As I’ve mentioned previously, I spent the majority of my career as a corporate financial analyst. On any given day, that could mean very different things. While having the job title of “Financial Analyst”, I’ve had duties ranging from performing journal entries to reconcile expense accounts to doing due diligence on potential M&A projects. The common thread that ran through it all, however, was that I hated it.

So, when given the opportunity to move out of the finance realm and into a more operations-oriented position as a Supply Chain Manager, I jumped at it. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do, but it was better than being a spreadsheet jockey.

What I really wanted to do was work in a cross-cultural environment, specifically in Asia. I have an MBA in international management from the US’s finest school for that particular sub-discipline. When I was in the military, I was trained as a Chinese Mandarin linguist. Everything I’d done in my adult life over the past decade or so has been geared toward working outside of the US. I wanted a position working directly with my company’s Mandarin-speaking suppliers and contractors, with an eye toward an eventual expat assignment in China, so that I could improve on my language ability and learn the ins and outs of working in Asia.

Unfortunately, that hasn’t panned out. Every job that I’ve pursued with my current employer has been accompanied by vague discussions of the potential to meet these goals, but they’ve never panned out. It’s been frustrating, especially since I’ve worked so hard to become uniquely qualified to do this kind of work.

A few months ago, the business unit I work in was undergoing a reorganization. Due to some shuffling of personnel at the top, I was slated to move from one group to another. My new boss wanted to sit down with me and discuss the organizational structure he envisioned and show me where he saw me fitting into it.

As we talked, I looked through the organization that he had proposed, and I noticed something that irritated me. In this organization was a proposed position for a “Subcontractor Relationship Manager”, dealing with our current group of subcons (located in Asia) on all business-related issues.

As he was explaining his vision for the organization, I cut him off.

“I don’t want to be rude,” I said,”but I want the Subcon Manager position”. He looked at me, puzzled.

I asked him, “Did you know that I speak Mandarin?”. He didn’t.

“Were you aware that I have an MBA in international management, focusing on dealing with business issues in a cross-cultural environment?”. He wasn’t.

The first thing that ran through my head was, “How many people do I have to tell about this stuff before someone actually listens?”. It’s become a running joke with the folks in my business unit: any time I’m introduced to someone new in the presence of some of my colleagues, they’ll say, “Did you know he speaks Mandarin?”. I tell EVERYONE at any relevant time what skills I have and try to see how I can use my abilities to help them do their job better.

I presented my new boss with an electronic copy of my resume, as well as some talking points as to why I’d be the most logical choice for this position. I knew he’d have to discuss with our general manager to get the transition approved, because my old position would need to be backfilled. I wanted him well-armed when this discussion happened.

A couple weeks later, I was informed I’d gotten the job.

So, what did I take away from this?

First, you’re often going to need help getting what you want. If you want something, keep telling people in a position to get it for you. Sometimes you can get what you want on your own. But, many times it pays to have people in your corner.

Second, don’t assume that everyone knows what you want, no matter how many times you’ve mentioned it before. It may be embarrassing at times, but the squeaky wheel gets the grease. No one is as concerned about your goals as you are, so you need to advocate for yourself.

Finally, do a good job even if the position you’re in isn’t ideal. I wouldn’t have had the chance to get this new position if I hadn’t excelled in the ones I’d had previously. I’ve always tried to, at the very least, provide more than was expected of me. Work toward doing the best you can at all times. You won’t always get there, but you’ll be happy at the unintended consequences.

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Ed. Note – This post is written directly to me.  For every finger pointing at you, the reader, there are three pointed back at what has two thumbs and makes the same mistakes (“this guy!”).  Don’t get your feelings hurt ’cause I called you a doofus later on in the post.  I’m really calling myself that.  Okay?  Okay.  On with the rant…

I see junk like this post title all over the place on the “self-help”, “productivity”, “Zen-whatever” blogs that I’m (unfortunately) lumped in with as a personal development blogger.  Look, if you want to become an early riser, why do you need 5 days to do it?  Just set your alarm earlier the next day, and get up when it goes off.  IT’S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE, PEOPLE.

The problem is two-fold, as I see it.

First, people are weak.  We need to ssssssslllllllooooooowwwwwwlllllllyyyyy ease into a new frame of mind.  Why?  Just because bad habits supposedly take a long time to break?  They sure don’t take a long time to create.  You just make bad decision after bad decision until you’re to the point where you have no control over your actions.  “I’m a slave to my habits!” you say, then you throw up your hands and give up.

That’s crap.

Look:  everything you do, whether habitual or not, is a result of a choice that you’ve made, consistently and over time.  If you continue to make the same bad decision, it becomes easier to do.

You know how to stop?  Quit making that decision, moron!

Before it becomes a habit, you have to make a decision to do it EVERY SINGLE TIME.  Now, maybe the number of times to create a black tar heroin habit is less than picking your nose and wiping it on the bottom of a chair (you know you’ve done it), but you still made a choice at least once in every instance.

So own that sucker.  BE INTENTIONAL!  You made the mess by making choices; you can turn it around just as fast by making better choices.  You don’t need five days, or five years, or whatever.  Start doing it differently RIGHT NOW.

Of course, the resultant circumstances of your bad habits may not go away immediately.  If you’ve got a habit of sleeping till noon, you’re gonna feel tired when you set the clock for seven and get out of bed.  That’s life.  Don’t worry, it gets easier.  Just start doing it.

The second problem with these lame articles is “personal development” for its own sake.  Why is it assumed that “being an early riser” has intrinsically more reward for a person than does sleeping late?  Just because that’s the mold we’re supposed to fit in?  Because you might miss work or something?

If you’re doing something not to better yourself, but simply for the purpose of conforming (or “this is what Lifehackamabob.com [note:  not a real site... I don't think] said I needed to do”), then it’s not personal development.  It’s masochism.  You need to stop doing it, because the rewards don’t add up.

Consider the choices you’ve made and the habits you’ve developed.  What’s the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)?  What do you get out of these habits, and what would you otherwise have if you didn’t have the habits?  If the cost isn’t that big of a deal (so you don’t get to see the sunrise… so what?), then don’t worry about it.  You’ve probably got enough habits that, if changed, would represent a gain in your life.

Don’t sweat the stuff that other people try to push on you as “lifehacks”, be they GTD, waking up early, polyphasic sleep, raw-food veganism or polyamory (all things I’ve seen recommended on “self-help” sites at one time or another).  Fix what needs to be fixed according to YOUR assessment of your life.

Whew… I feel better.

Photo “sleepy stash” courtesy: corrieb

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Photo courtesy alxpin/iStockPhoto

Ed. Note – Please see my site’s policy on book and product reviews here.  There are affiliate links in the following…

Just finished reading Linchpin, by Seth Godin.  Wow, what an amazing book.  And it dovetails nicely with what I’ve been talking about here lately:  telling a good story with your life.

What is a linchpin?  It’s a metaphor for someone who’s indispensable in an organization.  If they left, the group would fall apart because of what they bring to the table.

A linchpin is someone who isn’t content to march to the beat set out for them by the organization they’re affiliated with.  Oh sure, they’ll fulfill their duties.  They’ll just go BEYOND.  Far beyond what anyone ever expects them to do.  Because what they do ceases to be work.  It becomes art.

“Art, at least as I define it, is the intentional act of using your humanity to create change in another person”

-Seth Godin, Linchpin

When you create art, when you begin to tell a better story with your life (because creating a story is art, isn’t it?), you cease to be average.  You become extraordinary.  There are very few people willing to be as open and as raw as it takes to make art.  Art is about giving a gift that only you can give.

Making art makes you vulnerable.

Making art gives people an opportunity to belittle your ambition.

Making art requires courage and sacrifice.

That’s what you face when you make the commitment to tell a good story, after not telling one at all for so long.

Sure, you’ll face times when it’s tough, and when you doubt your ability to do what you’ve set out to do.  Not just in telling a good story with your life (although I’d argue that any time you try to do something awesome, you’re telling a better story), but in everything you do, in any aspect of your life.

“How do I know what art to make?  How do I know what gifts to give?  This is the crux of it.  Once you commit to being an artist, the question is an obvious one.  The answer is the secret of your success.  You must make a map.  Not someone else.  YOU.”

-Seth Godin, Linchpin

You have to strike out on your own.  By the very nature of what you plan to do, there won’t be a map or a blueprint of how to do it.  You have to break trail.  It’s going to suck, because you’ll feel lost and alone and very few people will understand what it is you’re trying to do.

No one said being a linchpin was easy.

But it’s worth it.  Tell your story.  Blaze a trail for others to follow.  Do what you were born to do.

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For me, at least, the single most neglected and avoided part of self-improvement is physical fitness.   Without a doubt, I loathe every moment I spend in a gym.   Many of you may be the same way.

Yet I personally believe that it’s probably one of the things that holds me back more than anything in my desire for personal development.  Here’s why:

1. How you view yourself takes into account many different inputs. It’s not only the things that you say and do that impact your perception of who you are, but how you look is also very important (for both men and women).  If you have a negative perception of the way you look in the mirror, you’re going to have a hard time liking the rest of yourself.
2. Your level of physical fitness accounts for your levels of stress, your ability to think and act creatively, and a host of other issues. By neglecting exercise, you allow your strength, flexibility, and endurance to suffer.  This, in turn, impacts how you react to stressful or inconvenient situations that crop up during your day.  Whether it’s meeting a deadline at work, or dealing with a repair person at home, you’ll be more calm, collected, and rational if you’re consistently doing something to improve your body and relieve stress.
3. Being healthy allows you to do the things you want to do better and for a longer period of time. I’m only 33 years old.  I realize that this may not be old to many folks who read this; on the other hand, it may be ancient to others.  What I’ve come to realize in the past few years is that, even at this early age in my life, my body has begun to give out on me.  I don’t recover from strenuous activities that I enjoy (like hiking) nearly as quickly as I used to.  I wake up with pain in joints that I’ve never felt before, and don’t even recall using.  Exercise prevents this slow decline (or at least will stave it off for a longer period of time).  I don’t want to be old before my time.  I want to be able to play with my son without getting tired out, or enjoy a game of softball without waking up the next morning with a sore shoulder from throwing and a sore back from swinging a bat.

You’ve heard all the suggestions before, haven’t you?  “Just find something you like, that way you’ll stick with it!”  I’m here to tell you, as a person who doesn’t enjoy many active pursuits, that you CAN do this.  You may have to work at it (personally, I enjoy riding my road bike and hiking, two activities that don’t mix well with the winter season here in Idaho), but you can find SOMETHING.

And you know what?  If you don’t, you may just have to suck it up and find something that works, whether you enjoy it or not.  The important thing is to remember what will happen to you if you don’t; you’ll become old before your time, encountering many health problems and at risk for a premature death.  Lately, the fear of hypertension and cancer, two issues that run in my family, have convinced me to take my health a lot more seriously.  Let me tell you 20-somethings:  it’s a lot harder getting back into shape when you’re my age than it probably would have been just staying that way.  But it can be done.

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1. My salvation
2. My life
3. My wife, who puts up with me
4. My son
5. The rest of my family
6. My country
7. The men and women who have put themselves in harm’s way to ensure my freedom
8. My friends
9. Baseball
10. MLB.tv; baseball on the internet!
11. Thanksgiving leftovers
12. My iPod
13. My clothes
14. My shoes
15. A roof over my head
16. Chili-lime turkey cooked on a charcoal grill
17. Mashed potatoes and gravy
18. Cornbread-chorizo stuffing (you’ve got to try it)
19. Not having to eat that green bean/cream of mushroom soup/fried onion cassarole anymore since I’m an adult now and I can plan my own Thanksgiving menu
20. Snow
21. My dog
22. Those rare weekend days when my son sleeps past 7 am
23. Books!
24. The rights I have as an American
25. Utility services that are constantly running
26. My education
27. The guy who cuts me off in traffic, in order that I might learn patience (I’m still not very good at this one)
28. The fact that I’ve been able to go to five new countries this year that I’ve never been to before.
29. Hot showers
30. Dewdrops on roses
31. Wiskers on kittens
32. Bright copper kettles
33. Warm wollen mittens
34. Brown paper packages tied up with strings  (Sorry, Julie Andrews just hijacked this post.  We’re back.)
35. The fact that I have a new job that doesn’t involve menial accounting tasks
36. Living in Boise, ID.  I’ve lived a lot of other places in this country, and I like this one the best.
37. My countless number of electronic toys and gadgets.  I love technology.
38. New haircuts
39. Doughnuts
40. Candy
41. Cookies
42. Chubby Hubby by Ben & Jerry’s
43. Any kind of ice cream, really
44. Pizza
45. Chinese food
46. Italian food
47. A guacamole-bacon cheeseburger
48. Exercise
49. Facebook, for allowing me to reconnect with old friends
50. Fireplaces
51. Central air conditioning
52. King-sized beds
53. Caffinated beverages
54. My past
55. The people who’ve helped me become the man I am today.

Today is Thanksgiving here in the US.  Wishing all of you a happy one.  One of the keys to success is being grateful for the good and the bad that come your way.  What are you thankful for?  Let us know in the comments…

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Had an interesting article emailed to me by reader Marty.  It was called “Be Lucky – It’s An Easy Skill To Learn“, and it was great.

The premise, as you might expect from the title, is that being lucky (or unlucky) is something that you control.  Sure, random events occur in everyone’s life, but you can create good luck for yourself if you concentrate on doing so.  I’ve touched on the idea of creating good luck in a previous post.

What are the keys to becoming lucky?

1.  Create and notice chance opportunities. “Unlucky” folks don’t realize when opportunities are available to take advantage of.  The reason for this is that most of them are concentrating on what they want to have happen at any given time.  They feel that they know what should occur in a given situation, and they concentrate only on seeing that result.  Even if it does happen, they may have missed out on something even better.

2.  Listen to intuition. Your gut gives you clues all the time in situations you encounter.  People who make their own luck listen to it.  Rather than being rational and looking only at the facts, allow your intuition to factor in to your decision-making process.

3.  Allow positive expectations to create self-fulfilling prophecies. By looking for the best, we will instruct our sub-conscious mind to recognize good opportunities when they present themselves.  Conversely, we notice only the things that go wrong when we expect the worst.  There are some great examples of experiments that prove this out in the article itself.

4.  Adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good. The classic “make lemonades out of lemons” situation.  It’s okay to acknowledge that your present circumstances aren’t the most pleasant or beneficial, but you have to truly believe that better things are coming.  Take a critical look at what’s really going on in your life (not an emotional one that only notices the bad points and skips over the good) and find out how to use the skills and resources available to you to profit from your current situation.

What’s the real problem here?  As I see it, many people who read this article, my site, and others like it, will dismiss the advice as too optimistic/starry-eyed/Pollyanna-ish for real life.  These folks (and I have been one myself at times, don’t get me wrong) pride themselves on being “realists”, not allowing anyone to put rose-colored glasses in front of their eyes.

The problem is that these folks have just as unrealistic a view of life as do those who see life being a constant stream of puppies and ice cream.  Real life isn’t perfect, but it’s certainly not out to get you, either.  You need to make honest evaluations of the good and the bad in your situations, while always maintaining the four characteristics listed above.

I’m reminded of the boy who got a pile of horse crap for Christmas.  He started digging through it with gusto as his father asked him what in the world he was doing.  The boy’s response?  “With this much horse poop, I know there’s gotta be a pony in here somewhere!”

The truth is that nothing happens until we take action.  Circumstances change, but the only thing we can control is our response to them.  If we have a positive outlook, things will begin to turn around for us.

What about you?  How do you make your own luck?  What tips do you have for maintaining a positive attitude in the face of negative circumstances?  Let us know in the comments….

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I hope this doesn’t come off as a lame cop-out of a post, but I need some help from you folks.  I’ve been struggling to write lately.  I still have ideas of things to write about, so I wouldn’t really call it the dreaded “writer’s block”.  I’m just not really happy about the way what I’m writing is sounding.  For whatever reason, I’m just not proud of what I’ve written.

So, on this Monday, when I normally would post a new article, I’ve got nothing.  No new post about personal development, or how to be a better leader.  But, this issue does present something interesting that I’d love to hear from you about.

When is “Good Enough” good enough?

I know that a vast majority of people’s procrastination with whatever task they’re working on comes from setting unreasonable expectations of perfection on the finished product.  Folks won’t release something until it’s just right, and since it never is, they never get around to doing whatever it is they’re trying to do.  That’s bad.

The vast majority of time, it’s better to throw something out there and see what kind of response you get.  If people don’t like it, you can get the feedback from them on how to improve it.  And, if it turns out the marketplace likes whatever it was, then aren’t you glad you didn’t spend a whole lot of time tweaking?

But, where do you draw that line?  How rough can your “rough draft” be before it’s just plain old garbage?  If you’re the type of person who wants to do what you do 100%, can you deal with doing something 70% or 80%?  What if you feel like you’ve given it 100%, but that’s just not good enough?

So, fine readers, how do you determine what’s good enough for your standards?  How do you draw the line between trying to Be Your Best, and cutting yourself some slack in order to stay sane?  If we get enough responses, maybe this will turn into another blog post of its own!  Let the comments begin…

Photo courtesy: striatic

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If you are in the habit (like I am) of blowing by the videos embedded in blogs that you read, please don’t skip this one.  It’s quite engaging and only about 17 minutes long.

In this video, Alain de Botton talks about the definitions of success and failure in today’s society.  He raises a TON of issues that we don’t have time to dig into, so I’m going to pick just one.

He makes the following quote:

Never before have expectations been so high about what human beings can achieve with their lifespan. We’re told, from many sources, that anyone can achieve anything. We’ve done away with the caste system. We are now in a system where anyone can rise to any position they please. And it’s a beautiful idea. Along with that is a kind of spirit of equality. We’re all basically equal. There are no strictly defined kind of hierarchies.

Can you really do anything you set your mind to?

That’s one of the things I was told growing up; I’m willing to bet a lot of other folks reading this were, too.  But is that really the case?  Have all the barriers been removed that hold us back?

I don’t think they have.  While great strides have been made in leveling the playing field for many people, there are still divisions that preclude some people from achieving.  I’m not talking about discrimination here.  Although bias based on gender or race or any number of other factors still exists in our world, it’s becoming harder and harder to point to this as a reason for not becoming “successful”.

What I’m talking about is what Warren Buffett has termed the “Ovarian Lottery”.  Here’s a quote:

I’ve had it so good in this world, you know.  The odds were fifty-to-one against me being born in the United States in 1930.  I won the lottery the day I emerged from the womb by being in the United States instead of in some other country where my chances would have been way different.

Imagine there are two identical twins in the womb, both equally bright and energetic.  And the genie says to them, ‘One of you is going to be born in the United States, and one of you is going to be born in Bangladesh.  And if you wind up in Bangladesh, you will not pay taxes.  What percentage of your income would you bid to be the one that is born in the United States?’  It says something about the fact that society has something to do with your fate and not just your innate qualities.  The people who say, ‘I did it all myself.’ and think of themselves as Horatio Alger — believe me, they’d bid more to be in the United States than in Bangladesh.  That’s the Ovarian Lottery.

-Warren Buffett, in “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life” by Alice Schroeder

Buffett talks about being born in America vs Bangladesh, but the Ovarian Lottery isn’t limited to location.  It can relate to economic advantages, genetics, anything.  Warren Buffett seems to think that at least some of his success isn’t attributable to ambition, or being smarter than everyone else, or working harder, but to the blind fortune of being born where he was at the time he was.

Many of us (myself included) would hope for an absolute meritocracy.  By that, I mean that nothing would play a part in success other than our willingness to earn it (whatever “earn it” means).  However, the implication of “the cream rises to the top” carries with it the converse statement: “those that don’t rise aren’t cream”.  But, according to Buffett, blind dumb luck plays a part in everyone’s success.

Is there a way we can cut through what we can’t control and determine what we will be successful at, regardless of circumstances that are beyond our control?

Most everyone would agree that a decent definition of success is achieving the goals that one sets for one’s self.  How you pick the targets you set for yourself is probably a more relevant question.

In fact, an even more relevant question is, do you even pick those targets?  Or do you allow others (friends, family, business associates, advertisers, celebrities) to tell you what you should be shooting for in order to be “successful”?

The key to success is ensuring the targets you’re shooting for are targets of your own choosing. If you strive to achieve goals that you’ve set for yourself, you’ll have the motivation to keep going until you achieve them.  That’s just the way it works.  If something is important to you, luck becomes less and less of a factor.

Sure, there are things in life that you can’t change.  For instance, someone who’s lost a leg can’t hope to win a track and field gold medal at the Olympics.  That doesn’t mean that they’re destined for failure, though.  Those individuals who are truly successful, as trite as it sounds, make lemonade of life’s lemons.

However, if you’re trying to find contentment by keeping up with the Jones’, or doing something someone else says will make you “a winner”, or bemoaning the factors that keep you from doing one thing or another, then you’re not going to be successful.  It won’t matter whether you actually reach that goal or not.  You’ll flit from activity to activity, achievement to achievement.  There will always be “something else” out there, and you’ll eventually wind up unfulfilled.

So define success the way YOU want to, not the way someone else tells you you should.  Choose goals that resonate deep down inside of you.  Overcoming the obstacles that life puts in your path can only happen if you’re truly passionate about what you’re trying to achieve.

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