www.danielharkavy.com » Life Planning

Are You Spending Enough Time?

Daniel Harkavy — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 20:00:19 +0000

That was the question Greg Salciccioli asked me last night, just moments after we witnessed the marriage of his oldest son Nate.

One year ago, we also had the privilege of attending their younger son’s wedding. Greg and Dianna have two sons, and now in the last year they have gained two daughters. As Greg asked me the question, he was looking at my four kids who were standing behind us, engrossed in a conversation of their own.

My off-the-cuff response was, “Yeah, I think so.” I have been working hard and playing hard with them, and I think we are getting plenty of time together. But when I woke up this morning, I was still pondering Greg’s question. Am I spending enough time with my kids?

I must admit, I don’t actually know the answer. How much time is enough? Enough time for me to feel like a good father? Enough time so they know beyond the shadow of a doubt how much I love them? Enough time to impart what they need to learn from me to have the best chance of succeeding in life?

Greg asked me this question at a milestone in his life as a father. This was the last of his kids’ weddings. Now both sons have their brides, and Greg and his bride are truly empty nesters.

In that moment, Greg said to me, “It just goes by so fast.” He encouraged me to remember that at moments like this, it is not about what you accomplish at work; it is the quality of your relationships that matter most.

As I reflect on these words in the early morning light, I hear my four kids starting to stir. We have some mountain biking to do today. Thanks to Greg’s question, I also have some assessing to do. My challenge today is to be fully present during our hours together.

Are you spending enough time?

I think Greg’s question can be applied to any relationship in your life. Take a moment to ask yourself that question, and if your answer is “not enough,” don’t wait! Give them a call, set up a date, go home and play, or enjoy of cup of tea with this person — face to face, eye to eye, with no interruptions, today.

Thanks to Greg and Dianna for allowing us to share in this beautiful occasion. And Greg, thanks for caring enough to ask such an important question.

How to Serve Those Who Serve Us

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I Have No Plan for My Life

Daniel Harkavy — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:53:08 +0000

Most people invest a great deal of time into planning their careers, their finances, and their vacations. But how many people can say they have a plan for their life?

One of the greatest gifts I’ve ever received was given to me about two decades ago by a friend named Todd Duncan. Todd introduced me to the concept of Life Planning. A few years later, I founded Building Champions, an executive and leadership coaching company. I took what I had learned from Todd and others, and created the Building Champions version of life planning.

Life planning is much more than goal setting. It requires you to dive deeper.

It means identifying each area of your life that is truly most important to you, casting a vision for your future, defining your purpose for each account and then identifying the activities that will enable you to have the highest probability of realizing your vision and living out your purpose. These activities enable you to accumulate real net worth.

I have seen this tool change lives.

For the last 14 years, my team and I have coached thousands of leaders through this process. The resulting plan almost always leads to improved decision making.

When you take the time to put a plan together for your life, it is much easier to make the right decisions each and every day. When you make better daily decisions, it leads to better weeks, months, and years. The right decisions in life lead to a better life.

With a Life Plan in place, you have the ability to truly manage your priorities because you are crystal clear on what they are and on how you want to invest in them.

Be one of the few with a plan. The Proverbs say “the plans of a man’s heart are deep waters; but a man of understanding draws them out.”

Be a man or woman of understanding and dive deep,

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Labeling Our Years

Daniel Harkavy — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 19:19:18 +0000

I don’t know if you are like me, but often, I find I am at a loss to recall the key lessons learned from past years. Think about it. What were the greatest lessons you learned in business or in life in 2005? What about 2003?

Okay, lets make this a bit easier. What did you learn in 2009?

One tactic that I have found useful is to label my years. I do this while spending a day during the Christmas break or right after the new year reflecting and planning. I review my Life Plan, Business Vision and Business Plan. I spend time journaling through the past year, and work to identify any big lessons learned. Then, once this is done, I use all this information to give both the past and upcoming year a label.

Here is what I mean by a label: I identify what my biggest focus points or new insights were during the year. They are not usually all that profound.

The label for 2009 came from what I really focused on as a leader. The key word for me in ’09 was “health.” When I began the year, I wanted to work on having a healthier team, a healthy business model and a healthy balance sheet. I shared this with my team, and it became part of our filter for decision-making throughout the year.

As I look back on the year, I am pleased to say that we as a team came together to make this a reality. 2009 will be remembered by me as the year of pursuing professional health. There have also been other years in the past where the theme I began with and the lesson I ended with were two different things!

How about you? What were the key lessons learned or the central theme you want to remember from ’09? If remembered, these lessons can help us to make better decisions in the years ahead. None of us want to have to learn the same lesson many times.

If you have not already done so, schedule your day to reflect and plan. Give ’09 a label, and pick your theme for 2010.

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Playing Like a Kid, Long After Recess

Daniel Harkavy — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 03:49:21 +0000

For those of you who know me, you know I like to play! My favorite hobbies have always included some kind of a board under my feet. Surfing is my greatest passion, but I also enjoy snowboarding and carve and long boarding through the streets of Lake Oswego. I get all kinds of funny looks and terse comments from neighbors, who must think I am some kind of teenage troublemaker as I skate by with my kids and their friends.

I’m not alone in this, either. Many times at the beach, on the mountain, or in the streets you will find my colleagues and their kids right there with me. Coach Barry Engelman has recently taken up snowboarding with his boys, and he also surfs with me from time to time. Coach Steve Scanlon can often be found skating in local parking garages at 11pm, or at Mount Hood boarding with his kids.

Anyhow, our immature hobbies are not the point of this post.

So what is my point? That I hang out with boys in men’s bodies? Maybe so, but I believe that there is some life-giving magic to be found in playing outdoors at any age.

One mentor in my life is my great uncle, Chuck Heller. Chuck was a very successful business owner in his day. When I first started in business some 25 years ago, I asked him for his take on what had made him successful. He shared a great deal with me, but the thing that really stuck with me was how he took care of himself physically, and how he played. Chuck came home for lunch every day to swim laps, eat a healthy meal, and take a short nap. He said this helped him mentally as well as physically. He is 94 years old now, and still plays tennis at least 5 days a week!

I’d like to encourage you to take care of yourself this year. Pick one health discipline to improve upon. Do you need to work on eating better quality foods, or smaller portions? Will you commit to exercising at lunchtime for 30 minutes a day, 4 days a week? Have you been thinking about trying a new hobby, or finally dusting off the clubs, racket, glove, or board and getting out there to play once a week?

To keep playing like kids, we must be very intentional with how we care for ourselves. This year, pick one aspect of your health account to improve upon. Then, incorporate some play into your Life Plan and your calendar this year. Not only will this allow you to make the most out of every day right now, but you’ll reap the benefits for years to come.

Do this, and you may receive one more wonderful gift: when you play like a kid, you get to do this stuff alongside your kids!

I hope to see you on the mountain this weekend,

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There is No Substitute for One on One Time

Daniel Harkavy — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:33:08 +0000

Today has been a wonderful day! It began with an early morning meeting with a friend who has been mentoring me for the last 13 years. Recently, my time with him has been less frequent, but whenever I am with him I learn and grow. Our meeting took place at my favorite local coffee house here in Lake Oswego. He was pouring into me.

After an hour and a half, he left, and one of my sons came by. He is 17, and is finishing up his senior year with some classes at our local community college. The purpose of our one on one time was to connect and take a look at his plan for the next quarter. It was an opportunity for me to listen to him and to connect at a deeper level. I was able to pour into him.

The reason I wanted to share with you about my morning is to challenge you to think about how you will spend your time this year.

Are you proactively scheduling one on one time with those you care for most?

One on one time is the absolute best way for people to connect, to experience intimacy, to build trust, to share life, to love and support one another, to challenge each other, to affirm each other and to show those around us how much they mean to us. With our busy schedules, this can be quite challenging, but it is worth it. I have learned — by observing those who are further down the path than I am — that those who do this tend to have the deepest and the best relationships.

Many of you are already busily filling in the vacant slots on your calendar for this month or even the entire year, and this is one discipline that will pay huge dividends. These one on one times (or dates, as we call them in our home) should be scheduled first before other things get in the way.

Look at your Life Plan, and make sure your key accounts include the discipline of one on one time with those who are the most important in your life — your spouse, your kids, your close friends, your extended family members. Then make room in your calendar, and invite them to meet with you. Make this a non-negotiable discipline so that it becomes a way of life for you.

I know many of you already do this, and do even more to make the time rich and meaningful. I could learn from you! Others may want to make this a priority, but don’t know where to begin. It starts with one date.

I hope this helps you and those you care for,

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You Have to See the Whole Picture

Daniel Harkavy — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 17:26:54 +0000

If you were to call me and ask if I could fly out and meet with you on March 11th, the old me would pull up my CRM to see if that date was open. If so, I would say sure, see you then!

But what I could miss is that I was scheduled to be at my daughter’s ballet performance on the evening of the 10^th, and that the following week, I am to make two major presentations. Not to mention, this all comes after three very full weeks of meetings.

The old me would have made a commitment to that date without assessing how it would impact me and those around me during that larger period of time. Outlook was not good enough.

The solution was to go back to a paper tool.

About 12 years ago, I found the Franklin Covey Yearly Fold Out Calendar. This tool allows you to put all of the major events for the year onto one sheet of paper. You can see your vacations, business trips, important meetings, birthdays, anniversaries, project due dates and any other key commitments that you are to make. You can use your Life Plan and your Business Plan to help you fill it in.

The calendar can then be color-coded to show you at a glance how you are spending your days. For example, on my calendar we use yellow for coaching days, pink for business travel, blue for ON-Time, orange for business development, and green for vacation time. This helps me to make better decisions as I can see how I am investing my time over longer periods.

When you see the whole picture — the weeks before and after the date in question — you are better equipped to count the cost and make an informed decision.

A few years back, I was coaching my friend Mike Hyatt through this tool. As Mike will often do, he took a great idea and made it even better. He created an Excel Yearly Calendar, an electronic version which we now use here at Building Champions. Mike and I gave it away to our Experience attendees earlier this year and we want to offer it to you now.

Send us an email if you’d like a copy of the calendar.

I hope this helps you to make better decisions in the year ahead!

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A Day That Will Change Your Life

Daniel Harkavy — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:53:06 +0000

As many of you know, I have spent the last 13 years of my career building an executive coaching company.

What my team and I get to do each and every day is to help business professionals improve their thinking, their abilities and their actions. We walk our clientele through a model we call the Core Four, which is comprised of four critical elements: Life Planning, Vision, Business Planning and Priority Management.

When we begin our journey with a new client, the Life Plan comes first.

I believe Life Planning is not just a strategy for life, but also for business. Think about it for a moment. What causes a huge percentage of professionals to crash and burn, or to just perform at mediocre levels?

Our team has coached thousands of professionals from a variety of industries over the years. In that time, we have observed that often the things in life are what take us out professionally. Illness, broken marriages, parenting challenges, financial crises, spiritual dilemmas, and other types of hurts cause us to lose our passion or our ability to focus. Ultimately, this will hinder our career performance.

If you agree with me on this, then you can see how Life Planning — a process that starts with you dedicating an entire day to planning your life — can actually aid you professionally.

I believe that there is an even greater reason to build a Life Plan. If reviewed regularly, it will change the big and little decisions you make each and every day. If you make better decisions every day, you will have better days, better weeks, better months, better years….and that makes for a better life. I am not saying that you will avoid the pain or struggles in life if you have a Life Plan. I am saying that you will be able to make better, more proactive and intentional decisions in your days which will enable you to be more proactive and intentional in life.

We have so many things coming at us, both good and bad…..email, television, the news, sports, charity requests, blogs, Facebook, and now Tweets. I could go on and on. My point is that very few people have an abundance of time or energy to think each day about where their lives are going, who they or their kids are becoming, how they are impacting those around them or how they are growing.

A day devoted to building a plan for your life will equip you with what is needed to start living a more proactive and intentional life. As we head into the final weeks of the year, my challenge to you is to consider more than just production goals or profit margins for the next year. Years go by too fast to stop there. Build your Life Plan.

Here are your two Action Plans:

Click here to request your Life Planning Tool
Schedule a full day before the end of this year to go somewhere special and build your own Life Plan. If you already have a Life Plan, schedule a day to update and review it.

I’ll provide more insight into the HOW of Life Planning in the coming weeks.

I cannot tell you how many testimonials we’ve received at Building Champions about how this one day has radically changed people’s lives. Not only have I seen it changes the lives of others, I have seen it change my own.

I thought about calling this entry “A Day That CAN Change Your Life,” but I am convinced that a day spent on Life Planning is a day that WILL change your life!

Stop the reactive and unintentional,

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