What day is it?  Come on, you know.  Say it!  Say it!  It’s hump day.  We have all seen the commercial by now.  It is a really funny commercial.

So what is hump day?  At noon today, the workweek will be half way over.  Have you accomplished everything you wanted to so far this week?  Are you any closer to your goals?     Are you wishing the weekend was here already or are you embracing the remaining time left in the week?

1. Don’t wish your life away–I have been here before as well.  I wish the weekend would hurry up and get here.  I wish the vacation that I have planned would hurry up.  I wish that it was already summer.  Maybe it has something to do with age or witnessing a lot of death. But I try really hard to not wish time to go by.   Our time is very limited on this earth anyway.  We need to embrace every minute of it and enjoy it all while we are here.   Instead of wishing time away, seek out a career, a lifestyle, a passion that you don’t want to get away from or wish away.  When you are passionate about something you want more time to do it.
2. Assess where you are–So how do you stop wishing your life away?  Take inventory of where you currently are and where do you want to go.  If you are not in the job you want.  Then what do you need to do to get the job you want.  If you don’t have the kind of lifestyle you desire, then define what kind of lifestyle you want, and then what do you need to change to get to that kind of lifestyle.  To get where you want to go, you have stop and look around and see where you are.
3. Take massive action–So we stopped wishing our life away.  We have taken some inventory and we know where we are and where we want to go.  Now we have to take some massive action.  This is the hard part by the way.  As of writing this blog this morning.  This is where I currently am in this process.  I know where I am and I have a pretty clear target of where I want to go.  I am currently taking massive action to get there.  I am doing more work, more work, more work, and more work to get there.  In my business, I am trying to go from obscurity to becoming more known as a leader and influencer in a few different spaces.  To do this, it is requiring me to do a lot of different things, but I am doing it.  Most of it is for free as well, meaning I don’t get paid.  But to get where you want to go, it requires massive action and in many cases there is no return for you for a while.
4. Create more time–It just seems like there isn’t enough time in the day, do you agree?  I would.  That is why my goal is to maximize the time I do have.  Which includes creating more time to pursue the things I need to pursue. In the morning, what would an extra half hour do for you?  Its only 30 minutes.  At lunch instead of taking the whole hour to eat.  What if you just grabbed a bite in fifteen minutes and then used the other 45 minutes to pursue the massive action.  It could be studying, working on a side project or something you want to launch.  The other piece to creating more time is ensuring you focus your time on the areas that are most important to your success and your future.

It’s only Wednesday morning.  You have three more days technically to pursue all of the things outlined above.  So the question is what are you going to do?  I know what I am going to do.  I started doing it about three hours ago.  Are you going to join me in doing these things or are you going to be like everyone else and do what you always do.

To your success and your future.

What a week of learning I had this past week.  I not only learned some new things, but I was also reminded of things that I already know.

Leadership:  Crappy leadership is everywhere.  This is a whole blog within itself, but I was reminded from a few examples this week on why I believe bad leadership is everywhere.   The reason I share this opinion this week is I hope to inspire my readers, especially the ones in leadership positions that have the ability to change this.  So why and how did I witness crappy leadership this week:

• Leaders don’t get emotional.  Sure we can get emotional about a topic or a subject, but we can’t get emotional and let others see or hear our emotions in a negative light.
• Leaders must hold themselves accountable first.  You know the old saying: “Do as I say not as I do”.  NO!  NO!  that is not the saying. “Do as I say and as I do”.  Or leading by example.  Leaders must lead by example.

The good news and the bad news is that there is crappy leadership everywhere.  The reason it is bad, because we need strong leadership in our communities, our workplaces, and our lives.  The good news, is that there are a lot of opportunities for those who want to take on leadership roles.

You have more in the tank:  I am a runner.  On Saturday I participated in a 5K race.  I have run in many 5K’s before, but I chose to run in this one kind of last-minute.  I set a goal to run this race in a time that I have not run before.  I wanted to set a PR (Personal Record) for myself.

I am pacing well half way through the race, but I get to the last half mile of the race and the final hill of the race, and I am just gassed. To accomplish my PR, I have to run the 3.10 miles at a 6 minute and 25 second pace, give or take.  I ended up running the race in a 7 minute and 1 second pace.  So roughly 36 seconds slower than I needed to.

I finished the race first in my age/gender class, and 20th overall.  It was victory.  But I had more in the tank.  I know I did.  My body wasn’t tired, but my mind convinced me that it was.  I could have pushed through not only during that final hill, but many times throughout the entire race. I had more in the tank.

This week, when you think you are exhausted and out of gas, dig a little deeper, don’t give up, you have more in your tank.

Don’t listen to everything the people who haven’t been where you want to go say.  Kind of a long statement.  But here is what it means.  You are desirous of going somewhere aren’t you?  Maybe it is in your career, your relationships, your health, or some other area of your life.  There are most likely several people in your life that are giving you advice.  Maybe they are telling you how to do it.  Maybe they are telling you, you cant do it.  Or maybe they are just cheering you on, to do it.  In some cases they may be doing all three.

Here is what I want you to takeaway though. Don’t listen to everything they say.  Sure some of it may be valid and worth listening to but we have to remember “don’t take all the advice from people who have never been where you want to go.” Get around the people who have successfully navigated the waters of the places you want to go.  They know how to maneuver in the waters to successfully get you to the destination.

It was a great week of lessons for me this past week.

What did you learn last week?  Please share with me and my readership.

To your success and your future.

We can all agree that we want others to listen to us.  At work, when you are working with others on a project you want them to implement your suggestions.  At home when you are talking to your spouse you want them to agree with you or you want them to do something based on your suggestion as well.  When you are meeting with a colleague or a friend, inevitably something will come up that you will know something about and you will make a suggestion.

Your hope is your friend/colleague listens to your suggestion for two reasons.  The first reason, you sincerely believe what you are suggesting will work.  And secondly, you want them to come back and tell you later how it worked and thank you for the advice.

I am not the only one that feels this way am I?  Yes, I want to help people and I will share whatever resources I have to do so.  But we all like to know that whatever resource we use a suggestion, a process, an actual physical object, etc., we want to know that it worked, and like to be told that it worked.

So how can we get others to listen to us?

Earned the right:  You cannot speak of something that you don’t know yourself.  You must have experience in dealing with whatever you are suggesting.  Now there are many ways to earn the right.  It could be you have first hand experience with something, worked with someone once before on something similar, or have completed something totally opposite but the same rules would apply to this scenario.

For example:  If you have a friend who is seeking to quit smoking. If you used to be a smoker and quit.  Then you have the earned the right to suggest some ways to quit smoking.  But what if you have never smoked before.  Lets say you had an addiction to soft drinks that were caffeinated.  Smoking and caffeine are similar kinds of habits that you would apply the same processes to quit either of them.  So in this case you have earned the right to make a suggestion.

Excited:  To get someone to listen to us we must be excited and enthusiastic about whatever it is we are trying to convey.  The examples I used above would obviously be something a person most likely would be excited about since they have had direct experience with doing it as well.  You cannot get someone else excited about something that doesn’t invoke excitement in you.  So if you want someone to listen to you, your excitement must be apparent and be articulated to whatever it is you are speaking about.

Example:  Have you ever met a small business owner that actually invented the product that they are telling you about?  Or a small business owner that hasn’t invented their product, but their life has been impacted by the product?  Either one of these examples are great examples of people who are excited.

Eager To Share:  Lastly, if you want others to listen, you have to be eager to share your experiences and stories with them.  Using the example of the small business owner.  We agree that they are excited?  And they are eager to share?  They are so willing to share, that you know that if you start talking to them you will be in that conversation forever.  Now sometimes they may be overeager to share. Regardless, we as listeners appreciate their passion and willingness to tell us about their product, even if we aren’t interested.  If we are interested, we are definitely willing to listen as long as we have to.

So do you have the 3 E’s in your daily communication with others?  Look for ways to incorporate the 3 E’s in your daily communication today and let me know how it works for you.

To your success and your future.