Make It Happen

Intellectual Health Food

Where did you pick up your current attitude to learning? The quick answer is your friends, family, school, and work colleagues. Looking more widely, you probably were influenced by TV, movies, your favorite author, and the culture in general.

Too often, it is mindless TV shows, complaining friends and family, and your day-to-day work responsibilities. What type of intellectual nutrition are you currently eating? You can't change what you are, but you can change what you become. Here are some "health food" ideas for your mind:

• Read a challenging non-fiction book. It can be history, science, philosophy, or a business best-seller. Even better, join a book club where the books are discussed with others.
• Attend a lecture (or lecture series): This can be on any particular topic, so long as it challenges you to think.
• Widen your perspective: Visit the local museum or art gallery, and book a guided tour.
• Travel to another country on vacation, instead of the usual spots
• Learn another language.
• Sign up for a personal interest course or a professional certification.

While these types of activities can have a profound impact on you as an individual, they will also impact your work performance - and your personal relationships.

This week's action item: We always consider "Junk food" as undesireable, yet we often feed our mind with nothing better. This week, swap the bad for the good. Add one (good) thing to your list of to-do's, and choose one (bad) thing to drop.

Note: The Make It Happen Tipsheet is also available by email. Go to www.PersonalBalanceSheet.com/news to register.

Randall Craig
www.RandallCraig.com
www.PersonalBalanceSheet.com/news

Sweat the small stuff - again

Why do some people have tremendous career success, and others don't? It might be convenient to point to their superior intellect, drive, positive attitude, or just plain luck - none of which you feel you have. But often their success comes from a source far more mundane: they try harder.

Whatever their unique gifts, some people just try a "hair" more than others, and they do it over the long term. And these small differences add up. A great example comes from the financial world. Imagine two people had invested $20,000, one person at 4% interest, while the other person at 4.5%. At the end of the first year the difference is negligible - just $100. But over 40 years, the length of a typical career, the difference is an astounding $20,306 - even more than the original "investment"!

Small stuff makes a difference when we invest financially, when we try harder educationally, when we do our best at work, and when we try harder in our personal relationships. While the conventional wisdom is to not sweat the small stuff, differences are made at the margins and these differences add up over time.

This week's action item: Aiming for consistently great performance is a far better bet than gambling your efforts on the big win. Look at your schedule this week, and identify at least one or two recurring activities where you have become complacent; these are the ones that could do with a little "sweating". You might not see your impact immediately, but over the long run, others will.

Note: The Make It Happen Tipsheet is also available by email. Go to www.PersonalBalanceSheet.com/news to register.

Randall Craig
www.RandallCraig.com
www.PersonalBalanceSheet.com/news

Back to School Lessons

Why is it that retailers have back-to-school sales starting in August? They know that clothing purchases are made in the 3-4 weeks immediately before the first day of school. (They also know that few customers will purchase clothing a mere day or two beforehand.) Stores make their buying decisions months in advance. Manufacturers make their products even earlier.

After the school selling season is done - maybe a week or two after school starts - the retailer will stock the next season's apparel and the "old" stock is often sold at a loss.

Surprisingly, there is a lot that we can learn from retailers. For example:

• There is a shelf-life for opportunity. If the window of opportunity is missed, then it cannot be resurrected.
• Just as a retailer's purchases may not sell well, there is a certain risk that our training might not meet the market requirements - but this isn't an excuse not to prepare ourselves for the next stage of our careers.
• Learn from our mistakes. Just because we weren't the right "merchandise" for a particular opportunity, doesn't mean that there aren't other ones where we are just what the customer wants.
• Like the retailer's different buying seasons, there are career and work-life balance activities that should happen at different times of the year - and can be calendarized.

This week's action item: Not everyone thinks like a retailer - or feels comfortable drawing lessons from them. But it is a great example of how we can learn from just about every business - or person - we come in contact with. This week, choose an organization - or a person - and write down their lessons for you. Back-to-school doesn't just mean great sales, but also great lessons.

Note: The Make It Happen Tipsheet is also available by email. Go to www.PersonalBalanceSheet.com/news to register.

Randall Craig
www.RandallCraig.com
www.PersonalBalanceSheet.com/news

How long does it take - or should it take - for you to master a new skill? Conventional wisdom suggests that after doing something several times, you should know it fairly well. After doing it for a few months, you should have proficiency. And after a year, you're an expert.

Or are you?

The knowledge that is embedded within an organization is often found in long-time employees - those who have been around for 10+ years. Typically, these are the people who can answer questions about long-time clients and suppliers. These are the people that have strong organizational knowledge - they are the organic databases and walking knowledge management systems. Their skills and experience have developed with time.

Businesses are now (or soon will be) at an interesting turning point. The last generation of long-time employees will soon be moving into retirement. A new generation of "millennials" - all apparently with short attention spans - will be taking their place. Will these younger employees have the skills and the patience to develop the deep knowledge necessary for corporate (and national) success?

This issue came to mind in the strangest of circumstances. I had demonstrated a lengthy karate sequence of moves to my karate sensei the other night. After a demonstration, there is usually a fair amount of critical feedback. In this case, I was told that it was a wonderful demonstration, and that I had finally mastered the sequence.

It had taken me twenty years.

(After a year, you're an expert? Inexperience prevents many people from seeing how much further progress is possible.)

Nickels and Dimes

If you had a choice to be paid either $50 or $100 for a service that you performed, which would you choose? Most of us would choose the greater amount; after all, if we have to do the work, why not be paid as much as the market will bear? Take the money and run!

Unfortunately, not everything may be as it appears. There is an unfortunate story about a man who boasted that his child was so "dumb" that when given a choice between a nickel and a dime, his child always chose the nickel. Later one day, someone asked the kid why they didn't choose the dime: "if I chose the dime, he would have stopped asking me which I wanted. As it stands, I've earned about ten dollars."

The father never looked at the situation from the child's perspective: instead, he made assumptions that in the end, made him look foolish. More importantly even the child knew that a continuous flow of nickels was better than just one dime. The kid knew not to kill the golden goose, so he played along.

Most people would not put up with the "dumb" label just to earn a few bucks, but the story illustrates an important point: whether you are putting together a deal, negotiating your next job, or just agreeing on your next year's performance objectives, remember that small greed succeeds. If you ask for too much, the risk isn't just that the other party may walk away, but that they will say yes - and no longer send any more "nickels" your way. On the other hand, if you ask too little, you are undervaluing your work.

This week's action item: Knowledge gives you tremendous leverage. Before you next negotiate anything, learn about the other party's motivations, investigate the market, and probe. Don't take the dime only to stop the nickels.

Note: The Make It Happen Tipsheet is also available by email. Go to www.PersonalBalanceSheet.com/news to register.

Randall Craig
www.RandallCraig.com
www.PersonalBalanceSheet.com/news

I'm just about half way through a fascinating book, called "Linked", by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi. In it, he explores how networks grow: whether they be social networks, biological networks, the internet, or web sites.

One of his most fascinating points is that the study of an individual node - whether it be a cancer cell, an atom, a web site, or a person - is less important than understanding the connections between them. No matter how perfect the microscope (or how big the search engine), it is the interrelationships between the individual items that often determine behavior.

From a business or career perspective, we know this intuitively: it is our relationships with others that determine our success. This is true whether we are dealing with clients or suppliers (a relationship of trust will often close the deal) or with a prospective employer (who is referred through our network.)

Recently, I have started to use a web-based social-networking site, called LinkedIn. Not sure exactly where the ultimate benefit will come from, but strengthening my own connections (and using nifty software like this) can't be all that bad an investment.

Blog Directory

Earlier today, I was at Report on Business Television, taping a few segments for some upcoming shows. In between, I spent time chatting with the host, Anne Gaviola. I made an off-hand remark that she must meet a number of fascinating guests; her reply impressed me.

She said that indeed that she did meet many interesting people, and she always makes a point of learning something new from each of them. I could just imagine all that she has picked up, and it reminded me of the need to make an effort to do the same with each new person I met during the day.

(For the record, she had asked me how I "fit it all in". I answered that those who spend time thinking about their time, often find they have more of it. And the same is true about money, relationships, and pretty much everything else in life.)