It is very common in business and life to have our heads down, focused on our activity and busyness. Some of us become so fixated that all we can see are the trees immediately around us, and we simply forget that we are in a forest. We lose context, and sometimes we can feel like we are losing some sanity.

Too many people get going so fast that all they see are trees. In fact, some who really have their heads down only see the roots.

Now, not all of the trees are ugly or rotten. Some are quite beautiful. The challenge comes when problems arise – and folks, problems will arise. When they do, it is increasingly important to remember what forest you are in and where you are heading. If you can’t find a way to rise above your circumstances and see the proverbial bigger picture, you can quickly become disoriented and fearful among the trees.

I don’t believe I have ever met anyone who doesn’t need to get off the forest floor and back above the tree line in order to regain their orientation and perspective. One thing I’ve noticed is that you often need someone else to take you there. Perhaps one of the wisest moves you may ever make is to ask someone to guide you back above the canopy of trees.

I am coaching a few people right now who are battling advanced stages of cancer. While there are some horrific things about this, one beautiful thing is that they have no issue at all seeing the whole forest. It’s a big price to pay, but their view of things is so much more complete. Wow – what we can learn from them.

I certainly would never wish such an illness on anyone, but the vast, amazing forest that they see and the context they have of their everyday is something we can all learn from.

It is good to be on the ground. But our work in the trees will never have the meaning we desire until we are willing to journey above and see exactly where we are and where we are capable of going.

Peace,

Coach Steve

For Roman Catholics, tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, which begins the 40 days prior to Easter Sunday – the grand celebration of the Christian Church. In these 40 days people all over the world make sacrifices in their normal lives in order to partake (symbolically, anyway) in something far more meaningful.

I find it classic that our culture would find a way to celebrate the day-before debauchery, rather than the essence of what it means to sacrifice.

Whether your beliefs guide you to accept this season or not, I want to call on as many of you as are willing to make a sacrifice. It would be most helpful if you sacrificed something you like that isn’t doing you much good. Classic examples of this are fatty foods, excessive television, or alcohol.

I realize how ridiculous the idea of sacrifice sounds in our culture. Just about every bit of media and advertising promotes the complete opposite. Our world says “Get what’s yours!” and “You deserve the best!” Why on earth would you want to sacrifice anything?

Here’s why: because no one ever got anywhere great without giving up something they wanted.

Our self-indulgent culture has this so backwards that we hardly even think about sacrifice anymore. Everyone wants to be inspired and have success, but fewer and fewer believe that inspiration and success are inextricably tied to discipline and sacrifice.

I invite you on a 40-day journey. It starts tomorrow. Give up something you enjoy, if for no other reason than to practice the art of discipline.

How many people will disregard this blog for the fear of giving up anything at all? I hope you aren’t one of those. Surely there is something in your life you enjoy that you know you should do without.

Cheers to your journey. May the next 40 days teach you, and may your sacrifice be meaningful.

Coach Steve

For many of us, this incessant busyness is a sure path to stress, and heavy stress indeed. And the stress that is created by an increasingly busy world is something of a silent killer.

You don’t need to be an MD to observe that stress crushes the immune system. That’s a topic for another time. Today, I want to discuss another by-product of our lack of time: a lack of self-development.

Did you know that the publishing industry is in a downward spiral? Have you noticed Borders and Barnes and Nobles shutting their doors? Certainly the age of technology has something to do with this, but I wonder if it isn’t something more simple. Maybe people just don’t read anymore. Who has the time?

In fact, I need to think about how to end this blog post quickly because if I go on much longer, you will dismiss it because you just don’t have the time! Ah… the irony.

Reading, studying, and learning should be a MUST for us. Just this week I signed up for two courses that I am going to take this year. It was painful to clear my calendar, but if we don’t intentionally make the time to grow we risk stagnation and that leads to mediocrity. I can’t wait to go to these seminars because I know I will learn, and I am excited about the freshness of that.

Here’s a thought: if you need to learn and grow, why not consider our annual event called The Building Champions Experience?

The Experience is three and a half days of learning, planning, and connecting. This is our fifth year, and the event gets better and better. You may be thinking, “I don’t have the time for things like that.” We understand. That’s the point! Sometimes you need to take the time to break out of the stagnation of your day-to-day in order to learn how to recapture the freedom of more time and less stress.

The event is in September, so you have time to plan around it. And if you register by February 24th, you can take advantage of special Early Bird pricing. It’s easy to sign up. Just click here.

But even if it’s not our Experience, please do something. Read, learn, and grow. Don’t buy the lie that you don’t have time. Stress and Stagnation are two ugly by-products of our jammed up days, but there are some freeing strategies to combat both.

May you be on the winning side today. Hope to see you in September.

Coach Steve

In fact, this saying is potentially lethal to your business if you subscribe to it either on purpose or inadvertently.

Relationships simply require presence.

I cannot tell you how often in coaching sessions I come up against people who know they need to sustain the habit of making proactive calls, but they slip in consistency because of busyness. Too often we raise our heads up from our busy existences and realize that there are important people all around us that we have not take the time to reach out to.

If this describes you, let me tell you that your absence is certainly not winning any hearts. In fact, it is your consistent and intentional presence that will make them grow more fond of you.

We need to protect against the trap of distancing ourselves from the people who matter most to us. Picking up the phone, getting in the car, and letting these important people know that we care is crucial to our business. The problem is that it does not seem urgent – it is only important.

Ironically, if your relationships don’t seem urgent and your absence goes on long enough, you will start to feel just how urgently you need those crucial people in your life.

Keeping your relationships intact through methodical, heart-felt communication will prove to be one of the most crucial things you can do in your business (and in your life, by the way). If you struggle to do this spontaneously right now, you may need to schedule time as a discipline until it becomes a habit.

Let us not buy the lie that our absence is making anyone grow fonder. Who do you need to reach today?

Coach Steve

It is very common to be hurt by people. What we do with that hurt can shape us.

For some reason I cannot get the song “Imagine” by John Lennon out of my mind. Imagine a world full of honesty, grace, and peace where no one ever hurt anyone else. That’s not this world, unfortunately. We get hurt – and we hurt others – all the time.

This week in coaching I encountered many who not only got wounded by someone or something, but it was a wound that happened for the umpteenth time. The likelihood that one could walk through this world guarded, jaded and cynical is very high. My coaching to them (and really to us all) is that we need to guard against the inevitable cynicism and anger that come as a result of others’ actions and words.

The issue isn’t that our response is abnormal or even wrong. But it creates something in us that becomes unattractive to the rest of the world.

You could be completely justified in your frustration and everyone around you would “understand” why you were this way, but in the end it may not matter how right you are. What matters is who you are and how the world perceives you.

We have the ability to take arrows from others and still walk around with trust, love, and understanding. Forgiving people who have done you wrong is an even stronger weapon than they had in doing you wrong in the first place.

Whether we believe it or not, we have the weapon of forgiveness with us all the time. May we all use that weapon more often.

Our enemy wants us to believe that his army is stronger than ours. When we deploy forgiveness, empathy and understanding, we crush the enemies of anger, frustration and hatred.

Faith, hope and love win in the end. Let’s make sure we are fighting on the right side of the battle!

Coach Steve

Would you have to narrow it down to the various compartments of your life? Would you feel one way about your personal life and another about your life at work?

Are there certain parts of your personal life that are doing well and others that aren’t? Is it the same in your business? Do you compartmentalize these various aspects of your existence or do they morph together, giving you an overarching theme to how you are living?

These days when someone asks me “how are you?” I chuckle a bit internally because the answer to this simple question is potentially one of the most complicated, convoluted responses. It’s no great wonder that the pat answer to this is “fine.”

“Fine” may be code for, “In the broadest sense I would consider myself very blessed. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t have to cope with life’s difficulties every single day. There are areas of my life that are progressing well and others that I continue to battle with. I have family, friends, and clients who are in the same boat. Some are doing remarkably well, experiencing success in their vocations and relationships, and others are battling with serious illness, loss of loved ones, depression, and unemployment.”

If you actually responded to someone this way they may avoid you for a long time. That’s a lot to swallow, which is why most just go with “fine.”

But some of the healthiest people I know seem to embrace all of it, rather than hone in on just one part.

Much has been said about focusing on the positive. Our “feel-good” world wants you to have nothing to do with anything tough or painful. But if all we do is focus on the positive, we will live a disconnected existence.

We all have to deal with the broken parts of life sometimes. But if we only focus on those things that are broken, they will soon overshadow all that is good. Thus, the only conclusion I can make is that we must accept it all and not swing too far to one side. Reality and Hope all over again.

May we all keep learning to embrace both sides. Irrespective of where we are, strong or broken, we all have an amazing ability to help others. That is a true gift.

Coach Steve