Fresh Voices: Two Posts that Can Improve Your Day and Your Life
Filed under: "To Do" List, Career, Marketing, Marketing Yourself, Performance, Professional Growth
Still reeling from my losing battle with the apologetic sales rep from Big Telco, I went searching for solace and inspiration from the many great writers that I follow. Two posts from two professionals in very different fields stood out as particularly thought provoking and inspiring.
Grab Control of the Negative Beliefs and Perceptions that Are Holding You Back!
The first, “How to Do (Almost) Anything and Feel Good Doing It,” is from Mary Jaksch of the Goodlife Zen blog. I featured one of Mary’s posts in an earlier Fresh Voices column a few weeks back, and I’ve made it a priority to keep current with her work.
As you might gather from the titles of the post and blog, Mary offers up inspirational and thoughtful content intended to motivate and encourage. In a world filled with an over-abundance of bad news and seemingly unconquerable challenges, we can all use a good dose of what Mary has to offer.
This “How to” post offers up some outstanding and thought-provoking ideas on grabbing control of our negative beliefs and preconceptions to start focusing on thinking and doing the right things. Mary offers a nice roadmap and some great advice for dealing with our demons, establishing goals and moving one step at a time towards those goals.
While you might be rolling your eyes, thinking, “I’ve heard this all before,” I know more than a few people that are struggling in their personal and professional lives that will benefit from having Mary as a guide.
The Self-Development Power of Blogging:
The second post is entitled “9 Hidden Benefits of Blogging” and comes from someone that I hold in high regard, John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing fame. John is the author of the great book, Duct Tape Marketing and he runs a successful business, website and coaching network that share that same name.
Note from Art: if you are in business, the book is a must-read and his website is chock full of remarkable resources and suggestions.
While one might think that the topic of blogging is old news, I still find that a good number of friends and family and way too many professionals that I encounter (all non-bloggers) either don’t understand the medium or don’t see the value of participating. Sadly, many of these individuals have some great insights to offer and the world would be well served by hearing from them. Many have lumped blogging into that uncomfortable category of something that people do in pursuit of over-night riches and instant internet fame. Those perceptions are very wrong.
John eloquently and convincingly highlights the professional and personal benefits that have accrued to him from a sustained approach to writing about marketing and business. This has turned out to be a powerful self-development tool for John as it has for me and can be for you.
John’s “9 Benefits” very effectively make the case that there is a great deal to be gained from challenging yourself to think big, write diligently and convincingly and sustain the effort over a period of time, whether you are doing it for an audience of 1 or 1 million.
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Thanks to Mary and John for the great, thought-provoking and motivating posts!
Feeling the Economic Deep Freeze? Ten Actions that You Can Take to Thaw Out and Combat Your Blues
Filed under: "To Do" List, Career, Marketing Yourself, Professional Growth
The thermometer here in Chicago this morning indicates that it is -12 degrees outside. Fahrenheit. That’s cold. We get a deep freeze like this every winter, and it gives the local newscasters something to blather about for the few days that the world here looks like a scene from the movie, Dr. Zhivago.
As the economy continues to crumble around us, one of the common themes that I am hearing from people at all levels and in all forms of positions and professions is that they “don’t know what to do.” Much like the weather outside, people are frozen in place. Fear will do that, and it’s definitely not healthy.
The best way that I know to combat fear and unfreeze your mind from the “what might happen” or “what just happened” mentality is to start moving by taking action. Actions generate energy, push out the negative emotions and provide hope.
Here’s my randomly generated and in no specific order list of 10 ideas for anyone seeking to thaw-out and start moving forward in spite of the sub-zero headwinds. This list is good for anyone…employed or unemployed. I’ll be back in a future post on things to do in the workplace while the rest of your colleagues are frozen in fear.
1. Don’t Preoccupy on the News-it’s mostly bad. It’s amazing how traumatizing it can be to have the “nattering nabobs of negativity” (thanks, Spiro Agnew) blathering on incessantly about how bad things are and how much worse they might be in the coming months. Turn it off.
2. Update your professional resume/cv
This seemingly onerous task feels great once you get going. For many, the resume is a core marketing tool, and the intellectual effort of thinking through where/how you created value for your organizations serves to remind you that you do have something good to offer prospective employers.
Get help with this task if you need it. Ask colleagues and former managers to review a draft and provide you with ideas and feedback. Use my recent posts: Marketing Yourself, The Irreverent Opinions of a Resume Hobbyist and Marketing Yourself Part II: Defining Your Professional Value Proposition to jump-start your process.
3. Jump-start your networking activities.
For business professionals, LinkedIn is a great tool to facilitate this task. Creating your LinkedIn profile is a natural part of the resume update process, and developing your list of former and current colleagues will help you recognize how many people you know. Not everyone is on LinkedIn however, so don’t restrict your communication activities to just those that you find in this environment. (For those of you out there that would like to connect, click here to go to my profile and send me a note with your invite. If you are new to this tool, I will be happy to offer my two cents worth on using it effectively.)
Remember that networking works best if you give more than you get, so carry this philosophy forward by helping others connect with colleagues in your network that might offer help. Start reaching out and connecting with people. Most actually appreciate the contact.
4. Read or listen to something by Seth Godin. Seth is a popular marketing author and guru, and every time I read or listen to Seth, he reminds me that many of our most ingrained patterns of thinking are just plain obsolete. Spend some time with Seth and stretch your brain a bit.
A great starting place is the recent podcast: Seth Godin Thinks You’re Boring, that Seth conducted with another of my favorite and provocative gurus, John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing. Seth and John help you make sense out of some powerful new approaches to thinking about the world, about marketing yourself and about competing in this environment. He’s got a new book out: Tribes, We Need You to Lead Us, and I expect to finish it this weekend.
5. Do something physical. Hit the gym, chop some wood, clean the basement, paint a room, or do anything else that gets you moving. (Yep, that too.) You will feel better.
6. After doing something physical, start a blog. I’ll agree with Seth here. I don’t care if there are 190 million blogs worldwide. The act of setting up a blog and the discipline imposed by writing and publishing regularly will change you for the better. Drop me a note if you want some ideas on getting started.
7. Figure out how to leverage Twitter for business purposes and send me a note. OK, this one is a bit self-serving, but I am new to Twitter and while I find it exciting and fascinating and socially very cool, I have not yet cracked the code on this popular new form of communication. Join and let’s “follow” each other and see where this thing takes us.
8. Sign up for that class that you’ve put off or get going on the degree. Tough times are a great time to get to work on improving your skills and advancing your education. There’s nothing on TV you can’t record, you shouldn’t be Twittering and blogging more than a few minutes a day, so evenings are a great time to be in class or on-line in a class.
9. Volunteer. Someone in your community needs help. Your school, your library, your church or the many shelters and nonprofits.
10. Connect with people in person. Limit your time on the computer and increase your face time with real people. It’s too easy to sit behind the screen in this world. Find a networking group, join or start a book club, attend an occasional seminar. Push away from the keyboard.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Do something. Anything. Stop worrying, start taking action and success will breed success. Maybe my list will prompt some ideas of your own. If that happens, remember to share. Pay it forward.
Vacation Reading
One of the biggest challenges that I face every vacation is trying to decide what I’m going to read. Usually, I don’t decide and I end up lugging 40 pounds of books with me just in case I might be in the mood for a certain work. (Note: I know that the Kindle from Amazon will solve this problem…I just can’t get beyond my “I don’t buy the first generation of any consumer electronics” rule.) Eventually, I thrift my choices down to a full duffel bag (for driving trips), and when my wife is not looking, I sneak a few additional volumes into someone else’s bag or under the seat. I guess I’m a book smuggler.
Here’s the latest list of great reads that will make it into my traveling book bag this season:
- The Glorious Cause, volume two in the Revolutionary War series by historical fiction writer, Jeff Shaara. If you like historical fiction, you’ll love Jeff.
- The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, by Eliyahu Goldratt…a classic business novel and something I’ve been meaning to revisit for the last decade.
- Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. I re-read this classic of objectivism every few years and it’s time.
- A biography of one of the founding fathers to match up to Shaara’s book. I’ve always enjoyed pairing a good piece of historical fiction with the real thing. It’s kind of like Stilton Blue Cheese and a glass of vintage port…they just go together.
- Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch and Million Dollar Consulting by Alan Weiss…both authors and both books are must-reads for the independent professional and invaluable reference tools for me.
- Marketing Metaphoria by Gerald and Lindsay Zaltman. A review of this one prompted my “Why Don’t Managers Think Deeply” blog posting a few weeks ago.
- The last two issues of Harvard Business Review. In particular, the July/August issue is themed as “Honing Your Competitive Edge” and has some great looking articles.
I’m probably approaching a stuffed duffel bag of books at this point, so I’m pushing my luck (and the limits of my time), but if I can slide a couple under the back seat, they will be:
- Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, the story of Lincoln’s challenges and successes in managing his less than friendly cabinet.
- Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. I started reading this unique take on the development of cultures and societies last year and got sidetracked. It’s been on my to-read list for some time and it’s time to finish it.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
I’ll keep you posted on my progress and I’ll look forward to the incredible material for blogging that I will gain from the list above. I love great business books, but I’ve always believed that the best leadership and management material is found somewhere other than the business aisle in the bookstore. I look forward to reporting back to you after vacation.
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