How’d you get into that? – My 15 point checklist about leveraging discipline to become a professional speaker

When I was 17 and 18 years old I knew I wanted to spend my life reading, researching, writing, and speaking on the topic of self-discipline. And whenever I’d meet people who were authors/speakers I’d always ask, “How’d you get into that?” I imagined they probably got the question a lot and were probably annoyed that I was asking it but I couldn’t help it because I needed to know the answer.

There are so many days I feel like I’m so far behind where I want to be in this business; but in the past year the tables have definitely turned to where I’m on the other side of the “How’d you get into that?” question. Recently it seems as though I’m getting asked dozens of times per month. While I’m a million miles from the top of the speaking “stairwell” I have made a good bit of progress over the last 10 years so I figured I’d share the short steps of my journey thus far for anyone who cares or is looking to get into this business.

1. Joined a Direct Sales Company (The Southwestern Company) and became a top producer selling educational children’s books door-to-door for 6 days a week, 80 hours a week, in a city away from home for 5 summers. Made a total of $250k during that time which paid for launching my business but more importantly made me into the PERSON I needed to become to have something worth sharing. Plus, I got incredible stage time speaking at events inside the company and running group interviews to recruit students to join my team. What can you do that will help you make money WHILE you speak as part of your job? What can you do that will help you develop a transferable EXPERTISE?
2. Joined Toastmasters (much love to my first club in Nashville, Donelson Early Birds, and especially to my real home – Cherry Creek Toastmasters!)
3. Joined NSA – National Speakers Association.
4. Spoke 304 times for free to anyone who would listen (Toastmaster clubs, Kiwanis, Rotary, chamber of commerce, churches, schools, open mike night at comedy clubs, local businesses, etc.) Where can you get stage time? I would drive 45 minutes to get 5 minutes of stage time on several occasions because Eric Chester and Darren LaCroix told me it was worth it. They were right.
5. Got Leadership (Pioneer Leadership Program), Management, Accounting degrees and MBA from University of Denver. Education is one of what I refer to as the key “Credibility Indicators”, is there a way you can get another degree in your field?
6. Recorded every single speech and watched it. Every SINGLE one of my first 400 speeches. I watched them over and over and over and over….Are you?
7. Paid about $10,000 for speech coaching [taking boot camps, private coaching, having experienced speakers evaluate my film, NSA and Toastmasters dues, reading dozens of books on humor and presentation skills, meet with mentors about business advice, etc]. Post a comment below if you want to know what the best resources are. Some of them are along the right side of this blog – seriously. Want to shorten your learning curve? Takes money to make money. Invest into resources from people who’ve been there. Best program I’ve ever seen on this subject: “Kick your speaking business in the butt” by Larry Winget.
8. Made it to the Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking in 2006 when I was 23 – lost.
9. Made it back again in 2007 and lost again – but lost higher. I took second in the world out of 25,000.
10. Worked for a public seminar company (actually, I partnered with my college direct-selling company and started my own with them and some partners called Southwestern Consulting™) and traveled to a new city every 4 months doing 50 workshops per campaign for 4 years. The way it works is we call on companies over the phone offering them a free workshop (sales training) then sell them a ticket to our conference and we get paid commission on the ticket. I traveled and did over 250 workshops. We’re now into the 3rd generation of leadership with that company and it’s growing fast. Many of the greatest speakers of all time have followed a similar path working for some form of public seminar company: Tony Robbins, Mark Sanborn, Ed Tate, etc. Again, what job can you take where you get stage time as part of the job?
11. Still speaking wherever and whenever I could get stage time. I spoke about 200 times at Southwestern (group interviews of students to sell books), 304 times preparing for the world championship, a few dozen comedy clubs, 250 workshops at Southwestern Consulting, and then paid gigs wherever I could get them. My mentor, Eric Chester, said I had to speak 1000 times before I’d be any good so I’ve been racing toward that number as fast as possible. I crossed that mark last year so now I guess I’m at least “an okay speaker.”
12. Hired a brilliant branding coach, David Avrin, who taught me to answer these most important and critical questions:
    • What have you earned the right to talk about? (what do you do better than anyone in the world?)
    • What is your message? (8 words or less – what do you want people to think feel or do when you’re done?)
    • What is your brand? I knew discipline was my message when I was 18. Narrowed that down to “teach people how to do things they don’t want to do” when I was 22. Finally Dave and I came up with my brand “Take the Stairs” 7 years later when I was 25. Been building that brand side by side with Southwestern Consulting™ ever since.
    • Who will pay for your brand and message? Dave taught me not only to look at what I want to say and what the market wants to hear but to learn to focus in on who has money and can actually pay for that message? He says there are 3 audiences to every speech: yourself and your opinions of how it went, the audience and what their response was, and then the people in the back of the room with the checkbook. You better be the best thing the audience has ever seen for sure but you also better be touting a message that has Team Purse Strings in the back of the room nodding their head saying “Yup, that’s exactly what our people need to hear.” People hire Rory Vaden and Take the Stairs now because I create a change in behavior. There is the immediate physical change in behavior in that they walk out of the room and Take the Stairs but more than that they stop procrastinating, eliminate distractions, become more focused on the critical activities in their job. I challenge them and tell them they need to get back to the hard work necessary to survive in this economy and that we all need to suck it up and have a little more discipline. My focus is delving deeper into research and study so I can provide insights on HOW to change your way of thinking so that you will do things you don’t want to do. “Take the Stairs” is memorable but it’s  just the metaphor, the reminder, the brand but the magic is in the real change in behavior that happens after they hear me. From what I can tell that is what meeting planners want right now. In other words, they hire me because I can be an outside voice validating the things they are always promoting internally and there is an action that directly results from my having been there. How can your message be congruent with what a company wants? What problem do you solve? Branding and messaging is a place that most of us speakers struggle with; if you do, then I suggest you buy Dave’s brand new book from Wiley It’s Not Who You Know It’s Who Knows You by Clicking Here.
13. Wrote books and created products along the way to sell at back of room to make money. I created resources for people that just taught them the things that I knew about. This allowed me to speak at places “for free” early on and still make a living from doing it. What do you immediately know that has value to someone else? Turn that into a product and go speak to an audience who cares about that expertise. That will start to fund some of the bills while you’re developing your true passion and expertise for the long term.
14. Started getting asked to speak for money (this happened earlier, too, but my fees were just whatever people could afford in the beginning). Once I developed an amazing 60 minutes (and finally after hundreds of paid programs I have confidence that my keynote “Take the Stairs” is solid) then bigger groups wanted me to come. I had less time available so they had to pay me more to get me there which drove my fees up, up, up.
15. Hired two program directors to assist me in calling on companies and working through referrals to have me hired as a speaker. The names of my two program directors are Mom and Fiancée. I also hired an amazing web guy to handle my website; his name is Dad. Again, surround yourself with amazing people and treat them well because you never know what skill sets they have that you will need help with one day. And obviously, treat all your clients and friends like gold because it is the right thing to do and because that is the only place that you will ever really get hired from consistently. Who in your immediate network has a skill set that you need help with? Work something out with them.

NSA for years has taught me that the #1 way to get hired to speak is because someone has seen you speak. As speakers we just need to go speak. Anywhere. To anyone that will have us until we get good enough that our preferred audiences start requesting us. Also, a brilliant friend of mine, Scott Ginsberg, said that “writing is the essence of wealth in this business.” He writes all the time. And therefore his content is out in the public domain in all different places which means people read it. If they read something you wrote and like it, it’s almost as good (and in the next generation possibly even better than) as if they see you speak. Then Zig told me the that one of the keys to this business was that he reads a couple hours each day. Larry Winget has also read like 4000 books. So boiling all that down, means that to become a “speaker” we need to read, write, and research on topics that provide solutions to our audience. It seems that the days of gimmicks are dwindling and that we have to provide actionable insights and solutions in order to get hired. Almost as if getting hired as a speaker is a bi-product of having a usuable and relevant expertise combined with strong branding and strong platform skills.

Now I try to write several articles and try to appear regularly in the media – emphasis on TRY. Media is a tough one that I haven’t really cracked yet. But it is one of the other key “Credibility Indicators” that I’ve identified and something I will figure out.

Other than that there doesn’t seem to be much science to this whole game.

Of course this isn’t the only path; just mine. You definitely want to have things like a blog and social media profiles to help build your brand, tribe, and following around your message and expertise during this whole time.

Overall, I’ve been very lucky to have made it to the World Championship (a bit of luck is required for this) and to get involved in NSA where I met so many successful speakers and learned critical skills. Plus having the opportunity to have funding from Southwestern to build a large training company in a few short years was a life changing gift. And the money I personally spent out of pocket on coaching (including NSA and TMI) is what cut my learning curve down probably a solid 10-15 years.

Along with everything else I just got incredibly lucky to be blessed with the most phenomenal mentors from the speaking business. Eric Chester, Dave Avrin, Mark Sanborn, Laura Stack, Darren LaCroix, Ed Tate, Dan Moore, Scott Ginsberg, Craig Valentine, Mark Brown, Jim Key, David Brooks, Dana Prieto, Ron Marks, and I could go on and on. I have an entire family that supports me, the mentorship and guidance from “investors” and business partners at Southwestern, and an internal team of the most intense badmammajamma selling and operational ninjas at Southwestern Consulting who partner with me in building a bigger a platform for all of us to reach more people. It seems as though success truly comes from the simple things in life – the people around you, and the daily decisions; not an American Idol-esque big break. Are you surrounded by great people?

Last year I did catch some lucky breaks with a spot on Oprah radio, then speaking at devotions for Dave Ramsey, then Zig Ziglar had me do a program for them, then Success Magazine, etc. So media builds slowly like all other parts of the business. But I’m definitely not the authority on how to “make it” as a speaker. I’m just another guy in the “stairwell” right now making the climb. My focus has shifted dramatically in the past couple years from being a speaker to providing solutions.

So like anything it’s luck, it’s opportunities, and it’s definitely the amazing blessing of so many people around me lifting me up. People in my family, at Southwestern Consulting, NSA, past clients, and Toastmasters all LIFT me up – so that is luck and opportunity and blessing.  And discipline sure has helped put me in the right place at the right time.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on what has worked for you and what hasn’t whether you are a new speaker or a well-accomplished speaker. If you have insights for all of us, please share below.

Join motivational speaker Rory Vaden’s Take the Stairs Tour:
Click Here

See you in the stairwell,

Rory Vaden
Take the stairs – Success means doing what others won’t.

Southwestern Company Consulting Sales Tip Rafting

Southwestern Company Consulting goes rafting in the New River in West Virginia and teaches sales tip for the day: HOLD ON! Guided by Southwestern Company alumni Ben Evers with Rory Vaden, Emmie Young, Dave Brown, Amanda Johns, Jeanine Perla, Joe Lewis, and Karen Klebs.

This video stars Emmie Young “riding the bull” and Rory Vaden in a near death experience saved by his chicken legs and his friend Ben Evers.

Just another way that the Southwestern Consulting team is living life at the next level to help bring you lessons to increase your discipline and your performance. Hold on!

The Purchase Price of Procrastination

An insidious problem. A pervasive condition. A preventable crisis. PROCRASTINATION, as it turns out, is one of the most expensive, yet invisible costs to both individuals and companies worldwide. A study by Salary.com of 10,000 people reported the average employee wastes 2.09 hours each day at work on these 5 activities.

Top 5 Time Wasting Activities (%)

1. Surfing Internet (personal use) 44.7%
2. Socializing with co-workers 23.4%
3. Conducting personal business 6.8%
4. Spacing out 3.9%
5. Running errands off-premises 3.1%

The Average salaried employee in the US makes $39,795 per year which translates to costing a company approximately $10,396 per year per employee.  So if you’re a business owner here is the question: how many employees do you have?

If you’re an employee you should care because imagine what benefits could be offered to you without this cost. And also it should tell you that by eliminating those 5 activities from your schedule you should outperform your colleagues by 20-25%. That margin of separation has to increase your likelihood of promotion and/or pay increases.

What if you’re a salesperson, though? I pulled out my calculator and did the math. If a target compensation for a commissioned salesperson is $79,590 per year then that comes out to $38.26 per hour (using the same ratio that was used in the study). Which means a couple hours a day of procrastination (or creative avoidance) costs that salesperson around $20,792 per year in personal income!

That same $20,792 if invested for 30 years at 12% would grow to equal $622,927. If invested for 40 years it becomes $1,934,716!!!!

Is it worth that much money to you to procrastinate today?

This is a perfect example of the pain paradox that states “tasks or decisions that are difficult in the short term tend to have very large long term payoffs while tasks or decisions that are easy to engage in the short term tend to have very large long term consequences.” If you’re a salesperson, getting your act together for one short year and investing that extra money is a pretty big deal. So it might just payoff for us to PROCRASTINATE TOMORROW!

Maybe you’re skeptical of studies; maybe you think this is exaggerated (it’s not) but we all still have to ask ourselves is it possible that this imperceptible problem is taking money out of our pockets?

I believe it is.

And the solution isn’t more tools, extra training, higher pay, better people, newer products or fresher markets. The solution is self-discipline. It’s not a skill problem; it’s a WILL problem. It’s not an issue of employee motivation; it’s a matter of employee MINDSET. It’s not just a problem of time-management it’s a problem of SELF-MANAGEMENT. We’re not just losing to a poor economy; we’re losing to a lack of SELF-DISCIPLINE.

So here are my two questions for you. First, when we do procrastinate-what causes it? And second, what are the cures for procrastination? I’d love to hear some more thoughts from everyone.

P.S.  If you’re a meeting planner it pays to book Rory to speak. If he motivates just 1 person in your audience to get their act together for just 1 year it more than covers his fee. OR if he just gets most of your audience to get their act together for just 1 week (depending on the size of the audience) you get a multiple return on your investment. Book Rory here www.roryvaden.com

Selling with Social Media – 04 Hunt and Peck Technique

Hunt and Peck – This LinkedIn technique shows you how to leverage your LinkedIn network to get endless referrals for any type of business. It specifically demonstrates how LinkedIn is just a modern day “virtual rolodex” that can be mined for new relationships 24/7. It completely eliminates all the standard objections that we receive when we ask for referrals such as “I need to think about it,” “do you have a card where I can get back to you?” or “I can’t think of anyone.” The hunt and peck technique is one of the fastest ways to get ROI from your time spent utilizing social media.

Rory Vaden MBA is a self-discipline strategist, author, and motivational speaker. He is known world-wide for his resonating “Take the Stairs” message of self-discipline. With so many people wondering if social media is the next “escalator” to success, Rory has gotten intimately involved with what social media can and can’t do. This video segment is one of 25 lessons from his brand new 3-disc resource called Next Generation Marketing: Selling Products, Services, and Ideas with Social Media in 30 Minutes a Day. Find out more about the product here: http://tinyurl.com/ycc77ax

The Compound Effect with Darren Hardy of SUCCESS Magazine and Rory Vaden

Over the past year, I’ve read more than a dozen books — none more powerful and relevant to self-discipline, however, as a recent one written by my good friend Darren Hardy. Darren is the editor of SUCCESS magazine and has one of the fastest growing platforms in the world today. Darren is a product of self-discipline as evidenced by him owning a $50 million company by age 27.

For the last 16 years, he has been one of the leaders in the personal development industry; studying closely under the late Jim Rohn, and working regularly with such notable experts like Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy, and John Maxwell.  At a conference last week someone asked me “what is the future beyond social media?” and my response was that “Social media allows us to create information, Google allows us to find it, and the future belongs to those that can most effectively aggregate and summarize it.”

There is perhaps no greater conduit of quality SUCCESS information than Darren and his team. Recently, I had the opportunity to interview Darren about his brand new book, The Compound Effect.

Interview:

RORY: Why did you write The Compound Effect? And why now?

Well, candidly Rory, I wrote it because I was ticked off. Our current society has grown up with a microwave mentality expecting success and the results on effort to be immediate. Coupled with mass commercial marketing in its competitive zeal has exaggerated their claims of overnight success, appealing to our weakness of wanting immediate gratification.

We are constantly bombarded with increasingly sensational claims to get rich, get fit, get younger, get sexier… all overnight with little effort for only three easy payments of $39.95.

RORY: I always thought it would be fun to advertise a product that was two easy payments and one complicated payment. What’s the impact of all this?

These repetitive marketing messages have distorted our sense of what it really takes to succeed. Then those with the sincere interest in learning what it takes to be more successful continually get bamboozled, distracted, frustrated and disappointed when they don’t experience the results they are after. I was tired of watching it happen! And as you know Rory, there are 5,000 books produced every year in the personal-development and success space — most of them end up on my desk. Unfortunately, to break through the noise of that sheer volume, so many “gurus” today have resorted to sensational claims of great “secrets” or “new scientific breakthroughs” and the like. It’s marketing gimmickry.

The truth about success is as simple as this: there are not 5,000 things one needs to do well to be successful. There are about a half-dozen things that need to be done well, just done 5,000 times over to be successful. So I wrote this book to return people to the basics — the truth and the core fundamentals of what it really takes to succeed. I wanted to clear the clutter, demystify the truth and tell it straight — with no fat or fluff included.

RORY: How do you define the Compound Effect?

The Compound Effect is the principle of reaping huge rewards from a series of small, smart choices.  Our present reality is an outcome of the little, seemingly innocuous decisions that have added up to your current bank balance, waist line, business success, relationship status, etc. They aren’t the big decisions that make the big difference. No, success is earned through the pesky little ones — do I have the cake or grab a piece of fruit, do I go to happy hour or go to the gym, do I make three more prospecting calls or just call it a day, do I say I love you to my wife or shrug it off for another day, do I listen to the news or to an instructional CD… do I finish reading this article or check (again) for the latest new e-mail.

There is no magic bullet, secret formula, or quick fix. Success is not a result of grand acts of bravery, quantum leaps or heroic feats. Success is earned in the moment-to-moment decisions that in themselves make no visible difference whatsoever, but the accumulated compounding effect is profound.

It’s the “magic” Einstein described as the “8th wonder of the world.” The results it produces may look like magic, but in fact, they’re the certain outcome of a very practical, logical, and mathematically predictable process. As fantastic a result as compound interest can have on your money, so can the correct choices have on your life.

RORY: One of the stories that had a lasting impact on me was the one about the Thanksgiving Journal you did for your wife; can you explain that and how others could use this approach in many areas of their life?

We’re particularly gifted in the finger-pointing department when it comes to our romantic relationships — you know, where the other person is the one who needs to change.

Well, I have a tradition where every Thanksgiving I hand write cards to the people I care about and tell them how grateful I am that they are in my life. One Thanksgiving, after having a small argument, I decided to keep a Thanks Giving journal about my wife. Every day for an entire year I logged at least one thing I appreciated about her — the way she interacted with her friends, how she cared for our dogs, the fresh bed she prepared, a succulent meal she whipped up, or the beautiful way she styled her hair that day — whatever. I looked for the things my wife was doing that touched me, or revealed attributes, characteristics, or qualities I appreciated. I wrote them all down secretly for the entire year.

When I gave the journal to her the following Thanksgiving, she cried, calling it the best gift she’d ever received. The funny thing was that the person most affected by this gift was me. All that journaling forced me to focus on my wife’s positive aspects. I was consciously looking for all the things she was doing “right.” That heartfelt focus overwhelmed anything I might have otherwise complained about. I fell deeply in love with her all over again. This caused me to show up differently in my marriage, which, of course, made her respond differently to me. As a result of choosing to take a mere five minutes every day or so to document all the reasons why I was grateful for her, we experienced one of the best years of our marriage, and it’s only gotten better. The cycle perpetuated. Or, shall we say, compounded.

RORY: The “Take the Stairs” mentality is all about developing self-discipline and being willing to do the things that you don’t want to do. How does this align with The Compound Effect?

The entire book aligns with that philosophy, Rory. The key is HOW do you uproot the poor habits that continually sabotage (unknowingly, mostly) and derail you from the success you seek and HOW to install the success disciplines needed to take you in the direction of your goals and ambitions.  The Compound Effect outlines HOW to generate the internal motivation you need to keep you consistent to do the things others (and your previous “you”) don’t want to do in order to get all that you want. The book is not just what to do, but HOW to do it — all the fundamental success behaviors, habits and routines and rhythms that compound into extraordinary results.

RORY: I highly recommend that those who are interested in developing more self-discipline check out Darren’s new book, The Compound Effect. To learn more about it visit: www.TheCompoundEffect.com. Or if you have any questions for Darren or myself please comment below. Thanks!

Darren Hardy is the visionary force behind SUCCESS magazine as the Publisher and Editorial Director and the author of what is being called “the modern day Think and Grow Rich,” The Compound Effect—Multiplying Your Results. One Simple Step at a Time. More from Darren on his blog, Facebook or Twitter

For information on booking motivational speaker and self-discipline strategist Rory Vaden please visit us at www.roryvaden.com

For information on sales coaching, sales training, or sales consulting please visit www.southwesternconsulting.com

Join motivational speaker Rory Vaden’s Take the Stairs Tour:
Click Here

See you in the stairwell,

Rory Vaden
Take the stairs – Success means doing what others won’t. 

Is too much self-discipline a bad thing?

I’ve struggled over the years with this very issue, “is too much self-discipline a bad thing?” One interesting dynamic that I’ve discovered in that thought process is that self-discipline (at least according to my definition) seems to be somewhat self-balancing and self-correcting.

The definition I use for self-discipline is “doing things you know you should do but don’t feel like doing.” What I’m noticing though is that once you start doing those things enough (say working out for example) then they become a habit and if that habit goes too far it becomes compulsive (working out all day every day for example).

However, once a discipline has reached the level of an obsession or compulsion the scales then seem to have flipped around because now it’s NOT working out, or at least less working out, that is the thing you know you should be doing but you no longer FEEL like doing because of the compulsion. At the point of compulsion we become obsessed with working out.

So at that point it then requires the discipline to stop doing it or too slow down.  When you put it up to the litmus test with other things like working hard, eating healthy, saving money, or any other task that seems to require discipline initially the same mysterious flip seems to happen and then the discipline required is for re-calibration, re-focusing, and re-balancing. It’s almost as if self-discipline is also self-correcting.

I started 40 lbs overweight. Then worked out constantly. Now I seem to be closer to a happy healthy balance. I worked 80 hours a week and it was my entire focus, now my focus seems to continually be towards working towards reducing the number of hours I work.

I know I have been in situations personally where it was discipline that was required to help me lighten up on myself and not be concerned with perfection.

Weird, huh? Have you found the same to be true in your life? Do you agree with this puzzling dynamic?

For information on booking motivational speaker and self-discipline strategist Rory Vaden please visit us at www.roryvaden.com 

For information on sales coaching, sales training, or sales consulting please visit www.southwesternconsulting.com 

Join motivational speaker Rory Vaden’s Take the Stairs Tour:
Click Here

See you in the stairwell,

Rory Vaden
Take the stairs – Success means doing what others won’t.

Piano Stairs Video Spoof Response

So Volkswagon’s piano stairs video has 12 million views so far on YouTube; which means that I got about 12 million emails asking if I’d seen it. I thought it would only be appropriate for me to craft my own video response since the piano stairs video is one of the biggest events in “stair history.” Here is another way that you can get people in your life to “take the stairs”; we call it self-discipline.

Join the REAL Take the Stairs Tour:

Click Here

See you in the stairwell,

Rory Vaden
Take the stairs – Success means doing what others won’t.

“Shattered Dreams” – Faith in the Flood of Nashville May 2010

We all deal with tragedy. And tragedy creates a tough dilemma if you’re a Christian. Which is why, if there is a God, does he allow tragedy to happen?

There are thousands of people asking that in the Nashville area right now in the wake of the tremendous flooding from the past week. I was on the road travelling most of last week and missed a lot of the action but today I had a chance to go out and get in the trenches of working with some families to help them begin the journey back to restoration.

With such widespread disaster in the area my new church Crosspoint really has tried to rise to the occasion in assembling volunteers, money, and prayers for the victimized families. I’m inspired by the Church because from what I can see they are really working hard at being the hands and feet of Christ in this pivotal time.

One of the reasons Crosspoint Church is so rapidly growing and making such a large impact is because of the leadership. The Nashville campus pastor is a friend of mine Blake Bergstrom and the lead pastor is Pete Wilson. Ironically the series that we’ve been going through in Church the last several weeks is called “Shattered Dreams.” The essence of the series is what to do when God’s plan works out differently than yours?

The series has also been congruent with the release of Pete’s new book Plan B. I started crushing through the book over the last few days and was inspired by Pete’s message. You don’t know this yet but Faith is the 7^th and final strategy for improving your self-discipline in Take the Stairs (my new book that will come out once I figure out the publisher) . My speech at the World Championship of Public Speaking for Toastmasters in 2006 was actually on the topic of Faith.

I knew that my speech in 2006 wasn’t yet ready when the contest came around because I hadn’t yet discovered in my mind how to most aptly articulate what Faith is; and I lost that contest. For 4 years I’ve continued struggling to define Faith and it wasn’t until I began reading Plan B that I think I have finally landed on my definition.

Faith is choosing to believe that the pain happening now is for a Greater Glory later on.

There have been several times in my life when I have failed and when things have fallen apart. But for whatever reason I’ve always had a lot of conviction that even in that pain and loss it was just God preparing me for something else. To me that is Faith.

I’ve never experienced anything like what these people I saw today are having to live through. And I can’t answer why God allows tragedy to happen. But I do agree with Pete that it seems as though Tragedy serves a greater purpose when we have the perspective of eternity.

And from what I witnessed today I noticed that:

Sometimes tragedy bonds our communities

Sometimes tragedy binds our compassion

Sometimes tragedy builds our character

So even when there are questions that we can’t answer we have to have Faith. Faith is a choice. It’s choosing to believe that what we’re going through is preparing us and the world for God’s greater good later on. And because it’s a choice that means it’s a discipline. It’s a discipline that not everyone has. It’s hard to believe that somehow these horrible tragedies in our lives are somehow for good later on. But that is why it’s called Faith and if we do not have Faith it is then that these tragedies are only in vain.

To donate to the flood victims please click here: https://secure3.agroup.com/crosspoint/flood_fund.html

And please share your thoughts with me about what Faith is to you and how its applied in your difficult times.

See you in the “stairwell”

Rory Vaden

Powerful Online Listening – The basics of using Tweetdeck

Tweetdeck is a powerful listening tool; Twitter is pretty much useless without Tweetdeck. There are three primary benefits of using this free service:

1. Tweetdeck allows you to segment all the people you are “following” into smaller sub-categories.
2. You can monitor what is being said about any specific term such as your name, your company, your industry, etc.
3. Tweetdeck enables you to learn about any specific topic that you are interested in by again monitoring some specific terms.

Like everything else, it takes discipline to set it up after work hours, discipline to check in on it every so often after work hours, and discipline to contribute to the community regularly (via SocialOomph after work hours).

The first technique is what I call Friend Feeding. It eliminates all the noise of all the people you are following and allows you to target specific types of people that you want to follow up with like Past Clients, Important Prospects, Team Members, Potential Recruits, College Buddies, Industry Experts, family, etc.

The way you do this is to click on the search button at the top (designated by the magnifying glass) and then in the window that pops up select the icon of the three people standing in a line (Group) and then give the group a name. Where it says “filter” type in the Twitter handle (name) of the person you want to add to that group. If you don’t know their Twitter handle, then you might have to go onto Twitter.com and click “find people” and search for the person by name there first. You can add as many people as you like to any group; a brilliant follow up technique which allows you to more effectively manage your communications.

The second technique is what I call Term Targeting. As the name implies you simply create a separate stream that looks for important terms that you should be monitoring. I, of course, monitor terms like discipline, stairs, take the stairs, motivational tips, sales tips, etc. I also monitor my name spelled out, and my twitter handle spelled out (Tweetdeck should come standard with a stream for “mentions” which would be the same as this but I’ve found that it still sometimes misses mentions). In addition, I monitor my various company and brand names and suggest you do the same.

To set this up just click the search button  (magnifying glass) at the top and type in the targeted term you want to monitor. This allows you to monitor what is being said about you and about specific key terms that you want to be “in the know” on.

The List and Learn is done the same as targeting a term but you target a phrase that describes a topic you are wanting to learn about such as Twitter Tips, Discipline Insights, Investment Strategies, SEO Strategy, etc.

In real life it takes discipline to be a great listener. The same is true online. It takes discipline, focus, and resources to be a great listener online and that is what Tweetdeck empowers you to do. The Take the Stairs philosophy applies to the digital world the same as the real world. Oh, and remember the Avatar rule: “If you suck in real life, you will suck online.” :0)

 

 

Join motivational speaker Rory Vaden’s Take the Stairs Tour:

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See you in the stairwell,

Rory Vaden
Take the stairs – Success means doing what others won’t.

Eliminate, Automate, and Delegate

We live in a time where serious time management is needed. Keeping up with emails, messages, past clients, referral partners, family, new prospects, new recruits, business planning, budgets, and just the daily requirements of running a household is something that has so many of us stretched thin. And as just another guy who is “in the stairwell” struggling through these same issues with you I’m always attempting to find new ways for ultimate time management.

 I have realized that it’s virtually impossible to keep up with all the things we could be doing and so we’re forced to have the discipline to figure out what are the most important things we need to be doing. In other words, discipline is not just about doing things right but about doing the right things right. And so I’ve been implementing my own system to help me gain some sanity and clarity about my time. Hopefully it will work for you, too. It’s called Eliminate, Automate, and Delegate.

 Eliminate – This strategy is often overlooked because it’s so simple. But basically it just means that we need to clear our schedules of some of the things we spend time doing because we think we’re supposed to or because we’ve always done those things. Pay particular attention to “time-suckers” (tasks or people) and consider just straight up getting rid of them. Be asking:

• What can I eliminate completely from my schedule? What things are not directly income-producing? What distractions can I avoid getting caught up in? And how can I get better at saying the word “no”? [please post a comment below of any simple phrases you use to tell people “no”]

 Automate – Automating is an empowering skill because it makes you feel powerfully productive. To automate is to systematize and to organize without having your real-time involvement. Here are the questions to ask yourself:

• How can I automate routine parts of my schedule? What are the things that I do over and over again that could be wholly or partially taken over by a machine, a computer program, or someone else (or a different department) here in the company?

 Delegate – Many successful people are overloaded because we tend to be control freaks. We got to where we are by doing things on our own because we can do it fast and to high standards. However that is a losing long-term strategy because there is a point of diminishing returns as your work piles higher and higher; especially if you’re building people and/or a company. So you have to learn to let go and to empower others and you can start by asking:

• Who can I delegate to? What are the things that I spend my time doing that someone else could be doing? Realize that at $100k per year your time is worth at least $48 per hour so ask yourself, “Is what I’m doing right now worth paying someone $48 to do?” If not, then try to think creatively about finding ways to get someone else to do the task.

As I’ve mentioned before I am a big believer in virtual assistants because you are building a personal team to support you and you provide additional jobs meanwhile forcing yourself to let go of tasks – which is healthy in and of itself – and develop as a leader who can more powerfully build others. If you need advice on how to train and work with your assistant, you can find more here: Working with a Virtual Assistant.

Please comment below to share hard core time management strategies you’ve employed to help you lead a more disciplined life.

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Join motivational speaker Rory Vaden’s Take the Stairs Tour:

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See you in the stairwell,

Rory Vaden
Take the stairs – Success means doing what others won’t.