For the sake of illustration, let’s use the analogy of a bakery. You walk into a bakery knowing that you really like red velvet cupcakes. You love the rich, smooth cream cheese frosting that swirls delicately on top of the light and moist red velvet cake. The cupcakes are so large that it can’t be finished in one sitting, so you have enough to share with someone else or to save for later. As you walk up to the counter, you see that there are many other things in the case that look just as tantalizing. The seven layer chocolate cake with raspberry syrup looks amazing; the brownies smothered with nuts, caramel, coconut and chocolate chips seems to be calling out your name. Oh little fruit tart, your glistening berries, kiwi and peaches look like a sweet summer treat. Now you have a choice: do you go with the red velvet cupcake or do you try one of these other treats? You’ve never had anything other than the cupcake, so how would you know if the other treats will be good? If you choose something else, then you will be able to experience it and if you like it, you have something else that you can enjoy and if you don’t, then you know that red velvet cupcakes are still your favorite.

Everyone has promptings and urges to develop certain talents, and sometimes what you try is successful and sometimes it isn’t. The key to being successful is to not look at the mistakes as being failures but rather as an information gathering. When you try something that is less than successful, it gives you some valuable information such as:

1. That not being the right way to go.
2. You have a lot of data to help you along the next time you try.

The most important thing to remember in trying to find your path is to not give up and stop because of negative thoughts. There many times that someone is headed in the right direction but because of self- doubt and fear of failure, they give up. It’s okay to make mistakes as long as you learn from them and keep moving on.

Once I was hiking on an unfamiliar trail. I was ahead of everyone when I came to a fork in the trail. The trail on the right cut straight across the hillside. The trail on the left sloped gently downhill. I knew that we needed to head downhill, but the trial on the right seemed larger and better maintained. I took the trail on the left and after about 5 minutes, the trail became fainter and soon I was in the middle of the forest on a slippery slope. I turned around and hurried back to the fork in the trail to meet up with the rest of my hiking party. While everyone else was wondering which trail they should take, I could say with a certainty that it wasn’t the one on the left. It was my personal experience with the trail on the left that saved the rest of the party some time and possibly injury.

As you go through your life trying to figure what your passion is and what you want to do, it’s good to try a variety of different things and approaches. It is through these learning experiences that will make for success in the future. Don’t be discouraged by the things that aren’t successful, use those experiences to learn how to succeed in what you are trying to do. As Brian Tracy (who specializes in helping individuals and organizations reach their full potential) says,

“Between you and every goal that you wish to achieve, there is a series of obstacles and the bigger the goal, the bigger the obstacles. Your decision to be, have and do something out of the ordinary entails facing difficulties and challenges that are out of the ordinary as well. Sometimes your greatest asset is simply your ability to stay with it longer than anyone else.”

Don’t let a setback stop you in your tracks. Instead of it being a roadblock, consider it just a stepping stone to get to where you want to be.

I had the opportunity to coach one of these “daisy pickers” a few years ago. Dylan showed up for every practice, every game. Although he was enthusiastic about the game, there were many times when he wasn’t really paying attention TO the game. That’s why he manned right field.  On one occasion, it was the final game of the semi-finals and the game was tied. We needed to get one more out so we could get up to bat. The air was electric; the boys knew that a slot in the state tournament was at stake. Our pitcher threw the ball and the batter made contact. The ball soared over the infield and deep into right field. Everyone on the team held their collective breaths as the ball sailed in slow motion towards Dylan. Will he catch it? Will he even notice the ball coming towards him? Then just at the right time, Dylan looked up, held up his mitt and as if the mitt was magnetized, the ball plopped into the center of his mitt. Mayhem erupted on the field as the rest of the team ran towards him to cheer him on. With that play, we were able to get on bat and win the game and advance to the tournament.

Why am I telling you this story? Because the most important thing that Dylan did that day was he was there. He wasn’t the star of the team, I’m not even sure he completely understood the game, but showed up. Life works that way too. Ofttimes, we cheat ourselves out of a great opportunity because of the fear of not being successful. We are afraid that we might look foolish and appear like we don’t know what we’re doing.

For example, let’s say you want to start a business but your logo doesn’t look quite right, or maybe your website doesn’t look quite as polished as you want it to be. You want everything to look just right, so you postpone the launching of your business. The result is that no one knows about your business because there is technically no business to know about.

Contrast that with someone else who wants to start a business. Let’s say that she doesn’t quite like the way her website looks as well. But she launches her business anyway and it starts getting traffic. As her business continues to become more known, she adjusts and improves her website as her brand name continues to grow. Her business is well on its way to becoming successful.

Remember, if you show up, then something good will eventually happen. If you don’t show up, nothing will happen.

Another time when I was coaching baseball, one of the boys got hit by a ball while he was up to bat. It really hurt and he left the game crying. He went to sit with his parents. After a while, I went over to him to see if he wanted to go back into the game. Both his parents and I tried to coax him back into the game but re really didn’t want to, because he was afraid of being hurt again. Then I presented him with the idea of just going up to bat without swinging at the ball. He agreed to give it a try. He went up to plate and just stood there with the bat at his side, letting the balls fly by him. They walked him and he was able to make it to first base and eventually scoring a run. Something good happened just because he was there.

If you want something to happen, you need to be present. Don’t quit on the game of life, you just need to get up and go! Things aren’t always perfect, but that shouldn’t stop you from going ahead. Just DO something, anything, and something good will eventually happen. Even if you stop to pick a few daisies from time to time.

If you have ever said those words, then it’s obvious that you weren’t being a very good listener. But being a good listener is more than just hearing when someone speaks. You have to try to understand the meaning and intent behind what is said. Being a good listener will improve your personal and professional relationships, help you to achieve your goals, and put you on the road to becoming the type of all-around good person that people like.

So, how do you become a good listener? Well, you can start by asking good questions. Human beings are incredibly complex social animals; what you see on the surface isn’t even close to what is out of sight. The trick to listening well is looking past the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Let’s say for example you ask your co-worker Larry, How do you think that meeting went? and his reply is, I wish team meetings weren’t such a waste of time. What do you do? Do you think to yourself that Larry has a bad attitude? Maybe Larry needs to learn to work better with the team. Now you’re annoyed. Which leads you to say to him, Well, maybe if you paid more attention and contributed every once in a while, then they wouldn’t be such a waste of time. You can see where that conversation will go.

A better direction would be to ask Larry some follow-up questions to dig down deeper into the meaning of his first statement.

You: Why do you think the meeting is a waste of time, Larry?

Larry: Well, Linda and Joe are always opposing each other. It doesn’t matter what one will say, the other will automatically take the opposite viewpoint. It’s awkward and it makes everyone uncomfortable. Plus there is a lot of time spent trying to get the two to stop bickering.

You: Hmm, that’s really interesting. What do you think we can do to make the meeting better?

Larry: Maybe we could set up a ground rule where everyone can say their viewpoint without interruption. Or maybe someone can talk to Joe and Linda separately to see if there is some underlying problem that needs to be resolved. Setting up a time limit for the meeting so we can cut through the unnecessary chatter might help too.

If you spend a little time listening to what is really being said instead of simply reacting, you find that Larry has some legitimate concerns and some possible solutions to the problem. It takes patience to truly listen. Larry feels like he’s being heard and someone is taking him seriously and you have some ideas to help solve a problem. It’s a win/win situation.

The other day, my teenage daughter was late for school. Before running out the door, she made herself breakfast and a packed lunch. While she made sure to bring her with lunch to school, she left behind a mess of epic proportions. This is very uncharacteristic of her and it bothered me enough that I called her one the phone. She told me that she was in a hurry and she didn’t have time to clean up the kitchen. I stayed calm and didn’t get angry. A few hours later, I received a very sweet and apologetic text message from her. When she came home that evening, we used what had happened as a starting point to have a more meaningful conversation, and were able to talk about how she was really feeling. She was stressed because school had just started and her schedule was so heavy. If I had chosen to stay on the surface of the problem (a fantastically messy kitchen), we probably would have both felt bad about the situation and maybe some hard feelings would have developed between us. But because I was patient and willing to see if there was something else underneath the surface, my daughter felt loved and understood by her father and our relationship was strengthened.

In order to be a better listener, it’s important to get past the superficial layer and be willing to dig down deeper to more meaningful dialogue. It takes courage to ask hard and emotional questions but if you really respect that person, then you’ll be able to get through it. Be an active listener. Don’t jump to conclusions; be patient and gentle and go beneath the surface to find what is really there.

Eli Manning, quarterback for the New York Giants, was once asked by a journalist what he felt was the foundation of his success. He answered that his love for his teammates was the thing that really made a difference. His response does not only apply to athletic situations. If your teammate’s trust and respect you, you will be much more successful in your ventures. When you listen, listen. Being a good listener is a situation where both sides benefit. Now get out there and have a good conversation.

Employee Mindset

An employee relinquishes most of
her control to an employer, giving up
initiative in her work.

An employee mindlessly punches in and
out on a clock until an unemployment
crisis occurs.

An employee takes company policies,
including compensation structure, at face
value and doesn’t consider negotiating.

An employee does a good enough job
not to get fired.

An employee feels dependent on the
employer for her future.

An employee holds tightly to her job
and paycheck, fearful that others will
take them away.

Business Owner Mindset

A business owner feels ownership in
her work and treats her employer like a
customer.

A business owner is always marketing and
networking so she is ready to find new
opportunities when needed.

A business owner questions everything
and negotiates to get the most mutually
beneficial situation possible.

A business owner takes pride in her work
and continually increases the quality of
her services to the customer.

A business owner knows her value stems
from her productivity. She keeps her skills
current and her value high so she is ready
for the future.

A business owner perceives others as
collaborators who will help to grow her
opportunities.

I love this “Declaration of Independence” by Daniel Pink, Author of Free Agent Nation…

When in the course of economic events, it becomes manifest that traditional work arrangements stifle innovation, reward timidity, devolve into nothingness, and offer at best a perilous prosperity, it becomes necessary for citizens of conscience and talent to break free from that decaying tradition and declare their independence.

And so we, the working women and men of America, declare ourselves free agents—and declare these truths to be self-evident:

Who we are and what we do should not stand on opposite sides of a psychological divide.So for us, work is personal! We are committed to unifying our personal interests and our business interests, our lifestyles and our work styles—because we fundamentally believe that we will be happier and more productive if we work and live as whole people.

Nothing is permanent. Security is an illusion. A work life based on workplace insecurity is no work life at all. So we choose the freedom to be ourselves and to follow our interests. And we are discovering that, in an economy of opportunity, freedom promotes security. The more we work in our own best interests, the more secure we become.

As free agents, we are choosing our own work paths—choosing the clients we want to work with and the projects we want to work on. And we are distinguishing ourselves from our colleagues in the old workplace by reserving the right to say no! No to clients who are hard to work with, who underpay us, who ask for proposal after proposal (but never hire us).

We’ve spent too much of our working lives running scared—scared that we’ll be laid off, yelled at, or blamed for something that wasn’t our fault. And what have we learned? That fear doesn’t motivate us for long; eventually it impedes our performance. Top performers become great by playing in their own terror-free zone.

Life is a series of developmental phases and as you grow, your perspective and preferences change. Even if you thought you might want to be a race-car driver at age 18, when you’re 30, you probably won’t care about that as much. If you thought you’d work for a cool company for 30 years and then retire, you might get 10 yrs into it and then decide that you want to be a river rafting guide on the Amazon.

Why are we so tempted to try to figure it all out up front? It’s probably due to a variety of reasons – most of which relate to how we think we’ll be perceived by those around us. If you have moments of confusion you might be perceived as weak or indecisive. If you try something and it’s not the right thing, you might appear like a failure. You might be afraid of the pure uncertainty of not having your calling in life nailed up-front. These are all symptoms and manifestations of not living according to your own inner voice. Recently I came across this well-circulated quote by the late Steve Jobs:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

It’s difficult to tune out the noise of the world and listen to your inner voice. It takes retrospection and courage. It takes awareness and determination. It takes a desire to doggedly seek and discover your next step. I recently saw a documentary about Andrea Wenner who graduated with a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from a very prestigious university. She had many lucrative offers to go into banking or consulting like most newly-minted MBA’s, but her inner voice was telling her something different.

She was in New York and noticed one day that the kids at one of the inner-city schools were playing on a blank slab of blacktop with no playground. She was inspired to do something about it and made a goal to create and install something like 100 playgrounds. Everyone told her she was crazy and that the New York City bureaucracy would eat her alive. Why don’t you just go to work for a Wall Street bank like every other Ivy League MBA?
She decided to follow the “next step” in her life as was dictated by her heart and she formed a non-profit group called Out 2 Play to achieve her goal. There were many challenges but through her persistence and vision, she was able to complete her target number of playgrounds and she profoundly impacted thousands of kids, teachers, and parents.

Don’t worry so much about what’s around the corner, if you have the courage to seek out and follow your heart for just the current and next step of your journey, you might find that you have more peace and enjoy life a bit more.

This applies not only to relationships at work, but also to our friends and family. Since building trust is the essence of any relationship, this can cause serious problems. An example of this is when a wife says to the husband, “Why did you mow the lawn yesterday when you knew I needed you to help me get ready for the party?” The husband then let’s his emotional brain take control, gets defensive about her not appreciating what he does in the yard, and then starts an argument.

Another example is when you’re interacting with a hiring manager and your emotional part of the brain is saying “I need a job!” and the thinking part of your brain allows you to act desperate. Because of fear and apprehension, you don’t project confidence in the interview and fail to ask trust-building questions. If you’re being emotionally intelligent, you work toward detaching the negative emotional side of the brain that might paralyze you with feelings of self-preservation, fear, and greed and cultivate the positive emotions of empathy, love, and concern for others.

If you can have a mindset that you’re trying to fill a need with a valuable service, that intention is the first step in the emotionally intelligent job search. The next step is to engage in trust-building activities, such as asking good open-ended questions that encourage meaningful dialogue. Meaningful dialogue is when you get past the superficial layer and start talking about what really matters .

A few years ago I was working with a person on a job search who was recently released from jail. He eventually obtained an offer from a great company, but on the same day that the offer arrived, they called back and rescinded it because he hadn’t been truthful on his application about his jail time. Major trust killer. He and I visited the company early the next morning and asked if we could see the hiring manager. They agreed, and soon we were sitting across from him telling our story. We asked each other questions, he got to know my friend better, and we had a very engaging discussion.

Soon I noticed a change in his demeanor and nonverbal cues – and by the way, awareness of nonverbal cues is an important part of an emotionally intelligent interaction. Whereas at first he was sitting up straight with his arms folded and a neutral-looking emotion on his face, after about 20 minutes or so, his faced opened up, he was leaning back on his chair, and he had his hands on top of his head. He started sharing with us personal stories of people in his family who had similar challenges as my friend, and I could tell that we were entering a new level of trust with him.

Once you get past the superficial layer and enter that trust zone it is very likely that you’ll be able to have some influence on the person with whom you’re communicating. The hiring manager ended up returning the offer and due to an error on the previous offer with the pay grade, they actually gave him a higher pay rate. This reinforced to me that emotionally intelligent job search will enable you to build trust with hiring managers and dramatically increase your likelihood of getting good job offers in a timely manner.

I want it to rain on my “crops” – I want people to buy my service. However, at the end of the day there are some things that are in my control and some things that aren’t. For the crops to grow there are some natural elements that I simply can’t do anything about – rain is one of them. Rain is needed for plants to grow but mother nature may or may not cooperate. What DO I have control over? I have control over the soil prep, digging, planting, and weeding – I call this “spade work.” What things are in my control with a new business or product launch?

Product or service production, marketing prep and activities, and sales activities like getting out and talking to people. Same with finding a new job – we have things in our control like consistently identifying and contacting hiring managers, setting up interviews, building trust in interviews, following up, etc. With a business, I don’t have final control over whether someone will buy. As a jobseeker, I don’t have final control over whether a hiring managers says yes.

As a farmer, I don’t have final control over when it will rain. HOWEVER, if I’m doing all of the spade work necessary for a goal then I can feel confident that I’ve done my part and not worry about the rest. If we fret about the rain then we’re worrying about things unnecessarily. Eventually the rain comes and the crops grow. Eventually someone buys the product after enough improvements are made. Eventually someone hires us after we’ve talked to enough people.

Our job is to do our part – to do our best and then unload the bag of rocks that we worry about. If we make an honest self-assessment and we’re not weeding enough (calling new prospective employers), or not fertilizing enough (engaging in consistent networking activities), etc, then commit to do a little more. It’s amazing the feeling of power we can get when we are confident we are doing all that we can for a goal to be achieved.

By contrast, I don’t like that uneasy feeling that I get when I know I need to be a little more consistent or try a little harder. One thing that holds us back from being more consistent with our activities is discouragement. Discouragement leads to lack of action. The best remedy for this is to find something super easy to do that will get the train moving again.

For example, if you’re overwhelmed because you think you need to contact 10 new hiring managers, pare that down to 1 – just make one call, and then go get some ice cream. Keep your action simple, and consistent.
Consistent action is the key – small steps lead to larger steps and big results. When you’re consistently doing all that you can do, you can sleep easy at night waiting for those drops of rain to start.

I mention this because this is a big challenge for most of us adults too. We think to ourselves, “They would never let me do that.” or “They would never say yes to that.” without even testing it. We psych ourselves out, and with a lack of confidence, shrink from asking or taking action.

Why do we do this? Because the perceived risk is high! The risk that we’ll be Rejected, Denied, Shamed, Ridiculed. This is actually a very small risk in terms of damage it can do to us, but in our minds, it’s such a big risk that it prevents us from acting on a vast amount of creative ideas and impulses.

A couple of years ago by brother and I rolled up to a hotel on 2 Harleys. The hotel attendant had seen our bikes as we drove up – she walked right past us. As we approached the front desk, I asked her if she had a military discount – she said no, and then stone-faced silence. I decided to ask if she had any other discounts available – she cheerfully informed us that there was a Harley discount available.

I was surprised that she didn’t offer that up without my asking. I asked her if she would have offered the Harley discount if I hadn’t asked. She said she was trained to wait until someone brings it up! The world waits for us to ask.

But why do we hesitate? Part of the reason is what psychologists call Cognitive Distortion. We believe that the outcome will be negative without validating that assumption. Some examples of this are Jumping to Conclusions, All or Nothing Thinking, and Making Blanket Statements.

Experts suggest that we talk back to the negative dialogue to boost confidence enough to take action, experiment and validate assumptions. If we say to ourselves, “They would never let me do that,” we can then counter that with “Who knows, they might be impressed with my creativity and give me 5 seconds,” or “What’s the worst that could happen? It’s possible that the office secretary might be in a good mood and say go ahead.”

What are the cognitive distortions that are holding you back today? Become a scientist, talk back to negative thoughts, and test your assumptions. You might be surprised at the result.

A few days ago, my wife Karen told me to check out how she can text by saying the message into the phone. I was skeptical based on my previous experiences. She dictated the message and Bam! It was word perfect! I thought it was a fluke and said do it again. Same result. Then I tried it on mine and same result. I use my phone a lot to type in notes, texts, tasks, and much more, and I’ve never really gotten used to smart phone typing – it seems to be slow and clunky and I make a lot of mistakes.

Now I use the voice dictation for almost anything that I need to type into the phone and it’s slick. It’s much faster with far fewer mistakes. It got me thinking….how many other things are out there that I don’t try due to preconceived notions or unproven assumptions. I didn’t even want to try the voice recognition because of my previous frustrating experiences, but lo and behold the technology has advanced enough now on the smart phone that it works almost perfectly.

How often do we do things the hard way because we don’t even want to try the new way? How often does our past experience prevent us from making progress? If trying a new way of doing something is low risk from a time and money perspective, what’s stopping us from giving it a whirl? I’m going to try harder to keep an open mind about new ways of doing things and prove some of them out before I allow my sometimes narrow perspective to prevent me from working smarter.