Some final thoughts on the road to success

In many of the recent posts, I said I was going to share with you the essence of what The Roadmap to Success program teaches and I have done that. And please be clear that there’s a difference between “the essence” and the whole story. If you find the essence of interest, you can access the whole story at http://www.unshackledleadership.com/the-roadmap-to-success-program.

Summarizing what we’ve discussed over these past few weeks:

* You were born with the same exact power to create as everyone else.

   * You can create anything

   * And, you’re creating all the time

   * There’s never a time you’re not creating

* There’s not one thing you see with our eyes that’s the truth – it’s only a projection of your past thoughts

* Your thoughts create your experiences 100% of the time

* Your emotions are the fuel that either makes everything happen or prevents things from happening.

In the last few posts, I have begun to share how to put these principles into action and create the life of your dreams. It is now time to complete this series and I offer you the following important remarks:

Because there is no such thing as a neutral thought and all thoughts create on some level, if you want to have an amazing life, you must watch what comes out of your mouth. People say anything they darn please. We’re critical and judgment, we talk about people behind their backs, we gossip and say all kinds of negative and disempowering things. Given the opportunity to say something nice, we mostly choose to say things that are not so nice.

Tell the truth: you know you do this, right? And what’s worse, we don’t even give it much thought. Somehow, we assume it’s fine to do this.

It’s not, so stop it. Wake up. Think about what you’re about to say before you say it. Your words reflect your thoughts, your words create your reality, your words get planted in the fertile soil of creation and manifest. Learn to speak about what you want. Speak words of gratitude and appreciation. I was told by a student of ours that Albert Einstein used to say Thank You at least 100 times a day. So all of us have gotten into the habit of saying Thank You all day long. Try it and watch how quickly you will create things that will support you in being grateful.

And finally, if you want to have a really amazing life, forgive yourself and everyone else in your life for everything. Unforgiveness often doesn’t hurt the person we refuse to forgive at all, but it always hurts us. As long as we don’t forgive, we are bound to the other person with bonds of pain or anger or a desire for revenge. Forgiving doesn’t mean finding a way to excuse someone. There may be no excuse in the world for what they did. But forgiving does mean giving up the desire to punish them. Holding on to the need to see them pay for their words or actions is holding on to the injury itself. Forgiveness releases us from the power a wrongful action still has over us and sets us free to heal and move on.

It’s often the case that the person we most need to forgive is ourselves. We often regret actions we’ve taken or feel guilty for them. If that’s the case, surely look to see what actions need to be taken to set the situation right. But once that’s done, be willing to forgive yourself and move on. It’s been proven over and over again that true joy cannot occur in the absence of forgiveness. And what’s a life worth if it doesn’t contain joy.

I hope you’ve found these posts of value. The entire Roadmap to Success program has been recorded and is available as a download or as a 3 DVD package. If you’re interested in either, check out the program at http://www.unshackledleadership.com/the-roadmap-to-success-program. Or give us a call and we can discuss how to bring this program into your company.

ATTITUDE: Is yours worth catching

Summarizing what we’ve discussed over these past few weeks:

You were born with the same exact power to create as everyone else.

• You can create anything
• And, you’re creating all the time
• There’s never a time you’re not creating
• There’s not one thing you see with our eyes that’s the truth – it’s only a projection of your past thoughts
• Your thoughts create your experiences 100% of the time
• Your emotions are the fuel that either makes everything happen or prevents things from happening.

This week, let’s talk more about how to put these principles into action and create the life of your dreams:

Since your emotions are the fuel that either makes everything happen or prevents things from happening, you must learn to “choose” your attitude. No successful person allows the circumstances to dictate their attitude. Successful people choose their attitude and bring it to the circumstances of life.

So, what does it mean to “choose” your attitude? First, it means you choose to be satisfied and happy. If you’re waiting for the circumstances to be exactly the way you want them to be in order for you to be satisfied with your life and happy, I promise you’ll have a long wait. Your life’s the way it is and that’s that. Now you get to decide if you’re willing to be satisfied and happy. You can still want a lot more, but why not choose to be happy and satisfied now and take your satisfaction and happiness along with you on the journey rather than waiting for some day that will likely never come before you are that way? Makes sense to me. Furthermore, if I can’t trust you to be happy and satisfied now, when you likely already have an amazing life, how can I trust you to be happy and satisfied and some unknown time in the future when you’ll probably still be waiting for life to turn out.

Choosing your attitude also means to be optimistic, positive and enthusiastic and to have faith and trust in your future. Every truly successful person I’ve meet had this genuine knowingness that everything was going to turn out great and they looked forward to the future with optimism and enthusiasm.

Get in the habit of looking for things to appreciate wherever you are. My favorite way of saying this is: cultivate an attitude of gratitude. Learn to be appreciative of and grateful for all of the things you now probably take for granted, like: having a house to live in, a bed to sleep in, food to eat, a car to drive, roads to take you places, traffic lights to keep you safe, your family, friends, co-workers and customers, and most of all, when you awake each day, for the privilege it is to be alive and contribute to life.

And if that’s not enough, here are some additional thoughts to think about: Speak only about what you love and brings you happiness. What good could possibly come from speaking about what you hate or makes you unhappy. But isn’t that what far too many of us do? Makes no sense. Stop watching CNN, which stands for “constantly negative news.” Focus on what’s working in your life and the good news of the day. I personally love the way the NBC evening news with Brian Williams ends with a section called Making a Difference where they focus on people and organizations who are doing just that. I often turn on the show just for that section.

And for the grand finale, do not allow yourself to feel irritated or disappointed. Learn to accept people and life just the way they are and it is and just the way they and it are not. Give up complaining, blaming, criticizing and gossip. Could you even begin to imagine what life would be like if you did that? We so take those things for granted, as if life is just supposed to be that way. No, it’s not supposed to be that way, it’s just that we have made it that way. And the fact that we have is probably the biggest reason why people are not happy and don’t have the life of their dreams.

To be continued . . . 

Is conflict among teams really inevitable?

Is conflict among members of a team really inevitable? Is all a manager able to do when a conflict arises is meet with the team members and do his or her best to soothe the hurt feelings and play nice and try to get people to forgive each other?

If you read the recent article entitled How Conflict Goes Viral by Lindred Greer in Inc. magazine, you would surely conclude that the answer to both questions is: yes. According to the research done by Lindred and her team, conflicts “inevitably arise” and predictably go through three stages starting with a conflict between two individuals, after which others take sides and the team starts to disintegrate. Since conflict is inevitable, managers need to take action and make sure they do not stay unresolved.

While I don’t take issue with the final statement under the assumption that conflicts are inevitable, I do take exception to the underlying assumption that they are. In our research, we have found that using the Unshackled Leadership philosophy, we can literally transform team members from a world where conflict is inevitable to a world where it is not.

To do this, you must first understand that we live in a world of duality. There literally are two worlds going on simultaneously. Einstein says one is friendly and the other is hostile. A Course in Miracles says one is dominated by love, the other by fear. In the predominant hostile, fear based world, of course conflicts are inevitable. But is it inevitable that people live in that world? We say no.

The real issue is that for most people, that’s the only world that exists. If you put your hand in front of your eyes, you could block out the sun. But that doesn’t mean the sun goes out of existence. In the same manner, just because most people have only seen the world of hostility and fear, that doesn’t mean the other doesn’t exist.

So is there a solution beyond accepting the inevitable? We say yes. Train people in the Unshackled Leadership philosophy which literally transports them from the hostile world of fear to the friendly world of love and watch them play nicely together in the sandbox of business.  

More on dealing with challenging people

In my article last week, I stated that I’ve become convinced that the number one concern of just about everyone in a leadership or management position is figuring out how to get people to get along and figuring out how to deal with challenging people. I went on to say that the only formula I’ve ever discovered that works is for you to understand that in every situation where you are dealing with other people, you must first understand that you only and always have just two choices.

Choice number one: accept the person just the way they are and just the way they are not. Choice number two: you decide you can’t accept choice number one and you terminate the relationship. Not every relationship is intended to and can work. Sometimes, you just can’t find the gold. If you can’t be 100% committed to the other person, it serves nobody to try and keep the relationship alive. Trying to do that is my definition of pain and life does not have to be a painful experience. So cut your ties and move on.

Here’s my concern after sending that article: you will all too quickly opt for choice two because it doesn’t seem viable to opt for choice one. This could be a big mistake. See I also believe that every relationship that comes into your life is meant to be a learning experience, for you. Some people are casual encounters, a chance meeting in an elevator, sitting down next to someone in a coffee shop. Others come into your life and stay for awhile. Sometimes, they stay for a lifetime. But every relationship happens because it’s meant to happen, because if it wasn’t meant to happen, it wouldn’t have happened.

Now if that’s a bit too deep for you, I’m sorry, but think about it anyway. All of those relationships are designed to reflect to you who you are, how you see you, how you see others and how you operate in the world. You’re meant to evolve and become a more peaceful, kind, compassionate and loving human being (hope you like that) and every human being who is challenging is so because they are pushing you against your limits to be those things.

I remember a woman who worked for me years ago. She was really smart and capable and I desperately looked for the gold in her. But I had such a hard time trusting her and counting on her integrity and it continuously got in the way of our relationship. It got so bad I eventually opted for choice two. But it was years later that I realized at the time I had a huge issue of trusting myself and she was just mirroring that to me. So I ended what could have been a great relationship far too soon and later came to regret that I did that. So always be willing to look and ask: what is this person confronting me with and what are they giving me an opportunity to learn.

I have a dear friend and client who, upon reading my article, wrote: “Whenever I have a difficult person to deal with...I go to prayer. Not for just the other person but for myself.  In my own strength I cannot do what God asks. It is too difficult. God has a way of fixing things that I could never fix on my own. And I go to HIS Word for an answer.”

Now I don’t usually write things like that, but it’s not a bad suggestion. In the world of spirit, we are all perfect expressions of the creative force that is the source of us all. I’ll follow my friends lead for a moment and call that God. If we are all, in the final analysis, children of God, should we really be so quick as to judge people as unacceptable and remove them from our lives?

In conclusion, I’m not taking back what I said last week. Choice two is clearly an option. My point this week is to think long and hard before you go down that tunnel. There is so much growth involved in opting for choice one. Go back to last week’s post and read what I wrote about choice one. It’s powerful stuff if you take it on. You’ll learn to let go of your judgments and insensitivities and become a more peaceful, kind, compassionate and loving human being. What could be bad about that?

Here's the pathway to greater peace of mind

I gave two speeches this past week, both in Phoenix, AZ, to two different groups of senior executives in companies attending their association’s annual convention. In both cases, the theme was creating extraordinary levels of teamwork in their organizations given out definition of a successful company: a group of turned on, enthusiastic, happy and excited group of individuals working together on behalf of a future they have all committed themselves to. So the essence of both talks was The Art of Being Related.

It didn’t come as a surprise to me that virtually everyone in the room felt that their biggest challenge as a leader and manager of people was in figuring out how to get people to get along and in figuring out how to deal with challenging people. People told me stories like: as soon as I walk into work, someone comes in and tells me all the negative things that happened during the day; or I have people on my team that don’t talk to each other; or I have a manager who doesn’t know how to manage people effectively; or any other of the hundreds of complaints I’ve heard over the years.

I’ve become convinced that this is the number one concern of just about everyone in a leadership or management position. But here’s why the problem never gets solved: the question I’m always asked is: how do I deal with the other person or people. This is one of the ego’s favorite strategies to rob you of your peace. It presents you with unsolvable problems and/or unanswerable questions and the problem/question of how to deal with or fix the other person is most often unsolvable.

So here’s the only formula that I have ever discovered that works: In every situation where you are dealing with other people, you must first understand that you only and always have just two choices. That you don’t realize this and opt for a third is what gets you in trouble most of the time.

Choice number one: accept the person just the way they are and just the way they are not. You’re going to stick with this person and work things out. When you make this choice, the ball is in your court. The responsibility to change is yours, not theirs. It starts with giving up your judgments and assessments of them, then stopping making them wrong for whatever you’ve been making them wrong about, and start listening for the gold in them. Inside every human being is a bar of gold and if you look for it and assume it’s there, you’ll bring it out in them. It means getting on their side, being compassionate for whatever they are dealing with and working committedly to act like and be their best friend. When you change your attitude towards them and create a space for them to show up great, the odds are they will.

Choice number two: you decide you can’t accept choice number one and you terminate the relationship. Not every relationship is intended to and can work. Sometimes, you just can’t find the gold. If you can’t be 100% committed to the other person, it serves nobody to try and keep the relationship alive. Trying to do that is my definition of pain and life does not have to be a painful experience. So cut your ties and move on.

Now I want to repeat that these are your only two viable choices. But most of you refuse to understand that and opt of a third choice which invariably leads to stress and suffering. And the third choice is to do neither select choice one or two and complain. And there is a large list of reasons why people opt for this choice, but the biggest one is that the person is too valuable to let go and while you can’t accept choice one, you’re not willing to pick choice two.

I remember the managing partner of a law firm I worked with many years ago calling me up about every six months complaining about one of the firm’s partners and how disrespectful he was to the staff and how badly he impacted the morale in the office. I would invariably say: why don’t you fire him. He would invariably answer: he brings in too much work to the firm and if I let him go, I would probably have to let others go to. So I would say: so take him on as your friend, coach him, and learn to accept things just the way he is and isn’t. Whereupon he would reply: I can’t do that. He’s obnoxious and I don’t like him.

So he would complain and suffer and call me periodically to express his complaints, but nothing every changed. He suffered, the behavior never improved and nothing got accomplished.

In conclusion, if you would like to dramatically increase your peace of mind and have a breakthrough in the quality of all of your relationships, take a look at all of the relationships in your life, both personally and at work, and choice one of the two workable choices in each. This might prove to be painful if you have to pick choice two in some cases, but if you do choose in every case, you will be so much happier in the end, you won’t believe it.