Tag Success

Repeating Success

Steve Keating 4 Comments

I do not cook. I warm. If my bride is gone for a couple of days I might starve if not for the microwave. Fortunately she not only does cook, she is a great cook. She try’s new recipes all the time. 

I tell her I love something new that she made and she says thanks but then adds, “I think next time I’ll tweak the recipe a bit. I am always confused by that. I just said I loved it the way it is. She says let’s change it. Whaaaaaat?

Lucky for me her improvements always seem to be actual improvements. In business and most other areas of life it doesn’t always work that way. Charlie Munger says that the fundamental algorithm of life is this…repeat what works. 

Many people over complicate success. The most successful people do not. Everything you do creates feedback. You need to listen to that feedback. Listening means when something works you do more of it. Often even a lot more. 

When something goes poorly you should do less of it. It could be you stop it completely. 

Of course for any of that to happen you have to pay attention. You need to pay attention to your results and what actions you took to achieve them. You also need to pay attention when things go wrong. What actions did you take, or not take, that may have caused that result. 

Most people don’t invest the time to analyze their actions. They don’t evaluate their own performance. Sometimes when they do they aren’t honest with themselves. They sugar coat their evaluation and cut themselves way more slack than they would cut other people. 

The good news is, you have no requirement to be most people. You can follow the fundamental algorithm of life. You only need to slow down enough to know what is truly working in your life, both personal and professional, and do more of that. 

You also need to be honest enough with yourself to know what you should stop doing. 

All that’s within your control. Successful people control the controllable. They also realize quickly that when they control the controllable the uncontrollable doesn’t matter all that much. 

Take control of your life today and success becomes a repeatable process. So, you up for it? 

Some of you know that I’ve been trying out something relatively new over on Twitter. It’s a subscription for video messages. The messages I post for subscribers are coaching videos. I post two each weekday, mostly on leadership but also sales and living a better life in general. I’m also way more available for questions from subscribers than I can be for the million plus regular Twitter followers. The investment to see these subscriber videos is $4.99 a month, that’s about 17 cents a day. The videos continue to grow in popularity so clearly a lot of people think they are worthwhile. 

Not only can you invest in yourself with solid video coaching, you can also make a difference in the world too. All the income from my subscribers on Twitter go to help kids with Down Syndrome. 

Just follow me on Twitter and then click the purple “subscribe” button on my Twitter profile page IN THE TWITTER APP or on a web browser. http://twitter.com/leadtoday Give it a try if you’re so inclined, and if you are, be sure to let me know how I’m doing and what topics you’d like to see me address.

The Engine of Success

Steve Keating 1 Comment

I used to do a lot of Goal Setting workshops for older kids with special needs. These were primarily high school age kids that for a variety of reasons were no longer able to go to school in the mainstream public education system. I was asked to do a Goal Setting session for one class and it went well enough that it turned into a long-term thing. 

While I was never paid for any of this work I was richly rewarded. From time to time I’ll still hear from one of these kids who aren’t kids anymore. They are adults now, often with kids of their own. It is the greatest compliment, and reward, that they still contact me for advice sometimes. 

But at first I was very frustrating for them. That’s because when I asked them about their goals their most frequent answer was “to be a success.” There are so many things wrong with that goal I hardly know where to begin.

First off it’s not even close to specific enough to be a real goal. I could put 100 people in a room and ask each of them for their definition of success. I might get 100 different answers. And not a one of them would be wrong. Success is and should be very personal.

If you’re going to claim that success is your goal then you’re first going to have to define exactly what success looks like to you. What it means. How it feels. How you will measure it. How you will know, with certainty, that you have reached it. And most of all, precisely what actions you are willing to undertake to achieve it. 

I’m okay with someone telling me that “success” is their ultimate goal but every daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and longer range goal they have must get them closer to that success goal. That’s why it is so critical that the first step of the goal setting process involve defining exactly what success means to the goal setter. 

Goals are literally the engine of success. Like most engines, goals can be complicated. They have various parts that all need to work together in order to create the horsepower needed to reach the destination (success) in a timely manner. 

You cannot sit in a car with no engine (or battery these days) and just think about it taking you somewhere. You need a real engine. So it is with goals. You cannot merely think about setting some goals and expect to get somewhere. You need real goals. 

Goals in every area of your life. Goals that are written down. Goals that have a deadline to achieve them. Goals that are very specific. Goals that have a plan, a plan that states specifically what the goal setter will do every single day to ensure they get closer to one of the goals. If whatever you need to do today to get closer to one of your goals is not on your calendar then you’re not serious about it. If you didn’t do something yesterday to get closer to one of your goals then you may have been busy, even very busy, but I would suggest to you that you were NOT productive. 

Think about that. 

Many of you would tell me you’re too busy trying to get by to set and pursue goals. I would tell you that you’re too busy trying to get by because you don’t have true goals that motivate you, that drive you, towards greater success each day. 

Written goals quickly become priorities. When you have defined priorities in your life you discover that you have all the time you need to accomplish them. You’re no longer burning up time on the “stuff” that isn’t a priority in your life. 

Goals will harness the power that’s already within you to have whatever you want out of life. Without goals that power is wasted as you sit in neutral waiting for success to come to you. 

Don’t wait. Build your goal engine today. Yes, it will require lots of reflection and serious planning. But if you’re serious about success you’ll make those investments. If not, you’ll likely be waiting for success a long long time. 

Human Speed Bumps 

Steve Keating 2 Comments

Authentic Leadership can be complicated. It’s about people and every person you lead will have the own experiences, challenges and motivations. There is no “one size fits all” leadership approach. That’s what makes it so much harder (and rewarding) than managing. We manage things, stuff like budgets, buildings and equipment. None of those things are capable of adding emotions into the mix. Maybe one day a computer will tell you that you’ve hurt it’s feelings by yelling at it but that’s not a problem today. 

It most certainly can be a leadership issue when dealing with people. 

As complicated as Authentic Leadership can be, ineffective, unauthentic leadership is even more complicated. That’s because lesser leaders mess up leadership all the time. It’s easy to do but some lesser leaders seem to go out of their way to make it harder than it needs to be.

One of the biggest mistakes lesser leaders, poor leaders, leaders in name only, or whatever you want to call them make is they treat the people they are supposed to be leading like human speed bumps. 

They throw them under the bus at the first sign of trouble. 

These lesser leaders commonly use words like “fault” “blame” and “screw up.” They have their scapegoats all lined up before a mistake or failure happens. As they get older their index finger becomes crooked from so often pointing it at others. 

Authentic Leaders know that when a team member underperforms there are only two options. The first is that the team member is in the wrong role. The second is that they, the leader, did not give the team member the tools and training needed to be successful. Either way, it’s at least partially on the leader. 

Some of you will strongly disagree with that previous paragraph. You’ll say that you’re not responsible for growing your people. You’re not responsible for their poor attitudes. You’re not responsible for their lack of motivation. You’re not responsible that they can’t understand your directions. 

What you’re really saying when you’re saying those things is that you’re not responsible for anything. You’re saying that you are not an Authentic Leader. When you say those things often enough, people, especially the people you’re responsible for leading, will begin to believe it. 

Throwing your people under the bus is a massive failure of leadership. Not only will you have lost the commitment of the individual you’ve dumped on, the remainder of your team will just be waiting for their turn under the bus. 

You’ll have done that! You WILL be responsible for that, whether you’re willing to accept that responsibility or not. 

Authentic Leaders give most of the credit for success to the people they lead. They also accept a disproportionate amount of the responsibility for any shortcomings that may happen. They earn the commitment of their people by doing that. They minimize the chance of future shortcomings by doing that. They grow their people by modeling successful attitudes and actions. And they never, never, ever, use them as human speed bumps.

Go Fly a Kite

Steve Keating Leave a comment

There is an old fashioned idiom, mostly used in the United States, that says “go fly a kite.” It was used and once in a great while still is, when a person was being annoying. To “get rid” of the annoying person you would say, “go fly a kite.” 

It was a way of telling someone to go away.

But when you stop to think about it “go fly a kite” is some awesome advice. Flying a kite isn’t the easiest thing to do. First off you need a kite, then you need some string. Then you need favorable wind conditions. 

The favorable wind conditions mean being able to launch your kite against the wind. That’s against the wind. Imagine that! The person telling you to go fly a kite was challenging you to go against the wind. You could fly your kite with the wind but it wouldn’t be as easy to get it in the air and it wouldn’t fly as high. To truly succeed in flying your kite you have to have the wind against you. 

What was likely meant as an insult could easily be turned into a challenge that leads to success. 

As with every statement presented to you as an insult it’s completely up to you to decide if you’ll accept it as such or you will turn it into a challenge to improve yourself. 

Almost all of life’s greatest achievements were accomplished “against the wind.” The wind might have been a bunch of negative nellies who told you that you couldn’t do it. The wind could be circumstances outside of your control. The wind could be self-inflicted laziness that is preventing you from even getting started. 

Whatever the cause of your wind you’ll likely need to go against it to reach your full potential. Just like a kite. 

But know this…somewhere in the world, likely many places in the world, a kite is flying this very moment. It’s flying because someone decided to go against the wind. Steve Jobs was warned the the iPhone would not succeed. He was told to go with the wind and keep making computers. Leave the phone business to the phone people. He went against the wind…it seems to have worked out. There is a tremendous amount of success happening in the world everyday…almost all of it because someone decided to go against whatever headwinds happened to be in their way. 

You can choose to be that someone today. If someone tells you to “go fly a kite” or makes some other insulting comment just say, “thanks for the inspiration, I’m on it.” They may be a bit confused but you’ll be on your way to proving them wrong. 

What ALL Successful People Have in Common 

Steve Keating 3 Comments

There are many things successful people have in common. Most have positive attitudes. Successful people possess the perseverance to push past obstacles that less successful people see as insurmountable. Others possess uncommon skills or strengths that give them an edge over other people. 

But there are a couple of things that ALL successful people do that contribute to their success. 

First, successful people develop the habits of doing the things that less successful people simply don’t like to do. Yes, it’s that simple. And yes, it’s that hard. 

Successful people have a goal achieving process in place. They work their way through that process on an almost daily basis. That process begins with setting goals that are clearly written out. Each goal has measurable objectives. It also includes a flexible but not endless timeline along with a specific plan for how they will move closer to at least one of their goals each day. 

For the majority of highly successful people goals have proven to be the key that unlocked their potential. It’s a key that everyone has, the difference is, highly successful people use it. 

But the second thing ALL successful people have in common is tied directly to the first. That “thing” is that ALL successful people got up off their butts and did something. 

That “something” likely began with setting goals. It likely required that they NOT do something they would have preferred to be doing…like sitting on their butt. Lots of people are able to get off their butts but many people find it too challenging and they sit right back down. 

Highly successful people were able to “get their rear in gear” and keep it there because they had the discipline required to motivate themselves. That discipline came from periodically reviewing their goals. But…you can’t review what you don’t have so…

Everyone has the ability to be highly successful. Yes, I understand that some people have more “built in” advantages. But many highly successful people have overcome severe disadvantages. Much of that “overcoming” was accomplished by deciding their disadvantages would not be an excuse for a lack of effort.

They were honest with themselves that while likely unfair, they would need to outperform other people to reach the same level of success. So they outperformed. 

You and every other person reading this can do the same. So can the person writing this, though I need reminding of that fact like most everyone else. 

So consider this a reminder for us all. Now, get up off that cushy tush and do something. 

Consider this too, some of you know that I’ve been trying out something relatively new over on Twitter. It’s called SuperFollow. That means I post some tweets that are for subscribers only. The tweets I post for subscribers are video only. I post two each weekday, mostly on leadership but also sales and living a better life in general. I’m also way more available for questions from SuperFollowers than I can be for the million plus regular Twitter followers. The investment to see these “SuperTweets” is $4.99 a month, that’s about 17 cents a day. The videos continue to grow in popularity so clearly a lot of people think they are worthwhile. 

I don’t get to keep the entire $4.99. Twitter of course gets some, Apple, for reasons I don’t entirely understand, gets an even bigger chunk than Twitter. What’s left after that ALL goes to charity. So you can help yourself with pretty good video coaching and make a difference in the world too. This month the charity is very very close to my heart. All the proceeds are going to help kids with Down Syndrome. 

You can find more information by clicking the Super Follow button on my Twitter profile page IN THE TWITTER APP. http://twitter.com/leadtoday Give it a try if you’re so inclined, and if you are, be sure to let me know how I’m doing and how I can be of even more help.

People Believe What They Want to Believe

Steve Keating 1 Comment

Current research says that between 27 and 33% of Americans believe the moon landing was a hoax. My dad is a member of the NASA Hall of Fame. He worked on the Apollo program. I got to meet a few of the Astronauts. I sat in the Lunar Excursion Module. Tranquility Base and the Eagle are every bit as real today as they were in 1969. 

And yet there is nothing that can be said or done to convince almost a third of Americans that their country landed men on the moon and returned them home safely. 

People believe what they want to believe. 

Unfortunately, the moon landing isn’t the only thing people don’t believe. They don’t believe in themselves either. They don’t believe in their own unique talents and skills. They don’t believe that they have the ability, built within themselves, to be as successful as any person who has ever lived. 

They live a life punctuated with self-doubt and hesitation so strong that it is virtually paralyzing. 

Successful people are not free of self-doubt but they do find ways to overcome it and believe in themselves. 

First, they remember their past successes. They don’t dwell in the past but they have the ability to remind themselves that they have overcome obstacles before and can very likely do it again. They recall that feeling of uncertainty and that even though they may have had some setbacks on their way to success they DID in fact succeed in the end. The belief that they can succeed again is born from their past successes. 

Highly successful people do not compare their success to others. They know that comparison is the thief of joy. They reject the paralyzing feeling that comes from the fear of not accomplishing as much as someone else. They stay on their own path, striving to achieve their own goals, regardless of what somebody else does or thinks. 

They are very mindful of the thoughts they allow into their head. They shun negative inputs. They feed their brains with positive motivation and just smile when negative people tell them they aren’t being “realistic.” Successful people know that the most realistic thing they can possible do is believe in themselves, in both good times and bad. 

People who believe in themselves can readily identify their Core Values. They know what drives them. They know what, and who, matter in their lives. The life they live is solidly aligned with those values and that makes criticism from others far less detrimental. Those Core Values guide them in the direction of their goals and erases self-doubt when it pops up. 

Successful people make mistakes but mistakes don’t define them. They are defined by their belief that their attitude and efforts will result in a life well lived, whether anyone else thinks it was well lived or not. 

Believe in yourself. Believe in the value you bring to this world. Believe that you are special. Believe that you matter. Believe that you can make a difference. Believe it all because every word of it is true, whether you’re on planet earth or the moon. 

On a different subject… Everyone can use a “nudge” towards success. I’m trying something new on Twitter. It’s called “Super Followers.” For $5 a month, that’s 17 cents a day, people can follow a part of my Twitter stream that is for subscribers only. It features short videos of me discussing leadership topics, sales tips and ideas for better overall relationships. I’m assuming there will be far fewer Super Followers than the million or so people who regularly follow me on Twitter. That will give me the opportunity to answer questions more throughly than I can on regular Twitter. Most of the answers will come in the evening cause we all have day jobs, right? Think of it as ”mentoring on demand!”

My goal with SuperFollowers is to build a better connection, one where I can help more and have a greater impact. I’m hoping it gives me a chance to mentor to a wider audience. It’s still new, we’ll see how it works. It’s a $5 dollar investment that may be the extra “push” you need to get to where you want to be. I’d be honored to be able to help get you there. 

You can find more information by clicking the Super Follow button on my Twitter profile page IN THE TWITTER APP. http://twitter.com/leadtoday Give it a try if you’re so inclined, and if you are, be sure to let me know how I’m doing and how I can be of even more help.

Who Are You Accountable To?

Steve Keating 1 Comment

Most people are not fans of being held accountable. We kinda like to do our thing when and where we want to do it. I get that because lots of time I’m like that too. 

The challenge is, EVERYBODY is more productive when they are held accountable. That’s a fact. Many times simply knowing someone is going to ask you, “did you get that done?” Is enough to spur us to action. 

That type of “motivation,” whether it comes from a parent, a spouse, or a boss can be the difference between accomplishing something and merely thinking about accomplishing something. And that’s not bad. 

But it’s not that good either. 

What’s better is holding ourselves accountable. Pushing ourselves. Motivating ourselves. Taking an honest look at our progress towards our goals. 

Here’s a list of areas to evaluate yourself to determine your level of self-accountability. Score yourself from 1 to 5 with 5 being always and 1 being never. 

  1. I create my own process and timeline for getting things done…ON TIME. 
  2. I know when to ask for permission and when I can proceed on my own. 
  3. I know how to find the information I need to get things done.
  4. I know who I can reach out to for help if I need it and I’m not afraid to ask for the help I need.
  5. I do what is expected of me even when no one is watching. 
  6. I seek out feedback from a mentor or coach to make certain I’m staying on track.
  7. I know what helps me remain motivated and focused. 
  8. I can push past barriers, even unexpected ones, to get things done. 
  9. I have methods and tools to keep myself on track. (Just an FYI, the ability to set “focus time” on Apple devices is an awesome tool)
  10. I absolutely own my results and outcomes and never try to shift responsibility when things go wrong. 

So how did you do? You need a score of 45 or better to be considered highly accountable to yourself. If you’re at 25 or below you’re gonna need somebody riding you like a horse to get stuff done. 

Self-accountability and success go hand in hand. If you’re not willing to drive yourself on the journey to success then you best be prepared to go where someone else decides to take you. 

Now, go get something done! 

On a another subject…I’m trying something new on Twitter. It’s called “Super Followers.” For $5 a month, that’s 17 cents a day, people can follow a part of my Twitter stream that is for subscribers only. It features short videos of me discussing leadership topics, sales tips and ideas for better overall relationships. I’m assuming there will be far fewer Super Followers than the million or so people who regularly follow me on Twitter. That will give me the opportunity to answer questions more throughly than I can on regular Twitter. Most of the answers will come in the evening cause we all have day jobs, right? Think of it as ”mentoring on demand!”

My goal with SuperFollowers is to build a better connection, one where I can perhaps help more and have a greater impact. I’m hoping it gives me a chance to mentor to a wider audience. It’s still new, we’ll see how it works. It’s a $5 dollar investment that may be the extra “push” you need to get to where you want to be. I’d be honored to be able to help get you there. 

You can find more information by clicking the Super Follow button on my Twitter profile page IN THE TWITTER APP. http://twitter.com/leadtoday Give it a try if you’re so inclined, and if you are, be sure to let me know how I’m doing and how I can be of even more help.