The Right Environment for Success

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Sean Moore | | Leave a comment

people around youYour environment must support your goals! I view our environments as simply who we see and what we experience every day. We often take for granted the influence our environments have on us, for environments by nature are familiar and comfortable. Yet your environment can also become a thief and distract you from focusing on and working toward your goals. If you want to achieve extraordinary results, you need the right people surrounding you, along with a physical environment that supports your goals in life.

It’s impossible to work in complete isolation. Every day, people come in contact with us and vice versa. Undeniably, these people influence our attitudes, our health, and our performance—either in a negative or a positive way.

The people you surround yourself with are more important than you think. The reality is this: as you socialize, work, and simply live, you will likely acquire the attitudes and habits (both good and bad) of the people around you. As strong as you may be, it’s virtually impossible to avoid negative influences forever. That’s why it’s important to surround yourself with the right people.

While negative attitude thieves will rob you of your positive energy, supportive and positive people will do the opposite—they will uphold you as you travel the road to success. Ultimately, being around success-minded individuals creates what researchers call a “positive spiral of success”—these people lift you up, support you, encourage you, and push you along the winding and sometimes difficult road to success.

In the book Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives, authors James H. Fowler and Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis illustrate through their research that the people we surround ourselves with influence aspects of life such as smoking, drug use, drinking, eating, happiness, and overall health. For example, one of their studies revealed that if one of your friends becomes obese, you have a 57% chance of becoming obese as well. Fowler and Christakis argue that this phenomenon is a result of our social networks setting a standard for our lives. In other words, over time, you begin to think, act, and look like the people you surround yourself with. That’s why we need to choose people that influence our habits and our thinking in a positive way—our success depends on it. 

When I was a kid, I played hockey in Western Canada. Every year during tryouts, I started the year barely making the competitive travel team, only to be cut early in the season and demoted to the house league. It was always hard and disappointing when I got cut: being told I wasn’t good enough to skate with the elite travel team was a bitter pill to swallow. However, when I got to the house league, I was the man! I got tons of ice time, was looked to for handling key plays and situations, and was admired by my coaches and fellow teammates. Inevitably, I got called up to the travel team to fill a roster spot when they were short players. I got limited ice time and was really only used by my coaches in non-critical plays (in other words, to give the better players a rest).

I remember always resisting my Dad when he made me take the opportunity to play with the travel team because I was comfortable playing on the house team. The league rules stated that if you played more than five league games with the travel team, they had to carry you on their roster for the remainder of the year. Every year, I ended up getting a roster spot and finishing the season with the elite travel team.

By the end of the season, in an ironic turn of events, I wasn’t the weakest link. Throughout the season, I had grown mentally, my skills had improved, and I was, all around, a better hockey player. Although I may not have been the star of the team, I wasn’t “riding the pine.” By playing with better hockey players, I became better, and that would not have happened if I had stayed comfortable playing in the house league. To this day, I still think about this experience as I work to further my career and personal goals.

I discovered another fascinating study that especially resonates with me because I have young children. This particular study followed the relationships of 500 children with their best friends. The results of the study revealed that children who maintained relationships with high-achieving students got better grades on their own report cards. Furthermore, the additional benefits were remarkable: these students also exhibited a stronger overall motivation toward academic performance and excellence. I remember that my Mom was often concerned with the company I kept as a child and young adult—how right she was to focus on this!

The wrong kinds of people will no doubt deter, dissuade, and distract you from your pursuit of success, yet the opposite is also true: the right kinds of people can propel you further forward. No one succeeds alone, and no one fails alone. Always be aware of the company you keep, and always surround yourself with people that lift you higher. As comedian Lily Tomlin said, “The road to success is always under construction.” Pave your road with the right environment and the right people!

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What Can You Accomplish if You Try?

Posted on February 20, 2014 by Sean Moore | | Leave a comment

every accomplishment“Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.” I love this quote by Gail Devers, a three-time Olympic champion in track and field. This statement perfectly points out that, in order to achieve something, you must believe in yourself, and you must decide to give it a shot. Once you start, your vision, your hard work, your determination, and your dedication will actually get you there. If you want to enjoy success, you just have to make that first decision to try!

Last May, I ran what I thought was my first and last race—the Denver Colfax Marathon. A colleague of mine told me that this would not be my last race and that I would soon want to race again. He was so right! This year, I found myself tackling an even more daunting challenge—running the Moab Red Hot 33K. This is an extreme trail race across the Moab that requires runners to traverse dirt, sand, and rock. Although the distance wasn’t as long as a marathon, the physical toll it took on my body far exceeded what I experienced during my marathon last year.

During my marathon, I ran on even pavement, so I was able to get into a good rhythm and hammer out the 26.2 miles. This race was a whole different beast. The ground conditions were continuously changing—one minute I was slugging through sand or climbing boulders, and the next I was running at awkward angles or even hopping from rock to rock. This race pounded my body from start to finish!

There was a point during the race, when I had about five miles left, that took me to my limit. My cardiovascular endurance was fine—but my legs were so sore that I could not get any relief, regardless of whether I walked or ran. I decided I might as well run and just get the whole thing over with! This tortoise was slow, but I stuck with it and finished in four and half hours.

Have you ever pushed yourself to your limit? If not, you will never know where your limits are. Here’s one thing I learned about myself the day I took on the Moab Red Hot: I have to take risks in order to find my limits, and, many times, I will be able to push past my limits and accomplish things I didn’t know were possible.

Have you been afraid to take on a challenging assignment at work, put your name in the hat for the promotion you’ve always wanted, tackle that fitness goal you’ve dreamed of achieving, or conquer that one BHAG (big, hairy, audacious goal) that’s eluded you? Too often, fear stops us dead in our tracks. Too often, we succumb to negative thinking that takes our dreams and turns them into 101 reasons why we really don’t want to do the thing we aspire to.

Don’t wait until everything is just right. Conditions will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles, and less-than-perfect circumstances. Just take the bull by the horns and get started! With each step you take, you will grow stronger and more skilled, gaining self-confidence and success as you go.

Every time you try to do something, you give yourself a chance: a chance to succeed.

Remember this: as our birthdays pile up and we see our days on this earth coming to an end, we either feel the pressure of our dreams yet to be accomplished (and do something about it!), or we surrender to feelings of desolation.

Fortunately, living our dreams is still within our reach and easier than we think, for all we have to do is make the decision to try. Once you take that first step, your dream becomes less of a dream and begins to morph into reality. The moment you try, you entertain the chance of succeeding and accomplishing your goal.

Do you have a goal?

What have you done to work toward achieving it?

Have you tried to do something today?

“Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try!”

Regarding the Moab Red Hot 33K, I want to first thank my wife and kids for being my biggest fans and cheering me on. I also want to thank my Lifetime Fitness friends for taking part in my journey.

I would like to especially thank Sydney Cornell—my coach for this race. Sydney is an elite triathlete coach with an impressive resume that includes two top 20 finishes at the World Championships in Kona and a ranking in the top 5% of worldwide Ironman athletes for her age group in 2013. Sydney taught me so much about how to train, how to use nutrition to maximize performance, and how to coordinate cross training to ensure I would be prepared for the race. All the while, she encouraged me and believed in me. If you ever need a coach to help you reach an epic fitness goal—and you have the courage to make the decision to try—Sydney can help you. You too can learn from her what I did: “You are a lot better than you think you are, and you can do a lot more than you think you can!” If you would like more information on Sydney as a coach, you can contact her through her LinkedIn profile.

Lastly, I want to congratulate Watson Cornell, Sydney Cornell, Lydia Cornell Bourke, and Michael Groaning for finishing this grueling race! Nicely done, team!

sean trail run2

 

 

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Great Listening = Great Sales

Posted on February 13, 2014 by Sean Moore | | Leave a comment

time to listenOne thing many people don’t know about me is that I am, by nature, a very shy person. With the extensive travel requirements that came along with my job, I became very reliant over the years on my wife’s social network. I’ve never really liked going to large social gatherings and meeting a lot of new people. To be honest, situations like that can be very draining for me since they require me to flex my personality and deal with my shyness.

You’re probably wondering how someone who is shy makes a career in sales! We all have weaknesses, and we tend to try to eliminate them or change ourselves in order to become better.

What if, instead of trying to eliminate our weaknesses, we embraced them for what they can offer?

Hidden in our weaknesses are our strengths. Every weakness has a corresponding strength. The idea here is simple: instead of trying to change your weaknesses, accept them and leverage your associated strengths.

Some years ago, I did just that and decided to embrace my shyness instead of trying to overcome it. I took a different approach that completely melted away any anxiety I had when I met new people. Here’s what I did: when in a large group or around new people, I focused on simply asking questions and summarizing what the other person said, inserting my own thoughts and opinions when appropriate. To my amazement, no one ever noticed I was shy or that I was just asking questions and listening! Each person I talked to seemed pleased that I was listening to them without interruption.

One of the greatest skills a salesperson can have is the ability to ask good questions and listen—and I mean really listen—to what customers are saying. Too often, I see salespeople ask a question but never really listen for an answer—unfortunately, these salespeople miss important cues that would lead to good followup questions. They often jump into their pitch and try to fix a problem that really isn’t even the customer’s main issue.

David Sandler teaches us that people buy on emotions rather than buying as a result of rational thinking. In order to get to a customer’s real issues (often called “real pain”), we must get personal and individual. For example, many salespeople focus on a technical problem or on the financial aspects of a product. I am not saying a salesperson will lack success selling to those two levels of pain, but, to increase your close ratio, you need to get to the next level of pain: personal pain. Simply put, a potential buyer that has a personal investment in the problem being resolved is far more likely to walk side by side with the seller throughout the sales process. Getting absolute commitment from buyers boils down to finding a way to address their personal priorities.

Do you want to influence people and close more deals? Listen closely—connecting with your customer begins with listening.

People often think it’s the salesperson with the utmost charisma that does well in sales; however, I would argue that the very best salespeople are the ones who ask good questions, listen attentively, and then ask thoughtful, strategic followup questions that get to the root issues for their customers. Furthermore, don’t be afraid of silence. Silence is good, for it allows you time to think and articulate your thoughts more effectively. And often, silence can be the sign that you’ve asked a good question.

How do you feel when someone interrupts you? Frustrated? Annoyed? Disrespected? Interruptions are distractions and can derail a sales call in an instant. When you interrupt your clients, you run the risk of communicating to them that they are insignificant. Give your customer the courtesy of your undivided attention—this will earn their respect!

The best sales calls I have observed follow this general rule of thumb: the salesperson spends 75 percent of his or her time listening, 10 percent of his or her time thinking about what the customer said, and 15 percent of his or her time actually talking. A salesperson that is talking more than 50 percent of the time is talking too much, never identifying the customer’s personal pain and, most of the time, not achieving the desired business outcome.

As Stephen Covey once said, “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” If you want greater success in closing deals, spend less time talking and more time listening!

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What’s in Your Boat?

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Sean Moore | | 2 Comments

row boatI’m currently reading a book called That’s Outside My Boat: Letting Go of What You Can’t Control by Charlie Jones and Kim Doren. Charlie Jones was a well-known sportscaster for NBC. In 1996, he was at the Olympic Games in Atlanta and was assigned to cover rowing, canoeing, and kayaking. This was an assignment he was less than thrilled about, as these particular events were not held in Atlanta and were not widely watched.

However, what Jones learned during this assignment was remarkable—so much so that the experience led to his writing a book. Through covering these events, he had the opportunity to better understand these elite athletes and how they mentally approach their sport. Jones recounts interviewing several of the athletes prior to their races and asking them about their approach to the rough conditions of rowing:

What happens if it rains? What do you do if the wind is really strong? What if the water is rough?

To his surprise, all the athletes gave basically the same answer to his questions: “That’s outside my boat.”

Initially, Jones was puzzled by this answer. But as he thought about it more, he came to understand the wisdom and effectiveness of this common strategy amongst these athletes. These competitors had no control over the rain, wind, or current; those factors were all outside their boat. The only thing they had control over was what was inside their boat. The athletes had an incredible ability to focus themselves only on what they could control, and they recognized something that most of us struggle to accept: that which is beyond our control is not worth our time or energy. Obviously, what was happening outside their boat would alter what they did inside. However, the athletes knew that the only way to win and be successful was to focus solely on those things they could control.

We’ve all probably been told before not to worry about what we can’t control. But once this message is linked to such a powerful visual image and the phrase “that’s outside my boat,” it hits home with much greater impact.

Each of us has moments in our careers or lives when we need to direct our efforts “inside the boat,” keeping ourselves focused and on task. Right now, in this moment, what’s outside your boat that you may be focusing your energy and attention on? How can you better focus your energy and attention on the task at hand—inside the boat?

For example, we often become consumed with the future of our relationships and with the reactions of people we cannot control. One thing I’ve struggled with in the past is worrying about what other people think—but if I constantly obsess over what others think, I get lost in the proverbial forest and can’t see the beyond the trees.

By not worrying about what others think (since I can’t control what others think anyway!), I am free to see the big picture.

We would be surprised to learn how little time other people actually spend thinking about us, so why do so many of us worry about this? The unfortunate irony is that though we can spend hours, days, and even years focusing on the strong winds blowing our tiny boats, the winds will not change. We wear ourselves out and have little energy left to row forward. More important, we suck the joy out of rowing and pursuing our goals.

The question we need to ask ourselves is this:

Is what I’m dealing with something that is inside or outside my boat?

If it’s outside the boat, let’s discard the issue. If it’s inside the boat, we then need to focus on how to manage it toward the desired goal or outcome we seek. There are some factors we cannot control at all—but there are always factors that we do have some control over, along with other aspects over which we have complete control. Let’s take control of the things we can control and accept the things we cannot control, always doing our best to stay the course with strength and perseverance.

Let’s live our lives and tackle our careers with the empowering “that’s outside my boat” mantra. I’m ready to focus on what’s inside my boat—how about you?

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Your Best Year Yet: Envisioning Your Success

Posted on February 1, 2014 by Sean Moore | | Leave a comment

vision 2014Over the last few weeks, we’ve explored the importance of setting goals for 2014 and a method for defining who we want to become. As I mentioned in my last post, it is all too easy to set “to do” goals, measuring our success by what we accomplish instead of by who we actually are. The higher bar is to set “to be” goals, defining who we want to be.

To be clear: there is never a “silver bullet” for setting and achieving goals! That being said, I’d like to share another technique that works for me. I love this quote by former professional football player and coach Tony Dungy:

“The first step toward creating an improved future is developing the ability to envision it. VISION will ignite the fire of passion that fuels our commitment to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to achieve excellence. Only VISION allows us to transform dreams of greatness into the reality of achievement through human action. VISION has no boundaries and knows no limits. Our VISION is what we become in life.” 

Vision is a crucial component of your success, and one means of making your vision tangible is creating a vision board.

What is a vision board, you ask?

A vision board is a simple but powerful visualization tool to get the Law of Attraction (more on this below) working for you. A vision board consists of a foam or poster board with pictures, drawings, graphs, and/or writing on it depicting the things you want in your life or the person you want to become.

A vision board helps transform your dreams into reality by focusing your mind on the goals you want to achieve using a collection of personal, business, and “feel good” images you can look at several times each day. When you regularly and consistently focus your attention on the things most important to you, those most important things will become your reality. That is how the Law of Attraction works: whatever you focus on, you attract into your business and personal life!

How exactly can we define the Law of Attraction?

After some research, I discovered the following: the Law of Attraction states that we attract into our lives anything that we give attention to, regardless of whether it is positive or negative.

Everyone has an information filtering system in his or her brain known as the reticular activating system (RAS). Vision boards help program the RAS to tune in to external stimuli that can help us move closer to what we want in life.

I’ve listed some great analogies/examples below to demonstrate how the RAS and the Law of Attraction work:

1) Think of your RAS like a radio. You are surrounded by radio waves from various stations, and your portable radio can pick up those channels…but it can only pick up one at a time. You must tune your radio to the specific frequency of your favorite radio station in order to hear it clearly.

2) Imagine that you are in a conference room talking with several people, and from the distant corner of the room, you hear your name called. All of your focus gets diverted in the direction from which you heard your name because that bit of information is tagged by your RAS as being important to you.

3) Your RAS is responsible for your ability to sleep through the noise of traffic outside your house but your sudden waking at the smallest cry from your infant child.

4) Another example of your RAS in action occurs when you buy a brand new car—and then you suddenly notice that many people around you have the exact same car.

All successful people have developed ways of staying focused on their goals. A vision board is just that—a tool to help you stay focused on your goals. A well-designed and effective vision board is:

  • Visual. Your subconscious mind works in pictures, so your vision board needs to be highly visual, with lots of images. You can also include positive words and phrases.
  • Emotional. Each image on your vision board should generate a positive emotional response. Your vision board should be uplifting and should increase your passion for achieving your desires.
  • Strategically placed. Your vision board should be carefully placed somewhere you will often see it so its messages regularly reach your subconscious mind.

With 2014 well under way, let’s make every attempt to create an EPIC year in both our professional and personal lives. I wish you all the best in your quest for greatness and success!  Here is my vision board for 2014:

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