Wow!  Okay, so it’s July 4th and you might expect something Independence related.  In reality, ALL OF MY WRITING IS ABOUT FREEDOM. You are here to get just a little more personal freedom.  

Two very different thoughts for you in today’s Wednesdays With Wayne:

There seems to be a misconception that High Performance equates to manic activity.  In fact, there’s really nothing that has to be manic about high performance. In my work with the highest performers (executives, entrepreneurs, athletes, parents), I show them how to build to a place of heightened and sustained vitality and productivity.  Hand-wringing and jaw-clenching are not a part of that program!

Here’s something you’re never asked to do:  Check your vibrancy level.
Whether you’re “chillaxing” today or moving forward on your next big project, what energy do you need to be bringing?  How can you bring up the energy just that bit more?

And...

Problems!  This Wednesdays With Wayne looks at how you handle problems.  Let’s start by looking at them. If you took inventory right now, how many problems would you say you have?  

Are you buried by them?  Or are you curious and engaged, even energized by them?  While I’m not suggesting that you find a mental space of such bliss that you have no problems, I am suggesting that a shift in how you look at them makes a difference in the problems themselves.

As you think about your biggest problem (or challenge) right now, what body sensation do you have?  

Try this:

• Get one clear challenge in mind.  The bigger, the better!

Where are you struggling the most?

• • Finance
  • Relationships
  • Career/Job
  • Health
  • Social
  • Other
• Ask:  How could I approach this problem differently?

Put yourself in a position of thinking differently and explore this question from multiple perspectives:

How would I approach this problem if I were:

• • • Oprah...

People ask me where my topics come from for writing Wednesdays With Wayne every week.  They come from you!  When I get questions or see themes emerge in the private clients I work with, I’ve just GOT to make sure this hits your conscious thought process, too.  

“I guess I was just following the rules and didn’t give myself permission to do anything different.”

“I think I just needed permission to think that way.”

Okay!  Permission Granted!
In my first book, Choosing Your Power, chapter three is titled PERMISSION GRANTED.
So many women and quite a few men find themselves apologizing for taking space in the world.  Too often, the “shoulds” imposed by others become the cage that you live in.

Over and over again this past week, the issue of permission to live more fully came up.

So I’ll keep this brief –

→  What thing have you held back from fully exploring or even allowing yourself to think...

You’re pushing to get it all done again, aren’t you?

Yeah… it’s mid-year and there are tons of reasons (or excuses) why you’re pushing so hard.  There’s all that stuff that has been on your “to-do” list. There’s all that stuff that’s looming on your calendar.  

And all of it is important, isn’t it?

It IS important, isn’t it?  

Okay, so there’s the important stuff.  And there’s the urgent stuff. And what we’ve been taught is that we need to handle the urgent right now whether it’s important or not.

The problem is that everything starts to look urgent.  Everything.

Even the unimportant becomes urgent.

And you live your life running from task to task to task to… you get the picture.  You’ve been living it and you forgot to take a breath or two.

So here’s the challenge for your Wednesdays With Wayne:
It’s a couple of action steps....

This past week, I was just in front of a good-sized group of small business leaders discussing the differences between Management and Leadership.   Most of the people-wranglers there commented, in their own way, about finding themselves in this shared place of hopefulness and frustration.

Is this you?

I try to have empathy.
And at the same time, I really want to scream, “Just do your @*!!%! job!!!!”

Balancing the desire to be kind and accessible against the push to just have the team member do their job can tear your insides apart.  (It’s the thing they’re paid to do, why can’t they just do their job?) Beware of letting that frustration spill out.

Welcome to this week’s Wednesdays With Wayne where you’re now exploring how to show that you care while, at the same time, engaging employees (or family members) to do what they’re “supposed to” do.  

In our latest #1 Best Selling Book, Leadership Lessons From...

This process of Dynamic Transitions is dear to my heart as my book by the same name became a #1 International Best Seller (Get It Here).  One of the core foci within the pages is the notion of identifying your values.

Getting from Here To There in this week’s Wednesdays With Wayne.

This one is a simple concept, yet not necessarily that easy.  

What mattered to you 10 years ago?  I mean, what really, REALLY mattered to you?  Was it money? Was it your driving ambition in your career?  Was it sex? Was it family? Think about it, really. You’re not the same person you were ten years ago.  The journey has changed you.

Are the values you held then the same as the ones you hold now?
Some are.  Some aren’t.

That means planning your future needs to be based on future values.

Most people don’t think that way.  Most people don’t recognize that they have shed past values and if they do, they usually fail to recognize that...

You have a responsibility.  

You’re a good person AND you’re probably not showing up as big as you could be.  When was the last time you took your “Good-ness” to the next level? I’m not saying you have to brag about it.  It’s just that I think we all could be that much better to other humans. In this week’s Wednesdays With Wayne, I’ve got a great story to tell you.  It restores faith, just a little, in our humanity.

A few days ago, our youngest daughter was at an event in town.  Her wallet was left on the trunk of a car while she juggled other items.  And after all were packed up and she drove off, she realized what had happened.  Returning to where they had been, they searched the street up and down. The wallet, her wallet with her ID, vital paperwork, and cash… it was all gone.

My wife encouraged her to call the police (non-emergency line) to report that she had lost it and to ask if they...

You’re pretty darn good at what you do.  The people who read my blog are, and you’re here.  That means that you’ve gotten to a level of success, you’ve pushed, and you’ve made a difference.  

Welcome to Wednesdays With Wayne!  Here you’ll look at some key elements to keep you ahead of the game.  The biggest thing to remember:

You’ve come too far to only get this far!
There’s MORE for you!

And… it’s going to take a little more from you.

That means that you need to keep at it.  

Think about any master of their craft.  They never say, “Okay, I’m done. No more practice for me.”  Nope. Professional athletes are out on the field or the court running their drills.  Musicians run their scales. They have outside coaches that give them perspective. And they keep at it.

Complacency is your enemy.
When you get to a place that you feel like you’re good enough, you...

Here’s something that could kill you – it’s known as the phenomenon of putting your attention on something so that it increases the likelihood of colliding with that thing.

This week’s Wednesdays With Wayne focuses on Target Fixation (see what I did there?).  

The phenomenon is so powerful that professional riders and racecar drivers are taught to focus on the road ahead and to keep their eyes and attention off of the wall or the tail light ahead.  Have you ever found yourself drifting to the line when you’re driving while thinking, “stay off the line?” You’ve been affected by Target Fixation.

We are driven toward that which we dwell upon.

Then if that’s the case, extrapolate.  Look at your life – what you focus on comes about.  Why are there so many mean people in the world? Because you’re focusing on mean.  Look at the posts on line that you’ve “liked” and notice what you...

All too often you set off down a path of getting it done… getting it all done… and yet you somehow feel thwarted.  You’re thrown off, stopped by your own doing.

“I can’t submit this, it’s not ready.”

It looks like procrastination.  It feels like a burden. And the process of letting out something that is incomplete makes you feel so horribly vulnerable.

Welcome to this week’s Wednesdays With Wayne!

The truth is, the not-doing actually brings more unfavorable judgment than producing something that’s not “perfect.”

I’m a five-time author with several #1 Best Selling books.  And you know what, I want to go back and fix pieces of each book.  The voice in my head echoes: “I could have done better. That work could have been better.”  And, yes, I probably could have. And yet, when people write to me to tell me how my words have helped them, I once again become the believer in the...