Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan agreed in writing in a “relationship agreement” before they were married to spend 100 minutes of alone time with each other each week away from work.

Rapper Jay-Z and singer/wife Beyonce have a pre-nup in which she earns $5 million for each child they have together. It’s not the money. They are worth over $1 billion together. It’s about placing yet another value on becoming a parent.

Actress Nicole Kidman and singer Keith Urban have a pre-nup in which Urban gets $600,000 for every year he remains narcotics and alcohol free.

Jessica Biel receives $500,000 if Justin Timberlake cheats. They are worth $248 million together.

This is not about the money. It’s about goals.

When goals are clearly stated whether they are in “relationship agreements”, pre-nuptials, employment contracts or even Valentine “I Love You cards”, they have the best chance of success.

Imagine trying to solve a problem without stating specifically what the problem is.

Goals cannot be reached unless they are assigned a value and committed in a document as a blueprint for success.

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Do it sooner than promised.

Exceed expectations.

If you buy a product from Apple on back order, they always promise a drop-dead date that they will exceed.

When my new iPhone arrives weeks ahead of that date, Apple makes me happy to be spending more money than you probably should.

Your son will be happy when you not only keep a promise but double down on it.

Do something sooner than promised for a spouse or partner.

Your boss will be elated if you deliver the project ahead of schedule and better than expected.

No need to take courses on how to win friends when the answer is looking right at us.

Be first.

Be fast.

Be sooner than expected. 

An early New Year’s resolution all of us would be wise not to break.

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Burger King did an amazing video in which they bullied a Whopper and more people came to the defense of the burger than they did on people who were getting bullied in one of their restaurants.

Over 3 million people have seen this video.

It shows the importance of speaking up.

95% reported the Whopper being bullied and far fewer would stand up for a person on the receiving end of insults.

To fight bullying, speak up.

See something.

Say something.

Bullying is not okay and it can’t persist if we speak up about it.

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Most of us know what we want but spend a lot of valuable time and effort talking ourselves out of it.

If you know what you want, hit the Start Button today.

A new job? 

Within the hour, start the ball rolling.

Want out of a toxic relationship?  

Draw the line now and don’t back off.

Spend more time with the family?

Go home tonight, turn the phone off and do several things you have not had the time to do together.

Unhappy?

Before the day is done, book an appointment with a counselor and start real change.

Feel guilty?

Forgive yourself but don’t forget what you have to work on.

Resentful and bitter?

Let it go today before the resentment you despise becomes part of you.

See the Start Button in your mind’s eye and use it often to bring about real change.

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There is no shortcut to success and happiness.

Look at all those “poor” lottery winners who wind up broke and friendless after thinking they got “lucky”.

The new lucky is adversity.

From adversity, we test how deeply we really want something – how hard we are willing to work for it.  If there is a point where we give up, then we didn’t want it that badly after all.

That’s as valuable as knowing what we want and what we don’t want.

By having to spend years or even a lifetime in pursuit of what we want, we guarantee that we will eventually make our own good luck.

Often what we want is not really what we want.

All I ever wanted to be was a radio program director and spent many years enjoying that career.  But adversity called me to a broader canvas where I could have an even greater impact and reward.

Who knew?

Time allows us to know ourselves.

Test ourselves.

And discover the biggest lesson of success:

Adversity introduces a person to him or herself and to those around them

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We’re developing a fear of the phone.

We resent voicemail messages.

Answer calls with a text or email instead of a return call.

Pour our hearts out to Apple Mail or Outlook, but can’t look into the eyes of the person our feelings are intended for.

Phone calls eat valuable time – or so that is the excuse.

Entire lives are being conducted on social media, chat and email without the benefit of hearing a human response.

If you were to die tomorrow, would the people who care about you wish they could have just one more email from you or would they long for the sound of your voice?

Social media is not a substitution for calls and in person contact.

Fear of confronting others, revealing our thoughts and feelings and replacing them with emoji’s and incomplete phrases can be treated.

The phone is a tool.  Texting is an aid.  Social media is the dessert, not the meal.

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Most relationships are and have been broken at some point.  It’s the way we deal with them that makes the difference.

When a relationship has been breached, work to objectively find out the specific reason.

Spending time and effort to fix something that is not the problem breeds further resentment.

Families go through ups and downs but they have a magic staying power that keeps members together even in difficult times.

The magic formula for fixing broken relationships:

1. Be certain you know the “problem” and be able to articulate it with the other person.
2. Spend all efforts on the recognized problem with great focus and hard work.  

Fixing broken relationships can actually strengthen them and you, as an individual.

What’s worth having may be worth the price to focus on it for the rest of your life.

But that decision is a personal one.

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Acknowledging others takes so little effort and requires no special skills and yet it is a powerful way to win friends and inspire interaction.

So why don’t we do it?

We’re turned inward looking down at phones and navigating the black hole of social media where it is easy to get lost and miss the world around us.

Ways to acknowledge people:

• Smile without doing anything else
• Pay a compliment
• Show a courtesy (“please, go first”, “you’ve been waiting, step ahead of me”)
• Put your phone away and start a conversation
• Offer to help

People want no more than to be acknowledged.

And if you thought I was referring only to strangers (above), go through the bulleted points again and see how they can apply to friends, family members and associates.

To be a powerful person, engage in the skill of recognizing them in real time.

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The average white-collar worker spends a whopping 6 hours a day on email according to an Adobe workplace survey.

And that’s without counting other distractions – just straight email time.

Focus is the skill you want to excel in the workplace and outperform others.  The person who can eliminate attention leaks is likely to be the most employable.

Ways to cut off attention leaks:

• Turn off notifications – You’ll just keep going with distractions if you see them pop up all the time on devices.
• Too much information hurts – We become overcome with too much information and anything additional tends to slip away from our brains – a good reason not to keep bombarding yourself with information of all kinds while trying to work.
• Multitasking is an attention leak – More useful is to prioritize the 20% of what you have to do which will bring you 80% of your productivity.  Do less to accomplish more and plug the attention leaks.
• Limit focused time – Pick a time period – say an hour – when you can focus on your work, plug attention leaks and minimize the flow of too much information.  Then take a break.
• Don’t think – When I face a problem, I try to erase everything and keep the mind blank and sure enough the answer rises to the top effortlessly.

Attention can be cultivated but without exercise, it becomes inefficient and non-productive.

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They talk endlessly about themselves almost as if you don’t exist.

When you do talk, they lose focus.

They emphasize with themselves not others.

1. Cut off the oxygen.  Your attention is their oxygen.
2. If they don’t ask about you, why continue to feed their self-absorption.
3. They get no pass even if they are family members.  Even being in the same room or same chat with a person who makes it all about them is you encouraging them to continue.
4. Reward people who focus on you by asking them questions about them or as it used to be called “a conversation”.

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