I started out my day today in the usual way. Sort of groggy and half asleep for the first couple functions. Attitude starts really early in the morning (or whenever you happen to wake up) and carries throughout the day. Not that you can’t change, but if you start out positive and don’t let the little things impact your outlook, nearly every day can be a good day.

So getting back to the story, this morning I went downstairs and reheated a cold cup of java. As my cup was lazily spinning on the glass susan, my eyes suddenly went wide as I realized I had purchased some Guatemalan Gold the day before. And no, I’m not talking about anything illegal here. Delicious whole bean arabica goodness.

I dropped a scoop in the grinder and soon the aromatic goodness was wafting and filling the kitchen. And the first cup was a delight.

It’s about perception. I could easily make due with Folgers or whatever. I mostly do. But stepping up to something special makes you think, I could get used to this.

Yes, this is an analogy. How is your career doing? Could your attitude have anything to do with what you are doing or the position you are holding? Could you use some inspiration to do your job better, or could you use some better tools? Not all tools are created equal, but maybe they can get you through your day. Or maybe, just maybe, they can create a new day.

Having a cup of instant coffee is not the same as having a cup fresh brewed from newly ground Guatemalan Arabica beans. So what I’m saying is, think about sharpening that knife you have to wield in your daily fight, or maybe it’s time to get some new weapons.

Two non-connected but connected events just occurred in my life. I exchanged a couple e-mails with Jim Stovall who wrote the book, The Ultimate Gift, among many others. You know how everything is connected and it’s a small world and all that other stuff? Well, it is a small world and we all are connected. One of the interviewees mentioned The Ultimate Gift, so I ordered it through our library system and read it in like an hour or so.

Then I decided to contact Jim and ask him to do an interview for the project. He agreed. He’s an amazing man and you can read about him here.

But here’s the other half of this story, he is blind and has been since his late teens/early twenties. His vision just faded away. But his vision grew, and that’s the kicker.

Your vision for what you want in your life is totally between your ears. It has nothing to do with anything around you. Do you have things blocking your success? Only if you let them. Do you have people who discourage your dreams and your drive? As the Barenaked Ladies say “If there’s someone you can live without, then do so.” This goes doubly for negative forces. It is much tougher to build yourself up if you have a wrecking crew around you tearing you down.

Building the Get Inspired! Project and being involved in the PEOPLE Academy Inc is not the easiest path that I could go down, but the rewards are amazing and being around people who have my back is the best part of the whole deal. Great things can come from ‘normal’ people who have vision and cling to it tenaciously. Hold on tight and don’t let anyone tell you what you can’t do. (and that includes those voices in your head)

I was talking about focus the other day and thinking about how that applies in all areas of my life. I guess that sentence was vague. How ironic. I’ve been scattered since I got laid off.

OK, here’s an example of focus. We all multi-task; probably way too much and at inappropriate times. I could go into texting while driving, which seems to be the pet peeve of the world at this point. (That trivializes TWD, it should not be done, period.) But I am talking about listening to the Get Inspired! Project. If I just listen, my mind starts to wander and then I don’t get the full impact. I miss things. So I listen and read along. This is perfect for me. It keeps me in the moment, which seems to be an underlying theme with all the inspirational people on the site. They all seem to have focus on a certain issue and they all seem to live in the moment. Or is that the same thing? Hmm.

Take the focus thing, and the multi-tasking thing out to other areas of life. For parents, do you listen to your kids as they are talking to you? Broader scenario: Do you listen to your spouse, or people who are significant in your life?

Example 2: While typing that last sentence my youngest daughter came in to talk to me. I have to take a second and totally switch focus and not think about how this entry is going to end. Actually just that interruption changed the content, at least to some extent.

What I really need to do is take my own advice. In my book, Someone Else’s Tomorrow, I talk about something called mini-days, which basically is a system of focus. You have designated times for tasks and have to refuse to be deviated. One example of this that is more common is checking e-mail only twice a day. (10AM and 3PM or something like that) If you look at every e-mail as it arrives (impossible for some people) you are constantly being interrupted. By designating times, you are in control and e-mail doesn’t control you.

An interesting article on CNN talked about how some people viewed being laid off as something close to a gift. That is really coincidental, because in one of my other blogs I said that the ax didn’t fall on me, it fell on a tether that was holding me down.

The challenge remains in the realm of time management. This is my second go round with trying to manage life without a job. I can reflect on the last time and see how I let the freedom of self-employment rule and I let the real opportunity to succeed slip through my fingers. This time I can see something similar, but I know what I have to do and it all has to do with managing my time.

An excerpt from a PEOPLE Academy Inc bulletin on time management:

Time management is a way of life – it affects our lives both at home and at work. Each one of us is responsible for our own time management. It is heavily influenced by our attitude. A positive attitude will affect the quality of how we experience time and our attitude will affect those around us, who in turn influence the effectiveness of our time management.

The advantages of good time management:
• You achieve control over your activities rather than them controlling you
• You start to achieve a work, life balance
• You develop a proactive lifestyle rather than a reactive one
• You can deal with most problems as they arise
• You will reduce stress
• You will have time for others both at work and at home

All of those points apply just as easily to self employment as anything else. Don’t let the freedom distract your drive. In my opinion, focus and time management are the keys to entrepreneurial success.

Oh, yeah, the link to the CNN article.

And here’s something else to help clarify goals and targets.

How do you get things done in your organization? If you are just a cog in the wheel of industry perhaps all this means is what tools you use to get your job done; spreadsheets for cost management, or memo’s for communication, for a couple of examples. But if you are a manager or a supervisor, how do you get jobs done? Basically there are four management techniques:

1. Directing - As a leader, you tell people what to do. You say take that package, lift it with that crane, put it on that truck. Simple concise instructions with no room for confusion or leeway.

2. Coaching - You are still the one in charge. You are making decisions, and you are getting feedback and incorporating the information ‘on the fly’ and encouraging your people to take part in the communication process. This teaches them to be a part of the team and also helps to motivate them and builds confidence. The people under you, are under your control, but are contributing to the idea flow and the success of the operation.

3. Supportive Role - Your people know the tasks and you have provided them with direction. They can roll with any changes that come up and are confident with how they fit into the system and how they do their jobs. if something particularly unusual comes up, they know they can come to you for ideas, direction and support. You are also stepping up to the plate and providing additional support and services to make their jobs easier. You grease the wheels and keep the process flowing smoothly.

4. Delegation - You know your people can handle the tasks and the details. You are the quarterback ‘handing off’ assignments to the competent people in your organization. They take the task and run with it. They can handle it responsibly and are willing to take charge.

Every great leader uses all of these techniques. She picks the one that works in any given situation. Knowing your people and knowing the work environment helps you know the best route to take. Getting things done is simply a matter of knowing the task and the right tools to us.

I was teaching my youngest daughter Stephanie (please call me Steph - old habits die hard) how to drive stick-shift. She decided she wanted to learn and she went out, with my guidance, and bought a car with a manual transmission. Nice car, 2000 Hyundai Elantra with fairly low miles.

I am also teaching my 16 year old how to drive. So I guess I can put this on my resume, driving instructor. Patient driving instructor with nerves of steel. I’ve taught all four of my kids how to drive and two of them I also taught clutch usage. I must be a glutton for punishment.

But my youngest daughter is different. Her eyes start leaking at the slightest frustration or pressure. I say she’s frustrated, she prefers the term flustered. Either way, it is tough teaching her. Once the tears start rolling, the lesson is over. She can’t listen anymore and has blurry vision. Not a good combination when you are out in traffic.

She does well unless she starts to think about what she is doing. That’s when it all falls apart and it is like dominoes. Once the first tear forms, the foot/hand coordination flies out the window. (I should probably shut the window.)

So what lessons have I learned over the process?

Everyone learns differently. You have to feel your way when you are teaching anyone anything. It’s not one size fits all.

Gaining new skills works best when you are in a familiar environment. - Steph drives pretty well in parking lots at this point, but over the road just brings too much pressure.

Some people need a different teacher.

This last one is tough for me to take. I have lots of patience and am a good communicator (which mostly means being a good listener). I have lots of success in the past with teaching old dogs new tricks, so failure is not something I am familiar with - and it’s not something I want to get comfortable with. But I also can step back and say, you know, I’ve taught you the basics, maybe someone else can polish up the act.

If you ever learn karate or any of the martial arts, or ever watch classes, you see this principle in action. The green and brown belts usually teach the white belts and the black belts teach the more advanced classes. This structure could be useful in life. We all need different instructors, coaches and mentors as we progress or for different skills.

Teach what you know and be honest and admit when you need help or you need to pass on the student. My two cents for today.

Today on the Get Inspired! Project we had an interview with Susan Clark of “heartspark” and the one comment she made struck me and inspired me to write a post. Obviously if you’ve read any of my posts lately you realize that all the interviews are striking me and making me re-assess myself on many different levels.

This one touched on something I wanted to expand upon, and I’d love to get some dialogue going on this, Susan said, “we’ve really been socialized to hide our light under a bushel, so I encourage people to be boastful and give them permission to brag” and that is really something to think about. We all are told not to brag and to downplay our accomplishments, but we shouldn’t do that. If we are unwilling to shine our own light, jumping into the spotlight that we have turned on, what does that say or do to us?

Does that diminish what we’ve done? No, I don’t think so. But does it encourage us internally to repeat the behavior? no.

There is nothing like the rush that comes from recognition of what you’ve done. As an actor and an improv comic, I can tell you that the applause at the end of a scene is better than a paycheck, better than any traditional reward you can imagine, and being able to bow and through that action say, “Yes! That was me, I am good at this and you saw that”

But we don’t get that in everyday life, in the little and big moments of actions and seeing our efforts make a difference and we are told to downplay that?

One site I belong to Fit Connect, is an online fitness community and their tagline is “it’s OK to brag” I love it. And I think it is OK to brag to be proud of your accomplishments. You are magnificent in the things that you do. It’s lying to yourself to downplay that, and it takes away integrity and self-worth, I think.

is that title to grandiose? It’s my hope that it is true, so I will leave it.

I think back to a couple months ago when Toni first proposed the Get Inspired! Project. The initial thought came from going to see the movie Julie and Julia and focused on inspiration. We all thought we could add to the amount of light in the world by focusing on how people thought about inspiration, what inspired them and who they inspired (or thought they inspired)

What I think escaped us was the impact the project would have on us. I think specifically on Toni and me, especially. How is it that we didn’t see how contacting and interviewing these folks would impact us? I mean how empowering is it to contact someone and have them agree to an interview and have them very grateful to be a part of something that was only recently just a thought in our heads?

conducting the interviews has had many aha moments for Toni, I know that’s true, we’ve talked a bit about that and how the project is so much more than we anticipated, but I didn’t know my search for people would impact me so much. It’s crazy to think that world leaders and people on the leading edge of thought and inspiration are so in-tuned with what we are doing. To get a response back from Janis Ian or Noam Chomsky just humanizes the entire world. We are all just people and we all are looking at the same things and having similar dreams and everything.

And to have someone  ‘unknown’ speak a few words, a mere 15 minutes, and that impacts hundreds or thousands of people. Amazing. The Internet has linked us and this project is just one small example of the good it can do We’ve had over 1100 unique visitors and over 65,000 hits in 18 days with no publicity and no marketing except word of mouth. we have some big hitters coming up soon, and they will add light and power, and that in turn shines the light on all the virtual unknowns who deserve exposure. I am blown away by the potential.

<!– /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:”"; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –>

Do you really want to know? I mean really? Do you want to know what people in your company think? Many people in management say they want to know, and claim to listen, but how many get out on the floor and really get to the real meat? (or tofu for you veggi-saurus folks)

And even if you actually do care and you really do get down in the trenches how do you know that what you are getting is the real deal? The bona fide truth about what people are thinking? Honestly, you never really do. But some companies are working around this by doing anonymous on-line surveys with their people. In an on-line survey people can really speak their minds. Don’t believe me? Try going to a message board under the finance section of yahoo. I know when I worked for Carpenter Technology, based in Reading PA, there were scathing denouncements of the supposed heinous acts of management. And there were also “company men” lurking and posting opposing views. Sometimes you can get at the truth that way, and sometimes it’s just nonsense.

What I am really driving at are the legitimate surveys done by companies that allow their employees to give real feedback without the fear of reprisal. There are a great many companies that could benefit from tools of this nature, but unfortunately, don’t embrace the capabilities of the internet. - and just in case you wondered, no we don’t have an online survey package for sale, it’s just good information…: ) 

Whether or not managers want to face it, poor management is one of the most often quoted reasons for people leaving their employers. The reason behind that? Lack of skill dealing with people.

In this time of unemployment and recession that may be even more exacerbated. Some managers feel that the people who are working for them should feel lucky to have a job and that that situation entitles them to treat people more harshly. Guess what? Even in this time valued employees are still not easy to come by. Each and every one still deserves to be treated with respect and dignity. Given enough ammunition at exit interviews a manager may find themselves the ones looking in from the outside.

A “good manager” is a role model and gives people inspiration, not persperation.

A successful manager will achieve quality results through the team they manage and will help the individuals on that team develop. This can be through education and training, or it can be through personal interaction that makes the person feel appreciated. Appreciation, as I have already discussed is all about respect - respect for the individual, the work that they do and the effort they expand.