Taking Time to Clean Up a Mess You Didn’t Create

Sometimes success is about stepping up where there’s a need, even if you had nothing to do with the issue that was created. The other day we were anticipating our first real snowstorm of the year and I could see my neighbor was outside clearing up some of the junk that had accumulated between her property and her neighbor’s (they share a common outdoor space in the back of their properties). It wasn’t any of her junk, she has kids so she’s very tidy and consistently puts out her garbage and recycling on the appropriate days. But she knew with the snow coming she didn’t want to deal with the pile where it was so she went ahead and cleaned 90% of it up in such a way that it wasn’t going to be an issue for clearing snow should we actually get enough to clear (we did). She didn’t have to step up, but she knew that the only way it was going to get done before it snowed, since it had been sitting there for several months now, was if she did it because it moved from just an eyesore to something that was going to negatively impact her and her family.

No one wants to clean up someone else’s mess, but sometimes that’s what we have to do if we want to get to the next step in our lives and our own success journeys. There’s always the hope and possibility that someone will recognize that their mess or issue is negatively impacting others, but more often than not that recognition doesn’t come in the timeline that we think it should. So we’re left with a choice: do we find another way to be successful, do we leave other people’s problems to them and work around it, or do we step up and take the time and resources out of our journey and our life to make our path smooth?

An important side note is that I don’t think that the way to your own individual successes for anyone is to consistently be the cleanup person who is always picking up after other people. They shouldn’t think that they can just leave stuff around and you’ll take care of it, because that’s what you do. So any cleanup work you do should be done infrequently so that others don’t learn to rely on you, and you aren’t constantly behind on your work because you’re always picking up after them.

The lesson I was reminded of as I caught glimpses of my very nice neighbor out the window as I went about my busy day was that it isn’t always as hard or as time consuming as we may have anticipated to deal with the mess, compared to coming up with a new plan or risking our safety just to wait for them to deal with their problem. And maybe if we’re lucky the other person or people will recognize the hard work we put in and will change their ways going forward, or even better, offer to help us as a “thank you” for taking care of what they’ve struggled to work through. So before you jump to a work around the next time you’re faced with a mess, consider if it would be faster and smarter to just take care of it yourself.

Being An Adult

Over the past few years I’ve been reading a blog from Chip Conley (and his guest posters) that features a “daily helping of wisdom.” This blog is tied in with their Modern Elder Academy, which is all about bringing the best out of our later years in life (which may surprise you since I’m not exactly ‘old’), and learning how to integrate all ages in living life together for the best version of life for everyone. One of the recent posts on the blog spoke to something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently which is being an adult.

Adulthood is so much more than an age or crossing a somewhat randomly established year (like 18 or 21) or milestone (like having kids or owning a home) even though that’s how we usually understand and apply the term. It’s got a lot more to do with maturity and experience, which is something that develops at different speeds and ages in each person, and as a result some people are given the title “adult” before they are willing to accept what comes along with the age and opportunity.

But going over the list of 25 principles shared on this blog post, there are some things that I hadn’t expected to see and don’t always remember to incorporate into my life as an adult. The good news is that there are more things on that list that can help you thrive and enjoy life (and adulthood more), and I dare say make you not only a better parent, but also a parent that your kids connect with better and are more open to learning from. I encourage you to read the post and work to incorporate at least one of the points into your life.

The other thing the post reminded me is that being an adult is about accepting being a work in progress. Just because we’ve been given, or even if we’ve earned, the title of “adult” it doesn’t mean that we’ve “arrived” in life. In fact, becoming an adult is only one stepping stone in our lives, one of many and a long distance from “arriving.” And if we really accept that we’re all works in progress, we learn to focus less on arriving and more on being the best person we can be in each moment of our lives, with each person we’re with, and in each situation we find ourselves in.

3 Lessons on Leadership from John Maxwell

For this months’ business book we’re turning to what some might call a classic read: John Maxwell’s 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader, written in 1999. Even though so much changes in the [business] world over time, leadership principles and qualities are two things that become not only more important and integral to success as a business owner, they are also something you can depend on to work well for you whether you’re learning from one of the kings of old or presidents today. Leadership is also something that we can talk about universally, which I really appreciate, which means that we can all gather at the table together and have conversations about it that are applicable to each of us, whether we run a pizzeria, big box store, ad agency, or staffing company because every company needs leadership to survive and especially to thrive.

As you may know, one of my favorite things to do in reading books on leadership is to learn how people define leadership. Maxwell shared a definition from history, that of Napoleon Bonaparte who said that leaders are “dealers in hope.” This is one of the defining factors I think in not only what makes a company successful, but also determines the culture of a company. If the leadership of the company is dealing in hope, you’ll find that the company is more welcoming, a place people usually like to work, has great rapport with their customers and that it’s preferred by customers time and again and they’re hard-pressed to choose other companies instead.

Second, Maxwell addressed the challenge we all face regarding weaknesses and things that need to be worked on. I’ll share what he wrote, but I want to preface it with saying that it reminded me that sometimes we have a hard time looking past the bad and seeing the good. As he said, yes, of course we should be admitting what’s not good enough and where we struggle, because when we don’t admit those things we leave the door open for possibly serious mistakes and big issues to happen. But what Maxwell shared is that we should focus 70% of the time on our strengths and only 5% of our time on our weaknesses (the other 25% is on new things). This is another reason why we should make time to celebrate and highlight the successes of our team, the good things that people do, and the ways that they contribute to the overall success, growth and health of our companies.

Finally, I want to close with a quote from the end of the book that really spoke to me about what it means to be a leader: “…all people…like to feel special, so sincerely compliment them. They want a better tomorrow, so show them hope. They desire direction, so navigate for them. They are selfish so speak to their needs first. They get emotionally low, so encourage them. They want success so help them win.” Right there are a whole bunch of great insights about how you can be a better leader to your people. Yes, of course we should be trying to integrate all of them into our leadership on a daily basis, but even if we pick just one each day to work on, I know we’ll come out far ahead of many other people in leadership positions who are not sufficiently focused on being a leader to their people.

What have you learned about leadership lately?

Overcorrecting Doesn’t Lead to Success

Have you ever driven an 18 wheeler? I know it’s not an experience most people have, and many people know that they would be dangerous if they were behind the wheel and therefore don’t even try. I can’t imagine how much more challenging it is than driving a regular car because dealing with the scary drivers at car level alone gives me cold sweats some days! So as I was driving on the highway the other night I watched one of these 18 wheelers driving just ahead of me and was impressed again at how they manage to keep that big vehicle in between the little white lines. Because if they turn the wheel too much they end up all over the highway and dangerous things happen, so they have to be really conscious about making small corrections to their driving so they stay in their lane and everyone ends up where they’re going.

The more I watched this 18 wheeler (and all the others) on the road the more impressed I was and it reminded me about how so often the path to success is full of little course corrections, and that overcorrecting can turn into a success spinout just like could happen for the truck. Yes, we can get scared and think that what has to happen when we see mistakes happen, delays reported or failure looming in the not-so-distant future are big changes. And while sometimes it’s necessary to really “go big or go home” and make a big change, often it’s not a case of needing to start over or do anything drastic or make big changes, just that you need a couple of tweaks or adjustments to get on the right path and be moving forward again.

So maybe instead of going on a change-your-life diet and exercise plan all you need to do is switch out one of your snacks each day and drink more water. Or maybe the way to a better position at work is to show up 10 minutes early and spend more time learning about what’s going on in the whole company, not just your department, instead of sucking up to the bosses and taking on every project that becomes available. Or maybe instead of feeling overwhelmed by all that you think has to change in your relationship with your partner, the only thing that needs to change is how much you listen to them. Or maybe instead of trying to accomplish “all the things” in life, you’ll make more victories and enjoy them more if you are pickier about what you choose to work on and only work on accomplishing victories that matter to you.

Ultimately it is also just another argument for taking life a little slower and working to be steadier rather than living the push-pull lifestyle that so many of us struggle with and can’t seem to break the cycle of. After all, it’s a lot easier to course correct gently and with more accuracy when you’re not going 100 miles per hour and aren’t all over the map. What little tweaks to your current success journey will you make to make it easier and more successful?

Teaching Kids Kindness

How do you teach kids kindness? Its neither a deep question nor a trick question, it’s a question with a simple answer: one act of kindness at a time, and yesterday is a great opportunity to begin if you don’t know where to begin or want a place to increase the kindness quotient in your home. What was yesterday? Random Acts of Kindness day. While like Valentine’s Day Random Acts of Kindness day shouldn’t really be limited to just one day, having a starting place for both love and kindness is better than not taking time for either at all. And Random Acts of Kindness day can teach us and our kids some important lessons about sharing kindness as well as life in general.

Let’s start with the random part: it’s a hard lesson to conquer, but not everything in life can be planned. Some things only happen inconsistently and can’t be anticipated. As much as we might want to know that every Thursday or every 15th of the month during winter it will snow, Mother Nature doesn’t work that way and neither does much of life. Although schedules and habits are important and can help you do more with your life while still making sure it’s a good life for you and your family, life is more like a roller coaster than a walk in the park: you can’t always anticipate or be prepared for the dips and the climbs. But before you decide random is all bad, it’s not, because some of the greatest blessings and surprises in life happen randomly.

Second is the concept of acting. It’s not just one act that you’re encouraged to perform for Random Acts of Kindness day, but however many acts you choose. Life isn’t about one action either, if we only did one action and called it good we’d still be stuck back in the stone age and wouldn’t have electricity or indoor plumbing, or any of the other innovations and inventions that we really appreciate and come to expect to exist in our day to day lives. So the wisdom here is to keep trying, keep acting. Don’t let yourself get stuck on one attempt and give up, keep pushing through because life isn’t a one act play.

Finally is the idea of kindness. One of the things the world needs most is more kindness. We need to learn to be kinder to each other. We need to learn to be kinder to ourselves. We need to learn to be kinder to our planet. Why? Because kindness opens the door to possibility instead of limits and turns problems into opportunities to learn about each other and work together to solutions that are better for as many people as possible. And one of the biggest gifts of kindness is the ability to make a positive difference in someone’s life whether you know it or not. Yes, you get the good feelings of doing something nice for someone else, but you don’t necessarily know the difference it makes in their life. It could be that your kindness turns into a thousand reciprocal kindnesses, or maybe your kindness gives someone hope that not everyone is bad, or maybe your kindness is the only bright spot in someone’s very terrible day.

Living life comes with an impact, and each of us have to choose what kind of impact we want to have, or what kind of ripple we’re going to start with our actions. I’d much rather be part of spreading kindness than selfishness or hate, and I certainly don’t want to raise the next generation on poison or teaching them to not think of others, I want them to live and lead with kind hearts and actions. How do you teach your kids about kindness?

Lightbulb Lessons for Leaders

February is an interesting month when it comes to the topic of leadership because there are countless African Americans who have led throughout history (and the present) that we could talk about as part of Black History Month, there are all the presidents that we could talk about, there are all the football leaders we could talk about and then there’s everyone else. The person I want to talk about this month is a name that you’re familiar with, and he came to my attention because he was born this month in the year 1847. Who are we talking about? None other than Thomas Edison.

You probably know Edison because of the many products, inventions and innovations he was involved creating and working on in including the phonograph, motion picture camera and early versions of the light bulb. He was fortunate to live a long life, 84 years, and he took advantage of all those years, registering over 1000 patents which means he worked on many more products, inventions and innovations than that. There’s something to be said for having your fingers in a lot of projects because it means you’re less dependent on one thing, so if it fails you have less to worry about because you’ve got a backup plan. Edison didn’t just invest in products and inventions, he also owned multiple properties including two in New Jersey, his childhood home in Ohio and property in Florida as well, which again gave him more diversity of resources and connections and options. While it’s not possible for every leader to be a Sam Walton or Thomas Edison, there’s good wisdom in having multiple sources of income and projects so that you aren’t dependent on just one being a true success, especially if you know that a project may take several iterations over the course of years or decades like many of Edison’s were.

I find Edison fascinating for many reasons, in part because unlike some other people, especially historical people, he’s someone I have a more personal connection to because he spent a lot of time in my home state of New Jersey and I’ve been to one of his homes and workshops, which is now a National Park/Historic Site. This is one of the keys to being an enduring, and likeable, leader: the ability to create a personal connection with your people. Even if your intention isn’t to be a “community leader” and you’re not the most outgoing person, there are ways to create that all important personal connection or at least create the opportunity for people to feel like they know you. Edison’s choice of inventions and innovations also gives support to helping people feel more personally connected with him, because he worked on everyday items and innovations, instead of working on things that most people don’t recognize or actively use in their life.

Finally, one of the reasons Edison was so successful and is still so well known is because of his willingness to work with others. Yes, some people get lucky and are incredibly successful on their own, but most of us, especially someone like Edison who does the type of work that he did, need other people in our lives to help us get to that level of success. Again, you don’t have to be a people person, but you do have to be willing to work with people of all types, from the top of the hierarchy to the bottom, to really find the most viable ideas and come up with the solutions that will get you from idea to prototype to mass-market production. Edison was known for his teamwork with his employees and good at hiring people who were just as creative and driven as he was, as well as his friendships and partnerships with other icons of the era like Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone.

What leadership lessons have you learned from Thomas Edison’s life and work?

Committed to Relationship Success

With Valentine’s Day today I thought we should talk about what it takes to make a successful relationship, and one of the things I think it comes down to is commitment. While our focus will be on romantic relationships today, many of the things that apply to them in this post will also be things that we can apply to other ventures and aspects of our lives that we want to be successful. After all, commitment isn’t exclusive to relationships or romance, in fact it’s central to success too because often we don’t achieve success because we’re not committed to the journey. So where does commitment come into play for relationship success?

Relationship success starts with being committed to yourself. I know, that sounds counterintuitive because relationships can’t be a true relationship if it’s all about you, but the first commitment that needs to be made when you are considering a relationship is that you’re committing to a relationship that’s right for you. If you aren’t committed to yourself then you may not commit to the person that is best for your present and future or put in the effort to make the relationship into what you need it to be and to last.

The second commitment is to your partner. This commitment is about recognizing that there are two people in the relationship and making sure that you pay attention to their needs, desires, interests and are also committed to supporting them in their passions, work, and activities. This is one of the reasons why it’s important to choose wisely who you’re in a relationship with, because you don’t want to commit to supporting someone who you don’t like and can’t agree with any of their preferences.

The third commitment is to your relationship. The difference between committing to your partner and committing to the relationship is that the relationship is where the two of you come together. You can absolutely commit to supporting your partner but not being in a relationship with them. A great example here would be for couples who choose to divorce but still support each other because they have kids or some mutual interests. You’re no longer supporting or investing in the relationship but you can still be supporting the other person. Being committed to the relationship also means that you’re focused on making this relationship a success, and aren’t out looking for other people or continuing to date others while you’re with this person.

Fourth, there needs to be a commitment to communication. I’m sure there’s no surprise that this one is on my list, is there? Countless relationships have failed because couples don’t talk or all they do is “talk” (aka yell in the heat of the moment). While it’s good for your partner to know when you’re passionate or upset about something, rarely do productive conversations happen when there’s yelling involved, and often when things get to the point of yelling you’ve missed out on some important communications that should have happened a long time ago. The earlier in your relationship that you establish good communication habits with your partner, the more likely the relationship will last and be healthy and fulfilling for the duration.

Finally if you want your relationship to succeed you need to be committed to love. I’m including love here as the differentiating factor between bad relationships, unhealthy relationships, relationships between people who just coexist, relationships that are in name only, and/or relationships that are really friendships. Some people are unwilling to love because it’s scary and intimate and you have to be vulnerable with the other person. If you’re not willing to be that open and invest that deeply with the other person, it’s almost impossible to get to the true depth and dimension of a relationship that has love in it. I know some people are plenty happy to just have someone to share their life with, and that’s fine, but having experienced a relationship with love in it, I know there’s a big difference between the two, and the commitment to love is absolutely worth the risks.

Is there an aspect of your relationship with your partner that you need to better commit to this year? Which commitment has made the biggest difference in your relationship?

A More Personal Valentine’s Day Celebration

There’s pressure on us for so many reasons, but I don’t think there’s a holiday that tends to be as intimidating as Valentine’s Day. Yes, it can be intimidating to host your newly-extended family for Thanksgiving or Easter, but I don’t think the expectations are as high for those holidays as they often are for couples on Valentine’s Day. The pressure increases because of how so many couples have let traditions set the bar rather than choosing to decide what’s best for them and how they want to celebrate. For example not everyone wears jewelry, nor do they like flowers (many people are allergic), and then there are plenty of people who can’t afford to go to a 5 star restaurant, buy hundreds or thousands of dollars of jewelry and get expensive flowers every year. And the more I thought about relationships and what could be a special holiday on the 14th, the more I got frustrated because on so many levels we do our relationships a disservice by going “by the book.”

Having worked with many couples and families, having read many books about relationships, having been blessed with healthy relationships in my life growing up, and having been in a relationship with my partner for over 10 years I can with 100% certainty say I’ve yet to find two relationships that are exactly alike. Why? Because no two people are alike and if you don’t have people who are exactly the same, how could any pairing of them be the same as any other? And if no two relationships are alike, why do we so often believe the lie that we have to run our relationships the same as “everyone else?”

Can we learn from other relationships? Absolutely. Are there relationship “best practices” that apply to many relationships? Absolutely. Can we strengthen our relationships by connecting with other couples whose relationships have things in common with ours? Absolutely. But none of those things mean that our relationship with our partner has to include lots of fights, sleeping in the same bed, having kids together, going out to a fancy restaurant on Valentine’s Day, physical gifts of large monetary value or any of the number of things that many people think a relationship or Valentine’s Day celebration has to include.

So what should Valentine’s Day look like? It should be a day that celebrates the love you have for each other. Maybe you show that love by letting your partner sleep in. Maybe that includes picking up takeout. Maybe it includes going to a therapist finally to work on your anger issues or other issues that hold you back from being the best partner you can be. Maybe it looks like making a meal (or dessert) in the kitchen together while watching your favorite movie. Maybe it looks like picking up some of the chores that have been put off for a bit because of other priorities so your partner is less stressed about them not getting done. Maybe it means snuggling up together reading books that each of you wanted and bought each other as gifts. Maybe it includes a commitment that you’ll follow through on through the rest of the year to be more respectful of your partner and be a better communicator. Maybe it looks like an ordinary day because you’ve got plans later in the year for something special. What will your special, unique Valentine celebration look like?

Are Your Business Updates for Good?

How often should you as a business update your website and/or app(s)? It’s kind of a trick question because there is no single “right” answer to that question. The answer could be that you update it when there’s a technical issue that needs fixing, you update your branding to be more contemporary or better speak to your current audience, you’re doing a special promotion and want your technology to reflect that, customers have complained (this is one of the best reasons to do an update!), you are offering new things/not offering things it currently says you offer, you’ve moved and are part of a new community, you have new team members, and there could be other reasons why you would make a change too.

Before we can answer that question about updating your technology, first and foremost you need to know the goals you have with your technology. Typically it should focus on 3 things: communicate to your audience who you are and what you offer (usually this combines both form and function so that it looks good and works well), help them find answers to their questions, and easily help them accomplish their goals (returns, customer service, product searches, purchases, quotes etc.). If your tech does all of these things well 90% of the time or better, then you need to stop and seriously consider if you need to make an update. I’ve experienced several website and app updates from companies, both large and small, in recent weeks and with some you can very clearly see that they’re still working out a lot of bugs (i.e. searches or sorting functions don’t work like they used to or should), while with others you wonder why they made the update when nothing seemed wrong in the first place.

Which brings us to two better questions to ask. the first being: why are you considering this update? If it’s because you want to add new and cool features that you love, it might be the wrong answer. If it’s because “everyone is doing it,” you might have the wrong answer. If it’s because you haven’t done a major update in a couple of years, or ever (not including adjusting some dates or a picture here and there type of thing), you might have the wrong answer. Too often companies make updates that are unnecessary, which brings us to the second question: is there something you could do to improve the experience other than an update/makeover? For example could you add a feature or give people more options as to alerts they can get in the app or give people more control over what they do/don’t see or create a lite version of the app/website for those who don’t want the full experience?

As a business owner yes it’s your job to make sure that customers have a great experience and you aren’t providing outdated information and broken technology to them. But it’s also your job to make sure that you’re being financially wise about the investments you make, not making changes just for the sake of making changes, and making changes that are actually necessary and/or desired. Some of the worst things you can hear from customers are that you “fixed” something that didn’t need fixing, you broke what wasn’t broken, and you’ve made it more difficult to shop with you than it was before, yet that’s what I’m seeing in several of the recent website and app updates. So before you get too excited about doing an update or making changes to your technological presence (and cave to the peer pressure of feeling like you have to update as frequently as there’s a new song on the radio or new cool app everyone’s talking about), make sure you a representative sample of feedback from users so that you don’t waste time and resources, only to be a disappointment when all is said and done. What good and bad update experiences have you had recently?

Loving the Success Journey More

Last month I shared a bunch of different strategies for incorporating success into our days more consistently. Strategies are important because they give us the necessary foundation and structure to help us plan out and actually accomplish the things we want to do in our lives. Since we’re in February it means that either you’re going to be at least somewhat successful with any New Year’s Resolutions you decided on or it’s time to focus on just being successful in your regular activities in life. If you’re still actively working on your resolutions, there’s a better chance now than there was on January 1 that you’ll accomplish them, and if you aren’t and don’t see any progress happening in the next few days then it’s time to move on.

But with the start of this new month we’ve turned the corner from the month that’s all about cold and snow (and recovering from holiday season spending) to the month that’s all about love. I don’t think it’s possible to love every aspect of your life or every aspect of your success journey, but I do think we can add a little love to our success journeys to make them easier, smoother and more enjoyable.

First, always have one success project you’re working on have to do with something you love. Most of us have several success projects going at a time because of the responsibilities we have in our lives or the investment some of them take or the fact that logistically some of them just take longer than others, so it’s definitely doable to make sure you’re always working on a project that you love.

Second, to make the more challenging success projects that you aren’t in love with more enjoyable, find something to love about each project. Maybe it’s the fact that you’re able to make really good progress on it and celebrate lots of victories. Maybe it’s the potential of what this success has for your life and your future. Maybe it’s about the person or people who you get to work with on it. Maybe it’s about the places or things the journey is helping you explore. Whatever it is, don’t let that thing get too far out of focus as you work through the details and aspects that aren’t as awesome.

Third, get creative to find a way to love the journey more. If you’ve been around the success block a time or two you know that there’s almost always more than one way of accomplishing your goals. So why not find a way to enjoy doing some of it more rather than sticking with the most boring, obvious, traditional, tedious way of doing it? Investing in doing the research to find out some alternative ways and different options for getting your journey accomplished is a great way to add love to the journey as well as stretch your creative muscles and add more knowledge to your mental database for future reference.

How will you intentionally incorporate love into your next success journey?