US Marine Museum, Quantico, VA

I am preparing for a speech for a large group of sales managers and executives. As part of the preparation process I was interviewing the lead executive of this group and she couldn’t say enough good things about what her team accomplished in 2011. The challenges they overcame, the victories they won, what a team effort.  As I presented my idea for the presentation I planned to give to her team I used the word “remarkable”. She approved of my idea, but she added, “Not everyone was remarkable, but the overall result was nothing short of remarkable.” As I walked away from this conversation the phrase, “not everyone was remarkable” kept ringing in my ears

Who Me?

I am sure that if I asked the audience during my talk for a show of hands on whether they think they were personally remarkable or not, most if not all would say their performance was indeed remarkable. We tend to give ourselves a break most time and judge ourselves on the curve.  This got me thinking about my own performance in 2011 and now in 2012 and would the people closest to me think that what I did was remarkable.

Being Remarkable

The definition of remarkable is something that is worthy of remark; extraordinary; outstanding; worthy of notice. Does that describe your performance? How does one pursue being remarkable?

1. Keep a sharp focus – most people that miss remarkable do so because they are trying to do too many things, many of which are not priorities. Decide what high priority things need to be done and do those things.

2. Identify where you need help and ask for it – I see this a lot, where asking for help means weakness. My experience is that there is so much to do that if we left it completely up to me to get it all done it would not get done. Leveraging your team and other resources is the way to get more accomplished and move closer to remarkable.

3. Avoid distraction – I notice for me that if I do not have #1 above locked down I can easily be distracted by other requirements in the business. Being able to say “no” when you need to and not take on tasks that distract you from the mission is an incredibly important skill to have.

4. Never give up – a lot of people that I know who miss remarkable do so because they simply stopped trying. There were some difficult moments or setbacks that discouraged them and they gave up on the goal. Enduring through tough times and challenges is often what makes a performance remarkable.

Do an honest evaluation of the last 6-12 months of your life and ask yourself if you were remarkable. It is never too late to make a change that will lead you to a remarkable performance in 2012.

Personally Remarkable is a post from: Perry Holley | PathChoice

Photo Credit - Paul Holley

My wife is a master gardener. There is nothing she cannot do when it comes to flowers, plants or trees. She studies it, she knows it, she lives it. So, why is it that when I see her snipping away perfectly good looking stems from her rose bushes I begin to object? She’s the expert, I don’t know jack, but it just does not seem right to me.

“You have to trim away the parts that keep the bush from reaching its full potential”, she tells me and I know that she is right. Left to its own the rose bush would become a tangled and unorganized mess instead of the long stemmed beautiful creation that we all love to admire. She has to cut away the dead stems and blooms, the stems or blooms that look sick or dying, and even some healthy stems or blooms that might look good, but are not the best.

Avoiding a Tangled Mess

If your life is the rose bush then that makes you the master gardener. The need for pruning is constant and that job falls to you. If you want to reach your full potential then you need to take on the intentional practice of pruning away the parts of your life that are holding you back.

Dr. Henry Cloud in his book, “Necessary Endings” says that, “growth depends on getting rid of the unwanted or the superfluous”.  In my life, just like that of the rose bush I need to be on the look out for things that take up my time and energy, but that will never drive the results that I am looking for. For me this means deciding what are the most important that I need to be focusing on and let other less important, or non-producing things go.

Just like the gardener, this process needs to be intentional and purposeful. Meaning, I need to acknowledge the constant need for pruning and then make the assessment and take the actions on a regular basis. Since I am a simple guy and need a simple plan, here are the three questions I ask myself and I ask those who know me best.

1. What Should I Stop Doing? What are the things that take my time, money, energy and resources, but do not help me achieve the results I am looking to achieve?

2. What Should I Keep Doing? Where do you see the greats return on your investment of time, money, energy and resources?

3. What Should I Start Doing? What am I missing? What actions or habits do I need to build into my life that would move me from good to great in the area of my goals and aspirations?

If you are like me, starting new things is not a problem. I am an idea guy and I have a thousand ideas of things I can start doing today. The problem, like the rose bush, is that more is not better. Doing the right things and stopping the wrong things is where productivity and success will be found. It is so easy to be spread over so many seemingly good things that we miss the great things. Pruning can be painful, but it is a short term pain that once endured creates long term gain.

Admire a rose bush today and ask yourself what needs to be pruned from your life to ensure equal beauty in your future.

Pruning for Success is a post from: Perry Holley | PathChoice

Photo Credit - iStockPhoto

I saw a cartoon last week that asked the question, “What is a New Years Resolution?” Answer, at least according to the cartoon, “A to-do list for the first week of January.”

I am not a big fan of the new years resolution, at least not since I learned the importance of setting goals. Setting a few, clearly defined, measurable goals for the next 6-18 months is clearly one of the all-time best practice activities of top performers. I saw a survey recently that showed that of the top 5% of performers in a particular area 100% of them had written goals. Of the bottom 5% of performers only 16% had written goals. Seems to me that having written goals is important to achievement.

Begin with the End in Mind

When I ask people why they don’t have a written plan for what they would like to accomplish this year I often hear that they are not sure what to write. In fact, I was meeting with one of the young men I mentor this week and he asked me timidly if I thought his goal for the year was any good. When he told me his goal I sensed he was embarrassed somehow that it was not majestic enough to qualify as an acceptable goal. ANNOUNCEMENT: If it is YOUR goal and it is going to take some WORK to get there, it IS majestic enough.

Here is the simple approach I use to set the sails for the coming year:

1. Decide where you want to end up – think of the segments of your life (Family, Work, Health, Spiritual, Relationships, etc.) and decide what you would like to see in this area in the coming year.

e.g. Have a book published in 2012 by a major publishing house

2. Decide where you are starting from – honestly evaluate your starting point in each of the areas you identified in step #1. This will help you to see the gap and help you to decide on the actions for step #3.

e.g. I have an idea for a book and I have begun to write

3. Decide the 3-5 actions your will need to take – for each area you identified decide what 3-5 actions are required by you in order to achieve the goal you identified in step #1 a reality.

e.g. Actions – develop a book proposal; find an agent to help me navigate publishing waters; identify multiple    publishers; formalize and present proposal to publishers; evaluate feedback; persist

Author Darren Hardy likes to say, “Ink it, don’t think it”, meaning, write down your goals. It is not enough to merely have them in your mind, you must commit it to paper. This allows you to read it on a regular basis, make notes and changes to the plan, and be accountable to yourself for what you said you were going to do.

If you would like a free resource for Goal Designing from Darren Hardy and The Compound Effect go HERE.

New Year, New You is a post from: Perry Holley | PathChoice

It’s that time of year again. Peace and Joy are in the air. The songs proclaim it and the season requires it, but I don’t see it so much in the people I encounter. When I ask someone about their plans for the holidays there is usually pain in the answer. There is almost always some circumstance or some relationship that will hinder the full expression of joy that each of us so desperately want to find.

Changing the Focus

Author Jim Rohn once said, “The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keeps out the joy”. How true that is. The more I speak with others about this and compare it to the feelings of my own heart I find that we often focus on the things we don’t have instead of the things we do. Most of us have experienced some hurt or disappointment within the sphere of our relationships and we have built a wall attempting to keep the pain from returning. The wall may keep out the pain, but it also keeps out the joy. I know I have done this and I am choosing this year to begin a new tradition.

This year I have decided to change my focus from what I don’t have to what I do have. Sounds like a silly play on words, but it is an enormous change in attitude and outlook. For every negative circumstance or relationship I can think of in my life I search to find a good thing hidden in there that I have not focused on before.  I have yet to find a situation where I could not find that hidden good thing. In fact, it wasn’t all that hidden, I was just blind to it.

Author Marianne Williamson wrote that, “Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.” That is exactly what I have found to be true. When we change the focus from what we don’t have to what we do it is amazing what we find. We are blessed beyond belief. We have more than we ever thought we would have or deserve to have. We realize that in spite of a few things not being exactly as we would want them to be, we have it pretty good.

Joy and happiness are linked and happiness is a choice. Many call this “contentment”. Find contentment where you are and focus on what you have been blessed with. Reject the temptation to compare to something or someone else and above all choose joy.

Choosing Joy is a post from: Perry Holley | PathChoice