Category: Business

The Single Greatest Technique for Breaking Through Mental Roadblocks

Mindstorming, also called the 20 Idea Method, is a term that Brian Tracy developed to describe a slight variation of brainstorming. Start with a question/topic, and then write down the first 20 ideas that come to mind. No contemplating, no censoring, no pressure. Just write.

Bassam Tarazi calls it the 5 Minute Exercise. For example, instead of trying to force yourself to “clean up your room,” (the very thought of which undoubtedly stirs up countless unpleasant childhood memories) you set an alarm for 5 minutes, and then do as much as you can before it goes off. The beauty of this is that because of the deadline, there is far less pressure to get started. In other words, the barrier to entry is very low.

Ramit Sethi calls it the 5 minute straight jacket technique. As far as I understand it, in involves sitting down for 5 minutes, and forcing yourself to come up with ideas to solve the particular question you are working on.

See how all these techniques are similar by the way? That’s no accident.

But Shir, 20 ideas sounds like a lot!

It did to me too, at first. But then I started doing it and saw that as long as I don’t censor myself, it’s actually very easy to reach 20 or more ideas. Granted, most ideas are unusable. In fact, sometimes it takes 19 bad ideas to get out of your head to make room for that 1 brilliant idea.

The nuts and bolts of Mindstorming

Even though Brian Tracy doesn’t mention using a timer, I have found it to be extraordinarily effective. And since I work well with music, I decided to play songs without lyrics that lasted for 5 minutes. Here are the 2 that I typically use:

  1. “Cancion Triste” by Jesse Cook
  2. “Fable” by Amethystium

Most often I find myself doing this on the subway, with my noise canceling ear plug-like headphones by Shure. More on how I get work done in the subway in a later post.

Naturally I use my favorite app Outliner, with only the date and the topic of the Mindstorm at the top. Then I open the flood gates of my mind and record whatever gushes out.

So what topics are good for Mindstorming?

Personally I have found the following topics to be perfect for Mindstorming:

  • Preparing questions for an interview or business meeting.
  • Coming up with a name/title for a company, product, book, blog post, or anything creative.
  • Identifying different ways to qualify prospects
  • Uncovering potential business or marketing strategies
  • Creating a list of possible blog topics

Here is a sample of an actual Mindstorming session.

  • 8/29/13 – Questions for [Censored Client Name]’s dashboard requirements
    • What metrics are you currently measuring?
    • How are you measuring these metrics?
    • How are you currently reporting these metrics to clients?
    • How often do you update these reports?
    • How long does each update take, on average?
    • Which metrics are you not measuring that you would like to measure?
    • How many people will be using the dashboard? Will they need to use it at the same time?
    • How important is being able to share the dashboard with others online?
    • Which accounts do you have that contains data you’d like to be included in the dashboard (aside from Google Analytics, and Bing in the future)?
    • What other data do you have that you would like to include in these dashboards? Other databases?
    • How often would you like to be able to review the metrics? Weekly? Daily?
    • If you could have an ideal scenario in terms of dashboards, what would it look like? Please describe.
    • What version of Excel are you using? Mac or PC? Note: must be using PC, I recommend 2010 over 2013. Can’t go back to 2007 though
    • What types of charts would you like to see in your dashboard?
    • If you had to limit your metrics to only the most vital ones, what would they be?
    • What are some additional metrics that would be nice to have?

Sure, there are only 16 ideas here, but this was an excellent jumping board to my Dashboard Requirements Questionnaire (DRQ for short), which I will now use with every client I create dashboards for. Not bad for a 5 minute session! In the past I would have slaved over this for over an hour, or worse yet, not done it at all because I didn’t know where to start.

So let me ask you this…

What do you want to achieve in the next 12 months? It could be professional or personal, whichever is more important to you at this point in your life. Write it down in the form of a question. For example:

“How will I start my own business and earn 6 figures in 12 months?”

-Or-

“How will I be in a committed, loving relationship in 12 months?”

Got it? Awesome!

Now set a timer for 5 minutes. Feel free to play a song if it helps you too. Once that timer starts, DO NOT STOP writing until the 5 minutes have elapsed.

Cool?

Ready. Set. Go!

Don’t Underestimate the Power of Rewards

Earlier this week I found myself strolling through the Highline Park in lower Manhattan. I was waiting to meet a friend and then go see an improv show at the UCB Theater. It’s all part of my “live a balanced life” approach. Not a bad way to spend a Tuesday evening if you ask me.

As I sat on one of the benches, reading Information Dashboard Design by Stephen Few, a father and son sat down next to me. It didn’t take long for the kid to start pestering his father for a popsicle.

“No, you’ve already had your sweets for today.” The father insisted.

The son continued to whine “but dad, I really want one! Please can’t I have one!”

“I said no,” the father replied in a raised voice.

After another minute or so of nagging, something interesting happened. The father rolled his eyes, let out a big sigh, and said “Fine! Go get a popsicle and be quiet” as he handed his son some money.

It didn’t take a degree is psychology to figure out that the father was tired, and probably at the end of his rope. But do you see what he inadvertently did?

By giving in to his son’s whining, he was communicating to his son the following message: if you want something, all you have to do is whine, nag, and be obnoxious, and eventually you’ll get it. In essence, the father was rewarding the very behavior he wanted to avoid.

The trouble is, this behavior will undoubtedly continue because the son felt good as a result of his actions. With his words, the father was saying “don’t nag” but with his actions he was instructing his son “nag and you’ll get what you want.”

This made me think back to Tony Robbin’s PowerTalk series on Creating a Change & Making it Last.

I highly encourage you to check it out. It talks about the laws of conditioning, and how we can unconsciously program ourselves to create new behaviors or modify existing ones by simply using three types of reinforcement: positive, negative, and punishment. The most effective (and most fun) is positive reinforcement, a.k.a. rewards.

Want to modify a small behavior like cleaning your room? Give yourself a small reward like watching half an hour of guilt free television. Want to change a big behavior like going to the gym 3 days a week? Treat yourself to a fancy dinner with friends at the end of the week to celebrate your accomplishment.

Tony Robbins also talks about “jackpot” rewards, the point of which are to prevent the rewards from becoming too predictable (and therefore ineffective). As long as you are staying on track and doing what you need to do, you can administer jackpot rewards like a trip to Europe, or an expensive flatscreen TV (not that I’m trying to put any ideas in your head).

Here are some examples of my rewards:

  • Small Rewards
    • Sour patch candy
    • Can of soda
    • Ice cream (Ben & Jerry’s)
    • Chocolate
    • Beer/wine
    • Watch Tango videos
    • Go on Facebook for 5 minutes
  • Medium Rewards
    • Dinner in a nice restaurant
    • Fun Groupon
    • Wine tasting
    • Buy something from Amazon wish list (under $50)
    • Stand up comedy DVDs
    • Running shoes
  • Big Rewards
    • Trapeze lesson on the Hudson for 2
    • Massage – deep tissue or swedish, 1 hour
    • Big technology purchase
  • JACKPOT Rewards
    • New mattress – full sized Tempurpedic
    • Vacation in Italy!

So how did I stay on track with these?

I put a task in my todo list to dish out small rewards daily, medium rewards weekly, bigger rewards monthly, and jackpot rewards sporadically.

It’s a little strange seeing as how I’m the one administering it to myself, but it’s still having a positive impact. If nothing else, it forces me to look at what I did each day and acknowledge my accomplishments.

Rewards in action

One of the biggest challenges I was facing this year was to create my first online Excel course. It was a monumental undertaking, and I was determined to see it through. To help motivate myself even further, I put up a sign behind my desk that read “ONLINE COURSE” with a sticky note identifying my reward.

Rewards Desk Sign rotated

I even went the extra step and scheduled the massage for a few days after my course was scheduled to launch. It’s a good thing too, seeing as how on the day of the launch, I had a string of negative thoughts pop into my head:

“I could have done better.
I still need to add the other lectures I didn’t finish.
I still have parts 2-5 of the course to worry about.”

But then the evening of my reward came along, and let me tell you, it’s impossible to be hard on yourself when you’re being massaged by a professional. By the way, the spa is called Rhemedy by Rhed, and I can’t sing their praises loudly enough. Judie is absolutely outstanding!

Anyway, the point is that sometimes I had trouble acknowledging my own achievements, so it’s important to force myself to remember on an unconscious level by giving myself rewards for good work. Ultimately it motivates me further, and allows me to enjoy the journey more. And isn’t that what life is all about?

It should come as no surprise that I’m creating a habit of it, and rewarding myself with another massage for each new online course that I launch. Can’t wait for the next one!

But enough about me, how about you?

What are some challenges you currently want to overcome? What are some behaviors you’d like to modify? And most fun of all, what are some rewards you can give yourself when you succeed?

How I Stay Wildly Effective with Wildly Important Goals

I first came across Stephen Covey in an interview he had with marketing genius Jay Abraham. I immediately liked what I heard and decided to find other work by Stephen Covey. It didn’t take me long to discover his “7 Habits of Highly Effective People“. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? (<– amusingly rhetorical question)

In it, Stephen Covey talks about the concept of Wildly Important Goals, also known as WIGs. Essentially they refer to your goals that are so important that they rise above all the rest. The ones that must be achieved, or nothing else you achieve really matters.

To illustrate this point, allow me to reference Tim Ferris’s quote about the difference between being effective vs. efficient:

“Effectiveness is doing the things that get you closer to your goals. Efficiency is performing a given task (whether important or not) in the most economical manner possible. Being efficient without regard to effectiveness is the default mode of the universe.”

Turns out I’m a bit of an efficiency nut, and I used to fall into the trap of getting a lot of work done, only to realize at the end of the day that I didn’t even touch the big project that I needed to get to. Email was notorious for sucking me in to unimportant minutia. More on how I tamed the email beast in a later post.

Instead of being proactive, making a game plan for the day, and accomplishing our goals, the vast majority of us (my old self included) would assume a very reactive role. “Ah, an email just came in! I need to stop what I’m doing and answer it!” Do you though? Really?

So anyway, Stephen Covey hit the nail on the big ‘ol head with this. He talked about creating WIGs for the year, the quarter, the month, and then narrowing it down to that upcoming week. Part of the genius here is starting with the big picture.

Bassam Tarazi introduced it to me as the Big Hairy Audacious Goal. You know, the one that gives us butterflies, and we would uncork the champagne we’ve been saving for the past 3 years if we finally got it done.

Yeah, that one.

So start from the big picture, and then reverse engineer it to determine what actions I need to take this week in order to get there.

It’s funny, but I didn’t realize how long I had been doing this until I recently showed it to a friend.

Here is a look back to my first WIGs (10/19/11)

  • Goals for the YEAR
    • Earn $1 million in gross income by Jan 1st, 2013
    • Hire 2-5 employees for Shir Consulting
  • Goals for the QUARTER
    • Get first 3 paying clients for Shir Consulting
    • Earn $12,000 net per month by Jan 1st, 2012
  • Goals for the MONTH
    • Pitch Shir Consulting to at least 10 prospects
  • Goals for the WEEK
    • Create a preliminary portfolio of previous work
    • Create an ideal client profile
    • Brainstorm at least 5 completely different sources of new prospects
    • Create 2-3 versions of a sales pitch
    • Set up a system for Learning DAILY!
    • Surround yourself with mentors & like-minded

Sure, I didn’t quite reach my ambitious financial targets. And you know what, that’s OK.

Because this much I know for sure: I wouldn’t have made nearly as much progress had I not had these goals. After all, how can we ever reach our final destination if we have no idea where we are going?

How I stay on track with my WIGs

It should come as no surprise that I believe in the power of affirmations, and as a result I have recited my WIGs out loud daily since I began almost 2 years ago.

I usually say them at my desk right before I start working. It’s a nice way to set the tone for the rest of the day. I know where I’m going long term, and I know exactly how I’m going to get there by choosing to work on the most important things first.

I’ve had a lot of time to experiment with this, and I have found that when I accomplish my WIGs early in the day or early in the week, I am not only more productive, but I am also dramatically happier. I feel so far ahead of the game, that everything else I do after that is a pure bonus.

I also schedule a weekly time to change the WIGs, always leaving a historical record of what my WIGs were each week. Most times the long term goals stay the same from week to week, but occasionally I’ll come up with something new.

Tune in next week when I discuss the wildly enjoyable topic of WIG rewards, inspired by Tony Robbins.

Lastly, I leave you with my WIGs as of today

  • 10 YEAR – 12/31/22 (Age 36)
    • Net worth of $50 Million
    • Be in a committed relationship with someone who challenges & inspires me every single day, while keeping me on my toes
    • Enrich the quality of life for millions of people in the field of personal development
    • Travel the world to give talks and teach millions of people
    • Create a school to help people achieve excellence
  • 5 YEAR – 12/31/17 (Age 31)
    • Net worth of $20 Million
    • Own two condos in NYC (bar, dance floor, recording studio, breathtaking views)
    • Purchase homes for my mom, dad, and brother
    • Help millions of people become more productive with technology
    • Surround myself with a team of expert coaches in every area of life
  • 2 YEAR – 12/31/15 (Age 29)
    • Net worth of $500,000
    • Earn $45,000 net per month from Excel products
    • Reach 5,000 subscribers for ExcelShir blog
    • Reach 500 VIP Do-Gooders for Excel it Forward
  • YEAR – 12/31/14 (Age 28)
    • Net worth of $100,000
    • Earn $12,000 net per month from Excel products
    • Convert all former Skillshare classes into online classes
    • Reach 1,000 subscribers for ExcelShir Blog
    • Reach 100 VIP Do-Gooders for Excel it Forward
  • QUARTER – 12/31/13
    • Publish Excel Mastery Course parts 2 & 3
    • Set up Excel it Forward blog & measurement back end system
  • MONTH – 9/30/13
    • Edit and publish Excel Mastery Course Part 1 conclusion lectures
    • Submit [client name] Dashboard v01 no later than 9/25/13
  • WEEK – 9/14/13
    • Create flexible hand ranking system for Beyond Tells project
    • Create final notes & scripts for Excel Mastery Course Part 1 conclusion lectures
    • Spend 5 hours on [client name] dashboard project
    • Publish ExcelShir blog post

How about you? What are you going to achieve in 5 years? And how specifically are you going to get there?

Excel it Forward

Have you seen the movie Pay it Forward? If you haven’t, go watch it. If you have, watch it again!

The idea is simple. When someone does a good deed, don’t pay it back. Instead, pay it forward to someone else.

In a nutshell, Excel it Forward is the Pay it Forward phenomenon, measured.

Okay great, but what the hell does that mean Shir?

Well, imagine every good deed that you give or receive being recorded into a giant spreadsheet, with the ability to sort and filter by any criteria you want.

Want to see what types of good deeds you performed? Want to see who you helped inspire to start performing good deeds of their own? Where did they spread to geographically? How long did it take for 100 deeds to occur daily?

In my head I’m already seeing this all as an interactive Excel dashboard. And let me tell you, a more beautiful site, I have not seen. (Not sure why I just turned into Yoda for a second there)

I know it’s still very vague, and the truth is, I’m not really sure exactly what Excel it Forward is going to be or what it will look like. Or even, how it’s going to work from a logistical standpoint.

But that’s OK, because contrary to my old belief system, I do not need to have all the answers before getting started.

So how did it come to be?

By this point I’m sure you’ve all heard of the Sandy Hook elementary school tragedy

In the wake of the tragedy, Ann Curry decided to start a campaign of 26 random acts of kindness. I first found out about it through @ohjefframos’s tweet:
https://twitter.com/ohjefframos/status/281526858284163076#

There he links to the Buzzfeed article that originally sparked the idea for Excel it Forward:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/26-random-acts-of-kindness

I saw this tweet on 12/21/12, which ironically enough was supposed to be “The End of the World” according to the Mayan calendar. Glad that didn’t happen.

My first thought was to hand out 26 Metrocards on the subway, and take a big group photo. But then I thought to myself “OK, that’d be nice, but where would it go from there?”

Something was missing

What if I found a way to be more systematic about it? Cause, you know, I’m a pretty systematic person. (*ahem* understatement of the century)

It would be particularly gnarly (in the good sense of course) to see exactly how the good deeds spread. I envisioned an Excel spreadsheet where I could see how many people I inspired to do good deeds, and then how many people those people inspired, and so on and so forth.

For the first time in human history, we would finally be able to visualize the ripple effect of acts of kindness, in real time.

Whoa.

That’s when things got exciting.

All I would need is a simple, non-obtrusive way to record the act of kindness

It would have been nice to record everything about the deed itself, but that would make the process prohibitively complicated. So, to narrow it down to its most essential elements, all I really needed was: who, when, where, what, and how.

  • Who? Do-Gooder ID, and Referred by ID
  • When? Timestamp (automatically recorded)
  • Where? Location (city, state, country, zip)
  • What? Good deed type
  • How? Good deed description

I also thought about including a picture, since it would be nice to see the deed in some way. After all, that’s how the #26acts was done as well. And you know what they say…

Why put off til next year what you can do today?

The interesting thing about Excel it Forward movement is that I didn’t think I’d be able to start it for at least a few years. I would say to myself:

“I have a lot of different projects going on right now.”

“I want to set the foundation and really get this right, so that when it takes off I’ll be completely ready for it.”

In other words…blah blah excuses blah.

Finally, after talking about it with several people, I decided to take the plunge on June 1st, 2013. I realized I would never be completely ready, and it would never be an ideal time, so why not seize the moment and go for it.

And go for it I did

I did not have a logo. I did not have a comprehensive system in place to record the good deeds. All I did have was a Google form with a few questions:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/11UTG9ktmXSoVtdbu9nFhZwxaoCqaViTpzYhes_vUQsw/viewform

This linked to the following Google spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0ArFM8myDQfP3dGFXa0J1blpVcktFS05QUUk5cXdkVmc&output=html

I also created a tumblr account, which seemed like a natural choice, because after all, tumblr is a microblogging platform.

My very first good deed was taping a $5 metrocard to an MTA vending machine: http://excelitforward.tumblr.com/post/51919639452/officially-completed-the-first-good-deed-of-the

After a few days of using the Google form, which was annoying to fill out on the spot, (and therefore made it less likely for anyone to actually follow through and perform the good deeds…myself included), I decided to streamline the process a bit.

I decided to use IFTTT.com, recommended to me by Achievement Architect Ari Meisel. IF This Then That simply automates things on the internet for you, based on the triggers you set. It’s actually quite simple, and remarkably powerful.

I searched high and low for a way to trigger an automatic action using twitter, but there was none to be found. Thankfully I was able to trigger the event using tumblr.

Here is a link to the recipes I use to make it happen:
https://ifttt.com/people/sheershir

Excel it Forward frequency

At first I was super dedicated to performing at least 1 good deed every day. And for 2.5 months I did just that. After about 2 months though, I began feeling anxious and stressed at the prospect of coming up with another good deed every day.

That’s when I had a conversation with maymay, where he helped me see that the stress was actually taking away from the genuine nature of the good deed itself. I was becoming more concerned about filling my quota than improving someone else’s life. As soon as that happened, it was defeating the entire purpose of Excel it Forward. Check out the bottom of this post for the unedited notes after my conversation with maymay.

I immediately lifted the requirement on myself to perform a good deed every single day, and allowed myself the flexibility to perform a good deed when the opportunity arose.

The benefit is that there is no more stress associated with it for me, and as a result each deed is more genuine, natural, and ultimately more helpful.

The back end system

Shockingly, at the time of this post I still don’t have a system in place to record other people’s good deeds. I thought of teaching other people how to set up their own tumblr and link it to their twitter, and google spreadsheet using IFTTT. That probably would be too many steps for most people though. Plus I would then have the problem of linking everyone’s disparate spreadsheets together.

After discussing it with Georges Janin the next logical step is to develop a system that captures the good deed using tools that people are already familiar with. The most obvious choice is Twitter. I am very close to creating a system that grabs the latest twitter activity for #excelitforward and adds a row in my spreadsheet with their username, timestamp, and the tweet itself (describing the deed).

As far as I see it, the moral of the story is that things don’t have to be perfect before trying them out and actually taking action. In fact, it’s better to just dive in and adjust as you go.

Wouldn’t you agree?

Final notes

As it stands now, the Excel it Forward website http://excelitforward.com just has the latest 20 deeds as a news feed, and a link to the Google spreadsheet. Eventually I’m going to give clear instructions for anyone to start performing and recording their good deeds.

In the meantime, what do you think of Excel it Forward? Conceptually, philosophically, logistically, I’m always looking for ways to improve. Thanks!

As promised, here are the unedited notes after my conversation with maymay on 8/14/13.

“There’s really no need to do a good deed every day, and by attempting to do so I am actually making the deeds come off as forced and disingenuous. Meitar gave me specific feedback on the “told someone they had a beautiful smile” and said that while he was sure my intention was good, it could have come off as a back handed compliment in a way. Instead of me complimenting someone, it was as if I was complimenting myself for complimenting them. I see that, and even felt something was off about it. But as I told him, and he knew anyway, this is very much a work in progress and I am still experimenting and adjusting constantly.

Then he told me the story of Cleveland Ohio and how the chain of good deeds led up to all the incredible things that happened to him in the past few weeks. They were all so seemingly random and magical, and had one of them not happened the way they did it wouldn’t have led to the next piece. He used the analogy of the Tetris Attack chain combos. You can’t have the last one without all the previous ones. And that’s also what makes the last one so impressive and powerful, is that everything had to be in place perfectly to lead up to that moment.

The real essence of excel it forward isn’t about measuring, he argued. And I agree, nobody cares about measuring good deeds (except for data nerds like me). If anything they feel inauthentic if they are doing it to get measured (and then praised later).

Instead, the focus must be on REMEMBERING the good deeds. Uncovering the stories behind the deeds, and seeing what led up to each one. Seeing how far the chain can go. The other thing he mentioned was the mindset and message is something like “look for good deeds and remain open to them throughout your day, and magical things will happen to you.”

If anything it’s very spiritual and all about the law of attraction and karma. It can’t be forced though, which is precisely what I was doing, and why I was having such a hard time with it lately. I knew it happened for a reason. Even the Hershey kisses idea wasn’t working. They were like “so what.”

Now the pressure is off, I can write about the entire process and evolution of the idea, and the real fun can begin.”

Constant And Never-ending Improvement (CANI)

For those of you who don’t know Tony Robbins, stop what you’re doing (yes, that means reading this post) and familiarize yourself with his body of work.

Great, now that that’s taken care of I can share how Tony Robbins helped start a chain reaction of self-tracking in my life.

It began with the power talk series. One of my former salsa students (back when they used to call me “Gringo Salsero”) whom I made a particularly strong connection with recommended that I invest in myself. He specifically recommended an interview that Tony Robbins had with marketing genius Jay Abraham and it has been one of the best investments I have made. Check out the Power Talk series specifically.

In “A Decision to Ensure Success” one of the concepts was that of CANI (Constant and Never-ending Improvement). To systematically and incrementally enhance the main areas of my life, so that when I look back in 6 months, or a year, I can see quantum leaps in my personal and professional growth. Brian Tracy talks about this concept as well, but he calls it the 1000% Formula, which is based on the Law of Incremental Improvement. In any event, the assignment at the end of the disc was to write down 3 things every day: what did I learn, improve, and enjoy?

At the time I was already using the CarbonFin Outliner app for iPhone and iPad. What better way to stay ridiculously organized than to record my daily CANI entries in outline form? Match made in heaven, right? I thought so too.

The day was August 2nd, 2011. Little did I know that I would begin a journey of self tracking that would result in a daily ritual of tracking 9 separate metrics (more to come on those in future posts).

What worked so well about this structure for me, was the fact that it was super simple, and completely NOT intimidating. Just record 3 things each day. I could have written 1-2 sentences for each, and been done in 90 seconds. As you might have guessed however, that’s not how it went down.

Since I live in Washington Heights, I have a rather long subway ride to get home. This has always been a blessing for me, since the subway is one of the most productive work spaces ever. Where’s your most productive space? Never thought about that before? Might want to start that conversation with yourself.

Instead of riding the subway home and being bored to tears, or passing the time with mindless games that do not add any value to my life (no offense Angry Birds, but what have you given me? Really?), I began writing 2-3 paragraphs for each. It was a perfect way to pass the time, and also served as my daily journal.

At first it was a little challenging to come up with something for each of the 3 questions, but I quickly realized that I was ALWAYS learning, improving, and enjoying myself. It was just a matter of identifying them. What’s more, the best part about this process was that I found myself going about my days actively seeking things to learn, improve, and enjoy.

Believe in the law of attraction? Yeah, it was kind of like that. Tony Robbins talks about it too. What you focus on, you become.

In the words of Charles Duhigg, writing down the answers to my 3 CANI questions was the “keystone habit.” The habit that started all my other habits, and made it easier to track other things about myself. I got so good in fact, that I adopted the habit of starting new habits. And if that doesn’t blow your mind…you should watch the movie Inception. Dreams within dreams within dreams…epic.

Once again, thank you Tony Robbins.

Thought I was going to finish this post without giving you a sample of my first CANI log entry?

I’m not that much of a tease 😉

8/2/11

Learn

Learned that I need to stay out all day and only return home with just enough time to wind down (maybe) eat, and pretty much go to bed. If I am home early and I’m tired, it doesn’t work out well because it’s too early to go to sleep, but I’m too tired to be productive.
Also learned to take airborne at the first sign of sickness (even if just a scratchy throat)

Improve

Improved the way I’m living my life by adopting and incorporating the philosophy of CANI into my daily routine.
Improved the Shir Consulting Process from Karl’s 7 or 11 step strategic process from his work PowerPoints.
Improved the way I delegate tasks at work. I gave Rachel the task of calling Verizon which saved me a lot of time.

Enjoy

Enjoyed hearing my boss say that I’ve done an excellent job and knowing that I am doing a phenomenal job at not only fixing the mistakes and bringing more value to the company, but also COMMUNICATING so amazingly well that he is overjoyed with the amount of value that I bring to him and his company.
Enjoyed starting CANI questions.