Michel De Montaigne
No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.
French humanist essayist 1533-92
Henry Ford
Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.
—Henry Ford, 1863-1947
What’s Drives You?
What a wonderful power the machine gives you but, is it going to dominate you? The statement of what the need and want is must come from you not from the machine. Not from the government that’s teaching you or not even from the clergy, it has to come from one’s own inside and the minute that you let that drop and take what the dictation (dictator) of the time is instead of the dictation of your own eternity is you have capitulated to the devil and you are in hell.
–Joseph Campbell
The Hero’s Journey
Simple, Wise Guidance from a Billionaire
This short Chicago Booth Convocation speech by Carlyle Group founder William Conway, MBA ’74, is, like Bill himself, straight-forward, humble, wise, and kind. What a great message for new graduates.
Are you rowing, riding, or resisting?
If you’ve done any white water rafting, you know how exciting it can be. On the first rapid of my first trip I remember the guide yelling, “Row. Row! Row fast!!!” But I did not want to go fast. I wanted to slow down, I preferred to try passing through the rapid “nice and easy.”
That was a mistake. We spun and bounced and nearly capsized. On the next rapid, I dug in with my paddle and rowed like mad. We shot through like an arrow.
I learned the hard way that if you travel down a river at or below the speed of the river’s current, you have no control over where you’re going. You can see the rocks and whirlpools ahead but you have no say as to whether you hit them or go around. Plus, it takes more energy to slow your boat than to speed up. By going slower than the current, you might get through the rapids unscathed but you will feel as significant as a leaf in the wind and know, “I was lucky that time.” By exceeding the speed of the current, the person operating the rudder can give direction to the raft and make sure the raft takes the safest route through the rapids. I remember after that first run, we gave each other “high fives” like a bunch of kids. We were proud and excited, not merely lucky.
That’s called taking control of your life. Your direction. Your destiny. We are only victims if we choose to be. Everyone encounters rocks, rapids, and whirlpools. It’s a fact of life. The choice is to work with the power of the river to make our own path, to exhaust ourselves resisting the flow, or to let it toss us randomly. I prefer to add my own preferences and efforts to the circumstances.
I may not control the outcome but I do have a role.
Improved Goal Thermometer
I frequently encourage my top executive coaching clients to set specific measurable goals and to chart their progress visually. For example, my free trailing twelve month Excel template is very popular. Download it by clicking here.
Here is an even simpler and more visually striking graphic you can use. Enter your own title, goal amount and current status and get a one-page, printable thermometer to display your progress for yourself or the entire team. This is similar to my earlier goal thermometer with the added feature of showing the time elapsed since the project was started.
Click here to download your free copy now. No registration required.
Feel free to share this with your friends and colleagues. Please do not remove my name or web address from the Excel spreadsheet.
See also Tony’s complete goal setting kit, with audio and workbook,
free on this blog.
Commitment Creates a Clearing for Cooperation
… but when I said that nothing had been done I erred in one important matter. We had definitely committed ourselves and were halfway out of our ruts. We had put down our passage money— booked a sailing to Bombay. This may sound too simple, but is great in consequence.
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves, too. A whole stream of events issues from (more…)
Graph Gross Margin
My
executive coaching clients and readers of this blog have found my quick and easy Trailing Twelve Month tool very useful. You can download the Excel spreadsheet for free here.
I also encourage my CEO clients to keep a close eye on margins. I have modified the Trailing Twelve Month tool to show monthly results and long-term trends for your business’s margin. The key difference is that since margin is a percentage it makes no sense to look at the sum of twelve months of margins. This new spreadsheet instead shows the twelve-month moving average of your gross margin. Download it by clicking here.
See also Tony’s complete goal setting kit, with audio and workbook,
free on this blog.
Create More Time by Tracking Your Goals
The research suggests that the brain has more control over its own perception of passing time than people may know. For example, many people have the defeated sense that it was just yesterday that they made last year’s resolutions; the year snapped shut, and they didn’t start writing that novel or attend even one Pilates class. But it is precisely because they didn’t act on their plan that the time seemed to have flown away.
By contrast, the new research suggests, focusing instead on goals or challenges that were in fact engaged during the year — whether or not they were labeled as “resolutions” — gives the brain the opportunity to fill out the past year with memories, and perceived time.
Finally, the mind is perfectly capable of interpreting a fast-forward year, or decade, as something other than a frittering away of opportunities for self-improvement. In another series of experiments published in Psychological Science, psychologists found that when people were tricked into believing that more time had passed than was really the case, they assumed they must have been having more fun. The perception heightened their enjoyment of music and eased their annoyance at doing menial tasks.
The mind is a wonderful sense-making device: it takes ambiguous or confusing information and simplifies it according to rules of thumb.
–Aaron M. Sackett
Psychologist
University of St. Thomas
How the Brain Perceives Time
New York Times
Learn how to set goals: click here.
Guidelines for Writing Your Goals
How you put your goals into language has a huge impact on their likelihood of success. Above all, be sure your goals describe specific, measurable results (SMRs).
1. Remove all references to time and change.
Pretend you are at the completion date, the SMR is achieved, and describe how it is. This is different from, and much more effective than standing in “today” and saying how it will (might) be.
Write every SMR in the present tense, as of the completion date. Instead of “I will weigh 160 pounds on August 12,” write “I weigh 160 pounds.”
Remove any reference to change or comparisons. That means no “more,” no “increase,” no “lose.”
2. State everything positively
Remove all “not,” “end,” and “stop.”
Write “I have been breathing only clean air for two weeks.” instead of “Stopped smoking two weeks ago.”
For SMRs that are continuing activities or states, for example, “exercise for 30 minutes twice per week,” be specific about the performance period.
State exactly which weeks the activities will occur: 2 out of the last 3? All of the last 12? All are equally valid, you decide and specify a measure that describes a victory for you.
3. Banish all thoughts of how-to.
For now, consider only what you want. There’s time to work on the methods later.
Check to see if your SMR is actually a how-to for the SMR you really want.
One client had an SMR of “Eat vegetarian and visit the gym twice per week.” She changed it to “Going all day with energy and eagerness, caffeine-free.” Diet and exercise weren’t her goals, just how-tos. She got the result through a visit to her doctor and a specific treatment.
See also Managing Yourself with Specific Measurable Results, on this blog.
…see and feel and believe yourself already in possession of the money.
–Napoleon Hill
Think & Grow Rich
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