If you let your career run off-leash, where would it go? by Sally Hogshead

If you let your career run off-leash, where would it go?

November 13th, 2006

Since May, I’ve been letting my career rove to and fro. Consciously, I chose to make no plans or goals, do no outreach or inquiry, and instead, simply respond to the clients and opportunities that presented themselves.

This experiment led me to people and places and possibilities that I’d normally never encounter. I became a brand manager for a celebrity, outlined a new book concept, developed two reality TV shows, and created a new kind of speaking program that’s marketing + entertainment. And that was just October.

While I don’t often recommend being a spectator to your own career, at certain points you have to consciously choose to roam. Take your career out to stretch its legs, to exercise and explore. Send it out on adventures. Give it room to fail. Let it get nice and dirty. Let it live. Find the hole in the fence, escape to new places, then decide whether or not you’ll return.

Along the way, your choices don’t all have to be perfect (and in a well-lived career they won’t be). The point is to make those choices for yourself, rather than having them made for you.

Your career is robust. Probably far more than you realize. Don’t overprotect it, or shelter it, or underestimate it. Don’t let it get too precious.

A career, like most things in life, can’t be simultaneously developed and preserved.

Are you ready to put the pedal to the metal???

Eliminate the Enemy of Success by Dr. Robert Karlsberg & Dr. Jane Adler

Eliminate the Enemy of Success

A study conducted last year by executive search firm Korn-Ferry revealed that 70% of executives planned to make a career related New Year's resolution. Yet, experience shows that more than 80% of them will be significantly off-track before the end of March.

Why?

Most of them will fall victim to distraction -- the number one enemy of success.

No matter how well-intentioned you are, it's difficult to maintain your focus when you're faced with multiple opportunities and multiple demands each day. However, the most efficient way to achieve a goal is to maintain a single-minded focus.

Maintaining a single-minded focus on one high-priority activity not only reduces the amount of time you need to achieve your objective, but ensures a higher quality of performance as well.

Here are some tips to overcome distractions and achieve your goals more quickly:

1. Set Inspiring Long-term Goals. Short-term objectives are fine, but don't often provide the necessary inspiration to stay the course. Keep in mind this classic quote from Napoleon Hill's, Think and Grow Rich, "The starting point of all achievement is desire... Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small amount of fire makes a small amount of heat."

2. Create a Path. Even the best goal-setting system isn't enough. You need specific action steps to follow. When you create a blueprint for your objectives, you give yourself a path to run on. If you get sidetracked, as you undoubtedly will, it's simple to pick up and restart where you left off.

3. Link Your Activities to Your Goals. Identify your top priorities in every area of your life: career, family, health, friends etc. Then link all of your activities to your goals. Goal-directed behavior is what enables successful people to achieve their objectives in record time.

4. Stop Multi-Tasking. As management guru Peter Drucker said, "If there is one 'secret' of effectiveness, it is concentration."

Focus single-mindedly on one thing at a time. Don't take phone calls while working on an important report. Don't think about next months sales figures while answering a customer's email. By simply avoiding the temptation to do more than one thing at a time, you can reduce the amount of time you need to complete any task by 50-80 percent.

5. Use Technology Efficiently. Technology is great when it enhances productivity, but it can also become a major distraction. Remember, cell phones, e-mail and the Internet, were designed to be used as tools. Don't let them become your master.

6. Beware of the "Open Door." Of course, you need to be accessible at work; but you also need to maintain control of your accessibility. An open door policy only works well if you set time limits and stick to them. Your time is your most valuable resource. If you allow others free use of it, you'll pay a steep price in stress and lost productivity.

7. Manage Information and Idea Overload. Every day you're bombarded with more information than you can possibly handle in a week. One key to managing it is to be very selective about what gets your attention now, and what you save for later. Link your reading, viewing and listening activities to your goals as much as possible. And always keep a notebook or voice recorder handy, so you can manage ideas and potentially profit from them later.


Short-term objectives are fine, but don't often provide the necessary inspiration to stay the course. Keep in mind this classic quote from Napoleon Hill's, "The starting point of all achievement is desire... Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small amount of fire makes a small amount of heat." Even the best goal-setting system isn't enough. You need specific action steps to follow. When you create a blueprint for your objectives, you give yourself a path to run on. If you get sidetracked, as you undoubtedly will, it's simple to pick up and restart where you left off. Identify your top priorities in every area of your life: career, family, health, friends etc. Then link all of your activities to your goals. Goal-directed behavior is what enables successful people to achieve their objectives in record time. As management guru Peter Drucker said, "If there is one 'secret' of effectiveness, it is concentration."

Dr. Robert Karlsberg & Dr. Jane Adler are leading experts in leadership development and the psychology of business, and co-founders of TheRoadtoCEO.com. If you're ready to accelerate your career and maximize your business performance visit www.TheRoadtoCEO.com for your complimentary subscription to Peak Performance.

My Leadership Philosophy: Part 2 by Ken Flowers

"Leadership comes naturally to some people, and can be learned by many people. Although, not all people can be taught to be leaders. The most important thing to teach a burgeoning leader is to have the confidence that they have permission to lead. Leadership is not a matter of rank.

A leader is motivated to take action by a desire to see success. This is not ego-driven personal success, although many leaders have huge egos. Leadership is about making a team successful at reaching a shared goal. A leader needs to be able to visualize the future, and they need to be able to communicate that vision of success to the team. Finally, a leader needs to be impatient. Leaders are made when someone has a vision and becomes impatient that nobody else is moving.

I don't believe that leadership requires charisma. Leaders need to communicate a vision in a way that motivates the team to share the goal. This requires some empathy and insight into how other people think. They also need to inspire trust that they can lead the group to that goal, and then get out of the way. Charisma is helpful, but it can also blind a group to an otherwise poor goal or untrustworthy leader."

Guy Kawasaki’s 10-20-30 Rule of PowerPoint

Guy Kawasaki’s 10-20-30 Rule of PowerPoint

Have you heard about this? It’s an interesting rule of thumb on how to create a simple but effective PowerPoint® sales presentation. According to venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki, “A PowerPoint presentation should have 10 slides, last no more than 20 minutes, and contain no font smaller than 30 points.”

10 slides / 20 minutes / 30-point font

Why only 10 slides? Because, “a normal human being cannot comprehend more than 10 concepts in a meeting.” That also means each slide should actually contain a worthwhile concept. Kawasaki suggests:

1. Problem
2. Your solution
3. Business model
4. Underlying magic/technology
5. Marketing and sales
6. Competition
7. Team
8. Projections and milestones
9. Status and timeline
10. Summary and call to action

Why only 20 minutes? Because you almost always need time to get set up beforehand and time after for questions, and nobody wants to sit in a meeting longer than an hour.

Why a font size of 30 points or larger? Because any smaller and people realize that your entire presentation is on the slides, so they just read them and stop listening to you. Also, you then have to simmer your text down to information important enough to be broadcast large.

For more details, read Guy Kawasaki’s blog.

Check also Presentation Zen for more tips on using PowerPoint and giving effective presentations.

Change Bytes by Peggy Grall

January 2007

What did you get for Christmas? Everything you wanted? A friend of mine got a great gift for Christmas. He was given a Magellan RoadMate, a small device that sits atop his dashboard to tell him how to get to where he’s going. He tells me that all he has to do is enter his desired destination and the device charts a course from wherever he is on the planet. He has the option of choosing the shortest route, the fastest route or the route with the most or least freeway driving. How cool is that?

What he really likes is that the system is operated by what he describes as an ‘unemotional female voice’ that tells him everything from when to turn, which way to turn and, when he is 20 feet from a turn, a gentle “ding dong” sound alerts him that it’s time to turn NOW. The soft, supportive voice and the gentle bells continue offering him support until he safely arrives at his destination. At this point point the voice says, “You have arrived at your destination.”

And there’s more. If he’s hungry the device will tell him about the nearest restaurants, if he needs gas it will locate the nearest gas stations - by company, and if he needs emergency medical attention, it guides him to the nearest hospital. And at all times the gentle voice knows, within about three feet, exactly where he’s at in relationship to his goal.

But there’s even more. If he makes a mistake and turns left when he should have turned right, there is no stern, “You blew it, you moron" booming from the dashboard, but rather a gentle, “Make a U-turn when you can legally do so.” And, if he persists in his new direction - the voice calmly says, “Calculating a new course.” When he willfully, or out of ignorance, looses his way, ‘She’ determines a new course and begins to give new instructions, never criticizing or blaming.

Isn’t this fascinating? An unemotional, continually supportive, perpetually flexible, ever informed and respectful voice is what people will pay good money for to help them find their way. This state-of-the-art gadget speaks volumes about leading people.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every CEO, VP, Manager or Supervisor really listened to those they are charged with leading; found out where they want to go, gently and consistently offer them support and insight into where they are relative to where they want to be, and then- when they veer off course - simply help them chart a new one?

So...

How about you? How are you leading the people in your life, or at work, to their destinations? How are you ‘helping’ people reach their goals?

If you want to get better at listening and giving support, why not make 2007 the year that you sharpen your leadership skills?

New Year - New Website...take a look!

E-mail: p.grall@justchangeit.com

Phone: 1-866-949-6698

Web: http://www.JustChangeIt.com