CFD 517 – James Arthur Ray On A New Kind of Leadership

February 21st, 2019

James Arthur Ray is considered one of the world’s foremost leadership and performance advisors, coaches and consultants. He began his career consulting with C-Level Executives at the AT&T School of Business. It was here that he realized his purpose for helping others find their unique gifts, and then leveraging them to take their

life and business to new levels. His extensive study of behavioral sciences, experience as an entrepreneur, and tireless quest for spiritual knowledge gives him a unique and powerful ability to address issues in both life and business from an integrated level; much deeper and more fulfilling than most can accomplish.

His company hit The Inc. 500 in 2009 as one of the fastest growing privately held companies in the United States. James was featured in the film documentary “The

Secret,” a ground-breaking feature-length film, and New York Times bestseller. James has been interviewed in numerous national media outlets including a full-feature article in Fortune Magazine, People Magazine, Larry King Live, Piers Morgan, the Today Show, CNN and Oprah.

He is the author of the New York Times Bestseller Harmonic Wealth: The Secret to Attracting the Life You Want which focuses on his principle of Going Three For Three: How to Effectively Bring Your Thoughts, Feelings and Actions into Harmony with Bold Application. James states vision without bold action is a total waste of time. James’ new book Redemption: The Price of Leadership in Both Life and Business is scheduled to be released in 2018.

Podcast Highlights

  • Who is James Arthur Ray?

James is the dark knight of leadership performance. He didn’t grow up in a wealthy family though. He was a skinny, scrawny, awkward kid that got bullied in school. James father was a dynamic speaker and Protestant minister which contrasted quite a bit with James personality.

Early on in James’s life, he had many questions about life and the way things work which lead to him studying a variety of topics including business, philosophy, psychology, biology, and even quantum physics. He started looking for ways to synthesize the common threads between all these very different areas of knowledge.

  • Leadership

We live in very disruptive times, AI is on the rise and the fact is if you are not doing something unique and accessing your full human potential you’re going to be left behind.

Leadership isn’t a title or position, that’s positional power. It’s also not the number of social media followers you have. Leadership is first and foremost about leading your own life. Self-awareness is the number one necessity in today’s world in leadership and entrepreneurship.

There shouldn’t be a dividing line between life and business. Most people who preach balance aren’t actually balanced in their lives.

  • Balance and Wealth

Most people think wealth means money, but the root definition of the term means well-being. For every person is successful, 20 people attempt and are not successful. We’re in a technology and psychologically disruptive world.

In perfect balance nothing happens. No one is in perfect balance. Life balance is one of the greatest causes of suffering in the entrepreneurial world. You have to be able to put attention to the five pillars of success in everyday life and put them into harmony, not balance. These pillars are Financial, Relational, Mental, Physical, and Spiritual.

There will be times when finances are tight. If you’re shooting for balance you’re going to feel depressed and guilty, but the fact is you’re going to have to realize that you need to hustle and let some other aspects of your life take a back seat. Don’t totally neglect the other areas but you have to focus.

Balance as it’s perceived is not achievable, harmony is. Sometimes you have to lead with your spiritual or financial pillar but you can’t neglect the others completely. When you forget about the other pillars in favour of just one, that’s when you break.

  • What is this different type of leadership?

A lot of entrepreneurs believe they don’t have time to work out, but the truth is they don’t have the time to not work out. You are going to need a tremendous amount of energy to realize your vision. Exercise is vital to maintaining your ability to perform so you need to schedule it every day and commit to it just like you would a meeting.

It takes a long time and a lot of energy to create something great. Your diet, mental health, physical strength, and power have to be maintained. Working out and eating right is not a luxury, it’s part of your job. If you don’t take care of yourself, life will make you take care of yourself.

In a disruptive world, entrepreneurs have to make time to keep themselves healthy. Every year you live healthily, science is giving you another year to live healthily. Longevity and immortality and almost a reality, but it won’t matter if you don’t take care of yourself now.

It’s not that it’s not possible; it’s that you’re not thinking in a way that makes it possible.

All the highest performers in the world have rituals and schedules they go by and stick very strictly. James’s Prime Objective is to take care of himself first and then attend to the rest of the day. James gets up at 3:45 am because that’s when there is no distraction and an opportunity to get in the flow state.

The average person spends 50% of their time in distraction; this is why most people won’t even scratch their potential.

To become a new leader you need to use new strategies. Always look at the value instead of the price. The value of the things James is talking about is way higher than the price. In entrepreneurial language, there is a high ROI on staying physically and psychologically strong.

Reference: Harmonic Wealth: The Secret to Attracting the Life You Want, James Arthur Ray

  • James’s Takeaway

Never leave the site of setting an intention or goal without taking some kind of action within 24 hours. When you learn to structure your day accordingly, you have a lot more time and energy and less guilt about the things you’re not doing. Schedule your day in blocks and don’t let distractions eat your day. Design your day and then begin to implement.

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