N.E Partners: Organizational Leaders Conference in NYC

This past weekend our company had the opportunity to attend an Organizational Leaders conference in New York City. It was a really great opportunity for everyone to learn from leaders in different markets, share the success of this previous year as well as go over some of the goals for the organization for 2012. There are many new developments for our clients and great markets opening up. NEP is poised to make a lot of growth in the following year and we are extremely excited for whats to come!

Pictures from the holiday party to come up soon...

N.E. Partners: Focus!

That's a 20 minutes video but it's worthwhile your time. Mel Robbins talks about how to do what you want to do: force yourself out of your head, feelings and comfort zone. It's so simple but not easy.

N.E. Partners: 30 Habits That Will Change Your Life

Developing good habits is the basic of personal development and growth. Everything we do is the result of a habit that was previously taught to us. Unfortunately, not all the habits that we have are good, that’s why we are constantly trying to improve.

The following is a list of 30 practical habits that can make a huge difference in your life.

You should treat this list as a reference, and implement just one habit per month. This way you will have the time to fully absorb each of them, while still seeing significant improvements each month.

Health habits

1. Exercise 30 minutes every day. Especially if you don’t do much movement while working, it’s essential that you get some daily exercise. 30 minutes every day are the minimum recommended for optimal health.
2. Eat breakfast every day. Breakfast is the more important meal of the day, yet so many people skip it. Personally, I like to eat a couple of toasts in the morning along with a fruit beverage.
3. Sleep 8 hours. Sleep deprivation is never a good idea. You may think that you are gaining time by sleeping less, when in reality you are only gaining stress and tiredness. 8 hours are a good number of hours for most people, along with an optional 20 minutes nap after lunch.
4. Avoid snacking between meals. Snacking between meals is the best way to gain weight. If you are hungry, eat something concrete. Otherwise don’t. Update: for clarification, I mean don’t eat junk food between meals, but eating real food it’s ok.
5. Eat five portions of fruits and vegetables every day. Our body and brain loves getting vegetables and fruit, so I highly recommend eating as much of them as possible. Five portions is the dose that’s usually recommended by many health associations.
6. Eat fish. Fish is rich of omega 3 and other healthy elements. At least one meal per week of fish should be enough for getting all these nutrients.
7. Drink one glass of water when you wake up. When you wake up, your body is dehydrated and needs liquid. Make the habit of drinking one glass of water after you wake up in the morning. Also, drink more during the day.
8. Avoid soda. Soda is often one of the most unhealthy beverage you can find. Limit your consumption of soda as much as possible and you’re body will be grateful for that.
9. Keep your body clean. I don’t advise spending your day in front of the mirror, but a minimum of personal care does never hurt.
10. If you smoke, stop it. There’s no reason to smoke anymore, and quitting is possible.
11. If you drink, stop it. Same as above. Don’t think that alcohol will solve your problems. It never does. The only exception is one glass of wine per day during meals.
12. Take the stairs. This is just a hack that forces you to do a minimum of exercise. Instead of taking the elevator, take the stairs.

Productivity habits

1. Use an inbox system. Make the habit of keeping track of all the ideas and things that comes to mind. You can use a notebook to do this, and then sync everything on your computer.
2. Prioritize. If you have a list of things to do, where do you start? One way is to prioritize your list. If you are in doubt, ask yourself: “If I could only accomplish one thing today, what would it be?”
3. Plan, but not too much. Planning is important, and you should decide in advance what you are going to do today or this week. However, planning for more than a few weeks is usually inefficient, so I would not worry too much about that.
4. Wake up early. Waking up early in the morning is a great way to gain extra time. I personally like to wake up at 5 am, so that by 9 am I have already accomplished what otherwise would have taken me many days..
5. Check your email only twice per day. Email can easily become an addiction, but it’s usually unnecessary to check it every 10 minutes. Make an effort and check your email only once or twice per day, see if the world will still rotate as before after you try this.
6. Eliminate unimportant tasks. Being busy all day does not mean you are doing important stuff. Eliminate every activity that’s not important, and focus on what really matters.
7. Clean off your desk and room. Having a clear room and desk is important to maintain focus and creativity.
8. Automate. There are a lot of tasks that you need to perform every day or every week. Try to automate them as much as possible.
9. Set strict deadlines. When you do something, decide in advance when you’re going to stop. There’s a rule that states that you will fulfill all the time you have available for completing a task, so make an habit of setting strict deadlines for maximizing your productivity.
10. Take one day off per week. Instead of working every day, take one day off per week (for example sunday) where you are not going to turn on your computer. Use that time for doing recreational activities like going for a walk.

Personal Development habits

1. Read 1 book per week. Reading is a good way to keep your brain active. With just 30 minutes per day you should be able to read one book per week, or more than 50 books per year.
2. Solve puzzles. Quizzes, word games, etc. are all good ways to exercise your brain.
3. Think positively. You are what you think, all the time.
4. Make fast decisions. Instead of thinking for one hour wherever you are going to do something, make your decisions as fast as possible (usually less than 1 minute).
5. Wait before buying. Waiting 48 hours before buying anything is a tremendous money saver, try it.
6. Meditate 30 minutes per day. A great way to gain clearness and peace is through meditation. 30 minutes are not a lot, but enough to get you started with meditation.

Career habits

1. Start a blog. Blogging is one of the best way to put your word out. It doesn’t have to be around a specific topic, even a personal blog will do.
2. Build a portfolio. If your job is creating stuff, building a portfolio is a great way to show what you are capable of. You can also contribute stuff for free if that applies to your work.

Mind Management

If you challenge your mind to expand your comfort zone, you will naturally expand your wealth zone. By striving to grow your comfort zone, you are constantly taking risks and finding more opportunities, ideas, actions and growth than you ever imagined. The bigger your “container,” the more income and wealth you will attract and hold. Challenge yourself to constantly make your container larger, and watch the universe rush to fill the space.

What is the single most important skill you can master to increase your happiness and success? Training your mind.

How do you train your mind? Start by observing your thought process. If you are like most people, your mind continuously produces both empowering thoughts, such as those that lead to success, and disempowering thoughts, including those that don’t support your wealth and happiness. As you identify your thoughts, you need to begin consciously replacing your disempowering thoughts with empowering ones. In doing so, you will begin adopting empowering attitudes as your own. Start by making declarations to yourself, such as “I act in spite of fear,” “I act in spite of doubt” and “I act in spite of inconvenience.”

Believe it or not, you can choose your thoughts and control your mind. You have the natural ability to cancel any thought that does not support you. You can also install self-empowering thoughts at any time by choosing to focus on them.

At one of my seminars, Robert Allen, a close friend and bestselling author, said something quite profound: “No thought lives in your head rent-free.”

What he meant is, you pay for your negative thoughts in money, energy, time, health and happiness. If you want to move to a new level in your life quickly, begin by dividing your thoughts into two categories: empowering and disempowering. Observe them, and determine if they are supporting your happiness and success. Choose to entertain only the empowering thoughts, and refuse to focus on the disempowering ones. When a nonsupportive notion comes to the surface, replace it with a more supportive way of thinking. I call this process “power thinking.” And mark my words, if you practice it, your life will never be the same.

So, what is the difference between power thinking and positive thinking? The distinction is slight, but profound.

People use positive thinking to pretend that everything is rosy when they really believe it is not. With power thinking, though, we understand that something is neutral until we assign it meaning by creating a story.

"You have the natural ability to cancel any thought that is not supporting you."

This is the difference between a positive thinker and a power thinker. A positive thinker believes their thoughts are true. Whereas a power thinker recognizes that their thoughts are not true, but since they are making up a story anyway, they might as well make up a story that supports themselves. Why do we do this? Not because our new thoughts are true in an absolute sense, but because they are more useful to us and feel a heck of a lot better than nonsupportive ones.

Observe yourself and your thought patterns, and entertain only the thoughts that support your happiness and success. Challenge that little voice in your head whenever it tells you, “I can’t” or “I don’t want to” or “I don’t feel like it.” Don’t allow this fear-based, comfort-based voice to get the better of you. Make a pact with yourself that whenever the little voice in your head tries to stop you from doing something to support your success, you will do it anyway to tell it that you are the boss. Not only will you increase your confidence dramatically, but eventually, the voice will get quieter and quieter as it recognizes it has little effect on you.

Particularly during economic downturns like this, it is crucial that we change our pessimistic thoughts into empowering ones and stretch our comfort zones to attain and hold more wealth. We must constantly choose to remain positive and not let disempowering thoughts take hold, regardless of what the media says about the global economy.

Practice getting out of your comfort zone by consciously making decisions that will make you uncomfortable. Talk to someone you would normally avoid, ask for a raise at work or try something that scares you.

Living a mediocre life does not lead to happiness. Constantly wondering what could have been does not lead to happiness. What does lead to happiness is living in our natural state of growth and reaching our full potential.

The next time you are feeling uncomfortable, uncertain or afraid, press forward instead of retreating. Experience the feeling of discomfort and accept it for what it is—a feeling. Recognize that a feeling does not have the power to stop you. Push on, and eventually you will reach your goal.

The point, however, is not whether or not those feelings of discomfort eventually subside. If they do lessen, take it as a sign that you need to increase your objective because the minute you get comfortable, you have stopped growing. Managing your mind to live at the edge of your comfort zone will allow you to grow and reach your fullest potential.

Because humans are creatures of habit, we have to practice. Practice acting in spite of fear, in spite of discomfort, in spite of inconvenience. By doing so, you will quickly move to a higher level, and your wealth will almost certainly increase.

The mind is a powerful tool, but it is also the greatest soap-opera scriptwriter in history. It creates powerful stories based on dramas or disasters that have never happened and likely never will. As Mark Twain said, “I’ve had thousands of problems in my life, most of which never actually happened.”

It is important to remember that you are not your mind—you are much bigger and more powerful than your mind alone. By learning to train it, though, you can conquer your fear, expand your comfort zone and dramatically increase your wealth.