by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Resources, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 54 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Leaders take initiative
— From The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow by John C. Maxwell
A trait in leaders is that they always take initiative. In The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, leadership guru John C. Maxwell pointed out that it is a leader’s responsibility to initiate a connection with his or her followers.
Yet, “that’s not the only area where leaders must show initiative,” says Maxwell. “They must always look for opportunities and be ready to take action.”
Maxwell is a genius when it comes to distilling the characteristics of every aspect of leadership. And in this case, his brilliance comes through again in The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader, with four qualities that he believes enable leaders to take initiative and make things happen.
1. Leaders know what they want. Clarity and vision are the keys here. Maxwell points to Napoleon Hill who said that the starting point of all achievement is desire. “If you are going to be an effective leader, you’ve got to know what you want [and where you’re going]. That’s the only way you’ll recognize opportunity when it comes.”
2. Leaders push themselves to act. “There’s an old saying, ‘You can if you will.’ Initiators don’t wait for other people to motivate them. They know it is their responsibility to push themselves beyond their comfort zone. And they make it a regular practice.”
3. Leaders take more risks. “When leaders know what they want and can push themselves to act, they still have one more hurdle. That’s willingness to take risks. Proactive people always take risks. But one of the reasons good leaders are willing to take risks is that they recognize there is a price for not initiating too.” Maxwell shares a quote from President John F. Kennedy:
“There are risks and costs to a program of action, but they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”
4. Leaders make more mistakes. “The good news for initiators is that they make things happen. The bad news is that they make lots of mistakes. […] Even though initiating leaders experience more failure, they don’t let it bother them. The greater the potential, the greater their chance for failure. […] If you want to achieve great things as a leader, you must be willing to initiate and put yourself on the line.”
As Maxwell reflects on these traits, he asks, “When was the last time you initiated something significant in your life?” I’ll leave you with that thought to ponder today and a quote by former Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca who said, “Even the right decision is the wrong decision if it is made too late.”
Where do you need to jump-start your initiative?
ACTION
TODAY: Think about something that you’ve wanted to do for some time but have been putting it off. Why is that? Analyze your mindset and determine why you’re hesitant. Ask why five times so that you can get to the bottom of it and take initiative today—even if it’s just a tiny little step—towards making it happen.
FUTURE: Opportunity is everywhere. That is a wonderful thing, but it can also be overwhelming. Cultivate a mindset of discernment so that you can take initiative and act only on those opportunities in which you can succeed. That’s where your time and efforts will be rewarded.
Know someone who is constantly taking initiative? Please share this post with that person, he or she deserves recognition for being an initiator, hats off! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Collaboration, Mindset, Planning, Productivity, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 21 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: ASAP is stressful, use it wisely
— From REWORK: Change the way you work forever by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
The post on being conscious about the language we use left me thinking about other words and sayings that have become common—but shouldn’t be.
One of those is ASAP or As Soon As Possible.
ASAP is stressful because it always denotes urgency. ASAP means drop everything and pay attention to this.
I get stressed out—and know a lot of people who do too—when colleagues used ASAP liberally, like salt on their food. That’s why I loved what Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson say about it in their awesome book Rework:
ASAP is poison.
Stop saying ASAP. We get it. It’s implied. Everyone wants things done as soon as they can be done.
When you turn into one of these people who adds ASAP to the end of every request, you’re saying everything is high priority. And when everything is high priority, nothing is. (Funny how everything is a top priority until you actually have to prioritize things.)
ASAP is inflationary. It devalues any request that doesn’t say ASAP. Before you know it, the only way to get anything done is by putting the ASAP sticker on it.
Most things just don’t warrant that kind of hysteria. If a task doesn’t get done this very instant, nobody is going to die. Nobody is going to lose their job. It won’t cost the company a ton of money. What it will do is create artificial stress, which leads to burnout and worse.
So reserve your use of emergency language for true emergencies. The kind where there are direct, measurable consequences to inaction. For everything else, chill out.
What other words or phrases have you come across that you’d like to veto from our language? Let me know in the comments here and I’ll write a post about it!
ACTION
TODAY: The authors are right in saying, “When everything is high priority, nothing is.” Take a moment to prioritize your schedule today and for the rest of the week so that you’re not telling yourself “ASAP” unconsciously and operating under unneeded stress!
FUTURE: Do you know someone who operates in ASAP mode all the time? Grab a cup of coffee with that person, and share your willingness to work as a team, but be candid in mentioning that seeing ASAP so often is very stressful and thus underproductive. Set up a system to work together that will (1) ensure you get the projects on time, and (2) enable you to know when projects are really urgent to devote your whole attention to them. I’ve found that a cup of coffee works wonders for most things: it creates bonds of friendship, better understanding among colleagues, and much willingness to work together (and have coffee again in a future).
Help someone get out of ASAP mode by sharing this post via email, Facebook or Twitter!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Mindset, Tools, Wellbeing
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 27 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Compare well if you’re going to compare to others
— From: Habit Changers: 81 Game-Changing Mantras to Mindfully Realize Your Goals by M. J. Ryan
If you’re going to compare to others, compare well, was the wise counsel that M.J. Ryan—leading expert on change and human fulfillment, and author of Habit Changers—gave to a young business owner who was in her twenties, and who was complaining about “not being ‘as far along’ on the success path as her peers.”
Ryan says that this is a very common feeling: “We look around, rank ourselves on some invisible scale of achievement, and usually find ourselves wanting. There’s always someone who’s done more, made more money, gotten more glory, no matter our age and stage.”
And despite what the experts say that we should not compare ourselves to others, Ryan points out that is impossible. “Part of what our prefrontal cortex exists to do is take in information and compare that to conclusions and judgments it has previously made.”
Ryan suggests not battling this tendency of our brain to compare ourselves to others but instead, as she told her young client, “be sure to compare well.”
I think this compare well mantra can serve us all. Ryan recalls the conversation:
“What do you mean [compare well]?” [The client] asked. “Well,” [Ryan] said, “What does success look like to you?” She had her answer immediately: “Being my own boss, having the freedom to do things when and how I want.” “So when you compare your situation to others given those criteria, what do you notice?” [Ryan] replied. “I’ve already got what I want!” [The client] exclaimed! “I’ve been so busy comparing myself against a yardstick I’m not even interested in that I didn’t even notice the success I’ve created.”
Going forward, since we will all compare, it behooves us to compare well. This way, as the author mentions, we will be in alignment with the success we truly want and comparing ourselves by the measurements we truly value.
ACTION
TODAY: Who have you been comparing yourself to? Decide instead to compare well: Ask yourself the two questions that Ryan asked her client: What does success look like to you? So, when you compare your situation to others given those criteria, what do you notice? Your answers will be revealing: (1) they’ll make you grateful for getting clarity and for being where you are; (2) they’ll set you in alignment with your definition of success; and (3) they’ll point you towards the path you must follow to achieve (or to continue to attain) the success you want.
FUTURE: Remember that if you are going to compare anyway, you must compare well! There is no need to compare someone’s sizzle reel (especially from social media) to your everyday life. Don’t let that deceive you or bring you down: we all make our best effort to look great online. Compare yourself well and only to yourself as you move in the direction of your goals.
Know someone who would like this post? Please share: Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Planning, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 6 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: What’s the difference between performance goals and learning goals?
— From Who’s Got Your Back: The Breakthrough Program to Build Deep, Trusting Relationships That Create Success–and Won’t Let You Fail by Keith Ferrazzi.
When setting goals, it’s important to understand the difference between performance goals and learning goals. “Not knowing the difference can harm the way you think about the future,” says Keith Ferrazzi, author of Who’s Got Your Back.
“Certain goals, known as ‘performance goals,’ imply a finite result, like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow… far more important is developing a process and a roadmap that help you achieve that income in a given time. In other words, you should be thinking about the rainbow, not just the pot of gold.”
The process and the roadmap that the author is referring to are the learning goals. And when setting goals he recommends having both types.
Performance goals are the goals that we normally think of: specific outcomes such as losing 10 pounds, getting a new job, traveling to Hawaii, getting married, etc.
Learning goals “emphasize acquiring new skills and knowledge to push and expand your skills and career forward.” Learning goals are key to accomplish our performance goals.
Here are a few examples that the author offers to make even clearer the distinction between these two goals:
| PERFORMANCE GOAL |
LEARNING GOAL |
| Lose 10 pounds |
Learn to cook healthier meals |
| Increase Web traffic by 50 percent |
Find five new marketing tactics |
| Boost sales 10 percent |
Learn how to hone your best pitch |
Ferrazzi goes on to say that “performance goals can be motivating [but the] flip side is that, set inappropriately, they can be intimidating and sometimes debilitating when we fall short.”
Josh Kaufman, author of The Personal MBA states a similar thought in this post.
Kaufman says that when we set performance goals that are not directly under the control of our efforts we may become terribly disappointed if something happens that prevents us from attaining our goal.
For instance, he notes that if we set a performance goal of losing 20 pounds, and something happens that makes our weight fluctuate on any given day, we might feel very frustrated. Instead, if we make our performance goal something that we can indeed control, such as 30 minutes of exercise every day, we can then be satisfied with the outcome once we’ve performed the task(s) needed to fulfill our goals.
Further—and this is probably the most important thing to take away from today’s idea—Ferrazzi says, “With learning goals, failure is an impossibility.” He explains:
In the course of creating and carrying out your goals, of course you are going to make some mistakes. It’s part of learning. No one with ambitious career or life plans gets ahead without experiencing glitches and setbacks. […] But once you switch your attention to learning goals, the whole idea of “failure” starts to make less sense.
When you are constantly learning from everything you do, failure ceases to be an option.
With learning goals, since you are learning, putting into action, tweaking and adjusting to make the outcome better, and repeating often, you are naturally moving into the direction of your performance goal with actions that are under your control. That is why I love it when the author says that failure is an impossibility—it truly is!
ACTION
TODAY: What performance goal are you working towards where you’ve had mixed or variable success? Examine what you are doing and determine what learning goals and actions under your control you need to add to the mix so that you can get the results you desire.
FUTURE: When setting goals in the future, create the habit of doing so incorporating performance goals that you can control and learning goals that will make it impossible to fail.
Know someone who could benefit from reading this post? Please share it! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Celebration, Creativity, Mindset, Opportunity, Tools, Wellbeing
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 55 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Sharing accomplishments on social media? Be generous, authentic and enthusiastic
— From The Art of People: 11 Simple People Skills That Will Get You Everything You Want by Dave Kerpen
In The Art of People, Dave Kerpen recalls sharing accomplishments via social media and the reactions from his friends:
“So excited! We won the WOMMIE award for word of mouth marketing excellence for the second year in a row!”
After this announcement, a casual friend of Kerpen sent him the following private message: “Enough already, Dave! I know you won an award or two, I know you’re excited about it all, but stop shoving all this self-promotion in our faces!”
That message stung “probably because there was some truth to it,” says Kerpen. His company had just won the award for the second year in a row, and he was very happy about it and had been sharing accomplishments (this and others) “proudly and liberally” on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Very likely, the person that messaged him saw the posts on all three networks and got tired of it.
Kerpen remembers being upset and confused. “I was genuinely proud of our work and wanted to share the good news… On the other hand, I certainly didn’t want to get attention for being an egomaniacal braggart.”
He took the feedback to heart. “[He developed] a more modest attitude toward posting to social media… [being] humble, grateful and not overly self-promotional in [his] social media updates.”
In the meantime, unknown to Kerpen, the word humblebrag was being added to the Dictionary to describe exactly what he had started to do when sharing accomplishments.
So, when the following year his company won the WOMMIE Award again, he posted: “So honored and humbled to have received the WOMMIE Award for the 3rd year in a row! Thanks to the whole team @Likeablemedia!”
And to this post, came a different reaction from another one of Kerpen’s friends: “Dude, what’s with the humblebrag? Just gloat man, no need to fake being humble when you are dominating the award circuit!”
Kerpen was exasperated: “It seemed that no matter what I did, I couldn’t share my joy about accomplishments without offending some people.” The author goes on to say, “The problem with sharing accomplishments on social media… is there is no tone or body language to help convey your meaning, and that means it’s very easy for people to lose the context and not get your intention right.”
So, what to do? Does this mean no more sharing accomplishments? Never ever?
For Kerpen, the answer to that question is no, with two important caveats:
1. Be unafraid but as authentic (noncontrived) as possible in sharing accomplishments on social media.
2. Heap lots of authentic praise on others via social media as well.
The first point is simple: You’re going to be judged by people no matter what, so just be your authentic self and stand behind that authenticity no matter what people may say.
The second point is important too: Be quick to praise others in social media (and face-to-face). Authentic praise and compliments make people feel good, help them feel more comfortable in sharing their accomplishments, and, most important, show the world that you’re not all about yourself and are just as apt to sing another person’s praises as your own.
And the author sets out a challenge for us: “Scroll through your social media news feeds looking for opportunities to praise, congratulate, and promote others: your friends, colleagues, and followers. Be generous in retweeting people. Promote the heck out of everyone.”
My take on this?
As long as you are sharing your accomplishments with generosity, gratitude, authenticity and enthusiasm, your true friends and the people that love you are going to be genuinely happy and excited for you. And if you return the favor in sharing that excitement and congratulating people on their accomplishments and important milestones, everybody wins and we make this world a happier and better place.
ACTION
TODAY: What do you have to celebrate today? Big win or small win, share what makes your heart smile! Your circles will be very happy for you, and if you tag me on social media (Facebook, Twitter) I will be delighted to read about your accomplishment and happy to share!
FUTURE: Kerpen, a master of social media suggests the following: “Take a look at your last twenty social media updates and do a quick audit. How much are you promoting yourself versus promoting others? Ideally, you want to strike a balance of no more than 30 percent promoting yourself and at least 70 percent promoting others. […] Audit your next twenty social media updates and compare them with the previous twenty. Have you helped people see you as someone willing to praise others and unafraid to share his or her own accomplishments?”
And speaking of sharing… please do! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Productivity, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time for blocking your time: 3 minutes, 23 seconds:
TODAY’S IDEA: Blocking your time
— From The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months by Brian Moran and Michael Lennington
“If you are not in control of your time, you are not in control of your results,” say Brian Moran and Michael Lennington, productivity and execution gurus and authors of The 12 Week Year. Yet sometimes things come up throughout the day, mainly unplanned interruptions that “will eat up your valuable minutes” here and there.
What to do?
“Trying to reduce these interruptions usually doesn’t work well and it can be more difficult that just dealing with them… The key to successful time use—intentional time use—is not trying to eliminate those unplanned interruptions, but instead to block out regular time each week dedicated to your strategically important tasks.”
The authors call these blocks of time Performance Time, and they say, “It is the best approach to effectively allocating time that we have ever encountered.”
Performance Time uses a time-blocking system so that you can be in control of your time and maximize your effectiveness, thus, controlling your results.
The time blocking system is simple; there are three different kinds of blocks. Let’s look at each:
Strategic Blocks: A strategic block is a three-hour block of uninterrupted time that is scheduled into each week. During this block you accept no phone calls, no faxes, no emails, no visitors, no anything. Instead, you focus all your energy on preplanned tasks—your strategic and money-making activities.
Strategic blocks concentrate your intellect and creativity to produce breakthrough results. You will likely be astounded by the quantity and quality of the work you produce. For most people, one strategic block per week is sufficient.
Buffer Blocks: Buffer blocks are designed to deal with all the unplanned and low-value activities—like most email and voice mail—that arise through a typical day. Almost nothing is more unproductive and frustrating that dealing with constant interruptions, yet we’ve all had days when unplanned items dominated our time.
For some, one 30-minute buffer block a day is sufficient, while for others, two separate one-hour blocks may be necessary. The power of buffer blocks comes from grouping together activities that tend to be unproductive so that you can increase your efficiency in dealing with them and take greater control over the rest of your day.
Breakout Blocks: One of the key factors contributing to performance plateaus is the absence of free time. Very often entrepreneurs and professionals get caught up in working longer and harder, but this approach kills your energy and enthusiasm. To achieve greater results, what’s often necessary is not actually working more hours, but rather taking some time away from work.
[…] An effective breakout block is at least three-hours long and spent on things other than work. It is time scheduled away from your business during normal business hours that you will use to refresh and reinvigorate your mind, so that when you return to work, you can engage with more focus and energy.
For Performance Time to work better, the authors suggest going beyond merely scheduling these three blocks in your weekly calendar. “The more you can create a routine in your days and weeks, the more effective your execution will be.”
Moran and Lennington say it’s ideal—if you can—to schedule routine tasks at the same time on the same day each week. However, more important is to know when you are at your best (Morning? Afternoon? Evening?) and schedule your most important activities for that peak time when you’ll be super effective.
ACTION
TODAY: Take a look at your calendar and figure out when you can clear up some time to add Performance Time. If not today, schedule it between now and next week and stick to it.
FUTURE: Give Performance Time a shot and try it out for a week or two, or three… Tweak to where it works out best for you and stay with it for a while to start reaping its benefits.
Know someone who would benefit from reading this post? Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
