coach — Dan Lier

Dan Lier

With the current world uncertainty, the current Economic Summit and even Occupy Wall Street , it can be natural to find yourself temporarily distracted from what you want to achieve and disconnected from your path to success.

As we all know, life is a journey… filled with highs and lows; ups and downs, victories and defeats; yet when you are in the experience, it is easy to get fixated on what’s right in front of your face… meaning the media and talk on the streets. My goal today is to get you reconnected to YOUR success and on the path to reaching your goals.

We Happen to Life

You know that saying… “Life Happens.” My challenge to you is to understand the concept and adopt the belief that life doesn’t just happen to us; we happen to life. We are in control of the meaning of what happens around us. In one of my recent newsletters, we discussed events and occurrences that are out of our control deserve no worry or focus, as we are not able to change them. What we can change is how we respond to life.

In Viktor Frankl’s book, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” his famous quote sums up my thoughts perfectly: “Everything can be taken from a man but… the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s way.”

So no matter what the current circumstances around us, we can choose our attitudes, our thoughts and our actions – thus the direction of our progress.

Reconnect in Relationships

Reconnecting to success is not just about reaching your next level, it’s about existing on a higher level in life. Reconnecting to relationships both in business and in our personal lives is essential for our success. Martin Buber, the twentieth-century philosopher insisted that we can have two opposite attitudes towards others, leading to two very different types of relationships. Buber labeled the two types of relationships as the “I – It” relationship and the “I – Thou” relationship. In the “I – It relationship, we treat other people as objects and expect something back from each relationship. In the “I – Thou” relationship, we relate to others out of respect, friendship and love. In other words, we either see others as objects to use for our selfish purposes or we honor them for their own sake. Just the understanding of this concept can assist you connect on a different level to your business and personal relationships.

Action Steps

First and foremost, make the decision that life doesn’t happen to you; YOU happen to life. Take control of how you experience the events around you and get refocused on your goals. Secondly, make a conscious effort to relate to both business and personal relationships from Buber’s “I – Thou” frame… give them respect and friendship and just by the law of reciprocation, you will get closer to what you want.

Keep Believing - Dan

The Happiness Advantage

The Holiday Season is upon us and people are in a cheerful mood. It’s a fun time of the year… and I have a theory. What if people decided to be happy all the time? Would it cause them to be more successful? I say YES.

If you’ve listed to my CDs, read my book or watched my TV show “Your True Potential,” you know that I am a believer that positive attitudes create positive opportunities and positive results. I’ve done my research, and unfortunately many people have the belief “when I achieve this, then I will be happy.” Unfortunately, they have it backward. I believe when you are happy, you can create more results and achieve greatness as you tap into your true potential. I was thrilled when the January edition of Success Magazine’s book summary CD was delivered to my office and I listened to Shawn Achor’s book summary called The Happiness Advantage.

I knew it!

Shawn Achor indicates when your brain is feeling heightened levels of happiness and energy, it changes the capacity of every single output your brain is capable of doing. Your intelligence rises; your accuracy rises, and your energy on projects seem to rise. Optimistic sales professionals outsell their pessimistic counterparts by 56%. That’s what I’m talking about!

Happiness leads to greater success, not success makes us happy. Take a look at video below.

Because top achievers like you are always changing and adjusting your goals, we create what Dan Sullivan calls “The Gap.” The GAP is similar to the horizon….you can keep driving forever, but you never get there. When we get to our “success,” we change what success looks like. As a result, most people don’t experience the true feeling of success; and if we have to be “successful” to be happy, we never get there.

Our brains work in the opposite order. If you can raise the brain’s level of positivity or happiness in the present, then success rates rise. There is a new study in what’s called “Positive Psychology,” and it consists of studying why positive people consistently outperform the norm. So what causes people to be more optimistic?

1. Gratitude: Our brain is similar to a single processor for experiencing the world. If we are processing all the negatives (stress, bad relationships, world news), then our brain doesn’t have the resources to create a better future. Focus on the good stuff!

2. Social Support Level: This is the people you choose to have around you. Do the people around you support you with positivity? Research says that only 25% of success is predicted by intelligence and technical skills and 75% is predicted by social support!

3. Seeing Problems or Stress as Opportunities. People who see potentially negative situations as opportunities or a challenge have more optimism than those who see the same situations as negative. Optimism creates positive results.

4. Belief: Having the belief or faith that everything always works out like it’s supposed to provides optimism to everyday circumstances and situations.

Take a minute tonight and talk about optimism and The Happiness Advantage with your family. 2011 is right around the corner!