I’m a Failure, and Damn Proud of It!

March 31, 2013 by

I’m-a-Failure-and-Damn-Proud-of-It-Todd-NielsenWow – What an amazing and awesome month. The goal of the 2nd Annual International Blogathon was to give the world a gift of greater leadership acumen from an international stand-point. Learning leadership views from across the globe helps increase our leadership wisdom by giving us differing perspectives. It certainly has met that goal for me personally.

I hope that the blogathon writers have inspired you.

I hope that your world becomes better because of the knowledge gained this month.

I hope that you were inspired to make changes that will impact your success.

What is Success?

“Success,” hmm… it’s a very interesting and elusive word. The definition is different for every person, and every organization. It is a goal that is constantly moving to new heights. For the truly successful, it is a journey that never comes to an end. It’s a constant climb that refines you, strengthens you, and fertilizes your growth.

“Success is a climb that never ends, the journey refines you, strengthens you, and fertilizes your growth”  Tweet This!

Recently an individual asked me what some of my strengths were. This person new of my expertise and qualifications, but I thought for a moment and had two things enlighten my mind that were completely opposite and opposing from each other. Could these two things really be my strength?

The first strength that I thought of was that I have had a lot of success in my life. I have associated myself with successful people. I know what works in helping organizations create success. I have seen what successful people do to create even more success, and I have read huge volumes of books in learning how to personally create success in different areas of my personal and professional life.  So I thought, sure why can’t that be a strength?

The Second Strength, That Greatly Outweighs the First

The second strength I thought of – is a polar opposite from the first – and greatly overshadows it. It’s probably the single largest factor that has impacted success in my life. The second strength is, um, well… I have failed. I have a failed a lot. Failure has taught me what does not work, what NOT to do. It has molded me, chopped down the rough edges, and refined and focused me into the person I am today. I am sure the same is true for most people, but my failures greatly outweigh my successes.  So by quantitative comparison, I AM A FAILURE, and as the title suggests, I’m damn proud of it. If it weren’t for the failures I’ve had, I could never have reached the success I now enjoy.

The Failure Masochist

No, I’m not a masochist that enjoys the pain of failure or the struggles that are associated with it. I don’t look for opportunities to fail. I really strive to NOT, set myself up for failure. I strive to learn from my struggles so that I don’t repeat them. Unfortunately, no matter what I do… failures come, and they are almost always painful. They break me down, and make me grow. Like a forest that erupts into blooms after a fire scorches it to the ground, so must we be after our failures come.

Are we on the Path of Success, or the Path of Failure?

It may feel like the path of failure, but it is the path of success. Whenever I begin to veer off the path of success, I get poked and prodded by failures that direct me toward a straighter and faster route to even greater success. Failures are the enablers that help us reach success considerably faster. Without failures, we could never have success.

“Failures are the enablers that help us reach success considerably faster. Without failures, we could never have success.”  Tweet This!

The last month has resulted in some of the greatest successes in my life, but that success has been preceded by a path of innumerable failures, like a thousand fire-ants that I could not shake off. Yet those failures drive me faster towards heaps of successes. I’m sure you and I are alike; we all fail, we’re all human.

While I never look forward to my failures, I am proud of what I have learned from them and you should be proud as well.

The climb to success is wrought with failures… so let us all climb together. Let us support each other, not judge each other, look for the positive, celebrate the small successes, focus on the important things in life, and celebrate the overcoming of the many small weaknesses and failures that set us back.

“We can all do a little better, we can all become great.” Tweet This!

A Month of Success

This blogathon is chock full of examples of successes and failures. Every single writer this month shared their expertise that they have gained, by failing a thousand times first. The wisdom that resulted from those failures and the forthcoming lessons of success are priceless, and only in a small part, documented in this blogathon.

I strive to always hang out with successful people, I have told this to many. In truth though, I guess I actually enjoy hanging out with failures, since that is the path we all have taken to our success. I am honored to call the writers of the 2nd Annual International Leadership Blogathon – friends; they are some of the best group of failures I ever associated with. I only say that in jest, because they are all successful experts that kindly shared the result of their failures and successes with the world.

Until Next Time!

Today we don’t say good bye, the blogathon will live on, connections will be made deals with be stricken, and successes will be amplified. The greatness that is achieved from a single lesson this month might never be known to any us. That’s ok though.

Thank you, thank you, and thank you! It’s been enlightening. Please leave a comment and tell me what you have learned this month. What are the failures that resulted in your success?

Filed Under: International Leadership Blogathon Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Bravado Or Bravery?

March 18, 2013 by

Bravado-Or-Bravery-Janine-GarnerMany of us only show a certain percentage of ourselves in social situations – the extent to which we are comfortable revealing our true personalities. I don’t think anyone would begrudge us this; after all, there is only so much one can share of oneself to those we don’t know very well.

But when it comes to the workplace, and giving of oneself in terms of performance – many are showing only the tip of the iceberg, and are not willing to expose the other seven-eighths of their ability and professionalism that lie beneath a slick, smooth surface.

Let bravery be thy choice, but not bravado – Menando

If someone asked you, how would you answer this question:

Are you brave in the way you do your job – or just full of bravado?

Both seem like similar concepts. They are almost identical words after all – so how could they be so different in practice?

Bravado. Being full of bluster and pretense, and false promises. The business culture of ‘I will give enough to look as though I am performing above expectations whilst secretly cruising my way to tomorrow, or next week – or my next role’.

If you have the ability to be one of the best, don’t waste it. ~ Janine Garner Tweet this!

Bravado is being content to sit on one’s hands while nodding furiously and giving every indication of leading change. It is ‘fake it while you make it’; not engaging wholly nor giving completely – despite having the ability to do so.

Bravery on the other hand is stepping not necessarily always outside the square, but along the edges of the business square. Questioning your own position and take on leadership. Constantly learning and posing new sets of challenges for oneself in terms of professional standards and goals.

Bravery is striving to be a change maker and improve the way things are done within the company, the sector, within the industry.

Bravery is reaching out to fellow leaders and those who are willing to shape policy and procedure, and give one hundred percent to drive business forward in an ethical and productive way.

Now, more than ever, the time has come within corporate to show your true colours as a leader. We are coming back to the real, to the authentic, and to the transparent. The ability to lead by example is absolutely critical to success in a market that is cynical and sick of inflated salaries – and inflated egos. So those who through fear or simple laziness are not willing to give one hundred percent of their business selves need to re-think their position.

Drop the much ‘ado’ about nothing.

And become one of the brave.

Filed Under: International Leadership Blogathon Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

What can zombies teach us about Leadership?

March 17, 2013 by

What-can-zombies-teach-us-about-leadership-Colleen-JollyWe create monsters that represent and reflect our culture’s prevailing fears. We then vilify those monsters by celebrating their inhumanity (even though those monsters often are or were considered human) and destruction in order to repair the perceived or potential transgression away from “normal” society.  Edward Ingebretsen in his book, “At Stake: Monsters and the Rhetoric of Fear in Public Culture,” claims that “monsters serve as convenient tokens whose narratives contain trauma as well as solution; they provide easy answers to intractable problems.”

We use monsters to declare our problems by using extreme caricatures that violate the boundaries of normal society. In fact, we use those monsters—those extremes—to clearly mark out the restrictions of what a society will accept as normal. These monsters can be the stuff of horror movies, or they can be men, women, and children who have done something monstrous and so transcended society’s levels of acceptance. We are terrified of these culturally agreed to and created monsters because they are the antithesis of our society. We also need them, however, because they remind us of the limits we have implicitly agreed to abide by in order to be a part of that society. Without monsters, we literally do not know what to fear nor do we know what the acceptable social limits are within our culture and society.

Zombies are not a new cultural phenomenon. Stories of formerly dead persons living again, either under the control of someone else or otherwise completely devoid of reason, are present in histories and even some religious beliefs throughout the world.  The specifics of each type of zombie, including how to become one and what happens after transforming into one, are relevant to those cultures and those time periods. Why, then, have zombies come “back to life” and reemerged into the pop culture limelight within the United States (US) and other western cultures—if not the entire world?

Modern, pop-culture zombies as seen in popular movies and television shows are driven by their basest instinct—food. Entering Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (as published in “A Theory of Human Motivation”) at the bottom of the physiological rung within a typical human’s pyramid of needs, they have no other motivation other than to feed. Zombies do not possess a need for safety, belonging, or esteem; and, with the possible exception of the movie “Warm Bodies”, no zombie shows any reflection of self-actualization.

Zombies are what our parents warned us we’d become if we watched too much television, fell prey to peer pressure, or simply subscribed to a dangerous status quo. Today, are we actually worried about the dead rising and eating the brains of the living? Most of us are not, but what we are worried about is mindless homogeny. We are worried about the loss of drive and creativity, of self-actualization, and of the ability to actively participate in life as either a leader or an active and engaged follower. We are worried about the collapse of our society through the loss of our individuality, as well as the loss of our own culturally defined humanity which has significantly more layers, needs, and complex relationships then the zombie’s which is simply “to eat.”

As a global community united by mostly westernized pop culture, we are concerned about a generation of mindlessness—or perhaps the lack of mindfulness. 

We are worried about people standing by while atrocities happen, or as corporations and governments choose greed and self-interest while the multitudes suffer the negative repercussions. The fact that we currently see so many references to zombies in pop culture—often intricately related to the collapse of modern life, including the breakdown of communication, loss of safety, and scarcity of resources—means that we are very concerned about this issue. We need to wake up and shake off our zombie-like nature and be actively engaged in our lives, our businesses, and our communities.

We can no longer allow ourselves to be marginalized by our own willful ignorance, a contagion that is sweeping the world faster than any zombie-inducing virus. 

What zombies teach us about leadership is that we are in desperate need of leaders and of actively engaged followers. By their nature, zombies lack the self-actualization and creativity to lead, as well as the drive to be actively devoted to following a person, movement, or idea. These monsters point out our problems, but they also describe our solutions; and it is our current cultural fascination with them that is also our call to action. We must eradicate this “virus” of mindlessness, of zombification, and become leaders in our own lives whether that is from forging our own path or becoming an adherent, a follower, of a cause we believe in. Only then can we be free of this particular monster.

 We create monsters that represent and reflect our culture’s prevailing fears. ~Colleen Jolly Tweet this

Filed Under: International Leadership Blogathon Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The 2nd International Leadership Blogathon Preview

February 27, 2013 by

2nd-Annual-International-Leadership-Blogathon-Todd-NielsenOn March 1st, a large conglomerate of leadership experts, coaches, speakers, authors, and leaders will come together for the 2nd Annual International Leadership Blogathon on http://www.ToddNielsen.com. For 31 days we will read amazing stories, unparalleled experiences, and leadership wisdom oozing from every crevice of the Internet. There are a total of 41 writers for the blogathon, gathered from many countries.

Last year’s blogathon brought an amazing source of wisdom, much of which would be hard to come by collectively on any single blog or book. This year’s articles raise the bar so much higher.

Below are the 41 writers for the blogathon. I’d invite you to read more about them and make sure to sign-up for updates to receive the articles in your inbox every day. Plus there will be some prizes and contests, here and there, throughout the month to win books and some other leadership products.

DATE

AUTHOR

COUNTRY
March 1st Lolly Daskal USA
March 2nd Kate Nasser USA
March 2nd Susan Bagyura USA
March 3rd Dan Forbes USA
March 3rd Chris Lema USA
March 4th Brendan Howe Canada
March 5th Dave Bradley UK
March 6th Martina McGowan USA
March 7th Joan De Winne Belgium
March 8th Kai Roer Norway
March 9th Ali Paskun USA
March 9th Susan Thorn USA
March 10th Susan Mazza USA
March 10th Andy Phillips Colombia
March 11th Heidi Alexandra Pollard Australia
March 12th Lora Crestan Canada
March 13th Ogwo David Emenike Nigeria
March 14th Susan Bowen UK
March 15th John Thurlbeck UK
March 16th T. Hampton Hopkins USA
March 16th Barry Smith USA
March 17th Colleen Jolly USA/UK
March 17th Ray Attiyah USA
March 18th Janine Garner Australia
March 19th Alli Polin Australia
March 20th Frode Heimen Norway
March 21st Kimunya Mugo Kenya
March 22nd Karin Hurt UK
March 23rd Tanvi Bhatt India
March 23rd Henna Inam USA
March 24th Sean Glaze USA
March 24th Jonathan Creaghan Canada
March 25th Peter Sterlacci Japan
March 26th William Powell Finland
March 27th David Hain UK
March 28th Sandro De Silva Netherlands
March 29th Paul Jolicoeur Canada
March 30th Richard Andrews UK
March 30th Tom Shulte USA
March 31st Todd Nielsen USA

 

I can’t wait to take part with all of these great minds, as well as the thousands of readers to create a fantastic leadership event that helps enhance the world of leadership acumen, the world over.

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Leadership & Management: What Behaviors Are Your Staff Copying from Your Example?

February 14, 2013 by

Leadership-Management-Behaviors-ExampleWhen the television show “Undercover Boss” made its premier a few years ago, much of America tuned in to watch the antics. What the show’s producers were probably looking for was a way to entertain the masses while they watched poor “unknowing” bosses do things like clean toilets and flip burgers. Of course in the end, there’s always that pivotal moment when the boss realizes the hard work his staff is doing behind the scenes. He learns to be more appreciative of them and looks at them a little differently than ever before.

What this show failed to capture though, is the importance of great leadership within an organization. Dwight Eisenhower gave a great definition to the word leadership when he said, “Leadership: The art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” There is not better way to get people to do what you want, then to inspire them and be an example of the behaviors and actions you desire.

Like a young boy imitating his father, employees will also follow your example.  They want to follow your example, and they need you if they’re going to properly understand how the organization functions. Leaders have far more power within their organizations than most realize. If your staff see you cleaning toilets, they will see the importance of cleaning toilets. They might not enjoy it anymore than you do, but they’ll see the importance of it. If they see your actions align with your your words and instructions, they will understand the importance of that instruction. If they see your constant focus on improvement, they will understand the importance of it

Unfortunately the same is true on the flip-side of leadership.  Bad habits that are exemplified by leaders, will often be duplicated by staff. Do you ignore customers but expect your staff to treat them wonderfully? Do you talk about cutting expenses, but then fly first class everywhere?

Bad habits that are exemplified by leaders, will often be duplicated by staff.” Tweet This!

Sometimes it takes an outsider’s insight into your leadership style to find ways that you can improve.  A mentor or coach, can offer guidance with an outside perspective. Without a mentor, no business owner can be as successful as they want to be. I have seen leaders do horrible things, that they had no clue they did. An outside perspective can help you see what you don’t.

When is the last time you did the work of someone a couple levels under you? You should try it. You’ll get valuable insight into what your employees go through each day. Even more though, you’ll show them that you want to understand, and that what they do is important.

Please share your thoughts and leave a comment below.

Filed Under: Leadership Example Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Personal Leadership: It’s All About the People, Stupid!

February 7, 2013 by

Personal-LeadershipIt’s been reported that Henry Ford once said, “Why is it that I always get the whole person, when what I really want is a pair of hands?” While Ford may have only wanted to hire sets of hands to run his assembly lines, the only way to do that was to hire the people attached to those hands: people with complex baggage, personalities, and expectations.

One of the important elements of personal leadership is to lead the people within your team. After all, if there are no people to lead, then there is no leader! I have worked with lots of leaders that absolutely HATE dealing with people. Many leaders just want to tell their people the goal, and then expect them to just go out and create amazing success without any guidance, coaching, managing, or …leading.

Part of being a great leader is to master the art of valuing the people you work with, while at the same time holding them accountable for the results. By creating a culture where people are valued, we can be more effective in achieving desired results. In other words, people are not just means to an end, but must be valued for their contributions and perspectives. This does not mean they need to be coddled or sheltered.

Personal leadership is all about relationships with those you lead. Simply learning the names of one’s team-members is not sufficient to building a strong team of committed workers, although it s start.  By learning their values, skills and dreams, you learn how they see themselves within the organizational structure.  Instead of simply evaluating their work, seek opportunities for them to provide feedback on the organization.  Take care to listen, and see if you can incorporate their ideas.

As you demonstrate that you value the contributions of your team-members, you will find that they are more likely to think outside of the box.  They may see things you may have missed, and you may discover a wealth of skills and abilities you have previously missed.  As morale improves, so will productivity and results. Creating a culture of creativity and excellence will require you to view people as ends, not simply as means to an end.

What ways have you found to lead the entire person, instead of just hiring a pair of hands?  What are some of the complexities of leading people with their personalities, perspectives, and personal baggage?  Please leave a comment below to continue the conversation.

Filed Under: Leadership Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The 2nd Annual International Leadership Blogathon

January 27, 2013 by

International-Leadership-Blogathon-Todd-NielsenHold onto your seats, because this March is going to be a thrill ride through the world of leadership in the 2nd Annual International Leadership Blogathon. Last year I held this event and it was phenomenal. The nuggets of wisdom from all over the world were inspirational and enormously valuable for any leader. We had leadership experts from every corner of the globe take part; and the buzz on social networks still continues to this day for many of the articles.

This year is going to be better than last year’s event. My platform is triple the size of last year, so news of the blogathon and the articles will get out everywhere to help drive discussions. We are going to give away prizes this year, mostly leadership books, to help drive engagement and attract more readers, and my website is way cooler 🙂 than last year.

What Is The International Leadership Blogathon?

Ok, so imagine leadership writers and experts from all over the world gathered together to share their leadership wisdom with the world. The experience and lessons of working with different cultures and organizations helps to fuel an avalanche of knowledge that is not easy to come by.

So what I do is get around 30 experts from every possible country I can, and they each write an article between 400 to 1,200 words that explores some aspect of leadership. Last year we had many different topics and my heart lit up every time I read a new article. I mean, how often do you get to hear the inner thoughts on leadership from someone in Kenya, India, The Netherlands, New Zealand, the U.K., Japan and a bunch of other remote locations? It’s awesome! Subscribe now, and get ready for the flood of leadership wisdom to enter your inbox.

Awesome, the 2nd International Leadership Blogathon begins in March! ” Tweet This

Who Can Write For The International Leadership Blogathon & Why Should You?

Well, let me address the why first. Usually the best reason to write a guest post is to receive valuable backlinks to your own site from a reputable domain, to help grow your own platform, and get your knowledge in front of a bunch of people that might not know who you are. My site has an excellent Alexa rating, I get a lot of traffic, and I have a huge social network in which I will be broadcasting all of the articles – every single day. I’ll will also setup a private Facebook group for all the bloggers to collaborate, and I have a special surprise to rock your social world and help make sure all the articles are shared among all the blogger’s networks.

So who should write? Well anyone throughout the world that has leadership knowledge, that they want to share with the world. But there are some qualifications:

  1. You must be able to write in English
  2. You need to be able to write 400 to 1,200 words in good grammar and punctuation. We will help out as much as we can, but last year I spent way too much time re-writing articles that had great messages but were written poorly. So reach out to others that know English before submitting your article.
  3. You have to have a Twitter account and actively participate on social networks. You do not need to have a big following.
  4. You must be willing to commit to sharing all the articles on social networks and not just your article.
  5. You must be able to enter and edit an article in WordPress. My assistant will setup all the approved bloggers up on this site to submit their article.
  6. The post needs to be all original work from the author, and CANNOT be shared on another site. (Google does not like that)
  7. Your topic needs to be related to leadership or a leadership subtopic. Ask below in the comments section, or send me a message if you are unsure about your topic. It could also be about the intricacies of leadership in your country of residence.
  8. Your article needs to be in the system before March 1st, 2013.  We need to time to get everything setup and organized.
  9. You need to love leadership and want to engage with other writers by commenting on articles and helping to drive more discussion.

I am expecting a lot of interest this year. So if you are interested in writing, please fill out the form below and submit it ASAP. I look forward to a successful blogathon, I know my readers will love this content and it will be a hugely successful event.

[Form id=”10″]

Woohoo, I just signed-up to write for the 2nd International Leadership Blogathon” Tweet This

 

This is going to be an exciting event with wisdom oozing from all over the globe. Stay tuned for more information. Please share your thoughts below. Also what kind of articles are you hoping to see?

Filed Under: International Leadership Blogathon Tagged With: , , ,

Do You Suck at Setting Goals? Stop Sucking on this Key Principle of Effective Leadership

January 25, 2013 by

Targets-Goals-LeadershipThe story has been told of the young man who took his archery set out in the field behind the barn. After carefully taking aim and launching his quiver full of arrows at the barn wall, he walked up to the barn, took a can of red paint, and painted targets around each arrow. Celebrating his excellent marksmanship, he entered a local competition and was soundly defeated, unable to hit any of the targets.

Leaders often find themselves in crisis management, reacting to the situations around them (i.e. Firefighting). Often this is because of a lack of clearly communicated goals and objectives. If we as leaders do our job first and then paint targets second, it’s bound to look as though we succeeded (even if we didn’t accomplish anything of value). If we properly paint our targets first, we will have a much better chance at achieving  our goals.

Effective Leadership Understands the Value of Goals

A key component of effective leadership is to identify and communicate the key goals and objectives of the organization.  Here are some tips for setting goals:

  • Mission Driven: Goals should clearly fit into the overall mission and purpose of the organization.  Team members need to understand how their responsibilities fit into the larger picture.
  • Measurable: Goals should be specific and quantifiable.  Nebulous goals leave employees uncertain of their success and always hoping that they are on track with your expectations.
  • Attainable: It is OK to reach for the stars, but if it is impossible to reach, we’ll achieve nothing more than to maintain the status-quo.  However, you want to make sure that your team members know that the goals are attainable, and that you will support them in accomplishing the goal.
  • Controllable: The best goals are the ones in which we control the outcome.  Instead of setting a goal to grow your customer base by 10 new clients; set the goal to contact 40 potential clients,  make 30 presentations, send 30 care-packages, etc… By setting the right small steps, you can practically guarantee the success of a higher goal, i.e. closing 10 clients. Completing the goal is entirely within the realm of your control, as it doesn’t rely on the potential customer’s response.

Communicate your goals often, and be sure to support your team members and celebrate their successes (no matter how small).  Incorporate team members in the creation of these goals, so that they have ownership in the process. You might consider reading up on SMART Goals as well.

Continuing The Conversation on Developing Effective Leadership Through Goals

The Ultimate Personal Annual Success Plan for achieving your goals is meant to help individuals create greater success in 2013 and it really is an awesome format for defining, tracking and achieving greater success. Get it before the price goes-up. For organizations please check out my workshops and consulting.

Have you successfully changed the culture of your organization through effective goal setting?  Have you ever fired first and painted targets second? Please share your thoughts below.

Filed Under: Leadership Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

The Ultimate Annual Personal Success Plan – Get It NOW!

January 1, 2013 by

The Ultimate Annual Personal Success Plan Todd NielsenSuccess Plan – The last couple months have been a whirlwind of activity, especially surrounding the Ultimate Annual Personal Success Plan. I’m happy to say that the plan is finally completed, and it ROCKS! The Ultimate Annual Personal Success Plan is a Microsoft Excel Workbook that is meant to not only help define your goals, but it will help you to align, track, measure, and execute on the plans to reach your annual goals and dreams.

I had planned on creating 12 posts around the content of the Ultimate Annual Personal Success Plan, but with 3 pending book deals, the chaos of the holidays, and other end of year madness, plus the desire to create greater value for you – I changed the plan. I’ve also been planning to offer the e-book for a couple months, but have become disenchanted with that idea; because honestly, I felt it wouldn’t be very valuable for you.

The new tool, plus the videos below are much more powerful than any e-book. The 5 Videos below are meant to explain how the plan works, and what you need to do to create your own. You will want to watch these short videos and then scroll down to learn how you can get the Ultimate Personal Success Plan Excel Tool.

If you are ready to download the success plan and want to come back and watch the videos later, scroll down below the videos, to get started!

The Ultimate Annual Personal Success Plan Training

The following 5 videos are meant to explain, “The Success Plan,” and “The Tool” together. It will take more time than reading a blog post to get through these, but we are talking about a tool and system to help you reach all of your goals for the year, so take as much time as you need to set yourself up for success. You can  refer back to these videos anytime after getting the tool to refresh your memory.

Video 1: Define Your Goals

Video 2: Monthly Planning

Video 3: Weekly Planning, Tracking, & Review

Video 4: Dashboard & Notes Report

Video 5: Wrap-up & Extending the Tool

Success Plan Triple Lines

How to Get the Ultimate Annual Personal Success Plan

Success Plan Triple Lines

Those that have seen and used this tool over the last couple of weeks, have told me that giving it away would dilute its value. I’d rather have a few people achieve their goals with my tool, then have thousands of people download an e-book that just sits around on their hard drive.

What I have decided to do is to sell the Ultimate Annual Personal Success Plan Excel Workbook for $79.95, but provide a HUGE Subscriber Discount of $50.00 to reward my subscribers that have been awaiting the eBook. So this amazing tool will only cost $29.95 for subscribers …at least until the end of January 2013. 

I cannot provide this kind of discount forever because it will be too much work for us to handle the volume and support at such a low price point. So this deal ends on January 31st 2013. On February 1st, 2013, the discount will be reduced or eliminated for subscribers. So don’t delay! If you are already a subscriber you should have received a discount code, if you have not subscribed, type your name and email below and a discount will be emailed to you right away.

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I’ll Be Your Personal Performance Partner and Coach + Receive The Success Plan for FREE! (Read Below)

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Need More Information about The Ultimate Success Plan?

Here are other posts I have written on the topic:

The Ultimate Annual Personal Success Plan – My Confession, A Lesson Learned, & A Super Cool Sneak Peek
The Ultimate Annual Personal Success Plan – Part 4 – Goals, Vision, Focus
The Ultimate Annual Personal Success Plan – Part 3 – Define Your Focus Areas
The Ultimate Annual Personal Success Plan – Part 2 – How High Are You Aiming?
The Ultimate Annual Personal Success Plan – Part 1 – Let’s Get Started!

Still need more information? Leave a comment below, leave me a voicemail to the right, or send me a message here. I’m dedicated to your success and pray that I can be of service to you; in order to make 2013 the best year ever.

Filed Under: Personal Success Plan Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

The Ultimate Annual Personal Success Plan – My Confession, A Lesson Learned, & A Super Cool Sneak Peek

December 17, 2012 by

Success-Plan-EmbarrassedFor those that have been following the ultimate success plans posts, you know that this has been a pursuit that I have been perfecting for over 3 years. I have a big and embarrassing confession to make though. You see, when I first started preparing to write the Ultimate Personal Success Plan e-Book and the posts for this new version; I actually wasn’t sure how it was going to end. Due to some successes, failures, and struggles I had in 2012, I knew I needed to make some changes to the plan, but I wasn’t sure what to do. So I delayed, and delayed as long as I could.

The really embarrassing part of this is that I consult with organizations on creating a culture of execution in organizations, and here I found myself, utterly failing to execute because I was not sure of the direction I was going in. I tell my clients when they are struggling with this same problem that it is usually better to start executing in any direction, than no direction. I also felt compelled, OK stressed to start the posts because many were asking me for it.

So I took my own advice and just started writing, i.e. executing, in hopes that the answer would work itself out. Two weeks and 4 posts into the writing and I still was not sure exactly where this was going, nor what I was missing. Then it all came together. A friend sent me something that gave me an idea. That idea then blossomed, and then blossomed again, and again, and again until I had created something I was passionate about and confident about. Now I truly feel like I have the recipe for the ULTIMATE ANNUAL PERSONAL SUCCESS PLAN, and IT’S AWESOME!

Everything that has been written so far is valuable for this plan. So don’t worry if you think I wasted your time. I have greatly extended the power of the plan and built huge changes to make for a more successful year, but more than that, I have created an execution structure for your success plan. The images below are of a self-contained excel workbook. This is a thing of beauty, because it not only lets you define everything, and there are some important new parts to define, but it lets you track your progress the whole way. It has a completely self-contained dynamic database to keep the sheet clean throughout the year.

Images for the NEW Ultimate Annual Personal Success Plan!

This is the page where you will define all the parts of the success plan for the year. I’ll be writing more about the components in another post.

Success-Plan

 

This is the monthly goals sheet. This is where you will track your your progress each month. Again, I will be writing more about this in another post.

Success-Plan-Monthly-Goals

Next is the most important sheet and the one you will use the most. It is the Weekly Planning, Tracking & Review sheet. This is the first part of the sheet. There is a drop down that connects to an internal excel “database” so you can track your goals all year long.  It’s super cool, and provides part of the execution structure I mentioned earlier. I will explain this in more detail in a later post.

Success-Plan-Weekly-Goals-Part-1

The second part of the sheet is for tracking habits and reviewing your week. How can you be a success without mastering your habits and constantly reviewing your progress. More on this in a future post!

Success-Plan-Weekly-Goals-Part-2

Below is a report for reviewing all of your consolidated reports from the weekly review section. This will be great to tracking yoru progress over the course of the year. More in another post…

Success-Plan-Notes-Report

You can’t have a cool excel workbook, nor success plans, without a dashboard. This dashboard tracks your achievement ability over the course of the year. Much more on this is forthcoming…

Success-Plan-Dashboard

 

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think. I hope you are excited to have the best year you have ever had!

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