A Simple Way You Can Create a Positive Mindset by Exchanging One Simple Word for Another

"Getting to Have what you Need is much better than
Having to Get what you Want.”
Don E. Smith

I often encounter articles extolling me to have “An Attitude of Gratitude.” Perhaps you do as well.

Gratitude is a powerful life-force. It is the verbal equivalent of chicken soup. If you use it in your life, it cannot hurt. I cannot think of a single instance in my life when someone expressed their gratitude to me and it did not have a positive effect, and vice versa. Gratitude is what we share with others when we are pleased by what they have done. You can convey your gratitude to someone for a job well done, a favor performed, or steadfast support of what matters to you. But, I’d like to challenge the habit of having “An Attitude of Gratitude” when we speak to ourselves.

The practice of positive self-talk is a critical element in any success strategy. If you tell yourself you are grateful for something you have done, acquired or achieved you are basically thanking yourself for doing something for yourself. I call this Appreciation because it recognizes your unique value.

Throughout my coaching practice, I have used a simple word switch technique to help my clients make a shift from Gratitude to Appreciation. By simply exchanging two words, “Have” and “Get” they have been able to eliminate stress and anxiety while increasing their energy and enthusiasm for leading and speaking.

While Gratitude and Appreciation are closely aligned they can be distinguished by how they align with your Wants & Needs.

THE 411 ON WANTS AND NEEDS

Back in 1969, The Rolling Stones shared with us this highly enlightened piece of philosophy:

“You can't always get what you want.
But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.”

There is so much wisdom in this line. I only wish I understood it’s value when I first heard it. To complicate matters even more, it’s highly unusual for you to have what you want until you get what you need. It’s even harder to keep it.

Every coaching relationship I have, whether for leadership or speaking, begins with an assessment of three things: 1) what does the client want to achieve, 2) what current assets and resources does the client currently have, and 3) what does the client need to get in order to fill the gap between the two.

Every person who has taken a class or has a passing interest in psychology knows about Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. In its most simple view, it tells us that you cannot rise to the level above until you get what is needed in the level you currently occupy.

In terms of priorities, Needs always trumps Wants. The less you need to get, the easier it is to have what you want.

Wants are Haves and Needs are Gets.

“I want to have a vacation in the Caribbean, but I need to get more money and time to take it.”

THE BURDEN OF HAVING

Believe it or not, Having (wanting) is part of our Gratitude mindset. We are grateful for the things we have. If someone gives you a gift, you now “have” it and you must show your gratitude to them for giving it to you. Because they don’t “have” to give it to you, the burden is on you to make sure they know you are thankful. Gifts come with the responsibility to show how grateful you are for the gift by using it and taking care of it.

There is an old joke that goes like this. A mother asks her son, “What do you want for your birthday?” The young man says, “I want a new tie Ma.” On the day of his birthday his mother gives her son not one, but two ties as a present. The next day he comes downstairs for breakfast wearing one of the ties. His mother looks him over quizzically and then asks him, “What’s the matter… you didn’t like the other tie?”

Want to Have to Responsibility, I couldn’t have said it better.

Think of all of the things you have wanted that you know have. Do these “haves” tend to weigh you down. You want to own a house, but you have to maintain it. You want a job to help pay the mortgage, but you have to work it.

THE BLESSING OF GETTING

Let’s play my little word switching game. Here are a series of responsibilities. When you read them, can you feel them weighing you down?

I have to pay my mortgage.
I have to paint my house.
I have pick up my kids.
I have pick up my cleaning.
I have to work late.
I have to call my mom.

Now let’s switch the word Get for the word Have in each of these sentences.

I get to pay my mortgage.
I get to paint my house.
I get pick up my kids.
I get pick up my cleaning.
I get to work late.
I get to call my mom.

As you read each of these statements, do they make you feel more appreciative of the things in your life? Appreciation is a positive mindset that celebrates Opportunity. You may not like your lousy job with your over-bearing, clueless boss, but at least you get to work.

The formulas looks like this:

(Want + Have) * Gratitude = Responsibility
(Need + Get) * Appreciation = Opportunity

GETTING TO LEAD & SPEAK

I am always amused when someone tells me they have to give a speech, run a meeting, or address an industry gathering. The last time I looked, I don’t remember any of these things being done under threat of physical harm.

Speaking and leading are getting things. They are unique Opportunities, ripe with potential and unlimited possibility. They should be embraced with wide open arms, abundant enthusiasm, and focused intention. They are special things to be fully appreciated upon both receiving and completing. Perhaps more people would step up to seize theses unique moments if they could make the shift from having a daunting responsibility to getting an unbridled opportunity.

The next time you feel you have to do something because you feel a responsibility to do it, practice some positive self-talk and switch the word get for have. It will help you eliminate stress and anxiety while increasing your energy and enthusiasm. You will be better positioned to seize the opportunity before you with full appreciation for the reward it brings as both a leader and speaker. When you do, you will see that “Getting to Have what you Need is much better than Having to Get what you Want.”

I am delighted that I get to share this blog with you and I am grateful for your support. Remember, you don’t have to leave a comment on this post or suggestions in the comments section below, but you get to do so with my sincere gratitude. As always, please feel free to share this post with a friend or colleague.

Bringing Positivity to Everything,
The Brain Tamer

Why the sheer brilliance of using a deep conversation to create a high-value relationship is utterly priceless.

"Deep conversations with the right people are priceless."
Anonymous

As of late, the art of conversation has been taking a beating. We all know it and, most importantly, we all see it. People still meet for lunch or dinner, but they don’t talk much to each other. Instead, they just immerse themselves in technology, only occasionally sharing a tweet or text. It’s all very surface level and hardly ever goes deeply into what really matters. While they are developing relationships, many of these people are missing out on the priceless value deeper conversation offers.

THE ART OF THE PRICELESS

For many years, I have been coaching my leadership and speaking clients to get out of their ivory tower and talk to their people. If all you know about a person is what is on their resumé, you “don’t know nothin’” about them. The same thing goes for colleagues as well. I once worked at a communications agency where we were prohibited from talking to each other except as it related to work.

A communications agency!

Hard to believe? Not really.

In many corporate circles, conversation is considered a waste of time. Idle chatter. The devil’s playground.

But, research has found that practicing the art of conversation is a sound business strategy. Even without the research, having deep conversations with clients, colleagues and audiences is a fundamentally sound behavior. After all, when you take a business and separate the processes and product from the enterprise what you have left are the people that work there. The same people that will spend endless hours pouring their souls into a product or service can hardly be bothered to explore and discover what matters most in their professional, public, and personal lives.

For many leaders, conversations may appear to be an unnecessary, costly expense. But what they are destined to learn when building a high-functioning team, is that deep conversations between the players is critical. This may not be news to some, but it is certainly a revelation on the state of human nature to many. What some leaders and speakers may view as a costly extravagance is actually a priceless experience.

Recently, Joe Maddon, World Series winning manager of the Chicago Cubs, has begun taking to dinner players who may be struggling or underperforming. It is his belief that getting to know the player better through deep conversations is a critical part of his job. He knows there is a postive benefit when the player knows his manager has concern for more than what happens between the foul lines. Maddon is it in for the long game, because winning is the result of lots of small wins collected over time. He knows winning in life has a direct correlation to winning on the field. He sees a manager’s role as not just managing how a team plays but managing the people who play on the team as well.

Deep conversations are the very foundation of a strong relationship. To build a strong lasting relationship all parties have to be invested in the process. Or, as our giraffes in the photo accompanying this blog demonstrate, sometimes you have to be willing to stick your neck out to get results. To build a strong relationship through deep conversations you must be willing to give details and disclosures about yourself (company) as well as receive the same in return from the other side of the relationship. Deep conversations really are priceless.

THE RELATIONSHIP DEVELOPMENT CYCLE

A while back, I developed The Relationship Development Cycle, a model for helping all of my clients learn how they could build stronger relationships. Stronger relationships with their clients, teams, and audiences. Through the use of this model, my clients are able to deepen the relationships they have with themselves (as leaders and speakers) and with others in the course of doing business, enhancing their communities, and enriching their personal and family lives.

The Relationship Development Cycle has five stages (Desire, Exploration, Discovery, Negotiation and Acceptance) that continuously revolve around a central hub (Trust) for stability. The engagement of this model can help anyone develop a deeper understanding and relationship with any person, place or thing. You can apply it to a skillset or a dataset. It works the same so long as the first stage (Desire) is present in the relationship. Without Desire, all relationships crumble through entropy and eventually cease to exist. It is one reason we tend to lose friendships over time. Without the Desire to maintain the relationship, it has a natural tendency to falter.

The hub of Trust acts to align the relationship based on the truthfulness of the information exchanged throughout the relationship.

If (when engaging this model to develop a deeper personal relationship with yourself about a skill, emotion or experience) you cannot maintain complete honesty, your self-relationship will spin out of alignment due to an imbalance of honest information. Since we often “lie” to ourselves as a defense mechanism many of us don’t often have the best relationships with ourselves. Don’t you deserve better?

You are one of the right people. Have a deep conversation with yourself.

The ability to build a strong relationship is not a “just add water” activity. It takes time, sincerity, honesty, creativity, and bravery to expose yourself willingly to another person (including yourself). For western thinkers it requires the ability to allow yourself time for reflection. Something the western mind tends to struggle with grasping.

In a recent commencement address to his daughter’s graduations class, Chief Justice John Roberts urged the graduates to “to stay involved with yourself." He imparted to them the following sentiment, "My advice is, when you get to college, to set a little time aside each day to think about things instead of simply acquiring more information. Do not read more, do not research more, do not take notes. Put aside books, papers, computers, telephones. Sit, perhaps just for a half hour, and think about what you're learning."

SOUND BUSINESS THINKING

If your goal is to build better work groups with higher levels of performance and reliability, I can recommend no better way than to practice The Relationship Development Cycle. Challenge all members of your organization to learn more about who they are, what they want and what they need from the work they do by engaging this model between themselves. Once you learn what people dream to achieve, you will see how you can help them fuel that desire.

For leaders and speakers, The Relationship Development Cycle is critical to developing the deep thought platforms you seek to use when communicating concepts and processes to your audience. By engaging The Relationship Development Cycle you’ll learn to stretch your ability for self-examination, strengthen your thinking muscle, and overcome the tendency to settle for the easy answers to tough questions. Remember, your value to individuals and organizations rest solely on the uniqueness of your vision and your ability to effectively articulate that vision with authority, brevity and clarity.

Click this link for a free copy of my one-page document about The Relationship Development Cycle and feel free to share it with colleagues, friends and partners. Most importantly, share The Relationship Development Cycle with yourself. Start today to begin building a strong relationship with yourself on a host of topics through deep intrapersonal conversations. You’ll soon see the most amazing transformation begin to happen when you stick your neck out just a little.

While you’re at it, stick your neck out a little and please share your comments on this post or suggestions in the comments section below. As always, please feel free to share this post with a friend or colleague.

Bringing Positivity to Everything,
The Brain Tamer

If a problem is an opportunity you've yet to solve, then a mistake is just a lesson you've yet to learn.

99% of all disappointments in life are the result of misaligned expectations.

OK, that’s a pretty big claim. But I think if you mull it over you’ll find it to be true more often than not. Nowhere is this more evident in the falsely laid expectation organizations tend to have regarding the consistency of human performance.

Let’s face it, humans are not perfect. We make mistakes. Some days a few, other days too many to reckon. But, it is not the mistakes that cause either short or long-term harm. The deepest scars are left by our failure to profit from the experience by making the appropriate changes to our thinking and process.

Getting Better by Mistake

“To err is human, to forgive divine.” (from “An Essay on Criticism,” by Alexander Pope.) But to not learn from your mistakes is a diabolical shame. More importantly, it is a waste of your potential. And, while “God may help those who help themselves,” you’re pretty much on your own if you can’t figure out how to get better by mistake.

Getting better by mistake is a concept detailed in Alina Tugend’s book, Better by Mistake. The subtitle of the book is, “The Unexpected Benefits of Being Wrong.” So many good things happen when you take risks. Especially if the risks are predicated on your willingness to accept that you might not reach your intended goal, but you will learn from the process. By the way, sometimes the results of a “mistake” can be more profitable than your original goal.

Take Post-it Notes. 3M did, and they’ve never regretted it. At 3M there is a massive culture encouraging employees to explore with plenty of allowance for mistakes. Here’s what happened in 1968 at 3M.

No one set out to invent sticky notes. Instead Dr. Spencer Silver, a chemist at 3M Company, invented a unique, low-tack adhesive that would stick to things but also could be repositioned multiple times. He was trying to invent a super-strong adhesive, but he came up with a super-weak one instead. What an incredible way to get “better by mistake”!

Every Mistake is a Lesson

When the result of an effort ends short of the goal we humans tend to analyze that result. We’re searching for an answer. Not to what went right, but what went wrong. Often the data reveals a mistake as the culprit. A mistake in judgement, estimation, calculation, intensity, application, attitude, etc.

Albert Einstein is most often credited with having said, “The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result.” Guess what? He never did. But, despite Einstein’s vehement protest to the contrary, people just keep attributing this quote to him. This is ironic. While a string of intelligent people collectively continuing to make the same mistake over and over again, they are failing to learn from their mistake of their ways. They are destined to exist in this insanity loop doomed to repeat their mistake due to popular misconception and perhaps intellectual laziness. They are blind to their own mistake. Perhaps this is the real definition of insanity, “The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and not learn what went wrong from the mistake we are making.”

So many people misattribute quotes, there are enough to fill a book I have in my library by Paul F. Boller, Jr. and John George titled They Never Said It. And, Einstein is not even in the book!

Mastering the Mechanics of Mistakes

Since mistakes are inevitable, it makes a lot of sense to plan for them. In the science the culture is to detail every step of an experiment with two thoughts in mind. One, is have precise data in order to replicate the result should it be positive. The other, should the result not be positive, is to not replicate the result by varying a step or ingredient.

When you engage with people it makes great sense to expect less than perfection from them. It is extremely rare when a less than perfect being can create something of perfection. No matter how hard we try, everything we create has a seam on it. And that’s OK. We’re willing to live with that because we accept that. In fact, we find a comfort in the divine perfection of imperfection. There are even places where creating a near-perfect seam is rewarded. (Think tailoring.)

In her book, Ms. Tugend tackles the myth that “Perfectionists make better workers.” Her study finds that many perfectionists fear challenging tasks, take fewer risks and are less creative than non-perfectionists. One reason she offers may be that perfectionists so dread receiving feedback they don’t develop the same creative risk-taking skills as non-perfectionists.

My Advice

My advice is simple. Embrace the experience. Prepare with the maximum of intention and preparation. Allow others to provide insights, feedback and support. Encourage yourself and others to grow through measured risk-taking and learn from the incremental mistakes that happen along the way. Assess what you knew before and what you’ve learned after the experience. Analyze the gap between them and then get better by mistake. Learn from the lessons of the adventure.

PS

If you’d like to know where the “Einstein” quote may have originated, quote investigators offer this tidbit. The famous quote can be found in Rita Mae Brown’s 1983 novel Sudden Death. In the novel the main character, Jane Fulton, is a critical sports writer who contends “Modern professional sports rewards players for function instead of character.” Finally, after following the lives and careers of the players, and the game itself, she concludes, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again but expecting different results.” This may not settle the origination argument, but it gets us closer to closing the mistake gap.

Also, in 1983 Samuel Beckett, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, offered a counterpoint perspective in his work “Worstward Ho”: “All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

Perhaps the best lesson we can learn that will help us get better by mistake is to “fail better” with each attempt.

Please feel free to share this post with a friend or colleague. As always, share your comments on this post or suggestions in the comments section below.

Bringing Positivity to Everything,
The Brain Tamer

How to achieve success with the genius of “The Three Principles”.

In most crimes, the solution rests on three things; means, motive and opportunity. There is no greater mystery than the unfolding of your life. And just like a good mystery, it also centers itself around means, motive and opportunity. Every human being who has ever desired to change the future, improve their skills, or build their self-esteem has confronted these three things by engaging the “The Three Principles of Success”.

The Three Principles of Success

Have you ever watched an infant begin to take its first steps?

If you have, you’ve probably noticed how quickly they get back up after they have fallen? That’s because, whether they know it or not, they are acting on their encoded secret plan to achieve success.

Do you want to know what the secret is?

It’s “The Three Principles of Success”.

The Three Principles are:

1. The Principle of Purpose

2. The Principle of Passion and

3. The Principle of Persistency

Defining Your Purpose

Perhaps the most common question people ask is, “What is my Purpose in life?”

In order to answer that question, it is necessary to answer these questions first, “What do I Want?”, “What do I Have?”, and “What do I Need?”.

A Want or a Need are the objective goals that compel you to seek and begin change in your life. Wants and Needs are assessment tools that help you determine the abundance and priority of What you have as a means to your end.

Defining your Purpose is first step in solving your life’s mystery. A Purpose is a What, a means. Purpose along with its cousin Passion create the vision of the destination you seek to achieve. Your Purpose is personal. It is impossible to succeed at achieving someone else’s Purpose. You cannot and will not succeed at it unless you make it your own unwavering Purpose.

It might take you time to clearly define the Purpose of your life. But be careful. Many people often define Purpose through short term thinking.

“I need to make enough money to take a vacation.”

Making money is a means to an end, but not the Purpose. The Purpose is the end, the vacation. The Purpose is the value exchange you will receive from the vacation you will take. The scope of your Purpose might change as you expand the range of your vision. A weekend at the shore may be immediately achievable but sailing around the world may take a little more planning. Both are clearly achievable goals, requiring varying degrees of unwavering Purpose.

Defining your Purpose is your first step in achieving a desired success. Take some time to flesh it out. Allow it to mature. Study it. Question it. Investigate it. If, after all of your probing research is done, you still feel the same burning Purpose and Passion for the end result, it is rightfully yours to own and achieve.

Discovering Your Passion

Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) is noted for saying, “The two most important days of your life are the day you are born and the day you figure out why.”

Your passion is your “why”.

Passion addresses the “Why” or “Motive” of your crime.

Your Passion is as unique to you as your fingerprints. No two passions are alike.

But, understand this one basic rule, “You cannot succeed at someone else’s passion.”

No matter what desires others may have for you, what dreams they hold and hopes they desire, They are not yours, unless to totally intend to make them so.

Think deeply about your Passion. Does it truly answer your deepest “Why”?

Designing Your Persistency

Developing Persistency requires continual “gut-checking”. Intestinal fortitude will tell you if you have a stomach for what you may have to swallow on the journey to your destination. I call this developing a “Capacity for Tenacity”.

Running a marathon requires more than just showing up for the starting gun. Hour upon hour of training through all types of weather and terrain is required. Alterations to diet, conditioning, sleep, communal time, etc. all fall victim to the desires of the long-distance runner. Being a “long-distance” runner is a metaphor for whatever desire you pursue. It will take time, energy, talent and treasure to reach your goal. Getting there requires tenacity, an unyielding Persistence.

But what happens when you become drained, depleted of all resources, and run out of gas?

What happens when you are at the end of your rope?

What to Do When You’re at the End of Your R.O.P.E.

Get more R.O.P.E.!

When you hit a “wall” of resistance, that is the time to step back, assess your progress and dig in with unyielding Persistence. Access your R.O.P.E.

R.O.P.E. is your Reserve Of Persistent Energy. Persistent Energy is your resolution to succeed. No matter how much someone may want something for you, they cannot do it for you. If they do, it is not yours, it is theirs. You may have it, use it, and abuse it. But, you will never truly own it. It will always be a gift replete with all of the encumbrances of a gift including the gratitude and responsibility associated with accepting it.

If you want to own your achievements, R.O.P.E. is a controllable way to get there.

The Four Horsemen of Failure

Distractions, Obstacles, Limitations, and Entropy. These are the “Four Horsemen of Failure”.

Very often, when beginning on a quest, you find yourself facing a daunting journey. Why not? If it were easy everybody would be doing it.

Let’s say you need a paper clip. You have two choices. Make one or buy one. Making a paper clip and buying a paper clip are two totally different experiences. One is possible given degrees of application in time, talent and money. The other is simply a shopping task. Or a quick trip to the next cubicle. But let’s suppose for a moment that you live in a pre-paper clip world. Would you have enough tenacity to bring it all together?

Well, we all live in a “pre” something world. If we don’t have it, haven’t done it, or haven’t seen it, it is all imagined. But, you can plot the course before you “set sail” on your journey by designing a set of unbreakable Persistency that will enable you to reach your destination.

Persistence is the “firm or obstinate continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition”. We sometimes call this “single-mindedness” or “extreme focus”. There is nothing wrong with having this behavioral trait. But, like all good things in life, it must find its place in the life-balance continuum.

This Persistency will make up your “Won’t Power.” Your Persistency will include promises that you are not willing to break. If you do they have a considerable ability to undermine your success. As a start, let your unbreakable Persistency address the Four Horsemen of Failure.

Distractions. Design a set of promises that specifically address the circumstance under which you will allow yourself to be distracted from your goal. Accept these as being OK, and everything else as forbidden.

Obstacles. Make a list of the obstacles you see on your journey and design promises with strategies for how you will confront and surmount these impediments to progress. Don’t back down. Be firm. Have your own back.

Limitations. These are the things you need to achieve your goal that you do not currently have. Design promises that with set you on a path toward acquiring the things you need to succeed. Realize they may not be immediately acquirable but certainly attainable given time, talent and treasure.

Entropy. No matter how much energy you have at the start of your journey, you will continually need ever increasing amounts of energy to stay the course until you reach your goal. This is not your fault. This is the Universe at work. Entropy is the universal law that says everything has a tendency towards deterioration. Gravity wins. Friction slows you down. Design some promises that will help you get tough when the going gets rough.

There is genius and simple wisdom in this practice. If you build the palace of your desires on the Three Principles of Success you will find is has footing on a solid, proven base of beliefs, behaviors, and shared genius of countless successful people.

Please feel free to share this post with a friend or colleague. As always, share your comments on this post or suggestions in the comments section below.

Bringing Positivity to Everything,
The Brain Tamer

Do you know how to think about success?

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
Winston Churchill

When you were a child, I bet you learned more about success than you remember as an adult. 

I know I did. I guess it’s kind of the reverse on the old saying, “If I only knew then what I know now.” Because (and follow me here) when we are small, each and every advance we make in learning a skill from walking to tying a shoe to speaking to hitting a ball or braiding one’s hair is filled with the rudimentary knowledge required for all of our future successes.

If I Only Know Now What I Knew Then

The picture of the ball and jacks accompanying this article is a metaphor for a way we should all think about our pursuit of success. I can still remember the first time I tried to play this “simple” game. Oh, the frustration! My tiny hands could either hold four jacks alone or the ball and two jacks. But, not four jacks and the ball. I would play for hours never getting past four. But I never gave up. And gradually, with enthusiastic persistence and application I made it to five and the ball, and then six and the ball. I can't recall if I ever managed to get all of the jacks and the ball, before I outgrew the game, but I know I never quit playing while it mattered.

And that is the biggest lesson about success we learn when we are young. When being successful at something really matters, “Never Quit!”

The Brotherhood of Success and Failure

As adults, we tend to approach tasks and goals in a finite space, usually allowing for one of two outcomes – Success or Failure. What a universe to live in! Who made up that rule?

Sure, this outcome relationship works great in a laboratory. But only if you can control all of the variables. Usually this requires vast amounts of time and money. And still it is no guarantee of Success. In fact, Failure is more often the result than Success. But that’s not a problem. That is a good thing.

Humans are organic beings. We live in a constant state of flux, adding one experience to the another gathered from countless endeavors. Some of our efforts result in modest achievements others bear unnoticeable results, while others may astonish the whole world. We don’t always learn from Success as much as we learn from Failure.

Failure is not the opposite of success. It is its brother.

I contend, that without Failure most Successes would not endure, amaze or inspire. We celebrate those who reach the pinnacle mostly because they rose over those who tried but did not succeed. Many of those who do succeed, do so because of what they have learned from others who tried but came up short. So, in a way, we can learn more from failing than we can from succeeding.

Knowledge is Power if Shared

I don’t think anyone would argue with me that knowledge is a good thing. Knowledge is the result of learning either through experience or by observation. Knowledge is an essential component in the pursuit of Success. Therefore, learning from one’s mistakes or failures is a way of acquiring knowledge. It is the way you can turn failure into success.

Unfortunately, some people turn their back on failed attempts not wishing to be associated with the aroma. When they do this, they miss out on a significant opportunity to assess their current knowledge and experience and learn from the event how to do it better. Knowledge from failure is power, but only if you share it with yourself.

Thinking Success

For the last several years, I have been moving clients and audiences away from the negative mindset associated with failure. I’m not saying you should pursue failure as a goal. Of course not. What I am saying is, failure is not the “Big Bad Wolf” we’ve been taught to fear. Failure is the learning spike that can boost your next attempt to the successful plateau of your desire.

To do this, I encourage you to stop thinking of Failure as a result. You can’t rest on Success, so stop being stymied by Failure. Confront your shortfalls. Examine what went wrong. Take the insights you discover and apply them toward changes in your strategy that will fuel your next attempt.

This process is what I call, “The Cycle of Success” that sits atop the Hierarchy of Success.

In this cycle, once you’ve observed the insights from your last attempt, you take action to achieve your intended result. After your attempt you react to the result of what you did. You reframe your action based on this knowledge and then you process it for your next attempt. Rinse and repeat.

Think of the first time you tried to make a paper airplane fly successfully. Lots of attempts and lots of changes until you got your desired result. You’ve been doing this since you were a kid.

Just like an enthusiastic child playing Jacks. With each attempt you’ll discover new ways of approaching your problem. On your journey to success you’ll gather great knowledge and experience. Much of this can and will be applied to other endeavors if fulfillment of your most precious dreams and desires.

Like Mr. Churchill said, Success is all about enthusiasm.

Please feel free to share this post with a friend or colleague. As always, share your comments on this post or suggestions in the comments section below.

Bringing Positivity to Everything,
The Brain Tamer

Who is responsible for HOPE?

“Hope without action is like a Ferrari in your garage with an empty gas tank.
It’s nice to look at, but it won’t get you anywhere.”
Don E. Smith

I listen to a lot of recorded books. At the end of each book an announcer says, “We hope you’ve enjoyed this book”. That makes me wonder, “If I have just completed listening to the recording of a book you sold me, what are you hoping for?”

• Are you hoping I will buy another one?

• Are you hoping I will refer you to a friend?

• Are you hoping the narration wasn’t too bad?

• Are you hoping I am not lying on the ground bleeding to death because my experience was so bad I slashed my wrists?

What outcome can one expect when someone expresses hope for them? Not much!

So, I’m asking you, “Who takes responsibility for HOPE, the Hoper or the Hopee?”

Why there is so much Hope and so little Progress

Let’s face it, Hope is an orphan. It is born out of the union between desperation and idealism. No one cares for Hope, feeds it or shelters it. It is just recklessly offered to us as a solution and end game. We are asked to believe that, just by its mere existence, Hope is the best solution, ready for deployment with all our desired outcomes intact.

But once Hope is offered, who takes responsibility for it? Who fosters its growth? Who helps it reach its promise? No one.

Hope is an action-less being, requiring only desperate dreaming without any real strategy or commitment. And that is why Hope is an orphan.

When you say to someone, “I hope to see you again,” it is unlikely it will happen unless one or both of you take action to make it happen.

There is no potential in Hope, only desperation. Hope is the first sign of surrender indicating that you have run out of desire and are willing to let someone else do it for you. That’s why I see Hope not as a solution, but as a convenient way of distancing yourself from the outcome.

Most people Hope for a better world but do little to move us in that direction. That’s why there is so much Hope and so little Progress. Hardly anyone takes any action.

Hope is a frivolous expectation devoid of action. Hope without action is delusional dreaming. It is vapor-ware of the heart, a well-intended promise that is empty of potential and realization.

If you want to take responsibility for what you hope for in life, I urge you to take a “leap of Faith”, earn your Trust and stop being a “hope-aholic”.

Hope versus Faith versus Trust

When you begin a journey towards a goal, you are energized by a great expectation and fueled by a dream of achievement. As you move towards your destination, one action is followed by another. The more intention you apply to your actions the greater the opportunity to reach your goal. You examine, test, alter, react, and act again upon your goal all the while building layer upon layer of confidence with each cycle. As you progress, you begin to feel a sense of competence that begins to slowly replace Hope with Trust.

Do you recall the struggles you had as a child hoping you would master the simple task of buttoning a shirt? Now, you no longer “hope” you will do it, you “trust” you will. You have so much “faith” in yourself, that you do it absent mindedly, unconsciously competent in the process.

Hope is for people who bet on life without the ability to control the odds. If that suits you, buy a lottery ticket and “hope” you will win.

But Faith, while a belief in the unknown, has deep roots strong enough to overcome most odds.

The Flip of Faith

We see “miraculous” victories all the time in the sports world. They happen because teams and their individual members devote themselves to a singular goal. They practice, examine, test, alter, react, and act again against every conceivable variation that could occur until they lessen the “odds” against them for reaching their goal.

In 2001, Derek Jeter made one of the most amazing plays in sports history, “The Flip”. This play was successful not because he was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. He made the play because he knew his best chance to influence the outcome of the play in his team’s favor was to put himself in position to impact the play as it unfolded. Mr. Jeter did not stand around gawking at the play hoping someone else on his team would take action. He saw the opportunity, had faith in his instinct and trusted if the moment came he would take the right action. The play not only saved the game it won the playoff round.

Putting Faith & Trust into Practice: The Hope-Less Speaker

If you are a speaker, here are a few things you can do to eliminate Hope from your skillset:

• Prepare as well in advance of your speaking opportunity as possible

• Practice your content and delivery methodically – record it, analyze it, alter it, make it the best it can be.

• Run a checklist of everything you will need – don’t wait to be surprised by unexpected elements.

• Know your audience – who they are, what they want, and what they expect from you

• Put equal or more effort into the preparation of your speech than you do into delivering it.

The only time Hope is an appropriate response, is after … you have done everything you can - to create as much Trust as you can - that is based on the Faith of the actions you have taken.

You can’t operate in good Faith without Trust. If you do, all you have to go on is Hope. So, when all the “t’s” are crossed and the “i’s” are dotted, when there is nothing left that you can do to influence the outcome in your favor, you may consider Hope as a response.

But, remember when you do, Hope is an orphan and if you embrace it you are now responsible for it.

I trust you found this post to be of use to you and that you will continue to put your faith in this blog. As always, comments and suggestions are delightfully welcome in the comments section below.

Bringing Positivity to Everything,
The Brain Tamer