Saying No Drives Great Careers

By Dan Coughlin

Great organizations are defined by what they say no to. The same is true for great individual careers.

A great career is one where the individual made the type of contribution he or she believed was the optimal use of his or her talents, passions, and values and generated the types of desired outcomes that he or she wanted. In other words, the person generated both the desired input and output.

Manifesting such a career requires saying yes to a few key opportunities and saying no to a huge number of good, and possibly great, opportunities.

Dedicate Yourself to a Proposition

What’s up with Abraham Lincoln? There have been literally hundreds and hundreds of books written about him. These include the most introductory of children’s books to the most sophisticated of adult books. Why did he have such a memorable career? I think it all comes down to one thing. He dedicated his professional life, his career, to two propositions: “united we stand, and divided we fall” and “all men are created equal.” These two propositions guided his career choices and his decisions within his various jobs. In the end, I think that’s what made his career so successful: he remained committed to two very clear, important propositions.

What is the proposition that you are dedicating your professional life to? This will help you a great deal in deciphering what to do and what not to do in your career.

More than twelve years ago I dedicated my professional life to this proposition: mastering business basics drives better sustainable results. Not quite as catchy or life-changing as Lincoln’s propositions, but it’s been clear enough to help me make decisions on what to do and what not to do.

I then determined that the best contribution I can make toward improving performance in organizations across all industries is to uncover these business basics, these processes for improving results in a sustainable way, and then explain them in a user-friendly manner. In other words, I see myself as a teacher. Not a teacher who has all the answers because there are no set answers in business, but rather a teacher who causes people to focus on understanding and executing the basics of business at a very high level. In choosing to be a teacher, I simultaneously chose not to be a manager or an executive.

Before reading on, take out a sheet of paper. Decide on the proposition that you are willing to dedicate yourself to. Write it down. You may end up rewriting it many times over the months to come. With a clear proposition in hand, you can then decide where to place your time and where not to place your time. Your proposition will help you to choose which roles you will want to fill and which roles you will not want to fill.

Choose Your Opportunity Costs Carefully

My third-grade son, Ben, came home with his folder of papers. One of them said, “Explain the idea of opportunity costs using the example of Pizza Hut.” Ben smiled and said, “That’s easy. I like sausage pizza and I like pepperoni pizza. If I choose the pepperoni pizza my opportunity cost is the sausage pizza.” What a great explanation. He learned something valuable that day from Mrs. Edwards. When you choose something that means you are also choosing not to have something else.

As you go about building a great career always take the time to clarify your opportunity costs, the things you are choosing not to have. If you choose to work as an employee, then you are choosing not to be an entrepreneur. If you choose to be an entrepreneur, you are choosing not to work for someone else. Both choices can be good, but you can’t have both simultaneously.

Fifteen years ago I was considering starting my own business. I was a full-time, tenured teacher at a very well known high school in St. Louis. I wrote down my opportunity costs if I left, which included the following: really wonderful students would no longer just show up for me to teach, I would not have colleagues to bond with between classes or at lunchtime, I would not have a guaranteed paycheck every month or a guaranteed job for life, I would not have three months off in the summer time, and I would not have my curriculum to teach handed to me. To me that was a lot of opportunity costs to give up. Only once I became comfortable with what I was giving up was I able to go out on my own. However, once I left I didn’t go back and try to teach at the high school while trying to run my own business.

I know people who did just the opposite. They were entrepreneurs and chose to teach or to work for someone else. They had considered their own opportunity costs of not running their own businesses and they chose to work inside an organization. My point here is you have to choose what you think is the best route for your career. I’m just encouraging you to step back and clarify what you will do and why you will do it and what you won’t do and why you won’t do it.

You have to choose your opportunity costs as much as, and maybe more than, your opportunities. As you consider your next career move, take out a sheet of paper and write down all the things you are not going to get as a result of going in the direction you are considering to take. Make sure you are comfortable with what you are giving up BEFORE you get comfortable with what you are going after.

The Choices of Charlie Rose

Charlie Rose is my favorite interviewer. I knew who he was, but I didn’t really study him until I recently read an article about him in Fortune magazine. Here it is if you want to read it: http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/25/magazines/fortune/charlie_rose.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2009092811

The proposition that Charlie Rose has dedicated his career to is, “wanting viewers to feel like they were eavesdropping on a conversation each night – fully engaged if not actually participating.” He honed his craft over a number of years until he got the opportunity to do The Charlie Rose Show on PBS Television in 1991.

He had walked away from a well-paying program called Personalities in 1990 because he wanted to do a more serious talk show. He also said no to a full-time anchor slot on Sixty Minutes II in 1996 that would have earned him a great deal more than he makes on his own show on PBS. He turned it down because he felt doing his own show was, as he said, “the chance to find your own reality – for yourself, not for others, what no man can ever know. In the end I have not finished the journey.”

In saying no to a variety of opportunities, Charlie Rose defined who he was and who he wanted to become. He wants to do serious interviews with people on important topics without any pretense whatsoever. And he does it very well. I encourage you to invest a few hours at www.charlierose.com and soak in the lessons that are extracted during a variety of his interviews.

Actively Accept Limitations and Consequences

At some point, and I happen to think this is as good a time as any other, you have to get comfortable with the ideas of limitations and consequences. You can spend your whole life trying to be everything in the world and keep chasing one career dream after another. Or you can say, “I’ve chosen this path for my career. Here is the general path where I believe I can make my greatest contribution.” And then be ok operating within the limitations and consequences of the career you have chosen. Actually, there’s real power in deciding on the limitations you are going to accept. It means you are willing to get seriously focused at work that you have chosen to pursue.

In studying hundreds of really successful people, I’ve noticed that the best of the best stick with their chosen path. What’s Steven Spielberg doing these days? He is still making movies. What’s Oprah doing now that she’s made billions? Still interviewing people to find out what they have to offer her audiences. What’s Steve Jobs up to? He’s working on guiding Apple to make electronic technology incredibly useful for consumers. What is Charlie Rose at the age of 67 doing tonight? He’s interviewing one of the world’s movers and shakers. Now that Bruce Springsteen has turned 60, what’s he doing? Putting on great concerts. What’s my mom doing today at the age of 80? She’s still being a great stay-at-home mom as she has been for the past 54 years and caring for other people.

Be OK with who you are and who you are not. Stop wasting time always wanting to be someone else and always wanting a different career path. To manifest a great career you have to stick to the path of your own choosing, and not feel bad about all the paths you have chosen not to pursue. In reality, the more you consciously say no to alternative paths, the more sincerely you say yes to your life’s work.

About Dan Coughlin
Dan is a student and teacher of practical processes that improve business performance. His purpose is to work with executives and managers so they achieve great performances. He is a business keynote speaker, management consultant, executive coach, and author of three books on management performance, including his newest, The Management 500: A High-Octane Formula for Business Success (AMACOM 2009). Read Chapter One from this new book free of charge. Dan’s clients include Coca-Cola, Abbott, Toyota, Prudential, Shell, Boeing, Marriott, McDonald’s, and the St. Louis Cardinals.

How To Improve Your Job Search – Deliver A Great Performance

By Dan Coughlin

Before you can deliver a great performance, you need to have an opportunity to perform. With at least 15 million Americans out of work, the importance of searching for and gaining a desired type of job may be of importance to you now or in the future or for someone you know. Or you might have a job, but want a different job.

The Definition of a Job
A job is an opportunity to create and deliver value for other people for which you are financially reimbursed. Both parts of that definition are important.

If you create and deliver value but don’t get paid for it, that’s a volunteer activity. I’m a big fan of volunteer activities. I’ve invested a great deal of time over the past fifteen years volunteering as the president of three different associations, teaching Sunday School classes at my church, and coaching youth sports. I’m guessing you have volunteered a great deal of time as well. Volunteer efforts are critically important. First, you might make a great positive impact on other people’s lives. Second, you might sharpen your skills in important areas. Third, you might meet someone who enhances your career. Volunteering is important, but it is not a job.

If a person receives financial reimbursement for an activity that does not create and deliver value for other people, he or she may be surprised when that activity is no longer considered valuable enough to keep around. Be sure that as you are being financially compensated you are also creating and delivering value. During a terrible recession sometimes valuable contributions are eliminated. But even during the best of times organizations will examine the value contribution of every role and decide if they are worth keeping around.

A Job Search is a Microcosm of a Business
Everything that is important in searching for a job is also important in running a successful business. Entrepreneurs naturally understand this because entrepreneurs are always searching for the next job, even though they call it the next “project” or “assignment.”

Every business, small, medium, or large, focuses on preparation, operations, research and development, marketing, branding, selling, innovation, problem solving, finances, legal issues, and building value-added relationships with customers and potential customers. Every one of these items is critically important in searching for a job.

Job Search Action #1: Be prepared.
Be ready for an employer BEFORE the employer is ready for you.

If a person has had a job for twenty years and then suddenly finds himself or herself without a paycheck, it can be a very difficult blow to the person’s self-esteem. The person may not clearly see the value he or she brings to life’s party. Consequently, I think it’s very important for the person to take exceptionally good care of himself or herself.

So my very first suggestion when you’re looking for a job is to physically exercise and get in the best condition you can be in. This is something you are in control of. Rather than working eight hours a day searching for a job, I suggest you carve out ninety minutes a day to warm up properly, exercise, and warm down properly. Even if this means walking around the block one time to get started, do it. As you begin to get in much better physical shape, you will strengthen your self-esteem and remind yourself that you are to a large degree in charge of your destiny.

Also, continually sharpen your mind and your skills. This is where volunteering can help you. Put yourself in situations where you have to execute in the types of areas you want to be hired for. If you want a senior-level executive position, volunteer to be a board member for a local or national organization. If you want a sales manager’s position, volunteer to organize a fundraising effort in your community.

Be prepared for an employer before the employer finds out about you.

Job Search Action #2: Research Before You Search
Before you start searching for a job, research the industry and any targeted companies you would like to work for. Learn everything you can. Talk to customers, go on line and study their websites, know the trends and challenges and opportunities in the industry and the organizations, and know who the most important movers and shakers are in that industry or organization.

Before I speak to an audience I always interview at least a dozen people, study as much information as I can get my hands on about the organization, and usually volunteer to go on site and observe people in their normal workday activities. When the actual job opportunity opens up, you will be infinitely better prepared if you’ve been doing your research all along.

Job Search Action #3: Clarify Your Value
Businesses sell products and services. You are selling yourself. You are the product and service that you are selling. Your product consists of your values, strengths, passions, knowledge, skills, and experience. Take out a sheet of paper. Under each of those headlines describe what you bring to a potential employer. Then think of an example that supports why you feel you bring that characteristic. Invest sixty minutes in this exercise. Pretty soon you’ll see that some employer is going to be very fortunate to hire you.

Job Search Action #4: Use a Comprehensive Marketing Program
When I speak to entrepreneurs and salespeople I often explain how some of my biggest business opportunities came from people I never would have expected to help me. I just didn’t know who was going to open a door for me or how big the room was going to be. And neither do you. Never write off the possibility that someone you don’t expect to ever help you might turn out to be the most important person in your career.

I used to be a high school teacher. I wanted to be a management consultant and business speaker. That was thirteen years ago. I taught freshmen algebra. The father of a sophomore whom I had taught the year before worked for McDonald’s Corporation. We connected on a very small school event. A year later he invited me to speak to a group of department heads at McDonald’s. That one speech led to me serving as an executive coach for more than 60 people at McDonald’s and to more than five hundred presentations to executives and managers at a wide range of organizations in over thirty industries.

Think of yourself as a business. Now think of all the ways this business can market what it has to sell to prospective buyers. When it comes to a job search you only need one perspective buyer to actually buy/”hire you.” The key is you may need to attract a mountain of opportunities in order to land one that you are really excited about.

Take out several sheets of paper. Start writing down every single person you know. Really challenge yourself to think of people who might know you. Write their names down. Let these individuals know specifically what type of job you want and what type of organization you want to work for. Remember: clarity is powerful, vagueness is not. You are trying to stir up a wide range of people who can recommend you to a potential employer. If they don’t specifically know what you want, what are the odds they are going to be successful in recommending you?

Go on the internet and be creative. Put in search words for the type of industry, organization, or job that you want. See what you come up with. Keep searching on-line to see if you can find a key person to contact. Intelligently use Facebook and Twitter to reach out to people to see if you can uncover opportunities for the type of job you want and the type of company you want to work for.

Attend meetings at organizations that help people find out about jobs. I’ve spoken at these organizations many times, and I’m always impressed by the quality of folks who attend their meetings. You never know who might know someone that you need to know. Don’t think of a job search as an embarrassing activity. Think of yourself as the CEO of a major company and you are letting the marketplace know about a great new product/service that will be of tremendous benefit to some customer/employer. Be proud of your job search and of what you have to offer. You are like a professional baseball player who just became a free agent. Be selective in whom you decide to play for. And make sure the financial compensation is what you consider to be fair and appropriate. If you go to work every day feeling that you are being taken advantage of, you may very well further hurt your self-esteem.

Job Search Action #5: Establish Your Desired Brand
A brand is the value customers think they get when they buy from a particular organization or prospective customers think they would get if they did buy from that organization. Companies don’t own the brand. The brand exists in the minds of their customers and prospective customers.

You have a brand as well. When potential employers think of you what is the value they think they would be receiving if they hire you? Do they think you are the best at resolving difficult obstacles, a master at negotiating complex contracts, or an expert at explaining in-depth technical information in ways that ordinary people can understand it?

Just as customers and potential customers rank products in their mind for a given category, potential employers rank candidates in their mind for a given position inside their organizations. What can you do to enhance your ranking in the minds of employers for the positions you want to be considered for? This is no simple assignment. It requires thought.

Job Search Action #6: Close the Deal and Sign the Contract
Searching for a job is not a job. A job is when you receive an opportunity to create and deliver value for other people for which you are financially compensated. You don’t have a job until you close the deal. That is, stay focused until you have worked out the details of what you are agreeing to do and the way in which you will be financially compensated. Then sign that contract or shake that hand, and get started on the job.

Instead of thinking of a job search as a once-a-decade activity, think of it as part of your professional life. Whether you have a job right now or not isn’t the point. The point is I encourage you to always sharpen your ability to search for a job. It’s really like running your own business, with you serving as head of research and development, marketing, and sales. Get yourself ready and go after the marketplace. It’s an exciting and challenging adventure, and it will bring out the best in you.

(Note: If you want the MP3 recording of this article, please send an e-mail to dan@thecoughlincompany.comwith “Job Search Article” in the subject heading.)

About Dan Coughlin
Dan is a student and teacher of practical processes that improve business performance. His purpose is to work with executives and managers so they achieve great performances. He is a business keynote speaker, management consultant, executive coach, and author of three books on management performance, including his newest, The Management 500: A High-Octane Formula for Business Success (AMACOM 2009). Read Chapter One from this new book free of charge. Dan’s clients include Coca-Cola, Abbott, Toyota, Prudential, Shell, Boeing, Marriott, McDonald’s, and the St. Louis Cardinals.

38 Tools To Listen To The Social Media Buzz

Sebastian Barros, at Penn Olson, has put together a nice list of 38 free tools for monitoring social media. Evaluating return on investment (ROI) or, for social media enthusiasts, return on engagement (ROE) is a must! Seeing results is often challenging for many that want to get a handle on what is happening related to their online brand.

Check out Sebastian’s article and be sure to visit the links to the resources listed. I think you’ll find some that will definitely need to be added to your tool box.

If this was helpful, let me know by commenting below. Enjoy!

Are You A Dreamer?

Do you feel misunderstood?

Do you have trouble remembering details and instructions?

Do you love positive feedback, yet not desire to conform to the cultural mold of expectations?

You are not alone.

Lately, I have been doing reading about cognitive styles. Primarily, there is plenty of information about strong-willed children/adults and High-D personalities as well as compliant children/adults. Yet, there is little information out about “Dreamers.”

Dr. Dana Spears and Dr. Ron Braund have a very interesting book on Dreamers, the passionate-creative-culture-changers of the world. Join me soon for a more in depth look at this type of individual and see if you are a mold breaker.

Kindle’s For Kids

By E. Brown

How many of you have kids in school? How many of you have kids carrying HUGE backpacks to school? How many of you are paying doctor bills for your child’s back problems because of lugging around heavy books? Even the packs with wheels are a pain – literally. Ever seen a child try to roll one over a curb on his way to school? Not a pretty sight.

Here’s an idea for Amazon — why not work with the National Education Association, State Departments of Education, or the U.S. Department of Education and give K-12 school kids Kindles with all these “heavy books” loaded into them? The schools own the Kindle’s and when the child graduates, he or she will certainly want to have one of their own. Did someone say, next generation adopters/consumers?

I’ll bet, once parents see the Kindle up close and in action, they will want to buy one for themselves. Talk about market share and saturation. I hear the distant sounds of Ka-ching!

Let me see, off the top of my head here are some ways this could be of benefit:

1. Less paper consumed
2. Less trees cut
3. Easier to update published content
4. Less trash from out-dated school books
5. Lighter pack backs
6. Less stress on children’s backs and bodies
7. Lower family medical bills
8. RSS feeds to teacher assignments
9. Bookmarks to teacher blogs
10. Exposure to Kindle eReaders
11. Create raving fans

I am sure the list could go on. Also, if you’re an Amazon employee, this is another opportunity for you to help out your local community. School administrators will thank you and parents will love you.

If you think this is a worthwhile idea, let Jeff Bezos know. Send him a quick email and let’s see what happens.

Feel free to comment here as well and let me know your thoughts or if there is anything missing on the list of benefits. If you do not see an upside to this idea, let me know that too.

The Economics Of Social Media

This provocative clip gives you some data to chew on if you are wondering about the ROE and ROI of Social Media. Thanks Socialnomics – Social Media Blog.

Visualizing Your Next Job

By Dan Coughlin

I’ve learned that writing a book is an exhilarating experience. Essentially an author is handed 250 blank canvasses and is allowed to create whatever he or she wants. However, the canvasses do have to fit under a certain theme and the chapters, while being able to stand alone in terms of their uniqueness and contribution, have to connect to one another in some meaningful way.

Your career is like a book where you fill in the blank canvasses.

Writing a book requires a person to both step back and visualize how the chapters fit together and step forward to the keyboard and fill in the words. To build a great career you need to step back and visualize how the various jobs you take on fit together in a meaningful way and step forward to each job and execute your responsibilities masterfully. This article is about stepping back and visualizing how your next job will fit meaningfully within your overall career.

Move within Your Purpose, Passions, Strengths, and Values

You have roughly 1,000 different things you can do as your next job. As a starting point to narrow your job search, I suggest that any job you take on should fit within your purpose, passions, strengths, and values. Take out a sheet of paper and answer these four questions:

1. What is the purpose I want guiding my career?
2. What gets me excited when I do it?
3. What am I good at doing?
4. What beliefs determine my behaviors?

After you answer these questions you’re in a much better position to select your next job. Some people might argue that during a tough recession all of those things should be put on the back burner and that making money should be the driving force. In other words, the only question that should be answered is, “How much does the job pay?”

I don’t think that is a good idea. If you take a job just for the money and you find no purpose in your work, you have no passion for doing it, you are not particularly good at it, and the work does not match your values, then you are destined to fail. So how worthwhile will that good paycheck be then?

Put in place the four critical career screens of purpose, passion, strengths, and values first, and then begin to consider various career moves that fit within them.

Career Move #1: Same Organization, Expanded Responsibilities

The grass is not always greener at the next organization. And if you keep chasing greener grass eventually you will run out of grass to chase. Sometimes the very best career move for you is to stay within your organization.

Two organizations I worked with for over a decade as a consultant are McDonald’s Corporation and Marriott International. I admired these two companies long before I worked with their executives and managers, but in being side by side with these individuals I learned one of their most important keys to success: they provide opportunities for people to expand their responsibilities. At McDonald’s USA, many of their top executives started working in a single restaurant. Then the person became in charge of the restaurant, then oversaw four restaurants, then 16 restaurants, then 500 restaurants, and ultimately all 13,000 restaurants. And with each expansion of responsibilities the person’s breadth and depth of leadership and management skills grew and grew. The same pattern is true within Marriott. I’ve seen a bellman become general manager of major Marriott hotels.

Is there a possibility that you can expand your responsibilities within your organization as your next career move?

Career Move #2: Same Organization, Different Responsibilities

I have a good friend who received her degree in Economics from Northwestern University. She started her career in finance at a large national company. After a few years, her boss offered her a brilliant piece of advice: learn different parts of the business and it may help you later in your career. So she went on to take jobs in marketing, sales, and operations. Today she is the Chief Global Marketing Officer of a massive company that spans countries around the world, and she never had to change employers.

If you’ve become a great performer within a particular function in your organization, then your next best move might be to leave that function and dive into a different one. If you know operations, apply for a job in human resources or marketing or sales or business research. What makes Roger Federer such a great tennis player is his mastery of all of the different aspects of the game. Master the different aspects of your organization and make yourself dramatically more valuable.

What function within your organization could you step into to expand your skill set?

Career Move #3: Same Industry, Different Organization

Sometimes you just need to refresh your perspective, opportunities, and relationships. A lateral move to a different company in your same industry may be just the ticket to reignite your career. Like a professional baseball player who finds new levels of success with a different team, you may find that people view you differently when you walk through a different door.

A friend of mine went from a sales manager position at Procter & Gamble, which was his first employer out of college, to a sales manager position at Brach’s Candy. He was still in the consumer goods retail industry, but he was seen in a new light. Instead of bosses seeing him as the 21-year-old college grad with no experience, he became seen as a fast-rising 25-year-old with experience at one of the world’s greatest companies. Suddenly he was given opportunities that he never would have received as quickly at P&G.

Assess your situation. Are you being perceived by your boss and peers in ways that are keeping you from receiving meaningful new opportunities? Is it them or is it you that is keeping you from advancing in the organization? That’s a tough call to make, but it’s a crossroads we almost all face at some point.

Can you leverage your industry knowledge into a new job that may lead to an even brighter future for your career?

Career Move #4: Same Skills, Different Industry

This is the move that opens up your career chessboard considerably. It is where some careers accelerate to new heights and where others crash and burn. Leaving an industry is fraught with challenges. For one you’re leaving your contacts and relationships and reputation behind you. The personal brand you’ve built for yourself is no longer going to win you new opportunities. You have to start over and build a new brand one for yourself. If you’ve been a star performer, this can be a daunting mental challenge to overcome. You also are leaving behind all of the industry knowledge you’ve developed that allowed you to resolve issues quickly and move forward effectively.

However, if you move forward with your enhanced experiences, maturity, sense of purpose, passions, strengths, and values, you may very well build a far stronger brand in the new industry. This is certainly a viable option if you want to create a variety of new opportunities for your career. My friend went from Brach’s Candy to a tremendous opportunity in the medical device industry because he was willing to let go of one industry and step into the challenges of another industry.

Career Move #5: Turn a Dead End into an Eight-Lane Superhighway

Considering the incredibly high percentage of layoffs among white-collar workers over the past 12 months, this next career move might apply to you now or in the near future. Managers and knowledge workers in virtually every industry have lost jobs in huge numbers, and the end may not be in sight yet.

Rather than seeing the end of one job as the end of your career, I encourage you to see it as a valuable time to step back and rethink the future of your career. Go back to the four questions at the beginning of this article and really clarify the purpose you want to fulfill in your work, the things you are most passionate about, the strengths you bring to the table, and the values you absolutely, positively want guiding your life and your work.

Invariably it was the forced stops in the game that caused some of the world’s greatest performers to step back, rethink their next move, and come back with renewed focus that made them vastly more successful in their new job than in their previous ones. In 1981, at the age of 39, Michael Bloomberg was fired at Salomon Brothers. He went on to build Innovative Market Systems (later named Bloomberg L.P.) that today is worth $16 Billion. In addition, he has been Mayor of New York City since 2001. None of this may have happened if he had not been forced to deal with a dead end.

If your career has suddenly run into a dramatic dead end, I encourage you to step back and start over. Go back to the original questions concerning your purpose, passions, strengths, and values. Then go through each of the career move options discussed in this article, and visualize what your next job might look like.

Do you want to seek a different position in your company, possibly in a different function?

Do you want to seek a job at a different company in your industry where you can leverage your industry knowledge?

Do you want to seek a job at a company outside of your industry where you can leverage your passions and strengths while still operating within your purpose and values?

Or do you want to start your own business where you can create an organization that reflects your purpose, passions, strengths, and values?

In his autobiography, The Other Side of Me (Warner Books 2005), Sidney Sheldon, whose books sold more than 300 million copies, told a powerful story. He wrote that in 1934 when he was 17 he tried to commit suicide because there didn’t seem to be any opportunities for him. His father found him at the last second and after a little warm-up conversation said,

“Sidney, you told me that you wanted to be a writer more than anything in the world. You don’t know what can happen tomorrow. Life is like a novel, isn’t it? It’s filled with suspense. You have no idea what’s going to happen until you turn the page. Every day is a different page, Sidney, and they can be full of surprises. You’ll never know what’s next until you turn the page. If you really want to commit suicide, Sidney, I understand. But I’d hate to see you close the book too soon and miss all the excitement that could happen to you on the next page – the page you’re going to write.”

Sheldon didn’t commit suicide. Instead he went on to become a prolific writer of stories in Hollywood, on Broadway, and in his 18 novels.

Your career consists of a series of chapters. Choose each job carefully, execute your responsibilities as well as you can, and take time to step back and visualize your next chapter.

About Dan Coughlin

Visit Dan at www.thecoughlincompany.com. Dan is a student and teacher of practical processes that improve business performance. His purpose is to work with executives and managers so they achieve great performances. He is a business keynote speaker, management consultant, executive coach, and author of three books, including his newest, The Management 500: A High-Octane Formula for Business Success (AMACOM 2009).

Humorous Word-Play To Start Your Day

Got this from my friend Chris, this morning. Enjoy the play on words.

1. The roundest knight at King Arthur’s round table was Sir Cumference .  He acquired his size from too much pi.
2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian
3. She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still.
4. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption.
5. The butcher backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.
6. No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery.
7. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.
8. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.
9. Two silk worms had a race.  They ended up in a tie.
10. Time flies like an arrow.  Fruit flies like a banana.
11. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall.  The police are looking into it.
12. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
13. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway.  One hat said to the other, “You stay here; I’ll go on a head.”
14. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger.  Then it hit me.
15. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: “Keep off the Grass.”
16. A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital.  When his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, “No change yet.”
17. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
18. The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.
19. The man who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.
20. A backward poet writes inverse.
21. In democracy it’s your vote that counts.  In feudalism it’s your count that votes.
22. When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.
23. Don’t join dangerous cults: Practice safe sects!

Be Sure To Leave A Lasting Impression

By Roy Williams (The Wizard of Ads)

What will be your customer’s memory of you?

“It [the Cheshire Cat] vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.” – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

I never ask the graduates of Wizard Academy, “What could we have done differently? How might we improve?” To do so would be to ask them to search their memories for disappointing moments. These are not the images I want to cement in their minds.

Instead, I ask, “What was your favorite moment during your time with us?” This causes the students to recall each of the high-impact moments during of their time on campus and relive those moments in their mind. It doesn’t matter what they choose as their favorite, I just want to flood their minds with happy memories.

The grin will remain after the rest of it is gone.

It is important to control the Last Mental Image (LMI.) What procedures do you employ to make sure your customer has a positive LMI of their experience with you? Comment below.

Related Link
- Monday Morning Memo

Social Media Summit Day 2 – Take Aways

By E. Brown

Day 2 is down but not out. In today’s line up was Mari Smith, Jason Alba, and Ann Handley. Mari covered the in’s and out’s of using Facebook for business while Jason revealed the power and reach of using LinkedIn. Finally, Ann ended the day with her Top 5 reasons to be on Twitter and listed some of the tools she uses.

My take aways from the today’s Summit are listed below. I have broken then down by Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Facebook
Create a loyal following by:

1. Optimizing your profile
2. Choosing your core message
3. Creating a fan page
4. Adding “friends” strategically
5. Thinking about relationships first
6. Creating viral visibility
7. Running tests with social ads
8. Adding Facebook to your overall marketing strategy

Also, use Friendfeed.com as another means to networking and creating community. You can pull your Twitter tweeps, Facebook friends, and Google contacts in as well.

LinkedIn

• Create a comprehensive and complimentary Social Strategy for your organization
• Tie your Twitter tweets to your LinkedIn status updates
• Use keyword phrases in your profile summary
• Export your LinkedIn contacts to a personal database for backup and mining
• Use the Slideshare app for displaying presentations
• 2-Minute Per Week Strategy = accepting/rejecting connections and asking/answering questions

Twitter
Why use Twitter? Here are several reasons:

• Create a strong community of followers
• Use it to provide Customer Service
• Stronger brand awareness
• Networking
• Monitoring the online community conversation in regard to your organization

Tools to use:
- search.twitter.com
- backtweets.com
- bit.ly
- Tweetie (iPhone app)

Related Links
- Social Media Summit Day 1
- Social Media Summit Day 2

Social Media Success Summit ‘09 – Keynote Take Aways

By E. Brown

Last nights keynote at SMSS09 with Gary Vee (Vaynerchuk) was high energy. The attendees especially liked the Q&A session afterward. Nothing like free business coaching.

Gary spoke for about 45 minutes (too short) but could have gone on for another 45 easily. The tweets were flying throughout the entire session. My take aways from the evening were:

• Use search.twitter.com or you’re making a BIG mistake
• Facebook Fan pages are far more important than Twitter as an “outpost”
• Look into and start using Tumblr
• Live-Streaming has  a huge fan base – leverage it
• Take ownership of your online brand
• Always have an affirmative call-to-action on your “homebase” (e.g. blog, homepage, etc.)
• Capture your visitors
• Work hard, but be sure to spend time with your family
• Enjoy what you are doing — be passionate about it

I am looking forward to the next group of sessions regarding LinkedIn and Facebook. I’ll keep you updated.

Have fun!

Related Links
- Gary Vaynerchuk
- Tumblr
- Social Media Success Summit
- TweetChat
- Social Media Summit Day 2

iPhone Tips and Tricks

By E. Brown

Okay, I admit it, I have become an iPhone fan-boy. I wasn’t always this way (see You May Not Want An iPhone, and Your Virtual iPhone). I have used Palm OS,Windows CE, and Blackberry phones yet the sheer expandability of the iPhone blows the others away. And, iPhone OS 3.0 is yet to come. I cannot wait.

However, there are still lots of little tips and tricks to be learned no matter how long you have had an iPhone. With this in mind, I borrowed a friends book the other day, The iPhone Book, by Scott Kelby and Terry White. Even though I have had my iPhone for several months now, there are still some nice little tips and tricks I am learning and thought I’d share – so here it goes (all credit goes to Scott and Terry, of course).

Address Book Search
I used to have a Blackberry and before that a Palm phone. One of the thing I liked was the ability to quickly find contacts in your address book. If you’re like me finding one contact amongst 2,400+ can be daunting if you have to scroll through many of them. While the iPhone does have an A-Z sorter and search field, a new trick I learned was using initials. Simply enter into the Search field the first initial of your contact then a space followed by the first couple letters of the contacts last name and – bingo – you have your contact pop up. 

For example, if you are trying to pull up the contact information for Joseph Mahma you type “j mah” and Joseph’s contact info will pop to the top. Try it. 

Erasing Email
I know this may seem easy at first, all you need to do is tap the Edit button when looking over your list of incoming emails, right? But what if you’re scanning through emails during a break in a meeting and want to erase those one or two spam messages? Just scrub your finger across across the message and a Delete button will appear. Tap Delete and the unwanted email goes away. Nice. 

WiFi  Finder
My first reaction was to go to the App Store and grab a free application for finding WiFi in my surrounding area. Did, you know the iPhone can do that out of the box using the built in Maps application? Simply type in “wifi, [city name], [state]” and you’re off and running.

Convert Home Movies In iTunes
Did you know you could convert your very own movies for the iPod and iPhone? I didn’t. All you need to do is add your movie to iTunes and then choose “Create iPhone (or iPod) version” from the Advanced Menu. Yes, it is that simple. Isn’t that cool?

Control Music Playback From Other Apps
Here’s another trick that I was not aware of.  If you’re playing music you can switch to another application and continue to listen to your music. But, what if you wan to control the music? Do you have to go back to the iPod app? No! Simply double click the Home button. This will bring up your iPod controls. Make whatever adjustments you want and then tap the Close button. That’s it. Oh, and if all you want to do is adjust the volume, don’t worry about the iPod controls…you know what to do — use the volume buttons on the side of your iPhone. 

iPhone Sleep Machine
Do you have trouble sleeping at night? You can use the Timer feature to help you drift off to sleep  while listening to your favorite tunes. First go to the iPod app and choose the album or playlist you want to listen to as you go to sleep. Next, press the Home button, go to the Clock app, and tap Timer. Here you can set the minutes or hours you want your music to play. Finally, tap When Timer Ends and choose Sleep iPod from the top of the list. Tap Set and you are done. The neat thing that Apple built in is that the music will fade as it shuts down. Nighty-night.

Play Movies Through The iPhone On Your TV
OK, maybe I’m slow here, but I  never thought about the ability to play back movies and TV shows from my iPhone…and  in widescreen too! You will need to make sure you have either Apple Component or Composite AV Cables depending on your television connections. Next tap the Settings then tap iPod from the list. At the bottom of the screen is an option for TV Out. You can choose Widescreen (if you have a TV that supports that format) and/or the TV Signal NTSC or PAL (depending on what country you are in). Navigate back to your Home screen and then choose your iPod and select a movie or television show to start playing. By the way, make sure your TV is turned on and tuned to a proper channel for the cable inputs. Enjoy!

Quick Typing Email Addresses
Find yourself emailing a lot with your iPhone? Ever get frustrated about entering all those new addresses? Did you know you can speed up the process with a simple little trick? When you are in Mail on your iPhone and typing in an address you can see the period button. Did you know if you tap and hold down on it there will be displayed .com, .net, .org, and .edu? No more having to type that suffix.

Custom Ringtones
If you own a copy of GarageBand, creating a custom ringtone for your iPhone is nothing new to you. Create a 30 second diddy and make sure it is set to loop. Next, choose Send Ringtone to iTunes from the Send menu. From iTunes you can sync the ringtone with your iPhone. 

There is another little app I recently discovered, from Rogue Amoeba, called MakeiPhoneRingtone. For this free little application, all you need is 40 second .aiff files. Simply drag and drop them onto the app and your custom ringtone is placed within iTunes ready for you to sync. I found that by opening mp3 music files in QuickTime, I could trim them to the section of the song I liked and then Export it as a mp4. I could then drag the file onto MakeiPhoneRingtone and — tadaa! — instant ringtone. 

Back To Top
This may be a familiar link you have seen on some long Web pages, but did you know this feature is part of the iPhone as well? In many of the applications all you need to do is double tap the top of the screen and it will bring you back to the top. This is very handy for me since I have several thousand contacts in my address book. I can easily pop back to the top and use the Search field if needed. 

Spammers Beware
Have you ever been in an email on your iPhone and seen a link in the body of the text? Ever wonder where it goes? No more worries. Just tap on the link and hold your finger there while the Web address pops up for you to see. If you do not want to launch Safari, drag your finger off the link and you will not open your browser.

Formatted For iPhone
Many Web sites are not formatted for mobile display, yet many other Web sites are. Is your favorite site optimized for the iPhone? Type the word “mobile” or “m” in front of an address and see what you get. For instance, www.usatoday.com would be mobile.usatoday.com -or- m.usatoday.com. Now, you try it.

 ICE Nice
If you have not placed ICE (In Case of Emergency) on your mobile phone, what are you waiting for? We saw a friend today at lunch who did not know what ICE stood for and why it was important to add to your address list. It is always nice ti have quick access to an emergency contact. A nice free app from the iTunes App Store is Close Call. By installing this you can create a custom wallpaper for your iPhone with an emergency contact number. 

iPhone Screen Shots
Apple built in the ability to take screen shots of your iPhone screen. Just press and hold the Home button, then press the Sleep/Wake button on top of your phone. The screen flashes and saves a copy of the image to your Camera Roll.

Watcha Got?
These are just a few of the tips and tricks I found useful. How about you? What have you found out to be helpful? Share your tips and tricks here for our readers.

Kindle App On iPhone Misses, But Just Barely

By E. Brown

I installed the Kindle app for the iPhone right after it came out (thanks Ryan Block for the heads up). I then found a free book that I downloaded and was able to play with. Listed below are my first impressions. What are yours?

Likes:

• Text sizing
• Bookmarking
• Page turning
• Page scrubbing (page location)
• Sync with Kindle books

Dislikes:

• Cannot annotate
• Page will not rotate when I turn iPhone on side
• Cannot download books directly from Kindle app (like Stanza)

So, what about you? Comment now…

Stop “Some Day” Syndrome

Good tips from WikiHow

Everyone suffers from Someday Syndrome at some point in their lives, often catching it repeatedly. You probably have something similar going on in your life – a project, a task, a goal – that you just haven’t got around to doing yet. Right? It would be easy to quote Nike and say: Just Do It, but if it were that simple Someday Syndrome wouldn’t exist. Here are some key ways to cure Someday Syndrome so that you don’t need to suffer through a cure.

• Be you.
• Clear out the junk.
• Know what you want.
• Make a grand plan.
• Take one step at a time.
• Ignore the rest.
• Get help.
• Don’t compare.
• Be uncomfortable.
• Celebrate the process as well as the end.
• Don’t stop at the easy point.

Quotable Quotes – On Youth

Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.
- J.K. Rowling

The old repeat themselves and the young have nothing to say. The boredom is mutual.
- Jacques Bainville

Not everyone grows to be old, but everyone has been younger than he is now.
- Evelyn Waugh

In youth we run into difficulties. In old age difficulties run into us.
- Beverly Sills

Why Do You Use Twitter?

You may remember when I first started writing about Twitter and then when I started using it. I have found it fun and interesting using the micro-blog format. It is certainly faster than writing a 200-250 word blog article.

So how about you? Why do you Twitter? Do you like to keep up with friends and family? Do you view it as a “game” wanting to see how many followers you can gain? Do you use it as a form of self-expression or do you think of it as a way of developing community?

Let me know here in the comment section below. Enjoy!

Related Articles
- Jeffrey Veen Taps Into eLearning Via Twitter
- Blogging Is Dead, Long Live Twitter!
- Twitter Is For The ADD Generation – Part 1
- Twitter Is For The ADD Generation – Part 2
- Twitter For The ADD Generation – Response
- Now, Some Possible Value In Using Twitter

Strengthen Your Mantle for Greatness

By Dan Coughlin

Assume success.

Assume that all of your hard work over all these years has suddenly paid off in the form of you achieving what you’ve always wanted. You now have the income, title, responsibilities, authority, scope of influence, skills, reputation, clients, and flow of opportunities that you’ve always dreamed of having.

Now the real work begins.

It is far harder to handle success successfully than it is to persevere through tough times. Are you really ready to demonstrate long-term greatness if great success suddenly comes your way?

A Brief History of Being Good with Bad Times and Bad with Good Times

Over the past one hundred years, Americans have demonstrated they are very good at dealing with bad times and very bad at dealing with good times.

During the U.S. involvement in World War I (1915-1918) Americans pulled together and demonstrated extraordinary levels of sacrifice, commitment, and teamwork to pull through the country’s worst catastrophe since the Civil War. This was followed by the Roaring 20s when many Americans thought they had discovered the secret to wealth in the stock market and danced their hearts away.

That was followed by the Great Depression and World War II, a time once again marked by long-term sacrifice, focus, commitment, and teamwork. In the relatively affluent 50s, American companies flourished and Americans bought toasters, washing machines, televisions, cars, and refrigerators like they were going out of style, which they often did. This was followed by the tumultuous late 60s and the economic recession throughout much of the 70s.

The materialism and economic growth of the 80s were followed by the recession of the early 90s. The wild prosperity fueled by the dot com craze of the late 90s was followed by the dot com bubble burst in March 2000 and the ensuing recession that marked those years. U.S. citizens bonded together after the terrorist attack of September 11th 2001 in ways many people had never seen before. The rise in home prices and the stock market in 2003-2006 were followed by the prolonged recession from December 2007 through today. Once again Americans are becoming good at sacrifice, commitment, and teamwork.

But why are we so bad at handling good times in ways that could allow us to continually improve our results? Why are we so often are own worst enemy when we are in the best position to generate long-term sustainable success? And what lessons can be learned from history that an individual can apply in his or her own career to sustain greatness when success finally arrives?

Lesson #1: Remember there ain’t no free lunch, no silver bullets, and no secret fountains of money.

During good times, Americans have consistently thought they had it all figured out. Somehow we forget that we’ve had short-term success in the past that didn’t work out very well.

In the mid-1920s, mid-1980s, late 1990s, and mid-2000s, many Americans thought buying stocks would automatically move them up the economic ladder. The greatest piece of business advice I’ve ever learned is “there ain’t no free lunch.” In the late 1890s people thought finding gold was the key and in the late 1990s people thought buying dot-com “gold” was the answer. Don’t ever assume that a stock purchase, a good relationship with your boss, a degree from the “right” university, or employment at a “great” company will ensure your long-term greatness. It won’t. The stock market collapses in 1929, 1987, 2000, and 2008 have shown what goes up doesn’t necessarily always continue to go up.

Based on the amazing sales of American manufactured products and the extraordinary rise in the standard of living for Americans in the 1950s, many people thought that U.S. managers had discovered a silver bullet and would continue to generate incredible economic growth forever. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened. Many key U.S. executives in the 1960s focused more on profits than on constantly improving the quality and safety of what their companies were producing and they made their companies and industries vulnerable to attacks from a host of other companies.

They quickly learned through the painful 70s that customers don’t care about their profits. They also learned that customers do care about quality, safety, and value. Many executives in the financial industry from 2003-2007 thought they had figured out a way to turn bad loans into great products until one day they found out that wasn’t a secret fountain of money either.

When your great day of success shows up, don’t waste any energy thinking you have it all figured out. Keep striving to get better. Success just means you have a better foundation to work off of for the future. It doesn’t mean you have a guaranteed incredible future.

Lesson #2: Great performance creates great value, and poor performance ruins it.

Jason Jennings has written a tremendous new book called, Hit The Ground Running: A Manual for New Leaders (Portfolio 2009). I’ve decided to rename the subtitle: A Manual for Leaders Who Aspire for Greatness because I believe any executive or manager in any for-profit or not-for-profit organization would benefit tremendously from this remarkably powerful book.

Jason Jennings is the rare person who has the energy to climb the massive mountain of research necessary to really understand an issue and the patience to climb down the mountain and explain what he has learned in practical ways that people can actually use. He and his research team took the 1,000 largest publicly-owned U.S. companies and searched for the best performers from 2001-2007. He wanted the whole focus to be on performance that occurred in the 21st century. Through a series of extraordinarily stringent filters, he narrowed his list to the nine best-performing American companies in this century. He then personally interviewed the ten CEOs (one company has co-CEOs) of these companies. What he found re-energized me. These ten CEOs did, and did not do, some very unusual things.

They were clearly anti-fancy. When they inherited large personal offices, they got rid of the fancy furniture, brought in conference tables and whiteboards, and created working functional spaces for themselves and their team members. One took out his private bathroom and asked why in the world he would need his own bathroom.

They were anti-buzzwords. None of them talked about six-month strategic development processes, stated lofty and complicated visions, spent insane amounts of money for big-name consulting firms to tell them what to do, or hung posters with catchy themes at every one of their business locations.

They talked with employees, board members, managers, and past CEOs. These high-performing CEOs are very down-to-earth individuals. Consistently, they said they didn’t have all the answers and wanted to get to know and learn from as many people connected with their organizations as they could. They were not acting like the proverbial superhero action figures ready to save people from peril. They were genuine individuals who simply wanted to learn anything they could to help their companies succeed in the short and long term.

They clarified a destination and practical steps to achieve that destination in a reasonable time frame. They simply refused to get caught up in making wild predictions to drive their stock price higher. They were maniacal about establishing practical plans and continually monitoring progress to make sure those plans were on track. They remained flexible in making adjustments to hit their desired destination. They kept their businesses as simple as they possibly could in order to optimize efficiency and productivity.

The single biggest takeaway for me from the very best CEOs and their companies is that they maintained a singular focus on improving the performance they felt would benefit their customers the most in terms of creating real value for them.

If you want to be able to strengthen your mantle for greatness, the absolute key is to always improve your performance, which is the actual creation of value that other people will want to use and will benefit from in a meaningful way. If you develop the ability to always do exactly that in good economic and bad economic times, you will be able to handle success and maintain the capacity for greatness over the long term.

Lesson #3: Avoid the “So what are you up to lately?” dilemma.

I think this is the most subtle and pervasive problem in the history of U.S. economics. No matter how successful a company or an individual becomes, the first question asked of him or her by friends and family is, “So what are you up to lately?” In other words, “What have you achieved lately, what is your salary, what new homes are you buying, what vacation homes are you building, and where is the next fancy resort you’re going to visit?” The problem isn’t with the question or the questioners. The problem is the distraction that individuals allow it to create.

This obsession with more, more, more, bigger, bigger, bigger, and faster, faster, faster throws out of whack the steady, plain, simple, consistent, and boring process of creating greater value that customers will want to purchase at reasonable fees that will generate long-term growth. This is not a modern phenomenon. At least since the 1920s, and then repeated at least every couple of decades, Americans have become maniacal about taking some short-term success and wanting to convert it immediately into much greater success. Whatever happened to the tortoise beating the hare?

I encourage you to improve, create greater value, achieve some success, and then repeat that formula consistently over the entire period of your working life. It is what made you successful once and it is what will consistently make you successful in the future. Just don’t force the future into today’s envelope. Be patient and let your improvements generate greater success when the time is right.

Lesson #4: Values matter and so do lack of values.

Nothing has ever destroyed future greatness faster than a breakdown in personal values. Values are beliefs that determine behaviors. You get to choose six. What six values do you want guiding your behaviors? Ok, if you really want, you can choose eight, but that’s it. Here are mine: integrity, curiosity, friendliness, open-mindedness, innovation, and empathy. OK, two more: tenacity and accountability. That’s it.

Choose your values carefully. If you want to build a personal mantle that can handle success and sustain itself for a lifetime of greatness, then you have to live by the values you’ve chosen carefully. I’ve never met the person who chose cheating, lying, and stealing to be the values that would guide his or her life. For some people, those things snuck in when they weren’t watching their values. Watch your values carefully and let greatness sneak in when you’re not looking.

If you lie about little things, you’ll lie about big things. If you’ll take more money than your company can realistically afford to pay you just because you can get away with it, you’ve shown where your priorities are for the long term. Don’t reward yourself today based on dreams for tomorrow. If you’re honest in little things, you will be in big things as well. Values have a way of repeating themselves.

Be ready for success. It can happen at any moment.

About Dan Coughlin

He is a business keynote speaker, management consultant, and author of ACCELERATE: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Business Momentum. He speaks on leadership, branding, sales, and innovation. His next book, The Management 500: A High-Octane Formula for Business Success, which is about practical management lessons from the history of professional auto racing, will be published in May 2009.

App Trap Uninstalls All Those Pesky Added Files

By E. Brown

My friend, Heath, introduced me to App Trap the other day and I do not know how I have lived with out. It is a great little app for the Mac and needs to be on every Mac computer (hear me Apple?).

I love trying new software. Yet, every time you download and install an application or trial version, files get placed in all kinds of places. Many apps come with an uninstall feature, but there are many that do not. Welcome App Trap. This free software (although you can make a PayPal donation, which I’d recommend) will save you all kinds of time hunting down pref files and other assorted library files.

Once you install App Trap it sits and watches what applications you download and delete. When you delete an app you will get a message asking you if you want App Trap to delete all the other associated files to that application. Once you say “yes” App Trap neatly rounds up all the files and plops them into your Trash. They are not gone until you empty your trash so you can easily retrieve them if you feel you’ve made a mistake. It is that simple.

Download a copy today and you’ll be singing it’s praises as I am. If you already have it or know of something better, comment below.

Enjoy!

How To Improve Your Learning

Kendra has some good insights about being a learner. Here she shares some effective ways to enhance your personal learning. I liked number ten. I think you’ll like this too. Enjoy!

By Kendra Van Wagner, About.com

I’m always interested in finding new ways to learn better and faster. As a graduate student who is also a full-time science writer, the amount of time I have to spend learning new things is limited. It’s important to get the most educational value out of my time as possible. However, retention, recall and transfer are also critical. I need to be able to accurately remember the information I learn, recall it at a later time and utilize it effectively in a wide variety of situations.

1. Memory Improvement Basics
I’ve written before about some of the best ways to improve memory. Basic tips such as improving focus, avoiding cram sessions and structuring your study time are a good place to start, but there are even more lessons from psychology that can dramatically improve your learning efficiency.

2. Keep Learning (and Practicing) New Things
One sure-fire way to become a more effective learner is to simply keep learning. A 2004 Nature article reported that people who learned how to juggle increased the amount of gray matter in their occipital lobes, the area of the brain is associated with visual memory. When these individuals stopped practicing their new skill, this gray matter vanished.

So if you’re learning a new language, it is important to keep practicing the language in order to maintain the gains you have achieved. This “use-it-or-lose-it” phenomenon involves a brain process known as “pruning.” Certain pathways in the brain are maintained, while other are eliminated. If you want the new information you just learned to stay put, keep practicing and rehearsing it.

3. Learn in Multiple Ways
Focus on learning in more than one way. Instead of just listening to a podcast, which involves auditory learning, find a way to rehearse the information both verbally and visually. This might involve describing what you learned to a friend, taking notes or drawing a mind map. By learning in more than one way, you’re further cementing the knowledge in your mind. According to Judy Willis, “The more regions of the brain that store data about a subject, the more interconnection there is. This redundancy means students will have more opportunities to pull up all of those related bits of data from their multiple storage areas in response to a single cue. This cross-referencing of data means we have learned, rather than just memorized.”

4. Teach What You’ve Learned to Another Person
Educators have long noted that one of the best ways to learn something is to teach it to someone else. Remember your seventh-grade presentation on Costa Rica? By teaching to the rest of the class, your teacher hoped you would gain even more from the assignment. You can apply the same principle today by sharing your newly learned skills and knowledge with others.

Start by translating the information into your own words. This process alone helps solidify new knowledge in your brain. Next, find some way to share what you’ve learned. Some ideas include writing a blog post, creating a podcast or participating in a group discussion.

5. Utilize Previous Learning to Promote New Learning
Another great way to become a more effective learner is to use relational learning, which involves relating new information to things that you already know. For example, if you are learning about Romeo and Juliet, you might associate what you learn about the play with prior knowledge you have about Shakespeare, the historical period in which the author lived and other relevant information.

Read More…

Book Review – The Unseen

By E. Brown

I have to admit, this is the first time I have read anything by T. L. Hines. I am typically reading business and work related material. I save fiction for down time when I need a little “fluff” and entertainment to take my mind away from present matters. And, isn’t that what fiction is for — an escape, a getaway, a chance to relax and vicariously “live in someone else’s world” for a while?

The main character, Lucas, in the book, The Unseen by T.L. Hines, spends his waking hours by living his life through the imagined worlds of others. You see, Lucas is an urban explorer. He lives in abandoned buildings, sewers and subway tunnels. He spies on people and invents elaborate worlds in his mind as a past time. That is until his world is intruded upon by another explorer. Donovan belongs to a group called the Creep Club. After befriending Lucas, Donovan invites Lucas to a Creep Club meeting. Lucas expects to find like-minded urban explorers, but he what he really finds is far more sinister.

The beginning of the book sets up some of the characters and starts to introduce various plot lines that coalesce toward the end of the book. I found that as the story progressed the action did as well. Hines surprised me a couple times when I thought the story should be winding down — he infused a new shot of adrenaline and kept me moving through the pages.

For some readers, you might find this book average and predictable spotted with government intrigue, subtle romance, and good-guy-wins-in-the-end themes. For readers like me, that’s okay. In a sense, like the character Lucas, I read fiction to take a break from the real world, to imagine, to recharge, and, yes, to think about bigger things than myself. So, if you have never read The Unseen, I recommend giving it a go. Find a comfy chair, sit back and enjoy.