Listen to this post!
 

There is a rule in the world of negotiations that anything that a person says after the words “but” or “however”, is really not the truth.  In business, it sounds like, “‘We’d really like to buy your product, however right now we’re very busy with other priorities”.

In our personal world, it could sound like:

I’d really like to exercise but, I just don’t have the time.

We’d really like to come to your party but, we have another engagement that evening (when you really don’t!)

I’d really like to get into that field of work, but it just takes so much studying.

I’d really like to meditate, but I never get any quiet time to myself.

I want to go to church, but the kids are so busy on the weekends with their sports that we can’t.

Do you ever hear yourself saying similar things?

The next time that you notice yourself coming up with one of these excuses, ask yourself the following question:  Do I really want to do this or am I creating excuses to make myself feel better because I really don’t want to?

If the answer to your question is the latter and you really don’t want to do it, stop beating yourself up and lying to yourself.  You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do.  Everything in life should be done because you feel that it would be personally beneficial to you to engage in the practice or activity.

Everything in life is a choice.  There are consequences to each of the decisions that we make.

When we were children, there were things that we had to do because a parent or teacher or coach told us that we “had to”.  Now that we’re adults, everything that we do becomes a choice.

When it’s our idea, we never argue with ourselves.  All of our ideas are brilliant!  Did you ever notice that you’re never pushing yourself into doing the activities that were your idea?

You get to choose how you spend each minute of each day. Choose to spend every moment of life doing exactly what you choose to do.  As it relates to all of the things that others think you should do that are of no value or importance to you, tell yourself that you choose not to do these things.  Choice and thought are acts of creation.  Your responsibility is to create the ideal life.

Doesn’t that feel better!  You don’t have to coerce  yourself into doing anything that’s not your idea.

You and I do have plenty of time to do the things that we consider the most important.

There are 24 hours in a day every single day.  Twenty-four hours is a very long time.  To get a feel for how long it really is, try seeing how long you can hold your breath.

“It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.” — Henry Ford: Founder, Ford Motor Company

There is a deliberate process involved when we choose to get serious about  how we’re spending our precious gift of life (time).

Step #1: Set your goals

Setting goals is the process of actively accepting responsibility for how you’d like your life to be.  It is the end of the process of blaming anyone else in your life if your life is not going the way you would like.

Most people think of goal setting as an activity that is done at then end of a calendar year or at the beginning of the new year.  How about getting out a piece of paper and writing down the things that you want to do (not have to do) starting today.  In order to get your juices flowing, here are some sample areas in which many people choose to have goals:

Family: vacations, daily or weekly family time, one-on-one time with each person

Health: daily exercise, healthy eating habits, consistent sleep

Social: events with friends, dates, community service

Financial: income to support cost of living, retirement and/or savings account, tithing

Work/Career: is it time for a new role? is it time for me to follow my passion? am I appreciated and valued?

Spiritual: prayer, meditation, reading the Word of God, attendance on a weekly basis with your faith family

Education: what would I still like to be learning? can it be accomplished via books and tapes? do I need a more formal education that includes a certificate or degree?

Step #2: Prioritize your plan

Now that the easy part is done and you’ve come up with specific things that you want to accomplish in every area that’s important to you, here is the next assignment.  Put your goals in a hierarchical order of most important to least important.  Yes, I’m asking you to decide for yourself whether your career should take priority over your health or whether your love of television or sports should take a priority over your education or faith.

If you really can’t squeeze everything you’d like to do into each day or week, you will now know what areas of your life you value more than others.  If you don’t go through this exercise, you’ll be going through life without any priority on what YOU consider to be most important.  Everything that occurs in your life will appear to be of equal importance.  Your golf clubs or car will be considered as valuable as your family, health or faith.

The result of this exercise for me was the ability to say “no” and feel good about it.  Knowing that I was not physically able to do everything that I wanted to do and everything that others were asking of me, I was able to happily and confidently decline taking on tasks and requests that were not related to my top priorities.

A very specific example of a decision that I had to make had to do with my social life. A group of my friends from church were getting together on Monday nights during football season to watch Monday Night Football. At that time, the games began at 9PM on the east coast and were not over until after midnight.  My “no excuses” time for exercising is in the morning prior to work.  Watching the football game with my friends was making it very difficult to exercise Tuesday mornings and be productive for the rest of the day.

As much as I didn’t want to hurt my friends, I told them that I was going to stop watching the games with them because it was interfering with my health goals and productivity the rest of the day.  They understood and are still my very good friends to this day.

Step #3: Allocate your time

“I have time to accomplish the activities that I consider to be most important and it’s a pleasure doing each one of them”, is an affirmation that will help you reinforce this concept.

Our time management comes from allocating time on our calendars for the things that we value most important first.  As you take on this best practice, you’ll notice that your calendar is filling up quite quickly.  You’ll also notice that you’re finding it very easy to say “no” to other requests for your time because your calendar is already blocked off with your priorities.

You either have a plan of your own or you become part of somebody else’s plan.  I choose to have my own plan.

Here is an example of what a typical weekday looks like for me:

• Wake up at about 5:15AM
• Get dressed and packed for the gym
• Meditate until about 6AM
• Prepare breakfast
• Read the Bible for 20-30 minutes while eating breakfast
• Read my affirmations for about 15 minutes
• Go to the gym from 7AM-8:30AM
• Work from 8:30-noon
• Lunch with Carolyn (my wife) for 30-60 minutes
• Work until about 5:30
• 5:30 Visit with Carolyn while she prepares dinner or prepare dinner (she teaches yoga some nights)
• 6:30 Eat dinner with Carolyn
• 7:30 Read the paper
• Enjoy a little television with Carolyn
• Continue reading a book
• 9PM Get ready for bed
• Prayer
• Review today and visualize tomorrow
• 10PM-5AM Sleep

Prior to going to sleep, I’m going to go through all the events from the day in my mind and feel tremendous gratitude for the gift of that day.  After that, I’m going to visualize in my mind the entire next day. When will I wake up?, what are my priorities?, how will I dress?, who will I be meeting with?, what special events are occurring?, how do I need to act?, what challenges do I anticipate?, if that happens, how will I respond?. Prior to going to sleep, I’ve already visualized the following day successfully accomplished in my mind.

As you mature in this process, you’ll find yourself visualizing weeks, months and years out.

Whenever you hear yourself saying “I have to…..”, remind yourself that you do not have to do anything.  Everything in your life should be “I want to…” or “I choose to…” or “I love to…”.  When you notice the words “I have to” coming out of your  mouth, ask yourself do I really “want to” do this. If you do, do it with gusto.  If you don’t want to do it, don’t do it – but accept the consequences!

Live your life intentionally by allocating your precious gift of time to the activities that you value most.

Listen to this post:
 

Ethics + Sales = Success, even when you don’t think they do.  After graduating from a state university with about a 2.5 grade point average in business (marketing), one of the jobs that was readily available to me via our placement office was in the world of sales.  Although my childhood desire was not to grow up to be a salesperson, I did grow up with a fantastic father who sold Yellow Pages advertising for his entire career.  If the sales profession was good enough for my ethical Dad, his success was absolutely good enough for me!

Very early into my inside sales job with a small high-tech start-up company, I realized that people don’t always treat salespeople very well – especially those salespeople who are making cold calls! I also realized that some companies and some managers might condone tactics and strategies that did not fit my value system.

So, how was I able to align the stereotypical salesperson persona – fast-talking, slick, insincere, unethical – with my very strong values and integrity-based, Catholic upbringing?

My initial assistance came from my first business mentor on the planet – my Dad.  He was always one of the top producing salespeople at the telephone company and he personified the exact opposite traits of the salesperson that I mentioned above. My Dad was a slow-talking, smooth, sincere, meticulous and ethical individual.  I knew that if my Dad was able to have a very long successful career in this profession by displaying those traits, I was probably going to be okay too.

The next major milestone came in the late 1980’s when I was working for a $700M high tech company based in Irvine, CA.  My new sales manager bought me a book to read that changed my life.  He gave me a small paperback sales book called, The Greatest Salesman in The World, by Og Mandino.

At that point in my life, I was not a big reader but I proceeded to crack the book to learn more about sales tactics and strategies.  Instead of entering a world of sales tactics, I found myself in the middle of an engaging story of a salesman in the Middle East. The story lead up to the finding of ancients scrolls which contained the secrets to success in sales. I quickly found out that the author – Og Mandino (named after St. Augustine) – was an unbelievably talented writer with the ability to take Christian principles and incorporate them into spellbinding stories.

The 10 secrets that were written on the scrolls were explained in great detail with each secret receiving its own dedicated chapter. The reader’s responsibility was to read one chapter, twice a day for several days to allow the information to slowly and permanently enter the mind.  Here are the 10 principles from the scrolls:

Today I begin a new life. I will greet this day with love in my heart. I will persist until I succeed. I am nature’s greatest miracle. I will live this day as if it is my last. Today I will be master of my emotions. Today I will laugh at the world. Today I will multiply my value a hundred times – How will I accomplish this? My dreams are worthless, my plans are dust, my goals are impossible. Who is of so little faith that in a moment of great disaster or heartbreak has not called to his God?

I couldn’t get enough of Og Mandino’s principles for success. After I had consumed that book, I proceed to buy every one of his books and do the same thing until I had completely digested each and every one of his concepts. In case you couldn’t tell from the list, Mandino was not creating a list to assist salespeople with their vocation – he was creating a list of attitudes and habits that are encouraged for success for every person in every vocation.

The most recent gift that I received was when I participated in sales and sales management training from Guru Ganesha Khalsa at Sandler Training. I received that training in January of 1998. Among many other things, this turban wearing, ZZ Top-bearded Guru, let me know that the most important thing that influences our success in sales is our attitude. The Sandler Training concepts that he taught me reinforced the concept that our attitudes are controlled by our feelings about ourselves – mind, body and spirit, – the company that we work for and the marketplace in which we’re selling.

The single-most important component that influences our attitude is our feeling about ourselves – mentally, spiritually andphysically.  This also happens to be the piece over which we have the most control.

Having a strong spiritual component to our lives leads to an internal peace that assists us in all that we do. It allows us to connect with other humans at a significantly deeper level.

Developing a strong, positive mind is essential in manifesting the potential that is inside of us.

Taking care of ourselves physically allows us the stamina and health to be able to live today and each day to the fullest free from disease.

That training impacted me so much that I left my high-tech sales management position at a very successful company that was growing 70% per year to purchase my very own Sandler Training franchise. I spent the next 10 years of my life letting thousands of salespeople, sales managers, sales engineers and executives around the world know that not only is it possible to be tremendously successful in sales when acting with honesty, integrity, ethics and spiritual values but, there is no better way of doing it!