Magna dignissim nunc cursus eleifend tortor egestas feugiat blandit, eros lacinia nisl imperdiet nibh donec est duis ut, penatibus non sagittis senectus risus vehicula cubilia. Bibendum eros velit cursus mattis faucibus erat, habitant massa laoreet tempus leo orci quis, metus diam enim iaculis pharetra. Convallis mi sagittis curabitur platea sociis vitae sapien dignissim, risus pretium in porttitor massa commodo.

Magna dignissim nunc cursus eleifend tortor egestas feugiat blandit, eros lacinia nisl imperdiet nibh donec est duis ut, penatibus non sagittis senectus risus vehicula cubilia. Bibendum eros velit cursus mattis faucibus erat, habitant massa laoreet tempus leo orci quis, metus diam enim iaculis pharetra. Convallis mi sagittis curabitur platea sociis vitae sapien dignissim, risus pretium in porttitor massa commodo.

Magna dignissim nunc cursus eleifend tortor egestas feugiat blandit, eros lacinia nisl imperdiet nibh donec est duis ut, penatibus non sagittis senectus risus vehicula cubilia. Bibendum eros velit cursus mattis faucibus erat, habitant massa laoreet tempus leo orci quis, metus diam enim iaculis pharetra. Convallis mi sagittis curabitur platea sociis vitae sapien dignissim, risus pretium in porttitor massa commodo.

Magna dignissim nunc cursus eleifend tortor egestas feugiat blandit, eros lacinia nisl imperdiet nibh donec est duis ut, penatibus non sagittis senectus risus vehicula cubilia. Bibendum eros velit cursus mattis faucibus erat, habitant massa laoreet tempus leo orci quis, metus diam enim iaculis pharetra. Convallis mi sagittis curabitur platea sociis vitae sapien dignissim, risus pretium in porttitor massa commodo.

Here’s the follow up question: how do you become powerful?  There is no quick answer, or short path to becoming a person of power.  There are some benchmarks you can measure yourself against.  I’ve compiled a list of 5 things powerful people have in common.  This list is a combination of traits I see in my friend and mentor, John Maxwell, as well as wisdom reputable sources such as Forbes and Success magazines agree on.

5 Things Powerful People Have in Common

1: Powerful people start with the end in mind.

Powerful people set powerful goals.  They spend time at the front end planning, journaling, meditating, and visioning.  They get a picture in their mind of what the end of their efforts will be.  Once they have a vision, they refine it, polish it, restate it, and re-imagine it over and over and over again until it is crystal clear.  Then, it can be  described for others in a way that is just as crystal clear.  With “eyes on the prize,” they are able to make choices and endure sacrifices greater than most people because they know why they’re doing what they’re doing.

2: Powerful people create their own space.

It’s easy to tell a power person when you walk into a room.  They are the people that bring power with them.  They may not be dominant, or even the focus of attention, but you can feel their space.  Power people exude confidence.  In turn, the people around them are in their orbit.  If you’re at a banquet table, the power person is the one who easily creates the space for conversation, sometimes by leading the discussion, sometimes by encouraging others to speak.

3: Powerful people are mental acrobats.

Because they have an end clearly in mind, there is no such thing as a barrier to a power person.  There are only obstacles, detours, and challenges to overcome.  The mind of a powerful person is as flexible as the body of a gymnast.  They easily adapt and flow in any direction required to keep moving toward their goals.  If they run out of money, they seek donations.  No workers?  They get volunteers.  When they get sick or injured, they invent new ways to work from their bed.  Powerful people continue to move towards their goals no matter the circumstances they find themselves in.

4: Powerful people read.  Daily.

No matter how many powerful people you interview, you will notice one habit they all share.  They read something of substance every day.  Powerful people understand that the things that got them where they are cannot take them where they’re headed.  They constantly seek out new insights, skills, and knowledge to raise their effectiveness.

5: Powerful people don’t waste their energy.

Powerful people understand that energy is a finite resource.  Throughout the day, they use up their energy just like everybody else.  To maximize their power, they have trimmed out everything from their life that does not generate results.  They waste little energy on frivolous things, and have an almost superhuman ability to super-focus their energy during the most critical periods of their day.  They also understand the value of rest, and know better than to burnout by pouring out more each day than they recover.

How do you compare to the traits listed above?  What areas do you see yourself needing to work on to increase your power?  Leave a comment below.

With all the good and positive feedback I’ve received, it would be easy for me to declare I’ve “mastered” teaching.  It would be easy to stop focusing on my skills as a teacher and coach, because my students are satisfied.  But, as a personal development teacher, I know that the moment I do is the moment I stop being effective in my role.

“There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” – Nelson Mandela

If you think for a quick minute, you can probably name all sorts of businesses that get by on “good enough.”  I have a lot of meetings at coffee houses and restaurants.  One particular diner chain comes to mind immediately when I think of this.  Their food hasn’t really changed or improved in quality in over a decade.  But they get plenty of business because their price is reasonable for the quality, and because people are familiar with them.  In other words, they have settled for a mediocre product, charge a mediocre price, and provide mediocre service.  It seems to work for everyone involved, so they have little incentive or outward pressure to change.

You probably have areas in your life that fall victim to this same mentality.  For example, my skills at repairing things that break is pitifully mediocre.  I once went to flush the toilet, only to have the handle wiggle back and forth to no effect.  When I lifted the lid off the tank, I discovered the chain that connects the handle to the flushing mechanism pooled at the bottom.  I called out to my wife and told her (and I quote exactly), “the toilet’s broken; we need to get a new one.”

The “he can’t be serious” thought you’re having right now is exactly the thought my wife had when I called out to her.  She asked if I had checked the tank.  I told her I had.  She came in, looked at the problem, looked at me with complete exasperation, sighed, reached down, picked up the chain, and clipped it back to the handle.

“Success depends upon previous preparation.” – Confucius

I don’t have a lot of reason to get better at mechanical skills.  I rely on the skills of my wife to fix things that break.  There is little incentive or outward pressure to change.  And yet, I’ve been caught in situations where I had none but my own guile and cunning to solve a looming mechanical disaster.  So far, duct tape and old socks have done the job until a more qualified mechanic arrives.  But I sometimes imagine how nice it would be to be self-reliant in fixing things.

When we don’t have incentives or pressure, we have to create our own.  It comes down to this: never settle.  Always ask yourself “what’s the next step I can take to improve my life in this area.”  For my masterminds, I know that striving to constantly improve will lead to greater success and the ability to make a bigger impact on my students.  But, in the moment of growing, I don’t experience that reward.  The reward comes later, sometimes much later.  But your drive to improve must be now.  When the opportunity comes to succeed, it’s too late to prepare (like the toilet).

I cringe whenever I hear these types of questions or objections, because each focuses on the outside world.  Can I get real with you?  You will never achieve real transformation by focusing on what’s outside of you.  It’s an inside job.  The reason you don’t have enough time to do it is because you’ve chosen to give time to everything else except your dream life.  The reason you’re jaded by corporate trainings is because some hot-shot speaker comes in and lays down some truth and awareness in a 4 hour seminar, and then leaves without telling you how to implement it.  You’re overwhelmed by information overload.  The reason you need a personal mentor is to blow the whistle and assassinate the self-limiting beliefs and resistance that keeps you stuck where you are.

“One is too small a number for greatness.” – John Maxwell

Let me be perfectly blunt: there are a very select few enlightened individuals who have ever achieved their potential alone.  Siddhartha Buddha springs to mind.  That’s about all I can think of right now.  Gandhi was supported by his community.  Jesus had his Disciples…I could go on, but you get the point.

The problem with growth

Here’s the problem: our conscious mind is great at keeping us safe (read: comfortable being stuck).  It absolutely sucks at helping us achieve greatness.  It is hard wired to resist change, risk, and discomfort.  Transformation happens at the subconscious level.  The problem is, whenever we try to change the hard-wired coding, we can’t escape our own thoughts, perspective, and limiting resistance.  I’ll give you an example from today.

I have never seen someone fight so hard against literally staying alive than I did with my second daughter, and it was all because of resistance to change.  When Meredith was 1-month, she spent the day with me for the first time (because my wife, Megan, went back to work).  She had been completely breast-fed until that point.  The only problem is: my chest doesn’t give milk.  So on this fateful day, she got to learn how to eat from a bottle.

The plastic nipple of the bottle was so foreign, so new, and so undesired that she refused it the first time she got hungry.  And the second time.  And the third.  She was so resistant to the idea that food could come from anything that wasn’t mommy that she chose to starve herself all morning.  By the time afternoon rolled around, she had settled into a comfortable pattern to avoid having to eat from a bottle: be offered bottle, shove it violently out of her mouth (I didn’t know baby’s tongues were so strong), immediately start screaming so vehemently that there was no consoling her, be rocked to sleep, cuddle with dad…repeat.

After four hours of hunger fits, she became so ravenous that her hatred of the bottle was diminished enough for her to eat. In the end, she accepted the bottle as the only available food source, and happily sucked it dry in 10 minutes flat.  No tears.  No meltdown.  Just blissful reconciliation with her new reality.

Don’t undervalue this story.  This is EXACTLY how we all operate towards growth and change.  Our conscious mind will sabotage our every effort to embrace a new thing…even when we know without a shadow of a doubt that it is beneficial for us to embrace it.  Logic always fails in the face of emotion.  You can’t outrun your own mental pitfalls.

“I’d be a lot farther in life if I hadn’t had to take me with me.” – Paul Martinelli

The best way to increase significance

If you really want to reach a life of significance, you have 3 choices:

#1 Keep doing it the hard way alone.  Spend more time, money, energy, and resources fighting your own psychology.  Let your stress levels rise until they manifest as depression, anxiety, or burnout.

#2 Spend tons of money on training systems that load you up with awareness, information, tools, tips, and tactics, and then leave the application to you.  You can feel really good about “progress” this way, and still end up right where you are 10 years from now.

#3 Get serious about investing in yourself and get a mentor.  Find someone who has fought the fight and learned the lessons ahead of you.  Mentors are invaluable in coming alongside you, catching you when you stumble, and getting traction behind your transformation almost immediately.

“Once you taste significance, success will never satisfy you.” – John Maxwell

I really believe this.  Since I really committed my investment in choice #3, my life has been radically transformed in so many ways.  Keep following the blog, and you’ll keep hearing stories of how this is true.

What is your experience with battling your own head space?  What lessons can you leave for others in the comment section below?