Seeking Coastal Utopia

“six person walking on train rail surrounded by tall trees at daytime” by Anthony Intraversato on  Unsplash Relationships matter. They help you can get more things done. Having learned this many years ago while in the military, I was quick to realize that knowing the right people was very beneficial. Using just the chain of command was not always the most effective way of getting things done when needed. These were not nefarious relationships like Hollywood tries to show — the ones where the hero or heroine happens to know somebody who knows somebody that provides the much-needed thing or has the inside scoop that they need to be successful. Yet, it is still relationships that allow them to be successful. These are the relationships that are built on trust, on respect. Even the relationships that are built on blood, sweat, and tears. From those deep experiences that you know that you can trust the other person implicitly. Relationships and politics are aligned. Even w...

“painting of man” by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on  Unsplash Face it, we humans are a messy lot. We are a train wreck of sound and fury. Yet we are innately capable of amazing things — and we have opposable thumbs. Because humans are messy, we need to learn to be effective, especially when we need to accomplish tasks. We need to consider and take the effort to walk around in the shoes of others — to be inside of their skin and take on their worldview . Having an empathetic perspective helps us grow and connect. Leaders and managers need to understand the delicate balances of how their direct reports react to information, whilst also understanding the nuances of diplomacy and political marshes surrounding them created by their own peers and superiors. In order to succeed, we need to listen and pay attention . Why? Filters and biases warp our worlds. “person lying down on white surface” by mwangi gatheca on  Unsplash We all have emotions. We also have filters an...

“people working inside white and black room” by Venveo on  Unsplash You can’t lead or manage from behind a desk . Yes, you are right, I am not allowed to say the word can’t — neither are you! Let us introduce another way…as a leader or as a manager, you are extremely ineffective when you stay behind your desk. Stop arguing, it’s true . Unless you are managing a group of automation equipment or robots, then yes, your argument is true. However, the last time I checked, we need humans to do most of the work that we do in business today, and in the effort to keep them involved, they require face-to-face interaction, coaching, and guidance. Humans are messy, therefore we require, no, we demand interaction, and if you are or wish to be a leader or a manager, you limit your ability to actively participate or interact when you are camped out behind your desk. “turned on monitoring screen” by Stephen Dawson on  Unsplash The ability to “see” how the business is ...

“silhouette photo of a mountain during the nighttime” by Benjaminrobyn Jespersen on  Unsplash Okay, okay, before you start getting all “ well we can’t travel at the speed of light so that’s impossible ” as your response to the title, think a little closer to home. Slightly more realistically for the next three minutes. Instead, your challenge is to think about the accuracy of the words that you use every day around your work and your home. It is highly suspect that the word impossible comes up in your normal discussions a few times a day, potentially multiple times each week. Is the effort or the solution to the problem that you were trying to describe really impossible ? Let me get back to the cosmic principle like the speed of light remark above. In terms of impossible , think about the human race. Think about our existence on this planet. Think about the fact that our planet is in the perfect location away from the sun. Those are all impossibilities but yet, these rand...

“grayscale photo of woman doing silent hand sign” by Kristina Flour on  Unsplash This word is verboten in the household. Although the kids have used the word in our house, they know that they are not allowed to say it. There is no such thing as “ can’t ” or cannot , as in “I am unable to do this” or “it can’t be done” — umm, no. Wrong answer. Can’t should not be a part of your vernacular either. Or better yet, can’t can’t be a part of your normal conversations! Even my peers at work know my response, my visceral reaction, to that word when it is brought up in a conversation. It is an easy escape from the hard work . Can’t should be replaced with something more active. Can you imagine a better, more positive response to that phrase? Can if ? Instead of “we can’t do it unless we have more people” change it to “we can if we have more time.” By immediately defining the negative of the situation, the psychology of that effort dwindles — the defeatist mentality begins to ...

“brown dried leaves on sand” by sydney Rae on  Unsplash Keep showing up. Never stop. Keep pressing play. Take another step. Do one more rep. Work for one more minute. Do twenty more miles. Woody Allen once said 80% of life is just showing up. Showing up is that first step forward. It is that challenge that everyone struggles with. If you are consistent and have the discipline to keep showing up, success will follow. You are now one more step ahead of the mediocre masses. You are one more step further from ordinary. You are further ahead than over half of the people that surround you. Yet you need to recognize that just showing up once is not going to make you successful. Yes, it is a great achievement that you actually took that first leap and showed up the very first time, but it is the 2nd and the 3rd and the 10th and the 50th time that you show up, that you repeat that’s what makes you successful. Having the discipline and the urgency to keep showing up and doing t...

“red number neon signage” by Karolina Szczur on  Unsplash A lot of you are probably thinking, what is Rule Number 6? Others are probably thinking what happened through 1 through 5? There are no other rules. Benjamin Zander described Rule Number 6 in his book The Art of Possibilities . Here is a vignette from one of his talks and he describes rule number 6 how it came into play. I have been keeping Rule Number 6 as guidance with the blogs I have been creating. It has been helping me remain grounded (what?!? I don’t have more followers? WTF!) reminding me to keep from being too serious. It allows me to enjoy this more, being slightly less competitive and hopefully making it enjoyable for those that discover these readings. Stop being so serious For that matter, what does it mean to be so serious? How can anyone be so serious? I remember as a younger dude and saying “ serious as a heart attack ” — I suppose that is pretty damn serious. A simple project management trick...

Photo by Aleks Dorohovich on  Unsplash Can you really do two things at once? Pay your head and rub your belly? Chew gum and walk? Talk on the phone and listen for instructions at the same time? Do math calculations and spelling words at the same time ? Listening to a podcast or audiobook and writing a blog? Text and drive? What makes you think you can pay attention to your phone and to the conversation that you are having in person with your ? How often do you find yourself when you are in a meeting and your peer is on their phone or computer, not engaged in the meeting, and they are asked a question but unable to reconcile the question that is being asked of them ? When hiring for positions in a previous life, a resume with multitasking as a skill indicated was commonplace. Additionally, when asking the person to give their introduction this was a common response. I am a great multitasker! OR I can find myself multitasking, able to do multiple things...

Manual central switchboard 1900 — B ritannica Back in the olden days, the late 1980's and early 1990’s — days of the 80286, 80386, and 80486 Intel processor chip series, there was concern over switch costs, which was the identification of chip latency and overall utilization based on the number switches and their frequency. Effectively a reduced capability due to the “cost” of switching tasks in a multithreaded environment. However switching costs are in today’s vernacular when it relates to investments of time and money; such as changing suppliers, changing brands, or even changing products. There is a physical and psychological investment in developing those original supply bases, in that it costs effort, both mentally and physically, to change brands. For example, you wish to change banks. Think of the switches, the changes you have to make from all the accounts you have. Deposits, automatic payments, checks, debit cards, all the changes that have to take place. The amount of...

Photo by Kay on  Unsplash Decisions are hard. Making a choice is surprisingly difficult, especially when you have a mutual interest in each possible decision result. These results could be considered “good” and “bad” results. Sure, a very binary response — on or off, yes or no, pass or fail, one and zero. There are times when the results are shades of gray, not necessarily optimal results but not the worst results. You just need to make a decision, you need to make a choice, especially in the gray areas. In reality, the only bad decision is to make no decision. Without getting too ironic, you could argue that making no decision is in itself a decision. I would not disagree with you when it comes to the perfection of language, especially such that a conscious choice to not make a decision is, in itself, a decision. We are defining the ability to make choices, to make decisions, and live with those results. To qualify this argument, these decisions are not considered life o...

“photography of brown nuts” by Tom Hermans on  Unsplash Peanuts are a wonder food. So much so that peanut oil was considered a treatment for polio in the 1930s. George Washington Carver was a brilliant man who had many ideas and inventions that were recognized around peanuts, yet he performed many studies around the cultivation of plants and botany — peanuts just happen to be the association forever linked to his name. Carver created more than one hundred ways to use peanuts , however, peanut butter was not one of them. One important fact of Carver’s accomplishments was to help introduce the use of peanut plantings as a great farming crop to help fight soil depletion from cotton and tobacco farming methods. In honor of George Washington Carver, we need to integrate peanuts, even peanut butter, into our work whenever possible. Let’s investigate a couple of ways we can use peanuts in business today — aside from pay (mwuah mwuah — too punny). The simplest version of peanu...

We are our own worst critics! Wait, this is deja vu all over again. “person covering face with hands outdoors” by Abigail Keenan on  Unsplash As you grow throughout your career you realize the things that you didn’t know, the things that you should have known but you didn’t, yet you made a decision that had possibly a negative outcome. Or you were possibly doing something as a younger self that makes you shake your head and you think… Man, I should have fired myself. We have done things during her career that we think back on and giggle about it nervously. Or you think about those major faux pas that you made, either interpersonal remarks or actions that you would consider very questionable now that you’re further along in your career? Are you ready to fire yourself? As you sit there reading during working hours, not getting your important work completed, are you able to mentally (or externally) justify that distracting action? The one wasteful action you are ...

Think you have what it takes? Can you be replaced? Or duplicated? “monkey looking at mirror” by Andre Mouton on  Unsplash We are our own worst critics. We look at what work we have done and sometimes just shake our heads or giggle nervously with the thought of “what the heck was I thinking?” As you think about your performance at work or at home, and you are required to hire somebody to help you get your work accomplished, would you hire yourself? Make a list of all the things you are strongest and most capable — the things that you can do as part of unconscious competence . Unconscious competence means you can do the action or activity “in your sleep,” and there are probably very few people anywhere within your circle that can do the work that you can do with the same sort of expertise or perfection. What is amazing is that you don’t even have to think about doing it, you are running on autopilot. After you’ve populated the unconscious competence list, then create one ...