Category Archives: Organizational Development

What is Your Shelf Life?

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It’s really clear to me that you can’t hang onto something longer than its time. Ideas lose certain freshness, ideas have a shelf life, and sometimes they have to be replaced by other ideas. ~ Alan Alda

by Pete Ferguson

Having a great idea is great. Taking action on it is even better. But as soon as I start to rest on my laurels, the expiration of greatness can sneak up on me and begin to stink.

It’s funny, because we can see other’s shelf life easily – It’s the guy who has been in the job for over a decade and always wants to talk about the good old days (um, sometimes that’s me!).

Or it is the gal who came up with a great idea and was recognized for it … five years ago … and hasn’t done much since.

Within my profession, there is a certification that requires taking a pretty difficult test (the test is difficult, not the knowledge the test is supposed to be validating). People expect that gaining the three letters CPP, PCP, or PSP behind their name is supposed to somehow ensure greatness for the coming decades. Same goes for PhD, DDS, etc. The shelf life of the letters expires the Monday after you received them. Party is over, time to look for the next great thing.

I find I’m happiest when I’m focused on the road ahead instead of what is fading away in the rear view mirror.

An acting career usually has about a shelf life of ten years before people get sick of seeing you. It’s a good thing to have a job to fall back on and I really do enjoy directing. ~ George Clooney

Understanding your own shelf life takes practice and humility.

Jerry Seinfield pulled the plug on his show when everyone else thought there was another season or two. Smart move. Michael Jordan retired in his prime.

Intellectual property has the shelf life of a banana. ~ Bill Gates

The moments in my life that are most disappointing occur when I didn’t see change coming. I didn’t realize my shelf life on a project or in a position had long since expired. But everyone around me knew it! I had begun to stink in yesterday’s success.

So how do you keep from expiring? I have a few thoughts, but I’m mostly interested in yours:

  1. Read. Read. Read some more. Study the lives of great people and learn from their successes and failures.
  2. Read outside of your genre. I’m in the physical security profession, but I read about psychology, coaching, technology, cars, etc.
  3. Be sure to have a few good mentors who will tell you how it is straight up. If they are hurting your feelings, good, that means they smell what you are not smelling.
  4. Listen more than you talk. Also consider hiring a career coach.
  5. Every year commit to stop doing about 1/3 of what you are currently doing and replace it with big, bold, challenging tasks – that way you are a new person every three years.

This is where I need you to chime in – because your perspective will benefit me more than me typing a few more words. Selfish, I know, but lay it on straight. My WordPress theme is really stale, my writing is getting predictable … lay it on. Or let me know what tricks you have used over the years to keep it fresh.

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Forcing the Fit

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If a square peg doesn’t fit a round hole, neither the peg nor the hole is to blame. ~ Jeffrey Bryant

by Pete Ferguson

Last night I came home to a very tearful and broken seven-year-old daughter.

Recently we needed to find a new piano teacher for my kids, so we did our research and identified the “best” teacher in the area. Her resume of experience and education was excellent. We were convinced that this is what our family needed and scheduled an interview.

She met with each of our children and it seemed like a good fit – except that she warned her style works better for older children. Wanting to keep everyone together, we forced the fit.

Now my daughter, Ashley, was beginning to question her self-worth because she was clashing with the strict personality of this expert teacher. She let her emotions go at her lesson yesterday and it didn’t end well, and as a result we are now in search of a better teacher/student personality fit.

How many times have you heard “grin and bear it?”

“Suck it up?”

Sometimes that is needed to get through a rough patch, but I’m learning that upon hearing these phrases in my mind or coming out of other people’s mouths that it is also a potential indicator that there is not a good fit and something needs to change.

… the problem with pounding a square peg into a round hole is not that the hammering is hard work. It’s that you’re destroying the peg. ~ Paul Collins

At work I’ve similarly witnessed a bad fit – and at very senior levels. I recall years ago being asked to organize a vehicle to pick up a new VP and entourage. My company is known for the CEO sitting in a cubicle and leadership who are approachable.

The new guy was supposed to be “the guy” to take our company to the next level. He was cold and standoffish. He treated me like the hired help while every other senior leader I’ve worked around has always taken time to ask my name and a little about me.

I recall at the time thinking – the startup ride is finally over, we are now going to be like everybody else and our culture of friendly people would be going away.

Thankfully he didn’t last very long. Despite his resume and experience, his personality wasn’t a good fit and he moved on to another opportunity.

The same has happened for people on my team over the years. Great experience. Great education. Great references. But in the end, it hasn’t been a good fit and no one was happy.

I’ve found that I’m a square peg and I need to avoid trying to slip into circular holes where a lot of pressure and change must be applied for me to “fit.”

Within the many civic, religious, business, and personal responsibilities you have, there are likely situations that are not a great fit. Today is the day to identify it and search for where you will fit in better.

It is different than just quitting – it is providing an opportunity for you and the organization to soar to new heights by removing a roadblock.

What relationships are you trying to force? Maybe it is time for a different approach.

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Pen and Paper – There is no App For That

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I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up. ~ Ben Franklin

by Pete Ferguson

Old Ben looked for paper validity to his life daily according to this quippy quote – do you?

I recently shared an article “Nine low-tech ways to manage your time more wisely” on our work social website – Yammer – and it was interesting to see the responses about apps that can take care of that.

What was missed is the bigger picture that creating your life plan isn’t about efficiency – it is about the pain and anguish of the analogue commitment of a better life to paper with a pencil or pen.

Outlook or other online calendars can tell you where you need to be, but with pen and paper you can tell your life where it needs to be.

It is intentionally inefficient. It is architecting your future in a very deliberate way. It is more than “buy groceries” – it is committing to where you will be in seven days, thirty days, a year from now. Then chunking activities around those areas to get you there and committing time on your calendar to ensure you arrive.

Amelia

I have a process that works very well when applied. It takes about twenty minutes to set up each week and then a minute or two to review each morning. I write down last week’s lessons and then commit to what I will do in the following week. It is a culmination of Covey’s “First Things First” weekly planner, Anthony Robbin’s Massive Action Plan, Dan Miller’s balance of life and Michael Hyatt’s Life Plan.

If there is considerable interest, I’m happy to share it with you. I’d publish the templates but I don’t want to deal with copyright issues and it is fairly personal and evolves each year.

I’ll be honest, after about Wednesday morning, I’m on autopilot and don’t refer to it much, but it gets my week primed for what needs to be done if I am to be successful and accomplish “Big Picture” results in my life. Whenever I feel like I am floundering, I immediately reset with my Life Action Plan and it gets me back on track.

God had approximately 40 authors WRITE THINGS DOWN. Why? Because there is POWER in writing things down! ~ Joseph Sangl on the New Testament

My paper planner is a “to do” and a “to did” accounting of my life that both serves me in the week it is written as well as instructs me in future weeks when I look back. It is a process that is both enjoyable and painful to review.

What do you do to commit to the really important things in life? How do you ensure you are constantly stretching, evolving, growing, and learning?

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Saying No …

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Half of the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying “no” soon enough. ~ Josh Billings

by Pete Ferguson

Okay, I have a confession to make, I am a diagnosed people pleaser.

If I am not careful, I will agree to just about anything just to be agreeable. I quickly place myself in another’s shoes and when asked for help I think “if it were me, I’d want the help, so I’ll say YES.”

And so I’ve been known to sign up on many unwanted crusades by saying “yes” too quickly. The trouble is, since I didn’t really want to say yes I’m now stuck between keeping my word and being annoyed that I said yes.

Within family, church, and civic responsibilities, many are not used to hearing the word “no.” It makes you a bad Christian if you do not say yes to every single request for your time and attention, right?

When you allow every request to divert your attention from your most important activities of the day, everyone ends up frustrated. ~ Elizabeth Grace Saunders

The word “no” to me has had an emotional tie of rejection. Which is why I overcommitted myself previously by quickly jumping to a yes.

So how do you start saying “no?”

My wife Stephanie is really strong in this area. She simply says, “that is not going to work for me.”

No rejection, nothing personal. It just isn’t going to work for her.

Some will retort with all the great reasons why Steph should sign up for the PTA, commit a Saturday to service. If pressed, Steph may reveal her hand and let others know that she runs around from piano to dance to cello to violin to harp to flute lessons all week while running a preschool, which usually will dissuade most from pursuing her any further.

But she remains firm.

What I’ve found, interesting enough, is that many people who want a yes from me aren’t really committed to the cause – they are looking to either shift the burden of when they were too coward and said yes – or (misery loves company) they didn’t want to say no either and now they want me to join the club and get the martyr t-shirt as well.

As a recovering people pleaser, I can spot another a mile away.

So how do you muster up the courage to say “no?”

You have to stop drifting!

If you are planning a trip to Las Vegas and the car is packed, your hotel reservations have been made and tickets to your favorite shows are at “will call,” how easily will someone be able to persuade you that Washington D.C. is actually better?

Probably not likely, right?

Why? – Because you already have a plan and a vision of where you want to go and besides, the entire family is in the car and ready to go to Vegas!

And so it is with life. When you have a full plate of what you want to do and how you must accomplish the task, other’s crusades – while completely worthy and upstanding – will have little temptation to distract your time and attention.

So I’m learning to show compassion and encourage another’s request, but then politely say no or explain what else is going on and ask what I should stop doing.

Understand that being able to say “No” is a leadership practice.  It’s like when we first learned how to ride a bike, we were a bit sloppy at it. So, give yourself permission to fail, learn, and keep practicing. ~ Henna Inam

 

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Leave Your Employees Better Than You Found Them

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Be the one who nurtures and builds. Be the one who has an understanding and a forgiving heart one who looks for the best in people. Leave people better than you found them. ~ Marvin J. Ashton

liftingup

by Pete Ferguson

As a young manager at eBay, I always pushed for better pay and better benefits for my employees thinking that was the end-all-be-all cure for happiness at work.

I can recall several situations where we had almost doubled pay, added bonuses (for contract security staff that was almost unheard of in the US) and made huge inroads with medical benefit coverage – yet it still wasn’t enough!

 I’d rather have one percent of the efforts of 100 people than 100 percent of my own efforts. ~ J. Paul Getty

Then I reflected back to my days as a student employee at BYU – where I was quite happy.

My first job at University was cleaning toilets and mirrors and I had decided it was my attitude that I could control, so I became one of the best toilet cleaners and was quickly promoted and became the best at cleaning the museum at 5 am which got the attention of the security manager and I was able to transition into security and again made my way into a supervisory position.

I mistakenly had thought that it was the quick advancement and hard work that kept me motivated. Now as I look back with decades more of maturity – my managers at the time were a larger part of the equation.

Even though I was just cleaning toilets and standing watch over millions of dollars of art – in both situations my managers gave me a real sense of purpose and worth.

Linda, my manager when I was cleaning museum toilets, had a smile, walked around with a brisk pace and visited with each employee each morning and cleaned along with us when we needed a little motivation. She knew where we were from, what our parents did for a living, and a little about our hobbies and career desires. She acknowledged that cleaning toilets wasn’t the most exciting job, but it was important in accomplishing the larger mission of the museum.

Seventeen years later, remembering Linda is still a blessing in my life. She really cared, she showed it, and it made a lasting investment and difference in my life.

Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, ‘make me feel important.’ Never forget this message when working with people. ~ Mary Kay Ash

Today, we are spending considerable time and investment now at looking for ways to improve our 400+ security staff globally.

Our premise – give us two years of hard, dedicated work and we will improve your resume and give you the opportunity to get up to 18 college credits for completing all of our training courses. (Did you know you can accredit your training programs so that they can be accepted for college credit across the US? – I didn’t!)

It is a big task to accomplish, but one very much worth doing. And it has the potential to improve over 400 lives. What a cool thing to be a part of!

The new generation coming out of college is not very interested in 401ks or medical benefits. They want to know why you should be privileged to have them in your employ.

I hear many managers my age and older think this is a sin. It is a reality. We either embrace it make it work to our advantage or we will have to deal with a very transitory workforce with high turnover and very limited productivity – which will cause us to eventually be replaced by someone who “gets it.”

What are you doing to leave your employees better than you found them?

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Accrediting your training programs

Visit the website for the American Council on Education (ACE – consisting of the presidents of over 1,800 accredited colleges and universities) and scroll down their “About” page:

The Center for Lifelong Learning provides services for adult learners and nontraditional students in the United States. The center is focused on ensuring that every student who desires it has access to higher education and the resources needed to succeed.

 

Within the center, the College Credit Recommendation Service (CREDIT) connects workplace learning with colleges and universities. CREDIT does this by helping adults get academic credit, whenever possible, for courses and examinations taken outside traditional channels.

Why Your Employees are Cheating You

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by Pete Ferguson

I have two scenarios of ethics for you to consider:

  1. You run a warehouse business. To save on rent, you are five miles from the freeway and the closest restaurants. You have no on-site catering, you pay minimum wage, you require your employees to go through metal detectors before and after they come to work. You often require them to work overtime. They get two 15 minute breaks and one 30 minute lunch which starts before they exit the metal detectors. You are seeing regular shrinkage (theft) in your other client food products.
  2. In southern India, the average housekeeper makes the equivalent of $150 -$200 USD a month to barely scrape buy. They are literally a third-class citizen and not acknowledged by most people as a human let alone as individuals. They have probably never even been thanked. A company iPhone comes up missing.

In both of these scenarios, who’s fault is the crime?

The usual security industry approach would be to install hidden cameras, catch the culprit, fire them publicly to “send a message” – right?

Unfortunately the message has already been sent in both cases – “we don’t think much of you” – and justice must be doled out amongst the population through trying to “settle score.”

In scenario #1, what if the solution was to provide more onsite food options, and provide free meals when overtime is required? Add in public recognition for those who volunteer for the OT. Instead of having 50% turnover in a year, pay $1-2 more an hour.

In scenario #2, is it really morally wrong? I had to ask myself this question often. In the person’s mind, it is not a matter of stealing to take away from another. The perception is that if you have a good corporate job, you have a future. Whereas if you are a cleaning staff, you have no chance for education – for you or for your children. By leaving the iPhone out, it is like leaving a pot of hot and fresh food in a famine stricken land.

Providing a bit more pay, opportunities for English lessons and basic education opportunities levels the playing field.

Please debate me, tell me I’m wrong and why.

Your employees are cheating you usually because you have been cheating them. Your desire to get gain at their cost (lower wages and no ownership in the company) is going to be equaled out one way or another. We have seen this through thousands of years of history in government and worker’s unions. Now we see it over several hundred years of industry.

A job is not just money, it must be an opportunity for a person to better themselves while bettering your business. Pay is important the first two weeks of a job. Then it becomes an expectation.

It’s the opportunities and appreciation you provide to your staff that make up the difference in long run.

Let us never fear robbers nor murderers. Those are dangers from without, petty dangers. Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices are the real murderers. The great dangers lie within ourselves. What matters it what threatens our head or our purse! Let us think only of that which threatens our soul. ~ Les Miserables

Do Your Best

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Every job is good if you do your best and work hard. A man who works hard stinks only to the ones that have nothing to do but smell. ~ Laura Ingalls Wilder

by Pete Ferguson

So often we get hung up in a search for perfection that we forget to take action today – and do our best with what we have in front of us at the moment.

Always Do Your Best. Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.~ Miguel Angel Ruiz

In 2007 I found myself on a plane headed to India. I had just been thrown into an investigation of major loss of equipment and the team I was about to manage was in complete disarray. Employee sentiment towards our services was as negative as I have encountered, and my experience in working in Asia was limited to setting up an office in Shanghai two years earlier.

The previous few months were grueling as I was redefining my value within our team and now I was heading into a culture I knew nothing about only armed with my love for people and faith that things were going to work out.

To say that I felt a bit overwhelmed is an understatement.

I had two options – quit, or man up and take action. I’m very glad I chose the latter, because that has made all of the difference.

It’s fun to be on the edge. I think you do your best work when you take chances, when you’re not safe, when you’re not in the middle of the road, at least for me, anyway. ~ Danny DeVito

The self-doubt which evolves from thinking our best today is too far from perfect to try -paralyzes us into inaction.

It keeps us from moving forward – ironically, because we think if we stay still right now, we can wait for a shot at perfection to leap-frog us forward. But what we do not realize is that in staying still we are not frozen in time, we are moving backwards as life moves forward.

Forward movement – no matter how small or imperfect – is still forward movement. Taking immediate action is what saved me in India – and throughout Asia – and throughout my whole life. The  VP of Asia saw my action, believed in me, and made investments towards my recommendations and in the end we stopped the thefts and employees ranked our services as one of the top reasons they enjoyed coming to work.

Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle will never know. ~ Charles Kingsley

Build up your confidence by taking action – no matter how small – in a new area today. Music, writing, dancing, drawing, painting, poetry – wherever your passion lies hidden. Break out, man! Dare to overcome the fear of inaction and move forward with conviction!

When confronted with a roadblock, march forward. To hell with any obstacles that get into your way!

Photo Credit: The World of ElleSee 

If you have a defined passion, then it should not be stopped. You need to fight your way with, over, around, or through the opposition.

A problem is your chance to do your best. ~ Duke Ellington

Take on the impossible. Don’t fret the small stuff just yet. The answers will come through action. Get started quickly and make a mess. The first 19 failures will each school you on how to do it better the next time. And then the 20th time it clicks, and you are wiser and better educated on the process.

Photo Credit: Foodspotting.com

God luck and God Speed!

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Resolving Conflict Without Being a Jerk

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Don’t ever let them pull you down so low as to hate them.

~ Booker T. Washington

by Pete Ferguson

A friend and former coworker reached out over the weekend commenting on the blog and suggested I should write about “how to confront co-workers without being a jerk.”

As I have a teenage son at the moment, I’m getting a lot of practice at resolving conflict – but still working to ensure the part about not being a jerk.

I was trying to think of a case at work involving escalated conflict where ego was not involved. I couldn’t think of one.

A solid rock is not disturbed by the wind; even so, a wise person is not agitated by praise or blame. ~ Dhammapada

Some years ago a very talented Director, Kathy, and I were at odds over something which now seems really trivial (as most conflicts do when given time and a vacuum of emotion). I had gone over Kathy’s head to her boss, and I recall Kathy confronting me head on and told me if we had issues, that we needed to work it out at our level. And we did.

Which leads to my first piece of advice, don’t take it personal – and show the other person respect (even if they do not deserve it!).

Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. ~ Carrie Fisher

As we tell our 7-year-old all the time who gets extremely dramatic anytime her brother picks on her – “don’t give him the power to make you upset!” Sunday she sat down on a barstool and hugged her legs and repeatedly said, “I’m not going to give him the power, I’m not going to give him the power …” And she didn’t and he got bored and moved on.

I’ve found that so long as I’m in control of my emotions and put up a bit of an emotional forcefield, I can remain calm and objective.

My second piece of advice is to not make assumptions. A lot of times the conflict can only be in your head. Take time to talk it out with the other person. Ask them to explain their perspective.

My wife is infamous for tackling people she is not getting along with head on. More than once she has baked a plate of cookies and gone over to someone’s house and said “I’m having a really hard liking you, and these are the reasons why …”

Then they talk it out, hug it out, and become good friends. Steph has found that often times the other person had no idea about the conflict.

Gandhi once declared that it was his wife who unwittingly taught him the effectiveness of nonviolence. Who better than women should know that battles can be won without resort to physical strength? ~ Barbara Deming 

Some people are just happy being unhappy. It is very strange, but true. I don’t have to worry about many of those people reading this blog, because I find people who really do enjoy misery do not devote time to self-improvement. It is key to identify these type of people in your life and distance them as much as possible, and dump them altogether if allowed.

Unfortunately at work and with family, sometimes you can only afford limited distance.

He took over anger to intimidate subordinates, and in time anger took over him. ~ Milan Kundera

Stick to the facts. One way I’ve found to keep emotion out of the picture is to triple-check my facts and then stick to them. Bullies don’t cope well with facts, that’s why they use intimidation and manipulation to get their way.

You will feel a lot more confident if you are confident with your point of view but have enough self-confidence to allow for compromise when needed.

I’m certainly not an expert on this topic, which is why I enjoyed mulling over it for a few days. In fact many of the topics I write about are because they are key areas I’m working on in my own life.

What tips and tricks can you provide in how to deal with conflict without being a jerk? Also, if you have any suggestions on what I should write about, leave a comment below or drop me a line at pete@learnactshare.com.

Happy Tuesday!

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Taking Action

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A man who has to be convinced to act before he acts is not a man of action. You must act as you breathe.
— Georges Clemmanceau

by Pete Ferguson

I love Fridays. You’ve just about made it through the week, survived another one, and now it is time to unwind and focus more on personal pursuits. But I love Mondays too – so full of potential, a nice clean start to another week of adventures, successes, and failures to learn from.

I would be “sleeping in” instead of going to the gym except that I’m in a hotel room. And sleeping in for me is usually 6 am unless I can take two weeks off and seriously unwind. Who has time to sleep in when there is so much to do?

Slowly and shockingly, I realized that it does not take moving a mountain to achieve true happiness and fulfillment. It takes small shifts in perspective, a massive dose of self-confidence and self-esteem – none of it can be faked, all of it stems from within – and a determination to not give up until you find what you are meant to do with your life. ~ Farnoosh Brock

I’ve been helping Farnoosh edit her upcoming project: “Cracking The Code” about how to succeed in Corporate America. Farnoosh has been helping me garner more confidence and stick to commitments.

Yesterday it was decided that Farnoosh and I are to be accountability coaches for each other. She has to wade through my and many other’s edits for her ten chapter project before her upcoming birthday in April. I will get my book organized and in the editing process for a Kindle release by June 1st. And yesterday we both agreed it is time to get cracking!

I’ve had a number of accountability coaches. My wife of course. Myself. A colleague, Lauren, pushed me to register this domain name and write my first blog. Dan Miller’s Coaching With Excellence and a room of 50 people committed me to writing four blogs a day last May which has resulted in 90,000+ words. Ellie Gates has inspired me to take action on many things and has been a great corporate mentor. Jeff David committed me to give a go at coaching where I learned that is not where I currently need to be – but at least now I know!

“Do not lie in a ditch, and say God help me; use the
lawful tools He hath lent thee.”
— English Proverb

My father, now 68, just declared his desire to drop some serious weight so he can be around for another 10 years (I’m hoping for 20). He has enlisted all six of us in the gig and is willing to pay for pounds lost depending on our BMI scores. I will go public with that next week as it will be both embarrassing and a push to take action.

Having goals is good. But if they are in your head, they won’t happen. Writing them down is a great psychological way to commit, but sharing them openly and publicly is a great way to get scared into action I’ve found.

“Luck comes to a man who puts himself in the way of it. You went where something might be found and you found something, simple as that.” ~ Louis L’Amour, To the Far Blue Mountains

As I prepared for a radio interview this past week I was reminded of a transformative point in my life. Burnt out and making stupid decisions, I had a sabbatical of 5 weeks paid time off to get my life together. In the process, I found an old journal where TEN YEARS previously I had written down five goals – and achieved none of them.

Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you. ~ Thomas Jefferson

I have since repented and I’m working very diligently on all five of those goals and a few more.

What are your goals, and who is holding you accountable?

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Success Just Means We Learned Well

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There is only learning…and failure to learn. Success just means we learned well. 

~ Ellie Gates | Corporate Mustang

by Pete Ferguson

We often become consumed over the quest for “perfection.”

As I understand it, Six Sigma has generated millions of dollars in pursuit of chasing perfection to a margin of error less than .1 of a single percent.

The trouble is, my observations reveal three undesired consequences of this laser-beamed approach:

  1. In pursuit of chasing imperfection of an existing product or process, innovation on new products suffers
  2. People become consumed with the process of the process (achieving a black belt for example) – rather than the product to be delivered to the customer
  3. Analysis paralysis sets in – instead of taking action, too much time and effort is expended analyzing potential action

“If you wait to do everything until you’re sure it’s right, you’ll probably never do much of anything.” ~ Win Borden

I’m sure the Six Sigmaites will come after me with a vengeance. I’m sure I’ll survive. Some of the companies I know who embrace Six Sigma may not, however.

Life is messy and nature is abundant with examples that perfection is not a destination, it is a journey.

For example, if we look at how we are as humans and “perfection,” one might argue a newborn is perfect, unaltered, unbiased, pure. But unfortunately, a newborn also cannot speak, walk, feed itself, or do much of anything but lie around and wait for others to provide care.

Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection.
~ Khalil Gibran

Having an “A” in high school was great for getting into college and hopefully in getting scholarships. But today that “A” isn’t going to do much for you unless you are applying what you learned.

There are PhD’s who are unemployed. There are college dropouts who founded FaceBook, Apple, Microsoft, and many other iconic companies which have created jobs for hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of other college graduates.

What my friend Ellie Gates was referencing in the opening quote is her experience in India where she is rolling out a new performance management system for her company.

We are so used to grading our success. We spend years in school achieving and being graded on our performance. We spend years competing against others to get the best grades, the best job, and vying for bigger responsibilities and our leader’s favor. Some of us along the way focus more on the outcome versus the great learning we have on the way. ~ Ellie Gates 

With a perfection attitude, we can become too obsessed with titles and comparisons instead of being excited by the process of learning, growing, failing, and succeeding.

I sat for many years thinking “I should really start a blog, and a podcast, and a coaching business …”

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
~ Aristotle

When I applied the principle of Lift Where You Stand and started writing it took hours to produce 500 words. Hours more to edit. It was painful, yet rewarding. And 182 posts later, I take about 30 minutes to do the same thing. I will start a podcast at some point, but in writing I’ve become more focused on my goals and have really enjoyed the process.

I’ve seen too many sit idle as they discuss how things ought to be. Paralyzed by the notion that they could make a mistake, they choose to take no action. Years later, they are still discontent and unhappy. Meanwhile another who started off horribly has since made perfect something in their life.

What’s holding you back from taking action today?

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