Victoria Schlosser’s Ironman Blog

 HOW TO SAY “NO”

I’ll admit, years ago whenever someone had a request or wanted me to do something, like volunteer, assist them with a project, I always said yes.  Part of this is because I don’t like to leave people hanging, disappoint them, burn down a bridge with others, or jeopardize my relationships.

Hence, I say yes where I can, and say no as less often as possible.

Realities of NOT Saying No

While saying yes seems like an easy answer for the reasons above, it’s not necessary the best answer all the time.

Just like saying no has its implications, NOT saying no also has a downside as well. For every yes, there’s also a NO!  Think about it:

• When you say yes to something you don’t enjoy, you’re saying no to things that you love
• When you say yes to a job you don’t love, you’re saying no to your dreams
• When you say yes to someone you don’t like, you’re saying no to the possibility of welcoming a new and fulfilling relationship
• When you say yes to working overtime, you’re saying no to your social life

Many people know me today as a past Executive for Corporate America, marathon runner, Ironman Triathlete, Entrepreneur, Author, motivational speaker and blogger.

I’m pursuing my passion, to help others grow and be their best. I really love my life and I’m happiest than I’ve ever been. Each day I experience a new level of joy that I’ve not felt before.

Yet, I did not start out like this in the beginning. The very reason why I’m here today is because I said NO to many things that blocked or supported my dreams:

After 20 years with Corporate America and several career moves, I finally said no to no more career moves after deciding it was time for me to seek new challenges. I loved my tenure with my company, I loved everyone I crossed paths with, I loved each challenge and the responsibility, and I loved the company. The money was great; mentoring people was my forte and all the lessons I personally learned as a leader was invaluable. But I realized, I have a passion and love for helping and watching others to grow. I love pursuing many items on my life’s list as well as my purpose in life.

I have said no to friendships that were holding me back and surrounded myself with friends that were like minded.  I love the people around me more than they know, so much so that if there comes a point where the friendship is no longer compatible for us, perhaps it’s time to walk our paths and pursue our individual life journeys.

I said no too many unimportant activities. If something doesn’t have a purpose to it, and seems like a waste of time, I don’t participate in it. I value my time a lot and I only want to spend it on things and with people I love. That’s what it means to live life to the fullest, via maximizing every moment we have, doing things we love, and things which are important to us.

I said to NO to many professional and business opportunities, some which were very lucrative. Why do I say NO then?  Because they’re no longer in alignment with my personal vision for my life’s work. If it’s not going to lead me to my end goal, I’d rather invest my energy and time into a place that does. Otherwise, it’s going to be a waste of everyone’s time and resources.  

I said no to potential clients. While this doesn’t happen all the time, I get potential clients who are not good fits with the coaching. It happens when they see the coaching as a magical solution to all of life’s problems without having to do anything, when they are not willing to put in the due work to achieve their goals, and so on. I want all my clients to get every cent of their money’s worth from the coaching, so in such cases I rather not take them on because I don’t think they’ll be able to get any meaningful outcome. While it means losing out on revenue for the month, I’d rather earn the money from helping people I know will definitely reap the rewards.

There are many other things I said no to in my life and that I continue to say no to on a regular basis. If I haven’t said no to all the things above, I’ll would never have the time to create new blog postings, write new ebooks and continue to mentor people and develop my business, to reach hundreds of thousands of people around the world, create a top quality blog, have time with my family and friends, cultivate high quality, meaningful and fulfilling relationships, and live the life I love today.

The path of realizing your truest dreams requires you to say a lot of ‘no’s. No’s to unfulfilling jobs, no’s to a career you’re no longer passionate about, no’s to outrageous requests, no’s to unhappy or negative people,  no’s to draining activities, no’s to meaningless tasks, no’s to many  things.

Look at how you’ve been living your life in the past week and think about what you’ve been saying yes to. Have you been saying yes to an unfulfilling job? Yes to unfulfilling relationships? Yes to people who don’t respect your time? Yes to people who don’t appreciate you? Yes to work you don’t enjoy? Yes to activities you dislike? Yes to people who don’t appreciate you? Because if you have, what you’re really doing is saying no to your ideal life. Is that what you want? Are you being fair to yourself?

I hope you have enjoyed today’s Post!!!

Stay true to your passion….and just say “NO”

All the Best

Victoria

WHY THE SPRING EQUINOX IS KEY TO YOUR SUCCESS…

 

It’s a great time to:

 

·         Recapitulate your successes during the past 2-3 months

·         Create a new uncensored list of everything you would like to achieve over the next 3     months personally and professionally

·         List what accomplishments you’re most proud of

·         Where you could have improved

·         What you could have done differently

·         What was your contribution to society during the past 3 months

·         Lessons learned

·         Purge any items you have utilized over the past 6 months including clothes, furniture       etc.

 

 

I personally utilized the Spring Equinox, the Summer solstice, Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice to review and set new intentions both personally and professionally.  It’s a personal & professional accountability that assist me focused and committed to my own personal success.

 

The Spring Equinox is March 20, 2011 at 4:21PDT.  You should started reflecting the past 2 ½ months, and begin processing your successes & failures both personally and professionally.   

Feel free to share you what worked and where you can improve with others.

 

For future, here’s the schedule dates and times for the Equinox and Solstice…

Spring Equinox                      March 20, 2011                      4:21PM PDT

Summer Solstice                    June 21, 2011                         10:16AM PDT

Autumn Equinox                    September 23, 2011               2:05PM PDT

Winter Solstice                       December 21, 2011                9:30PMPDT

 

 

I recently re-read The Bhagavad Gita, which is a classic of Indian Spirituality, translated and edited by Eknath Easwaran.  It’s considered one of the best books of all time. 

 

Here’s what I learned from the book…

Be Fearless and pure; never waver in your determination or your dedication to the spiritual life.  Give freely.  Be self-controlled, sincere, truthful, loving and full of the desire to serve.  Learn to be detached and to take joy in renunciation. 

 

Do not get angry or harm any living creature, but be compassionate and gentle; show good will to all.  Cultivate vigor, patience, will purity; avoid malice and pride.  Then you will achieve your destiny.  

                                                                                            Krishna from The Bhagavad Gita

 

This book also suggests…You live your Dharma. 

 

It’s better to strive in one’s own Dharma  than to succeed in the dharma of another.  Nothing is ever lost in following one’s own dharma.  But competition is another’s dharma breeds fear and insecurity.

                                                                                                                          Dharma

 

I LOVE this book and think it’s an incredible MUST READ!  It’s a principle book of Hinduism, Inspiration to Ghandhi and overall a great book for any big thinking seeker.  If you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend it.

 

I am glad I decided to re-read the book since I am currently working on my next 3 months of intentions.  I will keep the lessons learned from this awesome book and here are a few I would like to share:

·         Live your Dharma

·         The Power of our will can reshape your life

·         Be a Warrior

·         You have two paths…so choose wisely

·         Be Non Attached

·         Meditate

·         There is NO FAILURE…as there are lessons to be learned from every experience

·         Always give back

I hope you assimilate the power of the lessons learned from The Bhagavad Gita as you approach the next few months that will contribute to your success both personally and professionally.

Have a wonderful and productive week!

All the Best

Victoria  

                                              WHAT DOES EXCELLENCE MEAN TO YOU?

As I’m writing my new post for my blog, I have come to the conclusion that Eexcellence is not for everyone. It’s far too difficult for the great majority of those who desire to achieve excellence whether it be in some form of athleticism, or professionally. In fact, those who seek excellence are often ridiculed because they’re unlike their peers and/or colleagues. And it isn’t easy to seek excellence either. Humans are social animals; we don’t like being outcasts. It’s much easier to go along with the crowd than to stand out in a crowd. However, there are individuals persevere, and with great aplomb.  

In the world of triathlons, have you ever noticed how young, pro athletes often try to give the impression that nothing about their training or dedication to the sport is unusual?   Individuals who portray excellence have learned to give the appearance of being “just like everyone else,” even though their skills tells us otherwise. Going out of their way to be self-assured is how they cope with the dilemma and help prevent others from branding them as strange. And that’s a good strategy which I would recommend to anyone who truly seeks excellence: Try not to give the air of someone who is seeking excellence. Appear ordinary in every way you can.

How would I know if a person could be successful or achieve excellence? Here’s the list of what I think are the characteristics of what it takes to achieve excellence whether it’s in some form of athleticism or in any professional environment.

It takes the following to achieve Excellence…

• MOTIVATION
• DISCIPLINE
• CONFIDENCE
• FOCUS
• PATIENCE

• Motivation.

This one is more important than all of the others combined. If the individual isn’t motivated excellence is highly unlikely. In fact, the other qualities won’t even exist without motivation. In the world of triathlons, the truly motivated athlete is on a mission and has a hard time keeping him or herself in check. This is why most athletes really need a coach to pull on the reins to prevent overtraining, injury, illness and burnout. If the coach has to use a whip then it’s a losing cause no matter how talented the athlete is. Most coaches never give the athlete motivation because it must come from within. When I was training for my own Ironman, it was great to be around great athletes to see how truly motivated they are.  You can always tell who is self-motivated and who needs a coach. The low-motivation athlete will need companionship frequently. If you are motivated then all of the following predictors of excellence will fall into place eventually.

• Discipline.

The disciplined individual whether you’re an athlete or in business working your way up the corporate ladder or trying to stay there, they will make daily personal sacrifices in order to excel. As an athlete, the individual doesn’t miss workouts rain or shine and they follow their scheduled workouts religiously. They’re even committed to their nutrition plan is followed so they can maximize their performance efforts, recovery, equipment or anything else that has to do with goals. Discipline isn’t easy because you truly have to be self-motivated. This is why so many individuals have coaches.  Their coaches hold them accountable so they may achieve excellence.  Although, others can accept motivation, they have a hard time dealing with people who are disciplined. You’ve got to make light of or even hide your discipline is you want to be accepted by your peers, unless of course you are surrounded by like minded individuals.
• Confidence.

Some people seem to live life completely with an unwavering belief in themselves and their actions. These folks are indeed rare. I think it’s because they’re so disciplined, committed, focused and oblivious of their own of how excellent they are.  I also believe there’s a sliding scale of confidence. Most of us are somewhere in the middle. To move closer to the high-confidence end all we typically need is some success. Success breeds confidence. While it’s hard to come by you can create your own.

For most individuals that are successful or exude excellence, it’s because they keep track of their own successes by recapitulating all or any accolade or accomplishments they have achieved.  So many individuals whose confidence was decidedly on the low end and I’ve suggested a daily confidence-booster…read your long list of success stories, to give you the confidence to personally reposition your mindset and get back on track.

Another exercise I give them is either at the beginning or at the end of your day, to go back in their memories and find anything in their day’s workout or related activities that were successful at any level. I tell them to then relive that small success over and over until they fall asleep. Occasionally there are big successes. These also become “anchors” which they relive often and store away in a vault to be pulled out whenever they feel low confidence coming on. Thinking of one’s successes breeds success. Success breeds confidence.

• Focus.

This could also be called purpose; the individuals who pursue excellence know where he or she wants to go in life. Daily personal development or training is a purposeful activity that will lead to excellence. Just like athletics, each workout and recovery is a small building block that eventually results in excellence. But you have to take it one step at a time, which brings us to the last quality…patience.

• Patience.

According to Malcolm Gladwell, it takes about 10,000 hours for a person to become a master of anything. I had never tried to quantify it in terms of hours, but experience told me that performing at the highest level in sport takes something on the order of 10 years of serious training regardless of when you started in life. So I think Gladwell could probably be right.  I think I need to do more research to test his theory.  There are certainly exceptions, or at least it appears that way on the surface. But when an athlete, CEO of a major corporation or an entrepreneur go to the top right away we often find that he or she had been developing outside of the recognized success pathways. Patience is another attribute that goes beyond their long-term approach to success. Those individuals who seem unable to learn this skill are less likely to be successful than those who master it.

Notice that I didn’t say anything about innate talent, physiology, skills, or even experience in the sport. All of these things can be developed and learned if the other qualities are there. I’ve never met anyone who didn’t have the capacity to develop each of these mental abilities. As mentioned earlier, the challenge for most of us in seeking excellence is learning how to do it without appearing to be doing so. Watch how most of the greatest athletes like Michael Jordon in basketball, Chrissie Wellington and Chris McCormick (Macca) in the world of Ironman World triathlon, have the just do it attitude and try to emulate their apparently laissez-faire mind-set. In their own unique ways they give the impression of being unconcerned about excellence. But no one achieves their levels of accomplishment without being highly motivated, disciplined, committed, focused and patient.

I hope you have enjoyed this post and thank you for stopping by

Have a productive week and don’t forget to recapitulate your successes from as far back as you can remember to read often when you’re having a low moment.

All the Best!

Victoria

 

 

What I love about stories is that they can speak to us personally and speak to our soul.  Sometimes, our greatest challenge is getting inside our own heads to determine…what makes us tick and proceed?

I read this story and although the Author is unknown, I wanted to share it with you.  A very powerful message…which forced me back to think about my loved ones and how much time I devote to them.  Enjoy!

The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday morning. Perhaps it’s the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it’s the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable.

A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the garage with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a typical Saturday morning turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time. Let me tell you about it:

I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap net. Along the way, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice. You know the kind; he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business. He was telling whomever he was talking with something about “a thousand marbles.” I was intrigued and stopped to listen to what he had to say.

“Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you’re busy with your job. I’m sure they pay you well but it’s a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. It’s too bad you missed your daughter’s dance recital,” he continued; “Let me tell you something that has helped me keep my own priorities.” And that’s when he began to explain his theory of a “thousand marbles.”

“You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years.

Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3,900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime. Now, stick with me, Tom, I’m getting to the important part.

It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail,” he went on, “and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy. So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round up 1,000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack next to my gear.

Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life.

There’s nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight.

Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure that if I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time.

It was nice to meet you Tom. I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band. This is a 75 year old man, K9NZQ, clear and going QRT, good morning!”

You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work on the next club newsletter.

Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. “C’mon honey, I’m taking you and the kids to breakfast.”

“What brought this on?” she asked with a smile.

“Oh, nothing special, it’s just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. And hey, can we stop at a toy store while we’re out? I need to buy some marbles.”

Hope this gives you an opportunity to re-evaluate life and make changes  to enjoy more time with your family and friends before you lose more time!

Until my next post…have an awesome week!

All the Best!

Victoria

 

                      HOW YOU CAN SUBCONSIOUSLY CHANGE YOUR LIFE

I LOVE the following quote…

“Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious.” – Thomas Edison

How many great ideas do you have while driving or in the shower?  When you’re relaxed but yet slighty distracted, we all know your mind is often at its best. Your subconscious loves to do work while your body performs other tasks that are easy. Using subconscious requests and staying in the present moment will…

·    Increase your emotional intelligence

• Assist you in becoming happier
• Improve your motivation

You’ll see immediate improvement

My own personal last request was…

“Please give me the strength to stay focused and in the present moment so I can achieve everything I desire from this moment forward. 

 

Immediately I noticed the difference in my attitude, the ability to stay calm and be at peace with my inner self.

My latest request is…

“Give me the insight to find creative ways to grow my blog and increase traffic to my blog.”

I took this approach because it’s going to take a request to my subconscious and action in my life to make this happen. This is a new request so we’ll see if this takes a few days as well to how long this will take effect…but I know it will work because it’s a mindset and I know our minds are very powerful and can produce any outcome we communicate with our subconscious.

Your Mindset

My mindset is changing by setting my subconscious on a certain issue.  I start to see new angles that I’ve never seen before. This subconscious request works for both personal as well as work related issues or concerns.

Here are THREE actions that will only take five minutes:

1: Before you turn out the light, close your eyes and take one minute to make a request to your subconscious. It can be anything. I would start with something small, make it open ended and realistic. I wouldn’t request to be the President/CEO of a major company by the end of the month. Your subconscious is good, but not that good.

2: Take two minutes to visualize yourself actually able to do this thing. Whether it is getting the motivation to begin training for your first marathon or eat healthy all day.  You must visualize yourself doing the request that you asked your subconscious. Let’s say you want to run 3-5 miles before work: imagine yourself getting up earlier than usual, putting on your running clothes, jogging shoes, and heading out into the crisp air. Then you start running, watching the sun rise over the buildings, the birds chirping or listening to music, and you are feeling pretty awesome..

3: Take two minutes to imagine the feeling that will occur when you are able to accomplish this new thing. How do you feel when you walked through your front door after a morning run? Vigorated? Whatever feeling you want to attain, imagine that you have already created this internal emotion. Let it sink in, then go to sleep and let your subconscious do the rest of the work.

Your subconscious mind wants to help you improve your life; you just have to trust its vast resources and allow it to do its thing.

Accomplishments formulate Your Requests into a reality

You may not want to go running after the first subconscious request, but try to visualize yourself going through the motions the first couple of weeks. Then begin putting on your running clothes and going for a 30 minute run. Taking these baby steps will set you up for your running routine. Then after a few weeks just go for it. Now that you have your internal emotions geared toward running it should stimulate you into action.

By allowing the emotional momentum to build, you can create motivation that will help you accomplish things that make you happier

Hope you have enjoyed this post….

Have a wonderful and productive week!

All the Best

Victoria