by Helena Escalante | Collaboration, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Leadership, Planning, Resources, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 46 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Mastermind groups
— From The Power of Focus Tenth Anniversary Edition: How to Hit Your Business, Personal and Financial Targets with Absolute Confidence and Certainty by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Les Hewitt.
Mastermind groups are a wonderful thing! I have been in a few and I’m currently in one, and I’m so grateful for all the support and great ideas have come out of my masterminds. If you are not familiar with a mastermind group, it’s a very simple concept: a group where the minds meet, which means two or more people get together to talk about a particular thing that each one is working on, and the other(s) provide, support, help, ideas, contacts, resources, etc.
In The Power of Focus, the authors describe a mastermind group as, “ideally made up of five or six people who want to develop excellent long-term relationships. The primary purpose of the group is to establish support for each other emotionally, personally and professionally. It also provides a unique forum for sharing ideas and information, as well as discussing meaningful topics and everyday challenges.”
The authors suggest four action steps if you want to create or enhance your mastermind group:
- Select the right people. Limit your group to six people for maximum benefit and interaction. You don’t have to choose all participants at one (unless you want to, of course). The authors suggest starting with two and gradually build up. “Choose people who are likely to create synergy—ambitious, open-minded, goal-oriented individuals who have a positive outlook and bring a healthy, positive energy to each discussion.” Depending on your goals and the focus of the group, you may want to select similar participants (say, all salesmen under 40) or from varied backgrounds (men, women, regardless of age and industry) to add a broader focus and a deeper and richer perspective for discussion.
- Everyone must make a commitment. “The level of commitment determines how successful your mastermind group becomes. Commitment requires regular attendance, a willingness to participate each time you meet, and an agreement to keep confidential anything that is shared in the group. […] The real benefits occur only when there is a high level of trust within the entire group.”
- Decide when, where, how often, and for how long you want to meet. “Two to three hours every month is a good rule of thumb, or you can meet more frequently if you want.” In my case, my group meets virtually for an hour every Friday morning. The frequency, duration and (virtual) location of the meeting are up to you based on your goals.
- What will you talk about? Be focused and make the most out of your precious time together. Here’s a suggestion from the authors: “Elect a chairperson whose main role is to keep the conversation flowing, and to allow everyone equal time. Start each meeting with a brief comment from everyone about the best thing that happened since the last meeting… Then ask two questions: ‘What’s happening in your business life (or job)?’ and ‘What’s happening in your personal life?’ Go around the table one person at a time. […] Another good question is, ‘What’s your greatest challenge at this time?’ Also, discuss and support each other’s individual goals. Inspire everyone to achieve what they want. Encourage them to think big and introduce them to people who can accelerate their progress.” The main goal is to provide support, encouragement and help each other level up. Here’s a worksheet that we sometimes use in my own mastermind group in case this is helpful to you.
ACTION
TODAY: If you have a mastermind group, think of how you can enhance it with the four points offered above. If you’d like to start a group, give some thought to the persons you’d like to invite and the goals for the group.
FUTURE: Make a commitment to stay in the group for a reasonable amount of time, and ask the others to make the same commitment too. At the end of that time evaluate whether the group is still of value. If it is, congratulations! If not, examine why not, and tweak to improve it. The tweaks can be in all aspects, from the location, duration, topics discussed, format, etc., all the way to the participants. If there is someone who does not want to be there or who is not as engaged or committed, perhaps it means that their time has come to fly away.
Know someone who could benefit from creating, belonging or improving a mastermind group? Please share this post with them via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Opportunity, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 15 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Cultivate generosity
— From The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow by John C. Maxwell
John C. Maxwell, one of the foremost experts and authors in Leadership says, “Nothing speaks to others more loudly or serves them better than generosity from a leader. True generosity isn’t an occasional event. It comes from the heart and permeates every aspect of a leader’s life, touching his time, money, talents, and possessions. Effective leaders, the kind that people want to follow, don’t gather things just for themselves; they do it in order to give to others.”
Maxwell offers 5 points to keep in mind for cultivating the quality of generosity in our lives:
- Be grateful for whatever you have. “It’s hard for a person to be generous when he is not satisfied with what he has. Generosity rises out of contentment, and that doesn’t come with acquiring more.” The idea behind this is that if we’re not happy with little, we won’t be with a lot; and this projects into our giving: if we’re not generous with little, we won’t be either with a lot.
- Put people first. “The measure of a leader is not the number of people who serve him, but the number of people he serves.” This is beautiful because it turns the widely circulated concept of leadership on its head by putting others first.
- Don’t allow the desire for possessions to control you. In our culture of consumerism, “if you want to be in charge of your heart, don’t allow possessions to take charge of you.”
- Regard money as a resource. In here, Maxwell quotes E. Stanley Jones as saying, “money is a wonderful servant but a terrible master.” The way to put money to work as our servant “is to hold it loosely—and be generous with it to accomplish things of value.”
- Develop the habit of giving. “The only way to maintain an attitude of generosity is to make it your habit to give—your time, attention, money, and resources… If you’re enslaved by greed, you cannot lead.” Maxwell quotes writer John Bunyan who drives this point home by saying, “You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.”
I’ll leave you with this wonderful quote as food for thought:
“No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.” – Calvin Coolidge, U.S. President
ACTION
TODAY: Think of your 3 Ts: Time, Talent and Treasure (money and other valuable resources). Where are you giving of each? Where are you adding value to others? Are you being as generous as you can? Note that generosity starts with you, and you have to make sure that you are ok in order to be able to give to others. It’s similar to the instructions on board a plane: if the oxygen mask drops from the ceiling put it on yourself first, and then assist others. That’s the only way in which you can truly help. With this in mind, how are you generating value and being generous to yourself first, in a way that will enable you to give to others in a meaningful way?
FUTURE: If you’re not already there, get involved in something that will outlive you: a cause that you really care about. This way you’ll be able to channel your generosity for creating and adding value to others. Also, keep in mind that the best and most valuable thing that you can give is yourself. If you’re at a point in your leadership where you can do this and mentor others, that’s fabulous. If you’re not there yet, why not do the inverse? Get mentored so that you can learn how to do it, and pay it forward when you are ready.
Be generous and please share this post with someone who will benefit from reading it! You can share it via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you. 🙂
by Helena Escalante | Celebration, Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Tools
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 24 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Celebrate wins, big and small
— From: The Charge: Activating the 10 Human Drives That Make You Feel Alive by Brendon Burchard
EntreGurus is celebrating 100 posts today, wooooooo-hoooooooo!!
You’re invited! Details for the virtual party at the end of this post.
This lead me to pick the concept of celebration as a fitting topic for today’s idea.
In The Charge, high performance coach, speaker and author Brendon Burchard, talks about activating 10 drives of human emotion and happiness. As a bonus, he includes an 11th drive, which is that of celebration.
Celebration, Burchard says, “is a distinctly human desire that makes all our efforts and struggles and hard-fought gains… so worthwhile. It’s a drive that unites us when we see an athlete exert his or her best, when our teams at work meet the impossible deadline, when we witness a hero emerge from the inferno, when our children demonstrate character and aid others, when we, ourselves, having slogged through our own insecurities, doubts and dilemmas, suddenly emerge ahead and clean and pure, astounding those around us an even ourselves. [The drive to celebrate is] activated only in witness of our best efforts and character, and… when we’ve committed to and achieved something worthwhile, something meaningful, something in service to something larger than we.”
Most of us celebrate milestones and big wins, but what about small ones? How about our daily or weekly victories that, when compounded, lead to the big wins?
Burchard also has a video where he talks, precisely, about this. He provides 3 steps to help us take pride and joy in what we do and not take it for granted, or, even worse, diminish its importance for being small steps.
- Create a reflection schedule. It’s important to set a time in your calendar every week to think about the wins for that week. Ask, “What did I do well this week? What did I achieve this week? What went well this week? What good things happened that I didn’t even anticipate? How can I feel good about something that happened this week? What happened that brought me joy or fulfillment or a sense of accomplishment or even just made me feel more connected?” It’s important to build your sense of self-confidence so that you can be ok with larger wins down the line: “we have to integrate our accomplishments and achievements into our identity to feel stronger.”
- Allow yourself to feel the win. Get a better connection with your internal world. Think about your win: “you have to relive it, and feel it, and integrate it if it’s really going to generate confidence for you… When you’re doing your reflection schedule or even at the end of each day… just allow that heartfelt, deep connection of satisfaction or engagement that comes with recognizing yourself.”
- Share the win. Enjoy and be proud of what you’ve accomplished and share it with enthusiasm! When we do this “we feel better about life, we feel more engaged.” Sharing is not bragging, and you should not minimize what you’ve done: “you’re never going to get far in life by minimizing yourself.”
This last point reminds me of one of my favorite quotes by Marianne Williamson from her book A Return to Love:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? …Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do… And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
ACTION
TODAY: Come to my virtual party to celebrate your wins! See time and details below.
FUTURE: Set aside time in your calendar for a weekly reflection schedule. Celebrate your weekly wins and give yourself credit for what you do. Share with someone who loves you, who will be proud of you, and who will cheer for your success. And share with me too, I’m cheering for you and would love to hear and celebrate your wins!
In light of the above, I am happy to share with much enthusiasm EntreGurus’ wins during its first 100 days of life:
VIRTUAL PARTY TO CELEBRATE WINS: Now that you’ve heard EntreGurus’ wins, I want to hear yours and connect with you! So that we can chat and celebrate together, I’m having a virtual party via video conference, today, April 27, 2018 from 12:00 – 2:00 pm U.S. Eastern Time (GMT-4: here’s a time converter). Come and go as your schedule allows, all you need to do is click on this zoom link to join. I’ll be there the whole time and would love to connect with as many of you as can make it to the party. There’s much to celebrate and be thankful for!
I am absolutely grateful and very honored that you let me share ideas with you on a daily basis. It’s been a most joyous ride so far and I look forward to many more hundreds of days together. Cheers! 🙂
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Collaboration, Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Productivity, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 55 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Running effective meetings
— From Common Sense Leadership: A Handbook for Success as a Leader by Roger Fulton
Today is the 114th day since the beginning of the New Year. Q1 has ended, which means this is about the time when we’re having tons of meetings to analyze, compare, strategize and move forward. But whether it’s for this reason or any other, do we really need to meet?
In Common Sense Leadership, Roger Fulton says, “too many otherwise productive hours are spent in long, boring, marginally productive meetings.” He suggests looking at the alternatives:
“Don’t conduct a meeting if a memo will do.
Don’t send a memo if a phone call [or an email] will do.
If there’s information to disseminate, maybe [the best way is indeed] face-to-face. Out where the action is! Among your people.
However, if you must have meetings, they should always:
- Start on time.
- Have a definite agenda.
- End as quickly as possible.
Get everyone back to what they do best: working!”
Think about meeting time in a different light: a 1-hour meeting where 5 people convene is really a 5-hour meeting if you look at the man-hours invested to make it happen. Is that the best use of everyone’s time? Is the “investment” on the outcome of the meeting worth 5 hours? Or are there other ways to communicate in order to free up that time and dedicate it to something more productive? And what if your meeting runs longer than anticipated?
Look at meetings as an investment and create a budget for them. For instance, if you have 3 meetings every week, assign a budget of 1.5 hours total. You can spend those 90 minutes in meetings, any way you want (e.g. 45 min in one meeting, 30 min in another and 15 minutes on the third one). Once you run out of meeting minutes, do not meet again until the following week. I will assure you that your meetings will quickly start running on time and will not go over your budget.
ACTION
TODAY: Do you have any meetings today? Take some time to think how can you achieve the same results while cutting down the time and making them more efficient? Is it possible to do a video chat instead of a meeting and save travel time for all involved? Is it possible to send an email instead? Is it possible to assign 1-2 min talking turns, so that attendees don’t ramble on forever? How about having the meeting standing up? How about taking turns on attending the meeting? Today you attend and share notes with a colleague, next week your colleague attends and shares notes with you. Test some of these ways today: even if no one else knows, test them on yourself, and once you know they work, then start sharing them with your meeting group. They will thank you! And please share those ideas with me, I’m always looking at ways to become more effective and productive!
FUTURE: Create a time budget for your meetings and stick to it. What is your return on the time you are investing (ROI)? Is it worth your time or do you need to cut down some more? Keep expanding on the many options from the action above. Do some brainwriting on how to make your meetings über-effective and achieve the results you want in less time. Test, test, and then test your ideas some more until you can find a way that suits you and your needs.
Know someone whose meetings run way too long? Please share this post with them via email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
by Helena Escalante | Creativity, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Opportunity, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 5 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Where do baby (carrots) come from?
— From Hunch: Turn Your Everyday Insights Into The Next Big Thing by Bernadette Jiwa
Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Group, has been quoted as saying, “Opportunities are like buses – there’s always another one coming!”
And Bernadette Jiwa, business and brand strategist, as well as a fantastic author of many books, echoes Branson’s thought: “every day is filled with opportunities, either seized or missed, ours for the taking if only we can learn to listen for them. Every breakthrough idea starts not with knowing for sure but by understanding why it might be important to try.”
Jiwa goes on to say that we are all able to generate insights to see those opportunities and make the most out of them. Being insightful is not dependent on being special or having resources, innate gifts, special circumstances or any other advantage; on the contrary, anyone can develop killer hunches.
But how?
By cultivating curiosity, empathy and imagination “we become more attuned to opportunities that would otherwise go unnoticed. A hunch happens at the intersection of all three qualities:
- Curiosity
Interest + Attention: Learn to see problems and discern which ones are worth solving.
- Empathy
Worldview + Understanding: Understand how it feels to be the person with the problem.
- Imagination
Context + Experience: Build on what is already understood in order to connect ideas and describe new possibilities for the future.”
Here’s an example of an opportunity that Jiwa calls a case study in imagination: baby carrots. Spoiler alert: there’s nothing baby about them. (If you’re heartbroken by this realization, read on, the story of how they came about is remarkable and will make you smile!).
Mike Yurosek was a concerned farmer: from his yield of 2,500 tons of carrots per day, he’d have to cull 400 tons because “they weren’t ‘pretty’ enough to be sold in grocery stores. Carrots that were misshapen, broken or bent couldn’t be packed for selling.”
One day, he had an idea: he cut the ugly carrots into uniformly shaped 2-inch pieces, and then sent them to a packing plant to be peeled. The edges were smoothed out in the process right before bagging. Ta-daaaaa: “the bagged baby carrot was born.”
Yurosek sent the bags of baby carrots to a supermarket in Los Angeles. “The next day [the supermarket] called and requested that he send them only baby carrots. […] The baby carrots were not only popular with customers; they were also a terrific earner for store owners. […] While other farmers focused on perfecting production techniques in order to minimize waste, Mike reimagined the problem by thinking creatively about what it was that customers wanted, boosting carrot sales by 35 percent and transforming the industry.”
Now every time you see baby carrots you’ll think about this story!
ACTION
TODAY: Take a project you are working on and make a list of things that need improvement or that don’t work well. Then brainwrite for possibilities to solve those issues. Let your curiosity, empathy and imagination flow. What did you come up with?
FUTURE: Whenever you come across something that frustrates you, let that be the fuel to reimagine the good or service in a new, improved light. By doing this, you will be developing and strengthening your curiosity, empathy, and imagination muscles. Take the time and make a game out of it. How many things can you change to make it better? How can you redesign it from scratch to take away the flaws? How can you use it for other purpose? How can you add additional features? How can you strip it to the bare minimum? Your answers will surprise you. Keep asking, keep reimagining.
Know someone who loves baby carrots? Or someone who needs to develop their imagination? Please share this post with them via email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
by Helena Escalante | Celebration, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Leadership, Mindset
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 53 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Leadership lessons from nature
— From 10 Leadership Lessons from Nature (post on LinkedIn) by Brigette Hyacinth
Happy Earth Day!! To celebrate today, here are a few leadership lessons from Mother Nature from this great post by Brigette Hyacinth. After each lesson there’s an inspiring quote as food for thought.
Patience and persistence. “When it is time for the baby eagles to fly, they are patiently and persistently encouraged… Good leaders patiently coach and support their team until they are ready to fly on their own. They also provide an environment that empowers and enables others to take on greater responsibility so that they, too, can develop into full-grown leaders.” All good things take time to build and grow, especially solid businesses. Hyacinth refers to a quote from Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart in Jim Collins’ book Good to Great: “Somehow over the years people have gotten the impression that Wal-Mart was…just this great idea that turned into an overnight success. But…it was an outgrowth of everything we’d been doing since (1945)…And like most overnight successes, it was about twenty years in the making.”
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” – Lao Tzu
Teamwork. A good team creates powerful synergy and brings about great results. “Ants focus more on the needs of the colony than their own individual needs. Working for a benefit of self can be detrimental to the overall performance of the team or the entire organization. If any of the ants are not working with the team, it will be noticed. The cohesion and teamwork determines whether the team lives or dies.”
“Snowflakes are one of nature s most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they stick together.” Vista M. Kelly.
Change and flexibility. Nature is dynamic and in a constant state of flux. “There is a season (winter, spring, summer, autumn) and time for everything… Organizations go through different cycles, so always plan and be prepared. It’s imperative to embrace change and take risks. […] You can’t just have a system built on bureaucracy. Be flexible so you don’t break when the harsh wind blows.”
“Dreams are the seeds of change. Nothing ever grows without a seed, and nothing ever changes without a dream.” – Debby Boone
Strong and healthy roots. “Trees have extensive root systems. Roots are the foundation of a healthy plant. While plants can tolerate a fair amount of damage to their upper parts, they are not nearly so forgiving of damage to their roots. It’s important to have a culture that is solidly embedded in ethical and other principles if the organization is to survive. Leadership needs to be grounded in deep values that provide valuable guidance especially when there is a dilemma faced in the decision making process.”
“When solving problems, dig at the roots instead of just hacking at the leaves.”― Anthony J. D’Angelo
ACTION
TODAY: Go out and enjoy nature. While you’re at it, think about your life and/or business. Where can you apply some of these lessons of leadership to make it even better?
FUTURE: Everywhere you look, there are lessons to learn from nature itself as well as from the animals that surround us. Look. Listen. Learn. I know I have learned many lessons from my beloved dog, Aragon, such as forgiveness, being present in the moment, and enjoying the small things in life, among many others.
Know someone who would like to read these leadership lessons from nature? Please share this post with them via email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
