Toronto, 4.55am, November 12 2008

I don’t sleep so well these days. Seven hours of high quality REM sleep are a distant memory. Now it’s 5-6 hours of fitful sleep, fragmented by night-time frights and bogeymen who feed on my post-meltdown angst.

On the other hand, I’ve never been more awake. I’ve never felt more plugged into the world. I’ve never been had so many opportunities to be brilliant. Every meeting and every conversation is a chance to make the difference that makes the difference. My capacity to mobilise others is expanding. And so is my feeling of well being and excitement.

It’s a weird combination. In the deep of night, my subconscious thrusts me into the Dark Zone where I’m at the mercy of creatures I cannot control. In the light of day, I control my own destiny. I can see what’s coming at me and I’m swinging for the fences.

It’s been a fascinating evolution. At the beginning of October, like everyone else, I was blindsided by the panic and intensity of the global economic maelstrom. I was perplexed and alarmed as my personal net worth plummeted with the Dow and the TSX. I resisted the truth: the bubble had burst. A new harder reality had emerged.

In my seminars I wrestled with my own inauthenticity: I was encouraging others but I wasn’t walking my own talk. So I began attending my own seminars. I began to accept the developments around me unquivocally. Then I went a step further: I embraced them. I saw them as invitations to action.

What better time to track exponential trends? What better time to motivate and coach? What better time to help others reinvent themselves? What better time to be the best me I can be? No better time. Now is the time to be preeminent - the benchmark by which all others are judged. That’s my goal today as I fly to Detroit to deliver a program: to be a model of what’s possible so that other are inspired to be the same. What’s yours?

Toronto, Tuesday., November 4, 6.10am

Last Saturday, I facilitated a full day program with 500 new, highly skilled  immigrants to Toronto. They came from all over the world. For many of them, English is their second language. Many of them also come from countries with very different cultures to Canada. For all of them, just being in the room was a monumental achievement. Now they have to find work and that was the objective of the session. Together with TRIEC, Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council, we coached the group on the power of networking and self-marketing. Prospective employers like the government of Canada, Deloitte, State Farm Insurance, CGI and RBC also held workshops that informed immigrants of the opportunities available and how they could exploit them. See http://www.triec.ca/events/12

It was an electrifying day. From my first word to my final wrap up, the engagement was total. The listening was so intense, I was almost overwhelmed. EVERYTHING I shared with group was new for them. There was no “I’ve heard all of this before” because they hadn’t. There was just the silent appreciation and awe that comes with absorbing new concepts that could make a major difference in their lives. Irrespective of age, there was a hunger in the room for the insights that would empower them to grow their future and feed their families. I learnt as much from them as they did from me. Specifically, I left the session looking at everything through their eyes: the eyes of someone who is seeing it all for the first time.

And that’s the simple lesson of this blog: look at your world like you’ve just immigrated to it. You have. We’re all immigrants to the future. Just in the last three months, so much has changed so much that it’s all NEW. You may just not have realised it yet. To quote T.S. Eliot: We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

The immigrants to my program in Saturday have literally just arrived and they are beginning to know their new place. If you’ve been around for some time, it’s time to arrive at a new place. It’s time to see things from a new angle. It’s time to embrace new points of view. It’s time to talk to new people. It’s time to begin anew. And it’s time to take new immigrants along with you. Reach out and share. You’ll get far more than you could ever anticipate. I did.

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Toronto, October 28, 8.10am

Last night, I did my daily workout at the Toronto Athletic Club. It’s an upscale gym whose members are drawn primarily from the surrounding downtown professional service community. Besides the gloomy atmosphere created by the TV report on the global stock-market meltdown, I also noted that there were less people working out. The usual  5.30pm rush wasn’t materializing. Could it be that people are less motivated to work out when they’re less motivated in general? Could it be that people  have less energy in a downturn? Do crises drain people of their discipline? When people are anxious, do they take less action?

Maybe. Determined action requires concentrated energy. If the energy is a function of the environment, then it will decline when the environment declines. Look around you. You’ll see there is less energy around. Worry wears away the spirit. Fear weighs us down. It’s hard to think, laugh and be creative when we’re focused on how-much-worse-it-will-get-before-it gets-better. The new normal is more sombre, sober and serious. It’s heads-down, not heads-up.

Here’s my message of the week: Brighten-up. It’s better than you think it is and you’re bigger than you think you are. The best performers are fuelled by an inner optimism, irrespective of circumstance. Obviously, boom times make it easier to be optimistic. When the tide is rising, everyone is lifted. It’s when the tide momentarily turns against us that we need to consciously dial up our commitment to being preeminent.

Preeminence means being the best that you can be in that moment. Some moments are more difficult than others. Your pre-eminence today may be different to your preeminence tomorrow. You take most out of the situations that take the most out of you. So wherever you are, be aware of who you are being. Be aware of how you’re acting. Be aware of what you’re saying. Be aware of your impact on others. Be aware of where you’re looking and what you’re finding.

Here are Lipkin’s Five Questions to help you trigger your pre-eminence:

·         Is this the best I can be right now?

·         Is this the most I can do right now?

·         Is this the most I can give right now?

·         Am I inspiring others right now?

·         What am I learning right now?

“Right Now” is the only thing that counts so make it count. If you want to stand out, be outstanding. Raise your energy, heighten your impact, expand your contribution. The wins will follow…

New York City, Sunday, October 19 2008, 10.50pm

Even the Motivator needs to be motivated. I just spent the weekend with 1000 people learning to reinvent myself, my business and my environment. Why? Because it’s going to be a long hard winter. The credit crisis is rippling out into the general economy. Trading conditions will get worse before they get better. The market for almost everything will shrink before it grows again.

So don’t bank on things getting better, bank on yourself getting better. I’m banking on things deteriorating. I’m preparing for the worst, while I prepare myself to be at my best. I’m pessimistic about the market but I’m optimistic about my ability to thrive in it. It’s the paradox called Pessimistic Optimism: anticipating negative external conditions, but expecting positive personal responses and results.

Does that make sense to you? Think about it: how could it help you by anticipating a brutally difficult environment over the next six months? What would you have to do to prepare yourself to be successful? How could you help the people around you do the same? How could you ensure your own peace of mind? How can you do your best work and achieve your best results ever? Who are the people you need to magnetize to you to attract success? These are the questions I’m asking myself.

And here’s Lipkin’s Top Ten List of Effective Actions to Thrive in Brutal Times:

1.      Be excited by your prize. Know what you want to achieve by April 30 2009. See it. Believe it. Achieve it. I want to deliver 60 seminars, talk to 50000 people and sell 25000 books. That’s massively motivational to me.

2.      Talk to as many people as possible and make every conversation count. Every meeting with every person needs to be a masterpiece. You need to earn the right to have another one. OPT – Other People’s Time is the ultimate resource that we’re all competing for.

3.      Accept the current reality. It is what it is. It’s tough. It could be painful. But it’s your life right now. Let go of the past so you can get where you’re going.

4.      Re-examine your value to the most valuable people in your life – your family, your friends, your colleagues, your customers, your community. Deepen it. Make it demonstrably superior to anything you delivered before. Tell people about how you’re raising your game. Dramatize your benefit to them. Be top of mind or you’ll be left behind.

5.      Learn exponentially. Discover the “Game-changers” that are reshaping your industry. Then master them. In my case, it’s insights into thriving in tough times, web deliveries, new media-management and highly effective team coaching. I’m pursuing pre-eminence in all these areas with a little help from my friends.

6.      Condition yourself to perform like Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods or Albert Einstein. See yourself as a world class athlete and train like that. I’m 50 and that’s how I’m training. Without wellbeing, nothing else works. Life is a mental, physical and emotional triathlon. You can’t finish if you’re not ready to start.

7.      Be grateful. Love who you have. Love what you have. Love the Power and the people that gave them to you. Love the struggle. Love the victories. Love the defeats. Love every breath. And spread it around.

8.      Be aware of yourself and your actions. Reward yourself when you’re being magnificent, repair yourself when you’re not. Be unfailingly courteous to others. Celebrate their success, coach their slip-ups. Be consciously compelling.

9.      Make every day your life in miniature. Chunk down. The past is a memory. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is magical. Relish it.

10.  Laugh about it now. Man’s wisdom is God’s folly. So don’t take yourself too seriously. Travel light.

Saskatoon, October 13 2008 11.35pm

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any wilder, it gets a whole lot weirder. From the insanity of Wall Street to the Fear on Main Street, the storm is shaking ALL of us to the core. Whether you’re a billionaire, a bureaucrat, or just Bob, you’re being forced to re-examine all that you’ve been told. The system is straining, the model is cracking, the ground is shaking. The unthinkable has never been so real. Panic is just a heartbeat away. I feel it as I write this. That’s WHY I’m writing this – to get the noise out my head so I can quiet my mind. The crazier it gets, the calmer I need to be. Anger, Anxiety, and Overwhelm need to be dissolved before they do some serious damage. Then again, I control them but only if I’m vigilant, and only if I have someone to watch over me.

It’s hurricane season for the foreseeable future. So don’t wait for it to end in order to feel safe. It’s tough, it’s dangerous, and it’s going to ask the impossible from you. But nothing ever happens that wasn’t supposed to happen. It’s called a “Correction”. We’re in an emergency and that’s when the solutions emerge. It’s not meant to be easy, it’s just meant to be.

Two days ago, I wasn’t as lucid as I am now. I found myself in the wrong place at the wrong time and I reacted the wrong way. I lost a major opportunity but I learnt a major lesson: my internal state determines my outer results. Anger, anxiety and overwhelm create external havoc, not the other way round. If you find the quiet space in your mind and the strong space in your heart, you’ll sail through the hurricane. But if you allow the hurricane to get inside you, you’re sunk. So the next time you come face to face with adversity, be quiet within. Breathe deep. Be certain that the certainty within you will shift your outer reality in your favour. Practice, practice, practice being vigilant and it will serve you well.

But you cannot do it alone. My wife, Hilary, and my children – Anthony, Carla and Dani – got me through this experience. They provided me with the tough love and perspective to let it go so I could move on. Tomorrow, I’m appearing in front of 4000 people in Saskatoon on behalf of the PowerWithin. I must be preeminent. I will be preeminent. With a little help from my friends.

Who are the people who will help you through the crises ahead? Who are the people you need to help? Are you the kind of partner they’re looking for? Can they count on you to stand tall and face the storm? You are only as strong as the people you run with. And they are only as strong as you. So be strong, live strong, finish strong. There’s no other way to be.