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A True Navigator: Making Logical Decisions

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“Anyone can steer the ship but it takes a leader to chart the course.” – J.C. Maxwell

I like the fact that I have the same first initials of one of my favorite authors. 🙂

So… Here’s a situation for you. Let’s say that you are at the helm of a yacht setting out from California and you’re on your way to a great getaway location in the Caribbean.  You’ve been told that this place is the best place that you could ever be based on a conversation with a best friend that is on the yacht with you. The catch is that this particular place has a festival that is only going on long enough for you to barely make the last couple of days of it. Now you realize that to get to this location, you have to pass by several places that you wanted to check out including the coast of Mexico, the Panama Canal, and the Gulf Coast. Your destination sounds great and it’s the best time of the year to go, but you’ve personally always wanted to check out each of these places. You’d rather do all of it, but you have limited time. You would have more time to see everything but you know if you spend time elsewhere, you won’t make the festival. Which would you do? Would you check out the other destinations or try and make it to the festival?

Logic should say that you can go to the festival first and as you sail back, if you had time, you could check out the other destinations in reverse. I ask this question because it is very relative in how you live your life. How do you make decisions in your life? Do you generally make decisions on emotion or by logic?

Logic can be defined as the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Or, to put it into context, it’s the process of thinking about what you (or your organization) really want in the future and determining if your past actions and short term goals will get you there.

Naturally, everyone wants to make decisions based on emotion. We all want to do what makes us feel good. There’s nothing wrong with that. We simply can’t stop making emotional decisions because we, as humans, are indeed emotional. But sometimes if we make decisions without following a course, then we might miss bigger and better things. Sometimes we have to miss out on things right now to get to all the destinations. Sometimes we have to make decisions with logic and planning so that we can get the better rewards. We have to put off the good for the great.

If you’re not familiar with charting a course for your decision making, then here’s a strategic way for you to do just that.

The Secret to Navigating: PLAN AHEAD

The secret to navigating really isn’t too far out there. Yes, you have to “Plan Ahead”, but what does that mean? Well it just so happens that this is actually an acronym:

P – Predetermine a course of action: If you’re going to climb a ladder, make sure you’re climbing one that’s on the building you want to get to the top of. In the yacht trip example, we determine that we want to go to the Caribbean for the festival.

L – Lay Out your goals: Determine what you really want to accomplish. Which are initial higher priorities? Do you have time to make it to the different coast lines or do you have to go straight to the festival?

A – Adjust your priorities: Are your priorities correct? If they aren’t change them according to what you’ve heard, seen, and past experiences. You realize that if you want to make the festival, you have to set sail directly for it.

N – Notify key personel: Have a meeting with those in your life or organization that your decision directly affects. On the yacht, it would probably be a good choice to tell your friend who was wanting to go to the festival that you are indeed going there. If there’s anyone else on board that should know right away, tell them.

A – Allow time for acceptance of any changes: This part takes patience. In change management, we realize that the transition phase is going to be the longest part of change. There are three parts of the transition and should be done in three separate meetings. 1.) Announce the idea; 2.) Expand the ideas through determining the Pros and Cons with others; 3.) Summarize the plan with the people who helped determine it…

H – Head into Action: Most leaders want to start here without planning before hand. More often than not, this is a bad idea. Just because the Nike slogan is Just Do It! doesn’t mean that everyone should just start working out without consulting a physician first. Or in the yacht example, we want to make sure that everyone knows where we’re going before we go!

E – Expect Problems: Build in wiggle room. Again no one is perfect and perfection shouldn’t be expected of anyone – not even yourself. Even with the best thought out plan, we can’t control everything. In the yacht example, we might run into a storm on the way there or the engine might fail.

A – Always Point at Success: Be reassuring when needed. Make sure you remind yourself or the people you’re with of overcoming a challenge that was similar in magnitude. In the yacht example, talk about stories of the past in where you had to make a similar decision where you made it just in time to deliver a passenger on time for their flight.

D – Daily review your plan: Reflect on how things are going by thinking about three things: 1.) Review the goal 2.) Review the current situation and external forces 3.) Review the people involved – are they all ok? On the yacht trip: remember why you’re bypassing other destinations, check the weather and the condition of the boat, and make sure you’re keeping moral high if there’s any problems with the other passengers.

Now that you have a plan for your planning, make it a habit to make logical decisions in your life based on what you want in 5 to 10 years from now!!

A Great Teacher of Life: Stress

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Yes, yes, I know. I’ve been away for a little while. But it’s not because I don’t love you guys! It’s really not. It’s just that I had some personal stuff happen that I’ve been dealing with… namely my mom (read: best friend) passed away the the morning of New Years’ Eve. Frankly, I’ve been all over the place emotionally since then. But I’m doing pretty well a month and a half later. And my plans of world domin… er my career path has definitely been solidified. This site and everything that I believe that it can be (as a resource of helping others start their paths of discovering who they are and what they’re meant to do with themselves) is more part of the plan than ever before.

In the past month, I’ve realized what in the end kills so many people including Mom. It’s stress. Particularly, stress from work. Today I saw an episode of Royal Pains that elaborated on this fact even more. A guy who was really no older than myself was working on Wall Street as (I’m guessing) a stockbroker. Well, there he was walking with his best friend down the street and suddenly without warning, he collapses. We soon find out that it was from an aneurysm. As for my mom, the stress came not from being a high Type A kind of stress, but from a workplace that had transformed over her career. One that used to be truly about teaching to one that became more so about the dollar bill. And we all have been touched in our lives by this change – especially since the crash of 2008.

But what does one do outside of what they know to be the norm? Going to a workplace day after day that more or less doesn’t seem to appreciate them? Doing things that they know that anyone could do. Not doing things that make them in the end… happy? Well, they find their purpose. They find the work that does make them happy. They retire and teach at a local college. They buy back their life and teach airplane lessons. They teach others how to find wealth on the net.

Conclusion

More so than ever, I believe that my goal in life is to help others learn that there are alternative ways of living their life. That they don’t have to work for someone else and do things that they’d rather not be doing. That they can really do anything that they put their mind to. It is the truth. It’s just that someone needs to show them the right direction and not simply be the person that says “Hey, you’re good at Math. You should be an engineer.” Nay. Someone should say to them: “Hey. It seems like you’re passionate about this. Have you ever considered doing…?”

If your reading this and you want to join me, I would love to hear from you!! Tell me what you think.

Tip #1 for Young Entrepreneurs: Know What YOU Want Out of Life

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Imagine, if you will, that you’re a basketball player. You have all the talent you need to be successful and you’ve come up with a regiment for yourself to succeed at your current level. Part of that regiment is just showing up. Another part of that is having someone there for accountability purposes and helping you progress – a coach. But a major MAJOR part of it is having a vision of where it is that you’re going to go and how you’re going to get there (a coach helps with this too!) Because you can run drill after drill, and shoot free throw after free throw – that’s true. But why are you doing that? If you don’t have a picture of yourself winning the game, then there’s not too much incentive to actually do that. To be frank, if you don’t choose to win, you automatically choose to lose.

In life, most of us believe we have a great plan that will get us what we want out of life. Usually it goes like this: Go to school, get good grades, go to college, get good grades there, (some random event???), get a well paying job, be able to support for your family of 2.5 kids and own your white picketed fence house.

That’s one scenario.

Here’s another scenario: Instead of your parents telling you that you should want, or what your boss thinks you should want, or even caring about what your buddies think of you, you should actually do what you want to do. Crazy, huh? Is that previously mentioned lifestyle what you want? Or did someone else give you that goal?

Most people who want to start their own business do it for one of two reasons. They have a great idea and they want to make it a reality. Another reason is that they want to live like a “rock star”. For me, the second was the case. Is yours? If the answer is yes, then would you mind doing a lot of work over a short period of time, that in the end, you’d have a lifestyle with time AND money? Maybe? Depending on what it is, huh?

Well… while you said you might do that, many of those that are considered great at life have already done that. Players in the NFL and NBA – they’ve spent their dues practicing day in and day out. Did they really want to spend all that time playing ball? Hip hop and rock stars? Yeah – they had to practice their talent as well and build up a fan base. Did they really want to do that show in that small town in that crappy bar? Probably not. But the entire time they had a visual for what they were seeking to accomplish. And that’s why they were willing to put the time in. Stardom just doesn’t happen. The lifestyle that goes with it – that just doesn’t happen.

The simple truth is this: right now, whether you know it or not, you’re putting together a picture. Like the picture on the front of a puzzle box. Each decision you’re making in life is a piece of the puzzle – right or wrong. What does your picture on your puzzle box look like? If you figure out out what you want that puzzle picture to look like, decisions in life get so much easier. You stop living just for the now, but you start living for the future.

When you start living for the future, then your best days aren’t behind you – they’re in front of you. That right there should help you get up every day because then you have something to live for. You have a vision. Start making every decision based on where you want to be in 5 years. A wise man once said, “A man without vision shall perish.”

Three Failure Diseases of Successful Time Management

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What do you want, when do you want it? That’s often a question I ask people as I’m starting to work with them. It’s a very simple question, but many times very hard to answer. The main reason for this is simply the fact that people in today’s world have so many distractions that they lose focus on what they really want. Simple time management practices are key in getting any long term projects done. But even with knowledge of these principles, at times things don’t get done.

In his book, the Magic of Thinking Big, Dr. David J. Schwartz suggested that there are three key diseases that affect effective time management. It is as true today as it was 50 years ago when he wrote about it:

The first disease, Excusitis, is simply the disease of having what seems to be valid reasons for not achieving a particular goal. For example, say you’re looking to increase your income by searching for a higher paying job. A person suffering from excusitis might blame the economy, or suggest that the person who is in The White House is the sole reason they have not been succeeding. When you focus on areas that you have absolutely no control over, you might as it’s like suggesting that it’s not the team’s fault they lost the game, it was yours for not watching. There’s two questions that you can ask yourself. Think, “What does this really have to do with the current state of my current situation?” Are the economy and politics a factor? Absolutely. Are they the deciding factor to the success of whether you get that next opportunity? Absolutely Not. Focus on the solutions, nothing else.

The second disease, Detailitis, is I think definitely the trickiest of the three diseases. I know I have problems with this one myself and I always have. Detailitis infects those people who get frozen on making decisions because they don’t feel they have enough information. Me being a very analytical type person, the more information I have about a given subject, the easier it is for me to make that decision. However, if you feel like the information is trickling in or if you’re waiting for all your ducks to line up in a row, sometimes a mental paralysis occurs that will get stronger over time. Uncertainty turns into frustration which eventually turns into fear. Action is what cures fear, not more and more information. Get the vital pieces to make a sound decision and then move forward. Let action, not indecisiveness control your results.

The third and possibly the most powerful of these diseases is Procrastination – aka “Why do it today when you can do it tomorrow?-itis”. I covered this disease in the initial post for NI, but I’ll mention it here again. This is a major killer of getting things done. When poor time management and lack of knowledge come to a head, this is the ugly outcome. Again, if you hear yourself say this, tell yourself: “What am I saying? Today’s as good a day as any to get this done! It won’t take forever. Plus, I can have a break if it starts taking too long.” Personally, I relate it to this statement: “When do you tell your parents you appreciate them? Before it’s too late and you can’t anymore.” The catch is this: if you want to position yourself for continued success in the future, you need to learn how to gain control over your time management by avoiding these 3 failure diseases. The future is yours. Grab ahold of it today!

So What Do You Think? Are there any other failure diseases that you can think of that get in your way of achieving your goals?