Building Dreams

News
I had the pleasure of meeting with Yesung Han last week. She is the director of AngloINFO Seoul. If you are looking for what's going on or services in Seoul then I highly recommend you check out the site:

http://seoul.angloinfo.com/

Also I've decided to offer my personal training services to more people. I am currently deciding on how many more clients I'd like to take on. I will decide and provide more info information regarding the personal training next week.

Quote
“Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.”
-Farrah Grey

My Thoughts
I know that I mentioned this a few weeks ago, but I feel it's vitally important to grasp this concept.

I'd like you to spend some serious time answering the following question:

What is it that you really would like to be, do, or have?

If you can answer that question, then congratulations you have completed step one to changing your life.

The next question is then how do you get from there to actually achieving what you desire?

1. Write it down (in the present tense).
2. Put a date on it.
3. Read it out loud with emotion at least twice a day.
4. Spend at least five minutes per day visualizing.
5. Take action. You don't have to plan every single step to achieve your desire, just look at what you can do now to move you closer to your goal.

I'd also recommend that you dream big. Your goal should be something that scares and excites you at the same time.

I've personally used the method above and went from being broke to earning over $120,000 a year in three years. I also used it to completely change my health and body.

Numerous of my coaching clients have used the method above to completely change one or more areas of their lives.

If you are not happy with one or more areas of your life then I recommend that you spend some time this week looking at what you'd like to change.

Failure & Success

News
No new updates for this week.

Instead of sharing a quote and my thoughts this week, I wanted to share this article with you:

26 Successful People Who Failed at First:
http://www.businessinsider.com/26-successful-people-who-failed-at-first-2012-7?op=1

Introspection

News
No new updates for this week.

Quote
"No one can give you better advice than yourself."
-Cicero

My Thoughts
What should I do with my life? Should I break up with him/her? Should I date him/her? Should I quit my job? Should I move to a different place? And this list could go on and on.

These are the types of questions I hear in coaching quite often. My answer is always the same.
I don't know. As a coach it is not my role to tell you what I think you should do with your life. You probably have enough people giving you advice already. One huge step to growth is making your own decisions and then taking responsibility for them. The answers you seek are within. You need to be willing to explore yourself to find these answers and then take action on them.

Incidentally, this is why CEOs and senior executives (most of them anyway) get paid a lot more than the average employee. It's for the decisions they have to make on a daily basis. One client I worked with was a senior executive in a large conglomerate. He informed me that almost everyday he had to make decisions that could cost his company millions of dollars and affect the lives of 100's of employees, and he had to make those decisions quickly.

People often ask how did I end up leaving such a great job a few years ago. Wasn't the decision hard to make? If I hadn't had training as a coach I think it would have been more difficult. I set a deadline for two weeks after I first heard about this opportunity. I told myself on that day I would definitely give a yes or no answer. I ended up making the decision three days later.
Then I didn't change my mind.

As a coach, I ask questions. Questions that many people could ask themselves but either they never set the time aside to ask themselves and/or they don't know exactly what to ask. Sometimes they may not want to face the answers that come up. As a coach, I also hold people accountable for the actions they say they will take.

I encourage you to set some time aside for introspection. I recommend at least one hour per week. Ideally that one hour would be continuous, uninterrupted time. Write down whatever answers come to you.

Here are just a few questions I recommend in no particular order:
- What are different ways in which you could approach this issue?
- What is it that you want to achieve?
- Where do you see yourself a year from now?
- What obstacles are holding you back at the moment?
- What action can you take on this matter?

Do You Have a Dream?

News
No new updates for this week.

Quote
"Martin Luther King gave the I have a dream speech, not the I have a plan speech."
-Simon Sinek

My Thoughts
The above quote comes from a TED talk given by Simon Sinek. It's an excellent talk and I highly recommend watching it. It's called "How Great Leaders Inspire Action"

It can be found here:
http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html

How many times have you told yourself I can't do it because I don't know how? Maybe you get all excited about an idea, but then you start thinking I don't know how to do it, or you think of all the obstacles you will have to deal with and you are not sure how you will overcome them.

No one has ever achieved anything great by knowing each and every step on how to get there. But we often think we need to have this brilliant plan in place before we start something. The truth is you often will try and fail, try and fail, try again and maybe see some success. This is why passion is essential if you want to be successful in any area of your life. Martin Luther King Jr. was incredibly passionate about civil rights and he believed in his cause; so much so that he died for it. Think about that for a moment, he traded his life for something he believed in.

As I write this to you I am sitting in my office and the time is 2:30am. Am I sitting here right now for the money? Or in hopes of becoming famous? Or both? No, not at all. The reason I am sitting here is because I truly believe that these weekly messages will touch at least one person and inspire that one person to rise above mediocrity and live to their fullest potential. Maybe that one person will then inspire someone else to do the same, and so on, creating a ripple effect.

It's the passion for doing what I do that drives me. For example, I practice a minimum of 20 times before delivering a speech, seminar, or workshop. If that is a one hour seminar that means at least 20 hours of practice before I deliver it. While I am practicing I usually have no idea how many people will attend. There could be 50 people the day I deliver it or there could be 5, but I know that I've put in my best. It comes from passion.

Everyone of us has something that we would love to achieve. Most people may not immediately recognize what it is because it may seem ridiculous. There is a saying that if the why is big enough the how doesn't matter. So if you have a big enough reason for doing something you will overcome any obstacle. If you're pursuing your passion you know you will know why you are doing it. Because you love it.

Imagine telling Eric Clapton or Jimi Hendrix, when he was alive, to stop playing guitar. How about telling Pavarotti while he was living to stop singing, or JK Rowling to give up writing.
The idea is ludicrous. Why? Because they all love what they do.

As I mentioned before it is not always easy to pursue your passion. Most likely you will meet with many setbacks before you start to see some success. But I can tell you that it is all worth it.

I too have a dream and so do you. The question is what is preventing you from living your dream?

Have a wonderful week.

Doing What You Love

I hope you had a great weekend.

News
Mark your calendars for the afternoon of Sunday, November 28th. One Amazing Life will be having a workshop that you won't want to miss. More details soon.

Quote
"I honestly think it is better to be a failure at something you love than to be a success at something you hate."
-George Burns

My Thoughts
Did you ever notice that when you do something you dislike only five minutes pass and it feels like an hour? You wonder if it will ever end. Yet when you do something you love hours pass and it feels like it has only been five minutes. You may wonder where the time went.

When you do something you love it doesn't feel like work. It is easier to finish what you start. Why? Because it is a part of who you are. You are actually not doing something you are being it. But when you are doing something that you don't love it becomes very difficult to finish tasks. It may take you days to accomplish something that realistically could have been done in hours. Others may say you are lazy, but oftentimes laziness is not the root cause, it's a lack of passion.

This is why it is so important to figure out what your passion is and then begin to take action on moving in that direction. The fascinating thing is many people deep down inside know what they are passionate about, however they have repressed that passion for so long it may take some digging to find.

So I encourage all of you to spend some time this week searching for your passion. If you know it, or once you find it, ask yourself some questions:
"What is holding me back from pursuing this?"
"What is preventing me from doing what I truly love?"
"What would my life be like if actually did what I love?"
"What step(s) could I take now to move me in the direction of this passion?"

Be honest with yourself, you may be surprised at what you find.

I hope you have an awesome week.

What is Success?

Quote
"Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal"
-Earl Nightingale

My Thoughts
I really think this quote sums up success beautifully. Success is whatever you define it as. Your definition of success may differ from someone else's definition. For some people success relates to money, for others it relates to health, and still others it may be family. It could also be keeping the many different areas of your life in balance.

For example: If you define success as being a great parent, then as long as you are doing your best at pursuing that goal then you are successful. On the other hand, maybe a business owner defines success as delivering great value to his/her customers while being able to provide for himself/herself. Perhaps he/she doesn't want children. Two different people with two different ideas of success and yet both are successful.
As long as you are holding true to your values and your definition of success then you are successful.
This is assuming of course that you are not stepping on other people to get ahead. Note the use of the word "worthy".

One other thing to remember is that success is a journey. It's not an end point. I also believe as we go through life our notion of what success is changes. As our awareness grows we tend to view the world and what is meaningful for us differently.

The question I would like to pose is do you know what is your worthy goal or ideal?
If the answer is no, don't worry. It's inside of you somewhere.
Another question you may ask is "If I absolutely knew I wouldn't fail, what would I be doing?".
The answer to that question may start to give you clues about your worthy goal or ideal.

Until next time...

The Little Things

Quote
"It's the little things you do that can make a big difference. What are you attempting to accomplish? What little thing can you do today that will make you more effective? You are probably only one step away from greatness."
-Bob Proctor

My Thoughts
You may think there is a huge gap that separates you from highly successful people. However, most times it's the little things that you do everyday that really add up in the long run. In Bob Proctor's book, "You Were Born Rich", he has a chapter dedicated to this topic called the razor's edge.

Here is an example to illustrate that point.
I believe that you only need to invest 15-30 minutes of your day reading about topics related to your field to really make you stand out. You may be thinking that sounds too simple. But think about it, if you read around 30 minutes a day that would be about 2-3 books per month. In one year, you would have read around 30 books related to your field. Remember though you want to actually comprehend what you are reading so don't try speeding through the books.

If you find yourself struggling with things like: finding a job, not getting promoted, not moving forward towards your goal, etc... ask "What could I do to improve this situation?". When you think of something that will help improve your situation you must take action on that idea.

Until next time...

Failure

Quote
“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
-Winston Churchill

My Thoughts
I am sure most of you know that life doesn’t always work out as you planned. No matter how much we would like to be able to control everything, it just doesn’t work like that.

So, what do you do if you set a goal(s) and you fail?
What do you do when nothing seems to be working?

Well, first recognize that it’s not failure until you ultimately decide to give up completely.
Second, accept the fact that you will have setbacks along the way. Some of these setbacks will appear major at the time. Remember that you can learn something from these. These are life’s lessons. If nothing seems to be working you don’t have to change the goal, but maybe it’s time you change your approach to the goal. Perhaps there are other paths that you haven’t explored yet.

Finally, always remember even though you can’t always control life you can control your attitude towards life.

Until next time...

Awareness

Quote
"Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness."
-James Thurber

My Thoughts
I wanted to share this with you.
This is from one of my mentors, Christian Simpson (www.christian-simpson.com).
He is doing a seven part series called "The Seven Steps to Success".
Here is part one:

The most important stage of any journey is first establishing where you are. Think about it, a journey from where you are today to where you want to be is no different to any other journey, if you were about to travel and thought that you were currently in New York with an intention to get to Washington DC, when in fact you were in Chicago, you’d end up in a very different place from your desired destination.

The process is no different when mapping out our journey to success. It’s a natural and common error that we tend to spend far too much time looking back into the past in reflection, to the future with anticipation, and not enough time looking around us with awareness to establish exactly where we are. Why is that so important? It’s because the success you intend for the future is reliant upon a strong foundation, and that foundation is you.

You are the epicenter of every result you get in your life. I’ve worked with hundreds of leaders and entrapreuners during my years as a Leadership Coach and I’ve observe many of them planning their future lives whilst the existing one is out of balance. Human beings are very resilient and often unaware of the subconscious impact on their effectiveness when their lives are out of synch, and yet, through awareness, the negative impact can easily be observed.

It’s understandable that so many of us become immersed in our day to day activity, busying ourselves in the trenches of the battlefield of life, dodging the bullets as we try to advance. The problem is you can’t see the picture clearly when you’re in the frame, and if your existing personal and professional life is out of balance, what's the likelihood of it improving in the one you intend to create? It’s not a recipe for high performance in your existing conditions and circumstances and certainly not an intelligent foundation upon which to launch your future plans.

We get results in every aspects of our lives, and we are the common denominator. The most successful people are thinkers as well as ‘doers’. They understand that thinking without action is pointless, and that action without thinking is disasterous. Take stock of where you are today. What results are you getting in your business life? What are you doing to develop yourself personally and professionally? What results are showing up in your primary relationships? Your finances? What do you do regularly for fun and recreation? What about honoring friendships that are important to you? How are you contributing to your community or society? What results are you getting in the health of your physical body, and how would you assess your current intellectual, emotional and spiritual growth?

Many people falsely believe many of these areas have little to do with business success. I can assure you, from my many years of experience coaching leaders beyond their existing results and into the success they intend for in life, gaining awareness of where you are is an essential step to getting where you want to be.

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Until next time....

Fear

What keeps holding us back from doing what we truly want to do, what keeps preventing us from what we truly want to become? Well besides the fact that we don't believe in ourselves it is also fear. The two main fears we face are fear of failure and fear of criticism.

So often, we don't go after what we want because we don't actually believe we are capable of attaining it. Instead of even trying we just give up, "What's the use?" we usually say to ourselves.
Another thing we love to do, is go around and get everyone's opinions about things that we want to be, do or have. The funny thing is usually the person you are talking to has no experience regarding the advice you are seeking.

I want you to really sit down and think about "What do I want to do?", "What do I want to be?", "What do I want to have?". I mean really give those questions some thought and write down your answers. When you are finished don't go running around asking everyone their opinions, instead start off in the direction of your dreams.

Until next time......