Category:

Finale anyone?

4/17/2014

6. Do not be intimidated.

The foremost and final hindrance that had always kept Joe down was being intimidated by others. Comprised of bosses, coworkers, friends, acquaintances, and anyone else who had the will to lay into Joe would intimidate him into not pursuing things he wanted, to let things go if they got too hard, or into doing things that were detrimental to his life.

You must still have so many questions about how and when Joe our everyman changed to take his first steps in becoming the Champion.

How did Joe flabbergast the naysayers? How did he learn to not to be intimidated, and conquer his company?

First Act: A DUD.

Joe found himself at a crossroads. He could not understand why he was intimidated by others, work, and other factors in his life. He just knew he could not help himself when it came time to make decisions, and would let others control him.

These scenes had happened multiple times in his life. From his youth, when he let his parents choose a degree for him without researching the competiveness of it and asking if that’s what he really wanted. Happened in his relationships where he would let his girlfriends decide for him on clothes and style. At work, letting bosses discourage him from trying to work for promotion and letting them pass him up each year. Letting life slight him without noticing.

It wasn't until, he looked at his life holistically did he understand what was going on.

Taking a look at himself.

His Life.

And where it was going… did he understand.

Joe's Epiphany.

Finally realizing he had been working in the same company doing the same things for the last 3 years. With average performance reviews, being passed over for promotion by management, and no real accomplishments. Letting others control him. Letting life intimidate him.

He finally understood.

He was a dud.

Second Act: Re-Ignition

How did Joe reignite? How did he come back from the rut that he allowed his life to fall into?

What Joe did was simple.

He purely accepted some simple truths.

He accepted that he had let life intimidate him.

He accepted that he let life take a hold of him and let it lead him in any way it blows.

Knowing these truths. He fought back.

He did not let others to intimidate him any longer. He built up the fortitude of his will and leveraged his position to ensure he would never be intimidated again.

He accomplished this by 1. Getting work done effectively and at a high quality, 2. Collaborating with cross-functional groups on major projects and making technical compromises, 3. Presenting to customers, company executives, and everyone else, 4. Seeing the world in others’ points of view, and
5. Being able to adapt to your environment.

Not letting life intimidate him, he took his first steps in fulfilling all other 5 lessons. Allowing him the audacity to become the champion of his company.

Interested in more stories?

Then please sign-up for the monthly newsletter that gives you more and more.
Summarizing all my content in one place.

1 Comment

Are you the Champion of your Company?

4/3/2014

3 Comments

5. Being able to adapt to your environment.

Our Everyman, Joe, sometimes had issues with management. He wasn't keen to being coached or having constructive criticism. He couldn't easily adapt himself to different managers and their management styles. Making him inflexible to rapidly changing situation requirements, and causing tension between himself and management.

How did Joe learn go with the flow? To act when needed? And take criticism as a way to grow?

Joe started small. He took a look at himself in the mirror and tried to figure out what was causing him trouble. While, he looked, he thought to all the times that he had ignored his old manager’s advice and critiques. Not letting them coach him even though they had tried. Not improving in their eyes as well as his.

He thought of the new manager they brought in and the trouble he was having with her laissez-faire style. He thought how directionless he felt.

Realizing he was very inflexible and irritable with his old manger’s coaching and lost without it under the new management. This rigidity, he realized was the cause of his problems. It was his habitual behavior and attitude toward critiques and management that was causing him to be passed over each year during promotion time.

Stepping away from the mirror with his new epiphany in mind, he brought himself to change, to change his habits that made him inflexible.

He changed his behavior and attitude through constraining his old habits by finding out what they were through an Actions Audit and replacing them with new habits through Habit Maximization. Knowing why and what caused his habits was useful in identifying if they were good for his career and goals. Once knowing them, he knew just how to diminish them with new, and more productive habits to be successful.

Now Joe took criticism in stride because it was just a new angle to see himself and grow from to perfect his skills. With new management, it was a new opportunity to learn and be coached or left to his own devices. He became able to adapt to the situations and those around him. Adapting to good new to take advantage as well as bad news to ensure he minimized his losses to come back the next day.

Interested in more... then check out the rest of Joe's Adventure.

Tell us about how you have had to adapt and overcome in your work or business.

3 Comments

4 of 6 ways to...

3/27/2014

2 Comments

4. Seeing the world in others’ points of view.

Joe like most people at his work did not see others’ points of view. He saw others mostly in a one dimensional way and found what he thought would be the likely cause and reason of others people’s actions, and not the real cause. He did not see in a holistic way at problems, people, and situations. Being set in the one angle without being able to see the big picture set him back at work. People considered him shortsighted, too busy trying to put out the fires rather than finding ways to keep them from starting.

What secret did the witchdoctor tell him to open his eyes? What magical elixir did Joe drink to see other people’s points of view?

It wasn’t magic that helped Joe see the whole picture. It was the way he came to look at things. Instead of just looking at situations and people in only his point of view. He looked at it, as if he was outside himself looking on everything from above. With this new perspective he could see how each piece moved to affect all the others. He saw the cause and effect, knowing how problems started, and easily able to find to the solutions to the root causes rather than just treating the symptoms like he did in the past.

He got this way by finding new ways to look at things. He drew schematics of the situation, identifying major players and forces, their relationships, and the factors at play such as the environment. He put everything in perspective through a picture, a schematic drawing, helping him organize reality and see the forest through the trees. He also asked questions and attempted to put information he gathered together to see the whole. This helped him open his view to include how others see the world, their values, and find patterns of behavior.

Once he could see in others points of view, he was able to persuade others to consider different technical points of view. Now that, he saw things clearly, he was more capable in communicating to others, finding their motivations, and convincing them of the best solutions by helping them see the whole picture. Even more, he could appreciate the perspectives of the end-user of his company’s products. Giving him the ability to talk about the things important to the customers and not what’s important to the company. Allowing to close more and more deals as time went on. Because he knew what the customer wanted, and gave it to them.

What has helped you see the world differently from movies, writings, and people?

2 Comments

The 6 ways YOU can become the Champion.

3/6/2014

3 Comments

Well hello there.

I didn't see you come in.

Now that you’re here.

Let’s discuss a few things about success.

More often than not, it’s not the lack of technical (Hard) skills that make people unsuccessful, but the lack of interpersonal (Soft) skills.

It’s not that people can’t do the job, it’s the fact that they don’t collaborate effectively, lack a presentation voice, cannot prioritize with little direction, and have an absence of other soft skills.

It’s these soft skills that are the glue that holds the hard skills together.

But the question you must be asking yourself is:
“What exactly are these soft skills in the first place, and how would I develop them anyway?”

Well you have come to the right place as I have just the story to tell about my dear friend ,Joe.

This is his story, and its a story of how the Everyman became the Champion.

Now...

Joe is your Everyman. He wakes up every morning to one cup of coffee and a read of the news. He isn't lazy, but isn't motivated. He doesn't not like people, but never seems to get them to like him. He is technically sound in his skills and abilities but can’t seem to get them noticed by others. Working day to day, getting the job done at the minimal effort.

A year later, Joe our Everyman was the hero of his company. Settling big accounts, and the flagship employee for the company.

What had changed our Everyman that year? Had he become smarter? More attractive? More Interesting?

Did he unlock the powers of the universe with his mind?

What was the secret behind his success?

The Secret

The secret was simple. He had mastered the art of the soft skills.

But what are these skills? And how did Joe get them?

Well let me tell you...

It’s…

1. Getting work done effectively and at a high quality.

Joe had always done his work, but sometimes didn't adhere to deadlines and was hit and miss in quality. He also had trouble with ambiguity and sometimes couldn't function without proper direction.

How did he develop his ability to make deadlines and ensure high quality? How did he overcome his resistance to ambiguity?

Easily enough, what Joe did was create outlines for his work that made it easy to plug in new information into his reports and pull out information that was no longer useful. In building this “living document”, he was easily able to cut his processing time for orders, reports, and other documents by almost 50% by avoiding redoing much of the work he had already did. This technique became even more powerful once he designed multiple living documents, and passed information along between them.

Then by using the Power of the List, he was able to prioritize his time with little direction, assess how important each priority was to overall success, their cost, and finding alternatives if things didn't go as planned. Doing so, he soon was managing multiple projects, organizing them on a timeline, collaborating with others to get more work done, and meeting budget restraints.

Interested in hearing more of Joe's Story? And the Other 5 WAYS you can BECOME THE CHAMPION?

Then Subscribe as I update his story each week with the next WAY.

3 Comments

3 Steps to Jump-start your Social Media Success.

2/20/2014

13 Comments

3 STEPS
These 3 steps will jump-start your social media success by allowing you to choose the right social media for you based on your business, your customers, and your objectives.

1.    Choose only one platform to start with that is clearly defined to meet your needs and allows you access to your customers.

For example:

Having too many platforms can be exhausting and overstretch your ability to make an effective social media presence. Choose the platform that allows you best access to your clients such as LinkedIn for B2B contact and Facebook for B2C contact. This way, you’re using the platform that your clients are using and only focused on that platform.

2.    Make a defined plan with objectives of what you want from your social media and stick with it.

For example:

You need to know what you want from your social media before you can make your presence known. If you want your social media to bring in more customers, then you have to build a sales funnel, targeting new clients, and having a distinct way to bring them into your fold. Or vice versa, as a customer relationship builder targeting your current clients, updating them with “how to” information on your product, and creating conversations to build a community around your product.

3.    Leverage your current customers and professional network to build links between your social media and the people they know to build interest in your product.

For example:

Once your social media is built, ask current customers (Mailing Lists) to get involved and support you on your social media. Get new customers involved in your social media throughout your sales process with embedded incentives for adding you and participating such as discounts, great content, and event updates.

Whats your favorite social media to reach your customers?

13 Comments

Do YOU have THE POWER 2?

1/30/2014

4 Comments

Welcome to the second installation of “The Power of the List” Series.

Today we are going more in-depth into the Action List.

This list has the activities that you do regularly each week such class, work, business, etc. Categorized into major items that stay the same each week such as your General To-do, Business To-do, and School To-Do.

Within these categories are sub categories that you do to accomplish your general, business, or class goals such as books your reading, your weekly blog post you have to write, or the Geology class you are taking. These don’t change often with updates.

The part that does change is the specific goals attached to each. These are tasks you need to do specifically to be successful, and have set due dates and times. An example “To do – Groceries (W, 1pm)”. This example broken down, tells you that you are going to get groceries Wednesday (W) at one o’clock pm (1pm). If you notice, all the items with (W)’s are bolded, this is because this list was updated on Tuesday night. They are bolded to let you know those are the things you have to get done for tomorrow.

This list is best used consistently with updates as you accomplish your tasks and at the end of the day for a complete overhaul to ensure that you didn’t miss anything.

Below is an example in a Word Document.

General To-Do

To do – Groceries (W)

Books to Read – Unleashing the Power of Consultative Selling (W)

Meetings – Doctor’s Appointment (Th, 10am), Catch-up with former colleague (M, 1pm)

Business To-Do

Blog (Every Th) – List Article finished (Sa), Post (Th), Dissect Power of Habits (F)

Social Media – Post to 3 blogs (Th), Respond to Comments (W)

Network – Copywriter seminar (W, 8pm), Mastermind Group (Th, 7pm)

School To-Do

Psychology 101 – Hw (W), Exam (F)

Geology 101 – Research Paper (M)

Algebra 101 – Exam Study (Th), Tutor (W), Study Group (F)

Remember, once you instill this list into your habits, and treat its word as law. You will see your productivity and efficiency skyrocket. You will know what is due, when it’s due, and plan your day’s success the day before. After just a few days of using this list, you will be able to see all your small victories in your day journal and make you happier.

Just give it a shot by following this simple step-by-step guide.

Step one: Identify the things that you do regularly

·         I go to work.

o   Work To do

·         I go to school.

o   School To do

·         I have errands to run.

o   General To do

Step two: Identify the categories that make up Work, School, and General

·         Work

o   I have Paperwork, Client Meetings, and orders.

§ Paperwork –

§ Meetings –

§ Orders –

·         School

o   I have my Fraternity, Classes, and club meetings.

§ Fraternity –

§ Geology 101 –

§ Math 102 –

§ Club –

·         General

o   I have all sorts of things to do, read a personal book, take a free online class, meetings with old friends, etc.

§ To do –

§ Book –

§ Meetings –

Step three: Combine them

·         Work

o   Paperwork –

o   Meetings –

o   Orders –

·         School

o   Fraternity –

o   Geology 101 –

o   Math 102 –

o   Club –

·         General

o   To do –

o   Book –

o   Meetings –

Step four: Add the weekly things you do to be successful at those categories and the dates you need to get them done.

·         Work

o   Paperwork – Write Order #432 Report (Tu)

o   Meetings – Meet with client (W, 10am)

o   Orders – Complete orders 231 and 537 (M)

·         School

o   Fraternity – Ensure members pay dues (F)

o   Geology 101 – 3 page paper (M)

o   Math 102 – Online Homework (Th)

o   Club – Meeting (W, 6pm)

·         General

o   To do – Groceries (Th), buy gas (Th), and pay bills (F)

o   Book – Read Chapter 2 of White Fang (Sa)

o   Meetings – Doctors appointment (3pm Tu)

Step five: Institute it into your habits by using consistently and updating daily. To find out how click habits.

With that, I hope this proves helpful to you. If you have any questions on how to create your own or how to incorporate it into your life, then please email me at [email protected].

4 Comments

Do YOU have the POWER?

1/1/2014

5 Comments

Today's blog post is an extension of my Power of the List Series where the list is the most powerful human tool available.

Day Journal

One of the most important things you can do regularly is write down everything you do on a daily basis.

This is known as a Day Journal.

A day journal can be an important part of any person’s life by logging all your accomplishments, your botch-ups, and everything in-between.

Why is it so important?

Because a day journal helps you track the things you do. Letting you know which are helping you with what you want to do with your life, and those that aren’t. By identifying the things that went right. You can continue them and understand why they went right and how to keep them right.

For example, being able to get to the end of the day and seeing the things you actually accomplished is inspiring and gets you pumped up for tomorrow. For me, being able to see that I wrote my weekly blog post t as well as went to the gym inspires me to keep succeeding. It lets me sleep, knowing that I was productive and had many everyday victories.

Going in the opposite direction.

It allows you to see places in your life where you would like to improve. As it is more easy to see the patterns as they emerge and eliminate them before they become too much of a problem. This can go to understand your bad patterns such as sleeping-in too much. Allowing you to think up a solution such as moving your alarm clock out of arm’s length to get you out of bed and more likely to not sleep in as a result.

Below is an example: (Things in Red are things I want to eliminate or improve)

9am – Slept in (Wakeup supposed to be 7am)

10 – Started work on Writing Article

10:30 – Snack (Potato Chips because I missed Breakfast)

12pm – Finished article

12:30 – Lunch (Brown Rice, spinach, salmon burger with green tea and honey

1:30 – Back to work and posted article

2 – Water cooler Break

Just today for example, I found that I missed my breakfast this morning and I was dragging for the rest of the day because of lack of energy. So when I asked myself why, the answer was right there in my day journal.

But what was the real reason I missed breakfast?

It was because I slept in and that is the real root of the problem. Being able to see the cascading effects of one thing to everything else is not only cool to see, but imperative in understanding how your day plays out.

Starting one today will allow you to amass your very own everyday victories!

Have you started your own Day Journal or been thinking about it?

If you have then comment to let the world know about your everyday victories!

5 Comments

Do you have "the Power of the List"?

12/14/2013

3 Comments

Do you know the power of the list?

The list is what has made us the dominant species on this planet. Due to the fact that no other can plan and implement lists quite like we do.

With that in mind, remember everyone, from the most successful to the everyman, all use lists for everything, from everyday tasks such as laundry, groceries, and errands to important work such as schedules, plans, and reports.

The list is the fundamental building block of everything we do.

But are you using them effectively?

This question comes from the fact that most people if not all have never really thought hard about how they use the lists in their lives. Not knowing conceptually, the reasons they use the lists they do and understanding if it’s actually the best lists for them.

Now here is the rundown of how lists work and the many different ways you can customize them to your every need.

First off is the variables that change with each list and how they affect its purpose and effectiveness. Below is a table of a lists 4 different variables, their variations, and how they work.

Variables

Time - Short, medium, long, and undefined - this dimension is used to find how long your list will be used.

Short – is used over a span of one day or week (Groceries)
Medium – used over a month or longer (Study Guide)
Long – used over a year or longer (Year Schedule)
Undefined – unknown how long it will be used

Occurrence - Instantaneous, Revolving, and Once - this dimension dictates the setup of how events occur on your list

Once – This event occurs only once (Buying lists and outlines)
Instantaneous – this event occurs as you do it (Journal/Logging - Ex. Bank Statements)
Revolving – this event occurs every day, week, or longer (Workouts, Study, and Eating)

Importance – weak, moderate, and strong - This dimension is used to rank the importance of the events on your lists and the order they will be done. (Can be numbered, bolded, etc.)

Weak – an event with weak importance is done when your motivated to do it, you have the time, and is not essential for your goals (May never get done)
Moderate – an event with moderate importance needs to be done, but not immediately and can be important for your goals. (Convenience)
Strong – events with strong importance have deadlines that have to be adhered to and must be done to accomplish your goals. (Mandatory)

Control – Transferable and Fixed -this dimension says how much control you have over the placements and implementation of the events.

Transferable – this event is flexible (Workouts, study, and others in your control)
Fixed – this event is fixed to a time and is inflexible (Work, class, and others out of your control)

Now that you have the different variables that go into making lists. Here a few examples of how those variables work together to create different types of lists.

The Active List
The first example is a short list that uses all three occurrence, importance, and control dimensions together. It is called an Active List. This is due to its lively nature and constant updates to what you need to do.

Below is an example in a Word Document.

General To-Do

To do – Groceries (W)

Books to Read – Unleashing the Power of Consultative Selling (W)

Meetings – Doctor’s Appointment (Tu, 10am), Catch-up with former colleague (M, 1pm)

Business To-Do

Blog (Every Th) – List Article finished (Tu), Post (Th), Dissect Power of Habits (F)

Social Media – Post to 3 blogs (Tu), Respond to Comments (W)

Network – Copywriter seminar (W, 8pm), Mastermind Group (Th, 7pm)

School To-Do

Psychology 101 – Hw (W), Exam (F)

Geology 101 – Research Paper (M)

Algebra 101 – Exam Study (Tu), Tutor (W), Study Group (F)

With this list, you have activities in your life that you have to do each week but what you have to do changes, Blog– for example, is on the list because I update my blog on a weekly basis. As they change, they get bolded to signify that they have to be done today. The parenthesis letters are the due dates they need to be done by, (W) = Wednesday of this week and etc. And the“, #’s” are the exact times they need to be done or attended. So at the end of each day, you bold everything with a (W) as it’s the things you will have to do tomorrow.

This list is useful for keeping track of multiple activities that you do on a daily, weekly basis, that are updated constantly. It categorizes them in a way that helps you remember what you need to do in what subjects.

The Planner/Scheduler
A complementary of this list is the Schedule. This is a long-term list with fixed events, which occur instantaneous with time to create a linear path for you to follow throughout your day and week. This is any planner, scheduler, or other time based outline that shows what you plan to do.

You can even combine the Active list with the Schedule and write the activities that have no set time at the bottom of each day as a To-Do list. This can be done using different schedule templates and software such as business calendars that update on your computer, phone, and other media devices.

This type of list has a long term time dimension of a year and is useful in reminding you of events that are far away and unmemorable like renewing your subscriptions.

Habit List
Another useful list is the Habit list. It’s a list with an undefined time dimension, revolving events, with moderate to strong importance, and transferable control (meaning you have control of what time to do it during the day, but it has to be done to sustain the habit).

This list is used by listing things that you want to turn into habits and is used as a go-to reminder that you are making it a habit or not. The events on this list are revolving and do not get eliminated until you know for sure that the habit you want is instituted in your routine which can take a few days to many months.

Below is an example:

Habit list:

1.       Use phone schedule to eliminate written schedule

2.       Read 1 book a month

3.       Type an hour a day

4.       Study Chinese an hour a day

5.       Workout 4 times a week

This is useful in constant reminding you to do something that you want to turn into a habit and is even more effective when combined with a timer system through your phone or watch alarm.

The Memory Palace
The next list is called a Memory Palace. This list is a once-only list of things that are used for a onetime events. It is a short-term list   used once, and his list is a mental list and is rarely written down. This list works by associating everything on your list to a story. And to remember the individual items. You tell yourself the story.

For example, I have to buy some things from the store. I need toilet paper, body soap, and duct tape. I then make a story up about those items.

An example: I was Toilet Papering the neighbor’s house, and he ran out, throwing Duct Tape and Body Soap at me.

This quick little story is absurd and memorable enough to allow you to remember everything on your list. In fact, the more incredible and ridiculous the story, the more memorable the story becomes.

The Day Journal
The last list of the day is a day journal. This journal is an instantaneous list of logging the events that occur as you do them. In essence, you are writing everything you are doing by the hour and is objective to what is actually happening and not what you want to happen (compared to a planner).

Below is an example:

9 – Woke up

9:30 – breakfast and coffee (Spinach, eggs, and tomatoes with coffee)

10 – Started work on List Article

12 – Finished article

12:30 – Lunch (Brown Rice, spinach, salmon burger with green tea and honey

1:30 – Back to work and posted article

2 – Water cooler Break

Etc…

This list is the best way to find out the things that you do in a day, what causes them, and how you can identify good and bad behaviors that you want to change.

An example would be to see a pattern in your behavior such as going to eat some food down the street to get out of the office, but you are trying to lose weight. If you see this trend you may be able to identify that you are not actually hungry, but you just need a breath of fresh air. Identifying that you go out to eat as a habit, allows You replace this behavior with an exercise program, getting coffee or tea with friends or coworkers, or something else that aligns more with your goals and fulfills your needs.

There you have it. An in-depth look at the everyday list that everyone uses with 4 different variations to meet your needs. Amazing how something so routine can be honed and calibrated to accomplish your goals.

If you have a great list or were able to benefit from the lists provided to maximize your time, please share your list and experience, and tell your story.

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Forward>>

Finale anyone?

Are you the Champion of your Company?

4 of 6 ways to...

The 6 ways YOU can become the Champion.

3 Steps to Jump-start your Social Media Success.

Do YOU have THE POWER 2?

Do YOU have the POWER?

Do you have "the Power of the List"?

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