The biggest competition is myself. I am not looking to follow others or pull them down. I'm planning to test my own boundaries.”

                                                                   Rain, South Korean singer, songwriter

About 4 years into the owning of my martial arts studio, I experienced, what I felt at the time was a true business crisis. 

One evening, a friend and fellow martial arts instructor called me to tell me had a received a promotional fax (yes, this story happened a while ago) announcing the opening of a competitive martial arts school just a mile east of my school’s location. 

Not only was this a competitive school, but it was part of the largest, most successful martial arts school chain not only in Denver, but in the entire country.

During his call, fear, anxiety and worry flooded my mind. 

What was I to do?  I had worked so hard to bring my business to a point where it was finally experiencing success and was that all going to go away...

"People don’t buy because what you do is awesome. People buy because it makes them feel awesome."                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        – Tara Gentile 

In 1995, I left my position as a corporate sales manager of a Fortune 100 company to follow my dream of owning a professional martial arts studio.  It was both the most exhilarating and terrifying time of my life. 

When I left, I took my decade of experience and success in a large corporate environment with me.  However, I soon learned that the world of entrepreneurship and small business was much different from my corporate experience in one key area - guarantee of compensation.  

In the corporate world, although my compensation was ultimately predicated on my performance, if I occasionally had a bad sales call or mish...

"Luck is when preparation meets opportunity" 

                                                                          - Seneca

It is the fall of 1980; my high school football team is preparing to take on one of our arch-rivals.  Both teams are 6-0 and whoever wins the game is in the driver's seat for the conference championship - and we've got them at our home stadium.  

It's minutes before kickoff and my teammates and I are high up above the playing field in an area of the stadium called the team room. 

It is a small, dark and cramped room where all 45 of my teammates and I are quietly making our final mental preparations for the big game. 

It is so quiet you can hear a pin drop as players are either silently sitting or pensively pacing back and forth to insure, they have the mental edge - you can cut the tension with a knife.

Suddenly, our head coach enters the room and gives the most amazing pre-game speech ever delivered.  The room explodes in enthusias...

"I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened."

                                                                                                - Mark Twain

In his landmark book, The Worry Cure, Dr. Robert Leahy, after studying scores of subjects, determined 97% of the things we worry about either never happen or when they do, they are not as bad as we anticipated. 

Imagine how you would live your life if you knew this to be true.

Despite this fact, many of us still can be consumed by worry, preventing us from being in our most optimum state and/or taking the action necessary to live the empowered and prosperous lives we desire and deserve.  When we truly understand that worry is actually “imagination wasted”, our lives will transform.

Here are six strategies that can assist you in overcoming worry and transform you from being a worrier in your problems to a true warrior in life.

1. Slow down and breathe – One of the fir
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“Perfectionism is focused on ‘doing the thing right’, how things APPEAR, and if OTHERS think it’s done right.  Excellence is about ‘doing the right thing’. It is focused on the REASON for a task, and the RESULTS for it to be a success.”

                                                                                                          - Marc Winn

Question:  "What's our goal?"

Answer:  "Black Belt Excellence, sir!"

For the past two decades, I have ended every martial arts class I have taught; whether it was with a group of White Belt kids or a class of seasoned adult Black Belt instructors with the question and subsequent response above. 

"What's our goal?......"Black Belt Excellence, sir!"   

On numerous occasions, I have explained to students the meaning and importance of this question and refrain. 

Although we may seek perfection in our professions, our relationships, our school studies and our martial arts training, it is really the quest for excellenc...

"Gritty people train at the edge of their comfort zone. They zero in on one narrow aspect of their performance and set a stretch goal to improve it." 

                                                                                      - Angela Duckworth

Comfort Zones.  How many times have you heard you need to get out of your comfort zone(s) to achieve the results you desire? 

Authors, coaches and teachers have told us for decades that in order to really realize our dreams, we need to go beyond our comfort zones.

I totally agree. 

In fact, when I think of my own life and when I experienced my greatest results and feelings of satisfaction, it was always preceded with moving out of one of my comfort zones in some way, shape or form.

I also think that comfort zones get a bad rap. 

When I want to relax after a hard day's work and maybe curl up with a good book, flip on ESPN's Sports Center, or connect with a friend/family member, I am in my comfort zone. 

The...

No matter how busy a man is, he is never too busy to stop and talk about how busy he is.”

                                                                                         - SearchQuotes.com

Busy-ness. 

When you think about it, it has really become an obsession for us in our culture - a badge of honor, so to speak. 

The next time you are in a conversation with a friend or business associate, be aware of how many times the conversation begins or includes your expression of how busy you are.  

Busy-ness can become a driving force in our lives, particularly when we identify with it strongly or allow it to dictate how we show up in our professional and personal relationships.

Interestingly enough, super-coach, Steve Chandler often quips,

"Busy-ness is the surest sign of laziness."

He explains this by saying that most people focus on the mundane, unproductive tasks of their lives to appear being busy so they can avoid taking on the projects or tasks that ...

“No one can do it for you, but you can’t do it alone.”

                                                    - Anonymous

There are a lot of men hurting out there.

The issues impacting men are numerous.  These include, but are not limited to relational, emotional, financial and career pressures all while struggling to understand what it truly means to be a man in today’s world. 

The root cause of these challenges often begins early in life during boyhood and get buried rather than expressed.  Most young men are discouraged from asking for help and encouraged to push through and take care if it themselves as “real men don’t ask for help.” 

The negative impact of this norm is that as men develop, their problems and issues continue to go unnoticed or untreated and eventually surface and/or release in painful and destructive ways.

If you don’t believe me, consider this…….

• Men are 3X as likely to become addicted to drugs/alcohol as women
• Young men are 40% less likely t
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“(A) process orientation (versus outcome orientation) . . . asks ‘How do I do it?’ instead of ‘Can I do it?’ and this directs attention toward defining the steps that are necessary on the way. This orientation can be characterized in terms of the guiding principle that there are no failures, only ineffective solutions.”

                                                                                       - Ellen Langer, Mindfulness

Think of the last time you faced a major challenge in your life.  You may be at that place right now as you read this. 

How many times are we caught up in the mind game of whether we can successfully tackle a challenging situation?  Our minds can go in all types of crazy directions that cause us to delay our actions, bring us upset and ultimately cause us to miss opportunities because we doubt our ability to succeed. 

This is most often rooted in us just focusing on the outcome of the situation and not the process we can move through to transce...

“You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.”

                                                                            - Carl Gustav Jung

Welcome to the final installment of our three-part series entitled, “The 3 C’s of Creating Breakthroughs.”

In our first segment, I discussed “C number one” which is to Clarify Your Vision. 

Last week I discussed the “Second C” of Creating Your Plan, which comprised of the following four elements. 

• Begin with the end in mind – then break it down
• Identifying who can hold you capable in breaking through
• What obstacles to you need to plan for? And…
• What celebration will you take part in when you achieve breakthrough?

If you would like to take a deeper dive into these and other principles to achieving breakthroughs, download my free report…

The Top Ten Big Ideas to Creating Breakthroughs

In part three of this series, we will explore the “final C”, Consistent Action.

I love the opening quote from Carl ...