Companies often ask out for a seminar in team building.
However,if people are not performing and communicating with team spirit,it is not a team-building issue,its a leadership issue.
Great leadership will create culture in which teamwork will simply grow.They don’t need team-work training.The managers him or herself needs hands off leadership training so she can learn to mentor success instead of trying to impose productivity..
Embrace leadership and build a great team of colleagues…
I often start a day by drawing four circles on a blank piece of paper.
The circles represent:
Inside each circle,I write down what I want.It can be a dollar figure,it ca be anything,and the goal can change from day to day_It doesn’t matter.There is no way to get this process wrong.
But by writing the goals down,I am like an airline pilot who is consulting a map prior to takeoff.I am orienting my mind to what I am up to in life.I am reminding myself of what I really want.We wouldn’t think,before an airline flight,of poking our heads into the cabin and saying to the pilot,”just take me anywhere!”Yet,that’s how we live our days when we don’t check the map.
Sometimes during our seminars,people say they don’t have the time for goal setting.But the four circle system I described takes only four minute!
Without advertising our goals to ourselves,we can lose sight of them altogether.It is possible to go entire week,or two or three,without thinking about our main goals in life.We get caught up in a reacting and responding to people and circumstances and we simply forget to think about our own purpose.
We need to advertise our own goals to ourselves.Otherwise,our psychic energy is spread too thin across the spectrum of things that aren’t that Important to us.
Work with this for the next two weeks starting today and share your new found perspective with us…Good luck.
Don’t change other people.It doesn’t work.You will waste your life trying.
Many of us spend all our time trying to change the people in our lives.We think we can change them in ways that will make them better equipped to make us happy.
This is especially true of our children.We talk to our children for hours about how we think they should change.But children don’t learn from what we say.They learn from what we do.
People always ask;How can I change my colleague? How can I change my wife? How can I change my husband? or How can I change my teenager?
“You must be the change you wish to see in others”,Said Gandhi,
Our society encourages us to seek comfort.Most products and services advertised day and night are designed to make us more comfortable and less challenged.
But,only challenge causes growth.Only challenge will test our skills and make us better.Only challenge and self motivation to engage the challenge will transform us.Every challenge we face is an opportunity to create a more skillful self.
Its up to you to constantly look for challenges that motivates you.Its up to you to notice when you are buried alive in the comfort zone.
Use your comfort zones to rest in,not to live in.Use them consciously to relax and restore your energy as you mentally prepare for your next challenge.But if you use comfort zones to live in forever,they become singer sting calls your soul cages. Break free.Fly away..
Practice being awake in the present moment.
Make the most of your awareness of this hour.Dont live in the past(unless you want guilt) or worry about the future(unless you want fear),but stay focused on today.
Until you can put the attention where you want it, you have not become the master of yourself.You will never be happy until you can determine what you are going to think about for the next hour…
There is time for dreaming,planning,and creative goal setting.But once you are complete with that,learn to live in here and now.See your whole life being contained in this very hour.Let microcosm become macrocosm.
The greatest philosopher Voltaire was on his deathbed when someone asked him,”If you had 24 more hours to live,how would you live them?” Voltaire said,”One at a time.”
The world best kept secret is that on the other side of your fear,there is something safe and beneficial waiting for you.If you pass through even a thin curtain of fear,you will Increase the confidence you have in your ability to create your life.
“Fear kills more people than death” .Death kill us but once,and we usually don’t even know it.But fear kills us over and over again,subtly at times and brutally at others.
It could be any sort,Public Speaking,starting a project,Raising capital,Starting a personal blog and actually writing,posting on Facebook,twitter,Investing,even loving someone or your family not t mention that difficult person…
Remember..Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear..
Dare today..
In 1997 America Online greatly increased its subscriber base.
With a complete change in its pricing policy, the company went from about 5 or 6 million subscribers to 14 million in a matter of months. That sudden growth caused huge bottlenecks in the dial-in networks. It seemed that every AOL subscriber, new or old, was angry with the company.
Sure, prices were for the most part lower because AOL had dramatically changed its policy from an hourly charge to a monthly flat fee. But, now the network was so crowded that customers often couldn’t connect. There were more than twice as many subscribers with the same number of dial-in connections to serve them. And because AOL had changed to a flat rate, those who were able to connect were staying online for a long time.
AOL was like the dog that caught the car: its marketing was too successful and it couldn’t handle all of the resulting business. The company was stretched for resources and facing a dilemma. The managers didn’t want to back off on rapidly growing the customer base, but they did not have the resources to grow the physical network quickly enough to keep pace. AOL was at risk of losing customers as fast as they signed up.
The managers needed to do something -and quick. They examined their options and prioritized. They realized that, as the Internet evolved, the value of their service was moving from dial-up networks to content. So they sold the physical network portion of their business to MCI-WorldCom. They used the cash from that transaction, along with other borrowed money, to fund their core business, which was taking care of their subscribers and generating content. They advertised like crazy and continually improved their content.
The plan worked. MCI-WorldCom used its strategic competencies to do what it does best -build a world-class computer network for AOL –and AOL was able to generate the resources to keep most of its customers and continue growing. Now AOL is the No. 1 choice for Internet access: about 60% of all new Internet users choose to enter with AOL.
Here is some more insights
My friend wants to work out more, but he has a hard time forming the habit (many of you might be familiar with this problem). From having to get dressed to go to the gym, to actually going to the gym, to the thought of a hard workout … our minds tend to put off the habit.
The solution is exceedingly simple: just do three pushups. Or tell yourself you have to walk/jog for just one minute.
Make it so easy you can’t say no.
Of course, most people will think that’s too easy, and tell themselves they have to do more than that. This advice is for other people! Unfortunately, it’s this mindset that causes people to fail at habits — we think we can do more, despite past evidence to the contrary, and so we aspire to greatness. We try to climb Everest before we’ve learned to walk.
Learn the fundamentals of habits before you try to do the advanced skills. If I could convince people of that, I could get millions to change their habits, be healthier, simplify, procrastinate less, start creating amazing things.
Today we’re going to go over the fundamentals of habit — four key habits to form habits. If you can learn these four habits, you’ll have the foundation to form pretty much any habit.
Habit 1: Start Exceedingly Small
Another common habit that too few people actually do is flossing daily. So my advice is just floss one tooth the first night.
Of course, that seems so ridiculous most people laugh. But I’m totally serious: if you start out exceedingly small, you won’t say no. You’ll feel crazy if you don’t do it. And so you’ll actually do it!
That’s the point. Actually doing the habit is much more important than how much you do.
If you want to exercise, it’s more important that you actually do the exercise on a regular basis, rather than doing enough to get a benefit right away. Sure, maybe you need 30 minutes of exercise to see some fitness improvements, but try doing 30 minutes a day for two weeks. See how far you get, if you haven’t been exercising regularly. Then, if you don’t succeed, try 1-2 minutes a day. See how far you get there.
If you can do two weeks of 1-2 minutes of exercise, you have a strong foundation for a habit. Add another week or two, and the habit is almost ingrained. Once the habit is strong, you can add a few minutes here and there. Soon you’ll be doing 30 minutes on a regular basis — but you started out really small.
Try the flossing habit — try to floss every tooth every night, and see how far you get. You might succeed … but if you fail, try just one tooth per night and see how far you get. Your mileage will vary, but on average most people get farther with a habit when they start small.
One glass of water a day. One extra vegetable. Three pushups. One sentence of writing a day. Two minutes of meditation. This is how you start a habit that lasts.
Habit 2: Be Mindful of Negative Thoughts
Most people will skip this habit, because they don’t think it’s necessary. Then they wonder why the habit failed.
When one of my cousin quit smoking in 2005, he finally learned to watch my thoughts. He says;I saw that I had a lot of self-talk I wasn’t aware of. My mind would start rationalizing the idea of smoking just one cigarette. “One won’t hurt!” “Why are you torturing yourself?” “Is this really worth it?” “Just give in, it’s much easier.” “You can’t do this, it’s too hard.”
Think about those thoughts for a second. He continues; How many did I have that I wasn’t aware of? How powerful were they, when I didn’t realize they were there? How many times did they cause me to smoke when I had previously tried to quit? And how often do these kinds of thoughts act on you?
The same thoughts happened when I tried to start running the next month — my mind would say, “You should stop now. It’s too hard. You’ll feel much better when you stop.” And of course, thoughts like these are very tempting, very powerful.
Then I started to learn to eat healthier, and repeatedly failed because I would give in to chips and pizza and ice cream. My mind would say, “You’ve been doing good, and this food is your reward!” Or, “Why are you denying yourself pleasure — life isn’t supposed to be hard!”
I learned to let these thoughts go. They are just thoughts — they don’t control me. They are just things that happen, like a leaf falling from a tree as I run by. Interesting phenomena, but not a determination of my life.
Watch the thoughts. Learn to let them go. Get good at discomfort. Triumph over the childish selfish scared mind.My cousin life is different and can testify to this..
Habit 3: Savor the Habit
This is the converse of Habit 2, but just as important. Your new habit isn’t some sort of sacrifice, some sort of chore you need to get through to get to your better life.
Your new habit is your better life.
The new habit, whatever it is, should be something you enjoy. Otherwise, don’t do it.
If you want to eat healthier, learn to enjoy the taste of this delicious, fresh, healthy food. An apple can be just as delicious as any junk food snack, if you pay attention and savor it.
If you are exercising, pay close attention to and enjoy the moving of the body, the feeling of exertion, the flow of blood through your brain, the focus.
If you are writing, sit with the words and enjoy the quiet concentration, the exhilaration of creation.
Learn to enjoy the habit, and the habit will become its own reward. The goal isn’t some distant achievement, but the process itself.
Habit 4: Have a Plan for When You Falter..
This is really key — I can’t count how many people I know who have done really well with their habit for 6-7 days, and then when some disruption happened (it’s incredibly common), and then never re-started.
Get in the habit of re-starting when you falter.
How do you do that? Get some accountability — promise a friend or your spouse that you’ll pay $25 or Ksh 300 if you miss your new habit two days in a row … and then double that the next day ($50 or ksh 600), and double that if you miss four days in a row ($100), and double every day you miss in a row after that. Or promise wash their car if you miss three days in a row. Tell everyone on Facebook that you’ll personally clean their bathrooms if you miss three days in a row.
Missing one day in a row is not the end of the habit. Missing two days isn’t great, but you can recover. Miss three days, and the habit is shot. So don’t allow yourself to miss three days, and try your damndest not to even miss two days.
Forming the Four Habits
So how do you form the habits that form all other habits?
As simply as possible.
Choose one incredibly easy habit to do in the next two weeks. Floss one tooth. Drink one glass of water. Eat one fruit. Exercise or meditate or write or do yoga for 2 minutes a day. Just two minutes.
Then apply all four habits to those two minutes, every day. You’ll start to learn how to form a new habit, and that’s a skill that will pay off for a lifetime.
You can do it…
Why prefer Coke over Pepsi or Safaricom over Airtel or BMW over Toyota?
In markets that aren’t natural monopolies or where there are clear, agreed-upon metrics, how do we decide?
Yes, every brand has a story—that’s how it goes from being a logo and a name to a brand. The story includes expectations and history and promises and social cues and emotions. The story makes us say we “love Google” or “love Java”… but what do we really love?
We love ourselves.
We love the memory we have of how that brand made us feel once. We love that it reminds us of our mom, or growing up, or our first kiss. We support a charity or a soccer team or a perfume because it gives us a chance to love something about ourselves.
We can’t easily explain this, even to ourselves. We can’t easily acknowledge the narcissism and the nostalgia that drives so many of the apparently rational decisions we make every day. But that doesn’t mean that they’re not at work.
More than ever, we express ourselves with what we buy and how we use what we buy. Extensions of our personality, totems of our selves, reminders of who we are or would like to be.
Great marketers don’t make stuff. They make meaning….
– Hope Doesn’t Abandon Us, We Abandon Hope – Here’s How To Never Never Never Give Up
The prerequisite to never give up is to be prepared to get up.
Winning is not just about knowing where you want to go to, it’s also about being mentally, spiritually and physically fit to get there.
The path of success is littered with bones and body bags of those who decided to fade to black somewhere in between the beginning of their journey and their destination.
I understand the feeling of exhaustion when you seem to be working really hard, while nothing is hardly working other than life seeming to be going into overtime whipping on you.
It’s hard to breathe… your lungs are burning, your eyes are blurry, your knees are buckling and your breathing is shallow.
You reach out and reach up hoping to grab hold of the hand of a friend or family member to help you get your footing or get back up from a slip and fall.
However, your reach comes back hollow as no hand claps to yours …so you decide to call out names one by one and as you scream in agony in what seems like your inevitable defeat… and all you hear is the echo of your own voice as if your in an empty hall, left alone… abandoned by those who said they’ll stick with you through thick and thin.
Your back hurts, not just from your work load and heavy burdens, but from those who said they had your back but instead betrayed you and started stabbing you in the back.
From pools of sweat, running tears and drops of blood …life seems to have knocked the wind out of you.
But if you never give up …then life hasn’t knocked the WIN out of you.
I know there is no music to dance to… and no one to dance with. I understand there is no one to make you laugh and nothing to laugh at. There are no voices in the room… nothing but silence… all you can hear and feel is your own heart beat as you struggle to breath, as if you’re trying to inhale through a straw.
This has become your defining moment as hope is turning into hopelessness and fearlessness into fear.
Destiny hangs in the balance as you feel like your hanging by a thread.
There is only one decision to be made now… will you or will you not give up.
I vote, that you NEVER GIVE UP!
