Is it in you?

As I drove up to our manufacturing plant this afternoon, rehearsing my presentation I had planned to give at a big meeting later on in the day, I stumbled across a concept I had to share. First, I'll remind you that I'm in day 3 of this 90 Days to Discipline campaign, so my vision/goals and my plan to achieve them are top of mind for me at most times of the day. Only when I'm with a prospect or customer am I thinking of anything other than my objectives.

During this road trip/rehearsal, I covered some personal development ideas as part of my pitch this afternoon. Almost in every sales presentation I give, I focus some amount of time on PD, because it's so critical in getting people to follow through. My main point was that we all need to make life-long learning part of us, in order to develop as human beings....to be better mates, parents, leaders, employees, owners, whatever. Suddenly, it dawned on me that some folks just aren't going to do it. But, it hit me that we all have everything we need inside of us to live at the highest of levels. Yes, we all need to plug in and learn from those who've done it before us. Intrinsically, we already have what we need inside. The challenge is that we just don't have the motivation, the skills, the strategies to do it.

That's where PD comes in. Personal Development helps us find the reasons why we want more than we currently have. Or, better stated, reasons why we want to become more than we are.

Most people don't tap into these intrinsic abilities-they use a small percentage of what's inside them. I used to think it's because they're lazy people. Now, I realize it's because they have no vision for their lives. They're just here to take whatever life decides to give them. Ultimately, I believe they don't get up and get to it because they have impotent goals.

This is the whole point of 90 Days to Discipline...to create a vision, create goals, explore within us why we want them, and focus on the few Simple Disciplines-the high value tasks that will get us there.

I can't stress enough the importance of following through on what we've committed to doing. Stay the course. If you do, you'll become one of the few who DO, versus the many who TALK.

Flip the switch