Dare To Be Different

There is a secondary school not far from our home, and I often see the students either walking to school or waiting at the bus stop. Over 1500 students attend this school, and yet when I see them there is a similarity that identifies them as belonging to that school. After some thought I realized that it is their appearance that is similar. Although there is no school uniform, it is their choice of clothes that almost creates a uniform in itself. The colours of choice tend to be limited to three colours none of which stand out or appear distinct. Almost all students carry a backpack. It is rare to see a student who stands out by wearing brighter colours or a different style of clothes.

This is a well known example of the power of peer pressure, such an influential force in the lives of children growing up. Ironically the teen age years are the period of time when
Children are trying to find out who they are, how their identity is unique from family members and role models of their previous childhood years. The ridicule and even persecution of fellow students at school causes all but the secure and bold of heart to conform or be ostracized at school.

There are many forms of conformity out in the big wide world; subtle expectations and pressures that create environments and communities which conform to ‘acceptable patterns of appearance and behaviour.

However success and notoriety come to those who stand out from the rest by their creativity, uniqueness and ability to stand out from the crowd.

A recent example of this is twenty one year old Alex Twe from England. In August this year Alex was about to start university. Being only too aware of the fact that many students end up finishing their education with huge debts to repay, he decided to try and generate sufficient funds to cover his expenses whilst studying using the power of the Internet. He created ‘The Million Dollar Home Page’. The basic concept was that website owners could buy advertising space on the home page of the site at a cost of $1 per pixel. The smallest advertising block you can purchase is 10x10 pixels, hence a cost of $100. There are a million pixels available for purchase, thus if Alex succeeds in selling them all, he will have raised a cool $1million!

On the face of it, this is a crazy idea - why would anyone want to pay to put a tiny graphic on a page of thousands of other tiny graphics on the off-chance that someone might click on it? I’m sure if he had taken advice from Internet experts he would have been strongly advised not to bother even to attempt such a ludicrous notion as would not have a hope of succeeding.

Alex launched the site at the end of August and right away started to try and generate press interest. This approach worked superbly and he has had International press coverage over the past couple of months which has helped to spread the word about his site in the viral manner that is only possible via the Internet. Result? After a very short time Alex had sold over half a million pixels - that means he has generated over $500,000 in income in just 2 months! At this rate he will achieve his target of selling a million pixels by the end of the year and even if he doesn't sell another pixel, he has still done superbly well. To read the blog of Alex’s adventure and see the site visit his website http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com This week he is visiting the U.S.A. on a media tour. Within weeks of this site being launched and seeing success, there were over 400 copycats trying to make a quick fortune by copying a unique idea.

What does it take to be different, to stand out from the crowd, become influential and experience success? What qualities make innovative leaders rather than followers?

Here are some of my thoughts:
 Courage to follow your heart and intuition
 Security and self confidence to stand by what you believe
 Not concerned to gain the approval of others
 Creativity
 Willingness to be the first and take a risk
 Determination to follow through on your ideas

What do you think?

Best Leadership Advice: Business Success Secrets From 7 Top Leaders

Fortune magazine once published an article entitled "The Best Advice I Ever Got." It was a great article that offered wit and wisdom about achieving business success. I liked it so much, that it motivated me to produce my newest book, Leadership:Best Advice I Ever Got, which describes the best leadership advice 136 successful CEOs, coaches, consultants, professors, managers, executives, presidents, politicians, and religious leaders received that most helped them become effective and successful leaders.

Here are 7 secrets to leadership success:

1. Leadership is about making things happen

If you want to make something happen with your life, in school, in your profession or in your community, do it. Perceived obstacles crumble against persistent desire. John Baldoni, Author, Leadership Communication Consultant and Founder of Baldoni Consulting LLC, shared this advice that had come from his father, a physician. He taught him the value of persistence. At the same time, his mother taught him compassion for others. Therefore, persistence for your cause should not be gained at the expense of others. Another bit of leadership wisdom!

2. Listen and understand the issue, then lead

Time and time again we have all been told, "God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason"...or as Stephen Covey said..."Seek to understand, rather than be understood." As a leader, listening first to the issue, then trying to coach, has been the most valuable advice that Cordia Harrington, President and CEO of Tennessee Bun Company has been given.

3. Answer the three questions everyone within your organization wants answers to

What the people of an organization want from their leader are answers to the following: Where are we going? How are we going to get there? What is my role? Kevin Nolan, President & Chief Executive Officer of Affinity Health Systems, Inc. believes the more clarity that can be added to each of the three questions, the better the result.

4. Master the goals that will allow you to work anywhere in today’s dynamic business world

Debbe Kennedy, President, CEO and Founder of Global Dialogue Center and Leadership Solutions Companies, and author of Action Dialogues and Breakthrough once shared this piece of advice that was instrumental in shaping her direction, future and achievements.

She was a young manager at IBM just promoted to her first staff assignment in a regional marketing office. For reasons she can’t explain, one of her colleagues named Bookie called her into his office while she was visiting his location. He then began to offer unsolicited advice, but advice that now stays fresh in her mind. He mentioned that jobs, missions, titles and organizations would come and go as business is dynamic-- meaning it is always changing. He advised her not to focus your goals toward any of these, but instead learn to master the skills that will allow you to work anywhere.

He was talking about four skills:

• The ability to develop an idea


• Effectively plan for its implementation


• Execute second-to-none


• Achieve superior results time after time

With this in mind, Kennedy advises readers to seek jobs and opportunities with this in mind. Forget what others do. Work to be known for delivering excellence. It speaks for itself and it opens doors.

5. Be curious

Curiosity is a prerequisite to continuous improvement and even excellence. The person who gave Mary Jean Thornton, Former Executive Vice President & CIO, The Travelers this advice urged her to study people, processes, and structures. He inspired her to be intellectually curious. He often reminded Thornton that making progress, in part, was based upon thinking. She has learned to apply this notion of intellectual curiosity by thinking about her organization’s future, understanding the present, and knowing and challenging herself to creatively move the people and the organization closer to its vision.

6. Listen to both sides of the argument

The most valuable advice Brian P. Lees, Massachusetts State Senator and Senate Minority Leader ever received came from his mentor, United States Senator Edward W. Brooke III. He told him to listen to all different kinds of people and ideas. Listening only to those who share your background and opinions can be imprudent. It is important to respect your neighbors’ rights to their own views. Listening to and talking with a variety of people, from professors to police officers, from senior citizens to schoolchildren, is essential not only to be a good leader in business, but to also be a valuable member within your community.

7. Prepare, prepare, prepare

If you fail to prepare, you are preparing to fail. If one has truly prepared and something goes wrong the strength of the rest of what you've prepared for usually makes this something easier to handle without crisis and panic. One of the best pieces of advice Dave Hixson, Men’s Varsity Basketball Coach at Amherst College has ever received and continues to use and pass on is this anonymous quote, "Preparation is the science of winning."

Along with this are two expressions from Rick Pitino's book Success is a Choice, which speaks to preparation. Hixson asks his teams every year: "Do you deserve to win?" and "Have you done the work?" This speaks to the importance of preparation toward achieving your final goal. If you haven't done the work (preparation) the answer to the second question is an easy "no!"

Great advice comes from many sources: parents, other relatives, consultants, bosses, co-workers, mentors, teachers, coaches, and friends. The important point to remember is to stay open, listen to everyone, but also develop your own leadership style.

A Key To Success

Emulating successful people is one key to success. Be careful, though, if you ask them for advice. Often, people don't really know why they succeed, but they will give you as many explanations as you want anyhow. One night on the news, I saw a 100-year-old man explain that smoking a big cigar every day was one of the secrets of his longevity. It might be nice to know why he has lived so long, but I'm pretty sure we won't learn by asking him.

Key To Success - Study Successful People

One key, then, isn't in doing what successful people say, but rather doing what they do. This is how to learn success. Naturally you have to look closely and apply a little brainpower to see what they are really doing that is causing their success.

A successful real estate investor told me he didn't believe in setting goals. However, watching him and listening to him, I came to realize that he knew just where he expected to be with his projects in six months. This, of course, is goal-setting - he just called the process something else.

Never stop listening to what successful people have to say, but read between the lines. Listen for insight into how they think about things, how they approach their challenges. Suppose the advice of a successful basketball player is just to practice more, but he casually mentions "I saw that going in," after a great shot. Isn't it time to start visualizing your shots going in?

Key To Success - Model Successful People

You won't always know what is causing a person's success. Internet marketers promote their websites by exchanging links, but when I first tried to exchange links with other websites, the owners didn't respond to my emails. Then I found a simple email letter used by a successful internet marketer to get links. It sounded silly to me, and I wanted to change it, but I tried it anyhow. It worked repeatedly.

It is more important to do the right things than to understand why they are right. To also understand is great, but at first, it may be best to just copy many of the actions, attitudes and approaches of someone who is succeeding. Try to model success, even before you understand it.

As you learn more, you can drop those parts that aren't contributing, and add elements of your own. If you model a successful parent, for example, and life with your children gets better, does it matter if you know right away which changes were the most effective? Of course not.

Is it better to understand why what you are doing is working? Certainly, but you may not ever understand why some things work, and this is okay too. It is better to have success than to explain it, so find successful people and do what they do, not what they say. It is an important key to success.

How Do You Define Success?

"Success isn't a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire."
~Arnold H. Glasow

This really is a great quote. Not only is it interesting but also inspiring.

One of the truths that I find most frustrating as a teacher and a coach is that many people believe that success, in whatever field of endeavor they are currently striving, is rather like winning the lottery. In fact, it certainly seems from the evidence that they in fact believe that success is even more random because they aren't even buying a ticket. They are simply passively waiting.

If you listen to people talk you won't hear many people voicing this opinion of success but look around you and watch what people are actually doing--or rather not doing--and you will quickly see what I mean.

Many people want things--they want to be rich, they want to be at the top of their profession, they want a successful marriage, they want to raise great kids, they want to be respected in their community, and so on. But what do they do to achieve this success? Are they working both hard and smart toward their financial goals and living frugally while they do so? Are they constantly learning and striving at their job? Are they showing their spouse love, consideration, understanding, and generosity? Are they spending time with their children both modeling how to be a good person and being generous with their love and understanding? Are they regularly proving themselves an asset within their community by being a good neighbor in every sense of the word?

We all know that we must accomplish these tasks as I set them out to achieve success in these areas. Probably I missed something as well. I am hardly a model of success in every area. I would in fact describe myself as fair to middling. {g} I am certainly not rich but the bills get paid and our basics and then some are covered without too much stress. My boss, peers, and subordinates think I am doing a pretty good job as well as those that I serve professionally. While my marriage is in fairly good shape I know I could certainly put more into it. I think I have a great kid but know well my failings as a mother. I contribute to my community but no where near the level that I could or should.

How do you define success?

Is it money, career, love, marriage, family, friendship, respect, community?

For me, success is primarily about love. How many lives do I touch with mine? How many hearts? Who has been changed by my existence in a positive way? I hope that people judge me as a good person and that if I died tomorrow that there would be great mourning.

If we really want this success then we will set ourselves on fire. We won't wait for spontaneous combustion.

Concentration Finds the Way

Everyone has two natures. One wants us to advance and the other wants to pull us back. The one that we cultivate and concentrate on decides what we are at the end. Both natures are trying to gain control. The will alone decides the issue. A man by one supreme effort of the will may change his whole career and almost accomplish miracles. You may be that man. You can be if you Will to be, for Will can find a way or make one.

I could easily fill a book, of cases where men plodding along in a matter-of-fact way, were all at once aroused and as if awakening from a slumber they developed the possibilities within them and from that time on were different persons. You alone can decide when the turning point will come. It is a matter of choice whether we allow our diviner self to control us or whether we will be controlled by the brute within us. No man has to do anything he does not want to do. He is therefore the director of his life if he wills to be. What we are to do, is the result of our training. We are like putty, and can be completely controlled by our will power.

Habit is a matter of acquirement. You hear people say: "He comes by this or that naturally, a chip off the old block," meaning that he is only doing what his parents did. This is quite often the case, but there is no reason for it, for a person can break a habit just the moment he masters the "I will." A man may have been a "good-for-nothing" all his life up to this very minute, but from this time on he begins to amount to something. Even old men have suddenly changed and accomplished wonders. "I lost my opportunity," says one. That may be true, but by sheer force of will, we can find a way to bring us another opportunity. 

There is no truth in the saying that opportunity knocks at our door but once in a lifetime. The fact is, opportunity never seeks us; we must seek it. What usually turns out to be one man's opportunity, was another man's loss. In this day one man's brain is matched against another's. It is often the quickness of brain action that determines the result. One man thinks "I will do it," but while he procrastinates the other goes ahead and does the work. They both have the same opportunity. The one will complain of his lost chance. But it should teach him a lesson, and it will, if he is seeking the path that leads to success.

Many persons read good books, but say they do not get much good out of them. They do not realize that all any book or any lesson course can do is to awaken them to their possibilities; to stimulate them to use their will power. You may teach a person from now until doom's day, but that person will only know what he learns himself. "You can lead him to the fountain, but you can't make him drink."

One of the most beneficial practices I know of is that of looking for the good in everyone and everything, for there is good in all things. We encourage a person by seeing his good qualities and we also help ourselves by looking for them. We gain their good wishes, a most valuable asset sometimes. We get back what we give out. The time comes when most all of us need encouragement; need buoying up. So form the habit of encouraging others, and you will find it a wonderful tonic for both those encouraged and yourself, for you will get back encouraging and uplifting thoughts.

Life furnishes us the opportunity to improve. But whether we do it or not depends upon how near we live up to what is expected of us. The first of each month, a person should sit down and examine the progress he has made. If he has not come up to "expectations" he should discover the reason, and by extra exertion measure up to what is demanded next time. Every time that we fall behind what we planned to do, we lose just so much for that time is gone forever. 

We may find a reason for doing it, but most excuses are poor substitutes for action. Most things are possible. Ours may be a hard task, but the harder the task, the greater the reward. It is the difficult things that really develop us, anything that requires only a small effort, utilizes very few of our faculties, and yields a scanty harvest of achievement. So do not shrink from a hard task, for to accomplish one of these will often bring us more good than a dozen lesser triumphs.

I know that every man that is willing to pay the price can be a success. The price is not in money, but in effort. The first essential quality for success is the desire to do--to be something. The next thing is to learn how to do it; the next to carry it into execution. The man that is the best able to accomplish anything is the one with a broad mind; the man that has acquired knowledge, that may, it is true, be foreign to this particular case, but is, nevertheless, of some value in all cases. So the man that wants to be successful must be liberal; he must acquire all the knowledge that he can; he must be well posted not only in one branch of his business but in every part of it. Such a man achieves success.

The secret of success is to try always to improve yourself no matter where you are or what your position. Learn all you can. Don't see how little you can do, but how much you can do. Such a man will always be in demand, for he establishes the reputation of being a hustler. There is always room for him because progressive firms never let a hustler leave their employment if they can help it.

The man that reaches the top is the gritty, plucky, hard worker and never the timid, uncertain, slow worker. An untried man is seldom put in a position of responsibility and power. The man selected is one that has done something, achieved results in some line, or taken the lead in his department. He is placed there because of his reputation of putting vigor and virility into his efforts, and because he has previously shown that he has pluck and determination.

The man that is chosen at the crucial time is not usually a genius; he does not possess any more talent than others, but he has learned that results can only be produced by untiring concentrated effort. That "miracles," in business do not just "happen." He knows that the only way they will happen is by sticking to a proposition and seeing it through. That is the only secret of why some succeed and others fail. The successful man gets used to seeing things accomplished and always feels sure of success. The man that is a failure gets used to seeing failure, expects it and attracts it to him.

It is my opinion that with the right kind of training every man could be a success. It is really a shame that so many men and women, rich in ability and talent, are allowed to go to waste, so to speak. Some day I hope to see a millionaire philanthropist start a school for the training of failures. I am sure he could not put his money to a better use. In a year's time the science of practical psychology could do wonders for him. He could have agencies on the lookout for men that had lost their grip on themselves; that had through indisposition weakened their will; that through some sorrow or misfortune had become discouraged. 

At first all they need is a little help to get them back on their feet, but usually they get a knock downwards instead. The result is that their latent powers never develop and both they and the world are the losers. I trust that in the near future, someone will heed the opportunity of using some of his millions in arousing men that have begun to falter. All they need to be shown is that there is within them an omnipotent source that is ready to aid them, providing they will make use of it. Their minds only have to be turned from despair to hope to make them regain their hold.

When a man loses his grip today, he must win his redemption by his own will. He will get little encouragement or advice of an inspiring nature. He must usually regain the right road alone. He must stop dissipating his energies and turn his attention to building a useful career. Today we must conquer our weakening tendencies alone. Don't expect anyone to help you. Just take one big brace, make firm resolutions, and resolve to conquer your weaknesses and vices. Really none can do this for you. They can encourage you; that is all.

I can think of nothing, but lack of health, that should interfere with one becoming successful. There is no other handicap that you should not be able to overcome. To overcome a handicap, all that it is necessary to do is to use more determination and grit and will.

The man with grit and will, may be poor today and wealthy in a few years; will power is a better asset than money; Will will carry you over chasms of failure, if you but give it the chance. The men that have risen to the highest positions have usually had to gain their victories against big odds. Think of the hardships many of our inventors have gone through before they became a success. Usually they have been very much misunderstood by relatives and friends. Very often they did not have the bare necessities of life, yet, by sheer determination and resolute courage, they managed to exist somehow until they perfected their inventions, which afterwards greatly helped in bettering the condition of others.

Everyone really wants to do something, but there are few that will put forward the needed effort to make the necessary sacrifice to secure it. There is only one way to accomplish anything and that is to go ahead and do it. A man may accomplish almost anything today, if he just sets his heart on doing it and lets nothing interfere with his progress. Obstacles are quickly overcome by the man that sets out to accomplish his heart's desire. The "bigger" the man, the smaller the obstacle appears. The "smaller" the man the greater the obstacle appears. 

Always look at the advantage you gain by overcoming obstacles, and it will give you the needed courage for their conquest.
Do not expect that you will always have easy sailing. Parts of your journey are likely to be rough. Don't let the rough places put you out of commission. Keep on with the journey. Just the way you weather the storm shows what material you are made of. Never sit down and complain of the rough places, but think how nice the pleasant stretches were. View with delight the smooth plains that are in front of you.
Do not let a setback stop you. Think of it as a mere incident that has to be overcome before you can reach your goal.