Striking That Balance

It's a funny thing, it's almost cliche -in fact it is cliche, that if you want something done, give it to the one who is busy. The challenge for you and me is to powerfully engage in every area of life without being an achieve-ohollic where balance surely doesn't reside but more work surely does.

I'll often say to my clients when faced with a problem, 'How then shall you live?' It is so easy to go full throttle, realize we're out of whack, pull back in an attempt at balance, chill-out a bit too much, become buried in work as a result and decide that life is easier at full throttle -always.

We don't have to get on this pendulum with its false lesson that downtime or sabbatical doesn't work. What we each need to do is slow down enough to consider how we want to engage any aspect and every area of life. It is something I need to do. This summer I built (I do my own work) a treehouse (8' x 14' see photo and note the front porch -you can imagine it is just as much Dad's as the kid's!), doubled the size of the shed, painted a room in the house, refurbished four old fashioned desk/chair 'combos' and the list goes on. Now I'm considering an addition on the house and for fun continuing and continuing my ultra-marathon career. Here is what I've 'decided' to do: Run a 50 mile trail race in July 2010, NYC Marathon in the Fall of 2010, Boston Marathon in the Spring of 2011 and end this streak by running in my dream race... the 2011 Western States 100 (http://ws100.com/).

Man it's hard to say no to all of that fun in building projects and racing but with two little boys at home, a wife, my profession and other priorities, it is also hard to to say no to them. I know I'm more productive when I'm challenging myself and doing a lot. But it-is-so-tempting to just keep piling it on, isn't it -deal with or consider the consequences another time? I need to ask myself: So, you like to run, you like to build, you like... You also like time with your boys, etc. You can't do everything you'd like to do. So then, Ron, How SHALL you live? It's my choice... Oh to not have to think about this!

What Compromises Achievement is...

It's 1:30PM Friday July 24 -and I have a dream.

What am I doing about it? I'm researching online, I'm thinking about what I need to do in a couple of hours, I'm considering another little construction project at home. Not a good plan.

There are so many ways to compromise the life we want to experience and things we'd like to achieve. I'd like to touch on one thing. The stall.

Yeah, better known as procrastination, the stall is a something people get really good at. And right now I'm excelling at! We are experts at kicking up a bunch of dust to make it look like we are working hard and focused. Yet as much as I want this dream of being an edgy motivational/educational speaker, I stall. I've been doing the 'working diligently coupled with the stall' tactic for a few weeks now. Now don't get me wrong, I'm making progress but just as I'm getting close to being ready to go, I sidestep my dream and my destiny. Suddenly the kitchen needs paint, the shed could be larger (I put an addition on it 3 weeks ago) and I should really... -fill in the blank with a nifty home improvement project! Honestly, if you come to my house and you can smell fresh paint all over and see new concrete and freshly utilized lumber -I am probably stalling.

What do you do to stall in your life? Hey, doing work to make the house look nicer and easier to live in is valid. It's just not valid when there are more important things to do. So, there's a bit of my dirty laundry. What do you do to avoid living your dream...your legacy?

How to Leave a Legacy...

As I was creating the Uncompromised Achievement (UA) model and trying to keep it really simple, what kept coming up for me was that everyone wants meaning in their lives. Everyone wants, no, yearns, to know that their life meant something. People not following that urge have hundreds of ways of suffocating that urge or medicating themselves from the pain of not living the life they are called to live -but make no mistake, everyone yearns to leave a positive legacy of some kind.

However what I want to talk about tonight is the very silly way that the recipe for leaving a legacy came to me. I called and left a message with my graphic designer Lorena Vogeler (www.elevedesign.com) to add something to my site. I told her to add to the page that explained the UA model, that UA allows or facilitates people leaving a legacy. Lorena is Venezuelan. So, say 'leaving' in your best Spanish accent -go ahead. The next day I checked her/our work and found that she'd not done as I'd asked. Instead she wrote, 'Living a Legacy'. At first I was frustrated as this was one of the final edits before the new site went live. Then I read it again and laughed as I realized what had happened. If you say 'live' with a Spanish accent, it sounds like leave! In this folly, I found a very important piece of my core beliefs and coaching philosophy. The way to leave behind a meaningful legacy is to right now, LIVE A LEGACY!

We can tend to dream about tomorrow and put off today's work. This won't do if you or I am to live a life of Uncompromised Achievement. I'm guilty of this kind of procrastination (ug.). More to come on this but, I've got a speech in me that needs to come out. It is a major expression of what I hope my legacy to be. ...and I'm falling a bit short of living that legacy today. Like I said, more to come.

Where's my coach when I need her??

What?! Another Personal Growth Model?

The reason I came up with this 'model' (I put it in quotes so as to not take it too seriously) was that I needed a way to visually capture my philosophy around both living and leaving a legacy. You can click the link called Uncompromised Achievement (on the right) to read more about the model.

There really aren't new fundamentals or basics or principles for personal and professional (not to mention social) success and happiness. Marketing may present ideas as new, but the truth is, that new colors, a new way to say what people are needing to/wanting to hear...are just a repackaging of what people have known for millennia.

Our job is to hear and rehear these lessons, not to become perpetual students, but to be inspired to apply that which we know more frequently -so that we can better make a difference while we're here. This web site and the entries to follow are my humble effort to grow myself and my readers.

More to come...

RR