A Place in Time

Posted on May 25, 2009 by pdncoach

by Mark Sturgell

I am going to focus on sales professionals today, as an example, but this message is for everyone. This is about me…and you, too.


Sales professionals have the potential to live, work and produce in three dimensions: Time, Space and Spirit. Actually, we are limited to three Space dimensions, which simply means we can only be in one place at a time. We are limited to one time dimension, which means we are stuck in the moment (more on this in a moment!). So when you add my suggested Spirit dimension, you might say we live in five dimensions, but that may be too grandiose for us practical salespeople.


We have production issues

It’s that production issue that is on the minds of most salespeople, nearly all the time. Sales professionals, fund raisers, and anyone else who depends on our own actions and on the decisions made by other people (hint: all of us) – we have production issues. We need to meet quota; we want to pay for the family’s prized vacation; we want to earn the respect and admiration of our colleagues and customers; the roof is leaking and the kids are hungry; we need to produce…

Production, or at least the rewards of productivity, is important to all of us.

Time is linear. We have no control over time. Each of us has 24 hours in each day. That will not change. There is no such thing as time management. We have the moment – this moment – to work with. We have Now. That’s all we own, all we are given true stewardship over. We cannot travel into the past or the future, even for a moment. This one is all we have. We can use our moment to plan our day, our week or our year, but we cannot do or live our year in the moment. We can use our moment to regret or celebrate our past, but we cannot do or live in our past.

Time is only as powerful and productive as the activity and Purpose we put into the moment. Time is God’s domain. He gives us moments.

Space is where we have our freedom. We get to move around. We can move up; we can move down; we can do the Hokey-Pokey and turn ourselves around (ever wonder what inspired our company logo here at Performance Development Network?). Space is the dimension in which we can exert our will the most. But we can only be in one space at a time, so choices are important.


Finally, there is what I call the dimension of Spirit. This is the dimension that most affects what we experience or cause others to experience with our space and time. This is what defines our moments. Spirit determines the nature of our activity and Purpose in our moment of Space and Time. Spirit is about intention or lack of intention.


Who am I? What do I want? Where shall I be? How do I feel? When shall I make my move? Why does everyone keep picking on me? These are the questions of Spirit. What I am doing right here, right now (in my moment) that will make the kind of difference I most desire in my next moment?


Spirit is the difference between living and enduring our moments. Spirit breathes life into Purpose. I pray you have a Holy Spirit breathing into your Purpose.


Stand up. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Relax… Now open your eyes.


So, you say you want to increase your sales, bring home more bacon, be awarded the Employee of the Year parking space?

What Purpose will shape your activity in the next moment?


Welcome to The Intersection of Purpose and Now.

Join me at the Intersection of Purpose & Now.
Posted in focus, Mark Sturgell, productivity, Purpose, sales | Leave a comment

Bullies in the Work Place

Posted on May 21, 2009 by pdncoach

By Becky Morris

Run into any bullies recently?

Maybe I have been living under a rock, but for some reason I always related bullying to the school playground, not to the corporate world. Recently, a friend was describing a situation in his organization that involves a bully. As the conversation continued it struck me how painful, frustrating and confusing this situation was to my friend. The most amazing part of his story was that this was not a one-time occurrence. The bully struck often, chose many different targets, usually landed “direct hits” and no one seemed to be doing anything about it. The advised response was to just “learn how to deal with it” because the issue and the individual (bully) was not going to be addressed.

The conversation with my friend got me thinking more about bullies. I wonder: How should you respond to bullies, especially if you are not in the position or have the authority to implement any discipline?

In researching this topic, I found an article called “How To Deal with an Adult Bully” by Dr. Anthony Fiore, “The Anger Coach“, that has some good insight into how to deal with a bully. I encourage you to read the full article, but here is my synopsis of what Dr. Fiore surmises from a particular case study.

Tactics Of The Adult Bully
“…emotional bullying occurs when someone tries to gain control by making others feel angry or afraid.” Bullying is often characterized by yelling, name-calling, sarcasm, mocking, putting down, belittling, embarrassing or just physically or verbally intimidating behaviors.

Bullies Often Have Personality Disorder
Bullies have a deep sense of insecurity about themselves. They completely lack empathy or the ability to perceive how they are negatively affecting others. They honestly don’t see themselves as the problem and are constantly in dismay when others around them are devastated or offended by their behavior.

Can Bullies Change?
Dr. Fiore states that, while research shows that “most bullies are unable to make deep changes to their personality, they are sometimes able to modify their behavior to the extent that they are more tolerable. Usually, the motivation to change is inspired by outside influences such as employers, spouses, or children.”

Four Ways To Cope
Dr. Fiore recommends the following responses to bullying:

  • Focus on the positive attributes of the bully and try to ignore the negative parts.
  • Be confident and look your bully in the eye. Speak in a calm and clear voice while asserting yourself by naming the behavior you don’t like and state what is expected instead.
  • Create a distraction or change the subject. Try using humor or a well chosen word to disarm the bully.
  • Give the bully’s ego what it needs.

So the next time you encounter the “bully” keep these tips in mind. You cannot control the behavior of others. However, you can control your own response.

Just for fun, watch “Mr. Monk and the Bully“, episode from the USA series “Monk”. Use the link below.

http://www.hulu.com/widget/embed/videopanel

Join me at the Intersection of Purpose & Now.
Posted in Becky Morris, bullies, Bully | Leave a comment

You Can’t Do Anything with a Broken "Want to" – Part Two

Posted on May 20, 2009 by pdncoach

by Mark Sturgell

At the heart of everything we do at Performance Development Network is the goal of helping people who dream become leaders with vision. At the heart of living at The Intersection of Purpose and Now is becoming a leader with vision.

No matter if you have followers or not; we’re talking about whether you have set a purposeful direction for your own life that you can follow…if you do, the followers will come. What is your vision for a significant life? Your vision for how your authentic self-expression adds value through your relationships with others? Your vision for how you serve a purpose greater than your day-to-day living might currently be about? Your vision for what you want? Your vision for where you are going? Your vision for the person you are becoming? Your vision for an On-Purpose life?

So we are spending some time on our dreams – your dreams. Yesterday, I shared the Lesson of Dreaming Big since so many people have too few dreams or dream small. Your fieldwork was to begin your personal Dream Inventory of at least 100 dreams, and I gave you a couple of Dream Stimulation tools to get you going in the absence of having a professional coach.

Today, we get to the core of why some people live out their dreams – and why some do not. This is true regardless of whether your dreams are few or many, small or big.

Lesson 2 – Dream with a Powerful, Personal “Want to”
For a moment, think of a place you have never been but you REALLY want to go. (A tangible, real location on this earth, if you will.) Now ask yourself, if you REALLY want to go to this place, what is keeping you from going? Nothing? Think again, or put it this way: if you REALLY want to go, then why haven’t you already gone?

Now you are probably thinking of answers like these: money, time, family issues, fear, courage, other priorities, procrastination, lack of a plan, haven’t scheduled anything…or maybe a lack of desire. In other words, you haven’t gone because you just haven’t solved a variety of roadblocks, you don’t have a plan, or you lack real desire – you have a broken “Want to”.

Now consider one of your dreams you have listed already in your Dream Inventory. Choose one that seems important to you, at least for now. Turn your dream into a goal. I realize goal-setting is a whole other skill set that I’m not covering here, but make sure you state your dream as something specific that you can achieve with some effort and you give yourself a target date for achieving it. Ask yourself the following and similar questions:

  • How will my life be different if I achieve this dream?
  • What are the personal rewards I will experience if I achieve this dream?
  • What if I don’t pursue or achieve this dream: so what?
  • What are the consequences if I do not achieve this dream?

These will get you started on answering the key questions of:

“Why is this my dream?”
“Is this REALLY a goal that I am willing to pursue?”
“Am I willing to overcome great difficulties to accomplish this goal?”

You see, if you have a dream, yet when someone challenges you or asks you “Why that dream?” and you don’t or can’t go on into great detail of why and how you must pursue this…then you may be suffering from a “Broken Want to”.

If you really want something, you will have a passionate story to tell about why you want it and vivid description of what having or achieving it will be like for you.


We see “Broken Want tos” at work all the time. We are given goals to achieve by someone else – parents, teachers, spouses, supervisors – and our hearts just are not “into it”.

How to Fix a Broken “Want to”
There are several ways to fix a “Broken Want to”. Here are the basics. First, once you have that inventory of your 100+ dreams completed, set up a tournament much like the NCAA basketball tournament pairings that come out each March. Pair up your dreams “against” each other and ask this question to determine the winner of each round: Which one is most important to me now?

Keep this up until you come up with an overall winner. This won’t be easy, by the way. If you have earnestly made a list of dreams you truly want to have, do and become, you will be making difficult choices to come up with one winner. For now, though, that’s your task. Determine one winning dream for now.

Got it? Now turn that dream into a tangible, achievable, specific goal with a target date to achieve it. You may even struggle at this point – your dream may be the culmination of many goals. Select one and go for it. If you’re still struggling, consider hiring a coach or feel free to email me at askthecoach@pdncoach.com.

Several things may happen at this point: You may find an obstacle you cannot overcome; in that case, you may have to adjust your goal. You may find yourself procrastinating, putting off key actions that you know must occur to achieve your dream/goal; in that case, you probably have a broken “Want to”, so review the “Why” questions you asked yourself earlier. Or, if you have addressed your obstacles and fixed any broken “Want to” issues, you may find yourself passionately in pursuit of a dream once deferred.

Sweet dreams.

Join me at the Intersection of Purpose & Now.
Posted in dreams, goals, Purpose, vision | Leave a comment