Chaos Driven Success: How to Escape The Valley of Despair

Chaos Driven Success. The economy is once again going into a period of absolute chaos. This is GREAT news for the prepared but TERRIBLE news for people clutching to failed strategies, practices, and out-dated thinking…

“There is an immutable conflict at work in life and in business, a constant battle between peace and chaos. Neither can be mastered, but both can be influenced. How you go about that is the key to success.” ~ Phil Knight

Phil Knight is right.

Chaos is inevitable but it can be managed with the right leadership skills.

With the right skills, you grow powerful and successful.

Wealth, freedom, opportunity, and respect are your rewards.

Permit chaos to rule, you will die broke, humiliated, and stupid.

Regrets will take the place of results and you either give up, give in, or work yourself to death trying everything…

Instead of committing to something that actually works.

When we created this 100 Day Challenge it was designed to cause you to stop… think… and do the work you should have done years before.

It is designed to make excellence in all you do a HABIT… not the accidental response to some self-induced crisis.

If you are wildly successful, you will want to read this article as confirmation that you are doing everything possible to influence destiny in your favor.

Skim the graphics, refresh your memory, then look at the Conscious Competence Grid one more time and decide how much time each month you spend in Stage 3 & 4 versus 1 or 2.

In the unlikely event that your actions are not instinctive, intuitive, and habitual, sign up for a refresher.

HOWEVER…

We have found that most people either do not understand the COST to their lives or the IMPACT of living in a constant state between Stage 1, Unconscious Incompetence and Stage 2, Conscious Incompetence.

Never getting to Stage 3, they suffer a form of Success Cancer, a malignancy that affects every aspect of their life: Financially, emotionally, personally, and your relationships.

This leads to living in a long term state of chaos that sucks the very oxygen out of your soul.

According to Webster, left unmanaged chaos leads to…

In this case, a few pictures are worth 100,000 words…

As you know, I am a highly trained economist that just happens to be a successful serial entrepreneur.

From the second I heard of it, I instantly grasped the importance of the J-Curve to Leadership Change.

Some call it a management tool, I call it the living embodiment of Chaos Driven Success!

The first graphic asks you to identify how aware you are of your strengths and weaknesses. Are you Unconsciously Competent or just oblivious.

To actually KNOW where you stand — a wonderful benchmark for attaining incredible success — take your full TQ Test. In 20 minutes you will no longer be clueless. Click to Test Your TQ…

The vast majority of people, today around 60%, straddle the line between Stage 1 and 2. About 30% are actively working on their success potential while 10% have success on cruise control.

Look at the 4 boxes and take a wild guess where you are right this instant.

If you think you are making the grade but your results don’t show it, that is Stage 1 behavior.

If you are AWARE that something is holding you back from the success you desire but don’t know how to fix it, you are in Stage 2.

If you are both AWARE and ADDRESSING your performance challenges, that is Stage 3 behavior.

If you are killing it and are truly effective, efficient, and highly productive, living your passion, that is Stage 4 behavior.

Which leads me to the next graphic…

(Attribution: I quickly grabbed these wonderful images by simply doing a Google search — I have great respect for the artistry so want to attribute them to the creators!)

The J-Curve is pretty simple to understand. Here we overlaid the CC Grid to show the relationship between your level of performance and how easily you adapt to change.

All change comes at a COST.

The cost is ALWAYS a period of chaos.

And as you know, chaos causes pain: Fear, anger, hopelessness and more.

The expectation is that when you make a change everything suddenly gets better.

Some call it a learning curve, some on-boarding, but the idea is that once you pull the trigger on a new idea, current performance drops until the new and improved results start to occur.

No question. You know this to be absolutely TRUE…

Everything is going well but it can be better. You disrupt the Status Quo with something HOT, NEW, & DIFFERENT.

In short order you find yourself on that proverbial slippery slope, the wheels come off, and you descend into what all executives know as the VOD.

Some call it the Valley of Desperation…

Or the Valley of Doom…

Or the Valley of Death where all good ideas go to die.

In many cases, they take the company and people with them.

Notice that CHAOS takes place between RESISTANCE and TRANSFORMATION.

This is highly VISIBLE…

It doesn’t matter if it is international economics or just the economics of your personal checkbook.

We all have a DESIRED state (what we expect to get from the changes we make) so we must leave the CURRENT state with a CHANGE…

That INSTANTLY drives CHAOS.

How long you live in the VOD is up to where you are on the Conscious Competence Grid.

If you are fast, smart, and savvy, you weather the storm, laugh at chaos, rise to receive the tangible benefits you were looking for prior to the change.

The opportunity of a lifetime awaits.

HOWEVER…

Chaos kills all hopes and dreams for people without the skills to navigate their way to the top.

Finally, we all go through these emotions when we make a change that we expect to improve our lives and it doesn’t come quite fast enough…

Legends of leadership change are made when we act quickly to leave the Valley of Despair and rise up to our full potential.

Fully integrated success, what I cause Chaos Driven Success…

Success that can only be born from traversing the VOD to rise to the top.

Which, of course means that the winners are those who spend most, if not all, of their time at Stage 4, Unconscious Competence. Or, The Excellence Habit for short!

This, of course, is exactly what TQ is all about… making EXCELLENCE in all you do a HABIT.

And why our approach WORKS.

Put simply, we help you navigate the pitfalls of change… so you spend little time in the VOD and lots of time enjoying the fruits of your results.

After all, if you unleash your full potential to become all you are meant to be, doing what it takes to succeed is simple!

First, we get a solid assessment of your personal power — from your physical ENERGY level all the way down to your propensity to take ACTION.

You either have the power to achieve your dreams, or you don’t.

Our 100 Day Excellence Habit Challenge is carefully designed to move you swiftly

It’s about the power of habits that control our lives, 24x7x365.

Grow the Excellence Habit and you grow your career.

Grow the Excellence Habit and you grow your relationships.

Grow the Excellence Habit and you grow your bank account.

If you are struggling right now, the smartest thing you can do is get the help you need to move from where you are — emotionally and financially — to where you want to go.