The Roadmap to Success program

It’s been a year since the launch of my program, The Roadmap to Success. Those who have taken advantage of the program, either live or via the video of the program, have reported really remarkable results. If you’re not aware of what I speak, please head on over to http://www.unshackledleadership.com/the-roadmap-to-success-program and check it out.

Here’s what makes this program so interesting. I start out by saying that everything even slightly complicated comes with an owner’s manual. Didn’t you get one with your latest smart phone, computer, tablet, washing machine, and vacuum cleaner? Yet what’s the one thing we ALL get that doesn’t come with an owner’s manual? Some people say “children,” other’s say “a spouse.” But not everyone gets those. The only thing we all get is A LIFE!

Because none of us got the owner’s manual when we arrived, or was old enough to read, the vast majority of people operate their life in a way that they surely wouldn’t if they had read the owner’s manual. It’s like driving your car down the road with your hands on the rear view mirror or the dials on your radio. Is it any wonder we keep hitting the wall? Is it any wonder that the vast majority of people do not think their life is turning out the way they would like? Or that the vast majority of people who run companies never really fulfill on their objectives.

The program goes on to say that there really is good news: there is an owner’s manual for your life! And if you understand what the manual says, you can apply it to business and accomplish pretty much anything you can imagine. How exciting is that?

So in this and several of the following articles, I’m going to share with you the essence of what The Roadmap to Success program teaches. 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.

Let’s start with the single most important statement you would find in the owner’s manual: You were born with the exact same power to create as anyone else. There has never been anyone that walked on this planet who was more powerful than you and there never will be anyone who will be more powerful than you. Now those are all true statements but hardly anyone believes them to be true, and you likely don’t either. And that is the number one reason why so few people have what they want.

I’ve given many talks where I’ve walked into the audience and said those statements over and over again to audience members and while most shake their head and speculate that yes, they do believe that, I can look in their eyes and see that they don’t. And there are many reasons why people don’t believe me.

One reason is that people see others like Kobe Bryant, Bill Gates, Adele,  and Tiger Woods producing amazing results and say to themselves: I could never do that! But what’s not understood is that everyone has different talents and abilities and those people used their talents and abilities to produce the results they produced. But there are countless others that have similar talents and abilities that don’t produce similar results, because they haven’t read the owner’s manual.

Listen carefully: you have a unique set of talents and abilities. If you understand how the game of life works and play according to the rules, you can use your talents and abilities to be as successful as anyone has ever been. In your field, you could be the next Steve Jobs, Conrad Hilton, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg. Yes, they were all amazing people. But so are you. You are far more amazing than you know. You are as powerful as anyone who has ever walked on the face of the planet. But your entry into this game depends on you believing that. Are you willing?

To be continued . . .

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.

The law of creation and manifestation

It occurs to me that if everyone on this planet of ours understood how to use their ability to create and manifest, what a different world we would have. Having said that, let’s talk about our ability to create and manifest.

Whether you’re a student of quantum physics, the law of attraction, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill or any of the other hundreds of books written on the subject, the simple and irrefutable fact is that we are the creators of our experience. How it works is that we have thoughts, our thoughts create feelings and emotions, and those thoughts, fueled by the feelings and emotions, get planted in the fertile soil of creativity and ultimately manifest. 

If you plant watermelon seeds in your back yard, you’re not going to get a harvest of oranges. That’s pretty obvious. Yet the corresponding fact of how we use thoughts to create is beyond the understanding of most people, which is why so few seem to manifest what they say they want.

So many people spend their time complaining about and thereby focusing on what they don’t want and then wonder why they don’t have what they want. I can’t find a job, my relationship isn’t very satisfying, nobody understands me, I don’t have the money, I’m sick, I can’t afford it, I hate this or that, are all the types of things most people seem to speak about. Unfortunately, this “law” of creation that I’m discussing has no sense of humor and has no opinion about what you choose to think. So when you think and speak about all of the things you don’t want, that’s what you get more of.

This gets me back to my opening statement. If everyone, including you, the person reading this, understood how to use your ability to create and manifest, we would have an amazingly happy, successful and abundant world.

How to implement this: since your thoughts become your experiences, choose your thoughts carefully and attempt, if at all possible, to think about what you want in such a way that it is for the highest and best good of everyone. And watch out for the two most powerful words that you use to start a sentence: “I am …” and “I intend …”

For example, never say things like “I’m broke” or “I’m sick” or anything else negative after those two words. But you might ask: what if I am broke or sick? I say: that’s not a fact, it’s what you’re creating! Regardless of what you see in front of you, which is just the result of what you’ve said in the past, learn to use those two statements to create how you would like your life and your company to be …

I am rich and prosperous

I am happy, healthy, and filled with vitality and I intend to have a wonderful day.

I intend that I am in perfect health.

I intend that the perfect job, with the perfect opportunities, with wonderful teammates and benefits is manifesting for me now.

I intend that our company is successful and prosperous and that we have all of the customers we want

I intend that I am the president of the leading company in our industry

Start the day saying these kinds of things and then look around you to see what needs fixing. Whatever it is, intend that the perfect solution is on its way and that you are whole in every way. You do have the power of manifestation, you are using it every minute of every day with the thoughts you now have, so if you don’t like what you’re seeing in front of you, change your thoughts to be consistent with what you want.

And for those of you that think this is a bunch of nonsense and want to continue living feeling victimized so you can blame everyone else for your circumstances, I highly recommend you give that up and take responsibility for your life because in the final analysis, this is not a dress rehearsal for your real life. This is it. Make the most of it.

Are you choosing to be happy?

Every time I read some new version of the statistics regarding our degree of happiness in the West, I have to wonder if people are awake or asleep at the wheel. Consider, according to the latest Gallup poll, 7 out of 10 of the full time workers in the United States are either checked out or actively disengaged. Isn’t that remarkable? Or, consider that 1/3^rd of the people in the US take anti-depressants and that there are more drugs and anti-depressants sold in the US than the rest of the world combined.

Recently, they caught the head of the #1 cartel in Mexico responsible for the shipment of drugs into the US. Needless to say, they wouldn’t be shipping drugs into the US if people wouldn’t be buying them. And I assure you, people wouldn’t be buying them if they weren’t trying to escape something about their life that wasn’t a source of happiness.

So why is this so perplexing to me? I found my answer sitting in my spa this afternoon with my wife and her delightful grandchildren, Abby and Lily, ages 3 and 5. They were over our house after day school so we could have some time with them. So we were sitting in the spa, it was about 75 degrees outside, the sky was blue with a few white billowy clouds, and it was so peaceful and serene. So I said to the children, “do you realize how blessed we are?” Of course, at ages 3 and 5 they didn’t really get the impact of my question, so they didn’t have an answer. But the answer was clear anyway, they just took it all for granted.

So I ask all of you, do you realize how blessed you are? Or do you take how amazing your life is for granted? Consider: there are a billion people on the planet who don’t have access to clean water. Do you think about that when you turn on the tap? There are a billion people who live on $1 a day and another billion and a half who life on $2 a day. Do you think about that when you get your pay check and complain that you don’t make enough.

There are hundreds of millions of people worldwide who don’t have a job. Do you think about that when you go to work and complain about your boss or your job or your company? There’s been a war going on in Syria for 4 years now that has literally destroyed the lives of millions of people. Do you think about that when you go around grumbling, gossiping and complaining about the fact that everyone in your life is not devoted to making you happy?

I tell you this: if you’re not waking up every day saying “another day in paradise,” if you’re not taking time every day to count your blessings, if you’re not in a state of constant gratitude for nothing more than the privilege it is to be alive, you are, as I said in the beginning, asleep at the wheel. You really need to wake up. If you’re waiting for life to turn out, I have news for you: it’s already turned out and this is what it looks like. If you’re waiting for the bluebird of happiness to come and poop some happiness on you, it’s not coming. This is your life, right here and right now. Learn to love it because I assure you, if you’re reading this, it’s pretty remarkable.

And here’s the worst part of not choosing to be happy: since you’re the creator of your life, your unwillingness to choose being happy just guarantees that you will create circumstances to support you in being unhappy. But if you choose to be happy, regardless of the circumstances, you will create for yourself a truly blessed life. It’s all up to you. So what now?