Because your flawed or skewed perceptions of reality can actually alter reality. Let me explain:

Let’s go back one more time to the case from a previous personal development blog. You called your brother for his birthday and he hung up abruptly. You immediately translate this as, “He doesn’t care about me.” Now, yesterday we talked about how to challenge that perception by coming up with alternative explanations. But let’s say you don’t do this. “He doesn’t care about me!” you conclude, and you’re hurt and angry. What happens next?

One possible scenario:

You stew. You secretly hope he’ll call you later with a good explanation, but when he doesn’t, you stew some more. You mutter to your wife that it’s too back you come from a family where people don’t care about each other. You come across a re-run of Legends of the Fall on late night TV and snort cynically when Tristan vows to protect his younger brother Samuel in the war. A couple of weeks later, your sister calls and lets you know that your brother’s teen daughter has gotten into some serious trouble.

“I’m not surprised,” you say. “You can’t raise a kid well if you’re filled with hatred and emotionally distant from people you’re supposed to care about.”

Your sister is shocked by your callous response, but then, she doesn’t understand how he treats you, right? Eventually, of course, probably not directly, your comment gets back to your brother. The rift between you is cemented.
Is it always that simple and straight-forward? Of course not. Normally, we base a series of small, seemingly unimportant decisions on misperceptions, but, over time, the results are just as devastating.

Take a good look at the chart, Anatomy of a Key Moment, and ask yourself if you know the Three R’s of personal development:

• Reality. What is, or the way things are. Reality exists independently of our opinions about it. Embrace it and find peace. Resist it and find pain.
• Responsibility. The choices we make about how to think, feel, and act about reality. The quality of our life depends on our ability to make good choices
• Results. The consequences or outcomes we get from the choices we make. Results are a function of the other two R’s.

In our example, the reality was, as we discovered in a previous blog, that we don’t know why your brother hung up suddenly. You have no other new information, except what your sister has given you: his daughter is in trouble. You are responsible for (a) how you feel, and (b) what you do next. When we worked through the possible meanings of your brother’s actions, we ended up with a feeling of sort of neutral concern. Only then, when you’ve separated perception from fact, is it time to decide what action to take. And, finally, you have the results. Perhaps you decided to call again, and express your concern that something was wrong. The result could have been more information:

• An admission that your brother was angry at you. Now you have the opportunity to resolve the issue.
• A confused, “Oh, wow . . . I must have been busy. I didn’t realize I hung up suddenly. Sorry about that, bro.”
• A confession about another issue, “Yeah, sorry. I’m not even thinking about my birthday right now. Madison’s having some problems and we’re not sure what’s going to happen.” Now you have the opportunity to heal your fractured relationship by reaching out to him with a listening ear or an offer to help.

It’s so simple, isn’t it, when we look at an imaginary example where our emotions aren’t really involved? It’s still simple in real life, but it’s challenging. As soon as your emotions engage, you will feel moved to take action. Particularly in the beginning, it takes a certain amount of mental effort to turn on your reasoning powers and challenge your perceptions. But what did your piano teacher used to say? “Practice makes perfect!”

I promise you, practicing this mathematic equation: Reality + Responsibility = Results is just as effective as practicing playing Ode to Joy with your right hand . . . and will have far, far more long-reaching effects on your life. If you want to learn more about how to change your reality for the better by learning the Three R’s of personal development, join me for the LIVE BIG Seminar on March 12 & 13. I’m looking forward to working with you!

Hal shook his head. “I don’t see how I chose to feel hurt. It just happened.”

Personal Development: Can You Choose How You Feel?

Hal sighed. “Okay. I chose to feel hurt . . . and resentful . . . .I chose to punish her by brushing her off and not talking to her . . . I chose to be defensive and argue when I came home late last night . . .”
The Hero’s Choice by Roger K. Allen

Do you choose your own feelings? This can be a tough concept for a lot of people, so let’s go back to the example in my last blog. You called your brother to wish him a happy birthday, but he hung up abruptly. You’ve had a rocky relationship in the past, so you’re not sure how to take it. Now, let’s take a look at how you choose what you feel:

• You interpret your brother’s dismissal as, “He doesn’t care about me.” You are angry and hurt.

• Then, because as part of our personal development we’re practicing reinterpreting our perception of reality, you think, “Maybe he’s angry at me for something.” Your feelings shift, maybe toward worry or defensiveness. After all, you haven’t spoken to him in six months. What could he possibly be angry about . . . unless, that? The fact that you haven’t been in touch? Stop. Now reinterpret again:

• “He must hate having birthdays. I sure do.” Your worry or defensiveness subsides as you chuckle, and maybe reach upward to touch your thinning hair. What do you feel now? Sympathy? Wry Amusement? Good. Now, again:

• “I guess I caught him at a bad time.” Feeling? Fairly neutral, right? Maybe a vague worry. “Maybe I shouldn’t have called him at work. I hope everything is going okay with his job.” Good. And again:

• . . . .

Right. You can reinterpret endlessly and go through every emotion, but, as we concluded in the previous blog, we just don’t have enough information. If you sit down and look at the facts, you have to admit that with what you know, any strong emotion you have can only come from meanings that you’ve injected into the situation. Knowing this, your emotion is diffused. Now you can make a reasoned decision about what, if any, action to take next. What is the best action you can take in terms of your personal development? Do you see how much control you have over your feelings?

In my book The Hero’s Choice, Hal’s friend Donald challenged his perceptions of reality and helped him to see how his perceptions lead to consequences:

“A Key Moment begins with a triggering situation or event, usually an upsetting event that presents a challenge and demands a response. When this even occurs, you make choices about how you’ll think, feel and act. Those choices, not the event itself, determine the consequences or results you get.”

Are you ready to make a leap forward in your personal development, improve your relationships and build your momentum toward success? Join the LIVE BIG seminar on March 12 and 13 to learn how.

Personal Development: How Can You Align Your perceptions with Reality?

• Play detective with your own thoughts. Gather clues and evidence and use them to distinguish between reality and your understanding of reality as filtered by your preconceptions, emotions and mindset.

• As part of your personal development, commit to writing down your thoughts while your emotions are still heightened. It’s nearly impossible to access emotions after the fact, so try to make a habit of sitting down in or immediately after a situation and journaling your emotions and perceptions. Then take another look when you are calmer and then again a day or so later. Continue to journal, sorting facts from assumptions and challenging your understanding.

• List other potential interpretations. Even if you don’t have time to sit and journal in a given situation, make a habit of reinterpreting your perceptions. For example, you call your brother to wish him a happy birthday, and he rings off abruptly. You and he have a history of jealousies and tension, so you are infuriated: “Why do I bother? He doesn’t care about me!” Good! That’s one possible explanation. Now let’s try to find at least 2 more. The more the better, so here we go:

• I guess I caught him at a bad time.
• He must hate having birthdays. Well, since I’m two years older, I can understand that.
• I wonder if he’s upset at something I’ve done lately? Or that I haven’t done.

In this example, you can only really draw one sure conclusion: You don’t know why he hung up suddenly. You don’t have enough information. If you call him again later or he calls you, you might have more information, but in the meantime, you just don’t know.

Why are we spending so much time working on this concept of perception vs. reality? I’m going to go into the why more in my next blog, but in the meantime, think about that last example. Putting yourself in that situation, what feelings do you think resulted from the original conclusion, and the subsequent ones?

Learning to manage your fact processing skills will make a dramatic difference in your personal development. To accelerate your progress even more, join me for the LIVE BIG seminar on March 12 and 13, and you can break free from your illusions for good!

Personal Development: What color are your glasses?

To see how this works, consider this “resilience training” that Gillham and her colleagues have developed for middle-school studies.  At New York City’s KIPP Infinity Charter School, fifth graders were show a copy of a cartoon strip.  In the first picture, a coach is pointing to zeroes on a score board and yelling at his team.  In the next is one of the team members, with an empty thought bubble above his head.  Students were asked to fill in the team member’s thoughts, and then draw an arrow pointing to a resulting feeling.

Here are three examples of students’ responses:

• “Why is this coach so mean?  His screaming makes me want to cry.  I think I have a tear.”  Student Alicia Echavarriato drew an arrow to the emotion “I feel sad.”
• “Man we lost.  We let the coach down.”  Student Anthony Ortiz drew his arrow to the emotion, “I feel angry.”
• “I won’t be bad next time.  I will be better.  The coach can be mad so what.  I’ll do better next time.”  Student Bryce Marcus drew an arrow to the emotion, “I feel okay.”

The important thing about Bryce’s response, according to Gillham, is that he didn’t take the coach’s anger too personally, and that he realized the situation wasn’t permanent.

Think Positive?

So if you just think positive, everything will be fine?  No, and this is an important distinction.  There’s a common misconception in the personal development industry that if you just think positive, everything will turn out fine.  This would be the equivalent of the player in the cartoon insisting to himself, “The coach is proud of me.  We won the game, and the coach is proud of me!” in the face of the facts.

I’m not suggesting that you exchange your “dark-colored glasses” (“This game was a disaster!  My parents are probably disappointed in me, too.  I’ll never be any good at sports”) with rose-colored glasses.  I’m suggesting instead that set the glasses down and look at the facts as they are. Bryce gives us a terrific example of this with the cartoon.

“You have a lot more control over your feelings than you think,” Todd Brunzell, the dean of students at KIPP Infinity Charter School tells the students.  He teaches them that “self-talk,” the things you tell yourself, can lead to different feelings when disappointing things happen.

What color are your glasses?  Do you tend to magnify the negative and interpret every disappointment and setback as a statement about yourself, your life or your destiny?  It’s time to jump start your personal development into authentic positive change that will re-write your future.  Learn to LIVE BIG in my March 12-13 seminar.

Personal Development: What’s Really Going On?

Here are some possibilities:

• Isn’t that just like a man? They’re all self-centered and unfeeling – why is she even surprised?

• Nag, nag, nag. Criminy, the guy’s trying to make a living and all she can do is harp.

• The tragedy . . . one more marriage dissolves. After a fight like that, they don’t stand a shot of surviving.

• Wow! I don’t know what’s going on between them, but she sure sounds stressed out – poor thing.

Now, here’s the key question:

What do we really know?

Based only on this passage, we know this: An angry woman is shouting about what she wants. We can probably safely assume that she’s yelling at her husband, but even that is an assumption; she could be yelling to her sister or a bus driver for all we know.

In the story, she – her name is Kathy – is yelling at her husband Hal, who has just been fired from the company he created from the ground up. Hal’s read on what she said goes like this:
It was one thing to lose his position, status, income, and the support of partners he thought were his friends. But to have Kathy turn on him was more than he could stand . . . Something – someone – had to change and, as far as he was concerned, that someone was Kathy.

So his perception is, what? That Kathy has turned on him.

Why is this important? Because how you perceive reality has as much – and sometimes more – impact on what happens next as reality itself. Please don’t minimize the importance of this statement as you seek your personal development. In fact, let me say it again:

How you perceive reality has as much – and sometimes more – impact on what happens next as reality itself.

Studies have shown that teaching people to reinterpret events in a positive, realistic way can be as effective in treating clinical depression as medications. Can you see how becoming the master of your perceptions will be a powerful instrument for personal development in your life?

In my next blog, we’ll talk more about how this actually works. In the meantime, if you’d like to accelerate your positive personal development, HDI can teach you strategies and skills to overcome the internal and external barriers to change. Join me for the LIVE BIG Seminar on March 12 and 13 of this year.

Why is Brock blindfolded?

In this video from Facing The Giants, the coach asks Brock, “You already written Friday night down as a loss, Brock?”

Brock shrugs.  “Well, not if I know we could beat’em.”

So, why does Coach Taylor blindfold him in the next Death Crawl drill?  Brock agrees that he can make it to the thirty yard line with Jeremy on his back.  Brock’s mind is made up.  If the coach demands his best, Brock will stop at the thirty, and be satisfied that he gave his best.

Brock will only do what he knows he can do. Knowing this, and knowing that Brock is the role model for the entire team, the coach blindfolds him.  And Brock fights, struggles, pants and sweats himself all the way into the end zone.

Are you limited by what you “know?”  Maybe you consider yourself to be a slow learner, or destined for failure.  Maybe you believe all doctors are ruthless, or all people of a certain race are liars.  Whatever you “know,” your mind will continually seek more evidence to prove that it is right.  You might meet three hundred honest people of that certain race, but your mind will latch onto the one you caught in a lie and insist, “See?  They are like that.”  If you believe yourself to be a slow-learner, your focus when you study will be on your inadequacies as a student instead of the material at hand.  When test time comes, you’ll have the low grade to prove your mind right.

How can you overcome these self-imposed limitations?

• Do it anyway.  Brock “knew” that he could only go to the 30 yard line with Jeremy on his back.  But, with Coach Taylor’s help, his focus is directed away from that knowledge and into forward momentum.
• Question your assumptions.  If you “know” something, but other people seem to “know” something else, spend some time looking into what they know.  For example, if you “know” doctors are ruthless, but your friend insists that doctors not only saved his life, but did it with stunning compassion, open your mind to your friend’s experience.
• Question your proof.  If you “know” a certain political candidate is corrupt and you receive emails from your in-laws telling stories of the candidate’s corrupt behavior, it’s tempting to accept the emails as truth.  The story is probably true, after all – it would be just like him/her!  Seek to know the truth rather than to be proven right.
• Surround yourself with people who are willing to challenge your assumptions.  You “know” your marriage will fail because no one in your family has managed to preserve a marriage for longer than five years.  People who truly care about you will be willing to point out ways that your mind is guiding you into behaviors that will make that assumption come true.

“Look up, Brock,” Coach Taylor says.  “You’re in the end zone.”  Brock looks up . . . and gets it.

The principle still holds true:  Brock’s mind will continue to try and prove that its beliefs are correct.  What has changed is Brock’s belief.  His mind now knows that he can do more, so much more than he would have imagined.  Once his belief was changed, his behaviors followed.  He became an inspired leader, and role model, guiding his teammates to win a championship they never thought they’d play in.

Challenge your beliefs.  Stretch them.  Take risks, and force your mind to accept that you are more than you have ever been before today.  Set your eyes on your triumphant future, when you can say to yourself, as Coach Taylor said to his exultant team:

“For the rest of your lives, you will remember today.  I want you to remember that you held nothing back.  You did not lose heart.  You did not stop fighting.  You did not quit!”

If you’d like to learn more about how you can be a role model of rich, triumphant success, join me for an upcoming LIVE BIG seminar.

Roger K. Allen, Ph.D. is an expert in personal and organizational change. The tools and methods Dr. Allen offers have helped tens of thousands of people transform the ways they work and live.  To learn more about him and his services, visit http://www.abouthdi.com. To learn more about his new book The Hero’s Choice: Living from the Inside Out, go to www.theheroschoice.com .   It’s also available on amazon.com or any local bookstore.

Hal glanced around the table, hoping that one of his long-time colleagues would speak up on his behalf.  No one, except Charlie White, met his eyes.  Not Keith, his golfing buddy who had lauded his every move – until Charlie’s arrival.  Not Patricia, a single parent who had asked Hal to be godfather to her adopted son.  Not Larry, a friend going back to high-school whom Hal had rescued from a dead-end job to become a partner in Western.

Personal Development: Have You Ever Been Betrayed?

Hal’s chest tightened.  He was on the wrong end of a power struggle, and not one of his friends was stepping into the fray.  No one was willing to take on Charlie White.  He sat back down, wondering what – if anything – he could do to salvage the meeting.  “What’s going on here,” he asked. . .

The Hero’s Choice, by Roger K. Allen

Have you ever been blind-sided?  Ever been betrayed by people you trusted?  Maybe a friend, or even a family member, took you down, broke your heart with a few words or a single action that revealed layers upon layers of disloyalty.

“I didn’t know!” you cry.  “I didn’t see this coming at all!”

“Oh, but you should have,” your mind taunts back.  “The signs were all there, and you were just too blind to see.”

And you see it now – the clues to this coming treachery.  The muttered word, the sideways glance, the quiet phone calls.  How could you have missed it?  The facts were right there in front of your face!

To move forward in our personal development, we have to learn the difference between facts and perceptions — facts as colored by our feelings and beliefs.  The funny (in the sense of peculiar) thing is that we tend to give more weight to our perceptions than the uncolored facts.

The charm, beauty and wonder of life lie not in the facts, but in our feelings about the facts.  When you look into the face of your newborn infant, you don’t exclaim, “Excellent!  A carbon-based, biped life-form that falls within the normal  range on length, weight, and number of digits.”

Instead, you . . . well, you probably cry.

That same human quality, though, can be our downfall if we don’t learn to distinguish fact from perception.  In my book, The Hero’s Choice, Hal’s perception of his partners was filtered through his belief that he was the boy wonder, that everyone admired him for taking a little bit of nothing and turning it into a $60 million company.  There was a time when that perception had matched the reality, but that time had passed without his noticing.  As a result, he walked into that fateful meeting completely unprepared.

Later in his journey of personal development, Hal was lucky enough to have a friend, Donald, who challenged his perception of the facts.   Hal “. . . was astonished to realize he’d been reacting automatically and just assumed his point of view was the truth about the situation.”

Are you making the same mistake?  Almost certainly – we all do in one arena or another.    Maybe you work under the assumption that your grandchildren think your knock-knock jokes are funny, or that your neighbor secretly dislikes your dog.    But if you’re struggling with your life, struggling to break out of mediocrity or unhappiness, it’s time to take a good long look at your perceptions.

• Ask questions:  “You know, honey, you’ve mentioned a couple of times that your sister’s husband treats her like a princess.  Are you feeling like I’m taking you for granted?”
• Open your eyes to clues.  “Okay.  The neighbor slammed his door shut when I waved this morning.  We found our party invitation crumpled up in the yard.  And someone in the neighborhood reported us to the city for collecting rainwater in an uncovered barrel.  Maybe we’re having a problem here.”
• Listen.  If a co-worker has made four jokes – this morning – about your personal phone calls, there might be more to her message than her desire to become a stand-up comedian.

Maybe you remember that old show from the ‘80’s and ‘90’s, Star Trek:  The Next Generation. One of the characters from that show was an android named Data who was unable to experience emotions.  He was constantly baffled and intrigued by the human experience.  For example, in one episode, he kissed another character named Jenna.  “What were you just thinking?” Jenna asked him.

“In that particular moment, I was reconfiguring the warp field parameters, analyzing the collected works of Charles Dickens, calculating the maximum pressure I could safely apply to your lips, considering a new food supplement for Spot . . .”

“Well,” the disgruntled Jenna answered.  “I’m glad I was in there somewhere.”

The equation for Living Big is this:

Reality (what is) + Responsibility (my willingness to choose) = Results (what I get).

If you’re having trouble turning this math into the personal development you dream of, it’s time to get a little help.  At HDI, we specialize in helping people like you live your best life NOW by giving you the strategies and tools you need.  Join us for the LIVE BIG seminar and unleash your potential.

Roger K. Allen, Ph.D. is an expert in personal and organizational change. The tools and methods Dr. Allen offers have helped tens of thousands of people transform the ways they work and live.  To learn more about him and his services, visit http://www.abouthdi.com. To learn more about his new book The Hero’s Choice: Living from the Inside Out, go to www.theheroschoice.com. Its also available on amazon.com or any local bookstore.

Tis The Season

Her excitement was palpable and has caused me to do an inventory of my feelings. Have I captured the excitement of the holidays and spirit of Christmas? I asked my wife, as we left to do a little Christmas shopping, last week, if she was excited. I should have known the answer. Of course she was excited. It’s the holidays.

I continued to reflect. My mind drifted back to my childhood. The holidays were always exciting back then. Of course, it had a lot to do with getting—out of school, a new bike one year, skis another, a hockey game with figures that moved up and down the ice, which my brother, Paul, and I played for hours.

Then I remembered a story my parents told about one of my first Christmas’s. I was four years old and wanted a rope. “A rope, is that all?” my parents would ask. “A rope,” was my reply. A few nights before Christmas I got brave enough to change my wish. “Could I get a pony on the end of that rope?” Needless to say, I didn’t get a real pony. But I got a stick pony (along with a cowboy hat and a rope) and rode that thing until I darn near killed it, over the next several months. Little compares to the unbridled anticipation and excitement of a child at Christmas.

As we grow older the meaning of the season changes. Most importantly, the spiritual meaning of the season becomes important. As a Christian, I love the story and symbols associated with the birth of Christ and enjoy the warm feelings and life-giving message of his ministry. He brought a message of peace and love towards our fellowman as radical and relevant today as it was 2000 years ago. And as I think about that message I know that the holidays are not about getting but rather about gathering and giving.

Of course, the important giving is not material. (Most people would agree that the holidays have become far too commercial.) The important giving has to do with our hearts–our human connections, time together, appreciation, love and support. Now I feel the stirrings of some feelings within. Excitement is not the word. Maybe gratitude, even compassion. Judy and I are going to visit two of our daughters and their families in Las Vegas and Chandler, AZ. (We also got to see our son and family over Thanksgiving and Judy recently spent time with another daughter in Seattle.)

I think about what it will be like to be with our daughters and their families. (I have to confess, I always have a hard time putting my work aside.) But I don’t want to take this time for granted. We don’t see them that often. And it’s too easy to hurry from one activity to another. I really want to be present with them. Give them a good, long hug. Listen as my daughters and sons-in-law talk about their lives, their joys and frustrations. Watch them. Really see them. Join them in their routines. Play with their children (that’s the easy part). Express the pride and love I feel for them.

Not that I expect everything to go smoothly. There will certainly be ups and downs. Moments when the kids are tired and fussy. Moments when I’m tired and fussy and longing for my own space, my own car, and bed.

But to be fully present, without an agenda. To find joy in the gathering and giving. That was my mother. And that is what I want this holiday season.

Last Words

If you like our newsletter, products and seminars, please tell your friends, colleagues and neighbors. If there’s something you don’t like, or something you think we can do better, please tell us.

Thank you for your continued support.

With deepest respect,

Roger K. Allen

The Stories We Tell

One of my favorite stories was “The Little Engine Who Could.” Just recently I was climbing a “Fourteener” in Colorado. The day was hot. The route to the steepest part of the ascent had been long and I was panting hard as I tried to make my way up an unmarked trail over a steep field of boulders. I recall settling into a steady rhythm with a familiar cadence playing in the back of my mind. “I think I can. I think I can.”

One of my children’s favorite stories was “How to be Perfect in Just Three Days.” It is a fun and humorous story about a little boy who learned that he couldn’t and, even more importantly, didn’t need to be perfect.

Stories such as these play an important role in our lives. Not only do they entertain, but their lessons help shape how we think and feel about life.

And I’ve noticed that we don’t stop story-telling because we grow up. In fact, we tell ourselves stories every day. And the most important stories we tell are about our own lives. There is a monologue going on almost continually in the back of our minds about the events that happen to us on a day-to-day basis. We not only go through event after event but we talk to ourselves about the meaning of these events.

Perhaps the most critical time we tell ourselves stories is during a challenge. And the most important stories we tell ourselves determine how we make it through those challenges. Unfortunately, lots of people tell themselves stories based on fear and insecurity. “Nothing ever goes right” stories. Life is one set of problems after another. They don’t see the blessings and abundance of life but their antennae is attuned to the bad.

Others tell themselves “victim stories.” They insist that circumstances and other people are the cause of their problems. They magnify the actions of others while minimizing their own responsibility for what happens.

Others get caught up in “I might lose” stories. These stories are told by people who are afraid to dream or who put off their visions in order to find security and avoid the fears of failure, rejection or discomfort. As a result, they minimize growth and joy as well as potential losses.

Lots of folks tell themselves “I’m not good enough” stories. They put the brakes on their potential because they feel undeserving of success and happiness as they focus on their weaknesses, real or perceived, as well as guilt about the past.

Others tell “I can’t win” stories. These stories assume that either choices or one’s ability to exercise those choices are limited.  “I can’t help it.” “People don’t support me.” “I don’t have the authority.” People who buy into these stories believe they are powerless (not inadequate) to have what they want in life.

What stories do you tell yourself? Especially when things don’t go the way you want? When you get negative feedback? When you fail to get the promotion you wanted? When you’re laid off? When you are sick? Or you see someone who lives in a bigger house? When you get up and go to work every day?

These stories are powerful influencers of our moods, attitudes and behavior. Life is like a movie projector. We project our stories (our core beliefs) onto the world around us and they come back in the form of our experience. And the truth is you can build a case for whatever you tell yourself. You can find plenty of reasons to tell yourself negative stories or positive stories. The origin of your experience in life is not “out there.” It is “in here.”

I remember a story of young boy who asked his mother to come and watch him hit a ball. He tossed it up and swung, missing the ball. He tossed it up again, swung and missed. After tossing it in the air and missing a number of times, he looked at his mother and said, “I sure am a good pitcher.”

The good news is that, once you become aware that you are the one telling the stories, you have a choice. It isn’t always an easy choice. Especially if you’ve been telling yourself negative stories for a long time.

Most everyone who “makes it” in life tell themselves positive stories. People get through incredible adversity because they tell themselves stories that are positive and empowering. Likewise, people achieve incredible success because they tell themselves stories that are positive and empowering.

What is your dream? What do you really want from life? What stories do you need to tell yourself to live that dream? Say it out loud. Again. Write it down. Practice telling that story over and over until it becomes who you are. And, like a little child, discover the joy that can come into your life through the stories you tell.

The Hero Principle

We typically think of heroes as larger than life characters that possess extra-ordinary capabilities or who put themselves in harms way to save others. No problem with that definition. But, I also believe that heroes are everyday people who face life squarely and make choices based on courage, honor, compassion or integrity. What makes them heroes is not something extraordinary but how they handle the day-to-day circumstances and events.

Here are a few myths and realities about heroes.

My message is that you can be a hero in your own life and in the lives of those around you. (No doubt in many ways you already are.) You are a hero as you step up to difficult situations and events (key moments) with courage; as you choose your attitude rather than leaving it to circumstances of the moment; as you enter into a difficult conversation you’d prefer to avoid; as you accept accountability rather than blame when things go wrong; as you raise your sights from getting by to making a difference in a position or area of personal responsibility.

It is not always easy to live this way. It takes commitment and persistence. It is far easier to live from the motives of fear or obligation, to live going through the motions of life. However, as you make the “hero’s choice” in the day-to-day moments of your life learn that you are bigger than whatever shows up in your life. And, you grow in character, which is the ultimate source of personal satisfaction, peace, and fulfillment.

The purpose of our products and seminars is to support you in this journey.  At HDI we help you find the courage to make tough choices, strengthening choices, good choices—choices that make a difference to yourself, your relationships, and the organizations of which you are a part.