Author Archives: DieterL

Value, anxiety, and happier

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Good stuff I found recently:
We give “value” to all kinds of things, some times in terms of money, and sometimes in terms of usefulness. Yet I think there is another set of values that we overlook at our peril – we value things by what we had to give up to get them.
My mother, until she died, was constantly worrying about what would happen to all her valuable things in the house. After her death we discovered that even though these things may have cost a lot of money, no one wanted them at the auction.
When she had selected and bought those objects, years before, it was with a view to demonstrating how far she’d come in life. She’d risen above her background to live a rather more glamorous life than her school friends. So, of course these things were valuable. She’d given up her home, her native language, and much of her cultural background when she married my father.
No wonder the objects she bought were so “valuable” to her. They were compensating her for all she’d lost.

 

THE “LAZY” HABIT OF ANXIETY 
Anxiety!  It can sprout as fast as mushrooms in a dark room.  It seems to multiply in the closets of our minds.  So why would we associate the word “lazy” with it?
Lazy thinking?  We usually associate speed, racing, activity, hysteria, imbalance, over-functioning, plate-spinning, and other out-of-control activities with anxiety.  But not laziness. Active and highly motivated are the attributes that come to mind in a word association with anxiety.  Those folks who are anxious are immersed in the thought of failure, so like a scared rodent, they speed up the treadmill.
Yet could it be lazy thinking that prevents anxiety sufferers from pushing against the thoughts that seed this emotional terror?
Lazy thought habits fuel our anxiety.  Yes, some have a predisposition to suffer from anxiety more than others.  We know that anxiety can be an affliction.  All humans have some degree of anxiety affliction.  The continuum goes from very little to extreme.
Here’s the point.  Continue reading …
 
Happier
“You are one hundred and ten years old. A time machine has just been invented, and you are selected as one of the first people to use it. The inventor, a scientist from NASA, tells you that you will be transported back to the day when, as it happens, you first read Happier. You, with the wisdom of having lived and experienced life, have fifteen minutes to spend with your younger and less experienced self. What do you say when you meet? What advice do you give yourself?” ~ Tal Ben-Shahar from Happier

 

With kind regards,
  Dieter Langenecker
   Dieter Langenecker
PS: If you want personal support in uncovering and implementing your life’s purpose visit  Personal Mentoring
PPS. For free resources go here

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On Purpose

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Have you ever wondered why some people, despite the challenges they face, their limited educational backgrounds, limited access to resources and seemingly insurmountable challenges turn out to be more successful than their educated counterparts with privileged backgrounds?
Have you ever wondered how they are able to start from scratch, from nothing, with nothing and attain staggering heights of success that their privileged counterparts can only dream about? The answer is simple – they had a different mind-set. It is not the facts or challenges that face us that are important; rather it is the choices we make and the mind-set we choose to have in spite of those challenges that determine success or failure.
I frankly believe that success has little to do with lucky breaks and far more to do with the mind-set of the individual; while I do admit that many a successful people had been in the right place at the right time; I will contend that majority of those who achieved success often started off with very little and “made their own luck” by having the right mind-set, commitment, discipline and hard work. The catch however is that often times, the right mind-set, the commitment and the hard work that yield success just don’t turn up on their own; something else has to bring them alive and that is a sense of purpose.
Developing a sense of purpose has the potential to be a powerful game changer. Taking the time to find out what our purpose is can save us years of misery and failed attempts and propel us towards true success much faster. I often find that when people have not determined their true purpose, they often go from one goal to another without really achieving anything concrete. It is purpose that aligns all of our thoughts, decisions and actions and creates that powerful focal point at which all of our energies can be directed.
A purpose is not simply a mere goal such owning a bigger house, a business, taking a trip overseas etc. A purpose is a goal so big that when it is achieved or in the process of achieving it, it not only changes your own life, but it positively impacts the lives of those around you. An example of such a purpose is leaving behind a legacy that will change the lives of those to come after you, your grandkids for example. I know it sounds like a lofty ideal, given that many of us are caught in survival mode, day in day out with little time to think of ourselves not to mention descendants – but you see therein lies the problem. Unless our lives mean something far greater than us and unless we are aiming for something far greater than ourselves, we will forever remain focused on the small picture.
Many make the mistake of thinking of their businesses or careers as their purpose. By viewing the business or career as the ultimate goal, we place a limit on the potential of that business and ourselves. However, by viewing our business or career as a vehicle to fulfill our greater purpose, suddenly our vision becomes expanded and everything takes on a much bigger picture. The business or career stops becoming the ultimate goal and become a cog in a much larger wheel. By creating a purpose far greater than ourselves, we raise the expectations for our lives and as a consequence, our efforts, beliefs rise in line with those expectations.

 

So, what is your purpose? Why are you here?

 

With kind regards, 
Dieter Langenecker
   Dieter Langenecker
PS: If you want personal support in uncovering and implementing your life’s purpose visit  Personal Mentoring
 
PPS. For free resources go here

7 Reasons To Sign Up For Free LifeMentoring Tips 

Jack Welch, Steven Jobs, Seth Godin. Oh, and success

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Good stuff I found recently:
Steve Jobs explains the rules for success
Steve Jobs explains the rules for success

 

Seth Godin on “Habits“:

The habit of being easily persuaded by mass media
The habit of doing it right instead of doing it over
The habit of responding to nastiness with nastiness
The habit of failing to trust people who care
The habit of wasting time in meetings
The habit of being on time
The habit of avoiding things that cause fear
The habit of reading ahead
The habit of doing more than promised
The habit of expanding personal knowledge and experience
The habit of skepticism
The habit of close talking
The habit of generosity…

There’s a million habits out there, some good, some bad, all learned.
Every habit (your market, your family, your organization has) was formed because people got rewarded for it, at least in the short run.
The thing is, every habit is changeable with effort.

  

What it Really Takes to Succeed by Jack Welch
 
The modern marketplace demands that people possess a wide range of skills. But what core qualities are truly essential to career advancement, regardless of industry or job?The answer could fill a book and it has, thousands of times, if not more. Myriad experts claim that career advancement is a function of everything from extreme self-confidence to extreme humility (or both at once). Still others make the case that big-time professional success derives from more sinister behaviors, such as callous ambition or unfettered narcissism. And then there is the whole “positive thinking” bandwagon, which claims that getting ahead is primarily a function of believing you can. In sum, there’s so much contradictory advice out there about the core components of success that it’s enough to reduce you to a weary sigh of: “Whatever.”Which is just fine. Because we’d suggest that you can’t really manipulate yourself into success with personality tweaks or even major overhauls. In fact, we’d say just the opposite. The most powerful thing you can do is, well, be real. As in not phony. As in grappling, sweating, laughing, and caring. As in authentic.Yes, yes, we know the upper echelon of the corporate world has its share of slick super achievers who appear simultaneously all-knowing and unknowable. They’re cool, poised, almost digitally enhanced in their affect. But such bloodless executives, even the most technically skilled ones, rarely reach the highest heights. They’re just too remote to move people. They can manage, but they can’t motivate. Continue reading …

 
With kind regards, 
 
  Dieter Langenecker
   Dieter Langenecker
 
PS: If you want personal support in uncovering and implementing your life’s purpose visit  Personal Mentoring
 
PPS. For free resources go here

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THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE MEDIOCRE PEOPLE

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Ever since I’ve met Viktor Frankl as a student (too long ago as to mention the years) I keep on asking clients to define “success”. Most reply either  in general terms, like “I want to happy”, or start listing the classical examples like job, position, recognition, money, leaving something great behind, fame, etc.
Few ever become a “success story” though. But since the marketing machinery of our culture is very well functioning telling us what we should aim for in our lifes, and how we should live, most still go along with the rat-race concept.
Life-benchmarking, comparing ourselves with the stars, is still the prevailing force in our culture. To be mediocre, below average, compared to “friends”, peers and neighbours, means to have failed.
Really?
I came across this wonderful article by James Altucher about “aiming for grandiosity is the fastest route to failure”; but have a look and judge yourself:
  
THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE MEDIOCRE PEOPLE
I’m pretty mediocre. I’m ashamed to admit it. I’m not even being sarcastic or self-deprecating. I’ve never done anything that stands out. No “Whoa! This guy made it into outer space!” or, “This guy has a best selling novel!” or, “If only Google had thought of this!” I’ve had some successes and some failures but never reached any of the goals I had initially set. Always slipped off along the way, off the yellow brick road, into the wilderness.
I’ve started a bunch of companies. Sold some. Failed at most. I’ve invested in a bunch of startups. Sold some. Failed at some, and the jury is still sequestered on a few others. I’ve written some books, most of which I no longer like. I can tell you overall, though, everything I have done has been distinguished by its mediocrity, its lack of a grand vision, and any success I’ve had can be put just as much in the luck basket as the effort basket.
That said, all people should be so lucky. We can’t all be grand visionaries. We can’t all be Picassos. We want to make our business, make our art, sell it, make some money, raise a family, and try to be happy. My feeling, based on my own experience, is that aiming for grandiosity is the fastest route to failure. For every Mark Zuckerberg, there are 1000 Jack Zuckermans. Who is Jack Zuckerman? I have no idea. That’s my point. If you’re Jack Zuckerman and you’re reading this, I apologize. You aimed for the stars and missed. Your reentry into the atmosphere involved a broken heat shield, and you burned to a crisp by the time you hit the ocean. Now we have no idea who you are.
If you want to get rich, sell your company, have time for your hobbies, raise a halfway decent family (with mediocre children), and enjoy the sunset with your wife on occasion. 
Here are some of my highly effective recommendations.
Procrastinate. In between the time I wrote the last sentence and the time I wrote this one, I played (and lost) a game of chess. My king and my queen got forked by a knight. But hey, that happens. Fork me once, shame on me.
Procrastination is your body telling you you need to back off a bit and think more about what you’re doing. When you procrastinate as an entrepreneur, it could mean that you need a bit more time to think about what you’re pitching a client. It could also mean you’re doing work that is not your forte and that you’d be better off delegating. I find that many entrepreneurs are trying to do everything when it would be cheaper and more time-efficient to delegate, even if there are monetary costs associated with that. In my first business, it was like a lightbulb went off in my head the first time I delegated a programming job to someone other than me. At that time, I went out on a date. Which was infinitely better than sweating all night on some stupid programming bug (thank you, Chet, for solving that issue).
Try to figure out why you’re procrastinating.  …continue reading
 

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The Four Habits that Form Habits

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My daughter wants to work out more, but she has a hard time forming the habit (many of you might be familiar with this problem). From having to get dressed to go to the gym, to actually going to the gym, to the thought of a hard workout … our minds tend to put off the habit.
The solution is exceedingly simple: just do 3 pushups. Or tell yourself you have to walk/jog for just one minute.
Make it so easy you can’t say no.
Of course, most people will think that’s too easy, and tell themselves they have to do more than that. Leo’s advice is for other people! Unfortunately, it’s this mindset that causes people to fail at habits – we think we can do more, despite past evidence to the contrary, and so we aspire to greatness. We try to climb Everest before we’ve learned to walk.
Learn the fundamentals of habits before you try to do the advanced skills. If I could convince people of that, I could get millions to change their habits, be healthier, simplify, procrastinate less, start creating amazing things.
Today we’re going to go over the fundamentals of habit – four key habits to form habits. If you can learn these four habits, you’ll have the foundation to form pretty much any habit.
Habit 1: Start Exceedingly Small
Another common habit that too few people actually do is flossing daily. So my advice is just floss one tooth the first night.
Of course, that seems to ridiculous most people laugh. But I’m totally serious: if you start out exceedingly small, you won’t say no. You’ll feel crazy if you don’t do it. And so you’ll actually do it!
That’s the point. Actually doing the habit is much more important than how much you do.
If you want to exercise, it’s more important that you actually do the exercise on a regular basis, rather than doing enough to get a benefit right away. Sure, maybe you need 30 minutes of exercise to see some fitness improvements, but try doing 30 minutes a day for two weeks. See how far you get, if you haven’t been exercising regularly. Then, if you don’t succeed, try 1-2 minutes a day. See how far you get there.
If you can do two weeks of 1-2 minutes of exercise, you have a strong foundation for a habit. Add another week or two, and the habit is almost ingrained. Once the habit is strong, you can add a few minutes here and there. Soon you’ll be doing 30 minutes on a regular basis – but you started out really small.
Try the flossing habit – try to floss every tooth every night, and see how far you get. You might succeed … but if you fail, try just one tooth per night and see how far you get. Your mileage will vary, but on average most people get farther with a habit when they start small.
One glass of water a day. One extra vegetable. Three pushups. One sentence of writing a day. Two minutes of meditation. This is how you start a habit that lasts.

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Change occurs GRADUALLY, not all at once!

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One of the most pervasive beliefs I see that stops people from manifesting their purpose and their goals is that change and inspiration is this huge quantum moment that happens all at once. 

It’s just not true.Change happens one day, one moment, one step at a time. It’s 10,000 small steps that add up to a big leap.

The good news is that all you need to do right now is take one step. The  tough news is that there’s a BUNCH of these small steps that you need to take to make the transformation you are dreaming about a reality.

Sorry.

It’s not the best news in the world, but what’s rad is that all you need to  do is focus on the next step. Not the third step, or the 100th step, just the next one.

Life is all about just putting one foot in front of the other and taking that step. That step is what it’s all about it. The NEXT one. I’m all about just doing the next step.

Sure, I plan and plan. But I only ACT one step at a time. It’s SO easy to get caught up in the hypothetical outcomes that we never actually take  action. I truly believe that inspiration doesn’t just come; it usually comes as a byproduct of taking action. It’s in the action that we learn and change course. It’s in the action that we reality test and see which strategies work and which don’t. It’s in the action that we become more, we learn, we grow and we eventually make our dreams come true.

So many people think that this will happen all at once on one magical day. That’s not how it works. It’s a process, and sometimes a slow one at that, because The Divine needs to prepare us to live our best lives. And that sometimes means trials, setbacks and suffering – not as punishment, but as preparation for truly being able to give our gifts to the world.

The BIG goal happens one step, one moment and one action at a time.

What’s your next step?

 

With kind regards,
Dieter Langenecker

Ask Dieter starting today

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Ask Dieter is a no-cost, monthly program (starting today) where anyone seeking personal development can ask Dieter any question.

The idea is this:
A challenge being faced by one is certainly being faced by many, and so it is via this shared experience that we may raise the consciousness of community to lift us all.

Here’s how it works:
Each month, Dieter will select and personally respond to one question received via http://langenecker.com/askdieter.html

Every 2nd Saturday of the month, Dieter’s response will then be delivered via email broadcast to Dieter’s LIfeMentoring Letter subscribers, as well as being posted on this Blog, so that all of us may benefit from the insight, advice, and direction given. (If you are not a subscriber to the free Dieter Langenecker Lifementoring Letter yet you may want to subscribe here)

Submit your question(s) now, Dieter is going to respond to all of them; and the first one to be answered publicly will be published here April 13th (If you would like to remain anonymous, we will respectfully support you in doing so).

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