Success Coaching for Men

To me, being nice means trying to make someone feel good without respect for what actually needs to be said.

Loving, on the other hand, means speaking honestly and directly, in a caring and respectful way.

Nice is easy.

Loving is hard.

Choose to be loving.

I can quickly tell you what’s wrong with something. I am trying to train myself to do this instead:
1. ‘What’s right about this is…’ or ‘What I like about this is…’
2. AND (not ‘but’), ________________ (insert what needs improvement aka. what’s wrong)

I’m training myself to get concerned when I feel comfortable. Why? Because right after comfortable is a dangerous place called ‘bored.’

Try to be just as good at getting curious enough to see if they are really valid.

Not the one in your bathroom. I’m talking about the one that reflects back to you something in your own life when you criticize or complain about something in others. Or the one that reveals your inauthenticities and shortcomings when you’re busy pointing them out in others. That mirror is a hard one to look into.

Just not very rewarding. Turn it around by taking responsibility and creating your future.

I once loved entering/updating my sales deals in a CRM (Customer Relationship Management software program.) I loved tracking my metrics and seeing them change over time as I pumped in more and more data.

Then, I started dreading it. I thought it was mundane, boring, mind numbing – I put it off. I tried to enter hundreds of activities and updates all in one shot after they filled up to overflowing. This made me hate it even more.

One day, I finally clued in: the CRM needs to be updated so my boss, my boss’ boss, and my boss’ boss’ boss know what the heck is going on. The company needs to forecast and plan and have enough resources and people to service the business. The shareholders want assurances of a decent return on their investment, a byproduct of profitability.

Duh – keeping the CRM update is really not about me.

I haven’t watched or listened to it for years. And I don’t think I have missed anything.

Here’s how my mind works sometimes…

A. If you do something annoying, there’s a good reason for it: you’re an annoying person.

B. If I do something annoying (maybe even the same thing), there’s a good reason: it was something I needed to do.

Obviously, this is crazy.

You probably know that I love running. When I first started, my goal was to run every day – I didn’t keep track of anything else. I did it. I ran for 45 days straight.

Then, a runner asked me a fairly simple running question: how many kilometres do you run per week? I didn’t know.

‘What?,’ he said?

I shrugged my shoulders.

‘You’re not a runner until you know how far you’re running,’ he said.

Five minutes later, I found an iPhone app that keeps track of all my runs (mileage, pace, etc.)

Much better.