November 2007

MARK'S DAILY THOUGHTS: November 2007

2007-11-01 - Leave Behind an Impact
Most people go through life looking to see what they can get from others and "take from the world". The truly successful people are just the opposite. They know that success comes from serving others, as that creates value, and creating value creates success. Their goal is to leave behind an impact. How about yours?

2007-11-02 - Compared to What?
Comparisons are what drive the improvement in our lives. Comparing our performance to our goals can help us keep a strong focus on them. Comparing to others is helpful in understanding what drives their success, and if there is something we can learn from them. However, the best comparison is to our POTENTIAL. That drives us more than anything else.

2007-11-03 - Learn from the Experts
No one can learn everything on their own and grow fast enough to use their potential. We all need to seek out and learn from the experts. This way we speed our own development and use the learnings from the experts to focus on the key outcomes that will drive the accomplishment of our goals.

2007-11-04 - Habits Make or Break You
Your daily habits are a key driver of your success or lack of success. Usually, it takes a month to create a new habit, and most people give up after only a week or two of trying something new. Success in creating a habit is based on the reasons why the habit is important and the discipline to stick with it. Build your reasons and discipline, and create that habit this month.

2007-11-05 - Courage is a Quality You Develop
Some people think that courage is something that you are born with. However, courage is something you develop by taking on increasingly larger challenges with the same or even greater enthusiasm. Courage is really about taking action on the unknown, and action is always the fuel for your courage.

2007-11-06 - To Understand Selling, Understand Buying
Many sales people spend too much time studying the selling process, when they should be investing time studying the buying process. Selling is much easier when you know why they buy. It is the same for influencing people. The more you know what motivates others (how they buy what you say), the more your communications will have an impact. Remember, to understand selling, understand buying.

2007-11-07 - Consequences Maintain Behaviours
The most important thing our parents did for all of us was to establish clear boundaries for our behaviours. They both created and talked about the boundaries, and set consequences when our behaviours were outside them. You can see the very best leaders doing the same. Just as our parents, they praise the behaviours inside the boundaries and have consequences for those outside the boundaries. Consequences maintain behaviours.

2007-11-08 - Everyone Agreeing can be Boring
Look at any unsuccessful team and you will notice that their team meetings are boring. Successful teams have people who are passionate about their jobs and very often passionate people have positions on issues and opportunities that don't align. Everyone agreeing can be boring, but passionate people discussing differences can be exciting as well as also create better solutions in the end.

2007-11-09 - Paying Attention Pays
There's an old say - "What my boss pays attention to, I pay attention to." Whatever gets focus and attention usually gets done. If you are a leader, what you pay attention to is a signal to your people that "this is important". Paying attention pays.

2007-11-10 - You Determine your Attitude
Many people in life are letting others and circumstances determine their attitude. They say such things as: "I will be happy when...." Other people and circumstances shouldn't determine your attitude. You should. Remember, the attitude you show the world each day is YOUR DECISION.

2007-11-11 - You Get a Return on What You Plant
There are so many people who expect results without putting in the effort first. That's really like the farmer who doesn't plant his or her crop, and then wonders why nothing has grown! A great saying is that "you only get out - what you put in". Remember, you only get a return on what you plant.

2007-11-12 - Energy for What You are Committed to
You hear people say "I don't have the energy for that". Energy is always a result of commitment, as successful people always have the energy for what he or she has made the commitment to accomplish. When your energy is low, your commitment is low. Focus on your commitment first.

2007-11-13 - Build the Social Skills for Success
The higher you climb in your career, it is always your social skills that enable your success the most. The ability to get in and out of difficult conversations in positive ways can be a big indicator of your success. Continue building your social skills and achieve even greater success.

2007-11-14 - When Urgent Drives Out Important
One of the biggest struggles we all have is to not let all the urgent things take over our lives. When urgent drives out important, we are reacting to everything that hits us versus taking a proactive approach. The way to change this is to plan our time in advance and always allocate time for the important. Remember, the important is what powers our future.

2007-11-15 - Think Big, Start Small
We all need to think big about what we want to accomplish in our lives. However, to get started, we need to start small. Many times people do not break their big ideas into smaller parts in order to see the first actions to take. They often have that big idea, but never move it to action. Remember to think big and start small, as nothing happens unless you take ACTION.

2007-11-16 - Your Biggest Challenge in your Life is You
For each of us, our biggest challenge is ourselves. There is always that inner voice that keeps telling us we can't do something. Our challenge is to quiet that voice inside us and take the action anyway. Once you overcome you, everything is possible.

2007-11-17 - Purpose is the Engine that Powers our Lives
Every successful and fulfilled person has one core thing that they understand extremely well, and that's their purpose for being here. That strong purpose provides the power behind what they do and accomplish in their lives. The more you understand your purpose, the more power it provides. How well do you understand your purpose?

2007-11-18 - Affirmations Married with Discipline and Action
You hear that affirmations are a great way to focus yourself on the changes you want to make and to keep a positive attitude. However, unless you discipline yourself to take actions on those affirmations, you are really only stating a wish. Affirmations need to be married with discipline and action.

2007-11-19 - Focus on Creating versus Competing
Successful business people are great competitors. However, their focus is not on competing, but creating. If they focus on competing, they are more reactive and a follower to others. If they focus on creating, they are more pro-active and become the leader, as they are creating their own strong competitive position. Think creating versus competing.

2007-11-20 - Make Others Feel Important
Everyone has the desire to feel important. As a leader, making your employees feel important and having them understanding their contribution to the organisation's success can be one of the most powerful outcomes to drive. Employees who feel important will rise to face any challenge or problems in their way.

2007-11-21 - Starting Now "I Will"
Many of us use the words "Should" far too often. "Should" does not have a definite feeling to it and often sends a signal to ourselves and others that we won't really do it. Change your "Should" to a "WILL" and you get the feeling of commitment to actually "DO IT".

2007-11-22 - Be What You Want Others to Be
Everyone would have a better attitude and behaviours if they thought of themselves as being the best role models for others. If you want others to be a certain way, first look inside yourself to be that person first. Be what you want others to be.

2007-11-23 - Vision = The Future You Can Create
A great way to look at the word vision is that it is the future you can create. A vision only has power once created, and we don't get the power to create it unless we picture already in place and we are now experiencing the benefits. This makes the vision so clear that we have to now go and create it. Remember, vision = the future you can create.

2007-11-24 - Face your Challenges Versus Avoid Them
We all have challenges in our lives, and the size of these challenges will always be in proportion to the size of the goals we are striving for. We always need to face our challenges, as these are between where we are now and our goals. Avoid the challenges, and we will then be faced in the wrong direction, away from our goals. Face your challenges and stay in the right direction.

2007-11-25 - Getting Interested in Other's Interests
The best way to create friends is to be interested in other's interests. It comes back to the old saying, "People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care." Go first, and show an interest in other's interests.

2007-11-26 - Move from "Objectives" to "Commitments"
Words have meaning, and companies that use the words like "Commitments" versus "Objectives" seem to get more responsibility shown by their people. Objectives has the connotation of "trying to reach it", where commitments brings along the feeling that it "must be done" no matter what. Use the word "commitment" to get more commitment.

2007-11-27 - What Happened to You Versus Who You Are
Too many people in life attach whom they are to what happened to them. People who failed at something think they are failures. People who experienced wealth too fast often think they are superior to others. What happens to you is not who you are. The happiest and most successful people in life stay true to whom they are no matter what happens to them.

2007-11-28 - Planning Makes You Clarify your Thinking
Most people do not invest the time to plan ahead, and end up just reacting to everything as it shows up in their life. Planning ahead enables to you take a proactive versus a reactive approach to life. Also, planning ahead always makes you clarify your thinking, and clarity always helps you drive more focused action.

2007-11-29 - Are You Growing or Milking your Relationships?
Too many people grow their key relationships to a certain point and then start milking those relationships. They stop taking the actions to grow them further, and now are "just using" (milking) others. Set a goal to always be growing your key relationships and no one will be assuming that you are taking them for granted.

2007-11-30 - Target the Solutions to the Problems
Life always has problems, and if you are challenging yourself to try new things, you are probably experiencing more problems than others. Keep your focus on the solutions, and you will always keep a positive approach to problems. Remember, solving problems is the path that leads to even more success.

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