The Significant Dozen
Twelve Concepts That Can Lead You to a More Meaningful and Productive Life
As a student of personal development for the past 45 years, I have had the privilege of being exposed to some of the greatest minds in many aspects of personal development. People like Peter Drucker and Larry Biederman in Management, Jim Redfield in Spirituality, Charles Garfield in Peak Performance, Ted Levitt in Marketing, Hyrum Smith and J. Mitchell Perry in Psychology, DeWitt Jones in Understanding Multiple Perspectives, Robert Cialdini in Persuasion and Charlie Dwyer in Influence and Deepak Chopra in Life Fulfillment, just to name a few. All of these men and many other men and women have had a great impact on my life.
In thinking back over the years, I have had a chance to reflect a lot about the most important lessons that I have learned that have both helped me to lead a more fulfilling and productive life.
In the 22 years that I have been a professional speaker and motivator, I have had the opportunity to try several of these concepts on hundreds of audiences throughout the country. The response has been overwhelming.
Limiting these lessons to a 12 was a struggle at first but after spending many years determining which ones should be included, it is now easy for me to present to you, “The Significant Dozen.”
This blog will give you a basic outline of these concepts. In the next twelve months I will provide you with a more detailed insight each month of one of these concepts and how it relates to your self-improvement and personal development.
There is more than one right answer
Over the years it has been increasingly obvious to me that our entire educational system causes individuals to look for only one right answer. The discussion around this concept shows the value of constantly looking for more right answers. It show how things like UBER and Tesla and Amazon are a result of another right answer to apply a particular problem or opportunity.
Mental Rehearsal and Developing Repeatable Processes
“I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp, in focus picture of it in my head.” Jack Nicklaus
Mental rehearsal is by no means unknown to most athletes but the formalization of the technique and its’ systematic use by non-athletes is quite a new concept. The discussion around this concept centers on developing mental rehearsal techniques to improve productivity and eliminate risk from life.
Rechecking Information
Customer service is based on exceeding expectations. The importance of understanding what people’s expectations are, is critical in forming meaningful and trustful relationships. The only sure fire way to learn what they thing is to ask them. This discussion talks about the importance of rechecking information since people evolve and will change what they think many times during the course of a relationship and it is imperative that we constantly recheck there feelings about a plethora of issues.
Todays Solution to Time management
Most time management techniques were developed in an age without cellphones, emails and text messaging just to name a few of todays distractions. This discussion centers on the concept of getting rid of things and delegating things rather than trying to just prioritize. Historical time management techniques no longer work in the current age. It is just physically and emotionally impossible to comply with all of the demands that are made on our time today.
This lesson was given to me by Peter Drucker in 1977.
MAGIC: the Secret to Successful Delegation
No one concept can be more successful than proper delegation techniques in making anyone more productive. In this discussion the Larry Biederman’s acronym MAGIC is dissected and used as the “secret sauce” in successful delegation techniques. All great delegators use this technique.
There is No Such Thing as a Coincidence
One of the many quotes attributable to the New York Yankees Hall of Fame catcher, Yogi Berra is, “It was Déjà vu all over again.”
Jim Redfield taught me that whenever people cross our paths, there is always a message for us. Chance encounters do not exist. But how we respond to these encounters determines whether we’re able to receive the message. If we have a conversation with someone who crosses our path and we do not see a message pertaining to our current questions, it does not mean there was no message. It only means we missed it for some reason.” In this segment we will touch on how to proactively get that message.
The Price of Influence
Dr. Robert Cialdini’s work shows the remarkable value that influence can have on persuasion. Most people are familiar with tenets of his work. But, Dr. Robert Dwyer has shown in his work that there is a price that one pays for influence. This discussion weaves the work of these two giants into a workable influence model that can be adapted into anyone’s’ personal and business life.
Enlarging Your Circle of Excellence by Rewarding Effort
Too often we search for perfection. We also judge others on our definitions of perfection. This can really be detrimental to personal relationships. This segment explores the importance of enlarging your circle of excellence, a concept advanced to me by Dr. Mitchell Perry, by relaxing our criteria as it applies to others and allows us to judge effort as well as results.
Get to Know the Most Important People in Your Community
The value of knowing the most important people in your community is well documented in my previous writings and lectures. The concept of how to identify and meet these people is too important to leave off this list. By having these personal relations we can do tremendous good for others and ourselves.
Keith Ferrazzi’s book, “Never Eat Alone,” is one I could have easily written.
The One Rule that Will Insure You Lead an Ethical Life
The world is filled with black and white deeds. When an action considered is black, we have been trained to avoid it and when it is considered white, we know we can proceed. All of the problems in ethics center on when something is grey. This segment ensures us to do the proper thing when we are in between black and white.
The Law of Giving
“The Universe operates through dynamic exchange…giving and receiving are different aspects of the flow of energy in the Universe. And in our willingness to give that which we seek, we keep the abundance of the Universe circulating in our lives.
This segment discusses Robert Cialdini’s Rule of Reciprocity and the concept of Acts of Kindness.
Developing a Robust Capacity to Enjoy the Process
The proverbial question of “How many people say on their deathbed that they wish they had worked harder?”
The Philosopher, Tom Morris, gave me the key to life many years ago. In coordinating the various parts of our life through a robust self-inventory, we can very easily put into effect a more meaningful business and personal life.
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