The 24 Hour Negativity Fast

This article lays out the 1st step in forging your Armor and expands on this article. If you haven't already read the article "Forging Your Armor", you may want to go back and do that first.

If you're like most men, you just sort of drift along life's current; you aren't really deliberate about how you live. Sure, maybe you pay attention to your diet, your workout schedule, your career, maybe you're even a pretty good husband and father. But how satisfied are you? Are you living a life of authentic fulfillment? Are you pursuing your passions, forging deep relationships, living a truly happy life?

Just like addition is a prerequisite for algebra, an authentic sense of self-confidence is a requirement for a truly happy life. This authentic self-confidence, which I refer to as Armor, is gained through some very specific behaviors. This article is about the most fundemental component of Armor; positivity.

Of the eight skills that build confidence, having a positive attitude is the foundation on which all other skills are built. Just like you can't grow crops in toxic soil, you can't grow leadership and happiness in a toxic soul. Positivity is also our foundation for another reason; it's the only skill of the eight that doesn't require confidence, it just builds it.

Because everything else good in life springs from a positive attitude, it deserves a deliberate effort; that's where the 24 hour negativity fast comes in. From the moment you wake up tomorrow morning until you wake up the following morning, radiate an aura of positivity. That means that you don't complain, whine or say anything negative or even neutral for the entire day. In addition, your body language is only positive; no eye-rolling, shrugging, scowling, sighing or frowning.

Your mind is going to take a little while to catch up to your actions; you are probably still going to have negative thoughts. The challenge is to catch them and kill them before you communicate them. Imagine that you have a big net; every time you have a negative thought, throw the net over it before the thought makes it out into the world in your speech or body language.

The more negative of a person you are, the more you need this and the more difficult it will be. In fact, there is a quote on the Forging Leaders "quotes" page that sums up this fundamental law "The more uncomfortable the experience, the more meaningful and important it is." Embrace this challenge!

Remember, this commitment is only for 24 hours, if you're happier as a negative person, you can always go back to your normal life the day after tomorrow.

I would love to hear how about your 24 hour fast; shoot me an email, or leave a comment on this article and let me know how it went.

Take the lead,

Jeremiah

Forging Your Armor

Every man can become the man he wishes he was; every man can become the hero in his life story. Most men fall short, not because they're weak, or bad, or stupid, or lazy; most men fall short, because they aren't deliberate, they don't have a map, and they won't stop and ask for directions.

Watch a man tackle a project that lies within his passion, like landscaping a back yard, building a deck, planning a fantasy football draft, or preparing for a hunting trip. What do you see? You see a man possessed with deliberation. He plans his project down to the smallest detail; he hatches contingency plans, back-up plans for his contingency plans. Then he executes; he pours his heart into the doing; he'll stay up late after his wife has gone to bed, he'll work through illness, through injury. Nothing can stop him from achieving his vision.

Now, watch a man work on his most important project, becoming the leader in his own life. How much time does he spend in deliberation, planning, making sure that he gives himself and his family the best chance at a satisfying and fulfilling life? How clear is he about his objectives? Does he know where to go for help when life knocks him down? Does he know how to forge deep relationships with his wife and children? Does he know how to foster true friendships with other men so that he has the support that only other men can provide?

Much of the work that I do with my coaching clients is around being deliberate in how they live their lives. One of the first ideas that I share with them is the concept of their Armor. Armor is authentic self-confidence. This Armor allows the wearer to take big risks with the knowledge that their Armor will protect him from harm. The Armored man can forgive someone who has betrayed him, he can offer genuine encouragement to a peer at work, he can initiate a deep, meaningful conversation with someone he doesn't know well. The Armored man can put themselves in vulnerable, scary situations and know that they will be OK.

In order to better illustrate what Armor is, I will describe the alternatives to Armor. Every single person on Earth has learned behaviors to keep themselves safe from harm.

The first alternative to Armor is "burrowing." Burrowers are people who just avoid risk and live entirely inside their comfort zone; after all, if they don't risk, they can't lose, right? Well, actually, if you don't risk, you lose in the worst way possible; you lose by living an ordinary life. Burrowers have dug in and withdrawn from life; they don't have any deep relationships (the biggest risk of all), they don't live in their passions. They just stay safe and sound in their burrow.

If you spend all of your time doing the same, comfortable activities, with the same, safe people; if you haven't tried new things, if you haven't failed lately, you may be a burrower.

The second alternative to Armor is "building walls". "Wallers" are people who seem to be full of confidence, who seem to tackle life head-on. They often come off as cocky, as supremely confident; but they don't let anybody close to them. Wallers have become experts at putting up walls to prevent others from really getting to know them. Most wallers do this because they're afraid of what others would think if they were just themselves. The waller may look like the Armored man from a distance, but the difference is in the details. The waller doesn't have deep friendships; he doesn't listen during a conversation, he's just waiting for his turn to talk. He takes the credit when he has a success and he assigns blame when he fails. The waller is selfish; he points out the negative in others and the positive in himself. The difference between the burrower and the waller is that the burrower doesn't fail (because he doesn't try); the waller fails, but he blames the failure on others.

If you hold grudges, if you don't offer sincere apologies when you wrong others; if you have dozens of "friends", but nobody who you can go to for support when you really need it, you may be a waller.

There are eight easily recognizable behaviors or traits that identify an Armored man:

1) He has an extremely positive attitude.

2) He's a great listener.

3) He's full of gratitude, and he shares this gratitude with others.

4) He regularly offers sincere compliments to others.

5) He regularly offers sincere encouragement to others.

6) He's quick to apologize sincerely when he hurts somebody.

7) He's quick to forgive when someone hurts him.

8) He asks for help.

Each behavior or trait on this list takes authentic self-confidence, or Armor. Each is difficult; either because it's scary or because it requires him to control his emotions and to act from his best self.

These eight traits are the road map that a man must have in order to become the leader in their life; the hero in their life story. The behaviors get more difficult and build upon themselves. Much like you must learn addition before you tackle calculus, you must start with 1) A Positive Attitude, before you can hope to be successful with 7) Forgiveness.

If you're a man who feels that there must be something more to life than chasing achievement, congratulations! You've had the realization that must occur before you can start on your path to leadership. I encourage you to start with number 1) Positive Attitude and work your way down the list.

If you would like me to help you on your journey, I would be honored. You can reach me at forgingleaders (at) gmail (dot) com or at 916.835.7186.

Take the lead,

Jeremiah

The Conversation IS the Relationship

Your relationships with other people are defined by the conversations you have with those people. This means that your best friend, the one who you can talk about anything with; your ambitions, your dreams, your marriage, the challenges you face in being a good father; he's your best friend precisely because you talk about stuff like that.

Conversely, the guy at the office who you just talk about sports or politics with, is exactly that; the guy who you chit chat with, but you would never go to for any real help or support.

Think about this for a moment. What are the deepest, most personal, most meaningful, most important conversations you have ever had? Who did you have them with? Unless you answered "therapist", you probably answered "best friend" or "wife".

Now think about ten people you know; what level of conversations do you have with each of them? Do you see the correlation between the things you discuss and the intimacy level of the relationship?

If you are like most men, you have very few "true" friends; friends who would drive to your house at 1:00am to help you bury the body. There isn't anything wrong with you, you're just not having the right conversations.

There is powerful magic in this.

Once you accept that your relationships ARE the conversations you have, you realize that you are able to have as many deep, true friendships as you want; all you have to do is have deeper, truer conversations.

The best place to start is at home. When was the last time you had a conversation with your wife in which you just listened and didn't offer her an answer? Take her on a walk, away from all the distractions of the home and ask her how she's doing; then shut-up and just listen.

The next time you're hanging out with one of your guy friends throw this one out there and see what happens "What is the most important thing we could be talking about right now?" I can't promise that a great conversation will follow, but it often does. Some of the answers I have gotten are: God, being a husband, being a father, being scared of letting someone down. When was the last time you had a sincere, thoughtful conversation with one of your guy friends about one of those topics?

Most guys around my age, 30-50, have very few true friends. I think it's because we're never taught the importance of conversation. Even if we know we should be having different conversations, we don't because it's scary as hell. What if you try to have a deep conversation but your buddy thinks its stupid, or just laughs at you?

It takes authentic self confidence, also called Armor, to put yourself out there and initiate conversations like this. When I first began having these conversations, I was scared because I wasn't sure how they would react. I can tell you that my life has gained so much richness and depth from the amazing friendships these conversations have led to. Get out there and have a REAL conversation.

Take the lead,

Jeremiah

Questions are the Answer

I got stung by bees a lot as a kid. No, not all at once; over a period of about 4 years. The thing was, I liked bees. Whenever I came across a bee at Oak Park, the park that I grew up a block away from in Santa Barbara, I would reach out my hand and let it crawl on me. The by-product of all this bee-love was over 30 stings.

Somewhere around the 30th sting, when I was 6 years old, my body decided to become allerigc. The camp counselor rushed me to the hospital and I was given a shot to pull me out of anaphylactic shock. I rode home from the hospital with my dad and something called an EpiPen. For those of you lucky enough to not need this torture implement, it's a hypodermic needle that shoots out of its casing to inject you with medicine to counter your allergic reaction.

When we pulled into our parking spot, my dad ran into the house to get something, then we were going on another errand. The last thing he said before he left me in the truck and walked towards our house; "Miah, don't touch the EpiPen". Do you care to guess what happened next?

The sound of my screaming brought my dad running back to the truck at top speed. I had accidentally injected my hand with the EpiPen.

That was the earliest in a long line of examples of me not learning from others, but needing to learn the lesson through my own experience.

Think about your own life; when have you learned your big lessons? Was it from a book you read, from the advice of a friend? Or was it from messing up really bad? If you're like most people, the most important lessons you've learned through failing. I wrote another article on Failure, check it here .

Another proof of this is your children. When does your son or daughter really remember something? When you tell them the answer or when they discover the answer? Most of the answers we get from other people is forgotten quickly, but the answers we learn ourselves stick. I've only accidentially injected myself with an Epi-pen once.

"Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime."

So, if you buy into this whole idea, what can you do with it?

Here's what I do with it; I've made a practice of not giving people answers. When someone comes to me with either a practical problem or a moral delimma, rather than tell them "you should", "you need to" or "well, I would", I ask them a questions. I listen to them carefully, then I start asking questions that will allow them to provide their own answer.

Sometimes, I already know the answer and my questions are soley for the purpose of allowing them to discover the truth on their own. Sometimes I don't know the answer and my questions help us both find our way there.

I've started working under the context of "Giving an answer robs the person of the truth." I've only been deliberate about this in the past few months and already I've seen big, positive changes in my relationships.

So, the next time someone comes to you with a problem, listen carefully, then ask.

Take the lead,

Jeremiah