Career Guidance You Don’t Want To Use — 
How To Hide From Your Boss (NOT!)

It’s Friday, which means it’s time for career guidance that isn’t helpful, but it sure is funny.

There are no word’s for this week’s 30-second video. Just enjoy it!

If you are truly seeking career guidance, we’d love to serve you. Check out Live It Forward Coaching and our Home Study Course. Each is designed to help you discover your Vocational Calling and equip you to strategically pursue the work and life that you love!

Also, be sure to check out past Career Guidance You Don’t Want To Use posts. Here are five of my favorites!

• Staff Motivation
• Get Your Mojo On
• Go Ahead And Do What You Want To Do
• A Surefire Way To Land A Job
• Please Don’t Hurt Small Animals

Make Good Art!
Some Amazing (and Unique) Thoughts On Success

My good friend, Chad Jeffers, who happens to play slide guitar for Carrie Underwood and is a fantastic speaker as well, sent me a link to the video below. All I can say is WOW!!! The thoughts on success shared by Neil Gaiman ring true with many of the “live it forward” ideas and strategies we share on this website.

Do yourself a favor and take 20 minutes to watch the video below. Believe me, it will be well worth your investment of time and attention. You will be encouraged and inspired by Neil’s thoughts on success.

Questions: Which of Neil Gaiman’s thoughts on success do you agree with? Which ones don’t you agree with? Any thoughts on success you would add? Share your comments and insights below!

Oh, Paraprosdokians!
(I Promise, I Did Not Just Let Loose Of An Expletive)

Paraprosdokians are figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected. And most of the time, they are pretty humorous as well. (By the way, an interesting bit of trivia is Winston Churchill loved paraprosdokians.)

A teacher friend passed along the follow paraprosdokians to my wife. Kathy and I had a good laugh, and we thought you would too. What’s more, you’ll be shocked at how often you can use paraprosdokians in everyday conversation (I used several last week at the Speak It Forward Boot Camp).

Where there’s a will, I want to be in it.

The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But…it’s still on my list.

Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

If I agree with you, we’d both be wrong!

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

They usually begin the evening news with “Good Evening,” then proceed to tell you why it isn’t.

To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.

I didn’t say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut and still think they are sexy.

You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

I used to be indecisive. Now I’m not so sure.

Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.

Where there is a will…there are relatives.

I’m suppose to respect my elders, but its getting harder and harder for me to find one now.

If you have a paraprosdokians, be sure to share it below in our comment section! Let’s see how many new ones we can discover together…

Pictures of Success — A Holistic Experience!
(The Speak It Forward Boot Camp)

This past Thursday through Saturday was the Speak It Forward Boot Camp. It’s an event I host two times a year (the next one is scheduled for October 25-27, 2012), and when I call it a Boot Camp, it’s a Boot Camp! We meet from 8 AM to about 9 PM each day so that we can over deliver on service and content.

Personally, I thoroughly enjoy the experience! What’s more, I think the event gets stronger each time we put it on because I continue to grow as a professional speaker, both in the way I present and in how I market my speaking services. What this means is that each time I host the Boot Camp, I have more experience and value to share with participants. Serving and adding value to people who want to break into the speaking business in the two key areas of (1) how to present their message with passion and authenticity and (2) how to market their speaking services in a way that they get booked…both are the primary pictures of success for the Boot Camp.

Yet interestingly, there were additional pictures of success this time. It’s hard to put my finger on exactly what happened, why it happened, or how it happened, but one of the emails I received from an alumni who attended the Boot Camp again seems to articulate well what took place. Take a look…

Good Morning Kent,

Yup, there seemed to be quite a few different pictures of success painted during this past Speak It Forward Boot Camp. And together, each picture made for a holistic experience. I have to admit, I’m not even on Cloud 9 this morning…I’m a bit higher than that!

Career Guidance You Don’t Want To Use — 
How To Motivate Your Staff!

It’s Friday, which means it’s time for career guidance that isn’t helpful, but it sure is funny.

This week’s one-minute video is both hilarious and painful. Enjoy!

If you are truly seeking career guidance, we’d love to serve you. Check out Live It Forward Coaching and our Home Study Course. Each is designed to help you discover your Vocational Calling and equip you to strategically pursue the work and life that you love!

Also, be sure to check out past Career Guidance You Don’t Want To Use posts. Here are five of my favorites!

• Get Your Mojo On
• Go Ahead And Do What You Want To Do
• Warning—Terrible Job Reference
• A Surefire Way To Land A Job
• Please Don’t Hurt Small Animals

How To Achieve Your Goals?  Push It Forward!

Goals!

We think about them. We set them. We strive to accomplish them. Yet often, we get discouraged because we’re not exactly sure how to achieve our goals.

More often than not, the best kept secret to how to achieve your goals is not a magic formula or some special sauce…it’s simply the ability to push through. I know, it sounds so simple; but we all know it’s not as simple as it sounds.

Do need some motivation on how to achieve your goals today? These quotes should inspire you to continue to “push it forward” towards achieving those goals that you know are worthwhile and important!

Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore. 
-Andre Gide

Nothing will work unless you do.
-John Wooden

The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person’s determination.
-Tommy Lasorda

Continuous effort—not strength or intelligence—is the key to unlocking our potential.
-Liane Cardes

(NOTE: Today is the kickoff of a new swim season for the team I coach, so I decided to repost this blog from June 2011. It’s something I wrote for the team concerning the key to success. I hope it inspires and encourages you today!)

The Bullhorn of Your Actions — The #1 Key To Success

I think the following phrase might be the #1 key to success in the most important roles of our lives…What we believe in is evidenced by how we live, not just by what we say.

Did you catch that?

What we believe in is evidenced by how we LIVE, not just by what we say.

As many of you know, I coach a summer swim team. It’s very different than the other sports I’ve coached over the years. For one, the team is larger (last year we have 155 swimmers ages 4-18 years old / this year we are closer to 180). Two, we have practice practically every weekday morning from 8-11 AM. Three, our swim meets are 6-7 hour events…warm-ups start around 5 PM and most meets finish sometime around 11 PM (give or take an hour). Finally, the behind-the-scenes work coaches have to do (i.e. the paperwork of seeding a meet), along with all the behind-the-scenes work that volunteers have to do is enormous. As I often say, the people who run a swim meet effectively could probably run any major organization or endeavor.

All and all, coaching swimming is a huge investment of time, energy, and focus. At the same time, the return on that investment is just as enormous. The opportunities to teach life lessons to swimmers (and LEARN them myself) are abundant, and I’d love to share one of the lessons I’ve taught (and learned) during the past few weeks.

Recently, I challenged several swimmers with the question: “What is TRUE sportsmanship?” In each case, my goal was to help swimmers realize that true sportsmanship is a key to success in life and sports. Additionally, I wanted swimmers to realize that true sportsmanship is shown more by making wise choices and taking the right actions than by shaking hands and saying “nice swim” at the end of the race….because words, without proper actions, are empty.

What’s more, I’ve had the opportunity to communicate with swimmers and the parents of swimmers on our team that showing TRUE sportsmanship means:

• Listening to and respectfully following through with the requests made by coaches.
• Encouraging and building up other swimmers, especially swimmers on our team, and not tearing them down.
• Knowing what events you are swimming and not wandering off before those events causing staging people and teammates to search high and low for you.
• Taking 100 percent responsibility for your attitude, actions, articulation, and associations…and not making excuses when a mistake is made in these areas.
• Swimming your best both in technique and speed (i.e. “leaving it all in the pool”) no matter what place you come in or what place your relay team comes in.

The reality is we are at that point in the season where real “swim it forward” and “live it forward” life lessons can be taught and caught, and each of the above examples actually happened during the past few weeks. What’s more, each situation gave me the opportunity to talk to individuals about TRUE sportsmanship and about the true keys to success in sports and life.

Parents of Stingrays swimmers (as well as any other parents reading this blog), may I encourage you to have similar conversations with your children? I have three teenage swimmers in my family and wow, does our swim team give me a great opportunity to teach significant “live it forward” life lessons to each of them. So, let’s all be intentional and take advantage of every opportunity given to us to teach our kids how to live it forward in the most important roles of life. Again, this is probably the #1 key to success in all the major roles we play in life.

And by the way, I am proudest of our team when a swimmer or a relay team is in last place and team members are still cheering and encouraging their teammates to “leave it all in the pool.” Swimming your hardest when the race is close is easy. Swimming your hardest when you or your team has been lapped is much more difficult. It takes character and confidence to continue to swim your guts out…and personally, nothing makes me prouder!

Stingrays…I was VERY proud of our team this past Thursday night. Very proud!!

(Pictures provided by Kerry Kruegler)

NOTE: One of the reasons I continue to coach swimming is because as a professional speaker who speaks to middle school and high school students all across the nation, as well as educators and youth workers who serve middle school and high school students, staying involved in the real lives of young people and their families is critical to remaining relevant as a communicator.

To find out more about my speaking services, click on logo below:

Wondering How To Get Motivated?
Just Watch This Kid!

It’s Friday, which usually means it’s time for career guidance that isn’t too helpful, but it sure is funny. Today, however, we’re going to take a different path.

As most readers know, I’m a professional speaker. Additionally, I host the Speak It Forward Boot Camp for those who are looking to get into public speaking. Probably the #1 questions I’m asked as a speaker and as a trainer of speakers is a “how to get motivated” question. Not how do I get motivated personally, but how do I as a speaker get an audience motivated?

I could share a lot of the strategies I use to motivate an audience (and probably will in future post), but since today is Friday, I’m going to keep it lighthearted and just encourage you to follow this boy’s lead. It’s a really fun “how to get motivated” video. Enjoy!

Keys to Success (Sort Of) —
3 Signals You’re About To Do Something Really Stupid!

Picture by Peter Cuba via Flickr

Wouldn’t it be great if a red warning light immediately started flashing the moment we’re about to do something stupid? Add an ear-piercing alarm in conjunction with the red flashing light and that would be even better!

Well, I consider the 3 signals below red warning lights and blaring alarms that I’m probably on the verge of doing something stupid…REALLY STUPID! In fact, if you want to discover a few keys to success in your life, consider doing the exact opposite of what I’m about to describe.

If you’re doing anything to kiss up to someone, you’re probably about to do something really stupid!

Doing something to serve and add value to someone else’s life is one of the keys to success in life and is truly a beautiful thing. Doing something to kiss up to someone or just because we’re unable to say “no” is downright ugly.

If you’re doing anything because “everyone else is doing it,” you’re probably about to do something really stupid!

Let’s stop following the crowd! One of the greatest keys to success is simply doing the opposite of what 90 percent of people do.  In fact, Earl Nightingale’s classic advice is some of the best I’ve ever read!

If you’re doing anything based solely on an emotional reaction, you’re probably about to do something really stupid!

Most emotions are “in the moment” and can be very deceptive. Rarely is a wise decision made in the heat of emotions; therefore, allowing ourselves some time and space to cool off and think before reacting is always a good move!

QUESTION: These are 3 signals I try to pay attention to in order to keep myself from doing something really stupid. What about you? Are these signals helpful? Any signals you’d like to add to the list?

Thoughts on Success — How Persistant Are You?

A lot of people share thoughts on success in the blogosphere, but every once in a while someone shares something that really grabs my attention. The video below is one of those thoughts on success that captured my attention because it’s a “picture paints a thousand words” sort of video.

QUESTION:  Have you ever demonstrated persistence in your life or work? Did it pay off? Share more of your story with us!

NOTE: A special thanks to my good friends, Michael and Claudia Good, who originally shared this video on their rise365.com blog. Their blog is a great one to follow!

(BTW…I love having “good” friends with the last night “Good.” How cool is that?!)