Mindful Change

October 27, 2009 By Spencer Leave a Comment

Changing a habit should be so easy. We should think it and it should be done, right? Why, then is there a huge industry thriving in motivation, goal setting, and personal development?

Think about change from this perspective. Assume you are a smoker. You enjoy cigarettes and have no intention of giving it up. Along comes a message that suggest cigarettes are bad for you. We have all seen the gross commercials on television about what long-term smoking does to our bodies. It was an interesting message and you go away, light up and smoke the next cigarette. Why did that tactic (message) have no effect on you?

I would like to suggest it had no effect on you because it was not personal to you. We change things in life when we have a personal powerful why. We have a personal WIIFM or what’s in it for me.

Correlate the pain to pleasure factor.  I first heard about this listening to Anthony Robbins Personal Power program. It made sense to me and should resonate with you as well.  When we fill more pain than we can bear, that is the tipping point that helps us change. When we cross the threshold of pain vs. pleasure we decide to change. This works with smoking, or anything in life we choose to change.

So to change, I encourage you to do some soul searching. I encourage you to meditate on the pain factor of what ever you set out to change. Clear your mind and really think about what is making a situation painful. Make it hurt. If you create enough pain your mind will find the pleasure to replace that pain and change will happen.

Please visit www.walkthetalk.com and get inspired.

Filed Under: Goals, Motivation, Personal Development Tagged With: , , ,

Is Pride Holding You Back?

October 25, 2009 By Spencer Leave a Comment

What is holding you back from greatness? Let me make a bold statement and suggest it may one of the seven deadly sins that is keeping you away from living your greatness. Hanging tight to the sin of pride could be the thread that is turning you away from living the life you were meant to live.

At www.deadlysins.com the seven deadly sins are outlined as; pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed, and sloth. I encourage you to take a trip over to this website and check it out.

Pride has been defined as an excessive belief in one’s own abilities that interferes with the individual’s recognition of true inner talents. It has further been identified as vanity. Go look in the mirror and see if you see any pride getting in the way of your success.

Ask yourself honestly. Is the fear of failure holding you back from the life you were meant to live, or is it pride? If you try and fail you may have to admit to someone you were not good enough, not strong enough, and not capable. This is pride holding you back. What do you care what others think. This is your life and you were meant to live it to the fullest.

Are you afraid of success? If you succeed beyond where others have, what will they think of you? Will they talk behind your back? Will they decide not to be your friend anymore? If you are choosing to fear success because of pride you are robbing yourself of the life you were meant to live.

Stop allowing pride to take away what you deserve. Be strong enough to go for your dreams and succeed. Don’t lose sleep over what others might think about you. The only person that matters is the one standing in front of the mirror – YOU!

Filed Under: Personal Development Tagged With: ,

Personal Leadership quest for Excellence

October 22, 2009 By Spencer 1 Comment

Meyers Briggs has determined my personality style to be an ENTJ. I am an extravert or someone who loves crowds, speaking, and interaction. I do not avoid human contact or the opportunity to state my opinion. Further, I am intuitive about life and our world. This equates to me having an opinion about those topics and voicing my opinion out loud. I do, however, think deeply about the topic before I share my voice. And finally, I judge others, ideas, and like to take the counter point on any point. Debate is a strong suit for me.

The Meyers Briggs personality assessment states that there are only 16 different styles possible among the billions in our population. Within the ENTJ there are further levels of this personality style. I was pegged as the General.  I can buy that analysis. It is right on.

As a leader, I am committed to honoring what I say I will do and getting it done. I will get it done even if I need to leave debris or bodies in my path. My commitment is my word. If you need to lead a platoon of men up a hill to save a village and you need the mission to be successful, give me a call.

Knowing this as my strength, I also know this as my weakness. Too much General will wind up costing me friends, loyalties, and followers as a leader. I need to temper my dedication with more human elements. You can call this the softer side of Spence.

To temper my strength and learn to become a better leader I have set out on a mission to improve my leadership skills. This past week I took a hard look at a bad habit I have of forcing things, people, or issues. To let up on this negative skill I created some metrics for myself to track. These metrics are as follows:

1. Read “Speed of Trust”

2. Ask 10 open-ended questions

3. Force no solutions.

4. Find 2 win-win options

5. Find and say “thank you” to five people

After a week of measuring, I have found that my weakness is asking enough open-ended questions. I don’t feel I have forced much just not asked others for their input enough. This will be my laser focus over the upcoming weak.

By asking more open-ended questions and fewer forced solutions I will engage my team at a more trusting level. Moving toward a collaborative culture rather than a forceful solution based culture will help to keep and improve trust among all members of my team.

If anyone has any ideas, comments, or suggestions to help me along the leadership excellence path I welcome your comments.

Filed Under: Leadership, Personal Development Tagged With: , ,
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