In insane times, be Insanely Great. Don’t be cowed by the crisis, be wowed by it.

Friday November 21 2008 – Air Canada Flight 847, somewhere between Munich and Toronto. 12pm EST

I’m into the seventh hour of a nine hour flight from Munich to Toronto.  I’ve just delivered a program to Deloitte, the global professional services firm, in Hamburg, Germany. My mission was to coach a group of managers and partners in the art of “Preeminent Conversation” – the kind of conversation that creates opportunities, inspires ideas and builds relationships.

It was a transformational experience – both for me and the group. For five hours, yesterday afternoon, we dialogued our way through the principles and insights that will expand our capacity to produce remarkable results with others. We began with a conversation around the global financial crisis. The same issues that haunt Canadians, haunt Germans, Italians, Hungarians, Poles and Rumanians, and all the other nationalities who were present. That’s the great thing about this global crisis – it’s utterly egalitarian. Everyone is being sucked into its downdraft. Whatever your pain, it’s being shared by about 6.5 billion other humans. The entire planet has become one big support group.

Frank Burkett, the Deloitte partner in charge of the event, was under pressure to cancel it to save costs. He refused. He knows that just one insight or distinction can make a huge difference. He understands that insane times demand Insanely Great performance. So what does “Insanely Great” look like for you? What would it take to make your customers, clients and colleagues recognize your contribution as “Insanely Great”? What are you doing to manifest “Insanely Great”?

You and I have a stark choice: we can choose to be cowed by the crisis. We can choose to constrain our “Personal Expenditure” in the face of the gathering storm. Or we can be wowed by the crisis. We can unleash our “Personal Expenditure”. What do I mean? I mean choose to bring out your best game for the biggest game you may ever get to play. This kind of perfect storm may only happen once in our lifetime. A Crisis this colossal is a terrible thing to waste. So don’t curse it. So don’t wish it away. It’s here and it’s here to stay for the foreseeable future.

The next few months will segment people into the new winners and losers. The winners will choose to find ways to be wowed by whatever happens around them. They will live in a state of opportunity consciousness. They will be scared but stimulated. They will reach out to others, and talk, and share, and listen, and give, and receive, and stretch, and imagine, and execute. They will do their best work ever. They will grow exponentially. They will develop the muscle to mojo their way through whatever is in their way.  The losers? Well, you know what they will do and you know where they will go.

For me, “Insanely Great” means making every seminar an experience that galvanizes my delegates into unprecedented action. It means pouring all of myself into every word in every conversation with every person. It means expanding the capacity of my clients and colleagues through powerful insights and perspective. It means being more physically, mentally and emotionally fit than I’ve ever been before. It means reading the news and reveling in it. It means reaching out to tens of prospects with ideas and invitations that whet their appetites and generate revenue. It means facing down my phantoms and savoring every private victory. It means scouting great talent and magnetizing it to me. It means motivating you to act now to be your own “Insanely Great”.

I have created a special program to help you be “Insanely Great”. Check it out on this site. It’s called “Reinvent Yourself For The Revolution”.

Finally, its appropriate that I’m writing this blog on my new MacBook Pro because it was Steve Jobs who coined the phrase “Insanely Great”. I’m going to do whatever it takes to live it. Join me…