Your success, your obstacle.

It happens and it happens often. I’ve seen it in friends and colleagues and on the mirror as well.

We work day in and day out on perfecting our trait, we pour our soul into our work and become specialists, experts and in some cases, even some sort of authority or point of reference.

Good for us! But then what?

Of course there is nothing wrong with being successful or being the best at what we do, on the contrary, we should always aim to excel at it. However we often forget to excel at something else: controlling how arrogant we may become after a certain amount of success. And that is just plain wrong.

Granted, it is sweet to be successful. It’s great to have our efforts recognized. And to listen to the sugar coated compliments from other people feeds our ego.

But I insist, what then?

Once we reached our mountain top we need to recognize that we have two options: rejoice in our success, loose focus and fall down or savor it for just a few moments and fix a new horizon and start walking towards it.

And to do this, it is essential that we understand that success has different forms and it is not just in the form of power, material belongings, money or titles; and that, what it’s important to us, might not be so much for others.

We must be humble and make time to learn and identify our greatest strengths and weaknesses.

We need to recognize that our greatest strengths exacerbate our biggest weaknesses.

Nobody is perfect. The fact that you are a great creative does not mean you are a great strategist. If you are great at production you might not necessarily be great at creativity. If you are a Math guru you actually might not be good at explaining it; and if you are an excellent manager it does not mean you are great leader.

Don’t let your greatest strengths turn you blind in front of what you need to improve. Recognize what your weakness is and reinforce it by surrounding yourself and partnering with people who are as good at what you lack as you with your ability.

Admit you are not everything, that you need help from others and that you need to collaborate with them. Open yourself to the possibility of participating with others and let them share their experience with you. You don’t always have to try and prove you are better than the rest.

Picture credit: Redjotter

Chose your beans.

Author’s note: there is an old saying in Spanish that goes “En todos lados se cuecen habas” which in English means “You can boil beans anywhere” and it’s equivalent to sayings like “We all have our skeletons in the closet”.

“The neighbor’s grass is always greener” is a very common phrase that we hear and say very frequently.

We see how other people live their life, their family, their job, their title, their salary, their schedule, their boss, their benefits and how well they get along doing whatever it is they do and think to ourselves (sometimes out loud too) “How I wish I’d have that too”, and completely forget how well we are doing ourselves until somebody else lets us know how “our grass is greener than theirs”; and so the story goes over and over again.

It doesn’t matter what you do for a living, who you work for or where you live, it’s all the same.

If you work for a global organization you see the corporate bureaucracy while others see the benefits you get; if you work for a small company you focus on the limited resources while others do so on how you are practically part of the directors board; or if you run your own business you think of how hard it is to bring in revenue, while others celebrate your independence.

The reality is that, as the old saying goes: “You can boil beans anywhere”. It does not matter where you work, with who you do or how successful you are, there will always be a small detail, a person, a process or whatever, that will make you want to look at your neighbor’s grass.

So, what exactly does the people we so admire do? You know, those people who seem to have it all and are always smiling and never complaining. Are their lives as perfect as they seem?

A few months ago I read a phrase from Robin Sharma (Whom I’ve frequently cited here) that said that a trait in all great athletes, entrepreneurs, artists, employees, etc. is that “They make hard look really easy”.

And they do so because they work hard at it every day, and because they understand that there will always be some things they will have to do even though they don’t like doing. Yet they do so, because they know that is part of what will allow them to get to where they want to go.They understand that although they would rather avoid them, these are stepping stones to keep moving forward towards their goal. They don’t complain, they “chose their beans” and keep working hard.

The secret is not to search for the perfect life. The path with no rocks does not exist and the only people with no problems at all, are not here anymore.

We all can see our grass green, but we have to acknowledge that there will also be moments that although we’ll want to avoid, they are precisely those “boiling beans” we all have to deal with.

And who knows…they might even turn out to be like Jack’s magic beans!

Alignment and balancing.

For cars, the alignment and balancing maintenance is necessary when the car starts to pull down towards one direction, when at a certain speed it starts vibrating or when you notice an uneven wear out of the wheels.

I think something similar happens to people. You know its time to take corrective actions in your life when you feel your path is going on a different direction than where you want to go; or when, because of the speed at which you are living, you stop vibrating or when your body and mind start to wear you down.

I’m sure all of us, at some point in our lives, maybe even repeatedly, have felt at least one of these three symptoms. What I am not sure though is how fast are we to correct or better yet prevent these problems.

We are always so busy managing our overloaded calendar, trying to be in everybody’s good grace, looking forward to our next promotion, our next salary increase, the annual bonus, the closing of a deal, achieving the quarterly quota, getting public recognition as a great professional; or even in our personal lives, trying to be father of the year, the world’s greatest partner, the splendid host, the great advisor and most reached out friend, etc.

So much in fact, that we completely forget about making time for ourselves, and so our body screams out loud! We become aware of our wear out and we get sick: back spasms, colds for no apparent reason, gastritis and lack of sleep. The projects that once filled us with pride and excitement suddenly feel like a prison and we stop vibrating. We realize that at some point down the road, we took a downturn.

And then we face the awkward and uncomfortable moment of “choosing”. That is, we come up to the point where we have to stop and reconsider the direction our life has taken. We have to evaluate whether we are on the right track and at the pace that feels right or if we are just following the noise that leads masses into indecision.

So its time to have our alignment and balancing and ask us:

• Is what I am doing today aligned with the principles and interests I value the most?
• Which of all the things I do, really makes me vibrate?
• Am I clear about where I want to go and how I want to live my life? And not in a few years, but now.
• Will the path I am currently in, even if it’s another stepping stone; will take me in the right direction?

It’s time to turn the wheels around, realign our direction and balance our life.

Picture credit: MILINTOC

Interview with Joseph Jaffe part 1

Well, a promise is a promise, so here it is, the interview I did last week to Joseph Jaffe last week.

Truth be told, the ilumination in the video is not the best, but the content of it, the conversation we had, is really worth it!

And I promise to improve the videos for the next interviews I'll be doing in the up coming weeks.

By the way, I want to thank everybody who participated by sending me the questions they would like to ask Joseph, specially Hebert Hernandez who helped me record the interview.

Now, enjoy the interview! And remember, you can watch the rest of the it in my YouTube Channel.

And don't forgtet to follow Joe in Twitter, visit his YouTube channel JaffeJuice TV or read his blog.

Enjoy!

What are you feeding yourself with?

Twitts, status updates in FaceBook, MySpace or Orkut, videos posted in YouTube and comments around those; among others, key factors that have changed the way we consume the information around us.

It has never been so easy to connect with so many sources of information at the same time and find out even that a “friend” is doing in Paris.

Incredible! Genious! Or not?

It’s just that at the same time we have turned into professional vouyerists capable of absorbing everything our “followers” and “friends” are doing, we’ve allowed all that disinformation to occupy the important space that we previously allocated to learning.
I know dozens of people, including myself, who have been substituting books and blogs with microblogging and status updates, saturating ourselves with not always useful information.

With this of course, I do not mean that we should give up on Twitter or FaceBook and whatever social network you are in to. Anyone who knows me can tell you that I am and avid user of these platforms and I don’t intend to stop.

That said, what my intention is though, is start to nurture my mind with useful information once again. Spend less time reading empty twits and dedicate more time to those persons who really bring something to the conversation. I mean, unless we have a previous, personal or professional relationship, the possibilities of me caring about you “having a giant hot dog” are pretty thin, none really. However if you have an experience, a lesson, an advice, an opinion or any type of information that offers real value, it won’t matter if I haven’t met you in all my life, I will surely be interested in what you have to say.

But this “information diet” is not only about limiting the time I spend participating in social networks; rather it is about increasing my consumption of blogs, forums and books (e-books too).

It’s about getting back to my old practice of filtering the information I let into my mind; it's about being selective and looking for ways to learn and grow.

A couple of years ago I decided I would not watch anymore news shows on TV nor would I listen to any on the radio or read any papers; that helped improve my mood and even helped me sleep better at night. Back then I chose to get my information from other sources like books, blogs and podcasts from real thought leaders, people who really want to collaborate with others. And so I started working on my blog roll and RSS Feeds from great personalities like Robin Sharma, Seth Godin, Joseph Jaffe or Mitch Joel.

Today I realized I’ve abandoned my blog roll for too long and it is time to start visiting it again!

Picture credit: Solstizio

5 tips to start building your social network

It’s a pretty common thing, we do it practically every day; we receive, accept and send invitations to connect with a lot of people (that we know in most cases) over various social networks like FaceBook, Twitter and Linkedin. But it is also common that we reject the invites from people we’ve never even heard of before, or worse that people we know but don’t really know us, reject our invitation to connect.

This is something that, because of the line of work I’m in I get to see frequently. Whenever I go to an event or conference, be it as a speaker, as part of the audience or backstage, I get to see the situation from the two perspectives the invitee and the person sending the invitation.

You see, when you go to these type of events its easy to meet very interesting people and exchange points of view if even for just a few minutes. When this happens, in the best case, you made an impact on the  person you wanted to meet and were able to get their contact information; and if you are good at following up, you’ll make sure to send a note to your new contact, the very next day, thanking her for the conversation and inviting her to connect at any given social network to continue your dialog.
But, If you are like most of us, you will most likely forget to do this and months later, when you stumble upon that person in a social network, you will try to add her to your network and expect that she remembers you as if you had been best friends in high school and open her door to you automatically.

Now, let’s be honest. Would you let any stranger that comes knocking down your door into your home? Then why do you expect people that doesn't know you to accept your invitation to be friends with you in FaceBook or recommend you in Linkedin?

You have to work hard at building your network.

Let’s face it, creating a network can be quite a challenge, even for the most popular people.
We were not borned knowing how to do it and the full use of social networks is still misunderstood.

That said, there are a few basic hints that can be very helpful when starting to build your social network:

1. Participating in social networks, even though its very tempting, is not just about being popular. Rather it is about establishing valuable (both for you and your contacts) connections; and it isdefinitely easier to do add value to people with who you have something in common with. Look for people who share similar interests and values, don’t just try to connect for the sake of having a “larger network”.
2. Don’t do “cold invites” this is the equivalent to the famous sales cold calls, and really, when have those really worked?
   
3. Find your Dr Love. And I don’t mean the typical friend who is always looking to set you up with a blind date, but rather to find out which of your contacts already is friends with the person you want to connect with and ask them to introduce you. I’m sure they will be glad to do it. There is a reason why the six degrees of separation theory exists, do your research, find your cupid and ask them to share some love.
   
4. Create your door opener and be part of the conversation. Business, especially those who  work on a B2B scheme have been doing direct mailings that gets their prospects to open the door to their sales folks for a long time and very successfully might I add.
   Twitter, trackbacks, comments sections in blogs and forums are great tools to do precisely this. Most of us who are sharing our content in the form of a blog, a tweet, a video in YouTube, etc. are not only open to feedback but we are actively looking forward to it.
   So, you want to connect with someone you don’t know? Search for their blog or podcast or their profile in Twitter, etc. Listen to what they say, digest it, form an opinion and share it with them. Add value to them, get yourself noticed by them and once you’ve established such a dialog, ask them to add you to their network.
5. Become connectazible. Transform yourself into someone others want to connect with. Start your own conversation. We all have something to say, experiences to share and anecdotes to tell. Loose the fear and the excuse that no one is going to be interested in what you have to say. Actually, you’d be amazed at how many people share your interests. In a virtual world where there are over 1,300 billion people, I’m sure you can easily find a group of people who are as passionate as you about your subject of interest.
   

And just like my friend and blogger Phil Gerbyshak says: “Give first, before you ask”.

Leardership vs managing.

Note: As you have seen in past posts here, at The Daily and the not so, I’ve always been a strong believer of the importance of acting as leaders and developing our main strengths and abilities. That said, this post, I write not only thinking of this but also inspired by Seth Godin’s concept of Tribes (If you can get your hands on the book, don’t miss the chance to read it).

Are you really leading talent or just managing resources?
I ask because once someone told me: “A manager manages projects, challenges, problems, resources. That’s why they are managers, because they manage…” Well, yeah…and a Director, directs and an executive executes…So, what is the difference between and simple manager, director or executive and a leader? Simple and huge!

If you manage resources, you impose your vision, or that of the status quo you represent, of what has to be done and how it must be done, absolutely diminishing the work of your staff. You will not give in even a centimeter of additional room to move for your employees to push and pull the leverages you have ordered them to pull to accomplish the list of tasks you determined will help your company to prosper.
Nevertheless, the problem herein lies in that the status quo is in itself that, something that must not change, that must remain the same, therefore not growing, not evolving, getting stuck, and no matter how hard you try, sooner or later if falls.
This is the model that is costing so much to so many companies, even to those who claim to be innovators. Not only on increasing costs and decreasing revenue; but in talent retention as well. And all because they are not sharing a vision based on values, principles and objectives others can identify themselves with and commit to; therefore thinking that the only way left to get other people to follow them is the old decaying stick and carrot way. And sooner rather than later they end up seeing even the most apathetic of their employees get tired of this model and leave.

On the other hand, if you stop wanting to manage people as if they were just another asset of your company and you focus on defining a worthy mission, on clearly sharing your organization’s vision and actually transforming yourself into an enabler of your team’s talents; not only will you become a leader who maximizes your people’s strengths and abilities, but you will transform your enterprise into a leader’s magnet, into a tribe of very talented and capable people, each exercising and maximizing their own strengths, collaborating and contributing to your organization.

Companies that understand that their real worth lies in its people, in its tribe; that is, in the hands of their collaborators (their employees) and their contributors (clients and vendors), are the ones who are getting ahead.
The leaders of these organizations know that success does not lie in one unique and secret formula nor in one methodology and work process, neither on “Incentivizing” employees and clients, but in creating a tribe of people whose values, principles and interests are so aligned that they will not hesitate to share their strengths, knowledge, commitment, experience and even their own tribes too, in order to achieve their shared objective.