Luke Skywalker (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My youngest son Luke recently rediscovered Star Wars and over a period of a month we watched all of the episodes and of course finished with Return of the Jedi. My oldest son Zane was asking me why Luke was the greatest Jedi after all he didn’t train in the ways . . . → Read More: Leadership Lessons from Luke Skywalker]]>  

Luke Skywalker (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My youngest son Luke recently rediscovered Star Wars and over a period of a month we watched all of the episodes and of course finished with Return of the Jedi. My oldest son Zane was asking me why Luke was the greatest Jedi after all he didn’t train in the ways of the force since he was little like everyone else. He did not in fact complete his training with Master Yoda. He was not as skilled with a light saber as Obi-Wan, he was not as wise as Master Windu,  he was not as skilled as a pilot as Anakin, he did not possess the dark powers of the Emperor and was not a great teacher like Master Yoda.

I feel that Luke Skywalker was the greatest Jedi because he exhibited a trait none of the other character’s demonstrated in their leadership– FAITH. Luke did not need those skills of the other Jedis those skills would have done him no good. He did not have the skills or talent to kill Darth Vader and the Emperor and yet he did just that.

Faith is beyond reason, it is beyond thinking and requires us to first have faith in oneself. Luke did not say I think my father is good. He said I know my father still has good in his heart, I’ve felt it. He did not resist, he did not fight, he only told his father I believe in you and I have faith that you will not destroy me nor let the Emperor destroy me. He was right, his faith served him and the Galaxy well.

How can something as simple as Faith restore harmony to the universe and balance in the force, well let’s dive deeper into what faith requires of us. I feel faith is the rarest quality in a leader and the most prized.

Faith requires patience, surrendering, letting go and accepting the unknown and then trusting everything that is meant to come will only serve your best and highest purpose. The thing that makes faith rare is our minds can not understand it and we we lack “proof”. Faith can only come from feeling it in the heart. Now we see why it is rare.

To have impact faith does not require reason. Luke Skywalker did not say to Darth Vader, look at your life how does the dark side serve you, you are a slave to the Emperor, using the dark side increases the likelihood of cancer or ulcers or even you are better than this dad. Luke simply choose to believe in his father’s goodness and he supported that commitment with faith and in action he chose not to resist what he knew. Right or wrong about his father he wins because he made the choice. It was not the Emperor’s, Vader’s, Yoda’s or Obi-Wan’s choice it was his alone. This choice and his faith is what made Luke the greatest Jedi of all.

In your leadership journey, I wish that you discover the power of faith. Faith in what you believe and feel. You do this for yourself and you will find it easier to have faith in the people you serve. The team you lead will respond in ways you can not even dream. Believe in them no matter what. Darth Vader was maybe one of the most difficult character’s to love and have faith in and yet that is exactly what young Luke Skywalker did. You can too. I have faith in you.

May the Force be with you in 2013!

Conscious Co-Founder & Startup Launcher

Become a Co-Creator and Co-Founder of Vim Village- A Founder’s Incubator

Your . . . → Read More: Conscious Startup Incubator Co-Founder Boulder, CO]]> We are looking for a co-founder to launch Vim Village in 2013. If you are interested please email us at brian at Vim dot biz or call 303-408-3671. Please feel free to forward this post to anyone you feel might be interested.

Conscious Co-Founder & Startup Launcher

Become a Co-Creator and Co-Founder of Vim Village- A Founder’s Incubator

Your Life Path is one of service and the way you wish to serve is to help entrepreneurs create their dreams. You are in a position in your life and career where you have enough of a runway to join a startup. You are a conscious and experienced startup entrepreneur who desires to live your passion in training, mentoring and cultivating entrepreneurs.

We have office space, thousands of contacts, lots of content and the material for the year long program and a strong passion for supporting entrepreneurs make their dreams reality. We are real and we have a pipeline of leads and are ready to launch in early Q1 2013.

My skills are in attraction as I draw lots of people to me. I have a harder time making them sticky because I light up inside around the idea and concept formation and early stage processes. A great match would be someone who lights up in taking these passionate entrepreneurs with a solid startup foundation on a business and life building journey.

Your experiences are certainly entrepreneurial and likely that means you have built your own successful startup in the recent past. You excel with people and with building systems that support a flexible structure. You are a natural leader and know how to nurture people to bring forth their best. Your purpose and passion is to be a servant leader. You have a healthy balance in your life and business activities. You live a conscious life and explore your inner world for growth and prosperity. You thrive in partnership and just have not yet found that perfect fit.

What makes us unique is our commitment to developing the person, the entrepreneur and the co-founders and their business model. Most programs only focus on the later.

Please share with us how unique you are by answering these questions and sending us your responses with your LinkedIn profile and your EZOG results which you can find at www.MyEZOG.com.

How You Are Unique

1. Who are you really?
2. Why do you do what you do?
3. How do you feel startups should be created?
4. What are your experiences training entrepreneurs?
5. How do you define your conscious path?

Thank you for reading this entire posting. Our next step will be a 30 min call to help us both get clear and see if we are aligned. Please send us any additional questions you have.

With Gratitude,

Brian and the growing Vim Family

Compensation: Revenue Share- making this 100% commission and co-founder equity

This journey started almost five years ago. Understanding that entrepreneur’s predominantly create from one core style was just a hypothesis 5 months ago. Today, after over 100 one on one, one hour interviews and assessments I can share there are four predominant styles: we refer to them as EZOG styles . . . → Read More: The Entrepreneur Zone of Genius- EZOG Assessment]]> The Entrepreneur Zone of Genius- EZOG Assessment

This journey started almost five years ago. Understanding that entrepreneur’s predominantly create from one core style was just a hypothesis 5 months ago. Today, after over 100 one on one, one hour interviews and assessments I can share there are four predominant styles: we refer to them as EZOG styles which are the Visionary, Architect, Builder and Cultivator. To support and validate our research we used a combination of Myers-Briggs testing, our own EZOG Assessment tool and interviews. The patterns measured and observed are dominant and although we are to a lesser extent a combination of all four styles it is clear we have a preference for one style over the other three. We have found that some entrepreneurs have a strong inclination to their style while others can pull in characteristics of their secondary style. As we embark on the second leg of this journey we are grateful to the entrepreneurs who invested their time and energy and the EZOG team whom have worked diligently to take this from idea to reality.

What value do we see in the EZOG Assessment?

1. Simply being aware of “My EZOG” style has been powerful for many entrepreneurs.
2. By combining the awareness of your EZOG style and the EZOG Performance Matrix we can demonstrate how much value you are creating in your business by analyzing what work you do.
3. We believe in teams the combination of different EZOG styles play a critical role in the overall success of your business.
4. To create the maximum value and life enjoyment it is essential to spend quality time in your zone of genius.

What is next?

We are beginning phase two, our research will move online as our survey will run on our new site www.myEZOG.com so we can collect 1000 to 5000 scores. In addition we are now going to extend our research and interview process towards highly successful entrepreneurs to understand their style and what behaviors they used depending on their EZOG style to create their business. Stay tuned and stay connected to this ongoing journey as we believe when we are done this might be the most important discover for entrepreneurs as a whole ever. Learn more about the EZOG Assessment at www.myEZOG.com.

There is a pattern that has begun to develop. I will outline the rest of my swimming career through my retirement in 1986, showing the pattern in part III of my swimming series.. In 1981, I was once again one of the top swimmers in the . . . → Read More: Upper Limit Problems- My Life As A Swimmer Series Part III]]> Upper Limit Problems- My Life As A Swimmer Series Part III

There is a pattern that has begun to develop. I will outline the rest of my swimming career through my retirement in 1986, showing the pattern in part III of my swimming series.. In 1981, I was once again one of the top swimmers in the nation. I was 16 years old and in the process of finishing up my junior year in high school.  During the spring Junior Nationals, I won the 400IM, was 2^nd place in the 200IM and 5^th in the 200FL. I was dominating my region and owned the majority of the 15-16 year old Virginia state records as well as having a few top 10 national times in my age group. I had a successful summer season and was ready for my senior year. In the fall of my senior year, I was voted by the student body to become the school mascot, a Titan! I accepted the offer and became a cheerleader. Although my swimming fast during this time would pave the way for college scholarships from the top swimming schools in the nation I decided to attend football games, basketball games and other events as a member of the cheerleading squad.

I began to train less and compete less in swim meets. For the first time in my life, my speed did not improve. I did not become faster. , Let’s follow this logic, for my entire life I’d been training to be the best. Suddenly I decide to take a different route, right before coaches from the best swimming schools in the nation begin to take notice of my performances, I decide to be a cheerleader? Can anyone say self-sabotage?

I signed a full scholarship at the University of Tennessee and after my sophomore year, I’d made three qualifying times to compete in the 1984 summer Olympic trials. The top two swimmers in each event compete in the Olympic Games. I was one of the top six 400 IMers in the nation. I certainly had an outside chance to make the US Olympic team. What did I do? I decide not to train with my team for the Olympic trials for no specific reason than to piss off my coach, my dad and likely most of my teammates.

In 1985, I was competing at the US Summer nationals in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Competing in the preliminaries in the morning, I qualified 4^th in the 400IM. I was swimming against the top IMers in the nation, one former world record holder and the individual who had won the past two NCAA championships. I felt confident and wanted to get out fast and stay ahead. I knew I had a break out swim in me and ABC’s Wide World of Sports was filming the race. At the 150-meter mark, which is halfway into the backstroke leg, I was in the lead. For the first time in a major championship, I was winning. My strategy was currently working until I crashed in the wall before making my turn. My head crashed directly into the wall and my arm flew out of the pool, forcing me into a dead stop. If you’ve ever seen a swimming pool that is used for lap swimming or competition there are flags draped across the pool at both ends. These are solely for the purpose of counting how many strokes you have in backstroke before you make your turn. During the competition, I did not see these flags. I do not think in my entire 15-year career as a swimmer, I had ever lost track of the backstroke flags. Why had I lost track of them when I was about to have a breakthrough and likely win a major national competition? The only logical answer is I did it on purpose, not consciously but unconsciously. There is no other answer.

The pattern of self-sabotage does not end here. My senior year at Tennessee was amazing; I had won every single dual meet race and had turned in the top time in the 200IM.  I had succeeded in swimming one of the top three times in the 200FL as well, throughout the entire dual meet season. During this time, I was competing at the Southeast Conference championships and my first event was the 200IM. I came in at second place dropped over, a second and a half off my best time; it was a great swim for me.

The following day, in my best event I felt poised after my success in the 200IM. I was ready to contend for a title against one of the best 400IMers in the nation. The next morning I woke up and my shoulders and pectoral areas were sore beyond anything I have ever experienced. It was sore to the touch. I passed on the news to my coach as I struggled to even rotate a full stroke in the warm-ups in the morning before the preliminaries. The trainers began to work on my muscles to no avail.  My body was in severe pain. I had limited range of motion and I was very sore. I swam the 400IM, however, but didn’t even come close to my best time. I placed 12^th after getting second the year before.

This same thing repeated itself at the NCAA Swimming championships, although I was able to handle it more suitably and placed fifth in the nation, swimming only equal to the time I swam the previous year. I’d averaged over two to three second drops each year and this year that would have put me within a second or two of a win. I did not understand what had happened, it was NOT sore muscles or strained muscles. Instead, it was a crimped or block lymphatic node, which meant that lymphatic fluid backed up in my chest region. This could have been prevented if I had loosened up more after my 200IM swim as well as kept my chest area open by stretching. Both would have prevented this condition.

1986, proved to be my most successful training yet, I was a senior during this time. After a phenomenal season, including a potential win at NCAA’s in the 400IM, I would have been the one to beat in 1988 for the Olympic Games. Instead, I retired from swimming having never fully reached my true and natural potential. Why did this happen so consistently and predictably? In 1984, when my swim coach the legendary Ray Bussard, was attempting to understand my reasoning for not competing in the Olympic Trails, he addressed me and said, “Tsuchiya, I got you figured out. See I’ve seen many a great competitor and they all have one thing in common, they are afraid to lose! Your case is different, son you just simply are afraid to win!” What, I thought?! You are a crazy old man. I train my ass off to be successful, I’m beyond dedicated and I have a natural swimming talent. I dismissed his honest words and never thought about them again, That is, until I began to understand and see my pattern.

Gay Hendricks, in The Big Leap, writes about Upper Limit Problems. He describes them as a limited tolerance for feeling good, based on one of four challenges. The one upper limit problem, I encountered was this one.  Hendricks refers to the first one, as being fundamentally flawed. Here is how it impacted my entire life, including my swimming career.

My dad is Japanese. He was born in Hawaii to two emigrant parents. At age four, my dad’s mother passed away.  A few years later, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. My grandfather was hauled off into an internment camp, even though he served the army during WWI. My dad was left alone living with limited family in the area. As my mother has said about my father, he never had a childhood and had a difficult time understanding and dealing with our behaviors when we were children. As you might imagine, my father was not emotionally available. He was not able to express his love for me in affectionate ways.  Because of this, I believed I was fundamentally flawed. What I know about my father was that when it included his swimmers, he was passionate, encouraging and animated when they were around. At one year old, I was destined to be a swimmer. I went to many of my father’s practices. I knew I wanted that kind of attention from my dad, his love and affection and I believed that becoming a swimmer would give me this. This was not a conscious though t of mine, so as soon as I was able, I jumped into the pool. My reasoning must have, if I swim fast, my father will love me.

I never understood this, until reading The Big Leap, which allowed me to look deeply into my life. I also never blamed my father or even felt growing up that he did not love me. However, today it all makes sense to me what I experienced when I was growing up.  Even my parenting style with my own boys is centered on constantly snuggling them, holding them, telling them all the time how much I love them. I make sure that we have plenty of tactical connection.

I discovered the truth one night, with the help my amazing partner Zemirah. I realized my self-sabotaging behavior although purely running at the subconscious level was playing out like this. I want my father to love me and show me he loves me and if I swim quickly and win races I will get his love.  Although I was a tremendously successful swimmer, this never altered his behaviors and I never truly felt his love. Now, here is where my upper limit problem tolerance kicked in. If I am the best, the absolute best, the Michael Phelps of my time and my dad still did not show me love the way I craved it as a child, then I am truly fundamentally flawed.

I was never going to let this happen. I was never going to be the absolute best because deep in my psyche I knew my dad would never love me the way I wanted him to love me. My upper limit was that I could only be good, maybe sometimes great but never, ever the best! I was afraid to win. Coach Bussard, rest his soul was absolutely correct in his assessment of me. My childhood conditioning mostly as it related to my relationship with my father, set the stage for my upper limit problem. Feeling fundamentally flawed dominated my life and created many circumstances were I had to self-sabotage myself before I had the potential to create the ultimate success. This pattern dominated my entrepreneurial career and relationships for my entire adult life. I love my father and I now know he loved me and showed it as best as he could. I have healed this upper limit problem by shining light on its existence and awareness. I have already moved past this upper limit problem and I am enjoying more success and love in my relationships in my personal and professional life. I am ready and engaging my life to become the best. I have allowed myself to excel and win in my life, whatever winning is ultimately defined as currently. This is my final post concerning my upper limit problem of feeling fundamentally flawed. It happened throughout my previous businesses and I might share those stories in my book. However, now is the time to express how I am creating success today. Everyone has upper limit problems.  No matter how successful each person is, there is another level to create in. Gay Hendricks refers to it as your “Zone of Genius” and he has given us permission to use this framework. I am currently moving into my EZOG, as we call it, would you care to join me?