What (and Who) are You Thankful For?

Welcome to Seeds 4 Growth issue #5!

In each issue, I will use the “Higher Power of 4’s” to provide 4 “seeds” within a particular topic designed to help individuals, teams, and organizations find purpose in fulfilling their true growth potential. And by doing so, grow leaders into living legacy builders who desire to make the world better.

“The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don’t like to do. They don’t like doing them either necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose.”

— E. M. Gray

Within my new book, The Purposeful Growth Revolution: 4 Ways to Grow from Leader to Legacy Builder, I outline a holistic model for purposeful growth that features a LEAF as a natural symbol of growth as well as an acronym (Leadership, Engagement, Accountability and Fulfillment). Given the conversations today about “quiet quitting” based upon lack of purpose and engagement—or "toxic work environment"—I want to hit this issue head-on by focusing on the part we can control. Our habits.

First, I define Engagement as a total commitment of our Heart, Head, Hands, and Habits— all revolving around Purposeful Growth. The integration of these 4 engagement processes lead to a greater sense of empowerment to help us perform at the highest possible levels.?Today, I would like to address the importance of creating (and faithfully executing) habits I believe to be vital in the pursuit of excellence (not perfection) in any endeavor.

Depending on who you listen to, it can take somewhere between twenty-one and sixty-six days to form a habit. Keep in mind, these could be habits with positive or negative consequences in finding your purpose and fulfilling your growth potential.

“We are what we routinely do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

— Aristotle

In Outliers: The Stories of Success, Malcolm Gladwell claims it takes 10,000 hours to master a subject. While that may be true for some situations, I do not believe it is true for everyone in all situations. We’ve all heard the saying “practice makes perfect,” right? While I believe we need practice to get better in any endeavor, it is not that simple. Another school of thought comes to us via legendary Green Bay Packers coach, Vince Lombardi who said, “Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.”

But there is no such thing as perfect.

If you’ve ever seen my golf swing, you know without instruction I could spend 10,000 hours on the range and not come away with a perfect swing. Oh, I’m sure I would probably hit several really sweet shots along the way; however, it would not likely result in a repeatable, sustainable swing. Instead, all I would end up with is blistered and bloodied hands and the same doggedly optimistic, though ultimately frustrating, swing I started with. Trust me, I would love to be wrong on this because I absolutely love golf, but I tend to play consistently inconsistent even on my best days.

Some of you may remember Olga Korbut from Russia or Mary Lou Retton of the United States—world-class Olympic champion gymnasts from the 1970s and ’80s respectively. Both earned perfect tens, which is incredible. However, today we are watching the most amazing and truly transcendent gymnast in the world—Simone Biles—performing routines nobody can come close to matching. She, too, has earned perfect tens in various competitions. The point is, there is always room for improvement because perfection is merely relative and, by definition, unattainable.

Unfortunately, no one is perfect, so without a coach to help us make the proper adjustments—in our golf swing, in our life, in our career, or in our relationships—all we can realistically hope for is to make some small improvements. On our own, we may be mired in bad habits leading nowhere, leaving us stuck in the mud of inertia and/or indecision without taking action at all.

“Excellence is not a gift, but a skill that takes practice. We do not act ‘rightly’ because we are ‘excellent,’ in fact, we achieve ‘excellence’ by acting ‘rightly’.”

— Plato

We tend to do repeatedly what we feel rewarded for doing. The reward can be life-affirming and healthy, or more often, unhealthy, the kind we know we ought to change but have trouble with because changing it runs counter to our desires. That’s why our annual New Year’s Resolutions don’t last, right?

We do what we do because we are all creatures of habit. And we tend to repeat behaviors that give us a sense of comfort. But there can be no growth when we are stuck in the quicksand of comfort.

While I’ve found several great books on the topic of habits written by subject matter experts such as James Clear, Charles Duhigg, and Brendon Burchard, I want to share a few that have worked for me and some other successful people I admire.

Remember, we all have both good habits we want to build on and bad habits we’d like to eliminate. I believe in accentuating the positive as opposed to focusing (too much) on the negative. So, let’s focus on 4 habits we should all start doing to help us fulfill our true growth potential. While all 4 of these habits are vitally important, in the spirit of the Thanksgiving season, I am going to stress the importance of gratitude in helping us shape our level of engagement that leads to empowerment and, ultimately, goal achievement.

1. Adopt an Attitude of Gratitude

The legendary Zig Ziglar was fond of saying, “Your attitude is your altitude.” While I love me some Zig Ziglar, and we all understand the power of a positive, can-do attitude, I feel this phrase would be more helpful by exchanging “attitude” with one important word—gratitude.

According to studies, many positive behaviors and related outcomes emerge by adopting an attitude of gratitude:

• Shields you from negativity
• Makes you happier
• Rewires your brain
• Eliminates stress
• Heals
• Improves sleep
• Boosts self-esteem and performance
• Enhances the Law of Attraction
• Improves relationships

Studies confirm we develop and grow faster, stronger, better—and with a much deeper sense of joy and fulfillment—when we are grateful for what (and who) we have in our lives.

In fact, most life coaches recommend developing a gratitude journal to take stock of the many positive things we have, which tends to make the negative things seem less important. I wholeheartedly agree with this practice, but I’m not as concerned about whether you write them down in a journal, pray them silently or aloud, or merely meditate on them in your own way. The important thing is to be intentional about being grateful every day.

The power of gratitude is tremendously beneficial because it shapes your heart, head, hands, and habits. And what a great way to start each day as a brand-new gift to be grateful for.

In addition to what we have (things), it is equally, if not more important to take stock in and give thanks to who we have (people) in our lives. Here’s an example of 4 in each category I came up with off the top of my head. I’m sure you can come up with many more specific and relevant to you.

What We Have…

o??Health?

o??Food?

o??Shelter?

o??Employment?

o??Other?

Now, if you can say you have all 4 of these important basic needs fulfilled, congratulations! Unfortunately, according to Gallup’s Basic Needs Vulnerability Index, in 2020, 750 million people could not make that claim. It puts things in perspective for us, doesn’t it?

Who We Have…

o??Spouse/Family/Significant Other?

o??Friends?

o??Teammates/Coworkers?

o??Mentor/Coach?

o??Other?

If you have at least 4 people who fulfill one of the above roles, you are also doing very well. The ability to cultivate close, trusting, loving relationships provides a community feel that makes our “things” (what we have) worthwhile.

“Gratitude is the golden frame through which we can see the meaning of life.”

— Brendon Burchard

2. Set Bold Goals and Be Intentional

The first habit features the importance of two interrelated actions. Set bold goals for yourself that will stretch you past your “comfort zone.” In Jim Collins’ landmark book Good to Great, they’re called BHAGs which stands for Big Hairy Audacious Goals. Whatever you want to call them, the first thing you must do is have some. Write them down and post them where you can see them every single day. Recite them silently or aloud to speak them into existence. Without a set of bold goals, you are just wandering aimlessly—possibly working hard yet getting nowhere.

The second part is even more important than the first. I believe in the power of being intentional with our thoughts, words, feelings, and actions to be more consistent in driving results. Maybe not from a linguistic perspective, but from a metaphorical one, the word “intentional” could have come from the root word “intense.” I believe we must be intense about developing, nurturing, and growing habits that lead to positive behaviors and outcomes.

If we are to grow into our purpose, our habits must intentionally reflect that goal as opposed to random scatter-shooting. Becoming “intensely intentional” about what we choose to think, say, feel, and do will provide a foundation upon which all other habits can be built.

3. Exercise Self-Discipline

We often think of the word “discipline” as something that happens to us when we make a poor choice and get in trouble. Been there! But there is an even more powerful definition when used in the context of making positive, productive, and proactive choices.

For an athlete, those choices may include eating right, staying hydrated, stretching well, and getting plenty of rest so they can maintain a specific training regimen. In business, the choices may include a variety of self-disciplinary techniques that prepare you to reach peak performance at work.

• Manage your Time and Energy
• Establish Success Routines
• Be a Purposeful Learner
• Perform Post-Analyses

I use the term, “exercise” on purpose as—like our physical body--it represents the ongoing practice of self-discipline in creating (and keeping) positive habits that help us grow strong and healthy over time.

4. Serve Others

We all understand the need for growth to advance our careers and the organizations we serve, but research studies show that Purposeful Growth is the most powerful way to grow and live a fulfilled life.

From spiritual teaching to scholarly research and changing demographic trends along with the increasing reliance on digital devices for social interaction, there is solid evidence that connecting individuals to their higher purposes helps increase job satisfaction, productivity, longevity/loyalty, and outer directedness that benefits others.

When you are growing into your purpose, you are likely serving others in some way. In fact, I believe who you serve is even more important than why you do it.

• Spiritual
• Relational
• Personal
• Professional

When you make things personal or give them a human face, you tend to get a deeper sense of daily emotional engagement that leads to higher performance and greater fulfillment.

“Empowerment is all about letting go, so others can get going.”

— Kenneth Blanchard

In summary, it is vitally important to establish positive habits that lead to personal and professional success.?And we know that aligned and empowered team members who feel emotionally and physically engaged—taking ownership of the outcome—are happier and more fulfilled. Empowerment will support business growth and result in higher retention rates. As I’ve seen on many occasions, experienced teams tend to be more profitable to the enterprise. And this is more important than ever because of “The Great Repurposing” era that was kicked into high gear by COVID-19 and resulting hiring/retention issues.

Seeds 4 Growth

1. What (and Who) are you grateful for?

2. What bold goals have you established for your life/work?

3. What daily disciplines do you follow to help achieve peak performance?

4. Who do you “serve” (Spiritual, Relational, Personal, Professional)?

The new world of work is changing... on purpose.

If you are interested in learning how you, your team, or your organization can find purpose in fulfilling your true growth potential, I would be delighted to work with you. Please check out my website at https://www.MarkAMears.com and let’s get connected.

The Purposeful Growth Revolution is ON!

Are you IN?