Tag Archives: Goals

“Everything is Created Twice”

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That headline’s a quote from Dr. Steven Covey, the author of “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People“, a book I enjoyed reading in the 1990s.

Did you read it?

And if you did, can you remember any of those famous and much talked about seven habits? (Click the link above to refresh your memory.)

I once heard that question put to a psyched-up sales audience at a seminar, after someone stated how great the book was. The speaker then made a great point by asking the person to list all seven habits. With some effort they could remember perhaps three or four but, amazingly, none of the audience could list all seven!

The audio clip always reminds me just how easy it is to ‘feel good’ about reading motivational books but not get anywhere from the time invested in doing so. Why? Because building habits such as applying the knowledge gained from a book or a seminar requires regular nurturing and exercising. Even when you don’t always want to do it…

Which brings me to the point of this post and to what I consider to be the most important of those seven habits.

“Begin With the End in Mind”

This one I’ve remembered after all those years! It sounds and looks so simple, yet in only five words you have the formula for a lifetime of achievement.

Now, of course, I don’t think Dr. Covey has discovered something fundamentally new about the human condition to grow and improve. This is a perennial wisdom passed down through many cultures and traditions. What I admire, however, is the succinctness with which Dr. Covey has summarized the “power behind the throne”, so to speak.

covey-7habits-begin-with-end-in-mind

What I mean by “power” is the ability of humans to creatively and consciously imagine an outcome, and to then start turning it into reality.
Whether we succeed or not is a separate issue. What’s more important is to recognize that a creative act precedes both its gestation and eventual actuality.

In other words, and to use those of Dr. Covey, “everything is created twice.”

Now, until this morning, I hadn’t heard “begin with the end in mind” explained in that way so vividly. A friend told me about a recording of a phone interview Dr. Covey did with the small business management guru, Jay Abraham, back in the 1990s. So, I borrowed the mp3 file and came across this nugget within the first hour. Jay was coaxing Dr. Covey to expand on how many small business owners get ‘distracted’ by tactical goals such as living the lifestyle and reacting to events, rather than being guided by a more expansive vision of what their business is all about to the people who interact with it i.e. customers, employees, shareholders, the owner etc.

And Dr. Covey’s second of the seven rules was put to the test by Jay and, I think, came out with flying colors when Dr. Covey used the metaphor of a house being built twice. First, it’s designed by the architect with (possibly) input from the buyer. Only then does construction begin and the plans become reality.

“Everything is Created Twice” – this is something I will be thinking about over the next few weeks in what I see as the major areas of my life.
Namely: career; family / friends: wealth; health; personal growth; spirituality

Finally, as 2011 draws to a close, I want to wish readers of this blog (all 7 of you!) a happy and safe New Year.

As I’ve written about before (see “Our World Shaken“), there are enormous geopolitical and economic forces at ‘work’ (or ‘at rest’, depending on your politics), particularly in Europe, and none of us know how that will play out in the weeks (!) and months ahead.

Be well and be happy.

- Mark McClure

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Your Goals and a Mongoose

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Jason Ball, of GoodPeopleJapan, retweeted an interesting post today from the self-styled “World’s Strongest Librarian“, Josh Hanagarne. (And after seeing what Josh can do with kettle balls, I’ve no reason to doubt his claim. Would make an unusual Reality TV show, on location in gym and library…)

Josh’s post was very sure of itself.

Strong, even.

In fact, from looking around his site, I’d say Josh has a good grip (pun intended) on what “personal transformation” is all about.

I interpreted Josh’s post as follows:

1- Take a big goal you want to achieve e.g. career change, weight loss, learn a language.

2- Set three boundary conditions.
(Josh states these as questions.)

Er, that’s it.

You can read his post here:

“Three Questions and The Best Advice I ever Heard.”

The only thing I’d add is a chat about “how to unleash your inner mongoose…”.

And you can find how out to do that, for free, right here: “Fifteen and Forgiveness”

- Mark ‘mongoose’ McClure

PS – Apply Josh’s 3 questions to a goal of your own and see what starts to happen.

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Clutter is the Enemy of Successful Career Goals

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Christmas in Japan’s not a national holiday though some of the commercial aspects, but none of the religious, have been imported and successfully packaged.

For example, Xmas trees, decorations and pretty lights adorn many shops and street fronts, but are uncommon within domestic dwellings.

Some children get Christmas presents on Xmas eve but Santa’s buck stops early because a magical transformation happens overnight. If you’re curious as to what that is, I wrote a post about spending Christmas in Japan two years ago.

This is a country and culture of ‘matsuri’ (festivals – local, regional and national) and Christmas is therefore but one of many. And that’s fine.

So, with the Yuletide celebrations neatly wrapped up on Dec 24th, one of the customs I like most about the approach to Japanese New Year festivities is the ‘clean up’ that occurs in the final days of December.

Rooms are tidied, porches and cars washed, the unwanted put in recycling bins and transparent plastic bags. A new beginning’s clearly felt in the air.

I think this winter ‘spring cleaning‘ is excellent mental and physical preparation for the challenges and opportunities that await.

Why?

Because it’s frequently necessary to cast off the old before donning the new. There just isn’t room to physically and mentally store stuff that no longer serves us.

And it makes setting goals (or New Year’s Resolutions, if that’s your preference) a whole lot easier when mind and body are freed from clutter.

Success equals Goals and all else is Clutter.

goals-brian-tracy

Here’s my aging copy of Brian Tracy’s marvellous book, “Maximum Achievement“, sitting on top of a file of notes I made about it and his accompanying CD audio program, ‘The Psychology of Achievement‘.

Alas, our tatami room is not 100% clutter free and so there are things not seen that my better half would kill me for if I included more in the photo.

But hey, that’s life. We do the best we can, with what we have, right where we are.

“Tatami Goals”? Yeah, I like it!

And here’s a look inside that blue folder. I spent many hours reading, listening to and typing up what I felt to be the best of Brian’s work from the book and the CDs.

psychology-of-achievement

If you have the opportunity to do an end-of-year clean up, I urge you to give it a go and leave a comment here about what you did.

As ‘mental preparation’ for the menial tasks, take a look at these two posts.

“Success is not measured only in profit and growth.” A Ricardo Semler quotation.

And here’s probably my favorite line from Brian Tracy’s book.

“Success equals goals and all else is commentary.”

Happy cleaning!

- Mark McClure

PS – If you need help with goal setting, check out my online course, goal creation maps.

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Push’n'Go Career Change

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It’s been almost three years since I did this email interview about mid-life career transition with Singapore-based writer, entrepreneur and owner of ‘goal-setting-college’, Ms. Ellesse Chow.

Reading it now, but with the benefit of hindsight, I can see where my optimism about mid-career change (as a coach) was about to collide head-on with severe economic turbulence.

Of course, since then we’ve experienced what the Western media have been calling the ‘Global Financial Crisis’, but in Japan is more often referred to as the ‘Lehman shock’.

As we approach the end of 2010, here are my three ‘rules’ of career change (not set in stone, just based on what 36 months of living and breathing untethered from the corporate teat have taught me.)

Mid-Career Change Rule #1 – S##t Happens

Mid-career change is not a ‘walk in the park.’ Stuff just, well, stuff just happens. That’s life. Be prepared and open to change before you embark on such an adventure.

Mid-Career Change Rule #2 – Know Your Strengths

This is where a good inventory of your skills, experience and interests can be a godsend.
I wrote about Prof Ed Schein’s career anchors approach in Dec 2007. And the advice I received in that report about my career anchors has been, almost uncannily, spot on.

Will this type of research-based and guided self-analysis work for someone just starting out in life and thinking of career change?

push-and-go-fire-truckIt’s very possible.

Back in Xmas 1986, I was preparing to swap my science teaching career for an IT training career with McDonnell Douglas Information Systems.

You can get a sense of that transition story in Ellesse’s interview, and also from my ‘About Mark McClure’ page on this blog.

Anyway, on the last day of School, my class of 16-year olds gave me some ‘goodbye’ presents.

It was very sweet of them and I recall those days fondly – even more so when my daughter and I visited the school in March this year. Walking into a school again almost 24 years later is a very humbling experience, especially when so few of the staff there still knew who I was!

The one present that’s survived all those years is the push’nGo firetruck shown in the picture. For the life of me I can’t remember why they chose that. Perhaps I resembled the driver haha!

Looking at the toy this afternoon, I can see how the driver’s head is cracked, the truck’s paintwork is fading, and one wheel kind of wobbles when the head is pushed down.

But it’s still a toy fire truck.

Admittedly, a somewhat beaten up truck, but recognizably one.

And I, at heart, remain a teacher; using my skills in one way or another.

For example, what’s a career coach?
He or she, in my opinion, is a teacher of the self.
A mirror of possibilities and probabilities that another person can use to teach themselves.

And what about a tech case study writer or white paper writer or personal growth writer? (My current three writing loves.)

The best writers use words to help teach the prospect or customer about solutions to the problems they’re facing. And if I’ve learned anything about copywriting and human nature, it’s that people are most interested in ‘benefits’. They care much less for ‘features’.

So it’s in those three worlds – coaching, teaching and writing – that my days are experienced. Funny how those three attributes have morphed and changed as career companions over the years. I don’t expect them to go away while I still draw breath.

Returning to the question of identifying what ‘career anchors’ a person might discover for themselves from their 20s onwards.

Although I didn’t have the advantage of Ed Schein’s work or of the Internet 25 years ago, I did have my own intuitive feeling about what work engaged me, and what bored me. This is sometimes expressed by career writers with a personal growth bias as, “do what you love“.

It’s also regularly disparaged by people of a more pragmatic persuasion. These people quite rightly see career choices and rewards becoming ever more competitive and uncertain, especially as the ‘globalized economy‘ continues to add hundreds of millions of equally ambitious people into the equation.

Who is right? Well, I believe both are.

And that brings me to express the final rule in this way:

Mid-Career Change Rule #3 – Aim at Doing More of What You Love

Books can (and are) written about this precept to “do what you love.”
It is, of course, easier to say so on a full stomach, under a dry roof, and in a clean bed.

That’s why you have to be careful about following the advice of those who advocate, “Yes, go do what you love. The money will follow.” It aint necessarily so and you would therefore be wise to AIM at doing more of what you love while also taking care of providing daily sustenance for you and yours.

It’s at this point – that of providing daily sustenance – where some people get stuck.

Of course, they dream about how wonderful it would be have a job they both love and get well paid for. But this ‘daily sustenance providing’ is a real drag. And it can be, if your circumstances demand almost all of your time and energy to get to first base. There are no simple answers here.

However, there are questions you can ask that may eventually lead to answers appropriate for you.

Here’s one example of this type of question to finish on, and one which also allows me to introduce a very deep thinker and believer in human happiness – the late (and ex) Father Anthony De Mello.

The question is : “Do you want to be unconditionally happy?”

Let that one simmer on the back burner but be aware, it might take time for you to wake up and answer it.

In the meantime, kindly give your attention to these audio recordings of Dr. De Mello doing his thing at a retreat. I don’t know exactly where or when, but it was many years ago. Whoever made the YouTube videos has added some entrancing Nature shots but those are just a backdrop for the ‘magic’ our good Doctor is working.

In fact, these two clips are almost word for word what is written in his book, “Awareness“, between pages 9 and 15. The first clip is insightful and I often ponder on the contrasts between unconditional selfishness and unconditional selflessness. The second clip is, well, hilarious! Enjoy…

Well, what did you think?
I’d be interested to read any constructive comments.

That question again: “Do you want to be unconditionally happy?”

Try applying it to your ideas on doing more of what you love and see what comes back. Keep a journal or blog about your thinking. That’s partly what I’ve been doing with this blog since Nov 2007…

- Mark McClure

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How To Silence Yourself and Prosper

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Earlier this year I was privileged to be coached by one of the top white paper copywriters around.

Although the call was recorded and later downloaded in mp3 format, I didn’t listen again because the top 3 actions were in my head and the next step was obvious… to start implementing them.

On a recent weekend’s computer tidy-up, I came across the file quite by chance and decided to give it a whirl again while commuting by train.

Imagine my befuddled brain’s surprise around 7:03 am when the copywriter’s introduction came through loud and clear but little old me was nowhere to be heard!

At first I was annoyed at possibly having damaged the file and therefore losing the benefit of my contributions. However, as I listened carefully, a most interesting dialogue was taking place:

ME: (probably, since there was only silence. 1 minute, 2 minutes passes. What could I possibly be saying that takes so long? It must be really important or complicated!)

COACH: “It’s not a question of ‘trying’. You CAN do this.”

And so it went on for about the first 15 minutes.

I wasn’t consciously aware of it but I must have been asking questions from a position of doubt and insecurity. We’re talking about making significant monthly sums as a copywriter here – and that possibly ‘explains’ my hesitation – even so, it was a revelation to come across so negatively.

Ask For and Listen to Feedback

Although this copywriter is not a coach by profession he had an uncanny knack for picking up on my inexperience and self-doubts, and coaching it gently to begin believing that “specific and regular actions + application of learned knowledge” are the sure way forward.

To be honest, I’m pleased that my voice has gone AWOL from the recording. Why? Because all I need is the advice he was giving.

My excuses are simply irrelevant to the matter at hand.

You might not have the luxury of recorded coaching conversations to go over but where you do have trusted friends or family to discuss plans and goals and dreams with, why not take the opportunity to ask them what they really thought YOU were saying.

Their responses may surprise you.

I’d also recommend that you write some of these down and then really think about what their perspective of you and your actions/behaviors might be saying. Is it possible they’re right? And what can you do right away to begin making constructive changes by using that feedback?

- Mark ‘I was silenced’ McClure

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