Did I miss any?

After working with these folks year after year, you might think that a deserted island is a good choice to live out your days. However, there are things we can learn from these special individuals. If we want to grow and develop our own maturity muscle, we need to learn how to manage pesky personalities and guard against becoming one of them.

Usually these pesky people have deep-seated reasons their life patterns are the way they are and most are likely not going to change. But we can change the way we react within our own hearts which can dramatically affect the way we view and respond to these toxic teammates.

I don’t have any fancy acronym to help you remember but here are a few character traits that might help nurture your spirit in the midst of daily interaction.

Patience – “A moment of patience in a moment of anger saves a thousand moments of regret.” Unknown

Endurance – “Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory.” William Barclay

Tolerance – “The capacity for getting along with our neighbor depends to a large extent on the capacity for getting along with ourselves. The self-respecting individual will try to be as tolerant of his neighbor’s shortcomings as he is of his own.” Eric Hoffer

Love -“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Compassion/Empathy – “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

In conclusion, it’s the lessons WE learn from pesky teammates that build OUR character and shape OUR destiny. We can choose to get drawn in to others’ negative personality drama or we can choose positivity and change. Guess who’ll come out stronger, wiser, and better in the long haul?

“Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.” H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

A few fun facts – Hash marks are only about one yard long – they’re used to mark each of the 5-yard lines which go from sideline to sideline. Hash marks are in line with the goal posts.

For the entrepreneur, the concept of hash marks can mean the difference between a winning business and one that flails around aimlessly. Without hash marks; measurable, attainable, quantifiable goals, you won’t know where you are on your business field. As in football, hash marks tell you exactly where you are and they reveal where you need to go. It’s important to note the point above; hash marks are in line with the goal posts.

Believe it or not, business success is not about how many dollars are coming in! It’s about what you’re discovering about your business, your clients, your service offerings, and, most of all, yourself. My first business created some debt because I had never traveled the entrepreneurial road before, but I considered it an educational expense because of what I learned. The combination of acquired experience and reading an abundance of business books provided me the knowledge I needed for developing and building Winning Proof, and any other businesses that come my way, for that matter.

The question is, how will you know you’ve reached success in your business? What measuring stick – hash marks – do you measure your success with? Here are a few to consider:

Your market -
1. Your clients choose to do business with you because they feel valued and heard.
2. You stay ahead of emerging trends and changes in your market.
3. You thoughtfully educate your clients about your service offerings.

Your services –
1. You discover that clients buy your product/service because it’s simply the best.
2. They are referring you to their own networks.
3. You leverage your services that create the greatest response.

Your clients –
1. You’re discovering what’s important to your clients.
2. You’re consistently solving your client’s most pressing issues.
3. You’re creating value-added bonuses that are meaningful to your clients.

Yourself –
1. You’re learning how your actual entrepreneurial experience compares to your expectations.
2. New talents and gifts are emerging as your continue your journey.
3. You’ve discovered what tasks you need to outsource and what fuels your spirit.

In the end, what you learn about yourself on a deeper level are the hash marks that will ultimately determine your success. You can have all the business success in the world, but without personal success; a deep satisfaction and an inner sense of fulfillment and peace inside, you ain’t got nothin’. Wherever you are on the business field, use the hash marks in your market, your services, your clients and yourself to position yourself for a win.

But what happens when your big break never does come? Reality dictates that not all dreams come true…not all goals are realized…and sometimes that big break just does not happen. What do you do then?

Here are 5 simple principles to remember when you’re faced with the disappointment of a broken big break:

1. Learn the lessons. Acknowledge your part in the whole thing and make a true assessment of what you could have done better and how you’ll do it better next time. Learn the life lessons – and there are always life lessons – that this circumstance has presented. What you learn is a gift to take with you for the rest of your life, and to share with others.

2. Keep yourself in the company of positive people. There’s nothing worse than commiserating on your own, and being dragged down further by energy vampires, sucking the remaining life from your spirit, word by word. Proactively seek out those you know who will encourage you and lift you up.

3. Celebrate each small victory. When your big break doesn’t come, you’ll need to break down your progress into small, steady victories. Not getting that big break doesn’t mean that you’ve failed or that you haven’t had little breaks along the way. Learn to celebrate small wins like making 5 marketing calls, connecting with 10 people via social media, or sending 4 prospecting emails.

4. Re-purpose your dream. When your big break never materializes, maybe it’s time to re-purpose your dream into smaller bites or different bites. It doesn’t mean you give up on your original dream, it simply means you break it down into smaller, more attainable goals. Perhaps you’re a motivational speaker and your big dream was to speak at a Fortune 500 company. The big break didn’t happen…they aren’t breaking down your door, or even calling you for that matter. Why not re-purpose your dream to speak at 5 civic or community club organizations, or maybe a few mid-sized companies, or universities? Who knows? That might have been the master plan all along.

As Drew Brees states in his dynamic book, Coming Back Stronger – Unleashing the Hidden Power of Adversity, “Be flexible enough to know when you’re being led in another direction, and then follow that new vision with all your heart.”

5. Know what you can control…AND what you can’t. There are just some things out of our control…period. Sometimes fate reveals that our big break isn’t in the cards. It’s just not coming. Just ask the hundreds of NFL hopefuls and free agents every year at the Combine and Pro Day. They keep training, they keep hoping, but at some point, they’ll have to recognize the fact that the big break is not coming. Therapists tell us not to worry about the things we can’t control. They’re right. We can do our best and commit the rest to God’s hands.

I hope with everything in me that your big break does come. But I also hope that you’ll embrace the beauty that comes along every day when your big break is in the form of waking up to a day full of opportunity, full of life and full of hope.

The trappings of life; the gold, the glitz, the glitter, and the glamour can fade at a moment’s notice. Just ask one of the 78% of NFL players who find themselves traveling to the intersection of broke and busted within five years of retiring. Only those who are ingrained with a sense of personal accountability will drive to post-career satisfaction and personal victory.

But what about you, the entrepreneur? Without your business, without your enterprises, who are you? What identifies the core of your character?
Maybe it’s time to take an assessment of who you are today, at this moment. Every key person and each key circumstance in your life has helped shaped you into the person you’ve become. You may have chosen to allow bitterness and anger, or self-pity to take root due to life circumstances. Or, you may have chosen to allow life to empower you and strengthen your inner resolve.

Have you been stuck at the intersection of broke, busted, and disgusted? Have you cruised on the highway of gold, glitz, glitter, and the glamour of a successful career? Some of us have driven in both worlds.

I think most of us have in mind what emotional, spiritual, physical, financial, relational, and vocational destinations we see ourselves arriving at; where we’d like to be at a certain stage in our lives. Sometimes I think we focus entirely too much on the destination and forget to enjoy the everyday moments that teach us the lessons that will help us value and cherish those destinations. So, take some time to evaluate where you are right now and who you have become.

“Our business in life is not to get ahead of others, but to get ahead of ourselves, to break our own records, to outstrip our yesterday by our today, to do our work with more force than ever before.”
Stewart B. Johnson

When he plays the field, his opponents sense his presence and his teammates look to him for leadership and guidance. He has flair, authority, strength, balance and composure – at the same time.

As entrepreneurs and business people, we are automatically leaders of our own empire. We play the field of our businesses, even if we’re the only one on our team. Let’s study how the attributes of star athletes can put us on the fast track to personal and business success:

1. Flair – Having flair means possessing natural talent, showing instinctive discernment, and distinctive elegance or style. How does your personality and personal talent exhibit flair for your business? What sets you apart from your competitors? Think about it…write it down.

2. Authority – When you have authority, you command the power to determine, adjudicate, or settle issues. You delegate. You are the one others look to for leadership and accurate information. There is no room for second-guessing yourself – you MUST lead, guide, and make decisions. Who is looking to you for authority? Your clients? Your vendors? Your kids? Your friends? Your social media network? Continue to prepare and develop your authority muscle.

3. Strength – An athlete needs physical AND mental strength to excel; physical strength to command the field, mental strength to work through obstacles and opponents. As a business person, you need physical strength to keep your stamina strong so you can be productive. You also need mental strength to remained focused and overcome setbacks. How are you keeping yourself physically strong on a daily basis? In what ways are you keeping your mind and spirit healthy?

4. Balance – To keep balance in sports or in life in general, it really comes down to making daily, simple decisions.
-Get enough sleep
-Smile at yourself in the mirror when you wake up
-Build in fun to your daily life
-Learn to say NO
-Learn to say yes to the right things
-Nurture key relationships
-Keep a journal of your daily lessons
In what ways do you maintain life balance? Do you make a to-do list for the next day? Do you schedule in fun? Have you learned to say yes and no to the right things?

5. Composure – In sports, an essential key to success is the ability to maintain composure under pressure. An athlete executes his objectives in the face of intense pressure. A business person often operates under pressure, whether it’s financial, difficult clients, or balancing work and family. A few things to remember in the face of pressure: 1) give yourself a moment to collect yourself, 2) assess the specific situation objectively and don’t allow your personal reaction to cloud your judgment, 3) gather information to gain a deeper understanding of the issue, 4) seek the deeper root cause of the issue, 5) take focused action and lead by example. Do you keep your composure under pressure? Do you see the storms of life as obstacles or opportunities?

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” As you play the field as an athlete or an entrepreneur, remember these simple principles and you’ll always be headed toward victory.

When an athlete faces his opponent on the field, he faces an opponent who wants him to lose, to suffer failure, to get hurt. He wants to bring shame on his name. He wants his opponent to appear weaker than he; he wants to control his destiny.

Take a moment to define what your natural instincts are toward your own opponents. Do you try to outwit or outlast your opponents? Do you run away? Do you charge toward conflicts? Do you ask for help or look for someone to blame?

No matter what our offensive, defensive, or self-protective mechanisms are, how do we overcome our opponents? How do we gain the victory over those who seek to dim our light or knock our emotional block off? The following are some life lessons I’ve learned from the many opponents I’ve faced along the way.

**Know who you are! Take stock of your strengths, your weaknesses, your talents, and what character traits that most define you. You must know who you are and you must know your value in order to defeat your opponent.

**Know who your opponent is. Define who, exactly, your opponent is. Is it who they are as a person or is it what they represent that makes them your opponent? Do they bring out a fear in you? Do they represent an unfulfilled childhood need? Realizing the root cause of who your opponent really is will go a long way in defeating their tactics.

**Create Success. Whoever your ‘bogey’ man or woman is; whatever your internal opponent is; it’s essential that you create small successes on your way to more challenging opponents. Equip yourself with the proper tools for your mental and emotional toolbox and, as a result, sling your own internal strength and self-confidence toward your opponents.

Focus on the position you occupy. Thus far, we have looked at ways to overcome our opponents. However, in the end, it is the position we occupy that will bring success. Defeating our opponents does no good if it leaves us in a worse state than before. The ultimate goal is to improve our position. Our opponents will fall by the wayside, especially in our minds. The strength they once held over us will dissipate when our position becomes one of internal resolve and power.

I’d love to hear from you if you have developed your own set of tools for defeating your internal and external opponents. We can all benefit from the life wisdom we’ve gathered if we use that wisdom to help each other improve our position, uncover, and discover our most powerful weapon of all – us!

I think our brains need a data dump regularly in order to run efficiently and clearly. Our minds, and even hearts, collect needless data from negative emotion, information overload, and clutter.

But how do we rid ourselves of the junk in the trunk that slows our operating system and causes us to run less efficiently? What’s the best way to perform a mental and emotional defrag from the daily overload that weighs us down?

Here are some helpful ways to defrag your overstressed mental and emotional state –

- Regular physical activity. Moderate to vigorous exercise reduces stress and helps keeps blood pressure and cholesterol at heart-healthy levels. It’s the best 30 minutes you can spend in your day. If you don’t have 30 minutes at one time, break it down into 10-15 minutes sessions.

- Eat healthy food. Sound boring? It doesn’t have to be. Make one small change a week instead of a crash denial program. You need that 1-oz of dark chocolate, or ¼ cup of your favorite nuts. It’s o.k. as part of a balanced nutritional plan. Incorporate leafy green vegetables into your plan. A simple sauté of sliced leeks and mushrooms is a great way to start. Also, try to get through two sipper bottles of water per day.

- Just laugh. Watch your favorite comedy movie or Comedy Central to get your laugh muscle working. Remembering a funny incident in your life can bring that smile of yours sneaking back on your face. Make it a daily habit to laugh at something.

- Take time everyday to enjoy your favorite activity. Reading, cooking, music, a nature walk, or taking a class can be a highly therapeutic activity to de-stress your brain.

Allowing your brain to survive on constant overload is not healthy…period. If you constantly overextend your body’s ability to perform, you risk burnout where your brain and body go into “sleep mode.” Your creativity dries up, your productiveness slows – you need a defrag, a brain “disk” cleaning. Life is a sum of daily choices so choose daily to engage in a data dump, even for just a few moments. Your mind and body will thank you!

When this happens, it causes the team to step out of their comfort zone, both physically and in their current knowledge level. If they want to rule and reign on the field, they must re-adjust. This often happens at half-time if they’re getting their butts kicked.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately since I’ve had my own major game plan change. I started Winning Proof in July of 2008 so I’m approaching my 3rd anniversary. Anyone who has started a business knows most don’t go from 0 to 100 mph in 6 months…or even two years. It takes time for a business to mature and develop and grow a niche. It’s often necessary to supplement with another job until your business is fully supporting you financially.

Well, in California, getting any type of job is easier said than done. After being downsized again, I could not secure a single job to supplement my business efforts in spite of continued effort. My unemployment and all its extensions had run out and it was indeed a scary time. I had many discouraging days and toward the end of 2011, I was living on financial fumes and prayers.

Enter – Game Plan Change

The short playbook version is – I needed a drastic game plan change if I was going to survive. I had visited North Carolina on a vacation a couple of years prior and had fallen in love with the state. Well, it was time to jump start my environment and life situation. In light of that fact, I sold all my furniture and had a garage sale to fund my move and I relocated cross country to North Carolina at the end of March. All I had left was 72 boxes full of my kitchen contents, clothes, and some household items which traveled via van lines. I drove my 1996 Honda Civic with 245,000+ miles across country to a new, unknown land. I had a temporary place to stay with an acquaintance. Shortly after my arrival, my car was in hospice because that long trek proved too much for the ol’ girl.

I’ve been here for a little over 2 ½ months now and some amazing things have happened in that short time. I have a p/t night job, a day job that I love, a 2010 Toyota Corolla, a place of my own, and I’ve had the privilege of meeting a handful of my local sports industry Linkedin connections. My business is alive and well and once again gaining momentum. I attribute all these changes to a boatload of my praying friends in California and a mega dose of motivation and resourcefulness.

The point of telling you my story is to prompt you to look at your current game plan and really analyze if it’s working for you. Don’t be afraid of giving yourself a half-time pep talk and deciding if a game plan change is in order. Step out of your comfort zone and take a chance.

Is it scary? Absolutely! Fear of the unknown is one of the strongest fears you’ll ever experience. I was in a new state, new town, not knowing where stores and hospitals were; not knowing the freeway system…not knowing a soul except for the person I shared the space with.

Is stepping out on faith into a brand new adventure worth it? The answer again is…absolutely! Is a game plan change always in order? Nope. Sometimes we are called to stay and tough it out but only wisdom and maturity can determine when to stay and when it’s time to move ahead.

If you’re considering a game plan change; pray, consult with trusted friends and clergy, and do your research. Blind faith will lead you down a slippery path and into brick walls – do your due diligence to make sure your plan is realistic and will provide better opportunities for you. A healthy dose of genuine faith will keep your eye fixed on the goal line.

So, if your opponents (financial distress, personal stalemate, lack of business opportunity, etc.) are whipping your butt, consider a game plan change. Not only will you gain valuable life-lesson yardage, you just might experience a victory!

My exodus date to leave Southern California is early on March 27th. My aggressive plan is to blog my way across the states and tell you of the sights I see, the people I meet, and the lessons I learn along the way. And for those of you worrying about a ‘mature’ woman driving alone across the U.S., please rest your mind…I have a friend flying from NC to help me make the trek in my 1996 Honda Civic with 244,500+ miles. I’m selling my furniture and will start anew when I’m settled there; a new game plan deserves a fresh environment. I’ve seen this principle in action while watching NFL games.

In the NFL, when a team is getting their butt kicked, a new game plan is often enacted, depending on the strategy the other team is using. New offensive and defensive plays are put in place to confuse the opponent. This becomes the ‘edge’ the losing team needs to overcome their opponent and often results in winning the game. While I’m not losing any game, I can see it’s time to change my own offensive and defensive life plays to gain that extra edge going forward.

You know when you decide to make a bold move and everything just lines up perfectly? People you might not know well, come your way to support your efforts? Money comes out of nowhere to help support your dream? You’re able to let go of things that have served their purpose in your life? That’s how this migration has been. I don’t just have my eyes on the destination; I am enjoying the journey!

Think about your life and make the bold move to step out in faith toward a dream you’ve nurtured for awhile. Let go and move on!