Marcel Legros - Play the Game of Life

If you want to get ahead at work, you need to understand what your employer really wants. Your employer is in business to become successful and make money. For-profit businesses want to make money for themselves, governments want to make money for development and programs, and non-profits want to make money for the benefit of others. This is the guiding principle behind every decision made in business.

It’s All About the Money

A successful construction contractor, once told me a story I’ll never forget.

I was busy gathering my tools at the end of the day, getting ready to go home. The owner of the company approached me clutching two handfuls of screws, scrap wire, and other construction materials. “Why were all these laying around? They were going to be thrown out!” he said.
“It’s nothing,” I replied. “There can’t be more than two dollars worth of material there. We’re too busy to stop and pick up scraps. They’re just crumbs.”
The owner look at me with a scowl. “Yes, but they’re MY crumbs.”

This story might be dismissed as just another example of a cheap boss, if it weren’t so commonplace. Let me put it to you this way; pretend you have $100,000 and ask me to invest it for you. Imagine I intentionally waste $1000 of it by being careless with your money. Would you be upset? Of course you would! Just because you still have $99,000 doesn’t mean you like people throwing your money away; neither does your employer or company you work for.
Businesses is extremely competitive. Owners operate on razor-thin profit margins - there is no room for error or waste. If you want to gain respect, and acknowledgment from your employer, you need to pay attention to little things that make a difference.

Champion Your Employer’s Success

When you champion your employer’s success, you become a workplace superhero. Take an interest in what matters most to them and you will gain their respect and confidence. Ask them questions like this:

• How are we doing?
• What kind of margins does the business need to be successful? Are we meeting those targets?
• What can I do to make the company more money and become more successful?
• Where can I be more efficient or more productive. How can I improve and make YOU more successful?

When you ask questions like this, you’re sending a clear message that you are engaged in your work and you care about their success. Employers look for people like this and, more importantly, promote people like this. Get excited about it - make a personal goal to become as knowledgeable about the business as the owner. Not everyone has entrepreneurial spirit but everyone, including you, wants success for themselves. Show interest in another’s success and it will always be given back to you.

Almost Home - I Get to Sleep in a Bed Tonight!

I have decided to head for the hills this week and live in a dirty tent with my family for a few days. I’ll have lots of ideas when I return and in the meantime I decided to include a few random passages from a few awesome books. Here is Day 5 of “Random Holiday Thoughts” taken from “The Way of the Bodhisattva”. It was written by Shantideva in 8th century India. Cool! See you when I return.

“Those who wish to keep a rule of life
Must guard their minds in perfect self-possession
Without this guard upon the mind,
No discipline can ever be maintained.

Wandering where it will, the elephant of mind,
Will us down to pains of deepest hell.
No worldly beast, however wild,
Could bring upon us such calamities.

If, with mindfulness’ rope,
The elephant of the mind is tethered all around,
Our fears will come to nothing,
Every virtue drop into our hands.

Tigers, lions, elephants, and bears,
Snakes and every hostile beast,
Those who guard the prisoners in hell,
All ghosts and ghouls and every evil phantom,

By simple binding of this mind alone,
All these things are likewise bound.
By simple taming of this mind alone,
All these things are likewise tamed.

Source: “The Way of the Bodhisattva” - Shantideva - Chapter 5

I have Enough Fresh Air - Now I Need a Shower

As you read this, I’m off enjoying some R&R with my family - swatting bugs, sleeping on the ground, and fighting off bears. While I’m away I decided to post a series of “Random Holiday Thoughts”; passages taken from a few of my favorite books. Today’s message is from “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron. If you want to read more, I included an Amazon link to it for your purchasing pleasure. See you when I return.

“How do you know if you are creatively blocked? Jealousy is an excellent clue. Are there artists whom you resent? Do you tell yourself, “I could do that, of only…” Do you tell yourself that if only you took your creative potential seriously, you might:

• Stop telling yourself, “It’s too late.”
• Stop waiting until you make enough money to do something you’d really love.
• Stop telling yourself, “It’s just my ego” whenever you yearn for a more creative life.
• Stop telling yourself that dreams don’t matter, that they are only dreams and that you should be more sensible.
• Stop fearing that your family or friends would think you crazy.
• Stop telling yourself that creativity is a luxury and that you should be grateful for what you’ve got.

As you learn to recognize, nurture, and protect your inner artist, you will be able to move beyond pain and creative constriction. You will learn ways to recognize and resolve fear, remove emotional scar tissue, and strengthen your confidence. Damaging old ideas about creativity will be explored and discarded.”

Source: “The Artist’s Way” - Julia Cameron - Page 7

My Holidays, Four Days, Still Kicking…

I’m off this week for a few days of camping, swimming, hiking, eating burnt fireside food, and swatting bugs with my family. I’ll stew up lots of fresh air induced posts while I’m away but for now, here’s Day 4 of my random holiday thoughts - random passages taken from a few of my favourite books. I’ve included an Amazon link to it if you wish to purchase it and read more. Here’s a fantastic one from Dale Carnegie’s book “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” The title doesn’t get any more specific than that! See you when I return.

“You can’t win an argument. You can’t because if you lose it, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it. Why? Well suppose you triumph over the other man and shoot his argument full of holes and prove that he is non compis mentis. Then what? You will feel fine. But what about him? You have made him feel inferior. You have hurt his pride. He will resent your triumph. And -

A man convinced against his will

Is of the same opinion still.”

Source: “How to Win Friends and Influence People” - Dale Carnegie - Part 3, Chapter 1, page 117

“I’m on Holidays - Part Deux”

I’m on holidays all week to enjoy some quality camping with my family. I’m probably mountain biking a new trail or burning my dinner as you read this. Here’s Day 2 of my random holiday thoughts - random passages taken from a few of my favourite books. I’ve included an Amazon link if you’re interested in reading more of this great book. I hope you enjoy today’s passage and see you when I get back!

“There is no such thing as pure silence, not in the world we know. Pure silence is an ideal, an infinite quality like “emptiness” or “perfection.” We can think about it. We can approach it more and more closely and feel its pull. But as an experiential reality it is impossible - impossible because we are alive. Our body of blood and breath is a raucous machine. Our very ears produce sound, or the clear sensation of it. Existence itself is full of noisy energy, not empty anywhere. A recent issue of Science News refers to a vacuum as a “seething sea of electromagnetic fields… a giant reservoir into which excited atoms can deposit photons.”
And yet we do not experience what can be called relative quiet, the impression of silence, and this can be vivid and compelling. We are drawn toward it. We are hungry for it and it nourishes us. In a brief moment of quiet sitting we can realize how tranquility is the precondition for listening. Our sense of silence is the other side of our sense of sound, and gives definition and wholeness to it. It is a touchstone, the gut check which triggers creativity.”

Source: “The Listening Book” - W.A. Mathieu - Page 69

Holidays - The Introduction

I’m taking myself off the grid for a few days to enjoy some fresh air, lakeside enjoyment, and time with my family. Instead of leaving dead air on the blog all week, I decided to pick a random passage from a few of my favorite books. Absolutely no effort went into choosing the passage; a good book is like that, there’s a gem on every page. I’ve included an Amazon link if you’re interested in reading further. See you when I get back!

“The third factor of enlightenment is investigation of the dharma, investigation of nature. At times we may have a tendency to be complacent in practice, contenting ourselves with believing the words of a teacher or something we read in a book. Investigation of the dharma means not settling for secondhand knowledge or adopting someone else’s opinion. It says, “I must see for myself what is true.” What makes someone a true heir of the Buddha, what makes a buddha, is the courage and willingness to look directly and honestly into the body, the heart, and the mind without relying on or settling for what others say is true. Over years of meditation it is that quality that keeps practice alive.”

Source: “Seeking the heart of Wisdom” - Joseph Goldstein & Jack Kornfield - Chapter 6, Page 83.

Stress is a poor, misunderstood creature. It’s vilified and treated as a mortal enemy. People want to conquer it, manage it, and escape from it. Stress management products are everywhere. Yet stress not your enemy - it’s your best friend. Stress is healthy and necessary for your growth and survival. That ugly pit in your stomach or low-level dissatisfaction you feel isn’t stress at all. That’s anxiety, not stress. The difference is more than semantic. When you look closely, stress and anxiety are not the same at all.

Why You Should Embrace Stress

Stress is the single most important feedback signal, next to pain, necessary for evolution and growth. Stress tells you that you’ve pushed just a little past your current boundaries. If you systematically overload a muscle, it will grow in size, become stronger, and faster. If you apply stress to your mind, you learn new skills and adapt to new environments. Without outside pressures, we would be weak, shallow, and extinct. The reason you mistake stress and anxiety, is because they both feel uncomfortable and usually appear at the same time. Here are two situations that are highly stressful. Which one is free from anxiety? Why?

• A single mother is down to her last five dollars. Rent is past due, pay-day is ten days away, and her two children are hungry. She just received a phone call that the phone and electricity will be cut off at the end of the month if she cannot pay the outstanding balances.
• It’s July 24th, 2005. Lance Armstrong is minutes away from winning his 7th Tour de France and can see the finish line now. Every fibre in his body aches, burns, and is screaming to stop, but he will not. The mental suffering endured on his bike after 22 days and over 3000 kilometres, and the toll taken on his body is beyond our comprehension. He’s going to win, of course, but it’s going to hurt - a lot.

Why is the first situation full of anxiety and not the second? Both are certainly painful but one is a tragedy while the other is a triumph. The answer is ‘me’.

Stress says, “This is too much pressure. You need to get stronger.”

Anxiety says, “What’s going to happen to me? I am going to suffer.”

The worst thing about anxiety is that it compounds your problems. It creates panic, fear, and intensifies your pain.

Get Out of Your Own Way and Conquer Anxiety

The next time you encounter a difficult situation, I suggest you lean into it and embrace it. Shrinking from challenge or adversity is the absolute worst thing you can do. Of course stress is uncomfortable. It can be downright painful. We all experience emotional, physical, and mental pain throughout our lives. You only have two choices:

1. Face the situation directly without worrying about ‘me’. You will suffer and you will grow.
2. Worry about ‘me’, suffer horribly anyway, and gain nothing.

I encourage you to try daily meditation to become aware of that little ‘me’ voice in your head. It’s the voice of fear, and it’s almost always wrong. Tomorrow’s post will give you a few powerful tools to deal with anxiety. Hope to see you there.

I’ve been stuck the last several days with a feeling of no flow - no creative ‘mojo’. I became an automaton after many days glued to the computer - writing or tweaking my site for too long. So I unplugged…

Unplug and Tune In

‘Unplug’ yourself before a creative speed bump turns into a creative wall. Technology is great but it enforces a heavy price, if you aren’t paying attention. When you get too plugged into a project and into technology, you run the risk of disconnecting from life’s flow. Getting too close to your work often means you lose objectivity - lose sight of the bigger picture.

Remember Three Things About Creativity:

1. You don’t own it. Creativity spontaneously rises from life itself. You are alive and you are creative.
2. Creativity includes - it doesn’t exclude or discern. Discernment, logic, and discrimination narrows your view. Creativity has a broad view with unlimited possibilities. Frequently step back and entertain different ways to do your work.
3. Mistakes are a good idea. Some of man’s greatest inventions were the result of a happy mistake. You have to try many things that don’t work in order to find the one or two things that do.
4. You can be creative doing ANYTHING at all.

When you hit a wall the best thing to do is to step away from your Blackberry, iPod, or computer, and turn off the tv. Get some exercise. Read a book. Doodle in a notebook or on the back of a business card. Take half an hour to write some ideas in your journal. When was the last time you had a water fight on a hot summer day?

Simple Suggestions to Help You Get Your Creative ‘Mojo’ Back

• If you commute, change the route you take to and from work today.
• Don’t watch television at all for 24 hours.
• Eat something totally new for lunch today.
• Take a walk. It doesn’t have to be brisk - just explore your neighbourhood.
• Sit quietly in a natural surrounding for even a few minutes. Nature is a powerful force of creativity and it rubs off.
• Practice conscious housework. Instead of mentally escaping from your chores, bring your entire focus into them and watch what happens.
• Exercise is a powerful tool to creatively unblock yourself. Try yoga, running, cycling, swimming, or weight training. If you are in good physical health, your mind works more effectively.

Explore your surroundings, allow a flexible mind by introducing changes, and connect to humanity. This will get you closer to creative flow sooner than any piece of software ever can.

Every A-list blogger will tell you the key to their success is an almost fanatical dedication to posting frequently. I argue that if you get burned out in the process, no one will want to read what you have to say. Content without quality, sucks - plain and simple.

Yesterday, we looked at the top three things that prevent you from losing excess body fat - alcohol consumption, fatigue and dieting or fasting. All three trigger a stress response in your body, which then produces cortisol. The presence or absence of cortisol is the most important factor to your fat loss goals. You need to limit stress signals to your body so that they don’t undermine your best efforts in the gym. Now that you know what stops you from losing fat, here is a very powerful tool you can use to burn it off quickly.

Difference Between Aerobic, Anaerobic Exercises

Aerobic exercise is when the demands for oxygen and fuel for muscles can be met by the heart and lungs. Lactic acid, which is a waste by-product of the muscles’ activity, can also be flushed away.

Anaerobic exercise takes place when the demands of the body are too much for the heart and lungs to keep up. [Read more →]

Like most people, one of your primary fitness goals is probably to reduce your body fat. There are easy ways to decrease body fat and there are also things that stop the process cold in it’s tracks. It really isn’t that complicated. You don’t have to train like a bodybuilder to get good results, all you have to do is study their fat-burning methods. You don’t need to take performance enhancing drugs or spend 10 hours a day on the treadmill to control body fat - you just need to understand how the body works. Knowledge is power!

Tell Me About Body Fat

Your body produces and stores fat for times of extreme hunger or starvation. Fat is also an essential and required component of the body for it to function correctly, but most of us carry around far more than we need. [Read more →]