master your emotions

The 4 Causes of Inaction

September 29, 2009 By takethestairs 10 Comments

Procrastination is something that everyone struggles with; according to Jim Rohn, it is the #1 killer of all success. In my study of self-discipline over the past 9 years, I’ve noticed a more prevalent dynamic than procrastination. It’s one where we don’t deliberately just put things off, or refuse to do them; but rather we mask the activities that we should be doing with ones that are more convenient to do. In other words we allow ourselves to be busy just being busy. The term that I’ve been using in my speeches to describe this phenomena is creative avoidance.

Although creative avoidance may appear in many forms there are really 4 main causes of our inaction towards what we really need to be doing to be productive. These 4 concepts apply to people across all different professions, ages, or endeavors. You show me a person who is not achieving life at the level they want to be and I’ll show you 1 of these 4 diagnosis.
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Filed Under: Standard Lessons Tagged With: accountability, creative avoidance, discipline, focus, forming good habits, increase productivity, master your emotions, Motivational Speaker, performance expert, Procrastination, raising your performance, sales performance, Self-Discipline, Take The Stairs

The 3 Battles of Daily Discipline: Mind, Mouth, and Movement

September 18, 2009 By takethestairs Leave a Comment

For most of us self-discipline is a passive concept. It’s not one we very often think about, and when we do it’s often because we feel guilty about some bad decision we’ve made, or were lamenting to a friend about why we need more of it. Unfortunately it’s that in-deliberate attitude that usually leads to our lack of self-discipline. Many of us think of discipline as hard and we don’t understand the Pain Paradox. Discipline doesn’t have to always be difficult, brutal, or painful as long as it’s perpetually intentional and consistent.

There are 3 primary battles of self-discipline that need to be won each and every day by all of us. They are 3 things that we have absolute control over and that regardless of our profession, age, or income we must deal with. Avoiding these areas is not an option because as I mentioned on my Twitter page, you are either consciously forming good habits or you are unconsciously forming bad ones. The battles I’m referring to are
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Filed Under: Standard Lessons Tagged With: accountability, discipline, focus, forming good habits, master your emotions, Motivational Speaker, performance expert, raising your performance, sales performance, Self-Discipline, Take The Stairs

Composure, Clarity, Control

August 17, 2009 By takethestairs Leave a Comment

This blog post comes straight from one of my coaching clients from our Top Producer’s Edge program. She is an extraordinary woman and she’s beginning to get big results in her life and for her company as we’ve been working together for a few months. As is customary we send a recap of each conversation we have with our clients after the call. This one seemed very relevant to a lot of the problems that we are all facing today so I included it here exactly how it appeared in the personal email I sent to her.

“Kind of ironic how the sessions I always send you are right in line with what’s going on in your life. From the Schedule concepts when we first started to the positive affirmations a few weeks ago, to the introduction and questioning techniques for finding pain before selling, using LinkedIn for referrals and recruiting and then today with problem solving.

“Remember what I said… one of the highest levels of discipline is to be a master of your emotions.

“The key to problem solving is IMMEDIATELY channeling your emotion into a positive direction and keeping your cool. People want to follow a strong leader who always has a game plan (or at least looks like they do ) to overcome any challenging situation. Here is my 3 step formula for channeling that energy: Composure, Clarity, Control

“First is Composure. Remember things are often not as good as they seem or as bad as they sound. Resist the urge to flip out in the very first moment you hear of bad news. (You can flip out later when you’re by yourself all you want) Your initial reaction to a problem sets the tone and mood for the way that you and those around you respond to the situation. And also it forms a habit for all of you about how you will deal with problems in the future. So have DISCIPLINE and begin to start channeling your emotions and staying composed. Remember my man Carl from the old TV Show Family Matters: ‘3,2,1…1,2,3…what the heck is bothering me…breathe.’ :) That is, to this day, my favorite affirmation in tough times.

“Second is Clarity. DISCIPLINE yourself to not just start taking control and yanking things around in every which direction. Instead ask questions of yourself and of those involved in the situation to make sure that you CLARIFY exactly what the challenge is, what factually happened, and to identify what limitations are legitimately on the situation. You’ll be amazed that when you take the emotional energy out of tough situations there is almost always a clear actionable game plan that reveals itself. The trick once again is learning to view things through a logical lens rather than an emotional one.

“Then Control. Not take control necessarily; but control the things you can control. Don’t focus on what is wrong with the situation. Focus only on what you can do about it. Control the controllables, execute, and take immediate action on what you can to influence things in a positive direction. One thing I’ve seen to be true in dire business and personal situations is that even in times of complete hopelessness, if you just focus on taking the step that is immediately in front of you, then the next one appears more clearly, and then the next, and the next. Which is exactly how you climb the CN Tower with 144 flights of stairs.

“That’s how you ‘Take the Stairs’ in the face of adversity. You are a champion. It’s an honor to be partnering with you as your coach to get you and your team to the next level. I’m thrilled that business has picked up since we started working together in the last few months. It’s a testimony to your own self-discipline, your willingness to change, and the result of your intense focus. Keep it up because we’re just getting started.”