On My Failure

I have failed. My office has closed due to a combination of being kicked out by the landlord and never truly getting off the ground to launch myself out of financial ruin. As for me, I am retraining to open again next year whilst selling in the meantime.

I have taken a few days to make my transition. A few days of vegging out and resting. I must admit, taking this failure was hard on me. I am going to the shore for a few days and when I come back, I will be in full gear once again. Finally focused on selling and retraining. The one thing that made failing extremely hard was the relentless actions people have taken to make sure I realized I did not fail and I am not to blame. I don't like that. It made this much harder than it needed to be. I like to get straight to the point and admit my failure because that is the first step to leading a successful rebound. There is no point in blaming other people, factors, things, etc. It all comes down to you and how prepared you were to take on the challenges. When it really comes down to it: I was inadequately prepared for the situation I stepped into.

I want to share these thoughts because failure is necessary to learn. I learned a ton about myself from my failure. I learned my strengths and how I need to develop them more. This should be the approach we take for failing. We should not blame outside factors because you can step around those factors. That is all part of finding a way. Everybody who endeavors on a risky endeavor has outside factors tearing them at the seams. However, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs found ways around them, along with all other self-made millionaires.

When it comes down to it, will you accept the blame of your defeats or do you only want the credits for your victories?

On Key Habits

There are several key habits that successful people portray in their daily lives:

1) Write daily. Keep a journal, a blog, a whatever. Slowly write a book by writing a page per day. Write poetry as a hobby. Writing is extremely powerful. It allows you to organize your thoughts which prepares you for your day.

2) Read daily. If you are not reading, you are not growing. All it takes is ten minutes per day to read a few pages. Read with the intent to grow yourself!

3) Eat healthy and exercise. I have to admit that I falter here. I eat poorly and hardly exercise but it is a point of focus for me. Energy is not coffee, energy drinks, or soda. Energy comes from being healthy. Sustained energy that is.

4) Visualize your future. Picture where you will be in the future and it will help you realize it.

These are just a few basic things successful people practice. That, and waking up instead of pressing "snooze."

On Creativity

Creativity is essential in creating the life of your dreams. If you go through life following instructions, conforming to the status quo, and stifling your creative instincts in favor of safety, then you will lead a mediocre life, at best. If you really want to accomplish your dreams, then you must be creative in your pursuit of them.

Don't tell me, "Tim, I am not creative at all." That is because you don't PRACTICE it! Creativity is a skill! You must practice creativity to become creative. Robert Frost did not write "The Road Not Taken" the first time he ever decided to write a poem. He likely has hundreds of poems that he created which he finds terrible -and are terrible.

I am not saying you must write poetry, paint canvasses, or create ice sculptures. There are plenty of opportunities in your daily life to express creativity! What is your work place like? How can you make it different? What can you do creatively in your room? Your garden? Your voicemail?

Times have changed. It is no longer better to be safe than sorry. Allow your creativity to flow. Every person is naturally creative. I cannot tell you one kid who doesn't enjoy drawing. Let it flow. When you are creative, you are yourself.

On VoiceMails

I just redid my voicemail. I just realized how boring they are by calling my representatives and leaving messages. Also in The Little Red Book Of Selling, I remember Jeffrey Gittomer going on a rant about voicemails. And he is right.

What is the point of a voicemail that says "I cannot come to the phone right now but leave a message." I mean obviously you cannot come to the phone right now... either that or you are ignoring me. I called to talk to you, not to hear why you cannot answer.

Be creative with voicemail. The purpose of this blog is to promote being REMARKABLE and your voicemail can provide that!

Mine is:

"Hello, this is Tim Fenning, I am too busy swing dancing to answer the phone but leave your credit card information and I will be happy to put your order for a Cutco Kitchen through when I am done dancing."

Is yours off the wall?

On The Journey

It is proven by positive psychology that achieving a goal provides life satisfaction for an individual. However, it is not the actual success providing the satisfaction. It is the journey of getting there. We are happiest when we are pushing for a goal and stretching our comfort zone to get there. Many people lose sight of this. They settle for mediocrity because they write off a goal before they even start. Yes, a goal creates a struggle to get there (if it doesn't, you're goal is not big enough)... and with any struggle comes frustration and disappointment but overcoming these obstacles and not giving up on something we dream of really makes us feel special. It makes us feel like we have a purpose (other than filing papers).

I encourage you to go for it. What have you been dreaming of?

My friend, Conor Spellane, has been dreaming of becoming a guitarist all his life and he is a phenomenal one at that. He wants to do it for a living. He started a band called Panic In Eden and they are just great. The best part is they are beginning to make some headway in LA! I am not saying they are big yet. They are not close yet. But I am sure Conor is truly feeling a wellbeing in his life despite the struggles and frustrations that come with being a rising musician.

Shoot for your dreams. A college degree is nice but do not just follow the rules of society. Do not just get a job that you hate so you can continue hating your job. Break the status quo. Do what you were designed to do! Do what you dream to do! Do it with passion! You can truly become remarkable. Just be yourself. Shoot for your own goals to find true wellbeing. It is about the journey of getting there.

Do you want a journey to a cubicle or a journey to your life's ambitions?

On Culture

I want to briefly go over the steps I follow to building a culture in my office. This can be applied in other situations such as raising a family, teaching a class, etc.

Step 1:
Define who you are in 7-10 words.
I am the perfect blend of weirdness and intellectualism.

Step 2:
Define your culture by replacing "I am"with "It is" in the previous sentence.
It is the perfect blend of weirdness and intellectualism.

Your culture should be who you are. Do not try to establish somebody else's culture because it probably will not match your personality. Make sure your culture is authentic for you!

Now to build the culture, you need to determine how you will portray this. I have a room dedicated to being remarkable and different in the heart of my office. It will be filled with intellectual things such as self-help books and leadership quotes, accompanied with Dr. Seuss books and cat memes.

Now that you have your why (I believe in the perfect blend of weirdness and intellectualism) and your what (manager, teacher, mother, etc.), you need your how to connect the two. How will you portray why you live through what you do? This answer is the answer to unlocking your culture.

On Why

The most powerful question in the world is "why do you wake up in the morning?"

Think about that question. Think about it for a long, long time. This is what DRIVES you. Find your why.

My why is "I desire to help others reach their fullest potential."

Your why needs to be short and simple. Don't make it too complicated. You should be able to say it at a moments notice without a blink of an eye.

Find your why. Let it drive you to do REMARKABLE things.

On Strengths

I highly recommend you read a book call StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath. It is a great read but most importantly, you can take a strengths test online and it will give you an entire report on how to use your  strengths to the fullest extent.

We need to focus on utilizing our strengths and improving our strengths, rather than improving our weaknesses. When we focus on just improving our weaknesses, our strengths remain mediocre and our weaknesses become mediocre (maybe) and all we get is one giant mediocre person. When we focus our intensity into improving our strengths, we develop certain traits to a point that others admire. We excel in some things and do not do well in others. The key is finding other people to surround you that truly excel in those traits in which we are weak.

For example, Walt Disney was extremely creative and visionary. Roy Disney was organized with a businessman mindset. Together, they made Disney the greatest motion picture company in the world, a company that represents true happiness, and a company that has impacted most of our lives while growing up. But these grand accomplishments could not happen with only one of them at the helm. Walt needed Roy and Roy needed Walt. They were strong in different areas and it cumulated into greatness.

Find your strengths and develop them. Hone in your talents to the point where they become truly REMARKABLE! Find others to cover up your weaknesses. That is team work. Nobody can do great things alone. Even Jesus needed 12 others.

On NEFAW

NEFAW means No Excuses, Find A Way. This is an extremely powerful mindset to live by on a daily basis. It means no matter what happens during your day, you will find a way to accomplish what you have set out to do. 

This week I have really begun to embrace this. I have been struggling to sign a lease for my office because the owners are taking their time (oddly). However, I anticipated this to be finished last week so I already scheduled group interviews this week. Last night with 15 people present, I walked to Independence Hall and conducted the interview on the lawn put front. I laid out blankets for the recruiting class to sit on as I stood with my PowerPoint on my laptop. Basically, I found a way to run the interview instead of rescheduling them and possibly losing some high quality recruits.

If you live by this principle, you will be truly amazed by how much you can accomplish in your life. It leads you on a path to being truly REMARKABLE!

On Shortcuts

It is rare that shortcuts are a good idea. Shortcuts are usually taken with the mentality of, this will get me to my end destination quicker. However, nobody ever picked up a guitar and started playing Stairway To Heaven. Usually they start with something like Smoke On The Water. You need to learn each step as you go along. Even if you tried to learn Stairway To Heaven and that is all you did until you mastered it, you still have not learned the fundamentals like chords, proper finger technique, or scales. After learning Stairway, you will fall because you do not yet know how to create songs. You do not know how to learn songs. And you probably do not even play Stairway To Heaven correctly.

Apply this to other aspects of life. Creating a business: if you try to grow too fast, you will fall since you do not have the people in the organization capable of holding up your company. Being a student: If you do not study throughout the year, your grades will hurt at the end.

Always remember, if a path feels like it will be hard, but it is the correct way of doing it, then do it every time. It is easier in the long run.

On Emotions

During my reading binge over the past few years, I started to realize the subtle message they delivered about emotions, but it really hammered home when I read about Yoga philosophies. First, I want to establish that we choose our emotions. Nobody makes us angry, sad, happy, etc. It is your CHOICE to be angry, sad, happy, etc. 

When I was reading about yoga, one of the things that struck me most about the emotional aspect is the control of your emotions. This arose while I read the Samurai Code as well. You have to control your emotions to drive you to better results. You must be angry when you are supposed to be, sad when you are supposed to be, along with happy when you are supposed to be.

This is an important distinction. It is human nature to let your results drive your emotions. When things go wrong, our emotions go wrong. This will send us in a downward spiral. Also if things go right, we become content... and then things go wrong. 

Also, this means suppressing one's emotions is ineffective as well. You still let results drive your emotions but just because you don't tell anybody about it, does not mean you are not in an emotionally fragile state.

So use emotions to drive results! For example, Jesus used anger in the temple to show it was a place of respect and worship. Gandhi used sorrow to try to unite Hindus and Muslims in a newly free nation. Steve Jobs used excitement to realize his visionary products.

Similarly, you must grieve when you need to grieve and be joyous when you need to be joyous. Just remember, you need to use these emotions to drive results. Choose what emotion you want and utilize it to become REMARKABLE!

On Advice

I want to steal one out of Newton's book of physics and say "For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction." This is true when giving advice. For every negative advice, there is an equal but opposite positive advice. A negative advice is something that uses words like "don't" or "can't." Something positive does not have the word not anywhere in it.

The reason I am starting with establishing this basic rule is because negative forms of advice are not effective and may actually be counterproductive. What people tend to focus on is what tends to happen. So when we say "Don't drink and drive," it may be possible that just saying drink and drive in there will produce more drunk drivers. Rather, we should say the equal but opposite positive form "Ride Sober." This has a much more positive connotation to it and people are more likely to follow it's advice.

If you think about it for everything, you can always find the equal, but opposite form of advice.

"Anti-war" becomes "Pro-peace"
"No sexual harassment" becomes "respect others' space"
"No littering" becomes "Recycle/Throw your trash in the trash can"

These are just things that are present in culture. We focus on "no war" and "no sexual harassment," yet we live in a time where these have become more present and are becoming more present over the years.  We need a peace campaign or a respect campaign.

This applies in personal applications as well.
"Don't raise your voice" becomes "Let's calm down and talk"
"Don't buy Pepsi" becomes "Buy Coke" (Coke is better)
"Don't lie to me" becomes "Be honest with me"
"Don't leave dirty dishes in the sink" becomes "Put the dishes in the dishwasher"

It is best to sit and think for a second about how you can spin it in a positive direction and use that form of advice. It is proven that people are more likely to do what you focus on (whether you tell them to do it or not). So focus on the opposite of what you don't want them to do. They are more likely to follow your advice.

On Life Changes

Many times people find themselves in a position where their life will change drastically. Right now many people, including myself, are graduating from college. This is a pivotal time but when you form your life, you have to remember a few fundamentals that apply to every change and you can become successful in whatever you do.

First, whatever you do in your free time defines who you will become. Do not waste time doing nothing or watching too much television. Spend your free time active and doing things. Life will become far more enjoyable and if you do something consistently, like play in your room with physics like Einstein or start a new business or read personal growth books or write poetry or read this blog, you can become a master of that task over time. Do you want to master watching tv or writing poetry?

Second, embrace change. Without change, nothing gets better. You need life to change to move somewhere in life. Always remember to embrace change, even if it is bad, because every change is an opportunity to do something great!

And finally, have a plan. If life is changing, make a plan to handle that change. Many times a plan does not work for the little details but making one helps you achieve the final destination since you already know how to get there.

Good luck in life people! Be REMARKABLE!

On Motivation

There are many differences between highly productive people and not so productive people and motivation is one of the key differences. Most people believe to do something, you need to be motivated to do it. "I will go to the gym when I feel like it." I don't care who you are, if you are sitting on the couch watching tv, nothing about that will motivate you to go to the gym. They key to motivation is to start doing it and THEN motivation comes to you. If you get your gym bag go to your car and start driving, are you likely to go to the gym? Yes!

You need to act your way into feeling! (This comes from John C. Maxwell somewhere). Think about what you need to do to make your business go, to get good grades, to work, get in shape, etc. Most likely you can envision where you want to be, but to get there, you need to do "annoying" daily tasks. Do not wait for motivation to make you do these acts. Just do it (Nike). 

"Being a professional is doing the things you love on the days you don't feel like doing them."

-Julius Erving

The key to being REMARKABLE is doing the little things. They always add up.

On Life Balance

Balance in life is dependent on your own happiness levels. If you love work and life then balancing it is not a trick of time, it is a trick of optimal life satisfaction. For self-employed people, entrepreneurs, and students, it is extremely important to learn balance. Much of balance comes from energy management. You need to put the same amount of energy into your family life, your social life, and your work life. If you keep your energy levels up high, people will not blame you for spending time at work. You need to show your family and friends that you love them by giving them your full attention whenever you are with them. Make sure you schedule important things for all circles in your life and attend them.

Time is a factor as well. You need to spend time with each circle to optimize your satisfaction levels. Maybe some weeks, you spend more time working than others. That is natural for anything other than a 9-5 job. I suggest each week you sit down and work out your schedule. You start by plugging in all of the most important things. Then you list how many hours you want to spend with each circle. Then you fill out your schedule accordingly. However, the amount of time you spend in each circle will not mean much if you do not bring your full attention during that time! ENERGY IS KEY!

Without energy, how can you be REMARKABLE?

On Crunch Time

During a time period in which you have to really push yourself to get results, it is important to step up to the challenge and face it head on. I have to admit, I have not done this during many opportunities to do so, but it unleashes your full potential and pushes you through a period of rapid growth. Once you realize you are capable of doing more than you give yourself credit for, you begin to truly excel at a higher level.

We see this many times in sports where a player breaks out during the playoffs and elevates their performance to another level. What typically happens is this performance allows them to raise themselves to a higher level in the following season because they have unlocked a new potential for themselves.

Accept crunch times or push weeks as a growth period and you can grow faster than most people around you. Challenge yourself to become truly REMARKABLE!

On Leaders In Movies

First, I just want to establish that Simba is the lion version of Batman. Think about it.

Ever since I began my quest on studying leadership, I began watching movies in a new light. We can learn very important leadership lessons by characters such as Simba and Batman (and Mufasa). I encourage you to watch movies in the light of finding what leaders do to bring the most benefit to their people and lead them in the right direction. Mufasa mentions in Lion King that there is more to being king than getting everything you want. You must sacrifice. You must sacrifice more than anybody else in your kingdom sacrifices. You have to understand all the different sources, listen to your advisors, even if they are as annoying as Zazu. You have to be brave only when you need to be brave. And you need to use emotions such as fear, anger, and joy the right way.

I have learned much from leaders in movies. Many of them portray the precise attributes you want as a leader. This is why we idolize them in movies. If we can learn from them, it can be nearly as effective as learning from real-life leaders that many times you do not have the ability to analyze.

On Visualization

*I love how I am taking a final exam as this is being published onto my blog.*

I have been developing the visionary side of my thoughts for a couple years now. I am naturally gifted at visualizing the future and I love my ability to plan a way to get there as well. I have a few tips on how to develop your visionary strengths:

1. In the shower, think of the future. I not only think of the future, I actually embrace myself in the future and act as if I am in it whilst talking out loud, even passionately. This really exercises my visionary muscles and since I shower every morning, it really helps me get going every day and helps me practice consistently.

2. Think about anything in the future, ranging from yourself to the world. If you practice by envisioning flying cars and light saber kitchen cutlery, then that would be awesome. If you practice by seeing yourself running a multi-billion dollar charitable organization to help aid inner-city schools, then that works as well.

3. Give a speech that you would see yourself giving in the future. (This is one of my showering exercises.) I am about to open an office for Vector and I often give speeches that I would do at team meetings. This helps you not only visualize what you will become, but also goes a step further allowing you to be there already. All while helping you practice public speaking, which I have developed greatly from failing the final speech of my speech class to becoming a good reliable presenter in class presentations. (Thank you, Vector)

Visualization is extremely powerful in driving yourself towards attaining your life's purpose. It not only allows you to immerse yourself in the future, but it also tells your subconscious mind where you want to go, allowing it to show you the way.

Visualize BEING REMARKABLE and you can do remarkable things!

On Experts

It takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert in something! So many people see the end result of people like The Beatles, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, etc. and immediately believe these people must have genius imbedded into their DNA. Behind all these wildly successful people were most likely over 10,000 hours of practice in what they did BEFORE they became successful.

The Beatles, for example played at a bar in Hamburg, Germany for 8 hours straight every day for a few years. Then they returned to the United Kingdom and swept the nation. Before leaving the UK, they were a pretty awful disgrace of musicianship. However, after playing together for so many hours, they became masters of their sound. Bill Gates was fortunate enough to be one of the only kids around computers while he grew up, and he sat in front of them for hours on end. Steve Jobs would assemble things, use do-it-yourself kits, etc. Mark Zuckerberg would program on computers for fun while growing up.

None of these people were born geniuses. Maybe they are smarter than some people naturally, but their success comes as a by-product of practice... for HOURS!

Letters behind your name does not make you an expert in your field. Practice does. Countless 10,000 hours of practice.

On Boundaries

"We predefine our boundaries."
-Christian Gouse

I personally believe every person on Earth was born to do great things. However, we set our limits as we grow based on what society tells us to set our limits to. The vast majority of people live an unremarkable life so they can have a safe job with a home. However, a person should constantly challenge themselves to improve so they truly have no boundaries at all.

The only boundaries you have are the ones you create. Nothing is impossible: I'm possible.