Orlando Report

Ok, back from the trip to Orlando and one of the absolute greatest, most education-filled and growth inspiring weekends in this lifetime. (Tips hat to Junior. “Reset button.”) Although I said I wasn’t going to blog it (and, as you can plainly see, I didn’t), I do want to write down a few of the lessons I learned and thoughts I had while there.

Note that these notes were written as the speakers were giving their spiel, and although I recorded the whole thing, I haven’t yet re-listened to it, so these are in essence first impressions. (I almost always take my iRiver H320 with me to any event where lots of valuable info might be given: seminars, sermons, classes, technical or marketing meetings at the job, etc.)

Also, a good portion of these are my own thoughts, so I’ll bold those items which are not. Usually, the way I take notes is that I’ll write down a bullet point and from there I’ll actually write out — very quickly and sloppily, mind you — how that applies to me. I find this leads to better results in the long run.

Finally, I’ll only be writing things which I find to be applicable to a wide-array of situations, instead of a particular field or profession. Industry-specific information will not be included, as the segment of population it helps is best served by gathering that type of information in places OTHER than blogs, no matter how super cool and marvelous they might be.

—
It doesn’t matter where you come from, it matters where you’re going. Easy enough to remember when you’re reminded of it, but do you live this? How? I once read that if you have a bad week, you should learn from it then forget it; and that when you have a good week you should forget it immediately. If success begets success, however, how does this match up? I guess this is where the phrase “Commitment to continuity gives you emotional stability” really applies. Don’t celebrate your past successes over and over, and don’t beat yourself up over failures. [Both of which I have done way too often.] Just learn from what you did right or wrong and keep on moving. If you did it right, then now you know how to do it. If you did it wrong, you know now what doesn’t work.

—
If you’re not having fun, no one will want to be a part of your team. How do you integrate fun and business properly? Pay attention not only to the money part of business, but pay attention also to friendships and other things which may seem esoteric. Build bonds in order to build loyalty and trust.

—
Sometimes you have a lot going on, but nothing is moving forward. Why are you going in circles? And don’t make the mistake of thinking everything must be right for you to move on. That’s like asking a cop if all the lights between here and work are green before you decide to pull out of your driveway to get there. The only time ducks get in a row is when they’re headed somewhere, chasing a goal (usually food) and not a moment before.

—
About TO DO lists: (1) Have one. (2) Don’t make it too long. Ignoring any of these will always lead to the same result: stagnation and frustration that nothing is getting done.

—
Focusing on your strengths will help you overcome your weaknesses.

—
Obstacles are what you see when you lose focus of your goal. For example, find and look at an item across the room. Now, put your hand sort of in the way (with your fingers spread so you can still see the item across the room. Focus on the hand: How does the item across the room look? (All blurry, right?) Now, focus on the item across the room: How does your hand look? (All blurry, right?) The item across the room is your goal, your hand is the obstacle. Obstacles are what you see when you lose focus of your goal.

—
The person you are today will not meet your goals. You need to become the person you need to be to achieve your goals. The mentality which created a problem cannot be the same mentality which resolves it.

—
To achieve big worthwhile goals, you need to have such a big vision that other people need to be part of it for it to come true.

—
When you set a goal, make it just out of reach. Don’t make the mistake of making it out of sight. For example, if you’re making $20,000/year, don’t make it a goal to buy a Bentley in six months: it ain’t happening.

—
Are you doing things which are in contradiction to your goals? If your goal is to make $100,000/year are you going out and partying while you should be working towards that goal? Are you spending when you should be investing? Keep this in mind as you move along through your day. If you’re not sure whiter you’re doing things contradicting to your goal, counsel with someone who is where you want to be, maybe someone in the same industry who has reached the same or greater success than that which you seek.

—
People with no goals have plenty of time to ridicule and criticize.

—
What gets you to move on? Obviously goals will give you a destination, but what gets you from Point A to Point B? What gets you to do that work? The answer is dependant on you: is it team work? (Wanting to be part of a team.) Is it self gratification? (Wanting glory.) Is it revenge? (Against that 10th grade English teacher who said you’d never accomplish anything.) Or is it a combination of all of them, fueled by another, totally different reason? What is the dynamic of goals and achievement?

• What helps you get a goal?
• what causes reasons?
• How do reasons lead to the attainment of a goal?

—
Is your idea of having fund with friends making sure people are getting laughed at? If it is, you’re on the wrong track.

—
Who is your best friend? The person who brings out the best in you.

—
You can get people to work for you by paying them. You get people to be loyal to you by serving them.

—
How are you building bonds with people? What are you doing to make bonds between you and other people strong enough that they develop feelings for you?

—
The 101% principle: Find one thing right with a person and focus 100% of your attention on that. Most people find 100 things wrong with people and focus all their attention accordingly.

—
Always control and have a good attitude, especially when (a) you don’t want to and (b) no one is looking.

—
Correct people in private; never criticize in public.

—
Do you cultivate the atmosphere of a winning team? Do you surround yourself with a wining team? Do you empower others to become the purveyors of winning teams? How do you do this? By

(a) finding and associating with mentors who are constantly growing and challenging themselves,
(b) listening to uplifting and teaching tapes and reading positive and uplifting books,
(c) making sure your associations are all positive associations.

—
Remember that leader is a thermostat: he controls the temperature. He’s not a thermometer, just measuring the temperature.

—
Here are some commonalities of all winning teams:
(a) Led by great leaders
(b) Full of good people
(c) They play to win
(d) They make team members successful
(e) They keep improving.

—
Disassociate yourself from environments that are opposite or are obstacles to your goals. Associate yourself with environments that move you toward your long term goals. Remember: Everyone wants the lifestyle of the wealthy, but not everyone is willing to pay the price.

—
If you don’t grow, neither will your organization. In fact, plugging into a team is like decorating a Christmas tree. You can connect all the wires for the lights, but until the main source is plugged and being fed the energy required to glow, nothing lights up, no matter how much you scream at it, kick it, work at it, or beat yourself up over it.

—
On the art of promotion: You have to know who to promote to, when to promote to them, and how to promote to them. A lot of this is answered by the simple question, “why would I promote to them?” It is easy to promote when you know why you’re promoting. Until then, it’s hard.

—
The advantage of providing the same information you use to your organization is that everyone is getting the same information. Imagine if everyone you talked to had read what you had read, listened to what you have listened to, and seen what you had seen? How much easier would things be? You can’t control this in the “Real World”, but you can control it in your business.

Are you passing on the knowledge to your team or organization as soon as you get the information? Or are you being stupid and slowing down your productivity by bottlenecking the flow?

—
When giving someone information, always remember the value of the information in relation to the person you’re giving the information to. We see this all the time: a book about electronic circuits is of no value to me, but to an electrician it’s extremely valuable. In fact, this goes hand in hand with a simple law of business: things don’t have intrinsic returnable value. They only have value based on what someone is willing to give for it.

—
Sometimes you’re the teacher. Sometimes you’re the student. Sometimes you’re the lesson.

—
If you always think in minimums you will always stay in that rut.

—
Instead of focusing on being something (“I’m gonna be a millionaire!”), focus on becoming something. The difference between one and the other is the same as the difference between having a fish and knowing how to fish.

—
Leading from the front

• If you wondering whether you are, you’re not.
• Do you focus on you? (Instead of your technicals or your analytics.) Do you work to change, to grow, and to prove yourself?
• Have you earned your leadership or are you just a positional leader?
• Are you passionate about what you’re doing?

—
When was the last time you were honestly and truly excited about your life?

—
Would you wish your profession and lifestyle upon your children?

—
All success is based on your willingness to do your best and fail in order to learn. That, my dear readers, bears repeating: All success is based on your willingness to do your best and fail in order to learn. Anything worth doing is worth doing badly until you can do it well.

—
[Observation: When you don’t lead an organization you’ll only hear a small fraction of the information given to you. Having grown — both personally and organizationally — you can hear the same information, but you listen to it from a new standpoint, and therefore get more from the information. How much you understand is proportional to the amount you have grown since you first heard the information.]

—
When you go to sleep at night, make sure you don’t go to sleep guilty you didn’t do your part for your daily growth or industry goals.

—
[Observation: For most people, self esteem is the single most important factor determining why they are where they are. (This is best exemplified when you compare one salesperson who is succeeding to another one who isn’t doing quite as well.) However, if the self esteem is being fed good information, then four more factors come into play.

(1) Management and Leadership ability
(2) People Skills
(3) Faith that you are headed for success, whether it be due to an Almighty or Manifest Destiny.

(*Work ethic could be included, but really it should go without saying.)

The weakest of these will always be the lid to growth. How did I make this observation? By comparing people like Sam Walton and Richard Branson. In their biographies, both of them spoke as if they always had the attitude, and their actions matched accordingly. What they had to develop — both by their own admission — were the items in this list. They had to develop these in order to achieve the growth they achieved.

—
On Associations
You are the cumulative result of the people who have the most access to your mind. If you hang out with people who don’t read positive books, associate with positive people, are goal-driven and life/growth oriented, you’ll want to be like them. After all, who doesn’t want to (a) be like their friends, and (b) find people who are like them? Nobody! Everybody wants to hang around with people that are like them, and who they can be like (or “be themselves” with).

But if you start hanging out with people that will move you forward and who encourage you to achieve your goals — even if they make you a bit intimidated because of the success — and you give them access to your mind (by listening to them and not being rebellious), you’ll start growing. That’s not to say people in the previous bunch are bad. They’re probably great, honest people. BUT, they’re not headed where you are headed. It’s like sharing a cab with a bunch of people, none of which are headed where you are. Eventually, you may never get where you mean to get to because you end up getting off somewhere else that seems (at the time) better, or more fun.

Lesson: Your associations — who you spend your free time with — will determine where you end up. Be willing to give up something good for something great.

—

That’s it. I took more notes, but this is what I’m willing to divulge. (Besides, the rest likely wouldn’t make much sense to most people anyway.) The biggest lesson I learned this weekend was regarding the value of communication and the free-flow of information. (Thanks go out to S&M for some pointers from items I’d never quite taken into consideration.)