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Recently I spent some time with Tom Crum and his daughter, Alia. Tom’s a good buddy of ours and is an Aikido expert. He wrote a wonderful book called Three Deep Breaths. I think I probably have shared these at some point but they are worth repeating… You know, as you head off any day in the car – I think the car is a wonderful place to quiet yourself if you don’t listen to the radio.
The first breath is the Centering Breath – you just breathe in, into your center right below your belly button. Just center yourself and feel your breath. Read the rest of this entry »
Last week and this week we are having a “Blanchard March Madness” tournament here at the corporate office. Last week we had some individual competitions including HORSE and a Sharpshooter tournament, and this week we are having 3-on-3 games. Well, on Thursday we had the finals of the individual competitions, and do you know who won the sharpshooting contest? Yours truly! Ha! I made 16 out of 20 shots from the foul line. What a great time we had, and I couldn’t believe I beat all the youngsters here at the office!
It was interesting. I’m proofreading the second edition of The Mulligan that I wrote with Wally Armstrong, about golf and faith. There’s a lot of mental stuff in there too. Tony Robbins said that if you want to perform well, there are three aspects. One is focus—you have to see yourself doing well. And you know, I used to be a great foul shooter when I was younger, so I just saw myself pouring the shots in. Then Tony said you have to have the physiology—you have to walk like you know what you’re talking about. So when it was my turn, I just walked there like I knew what I was doing. And then Tony said you have to have a routine. So I bounced the ball and tossed it around the same way every time before I went for the shot. So I made 16 out of 20 at the line, which even surprised me.
I also read in there what we wrote about playing NATO golf—Not Attached To Outcome. So you’re not worried about your outcome, you’re just going with the flow. Last week we were at a program called Inspire San Diego. The guy who put it on was Greg Reid, who cowrote a book called Three Feet from Gold, which really built on the ideas from Think and Grow Rich, the classic book by Napoleon Hill. Just listen to this line from Napoleon Hill: “There are many things you cannot control, but you can control the only thing that really matters—your mind and your attitude. External forces have very little to do with success. Those who program themselves for success find a way to succeed even in the most difficult of circumstances. Solutions to most problems come from one source, and one source alone: yourself. You can do it if you believe you can. You control your destiny. Decide to live life to the fullest. You may be three feet from gold.”
That was fun. Life is a very special occasion, don’t miss it!
You know, at this time of year you can really get yourself hassled. You know, running around, making sure you have every present bought and everything done and all that. And life can be a burden rather than a joy. This is supposed to be the season of joy and love, not of burden and hassle and all those kinds of things. It doesn’t mean that you don’t want to get things done and cross things off your list, but don’t make “list accomplishment” the goal of this holiday season. Make LOVE the goal of this holiday. If you couldn’t find the right present for someone – maybe you should sit down and write that person a note about how much you care about them and that you’ll send them something after the holidays. Stress is a major problem this time of year because people have so many “to do” lists. They forget why they’re doing it and get too much into the doing. Too often this time of year we’re human doings rather than human beings. I just wanted to check for you, as well as myself as I run around and try to get things done at the end of the year, that I’m a human being, not a human doing. So reach out to anybody you talk to and wish them the greatest holiday, the greatest the greatest New Year, and just tell them you care about them. Maybe that’s what you ought to do. What I like to do this time of year, too, is to go through my phone list and call people I haven’t talked to in a while, and just tell them I care about them. What can you do to make this a joyous time, rather than a hassled time? Remember, life is a very special occasion if you keep things in perspective.
One day last week, I suddenly realized that I was having a great day at work. I had so many different things going on that I lost track of time. That’s when you know you’re doing what you ought to be doing. Are you losing track of time? If you’re watching your watch, and you’re thinking, “Thank God it’s Friday,” or, “Oh no, it’s Monday,” then talk to somebody in the company about switching jobs, because you’re probably in the wrong job. Remember, to be the best, you need to be passionate and excited about what you’re doing. That’s the way I was last week – I just lost track of time because I was having a ball. So you have a ball today. Love what you do, because when you do that, your customers are going to love you and you’re going to have a successful company.
You know, not long ago I woke up and I had a little “pity party.” I was kind of feeling bad. I had been traveling a lot, and that day I was flying out of state to do something I had agreed to do over a year earlier. And I was thinking, “Wow, I’ve had enough of travel.” I’d just as soon have stayed home with Margie and our dog Joy and gone up to the office and hugged everybody. So I was having a pretty good pity party. And then I just kind of backed off. I read my mission statement and my obituary and my values—and I realized that there must be some reason I was going there. Maybe somebody really needed the message I was going to bring; maybe somebody really needed something I could help them with. You know, if you’re going to make the word a better place, you do it by the moment-to-moment decisions you make as you interact with other people. So I just kind of pumped myself up and said, “Okay, Blanchard, you’re here to make the world a little bit better, so stop with the pity party. You’ve just got another new audience—a new group of people.” And maybe, just maybe, I did make a little bit of a difference in someone’s life.
So if you ever have those feelings, you know—“Monday, oh my God. I’ve got to go back to work,” or whatever—the reality is that we’re really wonderfully blessed. We have to keep on reminding ourselves when we get into our pity party to just get up. Because somebody always has it worse than we have it. Somebody has some problems and maybe we can help—whether it be a customer or coworker, family member, or friend. So no more pity parties. Although it is good to recognize that we can all fall into that mood, the way out, especially this week, is positive thinking, giving thanks for what you do have, and realizing that we are really here to make a difference.
The point I want to make today is to cherish and celebrate wonderful times when you can get together with your family and loved ones. And if you can build some traditions like we have built at our lake house, that’s a wonderful thing too, where people always come back for a period of time in the summer. It makes it really special. So cherish it, but also celebrate it and recognize that life is good after you spend time together. Life is good every day if you have the right attitude. Go around and hug people who are important in your life; tell them you love them. Tell them you care about them. Because you know what? It will make them feel good, and you, too. Because when all is said and done, all we have in life is who we love and who loves us.
I’ll never forget when, right after my dad died, I took my mom up to Robert Schuller’s Hour of Power. They watched that all the time in Florida and that was their favorite Sunday activity, watching the Hour of Power with Reverend Schuller. She had never been up there and this was the last service in the old chapel. Halfway through the service, everybody got up and walked into the new Crystal Cathedral, which is just absolutely beautiful. And the sermon from Reverend Schuller that day was “Every Ending has a New Beginning,” which is a wonderful thought. So as the next season or the next year ends for us and other people, we have new beginnings.
It was also amazing thinking about visualization. I was sitting there with my mom, and it’s a magnificent place, and I leaned over and I said, “Someday I’m going to be up there with Reverend Schuller.” And this was 1979. And my mom said, “How are you going to do that?” and I said, “I don’t know.” And then when The One Minute Manager came out in 1982, the next year, there I was up there with Reverend Schuller and my mom was out there in the cathedral, watching. So life is a very special occasion. I visualize a wonderful fall for all of us.
This Saturday is “Make a Difference Day.” From their website at http://www.usaweekend.com/diffday/index.html:
Make A Difference Day is the most encompassing national day of helping others — a celebration of neighbors helping neighbors. Everyone can participate. Created by USA WEEKEND Magazine, Make A Difference Day is an annual event that takes place on the fourth Saturday of every October. Millions have participated. In 2008, 3 million people cared enough about their communities to volunteer on that day, accomplishing thousands of projects in hundreds of towns.
This is a really great project that helps bring people together and gets us all to do good things. I’d love to hear about some of the things you plan to do to make a difference… Leave a comment below and let everyone know what you will be doing. It doesn’t have to be only this Saturday. I think the main point is to make a difference everyday!
I have a great saying for you today that my friend Pat Zigarmi gave me last year when I was recovering from my hip surgery. This is a good one for all of us:
“Peace: It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.”
How is that? That’s really pretty powerful. Because with all the stress and the movement with the economy and everybody working hard and all, you have to find a way to stay peaceful in the midst of turmoil. That happens by quieting yourself periodically as you work through the day and know that you’re doing good things—you’re making a difference in people’s lives. Calm yourself down, take a few deep breaths, and recognize that peace does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart. Have a great day.
I’ve been reading a book by Mick Ukleja, who is one of my good buddies. It’s called The Ethics Challenge: Strengthening Your Integrity in a Greedy World. He says that one of the ways to keep your integrity high is to harness your moods. He says, interestingly, that a study of red-light violations shows a strong relationship between feeling under pressure and breaking the law. Forty-one percent of the people who go through red lights are doing it on their way to work or to school. But only nine percent of the red light violations were committed by people on vacation. He says, “A basic human frailty is that we allow our moods to master us rather than making sure we master them. You’re probably a lot like us. Sometimes we’ve known what to do, how to do it, and that we ought to do it, but we didn’t do it. You discover that your good intentions can be hijacked by your feelings. We speed through a red light, we cut off another driver, we procrastinate, we shut our minds to others because we’re in a bad mood. It’s easy, especially in pressure situations, to let our moods master us. So we really need to harness our moods. When you feel like you’re in a mood, go walk around the building. Go walk around your house. Get yourself back under control so that you can do what you know is right.” So don’t be moody. And if you are, recognize it and get it back under control. That’s a good thought for today.
