Category Archives: Career Success

Chocolate Your Way to Success

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Recently on my Facebook page, I have been posting some updates about chocolate. It has gotten some great responses. But it has also gotten some curiosity aroused about why I would be writing about chocolate on a “success” business page.

Why would I do that? There are several reasons.

One reason is that it is pointless to write about success if no one is reading or listening. But people perk up when they hear about (or think about) chocolate.

A second reason is that a prerequisite of success is to be be engaged with your goal. (See Clear Goals blog post for more on that.) And very few people are unengaged with chocolate. (There is a phenomenon called Transference that creates a connection in our mind from one subject to another. We transfer the good or bad feelings of one to the other. I would prefer people transferred good feelings to their goals.)

A third reason is that in order to succeed over the long haul, you need to reduce the bad stress and keep the good stress. Chocolate is demonstrated to help with stress reduction (in limited quantities). Please stick to dark chocolate… it has the most good stuff for you and the least bad stuff. (70% cacao is about the best mix of good stuff and least bad stuff (like sugar)… and still be palatable for most people. However, some people need something sweeter. In that case, go for 60% cacao dark chocolate.)

If you are enjoying your journey to your goals, you will keep going forward. If it is always an effort and work – debilitating even – then you will not muster the inner strength to persist until you have arrived. And chocolate is one way to help in that. (Not the only way… maybe not even the best or preferred way… but it is a way that people will use without needing much convincing.)

If you have been around an office of highly stressed people, you will notice that chocolate gets consumed (in massive quantities.) I have also noticed that the appetite (need) for chocolate diminishes as the stress levels decrease.

So, when the stress starts piling up, reach for some dark chocolate and keep moving forward.

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Debunking Ruth Mozart Edison

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In some previous posts, I have pointed out that if you have the wrong model, you won’t get the results you are wanting. I can’t completely adjust your models of success in a single blog post, but let me use some examples of what I mean.

Thomas Edison, Wolfgang Mozart, and Babe Ruth are often used as examples of success that we should learn from. I agree that they are. However, most of the time, what others are using them as examples of are NOT what we should be learning from them.

Let’s start with Thomas Edison. We are told to emulate him for his persistence as the inventor of the lightbulb. There’s only one problem with this (well, two actually.) Edison did NOT invent the lightbulb. He worked to make it more efficient and last longer.

Additionally, he did not try 10,000 times, trying to find something that worked. He had a shop where his employees experimented and tried things until they found the right combination… at his prodding.

Their goal was to find something that lasted more than the 13.5 hours that Edison’s original attempt at lightbulbs lasted. The bamboo filament they found lasted 1200 hours.

Edison was a success, but not because of the reasons usually given. (By the way, most of the misconceptions we have of him on this and similar acheivements of his is because he was a great self-promoter who personailzed (i.e. took the credit for) the discoveries of the teams he had assembled.)

Wolfgang Mozart is another who is held up as a success to emulate. Sometimes people dismiss Mozart as a genius – well beyond us – and, thus, no sense even trying to learn from him. Let’s take a look and see if there is anything for us to learn from Mozart.

Mozart was musically gifted, yes. But his father (a highly competent musician and composer himself) recognized and nurtured the gift. Mozart heard the music in his head and played variations in his mind until it all fit the way he sensed it should be. Then he wrote it down for musicians to play so that others could hear what he had first heard in his mind.

Mozart was a musical genius, but he worked just as hard as we do in the areas of our giftings. And like any master, he made it look easy. Worse for him was the boredom of having to transcribe all the stuff in his head onto paper (a long, boring task that couldn’t be outsourced.) Today, composers have computers and software to help with that ardous task.

The next time your efforts require discipline and effort in order to maximize your gifting/talent, remember Mozart.

Then there is Babe Ruth. Ruth is well known as the “Home Run King”… even after his record was finally broken. Some historians suggest that if all things were equalized to current rules and field dimensions, “The Babe” would still be on top. Even without that he is still on the top ten list of heroes in the United States.

But his homerun prowess had a price. You may have also heard that he struck out a lot. It’s true. He had 714 home runs and 1330 strike-outs. Almost twice the strike-outs as homers. He went to bat 8,399 times. He had good seasons and bad seasons. He got traded for poor performance.

The point I want to make is that he lived with a lot of “failures”, yet he kept hard at it. He earned his fame. He was a success because he took his natural talent and developed it. He took calculated risks and persisted until he won his way through… even when there were set-backs and strikeouts.

We would do well to keep that in mind when setbacks and failures find us. We can be too careful. We can be so careful that we don’t attempt anything… and fail from lack of attempt.

Failure is not the enemy. Inaction and paralysis are the enemy. Learn from these… but learn the right lessons, not the lessons of the “common wisdom”. Above all, persist.

What about you? What lessons have you learned on your journey to success?

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Two Parts to Success

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“The first part of success is get-to-it-ivness. The second part is stick-to-it-iveness.” — Orison Swett Marden

Right here is a lesson in success. While you need a vision for what will be, if you never get to it, it will remain just that… a vision.

Bob Jenkins (aka Bob the Teacher) has a motto “Take Action, Revise Later”. (He has a blog post on it with an excerpt from his upcoming book of the same name if you would like to read more about it.) I like this because it embodies a principle that most of us need to heed.

Far too many of us (including myself) have great plans, dreams, or visions but then never see them become reality because we don’t get to it. We keep trying to perfect the plan or attract the resources or find another excuse not to act.

Instead, we need to take action, as imperfect as it will be, and move forward. Once we have experience from acting, then we can revise. In fact, we will have a better result if we act and then revise. We will learn things from the acting that we would never know to incorporate ahead of time… even if people told us so.

But once you act, then the next part comes into play. Stick to it.

There are a few people who have that “stick to it” quality as a natural part of their lives/personalities. The rest of us have to put systems in place to assist us in sticking to it.

Whichever group you fall into, you have to keep at it to succeed. Woody Allen is quoted as saying “80% of success is just showing up.” It is true. But it is a deceptive truth.

Deceptive because “just showing up” is hard. People gradually quit making New Year’s resolutions because they learn that they won’t stick to them.

There are millions of blogs on the web. There are a significantly smaller number of ACTIVE blogs on the web. Part of the reason is that it is hard to write something one to X times per week, week in, week out. You have to show up and produce.

In fact, it is hard to produce something one to x times per week, week in , week out. (Machines can do that pretty easily, humans… not so easily.)

Are there tricks to help? Yes. And maybe I can share them in another blog post. (Hey, I have to have SOMETHING to write about next week… and the week after… and the week, well, you get the idea.) :-)

In the meantime, may I encourage you to Take Action? Then, as you stick to it, you can Revise Later.

Which are you finder harder to do, right now? Get to it? Or Stick to it?

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Your Dream Job Ingredients

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In an earlier series of posts (see below for links) I talked about your dream job and some of the things you want to do in order to find it and land it. One of the things I never said was what your dream job is (or should be). Obviously, I can’t tell you what your ideal job (also known as a dream job) should be. In fact, no one can… except you.

What I can do, however, is tell you what a dream job is made of and you can use that to develop your own specifications.

Your ideal job (dream job) should encompass several things about you.

  • What you love
  • What you are (both personality and talents)
  • Your mission

Why those? Because all three of these contribute to your enjoyment, your sense of accomplishment, and your ability to excel.

Let’s take a look at each of those a bit more.

What you love

If you are doing something you love, it doesn’t seem like work. Nobody minds expending energy on things they love to do. When was the last you told someone “I’m playing too hard. I really have to quit playing so much, it’s not leaving me any time for work.”?

I’ve never heard it, either. And that’s because we make time and energy for the things we love (and love to do.) In fact, that’s a thumbnail test — when you wonder if this (whatever “this” means for you) is something you love — do you find time and energy for it… especially when you are tired and you know you have other things you could do?

What you are (both personality and talents)

I deliberately used “what” instead of “who” you are. It is too easy for someone to get bogged down in all the aspects of who they are and use that as an excuse for never getting clear on their dream job.

What is your personality? Some people are very laid-back. Others are hyperactive. Some are worriers. The ideal job for each type is very different… just as these personalities are very different.

Then add into the mix the talents you have. It creates a unique blend that will deeply affect what kind of job is ideal for you.

For books that can help you identify your personality traits and jobs/career fields that tend to work well with the various personality types (based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) I can wholeheartedly recommend “Do What You Are” by Tieger & Barron-Tieger. I own a copy of this book and use it in my coaching and consulting (including with my own children.) Here is a link to it on Amazon for your convenience.

For help in discovering your talents, I strongly recommend the book (and the assessment that comes with it) StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath. Everybody I personally know who has taken the assessment has agreed that it pinpointed their talents. (Note: When many people get their results they first think… “well, duh. This didn’t tell me anything I don’t know.” Yet, prior to getting the results, they couldn’t tell you what their top talents were. It is a case of it being very obvious once it is pointed out, but quite obscure until then.) Here is a link to it on Amazon.

Your mission.

Your personal mission is something you “can’t not do”. It is partly about how your brain is wired, partly about your personality, and partly about your values and beliefs. The only problem is… most of us don’t really know what our mission is.

As a result, we zig-zag from one thing to another in response to those things we can’t not do, but never accomplish much. Rather, we feel frustrated that we aren’t being effective… and keep wondering what we want to be when we grow up.

I have an article on my website that goes more deeply into what a mission is and why you should have a mission statement (hint: clarity on your mission helps you fulfill it). (I even have a link at the end of the article to a resource that can help you discover and develop your mission.)

Put it all together….

Knowing your mission and adding it to what you love and what you are results in a pretty clear picture of what you need in a job… and what the job looks like. Once you have that picture, it becomes much easier to find that “dream job”.

Have you found your dream job? I know some people who have. If you’re one of them, tell us about it. If not, what do you need to find it?

Other posts in this series:

Dream Job or Fantasy?

You Can Have Your Dream Job

Looking For that Dream Job?

Dream Job Help – Get a Strategy

Your Dream Job Success Strategy – Part1

Your Dream Job Success Strategy – Part 2

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More Voices for Doing What You Love

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Have you heard me say this before… find what you love (what you are built for) and then build your business or your career on that? I have several posts on this blog related to aspects of that.

Some of the posts are about particular aspects of it–from finding your strengths (we tend to love the things that we do well “naturally”) to discovering your mission. If you haven’t seen those, I encourage you to look them up.

I return to this theme periodically because of what it will do for you. I am writing this post on my birthday… a day that I had deliberately set aside to be a holiday for me. And, here I am writing this post. Why? Because I read a post from Bob “The Teacher” Jenkins and it got me all fired up to share this with you.

You see, I love what I do… helping others develop their potential and live fulfilling lives. And I know that you can’t live a fulfilling life if you are locked in a job or business that sucks the life from your soul. So, one of the first things you need to do is start transitioning to something you love doing.

I encourage you to read Bob’s post (here’s the link again – http://askbobtheteacher.com/blog/stick-to-your-best) and catch another view of finding and doing what you love.

And, if you’re interested in learning more about Bob’s “Business Acceleration Bootcamp” (which I will be at, by the way), then go here to learn all about it. (And if you hurry, there are some tremendous bonuses you can snag, too.)

And now, I’m off to a birthday holiday. Cheers.

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