“This is great blog material,” chortled by daughter, Marina, as we were hiking up Tom’s Thumb in the McDowell Mountain Sonoran Preserve. The trail has a fairly step ascent in the first mile. Slow and steady was my mantra as I was trailing Marina’s youthful billy goat prancing up the mountain. I kept thinking about my friend and NSA colleague, Marc LeBlanc who hiked the Camino de Santiago, a 500-mile trek across Northern Spain and one of the greatest pilgrimages of the world. (Read about it in Mark’s book, Never Be the Same). Best advice from the trailhead? “You can always take another step.” While this hike was not NEARLY as daunting as the Camino, I plodded along, one step at a time until we reached the Tom’s Thumb lookout.
And isn’t that true for any goal worth achieving? We know the ultimate destination; sometimes we can sprint and other times, we just need to focus on taking the next step toward your destination. Before you know it……you’ll get there!
Ah, but not without discipline. And so my mind wandered over to another good friend and NSA colleague, Rory Vaden – who just happens to be stopping in Phoenix on Monday night promoting his new book, Take the Stairs. I received an advance reader copy around the beginning of the new year. Completely apropos as I just put my 2012 plan in place. I believe I am a fairly disciplined person, but know I can do better. He has a “Focused Forty” questionnaire that will tell you precisely how disciplined you are. My test results? Creepily spot on. I am disciplined in the areas of my life I am interested in, and not so much in other areas.
The premise of Rory’s book revolves around making better decisions in order to improve your self-discipline and your life. He covers seven principles that will help you achieve success – and he is going to be speaking about this in Mesa, AZ tomorrow, Monday March 12, 2012. Perhaps I will see you there – or at my first ever public webinar on Thursday, March 15, 2012. One of my 2012 goals was to conduct a quarterly series of FREE webinars and the first one is being held this week. It’s called TeamSpeak: Words to Use or Lose to Inspire Better Teamwork. You can register here – and if you can’t make that day, the recording will be made available – but only for those who register!
Hope to see you in Mesa or at the webinar this week!
