This issue is made up of the following sections:

1. Personal Effectiveness Tips
2. Questions for Growth
3. Reality Check - Getting Over It

1. Personal Effectiveness Tips
1. Analyze your weekly activities in terms of their ROI (return on investment). Eliminate or drastically reduce those with a minimal ROI, which include:
   1. surfing the web
   2. most phone conversations
   3. watching TV
   4. elongated meal times

   This will easily free up five hours a week. Can you use an additional five hours?

2. With regards to your approach to managing people, remember this: One size fits none. If you want to influence someone better, you have to do the work to find out how they want to be influenced. Clues are everywhere, but taking the same approach with everyone you meet is a waste of time.

3. Learn a lesson from Attila the Hun, who ravaged the Roman Empire in ~ 430 A.D. Attila, who was a tactical genius in battle, failed to conquer Rome, though he easily could have, for three reasons:
   1. He didn’t consolidate his army, and instead divided it
   2. He didn’t strike when the opportunities were before him.
   3. He didn’t think pragmatically about the logistics of his empire, moving through towns without setting up bases of loyal followers.

   In your life, consolidate your strengths and assests and jump when opportunities present themselves-in work, life, or in relationships. Build a strong base (of knowledge, social support, tactics, etc), and always operate from within or around that base. It’s a simple formula. If Attila had followed it, he would have more dramatically changed the course of the world forever.

4. Learn a lesson from Abraham Lincoln, who was probably as good a leader as you will find. Honest Abe lead by:
   1. Being patient, to a fault
   2. Acting on evidence rather than hearsay
   3. Pushing his agenda when he felt passionately about it, no matter the popular consensus.

   We can all learn to be better leaders, but we have to be willing to work at it.

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2. Questions for Growth
1. How would someone that admires you describe you?

2. If you died today, would you regret the way you lived the past four weeks?

3. What one thing can you do differently this month to increase your productivity?

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3. Reality Check - Getting Over It

One of the most frequent problems I come across in all aspects of my work-as a therapist, consultant, and teacher-is the tendency we humans have to cling to past failures, missteps, and unfortunate events. I’ve done it myself, and I see it on a daily basis.

Most of us would claim that we don’t do this intentionally. It doesn’t make sense. However, I believe we do it, whether consciously or not, as a way of shielding ourselves from the inevitable pain that life brings. This pain comes via small events (money problems, confidence issues, increasing numbers of gray hairs in our head...) as well as large ones (deaths of loved ones, career failures, sickness, etc). What happens is that we intentionally allow these painful events to accumulate in our psyche over time, and we adjust our behaviors accordingly by avoiding relationships, taking a “safe” career path, and not risking as readily as we once might have. Over time, we back ourselves into a corner.

We need, collectively, to get over it. The pain that we try to avoid seems to always find a way into our lives, and everyone can stake a legitimate claim to having more “issues” in their life than their neighbor. The consequences of living a fear-based life are severe. They include:

• increased pessimism
• increased stress
• decreased ability to take risks
• chronic self-deprecation
• lowered self-esteem
• increased susceptibility to disease and illness over time

We have a choice, folks. We can choose to be afraid and anxious, or we can choose to intentionally attack life with a vigor and passion that allows us to feel more happiness in our lives. Either we get over “ it”, or we continue to make excuses for our failure to live life to the fullest.

The clock is ticking...

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