Success.bz Articles

Workplace Heists by Nan Russell

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:00:00 CDT

Seated in the courtyard of a sports bar during a playoff game in the home city of one of the teams, it was an energetic crowd that Sunday. While we'd come for a quick bite to eat, we caught a glimpse of a play now and then as home-team enthusiasts roared their approval during the first half.

When a man sat down next to us with two friends, ordered a pitcher of beer and maneuvered around to glimpse the game, we barely noticed. But when he hassled the waitress every few minutes trying to intimidate her into getting him a table closer to the TV where none existed, his rudeness and her apparent discomfort, drew our attention.

What happened next surprised me. Growing increasingly agitated at not being able to watch the football game from inside the bar, the man stood up, ordered his colleagues up, and walked away without paying. I don't get it. He came well after the game started. Why would he think he should be entitled to a great seat over others waiting in the wings?

But it wasn't just the beer he stole that bothered me. That thief stole the waitress's well-being that day. Close to tears as she explained what had happened to her manager, the customer's behavior left a long impact tail.

In workplaces across the country there are similar heists. Yes, there's the shoplifting variety, but the ones that do lasting damage are not as blatant. These involve emotional thievery, diminished trust, reduced happiness, and decreased self-esteem.

When we steal an idea from a staff member without acknowledging her contribution, we diminish her engagement. When we continually set unrealistic deadlines without concern for a growing workload that robs his nights and weekends, we reduce his commitment. And when we send reactive emails or text harsh critiques without a reflective pause, we ravage someone else's self-esteem.

If we're the outraged customer rudely addressing a customer representative, our verbal lashing impacts his day. If our posts or comments are carved with word-machetes, our actions hijack another's confidence. And if we think transparency means regurgitating everything we think, we diminish, not enhance, our work relationships.

Most of us can point to what someone else did that was an emotional heist for us. Yet we often don't realize how our own behavior can steal someone else's enthusiasm or well-being. Whether we're selfishly engaged like that beer-thief, or merely oblivious to our own behavior, the action still impacts.

Seventeenth century philosopher John Locke put it this way: "I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts." People who are winning at working do too. They monitor their thoughts and their actions.

Want to be winning at working? Be aware of your actions. Reduce your workplace heists.

Winning at Working -- Wishing and Hoping by Nan Russell

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:00:00 CDT

Years after Disneyland was built, after the completion of Walt Disney World, the story goes that someone went up to Mike Vance, Creative Director for Walt Disney Studios and said, "Isn't it too bad Walt Disney didn't live to see this?" Without pausing, he replied, "But he did see it, that's why it's here."

If any outside figure influenced my life early on, it was Walt Disney. Maybe because when I was five, my favorite uncle took me to a wondrous new place called Disneyland. Maybe because I grew up in Southern California, visiting it every year or two, watching a man's vision come to life and grow. Or maybe because I learned that "when you wish upon a star, it makes no difference who you are."

Growing up on the Wonderful World of Disney, I learned how to dream. But as I got older I realized it wasn't just the dreaming and wishing that made the dreams possible. It was the doing.

Wishing and hoping are poor strategies for making dreams come true, yet that's how many people approach work, often surprised at their results. They wish they could make more money. They hope they'll get promoted or offered a more interesting job. They wish someone will notice how hard they work. They hope the work environment improves, their boss comes to her senses, the problem goes away, or someone else solves it.

Their chance of winning at working is right up there with becoming a millionaire on Vegas slots or holding the winning lottery ticket. And while it's not true the ostrich hides in the sand, many of us do, wondering why we never land our dreams.

Olympic athletics don't get that way by wishing and hoping. Nor do great musicians, actors, chefs, architects, teachers, lawyers, parents, or business people. And I know I'll never get the next book written and published by wishing it so.

Dreams can come true, but there is a secret. They're realized through the magic of persistence, determination, commitment, passion, practice, focus and hard work. They happen a step at a time, manifested over years, not weeks.

While wishing and hoping makes you a dreamer, acting and doing makes you someone who can turn dreams into reality. Want your work dreams to come true? Make them.

Persistence: Playing a Poor Hand Well by Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:00:00 CDT

"Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well." - Jack London

Research indicates that holding good cards is actually of great benefit in life. People born into wealthy families, who are emotionally and financially supported to become all they can be, have a great advantage over people from poor and emotionally unsupportive families. People who have to overcome childhood abuse have a much harder time in life than those who were loved. While some challenges do make us stronger, huge challenges such as severe childhood abuse can take such an emotional, spiritual and physical toll that the saying, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," doesn't always hold true.

Despite all that, each of us has the opportunity to play a poor hand well. Each of us has the opportunity to learn and grow from the big challenges in our lives.

I look back on the poor hand I was dealt, and I'm so grateful for the little bit of role modeling I received regarding persistence. I think it's this one quality - persistence - that has enabled me to turn the poor hand into a very fulfilling life.

* Since I was born into a very poor family, I learned early how to earn money and become self-sufficient. From an early age, I persisted in earning and saving money.

* Since I was a lonely only child, with emotionally unavailable parents, I learned early to make friends and connect with others.

* Coming from a narcissistic mother and a sexually abusive father (my father was also the nurturer and the one who taught me persistence) I began my learning, healing, spiritual journey early in my life.

* I stuttered badly as a child, having inherited this from my father. But I had a lot to say, so I persisted in learning how to overcome this to become a public speaker. Wanting so much to overcome this severe disability led me to learn about and implement many different modalities into my life - from diet to spiritual surrender.

* Having been a very sickly, allergic child and hating being sick, I learned about nutrition early in my life to create the healthy body that I now live in at 72 years of age.

* Being a naturally empathic child and experiencing both my parents suffer so much, emotionally, in their lives, led me to co-create the profoundly healing Inner Bonding process.

* Desiring to share Inner Bonding with all those who are suffering and seeking relief, led me to spend the last 13 years developing the SelfQuest computer program that teaches the Inner Bonding process. There were so many huge challenges along the way, that if I hadn't learned persistence, I would have let it go a long time ago.

* If I had not spent 30 years in a very challenging marriage, I would not have learned how to help others heal their relationships.

Would I have persisted in all these things if I had been born with a silver spoon in my mouth? I don't know. Certainly there are many people who are born with huge advantages who do wonderful things in the world. What I do know is that the good hand is not a prerequisite for manifesting yourself into being all you came here to be.

We all have the opportunity to take the hand we are given and put forth persistent effort toward manifesting what is important to us. We can spend our energy blaming our past or our current circumstances, or we can spend our energy taking persistent loving action in our own behalf.

10 Ways to Realize Hidden Opportunities by Jeff Beals

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 12:00:00 CDT

"Great moments are born from great opportunities," said the late Herb Brooks, one of the world's most famous hockey coaches.

Brooks certainly seized opportunity during his career. He agreed to coach the 1980 U.S. Olympic team that beat the "unbeatable" Soviet Union in Lake Placid, New York during the famous "Miracle on Ice" game on the way to winning the gold medal. It was a modern-day "David vs. Goliath" matchup. Many coaches would refuse such an overwhelmingly difficult job. In fact, several did.

But Brooks saw opportunity in the monumental challenge of leading a bunch of young, amateur, college all-stars against the essentially professional players of the Soviet Union and other European hockey powers.

That opportunity paid off, to say the least.

Whether you're talking about sports, business or any other subject matter, seeking, finding and capitalizing on opportunity are among the most important things a professional must do.

There's one big problem with opportunity, however. It is often hard to find and even harder to harness.

"We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations," said Charles Swindoll, an American religious author.

I agree wholeheartedly with Swindoll's characterization. The best opportunities are often hidden. They are often located in places we least expect to find them and are presented by people we least expect to provide them.

That reminds me of the old story that sales managers like to share with their young trainees: "On his way back from a three-day fishing trip, a multi-millionaire visits the showroom of an upscale, luxury car dealer. The salespersons, seeing an unshaven, disheveled, poorly dressed man, essentially ignore him. Offended, the multi-millionaire buys a top-of-the-line model the next day from a direct competitor." There are a lot of ways to tell that classic missed-sales-opportunity story, but they all sound something like that.

If opportunity is so important to our success, and so difficult to find and recognize, we need to focus more of our energy on it. Unless you're naturally good at it, finding and capitalizing on opportunity needs to be a deliberate focus:

Open your eyes and ears - we can no longer afford to be indifferent, or even worse, oblivious to the world around us. Be on the lookout for ideas that could lead to new opportunities. Even more important than eyes and ears, keep your mind open too. Many of us miss opportunities, because they don't fit into our pre-existing paradigms.

Remember that all people count - sometimes we get so obsessed with the "right" people, we miss out on valuable opportunities from people, who on the surface, can do seemingly nothing for us.

Fight through the fear - one of the biggest reasons we miss out on extraordinary opportunities is because we are too afraid to leap. Herb Brooks wasn't too afraid to leap; we shouldn't be either.

Let your creative juices flow - the Nobel Prize-winning scientist Albert Szent-Gyorgi once said, "Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought." The more creative you are, the more opportunity you will discover. See the world in a different way, and doing things like nobody else, and just watch the opportunities that manifest.

Take risks - As the old saying goes, "nothing risked, nothing gained." Unless you take a chance and do something new, you'll keep running into the same old opportunities.

Work really hard - "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work," said the great inventor Thomas Edison.

Set meaningful goals - make those goals specific too. The more you clarify what you really want, the quicker you will recognize it when it shows up.

Find quiet time - many people have found great opportunities, because they prayed for them or spent time meditating about them. Such activity creates focus in your mind, and a focused mind is a powerful mind.

Believe - visualize success and tell yourself that good things will come. A positive mind is more receptive to hidden opportunity.

Prepare - as the old Boy Scout motto says, "be prepared." You never know when the perfect opportunity will open up. If you're not prepared, you might not act on it quickly enough. In his autobiography, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said he believes in "relentless preparation." He constantly prepares for crisis, so he will perform properly. Same thing applies to opportunity.

Jeff Beals is an award-winning author, who helps professionals do more business and have a greater impact on the world through effective sales, marketing and personal branding techniques. As a professional speaker, he delivers energetic and humorous keynote speeches and workshops to audiences worldwide. You can learn more and follow his "Business Motivation Blog" at JeffBeals.com.

Discounting to Create Cash Flow? Be Careful. by Mark Hunter

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 12:00:00 CDT

Recently I spoke at a large conference on the subject of how to maintain your price and avoid discounting. After the presentation, a businessperson approached me and asked what my strategy would be if his company needed to discount price to create cash flow. This is not an easy question to answer.

Sure, I could easily throw out a response that implies that the reason a company has to discount is because it hasn't done a good enough job of building its pipeline or hasn't invested enough in the right type of marketing. I know, though, that this isn't the answer a person needs when faced with the issue of cash flow.

Cash flow is a huge issue to a lot of companies, large and small. I would be lying if I didn't admit that even in my own company we've experienced periods of tight cash flow.

The question we're answering is if cutting a price to get a deal is a smart way to create cash flow.

Here is my answer:

Before making any decision about cutting a price to create cash flow, think about how you can maintain the price point and offer the customer more value. Cash is king. I first heard Donald Trump speak that phrase and I've never forgotten those three words.

Offer your customer more of something. Anytime you can close the sale at the original price, you're going to be better off. Just be careful in what your additional offering is.

The last thing you want to do is offer the customer something more that ultimately winds up costing you more in cash long-term. Notice I said cash. I'll give up some percent margin before I'll give up cash.

Before you look at offering the customer more, you have to ask yourself if you've truly done a thorough job of actually selling. Many times I've found salespeople will cut their price only out of a false belief that that is what is needed to close the sale. You might say the salesperson or business owner is panicking over what they believe, not what the customer believes.

Before you consider discounting your price, make sure that the customer fully understands the value proposition you offer and that you fully understand the customer's needs and wants. Too many times salespeople will flinch and offer a reduced price too early in the selling process.

A thorough selling process means you need to ask enough questions and follow-up questions - and listen - until you are certain you understand what the customer wants. The more you focus on the fact that what you have to offer is of value to your customer, the less appealing discounting becomes as the only way to close a sale.

Is Discounting Ever Needed?

If what you're selling is bought solely in an auction type of environment and cutting your price is the only way you know you can get the deal, then yes, it does become an option you can use.

Regardless of the circumstances that are compelling you to discount, you still must be very wise in your approach. You have to remember that if you cut your price for one customer, you will potentially send signals to other customers and prospects.

If all of your current and potential customers are going to find out, then all you've done is move yourself into a permanent state of always having an issue with cash flow. The reason is simple -- you'll now be selling everything at a lower price.

What Will Your Discount do to Your Competitors?

Just as you need to be conscientious of what messages you are sending to customers and future customers, you also must be aware of what your discount says to your competitors. How will they respond? If they respond by cutting their prices to match yours, then congratulations - you've now entered what I call "pricing death spiral."

Pricing death spiral is when one company cuts their price and everyone follows. I have one response - stupid! "Pricing death spiral" is often broken only when one company ultimately goes out of business or leaves the marketplace to focus on something else.

If you do need to cut your price to gain a sale to create cash flow, then it's imperative you do it in a way that will not send signals to other customers or competitors. Make sure the customer is isolated enough and the customer is not going to become a long-term customer.

One last point I would make about discounting is that you may have to clarify to your customer that the discount is a "one time" discount. The last thing you want to do is discount a price for a customer on one sale to create cash flow, only to have them expect the same reduced price for years to come.

To further protect yourself from being in the position of having to discount, be sure to build a marketing strategy that allows you to sell to different markets or industries. This way, even if you have to discount, you can do so with one set of customers as opposed to all your customers across the board.

Only you can decide if discounting your price is a good way or bad way to create cash flow. No matter what, make sure you think it through.

Mark Hunter, "The Sales Hunter," is a sales expert who speaks to thousands each year on how to increase their sales profitability. For more information, to receive a free weekly email sales tip, or to read his Sales Motivation Blog, visit http://www.TheSalesHunter.com. You can also follow him on http://www.Facebook.com/TheSalesHunter, http://www.Twitter.com/TheSalesHunter and http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/MarkHunter.

The Charismatic Leader - Diamond Performance by Karla Brandau

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 12:00:00 CDT

In an interview, comedian Joan Rivers was asked how she stayed so thin and trim and the interviewer said, "Do you do a lot of exercising?" "Oh, my Lord no," said Rivers. "If God had intended me to bend over, He would have put diamonds on the ground."

When actress and screen writer, Mae West, was asked about dieting she said, "I never worry about diets. The only carrots I'm interested in are the carats in a diamond."

Hungarian born American film and stage actress, Zsa Zsa Gabor said that she never hated a man enough to give him back his diamonds. And she received diamonds from 9 husbands.

Diamonds have been considered precious for centuries. Geologists say diamonds were formed billions of years ago deep inside the earth by tremendous heat and pressure. They have literally been around since the beginning of time and they will last through eternity. As the title to a popular James Bond movie states, Diamonds Are Forever, literally.

Even though they have been around forever, diamonds are rare and they are hard to find. They come to the surface of the earth during volcanic eruptions in a bluish substance called kimberlite.

To find these rough diamonds, you can search in the marshes, ponds, streams and lakes near volcanos that have erupted, or you can dig deep mines to find rough diamonds still inside the earth. However, you have to process about 22 to 100 tons of kimberlite to find one diamond. This makes a diamond very precious.

Each stone is unique and it takes a skilled technician to cut and polish the rough stone into the beautiful diamond that sells for thousands, even millions of dollars.

Application for the Charismatic Leader

Charismatic and savvy business leaders are rare. They are hard to find. Charismatic leaders are unique, each having their own facets of strength. They are precious because of the value they add to organizations. They become skilled technicians as they form, develop, and polish people into productive teams.

The four qualities of diamond you can put into your life to become a more charismatic leader are:

1. Diamond Hardness: Diamond is the hardest natural substance in nature. It is four times harder than the next hardest substance. It can cut through any other natural substance so it is used extensively in industry for drilling and polishing.

As a charismatic leader: When I ask you to emulate the hardness of diamonds, I DO NOT want you to be hard to get along with, I DO NOT want you to be hard on people; I DO NOT want you to be hard on yourself.
I do want you to equate the hardness of a diamond with being HARDY - self-determining and self-reliant. And TOUGH - tough enough not to fracture and break from the economic pressures faced in organizations today; tough enough to tell the truth; tough enough to cut through problems to solutions.
2. Diamond Clarity: Diamond has greater clarity or transparency than any other solid or liquid substance. The greater clarity in a diamond, the greater the value.

As a charismatic leader: We are going to translate this into clarity of purpose. The clearer you are on the goals of your organization, your own department or team, the greater impact you'll have on daily productivity because work will be tied directly to results. Daily efforts bring you and your employees closer to successfully executing your organizational stewardship.

Clarity for your organization, department, unit or team comes from goals setting and time management processes. Do not feel this work is insignificant but give it the time it deserves.

3. Diamond Melting Point: Diamond has the highest melting point of any natural substance: 6422 degrees Fahrenheit.

As a charismatic leader: When it comes to relationships, have a high melting point and give others the benefit of a doubt. Work to raise the melting point of discussions and disagreements. Model for your employees the ability to Pause, Think, and then ACT. Not the reverse order: Act (often inappropriately), then pause and think. Your goal is to replace meltdowns with dialog.

4. Diamond Conductivity: Diamond conducts heat better than anything - five times better than the second best element that conducts heat, silver.

As a charismatic leader: The "heat" you need to conduct is positive energy and a belief in the future. On a daily basis I encourage you to be the conductor of optimism and hope. If you can be a positive leader, you will be as a beacon of light in the darkness.

These four qualities of the element diamond are fundamental for you to emulate in your leadership career. Master them, and your employees will WANT to follow you as they give you discretionary effort, a prize to be cherished by any leader.

Growth Strategies for 2012 and Beyond by Janet Boulter

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:00:00 CDT

Now is the time to develop (or update) your strategic growth plan. While nobody has a crystal ball, positioning your company to be flexible and ready to capitalize on strategic opportunities, while growing your primary business sector is the key to succeeding in 2012 and beyond. The two most important strategies are flexibility and adaptability. In order to create both, consider the following suggestions:

Create a realistic assessment of where your company is and where you want your company to be in three years. Include strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in all primary facets of your organization. Consider getting a wide variety of feedback and input from various audiences. The more perspectives you can consider the better.

Perform a competitive analysis, looking at traditional and upcoming competitors as well as possible disruptive threats. Unlike traditional advisors, we advocate using your competitor analysis more from an industry perspective rather than copying or stealing from your competitors.

Develop several business scenarios that could be realized during the next three years. Focus primarily on the economy, globalization, technology, workforce and financing.

Create specific action plans, develop metrics and implement accountability processes to strengthen your weaknesses, bridge the gaps, manage and capitalize on the risks, and take advantage of the opportunities and strengths that both your company and the economy offer!

We are all learning to live in and succeed in this new world order. Concentrate on how you can organize your staff and your operations, to be energized and responsive to the fast-paced opportunities as they arise (or you create them).

Remember, the key to capitalizing on opportunities is to be prepared, the more planning, the more preparation the greater your company's chance of success. Start planning now for how your company is going to grow and succeed!

How to Connect with Others by Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:00:00 CDT

We are inherently social beings, and feeling emotionally connected with another is one of the great joys in life. Yet, all too often, we feel lonely around another or others, wanting to connect and not knowing how. We may have learned numerous dysfunctional or unsatisfying ways of connecting, and wonder why we still feel lonely around someone when we are trying so hard to connect.

Emotional connection is an experience of the heart, not of the head. While you may feel a certain kind of connection when you are in your head, this form of connection may leave you feeling unsatisfied.

Do you try to create connection by:

* Gossiping
* Storytelling about things that don't relate to the person you are talking to
* Going on and on about yourself
* Discussing details about mundane subjects
* Discussing superficial topics, such as the weather
* Complaining, whining
* Attacking, blaming
* Interrogating - asking combative questions
* Pulling for attention in various other ways

Satisfying emotional connection occurs when you talk and act from your heart, such as when you:

* Listen attentively and empathically
* Ask kind questions about meaningful things
* Speak your truth from your heart
* Let the other in on your learning and healing process
* Share in a creative process
* Do fun things together, laugh together
* Do kind and caring things for each other
* Want to understand, when things may be difficult between you and another person - stay open to learning with them, even when it is challenging
* Support each other in things that are important to each of you
* Experience joy for another's joy and pain for their pain
* Show caring for the other's feelings
* Care about how your words and behavior affect the other person

I find that I can engage in many of these behaviors even in more casual encounters, such as when I'm at a social gathering. There is a huge difference for me between talking about the weather or complaining about something, and being truly interested in another person. Being aware of whether I'm coming from my head or my heart is what makes all the difference between a superficial connection and a meaningful connection.

I grew up hearing, "Don't wear your heart on your sleeve." The message was, "Protect yourself from getting hurt, by staying in your head. If you share your heart with people, you will get hurt." I learned this lesson so well that I ended up being completely disconnected from my body and my feelings, wondering why I could never feel connected with anyone.

Staying in my head disconnected me from my own heart and soul, and disconnected me from others' hearts and souls. In order to reconnect with myself and my own truth and feelings, and feel the joy of connection with others, I needed to be willing to feel the deep loneliness of disconnection - which I had staved off my whole life. I also needed to be willing to feel the loneliness and heartache of experiencing others' unwillingness to come from their open hearts.

I'd far rather experience the loneliness and heartache of experiencing others not connecting with me, than the emptiness and aloneness of my own disconnection from myself. It's only in staying connected with my own feelings that I can experience the joy of connection with another, when that person is open hearted. The joy of connection with another is so fulfilling that I'm willing to risk getting hurt if they are closed to connection with me. The joy far outweighs the pain that might occur, when I come from my heart rather than my head.

Stop Taking the Bait of Projection! by Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 12:00:00 CDT

All of us have projected our own thoughts, feelings, motivations and desires onto others, and have been at the other end of projection. Many of us learned to project onto others as we were growing up, when our parents, siblings or caregivers projected their unconscious feelings, thoughts and motivations onto us.

We might project onto others when we have judged our own feelings, actions, desires and motivations as bad, wrong, shameful or dangerous.

This article is about being at the other end of someone projecting onto you.

Projections are very different than someone offering you gifts of valuable information about you. Projections are often angrily hurled as an attack, while valuable information about you is generally offered with kindness.

Projections may create a sense of confusion; they are not about you, but the person projecting is saying something as if it is about you.

For example, Frank is upset and Mary is trying her best to be there for him. Suddenly Frank attacks Mary with, "You have no compassion!"

If Mary takes the bait, she will defend herself, vehemently explaining that she is doing her very best to support Frank. But no matter what she says, it does no good. In fact, it gets worse, as more insults are hurled her way.

Mary needs to understand that Frank is projecting. The real message behind "You have no compassion," is "I have no compassion for myself or for you. I feel ashamed of myself for something I feel, want or have done. I don't have the courage to face myself, so I'm defending against it by attacking you."

What is the best thing to do in this situation? Often, the best thing is to say something like, "This is not about me," and then lovingly disengage - keeping your heart open, in case the other person decides to open to themselves and with you. Be very compassionate toward yourself, as it is lonely and heartbreaking to be attacked about something that has nothing to do with you. We all want to be seen and understood by the important people in our lives, and it's painful when they project their own issues onto us.

Common projections are:

* "You're selfish." Translation: I'm being selfish and I don't want to admit it or deal with it.

* "You're judgmental." Translation: I'm judging myself and I feel ashamed of this, so it's easier to blame you instead.

* "You're angry." Translation: I'm angry, but I judge myself for being angry so I won't admit it.

* "Everything is about you." Translation: I'm being narcissistic and I don't want to know this.

* "You're crazy." Translation: I'm feeling or acting out of control and I can't let myself know this.

* "You're abusive." Translation: I'm being abusive and I refuse to deal with myself.

The thing NOT to do when you are at the other end of projection is to take the bait. If the person projecting can get you to take the bait, he or she is off the hook. As soon as you try to discuss, explain, defend, argue, teach, cry, attack back, give yourself up, project back, or any number of other ways of protecting against the projection, the person projecting can now do exactly what they want to do - which is to focus on what you are doing rather than on themselves.

The worse they feel about what they have done, want, or feel, the more attacking they may be. It's a crazy-making situation, so generally the only thing you can do is remove yourself from the arena.

About Your Future by Nan Russell

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 12:00:00 CDT

When faced with catching a fly ball, Lucy missed again. "The past got in my eyes," she told Charlie Brown, "I thought I had it, but suddenly I remembered all the others I'd missed."

In two decades in management, I've known hundreds of workplace Lucys. People who let their past get in the way of their future; who self-determine what they're going to do, can do, or might be able to do by what they didn't do, haven't done, or even failed at. They stay aligned to their past like a Peanuts comic strip philosophy.

Past-focused people sabotage themselves with yesterday's mantras that become today's expectations: "Yeah, we tried that before and it didn't work;" "I got rejected once already so I'm not going to make that mistake again;" or "No one listens to my ideas."

What they miss is this: that may have been true yesterday, but they're in charge of deciding if it's still going to be true for them tomorrow.

While people can't change their past, life is about the choices we still get to make. It's only too late when we give up, stop trying, or believe our negative self-talk press releases.

People who are winning at working know that what happens tomorrow is affected not by yesterday, but by today. They follow a philosophy akin to my refrigerator magnet's counsel, believing "Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life."

They don't dwell on their mistakes, less than optimal performance or occasional missed balls. They accept them, learn from them, and move on. Then, they do whatever they need to do to make sure those mistakes don't happen again.

People who winning at working are focused on what is to come. Their energy is spent figuring out how to do better, not tearing themselves down for yesterday's results.

If you want to be winning at working, don't allow yourself to be hijacked by what promotion you didn't get, the increase you're disappointed in, what potholes slowed you down, which boss didn't like you, or what opportunities you missed out on. Let the past be the past. Focus instead on what you can do now to impact your future.

People who are winning at working drop balls, have less than optimal work occurrences, and make their share of mistakes. But they handle them differently. They decide to do better, taking ball catching lessons if need be and practicing, learning, and growing their skills so the next time the ball is thrown to them, they'll confidently catch it.

Want to be winning at working? Don't listen to Lucy. Be about your future, not your past.

(c) 2011 Nan S. Russell. All rights reserved.