Be Here Now

I went to dinner at a place called The Yard House on a busy Saturday night. I had never seen a restaurant this big, and it was packed with a huge sports bar, giant televisions, an outdoor patio, and maybe 500 or 10,000 tables on the inside.

The evening was organized chaos—poetry in motion. And most impressive of all: the waiters were incredibly helpful. I believed they were there just for me, despite all the activity and commotion. When the waiter was helping me with a Jetsons-sized menu, I felt like the only patron in the place. I do believe the food tasted better than it might have actually been because the wait staff was so incredibly helpful. They helped me handpick my order.

I was willing to forgive some of the little things that weren’t quite right because the staff was there for me. The service was a team approach. No matter which team player was up at bat, I was undoubtedly the most important customer there. At least this is how I felt.

I felt as if I was being paid attention to at that restaurant because, well, because I was. This goes to a larger point. Despite everything that was going on at the restaurant, despite all the other people my waiter had to help, my waiter focused on me in the moment. And it made all the difference.

In business, and in life, if you can’t give 100 percent to the mission at hand, then you might as well not be giving anything at all.

Now some of you might be thinking, “Hold on a second. I can multi-task. Maybe you can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, but I can.”

Sure. You can do it.

Until you can’t.

Perhaps you have always been able to do three thousand things at once. But sooner or later, doing more than one thing at a time will come back to bite you in the donkey, shall we say.

Focusing, being present in the moment, is a skill. And like any other skill, it needs to be honed. The better you get at it, the more rewards you will reap. Let’s take a look at an example of someone who wasn’t in the moment.

Chase Sampson, a college junior from Nashville, flew into New York at three in the morning and didn’t sleep a wink between then and the time he had to sit in the hot seat for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. He told the gracious Meredith Viera he pretty much had coffee flowing through his veins. What with his traveling, his studies, the pressure of being on national television, there was a lot to think about.

After the casual banter concluded, the first question posed to Chase was: Homeowners buy surge protectors to protect their possessions from unexpected surges of what? His choices were:

A) Electric Current 

B) Water Flow 

C) Air Pressure 

D)  Buyer’s Remorse.

For his answer—Water Flow—Chase received exactly zero dollars and 5,276,153 hits on Youtube. Now, if he had taken a moment to set everything else aside and just think about the question, he probably would have chosen the correct answer. Unless he’s Amish, and then it would be understandable. But he’s not Amish. He owned surge protectors. He wasn’t in the moment. He dropped the ball. You dropped the ball, Chase!  

Let’s look at a more intense example of someone who was in the moment. Canadian figure skater Joannie Rochette faced one of the greatest challenges an athlete could face while competing in a past Winter Olympics. Hours before she was take to the ice, her mother died of a massive heart attack. Her mother was one of her greatest supporters, confidants, allies, and coaches. Their time at the Olympics was a shared experience.

Rather, than give into her grief, Joannie Rochette continued to compete even though she was devastated. Literally, hours after her mother’s passing, she got back on the ice in competition and skated flawlessly. She could not have done this had she though of her enormous sadness, the pressures of the competition, the millions of onlookers thinking about how sad she must have been.  Joannie focused on the present—on skating, on her technique, on her choreography—and it eventually landed her the bronze medal. That she was able to compete, let alone earn a medal, is beyond incredible.

Maybe you don’t have the same pressures as an Olympic athlete competing on the world stage a short time after her mother passes away, but you have got your own personal circus in town. We all do. How we deal with it is what sets us apart from the rest. If we crumble, we will not succeed. If we take whatever challenge faces us on head on, we cannot be stopped.

But you cannot face a challenge head on if you are too busy worrying about the next challenge, the challenge on the left and the right, and what you could have or should have done two challenges ago. In order to emerge victorious, you have to be able concentrate on a single goal at the time you are in the process of attaining it. Yes, you can and will focus on the other goals and challenges when the time is right; when you do, you will focus on those additional challenges as if they are the only ones who exist. No matter how many challenges you face, the only way to overcome them is one challenge at a time!

That is why, however large or small the challenge you face is, it does not matter so long as you give it your complete attention and focus. It didn’t matter to the Yard House waiters how many people were ordering food—they deal with one order at a time—and why Joannie Rochette was able to perform despite her deep personal loss:

she put one skate in front of the other.

Today’s Challenge:  Practice being in the present.  Concentrate on what you are doing here and now.

Related Posts:
Are You a Scarcicist?
Five Eyes on the Fence
A Crazy Guy Taught me to be a Better Listener

HEY PROTESTORS—OCCUPY THIS!

Despite my last post about the Occupy Wall Street folks, I have to admit that the movement is impressive. I didn’t think this generation could walk away from The Real Housewives and organize a movement.

But what confuses me is the message. I saw an interview yesterday with a young lady who said that life isn’t fair. She wants money to be abolished! She wants us to all be equal and just “live.”

(I also saw many interviews where people just beat their drums in circles. I’m not sure what drums have to do with anything; I guess it was some sort of new-age auditory protest intended to spread peace. I don’t think it worked, though, because I almost had a violent seizure.)

Let me focus on what the lady said about everyone being equal. Man, that would be fun, wouldn’t it? For a day, at least, right? It would, also, be fun if unicorns existed and if all the candy in the Willy Wonka movie existed.

Alas, that is not the way the world works.

Almost 20 years ago, when my son began his illustrious but brief soccer career, everyone got a trophy or a ribbon—every single kid out there. If you played, you got a prize. All you had to do was participate. Soccer awards were the great equalizer. No matter who did what on the field, you could feel good holding a shiny trophy signifying that everyone was equal. Participating was enough.

But in the world of business, it’s not this way at all. Everyone does not get a trophy for participating. Business people are held to high standards, and only the top performers get awarded with clients, money, and the complete DVD set of the TV show Wired.
This doesn’t mean that everyone is a loser, with just a few winners. It means that everyone must work hard to find his or her unique talents, and then constantly push harder to refine them. It means that some people have greater capacity, intellect, or luck. These folks often get more that the others, but not because they cheat. They are awarded because they do things better, faster, cheaper, and easier—and because they make our lives better.

But the good news for those of us who have only mediocre talent: These people make our lives better. If everyone participated at an equal level, we might not even have the Motorola 400 circa 1984, much less the iPhone 4S. We probably wouldn’t have the Backstreet Boys, much less the Beatles.

You see, you can’t legislate equality because people are not innately equal. Sure, you can force equal benefits and equal pay, but you cannot maximize energy of the more capable by giving the fruits of that capability to others. The talented folks would just stop working.

The problem with trying to legislate equality is that the multiplier effect that comes alongside genius will stop. Jobs will not be created or lost. And the people who create breakthroughs will never get their opportunity. If this sort of cycle continues, guess what you get?

2011!

I have two suggestions for all the protesters. First, don’t be too proud to work. Sweep streets. Clean the bathroom. Earn minimum wage. Some money is better than no money, especially when your unemployment runs out. Remember, someone who was not too proud to drive a cab could someday become the owner of a cab company.

Second, don’t be stopped by the “no’s.” In the words of the great Rolling Stones song, “you can’t always get what you want.”

But if you keep going, even though you haven’t gotten what you want, you are bound to eventually hear a “yes.” Research successful people. Almost all of them heard more than their fair share of “no’s.” Rags to riches stories are common. Seldom do people major in being corporate president in college. (I went to school to be president of the universe, but that’s just me. Also, that didn’t work out to well.)

By the way, I’ll bet that if the vast majority of the Wall Street protesters were offered a six-figure, Wall Street income starting immediately, they would miss the next march … and the next drum circle.

Today’s Challenge: Think about the NOs you have heard in your life. Did they kill you or did they make you stronger? If they killed you then you must not be reading this. Otherwise, I rest my case!

Related Posts:
Occupy Wall Street Protestors= The Yes Men
The Secret to Life
What is an Entrepreneur?

VISIT YOUR STRUCTURAL CAPITAL

In any business, the very fact that clients are being charged makes them naturally wonder if the company is simply feathering its own nest. This is especially true in areas where customers are unfamiliar with the terrain. A good example might be auto mechanics. I’m pretty confident I’m not the only one who has taken his car into the shop for an oil change only to be told dragons have destroyed his carburetor and the cost to realign the flux capacitor is $10,000. I’m sure there is an honest mechanic out there—maybe even most—but nobody can deny there are more than a fair share of mechanics in the world who aren’t on the up and up.

Assuming you are an honest mechanic—in whatever your actual chosen field—how do you assure your clients they are being treated fairly and see to it that they provide repeat business?

For starters, you rely on your intellectual capital. Intellectual capital is comprised of three very important elements, the first being human capital—a company’s employees and what they know. This is a commonly discussed topic. But there are two more pieces that are just as important and rarely examined: structural capital and social capital. Each of these deserves its own article: the focus of this article is on structural capital (hopefully you knew that from the title).

If a company is selling its strengths—what its employees know and are best at—the strengths cannot be delivered upon without the processes that have been put into place to help that knowledge be displayed and utilized. The processes are a company’s structural capital. Structural capital includes the office, the equipment, the systems used to make a company run like a well-oiled machine. They are all the physical components that go into gettin’ ‘er dun, as Larry the Cable Guy would say. If a company is going to rise above its competitors, it needs its own structural capital. Your structural capital is a direct reflection of your company and the first means by which customers will be able to form an opinion of you.

Let’s go back to the auto shop for a moment. My Lamborghini Reventon needed an oil change (it’s my article and I can dream if I want to). The first shop I took it to was a mess, even on a most basic level. When customers walked into the front office, papers were strewn everywhere. The mechanics looked sloppy (even more than what it is to be expected), the auto shop seemed more like a junkyard, and I was told they only accepted a certain kind of credit card. The first employee who started to help me was called to some other more important duty; I was handed off to another serviceman and had to explain my situation all over again. Maybe these guys were all a bunch of auto repair geniuses, but their business’s weak structural capital also weakened something in me: my confidence in them. When customer confidence is weakened, and you don’t work tirelessly to get it back, you might as well call it a day.

Not feeling comfortable leaving my precious car at this place, I took it to another shop on the recommendation of a friend. The office was clean and organized. A number of signs pointed out that the place had been accredited by AAA, letting me know that AAA would step in and investigate any concerns I might have. One point person handled my account: I didn’t have to retell my situation over and over. The work was completed on time and on budget. This auto shop’s presentation, professional workmanship, and system of communication guaranteed that next time my Lamborghini needed work, I would bring it back. (I actually drive a Ford Focus, but you get the point.)

A good way to tell if your structural capital is at the level it should be is by taking a close look at the structural capital in your personal life. In my bachelor days, I learned this the hard way. Whether you are going to be successful on a date relies heavily on your structural capital. Before I became the married stud muffin that I am today, I went on more than a few clumsy romantic outings. I didn’t clean my car (the discarded McDonald’s bags in the back were pretty revealing). I took a girl to an Italian restaurant and she was allergic to pasta (a little preliminary investigation would have uncovered this). I learned that dressing in flip-flops and a hoody is not the way to a girl’s heart. And that it is important to open doors for the ladies.

The onus isn’t always on the guy. (Hopefully this is the last time I use the word onus.) I have a friend who tells me of a young lady who invited him up for coffee. When he went into her apartment, there was nowhere to sit—not because there weren’t any chairs, but because the place was so cluttered, he literally had to push objects aside to find a place he could sort of sit. The place sounded like the trash compactor in Star Wars. Weak structural capital caused him to flee before he got buried under the debris field.

Maybe you are married now, and you do not have to worry about the dating world, thank heavens. You still have to worry about structural capital. In fact, you need to pay even more attention to structural capital. If you don’t have a successful system of communication in your relationship—if you are lacking basic necessities in the house and aren’t putting your underwear in the hamper—you will face growing problems. If anything, personal structural capital is even more essential in a marriage because you see your wife or husband more often than someone you are simply dating (hopefully).

TODAY’S EXERCISE
Take a sheet of paper and think about your business or personal life. What physical elements and processes do you have and use to assist you in creating the impact your business has on its customers or you have in your personal life.

List them. What could be better?

Wielding Your Strengths

My wife refuses to shop anywhere but Gelson’s, the upscale supermarket in our neighborhood.

What does Gelson’s have that its cheaper counterparts don’t have? I can think of a few things. The parking lot isn’t a zoo. It is always clean. Its produce and meat are of higher quality, and the lines are shorter.

Shopping anywhere else is simply unacceptable for my wife. With respect to my wife, Gelson’s has a monopoly on her shopping needs.

This got me thinking: What can we all do individually to become monopolies of one?

Everyone does something especially well. I am a passionate advocate for my clients that brings them new information in ways they can understand. It is my unique talent. And if anyone wants to get better clarity around a problem and how they can solve it, they come to me. I hold a monopoly on problem solving.

Recently, I blogged about the importance of wielding strengths. What would happen if we all identified that one thing that we, as individuals, hold a monopoly on? Maybe you are the fastest typist this side of the Mississippi. Maybe you can communicate calmly and effectively with everyone. Maybe you are the best damn night manager at a fast food chain. Perhaps you make amazing gut decisions.

Whatever it is, make that your focus. If you spend each day trying to secure a monopoly centered around your unique talent, all of your shortcomings would fall to the wayside. Who cares that you cannot operate a computer when you speak 16 languages? And who cares that you cannot speak 16 languages when you can dissect a computer and reassemble it in 12 seconds flat?

If you are the damn best (or the best that you can be) at one thing, you can offer the world so much more than your talent. You can offer inspiration.

Today’s Challenge: Spend time identifying your “Unique Abilities”.

--Tony Rose is the author of Say Hello to the Elephants: A Four-Part Process for Finding Clarity, Confronting Problems, and Moving On

Conflict is Good

The title of my book — Say Hello to the Elephants — was inspired by the reaction most people have to conflict. That is, they sit on their hands and refuse to acknowledge it. I was thinking about this during a team meeting with my managers, some of whom refuse to criticize the named partners at Rose, Snyder, & Jacobs.

Conflict in any organization is important, I told them. What I failed to add is that conflict in any relationship is important. To be clear, conflict doesn’t mean that you hate a person or hold grudges. It means that you simply have an inquisitive mind and ask questions when we see them dangling before us. It means that you have the courage to look at each other and say what is honest. It means that you do what you should be doing and, when something doesn’t seem right, you speak up.

In other words: If you leave an elephant in a room, it will not go away. In fact, according to Ellen James of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, an adult elephant produces up to three hundred pounds of dung a day. If you ignore an elephant too long, you will quickly find out what it is like to walk through a pile of elephant dung.

Finding Clarity Is Painful

Sometimes my clients sound just like my kids: “But Tony, this is hard wooooork. Finding clarity is painful.”

You bet it is. In my book, Say Hello to the Elephants, I tell the story of Doyle. Imagine that Doyle is your fitness trainer, and that you tell Doyle that you have always watned to run a marathon.

“No problem,” he says (of the 26.2-mile race). “It will be easy.”

You smile at him and say, “Swell.”

So you are off and running, expecting it to be a piece of cake based on what your fitness trainer has told you. It will be calming, he says. You will probably have one epiphany after another, similar to those deep, transformational moments during yoga. Doyle leads you to believe that running the marathon will be kind of like relaxing in a Jacuzzi, but different.

You set off running on your first training session. You start hopeful and full of confidence.

Then reality sets in. Your heart is about to burst out of your chest, and you are panting like a thirsty dog. You are convinced that your toenails will rub off, your arches will fall, and you will have shin splints, sweat rashes, strained Achilles tendons, blisters, chafing, and various knee and back ailments along the way. You have only run a half-mile before you decide that running is quite awful.

Swell? More like swelling!

I am simply not cut out for this, you decide, reflecting on Doyle’s claim that it should be easy.

On Day One of training, you quit.

Although it might seem that clarity should be intuitive, the process of reaching clarity is not always easy. Clarity can be difficult to achieve. It does not have to be painful, but it often is. Our choices muddy the waters. Our responsibilities add pressure, and our setbacks seem impossible to overcome.

Pain, at least when it has passed, can be palliative. Imagine for a moment a world in which we could set ambitious, challenging goals and then turn around and attain them without sacrificing a single ounce of blood, sweat, or tears. Not only would that take the “accomplish” out of the accomplishment, but it would also turn your ambitious goals into monotony. You probably would not want to achieve those goals any more. At best, the accomplishments would lack significant meaning.

Maybe your trainer, Doyle, disagrees. “Goals that are easy to reach would not be boring or monotonous,” he says. “That would be fantastic. We could have our cake and eat it too! Sign me up—I love German chocolate cake!”

You should fire Doyle.

Pain gives meaning to our desire and ability to reach goals. It strengthens us, builds our self-confidence and self-worth, and gives us the experience we need to get through the next round of pain. When you have fought for years and years to reach the top—and in the course of those years you have been beaten down, failed on numerous occasions, and rejected by more people than you can count—you will know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you have earned it once you get to the top. The pain you endured will make the reward sweeter. The scrapes and scars are all badges of courage proving you were challenged. The mettle was tested, and the mettle won.

The pain is priceless.

You hire a new trainer, Lance. Lance’s favorite movie is Predator about a U.S. Special under attack by a hideous creature from outer space known as “the Predator.” Lance’s favorite moment is when a fellow soldier informs the tobacco-chewing Blain that Blain is bleeding. Blain keeps chewing his tobacco, scoping out the terrain, matter-of-factly stating, “I ain’t got time to bleed.”

And neither do you. When you have clarity, much of the pain is incidental.

The reward makes the pain irrelevant.

Take Theodore Geisel. In college, Theodore was voted the least likely to succeed. Though his art and writing professors disagreed, Theodore felt he had a knack for drawing and writing, so he sent his work to a number of publishing companies, all of whom rejected his books like clockwork. Twenty-seven publishers said no. (Those grinches!)

And then, publisher twenty-eight said yes.

With that, Theodore Seuss Geisel became Dr. Seuss.

Certainly, being rejected or meeting obstacles can be painful. Disappointment, frustration, and anxiety are normal. But whether that pain blocks you from moving forward is up to you. You can take rejection and let it cut deep, let the pain seer into your being. Or you can say, “I am only looking for one publisher to say yes. This is not the one, but I ain’t got time to bleed, so I will just keep looking,” and move on.

There’s no getting around it: some things are going to hurt. Confronting partnership problems is not easy, nor is it easy to plan for succession, take a new risk, or end a relationship. Our economic slow-down hurts. There is no shortcut. You must have clarity to minister your strength within.

So you tell Lance about your goal of running a marathon. He nods his head. With understanding and support, he says, “Your goal is worthy, and you can do it. It is going to take some time. Many people will not believe that you will succeed. You will have a lot of close calls—a lot of times when you think you cannot do it. Your body will shake. You will feel discouraged, but if you are sure you want to do it, if you want to call yourself a marathoner—a title only 0.13 percent of the population can claim—you can move past the pain. No matter how many disappointments or setbacks you encounter, you can do it. I will be there to help. You are unstoppable.”

You look at Lance and say, “Swell.”

[Today’s blog is modified from “Clarity Planning Takes Effort, and Pain Is Swell,” a chapter from Say Hello to the Elephants.]

Today’s Challenge: Find at least one occasion where you can say, “I ain’t got time to bleed.” Say it, and then go about doing what you should be doing.

Getting Control of Your Business

In the weeks surrounding the market crash, I received more than few calls from clients who basically said, “I don’t feel like I’m in control. I don’t know what to do. I’ve lost a lot of money. Things are not good.”

Things were not good for a lot of people. And though I’m a tax planner and not a financial advisor, I wanted to help. I wanted to give advice to my clients as to how to make that money back. I wanted to give sage advice that extended beyond: “Hang on…don’t do anything. The market went down, it will come back up.”

And then I realized that giving advice was not what I should be doing.

Collectively, we have all lost a lot of money. Collectively, things might not look so god. But instead of focusing on all that money lost, all those opportunities down the drain, let’s take a minute to redefine who we are and what our goals are.

We know that we will live to fight another day. Eventually, the market will come back up. So instead of focusing on all that money lost, let’s talk about who we want to be in the meantime. Instead of looking at the gap between what we had two, three years ago and what we have today, let’s simply look at what we have today.

By focusing on our current capacities, we can stop reacting like thimbles in the ocean to the waves crashing around us. Instead, we begin applying our strengths to address problems with confidence.

In Say Hello to the Elephants I talk about the importance of wielding strengths. Let me take the steal the following from my own book:

Strengths constitute your confidence. Your strengths will give you the confidence to discover hidden problems instead of evading them. Your strengths represent the confidence that gives you the ability to take advantage of opportunities and protect yourself from dangers. Your strengths stop you from standing in front of danger like a deer in headlights. By giving you confidence, your strengths develop, implement, and sustain your solutions. Your strengths will help you plan for various futures, be flexible about the paths you choose, and recognize opportunities others cannot.

Today’s Challenge: Answer the following questions...

• What are my strengths? 
• What attributes, resources, and skills do I have? 
• In what activities do I feel most confident?

Playing From Your Strengths

Do you view your life through your strengths or through your problems?

It has been about a year since all of the market upset, the onset of the recession and this period of doubt, uncertainty and feelings of helplessness. 

In the weeks surrounding the market crash, I received more than few calls from clients who basically said, “I don’t feel like I’m in control. I don’t know what to do. I’ve lost a lot of money. Things are not good.”

Things were not good for a lot of people. And though I’m a tax planner and not a financial advisor, I wanted to help. I wanted to give advice to my clients as to how to make that money back. I wanted to give sage advice that extended beyond: “Hang on…don’t do anything. The market went down, it will come back up.”

The market has come back a very long way but …

I realized that giving advice was not what I should be doing.

Collectively, we have all lost a lot of money, jobs, prospects and maybe perspective. Collectively, things might not look so good. But instead of focusing on all that money lost, all those opportunities down the drain, let’s take a minute to redefine who we are and what our goals are.

We know that we will live to fight another day. The market is back, for how long we don’t know.  So instead of focusing on all that might have been lost, let’s talk about who we want to be in the meantime. Instead of looking at the gap between what we had two, three years ago and what we have today, let’s simply look at what we have today.

By focusing on our current capacities, we can stop our lives of reacting. Instead, we must begin applying our strengths to address problems and obstacles with confidence.

In Say Hello to the Elephants I talk about the importance of wielding strengths.

Let me steal the following from my own book:

Strengths constitute your confidence. Your strengths will give you the confidence to discover hidden problems instead of evading them. Your strengths represent the confidence that gives you the ability to take advantage of opportunities and protect yourself from dangers. Your strengths stop you from standing in front of danger like a deer in headlights. By giving you confidence, your strengths develop, implement, and sustain your solutions. Your strengths will help you plan for various futures, be flexible about the paths you choose, and recognize opportunities others cannot.

Today’s Challenge:
Answer the following question—What are my strengths? What attributes, resources, and skills do I have? In what activities do I feel most confident?

Are You a Building Crew or a Wrecking Crew?

A speaker at a conference I attended recently asked that question.

In other words, do you spend your time building other people up or finding fault and tearing them down? In an economic crisis, doing the latter is easier. If you find faults in and problems with other people, perhaps your own problems won’t seem so dire.

If you are one of these people, you are probably fixating on all the problems rather than throwing solutions onto the table.

Why not start acting as though things are going to get better? When Napoleon Hill wrote Think and Grow Rich in 1937 during the Great Depression, he noted the power of positive verbal affirmation. In fact, he was commissioned by Andrew Carnegie to do a study of the wealthiest people of all time, noting that one of the common characteristics of these people was that they were positive thinkers. Even when things weren’t going right, they came out with positive affirmations about how well things were going.

By the very act of pretending that things were getting better, things got better.

Today’s Challenge: Now is the time to fake it until you make it. If people ask you how things are going, tell them things are unbelievable. Say it positive and enthusiastically. And when other people talk about their problems, give them kudos for all they have accomplished. Encourage them by providing support and affirmation. Become a building crew.