Tag Archives: Procrastination

15af – Video 01 – Introduction

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Here’s the first YouTube video in the ’15 and forgiveness’ series mentioned in the ‘15af for career changers‘ post.

‘Just5Rules‘ is my YouTube channel for personal growth and career change material.
By clicking the YouTube ‘Like’ button you increase the chances that the video content will be seen by others.

Part One: 15 And Forgiveness – Introduction

Below is the embedded video, and underneath is the transcript.
Enjoy! (And please remember to tweet this post to help get the message out.)

15af – Introduction – Edited Transcript

Hello and welcome to markmccluretoday.com.

This is Mark McClure and I’ve got a special treat for you.

It’s an interview I did with Al Secunda, the author of ‘The 15-Second Principle‘.

I’ve called it ‘15 and forgiveness.’ (15af)

And when you download and listen to it, I think you’ll find out why.

But just before we start the interview, I’d like to introduce you to Al and his work,
and why it had such a big effect on me.

And how I think it can help career changers and people with major life changes, in
fact, make progress towards their dream goal or vision.

Some people dream of making big changes for the better in their life or career, yet create only ‘castles in the
air‘. Others set specific goals but avoid ever taking action.

One man who has faced all the above in his own life and finally decided to do something
about it, is motivational speaker, workshop leader coach, and author of ‘The 15-Second Principle’, Al Secunda.
(Al’s wonderful book is available on Amazon.com and really helped me keep going when I began my mid-life career change journey some years ago (2005).)

In fact, I found his approach so helpful in moving forward that I finally plucked up the courage
and asked him to do a telephone interview, my first; so you can imagine I was a little nervous.

(The interview’s) all about using the 15-second principle.

In just under two hours, Al Secunda shared freely from his experiences and knowledge, and we covered a lot of topics, and had a bit of fun too. I’m going to read out just five highlights from the first thirty minutes:

    • 1) Connecting fifteen and forgiveness with your dream goals.
      (This is probably the crux of the whole interview really.)
    • 2) The Zen-like answer to, “what can you do in fifteen seconds?”
    • 3) Why pleasure before precision helps learn a new skill.
    • 4) Discover how ‘faithing’ and ‘taking action’ go hand-in-hand.
    • (5), Getting comfortable with discomfort; what he calls the ‘inclusion factor’.

Now, there’s a whole lot more in the remaining hour or so, so you should (probably) get a pencil and a note pad out, if you’re wise, and take some notes.

(Because) It’s really valuable information.

As far as downloading the interview is concerned, I recommend if you have a cable broadband or faster internet connection, you should be able to download it no problem.

It’s a twenty five (25) megabyte file and it took me about five minutes to download the same (file) sitting here in Japan, with the file on a server in the US. So, if I can do it over (under?!) the Pacific, I think you should be able to do it with a cable broadband connection, if it’s reasonably reliable.

Now, before you start listening, I recommend that to get the very best from the interview, you first think of a big goal or dream you’ve been putting off starting for ages.

So, typically for career changers, it is in fact making progress on figuring out what they can change their career to, or moving on to something different.

Apply Al’s 15 and Forgiveness Approach Today

Have that in mind – what’s holding you up, what that dream is, then listen to the interview, and then right after it, as soon as the interview is finished, NOT the next day, not two hours later, but right away, apply Al’s 15 and forgiveness approach, and see what happens.

And if you want some support, or you want to let others know how you are getting on, just drop by my blog, at markmccluretoday dot com, and let me know. Leave a comment in one of the posts, the latest post, and i’ll see it. And if you’ve got something useful to share, I’ll make sure everybody else knows about it too.

Okay, let’s start the interview now. Enjoy.

- Mark McClure

PS: The Original 2 Hour MP3 Interview with Al Secunda

The original ‘15 and forgiveness‘ audio interview is available here:
http://www.markmccluretoday.com/fifteen-and-forgiveness.html

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15af for Career Changers

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This is the opening post in a series designed to highlight the wisdom and experience of motivational author, Al Secunda. I first wrote about Al over four years ago in this post titled, “15 and Forgiveness in Action“. His book, ‘The 15-Second Principle“, is one of my favorite personal growth books, partly because he’s been up close and personal with very successful A-list Hollywood stars, as their some time tennis coach.

Al’s counterintuitive approach to goal setting has as its premise a seeming contradiction.
I’m roughly paraphrasing here but “either you don’t really want this goal OR you’re scared to death of it.”

Career Change Faint Heart

There’s a lot of nonsense talked by so-called gurus and coaches who trumpet the “do what you love” mantra to often unhappy people looking for direction in their choice of vocation.

It’s nonsense because it appeals to people who dream of career change but would run a mile if they actually had to engage critical thinking skills, and then do it. Alas, some of them get caught in subtle co-dependency marketing webs spun by ‘teachers’ whose primary aim is to build their own streams of income, usually at their clients’ expense.

Far, far better for these “castles in the air” dreamers to discover by themselves, and mostly for free, that career change is probably NOT for them.

Al’s book is a guide to helping you ditch goals you thought you (or often, someone else in your life) wanted to achieve before much harm is done, or time and money ‘wasted’…

… leaving you freer and happier to pursue those goals that really DO scare you to death!

15 and Forgiveness now on YouTube

Although the original two-hour mp3 audio interview still gets downloaded, I want to present the content to a much bigger audience than this blog. I also want to add a transcript for people to skim through.

I will therefore be adding the interview to YouTube as a multi-media series with a link to each transcript on this site.

I encourage you to share these YouTube videos with your friends and followers using social media tools such as FaceBook, Twitter, Google Plus and others.

15af – Video 01 – Introduction

This video introduces Al Secunda and his book, The 15-Second Principle, setting the scene for the interview itself.
The video is 4m 47s and the transcript is around 700 words.
Click ‘15af – Video 01 – Introduction‘ to watch this video and read the transcript.

The Original 2 Hour MP3 Interview with Al Secunda

The original ‘15 and forgiveness‘ audio interview is available here:

http://www.markmccluretoday.com/fifteen-and-forgiveness.html

- Mark ‘scared-to-death goal setter‘ McClure

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Habit Change Step by Step

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It’s been more than two years since this post about ‘habit change‘ and in that time I’ve been experimenting with strategies for getting stuff started.

Aside from their Motivaider gizmo, the good folks at Behavioral Dynamics have also described methods for ‘following through’ on their website, and in an excellent ebook.. They’re all useful, but my favorite by far has been the ‘willpower leveraging‘ approach.

Examples of Willpower Leveraging

If you can find a way to ‘kill two birds with one stone’, then willpower leveraging provides Continue reading →

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Don’t Stink, and Get Slimmer

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At this time of year many people at least think about making resolutions and setting goals. Slimmer, healthier, happier, wealthier… these are four of the popular themes.

Some even get to making plans and taking action.
And in the weeks ahead, progress will be made, and results seen.

But, eventually as motivation begins to falter and everyday reality intrudes, a curious and unsettling thought will present itself:

Willpower alone is (usually) NOT enough.

Clinical psychologist, Steve Levinson, came to this conclusion some years ago when he realized a possible connection between habits, behavioral change and goal achievement.

I wrote about this in a post titled, How To Follow Through On Habit Change Using Hidden Vibrations.

What attracted me to Steve’s ‘habit change’ product, the Motivaider (aff link), was not only its simplicity but the fact that it relieves the conscious mind of wasting energy on trying to keep the goal or intention (literally) ‘in mind’.

Here’s a short video explaining how the Motivaider can help with habitual goal achievement.

Procrastination buster: the Motivaider

One of the most effective strategies for getting the results you want is free: it’s called ‘willpower leveraging.’

There are many examples of this technique but my current favorite is of the guy who wanted to work out regularly but found he couldn’t make it a habit that stuck.

The solution?

Devilishly simple. He removed all body deodorant from his house and kept a supply only in the gym locker!

‘Don’t stink’, was sufficient ‘motivation’ to at least get him to a physical location where he could ‘get fitter’ – and smell well too, at the end of the workout.

Can you think of how this approach might help you keep to this year’s goals?

- Mark ‘habit changer’ McClure

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30-Day Accountability Update

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The 30-day accountability experiment has finished on a high note for me.

I went the entire month of June without wasting time in aimless surfing during the weekday evenings. In addition, not a single drop of alcohol passed my lips.

And so that Guinness I enjoyed on Thu 1 July was all the sweeter for being well-earned!

Aside from the productive time gained each week – an extra 10 hours – it was also gratifying to know that a new habit can be programmed in about a month or so with the aid of ‘spotlighting’ and some degree of public commitment.

How Personal Accountability Helps To Enable Desired Behavior

(However, your mileage may vary as there’s some research evidence out there, the link escapes me just now, that suggests people who make their goals public tend to underachieve. Oh dear! All I can say is… it depends!)

By the way, this time around I did not use the ‘MotivAider’ gizmo to automatically remind me of my intention.

I suspect that the (almost) daily comments I added to the 3-day accountability blog post acted as their own reminder and helped keep things on track. It was all rather effortless (after the first few days!)

To your habitual success!
- Mark McClure

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