Dan Waldschmidt's Blog, page 32

There’s Just One Huge Problem.

How would you know how to work smarter? You’re told that you should. But how do you do it?

How do you know that what you’re told will work will work for you?

The topic of work and effort and energy is one that has been debated for decades.

Books have been written about working smarter. Speakers tour the country telling you how to work smarter.

There are seminars, workshops, online forums, and countless resources focused on you getting more done each day.

There’s just one huge problem.

Nothing works until you work. You can’t work smarter until you’ve already worked hard enough. How hard? Enough to know what to improve.

That’s the harsh reality about applying all the tips-and-tricks you read in a book or learn at a seminar.

That person you’re learning from developed and refined those lessons through raw effort and a deep emotional investment.

That person tried and failed and failed and failed again. They didn’t just sit down with an idea and automatically end up working smarter.

They had to figure it out.

They watched what other people were doing and tried to make it work for them.

And when it didn’t work, they put in the time and effort required to make it work. Even if that meant redoing everything.

That’s the person you’re reading about. That’s the person you’re learning from.

They had to figure it out for themselves. It took massive amounts of hard work for them.

Why should it be any different for you? Why shouldn’t you have to experience the agony of failure and doubt like they did?

The secret to working smarter is to work so hard you have to work smart to keep winning.

It’s the result of hard work. Not a replacement for it.

The post There’s Just One Huge Problem. appeared first on Dan Waldschmidt: Author of EDGY Conversations.

Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

It’s Guaranteed Not To Happen.

Just because you haven’t gotten there yet doesn’t mean you never will.

To be successful we’re going to have to do the same thing over and over and over again until it starts working.

That means on most days, what you are doing is going to look like it’s not working. The results you get aren’t going to be the results you want.

It feels like your good idea isn’t all that good at all.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming that because you’re not successful yet that you’ll never be.

That because you aren’t where you want to be right now that everything you’ve done so far has been a waste of your time.

There’s no way around it.

Big goals take lots of time to achieve.

Big problems take lots of time to fix.

Every day that you’re not successful, you feel like a failure.

You don’t have a good answer to give when other people ask you why you’re still doing what you’re doing.

The biggest mistake you can make is to give up. To jump from this thing to something else that seems easier and get you close to where you want to be.

Something that is better but not the best.

The hard truth is that if you would just keep your head down and keep working the best thing could be a reality for you. A possibility.

But you have to keep your head straight. Strong. And focused.

On those days when you feel like nothing is working you have to do work instead of going through the motions.

You have to put in the time and effort.

On those days when it seems like your passion and determination are just a waste of your time, you have to find a way to keep moving forward in spite of the fear you feel.

Just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it never will. But it’s guaranteed to never happen if you give up now.

The post It’s Guaranteed Not To Happen. appeared first on Dan Waldschmidt: Author of EDGY Conversations.

Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

Anthony Iannarino: Headstrong. [Podcast]

Being called “headstrong” usually isn’t a compliment. It’s the polite way to say that you’re stubborn. Unwilling to change. Persistent enough that it’s getting underneath the skin of those around you.

But when you take a deeper look at this idea of being headstrong you realize the brilliance of the terminology. Strong mind. Strong goals. Strong vision. Headstrong.

Breakthrough demands a strong mind.

Success starts with what you think about. The rules you live your life by. What you question and what you accept to be a fact.

This is the story of Anthony Iannarino, who writes the most popular blog on sales on the planet, aptly called The Sales Blog. He’s a partner in a multi-million dollar staffing agency, a worldwide business speaker, and author.

But he used to be a rockstar.

Literally. In a band. Playing some epic rock-n-roll. With gorgeous long hair.

His inspiring story is an illustration of the power of being headstrong. Of not accepting his fate. Of living life on his own terms — even with death on the line.

To us that makes him an Ordinary Hero. So listen in to the conversation. Share it with a friend. Leave a comment below.

BEHIND THE SCENES:

Anthony and I are friends, but I had only heard a few pieces of his story. After 38 interviews with other awesome people, I decided that I wanted to hear more from Anthony. I flew to his office just outside Cleveland with a heavy bag of expensive shotgun microphones and equipment. For over 2 hours, we dug into Anthony’s story — from every angle. That 150 minutes of audio turned into the 12 minute podcast you listen to here.

Matt Williamson, my right hand man, produced this podcast — spending over 100 hours on this one episode alone. Together (but mostly him) we listened to multiple recordings of the raw audio captured, agreed on the story, clipped audio into segments, wrote a script for the voice over, recorded that (multiple times), cleaned up the quality of the audio, layered on the sound effects, added music, and then created the intro and outro. The 6 episodes we created for Season 1 of Ordinary Heroes took 10 months of work.

There is a ton of awesome audio from the interview and images of Anthony we still want to share with you. Here are just a few…

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The post Anthony Iannarino: Headstrong. [Podcast] appeared first on Dan Waldschmidt: Author of EDGY Conversations.

Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

You’ll Never Really Feel Like It.

“Not feeling like it” isn’t a good excuse.

You’ll never feel like doing the hard things. Or the uncomfortable things.

Why would you?

You’ve been avoiding those sort of activities for some time now. And you’ll never feel like it’s a good time to get started working on them.

Not now. Not ever.

So if you’re waiting for a better time, you’ll be looking for a long time.

If it’s important to do, then do it. Get started on it. Take small action on completing it.

If you wait for tomorrow, tomorrow will come. If you work your ass off today, tomorrow will still come. You’ll just be more prepared and ready to win.

Just remember that winning mostly feels like losing until you cross the finish line.

It hurts way more than you’re comfortable with.

No one feels like doing things that seem like losing.

But you’ll never get out of the rut you’re in until you get serious about doing things that matter even when you don’t feel like them.

The post You’ll Never Really Feel Like It. appeared first on Dan Waldschmidt: Author of EDGY Conversations.

Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

Maybe It’s Time To Stop Lying.

It takes courage to be honest about how you’re living your life.

You don’t want to have to admit to yourself that you haven’t been putting in the effort that your goals demand.

You don’t want to have to admit that instead of digging deep, you’ve just been going through the motions.

The worst deceit is when you lie to yourself.

When you try to pretty up an ugly situation by denying the truth of the matter.

Make no mistake, it’s gut-wrenching to have to look yourself in the mirror and recognize that you’re not as awesome as you pretend to be.

It takes courage to admit the possibility for improvement. Especially when you’re tired fighting, low on resources, and uncertain about your chances for success.

It feels like you deserve a break.

It seems like taking it easy on yourself is fair.

But that’s never been the secret to being awesome. Easy and quick just aren’t in that vocabulary. Neither is lying to yourself.

Maybe it’s time for a candid conversation with yourself about how you’ve been behaving. Maybe it’s time to stop lying.

The post Maybe It’s Time To Stop Lying. appeared first on Dan Waldschmidt: Author of EDGY Conversations.

Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

Maybe You’re More Of A Hypocrite Than You Think.

You say you believe in hard work, honesty, and integrity. But then you’re willing to cut corners when you think no one is watching.

You talk about operating on the basis of the Golden Rule. But then you lash out at people who “just don’t get it”.

You are outraged when someone close to you is bullied and made to feel small. But you find yourself overlooking that same aggressive behavior in others as long as it benefits you personally.

You might not be a hypocrite on purpose.

Sometimes what you say you believe isn’t as simple as you think it is.

The choices you have to make are hard. Knowing what to do isn’t always easy.

Which is why more than ever you have to be aware of what you’re doing and proactive to correct your behavior when your actions don’t match your beliefs.

It’s not going to happen automatically.

Words are just words.

It doesn’t cost you anything to say that you believe in taking the high road. It hurts when you actually take extreme action to make sure you keep climbing up there.

Even when you’re angry. And your feelings get hurt. And it seems like people are stepping all over you.

You can believe something or not. What you believe is up to you. You get to choose.

Just don’t mix up the words you say and the way you live your life.

Actions speak louder than words.

The results of your life aren’t the consequences of the words you say but of the actions you take.

Maybe it’s time to look a bit deeper at why you’re not where you want to be. Maybe what you call bad luck is really hypocrisy. Or laziness.

Maybe what you say isn’t matching up to what you’re actually doing.

Maybe, just maybe, you’re more of a hypocrite than you think.

The post Maybe You’re More Of A Hypocrite Than You Think. appeared first on Dan Waldschmidt: Author of EDGY Conversations.

Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

Where Legends Begin [Podcast]

I have a confession to make.

I’m known around the world as the guy you call when you need to fix scary business problems.

And that’s cool. I love what I do and have spent many years working on my craft.

But frankly, the reason I’m successful helping leaders isn’t because of how smart I am or my experience. It’s because I use “EDGY” as my framework — my road map.

In the process of writing my book and researching over 1000 ordinary people who achieve outrageous success, I got a clear picture of the attitudes and philosophies that govern high performance.

Everyday when I sit down to blog here, I often think about what’s going on in my own life —  my struggles and fears and the issues that seem to be overwhelming at the time.

And then I write to myself. I’m attempting to solve my own problem by sharing the conversation publicly.

At the same time, we’ve put together motivational videos. Ones I would enjoy watching when I need a bit of inspiration.

We have posters to print out and put on the wall. There are workbooks, free monthly calendars, and notepads of awesomeness. There is even a super secret, awesome line of FCK.YOU t-shirts to help you remember your job is to be a badass.

Last year I committed to shooting 10 TV-quality episodes on YouTube. After a little more than 1 million views, I decided to pull the plug. I didn’t feel like I had the right formula to share with you the experience I’ve been imagining for some time now.

Something raw, but professional. Candid, but timely insights.

Many of the projects we work on here in The EDGY Empire never make it out to the public. We build them, review them, and decide to release them only if they meet our standard for awesomeness.

We’ve spent the past 10 months crafting a podcast called Ordinary Heroes.

We almost pulled the plug (multiple times) because it wasn’t awesome enough.

We interviewed over 30 people living what looked like ordinary lives — but when we dug deep, we saw the hidden heroism embedded within.

See, when we talk about heroes, we think of Batman, or Superman, or people like Odysseus or the 300 Spartans.

We imagine “heroes” as these superhumans on an epic, world-saving quest.

The stories of these heroes we tell ourselves (and each other) always follow a similar theme: the hero leaves, goes through some sort of initiation ritual, and then returns triumphantly.

But heroism is often a simple journey to save ourselves. In reality, the story is rarely over. There’s almost never a return, a final ending.

In reality, we’re constantly having to save ourselves from the pit of hurt, pain, and despair we face day in and day out.

Which is a challenge — how do we tell stories that don’t have endings?

These were the stories I chronicled in EDGY Conversations. These are the stories we’re telling on our new podcast.

By the way — you can grab Ordinary Heroes via iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, or however you listen to podcasts using RSS)

It’s a mix of heroic stories — and inspiration for you to write your own story of epic heroism.

Even if that looks like just getting out of bed in the morning.

The post Where Legends Begin [Podcast] appeared first on Dan Waldschmidt: Author of EDGY Conversations.

Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

You Need Their Criticism.

You won’t always get it right all the time.

In fact, you’re likely to get it wrong much more often than you get it right.

If you find yourself getting it right all the time, your goals aren’t big enough. You aren’t pushing yourself hard enough. It’s too easy to do what you’re doing.

Getting to the next level always requires struggle.

That churn of attempting to get it right, frustration that you missed the mark, learning from your mistakes, and trying again. It’s a grind at times. Messes with your head.

A part of you is wondering why you put yourself through this chaos.

Why even have big dreams if all they do is cause you so much frustration and pain? What’s wrong with you that you don’t seem to be able to figure it out?

Nothing is wrong with you. Nothing is broken.

It’s what happens when you want more for your self.

One way to shorten that cycle of frustration and effort is to ask for help from those around you. But not the type of help you think you need.

You don’t need their money or emotional support.

You need their criticism. Their critiques.

You need their healthy skepticism.

Reach out to those around you and ask what you could do better the next time around. Ask specifically and clearly. Don’t make excuses or shrug off the importance of your question.

You’re asking for honest, unfiltered insight — ideas that when implemented will help you get closer to where you want to be.

Ask for it: “What are two things I could have done better?”

It is as easy as that. Clear. Simple. Bold.

You’re looking for the perspective you can’t see.

Whether you’re thin-skinned or not, you need their criticism.

It will make you better, if you let it. But first, you have to ask for it. Deliberately.

You need it to make you better.

The post You Need Their Criticism. appeared first on Dan Waldschmidt: Author of EDGY Conversations.

Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

How To Stay Motivated When You’re Not Sure How To Make It.

Being motivated isn’t an accident.

It’s a result. A consequence. The end product of focused, deliberate activity.

It’s not random. Or superstitiously elusive.

Motivation is what you lose just after you stop looking for it.

What motivates you?

Rage can motivate you. So will fear or love.

There are things you can do to change how you feel.

The right music will get your blood pumping and put fire in your spirit. A creepy sound will make you lose your cool and freak out.

Watching the right video will inspire you to make changes in your life.

Being around the wrong people will make you negative and cynical. Seeing something awesome will get you up on your feet clapping your hands and cheering like a crazy man.

Motivation isn’t an accident.

It happens on purpose. For specific reasons.

Your reasons might be different from everyone else around you, but you’ve got them.

When you’re down and not sure you can get up, you have to know what to do in order to get moving.

Here are a few things to try:

Share your goal with other people around and ask them to hold you accountable.
Take a step back. Find a quiet spot to think. Mediate. Take a deep breath. Slow down.
Tally benefits, not problems. Keep track of all the good things happening on a daily basis.
Think about how you’ll feel when you’ve achieved the success you want.
Focus on 1 thing. Drop everything else and just focus on getting 1 small thing done.
Search for how other people trying to accomplish similar goals have achieved success.

and most importantly:

Avoid negativity — people, places, and things — at all and any cost. It will destroy you.

What you do and how you think matters.

Especially when you’re searching for motivation. Especially when you’re tired, beat down, and feeling like you’re never going to make it.

Manufacture motivation. Get good at being awesome.

It’s never easy to do the hard things. But it’s guaranteed to lead to victory.

You just have to find the energy to make it.

The post How To Stay Motivated When You’re Not Sure How To Make It. appeared first on Dan Waldschmidt: Author of EDGY Conversations.

Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

Because You Choose To Be Who You Are.

You don’t have to be that way.  It’s a choice you’re making.

You aren’t “who you are”. You are who you choose to become.

How you have been behaving is the result of your past. The people who influenced you. Your life circumstances. And many other factors.

You might have a past that leaves you feeling embarrassed. Perhaps disgusted or discouraged.

Don’t make the mistake of assuming that just because things have been a certain way that they will always be that way.

It’s all a choice. Your choice.

You get to decide if you’re going to learn from what has happened to you, improve, adapt, and evolve.

There isn’t anything or anyone who can stop you from being better.

If you don’t like where your life is headed, fix it.

You don’t need more money to do that. You don’t need better friends. You don’t need a clean slate.

None of those things are demanded.

You just need to make the decision to change.

To do things differently from this point forward.

Not once. Not out of spite. Not because you’re overwhelmingly desperate.

But because you choose who you are. Who you become. The results that you expect from your life.

Your life is your choice.

You can’t control what happens to you. You always get the choice how you’re going to respond.

If you don’t like your responses from the past, change them.

Keep changing them until you get to where you want to be. It’s your choice.

The post Because You Choose To Be Who You Are. appeared first on Dan Waldschmidt: Author of EDGY Conversations.

Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...