What Do You Have To Give Up To Move On?

Published in Forbes.com on Mar 9, 2021

When you’re backpacking, you go light in order to move more efficiently, quicker and with less effort. For inexperienced hikers, packing more than simple essentials often proves to be a painful learning experience — a mistake made only once.

Life can work the same way. In order to move quickly, learn, grow and transform, you might need to give something up to move to the next level of success, learning, growth, happiness, contribution or fulfillment.

These energetic laws exist in simple forms, allowing only so much negative energy before that energy will block more positive energy. Essentially, opportunities open up or close down all because of simple life choices.

Read more on Forbes.com

Could Your Company Culture Pass the ‘Hire Your Replacement’ Test?

Published in Forbes.com on Feb 16, 2021

At his first job, TED speaker Derek Sivers (CD Baby Founder) decided to leave his role as the admin to the CEO. He knew the job well and performed it even better. Before he left, he thought like his CEO would: Who would be the most appropriate person to train my replacement?

The answer was pretty simple: Derek was not only the best person to hire and train his assistant; he really was the only one to do so, given all the nuances involved.

It might seem a bit odd that one would hire and train their own replacement instead of giving notice and allowing their company to take on that responsibility. It was a testament to Derek’s strong sense of responsibility for his role and his loyalty to his boss that he stayed in the role until his replacement was both hired and trained.

Read more on Forbes.com

The Ultimate Glass Cliff: Is The Diversity and Inclusion Director Role a Trap?

Published in Forbes.com on Jan 19, 2021

Many companies are scurrying to locate and fill key leadership positions. Of course, the first key hire in jumpstarting this process is the hiring of a director of diversity and inclusion (D&I). Without it, they hold a gigantic disadvantage in the competition to hire talent — diverse or otherwise.

Given its strategic importance, this director role becomes akin to a spot in the C-suite. But might this become a huge trap, much like a “glass cliff”?

Wait—glass cliff? Michelle K. Ryan and S. Alexander Haslam coined the term to explain how women are more likely to occupy positions that are precarious and thus have a higher risk of failure — either because they are appointed to lead organizations that are in crisis or because they are not given the resources and support needed for success.

Read more on Forbes.com

The Second Most Powerful Energy Affecting Your Team

Published in Forbes.com on Dec 28, 2020

Pop quiz: What is the single most powerful energy most humans engage every single day? 

Each day, we work. We create value. We put gas in the car. We buy dinner. We transact with money or a money equivalent. All of it involves an exchange of value, or energy, if you will — your energetic effort invested in earning traded for something you would like to have or consume. We call it “money,” and it’s the second most powerful energy most humans engage in every day.

Why is money such a pervasive energy in our lives? Let’s start with the “energy” deal. What’s that about?

Ever stop using a dry cleaner because they lost your favorite article of clothing and simply shrugged their shoulders? Or have you had to find a new Chinese carry-out place because, for the third time, you got home and were missing one item that you paid for? Worse yet, do you still not talk to a former friend because you lent them money and they stiffed you?

Read more on Forbes.com

Do You Utilize A Trigger Word or Phrase?

Published in Forbes.com on Dec 7, 2020

Hypnotists have used neuro-linguistic programming — or triggers — to induce subjects to do things they otherwise would not. This same power could be useful in motivating yourself and your team members. Given that every member of your team differs, do you engage “trigger” words with the individuals and teams you lead?

What really constitutes a trigger word or phrase?

A trigger word is defined as “a word that initiates a process or course of action.” Given that distinction, a trigger word or phrase could be almost anything. The key idea is initiation! Anything that jump-starts initiation, action or forward movement can work. If that’s true, then shouldn’t there be a list to choose from? Perhaps.

Here’s how to design your own trigger word or phrase:

First off, you need to know thyself. You’ll want your trigger word to “instigate” a process or course of action that honors your highest values and risk profile and takes full advantage of your individual talent. An inappropriate trigger word, on the other hand, can shut you down. For example, if you’re a vegan, adopting a super powerful “carnivorous” trigger word will shut you down, rather than initiate a powerful, useful process or course of action.

Read more on Forbes.com

Who Needs To Go?

Published in Forbes.com on Nov 12, 2020

Jim Rohn famously remarked that “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

As much as that makes great sense, what happens if you rank those same five? Is there a big difference between #1 and #5?

Rating Your Top Five

All of us wish we had five people who we could call "besties." In reality, most of us have one best friend — two, if we are really lucky.

By definition, we all have a “top five,” regardless of their impact on our lives.

Let’s consider what would create an absolute #1, super-high-quality person who we would love to spend the most time with.

Try this: Your "Top One" might be that person you could call from the Fresno County Jail at 2:30 a.m., and they would not only wire the $2,500 bail money, but they would pick you up and would not tell your spouse.

How much better might your life be with a friend like that? Most of us have our own version of that person.

Read more on Forbes.com

Forget Creating Your Culture –Look At Structure Instead

Published in Forbes.com Oct 22, 2020

Does your culture hold up under pressure? That is, when your teams, your leaders or your products come under fire, does your culture lead you to do better, or does it simply fall apart like a paper tiger?

Funny how many companies compete for the “best company culture” award, which takes lots of time, money, focus and energy to achieve. The real test occurs when the company is not at its best or a big challenge occurs, like a pandemic.

Take a Wall Street darling, Tesla, a much-celebrated company with an iconic founder, Elon Musk. From its website, here are its stated cultural values: "doing the best, taking risks, respect, constant learning, and environmental consciousness.” 

Is the structure of the Tesla operations designed to live up to any of these values — those that supposedly create the culture?

Let’s take “environmental consciousness” for $1,000, Alex. Clearly, electric vehicles will pass that ethic with flying colors, right?

Read more on Forbes.com

Are You Stifling Leadership With Too Many Cultural Values?

Published in Forbes.com Oct 1, 2020

You're out with friends casually on a weekend, and it's time to figure out a dinner plan. With six of you, the question gets posed, "What's your preference for dinner?"

Ever notice the type of responses this question creates?

"Anything but Chinese. We had it catered yesterday at work."

"As long as there's a vegan option, I am open-minded."

"I'm just hungry. Let's pick a place where we don't have to wait."

None of these are really affirmative responses. They could be considered "defensive" answers, i.e., what we don't want rather than what we do. Why is that?

In your team, I suggest that the same dynamic occurs. Problem is, the lack of direction creates messes, postponed decisions and outright confusion. Here's why.

Those values you brag about may be actual weaknesses.

Read more on Forbes.com

Heads You Win; Tails You Don’t Lose

Published in Forbes.com  August 20, 2020

So your team is contemplating a big acquisition that would grow your headcount by 50%, or perhaps an investment in a dynamic marketing initiative designed to double sales.

How do you pull the trigger with such a big outcome — and a big price tag — on the line? When do you know it’s the right move to make or a colossal mistake to avoid?

Companies face decisions like this regularly, especially in today’s business climate. The right move sets you up for the next few years, and a poor decision could sink the entire company.

Are you ready to make this decision, and if so, what mental model or decision-making mechanism would you employ?

Consider the mental model “heads we win, and tails we don’t lose” for just such decisions.

Start With 'Not Losing' (Tails)

We’re all familiar with the notion of a two-headed coin. Mostly, these are used in scams or trickery of some sort.

That’s not your bag.

Read more on Forbes.com

When It Comes To Diversity, Watch What CEOs Do, Not What They Say

Published in Forbes.com  July 29, 2020

We read about it almost every day — that a diverse workplace environment improves performance. This phenomenon exists as a relatively recent development, as “diversity and inclusion” only came about as a term after WWII when then President Truman required the integration of the armed forces. Truman was roundly criticized for his decision, now considered bold and morally courageous.

With a short history of diversity and inclusion, we find that it started much like other well-intended movements (i.e., labor unions, child labor laws, etc.) but has had difficulty taking full effect. 

Here’s why.

When you have to legislate any movement, by definition, there exists little (or at least not enough) social power to create the desired effect. In California, for example, a law passed in 2018 requires publicly traded companies who have their headquarters in the state to place at least one female onto their board of directors by the end of 2019. With essentially 50% of the workforce consisting of women, wouldn’t it make logical sense that 50% of board seats would also be held by women?

Nope.

Read more on Forbes.com

Full-Priced or Fully Gifted

Published in Forbes.com  July 8, 2020

When you give a gift — to your child, to a friend or to your spouse — how does that make you and them feel?

Well, if the gift really is given freely, you feel as great giving it as they do receiving it, regardless of the monetary value. We know this from receiving the world’s most useless coffee mug, designed, painted and fired in a kiln by your third grader on one of their field trips.

The gift to you is priceless, and you drink coffee from it every day to honor their thoughtfulness. To the rest of the world, it has little or no value, especially if they do not know you or your child. Chances are, that same person who does not value your ugly mug highly has a version of their own mug in their cabinet.

Funny how gifts work great only when freely given.

Chances are, you have also received a “gift” with implied or blatant strings attached. Buyer (or recipient) beware, because these can be tricky.

Your sales team deals with this every day, deciding on whether to discount, hold firm on a full-priced product or gift your product outright.

The choice becomes energetic more than monetary. Let’s explore why you should only have two prices: full-priced and fully gifted, based upon energy, not money.

Read more on Forbes.com

Five Key Questions To Simplify Finding Your Genius Talent

Published in Forbes.com June 17, 2020

Having developed a trademarked methodology for finding your "genius talent," it seemed a good idea to share the five most frequently asked questions to 1) help you find yours and 2) prevent you from wasting time and effort on actions that will not help.

If you're game, let's spin the big wheel. Big prizes for answering questions correctly.

Question 1: What exactly is genius talent?

It's a great place to start. We consider that your genius talent is a part of your DNA. We do not attempt to prove that, but if it were a theory to work with, that means you have the only version of a singular gift of unique talent in the entire history of mankind.

There exists three parts: 1) the gift of genius-level talent (from God or a genetic lottery); 2) a step-by-step process for delivering your talent that you created intuitively throughout your life; and 3) your why, that acts as rocket fuel for your talent.

You get no say in the gift of talent. You got what you got, and I got what I got.

You have intuitively figured out the delivery system for your talent, even if you cannot say exactly what your gift is just yet. In short, that part is 100% your own doing.

Your why is a simple, powerful belief statement that connects directly to the reason why you were gifted the talent you got.

Put the three together, and they sound like this example from a client in Phoenix:

"My genius talent is creating relationships that feel like family." Rare, but not unique.

"I do this by first making people feel incredibly safe, by intuitively figuring out exactly what they need, and then by delivering them wisdom and care." No one taught this person this system. He figured it out by his successes, failures and life experiences.

"I do this because I believe the world is a much better place when people serve others." Notice how the why connects naturally and powerfully to the gift of "creating relationships that feel like family"?

Read more on Forbes.com

Brilliant Team Math: Addition By Subtraction

Published in Forbes.com May 28, 2020

Seems like budget cuts, staffing cuts and revenue cuts are all the rage these days. Perhaps more than ever, you and your team will be required to do more with less — much less of everything.

At some point, that equation falls apart, but there exists an intersection of resourcefulness and efficiency that provides you and your entire team the opportunity to "add by subtracting." If you're game to play this exercise in brilliant math, let's do it!

When Less Creates More

Each of us has played in work teams, school classrooms or community clubs (like tennis or swimming) where excess seems to be the norm. The hidden dilemma in those scenarios exists because "normal" becomes invisible, and we run the classroom with everything from scissors to a full set of coloring pens for every child. That is both normal and expected, which hides other possibilities. This excess might exist because the school district, the families who live in that district or both are well-endowed with great funding.

Fair enough.

What do the kids learn, however, if each child never has to share or allocate resources? What do they learn, instead, if they do have to work together with limited amounts of classroom tools?

Let's look at each.

If every child has "one of everything" needed to function in class, that classroom has adequate resources to fund that scenario — rare, in this day and age for schools.

Read more on Forbes.com

The Four Mistakes Keeping You From Your Genius Talent

Published in Forbes.com May 4, 2020

Call it flow, superpower, genius — whatever you like. No one disputes the idea that we should all discover our super high-level talent, embrace it and then use it to enjoy life more, make more money and contribute in greater fashion to society.

That’s a bit like saying, “We should all work smarter, not harder.” No one exists in the opposing camp.

If we agree that finding and embracing your secret superpower is a high priority, then why is it still so darn secret?

It’s simple. If finding your genius talent were so darn easy, like a mathematical equation, everyone would simply solve their own personal equation, and we’d all be better off. Your genius-level talent does not show up in a linear fashion.

With 12 years’ experience in administering a trademarked process to find your (very) specific “genius talent,” I can say with confidence that you are most likely making some or all of these four major mistakes which are keeping you from your highest talent. See if any fit.

Mistake #1: “I got my assessment results! Now I finally know my genius!”

Ever take one of those online personality or behavioral assessments and be in awe of how eerily accurate they can be? Did your result display you in numbers, letters, colors or jargon, like “ENTJ,” “Researcher” or “6 4 7 2”?

The assessments “slot” you via an algorithm, and you fit into your slot with millions of other people with an identical profile. Not bad, but if any five people slotted just like you ever got together, I suspect you would find vast differences almost immediately.

Read more on Forbes.com