Today I’m very happy to have this great article by Allan Shelton, the author of a new book called, “Awakened Leadership: Beyond Self-Mastery” which I am currently reading and hope to review soon.  Since I had no finished it before its release date, Allan offered this article for readers to learn from based on Allan life long journey of learning, humility and leadership studies.  I hope you enjoy and please add any comments below.

Often when we speak of leadership we get the sense that our topic is very distant from us and possibly located in some ivory tower. This is because we’re attempting to learn about a lived experience through spoken concept. Leadership just doesn’t happen this way. It is possible to point toward the experience of leadership, but ultimately leadership is on the ground action. Let’s talk a minute about learning and its relationship to leadership:

All of us who attended an elementary school know about our principal style of learning. I call this style horizontal learning. The main hallmark of this style is the on-boarding of content through reading, lectures and even written examinations. Like many of you, I embarked on my career after a lifetime of this style of learning. In fact, I continued for years after my college graduation to acquire specific knowledge about the topical areas of my profession. In my case, I was hired by Price Waterhouse, and as a merger/acquisition specialist I was expected to understand economic, transactional and tax theory. This is a fine style of learning but it is only a first step.

As we mature, in both our personal and professional life, a new style of learning becomes important. I call this style vertical learning. This is when the concepts and detail that we have learned, transform themselves into a behavioral outcome. Let me give you an example. Most athletes will immediately relate to this one.

In most sports, team members are given books of plays, video material and even instruction on a practice field as to how to play their game. However, this knowledge and instruction does not create a good performer. You might have heard the comment that players excel when “the game slows down for them”. What does this mean? The game has slowed down when the learning that you have done becomes part of how you perform. Vertical learning follows the horizontal intake of concepts in your mind. However, performance and leadership take place on their specific playing field and are not conceptual in nature. That means that you must internally transform your horizontal learning into vertical action.

Let’s talk about humility for a moment. Most of the time when we do so, we speak of it as an attribute that an individual can possess. In fact, the horizontal version looks like that from the outside. But what does the vertical feel like from the inside? When we think for a moment that we live on earth with 7 billion people, all of whom transact some 100,000 internal transactions per second, a new perspective arises.

Learning horizontally places us at the center of the universe of knowledge. But holding how we are really situated within the universe shows us that our conceptual learning is out of focus. We are actually part of a whole humanity – not the center of it.

How does that change things? If we understand this difference we no longer need to seek to be humble because in that one observation we can see that we are not as important as we might have assumed. If we touch and feel that experiential arising then we will see that humility simply is. No need to acquire anything, just simply seeing things as they truly are.

Here’s an exercise that I often do with the executives I coach: Find 30 minutes at the end of your day and isolate an action from the day for which you were specifically responsible. Then, spend the entirety of that session listing all of the things that were necessary to be in place for the outcome that you authored to happen. What things outside of your control had to be in place for that to occur?

When you’re done with your session ask yourself if you see your importance in the same way as you did before. I guarantee you won’t.

Why is this important? Because this vertical type of learning will drive your leadership behavior, and your ‘on the ground’ leadership behavior must be geared to allow the rest of your team to follow you. In order to do that you must provide them the room to play on the same field that you do. That is to say – you need to see yourself as occupying the proper amount of space to be an authentic leader. By understanding your position you will not only be able to lead, but you will do so humbly. How could it be any other way?

ALAN E. SHELTON is a leadership coach, speaker, blogger, and author. His groundbreaking book, Awakened Leadership: Beyond Self-Mastery, integrates the corporate leadership and spiritual worlds through his message that awakening is the felt sense that your actions seamlessly reside in who you really are and move in a perfect flow. You can follow Alan on Twitter, like his Facebook page, and learn more about him at his website, www.AlanShelton.com

First thing I learned was just how beautiful Haiti is, despite everything you might see and hear on the media about the disaster it is in, the earthquake from 2010 and the poverty and problems there.  Most of that is true but in select areas, mostly around Port-au-Prince and elsewhere in Haiti it is much more of a tropical getaway. Don’t get me wrong, the economy is nearly non-existent in Haiti and it has very poor people throughout the country, however it has a lot of promise and hope at the same time.   I’ve been to the Dominican Republic several times before and Haiti has just the same country side, beautiful mountains and the only big difference is that there is far less forest and large vegetation in Haiti due to deforestation.   Unfortunately the crops and agriculture in Haiti is not really sustainable and many crops are grown for a higher price even if they destroy the little soil that is available.  This is important to help change as it will only continue to degrade their agriculture ability if they do not learn to improve their soil conditions and agriculture sustainability.  I helped to document the trip and so took many pictures while there, many of the scenery since I love nature so much. There are pictures of the landscape, mountains and vegetation, and some of the people and activities I was involved in which I hope you will enjoy in this slideshow of pictures.

During the trip, I was involved in helping to support the local church community that has just operated for 4 weeks with a new building on the property that my local church (OakPark Church of Christ) helped to fund.  The people in Port-Salut now are starting to feel that it is their Church to enjoy and they are operating the Church with a shared leadership group instead of a single Pastor who makes all decisions like most other Churches of Haiti.  We helped with a kids program that is totally new in the area where the kids can play games and have fun at Church while learning about God and stories from the Bible.  They love it and asked us every day they saw us if it was Kid’s Club day, which is right now only on Saturday.

We spent some time painting, putting up a couple of new signs for the Church and building pews since they only have some simple folding chairs right now and they will be needed for overflow seating since the Church right now only holds about 30 people inside, with room out on a covered patio for extra seating.  The local Haitians were very grateful and always willing to pitch in and help so we had a lot of fun building and working with them, even if we could barely understand each other.  Luckily, carpentry, painting and tools are quite easy to describe in a ‘Pictionary’ demonstration style, so it made working together easy and fun.

We helped teach at a 3 day leadership conference for the Church and community leaders from around the area and this was great to be part of.  They face many of the same leadership challenges as we do but they don’t have the learning resources and education available to them to help them deal with things.  This made the conference a big success since much of the material was new for them, they were deeply interested taking notes the whole time and shared with us how much they could use more materials and study materials if we can help provide that, which I certainly think we will be able to.  Its great to see how they are so passionate to learn and willing to tackle some of these challenges without being asked, they all want to improve the community and Haiti so badly, they are very willing to do whatever they can, its inspiring to see!

So, there are a lot of mission teams in Haiti, certainly not all Christian based, and there are many ways to help the people their so I encourage anyone who’s been interested in helping abroad and especially if Haiti has any special place in your heart, to find an organization to get involved with and to visit the country and experience the beauty, the great community of people there and to help inspire them to find ways to lead their country out of poverty.  I’m excited to have had this opportunity and hope to go again some day, to watch this work continue and to continue to support the people in Haiti who are leading change and helping to make it a better place for themselves and for their children, we can all hope for that at least!

I’m happy to introduce another guest author, Andrew, today on a new subject here on LearnThis.ca, eating well and foods that affect your mood.  I personally eat a good balanced diet and drink massive amounts of water, but many of these I’ve not researched or read directly.  I hope you learn some new ways to impact your mood and improve your diet from the article.  Please add your experienced and comments below!

You’ve heard it before: you are what you eat. Pop culture spends a lot of time talking about the “science” of mood and food. Some of it’s legit, and some of it’s bogus. So, can you use food to regulate your mood?  The answer is a bit more nuanced than you might hope. Of course, food cannot necessarily make us happy if we are going through a rough time in our lives, but alongside with exercise, talking to your loved ones about your problems, a wise choice of food can be a powerful ally.

Popular Claims about Food and Mood

Omega 3 Fatty Acids Can Lift Your Mood

According to the book, The Omega-3 Connection, by Andrew L. Stoll – it is sometimes true.  It really depends whether or not you’re dealing with depression. The evidence that these foods can help people who suffer from a mood disorder is quite strong. In fact, various studies have shown that it is just as effective as prescription medications in lifting the mood of depressed patients. The evidence is so compelling that the American Psychiatry Association recommends people who suffer from depression should take a supplement.  If it works that well for depressed patients, imagine how happy a normal person will be! Well…not quite. There’s no compelling evidence that omega 3 fatty acids are helpful for people that are just going through a rough patch or that “normal people” are just looking for a way to boost their mood.  That said, omega 3 fatty acids are good for your health in other ways, and there’s certainly no harm in consuming them. Even if you aren’t currently depressed, they could ward off the risks of depression occurring at some point in the future.  Omega 3 fatty acids are found in salmon, herring, sardines, and tuna. Six ounces a week of fish is the recommended dose, or you can use a supplement with DHA and EPA.

Avoid foods that contain omega 6 fatty acids, which can actually make you feel worse because they block the omega 3s. These include any of the hydrogenated fats found in processed food, as well as most vegetable oils except for olive oil. Saturated fats, like butter, don’t seem to affect mood, although too much isn’t great for your health. Alcohol can also block omega 3s.

Sugar Will Make Your Kids Bounce off the Walls: False

Believe it or not, this one’s just not true. Children do get hyper on their birthdays and Halloween parties, but various studies have shown that this doesn’t have anything to do with the sugar that they’re consuming. In controlled experiments, where one group received artificial sweeteners and the others real sugar, children behaved the same.  According to the reputable websites WebMD.com and the US National Library of Medicine, the sugar – hyperactivity relation is just correlation, with another substance often found in children’s food – artificial coloring – being responsible for ADHD and other hyperactivity problems.

Grumpy? Drink More Water: True

When you become dehydrated, this leads to fatigue. Fatigue, in turn, has all kinds of affects on your body and mind. Irritability is one of the strongest signs of fatigue.  It turns out that you don’t have to be dying of thirst for this to be true. Even moderate levels of dehydration can make you grumpy. It certainly doesn’t help that it can rob you of your energy and give you a headache.  Most people should drink at least two liters of water a day in order to avoid these problems. People who live somewhere hot or who exercise regularly should drink quite a bit more than that even.  Despite what some people say, however, it doesn’t much matter whether or not what you’re drinking is actually water. Almost any liquid will do the trick. Surprisingly, this even includes caffeinated beverages. On the other hand, alcohol doesn’t count, and it can actually dehydrate you.

Losing Focus and Energy? Have a Cup of Coffee: True

A quick search for coffee on Google Scholar shows a large number of studies about the effects of coffee. Most of them demonstrate that coffee (or better to say caffeine) really does give you energy and help you stay focused. It has been shown to elevate your attention level as well as your overall mood.  While there is some truth to the idea that coffee can become a dependence, the only threat it poses is to your wallet. People stop drinking coffee when they start feeling jittery, so they don’t consume the high levels necessary to harm your health.  One potential health threat is if caffeine starts becoming a replacement for a good night’s sleep.

Carbohydrates Will Boost Your Mood: That depends

Carbohydrates will boost your mood, but generally only if you aren’t eating right already.  It is true that carbohydrates cause a boost in serotonin, and serotonin is a chemical that helps you regulate your mood. It’s not illogical to think that this would mean carbs could boost your mood, but it’s wrong, despite the fact that this claim is still wildly popular.  The problem is that if you consume any protein at all, the effects of the carbohydrates will be neutralized. In other words, if you go an entire day without consuming any protein, you might be able to get a short-term mood boost. Unfortunately, this is a terrible way to eat and the long term impacts on your health, and yes, your mood, will be bad news.   In a stroke of irony, according to the June issue of “Health” from 2011, new evidence is starting to suggest that protein actually has a more powerful impact on your mood than carbohydrates, although these studies are still in their beginning stages.

Takeaways for Eating Well to Improve Your Mood?

A healthy diet can do a lot for your mood, and these are examples of certain foods that can have a direct impact on the way you feel, but there is no single magical food that can make you feel happy. Focus on getting enough protein and omega 3s in your diet, and be sure to drink plenty of fluids.

Andrej is a stay-at-home man who takes care of the family’s eating habits – making sure breakfast is never skipped! Working as a content manager for a Long Island elevator company. You can contact him via Twitter or LinkedIn .

Today, I introduce another guest author, Christian Arno, with his excellent article on how you can use social media to help find yourself a job.

Being unemployed is never an ideal situation.  The situation is nearly as bad if you are in the wrong job and not having much luck getting another position, whether it is a career change or advancement in your current sector. However, since we are living in the age of social media, help is at hand. Social media is something that should not be underestimated when you are looking for a new job. Because competition is rife for employment, every opportunity should be explored and social media is one of the best available. The following six tips will help in utilizing social media for employment purposes.

1. Join LinkedIn

Today, there are dozens of social media sites. However, one stands out amongst the others in its usefulness for employment purposes – LinkedIn. If you are looking for a social media site to help increase your job opportunities, then you should definitely join LinkedIn. Unlike Facebook and many others, it is aimed more towards networking rather than friendship. On your profile you can enter your work experience and skills and expertise. You also have the opportunity to write a summary where you can let potential employers know your main employable attributes; the summary section also provides the perfect opportunity to let everyone know if you are looking for new employment opportunities and, specifically, what you are looking to do.

2. Connect with people who can help

Once you have completed your profile, do not be afraid to be active – join groups and interact with potential employers and people in the industry you want to work in. You can just complete your profile and hope that you will be headhunted; that approach has worked for a few people. But for the best results, you need to get involved. Since LinkedIn is designed for you to connect with other people that are not necessarily your friends, you need take advantage of that and not hold back. You should request every contact you think might be useful, even if you have never met the person; if they work in the industry you want to be in or want to advance in, connect with them because you never know what avenues might open up from it.

3. Watch out for profile picture pitfalls

Your profile is going to be the first thing a potential employer will see. If you have a profile picture they will be immediately drawn to it. So, do not under any circumstances use that hilarious picture of you drinking out of a bottle of Jack Daniels at 4am as your profile picture. Yes, that might be fine for your private Facebook account, and your friends might get a good laugh out of it, but it is definitely not for your LinkedIn profile. It does not say to potential employers that you are fun loving and will be a great guy to have about the office. The same goes for a graduation picture if it is not current; it will instantly give the impression to employers that you are a recent graduate and not an experienced professional. It is better to use no picture at all than one that could potentially ruin your chances.

4. Do not attempt humor

If you are not looking for work in comedy, do not try to be funny in your LinkedIn profile; it hardly ever translates well and, simply put, is unprofessional. What you might think is witty and shows off your sparkling personality, might come across the exact opposite to a potential employer. It is best to stay on the safe side. Furthermore, avoid all modern abbreviations, such as ‘lol’. There are too many disastrous profiles that include sentences like, ‘I have been an IT Consultant for two years, but I am not a geek, lol. I am now looking to use my degree in Politics and pursue a career as a Diplomat.’ These modern abbreviations have no place in a professional piece of writing – and that is exactly what the text in your profile should be.

5. Set up an alternative Twitter and Facebook

After you have a professional looking LinkedIn profile and you are utilising its capabilities, it may be worthwhile setting up other profiles on Facebook and Twitter exclusively for job-hunting purposes. This is will be where you leave all you embarrassing Facebook pictures and controversial tweets behind for your other accounts. If you want to link your other accounts, make sure you make them private; this is so that potential employers do not have access to them and all your good work on your professional profiles will not be ruined.

A good thing about Twitter is that you can follow employers on the site for their latest job vacancies; which is where having an alternative Twitter account will be ideal to have if you are going to interact with any potential employers.

6. Do not forget about the smaller social media

So, you have got your LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and perhaps even a YouTube channel sorted. So far, things are going well. However, you should not ignore other smaller platforms, such as blogs. By creating your own blog and interacting with people in your field via blogging, you will increase your chances of making potential employment connections. Places such as WordPress and BlogSpot are excellent places to become part of an online community and make valuable connections. Blogging has taken off in the past decade and there are millions of them everywhere now. You should, as with the other social media platforms, be active and get involved – comment on popular blogs that are in your sector, make contact with them and get them aware of what you are doing.

Social media is not an instant cure to employment woes. However, it opens up a world of opportunity that should be taken advantage of. The world is changing, and you should change with it by embracing social media and by managing your online digital portfolio. When it comes to job-seeking, just remember to make sure you social media presence shows you at your most professional.

 About the author

Christian Arno is the founder of Lingo24, a provider of top translation services in Canada. Launched in 2001, Lingo24 now has over 150 employees spanning three continents and clients in over sixty countries. You can connect with and read more from Christian by following Lingo24 on Twitter: @Lingo24.

I am happy to introduce a new guest author today who has been in the field of personal development for many years.  I was asked for several writers to describe what impact personal development has had on their lives and Anita provides us with her account of it in her life below.  Please we’d love to see any comments and discussion on the topic and feel free to connect with her using her contact info at the end of the article.

I have engaged with personal development for over 20 years now.  On the one hand it saved my life. At the other end of that spectrum it has been the making of me, in terms of living with purpose and joy. The two areas of major impact were:

• enabling me to survive tragedy
• then to rediscover  that place beyond survival called living

This process was certainly not an overnight one, but I often think we find the true power of personal development when our back is against the wall, and we open our hearts.

Beginning in Personal Development

Personal development saved my life because at the time of first embracing it in my life, I was actually lucky to be alive, but having survived major family tragedy, I was not thankful to be alive initially.

It is something of a paradox that one can be alive yet dead on the inside, or die being alive on the inside.  Had I physically died at the time I would have died being dead on the inside. However my challenge in surviving tragedy was to move beyond and resurrect the life within me from that lifeless state.  Up till that point I had trained in psychiatry, yet my knowledge of psychiatry alone was insufficient for the journey I needed to complete.  Psychiatry was very much about helping people become functional and compus mentus, able to cope and manage situations.  That type of survival mode was not enough for me.  I write more about this in my book ‘Breaking Free From The Prison Of Survival – how I went from survival to living following major personal tragedy’

The difference that personal development made initially was to help me become more aware of my true nature, and that seed had been sown during my years as a psychiatric nurse. As I awoke to that I became more aware of my potential to change my life, something I had previously felt powerless or constrained to do.  The more I read about this aspect and listened to those who had  done likewise the more I started to feel inspired that these same processes could help me.  The next thing I started to grasp was about how my past conditioning had led me to feel so dis empowered and robbed of joy.

The Domino Effect

So my learning then involved reconditioning myself in the areas that felt greatly affected.  What I noticed then was that the questions I started to ask myself led to self awareness, as I observed my responses without judgement, and new solutions started to present themselves.  The increased self awareness led to a domino type effect. Insights led to seeing new possibilities. New possibilities bred new choices. New choices led to a feeling of empowerment with a new hope and confidence to change things.  This enabled me to identify the areas I wished to experience growth and change in, and then to draw up a plan of personal development that addressed each of those areas.

It was very much a case of practicing till new habits formed in my mind, emotions, body and spirit. This process of self awareness, new choices and skills acquisition was what enabled me to go from not being happy to have survived  major trauma, to surviving well.  However the journey felt far from complete at that point as being one of life’s survivors no longer felt such a noble destination point.

The key growth area for me now was learning to develop a deeply loving relationship with myself.

So many people have their identity invested solely in external things which can make for an inconsistent sense of joy and self-esteem. I replaced that with loving myself without condition and experiencing the joy that comes from genuine gratitude for all that I uniquely am and have. I added coaching and mentor-ship into the mix, as I had learnt about the power of these processes, and needed to form new habits.

Things  started to crystallize the more I grew as a person.  In truth whilst I had survived near death, it took me a while to move from managing my life to embracing my creative power.  The realization that I could start to design my life from here on in, rather than create by default, was one that filled me with a new lease of life, yet took constant exposure to start to grasp

Brain Tools

Two particular tools that helped me were applied kinesiology and brain wave entrainment. Kinesiology has several applications.  In principle Kinesiology works with the human energy field beyond the mere conscious level through muscle testing, to check alignment across a number of issues.

Through this process I was able to gain more accurate insights where my conscious and subconscious were giving conflicting information.  I was able to progress more rapidly with this tool in my hand and I had one of the country’s best practitioners, which was equally important.  I incorporate this in my coaching business now.  I thoroughly recommend kinesiology to assist you along your path too.

Brain wave entrainment provided a more passive form of meditation where my concentration was deficient, and enabled me to access deeper levels of relaxation and capacity to process change.

Finally intuition has played an enormous part in the doors that have opened up to express the value I bring to the world. I used to be very left brain dominant, yet as I developed intuition, the insights gained caused opportunities to present quickly.

Conclusions

Now as I look to publish my book which has already received top industry endorsement, I am left in awe and amazement at the processes described above that took me from mere survival to living, with a sense of purpose and vision I know I can realize.

I leave you with some tips to turn your life round or take it to a new level:

1.  Ask evaluative questions of your life and answer them honestly
2. Use kinesiology to check out your alignment
3. Learn to ask empowering questions of your life.  They will give shape to your life
4. Develop a deeply loving relationship with yourself as you would a best friend.  This will result in great joy and provide a powerful platform from which to create with intent.
5. Identify the areas of growth needed and identify those who have sufficiently mastered those areas that you can learn from
6. Cultivate your intuition.  It will be priceless
7. Constantly expose yourself to these processes till the areas you wish to see growth become second nature

Anita Narayan is a highly endorsed author, speaker and coach with specialities in reducing cardiovascular aging , accelerated learning and sports performance.  She is soon to release her book ‘Breaking Free From the Prison Of Survival – how I went from survival to living following major personal tragedy’ which has received top industry acclaim. You can find out more at www.mypersonalbestcoaching.com

From those blogs I’ve seen some great content recently:

• 5 ways to be Coachable
• Good Supervisors Acknowledge Good Employees
• Leadership Development without the Straight Lines

 Additional Articles / Resources

• 30 Books I’m Glad I Read Before 30
• A cool resource for 50 Places Where You Can Get Free Books Online
• Top 10 Things That Determine Happiness
• Found Miss Minimalist’s list of 100 Ways to Simplify Your Life
• Here is an interesting music video about renewable and free energy
• Free program to help you start your own blog or website.  LocalWebFormula.com
• I thought this was a relevant and well covered article to improve your public speaking

Author: Steve Repak, CFP

Steve Repak authors this easy to read financial guide from the perspective that most people really are stuck in a spending mode with a mindless system getting them into credit card dept, living from month to month and wondering how anyone ever really saves any money.  This was very hard to not be turned off by since I don’t struggle with those things and so you may feel the same reading this if you already know how to safely manage your money.  If you struggle with those things however, then Repak does a great job at empathizing with you, giving good tips for methods to break from your patterns and helps you get a plan in place to overcome that dept you may have, and spending more than you make tenancy.

This is the first financial book I’ve reviewed here and while it may be the first in hand book I’ve read on the subject, I am certainly no stranger to learning about managing money and knowing how to save. I learned this at a very young age thanks to my parents and have been careful with my money my whole life in order to have security, safety and plans for early retirement (which I can confirm are all very doable despite any skepticism). Anyway, I was offered a review copy of this book by the Cadence Group and was happy to enter the genre here since I felt I could read through it easily and understand it, since I have already developed such a foundation of knowledge around money, saving and investments.

Repak covers the foundations of wealth and refers to what he calls the six key traits to building wealth:

1. Spend less money than is made
2. Have little or no debt
3. Give and Save first
4. Have long term plans for money
5. Do not let emotions cloud  judgment
6. Start saving early in life

Today I welcome a new guest author, Carolyn who brings us this great article on advancing your career.  I am always surprised how many people think that the next great job for them is not at their current workplace, but at the next company or job for them.  The reality is, every job can be your next level job and people would position themselves much better by continuously advancing their careers and building their skills in EVERY job, just by dropping one and seeking the next.  So, please add your comments to welcome Carolyn and you can find more of her articles at her link at the end of the article.

Gaining a promotion at work is something that many workers would put on their to-do list. But how exactly does one go about the task of climbing the corporate ladder? Well, the corporate ladder is less of a ladder and more a staircase. What I mean by that is that advancement doesn’t come in huge upward motions. It most often comes in slow, steady moves. Continually move forward, display a desire to learn more about your job and strive to do the best you can on all of your assignments and before you know it, you’ll realize you’ve ascended quite a bit from your original position.

Before I outline a few points about advancing within a company and furthering your career, let me begin with a short illustration.

The Two Workers

Two men began work at an accounting firm at roughly the same time. The two new employees had attended rival schools but got along well enough. The first employee decorated his desk with memorabilia from his alma mater and the second chose to keep his work area sparse and sterile. At lunch during a coworker’s birthday celebration, while the cake was being passed out and “Happy Birthday” being sung, the first employee joined in with the chorus of voices while the other hung toward the back, not wishing anyone to hear his less than impressive singing voice. Both of the employees were well liked within the office. Neither participated in the intra-office politics or petty office gossip. Both were generally on time with their assignments and both pulled their weight. However, the first employee quickly got a feel for the office culture and began arriving in time to flip on the lights in the office in the morning. He was trusted with a key to the office because the bosses figured, if he wants to get here so early, why not let him?

Still the two men performed about the same amount of work. What the first employee accomplished in 9 hours at the office, the second employee could get done in 7.5 hours.

It wasn’t until an opportunity arose to get trained on new software that the first employee really set himself apart. The company was readying itself for a switch to a new type of software and it asked for volunteers to get trained on the new system. The volunteers would then turn around and train their coworkers on the new system. It was not a popular position — there were no benefits — but the first employee volunteered for the position, was trained and lent his new expertise to his coworkers.

When it came time for the accounting firm to consider applicants for a promotion to a recently vacated managerial position, whom do you think they chose?  It should be fairly obvious that the first employee demonstrated that he was worthy of the career advancement. But why is that? The second employee was technically the more efficient candidate. He worked at a rate that was about 17 percent faster than the first employee.

Eagerness

The fact is, most companies care about efficiency and your ability to carry a heavy workload only to a certain extent. The thing that many companies look for is eagerness. The first employee had that quality in spades. This is shown not only in his volunteering for the unenviable position of new software trainer but also in his loud singing at the coworker’s lunch time birthday party and his early arrival to the office each day.

Taking the time do something as small as stand by the water cooler for a few minutes on your break and chit chat with employees shows that you’re not just there for the paycheck. You’re taking an active interest in your work and your coworkers. It shows management that you’re eager to be there. You enjoy being there. So they should want to keep you.

Keep Learning

The software-training example is just a small example of a time that someone took an opportunity to learn more within their job. This often pops up at jobs in the form of new certifications, licensures or training opportunities. The first employee’s willingness to learn the new software demonstrated to management that they are looking to learn. The desire to take on new tasks is something that managers are constantly looking for in prospective recipients of promotions.

Respect Your Elders

The managers at your job got there for a reason. Although sometimes it may seem like they don’t quite know what they’re doing, they have a better job title than you for a reason. Part of learning on the job and using the knowledge you gain to advance your career is found in relationships made with management. Offer to take your boss out to lunch and ask how they achieved their successes, how they dealt with their failures and how you can get on track to follow in their footsteps.

This is not only a great way of learning about the company and its day-to-day operations, this is a great way of making sure your boss can pick you out of a crowd. If a chance for a promotion comes up, they’ll be much more likely to consider you if they can pick you out of a line up.

Contribute

The example of the first employee singing along to “Happy Birthday” is also a metaphor for something that too many employees fail to understand. Speak up. No one will promote you, let alone acknowledge that you’re in the room unless you make your voice heard. Contribute to the discussions. Put your two cents in at meetings. Don’t be afraid to put your opinions and ideas forth at meetings. This will raise your visibility within the office and, in the event that you say something incorrect, the correction you receive at the meeting will stick with you.

As the old proverb says, “Rebuke is more effective for a wise man than 100 blows to a fool.” The implication is that if you’re wise, you will only need to be corrected once and you will heed that instruction. If you’re a fool, you could have someone try to beat the information into you, but it wouldn’t take.

If you’re looking to advance your career but are worried about the opportunities within your company, don’t abandon ship just yet. Advancement opportunities will inevitably open up if you apply these principles for moving forward.

Carolyn is a guest blogger who writes about employment topics and RN schools.

I am happy to have another guest post by Jesse this week, who has posted previously a great article here at LearnThis.ca, Finding Happiness in Authenticity.  This time, Jesse writes a new guest post on goal setting. Goal setting has always been a favorite topic of mine so its great to have a new perspective on it and it can never be encourage enough to anyone interested in personal development.  Goal setting is a critical factor to success and is something everyone should be actively doing on a regular basis. So, it’s a great article and I encourage you to please add your comments and feedback below.

The whole point of making a list of goals for yourself is to meet them—so, why is it so hard for us to follow through? Part of it has to do with how we view goals; according to an article on productivity blog Lifehack, the more potential for positive growth a goal has, the more anxious and stressed we are by not achieving it. A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step—and sometimes, taking that first step can be tougher than the journey itself.

Nevertheless, you still have goals for different areas of your life: spending more time with your family, working toward a promotion at your job, or maybe pursuing higher education. But the problem isn’t that you don’t want to meet these goals—the problem is that you’re not working to improve your life and the lives of your family. So, how do you get back on the resolution wagon? How can you stay motivated to fulfill your aspirations?

Don’t give up

Seems like a simple directive—but it’s much easier said than done. Still, the fact is that you won’t reach your goals if you don’t work to achieve them. Find ways to keep yourself motivated: use a productivity app like Evernote on your computer, smartphone or tablet so you can keep track of both short-term and long-term tasks. You can also recruit friends and family to help you stay on track: if your goals are health-related, encourage your family to try a healthy eating plan or a family workout schedule; you can also share your goals with friends and ask them to help keep you accountable. The more encouragement and positive pressure you have in your life, the more likely you are to stick to your guns when giving up seems like an attractive choice.

Be specific

When you’re making goals, envision exactly what you want. While the journey is important, it’s the destination that matters—so be specific when you set objectives. If you want to improve your education, explore the subjects you’re interested in and decide on a degree program that works for you. From there, you’ll be able to plot a clear path to earning a degree or certification. Having clear and detailed goals can also give you clues on how to proceed: if you’re a working dad with a growing family, perhaps an online degree program or attending classes part-time would be your most beneficial course of action. With a clear set of goals, you’ll also be able to track your progress.

Don’t sweat the small stuff

Staying on track can be especially difficult when you’ve got a million things to worry about: by the time you’ve finished your workday, chances are you’ll still have a long list of chores to complete. But not everything is essential—and that can be hard to accept. You can’t be everywhere and do everything, so learn to let some things go in order to concentrate on others. That might require you to ask for help—and you shouldn’t be afraid to do so. Your spouse might need to do dinner duty a few more times a week; you could ask a friend to be your workout partner in order to keep you on schedule; or your older kids might need to pick up a couple more chores around the house. When you’re trying to stay on track to meet your goals, keeping your eye on the prize is essential—it’s easy to get bogged down in the minutiae of everyday life.

Make some changes

Reaching your goals will require rearranging your priorities—whether it’s committing to spending less time at the office, rearranging your school schedule, or passing on activities with friends or coworkers. Try this exercise: keep track of every single thing you do for one week. From the moment you wake up every morning until you return to your bed for the night, jot down how you spend your time. How much TV do you watch? How much of your day is eaten up with Internet surfing? How long are you stuck in traffic on your daily commute?

After a week, look at the hours you spend not working toward your goals, and cut out the non-essential activities. If you have an hour to watch TV, then you’ve got an hour to work out on an elliptical machine. If you wile away your evening hours tweeting or Facebooking, consider using that time to study instead. The key is to trim the fat from your life and devote more energy to your resolutions. The more free time you have, the more easily you can fill it with tasks that move you closer toward your goals.

Celebrate

That’s right—when you reach your goals, you should reward yourself! One of the reasons why may goals tend to be difficult to meet is that many of us have been conditioned to expect instant gratification or reward. But giving yourself a reward—like a vacation, or a new electronic gadget, or maybe a party—at the end of your journey can make it easier to stay motivated and keep going. Acknowledging your own hard work—and taking a little time to review how you got what you wanted—can go a long way toward making your all your work seem worthwhile.

Of course, just because you’re committing to making your dreams come true doesn’t mean that you’ll always succeed. And that’s totally okay: the most important element of working toward your goals is that you stay persistent and focused. While you might not meet your goals within the timeframe you set for yourself, if you keep at it, you’ll get there eventually—and that’s what’s most important.

Jesse Langley specialilzes in writing about education, professional and personal development, and career building.  He writes on behalf of Colorado Technical University.

Working as a manager or leader in any workplace leaves a lot of room to influence other people.  And shouldn’t that include then some specific coaching and discussion to help others improve their role and work results?  I certainly think so and I also think that every person in a leadership or supervising role should be expected to learn about coaching in the workplace.  If coaching were better understood and used on a regular basis, the results of whole teams and companies could be drastically improved given some time.

Coaching in the workplace is something I’ve practiced for a number of years through managing others and it is now one of the most effective ways I have to develop people for higher level roles, better performance and to address weaknesses getting in their way from being as effective as they could be.  I originally learned the model I use now for coaching from Manager Tools at one of their effective manager conferences.  I can’t stress the value enough of their many free podcasts and training for managers.  These models and tools create a foundation for coaching that works reliably and you then only need to tweak it to fit your style, your methods for your workplace and to adjust each session of course to the person you are coaching, the most important part of course.

Uncovering Goals through Questioning

Questioning is a tool, unfortunately overlooked and under studied which can help you tremendously in coaching others.  Learning to use probing questions and digging deeper with the 5 common W questions, you can get to the root of motivations or problems to uncover the real goals the other person might have.  Its often easier to determine some simple goal or short term item that you can coach a person for, but if it has an underlying motivation and meaning that has more impact and value to the other person, it is worth using questions to uncover that.  I have 3 previous articles on questions, all can really help in coaching:

• Better Communication: Using Questions Regularly
• Using the 5 W Questions to Improve Your Training
• Open Ended Questions Make Better Conversations

The Coaching Model

The model that Manager Tools is best described in their podcasts mentioned above.  It is essentially a series of 4 steps toward achieving the coaching goal.  They are:

1. Set a Goal
2. Brainstorm the Resources
3. Create an Action Plan
4. Act towards the Goal

Tailor Coaching To the Individual

Coaching only works if it is specific to an individual and the same coaching plan will never work for everyone.  The brainstorming and even the goal could be the same, but each person will have their own action plan and steps to achieve their goal.  This is because you need to let the action plan be something that works specifically for the individual you are coaching.  For example, just because I know I can easily learn content from reading a book by some subject matter expert, I know this doesn’t work for everyone and reading a book in a coaching plan might be more discouraging to some individuals than it is helpful.  Some people will need to learn by trial and error, some by courses or training, some self taught, some through experimentation, research or by hearing stories and reacting emotionally to some method.  Everyone will have their own style and its your job as the coach to tailor the coaching to find the methods that work best for the individual and then incorporate that method for them to practice and learn most effectively.