To begin with the end in mind is to begin with the image of the end of your life as the frame of reference by which everything else is measured. -Steven Covey

Why do we do the things we do? Play the games we like? Hang with the people we’re attracted to? Why do we pursue the intellectual pursuits that intrigue us? What are we really after? Why are there so many top selling books on leadership and finding your big why, yet most of us are still adrift? With formal education costs outpacing inflation, why is there no push back? We continue to jump on planes in search of the next guru that has figured it all out so we can just plug and play and live out our dreams. Is it working?

The Internet is only complicating the issue as now everybody and anybody with a video camera, a social media clue and a voice can now wax on poetic about any and all subjects. They all seem to have some great ideas so it’s easy to jump from lily pad to lily pad hoping for bigger, fatter and juicier flies. So we ask again, how’s it going? Are we bigger, stronger, faster and smarter? How about happy and fulfilled? Even more challenging, can we really recognize our arrival at the desired outcome in such a dynamic world that seems to move the finish line all around?

Well let’s back up and try to consider why “getting there” is such an important concept to begin with. Our obsession with competition is obvious in the way we view athletic events and other competitions. We reward the conquerors with blue ribbons, trophies, cash and most importantly recognition. One of the most important human needs is to feel and be significant , but how do we do that? Now throw in the complication of what makes us attain significance? Is it fame, recognition, money or power and why do we choose any of these as the benchmarks?

So where does this really put us? How about dazed, confused, paralyzed, and lost! We need a way out of this craziness so perhaps we can find a better direction for our lives and discover a peace with ourselves along the way. This week the question was posed, what gets us through all of the pitfalls of life? My simple reaction was passion. When we ask what we’re passionate about it’s usually an easy answer. Passion is found in the things we think about all the time. It’s the center of the story that begins, if I could only do one thing the rest of my life it would be…fill in the blank.

Once you say this out loud you get reconnected to your definite chief aim in life. Once you accept your primary reason for being, you transcend embarrassment so that you’re no longer pressured to live somebody else’s dream or opinion of who you should be. Once freed, you can block out all that noise and magnetically attract only the resources you’ll need to accomplish your ultimate goal. You see, if you’ll only envision who you want to be in the end when everything goes right, you can simplify your life by simply focusing on your own bullseye!

The greatness comes not when things go always good for you. But the greatness comes when you’re really tested, when you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes. -Richard Nixon

We all work so hard so that some day we can be comfortable. You know, that place in life when you can live worry free. Maybe you’re picturing a time where you can save so much money, that you can live off of the dividends and pursue your supposed heart’s desires. Maybe you’ve already made it there or were lucky enough to be born into financial freedom. Whatever the case may be, we seem to all be measuring ourselves against the goal of sitting back on the porch with a cool glass of ice tea just watching time go by without a care in the world.

However, is this really what we’re after? Who says it’s so great? How did we set that as the benchmark for success? I remember reading a fascinating book called the Okinawa Program that revealed why such a high percentage of Okinawans live beyond 100 years. While diet played a big role, the most significant revelation was that many of them reinvented themselves over the course of their lives. Rather then retiring, they often had up to 4 different careers.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dreamed of living multiple lives to come back and try a wide variety of opportunities and here was a bunch of people doing it in just one lifetime and being rewarded with longevity! How can that be most of us would say? Don’t we all start to wind down in our seventies if we even make it that far? Plus where would we get all that energy to keep on keeping on? Working and grinding to figure out new uncharted waters? Why in the world do that?

Why would these “elderly” people care to test themselves like that? It’s impossible to compete with the young and adapt to all the new ways of living and making our way. Isn’t this why we have Social Security in the U.S. so we can pass the baton to the next generation who owes the last ten fingers into retirement? The Okinawans might argue that this is actually just helping us into the grave a bit sooner.

How about some of the most competitive amongst us like professional athletes? Only when they’re really tested do they see what is truly possible. You see it on their faces as they overcome the seemingly impossible. What’s even more compelling is that many of us will pay big bucks just to sit in the arena and witness the test. We might even shed a tear or two as we celebrate the incredible fortitude of our fellow man to go so far.

So what’s the point? Without being tested you’ll never really grow. Sure you can be moving the agenda forward and sometimes end up on greased rails sailing easily through life, but until you get pushed to the edge you’ll never really know who you are. Some of us never really stumble into any real setbacks so we have to go in search of them. We have to go down to the corner and pick a fight with life and our own comfort zone. Why look back on life in the final hours only to realize that you never really took your sword into the arena and called out the Challenger? Test yourself and LIVE!

One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular. -Tony Robbins

So what are you willing to give up? Take a moment to look around at all of the things you have and start considering what you could part with. Your favorite jeans? Your HD TV? Your new car? What would you do without all those things? Then go deeper. How about your pet? Your family member? Would you ever consider being the next martyr and lay your own life on the line?

This might seem like a dramatic exercise, but maybe one we need to consider more often. In my business there’s a constant reference to farming. The type where you pick an area you’d like to do more business in and then focus on that geography. It’s a an interesting concept that keeps in perspective that although we aren’t growing crops, we are indeed trying to make a living from our proverbial farm.

So back to the challenge. What would you be willing to give up in your life? You see the reason this becomes a critical question is because when you try to have it all, you lose focus and when you lose focus your result becomes dissipated and you end up with a thin crop. Let’s consider the farmer who wants to grow corn, beans and wheat. Throw in some live-stock; cattle, chicken and perhaps a few sheep for good measure.

Now the farmer has to become a master of many things. Spread thinly, there is plenty of corn, but he doesn’t quite get to picking it all before it begins to rot and the crows start to peck away at a free meal. The wheat starts to wilt and the beans just don’t seem to grow in abundance. Over at the barn, the chickens are running wild and the eggs are all over the place, not to mention that the fox has had a field day while the wolf has also had his fill of sheep and cattle.

It’s all so exasperating trying to keep up with it all, that maybe the farmer begins to doubt his abilities and thinks about selling the whole farm at a deep discount just to get his ADD back under control. He yearns for the day where there wasn’t so much noise and all he wants is a return to peace of mind even if it means living a much simpler life.

Yet maybe before taking any drastic measures, the farmer should just step outside the ring and reconsider the big picture. Maybe then he recognizes that originally the farm was all about corn. Back then the yield was extraordinary and the farmer was known as the best in the region. Profits were great and the savings were plentiful. Why not just refocus on that?

In a world filled with shiny objects it’s so easy to be distracted. Maybe the farmer’s first mistake was buying that fancy TV that opened his world to attack. Maybe all those marketers made the simple farmer believe that he was somehow way behind the crowd and needed to diversify his portfolio to keep up with the Joneses. So maybe what the farmer needs to give up is anything and everything that has poisoned his self-belief. In fact, maybe it’s time we all stepped back and looked at our own farms to see if they need a little bit of refocus and a good dose of elbow grease?

To be humble to superiors is duty, to equals courtesy, to inferiors nobleness. -Benjamin Franklin

So it’s all about survival of the fittest. Kill or be killed. Only the strong will survive. Evolution will deliver up the most dominant species. This is the stuff of great bravado. We love it when Hollywood puts together those great action stories filled with battles and strength. We all hope to be so strong, so we cheer for the warriors as they hack their way to the top. We even wake up the next day feeling like a beast, ready to conquer anything that comes our way.

Yet in the same breath, what about all those stories that have nothing to do with muscle. The other side of the coin stuff that evokes our empathetic side when we’re moved by stories of the humble. People that emerge from the back of the pack in such a subtle and unassuming way that make us wonder how could they have been so strong without all the pushing and shoving.

So we must question, what is actually stronger? Muscle or humility? First let’s consider what each really consists of. Muscle seems too easy and simple. It’s foundation is very dominant and self-serving. Either join up with muscle or be run over and even if you’re strong yourself, you might be forced to line up behind all the alphas who have no interest in giving up or sharing the throne.

On the other hand there is the more complex and confusing humility. How could we even compare it to muscle as it seems rooted in anything but strength. Aren’t the humble counted amongst the insignificant. Are there even enough tales of humble leadership to make the comparison? What interest would you have in a story that pits muscle against humility? It’s an unfair fight…or is it.

The other day, I was introduced to the story of a great runner. Now if you know anything about running history, you might think about how Roger Bannister used strategy and ultimately muscle to power his way to a sub 4 minute mile for the first time in history. Yet everybody who was focused on the feat at the time knew it was coming as the quest was high profile and perhaps muscular. There is however, an even more compelling running story, but you have to dig deeper or you’d go a life time without knowing.

During the early 1960s, an obscure runner of Native American descent was preparing to take on some of the greatest runners in the world at the 1964 summer Olympics in Tokyo. On paper, the 10,000 meter world champion Ron Clark of Australia, seemed to be the no-brainer favorite. During the race, the soft spoken American seemed an afterthought as he would have to run a full 50 seconds faster than his best time ever. As the bell lap began, he found himself at the front of the pack only to be nudged aside by the champion as he stumbled into the outside lane. To add insult to injury, a third runner, muscled them both aside and took the lead down the back stretch. The outcome seemed a forgone conclusion.

Until it changed in an instance. Somewhere, humility cried out for the spotlight. The arena raised up as the American floated way out into he third lane and quietly turned the running world on its ear. As the humble hero crossed the line, he heard a Japanese official trying to ask him a question. Turns out like the rest of the world he was yelling, “Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?” Now he’ll always be known as Billy Mills, the 1964 10,000 meter Olympic champion, just a humble guy who found his way to the front.

Believe you can and you’re halfway there. -Teddy Roosevelt

So it’s official. It’s no longer okay to be human. You can’t fall down any more. Mistakes are no longer allowed and will cost you a game misconduct. Oh and if you dare to step out into the limelight and you trip and fall, be prepared for the onslaught. The masses are all now preaching from the top of the high and mighty mountain. Everybody is a critic justified in their own self-righteousness.

Not sure what we’re talking about? Just take a look at the latest American political debates. It’s been reduced to a third grade level of “he-said, she said.” People in positions of strength in the media, yes on both sides of the isle, have been reduced to name-callers with multi-million dollar paycheks. This of course simply tells us all that we can’t get enough of the free-for-all as we continue to support it by watching and listening.

Yet the real question begs, is it all just noise without an effect or is it tearing us to shreds? Have you ever wondered how many wonderful minds are sitting on the sidelines of life not willing to venture forward with their ideas or thoughts because the collective insecurity of the masses is waiting to devour them? Who doesn’t have some embarrassing blemish in their past or resume? So why jump into the fray only to be further chastised and publicly humiliated for being something less than a pre-programmed automaton? We have enough pain and struggle in life, so why voluntarily throw ourselves headlong into the lion’s den?

So let’s consider the impact. We complain about who we can choose to lead us, yet we’re the first to join the mob of character assassins when anybody comes forward with a different slant. So now we have perpetuated a system controlled by the few with the big purse strings and the strangle hold on organization and power…either join up or be tossed aside. What happened to cheering for the underdog…where are all the new leaders we cry!

So the ground swells until there’s a revolution of some sort. Bring down the monarchy here, there and everywhere. These grass roots uprisings seem to be our only hope for debate, yet even then we smash the conversation. We’re more comfortable with the status quo of hiding under the sheets, who needs any noise whatsoever…it’s not that bad after all.

So what’s the point? We’re victims of our own punches. Instead of evolving even faster, we’re a drag on our own growth and development. Mentors? Really? where are they all? You can go a whole lifetime without ever finding somebody who truly wants to lend you 10 fingers over the fence. Where are all these supposed giants whose shoulders we can stand on to get to the next level? Seems like most of them in power are only interested in self-aggrandizement so they can fill their coffins with all the gold they can accumulate…modern day King Tuts.

The other day somebody told me that the biggest demand for speakers is in the category of leadership. Are we all surprised that we’re begging to be lead by some bold, fearless leader that emerges from the mist riding a white horse with all the answers? Instead I lay down this challenge. Stop pointing your finger at anybody who thinks differently. Stop running your mouth in secrecy or hidden behind the latest anonymous social media tools. Emerge from your darkened chambers and lead. You don’t need to start with anybody but you. Nobody is coming for you but you yourself. So step up and utter these simple words: Today I will lead me!

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

So where is it? It has to be there somewhere. Didn’t we have it a couple of times before? Where the heck did we leave it? Think. Remember that time when you felt it? It welled up inside you so strongly that you felt electric. The feeling was so strong that it lasted the whole day. You even went to sleep with a smile on your face and slept like a brick. Pure euphoria.

The next day you still felt it. Your friends and family seemed to be treating you differently. Your business was thriving. It seemed like you had some sort of magnetic pull. Nothing could go wrong. Yet as the days wear on, you notice the positive vibe is cooling down until one day you just can’t seem to find it. You certainly can remember it, but somehow it’s nowhere to be found.

What is it that we’re looking for again? Oh that’s right…it’s our best. The person that seems to emerge once in a blue moon only to be subdued by the magnetic pull of mediocrity. We can’t say that it’s been defeated because it does in fact come round the way once in a while to do some amazing things. Remember the time when it showed up when the gremlins had you pinned to the ground?

Your best came and took up the sword and slayed the dragon. The crowd cheered and crowned the victor only to see it disappear once again in to the mist. Why does it come and go like that? It frustrates us and we get so mad that we condemn it and call it a trickster and a deliverer of false hope. If your best were real then why in the world would it be so disloyal? Cheating us of that great feeling…what a tease. It’s comings and goings can be so maddening that we might slip into a complete melt down over its departure.

But wait a minute. Does your best really have the ability to come and go as it pleases? Is it really subject to the forces of luck, emerging only when the stars align? Or is the truth that we actually let it slip away. Maybe our best recognized the cold shoulder and slipped out the back door while nobody was looking. Maybe our best was embarrassed.

You see, our best can be so good to us that we can become intoxicated by what it delivers. As we sit and revel in that temporary glory, our best grows restless as it begs for more challenge like a child tugs on your arm to play. Yet neglected both eventually move off in their own direction in pursuit of a playmate.

While it requires great energy to pay attention and nurture your best, it’s simply a game worth playing. The best news is that your best is adaptable and always open to new challenges even when it requires the development of new skills. So stop ignoring your best, because if it weren’t for its existence you would have never known the reward of those great moments.

And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years. -Abraham Lincoln

The world is inundated with quotes about never giving up. Stories abound about athletes and performers who continue to struggle against all odds. People get knocked down all the time only to get back up again and again. However, has anybody ever stepped backed and asked why is all this struggle worth it?

What the heck are we all pushing for? Didn’t Dr. Freud make us all aware of the no-brainer flight towards pleasure and away from pain? So why get kicked in the teeth over and over? Why all the human bravado? It’s so nice to sit back and sip on a cold drink by the pool with your feet up, so why throw on your overalls and hit the bricks? Why bother picking up a book and grinding out some research? What’s the point?

Maybe the answer is hidden in the word achievement. Certainly we’re all trying to achieve mere survival, but that’s easier than it ever was in human history as modern society has built in safety measures to ensure that most of us make it. Yet there are constantly stories of those who push the boundaries of new achievement and help us advance faster than ever before in human history!

So again why go through all that pain? What is achievement and why does it matter? Perhaps simple pleasures are just not good enough for the hard-wiring we have to pursue growth. Think about the great achievements we celebrate that involved incredible amounts of pain and even death.

The battle for racial equality is one of the most painful struggles in modern history as personified by Dr. Martin Luther King who eventually sacrificed his life…but why? Why not push to a lesser degree and retreat…didn’t he make his point? How about the early colonists in my hometown of Boston? Was it really all that painful to pay taxes to England? Why go though all the pain of struggling for autonomy and some concept of freedom that at the time was the cloudy dream of a small group of idealists.

The answer may lie in a single moment when we all realize that emergence of a hero. You see heroes and super stars never start off that way. They are nothing more than one of the crowd. Potential is a subtle concept the permeates the air that surrounds all of us each day; yet for some, it might as well be smelling salts.

There comes a time when ordinary catches a glimpse of what could be. An instance when status quo realizes it is not limited. There is perhaps a click, an epiphany or a tipping point that reveals an opportunity. Frustration and fear yield to unbridled electricity that sparks an explosion and from the pack emerges passion. The ordinary has grown wings and emerged into the spotlight unexpectedly catching the crowd off guard! Who has broken ranks and what in the world are they doing?

Somebody has seized the moment and decided to lead the herd in a new and uncharted direction no matter how much pain must be endured. They’re willing to sacrifice for the greater good and if that idealism costs them their very life than so be it! Better to have lived to achieve that moment rather than have coasted through on the bus of mediocrity. So stop waiting for somebody else to lead you. Seize that moment and emerge into the spotlight regardless of the outcome!

If Shakespeare had had my mind, there’s no telling how far he might have gone. -The Riddler

What if everything you every really wanted was right there for the taking and the only thing that was keeping you back were your own emotions? Logically, you sit back and analyze, how in the world could all these seemingly untalented people have ascended so far up the ladder in life and you’re still stuck in the mud?

The brain is a funny place; visions of all the great things you could do or become and in the same space the home of fear and the beast of mediocrity that keeps pulling us backwards. An emotional chaos. Even when we try to use logic to climb our way out of the hole, logic itself gets fooled by our emotions and we find ourselves easily explaining the circumstances of our shortcomings only to end up paralyzed.

Yet if you look back over your lifetime, there are moments when you were able to transcend the stuck point and break free in new directions that you’d always dreamed of. Often those memories are frightening because they occurred when your back  was up against the wall or worse, your survival was at stake.

In 1982, Angela Cavallo, presumably a women of average strength, was able to lift a car off of her son Tony as two neighbors dragged him to safety. The best medical science can do to explain such a phenomenon is to classify it as “hysterical strength.” In these cases of intense stress and fear, the body produces enough adrenaline to turn average Joe and Jane into what appears to be a super hero; but the truth is that this strength was there all along.

The great reporter at the turn of the century, Napoleon Hill, studied the same phenomenon in great business achievement and along with W. Clement Stone found the tipping point to be rooted in what they called “inspirational dissatisfaction.” Hill was so poor early on that he mentions resorting to eating tree bark to survive; certainly the dissatisfying taste of bark would move anybody to greater achievement.

So if our true strength is hiding right there in plain site, why can’t we simply tap into it on demand? What’s so hard about putting on our “go-get-em” sneakers and plowing headlong into the grind. Negative emotions! They’re extremely nasty little gremlins that pop up in the middle of the great dreams we have for ourselves and ruin the party. Sometimes they come through the door and tip the whole table over and have us scurrying for cover and other times they’re much more subtle and cross circuit the logic system and plant tiny seeds of doubt.

So how do we fight back? First we have to admit that most if not all of us are wired with both the dream making and dream wrecking emotions. So let’s embrace that as a fact of the game. Then we have to understand that we can never stop dream building no matter how many times we’re sucked backwards by the enemy. Without great dreams there’s no powerful prize to chase.

Finally, we must stop hiding from the gremlins or more importantly the true beast of self doubt! You must condition yourself for the battle that is simply part of the human condition and train your positive emotions to be on constant alert. There are certainly days were your dream will be in tatters, but take up the sword, turn the emotions of true self-belief loose, slay the beast and you just might turn into the next super hero!!

Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success. -Henry Ford

So you pull on your first pair of skates when you’re only 2 years old. You bang around the ice for years chasing a dream. Some days you’re the hero and others the goat, but you keep on pushing. So many talented skaters. Yet in spite of all the possible tripping points you keep advancing. Suddenly you’re a professional hockey player.

Traveling to cities wide and far, you experience the ups and downs of being a professional athlete. You also get introduced to the business of hockey; negotiating contracts and finding yourself a new hometown. Once this is settled, you hit the ice in pursuit of the ultimate prize…the Stanley Cup.

This story could relate to the pursuit of any big dream such as Sir Edmund Hillary’s quest for the peak of Everest or Roger Bannister’s achieving the previously inconceivable sub 4 minute mile. It’s also fairly easy in all endeavors to find those who finally broke through, but it still begs the question how? There are plenty of people who are good enough, but what is the difference for those who get to the summit.

I had a unique opportunity recently to talk to a kid who made it through and carried the Stanley Cup. His story was beyond the typical 80 plus grind-a-thon of a season, as he was traded during the course of the year away from what he had known as home. Arriving in a foreign locker room, he knew a few but not many as he looked for a new rhythm. What he didn’t know was this was his time.

Today, the kid is known as Chris Kelly, member of the 2011 Boston Bruins Stanley Cup championship team. It was cool enough to chat about the victory, but I had to know why. What was the difference? As I searched for the tipping point there was a discussion about team and coaching. It might seem obvious, but at a level where everybody is good enough, a chemistry of people must come together.

As Kelly recounted the story you could see in his eyes that he had indeed found a family. A place were finally he could be the very best that he was capable of being along with his teammates. He had found a place where the ice would tip in the championship direction. After an incredible battle of attrition, Kelly and the Bruins found themselves in a do or die game 7 in a hostile Vancouver arena.

As Kelly recounted the story, you could see the emotion of the moment resurface as perhaps he once again realized that this was no dream, it really had happened and nobody would ever be able to take it away from him and his hockey family. The had gone to battle together and won…bonded forever.

So what about you? Are you chasing your passion? Are you grinding relentlessly forward? Do you throw yourself onto your mount Everest and claw yourself towards the summit? Sure maybe you could explain away that all of this requires a lot of luck or divine intervention, hockey fans refer to the Hockey Gods smiling down, but the fact is that it takes a heavy dose of hard work and the support of a great team. When you have the love and support of other people there is no limit. So get out there and look for the right people and when you find them, accept the help and most importantly don’t ever quit because you have no chance sitting on the bench!

Dedicated to Chris Kelly and the Bruins who gave this Boston kid a great thrill in 2011!

Every man dies, not every man REALLY lives. -William Wallace, Braveheart

So what does it take to get so fired up that you do the extraordinary? How does the underdog overcome great odds to achieve the greatest of feats? All those obstacles. Abilities pushed to the limits of the inconceivable. Yet in spite of the steep climb and the slippery slopes, the awe inspiring achievements continue.

Out there somewhere there are people pushing themselves to the edges of their physical capacity seemingly without fear…but is that even possible. Consider Alex Honnold, currently one of the world’s greatest rock climbers as he scales the steepest of mountains with no safety measures other than his pure will to succeed. When asks if the adrenaline is flying through his body, he calmly replies that if he were to have that sensation then something must have gone terribly wrong.

So why is it that our adrenaline flows so rapidly as we watch incredible events yet the participants often seem so quiet and focused? What’s going on in the mind of the achiever as events unfold? Are they all the same in some strange way? Wired to be death defying? Do they have a broken fight or flight system that allows them to stare into the face of the beast without a quiver?

If you have ever watched Jeb Corliss jump off a mountain in an outfit that makes him look like an actual bat, you might see a different style than Alex, as he obviously reveals the look of a true high speed adrenaline junkie. After delving into his story, you find the tale of a troubled kid with a suicidal bent that came to realize that fear is his gift!

Fear a gift? Wow…I’m envious! What could be better rocket flue than fear? Are you faster when you’re running from a bear or just trying to win the hundred yard dash? When you start running for your life, that’s a pretty big “why!” I suppose you get not only a big bump from the natural chemical stimulation, but what about the laser focus on the obstacles in front of you that you must get around or even run right through…all of it in the blink of an eye!

So we really need to know the trigger point. Does it have to be a matter of survival to kick in or is it a matter of some other bodily mechanism? There are many examples of great achievement in the context of invention. How did an Edison run for his life in the direction of discovery? Maybe all of this is just a matter of a simple psychological law of consistency? Once we really decide with strong emotions that we are going to achieve something, we seem to lock in and blind ourselves to the challenges, but what’s the real tipping point?

Commitment! It’s one thing to get emotional and talk the talk, but it’s another to commit to the real journey. So let’s stop procrastinating on becoming our best. Write down what you really want to do…you know, your real desires that you think about when you’re all alone..and then make a written commitment statement that begins with….”I will”….