iMindShift with Steve Chandler

When the going gets weird

    "When the going gets weird,
          the weird turn pro."

        ~Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

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       I understand that people now believe that things are difficult in the world of business. I decided to form a group that will take a different approach to that widespread belief.

       This group will focus on the true source of our financial security: our own effort ... and our own creative work. The sole purpose and focus of this group will be client acquisition.

     We will work with each other to dramatically increase our number of clients, and the quality of clients using our services.

     After having filled two successful mastermind groups of twenty people each, and having successfully filled two coaching schools of nine coaches each, we will now combine the very best and most effective practices and processes in those groups to help each member of this new mastermind get clients.

     The Client Acquisition Mastermind group will have just ten members and will begin on January 10th in Tempe, Arizona, from 8am to 11:30 am to be continued there the second Saturday of each month thereafter for nine months.

     I am limiting the number of group members to ten because I want each member's client list to receive an abundance of time and attention in each of the nine sessions.

     This group will also contain strong levels of accountability and participation in the days that occur between each session. We will have systems for maintaining progress between the live sessions. My experience tells me that what gets measured gets done.

     Who am I looking for to join this mastermind? I want people who are willing to participate enthusiastically, embrace the work we do, and be fully committed to increasing the quality and quantity of their client base throughout our nine months together.

     I do not want, and will not accept, anyone in the group who is there just to observe others, or who expects to be given something that requires no courage or effort to receive. No expectant people who sit in judgment of things. Please do not join if you just bring expectations. Come only if you will bring a commitment (an internal agreement with us and yourself) to make something happen dramatically in your world. This will be a group of people ready to roll up our sleeves, not a group looking for a bail out.

     In my two coaching schools many of the participants have had breathtaking advances in their client acquisition (and resultant prosperity). I will employ all the elements of those schools' successes to this mastermind. Every moment we spend together will be for the sole purpose of acquiring clients. We will not digress or be distracted from this subject.

    Only ten people will be in this mastermind of client acquisition. The first ten who respond to the call in a committed way will be chosen. The fee is $9,000 to join. Email me now if you want to fully participate. 100Ways@Compuserve.com

With kindest regards,

Steve Chandler

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     "Most people today still have to learn that they cannot get
something for nothing, but must give before receiving or must sow
before reaping. When they do not give or sow in terms of
prosperity, they make no contact with God's lavish abundance, and
so there is no channel formed through which the rich, unlimited
substance of the universe can pour forth its riches to them."

                            ~Catherine Ponder

WHAT IF YOU LOVED EXERCISE?

    Here's one of my heroes, Jack LaLanne, in his 90s, loving exercise. What if you loved exercise? How would life be different? Can you choose to love something you do not think you love?

    I have been invited to be the "motivational" speaker at a very exciting event in Scottsdale, Arizona Saturday, November 8. It's called, "What If You Loved Exercise?" The event is from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center. This is part of an amazing program they have developed for cancer survivors called, The NEXT Step: Power and Healing through Exercise.

     Please come to this event. Many of you have sent me emails over the past years asking if I do any public speaking engagements that you can attend. Normally I do not. Except for this one!

     This is a "comprehensive approach to integrating physical activity into your life." Their invitation says, "Wear loose, comfortable clothing and get ready to begin your active life!"

    You'll also enjoy the Cancer Patient Panel: Cancer survivors will discuss how exercise has impacted their lives and recovery. The event is being held at the Scottsdale Healthcare Shea Conference Center, 9003 E. Shea Blvd, RSVP today! Space is limited. Breakfast is included!!!! Call 480-323-1250.

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I can't afford to die.  It'll wreck my image.

- Jack Lalanne

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     In TEN COMMITMENTS TO YOUR SUCCESS I talked about reading Ken Wilber's fantastic book, One Taste. Wilber is a hero of mine for having written so many amazing books about spirituality and psychology, and how to combine them to have a great life. In One Taste, he talked about how weight lifting had unexpectedly improved his writing! (How these commitments all feed each other!)

     And then I'd also read about 107 year old football coach Amos Alonzo Stagg who attributed his longevity to running and walking and forcing great quantities of oxygen into his system. The connection between health and breathing and life energy keeps getting stronger as more research is done. Nobel Prize winner Dr. Otto Warburg said that cancer is often associated with the replacement of normal oxygen respiration by oxygen deficient respiration.

     And in her inspiring book on energy and weight loss, Jump Start Your Metabolism, Pam Grout points out, "…people with slow metabolisms also suffer from sluggish blood flow. Like your great aunt Ethel, it can't get around like it used to. The Chinese refer to the blood as a sacred, restless red dragon that must be continually fed. Deep breathing is the button that feeds the dragon and keeps the blood moving."

     One morning in a hotel I had the TV on and it played an old black and white show from the 50's with LaLanne. Coincidentally (or not) I had just heard an interview with LaLanne on a car trip. LaLanne had just turned 89 and recent newspaper photos made him look like he was in fabulous shape!

         "I work out for two hours every morning, seven days a week," said LaLanne. "Even when I'm traveling.  I hate it.  But I love the result!  That's the key, baby! The only way you can hurt your body is if you don't use it."
       
       I taped a bunch of his half-hour TV programs from the 50's and I began working out with them. I mixed in going to the health club and walking with my CD player and my energy, far from being drained, grew stronger.
      
       "The guy who's most impressed me is Paul C. Bragg," said Jack LaLanne. "He completely saved my life.  When I was a kid, I was addicted to sugar.  I was a skinny kid with pimples and boils.  Used to eat ice cream by the quart.  I had blinding headaches.  I tried to commit suicide.  And then one day, my life changed.  Bragg was a nutritionist.  My mother and I were a little late getting to his lecture.  The place was packed, and so we started to leave.  But Bragg said, 'We don't turn anybody away here.  Ushers, bring two seats.  Put those two up on the stage.'  It was the most humiliating moment.  There I was, up on stage.  I was so ashamed of the way I looked; I didn't want people to see me.  Little did I know they had problems, too.  And Bragg said, 'It doesn't matter what your age is, what your physical condition is.  If you obey nature's laws, you can be born again.'  From that moment on, I completely changed my diet, began to exercise, and went on to become captain of the football team.  And do you know something?  Every time I get ready to lecture, I think, if I can just help one person like I was helped…."
 
      Come to the event November 8th and bring a friend.

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    This is a photo of Jacob with his friend the good dog Simon, who died suddenly and unexpectedly last week. Join me in prayers for Simon's spirit, eternal and free now, and prayers to Jacob's family who miss Simon and will never forget him. Simon lives in our hearts and minds forever. It's where he always was and always will be

GOALS CAN FREAK YOU OUT

             "Make each day your masterpiece."
                                          ---John Wooden

   Here is a photo of our little Pineapple Princess (see earlier blog post) in a pumpkin patch enjoying life as it comes. She had no expectations prior to arriving at the patch. She just showed up and enjoyed life. No goals for her.

   Goals are great when used in their proper and highly limited way. But they can only do so much. And if you focus too much on the OUTCOME goal you want to achieve, that goal can turn on you ... like a former beloved house pet who has become a vicious, rabid dog.

    Soon the optimistic prospect of hitting that goal turns to fear ... fear of not achieving it. Soon the very sight of the goal becomes a downer---it reminds you that you are a failure, because you're so far away from achieving what you really want.

     And fear is not a good place to come from. I wrote a book about that recently, a book about how people can actually become fearless. But there is nothing in that book about doing it through the setting of huge outcome goals.

     Fear shuts down all playful, creative activity. Intuition disappears. We contract into a small self, like the trembling heart of a captive bird.

     So if you choose to set goals, use them wisely. Use them as game-setters, defining a winning score. But once you have done that, drop them. Like the booster rockets on the moon shot were dropped into the ocean. You don't take those rockets all the way to the moon, if you tried, you would die. Let your goals fall into the sea.

     Here's another way to look at it. Embrace the concept of process versus outcome. Process goals are all doable throughout your day. Like sending out three business proposals today, or doing 20 pushups. They are action items. You can ALWAYS achieve them, and feel the satisfaction and fulfillment of having done so. (And, paradoxically, they will get you to your OUTCOME faster than outcome goals will. Outcome goals push your outcome away from you.)

     If my outcome goal is to weigh 175 pounds by September 1, 2009, then I will want to go immediately to process. The outcome exists only to boost and inform the process.  What might my daily process goals be? To log 10,000 steps a day on my pedometer? To keep my caloric intake at a certain number in my food journal. To avoid all flour and sugar, just for today? To weigh myself daily? (What gets measured in life gets done.) All of this is process.

     Anyone can work a process. Anyone can do this for a day, and this day is all I have anyway, it's the only leverage point I can EVER operate from, if I am going to weigh 175 it will be because of something I do today. This is good news. The long-tern vision is intimidating. Today is not intimidating.

     This is a different version of what we have been talking about here before. Expectation versus agreement. Outcome goals set up expectations, which are nervous disorders in the human system. But process goals are simple agreements I make with myself. I've made a new CD-MP3 about this if you prefer AUDIO to reading, you can get Expectation versus Agreement here:  http://www.stevechandler.com/eBooks.html.

   

JANE AUSTEN REVEALED

"Great ideas come into the world as gently as doves." - Albert Camus

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     Why does anyone care about two guys reading Jane Austen? Why would two guys read Jane Austen?

      How did this Two Guys thing get started, anyway?

      Well, one day my lifelong friend Terry Hill and I were talking about our junior high school days together. (Terry is a playwright, an award-winning advertising copywriter, a publisher of poems and articles, etc. etc. and he and I knew each other way, no WAY...back when.)

      And we agreed that we had never actually read Moby Dick, nor did we know anyone else who had read it. Ever. All the way through, I mean. Not Cliff's Notes or (my old favorite cheat method) Classics Comics. The real book. Who had read it? No one. Oh, many people have been tested on that book. It has been assigned to students forever and ever. But who has read it? We couldn't find one person.

     So we decided to be the first to ever do it...we would be like Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon.

      And to do a major FIRST like this, we would want to chronicle the event...to even write a book about it. (We knew that others would write about us having read this book, like maybe Tom Wolfe who wrote THE RIGHT STUFF)...but we wanted to be the first to write about our accomplishment. So we did. And much to our surprise, it not only got published, but it won a ton of critical rave notices and created a following for us. We had book clubs assigning our book and college professors writing to us about it.

      So we did a second book, TWO GUYS READ THE OBITUARIES. We read the obituaries each morning for a full year and wrote about death and life. To each other. Again, we were surprised at the response. People wanted more. Oh, sure, some of my "personal growth" and self help fans were angry at me. They thought I'd let them down by going all shallow and frivolous on them. So what? Can't we all have a little fun?

      Finally our wives said that Jane Austen ought to be our next challenge. I winced. Really? Come on. But a challenge is a challenge. And I resolve not to go gently into that good night, but rather to rage, RAGE against the dying of the light by saying YES to every challenge.

      Jane was an amazing surprise to me. I won't spoil what happens in this book. But TWO GUYS READ JANE AUSTEN is ....of all the books I've written....the book I am happiest with......it is the ONE I would want to stay in print after you read my obituary.......it is the first book I've ever been involved with that really looked fearlessly at love and women and men's relationships with women......don't get scared.....there's also some humor....both intentional and unintentional....Terry is brilliant and funny......
and Jane?....well Jane is Jane. There is no one like Jane.

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Now when all the clowns that you have commissioned
Have died in battle or in vain
And you're sick of all this repetition
Won't you come see me, Queen Jane ?

BOB DYLAN

 

JUST TOUCH THE MOON

   This is my finger touching an actual moon rock on display at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. I have touched the moon. 

    Kathy and I are watching the series FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON produced by Tom Hanks (available for rent on Netflix) and after the second episode, the one about the astronauts who perished in the fire in the capsule, there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Highly recommended!

     Many people don't realize how influential our reading and viewing choices can be to our personal development as citizens, as parents, as professionals and as humans. They make all the difference in the world. One of the things I love to do with my mastermind and coaching school groups is ask them to share with me the movies that most moved and inspired them. Why not watch those? Instead of the steady stream of clever vulgarity coming from Hollywood today.

     One of the movies I've been recommending a lot lately is THE CROSSING with Jeff Daniels as George Washington. It is centered on a dramatic battle in the Revolutionary War.  Amazing dramatization of what commitment can do when one person holds it for a whole group of doubters.

     Commitment and agreement are the courageous antidotes to victim thinking, and especially people in the grip of the ultimate mind parasite: EXPECTATION.

     Expectation leads to disappointment. Whereas agreement and commitment lead to ACTION and RESULTS. I can expect an employee to be on time for my team meeting, but if he is chronically late, that's a reflection of my leadership, not a reflection of his character.

     So the solution is not to tell him that I EXPECT him to be on time, but rather to create an agreement. By creating a mutual agreement, I can learn a lot. We can let each other know what we can count on from each other. Perhaps he was late because he was keeping a commitment to another segment of the company...or because his daycare didn't open up until our meeting time and he had the children...I just don't know until I seek the agreement.

     Expect nothing. When people are not doing what you want, seek an agreement and make mutual commitments inside the agreement. It seems too simple. How could it be that easy? It's not. It takes courage.

     It's much easier to walk around with my head filled up with expectations (and therefore disappointments.) When I expect things it puts the burden on others to come through and LIVE UP to what I expect. It's cowardly. It disconnects me from the true source of my inner power to communicate boldly ... to shape events with requests and commitments. It's easier to just expect things to happen. Then when they don't I can indulge in my anger and frustration. I can plunge my rattle into my pillow and howl ... about how other people are letting me down. That's easy.

      Nathaniel Branden said it best when he said, "Suffering is the easiest thing we humans do." Of course it is. It allows us no growth. No maturity. No development. No accumulated adult strength of purpose. Just tantrums.

      Byron Katie said, "Sadness is a tantrum." It's a rejection of what is and a childish strike against reality. God's wrong again. He has made another mistake and boy am I sad.

      All of this can be solved by my waking up and smelling the roses. I write about this in FEARLESS, how one can turn all this around. How the fear of death can fade away. How commitments can be joyfully made and how thrilling total focus can be. It can take you to the moon.

WHAT HUMAN MINDS CAN DO

      

     Here’s a picture of me standing under the thrusters of the rocket that went to the moon. Kathy and I were visiting the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and the sights were truly amazing.

    I had no idea the rockets were that large and complex. We were astonished by many sights at the NASA site and vowed to return soon to get an even longer tour.

     Two days after we got back home to Arizona we put on "Apollo 13," the great Tom Hanks movie about the near-disaster voyage to the moon that was rescued so heroically.

     Amazing what human minds can do when working together for an exciting mission. Contrast those brilliant, demanding and courageously sober explorations of space with the hangover our nation is experiencing from the banks and Wall Street having been on a reckless credit bender, borrowing and leveraging drunkenly, buoyed by the intoxication of personal financial gain.

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     One of the reasons the visit to the shuttle launch sites in Florida was so much fun was because we had no expectations.

     We were curious. Yes. And both Kathy and I were fascinated by everything astronautical. The inspiring, heart-stopping documentary, "In the Shadow of the Moon¸" was an all-time favorite.

     But we didn’t expect much of anything as we drove through the marshes and the swamps along Cape Canaveral to get to this space center. When you have no expectations, you can really be blown away.

     My visit to Florida was only partially a vacation. The rest was devoted to delivering a seminar to leaders of a prominent semi-conductor company. The leaders had come in from all over the world for their annual convention and I had them for four hours.

     Our main subject was expectations. How leaders fail when they carry expectations. And how they succeed when they drop all expectations and replace them with agreements.

     Expectations are toxic and cowardly. Agreements are healing and courageous.

     When leaders expect things from their people, anxiety sets in immediately. No one enjoys trying to live up to another’s expectations. In fact, they begin immediately to rebel against those expectations.

     This applies to personal life as well. The more expectations you have of your romantic partner, the worse the relationship gets.

     A client of mine recently sounded very depressed as I was talking to him. I asked him to slow down and tell me what was really on his mind.

     “I had a fight with my wife yesterday,” he said.

     “I’m sorry to hear that.”

     “You know what that’s like, I’m sure.”

     “Actually, no. Kathy and I have never had a fight.”

     “Come on.”

     “No.”

     “You’re just saints, or what?”

     “We just don’t fight. No interest in it.”

     “Aren’t fights supposed to be cleansing? Purging?”

     “You tell me.”

     “I feel awful.”

     “There you go.”

     “How do you avoid it?”

     “Do you have a best friend? A real good buddy?”

     “Yes.”

     “Do you ever fight with him?”

     “Not really.”

     “Same principle.”

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     I talked to my wife-fighting client about expectations. If he had no expectations, he could never be upset.

     If you have expectations of someone—your spouse—your employee—only two things can happen. 1) They meet your expectations, which means you feel nothing because it was what you expected. Or, 2) They don’t live up to your expectations so you are DISAPPOINTED. There are a lot of very disappointed people in the world because of this toxic thing called expectations.

     There is a way out ...stay tuned and I’ll continue this in the next blog. (And you’ll enjoy that blog all the more if you expect nothing from it.)

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    Here is a photo of Rob Owen (in China, with friends), a friend and mastermind coaching client of mine who is also a talented college teacher and VP of IT at the prestigious Microchip Technology company.

    Rob has written a wonderful piece about coaches and being coached called
CIRCLES in LIFE which I urge you all to read. You can click here to access it and read it........Wonderful insights into the nature of coaching and mentoring and how we humans help each other succeed.