The First cut is not the deepest |REV-UP®

Clichés have a very strange way of entangling your legs and hindering your movement. The result is that you are unable to reach your destination. The first cut is the deepest is one of such clichés.  The truth is that they are real only if you say they are and since many of us have come to accept them, the subconscious mind just responds to them and we behave accordingly, often to our own underperformance.

You may have heard the saying: Life is what you make it, possibly my favorite of all the clichés. Well that’s because it is a useful one- an asset. We must begin to understand these statements enough to decipher the good from the bad and get rid of the ugly. Let me remind you that we function on information as humans; and therefore it is what we internalize as useful that determines what we become. You might have heard the saying, “you are what you think” or better yet, you are more of what you choose to believe. What we believe is purely a matter choice.

That the first cut is the deepest makes it hard or even impossible to heal simply because you have decided it is the deepest. In real life you might find that the cut gets deeper with the subsequent cuts. But I am not advocating that you even consider any cut whether emotional, mental or physical so deep that it feels it has a right not to heal. Those first cuts are not the deepest until you decide they are. If they are negative cuts therefore, you might want to decide they are not the deepest.

Money belief is full of these harmful clichés that are a drain on performance. Talk to the belief experts and they will tell you that simple things like “money does not grow on trees”, “money is the root of all evil”, “money is hard to come by” have become the financial demons that haunt the lives of many simply because they have been programmed to think this way.

They have not learnt the principles of abundance and how life itself gives wastefully as in how we see a grain of corn evolve into thousands.  If you understand that you are functioning on this information that has become a part of your flesh and hence your body acts accordingly before you think about it, you have found the key to unlocking your performance. You have freed yourself from the entanglement of such clichés that actually disturb your performance.

Money does grow on trees and you always get a second chance to make a good impression. Which would you prefer? Make a good first impression and then be seen for the not so good that you really are at a later time or make a not so good an impression and later be seen to be much better than thought. It seems to me the latter will mean progress and the former, the opposite. Very often this is what motivators will preach to that young graduate who is getting ready for a job interview. Be the best at the interview and get in. Coaches also teach you the tricks with which you can get in. After that you consistently struggle to stay in and every time there is talk about raising standards you are in trouble.

The point is not to make a bad impression and hope it gets better. When you are yourself you are consistent. One must ensure that the self is developed to the right standard so that all impressions whether first or one hundredth are good all the time. That will be the, mark of a true performer. Don’t forget peak performance lies in being more of what we are therefore it cannot be inconsistent. It is the natural course of things.

Find those clichés and kill them now. REV UP at http://revupblog.blogspot.com/

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EI: a treatment for trapportunities

This article explores Trapportunity in more detail than more previous post which did little more than define it. Trapportunity is a phenomenon that may not be new to you at all if you look through your life. It has however not been easy to indentify as it had not been labeled properly until now. Trapportunities are traps that sell themselves as opportunities. The textbook definition is; Traps masquerading as Opportunities. What they do is to frustrate you by taking you off your track by luring you into the trap they really are. The result is that you are unable to reach goals, frustration overwhelms you and you cannot perform at your best. Sometimes they simply slow down your progress towards your real goal. Other times they deceitfully misdirect you towards what might seem like a better goal.

In the previous post I made a point about the fraudster who of necessity must dress like a real business man in order to gain the confidence of his victim. To do the opposite is to undermine his objective. In the same manner it is necessary for a trap like anything negative to present itself as an opportunity- it is the very nature of the negative. It must mimic good or cease to exist. It thrives on it and one must be first very aware of this.

Often Trapportunities plays on the lower needs. Food, clothes, shelter, sex etc. Bodily needs very easily frustrate us when in short supply. When a man is hungry to the worst limit, a piece of bread that belongs to somebody else will begin to look attractive. In most case he might eat it before remembering it did not belong to him. This is bound to invoke undesirable consequences. Responding to the needs of the lower kind is the easiest way to falling into a trap thinking we have seen an opportunity. A struggling business man in possession of a great idea but has no money to feed himself, may encounter what might seem like an opportunity. He may give away a great idea for the immediate gratification. Years down the line he will regret this. We saw a clear example with Jacob and Esau in Genesis 25:29-34.

Trapportunities present themselves in such unexpected ways; they are easy to fall for unless one understands them thoroughly. While they are a major cause of failure, they are easily avoidable when one chooses to do the right thing all the time without exception. It is a question of taking the right road instead of taking the dangerous winding short cut without knowing where it really leads. When Joseph was asked to work in the house of Portipher, (Genesis 39) he encountered what was one of the most serious Trapportunities a man can face. When your masters’ wife offers you her body, it is a first class “ego-sweller”. There are very few men who can survive this especially when she threatens you in addition.  It is easy to see how the history of Israel would have taken a rather dramatic turn if Joseph had fallen.

Another of such Trapportunity presented itself after Jesus’ baptism when Satan came with the bread temptation after a 40 day fast (Matthew 4:1-11). Now seriously when a man didn't eaten anything for 40 days, everything looks edible. All he needed was to accept Satan’s proposal- a device that was designed to establish the destruction of mankind by derailing Jesus from his mission. Hungry as he was, if he had responded to his bodily need of hunger at its extreme, the history of mankind would have taken a different course. It needs to be said that it that it would not have been a helpful one.

Those who have mastered themselves enough to allow their minds to control their bodies are therefore very often high performers as they easily survive Trapportunities that would have either derailed them or slowed them down. This is the realm of discipline of course— delaying one’s gratification till later. It is not uncommon however, to find ourselves in a Trapportunity as some may be so subtle we may not be able to detect them. Sometimes we may think we have ended up in it by accident. The cold fact however is that, we are the most active participants in the creation of our circumstance. When we do find ourselves in a Trapportunity however, the technique we need to apply is a very simple one.  

We must see what we can do in order to drain the opportunity out of the trap. This is done by first of all understanding clearly that you are in a Trapportunity. Secondly it is necessary to clearly identify how you have arrived there—this means identifying the trap and how it has presented itself as an opportunity. Chances are there may be traces of an opportunity dotted around. Your next task then will be to clearly identify what opportunities can be salvaged from the situation and developing an exit strategy bringing the salvaged opportunity with you no matter how small. The following is a classic example:

Once upon a time when a good friend agreed to write for a TV reality show, he failed to recognize the trap that was hidden therein. A 24 hour reality show meant that he had to be at home all the time to watch the show and write his observations. It did him a lot of damage as it stopped him from working on his own projects. It affected his movement as he always needed to be at home. To make matters worse, he was seriously underpaid for the work that lasted two months and in the end it wasn’t worth the trouble.

But that’s just one way of looking at things. On a more advance level however, a good mental exercise initiated by myself allowed him to salvage the opportunities within the trap. Whiles the experience was painful in many ways, his feelings changed when he begun to understand the situation he was in, how he had created it and the reason for which he had done it. It was easier now to manage the situation and experience allowed me to help identify what the positives were. Soon the project was over. He walked away with a few things; a relationship with the media organization who hired him that he can build on in the future as he had upcoming projects of his own, the discipline of producing a number of articles in a day no matter what and a story I can use to demonstrate the idea to you. Not a bad deal in the end but only if you think about it the right way.

We have thus drained more opportunities than he initially saw in the situation and this has only been possible because of a good dose of awareness and emotional intelligence. When we are not emotionally intelligent enough, we allow the frustration of a situation to cloud our judgment and Trapportunity as a negative, feeds on negative emotions in order to grow even bigger compounding the problem. Trapportunities must therefore be avoided at all cost but if we should find ourselves in one (and this will happen), we must not walk away empty handed. There is always something to walk away with that can enhance our performance. Emotional intelligence helps a great deal and this makes it a fair treatment for Trapportunity. 

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Blueprint to Design | REV-UP®

One’s performance is maximized when there is an alignment between what you have willed to be and what you already are. In other words what we already are must serve as the blueprint to what it is we have decided to be and it is when these two mix well that we have found the formula for peak performance. For the best situation to be possible the conditions must be right.

In all the theories put forward by researches and experts in the field, one thing is very clear. People are by default equipped with some capabilities which are what makes them unique from everybody else. No matter how similar we are to others, we are still intricately unique in our own way. We also have certain interests by nature and tend to gravitate towards these interests by default. When we are told to discard these interest as it often happens, an error is created. 

This idea itself is the very upshot of the philosophy of peak performance. Titans of human improvement such as Abraham Maslow puts it in an interesting way when he said in his self actualization theory; we must be more of what we already are in order to self actualize.  This idea itself has been expressed by many others only with varying ways.

But what is the blueprint? One does not need to employ some mystical methodology in order to discover what the blueprint of their life is. It is a simple question of self knowledge, something that is an endless journey that must be pursued by everyone who happens to be interested in being the best that is possible for them. The importance of self knowledge itself cannot be over emphasized but has been unfortunately downplayed by many.

Plato, one of the most illustrious of the Greek philosophical stock was known to have placed great importance on Self Knowledge. He is said to have made it the very first lesson one learnt at his famous academy before the real intellectual journey began. It prepares the student for the real learning and must be taken seriously as it is the very foundation of everything.  

Something similar happens in martial arts when students are told after they have gained a black belt (thinking they have arrived) that their learning has really only just begun and that everything they have learnt in the junior belts was to prepare them for the great learning ahead of them. Ultimately the purpose of their learning will be to know enough in order to contribute something to martial arts so it is better than what it was before one became a part of it. 

Plato’s goal was to create a well informed intellectual who understand themselves first, then the world in which they are goin to function. It is then that  they can decide on the rest. He thought that knowing one’ self was the first step.  It is then that one might be able to understand how they fit in. It is then that one is able to decide what role to play and how to function within this role and what the outcome must be.

In Christian parlance, it is the same as finding the reason and purpose for which God created you and placed you here on earth. It is; understanding what it is you have in your hand and what it can be used for. “What is that in your hand” is the question God asked Moses when he doubted his own capability in relation to the mission to free the Israelites from Egypt- self doubt, something we all experience no matter how sure we are about our mission. The power of the staff in his hands was only revealed when he was asked to put it to work. One only has to read the first five books of the bible to learn about the events that occurred through the staff that Moses didn’t think much of.

Perhaps we can draw some parallels here. A person’s blueprint rest within them and it is hinted by the things they are naturally capable of. It starts from physical characteristics all the way down to natural interest. In fact that the human being is a walking library of information with codes waiting to be deciphered by those who are interested and it is this information that can help them determine what it is they can and must be.

This knowledge of self has a purpose in itself and it tells us how to engage with the world, something that needs to be studied as well. Contrary to what many think the world is not just one thing as we cannot all perceive it the same way. So there is such a thing as your world- a world that revolves around only you and everything in it can only be referred to as “your...”. A world in which you decide who is in it and what role they play. A world in which you decided what is good and what is bad as it is governed by your values.  

In the philosophy of performance, there is a general philosophy for life and a personal philosophy which one must create with which they can engage the world. The alignment of the two is expected to enable peak performance

This is therefore a world that must be designed by us based on the world as it is. Two blueprints show up here. It is the world as we know and understand it and one’s own very nature- his personal blueprint. It is then that a useful design is made possible and in fact rather easy. It is then that we can have a clear meaning for the life we live.

The blueprint must then necessarily influence and align with design and the design must be based on the blue print. The harmony that comes from this alignment is a major influence on the possibility to reach one’s peak as it helps determine what activity to engage in I the first place. One must therefore understand that they have a blueprint built into their very nature and can only have a useful design unless they understand what this blueprint is.

In creating the design however, we have to be careful not to limit ourselves to designing the vehicle and forgetting the destination. This is the great error that comes from a misunderstanding of design. When one is told that they could be anything they want, often it is in reference to what professional they can be. You can be a lawyer if you want. One can be president if they want. One can be 52 billion Dollars rich if they want or be a doctor if they want but that is just a means with no end in sight.

Well, all that is true but a lawyer and the doctor is only a vehicle with which we are to reach a real destination.  It will be a great error to design a life that leads to being a lawyer or even the president of the United States and lacks a mission that president of the United States must accomplish in order to leave this world better that they met it. The design itself must seek to do something with the vehicle as the attainment of the vehicle is only a sub goal of the grand goal.

The vehicle and the destination must all be products of the blueprint as this ensures the alignment that is badly needed to ensure that one does not veer of the road. Having a real destination adds a meaning to life that will be missing if all we have done is create a vehicle. The vehicle only becomes useful when we have a destination in mind and indeed it is the kind of destination that must determine the nature of the vehicle.

Before the architect designs a building, he must first consult with the owner in order to understand what their objectives are. This is because the building itself will be a waste of effort if it does not serve the purpose for which it is to constructed. And so whether it is an office block, a church or a residence, the architect must first learn this from the client, it is then that he can create a design- not just for a building, but a building that does something in particular. It solves a specific problem that the owner intends to solve. This is when the building becomes a only a vehicle and the shelter it provides for its inhabitant and a destination. I should quickly point out here that a building designed as an office might have some challenges serving as a residence. In my work as a performance coach, I see this in the lives of many. 

To be the best we can be or perform at our peak, we must be more of what we already are i.e. have a destination based on the blueprint that rest within us and create the vehicle we need to get there. If at a very advanced stage in our lives we have not done this, it will be a question of realigning all three components and tying the loose ends. Ask me how. REV-UP!

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Smart but Dead end goals. | SPiD- UP

Goals are a very tricky issue if you haven’t understood them well enough. Perhaps the most glamorous of all the self improvement ideas; many teachers are quick to jump on the absence of one as the reason for failure. If I said that I could point to a few people who have been successful without really setting goals, you might probably shoot me. That’s just how fanatical we have all become about goals. Are goals overrated? No- just very badly understood and misapplied.

A pastor friend of mine recently told me that perhaps it is better to trust everything to God who knows all and let him decide what the goal should be. Of course he was speaking in a certain context which if you understood will have a much different meaning from what a simple statement like this can convey.

Very often goals  lose their glamour when they in themselves become a liability instead of an asset. In this sense they might work against us instead of working for us. Such goals will be deficient of the ingredients that make them useful. Among these ingredients are the famous specificity, measurability, achievability, time bounded, written down and, broken into smaller goals all the way down to rewarding yourself at every milestone to keep your motivation up. There are a few other known attributes that your goals must have in order for them to be effective but those are the usual stuff  you already know. 

Once a goal has all the properties the experts say it should have, you end up with what is called a S.M.A.R.T goal. Very smart indeed. There is however another dimension to goals that is not known to most and hence doesn’t show up in main stream discussions. Yet this dimension can have a very profound effect on your goals as far as achievability goes. It is my intention to wake you up to this dimension which will make your goals more potent and increase their chances of manifestation. 

Welcome to the intelli-gaol era. Goals can become a dead end even if they are S.M.A.R.T. The devil is in the specificity. Surprised? Don’t be. This is possible when the goal is to arrive at a profession for example. I want to be a lawyer in ten years. That is a very S.M.A.R.T. goal by all standard but also sadly a “dead end goal”. As a smart goal it could be achievable but can also be meaningless. It brings your life to an end- you become a lawyer and that’s it.

Now while it may seem shocking to some that I might attempt to combine open “endedness” with specificity, you will soon understand that when something is intelligent, it thinks and hence can do more than be simply predictable.

A lawyer is a profession and no more than that. However there are good lawyers and not so good ones. Becoming a lawyer only puts you in a vehicle with which you can go to a real destination that though might be specific is also open ended and dynamic. An intelli-goal that is dynamic adopts and thinks. In case you have missed the point, I am saying that to want to be a lawyer is a dead-end-goal. An intelli-goal is the goal that is possible to achieve using law as a vehicle. As a lawyer, one can still under perform and when one decides that they have arrived at their life’s maximum because they became lawyers, they have placed a limitation on themselves.

And so the question here must be: I want to be a lawyer- in order to do what? This is the kind of question that an intelli-goal would have answered in advance while a S.M.A.R.T goal is scratching its head looking for a way out of the box.

Dead-end-goals can do a lot of harm especially when we are arrogant enough to think the goal is S.M.A.R.T and therefore we are doing what is best. Setting intelli-goals are the cure for dead-end-goals and they allow us to escape this curse that masquerades as a blessing. Intelli-goals are also the way to extend the soon to be outdated smart goal idea into something more effective.

In order to reach the peak of our performance, it is important to relook at the goals we are aiming at and upgrade them from S.M.A.R.T to intelli-goals so they are dynamic enough to adapt to changing conditions yet they remain specific enough to be achieveable- of course one cannot hit a target that is moving all the time. Dead-end-goals are a limitation as they do not really accomplish anything. You become a lawyer; earn a nice living as all lawyers do, have a nice and house and erm... that’s it. There are lawyers, there are very good lawyers and there are lawyers who are doing a lot to improve humanity. So you became a lawyer after seven years of learning, now what?  SPiD- UP with intelli-goals.

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