Selfishness Isn't Always a Character Defect

There are times when selfishness is necessary to the attainment of your goals. Selfishness doesn’t always have to be a character defect.

Once you have determined your goals and started executing your action plans to attain the goals, you are going to have to be selfish as it relates to where you spend your time. You are going to need to narrow your focus and concentrate on those key items that you need to achieve to attain your goal.

You cannot be a jack of all trades and a master of none. You have to narrow your focus and concentrate on the high payoff items needed to accomplish your goals.

You will need to make some tough choices to accomplish what you want to accomplish. You have only so many hours each day to accomplish what you want to accomplish so you have to use your time wisely.

When I was building my career, I became very selfish with my time. So much so that I took a little criticism from colleagues of mine since I would not take the time to go to lunch with them. I was nicknamed Mr. Time Control for a while.

I loved those folks but I also knew that I could not sell them anything and the conversation at lunch would be more locker room banter and gossip than an exchange of ideas where everyone could learn something to make themselves better. I used that time to get better. I ate lunch in my office the majority of the time when I did not have a business appointment as I could save time, money and grow by reading business articles and studying during the lunch time. I made the time work for me. I was selfish with my time.

The colleagues who criticized my time control did benefit from my time in the office rather than going to lunch. The knowledge I gained enabled me to be a good resource for my associates as it related to product and sales information. I became known as Karnack in the office for the character Johnny Carson used to portray on his Tonight Show. If you will recall and for those not around to see that show, Johnny would dress in a turban as if he was a magician and could read through the envelope and give you the answer to the question inside. He would give an answer and then open the envelope to show the question.

I became Karnack to the agency. I had the answers and many times could answer them before they finished the question.

Additionally, I found that some of my best creative moments were on Friday afternoon when everyone else in the office was gone. I spent that time getting organized for the following week but more importantly I spent time asking myself what actions could I take to grow my business which would enable me to make more money and get closer to my business goals.

Some of my best ideas came on Friday afternoons when everyone else was on the golf course or had left for the weekend. I cherished that alone time as I was not distracted by people walking into my office. I could focus on the high payoff items.

I also had to postpone going after some of the items on my goals list that would have been nice to have or to have accomplished so that I could spend time on the high priority goals I had set. My focus had to be on my career and my family. I did not have time to pursue a lot of external activities as I wanted to spend my time building my career objectives and what time wasn’t spent there was given to my family. I kept the outside influences to a minimum.

I learned to be selfish with my time. If you are selfish with your time, you will accomplish more of the things you want to accomplish for you and your family.

Selfishness is one of the character defects that alcoholics and addicts possess. When the addiction is in full bloom, the selfishness can be damaging to everyone around the addict.

However, selfishness doesn’t have to always be a character defect. To accomplish one’s goals for oneself and his or her family, there will be times when you have to be selfish.

Remember, you have to establish habits. Habits can be broken if you become too distracted and try to do too many things.

Be selfish with your time to protect the habits you have formed to take you where you want to go.

Selfishness isn’t always a character defect!

As a Leader, Trust is a Must!

Leaders must be seen as someone that can be trusted. If the leader is trusted, their people will perform to their best of their abilities. If the leader is not trusted, their people will spend their time trying to figure out what the leader is up to, and less time achieving the organization’s goals. They will undermine the leader. When trust goes away, so does productivity and profit.

Remember that Trust is not an entitlement. It has to be earned every day by the leader. Trust of the leader by the people in the organization isn’t automatically bestowed on the leader. It is earned by the leader's actions day in and day out.

Do what you say you are going to do.

Walk the talk.

Be genuine and always shoot straight with your people.

Treat everyone with respect, no matter what level they are in the organization.

The need to be trusted isn’t just reserved for the Leader’s people. Customers, vendors, and other stake holders have to be able to trust the Leader. If there is no trust, ultimately, there is no business.

Trust is a must!

Knowledge is Power...If used correctly

Sir Francis Bacon coined the phrase that Knowledge is Power. Knowledge is indeed powerful but knowledge by itself is not so powerful. For knowledge to become truly powerful, one must apply that knowledge effectively. I have met some very smart people in my years who had a lot of knowledge. They could dazzle you with how much they knew.

Early in my career, I was easily intimidated by folks who knew more than me. I was impressed with their great ideas, their presentations of those ideas and the plans that they had made to take them to a lofty level of success. One of my managers would continually bring these smart people's ideas to me and ask why I had not thought of that and why were we not doing that. For someone inexperienced with just a little bit of a self-confidence issue at the time, that could be demoralizing. I beat myself up as to why I could not have more of those creative ideas myself.

One day I made an important discovery about those folks in the organization I was with who had all of that knowledge and were so much smarter than me. I was ahead of them in the production standings. Turns out that while they may have been pretty smart, I was seeing more people and telling my story more often than they were. I was simply doing what I should have been doing every day....Seeing people and asking those people to buy. As a result, I was outproducing the smarter than me folks. My own ideas and presentations, while they may have seemed simple to some, were working. The ideas were working because I was working. I refused to be intimidated by folks who appeared to be smarter than me again.

Knowledge also becomes powerful if you know how to communicate that knowledge to folks in a manner that they will understand and comprehend. Communicating your knowledge to someone just to show you have the knowledge is not powerful, it actually works in reverse. You appear condescending and arrogant. The ability to communicate your knowledge to folks in a manner they understand and appreciate makes knowledge incredibly powerful.

Knowledge is powerful and there truly are people who know more than I do and some of them do apply that knowledge incredibly effectively. Each day I am amazed at how much I still have to learn.

Apply and communicate your knowledge effectively if you truly want to feel the Power of Knowledge!

Remember it is what you do everyday that counts!

Lano

Hope is not a strategy!

You can’t just hope you will have a better life or better results. You have to make it happen. You, no one else, just you.

If you want different results in your life, you have to take action. We always need to have hope but just hoping will not make it happen.

The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same things over and over again, and expecting different results. If you don’t like the results you are getting or what is happening in your life, then you have to make changes.

Easier said than done, I know. Speaking from experience, change does not happen unless you are fundamentally unhappy with your station in life or the results you are getting. You are unhappy and you are sick and tired of being unhappy.

There can be unexpected events in your life that force you to change. You lose your job, your spouse leaves you, you have a death in the family, you meet someone who makes you want to be better, or you have a child. There are a number of external events that can occur that will force you to change, but in the end, you still can’t just hope you will change. You have to take action and make things happen.

Those unexpected events or crisis in some circumstances create the need for change. Many times you have no choice. You lose your sight; you have to change how you are living.

Those types of events, even though many are tragic, force change. In many ways though, one could say those changes we make are easier than the ones where we are not forced to make a change. You have no choice if you lose your sight, you have to make changes. You do have to make a choice sometimes to change jobs, to leave an abusive spouse, to stop drinking, to lose weight, to bring down your cholesterol, to do better on your job to improve your performance.

Nothing is forcing you to make those changes. You know you need to make a change, but you have a choice. You can keep on doing everything the same and existing day to day in this life. Life goes on and then you die. You are more comfortable staying with the known rather than saying, I deserve better and I want more from life than to just live the existence I have been living every day.

Many people live their lives that way. They exist. They allow others to make decisions on how they spend their lives. They are content just existing.

At the end of their lives, do those individuals look back and say, wow, where did the time go? What did I accomplish? What did I do to make the world a better place or did I help folks along the way?

We know one thing for sure. We are all going to die one day. That is certain. How you spend your time and what people will say at your funeral is up to you.

If you don’t want to just exist or if you are miserable, you can change your circumstances. Our higher powers did not create any junk. The power is within each of us to make the changes in our lives to allow us to live the lives we want to live.

Making change though when you really don’t have to make change, but just want to make change can be difficult. You have to have courage and determination to see your way through the change. You sometimes have to make some tough decisions.

However, changes can and will happen if you want them to happen and act with courage and determination. You have to take responsibility and ownership of your own well-being. No one else can do that for you. Unless you yourself want to change for yourself, you will not make the change long-lasting.

Oh, sure, we can want to do better for our boss, for our spouse, our teammates, etc, but that is still a change you want. You are making the changes for yourself. Sure, you boss asked you to change, but you want to make that change to make her happy or to keep your job. You are not just making that change for your boss. You are making that change yourself.

About 15 months ago, I faced this situation where I felt I needed to make some changes. No one was forcing me to make changes, but deep down inside I knew I needed to make a career change. I was making money, working with a great Regional sales and support team, and no one was asking me to leave the organization. However, physically and mentally, I was slowly killing myself. I had gained weight, the doctors had increased the medication I was taking, and were warning me that I was going in the wrong direction. I was working hard to just maintain my current weight that the doctors told me classified as obese. If you have seen the commercial where people are dragging the weight scales around with them all day, that was me. It was always on my mind, but I could not do much about it doing what I was doing everyday. I was traveling about 60% of the time over the Western third of the United States and there was always entertaining to be done. Most of my meals were in restaurants or on airplanes. Arriving in cities in the evening, I was too tired to work out. I could hope I was going to lose weight, but deep down inside, I knew I would not be able to and it was just a matter of time before I became a claim, either for disability or even worse, life insurance.

I gave up that career with the steady income to make some changes. I hated leaving the people I worked with, but I realized, I could not help them or my family if I wasn't in good health. My dad died of heart disease when he was 72. If I followed that same path, I was looking at less than 20 years to live.

I began walking my dogs twice a day and for longer distances. I joined a gym. I actually used the gym. I began eating right and eating a lot less meals out. I slept a reasonable 7 hours a night compared to the 5-6 hours I had been getting. I stopped drinking diet soda.

I established better habits as nothing good happens unless you establish the right habits. I could have gone on a diet, but off just as easily. I needed to establish habits that would insure that I took the weight off and that it stayed off. That required a change and making every day habits work for me. So, no Atkins or cabbage or any other diet fad. Just plain old eat the right stuff and exercise. The weight came off through a lot of one days at a time.

I am happy to report that to date I have lost 44 pounds. I have a lot more energy. I know longer suffer from Sleep Apnea. (I should say my wife no longer has to suffer from my Sleep Apnea)

I could hope I lost weight all day long but hope is not a strategy. It is truly what you do everyday that counts!

Welcome

Welcome to Lano's What You Do Everyday Blog! I hope that your reading this blog adds value to your world. I know your busy and don't have a lot of time to waste. It has always been my philosophy that I if I could just get one idea that will help me save time or money, make money, or just do better, then whatever I read or meeting that I attend, has added value to me. I hope I can do the same for you.

This blog will grow from it's humble beginning in July, 2008.

Stay tuned. More to come.