Ready for a Change

November 12, 2018 By // by Andrew Shaffer

This week the overwhelming topic that has come up when talking to clients or at networking events is change. There are a lot of people out there that are looking for something different. Some are looking for a change in career. Others are ready for a change in their results. And even a few are looking for, just something different. This week I am going to talk about making changes and what can might get in your way when trying to change.

Ready for a Change?

When I first started out in this career, I as invited to speak to a group of people at one of their meetings. As I sat there listening to this group, they expressed frustration with changes in the work place. They were tired of the changes they were being asked to do their job. They were frustrated with changes in management and management structures. There were a handful of other changes that make this group upset. So, their solution? Make a change!

As I talked with them, I helped them realize that it wasn’t the change that upset them. Everyone in that room had been an agent of change at some point in their career. What they resisted was being changed. They were willing to change, as long as the change came from them, and was something THEY wanted. When you decide you need to make a change, here are some things to consider.

What Do You Want

One of the first things to consider when making a change is what do you want? I have had prospects and clients approach me on several occasions saying they wanted a change in career, but they don’t know what they want. The key to lasting change is it has to be something you want. If you want to change jobs, and don’t know what job you want, you’re not likely to make the change you want. You’ll find that the new job is a lot like the old job, and not bringing you the change you desire.

When you decide you want a change in your career or business it is important to know what you want. If you don’t know what you want, start from the end and work backwards. What outcome are you trying to achieve? More happiness? A better standard of living? We are conditioned to do everything starting at the beginning. We start here and go there. Working backwards will help you get where you are going and the steps you need to get there.

Fear

One big detractor from making changes is fear. Most of the time the fear isn’t even real and is just an emotional fear. We fear change because it takes us out of our comfort zone. We might be asked to take a chance and do something we haven’t done before. What if you fail? What will people think? Who cares!?!

Failing is a part of life, and part of the learning process. Those that try new things are going to fail. Think of all the times you’ve failed in the past and came out stronger for it. How many skinned knees did you have when learning to ride a bike? Ever go on a date that didn’t work out? Or have a job that didn’t work? Most likely you learned from these mistakes and now can ride a bike, been on a successful date, and have a better job. Fear is the biggest obstacle to success, and don’t let it hold you back!

Overwhelmed

I have some clients that have decided to change, and know what they want. They are willing to overcome the fear and fail to succeed. Great, but the journey in front of them feels daunting. These clients come to me because they feel overwhelmed. There is just so much work to do, how will they ever complete it? They don’t know what to do first so they don’t do anything! I remind them that it is just like eating a big meal, you have to do it one bite at a time!

Look, not doing anything is not going to help you make the changes you desire. The group I talked about in the intro knew that. Even if you try to make a change, and take make the wrong change, that is still progress. At least you know what NOT to do! When you are feeling overwhelmed, sit back, create a plan, and take action. As you start to make progress you will begin to feel less and less overwhelmed.

This Week’s Challenge

Decide you are going to embrace change. Now is the perfect time to start thinking of the changes you’d like to see in your career and business. We are rapidly approaching the end of the year. New year is a good time to start a new change. I know most people don’t set resolutions anymore, but maybe it is time to CHANGE that!

If you would like to discuss more ways to help your business grow or if you feel you have a specific problem that needs to be addressed, please reach out to me.

Finishing Strong

November 5, 2018 By // by Andrew Shaffer

It’s that time of year again! We just finished Halloween, the kids are jacked with a sugar rush from all the candy they received. We’re moving into the holidays filled with pie, cookies, family feasts and all the other treats this time of year brings! This is also a time when we begin to look back at what we accomplished this year, and perhaps start measuring how well we did compared to what we wanted to accomplish. How did you do? Well, if your still off track, or just want to end the year by finishing strong, it’s not too late! This week I am going to talk about how you can knock out those goals (or resolutions) you started but maybe didn’t complete this year!

Finishing Strong

I played sports when I was younger, and now I coach my kids as they play sports. One thing I remember my basketball and football coaches screaming at us as we were doing sprints at the end of a long practice was “The team that is in the best shape in the fourth quarter wins games!” They were right, many games are won or lost in the fourth quarter. Sports and business have so many parallels. We’re a third of the way through the fourth quarter of 2018. How can you finish strong?

Plan

Create a detailed plan and execute it. Hopefully you already have a plan, so the plan might just need adjusting. Again, in sports, coaches and players have a game plan before every game. They study the opponent, and they create a plan to give them the best chance to win. Inevitably, game conditions are not exactly as planned, and adjustments are made to the plan to adapt to conditions. Now is the time to evaluate your 2018 plan. You may have to reallocate resources or eliminate non-productive strategies. It is time to evaluate the game conditions (or business conditions) to determine what is working and what needs adjustment. Make the adjustments and execute.

Measure

There is a saying in business that what gets measured gets done. Set milestones, and measure your progress towards your goals. Measurements should be taken as often as practical. When you measure something, you focus on it. It becomes important. If you have to manufacture a certain number of widgets, count them. How many per week or day do you have to accomplish? Count them! Count them with your team. When you are focusing on the end goal, you’ll find that you’ll solve all the little problems in your way. You’ll find ways to get the parts you need, you’ll help someone who is falling behind. The team comes together to see the count increase.

You don’t manufacture widgets? The same happens with sales, consulting, administrative work. Whatever your job function is, create a goal and measure your progress against it. Don’t get discouraged if you fall short. Determine what went wrong, and how do I fix it. Remember it’s the fourth quarter, your job is to execute!

Eliminate Distractions

So many things compete for our time, and when you’re focused on finishing strong you don’t have the luxury of distractions. There is no such thing as multitasking. Our brains cannot process two things at time, and distractions come in many forms, email, phone calls, news stories, office gossip, or Sunday’s football games. Ask yourself, “How are any of these helping you achieve your goals?” Unless you’re on the coaching staff of a professional football team, there is no reason to relive yesterday’s game on Monday. We’ve all heard the advice to tun off our email or silence our phones when we’re working on a project. Very few of us do it. I will share this though, the most productive people I know have the uncanny ability to focus on the project at hand and block out all distractions. Eliminate the distractions, don’t try to multitask, and focus on the task in front of you. You’ll find you are much more productive, and will be able to finish the fourth quarter strong!

This Week’s Challenge

A client of mine shared a story with me last week. She was running her first (and only) marathon. After about 22 miles, she started to get so physically sick that she was vomiting. She said she seriously considered quitting and trying again at another time. She had about four miles left and she was considering starting over! Eventually she came to her senses and finished the last four miles.

Many of us will get to this time of the year, see they are short of their goal, and decide they’ll try next year. This week’s challenge is to not give up. You’ve come this far, and you only have four miles left! Finish the marathon!

If you would like to discuss more ways to help your business grow or if you feel you have a specific problem that needs to be addressed, please reach out to me.

Pockets of Inspiration

October 29, 2018 By // by Andrew Shaffer

Every week I try to share with you lessons that I’ve learned the previous week. I try to answer common questions or share an important message that will help you in your career and business. This week, I was inspired by a few separate quotes. I am going to share these pockets of inspiration with you, and why they inspired me. I hope they inspire you as well!

Pockets of Inspiration

Inspiration can come from anywhere, and this week it seemed to come from everywhere. Inspiration is important because it is the root of motivation. Motivation is what gets you through the day, and inspiration is what achieves goals. I have four quotes that I came across this week, that provided immediate inspiration for me. My hope is when you read them, they’ll trigger some inspiration for you as well.

You Can Do It!

“If you can imagine it, you can design it. If you can design ,it you can build it.”

My son will be entering middle school next year, so my wife and I were exploring middle school options. We visited a local charter school where they displayed a banner with the above quote. Unfortunately, credit for the quote wasn’t given. I thought this was an important message though, not just for our youth but for everyone. Many adults can imagine the life they want. They can imagine a dream lifestyle, career or business. The MegaMillions Lotto just reached $1.6 Billion last week and I heard many people imagining what they’d do with that kind of money.

Many people do not believe they can design and build the career or business they want. They think they have to be lucky, or success is reserved for the few. But just as there is a scientific process for designing and building something, there is a process for creating a successful business, or a successful career. To design and build your business and career will take hard work, education, sacrifice and at times failures. I can tell you though that it is all worth it when you finally create the business and career you imagine!

Hustle

“Things may come to those who wait, but only those things that are left by those who hustle.” – Abraham Lincoln

In other words, go get it! I don’t think President Lincoln was discounting the need for patience as much as he was warning against the dangers of procrastination. Napoleon Hill wrote about the dangers of procrastination in his bestselling book Think and Grow Rich. In fact, most of the books I’ve studied on success will tell you that you need to have a relentless pursuit of your goal so you can finally achieve it. Hustle requires dedication, perseverance, and motivation. It is much easier to settle for the status quo and put things off until tomorrow.

I coach my kids in sports and one of the rules I tell them for winning is to hustle, give 100% all day every day! I have met with many people that either want to advance their career or start a business. One major thing holding them back is the time it’ll take to learn a new skill or achieve a certification. Let’s take for example a woman that wants to achieve an executive position at her company. She may decide that getting an MBA would help her achieve that goal. But getting an MBA takes time and effort. She may decide it’s too much work. With the new job, and the kids, how is she going to find time? So, she procrastinates. Eventually three, four, five years go by, and still no MBA. With a little hustle she could have had her MBA. I mean the time is going to go by anyway, why not take advantage of it?

Feel It

“If people don’t feel it, they won’t do it.” – Jack Stack

This comes from an awesome book, The Great Game of Business by Jack Stack. In this book, the author talks about the importance of getting employees excited about their work, and goal achieving. He talks about all kinds of incentives they put in place to help foster this excitement, but he also knows that when people aren’t excited, they typically don’t work as hard.

In my consulting work, I often ask clients what they want to accomplish. Surprisingly, that is often that people just don’t know. I guess as be become adults we stop imagining what it is we want and start accepting what we have. Or we think we’re supposed to want something so we pretend we do. One of my clients recently came to this realization. I had her doing an exercise where she was coming up with a list of things she wanted to accomplish. Then, she was to concentrate on each thing and imagine what it’d be like when you accomplished it. She wrote down things on the list she thought she wanted. A lot of these things were the stuff successful people are supposed to have. She soon realized there were some items she couldn’t get excited about. We immediately took that off the list. We needed her to focus on what she did want, and what made her excited. After that her business started to skyrocket!

Go Big

“I won’t be a rock star. I’ll be a legend.” – Freddie Mercury

In what universe is being a rock star not good enough? That was my first reaction when I saw this quote. Apparently in Freddie Mercury’s universe, it wasn’t enough! I’d say that the lead singer of Queen became a legend.

It doesn’t matter what line of work you are in, there is no inspiration in settling for second place. Nobody goes to the Olympics dreaming of brining home a silver medal. There isn’t football player out there that dreams of getting drafted to a mediocre team. And, the very best in any profession don’t dream of winning their equivalent of a Superbowl, they dream of dynasties and legacies. Michael Phelps didn’t dream of winning a gold medal, he dreamed of winning the most gold medals. Lesson learned here, dream as far as your imagination will take you, then take one more step!

This Week’s Challenge

This week’s challenge to find something that inspires you. Use your imagination, set that goal and hustle until you accomplish it. When you do you’ll find more meaning in your work and your life!

If you would like to discuss more ways to help your business grow or if you feel you have a specific problem that needs to be addressed, please reach out to me.

career growth