Success: A Matter Of Perspective by Calvin Harris H.W., M

After four decades in Life Coaching and Personal Development training, I’ve discovered a person’s propensity for success or failure can be measured with 90% accuracy by looking for just three things in their conversations.

Those are Self Sabotage; Self Doubt;  Self Image.

In other words, how they see themselves in their world.

During my years in Self Development Training, I have seen how All of us see the world differently, and how that can change over one’s lifetime, and the importance of being able to pick yourself up when you fall down, to regroup and move forward. Sometimes help is needed.

I’ve seen with the help of life coaches, that people can get to the place where the world is abundant with opportunity for self-fulfillment, rather than struggle and heartbreak. Most importantly, to get to that place of deep connection within oneself.

It is most important to get to that deep connection, which is how we will interpret, and how we will see ourselves and our world. This ability to change one’s mind is what life coaching is about. Because it is the mindset change that has the most impact on one’s being.

You can develop the courage and self-belief to move past struggle, disappointment, and heartbreak.

This is not done through shortcut methods, that will promise to handle these limiting behaviors once and for all and within the shortest time. It is through a willingness to give yourself a gift of time and play, not a concept of work to achieve your aims,  but instead a mindset of play to discover and achieve results.

 What you need is to gain the PRINCIPLES  of self-transformation and the coaching that brings into accountability those actions that top-performers use.

 This Play, a rethink form of training, focuses exactly on the principles that have helped me and have gone on to help my personal clients and students discover how they could level up and achieve the unexpected life that they could create for themselves, that goes beyond what they set out to create, without a sense of drudgery.

If this piques your interest, as a possible path, to create freedom from limitations and build a thriving and impactful life for yourself, then contact me at the email below.

⇒ things2cal@gmail.com

Texting Is Not Efficient

TEXTING May Not Be What it is Cracked Up To Be

By Calvin Harris H.W., M.

I know what an odd subject for me to be writing on, since I am a person that does not like to text, nor normally use that form of communication when there is any way around it.

How I have come to write a blog on the subject is because of the numerous comments directed towards me regarding texting, and then one of you, my dear readers, has requested me to write something on the subject.

I accept the challenge.

Let me start by pointing out the obvious.

Texting makes it hard to distinguish the tone of the conversation, making all communication much less formal and can even make genuine statements seem insincere. Also, Texting, by its very nature, encourages—poor grammar habits, (As If mine aren’t bad enough).

Here are some of the problems with texting:

1.  Because I enjoy face to face conversations,  texting as well as other forms of written  messaging cannot accurately convey oral speech tone, emotion, eye contact, facial expressions, or body language. That means without them, a message is more likely to be misinterpreted or misunderstood. The real meaning of your message can be lost through the medium.

2.  Humans, I feel, are simply not wired for constant digital communication. Texting is having a negative effect on interpersonal development among young people. When people communicate primarily via text, they're much less likely to have meaningful spoken conversations.

3.  Students who text regularly, using adaptations of words such as "u" for "you" and "r" for "are", tend to have trouble with grammar and spelling.

4.  Text speak encourages greater misuse of words/symbols denoting the same sound or group of sounds as standard words(homophones), they are seen as abbreviations, such as "gr8" for "great" or "h8" for "hate," or, they negatively impact correct word use, such as  not being able to tell "there" from "their."

5.  All too often, relationships go sour due to miscommunication via text as well as through email messages. To keep this from happening, simply avoid using these mediums and rather have important conversations through a more preferred communication medium, such as face-to-face conversations or over the phone.

6.  Texting and using abbreviations for words means that we are avoiding the traditional face-to-face conversations that are vital in forming deep personal relationships and better business practices.

7.  More than two-thirds of users never experience an hour of uninterrupted concentration to their day or workflow. If a text stream begins, interruptions can happen as often as every 6 minutes.

8.  For business users, average time spent in text volleys can easily reach 150 or more text messages per day.

Being a bit older than 20-something, and being a busy person with personal life and business matters to attend to, I find that many texts that I have received make no sense to me, or even may have been designed for someone else; thus, what appears in the box are mistakes. The Message may have been hurriedly written or the “send to” button hurriedly selected while the sender was on the go.

You do not have to Admit it to me but maybe you, yourself, are guilty of distractedly dashing off the occasional friend’s text message—or, worse a worktext—that didn’t make sense to the receiver. Maybe it was because of habit, or you were in a rush, or you were busy or thinking about something else.

  Text with the speed at which they can be sent can end up in interesting places and unintended hands if attention is not paid to your intended receiver address.

In hindsight, it’s a little awkward that you sent a text to your boss saying, “Did 50 squats Pizza tonight and hang- ten emoji” while sending your partner or best friend the text: “Chart shows we need to level-up our expectations.” And yes, this scenario can get a tad more stressful when your boss misinterpreted your well-intended “hang loose” emoji to mean for him to “call you.”

This most often happens when you’re texting on the go, via a mobile device, and you are short on time and you want to economize on the number of words used. This can lead to all manner of communication gaffes and embarrassing blunders, as well as much time wasted in back–and–forth text exchanges.

Mercifully, I offer these suggestions to help you avoid some of these most common blunders.

Keep your text short—but not too short!

I know speed requires your messages to be short and to the point. Yes, it’s a good thing to be direct and on point. Yet Be Wary of making this behavior a habit, for often this leads your writing to become curt, choppy messages that have you coming off with tones of being brusque, aloof, or insensitive.

In your business, and sometimes personal texting, consider that brevity and abbreviation can be over - the - top. For example, to use “HIC” when you mean “here I come” (as in “you’re on your way”), but then your audience text back to you, asking for clarification about your hiccups. Then an additional text of explanation is needed, and you have saved yourself no time at all.

Before starting a text, I suggest taking a breath, and trying to formulate answers to these questions; where, what,  why, when, and who questions, which allows you to see how you’re likely to come across in your text before you hit send.

The Who question is important because it means you are double-checking the “to” field, especially when using your phone. For important texts, you might even consider waiting to fill in an address until you’re satisfied with the draft, just to make certain it won’t go out prematurely.

Take a breath to remember your audience.

Many of us, though, struggle to shift gears as we toggle back and forth between professional correspondences and with friends’ banter, wise-cracks, and jest. Be mindful too of workplace jargon and slang that would not belong in an important  text. You probably want to avoid telling the boss that your  best client is “dope.”

Mind your tone -

Your Text messages should  convey a lot more than only their words, so it’s critical to strike the right tone. You want to sound confident but not forceful with your boss; and reassuring with a client whose package is overdue. You want to sound appreciative and admiring of the life coach who helped you earn the 10k bonus but appreciative, while not too effusive, toward Mark in accounting who compiled your tax forms.

In the final analysis, I believe we want clarity in our communication. We need to develop clear processes–not fast haphazard messaging–as a way to define how tasks are identified, assigned, and reviewed. I think a new way to process communication is needed. With thought and practice, I believe something new will come along  that will help you put down the phone and other devices. That will help you worry less about overly casual texts as an answer to your colleague’s questions while you are out walking the dog; or being too formal in addressing a new love interest for a date, while you are rushing off a text, just before a business board meeting is to begin.

A way to detach you from text devices as a body appendage must be found, and that will allow you to be a conscious participant in a more fully formed life.

By all means, start to create a habit of  putting the devices away for at least one hour a day, to allow you to winddown, reset, breathe. To have a place where your devices can stop asking “Are You A Robot?” Maybe you could even have a face-to-face conversation with someone.

Try it, you might like it!

Aloha

Calvin

Success: A Matter Of Perspective by Calvin Harris H.W., M

Success; A Matter Of Perspective

You are well on your way to going where you are going.  In the spirit of your journey, I invited you to smile, feel those face muscles lift, notice how a smile can make you feel good, maybe even happy. Somebody might even say they like your smile. This is because our emotions and the things we perceive happening around us are inter-connected. One will always affect the other.

You smile because you are happy, and you can turn that around and say You're happy because you smile.

If it's true for your smile, it's also true for other aspects of your life.

People can feel successful and that can be because of many reasons. The point is they feel successful, and not only when they achieve success.

To put it another way -

People’s success is achieved BECAUSE they feel successful. Because they can feel it, in their gut, that is how their life will be. They refuse to entertain any other possibility.

'Success', of course can mean whatever you define it to mean. It could be defined as your career or business, it could be defined as in your relationship, or your health and fitness, it could be defined as your hobby or sport, you get to choose.

Just know as you wake up each morning to put a smile on your face KNOWING that visceral feeling that you are successful. Be grateful for what is in your life and also that unpredictable good that is just around the corner for you. BE now, in your grand vision.

Your Life Coach

Calvin

Ideas to Move You Forward by Calvin Harris H. W., M.

Aloha and Welcome to Site of Contact

Life Is About Choices; I am pleased that some of you have chosen To read my blogs these past five years in your conscious choosing to live your best life possible. 

Our very existence is based on a choice, a choice typically made by our parents at a time called conception. Consequently, the lives we lead now are based on what we choose and when we choose it. Who you are today, is based on your choices about yesterday. Who you become tomorrow, is based on your choices made today.

I am humbled if these five years of blogging have brought to you articles that allowed you to consider and enact powerful Ideas. Articles for some of you, (from what your emails tell me) had arrived, just at the right time, and that you were able to consider or even alter the direction of your life.

Timing is everything, this goes for ideas also, there are those ideas that operate in the background, acting as assumptions. Assumptions that have influences on your decisions, the conundrum is whether they are true or false, useable, or incapable of having an intended outcome.

I think we can all look back, to a number of ideas that shaped the movements of our lives. Some are seen in retrospect. Others took a great amount of time and pain to learn.

I would like to share some of the ideas that have impacted my life journey.

1.   Reality is pliable. It is more than three dimensional, which means it can stretch or bend back on itself, or turn, bow, or twist. With knowledge of this and paying attention to your ideas and directing your actions, you can determine when and how slow or fast to enact your ideas or concepts and to be amazed at what you can accomplish.

2.   It is that combination of ideas and the effort to begin the Actions, that produces an outcome. Thinking up a new life for yourself or thinking about your authentic self,  does no good, without follow-through. Know that the vehicle for change is not ideas but the action that follows the idea.

3.   An important realization I try and keep in mind is that between 80 to 90 percent of our life actions are done unconsciously, they are automated. Essentially much of our actions are performed without conscious thought or reflection. Meaning we have patterns of how we do things that endlessly repeat, and in that repetition, so our lives are lived.

Therefore, to have change, it is going to take conscious activity to alter automation. 

Real change to happen takes more than a single exertion, but a continual awareness to rewrite our scripts.

The idea is that you commit yourself to a particular daily habit, doing it long enough to make the habit feel comfortable, yet short enough that you can commit to required efforts.

4.  I tend to forget this one, and have to remind myself, that ‘Progress tends to Slow at times, and at other times seems to Accelerate.’

Progress is nonlinear or in equal steps.   

Gravitational Field by Sam Farrand

Our efforts tend to be like dance steps, forward and some back. These movements are operated by two different forces: diminishing returns and compounding growth.

Diminishing returns happen when efforts are overextended. Such as when new joggers in a long-distance race hit their first mile of running, they find that it is their most energetic, but by the fifteenth, they are exhausted. As efforts become increasingly unproductive, a key realization is to know when enough is enough.

Compounded small steps propel you forward, then growth is occurring with each past improvement, helping to build the next step in further growth. What initially looks like a trickle will end in a stream.

The problem often is mustering up one’s patience for the process. Since efforts, in the beginning, will seem unrewarded, that is where many people often abandon their process before they can really start to receive the benefits.

Understanding what kind of growth process you’re facing, prepares you to make the progress or have success. There’s no way to rush this kind of a journey, especially since it has just as much to do with your mentality as it does your physicality. One has to commit to sticking it out for the long haul, the underinvestment in compound growth is the culprit in the abandonment of the process.

Diminishing Return is when we try and renew past accomplishments using the same approach, techniques, or systems that brought us to this point when a new approach, technique, or system is needed to take us further or make the next step towards our goal or success. Many people find themselves overinvested in diminishing returns, trying to renew past accomplishments

Understanding the highs and lows of your growth cycles prepares you for progress. In general, we underinvest in compound growth because it looks like a waste of time. We overinvest in diminishing returns when trying to renew past accomplishments.

Personal Growth and Journaling

By Calvin Harris, H.W., M.

The beginning of the year is often a time for stark naked reflection and goal setting for many of us.

What is important to most of us in life is some kind of ongoing Personal Development and self-upgrading. The reason is we feel a disconnect with our naked truth, who we are deep down, our authentic self, and with what is currently passing as our everyday existence. If that feels familiar, as though you are not moving or are out of balance or in conflict, I may have some suggestions.    

I am a long-time student of personal development and if you are ready to try a simply reconnect of the authentic self with everyday existence, there are a few tools to move you in the right direction.

Now I don't pretend to be an expert in this, I'm a student just like yourself, only maybe by being at it a little longer than you, (over the past 50 years), I can share an insight.

 Like yourself, I've set goals, tasks, and projects for myself, I’ve achieved some and failed at others, and from these experiences, I think I can suggest something helpful.

What I have come to understand is that at the root of this disconnect, is one’s life choices or how one chooses to bring about those choices, which may not be in-sink with their authentic self and so, is not running smoothly; then life can seem out of control. 

For me, the use of my Personal Journal has helped me move more easily into my personal growth and success. This tool has been invaluable and here is why.

Reason 1. It allows me to get in touch with, understand, and value my core values that are deep within.

Reason 2. It has helped propel me forward into actions that align more closely with my ideal life.

Reason 3. It helps to keep me being that person that lives in the NOW.

With the help of my journal, I am able to pin-point where I can make small action changes that lead to big results. 

James Clear called them Micro-habits or Atomic Habits. James Clear says:

“Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them for years.”

— from his book, Atomic Habits.

My journal acts as a framework for what Clear calls a needed system for change. He says “You need to build habits and you have to stick around long enough to let them do their magic…”

Some of the magic for me has come down to

1.  Know the trees and see the forest.

I have found through engaging in my journal, that I can slow down and view the forest rather than just a tree.  

This can allow the opportunity for me to delay in my reactions, where I can think a situation over more and get clarity before acting, giving me an edge in my decision making.

It is what allows me to know what does and does not need a response quickly. It is empowering to learn to say “I’ll let you know later”, or “Let me get back to you on this.”

Rather than saying yes to a project, offer, or opportunity only to realize later that it is not a match for your schedule, or worse, not a match to your authentic self. Then it is better to take the time and think it through in the light of your goals, direction. and time frame.

You will save yourself a great amount of time and disappointment in the long run.

2.   You may need to give yourself a persistent nudge to Complete a Task When You Don’t Feel Like It.

Every day, if you look, there are small tasks that you don’t want to do; your journal may reveal them to you or even help nudge you to go ahead and complete them. From washing the dishes, or making your bed, or even going for that jog.

Your journal may help you realize after a few days of completing tasks, that the task itself was not the problem. It’s your habit of postponing things. But often, once you make the step to get it done, you get yourself in the mood and get the job done.

Once you feel comfortable about completing small tasks, make the jump to bigger ones.

3.   Spend a Day Away From Social Media

There are people whose phones could literally be an extension of their hand in the motions of texting and just scrolling on social media. I too can find myself, without realizing it, just scrolling on Facebook for 30 minutes; And I’m not even big on social media platforms. I have around 350 followers on Facebook, whom I spam with quotes or pictures of my activities or travels.

I am not suggesting you give up Texting or social media, nor should you want to, for social media is a great way to find out about local events, and a great source for inspiration or connection on a variety of platforms. All of these platforms have their purpose and usefulness. To bring them in conjunction with your journaling, you can have an indicator of when that use has become abuse and you can consciously choose to spend less time online, every day.

4.  Question: What to write in a Journal?  Answer: “What you think you will remember!”

“No, I don’t have to write that down, I’ll remember it” is the historic lie we all tell ourselves.  So many concepts, ideas, and solutions we come across during each day, and yet at the end of the day you’ve forgotten more than half of it.

So make a habit of writing everything down, even the silly stuff that seems unimportant. Somehow, someway, it will fit in the grand scheme of things.

Final Thoughts

5.  Build to your goals, one small habit at a time.

The main reason why people don’t reach their aspirations, dreams, plans, or goals is that they want to make drastic changes instead of building small, everyday habits. To do so, you only need to follow these two simple rules:

1. Drop a Bad One

Make a list of all the bad habits you have and want to get rid of. Instead of going on a war against yourself, trying to get rid of all of them at the same time, pick only one and focus on that. Take baby steps. Smoke one less cigarette. Buy one less unnecessary item every week. Stop eating one thing out of a few you want to give up.

Let us then think of a swap, after you’ve managed to give up a bad habit, start working on a new habit.

2. Add a Good One

The same goes for good changes you want to make. Don’t try to drink 2 liters of water every day if you only drank 1 glass before. Instead, try to drink 2 glasses per day and slowly increase. Add one more vegetable to your plate. Run one more minute on the treadmill. Read one more page every night.

Choose something you’re struggling with, and slowly increase the time you spend building that good habit. When you feel like it became a habit, start working on the next one.

As James Clear said in Atomic Habits:

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”

Journaling can ensure that your systems, which are the routines and activities you interact with every day; that these well-established habit systems are in sync with your authentic self and you are consciously choosing to interact with them.

Your journal is the place for you to show up authentically without fear of judgment but ready to take action to strip away the old mindsets and habits holding you back and preventing you from expressing your true self.  Here is the place to show up whole-heartedly, ready to be YOU.

Thank You

DURING THIS SPECIAL MONTH

We’d like to take this opportunity to wish you and your family a happy and Prosperous Year to come!

We’d also like to express our gratitude to you for being such an outstanding supporter of siteofcontact.net and our blogs. We genuinely appreciate your readership, loyalty & Friendship.

In the coming year, we will keep you posted

With events, podcast, and blog post, that we hope

Will Energize, Vitalize, and Empower You

Season’s Greetings

Moving Past New Year's Resolutions And Achieving Goals By Calvin Harris H. W., M.

We are in the Holiday Season, soon to have proclaimed the New Year.  What has been interesting about this year and The Covid-19 pandemic has been a windfall for many people.

It seems that for most of this year people have had the opportunity to indulge in retrospection and reevaluating of some of their life choices while in Covid-19 pandemic quarantine.  Retrospection and reevaluation type activities in the past had been reserved usually, for one day only,  the New Year’s Resolutions Day!

Of course, 80% of those New Year’s Resolutions had Failed by February.

What we find unique about this year, is due to Covid-19, we have had the ability to stay with those resolutions long enough to have some of them transformed into goals.  

The elusive New Year’s resolution this year as it were, has gone under the microscope, giving you a chance to realistically make a resolution into a goal. To give yourself time and room to formulate those resolutions from ideas into a plan. Let’s now talk about putting those ideas, those resolutions into ACTION in the coming year.

1. You Will Need To Decide And Commit To Making A Change

To have a New Year’s Resolution turn into a Goal does not come easy. You must be willing to change an aspect of your lifestyle that makes way for your Goal to be achieved. You will need a decision from yourself to change your mindset in order to  create a true change, and then a commitment to making it happen.

2. Make A Record Of  What You Want

There is a need to pay attention to your actions in pursuit of your Goals. Success of a Goal is more likely if you track your actions rather than merely resolving to change a behavior, by writing down your goal on paper or in a journal, because that physical act of writing something down in a notebook can help you keep focused on your Goal.

3. Clarify Why You Want this Goal

Your resolution, turned goal, might be about going into business for yourself, but why? Do you want more independence in your field? Getting crystal clear on what you want and having then documented it, is the best way to commit to making it happen, to achieving your goals. You will want to hone in on your goal once you have seen it in front of you. To clarify your reasoning for it - is it that you want more autonomy in how you do your work or spend your time, or want to make more money so you can better provide for yourself, or is it to achieve independence and financial freedom?

Understand that in your clarifying step you are not just dealing with your short-term results, but what is the true purpose of your goal. 

With that understanding of your Goals, you will have the courage to find a way to achieve it – even when things get challenging, you will be able to  make the incremental changes that cumulate in achieving your goal

4. Creating Certainty In Taking Action

You want to be strategic in your goal settings and actions because what you are really doing is identifying old or inoperable, or non-performing methods that you are operating  from (call them Habits), and you are going  to replace them with more attractive, satisfying, and effective methods of  doing things. That’s the key to success: to go from poor, underperforming habit systems to something that is incrementally achievable through dedication of conscious fly effort steps, that in the steps you build an ease in doing them; You must build into your plan some kind of recognizable enjoyment or pleasure by using the new process to make your change almost effortless. Your  strategic action plan must contain these features in both their immediate outcome and then found within your desired ultimate outcome or change. Author James Clears in his book “Atomic Habits” talks more about this subject of  how to build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones.  

What I am suggesting is that in  your mind, you prepare yourself so that you have no choice but to succeed – if achieving your goal becomes an absolute must – then you’ll be ready with the steps to do what it takes to get there, allowing for your excuses to go out the window.

5. Measure Your Progress

From Resolutions to goal to habit, to operating systems embodied in new forms of habits that provide  incremental achievable measured success, will require of you to sit down and prepare a list of important lifestyle changes you want to make and then tracking this progress is going to be key to success (I suggest a Personal Journal). For example, If your resolution is to be healthier, how will you measure it? Is it making a grocery list, buying the food, and preparing  a certain number of meals at home each week instead of buying prepackaged foods? Is it walking a block, then a mile, then three miles every day? A reasonable timeline for your goals progress must be set and adjusted, to measure your progress along the way.

6. Keep Going

Know that moving forward on your quest you will have challenges. You will need perseverance, especially in the beginning when faced with a setback, or if you feel that you’ve failed completely; my advice is to go deep within (if need be, reach out for support), but don’t give up. Keep Going  and ask yourself, What will it cost me if I don’t accomplish this goal? Will I be missing out on living the life that I have dreamed of?

In closing, don’t merely tie resolutions to a time of year. Start that process of  change anytime when you know a new outcome is needed, and you are committed to taking your resolutions into goals and finally into a reality. Learning to set and achieve goals is a great habit transformer, that few truly master in their lifetimes. Achieve what you want this year, and every year, by deciding to shift habit patterns and gain success in areas  that truly matter to YOU.

Advanced Mentoring Workshop

Using Experience As A Source of Learning And Development

The Program is outlined as follows:

Advanced Mentoring Workshop

“Everything that happens to you is your Teacher. The secret is to sit at the feet of your own life and be taught by it.”

~ Gandhi

As organizations and businesses grow, their need for qualified Mentors grows, as does their need to develop the next generation of Mentors.

But that’s easier said than done, right?

What we see happening in many organizations and businesses is that they end up promoting people who are great at their current job but are unable to mentor others. The trouble then becomes attracting or developing top talented Mentors, which can cause an organization or company to end up with people that show gaps in mentorship abilities or other soft skills.

What is needed is clarity around, and a plan for, mentorship and leadership development. This starts with individuals.

Are you an individual wanting to step up to the call?

The Mentoring Workshop Can Help

-- This is How:

· In this 24-month training, you will get steps for, and guidance in, creating a Mentorship Development Pipeline

· When implementing these steps, you’ll be part of a group culture focused on growth and competence

· The Program’s success comes from an active process of small steps and “Fly efforts”

· The Mentoring Workshop provides a continuously supportive environment for every step along the way

· With this mentoring training program, you will grow in assuredness and have more self-awareness

Organizations grow through well trained, knowledgeable, and talented Mentors.

· Make a commitment to take your place alongside this select group of individuals – representing mentorship at its best

Be a Part of the Mentors’ Pipeline Next program set for 2024

More information to follow later this year 2023