Life Is Never Short On Lessons...

I remember it like it was yesterday.  I was sitting in my office chair with my eyes focused on the computer screen working on a spreadsheet when my phone rang.  It was mom.  Immediately, You could tell something was wrong.  She was holding back as many of her tears as could while she gave me some, less than fortunate, news. I still remember her shivering voice.  She had just found out that she was diagnosed with breast cancer and wanted to tell me as quickly as she could.  As she told me, it truly didn’t process for me.  I responded with “ok, so.. can the doctors fix this?”.  She said they felt like they could.  “alright then, we know where we are and we know where the finish line is so we just have to get there.”  After talking to my mom a bit more, I told her I loved her and I hung up the phone.

I sat there, stone-faced, for at least 5 to 10 minutes before getting up and walking over to someone in my department that I wanted to tell.  As I walked into her office, I muddled the words “I just found out my mom…” I immediately looked at the ground as I began to break down in tears…” has breast cancer”.  At that point, I really don’t know what she responded with. I was absolutely inundated with emotion to the point that I excused myself from her office and went home.

Over the next little while, I didn’t exactly pull away however, I wasn’t there for her as I should have been.  In looking back, I found that I “avoided” most conversations about it as if I could put a lid on it and not have to bother with it.  it WAS the elephant in the room. My mom went through some very emotional and trying times, you can read about her story here.  It changed her, my mom was always so strong and independent.  This emotionally broker her. My mom was no longer the same.  I walled up even more.  It was my coping mechanism.  I am not sure where I learned how to block out my thoughts but I was very good at it. 

Rewind my life many years before and I remember going to my grandmother’s funeral and almost being emotionless during visitations.  The next morning, we had one last moment to see her and as they closed the casket, everything became so real, so overwhelming and so very hard to handle.  What I began to piece together is that when something became actualized, I would fall apart because I blocked it out.  I would hold things in so long that when it finally broke, it was extremely hard to even breathe. It hurt! 

The power of the spoken word is so strong that I now tell this story every chance I get.  Experience taught me that until I spoke the words “my mom has cancer”, they were thoughts in my head… not real… until I spoke them (or written as I have come to learn).  They became real at that point.  Until the casket was closed for the last time, I could tell myself “my grandma is just sleeping”.  However, it was at the point of actualization (the closing of the casket) that I had to own the truth and its harsh reality.  I took the hard road.  I chose to push off my thoughts and emotions in an effort to protect myself. After all, I am a man and I am supposed to be emotionally strong.  Well, that is the story I kept telling myself.  I cared greatly but from the outside, it could be seen as cold or even heartless.  I was far from that but I understand, now, how it looked to others.

Over the years, I have spent a crazy amount of time seeking to understand human behavior; how we think and how our thoughts control our actions that ultimately define our life.   I often wonder how much painful experiences, like this one and many others,  have helped build the path passionately seeking to understand the human mind.  I do believe though, that it is harder to teach things we have not experienced and learned from.   I’ve learned a lot, I have learned that holding back our thoughts and emotions can make the breaking point unbearable.  It is like consuming poison that we never allow to escape out bodies. Don’t do it. I’ve learned that it is not healthy to “avoid” anything.  The more you avoid, the more you find what you avoid.  So, instead, I turn to acceptance from the get-go.  I’ve learned that healthy men are not fearful of their emotional side and embrace it. Things become far easier to handle when we are authentic to ourselves; hiding/avoiding reality is not being authentic to anyone.

Years later, my mother experienced her second diagnoses of breast cancer. This time, stage 4. What I have seen from my mother is that stage 4 is not a death sentence, it is a life sentence. She is as strong as I have ever seen her. You will not often catch her without a smile on her face. She changed her approach this time around and.. I have too.

I’ve learned from my lessons and so has my family.  The point I want to get across here is this, no matter the situation…no matter the issue… we all have a choice in how we will handle it.  We can’t control what happens however we can 100% control the meaning of it as well as our response. Even when we don’t like the situation, we do not have to be victimized by it.  We have free will to choose meaning to everything in our lives.  We can't be upset, frustrated or even sad without our own personal permission.  Everything and I mean everything happens for us so that we can continue to learn and grow.  If you find that you are having the same “thing” happen over and over… it’s because you have not learned from that situation yet.  Take the lessons your life has granted you; accept them and thank them.

So I challenge you!!

I challenge you to look (even reflecting on past situations) and see things differently.  I challenge you to find the silver lining, I promise it is there (what you seek will find you).  I challenge you with getting tougher when life gets tough.  Not from blocking out your thoughts and emotions.. get tough by being authentic and accept what is.  You will find this is a far easier path, take it from me and my mother.  We can’t change what happens to us but.. we can change how it affects us.  I don’t speak of this through rainbow sunglasses.  I’ve lived this path… I see things as optimistically as I can because I’ve personally experienced the opposite and I want nothing more to do with that way of life.

With life comes experience, with experience comes education, with education comes a new response, with a new response comes a new life, and with a new life comes happiness no matter the situation.

I love you mom!

The Day I Was “Blessed” With Unexpected News

I have been asking my mom to write a bit about her story.  I am sooo thankful she was willing to share.. 

Most people probably wouldn’t entitle a blog that way considering the unexpected news was Stage 2b breast cancer, with 20 lymph nodes removed, it had been in 11 of them.  And, honestly, if I had written this five years ago, I probably wouldn’t have entitled this blog a blessing either.  But that was five years ago…..

As a little bit of background on myself, I should explain I have a reputation for being a tough lady and “life” survivor, having come from an alcoholic fueled and abusive childhood. I didn’t succumb to that though as an adult…instead, it pushed me to change my future.  I had zero control as a child, so I had to let that go.  But what I did have control of was my future.  I knew from an early age that my life would be different and my children would have a healthy, stable environment, abundance of love and all the security they would need to become healthy minded, loving and productive adults.  I would not repeat that pattern of growing up…..I would break that cycle.   

And somehow, through the grace of God, I did.  Life is about timing so often. So, I don’t take full credit for changing my future.   But more than that, it’s about faith and hope.  In other words, the stars have to align for a cycle to be broken.  Some luck, lots of determination and surrounding yourself with positive, Christian and loving people…..and never ever giving up!  That becomes your new family. Not by plan intentionally, but it ended up being who I was drawn to…positive, uplifting people.   And I’m thankful for each and every one of those friends that mentored me or picked me up and carried me when I didn’t think I could do it anymore.  Having left home at 17, senior year of high school, I went to school a half-day and worked two jobs to pay my bills.  But it was better than going home.  I never then, nor today, look at that as anything special.  It was just the next step in my taking control of my life.  Hard…absolutely.  Tears…nearly everyday.  Scared…only of being alone at night at 17.  Nothing about the future looked scary to me, or daunting.  Again, just the next step in finding happiness.  I look back now and have no idea how I did it.  But, with determination and the mindset of accepting nothing less than finding happiness and a different life, it felt natural.  I think that it’s all in how we look at the future that makes it seem daunting, or it doesn’t.  We get to choose.  

Mom in High School (in white) - Prom 1976

That brings me to the news of five years ago.  Life was going along pretty normal when I felt the lump.  I didn’t panic, because I never panicked about things.  But with the mammogram the next day, came the semi tractor-trailer that hit me.  A kind and sweet older lady was looking at her screen while she performed the mammogram.  At the end, she asked if she could say a prayer for me.  I cried and bowed my head.  It was a beautiful gesture, but honestly I don’t remember a word of the prayer.  My heart stopped and my pulse raced, because she told me what I feared the most…by only asking me if she could pray. 

The next couple of weeks were filled with tears, doctor’s appointments, fears, confusion…and finally the planning.  When I got the definite news it was cancer, my first reaction through my tears was…but, I have so much to teach my grandkids...and my daughter was a senior in high school, I wanted to at least see her off to college.    For some reason, all the fight and positivity I had practiced all my life went out the window. I was numb and crying, when a wise nurse told me that as soon as I had a “plan” I would feel better.  The plan came. And she was right.  It’s because I had some control of something. I knew what my decision would be…bilateral mastectomy.  I wanted them both gone.  If “they” were what was standing between being here for my family or not…take them…sooner rather than later.  And then of course, six rounds of chemotherapy, once every three weeks, to be followed by 33 straight days of radiation.  We chose a wig in preparation.  Made it a fun experience.  But when the hair fell out, I was devastated.  By far the toughest part of it all.  I didn’t know who was looking back at me in the mirror.  No hair, no eyelashes or eyebrows.  No breasts and horrible scars across my chest.  The only way I could get through my showers was by putting on a Christian CD my good friend made me and crying and praying. THEN…I pulled myself together, put my wig on and drew on my eyebrows, and went on to start my day.  Well, my shower was usually followed by reading devotionals and bible versus that sustained me even more first…then, I was ready for the day.   I have kept my granddaughter every Tuesday since she was a baby so that my son, Craig, could take his night classes.  I only missed those Tuesdays on the week of chemo.  The rest of the time, I carried on with keeping her.  I even prepared Thanksgiving dinner and had a house full of family.  Was it easy, no.  I had the chemo brain they warn you about.  It’s real.  Its like walking on a cloud and feeling constantly like an out of body experience for everything I did.  And memory loss was there too.

Mom with her “wig” …always smiling (2010)

On one particular day, Craig stopped by to see me.  I got emotional at the sight of him.  After teaching him to pull himself up by the bootstraps and get going his whole life, when I had the chance to “show” him how that’s done….I failed.  I crumbled in his arms.  He wasn’t tolerant at all, and that crushed me.  He told me I had to stop crying, and that I had overcome anything I wanted to growing up…when all I wanted was for him to hold me.  It hurt me then…but I now know that he had grown up just like me.  We weren’t going to cave to anything.  We needed to fight.  Where was MY fight?  I always had fight.  But I figured it out.  All my life from age 17 and on, I had complete control of my life.  For the first time ever, I didn’t.  It was in God’s hands and my doctors and medicine.  That’s a hard thing to swallow when you don’t recognize who you are by the way you are handling things.  I thought, I’m not strong at all, I’m weak.  Why don’t I do what I always did…march on?  But again, I had zero control.  So, I decided to get dressed every day and not let anyone see how badly I felt.  I faked it for almost a year.  Church, my Christian CD, my devotionals and Bible, the calls, the cards, the texts, and family and friends were my strength.  And that’s what I leaned on to do what I could not do myself.  Faith and hope and love.  It sustains us all.  

My hair has grown back, my chemo brain is gone and I’ve even had the chance to be another friend’s strength when she was diagnosed.  But my biggest blessing from getting this news came in the appreciation for every thing I used to think I appreciated.  My husband, Pat.  He’s my rock, my love, my everything.  I would have never made it without him.  He took in sickness and in health to a whole new level.  He saw me at my physically worst self I could be and my weakest emotional self and loved me through it all.  I see him in a different light today when I didn’t think I could love him anymore than I already did.  That’s a blessing.  I see and hear everything my grandkids say and do.  Literally…it’s like their voices are amplified and their kisses are sweeter.  I revel in the admiration for both my children, Craig and Lauren.  I’m so blessed to be here today to see them live out their passions and be such wonderful, loving adults.  Both of them inspire me every single day!  That’s a blessing.  I have more patience.  That’s a blessing.  I see the good in everyone.  That’s a blessing.  I would rather be with my family or travel, then have anything I could buy.  That’s a blessing.  I don’t sweat the small things, as they say.  That’s a blessing.  

I’m more in tune with gratefulness to Him everyday when I wake up.  A life of gratitude instead of hecticness and stress.  That’s a blessing.  My life is like a rebirth…it is full of love and happiness from my heart to others.  That’s a blessing.   I love and I am loved.  I am happy and I am healthy.  I am grateful.  Not everything about a diagnosis is bad…we just have to “be still” as my daughter Lauren says when she needs to lean on God for guidance.  We just need to be still.  

I’ll end with sharing two things that friends gave me that I often pass on…..

One sent a bible verse of a story of Jesus feeding the people.  He didn’t give them a loaf of bread; he gave them “a slice a day”.  I taped that to my mirror and every day after my shower I would look in the mirror and ask God for just one slice of bread today.  And then thanked Him.

Secondly, a friend sent a card that had a profound handwritten note in it.  She was a cancer survivor herself.

She said….there is a great life after cancer.  

I say, Amen!

Managing Your Inner Critic!

"You look FAT!"

"You know you can't do it!"

"You are an IDIOT?"

"You are not good enough!"

"You don't deserve it!"

When comments like this are heard in our head, we call them "the inner critic" or "that voice in our head". Take a second and ask yourself, "what is the inner critic"?.  What would your answer be?  Would you have one or would you just stare at the screen without the ability to describe it?

What about when that voice in our head says positive things like "you are a badass" or "you can do whatever you put your mind to"?  What do you call that voice?  For the most part, people do not have a phrase/term they use to explain positive voice in our head.  I find this interesting

We can both agree that this "inner critic" or "voice in our head" doesn't seem to help us.  So, how do we overcome it?

In order to overcome something, we must begin with an understanding of it.  We need to know how it works in order to make adjustments to it.  When we are able to make adjustments to the way something works, we can affect the outcome or output.

What I find so fascinating is that when we speak about that voice in our head, we generally speak of it in the third person.  Essentially, speaking in the third person separates US (you) from IT (the voice in your head). This is where we struggle.  When we attempt to control others, we often become frustrated, angry and/or let down because, in all reality, we are unable to control others. 

This happens when we speak of the voice in our head as well.  We feel as if "our inner critic" is not us or our friend thus we lose the ability to control it.  In order to control the inner critic, we truly need to understand exactly what it is.

So, what is the inner critic? 

From the moment we wake up to the moment we fall asleep, we have anywhere between 30-70k thoughts a day.  Generally speaking, we spend seconds on a thought and then move onto the next.  Thoughts are neutral yet our assumptions, beliefs and our bias will paint them as positive or negative.  When we think of something, let's say.... a green ball, we talk to ourselves through "self-talk".  When I think green ball, my self-talk says "GREEN BALL", when I think about this cup of coffee being good, my self-talk is "this coffee is good". Thus, self-talk is exactly the same thing as our thoughts.

When we think about "our inner critic", the same concept is applied.  When you THINK you are not good enough, your inner critic says "You are not good enough!".  When you THINK you are "fat", your inner critic says "you are fat".  Essentially, your inner critic is your self-talk/thought.  When you have a thought, you MUST talk to yourself (self-talk) about the thought.  That self-talk ALWAYS changes with your thoughts.

Your inner critic is the term you use to explain your self-defeating self-talk when you judge yourself based on OTHERS.  You do this because you THINK of yourself in a negative way regarding that particular thought. Whether it's your looks, intelligence or even social status.

The way to greatly reduce your inner critic is to acknowledge it as what it really is, your thoughts.  When you acknowledge this, you can then take control.  For most people, controlling our thoughts seems impossible, however, knowing that your self-talk is the same thing as your thoughts, you can reverse engineer the situation and change your self-talk which in turn changes your thoughts.

Instead of having thoughts about what you don't have, find something about yourself that you do have and appreciate that.  When we appreciate, we shift our self-talk to something positive thus destroying our inner critic.  Self-appreciation has a lasting effect on your health and well-being.  Did you know that 80% of our thoughts are negative and 95% are repetitive? That's because once the negative things start up, we habitually continue that form of thinking.  We want to take control of our thinking by disrupting the negative thinking and consciously choosing a positive thought to focus on.

Breaking the habitual negative thinking and creating a new habit of self-appreciation and acceptance is the only way to greatly reduce that which we call our "inner critic".

15 Goal Setting Questions to make 2018 your best year!

For some people, setting goals can be very challenging.  We do know that those who set goals and write them down are far more likely to achevei them.  If you are struggling to set goals, check out these 15 Goal-Setting Questions that will help you create your best year ever.

**Set aside 30 minutes, settle in somewhere snug and warm with your favorite beverage and relax.

Answer the questions below - and then all you need to do is take action!

First, REFLECT and Take Your Learnings Forwards:

1. What worked WELL for you last year?
   - What do you WANT to keep doing, or do more of, next year?
   - So, what WILL you keep doing, or do more of, next year?
2. What did NOT work for you last year?
   - What do you WANT to change next year?
   - If you could change just ONE thing, what would it be?
3. What do you need to "Just let go!" of?
4. Where do you just need to stop procrastinating and "Just do it!"?

Then, LOOK AHEAD and UNDERSTAND What You Truly Want & Why:

1. What do you YEARN for? What, more than anything, do you want this year?
2. What goals would really put a SMILE on your face? What would need to happen by the end of the year to leave you FEELING MAGNIFICENT about yourself?
3. If you were to write a list of 10 GOALS and aims for 2018, what would they be? 
   - WHY do you want these Goals? What do they GIVE you?
   - How will your life be different once you've achieved these goals?
   - How will you FEEL when you've completed these goals?
4. If you did nothing else, what THREE things would make 2018 a SUCCESS for you?
   (This last question identifies your Top 3 Goals to focus on)

Next, PREPARATION & SUPPORT:

1. What could get in the way? If you were going to sabotage yourself, HOW would you do it?
2. What THREE things are you doing regularly that don’t serve or support you and your goals?
3. What ONE habit could you introduce that would make a huge improvement in your life?
4. How can you bring more FUN and PLAY into your life this year?
   (When we have fun and feel playful, everything feels - and is - easier, we're happier too. TIP: Think not only about things you can do, but also who you can hang out with.)

Finally, WRAPPING it up:

1. What is your THEME for 2018? _____________________
2. Who will you have to BECOME to have all that you want?
3. What is the DIFFERENCE that will MAKE the DIFFERENCE to your success?

Hopefully you found the 15 questions above valuable, especially if you are struggling to set your sails toward a particular direction this year. 

As always, I am here to help.  Feel free to set up a free 90 minute consultation full of value here or if you enjoy working on your own, pick up my book, The High Performance Mindset, an Amazon best seller here!

WHO’S IN YOUR TRIBE?

Many years ago, in middle school, I had a friend who I enjoyed hanging out with, A LOT. He had this persuasive personality that led me to follow along with him more often than my other friends. We always seemed to have fun and lived a little on the wild side (as much as middle schoolers could).  During one summer vacation, my family allowed him to come along with us to Florida.  The trip began fun with my parents renting jet skis for us. Man, that was so much fun. What kid wouldn’t want to ride the ocean on a jet ski?  Afterwards, we were back in our hotel room where we eventually received a knock on the door, one of the jet skis had a hole in it.  Looking back, I remember my buddy ramming my jet ski with his and ultimately putting a hole in the hull of the jet ski that my parents ultimately had to pay for.  If that wasn’t enough, there was a situation where the fire alarm was pulled by my friend.  It was quite the ordeal.  While I personally didn’t do anything wrong, I was part of the problem because I was there with him.  It was my word against his.

My mom knew my buddy was bad news by now but I, as a middle schooler, couldn’t put it together. We grew up for years together and even played pool competitively together.  Looking back on it, it seemed that trouble always found him and often times, I was around.  He was ALWAYS in trouble!

Eventually, as I grew older and wiser, our lives began to part ways. Fast forward several years, he got married and while driving home drunk, he wrecked and killed his wife.  He spent years in prison for what he had done. 

I look back at this period of time in my life where I felt tested.  Which way was I going to lead my life.  I’m thankful for the amazing guidance of my family to help steer my in the right direction. Not necessarily by what they said (they did tell me he was trouble more times than I can remember) but by my family leading a life of being around people that built us up, not tore us down.  

Who you choose to have in your tribe is going to have a tremendous impact on where your life goes. Make sure to fill your tribe with those:

1. who love you for you,
2. who treat you as family,
3. who aren’t afraid to tell you when you are screwing up,
4. who hold you accountable,
5. who support your most impossible goals,
6. who lift you up when you are down,
7. who give you a shoulder to lean on, 
8. who will stand up for you. 

When I look back at my middle school friend, he did none of this for me and ultimately, his life took a horrible turn for the worst. He only wanted me around when I followed his direction and would be upset wit me if I didn’t.

I’m glad I chose to remove him from my tribe. More importantly, I’m thankful I learned the value of our tribe.. for better and worse, our tribe is our guide.  

Who is in your tribe?

Who are your star players?

And...Are they good for you? 

The Fallacy of Failure. What you should know.

Failure is a word you should banish from your vocabulary. Interestingly enough, people fear failure because it has the potential to affect their identity. When you fail, you become… a failure! No one wants to be a failure so let’s not even take that risk! Wait just one minute. What about all those books? Fail your way to success, they say. Failure is the only way! Fail forward! Does that even make sense? Most people that say this do not truly understand the psychological negative weight associated to this term. In fact, it sounds downright painful and leads to psychological injury.

If I have to fail to succeed, umm… NO! Allow me to explain.

Let’s say you’re driving down the road and your engine light comes on. Your car starts acting funny and begins to lose power. You pull over on the side of the road and call your mechanic friend. He comes to check out your car, and he tells you that you’ve experienced engine “failure”.

What does this mean?

It means the engine quit.

So, engine failure equates to the engine quitting. Failure = Quit.

Thus, if you experience failure, you are quitting. However, as long as you’re continuing to create action, learning from the results and applying that new learning to more action, you can never fail. It’s just not possible.

Here is another issue, some people place so much importance on success, they’re paralyzed by the thought of failure, so they don’t even strive to succeed.

Did you ever think about the fact that when you go to the store and buy something, you’re getting a finished product? You don’t see the thousands of hours of work that might have gone into developing and designing the prototypes of that product. You only see it in its finished state. Do you think someone built that widget exactly the way you see it on their first attempt? Probably not..

Remember when we talked about failure not being possible unless we quit? Well, Thomas Edison didn’t quit as he searched for a way to create the light bulb. He attempted this feat thousands of times until he finally achieved his goal. He said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” He also said, “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” See? If you don’t give up, Thomas Edison is telling you that you will not fail! Imagine how different the world would be if Edison had given up on the light bulb after one hundred attempts.

Let’s say you’re learning rifling. You aim your rifle at a target one hundred yards away. You line up your sight, pull the trigger, and you miss. What do you do? That’s right, you adjust and shoot again. You don’t quit. You go after it over and over again until you start hitting the target. This is not failing; this is learning and developing!

As long as you are willing to learn from each and every step in the process, adjust, and keep moving toward your goal, you can’t fail.

Do you think adjusting your perspective of the word "failure" can be of advantage to you?

The cold HARD truth about anxiety AND depression

Did you know....Over 40 million people experience "anxiety" which is now claimed as the most common mental illness in the US.  Seriously, if you have ever been diagnosed with anxiety, how does it feel knowing you have a diagnosis of a  "mental illness"?  If you are like me, it didn't feel good at all.  If you haven't read my book, I was diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder and placed on a pretty powerful psychotropic drug called PAXIL.  I wanted to share this part of my life with you only because it adds to the credibility of what I am about to share with you; it’s not mainstream.

First and foremost, regardless to what the doctors will tell you.  Anxiety is not truly a mental illness and does not stem from any disease.  The medical industry wants you to believe they are though.  AND...What we do know is that mental illnesses are alarmingly more expensive than other illnesses; the medication for these diagnosis are literally.. Cash Cows!

"Overall, patients bear 16% of the total costs of mental-health treatments, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the highest portion of any common illness studied, including high blood pressure and diabetes. “This is an area where people have been bankrupted,” says Colleen L. Barry, professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “The expenses associated with treatment can be very high, even catastrophic.” (link)

Americans have been in a life long struggle with many "diagnosis" such as anxiety and depression to the point that they take their diagnosis highly personal.  " I have anxiety".  This is the statement of identity.  I "identify" as having anxiety and... if you debate me on my anxiety or tell me how yours is worse than mine (happens all the time), you are debating me on my identity thus I will take it very personal. 

I mean, after all, my doctor told me "I have it!" so it must be true! right? Not necessarily.. In fact, the medical industry is over diagnosing (misdiagnosis) and over medicating at an alarming rate!

When we are questioned about our identity, we fall into the trap of an identity crisis where we become insecure of our being and the only way to combat this, is by being defensive.  I've been here, I know it first hand.. can you relate?  The problem with being defensive though, especially in my situation, Is that I blocked out any possibility of there being another better way to think of anxiety and even depression.  It wasn't until I was willing to allow my "truths" about what was being told to me to become in the spotlight of "questioning" that the world opened up to me...

So here are some truths. 

• Truth #1 - You don't HAVE anxiety.
  It is not like the chicken pox, a broken bone or even the flu.  Anxiety and even depression are merely experiences.  While I will not go into detail here I am going to share a link below to a significant chapter of my book The High Performance Mindset below that I would ask that you read, with an open mind.
• Truth #2 - Anxiety is a product of the the way we think
  There is plenty of research to back this up and even well known Psychologist Albert Ellis stated "What disturbs men's minds is not events but their judgments on events."  Said differently, It is not the situation that causes us to be anxious or depressed, it is our judgement of the situation that leads us to be anxious or depressed. Situations and events do not hold any value, it is our thinking about the events that then creates meaning of the situation.  With this said, you can change, with intentional practice, the way you react to situations.
• Truth #3 - 95% of our thoughts are repetitive and 80% of them are negative
  With 80% of our thoughts being negative, its easy to understand how so many people are depressed and anxious. 
• Truth #4 - YOU DON'T HAVE TO LIVE THIS WAY.
  I am here, as proof, to show you that you don't have to live with depression and/or anxiety.  I’ve documented everything in my latest book however I want to offer you a free chapter that I feel will help you begin to see that the clouds can part ways to the greatest level of sunshine in your life.

As I have referenced, I want to give you Chapter 3 of my book The High Performance Mindset that breaks your mindset down a bit.  I really hope you find this as incredibily valuble as those who have read my book.  I am also here to help you and I would love your feedback.. You can reach out to me at Craig@CraigWillard.com

Click here for Chapter #3 . Understanding your Mindset (totally free download)

**note - I am not suggesting anyone taking meds should stop. Quite the contrary.. I only want to educate you and offer a different perspective.

Are Your Friends Helping or Hurting You?

The less you associate with some people, the more your life will improve.” - Colin Powell 

Take a second and think about 3 or 4 people you spend most of your time with.  

• Who are they?
• What do they stand for?
• What are their beliefs?
• Do they want the same things from life as you?

Did you know you will most likely start to mimic them, subconsciously.   This includes their behaviors, actions and communication skills.  For better or worse, you will begin to mirror those who hang around most often.  In psychology, you can find plenty on what is called mirror neurons.  Essentially, mirror neurons lead humans to imitate or duplicate actions.  We also use mirror neurons for the experiential learning.  Essentially, we are influenced unconsciously regarding our surroundings.  This includes our friends.

Here are a few examples:

• You may not use inappropriate language, however you, as you begin to hang out with someone who does, there is high probability you will start to mimic them by using the same language.
• When you hang out with the wrong crowd - you will do things you naturally wouldn't have done if you were not in that crowd.  This would always upset your mother.
• When you walk into a room and subconsciously see everyone sitting in a certain positions, you will likely follow suite and sit just let them.
• Your best friend doesn't trust anyone and tells you to NEVER trust people as they all lie.. Guess what you end up doing?

The interesting part of this is that we usually do this without even knowing.   Did you know our subconscious controls 98% of what we do.  It is our default programing based upon our experiences to date.  Emotions are highly contagious.

There are people you will come into contact with that are poisonous; if you spend a significant amount of time with them, you may very well become poisonous yourself.  If you are in a meeting and someone makes a negative statement, there is a higher likelihood that someone else will bring up more negative statements.

A driven personality can be negatively influenced by friends who are not driven.  It’s a Saturday morning and you need to get to the gym yet your friends want you to do something else.  They may jokingly make fun of you or even call you out in an attempt to derail you because they want you to do what THEY want you to do.  It is important to recongnize that your goals are yours.  Your friends have their own and they don't usually care about yours as they are attempting to fulfill their own. This is where you need to know your priorities and understand how bad you want something. 

Are you willing to push off your goals and dreams?  We are habitual creatures, ff you push them off once, you will find a reason to push them off again..and again...and again. 

Honestly, good friends understand and want the best for you.  Back to the original question, are these the kind of friends you have? Those you spend the most time with, do they push your to be  the best version of you?

Find friends that want the same things in life.  Find like minded people and you will find your success becomes far easier to obtain.  If you want to be a successful business man or real estate agent, surround yourself with people who are successful in business and real estate or who are learning as you are.  Since science tells us we mimic our friends, this sounds like a win-win.

Did you know emotions are highly contagious, find friend who are compassionate, loving and kind.  Mirroring these emotions are certainly going to help you along.  Those are the friends that will get you places vs keep you from getting places. 

A good exercise, write down the top three-five qualities you like about yourself.  Now, look at your closest friends.  Do they represent your top qualities?  If they do not, you should consider finding new friends and/or figure out why you are looking for friends which get in the way of your best YOU.

In order to live, I mean truly live, you must be happy.  You should evaluate your friendships on a deep personal level.  If you have friends which bring out your worst, you need to part ways with them.  You only have one life to live, why waste it being surrounded by people that do not want the best for you?  

For every minute you are upset is a minute you will never get back.  You ok with that?  As I was once told, "no one can take your happiness from you without your permission".  What this means is, you are in absolute control of your happiness.  To keep poisonous friends around is to accept, tolerate and even mimic their behavior.  What are you going to do?

Remember, bad friends are very easy to find!  Don't waste your time on them!  instead, find the friends that will help you to become better, not worse.  My mother taught me this a long time ago and I can tell you - It is the absolute truth!

***Pick up my Best Selling Book The High Performance Mindset here

A Must Read For Dads!

One of my favorite quotes is “Be the man you want your daughter to marry” by Meg Meeker.  I can’t tell you how much this quote means to me and I hope that you find it just as meaningful. 

Be the man you want your daughter to marry!

Here is why:

As your daughter grows up, the first love she will experience is that of her father.  This is not a creepy kind of love yet a love that shapes both her conscious and unconscious perception of what she expects from a man in a relationship.  The odds are high that if a father shows his daughter love and affection, takes time out of his schedule to attend her events, treats her like the amazing creation she is.. she will look for that when she starts to date.  On the flip side, if you don't have much interaction with your daughter, maybe you see her daughter every other weekend, you are, unfortunately making her question herself.  She might even begin to feel that she is not good enough for her fathers love.  Right or Wrong.  When she begins to day, she will evaluate her partner.  She will use you as the measuring stick, for better or worse.

My Daughter and I in Cuba - Learning how to take pictures

So, I ask you.. what measuring stick are you setting?  That you don’t have time for her or that every game and even practice is important enough for you to attend?  When your daughter comes up to you, do you put the phone down or the book down and give her your uninterrupted attention?  Do you show her love by hugging and kissing on her and telling her that she is beautiful and special?  Do you tell he she can do anything she commits to and that even the sky is not her limit?  OR, does your daughter see you argue or become angry?  Whatever it is, you are setting the mold for her future.

I will tell you now, you ARE the most important man in your daughter’s life! Dad's will often point a finger at the boyfriend for breaking her heart not even realizing she was attracted to that boyfriend because of how her dad was to her growing up.  Dad's are often the first person to break their daughters heart.  

If she craves your attention and you don’t give it, there is a good possibility that as she gets older, she will try to get that attention from other men any way she can.  It also sets of the risk that she will date someone who is absent in a subconscious attempt to fix her childhood wounds.  This never goes well.

Hold them TIGHT, they grow up fast!

The hours and years you spend with or away from her change who she is, forever.  Your daughter needs you to love her and adore her, she can’t feel good about herself until she knows you feel good about her.  She wants you to be her hero because you are wiser, calmer and stronger than she is.  You have the power to raise your daughter’s expectation of herself, how she dresses and talks, how well she does in school and even sports.  Help her set the right goals.

Teach her humility, she needs the proper perspective of ourselves, the only way you can teach it though is by doing it. As the book Stronger Fathers, Stronger Daughters states, we need to teach our daughter the real world and by wanting our daughters to excel in everything they do like being prettier, smarter and better than everyone else, we actually confuse priorities.

If for nothing else… The man you see walking your daughter down the aisle will be a reflection of you, what do you want that reflection to be?  Whatever reflection that is, you need to be that man… now!

I leave you with one last thing.  One of my all time favorite books is “Strong Fathers – Strong Daughters” by Dr. Meg Meeker- pick one up for as little as 9 dollars … Click here

What Are You Waiting On?

I am sure you have been at a point in your life where you were extremely excited to do something.  Maybe you wanted to start a new company, start working out or lose weight.  The thought of such an accomplishment makes you feel amazing inside.  As excited as you are, you say " I'm going to get a good nights rest and start that TOMORROW!"  The next day, you wake up only to find something ELSE taking priority.  You push it off until the next day.  That day turns into a week and then into a month.  Before you know it, its a year later and you wish you had started a year ago.  So, what do you do?

Overcoming scenarios like this can be easier to do when you are able to understand why you do this.  Essentially, we are fighting a war in our head.  Two sides of our brain are battling it out to see who wins.  On one side, our brain wants to work towards accomplishing our goal(s) while the other side is setting doubt and fears in our mind.  The fear of failure, the fear of things being too complicated or possibly the fear of not being perfect goes through our mind.  When we starting thinking this way, we will ultimately push it off.  After all, there is no imminent danger in not starting, life is comfortable as it is.  Right?  And honestly, if I am not going to get an instant form of gratification from my efforts, "I'll just wait until tomorrow".  That is how we think.  In the end, we don't take any action at all because we are afraid of how to proceed.

If you are truly aware of this going on in your mind, there is only one thing to do and that is to stop debating and start doing!  Remember how the thought of accomplishing that goal made you feel?  You must key into the feeling every time things become hard.  If you wait, you will continue to wait because something will get into the way of doing it later.  It happens every day.  There is nothing stopping you from reaching your goal.  Why put it off?  Why wait?

The truth is, we are creatures of habit, for better or worse.  If you continuously push off something you want to do, you will form a habit in which becomes even harder to break.  Your time is now! As Steve Marboli once said, 

"Cemeteries are full of unfulfilled dreams... countless echoes of 'could have' and 'should have'… countless books unwritten… countless songs unsung... I want to live my life in such a way that when my body is laid to rest, it will be a well needed rest from a life well lived, a song well sung, a book well written, opportunities well explored, and a love well expressed."

The effort in the beginning is the hardest part.  Like pushing a car. The energy needed at first is intense but after you get going, things get a lot easier to keep moving.  I have always said, if you do something for 3 weeks, it becomes routine and is much harder to stop, like that moving car.  Did you know that about 98% of the people on this planet will dream but never act?  Do you want to be the 2% that act or the 98% that continue to do the same thing everyday wishing for a different outcome.

I remember the frustrations I felt knowing I needed to start my capstone project for school.  I struggled so much with taking the time to sit down and write the first word.  This alone kept me from starting until I finally took the bull by the horns and sat down to write.  The beginning was daunting, I felt the worst case of writers block ever but then...Thirty minutes later, words were just flowing out. My momentum was building and I had to harness that momentum in order to keep the project moving forward.  

There really is never a better time to get started than now.  We only have one life to live.  Challenge yourself to push off the fear of failure (as long as you don't quit and continue to move towards your goal, you will not fail) and perfection and just get started! Don't overanalyze it... if the task feels like too much, break it up into smaller tasks.  If you take action, it will build up like the momentum of a train.  If you take no action at all, you give your brain the memory to say no again tomorrow. I can not stress enough that you are going to take action, RIGHT NOW.  If all else fails, instead of letting fear hold you back, allow the potential regret of not acting push you forward because if you don't act, you will regret it. 

It's go time!!!

What Is Your Leadership Style?

What is your leadership style?

Through countless leadership interviews I have either held or have been involved with, one of the most commonly asked question seems to be “What is your leadership style?”.  Rightfully so, as an interviewer, it is important to understand how the applicant will lead.  Will their style fit within the culture of the organization?

Have you ever been asked to discuss your own leadership style?  I know I have and my answer back then is far different than the answer I give now. 

Would you say that you are a transformational leader?  Maybe you are on board with and follow the servant leadership methodology.  There are number of leadership styles dating all the way back to the Great Man theory, also known as trait leadership.  This theory suggested that all great leaders had certain attributes that make them great leaders.  However, over the years, theorist and researchers have evolved leading to a shift in mindset and leadership theories.  Many theories that became popularized on one level or another include skill, behavioral and situational leadership while some of the more recent theories includes authentic, transactional, psychodynamic and even adaptive leadership.  The list of styles seems endless. 

Hypothetically, If you were to be interviewed tomorrow and you are asked to describe your leadership style, what would you say?  Which defines you? 

Some might have to ponder on this question longer than others.  Allow me to offer up a few thoughts on this question.  If I were to ask, "How well do you run?",  this question could be hard to answer in brief terms.  Am I running in a life or death situation?  Is this a marathon or a 5k?  Is this run an attempt to avoid getting wet while going into the grocery store from the car?  The answer varies depending upon the situation, right?  Interestingly enough, the same goes for the original question I presented,  "What is your leadership style?".

What is the culture like of an organization?  What kind of organization is it?  Did you know culture is very important when considering leadership style as are the situations a leader can be exposed to.  Some organizations will thrive under transformational leadership while another may need path-goal leadership or even transactional leadership.  For example, manufacturing is often more receptive to transactional leadership than servant leadership.  A hospital is more receptive to servant leadership than authoritative leadership.

Honesty, we only limit ourselves when we are placed or personally place our self in a box by stating a particular leadership style.  

When we note servant leadership on our resumes or even transformational leadership, what we are indirectly suggesting is that we may be inflexible to shifting our leadership style.  What if your resume states “ I am a successful transformational leader who…”?  Some traits of a transformational leader include influence, inspirational motivation, and charisma.   Who wouldn’t want to have those traits, right?  On the other end though, a criticism of transformational leadership is that transformational leaders are elitist and antidemocratic (Avolio, 1999: Bass & Avolio 1993).  What if the organization you applied with is aware of this and all of the sudden, (enter Law & Order sound)…your resume is removed?  Transformational leadership is also hard to measure although the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MQL) seeks to measure with its own criticism.  You can find the same kind of concerns with servant leadership, which is linguistically very popular. 

So back to the question, how do you answer such a question?

 What is your leadership style?

 How do you place yourself in the best possible situation?  By answering this question differently than the interviewer is expecting.  In fact, many interviewers are looking for a particular predetermined answer.  My response to this question would be something along the lines of … 

“My leadership style is fluid in that I ensure my leadership style does not impede on the progress of the organization, I will connect the appropriate leadership style for the particular situation and need.  There is not a single one-size-fits-all style that will work in all situations and organizations.  Leaders must adapt as necessary to lead the organization toward the mission, vision and values of the organization.” 

While I say this, it is important to understand the different styles.  This answer could lead to deeper questioning like “ could you provide an example?”  If you are seeking a leadership position, make sure that you understand the theories of your profession.  

One can’t try out for football and become part of the team if they do not understand the rules.

Now it is your turn... how do you answer "What is your leadership style?" 

just a little food for thought...

The High Performance Mindset - Introduction

To give you a bit of "pre-publish" content, I am providing you with the very first chapter of the book, the introduction.  I am still about 45 days from publish and this content will change, especially with proofing still needed.  I have poured my heart and soul into this book that is life changing while not hard to read.  I hope you enjoy and I would absolutely love your feedback!

Introduction

Is this for me?

I bet that’s what you’re asking yourself. Is the high performance mindset for me?

Let’s talk about you. You’re probably an intelligent person who works hard, takes care of yourself and the people around you, and has achieved a level of success that would
satisfy most people. However, you’re not “most people.”You want more—a lot more out of your life—you just don’t know how to get it.

So, is the high performance mindset for you? If any
of the statements below describes you, the answer is:Absolutely!

• You’re an entrepreneur, executive, athlete, or student looking to achieve phenomenal levels of success.
• There’s something in your way, perhaps an invisible barrier that you can’t seem to find. This barrier seems to hold you back from achieving success in your career, in sports, or in your relationships.
• You keep getting things you don’t want in your life, while things you do want are always beyond your reach.
• You feel stuck in a rut, like your life’s a repetitive cycle that’s going nowhere.

First and foremost, I commend you for picking up this book, because doing so is a clear sign that you’re motivated to do great things with your life. That’s where your mindset comes in. Taking this first step shows that your mindset is already bending toward what’s possible.Although you may not even be aware of it, your mind is capable of creating a better, happier, and more fulfilled life.

Many people will never take this step. It’s easy to be complacent and settle for where you are and what you have in life. The main reason for this is that most people don’t know—from a psychological perspective—how they got to where they are right now. More importantly, they don’t know what to do about it. Why do so many people get stuck in a low-performing rut, struggling to get ahead?

And why do so many high performers get to a certain level in life and then seem to hit a brick wall? You may have to go back many, many years to discover the answer to that question. However, we’ll discuss what you can do about it soon!

Your mindset began to evolve when you were very young and while it has changed over time, beliefs established during your childhood linger in your adult mind and keep you from reaching your full potential. Becoming aware of these limitations is essential to overcoming them and developing the high performance mindset. These beliefs may have worked for you when you were younger; however, they don’t work for you anymore and operating with an outdated mindset can prevent you from achieving everything you want in life: love, a great career, personal goals, success, and even happiness. Despite these lingering, limiting beliefs, many people go on to become happy, successful adults. However, they know they can do more. They want to do more. The high performance mindset benefits anyone who wants more out of life. It’s a mindset you can develop using a concrete set of techniques that have a firm foundation in psychology and have been put to work in the real world. I put them together, I tested them, and I know they work.

Full disclosure: Who am I to tell you about the high performance mindset? I’m the last person you’d expect. I’m a guy from a small town in Kentucky who graduated eighth in his class...from the bottom! That’s right; I graduated from high school at 172 out of 179 students, with a whopping 1.448 GPA. How I got from there to where I am today—an entrepreneur, high performance coach, and author who has guided executives, athletes, and everyday people to new heights in their careers, sports, and personal lives—is a result of what I am about to teach you.

I’ve spent years putting this together: reading, learning, developing mindset techniques, applying them to myself and to my clients, and studying the results. It took a lot of work to develop and hone these techniques because the research behind them can be complicated. I believe that’s why so few people have had the opportunity to develop a high performance mindset. It seems complicated. However, once I boiled down the psychology to its core principles, I knew I could present this in a format you could learn and apply without a psychology background. Inspired by the possibilities, I developed simple tools that delivered powerful, consistent results. That, in turn, inspired me to write this book and share my knowledge with you. Anyone can do this. Discovering your best life shouldn’t be complicated, and it isn’t if you follow the instructions I’ve laid out for you in this book.

In my research as a student, a coach, and a leader, I discovered that many of the same life and sports psychology tools that empower professional athletes to outperform their competitors on the field, on the track, and in the ring can empower executives, entrepreneurs, and people
just like you to create a better, fuller life. These tools help you remove self-doubt and uncover more confidence.They also help you build better relationships. The core principles presented in the high performance mindset techniques are based on sports psychology and cognitive
behavioral coaching and are transferable across a broad range of professional and personal goals. They work fast and are extremely effective.

Let’s do a quick rewind, though. I want to tell you about my personal journey to entrepreneur, coach, and author.My life didn’t follow a traditional path and neither did my success. There’s a path that most people have been conditioned to take: You go to school, get good grades, and go to college. You graduate and land a great career. Then you get married and start a family. That path sounds familiar, doesn’t it? That path isn’t for everyone, and it wasn’t for
me. First, I didn’t care much for school. I was bored. To this day, I’m not necessarily a fan of the traditional style of teaching. It didn’t work well for me. I wasn’t interested in college or starting a career when I graduated high school, so I took odd jobs here and there. Eventually, I knew that if I wanted to achieve certain things in life I’d have to overcome some challenges. Back then, although I wasn’t sure what those challenges were, I was committed to figuring
them out, so that’s what I focused on. The ability to see each obstacle in life as an opportunity or challenge to learn, improve, and progress turned out to be a key element in my personal development and an important concept in the high performance mindset.

My first challenge would be changing my own beliefs about myself. You might think it’s impossible for people to change their beliefs, however, it is possible. I’ll tell you
how and why you should do it in Part I, Chapter 1, “What Is a High Performance Mindset?” and Chapter 2, “The Ever-Evolving Mind.”

In my 20s, I discovered another challenge that, at the time, appeared to hold me back. I was diagnosed with general anxiety disorder. When you’re anxious, you can’t perform at your full potential. Anxiety was tough. It created a lot of problems in my life—or so I thought. I was put on a very strong prescription medication to help me cope with the anxiety. Essentially, the medication took away my lows, and it took away my highs, too. I felt like I was experiencing the world through a dirty filter, and I didn’t enjoy that feeling at all. During this time, I was
going to lunch daily with two buddies. The anti-anxiety medication took the life out of me, and they noticed—and were worried. I remember them saying to me, “You have to snap out of it!” I wanted to snap out of it; I felt isolated, as if I was living in a virtual cocoon separating me from
the rest of the world. I was numb!

I made a decision to take massive action to stick with my prescription until the bottle was empty and then take myself off the meds. When I swallowed that last pill, I quit cold turkey! This turned out to be a huge mistake, because I then started feeling like I was going insane.
No, seriously! I remember calling my doctor and begging him to help me make the feeling stop. Luckily, he had a sample pack of five pills at his office that he could give me. I started taking the meds again. Whew, what a relief! I returned to my “medicated state” determined to get off the medication the right way. This time, I slowly weaned myself off of it. In the meantime, I had to figure out how to manage the so-called “general anxiety disorder” I had been diagnosed with, without medication.

I did a lot of research and discovered the drugs weren’t treating the actual cause of my anxiety at all. Instead, they were only treating the effects such as my restlessness, irritability, and the racing thoughts in my head. Honestly, I could have been on that medication for years and not gotten any better. In order to free myself from the constraints of anxiety and put myself in a better place, I needed to figure out the cause of my problem and fix it — once and for all! And guess what? I did it. I learned how to treat anxiety without drugs and I’ve been anxiety-free ever since—true story!

Decreasing and even eliminating anxiety became another core concept of the high performance mindset. In Chapter 3, “Understanding Your Mindset,” I’ll explain how the conscious mind and the subconscious mind interact to create your mindset, and why treating the effects of anxiety and depression with drugs can be an ineffective short-term solution. I’ll also discuss linguistics—the words you use and your understanding of those words—and how it affects your thinking. The first exercise in that chapter will help you prove to yourself the power—and sometimes
confusion—of linguistics, and a second exercise will teach you about multitasking. This is a big chapter so take your time, read each section, and follow along with the exercises and the diagrams. It’s critical that you understand the concepts illustrated in Diagrams 1, 2, and 3 in order to fully appreciate the power of the high performance mindset—specifically, how and why it works. In Chapter 4, “Time and the Mind: Depression, Anxiety, and Happiness,” you’ll learn why the way your mind processes time can lead to anxiety and depression, and I’ll show you how to process it a different way that unlocks the happier you.

Fast-forward into my 30s, when I became a single father and was working in the IT department at the local hospital. I found myself wanting a better life for myself and my daughter. One day, one of the hospital executives asked me where I was going in my career. He said, “You can do
ANYTHING you want. What do you want, Craig?” When I told him I wanted to become the next director of IT, he asked, “Well, how are you going to get there? You don’t have a college degree and that will become a barrier for you,” and he was right. I’d been figuring things out on my
own my whole life. I would literally apply for positions that I had no clue how to fulfill, knowing that if I got the opportunity to sit in the seat, I’d figure out how to do the job. However, let’s be honest: I needed a formal educa tion to be considered for the director position. I needed to figure out how I—a guy who had never even considered going to college—was going to get my college degree and do it as a single parent with a full-time position. I could have told myself that I didn’t have time as a single parent. I could have worried about my 1.448 GPA. I could have told myself I wasn’t smart enough for college; however, I knew that wasn’t true because, by then, I’d figured out that I could always learn and grow. I could stop thinking of myself as “not smart enough” and realize I was smart enough. I overcame my self-defeating thoughts—and so can you!

How do you banish self-defeating thoughts? It starts with mlearning to control your thoughts while dealing with irrational, negative thoughts that ultimately hold you back. The most effective method I’ve found for dealing with and removing negative thoughts is called rational emotive behavioral coaching, or REBC, which was developed by psychologist Dr. Albert Ellis. Applying REBC to your thoughts and beliefs empowers you to question their validity and
determine if they’re true or false, rational or irrational. You might be surprised that many truths you tell yourself aren’t true at all! In Chapter 5, “Dealing with Negative and Self-Defeating Thoughts,” I’ll show you how you can dispel negative thoughts and replace them with positive
thinking that takes your life in a new direction. By learning how to deal with my negative and self-defeating thoughts, I was able to go to college, earn a bachelor’s degree and
an MBA, and become the director of the IT department.

Fast-forward a few more years when, as the IT director, I was working on developmental goals and performance management plans with my staff. I quickly realized that I wasn’t trained to give my people the direction and plans they truly deserved. I felt like I was cheating my staff.

Although I wanted to coach them, help them set goals, and teach them how to achieve these goals, I didn’t know how. I asked my senior director at the time if he would be willing to pay for training so that I could effectively help my staff. He wasn’t very receptive to my request, and I
knew I couldn’t wait around for my company to teach me performance management and developmental goal setting, so I enrolled in coaching classes on my own. This step ultimately changed the trajectory of my whole life. I learned how to coach my staff, and I also learned a more important lesson that changed my life.

Coaching taught me that when you do things for other people, it comes back to you. The more you give, the more you get in return. I felt like I’d stumbled on life’s most precious principle. In fact, this concept is very much the keystone to a happy and fulfilled life.

I started coaching on the side, first working as a life coach and then coaching triathletes all over the country. This experience opened a new world to me. I discovered the same coaching techniques that worked for life coaching also worked for athletes and, ultimately, also worked
for my staff. The principles were very much the same; however, the application was a little different. I began studying more sports psychology theories to help my coaching practice with athletes. The more I studied sports psychology, the more I found that those techniques continued to transfer into the world of business with ease. I had to know more! So, I enrolled in a psychology PhD program. The more I learned about psychology, the more I noticed distinctive similarities among the challenges each person I coached was facing. Business leaders, entrepreneurs, athletes, and people in their everyday lives suffered from many of the same afflictions: low motivation, self-doubt, a lack of proper goal-setting techniques, confidence issues, and a huge fear of failure. Many of them experienced occasional anxiety and depression. The symptoms, goals, and desired outcomes varied; however, the causes were
pretty much the same. It all started and ended with their mindset. I realized that if I could help them change their mindsets, I could help them become unstoppable!

Each person I coached was in a different situation. Although they had different visions of success, the fundamental techniques that worked for an athlete attempting to improve her race times worked for an executive who wanted to improve his leadership skills, which also worked for anyone striving to improve their relationships and get more out of life. That’s when it hit me: What if I combined what I knew about psychology, sports coaching, executive leadership coaching, and life coaching into one streamlined package that delivered the fastest,
most potent results? I was onto something and, at that time, I knew it was big. However, I didn’t know how big. It wasn’t until after I had put together the high performance mindset shift tools and put them into action that I realized the incredible power every person has at their
disposal. It doesn’t take any special gear, supplements, or hours of therapy to unleash this ability. The techniques are explained in Part II, “Mindset Shift Tools.” In those chapters, I’ll teach you simple exercises you can do to train your mind and develop the high performance mindset you need to live your best life.

In Chapter 6, “Create New Positive Beliefs,” I’ll show you how to create beliefs that drive and reinforce your positive thoughts. Then, in Chapter 7, “The Kick-Ass You,” I’ll teach you why affirmations are the fastest and easiest way to ignite your confidence. Let’s be honest,
you might think you can buy confidence by surrounding yourself with whatever impresses other people; however, you can’t just buy confidence at any store and you can’t fake it either. Confidence comes from within, and you already have it. You merely need to uncover it by focusing on what you have instead of what you don’t have. I’ll show you how you can use affirmations to quickly send your confidence through the roof.

Another important element of developing a high performance mindset is thought management. Thought management is a mindset shift tool that teaches you how to stay in the moment. When you’re in the moment, you’re at your peak of high performance. Being in the moment isn’t about focusing on what you’re doing at this moment in time; in a way, it’s about doing without thinking about your action. For example, a baseball player at bat doesn’t want to think about hitting the ball movement by movement. The last thing he wants to think about is the mechanics of hitting that ball. Thinking through the motions requires sending information from the subconscious mind to the prefrontal cortex of your brain and then to the motor cortex, which takes more time and slows down your actions. In Chapter 8, “Own Your Focus,” I’ll
show you how to stay in the moment. 

One of the most powerful techniques that transfers from sports to business leadership to everyday life is visualization, also known as sports imagery. Do you want to know a secret? Your mind does not recognize the difference between reality and your imagination. You read that right. Your mind processes what you visualize in your mind and what happens in real life the same way. You might find that hard to believe. Think about a time when you woke up in the middle of the night in a panic after a nightmare. Your heart was racing, you were breathing erratically and you were covered in sweat. That is the result of your body responding to mental imagery. Research—through the utilization of functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI—shows the same parts of a person’s brain fire during visualization and when that person actually performs the task they’re visualizing. Visualization is essentially mental practice for reality and a way for you to prepare your brain for what you want to make happen in your life. I’ll teach you how you can use visualization to your advantage in Chapter 9, “Visualize Yourself to a High Performance Mindset.”

The final chapters comprise Part III, “Putting It All Together.” My greatest test in life has been raising a daughter. While it can be challenging for a single dad to raise a young lady, having a strong, independent, and loving mother helped me become a great dad. Some men think they’re supposed to be warriors and not show any emotion because being emotional, for a man, is a sign of weakness. I thank Mom for teaching me that it is safe to experience emotions as a man. Her love and support empowered me to become a loving and supportive father to my own child. We’re all emotional creatures and I’m grateful to my mom for teaching me that being an emotional man is healthy. Growing up that way made me stronger and more authentic, not weak and powerless. It also taught me the importance of love and relationships in developing the high performance mindset. We’ll talk more about relationships in Chapter 10, “Relationships
with Others and Yourself.”

Raising my daughter, coaching athletes, executives, and people who want more out of life,  having a great career, and working toward my PhD could have been the pinnacle of my success, and I do feel successful every single day. However, I continue to learn and seek opportunities to do more with my life. I get there by setting goals and achieving outcomes through process work and by improving my performance, which I’ll discuss in detail in Chapter 11, “Crush Your Goals.”

In Chapter 12, “Unlocking Your Purpose with the High Performance Mindset,” you’ll learn about your most important purpose in life and how you can fulfill that purpose every single day.

 Finally, in Chapter 13, “The Finish Line,” I’ll hand over the keys to the high performance mindset so you can take the wheel and start seeing results right away. As I mentioned previously, I’ve researched, tweaked, honed, tested, and personally applied every technique I’m going to teach you. When I was developing the mindset shift techniques, if something worked for one client and didn’t work for other clients, I would tweak it until it did, or I threw it out. Every technique works consistently. I’m not going to waste your time with high performance
mindset tools that only work sometimes, for some people. Athletes and executives have experienced life-changing results in as little as one hour by using the techniques within this book through my coaching. One hour! Imagine what’s possible using these techniques every day for the rest of your life.

While you’re learning how to develop your high performance mindset, you’ll also learn to see words differently. I’ll teach you about the power of linguistics and about the words thought, self-talk, focus, attention, and concentration—and what those words actually mean. You’ll find out why meditation and mindfulness aren’t as mysterious as they sound. In fact, the backend of a high performance mindset constitutes the underlying reason that meditation and mindfulness practice work.

I hope you’ll read this whole book and put into practice everything you learn. Reading is the first step; however, the magic—your transformation to the high performance mindset—only happens if you apply it. Action through application is a critical component of this book.

What you think, you manifest. Your thoughts create your reality. I’m giving you the tools to control your thoughts and think differently, to think effectively. Once you apply the mindset shift tools, you’ll have the power to control your thoughts, change your reality, and own your destiny! 

It is a shift, transforming from a low-performing mindset to a high-performing mindset. It’s one of the most dramatic changes you can make in your life and it’s closer than you could have imagined. It changed everything for me and it can change everything for you, too!

Let’s get going!

We are screwing love up!

We are screwing love up!!

Have you ever noticed that aha moments seem to come at the strangest times?  I was in the shower yesterday and it hit me.  We are screwing love up! 

• I love working out!
• I love food!
• I love smoothies!
• I love a cold pillow!
• I love coffee!
• I love the movie Titanic!

Sound familiar?  Or do you have other things you “LOVE”?  This is where I think we are screwing love up.   The definition of Love is “an intense feeling of deep affection”.  So if I look at my list above, do I have a deep affection towards working out? Not really.  Do I have a deep affection towards food?  I hope not!  Do I have a deep affection for smoothies?  NOPE!...  

It appears to me that we are using the word LOVE when we should be using ENJOY. The definition of enjoy is to “take delight or pleasure in”.  Do I take delight or pleasure in working out?  YEP, Do I take delight or pleasure in food? Sure!  Do I take delight in coffee?  Absolutely!

So, why is this a big deal?  Well, we are essentially devaluing love by how we reference things towards it.   This may very well be why some people will tell you they love you one minute and then leave you the next.  They use love when they should be using “enjoy”… As you go through your day, are you using Love when you should be using Enjoy to expect how you feel about something?  How is that affecting you?

HOW I CURED MY ANXIETY

Excerpt from THE HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET

“In my 20s, I discovered another challenge that, at the time, appeared to hold me back. I was diagnosed with general anxiety disorder. When you’re anxious, you can’t perform at your full potential. Anxiety was tough. It created a lot of problems in my life—or so I thought. I was put on a very strong prescription medication (PAXIL) to help me cope with the anxiety. Essentially, the medication took away my lows and it took away my highs, too. I felt like I was experiencing the world through a dirty filter and I didn’t enjoy that feeling at all. During this time, I was going to lunch daily with two buddies. The anti-anxiety medication took the life out of me and they noticed—and were worried. I remember them saying to me “You have to snap out of it!” I wanted to snap out of it; I felt isolated, as if I was living in a virtual cocoon separating me from the rest of the world. I was numb!

I made a decision to take massive action to stick with my prescription until the bottle was empty and then take myself off the meds. When I swallowed that last pill, I quit cold turkey! This turned out to be a huge mistake because I then started feeling like I was going insane. No, seriously! I remember calling my doctor and begging him to help me make the feeling stop. Luckily, he had a sample pack of five pills at his office that he could give me. I started taking the meds again. Whew, what a relief! I returned to my “medicated state” determined to get off the medication the right way. This time, I slowly weaned myself off of it. In the meantime, I had to figure out how to manage the so-called “general anxiety disorder” I had been diagnosed with, without medication.

I did a lot of research and discovered the drugs weren’t treating the actual cause of my anxiety at all. Instead, they were only treating the effects such as my restlessness, irritability, and the racing thoughts in my head. Honestly, I could have been on that medication for years and not gotten any better. In order to free myself from the constraints of anxiety and put myself in a better place, I needed to figure out the cause of my problem and fix it—once and for all! And guess what? I did it. I learned how to treat anxiety without drugs and I’ve been anxiety-free ever since—true story! Decreasing and even eliminating anxiety became another core concept of the high performance mindset”

So how did I do this?  I became immersed in understanding anxiety.  First and foremost, I learned that by saying “ I HAVE anxiety” or “my anxiety got the best of me”, I was essentially labeling myself thus creating an identity out of anxiety.  This does not put us in a place of healing because when we lose something we believe we are, we can fall into a version of identity crisis.  The truth though… is that you don’t have anxiety.  It is not the chicken pox, the flu or even a pinched nerve.  And THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU. In fact, some anxiety is highly valuable, it allows us to quickly respond and get out of dangers way.  That is not the anxiety I am talking about.  Instead, I am talking about the anxiety you experience when your life isn’t truly at risk. Anxiety is merely a label for our experience, not of our being.  The first step to removing anxiety is to remove it as an identity of yours. 

“ I do not have anxiety, I experience it!”. 

This is the start to my game changer.  After I said this over and over, I began the process of freeing my mind of the belief that “this is how it is” and shift to “I am always in control of my experience” because while we cant change what happens to us, we have 100% control over how we respond.

The next thing I started to realize and apply is that anxiety is the experience we have when we feel like we can’t control something that is in the future.  Anxiety is always future based.  We are not anxious about something in our past…that is called depression.  When we attempt to think in a way with the expectation needing to control the future, we become irrational and this.. is when things go wrong for us.  If you notice, I said when we attempt to “think in a way”.  The reason I say this is because anxiety is the effect of thinking.  This is why when people talk anti-anxiety meds without learning about their thoughts; their anxiety comes back when they stop using the meds.  Meds only mask the effects of anxiety instead of resolving it. So, anxiety is an effect.  When we begin to think irrationally, we oftentimes overgeneralize and awfulize what is going to happen, in the future, only to find out that when that situation happens, its not near as bad as we assumed.. all that worrying.. for nothing. 

When you start to feel this way.. focus on your breath.  Calm breath in through your nose and calm breath out through your mouth.  Anxiety causes us to tighten up and not breath as often thus leading to an elevated experiences of anxiety.  By controlling your breath, you reduce the experience of anxiety. Also, thinking about your breathing is a present moment activity and since we can only have one thought at a time,  if we are thinking about something that is present, we will be unable to tend to thoughts of the future.  You can then begin to say something like “stop!” or “think!” as a catch phrase to interrupt your thoughts.  Then ask yourself questions like “IS this really true?” or “how can I see things differently”.  “Is this beyond my control?” because if it is, I need to let it go.   You can also ask yourself for evidence about how you are thinking.  Oftentimes, with anxiety, our thoughts are assumptions thus looking for evidence will help you see through your experience of anxiety and calm yourself.

You can do this too!! I PROMISE!

I provide a more in-depth review of our thoughts and how we can eliminate anxiety and depression from our lives through awareness and exercises that I include in my book, THE HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET which will be released in July.  You can pre-order my book here if you would more info on how to remove anxiety and depression from your life, for GOOD!

First Chapter - The High Performance Mindset

To give you a bit of "pre-publish" content, I am providing you with the very first chapter of the book, the introduction.  I am still about 45 days from publish and this content will change, especially with proofing still needed.  I have poured my heart and soul into this book that is life changing while not hard to read.  I hope you enjoy and I would absolutely love your feedback!

Introduction

Is this for me?

I bet that’s what you’re asking yourself. Is the high performance mindset for me?

Let’s talk about you. You’re probably an intelligent person who works hard, takes care of yourself and the people around you, and has achieved a level of success that would
satisfy most people. However, you’re not “most people.”You want more—a lot more out of your life—you just don’t know how to get it.

So, is the high performance mindset for you? If any
of the statements below describes you, the answer is:Absolutely!

• You’re an entrepreneur, executive, athlete, or student looking to achieve phenomenal levels of success.
• There’s something in your way, perhaps an invisible barrier that you can’t seem to find. This barrier seems to hold you back from achieving success in your career, in sports, or in your relationships.
• You keep getting things you don’t want in your life, while things you do want are always beyond your reach.
• You feel stuck in a rut, like your life’s a repetitive cycle that’s going nowhere.

First and foremost, I commend you for picking up this book, because doing so is a clear sign that you’re motivated to do great things with your life. That’s where your mindset comes in. Taking this first step shows that your mindset is already bending toward what’s possible.Although you may not even be aware of it, your mind is capable of creating a better, happier, and more fulfilled life.

Many people will never take this step. It’s easy to be complacent and settle for where you are and what you have in life. The main reason for this is that most people don’t know—from a psychological perspective—how they gotto where they are right now. More importantly, they don’t know what to do about it. Why do so many people get stuck in a low-performing rut, struggling to get ahead?

And why do so many high performers get to a certain level in life and then seem to hit a brick wall? You may have to go back many, many years to discover the answer to that question. However, we’ll discuss what you can do about it soon!

Your mindset began to evolve when you were very young and while it has changed over time, beliefs established during your childhood linger in your adult mind and keep you from reaching your full potential. Becoming aware of these limitations is essential to overcoming them and developing the high performance mindset. These beliefs may have worked for you when you were younger; however, they don’t work for you anymore and operating with an outdated mindset can prevent you from achieving everything you want in life: love, a great career, personal goals, success, and even happiness. Despite these lingering, limiting beliefs, many people go on to become happy, successful adults. However, they know they can do more. They want to do more. The high performance mindset benefits anyone who wants more out of life. It’s a mindset you can develop using a concrete set of techniques that have a firm foundation in psychology and have been put to work in the real world. I put them together, I tested them, and I know they work.

Full disclosure: Who am I to tell you about the high performance mindset? I’m the last person you’d expect. I’m a guy from a small town in Kentucky who graduated eighth in his class...from the bottom! That’s right; I graduated from high school at 172 out of 179 students, with a whopping 1.448 GPA. How I got from there to where I am today—an entrepreneur, high performance coach, and author who has guided executives, athletes, and everyday people to new heights in their careers, sports, and personal lives—is a result of what I am about to teach you.

I’ve spent years putting this together: reading, learning, developing mindset techniques, applying them to myself and to my clients, and studying the results. It took a lot of work to develop and hone these techniques because the research behind them can be complicated. I believe that’s why so few people have had the opportunity to develop a high performance mindset. It seems complicated. However, once I boiled down the psychology to its core principles, I knew I could present this in a format you could learn and apply without a psychology background. Inspired by the possibilities, I developed simple tools that delivered powerful, consistent results. That, in turn, inspired me to write this book and share my knowledge with you. Anyone can do this. Discovering your best life shouldn’t be complicated, and it isn’t if you follow the instructions I’ve laid out for you in this book.

In my research as a student, a coach, and a leader, I discovered that many of the same life and sports psychology tools that empower professional athletes to outperform their competitors on the field, on the track, and in the ring can empower executives, entrepreneurs, and people
just like you to create a better, fuller life. These tools help you remove self-doubt and uncover more confidence.They also help you build better relationships. The core principles presented in the high performance mindset techniques are based on sports psychology and cognitive
behavioral coaching and are transferable across a broad range of professional and personal goals. They work fast and are extremely effective.

Let’s do a quick rewind, though. I want to tell you about my personal journey to entrepreneur, coach, and author.My life didn’t follow a traditional path and neither did my success. There’s a path that most people have been conditioned to take: You go to school, get good grades, and go to college. You graduate and land a great career. Then you get married and start a family. That path sounds familiar, doesn’t it? That path isn’t for everyone, and it wasn’t for
me. First, I didn’t care much for school. I was bored. To this day, I’m not necessarily a fan of the traditional style of teaching. It didn’t work well for me. I wasn’t interested in college or starting a career when I graduated high school, so I took odd jobs here and there. Eventually, I knew that if I wanted to achieve certain things in life I’d have to overcome some challenges. Back then, although I wasn’t sure what those challenges were, I was committed to figuring
them out, so that’s what I focused on. The ability to see each obstacle in life as an opportunity or challenge to learn, improve, and progress turned out to be a key element in my personal development and an important concept in the high performance mindset.

My first challenge would be changing my own beliefs about myself. You might think it’s impossible for people to change their beliefs, however, it is possible. I’ll tell you
how and why you should do it in Part I, Chapter 1, “What Is a High Performance Mindset?” and Chapter 2, “The Ever-Evolving Mind.”

In my 20s, I discovered another challenge that, at the time, appeared to hold me back. I was diagnosed with general anxiety disorder. When you’re anxious, you can’t perform at your full potential. Anxiety was tough. It created a lot of problems in my life—or so I thought. I was put on a very strong prescription medication to help me cope with the anxiety. Essentially, the medication took away my lows, and it took away my highs, too. I felt like I was experiencing the world through a dirty filter, and I didn’t enjoy that feeling at all. During this time, I was
going to lunch daily with two buddies. The anti-anxiety medication took the life out of me, and they noticed—and were worried. I remember them saying to me, “You have to snap out of it!” I wanted to snap out of it; I felt isolated, as if I was living in a virtual cocoon separating me from
the rest of the world. I was numb!

I made a decision to take massive action to stick with my prescription until the bottle was empty and then take myself off the meds. When I swallowed that last pill, I quit cold turkey! This turned out to be a huge mistake, because I then started feeling like I was going insane.
No, seriously! I remember calling my doctor and begging him to help me make the feeling stop. Luckily, he had a sample pack of five pills at his office that he could give me. I started taking the meds again. Whew, what a relief! I returned to my “medicated state” determined to get off the medication the right way. This time, I slowly weaned myself off of it. In the meantime, I had to figure out how to manage the so-called “general anxiety disorder” I had been diagnosed with, without medication.

I did a lot of research and discovered the drugs weren’t treating the actual cause of my anxiety at all. Instead, they were only treating the effects such as my restlessness, irritability, and the racing thoughts in my head. Honestly, I could have been on that medication for years and not gotten any better. In order to free myself from the constraints of anxiety and put myself in a better place, I needed to figure out the cause of my problem and fix it — once and for all! And guess what? I did it. I learned how to treat anxiety without drugs and I’ve been anxiety-free ever since—true story!

Decreasing and even eliminating anxiety became another core concept of the high performance mindset. In Chapter 3, “Understanding Your Mindset,” I’ll explain how the conscious mind and the subconscious mind interact to create your mindset, and why treating the effects of anxiety and depression with drugs can be an ineffective short-term solution. I’ll also discuss linguistics—the words you use and your understanding of those words—and how it affects your thinking. The first exercise in that chapter will help you prove to yourself the power—and sometimes
confusion—of linguistics, and a second exercise will teach you about multitasking. This is a big chapter so take your time, read each section, and follow along with the exercises and the diagrams. It’s critical that you understand the concepts illustrated in Diagrams 1, 2, and 3 in order to fully appreciate the power of the high performance mindset—specifically, how and why it works. In Chapter 4, “Time and the Mind: Depression, Anxiety, and Happiness,” you’ll learn why the way your mind processes time can lead to anxiety and depression, and I’ll show you how to process it a different way that unlocks the happier you.

Fast-forward into my 30s, when I became a single father and was working in the IT department at the local hospital. I found myself wanting a better life for myself and my daughter. One day, one of the hospital executives asked me where I was going in my career. He said, “You can do
ANYTHING you want. What do you want, Craig?” When I told him I wanted to become the next director of IT, he asked, “Well, how are you going to get there? You don’t have a college degree and that will become a barrier for you,” and he was right. I’d been figuring things out on my
own my whole life. I would literally apply for positions that I had no clue how to fulfill, knowing that if I got the opportunity to sit in the seat, I’d figure out how to do the job. However, let’s be honest: I needed a formal educa tion to be considered for the director position. I needed to figure out how I—a guy who had never even considered going to college—was going to get my college degree and do it as a single parent with a full-time position. I could have told myself that I didn’t have time as a single parent. I could have worried about my 1.448 GPA. I could have told myself I wasn’t smart enough for college; however, I knew that wasn’t true because, by then, I’d figured out that I could always learn and grow. I could stop thinking of myself as “not smart enough” and realize I was smart enough. I overcame my self-defeating thoughts—and so can you!

How do you banish self-defeating thoughts? It starts with mlearning to control your thoughts while dealing with irrational, negative thoughts that ultimately hold you back. The most effective method I’ve found for dealing with and removing negative thoughts is called rational emotive behavioral coaching, or REBC, which was developed by psychologist Dr. Albert Ellis. Applying REBC to your thoughts and beliefs empowers you to question their validity and
determine if they’re true or false, rational or irrational. You might be surprised that many truths you tell yourself aren’t true at all! In Chapter 5, “Dealing with Negative and Self-Defeating Thoughts,” I’ll show you how you can dispel negative thoughts and replace them with positive
thinking that takes your life in a new direction. By learning how to deal with my negative and self-defeating thoughts, I was able to go to college, earn a bachelor’s degree and
an MBA, and become the director of the IT department.

Fast-forward a few more years when, as the IT director, I was working on developmental goals and performance management plans with my staff. I quickly realized that I wasn’t trained to give my people the direction and plans they truly deserved. I felt like I was cheating my staff.

Although I wanted to coach them, help them set goals, and teach them how to achieve these goals, I didn’t know how. I asked my senior director at the time if he would be willing to pay for training so that I could effectively help my staff. He wasn’t very receptive to my request, and I
knew I couldn’t wait around for my company to teach me performance management and developmental goal setting, so I enrolled in coaching classes on my own. This step ultimately changed the trajectory of my whole life. I learned how to coach my staff, and I also learned a more important lesson that changed my life.

Coaching taught me that when you do things for other people, it comes back to you. The more you give, the more you get in return. I felt like I’d stumbled on life’s most precious principle. In fact, this concept is very much the keystone to a happy and fulfilled life.

I started coaching on the side, first working as a life coach and then coaching triathletes all over the country. This experience opened a new world to me. I discovered the same coaching techniques that worked for life coaching also worked for athletes and, ultimately, also worked
for my staff. The principles were very much the same; however, the application was a little different. I began studying more sports psychology theories to help my coaching practice with athletes. The more I studied sports psychology, the more I found that those techniques continued to transfer into the world of business with ease. I had to know more! So, I enrolled in a psychology PhD program. The more I learned about psychology, the more I noticed distinctive similarities among the challenges each person I coached was facing. Business leaders, entrepreneurs, athletes, and people in their everyday lives suffered from many of the same afflictions: low motivation, self-doubt, a lack of proper goal-setting techniques, confidence issues, and a huge fear of failure. Many of them experienced occasional anxiety and depression. The symptoms, goals, and desired outcomes varied; however, the causes were
pretty much the same. It all started and ended with their mindset. I realized that if I could help them change their mindsets, I could help them become unstoppable!

Each person I coached was in a different situation. Although they had different visions of success, the fundamental techniques that worked for an athlete attempting to improve her race times worked for an executive who wanted to improve his leadership skills, which also worked for anyone striving to improve their relationships and get more out of life. That’s when it hit me: What if I combined what I knew about psychology, sports coaching, executive leadership coaching, and life coaching into one streamlined package that delivered the fastest,
most potent results? I was onto something and, at that time, I knew it was big. However, I didn’t know how big. It wasn’t until after I had put together the high performance mindset shift tools and put them into action that I realized the incredible power every person has at their
disposal. It doesn’t take any special gear, supplements, or hours of therapy to unleash this ability. The techniques are explained in Part II, “Mindset Shift Tools.” In those chapters, I’ll teach you simple exercises you can do to train your mind and develop the high performance mindset you need to live your best life.

In Chapter 6, “Create New Positive Beliefs,” I’ll show you how to create beliefs that drive and reinforce your positive thoughts. Then, in Chapter 7, “The Kick-Ass You,” I’ll teach you why affirmations are the fastest and easiest way to ignite your confidence. Let’s be honest,
you might think you can buy confidence by surrounding yourself with whatever impresses other people; however, you can’t just buy confidence at any store and you can’t fake it either. Confidence comes from within, and you already have it. You merely need to uncover it by focusing on what you have instead of what you don’t have. I’ll show you how you can use affirmations to quickly send your confidence through the roof.

Another important element of developing a high performance mindset is thought management. Thought management is a mindset shift tool that teaches you how to stay in the moment. When you’re in the moment, you’re at your peak of high performance. Being in the moment isn’t about focusing on what you’re doing at this moment in time; in a way, it’s about doing without thinking about your action. For example, a baseball player at bat doesn’t want to think about hitting the ball movement by movement. The last thing he wants to think about is the mechanics of hitting that ball. Thinking through the motions requires sending information from the subconscious mind to the prefrontal cortex of your brain and then to the motor cortex, which takes more time and slows down your actions. In Chapter 8, “Own Your Focus,” I’ll
show you how to stay in the moment. 

One of the most powerful techniques that transfers from sports to business leadership to everyday life is visualization, also known as sports imagery. Do you want to know a secret? Your mind does not recognize the difference between reality and your imagination. You read that right. Your mind processes what you visualize in your mind and what happens in real life the same way. You might find that hard to believe. Think about a time when you woke up in the middle of the night in a panic after a nightmare. Your heart was racing, you were breathing erratically and you were covered in sweat. That is the result of your body responding to mental imagery. Research—through the utilization of functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI—shows the same parts of a person’s brain fire during visualization and when that person actually performs the task they’re visualizing. Visualization is essentially mental practice for reality and a way for you to prepare your brain for what you want to make happen in your life. I’ll teach you how you can use visualization to your advantage in Chapter 9, “Visualize Yourself to a High Performance Mindset.”

The final chapters comprise Part III, “Putting It All Together.” My greatest test in life has been raising a daughter. While it can be challenging for a single dad to raise a young lady, having a strong, independent, and loving mother helped me become a great dad. Some men think they’re supposed to be warriors and not show any emotion because being emotional, for a man, is a sign of weakness. I thank Mom for teaching me that it is safe to experience emotions as a man. Her love and support empowered me to become a loving and supportive father to my own child. We’re all emotional creatures and I’m grateful to my mom for teaching me that being an emotional man is healthy. Growing up that way made me stronger and more authentic, not weak and powerless. It also taught me the importance of love and relationships in developing the high performance mindset. We’ll talk more about relationships in Chapter 10, “Relationships
with Others and Yourself.”

Raising my daughter, coaching athletes, executives, and people who want more out of life,  having a great career, and working toward my PhD could have been the pinnacle of my success, and I do feel successful every single day. However, I continue to learn and seek opportunities to do more with my life. I get there by setting goals and achieving outcomes through process work and by improving my performance, which I’ll discuss in detail in Chapter 11, “Crush Your Goals.”

In Chapter 12, “Unlocking Your Purpose with the High Performance Mindset,” you’ll learn about your most important purpose in life and how you can fulfill that purpose every single day.

 Finally, in Chapter 13, “The Finish Line,” I’ll hand over the keys to the high performance mindset so you can take the wheel and start seeing results right away. As I mentioned previously, I’ve researched, tweaked, honed, tested, and personally applied every technique I’m going to teach you. When I was developing the mindset shift techniques, if something worked for one client and didn’t work for other clients, I would tweak it until it did, or I threw it out. Every technique works consistently. I’m not going to waste your time with high performance
mindset tools that only work sometimes, for some people. Athletes and executives have experienced life-changing results in as little as one hour by using the techniques within this book through my coaching. One hour! Imagine what’s possible using these techniques every day for the rest of your life.

While you’re learning how to develop your high performance mindset, you’ll also learn to see words differently. I’ll teach you about the power of linguistics and about the words thought, self-talk, focus, attention, and concentration—and what those words actually mean. You’ll find out why meditation and mindfulness aren’t as mysterious as they sound. In fact, the backend of a high performance mindset constitutes the underlying reason that meditation and mindfulness practice work.

I hope you’ll read this whole book and put into practice everything you learn. Reading is the first step; however, the magic—your transformation to the high performance mindset—only happens if you apply it. Action through application is a critical component of this book.

What you think, you manifest. Your thoughts create your reality. I’m giving you the tools to control your thoughts and think differently, to think effectively. Once you apply the mindset shift tools, you’ll have the power to control your thoughts, change your reality, and own your destiny! 

It is a shift, transforming from a low-performing mindset to a high-performing mindset. It’s one of the most dramatic changes you can make in your life and it’s closer than you could have imagined. It changed everything for me and it can change everything for you, too!

Let’s get going!

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What my life taught me about being a Parent

Many years ago, I was eating hibachi with a friend.  There was a family of four sitting at our table including two sons, one of which was close to graduating high school.  We started talking while waiting on our food.  At some point, the father asked my friend and I what we did for a living.   I told him I worked for a hospital managing an IT department.   His face lit up!  He looked over at his son who tilted his head towards his lap.  He said “ Great, my son doesn’t want to go to college after high school, tell him how important it is to get his degree.”  You could tell Dad was excited to hear me embrace his direction; he wanted his son to hear it from me.  This is when everything changed.

I looked over at his son and smiled.  I looked back at his dad and said, “ I am sorry, I think you may have picked the wrong one to ask that question to.  You see, I didn’t go to college right out of high school.  I actually didn’t go to college until I was 30 years old.  I just wasn’t mentally ready and I came out fine.”  His jaw dropped and the son grinned!  We continued on with our dinner with light conversation however Dad avoided any sort of conversation on the same subject.

Now, I speak of this story - not to pat myself on the back for getting where I am today.  Instead, I tell this story to shed light on what I feel we often don’t do.  Often times we don’t question “Norms” and the Status Quo of life.  Life is about growing up, going to school, getting a degree, finding a great job and living an awesome life.  That’s what we are told right?  This norm though, isn’t true for everyone.  The likes of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Tom Hanks and even Tiger Woods never graduated college yet they have done great things.  I know what you are thinking, those are outliers!  Honestly, who says your son or daughter isn’t an outlier too?  As someone who didn’t take the traditional “Normal” path through life, I am here to tell you.  It is ok!

Being openly honest, I was a “late bloomer”, my friends will laugh and say I still haven’t.  Maybe they are right.  Even into my 20’s, I was immature and lacked many of the skills needed early in life to make the right decisions.  As a parent, I totally understand the premise behind “I failed as a parent” when thinking about my child lacking in skills or not being successful.  I am here to reassure you, as a son and as a parent that it’s not what you did or didn’t do.  There are things in life that our parents will never be able to teach us.  Things we will only learn through the experiences of living.  We must fall before we realize what it is like to rise.  We must sink before we recognize the true meaning to swim.  Parents, including myself want to provide a nice clear path through life where the view is amazing, the dangers and fears are gone and all they have to do is walk the path we pave.  The problem here is that even we as parents didn’t take this path.  Had you taken it, you would not have learned as much as you had learned today.  We teach our children to follow this path subconsciously however we verbalize to our children to take “your own path.”

Look at some statistics with me.  The average cost of an undergraduate degree is around $60,000.  That is a lot of money.  If your child doesn’t really know what they want to do or maybe they want to wait a year to go to college.  Why force them into something they don’t want to do.  This will drive resentment, they will buck and most likely will not get much out of college, if anything at all.  In the end, they MAY be one of the 50% of people who receive a degree within 6 years and/or one of the 27% of graduates who actually get a job related to their degree.  Why force them to go and have a hefty bill at the end.   Did you happen to notice that 27% statistics?  Here it is again, 27% of people do not work in a job related to their degree.  I bet you know many like this.  This is because what we feel like we want when we get out of high school, we sometimes don’t want as we grow and mature.  This actually happens in many parts of our lives.  There is logic in waiting until you know what your purpose is before going to college, if you chose.

As I mentioned earlier, I was immature in my 20’s.  I don’t think I really started to figure out my career until 23 or so.  At this point, I committed to going to school to become certified by Microsoft.  This took a year and I knocked it out of the park with a 3.5 GPA.  You see, when people have autonomy (to do what you want – when you want –where you want - with whom you want), they are internally motivated and will excel beyond belief.  The same thing happened when I turned 30.  My daughter was born.  I transitioned from being rather self-centered to needing to care for my daughter.  She was the most important person on earth.  I knew at this time, I wanted to get an education (for the right reasons).  One thing I didn’t tell you, I barely graduated high school.  I didn’t even receive a 2.0 final GPA.  My strong willed mother and my teachers got me through high school.  Seriously!  Me, the guy that barely graduated high school (1.448 GPA) went on to college at 30, received my undergrad in 4 years while being a single parent and going to school at night.  My undergrad GPA was 3.4.  I continued on with my MBA where I received a 3.5 GPA.  How did I go from a 2.0 GPA in high school to a 3.5 GPA in school?  I had autonomy, I was able to master a skill I wanted and I had a purpose.  I was internally motivated which WAS the difference!  I went under my own power and it was AMAZING!  I didn't need to be pushed and prodded to do my homework. I just did it.  And now, I am over half way through my Ph.D. in Psychology AND I am about to publish my first book “The High Performance Mindset”

An article in Time Magazine written by Martha White noted that 60% of employers claimed applicant’s lack “communication and interpersonal skills.”.  Young adults out of college are struggling in the work place, in what White calls “Unemployabilty.”  Simply put, young adults are not ready for work.  “As it turns out, they can’t even show up on time and in a button-down shirt and organize a team project” said White.  O’ how I can relate.  One of the many blessings in my life is that I experienced life “the real world version” by working, paying rent and developing life skills.  Learning that I didn’t want dead end jobs or to work in factories.  I learned interpersonal skills through work and friends, however I could.  I learned about being on time and doing the right thing from my mother.  Had I went straight to college from high school, it would have been different, for me.  I truly believe I wouldn’t be where I am today without the lessons the real world taught me.  This doesn’t mean that everyone should wait.  Some have it all figured out early in life and that’s amazing!  My sister is one of those who had it pretty figured out early on.  All I am saying is that we should limit forcing our children to go to college right out of high school; it is not always cookie cutter.  Allow them to take their own path.  As parents, we have to let go of our belief that we truly know what’s best for our children at this point in life.  Maybe college is not something they want to do at all.  This too is ok, it is their choice.  We should be cognizant of imprinting our beliefs for success onto our children.  Just because we want our children to become highly educated and have everything in life, our children may have different plans and probably value things in life different.  They are individuals.  As parents, we should embrace that.  As long as they are happy, what more can a parent ask, right?

So, here is what I ask, let us think differently.  If your son or daughter wants to take a break from school, let them.  By supporting them, it will most likely help your relationship with them as well.  Life may teach them more than college will right now AND they will not walk away with the debt for a degree they end up deciding they don’t want anyway.  It is time to stop “forcing”our children to go to college and let them decide for themselves.  When they chose on their own time, I promise you, the payback will be far greater.  I am thankful my mom did this for me.  Your child will be happier and wiser.  I also promise that YOU didn’t fail your child.  In fact, you are allowing them to succeed by letting them find their own way and what they want in life on their own.  I promise, it’s worth it!

An updated version of an older blog post*

Why you choose the partners you do and what it is teaching you

Life happens for us, not to us and our relationships are no different.  Ever notice how we seem to find the same kinds of people to date... no matter what we "attempt to avoid"?

Have you ever said... "He is just like my dad!!" or "She is just like my mom!!"...??

When looking at your/for partner, you most likely feel like you select(ed) them consciously however, the truth is, you are selecting them subconsciously in an attempt to obtain unmet needs from your childhood.  NO! This doesn't necessarily mean your parents are to blame, so don't go blaming them!  Humans are not perfect, we will make decisions, as parents, that we feel are the right decisions however, our children will see them differently.  We all experience life differently through our own unique lens.

During our childhood, we create the image of a relationship (what it should look like) based upon the relationships of our childhood care takers.

Whatever relationships we experience over and over as a child creates our relationships reality. 

Why are you doing all this this?  To heal subconscious wounds!

Basically, we subconsciously create similar relationships that match the image we created of relationships from our youth in an attempt to repair them.  The problem is, we want to change the other person and this very thing leads to the destruction of the relationship.  

If you are interested in a guide that will help you understand WHAT you are subconsciously seeking, if you want to know how to change the pattern...enter your name and email address below, click the button and you will be able to download the document from THANK YOU page.  

Note* This will also sign you up for emails from me.  Have no worries, I only send important emails and I will not ever send spam.  You can turn off your subscription at any time.

What you need to know before dating a single father

First, let me tell you a story. 

Just this weekend…I headed down to Nashville (a 3-hour drive) with my mom, step-dad (Pat), and my daughter.  We were excited to see my sister and spend time with her celebrating her 24th birthday.  The plan was pretty simple.  We would get there around 3pm, spend a bit of time at her apt and then head to dinner around 6.  Afterwards, my daughter would head back to the hotel with my mom and Pat to play in the pool while I went with my sister and her friends for the evening on the town.  As we were about to leave for dinner from my sisters apt, we called two uber’s (there were 8 of us).  A quick decision was made that I would go with Lauren and her friends while my mom and Pat would take my daughter.  We would meet back up at the restaurant.  It was at that moment, I turned toward my daughter walking out of the apt with the door closing that we locked eyes; I felt overwhelmed.  All I could think of is “I want to be with her”.  The door closed and a minute later, I turned around to find my sister saying “why don’t you just go with them because 5 adults might be tight in an uber”.  I smiled and said “SURE”!  I was now where I wanted to be, with her.  Fast forward a few hours… we had dinner, drinks and a lot of laughter as we celebrated my sister’s birthday.  Eventually my parents took my daughter back to the hotel and I went out with my sister.  While I did enjoy my time out with my sister and her friends (they really are a blast to be around), I never really felt quite comfortable knowing my daughter was back at the hotel and not with me.  Around 1am, I was ready to go.  I made it back to the hotel and was happy to find my daughter resting comfortably in bed.  

Why this story?  It shows that Dad's are wired a bit differently... 

Birthday dinner for my sister

You see, there is just something about being a father to a young daughter that has changed how I see everything about this world, including going out.  Being a single father, especially to a daughter, can be quite the challenge for many men.  Learning to deal with emotions can be tough for many men.  Here I get to thank my mother for raising me to be strong, determined AND emotional. Being a father has taught me so much.  I’ve learned patience, attentive listening, that I am not the center of attention any longer, and I have learned that I will create the mold for who she dates as she grows up.  This amazing 9 year old girl inspires me with her humor, love for education, love for others and her love for family.  She has changed me and I am forever in debt to her for this.

If you ever date a single father of a little girl, here are some things to know...

• Daughters are always first

While a partner is super important and their needs MUST be met, those needs can’t be met at the expense of a child’s needs.

• Dads loves to talk about their little girl

Ask him about his little girl, he will glow!!! What is her favorite color? What is her favorite subject in school? What is being around her like?

• Dads are not looking for a “mother” to their daughter but instead, a role model

Dads are looking for influencer's who can help guide their daughter through this world.  She needs positive role models in her life and as a father, he must ensure she has that.  They want someone who shows love and isn’t afraid of being authentic.

• Dads love being around their daughters

While all parents need to have breaks away, they will pick daughters over bars and many other things.  I’ve never complained about staying home with my daughter while my friends want to go out.  Dads know where their heart is.

• Dads with daughters are patient and attentive

We love to give our girls focused attention.  It is ok for her to wait, if needed, however, I give her my full undivided attention when we are having conversations. Dads of little girls have learned to listen.  Dads are going to take things a little slower than those without kids because there is far more at stake.

• Dads know they are not the center of attention

Dads are not selfish, they know their daughter has needs that must be met and dads live for the greater good of their daughter…including in dating

• You will have YOU time

Split custody offers you more freedom and flexibility.  As a rule, at least mine, it will be months before someone ever meets my daughter thus while I am with her, you get to do you.

• Dads with daughters are responsible

He runs the house, he loves her, he feeds her, makes sure her homework is complete, cleans the house and he is on time.

• Dads with daughters play for keeps

Dads do not want their daughters to see women come and go in their life, so if you are around, if you meet his little girl.. he is really into you and trusts you.

• Dads want you to love their daughters

Dads want you to not see their daughter as “some kid” but instead, they want you to connect with them.  Connection is not only critical, its required.

• Dads with daughters have more fun

Dads and their daughters laugh a lot, even at each other’s expense.  I can’t tell you the last time we had a bad day and I am sure other fathers would say the same.

• Dads with daughters are affectionate, protective and chivalrous

Dads hold their daughters hand and play with their hair.  Dads make sure they are between their daughter and incoming traffic when crossing a road.  Dads open doors, are last to enter and when things don't go well, dads hug their daughter and tell them that everything will be ok. 

I love being a father!

 

Merry Christmas, gift to you

You deserve the best 2017 possible! This year, for Christmas, I want to offer you something super special.  A 50% discount on any package (single/monthly) you wish.  I provide a 100% money back guarantee.  If you are not completely satisfied with our work together, I will present a full refund to you.  There is nothing to lose, call me today to schedule a consultation!  502-771-0721

Life is never short on lessons

I remember it like it was yesterday.  I was sitting in my office chair with my eyes focused on the computer screen working on a spreadsheet when my phone rang.  It was mom.  You could tell something was wrong.  She was holding back as many of her tears as could while she gave me some, less than fortunate, news. I still remember her shivering voice.  She had just found out that she was diagnosed with breast cancer and wanted to tell me as quickly as she could.  As she told me, it truly didn’t process for me.  I responded with “ok, so.. can the doctors fix this?”.  She said they felt like they could.  “alright then, we know where we are and we know where the finish line is so we just have to get there.”  After talking to my mom a bit more, I told her I loved her and I hung up the phone.

I sat there for at least 5 to 10 minutes before getting up and walking over to someone in my department that I wanted to tell.  As I walked into her office, I muddled the words “I just found out my mom…” I immediately looked at the ground as I began to break down in tears…” has breast cancer”.  At that point, I really don’t know what she responded with, I was absolutely inundated with emotion to the point that I excused myself from her office and went home. Over the next little while, I didn’t exactly pull away but I wasn’t there for her as I should have been.  In looking back, I found that I “avoided” most conversations about it as if I could put a lid on it and not have to bother with it.  My mom went through some very emotional and trying times, you can read about her story here.  It changed her, my mom was always so strong and independent.  She had broken down and thus my mom was no longer the same.  I walled up even more.  It was my coping mechanism.  I am not sure where I learned how to block out my thoughts but I was very good at it.  Rewind my life many years before and I remember going to my grandmother’s funeral and almost being emotionless during visitations.  The next morning, we had one last moment to see her and as they closed the casket, everything became so real, so overwhelming and so very hard to handle.  What I began to piece together is that when something became actualized, I would fall apart because I blocked it out.  I would hold things in so long that when it finally broke, it was extremely hard to even breathe. 

The power of the spoken word is so strong that as a mental coach, I teach it to every client.  Experience taught me that until I spoke the words “my mom has cancer”, they were thoughts in my head… not real… until I spoke them (or written as I have come to learn).  They became real at that point.  Until the casket was closed for the last time, I could tell myself “my grandma is just sleeping”.  However, it was at the point of actualization (the closing of the casket) that I had to own the truth and its harsh reality.  I took the hard road.  I chose to push off my thoughts and emotions in an effort to protect myself.  Well, that is the story I kept telling myself.  I cared greatly but from the outside, it could be seen as cold or even heartless.  I was far from that but I understand, now, how it looked to others.

I’ve never taken the time to write any of this until today.  To be honest with myself is important as is to be open too.  Over the last 4 years, I have spent a crazy amount of time seeking to understand human behavior; how we think and how our thoughts control our actions thus define our destiny.   I often wonder how much the experiences, like this one and many others,  have helped build the path to my coaching practice.  Maybe coaching picked me or maybe he freed me from being who I was?  I do believe though, that it is harder to teach things we have not experienced and learned from.   I’ve learned a lot, I have learned that holding back our thoughts and emotions can make the breaking point unbearable.  Don’t do it. I’ve learned that it is not healthy to “avoid” anything.  The more you avoid, the more you find what you avoid.  So, instead, I turn to acceptance from the get-go.  Things become far easier to handle when we are authentic to ourselves; hiding/avoiding reality is not being authentic to anyone.

Even as our family has experienced other more recent situations, I have completely changed my approach this time around.  I’ve learned from my lessons and so has my family.  The point I want to get across here is this, no matter the situation…no matter the issue… we all have a choice in how we will handle it.  Even when we don’t like the situation, we do not have to be a victim to it.  We have free will to choose meaning to everything in our lives.  We can't be upset, frustrated or even sad without our own personal permission.  Everything and I mean everything happens for us so that we can continue to learn and grow.  If you find that you are having the same “thing” happen over and over… it’s because you have not learned from that situation yet.  Take the lessons your life has granted you; accept them and thank them.

So I challenge you!!

I challenge you to look (even looking back) and see things differently.  I challenge you to find the silver lining, I promise it is there (what you seek will find you).  I challenge you with getting tougher when like gets tough.  Not from blocking out your thoughts and emotions.. get tough by being authentic and accept what is.  You will find this is a far easier path, take it from me.  We can’t change what happens to us but.. we can change how it affects us.  I don’t speak of this through rainbow sunglasses.  I’ve lived this path… I see things as optimistically as I can because I’ve personally experienced the opposite and I want nothing more to do with that way of life.

With life comes experience, with experience comes education, with education comes a new response, with a new response comes a new life, and with a new life comes happiness no matter the situation.

I love you mom!