The Power of Vision, Part II

Vision raises us to new heights of motivation and commitment, and to new levels of effort and achievement. Vision, I believe, is the wellspring of personal fulfillment.

A vision of religious freedom is what caused 120 passengers to brave 67 days on the storm-tossed North Atlantic in a sailing vessel just 113 feet long by 26 feet wide, filled beyond capacity.  The ship they were on was strong enough to withstand the rough seas, but the real strength was in the vision and faith of those within her - the pilgrims who landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620 on the Mayflower.

A vision of walking on the moon inspired the technology that allowed astronaut Neil Armstrong to take “one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.”

A vision of being reunited with family or completing important unfinished work allowed Dr. Victor Frankl and countless others to survive the atrocities of Hitler’s death camps.

Vision crystallizes human values, and values inspire unusual levels of commitment,  motivation, faith, and action.  Values are the turbo chargers of human emotion.  When tapped, values allow individuals, organizations and communities to break the chains of our self-imposed psychological limitations.

Vision creates enthusiasm. “Enthusiasm” comes from the Greek word for divine inspiration. Vision is the quality which allows individuals to tap into the divine inspiration within each and everyone of us. That is what leads us not only to great heights of achievement, but to a life of significance and personal fulfillment as well.

The Power of Vision, Part I

Vision stirs the soul and lifts the human spirit. Inspired vision will even cause people to lay down their lives.  It creates a wave of passion that floods the senses, drowns fear, and carries ordinary people to extraordinary heights of human achievement.

A great example of the power of vision is in the epic film Spartacus, starring Kirk Douglas. It tells the story of the Roman slave Spartacus, who toils for the Roman Empire while dreaming “of the death of slavery -- which would not come until 2,000 years later.”  Spartacus is sentenced to death after an altercation with a Roman guard, but is then spared by Batiatus, a broker of gladiators.

Spartacus trains in the arts of combat at Batiatus’s gladiatorial academy. One day two powerful men arrive from Rome, one with his wife, the other with his fiancee.  The spoiled women asked to be entertained: they want to see two fights to the death.  Spartacus fights a skilled gladiator who spares him, and then is killed.

Spartacus is enraged at the thought of being forced to fight for the entertainment of spoiled women. He leads a slave revolt that eventually spreads over half of Italy.  Though outnumbered and poorly armed, Spartacus and his men go into battle against several legions of Roman soldiers and defeat them. 

Spartacus stands on the brink of victory when he and his army of slaves are forced into the boot of Italy and surrounded by two armies of Roman soldiers led by Commander Marcus Crassus. Crassus knows that Spartacus is the leader of the revolt, but has never seen him. In a dramatic scene Crassus stands before the surrounded slaves and says, “The penalty for insurrection against Rome is death on a cross.”  He promises that if the slaves will identify Spartacus, they will be spared.  At that moment Spartacus himself stands up and says, “I am Spartacus!”  But immediately another slave stands up and says, “I am Spartacus!” and then every other slave stands up and proclaims, “I am Spartacus!” As each man stands up, he signs his own death warrant.

In the final scenes we see a long road lined with crosses with the bodies of Spartacus and his followers nailed to them. What caused those men to willingly give up their lives? There is no question Spartacus was an inspiring leader, but those men did not give up their lives for a man.  They gave up their lives for their shared vision of freedom for themselves and their children.  In the very last scene, Spartacus’s wife stands beneath him, as he hangs on the cross, and she holds up their child saying, “He will live as a free man, Spartacus.”
 
That is the power of vision.

Developing and Maintaining a Positive Mental Attitude, Part III

A third strategy for maintaining a positive mental attitude is to develop an experimental mindset.  In other words, don’t think about life in terms of successes and failures.  Think about your life in terms of things that work for you and things that don’t. 

The experimental mindset is a common characteristic of most unusually successful individuals throughout history.  Thomas Edison was a perfect example of an individual with an experimental mindset.  When asked how he could keep working on the development of the incandescent light bulb after failing so many times, he responded, “If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward." 

An experimental mindset allows you to practice the habit of maintaining emotional equanimity.  It helps you  avoid the wide swings in your emotions that individuals who think only in terms of success or failure often experience.  The success / failure mentality can create emotional highs that are so high, but the emotional lows can be so low!   Maintaining emotional equanimity allows you to be more mentally disciplined and capable of practicing the behaviors that have consistently produced true and lasting success throughout history.  Start to practice thinking experimentally and maintaining your emotional equanimity today.  I guarantee it will improve your attitude! 

Developing and Maintaining a Positive Attitude, Part II

The second strategy for developing and maintaining a positive mental attitude is to focus on your progress.  Focusing on your progress and the incremental achievement of action steps instills confidence, increases energy and reinforces a positive attitude.

Many individuals are conditioned to focus on the ideal or on perfection instead of the progressive realization of their goals.  These individuals rob themselves of the joy, fulfillment, happiness, achievement and satisfaction that the goal setting process is intended to bring.  Their focus on the ideal or on perfection causes them to experience stress, frustration, low self-image, lack of confidence and unhappiness regardless of their level of achievement!  There is a permanent gap between perfection and your actual achievement because, like the horizon, perfection keeps moving.  It is a mental construct.  It seems real in your mind but it never becomes reality. If you persist in perfectionist thinking, comparing your achievements to perfection, you will always be disappointed and experience negative emotion no matter what you achieve. 

Those who experience the true joy of the goal setting process are “progressive thinkers” who compare their achievement to where they began the journey.  By measuring backwards instead of forward “progressive thinkers” maximize their confidence and energy. At Leadership Dynamics, Inc., we cultivate a positive attitude by focusing on our progress daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly.  Each day, I take note of my accomplishments to validate my progress toward my goals.  This habit allows me to protect my confidence, energy and positive mental attitude.  All of my team members also focus on their progress daily and weekly.  For us, focusing on progress rather than perfection is part of our culture and the catalyst for our positive attitudes and environment. 

Are you setting an example for your associates, family and friends by practicing “progressive thinking” and continuously focusing on progress?  If you are, congratulations!  If you are not, what action will you take tomorrow to develop the habit of focusing on your progress?

Attitude is Everything

I believe that my personal attitude is a crucial factor in the success I have enjoyed in my life and that it will be a key element in the future success I intend to enjoy.

I have four objectives for this series of posts on attitude:

1.    To remind ourselves of the importance of our attitude in our personal success quotients;

2.    To help us more fully appreciate that our attitude is a choice we make every day;

3.    To provide some practical strategies for developing and maintaining a positive attitude that can propel you to greater success;

4.    To motivate you to commit to proactively implementing the behaviors required to develop and maintain a winning attitude.

I would like to begin with a story that I think is a powerful illustration of an individuals ability to choose his attitude even in the most adverse situation.                   

                  

Think about this.  Read it, and let it really sink in …

Then choose how you start your day tomorrow…

Attitude is Everything, by Francie Baltazar-Schwartz

Jerry is the kind of guy you love to hate.  He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say.  When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, “If I were any better, I would be twins!”

He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant.  The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude.  He was a natural motivator.  If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him, “I don’t get it!  You can’t be a positive person all of the time.  How do you do it?”

Jerry replied, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Jerry, you have two choices today.  You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.  I choose to be in a good mood.  Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it.  I choose to learn from it.  Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life.  I choose the positive side of life.”

“Yeah, right it’s not that easy,” I protested. 

“Yes it is,” Jerry said.  “Life is all about choices.  When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice.  You choose how to react to situations.  You choose how people will affect your mood.  You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood.  The bottom line: It’s your choice how you live life.”

I reflected on what Jerry said.  Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business.  We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in the restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers.  While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination.  The robbers panicked and shot him.

Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma center.  After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body.

I saw Jerry about six months after the accident.  When I asked him how he was, he replied, “If I were any better, I’d be twins.  Wanna see my scars?”

I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place.  “The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door,” Jerry replied.  “Then, as I lay on the floor I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or I could choose to die.  I chose to live.”

“Weren’t you scared?  Did you lose consciousness?”  I asked. 

Jerry continued, “… the paramedics were great.  They kept telling me I was going to be fine.  But when they wheeled me in the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared.  In their eyes, I read ‘he’s a dead man’.  I knew I needed to take action.”

“What did you do?” I asked. 

“Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me,” said Jerry.  She asked if I was allergic to anything.

“‘Yes’ I replied.

“The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply.  I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Bullets!’  Over their laughter, I told them, 'I am choosing to live.  Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.’”

Jerry lived to give thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude.  I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully.

Attitude, after all, is everything." 

In my next few posts I will share my thoughts on strategies for developing and maintaining the positive mental attitude necessary to achieve our full potential for the happiness, fulfillment and true success we all desire. 

Who Are You, Really?

Part 1, Finding Your Sources of True Joy

You're in the middle of your work day, just an ordinary day, and then suddenly it happens...again. In the back of your mind, you hear these nagging questions. What am I doing this for? What does it all mean? Why am I doing this, instead of what I really want to do? When do I get to start doing the things I love? How does what I do make a difference?  Then your cell phone rings, covering up the noise of the unanswered questions... but they don't go away.

You are facing a crisis of meaning, and it could be the beginning of the most important journey of your life. It was for me. My personal crisis of meaning came at a time when I had achieved success in my career, and went home every night to a wonderful wife and two amazing daughters. At some point, though, I just seemed to stop growing, and lost any sense of making a difference in the world. What’s worse, I was missing out on so much that I truly cared about, like time with my family, in order to pursue business goals that no longer brought me joy.

As I worked through my crisis of meaning, I discovered that in order to live a life of joy and passion, we need to have meaningful goals. The most fulfilling goals flow from who we are. In order to answer the nagging questions of meaning in your life, you need to be able to answer the most basic question: Who am I, really? Understanding who you really are is the foundation for building a fulfilling, meaningful life. When you have answered that question, you will be able to build on that understanding a purpose and mission that will lead to a life of significance.

Who are you, really? Do you need to take a three month journey to a mountaintop in Tibet to discover the answer to that question? You might find it there, but you might just as easily find it in the silence of your own inner space. You don't need to go any farther if you know the right questions to ask, and take the time to answer them carefully and honestly.

The best place I have found to start, and the place I continually return to, are what I call my sources of true joy.  Of all that life has to offer, what truly brings you the most joy? What makes you happiest?  What makes you smile deep inside?  What are your favorite aspects of being who you are?  By listing these wellsprings of happiness, you will begin to identify your “bliss.” When you find it and drink deeply, you can live out your passion as an everyday expression of who you are.  Make a list today of five genuine sources of joy - things that make you happy just thinking about them. 

As for me, I find joy in being true to myself, and in honoring God's presence in my life and the world. I find joy in my quest to live a worthy life. I experience joy in loving my family. I rejoice in learning and growing, and in giving more than I receive.  These are my sources of true joy!

What are yours?

©2010 Paul R. Brown