by John Spence

Passion: if you don’t really love what you’re doing, there is no way you will ever become an expert at it.

Persistence: as Malcolm Gladwell pointed out in his book Outliers it takes about 10 years or 10,000 hours to master a skill or specific area of knowledge.

Practice: but the key here is to do “deliberate practice,” which means that every practice session is a little bit more challenging than the last, constantly pushing you to improve and grow.

Pattern Recognition: once you invest 10 years or 10,000 hours in something that you are deeply passionate about and consistently push yourself to improve through deliberate practice… You realize that you have discovered how to “connect the dots” and understand your area of focus at the level far beyond others. This is how the chess grandmaster “sees down board,” were great actually see the entire field of play and anticipate their opponents next moves, or how a virtuoso musician can simply look at a piece of music and begin to play it immediately… they see the pattern.

The more I studied this topic, by many different authors and experts, the idea of pattern recognition kept coming up over and over again — there was a pattern around pattern recognition! The interesting thing though is that most often the things that allow a person to connect the dots are the unique, different, surprising and interesting things you find… when you get off the beaten path. When you read a book on a topic you would normally never study, watch a movie on something that you know little about, or go to a museum look at paintings in style that doesn’t necessarily fit your normal pattern for the type of art you typically like to look at.

Don’t get me wrong, routine can be very good, it is comfortable, it is predictable, it is safe… but routine often creates a rut — the absolute epitome of a beaten path!

So if you want to make new discoveries in your life, find new ways to see things, new perspectives on some of your thorniest problems — then push yourself way out of your comfort zone, far, far off the beaten path… and as if by magic the dots will begin to connect.

by John Spence

The courage, that as the leader, you do NOT have all of the answers, that you are not sure exactly what to do, that you might be wrong… that you need help. I know this flies in the face of what we think being a “courageous leader” is all about — but it is the truth. In today’s fast-paced, information-intensive global economy no one has all the answers — no one can be successful alone — we all need help and we all need to courage to admit that without shame.

Let me also point out that nearly all of the highly successful people I have ever spent time around were disarmingly courageous in their willingness to admit their faults and ask for help. They never pretended to be experts in areas where they were not and eagerly sought out the wise counsel of the true experts.

So of course be bold, take BIG risks, show great courage in the face of difficult circumstances, but by all means also know when it is time to show an even great level of courage… the courage to admit that you need help!

by John Spence

1. You become what you focus on and like the people you surround yourself with. Whatever you fill your mind with — whatever you watch, read, listen to, and think about… and who you choose to spend your time with, will pretty much determine what your life will look like a decade from now!

2. Ask For HELP.  It is NOT weak to admit that you are in over your head, that you are confused, that you do not what to do… that you need some help. It takes a great deal of courage to finally face that fact that you cannot do it all alone. But here is the neat thing… once you learn to ask for help your life will get much easier and more enjoyable because people who love and respect you will willingly offer you all of the help they can give — and that is a beautiful thing my friend, a beautiful thing indeed.

3. The ONLY measure that counts in life is how much love you can give, create and receive. The amazing thing is that you can give and give and give love… and you will have even more love left to give away the very next day.  You have an endless supply… and you always will. Is that cool or what? And lest you think that receiving love is selfish, sometimes the greatest way to show love is to allow others to give their love to you. That is really cool too!

So I leave you with my favorite passages on love from “The Prophet” by the amazing Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

by John Spence

In the end it came down to three key watchwords…

FOCUS: To be truly excellent at anything you must have an incredibly clear definition of what excellence is to you, what it will look like in your life and how you will measure it. I call this your “Personal Philosophy of Excellence.” Once you have thoughtfully created your own personal philosophy of excellence you must then focus on it intensely, day in and day out, always keeping a clear picture of specifically what you must do to achieve the level of excellence you honestly want in your life.

DISCIPLINE: Once you have determined what excellence looks like to you and created a plan to move your life in that direction, you must then exhibit a level of discipline that most people are unwilling to put forth. Lots of people talk about excellence, many say they want to be more effective, successful, happier, more joyful… but is the rare person who applies consistent discipline in order to turn their plan… into reality.

ACTION: The amount of success you achieve in your life is directly proportional to the amount of action you apply to staying disciplined around your personal philosophy of excellence. Not quite clear on what excellence and success looks like to you? Or, you know exactly what you want but you’re not very disciplined about pursuing it? Or perhaps you really understand what level of excellence you want to achieve, and you’re very disciplined, but you just don’t apply much action to your philosophy? The outcome is mediocrity, and we have a saying in my firm: ” The minute you start accepting mediocrity in your life, you become a magnet for mediocrity in your life.”

The truth is; the process to achieve excellence is not that complicated if you simply apply focus, discipline and massive action. Of course, the same could be said for winning an Olympic gold medal in the 100 yard dash; Run really fast — faster than everyone else!

by John Spence

I promise this works – I GIVE you my word!

Now… would you like to give me some additional things to add to my list?

by John Spence

My post this month will likely be different than the other authors here at Jungle of Life, because I am going to be a champion for massive overconsumption!! That’s right, I am going to encourage you to be a glutton, a pig, an absolute and total overconsumption freak for… learning.

If you were to look at learning as “food” for the brain, the majority of people in business today would be dying of starvation. I recently saw statistic that said the average business person reads 1.5 business-related books per year!!  Here is a startling fact: if you were to read just one business book every two months – six business books a year – you would be in the top one percent of self-learners and America. If you were to read one business book every month – 12 books a year – you would be in the top one percent of self-learners on the face of the earth.

So here’s my recommendation to you: become an obscene over-consumer of quality learning. Dedicate yourself to reading at least one business book every month, go and watch the videos on Ted.com and Big Think, listen to audio books, get all the free podcasts and audio downloads from iTunes, read a few industry magazines and check out a few blogs every month – month after month – without fail. If you will do this, I will absolutely guarantee that in five years you will built a base of knowledge, ideas and information that will dramatically increase your value in the marketplace.

How can I state with this with such certainty? Well, I have read a minimum of 100 to 120 business books a year, every year since 1989 and listened to an additional 30 to 50 each year as well. I also read nearly a dozen business related magazines every month and spend at least one hour a day reading blogs or watching videos from the top business websites on the web.

How did this work out for me?

In early 2011 I was recognized as one of the top 100 business thought leaders in America. Now I tell you this not to impress you, but to impress upon you this: I’m not really very smart, I’m just very, very focused. I understood a long time ago that employers/clients pay for ideas, strategies, and information that will help them grow their business and generate more profits. The more high-quality ideas and information you have – the more valuable you are in the marketplace – it is just that simple. 

So pick up a book, listen to an audio book, peruse a few dozen websites and begin a steady diet of massive over-consumption of the best information you can put in your brain.

by John Spence

1. Face the hard facts

I see a lot of pain created in people’s lives when they fight the inevitable. Unwilling to accept the changes that are thrust upon them, they complain, they stress, they fight and struggle, they get depressed and they get beaten down. Although it is exceedingly difficult to do it, the best way to deal with change is to simply accept it and begin adapting to the new normal.  I do a lot of work in the healthcare industry, a sector of our economy that is undergoing gut-wrenching and incredibly overwhelming changes. Some of my health care clients are seeing their entire organizations turned upside down and their employees nearly paralyzed with fear and unwillingness to accept the changes.  Budgets have been slashed, patient satisfaction is dropping, and employee satisfaction is nonexistent.  Yet others are adapting to the change magnificently, because they have instilled in their workforce to clear concept that things are never going back to the way they used to be – these changes are unassailable – so don’t even try to resist!  Instead they help their people learn to spend all of their energy and emotion on adapting to the changes and finding a way to make things as good as they possibly can even in the face of incredible challenges.  It works exactly the same with you in your career; you can fight it and be miserable, or accept that change is inevitable and become a master of change.

2. Figure out what you can control

One of the major factors that makes change so difficult is that it gives people a feeling of helplessness.  One day everything seems fine, and then the next day someone four levels up in the organization makes a change that has a terrible negative impact on you.  Again, I see great pain created in people’s lives when they spend a significant amount of their time worrying, complaining, fighting and getting highly stressed over situations that are completely out of their control. The best technique I know to deal with this issue is to sit down and write out a long list of all the things that are giving you stress and anxiety in your life.  Then take a long hard look at each of them and decide whether you CAN control or CANNOT control this particular item.  If you cannot control it, then you must learn to have the discipline and courage to completely let go of it.  Do not obsess about it, do not think too much about it, do not worry too much about it – simply keep telling yourself this is not something you can really do anything about – so you should let go of it and put it out of your mind.  How do you put it out of your mind?  By then looking at the other list of items that you can control – and taking massive control of those.  Stressing yourself to death about the economy, politics, the ozone layer, the weather, taxes, other people’s opinions of you… this will only drive you crazy. Instead take all of that emotional energy and focus intently on the areas of your life where you have control.

If you will follow these two pieces of advice you should become much more adept at dealing effectively with change.

by John Spence

Many of us fall into a rut in our career, we get tired, we get bored, we stop growing. When this happens it is a negative and painful situation both for you and the organization you serve – a true lose/lose. So why not “fire” yourself and come back tomorrow as if you were a brand-new employee that was motivated, excited and eager to take on your job with the new zeal. Instead of focusing on what is wrong with your job and the organization you work for, look for everything that is right, good, exciting. Look for opportunities where you can challenge yourself to grow and add real and significant value. Reach out to the people in the organization that you admire and find a way to spend more time with them. Commit yourself to learning some new skills that will make you more valuable to your employer. We all know that we spend the majority of our life at work, why in the world would you not want all of that time to be fun, engaging and enjoyable? And believe me when I tell you, that you do have the ability to make your work exciting and fun – it is up to you – if you simply decide that you’re going to find a way to create a new beginning and look for every opportunity to get involved, add value and find more meaning and enjoyment in your career.

If at this point in my article you were shaking your head and saying, “But John, you do not know where I work, you don’t understand how bad it really is, there is no way to make my work fun or enjoyable,” then I encourage you to take a long hard look at your situation and decide if it is time for truly new beginning in a different company or completely different career. Life is far too short not to go to work with a smile on your face every morning looking forward to your day, and returning in the evening energized and proud with a feeling of accomplishment. It is an old cliché, and a very true one: “If you love what you do it never feels like work.”  Everyone has the ability to make their career exciting, rewarding and fun, and if it is not right now, fire yourself and start a new beginning tomorrow!

by John Spence