The Invisible Mentor

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Interviewee Name: Steve Olsher

Company Name: The Reinvention Workshop

Website: http://www.steveolsher.com, http://thereinventionworkshop.com

Steve Olsher – Your Invisible Mentor & Workshop Leader

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Steve Olsher: I am the author of The Journey to You: A Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming Who You Were Meant to Be, the creator of the Reinvention Workshop and founder and host of Reinvention Radio, which is based out of Phoenix.

Avil Beckford: How do you integrate your personal and professional life?

Steve Olsher: As an entrepreneur they seem to be one and the same. I move forward in my personal life I carry the message with me that stems from my professional life and that helps to drive the relationships that I have in a way that is meaningful is “Let Love Rule.” That’s my personal and professional motto. That drives the way I interact with the world on both a personal and professional level. Sometimes I slip up, I’m not perfect by any stretch, but I do believe that by having that motto it transcends the line between personal and private and professional life. A lot of people stop their professional life at 5:00 pm, but ultimately what I would love for people to do is heed that inherent gift and turn their avocation into their vocation, and if they can do that, their life will become a vacation. I don’t think there has to be a significant distinction between your personal and professional life and that’s certainly what I’m aiming for.

Avil Beckford: What’s a major regret that you’ve had in life?

Steve Olsher: We touched on this earlier, that I didn’t get on path earlier.

Avil Beckford: What are five life lessons that you have learned so far?

Steve Olsher:

• No lines in the sand.
• You can always go back to pumping gas.
• Discover your “WHAT” and become very clear on who you were born to be and pursue that with reckless abandon.
• If you’re not growing you’re dying.
• There is no such thing as failure.

Avil Beckford: When you have some down time, how do you spend it?

Steve Olsher: I love spending time with the family and I’m also a practitioner of Brazilian jujitsu, and I have been doing that for over 10 years. I love a good laugh and I love to share the intimacy with my wife and really try to make the most out of this life where there are no guarantees.

Avil Beckford: What process do you use to generate great ideas?

Steve Olsher: It’s brainstorming. There are no great ideas that come out of a vacuum. You have to be willing to enrol others, and what it is that you are trying to do with the ideas that cross your mind. You cannot deny the power of synergistic thinking.

Avil Beckford: What’s your favourite quotation and why?

“The destination is the road, the journey is the destination” is my quote. This is one of the more powerful quotes that I carry with me. This helps me to keep on point with eliminating my ties to expectation, material desires or to outside influences, and providing the understanding that nothing magically happens when you draw this line in the sand, and you cross it. All you do is draw additional lines. I try to live my life without drawing those lines in the sand, and however it is I believe I’ll feel, do or be when I accomplish what it is I set myself up to live my life for, if I can be and do that and have those experiences, my life becomes very powerful today.

Avil Beckford: How do you define success?

It’s a roof over my head, a family to love and food to eat. As long as you have those you are inordinately successful. Success is about being focused and clear on the one thing you were born to do, and pursue that with reckless abandon. If you do that you will be inordinately successful.

Avil Beckford: In your opinion what’s the formula for success?

The formula for success is don’t put a formula on it because as soon as you sit there and try to put these line in the sand and say once I get to here then I can start living and being happy and then I can think of myself as successful. That’s the moment you engage in self-sabotage. It’s not a matter of a destination, it’s a matter of awareness, and doing that which provides fulfillment, and if you can pursue that which provides fulfillment, in whatever shape or form that looks like, that’s when you have achieved success. But I will say that one of my favourite definitions of success is, “Having the courage, determination and the will to become the person you were meant and made to be.” I think as long as you can have the courage and the determination and will to become the person you were made to be, you will be inordinately successful.

Avil Beckford: What are the steps you took to succeed in your field?

There are really only two steps that you need and that is to be successful in your field you need to be an expert in what it is that you are doing. That means that you have to immerse yourself in that field. You have to become clear on what works and what doesn’t in terms of what others have done, and you have to be willing to put yourself out on a line and enrol others in the process. So once you immerse yourself and enrol others, that is the process it takes to become inordinately successful in your field.

Avil Beckford: What advice do you have for someone just starting out in your field?

Follow the two steps mentioned above.

Avil Beckford: If trusted friends could introduce you to five people that you’ve always wanted to meet, who would you choose? And what would you say to them?

1. Being from Chicago Oprah is certainly on the top of the list. I’m so impressed with what she has done coming from where she has been to do what she has been able to do is just amazing. I would simply say, “I’m floored and humbled to be in her presence and I appreciate what she has done for the world with her influence and by following what her heart was compelled to do.”
2. Jack Welsh I would live to meet from a business perspective. He has been an enormous influence to me and millions of others and I just appreciate his way of thinking.
3. Dr. Martin Luther King who is gone. I would say, “I’m humbled and honoured to be in his presence,” and just what he has been able to do, in terms of standing for what he believes in and having a shameless conviction about who he is and what he was destined to do and the impact he had on others to follow his example.
4. Mahatma Gandhi for the same reason as Martin Luther King and to be in his presence, and learn from him. It would be amazing to spend some time with him.
5. Last but not least would be Buddha or Jesus Christ just to be able to spend time in the presence of people who are so sure of they are and what they stand for and really just fly in the face of any distractions or discouraging naysayers and really just do what they can do to heed their inherent blueprint and help others move forward in that same way. That would be an amazing meeting.

Avil Beckford: Which one book had a profound impact on your life? What was it about this book that impacted you so deeply?

I think the The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has given me the most takeaways, and that’s how I define a book that has had a profound impact, if in fact there are takeaways that stick. That book more than any other has provided takeaways that I implement and leverage on a daily basis. That to me is a sign of a good book if it provides new ways of thinking that stick.

Avil Beckford: If you were stranded on a deserted island, what are five books that you would like to have with you and why? Summarize the book in two sentences.

Journey To You: A Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming Who You Were Born to Be, that’s a shameless plug. You would definitely need something funny so George Carlin’s Brain Droppings. Something a little bit more profound, maybe The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of Your Dreams by Deepak Chopra. There are lots of authors that I really like in the fiction space, but there is a guy I really like, Alan Goldsher, he does a lot of entertaining stuff, not very mainstream, but I like his stuff. Then there is Jason Frenn who has an interesting book called the Power to Reinvent Yourself: How to Break the Destructive Patterns in Your Life. I couldn’t go wrong with Tony Robbins’ Unlimited Power : The New Science Of Personal Achievement.

Avil Beckford: What one music CD and movie would you like to have with you (on the deserted island) and why?

Lenny Kravitz is my guy, so from a music perspective it’s going to be Let Love Rule and from a movie perspective I love the movies that make me laugh so it going back to something like I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, or one of the goofy Wayans Brothers movies, it has to be something that is going to make me laugh.

Lenny Kravitz – Let Love Rule

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I’m Gonna Git You Sucka Trailer Blaxploitation

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Avil Beckford: What excites you about life?

The fact that I’m alive and I think that too often we take for granted the value of life, and I’ve got all my limbs, I wake up in the morning and I can do what it is I want to do in terms of being able to pursue that which provides the most fulfillment for me. That to me is what life is really about.

Avil Beckford: How do you nurture your soul?

Nurturing your souls come from sharing love with your family. Nurturing my soul is seeing how my work affects others and helps them to become very clear on who they are, what they were born to do, and help them create that plan of action for getting there. That nurtures my soul more than anything.

Avil Beckford: If you had a personal genie and she gave you one wish, what would you wish for?

I would wish for people to stop and appreciate what they have because I think that as a western world that our lives are driven by outside influences and material desires. I wish that people could realize that contentment, fulfillment, satisfaction and gratification only come from within. You are never going to find it outside of yourself.

Avil Beckford: Complete the following, I am happy when…..

When I have my kids snuggling with me and my wife on my arm. That’s certainly when I’m happiest.

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Video Credit: Lenny Kravitz – Let Love Rule Uploaded by virginrecords on Dec 5, 2007; I’m Gonna Git You Sucka Trailer Blaxploitation Uploaded by thegroovetube on May 31, 2009

Interviewee Name: Steve Olsher

Company Name: The Reinvention Workshop

Website: http://www.steveolsher.com, http://thereinventionworkshop.com

Steve Olsher – Your Invisible Mentor & Workshop Leader

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Steve Olsher: I am the author of The Journey to You: A Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming Who You Were Meant to Be, the creator of the Reinvention Workshop and founder and host of Reinvention Radio, which is based out of Phoenix.

Avil Beckford: What’s a typical day like for you?

Steve Olsher: My work is focused on helping people identify the “one” thing they were born to do, so I call that your “WHAT,” so the question to people is, “What is your WHAT?” And my day is typically filled with lots of fun things to do revolving around that work, from coaching to seminars to workshops to media appearances. I try to do as much as I can throughout the day to really concentrate on that line of work.

Avil Beckford: How do you motivate yourself and stay motivated?

Steve Olsher: I’ve got to tell you that for me it all boils down to being clear on the one thing you were born to do, and once you identify that, motivation is not an issue because that will get you fired up out of bed and keep you focused every single day. My motivation is really helping people discover their “WHAT” and that’s really all I need.

Avil Beckford: If you had to start over from scratch, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?

Steve Olsher: The bottom line for me is that I would have gotten on path earlier and I think as Dr. Wayne Dyer says, everything that happens in our life no matter how painful, leads to something of higher value, and that certainly holds true for me. I just certainly wish that I could have gotten on path earlier and become clear on what it was I was born to do, but it was the culmination of my journey that has brought me to this point, but evidently this is where I am supposed to be at this particular point.

Avil Beckford: What’s the most important business or other discovery you’ve made in the past year?

Steve Olsher: The most important discovery that I’ve made is that there are millions of people who need clear direction, hope and understanding of what’s next. And it’s amazing to me that we spend so much time in our school system teaching people how to read, write and do some math, but we never teach our children, for that matter, our adults how to live; and being able to discover that there is an opportunity for me to help. It’s incredible to discover that my work is needed.

Avil Beckford: What’s one of the biggest advances in your industry over the past five years?

Steve Olsher: I’m not sure this is a good thing, clearly the movement toward there being so many “experts” and “gurus” out there that it has certainly brought more awareness to the space that you can create the life that you really want to live. Now whether or not, as I’ve said, if that’s a good thing that there are so many people out there who feel they are qualified to help others in that vane, I’m not sure, but I can certainly tell you that the industry is moving toward people being very specific about the niche that they occupy, and specifically look to help others.

Avil Beckford: What are the three threats to your business, your success, and how are you handling them?

Steve Olsher: For our industry as a whole it’s credibility. Credibility is going to be the key threat because of too many people who aren’t qualified to be in this space are putting themselves out there as being fully qualified in what they say they are able to do, and how they are able to help. This whole idea of being a life coach and being able to pay for a coaching degree, and this sort of thing is concerning. Because you go to school to learn a particular craft, or a particular trade doesn’t mean that you are cut out to make a meaningful impact in that space.

From my perspective that is the single biggest threat facing our industry. All I can do is continue to do what I’m doing, and hopefully get to the point where credibility for me does not become an issue, but certainly until I have established my name, and what I’m doing in a way that’s meaningful, it could potentially be an issue as others try to lump me with some of the folks that aren’t nearly as qualified.

That’s the single biggest threat, there are other threats, but that’s my main concern.

Avil Beckford: What’s unique about the service that you provide?

Steve Olsher: I specifically focus on helping people of all ages to discover the one thing they were born to do. I’m not one of those guys who is going to put you in a sweat lodge and tell you to go live in a cave for six months and come out and try to get clear on why you are here and what your purpose is. My work is very specific, very focused on helping people discover their “WHAT” and I have created an exercise, and have spent my life’s work focusing on this area. That to me is the main key because once you identify what it is you were born to do, everything else falls into place. It’s a natural progression of living life and getting to really where you want to be that takes place in a powerful manner once you focus and hone in on how you can have an inordinate difference on the world.

Avil Beckford: What do you observe most people in your field doing badly that you think you do well?

Steve Olsher: I don’t have anything bad to say about any one particular person or something of that nature. There are a lot of people out there who are doing powerful, helpful, productive work, and I would encourage those who feel that they can benefit from those teachings to continue to learn. But to that end, make sure that when you pick someone to sign on to that your teacher is in fact still a student because too often when teachers become so full of their own garbage that they begin to smell like crap. It’s a concern because these are the people who believe they are the be all and end all and have all the answers. The reality is that no one has all the answers, and if you are going to align yourself with someone, make sure that that teacher is in fact still a student because you need to be with someone who is still learning, and is still humble enough to understand that the gifts that they have been given are terrific, but aren’t sufficient, and are in a position to move past their egos and willing to continue to be vulnerable, and continue to learn because it makes them better teachers.

Avil Beckford: Describe a major business or other challenge you had and how you resolved it. What kind of lessons did you learn in the process?

Steve Olsher: Life to me is continually about challenges, and to say that I have had one or two in particular would be doing myself a great disservice because I continue to learn. Life continues to be a challenge. There are obvious issues like being on the brink of bankruptcy, and being divorced, and having a business that “fail.” I’ve gone through the gamut, and I’ve had my fair share of pain, but what I have come to realize is that pain in and of itself, failure in and of itself doesn’t exist. It’s about state-of-mind and the internal dialogue that you associate with those activities. For me, life is a challenge, those who believe a place where this utopia exists with beautiful people and flowing streams and sunshine blowing out of their butts all day, it doesn’t exist. There is no utopia, it’s a utopian myth. From my perspective the challenges will continue no matter where you are. You will always have challenges. I don’t care if you have $1 million in the bank or $10, you will face your own set of challenges.

The main lessons that I’ve learned is that the destination is the road, and the journey is the destination. And this is really what life is about. It’s going to ebb, it’s going to flow. There is a rollercoaster, there are going to be ups and downs, but the main lesson is that to survive and thrive, you really have to set deep anchors into your soul, and stop living life as a windsock. So if life happens, and is affected by external forces where you’re blown this way and you feel good, and you’re blown that way and you feel crappy, the whole idea here is that by setting those deep anchors to your soul you can ultimately determine your own fate and stay on path and be focused on where you are intended and destined to go.

Avil Beckford: Tell me about your big break and who gave you.

Steve Olsher: I have to be honest, there hasn’t been a big break, and I bootstrapped. I have never had a silver spoon in my mouth, no one has ever written me a cheque and say, “Hey, go do this,” simply because they liked and wanted me to do something of that nature. The big breaks for me, and for anyone else, are the breaks you create for yourself, so there hasn’t been any one particular person. I’ve had mentors over my life, but ultimately if you want to get and have a break and do something meaningful, you have to enrol people throughout your life in whatever it is that you are fired up about pursuing.

That in itself will create the breaks that you are looking for because you can’t sit there and live your life in a confined, restricted circle of your potential self. You have to move beyond whatever you believe is restraining you from where you want to go, and the only way to do that is to enrol other people in that process. When you do that, magic happens and the breaks to which you are referring will happen much more frequently than you can imagine. And mentors or people who will provide those breaks will line up along the way. We are not talking about one or two or three, we are talking about dozens and potentially hundreds of people that will help you to get to your destiny.

Avil Beckford: Describe one of your biggest failures. What lessons did you learn, and how did it contribute to a greater success?

Steve Olsher: Failure is one of those terms that weak-minded people throw around at those who soar in an attempt to bring them down. Just because you gave something a try and it didn’t work doesn’t mean that you are a “failure.” It doesn’t exist, failure is a myth. I’ve had business successes and business “failures” but the reality is you learn from your success, and you learn from your failure. Tony Robbins says that success leaves clues, but I also believe not attaining success also leaves clues. What I have learned in my ups and in my downs is that life is continually an ebb and flow, and as I’ve said before, it’s a rollercoaster. The idea of a success being more valuable to you than a failure or a failure being of more value to you than a success is really inappropriate. It’s not the way that I choose to look at life.

Avil Beckford: What has been your biggest disappointment in your life – and what are you doing to prevent its reoccurrence?

Steve Olsher: The biggest disappoint for me in my life is that I didn’t get on path earlier. I believe that we each have an inherent blueprint that we are destined to heed, and whether or not we heed that inherent blueprint ultimately spells the difference between content, satisfaction and fulfillment and just meandering through life and never feeling satisfied. The fact that it took me as long as it took to get on path is a disappointment, but to that end it’s also an opportunity. I now stand with the greatest opportunity that I have ever had in my life. To move forward in a powerful way where I pursue what I’m supposed to do, I can’t deny that this is what I am supposed to be doing. If I were to stop on this path and be sidetracked, or head in a direction other than where I am currently going, that would be an incredible disappointment. So hopefully, I’ve learned enough from where I have been to where I am now to know that the lessons that I have experienced and learned have put me in a position to do the work that I am pursuing. If I were not to pursue that, that would certainly be a lesson that I didn’t learn very well.

Avil Beckford: What’s one of the toughest decisions you’ve had to make and how did it impact your life?

Steve Olsher: Three years ago I had a wake up call. I’ve been a lifelong entrepreneur, and I had success in a number of different areas and I’ve had failures in a number of different areas as well if you want to use that definition. About three years ago, I was visiting my stepfather in the hospital who was on his deathbed. I was with him on his final days and I had a vision while I was holding his hand, and of my own funeral. At that funeral I could hear the words spoken at the graveside, which were, “Here lies Steve Olsher, he dedicated his life to chasing the Almighty dollar.”

That’s all that was said, and it hit me really hard because I realized that my life to that point was really about me and those closest to me, but no one else. I’ve always had this nagging, kind of tugging feeling that I was meant to do something extraordinary, but I couldn’t identify what it was, and I knew that if I continued down the path that I was heading of chasing the Almighty dollar, I would not have created my desired legacy. That’s where I had the choice, that’s where I hit the fork in the road, and that’s the biggest moment I ever faced because I could continue down the path of building businesses and really focusing on the driving factor being profit, or I could move toward what it was that I was really compelled to do, which is sharing the tips, tools, shortcuts and strategies that have worked so well for me in my life, with others in a much more powerful way. And I chose the latter, and certainly I have never looked back.

Avil Beckford: What are three events that helped to shape your life?

Steve Olsher: It goes without saying that the event that I just described is certainly one of the three that would be undeniable.

Two others that I can relate to the audience here is number one, I don’t even know how old I was, but I think I was around 10 or 11 years old, and I was roller-skating with my mom. My brother was in a mental hospital and he wasn’t doing great, so we were visiting him at the hospital, and for a break we went roller-skating. Somehow I got separated from my mom, which wasn’t really a big deal because it’s free skate you just go around but I struggling to skate, and it was hard for me. It didn’t come naturally, I hadn’t done much roller-skating and I just remember stumbling around a bit, and like the hands-of-God picked me up.

I remember it was a woman, and she was kind and gentle and encouraging and she skated with me for about 10 or 15 minutes. She was behind me, so I never actually saw her, but at some point she let go and I was skating completely on my own, but it was a very profound moment because at that point, I realized that sometimes if you just let go the answers that you need and the direction that you need will come from often one of the strangest place. You can’t question it and the idea of becoming who you were born to be, going back to the analogy of the work that I do, sometimes just requires letting go and let the hands of those help you where it comes from unlikely places. And so you don’t question when it comes into your life, you just allow yourself to melt into that and let those hands carry you. It was a very profound moment for me because I never saw her, she must have skated off because I never saw her, and she never said anything to me again, but yet I had the confidence, and I felt the love and it was a powerful moment for a very young man.

The third moment that had an amazing impact on me was we have thousands of conversations with people over our lives and for whatever reason, certain sentences, certain things that people say just stick with you over the years. I was in the process of opening up my own night club at the age of 20, and I was discussing this with an older friend of mine, a mentor. I told about what I intended to about opening up the club, and he said, “Look, what are you doing now?” and I reminded him, that I was waiting tables, pumping gas and I was deejaying in a club and doing some different things, and he said, “What are you afraid of if the club doesn’t work out?” and I said, “You know I’m afraid of failing, afraid of losing money, of disappointing people and I’m afraid of looking bad,” and he said, “Look Steve, the bottom line here is if for whatever reason the night club doesn’t work out, you can always go back to pumping gas.”

It was one of those defining moments where I realized that you can always go back to whatever it is that you know, but if you are not willing to take those risks, and not willing to grow, you are ultimately just going to simply die. That’s the idea here, be willing to grow because if you’re not growing you’re dying. And ultimately if you have to take a step back, you do it, but whenever you look back on your life you will always regret failing to act, and taking action and realizing what others call failure.

Those are three moments that had a tremendous impact on me.

Avil Beckford: What’s an accomplishment that you are proudest of?

Steve Olsher: Being married for 13 years and having three wonderful boys, that’s certainly my greatest accomplishment. Forget about anything that I have done on the business front, or the work that I do with others, or the book receiving awards. Success in life boils down to having a roof over my head, a family that I love, and something to eat. That to me is the definition of success and I have that so in my mind I am inordinately successful.

Avil Beckford: How did mentors influence your life?

Steve Olsher: I talked about the friend who provided the life lesson about pumping gas. And I had another mentor who helped me develop one of my businesses. I have had other mentors along the line including my grandfather. I think what people get hung up on is that mentors don’t have to be someone older than you. A mentor can be a 15 year old kid, mentors come from odd, strange, profound places, and I think we have this vision of a mentor being an old, grey-haired person who has been through life to try to provide life lessons that you can learn from, when in fact you can learn from anyone. Everyone is an expert at something, and if you can look at your life and your world and you can look at your interactions in that manner, anyone can be a mentor for you and to you. You just have to cultivate that relationship and be willing to ask.

Avil Beckford: What’s one core message you received from your mentors?

Steve Olsher: The core message that I have received over the years, is as I stated earlier is that you have to be willing to grow and you have to be willing to take risks. William James has a fantastic quote that I use in the Re-invention Workshop and I’ll paraphrase here, but ultimately what the quote is about is he says most people live within a restricted circle, this limited area of their potential being, potential self and it’s like a man, out of all the resources that he has is into the habit of using and wiggling his little finger.

And the idea is that when we are faced with great emergencies and crises we are able to respond in ways that we didn’t even know we had the capability of doing. I love the story of the woman who recently had a bear barge into her house somehow, and she had nothing to defend her family with but a zucchini, so she grabbed the zucchini and proceeds to beat away this bear to drive it out of the house with only a zucchini. If you had asked her three days earlier, “Hey, a bear is going to break into your house, and the only thing you have to defend yourself and your family with is a zucchini,” what do you think would have happened? I’m sure her natural response would have been, “I’m going to get mauled, that doesn’t sound like a fair fight.” But in fact when pushed to the brink she was able to do it.

I once had a mentor ask me, “If you’re willing to travel at that rate of speed to save someone you love, what rate of speed are you willing to travel to save yourself?” That has been one of the more profound statements, profound experiences that I’ve had in terms of something that has stuck with me all these years, and I try to carry that forth where pushing well beyond what is our normal restricted circle of our potential self, just getting out of my comfort zone.

Avil Beckford: An invisible mentor is a unique leader you can learn things from by observing them from afar, in the capacity of an Invisible Mentor, what is one piece of advice that you would give to readers?

Steve Olsher: If there was one piece of advice that I could offer to your audience, it would be to discover your “WHAT.” The world is waiting for you, that’s the one piece of advice that I can offer, and keep in mind that the world is waiting for you and you have a unique gift to share, and you are not only doing yourself a huge disservice by not cultivating what that gift is, but you’re doing us a disservice as well because you have been given something that no one else has. I don’t care if your stage is 20 people, let’s say you’re a second grade teacher, or if your stage has an audience of millions, it doesn’t matter, but ultimately there are people out there who need you, and there are people out there who will benefit from whatever it is that you were put on this world to do. Just keep in mind that the world is waiting for you, and we need you.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

A friend and I decided to attend a meditation event hosted by Meditation Toronto, “The Night Before New Year’s Party.” I was amazed by the number of people who attended, and most of them were in their twenties, which surprised me. I commented to my friend that so many people attended during the holiday season because they must be searching for more meaning in life.

We attended because we thought it would be mostly meditation, and I enjoy meditating, but the talk took up most of the time. I enjoyed myself though. The speaker, Yoga Master Balakilya indicated that there is no difference between one day and the next, and an old year and a new one. That made sense to me. Think about the popular quote, ”The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results,” attributed to both Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin. So if you do not make concrete changes, the old year will be more or less like the new – the same-old, same-old.

The Yoga Master suggested that a place to start would be to ask yourself, “Who Am I?” Because of our roles and responsibilities in life, the first things that come to our minds when answering that question would be: Mother, father, brother, sister, son, daughter, male, female, Canadian, American, Australian, British, African American, Caucasian, Chinese, CEO, advertising executive, writer, singer, soccer player and so on. If you stripped away all your roles and responsibilities, what would be left if you probed deeper.

Now, how would you answer, “Who Am I?”

For those interested in meditation, one of the three we did was the Gauranga, click here to try it.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Photo Credit: Yahoo Image Search via Apture

What kind of year would you like to have in 2011? Do you want to blaze some trail? Or are you comfortable with the same-old, same-old and want to stay the course? Sometimes it’s quite difficult to step outside our comfort zone and do extraordinary things, perhaps we do not want to draw attention to ourselves because of the way we were brought up. But it’s possible for ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary feats, look at some of the interviewees that I bring you.

I have had some very ambitious, stretch goals that I have been trying to achieve for a couple of years now, but I am not making as much progress as I’d like. So this coming year I’m doing something very different. I have hired a mentor-coach who has accomplished what I am trying to accomplish. On our preliminary phone conversations, he asked me what I was trying to achieve, he was interested in what I wanted. That’s very important, because sometimes mentors, and not many of them, want you to see their way, and they want to take you where they want you to go. The best mentors do not do that, they are interested in where you’d like to go and help you to get there.

The mentor-coach who I will be working with understands exactly what I am trying to do, and he knows exactly how to get me there. He has a system which he has been using for many years. And the icing on the cake is that his values and mission align perfectly with mine. What he has accomplished in life resonates with me. It has been taking me ages to get to where I would like to go, so I have sought help, and I begin my incredible journey on January 4, 2011. Are you ready for 2011; and what will you do differently? Is there a mentor who can take you where you’d like to go? My words for 2011 are “Achievement on Steroids,” what are yours?

If you cannot view this YouTube video of ABBA’s Happy New Year click here.

If you need help determining your goals refer to 10 Questions to Ask and Answer Before 2010. How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

This is a follow-up to yesterday’s post about gratitude. We have already looked at Acres of Diamonds by Russell Conwell, but I thought it worth repeating, especially at this time of the year.

Common Sense Ideas

1. Each of us is right in the middle of our own Acres of Diamonds, if only we would realize it and develop the ground we are standing on before charging off in search of greener pastures
2. Opportunity does not just come along – it is there all the time – we just have to see it
3. In life, when we go searching for “something,” we should know what that “something” looks, smells and tastes like so that we can recognize it when we find it
4. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side
5. Before we give up what we already have, make sure that what we’re getting is better than what we already have
6. Your family comes first, they are part of your support structure and will help you through the most difficult times

Russell Herman Conwell, a lawyer for about fifteen years until he became a clergyman, relates a story told to him by an Arab guide. The story intrigued Conwell so much, that he subsequently used the theme as a basis for his many speeches.

According to the story, as told by the guide, while Conwell was travelling down the Tigris and Euphrates rivers with a party of English travelers, there was a farmer, Ali Hafed, from ancient Persia now known as Iran. Ali Hafed was very wealthy. He owned a very large farm with orchards, grain-fields, and gardens.

One day, a Buddhist priest visited Ali Hafed. During the conversation, this wise priest from the East told Hafed about diamonds. He told Ali Hafed that if “he had one diamond the size of his thumb, he could purchase the county, and if he had a mine of diamonds he could place his children upon thrones through the influence of their great wealth.” Ali Hafed was mesmerized, and though Hafed’s situation hadn’t changed, he went to his bed that night feeling poor and discontented because of envy and greed.

Hafed decided that he wanted a diamond mine. The next day he rushed to see the priest and asked where he could find diamonds. He explained to the priest that he wanted to be immensely rich. Hafed sold his farm, collected the money, left his neighbour to take care of  his family, and went off in search of diamonds.

Hafed wandered around Palestine and Europe until he ran out of money. Donned in rags and feeling wretched, he now knew what it felt like to be truly poor. One day, he stood on the shore of a bay in Barcelona, Spain and threw himself in when a great tidal wave came rolling in, never to be seen again.

Meanwhile back at the farm, one day the new owner picked up an unusual rock about the size of an egg and placed it on his mantle. A few days later, the same old priest visited the farm and immediately realized that the unusual rock was indeed a diamond. The priest and the new owner rushed outside to the place where the owner found the unusual rock, and discovered the diamond mines of Golconda.

Ali Hafed had been standing on his own “Acres of Diamonds” until he sold his farm.

In Acres of Diamonds, Conwell relates countless stories of people who went in search of what they already had. For example, a farmer in Pennsylvania sold his farm for $833 and went to work for his cousin in Canada, collecting oil. Shortly after, the man who purchased the farm found oil worth millions of dollars.

Common Sense Ideas

1. Each of us is right in the middle of our own Acres of Diamonds, if only we would realize it and “mine” the ground we are standing on before charging off in search of greener pastures
2. Opportunity does not just come along – it is there all the time – we just have to see it
3. In life, when we go searching for “something,” we should know what that “something” looks, smells and tastes like so that we can recognize it when we find it
4. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side
5. Before we give up what we already have, make sure that what we’re getting is better than what we already have
6. Your family comes first, they are part of your support structure and will help you get through the most difficult times

Whenever I read Acres of Diamonds, for some reason I am reminded of the biblical Parable of the Prodigal Son. The Prodigal Son was much wiser than Ali Hafed because he at least had the common sense to return home and beg forgiveness.Your diamonds are not in far-away mountains or in distant seas; they are usually in your own back yard if you will take the time to look for them.

What are your feelings toward Ali Hafed? Do you sympathize with him? How might you apply this story to business? We always think that the grass is greener on the other side, but it is seldom that case. In what instances could the grass be greener on the other side? We all make mistakes in life, and we have the potential to learn from them if we leave arrogance outside, and simply reflect on the experience to learn the lessons.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. I am ready to grow this blog, if you find The Invisible Mentor Blog useful and educational, please encourage your contacts to subscribe. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Click on the links below for electronic complimentary copies of Acres of Diamonds by Russell Conwell. I recommend Acres of Diamonds because of its timeless moral.

http://emotional-literacy-education.com/classic-books-online-c/acrdi10.htm

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/rconwellacresofdiamonds.htm

Photo Credit: Flickr “Dreaming of Diamonds” by Bu via Apture

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