Twitter
Facebook
RSS
What was the last thing in your life you began while you were really motivated? Was it a diet, a workout plan, a job, a relationship? What happened once your motivation started falling off? I know what used to happen to me; oops, I'd skip a day at the gym; oops, I'd cheat on my diet.
What would you tell yourself when you failed? "I've just got to get remotivated!"
If you're like most men, those short periods of remotivation resulted in short periods of success, not the long term realization of your goals. Motivation is great in the short-run, but motivation can't be relied on to achieve your long term goals.
The reason it doesn't last is that motivation is an emotional response. We get motivated when we're passionate, guilty, angry, or inspired; we get motivated by an event, New Year's resolutions, an upcoming wedding or vacation, attending a funeral. Have you ever gone to a funeral and thought to yourself "From now on, I'm going to live every day like it's my last." or at least "From now on, I'm going to appreciate my life every day." How long did that last?
The key to achieving your long-term goals, whether they be quitting cigarettes, being a loving husband and father, or making a living out of your passion for playing chess, is discipline.
The best definition I've seen for discipline is:
Discipline: remembering what it is that you want
Unlike motivation, discipline isn't emotionally inspired; because of that, discipline has staying power. A disciplined approach is much different than a motivated approach. The disciplined man knows that his motivation will wax and wane, but that his objective doesn't. He understands that there are some mornings he isn't going to "feel" like getting up early to hit the gym, but that because getting up early to hit the gym is going to get him what he wants, he'll do it anyways.
Marriages fall under the same pattern for most men; they fall in love and get married with the expectation that that same motivation will carry them through. Then, when the passion and excitement fades a bit, when their wife drives them crazy because they don't agree or see eye-to-eye on many of life's decisions, when their wives habits that used to be adorable, become irritating, they become demotivated, fall out of love, stop leading their family, and eventually get divorced.
The disciplined husband knows that he loves his wife, and that his passion for her will ebb and flow throughout their marriage. He also knows that when they are in one of those ebbs, it's only temporary and that he's truely happiest when he's being a loving husband and father. Remembering this let's the disciplined husband continue to dote on and to adore his wife even when things aren't perfect.
Where in your life is your primary drive your motivation level? Make the switch to discipline and you'll have more success in keeping long-term commitments and achieving long-term goals.
Until next time, Take the lead!
Jeremiah
Motivation vs. Discipline
Black Belt Leadership
Jujitsu, or any martial art, begins with the student learning the fundamental moves and positions upon which more complex techniques are built. As the student learns and practices those basic techniques, he becomes more proficient; his results improve. Eventually, the student masters the technique, adds it to their repertoire and begins the process all over again with more difficult, more effective moves.
Leadership is no different; the Forged Leader advances through the ranks of leadership by learning, practicing and mastering the techniques required to advance. Just as in Jujitsu, until the leader masters the fundamentals, the most advanced and effective skills will remain beyond his grasp.
Here are the skills required for Blackbelt Leadership, in order, from most basic, to most advanced.
Level 1: White Belt – Orange Belt
Positivity
Appreciating
Complimenting
Listening
Encouraging
Level 2: Green Belt – Purple Belt
Asking for help
Forgiving
Pulling
Apology
Level 3: Brown Belt – Black Belt
Allowing others to lead
Act the Opposite
Embrace Failure
Coming soon are a series of articles examining each skill, how to use it effectively and how it fits in to your leadership arsenal.
Take the lead,
Jeremiah
Orienting your Compass
When you ask anybody what they want in life, "happiness" is at least part of their answer. So if everybody can so clearly identify "happiness" as their goal, why are there so many millions of miserable people? Why are there happy people in some of the most miserable places on earth and miserable people in some of the happiest places on earth? Why do so many people chase happiness only to arrive at the opposite result?
I believe that happiness is largely a result of two things:
1)Living in alignment with your core values
2)Close relationships with other people
This article will focus on the first, living your core values.
Doesn't it make sense that if you consistently acted in a way that aligns with your core values that you would be happier? Of course it does. You would have more self-respect, more confidence, more peace of mind and more satisfaction.
The first step towards true, sustainable happiness is to identify your core values. Core values are those attributes that you hold in the highest esteem; they are the most important components of a persons makeup.
So, what are YOUR core values? If you're like most people, you've never been deliberate about identifying and writing down your core values. I call this process orienting your compass.
Just like any journey, the first step on the road to happiness is determining where you are and which direction is north. You've got to get your bearings before you can point yourself in the right direction. Later, once our compass is oriented, we will pick a destination and build our roadmap. But for now, we need that compass.
Keep in mind that when determining your core values, that you must differentiate between values, which are traits or attributes that dictate behavior, versus outcomes. As an example, determination would be the value, success would be the outcome. Positive attitude would be the value, happiness would be the outcome. Integrity and duty are the values, being trusted, or being respected are the outcomes.
If you are having trouble identifying your top three core values, you can borrow the traits of your heroes. Think of the people who you respect most in the world. These can be historical figures, people you personally know, religious leaders, or even celebrities. Write a list of the 3-5 people you respect the most. Then evaluate the list to determine which traits you like most about those people. Once you have your list of traits, ask yourself "If I could pick three of these traits to live the rest of my life by and be the happiest with my life, which three would they be?"
My core values are Duty, Integrity and Curiosity. If I live a life in which I fulfill my obligations without having to be asked, do what I say I'm going to do and approach the world eager to ask questions and learn, I would be happy with my life.
Once you narrow down your core values list down to your top three, you're ready for the next step in orienting your compass.
Write down the first of your three core values; underneath it, write three specific actions or behaviors that would support that value. Here are mine:
Duty:
1)I will clean up after myself and be responsible for my own stuff
2)I will treat others with love and kindness
3)I will be a positive influence on any environment or relationship
You can see that with each of these actions or behaviors it's easy to see if I am doing it or not, there is no gray area. It would obviously be a failure of behavior 1 if I left a mess somewhere, like trash on the floor in the movie theatre. It would also be a failure of behavior 1 if I lost my umbrella. Behavior 2 is even easier; did I come from a place of love when I interacted with somebody? If I ever ridicule or critize someone in a destructive way, I obviously failed at behavior 3.
Go ahead and write three behaviors for the second and third of your three core values.
You'll end up with a list of three core values and nine behaviors. For the next 90 days, match your actions with the values and behaviors on your list. When you get into a situation where you normally act outside of these values, you're going to have to be very deliberate about acting in this new way.
The most challenging times for me are when I have an emotional response to something. In the heat of the moment, I have to remind myself how I want to act and that being a leader in my life is more important than getting angry, irritated or scared. Then I act the opposite of how I feel.
I actually have a bracelet that has "Act the Opposite" written on it to help me remember. Do whatever you must in order to change your behavior; the rest of your life depends on it.
When I started doing this myself, I started seeing immediate changes in how I felt and in my relationships with others. Everything in my life has changed for the better, yours will too.
I am working on another article to follow up the first 90 days of living your values. In the meantime, choose your core values, write down the behaviors that support them and start living them.
Take the Lead,
Jeremiah
Failure: The Secret of Success
"Failure is the raw material from which success is forged." - Jeremiah Miller
"Are you having a breakdown or a breakthrough?" - Tim Ferriss
When was the last time in your life that you felt amazing?
When was the last time that you felt on top of the world because of a huge success?
Let's consider that success. Was it luck? Did it just happen to you? Or was is a result of your hard work, your perseverance, your overcoming challenges, your picking yourself up off the ground every time you got knocked down until you didn’t get knocked down anymore? If the success made you feel amazing, it was likely the latter.
This concept of success having more value if it was difficult to achieve has permeated the human consciousness for millennia, in fact the saying "No pain, no gain" has been with us since the mid 1600s.
People learn through repeated attempts; repeated failures. Picture a toddler taking his first steps, jerking forward unsteadily on shaky legs, then falling down, crawling to the nearest piece of furniture, pulling themselves up, and setting out across the room again.
When any of us make the decision to grow in our lives, we are that toddler. Whether it's physical growth, like running a marathon or putting on 10 lbs of muscle; intellectual growth, like learning a new language; or emotional growth, like becoming a leader, or being a better husband or father; growth and eventual success come from failure.
Think about how you learned the most important lessons in your life. Did you learn them from something that went well for you, or did you learn through failing? As a state champion wrestler, I always learned more from my losses that I did my wins. It’s been the same way in the rest of my life; I've learned to set proper expectations with business partners because of a brutal business failure; I’ve learned to keep toxic people out of my life because of failed friendships with people who added only negativity; I’ve learned to be a loving husband because of lessons i've learned in my marriage.
I owned a mortgage company from 2004-2007; my brother, David, came to work for me on a summer internship right out of college. Not only hadn’t he sold anything before, but he also didn’t know anything about the mortgage business, and to top it off he was battling anxiety disorder. His job was to make cold calls to homeowners and find someone who was interested in speaking with a loan officer for a refinance; he would then pass the call off to an experienced loan officer.
The first few weeks of his internship were extremely difficult for him. He struggled with something that plagues most salespeople, call avoidance. He had acquired an aversion to picking up the phone and making his calls each day because of getting hung up on and being told “No” all day. One night after work, he confided in me how really didn’t think he could stick with this job for the whole summer. He got told “No” at least 25 times each day and he was to the point that he was scared to pick up the phone.
I asked him what he thought his job was. He said “To call people who might want to refinance and find out if they do.” I told him that starting the next day, his job was to collect “NOs”. That each day, his goal was to come into the office, get on the phone and get told “NO” at least 50 times. By the end of the summer, he had to have collected 1000 rejections in order for his internship to be considered a success. And, I didn’t care if he found a single person to tell him “yes”. As soon as collecting rejections became the objective it stopped being scary. He also started having successes.
David got his 1000 “NOs” that summer.
Fast forward five years. David is now the number one salesperson, out of 800 in his division, in the entire Western U.S. at one of the most prestigious life insurance companies in the country. During his first year at this company, he made three times as many cold calls as the average salesperson in his office. David learned to embrace failure.
As long as you accept responsibility for your failures and you learn from them, your failures will pave your path to success.
Because failure is vital to success, failure is precious. Pay attention to your failures; learn the lessons they are there to teach you. If you don’t learn the lesson this time, the same failure will come back around again and again until you do.
Get out there and fail.
Jeremiah
Push/Pull
People are like magnets. There are two ways to influence others and get what you want; either pushing, or pulling. Pushing, or using "push energy", is when you influence others by telling them what to do. Pulling, or using "pull energy" is when you influence others through your actions and behavior.
Another way to think about it is that using push energy is when you get somebody to do something that they don’t want to do; using pull energy is when you get somebody to do something that they do want to do. The secret of pull energy is that you can use it to change people’s minds about what they do and don’t want to do.
Imagine that you want your five year-old son to clean his room. How do you get the outcome that you want? Most parents would use push energy; they would demand that he clean his room or they would threaten with a consequence if he doesn’t clean his room. Both of these methods are “pushing”.
If you wanted to use pull energy to get the same outcome, you would create an environment in which he wanted to clean his room. You could do that by creating a game out of it; by cleaning his room, he earns points towards a reward. Better yet, you have been modeling the right behavior, cleaning your room, in a positive, fun way for as long as your son could remember. Cleaning his room goes from something that he doesn’t want to do, to something he does want to do.
Take a minute and think about how you interact with others and how you get what you want. Do you spend most of your time pushing or pulling? The most effective way to get others to behave the way you want them to is to model that behavior, consistently, and in a positive manner.
In your marriage or relationship, the best way to get the physical affection that you want is to pull it. How do you do this? By taking the time to look and act attractive to her; by spending time exercising and by eating well; by paying attention to your personal grooming and how you smell; by making her feel special and paying attention to her. You get what you want by acting in a way that attracts her to you. Simple right? It is simple, and it is ignored by many husbands and boyfriends.
In your job, the best way to get the outcomes that you want is to pull them. You can read six things you can do to become a leader and get what you want at work here.
With your friends, your kids, even your adversaries, using pull energy will get you what you want. There are however a couple of challenges that you must overcome in order to become a successful “puller”.
First, you must determine what it is that you want. Many of us aren’t this deliberate; most of us haven’t spent the time to figure out the exact outcomes we are looking for. Second, you must act in a way that attracts or pulls those outcomes to you. For example, if you want your wife or girlfriend to get in better shape and lose a few pounds, you would start exercising and eating better yourself. Focus on your own behavior; her behavior will follow.
Here is the one thing you can start doing today to put pull energy to work for you. This exercise is focused on improving your marriage/relationship, but can be applied to any situation. There are two steps to this exercise. For many people, this really tough; don’t get down on yourself if you lapse into old behavior; just acknowledge it and jump right back into the exercise.
Step 1: Write down the behaviors and attributes that make your wife/girlfriend most attractive to you. Also, write down what you hate or what really turns you off.
Step 2: Start behaving the way that would attract you and cut out all of the turn-off behaviors.
As an example, I love it when my wife comes home from work in a good mood. I am really attracted to my wife when she is smiling, laughing and having fun. It feels great when she really listens to me. It makes me feel special when she wants to spend time engaged with me and taking care of me.
So, with those behaviors identified as things that attract me to my wife, I start doing them. Regardless of how good or crappy my day was, I need to be in a good mood when I come home. I need to have fun with her, smile and laugh with her, I need to really listen to her when she is telling me about her day or sharing a story. I need to spend time with her, doing what she wants and I need to make her feel taken care of.
Because I am doing these things consistently, I start seeing these behaviors coming right back at me. Because I am acting in a way that attracts/pulls her to me, she starts acting in a way that pulls me to her; win/win!
Taking these two steps can change your marriage and your life for the better. You will struggle with this, AND, it is absolutely worth it. Get started today; let me know how it goes.
Take the lead,
Jeremiah
Leadership is Not a Title
I was at work about a week ago and one of my co-workers, Lea, brought her timecard for me to sign. My office mate and I must have been talking about leadership, because as I handed back her timecard, Lea said, with a half-hearted smile "I remember when I was a leader." She was just trying to be funny, but as she said it, the weight of the statement hit her. She was referencing that at her previous company, she was much higher up the org. chart and had much more responsibility.
I didn't say anything in the moment, but her comment really effected me. I had been working with Lea for about a year and she brought so much to the team. She was smart, she took initiave, she was a good communicator. I always looked forward to hearing what she had to say about work; Lea had all the makings of a leader. In fact, she had been a leader, in action and in title, at her previous company. At this new job, she still retained all of the skills of a leader, she just didn't have the confidence; the problem was that she didn't see herself as a leader.
The next morning, I stopped by her desk to chat. We talked for a bit, then I reminded her that leadership wasn't a title; that any person in a company can be a leader. I told her that leaders self-identify by acting like leaders; I thought of her as a leader and she regularly inspired me to do better work and to work harder. She immediately got the point, in fact she had probably been on the other end of this conversation many times.
Leadership is not a title; leadership is behavior. Regardless of what title you have on your business card, or if you don't even have a business card, you can become a leader in your organization. Here are 6 things you can start doing today to become a leader at your work.
1. Do your job well - You've got to cover the basics before you will start to feel like, or be treated like a leader. Also, if you aren't doing well within your job role, you'll know it and that knowledge will prevent you from having the confidence you need to be a leader.
2. Take an interest in your co-workers - Spend 10-15 minutes each day getting to know the people you work with. First, identify the people who are leaders (remember, titles don't matter) and find out what their interests are, do they have kids, etc. It is a powerful thing to be in relationship with many people in various parts of your company.
3. Make new employees feel welcome - Most organizations don't do a very good job of making new people feel welcomed; that leaves a great gap for you to fill. When a new employee starts, go say "hi" on their first day and let them know if they need any help finding their way around, you'd love to help.
4. Be prepared for meetings - Meetings are your chance to "show off" your ideas and your hard work. Spend enough time prior to a meeting to make sure that you are ready to be an idea leader in that meeting.
5. Give compliments - Start by complimenting 3 people each day; eye contact and sincerity are key here. Find a real reason to compliment, i.e. "I really appreciate all the work you put in on this project", or "You've got some great ideas about how to meet the deadline" Chances are, there are people doing good, underappreciated work at your company; find them and let them know how valuable they are.
6. Ask for help/advice - Nothing is a greater compliment, or makes people feel more valued that when you go to them for help or advice. Most of us have at least half a dozen things that we are struggling with at work right now. Pick one or two and go ask someone for their advice.
6.1. *Advanced Leadership Tip* Ask advice from someone who you don't have a good relationship with. If you go to someone who you are really competitive with or who may be intimitated by you or see you as a rival and ask them for advice, you will start to see big, positive changes in your relationship.
Armor and Sword
The armor, worn by the knight, finds a parallel in the internal armor of the leader. Through acts of leadership, a leader develops a layer of confidence, of self-respect and of self-love that protects them from harm. It's this layer of armor that allows the leader to extend themselves outside of their comfort zone and to reach out to others in a very "authentic" way. This armor lets a leader risk looking foolish, or failing without taking any permenant damage.
The sword, wielded by the knight, is equivillant to the acts of leadership displayed by the leader. Just as the sword is an extension of the warrior, his actions are an extension of the leader. It is through the sword that a warrior inflicts their will on the world, it is through their behavior and actions that a leader inflicts his.
The relationship of the armor and the sword is an illustration of the Leadership Paradox. "Until a man is armored, he won't risk wielding his sword; but until he carries his sword into battle, he won't develop his armor."
The confidence, self-respect and self-love that a man needs to display true acts of leadership are only developed through acts of leadership. Here is the secret to breaking through the Leadership Paradox; act as if you were confident even though you aren't. Act as if you were brave, even though you don't feel brave. It is through these actions, when you feel the opposite, that you will start to build your armor.
Here is the Credo of the Forged Leader:
I will act confident in the face of doubt
I will act joyful in the face of sorrow
I will act brave in the face of fear
I will outwork adversity
I will own my life
In doing so, I become a leader
So, get out there and act the opposite; let me know how it goes.
Take the lead,
Jeremiah