Innovative Solutions For Positive Change

The Life and Business Coach Crnival - March 3, 2012

2012-03-03T12:31:00.002-08:00

Welcome to the March 3, 2012 edition of the life and business coach.

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Jason Lovett presents Jason's Notebook: How to live a life of true passion posted at Jason's Notebook.

Dr. Dean presents Productivity, Success, and Happiness: What The Hell? posted at Dr. Dean's TheMillionaireNurse.com Blog, saying, "How much time do you spend doing things that don’t contribute to your success? Defining success goals will guide you to your most productive behavior. Join me in a discussion of goals that lead to success."

Keith McCormic presents My Ongoing War to Overcome Self-Doubt and Cowardice posted at LibMyLife.

Diana Clerk presents 16 Qualities Every Truly Great Sports Agent Has posted at Sports Management Degrees, saying, "Professional careers in most sports are short, and an athlete must be able to count on you to make as much money as possible."

Martha Stewart presents 10 Big Businesses That Let Employees Nap on the Job posted at onlinemba.com.

Amy Gardner presents Secured vs. Unsecured Debt Consolidation | Debt Consolidation Resource | Guidance on Debt Consolidation Loans posted at Debt Consolidation Resource, saying, "none"

Jon Rhodes presents Napoleon Hill - The Secrets of How To Think Rich posted at HypnoBusters, saying, "Here is a facinating story og how Napoleon Hill personally studied hundreds of weathy and succesful people, such as Henry Ford and Thomas Eddison, in order to see what made them successful."

Harrison presents Monetary Value of a #1 Ranking on Google posted at eSpire Marketing, saying, "Understanding the real monetary value of a #1 ranking in Google. This guide will show you how to calculate the monetary value of a #1 ranking on Google."

wizard presents All The Wisdom You Need In One Poem posted at Wizard Corpse, saying, "If you are planning to control your money and not the other way around (which is very very very! common!), you must learn to set the direction of which your life will sail. this article will tackle all the necessary wisdom that you must embrace in your long journey towards prosperity.
Enjoy Learning!"

Martha Stewart presents 10 People Who Take Personal Branding Too Far posted at onlinemba.com.

Leah Carey presents Destroying the rich bitch | The Miracle Journal posted at The Miracle Journal, saying, "Recently I realized that if the ideal client I've created in my head actually showed up, I wouldn't want to work with her. Clearly it's time to update my assumptions!"

Kelly Kaplan presents 10 Reasons Catalog Companies that Refused to Go Online Caved posted at Internet Service, saying, "People who live in rural areas have relied on mail-order catalogs for generations. Small town stores are only able to carry a limited supply of merchandise and traveling to larger cities for shopping isn’t always practical."

Kate Croston presents 10 Reasons to Follow Family on FaceBook posted at Internet Service, saying, "Though “family on Facebook” has been the punchline of many a joke in the last few years, there are still several reasons why accepting those friend requests from the members of your family might be a good idea."

Jacob D presents The Next Generation of SEO Copywriting is Here! posted at The Writer Tank Journal.

Theda K. Rogers presents 5 Tips for an Extrovert Working Alone posted at Crayon Writer, saying, "This article is about extroverts who work alone, usually solo-preneurs. It gives some tips for making it easier to handle."

Theresa Torres presents First Business Failed? So What?! Five Tips for Getting Back in the Game | | Lead To Win for WomenLead To Win for Women posted at Lead To Win for Women, saying, "Everyone makes mistakes. What sets successful businesses apart is their ability to get back on their feet after a failure. These five tips can help you get back in the game after that failure."

Melissa Rothstein presents In Tough Times, Where Can Researchers Find New Money? posted at Comments on: Is there a future with a career in Mathematics?, saying, "Researchers seeking funding for their work in today’s uncertain world economies must be creative, innovative and open-minded in their approach. Since many areas of federal and state grant funding have been drastically reduced, researchers in all areas of business, the sciences, medicine, the arts and humanities, social sciences and environmental studies are quickly turning to other sources for financial support. In addition, because the majority of large private foundations award grant funding almost exclusively to nonprofit organizations, individuals in search of grants must travel different avenues."

David Leonhardt presents Define Success posted at Self-Help Happiness Blog, saying, "How do you describe what you do? More important, how does your own description about it make you feel? If your description does not sound like you are a success, maybe it is time to find a new description."

Affordable Auto Insurance presents Variables to Consider for your Auto Insurance Policy posted at Auto Insurance News, saying, "When it comes to shopping for an auto insurance quote, you should consider several variables that will impact your premium costs for insurance coverage. If you are considering car insurance policies, use the tips below to avoid choosing the wrong insurance for your needs."

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Stress and creativity

2012-03-01T13:32:00.001-08:00

I just read a study that finally supports with scientific data what I have been saying for years. When you are emotionally in control you are capable of finding and resolving issues easily and creatively. The University of Minho in Portugal reported that, “ when under stress, regions of the brain associated with executive decision making and goal directed behaviors shrivel, while brain sectors linked to habit formation bloom”.

In other words, when I am under stress I am not creative; I am predisposed to follow old habits, ruts or cow paths. The same is true for my people. I need to communicate and support my people attempts to try new habits and behaviors. When I want my people to work creatively and think entrepreneurially then I need to reduce their fears and stress that people normally relate to failure. Failure is just one more piece of junk that we have moved out of the way of our success.

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The Life and Business Coach Crnival - February 25, 2012

2012-02-26T05:26:00.001-08:00

Welcome to the February 25, 2012 edition of the life and business coach.

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Jon Rhodes presents Can You Handle Money Success? posted at Affiliate Help!, saying, "Suppose all your financial plans have come to fruition. Can you really handle this new lifestyle you have worked so long and hard to acquire?"

Stella Hooper presents 10 Reasons Newlyweds Should Rent Instead of Buy a Home | Renters Insurance posted at Renters Insurance, saying, "Being a newlywed is one of the most fun and exciting times in anyone's life."

Jacob Share presents 33 Most Unique and Funny Items Sent To Recruiters posted at JobMob, saying, "Have a recruiter you want to impress or thank? Here’s some inspiration."

Theresa Torres presents 7 Ways a Virtual Assistant Can Save Your Company Money posted at AD Virtual Assistance Ltd, saying, "Many businesses are now taking advantage of the benefits of hiring a virtual assistant. Here are some ways on how outsourcing some tasks can save your company money."

Charles Chua C K presents All About Living With Life: Leadership - 7 Effective Tips posted at All About Living with Life.

wizard presents All The Wisdom You Need In One Poem posted at Wizard Corpse, saying, "it is impossible to live a wealthy life without adapting a higher mentality. change your mindset today by reading this but prepare to be hurt by hurtful facts.(if you can take it)"

DeWitt Dudley presents The Top Five Asset Protection Strategies For The Owners Of A Closely Held Business | Law Offices of Givner & Kaye posted at Law Offices of Givner & Kaye, saying, "The owners of a closely held business that is operated as an “S” corporation may be the targets of lawsuits that will drain their insurance policies, that may even exceed the limits of their insurance policies and that may cause them sleepless nights. What steps should these business owners take so that if something goes wrong, they will not lose all or most of the assets that they have worked so long to accumulate?"

David K presents Baby Boomers are you Worried about having enough saved for retirement? posted at Personal Finance Blog, saying, "Here's a simple approach: work just a few years longer. By accumulating more savings and shortening your withdrawal period, you'll reduce the lump sum needed to generate the necessary income at retirement."

Jessica Cooper presents US Treasuries Analysis posted at Easy Forex News, saying, "EasyForexNews provides you with daily high-quality forex news, forex analysis, forex trading signals, strategies and forecasts, trade ideas. Also find forex charts, forex economic calendar and current fores rates."

Beth Montgomery presents Find Your True Credit Card Cost posted at Credit Cards for Fair Credit, saying, "none"

Zac Sky presents Live Life Like an Improv Class posted at Zac Sky . com, saying, "Life is one big improv class and you either say yes and enjoy the ride or say no and watch the fun pass you by from the sidelines."

Greg Phelps presents Give a photographer a promotion... posted at Lucrative Lumens a blog about professional photography business secrets, saying, "The specific examples of marketing techniques in this article apply to pro portrait photographers but the concept discussed could easily benefit other types of photographers or even people in other lines of business who want to raise their profile in the community."

Maria Clark presents How does a bank decide how much interest to charge? posted at Credit Cards for Bad Credit Resource, saying, "none"

Dorothy presents How to Analyze Secured Credit Cards | Secured Credit Cards | Find a Secured Credit Card to Rebuild Credit posted at Secured Credit Cards, saying, "none"

Chrysalis Amber presents 10 Most Common Counseling Specialties posted at counselingdegree.

Deborah Brown presents Credit Options for Your First Credit Card | First Credit Card | How to build credit with first time credit cards. posted at First Credit Card.

Sandra Adams presents Improving Your Credit Score posted at Credit Cards for No Credit, saying, "none"

Amy Gardner presents How Expensive are Payday Loans? | Payday Loans Resource posted at Comments on: Disaster Strikes: 3 Real-Life Stories of People Crushed By Payday Loan Debt, saying, "none"

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There are signs everywhere

2012-02-22T12:16:00.000-08:00

Is our environment trying to tell us something? While walking with Susan one morning on one of our familiar routes, for some reason I noticed the road signs: wrong way, intersection ahead, one-way, yield, stop. Like many things in my life, I walked by these signs dozens, if not hundreds of times and never noticed them. As we set out the next morning, I thought about how I might interpret these odd bits of information. I began to think about a new project I was working on that was going nowhere fast; was I heading the wrong way, was there another path I should follow? I decided to delegate that project and it’s now moving much more quickly and heading in the right direction. The intersection ahead sign helped me rethink and reaffirm a recent decision to expand my product lines to include personality testing and products to insure smarter hiring decisions. The “signs” along my path are unique in my own interpretation of them but the same signs are there for all to see. They surround us everyday, if we are open to them.

I am remembering the little girl I saw in an airport once, who helped me see that even the simplest experiences can be magical. You may recall the story about how thrilled she was just to use an escalator. Many people saw this little girl but I wonder how many actually learned something from her. As we use Gratitude and Love to bring us into the present moment, we can begin to “see” with new eyes. Are we behaving “one way” and focusing only on our needs? Do we need to “yield” and let go of stress? Is there a behavior we simply need to “stop”? As we raise our eyes and our awareness we begin to see the signs and they are everywhere.

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The Life and Business Coach Carnival- February 18, 2012

2012-02-18T10:33:00.001-08:00

Welcome to the February 18, 2012 edition of the life and business coach.

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Dr. Dean presents Educate Yourself: Free! posted at Dr. Dean's TheMillionaireNurse.com Blog, saying, "Want to advance at work? Need to learn new skills? The cost of a college education is outrageous. What about all those free courses offered by some of those same terrifically expensive institutions? That’s right. Free courses. Sometimes a free course or two or more might be just what the doctor ordered. Read all about it!"

Theresa Torres presents Five Ways to Help Your Child Deal With Stress posted at Blog For Self Improvement, saying, "Sometimes, we parents tend to forget that our children also experience stress. We have to keep in mind that stress can't be avoided and the best way we can help our children is to teach them how to deal with it."

Charles Chua C K presents 5 Positive Ways to Learn From Adversity posted at All About Living with Life.

Donald Stuart presents Time - Our Most Valuable Commodity | Turnkey Business Advisors, LLC posted at Turnkey Business Advisors, LLC.

Neelakantha presents Top 10 Advertisements in India posted at Business News This Week, saying, "In the world of commercials and advertising some of ads left their impression. No matter consumers purchase these products or not, but they remember these commercial for long time."

Judi Perkins presents how honest should you be in an interview? posted at Find the Perfect Job Blog, saying, "I'm a syndicated columnist and have a lot of resources! I look forward to submitting articles to you regularly. Please let me know if you have a specific theme for an issue, etc, and I'll do something that speaks specifically to that theme. Thanks, Judi"

Theresa Torres presents 7 Tips for Gaining Repeat Clients posted at Some Design Blog, saying, "Keeping good-paying clients and maintaining a long-term relationship with them require some tactics on your part. Here are some tips to help you boost that repeat business."

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The Life and Business Coach Carnival - Feb 11, 2012 edition

2012-02-12T09:54:00.001-08:00

Welcome to the February 11, 2012 edition of the life and business coach.

Be a part of our Facebook community. Share your ideas and find the inspiration change your life

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Theresa Torres presents Five Ways to Help Your Child Deal With Stress posted at Blog For Self Improvement, saying, "Sometimes, we parents tend to forget that our children also experience stress. We have to keep in mind that stress can't be avoided and the best way we can help our children is to teach them how to deal with it."

Dr. Dean presents A Valentine’s Day: Make A Choice! posted at Dr. Dean's TheMillionaireNurse.com Blog, saying, "Just like Christmas, it’s easy to let commercialization and materialism ruin a beautiful idea. Don’t stress your relationship over this over-hyped holiday. Now-go make love not war!"

Daryl Sams presents Banks vs Credit Unions - Edgar Allen Floe® posted at Edgar Allen Floe®, saying, "Thanks!"

Gerry Sandis presents Customize Your Resume For Your Profession posted at RESUMEMag, saying, "The days of the one-size-fits-all resume are long gone. Today many job seekers are finding it virtually impossible to land a job without a professionally written resume, one that is tailored to a specific profession. The standard resume template just does not cut it anymore."

wizard presents train your mind | Wizard Corpse posted at wizard corpse, saying, "How does one condition his mind for success and vitality? Read this article to find out."

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Moving at the Speed of Don’t Screw Up

2012-02-09T10:17:00.001-08:00

Building trust is the fastest way to motivate your people. When people are worried or fearful on the job, productivity slows down. Sometimes the harder we push the slower it moves. Eventually people get so fearful they move at the speed of don’t screw up which is the slowest speed they can move and not lose their jobs. If we want to break down the barriers to productivity we must build trust. We build trust in a number of ways. When we begin to act trusting with better delegation, communication and inclusion, we build trust. When we act trustworthy using good listening skills and better connection, trust begins to grow. When our people begin to feel that “we” have their best interest at heart, the productivity the barriers come down and productivity, mood and morale begin to accelerate. When staff input and ideas are includedin the goals and action plans, trust and productivity are optimized. As trust grows, organizations are energized. With this energy, the entire culture begins to work more effectively and efficiently, costs and wastes go down and profits go up. Trust is well worth the time it takes to build.

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The Life and Business Coach Carnival- February 4, 2012

2012-02-04T12:15:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the February 4, 2012 edition of the life and business coach.

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Angel Taylor presents Yellow and Green Prospects ? Color Personalities Part 2 posted at Angel Taylor Live.

Orange QR presents How to get free advertising with qr codes posted at QR Code Generator, saying, "If you have been looking for a w ay to get free advertising I have found a way using QR codes. First let me explain if you are already unaware of this but there are many places on the Internet that offer banner advertising."

Liz Shaw presents How to Prevent Emotional Hijacking posted at The Writing Reader, saying, "Don't let the reptilian portion of your brain ruin your presentations. Easy steps to take to stave off panic."

Super Saver presents My Career Turning Point posted at My Wealth Builder, saying, "The first twelve years of my career were mediocre at best. So I decided to change my approach to working."

Juliet Jones presents 10 Most Successful African-American CEOs of All Time posted at Business Insurance, saying, "America has long been a melting pot of different cultures, ethnicities, religions, and creeds."

Steve Faber presents Describing Weaknesses in a Job Interview – How to Be Ready for This Tough Question posted at Job Interview Prep, saying, "Climbing up the career ladder is one way to improve your situation, but doing so poften requires you to endure a veritible plethora of job interviews. One question interviewers love to ask is what your weaknesses are. Here is how to answer that tough question honestly and still get the job."

Clint Cora presents Motivation Techniques Include Waking Up Like A Dog posted at Motivation Diversity Success Blog, saying, "How a dog teaches us to wake up each morning with the right motivation to approach our days"

Dr. Dean presents Educate Yourself: Free! posted at Dr. Dean's TheMillionaireNurse.com Blog, saying, "Want to advance at work? Need to learn new skills? The cost of a college education is outrageous. What about all those free courses offered by some of those same terrifically expensive institutions? That’s right. Free courses. Sometimes a free course or two or more might be just what the doctor ordered. Read all about it!"

Hayley Picchini presents Made to Order : How do you like your paycheck? posted at Classy Not Pricey, saying, "This is a holistic article about personal finance, starting with the choices of each paycheck."

Chelsea Prescotti presents Top 10 Tips to Protect Your Privacy Online posted at CreditScore.net, saying, "We lock our doors and close our curtains in order to protect our privacy. Unfortunately, however, when we sit down at the computer, we often expose ourselves to those who want to invade our privacy. Our activities online are easily monitored at work and at home, and if we are not careful, we can give away our credit card numbers, identities and much more to the undesirable elements of society when we surf the Internet. Yet protecting our privacy online is not that difficult, especially when we follow these ten easy steps:"

Melissa Rothstein presents Common Sense to Cell Phone (SMS) Texting posted at Best Online Colleges.com, saying, "While SMS text messaging can be convenient in the right kind of situations, it can also create problems that could lead to your information being stolen, damage to your personal property or an injury. When you understand the smart ways to use SMS texting and how to avoid scams, you can benefit from the convenience of instant communication any time you want."

Rachel C. presents Five Reasons Why You Cannot Wait for Health Insurance | Business Insurance posted at Business Insurance, saying, "As the health insurance reforms roll out, many people are still without any form of coverage. Some Americans are opting to wait for the public programs rather than signing up for private insurance through their jobs or other insurance carriers. There are some inherent dangers in waiting for the health insurance reforms to kick in before getting the coverage that you need. There are several negative situations you can encounter during the wait for public health insurance that can be avoided if you take the steps to get coverage now."

Theresa Torres presents When Your Kid’s Friends are a Bad Influence | Dad of Divas posted at Dad of Divas, saying, "This article identifies the three types of friends who may be a bad influence to your child and shares some suggestions on how to handle each."

Charles Chua C K presents 5 Effective Ways to Face the Challenges of 2012 posted at All About Living with Life.

Martha Stewart presents 10 Big Companies That Promote Employee Meditation posted at onlinemba.com, saying, "Work can be a stressful place, and with companies trying to keep an eye on the bottom line while simultaneously improving productivity, many workers may find themselves with more responsibilities than ever before."

Nicholas Jackson presents Structured Settlement Quote Online posted at Sell Your Structured Settlement | Annuity | Lottery Winnings, saying, "At "Selling Your Structured Settlement" we aim to educate people from around the world on the structured settlement market. While there are many great companies out there, such as those we use work as part of our best 'best price guarantee" program, there are others that are just looking to make a quick buck at your expense. If we can't get you the best price, we'll pay you $500 dollars."

Ralph Ferro presents NJ Foreclosures: Facts and Forecast for 2012 posted at Bankruptcy Attorney NJ RSS Feed, saying, "It’s a tough forecast to predict in a time of such economic uncertainty. 2012 bring s a new year for the local and national government to get back on its feet and try to turn things around. "

Gal Josefsberg presents Are You Depressed? Here Are 4 Tips To Be Happier posted at Equally Happy, saying, "I am a firm believer that happiness should be the end goal of everything you do. If it's not, why are you doing it? However, rather than focus on projects, why not also focus on happiness directly, with a few tips on increasing happiness level overall."

Chase Dumont presents 9 Ways to Get Focused You?ll Be Using Right Away posted at Chase Dumont, Rainmaker, saying, "What's your #1 biggest problem, whether you're a student, employee, or entrepreneur? Chase is betting it's getting focused - but with focus, the limit to what you can accomplish disappears. Find out how to fix your focus in this comprehensive how-to post."

Juliet Jones presents 10 Once-Dominant Businesses that Ended Up Declaring Bankruptcy posted at Business Insurance, saying, "When a company's name becomes practically synonymous with the industry it's in, it seems impossible that the business could ever fail."

presents How To Stop Procrastinating | Simple Life Strategy posted at Simple Life Strategies.

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CHANGING THE FOCUS

2012-02-03T03:57:00.001-08:00

Small consistent changes make the most difference in one’s life, but the hardest part is beginning to make these changes.

In the winter of 1991, I was given the gift of desperation. While it was a painful and unwanted gift at the time, it has created a change of focus for me during the past ten years, which has allowed me to rebuild a the kind of life I never dreamed possible.

I knew from the time I was a kid that I was both a leader and an entrepreneur. I had grown up in the office products industry in the Washington DC area. At the age of 30, I started by own office products business, which was the realization of my childhood dream. After several years of working my way up the career ladder, I wanted to be the one who created a vision for an organization and the one responsible for its achievement. I also wanted to have more time for my family. For the first few years, as I grew my business, I was able to create a good balance between my work and family life.

Later, my business really took off, and I began to reap the rewards of success. For the first time in my life, concerns about having enough money were gone, and the power of running a successful organization was a feeling like none I had ever experienced. It was truly a rush. I began to fill my days with more work and my evenings with business gatherings, receptions and other networking activities. As a result, I was missing my children’s soccer games, evenings with my wife, and other family activities that I thought could be put on hold until I reached that perfect place in my career.

Within a couple of years, I was divorced, had alienated my children and was living as a bachelor in the Guest Quarters. I consoled myself with knowing that I had built lucrative business relationships, no longer had to make family compromises, and was getting closer to achieving the success I had always envisioned for myself. Once I reached that pinnacle of my career, I believed I would gain a sense of completeness, wholeness, and significance, and all the pieces of my personal life would fall into place.

By the summer of 1989, I began paying the price for the rapid growth of my business. For the first time, I realized how lonely and difficult the job of a CEO could be. Cash flows were eroding, and I realized that that I had to make deep cuts and tough business decisions just to survive. During this time, the two elements of my life that I had essentially ignored were there to get me through one of the roughest times of my life: My family and my staff.

Two years later, my career, power and prestige were gone in what seems like a moment’s time. All the achievements I had gained, the material things I had amassed, and the business relationships I had established over the past decade suddenly lost their worth.

I had to tell 250 staff, many of whom had worked for me more than ten years, that their jobs were gone. These people had worked with me to the very last minute to try to save the business, and I had taken their loyalty for granted until this crisis occurred.

When I arrived home that evening, my three-year-old son from my second marriage was waiting for me with the same amount of zeal and excitement he always had for my evening return from work. He wanted to play his favorite game. When I told him I needed quiet time, he wasn’t to be deterred. He cajoled and persisted, having no ability to understand that this was one of the worst days in my life. I eventually gave in, and we were soon chasing each other through the house, and his laughter and joy of the moment worked on my sadness like a powerful healing potion.

It was in the midst of playing with my son that night when I realized I had been working and waiting for my life to get perfect, and it was never going to be perfect. I realized that I needed to learn to live the life that was in front of me and not the one I had always dreamed of. With the help of several unlikely mentors, I was able to start the process of changing the focus of my life.

In order to help clients change their focus, I have developed a “Six-Step plan for Daily Living” to create a positive outlook each day. These steps are something you can do without the assistance of a Zen master, learning to sit in the Lotus position or burning incense in what used to be your ashtray. However, by taking these steps you can stop waiting for your life to get perfect to be happy.

Daily Quiet Time: Mornings work best for me, but each person needs to find his or her best time. You may want to create this time during a lunch break. Take a walk and try to clear your mind from work for ten or 15 minutes. You may want to take this time to meditate, write down a few personal thoughts or read, but make sure the reading material is not worked-related. Whatever you do should help you reach a peaceful place in yourself that you can return to when things begin to get hectic during the day.
Willingness to change and to appreciate a new perspective; to view your life at its deepest level with honesty; and to eliminate harsh judgments and unreasonable expectations of yourself and others. This means that you begin to let go of the unrealistic expectations you have or yourself and others. When you find that knot forming in your stomach, begin to look realistically at what resources you have available, how much effort you can invest without sacrificing your quality of life, and then, accept the outcomes you can achieve within these limitations. Once you do this with yourself, you will be able to do it with your staff and others.
Action: You don’t need more knowledge to make changes; you need action to change. Don’t wait for the right time -- now is the time to begin. Don’t fall into the same traps we all set for ourselves with promises to family and with New Year’s resolutions. Remember that all you need to do is make one small change and then follow it with another. There is no timeline and there is no one to answer to except yourself. There is no failure unless you don’t try to change for fear of failure. If you don’t start making changes one day, try the next day. If you begin these changes and then get caught up in your old ways again, you can pick up where you left off. You don’t have to start over.
Service to Others: No effort is too small. Let someone go ahead of you in traffic, hold the elevator door open for a straggler, call your spouse during the day just to say hello, spend a few minutes each week getting to know a little more about a member of your staff.
Love and Forgiveness: People can’t read your mind – don’t assume they know you love, appreciate, or respect them. Tell them so. And, when situations go badly or someone makes a mistake, forgive them. When you express positive feelings, they will be returned in some fashion. When you practice forgiveness, it will bring you peace.
Gratitude: Be grateful for all things, even the painful or stressful situations that bring change to your life. Instead of viewing life’s events as good or bad, or right or wrong, see them as opportunities to change your life’s focus.

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The Life and Business Coach - January 28, 2012

2012-01-28T12:40:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the January 28, 2012 edition of the life and business coach.

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Theresa Torres presents Should Bloggers Get a Business Credit Card? posted at MoreTricks.com, saying, "Here are 3 ways on how a business credit card can help bloggers get started on their publishing business."

Astra Spider presents Joy in Business: Permission Granted! posted at EMERGE Shamanic Business Coaching.

Jon Rhodes presents How To Manage Life Working From Home posted at Affiliate Help!, saying, "This article shows you how to cope with life living and working from home."

Martha Stewart presents The Essential MBA Library posted at onlinemba.com, saying, "While you’re undoubtedly learning a lot from your MBA courses at college, it never hurts to supplement your education with a little outside reading material."

Rachel C. presents Insuring a Teenage Driver: Mitigating the Cost posted at Auto Insurance Quotes, saying, "Insuring a teen driver is extremely expensive. Depending on the age of the driver, the type of vehicle driven and applicable state restrictions, adding a teen driver can increase insurance rates as much as 100 percent or more. With the cost of insuring young drivers so high, it’s surprising that parents are even willing to license their teens."

Susan Guarneri presents 10 Films That Show the Dark Side of Business posted at Online Degree.net, saying, "While too fresh on America's mind to endure the heartbreak of a Bernie Madoff movie, the ugly side of the business world makes great cinematic fodder."

dzineit presents Advice on Hiring an SEO Consultant posted at Design Article Blog, saying, "A quality search engine optimization (SEO) campaign requires the time and effort that many small businesses can’t commit to in house. "

Hudson Horizons presents The New Facebook Layout? Introducing Facebook Timeline | Hudson Horizons Blogs posted at Hudson Horizons Blogs, saying, "Facebook just announced that timeline would be unveiled to all facebook users within a week, whether you want it or not. I've compiled a few resources to help you understand and embrace the new Facebook layout that you're stuck with. (Until Facebook decides to revamp things once again, that is.)"

Dr. Dean presents You wanna be work-happy? or work sad? posted at Dr. Dean's TheMillionaireNurse.com Blog, saying, "Burnout is the commonly used term for those whose “giver” got up and left. Here are some tips to keep work from getting the best of you."

Charles Chua C K presents 10 Effective Ways to Live With Life posted at All About Living with Life.

Ken Lange presents 3 Writing Tips from Hemingway posted at Kenneth Lange, saying, "A few tips from Ernest Hemingway on writing habits - but relevant to all people with job that requires creative thinking."

Gerry Sandis presents Upgrade Your Resume By Going Back To School ? Just Remember To Bring Along Your Tablet posted at RESUMEMag, saying, "With the launch of the newest app for the iPad, iBooks 2, Apple has set out to reinvent the textbook. Here are five ways that this makes it easier to go back to school and upgrade your resume."

Charles Chua C K presents 5 Effective Ways to Start Monday posted at All About Living with Life.

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Crafting a strong business plan

2012-01-25T11:37:00.001-08:00

Ok, you have decided to go into business for yourself. Or maybe you want to change the way you go to market or expand your existing business.
What are you going to do with your great ideas?

Write, or rewrite, your business plan.

A plan lets you think through the business BEFORE you start so that you can ensure that your idea is sound, you can finance it, it’s something that people will want, and you can price it and make a profit. The better the plan, the better the chance of success.

A good business plan will help you determine what to increase, decrease, prevent, eliminate, promote or create, The best plans start with clear mission, vision and value statements.

What do you want to do? How do you see yourself getting there? And what are the core values you want to build this business around?

Once you’ve answered these questions, you can determine how to realize these broad concepts.

Define goals

Let’s start with Key Goals and Objectives. These are the general categories that you must establish for your business to reach take-off velocity.

When you succeed with your Key Goals you are well on your way to achieving your dreams. With a Key Goals analysis you will review your strengths and their uniqueness so you can build upon them.

It is very important at this early stage to be brutally honest. Why would someone buy what you’re selling? Are you really different from others that offer the same goods or services?

What about other companies that do the same thing? Every time I get a great idea that I think no one has thought of I run a Google search and I am humbled.

This is also the time you should very carefully review any weaknesses that might limit your potential.

Key Goal categories should include: are you using the right organizational structure (C corp., S corp., LLC); cash flow projections; what products will you bring to market; quality of products and/or services you want to deliver; quality of suppliers; skilled, motivated workers and are they available, affordable and retainable; packaging for different market segments, geographic region; physical or virtual facilities; lowest deliverable costs and significant changes anticipated in the industry.

Drill down

Key Goals and Objectives are usually pretty general in their nature, so when you’re finished that’s when it is time to drill down to more specific targets, or action steps.

Within each Key Goal category you must identify business planning action steps and results that are more specific. Effective business planning goals are SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and tractable. It is important to write each goal in a positive way.

As you create and refine these goals and action steps it is important to involve and communicate with everyone in the organization or the planning process.

If you are planning a new organization then involve any trusted advisors and family members who show interest. If you are changing an existing business then involve everyone, down to, at least, department heads.

I also encourage including a few people from the front line. No one really understands the strengths and weaknesses of a plan better than the people charged with its execution.

Once you have your Key Goals and Objectives written and the action steps necessary to accomplish them, there are several steps critical to your success. You must:

· Prioritize your Goals and the Action Steps

· State who is responsible for their execution

· Specify what a successful result will look like

· Set a clear timeline for their completion

Watch it work

When a company I ran had difficulty in expanding to a new sales territory, we found the solution by returning to our business plan.

We wanted to bring the same level of customer service that we provided in our current service areas, but regardless of how many projections we ran the costs of trucks, drivers, gas, upkeep and insurance just made the new territory unprofitable. We knew strategically we needed to gain a foothold in the new territory and because planning identified the roadblock we were forced to look for another answer.

Right after our last planning session we were approached by one of our senior drivers. He had been included in these planning sessions and knew of the delivery roadblock.

He proposed starting his own delivery service using us as his primary client. We got the service we wanted and kept the costs down at the same time.

It eventually became so successful that we subcontracted all our deliveries to him and reduced our costs even further. Without planning we would never have seen the problem, and been forced to look for an answer.

And since we had included the key players in the planning process someone from the front line was able to suggest a solution. Planning pays.

As your general business plan evolves, you will delve even more deeply into other aspects of planning: Financing, Marketing, Sales, Strategic, and Exit. Each of these will create an even clearer picture of where you’re going and how you can tell when you have arrived.

When running a business many things will come up that you will not anticipate. Starting with a business plan will help you see everything you will need to jumpstart your success.

Email: social@johnchappelear.com
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The Life and Business Coach Carnival- January 21, 2012

2012-01-21T10:28:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the January 21, 2012 edition of The Life and Business Coach Carnival.

Be a part of our Facebook community. Share your ideas and find the inspiration change your life

http://www.facebook.com/positivethoughtsfortheweek

Dr. Dean presents Decisions: How YOU Can Improve! posted at Dr. Dean's TheMillionaireNurse.com Blog, saying, "Do you make good decisions? The decisions we make impact all areas of our life, including our finances. Join me in a review of the process and ways to improve your method. You'll become more productive and powerful."

Jon Rhodes presents How To Get A Money Making Mindset posted at Affiliate Help!, saying, "The article shows you the importance of having the right money making mindset, and gives you tips on how to develop this."

Mike King presents 10 Ways to be Performance Oriented | Learn This posted at Learn This, saying, "Coaching others often requires that we can help others become more performance oriented and to get more self sufficient in the areas we coach them. Here are some tips to get more performance oriented."

Charles Chua C K presents 7 Ways to be Responsible at Work posted at All About Living with Life.

Hudson Horizons presents Pinterest for Your Small Business | Hudson Horizons Blogs posted at Hudson Horizons Blogs, saying, "Pinterest has been surging in popularity amongst consumers. As more and more users are hopping on the band wagon, small businesses should consider taking advantage of what the platform has to offer."

Chelsea Prescotti presents Mortgage Lenders Hunt Home Owners Even After Foreclosure posted at CreditScore.net, saying, "No one ever buys a home with the intention of one day losing it to foreclosure or being forced by circumstance into a short sale. Unfortunately, that is exactly the situation in which many homeowners find themselves. Financial struggles push thousands of homeowners into short sale or foreclosure every year. When the housing market collapsed in 2008-09, many found themselves upside-down in their mortgage and opted to simply walk away, leaving the bank to foreclose on the property and sell it for whatever a buyer would pay."

Ralph Ferro presents Twinkie Bailout! Makers of Twinkie and Wonderbread File for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection posted at Bankruptcy Attorney NJ RSS Feed, saying, "Hostess, the makers of our sugary, childhood snacks like Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Suzy Q's has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Hostess Brand Inc. filed this Wednesday due to severe debt problems which the Wall Street Journal explains as "out-of-control labor structure.""

DeWitt Dudley presents Protecting The Owners and Stock In A Closely Held Corporation | Law Offices of Givner & Kaye posted at Law Offices of Givner & Kaye, saying, "Operating a business in a closely held corporation can be an excellent way to protect the owner from problems with the business. If the business is adequately capitalized, then someone suing the business may not be able to “pierce the corporate veil” and get to the personal assets of the owner."

Rodney Maley presents Keys to a Successful Presentation posted at Life-fficient.

Duston McGroarty presents The Winning Traffic Formula for Your Coaching Blog posted at The Coaching Cave.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
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Three Phases of a Management Buyout

2012-01-19T09:16:00.000-08:00

Management buyouts are very special and sensitive transactions that are becoming more and more popular in exit planning as more business owners realize that outside buyers may not be available to purchase their business as part of their exit.
For your key employees, this management buyout will likely seem like both a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as well as a large burden of assuming ownership. Since your managers are being invited to assume the role of ownership, it is natural that many questions will arise for all parties involved. Accordingly, these three (3) phases of a management buyout will assist you in determining the proper steps to take in moving ahead with this type of exit plan.
Phase #1: Financing & Deal Structuring
The first phase of a management buyout goes to the financial aspects of the transaction. At the core of the transaction is a sale of a business from owner / investor to another. The company needs to provide a return on investment to its new owners. And the exiting owner needs some level of comfort that the business will continue to operate effectively once the sale is completed. There are a few questions related to the financing and deal structuring that surface immediately.
What is the company worth, and what is the manager (or the management team) able to render in down-payment?
Will the managers secure any bank financing with their own personal guarantees and the value of the company’s assets.
What is the owner willing to take in a note in order to bridge this rather large gap between the value of the company and the employee’s available capital?
How is the owner’s note going to be secured?
On the point of value, if an owner wants too high a price or too many personal benefits or a salary that continues for too long into the future, the managers will get resentful as they feel that the fruits of their labors are not going to them (particularly since they have just increased the risk in the relationship). Owners need to remember that despite the fact that these employees worked for you all these years, there needs to be a financial return for

them in order for this transaction to make sense. Beyond that, the particulars of financing the transaction will need to be detailed as part of the deal structuring.
Unfortunately, financing and deal structuring is the easiest part of this transaction. Far more delicate is the communications inside and outside of the firm.
Phase #2: Intra-firm Communications
The second part of a management buyout is internal communications – discussions within the firm about succession of the business.
Too many owners of privately-held businesses feel pressure to engage in a conversation about the future of the business with their managers. This naturally comes from the desires of managers to want to know about their own futures and their potential for greater income and/or ownership. When these conversations occur, it is important that clear communication is used so as not to excite the expectations of the managers.
There is a delicate balance in these communications. On the one hand, in order for your exit to be a success, the managers need to ‘buy in’ to the idea of ownership. However, in order for their ‘buy in’ to occur, it is necessary that you communicate your intentions to them about the transfer of ownership.
Beyond the communications between you, the owner, and your managers, there is also the issue of communication with the other employees at your firm. Which ones will not make the grade and be offered future ownership? Will they feel alienated? Slighted? Threatened? All of this needs to be communicated in a transparent manner so as not to interrupt the already delicate employer / employee relationships between owners, managers and employees.
How these communications are handled is critical and often can occur over many years as the responsibilities are detailed, defined, and transferred from the owner to the manager and the management team. Also, over a number of years, managers are able to naturally assume leadership positions within the company. This is much more favorable than simply anointing a successor.

In the long-run it all comes down to people respecting other people. It is not enough for you to believe that your choice for successor(s) is the right one – your other employees must also feel the same way. Seek inputs from other employees in a casual manner over a number of months or years so that you can confirm whether or not you are making the right choice for successor.
Once the choice is made, keep communication clear and open as to the future of your company.
Phase #3: Communicating the Change Outside the Firm
The third phase is that of communications with the outside world. The customers, the vendors, the bank, and everybody else who comes in contact with your business needs to know about the transition. Again, it is best if this occurs over a period of time to make it appear as smooth and natural a transition as possible. In essence, this is a public relations campaign for your firm’s transition.
Nobody likes surprises, particularly when it concerns a valuable business partnership. Accordingly, you need to realize that all of the customers, vendors, and other people associated with your business need to be apprised of this succession plan. Once again, a well designed communications strategy with the ‘outside world’ is appropriate and optimal if it is performed over a long period of time.
Conclusion
These three phases together provide for a foundation to begin to design a management buyout for your business. These are helpful steps in starting a conversation with your team and for you as the business owner, to begin to consider what's involved, how long it will take, and exactly what you're able to get out of the business, net of taxes and net of fees over time in order to meet your post-exit goals. Therefore, management buyouts can be very helpful to a business owner in a tough economy who is trying to construct and design a customized exit plan from their business utilizing the resources that are available to them, namely, their existing management team.

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The Life and Business Coach Carnival - January 15, 2012

2012-01-15T09:08:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the January 15, 2012 edition of the life and business coach.

The Shark Investor presents Small Business Idea: South Indian Street Food posted at Food Business and Purple Salad � Page not found, saying, "A real business idea that requires some dedication"

Beth Montgomery presents History of Credit Cards posted at Credit Cards for Fair Credit, saying, "When credit cards started, in the early 1900s, the cards were issued by individual stores or gas stations.The cards were designed and issued to create brand loyalty and encourage customers to return based on the convenience of having established credit at the merchant."

Amy Gardner presents How to Improve Your Business Credit posted at Small Business Credit Cards, saying, "There are many different factors other than simply paying your bills on time that will cause your credit to fluctuate."

Jill Thompson presents Potential Hazards of Rent-to-Own (Seller) posted at How Does Rent To Own Work?, saying, "There are potentially serious consequences for engaging in one of these arrangements without fulling understanding the law governing them."

MaryLou Walston presents Top 5 Reasons to Stay Out of Foreclosure posted at Mortgage Rates, saying, "A common misconception about foreclosure is that, once the process is done, the former homeowner is off the hook for the remaining balance of the mortgage. Nothing could be further from the truth."

Rachel Cleary presents Where to Retire for Less than $1,500 Per Month posted at Senior Care, saying, "As of the first quarter of 2011, the average retiree benefit from Social Security was under $1,200 per month. For retirees with a modest nest egg saved for retirement, drawing on the 4% withdrawal rule to supplement Social Security still does not bring their annual income over $18,000 per year. Unfortunately, finding a place to retire on less than $1,500 a month is not easy, unless a retiree is willing to move. There are numerous cities throughout the United States, and definitely places abroad, where a small budget can still provide a comfortable lifestyle."

Jonathan Milligan presents How to Motivate Yourself - My Daily Success Routine posted at Simple Life Habits, saying, "Do you know how to motivate yourself? The key for me has been to establish a simple, yet useful daily success routine."

Ben Dockery presents A Penny Unearned is 1.56 Pennies Saved: How to Avoid Financial Suicide posted at BENDOCKERY.COM, saying, "This is my latest article about money and the cost of living a life in music."

Shamelle presents 8 Ways To Use YouTube Videos To Promote Your Products On Your Website posted at Promote Youtube Videos, saying, "If you run an eCommerce website then using video’s can be a great way to promote your own products online, and furthermore increase your online sales. Here are a few ideas on how you can use YouTube Videos to increase profitability."

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
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The Life and Business Coach Carnival - January 8, 2012

2012-01-08T12:53:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the First edition of The Life and Business Coach Carnival.

We selected two articles for today's edition. we hope you enjoy them

Charles Chua C K presents All About Living With Life: Happiness and a more Satisfying Life - The 7 Ingredients posted at All About Living with Life.

Dr. Dean presents Football and Personal Finance-14 Corollaries! posted at Dr. Dean's TheMillionaireNurse.com Blog, saying, "Financially speaking, it’s been a tough year, but then, every year can be. Need a ‘pat on the butt’ locker room pep talk? Get one here and then be ready to ‘get back in the game’"

That concludes this edition.

The Strategic business planning process

2012-01-05T09:05:00.001-08:00

Building and running a business requires strategic planning, hard work, commitment, innovative products and services. It requires you to connect with clients and your workers on a level that is more powerful and knowledgeable than the competition. It takes hard work, being in the right place at the right time and I truly believe it takes a little luck too. But like a marathoner who has gotten off his path and can’t find the route to run an organization is lost without a clear and well-marked path to follow. That’s where Strategic Planning comes into play.
I say to clients all the time and it always gets heads nodding, “most people are too busy doing their jobs to really know if they are doing their jobs well”, and the key to determine that would be strategic planning. In prior columns I have discussed the importance and sequencing of vision and mission statements. So if you have already created them this is the time to dust them off and polish them up. If not create them before you move into the over all Strategic Planning Process. Simply put, the vision is the longest-term guiding statement of purpose used to define the organizations values and priorities. A vision statement will help guide anyone and everyone who reads it of the course you wish to follow. The mission statement is the shorter-term statement of the way in which you plan to achieve the vision. With those two documents in hand we plunge into the strategy, goals and action steps that we call strategic planning.

Anything that provides direction is easier to follow, the clearer it is. So when moving from piece to piece in this process make sure your people can clearly and simply understand what you mean in both letter and spirit. This will eliminate many, many potential problems later on.

Strategic planning doesn't have to be a complicated process. The easiest Strategic Plan to use is a simple four-step process.
1. Visualize and clearly state the future you would like your organization to move toward.
2. Develop a clear understanding of current conditions inside and outside or your organization
3. Determine clear, measurable and trackable goals that must be achieved and the action steps necessary to accomplish the goals.
4. Implement the plan.

Strategic planning involves visualizing and clearly stating the future. That is why you need to know not just what you're doing but why, as well. Think of Martin Luther King’s speech. “I have a dream” is the strategic vision and the rest are the quantifiable goals. The Declaration of Independence is the same, we hold these truths to be self-evident…..is the vision and the rest are the goals. In both you can immediately tell how success will come and what it will look like when it gets here. Can you see that for your business? What does someone on the front line of your business, see and think? What do they see? In a strategic plan we would look at all perspectives and make sure they are all aligned.

Strategic planning requires looking at current conditions in and out of your business to help getting a grip on expectations. What market segments are you addressing, should you widen or narrow your focus. Should you create a major change of focus, in how you connect and interact with your clients? With the newer radical changes in methods and strategies of how to go to market not staying current with this assessment can be fatal, (read: Free or The Long Tail). Are you utilizing your workers in the most efficientand effective way that also takes into consideration that they are not just resources but people too? How about your facilities? These are just some of the current conditions you should review.

The goals and action steps are simply a by-product of the internal and external evaluation of market and organizational conditions. There will be critical and secondary goals and you and your group will need to know which is which. What did you find? How can these issues be improved, resolved or eliminated? Prioritize them and assign them. It is critical at this point to set a realistic timeline of crystal clear expectations and crystal clear accountability for the accomplishment of these goals and action steps, in a timely fashion.

For strategic planning to be effective, you need to make sure you are implementing the plan accurately. This plan like any other shouldn’t be written in a vacuum and dropped on staff. Working together to identify needs and plan the solutions is critical to success. You need to be sure your people buy into this process and this plan every step of the way.

It is important to know that all businesses, regardless of size, need strategic planning. The smaller an organization will mean the shorter and simpler the plans will be but any business running without a clear Strategic path is running blind.

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Improved Communications keeps good employees

2011-12-23T13:12:00.001-08:00

I think one of the common mistakes I saw growing up in the office products industry was managers and supervisors not taking the action they knew were right quickly enough. And sadly that hasn’t changed that much over my career. These managers wait and hope for changes occur. They hope someone changes their attitude, hope someone comes to work more timely, hope they become a better team player. They hope, and hope and hope. And they need to remember that hope is not a plan. Change can only occur when both sides know and clearly understand what the expectations of management are and are also very clear on the level of accountability they will be held to if they don’t hit the expectation. This is a time when we need the people we have operating at peak performance. Here are a few ideas that will help increase positive attitudes, productivity and profits.

Now I don’t want to sound too crass but before you can ask someone to be accountable have you given him or her the skills to be accountable. This is where managers and supervisors fall down on the job. They use a “Plan” of hope, osmosis or “it’s just common sense” to develop and excite good workers. The Plan they should be using is the one that knows the weaknesses and strengths of each employee and works to improve and enhance both. This ability, of course, is driven primarily by good communication and leadership skills. The ability to: listen, coach, plan for success, encourage, nurture, confront positively, and re-direct all fit into communication and leadership.

Listening is first because nothing builds trust like listening. The one thing that is irreplaceable that we can give is our time. When you give it to a co-worker then they understand the value of the gift.

Coaching skills include illustrative stories, the language of high expectations, and clear plans. If you want good people to stay then they need to see what the future holds for them and why staying with your business/department is good for them as well as the organization.

Nurturing and encouraging comes through regularly planned and spontaneous contact with all staff members. You need to speak honestly, and openly with staff as possible, don’t break promises. If they make a request of you they need to see you as their advocate no matter which way the request goes. Staff members need to feel connected to you and your organization and they need to see you as in their corner and the conduit to their successes.

Finally, the ability to confront positively and re-direct successfully is an art unto itself. The right time is anytime you see issues that need to change course, with a positive word, a reminder of past successes or a willingness to pitch in physically or organizationally and help them achieve success builds trust. Performance evaluations are a great time for more formal re-directing. . If you have been working the other points listed above then performance evaluations will go much easier. If you have been a good communicator and leader then this is a time for honest evaluation on both hard and soft skills. It gives the opportunity to find ways to improve old behaviors and skills levels as well as learn new skills that will prove valuable to the sustained success of the employee.

Employees that feel connected and have a supervisor that is there advocate it substantially more likely to stay and succeed than one who feels disconnected and unsure of the future.

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Increase productivity and creativity - RECONNECT with your people

2011-12-16T11:52:00.001-08:00

More and more it seems as though business leaders are concerned about morale, retention, and productivity. Years ago, Tom Peters said, When we become managers and executives we give up real work for the rest of our lives. While it’s not always that cut and dry, many of us have stopped being producers and become the observers of producers.

In an effort to get back on track, find ways to reconnect with your people and your members. Spend more one-on-one time with your staff and visit some of your members. Find out what their real issues are. To be leaders, we must lead, and we can¹t do it from behind a desk.

So how do we get there? With practice, the following these six steps can create dynamic change:

1. Willingness – You’ve got to start somewhere and willingness creates an open-minded and honest approach to yourself and others. You will begin to appreciate and value input from new sources without a sense of loss to yourself. This will strengthen any team, department or family. Be willing to find the highest value in yourself and others. Become willing to step outside your comfort zone and be open to new interactive and supervisory skills. Find new ways to handle new projects.

2. Quiet Time – Allowing you to start or restart your day with: focus, perspective, and clarity. You will bring to yourself and others around you a sense of confidence and strength that will build up confidence in others. People want to follow confident leaders. Quiet time will also help you stay focused on your goals.

3. Service – This will change your focus from CYA to CTA (cover their ass). When others see you as someone who is really concerned for their success then they will relax and begin to work at something close to capacity. This will build team values and spirit and strengthen the leader and the team. Changes your focus from “What’s in it FOR me” to “What’s in it FROM me”.

4. Love/Forgiveness – With love you “See the needs of others and treat them as importantly as your own”. This works whether it’s a customer service department or your family. When the people around you see your genuine care and interest in their successes you’ll blow the top off productivity, and strengthen community. Forgiveness – will let you move forward each day with a clear head. Don’t carry the grudges of past experiences to distract you from the present moment. This is not living in a make believe world. Hard decisions need to be made, make them and move on, letting the past pains, resentments and angers go will let you wake up and move positively into each new day. Move from judging into serving and supporting.

5. Gratitude – This underlies the whole program. To see your life, your family, your work and co- workers as something to be grateful for changes your whole perspective on their value. People who feel valued, REALLY valued, know it and perform at levels never dreamed of. You will begin to see each experience as something to learn from and embrace both good and bad experiences. This forces us into the moment and living in the moment is the only way to affect real change. A person who focuses on gratitude is free from the bondage of negative emotions, which block the positive effects of the first 5 steps

6. Action – This is the differentiator between this and every other plan. Become driven by simple actions that will create a change of focus. By using all the other steps the actions you take will build up the confidence and effectiveness of you and others in your organizations.
Without action, this is simply an intellectual process that does not facilitate change. Action facilitates change. Leaders need to be seen as taking action.

Also, as you become focused, caring, supportive through action, service, willingness, love/ forgiveness, and gratitude you will become a strong, confident, and supportive person. You will attract people with like skills, and qualities. Creating a circle of success that will become repeatable day after day and year after year.

When these steps are practiced, valued, and taught in organizations, job satisfaction, morale, and productivity soar.

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Walking the Talk! What people really want!

2011-12-09T04:03:00.001-08:00

I heard an association leaders say to me: “5 key executives have left the association in just the last year. How could this happen? I set realistic goals and objectives why aren’t we getting any closer?” The list goes on and on.

As I have traveled around the country, talking with both association and corporate executives, I have found this type of problem it is usually because staff has lost it’s sense of value to the organization, or the people don’t see any new opportunities for personal or professional growth.

Do you know why the comic strip “Dilbert” is so funny, because many times it’s spot on? It may be an exaggerated characterization, but I have talked to too many people and know it’s not far off target. But sometimes it can be frighteningly close to home.

Tom Peters said: “As we become managers and executives we give up the real work for the rest of our lives”. We stop being producers and become observers of producers. Yes, we do create and produce reports and evaluations, but that’s not what the front line people are dealing with everyday, they see real world problems, they see our products and services both their failings and successes.

We need to reconnect with our people, and our customers. Visit the front line staff or the customer’s offices; find out what the real issues are. If we are going to be leaders, then lead, we can’t do it from behind a desk.

I have seen time and time again, happy motivated people delivering, happy motivated clients, co-workers and the desired bottom line much more quickly than people driven toward those same goal by threats or mindless rhetoric and “upbeat slogans” that everyone knows are just hype.

So how do we get there from here?

I’ve discovered that we can all change our lives dramatically, for the better--and right now. It just takes a new sense of focus.

 Start each day with an awareness that you are here for a purpose other than to satisfy demands to add stuff to your life. I do this with a few morning minutes of meditation and prayer. Other people read a book or take a walk. After a while, you’ll find your own path to peace and self-awareness.

 Make serving others a primary focus. Start a mentoring program, be a big brother or sister, call a local volunteering program like Greater DC Cares.

 Slow down. I was always so busy pushing for the next big break that sometimes I ran right past it. So take a breath, enjoy life a bit, and you’ll be surprised how many opportunities just show up.

 Start now. You don’t have to remake your whole life overnight. Remember, you’re choosing to act--before desperation is forced on you. If you keep at it, when you look back you’ll be amazed how far you’ve come, and so will your loved ones. And while I may believe in deathbed conversions, acting ahead of time is a whole lot more satisfying.

There’s nothing magical about these actions. The results, however, can be phenomenal, because not only will you feel better about yourself, but your organization will take off, too.

Instead of following the crowd, think what kind of positive public attention you can get by increasing your community awareness. Recessions don’t last forever, but the public’s memory of a good corporate citizen often does. Sometimes it doesn’t even take money, just the willingness to show up and help.

Positively motivated people will deliver to the bottom line faster than new technology and a slick mission statement, and nothing will motive people faster than feeling the company they work for sees them and their community as significant.

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How to sell to the client and build long-term relationships.

2011-12-03T13:22:00.001-08:00

The short answer to this column is “ask them”. What can I do to help them minimize risk and maximize return of capital? Two words: differentiation and trust, (the "and" doesn’t count as a word).

In sales and in all aspects of your business you need to create trust and differentiation, a sense in the client's mind of a perceived increase in value for using your goods or services. And at the same time a secure belief that you are looking out for their best interests. Why would I use the word “perceived”? Because customer perception is all we have. If they think we are great we are, if they think we are terrible, we are. The client’s perception is all we have to create a solid long-term relationship. I have seen sales people and others try to change a clients mind by showing statistics, print outs and PowerPoint’s but if the client doesn’t trust you and perceive a unique value to using you, everything else is moot.
Back when I first started out in sales I found silly, simple ways to build trust and show a client I had their best interests at heart. When selling commercial office products clients buy things in wrong proportions, let’s say they might order 12 dozen of each ballpoint pen they use. I review the last few month’s purchases and pro-actively offer to let them return anything they had made the inventory out of balance. Most of the time it was just silly things like to many red or green pens that had accumulated over time. Usually that was something the current rep hadn’t thought of so it created trust and began to develop the perception of a clear and important difference in my services. I didn’t care about the returned products I cared about the long-term relationship with the client. I can’t tell you how many thousands of dollars in commissions I made by giving a credit for a few hundred dollars of product.
Another way to better understand the client, build long term relationships and get new clients you should also build your own focus group. NOTE: Your success is up to you and not your company, so if there is no interest or budget for this, then do it yourself. I did it on my own for five years before I began to get the company interested in how do duplicate the success I seemed to be having.
First, get a few (4-12) of your best customers, invite them to a round table discussion on how to improve their return and their reduce risk working with you and your business. I usually find this works better and stays more focused if done first thing in the morning. Find a local person, program or book that you can talk to or review that will help clients improve some aspect of their business. This should have nothing to do with you and your business. Ask the client, a few weeks ahead of time, how they would describe the perfect provider of your goods and services. Then find a way to adapt the services or products you have to better align with the perfect supplier. This is also the perfect time to ask for a referral. This is when the client can see or at least perceive your true value and difference.
Asking a client is the best way to deliver what they want when they want it. I am always astounded when I ask about a client’s opinion and most suppliers don’t know.
Trust and differentiation is the key. How do you stack up?

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What to do when More is not enough? Change the Focus!

2011-11-25T05:29:00.000-08:00

Small consistent changes make the most difference in one’s life, but the hardest part is beginning to make these changes.

Having been a businessman all my working life, I will admit that for most of that time I eschewed any kind of advice or direction that would help me to get in touch with the spiritual or emotional side of my being. It just didn’t fit within the parameters of my career or the make-up of my character. Like most executives, envisioning a CEO taking time out of a very busy day to meditate, practice yoga, or go to a counselor to get centered was not in my frame of reference. Making a profit and being successful is what centered me and excited me.

As my business took off, I began paying the price for its rapid growth. As many business leaders do, I realized how lonely and difficult the job of a CEO could be. When cash flows began to erode, deep cuts and tough business decisions had to be made just to survive. During that time, the two elements of my life that I had essentially ignored were there to get me through the crisis: My wife and my kids.

At this time, the realization occurred that I had been working and waiting for my life to get perfect in order to be happy, and it was never going to be perfect. With the help of several unlikely mentors, I was able to start the process of changing the focus of my life, and I am now mentoring others to do the same.

The following list I have developed includes ten warning signs that might indicate you could benefit from a few simple steps to change your focus:

•When you have a knot in your stomach driving to work, thinking about the impossible list of things you have to accomplish by the day’s end.

•When you have a knot in you stomach, driving home from work, knowing that once again you have disappointed your spouse, your kids or your best friend by being late to or canceling yet another outing with them.

•When the hours in your workday begin to double the hours you sleep at night.

•When antacids and headache remedies become your constant companions, and a cocktail at then end of the day is your most reliable stress reliever.

•When a lunch break either constitutes a business meeting or carryout food eaten in less than 15 minutes, usually while you are checking your e-mail.

•When you realize you never really talk with your staff and know nothing about them except maybe their performance outcomes.

•When you begin to avoid conversations with your spouse because you know that it will always end up in an argument about how much time you spend working or thinking about work.

•When your “friends” can only be counted among your colleagues.

•When your kids let you know either verbally or by acting out that they need more of your time.

•When most of your self-worth is based on your career accomplishments and the lifestyle they have afforded you.

In order to help clients change their focus, I have developed The Daily Six book and workshop to create a positive outlook each day for both individuals and whole organizations. These concepts are something you can do without the assistance of a Zen master, learning to sit in the Lotus position or burning incense in your old ashtray. However, by taking these steps you can stop waiting for your life to get perfect to be happy.

1.Willingness: to change and to appreciate a new perspective; to view your life at its deepest level with honesty; and to eliminate harsh judgments and unreasonable expectations of yourself and others.

2. Daily Quiet Time: Mornings work best for me, but each person needs to find his or her best time. You may want to create this time during a lunch break. Take a walk and try to clear your mind from work for ten or 15 minutes.

3.Service to Others: No effort is too small. Let someone go ahead of you in traffic, hold the elevator door open for a straggler, call your spouse during the day just to say hello, spend a few minutes each week getting to know a little more about a member of your staff.

4.Love and Forgiveness: People can’t read your mind - When you express positive feelings, they will be returned. When you practice forgiveness, it will bring you peace.

5.Gratitude: Be grateful for all things, even the painful or stressful situations that bring change to your life. Instead of viewing life’s events as good or bad, or right or wrong, try wait and see.

6.Action: You don’t need more knowledge to make changes; you need action to change. Don’t wait for the right time -- now is the time to begin.

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Spend time planning now and eliminate “quick fixes” later

2011-11-17T13:19:00.001-08:00

Sometimes I am reminded of the mechanic in the old AAMCO commercial who says, “Pay me now or pay me later”. This is especially true when I see executives and managers delay proactive strategic and organizational planning until after current projections start to decline. Unfortunately these also tend to be the same organizations that don’t see the value in continuing education/training for their people or preventive maintenance for their equipment.

Strategic planning is preventive maintenance for the whole organization. By the time things are beginning to slip, it is past the ideal time for new ideas and strategies to be set in motion. We need to prepare yearly, monthly and even weekly to make sure that we are always on track with our plans and our goals. If we wait until we need help, many times it is too late.

Recently I was working with a client to develop a new overall strategic plan for his business since it was growing faster than originally anticipated. A nice problem to have in this economy. While we worked on the traditional macro analysis for a new five year plan, he mentioned that he was getting ready to purchase more trucks, hire more drivers and warehouse workers to handle the current increases in sales and deliveries. Using the existing strategic plan we were able to look back at the projected ratio of trucks to deliveries and to dollars of sales. Something seemed off. We did a quick tour of the distribution center to get a feel for the work levels on the warehouse floor. Everywhere we looked, there was a tremendous hustle and bustle. This seemed like a good sign that capacity was being maximized. Maybe the plan ratios were off. People not only seemed busy, they were swamped. The client’s instinct seemed right. Putting on more staff and buying more equipment seemed like the right answer for handling this upswing in sales and deliveries. At first it appeared that a mistake had been made in the existing plan but after a more detailed examination of the problem, we discovered something else entirely.

When we looked at the number of stops each truck was expected to make daily, the numbers seemed right but the sales numbers were off. What set this client apart from his competitors was their next day delivery guarantee. Any order placed by 3pm was promised the next business day.
This pressure, combined with the sales increases, made the people filling the orders move through their areas in the warehouse quicker than they should. That produced a rising error rate for the products being sent out. These errors caused the number of pickups and redeliveries to rise dramatically, looking like a much bigger bump in sales than was accurate.

Once we identified the real problem we were able to make the right corrections. More staff and equipment would have fixed the problem initially but without a plan, the same errors would have returned again and again.

Instead of hiring more people, we trained the pickers and packers to SLOW DOWN and focus on completing the order correctly. As the mistakes decreased, the system became balanced and the pickup for errors and redeliveries went down by 75%. The need to issue credits and then re-bill clients dropped down to acceptable levels. The need to hire new staff and invest in new equipment vanished, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Our plan was now back in balance. These changes had a profound effect throughout the organization. The warehouse people were proud of doing a quality job. Drivers were happy they had to only make a delivery once. The billing department was relieved to reduce the number of transactions per client, per month. Their clients were satisfied because they got what they wanted, when they wanted it.
This all fell into place because a strategic plan was developed BEFORE it was needed. Many executives and managers think they are too busy to stop long enough to plan effectively. Like most businesses, people feel too busy doing their work to examine how the work should be done. One hour of planning is worth days of effort finding and fixing problems caused by “quick fixes” fueled by instinct alone. Instinct in business is critical to success but it is planning plus instinct that insures success.

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The Power of Organizational Transparency

2011-11-09T12:03:00.001-08:00

When times are tough, transparency in management becomes even more critical to the success of your business. With transparency employees understand the issues that owners face on a regular basis, and they becomemuch more invested in the solutions. When workers, on all levels, are fully aware of the overall goals and expectations for the business, they have, a much clearer perspective of the role they play individually in achieving those results. With transparency comes improved communication and better connection with your people. This creates an atmosphere for strategic thinking and encourages workers to become owners of both the problems and the solutions.
Many times management assumes that everyone understands the “big picture” but in most cases that assumption is incorrect. So when managers are forced to make difficult decisions for the good of the company, many times they face resistance or pushback from their people. When that happens, trust is damaged, both sides feel frustrated and finding a solution becomes exponentially more difficult. You may have the best product or service in the market but without proper communication and inclusion to create and reinforce buy-in from workers, the company will not thrive.
Transparency allowsworkers a better understandingof not just howbut more importantly why their rolestie back to profitability and overall organizational success.Why is always a more powerful motivator than how, simply due to the fact that people will perform significantly better when they understand the value of their work.
The single, most often resisted element of transparency in management is financial disclosure. But when the organization’s financial situation is less of a mystery to everyone, making necessary changes that may be difficult, becomes more palatable. With transparency, staff can better understand management’s ability to deliver pay increases, bonuses, etc., or not. They can better understand the changes in willingness to allow overtime, a commission structure, or a hiring freeze. They may not like it but they will understand it and respect the fact that they are trusted enough to know the details behind the decisions. When management is willing to open up its practices and develop transparency across the entire organization,the result is"same side of the table thinking”. Everyone understands the issues and complexities of decision-making. They know what is expected of them individually and collectively and are much more supportive of any changes that are necessaryto ensure the success of the organization. With transparency, employees are more motivated and feel an increased sense of self-value. They begin to see the direct results of their own efforts and their level of job satisfaction increases. This causes reduced absenteeism and turnover, positively affecting the bottom-line and potentially resulting in higher wages, a win-win for all concerned.

To business owners who are initially adverse tocomplete transparency, I suggest beginning this process with the implementation of what I call “transparency lite”. Train and cross train your people to know and understand the issues and complexities of other positions. As they begin to see the organization as a whole and not just their department or division, an opportunity is created for empathy, connectionand a commonality of focus. Concentration on the success of the entire enterprise rather than the more segmented and myopic view, allows for higher levels of morale and better buy-in,which generally leads to higher productivity and greater profitability. And that’s a good start.

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Living lives of great value.

2011-11-03T12:49:00.000-07:00

We want to live lives of great value, and we can.
And we don’t have to wait for anything or anyone.
We don’t need the right clothes, or the right car,
Or the right income, or the right time,
We just need the right focus.

How can we determine if we are living lives of great value? By your own measuring stick? Should it be by your own determination of how well I’m doing? I don’t really think so. How well you’re doing really isn’t a fair question to ask yourself. Who should be the determiner of how well it’s going. The quality of the value you put into life has to be measure by the people in your life. How do they think your doing?

When I run any length training session I always ask the attendees to start their day with a list of two or three expectations or goals that they could use to determine whether the workshop was successful for them, or not. At the end of the workshop I ask them to fill out a questionnaire about training session with particular attention to the goals and expectations they listed in the morning. I then ask them to write down, as specifically as possible, how well they think I did at helping them achieve their goals. When I first started asking for feedback I was very nervous because I was concerned with negative comments about unachieved goals, but I got over it quickly. Over the years I have been asking for this feedback I have learned, it doesn’t matter if the feedback is positive or negative I can only find out how the day went from attendees. I have found that rather than fearful the process and the feedback are valid and constructive. Why? Because it’s their perspective and no matter how much I may think they are off base or misguided I can’t change the fact that that is their perspective. If someone came up to me after a seminar and asked if I felt I had delivered great value into the lives of my attendees I, of course, would say yes, but really it that who we should be asking? Not really. If we want to know how we’re doing personally or professionally all we have to do is ask.

When I said earlier “All we need is the right focus” I was talking about an outward focus. Giving up the concept of: what’s in it for me – and moving toward the concept of: what’s in it FROM me? Not what am I getting but what am I giving. What am I putting into each and every relationship I have? If you think about compartmentalizing your life based on relationships answering that question should be pretty easy. How are you doing as a spouse, family member, employee, boss, subordinate, peer, community member, religious group member and on and on. What are you putting into each of these relationships?

I was always taught that relationships we make a conscience decision to stay in should be a 50-50 balance in the relationship and that left lots of room for resentments. Because I have always found that 50-50 is based on my behavior based on my expectations of your behavior back to me. “Quid pro Quo” is not a great basis for a relationship. As a matter of fact, I have more often found that an expectation (at least an unannounced or unrealistic one) is a down payment on resentment. What I encourage now in myself and those I coach is a 100-0 relationship balance. You behave the way you want to behave just because you want to and not because you will get something back. Our behavior should have nothing to do with the behavior of the people around us. Our behavior should be driven only by our personal or professional desires to see how much we can put into the relationships around us every day. Now this is, of course, hard to do. But with practice and good intentions can become great new habits.

So how do we practice to become more emotionally balanced and secure in our behavior and relationships? In my book The Daily Six the second of the concepts is developing a regular practice of daily quiet time. Finding five minutes or so in the morning and in the evening to set your heart and mind in the right direction. I am a firm believer if you set your heart in the right direction your life will follow. So each morning find the time to sit down quietly and focus on the day ahead. You can read something uplifting or you can just sit purposefully and count your breaths.

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Motivation and Buy-In as a Competitive Advantage

2011-10-27T09:09:00.001-07:00

“Motivation and Buy-In” are like everything else in life, always cycling up or cycling down; there is no static position. So that means that energy and effort must be applied continually and consistently to create and maintain a high performing organization with the momentum needed for Motivation and Buy-In.

The cornerstone to successful Motivation and Buy-In is trust. The level of trust that exists within your organization will determine how hard and how long you will have to work to get your organization fully motivated and completely committed. These four simple ideas used everyday will generate the results you want:

#1. Trust: To build trust you begin with a more honest, open and inclusive communication style and more being trusting of others.

Trust is the pipeline through which all good business practices flow. Trust instills a sense of confidence without the presence of worry or suspicion. Without trust, people move at the speed of don’t screw up or in other words, the speed they can move without getting into any type trouble. That is not the speed you want for your organization. If people feel their input is unwanted or their mistakes will be met with criticism or possibly dismissal then mood and morale will be bad, turnover and absenteeism will be high, motivation will be low and buy-in will be nonexistent. The cycle is heading down.

Trust is maintained by the consistent achievement of personal and organizational goals. With trust, workers move away from a self-protection, begin to take risks, look for new ways to improve workflow and exceed expectations. When goals are achieved and exceeded, management’s trust and confidence in the whole process is strengthened. The way to achieve Motivation and Buy-in is through trust and the key to building trust is the willingness of management to assimilate the next three ideas. The cycle is heading up.

#2. Transparency: Allowing people, at all levels, to have a clear understanding of an organization’s overall goals and objectives, as well as an understanding of the importance of their own personal and departmental roles in the success of the organization.

When times are tough, making sure you have transparency in your management becomes even more critical to the success of your business. When employees understand the issues that owners face on a regular basis, they are more invested (buy-in) in the solutions. And when organizations encourage frequent two-way communication, at all levels, they generate a level of positive energy (motivation) making it easier to find new ideas and/or solutions. Change is much easier to implement with open communication, support and trust. Very quickly employees do more than buy-into change, they own it.

As management willingly opens up its thinking and decision making processes, the organization becomes more transparent and "same side of the table thinking” begins. . Everyone begins to understand the issues and complexities of decision-making. The entire staff knows what is expected of them individually and collectively and they will be much more supportive of any changes that are necessary to ensure the success of the organization. With transparency, employees are more motivated and they feel an increased sense of self-value and self-worth that is directly related to their own efforts. It also becomes much more likely that their wages will go up because profits will go up and stay up and levels of absenteeism and turnover will go down. And that’s a good start.

#3. Treat Everyone the Same but Differently: Offering praise and rewards based on individual personality style.

Treating everyone the same is a no-brainer but often times it is forgotten. Consciously or unconsciously all of us connect better with some people more than others. And while it's just human nature, making that kind of mistake can ruin morale, interfere with productivity and occasionally create some discrimination issues. The most effective way to communicate and reward people is to base it on individual need and personality style. The rewards for comparable work must be of the same value but not necessarily the same. For example, one person may need public acknowledgement of their successes in order to be motivated while another may be embarrassed by that method and instead require some one-on-one time for personal recognition. A good manager or management team needs to know their people. They need to understand what motivates the individual and respond accordingly. It may seem like a lot of extra work, but believe me, the dividends are worth the effort.

#4. Change the people or Change the people: Providing training and support to improve and update the skills of your people or recognizing when the time comes to let someone go.

Good management is focused on making sure that everyone in the organization has the necessary training and support to maximize their ROI. However, once it becomes obvious that an employee is not living up to his/her potential, a good manager will make the necessary change. Do everything possible to change or improve the people but if that isn’t possible, then change or replace the people.

Change takes time and how long it will take depends on the shape you’re organization is in when you begin this process. Remember, the way to achieve Motivation and Buy-in is through trust and the key to building trust is the willingness of management to assimilate all four ideas; Trust, Transparency, Treat Everyone the Same but Differently, Change the People or Change the People. So make the commitment and don’t give up. You and your organization are worth the work.

One of my favorite phrases is:

Small Changes, Practiced Consistently, Create Dramatic Results.

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My Mother Taught Me Willingness

2011-10-20T11:19:00.000-07:00

Mothers try to help and guide us as we grow. I truly believe they do the best they can with the skills they have. For some of us those lessons were a wonderful learning experience
and for others, not so much. My mother always wanted me to try new things.
She didn’t necessarily care if I was comfortable, she just cared that I try. And when she thought it would be a good new habit she wanted
me to keep practicing until the new behavior became permanent.

Mother’s teach us many things. I hope your lessons were the
ones like:  love, support and unselfishness but no matter the
lesson’s they became ingrained into our psyche.  As adults
we need to take the lessons we learned as kids, keep and
enhance the good ones and discard the negative ones.   We now know if we should eat our brussel sprouts or always wear clean underwear.  We make decisions everyday that can and will take us to
new places and help us become the people we always knew we could be.   Good, bad or indifferent, for most of us, it was our Mother’s
that first saw our potential and helped “guide” us, in some way, toward our greater good.

I don’t normally do this but a friend sent me this, I thought this was really fun.
I don’t know how many of you can relate but on a couple of these
I can actually hear my mom saying some of these same things to me from time to time.

Enjoy! - Don't miss my note at the end. Have a great week!

My mother taught me TO APPRECIATE A JOB WELL DONE.

"If you're going to kill each other, do it outside. I just finished cleaning."

My mother taught me RELIGION.

"You better pray that will come out of the carpet."

My mother taught me about TIME TRAVEL. "If you don't straighten up, I'm going to knock you into the middle of next week!"

My mother taught me LOGIC.

"Because I said so, that's why."

My mother taught me MORE LOGIC.

"If you fall out of that swing and break your neck, you're not going to the store with me."

My mother taught me FORESIGHT.

"Make sure you wear clean underwear in case you're in an accident."

My mother taught me IRONY.

"Keep crying, and I'll give you something to cry about."

My mother taught me about the science of OSMOSIS.

"Shut your mouth and eat your supper."

My mother taught me about CONTORTIONISM.

"Will you look at that dirt on the back of your neck!"

My mother taught me about STAMINA.

"You'll sit there until all that spinach is gone."

My mother taught me about WEATHER.

"This room of yours looks as if a tornado went through it."

My mother taught me about HYPOCRISY.

"If I told you once, I've told you a million times. Don't exaggerate!"

My mother taught me the CIRCLE OF LIFE.

"I brought you into this world, and I can take you out."

My mother taught me about ANTICIPATION.

"Just wait until we get home."

My mother taught me MEDICAL SCIENCE.

"If you don't stop crossing your eyes, they are going to freeze that way."

My mother taught me HUMOR.

"When that lawn mower cuts off your toes, don't come running to me."

My mother taught me GENETICS.

"You're just like your father."

My mother taught me about my ROOTS.

"Shut that door behind you. Do you think you were born in a barn?"

My mother taught me WISDOM.

"When you get to be my age, you'll understand."

My Mother taught me ESP.

"Put your sweater on; don't you think that I know when you're cold?"

My Mother taught me TO MEET A CHALLENGE.

"What were you thinking? Answer me when I talk to you... Don't talk back to me!"

MY Mother taught me PATIENCE.

"Sure, you can do that. As soon as you're 21 and leave the house!"

My Mother taught me DIPLOMACY.

"I don't want to hear who started it, It takes two to fight."

My Mother taught me SHARING.

"Play nicely with that or I'll just take it away from both of you."

My Mother taught me ETIQUETTE.

"Use your fork! If I see that hand on the table again, I'll slap it!"

My mother taught me about ENVY.

"There are millions of less fortunate children in this world who don't have wonderful parents like you do."

My mother taught me about RECEIVING.

"You are going to get it when you get home!"

My mother taught me TO THINK AHEAD.

"If you don't pass your spelling test, you'll never get a good job!"

My mother taught me HOW TO BECOME AN ADULT.

"If you don't eat your vegetables, you'll never grow up."

My mother taught me about JUSTICE.

"One day you'll have kids and I hope they turn out just like you!"

But most of all, my mother taught me LOVE.

"You know that whatever you do or whatever happens, I'll stand behind you because I love you."

Common Sense Laws of Leadership

2011-10-14T05:17:00.001-07:00

Leadership skills are must to have thing for successful entrepreneurs, managers and executives. The success or failure of my department, division or business depends on the quality of my decisions. Everyday business leaders need to rely on excellent management and leadership skills to drive the business in the proper direction that leads towards success.

It is all about how you handle the people and react to the problem situations.Leadership skills help to support yourself and your employees and help them stay focused to achieve the organization objectives. A great leader sets the goals and prepare appropriate plan to achieve those goals.

Leader must have these skills to lead the organization in a better way.

Here is my list of fundamental but very effective skills that every leader should master. I call them, the common sense laws of leadership.

Empathic Detachment – the ability to listen and connect with someone is a critical leadership skill but as critical, is the ability to then learn to detachso their problems don’t become yours

The Rock in the Pond – Our understanding of the importance of and power of each leader’s mood. And how they determine the success or failure of every department or division each day.

Model the Behavior You Expect – requires managers to reflect on the behavior they exhibit each day and realize this is the behavior model others will begin to assimilate.

Be a conduit to their Success – helps leaders and managers to move from telling to teaching, help others realize you are the path to their success and they will follow you anywhere,

Change the People or Change the People – support, teach, encourage and develop your people but then be honest with yourself, are they getting what your teaching, no? then get different people.

What you Allow you Teach – teaches the importance of consistency everyday in the lives of leaders.

Set Expectation and Hold People Accountable - the importance of creating the expectations of all people and the importance of accountability in the development of the expectations.

You can’t over include and you can’t over communicate – addresses the two critical issues of willingness to include others into the management process and open up communication even when it is uncomfortable. This will make management more transparent.

Hopes and Dreams aren’t’ achieved with Hoping and Dreaming–but from the fine balance between action, planning and implementation.

We don’t know what we don’t know – to find out ask !
The realization that we may be wrong about what others know and understand and what they don’t can be the recipe for the downfall of leaders.

Everyone Wants to Be but No One wants to Become – the importance of daily movement toward a goal and not to let failures and problems hold you back.

Clairvoyance is not part of the job. - The importance of communication in the leadership process, and the effective delivery of goals. How well we get and give directions and suggestions will determine how well we maximize productivity.

Strategic Leadership

2011-10-07T12:08:00.000-07:00

Moving from the “Strategic Planning” to "Strategic Thinking" is the key to a successful organization.

How do we get out people to think?

Strategic Thinking studies help leaders and individual contributors find balance between meeting today's expectations and requirements and tomorrow's possibilities. To be successful, everyone must learn how to keep an eye on the opportunities, issues, and concerns that may affect future business results.

In the world of work, “hard skills” are technical or administrative procedures related to an organization’s core business.

Examples include machine operation, computer protocols, safety standards, financial procedures and sales administration.

These skills are typically easy to observe, quantify and measure. They’re also easy to train, because most of the time the skill sets are brand new to the learner and no unlearning is involved.

By contrast, “soft skills” (also called “people skills”) are typically hard to observe, quantify and measure.

Soft Skills or People skills are needed for everyday life as much as they’re needed for work.

They have to do with how people relate to each other: communicating, listening, engaging in dialogue, giving feedback, cooperating as a team member, solving problems, contributing in meetings and resolving conflict.

Leaders at all levels rely heavily on people skills, too: setting an example, teambuilding, facilitating meetings, encouraging innovation, solving problems, making decisions, planning, delegating, observing, instructing, coaching, encouraging and motivating.

Today’s global environment is both dynamic and confusing. We need leaders of all types who can use strategic thinking differently on a daily basis as strategic thinking is a necessity for successful change and business growth.

It is not enough to build a Strategic Plan or have a long-term vision or, conversely, to just give up and muddle through the complexities around us and hope for success.

A disciplined way to think, to plan, to act, and to rethink and re- plan all over again on a daily basis is needed to grow your business. Strategic thinking is needed to grow your career as a leader as well.

(Narrow Vision – Segmented Management)

One who focuses at predetermined times on the needs of the department or operation, guiding through managing systems and maintaining the focus on process not people.

Strategic Thinker

(Broader Vision-Holistic Leader)

One who focuses daily on the needs of both the department and the organization as a whole. Guiding through leading people using the key leadership skills of flexibility, consensus building, open communication, inclusion and mutual success

Acknowledge the reality of change
Understand the Strategic Plan
Understand how to think, analyze, and communicate
Question current assumptions
Build clearer understanding of systems
Envisions possible futures
Generate new ideas
Consider the fit for the firm

Learn the three questions that every effective Strategic Thinker should ask, everyday.

Strategic thinking is more focused on what the business is trying to accomplish rather than following a plan of how to accomplish the goal

Where Leaders practice Strategic Thinking, Strategic Intent and Strategic Momentum are created.

Strategic Intent – Is the component that shows the organizational how it will achieve its strategic plan. Strategic Intent clarifies the vision, creates focus and enhances self-motivation.

Finding out WHO can help

2011-09-28T11:00:00.001-07:00

Last week I was in a round table discussion focused on personal and professional growth. One of the points raised was the powerful acronym H.O.W., which is designed to help people remember to be: Honest, Open-minded and Willing. As we sat talking, I began doodling with the letters H, O, and W and realized that when rearranged, they also spell W.H.O. Immediately, the classic Abbot and Costello “Who’s On First” comedy routine came rolling through my head. So, with all due respect and apologies to two great comedians, here is a (much shortened) version I hope you will enjoy.

So W.H.O will help me change my focus?

Yes!
I mean the name.
W.H.O.
The guy with the answers?
W.H.O’s the guy.
That’s what I asked?
W.H.O!
The guy helping me change my focus is….
WHO is that person!

That’s exactly what I am asking.

Well, that’s his name.
That's W.H.O’s name?
Exactly!
Well go ahead and tell me.
I just did, that's it.
That's W.H.O?
Yes.
What's going to help me become a better person?
No.
Well, ok then W.H.O’s going to help?
Exactly!

Sometimes I can get wrapped around the axle trying to do this personal and professional growth thing just the “right way”.  But there is no right way. Personal and professional growth is always evolving and never arriving. I know WHO is a key and whenever I am stressed I will lean back and remember WHO will help me live to my full potential. Exactly!

If you would like to have a laugh, here's a link to the original text andvideo.

Moving at the Speed of Don’t Screw Up

2011-09-22T10:56:00.001-07:00

Find Savings By Reviewing Your Financial Plans

2011-09-14T10:29:00.001-07:00

I have been around the office products industry most of my life and I know, from the friends I stay connected with, that many businesses are struggling right now. Sales are flat (if we’re lucky), collections are slowing, and people are disgruntled. Fear is a mindset and morale killer. I started my first business in the 1979 and 1980 recessions and grew and prospered through that as well as the one in 1989 and 1990. I think that many things can be done to improve your business, today. All that you need is some planning. This is the time to lead your company by finding ways to improve cash flow and cut costs. It is the perfect time to make sure your financial planning is as effective as possible.

My rule of thumb for cost curtailment -- anything can run on 12 percent less. Like weight, the first 10 to 20 percent that you are trying to lose comes off easiest. Start by reviewing each of the following financial-plan categories:

1. Rent – Demand a reduction from your landlord. Even if you have the discount added back later, now is when you need help. If you’re the landlord, cut the rent.

2. Communications – Who is your carrier? Why are they your carrier? Are there ways to reduce your costs? Maybe you can save money by getting new equipment from a different carrier.

3. Employee health insurance – I don’t think you should eliminate health insurance but you can review your policy and see if you can start planning it differently in order to change the deductible to reduce rates. Or consider changing providers.

4. Legal fees – These seem to keep creeping up. Ask your attorney for an audit of the legal services they are providing. Also, ask them what services you could reduce, bring in-house or eliminate altogether. Your attorney wants you to succeed because he wants a client for the long-term. He will help you find ways to cut costs.

5. Advertising – This is the time to improve advertising. You should ask for an audit like the one the attorneys are providing. Review where you are spending money; see if there are smarter ways of planning your advertising campaigns. Stop focusing on providing information about your company, as in traditional advertising. Find ways to provide value to clients instead through e-mail or SMS marketing for example. When you provide value for your clients, not only will they become more secure, they will also become advocates for you and your business.

6. Loan costs – Banks are struggling too. Have a heart-to-heart with your banker and see what they might do to help you with Loan planning. They have flexibility. Banks don’t want you to fail and they definitely don’t want your collateral. They just want to get paid back.

7. Accounting – Treat this exactly like the legal reviews

8. Travel – Do you really need to stay in a 4 or 5 star level hotel? Do you need to fly first-class? Heck, do you need to travel at all? Find new ways to stay home and cut your costs. Try planning your meetings online. Between Webex, Go to meetings, Adobe, Yugma and Skype (just to name a few) you can set up a perfectly acceptable virtual meeting. I have been developing Webinars to help my clients reduce travel expenses for me.

9. On-hand inventory – Once again, ask your supplier for an audit and for recommended reductions. Let your supplier help you with your inventory planning. If they are a reputable supplier, they will be honest about ways to help you reduce costs and improve cash flow. Like all the rest, they do not want you to fail.

10. Employee costs – If you need to reduce staff, cut quickly, cut hard and cut deep. It is much easier and much better to hire people back than for them to constantly watch for the “layoff look” on your face every Friday afternoon. Once cuts are made, pull your people together. They need to believe that they are with you for the long run and not just here until the next sales and profit numbers arrive.

These are 10 good areas in which to look first because you can immediately put money back into your pockets. But you should review all parts of your financial plan for savings.  A successful bank president told me something once that I will never forget it: Cash isn’t cash unless it’s cash. I purchased a company once and on the first day called the landlord about the rent. I told him we could move out the next day or he could reduce his rent by 50 percent, thereby maintaining a fully rented space with no loss of rent and no cost of looking for a new client. He said “no problem.” Though he was not excited, he was happy to have half-the-rent guaranteed instead of nothing.

What can you do to cut, reduce, eliminate or postpone payments? There are things you can do that will save you money today.

Remember to stay client-focused. Planning to reduce expenses shouldn't save you money but cost you clients. Also, look at yourself in this equation.  Can you personally get by on less? Are you the landlord for your business?

Maybe it’s time to personally run a little leaner. Staff morale goes down and fear goes up when they think you are only focused on protecting yourself. Pull the details of each of the categories and create your own line-item veto. Make sure everything has a valid justification for where you are now, not last year or even last month. Lean on your suppliers and maintain high-touch value with your clients. You’ll weather this storm and come out the other side a lean, mean fighting machine.

Exit Planning - Timing Is Everything

2011-09-06T08:08:00.001-07:00

One reason business owners of successful companies put off exit planning is they don't know when to start. There is one simple answer; every business owner should have an exit plan regardless of his or her age or the stage of the company.

Exit plans are not just for pre-retirement business owners. Unlike their parents, who typically stayed in one business for their entire lives, younger entrepreneurs are more comfortable with the idea of buying and selling businesses. As a result, these younger entrepreneurs need exit plans as much as their parents do.

The bottom line is that in successful companies, business owner can never start the exit planning process too early.

Sophisticated investors like venture capitalists who fund start-up companies will not invest in a business unless they believe the founders have a good exit plan. Private equity groups will not buy or invest in a successful middle-market company without developing a detailed exit plan for themselves before investing.

Why do these sophisticated investors believe in exit plans?

They know firsthand that in successful companies unless an exit plan is in place, there is no strategic road map to ensure that all of the goals of the stakeholders are met. They have learned through experience that without a detailed strategic exit plan, they are much less likely to achieve their objectives.

In successful companies the more time a business owner has to design and implement an exit plan, the better. In an ideal world, business owners should develop their exit plan when they start their businesses.

If that hasn't been done, the exit planning process should begin at least three years before the business owner ultimately wants to exit.

Why such a long lead time? Let's start at the owner’s final departure from the company and work backward to understand when he would need to start.

First, let’s assume the owner’s ultimate exit strategy is to sell the company to a third-party buyer (approximately 70 percent of business owners ultimately elect this strategy.) In contrast to selling publicly traded securities, no liquid or efficient market exists for privately held companies.

While there is a very active market for private successful companies, a great deal of time and effort is required to "package" the company for sale, identify and contact the right buyers, and then negotiate and close the transaction.

Depending on the type of business broker or investment banking firm engaged to sell the company it may take between 6 and 18 months to sell a privately owned company. This period can be even longer if the client has unique structuring requirements or other issues that limit the universe of potential buyers.

In addition to this, keep in mind that even after the transaction is closed, in most of the successful companies buyers want the former business owner to continue to play a role in the company as an employee, consultant, or advisor. This transition period can last anywhere from several months to as long as several years. I work to make sure my clients understand that their actual exit will occur between 6 and 12 months after the closing depending on the length of the transition period.

Perhaps most importantly, remember that one of the goals of the exit plan is to maximize the value of the company at the time of sale. Many value-enhancement projects take time to implement and even more time to show results. Value enhancement really pays off when you can demonstrate concrete results to buyers.

Given the above I advise business owners to begin the exit planning process at least three years before they want to completely exit the business.

Exit Planning Timetable (in Reverse Order)

Transition Process 1 year or more (after a sale)

Investment Banking/Sales Process 1 year – 3 years

Implementation of Value Enhancement Plan 6 months -24 months

Prepare Exit Plan 3 months – 12 months

Idle Thoughts, I Don’t Think So,

2011-09-02T11:08:00.001-07:00

Thoughts have given rise to our whole world. As the saying goes, “everything is created twice, once in the mind and then once in the world”. We are the architects of our thoughts and therefore the architects of our world. We can build up or tear down our entire world just by thinking. When we are grateful and focused on the positive things in our lives, our world is good. When we are fearful and focused on the negative things in our lives, our world is not so good. So much of our lives is out of our control but the one thing we can control is our thoughts. And that is everything. Become your own ‘thought police’ and catch negative and fearful thoughts and stop them before they catch hold and grow. Ask yourself “why?”. Why is this thought dominating my mind, is it a valid concern or warning, does it help me and move me forward, does it keep me on track, does it make me stronger or weaker? We want our minds filled with healthy, positive thoughts. Thoughts animate our lives, make yours count.

Gifts of Devastation

2011-08-27T13:56:00.000-07:00

A Gift of Devastation is something negative that happens that forces positive changes into your life. For instance, acolleague's heart attack at age forty-three motivated him to stop smoking cigarettes, get on a low-fat diet, and join a health club. Today he is happier and healthier than ever. A friend who was facing an impending divorce finally began to address an alcohol problem and got into counseling. Now with 5 years of sobriety, the family is stable, the kids feel safe and the marriage is solid. For me, it was losing my business, all my personal assets and twelve years of sweat equity in a matter of hours. But the silver lining was finding supportive friends, reconnecting with a loving family that I had ignored and finding the career path that I am on today.

How many of us have had a negative experience that ended up putting us on a new, unexpected and better path?Let’s make a commitment to accept all our gifts, good or badand be grateful.

Be Present and Grateful to the Present for it’s Present

2011-08-16T12:10:00.001-07:00

We are given a unique experience everyday. It is 24 hours in length and it comes only once in a lifetime. This is the present, our present and it has a strict no exchange or return policy. We must be grateful for this gift, it is ours to use, as we will. When we spend our time feeling negative about the past or fearful of the future, we miss its value. Are we grateful and fully present each moment or are we like a child looking through birthday presents and tossing aside the one in his lap, wanting only the next one and then the next? It is ok to review the past and learn from it. It is ok to look out at the future and plan for it. But we should not let these lessons or plans affect the quality of our present. Everyday we should seek out people, places and situations that bring us joy, peace and balance. If I am willing and grateful, I will find the joys that surround me always. I will give myself a present that is worthy to be opened and lived every day.The quality of all life is in the present; let’s use it wisely.

What does Success Look Like?

2011-08-08T13:00:00.001-07:00

When we set a personal or professional goal, we need it to be crystal clear in our minds so that we can recognize our success or destination when we finally get there. Many of us strive to be successful but can’t describe success or strive to be happy but can’t define happiness. If we can’t clearly define where we are going or why it’s important, we can easily get discouraged and distracted. Many times this causes us to change directions and moves us further away from our destination.

When developing and maintaining a clear picture of success, we should ask ourselvesthe “why and how” behind the “what”. It’s not justwhat you want to achieve but why it’s important to you and how the successful achievement of this goal will affect your life and the lives of thosearound you. Once the goals are clear and validated, give yourself a deadline. Goals without deadlines are fantasies. Finally, make sure thegoals have clear, measureable and achievable steps so incremental successes can become occasions for celebration.

There are no great companies, just great people, who happen to work there.

2011-08-04T14:39:00.001-07:00

This has been a mantra of mine since early in my career. I remember working with organizations that wanted to be great but didn’t want to become great. All the hard work is in the becoming. Companies don’t create rules, people do; they don’t develop returns on investment, people do; they don’t find innovative ways to succeed, people do; they don’t care about clients and co-workers, write reports, provide feedback or celebrate success, people do; or they don’t. That depends on the focus. Where is your focus?

Becoming a great organization requires a continuous focus on ways to help and encourage your people to identify, develop and work toward their strengths. I work with clients all the time who want their people to; “stop making stupid mistakes”. When these same people are motivated and energized, they become sharply focused on the tasks at hand, they create new and innovative ideas to enhance the current processes, they become fully engaged and the mistakes seem to stop all by themselves.

When you focus on making your people great, the result is a great organization.

Right ideas are always right ideas.

2011-07-29T12:59:00.001-07:00

Great leaders know this simple truth: right ideas are always right ideas. Many organizations are so ego and position driven that great ideas are often missed because of where they originate. Management may be less receptive to ideas coming from people in lower levels or in positions that are not considered managerial.

Good leaders know people.They know how to connect with people and how to build trust and rapport. They are encouraging, open and willing to find the right ideas, regardless of the source.

Ifmanagement is dismissive and disrespectful, people pull back and develop a conditioned response to stay quiet and keep their ideas to themselves.This type of behavior creates ahierarchical system of exclusion that breedsadisconnect in communications,stifles creative thinking and diminishes loyalty, three key ingredients for a successful organization.

There’s got to be a pony under here somewhere!

2011-07-19T09:56:00.000-07:00

We have all heard the joke about the little boy stuck in a room with a giant pile of horse manure. The boy looks at the pile and then with a giant smile on his face, dives in, digging with reckless abandon. When asked why? the little boy answers, “With this much manure, there’s got to be a pony under here somewhere!”

I want this to become the rallying cry we use as we take back our thoughts of fear and failure. Let’s use it to help turn off our Devil’s Advocate, that little voice inside all of us that thinks it’skeeping us safe, away from pain and danger. Sometimes I can hear it as clear as a bell: better hold back, wait for the right time, could get hurt, could be embarrassed, could get fired! Many times it’s because of this lack of commitment that we struggle or fail and then our Devil’s Advocate says, “see, I knew that was going to happen” and we justify our limited level of commitment.It’s the Devil’s Advocate that keeps us from committing fully.

To succeed in anything we must be focused, fully committed, have a clear definable outcome and know what success looks like. It’s important to see it coming so you know when you’ve arrived. Next time the Devil’s Advocate tries to hold us back, let her rip, at the top of our lungs: Enough ! “There has got to be a pony under here somewhere”!

Cultivating a Successful Organizational Culture

2011-07-06T11:45:00.000-07:00

Cultivating Successful Organizational Culture

I have been through four economic up and downswings over the last forty years and have picked up a few things along the way; two of them are experience and perspective.

Every time there is economic downturn or contraction, companies talk about the value they place on their people and how important these same people are to the ability of the company to weather difficult times.

They talk about building and enhancing loyalty.

They talk about the importance of developing and sustaining positive culture, critical thinking and ingrained belief systems that allow companies and their people to be successful year after year.

Yet all these great concepts seem to fly right out the window when sales and profits return.

True corporate culture is a commitment to a way of doing business and a set of beliefs that is not a by-product of economic cycles. Corporate Culture is a commitment to the whybehind the what. Not what we sell but why we are in business; why we are different; why we care about the success of our people; why satisfying the needs of our clients (both internal and external) is important? If you can’t answer these questions, I guarantee you that your people can’t either.

In a recent interview, John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco Systems said: “ I realized there was something that many of us do not understand when we take a leadership role: culture. Great companies have very strong and great cultures. A huge part of a leadership role is to drive the culture of the company.”

How do we create great corporate culture? The keys are: right hiring, effective training, open and inclusive communication. We all know that people will do what we ask more quickly and positively when we explain to them why. Creating positive corporate culture is the development of a clear vision that defines us and that is ingrained throughout the entire organization,. Management’s ability to paint the picture of our beliefs and our goals as an organization must be crystal clear to everyone. If this vision is genuine and not just lip service management we will support and invest in the capacity, knowledge and skills of our people and guide them along the path toward achieving the vision that is the essence of our organization.

When the military talks about winning hearts and minds they are describing the hearts and minds of their own people as well as the hearts and minds of the people of Afghanistan, for example. First they have to set the plan in place, get their own people committed and engaged and THEN get them to help others succeed.

That’s exactly the same for effective corporate culture. Winning the hearts and minds of our people is key to ingraining the beliefs and achieving the goals that are the basis for corporate culture. It will positively effect people, clients/customers and bottom-line!

I can always tell the ones who are committed to corporate/organizational culture and the ones who aren’t. Some just want information presented but some ask the important question: What can we do to actually create these positive changes? These are the ones who will win the hearts and minds and of their people. They will take the time to develop their cultural identity and give their people the training they need to achieve their goals.

Whether it’s speeding a product through to development, clearly defining roles and responsibilities, creating expectations and accountability for management and staff, implementing a community service program, creating a social calendar of events with fellow employees or developing a reward system for helping co-workers, the organizations that invest in creating a positive and powerful corporate culture will always reap rewards that far exceed their investment.

Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos has been in the news lately with his new book Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose. I read an interview with him, where he discusses the core values or corporate culture at Zappos and believe it or not, none of them have to do with shoes! The reason is that shoes are what they do, not who they are. Here is a list of their core values:

· deliver WOW through service

· embrace and drive change

· create fun and a little weirdness

· be adventurous, creative and open-minded

· pursue growth and learning

· build open and honest relationships with communication

· build a positive team and family spirit

· do more with less

· be passionate and determined

· be humble

Something I noticed about these core values is that they all requirewillingness and action. The willingness of management to encourage and support these values and to take the action necessary to make sure they are fully integrated into the way in which business is conducted each and every day.

Great corporate culture maybe created at the top but it’s not a top down or a bottom up process, it is both. This is very similar to when management finally understands that quality isn’t a department but rather an organizational mindset. Management has to allow their people the control to try new ideas and new ways to handle existing situations and their people have to believe that if they reach out and try something new, right or wrong, the company will support them.

When the people within an organization feel that their best interest is at heart, they work harder, stay longer and are absent less often: the result is higher productivity and profitability. When people are challenged with positive ideals, great corporate culture becomes possible.

Focus on the Good

2011-07-06T11:19:00.001-07:00

Greetings!

We must find healthy ways to dissipate the negativity that surrounds us or I guarantee you, it WILL pull us in.

When we exercise muscles they get stronger. When we commit ourselves to physical fitness and better diet we see results very quickly.
The same is true for emotional and mental diet and fitness. Everyday as we practice each of the tenets of The Daily Six we train ourselves
to see the joy, peace and good that surround us rather than get drawn into anxious, stress-filled negative activities, behaviors and emotions of others.
Focus on the good and it gets easier and easier to find.

Positive Thought of the Week

I focus on and find the good that surrounds me daily.
Others may try to pull me into stressful situations or lead me toward negative feelings, thoughts and behaviors
but I know how to keep mentally and emotionally fit.
I exercise my heart and my mind to see what others miss; the good that surrounds me always.
Today, I will focus on it and find it.

Jackie Chan Helps Us Understand the Definition of Insanity

2011-07-03T06:59:00.000-07:00

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Spent Friday night in a hotel, up late, watching a movie. Jackie Chan never disappoints for mindless fun.
He played a Chinese Imperial guard searching Nevada in the 1880s, for a kidnapped Chinese princess.
He quickly ran into a group of Indians. He was trying to get directions to Carson City and just kept repeating the same question over and over again.
One of the Indian warriors looked at the other and the subtitle read: “Watch this, he just keeps saying the same thing
slower and slower thinking that will help him be clearer”.
What a great example of Einstein’s quote: “trying the same thing again and again but expecting a different result is insanity”.

Positive Thought of the Week

I will watch my expectations. If I want different results from people, places or situations,
I will make sure that my words and actions are clear. If I am not getting the results I want,
I will reexamine my behavior and work to enhance and expand my capacity to create positive change.
When I do, issues that used to baffle me fall into place. I comfortably handle life’s challenges.
I am a life long learner and I am ready, willing and able to handle each day as it comes.

Business Thought of the Week: How are you Perceived

2011-07-03T06:57:00.003-07:00

Business Thought of the Week

How are you perceived by your co-workers?

This is a great question to use when helping an employee with problematic behavior.
For example, a person who is late is perceived as non-caring and lazy, someone who is disrespectful
is perceived as a loose cannon and unmanageable.

But these perceptions may be way off base. The issues may in fact, be much different than they appear on the surface.
I will to dig deep to better understand my people. I need to know their
desires, hopes and dreams, as well as their personal and professional goals.
I need to make sure they understand how they are perceived by co-workers and management.
It is my job to help my people feel and be more successful. I will help them find a path to improve performance, productivity and perception.

If Not Me, Who ?

2011-07-03T06:56:00.001-07:00

An Action slide from one of my keynotes has an image on it that states “if not now, when?”
and maybe it should also say “if not me, who?” or is it whom? I am sure someone will set me straight.

If we are waiting for our lives to get perfect to be happy, we will be waiting a long time.
Now is when we should awaken to the happiness that surrounds us.
When my first business crashed and burned many years ago, it was playing a game with my son,
Dayton that changed my focus: when I was stuck overnight in an airport,
it was a small girl’s awe and wonder at an escalator that changed my mind: and now,
when I have the opportunity to share The Daily Six with audiences, it reinforces my own perspective
of the world and gives me a sense of joy, happiness and hope. Because what I teach, I also learn.
We must all stand up for ourselves, make positive choices and take the small but consistent actions
that allow us to live everyday with a reduced sense of stress and anxiety and a renewed sense of emotional balance and joy.
Because if we don’t, who will?

Positive Thought of the Week

I am my own best cheerleader!
When I make choices to stay away from negative people, places and situations, I hold fast to those choices.
When I commit to new thoughts, feelings and behaviors that will change the quality of my life,
I hold fast to those commitments. When I realize I am in charge of my day and my life,
I hold fast to that realization. As I get stronger and healthier, my life and the people, places and situations in it, get healthier.
Creating positive change is hard work but I am worth the effort and I am committed to
cheering myself forward into this new life.
I am my own best cheerleader because if not me, who?

Refresh and Renew

2011-07-03T06:55:00.000-07:00

Greetings!

On Tuesday I will be speaking to the staff at the Sulzbacher Center here in Jacksonville. This is the largest homeless shelter in the region. Everyday these people truly do the often-difficult work that is critical to a successful society. I find, almost without exception, that the biggest problem those who devote their lives to service have isWillingness to take the time to renew themselves. They are just too busy taking care of others. And it’s not just the people who spend their entire lives helping others; we all need to remember that before we can give something to others, we must have it first. Each day we should take some time to refocus, renew and then reengage. If we are going to be a source for mental, physical or spiritual support, we need to take care of ourselves first. To paraphrase the announcement we have all heard prior to departing on an airplane, “if you are traveling with those who rely on you for support, first make sure to place the mask on your own face before attempting to help others”.

Positive Thought of the Week

I will give myself time every day for refocus and renewal. My mind, my body and my spirit need time to rest and recharge. A short walk, a trip to the gym, yoga, personal reading, etc. are all examples of ways to help me with that goal. Each day I am committed to refill the well of my spirit, so that I can pour out the levels of love, forgiveness and emotional support that are needed. I will rephrase “give and take” to “I take the time, so I can give”.

Finding out WHO can help

2011-07-01T14:21:00.001-07:00

Last week I was in a round table discussion focused on personal and professional growth.
One of the points raised was the powerful acronym H.O.W., which is designed to help people remember
to be: Honest, Openminded and Willing. As we sat talking, I began doodling with the letters H, O, and W and realized that when rearranged, they also spell W.H.O.
Immediately, the classic Abbot and Costello “Who’s On First” comedy routine came rolling through my head.
So, with all due respect and apologies to two great comedians, here is a (much shortened) version I hope you will enjoy.

So W.H.O will help me change my focus?

Yes!

I mean the name.

W.H.O.

The guy with the answers?

W.H.O’s the guy.

That’s what I asked?

W.H.O!

The guy helping me change my focus is….

WHO is that person!

That’s exactly what I am asking.

Well, that’s the name.

That's W.H.O’s name?

Exactly!

Well go ahead and tell me.

I just did, that's it.

That's W.H.O?

Yes.

What's going to help me become a better person.

No.

Well ok then W.H.O’s going to help?

Exactly!

Sometimes I can get wrapped around the axle trying to do this personal and professional growth thing just the “right way”.
But there is no right way. Personal and professional growth is always evolving and never arriving.
I know WHO is a key and whenever I am stressed I will lean back and remember WHO will help me live to my full potential. Exactly!

If you would like to have a laugh, here's a link to the original text andvideo.

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Positive Thought of the Week - Heirarchy of needs

2011-07-01T14:20:00.001-07:00

Greetings!

Regardless of belief, there is a place, within each of us, where we can become centered, balanced and energized.

Abraham Maslow wrote, that one of man’s most basic needs is survival and survival must be assured before man can move forward to satisfy other needs.
While I certainly don’t want to argue with such an esteemed authority, I think that we have evolved to the point where the quality of our survival can compete with basic survival for parity. We now are ready for Survival 2.0.
I know that Maslow put survival way ahead of quality of life but if we use Survival 2.0 we will begin to see seismic changes in the quality of our lives.

When we are able to make the move to Survival 2.0 we develop the ability to positively influence and positively contribute to the life we are presented with everyday.
Quality expands exponentially. Meditation, prayer, deep breathing, yoga and many other practices can all help us find, enhance and maintain the quality of our lives everyday.
With these practices we can begin our day with the positive expectation of success.
When things may not be going as planned, these same practices will help us reset our day on the right track
and in a positive mindset. At the end of the day we can rest in the knowledge that we made a sincere attempt to live positively and pro-actively. Now that’s what I call surviving!

Positive Thought of the Week

I need more than to simply survive. I need to increase the quality of my survival.
I need Survival 2.0. The best news is that reaching this new level of quality is completely within my control.
When I practice my centering exercises, I am at peace and in balance: mentally, emotionally and physically.
My influence is increased. As I develop these practices into a daily routine, I become more consistent in my thoughts, feelings and behavior.
I am able to resolve challenges without letting them take over my day.
My focus is greatly enhanced, allowing me to better relate to and communicate with my family, friends and co-workers. I am now better able to see the world with a sense of connection.
I feel a part rather than apart. I am a part of something very special that will revitalize me to my very core. I practice Survival 2.0.