Time Out! My heart is crushed when I hear of senseless killing of humans by other humans. I am reminded of a recent adage I heard, “Hurt people, hurt people.” I look forward to traveling to Paris. Happiness, fulfillment, and joy are never found in a consumption mentality at the expense of others. Rather, they…
Three Ways to Maximize Your Motivation
When most people land a new job, they are full of excitement and begin contemplating how they can be successful. After a while, responsibilities become routine and the balloon of motivation that was once ready to burst is now almost completely deflated. Before we dive into ways to maximize your motivation, consider the three components of…
Six Reasons Sales Aren’t Scary
Many people shy away from sales because they fear confrontation; making a mistake; cold-calling and other rationales. Here are six reasons sales roles simply aren’t scary. Sales start everything. Henry Ford famously said, “Nothing happens until someone sells something,” because at the heart of every enterprise is the revenue-generating engine of sales. Appliances would not…
Time Out!
Performance under pressure. Watching it is amazing. Most of us have jobs that have pressure, though we don’t have 10 million viewers watching everything we do and analyzing all of our decisions. The pressure of sports represents the ultimate in reality TV. This week, the Kansas City Royals won the World Series. While their players peaked at the…
Four Steps to Master Mindfulness
More and more Americans are practicing mindfulness, or meditation, for one simple reason—it works. Just as regular physical exercise is beneficial for the body in terms of better rest and general health, mindfulness is beneficial for minimizing stress and maximizing productivity. Whereas exercising your muscles improves your physique, exercising your brain increases its density where…
Time Out!
One of the greatest challenges in leadership is to correct mistakes with an effective corrective action plan and process. As a Level 5 Leader, the greatest challenge is walking the line of being helpful when we must be controlling in the situation. To be clear, I am talking about a major mistake outside of effective…
Nice to Beat You — Four Ways Workplace Competition Pays Off
Dale Carnegie once told a story demonstrating how powerful competition in the workplace can be. To incentivize workers in the Charles M. Schwab steel mill, Schwab wrote the quantity of steel that the day shift had produced on the floor. The night shift worked extra hard to top the day shift’s number and soon both teams were…
Three Reasons to Welcome Rejection
Everyone fears rejection although it is inevitable. No employee will procure the funding necessary to commence a huge project every time. There are no sales representatives with a 100% close rate. Executive Boards decline requests made by stakeholders every single day. Accepting that rejection, set-backs and losses are inevitable does not mean giving up or giving in. Instead, continue…
Four Ways to Pump Up Your Productivity
If one of your goals is to be more productive at work, follow these four simple tips. Get your groove on. When I returned to the workplace after half of a decade raising small children, I was surprised by the number of millennials with earbuds in their ears. “How can they possibly get anything done?” I thought…
Three Paths to Innovation at Small Companies
Most people agree that an innovation strategy is critical to a company’s success, however many also say that it is easier said than executed. Of the one hundred largest companies in the U.S. a century ago, only seventeen survive today. The rate of new product innovation in consumer goods increases exponentially year over year. Surprisingly, 95…