Posts filed under 'Development'
For a long time now I’ve read all about the benefits of standing while working. I’ve wanted to get a standing desk for a long time, but when I priced out real honest-to-goodness standing desks…well I just don’t have that kind of money to try something I may end up hating.
So imagine my happiness when over Memorial Day weekend I happened into an Ikea store and found their Vika desk legs and tops which allowed me to build a small standing desk cheaply to test it out.
I purchased 4 Vika Byske legs for $30 each (adjustable from 27.5″ to 42.125″) and a Vika Amon tabletop for $19.99.
Here’s what it looks like (click to enlarge).
I’ve been standing at it for a little over an hour and a half now. Here are some of my observations:
1) My feet are starting to get sore, and I can feel a little tightness in my lower back. I’ve read online that there is an adjustment period when switching to a standing workspace, so hopefully this will be a temporary problem.
2) My hands and wrists feel pretty good. When I’m sitting I’m frequently guilty of resting my wrists on my desk and just being generally un-ergonomic. My hands and lower arms will get a little numb and tingly after a while when I’m sitting. So far I’ve noticed that the change in my posture seems to be making my hands feel much better.
3 I’ve gotten a lot of weird looks, and plenty of comments like, “What’s that?” and “Why would you want to stand?” Looks like I’m going to have to be prepared to be the office “kook” for awhile. On a positive note several people have come up and commented on how cool my idea is. I’ll slowly convert them all!
4) Being on my feet makes me feel more energetic! I’ve run back and forth a few times to the copy room this afternoon with nary a thought about it. Before I would plan out trips because I was comfortable - and lazy - sitting on my duff. Now I just grab papers and go - I very much like the freedom it gives.
5) Right now the desktop is 43.25″ high and it feels pretty good. The Ikea system looks like it’s actually designed to be attached to the wall on one edge with just two legs under it (not four) so it’s a little wobbly. It’s perfectly workable, but for a long, long term solution I would want a “real” standing desk.
I’ll post periodic updates on my experiment with standing while I work. I think that a good mix of standing and sitting will be best as it’s awful easy to flit from task to task while standing. I don’t feel like I can concentrate and focus as much as I’m just full of energy. So combining standing when I need a burst of productivity with sitting when I really need to roll up my sleeves and crunch numbers should prove to be a great system.
More to come!
May 29th, 2008
I recently sat down with Azher Khan of Calderon Textiles to interview him about his thoughts on success, goals, and self-development.
He is one of three share holders of Calderon Textiles in Indianapolis, Indiana and has been - by any measure - very successful in both his personal and professional roles. Azher is a native of Karachi, Pakistan and credited with the original concept of importing quality linens and distributing them to the U.S. market. He holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the American University. He also has been a key figure in Indiana providing relief to Pakistan in the wake of the 2005 earthquake that killed 75,000 people.
JC: People seem to be drawn to success individuals and want to know their “secret” or get some “quick-fix” advice that will make them successful too. What advice do you give to people who ask you how to achieve success similar to yours?
AK: I don’t know if you would like a word to describe what I feel is needed to be successful, but in my mind several people have talked to me, including a young person who is going through college and wanting that light bulb to come on, and I say two things are needed: Logic and Action.
Now there may be better words to describe what I am about to explain, but maybe my most favorite word or concept to tie them together is balance. You have these two things that are needed, and then you create a balance in everything you do. There is nothing that one can say they do where they don’t need balance. So these two things I feel are needed.
When I say Logic, I mean you have to be able to think through to make a plan – there is no “quick fix”. The best analogy I can share is to say I need to get to Chicago for business; I start putting a plan together. In order to be there at a certain time, I need to leave at a certain time. I need to get on I-465 and take the exit to I-65 and then get on IN-294 and so on and so forth. I’ve got to take money with me, etc. There is such importance in logical thinking and planning, and you know, understanding even why you’re going there or doing something – what your objective is – all of that. So to think through everything critically and be able to put together a plan is a great ability you have to develop.
Then the second ability is action. If you don’t put your plan into action, you’ll never get there. So if you take action, it needs to be consistent with the plan. So you say, “Okay, I’ve got to go to Chicago, it’s very important.” But if you never get going, then what good is all the logic and planning and thinking through?
And if you do get out but don’t execute the plan in a timely way, then it won’t work. So you get on I-465, but never look that you need to get onto I-65…and you end up going in circles. (laughs)
You would be surprised at how many people have one or the other.
They will either dream about something, but never take the time to think through and plan their lives and goals and priorities. Or they’ll have all these grandiose plans, but don’t have the will to get going. And unfortunately a young person I know is a great example of a guy who wants to do well; he thinks all of these things, but unfortunately he doesn’t take action. I’ve told him that. What happened is he wanted to go into law, and I was very supportive of his decision. Twice now he’s not made the time to take the LSAT. So he had a plan, but no action.
In those regards, and in everything else, you’ve got to have balance.
JC: A lot of people don’t look forward to going to work each day because their major motivator isn’t congruent with what they’re doing (i.e. they work for the money, not for their enjoyment of the work). What is your major motivator? What makes you jump out of bed in the morning, ready to tackle the day?
AK: The key is people. The key is people and a sense of committment to them. There is almost nothing I wouldn’t do for them. Once I had an employee with two small children who was thrown out by her husband. She was faced with moving to Southern Indiana where she had family, but instead called me. Do you know she stayed with my for two weeks - with two small children! It wasn’t two years or two months, but I believe it says a lot that she felt comfortable enough to come to me for help. It’s the relationships I have with some people - I feel like I can’t let them down.
I think that - going back to what I was saying about man being an animal - is that we’re a social animal. And understanding people is the key part of being a leader and a successful person.
I don’t…you can’t do major things without people. Even the best-of-the-best had people to help them - look at the prophets; did Jesus spread his message by himself? (pauses) He had disciples, exactly! And look at how young He was when He died and the power of His message.
And Moses - he had a stuttering problem - and he had to convince the Pharoh - and he was from the Pharoh’s house which shows that good can come from evil. And he prayed, ‘God open my tounge’ when we was going to meet the Pharoh and tell him to release the Israleites.
Last year I had to appeal to the Customs and Border about a large fine they wanted to levey against the company and I prayed to open my tounge and share the truth. The employees at Calderon, they rely on and counted on me to win the case and we did!”
Moses’ brother - I don’t know his name, in the Qur’an we call him ‘Haroon’ - was his ’spokes person’ and even the Prophet Mohammad had people around him he relied on.
I believe there is goodness in everyone - something good - in everyone and you have to “tap” it out. You get it not by being evil and fighting but with love and kindness.”
I respect everyone and expect respect…I will not comprimise on that.
You have to let the process prevale to find the goodness in people. You try your level best to find it, don’t give up on tapping the goodness. When you do find it the reward will be sweet and you will have a permanent victory by reaching out. You build a friend for life.
Now I don’t quite believe in ‘turning the other cheek’ - if you hit me I’m going to…to hit you back, hopefully harder (laughs) but you have to go a long way before I’ll write off a relationship.
JC: How do you balance between when it’s time to stop making the plan and when it’s time to start taking action? You can plan yourself to death, and you can take all the action in the world and not have a good plan. So what do you use as a barometer to balance the two, how do you know when it’s time to stop planning and start taking action?
AK: I think it is experience and intuition that helps you create that balance. You continue to stay focused on that balance and it helps you to continue to keep planning and thinking and vice-versa. Focusing on balance doesn’t allow you to just jump to action without thinking too.
So those two, logic and action, are important – the two ends of the scale – and in the middle is balance which helps you to not tip to far toward either end.
JC: Successful people are generally well read and enjoy learning new and interesting material. What great books are you reading right now?
AK: I would say there are several; it’s hard to pick one or two. However the book I would have to say is the most important and influential book to me would have to be Tuesdays with Morrie.
I also like books about people who have been in business and biographies because the whole point is to try to get as much experience as soon as you can! (laughs)
I would say that I wish we could go through life twice, but knowing what we knew when we were here before, because you learn the first time through (laughs). So what better way is there to learn than to read biographies of people and try to learn from their experiences? You know? Jack Welsh is a good example of this and probably someone you’ve heard of.
Another good book that I really enjoyed is Good to Great by Phil Collins or Jim Collins…something Collins.
A point I want to mention is that in my mind you can never read a book without a pencil. I always say you can’t read without a pen and pencil…and highlighter!
JC: Can you finish this sentence: “A man’s destiny is…….”
AK: …is to leave to his family, community, and country a better world.
If you’ve affected the home, you’ve affected – in some way – all of those. Then your children can affect the world, their children will effect the world – so you try to impact as much as you can, but the minimum is your obligation to your family, then to your community, then to your country, and then your obligation to this world.
JC: One thing that has always impressed me is the amount of consideration that you give to other people when you talk about being with their family. When you told me to, “Go home and be with Michelle” when she was ill, that’s rare – you don’t see that much today. How do you maintain the balance between family and home with business?
AK: You know it’s a tough one because of course there is so much to do at work, with travel, and all that. The best way – I feel – is two ways:
Number one is you always look at quality rather than quantity. You give your complete devotion. When I took three or four days out of the office, my daughter and I flew to Los Angeles, rented a car, and drove on Highway 1 to San Francisco. So you try to give the best you can during that time and just focus on that person.
The second is just the fact that they know you’re available, so trust is created.
I can use the example – a short story to share this with you – It’s about my other daugher when she got her first car. I was going out of town and I needed to borrow her car to take to the airport for an early morning flight. I left home at 4:30 in the morning. She came downstairs at 8 o’clock to go to school and said, “Mom, I need my purse and it’s in my car!” and my wife said, “Did you tell your father to bring it in last night?” She said, “No, but I know him, and I’m sure he did.”
My wife said, “No, I don’t think so, I saw him leave this morning and he didn’t come back in.”
She said, “No, I’m sure he did.”
And she went out into the garage and her purse and her friend’s water bottle were sitting on the steps, and she said, “See, mom?”
The point is that she was so convinced that she could always count on her father to look after her – to be concerned about her – even as he is leaving or is busy with something. The most import thing…trust. And by leaving her purse for her, it created and reinforced that confidence.
JC: The saying goes, “hindsight is 20/20” and we’ve all made mistakes that years later we realized had a bigger impact than we thought at the time. Are there any mistakes that – if you could go back and correct – would have led you to even greater success?
AK: Yeah, yeah…there are plenty of mistakes and if I think back I would say that there were many times I’ve acted contradictory to what I’ve been saying.
My brother moved from Pakistan to America. I was going to college at the time, but I really wanted to do my duty to him. I was consumed by my obligation to family and I was not able to complete my law degree and education. So some of that compromise now I feel did not create balance, it was too much towards his needs and not as much towards mine.
And I feel that the focus has to be in the right place – I talk about family and all – but you have to break it down to your obligations and priorities and understand your priorities.
Your first obligation is to yourself and your family, and then it needs to be your extended family, and then to your bigger family, and then the community. At that time I was so concerned and focused on my extended family that I was out of balance with everything else.
JC: Most of us plateau with our quest for personal growth if we don’t have a relationship with someone who strives to keep us raising our bar and building us up. Do you have a “coach” or mentor? How did you find that person and form the relationship? Is there any invaluable piece of information they’ve given you that’s stuck out more than others?
AK: I would have to give you three names of people who’ve had a great impact on me. Not in any particular order, but all three are important:
Bob (a management consultant) would be one of them. He’s just an incredible person, his motivation…I don’t understand it…he has so many clients, but he acts like each client is his only client. You can be calling at ten o’clock at night or five o’clock in the morning and he’s patient and thinking about the company. What I’ve learned from him is very incredible; so he would be one.
The other is a person by the name of Hamid; he is a vice president at Sallie Mae and head of their I.T. department. And he’s a friend, a very nice guy; it’s been a pleasure to have him as a friend.
The third would be my religious teacher – I don’t know if you want his name or not – his title is “Sheik”. He brings a sense of balance to his teachings. If you look at all of these other people, there are a lot of extremes with religious beliefs and I don’t feel like they have the right balance you know?
One thing I can think of that I’ve learned is that – Hamid made a statement – that I rely so much on relationships. I believe in people so much, and he said, “You can rely on relationships up to a point, after that you have to have the know-how, the knowledge, and all of the other tools necessary to get the job done.”
So you’ve got to continue to have your pursuit of knowledge instead of just relying completely on relationships.
JC: In our world of ever increasing appointments, and twenty-four hour-a-day lifestyle, how do you allocate your day so you don’t get overwhelmed with commitments? How do you block-out time to spend on your own growth and development?
AK: Yes, yes, that I struggle with all the time. I’m struggling with this now actually. And I don’t know if I’ve got the answer myself! (laughs)
JC: What do you do to relax, unwind, and de-stress yourself? How do you unwind from the pressure and stress of all your commitments?
AK: Several things, but most important is the kids. I can get one hug from Soha, one phone call from Ammar or Rima; that does a tremendous amount to relax me. Just yesterday Soha saw me and said, “Dad, what’s wrong? Let’s talk.” And it was just two or three minutes with her, but it meant a lot.
And I am trying to do – but not enough – walking. And using that time to think and reflect.
I love to be able to go and spend an hour just gardening. That’s one of the most enjoyable things I do; to do physical work and gardening, to put the flowers in and take the weeds out.
JC: Goal setting is usually cited as the number-one vehicle to achieving success, but most people never go further than to “day-dream” about how they would like their life to be or what possessions they want. How do you approach goal setting? Do you write your goals down? How often do you review them?
AK: I do, and most people do it the first of January and then don’t look at it! What I do is I have it [my goals] on my desktop, and than I try to look at it periodically.
And it’s okay to re-write them, you have to constantly go back to them as things change. It’s better to change the goal than to just give it up.
I don’t know if I have a set schedule to review them, it’s not every week, but whenever I know that I’m struggling a lot, I go back to them. When you struggle you’ve got to go back and review them, and if you need to, go back to the drawing board.
JC: Getting clear on what outcome you want to achieve is crucial to goal-setting, personal growth and achieving success. How do you define – to you – what you really want out of life so you can craft a plan to achieve it? How do you get yourself crystal-clear on your goals and ambitions?
AK: I think perhaps the biggest understanding that I believe in that helps me is the capacity and understanding of what greed is. I think that my relationship, especially with my business partners would be very difficult to have sustained for years if we didn’t keep greed in check. So we don’t start thinking, “Gosh, every effort that I make, the best I can ever do is one third. So how do I get the other two thirds – the whole?” So it’s very important to keep focused.
I think that the biggest thing would be…for me it comes down to family. It comes down to what I see I want to leave behind, and there is nothing more important than that to me and it is what helps drive me and create the energy to be able to get up in the morning and come to work.
The mistake people make is they look at the means as being the end. Their financial success is for what purpose? So giving to your family, giving to your community, giving to your country is important.
If you just completely focus on the financial and the material and the greed then you’ve lost focus on what the purpose was to be to begin with! So I think that understanding that – it’s my understanding – someone else may come along and tell you its wrong, that’s okay (chuckles), but I think it’s something else…
For example, currently I don’t have a car. I had to turn in my last car when it came off lease. Then in May, my wife had to turn in her car when the lease ended. So we both were without a car! Now I think it would be unbelievable for most people to think that of running a $70 million company and not having a car!
But my son had a car – you know – a G35 Infinity. And it was such a pleasure to see that as opposed to me having a car. I don’t say we can not have a car; the truth is you cannot get by without a car, but I’m saying that’s not the focus. It was so nice for him to get into the IU Kelly School of Business, that same day I got him a car and it has taken me – what – four months to decide for myself! (laughs)
JC: Do you have a formula for personal growth and development? How do you keep your mind nourished with positive and encouraging information to promote personal development?
AK: I think it’s a combination of all that we’ve discussed. So it is a combination of all of those things; family, a sense of commitment, religious experience, and the expectation I have placed on myself for, and to, others.
I now I cannot let these people down just because it is easy to get distracted.
Do I not look at a nice car and think, “Man, would I like to have that?” Yes, but it all gets checked by the beliefs that I mentioned, so you work on these things to create a situation – a point – where it’s very difficult to go backwards.
Let me end by saying this; it is possible to go from being a person to being a saint, but you cannot go from being a saint…down. We all develop up, and climb the stairs, but you cannot climb those stairs downwards – you know, going to steal, and do something wrong – because you’ve achieved a higher status.
Your own values and, peoples’ expectation shouldn’t allow you to go from being what you are to being any less than that. Now that you’ve climbed up, there is no down button on the elevator (chuckles).
I hope this captures the essence of what I’m saying. I mean, you can go from being Satan to being a saint, but how do you go from being a saint to being Satan?
You should always try to work hard to ascend yourself to the point even where God says, “What do you want?”
That’s what we have to do…just ascend, ascend, ascend. So for personal growth, to create that love and commitment, to continue…you just have to ascend!
October 1st, 2007
When was the last time you really took inventory of what you’re best at, what you’re good at, and what you weak at? If you’re like me, it’s probably been a long time.
You might be surprised that the saying, “if you don’t use it, you lose it” is actually true. I had an eye-opening experience this past weekend that has really caused me to pause and reevaluate myself - and you should too!
The short version
I have a good friend and colleague who runs a small web design and hosting company. He asked me to help him upgrade the software on his primary router (if all of this is Greek, just ignore the jargon, I’ll try to keep it light so you can follow along!).
We setup a time to do the upgrade, and he informed me that he had all of the software necessary to complete the project. I put the appointment on my calendar and turned my attention back to my day-to-day activities, safe in the knowledge that my calendar would alert me at the proper time.
Friday night around 11:30pm, I met him at him at his network center and we proceeded to begin the upgrade. This should have been a five or ten minute process.
For us it took almost two hours - and during that time a large chunk of his network was offline! After much digging and poking and prodding (and, I admit, some swearing) we were able to bring things back up and get everything working.
I was shocked at myself and how badly I had performed!
My backstory
I’ve always thought of myself as a “networking guy”. That had always been my strength, and among my peer group and clients I was the go-to guy for fixing their networking hardware and software problems…six years ago!
In the late 90s and into 2000 I spent almost all of my time working in or on network equipment. I was comfortable setting up the hardware and software that drove the Internet. It was what I did, and I took pride in the fact that everyone asked me to handle their routers, networks, and connectivity issues.
However in the intervening years I’ve moved steadily away from a day-to-day relationship with network hardware and software. As I assumed more and more management tasks and moved into application support and ERP systems I found myself touching the network less and less.
And I never realized how badly my skills had atrophied.
So when I was asked to upgrade the software I knew it would be a quick project - and it would have been had I been “in shape” so to speak. And my failure to realize I didn’t have that sharp edge caused my friend’s business to experience an unacceptable level of downtime.
Lessons learned
Going from hero to goat is an eye opening experience. And it really got me to thinking about what other skills I used to take for granted that I may have let languish. I kept thinking to myself, “What else haven’t you done, that you would be bad at now?”
As I came up with a list of things that I would probably screw up these days, I found my brain kept adding in comments like, “Yes, but you’ve learned how to…” and “Four years ago you didn’t know anything about…”
I started compiling my list of skills - whether I perceived myself at being good at them or not - and reviewing it.
As I wrote about in Is your “success resume” up to date? it’s important to keep your list of accomplishments updated while they’re fresh in you mind, I now know it’s also important to keep a tally of your skills, and your familiarity with them, too.
Taking inventory
There are two phases to completing a skills assessment: 1) Building a list of your core skills 2) Evaluating yourself on those skills.
It’s important to not mix up these steps because you’ll get bogged down in the minutia if you try. Get your skill list out of your head and on paper and then process it (you GTDers out there will click with this methodology!).
How do you know what skills you should list? That’s a bit up to your own personal preference, but I listed skills that I would expect to get paid for, or that someday I would like to get paid for. The reason I limited it is because if I sell myself as having XYZ skill and take money for that, but fail to perform, I’m hurting my client and myself.
For example; I’m terrible at painting, but it seems like it should be easy and over and over I get myself into situations where I’m painting a room and saying to myself, “I forgot how bad I am at this, and how much I dislike doing it.” But I didn’t add it to my list because I will never solicit money for painting!
Anyway, get your list down and don’t try to categorize it yet. Put current skills with past skills, mix in skills you’re just starting to pick up, but get them all out of your head and onto a piece of paper.
Once you’ve built your list it’s time to review it. Ask yourself questions like, “Am I good enough at this to get paid for doing it?” and “Would I talk about my abilities with that in a job interview?”
It’s time to be brutally honest with yourself - you’re the only person who will see this list. Some of the skills on your list you may have not used in years, maybe decades, but they will be so deeply ingrained that you would feel comfortable marking yourself as highly proficient with them.
Other skills may be just a few years old, but you have to mark down that you’re probably out of practice, rusty, or not up to speed anymore.
What now?
If you’ve been honest with yourself, once you’re finished you’ll have a concrete list of your core skills and your level of proficiency at each of them. If you’re anything like me you’ll find that about 1/3 of your list will be things that in your mind you were very proficient at, but are not as much anymore, about 1/3 will be new skills that you’ve developed and are very proficient with, and about 1/3 will be skills that your developing and which your proficiency will range from “not very” to “pretty good”.
You may find that your internal perception of yourself changes. Like I mentioned, I used to think of myself as “the network guy”. My perception of myself didn’t match my reality; I was reckless and it bit me.
Now my self image is more in line with reality. I still know a lot about network hardware and software, but I’m rusty and out of practice. Going forward I will need to invest some time refreshing my skills and even brushing up on new technologies and tools that have become standard since the late 90s.
Once you have a real assessment of your skills, you can make sure your self image and reality are in sync. You may even find that there are skills you don’t consider being great at in your self perception, but you are in reality!
July 2nd, 2007
Recently my wife complained of severe abdominal pain and nausea, so bad she asked to be taken to the hospital. When she was admitted, the doctors tried to get her feeling comfortable while they puzzled over what might be causing her problems.
The doctors listened with their stethoscopes, drew blood tests, had x-rays taken, and scheduled CT scans. Almost every test came back completely normal with one exception - a slightly enlarged appendix.
“Ah Ha!” cried the doctors, “Call in the surgeons, her appendix needs to come out!”
And in came the surgeons. They poked and prodded and asked for lengthy medical histories. Finally they concluded they thought the problem might be the appendix, but they weren’t sure; they decided to operate and remove it anyway.
While all of this was going on, my wife’s mother kept telling the doctors, the nurses, and the surgeons, “You know, when I was just a little older than her I had very similar symptoms. It was my gallbladder, can you test that?” The surgeons all thanked her for her input, but you could clearly tell they didn’t care what she had to say since she wasn’t a medical professional…The appendix was removed.
A week later my wife was again complaining of severe abdominal pain and nausea, she had been doing well the week before, this second attack came on suddenly, like the first - so we went back to the hospital. This time her doctor was G.I. specialist who ran the same blood work tests, asked for the same x-rays to be taken, and prepped her for a CT scan - all of which came back completely normal.
He came into her room and started telling her that he wasn’t sure what the problem was - it might in fact just be a nasty virus. It was about this point that her mother flew off the handle and demanded they perform a gallbladder function test. She was so adamant that the G.I. doctor was - I think - caught off guard. He agreed to perform tests on her gallbladder. A few hours later a surgeon came back in and announced the tests showed her gallbladder was functioning abnormally and needed to come out; surgery was scheduled for the next morning.
Throughout the entire process, the think that consistently stuck in my mind was how much each persons “bedside manner” varied, and how much those variations impacted my opinion of the person.
The internal medicine specialist was fabulous, she was caring, concerned, and compassionate. Her bedside manner made us feel completely as ease even while she told us that according to all of the test results, my wife was completely normal.
The G.I. specialist was terrible, he seemed have more important things to be doing than explaining what might be causing the G.I. symptoms my wife was experiencing. He was rushed and didn’t seem to have (or want) any emotional connection to any of us. He left us all feeling more anxious about the situation.
Finally, the surgeon was - as is often stereotyped - arrogant. He was very calm and self-assured, and while he did a very good job of explaining the procedure at a highly intellectual and technical level, he didn’t make any attempt at an emotional connection. The general feeling we all got from him was he didn’t really care one way or the other. After the surgery he seemed indifferent, even put off, by my wife’s questions.
The nursing staff varied from excellent to worthless depending on who was assigned to my wife.
The major differences between all of these people, with all of their extremely specialized training, was their bedside manner. Some really became involved and drew us in; others left us feeling distanced and unconnected. It made me really think about the relationships I’ve had and currently have. How is my “bedside manner” when it comes to establishing and building relationship?
I realized that, for me, the act of establishing a relationship wasn’t difficult, but the maintenance of relationships was. For me, maintenance or relationships is a weak area that I need to work on.
I found it interesting to think about my relationships in this doctor/patient “bedside manner” framework. How much better could my relationships be if I tried to make sure I had the characteristics I admired in the first doctor? Caring, compassion, concern - those are powerful concepts that Dr. Harris had nailed. In the little time she spent with my wife, she “felt” like an old friend even though she didn’t really know my wife. When you can feel like an old friend in only a few minutes, you’ve made a powerful connection.
So, how is your bedside manner? Do you strive to build deep relationships or are you aloof and distanced? If you were a patient laying in a hospital bed, would you want your doctor to act like you do in relationships? When I stop to really think about it I know there are certainly aspects and behaviours of myself I wouldn’t want a doctor to have while working with me.
As for me, I need to triage my bedside manner and send it to the ICU for some critical-care changes! Maybe you do too?
May 17th, 2006
How do you know when you really understand a subject? I always find that when I can explain a subject to a relative newcomer, and make them understand the material, I have a mastery of the subject.
Train to learn is a motto of mine, because if you have holes in your knowledge it will come to light when you have to stand in front of a group and train them. The “why’s” and “how’s” and “what-for’s” will come flying at you fast and furiously from the people you’re training.
We’ve grown the IT department at the company I work for and with a new addition to the team I thought it would be a good idea to do some system training on the ERP software package our company runs.
Normally it takes about a week to go through the “official” training on how to install the system from the software vendor, so there is a lot of material to cover. Sitting in front of the department, notes in hand, was a major test of what I understood and more importantly how well I could communicate it back.
The first day I spend training made me realize where my weaknesses in understanding the system were and where I needed to brush up myself. It also meant a week of going home and doing my own homework to get ready for each new training session.
Train to learn - in this case where you’re weaknesses are.
I’ve found that throughout my life this works. If I really need to understand some new material, when I sit down and explain it to someone else it really helps cement it in my own head.
Have you ever been working through a problem - maybe you couldn’t get something to work the way you expected - you called someone over to ask for their help and as soon as you started explaining what you were hung up on you had an “Oh Duh!” moment where you instantly realized what the problem was?
When these “Oh Duh!” moments happen many people feel silly for not catching on sooner, but you really shouldn’t feel this way. In the process of organizing your thoughts to explain the issue to someone else your brain managed to drop everything into place. That one funky variable that was eluding you became instantly obvious.
There is a technique that programmers use - and I’ve heard a ton of different names for it - where they describe a complex and confusing programming problem - in excruciating detail - to an inanimate object. It helps them achieve these “Oh Duh!” moments and solve their problems.
Why an inanimate object? Would you really want to have a programmer explain - in exacting detail - the problems they’re having connecting a database to a piece of middleware to talk to the shipping software via TCP/IP? If they talk to a stuffed animal, at least they’ll have a captive audience!
But it really does work - when you’re stuck try explaining your problem. Train to learn, and experience an “Oh Duh!” moment. It works even better if you can train a person, because then you’ll get immediate feedback on whether or not they understand what you’re training them.
Give it a try the next time you’re stuck, or the next time you want to see if you really understand some new material. When you train someone else you’ll immediately find your weak areas and you may even have a breakthrough and solve a problem that’s been bothering you!
March 8th, 2006
I have been, at times in my life, a spectacular failure. I’ve had a business fail. I’ve had friendships fail. I’ve had ideas fail. I have had personal financial crises stemming from failure. I’ve lost friends over performance failures.
I have experienced a lot of failure in my life, and I’m willing to bet that since you don’t settle for a mediocre life you’ve had your share of failures too.
The important thing about failure is not the failure itself - we will all fail at something, sometime in our life. If you’re not failing, you’re not setting the bar very high. The important thing we learn from failure is the lesson of why we failed, and how to bounce back from failure.
There’s a saying I like; fail faster. Basically, when you undertake a new challenge, you need to get to and through your failures as quickly as possible because you’ll get them past you, and you’ll learn what didn’t work. Learning what doesn’t work can be just as important as learning what does work and you’ll only learn this lesson when you fail.
“I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs but how high be bounces when he hits bottom”
–General George S. Patton
What’s important is to bounce back after you fail. It’s not just important, it’s vitally critical to future success.
Thomas Edison is a great example of someone who bounced. He tried hundreds of times to improve the light bulb and make it practical and workable. He was fond of telling people that he hadn’t failed 700 times to build a better light bulb, rather he had just found 700 ways to not build a better light bulb.
Edison bounced when a design change for a light bulb failed. And with each bounce he moved closer and closer to his ultimate success. And what did his ultimate success entail, a little company you may have heard called General Electric.
It’s the bounce that counts. So, how high do you bounce after you fail? Are you an “Edison” and keep trying over and over until you get it right or do you adopt the slogan, “If at first you do succeed, change your definition of success”?
Learning to bounce up after a defeat isn’t hard, but it’s not fun. When we try to achieve, and get met with failure, we have a tendency to want to stay down and lick our wounds. Years ago I had a bad business breakup because of my own failure to be something I didn’t want to be (a salesperson). I stayed “down” for a couple of days, licking my wounds, until I realized I was only making myself feel worse.
I was dwelling on something I couldn’t change, so I looked at my failure and tried to learn what I could from it. I realized that I didn’t enjoy being a full-time salesperson. I didn’t enjoy cold calling (and that’s putting it mildly - I hated it). I was able to evaluate my situation and then make an intelligent decision to move my life in a direction that I would enjoy much more.
That bounce landed me at my now-present position; in a job I love, working for a great company. It also afforded me the ability to create this web site, not because I have a great insight to life and success, but because I’ve been at the bottom and had to crawl back up.
I bounced.
And throughout my life I’ve bounced. As I said before, I’ve suffered failed businesses, failed personal finances, failed relationships - all standard fare for someone with an entrepreneurial streak.
Do you bounce?
Do you take the time to evaluate your failures to see what you can learn? Every failure is really just a teacher in disguise. The trick is to get past the pain of failure that you’re feeling and uncover the lesson and learn from the “teacher” that’s hidden. Don’t just bury your failures and move forward like they never happened, take the time to really evaluate what led to them. You can only really learn from a failure when you take the time to dissect the failure and understand it.
And this process can take time. When one of my businesses failed, I didn’t admit the real reasons of why it failed for a long time. It took me years to really be able to look back and realize and understand all of the minuscule bad decisions that added up to the colossal failure.
Now that I’ve been in that position, and I’ve looked back at my mistakes and my partners’ mistakes, I realize what I wouldn’t do the next time I open a business.
You can remember what to do when you fail if you know the acronym “FREE”.
FAIL
You have to fail to learn from your failures. If you’re not failing at something then you’re either a) Superman or b) not setting your bar high enough.
Go raise your bar and fail, then come back to the FREE acronym.
REVIEW
You have to dissect your failure and identify what caused you to fail. Was is self-sabotage (it happens more then you think), was it a bad market, was it bad decisions? You need to review your failure and get to the root cause(s) of your failure.
ENLIGHTEN
You know what caused you to fail, so now you need to figure out what you can learn from your failure. It’s time to enlighten yourself. I’ve learned that I detest cold calling and being a “pushy” salesman. It’s not for me. I learned this by reviewing my failure at being a “cold calling” salesman.
EMPLOY
Once you have learned from your failures, it’s time to make changes and employ those changes. I can’t do cold calls. I hate, hate, hate it. I am fine calling on a warm lead or having a sales meeting face-to-face. So I have put myself in a position where I am only really faced with having to do warm sales - that is sell my ideas to an already warm audience. I’ve decided what I wanted to change from my failure, and I’ve employed it in my life.
Now get out there, fail (faster!), learn from your failures and bounce baby…just bounce as high as you can!
February 22nd, 2006
Most people think there are three S’s in the word “success”, but that’s not true, there are really four S’s in the word “success.”
These four S’s are:
- Set it
- Share it
- Start it
- Stick to it
Okay, I should admit something, these are really the four S’s in goals, but when you achieve your goals you move towards success. Let’s look at these 4 S’s in a little more detail.
Set it
All success starts with a goal. You have to know what you want, and have a plan to get there in order to be successful. This might be something as simple as “make 10 cold calls today” or as difficult as “double my salary in 12 months.”
Both have one thing in common, until you SET the goal, you won’t begin to make any real progress towards achieving your goal.
Last year I had a goal to increase my income by 35% in 2006 - I knew what I wanted my end result to be and I knew that I would have to make some changed to accomplish this. Once I set my goal, I began to work on it and by the end of 2005 I had already increased my income in 2006 by 19% - a pretty good way towards my full goal before 2006 had even started!
Share it
When you’re working towards a goal, you need to let other people know about it - you need to share your goal. But take care to share it with people who will build you up and help you be successful; you don’t want any negative people dragging down your spirits as you work towards your goals.
I have a friend with whom I share a lot of my goals. He is an excellent resource for keeping me accountable to myself. If I share a goal (or even a “want”) with him - even in passing - he’ll keep asking me about it and my progress on achieving my goal. I’m not even sure he realizes he’s so great at goal-accountability, but he is. I’ve accomplished goals before simply because he kept me on track by regularly asking me about my progress.
Find someone who you can share your goal with and who will be excited, positive and share in your success with you!
Start it
You’ve got to take action before you’ll ever achieve results. This step is simply taking the first action towards achieving your goals. This is also the step where many people falter. A lot of people feel like they can’t take action until they’re 100% ready or until they’ve got 100% of the information needed - these become stumbling blocks to getting started.
I’ve always said (and many more famous authors have said it before) that massive action towards your goal will often win over intricate detail. But any action is better than planning yourself to death. Follow the formula of; Ready, Fire, Aim!
About a year ago I decided I wanted to do more with my photography. Instead of hemming and hawing about whether or not I could do it, I jumped in and found some friends who wanted work done - with the understanding that I was (yet) a “pro.” If you’re a pro photographer reading this, you’re skin is probably crawling, but after a few assignments from friends I landed some assignments from people I knew who weren’t friends. That has led to some work by people I didn’t know at all.
If I hadn’t started doing it, I would probably still be sitting around dreaming about making money from my hobby instead of actually making a little money from my hobby!
Stick to it
When you make your actions towards reaching your goals habitual, you are almost guaranteed of reaching your goals. This is hard because sticking to a goal requires a personal commitment and will power - until it’s an ingrained habit you have to constantly condition yourself to stick with it.
This can be easy if you have a huge amount of passion and motivation or it can be more difficult if you’ve not worked yourself up for tackling the goal. If you make sticking to your goals a habit, eventually the behaviors you stick to in order to reach your goals will become habits.
This web site is a good example of this; I had to stick to a commitment of writing articles before I knew if anyone would actually visit the site and read them. I couldn’t write one or two articles and then sit back and way for readers to show up and demand more to read. I had to act like I had a base of readers right from the outset and stick with regularly writing articles. I can tell you that the first weeks were very nerve wracking, I would look at my logs from the week and there would be entire days where I might have one or two visitors (or worse, a day with no visitors). I would worry that my articles weren’t resonating with readers, and I would wonder if the site would be a total flop!
In the end, persistence and sticking with it paid off; today I have an ever growing base of readers and every week my logs show an increase in visits and page views. The site still has a long way to go before my own personal goals for traffic levels will be met, but sticking with it will be key to getting there.
When you combine all of these steps, and follow them as outlined you create a set of behaviors and habits, and an environment for yourself where success is much more likely to be the result. All to often people set goals and don’t have a plan in place to assure they reach their desired outcome. These 4 S’s of “success” are the framework you need.
The next time you spell “success”, make sure it has 4 S’s!
February 18th, 2006
Just the other day one of my colleagues came into my office and asked me, “If I know my average demand for a product, do you know how to calculate how much I’ll need to have a 95% certainty it will be in stock?”
I opened my mouth and said, “Yes, I can help you…wait…I used to know how to do a calculation like that. Let me think about it for a minute.”
Back in high school I fell in love with probability and statistics and took all the courses my school taught. That was almost twelve years ago. Since graduating, I don’t know that I’ve really had occasion to do many statistical calculations. It’s a skill I was once pretty proficient in, and now I’m so rusty and out of practice it’s embarrassing.
I didn’t use it and I lost it.
The same was true for my colleague. He was a management and quality major who had studied EOQ models and statistical analysis of inventory while earning his degree. It was also about ten years ago for him that he did all of this work and he too was rusty and out of practice with statistical analysis of inventory. Between the two of us we managed to scrape up a formula that might be right - we’re still working on it.
When we learn skills, but tuck them away and don’t practice them we eventually forget enough of the “how-to” that after a long enough time has passed we’re essentially starting from scratch. We remember learning the skill, but we often don’t remember enough details to make the skill immediately useful. This includes obscure grammar rules, science, math, chemistry, you name it. It also includes personal development ideas too.
I think it’s even more likely that most “don’t use it and lose it” when it comes to learning personal development ideas. We find an article with some great tips or we hear a speaker with amazing passion about an idea and we get charged up and excited! We stock the idea away in the back of our mind and maybe even practice it for a few days.
For a lot of us - I know for me personally - many of the great ideas I read will make it into my brain to be filed away. And when this happens I will usually “lose it” to the dustbin of my memory.
How many times have you been super charged up and excited about an idea, but were at a place where immediate action was difficult to take? I’m willing to bet a shiny quarter that you very likely didn’t take any action and you probably let the feeling and the excitement and the passion die down a little.
After a little more time went by, I’m willing to wager you didn’t take any action at all. You had this great idea or you read this amazing article or you heard this amazing speaker, but you didn’t use what you learned and you eventually lost it.
I’m not pointing fingers at you, I do it all the time myself. It’s easy to let things like this slip out of grasp unless we followup and take immediate action.
Our minds are great at consuming huge amounts of information and sorting it around into patterns. But if we don’t follow up on that information and reinforce it to ourselves our mind figures it must not really be that important and it eventually discards it.
First it moves the information from ready-access to storage a little deeper - you can usually still recall what you want, but it takes a little longer.
After the information has been in second level of storage for a while, your brain decides it needs more space - new information is coming in all the time you know - and moves it into long-term storage. You can usually recall bits and pieces of the information, but there are substantial gaps.
Finally, like old receipts, you brain decides that that long-term storage could really stand to be cleaned out to make room for new items that are ready to go into long-term storage. So it saves the file folder that says “Probability and Statistics skills” and throws everything else away. About all I remember is that I had taken classes in probability and statistics, and that I enjoyed it, but little else.
The good news is that since our brain keeps the file folders around, picking up the skills a second time is usually much simpler. Our brain already has a place to stick those skills and information and it picks up on them much more quickly. But you still have to invest the time to re-learn (or re-remember as it were) the skill.
This is why it’s so important to form good habits - to get regular reinforcement of skills that are important - and to remember that not using it is just inviting your brain to lose it.
How do you “use it” on a regular basis when it comes to self-improvement and development information? I think this will vary a little for every person, because every person is unique.
There aren’t really that many truly new ideas in the world of personal development. If you read enough books and listen to enough audio programs you’ll eventually see the patterns of truth that are in every respected self-improvement teacher’s material. What is unique is how these core truths get repackaged by different teachers. For example, you may really “click” with my presentation of an idea when you didn’t “click” with the very same idea presented a different way by Napoleon Hill.
I think that the first step to really internalizing these core truths of success, achievement and development is developing a habit of reading. There are hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of books and web sites out there with articles and information on goal-setting, success, achievement, wealth creation, self-improvement and development. If you read enough of these resources, you’ll begin to learn what the core truths are, and it will give you a good framework on which to hang information.
The second step is to discipline yourself to keep positive, success-building and self-improving material in front of you on a regular basis. When you discipline yourself to do this, and actually do it on a regular basis it will transform into a habit. Once you are habitually taking in positive material (both new and re-read older material) you’ll have that constant reinforcement to keep the concepts and ideas fresh in your mind. By making a commitment with myself to start this web site, I’m forced to keep such material constantly in front of myself - your method will probably be different.
Finally, you need to take action on those ideas that strike a chord within yourself. When you find a really good idea, or a unique approach to an idea that really resonates with you - find a way to implement it or take other action on it. This will cement it in your mind and taking action on it will increases the chances of you eventually turning it into a habit. When you take action on it, you begin to practice it as a part of your routine.
When you’ve made it all the way through this cycle, it’s time to start over; this will keep you in a self-reinforcing feedback loop. If you stay diligent in doing this, you shouldn’t have too much to worry about when it comes to “losing it.”
February 8th, 2006
We all have habits, but do you ever stop and really pay attention to how strong those habits can be?
This morning I woke up, drug myself out of bed and climbed into the shower - a normal start to the day. After showering I dried off and prepared to brush my teeth and take care of my hair.
I use a product in my hair that’s a cross between a gel and a pomade. Normally I take off my wedding ring before using it; if I don’t, I’ll get some of this goop in the grooves of my ring, and between my skin and the ring and it will end up being sticky all day long. It’s a pain to get it washed off, so I just avoid the problem by taking my ring off.
I’ve been doing this everyday for the last three years. When you do anything everyday for three years - whether it’s good or bad for you - you better believe it will become a habit.
I wear my watch - a water resistant, stainless-steel number - on my left hand too, and it never comes off when I swim or shower. Last night my hand was hurting a little so I had taken my ring off. I didn’t have it on this morning when I showered, but I was wearing my watch.
After getting out of the shower this morning I reached for my ring (automatically) and my mind, realizing it wasn’t there, didn’t miss a beat and unbuckled the clasp on my watch and removed it. I wasn’t even aware of what I had done until after I was running my hands through my hair and I looked down and saw my watch laying next to the sink!
The habit of removing my ring from my left hand is so strong that in lieu of taking off my ring, my brain had to remove something. As I said, I was literally not aware of it until I looked down and saw my watch, laying there.
If this habit - one that’s seemingly insignificant - is that powerful, how much am I a slave - sometimes not even realizing it - to my other habits…habits I’ve had longer than just three years? How much are you a slave to your habits?
I think this is a powerful illustration of how much we let our daily lives be driven by our habits. If we have good, positive habits or we have poor, negative habits - we’re going to act them out.
This is why it’s so important to be mindful of the habits and patterns we repeat over and over to make sure we can catch those negative habits and create a plan to replace them with positive ones!
February 3rd, 2006
Are people born creative or do they make themselves creative? I believe that while some people have an unique way of looking at life that is interpreted as being “naturally” creative, it’s possible for anyone to learn to be creative.
What is creativity? Creativity is simply “having the quality of something created rather than imitated.” (M-W.com). I think it bears expanding to also include the unique adaptation of existing creations. Anyone can design and build a chair, it’s tough to not imitate the base function of a chair in the process of making a chair, but creativity comes in when a new or unique approach is taken. Often creativity has a “I can’t describe it, but I know it when I see it” quality.
So what spurs creativity, and if it’s a learnable trait, how can you learn to become more creative?
I think that we usually go about our day with a set of “lenses” through which we filter everything. I think that for most people these lenses are pretty similar. We’ve been conditioned through society, culture and media to see the world a certain way; thus we often have common filters.
When someone comes along who has taken off these filters we tend to call them “creative.” What being creative really boils down to is breaking our normal patterns of how we interact with our environment. So, in theory, learning to be more creative mean we have to learn to look at things differently than we do presently.
That sounds easy, right? So why does it feel so hard to think of creative and new things when we’re forced to be creative? Most people say they’re more efficient, productive and creative under pressure, but that’s not true. Teresa Amabile, the head of the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at the Harvard Business School, has shown that creativity doesn’t increase as time-pressure increases (2002). We’re not, in fact, more creative with the pressure of a deadline upon us.
I think this is a fallacy that most people hold. Many people I know - myself included at times - hold the belief that when the pressure is on, the results will be spectacular. We hope and pray our brains will pull out an amazing “Hail-Mary” play as the clock ticks down.
I don’t know about you, but I know that when I’ve gone back and really reviewed and scrutinized the work I’ve done under a tight deadline, I’m never as happy with the result as I am when I have given myself sufficient time. The work is passable, but certainly not my best.
This is one reason I try to keep a “creative buffer” for myself. When I have a paper to write in one of my management classes or I have an article to post to SuccessMinders.com, I try to do the work far enough in advance that I’m not under tremendous pressure. This is one of the reasons I try to keep a queue of 3 or more articles ready to post any any time to this web site; if I have the breathing room to write, and not have to produce an article, I find I’m more creative and more relaxed as I write.
David Allen, of Getting Things Done fame, promotes the idea that our brains can’t truly be creative while they’re stuffed full with details. The major component of the GTD system is to get everything out of your head and onto a list. Allen says the result is a mind that doesn’t have to worry about “stuff.” He also says that once the mind is empty, it can begin to create.
I believe this is true. Have you ever tried to meditate and completely clear your mind? Every time I’ve tried I’ve settled down and worked on making my mind still. It seems that once I sweep enough of my inner voices aside and get the place reasonably empty and tidy, random thoughts - seemingly not under my conscious control - will drift by. The harder I try to stop them and the harder I try to keep my mind empty and still, the more quickly and more frequently these random thoughts invade.
When I clean my head of all the tasks, to-dos, and projects that are usually floating around in my brain I find I’m usually more creative. This is because an empty brain wants to fill itself back up. I don’t follow the GTD system, but I do believe in keeping lists of actions I have to undertake. When I don’t stay on top of keeping my actions on paper and I start to let them pile up in my head I notice a definite slip in the level of my creativity.
Another tool that is important in creativity is old-fashioned paper brain-storming; you might have also heard it called “mind mapping”. There is commercial software as well as free, open-source software available to create nice, neat brainstorm maps, but I personally prefer a pen and a blank piece of paper. When I’m working on a computer I feel like I only get my visual senses working. When I’m working on paper, I get both my visual senses and my “touch-and-feel” (kinesthetic) senses working.
I start with a large sheet of blank, white paper and I write down a central idea in the middle. From there I write down supporting ideas and connect everything together. When everything comes together the results can be very powerful. I created the idea for SuccessMinders.com using this method.
Both of the above mentioned methods are ways to stimulate your mind to produce new ideas…to be creative. In addition, I also use a method I learned about a long time ago. This method involves asking “what if” questions by combining two in-congruent ideas.
What if…peanut butter and jelly came in tubes like toothpaste? - You could make a PB&J sandwich without having to use a knife. Just put some peanut butter on one piece of bread, some jelly on the other piece of bread and presto…you have a PB&J sandwich with no dirty utensils!
Another way to kick-start your creativity is to change your perspective. Perspective is an interesting thing because it’s subjective. Have you ever been laying on the couch or in bed, looking at something nearby on a coffee table or nightstand, and not been able to figure out what you’re looking at? Your brain is wracking itself, unsuccessfully, trying to piece together just exactly what it’s seeing. When you finally change your perspective slightly you realize exactly what you’re looking at - it just snaps into perspective. Because you had been looking at that object from an unusual perspective though, your brain wasn’t able to put it into a recognized context and you couldn’t figure out what it was.
This is the basis for many optical illusions like the famous one to the right. Is it an old woman or a young lady? It all depends on your perspective. It’s extremely difficult to see the other image at first, but once your brain has learned to look at it with a slightly different perspective it’s almost impossible to not see both people!
When I am stuck and can’t think about something creatively, I try to change my perspective. I might lean back in my chair and stare at the ceiling upside down. I might sit on the floor, Indian-style, and look up at my desk. I might try working while standing up. There is no limit to the number of ways you can change your perspective, you just have to get up and do something different.
Finally, I will sometimes find that I am just not being creative. Maybe I have a paper to write for a class, maybe I have a proposal I need to write for a client, maybe I’m just stuck and feel like I can’t move on. When this happens I “sleep on it.” Sometimes its figurative, I’ll go walk around or put my problem to the side and try to get it out of my mind. Other times it’s literal; I’ll literally go to sleep and let my brain mull over an idea to try to get my creative juices flowing. This is a big reason I know I don’t do my best work under pressure. If I’m under such an extreme amount of pressure, I probably can’t walk away for any period of time.
So my five-point approach to creativity is:
1) Get your mind empty!
Make sure there is room to hold your creative ideas; make it a habit to keep your mental clutter on paper and out of your head.
2) Brainstorm and mind map!
Get into the habit of using visual and kinesthetic planning to layout your ideas. When you brainstorm on paper, you’ll sometimes be surprised at the connections - the creative connections - you’ll make.
3) Ask “what if” questions!
Take two ideas and just moosh ‘em together! Then try to imagine what or how your “what if” could be viable.
4) Change your perspective!
Get up, get down, do something to force a perspective change. Make your brain work a little to process incoming information.
5) Sleep on it!
When you’re stuck in a rut, put things aside and let your subconscious mull it over. If you’ve emptied out your head, brainstormed, what-if’ed and changed your perspective and you haven’t yet found your well of creativity don’t beat yourself up over it. Give your brain a break!
February 2nd, 2006
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