my advice: do something.  don’t just waste it away watching tv on the sofa.  take advantage of the extra time.  think about the next big idea for your team.  flush out the big idea you already have and just “never have time” to think through.  spend time with your wife now, so you can get a little extra time to chase your dreams tonight when she goes to sleep.  dedicate today to exploring ways to live the life you want chasing your passions.  whatever it is, don’t just sit at home and think about what you can do tomorrow.  tomorrow is today!  do something!

right now, many of us are in painful situations. we hate our jobs. we don’t have enough money to cover the bills of everyone in our circle. we have lost someone we care about by no choice of our own.  and/or the brands we manage continue to see declining sales.  but the longer we focus on the pain that stems from these challenging situations, the longer we will continue to feel pain.  stop seeing your pain as the problem and start fixing what is causing the pain in the first place.  that arm will never feel better until you go to the doctor and that hand will not stop burning until you remove it from the stove. until the problem is removed, your system (emotional, peer, adviser, etc) will continue to signal that damage is here or inevitably coming. and be wise enough to recognize that proper action does not always immediately eliminate the pain but it will put you on the path to recovery so you can heal (similar to going to see a doctor when you have a broken arm).

evaluate your life today. where are the places you feel pain?  ignore the pain, find the problem, and take action to solve it. what action is necessary to improve the way you feel about your job or close your monthly dollar gap or help you move past the feeling of deep loss or reverse the sales trend you are seeing?  the pain is there.  i know it hurts.  but it’s just your wonderful system letting you know that something needs your attention and it’s time for you to take action.

that’s it.  easy as pie.  but if it’s so easy, why won’t you do it?  because you never got past the first part of step #1.  you never closed your eyes, which is essential to developing a vision (dream) for yourself because your sight is the enemy of your vision. it’s counterintuitive because seeing is how we make sense of our world.  but sight, which we have grown so dependent on, is also the same thing that prevents us from imagining and believing in a better life. why?  because sight convinces us that what we see is reality for both today and tomorrow.  but both of those are lies.

gregory burn, tackles the first lie (today) in his book, iconoclast, where he explains how our eyes are simply digital cameras that transfer light to the brain, where our mind makes sense of what we are seeing based on past experiences. therefore, one’s sight is not reality, but instead contrived perceptions manufactured by the brain and based on old news.

in terms of the second lie (tomorrow), when we take our current sight (what we are seeing/feeling/experiencing today) and use it to predict our future (i’m single today so i’ll never get married, i couldn’t find a job for the last two months so i’ll never find one, etc.), we close our eyes to the true possibilities that surround us, waiting to be discovered.  hence the great proverb: “you think with your eyes so you are easy to fool.”

it is not until we can remove ourselves from our past and present (close our eyes) and dream-thus infusing our future with imagination, creativity, & new options-that we can actually begin to change life as we know it.  the choice is up to you: will you close your eyes and dream?

if you choose to close your eyes and dream, let me know in the comments.

since reading the post i have not been able to drop this concept from mind but, unfortunately, i haven’t done anything about it.  i find myself with some incredibly difficult business challenges to solve yet no time to even give them the five minutes they deserve.  i complain about having no time.  but in some weird twisted way i even notice that sometimes my complaining is secretly mixed with bragging – as if the fact that i am so tied up with meetings is a testament to how important i am.  terrible.  but at the end of the day, one thing is clear and that is that nothing changes…i make nothing.

so this week i am trying something new.  monday will be spent in meetings getting alignment with the team and client on what needs to get accomplished that week.  tuesday through friday i have blocked off every morning from the time i get into the office until 1pm to “make;” i am calling them “maker morning sessions.”  1pm through the rest of the day will be for meetings, emails and the likes.  i’m not sure how this will work but i think i owe it to myself, my team, and my client to take some time to shut up, stop managing, and make something.  we’ll see how it goes.

anyone want to join me in my experiment?

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p.s. while searching for images for this post i found this image…thought you might like it:

i like this quote because it contains two important ideas for generating new ideas: consume everything relevant to you and steal.

#1 consume everything relevant to you. inspiration may seem to come out of thin air but it doesn’t come from nowhere.  in order to be able to generate ideas, one can not just sit on the couch and wait for an aha.  instead we must consume, consume, and consume more.  discover your passions/loves and consume them.  don’t know them, consume different things until you do.  if you take nothing in, you don’t give yourself the chance to spit something brilliant out.

#2 steal. once you consume, feel free to steal from it.  too often we spend too much time trying to invent a new wheel and we fail to recognize that most wheels that need to be created probably exist in some form.  we make an old wheel new by taking what we have consumed and providing a new twist on it, such as: taking it to a new medium, designing it for a different target, using it in a different context, pushing it to the next level, combining it with something else, working together on it with someone else, showcasing it through a different lens, or filtering it through our experience.

the brilliance is created when what you have taken in speaks to you and is pieced together in what seems to be a new idea…for now.  if you find someone beat you to the idea, feel free to start over at #1 or #2.

(quote discovered and stolen from kissmyblackads several months ago)

1. when do my loved ones call me? look for patterns in the things the people closest to you consistently reach out to you for.  are you a great problem solver or adviser?  perhaps you’re just a great listener or happen to know a lot about a certain subject.
2. what are people often celebrating about me? the things that people celebrate are the things that make you stand out from the crowd.  what are they?
3. what are people telling me are my weaknesses? often our greatest weaknesses stem from our greatest strengths.  people often tell me that i am not patient enough.  while this is true, i know that it stems from one of my unique factors.  i am an action-oriented person, which means i get things done.
4. how do i spend my free time? what are you doing when no one is making you do anything?  what do you do when you are determining what you do with your time?
5. what has previously made me successful in life? think of a time when you were extremely successful,  what specifically was about you that led to your success?

still looking?  ask your friends and loved ones some of these same questions.  like i said, it’s some times easier to identify what makes some else unique.  after all, there has to be something about you that your friends wish they could do.  there are also quite a few tests that can help you find a few answers.  if you’re looking for a place to start, try here.

which one of these questions or methods worked best for you?  what other ways  do you know to help people identify their unique factors?  leave your answers in the comments below.

so while the work must get done, the direct result does not come from the energy the leader pours into the project but from the energy the leader pours into his people.  while this is perhaps a simple concept to understand, putting it into practice can prove much more difficult because it often requires different behaviors and skills from what got you there in the first place.  nevertheless, the benefits of adopting this philosophy are well worth it.  here are three benefits that immediately come to mind:

1. you will see more growth in and loyalty from the people you lead as you help them become great
2. you will have more impact on the problem you are trying to solve.  leveraging twenty people with different talents will typically yield better results than any one individual alone
3. you will free yourself from the details and minutia of the job, which will allow you to focus on the larger picture

i encourage you to try it on for a week.  before you respond to the email, decide who leads the pitch, write the deck,  or walk into the office you should mumble to yourself one time, “it’s not about me, it’s what happens through me”  and see what happens.

“we forget how much our perspectives influence our perceptions.”

not too long ago i saw this tweet and it made me think: if you don’t like the way things are going or appear, try changing your perspective.  feeling down and out?  can’t find a solution?  boss isn’t happy with your performance?  try changing your perspective.

• make the friendship a priority: great brands make their consumers their focus.  they are constantly looking for new ways to engage them, help them, surprise them, and make them smile.  they wake up everyday thinking about how they can make their customers’ lives better.
• hug it out: great brands not only only have rational connections with their customers but they also have strong emotional connections.  the relationship between brand and consumer has to be more than just transactional to be sustainable.
• the miracle of free long distance: the best time to engage your customer is not just when they are in your store.  thanks to technology (web, mobile, social media, etc) there are a million relatively inexpensive ways to talk with your friends.  just because they are not in your face, it’s not an excuse to ignore them.
• face time: although technology is great, there is no time like “face time” with your customer.  when they are purposefully choosing to spend time/money with you, recognize that moment as a privilege.  there is no time like face time to deliver on your promise and remind them why they chose you.

application to life. all of these ideas are applicable to individuals.  for example, while it’s important to spend face time with your audience (employers, employees, friends, family, etc), never under estimate the power of talking to them via other channels.  it would be impossible to talk to my entire network all of the time, but i am always amazed at how much they all know about me from following my updates on facebook.  think about these four tenets, what could you be doing better?