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Archive For: Success

You Are Leaving Signs

On the way to my personal trainer this morning (yes I have a personal trainer and he hurts me!) I saw this number plate on a courier truck.

Thaaaaat’s not a good sign.

I mean, would you hire a courier who hates their job? Can you imagine how they may throw delicate packages around? How much care do you think they would have with what they are doing?

I am most likely jumping to conclusions. Maybe they bought this number plate thinking it was a good joke. Maybe they don’t work and this is a truck they drive around in their retirement. Maybe they have a long term contract and don’t really care what the rest of the world thinks. There are any number of reasons to explain this number plate.

What is important is that they have left a sign. A sign that will influence how they are perceived.

You do the same thing every day. How you dress, how you interact with others, how you treat the barista at the coffee shop, comments you make to your friends on the phone that other people overhear, the jokes you tell and even how you treat animals.

You leave signs that people will use to assess whether they want to deal with you or not.

I am not saying that you have to be perfect, it is way too hard. But I am saying that it is worth considering what signs you are leaving and what signs you want to leave and adjusting your actions accordingly.

So Dear Reader, what signs are you leaving?

Put Your Poo in the Post

Image: ShutterStock

Bowel Cancer is the second deadliest cancer in Australia. Approximately 80 people a week die from it.

That is shitty to say the least!

June is Bowel Cancer Awareness month and Bowel Cancer Australia are doing great things to help for the early detection and treatment of bowel cancer.

The great news is that bowel cancer is one of the most treatable cancers if detected early. The even better news is that when you turn 50, the Australian Government sends you a free kit for Bowel Cancer Screening. In theory, it shouldn’t be an issue.

That’s where people come in!

One study shows that less than 46% of people returned the kit (less than 44% for men!) A more recent study has that down to just 41% (39% for men – what is it with us men!)

Here is my theory, the first kit arrives when you turn 50. No one likes to be reminded they are getting older. A female friend of mine had her kit arrive on her actual 50th birthday. She was annoyed so put the kit in the cupboard – out of sight, out of mind.

Also, people don’t like talking about poo. It is ok if you are travelling as you can go on endlessly about the different toilets, plumbing set ups and the gastro which meant you were not getting off the toilet for a few days. But people don’t want to talk about their own poo, whether they call it poo, poop, shit, faeces or doody.

So you know who is the best person to encourage the poo conversation? A five year old!

They will play with it, bathe with it, run with it, show it to you, take pictures of it … you name it, they will do it.

So let me be serious for a second, if you are older than 50 or know someone that it, can I encourage you to Put Your Poo in the Post?

Get a test kit from Bowel Cancer Australia, go to the toilet, channel your inner 5 year old, poke your poo with a stick, and then put your poo in the post. You could very well save your own life.

Dear reader, you are too important to those around you to postpone this because you are too embarrassed, too busy (it takes less time than it takes to make a coffee) or too scared to poke your poo with a stick. Check the video below for a bit more information.

At the very least you get to send your poo to someone. Haven’t you always wanted to Put Your Poo in the Post?

Dance to My Tune

This is the background of the Salon at the Melbourne Recital Centre. I was fortunate enough to attend a performance by the Ensemble Gombert there this week.

Now I must confess, it is not the kind of performance I would usually attend but one of my fellow members of the Ice Haloes performs with them so I thought it would be a good opportunity to see what the sophisticated people do.

Oh my lawks a lordy! It was stunning. While the entire performance was in German, it didn’t matter. The harmonies and the emotion of the music jumped out and grabbed you. I had the translation of the piece but I just listened and enjoyed it without trying to work out what it meant at the time.

They performed two pieces. Hugo Distler’s Totentanz and Bach’s Jesu, meine Freude.

While the Bach was great, the Distler was a production of it’s own. It is a Motet, which Wikipedia defines as a mainly vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from the late medieval era to the present.

They had kindly provided an English translation of the piece, which was about when Death comes to us all, how will we be seen. The first dialogue from Death was very powerful.

To the dance, line up for the dance:
emperor, bishop, burgher, farmer,
poor and rich, great and small,
come to me! Mourning will not help.
Lucky is the one who mindfully
did good things during his life,
thereby detaching himself from sin –
Today I say: Dance to my tune!

The motet showed how different people meet death. Life has shown us that no-one is spared death. Yet many live as if Death will never come.

I am so grateful to my friend Vic for introducing me to this piece. Listening to how Distler felt people would meet death reinforced that life is to be lived and to be lived well.

To try new experiences, treat all people well, to give what you can, to not be blinded by ambition or be arrogant with any authority we may hold. We will all Dance to Death’s Tune one day so let’s make today as good as possible for those around us. By doing so we will make life, and death, good for ourselves.

Yes, this piece is old. It is based on text written in the 17th and 19th centuries. But the message still holds true.

So dear reader, if I may be a bit dark and somber, before you need to Dance to Death’s Tune, how will you live so that you may die well?

PS You can listen to an unrelated but lovely piece by Ensemble Gombert here
PPS Vic is fourth from the left

The Most Talked About Element at An Event

When it comes to events, there is one element that is the topic of discussion above all else.

If you get it wrong, Lord help you. You will be trashed talked on social media and there will be an undercurrent of dissatisfaction throughout the event. But if you get it right, while it won’t give you rock star status, it will reflect positively and will give you some peace and quiet.

Naturally, I am talking about the catering!

While it is not the reason you went to the event, it is the most talked about element. With todays large number of Special Diet Requirements, it makes it even harder to get right.

I have heard comments like, “The sessions were ok but how good was the food. The food alone makes it worth it” or “The sessions were good but that food was rubbish. I am not coming back if that is all they can do.”

While it seems crazy, it does have an impact. So make this potential problem disappear. Make sure the catering is great and that you NEVER run out of food.

Oh if you are after a winner, for afternoon tea serve fresh scones with jam and cream. I have seen loads of “gluten free” people line up for them! They are the perennial favourite.

Then when you do get the catering right, make sure you reinforce it. Here is something I did for the 2017 Professional Conference Organisers Conference.

As I say, while the positive impact is not huge when you get it right, you don’t ever want to get it wrong.

Do You Get Distracted?

I get sidetracked really easily when I am trying to focus. In particular, social media calls to me to come and waste time!!

To help me stay focussed, I created the poster above. I have it printed out and stuck to the wall next to my desk.

It has been a great little tool to help me stay focussed on the things that count within my business.

Granted there are times when I need to do other essential items like my BAS statements but the majority of my time needs to be focusses on these three items.

Do you lose focus at time? Do bright shiny objects call to you?

You are more than welcome to use this poster. Click on the image above or on this link and you will be taken to the PDF that you can print out.

I hope it helps you as much as it helps me.

Celebrating 50

It has finally happened. I turned 50 last week.

I am a firm believer in celebrating success and that if you make celebrating success a habit, you will make success a habit. So naturally I celebrated.

We had a huge party at a fabulous venue (The Riversdale Golf Club who were just fantastic) and I had family and friends from across the spectrum of my life come and help celebrate.

It has often been said that it takes a village to raise a child, so I had my village come and celebrate with me. Naturally the chief of that village, my gorgeous wife, was a key driver behind the celebration but that is as it should be.

You dear reader are also part of that village. Your regular feedback, requests for information and sharing of your life successes continue to help shape me and my business.

So as a small gift for you, please enjoy the performance of the choir I belong to, Mood Swing. They were there and did a few songs, this being the finale.

I am half way to my Happy Healthy Hundred and I wanted to thank you for your company and support on my journey.

Time Is Money

It is commonly said that Time is Money. Well this month, I get to be $50!

I have strong memories of looking at statues of explorers like Burke and Wills and calculating that they died when they were 40 and 27 respectively. At the time I remember thinking, “wow, they weren’t that old.” Now I am definitely thinking they were very young!

Time changes things.

It is not just the passing of time that changes things, it is what you do with that time.

Even though I am turning 50 this month, I really don’t think I have started to mature yet. In talking with 70 year olds, they still feel 18 on the inside.

Time is money, and while it is good to save money, that is not what it is for. Money is to invest, to spend and to share. The same is to be said for time.

Time is to be invested in acquiring new skills. It is to be spent doing fun, foolish or even worthwhile things. It is to be shared with those who need it, who you love or simply who you want to.

My personal mantra is Happy Healthy Hundred, so this means that this month I am half way. I am ready to spend more time with people I love and doing things that I love.

If your time is money, how are you spending it? How are you investing it and how are you sharing it?

Image: Shutterstock

Who’s a Good Boy?

I spent a bit of time over Easter installing some new redgum sleepers and creating a new garden bed in the front garden. (The plan is for a rosemary hedge so we have a little more privacy AND tasty goodness for when we cook lamb.)

Can I tell you how much physical work was involved? Plus, those sleepers are 3 metres long and very heavy to throw around, level out, concrete in and all the other fun stuff!

Here are a few more pics.

You know what I like the most about this kind of project? It is having my gorgeous wife admire the work done and show her appreciation. Basically, I am a big fluffy puppy wanting her to tell me what a good boy I am and what a good job I have done!

It is funny how one of the key things in the work place that gives great joy and reward to a person is Acknowledgement and Words of Praise, yet they are both incredibly rare. I have heard managers say, “I don’t need to tell them they do a good job, they get paid. That is enough. It is my responsibility to tell them when they have done a bad job, that’s when I give them feedback.”

Culturally when we give some one a compliment, they struggle to accept it.

Responses like “Don’t mention it”, “No worries”, “it’s all good”, “This old thing”, “I bought it at the op shop”, “it was nothing” are part of our every day vernacular.

Can I ask you to mention it?

Can I ask you to pay attention and praise those around you for doing what they would do anyway?

Can I ask you to acknowledge the effort of others?

Most people have a hidden sign saying, “Have I done a good job?”

It costs nothing but a small amount of time to give a compliment and acknowledge others and the payback is massive. Your team will feel closer, feel prouder and pay more attention to team goals.

So dear reader, in your life, who’s been a good boy or a good girl?

A Message to Cricket Australia

Image: Shutterstock.com

For those of you that know me, you will know that sport has no place in my life.

But even for someone who is not interested in sport, you cannot hide from that fact that Australia recently got caught cheating in a test cricket match. As someone who is not interested, informed or in the slightest way affected by this, I feel that it puts me in the ideal place to give a message to Cricket Australia.

Dear Cricket Australia, YOU IDIOTS!

While this is quite clearly the fault of the individual who cheated, the captain who let him and the coaches who allowed this to happen, it has to be asked, what kind of culture do you have that allows this idea to be entertained, let alone acted upon?

The sport itself is synonymous with fair and professional behaviour. If something is off kilter, it is commonly said, “Well that’s just not cricket.” We aren’t talking about underarm bowling or aiming the ball at the body of the player, we are talking about sanding the cricket ball down in front of at least 10 TV cameras. How stupid do you have to be to do this in front of that many cameras and use fluro yellow paper to do it?

Is the pressure to win that great? Is your need for money that huge? Are your ratings dropping that much?

How long do you think it will take to recover from this? Our New Zealand friends STILL talk about bowling underarm.

I suspect someone will end up as a scape goat, the media will over analyse what happened to them growing up, it will be declared a one off, aberrant occurrence and it will get swept under the carpet.

But you have to ask yourself, as an organisation, what signals have we sent that would in any shape, manner or form indicate that this would be ok? What can Cricket Australia do to ensure this doesn’t happen again?

If I was a sponsor of Cricket Australia or any of the independent players, I would seriously be considering my investments at this time. (Can I humbly suggest you consider investing in the arts?)

And you, dear reader, what about how you and your business operate? What is your culture like? No-one is perfect but it is important to remember that we reap what we sow.

100 Beatings

Could you handle 100 Beatings?

My personal trainer, who is also the Sensei and owner of Dynamic Martial Arts, decided he was up for a challenge, and it was for 100 Beatings.

Technically, this is the 100-Man Kumite and only 28 people in the world have ever done this. At a high level, this challenge is fighting 100 two minute fights with a 30 second break in between.

You can tell from the image that he is not really smiling, it is just a grimace of pain to hold himself up. Notice how his crisp white outfit is almost translucent from his sweat and filthy from being hit so much. Imagine what his body is like!

Throughout his long preparation, we have been talking about the kind of challenges he would be facing. He knew that the mental challenge would be harder than the physical (although he knew the it was going to hurt … a lot!)

Speaking with him today, two days after the fight, he said that he was expecting to have had enough at about round 50. To his surprise, that feeling of “I have had enough” came at about round 20.

He was hoping that some of his opponents may have given him a little pity at some stage but that never happened. He said that they came out fighting and they did not stop. In return, his opponents said that he gave as good as he got.

When his daughter jumped on his lap this morning, he screamed out in pain. He hobbles rather than walks and he knows it will be another day or so before he returns to some degree of “normal”.

But as many sports coaches have screamed over the years, the pain is momentary while the results last a life time.

Sometimes our challenges seem never ending.

We are tempted to give up and turn away.

The pain seems intense and never ending.

At every curve, someone seems to be taking another swipe at us.

So you have to ask yourself, how badly do you want it? The results you are after, how badly will you work for it? How much pain (both physical and emotional) will you simply just “take” as your strive for your goal?

While he is not yet ready to fully enjoy it, I have no doubt that for the rest of his life, Chris will have the great satisfaction that he faced 100 beatings and succeeded.

No one can ever take that from him.

What can no-one ever take from you?

PS To hear more about Chris and how he runs his business, have a listen to his episode on the Get More Success Show. Click here to listen.

5 Minutes vs 40 Years

I was fortunate enough to host the Opening Ceremony of the Global Speakers Summit in Auckland, New Zealand recently.

As a fun MC kickoff, I performed what I refer to as my Impro Slam Poetry. That is where I ask the audience a question (in this case, What do you want to get from the conference?) and then get about 10 words or statements from them.

Then, off the top of my head, I create a piece of poetry that I make fun, entertaining and relevant to the event. It’s got a lot of energy, I love to do it and the audience are always amazed at how it is done.

Afterward I am always asked, “do you have part of it pre-written?” And the answer is “NO.”

It is not a trick, it is a skill. Each time I do it, a poem is made up fresh using the words provided.

It’s not five minutes of trickery, it is 40 years of skill.

It’s the same with what you do. You can probably create or tweak a spreadsheet without thinking about it, or whip up a powerpoint slide deck without thinking about it. Maybe ride a unicycle or stitch up a dress or even speak a foreign language. These skills are something you build over time but look impressive when you only see the end result.

So what are your skills? What can you do that other people think is amazing but you know it is years of practice that builds the skill?

More importantly, what is it you WANT to be able to do? That is what you need to start working on today so that in 10 years it looks like magic!

Are You There?

One of the key elements of marketing I learned very early in my time as being a member of Professional Speakers Australia, is that there is a huge difference between being good and being there.

Many people are focussed on being good. Getting everything just right with the right image, the right text, the right message, the right style, the right level of rightness!

Others put something pretty good together and just start getting it out there.

People in the second category seem to get more business than the first and those in the first category seem to get more frustrated!

A case in point is the document above (you can click on the image or this link to see the document in detail). I have had the vision for this document for some time (about four years) and I just haven’t been able to get it exactly how I wanted it. It is my speaker “1 Pager” so it has a lot of information about me and what I do.

I wanted to present it in a way that wasn’t all about me. I wanted my prospects or clients to read it and think of their own problems and how I can help solve or address them. I wanted people to laugh a bit and have an understanding of who I am and how I work.

After a fair bit of work, I think I got most of that. But it wasn’t perfect. Shifting my focus to being good, I just got some printed and have started sending to clients and prospects with my special gift. (Let me know if you are interested in receiving a hard copy with the special gift or finding our more about what I do.)

As I was putting the packs together, I noticed two minor mistakes that most people wouldn’t even notice. I am sending them anyway. I have fixed the mistake for next time but the first print run has been completed.

Now I will see what sort of results it wields – I guarantee it will get greater results than me just thinking about it for another four years!

There is a massive difference between being good and getting it perfect, and being there and getting paid!

What about you? What are you working on that is not quite good enough and just needs more attention that honestly could be put out to the market place where they can get value from it right now?

Don’t just be good, be there!

Plan Backwards

Image: Shutterstock

The year has started and no doubt you have some plans in mind. You may have even done some formal planning. I have found the best way to make your plans actually happen is to plan backwards.

This method applies whether you are planning an event, a project, a sales target, or simply planning to by a house.

Dr Stephen Covey has as one of the seven habits of highly effective people to “Begin with the End In Mind.”

For us this means looking at what do we want to achieve and by when. For example, maybe you want to achieve $200,000 in sales this year. That is the goal, the target, the thing that keeps you inspired. I would be using language about that. “Project 200k”, tracking for 200k or something to ensure it keeps top of mind.

The next step is to work backwards. If you are wanting $200k this year then how much is that per month? Let’s face it, Jan and Dec are hard to get anything done (well Jan has already gone!) so you are looking at $20k of sales each month.

So let’s break that down even further by continuing to work backwards.

What is your average sale size?
How many proposals do you need to make a sale?
How many meetings do you need to get a request for proposal?
How many sales calls do you need for a meeting?

This will then set your daily plan for you and you will always know what to do.

For example, let’s assuming the following.

Your average sales size is $5,000. You historically send out three proposals to make a sale. You need two meetings to get a request for a proposal and make five sales calls to get a meeting request.

Working backwards, to reach $200,000 you need 40 sales of $5,000. Based on ten months this is four sales a month.

Each sale need three proposals, so that is 12 proposals a month or 3 a week. To get a proposal request, you need two meetings so that is six meetings a week. Each meeting takes five sales calls so that is 30 sales calls a week or six calls a day.

What this means is that to reach $200,000 you need to consistently make six phone calls a day.

This process works for all kinds of planning. If you are yet to plan your goals for the year, I strongly suggest you plan them backwards. If you do that, you can almost guarantee you will achieve the outcome you are after.

Australia Day

Image: ShutterStock

Australia Day is a challenging day for me.

Growing up, it was a huge day of celebration. My favourite aunt has a birthday on that day (Happy birthday Glenda!) and it was the celebration of the birth of our country.

As time went on and I learnt more about the world I live in. I discovered it was not the day our national was born. It turns out that the Australian Aborigine is one of the oldest peoples on the globe so our nation was born far earlier. In fact, Australia Day was not a term used officially until 1935. Over more recent years, it has also been referred to as Invasion Day as for many of our indigenous peoples, it represents the day they were invaded.

For me, I am proudly and happily an Australian. But I feel conflict that our celebration is done on a day that causes others great pain. I am also embarrassed about some Australian’s who minimise that pain, ignore it or even worse, invalidate it.

I have no solutions but I do have hope.

The conflict continues to get coverage in all forms of media. So what that brings is discussion, conversation, education, awareness – and these have to be good things. Yes there are extreme opinions on both sides, and typically there always are, but through the discussion comes increased understanding.

In the work that I do in events, this conversation also happens around the Welcome to Country or Acknowledgement of Country.

I didn’t truly understand what they were and was concerned it could political correctness gone too far. So I sought out an Aboriginal Elder and had a frank and open conversation with them. It was most enlightening. Now I am an advocate for the Welcome or Acknowledgement of Country to be in each program I host.

While it seems like a small thing, it continues the conversation and increases awareness. It usually takes less time than the announcement about mobile phones but deepens what it means to be an Australian. If you run events, I implore you to have a genuine Welcome to Country or Acknowledgement of Country in your program.

While the discussion about Australia Day and the best day to celebrate it continues, I will continue to be grateful each and every day that I was blessed to live in this country and make each day Australia Day.

Better have a Tim Tam to celebrate!

PS Here is a fun advert for lamb that gives a fairly good summary of the last 250 years or so

Beware Perceptions

For those of you who don’t know, this is Winston and this is me badly in need of a shave. Pretty much how I looked this morning. What you can’t see in this photo is that I am 190cm (6’3″ in the old scale) tall and large framed (also referred to as a Nutritional Overachiever or A Big Unit)

As is my wont, upon arising, I took the trusty Winston the Wonder Poodle for a walk, during which I gave one couple the fright of their life.

As I was coming around a bend I saw an older couple (who must have been mid sixties ) see Winston and I and then had their eyes open wide with fear. The man quickly turned around and strode off. Noticing the lead over the ladies shoulder, I guessed they must have had a dog walking behind them off lead.

Suddenly the woman looked down, saw Winston and then noticeably relaxed. She then called to her partner, “it’s just a puppy.”

“Puppy”, I thought. Winston is turning five this year. He is fully grown.

As I got closer to them and said hello, they said, “We saw you coming but didn’t see your dog. We thought you must have had a big dog.”

When their Maltese Princess (their words, not mine) came into view, Winston excitedly said hello and we moved on.

So obviously their perception was that as a scruffy larger fellow, I should have a larger, fiercer dog that could be a danger to Maltese dogs.

A couple of blocks later I passed a mature woman, who had your stereotypical grandmother look, walking her very large Irish Wolfhound.

Perceptions can do you such a disservice, yet we all have them. Stereotypes that enter into everyday thoughts. Sometimes they can negatively impact on us and other times they better prepare us for a situation. One of the best things you can do is become aware of your perceptions and challenge them.

Maybe they are true, maybe they are not or maybe the are partially true.

What perceptions can you challenge and what perceptions do you think people will have about you?

Maybe I need to shave and wear something more formal when taking Winston for a walk!

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