by Helena Escalante | Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Opportunity, Resources, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 34 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Reduce the risk
— From: Habit Changers: 81 Game-Changing Mantras to Mindfully Realize Your Goals by M. J. Ryan
M. J. Ryan relates a story from Sallie Krawcheck, who is one of the most followed “Thought Leaders” on LinkedIn with over 900,000 followers and who was number seven on the Forbes list of The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women of 2005.
Included among the many hats Sallie has worn in the past, were “the daunting roles of CEO of the newly formed Smith Barney and later president of the Global Wealth and Investment Management division of Bank of America.” When she was offered those roles—which she accepted—she realized that she “was risking ‘public humiliation’ if she failed, but stood the chance of gaining tremendous influence and impact if she succeeded.”
Reduce the risk was Sallie’s mantra and strategy when facing challenges and opportunities. What this meant was “putting a strong team in place with talents and experience that complemented rather than duplicated hers.”
Reducing the risk, then, means intentionally creating an environment and putting fail-safes in place, so that you have the greatest probability of succeeding. Think about it for a moment: it makes perfect sense. Keep in mind that there are always ways in which you can reduce your risk too and change the environment to benefit you.
For example, you can save enough money to have a fall back cushion “if things don’t work out as a start-up CEO; [you can keep] ties to your old community as you move to a new, unfamiliar place; or [you can try out] a new hobby before committing totally.” Big or small, reducing the risk can take many forms, but it always works in your favor.
Now, this doesn’t mean that all risks are worth taking (here’s a great article by Bryan Tracy).You still have to analyze each one that comes your way. But by reducing the risk on those challenges or opportunities that you decide to accept, you’ll have the greatest chance to succeed!
ACTION
TODAY: Think about a challenge or opportunity that you have in front of you now. Yes, that one which you have been pondering without being able to move forward one way or another. Would you be closer to saying yes to it if you could reduce the risk and set up everything-in-your-power for you to succeed? If the answer is no, drop it (remember the easiest way to say no). But if your answer is yes, then make a list of the people, resources, things and actions that you will need to put in place and take one action today that will move you closer to achieving this.
FUTURE: Start creating the habit to look at risk differently: as something that can be reduced so as to maximize your chances for success. Next time you are looking at accepting a challenge or opportunity, create a list of the people, resources, things and actions that you will need to raise your chances of success. Then move forward to implement your fail-safes, and you’ll be on your way very soon!
Know someone who needs to reduce the risk? Please share this post with that person via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Collaboration, Goals, Growth, Leadership, Mindset, Resources, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 44 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Extreme Ownership
— From Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
The ultimate test for a leader is whether the team succeeds or fails. Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, retired U.S. Navy SEALs and experts in building high-performance teams, say that there are only two types of leaders: effective and ineffective.
“Effective leaders lead successful teams that accomplish their mission and win. Ineffective leaders do not.” In our path through leadership, we can all be effective leaders, yet at times, we will be ineffective. Mistakes will be made and things will go wrong. However, as long as we keep in mind the principle of Extreme Ownership, we will be able to move forward along with our team and get another chance at being effective.
The principle behind Extreme Ownership is that “the leader is truly and ultimately responsible for everything… all responsibility for success and failure rests with the leader. The leader must own everything in his or her world.”
While this may be very simple, it certainly is not easy.
As leaders, applying Extreme Ownership requires humility and courage. We must check our ego at the door and always remember that, “it is all about the Team. The sum is far greater than the parts.” Note that team here is loosely defined to suit your particular case: it could be a small business team, a large corporate team, a sports team, a school team, a military team, a non-profit organization, a country, etc.
Extreme Ownership is about responsibility and ultimate accountability. It requires looking at all the details and making sure that everything is covered, checked, communicated, empowered, enabled, etc., for the team to be able to perform at its highest and best.
Team members that see Extreme Ownership in their leaders “emulate Extreme Ownership throughout the chain of command down to the most junior personnel. As a group they try to figure out how to fix their problems –instead of trying to figure out who or what to blame.” There is a sense of camaraderie and joint desire to fulfill the mission the best way possible.
Extreme Ownership, although it sounds wonderful, is not an easy prize. The leader can never take his/her eye off the goal, there is no time for the leader to coast along, and there is never a moment to rest (figuratively speaking).
Here’s an example of what owning everything means:
“When subordinates aren’t doing what they should, leaders that exercise Extreme Ownership cannot blame the subordinates. They must first look in the mirror at themselves. The leader bears full responsibility for explaining the strategic mission, developing the tactics, and securing the training and resources to enable the team to properly and successfully execute.
If an individual on the team is not performing at the level required for the team to succeed, the leader must train and mentor that underperformer. But if the underperformer continually fails to meet standards, then a leader who exercises Extreme Ownership must be loyal to the team and the mission above any individual. If underperformers cannot improve, the leader must make the tough call to terminate them and hire others who can get the job done. It is all on the leader.”
Think about this last sentence for a second: it is all on the leader. Extreme Ownership can feel overwhelming at first. But think again: doesn’t it give you a sense of relief that success is dependent on you and not on an outside factor that is out of your control? By adopting the Extreme Ownership mindset, you already have (or are resourceful enough to find) the resources to win, or pivot, or fix and move forward, or do whatever you need to do to ultimately succeed with your team. This changes everything (at least for me): overwhelm is gone and empowerment reigns supreme.
Cheers to your success in Extreme Ownership!
ACTION
TODAY: Think about the projects that you are working on now. What is going well? What is not? Take Extreme Ownership of your projects and the teams you lead, and focus your energy on figuring out what you need to do today (apply Extreme Pareto!) to equip and empower your team to succeed.
FUTURE: Adopt the Extreme Ownership mindset and combine it with Extreme Pareto. As you move along, determine what is the one thing that you need to be doing right then to move your team forward to succeed.
Know someone who’s leading a team and could benefit from Extreme Ownership? Please share this post with that person via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Planning, Productivity, Resources, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 41 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Extreme Pareto
— From The ONE Thing: The surprisingly simple truth behind extraordinary results by Gary Keller with Jay Papasan (watch the book trailer)
The to-do list is a magnificent tool and companion to our busy lives. Yet since the list can also serve as a catchall for minor, unimportant things, we feel the urge to get them done and cross them off—just because they were on our list. This leads to us being busy, but not necessarily productive: “busyness rarely takes care of business.”
But if we all have the same 24 hours in a day, how is it that some people seem to achieve much and get a lot of things done? What do they do differently? What do they know that we don’t? “Achievers always work from a clear sense of priority.”
Enter the Pareto Principle. You may be familiar with this already: it’s the 80/20 rule. It states that, “a minority of causes, inputs, or effort [the 20 percent] usually lead to a majority of the results, outputs or rewards [the 80 percent].”
What this means is that 80 percent of our results will come from 20 percent of our focused efforts. Thus, “a to-do list becomes a success list when you apply Pareto’s Principle to it.” The idea is simple, take your to-do list and cull it down to the 20 percent of things that will yield the biggest results.
But why stop there? Gary Keller, author of The ONE Thing, encourages us to practice “Extreme Pareto” to get down to the one item on our to-do list that is the absolutely most essential to our success. He says, “Keep going. You can actually take 20 percent of the 20 percent of the 20 percent and continue until you get to the single most important thing! No matter the task, mission or goal. Big or small. Start with as large a list as you want, but develop the mindset that you will whittle your way from there to the critical few and not stop until you end with the essential ONE. The imperative ONE. The ONE Thing.”
“Sometimes it’s the first thing you do. Sometimes it’s the only thing you do. Regardless, doing the most important thing is always the most important thing.”
ACTION
TODAY: Take a look at your to-do list. Apply the Pareto Principle and focus on narrowing it down to the 20 percent of items that you need to get done. Then go extreme, keep applying the Pareto Principle to narrow it down, 20-percent-at-a-time, until you reach your ONE thing. Get that done before anything else, even if it’s the only thing you do all day.
FUTURE: Make a habit of applying Extreme Pareto when planning the week ahead of you by asking: “What’s the ONE Thing you can do this week such that by doing it everything else would be easier or unnecessary?” Do that ONE Thing, and once you are done, ask again… and repeat. You’ll see that by focusing on the vital few you’ll be able to move forward more rapidly than if you spend your time and attention in the trivial many.
Know someone who’s spread too thin and could benefit from Extreme Pareto? Please share this post with that person via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Celebration, Creativity, Leadership, Mindset, Opportunity, Planning, Resources, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes.
TODAY’S IDEA: WOW! All business is personal
— From The Book of WOW: A practical and inspirational guide for driving extreme client loyalty by John L. Evans
We’ve all heard the saying, “life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” (Uncertain author) And this gets compounded if we add the words of writer and Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez, who said, “Life is not what you lived, but what you remember and how you remember, so as to tell it.” *
With this in mind, if you want to surprise your customers or clients with acts of thoughtfulness, that are truly meaningful and memorable, you have to create a “WOW” experience for them. This means the kind of experience that makes the clients go “WOW!” and blows them away because it shows them that you know what they care about.
“The essential premise underlying the WOW concept is that all business is personal.”
By reinforcing the personal aspect in client interactions, you de-commoditize your business and separate yourself from the competition, because “a merely satisfied client is not loyal—a satisfied and emotionally engaged client is.”
To make it personal, first and foremost, the Platinum Rule needs to be applied: “Do unto others as they would want done to them.”
“When doing something extraordinary for your clients, use the talents, resources or connections that are available only to you or through you, whenever possible.” This way you will ensure that the experience becomes memorable, indelible (and not repeatable by your competitors), causing your clients to talk about it to others and to recommend you. That’s why “the best WOWs bounce around—they get shared in the form of enthusiastic retellings [via] positive word-of-mouth.”
WOW moments are as varied and creative as the nature of each business. The openness and attentiveness to recognize when the opportunity arises is in the eye of the beholder. However the one underlying thread is that, to be able to imagineer (blend of imagination + engineering) the best possible WOW moments for your clients, you have to have as much information as you can about them. Get to know them in as much depth as your business will allow.
Also, while the WOW moments or experiences don’t necessarily have to be unique to each client, they do have to feel that way to the recipient. You can always “operationalize, but don’t [ever] DE-personalize.”
Above all, keep in mind that “WOWs don’t have to be complex or worthy of a world record to produce the desired effect. Some are. But most are smaller in scope. When left to accumulate over time, they can end up having an enormous impact.”
ACTION
TODAY: Think of someone who has wowed you during this past week. What did that person do that made you feel special? Now turn it around: who did you wow this week? A client? A loved one? How did you let them know that you care about them? Start imagineering how you can WOW your customers, clients or loved ones with the resources that you have.
FUTURE: Think of ways in which your business can get more info about what makes your clients tick. This will naturally give way to ideas for WOW moments. Make a list of every touch point in your client’s journey to see how you can personalize those interactions. How can you elevate them from the ordinary to the extraordinary and memorable?
Create a WOW moment for your friends and colleagues by sharing this post via email, Facebook and Twitter. Thank you!
* Original quote in Spanish: “La vida no es lo que uno vivió, sino lo que recuerda, y cómo la recuerda para contarla.”
by Helena Escalante | Creativity, Leadership, Marketing, Planning, Resources, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 55 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Own a word in the prospect’s mind
— From The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk! by Al Ries and Jack Trout (read a sample or watch an animated video summary of the book).
In The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, Ries and Trout say that one of the most powerful concepts in marketing is to “own a word in the prospect’s mind.” Not a complicated one—on the contrary—the simpler, the better. “You ‘burn’ your way into the mind by narrowing the focus to a single word or concept.” This is the idea behind their Law No. 5: The Law of Focus.
“Federal Express put the word overnight into the minds of its prospects because it sacrificed its product line and focused on overnight package delivery only.” You too can put this law to the test by doing a simple word association exercise: what comes to mind when you hear the words “copier, chocolate bar and cola? The [three] most associated words are Xerox, Hershey’s and Coke.”
Owning a word in the prospect’s mind is so strong of a foothold, that the word becomes a generic name—and sometimes even a verb—for the category.
As examples of this, we have Kleenex for facial tissues, Chapstick for lip balm, Post-its for sticky notes, and Google for Internet search. (Here’s a fun list of generic and genericized trademarks that you can use to amuse your friends at your next cocktail party.)
Further, you can solidify your position in the prospect’s mind if you isolate the most important attribute of your product or service. Heinz owns the word ketchup, yet the most important attribute it also owns is slow (“Slowest ketchup in the West”), because it takes very long to slide out. This has generated lots of tips and tricks to be able to get this beloved condiment out of the bottle and onto our food… to the tune of 10+ million results (!) if you Google how to get ketchup out of the bottle. (Did you notice I just used Google as a verb? That’s the Law of Focus at your service.)
As an added bonus, there’s the halo effect that comes with the word you choose. “If you strongly establish one benefit, the prospect is likely to give you a lot of other benefits too. A ‘thicker’ spaghetti sauce [Prego] implies quality, nourishing ingredients, value and so on [so much so, that big brands will go to court to defend their chosen words]. A ‘safer’ car [Volvo] implies better design and engineering.”
Now that you know this, what word will you choose to apply the Law of Focus in your prospect’s mind?
ACTION
TODAY: Think of the words that represent your product or service—or even the words that represent yourself if you are looking at creating a brand for you. Start making a list. Make a second list of the attributes that go with those words. These two lists will take a bit of time to develop, as you want to get the best word to represent you.
FUTURE: Get together with some of you colleagues or friends, and brainwrite to add to the lists that you had started. Besides the dictionary, a book that can help enormously with this is Words That Sell by Rick Bayan, as well as its sequel, More Words That Sell. Then vote on the words and select the one word + attribute that will differentiate you from your competition and position you solidly in your prospect’s mind.
Know someone who needs to find the one word? Please share this post with that person via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Creativity, Mindset, Opportunity, Planning, Resources, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 21 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Work doesn’t speak for itself
— From Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon (here’s a summary of the book)
“Close your eyes an imagine you’re a wealthy collector who’s just entered a gallery in an art museum. On the wall facing you there are two gigantic canvases, each more than 10 feet [3 meters] tall. Both paintings depict a harbor at sunset. From across the room they look identical: the same ships, the same reflections on the water, the same sun at the same stage of setting. You go in for a closer look. […] You can’t detect a single difference. […] You can’t find a label or a museum tag anywhere… The head curator of the museum walks in. You eagerly inquire as to the origin of your new obsessions. The curator tells you that Painting A was painted in the 17th century by a Dutch master. And Painting B… is a forgery. It was copied last week by a graduate student at the local art college.”
Which painting do you want to buy now? You would expect that if it were the exact same thing, both to the trained and the untrained eye, either one of the paintings would bring the same joy. But our mind doesn’t work like that. Our assessment of things, people, services, situations, etc., “is deeply affected by what [we are told] about it.”
We tend to think that our work speaks for itself, but it doesn’t. We are naturally curious and we want to know the story behind it. That’s why we relate (or are repelled!) by the stories brands and people tell.
“The stories you tell about the work you do have a huge effect on how people feel and what they understand about your work, and how people feel and what they understand about your work affects how they value it.”
At the core, we are undeniably human. We need to feel a connection, and personal stories create strong bonds.
Why is this important?
Because our work leaves prints: “realize it or not, you’re already telling a story about your work. Every email you send, every text, every conversation, every blog comment, every tweet, every photo, every video—they’re all bits and pieces of a multimedia narrative you’re constantly constructing. If you want to be more effective when sharing yourself and your work, you need to become a better storyteller. You need to know what a good story is and how to tell one.”
So, what story do you need to tell?
Image from Austin Kleon’s Flickr account: Show Your Work! Album. (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
ACTION
TODAY: We have many stories that depict different aspects of our lives. What is one story that you would like to enhance for your work or your life to be perceived as stronger/better/more valuable/fill in your blank? Please note that enhancing doesn’t mean lying or exaggerating; it means highlighting the best and most positive angle for connections to form, sparks to fly and value to rise.
FUTURE: Take some time to enhance your story in a way that it will connect and create a strong bond with your desired audience. That way your work will—purposely and intentionally—“speak by itself,” saying what you want it to say. Ask yourself the following questions (merely as a starting point), and then go from there to begin crafting your story. It will be very helpful if you can share your story with someone whom you trust and who has your best interest in mind. This person will give you helpful feedback to make your story even stronger. (Hit me up if you want to share your story, I’d love to give you feedback!)
- What do you want to communicate?
- What is your expertise?
- What is your superpower?
- What is a challenge you’ve overcome that someone else can relate?
- How have you been in your customer’s/another person’s shoes?
- What experience do you have with a particular situation/issue that you can share?
- What epiphany did you have when you did XYZ that you can share?
- What example can you give of how you use XYZ that you can share?
Know someone whose story could be told from a different, better angle? Please share this post with that person via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
