When Vulnerable is Good!

- by Jaime Willis

Don't let anyone tell you differently -- being a goal-driven achiever is hard.

How many times have you written out New Year's Resolutions or birthday promises or just went to bed on a Sunday evening promising to be better and do more the following day, week, month or year?

What makes it so hard is taking those dreams and ideals and really allowing yourself to be vulnerable and open to new experiences that take you outside of your comfort zone.

It is hard to walk into the gym's fitness class with a scary name like "Power Lifting" or "Boot Camp Booty" and make it through for the first time.

It is hard to go out on date after date in the hopes of making that one special connection.

It is hard to look for a job that better fits your needs and desires and get rejected time and again.

It is hard. I know--I feel that way about my goals regularly.

But here's the thing--the same vulnerability you feel when you open yourself up to new ideas and new experiences is what allows you to have the amazing success you are wishing for.

You might look silly the first few classes, but Boot Camp Booty isn't going to kill you. But what a sense of accomplishment you'll have when you get through the whole class--I'll bet you feel so powerful!

You might have a lot of bad dates, but if you keep leaving the door open, I bet the right person will eventually come into your life.

You might get rejected for lots of jobs, but what a great feeling when you finally find the job that fits you and are energized and surrounded by folks that make each day better than the next.

Next time you shy away from your goals because you are feeling scared and vulnerable, give yourself an extra push to meet the challenge head on. You don't have to succeed your first (or second, or third...) try, you just have to try. You'll be amazed at how great you feel for making the effort.

For a great discussion about the power of vulnerability, please watch Brene Brown's Tedx Houston talk. She is a great resource on the vulnerability and the power of imperfection.

One song that inspires me to get vulnerable is Garth Brook's "Standing Outside the Fire."

"Life is not tried, it is merely survived if you're standing outside the fire."

Let me know in the comments how you will stand in the fire as you achieve your goal.

Be Strong

- by Matt Leedham

“You are only as strong as your purpose, therefore let us choose reasons to act that are big, bold, righteous and eternal.” - Barry Munro

Quick disclaimer: I typically research the quotes I use to be sure that proper credit is given. However, I have Googled and Wiki’ed the heck out of Barry Munro and cannot seem to find a note or description of who this person is or when he said this, but he is credited in multiple locations for this quote. If you have information on Mr. Munro, leave a comment!

Regardless of who Barry Munro is, his words are important to those that seek to set meaningful goals in their lives. In fact, it is perfectly aligned with my post from last week (Dare to be Powerful). The point being, all of us have the potential to be as powerful, strong, and influential as we want to be…all in service of our purpose and vision.

Munro goes on to say “let us choose reasons to act that are big, bold, righteous and eternal.” Don’t be confused. Don’t be intimidated. Don’t think this means that you need to be the next Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, or Mother Theresa. Your purpose doesn’t need to be ending world hunger, or stopping social genocide (although, hooray for you if it is!). We all have the ability to be strong in our own personal sphere of influence.

Your purpose from which you choose to act may be building a strong family, helping those in your community, sharing your thoughts and creativity with the world, bringing people together collaboratively, or being a great friend to those around you. Whatever your purpose may be, chose reasons to act that are BIG and bold. You might just be surprised how strong you really are.

Please share your thoughts on purpose in the comment section below.

Just Do It

- by Matt Leedham

There comes a time when all of the writing, thinking, planning, etc. just needs to be put aside. Sometimes, it all comes down to one thing: action.

Four winters ago, before my wife and I were married, we walked home one January evening after dinner in Dupont Circle (Washington, DC). It must have been 15-20 degrees that night. And it was windy. As we approached my building, my wife noticed a man at the top of some stairs leading to a service entrance of the hotel across the street from my apartment. He was curled up in a ball, with no coat or blanket, visibly shivering. My fiancé (at the time) demanded that we do something. She was right. He might not have made it through the night. We called the city’s hypothermia hotline, grabbed a thick wool blanket from the apartment and ran back outside to let him know that help was on the way.

Ever since that night, my wife and I have casually talked about doing a coat drive among our networks of friends and colleagues. Every year around the holidays it kept coming up, but we never took action. There was always so much going on at work, or with family, or with travel. The usual excuses.

• Eight weeks ago in reflecting on my personal core values and what I wanted to accomplish in the coming year, I wrote down the goal of having a coat drive.
• Six weeks ago, I reviewed my goals and told my wife about it.
• Four weeks ago, I expanded on that goal, jotting down some ideas about next steps.
• Two weeks ago, I started telling some people about my plans.
• Last week I realized I hadn’t done anything about it and the depths of winter were approaching rapidly.
• This past weekend, disappointed that I still had not moved the ball forward, I committed to taking action on Monday.
• Yesterday, I made 3 phone calls: 1) to my friend who used to work in the wine industry, 2) to another friend who is a phenomenal amateur chef, and 3) to a non-profit dedicated to helping feed and clothe the homeless in the District.
• Today, my wife and I will be sending out an Evite to 50 friends and colleagues inviting them to our house on December 18^th for our First Annual Holiday Wine Tasting for the Homeless. Price of admission = $20 + all the lightly used winter clothing they can find in their homes.

When I boil all of this down and distill it into the truth, I find that making this dream a reality required me to make 3 phone calls and send one invitation. That’s about it. All together, maybe 30 minutes of my time.

Sometimes, you need to “just do it.” We all have resources and networks at our fingertips. We all have the ability to make things happen. Just do it. If you don’t think you have the resources to pull something like this off (or some other big idea you have), I challenge you. By virtue of reading this, you have the same resources I do. Just ask.

What about money, you say? Well the $20/person will cover the cost of the wine. The food is our holiday gift to our friends, family, and colleagues. And the winter clothing is free to collect and donate. Don't let money be an excuse. It's just a brain-teaser with many possible solutions.

The world can ill afford to wait for you to act. You have what you need. It is time to apply your education, knowledge, experience, and resources to improve humankind.

I wrote this one day in my journal a few months ago. The other day, it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Just do it.

So, what goal or dream do you have that's just been lying around collecting dust? Leave us a note or a story in the comment section below.

Optimism May Save Your Life

- by Jaime Willis

"It's Impossible," said Pride.

"It's Risky," said Experience.

"It's Pointless," said Reason.

"Give it a try," whispered the Heart.

I've spent the last week in a bit of an emotional upheaval. I called my Grandma on Wednesday evening to chat, only to find out that my Grandfather's health had taken a turn for the worse. Grandpa's cancer was back with a vengeance and his oncologist told the family there was nothing more Grandpa could do but to go home "and wait." Instead of blindly accepting a death sentence, the whole family went into "Get 'er Done" mode. This past Friday, after a squeezed-in appointment with a world-renowned cancer doctor twelve and half hours away from my Grandparent's home, Grandpa was given a new medical regimen with a 70% success rate! While Grandpa is not yet out of the woods, it is incredibly encouraging to learn that there is a viable treatment available!

Other than providing Grandpa with a fantastic medical treatment, the Doctor shared with us another secret to all of our health.

Be Optimistic.

It's that simple. In a 2004 Dutch study, almost one thousand 65 - 85 year olds were tested to determine their relative levels of optimism (vs. pessimism). Then these patients were tracked for ten years, in which time 397 of the 941 patients died. What is fascinating about the study is that the pessimists died at almost double the rate of the optimists! This study has been repeated several times, with similar results. Researchers are still unsure why optimists fare better in life, but it's a fact that optimists live longer lives.

Pessimists not only see the glass as half-empty, but also spend a lot of their time worrying about what bad thing is coming their way next, so they don't really even enjoy life when it is going well. Optimists, on the other hand, live happily through the good times, and remain uplifted during the tough times by believing that there is an answer or a way through their problems.

Here is proof positive that priming yourself to succeed is not only helpful for goal-setting, but may be life-saving!

So, what do you have to be happy about today? Leave us a note or a story in the comment section below.

Dare to be Powerful

- by Matt Leedham

“When I dare to be powerful – [that is] to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

- Audre Lorde (American Poet, Teacher and Activist; 1934-1992)

This is an interesting quote as it addresses many components of personal goal setting in just one short sentence. Let’s start at the end and move backwards.

“…it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” I addressed fear in two separate posts recently because fear is a critical piece of success. Fear, and the ability to overcome it, seems to be a common trait among people that achieve great things in life. And while I had been suggesting that you become more and more comfortable with it, Lorde is suggesting that you can simply make fear less and less relevant in your life. But how?

“…use my strength in the service of my vision…” To use your strength, you must first know your strength. Through my experience in working with others, I find that there is a standard gap between having a strength, and knowing that strength. To know yourself comes from a deep respect and acceptance of who you are, at the core, and can be achieved through personal reflection, or exercises to elicit your core values, tendencies, preferences, and behavioral and thinking styles. That’s why, at Velocity, we spend a significant amount of time focusing on core values in the beginning of our live courses. It’s the foundation for moving forward and is critical to understand about yourself.

The second part of this section of the quote is about vision. What does it mean to have a “vision?” You may hear about vision and mission statements in corporate settings, and it’s not much different in your personal life. A vision is an image or a picture of where you want to be at a future date. Some people prefer to think 1 year out, and others think 3 years out. I generally advise people not to think out much further than that, as things can change so much and the vision can become blurry. The key to having a vision is to imagine it and write it down with such vivid detail that it seems real. Think of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa – the beauty is in the detail. That’s why some people refer to your personal vision as your “painted picture.”

When you know yourself and your strengths, and have a clear, vivid image of where you want to go, can you see how fear becomes less relevant? Can you see how emotional challenges and obstacles begin to melt away? Can you see how material challenges and obstacles, while very real and tangible, become puzzles through which you need to find alternate solutions? Living with confidence in knowing who you are and where you want to go is very liberating.

And finally, can you see how this “knowing of yourself” and this “visioning” can be quite powerful?

Dare to exercise the strengths you have. Dare to use those strengths in service of your vision. You can overcome fear and achieve great things. Dare to be powerful, my friends.

How have you used your strengths in service of your vision? Share your thoughts and stories below and leave a comment!

Strategies & Actions

- by Jaime Willis

This past Saturday, we held our first live Introductory Goal Setting Workshop! It was a lot of fun for Matt and I, and the participants had a blast too. If you missed it, no worries--we already have two additional workshops scheduled for December 11 and January 8, so sign-up today!

At Saturday's workshop, one of the questions participants asked was that we speak in a bit more detail about the difference between Strategies and Actions.

The backstory -- you should already have identified a SMART goal that you want to work on based on your Core Values and your Personal Vision. For the purposes of our discussion, let's assume your SMART goal is:

"To Make Two International Trips in the year 2011."

Strategies are like the big buckets you need to focus on to accomplish your SMART goal. What are some strategies for the goal above?

1) Choose trip locations & dates

2) Create trip budgets & savings plans

3) Research more about trip locations

4) Plan key outcomes for trips

5) Deal w/ Trip Logistics

If I want to make two international trips next year, I need to cover each of the areas mentioned above--I have to know where I am going, how I am paying for it, what it's like where I am going, what I want to do when I get there, and figure out the logistics of the trips (visas, shots, guides, packing, time off of work, traveling companions, plane tickets, accommodations, etc.).

Actions are all the steps you will need to take to complete a specific strategy. Since I already know where I am going (South Africa in February, Portugal in September), let's focus on the budget. In order to budget for the trips (Strategy #2), I need to take the following actions.

1) Confirm trip dates and price out airfare on those dates.

2) Research & price out accommodations for those dates.

3) Research cost of ground transportation for both trips (will I need to rent a car? If not, how much should I anticipate spending in taxis and other public transport?)

4) Know how far the US Dollar goes in each location. (This will help me estimate costs for food, experiences, and shopping).

5) Total up estimated expenses. Add 10-20% to each trip total, depending on how good

you are at sticking to your budgets on vacation.

6) Create a funding timeline -- usually, airfare needs to be bought month(s) in advance, so that is a large upfront cost. Accommodations are usually just reserved, but sometimes a deposit must be put down. Then, you need to have money saved to take on the trip.

7) Figure out how much you need to save each month to meet your budget, and where the money is coming from (in my case, I get a lot of my travel funding by doing paid consulting work on the side, so knowing how many consulting gigs I need to book and by when is critical).

Each of your action items should have a deadline attached to it, so you know what you need to doing on a monthly, weekly, and even daily basis.

Matt and I recommend that you don't create action items further out than 90 days. As long as your strategies and actions are written out and prioritized, you only need to focus on the things that need to get done now to achieve your goal. In three months, you can re-evaluate your plan and adjust accordingly.

Strategies & Actions are the building blocks to your goal achievement, so get out there & start achieving!

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META: We decided to migrate our Velocity Blog over here to Blogger so folks can interact with us better. Please feel free to comment on our posts, email us and ask questions, or forward blog posts on to your friends. We'd love to hear from you! Thanks for reading. - Jaime

Failure & Courage

- by Matt Leedham

I recently read an ancient proverb that got me thinking about my own fears and anxieties.

“Fear and courage are brothers.”

How true! I would also go so far as to add failure to the equation – surely failure, fear, and courage are all siblings (of a very dysfunctional family).

In a recent post (“Congratulations, You Failed!”), I addressed failure's relationship with success. It would appear that a common trait among the world’s most famous achievers is the ability to fail and keep trying. In fact, the real key to achievement seems to be failing so many times that the average person would give up. But it is at this point that the achiever distinguishes themselves from the average person. It is at this point that the achiever perseveres. He or she learns from the failure one more time…getting just a little closer to success.

But let’s back up for a second and revisit the average person again. I have found, both through personal experience and working with friends and colleagues, that fear of failure is often more of an issue than failure itself. I’m sure you’ve all heard the famous quote made by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 during his inaugural address: “…the only thing we have to fear is, fear itself.” What most people don’t know is that he goes on to say that fear “paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

How true! It is the fear of failure that halts most of our personal progress, achievement, and happiness. If we could all just get comfortable with failure and the fear that comes with the potential of failure, we will have moved mountains in our lives.

So, what it is that allows the great achievers to persevere and the average person to overcome that fear of failure? In one word: courage.

I challenge you to be courageous today. No, that doesn’t mean you need to charge off into the battlefield with reckless abandon like Mel Gibson in Braveheart. Be courageous in your own little way. Look within yourself and identify the fear that sits behind your doubt. What is it about? How can you face that fear today? In what small way can you take one step forward?

“Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try

again tomorrow.” - Mary Anne Radmacher

Believe it. Achieve it

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Please feel free to comment on our posts, email us and ask questions, or forward blog posts on to your friends. We'd love to hear from you! Thanks for reading.