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Scoring Success

Richard Becker

Ref. No. 708003sh
Length 50000 words

Summary

This unique book shows anyone how to concretely score their success, no matter what their dream is. This is the only how-to book that will show someone how to build a measurable, straight-forward plan to get them there. This book explores our inherent power to overcome limitations and capitalize on our strengths (and eliminate our weaknesses) to achieve our fullest potential by examining and planning out our ten critical life areas – values, emotional and physical health, intellectual growth, family life, friendships, love, career, finances and community service- because these facets are the key to Scoring Success.

From The Book

Richard Becker

Life Changing Activity Book

Scoring Success

How to Manage Your Life to Success

Copyright 2007

Table of Contents

Introduction 3

The Basics of Time Management 7

The Ten Critical Areas 15

Critical Area One --Values 16

Critical Area Two -- Emotional Stability 21

Critical Area Three – Physical Health 24

Critical Area Four -- Intellectual Growth 26

Critical Area Five -- Family 27

Heirloom Knowledge 30

Critical Area Six -- Friends 40

Critical Area Seven – Love Relationships 42

Critical Area Nine – Finances 57

Critical Area Ten – Community 67

Boil Down Summary- Boiling It Down 69

Summary- Boiling It Down 70

The Action Plan Action Tactics 80

Action Tactics 81

Scorecards 94

Confessional Theory 100

Mentors 102

Appendix: Personality 106

Analysis 106

Relating to the Enthusiast 116

Note to the Enthusiast 116

Relating to the Thinker 117

A Note to the Thinker 117

Relating to the Pleaser 117

Note to the Pleaser 118

Introduction

He who plans a thing will be successful... -- Proverbs 16:20

I traveled to Nacogdoches, Texas to meet with a client. Instead of talking to me, he talked to customers on the phone. “Let me see what we’ve got here.” He clicked away on his computer looking up some auto part. “93 Geo Prizm alternator...Lot 42...I’ve got five of them, how many do you need?” He could not seem to interrupt his busy day to save himself.

As he completed the order, the man shrugged and smiled at me as if to say, “What can I do?”

After the phone call, I asked him, “Do those people work here?” I pointed to the counter where four employees have been idly standing by for the past thirty minutes. As I finished my question, another call was transferred to his office, and he held up his hand as he picked up the phone again. The client smiled helplessly. I understand. Helping is my business. When he finished, I assured him that his place would not burn down, and we went out for breakfast.

We talked for an hour, and I learned that my client had no plans or goals. He had close to $2 million in sales, worked 100 hours a week, supporting a family of four drawing a salary of $35,000 a year. But he had no plans or goals. The family suffered from his absence. Their last vacation was seven years ago. In addition, the $500,000 loan he borrowed from his family had not been paid down at all. With his business and his life, he was failing.

My friend from Nacogdoches is not unusual. I see more than one hundred people like him a year. My diagnosis of their troubles always includes disorganization and poor time management. You cannot build without these basic tools for success. Each one of these clients commonly lacks goals, the plans to achieve them and a system to control and monitor their success. Developing these, specific to individual circumstances, are necessary and changing elements of doing business well. Success will inevitably follow.

Why are this man and so many others not scoring success?

The answer, seemingly simplistic, is because they do not plan to accomplish their dreams, or as the old cliché warns: “Without a plan, you fail.” Shockingly, most individuals and businesses have no formal plans. They operate with a survival-orientation rather than a success-orientation focusing on the day-to-day crises rather than a future agenda. Long term planning directs growth, and without it you will simply survive the crisis of the day rather than moving your business and success to the next level.

The goal of this workbook is to teach you to direct business to score success just as the name predicts. This is not an experiment but a proven business achievement. Thoughtful questions explore and move people toward what they want to do (success thinking), rather than doing what they have to do (survival thinking). You will learn to run your life instead of your life running you.

As you work your way through the book, you will evaluate your combined personal and business life to develop a clear picture of who you are and where you are going. Answers to this dialogue will be the tools for achieving that end. You will use a scoring system to evaluate your current situation. With that information, you will devise action plans to eliminate procrastination and improve communication with associations which create results. At the end of these exercises, you will have defined your path and own a weekly system to monitor your progress.

How does the scoring figure into it?

The scoring system is goal-oriented and activity-centered to aid in monitoring your performance. The plan you develop will be like a road map, showing you how to get from Point A to Point B. On a scale of 1-100, you will know where you are on the map and where you should be. By identifying what is taking you off course, you can act effectively to get back on that road to prosperity.

Tools developed from these exercises encourage success seekers to speed toward desired goals. It is the difference between taking a plane or a car. The choices available to you enable you to fly toward success rather than cruise at driving speed. The bonus is that not only will your business life improve, but you will regenerate every aspect of your life.

Where do I begin?

We will examine ten critical areas. They are the crux of who you are and what can motivate change within you. These areas are: values, emotional health, physical health, intellectual growth, family life, friendships, love, career, finances and community service.

The process may appear daunting. Examining oneself is a demanding process, but it is also stimulating and fun, and can lead you to discover innovative ideas that will help you get more out of life.

The questions in the workbook analysis section will bring out your personal strengths, weaknesses, and objectives to reveal the strategy for accomplishing what you want. This strategy will utilize inherent power to overcome personal shortcomings, along with suggested tools and rules. The final section creates realistic plans and timeframes for accomplishing goals. Here a mentor is suggested as a means to show you how to achieve better results by modeling effectiveness and by holding you accountable. Think of yourself as interning to an inspired life. As long as your plan is realistic and your performance monitored, success will follow.

This book is intended to be a workbook, therefore, we have left plenty of space for the reader in which to write notes and complete the exercises. Activities abound throughout, and I encourage you to write, dream, plan and dedicate these open spaces to achieving what you will discover within you. This is an activity book. I hope it actively engages you.

You will find an Appendix at the rear of the workbook. This section contains in-depth descriptions and exercises to help foster better feedback and communication between your mentors and your peers. As a group, I wholeheartedly encourage you to mentor each other while exploring these exercises. They will teach simple ways to facilitate active, positive dialogue that will spur each member to accomplish his or her goals.

I would like to offer some words of encouragement for the journey you are about to take – small steps accomplish radical changes. Zig Ziglar, who began as a salesman and grew to be a motivational speaker and author said, “The difference between the scholarship student and the student who passes is just ten minutes of studying a day. The difference between a superstar and an average athlete is just four more wind sprints, another half-mile run, or six to eight more weight-lifting repetitions.” I tell you, the difference between success and failure lies in a few hours of planning. Plan!

The Basics of Time Management

‘I don’t have time,’ is the single most frequently given reason for living fractional, perpetually indentured lives, for not living fully or freely. Because time is life, when we say we don’t have enough time, we are admitting we don’t have enough life.

-- Sonia Johnson

All people have the same amount of time. It is how they use it that differs. Understanding where our time goes is vital to understanding our individual time inefficiencies. Effective use of time requires personal management. This is managing oneself in relation to the clock.

It’s About Time

Time is a finite resource, spent much like money. Imagine that your bank credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day-to-day, and every evening, it deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use. What would you do? Draw out every cent of course!

Each of us has such a bank account –TIME. Every morning, life credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off as lost, whatever you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft. Each day, it opens for business and each night it burns the remains of the day. The loss is yours.

What is the significance of time?

An anonymous write said, “To realize the value of:

ONE YEAR, ask a student who failed a grade.

ONE MONTH, ask a mother who gave birth prematurely.

ONE WEEK, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.

ONE DAY, ask a daily wage earner with kids to feed.

ONE HOUR, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.

ONE MINUTE, ask a person who just missed the train.

ONE SECOND, ask a person who just avoided an accident.

ONE MILLISECOND, ask the Olympic athlete with the silver medal.”

Time and its losses are personal. Spend time wisely, crediting each day with health, happiness and success. Time management is not just about business, it is a life skill. Joan Rivers once said, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is God’s gift, that’s why we call it the present.”

The clock is running, but how do I keep time from running away?

Most of my clients spend the majority of their time “putting out fires.” This crisis-oriented modus operandi is an unsystematic approach, smothering current problems while ignoring the source of the flare-ups. The daily fires are merely a symptom, not the cause of time burn-out.

The task is to focus on your reality and shape your priorities to realize your dreams. This is Success Mentality. It centers on doing what you want or need to do rather than the fireman’s Survival Mentality of doing what they have to do and hoping there is time leftover at the end of the day to do what they want. It is about making choices that deliver your desired quality of life.

(Insert time diagram)

The diagram below is a representation of Stephen Covey’s Quadrant Theory. Try portioning your daily activities into the boxes and see where the balance of your day is spent, or perhaps, where it should be spent.

(Insert quadrant diagram)

Most people find themselves caught up in Quadrants I & III because of their apparent immediacy. The time sensitivity of these areas promotes an illusory progress that feels like work. Quadrant IV is champion of procrastination and just plain goofing off. This is not to be confused with a round of golf or spending time with your family. This is truly lost time. Stephen Covey points out that savvy people spend their time in Quadrant II concentrating on projects and tasks – a place of hard work with no structure or deadlines. These need to come from you. Time is one of the most basic, vital and valuable human resources. However, time moves forward. You cannot stop or rewind its passage, but you do hold the key to properly managing it so that it works for you and not against you.

First things first…Are you wasting the hours on your timesheet?

Do you have prime time TV’s schedule memorized?

Do you set unrealistic deadlines?

Are you fatigued from busy work?

Do you delegate without giving others the authority to act?

Is your attitude negative?

Do you blame other people for your mistakes?

Are you able to forgive and move on?

When 45 % of our day is spent listening to others, do you listen to input from others to get it right the first time?

Are you over committed?

Do you keep meetings short?

Do you stick to your priorities?

Is the phone a tool for keeping conversations focused?

Are you hiding behind piles of organized clutter?

Do you prioritize your daily activities?

Procrastination

The results of a five-year study on procrastination are available five years behind schedule!

Piers Steel, a Canadian industrial psychologist, concluded in 2007, even by his own example that procrastination is on the rise. In his 30-page study at the University of Calgary, he said, “In 1978 only about 5 percent of the American public saw themselves as chronic procrastinators; now it is 26 percent.”

Procrastination is a reasonable worry with costly results. With too many ways to kill time –television, Web-surfing, iPods, Blackberries and email – fun is just a click away. The financial fallout adds up when the average cost of filing a delayed tax return is $400 and last-minute credit purchases for holiday gifts rose five fold in the ten years ending in 2000. Who is wasting all this time? 54 out of 100 chronic procrastinators are men, and the young are more likely than the old to wait.

Procrastination creates other problems as well. “People who procrastinate tend to be less healthy, less wealthy and less happy,” Steel said. The causes of procrastination combine temptation, immediacy, job worth, and belief in competency. Temptation is the siren call – and its voice is louder than ever in today’s world – and is the explanation for why the habit grows worse over time.

Knowing you suffer from this is the first step to correcting it. Studying procrastination had a positive effect on Steel’s own problem, and his sheepish admission that completion of his study took twice as long as he had planned underlines the scale of effect. It takes time to fix our use of time. “Something needs to be done about it sooner, than later,” he said as a warning to all.

Do you suffer from procrastination and indecision? It is not a question of laziness or inefficiency. The underlying cause varies from person to person. Some people procrastinate because they fear failure. “If I worked at the tasks given to me, I might find that I am not as good at them as I thought. I might fail.” Others avoid commitment. “If I commit, it might be to the wrong thing.” Or, “People will have high expectations of me.” Some tease themselves with the thrill of the challenge. “I work better under pressure.” But it might be a battle for direction. “By procrastinating, I gain some measure of control over my work.”

Do any of these apply to you? None of the reasons given justify procrastination. Procrastination is avoidance, whether it is avoiding a perceived outcome, or avoiding trying and failing. It is not healthy and will not help you reach your goals. Consider the questions that follow to assess your helpless desire to pull back on the hands of time.

Managers’ To-Do

Do you select qualified people for the task?

Are your expectations clear?

Do you honor someone’s ability to carry out the task?

Do you secure a commitment for follow-through?

Do you negotiate deadlines?

Do you provide latitude for imagination and initiative?

Do you perform the job for them?

Do you reward results?

Everyone’s How-To

How have you managed your time in the past?

How have you created optimal time usage in the past?

How did this impact your future?

Can you draw up an action plan?

How do you achieve your goals?

How did you spend your 86,400 seconds today?

How will you spend the next week? Month? Year?

The answers to these questions lead to an analysis of your time. The idea is to optimize it. Time is not a reproducible commodity. You cannot just manufacture more when you run out.

Optimal Activity Analysis

In the pages ahead, you will learn in detail how to assess the ten critical elements of a vital life. If you view the span of your adult life, the patterns will reveal optimal moments and life’s storms. Of course, this exercise will also reveal festering bad habits or the experience gained from lessons learned.

Look at the spreadsheet on the following page. Use the following criteria for the ten critical areas to assign a value to complete your own spreadsheet analysis. Numbers on a 0 to 10 scale, with 10 as the highest rating, will be used to evaluate the recent and distant past, present and forecast for the future. For all ten areas, enter them on your personal chart. As you review, your health may shine in some years and your career in others, but be honest. This is not a test, but an honest and often humbling self-reflection and assessment.

Let’s look at the example on the next page and read the first critical area. This is data for a 40-year old, looking back and planning for tomorrow. Reading across each line looks like this: 15 years ago -- 8; 10 years ago -- 2; 5 years ago -- 6; today -- 10; future goal – 10. Enter your numbers likewise on the blank spreadsheet including your rank for best year (Life Best) in that column. Continue entering data for each of the other critical areas in the same way. After completing the chart, the next chapter will explain how to make the most of your resources at any age or stage of life.

1. Values. Enter the number of hours per month that you do something based on your values like go to church, temple, etc. for each time frame.

2. Emotional stability. List the ten worst times of your life. These are the top ten traumatic events in your life such as a job loss, divorce, illness or bankruptcy. They are times in your life that caused emotional stress. If any of these events is current to each respective time frame, subtract 1 point for each event.

Worst times of your life

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

3. Health. Enter the number of hours you exercise per week. Exercise is defined as anything from an evening walk to a work out at the gym. Include anything that is appropriate to your individual physical condition or regime that is planned- meaning any exercise done that is outside your normal work routine.

4. Intellectual Growth. Enter the number of hours per week that you spend studying, reading or pursuing new knowledge.

5. Family. Enter the number of hours per month that you spend with your family.

6. Friends. Enter the number of hours per week that you spend with your friends.

7. Love Relationships. Enter the number of hours spent alone with your significant other per week. If you do not or did not have a significant other during a specific time frame, enter 0.

8. Career. Use the following work chart:

40-44 hours/week, enter 10

36-39 or 45-48 hours/week, enter 9

32-35 or 49-52 hours/week, enter 8

28-31 or 53-56 hours/week, enter 7

24-27 or 57-60 hours/week, enter 6

20-23 or 61-64 hours/week, enter 5

16-19 or 65-68 hours/week, enter 4

12-15 or 69-72 hours/week, enter 3

8-11 or 73-76 hours/week, enter 2

4-7 or 77-80 hours/week, enter 1

0-3 or 81+ hours/week, enter 0.

You will notice that the person that does not put his or her nose to the grindstone ranks equally low with the proverbial Jack who is all work and no play.

9. Finances. Divide your salary and/or total wages for each category by 10,000 and enter the number. If that number is not appropriate for your situation, i.e. you are making more than $120,000 per year, raise the divisor to equate an optimal number.

10. Contribution to your community. Enter the number of hours you spend a month improving the world in which we live.

Optimum Activity Levels- Example

(Insert Optimum Activity Sample Card Diagram)

Opportunity

Opportunity is always available to us, but we need to recognize it in our midst. The chart will help us with that.

Now that all your numbers have been entered, follow the example as I explain how to read your own chart. Each personal column is added up, and the sum for each column goes in the Actual Activity box. These numbers, taking stock of different periods in our life, represent the measure of fullness of your life. A higher number means a fuller life. Now, take a highlighter to the highest number attained in each of your categories, and enter each one into the Life Best field. Add those numbers up, and the sum will be your Potential Activity level. Enter this same Potential Activity number across the board to represent your compilation of Life’s Bests. This is your comparison for what you are capable of at your very best moments versus what you actually managed for these points in your life.

Where there is opportunity, there is the potential for loss. Subtracting the Actual Activity from the Potential Activity will give you the lost opportunity costs for each time frame in your life.

You can calculate the Average Lost Life opportunity by adding the numbers up for each column and dividing by the number of columns that you filled out. The result is the average time wasted everyday, every week and every year of your life. Don’t be discouraged. This is your room for improvement.

If you’re feeling thick-skinned, take the average lost life opportunity and multiply it by your age. This number will tell you how many years of your life have been potentially wasted so far. Imagine what you could have accomplished if you had been focused! So, how will you spend your tomorrows? That comes next through study in The Ten Critical Areas.

Optimum Activity Levels

(Insert Blank Optimum Activity Card Diagram)

The Ten Critical Areas

Critical Area One --Values

Entrust your works to the Lord, and your plans will succeed. -- Proverbs 16:3

Most people equate values with a spiritual or moral background. There are virtues that create a safe, universal community. Values espoused by every culture and religion overlap in scope to enhance and shape our nature.

Values find their voice in different ways. The most prevalent statement in our culture is the Ten Commandments. But some have been around even longer, like the Buddhists’ Eightfold Noble Paths or Confucianism’s Five Relationships. Some people find their truth in a modern essay like All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum. For most, religion dictates their values, beliefs and faith. This forms the individual reliability of our character.

However we define personal values, they inevitably define us. They determine our goals, our associations through faith and our activities within that community. Like a lode of ore in the earth, our values run deep within us, affecting the kind of person we are, our direction, and those we choose for relationships. Formalizing these values tells the world who you are, how you define success and how others can relate to you.

This section is key to your plan for your entire life! By defining our essence, we expose limiting facets of our life, and shine the light on the greatest potential for our personal success. Focus is achievable, and with focused efforts, timely, positive results occur. You are driving with a map to the destination of your choosing.

Current trends market a culture that embraces a kind of “Goldilocks faith”. Praising acceptance above all, it serves up a bowl of lukewarm mush that is supposedly just right for everyone. But statistics tell a different story about those finding their value system. Numbers in mainline denominations are dwindling as disaffected young people turn away from this kind of watered-down faith. In fact, the fastest-growing communities today adhere to clear standards of right and wrong.

Objective values common to all faiths include: honesty, kindness, consideration, compassion, obedience, responsibility, respect and duty. Contemplate your answers to the list that follows.

What do you believe in?

What are your priorities?

What is the most important thing in life?

What do you cherish most in others?

What don’t you believe in?

What are the restraining arms of your moral code?

Are you apt to violate these tenets of faith?

What are your spiritual goals?

Do you have spiritual leadership you respect?

Do you pray? Meditate?

Do you gather with a community of faith?

Do you have an accountability partner in faith?

Are you involved in spiritual activities outside of worship?

Are you in need of further personal development?

After thinking through the guiding questions, create a list of your personal values. From this list, develop your personal doctrine of faith/belief. Take your time as this will be your map for the way forward.

About The Author

Becker worked for the Japanese Ministries of Home Affairs, Foreign Affairs and Education. He has been a turnaround specialist for several big names like Burger King, Burlington Freight, and Hammond Candies. He has been involved in the private family businesses of former Vice President Gore and President Bush as well.

Copyright 2007-2008, Richard Becker (Expires July 30, 2008)

To request information on this author or a manuscript contact the listed agent or e-mail: dbooth@authorlink.com

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