Success Common Sense

High Goals, Outstanding Performance and Success

Outstanding performance is one of the keys to personal and professional success that I discuss in several of my books: Straight Talk for Success, Your Success GPS and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success.  If you want to become an outstanding performer, you need to do three things.  First, stay on top of your game by becoming a lifelong learner.  Second, set high goals and do whatever it takes to achieve them.  Third, get organized.  Manage your time, life and stress well.

I have great little book in my office called The Portable DO IT! Let’s Get Off Our Butts.  I often turn to it for inspiration.  I opened it up yesterday to page 95 and found this piece of advice from Robert Fritz…

The way you activate the seeds of your creation is by making choices about the results you want to create.  When you make a choice, you mobilize vast human energies and resources which otherwise go untapped.  All too often people fail to focus their choices upon results and therefore their choices are ineffective.  If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise.

This is great advice when it comes to goals setting.  Don’t be afraid to set high goals.  The higher your goals, the more likely you are to become an outstanding performer.  Mediocre performers most often begin with limited goals.  As Robert Fritz says, when you set high goals for yourself, “you mobilize vast human energies and resources which otherwise go untapped.”

It’s a shame to let your personal energy and resources to go untapped.  Set high goals and dig deep inside to do whatever it takes to achieve them.  Les Brown, a well known motivational speaker says it quite well…

If you set goals and go after them with all the determination you can muster, your gifts will take you places that will amaze you.

To do this, you have to trust yourself.  You have to trust that you can do it – and more importantly that you will do it.  We are all capable of accomplishing so much more than we think we can. 

If you’re goals are too modest, you’ll never achieve everything of which you are capable, and you certainly won’t become an outstanding performer.  Outstanding performers are career and life stars because they reach for the stars.

Here’s another quote that sums up this post quite well – unfortunately I don’t know the attribution; if you do, please leave a comment letting us know who said these wise words…

The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark.

The common sense point here is simple.  Successful people are outstanding performers.  Outstanding performers are goal oriented.  They set high goals, and do whatever it takes to achieve them.  Then they set higher goals and do what they must to achieve them.  They do this day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.  If you want to become an outstanding performer, you need to constantly challenge yourself by setting high goals.  Aim high, and you’ll be surprised at what you can accomplish.

That’s my take on high goals and outstanding performance.  What’s yours?  Please take a minute to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

Your Success GPS

Outstanding performance is one of the keys to career and life success that I discuss in Straight Talk for Success, 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success, and my latest book Your Success GPS.  There are three things essential for becoming an outstanding performer.  1) You have to remain technically competent.  The half life of knowledge gets shorter every day.  Become a lifelong learner to remain technically competent throughout your career.  2) You need to set and achieve high goals.  Set milestones to help you keep on track with your goals. Focus on your goals every day. Do at least one thing every day that moves you closer to accomplishing each of your goals.  3) You need to be well organized.  Manage your time, stress, workspace and lifestyle well.

Walk the Talk Company, the publisher of Your Success GPS has just informed me that the book will be available very soon.  I’m excited.  I like writing Walk the Talk handbooks.  I had a particularly good time writing Your Success GPS.  I can’t wait to hold a copy in my hands.

To pique your curiosity and whet your appetite, here’s an excerpt Your Success GPS on lifelong learning…

Technical Competence Through Lifelong Learning

You probably have spent a lot of time in college or graduate school.  You might be tempted to think that you needn’t keep learning.  After all, isn’t learning what you need to know to function in the world of work the whole point of going to school?  Not really.  You just learn the basics in school. 

Your education really begins when you start working.  Thomas Carlyle once said, “What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.”

Thomas Carlyle lived in the 19th century.  If he were alive today, he might have amended his statement to say, “The internet is the greatest university of all.”  It’s true.  So many of the great books, as well as other career and life success information, are available on line.  The important thing is to keep learning – how you do it and where you get your information is secondary.

The best thing about graduating from college is that you finally get a chance to begin learning.  I have a huge collection of books on a variety of subjects.  These books are the first place I turn when I am looking for information to post on my blog, when I am working with my executive coaching clients, when I am preparing a speech and when I am designing a training program.

The half life of knowledge is getting shorter and shorter.  If you don’t keep learning, you won’t even keep up, you’ll fall behind in the knowledge that you need to become an outstanding performer.

As you’ve probably guessed, my best common sense suggestion for becoming a lifelong learner is simple.  Read.  Read technical journals.  Read trade magazines.  Read business publications like “The Wall Street Journal”, “Business Week”, “Fortune” and “Forbes.”  If you think they’re too stodgy, read “Fast Company.”  Read your company’s annual report.  Read your competitors’ annual reports.    Read your local newspaper and “The New York Times”.  Read news magazines like “Newsweek” and “Time.”  Read business and industry blogs.  Read books.  Reading is the best way to stay up with what’s happening in business, in your industry and in the world. 

There are other things you can do to keep learning.  Attend seminars.  Join the major groups or trade associations for your industry.  Attend their meetings and participate.  Volunteer for committee work.  Become known locally in your field.  Take a class at your local university.  Use your company’s tuition reimbursement program to get a free undergraduate or graduate degree. 

Your education doesn’t stop when you graduate, it begins anew.  There are many ways to keep learning.  Decide which ones work for you, and then follow through.  Outstanding performers are technically competent.  They stay technically competent because they are lifelong learners.

As Albert Einstein said…

“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong learning attempt to acquire it.”

The common sense point here is simple.  Successful people are outstanding performers.  Outstanding performers are lifelong learners.  They learn something new every day.  In today’s fast paced, highly competitive environment, if you’re not learning, you’re not standing still – you’re falling behind.  Be inquisitive.  Learn everything you can about your field, your company and your industry.  Keep learning.  In that way, you’ll become a truly valuable and indispensible person in your company – someone who flourishes in his or her job and is first in line when it comes time for promotions.

That’s my take on the importance of lifelong learning.  What’s yours?   Please take a minute to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

Hard Work, Outstanding Performance and Success

Outstanding performance is one of the keys to career and life success that I discuss in Straight Talk for Success and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success.  If you want to become an outstanding performer you need to do three things.  First, stay on top of your game by becoming a lifelong learner.  Second, set high goals.  Do whatever it takes to achieve them.  Third, get organized.  Manage your time, life and stress well.

And, it should go without saying, you need to work hard.  I subscribe to the Just Sell sales quotes.  Yesterday, I found this quote from Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers in my in box.

“The people at the very top don't work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.”

This is true – and something a lot of less than successful people really don’t want to hear. 

The law of attraction …

1. Know exactly what you want.
2. Ask the universe for it.
3. Feel, behave and know as if the object of your desire is already yours (visualize).
4. Be open to receive it and let go of (the attachment to) the outcome.

…is great as far as it goes.  However, I have found that while visualization is important in creating a successful life and career, “behave” is an overlooked word in point 3.  Hard work is the key behavior in becoming an outstanding performer and personal and professional success.

I have a quote by Paul J. Meyer hanging next to the door in my office.  I read it every time I enter or leave my office. 

“Whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe, and enthusiastically act upon... must inevitably come to pass!”

I focus on the words “enthusiastically act upon.”  To my way of thinking, these three words are synonymous with hard work -- a key behavior in creating a successful life and career.  Hard work is the behavior that is often overlooked when it comes to applying the law of attraction.  If you think you can succeed merely by knowing what you want, asking the universe for it and visualizing yourself having it, I think you’re in for an unpleasant surprise. 

As Malcolm Gladwell says, successful people work much, much harder than others.

Hard work is more than long hours.  Sure, sometimes it’s necessary to work evenings and weekends.  However, it’s just as important to maximize the value of the time you spend at work.  Figure out your high brain times and do the most intense work then.  I’m best in the early morning – 6:00 till 11:00 and the late afternoon and early evening 2:30 till 7:30 or 8:00.  I do my writing and thinking then.  I use the mid day hours for exercise, errands and low brain activities.  When are your peak performance times?  If you haven’t already done so, take a few minutes to determine them and do your best to schedule your most intense work then.

Set up systems for managing your work load.  Once you have systems in place, continuously improve them.  Make them better and more efficient so you can get more work done is less time.  In this way, you’ll be maximizing the value of your hard work.

The common sense point here is simple.  Successful people are outstanding performers.  As Malcolm Gladwell points out, outstanding performers are hard workers.  They know what they want and do whatever it takes to get it.  They enthusiastically act on their dreams.  This action helps them reach their goals.  There is no way around hard work.  You have to put in the time and effort if you want to be successful.  Ask any “overnight success.”  Everyone that I’ve ever met tells me that they spent years and years getting to the place where they became an “overnight success.”  Set your goals.  Work hard.  Work smart.  And you’ll succeed.

That’s my take on hard work and success.  What’s yours?  Please leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

Success and Lifelong Learning

Outstanding performance is one of the keys to career and life success that I discuss in Straight Talk for Success and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success.  If you want to become an outstanding performer, you need to do three things.  First, stay on top of your game by becoming a lifelong learner.  Second, set high goals and do whatever it takes to achieve them.  Third, get organized.  Manage your time, life and stress well.

Recently Forbes.com did a piece on lifelong learning.  While the author, Sangeeth Varghese, was focusing on leaders, he presents some common sense advice that is relevant to anyone interested in creating a successful life and career.

Here’s part of what he has to say…

Learning is like the weather. Everybody talks about it, but nobody does much about it. True leaders, though, can never be switched off to learning opportunities. As John F. Kennedy wrote in a speech he was to give the day he was assassinated, "Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other."

Sangeeth suggests that we should all go through life with “permanent learner's permit.”  He suggests that “we should use our minds to learn from even the most mundane things in life, and thereby they grow unceasingly.”

He suggests three ways to become a lifelong learner.

• Learn constantly
• Concentrate to learn
• Learn through repetition and review

Constant learning is the conscious attempt to learn at every waking moment.  Use down time to think about the information you’ve taken in recently, and to figure out how to use in to advance your life and career.  Even though I have written four books about career and life success and post to this blog five days a week, I keep learning about success.  My writing creates a situation in which I am constantly thinking about and finding new sources of information about success.  This in turn has led me to a deeper, richer understanding of how to become a personal and professional success.  I share that knowledge in these posts and my books.  By focusing on success constantly, I have become more knowledgeable about it.

Focus and concentration are two important keys to learning.  The more you focus and concentrate on a problem or situation, the better you will learn and be able to use the lessons gained from solving the problem in the future.

Finally, you learn from repetition and review.  The more you look at a subject from a variety of perspectives, the more you will learn about it.  Above, I used an example of how I am constantly learning about success from my writing.  I consciously choose to read and listen to what all sorts of people have to say about success.  As a result I find that the more I learn about career and life success, the more there is to know.  I stay alert – always looking for information that is in any way related to success.  You’d be surprised at the unusual places where I find it.  For example I found a great piece of advice on self confidence from Wally Amos in the Costco Connection magazine.  I blogged about it a couple of days ago.  You can see that post here.

Sangeeth concludes his article in Forbes.com with what he calls a Leadership Takeaway. 

Leaders never let their minds shut down. Whatever you are doing at any given moment -- watching the news, working on a business deal, talking to a friend, reading this article -- give it your full attention, and keep on learning.
 

The common sense point here is simple.  Successful people are outstanding performers.  Outstanding performers stay on top of their game because they are lifelong learners.  Lifelong learners share three traits in common.  They learn continuously.  They use their power of concentration to learn.  They learn through repetition and review.  You can become an effective lifelong learner by tuning in to the world around you.  Keep your learner’s permit up to date.  Give your full attention to what you are doing.  You’ll be surprised at how much you learn.

That’s my take on lifelong learning and success.  What’s yours?  Please leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud
 

Healthy Eating and Success

Outstanding performance is one of the keys to career and life success that I discuss in Straight Talk for Success and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success.  If you want to become an outstanding performer you need to do three things.  First, stay on top of your game by becoming a lifelong learner.  Second, set high goals.  Do whatever it takes to achieve them.  Third, get organized.  Manage your time, life and stress well.

Your diet is an important part of life and stress management.  It’s easier to perform at a high level when you eat well and exercise regularly.

If you’ve been paying attention recently, you’ve probably seen the news reports about the high caloric content of a lot of restaurant meals.  Apparently a lot of restaurant food (Chili’s Southwestern Eggrolls have really received a lot of bad press) is engineered to contain large amounts of fat, sugar and salt, which release the chemical dopamine, which in turn stimulates your desire to consume more foods high in fat, sugar and salt – an unhealthy combination.  If you’re interested in learning more about this, I suggest you read The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite, by David Kessler

Eating at home is one way to eat a more healthy diet.  But eating at home can be a bit of a chore.  Clint Bounds has created a meal planning website, www.plantoeat.com that will not only help you plan healthy nutritious meals, it will help you plan your shopping.  Here’s what he has to say…

Eating at home should be easier.

If you are anything like our family, you often find your fridge either too full of food you can't use or practically empty. You can't decide what to eat throughout the day so you end up spending more money eating out. You're frustrated with grocery shopping because you buy what you don't need and forget the stuff you do. You're tired of reinventing the wheel every meal!

Meal planning to the rescue.

Over the years, meal planning has been the most successful process that has helped our family consistently eat at home. When you have a plan, you know what you are eating in advance, have the ingredients and can start cooking before you are hungry. This saves money, time and your sanity. But even if you don't eat out often, you will still save money with meal planning because you will buy less of what you don't need and waste less food. You will also eat healthier meals with ingredients you can pronounce (and digest), spend more time with your family and friends, and relieve the stress of not knowing what to eat at the worst times (when you are already hungry, or worse, when your kids are).

So how do you meal plan?

First, plan to meal plan. Set aside time each week to plan your meals for the week or just the next few days. Then create your family menu so you can quickly make a meal selection, just as you would at a restaurant. Then plan your meals using your menu and event calendar, and create your shopping list from the planned recipes. To help with this process and eliminate the redundancy, such as continually recreating your shopping list, we have built a meal planning website called Plan to Eat. Plan to Eat is a simple to use tool that allows you to permanently store all of your favorite recipes in one place. No more fumbling through multiple recipe books, magazines and websites. You can either import recipes from popular recipe websites or easily input them by hand. Once you have your menu, you can search for your recipes by ingredients, cuisines, etc. Then drag-and-drop your recipes to your weekly meal plan and Plan to Eat automatically creates the shopping list for you, sorted by grocery store categories. It's really easy. You can also share your recipes with your friends. They can see your recipes and you can see theirs. We have a virtual "Pantry" that includes many popular staple items (like milk, napkins, soap, etc.) that help remind you what staple items you need before going shopping. And you can add them to your shopping list with only a few clicks. Then print out your shopping list and go shopping with confidence that you have a plan that includes eating great food at home, and not wasting time and money in the process.

Clint makes some great points here – and his Plan to Eat website makes it easy to plan for and cook delicious, healthy meals at home.  Check it out.

The common sense point here is simple.  Successful people are outstanding performers.  Outstanding performers manage their time, life and stress well.  You will eat better, more healthy meals if you cook at home.  To take full advantage of the health benefits of eating at home, you need to do a good job of meal planning.  Clint Bounds’Plan to Eat website is an excellent resource for planning your meals – and for eating a more healthy diet – and for saving money on your food cost.  It’s a win/win/win.

That’s my take on healthy eating for success.  What’s yours?  Please leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  And don't forget to check out www.plantoeat.com. As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

Action Creates Success

Outstanding performance is one of the keys to success that I discuss in Straight Talk for Success and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success.  If you want to be an outstanding performer you need to do three things.  1) Stay at the top of your game by becoming a lifelong learner.  2) Set high goals.  Do whatever it takes to achieve them.  3) Get organized.  Manage your time life and stress well.

I’m a big believer in synchronicity.  That’s why I pay attention to what’s happening around me.  Several days ago, I received an e mail from Mike Litman asking me to check out one of his blog posts that focused on one word – action.  Mike suggested doing one thing that I don’t want to do today that will move my life and business forward.

I was traveling last week.  I took the latest issue of SUCCESS Magazine with me.  You know I love this magazine.  If you’re not a subscriber, I suggest you go to www.success.com and subscribe right now.  In the current issue, Mel Robbins has a piece about time.  She says you should begin every day by asking yourself one question, “What is the one thing I can accomplish today that would make me feel fantastic at day’s end?”  Mel says do that one thing immediately.

In the same issue of SUCCESS, Richard Branson tells entrepreneurs to write down a risk they know they should take to improve their business, and to do it.  “Take the risk, even if it scares you,” he says. 

I recently attended an event hosted by James Malinchak.  James is a very successful entrepreneur who really knows how to market.  I left the event with a rubber bracelet that says, “GSDF: Get Stuff Done Fast.”  Because I survived my brush with cancer, it hasn’t replaced the LIVESTRONG bracelet I’ve been wearing for several years, but it sits right next to my computer in my office.

Mike, Mel, Richard and James make a great point about outstanding performers – they get things done because they take action.  Do it. Do it now.  Just do it.  Outstanding performers accomplish their goals because they focus on what’s important – something that can be risky or something they don’t want to do – and take action.  They get stuff done quickly.  As Tony Robbins says, “The path to success is to take massive, determined action.”

As I said at the beginning of this post, I am a believer in synchronicity.  Lately, I’ve been getting lots of input urging me to take action – to do things I don’t want to do, to do things that will make me feel good, to do things that are risky and to do things quickly.  I am following this advice.  I urge you to so too if you want to become an outstanding performer.

The common sense point here is simple.  Successful people are outstanding performers.  Outstanding performers set high goals and then do whatever it takes to achieve them.  Action is the key to achieving your goals.  Action leads to success.  It is the antidote to fear.  It keeps you moving in a positive direction.  If you want to succeed, you need to take positive determined action on a consistent basis.   Action is the key to outstanding performance, and outstanding performance is one of the keys to personal and professional success.

That’s my take on action and success.  What’s yours?  Please leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  Tell us about a recent action you took and how it helped you achieve one of your goals.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

Learning for Success in Unexpected Places

Outstanding performance is one of the keys to personal and professional success that I discuss in Straight Talk for Success and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success.  If you want to become an outstanding performer you need to do three things.  1) Stay on top of your game by becoming a lifelong learner.  2) Set high goals.  Do whatever it takes to achieve them.  3) Get organized.  Manage your time, life and stress well.

Looking outside of your traditional box is one way to become a lifelong learner.  Recently, I had the opportunity to read a great book by Jeff Hajek, Whaddaya Mean I Gotta Be Lean?  Lean is a term that is most often used in manufacturing.  It is a tool for continuously improving work systems.

At first glance you might think, “Why is this guy writing about Lean?  I’m interested in creating a successful career and life.”

I’m writing about lean because learning about lean, and applying some of its tools can help you become more productive and better able to reach the goals you set for yourself.  Lean tools can help improve your productivity – just like they help improve the productivity of companies around the world.

That’s why reading a book that at first glance you might overlook -- like Whaddaya Mean I Gotta Be Lean? -- is important.  See for yourself.  On page 51, Jeff says…

"In short, lean does more with less.  It eliminates waste so employees can focus more on productive work…In addition, lean companies generally have quicker delivery times and higher quality levels…”

If you’re serious about becoming an outstanding performer, you will want to do more with less, eliminate waste, and deliver higher quality work products quicker.  Right?  I know that I strive for this.

Jeff goes on to explain how wasted activity makes you less productive.  He refers to Taiichi Ohno’s “Seven Wastes”

1. Defects
2. Overprocessing
3. Transportation
4. Motion
5. Time
6. Inventory
7. Overproduction

You’ll have to read Jeff’s book or another book on Lean to get a complete understanding of these principles.  However, from even a cursory glance, I bet you can see how they -- especially defects, transportation, motion and time – can be a drag on your personal productivity.

For example, I am often guilty of poor time and motion management.  Things often take longer than they should – mostly because I don’t spend enough time getting everything lined up before I start a project.  Does this ever happen to you?

I found Chapter 11 of Whaddaya Mean I Gotta Be Lean? “Be a Pro at Projects” to be particularly helpful.  I think you will too.  After all, your performance on big projects often is the key to getting identified as a high performer, someone not only to keep, but to promote.  In these days of massive layoffs this is really important.

The common sense point here is simple.  Successful people are outstanding performers.  Outstanding performers are lifelong learners.  They learn in areas that at first glance might be outside of their area of interest.  Jeff Hajek’s book Whaddaya Mean I Gotta Be Lean? is a good example of a body of knowledge that at first might seem to not apply to creating a successful life and career.  However, on further inspection, the ideas and insights inside can help anyone become more productive, and achieve high goals.  Learning can be found in lots of unlikely places.  You just have to be open to it, and know where to look.

That’s my take on finding opportunities for learning in places you might overlook.  What’s yours?  Please leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

Positive People, Lifelong Learning and Success

Outstanding performance is one of the keys to career and life success that I discuss in Straight Talk for Success and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success.  If you want to become an outstanding performer you need to do three things.  1) Stay on top of your game by becoming a lifelong learner.  2) Set high goals.  Do whatever it takes to achieve them.  3) Get organized.  Manage your time, life and stress well.

Billy Donovan is the Head Basketball Coach at the University of Florida. He has been the coach there for 11 years. In those 11 years, he has compiled a record of 226 wins and 98 losses. His teams won the NCAA championship in 2006 and 2007.

Billy Donovan is one of the premier college basketball coaches. However, it wasn’t always so. He had a losing record in his first two seasons at Florida. “I remember my first couple of years here… trying to build something. It was really hard. We had two straight losing seasons. Losing is never fun,” he said. During the tough times, Billy Donovan took motivation where he could get it:

“You know those Successories, little motivational things, inspiration, drive, all those things?  There were like six or eight framed Successories things in my office just for support.”

Successories is a company that sells motivational products – framed posters, cards, awards, plaques, books. You name it, they have it. If you fly, I’m sure you’ve seen their ads in the Sky Mall catalog.

However, this isn’t about Successories. It’s not even about Billy Donovan. It’s about a very simple but often overlooked common sense point about career and life success: surround yourself with positive things and people and learn from them.

I know that framed motivational posters may seem a little corny. However, they worked for Billy Donovan. They’ve worked for me. I’ve mentioned the framed quote from Paul Meyer in my office that says, “Whatever you can vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe, and enthusiastically act on… must inevitably come to pass.”

I’ve had this quote hanging in my office since 1988, the year I struck out on my own as an independent consultant, coach, and speaker. It has served me well as I built my business and wrote my books. It is my guiding light as I am learning how to use the internet to disseminate my thoughts more widely.

Positive people are even more important than positive things. Billy Donovan says that University of Florida Athletic Director Jeremy Foley gave him the support he needed during his first two losing seasons that helped him get where he is today. Cathy, my wife, is my biggest supporter and cheerleader. I also have a network of people who support me – some by providing the services I need to run my business, some through their friendship. I wouldn’t have had the success I’ve had over the past 20 years if it weren’t for these people. I’ve learned from all of them.

Here are some ideas that have helped me continue to learn and grow:

• Be open – to new people, ideas, and perspectives. What you know to be true today may not be true tomorrow. If you’re not paying attention, your truths can drag you down. Keep asking yourself, “Why do I believe this to be true?”  You might be surprised and find that your reasons are no longer valid. Find friends who will challenge your thinking, not just go along with what you say.

• Recognize your personal biases. We all have filters. The more you can recognize yours, the easier it will be for you to determine when they are getting in the way of learning something new. You can’t eliminate your biases, but you can compensate for them.

• Be humble. You can learn from anyone. There is a lot of wisdom in this world that you will find in some unusual places. The key is to admit to yourself that you don’t have all the answers. The more you understand how much you don’t know, the easier it will be for you to take advantage of the knowledge and wisdom that enters your life every day.

The common sense point in all of this is simple. Successful people are outstanding performers.  Outstanding performers stay on top of their game because they are lifelong learners.  If you want to be successful, surround yourself with positive people and learn from them.  Find a mentor.  Listen to what he or she has to say.  More important, do what he or she suggests.  We all learn best by doing.  So do what your mentor suggests and you’ll become an outstanding performer.

That’s my take on positive people and lifelong learning.  What’s yours?  Please take a minute and leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

Successful People Never Give Up On Their Goals

Outstanding performance is one of the keys to personal and professional success that I discuss in Straight Talk for Success.  If you want to become an outstanding performer, you need to do three things.  First, stay on top of your game by becoming a lifelong learner.  Second, set high goals and do whatever it takes to achieve them.  Third, get organized.  Manage your time, life and stress well.

We had a rainy Memorial Day weekend in Denver.  I was home and a little bored on Monday.  When I’m home and bored I often turn on ESPN.  When I turned on ESPN Monday afternoon, I caught the last 10 minutes of NCAA Men’s Division 1 National Championship Lacrosse game between Cornell and Syracuse.

It was quite a game.  When I turned it on, Cornell was winning 9 – 6 and seemed in total control of the game.  Syracuse scored three goals in the final four minutes – the last with 4.5 seconds left in the game.  They won in overtime.

What does this have to do with high performance and career success? 

Plenty in my mind.  Both teams had a goal of winning the national championship when the game began.  For 56 minutes, it appeared as if Cornell was going to win.  However, the Syracuse guys dug deep and made some incredible plays to first tie, and then win, the game.

The game-tying goal was part athleticism, part grit and part luck.  The game winner was a combination of great, aggressive defense and good offensive passing.  In the end, the Syracuse players and coaches did what they needed to do to accomplish their goal of winning a second straight national championship.  Good for them.  They overcame seemingly insurmountable odds.  It was fun to watch, as I had no rooting interest for either team.

The common sense idea here is simple.  Successful people are outstanding performers.  Outstanding performers set high goals, and then do whatever it takes to achieve them.  On Monday, the Syracuse Lacrosse team demonstrated the tenacity it takes to achieve high goals.  They won the national championship in dramatic fashion.  They never quit.  They kept working until the end.  They made the most of a fortunate deflection.  We all can take a lesson from them on what it takes to achieve high goals.

That’s my take on the Syracuse lacrosse team’s second national championship.  Did you see the game?  What do you think?  Was it luck, hard work, a never give up attitude, or all three?  Please leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

Learning for Success

Outstanding performance is one of the keys to success that I discuss in Straight Talk for Success.  If you want to become an outstanding performer, you need to do three things.  1) Stay on top of your game by becoming a lifelong learner.  2) Set high goals and do whatever it takes to achieve them.  3) Get organized.  Manage your time, life and stress well.

The other day, I came across a treasure trove of quotes on learning – most of which apply to lifelong learning.  I don’t usually do quote posts, but I thought I’d try something different today.  Please let me know if you would like me to do quote posts on the other success topics I discuss on this blog.

Quotes on the Importance of Lifelong Learning

You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.  ~Clay P. Bedford

Get over the idea that only children should spend their time in study.  Be a student so long as you still have something to learn, and this will mean all your life.  ~Henry L. Doherty

I am learning all the time.  The tombstone will be my diploma.  ~Eartha Kitt

It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.  ~Attributed to Harry S. Truman

A single conversation with a wise man is better than ten years of study.  ~Chinese Proverb
It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it.  ~Jacob Bronowski

Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.  ~Mark Twain

Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.  ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

You learn something every day if you pay attention.  ~Ray LeBlond

The most useful piece of learning for the uses of life is to unlearn what is untrue.  ~Antisthenes

Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.  ~Alexander Pope

Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every conceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing.  ~Thomas Huxley

Children have to be educated, but they have also to be left to educate themselves.  ~Abbé Dimnet, Art of Thinking, 1928

I don't think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.  ~Abraham Lincoln

The ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr.  ~Mohammed

Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.  ~Chinese Proverb

All the world is a laboratory to the inquiring mind.  ~Martin H. Fischer

I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.  ~Winston Churchill

The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we continue to live.  ~Mortimer Adler

There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.  ~Willa Cather

There are many things which we can afford to forget which it is yet well to learn.  ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

I am defeated, and know it, if I meet any human being from whom I find myself unable to learn anything.  ~George Herbert Palmer

Always walk through life as if you have something new to learn and you will.  ~Vernon Howard

Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.  ~Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

I find four great classes of students:  The dumb who stay dumb.  The dumb who become wise.  The wise who go dumb.  The wise who remain wise.  ~Martin H. Fischer

No matter how one may think himself accomplished, when he sets out to learn a new language, science, or the bicycle, he has entered a new realm as truly as if he were a child newly born into the world.  ~Frances Willard

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.  ~Henry Ford

It is not hard to learn more.  What is hard is to unlearn when you discover yourself wrong.  ~Martin H. Fischer

If the past cannot teach the present and the father cannot teach the son, then history need not have bothered to go on, and the world has wasted a great deal of time.  ~Russell Hoban

You have learned something.  That always feels at first as if you had lost something.  ~H.G. Wells

I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me.  ~Dudley Field Malone

Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem.  That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily.  ~Thomas Szasz

I am what the librarians have made me with a little assistance from a professor of Greek and a few poets.  ~Bernard Keble Sandwell

Learn as much as you can while you are young, since life becomes too busy later.  ~Dana Stewart Scott

His studies were pursued but never effectually overtaken.  ~H.G. Wells

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.  ~Alvin Toffler

Learning without thought is labor lost.  ~Confucius

The pupil can only educate himself.  Teachers are the custodians of apparatus upon which he himself must turn and twist to acquire the excellencies that distinguish the better from the poorer of God's vessels.  ~Martin H. Fischer

The best of my education has come from the public library... my tuition fee is a bus fare and once in a while, five cents a day for an overdue book.  You don't need to know very much to start with, if you know the way to the public library.  ~Lesley Conger

The man who is too old to learn was probably always too old to learn.  ~Henry S. Haskins

We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself.  ~Lloyd Alexander

You don't understand anything until you learn it more than one way.  ~Marvin Minsky

The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn.  ~John Lubbock

Learning is like rowing upstream:  not to advance is to drop back.  ~Chinese Proverb

People learn something every day, and a lot of times it's that what they learned the day before was wrong.  ~Bill Vaughan

The common sense point here is simple.  Successful people are outstanding performers.  Outstanding performers stay on top of their game.  They are lifelong learners, committed to learning everything they can about their profession, their business, their company, their company’s competitors and life in general.  It's simple, really -- if you want to succeed, you have to keep learning.  As the Chinese proverb says, if you quit learning, you are not standing still, you are losing ground.

I hope you have enjoyed these quotes on the importance of lifelong learning.  Please leave a comment sharing which ones resonated with you and why.  Also, please let me know if you enjoy this type of post.  If you do, I’ll add it to my repertoire.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud