How To Create A Legacy You Are Proud Of: Making An Impact Beyond Your Own Life
HOW TO CREATE A LEGACY YOU ARE PROUD OF: MAKING AN IMPACT BEYOND YOUR OWN LIFE DEVELOPING THE “MIDAS TOUCH” A few years ago, I read a book on Greek mythology. One of the stories that has stuck with me is that of King Midas. He was the king of ancient Phrygia. One day he gave assistance to an old friend of Dionysus, the god of revelry, and as a reward, Midas was granted one wish. He asked Dionysus to make everything he touched turn to gold. When his wish was granted, he touched a tree—and it turned to gold. He touched a horse—and it became solid gold. In a matter of minutes, he was becoming the richest man in the world. His trouble started when he got hungry. He sat down at a banquet table, and the meat he reached for turned to solid gold as soon as he touched it. The same happened to the wine he tried to drink. But the worst thing happened when his daughter hugged him. She instantly became a golden statue. In the end, Midas begged Dionysus to take his golden power away from him. Dionysus sent Midas to the source of the river Pactolus, where he was to bathe in order to be restored to normal. He went, taking his daughter with him, and ultimately both were changed back to their previous state. Only after Midas lost his golden ability was he happy again. REAL GOLD Today, when someone is told that he has the “Midas touch,” it’s usually meant as a compliment. It’s an indication he has a great knack for making money. But a single-minded fixation on wealth is just as damaging to a person today as it was during the time of the ancient Greeks. American publisher and businessman B. C. Forbes, who founded Forbes magazine, commented: Are your desires purely selfish? Do your tastes run to a grand home, cars, fine clothes, an abundance of amusements, and so forth? If so, look around you at people who have such things in superabundance. Are they any happier, do you think, than you are? Are they any better morally? Are they any stronger physically? Are they better liked by their friends than you are by your friends? . . . Andrew Carnegie said, “Millionaires rarely smile.” This is substantially true. Real wealth isn’t found in what we acquire. As nineteenth-century slavery abolitionist and clergyman Henry Ward Beecher asserted, “In this world it is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich.” NOT FOOL’S GOLD I believe there is a wealth that is greater than money, and it comes from how you interact with others. People who practice the Golden Rule treat others with dignity and respect and can be content in the knowledge that they are living an ethical life. However, it’s possible to take this Golden Rule to another level. You can develop a “Midas touch” with people by taking your focus off yourself and what you can gain, and instead focusing on adding value to others. Giving truly is the highest level of living. It makes the world a better place. And it also makes for better business. H. E. Steiner asserted, “We shall have better business when everyone realizes that while it pays to invest money in their industries and develop natural resources, it pays still higher dividends to improve mankind and develop human resources.” If you desire more than just a full bank account and you desire to build real riches—by investing in people—then strive to live out the following practices: Treat People Better Than They Treat You It’s easy to love people who love you. And showing kindness to people who treat you well is little more than common courtesy. But how do you respond to poor treatment by others? Do you return disrespect with disrespect? Do you meet aggression with aggression? It doesn’t take much for unkindness to escalate into greater conflict. Take a look at some of these seemingly petty disagreements that grew into full-blown war: A dispute between the cities of Modena and Bologna over a well bucket about seven hundred years ago began a war that devastated Europe. A Chinese emperor once went to war over the breaking of a teapot. Sweden and Poland flew at each other’s throats in 1654 because the king of Sweden discovered that his name in an official dispatch was followed by only two et ceteras, while the king of Poland had three. The spilling of a glass of water on the Marquis de Torey led to war between France and England. By throwing a pebble at the Duc de Guise, a small boy caused the massacre of Vassy and the Thirty Years’ War. It takes a person of strong character to treat others better than they treat you! As civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a permanent attitude.” If everyone treated others as one would want to be treated by them, the world would be a better place. But think about what kind of world it would be if everyone strove to treat others better than they are treated. I try to treat everyone I meet with respect. I desire to be a giver in every relationship. I can honestly say that I have no enemies. If I have an issue with somebody, I address it as soon as I can; then I move on. And I hold no grudges. They only get heavier the longer you carry them. Try taking the high road with people, even when they don’t treat you with the respect you feel you deserve. Try to be kind instead of treating people in kind. You’ll find that it’s very freeing. 2. Walk the Second Mile There are a lot of people in this world who aren’t doing their fair share of the work. People who do the bare minimum never achieve much
How To Seize Your Golden Opportunity: Making Ethical Decisions And Living An Ethical Life
HOW TO SEIZE YOUR GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: MAKING ETHICAL DECISIONS AND LIVING AN ETHICAL LIFE The right thing may not always be easy— but it is always right. I think just about everybody is looking for a golden opportunity. Businesspeople in particular possess a keen eye for such things. How do you find a true golden opportunity among all the offers that are really there? You don’t look outside yourself. Most people think their greatest opportunities come from a job, an investment, or a market niche. But the truth is that the greatest opportunity you have is to change who you are. It’s like offering a position on the Olympics team to someone who hasn’t trained for their event. The good news is that he has been granted a shot at winning. The bad news is that he’s not ready for it. ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER You can’t capitalize on an opportunity you receive on the outside until you’ve done the groundwork on the inside. I suspect that was the problem for some of the leaders who ruined their careers and destroyed their organizations in recent years. They hadn’t done the ethical groundwork on the inside before attaining power. Their weak character prompted them to make bad decisions, and with each poor choice, they got into deeper trouble. Character problems tend to snowball. C. S. Lewis gave insight into the process using a military metaphor. He explained, Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or in anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible. If you want to be able to pursue golden opportunities, then pursue the development of strong character first. That will position you well to face any ethical challenges that may lie ahead and to make the most of your chances when your time comes. Here’s how I suggest you proceed: Take Responsibility for Your Actions U.S. President Woodrow Wilson observed, “Responsibility is proportionate to opportunity.” Why is that? Because a person of responsibility can trust himself to choose the right thing over the easy thing. He takes to heart the words of historian Will Durant, who said, “Never mind your happiness; do your duty.” I once heard someone say that frustration is “having no one to blame but yourself.” But rarely do people who play the blame game get many golden opportunities. And even the few opportunities they do get slip through their fingers. When that happens, you hear why it’s not their fault. Their excuses fall into three categories: The Hang-ups—who blame life’s circumstances, The Bang-ups—who blame past personal problems and hurts, and The Gang-ups—who blame other people for hindering them. If you desire to be trusted by others and you want to achieve much, you must take responsibility for your actions. Winston Churchill was right when he called responsibility “the price of greatness.” It’s also the groundwork for opportunity. Develop Personal Discipline I recently saw the results of a survey that said 82 percent of corporate executives admit to cheating at golf, and 72 percent believe actions in business and golf parallel each other. Why is it that even when people see a parallel between games and life, they still choose to cut corners? I believe the answer is that they lack discipline. People who fail to develop personal discipline are often tempted to cheat to keep up. In the words of H. Jackson Brown, “Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There’s plenty of movement, but you never know if it’s going to be forward, backwards, or sideways.” Nineteenth-century clergyman and Oxford University professor H. P. Liddon said, “What we do on some great occasion will probably depend on what we already are; and what we are will be the result of previous years of self-discipline.” People who desire to improve their character and their chances of success must discipline themselves when it comes to: Time: Since you can’t control how much time you have, you must control how you use it. Energy: You should always strive to use your energy on your strengths. Goals: You can’t do everything, so you must discipline yourself to do the important things. Moods: If you do not master your emotions, they will master you. Successful people who work well with others and who relish challenges as well as opportunities don’t see discipline as negative or restrictive. They welcome it. Vince Lombardi, the legendary American Football coach of the NFL Green Bay Packers, asserted, “I’ve never known a man worth his salt who in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn’t appreciate the grind, the discipline.” Know Your Weaknesses One evening at U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt’s home in New York, naturalist William Beebe walked outside with his host. Roosevelt searched the star-filled night sky and, finding a small glow below the corner of the constellation Pegasus, he said, “This is the spiral galaxy Andromeda. It is as large as our Milky Way. It consists of one hundred billion suns. It is one of a hundred billion galaxies.” Then Roosevelt looked at Beebe and said, “Now, I think we are small enough! Let’s go to bed.” Theodore Roosevelt was very good at keeping things in perspective. Part of that came from knowing himself and his weaknesses. Roosevelt was weak, sickly, asthmatic, and underweight as a child. Recognizing this, he dedicated himself to strengthening his body. He went on to work as a cowboy, hunt wild game, fight in battles as a cavalry officer, and box. He changed from being a puny boy to being the most vigorous U.S. president. To be forewarned
Moving To The Next Level In Your Personal Growth
MOVING TO THE NEXT LEVEL IN YOUR PERSONAL GROWTH For everything you gain, you must give up something. What is the key to going to the next level in your personal growth? Put another way, what is the greatest obstacle you will face once you have begun achieving your goals and tasting success? I believe it is the ability to let go of what you have so that you can reach for something new. The greatest obstacle leaders face can be their own achievement. In other words, the greatest detriment to tomorrow’s success is today’s success. WHAT IS THE NEXT LEVEL WORTH? That’s a question that every person must ask him or herself more than once in a successful career. In Leading Without Power, Max DePree wrote, “By avoiding risk, we really risk what is most important in life—reaching toward growth, our potential and a true contribution to a common goal.” Over the years I have learnt that I should do the difficult things first, and then enjoy myself. We all pay in life. Anything we get will exact a price from us. The question is, when will we pay? The longer we wait to pay, the greater the price. It is like interest that compounds. A successful life is a series of trade-offs. In my career, over and over I have traded security for opportunity. I’ve given up what many would consider an ideal position so that I could grow as a leader or make a bigger impact. I’ve found that the higher we go, the harder it is to make trade-offs. Why? We have so much more that we risk giving up. People often talk about the sacrifices they had to make in the beginning of their careers. But in truth, most people have very little to give up in the beginning. The only thing of value that they have is time. But as we climb higher, we have more, and we find it more difficult to let go of what we’ve worked for. That’s why many climb partway up the mountain of their potential and then stop. They come to a place where they are unwilling to give up something in order to get the next thing. As a result, they stall—some forever. Something in human nature tempts us to stay where we’re comfortable. We try to find a plateau, a resting place, where we have comfortable stress and adequate finances. Where we have comfortable associations with people, without the intimidation of meeting new people and entering strange situations. Of course, all of us need to plateau for a time. We climb and then plateau for assimilation. But once we’ve assimilated what we’ve learned, we climb again. It’s unfortunate when we’ve done our last climb. When we have made our last climb, we are old, whether forty or eighty. – Fred Smith WHAT WILL YOU TRADE? Trade Affirmation For Accomplishment When I began my career I was a people pleaser. I wanted approval from my followers, admiration from my peers, and awards from my superiors. I was an affirmation junkie. But accolades are like smoke that quickly fades away. Awards turn to rust. And financial rewards are quickly spent. Now I prefer to get something done than to just make myself look good. That decision has paved the way for most of the other trades I have made in life. Trade Security For Significance Success does not mean simply being busy. What you give your life to matters. The great leaders in history were great not because of what they owned or earned but because of what they gave their lives to accomplish. They made a difference! I chose a career in which I expected to make a difference. But that did not exempt me from having to take risks to do things of greater significance. The same will be true for you, no matter what profession you have chosen. Trade Financial Gain For Future Potential One of life’s ironies for me is that I have never been motivated by money, yet I am doing well financially. Why? Because I’m always willing to put future potential ahead of financial gain. The temptation is almost always to go for the cash. But this goes back to the idea of pay now, play later. If you are willing to sacrifice financially on the front end for the possibility of greater potential, you are almost always given greater chances for higher rewards—including financially. Trade Immediate Pleasure For Personal Growth If ever there was something our culture has a difficult time with, it is delayed gratification. If you look at the statistics on how much people are in debt and how little they put into savings, you can see that people are always seeking immediate pleasure. Many times I have put off or sacrificed pleasures, conveniences, or luxuries in order to pursue personal growth opportunities. I’ve never regretted it. Trade Exploration For Focus Some people like to dabble. The problem with dabbling is that you never really become great at anything. True, when you are young, you should try out new things—see where your strengths and interests lie. But the older you are, the more focused you should be. You can only go far if you specialize in something. If you study the lives of great men and women, you will find that they were very single-minded. Once you have found what you were created to do, stick with it. Trade Quantity Of Life For Quality Of Life I have to confess that I have a “more” mentality. If one is good, four is better. If somebody says he can hit a goal of twenty, I encourage him to reach for twenty-five. When I write an article to post on my blog I want to include so much content in it so that the people who read it will get as much as they can out of it. Because of this natural inclination to do more, I’ve often had very
The Role Of Experience In Your Growth Journey
THE ROLE OF EXPERIENCE IN YOUR GROWTH JOURNEY Experience plus honest self-examination leads to wisdom. One of the most frustrating things for young leaders is having to wait to get their chance to shine. Leaders are naturally impatient, and I was no different. During the first ten years of my leadership, I heard a lot about the importance of experience. In my first position, people did not trust my judgment. They said I was too young and inexperienced. I was frustrated, but at the same time I understood their scepticism. I was young and new into the job. After I led for a couple of years, people began to take notice of me. They saw that I had some ability. Time after time, my youth and inexperience were pointed out to me. And I was willing to pay my dues, learn my lessons, and wait my turn. As these more experienced people passed me, I would observe their lives to try to learn from them. I looked to see what kind of foundation they had built their lives on, which influential people they knew, how they conducted themselves. Sometimes I learned much by watching them. But many times I was disappointed. There were many people with years of experience under their belts but not much wisdom or skill to show for it. That got me to wondering: Why had experience helped some leaders and not others? Slowly my confusion began to clear. What I had been taught all my life was not true: experience is not the best teacher! Some people learn and grow as a result of their experience; some people don’t. Everybody has some kind of experience. It’s what you do with that experience that matters. HOW WILL EXPERIENCE MARK YOU? We all begin our lives as empty notebooks. Every day we have an opportunity to record new experiences on our pages. With the turning of each page, we gain more knowledge and understanding. Ideally, as we progress our notebooks become filled with notations and observations. The problem is that not all people make the best use of their notebooks. Some people seem to leave the notebook closed most of their lives. They rarely jot down anything at all. Others fill their pages, but they never take the time to reflect on them and gain greater wisdom and understanding. But a few not only make a record of what they experience; they linger over it and ponder its meaning. They reread what is written and reflect on it. Reflection turns experience into insight, so they not only live the experience but learn from it. They understand that time is on their side if they use their notebook as a learning tool, not just as a calendar. They have come to understand a secret. Experience teaches nothing, but evaluated experience teaches everything. GAINING FROM EXPERIENCE Do you know people who have lots of knowledge but little understanding? They may have means, but don’t know the meaning of anything important? Even if they have a lot of know-how, they seem to possess little know-why? What is the problem with these individuals? Their life experience is void of reflection and evaluation. When twenty-five years go by, they don’t gain twenty-five years of experience. They gain one year of experience twenty-five times! If you want to gain from your experience—to become a wiser and more effective leader—there are some things about experience you need to know: We All Experience More Than We Understand Experience enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again. Let’s face it: we’re going to make mistakes. Too much happens to us in life for us to be able to understand all of it. Our experiences overwhelm our understanding. And no matter how smart we are, our understanding will never catch up with our experience. So what is a person supposed to do? Make the most of what we can understand. I do that in two ways. First, at the end of each day I try to remember to ask myself, “What did I learn today?” That prompts me to “review the page” of my notebook for the day. The second thing I do is take the last week of every year to spend time reviewing the previous twelve months. I reflect on my experiences—my successes and failures, my goals accomplished and dreams unmet, the relationships I built and the ones I lost. In this way, I try to help close some of the gap between what I experience and what I understand. Our Attitude Toward Unplanned And Unpleasant Experiences Determines Our Growth Life is full of unforeseen detours. Circumstances happen which seem to completely cut across our plans. Learn to turn your detours into delights. Treat them as special excursions and learning tours. Don’t fight them or you will never learn their purpose. Enjoy the moments and pretty soon you will be back on track again, probably wiser and stronger because of your little detour.” I must admit, having a positive attitude about life’s detours is a constant battle for me. I prefer the expressway and a straight route to a winding scenic road. Anytime I find myself traveling on a detour, I’m looking for the quickest way out—not trying to enjoy the process. I know that’s ironic for a guy who teaches people that the difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure. Just because I know something is true and work to practice it doesn’t mean it’s easy. Lack Of Experience Is Costly At the age of forty I now look back at my youth and I cringe at my naïveté. My toolbox of experience had only one tool in it: a hammer. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So I pounded and pounded. I fought many battles I shouldn’t have. I enthusiastically led people down dead-end roads. I possessed the confidence that only the inexperienced can possess. I
Overcoming Obstacles To Personal Growth: Grasp The Positive Benefits Of Negative Experiences
OVERCOMING OBSTACLES TO PERSONAL GROWTH: GRASP THE POSITIVE BENEFITS OF NEGATIVE EXPERIENCES Working artists David Bayles and Ted Orland tell a story about an art teacher who did an experiment with his grading system for two groups of students. It is a parable on the benefits of failure. Here is what happened: The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in some scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty kilogrammes of pots rated an “A,” forty kilogrammes “B,” and so on. Those being graded on “quality,” however, needed to produce only one pot—albeit a perfect one—to get an “A.” Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of the highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work—and learning from their mistakes—the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay. It doesn’t matter whether your objectives are in the area of art, business, ministry, sports, or relationships. The only way you can get ahead is to fail early, fail often, and fail forward. TAKE THE JOURNEY Many people are taught on leadership at numerous conferences every year. And one of my deepest concerns is always that some people will go home from the event and nothing will change in their lives. They enjoy the “show” but fail to implement any of the ideas presented to them. I tell people continually: We overestimate the event and underestimate the process. Every fulfilled dream occurred because of dedication to a process. (That’s one of the reasons I write articles and post them on my blog—so that people can engage in the ongoing process of growth.) People naturally tend toward inertia. That’s why personal growth is such a struggle. But that’s also why adversity lies at the heart of every success. The process of achievement comes through repeated failures and the constant struggle to climb to a higher level. Most people will grudgingly concede that they must make it through some adversity in order to succeed. They’ll acknowledge that they have to experience the occasional setback to make progress. But I believe that success comes only if you take that thought one step farther. To achieve your dreams, you must embrace adversity and make failure a regular part of your life. If you’re not failing, you’re probably not really moving forward. THE BENEFITS OF ADVERSITY Psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers asserts, “The person interested in success has to learn to view failure as a healthy, inevitable part of the process of getting to the top.” Adversity and the failure that often results from it should be expected in the process of succeeding, and they should be viewed as absolutely critical parts of it. In fact, the benefits of adversity are many. Consider these reasons to embrace adversity and persevere through it: Adversity Creates Resilience Nothing in life breeds resilience like adversity and failure. A study in Time magazine in the mid-1980s described the incredible resilience of a group of people who had lost their jobs three times because of plant closings. Psychologists expected them to be discouraged, but they were surprisingly optimistic. Their adversity had actually created an advantage. Because they had already lost a job and found a new one at least twice, they were better able to handle adversity than people who had worked for only one company and found themselves unemployed. Adversity Develops Maturity Adversity can make you better if you don’t let it make you bitter. Why? Because it promotes wisdom and maturity. American playwright William Saroyan spoke to this issue: “Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know.” As the world continues to change at a faster and faster rate, maturity with flexibility becomes increasingly important. These qualities come from weathering difficulties. Harvard business school professor John Kotter says, “I can imagine a group of executives 20 years ago discussing a candidate for a top job and saying, ‘This guy had a big failure when he was 32.’ Everyone else would say, ‘Yep, yep, that’s a bad sign.’ I can imagine that same group considering a candidate today and saying, ‘What worries me about this guy is that he’s never failed.” The problems we face and overcome prepare our hearts for future difficulties. Adversity Pushes The Envelope Of Accepted Performance Lloyd Ogilvie told of a friend who was a circus performer in his youth. The fellow described learning to work on the trapeze: Once you know that the net below will catch you, you stop worrying about falling. You actually learn to fall successfully! What that means is, you can concentrate on catching the trapeze swinging toward you, and not on falling, because repeated falls in the past have convinced you that the net is strong and reliable when you do fall . . . The result of falling and being caught by the net is a mysterious confidence and daring on the trapeze. You fall less. Each fall makes you able to risk more. Until a person learns from experience that he can live through adversity, he is reluctant to buck mindless tradition, push the envelope of organizational performance, or challenge himself to press his physical limits. Failure prompts a person to rethink the status quo. Adversity Provides Greater Opportunities I believe that eliminating problems limits our potential. Just about every successful entrepreneur I’ve met has numerous stories of adversity and setbacks that opened doors to greater opportunity. Adversity Prompts Innovation
Areas Where You Need To Focus Your Time And Energy To Reach Your Potential
AREAS WHERE YOU NEED TO FOCUS YOUR TIME AND ENERGY TO REACH YOUR POTENTIAL To reach your potential, get in your strength zone. SEARCHING FOR STRENGTHS If you are a young leader and you are still uncertain about where your strengths lie, don’t get discouraged. Try to be patient and keep working hard. If you persevere you will figure it out. Here’s what I know: no matter if you’re just starting out or if you are at the peak of your career, the more you work in your strength zone, the more successful you will be. DEFINING PERSONAL SUCCESS I’ve heard many definitions of success from many people over the years. In fact, I’ve embraced different definitions myself at different stages of my life. I have zeroed in on a definition that I think captures success no matter who people are or what they want to do. I believe success is: Knowing your purpose in life, Growing to your maximum potential and Sowing seeds that benefit others. If you are able to do those three things, you are successful. However, none of them is possible unless you find and stay in your strength zone. You don’t become an effective leader by default. You must be intentional. And you must work from your strengths. Whenever I mentor people and help them discover their purpose, I always encourage them to start the process by discovering their strengths, not exploring their shortcomings. Why? Because people’s purpose in life is always connected to their giftedness. It always works that way. You are not called to do something that you have no talent for. You will discover your purpose by finding and remaining in your strength zone. Similarly, you cannot grow to your maximum potential if you continually work outside of your strength zone. Personal development and growth is always related to ability. The greater your natural ability, the greater your potential for growth. I’ve known people who thought that reaching their potential would come from shoring up their weaknesses. But do you know what happens when you spend all your time working on your weaknesses and never developing your strengths? If you work really hard, you might claw your way all the way up to mediocrity! But you’ll never get beyond it. The final piece of the puzzle—living a life that benefits others—always depends upon us giving our best, not our worst. You can’t change the world by giving only leftovers or by performing with mediocrity. Only your best will add value to others and lift them up. FINDING YOUR OWN STRENGTH ZONE British poet and lexicographer Samuel Johnson said, “Almost every man wastes part of his life in attempts to display qualities which he does not possess.” If you have an image in your mind of what talents people are supposed to have, yet you do not possess them, then you will have a difficult time finding your true strengths. You need to discover and develop who you are. Here are a few suggestions to help you: Ask, “What Am I Doing Well?” People who reach their potential spend less time asking, “What am I doing right?” and more time asking, “What am I doing well?” The first is a moral question; the second is a talent question. You should always strive to do what’s right. But doing what’s right doesn’t tell you anything about your talent. Get Specific When we consider our strengths, we tend to think too broadly. Peter Drucker, the father of modern management, wrote, “The great mystery isn’t that people do things badly but that they occasionally do a few things well. The only thing that is universal is incompetence. Strength is always specific! Nobody ever commented, for example, that the great violinist Jascha Heifetz probably couldn’t play the trumpet well.” The more specific you can get about your strengths, the better the chance you can find your “sweet spot.” Why be on the fringes of your strength zone when you have a chance to be right in the centre? Listen For What Others Praise Many times we take our talents for granted. We think because we can do something well, anyone can. Often that’s not true. How can you tell when you’re overlooking a skill or talent? Listen to what others say. Your strengths will capture the attention of others and draw them to you. On the other hand, when you’re working in areas of weakness, few people will show interest. If others are continually praising you in a particular area, start developing it. Check Out The Competition You don’t want to spend all your time comparing yourself to others; that’s not healthy. But you don’t want to waste your time doing something that others do much better. If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete. People don’t pay for average. If you don’t have the talent to do something better than the competition, place your focus elsewhere. To get a better picture of where you stand in relationship to the competition, you need to ask yourself the following questions: Are others doing what I am doing? Are they doing it well? Are they doing it better than I am? Can I become better than they are? If I do become better, what will be the result? If I don’t become better, what will be the result? The answer to the last question is: you lose. Why? Because your competition is working in their strength zone and you aren’t! The point of asking yourself these questions is not for you to try to be like others. It’s to help you see where you are different from others. Discover your uniqueness, then discipline yourself to develop it. TO BE A SUCCESSFUL LEADER, FIND AND DEVELOP THE STRENGTH ZONES OF YOUR PEOPLE Whenever you see people who are successful in their work, you can rest assured that they are working in their strength zone. But that’s not enough if you want to be successful as a leader. Good
The Role Other People And Mentors Play In Your Growth Journey
THE ROLE OTHER PEOPLE AND MENTORS PLAY IN YOUR GROWTH JOURNEY What kind of attitude do you have when it comes to learning from others? All people fall into one of the categories described by the following statements: No One Can Teach Me Anything—Arrogant Attitude I think we sometimes assume that ignorance is the greatest enemy of teachability. However, that really has little to do with teachability. Haven’t you known some highly educated and highly successful people who do not want to hear the suggestions or opinions of anyone else? Some people think they know it all! A person who creates a large, successful organization may think he can’t learn from people who run a smaller one. A person who receives a doctorate can become unreceptive to instruction from anyone else because she is now considered an expert. Another person who is the most experienced in a company or department may not listen to the ideas of someone younger. Such people don’t realize how much they are hurting themselves. The reality is that no one is too old, too smart, or too successful to learn something new. The only thing that can come between a person and the ability to learn and improve is a bad attitude. Someone Can Teach Me Everything—Naive Attitude People who realize that they have room to grow often seek a mentor. That’s usually a good thing. However, it’s naive for individuals to think they can learn everything they need to know from just one person. People don’t need a mentor—they need many mentors. I’ve learned so much from so many people. Everyone Can Teach Me Something—Teachable Attitude The people who learn the most aren’t necessarily the ones who spend time with the smartest people. They are the ones with a teachable attitude. Every person has something to share—a lesson learned, an observation, a life experience. We just need to be willing to listen. In fact, often people teach us things when they don’t intend to do so. Ask any parents and you will find out that they learned things from their children—even when their kids were infants incapable of communicating a single word. The only time people can’t teach us things is when we are unwilling to learn. I’m not saying that every person you meet will teach you something. All I’m saying is that people have the potential to do so—if you’ll let them. HOW TO LEARN FROM OTHERS If you have a teachable attitude—or you are willing to adopt one—you will be positioned well to learn from others. Then all you will need to do is take the following five steps: Make Learning Your Passion Management expert Philip B. Crosby noted: There is a theory of human behaviour that says people subconsciously retard their own intellectual growth. They come to rely on clichés and habits. Once they reach the age of their own personal comfort with the world, they stop learning and their mind runs on idle for the rest of their days. They may progress organizationally, they may be ambitious and eager, and they may even work night and day. But they learn no more. That’s sometimes the problem with people who received the positions they dreamed of or reached the goals they set for their organizations or earned the degrees they strived for. In their minds, they have reached their destinations. They get comfortable. If you desire to keep growing, you cannot sit back in a comfort zone. You need to make learning your goal. Do that and you will never run out of mental energy, and your motivation will be strong. And don’t worry about having people to teach you. Greek philosopher Plato said, “When the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear.” Value People Years ago, when I was younger and inexperienced, I thought only older, more successful people could teach me anything. I placed very little value on other people. And that was a wrong attitude. Later in life, after I created and started pursuing my plan for personal growth, I came to realize that people don’t learn from people they don’t value. Now I have changed my thinking moving forward. Develop Relationships With Growth Potential It’s true that everyone has something to teach us, but that doesn’t mean anyone can teach us everything we want to learn. We need to find people who are especially likely to help us grow—experts in our field, creative thinkers who will stretch us mentally, achievers who will inspire us to go to the next level. Learning is often the reward for spending time with remarkable people. Who they are and what they know rub off. As Donald Clifton and Paula Nelson, authors of Soar with Your Strengths observe, “Relationships help us define who we are and what we become.” Identify People’s Uniqueness And Strengths Philosopher-poet Ralph Waldo Emerson remarked, “I have never met a man who was not my superior in some particular.” People grow best in their areas of strength—and can learn the most from another person’s area of strength. For that reason, you can’t be indiscriminate in choosing the people you seek out to teach you. Ask Questions Anytime I’m exposed to something new I try to learn about it. And the best way to learn is to watch and ask questions. Writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe believed that “one ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.” I would add that one ought to also ask questions to learn something new each day. The person who asks the right questions learns the most. CHOOSE A MENTOR TO HELP YOU GROW You must have the right attitude toward others in order to grow. But if you really want to maximize your progress, you need to take another step. You need to find a mentor who can model what you want to learn and help you grow. At
Maintaining A Teachable Attitude: Lessons For A Life Of Success
MAINTAINING A TEACHABLE ATTITUDE: LESSONS FOR A LIFE OF SUCCESS It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts. If you are a highly talented person, you may have a tough time with teachability. Why? Because talented people often think they know it all. And that makes it difficult for them to continually expand their talent. Teachability is not so much about competence and mental capacity as it is about attitude. It is the desire to listen, learn, and apply. It is the hunger to discover and grow. It is the willingness to learn, unlearn, and relearn. When I teach and mentor people, I remind them that if they stop learning, they stop growing. But if they remain teachable and keep learning, they will be able to keep making an impact where they are. Whatever your talent happens to be—whether it’s leadership, craftsmanship, entrepreneurship, or something else—you will expand it if you keep expecting and striving to learn. Talented individuals with teachable attitudes become talent-plus people. TEACHABILITY TRUTHS To make the most of your talent and remain teachable, consider the following truths about teaching: Nothing Is Interesting If You Are Not Interested It’s a shame when people allow themselves to get in a rut and never climb out. They often miss the best that life has to offer. In contrast, teachable people are fully engaged in life. They get excited about things. They are interested in discovery, discussion, application, and growth. There is a definite relationship between passion and potential. German philosopher Goethe advised, “Never let a day pass without looking at some perfect work of art, hearing some great piece of music and reading, in part, some great book.” The more engaged you are, the more interesting life will be. The more interested you are in exploring and learning, the greater your potential for growth. Successful People View Learning Differently From Those Who Are Unsuccessful After a few years of teaching and training people, I’ve come to realize that successful people think differently from unsuccessful ones. That doesn’t mean that unsuccessful people are unable to think the way successful people do. Those successful thinking patterns pertain to learning as well. Teachable people are always open to new ideas and are willing to learn from anyone who has something to offer. American journalist Sydney J. Harris wrote, “A winner knows how much he still has to learn, even when he is considered an expert by others. A loser wants to be considered an expert by others, before he has learned enough to know how little he knows.” It’s all a matter of attitude. Learning Is Meant To Be A Lifelong Pursuit It’s said that the Roman scholar Cato started to study Greek when he was more than eighty years old. When asked why he was tackling such a difficult task at his age, he replied, “It is the earliest age I have left.” Unlike Cato, too many people regard learning as an event instead of a process. Someone told me that only one-third of all adults read an entire book after their last graduation. Why would that be? Because they view education as a period of life, not a way of life! Learning is an activity that is not restricted by age. It doesn’t matter if you’re past eighty, like Cato, or haven’t yet entered your teens. Author Julio Melara was only eleven years old when he began to acquire major life lessons that he has been able to carry with him into adulthood and to teach others. Here are some of the things he’s learned, taken from his book, It Only Takes Everything You’ve Got!: Lessons for a Life of Success. “Here is a list of all the jobs you will not find on my résumé but lessons that have lasted a lifetime: Started cutting grass for profit at age 11. Lesson learned: It is important to give things a clean, professional look. Stock clerk at a local food store. Lesson learned: Making sure that if I am going to sell something, the merchandise needs to be in stock. Dishwasher at local restaurant. Lesson learned: Somebody always has to do the job no one else wants to do. Also, most people have a lot of food on their plates. (They do not finish what they start.) A janitor at an office building. Lesson learned: The importance of cleanliness as it’s related to image. Fry and prep cook at a steak house. Lesson learned: The importance of preparation and the impact of the right presentation. Construction helping hand. (lug wood and supplies from one place to another) Lesson learned: I do not want to do this for the rest of my life. Sold newspaper subscription for daily paper. Lesson learned: The job of rejection—had to knock on at least thirty doors before I ever sold one subscription. Shipping clerk at a plumbing supply house. Lesson learned: Delivering your project or service on time is just as important as selling it. Breakfast cook at a twenty-four-hour restaurant stop. Lesson learned: How to do fifteen things at once. Also learned about the weird things people like to eat on their eggs. Cleaned cars at detailing shop. Lesson learned: The importance of details (washing vs. detailing). You can pay $15 just to wash the outside of the car or $150 to clean the car inside and out and cover all the details. Details are a pain, but details are valuable. Shoe salesman at a retail store. Lesson learned: To sell customers what they want and like. Also, learned to compliment people and be sincere. Busboy at a local diner. Lesson learned: People enjoy being served with a smile and they love a clean table.” Every stage of life presents lessons to be learned. We can choose to be teachable and continue to learn them, or we can be closed-minded and stop growing. The decision is ours. Pride Is The Number One Hindrance To Teachability Author, trainer, and speaker Dave
How To Grow In Your Career: Be Better Tomorrow Than You Are Today
HOW TO GROW IN YOUR CAREER: BE BETTER TOMORROW THAN YOU ARE TODAY I’ve met a lot of people who have destination disease. They think that they have “arrived” by obtaining a specific position or getting to a certain level in an organization. When they get to that desired place, they stop striving to grow or improve. What a waste of potential! There’s certainly nothing wrong with the desire to progress in your career, but never try to “arrive.” Instead, intend your journey to be open-ended. Most people have no idea how far they can go in life. They aim way too low. I know I did when I first started out, but my life began changing when I stopped setting goals for where I wanted to be and started setting the course for who I wanted to be. I have discovered for others and me that the key to personal growth is being more growth oriented than goal oriented. There is no downside to making growth your goal. If you keep learning, you will be better tomorrow than you are today, and that can do so many things for you. THE BETTER YOU ARE, THE MORE PEOPLE LISTEN If you had an interest in cooking, with whom would you rather spend an hour—think of a big name in hotel and hospitality industry (chef, cookbook author, owner of several restaurants, and host of food TV shows) or your neighbour who loves to cook and actually does it “every once in a while”? Or if you were a leadership student, as I am, would you rather spend that hour with the president of your country or with the person who runs the local supermarket? It’s no contest. Why? Because you respect most and can learn best from the person with great competence and experience. Competence is a key to credibility, and credibility is the key to influencing others. If people respect you, they will listen to you. U.S President Abraham Lincoln said, “I don’t think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.” By focusing on growth, you become wiser each day. THE BETTER YOU ARE, THE GREATER YOUR VALUE TODAY If you were to plant fruit and nut trees in your farm, when could you expect to start harvesting from them? Would you be surprised to learn that you had to wait years—three to seven years for fruit, five to fifteen years for nuts? If you want a tree to produce, first you have to let it grow. The more the tree has grown and has created strong roots that can sustain it, the more it can produce. The more it can produce, the greater its value. People are not all that different. The more they grow, the more valuable they are because they can produce more. In fact, it’s said that a tree keeps growing as long as it is living. I would love to live in such a way that the same could be said for me—“he kept growing until the day he died.” I love this quote from Elbert Hubbard: “If what you did yesterday still looks big to you, you haven’t done much today.” If you look back at past accomplishments, and they don’t look small to you now, then you haven’t grown very much since you completed them. If you look back at a job you did years ago, and you don’t think you could do it better now, then you’re not improving in that area of your life. If you are not continually growing, then it is probably damaging your leadership ability. Warren Bennis and Bert Nanus, authors of Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge, said, “It is the capacity to develop and improve their skills that distinguishes leaders from followers.” If you’re not moving forward as a learner, then you are moving backward as a leader. THE BETTER YOU ARE, THE GREATER YOUR POTENTIAL FOR TOMORROW Who are the hardest people to teach? The people who have never tried to learn. Getting them to accept a new idea is like trying to transplant a tomato plant into concrete. Even if you could get it to go into the ground, you know it isn’t going to survive anyway. The more you learn and grow, the greater your capacity to keep learning. And that makes your potential greater and your value for tomorrow higher. Indian reformer Mahatma Gandhi said, “The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.” That is how great our potential is. All we have to do is keep fighting to learn more, grow more, become more. If you want to influence the people who are ahead of you in the organization—and keep influencing them—then you need to keep getting better. An investment in your growth is an investment in your ability, your adaptability, and your pro-motability. No matter how much it costs you to keep growing and learning, the cost of doing nothing is greater. HOW TO BECOME BETTER TOMORROW Benjamin Franklin said, “By improving yourself, the world is made better. Be not afraid of growing too slowly. Be afraid only of standing still. Forget your mistakes, but remember what they taught you.” So how do you become better tomorrow? By becoming better today. The secret of your success can be found in your daily agenda. Here is what I suggest you do to keep growing and becoming a better person and leader: Learn Your Craft Today You have heard of the saying that says, “The best time to plant a tree is twenty-five years ago. The second best time is today.” There is no time like the present to become an expert at your craft. Maybe you wish you had started earlier. Or maybe you wish you had found a better teacher or mentor years ago. None of that matters. Looking back and lamenting will not help you move forward. You
A Starter’s Guide To Personal Growth: How Do I Improve My Life?
A Starter’s Guide To Personal Growth: How Do I Improve My Life? Growth must be intentional—nobody improves by accident. The poet Robert Browning wrote, “Why stay we on the earth except to grow?” Just about anyone would agree that growing is a good thing, but relatively few people dedicate themselves to the process. Why? Because it requires change, and most people are reluctant to change. But the truthis that without change, growth is impossible. Author Gail Sheehy asserted: If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we are not really living. Growth demands a temporary surrender of security. It may mean a giving up of familiar but limiting patterns, safe but unrewarding work, values no longer believed in, relationships that have lost their meaning. As Dostoevsky put it, “taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what most people fear most.” The real fear should be the opposite course. I can’t think of anything worse than living a stagnant life, devoid of change and improvement. GROWTH IS A CHOICE Most people fight against change, especially when it affects them personally. As novelist Leo Tolstoy said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” The ironic thing is that change is inevitable. Everybody has to deal with it. On the other hand, growth is optional. You can choose to grow or fight it. But know this: people unwilling to grow will never reach their potential. In one of his books, Howard Hendricks asks the question, “How have you changed . . . lately? In the last week, let’s say? Or the last month? The last year? Can you be very specific?” He knows how people tend to get into a rut when it comes to growth and change. Growth is a choice, a decision that can really make a difference in a person’s life. Most people don’t realize that unsuccessful and successful people do not differ substantially in their abilities. They vary in their desires to reach their potential. And nothing is more effective when it comes to reaching potential than commitment to personal growth. PRINCIPLES FOR PERSONAL GROWTH Making the change from being an occasional learner to becoming someone dedicated to personal growth goes against the grain of the way most people live. If you asked one hundred people how many books they have read on their own since leaving school (college or high school), I bet only a few would say they have read more than one or two books. If you asked how many watch motivational videos on YouTube and listen to podcasts and voluntarily attend seminars and training programs to grow personally, there would be even fewer. Most people celebrate when they receive their certificates, diplomas or degrees and say to themselves, “Thank God that’s over. Just let me have a good job. I’m finished with studying.” But such thinking doesn’t take you any higher than average. If you want to be successful, you have to keep growing. As someone who is dedicated to personal growth and development, I’d like to help you make the leap to becoming a dedicated self-developer. It’s the way you need to go if you want to reach your potential. Besides that, it also has another benefit: it brings contentment. The happiest people I know are growing every day. Take a look at the following eight principles. They’ll help you develop into a person dedicated to personal growth: Choose A Life Of Growth It’s said that when Spanish composer-cellist Pablo Casals was in the final years of his life, a young reporter asked him, “Mr. Casals, you are ninety-five years old and the greatest cellist that ever lived. Why do you still practice six hours a day?” What was Casals’s answer? “Because I think I’m making progress.” That’s the kind of dedication to continual growth that you should have. The people who reach their potential, no matter what their profession or background, think in terms of improvement. If you think you can “hold your ground” and still make the success journey, you are mistaken. You need to have an attitude like that of General George S. Patton (United States Army in the second world war). It’s said that he told his troops, “There is one thing I want you to remember. I don’t want to get any messages saying we are holding our position. We are advancing constantly.” Patton’s motto was, “Always take the offensive. Never dig in.” The only way to improve the quality of your life is to improve yourself. If you want to grow your organization, you must grow as a leader. If you want better children, you must become a better person. If you want others to treat you more kindly, you must develop better social skills. There is no sure way to make other people in your environment improve. The only thing you truly have the ability to improve is yourself. And the amazing thing is that when you do, everything else around you suddenly gets better. So if you want to take the success journey, you must live a life of growth. And the only way you will grow is if you choose to grow. Start Growing Today Napoleon Hill said, “It’s not what you are going to do, but it’s what you are doing now that counts.” Many unsuccessful people have what I call “someday sickness” because they could do some things to bring value to their lives right now. But they put them off and say they’ll do them someday . Their motto is “One of these days.” But as the old English proverb says, “One of these days means none of these days.” The best way to ensure success is to start growing today. No matter where you may be starting from, don’t be discouraged; everyone who got where he is started where he was. Why do you need to determine to start growing today? There are several reasons: Growth is not automatic.