Why Leaders Are Learners – Part II

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Inspired Leaders Have GRIT

On October 10, 2014 I was blessed to be a host for L2:Learn-Lead, the new annual leadership simulcast produced by the John Maxwell Company. In the last post, I shared the opening keynote by John C. Maxwell to initiate this series. Today, I want to share some of the thoughts from Linda Kaplan Thaler.

About Linda

Linda is the co-founder and head of Publicis Kaplan Thaler, a marketing and advertising firm. She is definitely a leader within her industry; creative and innovative. She knows how to get things done. Among the many claims to fame she has is the creation of the Kodak Moment, the AFLAC Duck, and the Toys R Us Kid jingle. She is also co-author of a few books, including The Power of Nice: How to Conquer the Business World with Kindness.

GRIT Creates Extraordinary

Linda spoke on GRIT: How Ordinary People Become Extraordinary. GRIT is an acronym for Guts, Resilience, Industriousness, and Tenacity. Here are some of Linda’s thoughts from her talk:

98% of highly successful people were considered average.
- Walt Disney was fired from his first job for being “uncreative”
- General Colin Powell was a C- student
- Michael Jordan wasn’t good enough to make his high school varsity basketball team
- What makes the difference is their GRIT.

[snaptweet]Anyone with perseverance and pluck can go from ordinary to extraordinary. -Linda Kaplan Thaler[/snaptweet]

If you are brave enough, stop dreaming and start doing!

[snaptweet]I never spent one minute dreaming about success. I worked for it. -Estee Lauder[/snaptweet]

Overprepare and outwork everyone else
We get easily distracted and need to refocus on where we are going.

Four Keys to Help Stay on Track

SOLVE SMALL PROBLEMS – when you resolve the small problems that pop up regularly, it prepares you to solve the big problems.
MAKE YOUR BED – Military recruits are taught early on how to make their bed first thing every morning and to make it neat and precise. Part of the reason is discipline but a good deal of it is that you accomplished something immediately. If you accomplish nothing else that day, you made your bed.
FINISH WHAT YOU START – With busy schedules and competing priorities, it’s easy to jump from one thing to another and not really finish anything. Successful people finish.
FORGET WILLPOWER – No one has enough willpower to stay the course consistently simply based on their will. Develop habits and create situations that take willpower out of the equation.

Next post will cover Tim Sanders thoughts from L2:Learn-Lead.

Action Items:

How will you apply this to your life?
What do you need to change?
What should you share or teach to others?

How to Be a “With Me” Leader

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Bringing People Alongside You is Crucial

Years ago, Stanley Ott wrote a book called The Joy of Discipling. If you are faith-oriented, I recommend it. Not a long book but definitely a powerful one.

In the book, Ott describes the premise of discipling (teaching or guiding) others is through a “With Me” approach. Bringing them along with you but also walking along with them; for the journey is not for one person but for both of you. Along the way, both of your grow.

As a leader, your objective is not to be out front; it’s to be beside. It’s not to say, “I have all the answers“; it’s to say “Let’s find the answers together.” It’s the challenge to bring them along with you on your journey, yet at the same time exploring their journey as well.

That’s critical because if the relationship only benefits you, the other person is gonna lose interest. A leader helps others get where they are going while also showing the way to where that person is going. It means you have to care for them, want to know their life story. It means wanting to know where they have been and, even more so, wanting to know where they want to go. And at all times, being a leader requires having someone with you. Otherwise, all you are doing is taking a lonely walk.

[snaptweet]”If you think you are a leader and there is no one behind (or beside) you, then you are just taking a walk!” -John Maxwell[/snaptweet]

So the objective is to always have someone with you, even as you learn. Discovery as a team or group is so much more productive and rewarding.

Who are you bringing beside you? Are you helping them on their journey, or just dragging them along on yours?

How to Have Work Worth Celebrating

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Labor Day Means No Work?

This week we celebrated Labor Day! Our family went out in the boat and went to a little island on the Indian River for swimming and a picnic. (NOTE TO SELF: When you put on the sunscreen, don’t forget your face!). Overall, a great time!

I did a little research to see about the purpose of Labor Day. According to the Department of Labor, the purpose of Labor Day is a yearly national tribute to the contributions that workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. In other words, it’s a chance for those who work hard throughout the year to sit back a little bit and celebrate the importance of the contribution they have made to making this country what it is today.

Work That Deserves It

There are some though that don’t put forth that effort all the time. They sit back and wait for things to come to them and wonder why they don’t get the success they want. I keep a poster up on my wall in my office to remind me of this. It’s a quote by Maya Angelou that simply says,

Nothing works unless you do

So if you want that success, you have to put forth that effort first.

Here’s some key things to remember to work towards achieving your success that are going to help you throughout the rest of the year.

BE IN THE MOMENT. When you are at work, be at work. When you are home, be at home. Focus on giving your best to the moment and you will be more productive and more effective in every situation.
REFUSE TO ASSIGN BLAME. Many people want to contribute their lack of success to the economy, the administration, any number of things. But ultimately you have to take responsibility for your own success. If you do that, you can overcome any obstacles in your way.
WORK YOUR 1%. We have talked before being a one-percenter; you have grow yourself by 1% a day to be the person you want to be and achieving the success you want to achieve.
SETTLE FOR NOTHING LESS THAN YOUR BEST. How you do anything is how you do everything! When you put forth your best effort in every situation, success is naturally going to follow.

What ways do you make sure your work is successful? Comment below.

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How to Jump-Start Yourself By Learning Through Others

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Welcome Aboard, Thrill-seekers and Danger-lovers!

Much of my background is as a professional trainer. Early on I learned the value of learning through others. Where did I get started on that?

The Jungle Cruise!

That’s right! This is Jungle Paul!

Working at Walt Disney World while in college at UCF found me on the one ride in the park where my personality fit to a “T”. Standing up with a microphone and making a fool of myself for 10 minutes at a time, eight hours a day, was right up my alley. I was not Skipper Dan by any means, but I loved the schtick! I was trained and watched and learned from my trainer. I spent time learning through others; what they did well and what they didn’t do well that I could improve upon.

By learning through others I became good enough that they assigned me as a trainer on the ride. I had even more passion for that and poured myself into creating the best training experiences I could.

Jungle Trainer

One of the techniques we applied was a standard formula for the training business:

Tell me how it’s done
Show me how it’s done
Help me to do it
Allow me to do it on my own

Notice the key there. We didn’t just throw them on the ride and say, “Okay, talk!” We explained and demonstrated first. In Boy Scout training, this is called EDGE (Explain, Demonstrate, Guide, Enable).

They watched and learned how to do it right by learning through others. They absorbed a model to help them do it right. It allowed them to confidently believe they could do it too. This saved them some of the pain of doing it wrong consistently until they finally get it right.

[snaptweet]No matter what you do, learning through others do can help.[/snaptweet]

This is especially true when you pick the right people to learn from. Find people who excel and study them. Read books about them if they exist. Interview them if possible and ask about failures more than successes.

[snaptweet]It’s in failures where the greatest lessons are learned.[/snaptweet]

Take what they do well and add your own flavor to it. Take what they learned from their failures and design ways to avoid it yourself. Save yourself some pain.

Who can you study today to help you become better at what you do? How will you apply their failures to your life? How will you apply their successes?

Comment Below.

Saying NO in the Face of Amazing Opportunity

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Taking Work as it Comes

When you work for yourself opportunities to earn money are precious. Anyone who doesn’t think that way doesn’t last long in business for themselves.

The challenge comes in deciding what to take and what to refuse. I have heard many advise to take everything, especially when money is tight. One of the popular quotes cited lately by Richard Branson concerns opportunity:

If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later!

The interpretation by many is to simply take every opportunity that comes along and then figure it out. Yet, that’s not really what Branson is saying here. You need to emphasize the word amazing in that; for it is the amazing opportunities we don’t want to pass up as they don’t come very often and are usually the launching points for greater things.

What’s an Amazing Opportunity?

How we define an amazing opportunity is what makes a difference. An opportunity for steady work, or to increase our reach, or increase our income significantly is not necessarily an amazing opportunity; especially if it takes us into areas that don’t speak to our strengths.

[snaptweet]We are most significant when we embrace the amazing opportunities that utilize and challenge our strengths.[/snaptweet]

Anything else not only is second best, but threatens to compromise everything we have worked towards prior to that.

Saying No to the Amazing Opportunity

That doesn’t always make it easy.

Earlier this week, I was presented with an opportunity to lead training on a course in Social Media for Business. I had nothing else income generating going that week in question and my first impulse was to say, “why not?” It’s important to note that while I blog (as you can see here), have a Facebook fan page for both my company and for the L2:Learn-Lead Orlando simulcast event, post frequently on Twitter, have a LinkedIn page, and a Google+ page; I am not what you would call a “social media expert”. It would have been a significant and sharp learning curve to overcome to be considered authoritative enough to teach a course on it. It’s not my area of strength.

[snaptweet]I have a policy that I stick with what I am good at and try not to pretend to be good at something I’m not.[/snaptweet]

NO is sometimes the best answer

It speaks to my integrity with myself and others and to my core values. I never want to present myself as an expert on something I’m not and just as important is I don’t want to spend my time trying to be good at something I’m not and neglect getting better at my areas of strength.

I turned the job down. As I said, I’m not a social media expert but fortunately I know people who are. So I was able to refer them to someone who was able to meet their needs and provided an “amazing opportunity” for someone else.