The Crucial Distincton between Making Conclusions and Taking Action

Several days ago I posted the following quote on my blog:

"The essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions." - Donald Calne.

After meditating on this truism for several days I realized just how relevant this quote is to sales and success in general.

What I started to realize is that this is as relevant to selling to other people as it is to selling ourselves.

I started to see that the seemingly-razor thin distinction between those who make good conclusions and those who take big action leads to a huge difference in results. In fact, you can say that it is the difference that makes the difference.

After seeing the world through this framework I was able to quickly model what peak performers did as opposed to the rest of the population.

Here is what I found to be the distinction between three different subgroups. For lack of better word I'll call these three groups: reckless risk takers, over analyzers, and peak performers.

Reckless risk takers are often heavily represented in extreme sports and lifestyles. Their mentality is "JUST DO IT MAN"... "Get off your ass and do it." Many people equate top entrepreneurs to this model but it is a rare model of entrepreneurial success. The problem with reckless risk takers is that too much volatility and risk taking (without analysis) leads to business failure.

Over-analyzers are the guys behind the reckless risk takers saying "Dude, what the hell are you doing, are you crazy". Over-analyzers are excellent at using their left brain and at making conclusions. The problem with over analyzers is that they rarely take action that leads to any kind of significant success. Action is always taken "sometime in the future"

Peak performers, in this model, borrow practices from both models. Their model is "Over analyze - reckless risk take - and then over analyze." What I mean is that they are very analytical UNTIL it is time to take action.

Why is that? The truth is that it never feels completely right to take action. That is because we are evolutionarily wired to avoid changing circumstance. The trick is to anticipate this gut feeling and to TAKE ACTION anyways. In a way, after you have analyzed the situation you want to just let go and DO IT... after this it is again effective to switch to left brain analyzing functions.

Consistent with the presuppositions of NLP (neuro linguistic programming) it is the person with the most flexibility that is most successful in a system.

What is interesting about this is that peak performers do not constantly have to "just do it". The lives of peak performers is determined by the tangental events in their life where they are able to take the first step. We are wired in an interesting way that allows us to adapt to our new behavior rather quickly after taking action. It is that step that makes the difference in results.


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"As I matured as a business leader, I started to realize that in order for business to work, I must give $100 of value and ask for $10 in return." - Eben Pagan

If you benefited greatly from this specific post, please contribute. If you didn't, don't give me a penny!

The Best Sales Quote You will Ever Hear

"The essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions." - Donald Calne.


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"As I matured as a business leader, I started to realize that in order for business to work, I must give $100 of value and ask for $10 in return." - Eben Pagan

If you benefited greatly from this specific post, please contribute. If you didn't, don't give me a penny!

How to Get VERY Motivated

This is a post I had to write after having a recent conversation with a close friend.

My friend, who was someone who could benefit greatly from a peak performance coach, said the following to me:

"I appreciate you looking out for me, but I don't really need a coach. I don't have any real problems, I'm just not that motivated right now."

This pretty much sums up one of the biggest problems in society.

People love to talk about motivation, or lack of. I often hear people talk about motivation as if it is a spurt of energy that comes in-and-out-of-people by chance.

Gary, he's unmotivated.... Sarah is SO motivated.... I wish I was THAT motivated.. If only I was that motivated.

People refer to motivation as if it's a button that one can turn on with enough discipline and will power.

Rather then explain how this is not the case, let me give you an analogy.

Let's imagine that you are standing on the opposite side of an intersection and you believe you want to get to the other side.

I use the word believe loosely. Perhaps it is your parents that told you to get to the other side, perhaps it is society, etc.

Now, imagine that you yourself are not really sure whether you want to get onto the other side. Adding on to this, a part of you believes that the other side of the intersection is actually farther away from your home then the side that you are on.

You can take one of two strategies:

The Popular Strategy: Using this strategy, you learn to become "motivated." Using this strategy you would beat your chest, say some affirmations, talk to some "positive" people.. all in an effort to become motivated to cross the intersection.

The Strategy that works (pardon the bias): This is the strategy of peak performance or NLP. First off, you would consider whether you really want to cross the street. Perhaps there is a 1/10 chance of getting killed and only $20 on the other side of the intersection.

Let me let you in on a secret: sometimes it's good to listen to the part of you that doesn't want to do something. Sometimes there is a lot of truth in this side and your subconscious is trying to tell you something. Sometimes this is not the case, but it is worth considering.

Assuming that the cost-benefit makes sense you next plan will entail how you can get on the other side.

Instead of standing still and trying to "get motivated" you align your natural drives to correspond with the task at hand.

Perhaps you are a big people-person so you invite your friend to cross the intersection with you. Perhaps you have a significance-oriented meta-program so you call up the local tv station to get you on camera. Perhaps you love listening to music so turning your IPOD on makes the process more enjoyable.

The point is: instead of "disciplining" yourself into motivation you make the task more enjoyable & more rewarding to the point that it becomes OBVIOUS to complete it.

Why is this important to know? This is important to know because exhaustive studies on peak performing individuals across industries have shown that 90% of these individuals are towards-motivated as opposed to away-from motivated.

That's right, 90% of TOP entrepreneurs want to make money rather then not be broke... or make-enough-money-to-retire..

How do we find out what our natural drivers are?

There is no easy answer to this, outside of studying NLP for several years or getting a coach. There are about 60+ different meta programs and drivers of motivation.

Unfortunately, most people do not consciously seek out their drivers. They go around life "stumbling upon" a metaprogram that is aligned. They suddenly find that their 4'th of 5'th job is "enjoyable".

Don't get me wrong, I am the last person in the world that will criticize someone enjoying a job. This is one of the greatest gifts you can have.

The problem is that if we passively rely on finding our drivers we might:
1) Never stumble upon any of our drivers and go through life "working" rather then living.
2) Become too attached to one job and not see other opportunities that could be more rewarding and profitable.

NLP is an incredible field that can help human beings dial into the basic units of motivation: metaprograms. Check it out for yourself, and email me and get a free consultation from my coach god damn it. Don't be a bum! :)

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"As I matured as a business leader, I started to realize that in order for business to work, I must give $100 of value and ask for $10 in return." - Eben Pagan

If you benefited greatly from this specific post, please contribute. If you didn't, don't give me a penny!

How Entrepreneurs Can Thrive in a Recession

EVERYONE is hit by the recession. The recession effects anyone from Warren Buffett & Bill Gates to individuals that are unemployed.

Some entrepreneurs that I know are handling the situation resourcefully, while most are not. Of course, this is not because these entrepreneurs are "bad people". This is just because these individuals have not been taught the right frame-of-mind to tackle the situation.

There are two dominant ways to handle negative events that are outside of our environment. Many people, the majority of the population, focus their frustration outwards. They blame other individuals. They blame the government, the customer, etc.

Others take an opposite-but-equally-destructive mindset: "It's all my fault," they say.

As you may have guessed, there is a third way:

The most resourceful way to handle negative outside events is very much like the former strategy. Peak performers, counter-intuitively, blame outside circumstances on their problems , BUT they deal with the issue differently.

Although peak performers see outside circumstances as the cause of their problem, they approach the event as a challenge. The belief is: "despite this outside handicap, let's see if I can go out there and kick some ass."

Whenever bad things happen in the outside environment that is outside of our control it helps to use the leadership model:

First, see things exactly as they are.
Second, see how things can be better then they currently are.

This is the role of leaders. Leaders are able to see a better future and get others to believe in their goal so that it can be actualized.

The world does not need leaders when things are going well. The time for leaders is when things are tough and others need your help. Make no mistake about it, the time to lead is now.


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"As I matured as a business leader, I started to realize that in order for business to work, I must give $100 of value and ask for $10 in return." - Eben Pagan

If you benefited greatly from this specific post, please contribute. If you didn't, don't give me a penny!

How to Live with Passion

What does it mean when people tell you to live with passion? What a stupid overused cliche!

Before we go into what it means, let's consider what it certainly DOES NOT mean.

Living with passion is something you do, not something you don't do.

You can not live with passion by elimination. You can not live with passion by amassing a lot of money so that you don't have to do anything. Passion is created through conscious activity, not through conscious inactivity.

You can not live with passion through watching TV. Passion is not something done to you, it is what you do unto the world.

Unfortunately, for most people, conscious inactivity is the best they can "dream of". It DOES NOT have to be this way and you don't have to settle for just-not-being-depressed.

Where does passion come from? It certainly doesn't only come from doing charity work or non profit. Passion is the fuel behind every single self made billionaire in the world.

The trade-off between doing "good" and making money is one of the most unsubstantiated myths in the world.

Good. Now that we have talked about what passion isn't let's talk about what Passion is.

Passion is CONGRUENCE. What do I mean by this?

Passion is when you accept yourself fully and express yourself confidently. That means, if you are die-hard-Rush-Limbaugh-loving-conservative you put a big bumper sticker on your car.

This is where passion comes from... Passion comes from self acceptance and self expression. You cannot be passionate and politically correct at the same time, unless your views are aligned with political correctedness. This doesn't mean that you go around and say stupid things to offend other people just to assert your right. It means that you say what you believe and make no apologies for it.

Once you have mastered self acceptance you can now move into self-leverage. What I mean by this is harnessing your natural gifts and personality to create.

Ironically, passion is about what you do rather then who you are (though you find it by becoming who you are).

Being a passionate person is about harnessing the energy that you get from being congruent and using it as fuel to complete your tasks.

Passion is about completely accepting yourself, harnessing your power through focusing on your strengths, and becoming an agent of change.

This is what passion is and this is what you will find behind every passionate person you ever meet in life.


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"As I matured as a business leader, I started to realize that in order for business to work, I must give $100 of value and ask for $10 in return." - Eben Pagan

If you benefited greatly from this specific post, please contribute. If you didn't, don't give me a penny!

The Gift of Impatience

Ever since we were little we were taught the virtue of patience. "Wait your turn in line, put in your time, etc." Person after person told us how important patience was to our success.

At the same time, we were scolded for being impatient. In fact, some of us were given pills to "calm our nerves" and account for the impatience.

Could it be that IMPATIENCE is actually the key to success?

The answer to this is that IMPATIENCE is not the key to success.. at least not what most people would label as success. Impatience is however, the key to ultra-success.

What do I mean, and how is this so contradictory?

Let me relay a story that my coach told me about his clients. Dale is a peak performance coach and he works primarily with entrepreneurs making $500k-$2MM/year, this is his niche.

Here is what he told me about the mindsets he found after working with hundreds of clients over 30 years.

Successful people (those making between $200k-$300k) had the mindset:
1) Work hard
2) Acquire broad range of skill sets that are relevant
3) Stay focused / disciplined

Ultra-successful people (those making $2MM+) had the mindset:
1) Work hard? Not really. I just do what I love. (In fact, most didn't even know how many hours a week they worked. They were often surprised to hear how much they "worked".
2) Focus on your strengths and develop those 2-3 super strengths. DO not worry or waste time on your weaknesses.

See any contradictions?

What is my point? Outside of giving you some interesting things to think about, I wanted to point something out:

If you want to become successful model success, if you want to be VERY VERY successful model very very successful people. This is important because often times, as in this case, the feedback you will get is actually contradictory.

Now.. back to the point of impatience.

One of the only consistent trait that the science of peak performance has found in top performing business people is IMPATIENCE...

That's right. Impatience is a gift. Impatience means that you have high standards. Impatience means that you will not settle for poor results. Impatience, in one word, is MONEY.

Keeping this in mind, it is important to channel your impatience resourcefully.

If you are in sales, it brings no benefit to sit around and "impatiently" wait for people to call you back. Take some action.

Personally, when I am selling I just keep on making more leads (if people are not calling me back). My impatience allows me to make an ungodly amount of leads in a short amount of time (4-5x what most people would do).

Guard the entryway to your mind because it is the key to success. Do not let people tell you to be "more patient." This is not the solution.

The solution is to learn to channel that impatience into resourceful activity. This is when magic happens.


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"As I matured as a business leader, I started to realize that in order for business to work, I must give $100 of value and ask for $10 in return." - Eben Pagan

If you benefited greatly from this specific post, please contribute. If you didn't, don't give me a penny!

The Benefits of Better Health

No word is thrown around more then "health" or "better health". In fact, you probably can't go a full day without hearing someone talking about wanting to become "healthier".

Interestingly enough there is no agreed-upon specific definition to the word, despite it being used so often.

What does better health mean? Does it mean that you will live to 120? Does it mean that you will not get sick during the flu season?

Unfortunately, the vagueness of the word makes it less effective. Why?

Well let's consider for a moment: Can you really be motivated about something you can't define?

Therefore, before we begin talking about health let's create a useful definition. Health = sustained energy.

Yes, this may be a little simplistic. However, every single action that you take that makes your body healthier will increase your sustained energy. Any action that you take that makes your body less healthy will decrease your sustained energy.

This is also an important definition because of the limited beliefs that people have around the concept of health. The belief is that -> I don't want to sacrifice years of fun and great food in return for living to 90 years old instead of 82.

Here's a hint: NEITHER DO I. In fact, neither would any healthy individual (pun intended) that is present and living in the moment.

Let me assure you: better health is not about sacrificing in the present for a return in 50 years. In fact, it is the complete opposite.

This is a strong statement so let me defend it.

The main reason to improve your health is actually to feel more energy, to feel stronger, and to feel happier IN THE PRESENT.

Any benefits down the line, say 50 years from now (for people my age) are only an added bonus. These side benefits are not the main motivator for better health.

There are a couple of other limiting beliefs that individuals have around health. Let's tackle them one at a time:

Limiting Belief #1: It costs more

Let me first call out those that say that health food doesn't cost more. This is bullshit. Comparable healthy food does indeed cost more, but here's a couple things to consider:

1) If you have a healthy diet you will consume much more of the comparable processed food and the natural food that you eat (like vegetables, remember what those little green things are?) will be cheaper. Overall, your grocery bill should stay the same after an initial couple weeks of throwing out new food that you do not like.

2) Since being healthier you tend to eat less fast food and restaurant food you will have a huge savings in food EVEN if your grocery bill is higher.

Limiting Belief #2: Time

Again, let me call out those that say that healthy food takes as long to prepare. This is also bullshit.

Here's the deal: the time that you put in the front end (the first 10 days before you get significant results) is an INVESTMENT into the time saved into the future.

What do I mean by this?

Not only will you become exponentially more efficient in preparing the food but you will also get the benefit of needing significantly less sleep (1 1/2 - 2 hours less) that will more then account for your added food preparation time. Add on that your increased energy levels you will experience and you will have more time and energy to get your tasks done.

Limited Belief #3: I like my food and I DON'T want to give up

Isn't it interesting that some people regard their food as a friend? That alone should be enough of a red flag for you to consider changing your ways!

This is a difficult subject to tackle because of the psychological bias that people with certain diets are prone to have.

Let me give you an example: Personally, I have become vegan (no worries I don't preach). I often times hear people question my diet from a very meat-eating bias. What do I mean by this?

It is in the same way that Republicans and Democrats consider each other's views from each other's biases. The Republican looks at the Democrat's views from a certain bias, and vice versa.

The major point that people miss about diet is that: it is what you eat that matters not what you don't eat. Imagine that you are a steak house and you just had an incredible 16 oz steak sirloin. Are you really thinking about the chicken nuggets that you DIDN'T eat? No, you are thinking about the steak that you just ate. Case in point.

At the end of the day the sustained energy that you will get from better health is necessary in order to achieve big things. I highly recommend this book for more information: The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health.

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"As I matured as a business leader, I started to realize that in order for business to work, I must give $100 of value and ask for $10 in return." - Eben Pagan

If you benefited greatly from this specific post, please contribute. If you didn't, don't give me a penny!

How to Deal with the Jealousy of Others

Before we delve into this topic, let's create some useful definitions that will help us understand this topic.

There is NO such thing as jealous people. The idea of a jealous person is a nominalization , which is a big word for turning verbs into nouns. There are no jealous people, there are only jealous states.

What do I mean by this?

A person only becomes jealous in certain situations. A person might get jealous of your car. However, at the gym the individual may be bigger then you so there is no need for him to be jealous. Therefore, a person may or may not enter a jealous state at different times.

Now, don't get me wrong. There are those that access jealous states much more frequently then others, but they are still temporary states. I have never met an individual that was in a constant jealous state.

The other interesting concept that I wanted to introduce was that jealousy fulfills an important need. What is this need? Significance. This is the exact reason why an almost-always-jealous person who is bigger then you would not be jealous of you at the gym. This is because jealousy serves no purpose and fulfills no need at this time.

Of course, jealousy is not a resourceful state. However, it's popularity is due to its quick access and ease of use. This is also why drugs are popular: both in the over the counter form and from your local crack dealer.

Now.. what makes jealousy even more interesting, and popular, is that most of the people that become jealous see that they have a "right" to be jealous. In other words, the jealous individual is able to project his feelings of ill-will on to others and not take responsibility for his situation.

Let's recap, jealousy is popular because it is: free, easy, quickly accessible, and takes away the need for self-responsibility.

Do you see why jealousy has been so popular since the times of Cane and Abel? Do you see why it will continue to be around for the next thousand years?

Why would one learn to deal with the jealousy of others?

Learning to deal with the jealousy of other is important because the more successful you become (as you surely will) the more jealousy you will have to deal with. This is OK. Dealing with jealousy, just like everything else is a skill set that you will soon acquire after reading this post!

The shortcut: the shortest way to deal with jealous people is to not be around jealous people. There is a small segment of the population that doesn't access jealousy as a state. No, I'm not talking about those that access a depressed state (although they are rarely jealous since their pain is turned inside not outside) I am talking about HIGH achievers.

You will very rarely hear high achievers talk about others in a negative light.

The quickest way to deal with the jealousy of others is not to have to deal with it at all. This can be done by surrounding yourself with high achieving and high self esteem peers.

Unfortunately, this strategy can only work 100% of the time in a vacuum. The reality is that we live in a world where we must deal with all sorts of people.. so we must proceed to cover this topic.

So who are jealous people?

Instead of defining exactly who jealous people are (sorry for nominalizing), let's figure out who they are not. Jealous people, as mentioned before, are not depressed people. Jealous people project their pain out while depressed people project their pain inwards. Jealous people are also NOT high achievers, at least in that specific realm of their life. Jealous people are also not aggressors, in other words they don't confront individuals head on (in other words they are just little pussys).

That leads to the same question: WHO the hell are jealous people?

Jealous people are those that use passive-aggressiveness as their defacto coping mechanism. The next time someone hates on you try saying: "that is interesting that you are accessing the passive-aggressive coping mechanism". Tell them David Weisburd told you to say that ; )

Sorry, I got carried away, let's get back to the issue...

Jealous people typically fall into different subsections: haters, jokers, losers, .

Let's break these MF-ers down and see how to deal with each of them. To our advantage, these individuals are incredibly predictable and act consistently every single time.

The Hater

The hater, due to his jealousy, will try to mock you or find the smallest fault with what you are doing. Here's what's interesting: the more they focus on you the more you know they are a hater. Why? I can't talk for you but I can hardly remember a situation where I had the time to follow someone else's life and analyze them for the sake of critizing it.

You can be sure that the hater is struggling with issues in many aspects of his or her life. This is sad. Perhaps you can give him a hug or a kiss because he's just a BABY!

Jokers

Jokers are the "intellectuals" of the jealousy family. Jokers create a seperate ego to cope with the success of others. Often times, jokers will have such parts-disintegration that you will have known them for several years without ever getting to know their true personality. In fact, jokers may not even know their own true personality, which, in my opinion, is pretty tragic.

Jokers are great at self-delusion.

Remember, they are simply using passive-aggression as a coping mechanism. If the joker is annoying you too much tell him he has an interesting coping mechanism and that it is very cute.

The Losers

Losers are the ones that I feel for (a little). These are the people that will say: "well that's cause you have this or that." They DO NOT NEED YOUR PITY. These people get pity from everyone else, ALL the time. If they didn't they wouldn't access this state so often.

Break them out of it and say: you are not broken, and you were meant to get shit done in this world. It is interesting what a little success will do to the "loser".

Here's the point: once you start to consciously realize the building blocks of jealousy you will find that it doesn't bother you anymore. Why? Because the jealousy is ALWAYS about the other person and never about you. Don't believe me?

Isn't it true that the last time you were jealous it was a result of what was going on in your life not the other person's?

That is the key to dealing with the jealousy of others. I hope you enjoyed this exhaustive guide.


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"As I matured as a business leader, I started to realize that in order for business to work, I must give $100 of value and ask for $10 in return." - Eben Pagan

If you benefited greatly from this specific post, please contribute. If you didn't, don't give me a penny!

How to sleep 6 hours a night without an alarm clock

This is the post that many of you have been waiting for.. so let's begin.

This will help you sleep 6 hours a night (if needed) or sleep 7 hours a night and feel as if you are a lazy fat American (which is what I personally do).

In this post I am going to talk about a lot of different aspects of sleep. Keep in mind that this is not my personal theories on sleep nor is it even scientifically based. All I can write about is what I have personally experienced to be the most optimal way to sleep effectively.

One of the most important concepts of effective modeling is to model what works in practice not in theory.

As an entrepreneurial individual, I hope you understand the distinction and value this information:

So let's begin...

If you thought we could talk about your sleep-schedule in a vacuum then you were wrong. "Shockingly" sleep schedule is closely related with your exercise, diet, and mental health.

Let's start with exercise:

Exercise

I have experimented with different types of exercise. Overall, with cardio and weight lifting, I exercise 6 days a week.

In terms of sleeping well, by far, the most effective strategy has been doing cardio late in the evening (anywhere between an hour and three hours before going to sleep).

Doing cardio in the evening has a couple positive effects. It is the quickest way to improve your night's sleep. You can eat a pretty bad diet and do cardio late in the evening and still sleep much better then the average American (this is the reality).

Cardio also has a hidden benefit of supressing appetite and taking away the need to stuff your mouth with food late in the night. This is very important because EVEN if you exercise all day long and you overeat late at night you will not have a good night's sleep. This is because your body will be busy digesting all your food.

Again, I have found the most effective time to do cardio (for sleep's sake) is AFTER dinner, although not directly after, and roughly one to three hours before going to sleep.

Note: This doesn't apply to weight lifting, I have found weight lifting makes it slightly easier to sleep but can not compare to the positive effects of cardio.

Diet

Diet is the second most important determinant of how much sleep you need. Again, I will say that not eating late at night is the single most important determinant of whether or not you have a good night's sleep.

Personally, I have switched to a vegan diet in order to get an extra burst of daily energy. One of my favorite bloggers, Steve Pavlina, went through a very similar experience for the same exact reasons so you can read about the choice from his perspective: Why Vegan.

I am not trying to convert you, I don't REALLY care that much ;). If you are interested in getting much more energy then look into it as a viable alternative.

For those that would like to try it for 10-days (which is the initial commitment that I made), let me answer some of the most common questions that I get all the time:

1) How do you get all the protein?

This is usually a loaded question that people ask me. For me, it IS more difficult to get the protein that I need. This is because of my weight lifting exercises I require double the amount of protein that the average human must consume. For this reason, I must consciously know the protein that I am getting.

For the average American, it is quite easy to get the necessary protein while maintaining a vegan lifestyle. In fact, by the time breakfast is done I will have consumed the daily amounts of protein the average American requires.

Because of our great capitalistic society (for the time being) there are many food choices for Vegans including substitutes for burgers, chicken nuggets, pizza, hot dogs, sausages, bacon, etc.

Much of the substitutes taste indifferentiable and allow me to live an "unhealthy" lifestyle of pizza, sausage, and chicken nuggets.

Outside of these meat substitutes, I have found the most natural protein in:
-Edamame
-Almonds
-Soy nuts
-Whey protein
-Soy Milk

2) Don't you crave meat?

No, I have no craving for meat. I still have some weird desire/fetish for rotisseri chicken. Maybe this is because there is no vegan equivalent, but I imagine that this craving will pass as well.

I also do not believe in doing ANYTHING to an extreme so I am open to having meet or dairy products 2-3 times a month though I have found no need to do it.

3) Isn't it more expensive?

Overall, I would be lying if I said that grocery shopping is not more expensive. However, most of the groceries can be found in the large super-markets (like Meijer in Indiana) and is significantly cheaper if you are used to eating out often.

Personally, I am one that compulsively ate at restaurants for social reasons (at least once a day). I will say that the increase in energy and mental clarity that you will get from being a vegan will increase your ability to be more social much more then any restaurant.

Also, keep in mind, of course, that just because you are a vegan or vegetarian doesn't mean you can't eat out.

Outside of all the health benefits of being a vegan, and they are just too long to list (like an average life expectancy increase of 10 years), I have adopted this diet almost exclusively for increased energy levels. It has been effective for this purpose.

Mental Health

This is an often over-looked and important part of achieving this and any other goal. Before I proceed, I must confess that I didn't execute well on this goal.

Before starting, I didn't have a very good reason for wanting to get up at 5 am or 6 am. This may explain, why I "sleep in" till 6 am.

Developing a big enough why for diet and sleep patterns will really help you go along way in executing successfully on this plan.

Like any goal, the mental components break down to: how much do you want something + how easy is it to attain.

For this goal, slow-waking really made it significantly easier to get up. In summary, this means really stretching your body and contracting/relaxing before you get up from your bed. This will put you in a great positive state that will make it easy to get up naturally.

It also helped to get up slowly so that I really conditioned my mind to enjoy getting up.

Miscellaneous

What will help cement your sleep schedule is to go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day. For those of you who have amazing will power, this should be kept up even on weekends (for 30 days). For those of you for whom it is not possible (like myself) doing so 5 times a week will go a long way towards creating a pattern of sleep that will become unconscious for the rest of your life!

Also, the easiest way to have more time to sleep and activities is to go to sleep earlier. Most people have the mindset "if only I could sleep in an extra hour 'till 9" where they should be thinking, "If only I could go to sleep two hours early at 11".

Do you still nap?

Most people know about my quirky napping schedule. Although I gave it up for several days I have gone back to napping for 20 minutes every afternoon. Now, with the new Pzizz app for the iphone will not be giving up my naps anytime soon. There are many positive effects of napping and you can google them. A nap of as little as 10-20 minutes roughly 6 hours after you get up can go along way towards increased mental clarity and energy.


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"As I matured as a business leader, I started to realize that in order for business to work, I must give $100 of value and ask for $10 in return." - Eben Pagan

If you benefited greatly from this specific post, please contribute. If you didn't, don't give me a penny!

How to Reach Your Goals Easily

The title of this post pretty much sums up most of the reason people read my blog so let's delve right into it.

BEFORE we start tackling this issue we must redefine certain terms. The first term we must redefine is "easy". What do people mean when they easily?

Usually, in our society, when people use the word easy they mean "without much physical/emotional exertion".

This is not an effective definition. Rather then explain why it is not effective let me tell you a personal story.




When I started working out with my trainer, Matt Hunckler, over 2 years ago, it was incredibly difficult. In fact, looking back, it was one of the most difficult life transformations that I have had to go through.

Why?

It was difficult because my body, and most importantly, my mind was not used to "maxing" out. It took a great deal of will power to execute on the 3-day-a-week workout regime.

What made it even more difficult, which is true with almost any worthwhile goals, is that I didn't get any gains for around 5-6 weeks. This means that at the time that it was most difficult I had no reward.

Now, thankfully, I researched this topic before hand (being the nerd that I am) and I anticipated it and therefore got an excellent trainer and motivator.

What's the point? Here is the interesting thing, after a while working out became increasingly easier. NO, it didn't get any physically easier. I was still maxing out and gritting my teeth.. it just got easier mentally.

How much easier? On a scale from 1-10 it went from roughly 10 to a 2.5. As time went on it became easier and even easier until finally it became... ENJOYABLE.

As you know, this experience is not a "miracle" or a special case, it is the way our body and mind works... so before we move on let's redefine the word easy as it relates to attaining our goals.

Easily - with minimal conscious (as opposed to subconscious) effort.

Rule #1 - Use the power of momentum to make tasks easier (see definition).

Momentum - the compound interest of action.

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So how did I have the "motivation" to follow through on the first 6 weeks of the workout? Easy, I had a big enough why + a sense of urgency.

The MOST effective goal setters and achievers in our society go towards goals not away. While most people live their lives going away from goals whether consciously or unconsciously.

The way to achieve optimally is to CONSTANTLY think about your towards goal. I know the body that I want, the girlfriend that I want, and the swagger that I want. I focus on this not only before my workout but ESPECIALLY on the last reps of each individual set (90% of muscle growth is experienced in the last 2 reps).

By the way, if you don't focus TOWARDS a goal your mind will program you automatically to focus away from a goal. You must opt-in to towards-goal thinking. What is interesting is that ALL peak performers use this strategy just most of them are not aware of it. Most of them aren't even aware that it is possible to use an away-from strategy

Rule #2 - Think about what you are working towards (not away), before the act, during the act, at night, etc.

Rule #3 - Take on the belief if-not-now-then-when.

By the way, before we move on, isn't it interesting that some people proceed to tackle their goals without having a towards goal motivation? Here's the bottom line: either figure out WHY you want something or DON'T do it, spend your conscious will power on something that has a big enough why.

If you are having problems with this you might want to take a step back and think about your PERSONAL values, not those imposed by others or society on you (see NLP meta programs).

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You can still follow all this advice and not achieve your goals. This is probably because you don't have a coach/mentor/peer and/or you are not setting benchmarks.

It is important to understand that EVERYTHING is a process and can be broken down into benchmarks and goals.

For example, if you wanted to build muscle mass, here would be the benchmarks.

1) Find a trainer.
2) Have the trainer look at your diet and devise a workout routine for you.
3) Work out for 1 week (hardest)
4) Work out for 4-5 more weeks until progress is seen.
5) Etc.

Two things to consider here:
1) It is highly encouraged to keep a log. It is amazing how quickly we internalize successes and if we don't log them we may not realize just how far along we are going.
2) CELEBRATE your successes

Let me start with #2 just because this is a big pet peeve of mine. There is a "belief" out there that celebrating your wins will keep you from achieving great things. Let me assure you that the science of peak performance has shown this belief to be false. In fact, celebrating wins is one of the most correlated practices of peak performing individuals and teams.

Let me repeat: CELEBRATING WINS/BENCHMARKS WILL INCREASE YOUR LIKELIHOOD OF LONG TERM SUCCESS. Etch that into your mind, it is something that will not change over the next thousand years.

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Finally, schedule it in. If it has no room on your schedule it will not get done. Period. There are no exceptions.

Rule #4: SCHEDULE it in or it won't get done.

That is it. The biggest problems highly motivated people will have in executing this plan will be in values conflict. For example, you might love to work with people but you want to have a home business. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to perform with these conflicts. A good licensed NLP coach will go a VERY long way in helping with these conflicts. It has been found that success is 80% about aligning psychology and only 20% strategy.

My coach is excellent and I constantly rep him because he has had a profound impact on my life. Email me at dweisburd@gmail.com if you want a free consultation from him.

Whatever you do stop procrastinating and get your shit in order. It's time to rebound our economy.

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"As I matured as a business leader, I started to realize that in order for business to work, I must give $100 of value and ask for $10 in return." - Eben Pagan

If you benefited greatly from this specific post, please contribute. If you didn't, don't give me a penny!

How to source top performing A players to your company

Taken from Hire with Your Head by Lou Adler.

"If you're trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language in which they think." - David Ogilvy.

The best people are looking, finding and hiring them is the challenge. Counteroffers are more prevalent and more are being accepted.

-First it's important to recognize that top performers don't look for new opportunities the same way that average candidates look. They're more selective, and even if they are looking, they will only consider positions that offer true opportunities... The common agreement among the best people is that their criteria to move forward or not involves a long-term goal and major career step, not just a tactical decision based on salary and location. Not understanding this difference is why so many companies lose so many good people. If you want to get more of these great people into the game, your job descriptions must describe career opportunities, not just skills and experiences.

-The mission statement for any sourcing program should be to find the strongest people possible in the shortest period of time at the lowest reasonable cost.

-It is not a viable strategy to use boring qualification-intensive ads, and "hoping" something will work.

Channels for a sequenced sourcing program:

Develop a sourcing strategy that consists of multiple channels sequenced in some way based on quality, cost, and time not a silver bullet approach:

-Resume databases
-Internal transfers
-Internet-based advertising
-Employee referrals
-College recruiting
-Diversity recruiting
-Campaigns and career events
-Direct sourcing
-External recruiting - Paying a fee for an A player is always worth it. Paying a fee for a B player is not.

Corporate recruiting departments all want to find the silver bullet or the next tech toy to solve their sourcing problems. A one stop solution doesn't exist.

Offer Careers Not JOBS

-Top people don't use the same criteria when applying, considering, or accepting an offer.

The following are the top 5 critera that top people use when deciding to accept an offer:
1) The job match: the best people want to do work that challenges them and allows them to grow in areas they deem important.
2) The hiring manager: Top people want to work for leaders and mentors who can help them reach their goals.
3) The quality of the team: The team is very important for a top person. Meeting strong potential coworkers (or peers) can overcome other concerns and minimize the chances of accepting a counteroffer.
4) The company: A strong company with a great employee can get someone interested, but these factors are less important when a person makes the final decision or not.
5) The compensation package - as long as the package is reasonable, most top people don't consider it the number-one consideration.

-A great web site with boring jobs won't attract top people.

The sourcing sweet spot - semi active and semi passive people.

Very active - These are people who need a job and are aggressively looking. Around 20 percent of the market. Top people are underrepresented in this pool.

Semi-Active (Best) - These are people who are fully employed but want a better job. Compelling advertisements work on these people. They represent around 25 percent of the employment market and are the sourcing sweet spot. To capture them your ads need to be visible and you must move fast. For a corporation with limited resources most of its efforts should be spent on sourcing people from this group.

Semi-passive (Second Best) - The best approach to this group is to pre-qualify them before you call. The only way to pre-qualify someone is if he's been referred by someone else.

Very passive - These people don't want another job. It takes too much effort and time to call and convince them (though some talent does reside in this pool).

-In good economic times, fast-growing, highly visible companies attract a larger share of top candidates. In slower economic times, solid, stable companies with a more secure future enjoy the spotlight.

-Top people will explore career opportunities if the underlying message makes career sense. Don't post traditional skills-based job descriptions if you want to see more top people. This is akin to advertising the technical specifications for a consumer product and expecting people to buy it. The best candidates are not interested in doing the same job over and over again, even for more money. If the ad is compelling enough then you'll attract more high-potential candidates and those great applications sitting ont he fence, waiting for the right opportunity to present itself.

******Example of a BORING AD

Customer Service Representative

-We are looking for a Customer Service Representative on behalf of our client, Acme Systems. This position is based in Dallas, TX.

Summary

-Our customer service representatives will apply their strong communication skills to fulfill customer needs to ensure customer satisfaction.

Responsibilities
-Respond to a high volume of customer inquiries.
-Process orders and prepare various correspondences.
-Two year's previous customer service experience.
-Proven track record of stability and commitment to providing excellent customer service.
-Strong computer skills.
-Excellent communication skills, detail-oriented, and ability to multitask.
-Able to work in a team environment.

Example of a BORING AD******


******Example of the same add improved

Customer Service Rep, Jugglers, and Master Organizer

Our client is growing fast in major part due to its focus on ensuring great customer service. As part of this expansion, the company wants to hire people who are looking for long-term careers in customer service, sales, or marketing. If you're interested in a career, not just a paycheck, then check this out:

1. You'll be put through a highly interactive three-week training course on using state-of-the-art CRM systems.
2. You'll need to juggle lots of tasks, track down orders, and solve tough-scheduling problems in order to keep our discriminating customers happy.
3. Attention to detail is critical. We take great pride in marking sure every order is 100 percent correct.
4. Our customers and your teammates are counting on you to be here, every day. If you're ever worked in this type of environment, you know how important teamwork and commitment are to personal success.
5. We'd like a year-or-so in a call center or customer service position. More important though is a commitment to yourself to be as good as you possible can. We'll help you achieve this goal.

Example of the same add improved******

******Example of another great ad (this ad performs consistently in the market so feel ree to mimic it)

CEO (circa 2010) Fast-Forward One Year

We'd like to thank you for making Philadelphia a great place to live. Here's what happened under your leadership:

1. You raised $50 Million to create a City of Life center as a safe place for inner-city kids to hang out after school.
2. You introduced a new program for single moms to enter the workforce with real jobs that offered real careers.
3. You got the top 50 companies in Philadelphia to make major commitments to being part of the city's revitalization program.
4. Your programs helped stem the tide on drug use, reduced gang membership, and increased the graduate rate of all city high school.

We can't wait until net year.

Now Back to Today.

If you'd like this story to be yours...

Example of another great ad (this ad performs consistently in the market so feel ree to mimic it)******

(By the way, the above concept can be used to shape your own mission statement, see rapid planning model by Tony Robbins).

-ZoomInfo is a site that searches the internet for names of people and categorizes them by title and company. Their JobCast emailing system allows you to automatically send the ad to anyone with an email address. Two of the final four candidates for the CEO position came from referrals from the JobCast email. The key was that the ad was so compelling that people wanted to send it to others.

-If you want to attract the best people, ads should be written from their unique perspective - they don't need a job, but they might check out a better opportunity. Design and write your ad to stand out and attract top people who have multiple opportunities.

In Summary, great ads should:

1) Have a compelling title that's quickly seen on the long listings of open opportunities.
2) Write copy that's focused on what the candidate will learn, do, and become.
3) Describe the most critical skills in the context of how they're used.

-An ad needs to overcome the intertia of not responding, or the pull of dozens of similar-sounding ads.

-A suvery of over 500 candidates we took a few years ago showed that 65 percent to 70 percent of all candidates checked out a company's web site before applying for a job they found at one of the job boards. Half decided not to apply as a result, because the career section was weak. It surprises me that some people dismiss the need for a career site, suggesting that they just want to hire passive candidates. Even passive candidates will look on your site before considering a potential opportunity.

Employee Referral Programs

-As far as I'm concerned, a proactive company employee referral program should be at the core of every sourcing strategy. Most companies will tell you that their internal employee referral program has produced more top people than all other methods combined. In the past, we've heard this from representatives of Microsoft, AIG, Wells Fargo, Yahoo, etc.

-Promote a formal referral program and offer a bounty. These can range from $500 to $3000. Encourage employees to refer other A players and make sure you follow up quickly with every referred person in a very professional manner.


-

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How to easily wake up Monday Morning : Slow-Waking

As some of you know, I have been conditioning myself to receive 6 hours of sleep a day without the use of an alarm (I am down to 7 hours right now! and going strong).

This has required a change in lifestyle, diet, exercise, etc.

While some of this has been difficult to implement and required some temporary will power, one part of my regime has been incredibly easy and pragmatic. For lack of a better word, we will call it: the art of slow-waking.

Before I describe the art of slow-waking, I want to pat myself on the back and tell you that: if you implement this, this will SIGNIFICANTLY make waking up much more enjoyable and easy.

OK.. let's begin.

Here are the steps to slow-waking:

1) Open your eyes
2) While laying down, stretch out your entire body
3) SLOWLY turn, bend your knees, and put your feet on the ground.
4) Slowly stand up
5) Walk outside

There are 3 reasons why this works:

1) Stretching out your body makes it exponentially easy to get up, it feels damn good and puts you in a good state for wake up.

2) Waking up slowly conditions your body not to "hate" waking up. It makes the mind feel that you do not hate it. This is the equivalent of when our group was told not to run across hot coals because this would signal to the brain that there is danger ... and you would get burned.

3) Going outside will stimulate your evolutionary survival mechanism and almost instantly wake you up. Not to mention, if you happen to know yogic breaths doing so outside will flood your body with oxygen and energy.

This is the most low-hanging fruit of waking up easily without an alarm clock. Go implement it and watch for more strategies coming up in the next month or so.

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How to Stay Focused ALL Day Long

1. Staying focused is ALL about being able to stay totally ENGAGED and totally DISENGAGED. The best performers, in business, paradoxically are sprinters not marathoners. Yes, of course, they keep a long term perspective. But, when it comes to execution they perform in short term bursts (30 minutes to 90 minutes).

Note: If you are as quirky as me you even use a stop watch.

2. The latter part of staying focused is learning how to actively disengage. There are some interesting techniques for this. Personally, I like to vary it up during the day but some of the most effective ways are:

a) Exercise, specifically my new favorite: rebounding. 5 minutes of rebounding while watching TV will scramble your mind and make you feel like it's the beginning of the morning again.

b) Going outside. This is especially effective if it is winter outside and if you happen to not be wearing a shirt. Why? This shocks your system and tells you to wake up (it's an evolutionary thing).

3. Not allowing things to bother you during the day. This means: turning off your phone, not checking your email (all the time), etc. It also includes on bathroom breaks and things of this nature, scrambling your thoughts by saying "Na,na,na,na"... yes like a little kid. We can talk about the theory behind this for 2 hours or you can try it for 5 seconds, how does this sound? ;)

Now get back to work and FOCUS!

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What is Congruence and why it's important

Congruence is a very interesting topic to write about because everyone is heavily influenced by it, and very few people are aware of it.

Instead of giving a dictionary definition of congruence, let me give you some examples:

Barack Obama is very congruent. Hillary Clinton is very incongruent. Bill Clinton is very congruent... Nancy Pelosi is very incongruent... John Edwards is incongruent.. as is Harry Reid.

Do you have any better idea on what congruence is?

Congruency is when all of our inner parts align. There are different types of congruence.

For example, one congruence is when your tone and facial expressions match what you are saying. Have you ever had someone tell you one thing while their body language said something else.. this is incongruence.

What is interesting about this is that the face sends signals at incredibly quick speeds that the subconscious of other individuals is able to process (this has been proven by slowing facial expressions in high speed videos).

Incongruence sucks. In fact, if you are like me, you get very uncomfortable around someone who is incongruent. The best example is the typical "nice passive aggressive guy", don't you just want to bitch slap him?

Congruence is also incredibly powerful. It is the force behind every individual's and group's rise to power. Congruence is also the power behind individual empowerment.

Yes, congruence will make you very well liked and trusted.. but most importantly, congruence will get rid of any internal friction that is holding you back and make you succeed at lightning speed.

I say lightning speed quite literally, while people are sitting around "thinking" you will be able to make decisions like a ray of lightning... ZAP.. just like that.

How do we become congruent?

Becoming congruent is an easy process, IF you know the right tools. If you don't know the right strategies, it is VERY difficult to become congruent.

Before we become congruent, we must understand the parts of our lives that we are incongruent in. Some of us are blessed with self awareness.. while others might need a little help (if you need help a good NLP coach can bring out the parts).

Once we understand our incongruenty it becomes infinitely easier to become congruent. One of the most important concepts of self sabotage and congruence is that all parts inside you want the best for you they just use different strategies to get there.

For example,

Part A: I want David to be safe, secure and live a good life.

Part B: I want David to be very successful and achieve great things.

While these parts are inside you and at conflict you will be incongruent. Well.. at least a part of you will be incongruent.

Here is the good news: there are strategies, and we are talking about 100's of different ones that all work, that can get rid of internal conflict and incongruence.

Bottom Line: It is not enough to understand congruence intellectually. At best, intellectual understanding will only explain why you dislike someone so much. In order to BECOME congruent we must use an experienced NLP coach.

Personally, I have gone through many coaches and have found one that I can confidently put my name behind. If you are interested e-mail me at dweisburd@gmail.com and I will forward you his info.

Whatever you do, find a coach that can help you! It will change your life for the better.

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How to wake up Feeling Excellent

Steve's a great blogger, and his routine is very close to mine (except the 5 AM part):

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/10/how-to-wake-up-feeling-totally-alert/

2 important points:

1) Waking up early has more to do what you do at night then in the morning.
2) It is not about having "amazing" will power.
3) Not mentioned in blog: one of the best ways to wake up feeling great is to breathe fresh air both at night and early on in the morning. This signals to your mind to GET UP.

Also, for those interested in the topic of veganism (just an interesting read not trying to convert you): http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/09/why-vegan/

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