The show’s specific example is not what I mean. The singular self indulgence that the cast members wagered they could resist is only one of the many self indulgences that tempt all of us daily. Alcohol, drugs, food, television, and I think I would add watching professional sports to this short list of examples of other indulgences and distractions to which most of us succumb.

To be master of your domain is to assert will power, to make choices that lead to what you want. Which means we have to talk about what you want, what we want.

We can want two things at the same time. We can want to be in better physical condition and we can want to eat like a king. One of these things leads to a long active life, one leads to a host of ailments. One is a short term indulgence the other a healthy lifestyle. One is delicious right now, one is not. It is something else. Something successful people seem to appreciate more than the majority.

They are masters of their domain and hold most of the wealth on our planet. The self disciplined are the successful few. They are able to say no to a host of indulgences and distractions every day while most of us give in to being part of the most overweight, drugged and distracted civilization in history.

The standard recipe for success starts with clarity about what you want. You have to want it more than the next beer, the next cupcake, the next episode, the next game, the next hit, the next whatever. You have to want it bad enough to fuel your self-discipline. To make yourself strong enough to resist choices that don’t lead to what you want.

Too much beer and pizza, as much as I love them, lead to a fat miserable life. Daily exercise, as much as I resist it, leads to a long healthy life. We’ve achieved a pinnacle in which our success delivers the ability to indulge ourselves to ruin. To succeed today you need more clarity and more self-discipline. It appears about 3% of our populations has the right mixture naturally.

The rest of us have to work to learn the skills of clarity of goals and the self-discipline to make the moment to moment choices that lead to them. We have to become masters of our own domain.

I choose to believe that I can learn to be more self-disciplined, that I can learn to set and work toward clear goals.

To that end I’ve started doing research on how to develop more self-discipline. Below are some of the online resources I’ve found to help myself.

http://sidsavara.com/personal-development/will-power-how-to-improve-your-personal-self-discipline

http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/self-discipline/

copyright@DennisWillis 2011,2012 Business Coach Ohio

There is an astonishing place that holds who we are and how we feel.  It remains the most impressive computing device known to humanity.  It is cheap – we all get one.  If scientists we’re able to make something similar – it would have a gigantic manual and a crew of technicians to operate it.  They’d work fulltime on how to get the most use out of it.

We are born with one but we don’t get a manual.  There are thousands of books written on learning to use it – but most of us don’t read a single one.  Most of us fumble about and learn to use it well enough to just get by. Some of us do far worse.  Studying the most successful business owners teaches us how they use theirs; here’s the how and why they work on good thinking.

If you agree that you are in charge of your own mind then you agree that you choose your own thoughts.  Choosing your own thoughts means you get to choose among positive thoughts, negative thoughts, angry thoughts and sad thoughts – to name a few.  Since there are always many perspectives, you get to choose positive thoughts or negative thoughts, for example, about everything.  You can choose to think the glass is half full or the glass is half empty.  You can choose to think you have failed at something or that you’ve learned better about how to succeed next time.  Choosing our thoughts is the one and only thing over which we really have control.

Your thoughts create your feelings.  If you choose to think negatively you will feel negative feelings.  Here’s an example.  If you try to make a sale and you don’t get the sale you might walk away from the prospect and think “I’m terrible at sales.”  You will then feel bad and you won’t feel like trying to make another sale. 

Your negative thinking and subsequent bad feelings have completely sapped your energy.  Your thoughts create your feelings which create your energy.  You can be just as honest with yourself and use positive thoughts to increase your energy.  In the last example you could walk away from the prospect and choose to think “I have a gigantic opportunity to improve at selling.”  While this is roughly the same meaning as “I’m terrible at sales” it leaves you with a whole different feeling.  Say them both out loud and see how you feel. 

Your choice of thoughts determines your feelings and your energy level.  Your energy level is your capacity to act.  If you feel good about yourself you then have energy to take actions that lead to reaching your goals.  If you beat yourself up with negative thinking you drain your energy and are unable to act.  You hide out in your comfort zone.

Really successful people have a natural or learned discipline of thinking positively and seeing opportunities in everything.  Henry Ford said, “Whether you believe you will or believe you won’t, you’re right.”   If you want an extreme example of how powerful taking responsibility for your thinking can be then read Viktor Frankl’s 1946 book Man’s Search for Meaning.  It changed my life and taught me this lesson.  It is still changing my life.

Successful business owners have disciplined thinking and work hardest on improving their thinking.  “To have a better business you need to be a better business person.”  “It is more important to work on yourself than your business” (Jim Rohn). 

The first discipline is the discipline of constantly working and learning to improve your thinking. 

There’s much more to the story – get a book!  I always recommend Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People as a starting point. 

I also put on a seminar (in Northeast Ohio) sharing this and many more lessons from successful business owners.  If you are not in Northeast Ohio search actioncoach.com for someone doing the same in your area.

Here’s the link to the updated flier – now it includes comments of current attendees.  Reenergize Your Profits…
Here is a link to a page of comments by current & prior attendees.
"A Slap in the Face". 

I’m off to take advantage of a great opportunity to improve my thinking – how about you?

Read a good book on thinking Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques (2nd Edition).

Dennis

copyright@DennisWillis 2011,2012 Business Coach Ohio

The 5 Laws

The 3 Caveats

Thanks to Joseph Pucci for this question and thread!

http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&discussionID=18108919&gid=41352&commentID=16481022&trk=view_disc

copyright@DennisWillis 2011,2012 Business Coach Ohio

I think, relying upon the “6 Degrees of Separation” concept, we can all help them get it.  Whether it is more referrals, someone with a specific skill set or information on how to seize a particular opportunity – the answers they need are within our reach!  Let’s prime the pump for local companies!

Bruce Ramsey of Mel-Ba Manufacturing in Elyria, Ohio wants referrals to military parts suppliers.

Bobby Colagross of Awesome Wares, in Avon, Ohio wants you to have great branded gifts to give to your clients.

Aaron Baaske of Medway Corp. of Amherst, Ohio wants more people to realize they have a better choice than the drug store seat riser.

Terry, Ed & Nancy, three of the family members at Stewart’s Appliance and Electronics in Elyria want folks to know that they are part of a billion dollar buying group and have better prices than the big box stores.   They want you to enjoy your shopping experience, get a better deal, better pricing and learn why Stewart’s customers won’t go anywhere else.

Tina Hobart at Zaytran in Elyria, Ohio would like to see a pickup in the automotive business so they can get everybody back to work.  Their work grippers have applications in many industries – check them out!

More to come…

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