"The first source of positive tension is a compelling goal that pulls you because of its desirability and magnitude."

"Embracing an off-balance life allows our minds to learn the patterns that we have created in our life and to determine whether they are working for us, or not."

• Your Work
• Your Relationships
• Your Health
• Your Spiritual Growth
• Your Passions/Personal Interests

If you look at each of these as 5 different pursuits, you’re always going to be overwhelmed – there’s never enough time. But, when you see these 5 spheres as interconnected, you will see that small or big adjustments can be made to the connections between them. I call the connections between these spheres, lifelines.

The 10 lifelines are the key to a more fulfilling life and rewarding life – they are:

1. Work ⇔ Relationships
2. Work ⇔ Health
3. Work ⇔ Spiritual Growth
4. Work ⇔ Personal Interests
5. Relationships ⇔ Health
6. Relationships ⇔ Spiritual Growth
7. Relationships ⇔ Personal Interests
8. Health ⇔ Spiritual Growth
9. Health ⇔ Personal Interests
10. Spiritual ⇔ Health Personal Interests

When you began to anticipate, prepare for, and correct breaks along your lifelines, you will begin to see a more fulfilled life. How about work and health? Does your job support you to be healthy or challenge your health in certain ways? If so, what are you going to do about that?

Evaluate the lifelines between your 5 spheres of influence - are there changes you can make that will bring more harmony between the aspects of your life? Are there new ways of thinking that will eliminate negativity that is holding you back in one area, while impacting another one? Your mind is powerful – what you think is what you are. Change the patterns and choose to become off-balance, on purpose. You will be amazed at the happiness that is within your reach.

"You Can Learn How to be More Confident and Comfortable in the Midst of Change"

cmi Carefully Selects Keynote Speakers that Empower Organizations

We are grateful for our incredible speakers. They work hard to transform the world, one person at a time. Their inspiration and leadership shines in best-selling books, videos, blogs, podcasts and incredible keynotes that launch profound change for leaders, individuals and organizations. From all of us here at cmi, we wish everyone in North America a very Happy Canada Day and 4th of July. We've earned it this year for sure!!!   xoxo

Cultivating Connection Post-Covid — Chris Bashinelli	I Love it Here - "Undercover Millennial" — Clint Pulver	Stay Off Balance On Purpose — Dan Thurmon	The Art of Caring Leadership — Heather R. Younger
Glad to Be Here — John 'Gucci' Foley	Create Proactive Change for Peak Performance — Mike Rayburn	Elevate Automation AND Your People — Mike Walsh	Change Your Words, Change Your World — Phil M Jones
Getting Ahead of Post-Covid Burnout — Tim Sanders	Create the Ninja Warrior Mindset — Ty Bennett	Improve Collaboration and Create Innovation — Vinh Giang

"It’s the stretching to what’s next, or what’s different that improves you, whether you plan it or not!"

Millions of people around the world are experiencing or will soon experience the reality of returning to a physical workplace. For some, this is a welcome and joyous, overdue event. And for others, quite the opposite is true.

Either way, as you reintegrate into work, or lead your staff to do so, I would wholeheartedly recommend that you do it with a very intentional, personal plan.

You’re not going back to work. You’re upgrading your workplace systems. You are bringing lessons and skills you’ve learned while away, which you may not even fully appreciate yet, back into a physical realm where you and your improved skills will intersect others and their personal improvements. Expect it!

For instance, I am now returning to stages, audiences, and in-person events, after many months away. And what I’m discovering is that rather than feeling that I’m relearning what was, I’m bringing so much more to the table. More content, more awareness, deeper understanding, more appreciation, more attention, and a style that is now imbued with a new confidence.

Look. The hard stuff you go through makes you stronger, a point I make about juggling. When I was working on four, my three ball juggling got better, and I never got the hang of four, until I tried five. It’s the stretching to what’s next, or what’s different that improves you, whether you plan it or not!

You’ve been stretched and improved by what you’ve been through. Own it. Claim it, with specificity. And step back in confidently, and curious for your enhancements. If you are leading others, have a conversation about what’s better now, and set an expectation that you’re about to experience new and profound breakthroughs as a result.

"When you lean into the uncertainty, create a new action and go off-balance on purpose, you position yourself for greater success."

Imagine doing a handstand on a podium. Feel your body trying to balance against the wobble, as you try to keep your body straight in the air. After all the effort of trying to position your body up in the air, while the podium shifts back and forth, you are still in the same place, only a lot more exhausted. This is how many organizations and teams deal with uncertainty.

When your teams are fatigued, anxious and productivity has slowed, you feel the foundation is shifting and things feel unstable. It’s easy to hold on tight to the same processes and strategies, but this is a mistake and will keep your people from being agile and rising to the top.

In every uncertainty, there is a huge opportunity to create something extraordinary. When you lean into the uncertainty, create a new action and go off-balance on purpose, you position yourself for greater success.

Balance is not what you get. Balance is what you do.

"Ninja is the perfect metaphor for Success."

I think most people see success as one direction and failure in the exact opposite direction but I don’t think that is true. 

My experience has taught me that you have to pass through failure to find success. In other words, they are the same path. 

The problem is that failure stops us and so we don’t get far enough down the path. 

Successful people learn to embrace failure, learn from it, and use it as fuel. 

Sarah Blakely, the founder of Spanx, is someone who understands this mindset. When Sarah was growing up, her family would have family dinner every night. But unlike most families, their discussions weren’t just about the events of the day or how school went. Sarah’s father every night at dinner would ask the family, “How did you fail today?” 

That question spurred their conversation and they would share their failures. They would discuss what they learned. How it felt. I’m sure they would laugh with each other and sometimes cry together. 

I find it fascinating though, that the youngest self-made female billionaire in the world learned at a young age to embrace failure.

I don’t think it is a coincidence. 

I think that a mindset that embraces failure and uses it as a stepping stone allows us to move further down the path to reach the success we are seeking. 

After hours, weeks and years of hard work, it is amazing when that hard work starts to pay off and you start to see success and your goals coming to fruition. But so many fall into a similar trap as they begin to experience some success: a lack of humility. These words from Wynton Marsalis, the Pulitzer-prize winning musician and composer, serve as a necessary reminder when you begin to experience success: “You can tell when someone is truly humble, because they consistently observe and listen, the humble improve. They don’t assume, ‘I know the way.’ Humility engenders learning because it beats back the arrogance that puts blinders on. It leaves you open for truths to reveal themselves.”

You can be at the top of your field, the most successful person in the room, the all star, but arrogance never looks good on anyone. There is a great danger in the loss of humility not just because it makes you look bad, but also because it inhibits your ability to grow and improve. No matter how skilled you are – you can’t ever stop benefiting from more knowledge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnAmqAXottQ

More from Vinh Giang!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sGaD1U4WIE&t=11s

More from Sam Silverstein!