Be you and be proud!

Extra!  Extra! Read all about it, we're all human and there is no need to be ashamed anymore.

I say this because we all have flaws and habits that can be quite boring or even unacceptable to some, the reason for this is because we are all human.  Some choose to hide the day-to-day routines they have chosen by coming up with elaborate stories of the lives they are not actually living instead of being honest and letting people know they aren't always living life on the edge.

Take me for example, I work in the health food industry and people often see me outside of work enjoying a hamburger and a fry, some people are shocked by this.  I like fast food, it's a part of my life I would like more balance in and when I'm ready to cut it out I have all the tools to take those steps to better myself.

Also, if you haven't noticed I love to motivate, I pride myself on personal development and helping people develop their own skills, but if you ask me what I did on the weekend it's not very exciting, you can usually find me asleep by 10pm on the couch with drool on my face and and movie playing on TV.
Could I be doing more constructive things?  Yes I could, but I'm not always looking for a stage to stand on to speak, and I'm not always enjoying a steamed chicken breast with a side of asparagus, I'm not afraid to admit this because most of you reading this are just as boring as I am.  Admit it!

Next time you are talking with people and the subject of health or daily routine comes up, either be honest or keep your mouth shut. There is no reason to tell people that you do things everyday that you only do once every 2 months, this is not being honest to yourself or people you are talking to.  If you workout once or twice per week, why tell people you train 5-6 days a week?  Be honest, telling the truth will allow you to break out of your own shell, lying keeps you shielded and protected against yourself.
It's much more therapeutic and motivating to talk about what you want to do or who you want to become, this gets conversations going and you do not need to hide behind a story you have made up about your life.  You will find that when speaking to others, letting them in on your quirks and flaws make you a more relateable person.  By becoming more relateable to others you become more genuine, and isn't that what you were trying to do by making up tall tales about your life?

Stay motivated
Shane C 

How to make a complaint

How to effectively make a complaint.

Have you ever gotten upset and tried to change things in an organization, service or a business?  Sure we all have and it usually involves doing one of two things:

1.  We mumble to ourselves all kinds of obscene words and violent acts about the complaint.
2.  We flip out and think we get our way by being rude and mean towards someone.

Yesterday I dealt with a number 2-

I dealt with someone who was very irrate with service they have been receiving over the years, every month this person always has some sort of complaint about something.  They are always rude and trying to walk all over myself and people with whom they deal with.  I must admit when I am pushed, I don't smile and try and please you.  I answer you with logical answers and I try my best to get you to understand what I can do to the best of my abilities.
So when faced with more complaints yesterday, I layed out an easy solution for this person to follow, nothing difficult, simply a solution.  Well this person did not like my answer and proceeded to flip out on me attacking my personality, cursing at me and attacking me personally (customer service industry usual). 

I understand I cannot please everyone in this world and not everyone will like me.  I can accept this, but it brings me to why I'm writing this today.  I want people to understand how to effectively make a complaint.

1. Be nice
If you want something changed, you must learn to persuade by being nice and not rude.  You want people to accept your way of thinking and not make them angry.  The second you upset someone, they always resort to there own defense mechanism and never want to hear you out.

2. Complain to the right people
This is where this person always goes wrong.  They complain about something I have no control over, yes I can be a listener but when I cannot change it so why yell at me?
It's almost like yelling at the delivery person because you ordered no onions on your pizza yet the cook added onions. The delivery person can only do so much but they did not put onions on your pizza.

3. Just walk away
If nothing is happening complaint after complaint, that means the way you are complaining is not working.  Just walk away, I'm sorry to say but you are probably in the wrong (I know you don't want to hear that).  If you complain over and over and you never get results you simply become the person that people in the organization, business or service are complaining about.  You become a larger problem than the actual complaint.

Coming for a customer service industry I want you to understand, a complaint can help you but it can also hurt your credibility.  Everybody can appreciate feedback, but not many can understand criticism. 
The day you become angry, irrate or violent toward someone is the day you lose the battle.  You lose respect in the eyes of the person you attack.  Learn to be nice to people, that is the best method to get your way.  When you deal with a human being, understand you are also a human being and people like to be treated the same way you do.  Sure you may get bad service or not get your way...but it's life.  You cannot always get your way.  I know there books and courses that claim life should be grand but it isn't always that way.  This is how we learn, by not always getting what we want. 
Do you deserve the best in life, the answer is yes!  But you must earn it.

Stay motivated
Shane C.

Can't have one without the other

Do you kick yourself in the butt, every time you make a decision to change something in your life because you always resort back to an old habit?

This is very common we decide to do something we want only to always fall back into old habits causing us frustration in believing we can never accomplish anything.  There is great news you do not have to get angry anymore because I want to explain what you must do to help you accomplish your dreams.

Many years ago when I was training to be a bodybuilder I would always start off new routines strong, training 4-5 days per weeks and eating a clean healthy diet, yet it seemed that a few weeks in I always fell off my diet routine.  Healthy almonds were now replaced with chips, and tuna sandwiches were replaced with burgers.  This happened all the time, I even had a journal, I wrote in blue for healthy foods I ate and had a red pen for when I ate unhealthy.  If you go through my old journals you always find lots of red the further you turn the pages.
Then I figured out what my trigger was, it's my weakness- CHIPS!  I love them.  If I ate chips I fell back into a comfort zone and forgot my eating habits I needed to follow. 
I made a decision, and it worked.  Instead of deciding to eating healthy 7 days a weeks and avoiding junk food I made a decision and that was to stop eating chips.  This worked very well for me, as long as I stayed away from those tasty chips I was fine but I had to decide to stay away from them.

We all have things we want to do and we make decisions to do them yet we don't make the decision to stop doing other things.  For every healthy habit you want to begin you must stop doing an old habit.  Replace a bad thing with a good thing.

If you want to quit smoking, you must begin by finding an activity to replace smoking with.  Let's say reading for example, in the evening when you are bored instead of smoking you choose to read, this will shift your focus on something entirely different.

Eliminating triggers
Triggers are things in your life that remind you to do actions.  So let's say for example you want to quit smoking and you find out your trigger is drinking.  Every time you drink you smoke, so decide for a little while to cut out the drinks.  Now even deeper, if the reason you drink is because your buddy Paul makes you want to have a drink, I think you know who you should spend less time with :-)

Replace bad habits with good habits, this shifts your focus to something else.  The sure way to win in life is by making positive strides to become greater.  Decide what can you start doing to enrich your life and what must you eliminate for your daily routine that stands in the way of you reaching your goal?

Stay motivated
Shane C

Who to run from

As I turned on the television this past weekend I heard the death of a celebrity who was once at the top of her game and as the years went by we watched her life crumble.  Some people blame her, some drugs yet a good majority of us know it has a lot to do with a person or people that influenced her.

This story is not all that uncommon, athletes and celebrities or even people you know personally have the world going for them and they meet someone that lead them down a path that destroys them emotionally and physically.  Whether it's from substance or influencing their simple daily actions, one person can destroy you so quickly through manipulation or the promise of an easy ride.  Let me put it another way, when someone offers you immediate gratification in life- YOU MUST RUN!  Believe me there was a time I was there!

There is a great positive to this blog though, I simply want you to know the warnings in life.  There are people who are less attractive you must gravitate towards.  What I mean by less attractive is not a physical thing it's more of what they offer you in life.  These people offer you a challenge, the kind of challenge that builds you to become greater and stronger.  They encourage you, they teach you and best of all you want to become just like them. One day you will call these people your mentor, coach, the person that showed you, best friend and even your biggest influence.
These people are hidden just outside your comfort zone.  You know to become someone of their intelligence and success and stature you will need to work on yourself daily by making positive strides towards your own success. You never regret meeting these great people once you are influenced, and these people see potential in you and break out of your shell.  

Unfortunately there are people you must watch for, they use you for their own needs, you never gain anything other than a lousy feeling time and time again from associating with these scums of the earth.  Any dream you have is shot down and any negative is pointed out, and this brings you down to the lowest of lows.
I'm watching someone in my life crumble, high class and potential is being replaced with shattered dreams and heartache.  It can be heard to watch because people cannot be helped until they help themselves.  They must want it, but once the want is there they can often forget how to come back on that road that leads to success after being influenced negatively for so long. 

Here is my warning, if people in life slowly start to lead you down to a lower class than you are use to by constantly bringing negative feelings inside you and your daily acts are filled with tasks that prevent you from your own success, as hard as it is you must start to move away from them.

Now, if you run into someone that presents you with personal work towards your own success and does not sugar coat the road towards that success, then use their advice and start climbing the ladder to success.  They know what they are doing.

Life is hard there are no shortcuts, sometimes you must be selfish because you have yourself to worry about but as long as you find balance the key to success is right there.  So stay away from people who offer you "easy" and move towards people who may offer you that unattractive long difficult ladder towards success.

Stay motivated
Shane C.

Make someone smile

Just for today I want you to try something and who knows it may start you on a more positive path.

You must have someone in your life that is totally negative but you still love them with all your heart, think of a person close to you.  Make the decision today to catch this person off guard with an act of kindness to show them you care.  Sure, they may make a negative comment about what you do but it's not about that.  It's about bringing a smile to their face when no one is looking.

I'm sure there is someone in your life that has forgotten how to smile or even why to smile.  Be the person that gets that smile on their face.  After all it is Valentine's day :-)

Stay motivated
Shane C

Mornings can be easy

One of the most difficult things you will have to do on your way towards your goal is getting into a new routine.  There is one part of routine that is the most difficult to tackle, I'm even tackling this as I write this.  It's called "The Morning". 
First thing when you wake up in the morning, you barely want to think let alone change your routine.  I'm here to let you know how to make the transition into a new morning habits.

The key is preparation, first and foremost write out the new routine you would like for the morning.  Next, get everything that could possibly get in your way ready the day before.  If you look what takes the most time in the morning, you many notice it can be prepared the day before. 
Many years ago, I was interested in becoming a bodybuilder, and my biggest obstacle was missing breakfast, or not having enough time to make my 5-6 meals for the day (yes, I ate a lot).  Whenever I would run out of time and not be able to get something done, I was irritable all day long.  Until I discovered that making my meals a few days in advance was key to my success and having more time in the morning.
Once you prepare yourself physically for your new morning routine, the next step is mental preparation.  Before sleeping write out your morning routine, that way your subconscious mind will start to working as you sleep to get you ready for the morning. 

Learning to actually prepare yourself mentally and physically is much more effective then simply telling yourself you will go to the gym, mediate or even read for 30 minutes first thing when you wake up.  Once you have had a successful easy morning this opens up your day to more freedom and positivity.

Stay motivated
Shane C.

You scared?

We all need to face a fear to grow, you see when you face a fear you are no longer making excuses for not improving.  Does something at work, school or in your free time scare the crap out of you?  Do you get really quiet when the subject comes up that you fear because even thinking about the fearful things makes you sweat?  If so know it's totally normal, everybody is afraid of something. 

As some of you may know I've joined Toastmasters, a group of people who get together to practice and improve the art of public speaking.  In the middle of the meeting comes "TABLE TOPICS", it's about 20 minutes where you get the chance to talk about a subject you have no time to prepare for.
This my friends scares the crap out of me, I am not necessarily fearful of public speaking, I am afraid of looking like a complete moron by not knowing the subject I'll be talking about.

For 5 weeks I sat in fear that I would be called upon to speak in Table Topics and this week I faced that fear, and I failed.
I babbled, I didn't speak long enough and to tell you the truth my nervousness was so great I cannot even remember the words I spoke.
With all that fear, I'm glad I did it though, I no longer have to sit in fear hoping I won't be called upon.  Sure I looked like a fool but I'm glad I stood up and did it.  Will I try it again?.......If I want to get better I guess I will need to, so the answer is of course I will.

When you face a fear, a weight is lifted and a new found freedom comes over you, so I encourage you to do what you are scared of.
What can you face, as small or big as it may be to help you improve in life?  Find out one tiny little thing you can do that conquers a small fear and it gets the wheels going for total self improvement.

Stay motivated
Shane C.