Is it just me or does anyone else feel slightly sad that people look at the past year and bid it good riddance!  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say that they’re happy to have that year done and behind them.

As you read this, I’ll poke you a little bit here.  I mean, again, my aim is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.

Are you one of those who is so glad to see the door close on this last year so that you can start this one anew?  

I’ll admit that the turning of this calendar page is a little different for me personally this time.  There’s a lot I’m looking forward to in this coming year and decade because there’s a lot I’m looking forward to creating and producing for myself and others.

I’m not happy that the year has come to a close.  I’m not sad about it either.  

It’s a thing.  I got out of the year what I put into it.  And I know that over the past year, I’ve laid the groundwork for the years ahead.  

You have too.  So if you’re so glad...

It’s dark.  Your mind whirrs.  Your stomach growls.  You wander to the kitchen and find your way to the refrigerator.

You open the door and suddenly…

This is where this tale gets cool…  YOU ARE LIKE YOUR REFRIGERATOR. Want to know how?

Of course you do.

You find your way to the refrigerator, you pull open the door, and all of the darkness in the room rushes inside the ‘fridge.  

No, no… that’s not what happens at all.

You open your refrigerator and one light, one tiny bulb, illuminates the whole kitchen.  The light rushes out and everything seems almost too bright.

This week’s Wednesdays With Wayne falls during Hanukkah and on Christmas.  Use this as a reminder as you gather with family and friends from now into the New Year:  YOU carry the light. One tiny light. You shine it brightly and it floods over everything around it.  You do not let the darkness rush in. Your light-filled energy bathes others.

Remember that.

You’re going to feel holiday pressure.

You’re going to feel ...

Is giving selfish?

The answer isn’t all that straight-forward.  In fact, it’s kind of complicated. And, as with many situations, often it comes down to: It depends.

Numerous studies over the past several decades (yes, decades) reference “the reciprocal benefits of giving.”  The bottom line from all of the research boils down to this: We feel good when we give.  

Now comes the nuance – 

There are some people who give for the sake of being noticed for giving.  They want their giving to be recognized, acknowledged, and praised. It’s then that the good feelings are generated.

Others give, knowing that in so doing, they have helped the other person in some way.  The feeling good is an internal acknowledgment.  

We often don’t hear directly from those who give.   The point here is that when your values point you to giving back or lifting someone else, you just do that.

Values can be learned and adopted.  Our conditions do change us and even recent research from Bleidorn and Hopwood, e...

Next week, I’ll be in Dallas shooting a half-hour segment on CBS.  

It’s great to get a two-minute spot.  It’s amazing if they (the producers) gives you a three-minute spot.  If you push to three and a half or four minutes, they’re squeezing someone else out for you.  

I get a half-hour to share my message!  

On CBS!  

And I’m super-excited!!!

I’ll be discussing how to make, and keep, New Year’s resolutions.  

We’re in mid-December and it’s not too early to be thinking about what this new decade will hold.  Some people say things like, “let’s see what the New Year brings.” Nope. It’s what YOU bring to the New Year.  That means that what the New Decade holds for you is what you bring to it.  

You’ve seen people with empty wishes backed by limited action.  You might work with them, live with them, or notice them in the mirror.  “I’d like to….”

What?  You’d like to what?

What do you want to have, do, or become?

Don’t be afraid to dream big.  

Then, don’t be afraid to take actio...

Progress, not perfection?  I think progress IS perfection.  As we enter the last month of the decade, most people will dwell on the things they didn’t do.  And we ALL have things left uncompleted at this point.  

Two things:

1. You get to choose what you want to complete and what you want to close a door on.  Putting that thing away because it no longer fits the path you’re currently on is a manner of completion.  The rules are no longer “you started, you must see it through to the end.” The rules are simpler: YOU GET TO DECIDE WHAT THE END REALLY IS.

AND

1. We’re in the last month of the decade!  Look back on all of the things you HAVE done.  You accomplished A LOT over the last 10 years. You’re a different person from the person who started this decade.  You’ve learned, you’ve attempted, you’ve failed, you’ve learned, you’ve attempted, you’ve grown.  

And that’s why today’s Wednesdays With Wayne focuses you here:

You already are perfect.

We all have flaws and that’s what ...

While most of us practice gratitude all year long, we’re at *that* time of year where we reflect and give thanks.  Tomorrow (in the United States) is Thanksgiving and I wanted to make sure that you knew how special you are to me.  

You keep me inspired to stay in the conversation.

You inspire the challenge.

For today, tomorrow, and all year long, you need to know that I truly appreciate you for being on this journey with me.

It’s a journey of ripples and I believe we each makes a difference.  Each of us, a person at a time. It simply #StartsWithOne . . . you!

Thank you!

In a discussion with a high-performance brother, he commented on something that got me thinking.  We were talking about what it means to be able to get up every day with a sense of purpose. It feels good to want to do more, have more, BE more, and serve more greatly.  

We then started talking about why some people don’t feel that way.  

We humans are gifted with something special.  Our brain’s frontal lobes help us plan and sequence.  We have the ability to think forward and to choose to improve.  

And this was the conversation stopper: 

We’re the only beings that can choose not to improve ourselves.

Think about every other animal or even plant.  If you block a plant’s light by putting an object in front of it, the plant will lean out to be able to get sunlight.  If you give a chimp a banana in a box that’s behind a caged wall and just out of reach, the chimp will create tools to get to the banana.  Living beings are designed to survive and thrive.  

Yet we humans are so “special...

We have good intentions.  The term is API or POGI which stands for Assume Positive Intent and Person of Good Intent.  Frame interactions that way and you’ll be better off when you’re in conversation with someone.

There are people of good intent who shut others down inadvertently.  They’re just trying to help when they bestow their hard-earned wisdom on another.

And the conversation comes to a crashing close with the phrase, “You just need to be realistic.”  

There’s a word that kills dreams and that “killer” R word is: Realistic.  

What’s realistic for someone with a dream is far from realistic for those without.  I have a dream to touch people’s lives in such a way that a ripple of true intentional support of others is a mindset shift for the world.  For some, it means congratulating them on their efforts.  Others need to be reawakened. And others need education. My goal is to teach, touch, and positively transform the lives of a lot of people.  A LOT of people.  

We don’t know t...

People used to think that public speaking was a fate worse than death.  The truth is that we aren’t afraid to speak in public. We’re afraid of being judged in public.  

We aren’t just afraid of being judged, our biggest fear – OUR BIGGEST FEAR – is that of being ostracized, cut off from the tribe we so desperately want to belong to.

Look at teenagers.  They all go through it – they want so much to stand out and be seen as independent all the while worried about being cut out of the “in” group.  

And now you, dear #DynamicLeader, get to step into a new mindset.  What if, instead of being afraid of losing the tribe you belong to, you realize that anyone who judges you harshly isn’t part of YOUR tribe!  You choose with whom you surround yourself.  

One of my High-Performance clients and I spoke of this just a few days ago:

If people reject my message, they’re not rejecting me.

They’re just not in my tribe.

What would it take for you to think that way?  You don’t need to belong. It ...

It would be so great to sit with you and catch up.  How great to learn about what you’re up to and to share in the possibilities that are just in front of you!  I’d love to share with you my aspirations and dreams, too.

And then, we disappear, and we’re back, and one or the other of us is gone again.  

How…?  What…?

Have you ever been with someone you care about and feel as though, even when they’re right in front of you, they’ve stopped being with you?  Have you felt left out of their private party because they’ve been sucked into the phone or wrist tech?  

I didn’t know I was guilty of that.  I thought I could multi-task and stay in the conversation even though I was just checking my messages.

I was just seeing who texted.

I was just looking at the subject line of the email.

“Do you have somewhere else to be?” she asked me, shaking me out of my distraction.

I looked up surprised.  “No, I was just…”

Shannon said, “Your imaginary friends can wait.”

I was about to explain that...