Paul Lemberg

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You are here: Home / Archives for Beliefs

By pl 23 Comments

Okay isn’t

You know how there are some things to which you’ve given thought? They seem clear to you in your mind, but they haven’t actually become part of the you that’s living your life?

This is common for many people…

You may know something but that “knowing” has no real meaning to you. Knowing it doesn’t in any way change how you live or work. Some people call this the difference between knowledge and wisdom.

Knowledge is just another thing you have, waiting to be used…

Wisdom changes your life.

Something has to happen to drive those things from your head into your heart, into your life. It could be anything…

It could be a full-on shock to your system that does it. A kind of emotional cataclysm – the end of an important relationship, going bankrupt, or the death of a loved one.

It doesn’t have to be a negative thing. It could be the birth of a child or selling your company that does it.

It could be something neutral like simply growing older. Although all by itself that doesn’t seem to make anyone much smarter or aware.

It could even be something seemingly trivial, like getting the right email at just the right time, or a “chance” conversation with a friend or trusted advisor.

I have lived with knowing lots of things that didn’t make a damn bit of difference, but over the last few weeks whole giant aspects of my life and business have shifted.

In my “Rhonda” video – if you haven’t seen it you can watch it by clicking here (fair warning, it’s kind of rough) – I talked about an earlier time in my life when I had this extraordinary job. For a job, it was perfect in almost every way. High pay, smart colleagues and clients, interesting, challenging work, international travel… Everything.

And yet I woke up one day and realized that while it was all okay, I wasn’t doing my life’s work. I wasn’t living the way I’d hoped to.

When I finally woke up (and it literally happened waking up one morning) I had no choice but to act.

I turned in my resignation by the end of that week…

Maybe there’s nothing wrong for you with okay, but for me okay is a four-letter word. Now, I’m not saying you have to feel the way I do. For many people okay would be an upgrade…

But one of the problems with living an okay life is that it lulls you…

And you can end up sleepwalking through your okay life and wake up 20 years down the road to the sudden horror that it’s too late to live the life you’ve longed for.

You’ve survived instead of flourished, you’ve settled for existence when you could have had transcendence.

If you’ve read this far, okay probably isn’t for okay for you.

For me, it’s crystal clear: okay isn’t.

I want spectacular.

What about you?

Filed Under: Beliefs, Mindset, Personal Story

By pl 38 Comments

Support Your Life…

 

My father spent a large part of his life working to pay the bills.

A lot of people do that. They live as if the whole purpose of their lives is to support their business.

What if it was the other way around?

What if you deliberately designed your business to support your life?

That’s more like it, isn’t it…

 

 

Watch this video to get started…

 

Filed Under: Beliefs, Business Coaching, Business Strategy, Goal Setting, leadership, Mindset Tagged With: beliefs, business coaching, goal setting, leadership, Mindset, strategy

By pl 28 Comments

Time Used Well

Time well used, time well spent?

I’ve been thinking recently about the kind of choices we can make about time.

Do you go with the default…

The pre-programmed…

The accidental non-decision…

Do you yield to inertia?

Of course, you have to earn a living, you have to pay your bills.

But can you make a conscious, deliberate decision to spend your days in a way that lights up your life.

Watch the video…

And put your thoughts and comments below.  This conversation is worthwhile…

If you’re in your 20s or your 30s, you may not want to listen to this. As you get a bit older and you’re in your 40s or maybe you’re in your 50s maybe you’re even in your 60s, you may really want to pay attention to what I’m about to say.

About 4 years ago my mom had a stroke and suddenly in a blink of an eye, in about 30 seconds’ time, she stopped being able to do all the things that she loved doing. She stopped being able to do the things that gave her purpose. That lasted for four years, four really long years for her. A few weeks ago, she died, she passed on. If you lost either of your parents, you know that this really gets you thinking about your own life. It got me thinking about the notion of time and about how much time that there really is.

So here’s what I came to and this is not a new idea. But this is it, this here, right here, right now. This is it. Whatever your beliefs are about the afterlife or whether there is an afterlife or not, on earth in the 3D world, this is your time and you can use it well or you can use it now as well. Let’s talk about work. If you work only 8 hours a day and only 5 days a week, that’s about 40 hours a week and after 50 weeks it’s about 2000 hours a year. So ask yourself this, do you want to spend that time doing something that just doesn’t matter for you? Sure, you’ve got to earn a living, you’ve got bills to pay.

If you have a family and you want to feed them, and maybe you want to provide for your future, you don’t want to let anything get in the way of that. But there are hundreds of ways to do it. There are lots and lots of ways that you can do that. But passion, purpose, the point of your existence, this is what really matters. Whatever it is that you do, you’ve got to make it worthwhile to get up in the morning. It’s got to matter however it is that you define what matters. Now don’t lie to yourself on this one. If you’re not sure whether something does or doesn’t matter to you, I can tell you right now without giving another seconds thought. That means it does not qualify, that it does not matter.

I want you to start thinking about this, today, right now. Ask yourself the question and answer it. What really matters to you? What would have been worth spending your time on if suddenly you didn’t have any more time to spend? Because it’s just as easy to pay your bills, it’s just as easy to build your fortune doing something that lights up your life as something that doesn’t. So look, this is isn’t one of those do what you love and the money will follow things. I can’t promise that. But I can promise you that if you invest your passion into your purpose and then you do all the other strategies and tactics that I’ve been teaching you and telling you to use. This will be a worthwhile journey for you. I am pretty sure at this point that the journey is far more important than when you reach the destination.

This, by the way, is one of the great reasons to have someone in your corner with you. Someone will ask you the tough questions about your life, your business, your focus. So check in with yourself right now. Make sure that you’re on the right path. Make you’re on that path you want to be on. Not some default that you got on by accident or because it was easy. Make sure you are on the path that matters.

If you have any thoughts or comments, please share them on the blog. I’d love to talk to you about this.

Paul

Filed Under: Beliefs, Business Strategy, leadership, Time management

By pl 45 Comments

Mindfulness in Simple Action

Earlier this week I spoke to a breakfast group and asked what they did while driving to the meeting that morning.

Nothing surprising, people said they ate, listened to music, talk radio and motivational “tapes,” some sang, talked on their cell phones, some thought about problems, one rehearsed a speech, a salesman worried about a client, they checked email, they texted, one sexted, one woman put on lipstick, several drank coffee, and a man planned dinner. Some of them were doing a few of these things at once.

But not one of them just drove.

You see, driving is one of these activities we can do without paying the
slightest attention, despite the fact that it’s actually quite complicated. And it turns out that driving isn’t the only thing we do without paying attention. When you stop to think about it, there is very little besides video games, golf, and television that we actually give our full 100% attention.

Much of our life is done on semi-automatic, and sometimes – like driving – full-bore-auto. And it’s not just one thing that’s on auto-pilot, but often a whole bunch of things going on at the same time and none getting anywhere near our full attention, our minds flipping and switching and jumping from one thing to the next to the next.

Of course, what you end up with is sub-par performance because nothing is getting our very best, difficulty focusing (what a surprise), a lack of creativity (creativity definitely requires focus and you’re out of practice), procrastination (because when you’re doing 7 things at once who wants to do anything else), fuzzy thinking (again, no surprise), no spontaneity (we’re never really present), and more kinds of stress you can possibly imagine.

So I was driving to the talk on mindfulness, and practicing JUST DRIVING…

“Feel the foot on the gas and the hands on the steering wheel…”

And then I’d jump to thinking about what I was going to say. And then I’d remember to JUST DRIVE.

“Push the turn signal control down, turn the steering wheel slightly and sense the car moving into the left lane…”

And what was I going to say? Oh right – JUST DRIVE…

And so on. Then I started breathing into the driving. That made it easier. My focus became sharper.

When you ease into it, when you breath into it, everything starts to feel better. The mind chatter settles down almost instantly and your senses become sharper. Whatever else there was a moment ago falls away. Breathing is really key to mindfulness practice.

Try this:

Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Pay attention to the air flowing in through your nose and down your windpipe and into to your lungs. Hold the breath for a second and then slowly let it out, again feeling to the air as it leaves your deflating lungs, flows up your windpipe and out of your mouth. This is what yoga people call
“watching your breath.” Do that a few times. If you’re still with me, count from one to ten along with your breathing.

Go ahead. Just stop reading . Breath and count. After you’ve done it for a while come back to me.

How was it?

Most people get lost somewhere between 2 and 10. Their mind wanders and starts thinking about… Something.  Maybe you remembered what you were doing, came back and kept counting. And then lost it again. And then kept counting. And so on.

No matter how it went, if you did it at all, you did a great job.

You might try this little process again at different times throughout the day. You’ll find it refreshing and energizing. And yes, you’ll begin to get bits of everything I promised above. This really works.

One more thing…

Mindfulness is a funny word; it almost sounds like the opposite of what we mean.

Just an hour ago I was picking up a rental car at MCO. Alamo has an interesting system they let drivers pick out the car they want. So I jumped in the Jeep, didn’t like the seat adjustments, and the Kia felt like it was made of cheap plastic, so I ended up with a nice Dodge SUV something.  I moved my luggage in and out of one car and then the other. Got in the winner car, looked up the hotel address, checked the Nav, which was on the blink, finally figured out where I was going, acclimated to the chosen car, adjusted the mirrors, adjusted the seat… My mind was so full with the details of choice, hopping from one car to the next, driving at night in a strange city, the semi-broken navigation on my phone, so filled up with stuff, that I didn’t realize until 24 miles later that I’d foolishly left my trademark blue blazer in one of the cars. Called lost and found. Called the garage itself. No Blazer. No Joy. Complete failure for paying attention to the present moment.

Which brings me back to the mindfulness idea…

Most of us pass our lives paying very little attention to the present moment because our minds are so full with all the stuff we’re doing. Mindfulness is the practice of becoming aware by letting go of all the stuff and focusing on the one single thing we chose to do whether it’s driving while we’re driving, or walking while we’re walking, doing the dishes while we’re doing the dishes, or counting while we’re counting.

Over the next few weeks I’ll give you some other easy exercises to draw you into the present moment.

I’ve been working with a few of my business coaching clients on mindfulness practice as was a way of deepening concentration, sharpening focus and stimulating creativity. As if those things weren’t enough, it instantly floods you with energy (without caffeine) and it just plain feels good.

So go count from one to ten again, and when you’re done, leave me your comments and tell me what’s happening.

Filed Under: Beliefs, Mindset, strategic planning Tagged With: meditation, Mindfulness

By pl 22 Comments

Really Simple Mindfulness

I want to talk to you about something people call Mindfulness. An ancient idea that was given a 20th-century name, Mindfulness is a super simple and easy to implement idea which can have a huge impact on your health, well-being, clarity, energy, and just about every other aspect of your daily life.

I’m going to share it with you in the simplest way possible. Mindfulness is paying attention to what is going on at this very moment. That’s it. So try this during your day today. Whenever your mind goes somewhere – and you’re typically deep into something – and you’re almost unconscious, but at some point your mind pops back into awareness. At that moment, ask yourself, “Where am I?,” or “What am I doing?” In that moment, your experience is transformed…

 

 

Filed Under: Beliefs, Business Strategy, Mindset, Time management Tagged With: health, mediation, mindfullness, Mindset, well-being

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