Falling In Love With Your Life

I recently read a book by Alicia Castillo Holley, called “Falling In Love With Your Life.”  Actually, I intended to review this last month but I couldn’t find it.  It seems my teenage daughter saw it and took possession of it for a while without telling me.  That’s never happened before with any of my nonfiction books – and that, in itself, intrigued me.

When I initially read the title, I was interested but a little hesitant – is this a business book, or a relationship book? After digging in, I have to say it is really both of those things in one.

This book is an interactive book designed to help you analyze the assumptions and hypotheses that drive how you interact with the world.  As the author says, “You create your own life, the belief system, and the life you live.” 

Through this book, you’ll discover techniques to help you:

• Recognize and reframe your hypotheses
• Create new perspective
• Understand why you might beat yourself up about things in your life.

Thoughts on the exercises

The exercises in this book are challenging ones – make sure you approach them when you have plenty of time and energy, and the right mindset.  Many of them require deep reflection and candor (with yourself) to get the most out of them.

For example, the exercise where you name your existing hypothesis about life and write a new one was hard for me the first time I tried to do it – I was tired and crabby and I got fed up and quit. 

I came back to the same exercise another day when I was fresh and in a good mood and it was much easier.

I also found that it was helpful to write my responses to the exercises out on a yellow legal pad – I felt constrained by the amount of space in the book for some exercises, and I also found the yellow legal pad more forgiving when I wanted to have a “redo” on some of the exercises.

Be open to the process

Another aspect of the exercises was that some of them felt a bit “not meant for me” – but I did them anyway.  I found that even the ones that didn’t feel natural to me added value to some of the other exercises I did later.  It would have been easy to just jump over a couple of them (in fact I did, then went back and did them anyway).  I urge you to resist that temptation.

I now have a lot of things to think about and a new set of hypotheses to help me change how I see and interact with the world.  I don’t yet know the impact of this shift but I already feel less guilty about some of the things that have been bothering me.

If you are irritated or unhappy with things in your life, or you just want to feel more in control of your destiny I recommend you check out a copy of “Falling In Love With Your Life,” and spend some quality time working on the exercises.

Now, I’m giving my copy back to my daughter.  I think she’ll like it.

If you aren't in the game, you'll never win

A friend of mine shared a video with me on "famous failures" (see below, or click this link).  As many of us move into setting goals for 2010, I found it to be very inspiring.

Some things to think about for this year:

• How are you allowing others to limit you or keep you from achieving great things?
• What risks can you take that would tap into your passion and strengths?
• Are you being ambitious or persistent enough?
• Who can coach or mentor you to help you bring out your best?
• What things are you doing now that feel like a waste of your time and talents, and how can you stop doing them?

Happy new year!  And make sure you are in the game in 2010.

The glory of unexpected unplugging

My family and I went on a short ski vacation this past week.  I'd planned to do a bit of blogging and other online 'stuff' during the trip but found that the condo we rented was totally out of any kind of data range (no data on my iPhone, no data on my laptop, not WiFi, etc.) 

I was a little annoyed at first, but it ended up being a blessing in disguise.  I decided to treat my lack of connectivity as a sign I should just relax and enjoy the time away - and I'm glad I did.

If you (like me) are in the habit of staying plugged in during your vacations, I suggest you try to spend a few days off the grid (totally - not just faking it) and see if you enjoy it as much as I did.

On the plus side:

• The camera on my iPhone worked great even if I had not data signal, and I was able to snap the shot in this post (click for larger view);
• I got a bit of reading done between the skiing and playing board games by the fire which means I'll be posting some book reviews (and a couple of gadget reviews) soon.

Nail it or fail it?

"A small thing you nail can be better than a big thing you fail."
-- James B. Johnson

I was in a meeting the other day and we were discussing some objectives for a new team that is forming, and Jim (my CEO) said the line above.  He has been quite effective in getting our company to increase our success in both large and small things, so I tend to listen to what he says.  As many of us begin to make plans and set lofty goals for 2010 (personally and professionally) I thought this quote was worth sharing.

The balance can be tricky - I know of many times when I have set some seemingly impossible goals, only to one day discover I've achieved them.  But I can think of many more lofty goals that I never got done.

Making the impossible happen

So what's the difference?  I'd say the successful "impossible goals" that were accomplished in spite of their 'impossibleness' had a few things in common:

• Heartfelt commitment.  Each of the impossible goals that got done was something I deliberately committed to, far beyond just lip service and platitudes.
• Sustained passion.  These goals also tended to be things I could not only get excited about, but I could stay passionate about.
• Engaged others.  I think this is linked to the sustained passion - I am good at evangelizing the things I'm passionate about, and that's when I recruit others to my cause.
• Clarity of desired outcome.  This is not always what it seems - these outcomes are specific, but not in a checklist sort of way.  For me, the best outcomes are framed in terms of what it will feel and 'be' like when we are successful.
• A good idea of how to get there.  It's kind of like David Allen talks about in his "Getting Things Done" model - you won't be successful until you can see yourself doing it.  That doesn't mean you have all the answers, but it does mean you have a good idea of some of the things you need to do to get the answers.

Get your wins along the way

The interesting aspect of Jim's quote above is that you need to feel like you can win.  The art here is to set at least some goals that are challenging, but that have a high probability of getting done.  If you never win, you never feel like a winner, and you can create an unhealthy dynamic within your team.

I've seen lots of sports teams where it took one good win to turn the tide from a losing record to a winning one - there is something very powerful in the psychology of even a small win.

This is true at many levels:

• As managers, part of our job is to help our teams feel challenged, but to have enough wins along the way that they feel like winners. 
• As team members, we need to hold our teams accountable to blending the possible with the impossible.
• As parents, we need to help our kids learn to set goals that stretch them but allow them to taste success on a regular basis.
• As individuals, we need to set our own goals with the same philosophy. 

It's a delicate - but very important - balance.

How do you approach this challenge?  Any best practices (or hard-won lessons) to share?

The Market Has Changed. Have You?

If you're involved in selling anything in today's economy, you know that priorities, business drivers, and competition are very different than they were a year or two ago.  So, what's a sales professional to do?

Author Paul D'Souza knows where you're coming from.  As an experienced sales guy he has done a lot of the analysis for you and his book, "The Market Has Changed - Have You?" is just what you might need to develop your own strategy to adapt to the new market dynamics.

Paul's book takes you through 25 steps exemplifying what he refers to as the "Wha-Do" sales philosophy (apparently, "Wha-Do" means "The Way of Harmony" in Japanese).  This philosophy is all about creating leverage through people (relationships) and applying repeatable principles and business practices.

(Paul has more on the Wha-Do philosophy on his site)

A solid foundation

A lot of the concepts Paul brings to bear are rooted in things you've heard before - setting goals, understanding your motivation, setting out a plan, developing discipline in how you execute, etc.  But a couple of aspects are different in this book.

First, Paul comes at this from the perspective of a sales person.  If you're involved in selling, you know that you hear "no" more often than you hear a "yes" so it's vital that you have clarity of purpose and a compelling reason to keep driving until you get another "yes."  The methods Paul exposes in this book will "snap in" to your selling workflow pretty easily without feeling unnatural or fluffy.

Second, this is as much a workbook as it is a reading book.  The book is filled with worksheets, cues, and examples to enable you to go from a cerebral understanding of the material well into the next step of documenting and personalizing the content.  In other words, if you really follow the process and use the worksheets provided in the book, you'll have your own plan - not just a bunch of new ideas.

It's about what you bring to the table

I think Paul's methods work because they tap into your inner strengths and motivations, but they are also anchored in creating clear and compelling value for your customers.  By design, this will drive you to better understand your customers and why they buy so you can increase the odds that your approach and message will resonate with them.

They also help bring you beyond your "one against the world" view and tap into your colleagues, your mentors, and even your customers themselves to increase your success.

This is a compelling read and well worth your time if you're a sales or marketing professional looking for an advantage. 

But this book is not just for hardcore sales people.  It will also help anyone who relies on relationships in their job, such as doctors, dentists, personal trainers, retailers, investment bankers, business development, alliances people, and more.

Check it out, and start adapting to the new reality of the market.