Like most people in my personal sphere, I live my life at a fairly rapid pace, have a healthy social life, connected in far too many ways and am almost constantly thinking about the next strategic move in one of my four simultaneous careers. Yet, when I am weeding my garden, I am totally living in the present and, because I am living in the moment, my stress level drops, my worries disappear and my subconscious creative problem-solving mechanism kicks into high gear.
As I tug and pull, I realize that every weed I have eliminated was, in some way, stealing the nutrients needed to nourish my tomatoes, peppers, squash, cauliflower, broccoli, beans and herbs. And, as I’m weeding and watering my living 20’ X 12’ green wonder, I absolutely know that I am also nurturing myself.
Walking back from the garden to my house today, a thought flitted across my consciousness. I know I take very good care of my garden but wondered, “Am I taking the time to identify and pull all the metaphorical weeds that may be draining my own nourishment?” So, I ask myself, “Am I spending enough time with and nurturing those relationships that stimulate my curiosity and feed my spirit or have I fallen into the trap of ‘guilt’ and continue to hang on to people who sap my energy. If so, do I have the courage to weed out those individuals? ”
Does what I read stimulate my thinking or dull my creativity? Does what I watch on TV and at the movies enhance my creativity or fill me with unrecognized negativity and numb my mind? Does the food I put in my body nourish me like the rich soil in my garden enriches my vegetable plants? Or, does what I take into my body tax my system and deplete my physical energy?
I’ve arrived at some conclusions – and that makes all the work I put into having a beautiful garden worthwhile in more ways than one. Whether you have a garden or not, I think it’s good food for thought.
]]> Support is a tricky word. I do like the implication of the Online Dictionary’s definition of support: “To hold in position so as to keep from falling, sinking or slipping or to strengthen.” Support means different things to different people. To some, “support” means giving their time, money or both to their favorite cause. To others, the word might be a call to support our troops fighting in a foreign country or supporting a political party to win an election. In organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous or Al-Anon, being part of a support system is the key to both recovery as well as achieving and keeping physical, mental and spiritual health. Yet, to some, asking or giving support is just too “touchy /feely”. However you want to look at it, having a support system, group, team, circle or what ever you choose to name it is one of the key elements to living an exceptional life.
The reality is that as we move through life’s peaks and valleys, a solid support system can bless us with family and friends who celebrate our wins, comfort and encourage us at our low points, cheerlead us through our endeavors and lend a hand when needed. Cultivating and nurturing a support team can be one of the most important projects you undertake – on a number of levels.
Here are three personal life-changing examples.
In 1984, I was going through a career minefield and I absolutely knew that I needed to reinvent myself and simply did not know how to do it. Bringing together a group of my closest friends for two days, we brainstormed my life, taking it apart and putting it back together again. Out of this wild two days with what I then called my “leaper colony”, came the creation of The Quantum Leap Thinking Organization and what would become a dream career of speaking and coaching. I simply could not and did not want to do it alone.
In 2002, more dear friends threw themselves into helping make my one-man show on Broadway an absolute, phenomenal success. I could not have done it alone.
In August of 2009. I underwent open-heart surgery to replace my aortic valve. Both friends and family called and asked what they could do to help. What stands out most in my mind is that my wife arranged for no more than two people to visit me at home once a day, everyday, for an hour. I was showered with food, gifts and, most importantly, love. This generous show of support over a period of weeks elevated my mood and contributed enormously to my healing.
If my personal examples aren’t enough, consider this: a number of clinical studies tracking individuals over decades have concluded that, those who maintained strong connections with family, close friends, and community had significantly lower rates of mental and physical health disorders. The truth is that a strong network of supportive family and friends act as a giant buffer against life’s stressors.
Having a strong support system does not magically materialize and it doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It takes clarity, self-awareness, focus, energy and a willingness to help others without expecting a payback.
1. The first major step to cultivating a network of healthy support is to make a personal commitment to yourself, because – it all begins with you. Commit to treating yourself with kindness and compassion. First, become your own cheerleader. If you can’t do it for yourself, why would anyone else want to jump on your band wagon?
2. Define your own needs, limits and boundaries. Your clarity will help you get your priorities in order and help make clear to others the kind of support they can give you.
3. Take an honest look at the people who are already close to you. Appreciate their strengths and limits and accept them for who they are. No one can be everything at once. Not everyone can be a teacher, confidant, helper, and cheerleader or give you emotional comfort in the same way. For example, my wife gives me one kind of support, my personal assistant another. In addition, each of my friends is unique and has distinctive talents and interests and each one gives me a different kind of support.
4. Ask for help when you really need it and be specific about what you want. Many people hesitate to ask for support yet – people really do want to help other people. And, if they help once, they will often help again. In his autobiography, Ben Franklin wrote, “He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another than he whom you yourself have obliged.” Others will become invested in your success.
5. Nurture your support system. Look around at your family and friends and constantly be on the lookout for what you can do to help them achieve their dreams or reduce their stress. You receive by giving and, if you give support without expecting anything in return, I’m sure you will receive all the support you will ever need.
6. Be a very good listener. One of the most effective ways to show support is to be a good listener. Your willingness to listen without judgment and with an open heart is healing.
7. Show gratitude. If you want to have a solid support system, never take anyone for granted and always express your gratitude.
Don’t wait until a crisis happens before you begin to build your support network. Support is the glue that deepens relationships. Follow these seven tips and you will live an exceptional life.
Letting go of a life-diminishing attachment is extremely challenging because it involves emotions. At the core of what makes letting go so very difficult is realizing that it represents loss. But, on the positive side, letting go can also represent the willingness to unburden yourself and make space for something new.
An attachment could be a habit, useless junk stored away in your garage, clothes hanging in your closet that you haven’t worn in years, a self-defeating addiction or just the general “stuff” that takes up space in your life. The list is almost endless but the one attachment that presents the greatest challenge is relationships, specifically, “toxic” relationships.
Without a doubt, the most difficult thing to let go of in life is a relationship, even a toxic one. By “toxic” I mean a relationship that is life-diminishing, creating negative stress, anxiety or guilt. While many relationships can be healed, some cannot, and holding on to a toxic relationship is equivalent to continuing to chew on broken glass. I know, because like many of you, I’ve held on.
Very recently, I’ve had to let go of a relationship that has been toxic for over three years. Why did it take me so long to let it go? Because, even in the face of truth, I held on to the hope that it would right itself, somehow, and I felt too much guilt to end it.
Five years ago, I entered into a business partnership with absolute blind trust. In hindsight, there were small warning signs which I choose to ignore. I believe I ignored these glimpses of the truth because part of me thought this young man would grow, learn and mature and that I would be the one to mentor him. In spite of seeing fear in many of the choices he made, my hubris convinced me that I could change his character. After all, he was bright, clever, creative and extremely charming. I saw great potential and I genuinely like him.
Over the years, I chose to close my eyes when I saw him taking advantage of others. I believed him when he justified his choices and forgave him when he made decisions that weren’t in the best interest of everyone involved in our project. I even defended him when those closest to me, the people who look out for my best interests, told me what I didn’t want to hear.
This went on until I was clobbered over the head with such a blatant betrayal of trust that I could no longer allow this relationship to continue. It became obvious that the only choice was to instantly cut it off. But – and here is one of the key traps that often stop people from ending a toxic relationship – guilt got in the way.
Guilt is a wretched, devious, fear-based emotion because it chips away at being authentic and erodes self-esteem. Guilt often manipulates us to question our own judgment and, because of that, we put off making tough decisions. While many people believe that guilt keeps us on course, in line or out of trouble, my experience as a peak performance coach for over three decades negates that theory. Guilt is not productive.
I was finally able to work through my guilt and terminate the relationship. I was able to accomplish this by being willing to face the truth, acknowledge the stress this relationship brought into my life and see how the toxicity of this relationship was affecting my other relationships. Perhaps, most importantly, I was able to let go by seeking out support from close friends.
The payoff was immediate. My emotional stress disappeared, my spirit felt light and it made space for me to move on to explore new business possibilities.
I tell you my story hoping that it will help you recognize and quickly let go of any toxic relationship in your life – personal or professional. Here’s how:
1) Take 5 minutes and note all of your most important personal and professional relationships and recognize which ones, if any, are draining energy from you, creating negative feelings or are based in guilt. You will know immediately because, when you think of this individual, you will feel negative stress in your body.
2) If you discover one of your relationships is toxic, ask yourself, “Is there something I can say or do today to forgive this person?” Or, “Is there something I can do or say to heal this relationship?”
3) Ask yourself, “What is the payoff for keeping this person in my life? What am I getting out of it?” You do this by imagining your life without that person.
4) If you identify a toxic relationship and recognize that it is diminishing your life, have the courage to say or do what is necessary to let the relationship go.
Learning to let go of relationships that do not enhance your life is a key factor in learning how to live an exceptional life. As the author and motivational speaker, Dr. Leo Buscaglia, wrote, “Let go. Why do you cling to pain? There is nothing you can do about the wrongs of yesterday. It is not yours to judge. Why hold on to the very thing which keeps you from hope and love?”
His premise is simple. Management has the penchant for managing by metrics and measurement because there is the misguided feeling that when something is measured, you have the illusion of controlling it. The downside is that when you attempt to create something different in the future by measuring the past, you become a prisoner of your own thinking and create a future that is remarkably similar to the past. “For the measurement types,” Martin writes, “the world is a brutal place, full of nasty surprises that are impossible to predict. And, a world with only metric and measurement is exhausting, boring and a death to creative thinking.
For the imagination types – the abduction logicians – the world is expansive and the possibilities are endless. Think Walt Disney or the creator of the Blackberry, Mike Lazaridis, founder of Research in Motion.
The challenge is that management and leadership are still in the throws of measurement. There is a simple reason for this. The past two years of fear and uncertainty have had a severe impact on optimism. We are suffering from what I can only describe as an “organizational hangover” which blurs the lens of our perception.
We need to employ the imagination and shift our thinking from fear towards one of opportunity, optimism and growth or even a balanced mindset that will allow leadership and management to judge and decide upon opportunities fairly, rationally, clearly and wisely.
Mindsets are powerful things and influence all our decisions. Never have the stakes been higher to insure that managers and senior executives are seeing their options and opportunities as well as the risk and potential through clear glasses. We need to have an organizational “reboot” and to me, learning about the power of imagination and how to direct the imagination to creating a future of possibility is mandatory. As the humorist Mark Twin said, “You can’t depend on your judgment when your imagination is out of focus.”
]]>I created this show out of a deep desire to combine the thrill of live theater with what I can only term “disguised education” of the power of the mind. The result was “a thinking person’s” hypnosis show. My intention was that the two-hour experience would both educate and entertain without dong anything ‘off color’ or embarrassing anyone. It is an edgy presentation which is scripted around a space journey and includes a demonstration of age regression with three people at once. Since 1974, I have presented the “Journey,” in one of its many incarnations, well over 1,000 times at colleges, universities, performing arts centers and a magical appearance on Broadway.
Due to the success of the show, my career took an interesting turn. From performing, I took the leap into presenting public seminars on the power of the mind – teaching relaxation and visualization. Those workshops morphed into The Quantum Leap Thinking Organization in 1982. Once again, I changed direction and, since 1975, have presented programs around the world to the business community. The subjects have been and are creativity, managing change, risk taking, break-through thinking and learning to apply the imagination.
This brings me back to why this was such a life enhancing evening for me. Seated in the audience were over 400 bright-eyed, eager and seriously energetic 12-18 year old students, plus a sprinkling of teachers and administration. These young people were totally open and trusting to a phenomenon which often. mysteriously, scares adults. I got so excited, I stopped the show twice – with some 30 people hypnotized – to answer questions. These students blew me away with their curiosity and intelligence. Every question challenged me to reach down in myself and answer in a way that would both satisfy and motivate. My deepest desire has always been that the audience walks away from the experience wanting to learn more about their own ability to break through fear and create an exceptional future for themselves.
That is what happened last Saturday night. Lives were changed. I was – and still am – on a wonderful high. It was a gift to me. So the lesson message is simple. In our own way, all of us can create or find an opportunity to change young people’s lives. In the world we live in today, we need to make our own contribution in both influencing and shaping young minds.
]]>“The future belongs to those who believe
in the beauty of their dreams.”
-Eleanor Roosevelt, American Humanitarian
Chip, chip, chip, chip. If you’re not conscious and careful, this could well be the sound of your dreams slowly being ground away into obscurity. At least, that’s the thought I had the other night.
I have to confess to a secret pleasure. Sometimes, when my wife is in Manhattan reviewing a movie, I hunker down in front of a mindless action/adventure television program that I have digitally recorded for just such an occasion. Within reach, rests a note pad where I record any fleeting flashes of creative ideas.
I enjoy this process immensely because it echoes my childhood when my brother and I would sit enthralled in front of the black and white television watching Buck Rogers, Robin Hood and Ramar of the Jungle. As we watched, we dreamed of traveling to outer space, evading strange creatures in far away lands and of being heroes. I can still set part of my mind free as I did as a young boy, to wonder, search and dream.
This particular program I was watching was a three-part reinterpretation the 1967 British TV show, “The Prisoner,” staring Patrick McGoohan. In this remake, a man, known as Six, finds himself inexplicably trapped in ‘The Village’ with no memory of how he arrived. As he explores his environment, he discovers that his fellow inhabitants are identified by number instead of name, have no memory of any prior existence, and are under constant surveillance. Not knowing whom to trust, Six is driven by the need to discover the truth behind The Village, the reason for his being there, and most importantly — how he can escape.
He discovers that those who are suspected of being ‘dreamers’, those who believe there is something more, something outside the norm, something beyond their circumstance, are monitored and – if necessary – taken to an unknown place for treatment. They are never seen again.
The show triggered memories as my thoughts tumbled back to early childhood. These particular recollections were not pleasant. I saw myself being constantly criticized by my teachers for not paying attention and being bullied by fellow classmates for being different. Of course, at the time, I did not understand why. To me, in my daydreaming, I lived in an extraordinary world. I dreamed of being an adventurer, doing great things – free in spirit.
If it wasn’t for my mother, I suspect my life would have turned out quite differently. She observed me carefully and in spite of extreme lack of finances, when she saw the spark of creativity in me, nurtured it. I would suddenly be supplied with the materials to draw and paint, was enrolled for clarinet lessons, dispatched to learn scouting or supported to audition for a play and – on it went. I was not only allowed to dream; I was encouraged to dream.
The problem now is that usually when someone is called a ‘dreamer,’ it carries the negative implication that the individual has set especially high goals that are unrealistic. Yet, just imagine a world without dreamers. Without dreamers, no one would be motivated to accomplish anything. There would be no leaders, no poets, no artists, no astronauts, no inventors and no heroes. Dreamers have always been the architects of the world. Dreamers like Magellan, Copernicus and Columbus not only imagined the worlds, but discovered them, while dreamers like Mother Teresa and Clara Barton impacted the world by turning their dreams into reality with enormous humanitarian impact.
The real question is: Are you willing to dream and take the actions necessary to turn your dreams into reality? Or, are you playing it safe, afraid to leave your zone of comfort and security? Have you compromised your happiness by putting off your dreams with excuses and rationalization? Do you believe that you don’t have the skill, time, money courage, talent or education to achieve your dreams?
Consider the answers to these questions carefully because there’s one thing you definitely do not want to have at the end of your stay on this planet and that is – regret. You have the choice to re-vitalize your ability to dream, go for those dreams and re-invent yourself – now.
My coaching clients have taught me a lot about not only being a dreamer, but also going for those dreams. They have demonstrated that there is no age limit to being a dreamer. They have also shown the courage to let go of their excuses and, when necessary, to let go of the people who are the dream stealers, those who tell them that it is too late or that it can’t be done or that their dream is impractical.
Let me pass on a few simple strategies to help you dream and live an exceptional life.
1) The first thing that I want you to do is set aside 20 minutes to dream everyday – for one week – to ‘daydream’. Take a walk by yourself or close your eyes and listen to music and just – be quiet. You can do this. Keep some paper and a pen with you or use your computer to record your dreams – the ideas or goals – that pop into your head. You will know they are dreams because the mere thought of pursuing them will excite and motivate you.
2) Using all your senses, imagine, feel and visualize yourself achieving whatever you want to do.
3) Think of the big picture and ask yourself, “What would I have to change to have my dream happen and – and am I willing to change it?”
3) Write down the short-term goals that you need to take to achieve your dream. Then choose one simple action step that will propel you towards your dream.
4) Take action and notice how you feel. Keep in mind that there is a fine line between fear and excitement, and sometimes all you have to do is shift your thinking to be both excited and motivated.
5) Involve your closest and most trusted friends and family in your dreams. I guarantee that when you share your dream with the people you trust, you will give that dream a chance for life.
Your dreams are the seeds to unlocking your creativity, motivation and renewal. Ponder the words of Kahlil Gibran, the Lebanese-born American philosophical essayist, novelist and poet, who wrote “I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams or desires.”
Dream on!