Stuck between mediocrity and excellence

You just bought 6 boxes of girl scout cookies from your friends for their daughter.  A boy scout comes to your door selling popcorn and you buy a bag.  The struggling college student knocks on your door and gets you to subscribe to the newspaper -- a printed one no less.  The head of a company gets you to join his organization for less pay and the promise of huge upside potential.  Ok. I know I just made a leap there. But in the world of influence, you have to recognize what type of agent (the seller) is doing the influencing. What I've learned is if you can recognize whether the personality is one of the dark triad -- run!  The dark triad consists of 3 personality traits: Machiavellianism - I used to call this Minnesota -nice. These people are manipulative and play nice in the pursuit of self-interest. Bro hugs? Ask yourself, "Does he really like me that  much?"  Narcissism  - Admire me! Pay attention to ME! Count th...

Occasionally I'll take the train downtown to work. Straight shot. Get to sit. And I listen to podcasts or audiobooks via Stitcher and Audible respectively.  I also listen to articles on Umano  which is a cool app on my phone. I find that the rewind function on all of those applications is really helpful in the event that I get distracted or my mind drifts off.  All of these are a good way to break the monotony of reading a hard copy book, your iPad, Kindle, or Nook in my opinion.  Here are a few must listen audiobooks / podcasts on the plan, train, or automobile ride to your destination of choice. Zig Ziglar fan? Listen to his son Tom:  http://www.entrepreneuronfire.com/podcast/tom-ziglar/ Those Ramit Sethi Facebook ads bother you? He's actually legit when you listen to him.  http://www.entrepreneuronfire.com/podcast/ramit-sethi/ Ever read Jeff Haden's posts on LinkedIn? You should.  http://likeablepodcast.libsyn.com/-25-jeff-haden-gh...

Attend a Tony Robbins seminar.  Your friends think you attended a get rich quick conference.  Read a bunch of self-help books and business books.  Your colleagues and clients think you have too much time on your hands and that it's all idealistic, not practical.  Listen to podcasts. What are podcasts?? And why?? If you don't have advisers and mentors in your life, it's probably easier to laugh at the people getting help then to actually get the help yourself.  "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."  - Mahatma Gandhi I used to be the one laughing at the infomercials and the people listening to cassette tapes of motivational mumbo jumbo.  Now I'm one of them and wish I had done it sooner. Go figure.

When raising children, the words "Because I said so," only work for so long. If you are blessed like I am, those words turn your child into a master negotiator.  If those words don't work on a child, what makes us think they will work on adults?  As managers or leaders we don't use those exact words.  We disguise them in the form of policies , procedures , guidelines , and performance criteria.  The reality is that the reason none of those things work is because we are trying to tell grown adults, "Because I said so!"  In order to motivate people or to get others to change behaviors, you have to make the change meaningful to them.  Just because you want someone to adopt your business process doesn't mean they'll adopt it. After all, why should they? What's in it for them?  Take the time to walk in the other person's shoes. Feel what they feel. Understand what motivates them. As soon as you actually understand what makes them tic...

It took the Titanic 2 hours and 40 minutes to sink.  For the people on the ship, that must have felt like an eternity.  All it took was for one hit to an iceberg to set off a series of events that would ultimately send the ship to its fate and make it one of the best analogies for major business and IT projects (and in some cases, our career) in our lifetime. How many of you feel like you are on a project that is headed towards the bottom of the ocean?  When you work for a big firm, there are so many risk avoidance protocols in place, that you may feel like you are on The Titanic. In reality, the risk of failure is low. When you work for a small company that cares about revenue over risk, your odds increase exponentially. And instead of being on The Titanic, you may actually be piloting the Hindenburg.  Here are few signs that you are on a project disaster that can only be caused by other humans around you.  Every risk matrix for the project has a...

Sooner or later, we leave our jobs for bigger, better, and other things. Very few of us stay at the same job until we retire.  Very few of us are actually doing things that we were formally trained for.  I would say that from my business school class, I can count on one hand the number of people I know that are still with the same company. But even they have rotated into a job that is in an entirely different function than what they studied in school.  Even though I'm in the same profession, I've observed that people leave 3 types of companies or organizations. I'll give them nicknames so that they stick.  The Phantom Zone : Like the place that Superman sends villains to that is caught between time and space, this is the place that you hardly remember once you leave. The only way you remember it is when a former cellmate brings up something that triggers a memory of how miserable it was.  The Machine: This is a place that is too big to...

In the day to day management of work that you either love to do or hate to do, it's easy to get caught up in your own agenda.  If you're a Manager, you have your own task list in addition to a list that you've delegated to others.  Each day you probably feel a sense of accomplishment by checking those tasks off and getting reports that the people that you've delegated to have checked their tasks off.  Then, because you've added more tasks to the list that day, you get to feel a sense of accomplishment all over again the next day.  But in the end, what have you really  accomplished?  What impact have you really made?  Tony Robbins says, "Success without fulfillment is failure."  If there is not one daily activity on that checklist that does not meet some internal sense of fulfillment, sound the alarm!  if you don't sound the alarm, you will end up hating life. Trust me. I know. Part of me still goes to that place that is not ...