Monthly Archives: May 2017

Be different – make a difference.

The future will be different than today, that we know for sure. Maybe you can get there first by not holding on to the way things have always been done. There may be a better way. You may have unique insights. You have individual talents – use them. Who knows – you might just change the world.

“The ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”– Steve Jobs

It’s ok to stand out. If you really want to have an impact and make a difference, you going to have to reconcile yourself to being different. Otherwise you just doing what everyone else does and that rarely changes anything.

“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?”– Dr. Seuss

It’s ok to try new methods. You can’t be satisfied with just being different – new methods have to be better at getting you to the future There’s no guarantee that the new ideas will always work. But you can be sure that the same ideas won’t bring you to the new answers needed for the different future.

“You shouldn’t do things differently just because they’re different. They need to be better.” – Elon Musk

It’s ok to change along the way. It’s actually better than ok, its preferable to change. I had a mentor tell me that my goal for any given year was to go so far, I would need a telescope to see where I started. Expect to learn, look for opportunities, and grow from them.

“If you are always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be.”– Maya Angelou

 

Reputation – good ones travel fast

Your reputation is a riddle; It is guaranteed to always arrive before you do, and stay after you leave. Knowing this fact can help set you apart from the crowd. Your reputation will serve as your introduction, it will set expectations for those you meet, it will remind others of your demonstrated abilities. In many ways it’s your spokesperson, and you want your spokesperson to have wonderful things to say about you. Therefore, you must carefully build the foundation of your reputation through your actions.

“You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.”– Henry Ford

Delivering what matters. Not everything has to be done; just the important stuff. Identify which actions make the most difference to the company, project, team and you – then put your energy into accomplishing those.

“You earn a reputation by trying to do hard things well.”– Jeff Bezos

Every day. Start each day with a picture of success in your mind – for that day. Break down your goals into what you can do today and do that every day. Make success a habit.

“Repetition makes reputation.”– Elizabeth Arden

Will pave the way. This is what opens doors, gets invitations, and garners resources. Delivering what matters every day is the foundation for your reputation.

“There is no advertisement as powerful as a positive reputation traveling fast.” – Brian Koslow

Help one, help many

The theme on my blog page is: Change The World Through Leadership Now. I chose that to represent the impact I want to have through my passion for Leadership. Every article, Instagram picture, Tweet, LinkedIn post, or FaceBook post is designed to reach as many connections as possible. My desire is to Change The World, one person at a time, through the sharing of leadership insights.

In his bestselling book, The Go Giver, Bob Burg stated, “Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interest first.” The impact of your helping one person is far reaching. The residual effects of helping one person can truly change the world.

Help them help themselves. As a leader, your help should not be in the form of micromanaging. Sure, you will set the vision and work to align the goals, but your employees need to experiment, build experience and learn to excel using their strengths to accomplish the goals and achieve the vision. Doing it for them is short lived and offers no value beyond the immediate.

“A leader’s job is not to do the work for others, it’s to help others figure out how to do it themselves…and succeed beyond what they thought possible.”– Simon Sinek

Help them help you. There are two personal benefits to helping others. First, it’s rewarding to be part of someone’s success – it feels good to help. There’s a Chinese Proverb that says, “If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody.” Second, the people you help will want to help you in return; they want that happiness for themselves.

Help them help others. Changing the world is a big endeavor. And if we are being realistic it’s hard to think of a way to do that. Steve Jobs got really close with Apple and his personal goal of, “Making a dent in the universe.” One way we can all think changing the world is by helping one person at a time who will also help one more person at a time – eventually it will reach the world.

“We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.”– Ronald Reagan

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