“Bring the past only if you are going to build from it.”  ~Doménico Cieri Estrada 

When I first started giving this seminar that I call “The Annual Goal Setting Process”, I did not include any material on changing or using our pasts.  This is partially a bias of mine – I personally love to spend time in my present and I love to spend time planning and creating my ideal future.  Also, goals and goal achievement tend to be naturally forward looking.

And the seminar was just fine without talking much about the past.  People enjoyed it, they learned from it, they told me how much attending had changed their lives. So why are we going to talk about the past today?  Because of my feedback sheet.

I give each of my seminar attendees a form that I encourage, plead and beg really, for them to fill out after the seminar is completed.  They can fill it out right away or mail it or fill it out and email it – as long as they get it back to me!  I ask for positive feedback and I ask for negative feedback – this is the hardest to get and by far the most valuable.  In fact, right now, as you are listening and watching me, I am intending that you are seeing yourself filling out this form when our time is over today! 

To be continued…

Bye for now…Jack

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Juice Fasting Update

This is day thirty of my juice fast – although it is now a modified fast for a few more days.  I injured my back working out earlier this week and I was not recovering.  I guessed that I did not have enough protein intake to recover in any reasonable time while juice fasting and so three days ago I added some whey protein to my diet – about ninety grams of quality protein daily.  This has completely stopped my weight loss, but my back is healing very nicely.  I think I can go back to my “pure” juice fast in just a few more days.  I also think that I am adding back muscle mass that I had been slowly losing, certainly I feel much more solid, and I have not added back any weight.  I am hoping that this little break will actually restart me on another cycle of quick weight loss and should also reduce some of the weight spring-back potential that I have been worried about happening when I finally end this juice fasting adventure. 

“Excessive time and attention put into your past is energy you are stealing from your future.” ~Jack Bergstrom

“You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true.  You may have to work for it however” ~Richard Bach

 Today is a further continuation of my virtual seminar that I am creating for us both.  Be sure to read the last few posts as well as this one to get up to date – it will be worth your time.

“Here is our agenda for today:

1) We are going to start with an exercise called “Putting the Past Behind Us”.

2) Then, a brief and powerful Networking Training session.  Unless your goals are very small, you will never accomplish them by yourself.

3) Next, we’ll continue our goal setting session by creating an inventory of your dreams.

4) Then, I’m going to ask you a stimulating and unusual series of questions designed to further define and refine your goals.

5) Next, we will do an exercise called “Creating Your Compelling Future” – making your future so bright and exciting that you can’t wait to do whatever you need to do to make it happen!

6) Then, another Networking Training session.  In just a few minutes working together today, you will know more about how to network successfully than most people ever learn in an entire lifetime!

7) Finally, we will end our time together with a couple of Threshold Exercises – my gifts to you to make sure that our time together really pays off!

Ready?  Ready or not…Let’s begin!”

To be continued…

Bye for now…Jack

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Juice Fasting Update

This is day twenty nine of my juice fast although it is no longer a pure juice fast, at least for the next few days.  I am experimenting with adding some whey protein and seeing what that does for my exercise recovery and my rate of weight loss.  So far, with only one days data: I feel a bit more energetic, I do seem to be recovering a bit faster and I also seem to have stopped my weight loss – at least for this one day.  It will be more telling to see my results tomorrow after a second day of working out and having some whey protein with my freshly extracted juice.

“It will not do to leave a live dragon out of your plans if you live near one.” ~J.R.R. Tolkien…The Hobbit

“I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end: requesting only the advantage authors have, of correcting in a second edition the faults of the first.” ~Benjamin Franklin

Today is my continuation of my virtual seminar that I am creating for us both.  Be sure to read the last few posts as well as this one to get up to date – it will be worth your time.

“You are attending a seminar today called Annual Goal Setting – The Key to Your Best Year Ever.  I don’t know what brought you here today, but let me tell you what my intentions are for you.

I intend this to be the most valuable three hours that you have ever invested in your entire life.  For most people, if they plan their lives at all, they will do their annual planning while they are drunk, five or ten minutes before New Years and then they will wonder why those New Years resolutions don’t work.

You are going to leave here today with something very different – something wonderful!

You are going to become very clear on what you want to achieve in this incredible life of yours and you are going to understand why you want what you want.  This is true power and motivation!

You are going to leave here feeling excited and empowered and with a sense of manifesting your own marvelous destiny.  And should that feeling start to fade, you are going to know how to bring it back – whenever you want.”

To be continued…

Bye for now…Jack

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Juice Fasting Update

Day 28 today.  I have added back some whey protein to my diet.  I decided to do this to see if it would help my lower back recover more quickly after I injured it working out a bit too vigorously.  So far, with just one day to report, I do think the protein is helping my recovery rate.  I also think it will inevitably slow my rate of weight loss.  Still, I will keep it up for a few days and see if I can get my back healed – then back to my straight juice routine.

“So many fail because they don’t get started – they don’t go. They don’t overcome inertia. They don’t begin.” ~ W. Clement Stone (American best selling Author and Founder of Combined Insurance Co (now a part of Aon Corp.), 1902-2002)

“A philosophy of life: I’m an adventurer, looking for treasure.” ~Paulo Coelho

Last time I was talking about dreams and dreaming and how I start all of my coaching clients out with some dream work.  I  do this to tap into their true motivations and to give me the information that I need to effectively help them.  For you, I’m going to do my best over the next entries to give you the same experience that my clients have.  In live client work I would typically use hypnotic language patterns and priming to get them into a great state for lucid and awake dreaming.  With you, dear readers, I will have to be a bit more creative.

Let’s start here – if there were no limits, if you could have anything that you really wanted, anything at all; what would you want?

Bye for now…Jack

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Juice Fasting Update

This is the 26^th day of my juice fast.  Overall, it has been a great experience – so far.  May it continue!  My results so far:

• I have lost twenty three pounds of bodyweight.
• My energy is slightly better than it was before I started the juice fast.
• My skin has become much clearer and smoother.
• The nearly constant pain that I have had for years from gout is much reduced – although not yet gone.
• I have cut one of my gout medicines, allopurinol, completely out of my diet.
• I have reduced the other gout medicine, indomethacin, from 2 per day to 1 every other day – a huge improvement.
• I am generally not very hungry – I must remind myself to drink my five glasses of freshly extracted juices (16 ounces each glass).
• I have taken an entire wardrobe to goodwill and unboxed and am now wearing a size smaller that I have not been able to wear for more than 10 years!  Wow!
• My feet have become smaller – I am now wearing, comfortably, almost a full size smaller shoe than I was 26 days ago.
• I don’t need, or want, as much sleep.
• My waist has, or the bulge above my belt where my waist will be someday, has gone down by 2 inches.
• I only need to shave every other day now.

Downsides?

• Travel is challenging – I tried grocery store bought bottled juices a couple of times and they made me hungry and lethargic – I have to carry a cooler and my own freshly extracted juices.
• I crave meat – almost all the time.  I am hoping that this gets better.
• I dream about meat!  Bacon, steaks, eggs, chops, roasts: all of these follow me to sleep and tantalize me.

“If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise.” ~Robert Fritz

“One reason I don’t suffer ‘Writer’s Block’ is that I don’t wait on the muse, I summon it at need.” ~Piers Anthony

Last time I mentioned that I am creating a muse for myself.  This time I will begin to go into that process in greater depth.  Strap on your safety belts…here we go!

Project: Create the Ideal Muse (Creating a Great Muse in probably good enough for now and I can evolve it over time)

Deadlines: Created by January 1st, 2011;  Tested, de-bugged, installed in myself and fully operational by February 1st, 2011.

Resources:

1. My memory of great writing sessions and what that felt like.
2. My memory of poor writing sessions and what that felt like.
3. The readily available information (thanks to the internet) from other famous writers about writer’s block and what they did about it.
4. The readily available information from other famous writers about what it was like when they were in a great writing place – what I am going to call for now: a place of connection and flow.
5. NLP and my ability to model excellence in other people.
6. That fact that I am really fed-up with not being more productive in my writing.
7. My compelling vision of how my writing and speaking business life can be once I am writing freely, consistently and well.

Definitions of Success: How will I know that I have successfully achieved my result?  How and what will I measure to know that I have a created a great muse for myself?

I’ll talk more about this next piece more next time.

Bye for now…Jack

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“For hundreds of years people have talked about artists having inspiration, but often, some persons would say, write us a symphony or write us a song, on commission. The artists would come up with a masterpiece without waiting to have their muse inspire them.” ~Tom Glazer

“Learn to cook–try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless, and above all have fun!” ~Julia Child

I recently had the pleasure of reading “My Life in France” written by Julia Child and Alex Prud’homme, the grandnephew of Julia’s husband – Paul Child.  Wow!  I had a great time reading this book and there were many wonderful life lessons that jumped out of this autobiography at me.  Come back soon and see how you and I can improve ourselves by learning from Julia Child’s incredible life.

Till next time…Jack

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“Find something you’re passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it.” ~Julia Child

“Be happy.  It’s one way of being wise.” ~Colette

When I was younger, the ink barely dry on my University diploma, I was very focused on achieving goals.  Like many others, I wanted to earn a lot of money, live in a great home and drive the right car.  I was sure that once I achieved these things – then I would be happy and you know what?  I did achieve them, rapidly, and I was happy – at least for a little while.

This all sounds okay doesn’t it?  I set goals about things that were important to me, took action, learned and adjusted, took more action and eventually I achieved these goals and felt great, a real sense of accomplishment, once they were done.  So what’s the point here – what’s the issue?

The issue is that I was miserable and/or unhappy much of the time that I was working towards my goals.  I wasn’t miserable or unhappy because I had to be – I often felt unpleasant emotions because those were the rules that I operated under!  I used pain to drive myself to achievement – and I only allowed myself to feel great once things were done.

Achieve then be Happy or Happily Achieve?

I can clearly remember the day that I realized I had a choice about how I motivated myself and that I actually could choose different rules that enabled me to feel great (or ecstatic or blissful or endlessly curious or expecting the best or any combination of these and many other positive emotions) while I was working towards my goals.  What a revelation!

I was early into my NLP training, now nearly 20 years ago as I write this, and we were looking at the structure of effective motivation strategies.  I will get into topic in great detail in future entries, but for today, here is my point and my question:  How do you choose to feel while you are working towards your goals?  Do you make sure that you feel great along the way or are you working to get things done and then you will feel great?

Till next time faithful readers…Jack

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“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise man grows it under his feet.” ~James Openheim

“Goals are dreams with deadlines.” ~Diana Scharf Hunt

Over the next four months or so, I am going to be sharing on this blog many of my top techniques for achieving goals – both personal and professional goals.  Much of this is material that I will be including in my book about goals and achievement that will be released in September of 2011, but you will get to see it first here.  These will be the exact same tools and strategies and tips that I use today with my high-end executive coaching clients – information on goal achievement that I have tested and refined over more than 25 years as a coach.  I am going to deliver this life enhancing information in small and easily assimilated chunks.  Be sure to come back here often or subscribe to my RSS feed – I promise it will be time very well invested.

Till next time faithful reader…Jack

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“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” ~attributed to Leonardo da Vinci

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be.  Now put the foundations under them.” ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854

As I write this, I am sitting in a coffee shop on the South side of Minneapolis, Minnesota.  I have just finished walking for an hour around Lake Calhoun, one of the beautiful string of lakes and parks that help to make this city such a delight.  Even though I am traveling on business here today, I made time for this walk – regular walking is a critical component to my achieving the goal that I shared last time.  (The weather here is so nice today, it really was not a challenge at all to get myself out walking – today the challenge was to quit at an hour!)

I am going to be sharing just a bit more about my health goal for next year.  I’m doing this for a couple of reasons.  First, I want to clearly state to the world, and of course myself, exactly what I am going to do.  (The how I am going to do this comes later – I certainly don’t know all of the how yet, but I have faith that I will find it.) Second, some of the ways that I have formed this goal, and am now committing to it, may be of use to some of my readers.

To recap, last time I shared that I had committed to the goal of getting myself back in shape in the coming twelve months.  I made this goal public on this blog to get leverage on myself.  Getting leverage on yourself can be a very good thing indeed.  So can making a public commitment to getting something accomplished.  I realized today that I had not been very specific in the details that I shared about that goal.  Here are those missing specifics:

1. By July 1st, 2011, I will weigh no more than 195 lbs (dressed in summer workout gear including shoes).    This is very specific.
2. My bodyfat percentage will be no more than 15% and I will have this professionally measured by a personal trainer at my health club.
3. I will also be very aerobically fit.  I will measure that this way: I will be jogging at least 3 times per week for at least 30 minutes each time at a pace no slower than 10 minutes per mile.  Additionally, I will be bike riding at least 3 times per week for at least 1 hour each time at a pace no slower than 10 miles per hour.

Now that is a decently written goal for me and here are some of the reasons why:

1. It is doable in the time frame (barely!).
2. It is very measurable.
3. It does take into account some larger aspects of my life. (I must be aerobically fit and has a healthy ending bodyfat percentage – it isn’t just about my ending weight.)
4. Accomplishing this goal will open up lots of other aspects of my life as well.

Okay.  Enough for today about my getting in great shape goal.  Here is a question for you: Should you always share your goals publicly?  I say no.  Next time I’ll talk more about the why and why not of this.

Till next time faithful reader…Jack

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“It is never too late to be who you might have been.” ~George Eliot