You should be more concerned with with your current trajectory than your current results. …If you want to predict where you’ll end up in life, all you have to do is follow the curve of tiny gains or tiny losses, and you will see how your daily choices will compound ten or twenty years down the line – James Clear

In this new 2018 book, author James Clear suggests that it is easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and yet underestimate the value of making small improvement on a daily basis. He suggests that habits are the compound interest of self-improvement that we engage daily. It is only when you look back years later that you realize the value of good habits and the cost of bad habits.

I am obviously not a commercial airline pilot, but I am told that if you take off from Los Angeles for New York and the nose of the airplane is pointed 3.5 degrees south and if there is no correction you will end up in Washington D.C. instead of New York. What started as 90 inches off course will end being hundreds of miles off course. Do tiny changes end in BIG RESULTS?

How you start this year is more crucial than your accomplishments thus far in life. Take some time and shut off the digital devices you can listen to the inner voice of the soul. Be bold enough to make mid-course corrections! Fear is not an excuse. Failures are not all bad and to be shunned.

Paul Said, Brothers, I have lived my life before God in all good conscience up to this day….. Acts 23:1

You cannot add value to people unless you see them as valuable – Mark Cole

How do you influence without title or position? You start with the “subtle and empathetic approach as your starting position.Direct leading does not work when you are not empowered. You must connect with the heart before you can ask for a hand!

Here are seven tips on increasing your influence.

1. Create Rapport – Start with the person that you desire to influence. You cannot influence where there is no rapport.
2. Listen – Understanding people precedes leading people. Listening builds trust.
3. Ask the right questions – This improves your influence when you have none.
4. Be aware of Body Language – How many times has a meeting ended yet you still need to speak.
5. Sell the Benefits – Adding value versus adding a product will in fact sell a product.
6. Be Relaxed – Stop being so uptight.
7. Invest time – Start by investing in yourself before presenting yourself as knowledgeable

When Helen Keller was asked what is worse than being blind? Her response was; To have sight without vision!

Every leader is answering these questions either consciously or unconsciously. The people that comprise your team are looking at you and asking these questions in their mind about your leadership. One of the laws of leadership is that “People do what people see!” Your team members want to know through your actions and words…..

DO YOU LIKE ME?

CAN YOU HELP ME?

CAN I TRUST YOU?

In his book The 80/20 Principle, author Richard Koch writes, “The 80/20 Principle, like the truth, can make you free. You can work less. At the same time, you can earn more and enjoy more. The only price is that you need to do some serious 80/20 thinking.” The key is the last sentence in this quote, “…do some serious 80/20 thinking.

 We’ve all been exposed to the 80/20 Principle at some point in our lives: The principle states, quite simply, that 20% of efforts lead to 80% of results. Whether you know it as the “Pareto Principle” or the “Principle of Least Effort,” it’s an incredibly powerful concept. 

 It was 1897 when Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist, was studying wealth and income distribution in 19th Century England. During the course of his studies, he discovered that the majority of land and income was controlled by a minority of the population. 

In fact, 20% of the population controlled 80% of the wealth and income. 

On further analysis, mythical lore says that he found that this principle held true not only in different countries and different time periods, but also in contexts such as his garden—where he discovered that 20% of his peapods yielded 80% of the peas that were harvested! 

Since Vilfredo identified the trend, many researchers have been busy pointing out some additional modern applications. 

Check these out: 

20% of criminals account for 80% of crime 

20% of motorists account for 80% of accidents 

20% of your carpet probably gets 80% of the wear 

20% of streets account for 80% of the traffic 

Well, you get the idea! Here is a key take-away, “Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Author Richard koch states it this way, “The few things that work fantastically well should be identified, cultivated, nurtured, and multiplied.”He would go on to state that 20% of what we do leads to 80% of the results; but 80% of what we do leads to only 20%. In effect we are wasting 80% of our time on low-value outcomes!

The goal as we approach the conclusion of this year and prepare for 2019 is to calm down, work less and target a limited number of very valuable goals where the 80/20 principle will work for us. Start with an inventory of where you are and then move into journey. Remember the few things that work fantastically well should be identified, cultivated, nurtured, and multiplied for the new year that is just around the corner.

Please extend your pointer finger and shake it as if you’re lecturing someone — saying something like, “You shouldn’t do this, this and this! Do that, that and that!”

Now, look at your hand and count how many fingers are pointing at the person you’re lecturing and how many fingers are pointing back at you.

Unless you’re missing a digit, you should see one finger pointing at the lucky recipient of your lecture and THREE fingers pointing back at you.

You may want to pay attention to that the next time you’re lecturing someone.

Author Debbie Ford in her book, The Dark Side of The Light Chasers, writes that this practices is a really handy way to notice our “shadow” — the stuff we haven’t integrated in our own lives that, unfortunately, we tend to project onto others.

She tells us to “attend our own lectures” because, more often than not, whatever lecture we’re giving someone else is the one WE desperately need to attend. The next time that we put our professor’s cap and start lecturing a loved one, co-worker, or a perfect stranger, pause for a moment and imagine yourself as the student that is diligently taking notes on your own lecture. Start doing whatever it is that you are lecturing others about.

Start living with passion about the things that you enthusiastically are lecturing others on!

Joseph Campbell once said that we cannot have a resurrection without a crucifixion.

Think about that for a moment.

If you want to be “resurrected” into the next, best version of yourself, you must first DIE to the current version.

And, last time I checked, crucifixions are painful.

It’s especially hard to nail (!) yourself up to your own cross.

But, alas, that’s what we MUST do if we want to live heroically. Brian Johnson writes that we must be willing to leave the land of the familiar (aka our comfort zone) and re-enter the forest of the unknown right at the darkest point (aka our discomfort zone) — letting go of the life we had planned for ourselves so we can create the life that is destined for us.

Campbell also tells us that the great life is one hero’s journey after another. Therefore, we must be willing to go through that process of dying to the old and being born into the new AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN.

Good news is that we get a little more graceful each time with go through the cycle. And, yet, the process is still always a little harrowing. As Campbell says, “There is no security in following the call to adventure.”