by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Leadership, Mindset, Planning, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 16 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: There are only 3 things leaders must do to succeed
— From The Art of People: 11 Simple People Skills That Will Get You Everything You Want by Dave Kerpen
“Are you kidding me, Dave? There may be no ‘I’ in team, but there sure as hell is an ‘I’ in leadership. Now quit [clowning] around and step up and become a leader!”
Wow… Dave Kerpen, social media guru and author of The Art People, recalls being admonished with those words by Robb High, a mentor of his, after Kerpen had mentioned his belief in “everyone being equal, working together as a team, and supporting one another.”
The answer from High? “That’s all fine, Dave. I’m all for teamwork. But every team needs a leader.”
Kerpen says, “In an effort to have everyone feel that his or her voice was heard and that everyone was important, I had failed to become an effective leader.” And while he recognized the importance of what High was saying, “the problem was that [Kerpen] had no specific idea how to become a leader.”
Have you ever been in this position?
“Chances are, you have chosen to become or have been asked to be a leader at some point in you life. But what does leadership mean? Does it mean leading by example? Yes. Does it mean inspiring others? Absolutely. Does it mean doing the right thing (after figuring out what the right thing is)? Yes. Leadership includes all of these things. In fact, leadership can mean many different things to many different people…”
Fortunately, the author met Verne Harnish, a renowned business guru and author of many books, including the well-known Mastering the Rockefeller Habits. Harnish told Kerpen there were “three and only three things on which great leaders have to focus… [By] doing those three things well, everything else will fall into place.”
These three things will help you lead whether you are the CEO of a Fortune 500 or the CEO of your home. The author and his wife have applied it, both, to their business and to their growing family of 5, and it has worked wonders for them.
So, what are those three things?
1. Setting and communicating the overall vision for your team. “This is most important but is often overlooked. What is your grand mission? Your purpose? Your overall vision for how things will be? It’s important to develop this because everything else can fall into place once you have it. Once the vision and mission are established, it is essential to overcommunicate it!” Everything else you and your team do must be in alignment with this always.
2. Making sure you have the right people in the right seats on the team. “Beyond you, it’s essential to make sure you have the most talented, most appropriate people surrounding and leading the way… There are only two questions to consider in making this determination about your people: How capable are they of doing their jobs? And, How aligned are they with your vision and values?”
3. Making sure you have enough resources and money to help the team succeed. “Whether this means applying for more funding, getting creative, or somehow figuring out MacGyver-style, it’s your job to make sure the team has everything it needs to succeed so that the team members don’t need to worry about it.”
ACTION
TODAY: Whether you lead a company, a large or small team, a group of volunteers or your household, make an (informal) audit to see how well you are doing in these three areas.
FUTURE: Based on the results of your audit, determine the changes (or not) you need to make. Do you have, and have you communicated your overall vision? Do you have the talented help you need where and when you need it? Do you have enough money and resources to succeed? Create a plan to begin or continue implementing these three things. And speaking of plans… if there’s something that you and/or your team need to get done before the year is up, sign up for Achieve in 90, my online program to guide you and keep you accountable during the last 90 days of the year.
Cheers to your success!
How about sharing this post with someone you know who is in a position of leadership? Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Planning, Productivity, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 18 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Make it impossible to fail
— From Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen
When we think of our never-ending to-do list, or when we feel stuck on the project in which we are working, it’s natural to feel resistance. This resistance comes from not being clear on what we need to do, says David Allen, renowned productivity guru, in his book Getting Things Done.
Yet sometimes that clarity we seek is muddled by our way of looking at the task: if you write down a to-do item as, for example, “Tires for the car,” it may be too big and unclear of an item.
Allen suggests an incredibly simple, but oh-so-effective solution. By asking yourself this question and acting on it, it will be almost impossible for you to fail on making progress: “What’s the next action?”
And I’d take it one step further as: What is the immediate, smallest, next action required, for me to move forward with this project?
“This is the critical question for anything [you’re going to write down on your to-do list]” says Allen. “If you answer it appropriately, you’ll have the key substantive thing [to move forward]. The ‘next action’ is the next physical, visible activity that needs to be engaged in, in order to move the current reality of this thing toward completion.”
In the above example of the tires, the immediate next action is not actually you changing the tires. It’s not making an appointment at the tire shop to bring your car in, either. It’s calling your friend Fred, who told you he’d give you the info of the shop where he got his cars’ tires changed at a great price.
So, the broad “tires for the car,” that has been in your to-do list for the past week, suddenly turns into this immediate, small, next action: “Call Fred for name and phone of the tire shop.”
By breaking it down into small, actionable, next-action chunks, any task can be achieved.
It’s so simple that all we intuitively know it, don’t we? (Yet sometimes we need someone to point out the obvious for us for it to sink in. And that is why Allen’s Getting Things Done system has worked so well for millions of people worldwide, it’s so effective!)
And then what?
The author says, “Do it, Delegate it, or Defer it. Once you’ve decided on the next action, you have three options.”
1. Do it. “If an action will take less than two minutes, it should be done at the moment it is defined.”
2. Delegate it. “If the action will take longer than two minutes, ask yourself, Am I the right person to do this? If the answer is no, delegate it to the appropriate entity.”
3. Defer it. “If the action will take longer than two minutes, and you are the right person to do it, you will have to defer acting on it until later and track it.”
I’ve implemented this simple system for a while now, and it really makes it almost impossible to fail. It always gets me unstuck. And sometimes the action I need to take is so small, that it makes me laugh and, thus, I do it with much joy to move forward.
Hope this turns out to be as effective for you as it’s been for me!
P.S. If you want to learn and apply this and other ways to achieve your goals in 90 days, I’m starting a program called Achieve in 90. Hope you can join us!
ACTION
TODAY: Redo your to-do list in terms of the immediate, smallest, next action required, for you to move forward with your projects.
FUTURE: Make it a habit of thinking in immediate, small, next actions required to move your to-do list forward and achieve your goals. This approach brings clarity and replaces overwhelm with a feeling of can-do when you focus on the next action that you can take. That’s why it makes it impossible to fail.
Please share this productivity tip with someone to alleviate their to-do-list overwhelm! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Opportunity, Planning, Tools
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 59 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: How do you grade yourself?
— From Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur, by Derek Sivers.
Today we have another idea full of wisdom from one of my favorite entrepreneurship gurus, Derek Sivers. As he was in New York City, he noticed that there were many buildings that said TRUMP on them. And even as he was driving into the rural countryside, he saw a Donald J. Trump park (this is before Trump became President).
“It made me wonder if he grades himself according to how many valuable properties bear his name,” says Sivers. “Plenty of real estate tycoons have made billions without putting their names of everything, but maybe that’s his measure.”
Then the author points out that “we all grade ourselves by different measures.”
For some people, it’s as simple as how much money they make. When their net worth is going up, they know they’re doing well.
For others, it’s how much money they give.
For some, it’s how many people’s lives they can influence for the better.
For others, it’s how deeply they can influence just a few people’s lives.
For Sivers, he says, “it’s how many useful things I create, whether songs, companies, articles, websites or anything else. If I create something that is not useful to others, it doesn’t count. But I’m also not interested in doing something useful unless it needs my creative input.”
He challenges us to think about how we grade ourselves. Because, he says, “it’s important to know in advance [how you grade yourself], to make sure you’re staying focused on what’s honestly important to you, instead of doing what others think you should.”
So, how do you grade yourself? Let me know in the comments here.
ACTION
TODAY: Take a moment to ponder how you grade yourself. I’ve come to the realization that, depending on the stage of my life, I’ve graded myself one way or another. Think about the stage you are in and how you grade yourself now: Is it consistent with who you are today and your ideas and goals? Or are you still grading yourself with some measure from the past? Give yourself a grading upgrade if that is the case.
FUTURE: As you embark on future goals and projects think of how you will define success and how you will grade yourself. The answers must be congruent and aligned.
Know someone who needs upgrade his or her grading? Please share this post: Email, Facebook, Twitter. Thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Mindset, Planning, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 22 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Proudly exclude people
— From Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur, by Derek Sivers.
“You know you can’t please everyone, right?” Asks Derek Sivers, musician and entrepreneurship guru, in his book Anything You Want.
If we instinctively answer YES to his question, agreeing that we know it’s impossible to please everyone, why do most businesses try to be everything to everybody? No wonder they can’t get people’s attention!
What to do about this?
Sivers says, “You need to confidently exclude people, and proudly say what you’re not. By doing so, you will win the hearts of the people you want.”
The author shares the example of The Hotel Café, a music venue in Los Angeles that is a no-talking club.
Yes, you read that right: “Big signs read, NO TALKING DURING PERFORMANCES! Performers are encouraged to stop the show if someone is talking, and let the person know that he can go to any other club in town to talk over the music. This is the one place in L.A. where you can sit and really listen to the music, which, of course, makes it the most popular music venue in town.”
Sivers also shares his own experience with CD Baby (the company he founded and later sold for millions):
When CD Baby got popular, I’d get calls from record labels wanting to feature their newest, hottest acts on our site.
I’d say, “Nope. They’re not allowed here.”
The record label guys would say, “Huh? What do you mean not allowed? You’re a record store! We’re a record label.”
I’d say, “You can sell anywhere else. This is a place for independents only: musicians who chose not to sign their rights over to a corporation. To make sure these musicians get the maximum exposure they deserve, no major-label acts are allowed.”
He goes on to say, “It’s a big world. You can loudly leave out 99 percent of it.” And he encourages us, “Have the confidence to know that when your target 1 percent hears you excluding the other 99 percent, the people in that 1 percent will come to you because you’ve shown how much you value them.”
They will value you as the best in the world.
ACTION
TODAY: Think of your audience: whether you have a business, work in one, or do volunteer work for an organization. What can you do to—purposefully and intentionally—niche down and focus solely on your target?
FUTURE: Every time you come up with a new project, product, service, idea, etc., make it a habit to define who your audience is and who is not. Share it out loud in the planning and promotions, and once established, keep sharing it. This will act as a filter so that you don’t have to spend as much time and energy later on explaining or excluding.
Know someone who needs to niche down and proudly and loudly exclude? Please share this post: Email, Facebook, Twitter. Thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Creativity, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Planning, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 48 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Fall in love with mastery
— From 80/20 Sales and Marketing: The Definitive Guide to Working Less and Making More by Perry Marshall
Much is said in the world of business about the importance of having a USP: Unique Selling Proposition. It’s what makes your product or service different from the rest.
“But you also have a personal unique selling proposition that stands distinct from your current product or business,” says Perry Marshall, marketing guru, in his book 80/20 Sales and Marketing. “It’s the inherent groove based on your passion, personality, and experiences that you carry with you at all times.”
Marshall points out that “most people are vaguely aware of their natural, personal USP.” He continues, “I think one of the biggest wormholes that people get sucked into is, they get so enamored with the romantic version of what someone else does, the greener pastures, that they ignore the unromantic, plain, everyday genius that they themselves possess.”
As a marketing advisor, the thing that frustrates Marshall the most “is that it’s so much harder to get people to focus on their innate giftedness and natural USP.”
The author goes on to say that, “it’s easier to show people a bright shiny object and manipulate them into jumping on the next short-lived bandwagon than to master something that’s just beginning to flourish.”
He tells the story of him playing drums and attending a drum camp. While there, he took several clinics led by world-class drummers who, independently of each other, all made the same comment:
“The thing I hate the most about being on tour is _______________.”
How do you think they finished that sentence? Give it a shot. What do you think the answer is? Not sleeping on their beds? Living out of a suitcase in a tour bus? Not seeing their families? The ultra-long days?
Nope.
Here’s their answer:
“The thing I hate the most about being on tour is there’s no time or place to practice. I love to practice.”
To be super successful, Perry suggests practicing as much as you can. “Put yourself in a position where you get paid to practice, even if it’s only a modest amount of money.”
Practice. Practice. Practice. Preferably paid but, if not, unpaid. And then practice some more, until “whatever you love most is endowed with incredible force. Learn to love repeating even basic things over and over again, until you achieve [mastery].”
“Don’t fall in love with bright shiny objects. Fall in love with mastery.”
What should you master? That depends on your specific goals, but definitely “some aspect [related to your goals] that you naturally love and excel at—harnessing the natural forces of who you are.”
ACTION
TODAY: What is your USP? Take some time today to figure out what you’re gifted at (if you haven’t figured it out already). Ask your family, friends, and coworkers, they will gladly tell you about your gifts.
FUTURE: In a recent conversation with a friend of mine, she said, “the thing that you should charge the most for, is what comes the easiest to you.” Wise words. What is your genius and, are you mastering it to make the most out of it? If you are, congrats and keep going! If you aren’t, why not? What do you need to put in place for that to happen? Create the habit, the space, and the time for you to practice and achieve mastery.
Have a gifted friend? Please share this post: Email, Facebook, Twitter. Thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Collaboration, Goals, Habits, Mindset, Planning, Productivity, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 44 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Don’t be a hero
— From REWORK: Change the way you work forever by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
“A lot of times it’s better to be a quitter than to be a hero,” say Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson.
Whaaaaat?!
The authors of Rework explain: “Let’s say you think a task can be done in two hours. But four hours into it you’re still only a quarter of the way done. The natural instinct is to think, ‘But I can’t give up now, I’ve already spent four hours on this!’ So you go into hero mode. You’re determined to make it work (and slightly embarrassed that it isn’t already working). You grab your cape and shut yourself off from the world.”
Sometimes that sheer determination and work overload can produce your desired results. “But,” the authors ask, “is it worth it?” Probably not is the answer. “The task was worth it when you thought it would cost two hours, not sixteen.”
Yet we feel terrible to leave behind, as incomplete, that investment of time and effort. While you will be the one to decide whether it’s worth it or not, you can help decrease the emotional overload by purposefully ignoring sunk costs, as you cannot get them back.
As world-traveler and side hustling guru, Chris Guillebeau, says in this post, regardless of how much time you’ve spent, “consider the next [period] of your life, not the previous investment that brought you this far.”
Look at it this way, “In those sixteen hours you could have gotten a bunch of other things done.” Plus, by going into hero mode, “you cut yourself off from feedback, which can lead you even further down the wrong path. Even heroes need a fresh pair of eyes sometimes—someone else to give them a reality check.”
The authors share how they’ve experienced and solved this problem firsthand: if anything takes them more than two weeks, they bring in someone else to take a look. That someone else might not do any work on the task, but they give their opinion. “Sometimes an obvious solution is staring you right in the face, but you can’t even see it.”
And while, most of the time, we tend to associate quitting with failure, “sometimes that’s exactly what you should do,” the authors point out. “If you already spent too much time on something that wasn’t worth it, walk away. You can’t get that time back. The worst thing you can do now is waste even more time.”
Remember, we can get or make almost everything back, except time. Don’t be a hero to defend a project that is dragging on for too long, instead, be the hero that defends your time and the best use of it.
And while you’ll find that sometimes you cannot “quit” the project altogether, because it’s out of your control, and it continues to drag on, look for ways to substitute yourself. Is there someone whose time and talent are better spent on this than yours? Can you ask for help? Can you outsource it? Think creatively and you’ll come up with the best solution.
To dispel the myth of quitting as a failure, here are some other posts about that: Selective quitting, Quit before you start, and Understanding when to quit and when to stick.
Let me know in the comments here if you’ve ever gone into hero mode and what you learned about it!
ACTION
TODAY: Take a look at your tasks at work and life. Is there a particular one that is taking longer than anticipated? Are you thinking about going into hero mode or already there? Reexamine the situation and consider how you can solve it (if it needs solving at all) so that you can be a good steward of your time.
FUTURE: Keep track of where your time goes for a week or a month, it’s a great exercise, as only that way we can truly see how much time we spend on hero mode without necessarily knowing about it. Sometimes we go into microhero mode and don’t even detect it: that extra long phone conversation, that meeting that went on for too long, etc., they all add up and we don’t even notice except when we look at the data in front of us. Time management guru, Laura Vanderkam, has a simple but effective time tracking sheet and a time makeover guide (it’s free).
Know someone who is about to go into hero mode? Save him or her some time! Please share this post with that person via email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
