Category: Motivation

You Are What you Think, Careful what you think of!

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Some people have issues visualizing themselves being successful, they just like to watch successful people, envy them, but they can’t simply see themselves in their shoe. This has got to be one of the most important obstacles there is to becoming successful!

Doing some Reality Checks, and in particular when we start looking at what we say TO ourselves everyday, chances are high we will notice the huge amount of NEGATIVITY that flies all around our thoughts; a Big number of “I Don’t , I Can’t, I Shouldn’t, NO, Not, DON’T… ”

Just do this small experiment for me now, Open your inbox, pull of All the emails you’ve sent in 2013, and look up if you ever used “Remember to send me…” instead of “Don’t Forget to send me…” it’s this small change that you will do on purpose that will flood all of your life with Positive!

I was giving a Seminar on how to Set & Execute Goals the other day, and I gave an example, of the Walls that we put before ourselves; those same walls that prevent us from moving forward towards our goals… and the First Wall, is your own inventory of yourself! and the Very FIRST common Wall, is saying “I Don’t Have enough money” instead of saying “I Do Have Will Power”, is saying “I Don’t Have the right Tools” instead of saying “I Do Have good Health, and I Do have Faith in myself… I’m on my way 🙂 ”

Randy Pauch: What Time do you CLOSE?

Disneyland Representative: We’re OPEN until 8:00 PM

This week’s Tip, is simply about you changing your attitude about yourself starting by changing the vocabulary you use everyday.

  • Start Substituting: The I with the YOU or the We, the “Don’t Forget” by “Please Remember”, the “I Don’t have” with “I Do have “
  • Think Positively: You see positive thinking may not make the impossible possible and it’s a fact, but it surely helps you MORE than Negative thinking would.
  • Remember: YOU ARE YOUR MOST VALUABLE ASSET… TAKE CARE OF YOUR SELF!

Happy New Year!
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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

The Day Your World Stood Still

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One More week till the end of the year, and you need to take at least ONE day of it to do this week’s Tip!

The Beauty of the world is that it doesn’t STOP moving no matter how you decide to live, it just doesn’t wait for you to be satisfied with your decisions, or even gives you a break to catch up with what’s happening around you 🙂 .

In our best efforts to reduce the speed of time, we need to acknowledge that we shall never succeed, cause the same 24 hours a day / 7 days  a week were given to both you, and Albert Einstein; to you and to everyone else…

This week’s Tip, is about how to Race against Time, by Stopping for a day… And during the day where your World Will Stand Still here’s what you need to do:

  1. Stop Looking forward: Don’t worry about the Future during that day… You had and will have 364 other days to do so
  2. Reflect: In order to excel in almost anything, you need to take a look back and reflect on what happened during your life (both short term and long term)
  3. Evaluate: Both Good Things and Bad things need to be evaluated, you see some good things brought bad things along, and several bad things led to great things… so Evaluate the Good & Bad..
  4. Appreciate: The person you have become TODAY… The sum of the events that you lived have led to this day, to this person you’re seeing in the mirror… Whether you liked that person or not… it doesn’t matter Today… It’s Who you are! and while Your World is Standing Still… Take a deep breath, count your blessings and realize that YOU hold the key to your Tomorrow! and no one else.

I normally do this trick, on the 31st of December… It takes me usually 1 hour during that day… And during that day… During that Hour, I really don’t care about what the next day will bring cause  I will deal with it later on… Only today, it’s all about Me, Myself and My World!

Cheers!
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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

2 Can Win That Game

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“What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?”  ― George Eliot

In the beginning, lots of people’s definition of Winning had to include the lost of their opponent. But the more we progressed in life, we learned that sometimes winning doesn’t necessarily mean that another party need to lose.

The Concept of Win-Win, has always been the core symbol of a Partnership, and probably the biggest example of partnerships would be the marriage institute, as you would realize that at some point in time, several things in life were not designed to be experienced or even enjoyed as a single individual but more of a couple (and later on more).

This week’s Tip, is about Opening up to the idea of Win-Win, and play a game where the 2 players work together with a common goal that would benefit them both, and that efforts exercised from each, fall in the best interest of the two of them.

I’ve read in so many books about this, and probably the most famous was the masterpiece of Dr. Stephen Covey, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” / Habit 4: Think Win-Win; and I Quote:

Think Win-Win isn’t about being nice, nor is it a quick-fix technique. It is a character-based code for human interaction and collaboration.

Win-win sees life as a cooperative arena, not a competitive one. Win-win is a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions. Win-win means agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial and satisfying. We both get to eat the pie, and it tastes pretty darn good!

So here’s what you can do to make your upcoming year 2014 an even more successful and beneficial one…

That Simple: Think Win-Win

  • Look up for potential opportunities to collaborate and cooperate, and the key here is to really OPEN up to that idea
  • Have ambitious common goals… if you were aiming at making 1,000$  alone, now plan to make 2500$
  • Periodically review & evaluate the Win-Win Strategy, and fine tune it as needed… Your strategy is as strong as its weakest link and will fall the minute one of you starts losing interest, and therefore it’s important to make sure everything is still going smoothly

Have a Great Week!
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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

Don’t send your Ducks to Eagle School

Posted in Management, MotivationLeave a comment

“Don’t Send your Ducks to Eagle School” – Jim Rohn

The first rule of management is this: Don’t send your ducks to eagle school. Why? Because it won’t work. Good people are found, not changed. They can change themselves, but you can’t change them. If you want good people, you have to find them. If you want motivated people, you have to find them, not motivate them.

My first hearing of this lecture from Jim, I have already been walking a long way in the wrong direction; I was in a senior management position at a very young age (25 yrs old), with high expectations from everyone and a big responsibility, most importantly I had to grow people, who were… Well, already older than me :).

When you are young, your really want everything to happen very fast; Think about when you were at school, you couldn’t wait till you go to college and then to graduate… And years down the road, you will look back and wish you could go back to those old days.

You see, every single phase of someone’s life, is significant in their overall life span, and skipping steps trying to mess with the equilibrium of their development is un-healthy (Leaping Forward  – which is a concept in strategy – by the way is different than Skipping steps) 

I once seen an optical illusion, that was part of an interesting experiment, they showed the same photo to a child, and to an adult… The photo had  dolphins jumping out of the water, and at the same time (from a different perspective) you can see 2 adults making love. The Child Only Saw the Dolphins!

Sometimes, it’s not the Right time for someone to SEE something… Just like it’s not the right time for them to take a new responsibility or a new role… and forcing them to do so, Will Only make things worse.

If you send your ducks to eagle school:

  • You will frustrate the ducks
  • You will frustrate the eagles
  • You will frustrate yourself

The tip for this week, is to ASPIRE your employees the same way you would do for your children.

  • Lend your sight: A child cannot see himself growing up and becoming successful, you need to have your children borrow your sight of them growing up…
  • Share your vision: An employee would look at you as a manager to get inspired to do great things… Share your vision and Help them ASPIRE success.
  • Give enough time: you cannot force a plant to grow by filling it with more water everyday! it’s just not possible and the result will be horrible.

Have a great week!
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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

2013’s Last Question: Who do you want to be in 2016?

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We’re 5 Mondays away from 2014, and one very common personal practice people often do before the year ends (and they announce it to themselves on the night of the 31st of December) is the NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION. 

Now the tip for this week, is inspired from the life of Strategists, those who think years in advance, plan for the unpredictable and execute to achieve goals others thought would be unlikely to be realized (at the current time). Being a Strategist myself, I have always felt at ease planning for my professional life & my personal goals (Except with love life where all the planning and strategies of the world won’t help 🙂 ); So i’d like to give you a Quick Virtual Coaching in this post.

Let’s start with your NYR: A New Year’s resolution is a promise that you make to yourself to start doing something good or stop doing something bad on the first day of the year; then in order to do that you need to start listing all the good things that you appreciate along with all the things that you didn’t like in 2013, and move on to writing the things that you need to stop doing and the things you will start doing in 2014.

Now think about this quote for a minute: 

“Vision without execution is hallucination.” ~ Thomas A. Edison

The question I have for you now is the following: if Thomas didn’t have a Vision and a Goal, how would’ve he looked at his failures?  

The 2013 Last Question: Who Do you want to be in 2016? 

It’s important to ask yourself this question as you are evaluating your NYR and not before.  Because you will start seeing black dots on your paper sheet that you considered failures before while they were not, and some achievements that they might not be that impressive.

In your mind, draw a mental image of the person you want to be in 2016, how will you look like, what will you be doing, how happy you should be, where will you be living and so on…

and finally,

Drive the road of 2014: Ghandhi once said: “Speed is irrelevant is you’re going in the wrong direction” so use 2014 as the path to get to where you want to be 2 years from now… The person you ASPIRE to be. Taking small steps towards working on things you don’t like about yourself and small steps towards the things you want to have in your life; On your way, you will find bumps, and roadblocks but as well, you will find friends and opportunities… so keep driving and put a target to reach where you want to be… and who knows.. 2016 might be closer than you think :).

Have a great week!
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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

Hike The Mountain of Your Dreams

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Eleanor Roosevelt once said  ‘Do one thing every day that scares you.’ And many of us, have internal fears of their own potential, of dreaming big, and of how hard it can be to pursue what they really want. We get SCARED of what we want to achieve, and then we try to blame it on “How hard it takes”.

Well as a Start, if your dreams don’t scare you, they are not big enough 🙂

This week’s tip, is about training yourself to face the challenges of achieving your dreams.

  • Use it or Lose it: your brain and most of your body have resources that would become weakened unless you used them… So it’s easy to lose hope or motivation to DREAM about what you want to do or where you want to be.
  • You need to Walk before you Run: of course that scary task when you were 10 years old, is just another day-to-day task when you’re 25. Beginnings can always be tricky, but once you passed that, it gets easier to move forward.
  • Start Small as long as you START: they say that the hardest part of going to the gym, is actually taking the step and GO, the rest will just progress naturally.

So as long as you Let your self Dream Big, Picture your goal is to get to the top of the mountain of that dream, and if order to do so, you need to train your self to HIKE; Start to Hike on a small scale first, then start moving up, and up and KEEP TRAINING your mind, body and soul to be ready to accept the conditions that you will be meeting on your way to the Top… And Only then, your scares will disappear with time, and your dream will be closer than you think… The Top of that Mountain is not that far away after all!

Have a nice Week!

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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

Close Your Eyes To See

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Have you ever wondered if you’re “really” happy with your current life? is this the right Job for you? are you living your dreams? Have you wondered if it’s time for you to change?

Well if you didn’t, then there should be something not going very well with you… Because “wondering” and asking that question every once and a while, is healthy, even if things are already going well; It’s one of the Reality Checks that you need to do to make sure everything is going all right and that would make you focus on having the life you always wanted.

In some cases, You may feel Lost… asking questions like “What should I do with my life?” or “What’s Next?” or “Where do we go from here?” … This week’s Tip is about How to help you find your Future Self.

The First thing I normally ask a person whom I’m mentoring or coaching following his or her response to “BUT I DON’T KNOW WHAT I WANT!” would be “Let’s Start with what you Don’t Want”; You see sometimes it’s Blurry to see the things that we DO want, but it’s clearer to see the things that we DON’T… So Let’s Start there!

  • Put a Wish-NOT-List:  the Jobs that you DON’T Like, the Life that you Don’t Want, the person you CANNOT be with… and so on.
  • Unplug your self from the current reality: there is a HUGE difference between “Can’t Have it” and “Don’t want it”; I Do Love to Own a Ferrari, but reality is that I can’t afford one, cannot be translated to I Don’t want to Own a Ferrari because it’s Too Expensive for me to buy one.  Same thing goes for Things you like to do but see too many obstacles in your way so they influence your decision of LIKING them.
  • Put a Deadline to your Dreams: There are so many quotes and sayings to describe “Shoot for the moon and you’ll land between the stars” or “shoot for the stars to hit the moon” but in brief, if you aim high, you’ll get further than if you aim low, and you might find your self closer and closer to realizing your dream than ever before.

So in Brief, CLOSE YOUR EYES >> UNPLUG YOUR MIND FROM THE CURRENT REALITY >> UNLEASH YOUR DESIRE TO THE LIFE YOU ENVY… And you will start Seeing.

Have a Nice Week!

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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project