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Daily motivator # 95 is about choosing your mentors. Whom do you choose and how do you choose them? Yes you want to find people who have what you want, but what does that mean? I think it means that I want to find the people who have the experience that I want. When I’m at work I want a boss who is willing to teach me what I need to know in order to do a better job. If my boss isn’t doing that, I want to go outside of that job for the experience I am looking for.
When I choose my friends. I want to choose people who have experiences that are interesting to me. People who can show me how to live a better life. This means not just aligning myself with someone who has a good message, but someone who actually lives that message to the best of their ability. If someone is telling me that it is important to be on time when I make a commitment to be somewhere, and they aren’t themselves making a commitment to be places on time, for myself I have to reconsider if this is the right person to be aligning myself with.
Everyone we encounter and develop a relationship with is a mentor of some kind. We Engage in relationships with people because of what we learn from being with them. For some people that means lightening up and enjoying themselves – making wise-cracks because they are funny and they make us laugh. Laughter is healing.
For other people it may be discussion of philosophies, theologies, and in simple general terms, living life to the fullest. In these cases we can really learn a lot and so long as everything is kept in perspective and no one is attempting to impose their own beliefs on others everything works really well.
Others may be people who’s lives are substantially occupied with business / career and advancement along those lines. Here we can learn about ambition. As long as we strive for success in this area balanced with success in all other relationships this can be a very rewarding way to live. In fact in a perfect world we can strive for success for one simple primary purpose – to be enabled to provide for others.
Hopefully we can surround ourselves with mentors in each of these areas. Maybe one person in our lives can teach us about all of these things, but I am going to venture a guess that in all likelihood it is going to be several people whom we come to rely on for guidance. When I find myself surrounded by a good healthy balance of these people described above my life can only move in a positive direction over all. Yes of course there will be peaks and troughs and we would not want it any other way because that is of course what gives us perspective. I need to have the lows to appreciate the highs – we all know this in our heads, but do we live this in our hearts? With a support system like the one outlined above and our continued and constant reliance upon it, every low can only be balanced out with a new high because we have the right people to help pick us up when we fall down. And I am not talking about “co-dependence” I am talking about a healthy reliance on others because I humbly recognize that I cannot do this life thing entirely on my own. Over time what happens is the highs get higher and the lows also get higher.
Every once in a while a trendline breaks through and takes us lower than we’ve been in a while. The loss of someone we care about deeply, or in some way shape or form the foundation we stand on falls apart. If I see this happen to someone I care about this means one simple thing – it’s time for a miracle! What does this mean? Read carefully here – It’s time for me to reach out and be the mentor in the relationship. It’s time for me to make sure the person knows I am thinking about them and that I am here for them. The real miracle of this is not that they have me there to help and support them. The real miracle is that I get to see them pull out of a tough situation. These experiences then give me hope for when I go through something similar in the future. We all go through tough times. No matter how positive your thinking, things happen – nobody lives forever and things don’t just keep getting better without some minor set backs along the way. That is an unrealistic striving.
Finally there is another basis on which we can relate to people that I want to bring up. It is the poisonous, vexatious to the spirit idea commonly known as “gossip”. When I am engaged in a conversation with a person and they are talking about other people a red flag goes up in my mind. Are they simply discussing events or is someone who is not present to defend themselves having their character called into question? If it is the latter I find that I do well to change the subject with a specific emphasis on the fact that the person or persons being discussed are not present to put clarity on the issues. That on this basis it is pointless to carry on a conversation about this topic. From here there will be two reactions. Either the person acknowledges and accepts that and moves on, or you will find that they just cannot help but come back to the poison. This is how I begin to see the people that I do NOT want around me. They will will bring me down, forever reaching new lows on a daily basis! LOL!
I hope everybody had a GREAT Thanksgiving! Please take some leftovers (or find out what’s appropriate to take) to people who are less fortunate so that they can have a meal!
Search Google for [your city] homeless shelters and you will find a ton. Call one and ask how/where you can bring some food.
It will take an hour or two of your time, but could add years on to the lives of people who can really use not just the food, but the knowledge that someone out there cares!
I have been watching some videos from Tim Ferriss and now I plan to read his book, “The 4 Hour Work Week”. I don’t honestly know about the “4” hour work week, but I believe already very strongly in some of what he has to say about “unplugging and resetting”. Watch one of his videos here.
Identify Distractions and create a NOT to do List, but don’t focus on the “Not” to do, just identify the items that go on this list for clarity. We are overloaded with distractions, checking e-mail every 5 minutes and having these devices that enable people to get a hold of us anytime, anywhere. I am guilty of this too! So here’s what I am proposing as a solution to help us reclaim some sanity.
- Set your e-mail to capture e-mail only every ½ hour.
- Let people know that if it is an emergency they can contact you on your cell phone. Many of the messages which are really not that important will be filtered out this way.
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Set up a schedule for your day that says, “these are the times I will be available”. Let’s say from 8am to 6pm.
- After 6 pm I am at home with my family, reading, meditating, and watching TV – no cell phone, no e-mail. It can all wait until 8am the following morning.
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The most important thing and the hardest one, is sticking to it once you set it in place. It will be difficult at first – I am having difficulty doing it, but I keep getting better at it.
- Set an autoresponder on your e-mail that lets people know when you will be available to help them.
- The end result should be that during the hours you are putting in, you will be 10 times more productive because you will have 10 times more energy to focus.
- You will be able to focus better knowing that you will have the other time to handle your personal affairs.
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This is how to balance everything!
You can start today!
You’re already here at www.youre-a-miracle.com
Here is my online community: http://tinyurl.com/nerd-community
I hope to see you there
I originally wrote this on Tuesday August 12, 2008:
People sometimes ask me. Seth why is it so important to you that you and for that matter others have a good handle on their finances? Isn’t it true that money can’t buy happiness?
My initial response is usually something like… stand outside of a car dealership and look at the faces of the people who are driving out in their brand new cars? A chuckle follows and then I explain that of course money doesn’t buy happiness. I have a theory though in terms of how money and happiness are related.
True happiness comes from being able to live truly in the moment. When I am spending time with friends, family – people I love I want to be able to be present. This means that both mind and body are right there with the people. I am paying attention and getting the most out of my time with them. It is when I am truly in the moment that I am the happiest. Usually when I am worried I am thinking about tomorrow. Most often when I am sad, I am thinking about something in the past. There can be exceptions, but the truth about this is where the expression “Yesterday is history, tomorrow a mystery, but today is a gift. That’s why we call it the Present.” comes from. Think about the last time you were upset about something. In that moment were you thinking about what was happening at that moment? Now think about the last time you felt really happy. I know for me at that moment I was thinking about how good life was and how good it felt. My mind wasn’t wandering, worrying about what might be or regretting what did or didn’t happen that I was disappointed about.
Aren’t finances one of the biggest causes of people’s worries? How many marriages break up over finances? How many times when things were tough financially were you able to go out and enjoy yourself? Imagine being worried about your finances and then going out and spending money. So no, money can’t buy happiness, but it sure can cause trouble when things are tough. If times are tight and I am out with friends and family how much of that time do you think is really spent enjoying the moment and how much time is spent worrying about finances? Out of 100% of maximum potential happiness during those moments, what percent do you think you get when your mind is wandering and wondering about the bills you have to pay?
So my theory is made up of 2 parts essentially. First, that if you have a good handle on your finances you can enjoy your downtime that much more because you are more able to be in the moment when you are with loved ones. Second that you don’t have to make a lot of money to be able to have a good handle on your finances. The second part often baffles people so let me explain because I have experienced it first hand. Good financial management starts with application of two principles. Organization and planning. Whether I make $30,000 or $300,000 or $3,000,000 really doesn’t matter. Bottom line my starting point in general terms is the same at any level of income. Income has to be higher than expenses. How many of us really know this for sure about our own situations? Unless you have actually sat down and drafted a budget, you can’t know. Not for sure and this is where the worries come in. My own direct personal experience has been that when I sit down and start this process I feel better within minutes. The reason is that the cure for the worrying is in the knowing. Worry comes from not knowing what the outcome will be, so our minds speculate and many of us have a natural inclination for speculating the worst. When you have a detailed financial outline in place then you know pretty much exactly what you can afford and what you can’t. Then it’s just a matter of living accordingly. The knowing will lead to a built in barometer for this. When I am spending money I know I can’t really afford to spend I am uncomfortable. When I know that I can afford to spend it, I am at peace and able to live truly in the moment – worry free. When I don’t know whether or not I can afford it, I worry.
So I am going to leave you all with this. Once I know what the conditions are I can change myself to meet the conditions. If I try to change the conditions I will likely only meet with frustration. This doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be ambitious and strive to earn more income – if anything the opposite is true. In fact knowing exactly where I am right now is the best possible starting point for planning the future and then setting and reaching new goals. It goes back to the planning and organization.
We have to budget out time the same way we budget our money. With prudence. We have so much time in our day and so many activities we can accomplish. Of course the only way to budget our time is 
to keep track of it, which means we’re using our calendars, Outlook, Act!, iCal are some of the most popular ones.
In the October 2009 download there is a bonus video showing you how you can set up a calendar and build in projected earnings so that you can anticipate your earnings at the exact same time that you are managing your time. None of the calendar programs provide for you to calculate what you are earning in a given day. I use both – my excel template and my Outlook calendar. They work hand in hand. The outlook is better visually when I am on the phone making appointments. Then I go into my excel template and update what I had anticipated at the beginning of the month or the beginning of that week and replace the info with what I’ve actually scheduled and based on that, what I will actually earn. This is all tied together. Time is a resource, a commodity. We have to balance it out and also make sure that a reasonable amount of it is allocated for personal and down time. This is an area where I myself still need a lot of work because I am so passionate about what I do, so I spend an inordinate amount of time doing it. It’s ok, if it ever got unhealthy I can back off – I know this because I have experienced points where it felt too much and trust me when I say that I am very clear on one thing – I can take time off absolutely guilt free because nobody on this planet can ever accuse me of not working hard.
Hi! I hope you’ve been enjoying this as much as I have. The entire month of October is now available for download and this is also a great way for you to support us here by downloading the entire month of October – every recording and every transcript. I’ve thrown in a few bonus recordings and a video tutorial going over some of the things I do on the computer to be productive. Click the October 2009 Recordings above or to your right to visit the shopping cart and complete your checkout. Thanks in advance for your support!
- Seth
One of the things I get excited about today is meeting new people. Mike Dooley (www.tut.com) says that you should always be doing “something”. If I am unemployed and I sit at home then it is likely nothing will happen. But if I get out there and do “something” then “something” will happen. What I think this translates to in terms of actual experience is that by getting out there and doing “something” I will very possibly meet other human beings. As I meet these strange beings, I will begin to develop relationships with them. We talk about the laws of attraction like they are some mystical phenomenon. Here’s an example I like to use where the laws of attraction are very obvious and practical in nature. If I get out there with a positive attitude then 2 things begin to happen. One, I am out there doing something and two I am out there with a positive attitude. Well by being out there and doing something with a positive attitude I am going to attract people to me. This isn’t mystical and it isn’t metaphysical. It’s literal. Aren’t you attracted to people with a positive attitude? Isn’t that why you are reading this? Don’t you like reading something positive? So if I am out there with a positive attitude, then I am going to attract people to me. More than likely these are going to be other people with a positive attitude or at the very least a desire to be around those with positive attitudes in order to learn how to have ones themselves.
Coming to the point, when I attract people to me in this manner they will come with all kinds of opportunities. In Leveraging the Universe and Engaging the magic, Mike Dooley talks about an example of a guy who takes a job at a restaurant waiting tables even though he really needs to earn more money than this job affords. I am very roughly paraphrasing this. The guy does the job with gratitude and a great attitude. This gets noticed and eventually attracts the attention of the right person and he is ultimately lead from this experience to a very successful career.
When we get out there we get an opportunity to meet people. We begin to build relationships with them. This is very important in business and it is even more important 
(and I think often overlooked) in our personal lives. We don’t think of “networking” in our personal lives, but I propose the following. That we should be networking in our personal lives very much like what we do in business, but with a different end in mind. In my personal life my ultimate goal is to grow as a person. To learn to be more loving, caring, courteous, kind. To be a better husband, friend, son and so on. So shouldn’t I be “networking” or for that matter looking to surround myself with people who serve as an example of these things? If I recognize that someone I know is really respectful of his wife and instead of talking about what a “this” she is or a “that” she is he is talking about what an amazing partner she is – that’s the person I want to be around to learn how to be a better husband. On the other hand when I encounter the person bad mouthing his wife, I want to encourage him if I can to focus on what he can do to improve his relationship with his wife and a good first step might be to stop bad-mouthing her to his friends.
So I start to think about the people I want to surround myself with in business and in my personal life. The simple generic answer is to surround myself with positive people. Summarizing and taking it one step further I want to look for people who serve as an example to me of what I want to become. Then I can start asking them for guidance – this of course take a very important key life ingredient to be able to ask someone for guidance or help..
Shhh – don’t tell anyone. It’s a secret..
humility
We learn and grow based on every experience and from every person whom we encounter. Very little of what we do or say is really “original” because it is all based on what we’ve read and heard from others and then we process the information and it goes through our minds. Our minds act like a filter putting our unique experience on the information and that it where the originality comes from. I have had many mentors and teachers in my life. Too many to list here, but if any of them chances upon this site, they will know who they are. They will see themselves in me and they will hopefully smile at the growth they can see based on what I have become. These teachers are like what we refer to in business as “power partners”. Who are your power partners? These are mentors – people who help you whether it is by coaching you, or referring you business or just listening when you need someone to talk to. Know who your power partners are in this life. It is so important. When we learn to recognize these people and what they mean to us, it becomes that much easier to recognize the people we do not want to surround ourselves with. The opposite of a power partner is someone who pulls you down and discourages you from fulfilling your dreams. Stick with the Power Partners and you are on your way to success!
Planning your week ahead of time is a GREAT way to get excited about your week. The things you are going to do and the people you are going to see. It’s an amazing opportunity to make sure that you are doing all of the things that you want to do and that you LOVE to do! Even if you work a 9-5 job, plan a few key things you want to accomplish this week and watch yourself grow in your career and accomplishments as you do this each week! Next Sunday’s Daily Motivator will touch on this so be sure and sign up! It’s FREE.
When you plan your week have your calendar (MS Outlook or iCal or whatever you use) in front of you and break out that To-Do list. Take items off of your to do list and put them on your calendar so you literally plan their accomplishment as to time and date. The act of getting these things accomplished will make you feel good – like you are moving forward and progressing. All it takes is an hour on a Sunday before you get out there and enjoy your day, or maybe in the evening before you retire!
You're A Miracle! 