OUR BLOG

They say less is more. Do you believe them? I do … most of the time. Not when it comes to chocolate or granddaughter time, but definitely when it comes to being able to focus on something important.

As we’re constantly telling the writers and speakers we work with, “Keep your message simple and focused.” People can process only so much.

It’s like having to tend your flock by night. If you’re tending a lot of sheep, it’s hard to keep track of them all. They’re all over the place. If you have one, no problem. It’s always in plain view.

And that’s the idea behind the book, One Word that Will Change Your Life. You pick a word … a single word you want to focus on in the coming year. Gratitude … Energy … Faith … Connection. You get the idea.

You all know what it feels like when you hear something that just makes you stop and think.

Like the quote from Helen Keller, “What people think of me is none of my business.” Ha. I just love that.

One of my clients said something pretty profound recently, and I wanted to share it with you.

She’d been struggling a bit with implementing a time management system and hadn’t quite mastered it yet, but it was important to her that she get the hang of it. In a determined and resolute voice, she said …

“I’m going to start over until I don’t have to start over again.”

I think just about everyone has a problem in their lives they think they’ll never be able to resolve … something that’s truly intractable … something they’ll just have to live with.

For me, like a lot of other people, that was the inability to lose weight and keep it off.

And it wasn’t as if I wasn’t trying. It wasn’t as if I was eating a lot or being undisciplined. I went four months without eating any sugar, no fruit, and no refined carbs. I exercised. And I lost a lousy seven pounds.

A lot of that has to do with the fact that I’m allergic to more than 20 foods. I’m full blooded Italian, and I can’t eat tomato sauce! My immune system is hyper-vigilant, and I trigger an inflammatory response at the slightest provocation.

So, I was discouraged. I wasn’t resigned to the fate of being overweight, but I wasn’t really seeing a pathway forward either.

I do a lot of speaking, and people often assume I’m a “motivational” speaker.

Not me. In fact, I’m not all that keen on trying to motivate people. First of all, I think motivation comes from within. And second, I have no interest in exhorting anyone to get moving and try harder … to do more … to perform better.

Winners never quit and quitters never win … and all that jazz. That’s not my style.

I’m in the possibility business.

I’m an inspirational speaker.

Exactly what is it that spurs us to take action?

I mean, think about how many things you’ve wanted to do in your life … or told yourself you should do. Think about all the dreams you’ve dreamed.

Now, tell me, how many of these impulses have you actually acted upon? If you’re like most of us, it’s a fairly small percentage … for lots of reasons.

You can learn a lot about life from watching water flowing in a stream.

Most days when I’m out walking in the park, I just enjoy the fact that the creek is there. It’s pretty and the burbling sounds nice. But one day, I just stood there and watched as the water passed by … gravity in action.

Water flows downhill. It FLOWS downstream … by definition. If you want to give it human characteristics, it has an intention … to get to the sea, and it does what it has to do to get there.

I’m not a sports person. I love gymnastics and skating, girlie stuff, but that’s about it … except for baseball.

My partner, Tom, is a baseball guy, so I started watching some of the Atlanta Braves’ games with him years ago. And now, I watch at least some of most of the games for a little break in the evening. And I care about how the guys do from night to night. I almost feel as if I know them personally. I refer to them by their first names. They’re “my team.”

The players on the team are all high-performing professionals or they wouldn’t be in the major leagues. But they started out the season as the worst team in baseball. They were awful, and it was hard to watch.

They played themselves out of contention for the playoffs early in the season. So, what was there to play for? Pride? Sure. Personal stats? Sure. But it would have been easy for these guys to just play out the season in lackluster fashion and shuffle off come October to hope for a better result next year.

When I speak to groups, I often quote Oprah Winfrey:

“You become what you believe – not what you wish for, not what you want, but what you truly believe. Wherever you are in life, look at your beliefs. They put you there.”

Her phenomenal success was so improbable.

Things change so fast and so relentlessly. Who doesn’t find themselves wanting to stop the merry-go-round and just cling to the comfortable and familiar every now and then? And who among us never resists change?

Of course, resisting change done to us is one thing. It can be a necessary and healthy thing to do. After all, not all change is good. But here’s the crazy thing. We often see ourselves and our clients resisting change of our own making!