OneSharpSword

Two race cars are finely tuned, side by side, they’re efficient and they are at the starting line.

One has been racing for days on end and has approached the starting line low on fuel.

The other has been pulled off the track, tuned up, fueled up, and has been readied for the new race.

Both are efficient. Only one will be effective.

You can burn the energy you have at an efficient pace, and unless you take time out, there’s no way to maintain efficiency. You certainly won’t be effective at work, at home, or in the community.

Quarantine your work time.

Quarantine your email.

Quarantine time for you… to sit, to read, to write, to exercise, or to engage with others meaningfully.

You are in charge of what the New Normal looks like for you.

Make that new normal fully yours.

1. Be Kind - it doesn’t take much to just be a good human. Don’t say anything that’ll make waves just for the sake of making waves. On the other hand, don’t hold things in, either. My mom did hold things in and taught me how to do that. Sometimes the lessons we learn are modeled in what not to do.  Don’t hold things in. And certainly, say what needs to be said. Do so in a way that lifts others. Be kind.
2. Think About Others - this was a lesson in empathy. What might the other person be thinking or feeling? And when you can understand that, what might they want or need? How can you show up to fill that need? The caution here is that you needn’t give of yourself until there’s nothing left. Show up in service to others. Take time for yourself, too. You can’t give what you don’t have. So refuel and give of yourself.
3. Leave The Place Better Than You Found It - Now I think my mom meant to keep it tidy, and what I can say is that sometimes a place IS better because YOU were there! Show up, show up in full presence. If there’s a way you can lift and support another person because you’re attending to the space you’re in, that’s awesome. I’ve extrapolated this to mean my workspace, too. At the end of the day, is it in better shape than the way I came to it? Make that happen!
4. Use Your Intuition - My mom knew things. There wasn’t any reason she knew things, she just did. Some of that was the era she was raised - I mean, she lived through WWII. And in the way that we’re living though a pandemic and learning to read a person’s mask-covered face through their eyes, my mom had all kinds of political and social rules to live through. So by the time she had kids, she knew things. She knew how to listen to what was being said or presented and she knew how to pay attention to the gaps, as well. It’s a skill I’m proud to have learned. It serves me well. 
5. Keep Learning - If you stop learning, you’ve stopped growing and really, you’ve stopped living. Keep growing. Keep learning. Remember, “you can’t give what you don’t have” is as much about refueling your body as it is about growing your knowledge and wisdom. You can only give from the level you’re at, so find a coach or mentor and step into your personal growth!

Six great lessons from a wonderful woman I’m proud to have called “mom.”

The question is, will heading down this path get me closer to my desired outcome?

Will sitting on the couch, binge-watching my favorite show, and ordering pizza get me my desired outcome? It might! The desired outcome might be that you want or need time to “just veg out.”

On the other hand, if your desired outcome was that you wanted to land that big client, then that choice of activity isn’t likely to get you closer to your goal.

Questions to consider: Is what you’re doing getting you closer to or further from what you said you wanted?

What do you think will happen if you head down this path?

Teaching our kids to think is wrapped into all of this. It does them no good to sit in judgement of their choices. “Make good choices” is a set up for condemnation. Teach them how to think. Explore possible outcomes with them.

And the same holds true for your family, your work team members, and even yourself. 

Don’t condemn a “bad” choice unless you have a full perception of all of the possible outcomes that could happen. (Children don’t have the adult perspective yet.)

What outcome are you after?

Will this decision/choice get you closer to or further from that?

Choose - - experience - - learn - - choose again.

Jennifer Kem grew up in the plantation town of Wailea, HI. As the young descendent of Filipino immigrants, she was a studious introvert. Her grandmother, a great influence, had her reading the business section of the newspaper, giving her a very important lesson early on: “You can think beyond what’s around you.”  

Jen generously shares her story, taking us from childhood, through her MBA at UC Berkeley to her work at the Ogilvy Company where she ran coffee and ached to do grander copy writing. She watched as ad execs created “Ad Duels” pitting Coke against Pepsi and found their use of architypes intriguing.  

Diving deeper into the concepts of how people consume, Jen found that marketing really IS a science! She’s a lover of Values-Driven Leadership and notes that so much of a leader’s journey is based on Vision, Violation, and Voids.   

Jen’s journey continued as she became a product manager at Oracle and went on to run Verizon’s B2B for the west coast. Known as “the fixer” even in her early 20s, Jen wanted to learn how to succeed more greatly.

 She asked an important question of one of the senior leaders: What do I have to do to have your job in 10 years?

 It wasn’t a wish, it was a foundational question for creating a plan. But when she took on some hard work and was passed over for a promotion, she began to wonder how to make it on her own.

• What will someone pay me for?

o   Does the market want it?

o   Will people really pay for it?

 Seeing how big Victoria’s Secret became, she began an import and retail business in Hawaii, a biz that grew to $10M. She notes that she was betting on herself as the outlier.

But 2008 was cruel to so many in retail and her business was no exception.

 She lost almost everything and fell into a depression. 

She recalls sitting on the front porch, just watching cars pass by and her then-10-year-old daughter saying, “Mommy, you’re Jen Kem and it’s time to wake up.”

 She notes, “I was the hardest project I had to take on.”

 Returning to corporate to get back on her feet, she reentered as a consultant and created KemCom, now a multi-million-dollar company. She began to study how she had become a success and created a model for others, launching The MasterBrand Institute. 

 Here, she guides entrepreneurs back to Values-Driven Leadership and notes that most fail when it comes to managing systems (people, processes, and technology).

 She notes that leaders must take on three roles, then let go of two.

-       Visionizer – founder

-       Strategizer – overseeing Sales and Marketing

-       Mobilizer – the one to oversee operations, processes, and systems

 Jen has a gift for the audience if you’d like to explore your architype and leadership style. It’s specifically for the One Sharp Sword audience. Go to www.confidently.me/sharp for an assessment valued at $250.

We sure do talk to ourselves an awful lot, don’t we?

For everything we do, all the chatter we allow, everything we eat, all of the relationships we engage in, ask this simple question: Is This Love? 

You’re worthy of giving and receiving love.

You are worthy of filtering out of your life anything that doesn’t feel like love - from the clothes you wear to the food you eat to the self-talk you engage in to the relationships you’ve tolerated.

Build back a stronger you by taking care of the person that gets to decide how others treat you: YOU.

You let the world know how to treat you by how you treat yourself.

Is this love?  I’m giving you a big virtual loving hug right now! 

Most people know Chase Tucker as the soft-spoken beast who does treadmill and strength training on Peloton. He’s so much more than that!

Born from parents who struggled to make a life here, Chase recognizes a responsibility from his legacy. His mom was moved here from Haiti when she was four years old. And though she didn’t speak English and was ridiculed while growing up, she became a pediatrician and her focus is on giving care to the underserved. Chase’s father, having grown up in a pretty tough part of Chicago, struggled his way out and into med-school, also becoming a physician. He lovingly calls them “warriors who combined forces.” 

One of the traits he took on was to be fueled by being pushed back on. 

While he loved Chicago (who doesn’t, really), he moved to Florida when he was 11 and then to Tennessee a few years later. He was good in sports, and notes having played soccer since he was just 4 y/o.

Not only is Chase a good human, he and I found common ground in our discussion in several areas. 

First, he’s a fan of curiosity and has a passion for learning. 

• The level of achievement you have is in direct proportion to your curiosity.

He shared that books allowed him to escape while bringing the world to him. And this allowed him to leverage being able to tap into both curiosity and imagination, noting that as a gamer, play has always been important to him. And, he notes, movement is play.

In terms of curiosity, Chase reminds us to think beyond First Principles, moving from blockage to bridge. He encourages us, ala Tom Bilyeu, to take on the identity of a learner. Doing so allows you to be anti-fragile.

We found that we both are continuous learners and he points out to those consuming information that there’s a difference between input and learning.

Besides being influenced by Tom Bilyeu, Chase appreciates Gary V and Ido Portal, a movement practitioner whom Chase trained with in London.

As an enduring learner, Chase challenged himself (and us) to ask, “Am I being the student who is worthwhile pouring into?”

I have to say, that question shook me a bit and had me questioning how devoted I really was to the programs I’ve taken. 

When Chase was in college, he realized that he didn’t belong on the med-school path. He earned his degree in biology, exercise science, and kinesiology. When he was working with the physically broken, he found that people’s fears and doubts amplified. We can handle everything in our lives until something makes us focus on just one thing - an injury, for example. And that led him to find purpose, helping people overcome barriers.

Introspection, even in his early 20s led him to question what he wanted to be known for. 

He began working in the physical fitness fields, running a bootcamp, his own business, and more. Chase joined Peloton four years ago - they found him - and because of the alignment, he jumped in.

He sees a dare as a challenge to take on and encourages others to do the same. 

Set a new standard for yourself and recognize that every experience has a different core (from which to build).

Chase Tucker’s current mission is to learn to become the person that improves 1 Billion lives. I stopped him there, since my mission is to teach, touch, and positively transform a billion lives. I’d never heard anyone else speak that way!

He’d like to create a VC fund and pour energy into people, businesses, and organizations who have typically lacked traditional access to personal and professional development. He sees this as the underestimated community.

Chase speaks affirmations at the end of each Peloton training. I read these back to him and he smiled his big smile, saying that he got an energy spike hearing them. “Is that what they sound like??!!”

Affirmations:

•     I am becoming my best, strongest, and highest self with each day I choose to take consistent actions toward my goals and purpose.

•     I am in competition with no one except the person I was yesterday, and I am exactly where I am supposed to be on the path I have specifically chosen and created.

•     I am the master of my mind.

I am the master of my body.

I am the master of my life. 

Chase can be reached @ChaseTucker on most social platforms.

What a joy!

We can see the bad all over the place in the world.

We can get sucked into the bad, horrible news. 

We could choose worse.

OR 

You could choose to be a beacon of light in the darkness knowing that any amount of feeling bad for what’s going on in the world isn’t going to help fix the problem.

I feel so bad that there’s…

Covid

Racism

Hunger

Sex Traficking

And on and on…

You need to be aware that those things exist. They are horrible and unjust. And again, your feeling bad won’t fix them. So choose to be an agent of change. Pick something that matters to you. Pay attention to it. Bring your beacon of light to it. Make your difference in the world.

As you step into the world, choose to lift others around you. It’s by doing that, by lifting and enlightening, that we make ripples.

It’s the ripples of the accountable individual, you, that change the world for the better.

It all… Starts With OneⓇ

Thank you for listening to One Sharp Sword!  Be sure to also check out Wednesdays With Wayne for quick, fun, and inspirational mid-week reading.  www.WaynePernell.com/blog 

You’ve got goals, that’s great. And, from the last podcast, you know I’m not a big fan of New Year’s Resolutions.

I am a fan of goals, though.

And I’m a fan of micro-goals. Moving toward your Desired Outcome (or what I call your EPO - Envisioned Positive Outcome) a little every day.

Here’s how to make that happen - it’s the same way that you’d set a GPS!

1. You have to know where you’re going… specifically. What is your specific desired destination? You may change or include stops along the way. For now, identify (write in your journal) your specific desired destination.
2. 1. Want more money? How much is more?
   2. Want to be healthier? What does real health look like and feel like?
   3. Want to be in a better relationship? What does “better” mean?
   4. The same questions go for where you live, work, or even the car you drive.

Knowing that you can’t change another person, what is it that you want for yourself that you’re willing to move towards? 

1. Get clear about where you are. 
2. 1. What’s your starting point in debt, in health status, in your career, or relationships?

You need to know your starting point so the GPS can chart an accurate road for you. Your brutal honesty with yourself makes all the difference in whether you achieve your goals or not.

1. Move! The GPS requires you to get on the assigned road. Take action, any action, and then get feedback. You can’t get there if you don’t start taking action and really paying attention to the feedback. 

Remember this key point: You do NOT need all of the step-by-step directions before you pull out of the parking lot. You need to have your outcome in mind and know that you’re moving closer to it. The more you move the more defined and refined the movement becomes. 

You reach your goals by getting really clear about what they are and putting yourself in gear. Take your foot off the brake and give a little gas. Pay attention to road conditions and adapt.

Thank you for listening to One Sharp Sword!  Be sure to also check out Wednesdays With Wayne for quick, fun, and inspirational mid-week reading.  www.WaynePernell.com/blog

Resolutions don’t stick for three key reasons

1. You have to give something up
2. It’s hard; being consistent is hard
3. Doubt creeps in and you wonder whether it’ll all be worth it. It’s a waste of imagination as you might as easily imagine it being worth it beyond your wildest dreams.

So, what to do instead? 

Pick a word - what word will you live into, incrementally, every day?

• Health
• Abundance
• Loving
• Present
• Determined
• Etc.

Pick a word for yourself this year.

Say that word out loud at the beginning of each day.

Set reminders in your phone to see that word.

And at the end of each day, reflect on how you lived into that. A little at a time, you’re becoming Your Word.

Thank you for listening to One Sharp Sword!  Be sure to also check out Wednesdays With Wayne for quick, fun, and inspirational mid-week reading.  www.WaynePernell.com/blog 

Happy New Year!

You have a choice - to get through another day, month, quarter, and year. Or, to choose to grow and lift those around you every single day. 

How do you want to start your day?

How do you want to end each day? 

Are you just getting through, living in fear and lack?

Or can you step into your day, knowing you’re making a difference and embracing growth and challenge while lifting those around you.

Your choice - to simply survive is Dis-Ease.

To thrive is about growth and expansion…!

This is your year. Go make a difference!

(Want to grow? My Powerful Presence ® Program is starting next month. It’s a six-week group program online every Friday. You’ll love it! Go to www.PowerfulPresence.com to check it out and to register.)

Thank you for listening to One Sharp Sword!  Be sure to also check out Wednesdays With Wayne for quick, fun, and inspirational mid-week reading.  www.WaynePernell.com/blog