THRIVE! Talkin'!

Don't just read the newsletter, live it!
Jump into the THRIVE! forum and get set for success!

Easy Does It

Easy. I want things to be easy. (Is that so difficult?) The way I see it, life is hard enough as it is, so more things in life should be easy. Stop and think for a moment about "easy" things. What pops into your mind? Some examples I came up with include:

• Easy Bake Oven - Delicious brownies warmed by a lightbulb
• Easy Rider - Ultracool actors in a classic 60's movie
• Easy Cheese - Yum. Just taste the sodium alginate and apocarotenal
• The Big Easy - A happening Louisiana town (and a nickname for my high school girlfriend)

What's not to love about easy? Being such a big fan, I've decided that I want success in your life to be just as easy. (Wouldn't that be refreshing?)

In the name of easy, I felt compelled to find a success-related mnemonic that's easy to remember. (Aside: Does anyone else find it ironic that Keanu Reeves' "Johnny Mnemonic" was utterly forgettable? I digress.) My theory is that easy to remember should mean easy to do which should make success in your life easier to obtain. What could be easier than that?

I decided to start with the simple letters "A-B-C". That's easy enough. Almost as easy as 1-2-3. (Except that would be lame.) I thought about how I could develop a coaching cue that would use the power of "A-B-C" for good. Now, I'm just thinking out loud here, but I've come up with something, and I'd like to run it by you. Are you ready? Are you sitting down? Okay. Here goes:

A-B-C = Always Be Clear.

(I think even my high school girlfriend could remember that.)

Here's how I'm thinking it should work. "If you want to be succeed in life, you must Always Be Clear."

Whaddya think? So far so good?

Yeah, I agree. it's missing something. Be clear about what? OK, I've got to add something, but I can't very well follow up "A-B-C" with the Pythagorean theorem. (That's right, A squared plus B squared equals my high school girlfriend getting an F in Geometry.) I've got to add something, but the next part has to be easy, too.

Okay, how about the classic 6 questions? You remember: "Who, what, where, when, how, and why". If we add these questions to "A-B-C", we get something that might just work.

Always Be Clear about:

• Who has achieved a similar goal and can help you achieve your own.
• What they did to succeed that you can also learn to do.
• Where they focused their valuable time and energy.
• When you expect to achieve your goal.
• How you expect to achieve it.
• Why this achievement will make a difference in your life.

You have to admit, when you put it that way it sounds easy.

Let's not make success more difficult than it needs to be. The trials of life seem to do a decent job of that for us. The formula is certainly easy. Still, 99% of people in the world cannot answer these "easy" questions for a goal or desire that they spend countless hours daydreaming about. For a variety of reasons, success eludes them.

If we focus our attention on finding 100% clarity in the answers to these key questions, a whole new world will open up to us. Success and satisfaction in our professional and personal lives can become just a bit easier to achieve. How great is that?

When it comes to success, I'm all about easy. (When it comes to cheese, though, I'm all about brie.)

Coaching Quickie: Easy Does It

Check back next week for results!

Last Week's Results

Coaching Quickie: Hip Hop Hope
How far afield do you search for inspiration?

(29%) Close to home - I stick to the familiar, and I'm hesitant to read or do new things.
(29%) Around the town - I keep my ears open for something interesting that might come my way.
(14%) Coast to coast - I often search outside of the norm for a new way of doing things.
(29%) Global expedition - I look anywhere and everywhere for new perspectives and ideas.