Jon Bohm

• “To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to do.” - Kahil Gibran (1883-1931)

So, let me ask you? Do you know where you want to be in 3 years? 5 years? 10 years?

That can be a very challenging question in today’s ever changing environment. As seen in Did You Know 2008. A world like this requires Visionary people and Visionary Leadership.

If you have ever worked at an organization that was lead by reactionary leaders who were always deciding their next move based of the past instead of where they want to be in the future, then you understand how detrimental it is.

But, let’s look at this on a personal level for a moment.

• What do you want your life to look like in 5 years?
• In 3 years?
• In 18 months to a year?

Sadly, it’s a fact that more people spend time planning a 2 week vacation than they do their life or their business. This is sad because that means life is simply just happening to a majority of people instead of them taking ownership and definitive action towards the life, love, friendships, and successes they really want.

So, what do you want? Where would you like to travel? What would you like to see? Who would you like to become? What would you like to accomplish? What type of friend, spouse, sibling, spiritual person would you like to be. The first step is dreaming about these questions.

Build a list of at least 50 (a hundred would be better) and write them down. For some it is much more difficult then it sounds, but everyone enjoys it.

I encourage all my clients to have an on-going dream list that they can add to, and see accomplished. A simple exercise with often huge results.

Take this study from Yale for example:

There is a famous study involving graduates of Yale University from the class of 1953. The students involved in this study were asked if they had a clear, specific set of goals for their future, and if they were written down with a plan for achieving them. Only three percent of those interviewed said that they did.

Twenty years later the researchers went back and interviewed the surviving members of that class. They discovered that the 3 percent with specific written goals had achieved more in financial terms than the entire other 97 percent put together. They also seemed to be happier and more “together” in every way.

Pretty amazing right? After you build a dream list and write it down you may realize it’s not as amazing as you once thought. Do you know where your going? Do you know WHO you want to become? Is it written down?

It is far less productive in life to focus on where you have been than it is to focus on where you are going. As you discover your future aspirations, you may even discover something about your own heart and passions.

Enjoy the journey!

-Jon Bohm

Goals, Leadership, Motivation

If at first you don’t succeed, so much for Skydiving. - Henry Youngman

Goals, Inspiration/Values, Motivation

Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them and try to follow them where they lead.
— Louisa May Alcott

We have aspirations. We all set goals. When we go to the grocery store and set goals on what to buy or how fast we can finish and get home. At work we can rush to be done at 5 pm, and set goals to be home by a certain time. We set goals to be out of Iraq as a country, or who we think should be in a political position. We set goals to live a great life and make big money.

Bottom line is that it is easy to set goals and much harder to achieve them. As a matter of fact, we can set a goal in 3 seconds to make a million dollars, or win the Olympics, or fly to the moon. But setting a goal is not helpful unless we can take action to achieve those goals. Often a goal simply turns into “wishful thinking.” Because, those goals are for the most part out of our hands. Don’t get me wrong, we can dream and work to achieve them, which is very valuable, but whether or not you achieve them is not always directly in your control. But other things are.

For example, a salesperson can set a goal to sell 1 million in product in 6 months. But, the salesperson doesn’t really have control over who buys or how much. Therefore, the goal is a great dream and an excellent target, but not a goal. It is too easy to brush it off later as too high, or out of your hands, or the economy took a dive.

A good goal is always in your control. A good goal is achievable and measurable. Which means the salesperson, although they can’t control who buys and for how much, they can control how many calls they make, how many presentations they make, how much time they spend sharpening their skills and product knowledge, how much networking they do, and how well they remain motivated and prepared. A good goal is something that is in your control, and you treat it as non-negotiable. You view them as something that you can do, and will do each day before quitting time. Never letting yourself out of it by way of excuse or laziness. Because, after all, it is in your control and you either do it and get closer to your success, or you don’t do it and move further away from your dreams.

No action is neutral when it comes to achievement. Every action is either bringing you closer or further away from where you want to be.

Goals are not wishful thinking, like they are so often used. They are much more valuable then that, they are your key to moving forward, out of the Status Quo and into seeing your dreams become reality.

That type of goal leaves you with no choice but to take action. When goals are in your control, they keep you out of the clouds and into moving toward your dreams one achievable and measurable step at a time. Dream big, and then take action to achieve your daily goals.

It is easy to know where you are, sometimes it is easy to know where you want to be. But the real challenge is found between now and then. This is where success happens, in daily achievable activity set to the measurement of a goal.

May you see your highest aspirations in the sun and start walking, or better yet running toward them each day when you wake up. Dreaming is easier done in bed. But reward and success is found up and moving toward the sun.

Goals, Knowledge, Motivation, Sales

Riddle: 5 Frogs are sitting on a log. 4 frogs decide to jump off. How many frogs are sitting on the log?

Answer: 5 frogs. Deciding to do something and actually doing something are 2 different things.

I was having some short and rapid discussions today. I realized I really didn’t have time to go through a lot of thinking processes before I responded. I simply had to respond. And this is a common occurrence for us all the time. We are in situations where we don’t have the luxury of following the normal response pattern of stimulus, thought, and response. And we are simply stimulus - response.

This happens when you are playing sports and your body just responds quickly to a ball or other player’s movements, when a fighter jet pilot has to respond to a situation, when a kid runs in front of your car, or when your foot comes off the gas and onto the break as you drive when you see a police car- whether you were speeding or not. But it also happens in conversations, business deals, and arguments with a spouse. It is in these moments that you don’t have time to answer the way you always should, or the way you want other’s to perceive you. In these moments you answer from who you really are. You answer from passion, emotion, instinct, and conditioning.

So, if you hear a great speaker, read a good book, or go to a conference. Unless you are able to understand a concept, internalize the thought, and then practice the behavior, all that knowledge will do you little good when you need it most. The split second decisions and words that come from inside your reservoir of true knowledge and passion, they are developed. You can shape them and mold them so it changes who you really are. Then, in those split second moments, you don’t have to think or try, but simply BE… who you really are.

What are you doing to develop who you are personally, professionaly, socially, emotionally, physically, or spiritually?

May I encourage you today to set aside 30 minutes minimum a day to read a book, listen to audio, talk with a friend that challenges you, or whatever you may find to develop who you are. Seek to truly understand, Internalize it, and apply it.

What better thing could you possibly build into than a better, truer, and more authentic you?

- Jon Bohm

Goals, Inspiration/Values, Knowledge, Motivation

If you would attain what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you were pleased with yourself there you have remained. But once you have said, “It is enough,” you are lost. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing; do not stop, do not turn back, do not turn from the straight road.
— St. Augustine

Have you ever wondered where it is that you took that wrong turn?
Often when you take a wrong turn it is very hard to find your way back, and as St Augustine says, “you are lost.”

Habits can keep you lost. They are incredibly powerful things. You have habits of thought that shape your attitude and personality. You have physical habits that shape your body and health. You have spiritual habits that feed or can starve your soul. We all have them.

The questions is, why are habits so hard to start at some times, and so hard to end at others?

Have you ever had a habit you wanted to get rid of but couldn’t seem to stop doing or thinking it? You want it gone, but it just doesn’t go away. There are some reasons for this phenomenon, but the bottom line is that every habit, whether good or bad, whether wanted or unwanted gives us some sort of pleasure.

Let me share a short story about a person you have probably met before. This person is always letting everyone at his workplace know how hard he works. He often stays late and he he arrives early. He makes sure everyone knows that he is putting in the extra hours. You may even feel like he is a star employee and you’re just not that committed.

This person who works so late and so hard is really finding pleasure in it, because he finds his importance by letting everyone know what a great worker he is. This person may not even want to stay late, he may not want to make a big deal of his hard work, but yet he does. One day he decides to quit, but he finds it to hard to go home on time, to keep his mouth shut about his hard work, and thus continues in his role as the employee who works the longest hours.

But if you take that person and help him set goals to be around his family more, and he sees how important it is for his kids to have their Dad around. Then he can replace the pleasure of feeling important at work with the pleasure of feeling important at home.

The moral of the story is if you have a habit you want to break, then ask yourself:

-What pleasure am I getting from this bad habit?
-How can I replace that pleasure with something healthy?
-Address the obstacles that could keep you from making the change, and write out the action steps you need to take to get past those obstacles and on the road to breaking the habit, or better yet replacing the pleasure.

You unfortunately will have a very difficult time simply stopping a bad habit, you have to replace the pleasure first. If you want to stop smoking, address the pleasure. And in comes more food, more gum, more toothpicks, or Nicorette.

If you are always late, is it because you enjoy taking your time leaving the house? Is it because you like to arrive fashionably late and make an entrance? Is it because you hate to feel rushed so you show up when you feel like it? Is it because you enjoy skipping small talk and the awkward feeling of arriving to a social event when nobody else is there?

Identify the pleasure you get and replace it. if you enjoy taking your time before you leave the house; then get up earlier and take it slow- make some coffee, take a long shower, have breakfast, and then roll out nice and slow but on time.

If you arrive late because you like to make an entrance; then dress sharper, meet more people once you arrive, memorize some good conversation starters, and look for other positive ways to stand out besides being late.

Habits give us pleasure, no matter how small it may be, identify the pleasure then replace it with something enjoyable and personally satisfying. Then grab those nasty habits by the neck and throw them to the ground.

-Jon Bohm

Goals, Inspiration/Values, Motivation

Success is to be measured not by wealth, power, or fame, but by the ratio between what a man is and what he might be.
— H. G. Wells

By what measuring stick do you measure yourself?
How do you measure if a business, or staff, or even if you are being successful?

Success is often measured by how the boss feels about you at any particular moment. Have you ever had a job when you felt that way? You just never know, for sure, if people are pleased. If you are getting “it done,” unless someone is patting you on the back. But then, is it the right person patting you on the back? Do you have people that are telling you the truth about your performance, or just trying to keep the waters calm?

All these questions build insecurities and inevitably lead to comparing yourself to the closest availble persons in your field, in your life, in your class, in your work place, in the local paper, or across the globe. Often this leads to thoughts that you won’t be successful unless you can be better than whomever you are comparing yourself to at that moment.

After all, it only makes sense, right? When you apply for a job, you are compared. When you play in sports you are compared to the other team. When you place a bid you are compared either by value, price, service, or political gain. If we are always compared it only makes sense to compare yourself to others, right?

I would say wrong. And this is why. When outside influences compare you they are making a judgement, a gamble, on who will do the best job. They are not measuring your future success, they don’t know that yet. They are simply judging your past achievements and guessing on the future. Developing who you are is the process of pulling your future successes into your present. That can only be done by you. And when you are measuring success by what you know you are capable of, not by what someone else placed your value at.

The best definition of success (I believe in this principle so much I use it with all my clients) is the continuous achievement of your own predetermined goals that are stabilized by balance and purified by belief.

Let that sink in for a minute, and ask yourself. Do you have predetermined goals? Are you reaching them? Are they inline with your beliefs? Are they bringing total success to all areas of your life, or just one or two?

If you can make that your model for success, then you can, and will escape the comparison trap and begin pulling your future successes into your present.

Remember the person in the mirror knows what you are capable of, and reaching to develop that person always pays the biggest ROI.

- Jon Bohm

Goals, Inspiration/Values, Knowledge, Motivation

“We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day, or in the red fire on a long winter’s evening. Some of us let these great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nourish them through bad days until they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true.”
— Woodrow Wilson

Besides winning the lottery, very few people will ever grow bigger in their successes than they can dream. Dreaming is a developed skill. You have to be able to stop and visualize in your mind’s eye what it would be like, feel like, and taste like to reach your dreams.

To build a great dream inventory try to start small and let your dreams build on each other.

Start by opening the door to the closet of your mind. Have fun. Let yourself go. Add to your dream inventory regularly.
Get out a sheet of paper and list everything you’ve ever wanted - to go, to do, to have, to become. Take off the blinders of possibility and probability. Throw out the filters of whether you need it, deserve it, or are worth it.

Start a page of dreams. Every great accomplishment starts with a seed, an idea, a dream.

After you build a list of 25-50 dreams you have a menu of things to choose from. And when the time comes for you to order, then you can decide whether your appetite calls for a full-course meal or a snack.

But you can’t hardly order without a menu, so pull out the stops and dream big.
- Jon Bohm

Goals, Inspiration/Values, Motivation

John Killinger tells of the time when W. Clement Stone, the Chicago financier and philanthropist, was asked how he had done so much in his lifetime. Stone’s reply was this: “I have dreamed. I have turned my mind loose to imagine what I wanted to do. Then I have gone to bed and thought about my dreams. In the night, I have
dreamed about them. And when I have arisen in the morning, I have seen the way to get to my dreams. While other people were saying, ‘You can’t do that, it isn’t possible,’ I was well on my way to achieving what I wanted.”

It has been said many times that the person standing on the sideline saying it can’t be done is often surpassed by the person doing it.

Behavioral scientists will tell you that in your formative years, between 6 months and 5 years, our basic personality is formed. The way we view the world and understand how we interact with our surroundings. The interesting part about that bit of information is that close to 80% of everything we heard was negative:

Goals, Inspiration/Values, Motivation

The worst answer available to a question of “Why?” Is just another answer that demands another “Why?”

Like when you were little and your Mom would say “Because I said so.” or:
“Because you are supposed to.”
“Because your manager asked you to.”
“Because it is what we have always done.”
“Because your boss will get a great bonus.” etc.

Those aren’t answers to anything. When you are leading your life or your team–do you have a clear and compelling goal, vision, or passion inducing reason for you or your team to come and work everyday?

Imagine this-

It’s an average day at work. You come home dead tired. After collapsing in your favorite chair, your spouse reminds you that tonight is your bowling league night. So, after about an hour’s rest, you go to the lanes.
Once there, you bowl for hours and throw that 16-pound ball about a hundred times, and you feel great. But think of this: if you have the manager remove the pins from the lane, how long do you think your energy and interest would last? After about four or five throws, you would be pooped and ready to go home and into bed.

Set yourself a goal. If you have a goal to reach, you will be given enough drive to achieve it.

In today’s workplace a paycheck is not hardly enough to keep most employees. If a paycheck is your answer to “Why?” then your turnover will be high.

To help set some pins in the lane for you or your team ask yourself:

1. What is the big picture that we are a part of?

For example - If you make plastic bottles for Pepsi, your big picture might be to make the best soda available for consumption at ball games, at parties, at picnics and hotdog stands all over the region! You are making the world a better place one bottle at a time. As opposed to, “I put bottle “A” in blower machine “B” all day, so that I get my paycheck and go home.”

2. What recognition can you give your team for a game well played?
For example: An announcement, a reward, or a bonus.

3. What “team” or “family” can you create around your work place? Do the supervisors get invited to afterwork social activities with the managers? Can you create a night out once a month that benefits team development? Or, is the Christmas party only for the managers?

4. What productivity incentives can be applied to the work day? For example: The most succesful contractor I know sets a goal before his crew every morning. If the crew completes that goal they go home. It could be noon or it could be 10 pm, it’s up to them. But if they finish by noon, they get paid for the full day. His crew gets more done in a 1/2 day then most crews do in 2 full days.

It’s a matter of keeping the lane full of pins.
-Jon Bohm

Goals, Leadership, Motivation

What if your greatest success in life was birthed from your darkest moment, your scariest challenge, or our biggest fear?

Adversity is your greatest friend or your biggest enemy, it all depends on how you deal with it.

I don’t know what adversity you may have gone through in your life, but we all have it in one form or another. For me; surviving cancer was my greatest adversity. As tough as it was, and as much as I wouldn’t wish it on anybody, I am grateful for what I learned; as well as how it shaped me into who I am today.

And strangely enough am not alone in that. On many occasions I have heard other survivors say they were thankful for the experience. Adversity makes us face internal obstacles that we would never have overcome otherwise, it makes us face external obstacles that we wouldn’t have had the strength to conquer without that experience. Obstacles and adversity simply become hurdles on the track of life, that once you clear each hurdle you are that much closer to becoming who you can and want to be.

Here is a true story of just such a situation:

Anna Mary Moses loved to do needlework. She had been enjoying it since before she was married. But as she began to get older, she started to lose some of the dexterity in her hands through arthritis. By the time she was eighty, she could no longer perform even the simplest stitches. Therefore she decided to try something different—painting. The brushes were easy enough to handle, even with her arthritis, so she took it up full time, mostly painting farm and country scenes.
One day a traveling art collector stopped for a bite to eat in her town and saw her pictures in a drugstore. He decided that he liked them, and in a very short time the name of Grandma Moses was known throughout the art world. Although Grandma Moses didn’t even start painting until she was eighty years old, she was able to create over fifteen hundred works of art in her lifetime. She had an international following, and prominence as a world-class painter.
All this because she was forced to quit her favorite pastime and take up a new one.

May adversity never be a roadblock, but simply a hurdle, that once cleared puts you that much closer to achieving your goals.

-Jon Bohm

Goals, Inspiration/Values, Motivation