|
|
|
|
MAKE it a
|
Vol. 3 No. 3 May/June 2001 ############################################ IN THIS ISSUE 1. NEWS YOU CAN USE 2. FEAR: HOW TO KILL IT DEAD 3. SUCCESS ACTION STEPS 4. HUMOR BREAK 5. LESSONS LEARNED 6. ABOUT THE EDITOR 7. CONTACT AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION ======================================================== INSIGHT BREAK A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears. —Montaigne, Essay III. xiii ======================================================== 1. NEWS YOU CAN USE ======================================================== WANT MORE TIME? According to the latest data from Nielsen the average woman 18 and over watches 5 hours and 14 minutes of TV per day. Men of the same age are not too far behind with 4 hours and 44 minutes. Boys and girls 2-11 and 12-17 are doing better at 3 hours and 19 minutes and 3 hours and 10 minutes respectively. ACTION STEPS: Reduce your TV viewing by half an hour per day for every day for the rest of this month. Next month do the same until you are down to purposeful viewing of specific programs that enrich you. Make it a goal to watch no more than an average of two hours per day, that's 14 hours per week. Even if you only watch one hour less per day, you will have "found" 30 extra hours per week. Think about what would happen to your career and quality of life if you dedicated those 30 hours to reading (see below) or building stronger relationships with the important people in your life. Source: Nielsen Media Research, 2001 data in USA Today, 4/30, 2001 p. 15A ARE YOU ALITERATE? Fifty-five percent of the US population reads less than half an hour a day, in fact many people do not read at all, according to the latest Gallup Poll. For those who do read, 7 percent are voracious readers, reading more than a book a week and 59 percent read fewer than 10 books per year. ACTION STEPS: Mark Twain said it best: "The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them." So what are you waiting for, get yourself a good book and get (back) in the habit of reading. It will stimulate your mind and improve the quality of your life! Source: The Washington Post, 5/14/01, pp.C1 & C8. WASH YOUR MOUTH The latest workplace no-no: on-the-job cursing! The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is reporting that many of the 15,836 sexual harassment charges received in 2000, up from 6,127 in 1990, are concerned with the inappropriate use of obscene language. For example of about 12,000 postal workers surveyed 43% reported being cursed at in the workplace. ACTION STEPS: Avoid using profanity and crude language both in your personal life and at work. At the least you are diminishing your own level of self-esteem and offending some of the people around you. At worst, you will get slapped with an EEOC complaint. One way to keep your language clean is to pretend that your five-year-old child or sweet old grandma is within earshot at all times. Source: The Wall Street Journal, 5/8/2001, p. B12. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DO YOU HAVE A QUESTION, SUGGESTION OR A SUCCESS STORY? We are getting some great success stories from our subscribers (see section #5), and would like to hear what's working, or not working, for you. Mailto:WolfRinke@aol.com. ======================================================== 2. FEAR: HOW TO KILL IT DEAD by Wolf J. Rinke, PhD, CSP ======================================================== Erik Weihenmeyer, a 32 year old math teacher, sky diver and mountain climber who has successfully climbed Mt. McKinley and three of the worlds tallest peaks has set himself a new goal: climb Mt. Everest. No big deal, right? Wrong! It is a very big deal, especially since Erik is BLIND! I think that is incredibly courageous, so courageous that I don't have enough words in my lexicon to describe my admiration for people like Erik, given that many of us have difficulty tackling even the most mundane challenges. For example you may be afraid of asking for that raise you know you deserve. If you are in sales you may have difficulty picking up the phone to call Mr. Big. Or you may be avoiding to get in touch with that wonderful young man you met at the party last weekend. What prevents most of us from being more like Erik? It's that dirty four letter word: FEAR! Here are five specific strategies you can use to help you get rid of fear: ACKNOWLEDGE IT Acknowledging that fear of failure is normal allows us to see ourselves as normal human beings instead of chickens. It provides us with the mechanism for getting off our case. For most of us, we are the ones that hold us back more than anything or anyone else does. Some time ago I shared a taxi with a young man on my way from Chicago's O'Hare airport to downtown Chicago. He told me that he worked for CBS and was on his way to Chicago to make a big presentation to the CBS board of directors. When I told him that I was a professional speaker, management consultant, and author he got excited. He immediately began to quiz me on how he could be a more effective presenter for this big meeting he had coming up. I asked him what he wanted to improve. After some prying, he told me he wanted to be less nervous. I asked him why he wanted to do that. When he gave me a funny look that said: Wonder what kind of professional speaker this guy is?, I explained that speakers who are not nervous are terrible speakers because they are deadly. I assured him that being nervous is a benefit, provided the nervous energy is channeled in the right direction. After coaching him, I left him with a thought that he eagerly wrote down: "Every speaker has butterflies. Excellent speakers make the butterflies fly in formation." One week later he sent me a note together with an order for my book and audiotape program. In his note he told me that he had made his butterflies fly in formation and that he had made the best presentation of his life. You too can do common things uncommonly well if you acknowledge that you are an imperfect human being–a human being who is constantly striving to get better every day of your life. IGNORE OTHERS I have found over the years that the minute I announce an innovative idea, a new business venture, a great idea for an outing, or anything else that is different, there are always innumerable people who will tell me that it won't work, is not feasible, or is too risky. The nay sayer song goes on and on. If you have worked in any traditional organization or bureaucracy, I know that you too have heard that song many times. That type of advice used to slow me down. It made me cautious, made me rethink my original thoughts, caused me to worry, and led me to focus on all the reasons why something could not work, dissipating my energy to the point that I could no longer see all the reasons why it could work. Before I knew it, I joined the also-rans and gave up on what might have been a million-dollar idea. Not anymore. I have developed a simple but powerful strategy to silence the nay sayers. What I do now is to simply say, "I appreciate your concern. Have you yourself done this before?" If the answer is no, I thank the person for his interest and ignore the advice. If the answer is yes, I listen attentively so that I can learn from his mistakes. I firmly believe that only the people who have taken the journey and who have experienced the risks are able to provide you with meaningful advice. Most of the rest want to be sure that you remain one level below them so that they can feel OK. After all, if you succeed too much it might kill whatever self-esteem they have. DO THE THING YOU FEAR AND THE DEATH OF FEAR IS CERTAIN Think about what you fear the most, and do it. Probably the biggest confidence builder in your life is to doing the thing you fear. It may be quitting your current job, jumping out of an airplane (do put on a parachute first, and, while you are at it, get some decent instructions too), living in the wilderness, scuba diving, or giving a speech. Do your homework, get yourself mentally and physically conditioned, and break the task into small, doable steps, if possible, so that you can benefit from the principle of incremental success. For example, tightrope walkers start low to the ground. After they have it mastered at that height, they go up a little bit at a time. When they get dangerously high, they add a safety net. Only after they have mastered the task to the point that they could do it in their sleep do they remove the safety net. After experiencing incremental successes at whatever you are afraid of, you will be able do it, and you will no longer be afraid of it. Most importantly, it will empower you and put you in charge of your life, providing you with the confidence of a supremely successful human being. CONDUCT A WORST-CASE ANALYSIS One of the strategies that helps me overcome my fear of failure is to do a worst-case analysis. Whenever I am presented with a challenge that scares me, I ask myself, What is the worst thing that can possibly happen? After I identify that, I ask myself, Can I live with that? If the answer is yes, I forget the worst case, visualize myself succeeding, and go for it. REPLACE FEAR WITH DESIRE You and I and all other human beings are motivated by two very powerful human emotions: fear and desire. Both are extremely powerful and both work equally well, although in opposite directions. To overcome fear, we must recognize that the human mind can only hold one major emotion or thought at a time. To take advantage of this phenomenon, we must get in the habit of substituting desire for fear when we speak to ourselves and to others. Instead of programming our mind with the things we do not want to have happen we must use the same creative energy to tell ourselves what it is that we want to have happen. Telling ourselves what we want should be supplemented with visualizing what we desire in clear, vivid, dramatic pictures. Once you have formulated that picture in your mind, you should think of all the positive consequences associated with succeeding. That way you will be focusing on the rewards of success instead of the penalties of failure. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For FREE articles, inspirational messages and money saving offers on books, audio and video tapes that will help you succeed FASTER visit our website: http://www.WolfRinke.com or call 800-828-WOLF (USA); 410-531-9282. ======================================================= 3. SUCCESS ACTION STEPS ======================================================== YES YOU CAN If you are not sure what action to take in a specific situation ask yourself: What would I do if I knew I had a 111% certainty that I would succeed? Remember that you can do virtually anything you want to do if you want to do it badly enough! MAKE A LIST Make a list of things that you are fearful of. Compare this list with your lifetime goals. If any of your fears stand in your way of attaining your lifetime goals, develop an action plan to overcome them. Do the same for any other fears that prevent you from living the "good life," as you defined it. (If you do not have lifetime goals and don't know how to start, devour my popular book: Make It a Winning Life: Success Strategies for Life, Love and Business [800-828-9653 or http://www.WolfRinke.com]. Chapter 4 provides a step-by-step process for helping you figure out what to do with the rest of your life!) VISUALIZE WHAT YOU WANT Make it a practice to focus on that which you want to happen, as opposed to what you do not want to happen. The reason, we all move toward that which we think of most of the time. In fact none of us can move away from the reverse of an idea. The way I teach that in my seminars is to ask participants to please NOT think of a green dinosaur. I immediately point to someone in the audience and ask them what they are thinking of. The answer 99% of the time: a green dinosaur! (For more see section #5 – Lessons Learned.) ======================================================== 4. HUMOR BREAK ======================================================== Fearful of having a bad day? For comparison, here are ways to know when you are having a really bad day: –Your husband says, "Good morning, Jane," and your name is Maria. –You put both contact lenses in the same eye and wonder why you are not seeing well. –Your boss tells you not to bother to take off your coat. ======================================================= 5. LESSONS LEARNED ======================================================== Wolf, I came across an interesting point today if you are curious as to the way peoples' minds work and how that effects their actions /success. I help out at the Sunday school at our local church. We had a small group (about 10) children this morning ages 6 - 11. We were talking about the story of "Love one another as I have loved you". The childrens' task was to write or draw a promise card on which they would make a promise to do something today to show someone they love how much they care. Without exception all the promises the children made were written in the negative i.e. I will not shout at mummy today, I will not be disobedient!!! This was despite the fact that when we had discussed it we had talked about the things you could do i.e. positive actions. e.g. being kind, being friendly, doing a special job. I found it fascinating that they all wrote in the negative, even my own children!! What does that say about the things that stick in their mind, the behaviour that they perceive is important? They obviously remember the negative far more than they remember the praise. I do enjoy receiving your newsletter - please keep them coming! Take care C. H., England ======================================================== 5. ABOUT THE EDITOR ======================================================== Dr. Wolf J. Rinke, CSP is an internationally recognized motivational and management keynote speaker and seminar leader who delivers customized presentations that combine story telling, humor and motivation with specific "how to" action strategies that participants can apply immediately to improve the quality of their personal and professional lives. He is also a highly effective management consultant and executive coach. Call us at 800-828-9653 or mailto:WolfRinke@aol.com to ======================================================== 7. CONTACT AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION ======================================================== Editor: Dr. Wolf J. Rinke, CSP President, Wolf Rinke Associates, Inc. P.O. Box 350, Clarksville, MD 21029-0350 USA (410) 531-9280, Fax (410) 531-9282 For orders in the US (800) 828-WOLF (9653) Email: Mailto:WolfRinke@aol.com Website: http://www.WolfRinke.com If this was forwarded to you and you would like to receive your own FREE subscription mailto:WolfRinke@aol.com and type the word SUBSCRIBE MIWL in the subject box. To remove yourself from this mailing list, please type the word UNSUBSCRIBE MIWL in the subject box. PRIVACY STATEMENT: We will not make your name available to anyone. Period!
|
