The Four Agreements, bestselling author don Miguel Ruiz reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering. Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, The Four Agreements offer a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform our lives to a new experience of freedom, true happiness, and love. In the book The Four Agreements has sold over 52 million copies and is printed in 38 languages. Who are the Toltecs you might ask? Beginning in the 12th century, the invasion of the nomadic Chichimec destroyed the Toltec leadership in central Mexico. Among the invaders were the Aztecs, or Mexica, who destroyed Tollan about the mid-12th century. See also Mesoamerican civilization.

First, here they are:

1. The First Agreement: Be Impeccable with Your Word
2. The Second Agreement: Don’t Take Anything Personally
3. The Third Agreement: Don’t Make Assumptions
4. The Fourth Agreement: Always Do Your Best

Alright. Now in a little more detail.

The First Agreement: Be Impeccable with Your Word. What’s that mean? Well, Don Miguel tells us that the word “impeccable” literally means “without sin.” In this context, we’re talking about being in integrity with your highest self. To not “sin” against that best version of you. Starting with how you communicate with yourself and others.

In short: No complaining. No criticism. No blaming. No gossiping. Ever.

It’s “the most important one and also the most difficult one to honor. It is so important that with just this first agreement you will be able to transcend to the level of existence I call heaven on earth.”

The Second Agreement: Don’t Take Anything Personally. Don’t take anything personally? Yah. Don’t take anything personally. Period. Fact is, how someone responds to you often says more about THEM than it says about you.

As Ruiz says: “Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves.”

The Third Agreement: Don’t Make Assumptions. Want a quick way to get in trouble? Make assumptions about someone else’s behavior. Notice how often we do that. And, do we assume the best? No. We assume the worst.

Solution: “The way to keep yourself from making assumptions is to ask questions. Make sure the communication is clear. If you don’t understand, ask. Have the courage to ask questions until you are as clear as you can be.”

The Fourth Agreement: Always Do Your Best. Don Miguel tells us that it’s the Fourth Agreement that brings the prior three to life. Want to engrain your new way of being? Do your best. Moment to moment to moment.

And, remember that sometimes your best will be ridiculously awesome. And, at other times it won’t be so awesome.

But: “Under any circumstance, always do your best, no more and no less. But keep in mind that your best is never going to be the same from one moment to the next. Everything is alive and changing all the time, so your best will sometimes be high quality, and other times it will not be as good.”

Which one of these four agreements need some extra work in your life and leadership. Pick One – Let’s go out and make a difference in our world.

In Born for This, Chris Guillebeau tells us that, according to legend, Warren Buffet once gave a struggling friend a three steps process for setting goals. Here’s the quick look.

1. Start by writing down 25 things you’d like to do in your life.
2. Circle the Top 5 goals.
3. Throw away the other 20 goals and focus on tasks that relate to the Top 5.

As Chris says: “The principle is that you can’t work hard on 25 important things at once. You might think that the other 20 are still important, just not as important as the top five. But no — Buffett’s advice is to run away from the non-circled items as fast as you can. By choosing only five life goals, you’ll be far more invested in achieving them.”

I feel this is an important exercise for all industries and especially the faith community that I have been part of all of my life. Everything cannot be urgent and equally important at the same time. Nothing becomes urgent and important when we do this. I am not good at everything, but I am good at a few things. Therefore, I have vested myself in the disciplines and financial investments to become better on a daily basis. Greatness is not achieved with FREE – “I will not give unto the Lord anything that costs me nothing.”

When I have clarity in my life, energy, family, and service goals come into view. When I am the clearest in these three areas, I find that I am the most effective with others in my sphere of influence. Become clear in the things that fire passion in your heart. What is it that you would pay to do because you are that passionate?

Stephen Covey stated that we should pay attention to our Roles and Goals. If we leave this open-ended, there are an infinite variety of roles and goals to pursue. So let’s narrow this down to the BIG Three roles and goals – ENERGY + FAMILY + SERVICE = Successful Living!

Energy. For me, it ALL starts with Energy. If I have a tough time getting out of bed in the morning, I’m going to have a tough time living optimally. Therefore, I prioritize making sure my Energy is strong.

Family. Why do I want to feel radiantly alive and energized? First and foremost, I want to be an exemplary husband and father. I’m the only one in the world who can be a great husband to my wife and father to my children. In the midst of striving to do great things and make a difference in the world, it’s easy to forget that it all starts at home.

Service. The other reason I keep my energy strong is to be of service. I want to be, in the words of the French movement philosopher Georges Hébert , “Fit to be useful.”

This three step process begins with this question: Identify what you at your best looks like in these three categories? Then capture these thoughts in each category; when I am at my best I….

ENERGY: It starts with proper eating and sleeping habits. Nothing zaps your energy like processed foods, sugars and a string of late nights and later mornings. Get in the habit of clean eating and scheduled sleep. Couple this with exercise bursts throughout the day and your energy level will stay up.

The benefits (aka “The Why” a la Nietzsche’s “He who has a strong enough why can bear almost any how.”): I am radiantly alive. I am grounded. Powerful. Calm. Confident. Energized.

FAMILY: Me at my best: I am an exemplary husband and father. I love to work and create. AND I’m committed to being a great husband and father. An exemplar. That standard fires me up. The benefits: Joy. Presence. Love. Kindness. Patience. Consistency. Celebrating my 50th anniversary with my Love. The #1 thing you can do every day to make that happen: Quality time one-on-one with your children EVERY day. Defined as at least 30 minutes (target 60 during week and hours on weekend) of just me and them.

SERVICE: I desire to be a exemplary teacher and community leader. I am committed to using my God-given gifts as a force for heroic good while continuing to study, embody and teach wisdom I love and making a difference in our faith community. There is GREAT JOY in doing what you were put on this earth to do!

Last week we looked at the W.O.O.P. process to crush your goals daily. This week I want to examine Ray Dailio’s Five Steps To Success. Examine these thoughts against your daily habits to see if there is room for improvement.

Ray Dalio is one of the most successful people alive. Time magazine says he’s one of the 100 most influential people on the planet while Fortune magazine says his company (Bridgewater Associates) is the fifth most important private company in the U.S. and Forbes tells us he’s one of the 100 wealthiest people alive. In his book, Principles: Life, Dailio discusses his five-step process of obtaining your goals in life. Let’s see how we are doing in crushing our work daily.

Step 1. We need Goals. What do you want? Get clear. Visualize it. Know your why.

Step 2. Identify the Problems you’re facing that are preventing you from reaching your goal. Most (unsuccessful) people (with a fixed mindset) like to pretend that they’ll be able to achieve their goals without hiccups. The best among us, Dalio tells us, KNOW they will face obstacles and use them as fuel to evolve.

Step 3. Diagnose the problem. What’s at the root of your problems? Get clear.

Step 4. Design a solution to the problem. What do you need to do to solve the riddle? As Dalio would put it, build a “machine” that will solve your problem.

Step 5. Get to work Doing what needs to be done.

So, again. Goals. Problems. Diagnosis. Design. Doing.

Dailio’s five step process is a great tool when  we process this through the lens of scripture. After all it is our guiding foundational document by which our decisions are made. Let’s crush today and everyday – impacting our world with the most needed message of hope!

This is about insecure leaders that have a hard time making effective choices on behalf of their organizations. Quite honestly they fail to make the hard decisions many times. Here are three truths that you must wrestle with in order to become an effective leader.

1. If you need people, you cannot lead people
   1. On the one hand we want to declare that yes we need people. However, I am referring to needing people to do your bidding.
   2. There is a real difference in needing people and leading people to the fulfillment of their dreams.
2. If you have the need for affirmation, you cannot risk making a decision that will make people unhappy.
   1. A leader that gets caught in this trap will always follow the latest polling data and focus group content to keep things steady.
3. Here are five hard choices that you need to make about your leadership and team members.
   1. Put others first – does that need commentary?
   2. Make a difference in other’s lives – why is it so hard to understand as a leader that when you help other people accomplish their dreams they will help you accomplish your dreams?
   3. Show up daily as the best possible version of yourself – stop showing up grouchy and grumpy. Stop being over-bearing with rules and regulations and start loving your team members as humans.
   4. Express gratitude and reject entitlement. You are not the center of your universe.
   5. Be misunderstood for the right reasons.

Author Gabrielle Oettingen suggests in her book, Rethinking Positive Thinking, the W.O.O.P., process – Wish – Outcome – Obstacle – Plan. In other words, we get clarity on our ideal goal or Wish. We get fired up about the Outcome or benefits we would like to experience. Then we rub this hopeful future against potential Obstacles and finally we make a Plan to crush it!

Gabrielle’s husband, Peter, actually came up with the actual strategy to WOOP your day, every day. He called it “Implementation Intentions!” Simply stated, “IF” – “THEN!”

How does this work?

ME: IF I wake up in the morning I will read my Bible and Pray/Meditate. If I wake up in the morning I will Read and Journal. If I wake up in the morning I will do Creative Work before touching digital communications.

YOU: IF_____________________ THEN______________________________

All day. Every Day. Implementation Intentions – W.O.O.P. is where it is at!

Have you heard of Self Determination Theory? It is one aspect of human motivation science on offer these days. Before you think I have jumped off the wagon and have gone full blown pop psychology on you, just hear me out and see if there are not some ideas that could help you in crushing your goals and dreams today.

In Daniel Pink’s book, DRIVE – The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, suggests there are three parts that make up the study of what motivates us. Here they are:

1. Autonomy – The first step is to create a sense of autonomy. In other words realize that you have some say so about your daily activity. Life just doesn’t happen to us without any say so. Pink suggests there is a difference between compliance (doing what you are told to do) and engagement (doing what you chose to do). How are you doing with that?
2. Relatedness – We are wired to feel connected. We need to cultivate a sense of connection with our friends, family, and colleagues. Ultimately, we need to feel a sense of connection to something bigger than ourselves. That friends, is the very definition of religion – linking to something that is bigger than we are. How connected do you feel?
3. Mastery – We are also wired to feel competence and to master tasks and mastering ourselves. The Apostle Paul had a few words to say about self-mastery – making our bodies submit…….!

Autonomy + Relatedness + Mastery

The Big Three of Intrinsic Motivation – go out today and make a difference in your world!

Do I have your attention? Let me ask you a question; What is the average number of times Americans check his/her smartphone?

Answer: Every six and a half minutes!! That is 150 times per day!!

Question #2; How many times do you check your smartphone?

Here is one of the numerous reasons this matters. Considering that smartphone addictions look like other addictions and considering that you waste a lot of time in Shallowville, it is really hard to go deep on any significant work. Researchers state that we are wasting up to eleven years of our life on distractions.

ELEVEN YEARS!!!

Author Adam Alter suggests that people spend 1-4 hours every day on their phones. Outside of sleeping, staying on our phones is the next most significant activity. That is 100 hours per month texting, playing games, surfing the web, reading articles, and checking bank balances. That all adds up to eleven years of your life!!

Do you want to reclaim some time back into your life – as in eleven years? Count how many times you check your phone today!

In his book “Learned Optimism” author Martin Seligman learned something about learned HELPLESSNESS before he began to master the understanding of OPTIMISM. 

Here’s the short story: Decades ago, Seligman was in a lab with dogs. He split them into a couple groups. One group was given shocks but they could figure out how to avoid them easily. The other group was given random shocks that they couldn’t avoid. That was the first part of the study.

For the second part of the study, the dogs were given a shock again but this time it was super easy for all of them to learn how to avoid the shock. The group that easily escaped the shock the first time easily learned the second time.

But, get this.

The group that couldn’t avoid the random shocks in the first part of the experiment, didn’t even try to learn how to escape the shock in the second part — even though it was now super easy to learn. They just curled up in a ball and let the shocks continue.

They had LEARNED HELPLESSNESS. This has been replicated in animals and humans.

Not all people learn helplessness. Some of them, even after being bombarded with “shocks” maintain an empowered response. Seligman wanted to understand what made THEM tick.

He distilled the essence of what he learned into another one of his great books called Learned Optimism. It all comes down to the 3 P’s of Optimism.

Permanence. Let’s say something challenging happens. The Optimist will say, “Bring it on. I’ll crush it and then it will pass.” The Pessimist, on the other hand, says, “Another challenge. This is always going to be difficult.”

Interestingly, when something GOOD happens, the Optimist and the Pessimist flip their orientations. The Pessimist, who was sure the bad thing would be permanent, thinks the good thing will be fleeting. And, vice-versa with the Optimist. Good thing? That’s here to stay!

Pervasiveness. The Optimist is able to isolate the “bad” event into one compartment of their life. If they have a challenging discussion at work, they don’t say, “My whole life stinks.” They don’t make it pervasive the way a Pessimist tends to do.

Again, the opposite happens with the good stuff. It’s only a lucky break in one part of their life for the Pessimist and another sign of all the awesomeness for the Optimist.

(How do you show up?)

Personalization. Then we have the third P. If a bad thing happens, an Optimist is more likely to see the environmental circumstances that might’ve led to the event occurring while the Pessimist will take it all personally. Of course, the Optimist will have a healthy level of “needs work!” ownership when appropriate, but they won’t beat themselves up unnecessarily.

Let’s crush it TODAY!

Charisma.

Most people think it’s something you either have or you don’t have.

But…

That’s a myth.

As Olivia Fox Cabane tells us in The Charisma Myth, research shows that we can ALL learn how to dial up our charisma and become more magnetically connected to those around us. It’s a skill we can learn.

How?

By practicing the three essential components of charisma: Presence + Power + Warmth.

Rule #1 of charisma? PRESENCE. In fact, Stanford’s Emma Seppälä tells us: “Charisma, simply put, is absolute presence.”

Absolute presence. Think about and feel into that for a moment. What is NOT present in this atmosphere?

SMARTPHONES! The chirps from the latest push notifications causes us to become like Pavlov’s dogs that learned to salivate by a conditioned environment.  You know what that tells the person you’re with? That you just don’t care that much about them. And, that’s a great way to kill all connection and charisma.

The second facet of charisma? Power. People are constantly, subconsciously detecting power or a lack thereof. Therefore, if we want to dial up our charisma, we need to dial up our personal power. The easiest way to do that? Your body language. Stand tall, breathe deeply, smile.

The third facet of charisma? Warmth. We may be present and powerful but if the person with whom we’re interacting doesn’t think we’ll use that power for their good then… no charisma. So… Dial up your presence and your power AND your warmth. How? Well, easy. Truly care about the other person. Have a sense of goodwill for them. Want what’s best for them. And beam that love their way.