by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Celebration, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Miniseries, Opportunity, Planning, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 27 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: The Encore Effect – Part 2
— From The Encore Effect: How to Achieve Remarkable Performance in Anything You Do by Mark Sanborn
Yesterday we learned about remarkable performances to achieve the encore effect. Today we are going to look at the five traits of remarkable performances.
In The Encore Effect, Mark Sanborn talks about the importance of establishing an encore brand, whether personal or organizational. He defines a brand as “a promise for the future based on past performance.”
As such, an encore brand is one that has performed remarkably in the past and, based on that, we can anticipate that it will, likely, continue to perform the same way. Here are the five traits that encore brands exhibit:
1. Commitment: “Commitment is the price you are willing to pay to get remarkable results. Performance, on the other hand, reveals the price you have paid already. When we deliver a remarkable performance, we are saying in effect, ‘There is no other place or person I would rather spend my commitment on than you.’ And when we deliver a poor performance, we convey the opposite message—that we’d rather spend our commitment elsewhere.”
We all have to set boundaries on our engagements and commitments on a daily basis. However, “the challenge,” says Sanborn, “is to commit ourselves to the things that matter to us the most.”
2. Professionalism: “Your problems and opportunities become those of the professionals, who do their best even when they don’t have time or feel at their best. […] When you realize you are in the hands of a professional, you can relax. You know that your concerns will be addressed and that the professional will take care of you. And that is the feeling of confidence that you want to inspire in others.”
3. Skills: “Making the difficult look easy is a sign of mastery in any profession. […] To do anything adequately requires basic skills. The encore performer has gone far beyond the rudimentary to hone his or her skills to a high level. Encore performers demonstrate that they know how to do what they do, that they’ve practiced and perfected what they do, and that they still have a commitment to becoming better.”
“Are you able to spot opportunities that others can’t? Remarkable performers don’t wait for problems and opportunities to come to them—they actively look for problems and opportunities.”
4. Values: “Values are those beliefs that a person holds most dear. Over time, that which we hold most dear becomes what we are known for. […] Every performer is known for something.”
5. Character: Sanborn defines integrity as, “the distance between your lips and your life.” And he says, “your performance is a visible sign of your integrity and character. […] Integrity, sincerity, honesty, and transparency are all character traits of remarkable performers [whose] commitment drives them to become the very best of who they are. Remarkable performers have consistent values.”
These are the five traits that, in Sanborn’s opinion, are shared by those who excel: remarkable performers. These are the people who attract our attention and gain our trust. The author points out that, “[we] recognize a remarkable performance when it occurs, but [we] also recognize what it means about the performer.”
Finally, Sanborn invites us to examine our win-loss record of performance in our career and personal life: “each one of us has complete control over what we do to keep our ‘fans’ coming back for more.”
And on that note, please come back tomorrow for more, as we will look at the role that passion plays in achieving the encore effect.
ACTION
TODAY: Remarkable performers, according to the author, “think about things that are not being done efficiently or profitably or well in your workplace or industry or community.” Can you come up with suggestions or solutions to a problem that you see?
FUTURE: The author suggests, “Think about how your own life values affect your life, your job, and your interactions with others. Are your values reflected in your actions? If not, what can you do differently?” Over time you will see that “your brand [becomes] a composite of the values you act on every day.”
Know someone who is an encore performer? Please share this post with them via email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Celebration, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Miniseries, Opportunity, Planning, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 49 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: The Encore Effect – Part 1
— From The Encore Effect: How to Achieve Remarkable Performance in Anything You Do by Mark Sanborn
“It’s not what we know in life that matters most, but what we do with what we know.”
“Every day is game day,” says Mark Sanborn in The Encore Effect. “Every interaction is an opportunity to give a remarkable performance. The thing is, whether we realize it or not, we all perform for others in one way or another.”
Sanborn continues, “Performance counts. If you want to win the loyalty of your customers, coworkers, boss, and other constituents, you need to turn in a consistently strong performance. And if you want to wow them, you need to turn in a remarkable performance.”
But don’t mistake a remarkable performance to be necessarily a grandiose thing, the kind that you read about in the newspaper. Most remarkable performances never make the front page. To illustrate this, the author shares the story of a school bus driver whose coworkers teased a lot for not wearing a coat on a freezing day. The driver smiled and took it in stride. When a school administrator asked him why he was not wearing a coat, the driver explained that one of the students didn’t have a coat that day, so he gave his own to the student.
The author says that it’s important to notice that there is not one particular approach either. As long as our values and practices are genuine, they will guide us to perform in a variety of roles that are different expressions of our best self. We can ensure that way that our performances will be remarkable. “A remarkable performance… moves us and makes us want more.” That’s the potential and the promise of the Encore Effect.
Conversely, think how hard it is to perform remarkably when your heart is not in what you’re doing. “It’s difficult, if not impossible,” says Sanborn.
The key is recognizing that our lives are performances of which we are in charge. Every remarkable performance by others affects us positively, and every remarkable performance by us affects someone else positively too.
Remarkable performances can change lives, and “that’s why creating a remarkable performance is so key to personal success.”
Sanborn closes by saying that it is likely that, “all of us, would like to have our performance described as remarkable. All of us would like to excel at the things that matter most to us. And it is by giving such performances that we achieve the Encore Effect.”
Come back tomorrow to continue learning about the encore effect, we will focus on the traits of remarkable performances.
ACTION
TODAY: What remarkable performance can you give today as an individual, spouse, parent, employee, boss or as any other of the roles you play in life? Sanborn says, “Try this. Do the important jobs or tasks you have to perform before turning out the light tonight remarkably—even if you’re alone, even if there’s no one there to watch you. After all, you will still be aware of how you do what you need to do. Remember: self-respect is the first step toward gaining the respect of others. Ask more of yourself today; it will lead others to expect more of you tomorrow.”
FUTURE: Create the habit of planning, preparing, and creating remarkable performances that will leave your audience wanting more.
Know someone who is an encore performer? Please share this post with them via email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Celebration, Growth, Leadership, Mindset, Miniseries, Opportunity
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 5 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: What is the Encore Effect?
— From The Encore Effect: How to Achieve Remarkable Performance in Anything You Do by Mark Sanborn
The Encore Effect, a great book by leadership guru and author Mark Sanborn, reminds us that, every day, we are called to perform. “A performance is simply the way someone or something performs—they way they do what they do.”
And since each one of us has different gifts, the stage in which we perform may be “an office, a sales floor, an assembly line, a pulpit, a classroom, a playing field, a home, a showroom, a hospital,” etc.
Yet, regardless of the kind of stage we perform on, Sanborn says “it can be just as worthy of an encore performance as any concert hall in the world.”
And this is what the author refers to as the Encore Effect: “when people constantly demand more and more of whatever it is that you do,” because what you do is simply remarkable.
Sanborn asks, “What if you were so good at your work, such an asset to your company, that your employer would do almost anything not to lose you? What if you performed in such a way that people buzzed about your performance and wanted more of your time, ideas, participation and leadership?”
The answers to those questions are exactly what the encore effect is all about.
Sanborn believes that “a worthy goal in life is to have people shouting for more of whatever it is we do that is really important and matters to us.” He encourages us to perform at our best because, “the world is desperately looking for people who make such a difference, who produce memorable results, who have a positive impact on others.”
Given that encore performers become indispensable and shine wherever they go, over the next few days we are going to understand and learn how to achieve and how to share the encore effect. Keep coming back for this miniseries, as we will learn a lot together!
ACTION
TODAY: Think of your stage and your performances. Where do you perform? What do you perform? And who wants more of your performance? Where are you remarkable and where do you have room for improvement?
FUTURE: While the definition of “best” is different in each field, you definitely know what is best in your field of performance. Strive for that by acting in a way that delivers the most value because it comes from your expertise, knowledge, generosity, principles, and character.
Know someone who is an encore performer? Please share this post with them via email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
by Helena Escalante | Celebration, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Leadership, Mindset, Opportunity, Sales, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 33 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Passion is nothing without persistence
— From The Art of People: 11 Simple People Skills That Will Get You Everything You Want by Dave Kerpen
“Dave from Radio Disney! Are you ever going to stop calling me and singing to me?” asked Brenda Fuentes in a playful, upbeat way.
Fuentes was a marketing manager for Burger King. Dave Kerpen, the author of The Art of People, worked back then as a local sales rep for Radio Disney in Boston. Kerpen had been trying to get in touch with Fuentes for a long time, but she seemed elusive. Yet he had been assigned this account as a target, was determined to get in touch with her to gain an understanding of Burger King’s marketing needs and, ultimately, try to sell her radio advertising and promotion.
Since this was during the early days of the Internet and she worked from home, the only way Kerpen could get a hold of Fuentes was by phone. Kerpen could not get a hold of her, as all his calls would go to voicemail. He thought of the many other sales reps leaving messages and realized that “the one thing [he] had that none of those other reps had [was] Radio Disney.”
Kerpen recalls, “For me, Radio Disney wasn’t just a job; I loved the station and its bubble-gum pop music. It was both fun to listen to and safe for the whole family… I decided to get creative in my persistence… Each time I left a voicemail message, I would sing a parody of a Radio Disney hit song into the phone. Eventually, I figured, this creative strategy of leaving her messages to the tunes of popular songs would get her attention and help me stand out from the countless other phone calls and voicemails I assumed she got.”
To make a long story short, after 37 calls (!) Fuentes finally picked up the phone. “But this wasn’t your average opening sales call. After all, she already knew [Kerpen] pretty well from all those voicemails.” Now it was his time to get to know her and listen to her needs and see how Radio Disney could help Burger King market itself.
It worked. One week later Kerpen had a signed agreement for over $50,000 in revenue. And what’s more, to this day, he still has a great working relationship with Fuentes.
Were there times when Kerpen felt like giving up? Of course! He says he felt dejected and demoralized many times, and wondered if he was wasting his time, not to mention feeling embarrassed when his colleagues made fun of him for his silly songs. But he refused to give up on Fuentes and Burger King, and adopted a persistent approach in a creative way that was memorable and fun.
Kerpen points out, “As it turns out, one of the biggest differentiators between those who successfully influence others and those who don’t is persistence. Many people talk about passion, and of course passion for one’s idea, product or belief is important, but many people have passion. Far more people have passion than have persistence… persistence is what makes the difference.”
And he goes on to say, “Persistence is defined as ‘firm or obstinate continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition.’ In other words, when the going gets tough, you keep trying.”
“Persistence is trying until you get what you want or go down swinging. Persistence is continuing until you are certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s time to move on and collect the lessons from the failure. Persistence is trying until you drop. Persistence is thirty-seven phone calls.” – Dave Kerpen
ACTION
Note: Both actions below come directly from Kerpen’s book.
TODAY: “Write down something that you really want from someone but that won’t be easy to get. [Who would you like to meet more than anyone? What client would you like to land? What business idol would you like to have lunch with?] Use your passion and your creativity to come up with a plan to pursue this person doggedly in an inventive, original way.”
FUTURE: “Put your plan into action and be persistent. Make as many attempts as it takes to make this vision a reality.”
How about sharing this post with someone you know whose persistence you admire? Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Celebration, Creativity, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Opportunity, Planning, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 3 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: A daily, 5-minute exercise for adding value to people’s lives
— From No Limits: Blow the CAP Off Your Capacity by John C. Maxwell
Today’s post is a short but profound exercise that comes from the fantabulous book No Limits by John C. Maxwell, leadership guru. (The book is really fantastic AND fabulous, so why not combine that into one word?)
Every day think of ways to add value to people. “Spend 5 minutes every evening thinking about who you will see the next day and ask yourself, what can I say to them, give to them, or do for them that will make our time together be memorable, be unexpected and add value to them?”
That’s it. Easy. Simple. Profound. Life-changing for you and for those to whose lives you will add value. Maxwell says, “This exercise will set you apart from 99 percent of all the other people in the world, and if you do this every evening and then revisit the ideas you come up with the next morning to potentially improve them, you’ll be amazed by the difference you can make for other people.”
The value that you add doesn’t have to be in the form of grandiose, elaborate deeds, unless you want to, of course. The author cites the example of having dinner with a couple of friends who were married, and coming up with three ways to add value to them.
First, since he (the friend) had been the publisher of several of Maxwell’s books over many years, the author thought of telling him how much he appreciated helping him grow as an author. Maxwell specifically thanked him for coming up with the title of one of his famous books (Talent is Never Enough)—to show that he remembered and that he was grateful.
Second, Maxwell added how much he admired the couple for their eagerness to learn in every situation, and especially at Maxwell’s conferences (where they would always take a seat in the front row of and take copious notes), despite them being already very successful.
And third, he asked his friend if they could still do another project together: Maxwell wanted his friend to know that he valued enormously his ability to contribute to his life and success, especially because his friend was 82 years old at the time.
In Dr. Kathryn Scanland’s blog, she recall’s Maxwell telling the story of asking his 9-year-old grandson how he was going to be intentional about adding value the next day to the people around him. The boy said he would open as many doors as possible with a smile. At the end of the day, the boy had opened a total of 42 doors, all with a beautiful smile!
So there you have it. Take a look at your calendar every evening and determine what you will be doing the next day and with whom you’ll be meeting. What are the ways in which you can add value?
“It only takes five minutes, but the opportunities to make a difference are endless.” – John C. Maxwell
ACTION
TODAY: Take five minutes to look at your calendar for the rest of the day and determine how you will add value to the people with whom you will meet.
FUTURE: Create the habit of looking at your calendar the evening before and taking 5 minutes to figure out how you will create value for others. Set that as an intention for your meetings the next day. Then give it another 5 minutes the next morning to revisit the ideas and improve them. You will have a beautiful impact on the lives of others, and your life will be all the better for it.
Please add value to someone’s life today by sharing this post! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Celebration, Growth, Guest Post, Leadership, Mindset, Tools
EntreGurus is celebrating 200 posts today, YAY!!!! A big, heartfelt THANK YOU to each and every one of you, Dear Gurupies, who have made this possible.
And for this special celebration, we have a special guest post for you directly from Romania, from my friend Dorel Vaida, the founder of Reading with Purpose.
I admire and respect Dorel very much because of his self-disciplined approach to reading: he decides on a topic, say leadership, gathers a series of book recommendations, and then immerses himself into reading. Mercilessly, he extracts the core knowledge from those books that works for him and makes a handy compendium of that topic. What emerges from each series of books is a transformed and wiser Dorel, full of insight, and ready to take on a new series. He’s unstoppable: Bravo Dorel!
And without further ado, here’s what he wrote for us.
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 4 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: 3 Foundational books
— Guest post by Dorel Vaida founder of Reading with Purpose.
Everyone’s reading. We like some books, we dislike some others. Then, every once in a while, there are books that will blow your mind away. They will turn your mind into a spinning wheel and bring out the best in you.
I call those foundational books. And, as with any foundation, it doesn’t have to be the same for everyone. It all depends on what you’ve set out to build.
That foundation you’re building, what’s it for?
Immediately after altMBA, I set out to become a better leader (leadership series). I made a reading list and applied the Reading with Purpose method to extract the best information out of the books on the list. It was a crude approach but I learned. Then, I set out to become a more effective professional and individual (effectiveness series). A much longer reading list. All spectacular books. One thing happened, though. Interesting thing. In both of these reading series, there were a few books that were referenced over and over again as backing research. They were often written by well-regarded academics, and they were based on years and years of research. Foundational, mind you.
Here they are:
Mindset. Drive. Flow.
Now, there’s something interesting about these books. They set out principles for how to do things. Or teach you why you do things. While reading something in my effectiveness series I found myself thinking — Oh, boy, this definitely makes me a better leader too. Well, yes, an effective leader is a better leader. 😉 So, what these books do, I concluded, is give you tools that permeate and improve every aspect of your life.
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck, is a controversial and comprehensive study of how to have a finer look at intelligence, something more encompassing than raw IQ. Can we really increase our intelligence? Well, if you take raw IQ, you’ve got very narrow margins, if at all. But we, at the same time, accept that there are factors which impair one’s intelligence, such as alcohol and sleep deprivation. Thus, there’s a general agreement that we can become more stupid (aka dramatically lower our intelligence), even if temporarily.
The question is then, why wouldn’t we believe there are ways to boost our intelligence? Turns out that, yes, there are some. It’s all based on a core and deeply ingrained belief in change, in improving qualities and in growing your intelligence through hard work and continuous learning. That is the growth mindset.
Read Mindset to discover how much harm a fixed mindset — as opposed to a growth mindset — is doing to your intelligence. Read Mindset to gain a strategic, life-long perspective on how to use your mind the right way.
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Dan Pink, is a fresh look at the brave new world and how the nature of work changed, from routine to creative, in a way that enables motivation 3.0 — intrinsic motivation — versus motivation 2.0 — carrots and sticks. Learn what enables intrinsic motivation, what to look for, or create, in your workplace: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose.
Read Drive to know what kind of environment helps you become intrinsically motivated, enabling effectiveness for doing work that matters.
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, is a deep dive into optimal experience. It’s a mesmerizing introspection (at least for an engineer like me) into the anatomy of consciousness and the two conditions — flow or optimal experience, and psychic entropy — which enrich and disrupt the self, respectively.
A most comprehensive case of why the ability to focus attention on a single subject at a time matters tremendously. An equally intriguing and fascinating look into the huge gap in spirituality between the West and the East, and a possible answer to the question of why meditation becomes increasingly popular in the western world.
And it’s all related to a state of mind — flow — in which the subjects report losing the notion of time and the sense of self, and they perform whatever they are doing for the sake of the activity itself. Recognize yourself being in that state, remember how it felt and better understand now how it enables the growth of one’s self.
Read Flow to learn how to reach optimal experience (a process in which you enjoy whatever you do), and also to learn how flow enables an ever-increasing, complex and evolved self.
There you have it; these are what I call the foundational books. As I said earlier, it all depends on what it is that you’re building the foundation for: if you’re building the foundation for a lifelong-learning mindset, and an intrinsically-motivated, ever-growing self that turns both work and leisure into flow, then these three books will be a solid foundation for you.
After reading them I can guarantee you two things (and I’ll sign my name to it!):
- That you will understand yourself better; and
- That you will immediately become an improved version of yourself.
Now go iterate.
Please help us share this guest post with someone that you think might benefit from learning about these 3 foundational books, thank you! Email, Facebook, Twitter.
