Category: Problems - Coach to Expect Success

Here Are A Few Things NOT To Stay Away From

12/13/2021

I found a powerful show from Alan Stein Jr. and his "Raise Your Game" podcast where in episode 1 from season 11, he interviews Brian Kight. Listen to it HERE. There are so many valuable things that he shares with Alan on his podcast & I wanted to share just a few powerful things that I picked up on.

Brian brings up that life is simple in counterintuitive ways. Some great connections to what life gives us:

Life is harder when we try to avoid hard things.
Life is scarier when we try to avoid scary things.
Life is more uncomfortable when we try and avoid uncomfortable things.
Life is more painful when we try and avoid painful things.
Life is more full of problems when we try and avoid problems.

Knowing that life is not supposed to be absent of problems, Brian shares some thoughts on why not go after the things in our life that mean something to us. In other words, he goes after things knowing that the rough times in life - we can choose many of them in the areas that we want them in. That way we are not having pain in our life, all in areas that don't mean anything to us. Thereby, not "wasting" it in areas that don't matter to us. There are plenty of tough moments in life for us to deal with having things more difficult, more scary, more uncomfortable, more painful, and more problems - if we are spending our time going after our dreams and goals... and these tough times hit us during these pursuits, it's a bit better to take them on.

Now remember, I'm not saying that we need to create more of these challenges. Life will throw us enough of those for sure. We just need to be able to get through life's tough moments as we are going after things that motivate us & give us reasons "why" to work hard to overcome them.

Listen to my thoughts on this topic HERE (and a few others) from my Motivation Monday Game Plan - from Dec. 13, 2021.

Problems vs. Predicaments

10/4/2020

Getting started in a great direction for October with figuring out the difference between problems and predicaments. John Maxwell of course helps us to figure this out with some big connecting ideas to focus on this important distinction. This caught my attention last month and I wanted to share it with you as I think all of us can use some help in this area. This comes from his book "The Difference Maker."

This stuff I think we all need to take with us wherever we go. He gives us some things to take with us in that "a problem is something you can do something about. If you can't do something about it, then it's not a problem. It's a predicament. That means something that must be coped with, endured."

Here are some of his thoughts that he connects with the word PROBLEM:

P = predictors: helping ot mold our future.

R = reminders: showing us that we cannot succeed alone.

O = opportunities: pulling us out of ruts, prompting creative thinking

B = blessings: opening doors we would otherwise not go through

L = lessons: providing instruction with each new challenge

E = everywhere: telling us that no one is excluded from difficulties

M = messages: warning us about potential disaster

S = solvable: reminding us that every problem has a solution

These points we can take with us wherever we go and realizing there are plenty of times to learn new lessons that can help us in our journey. Powerful stuff for sure. Any thoughts or ideas come with this one?

Head over to my podcast page to hear more thoughts about this and other shows. Click HERE for my podcast page.

Find me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/coachtoexpectsuccess/ on Twitter: @coachtosuccess and on Instagram at: @coachjohndaly - My YouTube Channel is at: Coach John Daly.

Worry Is Not A Good Investment

8/18/2020

A lot going on today on top of all the things going on in our world, it can get overwhelming a little bit at times. I did a Facebook Live video earlier where I mentioned some things that are on my mind a bit. Worrying is something that I do, but I try not to let it get out of hand. It started piling up a bit this morning when I thought about a few things differently and I wanted to share with you some of the insights and thoughts that I got from all of this stuff going on. The podcast that I was listening to that I talk about here is from Jon Gordon where he talks with Lecrae. You can listen to it HERE. I think we all get overwhelmed at times, especially in the crazy times we are all in right now. But there is hope out there. There are good things to get connected with and I hope this helps you do some of that.

Worrying is something that I see a lot more of and for me being a teacher, there is more worry for the start of this school year than ever before. It's more than just the teachers. I think there is tremendous pressure on parents and students of course. I think there are many professions that have this more than ever during these times. Now is the time more than ever, for all of us to realize this and to help each other out more than ever before. When there are serious problems and issues happening in the world, there is always a call for everyone to come up with more solutions than ever before. Check out the podcast link above for some great ideas that we all can use.

Being Honest - Especially With Ourselves

9/22/2015

"You need to be brutally honest with yourself." -- Mark Cuban

When it comes down to it, I think most of us are the least honest with ourselves compared to trying to be honest with other people. There are things about ourselves that only we know about, but yet we have a difficult time sometimes being honest with ourselves about fixing or improving things in our lives. Maybe it’s just me, but I find myself having difficulty sometimes being honest with myself. This is something that I’ve been working on little by little over the years.

I think the sooner we can become honest with ourselves, our whole world can change. If we are honest with ourselves then that will hopefully lead to doing things better which hopefully lead to better habits. Better habits will lead to better results, but it really starts with us being honest with ourselves.

Look around today at the lack of honesty. Companies have issues with this. Politicians have issues with this. There are all walks of life and professions that have trouble being honest. It’s one of the biggest things in our life that needs to be looked at being fixed. But remember, the government can‘t do it for us, that’s for sure. I think too many people are looking at the government or others to fix this issue. We need to be the ones and it starts by one, ourselves.

Everyday actions, everyday thoughts, everyday in the way we treat others – that’s one way to lead by example to set a new example on how things should be done. It’s amazing to see so many of the world’s problems caused by character type issues. It can be fixed. It has to be fixed as the direction and path that we are on as a society is not a good one at all. It’s up to us plain and simple. Is it easy work? Heck no. Is it worth doing? You better believe it is. Just remember, it’s not one of us trying to do it all on our own. It’s all of us doing what we can do, and the first step is to be honest with ourselves. That first step will help us to do what we have to do to help others for sure. Now be honest – what can you do?

It's Been Said Before, Be Part Of The Solution Not The Problem

8/12/2015

“Whatever the problem, be part of the solution. Don’t just sit around raising questions and pointing out obstacles.” ― Tina Fey

This got me thinking simply from the fact that it’s political season again and it seems that most, if not all the candidates that are running for president are just not connecting with me about them having solutions to the problems our country faces. In fact I think it’s most of America that see them as continuing to be part of the problems that we have in our country.

It’s hard to remember a time where our country has not been so divided in what it seems as so many different areas too. I don’t see any political party helping this out at all. That’s what real leadership is all about, finding solutions for problems that affect people. To be a difference maker for those people, that’s what elected officials are supposed to offer – service to the people they represent. It seems that blame just keeps getting passed back and forth.

I even forget this point as there are times I don’t help out problems and issues that go on around me, my family, my job, etc. I do like to think though that I work at getting back to the idea of offering ideas to solve or help the problems that are going on around us. I try not to stay in that negative mindset of pointing out the brick walls that we have to deal with, the blame game, and just that overall negative victim mentality.

Seeing that the majority of our government leaders seem to have issues with solving problems along with creating more problems and dividing our society, I guess it’s up to us. We not only have the power, privilege, and responsibility to hold them accountable but we also need to take this approach with ourselves and our lives. We need to be an active part of the solution for our own problems that we face throughout our lives. That does not mean we don’t need help, but we won’t solve our own issues if we are not actively working on ourselves to find solutions.

I need this quote this morning as my day got started out in a not so positive way – mainly due to me not thinking too clearly as I said something to my wife as she walked out the door that wasn’t the best thing to start her day off. I should have known better for sure. Now that I’ve read this quote again, I need to adjust my thinking and my actions to not only solve some problems that have come up with a variety of things we need to have done here to our house, but also to repair some damage I did this morning with my words.

Don't Wish For Things To Be Easier - Wish To Get Better!

4/19/2015

“Don’t wish it was easier, wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems, wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenge, wish for more wisdom.” – Jim Rohn

It’s no surprise that I found this from the Success Magazine Facebook page. Jim Rohn has helped many, many people with Leadership & Success ideas over the years and this thought should be at the top of the list when it comes to advice to follow.

I’ve been a personal fan of Jim Rohn’s work for a long time. His quotes and books are pure gold. Watching him over the years through his videos, he is so down to earth and relatable, which are two key elements I think to help connect with people.

This whole quote is built off the very first sentence. Don’t wish for things to be easier is such a powerful and easy sentence. We have heard many times from different lessons and different leaders about this fact. The key to this where Jim says wish you were better is to first think about wishing or wanting to be better, and then doing something about it. Create a plan so that wish of yours to be better actually starts coming true.

We all have problems in life and it’s hard to not dwell on them sometimes. By dwelling on them it gets in the way of us being able to solve them. Most of the time, the worry that we put on those problems will cause them to grow in size and become even bigger and more troublesome for ourselves and those around us too. If we grow and learn more skills to help solve those problems then we will become stronger, wiser, and better able to solve future problems too and you know there will be more problems in the future.

Another key to this quote is for us to do things to get better, to learn new skills and to become wiser with life’s lessons. Creating the habits necessary to help make these things happen involves more reading, hanging out with some different people that will help push us out of our comfort zone, and beginning to change our regular routines that have lead to our current state of where we are today. I think anytime is good to re-think some of these things in our lives, but especially in springtime. It’s a time of new growth, colors come back into view along with new life happening all around us. A perfect time for us to make these things happen.

What are you going to do today, this week, this month and this year to help follow Jim’s advice? I know I need to start working on many things to make this happen and as I’m finishing this up, I’m about to head out the gym to get a workout in. I’ve been going for the last couple of weeks, more faithfully and it’s making a big difference in helping me to change the things for me to get going in the direction that I have to go in.

Challenges Make Life Interesting - Quote of the Week

7/14/2014

“Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful” – Joshua J. Marine

Thinking about how challenges are all around us all the time throughout life caused me to stop for a moment when I saw this quote. We all have challenges that we are dealing with. Each and every day. We see life challenges in the news, on social media, talking with friends and neighbors; enough to know that we are not alone when it comes to having challenges to deal with.

In pausing life here for a moment thinking about this idea, with a cup of coffee too by the way, I have come to a couple of main thoughts that stick out to me. First, I am indeed not the only one with problems and challenges. In fact not only do we all have them every day in our lives, some obviously are far worse than what we have to deal with. The thought that others do have it worse off than I do helps me to see that I need to not complain about my challenges and that I need to not let them define me along with not letting me quit due to those issues that I have.

Another thought that comes to me when I think about this is that there is tremendous empathy and caring for others that comes out of taking a few moments to dwell on these thoughts. Empathy is a point that I try and get my students to think about every year as I think it's one of the most powerful abilities that we have in connecting with other people. It's one that we all need to do more of in this world especially with all the lousy examples we see in the media about the selfishness and lack of character that seems to be all around us in our world.

These two ideas are really helping me as I face another of many challenges in my life as I go in for knee replacement surgery tomorrow. It truly has been a long and painful process over the last few years of trying to do everything I could to help my knee pain. It has finally come down to the fact that the severe arthritis that I have started to battle now in my life has caused me to make some choices to get back my quality of life that I want to have. I look forward to this process because I know at the end of it will be a life with less pain and my ability to do things I love to do. I know there will be more procedures that I will need to have done in the future due to these changes in my body as I get older. But I know there are so many people worse off than me, I will not let this stop me from doing the things that I know I need to do along with the new things I want to do in my life. There are so many more meaningful moments in my life that going through this and other upcoming challenges, will make them all the more sweeter.

What challenges are you going through right now where maybe you can take these couple of ideas to help you get through them and look ahead for better days? Let me know as we can help each other out with some new thoughts, ideas and discussions about this and many other life events that we all go through.

Quote of the Week - May 26, 2014

5/27/2014

"Running from your problems is just adding another one to the list." - Tim Fargo

I've become focused on paying attention a little bit more as I get older. I try to pay attention to my wife and my kids more, still got to work on the listening part of things but I really am working at improving in this area. One thing I'm paying attention to for sure are a few leaders and the information they put out. One of them is Tim Fargo. Tim sends out very thought provoking things that really tie into life and to making a difference with people too.

So when I saw this post from him with this quote, I had to use it. I used it with my quote of the week for my students too. I put it with this picture since it seems so many people put their problems out there in the social media world to be seen by everyone. Like Tim says, maybe facing them and seeing what can be done about them, rather than posting them, might turn out to be some helpful advice.

One of our good friends (my wife and I) she has stated once again that she is taking the summer off from being on Facebook. She has mentioned the drama, the negative postings, etc. that gets her a little upset and tired of seeing them all the time. I totally agree with her and can totally see her point of view.

Not only do I put my quotes of the week out for my students and others, but I do it for myself too. Usually it is something that connects with me, some lesson that I need to still learn or at least be reminded about. This one is no exception. I just had a quick discussion yesterday with my son about things like this. I envy him since he usually sets out to do things he wants to do without letting problems get in the way. I am still working on this. But Tim is right - not facing them, especially the big problems, it is indeed adding another problem to the list of problems to take care of. Taking care of problems when they are small is a lot better than waiting until they have become bigger. I got plenty and yes I think it's a good time to not add any more to my list that I have to deal with. What about you? Any thoughts or ideas as to how you handle taking care of your problems? How do you face them? Do you post it out there for all to see? As always, looking for thought, ideas and discussions.

You can find Tim Fargo on Twitter: @alphabetsuccess