How to Make Your Next 30 Days The Best Ever

Author : Tom Connellan

I have always enjoyed business books written with strong things to teach, but done in a fable or story context, such as Lencioni’s book, The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team.  Connellan has done the same with The 1% Solution since it is written as a story, yet with very clear elements taught to the reader.  This particular story is of a guy, named Ken who had reached a point where things seemed to be a struggle in his life and he was noticing vast differences in people around him, some doing well, some struggling.  The coach of all people on his son’s soccer team met Ken and steered him towards a new path with the help of a group of others in a 1% solutions team.

The concept from the group was clear, that doing everything in your life just one percent better and constantly striving (deliberately) to improve just one percent can have dramatic positive consequences.  The difference between many first place medals in Olympics and no metal is often as small as 1% so that 1% can make a big difference. Whether you are after an Olympic goal or not, everyone has the ability to be better than they are, and the 1% solution provides a model and outlook towards life to do just that, be better.

As Ken meets and spends time with each of the 6 people in the 1% group, he learns important concepts about learning, improving and focusing his life around becoming a better person in many areas.  The group of 6 is realistic in having Ken think about how to get better than what HE already is, instead of thinking about where he’d like to be the best which compares to others and often holds people back from improving step by step.  The messages are very practical and cover a lot of personal development aspects I’m sure many people have seen or heard.  The author puts them into context of a person’s life and tells them in a way that is compelling and believable.  Here are just a few of the examples and messages from the text:

• You can’t be 100% better than everyone else, but you can be 1% better at hundreds of things
• Not everyone can be great, but everyone can be better than they are right now
• The more you get done, the more motivated you are to do things.  So you do more things, and you get even more motivated.  It’s a self-feeding cycle!
• The way to start is by taking action – even if it’s a small action.
• Too many people who have been around for 30 years don’t really have 30 years’ experience.  They have one year’s experience 30 times.
• What sets apart the top 1% is that they cycle throughout the day between periods of concentrated effort and planned recovery.

So, there are many other messages and I think you will certainly enjoy this book.  The author covers and uses motivation and engagement topics, teaches elements of the Pareto or 80/20 principle, emphasizes Gladwell’s 10000 hours to become an expert message, covers deliberate practice to get better faster, dives into a 30 day formula to form or break habits, includes the important aspect of properly resting and recovering from 1% progress and finally includes how all this can then be passed on to others and shared again.    If you’ve read a ton of other content in personal development, you will likely not come across anything really new in this but at the very least; it will reinforce many common aspects of becoming a better person.  If you’re searched and read some content on personal development and want a book that is easy to read yet packed with useful content and tips, then this book is definitely for you. It is an easy read, fairly short and the story is well written with a good mix of dialogue where Ken learns from the 1% group and narrative writing of his thoughts and actions.  There are additional resources at the author’s website if you want more information.  I’d love to hear your comments or questions about the book if you have read it or not, as the topics are all worthy of discussion!

Posted by Mike King under Book Reviews | 8 Comments »

This is a guest post I received by Matt Schmoldt, one of my readers here at LearnThis.ca.  Matt’s article adds an interesting perspective to how we seek success.  I love the topic of success and just want to restate my own definition of success to focus the topic on what matters most in success, HOW we see success.  My definition of success is consistently living with purpose.  With that, here is Matt’s article, I hope you enjoy it!

“Everyday I take a break from my work when I get to the point of being tired of what I am doing, and I usually go play basketball. The breaks that I enjoy the most are when I am alone on the court. Uninterrupted. I shoot, shot after shot. I enjoy trying to perfect my shot. I have an inner desire to become gifted. I have come to the point where I know what I need to do to consistently make shots, but I just don’t consistently do what I need to do.

The rim lets me know how I am doing. I love having it’s instant feed back. The loud clang of the rim challenges me to become better, and the soft swish of the net rewards me. But today, I realized that the rim’s instant feed back is unnecessary.  I realized that I already knew if the shot was off course even before it hits the rim. I know by how I feel during the shot. I know if it is too short, or sailing wide left and I know if the shot is perfectly on track.  I realized that I was concentrating on the result and not on how I felt during the shot. I was fixed on making my next shot (the destination of the ball), but not on how I should feel during the shot (the journey).

When I let go of my fixation on making shots and instead focused on how I felt during the shots, an amazing thing happened. I made way more shots. Why? I got rid of my self imposed pressure on the result, and became free to follow how I felt during the journey. I didn’t care if I made or missed a shot; I only cared if I was focused on feeling what I knew I should be feeling during the shot.

Our lives are the same way. We want to succeed so badly that we become fixated on succeeding. Our every thought and desire is to succeed in whatever thing it is. Sometimes we want to succeed badly enough that we do things against our conscience and better judgment. You see this happening in our schools. Students want to pass a class without putting in the work, so they turn to cheating, and when they aren’t caught, they continue cheating. The world has recently seen what this pattern of cheating leads to in the likes of Bernard Madoff and Allen Stanford. They wanted to succeed so badly in their financial businesses, that they lied and cheated for decades. They took their new investor’s money and gave it to their old investors, pretending that this money came from legitimate investments. They let their fixation on succeeding rule their actions and look what it brought. It brought devastation to thousands of honest people who invested in their lies. It brought families heartache and devastation.

In the words of Joshua Marcus Manuel, “It hurts to look at yourself in the mirror and hate yourself, look into the mirror and wonder what ever happened to that smile that used to shine so bright. When you look at yourself, you see this version of “you” that your mind has created, someone that has become so distant and cold that nobody wants to be around. Empty eyes. Fragile bones. The only thing you have left are the lies you tell yourself everyday to survive, lies that have become your painful reality, lies that will swallow you whole and crush your insides, lies that have turned you into someone you never wanted to be.”

Let go. Let go of those fixations that are preventing you from living a successful life. The way to success and happiness comes from letting go and following your heart, from being in harmony with yourself. Look at what this did for Mother Teresa. For over 45 years, she ministered to the poor and the sick. She lead 610 missions in 123 countries for people with AIDS, leprosy and other illnesses. She dedicated her life to being in harmony with her conscience; she was her best self.

What things do you need to let go of?  Let go of them.
What things does your heart ache to achieve?

Achieve those things of your heart and live a life of honest success in harmony and happiness. Remember, “It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.” (Mark Twain) and “A great man shows his greatness by the way he treats little men.” (Thomas Carlyle)”

About The Author: Matt currently attends Utah State University in Logan and is studying marketing. He loves life, his family, his heaven, and his sports (golf & basketball). He also runs a necktie website on the side which teaches people how to tie a tie.

Posted by Mike King under Success | 3 Comments »

Maximize Your Free Time to Create New Wealth & Purpose

Author: Robert Pagliarini

It is a total joy to share books with my readers and especially books that I learn a lot from or that I can really connect with.  The book “The Other 8 Hours” does both of those things for me and so it is my pleasure to tell you how great this book it.  Robert contacted me to offer me a free copy with hope that I would review here at LearnThis.  I was excited by the description and title yet apprehensive when I don’t have it recommended by many people since it is a new book just out.  Long story short, I loved the book and will definitely recommend it as one of my favorites.

The Creative Spirit

The book explores personal development by specifically focusing on what you do with the 8 hours or so every day that you are not working or sleeping.  It focuses you and inspires you to make that time available to become a Cre8tor, a person with a drive to create new opportunities, that generate more wealth and purpose and happiness in your life.  The book has 4 main sections in it:

• Get a Clue
• Get More Time
• Get More Money
• Get a Life

All of these sections have chapters to explore each statement and there is actually quite a lot of depth to each topic.  Pagliarini covers everything from examining the life leeches that exist around us taking away from the available time that COULD be ours to a fantastic set of resources with each chapter that can kick start any Crea8tor channel you want to pursue.  There are strong messages in each of these four areas and I’m fortunately enough to have experienced many of these in my own life so have explored and even executed many of the challenges put forward.  I certainly have not however, collected such a strong, consistent and enjoyable text to read from all these lessons and clearly Pagliarini has down much in his own life to experience these as well AND he has done an immense amount of research to back things up with statistics.

Another aspect that is unique in this book that I really enjoyed are there being many 1 page short stories and examples of people who have taken these techniques and put them into action, each showing the major benefits to be had as a result.  I found the stories to be quite enjoyable clips to read and put much of what is written into real life context that is easy to relate with.

Get More Time

The tips on getting more time are absolutely timeless and powerful.  There is so much in here that I agree with as a productivity lover it was simply fun to read, yet there was also much to learn from even with the countless hours I’ve put into this area already myself. One example of this is termed “boosting” and used to describe taking on a second job or side job that is so mindless or easy that you can use it to actually study or work on other things while getting paid.  It gives two benefits, some extra income to use for creative channels or to catch up on debts as well as to further yourself in new knowledge areas, business plans or others such needed Cre8tor work that is difficult to make time for.  While I don’t plan on taking on any second mindless jobs myself, I will certainly use and share this concept again, some people come to mind to me for this right now.

He includes what I can easily say is the best 18 pages I’ve ever read on the powers that grip us in life and suck our time away from us.  Everything from TV watching or being disorganized to doing more than is necessary.  There are 24 items lists in this section with the typical common behavior and then a short straightforward solution that anyone can use to tackle that problem.  If you take nothing else out of this book, take this, as you will find yourself creating more time and increase your productivity, which obviously I’m a big fan of doing!

Get More Money

This section of the book is brilliant and clearly the main content as it covers in superb clarity 10 separate suggested channels or areas to follow as a cre8tor that can bring in new wealth and opportunities to make a better life for yourself.  The examples of course continue throughout and each of these channels are outlined with many ideas on what they might look like, how you can start, a typically process map for executing it and then a great set of resources to get started in each one.  This is absolutely packed with great content and again, easily makes the book worth buying just for these chapters alone.

Get More Life

Finally after touching on all the great aspects and opportunities, Pagliarini covers what many critics want to see.  What makes all this difficult is life.  Life gets in the way and needs to be managed better to even dare take on few work in our other 8 hours.  This section helps here and has many compressed lessons on productivity, habits, goal setting and other great techniques to manage all this and actually get it all done.

Conclusions

There are a few sections scattered through the book that talk about purpose and legacy and what you can do that is bigger than yourself but I must say this was the only thing I was a bit disapointed in.  Everything I thought was quite finance centric and the overall read of the book to me was about making more money.  That is an overall message though, not the only one.  So much is covered this is likely just a personal feeling.  I am really quite impressed by this book and am certainly going to check out more from Pagliarini as certainly has a best seller here if I had to make any guesses.  It’s a fantastic book that I encourage anyone to read.  It truly applies to to anyone with even the slightest desire to get a little more out of life or to change your current circumstances.  I still have many references and websites to check out from several chapters that will keep be coming back to it for the next little while.  I know each of you will enjoy it as well.

Note: I always avoid reading other’s reviews once I start a book as I know that lets me write the most objective review I can.  I’m happy to see that after writing this, I just checked out the reviews for it on amazon is its getting 5 stars across the board as well.  So, go check that out the reviews if you need to see more or to buy the book.  Also, check out the book website at TheOther8Hours.com.

Posted by Mike King under Book Reviews | 4 Comments »

Purpose is a wonderful topic to explore, and I believe that it’s a wonderful topic for every person to explore throughout their life.  Purpose is something that ought to drive everyone’s lives, and unfortunately not everyone takes the time to discover it for themselves.  Purposes also a much debated topic, and the notion of living for something that is greater than ourselves is not always easy to believe or understand.  Critics like to argue against purpose in that if you are really fulfilling your life’s purpose, and doing it not for yourself, then you shouldn’t be making money doing it.  I think you can do both, live with the purpose, and make money as a result, which is why I came up with that title for this article, “Making Money on Purpose”.

The Money Connection

Since money is so connected in everything we do, it spills over into our exploration for purpose as well.  The question of, “Why do we do things?” and similar question, “What should we be doing?”,  unfortunately are affected heavily by money.  Making money at something is not necessarily a sign that you are not doing it for a reason beyond yourself, even though there are obviously many many examples where people continue to live a life chasing money instead of a greater purpose.

The Blinders of Money

Money and materialism puts blinders on all of us.  Those blinders prevent us from seeing the big picture of life and we are stuck seeing only the next object in our life, the next promotion or the money attached to the things we buy, the time we spend and the places we go.  We fail to see the value to others and the value to God in what we do, what we work towards and what we spend our money on.  The value in those areas however are a direct sign of how we are living our purpose and we ought to consider them more carefully.

Making Money on Purpose

If we can see the connection of money to purpose and remove or at least reduce the blinders we experience in how we value money, we do have the chance to make money with our purpose in life.  Purpose is not by how much money we are, but by how we go about doing it.  It is possible to make money or earn a living while working towards a purpose beyond ourselves, and there’s nothing wrong with that if it’s the purpose that motivates us and not the money.

Being able to connect our passions, vocation, and relationships to a greater purpose is an incredibly fulfilling path to follow, regardless of whether money is earned along the way.  Following a career path that utilizes the talents we each possess will make money on purpose, its unavoidable and there is nothing wrong with it.  Our God given talents are the areas in life that we have the best chances to succeed with and using them allows us to develop skills faster than in other areas with a much greater impact in the results we get.  They simply come more naturally for us, and will be far more rewarding when used in a life of purpose.

Purpose Creating Wealth

I want to take the idea of making money on purpose just one step farther.  Consistently living on purpose is the definition I use for success, and I’m certain that each and every one of us if we are using the best of our talents in a purpose driven life, will not only make money but also much greater wealth.  To me, money is a shortsighted view of wealth even though they are closely related because most people define wealth to be measured in dollars.  Wealth to me though should be measured by what you do with your money and how you do.  If we’re making money while living on purpose, the wealth we build will be determined by what we do with the money we earn as well as all the other benefits we will realize in the journey of living a life of purpose.

Posted by Mike King under Purpose/Passion | 16 Comments »

Life purpose is not something you can automatically know until you truly understand yourself and your talents.  Many people go through life and never discover their purpose and others go through many years of their life thinking they are living on purpose only to find out in their later years they were chasing something that had to lasting meaning to them.  Can your purpose really be something that has no lasting meaning?  I certainly don’t think so.

The Importance of Life Purpose

So, why is life purpose important anyway?  To me, life purpose is incredibly important as it is the driving force that motivates us, satisfies us, brings us joy and lasting happiness and demonstrates to ties directly to the meaning of success!  Most people want to be successful but they really don’t even know what success means to them!  Success is not something you go and achieve, chase down or earn at some point in your life.  I think most of you would agree that success is more about the journey in life than the destination of some ideal outcome.  Success to me is defined specifically by purpose.

Success is living consistently on purpose.

So, I don’t believe you can ever be successful if you don’t understand your purpose, and then life it to the best of your ability.

Seeking Life Purpose

As I mentioned, finding your life purpose takes time and a deep exploration of oneself.  You must ask yourself many questions to determine your purpose.  Life purpose is not unlike any other time in life where you have written or defined the purpose.  Perhaps, you can think back to school science experiments, or important meetings or projects in your work.  You face some challenge or problem and then you create something to solve that problem.  What you have created to solve that problem and how you will go about it is the purpose of experiment, or meeting, it is to solve the problem you face.  So, what about your own life?  What were you created for?  Are you here to solve a problem and fulfill that purpose?  What is the problem?  What are you hoping to solve?

Where Purpose Comes From

Obviously, I cannot tell you what your purpose is, I can, however, plant the seed for you to seek it and discover it but telling someone their purpose without knowing and understanding that person is rather judgmental and I don’t think has any useful impact.  I can tell you that I discovered my purpose through God, my Creator and that my purpose is to bring the Kingdom of God into all facets of my life by setting an example and living a life like Jesus Christ. I believe that we are each guided by our Creator and will ultimately find purpose through Him but I also believe that we each serve a purpose for a much larger problem and that not all of us will discover spiritual relationships as part of our life purpose. Some will find purpose in creating, some in building relationships, serving others, some in leaving a legacy, some in teaching, serving others, all without knowing where their life purpose comes from.  And luckily that is OK, because many people will follow a purpose in life and be completely fulfilled.

And by my definitely, if you are living consistently on purpose, you are successful.

Interested in the topic of purpose?  I hope so as I plan to write more and please go back and explore this article I wrote on the search for life purpose.

Posted by Mike King under Purpose/Passion | 15 Comments »

Whenever you talk about giving in today’s modern and mostly selfish society, people immediately think of their possessions and physical belongings and gifts to give. Well those are not what I mean by this title at all. In fact, this article is in response to a wonderful list of gifts from the article, The True Essence of Giving by a regular reader, Jonathan at Advanced Life Skills.  Please go take a look at his article right now which gives some perspective to why I felt this story has some relevance.

A Friend that Gave it All

My story is of a friend I had that was always giving everything he had.  It didn’t matter what kind of circumstance he was in, he always seemed to bring so many great things to a situation, a conversation or a friendship.  I got together with him and other friends from time to time for some discussions, games or a meal and he always stood out to me in that he lived with no desire for all the stuff, possessions and things that are so desirable by today’s standards.  He led what seemed to be a simple life but I now think it was far from it, which I’ll explain below.  He just didn’t care about all that stuff the rest of us have.  He had a run down car that barely got him around, a simple house and very basic possessions.  He never had new ‘things’ to talk about and really just never seemed interested in any of that.  What I see now is how much of these other things in life and our possessions really PREVENT us from giving all we have.  I could see that he was always fully engaged in conversation, laughter and communicating with people because nothing else caught his eye and distracted him.  I’ve met no one like that before and that particular trait stood out to all who knew him.  You might say if was his charisma or his magnetic personality but really I think it was because he was always giving you everything he had in that moment.  All the things from Jonathan’s list linked above…

Anyway, he traveled a lot for missions giving his time and energy to those in much more need than him around the world.  His love for others and to serve God enabled him to give so deeply and passionately.  I never understood giving in this way until hearing his stories of giving in shattered 3rd worlds where there seems to be little hope.  The beautiful thing with giving from the heart, and especially in 3rd worlds, is that any gift from the heart is immediately recognized and valued sincerely.  People (and especially children) who don’t experience much joy in life get a little piece of happiness and hope when someone gives them their attention, a smile, or some time to play with them.  These are gifts from the heart and they are the most valuable gifts you can give.  Looking at how to love someone else and provide them something on the spot and in the moment is the greatest gift and I’m afraid loosing its perceived value against our society of stuff.

So, let me explain my comment about living simply from above.  Our high standards society in 1st world nations has a different definition of simple if you ask me.  It would state that simple life is less stuff and this is really only partially true.  I also see simple in the WAY we react to everything around us.  A simple life is actually more complex and more difficult because there is a far deeper understanding of oneself and one’s awareness and present moment in order to keep our interactions simple. This is especially true in a complex and distracting environment.   There are literally thousands of advertisements and distractions every single day that train us to think all those things will make our lives simpler when in reality they just mess it up more.  Its easiest to just go with the flow and experience all those distractions every single day.  To avoid all that is tough, and its certainly not simple. In fact, its more acceptable to be distant and distracted every moment of our lives and we willingly join in competition to express how busy we are all the time.  None of this helps learn to give though, for that, we need to eliminate distractions and look at the things we have to give others from our heart.  We must enhance our ability to focus on people instead of stuff, to be fully present with others regardless of the distractions.  This will generate a more fulfilling life and it enables a person to give more from the heart.

A journey into the unknown… . I don’t really know where or when I will end up, and it doesn’t really matter. It will be an adventure, an epic journey, a time of soul-searching and of praying, of exploring and learning and sharing – a time of drinking Life to the fullest.
–Quoted from his blog

OK, back to the story. Well, my friend decided to ride his bicycle across west Africa to experience his favorite place on Earth to its absolute fullest and he headed out to do so.  He wrote about his journey about how he was impacting people daily with his incredible giving spirit and how much joy he was experiencing as a result.  He literally created hundreds of smiles from strangers every day and great friendships with the people he’s met and stayed with along his way.  Before he was able to complete his bicycle journey, however, he was struck and killed by a vehicle on one of the highways.  His Earthly years may have been short, but his impact and influence left behind is great.  I always remember his giving spirit and he’s one of those people you think of that is just larger than life.  All of those fond memories are memories that are tied to the authentic giving he was always able to do from his heart.

What kind of gifts do you think of when you hear about a gift from the heart?  Who have you learned the essence of giving from?  How do you come across to others in your giving?  Spend some time thinking of your own stories and memories about giving this Christmas and do what you are meant to do at Christmas, give from the heart!

Posted by Mike King under Relationships | 10 Comments »