As you can imagine I spend a lot of time talking to people about what they want to accomplish.  In fact, after 14 years of talking to people about their goals, I have learned that what most people think are goals are something else.

A few years ago I wrote a blog post entitled Top 5 Reasons People Don’t Make Their Goals.    The number one reason people don’t make their goals?   They are not big enough.  Yes, you read that correctly.   Contrary to everything you have been taught about goals, setting attainable goals creates ordinary performance.   Attainable goals aren’t goals at all, they are simply tasks.    Tasks are important, but they aren’t challenging or exciting and consequently are often left undone.  Think about the psychology of it for a moment.   If you create a “goal” that you can already see how to accomplish, that is not a goal at all; it’s a task, and tasks are boring.  Attainable goals also don’t require a whole lot of effort or engagement.  This is not a recipe for big achievements or high performance.     The paradox of goals is that the best goals are the ones that are so big you have no idea how you might accomplish them.  Now that is exciting.

I hear you.  You are thinking,  What if I make a big goal and I don’t achieve it?  That is a common question.   My answer.  So what?    You are probably not making all of your “goals” right now,  so what’s the difference.  You can either not make a small goal, or not make big goal ~ your choice.    But what if you did make it?  Or even made it half way?  Would that be better than not trying at all?   Bottom line is your goal has to be big, exciting,  scary and take everything you’ve got to make it.  Otherwise what’s the point?    It’s your choice:  make a giant, scary, seemingly unreachable goal and move toward something extraordinary or make your task list and get on with your mediocre achievements.

Life is painful. There, I said it.

Everyday we have some sort of pain that shows up:  emotional, physical, mental, something.  Consequently we spend much of our time running from pain.  We hire therapists, life and business coaches, or consultants to help us figure out how to get out of pain and stay there.  We self medicate with alcohol, food, tobacco, prescription drugs, sometimes even illegal drugs.  Coaching alone is over a billion dollar a year business. Add to that what people are spending on therapists, counselors, consultants and doctors and that’s a ton of money spent trying to get out of pain.  I can’t say I blame people.

The problem is we are looking in the wrong direction for relief or freedom.

Some of you know I do Crossfit.  Crossfit is, in my opinion, the most physically and mentally demanding fitness program in the world.   I have been an elite athlete for many years.  In my youth, I was a swimmer and good enough to earn a scholarship at an NCAA Division I school. After college I started playing women’s rugby and was at one point just a step away from the US National Team. Currently I can deadlift 355 pounds.  Swimming, rugby, deadlifts?  I know something about physically demanding.  I know something about pain. Swimming is one of the most physically and mentally demanding sports and to succeed requires some real fortitude. But those13 years facedown in a pool, and 20 years of knocking heads on the rugby pitch don’t hold a candle to the demands of Crossfit.

But this post is not about Crossfit, swimming, rugby or deadlifts.   It is about what I have learned from Crossfit.  From Crossfit I learned what true freedom really is.  We mistakenly think freedom is a life free of pain – pain about money, pain about relationships, pain about what is missing or what is happening in our lives.  But true freedom is not about any of that. YES, life is hard, it is painful.

True freedom is not a life void of pain, but the ability to choose your pain.

All the time, money and resources we spend trying move away from pain is really wasted energy.  Eliminating pain is impossible. In the excruciating physical and mental pain of Crossfit I have found true freedom: the ability to choose my pain.

Want freedom? Answer this:  What pain can you choose that will free you from the shackles of your pain?

If you lead people you have one of the toughest jobs in the world.  At the same time, if you are saying  any of the these things about or to your people, you are making your job harder than it needs to be.   Eliminating one or all of these ways of thinking and speaking will immediately upgrade your leadership.

“They just are not motivated”.   No.  They are motivated.  They do all kinds of things without someone making them do it.  They go to baseball games, out to dinner with friends, fishing or jogging.   They are motivated, they are just not motivated to do what you want them to do.   Duh.  Find out what is important to your people – not what’s important to you.  Let them do some of what is important to them and you’ll see some motivation.

“If we just had better systems or software our people could do better”   Marginally, maybe.   But this is a low return approach.   We have been trying for years to solve human problems with technical tools: it just doesn’t work that well.   The human being still has to use the tool.  No matter how good the tool you still have to understand the human being that is using it.   You can’t solve human problems with technical tools,.  Human problems require human tools.   Yes, cupcake, those are human beings you work with.

 “I think you should ___________.”  Don’t think for them.  Pretty soon they will stop thinking for themselves, then you will complain that they don’t think for themselves.

“You did a good job, but…”  But means, “Forget everything I just said,  here is what I really think. “ If you are going to give negative feedback just give it.   If you are going to give positive feedback just give that.   Giving both types of feedback together doesn’t work.

“We pay you to do that.”  If you haven’t figured out by now that most people are not motivated by money….WAKE UP.   Most people are not motivated by money, even if they say they are.   Money is actually one of the weakest reasons to do something.  Think about it, do you want an employee who is doing it for the money or because they are really inspired by the work?  Yet, when we say things like we pay you to do it, we perpetuate the opposite.   Oops.

So what is the solution?  One simple tool can overcome all of these issues:  Acknowledgement.

How to understand and use the one tool you need to instantly upgrade your leadership is in my new book, The Motivation Myth.  Get it now.

Think you know what acknowledgement is?   Or that your people don’t need it?  You don’t and they do.

Recently a colleague called me to ask for some help figuring out what to do about an opportunity that had come his way.  Through his marketing efforts,  a company in his city asked him to present  a seminar for about 70 of their leaders.

As we talked about how he should approach pricing the project,   I noticed a big problem in the way he was thinking about this opportunity.   Instead of looking at how to best deliver value to these 70 people, and the company who was going to pay him,   he was looking at it as a great way to get his foot in the door.

Foot in the door?

He had already been invited all the way in to the organization.  But instead of putting his attention on what they wanted him to provide, and how he could bring as much value as possible to them,   he was just looking at this project as a way to get to something else in the company.   Wow.  That seems pretty weird to me.    Stepping over a great opportunity to look at what would possibly come out of it.  What would be the underlying message to his buyer and the participants he was there to help?    Thanks for having me, but where’s the real opportunity here?   With this perspective how is he going to come across in the seminar?  Is  he going to be able to “play full out” and really provide value for them?  Probably not ~ especially if he is just thinking of a way to get to the “real” opportunity.  Paradoxically, he will never get to the real opportunity with this approach.  Why?  The real opportunity is the one right in front of him.

It made me wonder how many other people are thinking like this.    Are you?  I bet if you are honest you are doing this somewhere in your life.    The opportunity right in front of you is the ONLY one that matters.   If you are accepting the gig just to “get your foot in the door” stay home.   It’s downright rude and oh, did I mention it doesn’t really work?

If you can’t find a way treat your customers and opportunities like they are the most important thing in the world than just  keep your foot to yourself.

The Motivation Myth ~ 

The Simple Yet Powerful Key to Unlock Human Potential

and Create Inspired Performance and Achievement

Use this button to buy your copy of The Motivation Myth

If you want it shipped please use the drop down menu to choose the appropriate shipping based on the number of books you order.

————————————————

From the Back Cover:

This book shatters a myth ~

One you probably don’t even know exists.

That myth is that compliments, praise, and appreciation motivate people. They do not!

Contrary to what you have been led to believe these communication tools do NOT improve people’s performance and results!

Fortunately there is something that works far better than compliments, praise, and appreciation and it works everywhere: from parenting to the boardroom, from leadership to friendship, from coaching to relationships..

Acknowledgement is the cure for underperformance, lack of self-confidence, and ineffective motivation techniques.

In 35+ combined years of experience working with people in all sorts of environments we have not seen anything else that can create self-confidence, improve performance and catalyze people into inspired action the way that acknowledgement can. Simply put, acknowledgement is the language of results!

I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it.

If you find yourself unable to take action, or confused about what to do next, it’s not because of your lack of motivation.

Lack of motivation is a symptom of a different issue.   Lack of motivation is caused by a lack of clarity.

The best approach to this is,  instead of spending time trying to figure out why you aren’t  “motivated” and taking action, spend some time figuring out what action you can take.  Instead of spending time trying to motivate yourself, spend that time figuring out what you really want.   In the end,  any action is better than no action.   Yes, clarity creates inspired action, and action ~ any action ~ is the antidote to despair.  Start where you are.  Even if you take the wrong action, you are still lapping all the people sitting on the couch waiting for some magic bullet of motivation.  Some people believe that there are no wrong actions.  I happen to be one of them, but you don’t have to be.

THE MOTIVATION MYTH is on the way!

Many of you have been waiting for this post.   Thank you for your patience.   

Pre-sale of The Motivation Myth is open!

Before you buy one – or twenty,  you need to know we are working hard to make this book available by December 21,   but at this point I can’t promise it.

UPDATE – The book is really close to being done,but we are still working out a few kinks.  The devil really is in the details.  We are shooting for January 12 delivery.

UPDATE Jan 6th.   We received the proof copy and unfortunately there is a  issue with the layout of the book.  We are working hard to fix the problem,  but this will likely delay delivery another week.  Shooting for first deliveries about January 20th.   Thank you for your patience!

UPDATE – January 20th.  The book should be ready to ship on Tuesday, Janaury 24th.  !!!

Use this button to buy  your copy or copies of The Motivation Myth

If you want them shipped to you,  please use the drop down menu to choose the appropriate shipping based on the number of books you order, including your free ones.

————————————————

From the Back Cover:

This book shatters a myth ~

One you probably don’t even know exists.

That myth is that compliments, praise, and appreciation motivate people. They do not!

Contrary to what you have been led to believe these communication tools do NOT improve people’s performance and results!

Fortunately there is something that works far better than compliments, praise, and appreciation and it works everywhere: from parenting to the boardroom, from leadership to friendship, from coaching to relationships..

Acknowledgement is the cure for underperformance, lack of self-confidence, and ineffective motivation techniques.

In 35+ combined years of experience working with people in all sorts of environments we have not seen anything else that can create self-confidence, improve performance and catalyze people into inspired action the way that acknowledgement can. Simply put, acknowledgement is the language of results!

I spend a lot of time talking about the fact that leaders need to have a great set of coaching tools in their tool box.

But what about leaders being coached?

Most of my colleagues would agree that the quality of the coaching a person is able to deliver has a direct correlation to how coachable they are.

Five Characteristics of a Coachable Leader

Committed to improvement. Coachable Leaders know they’re not perfect, want to improve, exhibit responsibility for their lives, and are willing to step outside their comfort zones and remain there for some time.

Open to information about themselves. Coachable Leaders are willing and able to listen to and hear feedback without being defensive; accept acknowledgement and then synthesize the new information with their own personal reflections on the issue.

Open about themselves. Coachable Leaders are willing to engage in topics and conversations that may be uncomfortable,  but that are essential for their own professional development; talks about “what’s really going on” to create a complete and honest picture of the total situation.

Appreciate new perspectives. Coachable Leaders get excited about hearing someone else’s experiences and are curious enough to figure out how to learn and improve from them.

Awareness about one’s self and others. Coachable leaders have at least a fair amount of awareness about themselves. Equally important, are able to recognize their impact on the people around them and to reflect on their own behavior in a way that allows them to learn and grow.

So Mr. and Ms. Leader how receptive  are your people to your coaching?   Maybe it has something to do with how coachable you are?

How well are you doing each of  these five things?

What gets in the way of these five things for you?

“Our lives begin and end the day we become silent about things that matter” – Martin Luther King

What matters to you?  No…. I mean, what really matters?

What have you done today or this week or this month about those things that you claim really matter to you?   If the answer is nothing,  than does it REALLY matter?

The actions you take and the things you speak up for inform the world what matters to you.  Does it matter what matters?  It really doesn’t.  What is important is that we do not become silent about what matters to us.   The day we do our life ends.

Riley...Abandoned at the Dog Park

What will you put security, your ego and even your life on the line for?  Those are the things that matter.   If you won’t….they don’t.

This week I spoke up for animal that needed help. http://rileythedog.chipin.com/riley-the-abandon-dog I could have walked away and hoped someone else would take care of him, but this mattered to me.  I spent three entire days working to raise enough money to save his life.  I put my business on hold and my ego aside and asked other people to help, to give money.

This mattered to me, and I was the one who had to help him.  Sure, maybe someone else would have done it, maybe not.   I was going to take care of it, because if someone didn’t –  he would die.  I wasn’t willing to take that chance.

Charlie, Katie and Shelby

A coach at my Crossfit gym,  Charlie G.  did the same thing this week.  He spoke up for what matters to him.  Charlie is an athlete and Coach at Bayou City and PinUp Crossfit.   Charlie spoke up when the no one else would.  He asked a hard question.

If it matters to him… and it clearly does,   what choice did he have?   Whether you agree with his point or not……is not important.  You have to respect the fact that he had the courage to ask a question in public, on his blog.   http://charlieg35.blogspot.com/2011/04/integrity.html A question others were only thinking or whispering in private.   His statement was about integrity, and in asking the question he displayed huge integrity.  It mattered to him, so he spoke it, anything else would have been out of integrity.

While most of the comments on his blog are supportive,   what matters most in this conversation is: If Crossfit matters so much to so many people, why isn’t everyone  asking the question?

If you won’t speak up about the things that matter to you, they don’t really matter at all.

Who or what will you speak for today?

If you work with people in any capacity,  this is really important for you to see.

What great coaches have know for years about money and motivation has been proven, not by those touchy feel-y human resources type people,  but by ECONOMISTS!

Here is a shortened RSA Version.  Also very interesting.