2Weeks2aBreakthrough

Make Something Happen

Here are a few nice posts about making things happen:

Dave over at Career Intensity posts, Live Your Ideal Life. Regular readers of this blog will guess that "Do something every day toward your goal," is a favorite mantra.

Seth talks about Real Creativity.

Curt suggests we Reach Out and Ask for Help.

I'm Looking for Three Guinea Pigs Who Want to Do Something Amazing

*** UPDATE*** Monday 4:30PM: I have found my beloved guinea pigs! Thanks to everyone who applied to play. I would still like one internal manager or leader to participate, so if you work for a company as a manager or leader, why not consider it? The program will start April 9th and go through April 22nd.

As many of you know, I am writing a book about my 2 Weeks to a Breakthrough Program. I have lots of great quotes and testimonials from past participants and I will be collecting more examples from future program participants.

Today I decided that I want to include 2 or 3 complete case studies in the book.

I would like to work with 3 people who are willing to go through the program, document their actions, and share their results in detail. I would reveal only your first name in the book.

I am looking for special individuals who:

1. Have a goal they are passionate about but that they have not yet achieved. I would prefer to work with people who have a larger goal with some complexity - like building a new business or aspect of business or creating an organization or launching a large community project. For internal folks, it might be planning and implementing a large change.

2. Are willing to follow my coaching and suggestions for 14 days straight. This one is important - I need people who will dedicate a minimum of one hour per day and do the work each day, including weekends.

3. Are willing to try new approaches and push past their comfort zones.

4. Will be accessible for daily communication and will record all actions and results relative to the project.

For these 3 beloved guinea pigs, there will be no costs associated with the program. The program will begin in early April.

For the right people, this is a sweet deal because you WILL experience breakthroughs as a result of going through the program and doing all the suggested activities.

I am going to be picky in selecting folks because I want case studies that lend themselves to great examples. I will select based on the goal. Anyone in the world with email and phone access (or Skype for international folks) is eligible.

If you are interested, send me an email (lhaneberg AT gmail DOT com) with the following information:

Your goal
Why you want to achieve this goal.
Confirm your availability and your willingness to take the coaching every day.

I would like to have the guinea pig team selected by the end of next week.

This will be fun!

Coyote Speaks Wisdom

I love this post from Adrian over at the Coyote Within called, How to Give Yourself the Best Chance in Life. Head on over and check it out. Here's my favorite snippet:

Most people get the essentials of life in the wrong order. They expect to feel good (or happy, or motivated) first; then, and only then, begin to tackle what they need to do. That makes all progress dependent on something as unpredictable and fleeting as a feeling. If you do what you need to do first, regardless of your motivation or state of mind, you'll find you're more likely to feel better because you've just achieved something. Action produces feelings. Feelings rarely produce much action beyond whining or navel-gazing.

Navel gazing... hmmm.... didn't know coyotes did that too!

The post has lots of good points like this one, which is so true for me. My breakthroughs occur when I press on - when I give myself a metaphorical kick in the butt and just do it. If I waited until I felt like doing something When I wait to do something until I feel like it - I do pitifully little.

Great success stories are almost always thick with perseverance and action.

Flow

43 Folders has a nice post called Flow: How action and awareness get things done. The post's author shares several snippets about flow. This one is my favorite:

“Flow” is a mental state of deep concentration. It typically takes about 15 minutes of uninterrupted study to get into a state of “flow”, and the constant interruptions and distractions of a typical office environment will force you out of “flow” and make productivity impossible to achieve.

More fuel to the "stop multitasking" argument. Check out all the great info on flow l - lots of links, comments, and trackbacks.

Amazing Poems by Levi Romero

I don't often cross promote my blogs, but I am making an exception. I have resurrected the Chile Pepper High blog. I was working on turning it into an online magazine, but this project has been put on hold. It's good to be back where my heart and soul can dance!

I have just posted an article about a New Mexican poet named Levi Romero. The poems are amazing, so please check the post out.

Creative Leonardo

One of my favorite blog reads comes from Ottmar Liebert - the jazz/flamenco musician and practicing Zen Buddhist.

Ottmar shares da Vinci's 7 Principles. Here are a couple:

Curiositá - An insatiably curious approach to life and an unrelenting quest for continuous learning.

Sfumato (Literally "Going up in smoke") - A willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty.

Check out all seven. I notice that my insatiable curious approach to life can get muted by being too busy and unfocused. It's not a direct correlation - sometimes when I am busy I am more engaged. It's the combination of busy and unfocused that does me in.

I think you can explore and focus at the same time - meandering and being curious is stimulating.

What gets in the way of your natural curiousity?

Fractals and Change

I love this post from Fractals of Change. It starts as a post about their new blog header (which is super cool) but quickly goes into the territory of fractals and change. Here's a snippet:

"As you know, change is what I write about mainly.  It fascinates me and I assume it interests you if you are a regular reader.  It’s cliché to say that we live in a time of accelerating change – but we do.  It’s my contention that change is a fractal; its twists and turns are impossible to project.  You can’t even accurately predict the short-term velocity of change although you know for the minute – subject to change – whether conditions are turbulent or smooth.  Things tend to move in the direction they’re already moving – until they don’t."

The post is long and MEATY, so I recommend that you check it out. I agree with the notion of change as a fractal. I also think that breakthroughs can have fractal like properties. They often seem random but a deeper and profound organization drives progress.

I will be getting into this whole area a lot more over the coming two months as I intend to include juicy bits of this in the 2 Weeks to a Breakthrough book. The rough draft is due to my publisher May 15.

Those Darn Patterns!

Ever notice how we keep falling into the same patterns? We do OK for a while and then we retreat. How do we break the cycle? Why do we slip?

This is something I am struggling with this weekend. If you remember my breakthrough matrix, it had two things to look at - focus and action. To move forward with velocity, we need to be focused like a laser beam and unstoppable.

When it comes to my exercise plan, I have been neither focused nor in much action for two weeks.

I won't bore you with the usual excuses.

This is a pattern for me. The good news is that it has only been two weeks and I can't do too much damage in that time as long as I get back on track NOW.

Noticing the pattern and recommitting to focus and action is the first important step. I need to break the cycle. And for me, a key to getting back on track is changing my self talk. Belief - action - result. When I fall back into the old pattern I notice that the conversations I am having with myself are pretty wimpy and unhelpful.

The last three months have been great. It is time for me to become more resolute - this shall be. The power of that belief is amazing.

Do you have patterns that draw you in like the Enterprise stuck in a tractor beam? Over the next few posts, I will share some of the breakthrough catalysts and inhibitors that I will be re-exploring to get my progress moving forward again.