Self Improvement Question: Skill Development

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How much time do you invest in developing your skills to become more successful in your business?

Drawn to a Dustup like Moths to a Porch Light

We human beings are strange creatures. We seem to be hardwired to be compelled to slow down and look at conflict and carnage.

Remember in high school when a fight would break out how the kids would stand back and start cheering rather than try to break it up?

Or can you tell me why a car wreck on the highway will cause a traffic jam in the other direction as well while each car passing slows down enough to get the best look possible at the carnage?

When Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump have a silly ongoing argument it makes the national news for days.

Just Like Everyone Else

I guess I’m just like everyone else in that department.

I must be as morbidly entertained by a brouhaha as the next person because when a blogging friend of mine mentioned this one to me in a conversation we had over the weekend I put it on my list of things to check out when I got a chance.

This morning I got a chance to take a peek.

The Dustup

Apparently two guys I consider friends of SuccessCREEations, Blog Bloke and Darren Rowse, had a bit of a tiff in the comments section of the post More Pillars of Exceptional Blogs.

Read down through the comments of that post. I felt like I should have been munching on some popcorn while I read that thread. Read more

Reserving the Right to be Wrong

Had to be Right

There was a time in my life when I just had to be right about everything. It was important and I’d argue tooth and nail to get my point across.

When someone chose to disagree with me I’d try to back them into a corner or shut them down.

Not that I couldn’t be convinced that I was wrong, mind you. Unfortunately if I did see that I’d been wrong, I would jump to the “correct” viewpoint and hold that one just as doggedly.

Crazy, I know.

Stopped In My Tracks

Then one day I was stopped in my tracks. A close friend of mine said something that changed my whole view of the “being right” business. Here’s what he asked me.

Would you rather be right, or have friends?

I’d never even considered that those two things could possibly be opposed to one another.

But it makes sense.

It only took me a couple moments of thinking about it to realize that most people don’t want to be wrong. By holding so strongly to my desire to be right I was basically saying that everyone else was wrong.

Would I want to hang out with someone who thought I was wrong all the time? Nope. Not a chance!

Why then would anyone want to be around me then if I treated them the same way? Hmmm….

OK to be Wrong

Since then I’ve taken a different approach. I let myself be wrong now.

Nowadays I don’t sweat so much whether someone else thinks I’m right or I’m wrong. If they think I’m a all messed up, that’s their right.

I don’t make it my place to change their mind.

Does that mean I still don’t care about aligning myself with what is true? Of course not. And it doesn’t mean that I completely refrain from expressing my views either.

What it does mean is that I present my thoughts in such a way that I acknowledge the potential that conflicting views may have merit.

And I am finding that I have many more friends than I used to. It’s less stressful to boot, so I count it a win all around.

Now you know why I reserve the right to be wrong.

Mac Friday - 27 July 2007

Well it’s now been a week since my new Mac Mini arrived and I thought I’d share a few things about the whole experience with y’all.

Dang that Mac is Small!

The very first thing Gorgeous and I couldn’t help but notice is that the stinking thing is small. I mean really small. We’re talking about a highly concentrated processing-power-to-volume ratio.

I’ve got hardcover books on my shelf that are bigger than this thing. Gorgeous asked if that little box could really do everything the HP tower that I was using did.

“No Honey. It does a whole lot more.”

I call it the Return of the True Desktop. Right now the Mini is parked on the corner of my desk behind my phone. It’s in a spot that previously held general clutter.

The Mini is much better looking than the clutter was.

The Big Part

I opted for the big screen. 23 inches of wide screen HC goodness. I can have my browser window open in the middle and various chats, my calander, email, and misc. other stuff all open on either side, watching while I’m working.

Way cool.

One down side is that I haven’t yet mastered dragging things across that big old screen. I keep running out of mouse pad.

I’m used to working with a track ball on the other machine. Might have to go that route if I can’t get a grip there.

But the picture! Oh yeah!

I put one of my Band of Brothers DVD’s in and Wow! Amazing picture quality.

Glad I got the big screen. Read more

Connections are There for You to Make

Connecting with other people is easier than you may think. If you keep a sharp eye out for potential bridges, that is.

The clues are there for you all the time, right in plain sight. Train yourself to see them and you’ll find all sorts of people that you have a some small thing in common with.

And sometimes all it takes is a small connection to build on for the creation of a relationship that is mutually beneficial.

Teach Yourself to Listen

It starts by attention to what people are saying. Learn to become an active listener.

Historically this has been a challenging area for me. I had the habit of thinking while other people were talking. I so wanted to have a response ready as soon as they took a breath that often I didn’t hear what they were really saying because my mind was already thinking about crafting that perfect response.

Dumb.

Instead listen to what the other person is saying. Hear it. Then make your response.

It may not come over night. I’ve been working on it for years. Think how long your brain has been working with your current listening habits. Don’t expect to completely change the way it works over night.

But don’t give up improving, either. Read more

“Finding” Content is the Wrong Approach

Dawud Miracle asks an interesting question in this morning’s post: “Where do I Find Good Content?“.

Dawud’s steering the discussion over there in the direction of purchased content.

Can it be done? I suppose so. But the original questioner was looking for “GOOD” content. Good content is expensive. Writing is like anything else. You pretty much get what you pay for.

I’m thinking that looking for content is probably more time consuming, more expensive and will be far less effective in the long run than simply writing your own blog posts. Let them bubble up from your passion.

If you are blogging for your business, it should be a natural fit. Let your passion for your business spill over into your blogging.

On the other hand, if you aren’t passionate about your business you might want reconsider the whole deal.

I guess I rarely struggle with post ideas. They are constantly popping in my head.

My struggle is in another direction. Time. Finding time to write when there is so much that needs doing is a big challenge.

But it is a rewarding one.

What do you think? Is good content out there for the finding?

Or is good content created?

Sunrise Over Savannah

Some days start way too early.

Today was one of those days. The alarm was set for 4 AM so I could head out to a ship.

Not that I needed the alarm in the end. I woke up a bit before it want off this morning, turned it off to keep from waking Gorgeous and swung my feet onto the carpet.

As I get older I’m finding that disoriented time parked squarely between sound asleep and awake and functional is getting less noticeable. Maybe it is just a natural offshoot of so many years with weird sleep schedules, or perhaps I’m just getting more comfortable being disoriented.

Regardless, I rarely have to struggle through those awkward first questions of What day is it? Where am I? or What am I getting up this early for?

Nowadays its more just getting up and getting on with it.

One benefits of getting up and moving that early (I mean besides how little traffic is out on the road at that hour) is that I get to see the sun come up. As I Twittered when I got back to the office this morning, there’s

Nothing quite like seeing the sun rise over the marshlands on a cool summer morning to make me appreciate living in the low country.

I like sunsets. But I think I like sunrises even better.

Sunsets are more common.

OK. Now before you get excited I know the current ratio of sunrises to sunsets in the history of the world is pretty much exactly 1:1.

That’s not my point.

What I mean is that most people see sunsets far more often than sunrises. That has the effect of making sunrises rarer. At least in my mind.

And that means that I can enjoy them as special. Although I might just share a picture of this morning’s sun with y’all so that you can get a taste of the beauty I saw in those early hours.

Enjoy!

When the Required Information is Too Much Information

I’m not a big fan of the whole meme thing. In fact I intentionally mispronounce the word because it drives people like Liz Strauss nuts.

But now on the latest one going around the Bloggisphere I ducked when Robyn McMaster tagged me earlier. But then managed to get tagged twice on Friday, by Connie Reece and by Doug Meacham.

So I thought I better get Eight Random Things About Me out of the way and save the rest of y’all from tagging me. But I’m gonna warn you, this might be perceived as a little too much information. I’m just saying.

1. I grew up an only child, but I have a brother and a sister. Yep. It’s true. I’m 18 years older than my sister and 20 older than my brother. Same parents. Same marriage. Just a big gap. (And I can’t get either of them blog. Go figure.)

2. I had shoulder length curly blond hair when I was in high school. Hey, it was the 80’s. I though I looked cool.

3. Speaking of school days, my folks had horses when I was growing up. Arabians. I showed them. English saddle, not western. I knew even then that wasn’t as cool.

4. I don’t like yard work especially with love bugs thrown into the mix. That post is gross. Head over at your own risk.

5. I grew up just a few miles near a couple different ski areas in the Northeast. When school was closed we’d go up to the slopes because we all had season passes. But the last time I was on skis was over 10 years ago in the Austrian Alps. Kinda spoiled me.

6. My goatee covers the scar on my chin that I got when I wiped out on my roller blades, also over 10 years ago in Forsyth Park less than a block from this fountain.

7. I’m a dog guy whose converted to cat ownership. I think there is a good case for cat’s being more manly pets than dogs, but they get a bad wrap. In spite of that, I’ve found our cats in the dog house a time or two.

8. Finally I got my new Mac up and running over the weekend. It was less than two hours before I told one of my computer professional friends, “You gotta get one of these!” To which was told that

Every new Mac convert immediately starts proselytizing trying to convince all PC folks that Macs will save the world.

Macs aren’t going to save the world. But seriously, you gotta get one of these!

Now to tag 8 other victims. How about Joe, Tony, Dawud, Christine, April, Carolyn, Easton, and Terry.

All right folks. What do you say? Care to share 8 things about yourselves?

3 Reasons Why You Should STOP Forwarding Those Emails

I’m not a fan of email forwards. There is so much junk flowing around these days and quite frankly I don’t have time for all that.

It can be addicting, I know. You may not realize it, but there are some very good reasons why you should control yourself from hitting the Forward button, piling in a ton of email addresses in the To field and hitting send.

Before I get to some reasons why email forwards are a bad idea I thought I’d offer some practical help breaking the chains of that particular addiction. Take a listen to this little motivational aid I recorded for just to help you.

Here’s a link for those of you reading this via feed: Stop Forwarding Those Emails!

You all motivated? Great!

Now onto the reasons why you should kick the email forwarding habit. Read more

Odds and Ends

Got a few odds and ends to share with y’all this morning.

Great New Series

Easton Ellsworth has started a new series over at Business Blog Wire on Small Business Blog Help. Easton has been following business blogging for a long time and I consider him the go-to guy when it comes to Fortune 500 blogging.

I’m looking forward to seeing how he applies what he knows from big business to small business folks. Go check it out for yourself.

Bloggers Noticed by Mainstream Media

BusinessWeek is standing up and taking notice of some top tier bloggers. If you’ve ever wondered How Top Bloggers Earn Money then you should spend a little time looking through that slide show. (The navigation for the slides is in the upper right below the banner ad. Not as obvious as it could be.)

My New Mac is Arriving

I say “arriving” instead of “arrived” because yesterday the keyboard, monitor and mouse were delivered. Unfortunately the guts of my Mini are taking the slow boat to Savannah. They didn’t make the Friday outbound cutoff, apparently, didn’t start rolling until Monday and won’t be here until Friday according to FedEx.

So now I’ve got a couple of boxes here in my office that I’ll have to wait until the weekend to unpack.

Good thing I’m scheduled to be off this weekend! I suspect I’ll be plenty busy!

Enjoy!

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