Sure you know Bruce Lee the martial artist and movie star. But do you know Bruce Lee the philosopher, comedian or master of personal development? Bruce was one of my early inspirations. He continuously pushed his mind and body to new levels and his physical prowess inspired and influenced body builders and martial artists alike. As far as heroes go, Bruce Lee truly set an example of what it means to be YOUR best. Bruce was all about making the most of what you’ve got, seeking truth knowledge, and applying what you know. If you’ve seen him in movies or you know some of his quotes, you know exactly what I mean. In this post, I share my lessons from Bruce Lee.

In my previous post, I talked about Vital Behaviors, which I learned about in my Influencer Training. I’m elaborating here on Crucial Moments because they are one of the key ways to help you find Vital Behaviors. A Crucial Moment is the point in time where you have a critical choice to make. It’s the event or trigger where, depending on how you respond, you can positively or negatively impact results in a significant way. For example, a critical moment is when your alarm goes off in the morning. You can do your workout routine or you can hit the snooze alarm and put it off another day.

Who doesn’t want more time? We all want more time to do the things we want to do. The reality is, we have to make the most of the time we’ve got. The real problem is we spend time on the wrong things, we do things the least efficient way, or we simply let time expand to fill its container (see Parkinson’s Law.) The real key to improving time management is first changing how you think about your time and taking steps to own how you spend it.

One of my mentors shared a lesson with me from the book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable . His lesson was this: If you miss the train, don’t chase it. Catch the next one. Missing a train is only painful if you run after it.

Do you choose your response or act on impulse? Impulse says, “eat the M&M” or “pull the lever”, or “hit the snooze button.” It feels good in the moment. It’s bad for you in the long run.

This is a follow up to my previous post, Influencer Training Day 1. These are my notes from day 2 of Influencer training. It turned out to be way tougher to write up than I expected. I had a lot of notes and we covered a lot of material and I wanted to boil it down as simply as possible. This is actually my third variation and I think it’s the cleanest so far. Why would I spend so much time trying to get this right? Because I think it’s some of the most powerful information for changing you, your environment, your team, your work, or the world.

This is too cool not to share. During my Influencer training, we watched a video on delaying gratification. Apparently, people that can delay gratification can do better in school, get more promotions, have better relationships and lead a more successful life. Rather than do what they want in the moment, they choose what’s right for the long run. That’s the will part.

In my previous post, I wrote about the power of Hot Spots. In this post, I’ll show you how I apply Hot Spots to life. These are the categories I use for skilled living. This is the big picture. It’s how I chunk up my overall time and energy. There are certain areas in life that if I invest in, I get rewarded. On the other hand, if I ignore these categories, I get penalized.

Productivity is a spectrum from day dreamer to achiever. What if we named these various flavors of productivity? Then when you recognize you have the wrong hat on for the job, you can switch hats. For example, maybe you’re thinking “details” when it’s really time for “big picture.” I’m calling these personas, but they’re really just behavior or thinking patterns. I’m highlighting some of the more common personality personas that you’ll easily recognize.

I’ll use personas as a simple way name the different types of behaviors. Anybody can be a mix of some or all of the various personas. No persona is good or bad. Some are more effective than others depending on the situation. The key is to use the personas as a lens on behavior.

The 20 percent spike is a distinctive strength. It’s unusually powerful. Using your 20 percent spike generates exponential results. It’s a way to amplify your impact and maximize results. My 20 percent spike is information artistry. I use this skill to create, organize, and share complex information in a simple way. At work, it helps me write more effective books. At home, it helps me learn faster and turn insights into action. From a service standpoint, it helps me unleash the best in others.

I’ve been thinking of my life as a business. Without getting too carried away with the analogy – after all, life’s way more than business – it gives me a helpful frame, along with patterns and practices, to draw from. Rather than think of a business that makes money, I think of a business that creates value (the mark of an enduring business.) In this case, value for yourself and others.

Unleash a version of your best self — quickly find your purpose, values, and personal success patterns.

Whenever I hear people debating whether life is an intelligent design or an evolutionary process, I can’t help but think that evolution is an intelligent design! When I think of design, I don’t think of veneer or appearance. Instead, I think of it as the soul of a thing, a sort of creator’s signal of intention.

I use a simple frame for life to help me spend my time and energy on the right things. I call this frame, my “Life Frame.” My life frame is simply a collection of “hot spots” that I invest in. Or put it another way, I think of my life as a portfolio and I try to invest wisely in my key hot spots: mind, body, career, emotions, financial, relationships, and fun. The beauty of having a simple frame is that you can balance your life through thick and through thin. If you have a life frame, you can more thoughtfully allocate your time and energy for maximum results. More importantly, when things aren’t going well, you have a tool to help you spot where you are not investing enough.

A friend of mine told me a story the other day. I liked his reminder of how your job satisfaction, is more about your perspective, than the job.

It’s Not Your Job …
The story goes like this. As he was walking to his jet, on a picture perfect day, he thought to himself, how boring … one more routine solo flight. Then it hit him. He’s doing a job that other people only dream of. He realized that day and ever since, it’s not your job that determines what you enjoy … it’s what’s between your ears.

Twenty-five years of business in 32 countries has honed my understanding of what sets successful business people apart from those whom success is an elusive quest. Five characteristics persist in leaders I have been honored to know. Although there are more than five characteristics, these five characteristics top the list.

You don’t need to get what you want to be happy. You can be just as happy if you don’t get what you want, as you can if you get what you want. It’s not just sour grapes. You can manufacture your own happiness. It’s synthetic happiness. Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, teaches us that synthetic happiness is just as real and enduring as real happiness. Dan also teaches us that our longings and worries are overblown because we have the capacity to create happiness within ourselves rather than depend on experiences.

You can’t be an expert in all things. However, you can improve your overall effectiveness by rounding out your skills. While it’s good to specialize, knowing the basics in some key areas will help you put your knowledge to work. I’ve found that while it’s important to specialize in some areas, that I get more results by adding other areas to my belt. For example, focusing on business helps me invest my time better. Learning marketing fundamentals helps me get more impact from the work I do.

Happiness is a skill you can develop. Some people are born happy, while others have to work at it. Some have to work harder than others. Rather than work harder, work smarter. Luckily, with all the focus on happiness, we now have a better body of knowledge to draw from. Carlin Flora shares a collection of patterns and practices for skilled happiness from a variety of sources in her article, The Pursuit of Happiness, in Psychology Today.

It’s obvious in retrospect, but I found a distinction between low-friction communication and high-friction communication. By low-friction, I mean “person A” doesn’t have to work that hard for “person B” to get a point. It’s an unproductive energy drain. There’s a better way. It’s along the lines of Covey’s “seek first to understand, then to be understood.”