Straight-Line Leadership: Tools for Living with Velocity and Power in Turbulent Times by Dusan Djukich

A leader demonstrates his commitment to get to B by his willingness to be “who he needs to be” and do “whatever it takes in the form of necessary required actons” to get to B.

 

The world said conform, the world said settle for less, the world said compromise and no one will know… so I made my own world.Bijan8

 

It’s not where you want to go but where you come from that most determines your success and results in life. Your inner stance is the position or mental posture you create to live your life from. It is how you choose to live your life, exist, or “be” in regard to yourself, others, challenges, or life in general

 

So it’s never knowledge alone that gets you what you want. It’s where you come from. The inner stance that you operate from will determine how successful you are at taking on new knowledge and getting it successfully implemented

 

Many times people have been operating out of such disempowering stances that they just “dummy down” and justify themselves and their actions with “that’s just the way I am” or “I was just born this way. ” This can be an extremely painful, expensive, frustrating and confusing way to live life

 

We don’t always get that knowing what to do and implementing what you know are two entirely differrent things

 

People can be divided into two classes: Those who go ahead and do something, and those people who sit still and inquire, Why wasn’t it done the other way? 

 

As stated above, competency is not normally a problem for most circle people. Most circle people already possess adequate knowledge. Many have college degrees. Many of them have already read hundreds of books. But what they don’t realize is that knowledge must be utlized to be of value

 

The shortest distance from A to B is always a workable inner stance and doing the necessary required actions until B is realized

 

Staying on the straight line to your desired results requires a commitment to functioning at a very high level of awareness. Being fully awake to what you’re doing and whether it’s getting you from A to B as effectively as possible

 

Straight-line people don’t focus on those concerns. They simply act decisively. Fear or no fear. They know that all results come out of decisive acton. So rather than looking for the courage, or the strength, or “enough time” to do something important, they forget all of that. It’s too mentally exhausting to work on all of that. 

 

Straight-line people don’t focus on those concerns. They simply act decisively. Fear or no fear. They know that all results come out of decisive acton. So rather than looking for the courage, or the strength, or “enough time” to do something important, they forget all of that. It’s too mentally exhausting to work on all of that. So they just drop the preconditions. They know from experience that getting from A to B is always about doing the NEXT REQUIRED ACTION

 

The universe moves for the deed, not the doer. The universe just rewards the acton taken. It doesn’t mater if you have a lack of confdence or total unshakeable confdence. It’s not about that. It’s about doing the deed. And by doing the deed I mean doing “what’s required” to get the results you intend. 

 

Straight-line individuals simply decide what they want to accomplish, jot down what the necessary required actions are, and then do the necessary required actions

 

Commitment = A created stance in which you know what you will do (or not do) regardless of what happens or what doesn’t happen. 

 

People will do the deed (necessary required acton) once they stop caring about anything but the deed itself.

 

What he helped me see one day is that most people are focused on their own comfort and feelings. They care about how they’re coming across. They care about what people think of them. I saw that it was possible at any time to just drop all that and focus on gegtting the result. To care so much about the result, that you are no longer controlled by the judgments of others. You no longer just say what you think people want to hear

 

What he helped me see one day is that most people are focused on their own comfort and feelings. They care about how they’re coming across. They care about what people think of them. I saw that it was possible at any time to just drop all that and focus on getting the result. To care so much about the result, that you are no longer controlled by the judgments of others. You no longer just say what you think people want to hear. You say what will make a difference. 

 

People will do the deed (necessary required acton) once they stop caring about anything but the deed itself

 

They can step up and ask for things that the others are afraid to ask

 

They are not concerned what other people think of them. So they can say what the others don’t say. They can step up and ask for things that the others are afraid to ask for

 

Most people confuse actvity with productvity. They value busyness over results. So they jump into a new system of doing something that they are so excited about and start applying enormous energy to it but soon shut down and quit. The slightest setback has them stop

 

You can even slow down to a crawl and become more focused when you know you will not stop. Because frantc speed is not as important as “getng from A to B. ”

 

When you learn to stop stopping you will achieve virtually any goal you ever set. You will never give up on your projects. You will fnish everything that you are truly commited to. You will make every month’s sales goal. You will even lose all the weight you ever wanted to lose

 

You can have the inner stance of a quitter, or the inner stance of a finisher. The choice is always yours, and it’s never too late to choose.

 

And always remember you must lead yourself before you lead others. Leading begins with distinguishing the disempowering inner stances with which you are stuck

 

The positons that you operate from defne and shape your behaviors and actons in the present.Therefore, they generate your future results. Results are always ultmately produced by the behaviors and actons that are sourced from your current operating stance

 

A straight-line leader creates responsibility. It becomes an inner stance. When you want to have power to deal with what’s in your life, you’ll begin creatng responsibility everywhere

 

Always remember this four-step process for decisive acton: 1) List out what you are interested in accomplishing.2) List out what you are commited to accomplishing

 

Power doesn’t come from knowledge. What people know doesn’t make them powerful. It’s being present to what you’re dealing with that gives you power

 

You may know that the more conversatons you have with prospects the faster you will get business. Even though you know that, I want to know to what degree you live it.

 

You might know that a more organized week, and a more deliberately created day, will have you be more effectve. But do you live this way

 

Personal and business transformaton requires not necessarily that you acquire new understandings, but that you change

 

One lives in endless feedback loops of mental fantasy. The other lives in the real world of acton. Whether the acton happens or doesn’t happen always depends on what you CHOOSE to do

 

When you choose to live a life and have a professional career characterized by velocity and power, then you will allow yourself to see and experience the source of that power. It’s your inner stance. And you are the one who creates it.

 

“I can’t solve this thing” is very different from “I won’t solve this thing. ” You can choose how to behave regardless of how you feel. When you feel uncomfortable doing something, it means you have the opportunity to grow. Growth does not occur in the land of comfort. It all comes down to: 1) What comfort choices do I need to give up? 2) What growth choices do I need to take on

 

When it comes strictly to money, your greatest expense will always be the gap between what you are capable of earning and what you are really earning. This gap is always due to the inner stances you have adopted in which to live and operate

 

We subconsciously believe that by labeling uncomfortable actons as impossible and things that we can’t do, we give ourselves relief. We take ourselves off of the playing feld. But in truth we are losing strength, inside, every tme we retreat

 

It’s not life’s conditons but the inner stances that you operate out of that shape your destny

 

My frst queston could be: “What would make this conversaton amazingly useful to you?”

 

My next queston might be: “How do you want to use the rest of your life?” (

 

What if you could act decisively with or without fear?

 

want you to consider the possibility that you have overrated fear in your life. And then consider the possibility that you can develop the practce of taking whatever required acton is necessary regardless of the fear that might seem to want to intervene

 

What’s working? 2) What’s not working? 3) What’s missing? 4) What’s next?68

 

All your suffering is rooted in one superstition— you believe that you live in the world, when in fact the world lives in

 

All your suffering is rooted in one superstition— you believe that you live in the world, when in fact the world lives in you

 

Now once we have the desired result on the table, and the reason behind the goal, the purpose behind the project, I ask a queston that ofen surprises people, “Are you open to it?” I can only be commited to what you are commited to. So when you lack commitment then there is nothing to coach

 

As Dr. Brad Blanton, the author of Radical Honesty says, “Wishing is a way to remove one’s self from what’s going on now. Hope is how most people avoid growing up

 

The Chinese have a saying that if you don’t watch where it is that you are going in life, you will end up where you are heading. Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan refer to this as the “default future

 

In the end, it’s about doing what’s required. It’s about observing how you actually operate and when that’s not workable, choosing a stance that does work for you

 

It’s been said that your life, when it’s over, will either be a warning or an example. So ask yourself, “Will my life be a warning to others? Or will it be a powerful example of what’s possible for a human being to do?

 

What will shif you in life from the warning category to the example category is awareness and choice. Avoidance of that awareness is nothing short of self-sabotage

 

When you shif from a passive, worried person to an actve, concerned person you’ll experience concern as being more adult. Concerned individuals make more effectve choices than worried individuals

 

Failure to commit is the high cost of low living.

 

It seems to be a law of nature, inflexible and inexorable, that those who will not risk cannot win

 

When you fnd yourself in a vicious circle you might just be stuck on the track of spending your life being happy to accumulate insights. You might end up, at the end of your life, being the most well-informed person in the nursing home, but you won’t accomplish much

 

What I love the most about the past is that it’s over. Byron Katie

 

The best predictor of future performance is the positon that you are coming from right now. And that is yours to freely choose

 

Slow down and remember this: Most things make no difference. Being busy is a form of mental laziness —lazy thinking and indiscriminate action

 

What’s the most powerful acton that I can take right now?” (It’s always an acton that you aren’t willing to take that stops you from your desired result.

 

And once you’ve identfed the next powerful acton to take, don’t let what you don’t know or don’t feel stop you. You may not know exactly how to do something. Just get busy doing it.

 

Many people fail to see the distncton between doing everything you know of and doing what’s required. They are as different as night and day. Doing everything you know to do is severely limited by whatever you know to do at any given tme

 

Once you’ve made your commitments, and made them as strong declaratons, stay clear on what they are. A human can carry from fve to seven authentc commitments at any given tme

 

When I am unclear about my commitment, I procrastnate. When I am clear about my commitment, I act.

 

Ownership is a created state of mind. It’s a distnct place to come from. Once I’m there, I’m an owner of my life. I’ve taken over. I’m no longer a mere victm of circumstances

 

Victms are fxated on solving the past. They nurture past hurts and memories. Owners focus on creatng the future

 

Will you speak and operate from owner or victm? A stmulus from the environment occurs. What will you do with it? The space between stmulus and response is enormous. That space is where you make your choice

 

Owners are thinking, “It’s okay for others to have their stories about me,” while victms are obsessed with, “What are they thinking about me

 

How do I get through this?” or are you up in owner’s gear asking, “How do I give 100% regardless of the circumstances and enjoy the process?

 

When you create a positon of ownership to come from, know that it won’t last. It won’t hold. It has to be constantly created. You have to create it and then live what you create over and over again

 

Ownership is not a version of positve thinking. It is very radical, potent material that changes cultures. When you are a straightline leader delivering the distncton of ownership to others, it moves your people and empowers your culture

 

You create a vision and you live it right now. This is what alters behavior and creates powerful results

 

Who you create yourself to be determines the actons that you take and the results you achieve. And ‘Now’ is the only tme that you can produce results. When it comes to producing results, the past and the future do not exist

 

A straight-line leader manages commitments and agreements. He creates agreements with team members and enters into those agreements on an adult-to-adult basis. All communicaton is done with mutual respect. There is no giving in to the temptaton to be intmidatng, bossy, or all-knowing, which comes from having expectatons and no courage to make an agreement

 

Martn had been telling his peers and his family that he couldn’t fgure out why his business wasn’t growing. He always said to them that he was “doing everything he knew to do. ” But doing everything you know to do doesn’t count—you have to do what is going to make a real difference

 

As we surveyed his unproductve business we helped him to135

 

. They ride in on the breeze and change every hour. They are nothing with which to base a businesses’ success.However, when Martn got the distncton of radical selfhonesty he began to experience the value of having his day be based on what was necessary and required. He was now functoning on the straight line. And the best way to know when you are actually on the straight line is to look at your results. Are they showing up yet? If they are not, you are stll in the circle. Martn began to experience his life as powerful. He also started to see that no one hands you a powerful life for free. You have to generate it. You have to pull it away from thoughts and feelings and put it back under your own control. In one of our frst coaching sessions with Martn we did an exercise called, “Who owns your life?” “I suppose I’m supposed to say that I do,” said Martn. But we wanted radical honesty, and Martn knew that the moment he said, “I do,” he was being insincere. It had no convicton.So, with his help, we began to list all of the people who owned Martn’s life: creditors, family members, business acquaintances; the list was long. He realized that he spent his days trying to please all these people. They owned his life.“Why didn’t I see all this?” he asked.“Why don’t I already know these distnctons like you do?” “Powerful distnctons are not something you are born with,” we said.“They are something that you choose. And they must be created on a regular basis.”136

 

sense. That’s because your thoughts and feelings come and go. They ride in on the breeze and change every hour. They are nothing with which to base a businesses’ success.However, when Martn got the distncton of radical selfhonesty he began to experience

 

That’s the true power of radical self-honesty. It confronts the insincerity in statements like, “I’ll do that tomorrow. ” Radical selfhonesty acknowledges that tomorrow never comes

 

Optmism is the practce of focusing on opportunites and possibilites rather than complaints and regrets. It’s obvious, therefore, why optmists are more effectve than pessimists

 

When I open my eyes in the morning I am not confronted by a world, but by a million possible worlds

 

When I open my eyes in the morning I am not confronted by a world, but by a million possible worlds. Colin Wilson

 

The straight-line practce that eliminates all this emotonal escalaton is this: when you are in discomfort keep it there with focus. Do not go to pain when you can help it (emotonal pain is created by judgment alone) and never go to chaos

 

The straight-line practce that eliminates all this emotonal escalaton is this: when you are in discomfort keep it there with focus. Do not go to pain when you can help it (emotonal pain is created by judgment alone) and never go to chaos. And what do you focus on? You focus on the next thing to do in the moment

 

What do I really intend to achieve? • Am I willing to get it? • What would guarantee it? • How can I ratchet up my

 

What do I really intend to achieve? • Am I willing to get it? • What would guarantee it? • How can I ratchet up my accountability level

 

We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same

 

Discipline is simply remembering what you intend to do and refusing to get sidetracked. Are you not doing something that you say you want to do? You are not doing it because you have not chosen to. Willpower has nothing to do with it. Willpower is not necessary. It’s all about choice

 

Taking care of yourself allows you to make a greater contributon. It allows you to serve at a higher level. Extreme self-care and generosity can exist simultaneously. It’s not self-absorbed, because practcing extreme self-care makes you more effectve at serving other people

 

It’s a mistake to think it’s selfsh to take extremely good care of yourself as life’s frst priority. It’s a mistake to confuse self-sacrifcing with love and support. Rohini’s successful life is an example of why it’s always wise to put the oxygen mask on yourself before trying to put it on others

 

moving from an obsession with knowing how to do something to simply choosing to do it.

 

A powerful “choose to” will cure ignorance and an inadequate skill set every tme. You can fnd out how to do anything. The how to is never really what’s missing. The choosing to is what’s missing

 

It’s simply not true that you don’t know how to do this. Here’s what’s missing—you have not chosen to. And that’s the whole point here and that’s the major mind shif. It’s a shif from knowing to choosing. The person who is not performing is not choosing

 

There is freedom in choosing because it puts you out there on the straight line where velocity and access to results reside

 

This idea we call the wrong choice or a bad decision is what stops most people.“Well, what if I… what if I make a bad decision? What if I do the wrong thing? What if I don’t call the right people today? Is this the right person to call? Is this the right proposal to make? Is this the right service to offer?

 

And I say to my client, “What if I told you I would give you one million dollars if I lef the room for an hour, and when I returned you had twenty good people to call listed on a sheet of paper?

 

truth is you don’t have the power to hurt someone else’s feelings, no mater what you say. They can tell themselves a story about what you said and hurt their own feelings, but that’s another thing entrely

 

It’s been said that there are two pains in life: the pain of discipline and the pain of regret

 

So we come up with stories about why we went off course. It wasn’t our fault. It was someone else! And as we tell these stories, we get further and further away from the destnaton. By always trying to protect our feelings, our ego, or our image, we miss the available correcton

 

Getng around to it” is not leadership. The future is a terrible place to put an acton plan because the future does not exist.Literally

 

The only real queston you face regarding your goals in life is “Now or later?” And realize that later is code for never. We speak in code because it’s too painful to really confront how passive we have been

 

Pause here and ask yourself: “What’s the most powerful acton that I can take right now to resolve this challenge?” Do this many tmes throughout your day and watch how your life leaves the vicious circle and gets on the straight line to results. We are talking about velocity

 

ore producing straight actons line what are to desired you actons intend resultsthat to will . achieve make in a lifereal . They difference are a very in Surface actons can keep you busy but they don’t produce much, if anything at all, in terms of real results

 

ore producing straight actons line what are to desired you actons intend resultsthat to will . achieve make in a lifereal . They difference are a very in Surface actons can keep you busy but they don’t produce much, if anything at all, in terms of real results

 

C ore producing straight actons line what are to desired you actons intend resultsthat to will . achieve make in a lifereal . They difference are a very in Surface actons can keep you busy but they don’t produce much, if anything at all, in terms of real results

 

actons. Doing “what maters” will save you enormous amounts of tme and energy. At least ffy tmes a day ask yourself if you are doing the necessary required acton for what you are up to in life.Straight-line leaders become masters at doing “what’s core.”200

 

For a fulflling life: 1) Defne what you choose to produce.2) Defne the necessary required actons.3) Do the necessary required actons

 

At least ffy tmes a day ask yourself if you are doing the necessary required acton for what you are up to in life.

 

It also requires that we are willing to engage our minds in the one thing that maters at the tme. Life moves forward with greater velocity and power afer this.

 

It’s Andrew’s way of coaching focus versus simply allowing spray. The same aggressive mastery and precision that has had his shootng skills writen up in natonal journals is applied to clients whose problems stem from lack of directon

 

Alignment causes inspiraton in people. They stop stopping and persistence becomes much easier. When individuals drop their resistance to doing “what’s next,” they experience a surge in performance. And when that occurs the organizaton surges as well

 

These people don’t see that they are wastng a precious resource. They don’t realize that the mind can just as easily be used the opposite way—to discover “how it can be done. ” And when the mind is used in that directon, a straight line to your intended result has begun

 

McGovern does not waste his tme thinking things to death. He chooses his next acton and moves. His compettors spend huge amounts of tme obsessing about things. Tom doesn’t over-think anything. He just acts decisively

 

He was calling forth the formula that Jerry Garcia had used to make The Grateful Dead a legendary band.“Don’t just be beter than everyone else at what you do,” Garcia said.“Be the only one

 

Nobody said you couldn’t go out of the box. You assumed there was a box, and you assumed there was a rule

 

Notce that the advantages straight-line performers have in the marketplace are advantages they take responsibility for creating and maintaining. They are not handed to them

 

Another straight-line distncton that McGovern has utlized to his beneft is “I contribute” versus “I deserve. ” “You’ve really got to help somebody before they are going to help you,” he says.“I’ve always looked at becoming valuable to others frst, and then they would be of value to me. Be good at something yourself—be really good at something—so you can be valuable to somebody else; and then they’ll include you in their business and their life in a way that they wouldn’t have included you otherwise

 

McGovern has learned that coming from these powerful inner stances and operatng principles consistently holds his focus on how it can be done. He wastes no precious mental energy on why it can’t be done

 

They are fascinated with his story and they want to learn his secrets. He knows, through experience, that you can achieve anything when you stay focused on how it can be done

 

The same relatonship exists in business between stress and performance. The greater the stress, the poorer the performance— and only always

 

Tiny maters become major obstacles to proftability. The stressed-out mind creates a nightmare out of nothing

 

All the tme waitng for circumstances to be perfect is tme that you are not creatng. And creatng is what drives business success

 

When that’s happening I introduce the straight-line distncton of Expectatons versus Agreements,” says Ron.“When people learn to sit down with other people and create agreements, it’s almost as if miracles happen. Both people are immediately happier and beter able to do good work.

 

Expectatons, on the other hand, only lead to more stress. Leaders who lead by expectng things are not straight-line leaders. They are stressed-out circle people trying to manage