Aim For Excellence
November 30, 2009
Jim had just completed his last objective for our coaching engagement and we were wrapping up our work together.
“Before we conclude, I want to pick your brain on one more thing. Knowing I intend to be a CEO or company owner one day, what are some things I should keep in mind as I continue to shape my career?”
I was so glad he asked! This was the perfect opportunity to share a powerful insight that I learned from basketball icon Michael Jordan. Here is my response:
“Jim, you’ve done very well for yourself, quickly rising to the top tier of your company. Several of your colleagues have done the same. But if you want to get to the top, if you really want to be a person of excellence, don’t compete with them. Compete with yourself.”
“Someone once said to Michael Jordan, ‘I notice you’re always on the court, practicing and practicing your game. But you’re already the best! You don’t even need the practice! Why don’t you just relax every now and then?’
“He fell silent for a moment, and then he looked them in the eye and said, ‘I don’t practice to be better than everyone else. I practice to be better than me. I only compare myself to this person you’re looking at. If I compared myself to other players, I wouldn’t be as good as I am today. I’m playing the game of excellence.”
I’ve seen that same attitude in Tiger Woods and several other people at the top of their game, and upon further reflection, it makes a lot of sense. When we’re comparing ourselves against the competition, we’re redirecting some attention away from our own work. This diminishes our focus and reframes the goal: to beat the competition. But you can beat the competition and never achieve excellence.
Aim for excellence. It will keep you focused and fulfilled, not distracted and frustrated.
Something to reflect on:
The mind is a funny thing… it’s always looking to compare and compete. But even if you’re better than the next guy, you may still be only a shade above average.
Someone once said, there will always be people better than you, and there will always be people worse than you. So comparison will bring you self-satisfaction or frustration, but it will never fulfill you.
When you strive for your own standard of excellence, well, that’s when the game really gets interesting!
Pamela Dunn, founder of Executive Coaching International, is passionate about helping successful professionals and entrepreneurs achieve their highest vision of success. As a former trainer for world-class success coach Tony Robbins, Pamela has a tremendous amount of insight into personal and professional success. Her unique High Performance Coaching System is a results-oriented program that has helped countless professionals find focus, build efficiency, and eliminate overwhelm. For information about Pamela’s coaching program, or to sign up for more free, high-performance articles like this, please visit her online at http://www.pameladunn.com/.
What is a Successful Life?
November 27, 2009
By James Jolie
How do you define a successful life? Is it becoming a millionaire or a sports champion? Is it finding the cure for an illness? Or is it raising happy, well adjusted children?
Luck is not the factor that determines our success. Success is the realization of your goals. Ask any successful person what they want to achieve in their life and they can tell you exactly what that is.
It is Bill Gates dream that everyone has a computer at home. He became an extremely wealthy man in the process but it is not the money that makes him successful. He has virtually realized his dream.
In fact, if you look at a lot of people that we consider successful, very few were motivated purely by the money. People who are successful usually get a lot of material rewards, which are hard not to be attached to, even when they weren’t the original reasons for them striving for success.
Roger Bannister didn’t break the four minute mile for money, but to prove it could be done. Mount Everest was the mountain Edmund Hilary wanted to conquer.
Mother Theresa wanted to help the poor but she probably never dreamt she would start a charitable organization responsible for helping millions of unfortunate people worldwide. Although she died poor, it was the general opinion that she had been successful in life.
If you are spoiled and lazy, can you be successful? In fact, I would disagree; I would say that dedication, resilience and hard work are the real secrets to success. You need the ability to pick yourself up and start over when things don’t go according to plan.
People who are successful see setbacks as opportunities. To have a successful life, firstly you need to look at what success means to you personally.
Forget about other people’s definition and find your own. You need to be committed to making this work. This may mean putting in longer hours than anyone else. It may mean studying and working at the same time. No matter what you have to do, the commitment and energy to achieve it will be there for you.
It is only when you know exactly what you want to achieve and make that your goal, will you recognize opportunities being offered to you to help you get to your destination.
If you don’t know what you want, how will you recognize when life is giving you a chance? To be successful you need to use a guide and it’s just like using a map to reach a new destination.
Know your destination, how to get there and be determined to do anything to make it.
Whether you are successful or not in life is not your parents’ fault, the fault of your genes or your third grade teacher. Accepting total responsibility for your results in life so far will help you create the life you want.
If you think you can or think you can’t, you are usually right! Henry Ford (1863-1947).
The Cure for Despair
November 25, 2009
by Dr. Joe Vitale
During dinner the other night, one of the people in our group looked at me and asked the question I didn’t want to hear -
“How did you become homeless?”
By now most people have heard my story of being on the streets of Dallas in the late 1970s and struggling in poverty in Houston for many years after that. Some of it is explained in my new audioprogram, The Awakening Course.
But I had never explained exactly how I ended up in such dire circumstances.
When I answered the question at dinner, everyone at the table stared at me.
The woman who asked the question sat there with her mouth open and eyes un-blinking.
She asked, “Why have you never said this before?”
My friend Mark Ryan was sitting there, also staring, and said, “As long as I’ve known you, you’ve never told this story before. It’s riveting. This changes everything.”
Changes everything?
Riveting?
They all said I had to tell the story now.
“Given the current financial crisis and with people losing their homes and their jobs, this story needs to be told more than ever before,” Mark said.
I heard them and realized I agreed.
So here’s the story…
I knew I wanted to be an author when I was a teenager. I wanted to write books and plays that made people happy. Everywhere I looked I saw un-happy people. I believed I could help them with humor and stories.
During that time of the mid-1970s, I watched sports. I don’t today but back then the Dallas Cowboys were the rage. Roger Staubach and Tom Landry were heroes. I got caught up in the excitement and felt the place for me to make my name was in Dallas, Texas.
I lived in Ohio at the time. Born and raised there. I worked on the railroad as a trackman, doing heavy labor all day long, working weekends and summers since the age of five.
I saved my money, packed up my bag, and took a bus to Dallas. It took three days to get there.
I was lost in the big city, of course. Being born in a small town in Ohio didn’t prep me for the hustle and bustle of a city the size of Dallas.
Before long, I wanted out.
But I still wanted to be an author.
At that time major companies were building oil and gas pipelines in Alaska and the Middle East, and offering to pay big bucks if you were willing to go to either place.
I wasn’t keen on going to a foreign country and doing more labor, but I saw a chance to make money, save it, and then go on a sabbatical where I could write for a few months or even a year.
It seemed like a brilliant strategy.
I answered one of the newspaper ads that promised to get me pipeline work at a extraordinary hourly wage. I went in their office, met an upbeat sales person, and ended up giving him all of my money – my entire savings, about a thousand dollars at the time – based on his promise that I’d have overseas pipeline work in a week or two.
You might guess part of what happened next – but you won’t guess all of it.
Within a week or so, the company that took all of my money went out of business.
Their doors were closed, no one answered the phone, and no forwarding addresses could be found.
Shortly after that, the company went bankrupt.
And not long after that, the owner of the company committed suicide.
There was no one left to try to get my money back.
I was alone.
I was broke.
I was in Dallas, far from home.
I confess that my ego got in the way here. My family back in Ohio would have taken me back in and welcomed me back home. But I was head strong and determined to somehow survive.
Well, I did survive – by sleeping in church pews, on the steps of a post office, in a bus station.
It wasn’t an easy time, as you can imagine, and I never used to talk about it. It was too embarrassing.
When I told this story at dinner, everyone agreed I had to share it with you.
They said that people are finding themselves in the same situation – they trusted a government, or a corporation, or a person, or a bank, and now they are losing their homes and their jobs.
Hearing that I went through the same thing three decades ago and not only survived but prospered to a level that the Joe Vitale of thirty years ago could hardly imagine, ought to be inspiring to you, too.
I got off the streets and out of poverty by constantly working on myself – reading self-help books, taking action, scrambling at times by taking whatever work I could find, but always always always focusing on my vision: to one day be an author of books that helped people be happy and stay inspired.
If you’re in a place right now that doesn’t feel so good or seem too safe, I urge you to remind yourself that this is only temporary.
This is the cure for despair.
As I say in my book, The Attractor Factor, this is simply current reality, and current reality can change.
You can help it along by doing what you know and need to do.
But remember, the sun will shine again.
It always does.
Your job right now is to focus on what you want and keep it in sight.
Yes, keep taking action;
yes, stay positive and surround yourself with positive people;
yes, be of support to others.
But remember, if I or anyone else can survive homelessness, poverty, job loss, or any other hard time, then you can survive it, too.
Please hang in there.
One last thing:
I admit that there were times I wanted to throw in the towel and get myself out of this life.
Thank God I stuck around. Had I left early, I would have missed a life of magic and wonder, success and fame I never dreamed of before, priceless relationships and experiences, and more.
I have no idea what wonderful good is headed your way – and neither do you.
What you have to do is stay the course and follow your heart.
And remember -
Expect Miracles.
Ao Akua,
Dr. Joe Vitale
Founder of the movement to end homelessness
www.operationyes.com
