Okay, this is a little embarrassing. Normally, I don’t like to talk about myself or toot my own horn. Well, at least not more than once or twice an hour and not in front of more than 100 people. But in this case I’m sort of trapped by the topic I’m writing about, which is “Your Personal Elevator Speech.”

Recently, in our Daily Fix column, I wrote about how you can leverage your hard-wired responses to your own name to increase the positive effect of your personal elevator speech on your psyche. You can see that post here. But we all understand things better when we can see examples, so I thought I’d share a personal elevator speech I wrote a few weeks ago when I was trying to get my ass moving on a project and having some doubts about whether I would be able to get through it.

I have to warn you, it’s nauseatingly positive. You can hate on me in the comments if you want, but keep in mind the purpose of the speech – it’s for me to tell myself in moments of self-doubt, and to leverage the sound of my own name. Here’s goes:

“Nick, you are smart, hard working, and successful. You can do anything you put your mind to. You know how to team up with creative and productive people, Nick, and how to get the best from them, and this time will be no exception. You entered law school on a bet, became an editor on the law review, and graduated with the top students in your class. You opened the Japanese Martial Arts Center after putting together a group of investors and built it to 100 adult students in record time. Nick, starting with a list of suggestions from your friend Don Prior, you learned the SEO business, mastered it, and now you have a successful SEO business that provides a really valuable service to business people all over Southeast Michigan. You’ve written five books, Nick, including 101 Ideas to Kick Your Ass into Gear that you co-wrote with Ian and Budo Mind and Body which made Black Belt Magazine’s list of Essential Gear. Nick, remember all the great things you’ve done, and how you set out with passion and determination. You can do anything you put your mind to, Nick, and this latest project is no exception. Nick, now is the time to get started!”

That’s it. You know that funny feeling you get when you address yourself by name? That’s your nervous system responding from a very deeply programmed place, just like it did when your parents said your name when you were about to be punished, or when your lover coos your name in the candlelight. It’s a very powerful tool, and it can help you remake your self image. Use it wisely, and it will help get you to a place where you can do anything you set your mind to!

Each week for the next few months, Ian and I will be riffing on a theme from our recently published book 101 Ideas to Kick Your Ass Into Gear. This week’s theme is “Tell Your Story”

If you write one page a day, you can have a 365-page novel by the end of 2012. But consider this: you can write one crappy page each day, or you can write one great page each day. I leave it to you to guess what kind of novel you’ll get with each approach.

In martial arts, golf, or any other physical pursuit, figuring out how to correctly do a single component of a technique and mastering it is the “one thing” you ought to focus on. Of course, if you’ve done any important physical activity, you know that it often takes longer than one day to master even a single component of your sport. But even if it takes a week, you still end up with 52 solid aspects of your chosen activity in the bank, which means your overall execution can be greatly improved in one year.

In business, choosing one aspect of your marketing, client relations, efficiency, or cash flow to focus on at a time, and making sure you not only understand it, but have put into place a system for carrying it out, will ensure your continued success. You can maintain a business or limp along during good economic times without this approach, but when the economy struggles, those competitors who are getting one thing right each day will quickly put you out of business.

One caveat: most single aspects of any activity require maintenance even after you’ve “mastered” them. So you might want to build in to your plans not only some time to focus on your “one thing,” but also some time to review the last “thing” each day. Eventually you’ll create some kind of routine that lets you review, refine, and master the essential aspects of your chosen mission, and you’ll rocket towards success!

One way to look at diet is that eating for pleasure leads to lethargy, and eating tactically can lead to positive changes. If you’re struggling with motivation and depression, and you’ve eliminated any serious psychological or health problems as possible causes, consider trying this kind of eating for a week, and let us know what you think. Please consult a doctor before beginning any new dietary regimen. There are only 6 rules:

1. Eat more frequent, smaller meals, always including a little protein

2. Eat ample green vegetable with every meal (including breakfast!)

3. Drink at least 8 ounces of water every hour

4. Eat NO simple carbs (like sugar or processed flour)

5. Eat a wide variety of foods (fish, poultry, venison/vegetables/nuts/fruit), but not too much of any single food at a sitting

6. Cut out the alcohol and cut down the caffeine

Many of the “fat burning diets” take a similar approach, and if you’re inclined to follow a diet with a brand name, be our guest. In any case, pay attention to your energy level, your mood, and your productivity, and let us know if you notice any positive changes. We think you will!

So it was really nice to get a lesson in gratitude from someone who might appear to be a lot less fortunate than I. My work has put me in contact with the Ann Arbor Center for Independent Living lately, and being around people with disabilities who are happy, productive, and working hard to make their lives better has been really inspiring. However, just by chance I found myself sitting next to a guy who is completely paralyzed from the waist down, and overheard him say this to the woman sitting next to him, also in a wheelchair (he talked for about 20 minutes, so I’m doing my best to share the spirit of what he said in a few words):

“The number of blessings each of us has is virtually unlimited. You can breathe, right?” The woman nodded. “When you’re relaxed, you breathe gently, right? When you exert yourself, you breathe more deeply? When you reach your physical limits, your lungs burn with the exertion, and it makes you feel excited to be alive, doesn’t it?” She agreed, looking him right in the eyes. “You’re looking right at me, and you can see who I am, can’t you? You can see color, light, texture, distance, shapes, the smiles of happy people, the fresh skin of children and the skin of the old, etched by time. Your hands can grasp, shake hands, hug, caress, use silverware, and handle a paintbrush. Your mind can plan, imagine, decide, analyze, understand, and wonder. And your heart can feel all the emotions, from anger and sadness to joy, exhilaration, and love.”

She was dabbing at her eyes by the time he stopped talking, and I was so moved by his words that I approached them and introduced myself. It turns out that she was new to the world of disability, and he, being much more experienced in it, was helping to guide her. I think the lesson is one that we all can be taught!

I received that lesson in a powerful way in marriage. About three years into my second (and last!) marriage, I remember what a shock it was to realize that I was having some of the same disagreements with my wife that I had with my first wife. Here I was, madly in love with this woman and fully aware of her many positive traits and her wonderful, womanly radiance, and, having carefully considered all the aspects of marriage and compatibility, and having decided to marry her and to spend the rest of our lives together, and yet absolutely, positively convinced that I was right about such and such a point and doing everything to convince her of my rightness in a not very productive manner.

It hit me like a dope-slap from the Jolly Green Giant – I was creating the same sorts of conflicts in my new relationship as I had done in my first marriage! Two different women, same dude. Two wonderful, talented women, same unpleasant Mr. Grouchy-Pants. Hmmm. There was no denying it, darn it, I was causing the problems. It’s been humbling, but truly helpful in getting me to question the validity of my crankiness. I don’t recommend that you get divorced and remarried just for the sake of self-improvement, but are there any situations where you’ve had the perspective to realize that you might be the cause of inter-personal conflict?

I’ve been reading Mastery Through Accomplishment by Sufi master Hazrat Inayat Khan. The essence of his message was the surprisingly Gecko-like statement that “The secret of life is the desire to attain something; the absence of this makes life useless.” Now, I don’t know about you, but I think I’ve been sold a bill of goods! Seems like all my life people in positions of religious authority have been telling me to give, sacrifice, and put aside all thoughts of earthly attainment. Khan, on the other hand, says that holiness, such as it can be achieved in human form, can be reached through pursuing your chosen mission with passion, discipline, and a drive for perfection in action. As an inveterate entrepreneur, I can definitely get behind that idea!

“Mastery is not only a means of accomplishing the things of the world, but it is that by which a person fulfills the purpose of his life. It is not necessary for man to leave all the things of the world and go into retreat. He can attend to his business, to his profession, to his duties in life and yet at the same time develop this spirit in himself which is the spirit of mastery.”

What is your mission? Your chosen path to mastery?