A friend of mine, Matt Gibble, just left for Lake Placid to run an Iron Man Race. That’s swimming 2.4 miles, biking 112 miles and running a marathon distance of 26.2 miles. Just the thought of thinking about this tires me out.
In speaking to Matt before he left, he told me a story of a 30+ year old male who runs the Iron Man Race with his young son who has Cerebral Palsy. During the bike race, he puts his son on the back in a seat. During the run, he pushes a carriage. I’m not sure exactly how he does it in the swim competition. While speed is obviously not of high importance to this young man, having his son be part of the experience is.

Matt tells of the time he was struggling through the competition, pushing himself mentally to finish, when all of a sudden he comes across this young man competing with his son. “When you see this, you ask yourself what’s wrong with this picture. Compared to this hero, I have no obstacles holding me back.” It’s at that point that Matt was able to put aside his doubts and power forward.

All of us face doubts about our ability to compete in tough times sooner or later. The issue is not that you have these thoughts. This is natural. The question is do you allow these thoughts to weigh you down and prevent you from finishing the race? Remember, whatever you are suffering from, someone has it worse. All of us suffer. But do we allow our suffering to stop us?

When you feel stopped, just think about this nameless hero who did not let his son’s debilitating disease stop him from competing in what has to be one of the toughest endurance events ever devised.

Like the old saying goes: It’s all about mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.

Recently I was speaking with a client who was dealing with the untimely passing of a colleague. The client is a very successful executive who is known for effective leadership and the ability to motivate his troops. He told me he found it hard that week to get into work. Who would find it easy to continue on normally after losing a friend who has meant so much. All of us can relate to this, especially after the last few months.

We all have to remember we are going to have good days and bad days. It’s part of life. It is unrealistic to expect yourself to run at full speed each and every day. There are days when you need to sprint to take advantage of opportunities. Other days you will find the need to slow down and jog onward. Your success in any given time period requires a marathon strategy vs. a sprinter’s approach. It’s not where you are in any given day. It’s where you wind up after the race is over.

So if you find yourself having the blues for whatever reason, slow down and regroup. Allow your emotions to run the cycle. This does not mean to allow your emotions to control you and provide excuses as to why things cannot happen.

Every successful person, whether it be an athlete, politician, movie star, executive, etc., has had their good and bad days. Just recognize the day for what it is, give yourself permission to be human, and move on. Otherwise, you will be setting expectations that will be difficult to reach.

At the beginning of this school year, my daughter Amanda entered 2nd Grade. Every week, they would take a spelling test which consisted of three parts: The current week’s words, bonus words (which were harder) and special sentences. Children were not required to do the bonus words, only if they wanted extra credit.
For the first two months of the year, Amanda stayed away from the bonus words. Her self-doubt prevented her from taking the risk of trying. One day, I asked her what the worst case scenario would be if she tried doing the bonus words. Her answer of course was that she would fail at it. My response was, how do you know if you don’t try it.

That night, I spent 30 minutes with her playing a game around the bonus words. She went to sleep saying she was not going to take the risk the next day and I said fine.

To my surprise, she came home the next afternoon, and showed me her spelling test, in which she got a perfect score in everything including the bonus words. Since then there has not been a week gone by that she did not take on those bonus words.

Our self doubt, and we all have it at times, will limit our ability to succeed if we let it stop us from trying new things. When you experience self doubt the next time, don’t get upset. Accept the fact that you have concerns, but then find a way to try it anyway. Many times, the results will surprise you. And once you try it and experience the great high of success, there is no going back. Just ask Amanda.

This week we tragically and unexpectedly lost a phenomenal motivational speaker and colleague, 39 year old Art Berg. Art helped tens of thousands of people push through internal barriers to achieve their desired goals. In fact, he named his speaking business Invictus Communications. Invictus is defined as being unconquerable.
His clients included the Baltimore Ravens and some of the world’s most recognized organizations.

Having been paralyzed in a car accident at the age of 21, Art realized the restraints of a wheelchair were not as devastating as the restraints all of us encounter with the limiting thoughts in our mind. Thoughts such as: I can’t really do this; There is no way this is going to work; They won’t buy this proposal; etc. In fact, if you really want to get to the next level, consider any limiting thoughts you may have that prevent you from moving forward.

Art proved in his life that we are the only ones who can hold ourselves back, not any accident, disease, hard luck or any other obstacle we may encounter. Art has shown us this by becoming a world class wheelchair athlete and completing a 325-mile wheelchair race. He also founded two successful businesses.

So when you come across your next limiting thought, think of Art Berg and others you know who have not let their challenges impede success. Most if not all of our limitations reside in our mind. Thank you Art for teaching us this lesson. Your legacy lives on. INVICTUS!

NOTE: Art’s newest book, The Impossible Just Takes Longer, is scheduled for release on March 5th and will be available in all book stores. To look at Art’s other learning tools, please visit www.artberg.com.

Your new year’s resolutions are made and you are carrying them out as we speak. Right? If you are like most people, your intentions are solid but your actions are sometimes not enough. The trouble with New Years Resolutions or any goal is that we tend to think of them in totality rather than bite size chunks.
The secret to achieving goals is to break the enormous task into smaller actions that don’t threaten or scare you. If each action is taken, then the ultimate goal itself will be achieved.

So take it easy. Look at your goals and see what you need to do each day this week to keep the goals viable. One step at a time is the only way to go. What are the steps you are committed to taking this week?

Are you afraid to make the call because you think the customer won’t buy your product? Guess what, you’re right! Do yourself a favor, stay home and don’t make the call because the customer won’t buy from you.

Why? If you really don’t think you are going to succeed, your actions will support that outcome. In order to succeed, it is imperative to operate from the mindset that you will succeed with the outcome you are after. Only then will you employ the necessary actions required to achieve that outcome.

Congratulations to Lance Armstrong, a cancer-survivor who came back and just won his third straight Tour de France. The Tour de France is a grueling 20-stage bicycle race regarded as the premier cycling event in the world. The interesting thing about Lance Armstrong’s latest victory was his come-from-behind strategy.

In Stages 1-12, he stayed behind the leaders, with his largest deficit of 35+ Minutes occurring in Stages 8 and 9. In Stage 10, he started reducing the deficit and took the lead in Stage 13. He continued to pull away from the rest of the field over the final stages, culminating in a winning margin of 6:44 minutes by the time he crossed the finish line on the streets of Paris.

Lance’s race symbolized the attitude and strategy successful people operate from. The attitude is having the belief that you will win. The strategy is using a single-minded focus on the end result and running one’s life not as a sprint, but as a marathon. At some point you will be up, at other points you may be down. The bottom line is not to let your down times cloud your focus, and not to let your high points take your mind off of your end result.

As Lance Armstrong has proven over and over, if you keep doing the right things day in and day out, you are most likely to come out on top at the end of the race.

This tragic and dastardly act serves as a reminder that life at times is fragile. Every moment we feel the inconveniences of life, we must immediately remember that life is short. Every moment, good or bad, must be seized and lived to the fullest.

While many of us feel helpless in terms of not knowing what to do, the reality is all of us have a great role to play in this disaster. We must go about our lives showing that freedom and democracy is still strong and cannot be defeated. We must band together and offer our support to all those affected by the loss of loved ones. We must speak to our children, comfort them and provide them with the tools to shape a world where this type of horrendous act will never happen again. We must combine our energy and forge a bond that will withstand the forces of evil and terrorism and create a safe haven for all mankind.

There is much work to be done. You are needed!

What’s the difference between today’s 25 year old Jennifer Capriati and the teen age version 9 years ago? COMMITMENT! As a teen, she was totally unfocussed on winning and overtaken by the celebrity status she enjoyed. Her main interest was partying. She also fell victim to being influenced by individuals who were out for their own interests and not hers.

After a layoff, Jennifer got herself together and committed to her coach (and father) Stephano, to do whatever it takes to succeed. The results are spectacular and evident to us everyday as she captures one Grand Slam Title after another.

Jennifer’s story is relevant to all of us. It just goes to show what commitment can do to one’s level of success. If you are having a bad day, understand it is your commitment that will turn it into a better tomorrow. If you are having a great day,
understand it is your commitment that will provide for more great days in the future. Just because things don’t go right at some point does not mean you cannot succeed. It all has to do with your commitment!

The measure of an individual’s greatness is not so much what they do when they are on top of the world. It is what they do when they are at the bottom of a particular cycle. Titans are always committed to getting back on top!

What are two of the keys to success? Persistence and faith! Just ask Anthony and Charles Shepherd.

Anthony and Charles were charged and convicted in 1987 with the death of a livery cab driver. During the last 14 years in jail, Anthony Faison never gave up on the fact that he was innocent. Relentless in trying to get his story heard, he wrote thousands of letters until one was heard and acted upon. Michael Race, a private investigator, received a letter from Mr. Faison and agreed to look into the case at no charge. He was convinced of Mr. Faison’s innocence from the letter he received. In the New York Times, Mr. Race was quoted as saying, “It was the determination of this kid, how much he believed in what he is doing, how strongly he felt he got railroaded,…He just wanted someone to listen to him.”

After two years of investigations and 14 years in jail and thousands of letters proclaiming their innocence, both Anthony Faison and Charles Shepherd were released from jail on Monday, May 14th, 2001. The real killer was caught this past weekend after the main witness recanted her testimony.

What a powerful story! You may ask yourself, what does this have to do with motivation and life? Everything! The two keys that led to these two men’s freedom are the persistence and faith of Mr. Faison. His relentless pursuit to get someone to hear him led to a door opened by Mr. Race. His passion for the cause spurred Mr. Race to action. Imagine if Anthony Faison gave up after the first 100, 1000, or even 10,000 rejections.

In sales it only takes one person to say ‘yes’ to make a difference. Don’t be stopped by the rejections along the way. Believe in yourself and keep fanning the flames of your passion. Your persistence will pay off in the end. It always does. Just ask Anthony Faison and Charles Shepherd.