The Power of a Self Directed Education

Whether in the business world, leading a family or serving in a great cause, if you don't commit yourself to an ongoing program of personal education, you are leaving a giant gaping hole in the fabric of your potential!

When I am speaking of a self directed education, I'm not talking about continuing on towards another college degree. While that is admirable and sometimes even of great value, it is also very costly and time intensive.

No, I am talking about the power of developing the habit of reading from a great book for a certain amount of time each day and looking for other sources of relevant teaching such as audio recordings to incorporate into your daily routine.

Why?

Because if we are not having a constant input of new ideas and principles into our minds, how can we expect to ever have an improvement in our level of creativity, problem solving, or results of any sort?

Leadership Guru Orrin Woodward puts it this way, When you have worked for thirty years, will you have 30 years of accumulated experience and expertise or will you have one years experience repeated 30 times?

Sobering thought?

Einstein said (paraphrasing), That we can not solve the significant problems in our lives at the same level of thinking with which we created them! Meaning that if we don't actively pursue more and more new knowledge, we will constantly be stuck trying to solve problems with the same limited knowledge base for our entire lives!

Why would we want to willingly limit ourselves that way?

Way too many people get locked into the flawed mindset that when they finished their formal education, there would never be a need to do any more reading, studying or learning. How sad when you realize that we are living in a world today with
an inexhaustible supply of knowledge to be had by simply applying some effort.

Some of us are prone to be the deep-thinking types. But are we stuck with utilizing only the limited supply of knowledge that was input into our brains during our school years like floating around in our tiny glass bubble surrounded by a literal untapped ocean of new knowledge? Or are we instead, constantly sending our feelers out into that vast ocean looking for the next valuable piece of information that could change our limited paradigm forever?

I love the principle of "The Slight Edge"as taught in the book of that same name by author Jeff Olson. It is that there are so many important and valuable things in our lives that are actually easy to do. The flip side of the coin is that they are also very easy not to do! Are we going to discipline ourselves to do them so that we can gain the prize we seek?

Also, that the cumulative difference that can be made by doing one simple little action repeatedly day after day, may not seem like much in the short term. But multiplied out over 5 or 10 years will be enormous! Not because of the simple multiplication of the small act but because of the compounding effect it has combined with other positive actions in our lives!

So what is important to you right now? More profit, a better paying job, a more successful company or organization, a successful family, a stronger more productive relationship? All of these things can be greatly enhanced by seeking for new knowledge and principles to apply.

Interestingly, very often multiple problems in different areas of our lives can actually be solved by learning one new principle! All too often one missing piece of information is causing us problems in several different areas of our lives at the same time!

So what do we do? Get hungry!

Discipline yourself to develop the habit of reading from a book recommended by someone you trust for 15 - 30 minutes a day. If you do that simple little thing, you will end up averaging 1 - 2 books a month and put yourself in the upper echelons of our society!

Don't think you can find the time? Start using your "Cracks of Time". Keep a book in your purse or brief case, your desk, the car, the bathroom, etc. There's nothing wrong with having several different ones going at the same time, one in each of these places. In fact, if you do, you are more likely to have a thought in one book stir a deeper understanding of what you are reading in another!

Not sure where to start? Contact me for some of my favorite recommendations!

Have an awesome day everyone!

A Tale of Two Lumberyards

I want to illustrate my point about the power of great customer relations with a personal story here.

In a past life I was a building and remodeling contractor in our town of about 60k people for over 25 years! Obviously that entailed purchasing a lot of material from the local lumberyards over the years. I've learned that there can be a huge difference in the way different companies approach relating to their customers.

What should be the goals of the interactions with your customers? If understood correctly, great customer relations can maximize sales per visit, and by increasing customer satisfaction, can lead to more repeat visits and more referrals to other potential customers. Aren't those critical components to increasing your bottom line? I thought so too. That's why this story makes such a great point.

For many years, if my memory serves correctly there were basically three lumberyards in my town from which to choose from. Each one presented a different face to the public.

The first one that I began patronizing was the one nearest to my home and had been used by one of my former employers. Their customer relations face to me, the public, consisted of the guy behind the counter who always came across as arrogant, condescending, and bothered that he had to deal with me. Then when I would get out into the yard, I was constantly hassled and even insulted when I tried to pick a straight 2X4 out of the pile instead of taking the crooked ones on top.

When you are a concerned craftsman who is trying to deliver a quality product to your own client, you can imagine how that caliber of service went over with me. Needless to say, I literally have not been back to that store in over 15 years.

The second yard that I tried, developed a great reputation with me in that they almost never had what I was looking for in stock. So after almost 10 years of trying, I gave up on them too.

That left me with the third yard in town which was actually the biggest of the three. My results there weren't much better. I would go in one morning and have to track down somebody to help me, explain what I was doing and get the necessary supplies and go off to my job site. Later in the same day (or maybe the next), I would need something else and run back in. After tracking down the very same salesman, you would think that there would be some friendly recognition and continuing on from where we had left off. But no, I was always amazed that they acted as if they had never seen me before and that my trying to get them to remember what we had talked about earlier was an inconvenience.

Even today, after 25 years of going in there to purchase hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of supplies, you would think that I'd be on a first name basis with many of their employees. Not so!

After 25 years of using their business, there are literally 2 people there who know me by name. One of them is my assigned lumber rep and another is someone who I originally met somewhere else. I've never been introduced to the local manager and none of the other employees who have been asked to help me from time to time has ever acknowledged me again after our business was completed. Even though I was in there often, none of the sales people ever greeted me with any sense of recognition.

Now, I know that I am not one of the big name contractors in the area and this is not about me crying out for attention. This is simply to illustrate a point. A couple of more stories will drive it home even further.

At one time I was partnered up with a friend for awhile. When he started to go out on his own more, he went in to this store one day to place an order for some $60,000 worth of material. At the time that was the equivalent of the typical order for 2 average sized houses worth of lumber. After finally getting one of the contractor reps to sit down with him, the guy got up and left and went over to visit with one of his buddies for 10-15 minutes, leaving my partner hanging. How do you imagine that went over? Yep, Somebody else got the business!

Another perfect illustration happened at a so-called "Contractor Appreciation Day". The company invited all of the local builders in for lunch one day. They had a caterer in to serve a great hamburger lunch to all of us. Now you would think that this would be a great time for all of the company employees and managers to be out mingling and building friendships and connections with all of us. Again, I don't believe I ever saw the manager out there at all and the only real conversations I was engaged in were by the outside sales reps they had brought in to tell us about certain lines of products that hey offered.

Now why do I go to all of this length to tell you these rather negative sounding stories? To make a contrast!

One day my partner and I got involved in a project in a little town about 10 miles down the road. We had known about the smaller lumberyard in this town but had never taken the time to check it out, believing that because of its location that they would be low on inventory and high in cost. But since we were working only a couple of blocks away, we decided to check it out.

What we found amazed us! When they found out that we were contractors, the owner of the company came out to meet us and visit with us about our project and learn what other types of stuff we did. Before we left, we were introduced to all of the floor salesmen, the guy that ran the door shop, and the ones in charge of the yard. We walked out that day with a line of credit big enough to cover anything we needed on our projects and a rep who was to be personally in charge of getting us anything that we might need. It was a whole new experience.

Every time we would come in after that, we would be greeted by name and know that they had a very good handle on what we were working on and actually cared. If we needed to hurry, they were right on top of helping us get out of the door quickly. If we needed suggestions on something we were unfamiliar with, they were all over it. If we had time, they were all about developing  a friendship with us. We were always welcome in the owner's office and often he would personally drop what he was doing and help us out. We were free to sort through lumber if needed and often helped to do so.

Do you see the contrast? What do you think the result was?

For 10 years after that, almost 100% of our business went to this store! If I was working on the far side of town and needed anything significant, I would drive past all 3 of the previous yards plus another 10 miles to patronize these guys instead. It continued that way until many years later when the big box yards came to town and the owner decided to retire.

Why? One word...SERVICE!

If we want to set ourselves apart from the competition, we can do it in two ways, better selection but even more importantly, BETTER SERVICE!

Even today, if I need something for a project, I'll go to one of the big box stores (the one with the best customer service), before I finally run over to the one big lumberyard with the poor service that I was describing earlier.

Here's the bottom line, over the 25 years that I was in business here, the store with the poor customer service, even though they always had the best selection of supplies on hand, probably conservatively lost a million and a half dollars worth of my business because they just didn't seem to care whether they got it or not!

Is that significant? You tell me!

Then multiply that by how many other guys like me might have been loyal and faithful customers over all these years if they had felt valued. That number is likely to soar well into the several millions of dollars!

Is it worth the time and investment to develop a culture of great customer service? I think we just proved that point pretty clearly!

Are these principles only natural in some people or can you teach them to anybody?

In answer to that, some of the salesmen at the great yard were anything but charismatic. But they had learned how to make the customer feel appreciated and valued!

Those are the principles that we teach here! Contact me if you would like to learn more!

Hope you have a great day!

The Power of Relationship Skills!

I'm going to start a series of posts here focused on how the principles that I'm learning and teaching can impact us in our business dealings with other people as well as in our everyday interactions with those around us.

I'm running into so many situations in the business world lately where a lack of understanding of what makes people tick is creating friction between people who should be working together to reach a mutually beneficial result. This results in things like lost sales, damaged relationships, no return customers, low referral business, etc in the business world. In personal relationships, it is at the root of most of our problems too.

The ultimate solution lies in realizing that people can be understood. There are principles that govern how we act, react and interact with others. Those principles can be learned and even ultimately mastered by ANY person who is willing to delve into the learning process.

So far I have not seen a single book that covers all of the principles in one shot. However, there are a certain few, that if read and studied together, will cover most of the bases and give you a great foundation to build off of.

The best part of this whole picture is that if you will trust someone with some experience to point you at the right books, this study will actually be fun and entertaining at the same time. Reading doesn't have to be a dull boring experience like many of us learned in school. There are some great teachers out there who know how to teach with stories and funny experiences of their own that help to illustrate their points.

So from time to time on here, I am going to include a few book recommendations and reviews to resources that I feel will be universally helpful to anyone who may be reading this blog.

Learning to interact well with people can have a very positive effect on the bottom line of our businesses as well as in our relationships with every person around us. We will bring in more sales at work and actually be able to understand our spouses when we come home! Sound like a pretty good combination?

Flying in a Bad Economy

A wealthy friend of mine recently taught me a great analogy that is really pertinent to our economic situation today!

He's also a private pilot and talked about how in pilot training one of the most critical lessons you have to learn is how to pull out of a stall. That's where your plane slows down to the point where the wings no longer create enough lift to hold it up and it starts to fall out of the sky.

The natural reaction for someone who doesn't understand the physics of flying is to pull back on the stick with all their might to try to get the nose of the plane to go back up. However that is exactly the wrong thing to do! It will result in a dangerous crash every time!

The real answer is to overcome your fear and push the stick forward to point your nose down so that you can begin diving to pick up enough speed to get the laws of aerodynamics working for you again!

Wow! How interesting that our natural reaction to a dangerous situation is to do exactly the wrong thing and make the situation a lot worse!

His analogy was that this is exactly the way that most people react to a bad economy.

We pull back on our financial stick. We quit spending our money and get ultra conservative with our finances and just try to wait it out. He said he wasn't advocating wasteful spending and not learning to be more wise with our money. But he was talking about our natural tendency to pull back or pull inward instead of shoving the stick forward and chasing the tremendous opportunity that a bad economy represents!

What??? Hmmm...

What is business all about? Filling a need that we find and being fairly compensated for it right? When do we find a greater need than in a bad economy???

His point was that people who understand wealth and finances find a way to fill THAT need and they prosper even in a bad economy!

They are busy shoving forward on that stick and gaining speed and momentum because they understand the true principles involved!

That really got my brain to churning! How about you?

Have a great day!!!

Kiyosaki's 3 Principles

Robert Kiyosaki a prominent author on success listed 3 things that were absolutely critical to achieving whatever is important to you!

#1 Long term vision. #2 Delayed gratification. #3 The power of compounding.

My observation proves to me that there is a 4th one that holds most of us back. So I'm adding #4 The power of association.

Simple sounding list right? The problem is that most of us don't take time to fully ponder the ramifications of each of those points and why it made this list!

Take long term vision for instance; It's pretty easy to look into the future and say "this is what I want to accomplish." But that's not long term vision. That's only daydreaming.

Long term vision goes way beyond that. It involves answering questions like, Why?, What's important in my life?, What do I want my life to stand for?, etc...

Long term vision means understanding that you are not going to accomplish anything worthwhile overnight. You need to develop the vision of where you are going so that you can keep getting back up and charging for your goal every time you get knocked down! Long term vision makes you unstoppable, regardless of critics, situations, or obstacles!

In the end, if you develop the endurance to succeed, you will find that the greater reward is not just what you achieved, but who you became in the process! There is something truly powerful in that!

Success key #2 Delayed gratification!

Boy has our society ever convenienced that one right out of us!

One of the biggest obstacles to success that I see today is the attitude that I will give it 3-6 months and see if it works!

Every "overnight success" is a result of 20 years of sacrifice, personal development and hard work! Success is always on the other side of inconvenience!

One of the reasons that success doesn't just "happen" is because it almost always requires personal development! If not, you would have succeeded already! Hmmm... there's that word "change" again!

So #1 You have to decide what you REALLY want! Then #2 We have to commit to pay the price, whatever it is, for as long as it takes until IT IS DONE! Then #3...

Kiyosaki's 3rd trait of successful people was that they utilize the power of compounding!

Hmmm...At first glance, I was thinking "compound interest".

But the more I have read and pondered on this subject, the more I came to understand that he is talking about the power of compounding your efforts!

Think about this; you can only succeed so far by helping one person. But if you can figure out a way to serve hundreds or even thousands of people, how much more successful could you be at whatever you are trying to achieve?

I need to look at my life and ask myself, how many people am I impacting on a daily basis? 0? 10? 25? 10K? If I'm only impacting a few and I'm doing a valuable work, how can I "Compound" the number of people I affect?

If you're not sure how, think about all of the new technology today! 20 years ago, there was no way I could have connected with as many of you as I do everyday now!

How could that apply to what's important to you?

Stewardship

Did you ever think about the word Stewardship?

I hadn't very much until I read a great book about finances lately.

We are given things with the trust that we will magnify and multiply them and use them for a good purpose. What are we doing with the gifts we've been given? Our time, talents, skills, money, life, family, positions, influence, etc...

If we don't show our gratitude by guarding, controlling, developing and increasing those resources, why should we ever expect to receive more of them?

I think that's what Stewardship means! When you're a good steward over what's been entrusted to you, you will be trusted with more!

What's interesting is that each of those areas have certain principles that govern them. The crazy thing is that way too often we try to live the principles of one area and expect them to automatically fix another area.

It doesn't work that way! We have to live the principles that govern what we are trying to fix!

Example; Just trying to live the principles that make us a good person doesn't mean we are living the principles that will fix our financial problems!

It's making me take a harder look at the things I've been given a stewardship over!

Think about it!

The Power Of Association

One of the most powerful principles I've ever learned is called the "power of association" It says you become like those you most associate with!

Are the people we spend the most time with the types who are always encouraging us to excel at whatever we are trying to accomplish? Or do we spend our time with "friends" who are constantly telling us that we can't accomplish something because we are "this"... or we are "that"?

Whatever it is that you want to accomplish, find someone who already has it or something like it and will be your cheerleader or mentor and spend as much time around them as possible!

Things will begin to change when you put yourself in an "Atmosphere of Achievement"!

You can do anything you set your mind to! If you are surrounded by people who try to tell you otherwise...RUN!