Just For Results

Congratulations to Pat Hayden on being named The University of Southern California’s new Athletic Director. Pat will replace outgoing Athletic Director  Mike Garrett who will be taking a retirement package from the university. In the midst of the recent NCAA sanctions the university will be facing, Pat is the right man in the right position at the right time to lead  U.S.C.’s proud and illustrious athletic department.

Pat Hayden is a successful businessman and has been a sports commentator for NBC Sports besides also being a Rhodes Scholar. As a quarterback for U.S.C. and in the National Football League, Pat is definitely a proven leader  and understands what winning and competing is all about. There is no doubt that U.S.C. has made the best choice to position their athletic department for achieving even more victories with the proper guidance that will insure all student athletes prospering on and off the field in the right way.

Most would agree that the recent sanctions imposed by the NCAA investigation was overly harsh and it could be argued that U.S.C. ‘s incredible winning streak made them a big target for the NCAA. The NCAA always had a history of sanctioning university’s that consistently win and turn their eye’s on schools that don’t win national championships even though most competitive universities with a competitive athletic program can be sanctioned at anytime since they all face the same situations with their athletes. The NCAA board needs to take a hard look at themselves and investigate if they are really insuring the best of interests of all student athletes or just their own interests and salaries.

Do you have long term projects with short term expectations? If you do, that’s a sure trail to disappointment and failure.

Lifestyle goals like exercise and sensible diet have to become habits so as to work. A career change such as a new job or learning how to earn money at home also takes time and planning, and it does not happen overnight.

Your world has shifted. There’s voice mail, email, pagers, and faxes that have made a waiting period unsatisfactory and virtually obsolete. With info immediately available, we expect relations and goal achievement to be done the same. As you read this you know that it’s irrational to expect that, don’t you? We have been controlled by advertisers to believe that we deserve fast gratification, and that it’s readily and effortlessly available!

When you want to train a puppy dog, you know that it should take time and consistent re-strengthening. You’re ready for that, because you desire your puppy to behave in a satisfactory way. Why then, are you so patient with the puppy and so hard on yourself?

When you plant seeds in the garden, you tend them, water them, hope for daylight and nurture them. Are you nurturing yourself?

The best way to move softly and effectively towards your goals is to take a fair approach. Break your long term project goal into sub-goals. Break it into do-able, short term pieces. Today prepare the soil ; tomorrow plant the seeds.

Each action you take and each step is gratifying because you know it is contributing to the completion of your goal. You cannot rush Mother Nature with your garden, and the same is true for your goals.

This process is way more than “bloom where you are planted”, because when you are the gardener you choose what to plant and how to nurture it. Do the same for yourself, and grow yourself fantastically. Your goals will be accomplished in due time, and you will not finish up up-tight and frazzled.

You have a dream. Maybe you want to climb Mt Everest, move to another country to earn money for your future, start your own business or even go back into the working world after spending a few years taking care of the kids.

Why aren’t you doing it? What’s holding you back?

Listen, a dream is a vision in our mind. Creative dreaming without action is a far-fetched realization to achieve goals.

Typical examples are the great wonders of the world, those landmarks that typify or define the greatness of nations. Landmarks like the Statue of Liberty of the United States of America, the Big Ben of England, the Taj Mahal of India, the Great Wall of China, and numerous more. Imagine if no one did anything about these great ideas, these dreams, will people from every nation on earth be able to enjoy them? What kind of achievement will each nation have if great thinkers just sit on their ideas and never acted on it. Absolutely nothing. We would probably be facing each other blankly wondering why and what went wrong?

Probably you’d say: “Oh… well… we still have the natural wonders like Niagara Falls, Mt. Fuji, beautiful coral reefs everywhere on earth.”. True… but these are God’s creations. God did not create man in His own image if He thinks we won’t be using our creativity and put it into action. He might as well take it away from us. He expects us to act on it. So what’s keeping us from doing something about our ideas? We can name a few. Fear of failure is what stops most people from achieving their goals. Fear of being ridiculed, fear of sinking further to a depressed state than we presently are, fear of totally losing all we’ve got if we don’t succeed, fear of taking risks. We all have to take risk at one time or another. Risk may come to us in a variety of reasons, big or small. There are risks we can do without, but there are risks that leave us no choice but to take action and do something about it.

As you can see, risks come in many forms. To make a comparison, let us consider two: risk similar to winning or losing when we gamble and risk in pursuit of a goal.

The risk involved in gambling is for non-thinkers. This is tantamount to luck risk, not good judgment risk. Risk of this kind has no room in goal realization. It is like ignoring safety on the road, just for kicks, come what may, short-lived, to satisfy a craving.

However, risk in pursuit of a goal has a definite lasting purpose, a purpose that will bring untold benefits once you achieve your personal lifetime goals. It is a risk worth taking for thinkers, not for happy-go-lucky non-thinkers. Risk in pursuit of a goal will bring stability and security in life, ultimately leading to happiness.

Whenever fear grips us, think positively. Look at it this way. Will we ever get anywhere if we don’t take the risk to act on our dreams? Will we be happy about not taking action now, five, ten, or twenty years from now? If you notice, there is one common denominator that is holding us back from acting on our dreams, it’s called fear. Fear is the biggest stumbling block to acting on a creative dream that it practically holds everything still. So it is important that we eliminate fear in our feelings to clear the way to our goal.

To overcome this fear, we have to face fear on the face, eye to eye, mano y mano. Let us take a very familiar example, say you have a fear of speaking in public. I guess a majority of us do. Worst scenario that could happen is you will get tongue-tied and ruin your entire speech in spite of having memorized the entire thing. You become the laughing stock of the audience. Don’t let it prevent you from speaking in public the next time around because if you do, fear has won over you and you will be cowering in this kind of fear for the rest of your life. To win over fear, draw lessons from your failure and capitalize on it the next time around. Don’t stop till you have successfully made a good speech. Once you do, you have actually turned the table around. This time, it is fear that fears you.

Another example with a somewhat different twist, say you are a lifeguard and you failed to save a drowning person who apparently should have been saved. Now this is a big failure because a life was at stake here. In spite of this, don’t give up being a lifeguard just because of one mistake. Think about the other lives you have saved before and will be saving if you continue to do so. Suppose you were able to save someone in an otherwise hopeless situation, doesn’t earn you brownie points for all the previous failure that happened?

The idea here is to give your best. Once you give your best, it just doesn’t get any better because it is already the best.

When you act on your dreams, think of your actions in a positive way. What you think is what will happen. What the mind can conceive, the body can achieve. Believe that the likely outcome of a thing that we do depends a lot on how we set our mind on it. Our actions start from our thoughts and the result that we get is determined by our mind as well. If we think it will fail, it will. If we think it will succeed, it will. Mental thinking or attitude is the master of the actions we undertake. Where your mental attitude is directed for a longer period of time, it is more difficult to change to change direction. If your mind is programmed to think negative thoughts, the more difficult it will be to change to positive thoughts if you do not do something about it immediately. However, if your mind is already programmed to think positive thoughts, it will remain steadfast on this attitude as time goes by. Defeat is imminent if your thoughts are in this direction. You may say: “I told you so” that an action has failed because you think it will, just to satisfy yourself when in fact, you are just looking for an excuse or easy way out. The end result is still a failure and what does that make you, a failure. You are just fooling yourself.

On the other hand, success is imminent when your thoughts say it will. Even if it fails the first time, you will learn from your failure and then try again. You will ultimately succeed as you gain more experience. Keep on trying and persevering. There should be no let up and when success is at hand, you would have defeated defeat.

Here’s another nugget of thought. When you go all out and risk everything, there is nothing left to risk. When that happens, the only thing waiting for you is success. Don’t give up your dreams without even fighting for them just because the risks are too great.

The greater the risk, the bigger the reward and success is sweeter. Either way, whether you achieve your dream or not, you will come out a better person from the experience.

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Most entrepreneurs or executives seem to get more done than others without having to sacrifice their personal life. The key is that they know how to work smarter than most. Working smarter is not something that happens naturally to everyone but everyone can work on it and see success. Here are some key tips to increase your success each day.

You will want to first stop multi-tasking. This was once a big rage but now studies show that multi-tasking hinders productivity. So focus on one thing at a time and complete that task. You will accomplish more if you focus on one priority.

Another key tip is to have processes set and if you have them written down even better. This will make it easy to get the results you are after. If you bring another person into your organization a set of processes will enable another person to pick up their responsibilities quickly and save you valuable time.

You need to be picky about the type of work or clients you take on. It’s easy to take on more but this not necessarily translate into more revenue or success for you. This might spread you thin. You want to make sure your lucrative projects will not suffer from having to devote attention to other matters.

Another important tip is to keep on marketing. Weather it is internal marketing to keep your staff motivated or external marketing to keep you from struggling for regular business or clients. Keep networking and and generating creative marketing campaigns to keep a regular flow of business going.

Finally, delegate the small, routine stuff. Get a coordinator or assistant to take care of daily tasks so you can concentrate on the key matters that bring in revenues and grows your business.

For more success strategies or to get powerful results in your life or business you must experience Maximum Performance.

We are glad that our friend Coach Phil Jackson has decided to return for another season in the NBA coaching the LA Lakers for another title shot. Going for another 3 peat is not an easy goal to accomplish in any sport but with Coach Jackson’s experience, motivational skills and rapport with his team and management he will have a great chance to repeat. Coach Jackson knows how to get maximum performance from his team.

All the best to Coach Jackson on another winning season and continued good health for the entire upcoming season and beyond.