Train Your Brain For Success
Page 14
Believe me, there's nothing in business that can't wait for four hours. The things that are really important are never that urgent. Set boundaries and enforce them lovingly—you'll be glad you did.
Take Advantage of Parkinson's Law
Have you ever noticed how you become über-productive right before a vacation? That happens to nearly everyone, and it's no coincidence. This is partly because having something to look forward to just boosts your enthusiasm, and it's partly because of an amazing principle called Parkinson's Law. Parkinson's Law states that: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” My clients have noticed that work will also contract so as to fill the time available for its completion. Give yourself more time, tasks will take you longer. Give yourself less time, and it's amazing how the same task will usually get done, with the same or better quality. Few things spark energy and productivity like a hard deadline.
I mentioned earlier my client Roger, who owns a catering business. He gave me a great example of how if his staff usually has six hours to prep a catering job, they will always finish in exactly six hours. Often, however, circumstances dictate that they only have four hours to prep the exact same job, and they finish in exactly four hours. Surprisingly (or not), the work they do in four hours is usually better than the work they do in six, and the staff actually enjoys it more. There's more energy, more spark, more enthusiasm—the four-hour job is just higher quality in every way possible.
So how to take advantage of this?
Compress deadlines. Try giving yourself less time than you think you need. If it normally takes you two hours to write a particular report, try starting an hour before the end of your day. You'll finish in an hour, you'll do great work, and you'll be amazed at how you found an extra hour every time you have to do that report again. If your sales presentation normally takes, say, 30 minutes, set an alarm for 20 and when it goes off you must close. My fifth year in sales I doubled my income largely because of this one technique.
For enhancing both quantity and quality of production in a given time frame, I've found very few tips that work better than compressing deadlines and letting Parkinson's Law work for me, rather than against me.
Become a Spectacular Listener
Okay, here's one that you probably never thought of as a productivity tip: Become a great listener. I am shocked by how much time gets wasted simply because we don't truly hear what someone is saying. Remember the greatest time waster of all—doing perfectly what needn't be done at all. When this happens it is often done with the best intentions. We really want to help our spouse, our friend, or our client, and we kill ourselves doing something for them that they didn't really want in the first place.
One of my clients is a sales manager for a water treatment company, and he described to me how he had a meeting with a prospect, convinced that he knew what they needed before even showing up. As a result, he didn't listen super well, didn't ask very many or very good questions, and left the meeting convinced he really did know what they wanted. So he literally spent days putting together a proposal based on what he projected mentally onto them and on what he thought he heard.
And he was fired up to deliver this proposal. Fortunately for him, he never got to deliver it. In his extensive research, he needed to call the client with a minor question, and that conversation—the one where he was actually listening with both ears open and his mouth mostly closed—led to a conversation where he realized the entire premise of his proposal was almost the total opposite of what this customer actually wanted and needed. This was both unfortunate and very fortunate. Unfortunate in the sense that he had to start all over again (mostly wasted a couple of days), fortunate in the sense that (his words), “If I would have delivered my original proposal, not only would I have completely wasted the time, I actually would have alienated this particular customer and probably lost them.” Which would have led to a much longer amount of time prospecting for new business to replace this customer.
Great listening is a great time saver. The subject of effective listening is likely to be another entire book, so for starters apply these three concepts:
1. If you don't understand a question, keep clarifying until you do.
2. Once you think you understand someone, don't move on until you've confirmed with them by explaining what they said back to them.
3. God gave you two ears and one mouth—use them proportionately.
There you are—12 tips that, used in conjunction with the Two-Hour Solution will make your time a lot more productive and keep your energy and focus high. Enjoy!
Reinforcement and Bonuses: This chapter has been Memory Optimized™ for your benefit. For your brief lesson and some great bonuses, visit www.planetfreedom.com/trainyourbrain with the access code in the About the Author section. Enjoy!
Component #3
Be Brilliant with the Basics
The most important part of the … process is the … person.
Zig Ziglar
Chapter 13
The Basics of You Part 1: Your Personal Core Values
I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes
Thus far all of Train Your Brain for Success has been devoted to skills and techniques. Which is terrific, because we all need skills and techniques for thriving in our world. Even taken in a vacuum, the tips you've gotten here for improving your memory, your reading ability, your goal setting, and how you deal with your time will definitely help your life work better than it does without them. Yes, we all need to know what to do. Most people don't even know that, and you can break records just by being exceptional on that level.
If you're like most of our clients, however, you may have noticed that if all you're ever working on is the how-to, you'll eventually find yourself wanting more. It's very likely that you have tried some type of goal-setting/time-management/self-improvement plan before. In fact, as a reader of a book like this I'd be a little surprised if you hadn't. As such you've probably had the experience of getting all fired up for your new system, but after somewhere between three days and three weeks you hit a wall. You either got frustrated with a technique, you found that no matter how hard you tried you weren't quite getting there, or for some reason you ended up asking the question, “What am I doing all of this for anyhow?” You needed context, you needed to understand your why.
It's been said that if your why is big enough, then the how will tend to take care of itself, and I've found that to be true in every area of life. When you can answer the big questions—
Why am I here?
What is my life really all about?
—then all of the how-to stuff becomes much richer. So in the next two chapters, you're going to spend some time walking down the path of determining these answers for yourself. In this chapter we'll walk through one of the first homework assignments I give my coaching clients on discovering your personal core values. In Chapter 14 we'll help you get clear on a purpose and vision. When you have those in place, you set yourself on a firm foundation for your growth. I will warn you that doing this right takes some time, but it's so worth it. If you'll take the time to answer the questions and do the exercises in these next few chapters, you'll come out with a significantly stronger platform for understanding of why all of this stuff is important to you in the first place, and in the process you'll actually become much clearer on who you are.
A Structured Way of Answering the Big Question “What Is My Life Really About?”
The question “What is my life about?” is a doozy. I mean really, it's one of those that college kids like to sit up all night gazing at the stars and philosophizing about, right? It's so big that most people never get any answers to it. For some, they shy away from taking the time to think about it. For others it kind of runs around in the back of the mind constantly, nagging like a mosquito. Either way, the questi
on often seems too big to answer, so we never actually sit down and address it. Let's make it a little easier:
First off, we're not asking the question “What's life all about?” You're asking yourself “What's your life all about?” These are your answers. There is no possibility of having better or worse answers than anyone else, because you are the only one who can really answer the question for yourself.
Second, we've actually developed, and for 10 years taught, a way of thinking through this question in a way that actually produces some solid answers. Let's discover your Personal Core Values.
What's a Core Value?
In business circles, you hear a lot of talk about “core values” for companies—it's another one of those things that's become a bit of a buzzword. So you'll notice that many companies have a plaque with their core values posted near the front door. Some companies really live out those values and for some it's lip service (and you can usually tell). Regardless of how businesses handle the issue, when core values are discovered on an individual level, it's one of the most powerful and permanent anchors you can develop for your life. Your personal core values are simply the handful of principles, ideas, or concepts that you want your life to be about.
Here are some good questions to stimulate and guide your thinking on this issue.
When people see your life, what do you want them to see?
What do you want your life to represent, when you are at your best?
If someone were speaking about you at an awards banquet, what would you want them to say about you?
If someone were speaking about you at your funeral, what would you want them to say your life was all about?
What you're going to do is get down on paper, in your own words, the handful of principles, ideas, and concepts that truly inspire you—that you want your life to be about. I'll walk you through the exercise I do with my clients and with myself every few years. Once you've done the process, I'll show you what came out the other end for me.
Where Do I Start?
Here's a great way of figuring out what ideas, principles, or concepts inspire you the most. This is actually an interactive exercise, so you'll need a pen or highlighter for this, and some scratch paper as well. Look over the following list of words. Hear each one in your mind and feel it in your heart. Some of these will resonate with you and some not so much. Look over this list and circle or highlight every one that does something for you. As you're doing this exercise, it's pretty common for words to come to mind that are not on the list but really do it for you. If you have that experience, definitely write those words down. Understand that none of these words are better or worse than any other. Approach this exercise without judgment and with an open mind, and just notice which of these words inspire you. Ready, set, go.
Integrity
Love
Peace
Growth
Joy
Health
Prosperity
Family
Excitement
Security
Community
Change
Toughness
Happiness
Fun
Wealth
Freedom
Transformation
Power
Unity
Harmony
Physical Fitness
Adventure
Stability
Excellence
Peace of Mind
Patience
Children
Legacy
Abundance
Nature
Acceptance
Strength
Speed
Education
Knowledge
Wisdom
Honesty
Contentment
Gratitude
Enthusiasm
Humor
Spirituality
Learning
Laughter
Purity
Friendship
Discipline
Hard Work
Leisure
Individuality
Creativity
Spontaneity
Longevity
Competition
Energy
Being Rich
Being Poor
Communication
Giving
Kindness
Self Control
Choice
Equality
Experimentation
Grace
Compassion
Sincerity
Approval
Attractiveness
Partnership
Winning
Truth
Intelligence
Neatness
Comfort
Faith
Achievement
Innovation
Beauty
Flexibility
Structure
Mastery
Leadership
Openness
Clarity
Diversity
People
Depth
Lightness
Courage
Vision
Belief
Passion
Justice
Relationship
Exploration
Quality
Luxury
Loyalty
Risk
Goodness
Balance
Authenticity
Hope
Trust
Influence
How many did you identify? There are 115 words on that list. My guess is that your number is somewhere between 15 and 30. Great start! Take all of those and write them on a separate sheet of paper right now.
How Do I Narrow It Down?
As I said before, your brain can only deal effectively with five to seven things at a time, and your core values follow this pattern as well. In counseling thousands of people on this, I've never seen anyone have a list of more than 7 values where they weren't repeating themselves. Your job is to take the couple of dozen you have in front of you and narrow them down to a handful. A handful means somewhere between four and seven. So yes, you'll need to make some decisions here. Here are two tips for making this as easy as possible:
#1. You'll notice that you probably have clusters of words picked out that are pretty similar, or potentially mean kind of the same thing to you. You'll likely spot combinations that look like “Faith/Spirituality/Compassion,” or “Humor/Joy/Laughter/Enthusiasm,” and so on. So group those together. Once you notice your clusters, it's your job to decide what you really mean. Sometimes when you group the words in this way, one of them really jumps out as the best descriptor of that concept. Sometimes you look at all of them and think, “None of them individually are the real deal for me, but when I add them all up I get _____” (some other word that wasn't even on the original list but is the right term for you).
#2. Understand that the words you take off your list are not lost forever. Sometimes when our clients do this exercise they struggle with feeling like they are choosing one child over another! The words that you don't choose as the primary core value term will often show up to be used in the next step—your definitions. So don't worry, you can use them all eventually, but you do need to narrow it down. Again, what you're looking for are five to seven words that really ring your bell and make you say, “Yeah, that's what I'm all about.”
(Note: If you are stuck, please reach out to me and my staff. At Freedom Personal Development, we literally take our clients by the hand and coach them through this process of discovering personal core values, sometimes over a period of weeks. It's some of the best work we do.)
Decide on Your Definitions
Once you've got the list down to a handful of words, it's time to answer the question, “What does that mean to you?” In this step, there is no right or wrong, only what you find to be true and inspiring for you. If your core values are to have the power to inspire your daily decisions about how you live your life, you must decide on
the definition of your terms.
For example, the word “integrity” is the one that shows up most frequently on our clients' lists, but I've seen it defined in many different ways. For some, integrity means simply telling the truth. For some it contains an element of solidity or strength, as in the structural integrity of a building. For some, “integrity” is the same as “loyalty.” Others have totally different definitions. How you define a core value doesn't matter, except that it really matters that you have defined it for yourself.
Again, if the practice of defining these abstract terms is challenging, don't hesitate to get some help. Two tools my clients and I have found to be incredibly valuable are:
#1. A dictionary—Often just seeing what Noah Webster had to say about a word is really helpful.
#2. A coach—Once again, this is an area where you may want to reach out to me or my staff. I've found that many people just have very little practice in expressing the meaning of core values terms. Having a knowledgable and caring person ask you good questions about what you mean and then offer some help with wordsmithing can be incredibly valuable for getting at the essence of what you're really trying to say.
Get out your scratch paper or your computer, and write out your definitions—enjoy!