Shades of Success, Inc.

Two Treats to Enhance your Professional Life

Since it's Halloween, I am treating you to two amazing resources to help you accomplish your professional and business endeavors.  Help yourself!

MIT's OpenCourseWare offers access to materials, audio and video, problem sets and quizzes from 1700 courses.  No, you will not be granted an MIT degree but you will be able to learn at your own pace and at no charge!

Marshall Goldsmith writes for Fast Compay and Businessweek.com.  His biography reads, "Marshall Goldsmith is a world authority in helping successful leaders get even better – by achieving positive change in behavior: for themselves, their people and their teams.  The American Management Association named Dr. Goldsmith as one of 50 great thinkers and leaders who have influenced the field of management over the past 80 years." To access his library (with lots of freebies) click here.

Turn Failure into Feedback

"Failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently." Henry Ford

Failure is a word we try to avoid relentlessly.  If a project doesn't go as planned, we usually try to disassociate from the issue.  We start using passive voice. "The process was not properly implemented." "The team was kept in the dark about certain steps."

What if instead of directing our energy and attention to blaming and chastising, we use the experience as a learning tool?  Henry Ford's quote invites us to consider looking at failure as an opportunity to move forward.  Thomas Alva Edison is famous for being stubbornly focused on his pursuit to invent a better light bulb.  When his nth attempt failed, a colleague asked why he didn't just surrender to failure after so many trials. Edison's response, "I just learned another way not to invent the light bulb."

Edison's answer reminds me of Lisa Nichols' advice about seeing failure as feedback.  She says failing gives us a chance to regroup and figure out what we need to do differently.  As a coach, author and entrepreneur I have had my share of 'feedback moments.' Having courage helps us to see failure as feedback.  Here is a quote to get us going:

"There is a certain degree of satisfaction in having the courage to admit one's errors. It not only clears up the air of guilt and defensiveness, but often helps solve the problem created by the error." Dale Carnegie

Your Professional Brand

"Your Professional Brand is the powerful, positive and clear idea that comes to mind whenever other people think of you." from the book The Brand Called You 

According to the definition above, three words describe the characteristics of your professional brand:

• Powerful - Your brand must make a strong, memorable impression.
• Positive - It must showcase your value, skills and accomplishments.
• Clear - It must communicate your value without leaving any room for confusion or misinterpretation.

How does your brand measure up? Do you know what your professional brand is?

Success Is a Journey

"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.“  Will Rogers, author, artist and social commentator

I heard this quote at a recent conference and it stuck with me.  It really hit a nerve.  How can we continue on once we accomplish a goal?  How can we avoid being run over? Here are a few suggestions:

• Conduct periodic status checks on our goal
• Build on your accomplishments and set new goals
• Adopt a mindset that values ongoing learning
• Keep up with trends in your area of interest
• Build relationships with key decision makers 

To LinkedIn or Not LinkedIn?

Have you caught on to the LinkedIn frenzy?

For me it started during the Fourth of July holiday.  While doing my mid-year contact list review, I realized that I had signed up for LinkedIn a while ago. Since I did not use it often, I only had 12 contacts.  So I decided to conduct an experiment. I invited people on my email list to join my LinkedIn network.  Well, it has been three months and I am happy to report the following results:

• 70 contacts (LinkedIn calls them Connections)
• 5,600 Friends of Friends (the number of connections of all my 70 connections combined)
• 564,100 Friends of my friends' contacts

In its most basic form, LinkedIn helps manage your network of contacts online while allowing you to expand it easily.  Their tools search through your professional history and prompts you to link to others based on shared information such as company name, high school or college affiliation.

I would encourage anyone to try it out and gradually gain familiarity with the system.  For helpful tips on how to best take advantage of LinkedIn, here is a blog post from venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki.

How Do You See Your World: Half Full or Half Empty?

Every time you have a drink of water and stop to take a breath, what goes through your mind?  Do you say  to yourself, 'Oh no, I am almost out of water. I need to refill my glass." Or do you say, "I still have a half glass of water to enjoy?"

The analogy about the glass half full or half empty have been used and abused by many who preach the benefits of positive thinking.  However, we remain pessimistic about our financial future, the state of the planet and many other matters.  Declining home prices and the perils of global warming have become the latest doomsday chant.  How to stay positive under these conditions?

By asking the question:  what can I learn from this situation? In the case of global warming, we could say, 'I don't care since I'll be dead when it hits." But what about your children's children? So, instead of ignoring the issues or worrying incessantly, ask yourself, 'What can I do?' Maybe you can join a local group to raise awareness or increase recycling efforts in your neighborhood.

Perhaps your professional life is your main area of concern. Are you looking to switch jobs or find one? Are you thinking of partnering with someone to increase your business reach?

Are your first thoughts about rejection, failure or overwhelm?  Remember:  the glass will be empty at one point BUT it can always be replenished.

Suggested action:  Start noticing the thoughts that cross your mind as you go through your day. If you are serious about going from glass half empty to glass half full, write down them down and take a moment during lunch or at the end of the day to reflect on what you wrote.  Replace negative thoughts with positive positive statements and repeat them out loud.  With time and perseverance, pessimistic thoughts will stop being your default response.  You can do it!