Tag: coaching

Purpose at Our Core

Posted on by

Purpose is the Foundation

Grad with no Purpose

Many years ago, I partnered with a good friend to start a career counseling business.  Now, we were not one of the “job in a drawer” places where someone just flips through the Rolodex and says, “here’s your perfect job!”  We actually worked with our clients to help  identify where they would be happiest and where they would be at their element.  Where they can be fulfilled and fit in.  We were trying to do something of significance, because so often we ran across people who really had no clue who they were or what they were designed to do.

Purposeless Education

Case in point.  One client comes in.  She has gone through college, went to medical school and became a doctor.  Went through residency.  At the end of residency, decided she did not want to be a doctor.  Went back to school and studied psychiatry.  Went through residency again.  Decided she did not want to be a psychiatrist.  Now, 30 years old and all that time and money spent in school and programs – all that knowledge and training – and she had no idea what she wanted to be.  Sitting in my office, tears and sobbing, she felt lost and that all was lost.  She had no idea where to go, what to do, how to make a difference.  She had no purpose.

We All Seek Purpose

She is not alone.  Too many are in the same place.  Not sure where to go or what to do.  Many times, they made decisions on what to do or what job to take or career to pursue based on someone else’s dream.  So they trudge along in a job they can’t stand, where they can’t wait for quitting time to come around or can’t wait until they hit retirement age and do something else.  But even retiring doesn’t solve the problem.  They still feel lost and without direction, they are just doing it from home instead of the office.  There are even studies to suggest that retiring leads to an earlier death.  I emphasized the suggest because it is far from conclusive.  Anyway, we are lost for most of our lives without purpose.

Benefits of Purpose

Purpose gives us positive emotions that bolster us.  We feel passion to drive us.  We feel emotional connection.  We feel satisfaction at having an impact.  We feel fulfillment at adding value to someone else.  Purpose does more than provide direction, it provides meaning and significance to our lives.  As a result, working to fulfill our purpose can lead to more profitability personally and corporately in part because we will have a more positive attitude.  That improved attitude will allow us to view the challenges of life in a different perspective.  Mountains become molehills, nothing seems insurmountable.  Sacrifice seems more temporary and more worthwhile.  We feel and see victory.

Do you know your purpose?  Do you really feel the significance of what you are doing, how it impacts others and adds value to them?  If not, know that IT IS NEVER TOO LATE to discover it.  At the same time, you don’t want to wait.  Some wait too late and miss the opportunity to discover and live that purpose.  As Oliver Wendell Holmes said,

Alas for those that never sing,
But die with all their music in them!

Some day may never come and the greatest tragedy of all isn’t taking a risk and losing it all, it’s going to the end of your life on earth with that song still in your heart.

Purpose Finds your heartIf you know your purpose, truly feel the passion that drives you, I commend you and hope that you are pursuing it on a daily basis.  Let me know how I can help you.

If you don’t know your purpose, make a commitment to start TODAY to begin the journey of discovery.  Don’t be afraid to seek help finding it.  Trusting a professional coach can help you accelerate the process and more accurately identify your purpose.  You would not be alone in this; a large number of successful corporate executives use coaches for this and other reasons.  However you do it, DON’T WAIT ANOTHER DAY!  Take that first step.  You can do this, it’s in you.  Let the song out.

Action Plan

  1. Sit down RIGHT NOW and do one of two things:
    1. If you know your purpose, list the things you need to do DAILY to live it.  Schedule time on your calendar to work it and commit yourself to the process.
    2. If you don’t know your purpose, commit to do something TODAY to start the process of discovery.  Not sure where to start or what to do, find a coach.  Do it now.

Risky Business: The Power of WHY

Posted on by

Why Powers Risk

WHY Power WHY power makes us do things that others question.  It has been almost three years now since I took this very risky venture on several fronts.  I chose to work for myself instead of for someone else.  I chose to change my primary business from technical training and development to cultivating leadership and personal growth.  I chose to invest in being a Founding Partner in the John Maxwell Team and a certified leadership speaker/trainer/coach.  I chose to pour my resources into developing that business.  For a variety of reasons, it is still not a booming success but I know it is coming and continue to work towards that.

Why Powers Purpose?

The big question I usually get is WHY I chose to make the change to leadership development and fostering personal growth as opposed to sticking where I was with training and development consulting (I still do that by the way).  I can only say that it is the answer to that very same WHY that drives me. Over the years I have worked for several companies, large and small, and through that with many client companies.  A consistent issue I saw in many organizations is that there was plenty of management going on and very little leadership.  And there is a difference, which I have talked about in an Ah-Ha! Moment of the Week video.

And what I saw from this was that most of the problems of the organization was due to that lack of leadership.  I truly believe that

Everything Rises and Falls on Leadership

and that the level of effectiveness of leadership is what determines how a company succeeds and grows or withers and dies.  Small businesses today especially need to embrace this because in this hard economy it becomes real easy to lose vision what you are trying to accomplish and how you are going to get there.  You get lost in the trees of survival that you can no longer see the forest.  Then, when things do clear you are totally unprepared to take advantage of the growth opportunities before you.  I believe in small business and I believe in YOU and that’s the WHY that drives me every day! It’s why I became the TOP-LINE GUY to help you achieve BOTTOM-LINE RESULTS!

Action Plan

  1. What’s your WHY?  Is it specific?  Just making money is not enough; just serving people is not enough.  You need a WHY that will drive you through hard times.  A WHY that will compel you to take risks, financial and otherwise.  A WHY that will set the stage for you to swallow pride and independence enough to seek help to excel.  A WHY that will drive you to learn what you need to learn and gather who you need to gather.  A WHY that demands a legacy to go far beyond where you will ever take it.
  2. Write that WHY down.  Remind yourself of it every day.  Let it infiltrate your organization in the vision, in the mission statement, in the customer service, in employee relations; in everything you do.
  3. Not sure how to make all that happen?  Not sure of your WHY?  Seek a coach or partner who can help you identify it, define it, and live it.  There’s a reason that highly successful organizations have coaches; because that’s how they became highly successful organizations.

Turn the Airplane Around – A Change to Your Path

Posted on by

Change of Mindset

Driving to a meeting this morning I was listening, as I usually do, to “Automobile University”.  If you haven’t done this, it’s a practice I highly recommend.  Instead of listening to local radio and hearing the same song five times in an hour or tuning in (bleah!) talk radio or the news, try instead taking advantage of that really nice CD player you have and pop in motivational stories or information.  I will alternately listen to audio with John Maxwell, Zig Ziglar, Jim Rohn, Les Brown, and the CD that comes in every issue of Success Magazine.  This is especially great for those who don’t have the time to read constantly (that pretty much covers all of us).  Positive, inspirational, motivational, and informative.  Great way to start off!

Flight Path Change

plane-taking-off Anyway, I was listening to Zig Ziglar tell an old familiar story, which I’ll retell from my perspective.

I boarded a plane at Orlando International Airport that was bound for Seattle, Washington with no stops.  The plane took off and after being in the air for about a half hour, it was no longer heading directly for Seattle.  The earth rotates, winds blow, all kinds of physical forces work against the plane heading straight for Seattle.  Don’t know where we are going, but it ain’t Seattle.  

So the pilot, wise man that he is, turns the plane around and heads back to Orlando, lands and starts all over again.

What?!

Of course he doesn’t!  He and the co-pilot simply make navigational adjustments to re-direct the plane back towards Seattle in mid-flight.  It would be silly and waste of time to head back and start all over again.

That’s the story of you and me.  When we attempt to get somewhere in life and accomplish something a monkey wrench gets thrown into the works.  It is inevitable that things will not go according to plan.  Too many times, the way that a person will try to solve that problem is by tossing the whole plan out the window and making a new; starting all over again.  It tends to be either/or; a change in the plan doesn’t enter our mind.

Change Your Plan

change the path to get to your destinationStop!  Think!

It’s not necessarily the whole plan, just parts of it.  Sometimes even it’s not the plan at all, just outside forces that interfere and cause a problem.  Instead of throwing out the whole plan, just make adjustments.  Don’t change where you want to go, simply change the path you will follow to get there.  Keep yourself directed, don’t lose sight of where you want to be!  The rocky path in front of us can distract us, but you need tunnel vision so you don’t accept anything other than the goal you wish to accomplish.

Action Plan

  1. Take a look at your goals and think about one that recently had a setback.  Did you toss out the plan?  Have you made a new one or abandoned the goal altogether?
  2. Re-focus.  Do you still want that goal?  What can you do differently to get there?  Is there something you can try that no one has tried before?  This is especially good when conventional methods aren’t working.
  3. Take the first step NOW!  When we take an immediate action, no matter how small, we increase the likelihood of success.

Connecting – Networking’s Common Flaw

Posted on by

Networking – Not Connecting

It is inevitable, whether you like to be in groups or not, that for a small business to succeed you or someone representing you are  involved with some networking groups.  These groups are typically formed with the primary purpose of introducing people and collecting contacts and therefore, in theory, generating leads.  There are lots of these groups around pretty much anywhere you are; literally hundreds of them.  BNI groups abound, groups like WOAMTEC that cater to a specific gender or genre, community service clubs like Rotary and Kiwanis have networking aspects to them, chambers of commerce sponsor groups, trade associations create them, and sometimes just someone with a mind for a target audience will create them.

I have belonged to several over time and visited many others.  They all have the their advantages and disadvantages and most are at least a little productive eventually.  The biggest issue I have with most of them is that the participants really don’t know what they are doing and it becomes more of a mingling than a networking.  The fatal flaw is that you aren’t connecting, you are simply meeting and greeting.  Some of the common mistakes I see are:

  • business card poker is NOT connectingPeople who show up and pass out their business cards like they are dealing poker.  Sometimes they include some type of greeting but usually it is just their brief pitch.  The assumption that I am going to do business with you or refer you to anyone else just because I have your business card is a fatal flaw.  That’s supporting your printer, not connecting.

Keep the card in your pocket, I don’t want it.

  • Shooting for quantity of contacts over quality.  I have seen people come in, make a point of talking to every single person in the room briefly, collect cards, and rush out confident that they have done their job.  Like the example of passing out the cards above, you have done nothing to further your cause other than collect some additional names you will probably add to your list to spam until they get sick of it.  Again, not connecting.
  • The assumption that you are going to do business with anyone in the room.  Yes, on a VERY RARE occasion that may happen, but it’s not the purpose of your being there.  Think about it:  did you go to the meeting to buy from anyone there?  What makes you think they did?  The purpose of networking is not to do business.  We’ll talk about that purpose (connecting) further down in the post.
  • Relying on your “elevator speech” as the entire moment of contact with anyone in the room.  I am not a big fan of elevator speeches for this very reason.  In case you don’t know what an elevator speech is, it works off the theory that if you were in an elevator with someone you really wanted to contact you basically have 30 seconds to impress so you need to present a clear, concise summary of who you are and what you do.  It works off the assumption that if someone in the elevator or at a networking group asks you what you do they really want to know.  Chances are they don’t; they really want to tell you what they do.

Connecting – Not Networking

I have spent time going around to networking groups and pointing out these fatal flaws and proposing that they do something different.  If you tire of this merry-go-round that gets nowhere, why not try connecting instead of networking.  Connecting is all about building REAL relationships with people, not just acquaintances or business card collections. You make friends, not contacts.  And that’s what networking is really all about.  You don’t have to go anywhere new, you can still attend the same events, but your intentions, purpose, and approach are different.  The only thing that will change is you.

The idea is that you want to spend more time being interested than interesting.  At the heart of it, people want to know that you find them fascinating.  They don’t want to know that you have a new, revolutionary product or service; they want to know that you can help them, that you care about them, and that they can trust you.  Take this approach and in just a short time I believe it will amaze you at how things change for the better.  Better authentic relationships with people, leading to better referrals and increase in closings.  Just changing this mindset makes a world of difference.  As Dale Carnegie said,

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”

Here are some tips to get started:

  • Be one of the first to arrive and the last to leave to maximize your contact time.  Budget your time so that you aren’t rushed.  Being hurried shows up in your attitude, your speech, and your body language.  No one thinks you care for them when you are in a hurry and you aren’t really connecting if you are in a hurry.
  • Set your goal before you walk in the door to focus on 2-3 quality contacts.  If you meet more, and your certainly will, then great.  But focus on actually initiating a relationship with 2-3 people where you are really connecting with them.
  • Ditch the elevator speech.  Marketing Guru Seth Godin says no one buys anything in a elevator.  Give short, concise answers to inquiries about you and quickly turn it around to ask questions about them.  You want them to talk the majority of the time you spend with them.  People who let other people talk about themselves are regarded by them as the best conversationalist in the world.
  • When you do talk, share more personal information than business information.  Real connecting with people happens on common ground and that is always personal.  You may find you went to the same school, at both natives to the area, have kids, etc.

Commonality makes connections.

  • Here’s the biggie: instead of looking for what you are going to get from each relationship, look for what you can give.  What can you do for them, especially if unrelated to your business.  Can you connect them with someone who can solve a problem you don’t address?  Perhaps they need a good medical specialist or are looking for a new church or a good place that serves authentic viking food.  How can you add value to them.  Ironically, when you do that you will eventually receive value in return.  It is really true, what goes around comes around.

Action Plan

  1. Think about your next meeting.  Pick two or three people you will focus on building a relationship with this week.
  2. In your conversation with them, find one thing you can do for them THIS WEEK and then DO IT.

Call Now