• 2012 will be a great year. 
• It doesn’t matter  what happens in the economy or in politics. 
• I will have myself and my business prepared for success.
• I am excited about 2012!

It is easier to prepare for something defined rather than something vague, so you have to define success for yourself and your business.  Define it for yourself first and then for your business.  Here are a couple of questions you may find helpful:

• What do you want your business to provide to you in 2012? 
• What will your business need to achieve in order to provide it to you? 

Answering these questions and setting your beliefs (first 4)  are key to getting  the results you want.  The next step is to create a plan.  Reread the previous statement and check your gut.  How do you feel when you think about planning?

Make Planning Fun

I find it more fun when instead of pushing myself to get it done I allow myself to be carried along by a good process in a fun environment.  A good process is one that asks you interesting questions about each area of your business such that you will really think them through and carefully choose what deserves your focus.  It should do this with fill-in-the-blank planning tools , explanations and help, human help, right there to move you forward. 

The environment must support getting the plan done in a fun and effective manner.  To think outside the box you have to get outside the box.  Get away from your office and your phone and the all the interruptions so you can breathe freely and think about the big picture.

The environment should also stimulate new thinking and include other like minded folks that you can bounce ideas off and learn from.  A group of business owners and leaders gets this nicely done.  First timers get help from those more experienced and the more experienced get fresh ideas from folks new to the process.

With the right process, the right training, the right tools and friendly, stimulating help you can get a plan done that will help you every day.

Don’t Bite Off More Than You Can Chew

Experience shows that humans are pretty darn good at planning ahead for 13 weeks.  Beyond that it gets a little sketchy!  In our process we only do detailed planning for the next 90 days.  We do set longer term goals we just don’t try to get specific beyond the next 90. 

Good business  is to give your plan a scrub and refresh every 90 days.  These plans tend, especially the early ones, to get a little reality mud splashed on ‘em.  Don’t worry – that’s what should happen!

Walkin’ Tall

The biggest result of planning is not the plan.  The biggest result of planning is the effect on you.  Whenever we learn or strengthen a skillset we feel better about ourselves and more confident.  To learn to walk you had to fall down a few times.  As adults we avoid situations that leave us walking taller because we are afraid we’ll fall-down-go-boom a few times.  So we stay in our comfort zone.  Funny thing is that staying in our comfort zone is falling down.  We become, over time, sheepish.  Say bahhh to that!

Take a Small Step Towards a Great 2012

Reread the 4 statements out loud again.  If that seems a little out of the norm – good!

• 2012 will be a great year.
• It doesn’t matter what happens in the economy or in politics.
• I will have myself and my business prepared for success.
• I am excited about 2012!

Really successful people are not the mainstream.  You’ll have to get comfortable with being a little different to have great success.

You Don’t Have to Do It Alone

Reinventing the wheel is not time well spent.  Find your local ActionCOACH (like me ) and sit in on a planning session.  The process, the tools, the training, the help and the sounding boards will all be there waiting for you.  You’ll get comfortable right away and start having fun during the continental breakfast and it gets better from there. 

2012 is the time for you feel great about your business.  Read the 4 statements out loud to your self again.  I’ll wait right here.

• 2012 will be a great year.
• It doesn’t matter what happens in the economy or in politics.
• I will have myself and my business prepared for success.
• I am excited about 2012!

Now click this link to find out about my upcoming planning session – we call it GrowthCLUB.  Walk tall and sign up.  I promise a fun and effective planning experience or I’ll give you %120 percent of your money back – no it’s not free – I do this for a living!!

Your unreasonable friend,

Dennis

denniswillis@actioncoach.com

216-965-9129

or text the word profit to the number 50500 to get a text message with my contact data – yeah, I’m a bit of a geek too!

copyright@DennisWillis 2011,2012 Business Coach Ohio

She made a kind of a statement I consider self-disabling.  I, of course, set her up with a question.  I just want to have fun too.  The question was (because she seems a bit withdrawn) “What irritates you?”  She fell right into my trap and began telling me things that irritate her.  One was “guys with long hair really irritate me.”

So I asked her where does “irritation” exist?  This throws a lot of people at first.  It is an odd question most have never considered.  It gets confused with where does the “irritant” exist but that is not what I’m after.  After just a bit of prodding she answers “in my brain.”  “That’s right, irritation, anger, frustration and happiness all exist only in our brains, right?”  I get blank looks quite often.

“Do long haired guys have the ability to reach into your brain and flip your “irritated” switch on?” I asked.  “No,” she answered.  “Then why do you say ‘They irritate you’? I pressed further.  More blank looks.

Here is a bad thinking habit I sometimes have and often hear; <someone or something> makes me <feel some emotion>.  Examples;

• She makes me mad
• He annoys me
• Banks frustrate me
• Planning bores me
• Public speaking frightens me

These are all, simply, lies.  Self disabling lies.  Dr. House is right, everyone lies.  The ones we tell ourselves are the worst.

No one and no thing can reach into your head and make you feel anything.  You, consciously or sub-consciously, choose your response to events.

Event + Response = Outcome.

You can’t control events and you can’t control outcomes.  We all need to reduce the amount of time we lie to ourselves and pretend other people and things have the power to choose our responses.

The way to get started is to rewrite your thought habit.  Instead of thinking “That makes me mad” think “I choose to get mad about that”.  This simple rewrite gives you back your power.  It also gives you responsibility, accountability and ownership for your state of mind.  Instead of thinking “he irritates me” think “I choose to get irritated by him”.  You can still choose the same way – just take credit for it.

If you do then you’ll start wondering why you choose to spend so much of your life angry or frustrated or sad or whatever you are choosing.  Then you’ll make changes that will amaze you.

See my previous posts to learn more about changing your thinking habits.

So finally you’ll understand this 2500 year old quote.  Something I choose to be quite amused about.

“There is no way to happiness because happiness is the way.” – Lao Tzu

Your unreasonable friend,

Dennis

Are you a business owner or leader that wants better results?  Here is a flyer for my upcoming workshop; GrowthCLUB.

copyright@DennisWillis 2011,2012 Business Coach Ohio

How NASA Builds Teams: Mission Critical Soft Skills for Scientists, Engineers, and Project Teams

Stop interfering with your own success.  This is a great guide to coaching.  Thanks to great friend and client Don Jason for the recommendation.

You Already Know How to Be Great: A Simple Way to Remove Interference and Unlock Your Greatest Potential

I am now jealous of my friends with these Kindle/Android tablets!

Kindle Fire, Full Color 7" Multi-touch Display, Wi-Fi

Disclaimer – using the above link may get me a commission from Amazon.  It hasn’t yet, but I’m told it may.  I only recommend books I’ve purchased and read and loved.

copyright@DennisWillis 2011,2012 Business Coach Ohio

Not being a mind reader I’ve thought and thought about what those words and  tone actually meant.  He said that, because being an unreasonable friend, I was pushing him to change a thinking habit.

The thinking habit he has wanted to change is the one where he criticizes himself very harshly when he doesn’t do something perfectly.  He will even verbalize it as “I’m such an idiot” or “I’m terrible at that” or “I really screwed that up – as usual” or “I’m just not good enough”.

You may recognize that the line “I’ve been trying to change this for 40 years” is yet another self criticism.  I pointed this out and he responded that “NO, it’s just a fact.”

Facts are not really facts.  Einstein taught us that everything is relative.  Post Einstein-ian physics has taught us the universe is a very very weird place where things exist and don’t exist at the same time.  Where we are all, at this very moment, hurtling through space at hundreds of thousands of miles an hour while we think we are sitting still and reading (or writing!).  And we are not even sitting on the chair we that we think, it is a fact, that we are sitting on.  We are actually floating above it upon nuclear forces.  We think it’s a fact that we and the chair are solid things when we and the chair are mostly empty space.   Facts are arguably opinions about which we have feelings.

The common example we all know is; “the glass is half empty” vs. “the glass is half full”.  While both of these statements are logically equivalent they have very different effects on us when we think them.  One has us focusing on what we don’t have and one on what we do have.  One has us feeling sad about what we don’t have and one has us feeling grateful about what we do have.  There are deeper levels than this but consider how you want to feel.

Just recently a very talented, successful and well loved singer drank herself to death.  You may know who I mean.  If not, I’m sure you can think of a similar case.  I’m guessing she chose to think in a way that left her feeling angry, frustrated and sad.  I’m guessing she drank to numb the ensuing pain.   Choosing to think this way seems to know no boundaries, economic or otherwise.

Thinking habits do not change easily.  Habits are well trained neural networks that are part of our sub-conscious mind.  Consciously realizing we have a habit we wish to change does not make the neural network go away.  It is a thinking muscle, if you will, that must be consciously retrained until we have the habit that we want.  This process takes time and discipline.  You have to “hear” in your mind the response generated by your sub-conscious and then consciously replace it with the thought-response you want.  Saying it out loud – thereby getting in one repetition of the new habit will reinforce the new sub-c0nscious thought-response you are trying to create – helping make it a habit.

This can be slow and detailed work.  My favorite phrase here is “slow down to speed up.”  The more you slow down and catch your thinking and change it the faster the replacement becomes habit.  Most of us think because we’ve learned something or become consciously aware of a bad habit we will change it immediately. Then when the same bad habit shows up a few moments or days later we get frustrated that what we learned didn’t stick.  Then we criticize ourselves and, often, give up.  Because we didn’t learn it the first time we stoop to bad mouthing ourselves and quitting.

So the most important word is forgive.  We simply must understand and forgive ourselves.  Understanding the nature of changing a habit helps us not have unrealistic expectations of ourselves.  Forgiving ourselves for continuing a behavior we know we don’t want gives us the permission and encouragement to keep working at changing it. 

NASA learned it takes about 30 days of continuous reinforcement to rewrite a strong neural network.  With intermittent reinforcement it takes longer.  Forgiving yourself and consciously rewriting the thought until you have the new habit simply takes as long as it takes.  Getting mad at yourself and beating yourself up – just kills you.  Forgiving yourself and not rewriting the thought is another way of dying.  You have to to both, forgive yourself and make the conscious effort to rewrite the thought.

If you are not growing you are dying.  Create the lifelong habit of growing your thinking and all the moments of your life become opportunities to become a stronger you.

To my friend – you should think “I am so happy to learn, now, how to make changes I have wanted to make for 40 years.”  Forgive yourself for not getting it perfectly right every time and keep making the effort.  It is the effort that makes you strong.

Your unreasonable friend,

Dennis

Are you a business owner or leader that wants better results?  Here is a flyer for my upcoming workshop; GrowthCLUB.

copyright@DennisWillis 2011,2012 Business Coach Ohio

Here are examples of how most of us think.

Failure Mode 1

• ‘I don’t have enough time’
• ‘I need more time’
• ‘There just aren’t enough hours in the day’

This is failure mode thinking.  A now failed business owner once said to me ‘I love being a business owner – I get to work any 80 hours a week I want.’

He was too busy to do what successful people do.

Failure mode 2

• ‘I know’

He already knew better.  He shut down any suggestions with an ‘I know’ and would explain how he was already doing that.  The busy-busy-ness in his head was so intense he really couldn’t listen.  Instead he would explain and defend what he was already doing – even though it was not succeeding.

I know is another way of saying ‘shut up.’  ‘I know’ stops you from actually listening.  Big ‘I know-ers’ keep themselves from taking the time to learn what they need to learn in order to succeed.

Failure mode 3

• ‘I should.’

A successful Australian told me they have a term for folks who ‘should’ all over themselves.  They call them ‘gonna’s', someone who is always ‘gonna’ do something, they already ‘know’ to do, if they had time.

So I’m about to tell you what successful people do differently than the prior three failure modes.  If, in response, you have any of these thoughts;

• I don’t have time
• I know
• I should

then maybe you should stop and think about doing something differently.

Failure mode 4

• ‘I’m not comfortable’
• ‘I’m afraid of…’
• ‘I just can’t…’
• ‘I  just don’t want to…’
• ‘I can’t see myself there doing that…’
• ‘I would be embarrassed…’
• ‘I wouldn’t fit in…’

We employ avoidance behaviors to protect ourselves.  For a bunch of psychological reasons I won’t go into here, we consciously and unconsciously avoid putting ourselves into the very circumstances that would help us most.

The four failure modes summed up:

I don’t have time to do what I know I should do.  I’m uncomfortable just thinking about it so I don’t listen and avoid thinking about it.  Then I go back to doing what I’ve been doing and accepting the results I’ve been getting.

Success mode 1

The most successful 3 or 4 percent of the population think differently than most of us.  Success mode first comes from changing your thinking habits.  This doesn’t happen instantly.  You have to use your conscious mind to retrain your sub-conscious mind (where habits are physical neural networks that must be rewired to sub-consciously produce different responses.)

Replace the thought ‘I don’t have time’ with

• ‘I have all the time I need.’

You have the exact same 24 hours a day that the most successful people in the world have.  They aren’t getting greater results because they have a 36 hour day.  They know they have all the time they need and have all the time they are ever going to get – 24 hours each day.  You can’t manage time you can only manage how you use it.  More on this below.

Success mode 2

Replace the thought/verbal response ‘I know’ with ‘Isn’t that interesting.’  Knowledge is the enemy of learning. Stop telling people to shut up and stop telling your brain to stop listening.  Successful people are present in the moment and get learning from every instant of their lives.  They are constantly giving and getting – not shutting down and numbing themselves.  There is much learn on this subject.

Success mode 3

Replace the thought/verbal response ‘I should’ with I will or I won’t.  If it is ‘I will’ then stop and put it on your schedule.  Put something on your schedule to take a next step even if it is just a baby step.  For new behaviors baby steps are best for most.  Anything else is I won’t.  Really successful people are masters of ‘I won’t’.

Success mode 4

Replace avoidance behaviors with courage and self – discipline.  Really successful people have learned that their ‘comfort zone’ is the most dangerous place on earth.  If you are not growing you are dying. Being in your comfort zone is dying.  It might be more comfortable to sit on your couch and watch tv than working out or getting something done.  It is certainly easier.  Which one produces better health?  Which one leads to brain and body death?

Jim Rohn said you have two choices – the pain of self-discipline or the pain of regret.  One of them is far far worse. Get out of your comfort zone and stay out of it.

Success mode summary.

I will take the time to learn and do what successful people do even if it scares me, makes me uncomfortable or is hard for me to do.

I can help you with a baby step in this direction.  Never underestimate the power of a baby step in a new direction.  The significance is in the change of direction not the size of the first step.  Any step in a new direction is powerful in itself.

Really successful people choose how to invest their time by being clear on their priorities.  They get clear on their priorities by setting goals and making plans.  Are you uncomfortable with this?  Most people are uncomfortable.  Some have tried and since it didn’t work the first time – have given up.  Unrealistic expectations are another avoidance behavior.  We’re you an expert driver the first time you got behind the wheel?  Did it take a few drives before you were comfortable?  How many before you were an expert who could talk and drive at the same time?

I’ll teach you a thorough and repeatable process for setting goals and making plans.  You have to be willing to get out of your comfort zone and learn it.  No one can do your learning for you and no one can do your exercise for you. You won’t do it perfectly the first time.  You may be very uncomfortable at first.  Get over it.

If you are ready to stop not having enough time, to stop ‘I know-ing’ yourself into numbness, to stop scolding yourself with ‘I should’s’ and to stop avoiding growing because its uncomfortable then click on the link below and book yourself into a great baby step toward a new future.

If you already have goals and plans then I know you’ll click on the link because you are always hungry to learn how to do things better and we just might a have process that will help you improve yours.  While you’re at it – get of few of your friends who need to get started and out of avoidance to come along with you.

Good luck!

Here’s the link, click here to start a wonderful new path and become uncommon.

Your unreasonable friend,

Dennis

denniswillis@actioncoach.com

December 21, 2011

copyright@DennisWillis 2011,2012 Business Coach Ohio

The “things are so bad…” conversation. Yesterday, this well educated and scarily smart business owner leaned closer over the table and whispered, “I think the real unemployment rate in Cleveland is probably over twenty percent.”  He went on to real off a bunch of facts and brutal realities about our area.  He capped it off with, of course, “Lebron really hurt this area.”

Boomtown. I was born in Cleveland and grew up in Elyria.  My father owned a construction company.  He moved us to Elyria in the early 60’s because it was booming.  For a year or two Elyria was the fastest growing city in the entire country.  Northeast Ohio was booming.  People were moving here from everywhere. 

We were at the top then.  We were making cars and steel and tires and machine parts and a whole bunch of other stuff and selling it everywhere.  Cash was being pumped into our region and people were following it.  Houses and schools and malls were being built and jobs were plentiful. 

Are we at the bottom now?  There were some down times between then and now.  The original oil crisis had lines at gas stations we’ve never seen again.  The original financial crisis had the savings and loan collapse and our government bail out plastered on the front pages.  Some say it is worse now.  Some think we are heading for a double dip. 

Boom then bust then?  So what did I say that stopped my friend and changed the nature of the conversation.  “Things come in cycles don’t they?”, I asked.  “You are saying we are at the bottom of the cycle right?  Well, what comes next?”  He brightened up a bit and asked, “So you’re saying we’ve got nowhere to go but up?”

We are in this together.  Belief is one thing action is another.  He sent me an email later on asking me for ideas on how we can help each other make money.  Now we’re talking! 

Action.  Don’t get your hopes up – get into action.  Positive attitude and positive thinking are important.  Positive action is necessary.  What are you willing to do?  Jim Rohn said, “Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better.”  Ghandi said “be the change you want to see in the world.”  How can we be better – each of us has to work on ourselves – then we all become better.

Opportunity.  Here is just one little idea.  Positive cash flow is needed in our area.  Let’s focus on just that.  Companies that sell products and services outside Northeast Ohio bring cash into Northeast Ohio.  Let’s identify these companies and find them some referrals.  If you own such a company tell us about yourself so the rest of us can help you find business.  I just now created a Facebook page for this purpose.  It is http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Refer-NEO/122978311079105?filter=1. Click now  and type in a sentence and a link to your website.  Take just this little action.  Let’s see what we can do together.

Better.  No matter how good we are – we can always be better.  I’m part of an organization dedicated to that belief.  What we’re learning from doing that with 10,000 business every week is available to you too.  Contact me (denniswillis@actioncoach.com).  Here is a link to a few videos of business owners of various size businesses who are succeeding at getting better results http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=actioncoach+testimonial&aq=0.

copyright@DennisWillis 2011,2012 Business Coach Ohio

I wasn’t happy.

I didn’t think we needed any help.

We were growing and profitable so what was the point, I thought.  I also didn’t like my territory, that of being the smartest guy in the room with all the answers, being infringed upon.  Yes, in hindsight, it is easy to see I was obnoxious.  Then, though, I didn’t see it that way.

I didn’t like being struck dumb by a simple question.  “What is your process?”, he had asked.

So I went on the attack.  “What do you mean by process?”, I frowned and maybe even sneered a bit.

He responded calmly, “I mean by what process do you run your meetings?”

I went for the laugh; “Well we all show up about 1:30…” I raised my eyebrows and stared at the VP of operations who just arrived at his usual 5 minutes late and got a chuckle from the other attendees, “…then,” I went on, “we argue for about an hour and a half,” which got another chuckle, “leave and go back to doing what we would have done anyway.”  That got another chuckle, well, except from the boss.  “Do you think,” I asked, “we should change it?”  Now that got a real laugh.  Even the consultant broke a smile.

In spite of my skepticism, in the back of my mind I realized I was already learning something.  Having voiced it, I was pretty sure we had a process that could be improved.  I was pretty sure it would be good for us.  I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like it.

I’m not, by nature, a big fan of rules.  Back then, I even detested the idea of keeping a schedule.  The good way, somebody else found to do something, was exactly how I would not do it.  I would do it my own way.  I was the consummate re-inventor of wheels.  Sometimes they worked better, sometimes.  Often, I now realize, I just wasted a bunch of time getting a result I could have gotten a lot faster if I hadn’t been so focused on what I wanted to do.

This attitude cost me a bunch of time and money.  I realized, at some point, that I had to learn better.  So I went to work on me.

In a few short sentences I can share what took me a bit longer to understand.  I learned there was a better question for me to ask myself before I started the “doing” part of accomplishing something.  Instead of asking myself “What do I want to do?”, I learned to ask myself first, “What do I want to have?”  There were some things, I realized, I really wanted to have.

It’s like when I was a little kid, I really wanted a custom made chassis for my slot car.  In order to have it there was no question that I would have to do some things I really didn’t want to do.  I didn’t want to have to walk around, knock on doors and ask folks if I could cut thier lawns.  I did it, though, and I got the new chassis I wanted to have.  I knocked on forty doors and cut twenty lawns to get it.  In the middle, one guy showed me how to sharpen my blade so I could cut faster.  I didn’t care about doing it my way, I copied his method because I just wanted to get those lawns cut as fast as possible to get what I wanted to have.

To get what I wanted to have there were some things I had to do that I didn’t want to do.  To get them accomplished faster I had to be someone who listened to what others had to say.  I wonder how, as an accomplished adult, I forgot this simple reality.

Back to business; I learned to ask, “What do I want to have?”, “What will be my process for getting it? and, “Who do I have to be to do those things?”.  Set a goal, have a plan and take time to sharpen the saw.

Now I take time to make my plan, track my progress and continuously work to improve my self.  These were not in my nature.  I had to learn how to do these things.  There are some things I want to improve in my life and some things I want to have.  I’ve learned to work on being clear about those things.

There are good techniques for getting clear about what-you-want-to-have and for planning to get them that I’ve learned from others along the way.  If you don’t have a planning process that would be a great start.  If you have a process they would be a great way to improve it further.

We help business owners work through reviewing their business using a well proven process.  We help them take the results of the review and prioritize what they want to work on improving.  We help them get it down on a simple plan they can follow to get what they want to have.  You can’t go to far ahead because things change so fast.  That’s why we do  this every quarter.  Check the sidebar for the next planning date (or click here).  We call it GrowthCLUB.  It’s about the growth of your business and the growth of yourself as a business leader.  It is a club because you’ll be helping and learning from other business owners who are growing their businesses.

Maybe you’ll have a better answer to “What is your process?” for getting what you want out of life then I did back then.

copyright@DennisWillis 2011,2012 Business Coach Ohio

Chuck Kocher is an outgoing guy who was an executive in the information industry before he found his calling in business coaching.  He was very successful when I met him three years ago  and I can’t say I’m surprised at how high he has risen in the rankings.  ActionCOACH does a great job of tracking our coaches and publicizing the really successful ones.

The steps they’ve taken to get to the top get are shared and they, I expect, get bombarded with calls from other coaches who are trying to learn from the best of the best.  I was one of those callers.

We updated each other on what’s been happening and then I got to ask my question; “Chuck, what has made the biggest difference for you in your rise to the top?”  Without hesitation he gave me an answer that stunned me; “I crushed fear from every part of my life.”

It is an answer that has been stuck in my head for the better part of a month.

First, Chuck is not a guy with whom you would associate the word fear.  Second, fear and it’s silent partner; stress, have been showing up on my radar screen a lot lately.  In trying to understand how big a part fear plays in our life and how someone like Chuck can find and crush it from every part of his life I’ve learned some tricks which we play on ourselves.

We Hide Our Fears We don’t like to admit to fear so we hide it behind other emotions and words.  If something makes us jump back – we call it being startled.  Then we usually laugh it off or get angry at what startled us.  We say we “don’t like” networking when we are afraid being in a group of people we don’t know.  We say  we “don’t like” public speaking when we are simply afraid.  We often call fear being “nervous” or being “anxious”.   We say we “don’t like” cold calling when we are afraid of rejection.

Fear is healthy Fear is a healthy thing and we have substantial systems for dealing with things of which we should be afraid.  It is a good thing to be afraid of stepping in front of an onrushing bus.  Just thinking about doing such an ill-advised action should raise fear and stress in your mind and body.

Fear is unhealthy Fear causes stress.  Stress kills.  Stress shortens our lifespan.  Stress impairs our immune system.  Simply another case of too much of a good thing is a bad bad thing.

Fear is over supplied Our system of laws, safety regulations and cultural discouragement of personal violence have left us with, compared to our ancestors, very few real threats to our physical well being.  Lions, tigers and bears, gun fights, fisticuffs, sword fights or karate battles are far more the subject of fiction than our lives.  We seem to be left with a high capacity to feel fear and extremely reduced set of things to be feared.  Our fear systems don’t have much to do and so now apply themselves to things that can’t actually hurt us.  It is actually more dangerous to hunt for game in the woods with a sharp stick than make cold calls even though your stomach may tell you differently.

Courage is acting even though you are afraid It takes courage to overcome fear.  I’ve come to understand “crushing fear” as doing the things you are avoiding because of fear and doing them over and over until you no longer feel the fear.  I used to be extraordinarily afraid of public speaking.  I’ve now done it so much that I find it fun and look for opportunities to do it more.  People who knew me 10 years ago would be shocked.  One fear crushed – more to go.

Fear is a guide Do what you are afraid of doing.  I am working to increase my awareness of unfounded fears.  Unfounded fears lead me to avoiding things that I need to do.  In this way fear is a compass of what I need to do to become successful.  If you follow this advice make sure you respect well founded fears like stepping in front of a bus.  Disrespect the unfounded ones.

Fear and Stress I recently viewed a show on PBS entitled “Killer Stress.”  It was a big influence on this writing.  Here is a link to the show description (“Killer Stress”) and here is a link to a blog about the show (“Blog: How your baboon of a boss is killing you”).  Looking in to these will convince you to crush fear and lower your stress level and thereby become a better business person.

copyright@DennisWillis 2011,2012 Business Coach Ohio

1. Be ruthless with your time.
2. Be intolerant of your fears and weaknesses.
3. Be demanding of yourself.

Business (and maybe, life) is about the great feeling of accomplishment, not the temporary good feelings you get from self indulgence. One cannot be taken away, the other leaves as quickly as it arrived.  How much of your enjoyment is from things that can never be taken from you?

Money can be frittered away or it can be invested.  The same is true for you. A great investment grows daily.  Are you growing daily?  How are you better today than yesterday?

Sometimes I become completely fed up with myself. I discover I’ve just spent time being distracted or avoiding something I could have been doing that gets me closer to what I want to have.  Minutes, even hours, gone from life forever.  I’ve learned not to spend time dwelling on past poor decisions.  That’s wasting time over wasting time.

I’ve learned I have to invest time in staying focused. I review my goals, I plan my time.  I work on improving my moment to moment awareness – so I realize more quickly when I am off track or distracted.  I work on improving my thinking so I am not uselessly reworking the past.  I cut the anchor by taking my learnings and moving on.

It’s what you say to yourself, about yourself, when you are by yourself that hits home. Our brains are capable of great change.  We’ve all heard about people sustaining great brain damage and using a different part of their brain to relearn necessary skills – talking, for example.  You don’t need trauma to change, committment works as well.  Part of learning to be who you desire to be is telling yourself who you are in the process of becoming.

This is what I have learned to say to myself, about myself, when I am by myself. They are part of my twice daily recitation of my “I am” statements.  Yes, I have learned to be careful and deliberate about what I say to myself.  You should too.  If you can’t say them in the present tense and beleive them from yourself then use the phrasing “I am becoming…”.

• I am ruthless with my time.
• I am intolerant of my fears and weaknesses.
• I am demanding of my best effort.

I do this because there are things I want to have in my life. To have what I want to have, I must be the person I want to be and do the things I need to do.  What do you want to have?  Who do you need to be to have that?  What do you need to do to have that?

The great acheivers in our history books, our newscasts and even in our sports pages all want to have acheived something. They did what they needed to do and became who they needed to become to have those achievements and the rewards that came with them.  What acheivements do you want to have accomplished?  What rewards do you want?

copyright@DennisWillis 2011,2012 Business Coach Ohio

Fear is an ancient protector of our very skin from physical threat.  An ancient savior that has become a crippling nuisance when we need, for example, to speak publicly.  Fear has become a brain cramp when we try to talk to someone we find attractive.  It’s become a liability in our professional lives preventing us from picking up a phone to call a prospect.  It is as if fear has caused the phone to weigh ten thousand pounds.

Perhaps, in our bones, we still carry the old knowing that standing out in the crowd can attract a watching predator or a that approaching a potential mate can attract a violent competitor.  Odds are pretty slim, today, that you’ll be eaten or beaten for letting your light shine bright.  Few, however, do.

To shine you must relax your grip on fear.  Simple.  Really.  I’m serious.

It is a simple thing to start running fear out of your life.  You accept the fact that you use thoughts to drive up your fear.  You become aware of when you have such thoughts.  You replace them with other thoughts.  Repeat until fear is at a useful level.

Fire yourself up instead of beating yourself up. Negative thoughts are self demolition and work hand in hand with fear.  We lead our self to self – paralysis with this one-two punch combination.  Negative thoughts leave you feeling more vulnerable to potential predators and competitors.

The good news, you deal with your own negativity the same way you deal with your own fear.  Positive, courageous thoughts grow positive and courageous lives for ourselves.  Start listening to yourself.  Start upgrading your thoughts.  Start choosing to feel joyful instead of fearful.

Start talking to yourself positively.  Stop talking to yourself negatively and fearfully.  Here’s how.

1) Planned self talk.
2) Planned self listening.
3) Planned pattern interruption.

Now, here are the details.

1) Planned self talk.

Say good things to yourself out loud at least twice a day.   Listen to yourself and repeat so that you believe them.  Come up with a list of 20 things to say.  You must start them with “I am.”
Say things like:
I am in a state of joy.
I am happy.  OR  I am in the process of becoming happy.

2) Planned self listening.

Listen to your thoughts and write down the negative and fearful ones.
Categorize them.  Below are three links to articles on categorizing negative and fearful thinking. Create challenges and/or replacements.  Suggestions on how to do this are also in the articles below.

3) Planned pattern interruption.

Catch yourself talking yourself down or scaring yourself.  Stop yourself.  Substitute your challenges or replacements and feel better.Catch yourself saying to yourself “I’m horrible at  ____________” and simply think (and say) “I have an opportunity to be better at ____________.”

A simple process.  Now you have a simple choice.  To live in fear or joy.  I hope you pick the latter and start talking yourself up.

Articles
http://www.dbsalliance.org/site/PageServer?pagename=empower_negativethinkingWS
http://els4kids.blogspot.com/2008/12/automatic-negative-thoughts-ants-ideas.html
http://www.byui.edu/CounselingCenter/Stress%20Management/Challenging%20Distorted%20Thinking.htm

copyright@DennisWillis 2011,2012 Business Coach Ohio