A Simple View of Life

In proper order.

-Spiritually fit
-Physically fit
-Family fit
-Financially fit

There can be some debate about what is ultimately most important to each person. I believe it is vital that each person take a minute to consider what order the four corners of life should be placed in.
Also please note that things like “country”, and City, or giving, etc... All are sub parts of one of these four corners and should be considered as such. The reason for creating four corners is to have the ability to visualize yourself as a complete person acting and living the life you want to live. If the sub parts become “parts” and we have 10, or 20 things on our list it is impossible to keep and hold a simple vision of ourselves. So the technique which is very powerful is to take each part, and detail all the sub parts to it, and then visualize each subpart as part of the part. Example; physically fit, includes your mind, and learning or classes, as well as eating and working out. And spiritually includes service, so service to country, and community fit nicely here.

It isn’t important to spend any time thinking about where the sub part of the goal fits. Rather almost like word association if I say community service, and you only have four choices where would that fit for you?
I have found that importance of the order “priority” of your goals changes as your life progresses. But the changes I have noticed are not what we might typically think of. In most cases the priority (what you spend your time focusing on) is based on lack of sufficiency in a particular area, rather than any conscious decision or consideration. Seldom does the true order or our priorities change on their own. Typically an unbalanced life causes the order or our priorities to change as we attempt to rebalance our lives.

So if any one item, or items is lacking in our lives then the order becomes distorted by stress and strain, and the unbalance created by the lacking area of our lives. This however is a natural state of growth, stress, strain; resistance is a needed part of growth. Don’t feel bad because you want your spirituality to be your number one priority but seem to spend all day trying to get your finances in order! All that means is you have progressed further in your spiritual growth than you have financially, so you are unbalanced, not greedy, or superficial, just unbalanced. It is really important to make this distinction, between living in a manner that violates your personal priorities for life, and living in a manner that is just trying to balance your life.

Most people have a predetermined set of priorities, or feel that their priorities must match their idealism about what and how life should be lived. If you have noticed this tends to lead to despair as we realize we are not living our lives focusing on the order of our ideal life.
But again I want to refocus on the concept that our focus will be on the areas we are lacking in more than those were we are already blessed with abundance.
I watched a strong man demonstration the other night on TV. The person held onto a chain attached to the back of a Ford Cobra as it pealed out. There was a device to monitor how much pressure in terms of pounds this strong man was holding back as the car spun its wheels and didn’t move. It was an in human 1,500 pounds of pressure. The show went on to explain how this could have happened. Based on the attached electrodes it was revealed that each area of this strong man’s body parts were firing in exact order to generate enough strength to hold on to 1,500 pounds. As it was broken down it was easy to understand, if his legs could squat 400 pounds, and his biceps could curl 150 pounds and his back could hold another 150, etc..

As we consider being able to bench pressing 300 pounds that is pretty strong. But like our key life objectives, in the case of the strong man, if the rest of his body is weak, then he couldn’t hold back the 1,500 pounds of pressure he held onto. Rather his muscles had been developed on purpose, following a plan over time to become strong in each muscle group, and well balanced so his muscles could work in order assisting each body part by combining each individual muscle group into one super human powerful force.
Let’s think about our life objectives in much this same way. This is sometimes referred to as Goal Setting. I like to talk in terms of Goal Attainment. Setting goals is fun, and we can spend a lot of fun time writing down our dreams, and fantasies for our lives. But goal attainment is a completely different concept all together. There are of course many books written on this subject, as well as many lectures and meetings, as well as seminars all focusing on detailed goal setting programs. I have read about them all, taken the classes, listened to the tapes, then Cd’s, and now the MP3’s all sharing the secretes to setting goals. But let me ask you this. Have you ever set a goal that you didn’t achieve? Yep so have I before I made the simple distinction between setting goals, and achieving them. Achieving goals is much easier than you might think.
It starts with self awareness. You must understand two things. You must understand your ideal order, and next you must become aware of your actual order. Remember the ideal order is how you want to live, while the actual order you are living is based on strengthening your weak area, or areas. Those areas are the ones that you find yourself focusing on. This doesn’t mean your ideal order is not correct, or you should feel bad about not focusing on the items you want to be the most important parts of your life. If you step back and look chances are pretty good that you are spending a lot of your focus on the areas that are not as important to you as the ones that are. But let’s take a look at our strong man again. If your first priority is your spiritual life, and as a strong man you had focused on your bench press you would find that what you focused on first became strong first. But as you become self aware, as the strong man decided to he wanted to be able to hold back a car from taking off, some 1,500 pounds of pressure he would have to hold onto to achieve his goal, he had to begin focusing on more than his bench pressing ability, and focus on developing his other muscle groups. That doesn’t mean that his primary focus or importance has changed from being able to bench press a certain amount, or yours has changed from your spirituality being the most important part of your life. If just means that you have become aware that to live the life you want to live you need to develop the other areas of your life also.

So then self awareness is the beginning of all change! With self awareness comes a very important key to goal attainment. I personally have no desire to develop myself into a man strong enough to hold back a car from taking off. But the strong man I watched on TV did, and hence now can. Our dreams and goals are not some random set of things firing off in our minds. Rather our dreams are very much specific to us. By this I mean I am pretty sure my body couldn’t be developed to the point I could hold back a car from taking off. This might be a key as to why I have no desire to develop that strength.
The reason I break down goals into just 4 categories is a belief that to achieve a goal you have to be able to see it and believe it. Defining dozens of goals again is a lot of fun, as most blue sky thinking is, but it is nearly impossible to stay focused on dozen of areas at one time, yet it is your ability to stay focused on a goal that allows it to be achieved!
What should be done? First create a list of everything you can think of you want in your life, and what you want your life to stand for. “who are you?” Then type a one paragraph statement for each category thing you wrote down you wanted to achieve. Now place all items as members of your 4 corners. Then create a vision of yourself. This may have to be done in two steps. The first vision must be for each corner of your life, taking all the items you placed in that corner and seeing them as one part of your life as we discussed before. Then the second vision is the four corners combining to create the person you want to become. There is a lot about visualizing I can share with you, but for now let me say two things.

1. Thoughts are real, real is not. Over time we naturally become what and who we think we are.

2. Once you have the vision of who you want to become you want to hold that picture of yourself up and to the right. So when you think about the person you want to become you look up and to the right.

3. Ok, I know I said two things… but this is key to goal attainment. As you notice the differences between how you act today, and what the person you want to be would have done you are not failing, rather you are succeeding. You must notice the small differences in who you are today, and how you act, and compare that to what the ideal version of yourself would have done.

Don’t get down on yourself, rather realize that big changes are created by a series of small changes. So as you notice the little things, make the little changes and soon you will achieve your goals!

Sales Professionals and Doctors Both Should Position for the Sale

So as a red head, in my mid life it is time to have the moles checked.

One came back abnormal, so it had to be cut out. A few weeks ago I
showed up for my appointment only to be told the DR. was over booked,
and I would have to wait 45 minutes to an hour just to get me in. Of course I just rescheduled for the first morning appointment which happened to be this morning.

I wanted to share something I noticed that the doctor does naturally, and we in sales should do with purpose.

I sat in a waiting room and then was brought into a room by a medical assistant. In insurance I would call the person a CSR = Customer Service Representative.

The medical assistant explained what was going to go on, (it was written down and she read from the paper) in sales this would be called sales scripting. The assistant checked my vital signs and prepared the room for the Dr's arrival. The final step before the medical assistant was done was completing a check list to make sure she hadn't missed anything. It was 8:15 when she was done getting everything in order. 

She told me it would be about 15-20 minutes before the Dr arrived as the
Dr doesn't come in until 8:30 for the first appointment. 

When the Dr finally came in to do the procedure, I was ready, and waiting for the Dr’s arrival. Even anticipating it a bit, after all shortly I would be meeting the person that could help me, and clearly that person was very busy and needed lots of assistants to get things ready for the Dr’s arrival.

When the Dr had finished, the medical assistant was left to to finish bandaging me up, and give me all the info I needed, as well as set the next appointment to have the stitches taken out. I noticed I didn't take any cell phone calls while I was with the DR, or check my email, or excuse myself to do a more important task etc. No instead because of positioning, when the Dr got there the Dr had my full attention. Why? Because the Dr was positioned as important, busy, an expert in the field. (Hummm? Salesmanship positioning?)

I thought about my office and how things are running here. I thought
about how my staff helps my clients and gets them ready, or prepared to
meet with me. They collect policy information, create the summaries,
and gather loss runs, and summaries them for me as well. My staff uses
check lists as well. Typically I am handed a file, with all the info I
need to do my part, and when I am done I had the file back to my staff,
and move onto the next appointment.

It is an interesting similarity as I don't do the prep work, and I don't do the work after the procedure either.

It was just a great lesson in working at our highest capacity, and
leveraging the time we spend working. Of course the key is great staff
that understand what you will be doing and why, and love helping our
clients. Interesting.... 

Before I left the office the medical assistant read to me a script about
what I am suppose to do, and not do for the next few days. (Interesting
we have everything in our office sales scripted as well)

PS. The Dr did make small talk while cutting me up..... And hopefully
will soon be another one of my clients! What is interesting about this is that I am also able to have easy conversations with my clients as well, as my staff has done all the misc stuff so my mind if free to concentrative on my clients needs, rather than the misc stuff that has to be done to allow me to service my clients. How about you? Are you making the coffee? Filling the copier with paper, and typing your own file jackets?