The Strongest Time Management Tool You Have

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Finding the Time

There’s lots of information out there about time management and how to find more time and get the best out of your available time. In our world, we have lots of things that demand our time and want a piece of our day.

Our work which can take 40 or more hours a week
Our house which demands we clean it occasionally
Our family which would like meals every now and then
Our kid that would like us to take them to dance class
Our other kid that would like us to them to football practice
Our other other kid who would like a playdate
Our elderly parents who would like use to drop by and help them with something
Our church committee that wants us to volunteer to help out with the rummage sale
Our spouse who would like us to pay a little attention to them while they tell us about THEIR day
The dog who would like to go for a walk
Our laundry that needs to be washed
Our friend who would like to catch up over coffee/beer
Our local charity that wants us to participate in a fund raiser

And the list goes on. From the moment we rise until we collapse exhausted in our bed, there are demands on our time. They come at us from all directions and call us to action on their behalf. And we respond, because we are people of action and people of action take action when called upon in the service of others, right?

So, how do you deal with all that? Isn’t there some special trick or time management technique that is going to help me get all this in? Isn’t that some super secret technique that I can apply that will help me manage and free up my time?

The Time Management Solution

Well, as a matter of fact, there is! This is actually a secret that has been available for centuries but little used as of late. In fact, it seems like many people aren’t even aware of this secret, not even sure of its existence. It is both simple and hard. But if you apply it constructively, you will be amazed at how much time it will free up. Do you wanna know what this secret is; the key to handling your time with skill and clarity?

Here it is.

Listen up!

Come closer!

The secret is:

Say NO.

That simple. NO. When someone says, you are such a go-getter can I convince you take on another project for our church committee?

NO.

You don’t owe an explanation. They are not entitled to one.

You are not an evil person for saying NO. You are not selfish. In fact, you are being considerate and caring. You are wanting to save yourself for the things where you can really add value by choosing the places you serve and when you serve. A Mayo Clinic report even suggests that learning to say NO is healthy, allowing you to be at your best for others.

The key is you are naturally not going to say NO to everything. You are, however, going to say NO when the activity is not the best use of your time, talents, and abilities. You will say YES where the opportunities to serve allow you to provide maximum value. As John Maxwell says, you must learn to

Say NO to the good so you can say YES to the best!

Years ago, I was asked by my church to serve as the church treasurer. A high profile role and I was lured by the promise that such a position would bring me to the forefront of the lay leadership within the church. Now, I will likely never be known as a financial wizard. My wife, Sherry, balances the checkbook and handles accounts. She is good at that. I am not and don’t really want to be. Despite all that, I said yes.

Big mistake. Because of my lack of skill, it took way too long to complete any of the responsibilities of the role. Balancing accounts became an all-nighter. This was not made easier by my general distaste for doing any of it anyway. So my motivation waned, the job suffered, and eventually I left the role by mutual agreement. I said yes to the wrong thing. It was not the best use of my skills and abilities and did not allow me to provide maximum value to the church, so we all suffered as a result.

Employ the secret. Say NO. Expect the best out of yourself and refuse to be placed where you cannot give it.

Do yourself and others a big favor and employ the strongest time management tool you have: you ability to make a choice.

Say NO to the good so you can say YES to the best.

Mindset – Handling Fear Part II

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Ripping the Shirt Off of Fear

It’s July 10, 1999 and in Pasadena, California Team USA and China are battling for the Women’s World Cup Soccer Championship in the Rose Bowl. This is the largest attended women’s sports event in history. At the end of regulation play, the score is tied and it goes to overtime. In overtime, Brandi Chastain intently lines up for a penalty kick. She sets herself, runs up to the ball, and launches it into the upper right corner of the goal to score and in her now famous celebration pulls her shirt off in mid-field. A win and championship for Team USA!

Tell me, what do you think was going through her mind? Was Brandi thinking about how she was going to blow it?

Pointing to Success

Going back further, in one of the greatest sports moments of all time, George Herman “Babe” Ruth of the New York Yankees steps up to home plate in the fifth inning of Game 3 of the 1932 World Series. The score is tied 5-5 and the Chicago Cubs players on the bench have been riding the Babe mercilessly. As Ruth steps to the plate, he makes a gesture that many believe has him pointing to the center field wall after taking strike one from the pitcher, seemingly declaring his intention. He did it again after strike two. On the next pitch, the Babe mightily smacked the ball deep into center field and over the fence for a home run! It is estimated the ball traveled 490 feet! The Yankees went on to win the World Series in a four-game sweep.

Whether you believe the intent of the gesture or not, do you believe for one minute that Babe Ruth, who not only held the record for homeruns but also for strikeouts, focused on what would happen if he didn’t deliver?

The difference in success and failure is often a matter of how we handle our fears. Dr. Heidi Halvorson, co-author of the book Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing The World For Success and Influence, says that handling that fear effectively is often a matter of mindset. It’s all about where we focus our attention. According to Dr. Halvorson, we have a choice of one of two mindsets when faced with accomplishing a goal or meeting a deadline or performing during a critical moment. We can have a what she calls a Prevention Focus; where we concentrate on the negative aspects of the situation. The concentration is on NOT messing up. We do this in our daily lives and with others. When a parent tells a child who wants to help set the table,

“Okay, but this is our best dinnerware, don’t drop it!”

With instructions like that, you might as well trip the kid yourself. Or a manager tells an employee,

“it is very important that you don’t blow this account.“

Best example I can think of is the story Zig Ziglar tells of the 1982 football playoffs between the Dallas Cowboys and the San Francisco 49ers. With Dallas ahead and less than a minute left on the clock, Dallas implemented the Prevent Defense. Joe Montana dropped back and threw a pass deep into the end zone that appeared to be sailing for out of bounds when Dwight Clark jumped up and made a fingertip catch for San Francisco to win the game. Later, someone asked Cowboys owner Tex Schramm about what made the difference and he said,

“The Dallas Cowboys were determined NOT TO LOSE the game. The 49ers were determined to WIN the game and that made the difference!”

So prevention focus centers on trying not to lose the game.

The opposite then is Promotion Focus. In this mindset, you are focused on what you have to gain when you are successful. “If I complete this project on time, our company will collect a big bonus from our customer.” Promotion Focus centers on the win, always opting for growth, willing to take the risk to see the reward, and quick to take action.

Promotion Focus people tend to have better and more consistent results than Prevention Focus people. You have a tendency toward one or the other but the good news is that it’s not born in you. It is something that has been learned, placed into your brain by the attitudes of people to whom you bonded, other people influential in your life, and combined with past experiences. So, if your tendency is towards the cautious, risk avoiding, and tentative nature of Prevention Focus, the good news is you can change. It is a matter of changing your mindset.

Start by imagining a change you wish to make or project you wish to start. List all the possible positive outcomes from successfully making that change or completing the project. Don’t downplay it, but also don’t go overboard. In most cases, you aren’t going to be a guest on The Ellen Degeneres Show because you completed a proposal package ahead of schedule for a client. But you will likely make a favorable impression on the client, which can lead to award of the project and potential future projects.

You may get referrals to other clients and generate a significant increase in business income and grow your business.
You may be able to hire staff and afford to take vacations.
You can build your reputation within the industry.
Your self-esteem goes up.

Imagine every possible positive outcome of making the change and WRITE IT DOWN! Then, every time you start feeling fearful, bring out the list and read it to yourself over and over again until you feel more in control.

Determine for yourself to Play to Win instead of Playing Not to Lose.

Action Plan

Take Dr. Halvorson’s FOCUS Diagnostic assessment to see whether you have a Prevention Focus or a Promotion Focus. Warning: be prepared to list about 12 attributes you would like to possess.
Think about one big thing you want to accomplish; it can be a current project or a dream, particularly if you have been feeling a lot of fear over it. Write down all the possible positive outcomes of accomplishing it and post it prominently. Set a start date.

Exaggerating Your Fear

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Two Sides of Fear

Fear is both a positive and negative; there is good fear and bad fear. The fear that says don’t move in for a closer look at that snake is a good one (at least for me). The fear that says don’t chase your dream because catastrophic things will happen would be what we call a bad fear.

Appearing Real

Even a bad fear can seem very real to us in the moment. It can seem so real as to become paralyzing. In yesterdays post, How Fear Holds You Back – The Good and Bad, we talked about the acronym of FEAR, False Evidence Appearing Real. That’s the whole point; we are either presented with a false set of facts or, more commonly, create our own false set of facts to define reality. That protective impulse in our minds fights dirty and will use whatever means at its disposal to convince you to avoid any kind of risky situation; whether you are risking life and limb or simply risking financial ruin. If left unchecked, our mind will take us to the extreme, defining earth-shattering, negative events born out from every positive step we take towards achievement of our goals.

How in the world do you beat that? How do you overcome you mind’s tendency to pull you to the extreme?

Take Fear to YOUR Extreme

According to an article by the University of Florida Counseling and Wellness Center, it’s simple. Go to the extreme on your own. If you are able to take the fear to the extreme outcome in your conscious mind, you can get there before unconscious mind does. The advantage of doing this means you have control. Here’s how I get there, but it requires a little set-up first.

Define the fear in specific terms. What exactly is the fear that haunts your mind? For example, some people have what is called a Fear of Success. While there are several forms of it, one is a version of low self-esteem. You could be afraid that if you achieve success and become well-known that everyone will discover what a fraud you are. Until you can define you fear in terms like that, you can’t move on to the next step, which is
Note your self-talk. When those fears pop up, what are you saying to yourself? Studies have shown again and again that the most important thing is not what others say about you but rather what you say to yourself about you. Look for trigger words and phrases that signal that decline into a negative self-talk.
Take the scenarios you have been imaging to the extreme. Go as overboard as you want to go! Make it ridiculous! Outlandish! Keep pushing it until it becomes absolutely absurd! Using our example above, what would happen if you were discovered to be a fraud, that you don’t really know what you are talking about?

Well, of course, it would make new internationally. Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes and Wolf Blitzer of CNN are wrestling on your front doorstep for priority rights to the expose of your downfall! Norman Vincent Peale says you have no hope! The whole Earth’s rotation has reversed itself resulting in catastrophic events around the world all due to your error! Martians have invaded! The Borg are trying to assimilate everyone due to the weakness you have created through your grievous error! The Devil himself……well, you get the picture.

By taking it to the absurd extremes, you not only get yourself to lighten up a bit, but you put perspective on it as well. You can then question what the likelihood of any of the imagined circumstances actually occurring.By the way, one thing that helped me was to simply discover that others, even the very famous, typically feel the same way. How do you think Les Brown felt when he was giving motivational speeches while living out of an empty office? Yet, today, Les is one of the foremost motivational speakers, commanding large audiences and big fees and making a positive impact in thousands, perhaps millions, of lives.
Change your self-talk. Remind yourself that you ARE prepared to do this, that you will learn from your failures, that you are intelligent and resourceful. Talk about how much of a difference you will make in people’s lives when you are able to share with them what you have to offer. Write it down if necessary and repeat it every morning when you wake up and every night before you go to bed. Don’t just read it, say it out loud and with emotion. This helps embed it in your mind.
ACT NOW! Don’t wait for your mind to create new fears and new situations, go to work right away to do something positive towards you goal. Nothing kills fear like positive action.

Action Plan

What is your BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal)? What is the one big fear that is keeping you from moving on it right now? Apply the process above to it.
Come back here and tell me how you did. Or, if you want it private, call me at 321-355-2442 and let me know.

How Fear Holds You Back – The Good and the Bad

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The Basis of Fear

According to Psychology Today, fear is a vital response to physical and emotional danger. If we didn’t feel it, then we could not protect ourselves from legitimate danger. Life and death can hinge on our fear and our reactions to it. Our survival rate would be extremely low if not for the fear that helps us to regulate our behavior during moments of crisis. Fear is not our problem.

Natural Functioning of Fear

Our problem comes when the fear engine kicks into high gear, often due to past experience. Almost all fears we have of situations that are not life-threatening are what psychologists call “conditioned response“. Something happened somewhere in our past that now triggers a fear response in us. On a basic level, for example, an experience I had with a snake has led to a dislike and sometimes fear of snakes. I don’t shriek and run the other way, but I am also not likely to approach it. When I go camping with our Boy Scout troop and I happen to spot a snake, someone will invariably ask me what kind of snake it is. My response is always,

“I don’t know, I did not get that close!”

On another level, past experiences with risk situations that led to devastating results can create conditioned responses in us that lead to fear. People with Reactive Attachment Disorder develop an overwhelming fear of bonding relationships with people because of past experiences where trusted relationships betrayed them or took advantage of them or abused them. Others, on a lower-level, have a past romantic relationship that ended badly and avoid future romantic relationships. An employee encounters a boss who berated them or humiliated them when they came up with a creative idea and develops the fear of making a contribution.

Unnatural Fear

Even more so, our mind has a natural tendency to protect us in every situation, even to the point of creating scenarios that don’t even exist just to keep us from placing ourselves into potential danger, whether real or not. Fear and resistance build up. Every time we go to stretch ourselves – to push out of our comfort zone, to take a risk – we start to imagine all the things that will go wrong. We will be publicly humiliated. The newspapers will carry front page headlines documenting our failure. Our boss will fire us. Our family will disown us. Our friends will make fun of us. We will sit on the curb broke, destitute, with no future prospects and no hope. This one failure will destroy us!

You see where it goes. The more we focus on it, the more our fears run away with the perception of what will happen. Many like to reassure people by saying that FEAR is simply

False Evidence Appearing Real

While not entirely accurate, it’s a good start towards working on our fears. When we understand that often our fear is based on situations that are imagined, we can begin to put them into perspective. Once we regain perspective, it becomes easier to work past the fear and take the risks we need to take to succeed in life. So the key is not to conquer fear, because we can’t. Fear is a natural part of our body’s system and we cannot get rid of it. What we can do is learn to manage it, to work with it, and work beyond it.

In the posts the rest of the week, we will examine ways in which we can manage our fears and be productive.

Action Plan

What are some ways you deal with fear now? Post your comments here so you may be able to help others.

Are You Wasting You? Finding Purpose in the Unique You

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Find the Unique Sweet Spot

How do you get to the point where you can truly embrace the weirdness, or uniqueness if you prefer, that is you? This is a real solid challenge. We know it is because you and I can look around us and see people who have no clue even that they are unique, let alone what that uniqueness is. It is demonstrated in the way they jump on the latest fad as if they were missing the bus. They line up for hours to buy the very latest iPhone or gadget, gotta wear the latest fashion, toss down the most recent popular drink, or try the latest adventure.

When I was in college I applied for a job as a bartender at a local bar. When I told the manager I had no formal training, he waved aside with his hand in the air, and simply told me

“read Playboy every month and learn the featured drinks. That’s what these guys are gonna come in and ask for if they don’t want a beer!“

That’s a great example of how the majority of people simply will allow themselves to be led around, told what to like, what to drink, what to feel, and what to do. But you and I don’t desire to be that way; if you did you would have quit reading this several minutes ago. So how do we escape the trap of being like everyone else and be who we really are? Even more to the point, how do we do it in such a way that we add value to others and make a living and a life doing it?

Unique Awareness

Being unique, being weird, requires a special awareness of yourself that most others don’t have. It means you need to spend time identifying and understanding your gifts, unlocking your passion behind them, and reflecting how to best use those gifts to add value to others. See, we are all born with gifts that were bestowed upon us to be used to provide something unique in this world; something that only we can do. That gift is designed to be used for a special purpose. There is at least one someone waiting for us to come along and share that gift with them to make a difference in the world. Some of us will directly influence a small number of people, maybe even one. Some, like Zig Ziglar, John Maxwell, or Tony Robbins may affect thousands or millions. The point isn’t how many but how you will influence them. So, identifying those gifts and learning to maximize them is the first step in preparing yourself to make that impact. That’s your purpose.

Applying Your Purpose

Once you have identified your gifts, it is imperative that you learn more about them and how to optimize them. You also need to learn the various ways in which your gifts can be used. The emphasis here needs to be on ways to use your gifts that benefit others. God did not give you a gift to use only on yourself; he blessed you so you can be a blessing to others. You must find that one way to use your gifts that allows you to provide maximum benefit. It will based, at least partially, on background and life experiences. We do not go through life randomly, even if we did not navigate it. Every job, every experience, no matter how unrelated, prepared us for that one way that we will have the most influence. Don’t de-value what you have done in the past just because it does not relate directly to what you want to do now. It was preparation. It was shaping you and molding you into what you are to become.

Now the real hard work begins. You have to do the work of actually applying it. You have to spend time EVERY DAY developing and honing those gifts. This is the start of a perpetual journey of growth. It never stops until you have reached the point of not being able to learn anything anymore. I mentioned in a previous post about Teddy Roosevelt that when he died they found under his pillow a self-improvement book he had been reading. Teddy knew that your entire life is a growth journey to challenge yourself to become more than you were yesterday.

Be a 1%er

That sounds overwhelming, but you can break it down into an easily manageable system. Focus simply on growing yourself by 1% a day. Committing yourself to being a 1%er means that over time you grow exponentially one day building on the next and at the end one year you have grown yourself OVER 365%! Remember that: become a 1%er.

No Weaknesses

And let’s make this a little easier: STOP WORKING ON YOUR WEAKNESSES. Conventional wisdom has always told us to identify our strengths and weaknesses and then work to improve our weaknesses. It is non-productive to focus on our weaknesses because if we work hard we can at best become mediocre at them; while at the same time we neglect our strengths and won’t prepared to get the most out of them. Focus instead on your strengths and your gifts. Overcome your weaknesses by finding others whose have strength where you are weak and team up with them to meet your goals.

The I in Team

That leads to the last point of this, which is what John Maxwell always reminds us of

One is too small a number to accomplish anything!

We are meant to be dependent upon others and work together to achieve great things. None of us is as smart as all of us. So while building upon your gifts you should also be building your team. Find people who have character you desire and are ready to buy into the vision of what you want to accomplish. Walk the path together and share the journey and share the treasures. Start it by being truly unique.

And remember, UNIQUE and UNITE both begin with UNI, meaning one. By developing your uniqueness and finding unique others, you can UNITE together to have a singular impact on this world.

A journey like that is worth starting today!

Follow your passion, not your pension – Denis Waitley

Action Plan

Start identifying your unique gifts. There are lots of tools to help you here. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and DISC are a good start, but look to other less scientific tools as well, such as Stand-Out by Marcus Buckingham and StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath. I am also a big fan of the Fascination Advantage Test by Sally Hogshead. I have tried them all and find these three to highly accurate and consistent. You may have to purchase a book for the access code to some of these, but it is well worth it.
Think back to ways you have used those gifts in the past. Which times did you find yourself getting the greatest results? The greatest joy? When did you get lost in the moment while using your gifts? This will help you identify how you should use them.
Plan and schedule your daily growth of those gifts. Remember the 1%.