Living The Dream

Live For Today – Prepare For Tomorrow

July 11, 2011 at 4:22 pm Add a comment!

It is said that life is a journey. I agree. The thing about a journey is that it has multiple components, each of which serve a vital part in making the journey great and complete.

The Past or experience, is the first part. That is where every journey takes foothold. The ideas, the desires and hopes that you have for every journey stem from experiences. It is our past that helps us design our future. Whether it is the negative experiences that are to be avoided or the more desirable experiences that are sought, the experiences from the past help make that determination. The past is to be remembered for the pleasantries that it holds and appreciated for the many lessons that it has taught.

The Present should be treasured. Living in the past or the future causes one to miss the present and the opportunity for many experiences that can make the future even better. Every moment in the present is a part of the journey that should be cherished. It is an opportunity to enjoy every moment as it occurs but still taking into account the past and future.

The Future begins in the past. As we eagerly await the future we also plan for it. The experiences accumulated in the Past are used in the Present to plan for and design the Future.

All three parts of the journey are ever-present. All three exist even when the focus is just on one.

Recently many people have questioned the value of a college degree in light of difficulties faced by new graduates in getting desired positions and salaries. Recently, an article was posed on CNN Money Questioning whether the cost of tuition was worth it. It immediately spread through social media with everyone putting in their two cents. That was all you saw on Facebook and Twitter for a while. When looking at the face-value of tuition to current salary many are saying it’s not worth it. The real question is: When did a college education become a short-term investment. People don’t go to college because they recuperate their full investment the first year on the job. People go to college and beyond because over time they earn more than they would without that degree and they have the luxury of earning a living doing something they enjoy. Sure you could make $40,000 working in management at McDonald’s, but how long will you have to work your way up to that level without a degree? And more importantly, are you willing to put up with the nonsense and rudeness of certain customers?

In the present we do have to be practical and cautious. You have to do what makes sense for this day, but if you are so blessed, tomorrow will come whether you’ve planned for it or not. That’s exactly why you must plan for the future but not necessarily live for it. You should not bypass everything that takes place in the present to focus on preparing for the future, but by the same token, you cannot be so focused on the present that you do not plan for what happens later. Those individuals who talk about the cost of college in comparison to today’s wages are doing exactly that- focusing so much on the present that they fail to consider the future.

Imagine students start to do what the current talk suggests- not go to college because their salary after graduation is not worth it. As the economy bounces back and salaries return to normal levels, these students will have to face the decision to now try to catch up. Even when they do earn their degrees, they will have missed out on accumulating years of post graduation experience.

Planning for the future may not be the easiest and most convenient thing to do. It often is not the most enticing because planning for the future frequently requires some level of sacrifice or the forfeiture of something much more exciting. In the end the rewards are great and worth the wait. More importantly the results planning for the future far outweigh the burden of trying to catch up later.

I remember when the economy was on the downswing and my 401K balance kept dropping. In my 20s, I invested aggressively, so my losses were just as aggressive. Very three months when I received the statement I though about crying and thought about cashing out. I did neither and now instead of having spent the 25% or less of my investment that I would have received in a cash-out, I’m looking at 100% of my investment which has come back and is now growing. Past experience has shown that the downswing of every pendulum is followed by an upswing. Giving up on that downswing also means missing out of the great things that come in the upswing.

As we look to the rehabilitation of our broken economy, I hope that people will remember that just as you don’t through out your shoes while recovering from a broken foot, we should not throw out resources that made our economy great before. Temporary setbacks always have and are likely to always be a part of our reality. Giving up on better days ahead should never be an option.

I’m just saying though…

Dream Big… Live Bigger…

DrJudiC

<a href=”http://www.drjudic.com/”>www.DrJudiC.com</a></span

It is said that life is a journey. I agree. The thing about a journey is that it has multiple components, each of which serve a vital part in making the journey great and complete.

The Past or experience, is the first part. That is where every journey takes foothold. The ideas, the desires and hopes that you have for every journey stem from experiences. It is our past that helps us design our future. Whether it is the negative experiences that are to be avoided or the more desirable experiences that are sought, the experiences from the past help make that determination. The past is to be remembered for the pleasantries that it holds and appreciated for the many lessons that it has taught.

The Present should be treasured. Living in the past or the future causes one to miss the present and the opportunity for many experiences that can make the future even better. Every moment in the present is a part of the journey that should be cherished. It is an opportunity to enjoy every moment as it occurs but still taking into account the past and future.

The Future begins in the past. As we eagerly await the future we also plan for it. The experiences accumulated in the Past are used in the Present to plan for and design the Future.

All three parts of the journey are ever-present. All three exist even when the focus is just on one.

Recently many people have questioned the value of a college degree in light of difficulties faced by new graduates in getting desired positions and salaries. Recently, an article was posed on CNN Money Questioning whether the cost of tuition was worth it. It immediately spread through social media with everyone putting in their two cents. That was all you saw on Facebook and Twitter for a while. When looking at the face-value of tuition to current salary many are saying it’s not worth it. The real question is: When did a college education become a short-term investment. People don’t go to college because they recuperate their full investment the first year on the job. People go to college and beyond because over time they earn more than they would without that degree and they have the luxury of earning a living doing something they enjoy. Sure you could make $40,000 working in management at McDonald’s, but how long will you have to work your way up to that level without a degree? And more importantly, are you willing to put up with the nonsense and rudeness of certain customers?

In the present we do have to be practical and cautious. You have to do what makes sense for this day, but if you are so blessed, tomorrow will come whether you’ve planned for it or not. That’s exactly why you must plan for the future but not necessarily live for it. You should not bypass everything that takes place in the present to focus on preparing for the future, but by the same token, you cannot be so focused on the present that you do not plan for what happens later. Those individuals who talk about the cost of college in comparison to today’s wages are doing exactly that- focusing so much on the present that they fail to consider the future.

Imagine students start to do what the current talk suggests- not go to college because their salary after graduation is not worth it. As the economy bounces back and salaries return to normal levels, these students will have to face the decision to now try to catch up. Even when they do earn their degrees, they will have missed out on accumulating years of post graduation experience.

Planning for the future may not be the easiest and most convenient thing to do. It often is not the most enticing because planning for the future frequently requires some level of sacrifice or the forfeiture of something much more exciting. In the end the rewards are great and worth the wait. More importantly the results planning for the future far outweigh the burden of trying to catch up later.

I remember when the economy was on the downswing and my 401K balance kept dropping. In my 20s, I invested aggressively, so my losses were just as aggressive. Very three months when I received the statement I though about crying and thought about cashing out. I did neither and now instead of having spent the 25% or less of my investment that I would have received in a cash-out, I’m looking at 100% of my investment which has come back and is now growing. Past experience has shown that the downswing of every pendulum is followed by an upswing. Giving up on that downswing also means missing out of the great things that come in the upswing.

As we look to the rehabilitation of our broken economy, I hope that people will remember that just as you don’t through out your shoes while recovering from a broken foot, we should not throw out resources that made our economy great before. Temporary setbacks always have and are likely to always be a part of our reality. Giving up on better days ahead should never be an option.

I’m just saying though…

Dream Big… Live Bigger…

DrJudiC

Presentation Is Key- Poor Delivery Gets A Good Message Missed

July 4, 2011 at 11:00 am Add a comment!

This morning a friend stopped by to pick up something he needed for a meeting with a client. When I opened the door I missed everything but the SUPER wrinkled shirt he was wearing. At that moment I forgot my manners. No hello. No how are you. I jumped straight to Where are you going looking like that?

I was coming from a place of caring. As the owner of a small business who also works with other small business owners I know and preach the value of presentation. Representing one’s company and one’s brand well are very near in dear for me. At first I thought his presentation in wrinkled T-shirt and sagging jeans was unacceptable meeting attire. Now I realize that my delivery of that message was even worse. I needed to go back and read the Black Enterprise Magazine piece on how to deliver or accept feedback or 4 Ways to Give and Take Criticism and get some of my own recommendations.

It does not matter how well intentioned your advice may be, especially when unsolicited, if not properly delivered the benefits may be lost in transit. Between my ranting and raving about how I can’t believe he would go like this and blah blah blah I’m sure he heard, part of the message did make it through and he changed to a less wrinkled shirt. Had I taken a calmer approach, the complete message could have been heard- enough for him to iron the less wrinkled shirt.

These are the steps that I should have followed- Hopefully WE will remember them

Avoid going with your first reaction– Whether it’s shock as it was for me or anger, which it can often be, this does not place you in the best position to help someone else. If you are having a moment- deal with that first so you don’t subject others to the backlash.
Identify your purpose– Before you speak up and share your advice, think of why. Is it because this is your preference or something that will benefit the other person. If it is indeed just your preference you may want to reconsider speaking up unless you are actually affected.
Determine your goal and how you want it to be received– When you do speak up, what exactly do you want the person to hear? And what do you want them to do with that information? This morning, my goal was that my friend realized hears the importance of representing his business well and professionally at every step. And I wanted him to start applying that by ironing his shirt.
Select a delivery method that will effectively communicate your message– How do you need to say what you have to say so that the other person not only listens but also hears you? That was where I really dropped the ball. I just started speaking without a plan and my message was missed. At best, I communicated- You can’t go to this meeting with that shirt as is. My true message was- You need to present yourself and your business in a manner that represents a solid and professional organization. Since I failed to communicate that message, even though he changed the shirt today, the message has not stuck enough that he would not wear an equally unacceptable outfit to a meeting next week.

While I focused on my poorly delivered message we must not overlook the message that he was delivering. As a business owner, you are a walking logo. Every where you go you are representing your organization and as a result don not have the luxury of EVER letting your guards down all the way.

You represent your company. You are the first image that most people have of your organization. Before they got your business card or saw your website, most people saw you first. You want to display the confidence they need to have in knowing that they are hiring a professional company and not some dude from up the street who may or may not deliver. Look like they should take you seriously enough to visit your website.
Existing clients are also prospective clients. Having closed a deal with a new client only means that you’ve got that one contract. Instead of relaxing you need to be stepping your game up. Once they have agreed to do business with you, you now have the burden of proving them right. If you showed up in a suit for the first meeting and return haphazardly dressed to drop off the contract, then they may start to wonder if they made the right decision. Everything after that is judged based on that. The out-of-place P that you typed as you attempted “Ctrl P” to print the document becomes a sign of your inattention to details as opposed to an honest mistake.
You represent your clients. Once a company is doing business with you, you also become a representation of them. If you happen to be in their office when a client shows up, they need to be able to introduce you without hesitation. When people are looking to work with an organization, the people and companies that the organization works with or subcontracts to can and frequently do play a role in their decision. While you would never want to cost one of your clients a potential client, your clients are even more adamant about that.
Your presentation says what you think. For many people, the way you present says what you are thinking. The applicant who does not take the time to press his suit is not serious about the position- this assumption can be made no matter how desperately he wants or needs the job. By the same token, clients can be judging how seriously you take them based on how you present in your meetings with them. Even if the clients is BooBoo from around the corner who no one knows what’s in his cup, you look presentable as a sign of respect to your client. The levels may vary, but the philosophy is etched in stone.
You are always prospecting. I always say that once you step out of your home, you are at risk of meeting a potential client. That is doubly so when meeting with clients. When you go into a client’s office or even when meeting them at locations in the community. There is always the potential of being introduced to a colleague, their previous or next appointments, or a number of others who could be interested in your services, if you make the right impression.

If you don’t look the part, people will be too busy contemplating that to hear the eloquent presentation you make or read your thoroughly prepared proposal. At the interview, dress for the job you want to get. Once you have the job, start dressing for the promotion you are eyeing. This statement does not just apply to employees. Business owners need to also be mindful of it.

I’m just saying though…

Dream Big… Live Bigger…

DrJudiC

PULL Must Follow Every PUSH to Reach Your Goal

June 13, 2011 at 1:23 am Add a comment!

This morning I read this retweet “PUSH- Pray Until Something Happens”. I have nothing against prayer but I do have something against the way that statement is too often interpreted. Whether you are praying to or any other higher power you believe in, that can’t be only thing you.

Too often we don’t take enough initiative after we pray or mediate. Ask and you shall receive does not mean that everything that is requested will be brought to your front door at the desired time. More often than not these requests are granted in the form of opportunities that can be used to attain the desired result.

The power to perform is always within you. The higher power you pray to will provide you with tools but the action is really up to you. It’s funny how much thought and effort we put into some of the most basic things in our lives, but when it comes to the things that matter many some people tend to back off. When you order that beautiful bedroom set from IKEA they don’t deliver a bedroom- They give you a box of pieces. Before delivering that box of pieces, IKEA made sure to carve out all the necessary detail, provided you the instructions and the tools to make the change from pieces to furniture. Still at the end of the day all they gave you was a bunch of pieces. The onus is on you to turn those pieces into that picture that made you whip out your credit card. Everyone seems to get that and work accordingly. Whether you do it yourself, pay for installation or call a few friends you get it done. No one bad mouths the company for not delivering a 10 piece bedroom set to them.

That same method is what we should be doing with other parts of life. You don’t just pray and wait. Action must always be a part of the plan if anything is to be achieved. When you want that career, that education or any other goal, yes you can pray on it. But as you pray you must act. If you pray for a healthier body and the next day a friend invites you to the gym that is the answer to your prayer even if the gym is out of the way. That seemingly inconvenient gym may be an opportunity to start off with a nice walk or bike ride. When the supervisor comes up and tells you about an educational opportunity, that may be the answer to your prayer for career advancement; but if you are too busy looking at why you can’t do that with this job, you’ll miss the opportunity to get the next job.

It’s time for us to stop putting everything into PUSH and make more of an investment in PULL- Pick Up & Live Life (PULL). With prayer comes opportunity and it’s up to us to PULL them in. As individuals, it is our responsibility to pick up the pieces and live the lives we want. If prayer is going to work, action has to be its power source. The power to act- the power to create change- the power to succeed- have always been within us and remain dormant until activated through our choices.

If IKEA takes the care to not give you a task greater than your skills can complete, do you really believe that the higher power you pray to would not at minimum do that for you too? Remember a PUSH works best when paired with a PULL.

I’m just saying though…

Dream Big… Live Bigger…

DrJudiC

<a href=”http://www.drjudic.com/”>www.DrJudiC.com</a>

Is it High Overhead or Low Accountability? Five (5) tips for reducing overhead costs.

March 28, 2011 at 2:37 pm Add a comment!

Last week someone asked me what a person would say that triggers to him that the person may e able to use my services. I remembered a conversation I had the preceding weekend. Somehow in the midst of a conversation, someone mention having “high overhead”. It clicked for me instantly and I said “you should call me”. Of-course as we got into the discussion he asked me the question everyone, including that first person asked me- “are you gonna make my high rent go away?” After our talk I took it on as a challenge.

A few days later I got the information that I needed and started looking things over and performing a few cost benefit analyses. The most obvious observation was that he was operating in a very different market than he was serving. He has beautiful office suite with all the amenities that he wanted. The suite is in a great location that is also a nice distance from where he lives and where his clients are coming from. But the real zinger is that his wonderful suite is in a location where others in his field serve a clientele who pay a few times what he charges, and can therefore afford the expenses of that location. These five tips are sure to help ease the burden of too much overhear:

Having nice things does not have to mean exorbitant costs. We were able to find locations that put him closer to home and slightly more accessible to clients that are a fraction of what he was paying. Location does matter, and the location has to make sense. I am in no way saying that people should go into rundown buildings to save money. If an office suite with all the amenities is what you desire then can have that, but sometimes you can see a big difference just by changing zip codes. If you start having to work many more extra hours to afford your location, you are probably in the wrong location for what you are charging.
Don’t count on everyone paying on time. Too many people make that mistake. According to ideal calculations, if all the clients are paying and paying on time, thing will be much smoother. I agree with that 100%; however, I know that the reality is different. When planning for expenses, you need to take into account that some clients will be late, others may default and caseloads can get low. That is why expenses need to be low enough that you are not just getting by, but earning enough to build a cushion for those days. Your clients may not be paying but that will not stop your liabilities from demanding attention. I was in an office once when FPL cut them off– It was not cute.
There is a difference between favors and work. Work is something we do to earn income. Favors are done in addition to work, not instead of work. As professionals we do want to help others and give back to friends, family and the community, but there has to be some limits. If you spend too much of your time doing favors, then there may not be enough time to do income earning work. Don’t get so busy doing favors that you have to outsource many things that you could be doing. Why would you pay others so that you can have more time to work for free. To survive in any business, there is something all business owners MUST remember- People will pay for the things they really want. Of-course, some people may not be able to pay the full cost of services, but they can afford something. People appreciate things more if they have to pay for them. In lieu of just giving free services to people, a sliding scale can at least help cover the expenses you incur in service delivery.
Everyone should be held accountable for their duties. As the boss, you should not blow off your responsibilities and just pass them on to others just because. If you do this you are setting the wrong example. You have to hold your team accountable for their responsibilities and it’s great to be able to have yourself as the reference point. Quite often, working overtime or working late is the result of a lack of productivity during the regular workday. If you are coming in and your team is scrambling to look busy or in worse cases keep on with not being productive, there is a serious issue. You need to understand your duties as well as what is required of your team. If they have to work late too often, you are either understaffed or things are not getting done. If you are feeling pressure from high overhead, it’s more than likely the latter. Don’t just keep giving them more time to do what should have already been done. Get the office work done during the day and eliminate the cost of extended days.
Set boundaries with everyone from the clients to staff, family and friends. If every time you turn around your friends are calling or your assistant’s children are calling, those are productivity minutes that are being misappropriated. Having a schedule of when you attend to personal matters is a very effective way of maximizing your time in the office. If you look at your call log and see a few personal calls lasting 5 to 10 minutes or more in the middle of your workday, it’s time for change. Over time people can become too comfortable and complacent. Your friends may be calling you when you should be working or you staff handling personal business when work needs to be done are all minor events that can be problematic over time. While you may want your office to be welcoming and pleasant, it’s important that employees know that they are there to work and for this demand to be enforced. From coming in on time to doing what you ask the first time, setting and enforcing boundaries can make a big difference.

While no one can make your rent disappear, there are numerous steps that can be taken to alleviate the pressure of overhead expenses… Even if that’s the way you’ve always done things.

I’m just saying though…

Dream Big… Live Bigger…

DrJudiC

<a href=”http://www.drjudic.com/”>www.DrJudiC.com</a>

Brand Representation is 24/7

March 21, 2011 at 11:24 am Add a comment!

This weekend I had the pleasure of meeting a very nice young man at Jazz in the Gardens. From talking to him I’d say he’s either very sweet or at least good at faking it. He started conversing with my friend who thought he looked like he was 15 years old. No matter where he tried to take the conversation she was stuck on the fact that he looked like he was 15. At some point he sought my assistance but once the first impression has been made then it’s been made.

Maybe he is 25 like he said but he did not look it. When he was telling me how much it bothers him when people dismiss him like a kid because he looks so young I could not help but get into a discussion of his appearance. He has a very young looking face, and additionally, he was wearing an over-sized t-shirt and too loose shorts. So yes, he looked like he was in high school- the early years. He explained to me that he did not plan on meeting anyone, and that he was “just hanging out. That’s what I wear when I’m just hanging.” As he raved to me about how she is everything he’s been looking for, I could not help but think how I’ve heard this before, except that it usually is about missed professional opportunities.

When you have a goal or are looking to achieve certain things, there is no such thing as “just hanging out”. Every step you take can lead you to a great opportunity and you have to be ready to take it. You can easily meet the woman of your dreams in the park or the executive you can catapult your business into a Forbes rated status while standing in line at the post office. The big question is- will you look the part?

If you don’t look the part it’s much harder to convince someone to cast you for it or give you a second chance. Why should they give you an hour when you just wasted 2 minutes? When you step into the outside world you need to look the way you want to be seen. I tried to explain to the young man different things he could do help him look more like a mature adult, but he seemed to be thinking more about fitting in with his current circle than appealing to the type of women he’s looking for. I gave him the same advice I’ve given to some professionals- Be believable!

If the situation was reversed, would you believe you are who you say you are and capable of what you claim? We can’t just expect people to ignore all their own observations and believe the words we want them to despite the obvious contradictions. This is not just about physical appearance either. You must represent your brand on every level at all times. No one wears a suit everyday, but when you step out of your house you are representing your brand. If physical appearance is important to your goal, you need look that part. When knowledge matters, you need to be able to discuss the pertinent subject matter without prior notice. Succeeding is not just about how skilled and knowledgeable you are; you have to also be able to secure the opportunities to show the results you can produce with your skills and knowledge.

To avoid missing out on great opportunities, it’s important to re member that:

You can’t delete entries from the human memory at will, so avoid allowing entries that you would later want to delete.
You can’t bring your résumé every where you go, so you as the individual must be able to represent what it says.
If you would have reservations hiring someone looking or behaving as you are, for your most important needs, others will likely have similar reservations about contracting your services.
Opportunities that can be found in the least expected places are often once in a life time occurrences.

Life has much to offer, but we don’t always know what will be offered when. As a result, every day has the potential to bring with it that great long awaited offer. Of-course this makes things a bit more demanding, but that’s the way success is.

I’m just saying though…

Dream Big… Live Bigger…

DrJudiC

www.DrJudiC.com

You Must Get Up to Win: 5 Tips For Staying Up.

January 31, 2011 at 9:03 am Add a comment!

The truth is, if success was easy everyone would have it, but it would not be so highly coveted. While success does not follow a straight path and may come with many difficulties and pitfalls, the journey is well worth it when you reach the desired destination. Unfortunately, many people don’t get to enjoy that last part of their success journey because they abandon the path before reaching their reward.

In any game, including the game of life, you have to get back up each time you fall to have a chance to win. There is no guarantee that you will win by getting up, but if you stay down you will lose- even if by default. Sometimes you receive a blow so hard you question whether or not you should get back up, but if you remember why you entered the game and still want a chance at winning, you have to get up.

Frankly, getting up is only the first step, because once you’re up you need to find a way to stay up. As you work your way back to your feet, there are a few steps you can take to help you stay on them.

Practice Patience. Success is indeed a journey, not a destination. There are times that we all may need to have that poster up on our wall as a reminder. Every step you take along your journey to success has its place in helping you reach your success goals. Be patient with yourself and your process. Trying to take short cuts often lead to more setbacks, but an unsuccessful attempt does not signify the end of the journey. Instead it is a reminder of a need for proactive waiting- You know what you are after and you have to be willing to proceed through the journey to get to it. You may not be able to leap over the dam without falling in a few times, but if you take a moment to find the bridge and walk across you’ll probably get there sooner- That is proactive waiting.

Assess the cause of the fall. When fall off your path you need to take a moment to figure out what happened so that when you get back up you don’t repeat the same mistakes. Determining what steps took you off your path will allow you to also explore alternatives that will help you move forward. Remember, history will continue to repeat itself as long as man is foolish enough to not learn from it. Look at the things you did to keep you on the path before and the steps that led you off it. Then use your judgments and skills to determine how you can replace these faulty steps with more productive ones.

Use your time wisely. Ever notice when a fighter falls he sometimes stays down for a few counts before he gets up? He’s taking the time to gather up his energy so that he has the strength to attack once he’s up. If you fall off your path to success this is not the time to sit around dwelling on what you did not do. It’s time to regain your strength to get back in the game with renewed energy. Look at every unsuccessful attempt as the elimination of a method, getting closer to finding the method that will work. Use that time to gather the resources that you will need to help you last longer on your next attempt.

Strategize your moves. Just because success is a journey does not mean you should just go along haphazardly and hope to get where you wanted. Every step you take should have a defined purpose; even if it’s as simple as moving the journey along or making it more pleasant. You should have a strategy that can get you from where you are to where you want to be. Having a strategy helps you maximize your resources and have greater influence and autonomy on how things go. Having a strategy can be the difference between creating your success versus hoping to succeed.

Evaluate. Constant evaluation gives the reassurance that you are taking the right steps when you see that you are staying on the right path. It also provides an opportunity to make adjustments when you have deviated from the path or when there is a need to deviate. Take care not to spend more time in this stage. Evaluation should be taking place constantly as you progress in your journey, as a result you do not need to spend an excessive amount of time on this at every turn. Manage it well.

Failure only exists when you don’t make the next attempt.

I’m just saying though…

Dream Big… Live Bigger…

DrJudiC

www.DrJudiC.com

7 Tips For Preventing Burnout

January 24, 2011 at 10:59 am 1 comment

Burnout is something that is experienced by many individuals from students with a course overload, to the frontline employee who has no autonomy and feels unappreciated or the high level executives feeling the pressure to do everything. It’s a state of being emotionally drained which often comes from trying to give more of ourselves than we have to give. Though the symptoms are usually progressive, they can also be sudden, and fall into 4 major categories

Behavioral- Decrease in efficiency, reduced capacity to cope, dreading work.

Interpersonal- Withdrawing from friends and loved ones, lack of enjoyment or participation in life affirming activities.

Physical- Increased presence of insomnia or sleeping too much. Feeling fatigued or always getting sick.

Emotional/Mental- Hyper-irritability or depression, feelings of emptiness or helplessness.

Of-course these are only a few examples of the wide array of symptoms that one can experience. One of the most prevalent symptoms is the change in thought and attitude toward the job. The job you once loved becomes a dreaded enemy. The passion you had about starting your business feels more like an inescapable burden. Before you get to this point there are a few things that you can do to prevent it.

Self-care is the first and most effective way to prevent burnout. Self-care is the simple process of taking the time to attend to your personal needs (including physical, emotional and social needs). Take care of your body, from going to the doctor to eating right and working out. You have to make sure that you are physically and mentally able to work to ensure maximum efficiency. By giving yourself a break and participating in life-affirming activities you save the stress and time it would take to deal with burnout.
Have a life. No matter how much you enjoy your job, it can’t be all that you are. You must take time to have a life outside of work that involves people with whom you can just be yourself, where the expectation is simply that you are there as a you. Participate in life affirming activities. Go to a ballgame, attend a musical or just run in the rain. Maintain a balanced life where you have time to have fun and be serious because the body and mind need both. Do the things to get your blood pumping and remind you that you are alive.
Keep a strong social/ emotional support system. Surrounding yourself with positive and supportive people helps keep you in that state as well. Humans are social beings. We need social interaction with our peers and even more interactions with those who keep our spirits up. When the pressures or frustrations of work start to become overwhelming those are the people you can turn to for temporarily relief while you figure out your next step or just to help you figure out how you want to move forward. When the work loads get heavy and schedules get overloaded, people have a tendency to cut out more of the leisure activities and socializing. Doing that is a great disservice to your wellbeing. When you feel you have no time to socialize, find time to reap the benefits a good support network.
Learn to prioritize and schedule. The feeling of having to do too much at once is a stressor that can make work seem more overwhelming and a result more tasking. Being able to prioritize responsibilities and allotting time to address individual tasks makes projects more manageable, thus less stressful. Setting aside time to attend to particular tasks gives you a plan of action, which is also very effective in decreasing work-related stress.
Address conflicts between your values and responsibilities. If you find yourself in a situation where your professional duties conflict with values and/or professional code of ethics don’t mumble about it under your breath. Doing something that conflicts with your values takes a heavy mental and physical toll. It’s like trying to keep your head above water while swimming upstream against heavy currents. You can do it for a while but eventually your body gives out. If you find that your responsibilities are in conflict with your core values, take the time to figure out an acceptable resolution for you, and present it to those with the authority to accept such adjustments. Whether that is your clients as a business owner or your managers as an employee, you have to address it with the ones who can make the change happen. Complaining to coworkers or friends only remind you how wrong things are. This information should be shared with friends and coworkers mainly in the context of having them help you brainstorm and come up with a solution.
Be valuable, but not invaluable or valueless. You don’t have to be all for the job. When I find clients doing this, I often use the gruesome example that if they died today, the organization would begin working to replace them tomorrow. This is not to devalue the person, but simply remind them of the reality. You want to be great at what you do. You can even be the best at you do. It’s when you try to take on everything that it becomes a problem. As you attempt to take on every duty professionally, you reduce the time that you have to replenish the energy being exerted. It’s great to apply yourself. Going above and beyond the call of duty can lead to great career advancements. Making yourself carry the weight of an entire organization however places you on the fast track to burnout. There is a balance and you must find it. Even when you are building your own business, don’t put the pressure of being the one and only on your shoulders. You can still be there for your clients and provide optimal service without having to be everything to them.
Choose autonomy over authority. Much like being the one who does everything, being the only one who makes every decision can also weigh heavily on you. Focus on the decisions at your pay grade. If you are a department director and have an office manager, let the office manager worry about ordering the office supplies (you can still put in a request for you preferred pens). Empowering your team to make decisions within the scope of their responsibility frees you from having to take on that responsibility. Delegate tasks and allow your team to take ownership. This also helps strengthen your team because autonomy is necessary at all levels of the organization. It allows people to be individuals who think for themselves instead of mechanical pieces of the organizational machine. This also allows them to feel like valued members of the organization. When your team has ownership of their projects and responsibilities, they are more productive and happier employees who will rely on you less and are less demanding on your time.

I’m just saying though…

Dream Big… Live Bigger…

DrJudiC

www.DrJudiC.com

Don’t Let Success Eclipse The Objective- 5 Tips for Maintaining Success

January 12, 2011 at 12:45 am Add a comment!

For most of my life I have been known as the sleepless one. My insomnia would have me up at that oddest of hours, where I’m wide awake with nothing to do. About 8 years ago I found some tools that helped. The biggest component was creating a space that was for sleeping where when I entered the room my body and mind knew it was time to relax. This required a major change since I had bee doing homework and watching TV in my room since middle school.

I moved out of my apartment where I had a desk in my room and found a place that offered a designated workspace. Since 2003 my home has always had a designated workspace which has now grown into and actual home office. My room has always been set up to provide the necessary relaxing environment and the system was working fine. As long as I went to bed at what was my bed-time, I could fall asleep and get the rest needed for a productive next day.

Seven years later this was such the norm that I forgot all about the reason for it. During the recent cold days I would go to my room with my computer. I found myself going there to do my paperwork, research and writing. As I was working in the warm and cozy environment my mind and body were readjusting to the new program. Before too long I was still up at 3 or 4 AM with my mind in full productivity mode as I toss and turn. I was getting great ideas of thing I want to do, how to fix and issue, marketing strategies, but the only thing I wanted was sleep. Blissfully unaware of the world sleep.

What actually happened was having such great success that I was taking it for granted. I lost sight of the goal and in turn started to slip back into old patterns. I lost sight of the goal I started with, which is an error many people make. When starting out in a new school or new positions we often run into this. New business owner do this much too often. When working toward the goal, it’s easy to stay focused on t as a target to be reached, but success is not a one shot deal. Once you reach it the level of success you once sought you still have to continue to work on maintaining it. Non one wants to have a successful business this year and just drop it all next year. Once you set a goal you want to arrive at that point and stay there or move forward. If you forget what you are trying to accomplish or why, you are less likely to keep working for it.

This is not to say that you should not enjoy success, rather that you should be mindful of how you got there, so that you will not what you need to do to stay there. When you enjoy the benefits of your success you are more likely to want to work to maintain it. You just have to be cautious not to take it for granted and become so complacent that you are so busy enjoying that you forget to maintain.

When it’s time to maintain the success you have earned, keep these in mind:

When you reach a goal set a new one- Whether you are working toward maintenance or advancement a goal keeps you working toward something.
Always set and implement Action Plan for every goal- A goal without an action plan that is being implemented is just wishful thinking which does not yield results.
Keep yourself surrounded with others in that stage- When you reach you the success that you’ve worked for stay close to others who are there keeps you doing the things you stay there. After working so hard to succeed, you need to be around people who can show you how to keep succeeding and staying away from those behaviors that prevented you from getting there before.
Elevate others- Knowledge is one thing that you can get more of by sharing it. By helping others learn to climb the ropes you climbed you are keeping your skills while doing good for others and making a change in the world.
Seek ways to improve your processes- The world is evolving and if you are not keeping up you are likely to get passed up. Staying away of new research, methods and products always you to grow with clientele and their needs.

I’m just saying though…

Dream Big… Live Bigger…

DrJudiC

www.DrJudiC.com

Life & Success Lessons From The Golf Course 3: Reboot, Refresh, Resume

January 3, 2011 at 11:40 am Add a comment!

A few days ago I was out of the driving range and found myself wasting a bucket of ball. Some of them I hit so badly that I could just walk up a couple of steps to retrieve them, but the re-hits were not that much better. I had done much of what I needed to do from stretching, working on my stance and my grip. I must admit that it was getting frustrating, because just the other day I was doing so well after my lesson. With my driver, 7 or hybrid it was all either a complete miss or at best a few feet. The harder I tried the more comical the resulting misses. Eventually, it was decision time and I decided to move on to chipping which is the best part of my game, followed by a few minutes with the putter. I was getting great results.

What was happening was that I needed to break from what I was doing to regroup and start over. That is something we see often when working on certain projects or in some meetings. When you find that your actions are not yielding desired results, it’s time to step back to reassess and return for a fresher start. Many of us have had to sit through an overdrawn project meeting and came out wondering what happened to these last few hours. That was a result of the person leading the meeting not realizing that I was time for everyone to take a break from the issue at hand and come back later—often with fresh insights and new perspectives.

Taking a break does not necessarily mean hours or days, it could be as simple as 10 or 15 minutes just to step away. That brief moment allows you to shut down the current cycle of thoughts or behaviors and switch to a different mode. When you return, it’s like you are rebooting your mind and body to continue the work you had been doing. It’s almost like when your computer freezes up. In some cases you can continue to work with it, but it moves slowly, or sometimes not at all. After you take a moment to restart it, it starts to work again and faster than before. Yes, you lose the few minutes that it took you to go through the reset period, but in the end you make that up by not having to wait two minutes for every command to be executed as before.

By taking breaks, you give yourself the benefit of a fresh start, which also allows you to make the adjustments necessary to get you on the right track. If my swing is off I can most definitely stay there and try to fix it, but when my body is used to being in that off position it’s more difficult to change that than it would be if I was starting in neutral. We are pattern driven and once we settle into the rhythm it’s hard to transition out of it. A halt however gives you the opportunity for a new start and some rest in between to rejuvenate and give more energy.

So next time you find yourself stuck in a pattern that is not giving you the results you want, remember that it is ok to stop for a moment, because the break that you take to regroup and reorganize will more than likely be shorter than the time that you would lose trying to push on.

When you take a break you can do some of these things to make the break more productive:

Just relax for a moment- Sometimes the body and mind need that.
Find a distraction- Something that will force you to get your mind off the task at hand— My weaknesses are Tetris and Minesweeper. Whatever you choose, make sure you have what it takes to stop in five or ten minutes
Meditate or do breathing exercises- This allows the recirculation of your energy which is great for fresh start. When you need to rebuild momentum getting oxygen into your body is one of the things you can do.
Cat naps- Depending on the setting and time available this could be a great tool. Closing your eyes for a few minutes gives a great opportunity for introspective reflection- and if you dose off you feel refreshed when you awaken.
Change course- If what you are trying to do is not working out, you can move on to something else that you need to do and return to the original task later. Just changing the schedule around a bit will not hurt much- just make sure that it is a change of pace that you need and not rest.

I’m just saying though…

Dream Big… Live Bigger…

DrJudiC

www.DrJudiC.com

Are Meetings Killing Efficiency- 5 Steps Efficient Operation

December 29, 2010 at 8:45 am Add a comment!

What is a meeting? Too often it is an event where one person at a time gets up and speaks about something that many of the supposed-to-be- listeners have little or no interest. People attend this event because they been told they have to attend because their attendance was “MANDATORY” or they just wanted to justify their time at work while not doing real work.

Business in our society is no doubt meeting-driven. We have meetings about everything; especially in larger organizations. But does every announcement really require a meeting? We’re getting to the point where we’re having meetings about having meetings. Many of us have been subjected to the weekly waste of time some companies call staff meetings where you leave wishing you could have brought some work in with you.

Let’s monetize the cost of a meeting- Imagine you have 20 people coming to a meeting and 10 of them have to travel 30 minutes from a different site. Let’s say these meeting participants produce at a rate of $150 per hour. Just from the 10 people who have traveled a total of an hour to and from the meeting you lost $1500. If the meeting lasts 3 hours (the average is 2-2.5 hours), that’s another $9000 (or on average 6000 – $7500). The big questing is, are all these meetings being held worth more than $10,000 to the organization? Most meetings are not really worth the $7500 to $9000 they cost the company, so why are they still happening? There are many reasons, including:

The monetary value is usually not calculated
That’s the way they are used to doing things
Lack of awareness that alternatives exist

So what can be done to help this issue?

1. Complete a cost/benefits analysis

Before a meeting is scheduled, it’s important to know if it’s worth disrupting everyone’s productivity. You need to know how much that meeting really costs, not just the obvious costs, but also the ones included in day to day operations.

2. Explore alternative to meetings

As you consider ways to share and gain information, you should explore alternatives. Are there ways to get the massage to your team without disrupting the flow of productivity? Could this information be relayed in and email? The 4-Sentence Email To Replace Meetings shows how efficiently an email can accomplish what we use meetings for.

3. Create an agenda

Once you schedule a meeting, decide exactly what you want to address and the succession of things from the introduction to the end. When you don’t know this information you are more prone to deviating into things unrelated to the meeting and transitioning from one point to the next takes longer. And don’t forget time for questions and discussion are a part of the agenda if they will be allowed in the meeting

4. Strategically invite participants

The more people you have in a meeting the longer it will last. One way to avoid too many people is to only invite people who need to be at the meeting. If the meeting is not relevant to some members of your team it’s a waste of their time to have them attend. It will also be a waste of everyone else’s time because they are likely to be less aware of some of the details the others already know and ask more questions.

5. Stick to the agenda

One of the main reasons that meetings run on longer than anticipated is deviation from the agenda. The purpose of the agenda is to guide the meeting. If you take the time to create an agenda and distribute it to invitees and give them the opportunity to submit input, then there is no reasons things should be coming up at the meeting. This includes the general input time. If you have 20 minutes set aside for input or discussion, that segment of the meeting should not last a whole hour.

Meetings do have a rightful place in the operation of every organization, but we need to be careful of over-using them. When you start having meetings too frequently, you diminish their effectiveness. You don’t want your team to just attend meetings because they were ordered. Meetings must be something that people attend because it was the most efficient method for the organization to communicate the particular agenda and they gain something from participating. If those two things are not present it may be more efficient to let your staff stay on task and earn money for the company.

I’m just saying though…

Dream Big… Live Bigger…

DrJudiC

www.DrJudiC.com

Life & Success Lessons From The Golf Course 2: It’s About The Process

December 27, 2010 at 1:03 pm Add a comment!

Since the first time I ever swung a golf club the ball was going so straight and so far, my assumption that I had all this natural talent was almost inevitable ;). Of-course, the next times I went out I was expecting similar results, but then discovered that my “natural talent” needed much honing. On one of my best strokes, the ball moved an inch but that club went about 50 yards. What was happening was that I was so focused on getting the ball to go straight and far, I forgot to attend to the steps in the process that will get me that result.

Many people do the same thing with their goals. They focus so much on their desired result that the process is overlooked. Sometimes that desired result is not necessarily the goal, but a result of a successful goal completion. For example while I was thinking of where I wanted the ball to go, the goal was actually to make contact with the ball in a way that makes it go far and straight. There was a process involving my stance, my grip, back and forward swings and more. If you focus so much on succeeding that you attend to the steps to achieving that, then you are almost defeating the purpose of the action, but that’s not the only danger.

My out of whack golf swing was not only failing to get me the desired results, it was also introducing an element of frustration which was most discouraging. That’s one of the main reasons that many people don’t achieve their goals: when they start off and don’t find themselves getting the desired result they start to lose motivation and become so discouraged that they forgo the pursuit.

If I said that the goal of an entrepreneur was not to make money most people would think that I’m out of my mind, but I mean that. The goal of anyone starting out in a business or even a new career, is not to make money; it’s to build a strong foundation, an organization which will continuously generate income. When I started out in my career, I wanted to develop the reputation of being the type of employee that organizations wanted and would be willing to promote- That in turn gave me more money. When I started out in business it was the same- build the reputations that made clients want to work with me. As a result of the organization I built and the reputation I have earned, individuals and organizations want to work with me and when the contracts come the money follows.

As a golfer (yes, I just called myself a golfer already) I had to get myself to thinking that “it’s not about the ball. It’s about the process.” If you ever see my lips moving before a stroke that’s likely what I’m saying to myself. I took a couple of lessons and the pro was surprised to hear that my eyes are closed during my swing. When I keep my eyes open I start to make it more about the ball and less about the process, resulting in some amusing/frustrating moments. If I take the time to set up my shot and am confident in the preparation I don’t have to see the ball to know I’m going to hit it. If I’m true to my process, my head will still stay down even if I’m not looking.

In business it’s the same way. It’s not about the money; rather process that leads to having money coming in. If you just focus on making money and don’t invest in delivering a product or service, you may get lucky and make a bit of money, just like I could accidentally get a good swing, but that does not guarantee recurrence. Unless your lucky day in business generates billions so you never need to make another dime, you need a plan that allows recurring luck.

When you focus on the product or service that will bring value to your client and an organizational structure that will allow you to continue to provide this value, then your luck shall runneth over. You will not need to focus on the money because the system you have in place will be making the money for you. I always say that preparation is the best luck in the world and an unlimited supply is always available for us to take as much as we want.

Don’t take this to mean that I am advising against setting financial goals. I believe that those are quite valuable. A financial goal is still important because when you know how much money you want to make you, get a better idea of how much work you have to do to make your system generate the level of income desired.

I’m just saying though…

Dream Big… Live Bigger…

DrJudiC

www.DrJudiC.com

The 4-Sentence Email To Replace Meetings

December 22, 2010 at 10:57 am Add a comment!

While some companies opt to have a meeting for every announcement, there are ways to communicate the message effectively and not completely disrupt the productivity of an entire staff to give them information they are likely not even paying attention to. An email is one way of making this happen that could eliminate constant meetings.

Quite often organizations call meetings to announce news and changes. The truth is, the people who listen for 20 minutes of the hour-long meeting will take the time to read a quick email. Those who don’t bother reading the email more than likely don’t care enough to listen at the meeting either. New processes and procedures announced in meetings often require and get individually addressed in one on ones or supervision, so that would not change in email announcements.

When announcing changes there are 4 things that matter to the people who will have to implement these changes

What
How
Why
Where

People want to know what is being asked of them. They want to know how to do what is being asked. Most importantly, they want to know why they are being asked to do something. Once they have this information they need to know where to turn if they need assistance with implementation. All of that can fit nicely in a 4-sentence short email.

Good Morning Team LTD…

At the last directors workshops we discovered a new clients intake system that has been very effective for one of our departments and are looking to have it implemented companywide.

All new intakes will be prescreened by the department coordinator and you will receive a copy of the screening form for al new clients you are assigned.

This new method will help reduce the number of intakes completed on clients who doe not qualify for our services, which will save you and the company some time and money.

A copy of the new screening for is attached, but do please speak with your direct supervisor or the client coordinator in your department if you have any concerns or questions.

Have a great day!

Judi

An email like this takes a few minutes to write and even less time to read and your staff can spend their time producing the value your clients seek, which of-course brings your company more money.

I’m just saying though…

Dream Big… Live Bigger…

DrJudiC

www.DrJudiC.com

Life & Success Lessons From The Golf Course 1

December 20, 2010 at 12:41 pm Add a comment!

I recently decided to really take up golf. I had many reasons for doing this. One of them being that I was hitting so well the first time I went out- It looked like I had natural talent. I have been talking about this for a couple of years. Bragging about how straight I can hit the ball, and discussing how golfing would be beneficial, but no consistent action. This is where our first Lesson From Golf is found.

Action is key!

While I have been talking about wanting to golf and reasons to golf I made no real effort to fulfill this desire. That is what many aspiring entrepreneurs and others wishing for success in a desired area are doing. Talking about the shoulda coulda wouldas does only one thing- Remind you of what you are not doing. Don’t just talk about it, be about it. If it’s something you truly want, there comes a time when you must begin to act, but that is not to say that you take uncalculated actions.

One of my first actions toward actually golfing was to attend clinics. That exposed me to the sport, but I did not have to commit. I could pay $15 or $35 for a clinic, have fun that day and not do anything else for a few months. How many would-be business owners do we know who talk about starting a business “some day” doing something, but for now they just use that talent for a gig on the side when a friend asks them to? They are doing just what I did- Attending the occasional clinic and reminding themselves how things could be “some day”.

Eventually it was time for me to take some real action, so I began my research. What do I need to do if I want to actually learn and play golf? What dos this really mean? This is no different when it comes to living out these long deferred dreams. You could easily just jump in and hope something works out; however, taking the time to research and develop and a plan of action increases your chance of success. By putting the time and effort into preparation, you move from “hoping” for success and closer to “creating” that success.

When you jump in without preparation you tend to try anything and everything that you come across, which leads to doing a lot of work and not necessarily making progress. When you take the time to prepare, you know what you need to do to reach your desired results, so you waste less time trying every thing else and have more time to focus on achieving the goal.

Lip service fuels envy. Carefully planned and calculated action is what fuels exceptional success.

I’m just saying though…

Dream Big… Live Bigger…

DrJudiC

3 Steps To Help Income Catch Up To Expenses

December 13, 2010 at 5:18 pm Add a comment!

Everywhere we turn these days someone is talking about the recession. While the economy has affected many business large and small, not every business’ slow down is a result of the external economy. There are several factors that may be affecting an organization’s financial picture, and many of them involve their most powerful resource- Human.

The state of the current economy has allowed for certain things to happen and get blamed on the economy, but there are a few things that should be considered first.

Sales attitude. You have to be able to visualize and believe that the sale can be made and that the contract can be secured. Too many people are going in with a defeatist attitude that may be overt or subconscious. If you believe that because of the economy people will be less likely to buy, then you are allowing yourself some room to not attain your goals by leaving it open that it’s not out of your control. Another down side of this problem is that if you don’t believe the potential client’s decision was result of your presentation then you don’t have as great a need to adjust and improve how you are presenting.

What you can do:

Know and understand the value you are pitching. In a recession people may not buy as many things, but they are more welcoming to value
Keep track of the feedback and responses that are coming at the end of presentations/meetings and make necessary adjustments
If you are the leader of a sales team, take a few meetings with them- This will give you an idea of how your product or service is being presented

Staff behaviors. When business is booming everyone should be working at maximum capacity to meet client needs. When things get slower everyone should still be working just as diligently to get things booming again. This often means that there may be some additional duties for members of the team. You have to establish the importance of this to your team and make sure they understand why that is important to the organization as well as their job security.

Productivity over convenience. There are times when the work load may be more than the staff can handle. As the leader of an organization you need to be able to notice the difference between those times and when you are operating based on habits. When the workload is more than you have staff to handle an option is to use outside companies. You may be sourcing out your printing, copying or packaging during peak times, but when business slows, paying an outsider to do work that can be done by staff already on your payroll may no longer make sense. As a rule, you should only outsource things that cannot be done in-house for less. Calculating this also includes personnel costs.

I’m just saying though…

Dream Big… Live Bigger…

DrJudiC

Five Simple Tips to Improve Productivity

August 23, 2010 at 1:16 pm Add a comment!

Have a plan. If you take the time to plan out what you need to accomplish during the day then you eliminate the time that will be spent figuring out what to do next when a task is completed. When you have your tasks outlined you can move about and skip around when necessary to improve productivity instead of sticking with a task when you are not producing results. Having a visual of the day ahead makes it more manageable. You don’t spend time worrying about what you need to get done and you gain motivation from seeing things crossed off your to-do list. A plan also helps when people stop by, because having a visual of what you have to accomplish also gives you an idea of how much time you can spare in chit chat or when during the day you may have time for the conversation you visitor wants to have.

Take Breaks. Being too focused is not always the most productive state to be in. Sometimes you need breaks to refresh and regroup. It’s helpful to plan a five minute break between meetings and tasks that way you have a little time for yourself- whether it is to run to the restroom or grab a glass of water that short break can be useful to help you make the transition from one task to the next. This is also a great time for catching up with others and maintaining your relationships around the office. A quick chat here a little joke there goes a long way.

We generally have more energy and enthusiasm at the start of the day or a project. Major breakthroughs and accomplishments can produce a similar level of energy and excitement, but not every task has such. By taking breaks, you allow yourself the opportunity to have a fresh start each time you return from a break newly energized.

Get Help. We all have our specialties as well as our weaker points. It’s important to know and use these to our benefits. Sometimes it’s best to delegate a task to someone else whose skills are better suited for it then our own. Spending 2 hours doing something that another member of your team can complete in 30 minutes is not an efficient way to use your time. If you have difficulty delegating, it’s always a good time learn. One slow way to start this process may be as simple as asking the other person to help you, that way the work is getting done in a timely manner and you are there to learn from them in order to improve your own skills. But you have to remember that to be both an effective and efficient leader, you have to be able to trust your team enough to delegate as needed. There will be times when you need someone to teach you a better way of doing thins, other times you may just need a few more hands or eyes to help you move faster, but sometimes you just need to let someone else take the reigns and know that there is a more productive use for your time and expertise.

Redefine “Open Door Policy”. In an effort to be accessible man people often lose the true meaning of an “open door policy” and allow that to impact their productivity. Each time someone comes to your office and stops you from doing what you were working on, they are interrupting the flow of your productivity. The same applies to answering the phone and responding to emails. During the times that you have set aside to complete specific tasks, you should treat them as you would appointments. Just as you do not stop a meeting because someone walked in you may need to apply that method to certain task-dedicated times. If someone walks in you can ask them to return in an hour when you will be done, or let a call go to voicemail and return the call after you complete a task. The constant email dings are one of the biggest detriments to productivity, because we feel the need to drop everything and attend to that that chime or vibration every time we hear it. An “open door policy” means that you are accessible and welcome members of your team to come to you with issues and concern. You can still maintain this open door if you set certain limits that allow you to use your time efficiently. Not everything is a crisis, but if you allow everything to be treated as such, you may find yourself in constant crisis mode with your deadlines or working later then you planned.

Personal Interaction. Quite often your work may depend on other people to do their parts, or sometimes it may be that they are helping you. While emails are an efficient method of relaying a message or request, they do not relay to warmth of a personal conversation. When you want something to be given priority, take the time to place a call to the other party or walk by their office, even if to follow up after you sent an email. When you make that personal connection it moves your request up on the priority list. Typing pleeeeease in an email is completely different from actually voicing it at someone’s desk. Just like a smiley face in an email does not hold a candle to a bright pearly white smile or handshake. As a leader you can and will be able to get people to do the things you want, but the human connection makes it faster and easier. And this is not just if you are the boss- This is even more effective when dealing with your colleagues and even bosses.

Dream Big… Live Bigger…

DrJudiC

Chasing Success? Find Your Compass in Your Passion

August 2, 2010 at 2:12 pm Add a comment!

This week, there seemed to a theme to the conversations I was having and that theme was “I’m lost”. It seems that everyone was in the pursuit of success but had no idea what that meant them or what it would mean for them. There is more to success then just wanting it. You have to be able to define what success means to you so that you can know when you actually reach it. You also need to know what attaining success will mean for you because that is what will motivate you to keep reaching for it even when you feel that you’ve reached the last rung of your ladder and there seems to be a great distance left to go.

As children we generally receive cues from our environment that begin to formulate our ideas of success. Over time, these cues can become more vocal, such as parents telling us that we need to become doctors and lawyers. In adolescence, these thoughts tend to be guided more social and media pressure. The one thing that is usually present is the money factor. Parents want us to pursue careers based on financial motivation. Adolescents get attracted by certain careers based on the promise monetary potential. As we come into adulthood and develop our own passions, there are many things that we want to do that may not seem as the stream of financial wealth we’ve been conditioned to want. We put these passions aside and pursue the practical. It turns out that in many cases people who do this are denying themselves the opportunity to really have it all. There is nothing that says that your work cannot be a passion and source of financial gains.

Four of those discussions really stood out as having a common thread and that was the lack of a passion. Each individual wanted to achieve greatness at ‘something’ but had no idea what that something was, so for years now they had been going along different paths but never reaching a desirable destination. They all needed to want something enough that they would commit to getting there, but because they did not have that, many new options continued to come along and grasp their interest and change their course.

Unfortunately, not everyone is able to easily uncover their true passion, and many of those who were fortunate enough to reach that step don’t always know how to make it work for them. When seeking success, these two are key components.

If you find yourself in a similar situations here are a few questions that may help you get started on thinking about your passion:

When you were a child what types to games did you play? Toys that interested you?
As an adolescent what did you spend your free time doing? Or wish you had more time to do? (No, sleeping, drinking and the likes don’t count)
If money was no object would you be doing something from those two responses or something else?
Of all your paid and volunteer positions which was your favorite?
Is there anything that you enjoy so much you would do it for free? (Look to past volunteer activities for this one too)
What activities could you do every day and still be excited about them?
Are there days you are most excited about going to work? If so what are you doing during these days?
What is your dream job? Or what do you daydream about?
What types of things do you think of when you wake up in the morning? Or when can’t sleep at night?
If you won the lottery tonight what would you spend your days doing?

Once you answer the questions above, answer the next ones within the context of each response (Example- Travel)

What parts of this is it that excites you? (Seeing new places)
What is it that you get from this activity? (Learn new things)
What you contribute with this? (Write and share knowledge)

There are many assessments that you can completed to help you figure the careers that would be best suited for your personality. If you can access them it could be beneficial to give them a try, but one of the best predictors of your success in any field is your desire to be in that field. When you have a passion for what you do, it not only makes your job easier, it also makes you better at it. You are more committed and more invested. You are more interested and more attentive. These can all contribute to your success in pursuing your passion.

So if you are feeling loss or dissatisfied it just may be time to take a look inside and see where your passion lies.

I’m just saying though…
Dream Big… Live Bigger…
DrJudiC
www.DrJudiC.com

Mastery over multiplicity – Keys to maximizing your success

July 19, 2010 at 4:50 pm Add a comment!

Today’s buzz words are “Multiple Income Streams”. With this ever changing market where no single income stream is guaranteed to be available next week, this actually makes sense. Unfortunately many people are floating along with this trend.

These days, everyone is offering “a great business opportunity”, or “a chance for you to get financial freedom”. Without discounting the opportunities that they do offer, we have to realize that every opportunity is not necessarily for everyone, and that we cannot all engage in all of them. Instead of being involved in every single venture, it may be more beneficial to specialize in an area. Regardless of what the field is, the depth of what you can offer can make a great difference for your clients. If I am looking at dietary supplement, I am more interested in working with a merchant who understands their product and the inner workings of the body than the one who can also sell me cleaning product and legal defense. I expect my dietitian to understand the body, my cleaning product supplier to understand cleaning, my attorney to understand the law and each of them to be up to date on current research.

Instead of being the one who dabbles in everything, a more effective way to raise your profile and increase your bottom line is to be an expect at what you do best. Take professional athletes for example, many of them are good at more than one sport, but they focus their energy on one and become great at it. From there, they still generate multiple streams of income by capitalizing on their expertise. Other professionals are able to do this as well, but we have to get past the mentality of having to get into every fad that comes up.

Instead of getting involved with everything:

Get involved with something you are passionate about. Whether you are working on curing cancer, selling blackboard chalk or providing a valuable service, if you love it you are more likely to succeed at it. The passion is what makes you want to wake up early to conduct research or meet with clients. When you are passionate about what you are doing it, comes through to your clients, which can get them to also become more excited about the product.

Get to know your product. Whether you are selling a physical product or proving a service, it’s important to know it well. Know everything you can about your product and where to gain additional information. Whether it’s how to get complementary products and services or ways to make your product more effective, the more you can help your clients benefit from it, the more likely they are to use and recommend it. Become the expert, that way you can be “the go to” person for that product.

Get to know your market. When you know your clientele, then you are better able to provide the service they require. Instead of consistently working on the product of the day, put the focus on your clientele so that you understand their relationship with your product and how to build a long term exceptional quality service relationship that keeps them returning to you. Remember, clients are great, but repeat clients are even better.

Get your brand known. Once you establish yourself as the expert let others know this by sharing your expertise. Use your knowledge to help others and expand their knowledge base. As people see the benefits of your expertise, they will not only come to you, they will also send others.

Many people can be a jack of trades but few people will be experts. Being an expert takes much effort and dedication but more importantly, it requires focus. That’s another reason that expert are able to receive premium fees for their services.

I’m just saying though…
Dream Big… Live Bigger…
DrJudiC
www.DrJudiC.com

Summer and goals – Making them work together

June 14, 2010 at 10:05 pm Add a comment!

We may not have reached the calendar’s “first day of summer” yet, but the season is here in full force. It turns out that this season that many look forward to, is one of the most difficult times for staying on task with goals. When you start adding children being out of school, vacations, visiting friends and family and the many other distractions that summer can bring, it becomes more difficult to stick with routines. There are a few options that can help you get through the summer.

One commonly used option which allows you to keep your sanity is to take a summer break. This is helpful in that you don’t have worry about keeping up with a schedule while enjoying your summer. You have the freedom to go with the flow but unfortunately you are also falling out of your rhythm, which can impact your ability to get back on track after the summer. Another negative impact of this option is that you are not progressing toward your goal. While it is a tempting prospect, it may also result in having to restart on your journey and lose the momentum you that you have built.

The option that most people attempt to employ is to keep working with their schedule. What this does is place you in a position where you are likely to be over extended as you work to keep working toward your goal while keeping up with some of the summer fun. Unfortunately, since you are not getting any more hours in your day to attend to new activities, you’ll find yourself not fully partaking in any of the many activities you have to engage in.

Those who try to keep working and forego the summer fun are also doing themselves a disservice by denying themselves desired and needed social interactions. Would you really want to stay home while the family’s at the beach? This is likely to leave you frustrated and could even lead you to resent the goal you are working toward. Such decisions can cause you to lose focus or desire to pursue your goal.

Another option is to adjust the plan and make your objectives and activities more summer-friendly. Of-course this will often mean that you may be reducing the amount of work that you are doing during the season, but that’s ok. Stressing over missing summer would probably have reduced your productivity even more. By adjusting your plan, you can still set and attain specific benchmarks and make progress toward your goal while enjoying a fun-filled summer.

When adjusting your plan here are a few helpful tips to remember

Set a schedule ahead of time. Know who’s coming, where you’re going, as well as what you want to do and when. By making a plan of activities and trips that you want to partake in, you will be able to organize your schedule for work around them.
Don’t miss benchmarks. Once you start to miss your benchmarks for meeting objectives it becomes easier to miss other ones. When things come up and you have to adjust the new plan, do so, but ALWAYS reschedule missed work.
Use alternating intervals and rewards. Instead of stacking all the work at once it’s most effective to have a balanced interchange. Using these summer activities as rewards for reaching your benchmarks is also very effective

Remember. While it is important to make sacrifices to reach your goals, it’s also important that you maintain your physical and mental/emotional health. Partaking in life affirming activities is a necessity just as eating is. Overexertion can lead to burnout, which may not fully appear until the dreary winter days. Burnout can even lead to clinical depression, which you really don’t want to have to deal with on your journey to success. The most effective method for preventing burnout is having and good balance of life affirming activities- yes, having fun. Take good care of yourself so that you can attain and enjoy the fruits of your realized goals.

I’m just saying though…
Dream Big… Live Bigger…
DrJudiC
www.DrJudiC.com

Getting Unstuck

May 24, 2010 at 4:22 pm Add a comment!

A great plan is an invaluable roadmap to success- the only catch is that is has to be put into action. Sometimes you can start off on a roll and then find that you are stuck or not moving forward. This is something that happens to many people, especially when you come out of the gate flying. What happens too often is that you often plan for certain things and envision certain results. Once you get to that point then the plan needs to be extended to the next step. When you find yourself stuck on an endeavor, start by asking yourself these 5 questions.

Where do I want to go that I’m not moving toward?

Sometimes what may seem like being stuck is you actually getting to where you wanted to be. Many professionals find themselves in this situation some times. At the start of their career or when they start a new business, they seem to be making great strides and moving quickly up the ranks, until eventually they plateau. It’s not that they don’t have that same drive as before, rather that the desire has been satisfied. If you want to start your business to work on your own terms and make enough to support yourself, you can do that. Societal norms however dictate that you want to get to the top of the organization, or grow your business into an empire. Always remember that it is possible that what you want is always ok. Enjoy having reached your goal. Don’t push it, and your new goal will reveal itself when you are ready.

When you allow societal norm to dictate what you pursue you are at risk of diminishing your drive and your confidence. When you go after something you don’t really want, you may not put forth the same effort you do for what you want. When this results in not reaching the goal your confidence can be affected. You may start to wonder if you “still got it” and or start accepting that this is the best you can do. This is very dangerous, because when you later establish new goals motivated by what you want, this established thought can impede your ability to successfully reach your new goal. Before you start chasing any dream, make sure that it is yours.

What am I looking to gain by going this extra distance?

I can never say enough how important it is that goals are specific. A very successful career is not the same as President of a Fortune 500 company. It’s the difference between going to America and going to Disney Land. The more specific you are the easier it will be to map it out and follow the route. Many people who find themselves “stuck” don’t have a clear enough idea of where they want to go, so they find themselves working and not getting anywhere, which discourages them from wanting to continue. When you come to a rotary in the road, each of the four or more exits will take you to a location. The signs even tell you where each exit leads, but if you don’t know where you want to go, you can continue going round until you run out gas but you will still be in the same place.

Too often people go out in search of success without a clear definition of what that means for them. Many times they end up getting pulled in all sorts of direction that don’t give the results they want since they didn’t know what they wanted to begin with. The guy who wants to be shift supervisor is following a different path from the one who wants to be CEO. If you can demonstrate that you’re a team player and can be counted on, you could be a shift supervisor in many places. If your aspiration is to be CEO, you’ll need to forego being the one who can be counted on right now, pass on being the one who comes through to cover that shift so that you can attend classes and earn the degree that the CEO will need. Both of these positions require some sacrifice, and each one will make the sacrifice that earns him the desired positions.

Entrepreneurs often have great difficulty with this when they don’t have a clear business plan. They can dither in figuring out if they are going after the individual customer or the larger corporation. While it is possible to successfully do both, you need to know how much of your resources that you will designate for each. If you know the direction you want to go with our business then you can plan accordingly so that you can follow the path that leads you there.

What will (or do) I need to do to make it to the end of this goal?

Not having the proper resources is another place where people find themselves stuck. That is why it’s important to constantly take inventory of resources that are needed, those that are available as well as those that need to be secured. By doing this, you are less likely to be caught by surprise and find yourself rushing to accommodate or waiting at a standstill. When you have the resources at your disposal, you are less likely to have to break momentum waiting for them. If that has already happened and you find yourself stuck, this is a good time to go over what has been done, make revisions and review the plan. This will also allow you to see what resources that you may still need to procure in order to move forward and keep progress going. Timing is a very effective tool that can work for you in this case too. If you have to get things or have them delivered, you can schedule it so that deliveries are made just in time for the next step, which would be a great motivation to finish with the current step so that you are ready to move forward in time.

One of the things that many people do need is motivation. For any goal, motivation can play a crucial role. Having the people, objects, or events that motivate you in place for when they are is one of those necessities that can get overlooked. In many cases, if you are stuck that is one area that should be evaluated. You need to make sure that your motivators are in place and actually doing the job. If it’s your friends and family that you rely on for motivation, you need to make sure that they not only know that, but they are also able and willing to take on this task. If you need daily motivation, you have to make sure that you are not looking to get that from someone you talk to every two weeks, but instead from someone who you have daily interactions with.

What can be done to fit the process into my lifestyle?

Our society encourages people to fit into existing boxes, but since we’re all so different the fit does not always work for everyone. Sometimes it’s best to the model and customize it to fit you. Another reason that people often get stuck is that they try to do things that they either don’t want to do or that just don’t work for them. Find a way to incorporate what you have to do into what you want to do. Not wanting to engage in certain activities is a great source of delay that can be avoided. It is much easier to fit a process into your lifestyle than to do it the other way around. So instead of uprooting your lifestyle, start with reconfiguring the process so that it fits your lifestyle and its purpose. So once you determine the tools, steps or activities that are necessary to realize your goal, start looking for ways to fit these into your schedule and giving them a place in your daily routine. By doing this you also don’t stall out trying to find time to move along with your project, because it already has its place in your day. If you start to find that you don’t have time or you are missing scheduled activities, it may mean that you need revisit the process for goodness of fit. Some times that may mean that you have to tweak it, and that’s perfectly fine, as long as your changes do not reduce efficiency or effectiveness. The best case scenario of-course is that your tweaking would improve these two, which would in turn increase productivity.

What will be my reward for making it to the end?

Many people who say they’re stuck are just not motivated. They don’t have a strong enough reason to make them want to continue moving toward a goal.

Rewards are motivator. It does not matter how great or small the reward is; what matters is how much you want it. As a therapist I used to give toy cars to some of the boys I worked with as part of their behavior modification plans. The more they wanted the car, the harder they worked on their behavior. Each car they got had its purpose to them, maybe it was completing their line of Lamborghinis or adding their first one (yes I was matchbox baller). Once they knew why they wanted that reward they worked for it. As an adult you may want more than toy cars but you can still be motivated by rewards. Maybe you want the real Lambo. What ever the reward is, it has to be something you really wanted.

Your reward must be something that you have chosen because you want it, not because society or others think you should have. It has to be something that you want so much that the thought of getting it makes you smile, because that is what you will be focusing your attention on during these rough patches when they you feel like you’ve had enough and are ready to let go.

Rewards don’t have to be material, they just have to be tangible. Having time to do more with your family, special trips, self-time are all great rewards for those who want them. Helping others can be a great reward if that is what you want to do. If you want a safe environment for teens in your community to be, you will feel great when you open the teen center that will provide an alternative to hanging out at some corner, and that is a great reward.

Newer posts — Older posts

It is said that life is a journey. I agree. The thing about a journey is that it has multiple components, each of which serve a vital part in making the journey great and complete.

The Future begins in the past. As we eagerly await the future we also plan for it. The experiences accumulated in the Past are used in the Present to plan for and design the Future.

All three parts of the journey are ever-present. All three exist even when the focus is just on one.

<span style=”font-family: ‘Calligraph421 BT’; font-size: 14pt;”><span style=”font-family: ‘Calligraph421 BT’; font-size: 14pt;”> </span><span style=”font-family: ‘Calligraph421 BT’; font-size: 14pt;”> I’m just saying though…

Dream Big… Live Bigger…

DrJudiC

<a href=”http://www.drjudic.com/”>www.DrJudiC.com</a></span

It is said that life is a journey. I agree. The thing about a journey is that it has multiple components, each of which serve a vital part in making the journey great and complete.

The Future begins in the past. As we eagerly await the future we also plan for it. The experiences accumulated in the Past are used in the Present to plan for and design the Future.

All three parts of the journey are ever-present. All three exist even when the focus is just on one.

I’m just saying though…

Dream Big… Live Bigger…

DrJudiC

These are the steps that I should have followed- Hopefully WE will remember them

Avoid going with your first reaction– Whether it’s shock as it was for me or anger, which it can often be, this does not place you in the best position to help someone else. If you are having a moment- deal with that first so you don’t subject others to the backlash.

Identify your purpose– Before you speak up and share your advice, think of why. Is it because this is your preference or something that will benefit the other person. If it is indeed just your preference you may want to reconsider speaking up unless you are actually affected.

While I focused on my poorly delivered message we must not overlook the message that he was delivering. As a business owner, you are a walking logo. Every where you go you are representing your organization and as a result don not have the luxury of EVER letting your guards down all the way.

I’m just saying though…

Dream Big… Live Bigger…

DrJudiC

As René Descartes put it “I think therefore I am”. So positive or destructive, the way it is in your mind is the way it will be in your reality. Next time you think someone is making you feel that you are not worth something, ask yourself why you are agreeing, then work to change that.

I’m just saying though…

Dream Big… Live Bigger…

DrJudiC