I Have No Relationship Today With My Dad

By Zig Ziglar

There are many reasons for strained or broken relationships between parent and child. Damaged relationships are always painful to those involved. The good news is that relationships can be mended. The hard part is that you must initiate action that will lead to forgiveness and reconciliation. Here’s how.

I’m confident, based on sheer numbers, that many people who read this article will say that they haven’t spoken to their father in years or that their father is dead. In the event that your father is dead, I encourage you to forgive him for any wrong he might have done to you during his lifetime. If your father is still living, I encourage you to make some contact – either in person, by phone or through the mail – and tell him you forgive him for what he did to hurt you as you were growing up. (Now, don’t just tell him you forgive him, FORGIVE HIM.)

You also need to ask your father to forgive you for the part you may have played in the negative side of your relationship. I know that for many this will be extremely difficult. You might even need counseling to help you do it, but as my friend and fellow speaker Vicki Hitzges says, “One of these days you will say either ‘I wish I had’ or ‘I’m glad I did.’”

Recently a young man shared with me that he and his dad had been at each other’s throats for years and he hated his father. He took my advice and went to his father and confessed his hatred. He told him he had forgiven him and asked his father to do the same because he wanted to have a good relationship with him. The young man told me that they shed many tears, embraced warmly and are steadily building a great relationship. Think about it this way – you have little to lose and a great deal to gain by giving this a try. Do it and I’ll SEE YOU AT THE TOP!

Perverse Motivation

By Brian Tracy

Everyone likes to buy, but no one wants to be sold. People don't like to feel that they are the recipients or the victims of a sales presentation. Most customers are independent in their thinking, and they don't like to think that they are being manipulated, pressured, or coerced into doing anything. They like to feel as though they are making up their own minds based on good information that has been presented to them.

Sales Helper

The best salesperson is perceived as a helper who assists prospects in getting what they want and need. Remember, it is the perception of the customers that, more than anything else determines how the customer behaves toward a salesperson. You must do everything possible to appear to be helping rather than selling.


Salespeople are Teachers

Top salespeople are teachers who show their customers how products and services work to satisfy their needs. The more you are perceived as a teacher, the more likely it is that you will also be perceived as a consultant or an advisor. You will be seen as a trusted counselor who can be depended upon to help customers get what they want by means of the product or service that you are selling.


Don't Pressure the Customer

If ever your customers feel, even for a moment, that you are trying to sell them into buying something, they will instantly resist and withdraw. The most important part of selling is the quality of the trust bond that exists between you and your customers. You can't afford to do anything that threatens that trust bond. It is important that the customer feels that they are being informed about something that will benefit them, rather than feel pressured to buy a product that is being pushed upon them.

Design Presentation

Design your presentation in such a way that you are always showing, explaining, and asking questions to assure agreement and understanding. See yourself as a teacher with a willing and able student, eager to learn.

Action Exercise

Think of yourself as a teacher and your sales presentation as a "lesson plan." Always begin your presentation with agreement on the value or benefit that the customer seeks that your product or service can deliver.

A Father's Part

by Kenneth Hagin

Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof (Matt. 6:31-34).

Added to you! Not taken away! That proves that the Father cares for His own.

Another translation reads, "Be not therefore anxious for the morrow." You see, God doesn't want His children to be anxious, or to worry.


In today's passage, God is saying, "Have no worry, no fret, no anxiety. Because I am your Heavenly Father, I know you have need of these things. But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."

That's what God our Father is saying! If God is your Father, you may be assured that He will take a father's place and perform a father's part. You may be certain that if God is your Father, He loves you, and He will care for you. Praise God, I'm glad He's my Father! Is He yours?

A Thankful Thanksgiving

By Jim Rohn

You may be wondering why I would call this article “A Thankful Thanksgiving.” Aren't all Thanksgivings thankful? Unfortunately, no. As a person who has experienced over 75 Thanksgivings, I recognize that being thankful is something that we have to work at, even on Thanksgiving.

If your home is like most, your Thanksgiving Day will be very busy, with either traveling to where you want to go or preparing your home to have others over for the day. Either way, that can be very hectic and emotionally trying, which doesn't lend itself to preparing your heart to be reflective and thankful. In fact, Thanksgiving weekend is the most traveled weekend in America. Airports are full, and not always providing much room for contemplation of your good fortune.

This means all the more that if we want to be the kind of people who are characterized by thankfulness, then we must make sure that we focus on it, and not just on Thanksgiving Day, but at all times during the year.

Here are a few key words as well as some thoughts that are simple and practical to apply; something you can use right away in your quest for becoming more thankful:

Time. Set aside time regularly to be quiet, to reflect. We live in the fastest-paced time ever. From the moment we awake to the moment we collapse into bed, we have the opportunity to go at full speed and never slow down. If we schedule time every day in which we can be quiet and reflect, we will free our hearts and minds up from the tyranny of the urgent and rushed.

Thought. Give thought to the many blessings that you have. Living in a consumer culture, most of us are fully aware of what we do not have and how we absolutely must have “it.” But how often do we reflect upon that which we already have? Take some time each day and think of one or two things that you have that you may typically take for granted and then take a moment and give thanks for those. In fact, I make it a part of my reflection time to review a list of things that I’m thankful for.

Generosity. Be generous toward those with less and not envious of those with more. We tend to look at others who may be wealthier than ourselves and think, “I sure wish I had what he does.” That kind of thinking breeds envy and jealousy rather than contentment. What can we do to break that cycle? I would suggest being generous to those who are less fortunate than yourself. Go to work at a food bank. And not just during the holidays—everybody works there then—but on a regular basis during the year. That will remind you of how good you really have it.

Ask. Ask a friend what they are thankful for. The next time you are at lunch with a friend, ask him or her what they are most thankful for. You will be amazed at the answers you receive, and you will create a meaningful bond with your friends as you focus on this powerful question.

Acknowledge. Lastly, tell those you love how thankful you are for having them in your life. So many times we neglect to take the time to craft the words to express to those closest to us what their presence in our lives means to us. Take the opportunity of Thanksgiving Day to write them a note or sometime during the day put your hand on their shoulder, look them in the eyes and tell them. Let them know what they mean to you, and in return you’ll begin to create the possibility of deeper, richer, more fulfilling relationships with those you love.

Of course, we should do what we can to make the most of the day we call Thanksgiving, but wouldn’t it be a shame if the only time we reflected on our blessings was that one Thursday in November? And the answer is, of course! So let’s do our best to be aware of the many great gifts that we have each and every day of the year. As we do so we will feel our hearts soar and our minds will experience more and more peace as we regularly remember and remain aware of our good fortune.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Entertainment for Happiness

By Zig Ziglar

The typical eighteen-year-old has seen 17,000 hours of television, listened to 11,000 hours of music, and watched 2,000 hours of MTV and movies. In addition, they have spent countless hours on texting, have “driven around” a substantial number of hours, gone to concerts and athletic events, and dated. I’m not opposed to any of these things, but when you total those hours, they come to more hours than are required to complete kindergarten, grade school, middle school, high school, college, medical school and serve an internship. All of this in the quest of happiness, having pleasure and being entertained.

Interestingly enough, as thousands of people in my audiences around America will testify, when I ask them a question which challenges them to finish the sentence, “The most-often heard phrase around a household uttered by our children is…” – and I open the sentence by saying “I am…” -the audience, in unison, finishes with the word “bored.” In addition, according to Psychology Today, the typical 20-year-old American is ten times as likely to be depressed as is his father and 20 times as likely to be depressed as is his grandfather.

The message is clear. There’s a substantial difference between pleasure and happiness. Other people can give us pleasure. Most of us would agree that all the events I described above – movies, dating, athletic events, music, etc. – are pleasurable. However, neither you nor your children will be happy until you do things for other people. You can’t be “entertained” into happiness and pleasure alone ultimately produces boredom and low self-esteem. A Gallup Poll several years ago revealed that over 90% of seniors in high school wished their parents and teachers loved them enough to discipline them more and require and expect more from them.

We need to teach our children to “be” and “do,” and I’m not talking about “be entertained.” I’m talking about “be responsible,” and active in the pursuit of some worthwhile objectives. Think about it and I’ll SEE YOU AT THE TOP!

Excellence: Taking Your Leadership to New Heights

By John C. Maxwell

As a child, did you ever wish that you could fly? The longing to escape gravity seems ingrained in our imaginations. Fictional characters from Superman to Mary Poppins to Aladdin have soared across the sky on adventures. Michael "Air" Jordan's fame rested, in part, on his seeming ability to glide above his opponents on the court to slam-dunk the basketball. Kite flying remains a popular pastime and air shows draw crowds to watch planes perform acrobatic aerial feats.

Our longing to take flight transfers to our careers. We don't want to be stuck on the bottom level; we want to soar. We desire to be on top, to excel in our work.

Whatever your occupation and regardless of your position, here are three habits of excellence which, when attained, will get you off the ground.

Work with Your Whole Heart

I've never met a halfhearted leader who sustained excellence. The successful leaders I know are ablaze with desire to see their vision come to fruition. Having an end in mind, they approach work with joy and expectancy.


What should you do if you feel unmotivated on the job?

1) Seek self-awareness of your strengths and find ways to express them. What do you do well? What captures your attention? What have you enjoyed doing in the past? If your role at work doesn't provide an outlet for your strengths, volunteer them in another capacity.
2) Monitor your attitude. Cease complaining and weed out negativity from your thoughts. Instead, concentrate on opportunities to learn and grow.

Devote Undistracted Attention to Your Job

Excellent leaders have laser-like focus. They fix their attention on top priorities and refuse to be diverted from accomplishing them. They work purposefully and strategically, doing what's important instead of what's easy.

How can you regain focus when your vision seems fuzzy?

1) Prioritize your time. If you don't budget your time, others will spend it for you. Control your calendar so that your hours are spent on what matters most.
2) Protect your environment. Distractions creep in and hold our attention hostage. Take steps to eliminate interruptions. This can be as simple as turning off your phone during times of focused thought or sealing yourself off from others for a few minutes in the morning so that you can plan for the day.

Give Maximum Energy to Your Team

Leaders who excel give full commitment to their team. They offer their best day after day, always devoting maximum effort to their responsibilities. They understand what's required to complete an assignment, and they don't rest until every detail is in place and the project is finished.

1) Eat well and exercise. Your health determines your quality and quantity of life. Don't view your physical health in isolation; it connects to your emotional and mental health.
2) Make rest a must. Leaders are generally driven, outcome-oriented people. As such, they can have a hard time seeing the value of rest and relaxation. In truth, you actually accomplish more when you discipline yourself to unplug and recharge periodically.

The Law of the Customer

By Brian Tracy

The customer always acts to satisfy his or her interests by seeking the very most and best at the lowest price possible. Customers practice economic calculation in their choices. They seek to minimize their purchases and to minimize their costs, or outlays. Customers always attempt to get the things they want the fastest and easiest way possible, right now, at the lower possible price. This is not a problem. This is merely a fact of business life. Customers want the very most for the very least, and they will buy from whomever they feel can best give it to them.

Customers are Both Demanding and Ruthless

Customers are both demanding and ruthless; they reward highly those companies that serve them best and allow those companies that serve them poorly to fail. Sam Walton once said, “We all have the same boss, the customer, and he can fire us any time he wants by deciding to buy somewhere else.” It isn't that customers don't care about your business, its just that customers care more about themselves and their own satisfaction than they do about the success or failure of your enterprise. Wherever you see a business fail, you see a business where the owners were either unable or unwilling to adjust their offerings to satisfy the customers at prices that allowed them to carry on.

Customer Always Behave Rationally

Customers always behave rationally in pursuing the path of least resistance to get want they want. From the point of view of the customer, every action makes perfect sense. All buying behavior is aimed at achieving greater personal satisfaction, toward improving one's position, toward being better off. If a salesperson or a businessperson suggests that the customers are stupid for not patronizing a particular store or buying its products, it is actually the salesperson or the businessperson who is stupid. The customer is very smart and usually knows what is in his or her best interest. The customer's decision is always rational, from the customer's point of view.

Proper Business Planning

Proper business planning always begins with the customer as the central focus of attention and discussion. People within companies have a dangerous tendency to lose touch with the thoughts, feelings, and needs of their customers. They tend to talk only among themselves, and what is worse, they listen only to each other. They lose touch with the reality of their customers. If you are in business, and if what you do affects your customer, you should mentally erect a statue of the customer and place it in the middle of the table when you discuss any plans regarding your products or services. Always ask yourself; if the customer was sitting here listening to us, what would the customer be thinking? What would the customer say?

Action Exercise

Make a list of all your customers, both inside and outside of your business. Write down the names of your boss and coworkers, your outside customers and contacts, everyone with whom you deal, including your staff

Creating a boutique career

Barbara Moses (The Globe and Mail Online)

A middle-manager client unhappy in her job recently gave me her career wish list. She longs for an opportunity to think more deeply about, and do leading-edge work in, her subject area. She has a desire to focus on tasks that intellectually engage her. And she wants to work with and manage smart people.

What she doesn’t want is a hodge-podge of responsibilities that lack any unifying vision or intellectual substance.

Her wish list sounds like the features of a great, high-end boutique shop: focused, clearly defined, sophisticated, providing a niche service or product, and infused with the personality and vision of the owner – a vision shared by the people who work there.

While I’ve never heard anyone use the analogy of a boutique to describe an ideal career, the concept captures a “work package” for which I increasingly hear frustrated professionals express a desire.

People who yearn for a more focused direction complain about being at the beck and call of bosses who don’t know what they want and being pulled in a thousand directions. They are tired of navigating departmental politics; scrambling for non-existent resources; being unable to carry out work to a standard they consider acceptable; and working in reactive environments where nobody actually thinks.

Even senior managers want work that allows them to pay attention to professional content, as I found in a survey I recently conducted of about 60 executives. Almost all lamented that ever-growing demands to satisfy human resource and legislative policies, impossible cost restraints, and staff with bottomless needs for approval and direction have left them with no time to pay attention to what they are being paid for. A vice-president of human resources or marketing wants to be able to do more than worry about filling out forms for maternity leaves; they also want to be able to provide leadership to employees and to turn a strategic eye to professional matters.

About half of the respondents said they wished they had the freedom to concentrate on high-level professional problems, but said such roles are almost impossible to find in most contemporary corporate environments.

High-level professional jobs are indeed scarce, and the advancement ladder can be truncated for those who don’t want to move on to a management track. Professional positions, for the most part, are much broader and more generalized in scope than the words “professional” or “specialist” implies. Instead, they require a wide range of skills at a “good enough,” rather than an expert, level.

In a recent workshop, one unhappy tax partner at a global accounting firm complained that the many competing demands forced him to do second-rate work. He wryly observed that, “although I’m considered a very senior professional, in fact, I get my most of my specialist skills from a software program.” Being a tax partner is the vehicle through which he carries out a wide range of responsibilities, such as leading the practice, marketing services, and grooming young accountants. But all these tasks had little bearing on his expertise in tax regulations, he noted.

He so missed the days when he could “get down and dirty” solving complex tax problems that he asked his firm to relieve him of some partnership responsibilities. As a result, they created a special role for him as the practice's go-to expert.

One can see the advantages that a boutique career has for those who love to practice their craft at a high level. Like the owner of a specialty shop, you can choose what to focus on. You can also make bolder choices. Being a bit “out there” or eccentric can even be an asset, or at least is more likely to be tolerated (“She’s a bit weird, but she really knows her stuff”). You have independence, more opportunity to think deeply about a subject, and, if you are very talented, you can become known as an expert.

But there can also be a downside: boredom in mid- and later career from having spent most of your working life doing more or less the same thing over and over. What once was cutting-edge can now be tedious in repetition.

Another possible cost: lost opportunities as a result of being too rigid or picky about what you are prepared to do. One fiftysomething acquaintance has had what could be called a boutique career as an expert in adult education for several decades. She now feels stuck. Reflecting on her work history, she said, “People see me as prickly and unyielding. Sometimes I wish I could have been more flexible, more willing to roll with the punches. I might have been happier. And I might have more choices now.”

For people with boutique careers, work is highly personal, intimately tied to their ego and identity. This can be extremely satisfying – but it can also lead to problems of rigid views or single-mindedness. As one communications expert put it: “I have a very particular way of thinking about things and you would have to work very hard to convince me to look at things differently. It’s my fingerprint, my signature and vision, and I don’t want to dilute it.”

A sense of ownership and the opportunity for self-expression can be seductive. But before you embark on a search for a plum boutique career, understand that it’s not only about getting rid of the daily headaches and demands that have nothing to do with your skills or talents. To gain entry into the boutique ranks, you have to have something unique and special to sell.

You also have to be willing and able to say “no” to taking on tasks outside what you truly excel at. This is not for the faint of heart. If you are a self-employed consultant, for example, you might have to turn down jobs outside your expertise, even when it hurts to take a pass on income-producing activities. If you work for someone, this may mean renegotiating your job expectations, and if you can't do this, you may have to find another position that allows you to carry out your craft in a more focused way.

But the rewards – knowing you stayed the course, shaping your career in a deeply personal way, and being the go-to person for that special service – can be rich.

ON THE JOB

Beyond the halls of academia and cutting-edge laboratories, the best place to create a boutique career is in so-called knowledge industries, such as government, pharmaceuticals, financial services, and professional service firms. Here’s a sampling of jobs and roles that can spur a boutique career:

- Professions that require a high level of specialized training (such as lawyer, physician, chartered accountant), combined with a specialized focus. Example: a lawyer who focuses on environmental issues.

- Professions that require education and focused experience. Example: a specialist in leadership management; a journalist with expertise in global financing.

- Scientists with clearly defined research interests and specialized knowledge.

- Talented specialists, such as chef, stylist, interior designer.

______

ARE YOU SUITED FOR A BOUTIQUE CAREER?

The more statements that are true of you, the better suited you may be for a boutique career:

- I enjoy thinking deeply about the problems associated with my profession.

- I am known as someone who comes up with unusual and creative solutions to professional challenges.

- I am not afraid to make bold professional suggestions.

- I am one of the most qualified people in my profession.

- I am not prepared to make professional compromises in favour of business results.

- Co-workers with might describe me as rigid when it comes to looking at alternative solutions.

- I have a clear understanding of what I am – and am not – good at.

- I am often described as being a perfectionist

- If something doesn’t interest me professionally, I find it difficult to do it, even if I know I should for the money or to benefit my career.

- My colleagues would describe me as doing leading-edge work, in tune with the times.

- I can be difficult to influence on professional matters.

- People seek out my opinion on professional matters; they think of me as an expert.

Special to The Globe and Mail

The Young Persuader

By Zig Ziglar

A few days after my second daughter was born, I had to take a trip over to South Carolina from our Knoxville, Tennessee, home. On the way back, a sudden snow storm left me and a few hundred other motorists stranded for the night. Fortunately, I was stranded directly behind a nice, warm Greyhound bus. The driver was kind enough to permit me to climb aboard and spend the night. The next morning the highways were cleared and I drove on home.

I had no sooner pulled into the driveway and gotten inside my house than my wife said we needed more baby supplies. I slipped my heavy coat back on and was headed for the door when my soon-to-be four-year-old daughter, Suzan, said, “Daddy, take me with you.” I explained to her that the weather was bad, I would only be gone a few minutes, and it would be best for her to stay home. As only a four-year-old can, she said, “But, Daddy, I will be so lonely.” I said, “Now, Doll, your mother is here and so is your new baby sister, and Lizzie (who was our live-in nanny) is here.” Then she looked at me and said, “But, Daddy, I’ll be lonely for you.” I don’t need to tell you that she went with me to the store that day.

In retrospect, that is persuasion at its absolute best – straight from the heart, without guile and without any subterfuge. In a direct, simple way she had made me feel important – I was the one she was going to be lonely for. I believe that if we will play it straight, speak from the heart, and be open and direct with people in a loving way, we will improve our communication skills dramatically and our persuasiveness will go up. Think about it. Speak from the heart, and I’ll SEE YOU AT THE TOP!

Leading with Excellence: Setting Personal Standards of Success

By John Maxwell

"Success means doing the best we can with what we have. Success is the doing, not the getting; in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be." ~ Zig Ziglar

Wise leaders set personal standards of excellence rather than allowing external forces to define success or failure for them. They set their standards above and beyond what others require, consistently delivering results that surpass expectations. In honoring their standards of excellence, credible leaders go first and give the most, modeling the work ethic they desire to see from teammates.

On the other hand, when leaders accept standards placed upon them by others, they sacrifice self-control. They begin to live inauthentic lives, chasing after "goals" they didn't set and violating their values in ways they never would have thought possible. In my experience, there are four common culprits that leaders foolishly allow to override their personal standards.

1) Competition

Allowing the competition to set your standards pulls you off mission and away from your unique strengths and values. Being overly concerned with your rivals may cause you to copy their unethical tactics or to engage in unprincipled behavior in an effort to win at all costs. In leadership, you have to chart your own course. Never allow the competition to choose the path for you.

2) Circumstances

Since there are so many factors beyond our control, in leadership we cannot gauge excellence solely on short-term results. Outcomes are important and goals have merit, but at times circumstances will conspire to block our progress. Consider the economic downturn. For leaders with standards of success tied to stock prices or bottom line profits, the last two years must seem like miserable failures. Keep your personal standards independent of life circumstances so that no matter what is going on around you, you can still achieve excellence.

3) Critics

As a leader, you will be criticized. You'll be scrutinized, second-guessed, and disparaged. Don't confuse excellence with pleasing others. If you do, you'll always feel like a failure, because it's impossible to please all of the people all of the time. Stay true to your personal standards and don't sacrifice them to pacify your critics.

4) Cheerleaders

When you're successful, you gain the applause of everyone around you. The applause massages your ego and begins to substitute for the fulfillment of meeting personal standards. If you're not careful, you can develop an addiction to applause. Instead of pursuing excellence you play to the crowd, craving their adoration. Seeking popularity over principle, you allow others to measure excellence for you and to define your worth.

To avoid the trap of pandering to applause, surround yourself with people who tell you what you need to hear rather than what you want to hear. The higher you go in leadership, the harder it becomes for your teammates to give you honest feedback. Make a point to stay humble and approachable so that you do not become self-deluded.

Where Do You Go for Your Intellectual Feast?

By Jim ROhn

Pity the man who has a favorite restaurant, but not a favorite author. He's picked out a favorite place to feed his body, but he doesn't have a favorite place to feed his mind!

Why would this be? Have you heard about the accelerated learning curve? From birth, up until the time we are about 18, our learning curve is dramatic, and our capacity to learn during this period is just staggering. We learn a tremendous amount very fast. We learn language, culture, history, science, mathematics... everything!

For some people, the accelerated learning process will continue. But for most, it levels off when they get their first job. If there are no more exams to take, if there's no demand to get out paper and pencil, why read any more books? Of course, you will learn some things through experience. Just getting out there—sometimes doing it wrong and sometimes doing it right—you will learn.

Can you imagine what would happen if you kept up an accelerated learning curve all the rest of your life? Can you imagine what you could learn to do, the skills you could develop, the capacities you could have? Here's what I'm asking you to do: Be that unusual person who keeps up his learning curve and develops an appetite for always trying to find good ideas.

One way to feed your mind and educate your philosophy is through the writings of influential people. Maybe you can't meet the person, but you can read his or her books. Churchill is gone, but we still have his books. Aristotle is gone, but we still have his ideas. Search libraries for books and programs. Search magazines. Search documentaries. They are full of opportunities for intellectual feasting.

In addition to reading and listening, you also need a chance to do some talking and sharing. I have some people in my life who help me with important life questions, who assist me in refining my own philosophy, weighing my values and pondering questions about success and lifestyle.

We all need association with people of substance to provide influence concerning major issues such as society, money, enterprise, family, government, love, friendship, culture, taste, opportunity and community. Philosophy is mostly influenced by ideas, ideas are mostly influenced by education, and education is mostly influenced by the people with whom we associate.

One of the great fortunes of my life was to be around Mr. Shoaff those five years. During that time he shared with me at dinner, during airline flights, at business conferences, in private conversations and in groups. He gave me many ideas that enabled me to make small daily adjustments in my philosophy and activities. Those daily changes, some very slight, but very important, soon added up to weighty sums.

A big part of the lesson was having Mr. Shoaff repeat the ideas over and over. You just can't hear the fundamentals of life philosophy too often. They are the greatest form of nutrition, the building blocks for a well-developed mind.

I'm asking that you feed your mind just as you do your body. Feed it with good ideas, wherever they can be found. Always be on the lookout for a good idea—a business idea, a product idea, a service idea, an idea for personal improvement. Every new idea will help to refine your philosophy. Your philosophy will guide your life, and your life will unfold with distinction and pleasure.

Decide to Become Rich

By Brian Tracy

We have passed from a world based on material limitations into a world that is determined by mental concepts. We have moved from the age of things into the "Psychozoic Age," the age of the mind.

Wealth and opportunities are contained more in the person you are and the way you think than in the assets you have acquired in life so far.

Your future lies more in your ability to apply your mind and intelligence to your work and your life than it does in your current job situation.

Change Creates Opportunity
The forces of change impact everything you do. The rate of change is accelerating week by week and month by month. The speed and variety of change is something over which you have no control, and about which you have no choice.

The only decision you have to make is whether you are going to be a "master of change" or a "victim of change." Are you going to be a creator of circumstance or a creature of circumstances? It will be one of the other, but the impact of change will be forced upon you, whatever you do.

Learn from the Experts
If you want to learn how to cook, you study cooking. If you want to be a lawyer, you study law. If you want to be an engineer, you study engineering. And if you want to be financially successful, you study others who have become financially successful before you. Find out what they did, and you do the same things, over and over, until you get the same results.

Get Rid of the Myths
There are a great many myths about self-made millionaires. If you want to become a self-made millionaire yourself, you must dispel these myths from your own mind. Many people have fixed ideas or beliefs about themselves and money that are holding them back.

One myth is that you have to go have a great education to become rich. Another myth is that you have to start off with a lot of money. Some people are convinced that financial success depends on a lucky break of some kind.

None of these myths are true. In fact, a survey of members of the Forbes 400, the 400 richest men and women in the United States, found that high school dropouts in the group who made it to the list were worth, on average, $300 million more than university graduates on the list.

Becoming a Millionaire
There is a probability that you will become a millionaire in the course of your working lifetime. Today in America, one family in 20 has a net worth of more than one million dollars. This means that your likelihood of acquiring a million dollars is one in 20, or five percent.

The more different things you do that are likely to help you to achieve your goal, the more likely it is you will do the right thing at the right time. If you set clear, written goals, make detailed plans, and continually upgrade your skills to increase your income, you increase the probabilities that you will earn a good living.


Action Exercise
Resolve today to become financially independent. Become a student of money, wealth, accumulation, and wealth creation. Becoming rich is a skill that you can learn.

How to win over critics and defend your great idea

By John Kotter and Lorne Whitehead

Harvard Business Review Press, 192 pages, $22

If you have a good idea, brace yourself. You may expect everyone to embrace it immediately, congratulating you on your brilliance. But more likely, you will find the proposal (and perhaps even you, its proponent) undermined and attacked.
ou will have finished presenting the idea to colleagues when a barrage of silly questions, inane comments, vicious attacks and delaying tactics erupt. The responses could block your idea from moving forward, or kill it outright.

“It can be maddening,” Harvard Business School change expert John Kotter and Lorne Whitehead, Leader of Education Innovation at the University of British Columbia, note in their new book, Buy-In: Saving Your Good Idea from Getting Shot Down.

“You end up flustered, embarrassed, or furious. All those who would benefit from the idea lose. In an extreme case, a whole company or nation may lose,” they write.

The authors argue it doesn’t have to be this way, and offer a counterintuitive approach to making sure you triumph over the naysayers. It starts by welcoming those critics into the conversation and basically encouraging them to shoot at you. Sometimes the toughest part of getting an idea approved is drawing attention to it, and the attacks will help generate the interest you need.

Instead of trying to overwhelm your critics with a barrage of facts and figures, or counterpunch with heated replies, listen patiently and respond civilly, with crisp, general, respectful answers. It’s the leadership equivalent of Muhammad Ali’s “rope-a-dope” strategy in his famous 1974 match against George Foreman in Zaire, in which he wore down his rival by backing up against the ropes and accepting his opponent’s most punishing blows until his foe tired.

In the case of defending your fresh idea, the authors argue, your critics will eventually run out of steam and the audience will be won over by your brief, common-sense statements that deliberately avoid presenting a litany of facts, figures and dense arguments.

“An approach of overwhelming others with data and logic certainly sounds reasonable and certainly can be successful some of the time. But a potential danger is that it can inadvertently make it hard to develop – even can kill – the very quality that must be present in order to build strong attention for an idea: Crucial attention,” they observe. So don’t take a chance on confusing your audience. Clarify, and do it in simple terms.

The authors spell out a list of the 24 attacks that can surface, such as: “We’ve been successful, so why change?” “What’s the hidden agenda here?” “You’re abandoning our core values.” “It’s too simplistic to work.” “No one else does this!” “We tried it before and it didn’t work.” “We can’t afford this.” And so on.

The authors also provide a short, generous reply that will help you deflate each attack in a charming, deft way. The 24 arguments, they explain, really fall into four main categories:

Fear mongering: This sort of attack raises anxieties, so that a thoughtful examination of the proposal is difficult, if not impossible.

Delay: These objections slow down the communication and discussion of the plan so critical buy-in can’t be achieved before a critical cut-off time or organizational attention wanders on to something else.

Confusion: Here you endure a fusillade of questions and criticisms that aren’t even related to one another – “What about this?” “What about that?” The discussion spirals out of control, and the audience concludes the proposal isn’t well thought out.

Ridicule or character assassination: Here the verbal bullets are aimed at you, not the idea, as the critics try to make the idea’s proponent look silly.

Instead of sailing into a meeting to discuss your ideas drunk on their brilliance, the authors urge you to prepare for these kinds of attacks so you can neutralize them. The writers stress that the method, although powerful, isn’t guaranteed to work in cases with a particularly aggressive, nasty opposition (think of the world of politics), but for the vast majority of us, in the vast majority of business situations, they are sure it can help our ideas triumph.

***

Fact Box

The 24 Attacks

1. We’ve been successful; why change?

2. Money (or some other problem a proposal does not address) is the real issue.

3. You exaggerate the problem.

4. You’re implying that we’ve been failing!

5. What’s the hidden agenda here?

6. What about this, and that, and this, and that…?

7. Your proposal goes too far/does not go far enough.

8. You have a chicken-and-egg problem.

9. Sounds like [something most people dislike] to me!

10. You’re abandoning our core values.

11. It’s too simplistic to work.

12. No one else does this.

13. You can’t have it both ways.

14. Aha! You can’t deny this! [“This” being a worrisome thing that the proposers know nothing about and the attackers keep secret until just the right moment]

15. To generate this many questions and concerns, the idea has to be flawed.

16. We tried that before – didn’t work.

17. It’s too difficult to understand.

18. Good idea, but this is not the right time.

19. It’s just too much work to do this.

20. It won’t work here; we’re different!

21. It puts us on a slippery slope.

22. We can’t afford this.

23. You’ll never convince enough people.

24. We’re simply not equipped to do this.

Special to The Globe and Mail

Five Ingredients of Personal Growth

By John C. Maxwell

As any farmer knows, the growth of a crop only happens when the right ingredients are present. To harvest plentiful fields, the farmer has to begin by planting the right seed in rich topsoil where sunlight and water can help the seed to sprout, mature, and bear fruit. If any of the ingredients (seeds, topsoil, sunlight, or water) are missing, the crop won't grow.

Growing as a leader also requires the proper ingredients. Unless the right attitudes and actions are cultivated an aspiring leader will sputter and fail rather than growing in influence. Let's look at five basic qualities essential for growth in leadership.

1) Teachability

Arrogance crowds out room for improvement. That's why humility is the starting point for personal growth. As Erwin G. Hall said, "An open mind is the beginning of self-discovery and growth. We can't learn anything new until we can admit that we don't already know everything."

Adopting a beginner's mindset helps you to be teachable. Beginners are aware that they don't know it all, and they proceed accordingly. As a general rule, they're open and humble, noticeably lacking in the rigidity that often accompanies experience and achievement. It's easy enough to have a beginner's mind when you're actually a beginner, but maintaining teachability gets trickier in the long term especially when you've already achieved some degree of success.

2) Sacrifice

Growth as a leader involves temporary loss. It may mean giving up familiar but limiting patterns, safe but unrewarding work, values no longer believed in, or relationships that have lost their meaning. Whatever the case, everything we gain in life comes as a result of sacrificing something else. We must give up to go up.

3) Security

To keep learning throughout life, you have to be willing, no matter what your position is, to say, "I don't know." It can be hard for executives to admit lacking knowledge because they feel as if everyone is looking to them for direction, and they don't want to let people down their people. However, followers aren't searching for perfection in their leaders. They're looking for an honest, authentic, and courageous leader who, regardless of the obstacles facing the organization, won't rest until the problem is solved.

It took me seven years to hit my stride as a communicator. During those seven years I gave some boring speeches, and I felt discouraged at times. However, I was secure enough to keep taking the stage and honing my communication skills until I could connect with an audience. Had I been insecure, then the negative evaluations of others would have sealed my fate and I never would have excelled in my career.

4) Listening

Listen, learn, and ask questions from somebody successful who has gone on before you. Borrow from their experiences so that you can avoid their mistakes and emulate their triumphs. Solicit feedback and take to heart what you're told. The criticism of friends may seem bitter in the short-term but, when heeded, it can save you from falling victim to your blind spots.

5) Application

Knowledge has a limited shelf life. Unless used immediately or carefully preserved, it spoils and becomes worthless. Put the lessons you learn into practice so that your insights mature into understanding.

Positive Words Create Positive Actions

By Zig Ziglar

In our society today we tend to accentuate the negatives instead of the positives. One example is the “alarm clock” we use to wake ourselves up in the morning. Realistically, when we hear an alarm it generates fear or anxiety. When somebody robs a bank, an alarm is sounded; when there’s a fire, someone sounds an alarm. Perhaps waking up to an alarm helps explain the profusion of negative words we use. If you rethink the issue of your clock you will realize that it is really giving you an opportunity. When you hear it ring, you have the opportunity to get up and go. A whole day full of possibilities is available to you once you hear your “opportunity clock.” If you can’t hear it ring, that might mean you’ve gotten up and gone! That could be bad.

Some people refer to the electrical appliances on street corners as “stop lights,” “red lights,” or “traffic lights.” Factually speaking, they are “go lights.” They were put there to make traffic “go” more quickly, safely and smoothly.

Many people refer to the first slice on a loaf of bread as the “end,” when in reality every loaf of bread I’ve ever seen has two beginnings. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that is not necessarily earth-shattering, but I challenge you to use the terms “opportunity clock” when you relate your wake-up procedure and “beginning” when you describe the first slice of bread in a loaf. And the next time someone asks you for directions, send them down to the first “go” light. I assure you, a smile will cross your face and that’s the first step in developing the right mental attitude, which is prerequisite for optimum performance. Think about it, and I’ll SEE YOU AT THE TOP!

Success is Everything

By Jim Rohn

Someone once said to me that success isn't everything, and I think I know what they really meant. I believe they really meant that money wasn't everything, and I certainly agree with that. But I do believe that success IS everything.

First you need to succeed to survive. We must take the seasons and learn how to use them with the seed, the soil and the rain of opportunity to learn how to sustain ourselves and our family.

But then second is to then succeed to flourish in every part of your life. Good question to ask mature people: "If you could do better, should you?" And I think almost everybody would answer the question in the positive. If you could improve your health, shouldn't you do that? If you can learn more, shouldn't you do that? If you could earn more and share more, shouldn't you do that? If you can improve your relationships and spirituality, shouldn't you do that? And I think that is what success is really all about. It is not just a destination that is set for everybody to try and go for.

It is like Zig Ziglar said, "Improving in every area of your life to see if you can with satisfaction at the end of the day, week, month and year, say ‘I have made excellent progress this year, for myself, for my family, for my business, my career and my health.'" I think that kind of success everybody recognizes is legitimate and something we should all strive for.

Interesting phrase in the Bible that says strive for perfection—not that we can ever reach it. But it is in the striving, to be a little bit better today than yesterday, in our speech, our language, our health, everything we can possibility think of.

So yes, in my opinion, success is everything!

Seven Keys to High-Energy Living

By Brian Tracy

Energy is a key luck factor. For you to be at the top of your form, to be action oriented, fast moving, and extremely productive, you have to have high levels of physical and mental energy.

For you to be able to take advantage of all the possibilities around you, and to have the continuous enthusiasm that keeps you and others motivated and moving ahead, you have to organize your life so that you feel terrific about yourself most of the time.

1. Eat the Right Foods
The first key to high energy is a proper diet. To perform at your best, you must eat the right foods, in the right balance, and in the right combination. Your diet has an inordinate impact on the amount of energy you have, how well you sleep, your levels of health and fitness, and your performance throughout the day and into the evening.

2. Watch your Weight
The second key to high energy is proper weight. Proper weight is essential for health, happiness, and long life. Being slightly under your ideal weight is best. As they say, you can never be too rich or too thin. If you are not happy with your current level of physical health, you need to set specific goals for yourself for the weeks and months ahead.

3. Exercise is Essential
The third key to high energy is proper exercise. The best activity for high energy and physical fitness is aerobic exercise. This type of exercise requires that you get your heart rate up into what is called the training zone three times per week. This training zone is about 120 to 160 beats per minute, depending on your age. You then keep it there for at least 20 minutes or more each session.

4. Get Lots of Rest and Recreation
The fourth key to high energy is proper rest. You need an average of seven to eight hours of sleep each night to be fully rested. You need to take off at least one full day each week during which you don't work at all. You should take regular mini-holidays of two or three days each, every couple of months. You should take one and two week vacations each year when you relax completely and get your mind totally off your work.

5. Develop a Positive Mental Attitude
The sixth key to high energy is the elimination of negative emotions. This can be the most important thing you do to assure a long and happy life. Your ability to keep your mind on what you want and off of what you don't want will determine your levels of health and happiness more than any other decision you make.

6. Start a Personal Mental Fitness Program
The seventh key to high energy is for you to go on a 21-daypositive mental attitude diet, one day at a time. Resolve that, for the next 21 day, you are going to keep your mind on what you want and keep it off the things you don't want. You are going to think and talk positively and optimistically about your goals, other people, and everything that is going on in your life.

7. Become a Personal Powerhouse
The more you practice the health habits we have talked about, the more energy and vitality you will have. The more you keep your conversation focused on your goals and on the things you want, the greater the amount of strength and power you will feel. You will be more alert and aware. You will feel more positive and action oriented in every situation.

Action Exercise
Resolve to become intensely action oriented from now on; whenever you get a good idea or something needs to be done, move quickly.

Excellence: More Than Talent

By John Maxwell

"Excellence" may bring to mind unmatched performance, unusual expertise, or consistent high-quality performance. In our minds, we often associate excellence with talent. To be the best, surely you have to be gifted, right? Experience has taught me that talent, while important, in no way explains excellence. In fact, the primary pathway to excellence has three main steps, none of which depends on talent.

1) Find Your Passion

"You are nothing unless it comes from your heart. Passion, caring, really looking to create excellence. If you perform functions only and go to work only to do processes, then you are effectively retired. And it scares me-most people I see, by age 28, are retired. If you go to work only to fulfill the processes and functions, then you are a machine. You have to bring passion, commitment and caring-that's what makes you a human being." ~ Horst Schulze, Former President of Ritz-Carlton

People of excellence love what they do. They have learned how to fuel the fire that keeps them moving. How do you spot a passionate person?

1) They work with their whole heart.
2) They work with undistracted attention.
3) They work with maximum energy.

In life, the prize goes to the person, not who's the smartest or most talented, it goes to the person with passion.

Application: Reshuffle Tasks in the Direction of Your Passion
1) Take an inventory of the work activities that you enjoy, and in which you excel. What energizes you and makes you feel alive about them?
2) Take inventory of the work activities that drain away your energy. Ask yourself why these tasks feel so burdensome.
3) Have a conversation with your manager about shifting your workload in the direction of your passion. Don't expect your boss to allow you to reshuffle your responsibilities overnight. Be willing to take very small, gradual steps toward your passion. Even exchanging one de-energizing task for another that brings you energy is a victory.

2) Never Cease Practicing

"If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all." ~ Michelangelo

Passion won't take you anywhere unless you combine it with disciplined practice. Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, studies success and discovers that innate talent has a lot less to do excellence than does practice. In fact, he found that the successful people he studied (the Beatles, Bill Gates) put in 10,000 hours of practice before making a big splash. Nobody cruises to the top on natural giftedness alone. As Gladwell writes, "Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good."

Application: Don't Just Learn...Do
In hospital emergency rooms nurses have a saying, "Watch one, do one, teach one." This refers to the fast pace of the profession and the need to learn quickly, then jump right in to practice what you learned on a real live patient, and then pass it on just as quickly to someone else. Notice that learning is only the first one-third of the job. The real key is putting that learning into practice. The principle applies to any profession or business. You can't just read about how to change a tire, write a contract, start a business, or perform open-heart surgery. You need to perform the skill to perfect the skill.


3) Honor Your Values

"I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me." ~ Abraham Lincoln

We all could give examples of talented, charismatic people who sabotaged their careers by abandoning their values. Passion and practice bring excellence, but character sustains excellence over time. Absence of strong character eventually topples talent. People cannot climb beyond the limitations of their character. Eventually the limelight of success brings to light the cracks in their integrity.

Application: Clarify Core Values
1) Consider the question: What does excellent character look like?
2) Brainstorm a list of qualities you feel are important to character (honesty, integrity, etc.). Keep thinking and writing until you have at least 10. Then choose three of them as "core values."
3) Set aside time on your calendar (30 minutes or so), twice a month for the next four months, to pause and evaluate how you're doing in honoring your core values.

Today is Yesterday's Tomorrow

By Jim Rohn

The problem with waiting until tomorrow is that when it finally arrives, it is called today. Today is yesterday's tomorrow. The question is what did we do with its opportunity? All too often we will waste tomorrow as we wasted yesterday, and as we are wasting today. All that could have been accomplished can easily elude us, despite our intentions, until we inevitably discover that the things that might have been have slipped from our embrace a single, unused day at a time.

Each of us must pause frequently to remind ourselves that the clock is ticking. The same clock that began to tick from the moment we drew our first breath will also someday cease.

Time is the great equalizer of all mankind. It has taken away the best and the worst of us without regard for either. Time offers opportunity but demands a sense of urgency.

When the game of life is finally over, there is no second chance to correct our errors. The clock that is ticking away the moments of our lives does not care about winners and losers. It does not care about who succeeds or who fails. It does not care about excuses, fairness or equality. The only essential issue is how we played the game.

Regardless of a person's current age, there is a sense of urgency that should drive them into action now—this very moment. We should be constantly aware of the value of each and every moment of our lives—moments that seem so insignificant that their loss often goes unnoticed.

We still have all the time we need. We still have lots of chances, lots of opportunities, lots of years to show what we can do. For most of us, there will be a tomorrow, a next week, a next month, and a next year. But unless we develop a sense of urgency, those brief windows of time will be sadly wasted, as were the weeks and months and years before them. There isn't an endless supply!

So, as you think of your dreams and goals of your future tomorrow, begin today to take those very important first steps to making them all come to life.

Warren Buffett's Management Secrets - Proven Tools for Personal and Business Success

By Mary Buffett and David Clark

Besides being a genius at investing, Warren Buffett is also a genius of a manager, with over 88 CEOs of different companies reporting directly or indirectly to him. In modern business, no man has managed a more highly talented group of managers in so many diverse businesses and delivered such spectacular results.

In many ways, Buffett’s managerial record surpasses even his amazing investment record with Berkshire Hathaway. The company’s operational annual net income grew from $18 a share in 1979 to $4,093 a share in 2007, a compounding annual growth rate of 21.39%, compared to the 19.78% in Berkshire’s investment portfolio for the same period. It can be argued that as a manager, Buffett outperformed himself as an investor.

A.L. Ueltschi, the founder and chairman of FlightSafety International, the world’s leading aviation training company, commenting on his boss Buffett, told author Robert P Miles: “Leadership is really what a good manager is about. The letters of the word represent the qualities that a good manager should have:

* L is for loyalty and
* E is for enthusiasm.
* A stands for attitude and
* D is for discipline.
* E stands for example – you have to set a good example – and
* R is for respect.
* S represents shareholders and
* H is for honesty.
* I and
* P stand for integrity and pride.

“The thing I like best about Warren Buffet is that he possesses all of these.”
The Five Steps

Buffett’s management philosophy can be broken down into five segments or steps, each working with one another to create the perfect combination of management skills:

* Pick the right business. Buffett has figured out that not all businesses are created equal. The first step to success is to own, manage or work for the right business with the right economics working in its favor. That’s how to get ahead of the game right from the start, whether you’re an owner, a manager or an employee.
* Delegate authority. The second step is his unique view on delegating authority, which has allowed him to grow Berkshire Hathaway from a small, failing textile company into a giant multinational conglomerate.
* Find a manager with the right qualities. The third step is to know the qualities that are needed to manage an excellent business – here he’s looking for integrity, intelligence and a passion for the business, which also happen to be the qualities that we need to cultivate in ourselves to be successful managers.
* Motivate your work force. Once the excellent business is found and the right manager is in place, Buffett has the job of motivating his managers to be all that they can be, so the business, the manager and the employees can be as productive as possible. If there’s a single skill that a manager should be great at, it’s motivating others to achieve. Buffett developed a specific set of motivational skills that have inspired his managers to hit one business home run after another.
* Managerial axioms for different problems. Finally, there are a number of specific Buffett managerial axioms for dealing with everything from managing leverage to handling dishonest employees.

Pick the Right Business

Buffett has discovered that certain kinds of companies have inherent business economics so great that even a bad manager will look good working for them. These are companies that he wants to own, and they’re the kinds of companies we want to work for. These super companies come in three basic business models:

* Companies that sell a unique product. This is the world of Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Wrigley, Hershey, Coors, Guinness, Kraft, Merck & Company, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble and Philip Morris. Buffett thinks of these companies as owning a piece of the consumer’s mind, and when the company owns a piece of the consumer’s mind, it never has to change its products, which is a good thing.
* Companies that sell a unique service. This is the world of Moody’s, H&R Block, Amex, ServiceMaster and Wells Fargo. Like lawyers and doctors, these companies sell services than people need and are willing to pay for – but unlike lawyers and doctors, these companies are institution-specific as opposed to people-specific. When you think of getting your taxes done, you think of H&R Block, you don’t think of Jack, the guy at H&R Block who does your taxes.
* Companies that are the low-cost buyer and seller. This is the world of Wal-Mart, Costco, Nebraska Furniture Mart, Borsheim’s Fine Jewelry and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad. Here big margins are traded for volume, with the increase in volume more than making up for the decrease in profit margins. The key here is to be the low-cost buyer, which allows you to get your margins higher than your competitors’ and still be the low-cost seller of a product or service.

Delegate Authority

Buffett owns more than 88 diverse businesses, and he has turned over the management of these companies to 88 highly competent CEO managers. Berkshire companies such as Johns Manville, Benjamin Moore, Fruit of the Loom, Clayton Homes and Jordan’s Furniture are all run by CEOs who have complete control over their businesses. When Berkshire bought Forest River, Buffett told its founder and CEO Peter Liegl not to expect to hear from him more than once a year. “We delegate almost to the point of abdication,” Buffett has said.

Buffett has developed three rules to help him delegate successfully:

* From the smallest of firms to the largest corporations, workers and managers have developed highly specialized skill sets that allow them to accomplish their tasks. As a manager, Buffett has learned that he cannot perform those highly specialized skills even remotely as well as they can. He feels that his employees are the experts and should be allowed to do what they’re good at doing without his interference. He also feels that if he has any job as a manager, it’s to inspire his employees to greatness at their jobs.
* Buffett has discovered that competent managers like to be left alone to run “their” businesses as they see fit.
* Buffett realizes that in order for complete delegation of authority to work, it’s necessary not only that managers be hard-working, passionate and intelligent about their businesses; they must also have a great deal of integrity. If they aren’t honest, they just might end up using their hard-working, passionate and intelligent ways to rob us blind.

Find the Right Manager

Buffett tries to avoid managerial changes. He has said, “Management changes, like marital changes, are painful, time-consuming and chancy.” When he advertises for new companies to buy, through investment bankers or his annual letter to Berkshire’s shareholders, he insists that the businesses come with competent management already in place.

He requires the key managers of each of the companies he owns to write him a letter telling him who in the company would succeed them if they were to die tomorrow. These letters are updated each year. This way, if something does happen to one of his managers, time won’t be wasted in trying to find a replacement. Buffett gets a manager who’s already familiar with the business and was hand-chosen by the person who best understood the company, its people, products and customers.

If he has to look outside a company for a manager, he usually turns to someone he has already worked with who has a proven track record. Or he’ll ask his business associates for a recommendation.

Buffett theorizes that all people have either an inner or an outer scorecard: we’re true to ourselves or we conform to what we think the world wishes us to be. A true leader follows the beat of his or her own drummer, while a bureaucrat bends to the perceived wishes of others.

Having an inner locus of control isn’t always easy. When you win, it was you who won, but when you lose, it was you who lost. There’s no other scapegoat to blame, which can be crushing. The great lesson is: people with an internal locus of control take responsibility for their failures and in the process learn from their mistakes. Those are the leaders Buffett seeks out.
Motivate Your Work Force

Buffet is masterful in inspiring and influencing his managers. Here are some of the lessons that can be drawn from him:

* Make a good first impression. When Beryl Raff was approached to be CEO of Berkshire’s Helzberg Diamond Shops, she flew to Omaha to meet Buffett. She was shocked when Buffett picked her up at the airport himself. He was witty and charming, putting her at her ease, and after spending a couple of hours at his office answering questions she was taken to lunch at the country club. Her first impression? This is a guy I would love to work for. If you want to get your way, start your encounters with people in a friendly way.
* The power of praise. Buffett recognizes that we all have a need to feel important. It’s almost biological. The early American psychologist and philosopher William James once said, “The deepest principle of human nature is the need to be appreciated.” That’s not lost on Buffett, who’s the consummate cheerleader and his employees’ biggest fan. He never misses a chance to praise his managers in private or at Berkshire’s annual meetings and in its annual reports. For Buffett, praise is the gift that keeps on giving.
* The power of reputation. Buffett learned the importance of giving employees a fine reputation to live up to from Dale Carnegie, who told the story of a manager who found that a long-time trusted older employee had become bored and lackadaisical about his work. Rather than threatening to fire the worker, the manager told him how worried he was about him because for years so many customers had complimented his craftsmanship but now it was declining. The manager said he was wondering if there was anything he could do to help the employee. How did the employee respond? Realizing he had a fine reputation to live up to, he stopped doing shoddy work, increased the level of his production and returned to being the worker that others looked up to.
* The dangers of criticism. Buffett has discovered that uninvited criticism is something we all hate to hear. Yet many of us make the mistake of bestowing uninvited criticism on others, especially at the workplace. Instead of criticizing his managers when they make mistakes, Buffett tries to understand what went wrong and why there was an error in judgment. He’ll praise people personally, but if he must criticize, he criticizes the category – if he’s unhappy with a banker, he’ll criticize the banking profession as a whole, so that banker can save face.

Axioms

Here are some aphorisms in his own words that help Buffett manage effectively:

* “The roads of business are riddled with potholes; a plan for dodging them all is a plan for disaster.”
* “Leverage is very tempting, and always leads to trouble.”
* “You can get into more trouble with a good idea than a bad idea.”
* “There’s plenty of money to be made in the center of the court. There’s no need to play around the edges.”
* “If a CEO is enthused about a particularly foolish acquisition, both his internal staff and his outside advisors will come up with whatever projections are needed to justify his stance. Only in fairy tales are emperors told that they’re naked.”

Do You Pass the Leadership Test?

Bill Taylor (HBR)

The true mark of a leader is the willingness to stick with a bold course of action — an unconventional business strategy, a unique product-development roadmap, a controversial marketing campaign — even as the rest of the world wonders why you're not marching in step with the status quo. In other words, real leaders are happy to zig while others zag. They understand that in an era of hyper-competition and non-stop disruption, the only way to stand out from the crowd is to stand for something special.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: It's not good enough to be "pretty good" at everything today. You have to be the most of something: the most elegant, the most colorful, the most responsive, the most focused. For decades, organizations and their leaders were comfortable with strategies and practices that kept them in the middle of the road — that's where the customers were, that's what felt safe and secure. In the new world of business, with so much change, so much pressure, so many new ways to do just about everything, the middle of the road has become the road to nowhere. As Jim Hightower, the colorful Texas populist, is fond of saying, "There's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos." To which we might add companies and their leaders struggling stand out from the crowd, even as they play by the same old rules in a crowded marketplace.

That simple proposition has been an article of faith for me for a long time — and I was reminded of its power, especially in tough times, twice over the past few weeks, thanks to strong declarations of strategic independence from two determined CEOs. Consider first the unique business strategy and retail experience being created by Luxottica, the global eyewear company with annual sales of $6.6 billion. A recent report in the New York Times described its "unusual and risky" effort to rethink and reimagine the customer experience of buying eyeglasses, by creating memorable retail environments that feature a concierge, wind machines and treadmills (to allow shoppers to try on glasses in conditions that resemble real-world usage, and touch screens that operate as both mirrors and cameras. (Imagine being able to try on glasses, upload photos to Facebook, and asking friends and family to email reactions while you're still shopping.)

There was something of a raised-eyebrow tone to the Times report, and who knows if Luxottica's plans to build 10 to 15 of these stores in Australia, the United States, China, and Britain, will turn out to be a flash of insight or a flawed vision. What's clear though, is that in an industry ravaged by a bad economy (new glasses are a pretty postpone-able purchase), and by the cheaper-is-better pressures of the Internet, the route to long-term prosperity does not come by staying in the middle of the road.

Andrea Guerra, Luxottica's CEO, put it about as well as anyone has: "Crises are not only about negative things," he said. "Where the world is changing and changing fast, your thoughts have to be bold."

Now consider a different twist on this same theme. Last week, Jeff Bezos announced plans to release a new-generation Kindle that will be even cheaper ($139) than the current generation, but will make only a few modest improvements in quality and performance. Even as analysts applauded the success of the Kindle thus far, they wondered why Bezos and his colleagues weren't making the device much more functional, colorful, and powerful. In other words, why weren't they taking the simple Kindle and enhancing it to go head-to-head with Apple's iPad and other companies searching for an iPad killer?

To which Bezos offered a strategic insight about his business just as compelling as Andrea Guerra's take on his business. "There are going to be 100 companies making LCD tablets," he told the Wall Street Journal. "Why would we want to be [company] 101? I like building a purpose-built reading device. I think that is where we can make a real contribution." In the staid world of eyewear, a little razzle-dazzle is in order. In the razzle-dazzle world of mobile computing, a little simplicity counts for a lot.

It's hard to overcome the pull of conventional wisdom — established ways of doing things, familiar ways to size up markets. That's why it's hard for leaders to do something genuinely new — to embrace one-of-a-kind ideas in a world filled with me-too thinking. But that's the job description for leadership today. After all, if you do things the way everyone else does things, why would you expect to do any better. How are you planning to zig while everyone else zags?

The Law of Superb Execution

By Brian Tracy

Leaders are committed to excellent performance of the business task at hand, and to continuous improvement. A leader is the person who chooses the area of excellence for his or her team. A leader knows that excellence is a journey, not a destination. Leaders are committed to being the best in everything they do. They constantly strive to be better in their key result areas. They compare themselves with people, organizations, and products or services that are better than they are, and they are continually improving.

Standards of Excellence
Leaders set standards of excellence for everyone who reports to them. They are ruthless about weeding out incompetence and poor performance. Leaders demand quality work and insist that people do their jobs well. The leader sets the standard of excellence. No one, or no part of the organization, can be any better than the standard that the leader represents and enforces. For this reason, leaders are committed to personal excellence in everything they do.

Leaders are Learners
Leaders are learners, continually striving to be better in their work and personal lives. They read, take additional courses and seminars, and listen to audio programs in their cars. They attend conventions and association meetings, go to the important sessions, and take good notes. They are committed to learning and growing in every area where they feel they can make an even more valuable contribution to their work.

Inspiring People
People are most inspired when they feel they are working for an organization in which excellence is expected. The very best way to motivate and inspire others is for you to announce your commitment to being the best in your field or industry. Then, continually benchmark your performance and the performance of your organization against the very "best in class" in your business.

Core Competencies
Leaders identify their core competencies, the vital tasks they do that are responsible for them being in business. They continually look for ways to upgrade these core competencies to assure that they maintain a competitive edge in the marketplace. Leaders think about the future and identify the core competencies that will be required for success in the years ahead. They then develop plans to acquire those core competencies well before they will be needed to compete effectively in the marketplace of tomorrow.

Action Exercise
Identify your personal core competencies. What are the essential skills of your job, the abilities that make you valuable, if not indispensable? What core competencies do you need to acquire if you want to be the best in your field in the years ahead? Make a plan today to develop the key skills and core competencies you will need tomorrow.