You see, Amanda was so excited about her new bike that she brought it over to a friend’s house to ride a few weeks ago and while heading down a steep hill did what any novice 10-year-old rider might do. She pulled the front brake!

Any veteran rider knows that pulling your front brakes is a “no no” because it immediately halts the bike in its tracks even though your body may still be in motion. Oops! Yes, that sudden action sent Amanda flying over her handle bars, and when she landed hard on the concrete she broke her wrist in 2 separate places on both sides. Amazingly, her bike was fine after being popped back into place, and she’s actually been in totally good spirits ever since. In fact, she now has pretty blue nail polish that matches her aqua blue cast so life is not all bad for the kid…

So what’s the lesson in all this? For now, simply that wearing a helmet is a really good idea when riding a bike, and I suppose that I have one tough kid on my hands who isn’t going to let a few broken bones damper her spirits. This story clearly isn’t over though, and I truly hope the final lesson is that Amanda’s going to get right back on her bike and ride again once her cast is removed next Tuesday.

I’ve been knocked off my proverbial bike more times than I can count in my lifetime. In those moments, I’ve probably wondered whether or not I should get back on my bike again – or at least considered whether or not I should buy a different bike – more times than I can count too. Fortunately for me and those in my life, I have chosen to get back on my bike time and time again.

Generally speaking, I don’t relate to making mistakes in life. Instead, I choose to experience these incidents as life’s lessons and simply learn from them. I hope that Amanda will do the same!

Making It On Your Own: Launching, Running and GROWING a Successful Consulting Practice, Friday, February 24^th – This is a perfect primer for skilled consultants who want to launch their own consulting practices and/or those who want to develop the critical skills needed to be successful “solopreneurs” and take their existing firms to the next level.

 This all-day workshop is being offered in Chicago, so if you are in the area sign up now. And if you don’t live or work in the Chicago area, contact Jeremy at +1.310.589.4600 x4612 or by email at jslurey@plusdelta.net for more information. He will share the schedule for future sessions and/or schedule additional ones for you and your organization whenever and wherever it’s more convenient for you!

Maybe the last time your company implemented a new computer system a huge layoff immediately followed the implementation, so now you don’t believe your CIO when he or she says your job is secure and the current implementation is not the precursor to massive layoffs. The layoff is not happening “now”. It happened in your past, yet you are living your life as if it is actually happening now.

Or maybe you just don’t understand why you are 45 years old and terrified of dogs. Now that you read this though, you might consider that it actually has something to do with that huge furry beast who barked in your face when you were only 3 years old! Again, your past showing up in your present and determining how you live your life now even though it happened then.

If this “living in the past” seems ineffective and downright silly, perhaps you’d recommend more of a future-focused approach to life. Well, guess what? Some of us like me do live most of our days in the Future. I regularly focus on my next sales opportunity rather than celebrating the current contract I was just awarded. Or I get wrapped up in how someone might react if I say “I love you” to them rather than just being present with my feelings and sharing them wholeheartedly because that’s how I feel!

As this might suggest, whether we live in the past or future, we miss out on life’s opportunities as they exist right now, and now, and NOW! We literally end up living an alternate life to the one that is currently happening to us and around us rather than simply enjoying what life has to offer.

Does our past inform our present, sure. Is it wise to be mindful of our goals and intentions for the future, of course! Quit living in the past, and stop focusing so much on the “what if’s” of the future though. It’s time to start living your life to the fullest right now and now and NOW while you still can.

I remember I used to love playing chess in high school. As you can imagine, that isn’t the first thing I shared about myself when I started making new friends in college. I probably haven’t even shared that with anyone for more than 20 years now! I may not have even played a good game of chess for that same period of time – and in no small part because chess isn’t “cool” according to many. Without thinking too hard about it, I would offer that chess could actually be the most intellectually stimulating and individually competitive game there is. I would further argue that many who disagree just don’t know how to play the game and are afraid of looking stupid if they try it. Isn’t that true of most things that people put you down for and pretend aren’t cool?

Well, I’ve realized a very important lesson time and time again over the past few years. When I try to be something that I’m not, I never seem to get what I want. My clients likely don’t trust me as a consultant, and even if they do I likely won’t be able to keep their trust as I’m not able to honor my commitments and deliver – which clearly isn’t what I want even if I do like selling those big projects initially.

Beyond that, I’ve lost some pretty special people in my life at times by holding back or not simply being me in these relationships. While I may lead a pretty blessed life and be very happy with where I am now, I am confident that many of these experiences in my past not only were not necessary but also didn’t get me what I really wanted for myself and my life.

In the moment, you may be able to get what you want – or at least what you think you want – by lying or withholding part of the truth from yourself and from others. In the long run though, you likely will not get what you want for yourself and your life, so why bother?

It just isn’t worth it! So if from now on you agree to just be you, I hereby promise to just be me.

We all spend so much time at “work”, yet many of us relate to it as if it really is “work”. Why is that? One would think that we would want to enjoy what we spend so much time doing. Many go to work because they have to pay their bills. Some go to work because it affords them the lifestyle they really enjoy. The simple philosophy of “work hard, play hard.”  Read the rest of this entry Well what if we transform our total experience of work such that it actually becomes just an extension of the fun we have in the rest of our lives?

Novel concept? I don’t think so. As I start the New Year, I’m committed to experiencing much more fun in my life, and I invite you to do the same. Work doesn’t have to be monotonous, tedious “work”. Neither does doing the laundry or the dishes for that matter! You can choose to relate to any and all aspects of your life this way if you’d like. It just isn’t necessary. It’s a choice.

Recently, I facilitated a 2-day HR leadership summit with one of my favorite client groups. Heading into the 2 days, I had all kinds of distracting thoughts about that event as being “work”. I had to review all of the content and prepare for the session to ensure my delivery matched that of the 2 other facilitators. I had to have my parents babysit my kids overnight so that I could stay in Newport Beach between sessions. I had to drive 2+ hours in traffic just to get there an hour “late” on the 1st day. And even arriving onsite, I then started to get nervous about how I could possibly mirror the delivery of 2 other people I had never really worked with before. A part of me even wished I could just be back at my office overlooking the beautiful Pacific Ocean selling another big consulting engagement. Fortunately, it only took a few minutes and some presence of mind to let all of these distractions go and relate to the 2 days simply as having fun with some really wonderful people.

I trust that reframing it completely changed the experience for me. More importantly, I’m confident that it completely transformed the experience for everyone in my learning group by significantly enhancing my facilitation with them.

Work does not have to be work in the traditional sense. Work can be fun. Work can be a game. I’m not sure I’ve ever met someone who didn’t like to play games, so what kind of game can you play at “work” today – and always?

This year, Plus Delta continues to be green during the holidays. Money saved from holiday card printing and postage will be donated to the California Wildlife Center – a fabulous organization dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation and release of sick and orphaned wildlife in our surrounding area.

 
Breakdowns, however, are not experiences to be feared or resisted. Sure, that’s easy for me to say as I sit here pontificating from my high horse. In the moment, a breakdown is exactly that – a breakdown! On the other side of a breakdown though awaits the potential for a powerful breakthrough, one that likely would never be possible without the occurrence of that wretched breakdown.

Trust me when I say I’ve had plenty of breakdowns in my life just in the past few years. I’ve been divorced and ended my business partnership with my former wife. Good times! Since then, our firm has experienced some of its greatest successes ever, yet even in that context there have been numerous setbacks that have had me thinking it was a “no good rotten day and I wished I lived in Australia”. (Yes, that’s still my favorite childhood book ever!)

It’s these very breakdowns though that were the access to bringing greater happiness and an even more sustainable business model into my life. Did I realize that in the midst of the breakdowns? Not so much… I cried like a baby like any normal human being would do. As I get older and experience more of these breakdowns in my life though, my emotional outbursts and tantrums get shorter and shorter because I’ve learned to look at these experiences for what they are – opportunities to break from the parts of my past that aren’t working for me and bring new ways of being and living into my life.

Breakdowns are to be celebrated. Yes celebrated! Without breakdowns, we cannot experience breakthroughs. We likely can introduce incremental changes and improvements to our lives. We will not be able to truly transform our lives though. That requires a complete breakdown for us to reconstruct ourselves in a whole new way.

So stop crying and get over it when breakdowns occur to you. As my mother taught me years ago, everything happens for a reason. We just need to be patient – and compassionate – with our emotions and actively search for what possibilities exist when one door closes, as unexpectedly as it may be. I promise you that another door will soon open. You have to be on the lookout though, or you’ll miss that new opportunity while booking your emotional getaway to Australia!

I suppose that’s why it’s called entrepreneurship. Because the person with the sweat equity (me in this case) organizes a business venture – whatever that venture might be – and assumes all the risk for it. Don’t get me wrong… There is tremendous potential, and with the right idea and enough sweat one might create real equity and reap the benefits of his/her efforts one day.  

That often takes a very long time to happen, and maybe more often than that never does. So in the meantime, most entrepreneurs continue to pour more sweat into their ventures hoping to produce real equity. A smart entrepreneur may diversify his/her eggs into a few different baskets. A true believer though will continue investing more and more of his/her sweat equity as if it really is worth millions. Should we all be so lucky as to cash out one day. Until then, I’ll try to stick to the basics of running my company without buying a yacht somewhere or new Lamborghini!

I actually completed my doctoral research on best practices in designing and supporting effective virtual teams back in ’98 (click here for the Cliffs Notes version), and surprisingly not much has changed since then. Sure, we have an “app” for just about everything we can do with a mobile device. And SharePoint sites have become so prevalent in organizations that there now exists a defined skill set and high demand for SharePoint designers and programmers.

These days, it seems like everyone is working with someone they rarely if ever see. One of my direct reports lives and works in San Francisco, California, so it’s rare for me to see her more than once a month at best. So how do I manage her work? To be honest, I really try not to. Instead, I strive to provide the technical infrastructure required for her to succeed and complement it with frequent communications and scheduled check-ins with me. It’s my job as the CEO and Chief Rainmaker in our firm to let Christine know whenever our priorities change and provide new direction when something perhaps unexpected happens or new opportunities present themselves in our market environment. Christine and I have also worked together over the past year to identify breakdowns when they occur and implement new processes and procedures as required when we don’t succeed. How am I doing as a virtual leader? Don’t know. You’ll have to ask Christine about that!

So when it comes to managing the performance of remote team members, don’t think you have to “see them” in action to keep tabs on them. Strong leadership is results-focused, not task-oriented. If Christine is doing a good job, I know it because it’s very clear in our interactions and the outcomes she produces. When she struggles from time to time, I know that too. And it’s my job as her leader to provide further coaching, guidance, and even direct support at times to help her course correct and get back on track – especially when I can’t see her in person.

I’ve never been called “sir” more often in my life, and I’m quite confident that I don’t deserve it any more now than I ever have before. And as silly as it sounds, it’s so uplifting to be walking through the “corporate halls” at our client’s hospital facility with the Vice President of Human Resources and have everyone ask, “How y’all doin?” with a big smile on their face.  

Even the rental car shuttle driver at the Houston airport said, “Thank you for riding with me, and have a blessed day!” as she dropped us off.  And I’m confident her statement wasn’t offered because of the $1 tip I chose to give her in return – not something I typically do on a rental car shuttle by the way… I simply experienced it as par for the course in Texas to be uber-cordial (based on Los Angeleno-standards) and extend well wishes to all as if they were your neighbors.

Nickelback wrote a beautiful song a few years ago called “If Everyone Cared”. Well, at least in Texas, it sure seems like they got the message and do! Maybe all y’all will too. J