Success Blog

This article has been reprinted with permission from Dr. John C. Maxwell’s free monthly e-newsletter ‘Leadership Wired.’

The pursuit of happiness. It’s one of our inalienable rights spelled out in The Declaration of Independence, but what does it mean to pursue happiness? When so many of us are unhappy and empty, how can we find joy?

To begin with, we must learn to reconcile the ambition to do, with a willingness to be.

As change agents, leaders sense all is not well in the world. We see problems and search for solutions. Yet, if we focus only on what is wrong, we miss the joy of the blessings in our lives - family, friendship, health, and freedom. We have to offset our discontent with the status quo by finding contentment in the life we have been given.

As leaders, we are lean and hungry, looking for opportunities to improve and grow. However, we find joy by being comfortable in our own skin. Happiness comes when we learn to take pride in our talents and to smile at our quirks.

We have an inner drive to do something - a restlessness to make something happen. At the same time, joy is discovered in the peaceful quiet of a soul at rest. Alongside our restlessness for change, we have a need for relaxation and recreation.

We won’t fully experience joy until we’ve answered life’s biggest question: Why am I here?

Without a life purpose, we flounder around without direction or joy. Life coach SuEllen Williams encourages clients to write out their life story in five-year increments, noting life-altering events and influential people. During the exercise, clients will often discover a predominant theme that has brought them fulfillment. By realigning with what has brought meaning in the past, Williams feels her clients put themselves on track toward the pursuit of happiness.

If we don’t nourish ourselves, joy will elude us.

We nourish ourselves whenever we enter into activities that build our energy reserves. Consider this list of common nourishment sources:

Music - What songs lift me?
Thoughts - What thoughts speak to me?
Experiences - What experiences rejuvenate me?
Friends - What people encourage me?
Recreation - What recreation re-creates me?
Soul - What spiritual exercises strengthen me?
Hopes - What dreams inspire me?
Home - What family members care for me?
Giftedness - What gifts activate me?
Memories - What memories make me smile?

To find joy, we must clean up our vocabulary.

We pursue happiness when we banish the shoulda, coulda, wouldas in life and decide that everything is fine the way it is. To reconstruct our vocabulary, it’s important to understand the difference between facts of life and problems. A fact of life is something we cannot change, but we can adjust our attitude about it. A problem is something we can change, and becomes possible when we take responsibility to fix it.

To discover joy, it’s important to celebrate success.

Timing is critical to celebration. Be sure to celebrate after the fact and not before the job is done.

The Kentucky Wildcat football team learned this lesson the hard way. In 2002, the Wildcats led the heavily favored Louisiana State Tigers 30-27 with two seconds left to play. The Tigers had the ball, but they were 75 yards away from the end zone - an impossible distance to cover in one play. 

Wildcat players dumped Gatorade on their coach to celebrate the win. Kentucky students poured out of the stands and waited to charge onto the field after the final whistle. The Kentucky quarterback waved his arms toward the adoring fans in a salute of victory.

Then, the impossible happened. The LSU quarterback lofted the football as far as he could throw it. The ball bounced off the fingertips of a mob of players, and landed in the waiting arms of an LSU receiver who raced to the end zone! LSU had won the game on a desperation pass!

Shocked and silent, the Kentucky fans were left to stare at their soggy coach as the LSU Tiger players celebrated their stunning, last-second victory.

In closing, happiness doesn’t always find us, we have to pursue it. Doing so involves a number of steps:

Willingness to Be Who We Are
Searching for a Life Purpose
Nourishing Ourselves Regularly
Cleaning Up Our Vocabulary
Celebrating Success

Best wishes as you pursue happiness!

According to Business Week (September 13, 2007), Accounting firms have raced to the head of the pack! Want to know why? Enormous demand, tremendous opportunities, exciting appeal, excellent pay, more flexible work culture and bringing value. Are you glad you chose this career path?No matter if your long-term goals are to be a Partner in a Public Accounting Firm, CEO, CFO, COO, Treasurer, Tax Director, Financial Planner, Wealth Manager, HR Leader, Attorney, FBI Agent, Consultant, Entrepreneur, Professor…or a host of other career possibilities…accounting is the foundation of everything that goes on in a free-enterprise system.  If the CEO does not have an academic background in accounting, it is a good bet the person closest to him / her in the organization does have.  Those who lead organizations always need to know where the money comes from…and where the money is going.  When a leader loses sight of this, their future, or their organization’s future is short lived.  (Reference ENRON; TYCO; WORLD COM.)From a hiring perspective the recruiting professionals from all the public accounting firms in this country scour the earth each year searching for the best and the brightest accounting grads.  The real story is that there are not enough of these professionals to go around. Several reasons for this.

• Lack of career information related to the profession,
• The rumor is the ‘public accounting’ image may be tarnished,
• Accountants are too often painted as “techies,”
• Most high schools do not have an academic introduction program, or prep program, for students who might have an interest in the accounting profession, and
• The ever-decreasing population.

There has never been a better time for someone to pursue a career in accounting.  By all accounts majoring in accounting is one of the very best ways you can assure yourself of a challenging, personally satisfying, prestigious, secure, and financially-rewarding career. 

If you haven’t heard of Fred Smith, I encourage you to sign up for his leadership newsletter, Breakfast with Fred:  Timeless Wisdom for Today’s Leaders. Below Fred talks about making a favorable first impression - great advice for interviewing. 

DO give particular care to making your first impression favorable. It is difficult to be seen – to stand out in a crowd.

Often opportunities are missed because a person was remiss in being visible. Recently, I heard a corporation president remark about a division manager who recently retired: “It breaks my heart we didn’t find him earlier. He could have gone so much further because he had ability we didn’t see at an earlier stage.” That’s sad, but too often true. It isn’t all the company’s fault: it is the responsibility of an ambitious person to be seen.

There is no set formula, and each personality adapts, but here are some of the ways that I find to work effectively, providing they are used honestly with integrity.

Learn to ask intelligent questions. If I had only one opportunity to make a favorable impression on a key person, I would risk it all by asking a really incisive question. This attracts the right kind of attention. But remember –  the wrong question can be disastrous. For example, a young trainee failed to do enough homework and made a career-limiting move by asking the President in front of the group, “What do you do here?”

Deportment and poise are essential ingredients to attracting attention. Proper dress, a good carriage, a ready smile, an honest respect for self and others, and a look of calm are important. One should cultivate the ability to speak at the right time and to say the right thing. Each of these should be practiced until they become automatic.

The art of listening intently always gets favorable attention. While engaged in conversation with another person, develop the habit of direct eye contact. On occasion, I have seen a person literally take control of the group by capturing the eyes of the speaker. To do this requires being genuinely affirmative. It doesn’t work if one is the least tentative or judgmental.

Be ‘colorful’ without being showy. ‘Color’ is part of style. It adds an appreciable quality without taking anything away from performance or results. ‘Color’ defies definition, but you know it when you see it. ‘Color’ often gives an edge and gives room until the person performs. It’s a bit like having the ability to borrow money before making it.

Have one primary point of brilliance…something done exceptionally well. Identifying the gift and developing it to a fine point is key. A favorable impression depends on the ability to excel in one particular area — and be recognized for it.

Know what you do that attracts unfavorable attention and fix it. Tardiness, interrupting conversations, inappropriate dress, wasting others’ time will lower the stock of an executive. We need to be continually alert to any habits that will hold us back, but we need to avoid being excessively critical of ourselves.

As an HR Director, it’s always good to run across an article that exemplifies my beliefs. Brian Tracy speaks to corporate and public audiences on the subjects of Personal and Professional Development - and hits the nail on the head with the following:

You have incredible powers of mind and emotions that give you timely and accurate feedback in every area of your life.

“Tune in” to yourself so you can make the right decision.

Using Your Inner Guidance System
We know that the body has a natural bias toward health and energy. It’s designed to last for 100 years with proper care and maintenance. When something goes wrong with any part of our body, we experience it in the form of pain or discomfort of some kind.

We know that when our body is not functioning smoothly and painlessly, something is wrong, and we take action to correct it. We go to a doctor; we take pills; we undergo physical therapy, massage or chiropractic. We know that if we ignore pain or discomfort for any period of time, it could lead to something more serious.

How To Tell Right From Wrong
In the same sense, nature also gives us a way to tell emotionally what’s right for us and what’s wrong for us in life. Just as nature gives us physical pain to guide us to doing or not doing things in the physical realm, nature gives us emotional pain to guide us toward doing or not doing things in the emotional or mental realm. The wonderful thing is that you’re constructed so that if you simply listen carefully to yourself — to your mind, your body and your emotions — and follow the guidance you’re given, you can dramatically enhance the quality of your life.

Just as the natural physical state of your body is health and vitality, your natural emotional state is peace and happiness. Whenever you experience a deviation from peace and happiness, it’s an indication that something is amiss. Something is wrong with what you’re thinking, doing or saying. Your feeling of inner happiness is the best indicator you could ever have to tell you what you should be doing more of and what you should be doing less of.

The Messenger
Unhappiness is to your life as pain is to your body. It is sent as a messenger to tell you that what you’re doing is wrong for you.

Very often, you’ll suffer from what has been called “divine discontent.” You’ll feel fidgety and uneasy for a reason or reasons that are unclear to you. You’ll be dissatisfied with the status quo. Sometimes, you’ll be unable to sleep. Sometimes, you’ll be angry or irritable. Very often, you’ll get upset with things that have nothing to do with the real issue. You’ll have a deep inner sense that something isn’t as it should be, and you’ll often feel like a fish on a hook, wriggling and squirming emotionally to get free.

Divine Discontent
And that is a good thing. Divine discontent always comes before a positive life change. If you were perfectly satisfied, you would never take any action to improve or change your circumstances. Only when you’re dissatisfied for some reason do you have the inner motivation to engage in the outer behaviors that lead you onward and upward.

Listen to yourself. Trust your inner voice. Go with the flow of your own personality.

Action Exercises
Here are three steps you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.

1. Listen to yourself and trust your own feelings. If there is a part of your life that causes you stress and happiness, resolve to deal with it.
2. Identify those areas of your life where you are dissatisfied or frustrated for any reason. What changes should you, could you make?
3. Remember that nature wants you to be happy, healthy, popular and prosperous. Any deviation from those conditions is a signal to you that action is necessary.

Reprinted with permission of Brian Tracy.

Reprinted with permission: Dr. John C. Maxwell, e-newsletter ‘Leadership Wired’ available at www.MaximumImpact.com

The environment has taken center stage recently in the American media. Going “green” has become trendy among everyone from Hollywood elites to suburbanites. Corporate America is experiencing pressure from environmentally savvy consumers who are flocking en masse to socially responsible companies. At a time when the USA is at war, an American, Al Gore, was awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize for his persistent advocacy of the environment. Whether the discussion involves global warming, renewable energy, or organic agriculture, seemingly everywhere environmental issues are at the forefront of debate.

The California wildfires of October 2007 were stark reminders of the horror that can be unleashed when the environment turns hostile. The cluster of fires were fanned by the Santa Ana winds which swept westward across the California deserts and out to sea. The hot and dry winds gusted up to 100 mph in places, and, for days, they made firefighting next to impossible.

The rapidly advancing fires charred and blackened everything in their paths. Thousands had to flee their homes to escape the fires as blazes raged uncontrollably across the southern portion of the state. By the time the fires subsided, over a half-million acres had gone up in flames, 1,600 houses had burned down, and well over $1 billion of damage had been done. The tragic effects of the widespread fires will be felt in California for months, if not years.

As evidenced by California’s wildfires, when the natural environment goes haywire, everyone living within it suffers. Likewise, when leaders lose control of their environment, everyone within the organization undergoes harm. It’s critical for leaders to stay abreast of environmental factors in order to protect a healthy and secure workplace.

In Part One, we looked at five questions leaders ask to create a winning environment. In this issue, we’ll pick up where we left off by exploring five more questions posed by leaders concerned about the climates they are orchestrating.

Questions That Create a Winning Environment

6. “Do I seek out barriers and remove them to make the team’s job easier?”Leaders should be on the lookout for specific environmental hazards. These include the following:

• Lack of communication
• Formation of silos and cliques
• Distrust among team members
• Bad attitudes
• Inexplicable underperformance
• Unwillingness to change

7. “Do I give people the freedom required to learn, grow, and deliver?”
8. “Do I foster a culture of inclusion by hiring people who are different than I am?”
9. “Am I a consensus builder?”
10. “Have I created a caring environment among team members?”

Mr. Alter’s fifth-grade class at Lake Elementary School made headlines when the boys in the class decided by themselves to shave their heads. They did so, without embarrassment, because one of their own, Ian O’Gorman, developed cancer and had undergone chemotherapy. His hair began to fall out. To make their friend feel at home, all of his classmates agreed to shave their heads (with their parents’ permission) so that upon his return, Ian would not stand out from the class. That way, no one would know who the “cancer kid” was. The teacher, Mr. Alter, was so moved by the spirit of his class that he too shaved his head.

Through the experience, Mr. Alter’s class leaped the chasm of friendship and became the caring environment of a family.