The phrase “life balance” is malarkey. Here is another one: “LOVE is all there is.” Ah, no, there is HATE too.

Everyone needs an enemy.

• Luke had Darth Vader.
• Batman had the Joker.
• David had Goliath.
• Twenty-somethings rage against “The Man.”
• Rush Limbaugh has the liberals.
• Lance Armstrong has cancer.
• Apple has Microsoft.
• Rocky had Apollo Creed, then Mr. T, then the Russian, then…(ad nausea)
• America used to have the Russians; now, it’s Osama bin Laden and Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and…
• Even God has Satan.

An enemy gives you a reason to fight. Having to fight challenges your skills, character and resolve. It forces you to assess and exercise your talents and abilities.

Without a fight, we all become fat, lazy and sedentary; we lose purpose, passion and vigor.

Want to rally your troops, mobilize your community and get everyone fired up? Find an enemy and pick a fight.

Let’s find some butt for you to kick…

• What value is your business trying to create? What is the opposite of that?
• What problem are your trying to solve? There, we’ve got a problem, but now we have to give it a face—something to make a dartboard of.

Example: At SUCCESS, read more »

It’s my and my wife’s weekly date night, and I think I’m doing pretty well so far so I ask my wife, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rank this date night?” (a practice I picked up from Jack Canfield). She says, “An 8.” So I ask, “What would it take to make it a 10?” She says, “Watching The Notebook with me.” Inside my head, I scream, Nooooo! I rub my forehead—dead giveaway, but I was trying to recover—and say, “I’d love to.” (“Grrrrr” – inside my head only)

Now, I love movies, all movies, even most “chick flicks.” (Well, I take that back, not scary movies. I watched Carrie at the drive-in when I was 10, and haven’t seen a scary movie since. Oh, except The Shining, you know, “RedRum”, that did me in for good). ) At the same time, though, I don’t like seeing movies I have seen before—been there done that, next. For one reason or another, I had already seen The Notebook three times. Now, whenever I watch it, it’s like scratching my eyes out. But I want that “10,” so we go home and watch.

Not being sucked into the story (since this is the fourth freakin’ time!), I see how truly corny the movie is. The point to this story, though, is what happens the next day.

Now it’s Saturday, and my wife tells me she wants me to install a doggie door. This requires cutting a perfect hole… yada, yada. Who am I kidding? I have no idea what installing a doggie door requires, and I don’t have any intention of finding out. Anything other than a pen and a fork in my hands, and I become dangerous. I say, “I’d be happy to hire someone to come over and do that.” Then she says, “Noah could restore a 200-year-old home, but you can’t install a doggie door?” Uh-oh, I think, I smell something is in the air. read more »

Do you ever get…?

• Joint pain
• Stiff back
• Dry eyes
• Runny nose
• Restless legs
• Tired in the afternoon
• Angry while sitting in traffic
• A craving for chocolate
• Unruly hair

If you experience any of these symptoms, consult your doctor. You may be suffering from—BEING HUMAN!

Last night I walked into the kitchen where my wife was preparing dinner and the TV was on in the background with one of those pharmaceutical companies pitching a newly invented drug to cure a newly invented disease. I was so appalled I looked them up—they have already sold BILLIONS of dollars of their “enlightenment in a bottle.”

I think it is time for us all to wake up and cut the strings to the puppet master that is commercialism.

Quick lesson in commercial marketing:

Step 1: Make people feel inadequate, inferior, ugly, stupid or weak.

Step 2: Reinforce this by pointing out what they lack (something you didn’t even know you lacked until they pointed it out).

Step 3: Then show an artificial contrast—the handsome guy with three makeup artists and painted-on six-pack abs or the airbrushed professional bulimic, I mean model.

Now here is the most delusional and damaging part:
Step 4: They get you to believe that your success will come from their magic potion, new golf club, fully loaded sports car or eye cream; then there is always that “little blue pill” for guys, or my favorite—the new KY Jelly Intense for girls (see ad below).

I’d love it if I could buy my success, fame, self-esteem, good relationships, health and well-being in a nicely clam-shelled package at the local Wal-Mart. But, that’s not how it works.

There is no read more »

Last month I interviewed bestselling author, speaker and leadership coach Steve Farber for our exclusive SUCCESS Audio Series. The response has been so great that Steve and I decided to offer some free follow-up ideas and material here for everyone to benefit from.

During the interview we discussed the concept of Steve’s book: Greater Than Yourself: The Ultimate Lesson of True Leadership which in short is about selecting someone you can mentor to help them become even greater than yourself (GTY).

We all know we should seek mentors for our life. This concept is about you being the mentor and helping people realize or advance their own greatness.

There are some truisms that tell the inherent values of this principle:

• Satisfaction and fulfillment come not from what you get, but what you give.
• Giving starts the receiving process.
• The giver always receives more than the receiver.
• It is the teacher who always learns more than the student in the act of teaching.

Steve sums up the concept here: “The greatest leaders that I’ve seen, the best extreme leaders that I’ve met over the years are the ones that never seek credit for their own greatness, but instead, invest themselves in such a way as to make other people around them greater than they are.  So instead of shining the light on themselves, they lift other people up and  build a track record of creating superstar after superstar.”

Here is a great interview between Steve, Patrick Lencioni and his GTY project (mentee) Matthew Kelley (also acclaimed writer and keynote speaker) describing the process and the value of their GTY relationship: read more »

What does…

A pot of gold at the end of a rainbow

A “functional” family

And “life balance”

… all have in common?

They all sound neato, but none of them really exist.

As a follow-up to the Forgotten “Secrets” to Success and our decline of hard work ethic, one of the great misnomers I continually hear touted by toga-wearing “life coaches” is the idea of “life balance”. It’s malarkey (love that word!).

There is no such thing. Just like everyone comes from a “dysfunctional family” (every family is dysfunctional – it has people in it), everyone’s life is also out of balance. Pursuing this illusion is only going to frustrate you (causing you to be even more imbalanced… and a little insane).

Every life is out of balance; that’s life… and what happens in life? Shitake happens! And you have to ebb and flow with the changing tides, the shifting winds, the weather, the seasons, oncoming obstacles, etc.

Life is in a constant state of flux. There are times when you need all hands on deck for tacking the boat to avoid collision and there are other times when you can go hang out in the galley and play cards with the boat on autopilot. Through it all you are always going to be changing the priority of your time and attention. You will always be off kilter and shifting your balance.

Now don’t start throwing your meditation mats at me; of course we can’t sacrifice everything for the sake of any one thing. We have to constantly keep up our health, relationships, finances, spirituality and nurture of self during and through it all.

But here is what I see happening: This illusive concept of “life balance” is read more »