http://www.flickr.com/photos/hamed/ / CC BY 2.0

I heard an interesting message yesterday at church. One of the questions asked of the leaders, and volunteers was this: “do you have a leadership accent?”. What is a leadership accent you ask? Well, the message went on…

Most of us have an accent. You can tell almost immediately if someone is from the south, or from the midwest, or an eastern european country, south africa, etc. Even Californian’s, who I actually thought were the only people on planet earth without an accent, have been said to have an accent.

But what is a leadership accent? Leaders speak with “we” and “us” instead of “they” and “them”. Leaders take responsibility, and work with the people they lead. A none leader might say, “they have decided to do the music like that”, or “It was them who thought it would be better to do it that way”. On the contrary, a leader would say, “we have decided to do this”, or “Let us try to do it like that”. Leaders are in the game, they don’t speak from the outside in, but from the inside in. Leaders know the people they work with and serve. There is no distinction, or segregation – we work together, helping us grow.

Next time someone speaks, listen to their use of “us” and “them” or “we” and “they”, you’ll be able to tell quickly if that person is a leader or not.

Next time you speak, listen to what you use. Are you a leader?

I love this commercial. I think of it almost any time I say to myself, “I’m tired”, or “I just don’t feel right”. It’s usually around the time I need to go to the gym, but it happens other times too. “I don’t feel like changing the baby”, “I don’t feel like getting up”. It’s so easy to talk ourselves out of things, and to let our ‘feelings’ control our actions.

Listen to your internal values, set your goals, and then go after them. Any self talk that deters you from your goals, don’t listen to it.

This posts outline for staying motivated…

1. Just Do It.

Done.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lintmachine/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Ever meet one of those people who constantly complains? “This is too hot”, “that’s too cold”, “this isn’t working”, “I don’t like that”, the list goes on and on. And, what’s funny, is they never actually fix anything they complain about. It’s as if they really just enjoy complaining about it. Nothing is really wrong with their life, or situation, they just enjoy complaining. Why not?

It’s easy, it’s an easy trap to fall into. It’s very easy to complain. What takes work is fixing what your actually complaining about. Taking some action to change, or alter what you don’t like.

To complain you have to look at the negative. You have to notice, point out, and acknowledge what doesn’t work, or what’s not working. To some degree this can be beneficial – if you’re creating something like a book or a piece of music, you have to notice and pick out the parts that you don’t like. The key is that you actually fix them. Just leaving it the way it is, you’ll end up with a crappy book or piece of music. Complaining without fixing will always end badly, and sometimes even as a disaster.

Constantly noticing what’s wrong, and what doesn’t work (without fixing it) in a relationship can be devastating. Take a marriage for example. Picking a part all the negative areas of your spouse would be a catastrophe (and some of us know this first hand). When you focus solely on the negative, you are actually emphasizing those areas, and helping them grow. What you focus on expands, so when you focus just on the negative, you’re actually growing negative. Negative thoughts, actions, reactions, and desires all grow when complaining.

What will greatly enhance your productivity and success is turning complaining into fixing. When you notice yourself complaining, think instead, “how could I fix this”. I’ve noticed successful and productive people, don’t complain much. I think they have trained themselves to bypass complaining, and go directly to fixing. They instantly turn things they don’t like into opportunities. Growth, maturity, creativity, and spontaneity come when you change from complaining to fixing. When you think about how to fix problems you become an asset, you become powerful, and proactive.

When you change your attitude from complaining to fixing, your ability to make and meet new friends becomes much easier. Think of the last time you met someone who, within the first couple minutes talking to them, managed to complain about 2 or 3 different things. You probably left the conversation thinking consciously, “What a downer”, and subconsciously “I won’t be talking to them again”. Complaining can really be a draw back when meeting new people, it just leaves them not wanting to spend time with you. On the other hand, when you meet someone with a fixing mind set, and a resolution to use problems as opportunities, the attraction to spend time with them suddenly grows. People love an up beat person who doesn’t complain and fixes problems instead of talks about them. Plus, when people see someone creative who can solve problems, and has the inner oomph to actually change things, they have an affinity for that person. Whether they conscientiously know it or not, people find ways to be around fixers, they instinctively know they’ve got something they want.

A fixing mindset that doesn’t complain will enhance your effectiveness, and ultimately your ability to succeed. Learning to fix problems instead of dwell on them changes your whole outlook. You become more productive, proactive, effective and creative. It takes action and usually hard work to fix things. It’s a lot easier to sit back and complain about something than it is to jump in an fix it. That’s one reason why people enjoy complaining, it’s a cop out. It takes literally no energy to complain about something. No extra thought or effort. Simply notice what doesn’t work and talk about it – simple. But fixing something, you have to first notice it doesn’t work (the easy part), then take action to think of ways of fixing it. This is not always very easy. You have to be creative, and very proactive, because sometimes the solutions are difficult and complicated.

Next time you see the opportunity to complain about something, ask yourself: Is it worth complaining about? Can it be fixed? And what would be 3 possible solutions to fixing it? If answers pan out to all of these questions, it might be worth bringing up, but only in the context of how you will find a solution for it.

“If you have time to whine and complain about something then you have the time to do something about it.” ~ Anthony J. D’Angelo

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rovernl/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

“The health of people is really the foundation upon which all their happiness and all their power as a state depend.”
- Benjamin Disraeli

One of the key factors to a peaceful, purposeful and happy life is diet. For me personally, I feel much more balance, control, and powerful when I’m eating right. For me it’s not only the health, but it’s also about setting goals (I want to eat right) and achieving them. It goes hand in hand with exercise and overall mental health. In fact, eating healthy has been shown to provide: longer life, happiness, vitality, great skin, weight loss, life satisfaction, and better relationships. It helps our attitude, our outlook, and our energy.

Since a healthy diet is such an important factor in our lives, it just makes sense to find ways of making it easier. If there are short cuts I want to know about them – they are usually worth their weight in gold. So, for the last month or so I’ve been tracking various ideas for eating healthy. Some are easy little hacks, and some are more general, but the idea is to make eating healthier easier. With marketers, commercials and media all telling us what to eat (and seldom do they have our health in mind) we need all the help we can get.

So here they are in no particular order:

1. Wait 10-15 minutes: After eating a small to medium-ly portioned meal, wait. Wait 15 minutes before deciding if your still hungry or not. Often our brain doesn’t feel full until 15 minutes after eating has passed. With this short stall, we can trick ourselves, and feel full with out actually eating more.

2. Eat smaller meals: Going hand in hand with waiting 15 minutes, is to eat smaller portions. In the US especially, we are used to Costco, Walmart, Chevy Trucks, and Super Sized. What’s funny is that 90% of the world doesn’t operate this way. It’s amazing how many calories (and dollars) can be saved by just reducing what we consume.

3. Count your calories: For at least for 60-90 days, or until it’s a habit, track how many calories you eat in a day. You may be surprised to find out you are normally eating 3,000 calories a day, when you should really only be eating 2,100. Plus when you count your calories you become much more aware of everything your eating.

4. Track/log what you eat: Along with tracking your calories (at least for 60-90 days until it’s a habit), track what you eat. You’ll want to know how many carbohydrates, proteins and fats your eating each day. Too much of one, and not enough of the other leads to unbalance, and isn’t healthy.

5. Replace carbohydrates with protein. So much of what we get at the store, and at restaurants is filled to the brim with carbohydrates. We need to actively look at ingredients and get more protein and less carbohydrates.

6. No eating before bedtime: Something I’ve noticed really helps my weight, and overall metabolism is not eating before I go to sleep. 1) I wake up hungry, this kicks my metabolism off to a good start and 2) eating right before bed turns the energy your body gets from the food directly into fat instead of burning it off.

7. No carbs 5-6 hours before bedtime. Your body doesn’t really need carbohydrates in the late afternoon and before bed time. Since you’ll be sleeping you don’t need the energy that comes from eating carbohydrates. Your body turns carbohydrates into fat instead of energy when all you do is sleep on them.

8. Drink water. 1) it’s good for you. 2) it curbs your appetite – many times instead of being hungry, I was actually thirsty. Drinking some water satisfied that appetite, and I no longer craved food.

9. Eat natural. When in doubt eat something natural. Not frozen, packaged, processed, or produced. Look for as little ingredients as possible.

10. Don’t use self-control: That’s right, I said “don’t”. The idea here is that if you don’t want to eat it, don’t buy it, or have it in the house at all. If it’s not even there, it’s not a temptation and you don’t have to use self control. Try to use will power as little as possible.

11. Brush your teeth early. I noticed that when I brush my teeth, I’m much less likely to eat something afterwards. I have this idea that I have already brushed my teeth, and I don’t want to brush them again. So, whenever I can, I’ll brush my teeth as early as possible, this takes care of any before bed temptations.

There it is. Have any more?

Note: I am by no means a professional nutritionist or anything like that. These are merely things that have helped me. Please consult a professional when making any changes to your diet.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cuppojoe_trips/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Late last year I had done a lot of reading on zenhabits, and other minimalst goal setting websites that talked about setting only minimal goals, in fact some even advocated setting just one goal and working on that until it’s done. So when it came time for me to draw out what I wanted to accomplish in 2009, and write down some goals, I thought I would try the simplistic, minimalist method. I thought about it long and hard and came up with one, over arching goal for the year:

Ask myself a dozen times a day (roughly once every waking hour) “Is what I’m doing right now helping, encouraging, building up, or prolonging at least one of 3 things: 1) Wife/Family 2) Friends/People 3) Business/Work?”

That was my goal. My single big fat goal for 2009. At the time I thought it would be great to just have one goal – a nobile goal, that really encapsulated what I wanted to accomplish in 2009. Although I still think this is a great goal, and worthy of executing, what I soon realized is that having a single, large goal is not really for me. I actually need a larger list, with items I can check off as I complete them. Even for longer term goals, I need a list. I work better with a list. The minimalist idea might work for some, but for me, I need more specific goals, and quantifiable achievements. So I learned a valuable lesson: The biggest key to my own productivity and goal setting is doing it my way – What feels best to me.

I can’t over emphazise this fact enough. Almost 100% of the time when I try to emulate another persons planning style or productivity routine two things happen: 1) I end up more focused on the routine than actually getting things done. and 2) I end up fighting my own instincts, and personality and end up trying to follow another person’s instincts and personality.

But, when I focus on my own ways of doing things, and what feels natural to me, something magical starts to happen:

• I get things done in half the time, because the routine for doing them is personal and instinctive.
• Some stuff starts to get done by habit, which makes it easier, and faster.
• My personal integrity and power to accomplish grow because I’m listening and obeying my instinct.
• I build a powerful toolbox of productivity routines.

These are some of the benefits, I’m sure there are more. Ultimately our goal should be happiness and peace. These seem to come best when we are setting and accomplishing our goals. I’ve found that when it comes time to set and accomplish goals, what works best is what works most naturally for you.

I believe every successful person has a toolbox of productivity systems, and things they do that bring the most success into their lives. Some use electronic note keepers, some live and breath by their blackberry, the calendar, notes, etc. Some do everything on paper. The list is endless. But the bottom line is that each person who has a successful system, and has used it to bring them success has done so by personally refining that system, and truly making it their own.

So what can you do to actively tap into your own productivity tool kit? In a word, listen. Listen to your gut – your instinct, to what feels right. You may feel very comfortable using a pen and paper…if you’re like me, you hate using them because your mind is always telling you “it takes too long”, “it’s not sortable or searchable”, “I can’t read it easily”, etc. If that’s the case, scrap the paper and pencil and try a PDA instead. Try using electronic tools such as Outlook, Evernote or Remember The Milk. Try planning out the day in the morning, if that doesn’t work, try it the evening the day before. Try making one big goal for the year, if that doesn’t work make a list of smaller goals. But don’t focus on the system or the tool. Focus on what feels right, and what works for you. When my mind is constantly battling the productivity tool or system I’m trying to use, I know it’s not a good idea. However if my instinct and conscience feel good, and the tool is working, chances are it’s a keeper – something for my toolbox.

“Now, remember, Pinocchio, be a good boy. And always let your conscience be your guide. “ – Pinocchio

The old familiar words of Jiminy Cricket come to mind. There is so much truth and power to just listening to your conscience and knowing what your gut instinct is. In fact, the older I get, the more I realize how true this is. It even applies to our modern day productivity and planning tools. Every successful person has a productivity system and toolbox, what’s yours?