Don't Let Them Pull You Back

Leaders are not victim to what others think

Years ago, a man by the name of Conrad Salas, who was raised in the deserts of New Mexico, was visiting Galveston, Texas. As he passed through a fish market, he saw a shallow pan of crabs outside a shopkeeper's store.

Conrad went inside and warned the shopkeeper he better get a deeper pan or the crabs would get away. The shopkeeper told him not to worry about it, explaining that whenever one crab tried to crawl out, the others would always drag it back into the pan.

Although any crab could easily have gotten out of the pan by itself, none ever did. Conrad thought that pretty much summed up his life.

From his viewpoint, he had been brought up on the wrong side of the tracks. Every time he tried to change, someone would try and pull him back saying something like, "Who do you think you are?" or "We liked the old you better."

You too, will face such crabs. Every time you risk, there will be someone trying to prevent you from changing. Many times, it is from those who care about you the most. It's not that they don't love you. It's that they are afraid of losing you by being left behind.

You will be faced with the decision of allowing yourself to be pulled back in the pan or continuing to crawl out.

Obviously, I support you on continuing to change and crawling out. The good news to that option is that, usually, you pull a few crabs out of the pan with you.

Take 15 minutes right now and take an inventory of the people you hang out with. Are they pulling you back into the status quo or encouraging you to take risks and move forward?

It doesn't mean you have to cut them out of your life, but you may want to move certain people from your inner circle to a more outer circle of influence in your life and spend less time with them.

Everyone has support groups, but we need to ask ourselves what they are supporting us in doing. Sometimes we have friends supporting us in drinking a lot or being lazy or in listening to negative talk.


TAKEAWAY!
There are people, places, and things that pull us back from our growth to keep us comfortable. Others don't want you to change, not because they don't love you, but because they are afraid for you or for themselves.


Action Step #1

Pick one person who is a friend you spend a large amount of time with that does not support you in changing.
Pick someone who lives at a higher level than you in terms of relationships, financially, spiritually, or the difference they make in the community.

Consciously reduce the time you spend with the former and increase the time you spend with the latter. It's just like breaking a habit. It's easier to replace a habit with another, better one, than to simply try to get rid of a bad one.

Action Step #2

Look around you in your professional life. Do you have people that are stuck in the old way of doing things? Look at your spiritual life. Do you have people that do not support your growth, because it scares them or threatens their power in the bureaucracy of the organization?

Do you have friends who don't want you to leave for better opportunities? Find a group or form a mastermind that will support you in your growth regardless of the consequences to them.

An Example

My wife had a friend from her early adulthood who always overspent her personal budget. Whenever they went out together, she would encourage my wife to buy things.

Roma, my wife, would get home and look at the things she bought that she really didn't want or need and feel bad.

Whenever my wife would try and bring the subject up to her friend, the other woman would get very defensive.

This friend had been a convenient friend because she was single and when I was traveling on business trips it was more awkward for my wife to mix with couples when she was alone.

Finally, my wife decided that she had to reduce the amount of time she spent with this other woman. It was uncomfortable for my wife to make new friends, but that is what she did so that she didn't have the negative pull any longer.

I experienced a similar thing in my business as we grew. In the early days, everyone had plenty of my attention, because we were few in number. As we grew larger I had to delegate and couldn't be everywhere.


Some of my leaders didn't want us to grow simply so they could have all of my attention.

We discussed the situation so they were clear that less of my time did not mean I didn't care for them as much.

This reduced some of their fear and some of them changed because they were committed to our growth, and some ended up leaving.
I kept focused on the growth.


"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds"
--Albert Einstein
via: Brian Klemmer http://www.klemmer.com/

To Push or Not to Push?

That is the Question......


--Leaders push themselves when they are winning and take the pressure off when things are not going right

Years ago, my mentor took me to the horse races at Del Mar Raceway in California. He said that this was an awareness test and asked me to watch the first race and tell him what I saw. I told him I saw a bunch of four legged animals running around in circles. Wrong answer.

He instructed me to watch the second race and tell him what I saw. I told him I saw a bunch of foolish people in the stands throwing their money away betting. "Not the answer I am looking for," he replied.

This went on for three more races. Finally he said, "In the next race, watch which horses they are whipping."

In the next race I saw that only the horses in the front half of the pack were whipped. He told me to remember that.

Most people have it backwards. When you are doing well, that's when you want to whip yourself to go faster. But most people, if they do well, reward themselves by taking the afternoon or week off.

In the military there is an interesting principle where you reinforce when you are winning. If you break through an enemy's position, that is when you send in reserves to deepen the penetration of your force.

When you are doing poorly, like the horses coming in last, don't whip yourself. Take the afternoon off. That's when most people whip themselves to work harder--when they aren't doing so well.

They have it backwards.

When you are not doing well, take time off, get your head straight and then tackle the business at hand or whatever the project is. Most people have it backwards and whip themselves at the wrong time.

TAKEAWAY!
When you are doing well, push yourself harder. When you are doing poorly, take time off to get your attitude straight.


Action Step #1

Take a moment to think of where in your life you are pushing yourself hard and getting little return. Are you working even more hours at work and making little or no more money?

Are you spending more time in a relationship but it is not getting more intimate or exciting? Are you praying exhaustively and not getting more intimate with God?

Now, find a way to take a break so that when you go back to that activity it is with a different viewpoint.


Action Step #2

Take a moment to identify where you have momentum in your success. How can you push yourself even more in that area?

An Example

When my mentor took me to the horse races, I was a marketing director for his seminars in San Diego, California. I had had tremendous success building the attendance up from nine people in a seminar when I got there to 70 people! Then things started to slide.

I pressed myself harder to try and turn it around. The marketing plan involved many volunteers.
As I pressed myself harder I became less fun or inspirational to be around so fewer volunteers helped. So, I pressed myself even harder and fewer volunteers came around.

The downward spiral had sunk to where we had only 32 people in a class. That was when my mentor stepped in to correct the belief systems that were running my behavior.

He had me take a week off in Mexico, and when I came back I was totally refreshed and the class size started to increase--even though there was one week less to build the seminar, because of my vacation.


"Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation. It is better to be alone than in bad company"
--George Wahington

By: Brian Klemmer

Why Do We Commit Against Ourselves?

People frequently seek coaching because they're stuck. For some, the need is confidence-building, for others it's behavior change or skill development. But sometimes, no matter how hard a person tries, their progress remains inexplicably stalled. The situation can be as frustrating to bosses, colleagues, and family members as it is to the individual.

Organizational psychologists Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey developed the theory of a "competing commitment" to explain what they term "personal immunity to change."1 The idea is that when people engage in behavior that thwarts their ability to achieve an outcome they genuinely want, the cause could be deeply held internal beliefs that act in opposition to the conscious desire. When these beliefs are uncovered, change is possible.

What follows is an adapted version of Kegan and Lahey's process for identifying a competing commitment: Begin by naming something that you are committed to doing, having or achieving. Next, ask yourself what you are currently doing or not doing that prevents the change from happening. Third, reflect on what your action or inaction is suggesting that you might be more committed to (this is the competing commitment). Finally, identify the assumption that supports the competing commitment.

Here are two examples of how coaching clients worked with this technique.

Sharon had been unhappy in her line of work for several years. Although she knew she wanted a career in textile design, her efforts to change fields always stalled after two of three weeks of half-hearted activity. She had also recently interviewed for two jobs in her current field (which she didn't like), and was planning to start a lengthy and expensive program to identify career interests (which she already knew).

When Sharon tried the competing commitment exercise, her answers looked like this: I am committed to working as a textile designer ...Instead of looking into what training is required, I'm applying for jobs that I know in my heart I don't want ... My bigger commitment is to my current job, where I am comfortable ... My assumption is that even if I train for design, I am not creative enough and no one will hire me.

Meantime, David had talked for over a year about finding a partner in order to expand his business and take some of the pressure of "doing everything" off himself. However, despite identifying several highly qualified candidates who he felt enthusiastic about working with, negotiations always broke down at the eleventh hour, usually over insignificant details.

David identified his competing commitment as follows: I am committed to finding the right business partner ... I refuse to concede on small requests, and blow the deal at the last minute ... My bigger commitment is to staying independent ... I assume that having a partner means I'll be answering to a boss, and won't be able to call the shots.

It can take time to identify a competing commitment and its underlying assumption, so if you try this exercise don't pressure yourself to answer all of the questions at once. After completing this process, the real work comes in changing deeply rooted assumptions, which also requires persistence and frequently the assistance of a coach or mentor.

The first step in challenging an assumption is to start noticing the times when you react based on a particular belief about yourself, other people, or situations. Then you can look at the ways in which your assumption is preventing you from getting the results you really want. See if you can figure out how it originated - people can spend their lives in obedience to false assumptions that started in childhood. Begin gathering "evidence to the contrary" that demonstrates how your assumption is not always true.

Then, design a "pilot program" to begin testing new ways of thinking or behaving. Choose no- or low-risk activities, like shadowing someone who's successful with the job or skill you want, volunteering, informational interviewing, or taking a class or two. The key is to take action and do something different. The very act of taking a step toward a meaningful goal sends a powerful message to the subconscious that you've made a commitment to achieving your goal. In my practice I've seen it happen time and time again that people who commit to action seem to magically attract the people and situations that they need to move forward.

1 "The Real Reason People Won't Change," by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, HRB Onpoint, © 2001 Harvard Business School Publishing Corp.

#1 Heartbreak In Being a GURU

I'm dead serious about the word "heartbreak." I LOVE what I do but there is a dark side.

The dark side is:

I can tell people *what* to do and show them exactly *how* to do it, but if their sense of self-worth or their belief system gets in the way, they will *always* find a way to screw it up.

Always.

They procrastinate.
They skip one vital step.
The money comes in the front door and immediately exits through the back door.
They sleep through a golden opportunity.
Or somehow or another they simply cannot get themselves to DO it.

This is heartbreaking. Because the truth is, in just 9-18 months I can provide you with a functional set of marketing skills that put you in the top 10% of all marketers.

But if your mind and emotions aren't ready to succeed, you'll still hold yourself back.

And this is compounded even more by another heartbreaking problem:

Some people have ZERO resistance to success. None whatsoever. They have granted themselves permission to succeed *regardless* of what it does to other people. They will say anything, do anything, execute anyone or destroy anything necessary to become King Of The Hill.

There's a word for these people:

"Psychopath."

Psychopaths are people whose car has an
accelerator but no brakes.

Unfortunately, there is a percentage of successful people who are literally psycho. They give us normal people even more reason to hesitate.

We normal people think: "What if I succeed and then become a psychopath? I think I'd rather stay broke than be like HIM!!!"

Even though I don't talk about belief systems a huge amount, I think they're hugely important.

For this reason I'd like to direct you to highlights of a 2-hour interview Jack Born and Bryan Todd did with PJ Eby. PJ is a mindhacker extraordinaire and I love his "engineering way" of slicing through mental cobwebs:

CLICK HERE NOW!

As quoted by Perry Marshall

Skye Rocks The Camp! VOTE

VOTE HERE! http://rockthecamp.endavomedia.com/video/13BE692F61/fall