Dan Waldschmidt's Blog, page 52

You Have To Do What Matters.

If you aren’t doing what needs to be done, you will never get to where you want to be.

If you aren’t focused on the most important thing that you need to be doing this very moment, you’ve wasted your opportunity for greatness.

It’s gone. Over.

Like you were in a dream and it wasn’t real life.

Except it wasn’t a dream and you wasted an opportunity to get a little bit closer to where you want to be.

The problem is that this happens more often than you want to admit.

You stay busy but aren’t focused on what really matters.

You are in meetings that don’t matter. You send emails that don’t matter. You have conversations that don’t really matter.

The hard truth about your life is that you’re tired at the end of the day —  but you did nothing to get yourself closer to where you want to be.

And a few of those days turn into a week.

And a few weeks like that turn into a month.

Months turn into a year. Years turn into decades. Decades turn into a lifetime.

A lifetime of frustration, excuses, and wasted potential.

How many times have you asked yourself: “I wish I could have done that differently. I wish I had a chance to redo that.”

This moment right now is your chance for a redo.

Today is the beginning of the rest of your life.

But it demands different behavior than you have ever exhibited before.

You have to be driven enough to throw away the old baggage of schedules and meetings and other people’s expectations. You have to be committed enough to turn off the TV after your “9 to 5″ and focus on hard work even when you’re already tired.

You have to be tough enough to try and fail and try again.

You have to focus on what really matters.

And you have to get started right now.

You’ve already wasted enough time up to this point. You’ve already experienced enough frustration and disappointment for the rest of your lifetime.

That can all change.That needs to change.

But only you can change it.

Only you can decide that from this moment further you will focus only on what really matters.

Let that be your battle cry from this day until your last.

The post You Have To Do What Matters.  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...

5 Steps To Making Other People Feel Awesome.

How you leave other people feeling is exactly the measure of the experience you have created. Your customers don’t “get you wrong” or “just don’t understand”.

Service and experience aren’t logical. They are deeply emotional — interpreted by the ever-changing perspectives of the different people you were targeting.

There is no one-size-fits-all.

And it doesn’t make sense to defend the logic of your “well thought out” service plan.

If people don’t feel loved and appreciated and respected, no amount of excuses from you or eye-to-eye confrontation will help you change the feeling that other people have about the experience you’ve created for them.

In fact, anything other than a sincere apology will just make that feeling all the more damaging.

That means sometimes you don’t get a fair shake.

Someone has probably already screwed up your prospect’s views about your industry. They think you’re all scumbags. Just the slightest bit of untrustworthy behavior and you get tossed into the same category as the other guys who really were up to no good.

So what can you do to create feelings of happiness when prospects spend time with you?

Hire people who are driven to exceed expectations, not just run through your list of bare minimum requirements. Fire people quickly who don’t do that.
Track and reward outrageously awesome client experiences. Instead of just compensating for quantity of clients being serviced, spend time to focus on the quality of service they are receiving.
Spend time nurturing the people providing service to your customers. Make sure their needs are met emotionally so that they can be free to help heal the people coming to do business with you.
Ask for help from prospects and customers. Don’t just ask softball questions to reinforce your existing bias — really spend time to learn how you can deliver an experience that is unique and fulfilling.
Apologize and correct poor performance from those on your team. Don’t waste time making excuses or trying to explain away what happened. Just apologize and mean it.

Feelings about service are deeply personal.

It doesn’t matter what is fair or logical or can be proved in a court of law.  How you make people feel don’t always make sense.

Which is why you need to spend time creating an experience that heals and nurtures every prospect coming through your door and every team member who talks to them. Heroes heal.

What are you doing to make people feel awesome?

The post 5 Steps To Making Other People Feel Awesome.  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...

8 Steps To Beating Your Addiction To Fear.

Fear will destroy every good thing you want for yourself.

It will cripple your ambition, paralyze your energy, and destroy your confidence.

When you’re held by the clutches of fear, your vision is warped. You stop seeing good things and only notice the evil in the world around you.

It’s not just in your head, fear consumes your whole body.

You are short of breath and nervous, eyes darting from one thing to the next in anticipation of problems to come.

You miss out on opportunities to be better and do better simply because you’re too paralyzed by fear to give those opportunities a chance.

Fear is an addiction.

Like alcohol or drugs, food or sex, an unhealthy relationship with fear will destroy you and everyone else around you.

To break free is a journey of recovery like any other addiction.

To win, you have to be serious about recovery.

It is in every day battle.

Here is how you win:

 Admit the power that fear has over you and recognize that you are powerless on your own to fix this problem. You haven’t been able to beat it in the past and the only way to fix it going forward is to do something different this time around.
Believe that you are on this earth to do something uniquely possible for someone of your abilities. You have a higher purpose — a noble calling.  You were meant to be amazing. Fear does not have to hold you captive.
Search yourself honestly. How much of your fear right now is caused by poor choices you made in past? This isn’t a brand new situation for you. You already know why fear has such a grip over your soul. Iy’s time for the honest conversation of your life.
Clean out your past skeletons. Apologize to people you have wronged.  Confront people who have hurt you deeply. Apologize to those you harbor bitterness for. Confront your demons head on. Fight for your future by cleaning up your past.
Accept responsibility for every feeling, thought, and choice you make from this moment forward. It’s a clean slate. Nothing needs to hold you captive any longer. So act like it. Try something new. Most importantly, own your results.
Spend time healing each day. Whether it’s meditation, prayer, exercise, or yoga — spend time keeping your head straight. Invest in activities and habits that build your endurance for doing the hard work to beat your addiction.
Take inventory of your progress each day. You’re going to have good days and bad days. To win you need to be deliberate and honest about your behaviors — and the thoughts that you battle each day. Improve each day in small ways.
Help someone else beat their addiction. The best learning you’ll ever do is to teach someone else. The best healing you’ll experience is to help someone else get better themselves. Pay it forward. Be a mentor. Help someone else get past the obstacles standing in their way.

If you want to win, you can.

But it’s not going to be easy. Fear is an addiction.

It’s not just a feeling. It’s a wrecking ball of awfulness that will destroy everything you have ever wanted for yourself.

Face the demons holding you back from the future you deserve.

Start today.

Right now. Pick one thing and do it.

Win more. Fear less.

The post 8 Steps To Beating Your Addiction To Fear.  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...

4 Things I Tell Myself Each Day.

What you think about the most you ultimately become.  What you tell yourself you end up doing.

If you allow yourself to make excuses when you fail or point the finger at others when you get frustrated you’ll end up living a life that is miserable and mediocre.

If you want to win more — and bigger — you need to tell yourself the right things each day. You have to be your toughest critics and fiercest cheerleader.

You have to fight for ownership of your mind.

Almost every day I go running. Push my limits and remind myself that I can always be better.

Every day I meditate. Midway through the day I stop and clear my mind. Recharge. Reboot.

Each day I stop and remind myself of the principles around which I guide my life:

If I want something I have never had, I must do something I have never done.
I refuse to waste time worrying about things that I can not control.
Everyday, in every way, I am getting better and better by the choices that I make and the work that I do.
I’m tough enough to do whatever needs to be done for as long as that takes.

I say these each day — sometimes several times each day — because I play to win each day.

And I don’t have moments to waste doing things that don’t work.

I want to win.

The post 4 Things I Tell Myself Each Day. 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...

What Are You Thinking About?

You are only as strong in your hands as you are in your heart.

You’re only as sure in your steps as you are in your soul.

You’re only as confident in your plan as you are in your potential.

What shows up on the outside is a direct result of the conversation you’re having with yourself on the inside.

Too often it’s easy to account for poor results and lousy conclusions as being related to external situation.

It’s natural to point the finger at all the obstacles in your way and make the case that you could have done better if you didn’t have so much opposition to forward progress.

But what about the inside?

What about the guts to your plan?

What are you doing to stoke the fires of your motivation?

Maybe your obstacles are too big because your belief in yourself is too small.

Maybe you don’t win enough because you don’t want it bad enough.

Ever thought about that?

Maybe what you call giving 110% is really just 5% of what you could be if you were “all in”.

Maybe you’re better at finding excuses than fighting to stay inspired.

If your mind isn’t strong, your momentum will be weak.

What you think about, you eventually become.

Which brings up the most important question of all: “What have you thinking about?”

The post What Are You Thinking About? 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 Be The Boss.

You can’t just go with the flow and expect to get ahead.

You can’t let everyone else decide what’s best for you and expect to live a life that others remember.

You have to be responsible for your actions.

You have to be accountable, ambitious, and manically consistent.

Don’t complain about how life treats you when you don’t have a plan for running your life.

Don’t expect to get ahead when you’re content to just get paid a salary to help somebody else get to where they want to be.

You have to be the boss of your life.

You have to be the one who makes hard decisions.

You have to be willing to work when no one else is working, make mistakes that seem impossible to fix, and believe in yourself when you’re not even sure if that’s a good move.

Being the boss of your life means that you have to have a plan. And the backup plan. You have to know where you’re going.

And be willing to do whatever it takes to get there.

You can’t copy someone else’s plan or mimic someone else’s behavior. You have to believe in yourself enough to keep trying until you get it right.

You have to make sure you’re fueled for your quest for greatness — emotionally and financially.

It’s not just about being the loudest person in the room or not having to be respectful to people around you. Being the boss is about owning your future.

You can’t be awesome and not own your future.

It’s about protecting your chances to achieve your dreams in spite of the odds against you.

Being the boss is the toughest job in the world. Which is why it’s just easier for you to point the finger and whine about what’s wrong with your life  — rather than to step up and fight your way back to greatness.

Nothing in your life is going to change until you decide to change. Your outlook. Your effort.

Your willingness to do whatever it takes.

It all comes down to a few decisions that only you can make.

Do you really want to be in control of your life or you do you just want to keep hoping that you accidentally end up more lucky than you deserve to be?

The post How To Be The Boss. 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...

The Most Inspired Words You Can Ever Speak.

The most inspired words you will ever speak aren’t words at all. They are actions.

What you’ve done. How you have behaved.

The truth about leading others and inspiring change from those around you is that speeches only last while the energy of the moment is high right now.

It takes a legacy of hard work and tireless execution to keep the conversation going.

Without saying anything, you’ll say everything.

It’s easy for your critics to poke holes at speeches, mantras, and inspirational insights — but your consistent execution and relentless focus can’t be so easily dismissed.

Think about that the next time you’re struggling to rally the troops to take the next hill.

What you say matters. That you say it matters.

But living a life of massive effort and unstoppable forward progress is an inspired conversation more powerful that anything you could ever utter from your lips.

What story are you telling right now by what you do?

The post The Most Inspired Words You Can Ever Speak.   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...

The Only Thing You Have To Solve

Business life is full of complexity.

We often like to imagine that problems can be solved with the same series of steps that can be repeated successfully the same way over and over again.

The harsh reality is that most of those solutions just don’t work.

Sometimes you can’t solve a problem.

That’s the honest answer. You need more time. There are factors that are out of your control. And it doesn’t matter how many steps you execute flawlessly, driving change isn’t easy or quick.

So what do you do when you’re faced with an “unsolvable” business problem where results matter? You focus on the only thing you really need to solve.

You focus on what you can change right now. You work hard to make sure people feel like they are being heard. You invest in deeper relationships with the people who need a solution most importantly.

You focus on having honest conversations.

You don’t pretend like you’re perfect, shrug off the challenges as insignificant, or change the conversation to something that is less heavy.

Listening is the only problem you need to solve right now.

When your team feels like you’re listening — that they are being heard — it helps them handle the reality that change is going to be hard.

Listen. Learn. Heal. That’s how you solve “unsolvable” business problems.

The only thing you really need to solve is your willingness to be uncomfortable while you’re talking about hard things you need to do.

The post The Only Thing You Have To Solve 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...

Why Only Extraverts Win And How To Be One.

It’s not good enough to just go through the motions.

It’s not good enough to just care sometimes.

What you do won’t matter if doing it right doesn’t matter to you.

Being successful is hard work.

No matter what success means to you — making more money, being in love, raising great kids, or getting promoted — it’s going to take you massive amounts of effort and focus in order to achieve the results you want for yourself.

It’s going to take you more effort to win than you think it will right now.

Success is going to demand extra pain from you. Extra mental torture. Extra confusion. Extra uncertainty.

That’s the reality of achieving big dreams.

You think you know what it’s going to take to win, but along the way you realize that it’s taking so much more than you ever imagined possible.

That breaks most people. That stops most people in their tracks.

They think they’re ready to do the 7 steps someone else told them is necessary in order to be successful, but when they realize it’s 70 steps — not 7 — they crumble, whither, whine, and give up.

They don’t have anything extra to give.

They have enough energy and ideology to do most of what they’re told. But the journey to success bends and breaks them when extra is required.

Success has always been about that extra something you’re willing to give. That extra focus. That extra effort. That extra tolerance for pain.

Sometimes you can’t even describe what that extra something is. But you know it’s there when you’re being asked to give it.

It’s the difference between winning and losing.

In those times where you’re being pushed for more know that this bit of extra from you is what determines how successful you will ever become.

Giving extra is really all that matters if your goal matters.

So step up and deliver.

Be an extravert.

The post Why Only Extraverts Win And How To Be One. 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...

Go Sleep On It.

A tired you can’t be an awesome you.

Work hard. Play hard. And find time to sleep hard. Because you need time to recharge.

It’s true that “you can sleep when you’re dead”, but what you might not stop to consider is that not sleeping only gets you there faster.

Not sleeping makes you fat — Did you know that fatigue tricks your brain into wanting more fattening, high-calorie foods that pack on the pounds?
Not sleeping is linked to heart disease. — Did you know that lack of sleep damages your blood vessels and makes it more likely you’ll get a heart attack down the road?
Not sleeping leads to depression. — Did you know that the brain chemicals that help you regulate your mood are charged back up when you sleep?

You can’t be successful when you’re fat, sick, and miserable.

So don’t whine and whimper about never getting a chance and “everybody picking on you” when your priorities are all screwed up.

Go get some sleep. Chances are you’ll live a happier, more inspired life.

You’ll be more focused in how you spend each waking moment — since you’ll have fewer of them.
You’ll make better decisions about who to spend time with and when to ask for help from a mentor.
You’ll stop spending time on lunches and Happy Hour meetings that don’t produce worthwhile results.
You’ll make better decisions faster — and spend less time apologizing to people about your bad attitude.
You’ll think quicker, act smarter, move faster, and be more amazing more often than you are now.
You’ll be more ready to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes in order to get where you want to be.

The details matter.

How you live each part of your life determines whether or not you end up achieving the audacious dreams you say you care about.

Sleep on it. You’ll agree with me in the morning.

The post Go Sleep On 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...