army

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”—Gandhi

“We eat change for breakfast!”—Harry Quadracci, founder, QuadGraphics

“If things seem under control, you’re just not going fast enough.”—Mario Andretti

“You can’t behave in a calm, rational manner. You’ve got to be out there on the lunatic fringe.”—Jack Welch, retired CEO, GE

“We have a ‘strategic’ plan. It’s called doing things.”—Herb Kelleher, founder,
Southwest Airlines

A man approached JP Morgan, held up an envelope, and said, “Sir, in my hand I hold a guaranteed formula for success, which I will gladly sell you for $25,000.” “Sir,” JP Morgan replied, “I do not know what is in the envelope, however if you show me, and I like it, I give you my word as a gentleman that I will pay you what you ask.” The man agreed to the terms, and handed over the envelope. JP Morgan opened it, and extracted a single sheet of paper. He gave it one look, a mere glance, then handed the piece of paper back to the gent. And paid him the agreed-upon $25,000.

The Paper:

1. Every morning, write a list of the things that need to be done that day.

2. Do them.

“A year from now
you may wish you
had started today.”
—Karen Lamb

Tom Peters*: Leadership is all about love:

Passion,
Enthusiasms,
Appetite for Life,
Engagement,
Great Causes & Determination to Make a Damn Difference,
Commitment to Excellence,
Shared Adventures,
Bizarre Failures,
Growth Beyond Measure,
Insatiable Appetite for Change.


As an alternative to New Year's Resolutions, Tom assembled his "Top 41" Quotes to live by in 2006. He offers them to you to adopt if you wish, also. Pick one or two, or use them all. TP's "Top 41" Quotes.

Book review: It’s Not What You Say…It’s What You Do » Slacker Manager

Book review: It’s Not What You Say…It’s What You Do

It’s Not What You Say, It’s What You Do: How Following Through at Every Level Can Make or Break Your Company by Laurence Haughton.

Wow. This is a great book—it’s immediately vaulted into that short list of books that I’ll spout off when people ask me my favorites (right up there with Block’s Flawless Consulting, Senge’s Fifth Discipline and Allen’s Getting Things Done). I’m into my third reading and I know I’ll be going back for more. Let me say up front, and with all honesty, this book deserves more than just this single review. Each chapter is so rich with good information and detail that each could have stand alone reviews themselves.

One thing I really appreciate about the book is that it’s (unintentionally) a great tie-in with David Allen’s Getting Things Done. GTD is the desktop-level approach to doing what you say you’ll do, and this book is similar but at a higher elevation. Make no mistake, there are plenty of actual “things-to-do” in It’s Not What You Say…It’s What You Do, but at some point you’re going to need to manage all of those “things-to-do” so that you’re as effective as you can be. That’s where GTD steps in. These two books would be a nice combo for just about any manager.

If I understand correctly, Haughton took a couple of years to research and write this book. It shows. There are so many great ideas in here, that I keep going back to both the book and my notes to make sure I don’t miss anything. Before I get into the meat of the review, let me just say that I actually have one gripe: I really wish there was some kind of wrap up at the end of each chapter that pulls together, in a concise way, the essence of what we’ve just been through. Or at least a mini-index of the chapter to make it easier to find those ideas. Otherwise, the execution of this book is near flawless. The organization of the book is simple: just four “building blocks” which are explained early on, then expanded within their own chapters. The beginning of each chapter makes clear what’s coming up and, of course, the follow through is right on target.

The book is organized into four building blocks:

1. Clear Direction: Having a clear direction so everyone understands where they’re headed in no uncertain terms.
2. The Right People: Matching the right people to every goal.
3. Buy-In: Getting off to a great start with plenty of buy-in.
4. Individual Initiative: Making sure everyone maintains their momentum by increasing individual initiative.

Each building block consists of three or four supporting chapters. Of course these four building blocks are elementary and unoriginal ideas, but Haughton manages to squeeze extra juice from each. The result, for me at least, is a new perspective on some older ideas, and a whole bunch of new tactics to take back to the office (insert insane cackle here). Here are a few of my favorite ideas…

Matching everyone’s agenda. This one comes from The Right People building block. The big idea here is that matching up your agenda with those of your staff is a path to success for all. What often happens, and I know this is true with me, is that we dig in and create some strategy and then roll it on down the line, expecting everyone to understand its importance. Of course that dream rarely comes true. Haughton advises the following for matching agendas:

1. Get each team member’s individual expectations via one-on-one conversations. Two earlier chapters, “Clear Expectations” and “Read Between The Lines” help with these conversations. Haughton provides a bunch of good questions to get these talks rolling.
2. Reality check by assessing what it will take to achieve their expectations and factoring in the whole team’s commitment to making targets. This takes yet more talking and more questions about what it’s worth to reach their goals. Again, Haughton provides some good starter questions, as well as an alternative exercise for those managers less comfortable with talking about personal goals with staff.
3. Put the pieces together. Some folks may need to be reassigned, some goals may need to be adjusted. Haughton lists some grim statistics on why this last piece is critical, including this gem: Forty-eight percent of employees and managers have no clear idea of the link between their daily efforts and the company’s goals.

Keep the CAVE people out of the Wow! event. This comes from the Buy-In building block. This particular insight is just a small part of a larger four-part strategy used for creating buy-in. The first of the four steps is to “Kick off your change with a “wow!” event. This just means that whatever the change is all about, get an easy win and maximize it. While you’re doing that, keep the CAVE people out of the event. CAVE means “citizens against virtually everything.” (The term was coined by Anand Sharma of TBM Consulting.) It’s probably safe to say that we all know a few CAVE people. The point here is that CAVE people will poison your wow! event, so keep them out of it. Select people who will really “get it” and allow them to have amazing success with the wow! event. This particular insight makes absolute sense to me, yet is still counter-intuitive. I tend to be a manager who doesn’t put up any walls, but I can see how keeping the naysayers out of a new project would increase the liklihood of success.

Creating a HOT team. This is also from the Buy-In building block. I’m still not sure why ‘HOT’ is always capitalized in the book, but Haughton lays out several guidelines for creating HOT teams. These mostly come from Tom Kelley of IDEO. There are three “Don’t” guidelines and four “Do” guidelines. Don’t become rule-bound; don’t be unfair; don’t be mean. The do’s: Like your people; believe in them; listen to them; make teamwork engaging; let them decide. Each of these guidelines has several paragraphs explaining them in further detail.

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p>Show more respect. This one comes from the Individual Initiative building block. There is more in this chapter than can be easily summarized, but Haughton looks at a couple of case studies to establish the idea that respect, in every direction, is good for business. One key takeaway for me was the idea that unquestioned deference to a particular leader can be a bad thing. Seems like that makes sense, but I’m often the “tech” leader in offices where I work, and so people defer to my opinions on things they view as “techy.” That’s fine, but I’ve got to be aware of the times when my leadership in a particular area might be so set in stone that others are afraid to say anything counter to my opinion. I certainly don’t actively stifle dissent, and I’ve been fortunate to work with folks who are happy to speak their minds, but I can still see how easy it would be for someone to feel uncomfortable speaking up in the face of apparently overwhelming expertise.

These few ideas barely scratch the surface of what It’s Not What You Say…It’s What You Do has to offer. One last thing I liked about the book was that each building block and each chapter seemed to piggyback well on the previous one. That’s great, but it also presents a huge challenge when faced with this huge new “to do” list of ideas and actions to take back to the office. Not sure how to deal with that yet, but I’m not complaining. There’s no question that this book helps me be a better manager, and that’s what I’m looking for.

"... Past, Present and Future. They are keys to our success." by Jason Womack

Jason Womack
We succeed when we acknowledge we work and play in different “time zones” - Past, Present and Future. They are keys to our success.

THE PAST
Looking at past successes is a great way to get enthused as well as create positive energy and motivation. In a seminar I delivered for a golf company, an instructor and former golf pro said that when the going gets tough, he goes into the trophy room of his house. He shared with the group, “I have trophies I’ve won, as well as some photos of me when I’m doing well, up on walls. Every time I see them, I remember, I did it once before, and I can do it again.” I agree with his strategy of using visual milestones to stay inspired. I personally have an area in my office with my triathlon race photos and metals hanging on the wall.

Visualizing something different from current reality is a skill you can practice, and an extremely valuable habit to create. It is different from “future fantasizing” or living out of the present. It is the process of preparation. If you have done something once, chances are high that you can repeat that performance!

THE PRESENT
A key to your success is to continually come back to where you are. There is power in the present. Change never happens in the future, it always starts now. In fact, you are practicing for change right now … or not. You will learn a lot about yourself, and the process of reaching your goals, as you look at your present situations.

An interesting way to spend your time, present moment to present moment, is to keep a “time log.” Write, in 15-minute increments, the blocks of time from morning to night-time. Then, during the day, actually fill in, for each 15-minute block of time, what you are doing. At the end of three days of this, you will have an excellent perspective of your use of your “present.” In my experience, I learn about the time I invest in high-value and low-value activities.

THE FUTURE
We all think about the future. It’s natural, exciting…and fun! Using our imagination, we image-in pictures that we want to come true. This is positive visualization.

Have you ever been known, however, to image-in pictures of things you want to avoid?

In fact, some people are more motivated to image-in negative scenarios, and tolerate negative scripts when they talk to themselves.

A way to maximize the process of “thinking about the future” is to take time, on purpose, to focus on what you want. Clearly define and visualize it. You can do this with words – actually writing on sheets of paper or note cards. You can do this with pictures – drawing or cutting photos out of magazines. You can do this audibly – by recording yourself reading motivational or inspirational quotes. I’m currently reading a book called The Mind Map Book (by Tony Buzan, with Barry Buzan), which has great insights into how this all works.

One key is to re-view (over and over and over again) those images you’re moving toward. The more you image-in what you want, you’ll begin identifying yourself as the self you already are. Use your past, acknowledge your present, and expand into your future.

Stupid Ideas Of The Past: The Open Door

I was going to write today about how un-productive it is to be constantly accessible by implementing an “open door policy”. Then I saw this thread on Davis Allen’s Getting Things Done board and realized that there are actually various kinds of open doors.

There is the door to your office or any other physical access to you, sitting at your desk. There is mail and mail notifiers, there are phones and – even worse – your Blackberry. And there is snail mail, memos and faxes being delivered to your physical inbox.

So, what’s wrong here? There is clearly nothing wrong with mails and phone calls and people dropping by your place. What is wrong, though, is the way how these intrusions keep you from doing what you intent to do at this point in time. You are getting de-focused and distracted. You allow others to change your agenda and your priorities.

Take a look at this scenario: You are sitting at your desk, working on a quarterly report that is due within hours. Your door is open and somebody from your staff pops in with a quick question. Sounds familiar? Sure does. Now, what is really happening here? First of all, those quick questions usually are minor problems that somebody other than you should be responsible to solve. But that might take time, effort and creativity. On the other hand, it is so easy to just pass the problem on to you. In a situation like that, 80 % of all managers would probably drop whatever they are currently doing and eagerly look into the problem because it makes them feel good, needed and important.

In essence, this means that these managers allow their staff to change their priorities in a split second, without even thinking about it, just because they have implemented an “open door policy”. If you are like that, how can you possibly get things done? You can not.

How can you avoid being constantly moved away from your priorities? It is actually quite easy, but it does require you to be aware of the situation and to be sensitive, because there might be real emergencies that need immediate attention and you want to be accessible for your staff, but just not at any time.

In the case of the open door, I have changed it to “this door is open when open and closed when closed”. So if you need to work on that report, close your door and let people know that they better have a very good reason to open it. It works really well for me, but requires some retraining of staff.

How about mail? I check my Lotus Notes inbox three times a day and use no mail notifier that would distract me. There is very rarely a mail message that can not wait for two or three hours. The rule for my physical inbox is that I empty it once within 24 hours, no matter what. Just make sure that the people you work with know and understand these rules and adopt to them. If you do, you set your agenda and your priorities and hardly anybody else. (Rule does not apply to my wife and my boss, of course.)

i-manage

Using Technology To Manage Myself And Others