Leadership Is An Act Of With Love

We often mistake love for a feeling...It's not a feeling, it's an action. In fact, it's many actions and it's leadership at it's finest! 

Before I get to the actions that make up love, let's define love...Love is patient and kind. It doesn't envy or boast, it's never proud. It doesn't dishonor others, it's not self-seeking or selfish, it's not easily angered and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love doesn't delight in evil or dishonest gain. Instead, it rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres...Love never fails.

Leaders need to love people...Yes, they have to care enough to want the best for those they lead.

It's even love that gives them the toughness and hard edge they need to challenge people to be their best, to set and raise standards of acceptable behavior. This is true in parenting, business, sports and religion...It's a leaders love that powers their belief and confidence in people. It's love that emboldens them to challenge people to learn, grow and improve. It's a leaders love that gives them the courage and strength to hold people accountable and it's love that helps them be open, honest and transparent.

It's a leaders love for people that causes those people to trust them and follow them in the first place. It's love that gives the vision a leader needs to know where they are going and how to help others get there with them.

When leaders fail it's because they didn't love people or lost their love of people. It's love that enables a leader to influence and inspire people to be more than they would be without them. 

If you want to be a leader...Love more!

By Mike Moore

Locker Room Leadership

I've learned many things from great coaches about leadership. The first and place becoming a winner starts...Winning is about more than the score. 

Coaches who win are leaders, and leaders don't measure winning by the scoreboard. They measure winning by the positive effect they have on people's lives. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying, anytime they keep score, it's important to play to win. Playing each game, day or event in life to win, making the effort, exhausting oneself in the pursuit of a worthwhile cause, is what exposes the opportunities to learn, grow and become the person who can win the bigger battle of developing into a lifelong winner.

Leaders, coaches and mentors view the score as a lifelong process, a marathon not a sprint. Don't ask them what today's outcome was...Ask them in 10 years how the people they led are doing, judge them by how they have influenced the people they led. Vince Lombardi, yes the one the trophy is named after, once said, "The most difficult thing I do is getting them ready to play each week". Winning in sports, business and life is more about who you are than your strategy or tactics...People make things happen and leaders help people become those who make the best things happen.

My father was a football coach, teacher and leader.  He raised me, taught me and prepared me to become a coach and teacher. In the processes he taught me leadership. I grew up in his coaching office watching game film, on the practice field and in the locker room. I spent time with him learning to game plan and plan practices to prepare athletes to execute these plans. I watched him prepare his players to perform and was on the sidelines and heard the in-game coaching,  halftime adjustments and post game speeches. These were always to get them ready to perform again.

My father exposed me to many of the great coaches of the past 50 years and I learned from all of them. Coaches like Vince Lombardi, Bear Bryant, Tom Landry, Red Auerbauch,  Don Shula and Chuck Knoll. 

As time passed I studied coaches like Bill Walsh, Bill Belichick, Pat Riley, Phil Jackson, Tommy Lasorda, Bobby Cox, Bill Cowher, Mike Tomlinson, Pete Carroll and Jim Harbaugh. The one who influenced me the most after my father, was in my opinion the greatest coach of all time...John Wooden.

The last time I spoke to legendary Major League Baseball Manager and family friend, Bobby Cox, he reminded me that I was doing what my father raised me to do...In business and life, rather than in sports.

My Dad spent my childhood, teenage years and early adult life preparing me and helping me refine my coaching insights and skills. He and I talked for hours on end about how to apply what we both knew about coaching to business leadership and management. We found that all he had taught me applied to coaching, executive leadership, sales management and salespeople. In addition, I learned something from every coach I ever played for, every person I ever worked for and every client I every consulted with or trained...Every single one of them!

I found that life and business are both a performing experience, just like sports. I also learned that people performed best when 'coached up' by a leader. I believe that sports are important to society not because of who wins or loses but because of the lessons we can learn about peak performance, coaching, teamwork and leadership. Don't get me wrong, winning makes playing the game more fun, just as achievements make life more fun, and coaching and leadership is about preparing people to have more fun!

After using all I had learned to lead, coach and manage people, I began writing, speaking, teaching and training people about what I had learned that would help others prepare to perform to their peak and produce their best results. 

I was blessed in 1996 to have John Wooden take the time to meet with me. We spent hours discussing coaching, leadership and teaching. John graciously spent those hours at his home in Encino, California where we shared ideas about how leaders should view winning, losing, relationships and life. He opened up and shared his wisdom and insights and patiently answered all my questions. I lost my father, Charles Moore, in 1992 and John in 2010. I miss them both and feel very fortunate to have called them my mentors and coaches...I love them both.

Their influence and impact on me, and many others is their legacy and the reason they will never be forgotten. The lessons I learned from my father, John Wooden and the other great coaches have served me well and helped me serve others.

Now, I am teaching leaders, managers and coaches how to build businesses, teams and individuals that can keep growing, learning and improving their peak performance. The following are some of the high points I teach in my 'Locker Room Leadership' seminars and coaching sessions.

1. Great leadership, coaching, teaching and managing is an act of will.
2. Leadership is something you do with people, not to them.
3. If you stop learning you'll stop leading.
4. In a locker room, boardroom, sales office or any group, if you pay attention, you can hear and feel the attitudes of the people.
5. If you pay attention you can tell if people are ready to perform.
6. Peak performance is a Spirit (Attitude), Mind (Knowledge and Skill) and Body (Actions) experience...To win in sports, business and life, they have to always be in that order.
7. Leaders don't worry about averages or excellence they raise the standards...The lowest form of behavior that's acceptable.
8. Who you are as a coach or leader is the lowest form of behavior you except...It's not your average or top people's performance but your lowest producing performers...That's who you are as a leader.
9. Winning coaches spend time with the people they least want to engage...The people who need to improve the most.
10. Leaders assign, monitor and teach to generate improvement.
11. Leaders manage the atmosphere...the air! They do this by managing attitudes because attitudes create behavior that results in winning.
12. Leaders inspire, motivate and hold people accountable to be their best.
13. Leaders challenge people to change their average thinking, so they can grow and improve.
14. Leadership skills can be taught, learned and improved but need insight, intuition and a personal touch to become most effective.
15. Great leaders love people...That's where their insight, intuition and personal touch comes from.
16. Most managers and coaches sabotage the results they want by trying to manage the results.
17. When you manage results you’re too late to lead.
18. Results, the score and winning, can’t be managed. Winning comes from preparing the spirit, mind and body.
19. Results, the score and winning come from the intentions, attitudes, skills and actions that were present long before the results.
20. Intentions, attitudes, behavior and skills can be taught and managed through the discipline of preparation.
21. Winning will take care of itself when leaders manage the things that create the score.
22. Leaders lift people to accomplish beyond their own expectations through preparation.
23. Never forget that your standards define who you are as a coach or leader.
24. Leaders never compromise their standards, instead they use them to teach, motivate and inspire.
25. Leadership is about people first but no one person is more important than the team.
26. Treating everyone the same is the fastest way to show favoritism.
27. It takes courage to treat each person the way they deserve to be treated…The way that's best for them.
28. Leader’s help people grow and become their best by working with them, to get them to do the things they don’t want to do, that will create the results they both want.
29. Leaders manage people’s intentions, attitudes and dominant thoughts that create the behavior that produces the results.
30. Leaders pay attention and listen to manage the atmosphere by managing the attitudes and state-of-mind of people.
31. Great leaders get uncommon results from common people by requiring them do the work to become uncommonly prepared.
32. In the absence of leadership, mediocrity will lead and failure is assured.
33. You won't know how good a job you've done until you see how the people you've led, mentored and coached turn out...Sometimes that takes years.

 By Mike Moore

The Tale Of A Coach's Son

"The most difficult thing I do is getting them ready to play each week." Vince Lombardi.

CHARLES MOORE

My father, Charles Moore, was a coach and leader.  He raised me, taught me and prepared me to become a coach and teacher. I grew up in his coaching office watching game film, on the practice field and in the locker room. I spent time with him learning to game plan and plan practices to prepare athletes to execute his plans. I watched him prepare his players to perform and was on the sidelines and heard the in-game coaching,  halftime adjustments and post game speeches which were always to get them ready again. Then I spent time listening to other coaches exchange ideas and heard coaches speak at coaching clinics. I am a coach's son, raised to be a coach and thankful for the lessons I learned.

The last time I spoke to legendary Major League Baseball Manager and family friend, Bobby Cox, he reminded me that I was doing what my father raised me to do...In business, rather than in sports.

My father exposed me to many of the great coaches of the past 50 years and I learned from all of them. Coaches like Vince Lombardi, Bear Bryant, Tom Landry, Red Auerbauch,  Don Shula, Chuck Knoll. Then I began to study coaches like Bill Walsh, Bill Belichick, Pat Riley, Phil Jackson, Tommy Lasorda, Bobby Cox, Bill Cowher, Mike Tomlinson, Pete Carroll and Jim Harbaugh. The one who influenced me the most after my father, was in my opinion the greatest coach of all time...John Wooden.

THE HARBAUGH'S

My Dad spent my childhood, teenage years and early adult life preparing me and helping me refine my coaching insights and skills. He and I talked for hours on end about how to apply what we both knew about coaching to business leadership and management. We found that all he had taught me applied to coaching, executive leadership, sales management and salespeople. In addition, I learned something from every coach I ever played for, every person I ever worked for and every client I every consulted with or trained...Every single one of them!

I found that life and business was a performing art, just like sports. I also learned that people performed best when 'coached up' by a leader. I believe that sports are important to society not because of who wins or loses but because of the lessons we can learn about peak performance, coaching, teamwork and leadership. Don't get me wrong, winning makes playing the game more fun, just as achievements make life more fun, and coaching and leadership is about preparing people to have more fun!

After using all I had learned to lead, coach and manage people, I began writing, speaking, teaching and training about what I had learned that would help others prepare to perform to their peak to produce their best results. 

JOHN WOODEN

I was blessed in 1996 to have John Wooden take the time to meet with me. We spent hours discussing coaching, leadership and teaching. John graciously spent those hours at his home in Encino, California where we shared ideas about how leaders should view winning, losing, relationships and life. He opened up and shared his wisdom and insights and patiently answered all my questions. I lost my father, Charles Moore, in 1992 and John in 2010. I miss them both and feel very fortunate to have called them my mentors and coaches...I love them both.

Their influence and impact on me, and many others is their legacy and the reason they will never be forgotten. The lessons I learned from my father, John Wooden and the other great coaches have served me well and helped me serve others.

Now, I am teaching leaders, managers and coaches how to build businesses, teams and individuals that produce their best results. The following are some of the high points I teach in my 'Locker Room Leadership' seminars and coaching sessions.

1. Great leadership, coaching, teaching and managing is an act of will.
2. Leadership is something you do with people, not to them.
3. If you stop learning you'll stop leading.
4. In a locker room, boardroom, sales office or any group, if you pay attention, you can hear and feel the attitudes of the people.
5. If you pay attention you can tell if people are ready to perform.
6. Peak performance is a Spirit (Attitude), Mind (Knowledge and Skill) and Body (Actions) experience...To win in sports, business and life, they have to always be in that order.
7. Leaders don't worry about averages or excellence they raise the standards...The lowest form of behavior that's acceptable.
8. Who you are as a coach or leader is the lowest form of behavior you except...It's not your average or top people's performance but your lowest producing performers...That's who you are as a leader.
9. Winning coaches spend time with the people they least want to engage...The people who need to improve the most.
10. Leaders assign, monitor and teach to generate improvement.
11. Leaders manage the atmosphere...the air! They do this by managing attitudes because attitudes create behavior that results in winning.
12. Leaders inspire, motivate and hold people accountable to be their best.
13. Leaders challenge people to change their average thinking, so they can grow and improve.
14. Leadership skills can be taught, learned and improved but need insight, intuition and a personal touch to become most effective.
15. Great leaders love people...That's where their insight, intuition and personal touch comes from.
16. Most managers and coaches sabotage the results they want by trying to manage the results.
17. When you manage results you’re too late to lead.
18. Results, the score and winning, can’t be managed. Winning comes from preparing the spirit, mind and body.
19. Results, the score and winning come from the intentions, attitudes, skills and actions that were present long before the results.
20. Intentions, attitudes, behavior and skills can be taught and managed through the discipline of preparation.
21. Winning will take care of itself when leaders manage the things that create the score.
22. Leaders lift people to accomplish beyond their own expectations through preparation.
23. Never forget that your standards define who you are as a coach or leader.
24. Leaders never compromise their standards, instead they use them to teach, motivate and inspire.
25. Leadership is about people first but no one person is more important than the team.
26. Treating everyone the same is the fastest way to show favoritism.
27. It takes courage to treat each person the way they deserve to be treated…The way that's best for them.
28. Leader’s help people grow and become their best by working with them, to get them to do the things they don’t want to do, that will create the results they both want.
29. Leaders manage people’s intentions, attitudes and dominant thoughts that create the behavior that produces the results.
30. Leaders pay attention and listen to manage the atmosphere by managing the attitudes and state-of-mind of people.
31. Great leaders get uncommon results from common people by requiring them do the work to become uncommonly prepared.
32. In the absence of leadership, mediocrity will lead and failure is assured.
33. You won't know how good a job you've done until you see how the people you've led, mentored and coached turn out...Sometimes that takes years.

 By Mike Moore

Peak Performance...On Demand

When your opportunity to perform presents itself, will you be nervous and falter, or eager, excited and ready to perform to your best? Will you take full advantage of the opportunity? Peak performers are always ready when their opportunity comes. Champions rise to the occasion and their best comes out when it is needed. How does this happen? Are some people just luckier than others?

The answer is simple...I didn't say easy, just simple. Peak performers, champions and those that sustain peak performance and enter the Hall Of Fame in any industry, have no secret formula. They didn't find a short cut to success. It doesn't exist.

They do possess a special ingredient...One that average performers lack. They develop and depend on self-discipline, they know it's what separates average performers from peak performers. Self-discipline...The will to prepare, the ability to do the work to be at their best when their best is needed. You can become a peak performer, a person who finds and stays in the 'zone' but you'll have to do the little things to be prepared.

You have to put in the time and do the work to know that you're ready. Preparing to perform requires your commitment to do the things that most people avoid. Peak performers invest in themselves by doing the things they don't want to do, that produce the results they want. This is the difference between average and excellent, winning and losing or peak performance and 'choking' when your opportunities present themselves. In addition, opportunities come more often to those who are prepared than to those who are waiting for them to happen. So, self-discipline leads to more opportunities and peak performance.

Peak performance requires preparation spiritually, mentally and physically and this requires self-discipline and the understanding that these stay in that order of priority. Preparing to perform, being healthy and whole, demands all three in the proper order. Until you learn this, and practice the self-discipline to prepare, you will not become a peak performer. When you do, you'll reach new heights and set new standards for yourself.

Self-discipline is the first requirement if you are to be prepared. It is the key step to developing your attitudes and skills. It is the driving force to taking action when others become paralyzed or 'choke'. Self-discipline leads to self-control which creates self-confidence and produces the self-realization of your peak performance. It is the human power that allows us to overcome the odds, perform the incredible and accomplish the amazing.

Because peak performers are prepared to perform they have an unwavering belief they were meant for the key moments in their lives. They have the confidence and faith to take the risk to fail because they know they can perform. In fact, they believe it's their purpose and their mission to be their best when their best is needed. This makes them eager, excited and ready when their time comes. They enter their peak performance zone easily and execute what they believe they were meant to do. They perform to their peak on demand!

Develop your self-discipline, prepare yourself spiritually, mentally and physically and become a peak performer!

2012...The Great Transition

We are living in 'The Great Transition' not 'The Great Recession' and a 'New Economy' will be the next step. Global influence, technology, demographics and the broken economic model of the past are driving this transition. Today's business and political leaders are struggling with this transition. New leaders will and are stepping forward. A less short-term selfish economic model will prevail. A 'new economy' based on real value and service to people first, one with long-term selfishness as it's driving intention. One that uses natural laws to serve people first, instead of breaking them for selfish short-term gain. A 'new economy' that can and will use technology to serve people and enrich lives.

In real estate, retailing and business, as well as life, people are moving from a desire to be enchanted, to a desire to be enriched. People don't want to be wow'd anymore they are moving to and buying that which they believe will enrich their lives. 

The 'new economic model' won't look or act like the old one and the rules that business played by in the past aren't working in 'the transitional economy' nor will they apply to the 'new economy'.

Just 4 years ago the majority of American's surveyed were willing to move outside the US to retire to a tropical location. Now many will do so to live and continue to work. Then there are the Gen X, Y and Millennial's, many of whom want to live in an Urban Village within walking distance to all their services.

These won't all be in traditional Urban Environments. Many of these Urban Villages will be developed in cost effective and desirable locations. Think Las Vegas as a starting point of a modern Urban Village, then remove gaming and replace it with different lifestyles and the services that support them...and it's in the middle of the desert. Urban Villages can be developed anywhere, and will be.

People are transitioning from the pursuit of a living to the pursuit of a life...This is a significant change...It's not about 40 years of commitment to a company and retiring...It's not about a career...It's about living their vacations or retirement and adding making the money needed to live to that lifestyle. That's why even in this time of high unemployment people are quitting long time jobs, starting small businesses and network marketing is booming. Information, content and community are king!

Stay with it my friends...If you can see and feel this happening you are on a right path. There will be many roads to take to succeed in the 'new economy' that will come from 'the great transition' and you can make the life you want to live if you are aware it's happening and prepared to adapt.

Living A Life Of Bright Moments

At the peak of tremendous effort, when you have given all you have to give, and find yourself victorious, with your heart pounding in your chest and head, everything becomes still and quiet within you. Your thoughts and feelings seem clearer and illuminated. Everything becomes so bright it's as if a great spotlight has been turned on. At that moment you feel and believe you have the power to overcome any obstacle and conquer any challenge. In that moment you believe you have wings and can soar. There is no more precious moment in life than the bright moments and once you've experienced one, you'll work very hard for as long as it takes to experience another and then another!

The world is full of people going through life on cruise control. We all encounter them daily. Their greatest excitement each day is looking forward to getting off work. This isn't living, it's existing and we've all seen these people and watched as this life path sucks the life out of them. They allow themselves to become victims who find fault, accept mediocrity and become cynical. If that's not the life you want to live...Make a change, choose a path that lights you up and that provides you with the opportunity for those bright moments.

Life is best when taking a path that causes you to wake up everyday excited, looking forward to doing what you will be doing that day. Find a path that excites you. Understand life isn't about making money and it isn't about accumulating possessions. It is about living with passion and giving yourself the opportunity to experience the bright moments.

The victories that produce the greatest bight moments, the lasting, life changing bright moments, are found in helping, serving and caring for others. Everyone has the ability to do this each day and fill each day with bright moments. You have to choose to be less selfish, more giving and stop serving yourself first to open the door to a life of bright moments.

The greatest deception happens when you attach your victories to achievements, accomplishments, wealth or possessions. These things can produce feelings of euphoria but will be fleeting and leave you feeling empty and searching for more without the experience of the true victory and bright moment of making a difference to another person. The quality of your life and depth of your happiness will come from the deep relationships formed in serving others...these are the brightest moments.

Be prepared, you'll find the bright moments on a path that has obstacles. The path that can provide these bright moments will be filled with things you'd rather not do...Things most people won't do. Every path that can provide these bright moments has obstacles and challenges but it has those wonderful bright moments that make life so fulfilling.

The question to ask yourself, "Do I want to do the work, put forth the effort and pay the price to experience those bright moments?". Answer yes, and I promise you, if don't quit until you experience one, you'll be thankful and get busy working to create the next one.

Tips & Traits Of Top Performers

There are no secrets to success. Learning, modeling and preparing yourself with the time tested traits, attitudes, skills and actions used by top performers is the best way to achieve your best results in your work and life!

Five Power Leadership

LEADERS SEEK RESPECT BEFORE APPROVAL OR FRIENDSHIP!

FIRST POWER...TRUST
     Be accountable...Take responsibility
     Create an open, positive, risk taking environment
     Focus on solutions, not fault finding and assigning blame
     See unwanted results as an opportunity to improve individuals and the organization
     Don't be defensive...
     You don't have to have all the answers...Just help people find them

SECOND POWER...HIGH STANDARDS
     Raise the bar...The lowest form of behavior you allow is who you are as a leader
     Blur the lines between job assignments...The mission is everyone's job
     Don't allow average behavior
     Assign and monitor all work to teach and coach using specifics
     Hold people accountable

THIRD POWER...CARE
     Manage people's attitudes before they become actions and poor results
     Don't allow people to accept average behavior
     Care enough to challenge people to get them to do what they don't want to do
     Don't overreact...Make people more important than results and the results will improve
     Teach, coach and mentor to help people grow

FOUTH POWER...VALIDATE PEOPLE
     Make taking time for people a priority
     Be respectful...Pay attention and listen
     Ask people's opinions...Pay attention and listen
     Reward extra effort...Pay attention
     Make people feel important...Pay attention
     Did I mention...Pay attention

FIFTH POWER...CHANGE
     Be a change advocate...Lead the change
     Encourage change...Ask people how they and the organization can improve
     Question everything...Never except or settle for the status quo
     Help people change to improve...When they don't, change your people

Be mindful that people will treat each other and your customers the way you treat them!

Sales Leadership Lessons

I have been participating in a discussion on LinkedIn, with sales leaders about selling, sales training and sales management. I'm very concerned and have been for years that business and sales leaders have been sabotaging the relationship between consumers and salespeople. 

If you’re in a position of sales leadership, ask yourself, "What attitudes and actions do my messages create in my salespeople? Is your sales culture sabotaging your sales?

Just a few of the phrases being used in the discussion have been a 'hunter who can find 'em, stalk 'em, kill 'em and eat 'em" or "you have to know what you're hunting so you’ll now how to kill them". 

These phrases create attitudes and actions that turn people off. It's also left the consumer and salesperson, or buyer and seller, with a dysfunctional relationship that's creating a whole ‘new economy’.

My concern is that the majority of salespeople hear 'hunter' and "find 'em, stalk 'em, kill 'em and eat 'em" and it creates attitudes and actions that chase more buyers away than it creates sales. 



The salespeople that can improve a business are not the elite salespeople, it's the majority, from low producers to average producers, and these attitudes have sabotaged their ability to improve. It's also created a sales engagement that has damaged the buyer and seller relationship to the point of sabotaging sales results. 


No one started out to create the dysfunction that exists today between buyers and sellers but the message too may sales trainers, executives and sales managers deliver is translated into the intention to sell and not serve and doesn't produce the best results. 



The intention to make a sale is what buyers and consumers 'feel' that chases them away. Knowing how to put the customer first is an act of long term selfishness. It will produce the best results, highest sales and customers that will grow your business. 



The attitude that new business is what matters most, is what's brought the economy down and it's still damaging salespeople's ability to succeed today.

Customers create sales growth. Businesses and the economy are suffering from the business focus of getting new subscribers, new sales, instead of making customers. 


Years of traditional sales engagements, demographics, multi-cultural issues, the access to information on the internet, unprecedented economic pressures and social networks have changed buying cycles along with buyers and consumers attitudes.

New sales increase fastest when people are engage with the focus on making them a customer, not a sale.

Start sending a message of service and help. Implement a culture of caring about customers more than sales. Beginning teaching and coaching salespeople to be 'servants on a mission’. When you do, sales will increase, your business will grow and everybody will win.

Look for "Traits of a Servant on a Mission" in my next blog.

By Mike Moore

3 Traits To Living A Better Life

When our wants and desires don't match who we are as a person, we live in conflict. Remember this truth. A nation, city, kingdom or person divided against itself cannot stand, in fact, it will be laid to waste. We cannot accomplish, achieve or accumulate possessions and wealth beyond who we are. When we are at odds with ourselves our life will be wasted. To live a life that matters, to be filled with peace, happiness and fulfillment start with these three traits. Don't just practice them, make them your unwavering principals. Make them your normal state-of-mind, who you are and you will be an extraordinary person who reaps the rewards of living a life that matters.

ONE...ALIGNMENT is the first trait to a life that matters. To being happy, content, fulfilled and living life with meaning.

This means we have to acknowledge that we cannot have more than we are worth. People, businesses and countries have been working to achieve without working to become. Results, achievements or our possessions cannot be more than we are. We can cheat this truth for short periods of time but inevitably alignment will catch up with us.

Since achievements and possessions are results, they have to come from actions that are generated by us. There has to be a cause to get an effect. The natural law of alignment states, 'we will get only when we give'. In fact, we'll have to give more than we get, and give without expectation, if we want to sustain our achievement and possessions. This is why instant success is fleeting at best and in fact, most often destroys those who cheat natural laws to achieve, accomplish or accumulate.

TWO...SELF-AWARENESS is the second trait. It is the ability to be honest with ourselves and aware of our true intentions. We cannot live in denial about who we are or what our wants and desires are and ever experience alignment.

Until we understand our intentions in all we do, we will be in conflict or misaligned. We'll be attempting to cheat natural laws by achieving more than we are, instead of aligning who we are with what we want. To live a life filled with self-confidence that will create the results that matter to us, self-awareness is step two. Become the person who will naturally generate the results you want, who you are is the cause that creates the effect that produces your results.

Acknowledging that our human nature is selfish, self-centered and that our thinking is short-term, is key to alignment that can unleash your power to live a life that matters.

Self-awareness is the core of personal responsibility. We cannot learn, grow or become who we want to be if we are not personally responsible. This means we stop blaming others and our circumstances. We then accept the truth that we are who, what and where we want to be until we choose to change.  Then we will become aware that nothing can stop us once we accept these truths.

Setting your faith or religious beliefs aside for just a moment, think about the first story of mankind, Adam and Eve. Their story is about our human nature. Adam and Eve could do anything they wanted to do in the Garden of Eden...except for one thing.  They chose to do that one thing. This was the first act of trying to cheat natural law. When God confronted Adam, what was his response? He blamed Eve and God for his actions. People today do the same thing. They blame their companies and their customers, they blame their families and their friends and the list goes on. It's never about them, it's never their fault. If you are still fighting with this truth, think about that last time you were late to a meeting or an appointment. What were you thinking about on the way? That's right, you were thinking about the reasons why you were late, you began to make up your excuses! We look for excuses before we look for solutions until we become self-aware and take personal responsibility.

You'll stop making excuses when you are aligned and self-aware. This happens because you become personally responsible. This won't sustain your journey to fulfillment, contentment, achievement and a life that matters, but it is the beginning... the first two steps. You will begin producing new results in your life, however it will take step three to overcome the obstacles in your journey and sustain a life that matters.

THREE...SELF-DISCIPLINE is the third trait in becoming and sustaining who you want to be because a life that matters is a journey filled with obstacles.  If you don't learn self-discipline, someone else will have to discipline you.

Once you are aligned, which we've established takes constant adjustment and change through self-awareness, you'll need the ability to sustain your alignment.  Sustaining your alignment requires doing things you don't want to do...self-discipline!

Everything of value in life is on the other side of an obstacle, challenge or problem. This is another truth or natural law. You'll have to be willing to do the things you don't want to do to become the person you want to become. Just think of how you feel about yourself after you've completed something you've been putting off or know would be uncomfortable. Your self-esteem and self-confidence is raised. If you want to keep increasing your self-esteem and confidence keep doing things you don't want to do.

Procrastination is in our nature as well as being reinforced from our earliest years in school. We learn we can get passing grades even if we put off doing the homework or studying until the last possible day. We pass the test or turn in the assignment even though we did the work at the last minute. We never do our best work, achieve to our full potential or grow our potential by procrastinating and doing the work to just get by. A life that matters isn't about a passing grade, it's about living to your full potential and growing that potential. In fact, procrastination or just getting by will drain us and make us miserable, cynical, fault finders. In short without self-discipline we are doomed to be average at best and we increase our odds of being miserable.

That said, most people would rather avoid discomfort or protect their comfort than do the things that make them uncomfortable but increase their personal value and potential. These things are different for each of us, but everyone I've ever spoken to, coached or trained, can make a list of the things they know they should do, but have been putting off. Whether its in your family, work, community, health, fitness or spiritual life, you'll have to do the things you don't want to do, to sustain self-awareness and alignment and live a life that matters.

Start by making that list, attack the things on it first everyday, choose to be uncomfortable to become extraordinary. When you do you'll start to embrace change, grow and become the person you want to be. The person who can naturally achieve the things you want, live with renewed enthusiasm and experience new opportunities.

Become aligned, self-aware and self-disciplined and you'll enjoy the journey of living a life that matters!

Too Comfortable To Learn, Grow & Improve

Past success and achievement often breeds comfort. It's also in our human nature to seek comfort even before improvement. It’s this comfort that causes people and leaders to stop improving and protect their success in good times when they get comfortable or reach their desired level of success.

In tough times, like we're now experiencing, it will make people and leaders dig in even deeper to survive and wait until things get back to normal instead of taking the actions to improve and create a new normal.  While this make slow the decline or fall, it certainly de-motivates and demoralizes people and organization. This mind set will enable the final decline and move them or their organization backwards at a time when energy and enthusiasm for the challenges, change and new innovative thinking are desperately needed.

Over the years I have met many people and business executives who seemed to be comfortable with the status quo. These same people and leaders often agree it is time for change, time to improve, but go back to what is familiar and wait for change to overtake them or their organization.  After years of observing this mind set and behavior I am left with only one conclusion.  This happens because they have achieved a personal goal and become a too comfortable with their position or life. This causes them to look to protect their position or possessions instead of using all the attitudes, skills and actions that help them achieve or grow in the first place. 

When things get tough and leadership and changes are needed, their comfort level motivates them to wait until things get better rather than look for alternatives to make things better.  I have never believed these same people or executives achieved their personal goals with this mentality. Rather, they only stopped moving forward, being innovative thinkers and advocates for change and personal growth after they achieved a personal goal and reached a comfort level.  

When bright, aggressive people and leaders, who were able to lead their organization to great achievements, start using language like "hunker down" and "wait", it is most often a sign of comfort or fear and it’s happening too regularly.

When the time comes that people or leaders would rather be comfortable than grow or lead the movement for improvement in their life or organization, it is time for the leader to step down and find a new challenge to get reenergized.  This is true in our personal lives as well...complacency or comfort are our greatest enemies to a happy successful life. Leaders stepping down or finding a new challenge rarely happens in a timely or productive manner and usually occurs after much of the success achieved has been lost.

As a leader...Do you have a plan for stepping down or creating new challenges? In your personal life,...Are you aware when you get too comfortable? Good habits lead to good results but when a habit becomes a rut that drains you of your energy beware. Look for the new challenge to reenergize the achiever in you. 

How will you know when it's time?   One major indicator is when the changes required to keep moving you or your organization forward aren’t energizing but a chore! When our attitudes as leaders are right then change is always energizing. 

Most leaders have the heart of a great competitor. Great competitors usually lose the will to prepare before they lose the desire to perform. When this happens performance suffers.

Often in business, leaders get comfortable with their past achievements or the position they hold and it creates an unwillingness to embrace the changes needed for their organization to move forward to new accomplishments.

Too often achievers or leaders are like the performing artist that can’t let go of past accomplishment or the thrill of the performance and try to perform after their performance deteriorates. Except people's performance in life don't have to deteriorate if they stay committed to learning, growing and change. 

For people, leaders and their organizations, it is best to get reenergized by becoming change advocates.  It is never best to wait for things to get better… Be careful that your life and leadership strategy isn’t to hunker down, wait or survive until things improve.

Don't hide behind the idea of going, back to basics, I've always done it this way, or it's worked this way before. Be ready to make changes, learn, grow and keep making changes to learn again. Remember it's what you learn after you know it all that matters the most and makes the biggest difference.

We are all experiencing a new economy and a new way of life. If you want a happy successful present and bright future then wake up everyday looking for what's possible, what's new.

It's time for people in general, and leaders specifically, to get back to their first loves…challenge, change, innovation and improvement.  This is the best solution in good times, tough times and the best way to re-energize yourself or your organization.