Self Improvement Information

The path to a successful career can lead right through the dump.  When we start our careers of choice, there’s always a learning curve to contend with.  This learning curve can send us right through the dump of doubt, frustration and delays.  Wouldn’t it be amazing to decide what we are going to do, and wake up the next morning and we have arrived at our career destination!  Or does the sense of fulfillment come with the journey?

As Sherlock would say, “it’s immaterial, my dear Watson”.  We all know, it doesn’t happen that way.  There are good times and bad with any career.  Bad times are the reason that our commitment to our career is so important.  But, how can we develop the commitment to stay with our career or job when times get tough?  I think passion is the key.  If we, not only, believe in what we are doing, but if we can locate the passion element in our career choice, it will take us through the troubled times.  As Rumi writes:

“Passion makes the old medicine new:
Passion lops off the bough of weariness.
Passion is the elixir that renews:
How can there be weariness when passion is present?
Oh, don’t sigh heavily from fatigue:
Seek passion, seek passion, seek passion!”

How do we seek this mysterious thing called passion?  We must find what we believe in, or what stirs our juices.  We could call that the “crusade” of our career.  The crusade might be, showing others how to create a better life, or helping animals, or cleaning up the planet, etc.

Leaders learn to recognize the crusade. They find “the something” people can believe in and promoting that cause with passion, moving people to action.  Everyone wants to follow a man or woman who is committed to what they believe in.  People will invest hundreds of hours into volunteer work for a candidate or causes they believe in.  Warriors will give their lives for their cause and country.  Players will win the game for a coach who works them hard and inspire them to believe in themselves.

For a rewarding career, there has to more inspiration than the money you think you can make, or how fast you think you can earn it.  Those are important, but seldom do they inspire us enough to weather the storm, when we are tossed around by the rough seas of our career path.  Much less, serve to fulfill us.

We must ask ourselves, “what in our career is bigger then ourselves?”  “What moves me to action?”  When we locate the crusade in our career we will find our passion.  As leaders, we must have the goal of  finding the  “larger than us” reason for our team to follow us.

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As a leader of people, when we can garner our people’s trust we can create a team of devoted people who will give 110% more to the team.  As Rensis Linkert, the noted psychologist who’s main focus of study was management styles, said, “The greater the loyalty of a group toward the group, the greater is the motivation among the members to achieve the goals of the group, and the greater the probability that the group will achieve its goals.” What creates  team loyalty?

The leader sets the atmosphere and is the glue that binds the team.  If you have ever been a leader of people, you probably know creating loyalty in a team is, sometimes, easier said than done.  Let’s face it.  Some people, no matter what is done are not loyal people.  It’s not their nature.  They are easy to spot.  They blame others for everything wrong in their life.  They bad mouth their spouse or friends.  They don’t have close relationships with too many people.  With these kind of people, I don’t know if there is anything that will inspire their loyalty.

Most people, especially the ones attracted to team activities such as sports, or like to join groups of people, are able to become loyal members of a team.  The leader, often times, has to earn the loyalty of the team.  Even in situations such as corporate jobs, where their is a designated hierarchy and the leader is apparent by their job title, loyalty has to be earned.  Here are three tips to becoming the exceptional leader of a loyal team:

1.  Reputation is everything.  The team will look at how the leader treats others.  They will watch for the ethical treatment of customers, other team members, and family.  When someone joins a team, they are joining the leader.  A team looks up to the leader.  They assume what the leader does is 100% right all the time.  If they perceive anything less, the leaders credibility is lost.

2.  People are looking for a leader they can trust and believe in.  By the time we reach adulthood, we have had many opportunities to be hurt by people we can’t trust or believe in.  By the time we are adults, we have been stabbed in the back a number of times.  It doesn’t only make us leery, it makes us discerning.  People will still look for a trustworthy leader.  If a leader is worthy of trust, people will give their all for that team.  On the flip side of that coin, if a leader proves themselves unworthy of their team’s trust, there isn’t any amount of money or salary that will buy back that trust.  The leader will never get their best effort.

3.  To become a great leader, you must first become a great person.  What do I mean by that?  Our character is what we build our entire lives around.  The foundation of a house are built with strong materials.  A house built upon the sand will not stand.  Our character is much the same.  The characteristics of honesty, integrity, loyalty, and sincerity are the traits of a great person.  If a leaders sacrifices any one of those traits in their business dealings, they will lose the respect of their team.

People are not “born to lead”.  They learn to lead, often times, by following a great leader who embodies the 3 tips above.  Great leaders create great teams, who create great leaders who create great teams.

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Every day, we are presented with a clean sheet to write our life’s experiences upon.  Do you believe that?  In some ways, that is correct.  This day hasn’t been lived before.  We can do with it as we wish.  What does matter, is the decisions we have made in the past.  Each new day has been colored with the crayons of our past decisions.

I watched a movie several years ago called 50 First Dates.  The premise of this movie was that Drew Barrymore’s character had an accident years before that left her with short term memory damage.  Every morning when she woke up she had forgotten the last 10 years of her life.  Life was moving on for her, she continued to draw, she fell in love, she just couldn’t remember any of it the next day.

Why do I bring that movie up?  Each day, our lives move forward.  We continue to go to work, have families, and live our lives.  Unlike Drew Barrymore’s character, we don’t automatically forget what happened yesterday, last week or last year.

Let me propose something to you.  How could someone get to the place in their life where they have lost their sense of proper business ethics and embezzle a million dollars?  They wouldn’t wake up one morning and say, “I think I’ll embezzle some money today.  A million dollars sounds about the right amount.” No, they make little decision all along the way that eroded their honesty and make the theft a logical thing in their mind.  They made the decision years ago to become less than ethical.

Most of us don’t go the route of doing criminal things.  Yet, our success or lack of success has been practiced every day by the habits we decide upon.  Today, I have a great video from John C. Maxwell taking about successful habits.  It is 7 minutes long and I believe you will enjoy it!