We’re in the second week of the New Year and you’re struggling with those goals.  The story you tell yourself is that you missed the starting gun so you shouldn’t run the race.  The story you tell yourself is that if you can’t do it perfectly, you shouldn’t do it.  The story you tell yourself is . . . what exactly?

It’s Blunt Reality Time here at this week’s Wednesdays With Wayne.

You don't have perfectionism. You have a fear of being a failure and being judged for it. You have a fear that being judged means you won’t be accepted.  Ostracism – being separated from the pack – is such a powerful social/survival force, that we humans will do almost anything to avoid it.  You call it perfectionism.  So, you CHOOSE not to start. That way, the failure that you're experiencing is an outside force on you and not something that you're responsible for.

THAT is faulty thinking.

Perfectionism is putting something out there, actually trying, not quite getting the results you want, and refinin...

You made it!  Happy New Year!
This one is quick – There is one word that will set you up for failure when you’re looking at your New Year’s Resolutions.  Now, I know some people are refusing to make “resolutions.”  I used to play that game too.  I don’t have resolutions, I just have things I want to accomplish this year.  It’s a BS way of not committing.  

Commit to YOU.
Invest In YOU.

And… PLAN FOR YOU!!!

In this week’s Wednesdays With Wayne, the focus is on sowing the seeds today for the crop you want to reap tomorrow.  That isn’t some haphazard, random activity.  That’s a planned event.  

None of my DynamicLeader® students ever say, “well, hopefully this will be a better year.”  

And that’s the word you’re eliminating:  Hopefully…

Just for fun, say these two statements out loud.  Seriously, there’s a reason I ask you to do this kind of stuff.  Say these out loud:

1. Hopefully, this year will be better.
2. I’m planning on this year being even better than last year.

Okay, yes, ...

Most people miss this.
It’s not a fund.  It’s not crypto-anything.

This week’s Wednesdays With Wayne is about something much more critical than financial investing.

The most critical investment as you turn the calendar and find 2018 staring at you is YOU.  Most people miss the fact that they need to invest in themselves.  How can you step into a higher level of productivity if you don’t find a new perspective?  How can you think differently or challenge others to think differently if you don’t push yourself out of the thought processes you’ve already learned to enjoy?

I live Happily Dissatisfied.  

Some people think that’s weird.  How can I live my life dissatisfied?
I don’t live my life offended.  I don’t live my life wishing it were different.  In fact, I live my life full of joy and happiness.  And it’s only from there that I can say… I want more.  I want to experience more.  I want to learn more.  I want to serve more.  And if I stay where I am, I’ll feel stuck.  

It’s because...

The title of this week’s Wednesdays With Wayne says it all, really: Love Them Fuller  - it’s grammatically incorrect and so full of everything else “right” that I just had to capture it when a client said it to me this week.  That was her goal for herself; it’s something she wants to bring to her family and her team.  As part of her “homework” in my private DynamicLeader® coaching program, she’s challenging herself to “Love Them Fuller” and I’m pushing that forward to you!

And at this time of year, we all need to be thinking that way, don’t we?

There are stressors.
There are things to do, to buy, to get, to avoid.  There are charities in need.  And, there are people around you who need your presence.  You are needed.  The YOU that has your presence… YOU are needed.

And you need to do just one thing:  Love Them Fuller.

Love them – your family, your friends, your team, and anyone who helps you at check out, for example – love them more.  Love them more fully.  And when they’ve been...

My travels take me to all kinds of places.  As I write this week’s Wednesdays With Wayne, I’m at yet another airport, the overhead announcements blare, and I’ve just completed (at least a portion of) a conversation with the woman sitting next to me.  We spoke about travel.  We spoke about the holidays.  And the theme of all that we spoke about came down to how pretty much everything has two sides to it.  

I travel… a lot.  Her remark that “everything is both good and bad, I guess” struck me.  It’s true.  I love where I’m going.  I don’t love the getting there.  I don’t love the good byes.  I love the hellos.  I love the process I get into once I’m there.  I don’t love the good byes.  I don’t love the travel.  I love coming home.

It’s the holidays.  Some people love them.  Some people… well… not so much a fan.  Sometimes that’s situational.  There were times in my life that the holidays were laden with strife and stress.  I seemed to be on everyone else’s timeline and agenda.  I was...

My wife and I have an evening ritual, a thing we do after dinner.  We’ll wash up the dishes and head outside to sit at our fire pit.  Yes, even when it’s flipping freezing outside, we enjoy our time together that way.  We’ll continue our dinner conversation, spending time talking about the day, about what’s coming, and about our aspirations and dreams.  That’s an important thing – talking about aspirations and dreams, both as individuals and as a couple.  We’re “empty nesters” at this point, so it’s just us, supporting each other into our next phase of what we want for ourselves as individuals, what we want for and from each other, and what we want together as a couple.

This week’s Wednesdays With Wayne centers around the fire pit.

As we had our “fire pit time” recently, the conversation came around to those mentors we have and those others we see out there on Social Media.  I have several mentors whom I truly appreciate.  Some are huge and very well known, others are more understate...

Someone just wrote to me and said that his biggest issue was that he’s now only getting about four hours of sleep a night.  He’s so charged with ideas that he doesn’t feel he can sleep.  His mind is racing.

If you’re an entrepreneur, your mind will race.  It just will.
You’ve got details to track.
You’ve got opportunities to explore.

And, the gentleman who wrote to me commented that he supposes all high performers must not sleep.  There’s so much to do.  There’s so much to think about.

Right?

Welcome to your Wednesdays With Wayne.  

My answer was a surprise to him.  I said, “Actually, high performers learn how to block time in order to get the sleep they need” and to hit the productivity levels they want to hit.  And that’s true.  My dissertation (yes, the “doctor” part of my title comes from clinical psychology) was on sleep and daily functioning (specifically following exercise).  What we have learned over the past few decades and especially over the last five years is that sleep ...

As this post comes out we, in the U.S., are approaching Thanksgiving.  It’s a day that some simply call Turkey-Day knowing that we are bound to find ourselves overeating with relatives we seldom see.   The concept of gratitude feels lost in the shuffle of fallen soufflés and over-sugared yams, not to mention the shove toward pre-black-Friday sales.

Sit down.  Pretend you like the people you’re with. Say Grace.  Enjoy the cold green beans. And pass the famotidine while you whip out your credit card for the online sales.

What are we doing to ourselves?  

At this time of year we get so wrapped up in what we’re supposed to do for other people, we forget all of the positive things we’ve created in our lives.  It’s possible to get resentful of the tug that we feel: Bring this, buy that, make, go, travel, eat, drink, and give and give and give.  And don’t forget to smile about it.  Gahhhhhhh….  

For some of us, the holidays remind us of loss.  For others, they bring joy.  And for most no ...

Think back to who you were 10 years ago.  That person couldn’t do what you’re doing now.  They were younger, might have had more energy, and certainly had different friends.  That person needed to change to get you to be the you that you are now.

That 10-year-younger self probably didn’t project ahead to see who you’d be at this point.  They didn’t have the perspective to do so.

And now, you get to look ahead.  Knowing what you know now, whom would you like to become in the next 10 years?  

How about the next 5 years?
The next 2 years?
Next week?
Tomorrow???

This week’s Wednesdays With Wayne is called Crossing Over because that’s what the Latin & French roots of the word Transition mean: to move across.

What got you here won’t get you there.  You’re in the middle of a change in your life right now.  How will you embrace that.  Whether that’s at home, in your relationships, or at work… you’re changing.  

Can you plan for it?  Yes!

Can you have a target for an outcome?  YES!  And tha...

When faced with doing the “right” thing, the decision tree is supported by the roots of personal values.  It’s funny, my conversations with clients often lead to my Wednesdays With Wayne posts.  Recently, I was discussion what it meant to do what’s right vs. feeling burdened by the “shoulds” that come from social pressure.  

I found myself falling back on my martial arts roots.  Yes, having started back in 1977 and attaining the rank of fourth degree black belt, there’s a little something in me.  The art of Bushido incorporates multiple disciplines and, translated, it means The Way of the Warrior.  That way is one of peace with a willingness to stand up for what’s right.

Early samurai, the warriors who practiced Bushido, had at their core a code by which they lived.  One of the seven tenets is that of Rectitude – goodness, living in integrity, doing right.  For me, that’s a level that we humans should all aspire to.  Humanity is doing the right thing, not simply being a bystander w...