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.

What are you doing now that you really shouldn’t be doing? Is it in the wheelhouse of your strengths? What amazing opportunities are out there for you? What will you do to pursue them? Comment below.

How to Build Your Leadership Construction Projects

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Under Construction

Construction projects are fascinating. I’m a guy and like many can watch a construction site for quite a while and see what’s going on, even though I have nothing to do with the industry.

I was sitting in a coffee shop about halfway up one of the many towering office buildings in Dallas, Texas and out the window watched a construction project in action. One of the tall tower cranes was working. Since I was inside, I couldn’t hear anything, I could just see it work.

Equipping and Supplying the Project

Sleekly and silently the crane would swing around counter-clockwise and then stop. The cable and hook would lower all the way to the ground. Someone would attach some heavy machinery or a large metal bin to the hook and then signal. The hook would raise with its payload to about 5 stories high. Then, the crane would swing around clockwise, again silent and sleek, until it was over top of the building in progress. Then, cable, hook, and payload would lower the top floor of the building and deliver it’s cargo.

These cranes serve a very necessary and distinct purpose on these multi-story projects. Without one, carrying all the equipment and material up to the top levels becomes a very unwieldy and time-consuming project. So the crane helps everyone work more efficiently and effectively and saves the company time and money while increasing productivity.

The Leader as Tower Crane

Leaders serve similar roles. Good leaders often go about their work silently and smoothly, looking for where they can help others be more effective and productive by equipping them and supplying them with what they need. A good leader serves a very necessary purpose and if they are truly effective, their work is critical because they increase productivity, save time and money, and do things no one else can do.

[snaptweet]Great leaders do the things that no one else can do.[/snaptweet]

Lonely At the Top?

BTW, years ago I read a news story about those tower crane operators. They are usually stuck up there for hours, since climbing up an down can be very time-consuming and tiresome. As a result, they take of all their functions up there; eating, toilet, etc. The crane operator remarked that you can feel very isolated and even a little lonely up there on many an occasion.

Leadership is a role that can often make you feel isolated and lonely, especially if your leadership becomes more managerial instead of empowering. To prevent that, spend more time equipping and empowering your people. Even more so, spend time growing other leaders so you don’t feel so lonely at the top.

What do you do to serve as the tower crane for your team? Are you supplying and equipping them with what they need? How can you be more empowering? What leaders are your growing today?

Learning the Key to Success

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New World Order

There’s no doubt about it, we live in a complex world. And in this global economy it is important to be flexible; to be able to quickly respond to the changing demands of our society and our economy. Adapt to change or else. It’s the reality of the new economy – grow or die.

There is nothing in between.

The Learning Organization

The best way we grow is through continual learning. Peter Senge, in his book The Fifth Discipline, advanced the principal of the Learning Organization. Basically, a learning organization is one that engages all the members of the organization in continual learning. They recognize that as everyone learns, the opportunities grow through greater knowledge and capability. These companies invest in their people to move them and the organization forward.

Benefits of the Learning Organization

The result is a more empowered organization, one that is flexible enough to adapt, developing a mindset of creative solutions; it’s been proven that the more we learn the more creative we become. Employees collaborate more, there is improved employee morale, they are more productive, and you create an ongoing legacy, so that when the inevitable happens and someone moves on to another role, there is someone ready to step up into that role.

[snaptweet]Sustained success and profitability come from intentional continual learning. There is no substitute or shortcut.[/snaptweet]

How do we get started on becoming the learning organization we desire to be?

Just think DIME:

DAILY – Growth has to occur on a daily basis. I often talk about being a 1%er and this is what it is all about, growing yourself by just 1% a day. That doesn’t sound like much, but over time it compounds and at the end of a year you have grown yourself over 365%. As the saying goes, by the mile its a trial but by the inch its a cinch. This does not necessarily have to be formal learning every time. It could be something as simple as having the team reflect back on the day and talk about lessons learned.

INTENTIONAL – Too many times we chase the next SHINY OBJECT; the seminar announced in a mailing, a book or video someone recommended we get, without really knowing whether it meets our needs or the needs of the organization. Chasing the shiny object is not a growth plan, its a random series of events. We have to be more intentional about choosing the growth path that best meets our immediate needs.

MISTAKES – Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Give your employees permission to go out and make mistakes without fear of punishment. It is from our mistakes where we are going to learn some of our best lessons about how to move forward.

ENGAGED – Get engaged with this learning process. Encourage your employees to engage with one another so that not only do they learn from their mistakes but also from the mistakes of others. This can significantly shorten the learning curve and allows us to move forward at a much quicker pace to become the dynamic learning organization that is prepared for the future.

How are you learning? How often? How do you determine what you have learned? Share your comments below.

Discover Passion: Sing or Cry

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Hitting the Wall

Do you find yourself, or someone you work with, becoming a clock watcher? You know, waiting for the hands of the clock to point to quitting time so you can hurry out the door and do something exciting.

Why Do You Do What You Do?

It’s been said in various forms that runners run, writers write, teachers teach, and speakers speak. And they do it because they have a passion for doing it. They can’t imagine doing anything else. They can’t imagine not having that as a part of their lives.

You may remember the scene from the movie, Sister Act 2, starring Whoopie Goldberg. She is dressed as a nun and talking to Rita, a girl who is the best singer in the choir. Rita has quit, pretending like she didn’t care, even though it is quite obvious she loves to sing. Whoopie tells her “If you wake up in the morning, and you can’t think of anything but singing, then you should be a singer, girl!”

It’s passion.

Passion provides clarity, it helps us discern direction, and it fuels our actions. When we are passionate about something, we feel compelled to act towards it. The more that passion builds, the more we feel compelled to take action.

The opposite effect is, one that I have seen too many times in too many organizations, is people becoming passion-less. They have absolutely no passion for what they are doing and they become like the walking dead. In fact, John Maxwell said that passionless people ARE dead, they just haven’t made it official yet.

So remember this:

[snaptweet]No matter what your formula for success is, if it doesn’t factor in passion, it just doesn’t add up.[/snaptweet]

So how you discover or re-awaken that passion?

WHAT MAKES YOU SING, WHAT MAKES YOU CRY – Look at your daily or weekly activities. You will find your passion in either the things that make you shout for joy when you do them or the things the tug at your heart so much that you feel compelled to action. You will discover the little nuggets of passion inside these things.
WHAT’S THE END RESULT YOU DESIRE – What do you want to accomplish? In a business environment, that doesn’t mean job description or corporate objectives. It means what is the end result, what do you really want to see happen here?
For example, for me what I want to see happen is that I manage to inspire people and businesses to engage in continual, daily growth so that they become the best that they can be; they can realize their potential and become more effective and more profitable at what they do. And that drives me to do what I do.
WHAT CAN YOU LET GO OF TO DO MORE OF WHAT YOU WANT TO DO – While it’s true that passion fuels action, it’s also true that action fuels passion. The more you do those things you enjoy doing or feel compelled to do, the more your passion builds for them and the more effective you are going to become.

What about you? Share here how you feel about what you do and how you build your passion.

Six Keys to Happiness and 24 Hours of Happy

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Cuz I’m Happy!

You have mostly certainly heard it and perhaps seen it. The song from the movie Despicable Me 2 called Happy.

The song from Pharrell Williams became enormously popular. The video went viral on the Internet and there is actually a 24 hour music video web site called 24hoursofhappy.com. Go there and watch at any time of day or night. The site automatically detects your local time and cues up and plays a video of someone dancing and li

p syncing to the song. Different person and different surroundings depending on the time of day. It’s a neat little diversion.

What Makes Happy

When I ask people what they really want in life or in business, I hear a lot of the standard replies. “I’d like a better career”, “I’d like to make more money” (hear that one a lot), a better car, a better house, sometimes it’s even “if only I could find the person of my dreams”.

We have a tendency to assign our happiness out to other things and other people as if someone else or something else is responsible for our happiness.

Even when we know, or think we know, what we really need to be happy we let other things get in the way. We live in a world of instant gratification and so we sometimes take what’s right in front of us instead of what we really want or need to find our happiness.

Zig Ziglar said it best,

[snaptweet]The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what we want most for what we want right now.[/snaptweet]

It’s Your Job

We have to take responsibility for our happiness. We need to take the necessary actions to achieve that happiness.

[snaptweet]Happiness comes in your reaction to the circumstances, not the circumstances themselves.[/snaptweet]

Work towards the happiness that you truly desire.

Take Responsibility for Your Happiness – Don’t try to delegate your happiness out to someone or something else. You and you alone are the determinant for your happiness.
Set the Right Priorities to Move Towards Happiness – We let things of the day interfere but when we understand what our priorities are, then that helps us make the decisions to stay on target and moving in the right direction. It creates focus.
Be Positive in Your Daily Outlook – Things happen every day that can be potentially negative. The positive thinker tries to find the good or benefit in every situation. It’s not sticking your head in the sand, it is simply refusing to anguish over what we don’t have and work with what we do have to create the best possible scenario.
Make Gratitude a Daily Practice – There is both research and anecdotal data suggesting again and again that a regular dose of gratitude leads to a happier life. In the face of all that, we often fail to show gratitude for what we have, instead focusing on what we don’t have. Each day, for thirty days, write down at least one thing for which you are grateful. It must be a different thing each day. That will build the habit of gratitude thinking.
Nurture Relationships – Happiness is built when we are in relationship with other people. Not one of us on the earth is built to be a hermit! We are made for relationships. That does not necessarily mean romantic relationships, but valuable friendships and even acquaintances that build us up and care for us.
Be in the Moment – Focus on the now. When we look back at what was or spend too much time hoping tomorrow is better, we fail to appreciate or fully leverage the moment we have right now. Wherever you are, be there with your heart, mind, and soul.