The Gauntlet is Thrown

photo by DieselDemon

I walked away from my job. The day after Labor Day, I gave two weeks notice, and yesterday was my last official day on payroll. You can read more details on how it all came about at today's Speak & Deliver post.

In a nutshell - I was in a job I didn't believe in, and I was out of town more often than not, with my kids growing up without me. There were financial implications involved as well, but in the end, it was a decision driven by the fact that I was not creating a life I wanted, but a life that was 'more acceptable' in the world's eyes than working for myself (and occasionally struggling, financially). 

How can I inspire others as The Champion of Choice if I am not true to my ultimate goal of helping people seek their Self-Defined Success? 

I will say that my time with People to People yielded some good results:

A. I moved to Denver, albeit on my own dime.

B. I spent two weeks in Europe

C. I got a tremendous amount of experience speaking on a nightly basis

D. I was part of an interesting form of sales/seminar speaking

E. I was able to test my own limitations, physically and emotionally

I learned a tremendous amount about myself, and what is really important in life. Last post, I discussed our Personal Choice Foundation. For me, family is number one - and nothing that gets in the way of family beyond reason will get in the way again.

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So now what? Back to speaking, coaching, consulting, writing - and I'll trying my hand at affiliate marketing as well. I am more determined than ever to build the life I want - working for myself, being near my family, and inspiring, educating, and encouraging others in every way possible to take responsibility for their lives, become for effective communicators, and create their Self-Defined Success.

I have some very achievable goals over the next year to track as part of my personal challenge:

A - Monthly Income - from 0 to 3000/mo. by end of year, 5K/mo by next June, and 10K/month by end of next year. These may be high, they may be low, but they are benchmarks for me to go after - and the more people I help, the faster I will achieve them.

B - Speaking - putting together three keynotes over the next three months and delivering them to as many audiences as possible. 

C - Writing - finishing Kristi's book within the next 6 weeks, my own book by end of year. 

D - Building set-it-and-forget-it affiliate marketing sites that will generate a large portion of my income.

E - Coach business professionals to be better communicators both in-person and online

F - build a PR presence that puts me top of mind to my market segments as a speaker, coach and marketer (all different segments, to some degree)

G - Deliver on my promises, past, present and future - there are a few of you out there that know exactly what I'm talking about.

H - Change my physical condition by losing another 55 lbs to get to 165 lbs, upgrade my Super Deluxe Robot Leg, and start running.

I - and, of course, keep my Family number one - spending time and setting great examples for each one of my six-pack.

Once again, I'll be chronicling my adventures here, drawing back the curtain. I may be selling things more than I have in the past, but I'll endeavor to do it in a helpful, meaningful way. In the end, I want to help as many people as possible through my own talents and insights, and those I've garnered from others over the years.

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Do you have any choices that have been difficult to make lately? Do you have some choices you're afraid to make? Do you have goals you'd like to make public? Do it here, either in the comments, or by writing a guest blog post. Think I'm nuts? Again, feel free to comment, or write a guest blog post. 

I challenge you to keep going after your true successes - even when it seems the most illogical thing in the world to everyone around you. You are the one who has to live with your decisions - and you have the ability to affect your results more powerfully than those in the outside world. 

Consider the gauntlet thrown. You don't have to quit your job - but you do need to vigorously pursue the life you want now, before life passes you by. Become a Champion of Choice!

What is Your Personal Choice Foundation?

"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock." (Jesus Christ speaking from the NIV translation of the Holy Bible  (©1984) )


Are your Choices built upon the rock or the sand? How sound is your Choice Foundation? Do you know what your Personal Choice Foundation is?

Choices are made based on a myriad of different factors, including urgency, cost, emotion, logic, attitude, and physical state. The balancing act is imperfect, and leads to many choices we regret fairly soon after making it. We give one factor too much weight, or forget to factor in something else until its too late.

Say, when you got that big tax refund, walked into Best Buy, and bought that $3,000 55", flatscreen, high-definition television, and the sound system, PS3, and blueray player to go with it. The money may have created an urgency in you to spend it before you nickel and dimed it away on silly things like bills - a seemingly logical argument your emotions and physical state (which are anxious for the joy, satisfaction, and even physical rush which comes from large purchases) use to get you bypass cost altogether, much less other emotions about your family, your otherwise logical approach to family finances, and instead plays on your attitude of self-deservedness and entitlement.

None of these factors really went through your mind though, consciously. If they had, you wouldn't be regretting it right now as you look at the family budget, and realize Sally has dance lessons coming up and Bobby wants to join Scouts, and all you can do is tell them to stay home and play Lego Star Wars instead.

How do you control your choices? By creating a Personal Choice Foundation. By building a conscious list of values in your mind that guide your decisions. A list so strong you think about it BEFORE you choose, not afterwards.

I can't tell you what your foundation should be - that is YOUR Choice, fellow Champion. What your foundation will be should be based on your needs, your situation, your hopes and dreams - not anyone else's.

How you build that foundation, however, will also largely determine the overall results of your choices, and how your feel about them after the fact. Perhaps buying the TV, speakers, and gaming system fits your foundation perfectly and you have no regrets. Perhaps your PCF (Personal Choice Foundation) determines that you must go value shopping - finding that TV, speaker system, and game console at a pawn shop instead. (disclosure: I have purchased a $1200 flatscreen, HD TV for less than $400 at a pawn shop, and I still probably overpaid - this satisfied family, emotion, cost, logic, and physical state, while giving me adequate, if not spectacular, results).

The critical aspect is not necessarily how your foundation is built, but that it is built at all, and that you are consciously and intentionally building responsibly. The coolest thing about the PCF is that it isn't buried underground - based on the quality of your results, you can shift your foundations materials at any moment in time. While they don't need to be permanently flexible, malleable beyond recognition, you do want to be able to easily patch any cracks, and feel confident in shoring up your materials.

My own looks like this: family, cost, emotion, logic, physical cost or satisfaction, urgency, attitude, results. Even as I write that, I can see adjustments I might want to make.

Choose to take a moment now and list for yourself the factors in your Personal Choice Foundation - then actively and intentionally apply them to all all your choices in the next 48 hours. You'll quickly start noticing how your choices become more interesting and focused - whether you're buying a TV, ordering lunch, or even participating in a discussion with your spouse.

If you want to publicly declare, describe, and even defend your PCF, and share your 48 hour results - please do, in the comments below. AND - if you have additional factors you use in decision-making, please share with the rest of us.

How Do You Stand?

Picture credit - Greg Tarlin 

We live in a world of individual thoughts that are often warped, twisted, directed, and otherwise constrained to think one way vs. another. In fact, that very statement is written with the intent to get you to believe exactly what it says - but you may not! You may vehemently disagree!

Perhaps you'll comment below. Maybe drop me an email. Or just mutter under your breath 'that Hopkins guy is at it again'.

Whether its my relatively innocuous sentence above (again, emotional, opinion-charged terminology), or issues such as politics, morals, religion, sports, speaking, entertainment, whatever - I challenge you to actively have an opinion about those parts of life you care about, and be willing to communicate them.

We choose our opinions, and we can choose how we share them - but if no one know what our opinions are, how will anyone know? We can show them by writing, by talking, by contributing money, by simply walking the walk of someone with an opinion.

Many of us are great at sharing our opinions, especially the speakers among us. But its also easy NOT to share. To avoid being disagreed with or being proven wrong (which is also an avoidance of learning something NEW).

Our opinion is just that - but our perspective on the world, especially in today's world of social media, can carry as much weight as President Obama, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, et al, depending on who we're talking to, how we say it, and how we market it.

Taking a stand, making an outward declaration as a Champion of Choice - someone who knows what and why they are doing something, will separate you from the crowd, and allow you to be heard. Even if you agree with the majority, just by making the declaration, you will be steps above your competition.

Whether you're a contrarian or a mainstream thinker, choose to take a stand - and HOW to take a stand - within your self-defined life - and watch as your family, your friends, and eventually the world raises their head to hear what you have to say.

Does Old Success Adage Still Ring True?

I was challenged last week about the adage Rory Vaden uses in his Take the Stairs program - an adage that has been around the motivational speaking industry longer than Rory or I or any of us, perhaps, have been living. The saying goes "Successful people do what others will not do."

The contention was that people in low-level jobs, such as housekeeping, trash collection, waitresses, etc., do things others will not do and they are not necessarily successful. Very true - but a thought process not necessarily in line with the spirit of the adage. Mass-murderers also do what others will not do, and they wouldn't be considered a success by the world's standards. At the same time, some of these people may perceive themselves as wonderfully successful, depending on their perspective of success - whether they're washing dishes or disposing victims.

The spirit of the adage, in my mind, is "Successful People do things that make them successful that others will not do." Often, we can look at a successful person's life and see that what they've done isn't so far out of our ability to do, but rather out of our comfort zone or the definition of ourselves we've built over the years.

There are two main thoughts that come to me out of the debate I've been having over this issue in my mind.

1. Success is what we define it as, on an individual basis.
2. Success doesn't come from doing from what others won't in every case.

Which leads me to this conclusion:

Succes is reached by those who do what others who haven't achieved that success will not do, regardless of what the definition of success is. Which means we must define success for ourselves, then find what it takes to get there, and do those things. The adage itself works in a very comparative sense that way - if two people are faced with an identical task, and one is willing to work in a way that accomplishes it better than the other, the adage fits well. Even in this case, two people with the same task can accomplish it with equal results in completely different ways, which, rather than disproving the adage merely gives it more channels with which to operate.

What is success to you? Is it based in money? Family? Spiritual meaning? Freedom? Looks? Sex? Joy? Usually its a combination of all of those things and more, to one degree or another. I know I have felt more successful at times when I've made less money and spent more time with my family than the inverse.

Define your own success. Then do what it takes to get there, whether others are doing it or not. In the end, the only one to judge if you are a success or not, and be right, is you.

Anne Took the Stairs

Photo taken by me at Tgeregt Restaurant - our first dinner.

My friend and fellow speaker Rory Vaden promotes his program Take the Stairs, encouraging people to realize hard work is what's behind success, and the more challenging route can be more rewarding. Rory knows his stuff, and I believe in what he's saying

But for me, taking the stairs means slow arduous treks and gasping for air, which isn't the impression I want to leave once I get to the top. I need to take a few 1000 stair steppers first, drop another 30 lbs, and get my back back in shape.

Being in Europe this week, I find myself faced with lots of stairs, mini steps, spiral staircases, uneven brick roads, and bicycles, motorbikes, and cars racing along the same track I'm often attempting to walk upon. The Anne Frank Haus has many stairs, narrow, skinny stairs that go forever upwards, it seems. Heading back down on the museum side isn't much better, as they are part spriral themselves.

I was faced with a choice. I could say I went to the Anne Frank Haus knowing all I did was go to the museum, or I could tough it out and head upward, and upward, and upward. And it was worth it. Seeing the artifacts, watching the videos of the times and some survivors, going behind the bookcase that hid them for so long - an amazing experience if you ever get the chance.

What hit me hardest, though, was seeing the room she was in - covered with pictures of movie stars and people she aspired to become like when she grew up. Pictures not unlike any young girl would save, in those days and these days. Anna's diary was one of hope - that she would become a famous journalist. I'm just sorry she never saw how she turned out to be one of the most famous journalists of all.

Anna chose to take the stairs - she made choices unimaginable for girls her age all in the name of survival. The least I could do was take the stairs to witness it. I'm still not quite willing to choose the stairs 100% of the time. But I'm going to choose not to let stairs be the obstacle between me and my future, actually or metaphorically.

Do you have stairs to climb?

Another Month Gone By - Almost

I'm now fully invested in my new career, having gone through the first six weeks with fair success and a bit of a promotion/vote of confidence from my employer.

What has gone by the wayside in this time, despite my intentions, has been this blog, Speak & Deliver, my wife's book, my diet, my involvement in Toastmasters, my participation with my mastermind group, and my connection with my friends via blog, Facebook, & Twitter.

That's a major change, and not one I like. While I was busy trekking around the Midwest, I found myself exhausted when I wasn't in the moments of adrenaline, setting up, speaking, tearing down and doing it all over again the next day. From Jan 29 to Feb 17 I gave 18 presentations in 7 states, stayed in 8 hotels, drove 4 rental cars and took 7 planes on four itineraries.

Not Guinness Book material, perhaps, but certainly a shock to my system. In addition to all of that, I was dealing with adjusting to a new job, new procedures, new bosses, all while trying to be a long-distance husband and father.

Whew - I get tired just writing about it.

So now I'm home - working from home, still adjusting to the new job, planning travels for March and April, figuring out how I'm going to plan my Fall speaking schedule (around 75 presentations in 20 cities over a three and a half month period), and still wanting the be the blogger, writer, speaking coach that defines who I really am.

While this job is great, and is definitely going to help my bigger dreams in the long run, I don't want it to ever define who I am, beyond someone who puts forth full effort into everything he does.

Which begs the question - can I put full effort into all facets of my life with the addition of this job, or do I need to let some things go? Do I lessen my involvement in my blogs? I already have, I guess - but really I've just been gone.

Decisions need to be made - how much time do I have to devote to being who I really am?

Weekend Update #1

The first weekend of the year is packed with activity here at the Hopkins household.

I've been working to memorize a script for an audition tape as part of one of my 'secret choices' for 2010, a tape that must be made today and delivered tomorrow. A lot more effort than I expected - its been awhile since I memorized anything word for word. A lot is potentially at stake by how well I pull this off, and the results of this choice may be known as early as this week.

I'm facing one physical issue today, and that seems to be a twisted ankle, or simply a swelled right foot. I can walk somewhat, but I'm in a lot of pain. I'm concerned about the impact this will have on the video, but I am medicating as much as possible. If push comes to shove, I may head to the ER to see if I can get something magic to allow me to perform for an hour or so standing up.

Kristi, as she's been saying over at her blog "Thriving with Neurofibromatosis", is spending the week out East for surgery at NIH. We braved the 4 am traffic to get her to the airport this morning, leaving me home for 7 days with 6 kids. The week ahead should prove adventurous!

Today is also my oldest daughter's birthday - she's now 14! She's bummed her mom is gone, and her party is delayed a few weeks, but I'm still thinking up ways to make the day special for her.

My choices today revolve around getting the script memorized, the video completed, and keeping my kids alive. Perhaps I can get some football watching in as well, but that will have to take a low priority :)