What is Community?

I was reading through the Akron Young Professional blog over the weekend and was struck at the emphasis on Community from this YP group.

The Young Professionals organization is built around creating a sense of community and networking focused on professionals under 40. But why is community so important?

In the 21st Century it is increasingly difficult to maintain - let alone grow - a business or career without communicating, integrating and associating with people who are able to provide you a different perspective and knowledge base than what you can develop on your own. With the continued fragmenting of the corporate environment and the ability to "telecommute" thanks to home offices we are becoming more and more isolated from others.

Yes, there is a real sense of freedom that comes from working from home or a remote location. But we are social creatures who gain real motivation and energy from other people. That's why I admire the YP group for their emphasis on helping others connect. So much of what we do in our office is also geared toward creating business owner groups that help owners realize that they're not alone - and that by connecting with others they will learn far more that they could on their own.

Who is in your "community?" Are you connected or are you isolating yourself? Is it time to reach out?

Avoiding Failure Delays Success...

Failure - it's a scary word for most people. When we think of failure we normally tense and want to run from it. The typical way we think about failure is to put ourselve in the middle with success on one side and failure on the other. Something like this:

Failure> You > Success

We work toward success every day and run away from failure. We do whatever we can to avoid the embarrassement of failing and the challenges that it will bring. The interesting thing is we really should rework this equation to look more like this:

You > Failure > Success

You see, almost all really successful people have had many failures along the way. What I see in my coaching business are people that want to get as close to perfect as they can before taking action in the business because they fear doing it wrong. It's much better to take some calculated risk and learn from it, adjust where needed and move forward than to delay action and not make the progress you should.

I'm not suggesting to me reckless or irresponsible with what you do. Just don't let the need to be perfect or not make a mistake keep you from acting. You will move incredibly faster is you make a decision and implement change in your business or life and learn along the way. Who knows, maybe you have it right after all and you will see great results. But if you did miscalculate you will find that in most cases you can adjust or redirect and get an even better result.

Next time you hold back from taking action because you're not sure it is quite perfect yet, take a chance and move forward with it. You will learn a ton and make more progress than you imagine.

Give me your thoughts. Click on the comment line below and let me know what you think.

Why Do We Work?

This week I read an article about the declining number of vacation days Americans take year after year and the quotes from a couple of people in the article really got to me...

The essence of my concern is centered around the title of this post: Why do we work?

When I ask the question I'm not being flippant or trying to get you to come up with some standard, pat answer. Really ask yourself the question.

Do you work to feel important? Is your work at the core of your personal value statement - in other words, if you aren't working do you or others in your immediate circle consider you 'valueless'?

We are all given skills, talents and abilities that we are to use to make our lives and the lives around us better - but for what purpose? I think often about author Rick Warren's book "The Purpose Driven Life" and the biting questions he asks and then contrast his theme with the comments from the folks in the article I referenced above.

I don't have answers for you - just a few questions that I hope get you thinking...

What is a Slump?

I was reading the sports page this morning and ran across an article about Travis Hafner (right), the designated hitter for the Cleveland Indians, concerning how he has emerged from his season-long hitting slump.

The point of the article was that Hafner hasn't produced his usual results this year so fans and the media proclaimed that he was slumping. Yet there are a lot of major league baseball players who would love to have Hafner's numbers from the first half of the year. And it appears that Hafner has worked through his hitting issues over the past few weeks.

So, what is a slump? Is it a period of time when we don't get the results we're used to and we're disappointed? Is a slump a result of never actually gaining the results we should or that we expected? How do we deal with slumps - by fighting through it or trying to change our approach and use different tactics to change the results?

Slumps in business are a lot like slumps in sports. They're very frustrating and can get us focused on the wrong things - like "what am I doing wrong" - rather than "what is my ultimate goal and where am I going"... And much like in sports, business slumps are the result of many different things that are slightly incorrect rather than one big, massive error that - if corrected - will change everything.

A famous golf coach, the late Harvey Penick, had a wonderful perspective on slumps in golf, sports, life and business. Harvey said:

"It takes as long to play your way out of a slump as it did to play your way into a slump..."

If you're in a slump in business, life - or your golf game - work on the fundamentals first. There are no silver bullets - just good, solid, proven principles that have worked for thousands of people in your position.

Now here's hoping Hafner doesn't go 0-for-4 tonight against Chicago...

The Baggage We All Carry...

We were having a conversation in the office yesterday about the challenges we all face when it comes to making changes in our businesses and our lives.

So we started thinking about what prevents change, why we stop just short of real breakthroughs, and why we avoid facing the root cause of problems. The one word answer?

Fear.

The problem with that one word answer is that we arrive at our fears through the environment we are raised in, the environment we currently live in and the people with whom we choose to associate. In other words, our fears are a result and culmination of our baggage; our baggage makes up the many layers upon which the fear is built.

My good friend Jerry told a group of us on Sunday about a Veggie Tales video he and his son were watching in which one of the characters learns about how others impact his self-esteem and how those negative thoughts load up his 'backpack' - what we call our suitcase or baggage. We all have baggage and we will never get rid of all of the bad stuff. We're human, we're fallible and imperfect. But that doesn't mean that we can't work to get rid of some of the things in our suitcase that create our fears. If we're really going to make good and lasting change we must first decide to determine what makes us fearful.

So here's your challenge today: Think about your fears - not just things like fear of heights, fear of spiders, and so on. But those Fears with a capital "F" that keep you up at night, that make your heart race, that - when you are face-to-face with them - make you jump into "avoidance" mode and get really busy with something that will take your mind off the Fear and enable you to avoid dealing with it.

Be honest with yourself and be ready to deal with some interesting issues. The benefit? You'll realize that your thinking has been shaped by a lifetime during which - like the Veggie Tales character - you have been carrying around some rotten stuff in your backpack. And that old way of thinking prevents you from looking at business - and life - in a new and refreshing way.

Or, as Jerry tells me all the time, we begin to understand the true meaning of "cause and effect."

Will you make this a "fear-less" day?

Oh No! The Air Conditioner Broke!

That's right. It's 90+ degrees out and the air conditioner in our office building broke yesterday and it's still broke today! It's about 85 degrees in my office right now and there is no air movement at all. It got me thinking about customer service and how we treat customers when something unexpected happens. You see, we are customer's of the landlord for the building and the service we have contracted for is not currently being offered. Now it's not their fault the air conditioning broke. But the question is, what is the response to the customer when something goes wrong.

In this case, the response is we just have to suffer until the repairman can work us into the schedule. I'm wondering how much trouble it would be to bring some fans downstairs and offer to set a few of them up to move some air around and maybe cool things at least a few degrees. Or, how about coming around with an update and a cooler of ice cold drinks or maybe even set up an ice cream sundae bar and make all the tenants an ice cream sundae, get everyone laughing about it a little and creating a sense of community? All these seem like pretty easy and low cost things to do and would buy a lot of goodwill.

Think about that for your own business. How do you react when something doesn't go right for your customers. Do you take a look at the situation and find a way to build goodwill with your customers? It's amazing what impact just a small effort can have on our customer satisfaction and retention. Whenever something goes wrong in your service delivery you obviously need to fix it as quickly as possible, but also look for ways to build satisfaction with your customers by letting them know you care and adding a few unexpected surprises along the way. I'd be interested in hearing what you do when something like this happens. Let me know.

Are You Ready to Accept Success?

I find it interesting when a business owner finds it difficult to accept their success. Over the past few months I've had a few situations where a business owner has achieved more success in the business than they are used to, but yet they seem reluctant to accept the success. It almost seems as if there is a fear of success.

I think part of it stems from our basic instinct to reflect doubt when we first see good news or something goes better that expected. I find that many owners have spent so much time preparing for and accepting mediocre results that when great results come along they're not sure how to handle it.

My advice...expect success and prepare for it by telling yourself everyday that you are successful. Expect nothing less and as the results improve it will be easy to say, "I expected that!" Believe that you deserve success as much as anyone else and will do what it takes to make success a reality. If you need help, get it. Increase your knowledge about business, hire a coach, take classes, or do whatever you need to in order to get the help you need. But above all, expect to succeed and you won't be surprised when you do!

A Summer of Excuses...

Kind of a negative headline above, eh?

I didn't mean it to be - it's just that I was struck by the creativity we all use to come up with some great excuses in order to avoid doing what we know we need to do...

We recently held an event in which business owners had an opportunity to join us for a couple of intense days of education and coaching during which they would learn how to move their businesses in a positive direction and get the results they desire. Leading up to the event we invited many business owners and others of influence in the business community to join us; unfortunately for most we spoke with they declined and missed out on some fantastic information.

What struck me and the team here in our office was the range of excuses people used to describe why they couldn't come. Believe me, I understand that we get incredibly busy in our world today. On the other hand - who's fault is that? We wake up every day armed with an unlimited supply of choices; the question is, what choices will I make?

Over the next week take some time to analyze the choices you make and how busy those choices make you and then ask yourself, "Are these choices just making me come up with creative excuses that enable me to justify how I can avoid doing the important things?"

Think about what is truly IMPORTANT in your life so that you can avoid "creative excuses" next week.