| “Change the changeable, accept the unchangeable, and remove yourself from the unacceptable.” – Dennis Waitley
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Posts Tagged ‘business coaching’
Facing life’s challenges…how will you respond?
Monday, November 7th, 2011Wish your life were easier?
Monday, October 31st, 2011| “Never wish that life were easier, wish that you were better.” – Jim Rohn
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The power of goals
Monday, October 24th, 2011| “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea”
– Antoine de Saint-Exupery
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What does your coffee say about you?
Tuesday, October 18th, 2011Last week, I had a speaking engagement at a historic building in downtown Indianapolis.
It is a beautiful building with a lot of space for meetings. However, it’s about 1 mile from the center of downtown and as a result, it doesn’t get much foot traffic.
Regardless, the group I was speaking for took a chance and chose this venue for their largest annual event.
After eating a light lunch, I decided to get a cup of coffee. Unfortunately, it was freezing cold. And no, it wasn’t supposed to be an iced cappuccino.
What’s the big deal? It’s just a cup of coffee right?
Wrong.
In today’s hypercompetitive environment, you have one chance to exceed your customer’s expectations. One chance.
If you blow it, your customer is one Google search away from replacing you with another option.
For your business it might be the way in which you answer the phone, the look and feel of a proposal or how quickly you respond to a question.
Whatever it is, remember that your prospect/customer notices every little detail.
How hot is your coffee?
Life’s Tough
Monday, October 17th, 2011| “Life’s ups and downs provide windows of opportunity to determine your values and goals – Think of using all obstacles as stepping stones to build the life you want” – Marsha Sinetar
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Looking Forward – Light Bulb Moment #1
Wednesday, October 5th, 2011I coach leaders from sunup to sundown Monday through Friday and have been doing it for more than 8 years.
For some reason, this year has been filled with tons of “Light bulb” moments for me. In these moments, I have had some profound breakthroughs that I know to be absolute truths. I am confident that if you internalize these lessons, you will see great results.
It’s almost as if as soon as I hit the 8 year mark Obi Wan Kenobi sent me a text saying, “CJ, the force is strong within you…”
I’ll share some from time to time in this space.
I’ll start with one that hit me especially hard this week. I’ve noticed that some leaders want to focus on what went wrong during the past week, month, year, etc. Conversely, I have others who will briefly learn from their experiences and then go forward.
Guess which leader has more success?
I’ll admit that it’s tempting to replay past events over and over as if this obsession will change the past.
It won’t.
There is zero value in dwelling on your mistakes.
Leave the past in the past.
CJ
What is a leader?
Monday, October 3rd, 2011| “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” – Lao Tzu
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Paradigms
Tuesday, September 13th, 2011We all have a lens through which we see the world. This lens was developed over time and is heavily influenced by our environment. If you grew up in a wealthy upper class neighborhood you fully expect that every kid should have a car when they turn 16, go on multiple vacations year and attend the best college.
On the other hand, if you were raised in a lower class environment you may have never been on an airplane, struggle to find bus fare each day and only know a handful of people who’ve graduated from high school.
The communication problem we all struggle with is that we expect everyone to see life through our paradigm. This is rarely the case. Every time you get into an argument and you ask yourself, “How can they possibly think that way?” you are suffering from this challenge.
The next time you’re preparing for a conversation with a prospect, employee, coworker or your spouse I suggest that you carefully consider their perspective before you formulate your argument.
You can win the argument from your perspective and seem like a complete idiot to the person sitting across the table.
As Dr. Covey points out, “seek first to understand”.
CJ McClanahan is the Founder of reachmore. For more resources on business leadership, please visit reachmore’s seminars.
Blind Spot
Monday, April 25th, 2011Have you ever changed lanes in traffic and been startled by a loud horn from someone that you just cutoff?
Unless you ride the bus to work, this has probably happened to you on multiple occasions.
The problem we all have as drivers is that there is a small area that you can’t see in your rear view mirror called your “blind spot”.
What most people don’t realize is that they also have blind spots in their personal and professional lives.
These are areas where we have (and often have had for a long time) deficiencies we don’t realize.
For example, in my first few years in business I would attend many networking events. Rarely did I meet anyone interesting and often left the event wondering why I had wasted my time.
One evening a good friend and client of mine (Larry) walked up to me and said, “Why don’t you just go home?” When I asked why he suggested I leave, Larry told me that, “Everyone can tell you don’t want to be here. You stand in a corner with this awful look on your face like you are better than everyone else. Do you think people want to talk to someone like that?”
Initially, my feelings were hurt. However, now I was aware that the reason I wasn’t getting good results from networking was because I was a jerk.
I changed my behavior and built my business attending these events.
Where’s your blind spot?
CJ McClanahan is the Founder of reachmore, which teaches small business owners how to build a business that runs without them. For more resources on business leadership, please visit reachmore’s seminars.