Appetite for the Spectacular: Guest Post by Simon T. Bailey

When you become intentional about your life, you become unstoppable in creating your future. Is that your mantra for this decade? If not, you may want to consider it. This is it. I want my future and I want it now. What about you?

I was recently visiting a friend in Buffalo, New York — Sundra Ryce, at Starbucks, where all serious and important meetings take place. I asked her how she was doing and she said, “Simon, I have an appetite for the spectacular!” When she said it, I said, “Whoa…that is profound.” I tore out of the parking lot to get back to my hotel. I couldn’t get to my laptop fast enough to pound out these timeless words.

Then, in the middle of rattling out my thoughts, I froze for a moment and started thinking, “What does an appetite for the spectacular look like, sound like, taste like, talk like, feel like, and act like?” Here are some thoughts that I came up with just for you…

1. My friend Israel Houghton wrote a song called “Moving Forward.” The chorus of the opening line says, “I am not going back, I am moving ahead.” I love that. I can’t change the past. It’s in the past and you need to move past your past. Simon Says Shift…it’s time to experience the spectacular. Hold your head up; it’s not time to give up. Lift your mind up, it is time to dream up. Open your hand up, it will be filled up with spectacular opportunities disguised as work.
2. Pay attention to your taste buds. They will provide insight into your personal and professional appetite; once your taste buds experience what you believe is the best, that becomes spectacular to you at that level. However, when you become curious about the future your appetite begins to change. What once fed you no longer feeds you. What once intellectually stimulated you no longer fills the hole in your mind. What once seemed okay no longer meets your needs. For instance, I remember when my wife and I were living in a rented apartment yet desiring to be in a house we could call our home. It was a whopping 800 square feet with one bedroom and one bath. Every Sunday we would drive around various neighborhoods and look at houses. The more we looked, the more we created an appetite for something new and fresh.
3. Your next movie should be called “Is this it?” I have discovered in my own journey that we have the potential to reach the place of what Noel Burch (Gordon Training International) calls unconscious competence. This is when an individual has had so much practice with a skill that it becomes “second nature” and can be performed easily (often without concentrating too deeply). When we reach this point, then we have to ask ourselves, “is this it or is there another level of possibility, or another dimension of expansion that I don’t yet see or believe exists?”
4. When you develop an appetite for the spectacular, you no longer settle for the crumbs of the ordinary. Jeffrey Kluger, in an article that he wrote in Time Magazine called “The Science of Appetite”, says “understanding a process as complex as appetite — one that involves taste, smell, sight, texture, brain chemistry, gut chemistry, metabolism and, most confounding of all, psychology — is exponentially harder.” Ok…let me Simonize this for you…spectacular is an inside job. Your entire biological system must be reprogrammed to begin to expect the very best.
5. After you Eat, Pray, and Love…get up and do something. Stop waiting for things to happen. Make something happen.
6. Talk to the hand. That’s what you need to tell all naysayers, haters, wannabes, disbelievers, and everyone that has written you off. Do not accept negative spam or toxic viruses of doubt, fear and disbelief. If Steve Jobs had listened to the pundits then the iPod, iPhone, and iTunes would have remained a figment of his imagination. But no, he pushed aside what everyone else said and walked in the opposite direction. If you have a dream or an idea, then go for it. You can do it! The reality is that some people are more negative than an undeveloped piece of film. Don’t let it be you.
7. Sell out to your dream, destiny, and desire to be. No more meandering around waiting to be discovered. Discover yourself. Be your own American Idol; hold your arms up and dance with the star called you. Go Rogue because your future demands it.
8. Surround yourself with 360 degree thinkers. When you do you will begin to think and see like them. When you surround yourself with 45 degree thinkers you will only think and see to a certain degree! Bill Taylor, one of the founders of Fast Company, said it best: “Most companies in most industries have a kind of tunnel vision. They chase the opportunities that everyone else is chasing; they miss the opportunities that everyone else is missing. It’s the companies that see a different game that win big.”
9. A job is what you are paid to do. Release your brilliance is what you are made to do. If you are not releasing your brilliance, igniting your creative energy, being a game changer in your place of business, just quit; move on and do something else. Fire yourself before you get fired. Ok, I know what you are saying … “But Simon, I have bills to pay. I can’t just quit.” Then transfer to a new department, sell your business, or get a new attitude. If you are doing a spectacular job, congratulations! If not, then you have a job that someone else needs.
10. Good is no longer good enough. If it’s not spectacular, I am not interested. Life is to be enjoyed, not just to be merely amused.

This is your moment to be intentional about only feeding yourself with spectacular thoughts that create your future. Pursue spectacular relationships that build you up instead of tear you down. Spectacular is my word for the new decade. What is your word for this decade?

I want to know what Appetite for the Spectacular means to you. When you hear those words, what stirs your soul? What are you going to do to make your life Spectacular forever?

About Simon T. Bailey

Simon T. Bailey, CSP, from Windermere, Florida, is the bestselling author of Release Your Brilliance, published by HarperCollins and ranked #17 of the Top 100 books being read by Corporate America according to 800-CEORead. He was selected as one of the top 25 “hot” speakers shaping the speaking profession by Speaker magazine. Most recently he was nominated for the National Speaker Association CPAE — 2010 Speaker Hall of Fame distinction.

He is a thought leader for Dell, Microsoft, Society of Human Resource Management, and Executive Women International. He has spoken in Singapore, Paris, South Africa, London, and Dubai.

As a former leader with Disney Institute and the Walt Disney World Resort®, he is a category of one catalyst and fresh voice in the business world that will challenge you to Release Your Brilliance.

Visit www.simontbailey.com.

Photo Credits

“Simon T. Bailey” Courtesy of www.simontbailey.com

“Steve Jobs and iPhone” AP, Simon Sakuma

“Release Your Brilliance” from the book Release Your Brilliance, Harper Collins,  www.simontbailey.com

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