New Post - Courage

Hope calls us to confidence.

Courage is available to all.

We must learn and appreciate what matters.

I took the word courage and built an acrostic from it.

Webster says courage is the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear; bravery. Nelson Mandella once said, "I learned that courage was not the abscence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear."

Courage is a good thing when you see it this way:

Confidence matters - the more of it you have the easier it is to take action

Optimism matters - the more of it you have the better your outlook on any action

Understanding matters - the more about any action you know, the easier decisions will be

Relationship matters - the right ones help you make better decisions when faced tough choices

Giftedness matters - being in your strength zone helps you to go further in any endeavor

Empowerment matters - you can never do it alone - others can help you through tough times

Stay focused on your purpose and you can get through any challenge.

NEW POST - ADVERSITY

Life on the Wire is about balancing through life's challenges and adversity. My friend Dario Castiglia who is the Regional Director for RE/MAX Italia sent this to me and I like it alot.

In order for us to win in life, we must push through the adversity we face. Without facing it, we are poorly prepared for winning. The truth is most of us don’t welcome adversity like a long-lost friend. We don’t embrace with passion the pain and setbacks that occur.

Alfred Russell Wallace was a famous botanist of the late 1800s. One day, Dr. Wallace was observing an Emperor butterfly struggling through the life and death adversity of escaping its cocoon. He wondered if he assisted the butterfly in its exit, what effect that would have on the butterfly. With a knife, Dr. Wallace made an incision the length of the cocoon that allowed the butterfly to exit the cocoon with ease. The butterfly emerged from its cocoon, spread its wings, and died. The butterfly did not have to encounter adversity in struggling to exit the cocoon. Through the struggle, the butterfly would have grown in strength. Since it failed to struggle and grow, it did not have the strength necessary to survive.

We often try to make incisions in our challenges and take the easy route. We take the quick exit as this butterfly did and fail to acquire the strength to compete. We often take the easy route to improve our sales skills. We never really work to achieve mastery in sales. To study, practice, craft scripts, and build solid presentations around skills is truly what a sales master would do regularly. It’s very easy to take the incision route of websites, virtual tours, more advertising, lower commissions, unlimited access for our clients and prospects, and many other tools when the market becomes more competitive. When we really have to exit the cocoon without the incision, we die in our cocoon. These tools can be very useful to our career, but they do not replace the skills we need to acquire to compete over the long term.

These skills of discipline, practice, study, qualifying, and presentation are only acquired through facing adversity by trial and error, success and failure. We must focus; learning to be the best in these skills will enable us to be sales masters. Going through the motions is not good enough. Michael Jordan, when asked about why he practiced so hard, said, "I'm not out there sweating for three hours every day just to find out what it feels like to sweat." He was clearly there for a purpose-to prepare, so he could win. He was there to help his teammates prepare to win. George Allen, head coach for the Washington Redskins in the 70s, said, "Winning can be defined as the science of being totally prepared." The skills you need in order to achieve mastery in sales take practice and preparation. The only way to win is to practice. Most people don't win because of better equipment; they win by facing adversity to gain strength and skill. They win through preparation. Does Tiger Woods win because of his golf clubs or golf ball? Tiger could probably play with a K-Mart special set of clubs and tear up the golf course? It's the skill that sets him apart. Strength comes from struggle, not from taking the path of least resistance. Adversity is not just a lesson for the next time in front of us. Adversity will be the greatest teacher we will ever have in life.

Take a quick look at your skills. Are you investing enough time in the improvement of those skills? Let’s take a quick test. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being very poor and 10 being world-class, rate yourself in these 5 basic sales discipline areas.
1. Prospecting
2. Qualifying
3. Daily practice commitment
4. Lead follow up
5. Managing Objections

How did you do? What area needs the most attention? Make the commitment to spend one hour a day to improve the biggest need areas now! Take out your day timer and write an hour in daily to refine or practice or create what needs to be improved.

We all have areas where we fall short. We all fail at times. Abraham Lincoln said, “My great concern is not whether you have failed but whether you are content with your failure". It’s easy to ignore the failure of our skills and blame it on new technology, the market, other Agents, and our broker. We all have prepared and rehearsed reasons that don’t include us. George Bernard Shaw said, “People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.”

What circumstances or outcome do you want? What do you need to do to make them happen? They will not be achieved without working through adversity. You will have to sweat and struggle. It will be worth it in the end. The skill that you acquire will be permanent.

Ultimately, you will be able to say, “It’s not what happens to me that matters but what happens in me.” – Victor Frankl.

Email Solutions for Business Professionals

Without question, when I do seminars based on the material in my New York Times Best Seller, Time Trapshttp://www.amazon.com/Time-Traps-Strategies-Swamped-Salespeople/dp/B000GYI1GU/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272044184&sr=1-3, the number one question I get asked is “How do I deal with email?” The answer is pretty straight forward, “Manage It”.

Mr. Webster tells us that management is handling, controlling, directing. So here are my thoughts on how to do that:

Count the minutes – 100 emails a day @ 3 minutes – that is a whopping 5 hours a day. How much is that costing you?

• Divide your yearly income by 120,000 to get your per minutes wage, which is 250 8-hour days. If you earn $120,000, then your per minute wage is $1.00 per minute. So if you are spending 300 minutes a day on email, that’s $300 per day, or $75,000 a year that being consumed by email is costing you. If you make $240,000 a year, then you can do the math. So how do you manage it?



• Another way to look at this is simply "what would you do with that extra time if it were not consumed by email?"

Check messages at certain times – I check mine at 9:15, 11:15, 1:15 and 2:45. My assistant checks them at 9, 11, 1, and 2:30. By the way, there is no audible sound or a preview pane when a new message arrives because I don’t want to be distracted. She handles everything I can't or don't need to handle.

Make your subject line the message – this forces short and to-the-point communication.
If you need more message content, make the e-mail less than one page – the shorter, the better. Increase your font size to make the message more reader friendly and fill up the page more quickly.

Stop forwarding – start over. This is one of the most important strategies there is. Hundreds of minutes are wasted every year by forwarding forwards and then having to read the threads. While you are at it, stop Replying to All. Up to 80% of Reply to Alls do not need to be read by the people who were copied in the first place.

If you have to forward, indicate to each person why you have. In the body of the email:
i. KEN: I am forwarding this to you because of the expense issue
ii. JIM: I am forwarding this to you because of the operations issue
iii. AMY: I am forwarding this to you because of the calendar issue

Use a paper and pen for a response list then delete the email. Sometimes the best way to handle technology is not to use it. I have a pad next to my keyboard and when I look at emails, I simply write who, and what then delete the email. If it is complex, I print the email first then delete it. Everyday I want to end the day with less than 5 emails left in my in-box

Print out action emails and file into the appropriate folder. My personal rule is that when I check emails, if I can deal with it in less than 30 seconds, I do it then. If it is more complex, I print it out and I have a folder that is marked “Profit” and a folder that is marked “Process”. The Profit folder helps me make money and the Process folder helps me with knowledge and efficiency. The print outs are filed as I go and then I act on them in accordance with my Time Blocking Schedule. If you want to master the art of filing and create massive order in your life and business pick up a copy of David Allen's book, Getting Things Done.http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity/dp/0142000280/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272046172&sr=1-1

Make action requests clear: "Please let me know by 12:00 tomorrow what you’d like me to do." "Let’s clear this up by the end of business tomorrow." "If I don’t hear from you by Friday, I will assume we are good to go." If you are not clear on your end what you want you will get exactly what don’t want.

Ignore it – let’s face it – some emails can be safely deleted immediately.

April 15

I love today
by Todd Duncan

OK – maybe that’s not entirely true. But even though I had to write a couple of checks today for my share of taxes, it sure reminded me that things could be worse. I could be unemployed. I could be homeless. I could be dead. No, thankfully, I am none of those things, and I feel blessed. I know it’s not like that for everyone – but one thing is for certain, this life we have been gifted is a journey of the most significant kind, never to be taken lightly and always to be seized for the opportunity it presents.

I am writing a book of Toddisms – just a working title. These are the things I say and that people write down – I guess that means they like the words, and more importantly, the meaning of the words. Here are a few of my favorites.

1. If you don’t know what’s important you will do the things that aren’t.
2. If you want to be great, pick a date.
3. Small steps over time give you big results in time.
4. If you don’t do something differently, you will be then where you are now only later.
5. It is never a matter of if, only when.
6. Go with your strengths; don’t try to put in what God left out.
7. Your direction is more important than your perfection.
8. The best times pull up is when you are on your way down.

Which one is your favorite? Which one gets you thinking a new way?

I have made a decision that I will spend the rest of my life helping people navigate the challenges they have in their life and that is why sharing these quotes with you is important. Since my first book, The Power To Be Your Besthttp://www.amazon.com/Power-Your-Best-Todd-Duncan/dp/1595553347/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271363000&sr=1-6, I have thought that would be my ultimate direction. But arriving at a point today that it is my new life’s purpose is invigorating and defining.

In my new book, Life on the Wire: Avoid Burnout and Succeed in Work and Life,http://www.amazon.com/Life-Wire-Avoid-Burnout-Succeed/dp/078521898X/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271363000&sr=1-5 hits the book stores on Monday.

I’m very proud of this book and I hope you will read it. I wrote a press piece for it today and I want to share it with you for the balance of this post.

Falling in an uncontrolled spin seemed like a nightmare. Was I dreaming or was it real? I sold my company, and then I was fired. I had a savings account, and then it was gone. My house had equity, but now it had evaporated. My retirement was around the corner, and then I learned I had to keep working. My wife was healthy, and one year later she was gone – cancer. When I awakened, it was real, not a dream, and I realized I was walking the high wire. This was life on the wire and I was desperately trying to stay balanced in a world out-of-control.

How about you? How are you doing? Is everything going ok? How’s your world? Are both feet firmly planted on the ground with a sense of confidence about tomorrow, next week and next year? Or like many, are you feeling the wire wobble as you try to navigate your next steps in life’s important areas. Odds are that something is out of whack, and that if it’s important to you and to those you love, you are trying to figure out the next step, literally, before you fall.

Choose anything – Unemployment is at 9.5%, the highest since Ronald Reagan was President in 1982. For every 6 American’s looking for a job, one exists. Real Estate values of fallen by as much at 77% in some markets in 24 months. One out of every two-hundred homes will be foreclosed upon. Divorce rates have been steadily climbing and one in two will fail. Personal bankruptcies are up by 34% since 2008. And our children will bear a 900 billion dollar a year tab to pay for the debt service the proposed economy, including health care, will cost by 2020.

Don’t fret – this may sound like a foreign language to you – this is the new normal. The only difference is the people who get through this topsy-turvy moment in time in one piece choose the imbalance as a strategy for balance. They may not have asked for it, but it happened. Now it’s time to harness the positivity of a challenged life to seek a greater level of purposeful imbalance – chaos by design and maybe by default. To ignore the opportunity to grow, change, re-prioritize, fix and focus on the good from the bad is to simultaneously decide to “go down in flames.” And, sadly, too many people are choosing this route.

Famed tightrope walker Tine Walled and his family, the Flying Wallendas, have been walking on high wires without nets for nearly a century. When asked how he maintains balance on a wire with nothing but earth beneath him, Tito gently corrects the assumption: “The reality is that you are never actually balanced; you are constantly making small adjustments—moving back and forth—and it’s those constant movements that keep you on the wire. The truth is, if you stand still, you fall.”

The same is true of harmonizing our personal and professional worlds. You are never actually balanced, nor should you try to be. To ensure a more harmonious existence, you must keep yourself moving—carefully teetering and tottering between work and life activities. Like a tightrope walker, you must regularly make adjustments back and forth to keep yourself standing. The key is being purposeful; having sound reasons for everything you do.
The point is that both big and small adjustments are inevitably necessary to maintain work/life harmony. And you cannot be the victim. You must be your own personal super hero, and then the super hero for the people in your life who matter, maintaining among the most important virtues, a sense of perspective – this too will pass.

Eventually the seasons will change. An inevitably something else will come up. This is the natural flow of harmonious living: giving and taking, back and forth between personal and professional activities. Thus, purposeful imbalance—not perfect balance—is the only way you can achieve a gratifying work life without decimating your personal life, and a gratifying personal life without abandoning your career aspirations.

The strategies for getting through tough times vary. But they exist – here’s a few:

• Slowing down is a good idea before you speed up. Assess where you are at. Don’t panic. Look at all the opportunities that exist and decide the one alternative that will give you relief, and allow you to advance more confidently. The key to turning anything around is to get momentum going on your side.

• Cherish what you have lost and embrace what you still have. Maybe your money is gone, but your health and the gift of your life are not. Maybe your spouse has died but the gift of your children remains and her foundation will benefit millions. Maybe you have been fired, but the gift of your skills is still your great asset and someone will always pay you for your skills

• Simply your life to alleviate your stress. Too much going on is not good for navigating tough times. Reducing spending and debt gives you financial breathing room. Moving from two sports to one per child cuts you effort by 50% per child. Enlisting your spouse and building your creative team will yield new ideas and solutions. Downsizing, rightsizing, and emphasizing a simplified life is often the catalyst for the breakthrough you need. Remember, this is temporary.

Henry David Thoreau once said, "If man advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life he's imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours. New and more liberal laws will be his and he will dwell with the licenses of a higher order of being."

I think he had it right. Tomorrow is a new day and one thing is for certain; if you keep moving you will get to the other side!